Holocaust

[Nazgul]

To me, the Holocaust is human suffering at its highest—not sensationalized gassings or fabricated “Gaskammer” stories. The true horror lies in the fear, trauma, and endurance of those who lived through it. Survivors carried psychological scars for the rest of their lives. That suffering—the terror of watching loved ones disappear, the daily struggle to survive, the constant threat of violence, and the enforced separation of husbands from wives, parents from children, or families torn apart for minor infractions at the behest of the Gestapo—is a Holocaust in itself.

Human suffering extended far beyond the camps. In the UK, Germans were interned; in the US, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated. Communities and families were shattered under national security measures. Indiscriminate bombing campaigns—across the UK, in Pforzheim, Dresden, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—brought mass destruction, terror, and death to countless civilians. These events inflicted deep, lasting trauma, leaving wounds that were psychological, emotional, and physical.

This was not merely a tragedy or catastrophe—it was a worldwide calamity, a collapse of humanity’s moral and social structures that brought terror, loss, and despair to millions. Blame cannot be simplified to a single nation or ideology; suffering was systemic and global.

We do not need sensationalized stories to understand it. The lived reality of fear, separation, destruction, and grief is already catastrophic enough. Death itself is like a wave function: with every passing, there is someone who loved, feared, or cared, and it is those left behind who endure the true horror. Losing your loved ones is already enough to define the Holocaust—the dead are gone, but the survivors carry the suffering, grief, and trauma for the rest of their lives.

The intensity of that human suffering—the uncertainty, the loss of family, the devastation of homes and cities, the indiscriminate destruction of life—is unimaginable and endures in memory. That is the human truth of the Holocaust and the broader war: the terror, suffering, and endurance of life itself under extreme oppression, without embellishment, without fantasy, but with the full weight of reality. The true Holocaust is for the living, who must carry the consequences of loss, fear, and grief long after the dead are gone.

When suffering is framed as belonging only to a single group, it can invite division and antisemitic attitudes. In my worldview, Jewish people are fully included as kin—loved and cherished—but their trauma exists within the broader fabric of human suffering. We can carry their past as if it were our own, acknowledging their losses as part of the shared human calamity of that era.

The ghosts don’t make the living. It is the living who carry the true horror.

[Nazgul]

When I think about the Holocaust, I think about people, not numbers. The fear, hunger, exhaustion, and loss endured by those who lived through forced labor, internment, and war—that is the real horror. To me, it belongs to all the people who perished during World War II, roughly 80 million, not just one group. Figures like six million fall within the statistical margin of error and cannot be treated as absolute without precise, independent evidence.

Historical claims also deserve scrutiny. Dr. Charles Larson only examined camps liberated by Western Allies—Dachau, Buchenwald, Mauthausen. He did not see Treblinka, Auschwitz, Sobibor, Belzec, or Majdanek, which were in Soviet-controlled territory. Archival records, like FPLO 587, show transports stopping for hours at labor camps and rail junctions, and witness testimony confirms that thousands sent to Sobibor ended up elsewhere. Claims that everyone on these transports arrived at extermination sites simply cannot be verified.

WWII death estimates themselves are uncertain—total deaths range from 69 to 84 million, including military, civilian, famine, and disease losses. That leaves a huge margin of error. Citing precise numbers for any single group without evidence that narrows that uncertainty is misleading. This is about method, not morality.

I am concerned that some authors respond to questions defensively, labeling anyone who challenges assumptions as a “denier” or “revisionist,” even when the critique is careful and evidence-based. In some European countries, laws against denial or hate speech can enforce a single version of events, which further discourages discussion or independent review.

At the center of all of this are the people who lived it. Numbers can give context, but they cannot capture fear, grief, and endurance. That is what history should keep at its center—human suffering, lived experience, and the weight of memory.