On 11 November, 1918, the guns fell silent on what had been the bloodiest war in human history. From November 1919 until today the moment that the guns stopped, on the 11th hour, has been the moment for everyone to stop and remember the cost in human lives, and to vow, ‘Never again!’ The horrors experienced led those who had experienced it to hope that by remembering the cost, it would have been ‘a war to end all wars’.
Some 16 million people died, and another 21 million were wounded, in that war—37 million people. In the destruction, nearly 7 million civilians were killed. (Information on casualties for WWI and WWII is taken from http://en.wikipedia.org)
The remembering did not have its desired effect then, as perhaps even now. Only thirty years later the Second World War began. No one knows just how many died—estimates vary between 50 and 78 million, perhaps up to 52 million of them civilians.
[How can we fathom such numbers of dead? We have become numbed to the deaths of others. An American study recently reported that ‘the average child will watch 8,000 murders on TV before finishing elementary school. By age eighteen, the average American has seen 200,000 acts of violence on TV, including 40,000 murders.’ British viewing figures may be lower, but Britain is the gaming capital of the world, and games such as Grand Theft Auto and Modern Warfare probably make the American number of simulated deaths witnessed pale into insignificance beside the more exciting prospect of killing virtual people in true Rambo fashion.]
How can we gain perspective on how many real people died? Imagine the entire population of the UK being wiped out over the period of six years. (more)
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