The genocidal policies of the Nazis resulted in the deaths of about as many Polish Gentiles as Polish Jews, thus making them co-victims in a Forgotten Holocaust. This Holocaust has been largely ignored because historians who have written on the subject of the Holocaust have chosen to interpret the tragedy in exclusivistic terms--namely, as the most tragic period in the history of the Jewish Diaspora. To them, the Holocaust was unique to the Jews, and they therefore have had little or nothing to say about the nine million Gentiles, including three million Poles, who also perished in the greatest tragedy the world has ever known. Little wonder that many people who experienced these events share the feeling of Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz, who anxious when the meaning of the word Holocaust undergoes gradual modifications, so that the word begins to belong to the history of the Jews exclusively, as if among the victims there were not also millions of Poles, Russians, Ukrainians, and prisoners of other nationalities. -- Richard C. Lukas, preface to The Forgotten Holocaust: The Poles under German Occupation 1939-1944
The Holocaust was more than a Jewish event. Records kept by the Germans prove they exterminated millions of Communists, Czechs, Greeks, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, mentally and physically handicapped, Poles, resistance fighters, Russians, Serbs, Socialists, Spanish Republicans, trade unionists, Ukrainians, Yugoslavians, prisoners of war of many nations, and still others whose identity may never be recognized.

Their victims, according to one survivor of four different concentration camps, "were of some thirty nationalities, from Nepalese to Andorrans, and of a variety of racial and linguistic stocks ranging from Basques to Buriats and from Ladinos to Lapps". When people were not immediately exterminated, they were sent to work and/or concentration camps. There the prisoners were divided into six penal categories and given patches on their clothing for identification purposes. Ordinary criminals were assigned green; political prisoners wore red; black was worn by asocials (slackers, prostitutes, procurers, etc.); homosexuals wore pink; conscientious objectors wore purple, and the Jewish people wore yellow.

official government documents of various countries, place the death toll of people murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust as conservatively over 15 million non-combatant people. One official source estimates the number killed at 26 million. However, "with the mass graves on the eastern front, exact figures will never be known".

Ukrainians 5.5 - 7 million
Jews (of all countries) 6 million +
Russian POWs 3.3 million +
Russian Civilians 2 million +
Poles 3 million +
Yugoslavians 1.5 million +
Gypsies 200,000 - 500,000
Mentally/Physically Disabled 70,000- 250,000
Homosexuals Tens of thousands
Spanish Republicans Tens of thousands
Jehovah's Witnesses 2,500 - 5,000
Boy and Girl Scouts, Clergy, Communists, Czechs, Deportees, Greeks, Political Prisoners, Other POWs, Resistance Fighters, Serbs, Socialists, Trade Unionists, Others Unknown.

The six million figure used in the Jewish death toll is an estimate for total lives lost. These Jewish lives were taken by a number of groups, not just Nazis. The six million figure includes Jewish lives lost in other countries as well, not just Germany, and by the various modes of killing, not just camp deaths. Ukrainian deaths were due to Russian and Nazi perpetrators alike, some killed on "acquired" German soil, others killed on Russian soil, some killed outright, others slowly worked or starved to death. If Russian Jews, killed on Russian soil by both Nazis and Russians, are considered Holocaust deaths, then the Ukrainians killed alongside them should also be categorized as Holocaust deaths.

Numerous factors have contributed to the American public's perception of the Holocaust as an exclusively Jewish event. Recognizing these factors--misinformation, misrepresentation, and political agendas--should be the first step in correcting America's skewed version of Holocaust history.

The Holocaust was an event of mass prejudice and abuse of power. It entailed the murdering of many millions of people who were singled out for their differences, whether they be religious, ethnic, physical, political, social or national. Over six million Jewish people were murdered by virtue of their ethnicity and religion, while somewhere between sixteen and twenty million non-Jews were also murdered because they did not fit the homogeneous mold the Nazi regime had selected for the German nation. Consequently, the image of the Holocaust as strictly a Jewish event must be corrected. If not, millions of non-Jews will have died without a record in history, and the Holocaust will never be an accurate portrayal of the actual historical event.