On this UN remembrance day for the victims of the #Holocaust I want to say that we, the world community, made a grave mistake when we focused "all" our attention on the 6m Jewish victims. Ask anyone who was killed in the Holocaust, and they will say the Jews. They'll probably know the number. And that is great! But it's a tragedy that all the other victims has all but been forgotten among the general public! We could've easily lifted up all victims, and now it seems we're paying for not doing so
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@forteller FSVO "we".
When I was on a council committee organising HMD events the other victims of the Holocaust, and other genocides (eg Rwanda), *were* given attention. YMMV I guess, depending on where you live.
@TimWardCam Of course, that will always be the case. But is there anywhere in the world where asking a 100 random people on the street just as many of them will mention other groups of victims as will mention the Jews? I don't know! But I doubt it.
The systematic murdering of 6 million Jews was horrific beyond words! That does not mean that the murders of other groups of people, just for being born a certain way, was any less tragic!
The millions of Slavs, Romani, disabled people, queer people and transgender people the nazis systematically executed where just as human, just as worthy of our mourning and our remembrance.
We should lift them all up, remember them all, equally, without forgetting the difference in numbers, of course.
The price we pay for this, it seems to me, is the tragic irony in Romani, queer people and especially transgender people being hated so much that it seems to be a huge part of the current resurgence of the far right fascists around the world – it feels like Hitler only took a break and is now again conquering the world, with the same scapegoats as before – while at the same time Israel is allowed to do its own genocide partly because we can't criticize the victims of the Holocaust! It's insane
Last year in the Netherlands I read in a newspaper that the Roma and Sinti had their yearly memorial of the dead on another day than 4th of May, the official big national memorial day for the dead victims of WW-II.
I felt shocked when I read that.
And before I read that I have been thinking about how 'we' in the West generally see the Roma, Sinti, anarchists, communists, queer people and other minority groups who were murdered during the Holocaust. How is it going for these minority groups nowadays ? Do they get a special treatment from governments ?
Maybe, just maybe, if we had given just a fraction of the attention that we have given the Jewish victims of the Holocaust to these other groups of victims, we would give them today just a fraction of the good will that we give the state of Israel, and would not be so eager to fall for the same hatred that Hitler used against these other groups again.
If we really have to let Israel do everything because of the Holocaust, why can't we let trans people do anything?
Never again. For all?
Oh, btw, if we let this common hatred against trans people, queer people, darker skinned people within our borders (Romani and otherwise) and people who are "a burden on our wellfare/institutions/health care" (people with disabilities and bad health) again be a part of the launch pad that gives the extreme right extreme power…
then, even though they (mostly) seemingly love Israel and Jewish people today.
They will come for them again.
It is just a matter of time.
Just in November last year we got our first (I'm almost certain) memorial for the Norwegian Roma who where killed during the Holocaust.
That is very late.
There are 62 names on it. 66 where deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Do we even have memorials for Slavs, for queer people, for trans people? I haven't heard of it.
@forteller Well... The answer is probably no. At least I haven't heard of any... For 'reasons'...
@forteller unfun fact: when the camps were liberated, the prisoners with the pink triangel, the gay men, were kept in the camps. They never got freed. Because being gay was illegal.