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Yad Vashem's database of Holocaust victims' names
- giiguughh 10y agoThe 6 million number is made up
- golergka 10y agoNumbers, in general, are a man-made symbolic system to make sense of the real world. So, you're undoubtedly technically correct.
- beaconstudios 10y agothat's a funny way of saying "it's an estimate based on what we know and what we can suppose about what we don't know".
- golergka 10y agoJust trying to find a shed of truth in an idiotic statement by assuming the best one of possible meanings.
- CurtMonash 10y agoThe 6 million number was a best-efforts estimate at the time. It is not guaranteed to be precisely correct. (This is one of the very few talking points used by antisemitic asses that might actually be valid.)
- jim-jim-jim 10y agoWHO ARE THE MISSING MILLION?? could actually fit well within one of those well-artifacted .jpeg collages of Holocaust denial "evidence."
- coliveira 10y agoTrue, their attempts to find the 6 million names fits very well into the hands of the denialist camp. For people not aware, 6 is a magical/religious number for the jews, so they have always talked about 6 million deaths without clear evidence of how many really died (maybe more or maybe less, but certainly not exactly 6 million).
- Papirola 10y agoI'm sorry but I'm jewish and I have no idea what you're talking about. Six is a magical/religious number? This is the first time I hear about it. [source needed]
- jsharf 10y agoI'm atheist Jewish and was raised with a conservative upbringing. I can think of at least like 3 different numbers in Judaism that have special meaning, and none of them are 6. I don't remember anything about the number 6. Also confused.
- avar 10y agoI'm about as far from Jewish as you can get, but I do have access to Google & Wikipedia, so in the interest in providing some data for this confusing side-thread: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_symbolism#The_symbolic_values_of_numbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_symbolism#The_symbolic_... "The number six symbolizes imperfection". No idea if and how that would relate to the six million in relation to the Holocaust. Then if you go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_numerology#Numerical_meaning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_numerology#Numerical_... there's some more details.
- dmritard96 10y ago'6 is a magical/religious number for the jews' - oh really?
- adrianm 10y ago
- LoSboccacc 10y agoIt was rounded trough years to match number symbolism. Doesn't change the atrocity much and it's somewhat consistent with the records (4.5 million known death) and the estimates (up to ten million) What it does however is it shuts down most attempts of rational discussions and preemptively kill most historians effort to tally the other victims edit: case in point, downvotes
- wyager 10y agoHere is an excellent website that explores, in depth, catastrophic mass deaths in recent history: http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm Indeed, best-effort estimates for the number of Jews killed range from 4-6M, with similar variance wrt actual cause of death (split among starvation, typhus, gassing, military action, etc.). It's very hard to pin down exact numbers. It's unfortunate that the fog of war isn't explored more often in the topical explanations of WWII most people are exposed to; as you stated, it gives ammunition to historical revisionists.
- osullivj 10y agoVery interesting site - thanks. But I'm disappointed with its coverage of the Irish Potato Famine. It gives an estimate of 750K. In 1850 Ireland was the most densely populated nation in the world, with 8M. In 1950 there were only 4M. What happened to that population? Yes, many emigrated. But many were starved as a result of British land seizures and government intransigence. More research is needed in this area to counter the dissembling of the Potato Famine Deniers.
- ilitirit 10y agoWhen I raised this before I was labelled and a holocaust denier, and I'm sure others have experienced this too. I think this is why people like talking about it.
- Sunset 10y agoWhat does this have to do with hacking?
- reitanqild 10y agoA massive effort to find missing data?
- dang 10y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- WhiteSource1 10y agoI can say that Yad Vashem's database is actually sorely lacking. Their website is very difficult to search. In my own family, my great-aunts filled out a Page of Testimony for their sister and brother. Their brother's page includes 4 children written in the sidelines and Yad Vashem only lists 3 of them, missing one that's written, and their sister's page leaves out her 1 year old son, so he's still missing. And they never filled out a page on their mother, or I can't find it, so in my own immediate family, the records are missing 3 people.
