I have been hesitant about writing this article and have been putting it off for the better part of a year now because I know what sort of a reaction it is going to get from the general population.

Having listened to historical accounts of past war atrocities for the better part of my life I gradually came to suspect that some of the stories floating around were being exaggerated a bit depending on just who it was that was doing the telling.

I should start off by saying that I call this theory my “Factor of Ten” rule!

NOTE: This article means to suggest that misdeeds by the winners of any conflict are minimized by UP TO a factor of ten and atrocities by the losers exaggerated by UP TO a factor of ten. Just to clear up any confusion...I did not mean to imply that it was always by that amount! Allan Janssen

We could get into all sorts of debates and facts and charts and graphs and quotes and claims and proclamations about historical “facts,” but when everything is reduced to the bottom line it seems that any atrocity or bad deed perpetrated by the victors is diminished by a factor of “TEN” while anything naughty done by the losers is exaggerated by a factor of “TEN!”

(I’m sure everyone one has heard of, and will agree with the old expression; “History is written by the victors.”)

I am going to give you some historical examples of this “Factor of ten” rule and urge you to give it a fair and comprehensive test to check it’s validity.

Why not start with every bodies favorite whipping boy, Christianity! And what have we got against Christianity, you may ask?

Why, The Inquisition!

From the mid 1400’s c.e. till the mid 1700’s c.e. the Church claimed to have killed 50,000 to 100,000 heretics and witches, while the actual count was in the half a million to one million mark! (Factor of Ten)

From 1500 c.e. till now the Western countries will tell you that millions of Aboriginals (Indians) were killed when the real figure is in the TENS of millions!

(This includes a million Aboriginals in Australia who had been peacefully living there for the past 50,000 years!)

From 1885 to the 1900’s the Belgian Congo lost an official million people to genocide while the actual figure was about 10 million.

Starting in 1915 in Turkey, the government exterminated an official 150,000 Armenians while outside sources put the casualties at more like one and a half million! (1,500,000)

From 1920 to 1950 the Russian government claimed they lost 2 million people when the Communist government systematically exterminated millions of its citizens.

Some died from being worked to death in the camps of the gulag additional methods such as: terrorizing the public by random executions, purges, show trials, and artificially induced famines.

The death toll was eventually established at around 20 million, not 2 million!

In 1937 during the war between Japan and China, the Japanese invading army launched a massive attack on the city of Nanking - then the capital of China.

Three days later, the Chinese defense forces retreated across the Yangtze River.

Then began a Japanese orgy of looting and mass execution where Japan claimed that 50,000 people were killed, but the actual figure was closer to 500,000. (Including 50,000 women who were also raped.)

(At this point, I need to point out that although I am a Canadian, I was born German and have had quite a few conversations with my relatives about what happened there during the Second World War, and this is what got me started down this whole road in the first place!)

I am talking about things that are done during wartime that no one wants to acknowledge and would rather forget about. But none the less they are historical facts and have to be looked at.

Especially if the facts are played lose and fast to hide guilt or remorse.

Most of these events you will likely agree with, or at least put in the realm of possibility, and one might cause quite a bit of outrage.

But, they must all be put under a microscope and seen for what they are!

Let’s begin with Dresden in the second world war.

Before we go any further, most of my information was supplied by my great grandfather who was witness to most of the major events of the first half of the twentieth century!

(And by the way, he absolutely HATED the NAZI’S so don’t think there was any biased reporting on his part!)

We will start with Dresden.

Dresden was a university town with absolutely no military significance whatsoever and towards the end of the war it became a refugee camp for between one half to three quarters of a million women and children fleeing the advancing Russian army.

There were no real concentrations of German troops in the city except what was needed to keep the women and kids moving westward.

(Everyone knew that the war was lost and millions of people were attempting to stay ahead of the Russians so that they could surrender to they Allies - Britain, U.S. Canada.)

Exactly fifty three years ago TODAY, the firebombing of Dresden was in full swing and I will let this article from Wikipedia tell the modern version of what happened!

The Bombing of Dresden by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) and United States Army Air Force (USAAF) between 13 February and 15 February 1945, 12 weeks before the surrender of the Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) of Nazi Germany, remains one of the most controversial Allied actions of the Second World War.

The raids saw 1,300 heavy bombers drop over 3,900 tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices in four raids, destroying 13 square miles (34 km2) of the city, the baroque capital of the German state of Saxony, and then causing a firestorm that consumed the entire city.

Estimates of civilian casualties vary greatly, but recent publications place the figure between 40,000 and 50,000.
The fact of the matter is folks, that shortly after the war the figure was placed at about a half a million women and children refugees (500,000+) who were incinerated in the firestorm, but that figure has been steadily revised downwards over the years.

Why it was revised could be due to many factors but one of the most compelling would be a sense of guilt over what was done.

