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Are we back to Holocaust denialism? I thought we dispatched with that ahistorical anti-truth nonsense back in the early-aughts. 6 million Jews were exterminated by the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. This is a matter of fact not subject to debate.

What you are missing is that the Holocaust was not limited to Germany alone. Poland saw a Jewish death toll of over 2 million, as did the Soviet Union. Half a million died in Hungary. A quarter million died in the Baltic States and another quarter million died in Romania. In total, 20 countries fell victim to the Holocaust. And these are just the Jewish deaths. Non-Jews, such as the handicapped, gay men, POW's, Roma, and political opponents died as well. In all, it is thought the total number of deaths may be as high as 11 million.

I think you might be comparing apples to oranges – your example with the stop sign assumes I see the approaching speedy car and that I assess it is exceeding the posted speed limit and it does not look like it's slowing down for the stop sign – in that simple scenario I agree with you, it would be foolish on my part to ignore such risk factors from my perspective and judgement. There’s a lot more to understanding the Holocaust - since it involves many perspectives and how people evaluated things, and how involved others may want to get in keeping something bad from happening (speaking in reference to the international community - which I'll get into below) - so I don’t think your simple example is appropriate – but your statement “if you can see something bad is going to happen, it is in your best interest to avoid it” got me thinking of the bigger picture – and in general, ask “what were the warning signs and were they ignored?” I found this on - U.S. Holocaust Museum - “While warning signs are undoubtedly clearer in hindsight, reflecting on the events of 1938 challenges us to consider what might motivate us to respond to indicators of genocide today. History teaches us that genocide can be prevented if people care enough to act. Our choices in response to hatred truly do matter, and together we can help fulfill the promise of “Never Again.”…this page also gives a timeline of some of the early warning signs like in March of 1938 “German troops enter Austria, which is incorporated into the German Reich…German authorities quickly implement anti-Jewish legislation that encourages an atmosphere of hostility toward the Jewish population.” And on - PBS – Why Jews didn’t leave Europe - Leon Botstein is a Swiss- American Jewish conductor and scholar in an interview discussed “why Jews didn’t leave Europe, particularly Germany, after Hitler came to power in 1933. “The Nazis were not as organized as the American film industry describes them,” he says. “In the breach, segregating the Jewish population was the first order of business.” Indeed, Hitler even ordered that Jewish classical musicians be fired from their groups in the early months of 1933. However, says Botstein, most German Jews didn’t question that they would live and die in Germany. They thought Hitler was temporary or that he was so extreme that there would be a reaction against him. “There was always two Germanys,” Botstein cites, “There was the Germany of high culture…and the Germany of the beer hall and…of blood-and-soil nationalism, which eventually triumphed. Anti-Semitism or even radical anti-Semitism wasn’t a surprise to Germans at the time, even after Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass in 1938) and the outbreak of World War II in 1939, according to Botstein. “People knew things would be terrible, but no one imagined to what extent,” says Botstein.” There might have been many who thought something bad was going to happen – but as Botstein said maybe they couldn’t foresee how bad it would be or thought it might just be something short-term . And there’s another thing to consider about the early warning signs – the lack of response from the international community – in July of 1938 – “Intensified persecution in Germany led more Jews to try to emigrate, which required a nation to allow them to enter. In response to increased refugee demand, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt convened a conference in Evian, France. There, representatives from 32 nations discussed their immigration policies. Delegate after delegate expressed sympathy for the refugees, but most countries, including the United States, refused to alter their immigration policies to admit more of them. Only the Dominican Republic agreed to accept a large number of additional refugees.” (this quote is also from above link to US Holocaust Memorial Museum ). There's a lot more to this topic - I'm just offering up a couple of examples of why I don't think the simple stop sign/avoiding risk analogy is applicable. By the way, the time-frame of Wiesel’s book is when the Holocaust was already in high gear (his original manuscript was completed in 1954). Rocky, sorry this wasn’t a discussion of the book – but I thought these few historical details gave some background to Wiesel’s dire situation...I’ve never experienced such hopelessness and utter cruelty – so it’s hard for me to relate to his story – maybe that’s why Moishe had difficulty finding people who would listen to his warnings (even Wiesel says he did not believe him) – until they experienced it for themselves.

Blaming devil spirits for everything was like the Easy Button in Way World. Got cancer?...devil spirits. Depression?... devil spirits. Substance abuse?...devil spirits. . And if you don't understand something... just S.I.T. more. This need for easy answers was probably a big draw for people who were searching for meaning, myself included. But guess what, life is complex and sometimes the answers are complicated. Other times, there simply aren't any answers. Life is an endless search for answers but sometimes that's what makes the journey so exciting and rewarding. Never stop searching and questioning.

you present a false dilemma to further your opinion.

*sigh* NEVER jump IMMEDIATELY to the conclusion that something is supernatural. Examine the more common, more mundane reasons FIRST. If they don't work, then you can consider that among the possibilities Why wouldn't the Jews have taken heed and flee Germany, etc? 1) A lot of them DID. There's a few big cities in the world who got a surge of Jewish immigrants at that time. 2) Hindsight is 20/20. Honestly, how likely would you consider the idea that someone would come to power over your country, take it over, declare you and yours ILLEGAL and order everyone to round you up and then confiscate your possessions? I'm sure a number of them thought that was too crazy to happen. 3) Lots of non-Jews were rounded up, most of whom had no idea they were on the rounding-up list. I met one, once. I still don't know why he was ever rounded up, but they grabbed him, imprisoned him, and so on. Yes, he had the number tattoo. 4) Why didn't they fight on the way to the gas chambers? Be thankful you don't know why! These are people whose lives were destroyed, who were placed in a prison having never committed a crime,. starved, watched their friends executed or killed in lab experiments, and led everywhere by threat of violence. They were likely in shock as well as suffering from malnutrition. It's hard to THINK, much less FIGHT, under those conditions. Should they have just shuffled forward and gotten shot rather than walked into the chambers? Possibly. Hard to come to that conclusion under the circumstances. Then again, it's "human nature" to try to survive. They may not have understood that they were being rounded up specifically to be killed- especially since they hadn't been killed yet. I know NOTHING about their suffering. I can work it out on paper, but that's nothing compared to actually living it. I hope those were meant as honest questions and not just an attempt to Monday-morning quarterback, because I answered them with that in mind.