The Holocaust and genocide
How many Jews were killed in the Holocaust?
The standard answer is about 6 million.
But 6 million is an estimate.
And an estimate is an invitation to question it.
I think the number may be high. I could be wrong. That does not mean I think the Holocaust did not happen. It means I do not understand why a historical estimate should suddenly become immune from the ordinary question:
How was it calculated?
Auschwitz is a spectacular example.
For decades, 4 million was the official number associated with deaths at Auschwitz. That estimate was abandoned. The replacement monument says about 1.5 million people were murdered there, “mainly Jews,” while current scholarship estimates roughly 1.1 million deaths.
The official number went from:
- 4 million
- 1.5 million on the replacement monument
- roughly 1.1 million in current scholarship
No, that does not mean you subtract 2.9 million from 6 million and announce on Facebook that you solved the Holocaust.
The overall estimate was never simply “Auschwitz plus everybody else.”
It means historical death totals are estimates.
Estimates change.
Sometimes they change by millions.
So why does asking how the 6 million estimate was calculated sometimes get treated like you showed up to Thanksgiving in an SS uniform?
Questioning an estimate is not the same thing as denying the event.
Then there is the American memorial question.
America obviously has countless memorials to its own wars and soldiers.
Town monuments. Battlefields. Military museums. Cemeteries. The Vietnam Memorial. The World War II Memorial. The Korean War Memorial. Plenty more.
You would expect a country to memorialize its own wars.
What is more unusual is that the United States also built an entire civic infrastructure around a genocide committed primarily in Europe.
And the chronology matters.
The timeline
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1945 | World War II ends. |
| 1961 | Holocaust Museum LA traces its origins to survivors organizing that year. The Eichmann trial also begins. |
| 1964 | Philadelphia gets one of the earliest public Holocaust monuments in the United States. |
| 1978 | NBC airs Holocaust to an enormous American audience (museum history). President Jimmy Carter creates the President’s Commission on the Holocaust. |
| 1979 | The first national Days of Remembrance ceremony is held at the U.S. Capitol. |
| 1980 | Congress creates the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. |
| 1993 | The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum opens in Washington, almost 50 years after the war. |
| 2009 | The Illinois Holocaust Museum opens its large permanent facility. |
| 2010 | Holocaust Museum LA opens its purpose-built permanent home. |
| 2013 | Iowa installs a Holocaust memorial on its State Capitol grounds. |
| 2014 | Ohio dedicates a Holocaust memorial at its Statehouse. |
| 2016 | Florida creates a Holocaust memorial at its Capitol by law. |
| 2020 | Congress passes the Never Again Education Act. |
| 2025 | Florida finally unveils its Capitol Holocaust memorial. |
| 2026 | A federal GAO review finds 42 states plus Washington, D.C., require Holocaust education through state law or academic standards. |
The interesting question is not:
Do Americans remember the Holocaust?
Of course they do.
The interesting question is why the infrastructure for remembering it became larger, more governmental and more deeply embedded in American civic education as we moved farther away from 1945.
Historians have argued about that for decades.
And what is the stated justification for all this?
Education.
Remember what happened.
Recognize the warning signs.
Prevent genocide.
Never Again.
In 2020 Congress actually passed something called the Never Again Education Act.
The law says Holocaust education should help people understand the use and abuse of power and raise awareness about:
It also says that, 75 years after World War II, with eyewitnesses disappearing, it had become important to institutionalize Holocaust education.
That is not me putting words in anybody’s mouth.
That is Congress explaining why the law exists.
Sounds like an excellent reason to teach it.
There is just one uncomfortable problem.
Here we are.
Israel now faces a serious accusation that it is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
And before somebody’s head explodes:
I said Israel.
I did not say Jews.
Jews collectively are no more responsible for the Israeli government than every American is personally responsible for every bomb dropped by Washington.
But the historical irony is difficult to ignore.
We spent decades building Holocaust education around “Never Again.”
