Mike Palij wrote: > That is, today is the day that the European "theatre" of > World War II began with Germany's invasion of Poland. > For the NY Times coverage of the event, see: > > http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0901.html#article > or > http://tinyurl.com/6hbn23 > However, this is a "eurocentric" (tm, Michael Sylvester) view > of what is referred to as World War II (WWII).
Worse still :-), it is a "occidoeurocentric" view. In Russia, what we called "WWII" is called the "Great Patriotic War." It is often forgotten (by us) that, as bad as the War was for western Europe, the Soviet Union lost over 23 million people (about 14% of the total population). China also lost about 20 million, (the vast majority civilian deaths, about 4% of its population). Note how many other Asian countries are among those with the highest losses: Germany lost 7.3 million. Poland lost 5.6 million. Dutch East Indies (roughly modern Indonesia) 4 million. Japan 2.7 million Indian Empire (modern India/Pakistan/Burma) 1.6 million. French Indochina (modern Viet Nam/Cambodia) 1 million. Yugoslavia 1 million. By contrast, England, France, Italy, and the US, lost about a half million each. Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ "Part of respecting another person is taking the time to criticise his or her views." - Melissa Lane, in a /Guardian/ obituary for philosopher Peter Lipton ================================= --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
