What was so special? 1) It was deliberate extermination of ethnic groups. Not killings as part of fighting a war, but deliberate extermination. 2) It was enor

What was so special? 1) It was deliberate extermination of ethnic groups. Not killings as part of fighting a war, but deliberate extermination. 2) It was enormous in scale and took place over just a few years. Sure there have been lots of atrocities throughout history, but not many rival the scale of the Holocaust. 3) It happened in Europe and was perpetrated by Europeans against Europeans. 4) It happened not that long ago, and people are still alive who remember. 5) The perpetrators lost so completely that there is no political risk in recognizing and condemning it. For example atrocities (like Katyn) were perpetrated by USSR but since they were allied, the other allied powers had to downplay it. Some countries (like Israel) does not recognize the Armenian Genocide because they would lose Turkey as an important ally. 6) The allied won the war, so recognizing the holocaust underlines the heroism and just fight of the allied powers. Other genocides like the Rwandan does not in that way reflect positively on western powers. To some extend the holocaust can also be used to downplay allied war crimes, since whatever the allied did of bad things, the Nazis were way, way worse. 7) Jews have big cultural influence in the western world through litteratur, movies and so on. Comparatively few Roma are in litterature and movie business for example, so their experience tends to be less visible in popular culture.