>I recall one of them gave a report on it and a bunch of the kids were saying there was no way it was true. “You can’t just murder 14 million people!” Etc. (Granted they were 6th or 7th graders.) The teacher obviously back up my daughter.
Generally speaking the Nazis didn’t outright murder 14 million people. For the most part they worked as slaves in horrible conditions and didn’t supply them enough food in to kill them, much like the soviet gulag system. The Nazi’s fully intended to kill them but for the most part is was killing them slowly and getting labor out the people’s they were exterminating. However, after the war the left realized that Nazi methods were too much like the ongoing mass murder machine that was the soviet gulag. So a narrative was generated that most of the people died in gas chambers to protect the soviets and to heighten the evilness of the Nazis. As of right now there is only 3 camps identified as death camps equipped with death chambers but they only killed a faction the people murders by the Nazis.
The truth is no one outright murders 10 of millions of people. It’s just too damn expensive compared to starving people to death. So the kids where right and we’re still repeating Soviet propaganda on the issue 70 years later.
There were different types of camps (labor, extermination), and at the entrance of some those deemed unfit to work (elderly, small children) were separated and killed immediately.
In a sense, though most people would consider slave labor under starvation conditions murder. But outright killing would be expensive, primarily in the cost of badly needed labor.
Most historians recognize six death camps, some eight. With upwards of 3 million victims. Throw in the Einsatzgruppen, essentially a mobile death camp, you've got over 2 million more deaths. Not insignificant. I don't think Nazi evil needs to be heightened.