also political prisoners, religious leaders and the mentally or physically handicapped. It's often underplayed how broadly the Nazis set their targets - they really were attempting to exterminate anyone and everyone who wasn't part of their "master race" ideology.
"Say those close to the late Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, its progenitor, it is a number that was intended to increase sympathy for Jewish suffering but which now is more often used to obscure it."
so what is the real number of non-Jewish victims? Or at least, the number we know about?
The holocaust was about the Nazis reshaping German society in their image - justified by arguments of German supremacy. There's no denying that they held Jews in a category of their own, as Nazi propaganda painted them in all manner of horrible depictions and tried to blame them for the loss of the first World War, the collapse of the German economy and so many other things. But it seems inaccurate to deny either the victimisation of other demographic groups, or to deny that Jews were the primary target.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/27/holocaust-non-jewis...