Why is it so wrong to deny the Holocaust and not Mao or Stalin's genocides?

[aball1035]

It seems like the modern man’s dogma-don’t deny the holocaust or else you’re in trouble!

I’m wondering though, why Mao Tse-Tung’s or Stalin’s genocides (50-70 million and 20 million people, respectively, compared with the Holocaust’s 6 million) don’t get treated with nearly enough attention? If somebody denies those, then you’re considered wierd, but not a bad person. But deny the Holocaust, you’re toast.

Why the difference?

 

[TedDC]

It seems like the modern man’s dogma-don’t deny the holocaust or else you’re in trouble!

I’m wondering though, why Mao Tse-Tung’s or Stalin’s genocides (50-70 million and 20 million people, respectively, compared with the Holocaust’s 6 million) don’t get treated with nearly enough attention? If somebody denies those, then you’re considered wierd, but not a bad person. But deny the Holocaust, you’re toast.

Why the difference?

Politics.

 

[LemonAndLime]

Politics.

Sadly, I think this is true.

 

[PattiDay]

I’ve found that many people don’t even know of the crimes of Stalin and Mao, because history isn’t taught in schools, and neither is much in the news. The Holocaust, at least, is still shown on television, in newspapers, some survivors are still living today, and the Simon Wisenthal Center makes sure it is not forgotten.

The reason people shrug their shoulders when the Stalin and Mao genocides are mentioned is because they are ignorant of the facts. It’s easier to have no concern for or even to deny something of which one has no knowledge.

 

[Rascalking]

Yes, politics is the correct answer. The denial of any of those genocides borders on mortal sin.

 

[kimmielittle]

I’ve found that many people don’t even know of the crimes of Stalin and Mao, because history isn’t taught in schools, and neither is much in the news. The Holocaust, at least, is still shown on television, in newspapers, some survivors are still living today, and the Simon Wisenthal Center makes sure it is not forgotten.

The reason people shrug their shoulders when the Stalin and Mao genocides are mentioned is because they are ignorant of the facts. It’s easier to have no concern for or even to deny something of which one has no knowledge.

I think, this sums up how I feel

 

[marica_mandic]

It seems like the modern man’s dogma-don’t deny the holocaust or else you’re in trouble!

I’m wondering though, why Mao Tse-Tung’s or Stalin’s genocides (50-70 million and 20 million people, respectively, compared with the Holocaust’s 6 million) don’t get treated with nearly enough attention? If somebody denies those, then you’re considered wierd, but not a bad person. But deny the Holocaust, you’re toast.

Why the difference?

Genocid is for me teribile staff and who did genocid no matter who I do not want to deny no one,because that that will never happen again.

 

[ANNE_2]

I’ve found that many people don’t even know of the crimes of Stalin and Mao, because history isn’t taught in schools, and neither is much in the news. The Holocaust, at least, is still shown on television, in newspapers, some survivors are still living today, and the Simon Wisenthal Center makes sure it is not forgotten.

The reason people shrug their shoulders when the Stalin and Mao genocides are mentioned is because they are ignorant of the facts. It’s easier to have no concern for or even to deny something of which one has no knowledge.

Patti, you are correct about the failure of education.
People are not taught about the genocide of abortion either - since 1973 in the USA alone, about 50 MILLION.

 

[jilly4ski]

Maybe because of the ideological implications. The Holocaust perpetrated by Hitler was based on a xenophobic/master race ideology, (of course some were killed because of political reasons), where Stalin’s and Mao’s were more politically based. So there might be policy reasons why we want to highlight a certain kind of genocide, because of its implications.

 

[silentstar]

The Holocaust involved people making extraordinary efforts to round up Jews and murder them. No one was safe no matter who they were or how much money they had unless they hid or were otherwise deceptive (very difficult over a long period of time), or they got out in time. The other mass murders were terrible but I don’t think they qualify as genocide which is the deliberate targeting and murder of a particular people, while sparing others.

