The Holocaust​—The Forgotten Victims

“The genocidal policies of the Nazis resulted in the deaths of about as many Polish Gentiles as Polish Jews, thus making them co-victims in a ‘Forgotten Holocaust.’”​—“The Forgotten Holocaust,” by Richard C. Lukas

HOLOCAUST​—what does it mean? According to some dictionaries, it was the genocidal slaughter of European Jews by the Nazis during World War II. This could easily give the impression that only Jews suffered and died at the hands of the Nazis. Yet, are justice and truth served in having “Holocaust” apply only to the Jewish victims of the Nazi era?

Writer Richard Lukas states: “The word Holocaust suggests to most people the tragedy the Jews experienced under the Germans during World War II. From a psychological point of view, it is understandable why Jews today prefer that the term refer exclusively to the Jewish experience . . . Yet, by excluding others from inclusion in the Holocaust, the horrors that Poles, other Slavs, and Gypsies endured at the hands of the Nazis are often ignored, if not forgotten.”

Lukas also states: “To them [the historians], the Holocaust was unique to the Jews, and they therefore have had little or nothing to say about the nine million Gentiles, including three million [Gentile] Poles, who also perished in the greatest tragedy the world has ever known.”

Hitler’s Lust for Living Space

When Hitler’s armies invaded Poland in September 1939, they were under orders to carry out Hitler’s policy of obtaining Lebensraum, living space, for the German people. As Richard Lukas states: “To the Nazis, the Poles were Untermenschen (subhumans) who occupied a land which was part of the Lebensraum (living space) coveted by the superior German race.” Thus, Hitler authorized his troops to kill “without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space we need.”

September 1939 started a relentless horror for the Polish people. Hitler had stated: “The war is to be a war of annihilation.” Hitler’s henchman Heinrich Himmler declared: “All Poles will disappear from the world. . . . It is essential that the great German people should consider it as a major task to destroy all Poles.” Thus, the Holocaust was not aimed at just Polish Jews; it was aimed at “all Poles.”

“Terror was applied in all occupied countries. . . . But in Poland everyone was subject to such brutality, and mass executions based on the principle of collective guilt were far more frequent, because every Pole, regardless of age, sex, or health, was a member of a condemned nation​—condemned by the policy-makers in the Nazi party and government,” states Catherine Leach, translator of the Polish book Values and Violence in Auschwitz. She states that Himmler viewed the Poles as a lower race to be kept in serfdom.

“Even after Poland’s surrender [September 28, 1939], the Wehrmacht [German army] continued to take seriously Hitler’s admonition of August 22, 1939, when he authorized killing ‘without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language.’” How could the German army and the SS be motivated to such pitiless murder? By being saturated with the teaching of the supremacy of the Aryan race and the inferiority of all others. Thus, as Lukas states in The Forgotten Holocaust: “The Nazi theory of colonial empire in Poland was based on the denial of humanity to the Poles whom, next to the Jews, Hitler hated the most.”

“Negative Demographic Policy”

In his introduction to the book Commandant of Auschwitz, Lord Russell of Liverpool said: “During the war probably not less than twelve million men, women, and children from the invaded and occupied territories were done to death by the Germans. At a conservative estimate, eight million of them perished in concentration camps. Of these, not less than five million were Jews. . . . The real number, however, will never be known.” On the basis of these figures alone, at least seven million victims were not Jews.

Another testimony is that of Catherine Leach, who writes: “Poland was the first country to be subjected to Hitler’s ‘negative demographic policy,’ whose purpose was to prepare the vast territories in ‘The East’ for German resettlement, and Poland suffered the greatest losses in life of all the occupied countries​—220 per 1000 inhabitants. Polish sources state that no less than 6,028,000 Polish citizens . . . lost their lives.” Of these, 3,200,000 were Jews. That means that nearly 50% of the Polish dead were non-Jews.

[Map/​Pictures on page 10]

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Some of the Nazi concentration and extermination camps across Europe. In addition, there were 165 forced-labor camps

NORTH SEA

LATVIA

Riga

LITHUANIA

Kaunas

E. PRUSSIA

POLAND

Stutthof

Treblinka

Chelmno

Sobibor

Lublin

Skarżysko-Kamienna

Majdanek

Plaszow

Belzec

Auschwitz

GERMANY

Papenburg

Neuengamme

Belsen

Ravensbrück

Sachsenhausen

Oranienburg

Lichtenberg

Dora-Nordhausen

Torgau

Buchenwald

Gross-Rosen

Ohrdruf

Flossenbürg

Dachau

Landsberg

NETH.

Westerbork

Vught

BELG.

LUX.

FRANCE

Natzweiler-Struthof

SWITZ.

ITALY

AUSTRIA

Mauthausen

Sachsenburg

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Theresienstadt

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Hitler stated: “The war is to be a war of annihilation.” Kill “without pity or mercy all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language”

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Library of Congress

[Picture]

Himmler declared: “All Poles will disappear from the world”

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UPI/​Bettmann Newsphotos