This post is going to be heavy – if you are a holocaust denier, I suggest you go elsewhere. I will be focusing mostly on WWII in this post.
I was spurned to write this post as I felt many people are so far removed for the Great War that the memories have faded and seem abstract. I grew up listening to the veterans – never again. Never again. Almost all veterans of WWII have died. The children of the new generations don’t know what it’s like to listen to the old ones and hear their tales of death. We MUST remember.
“It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” ― Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy
There have been two world wars. There have been many civil wars, skirmishes, political wars, cold wars. Humans have an innate ability to follow the mob – a charismatic leader takes control, tells the mob it is us versus them. The mob rules and chaos erupts.
Out of the ruins of WWII over six million Jews, homosexuals, Roma, disabled, and anyone who didn’t fit the Nazi Arian mold died in various concentration camps, ghettos, war camps. THIS is truth.
Auschwitz-Birkenau is the most infamous of the concentration camps. Below is a link to the museum and Twitter feed – the twitter feed highlights those murdered in the camp every day.
Auschwitz was not the only camp. Nazi Camps in the Holocaust Encyclopedia has a breakdown of the different types of camps from their inception in 1933 (yes, BEFORE the war started officially). Below are selected quotes from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum page on the camps.
“From its rise to power in 1933, the Nazi regime built a series of incarceration sites to imprison and eliminate real and perceived “enemies of the state.” Most prisoners in the early concentration camps were political prisoners—German Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats—as well as Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and persons accused of “asocial” or socially deviant behavior. “
Re-read that – the Nazis were arresting and murdering anyone who was different.
There were even different types of camps to serve the Nazi war machine.
“Many people refer to all of the Nazi incarceration sites during the Holocaust as concentration camps. The term concentration camp is used very loosely to describe places of incarceration and murder under the Nazi regime, however, not all sites established by the Nazis were concentration camps. Nazi-established sites include:
Concentration camps: For the detention of civilians seen as real or perceived “enemies of the Reich.”
Forced-labor camps: In forced-labor camps, the Nazi regime brutally exploited the labor of prisoners for economic gain and to meet labor shortages. Prisoners lacked proper equipment, clothing, nourishment, or rest.
Transit camps: Transit camps functioned as temporary holding facilities for Jews awaiting deportation. These camps were usually the last stop before deportations to a killing center.
Prisoner-of-war camps: For Allied prisoners of war, including Poles and Soviet soldiers.
Killing centers: Established primarily or exclusively for the assembly-line style murder of large numbers of people immediately upon arrival to the site. There were 5 killing centers for the murder primarily of Jews. The term is also used to describe “euthanasia” sites for the murder of disabled patients.”
There were millions of deaths, but not just Jews. The Nazis kept impeccable documents listing all the murdered.
| Group | Number of Deaths |
|---|---|
| Jews | 6 million |
| Soviet civilians | around 7 million (including 1.3 Soviet Jewish civilians, who are included in the 6 million figure for Jews) |
| Soviet prisoners of war | around 3 million (including about 50,000 Jewish soldiers) |
| Non-Jewish Polish civilians | around 1.8 million (including between 50,000 and 100,000 members of the Polish elites) |
| Serb civilians (on the territory of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina) | 312,000 |
| People with disabilities living in institutions | up to 250,000 |
| Roma (Gypsies) | up to 250,000 |
| Jehovah’s Witnesses | around 1,900 |
| Repeat criminal offenders and so-called asocials | at least 70,000 |
| German political opponents and resistance activists in Axis-occupied territory | undetermined |
| Homosexuals | hundreds, possibly thousands (possibly also counted in part under the 70,000 repeat criminal offenders and so-called asocials noted above) |
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Here is a list of the Nazi camps – I’ve left the hyperlinks to their adjoining Wikipedia pages. Almost every camp had subcamps.
Arbeitsdorf concentration camp
Bergen-Belsen concentration camp
List of subcamps of Bergen-Belsen
List of subcamps of Buchenwald
Flossenbürg concentration camp
List of subcamps of Flossenbürg
Gross-Rosen concentration camp
List of subcamps of Gross-Rosen
Herzogenbusch concentration camp
List of subcamps of Herzogenbusch
List of subcamps of Kaiserwald
Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp
List of subcamps of Kraków-Płaszów
List of subcamps of Mauthausen
Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp
Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp
List of subcamps of Natzweiler-Struthof
List of subcamps of Neuengamme
Niederhagen concentration camp
Ravensbrück concentration camp
List of subcamps of Ravensbrück
Sachsenhausen concentration camp
List of subcamps of Sachsenhausen
The number of military and civilian casualties during the war varies. This is from the Wikipedia article on World War II Casualties “World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. An estimated total of 70–85 million people perished, or about 3% of the 1940 world population (est. 2.3 billion).[1] Deaths directly caused by the war (including military and civilians fatalities) are estimated at 50–56 million, with an additional estimated 19–28 million deaths from war-related disease and famine. Civilian deaths totaled 50–55 million. Military deaths from all causes totaled 21–25 million, including deaths in captivity of about 5 million prisoners of war. More than half of the total number of casualties are accounted for by the dead of the Republic of China and of the Soviet Union. The tables below give a detailed country-by-country count of human losses. Statistics on the number of military wounded are included whenever available.” Note: there is a table on the Wikipedia pages showing casualties by country as well.
There were many everyday people who took up the cause of resistance and became more than the sum of their parts. They spat in the face of fascism. They did not remain silent and placated. They screamed their resistance to the atrocities that were being done. They were true heroes. They fought for a better world, a world where ALL people are free to live as they choose.
Here is a list of some of the Heroes of the Second World War (Biography online).
s poem on CBC – ‘Zombies’ of WWII: Poem reveals how volunteer soldier felt about the conscripted
It would take me a lifetime to write everything I could about wars. It would take a lifetime for me to write how much it hurts to see the rise of so much racism and fascism in this world now. People have forgotten. People have forgotten why so many died.
I will never forget.
In Flanders Fields
BY JOHN MCCRAE
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Life Through My Eyes 