4 ms·

>DEI statements are important because they show individual awareness of historical inequities and current biases that form modern society. Only the currently a

>DEI statements are important because they show individual awareness of historical inequities and current biases that form modern society. Only the currently approved ones. The perfect example: holocaust denial. Ask anyone in the US how many people died in the holocaust. The answer is 6 million and they are all Jews. The real number is 14 million with 8 million Slavs, 6 million Jews and 2 million misc of gays, Gypsies, Jehovah's Witnesses, the work shy, etc.. The double think is so strong that you can have two people from the same village, in the same camp, dead on the same day and have one be a victim of the holocaust, and the other not just because one was a Jew and the other a Communist.

macintux 3y ago
Germany and Russia both committed daunting atrocities during the war, killed millions of people, but it's unsurprising that people associate "Holocaust" with 6 million Jewish dead, because the Jewish genocide is where the label originated.
vladgur 3y ago
Wait so your definition of Holocaust denier is not the person that denies that 6 million Jews were systematically killed by the Nazi Germany machine, but the person who believes in the Holocaust of the Jews, but does not include other atrocities perpetrated by Nazis on the European population? Can you clarify? And in your opinion, did these DEI statements ever have Jews in mind?
Reasoning 3y ago
Because the Holocaust can refer to either the Nazi's genocide of Jews or all the genocides carried out by Nazi Germany. Most often it is the former. So to reframe this, if you ask people how many people died in the Jewish genocide they'll probably give you the figure of how many Jews died, yes. They aren't ignoring all of the other victims, they're giving you the statistic of what they thought you asked for. This is no different than separating out the genocide of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire and the genocide of Greeks by the same regime.
- llm_trw 3y ago
  > Because the Holocaust can refer to either the Nazi's genocide of Jews or all the genocides carried out by Nazi Germany. Most often it is the former. This is not counting all the genocides by the Nazis. This is just counting the people murdered in the extermination camps and on their way there. If you count all the other Nazi genocides you get tens of millions, e.g. targeting of civilians during the Siege of Lenin Grad, the Dutch Famine, etc.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
pyuser583 3y ago
I was taught in high school that it was 6 million Jews. Standard American public high school. Teacher was left-wing. We read Diary of Anne Frank, Night by Elie Weisel, Number the Stars, etc. No holocaust denial going on. Yes, the Soviets were excluded. So were the Prussians, who were the victims of both Nazi and Soviet genocides. Nobody calls this holocaust denial.
- llm_trw 3y ago
  >Yes, the Soviets were excluded. >>The double think is so strong that you can have two people from the same village, in the same camp, dead on the same day and have one be a victim of the holocaust, and the other not just because one was a Jew and the other a Communist. Or to put it another way. If Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were both captured by time traveling Nazis and sent to Treblinka Marx would count towards the holocaust and Engels would not in the Wests version of holocaust denial.
  - hackerlight 3y ago
    Are you just now learning that words have definitions? Do you know what a definition is? The Holocaust is defined, a priori, as the Nazi genocide of Jews, whether in gas chambers or in killing fields. It's a word with a definition. The Nazi killing of communists for being communist is a politicide, not a genocide. The Nazi killing of gypsies is also genocide, similar to the Holocaust, but it definitionally isn't the Holocaust.
- kgwgk 3y ago
  « Nobody » may be too optimistic. https://forward.com/culture/603271/jk-rowling-holocaust-streisand-effect/ https://forward.com/culture/603271/jk-rowling-holocaust-stre...
dang 3y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267725.

macintux 3y ago

Germany and Russia both committed daunting atrocities during the war, killed millions of people, but it's unsurprising that people associate "Holocaust" with 6 million Jewish dead, because the Jewish genocide is where the label originated.

vladgur 3y ago

Wait so your definition of Holocaust denier is not the person that denies that 6 million Jews were systematically killed by the Nazi Germany machine, but the person who believes in the Holocaust of the Jews, but does not include other atrocities perpetrated by Nazis on the European population? Can you clarify? And in your opinion, did these DEI statements ever have Jews in mind?

Reasoning 3y ago

Because the Holocaust can refer to either the Nazi's genocide of Jews or all the genocides carried out by Nazi Germany. Most often it is the former. So to reframe this, if you ask people how many people died in the Jewish genocide they'll probably give you the figure of how many Jews died, yes. They aren't ignoring all of the other victims, they're giving you the statistic of what they thought you asked for. This is no different than separating out the genocide of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire and the genocide of Greeks by the same regime.

llm_trw 3y ago
> Because the Holocaust can refer to either the Nazi's genocide of Jews or all the genocides carried out by Nazi Germany. Most often it is the former. This is not counting all the genocides by the Nazis. This is just counting the people murdered in the extermination camps and on their way there. If you count all the other Nazi genocides you get tens of millions, e.g. targeting of civilians during the Siege of Lenin Grad, the Dutch Famine, etc.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

pyuser583 3y ago

I was taught in high school that it was 6 million Jews. Standard American public high school. Teacher was left-wing. We read Diary of Anne Frank, Night by Elie Weisel, Number the Stars, etc. No holocaust denial going on. Yes, the Soviets were excluded. So were the Prussians, who were the victims of both Nazi and Soviet genocides. Nobody calls this holocaust denial.

llm_trw 3y ago
>Yes, the Soviets were excluded. >>The double think is so strong that you can have two people from the same village, in the same camp, dead on the same day and have one be a victim of the holocaust, and the other not just because one was a Jew and the other a Communist. Or to put it another way. If Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were both captured by time traveling Nazis and sent to Treblinka Marx would count towards the holocaust and Engels would not in the Wests version of holocaust denial.
- hackerlight 3y ago
  Are you just now learning that words have definitions? Do you know what a definition is? The Holocaust is defined, a priori, as the Nazi genocide of Jews, whether in gas chambers or in killing fields. It's a word with a definition. The Nazi killing of communists for being communist is a politicide, not a genocide. The Nazi killing of gypsies is also genocide, similar to the Holocaust, but it definitionally isn't the Holocaust.
kgwgk 3y ago
« Nobody » may be too optimistic. https://forward.com/culture/603271/jk-rowling-holocaust-streisand-effect/ https://forward.com/culture/603271/jk-rowling-holocaust-stre...

dang 3y ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40267725.