If you ask me why, at least in the US, there's so much attention paid to Jewish victims of the Holocaust, then the answer I'll give is that the Germans killed far more Jews, but also did so more deliberately and carefully, thus supporting that narrative.
I didn't go to US public school --- I went to Catholic school --- but we were always taught about the other victims of the Holocaust. At 12 I'd have told you the Nazis targeted not just Jewish people but also "gypsies", gay people, and communists. We were, for instance, taught about Maximilian Kolbe, a name I remember principally from the story I was taught in grade school.
See, the thing is, since Polish Jews were part of the country, were scientists, doctors, blacksmiths, or just regular farmers they were also killed by these bombings, and other forms of killings. The other side of the equation is that these people who died in the concentration camps were mostly Polish citizens. They count towards "polish losses". It's unfair to separate people simply because of their religion, and make it look like being killed by Zyklon B is so much worse than being torn apart by a bomb.
It's just sad that we even have discussion on this and that some people still think that one for of killing is "better" or "worse" than the other (and I'm not saying that you think that, but other commenters in this whole thread did.)
What my problem with this whole discussion is that people keep talking about as Jews as a totally separate group from all of the victims. They don't talk about {Polish| Russian| French |Other } citizens being killed in extermination camps. Yes, a lot of them were ethnic Jews. But a lot of these ethnic Jews did not thing about themselves as Jews, as they were being shipped of by the trains to Auschwitz. They were in their minds Russians, French, even Germans. But for some reasons these people were "separated" by some people to show how much more their group suffered. And then they claim that other groups just died "because of bombings" or in "work camps" as if this was so much better way to die.
To me it's infuriating that we talk about just one specific group that died, while ignoring the rest. And even more infuriating is suggesting that these others that died don't count as much simply because there were fewer of them or they were not from the "right group".
> But a lot of these ethnic Jews did not thing about themselves as Jews, as they were being shipped of by the trains to Auschwitz.
I don't know how you can say that especially bearing in mind the Nuremberg laws defined as someone with 3 or more Jewish grandparents. If you're that strongly Jewish by race, you're very unlikely not to have that as part of your core identity. And in any event, you're not addressing tptakec response to you with this.
> But for some reasons these people were "separated" by some people to show how much more their group suffered.
You may not have fully intended it, but that sentence comes across very poorly.
> To me it's infuriating that we talk about just one specific group that died, while ignoring the rest.
I don't know anyone that talks just about the Jews (you mean jews, right?) that died (were exterminated) and ignores the rest. It is an acknowledged fact that Jews suffered extermination disproportionate to any other race or nationality (90% of the 3 million Polish Jews, for instance). The only other group that's comparable when using the term Holocaust is the Romani (who's true numbers is still hard to hard estimate) who are mentioned (along with gays, the disabled etc.) in every reasonable discourse.
If there's one tiny thing we all can contribute to a discussion like this, it's not to let that happen.
These Polish Jews were as much citizens of the country are all other minorities. They were part of Poland for close to 600 years. Poland lost 20% of population during WW2. The fact that half of the lost population were of a different religion does not make them any less Polish.