Mageth

For an interesting treatment on Holocaust deniers, pick up a copy of Michael Shermer's Why People Believe Weird Things.

paul30

The Holocaust most definitely happened.

But we should not forget that greater, if slower Holocause: the Native Americans. When Columbus came, there were 16 million.

Within a hundred years there were fewer than 6 million.

Jimmy Higgins

Holocause denial is up there with thinking the moon is made of cheese. There are some people in this world who are full of hate, they'll believe anything.

That the holocaust happened is a crime, that people deny it happened is a tragedy!

Loren Pechtel

Well, we seem to have two such so far.

John Hancock

I'd guessed the first who's on second Loren?

Martin

Jat

Actually, when Columbus "discovered" America there were around a total of 80 million people already living in the New World.

BTW, Columbus never actually set foot on the mainland.

Mageth

Where'd you get the "80 million" number? I've never heard estimates that high.

elwoodblues

Seems high, but not outrageously so. If you consider the "New World" as North, South and Central America.

However, before we all start calling Columbus a Nazi, remember that the vast majority of those deaths were due to disease and the native population having little resistance to certain diseases. The Holocaust of Europe in the 1940's was a horse of an entirely different color.

Shake

Perhaps Jat is counting for both continents in the western hemisphere. South America was just as much the "new world" as North America, after all.

But I agree, that number still seems a bit high.

Oh, and as for paul30's comment:Not to lessen the atrocities committed by (some) European settlers (read: conquerers), many Native Americans were killed by the new diseases which the Europeans brought with them.

Jat

The New World is North, Central, and South America. The lands here were hardly empty, they were just not exploited as Europeans think land should be used.

I got it from watching documentraries about the history of the "New World" on such channels of Discovery (Canadian), TLC, and A&E.