Is undue emphasis given to the Jews killed in the Holocaust?

[Mechaman]

No emphasis on what happened to Jews during the Holocaust can be considered excessive. The level of barbarity that was reached here is impossible to overstate.

If any, the point is that we don't emphasize enough on the other victims of holocaust.

I agree with this post 1001%.

I mentioned this probably a thousand times on this board, but I took Holocaust Studies in my Senior year of high school.  The amount of persecution against groups considered "others" even before the Holocaust was insane.  Hell, as early as 1933 and 1934 groups like Homosexuals and Communists and even fellow Nazis were thrown in concentration camps and either exterminated or worked to death.
I would argue that, in light of facts like that, the common perception of the Holocaust existing only between 1938-1945 is false.  And, this sounds controversial, but that some groups, specifically immediate political threats to Hitler, were targeted with more urgency than the Jews.  Why?  Because if those political opponents had lived, people might've wised up to what was going on around them.
But I'm getting sidetracked here.
The biggest problem I see is that not enough of the history is being taught, not too much of it.  The point of the Holocaust isn't to teach people to be uber respectful of Jews because they were persecuted, but that the most horrible of oppressive regimes sneaks up on our asses subtly.  Not because people are stupid and/or naive (they most definitely are), but because government as a force of coercion and propaganda, works best at the process of gradual elimination of political opponents and undesirables.  This is why Adolf Hitler was so successful at implementing a system of war and death over a continent with God knows how many people killed whereas the genius Pol Pot's revolution of insane death killing managed only 2 million or so in a small ass country that alarmed even Vietnam.
Damn it, I really am going off on a tangent now.  I should stop.

Point: Antonio V is right.  Not nearly enough about the totality of the Holocaust is being taught to the youngers.  We should emphasize that if we hope to avoid repeating history.

Could the United States of America be in danger of repeating this unfortunate scenario?

God I hope not.

[Mechaman]

Who would we be rounding up and gassing?  Mexicans?  I know you were just spitballing, but the idea that the US could or would mirror what the Nazis did is absurd.

It sounds absurd now, but a lot of Germans in 1902 probably thought the possibility of their government killing millions a few decades from then probably thought the same thing.

The point isn't to make an alarmist statement, but that we should take what we have learnt from history and always be alert about what our government is doing.  Because if we get too apathetic, if we get too removed from what is happening, if our senses become to weak..........something horrible can happen.

The fact that millions of Americans are outraged by policies like the Patriot Act and various other violations of privacy makes me feel confident that we have learnt from history and we are alert about what our government is doing.  The recent stall of the SOPA (or whatever the hell it's called) by the pressure of millions of Americans and the internet organizations that thrive off of free speech and commerce makes me feel confident that nothing as bad as the Holocaust could happen here.

I for one wouldn't do what Germany has done in regard to the Holocaust (although it has shown results), but we need to at least need to educate the next generations about the horror of the Holocaust and how complacency of the populace made it possible.  There were a few, very true, Germans who stood up to their government in the time of wrong.  These people died opposing their own national government in the hopes that their examples would live on beyond the grave.

I must say, their examples most definitely have.