- giiguughh 10y ago6 million number was made up
- aedron 10y agoI thought this was going to be about the millions of oft-forgotten gypsies and other minority groups, not to mention communists and intellectuals, who were murdered in nazi concentration camps along with Jews. Instead the article doesn't even mention them in passing.
- pimeys 10y agoOr sexual minorities, especially from Berlin, who were deported and killed in concentration camps.
- beaconstudios 10y agoalso political prisoners, religious leaders and the mentally or physically handicapped. It's often underplayed how broadly the Nazis set their targets - they really were attempting to exterminate anyone and everyone who wasn't part of their "master race" ideology. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/27/holocaust-non-jewish-victims_n_6555604.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/27/holocaust-non-jewis...
- ericdykstra 10y agoAbout the 5 million... "Say those close to the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, its progenitor, it is a number that was intended to increase sympathy for Jewish suffering but which now is more often used to obscure it." http://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/214283/remember-11-million/ http://jewishjournal.com/news/nation/214283/remember-11-mill...
- beaconstudios 10y agoso what is the real number of non-Jewish victims? Or at least, the number we know about? The holocaust was about the Nazis reshaping German society in their image - justified by arguments of German supremacy. There's no denying that they held Jews in a category of their own, as Nazi propaganda painted them in all manner of horrible depictions and tried to blame them for the loss of the first World War, the collapse of the German economy and so many other things. But it seems inaccurate to deny either the victimisation of other demographic groups, or to deny that Jews were the primary target.
- Banthum 10y agoIs there a technology connection to this story?
- DanBC 10y agoHN isn't restricted to technology.
- Zelmor 10y agohttps://youtu.be/ZeU9QVh4MI8 https://youtu.be/ZeU9QVh4MI8
- orf 10y agoPlease don't post trash video links like this here.
- kermire 10y agoI haven't watched the video but why is it trash? An explanation is always useful.
- Intermernet 10y agoI watched it, I actually agree with it. The presenter argues that remembering 6 million Jews murdered by the Third Reich should really be only a part of remembering the 11 million humans (including homosexuals, resistance fighters, Romany etc) murdered by the same group of people. This shouldn't take anything away from the remembrance of the 6 million, but should include the remembrance of the remaining 5 million. His main point is that human life is equal no matter what race or religion you are. The one point he didn't touch on was the fact that many Germans (who were probably just trying to survive in the midst of a horrendous war) also lost their lives. I think the point of the video is that you shouldn't single out one group of victims, but instead realise that WW2 (and indeed all wars) was a tragic, disgusting affair that caused huge losses for all sides involved. It shouldn't be glorified, it shouldn't be used as any one group's foundation for revenge or compensation, it should (ideally) be used as a point of history that illustrated that wars are the most terrible thing that we can inflict on ourselves as a single species, and that however "correct" or "moral" the justification seems at the time, the reality is one of massive negative consequence for all involved, as well as generations to come. This isn't saying that nothing should have been done to combat Hitler's campaign, but that the reality of war means that almost everyone involved becomes a victim, and that all victims should be remembered equally.
- 10y ago
- throwgsdh 10y agoI would be more careful with the title. There was a guy sentenced for similar article in Czech republic.
- vog 10y agoWhat's wrong with the title? I'd prefer the term "Shoa" over "Holocaust", as that this is AFAIK the term preferred by the victim groups. But apart from that I don't see any issue with the title. Do you care to elaborate? Who was sentenced, what was the reasoning, and what was written in that article?
- throwgsdh 10y agoIt was long time ago, his name is Vladimir Stwora. He wrote that number of victims were not identified and 6m is not exact number. BBC is British, but in my country I would report this article to the police.
- Piskvorrr 10y ago...and also wrote, in that very same article, that "there isn't any evidence of extermination camps" - an insignificant bit of information that you have omitted, surely by accident.
