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To: Mr. Silverback

There are a lot of "official death counts" from various countries that run up or down over the truth depending upon the politics involved.

The Holocaust after WW2 was initially thought to have included nine million dead. That figure was later dialed down to six million with four million of those being assumed killed at Auschwicz. In recent years the four million dead figure at Auschwicz has been officially and academically adjusted to "about 1.5 million". Yet it is the law in many countries (yes, it is a law) that the number of people who dies in the Holocaust is six million despite a reduction of 2.5 million in the 'official' figures.

Disclaimer: I am not a Holocaust denier. The fact that this happened is evident to anyone who bothers to study the facts. But I also accept that people more knowledgeable than I on this subject have adjusted some of the figures.

That said, the Allies after WW2 would have a vested interest in understating the dead in Dresden or anywhere else in Germany. It makes them look bad.

The Allies said that an accurate estimate of German war dead was impossible to judge due to so many people being displaced by the war. So they went with the bare minimum believeable figure of about 35,000 while Soviet sources estimated the losses at Dresden along the order of 200-300 thousand since the Soviets had the civil records of Dresden and it was fairly easy for them to extrapolate a figure based on post-war census figures.

Let people mourn their dead no matter who they are. The label of "neo-Nazi" would readily be applied by the German government to a fair number of FReepers simply for opposing the Official Socialist Mindset. So while it is a certainty that some, if not most, of these people are self-serving racists - it is also quite probable to me that at least a few people in the crowd were mourning lost relatives whom their own country officially ignores.

I do not disparage the people who mourn for the dead in Hiroshima, Auschwicz, Gettysburg, Normandy, or Rwanda.

Instead of throwing stones at people who mourn the dead - even hateful people - we should gather the stones and place them on the graves to remember and never forget the horrors of war.

I would gladly hold the hand of a skinhead and grieve with him for a lost relative if only to let one...just one...of these people see the humanity of all people.

Imagine what would happen to the 'neo-Nazis' if instead of taunting them a crowd of protesters merely took up candles and stood with them to remember the dead regardless of 'official figures'?

I'm not always a peacenik, but this is one of those occasions where if one Jew stood silently amongst the hateful to not join with them in their cause, but to honestly remember the dead, that one Godly and Righteous person would accomplish more to end hate than any amount of speechifying or laws could ever accomplish.


64 posted on 02/14/2005 7:47:08 AM PST by PeterFinn (Why is it that people who know the least know it the loudest?)
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To: PeterFinn
Your figures are quite off. No one thinks that 4 million Jews died at Auschwitz.
A total of 5.1 to 6.2 million Jews died. 6 to 7 million others were killed. This includes Gypsies (the Roma, like Jews were targeted for extermination), as well as political opponents and effeminate homosexuals (Nazis had no problem with butch homosexual men). If you wish to discuss that figure, that is fine. However, the Neo-Nazis wish to rehabilitate their ideology by minimizing Nazi crimes, and hidding behind German victims. They are ghouls.

Nazis were and are socialist.

65 posted on 02/14/2005 9:33:20 AM PST by rmlew (Copperheads and Peaceniks beware! Sedition is a crime.)
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