Unlike the other mass murders you cite, the Holocaust involved many countries. Those countries may have been small in size compared to China for example, but they were quickly occupied with the Nazis and then under Nazi law. Much of Europe lost its freedom virtually overnight and then the Jews were vulnerable in many places.

Also quite frankly, Americans and many others went to war to defeat Hitler so focusing on the atrocities of Hitler is natural.

I think all life has value and getting into arguments about which atrocity is “worse” is obscene b/c atrocities can’t be compared. The thing about the Holocaust though is that murdering the Jews was pursued so intensely that it was even continued when it worked against the war effort, such as spending time and energy sending people to the camps when Germany was losing the war and didn’t have that kind of effort to spare.

Also the Jews were a small minority of the people in Europe and Hitler made it clear for more than 10 years in advance what he wanted to do and no one - including a lot of Jewish people - really paid attention until it was too late. So many warning signs were missed b/c people just couldn’t imagine something like this happening, which does produce a feeling of never again.

 

[Kaninchen]

Well, I’m a Jew who has gone on and on about the crimes of Stalin to anybody who would listen for over twenty years.

I think there are a number of reasons why the Shoah stands out in the Western mind and one of them is that what happens in Russia has always had a “well, they would do that sort of thing” aspect to it – the tradition of seeing Russia as distant, dark, barbaric and with very few ‘people like us’.

Germany, on the other hand, was full of ‘people like us who went mad’. One of the most civilized countries in the world, in some ways the most civilized country in the world with towering achievements in the Arts, in Literature, in Philosophy, in Science, went about the process of genocide with a brutal precision – scientific, industrial, bureaucratic precision.

In other words, the Shoah was the horrifying revelation that the heart of darkness does not linger outside the pale of civilization but very much within it.

 

[SaintlySaint]

I’ve often wondered about this also.

I think its because the Jews, (not all, I don’t like to make blanket statements), are constantly feeling sorry for themselves.

Anything that detracts from how much “God’s Chosen People” have been persecuted over the years should not be tollerated.

 

[LemonAndLime]

Well, I’m a Jew who has gone on and on about the crimes of Stalin to anybody who would listen for over twenty years.

I think there are a number of reasons why the Shoah stands out in the Western mind and one of them is that what happens in Russia has always had a “well, they would do that sort of thing” aspect to it – the tradition of seeing Russia as distant, dark, barbaric and with very few ‘people like us’.

Germany, on the other hand, was full of ‘people like us who went mad’. One of the most civilized countries in the world, in some ways the most civilized country in the world with towering achievements in the Arts, in Literature, in Philosophy, in Science, went about the process of genocide with a brutal precision – scientific, industrial, bureaucratic precision.

In other words, the Shoah was the horrifying revelation that the heart of darkness does not linger outside the pale of civilization but very much within it.

I agree with that also.

The concept of Nazis being “people like us” is what I believe lead to many people trying to find reasons to believe they were not like us - because of course, ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances would never do anything like that. Hence the “Nazis are part of a gay cult” opinions, or suggesting that it never happened.

 

[Kaninchen]

I agree with that also.

The concept of Nazis being “people like us” is what I believe lead to many people trying to find reasons to believe they were not like us - because of course, ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances would never do anything like that. Hence the “Nazis are part of a gay cult” opinions, or suggesting that it never happened.

I think one of the reasons the story has to be told and retold is to keep maintain the memory of the fact that, unless we’re careful, the step from civilization to barbarity is only a short one. All these attempts at revision and singling out ‘people not like us’ for blame are truly anti-historical - from time to time, we’ve seen attempts to blame it on liberals, socialists and, yes, homosexuals - are an attempt to shift blame away from ‘people like us’, middle class conservative ‘people like us’.

Not what the voting figures, state-by-state, tell us though. Not what the party membership records tell us though.

 

[markomalley]

Why the difference?

The fundamental difference was that if you were racially a Jew, you were subject to extermination under Hitler. The only way you could correct it would be by changing your DNA.

