Not to in any way belittle the Holocaust but in my reading of history the holocaust is but a variation on a theme.
Man is a brutal and vicious animal. There have been countless examples throughout history were entire cities have been wiped out by invaders (Rome destroyed Carthage).
The Jews are unique in that they are a perennial scapegoat in the world but man’s in humanity to man is not in anyway limited to them.
It is the priest in the story that is remarkable not the rapist. When one man risks his life to help the oppressed that is the failure of the system (meaning the normal order of the world).
I do agree, actually. “Man’s inhumanity toman makes countless thousand mourn...” be the victims, Jew, Kurd, Greek, Albanian, Turk, Bosnian, Serb, Croat, Polish, etc...
The Jewish experience is unique in terms of the documentation and their own strength of nationhood. First what other group without a nation can survive such hatred over the centurie (apart from the Gypsies, but also, while many of the brutalities vistited upon the Jews were not new under the sun, what was new was the record-keeping allowing them to be captured as abominations. I wish we had half the records for Serbia or Cambodia we had for Auschwitz....
You make a good point - and one that I’d failed to note - regarding the priest.