Almost 80 years after the Holocaust, about 245,000 Jewish survivors are still living across more than 90 countries, a new report revealed Tuesday.
Nearly half of them, or 49%, are living in Israel; 18% are in Western Europe, 16% in the United States, and 12% in countries of the former Soviet Union, according to a study by the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, also referred to as the Claims Conference.
Before the publication of the demographic report, there were only vague estimates about how many Holocaust survivors are still alive.
Their numbers are quickly dwindling, as most are very old and often of frail health, with a median age of 86. Twenty percent of survivors are older than 90, and more women (61%) than men (39%) are still alive.
It was just as gruesome regardless of if the victims were Jewish…
The first group sent to concentration camps weren’t even because they were Jewish, it was the people who disagreed political with the nazis and were organizing against them.
But even towards the end, the Jewish people weren’t singled out for worse treatment. Lots of groups were treated just as brutally.
That’s my whole point, we’re ignoring the majority of victims…
Oh, I know. As I said, partly due to the cold war. To be clear, not Jewish, but my grandmother spent time in Dachau. So she was arguably one of the victims who were partly ignored.
My point is that the extravagant anecdotes, like human skin lamp shades, or stories about the SS throwing sweets at children as they were buried alive, have become tropes. The kind of stuff does tend to grab your attention, so much so that people are likely to lose sight of the bigger picture, or worry about which proportion of a pile of emaciated corpses was or wasn’t Jewish.
Anyway, if you haven’t watched Come and See, I recommend it. Obviously, it’s not a fun watch, but it gives you an idea of how gruesome the eastern front was and some of what they went through at the hand of the nazis.
Not your comment, obviously - you’re right to point out that that Jews weren’t the only or majority of victims of the holocaust - but to be clear for those reading and as the relative of a holocaust survivor, even though I’m not Jewish I’m obviously not going to go along with any narrative that suggest the Jews exagerated their treatment during the holocaust. That’s a particularly deplorable but common narrative among the far right, especially in Russia, which they’ve partially been using to justify their war crimes in Ukraine. Hence why they see no irony in suggesting Zelenskyy is a Nazi, because they claim slavs were the true victims of the holocaust, with some even going so far as to suggest the Jews orchestrated the holocaust. Here’s a relevant article on that:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/vladimir-putin-ukraine-attack-antisemitism-denazify
You’re being disingenuous in your claim. The argument is that Zionists and Hitler cooperated in establishing a Jewish state (which is true: Hitler started out wanting to “just” ethnically cleanse Jews, not exterminate them). Conflating Zionists with Jews is wrong, but that’s where the claim that “Jews were responsible for the Holocaust” comes from. Similarly, the claim that “Slavs were the true victims of the Holocaust” comes from numbers: more Slavs were murdered in the Holocaust than Jews. It’s pretty silly to play “who’s the greater victim” in a genocide, but…
Here’s a relevant article:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/first-moments-hitlers-final-solution-180961387
As mentioned, my non-Jewish (and in fact slavic) grandmother spent time in Dachau. In any case, I don’t feel your comment will lead to a productive discussion, so I’m afraid I’m going to block you. Hope you understand and perhaps approach the subject with a bit more tact next time around given its sensitive nature.
Have a good one.
Again, you’re attempting to conflate different aspects of Hitler’s ideology. Hitler had different opinions of different Untermensch… Because to him, although they were all subhuman, some were less human than others. The fact that your grandmother was not Jewish does not change the fact that Hitler’s solution to the Slavic problem was resolved before his solution to the Jewish problem.