Editor, Times-Union: My hobby is tiptoeing through minefields. It’s tough but someone has to do it. I see the Holocaust business is riding high, not only on TV but now in elementary schools.
Let’s start with the fact that at least 55,000,000 people died in World War II, over 250,000 of them U.S. military, 57,000 in Vietnam, 50,000 in Korea and millions more in World War I. Just to refresh your memory, all wars breed mass killing and genocide; and as Marine Corp General Smedley Butler put it: “War is a racket.”
I am told that back then it took over 6 hours to cremate a body, with bone fragments left behind. One crematorium would take 36 million hours to do the 6,000,000 job, not counting re-coring every now and then. With 100 crematoria that would be 360,000 hours, 15,000 days, over 41 years. I don’t recall seeing even 50 ovens. But even with 200 ovens it comes out to over 20 years. The war only lasted five or six years.
Another thing that bothers me is that the average weight of a body even after cremation is from 4 to 6 pounds, or 3.5 percent of the body weight. Let’s take the 4-pound figure. That appears to be 24 million pounds of ashes and bones, or 12,000 tons. Where do you totally hide 12,000 tons of ash and crushed bones? Now I will stand by for the sky to fall.
