Schindler's List and Holocaust statistics

Just watched Schindler's List...powerful heart-rending story...having a young daughter, it tore my heart seeing the little girl in red walking the street and then later her body in the wagon....as a retired Army soldier it made me want to kill those Nazi's then and there. Why didn't people of the period respond with the same emotion albeit the time period didn't have instantaneous worldwide exposure of crimes against humanity like today (cell phone cameras, Facebook, CNN, satellites, etc.)...I don't think the world would allow Hitler to do now what he did then...so in a sense Holocaust was a tragedy that happened to occur in just the wrong period of time with a whirlwind of bad timing, bad characters, and apathetic adjacent countries. When Slobodan Milosevic tried to murder the Serbs in the 1990's, U.S. and European allies put a stop to it very quickly.

I was wondering how historically accurate Schindler's list is and if Mr. Schindler wrote/spoke of this particular incident in later years. The other question I have is how the numbers were calculated that are used (6 million Jews killed I have read) in reporting the number of Jews that were killed and how were these numbers substantiated?

 

The six million number is the "closest" guesstimate that can be made since the Nazis tried to cover-up their crimes by destroying most records. Now however, some of the records which were either considered "un-connected" or something of that nature have come to light in the recent past. The Nazis weren't quite as efficient in their cover-up as they thought.

The horrific figure seems to be holding up quite nicely even with the new documentation. As to your other query, I am unsure as to whether or not Schindler had anything to do with his list becoming a story or a movie, I do know he was listed as one of the "righteous gentiles" by the state of Israel, and is honored there.

Here is a link to one of the more complete sites dealing with the death camps, from the German's own records compiled by on of their statisticians, Korherr. Be sure to click on the highlighted areas to read the rest.

Goto:

http://www.deathcamps.org/reinhard/korherr.html

 

Actually, genocide has happened since WW2. As we speak there are concentration camps in North Korea. Many people have been killed and many continue to suffer. There is so much secracy it's hard to determine what exactly is going on. Much of what we know is from accounts of survivors and escapees. God only knows what's going on in those camps. God help those people. Sad to see it's happening and nothing is being done to save these people! Tragic to see that it's 2012 and concentration camps still exist!

http://freekorea.us/camps

 

Sadly I have to agree that our world is not free from the kinds of atrocities experienced during WWII and all of us should learn the lesson that that is a true fact. The fact is we tend to place more attention on parts of the world related to our economic welfare and very much less attention to portions of the world where there is little to fight for economically. Some parts of the world like North Korea are relatively unreachable so we should maintain a lot of attention on them for the things we suspect them of doing there. We do not have to be at war to sort of battle against despots that abuse segments of a population anywhere. The media should focus in and make it the subject of more attention rather than ignoring the poor areas of the world.

 

After watching the film, might I recommend the book it was based on.
Thomas Keneally's 'Shindler's Ark' (or 'list' in some editions).
It is a novel, but it's a very good novel. I was lucky enough to read it before the film's release, which I find is always the best way round.
(I do seem to recall reading a non-fiction account of Schindler too, in between film & book book, but can't remember the title.)

For figures, which can become a horribly murky business, start here:
Holocaust Educational Resource
It remains the very best Holocaust related site on the Internet. Deeply serious, and with all angles covered.

~A