re: "Playing word games with the Holocaust"

sjostrom at Atlantic Blog ("thoughts on politics, economics and the culture by.... an American economist living and working in Ireland") remarks on recent idiocy in The Irish Independent.

Money quote(s):

"The six million number was not merely some "round-estimate"; it was Adolph Eichmann's estimate. Myers's claim that there is no documentary basis for this is simply false, and both Myers and the Indo ought to be ashamed of themselves for printing such rot."

As I recall, the estimate of six million European Jews murdered in the Holocaust was about half of the twelve million murdered, the remainder being others deemed undesirable under Hitler's NSDAP regime such as Gypsies (i.e., Sinti and Roma), the disabled, communists, troublesome priests, as well as others from within Germany and her conquered or allied neighbors.

I don't bring that up to minimize the destruction wrought on European Jewry, just to put it into the context that six million Jews murdered isn't unbelievable when you look at the fact that over twelve million civilians were murdered by the Nazi death apparatus. Given that about half of that total were Jews should indicate the high priority given to their destruction.

Possibly I'm being too broad in using the Hebrew term Holocaust to include all of the Nazi's civilian genocides; I mean no offense by it.

"Myers's attempt to mock the precision of 6 million - "not a Jew more, or not a Jew less" - is just stupid."

&

"Myers seems to be saying that Holocaust denial is a crime only if the government is not afraid of you. That is sadly hard to dispute. It is too bad Myers had to cover that point in idiocy and falsehoods."