GoingByMyGut
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- Mar 2, 2013
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I just wanted to follow up on some earlier thoughts. I have been obsessed with the Holocaust and World War II lately, from so many directions. My uncle, who fought in the Battle of Okinawa, just self-published his life story, which is about World War II and the time period in general in no small part. I've been reading that, watching movies and documentaries, and searching stuff on the web. The breadth and depth of the destruction and involvement is just mind-blowing (and truly sickening).
Most people probably learned this stuff in high school, but I pretty much zoned out in history class.
:shame:
Anyway, Wikipedia's entry on the Holocaust is extensive. It provides a really good synopsis of Jewish and non-Jewish victims, and gave me a better sense of the range of possibilities for EL's family. I found the numbers a bit startling. I don't know if WS can handle tables, but here goes.
Well what'd'ya know, it can.
All entries in the table above except the one marked "Jews" are non-Jewish victims. I didn't dig deeply into the entries that are not relevant to SL, but I am curious about the entry for "Slavs," which appears to encompass multiple countries. However, it's an ethnically complex category and not something I could resolve with a quick gloss.
Back to SL, here are some interesting contextualizing facts about the Poles, all BBM:
"Between 1.8 and 2.1 million non-Jewish Polish citizens perished in German hands during the course of the war, about four-fifths of whom were ethnic Poles with the remaining fifth being ethnic minorities of Ukrainians and Belarusians, the vast majority of them civilians. At least 200,000 of these victims died in concentration camps with about 146,000 being killed in Auschwitz. Many others died as a result of general massacres such as in the Warsaw Uprising where between 120,000 and 200,000 civilians were killed."
"Overall, about 5.6 million of the victims of World War II were Polish citizens, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and over the course of the war Poland lost 16 percent of its pre-war population; approximately 3.1 million of the 3.3 million Polish Jews and approximately two million of the 31.7 million non-Jewish Polish citizens died at German hands during the war."
As that last paragraph seems to suggest, while a number of groups were targeted, and the entire European population was greatly diminished by the War and Hitler's plan to make more "room" for Aryans, what distinguishes the assault against the Jewish people is the percentage of the population that was killed. You can see this just within Poland (see the parts above that are ULBM). Elsewhere in this Wikipedia entry it says that almost 70% of the entire prewar, European Jewish population was killed in the war, and other sources (that I did not track) suggest the losses were even greater.
I know I keep going afield, but I truly do have a point to make about SL! And here it is: Poles and Slavs are two ethnic groups that were also despised by Hitler, Jewish or not, and his initial plan was to "eliminate" them as well as the Jewish people, but for "practical" reasons (from his point of view), he at some point eased off the broader assault to focus most sharply on the Jews. In the process, however, as the numbers above attest, the Nazis killed many non-Jewish Polish people. Is it possible that EL's family was among this number? Could ASWDH's attitude about the question of whether her family was Jewish be due to having to explain time and again that they truly were not?
My takeaway, for me, is that an argument can be made to that effect. And as much as I hate it, this is one more thing we cannot know for certain. EL may or may not have had a Jewish background, and my earlier speculation about a possible cause for the "kick" may be pure garbage.
Apologies in advance for this overly long post and any oversimplification of WWII.
(BTW, I almost lost this post due to my stupid internet connection ... but after about 10 minutes of screaming at the screen and clicking reload I found a new feature on the reply field that says "restore autosaved post"!!!! Woohoo!!!)
Most people probably learned this stuff in high school, but I pretty much zoned out in history class.
:shame:
Anyway, Wikipedia's entry on the Holocaust is extensive. It provides a really good synopsis of Jewish and non-Jewish victims, and gave me a better sense of the range of possibilities for EL's family. I found the numbers a bit startling. I don't know if WS can handle tables, but here goes.
| Victims | Killed |
| Slavs | 10.547 million |
| Jews | 5.9 million |
| Soviet POWs | 2–3 million |
| Ethnic Poles | 1.8–2 million |
| Romani | 220,000–1,500,000 |
| Disabled | 200,000–250,000 |
| Freemasons | 80,000–200,000 |
| Slovenes | 20,000–25,000 |
| Homosexuals | 5,000–15,000 |
| Jehovah's Witnesses | 2,500–5,000 |
| Spanish Republicans | 7000 |
Well what'd'ya know, it can.
All entries in the table above except the one marked "Jews" are non-Jewish victims. I didn't dig deeply into the entries that are not relevant to SL, but I am curious about the entry for "Slavs," which appears to encompass multiple countries. However, it's an ethnically complex category and not something I could resolve with a quick gloss.
Back to SL, here are some interesting contextualizing facts about the Poles, all BBM:
"Between 1.8 and 2.1 million non-Jewish Polish citizens perished in German hands during the course of the war, about four-fifths of whom were ethnic Poles with the remaining fifth being ethnic minorities of Ukrainians and Belarusians, the vast majority of them civilians. At least 200,000 of these victims died in concentration camps with about 146,000 being killed in Auschwitz. Many others died as a result of general massacres such as in the Warsaw Uprising where between 120,000 and 200,000 civilians were killed."
"Overall, about 5.6 million of the victims of World War II were Polish citizens, both Jewish and non-Jewish, and over the course of the war Poland lost 16 percent of its pre-war population; approximately 3.1 million of the 3.3 million Polish Jews and approximately two million of the 31.7 million non-Jewish Polish citizens died at German hands during the war."
As that last paragraph seems to suggest, while a number of groups were targeted, and the entire European population was greatly diminished by the War and Hitler's plan to make more "room" for Aryans, what distinguishes the assault against the Jewish people is the percentage of the population that was killed. You can see this just within Poland (see the parts above that are ULBM). Elsewhere in this Wikipedia entry it says that almost 70% of the entire prewar, European Jewish population was killed in the war, and other sources (that I did not track) suggest the losses were even greater.
I know I keep going afield, but I truly do have a point to make about SL! And here it is: Poles and Slavs are two ethnic groups that were also despised by Hitler, Jewish or not, and his initial plan was to "eliminate" them as well as the Jewish people, but for "practical" reasons (from his point of view), he at some point eased off the broader assault to focus most sharply on the Jews. In the process, however, as the numbers above attest, the Nazis killed many non-Jewish Polish people. Is it possible that EL's family was among this number? Could ASWDH's attitude about the question of whether her family was Jewish be due to having to explain time and again that they truly were not?
My takeaway, for me, is that an argument can be made to that effect. And as much as I hate it, this is one more thing we cannot know for certain. EL may or may not have had a Jewish background, and my earlier speculation about a possible cause for the "kick" may be pure garbage.
Apologies in advance for this overly long post and any oversimplification of WWII.
(BTW, I almost lost this post due to my stupid internet connection ... but after about 10 minutes of screaming at the screen and clicking reload I found a new feature on the reply field that says "restore autosaved post"!!!! Woohoo!!!)
