The forgotten Holocaust

Before I begin yet another rant, I would like to make something abundantly clear:

I AM NOT A HOLOCAUST DENIER OR AN ANTI-SEMITE BY ANY STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION

There I hope that this will stop the comments that I usually get when I say these types of things…

Anyway, this is about how the Holocaust, during the reign of the Nazis from 1933 to 1945, has been misrepresented, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and how wrong this is.

At school, we are taught that the Holocaust was the systematic extermination of six millions Jews by the Nazis during World War Two. This is fine. However, what almost everyone forgets as a result of this and other references to it throughout our lives, is that there were between 4-9 million people of other races, countries, nationalities, disabilities, political beliefs, etc that also died as a result.

Poles, Slavs, Soviets, Greeks, homosexuals, liberals and gypsies were all also forgotten victims of the Holocaust. They too were gassed, euthanased, shot, burned, etc and yet, they are barely mentioned or remembered. Almost every single Holocaust memorial or museum around the world is exclusively for the six million or so Jews who died. This is wrong.

I cite a few examples:
WIKIPEDIA: “…is the term generally used to describe the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II”

THE COLOMBIA GUIDE TO THE HOLOCAUST: “…the murder of more than 5,000,000 Jews by the Germans in World War II.”

JEWISH VIRTUAL LIBRARY: “…the term that describes the murder of six million Jews in Europe during World War II that was orchestrated by the National Socialist (‘Nazi’) Party in Germany.”

We have to ensure that those others who were killed are remembered equally. It is simple not right by any stretch of the imagination to have people walking around thinking “Oh the Holocaust. Those poor Jews” and be completely oblivious to the other millions upon millions of other people who died.