Be that as it may, it was a long time ago and for better or worse, it is over and done with and we should move on. I only bring it up because this is by far not the only atrocity that has been distorted by the hands of time.

Just as the casualties of Dresden were minimized by a factor of ten, so were the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the Pacific campaign of the second world war. (AND BY THE WAY KIDS, BOMBING JAPAN WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS WAS NOT EVEN NECESSARY. THE WAR WAS ALREADY WON AND JAPAN WAS DRAFTING A PEACE TREATY... BUT THE U.S. NEEDED TO TEST THEIR BOMBS SO...!)

Initial reports of the first bomb dropped on Hiroshima put the death toll at about fifty thousand, although to the credit of the U.S. this was later revised to 80- 100,000 people killed.

The reality of the matter was that on top of the casualties from the bomb itself, over half a million (500,000) perished from the firestorms that came after.

Once again the “Factor of Ten” comes into play!

Now, if we stick to the same general time period and look a bit further to the East, the root cause of the Holodomor (Genocide of The Ukraine) is a subject of scholarly debate.

Some scholars have argued that the Soviet policies that caused the famine may have been designed as an attack on the rise of Ukrainian nationalism, and therefore fall under the legal definition of genocide.

Others, however, conclude that the Holodomor was a consequence of the economic problems associated with radical economic changes implemented during the period of Soviet industrialization.

But, since last year, (March 2008) the parliament of Ukraine and many governments of other countries have recognized the actions of the Soviet government as an act of genocide.

Whatever you want to call it, this extinction was originally pegged at about 250,000 to half a million people by the Russians but further study brought out a figure of 2-5 million people. (Once again the “Factor of Ten” rule!)

Now, my friends, we come to the part that is going to cause a lot of trouble and outrage, and yet to be true to myself I have to present what I believe, and let the dice fall where they may.

The subject that I have been agonizing over is the “Holocaust!”

That’s right kids, that “big bad bogey man” that just won’t go away as long as there is still one living breathing Jew walking around on this planet!

You see, that’s where the German’s made one of their biggest mistakes. They took on a group OF PEOPLE WHO developed the where-with-all to fight back!

And you can bet that the Jews ain’t gonna let anyone forget what was done to them!

No sir!

And why,you ask? That’s easy, because they now have the economic might, coupled with a long memory, and they are going to take this and USE IT! (And remember bunky, revenge is sweet so who can blame them!)

The “fact” of the Holocaust has never been an issue for me, but I feel that this (”Factor of Ten”) rule should be applied here as well, and this is where we might have a few problems!

This mass genocide perpetrated by Germany during World War 11 has been called the Shoah in Hebrew, the Holocaust in English, and the Devouring among the Roma.(Gypsies)

According to popular lore some 10 million people were first declared sub-human and then murdered.

Some were killed when the towns and cities in which they lived were captured by German troops.

Others were rounded up, and transported to extermination camps, where the gas ovens waited.

Jews: Officially about 6 million were killed, mostly in death camps. Hitler’s stated goal was to completely clear all Europe of Jews.

Poles: They said that about 3 million were killed.

Then about a million Gypsies, Homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and disabled persons. (Germans who were crippled or mentally ill.)

O.K. Pay attention now. According to official estimates that should total about 10 million, but I learned something different growing up German and hearing first hand accounts from friends and relatives.

First of all the part about the crippled and mentally ill. WRONG, Germany had a welfare state and people with severe physical or mental problems were sheltered and taken care of in State run hospitals. They were considered the most vulnerable part of the population and had to be sheltered. Not killed in death camps.

Got that!

There was no official policy on Gypsies, Homosexuals or Jehovah’s Witnesses and outside of any personal feelings or discrimination, they were left alone.

Here comes the big one! The Jews and the Poles.

Did the Holocaust happen? OF COURSE IT DID!

Was it exaggerated by the winners? Of course it was!

Sorry to say it Folks, but I have to believe my Great Grandfather, (Who hated the Nazi’s) when he told me straight out that “there weren’t anywhere near 6 million Jews in all of Europe before the war, and it would have been impossible to gas that many in the time they had anyway!”

Taking in the “factor of Ten” rule and other information I have dug up, I can make a rough guess that there were about 500,000 to 600,000 thousand Jews killed, a quarter of a million Poles, and a bunch of criminals and low-life’s as well, since Germany was very “law and order” at the time!

That’s about a million people killed ..., or 999,999 too many!

Now please, do not call me a Holocaust denier because that is far from the truth.

The only claim I make here is that in this case the winners have once again employed the “Factor of Ten” rule!

Allan W Janssen is the author of the book The Plain Truth About God (What the mainstream religions don’t want you to know!) and is available as an E-Book H E R E ! and as a paperback H E R E !

Visit the blog “Perspective” at Allans-perspective.