Now the State of Israel, founded in 1948 in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust and a country where Holocaust memory understandably occupies an enormous place in national identity, is itself accused of genocide.
Not by some idiot posting memes online.
In September 2025, a U.N. Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israeli authorities and security forces had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
It found four of the five genocidal acts listed in the Genocide Convention:
- killing members of the group
- causing serious bodily or mental harm
- deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s destruction in whole or in part
- imposing measures intended to prevent births
It also concluded that genocidal intent could be established from Israeli conduct and statements by officials.
Israel rejects that conclusion.
And the International Court of Justice has not issued a final judgment finding Israel responsible for genocide.
Fine.
Genocide is difficult to prove because killing huge numbers of civilians is not enough by itself.
You also have to establish the specific intent to destroy a protected group, in whole or in part.
Suppose Israel eventually wins that argument.
Now what?
Because the alternative is not necessarily:
“Nothing illegal happened. Everybody go home.”
The International Criminal Court has already issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant after finding reasonable grounds for alleged crimes including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and crimes against humanity including murder, persecution and other inhumane acts.
The ICC also found reasonable grounds regarding intentionally directing attacks against civilians.
Those are allegations supported by a judicial reasonable-grounds finding, not convictions.
Perhaps genocide ultimately cannot be proved.
Then we may merely be talking about:
- starvation of civilians
- persecution
- murder
- attacks on civilians
- war crimes
- crimes against humanity
Quite a consolation prize.
Put that on the tourism brochure.
And look at the evidence driving the genocide argument:
- mass civilian death and injury
- large-scale destruction of homes
- repeated displacement
- restrictions on food, water, fuel and medicine
- destruction and collapse of civilian infrastructure
- warnings about starvation and humanitarian catastrophe
- statements by political and military officials cited as evidence of intent
At some point, when you are repeatedly warned what your policies are doing to civilians and continue them anyway, “We didn’t mean that” becomes less persuasive.
Then there is Oct. 7.
Hamas murdered civilians and took hostages.
Those were atrocities.
Hamas war crimes remain war crimes.
They also do not create a coupon redeemable for:
one free genocide
one free starvation campaign
or
one free collective punishment
That is the whole point of international humanitarian law.
The rules are supposed to apply even when your enemy is horrible.
Otherwise they are not rules.
Which brings us back to Never Again.
We built museums.
We built monuments.
We put Holocaust memorials on government grounds.
We created federal institutions.
We passed education laws.
We sent generations of children through exhibits about what happens when populations are dehumanized, displaced, deprived of basic necessities and killed while everyone else finds reasons not to intervene.
The whole justification was that studying the past helps stop it from happening again.
Congress literally said Holocaust education should promote:
“genocide prevention today.”
Great.
Then this is the test.
“Never Again” cannot mean:
- Never Again, unless we like the government accused of doing it.
- Never Again, unless their enemy committed atrocities first.
- Never Again, subject to geopolitical alliances.
If Holocaust education really is about preventing genocide, its value is not demonstrated by recognizing the Holocaust 80 years later.
That is the easy test.
The hard test is recognizing warning signs while something is happening, especially when the accused government is an ally and admitting it is politically uncomfortable.
Five years after Congress passed the Never Again Education Act, a U.N. commission concluded that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
If “Never Again” education cannot even be seriously applied to an ally while the killing is happening, what exactly was all the education for?
Maybe Israel ultimately is found not to have committed genocide.
Entirely possible.
Then apply the same definition, examine the same evidence and let the conclusion follow.
What evidence would convince you Israel is committing genocide?
More revealingly:
What evidence could convince you?
Because if the answer is “nothing,” you are not evaluating evidence.
You picked your team before the game started.
If your definition of genocide changes according to which flag is flying over the bombs, you do not have a definition.
You have a favorite team.
And if “Never Again” suddenly develops exceptions exactly when applying it becomes uncomfortable, maybe it was never much of a principle.
Apparently genocide has terms and conditions now.