SLAVIC HOLOCAUST
The word Holocaust is commonly applied to the policies of the Nazis
towards Jews - what they called the Final solution - the extermination of Jews.
However, Hitler felt threatened not only by the Jews, and they were not the
only victims of Nazism. Hitler created the unhumane
theory and practice of the annihilation of three groups of peoples: Jews, Romanies and Slavic. With the ashes of those nations he
wanted to fertilize the fields of the new regime.
Why those peoples? However that may be, the statistics are sad.
Of the victims, half million Romanies were
exterminated, more than 6 millions were Jews, and more than 31 million of Slavs
from difference Slavic states. Every sixth Pole, every fourth Belarusian, every
ninth Yugoslavian, and so on, was exterminated. Victims, among who were
children, old people, and women, were starved, tortured, experimented on, and
worked to death. Many of them were executed in gas chambers or hanged.
The terrible fact is that more than 11 million people died in the Nazi
concentration camps, and more than 5 million of them were Slavs.
The largest number of the Jews that died in the concentration camps were
from Slavic states, mostly from Poland (about 3 million) and the Soviet Union
(about 1,5 million), Czechoslovakia (about 300 000), Yugoslavia (about
55 000), Bulgaria (about 7 000), these numbers refer to those whose
mother tongue was Slavic, and who whose a citizens of the Slavic states.
Of the large numbers people who died in the concentration camps, about
10 million had a citizenship of the Slavic states, and a Slavic language as
their mother tongue or their second language.
(For the statistics: about 4 863 000 Slavic Jews and about
5 000 000 other Slavic citizens died in the Nazi concentration camps
from 1939-45. The fact is, from the largest number of the Romanies
who died in the concentration camps the majority had a Slavic language as their
mother tongue.)
If we take into account how many people died in the Second World War -
about 61 million, about 47 437 000 in
Europe and abut 13,563 000 rest of the world. Among them 35 million Slavs (this
number is including about 4 863 000 Slavic Jews died in the Nazi
concentration camps, and more than 31 000 000 other Slavs or citizens
of the Slavic states, more than 2 000 000 poles died in Stalin gulags
from 1939-45) - we will see that the Slavs and the Slavic Jews suffered more
loss of life than any other people on the European continent at that time.
The most important bloodshed battles took place on the territory of the
Slavic countries, and the ugly monster of Nazism was destroyed there. Slavic
Jews and other citizens of the Slavic states took an mass
participation in the partisan troops and fought together against Nazism.
The extermination of Jews became one reason to create a new country - Israel in 1948. Jews
remember the Holocaust still today. There are many museums dedicated to the
Holocaust, exhibitions showing documents of that tragic period, and films and
books telling the suffering of the Jews. There are many political and cultural
events dedicated to the tragedy of the Jewish people taking place in nearly all
countries in the world. While the Romanies were not
able to organise themselves as an independent nation and state, we, Slavonic
people, can follow the example of the Jews. We have to remember our Slavic Holocaust.
The great anniversary - 60 years since the Victory over Nazism will be celebrated
on M a y 2005.
Slavic people played the key role in the defeat of Hitlerism
and saving the whole world from the horror of Nazism. All Slavic people and
leaders of Slavic countries must commemorate and celebrate this great day. We
should remind the world about the Slavic Holocaust, and we should bring to
people this sad and proud name
SLAVIC HOLOCAUST.
All of the world and especially we, Slavonic people, should remember
this page of our history and never forget it. More than 35 million human lives
and horrible sufferings became the price of our Slavic Holocaust and the
victory over Nazism.
Slavic Cultural Initiative reminds us of the Slavic and the Jewish
Holocausts and congratulates everyone on the Victory Day, 9 May.
And every single year on this great day we should remember our victims and tell
this truth to our grandchildren. Never forget how we suffered, fought against
and won one of the greatest challenges of the human history. At that important
moment we were together and we should be together forever against any kind of totalitarism.
This should not happen ever again.