- throwgsdh 10y agoI think it is good he was sentenced! Any revisionism should be punished.
- Piskvorrr 10y agoAnd that is where we diverge: your "any" seems to indicate "never mind the intent, never mind the content: the title is slightly similar to one of a completely different article. Therefore revisionism, release the kraken!" I consider that overzealous - this article on "it's hard to identify the now-nameless people who were mass-murdered during the Holocaust" is anything except revisionist, yet you would "report this article to the police." What for?
- redsummer 10y agoApparently, remembering gypsies and other groups 'diminishes the memory' of the holocaust because they were just 'political prisoners': http://nypost.com/2009/06/08/hikind-jews-only/ http://nypost.com/2009/06/08/hikind-jews-only/
- tome 10y agoThat's not what that article says.
- rcpt 10y agoIt's in the 3rd paragraph, no?
- tome 10y agoNo. It categorically does not say that remembering non-Jewish victims diminishes the memory of the holocaust. It says that commemorating non-Jewish victims at that specific monument diminishes the memory of the holocaust vis-à-vis that specific monument. Anyone who's happy to make the former interpretation needs to look very carefully at their motivations.
- redsummer 10y agoUh-huh. The same hilarious double think is in evidence in Israel - building a Museum of Tolerance on a Muslim cemetry: http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/visit-jerusalem-s-new-museum-of-tolerance-feel-your-blood-boil.premium-1.434968 http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/visit-j...
- tome 10y ago> Anyone who's happy to make the former interpretation needs to look very carefully at their motivations. ... and I was proved correct in literally the next comment.
- mtempleton 10y ago>Interesting to note that nazis killed as much ethnic poles as polish jews Wow. Why is the holocaust taught with such a focus on one ethnic group of victims? I thought Jews were the only significant group of victims, but that's clearly not true. It's also interesting to note that one legitimate government still exists in the world that funded the genocide of what many estimate to be a larger number of people than were killed in the Holocaust, but it's commonly not referred to as a genocide. Instead, it's "wartime deaths," or something else.[1] 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_tol... 2 - http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-madley-california-genocide-20160522-snap-story.html http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-madley-california...
- 2muchcoffeeman 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_crimes_against_the_Polish_nation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_crimes_against_the_Polish... I only skimmed it but maybe because Jews suffered relatively more. > Note: Polish losses amount to 11.3% of the 24.4 million ethnic Poles in prewar Poland and about 90 percent of the 3.3 million Jews of prewar times. The IPN figures do not include losses among Polish citizens of Ukrainian and Belarusian ethnicity. Maybe I an interpreting that wrong. But really not many Jewish people globally https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country
- 6d6b73 10y agoWhat you don't consider is that these Jews were Polish citizens. They lived in that country for hundreds of years and became an integral part of the culture, science and economy. Do you consider Jewish-Americans not Americans? When you talk about people lost in 9/11 do you split people by race or religion? Now, when you consider that these 11.3% of the 24.4 ethnic Poles and 90% of 3.3 mln POLISH Jews died, can you still say that Polish losses were smaller?
- rangibaby 10y agoThe American extermination of the Indians was Hitler's inspiration for his plan to exterminate the Slavs and take their land (Lebensraum). He wrote about it in Mein Kampf
- taway_1212 10y agoThe difference is that most tribes don't fall as easily as Germans for madman's tales of nation's superiority and greatness. Every nation has its nationalistic/rightwing nuts. Not every nation sets out to conquer the world and murder tens of millions of civilians.
- pygy_ 10y agoIt is not inherent to the German people, more to circumstances that lead to WW2. The stigmatization of tribal identity leads to its reinforcement. The German nation was punished far too harshly after WW1. Germany post WW2 had a bad hangover, but the hand that was extended to them post WW2 helped a lot in quelling their past madness.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
- TeaserCharge 10y agoJust because they pointed out the clearly Jewish bias of the article doesn't make their point anti-Semitic. It's like giving out a medal to one member of a winning 4 person rowing team. What about the other 3 members did they count for nothing?
