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by tptacek 3346 days ago
Possibly because the Poles were killed largely in genocidal military operations, such as large scale bombing of cities, and not (in numbers comparable to the Jewish people) in death camps.
2 comments

How about the fact that Polish Jews were Polish citizens. Why are people keep separating these people from their country? If something similar were to happen in the US, would we be talking about Jews, or Jewish Americans?

These Polish Jews were as much citizens of the country are all other minorities. They were part of Poland for close to 600 years. Poland lost 20% of population during WW2. The fact that half of the lost population were of a different religion does not make them any less Polish.

I'm not sure I understand the argument here. I agree: Polish Jews were Poles. It's possible we don't disagree at all.

If you ask me why, at least in the US, there's so much attention paid to Jewish victims of the Holocaust, then the answer I'll give is that the Germans killed far more Jews, but also did so more deliberately and carefully, thus supporting that narrative.

I didn't go to US public school --- I went to Catholic school --- but we were always taught about the other victims of the Holocaust. At 12 I'd have told you the Nazis targeted not just Jewish people but also "gypsies", gay people, and communists. We were, for instance, taught about Maximilian Kolbe, a name I remember principally from the story I was taught in grade school.

My problem with your previous comment is that you claim that polish losses were mostly to "genocidal military operations, such as large scale bombing of cities".

See, the thing is, since Polish Jews were part of the country, were scientists, doctors, blacksmiths, or just regular farmers they were also killed by these bombings, and other forms of killings. The other side of the equation is that these people who died in the concentration camps were mostly Polish citizens. They count towards "polish losses". It's unfair to separate people simply because of their religion, and make it look like being killed by Zyklon B is so much worse than being torn apart by a bomb.

It's just sad that we even have discussion on this and that some people still think that one for of killing is "better" or "worse" than the other (and I'm not saying that you think that, but other commenters in this whole thread did.)

This is going to sound snarky but I don't mean it that way: I agree that it's unfair to separate people based on their religion, but I think you want to take that complaint up with the Third Reich. We've come to a point in the conversation where I felt the need to write the sentence "European Jews were deliberately, carefully, and systematically targeted by the Third Reich", which suggests to me that something has gone wrong either in our dialog or the thread.
"gone wrong either in our dialog or the thread." Possibly both :)
You get what I'm saying, right? To feel a need to write that sentence is to suggest that the thought has somehow been rebutted or dismissed elsewhere.
OK, well I don't claim to be an authority on this subject. It just really appears to look like two methods that reached the same result; though one sounds more unnatural than the other to us (i.e. in 2016 the US dropped 26,000+ bombs on Muslim-majority countries, but we have very few places resembling death camps, and none of them are--at least in name--racially motivated).

Anyways, both I think we can all agree are bad. I just didn't know so many non-Jews died in the holocaust.