Total deaths in World War II are estimated
At over 60 million, 3 percent of the world’s population.
Fifty-eight percent were deaths among civilians;
This war’s thirst for blood was almost never sated.
Highest civilian losses were in China, and the USSR,
With military deaths split between aggressors and defenders.
About 6 million Jews were killed, gassed or cremated,
And millions more non-Jews persecuted in all places. Several
Holocausts were occurring simultaneously, unabated.
“Hitler is a monster of wickedness, insatiable in his lust
For blood and plunder,” said Churchill in 1941,
“The terrible military machine … cannot stand idle lest it rust.”
Norway was occupied from 1940 onward,
The prize, democracy and government hijacked, cloistered.
June Edvenson 