With that said, the figure of six million is about as accurate a number that is available. There are good reasons for the uncertainty:
> The two most reliable sources for Holocaust data are the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem. Though this is the best information available, it is based on estimates and cannot take into the unknown number of victims whose bodies were never recovered or for whom there were no records. The Nazis kept detailed records of the people who passed through the camps; nevertheless, we do not know how many Jews may still have been unaccounted for in the many places where they were murdered. In addition, as the Allies began to close in on Germany, the Nazis began to destroy their records. We also don’t know the precise number of Jews in any of these areas. The population data ranges from 1937-1941 so, for example, the countries where the figures came from 1937 may not accurately reflect the number of Jews at the time the war began. Though the two institutions have different estimates, if you average the total number of Jews each says were murdered, the result is the commonly used figure of six million.
From: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/estimated-number-of-jew...
It’s not “fishy” at all. History is not an exact science, and the perpetrators of this genocide were highly motivated to conceal their crimes.
I think it’s important to recognize that no one is responsible for educating you. You are responsible for educating yourself. If you have chosen to be ignorant about the facts of the holocaust, and then you were to communicate your “concerns” to a Jewish person about the accuracy of the historical narrative, or perhaps question whether it was as bad as most people believe it was, or even worse, whether it happened at all, then I really don’t think it’s their responsibility to address you in a kind and loving manner.
And it is really, truly, absolutely not their fault if you then decide to become an antisemitic holocaust denier and/or white supremacist.
Thus, some people are very reactive and touchy around this subject. It’s obvious why the civil war isn’t a similarly contentious topic; nobody debates its existence.
The comments in this thread are extremely disconcerting. I didn’t expect to find this on HN but apparently nowhere is safe.
There are those of us who accept reality, and also a highly vocal contingent of willful deniers who incessantly muddy the waters and obfuscate the truth.
I am also shocked and saddened by the comments in this thread, how foolish of me to have thought HN was above it.
Was attempting to respond to the parent comment in a “rational” way in the event that it was a good faith comment.
But frankly I think it wasn’t. It is obvious why people are reactive to questioning the holocaust, nothing “fishy” about it. Alleging that it’s fishy implies a conspiracy, which puts us on the road to holocaust denial.
Really disgusted with all of this, I wish I hadn’t opened HN this morning.
Why is it fishy that people get emotionally reactive about a genocide?
Again, I don’t believe you are arguing in good faith. I’m exiting this conversation now.