- dagenleg 10y agoWow, what a grotesque comparison.
- TeaserCharge 10y agoprove it.
- lr4444lr 10y agoIt's an article about work done by the Holocaust museum in Israel. What would you have the article include to sound less biased, restoration of the Mona Lisa?
- TeaserCharge 10y agoIt doesn't matter what the article is about. The top commenter said because of the title they expected it to mention other non Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Using the rowing analogy again it's like an article headline "Team A dominates rowing finals" and all the article talks about is Dave in team A. Dave this, Dave that. Someone asks about about John, Luke, Andrew on the rowing team and suddenly they're being called a Dave hater.
- lr4444lr 10y agoA trivial Google search on, for example, "Yad Vashem gypsies" would have made it obvious that you are ignorant about what is or is not in the museum.
- dang 10y agoWe've banned this account for trolling. Please don't create accounts to break the site guidelines with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14191961 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14191961 and marked it off-topic.
- hacker194859337 10y agoBetter question is who are the six million. Where does the obsession with 6 million come from. https://youtu.be/Dda-0Q_XUhk https://youtu.be/Dda-0Q_XUhk
- 6d6b73 10y agoThey did not move their fingers to stop this madness - they are as responsible as the people that people who did the actual killing.
- mercer 10y agoWhich I'd argue puts them squarely in the 'only human' bucket, and makes this part of history a warning for every single human rather than something exceptional. Perhaps you agree with me on this; it's difficult to tell from your comment.
- 6d6b73 10y agoAll atrocities are committed by "only human" representatives of our species. It's not an excuse.
- dang 10y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14192672 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14192672 and marked it off-topic.
- MK999 10y agoSIX MILLION JEWS 1915-1938 HD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dda-0Q_XUhk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dda-0Q_XUhk
- aspec 10y ago> Yad Vashem is working with Jewish organisations in those countries to try to reach remaining survivors in the former Soviet Union, where the Holocaust was not officially commemorated, and who may have little awareness of the memorial's existence. This is an unbelievably cavalier piece of revisionism. The USSR never commemorated the camps they themselves liberated? Holocaust denial in Russia is still a criminal offense, how totally absurd.
- PerfectDlite 10y agoUSSR tried to hide all the "gory" details of WW2. For example, Babiy Yar (a place in Kiev where Germans killed tens of thousands) was a garbage dump until 1970-s. Or (which is ironic, given their "Nothing is forgotten, nobody is forgotten" motto) - they didn't search for the fallen soldiers. Probably because they feared that there will be too many Soviet medallions compared to Germa ones...
- aspec 10y agoThe Nazis concealed and eliminated any traces of Babiy Yar before retreating, there was nothing there at all already. What do you mean "cover up"? The Soviet Union as a nation suffered some of the greatest numbers of causulties in WWII at the hands of the Nazis by far. What are you talking about with regards to "medallions"? Are you even aware of who fought against and defeated Nazi Germany?
- PerfectDlite 10y ago> The Nazis concealed and eliminated any traces of Babiy Yar before retreating, there was nothing there at all already. Please brush your history knowledge. Pretty please.
- aspec 10y agoThis isn't controversial? We know this based on the testimonies of the Jewish survivors they forced to do it.
- dang 10y agoIt's striking how nearly every bad comment in this thread—in fact nearly every comment—traces back to the baitiness of the article's title. "The Holocaust: Who are the missing million?" shamelessly invokes hell with a prim veneer of plausible deniability. I wish we had noticed this sooner. The discussion is not entirely horrible, only mostly. It probably would have been a notch better without an initial sharp shove into hell. We changed the title to representative language from the article. Let's not forget that authors of articles like this don't write the headlines.
- ashirusnw 10y agoIt's a double shame, because the collation of most of the 6 millions Jewish victims names and details, is a data mining feat worthy of great technical discussion on HN.