Elie Wiesel Dies

[Rev. Rye]

I know responding to this jackass is like mud-wrestling a pig. It's not going to do anything to change his mind, but, as a student of this period of history (of both sides), I simply cannot let these points go unanswered.

If Elie was in a Nazi concentration camp why did he survive?  After all, the fairy tale claims that the Nazis killed 6 million in them so why did they spare so many?

From what I understand, this is a question with a very complex answer. To simplify a remarkably complex facet of history, The Nazis talked a good game about destroying the Jews, but, privately, they weren't entirely sure about what to do about them, with no less a figure than Goebbels having initial misgivings about the whole enterprise. Eventually they settled on the camps in 1941. And if you want to know why they kept some alive, here's the thing: First, it's actually pretty difficult to actually pull the whole enterprise off, especially if you want to keep it a secret, which they did; there's a war on, and making it public knowledge to potential allies that, if victorious, we'll see more of this shit is very likely to alienate any potential allies. The crematoria, as vast as they were, only had a fairly finite capacity, only able to destroy 5700 bodies per day. Meanwhile, you can use the ones who haven't died yet for slave labor. The more physically strong ones coming in were more likely to survive the war. And, of course, I would be remiss in my information if I failed to note that, if the war had gone on for a few more months, there would be far fewer survivors.

Also, it's only six million if you don't count the goyim. Counting all the Polish christians, Communists, Soviet civilians and POWs, gays, and other undesirables, it's 11 million at least. And if you count people who got into summary executions before they ever saw the inside of a concentration camp, it's almost certainly higher.

 Were they collaborators?

Sadly, there were. No, Elie wasn't one of them, and no, it doesn't even come close to explaining how all the survivors wound up surviving.

 The guy made it through without getting a scratch and he spent the rest of his life yakking about how bad he had it.

Um, I wouldn't exactly call being deprived of food (and oftentimes, water) for little over a year, having your father killed, having people all around you dropping like flies and knowing full well that only either the grace of God or sheer dumb luck separates you from them, "making it through without a scratch." Then again, I'm not the jackass here.