I am going to start with Democommie's reponse:
Neither I or anyone else said that the jews of Warsaw weren't brave, resourceful and tenacious. They were, however, wiped out. Would they have died in any case? yes, probably--that's not at issue. You and your fellow gunzloonz repeatedly cite the jews of Warsaw (and Germany) as having been slaughtered after having their right to bear arms infringed. They were slaughtered--are you ready for this--because the average german, pole, russian, lithuanian, latvian, frenchman, rumanian, yugoslavian and other nationals in nazi occupied europe were either complicit in, or acquiescing to, the nazis' program of extermination of european jewry. Had the people in those countries not been willing to allow (or unable to stop) the depradations of Hitler and his murderous thugs it would not have happened the way it did.
I mentioned, in a previous comment, that the germans had engaged in a program of reprisals against the czechs, following the assassination by czech partisans working with the british SOE of Reinhard Hedrich. One of the reasons that the reprisals were not far worse was that the Germans depended upon the czech workers to help arm the reich's military. Czechs were not deemed "disposable", jews were--and too damned few objected to the plight of the jews.
Hiter was able to murder jews with impunity, not because of their lack of arms but because of their lack of support from their countrymen. Those brave souls who spoke truth to power and took common cause with the jews, against the nazis, were far too few in number.
Blaming the outlawing of the ownership of arms for the holocaust is a hideous lie.
Of course, that doesn't stop someone like unhinged making the comment that about Hitler's 20 Million Victims because of German gun control.
But as I pointed out, this happened during World War II. The fact that these victims died during War time should clue you in that Nazi gun control would not have been an issue.
Additionally, most of the Victims of Nazi Genocide were not Germans. The number of German Jews during the Holocaust is 142,000. Most Jewish victims of the Holocaust came from Eastern Europe, in particular, the Soviet Union, Poland, Hungary, and Romania. The number from those countries account for roughly 4.9 million of the Six Million total.
Austria185,00050,000
Belgium66,00025,000
Bohemia/Moravia118,00078,000
Bulgaria50,0000
Denmark8,00060
Estonia4,5002,000
Finland2,0007
France350,00077,000
Germany565,000142,000
Greece75,00065,000
Hungary825,000550,000
Italy44,5007,500
Latvia91,50070,000
Lithuania168,000140,000
Luxembourg3,5001,000
Netherlands140,000100,000
Norway1,700762
Poland3,300,0003,000,000
Romania609,000270,000
Slovakia89,00071,000
Soviet Union3,020,0001,000,000
Yugoslavia78,00060,000
Total:9,793,7005,709,329
Unhinged never cites a source for his 20 Million victims of Hitler, but...
Consider that approximately 4 million of that number were prisoners from the Soviet Red Army--If you know anything about Stalingrad and the campaign on the Eastern Front, you could hardly say the Soviets were captured without a fight. Additionally, The Soviet Union and Poland has strong Partisan resistance movements during the Nazi occupation.
In fact, your 20 million figure probably includes a fair amount of Soviet Civilians. The Cambridge History of the Soviet Union give the following tally of deaths under German occupation: 13.7M, including:
- "killed in hot or cold blood": 7.4M, incl.
- "taken to Germany and worked to death": 2.2M
- "died of overwork, hunger and disease": 4.1M
As I said, these were civilians in a very active and hotly contested war zone: Bomb and artillery shells are not very discriminating in who they kill. Not to mention guns aren't very helpful against starvation and disease.
The problem is that not only was there resistance to Hitler in these areas, but there was incredibly strong resistance to Hitler on the Eastern Front.
As I said, this happened during World War II, I don't think people had any difficulty getting guns if they needed them.
For additional estimates see:
- Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945 (New York: Bantam Books, 1986) 403.
- Abraham Edelheit and Hershel Edelheit, History of the Holocaust: A Handbook and Dictionary (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994) 266.
- Israel Gutman (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (New York: Macmillan Library Reference USA, 1990) 1799.
- Raul Hilberg, Destruction of European Jews (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1985) 1220.