Stalin and Mao’s programs were aimed (albeit very broadly) at those people who did not support their programs and were not primarily race based (as memory serves).

The cynical part of me says that this makes it not historically significant in the public schools, because it is consistent with socialist ideology. After all, those who don’t agree with the socialist agenda need to be re-educated and if they can’t be re-educated, well, they have no place in the worker’s utopia.

I’m not 100% cynical. But, on the other hand…who cannot remember this famous quote:

“The thing the most bone chilling thing Bill Ayers said to me was that after the revolution succeeded and the government was overthrown, they believed they would have to eliminate 25 million Americans who would not conform to the new order,” said Larry Grathwohl, a former FBI agent.
(Having said that, in the interest of balance, it must be noted that Ayers denies having said that)

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Communism/Progressivism … name it what you will … has its heroes and those heroes include Mao and Stalin.

Read “None Dare Call It Treason” by John A. Stormer … he goes into a great deal of research on how the Communist holocausts became politically correct.

[Consider: we just “celebrated” Earth Day … which just by coincidence happens to be Lenin’s Birthday.]

You can also read a more recent book, “Blacklisted by History” by M. Stanton Evans … or an older book, which is only available on the internet for free downloading “From Major Jordan’s Diaries”

You need to hunt around, but you can find these kinds of references.

Robert Conquest wrote about the systematic starvation to death of the Ukrainian farmers. Around ten million of them.

Look up books by John E. Haynes … such as “Red Scare or Red Menace?: American Communism and Anticommunism in the Cold War Era”.

 

[ANNE_2]

The Nazi’s did not just exterminate Jews. Millions of Catholics (including a few of my relatives) and Priests, intellectuals and those who did not support their Party line, the mentally challenged (including children), homosexuals etc were murdered.

This should never be forgotten.
Neither should Stalin or Mao.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Communism/Progressivism … name it what you will … has its heroes and those heroes include Mao and Stalin.

Read “None Dare Call It Treason” by John A. Stormer … he goes into a great deal of research on how the Communist holocausts became politically correct.

[Consider: we just “celebrated” Earth Day … which just by coincidence happens to be Lenin’s Birthday.]

You can also read a more recent book, “Blacklisted by History” by M. Stanton Evans … or an older book, which is only available on the internet for free downloading “From Major Jordan’s Diaries”

You need to hunt around, but you can find these kinds of references.

Robert Conquest wrote about the systematic starvation to death of the Ukrainian farmers. Around ten million of them.

Look up books by John E. Haynes … such as “Red Scare or Red Menace?: American Communism and Anticommunism in the Cold War Era”.

I think there is a lot of truth in your first sentence, but I would personally modify it just a bit. Racial genocide a la Hitler is pretty much dead except in the third world, and only tiny minorities elsewhere believe in it still.

Leftism, however, is still sacred to many. The leftists didn’t all join the Chamber of Commerce when the Soviet Union imploded. They’re still around, still believe the same things and promote the same ideas. Since the left generally controls the message in the media and the universities, they’re not terribly likely to go on major exposes of what leftism looks like when it bares its fangs.

 

[markomalley]

The Nazi’s did not just exterminate Jews. Millions of Catholics (including a few of my relatives) and Priests, intellectuals and those who did not support their Party line, the mentally challenged (including children), homosexuals etc were murdered.

This should never be forgotten.
Neither should Stalin or Mao.

But what is taught in school? Hitler killed the Jews. You don’t hear about the other ones nearly as much.

 

[Kaninchen]

The vast majority of Catholics killed by the Reich were not killed because they were Catholic but because they were Poles - in other words Slav ‘subhumans’.

Once we Jews were out of the way, some Slavs would have been kept as slave workers, the rest would have been starved to death or exterminated.

It was a racial project that was to run far beyond the elimination of Jews and had nothing to do with whether the Slavs eliminated were Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant ‘subhumans’, it was the ‘subhuman’ bit that mattered.