I think the reason there isn't as much public knowledge of the Nazis murders of non-Jewish Russians, Poles, and other Eastern Europeans is the fall of the Iron Curtain, and the quick rehabilitation of Germany as an ally.
Because Germany was our ally, Americans wanted to sweep a lot of the Holocaust under the rug, and it was Jewish scholars who kept up with the research and Jews who acted as gadflies to get western countries to prosecute former perpetrators of the Holocaust, like Simon Wiesenthal. For example, Werner von Braun never suffered one iota for using slave labor at Peenemünde, and eventually became an American hero.
East of the Iron Curtain, Soviet scholars ignored the systematic murder of Jews, Catholics, gypsies, Freemasons, etc., and concentrated on the murder of Communists, socialists and trade unionists. But here in the West, our scholars did not have access to archives behind the Iron Curtain, including those in East Germany, Poland, Rumania, Yugoslavia, Hungary, etc.
After the end of the Cold War, the research has become more unified. |
