Some Holocaust Links

There are a lot people who want to define the word "holocaust" as strickly  referring to the systematic and evil extermination of 6 million European Jews.  Since the word derives from the Greek holókaustus, translating into English as "whole burnt"--i.e.:  completely burned or turned into ashes, and there is a separate word in Hebrew "Shoah"--catastrophe, to refer directly to the Jewish extermination, I am one of those people who feels it necessary to insist that "holocaust" refer to the entire number of people of all backgrounds that the Nazi's saw as inferior who were systematically murdered by these horrid eugenics crazed bastards.  Often people put the total number of dead at 10 million, but recent research to include homosexuals, the disabled and other people (some of whom were actual white Christian Germans) that the Nazis saw as not being fit to be part of the great Aryan thousand year reign, and thusly put in camps and dispatched in various ways (including gas) puts the total number of dead at a staggering 17 million souls.

It's often said, and I do believe it, that if we forget history we are doomed to repeat it.  On days like today, I think it's really important to face the ugliness of it all and do a little research--to remember.  The first place to start is obviously Wikipedia, which has numerous portholes to the various ethinicities of holocaust victims and to all manner of the whole horrid affair.

Here is a stark, but still chilling list of German interment camps, along with their various "functions," including extermination.  There is the important The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.  This Google News Page has current stories of memorials planned in Europe and elsewhere.  Here is the statement made by President Obama.  Here  are some very basic facts of the Nazi atrocities.  And here is a more comprehensive list.  The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) has this page on Holocaust denial with extensive links.  Also from the USHMM here is the story of Roma extermination and another page Sinte and Roma holocaust  information from the University of South Florida.  Here is the Wikipedia page on the lack of reparations for the Roma by the German government in the aftermath of the war.

Finally some did survive.  Here is a list of sites with some of their stories:

From About.com

Holocaust Research Project

Holocaust Survivors (Not For Profit)

Roma Holocaust Survivors

Roma Article Today's BBC

Lastly the USHMM has an online registration form for holocaust survivors--any one who survived can be added regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, etc.