Too easily forgotten

[anastrophe]

in another thread i used the raw numbers of those killed in the holocaust as tools for an argument. my interlocutor did as well. three million jews saved, six million jews killed, eleven million total liquidated. a million here, a million there.



'betcha a million dollars'. 'i've said it a million times'. 'the guy's got millions'. 'i could eat a million of those'.



million became a superlative a long, long time ago. it's become synonymous with 'many'. 'many' can mean four, or forty, or 400 billion depending upon the context.



when talking about millions of lives turned into ash, it's easy to lose the scope. millions died. thousands died. the two words represent vastly different numbers, yet colloquial discourse they might as well be the same.



it's necessary to remember that these were individual humans who were exterminated as pests.



To wit, http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/tim ... cJager.htm . i tried posting it here, but the formatting was lost. simply click on the link to view it.

[lady cop]

it's true,the sheer number is beyond comprehension.each one is a human life story. a tragic one.

[minks]

millions of jews, should not be the same thought of as a million house flies.

A million lives, a thousand lives, 2 lives, no matter the ammount loosing lives is tragic. Millions is a million times more tragic.

Anasttrophe you have a good point there.

[nvalleyvee]

The number is incomprehensible. To get it across to most people you have to talk in terms of lining them up - hip to hip - how many miles of holocaust victims. I suspect 11 million people stretch a few miles. I think it was 6 million Jewish people and 5 million miscellaneous people.

[capt_buzzard]

And its going to happen all over again. What is Man?

[David813]

anastrophe wrote: in another thread i used the raw numbers of those killed in the holocaust as tools for an argument. my interlocutor did as well. three million jews saved, six million jews killed, eleven million total liquidated. a million here, a million there.



'betcha a million dollars'. 'i've said it a million times'. 'the guy's got millions'. 'i could eat a million of those'.



million became a superlative a long, long time ago. it's become synonymous with 'many'. 'many' can mean four, or forty, or 400 billion depending upon the context.



when talking about millions of lives turned into ash, it's easy to lose the scope. millions died. thousands died. the two words represent vastly different numbers, yet colloquial discourse they might as well be the same.



it's necessary to remember that these were individual humans who were exterminated as pests.



To wit, http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/tim ... cJager.htm . i tried posting it here, but the formatting was lost. simply click on the link to view it.This link was chilling indeed. Note that communists were regular targets?

[anastrophe]

nvalleyvee wrote: The number is incomprehensible. To get it across to most people you have to talk in terms of lining them up - hip to hip - how many miles of holocaust victims. I suspect 11 million people stretch a few miles. I think it was 6 million Jewish people and 5 million miscellaneous people.
i'm six feet tall. i just measured, and i'm about 18 inches 'wide' across the hips. i'm probably a fair bit larger than an average jew of the mid 20th century, but for the sake of argument, let's say 18 inches would have been average.



theoretically, eleven million people lined up hip to hip would stretch 3,125 miles - 5,029 kilometers. Almost exactly the distance between Boston, Massachusetts and San Francisco, California.



if you could read aloud each of the eleven million people's names, one per second, beginning january 1, you would have finished reading them just three weeks ago - first week of may.

[Lon]

I wonder how many folks know anything about the Armenian Genocide?

[nvalleyvee]

Lon wrote: I wonder how many folks know anything about the Armenian Genocide?


Me Me - I was taught. I was taught against school policy - but I was taught.

[nvalleyvee]

anastrophe wrote: i'm six feet tall. i just measured, and i'm about 18 inches 'wide' across the hips. i'm probably a fair bit larger than an average jew of the mid 20th century, but for the sake of argument, let's say 18 inches would have been average.



theoretically, eleven million people lined up hip to hip would stretch 3,125 miles - 5,029 kilometers. Almost exactly the distance between Boston, Massachusetts and San Francisco, California.



if you could read aloud each of the eleven million people's names, one per second, beginning january 1, you would have finished reading them just three weeks ago - first week of may.


I knew it had to be many miles Anas. AND what a great idea for the next WWII memorial serviGLAD i REMEMEBRED T ABOUT THE 11 MILLION - aMERICA DIDN'T LIE ABOUT HOW HOROFIC THE WAR WAS FOR THE WORLD.undefined - you'd have me in NM.

[anastrophe]

Lon wrote: I wonder how many folks know anything about the Armenian Genocide?
i learned of the armenian genocide at a very early age, from two sources. my grandfather, who worked as a christian missionary, wrote a novel loosely based on his experiences in armenia, turkey, and russia in the early part of the 20th century, and wrote at length about the armenian genocide. and during my youth, my parents were close friends with an older couple - carlo and aghavni, aghavni a survivor of the genocide.



interestingly, if you google for 'armenian genocide', you'll come up with a lot of sites dedicated not to the memory of it, but to trying to deny it happened.



it's ridiculous. you can't 'make up' a genocide. what, a few dozen armenians hatched a plan to spread a story about a genocide, to stir sympathy or stir anti-turkish sentiment? i rather doubt it. there are enough people in any population who would refuse to go along with it that it would never carry on.



the truly pathetic however are those who deny the holocaust. it is madness. there's no film of the armenian genocide, but i saw the black and white films from the liberation of the concentration camps when i was in seventh grade (twelve years old - 1927). i'm sorry, 'special effects' weren't that sophisticated back then. the films were clearly not fakes.



those who deny it happened are vile.

[nvalleyvee]

anastrophe wrote: i learned of the armenian genocide at a very early age, from two sources. my grandfather, who worked as a christian missionary, wrote a novel loosely based on his experiences in armenia, turkey, and russia in the early part of the 20th century, and wrote at length about the armenian genocide. and during my youth, my parents were close friends with an older couple - carlo and aghavni, aghavni a survivor of the genocide.



interestingly, if you google for 'armenian genocide', you'll come up with a lot of sites dedicated not to the memory of it, but to trying to deny it happened.



it's ridiculous. you can't 'make up' a genocide. what, a few dozen armenians hatched a plan to spread a story about a genocide, to stir sympathy or stir anti-turkish sentiment? i rather doubt it. there are enough people in any population who would refuse to go along with it that it would never carry on.



the truly pathetic however are those who deny the holocaust. it is madness. there's no film of the armenian genocide, but i saw the black and white films from the liberation of the concentration camps when i was in seventh grade (twelve years old - 1927). i'm sorry, 'special effects' weren't that sophisticated back then. the films were clearly not fakes.



those who deny it happened are vile.


If you look at American genocide - there was none - there were interment camps but no genocide- we were not emulating the Nazi

[anastrophe]

nvalleyvee wrote: If you look at American genocide - there was none - there were interment camps but no genocide- we were not emulating the Nazi
not sure what you're getting at.



the early american pioneers committed genocide on the native americans, that's indisputable. it wasn't as systematic as the nazi extermination, but damn near.

[nvalleyvee]

anastrophe wrote: not sure what you're getting at.



the early american pioneers committed genocide on the native americans, that's indisputable. it wasn't as systematic as the nazi extermination, but damn near.


I was going on the WWII genocide - I have no problem with the native american genocide - that was systmatic by white people (I am one) and I would agree with any viewpoint there - we massacred them or put them in a place they could NOT survive.

[Bothwell]

I suppose Stalin put it best

One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic


You are right Paul these numbers are so big they just become a statistic and people cannot relate to them