This year, as we mourned as we do every year, for over six million Jews who were killed in Europe, for no other reason than that they were Jews, the world (or much of it) recalled that in May sixty years ago WWII in Europe came to an end, Auschwitz was liberated.
What a fest of remembering. And with it a rewriting of history by glossing over some details, by over-emphasizing others.
And as part of that fest, many leaders of those countries involved in WWII, together with the representative of an organisation born from its ashes, Kofi Annan of the UN, came to Israel to participate in the opening of the new and expanded Yad VeShem.
Some of my readers may recall being guided by me through the Holocaust museum during their visit to Israel. If so, they will recall that, apart from the factual details, there are three points I have always tried to make, three things I firmly believe.
1) The holocaust did not happen because of one evil man – Hitler. It did not happen because of the Nazis. It did not happen because of the SS. It happened because the average German believed the Jews were sub-human. It happened because the people of all those countries occupied by the Germans, the Poles, the Ukrainians, the Estonians, the Lithuanians, the French, hated the Jews more than their occupiers and cooperated in every way with the massacre of their Jewish neighbours.
It happened because, apart from two countries which offered to take Jewish refugees, the rest of the world stood by in silence, whether before the war even started or later, when the extent of what was happening was known. It happened because the courageous righteous among the nations, who proved again and again that it was possible to save Jews, were too few to stop the tide.
2) There is a difference between the scores of millions who died during WWII, both in Europe and in Asia, whether on the Allied side or the Axis, and the six million Jews. The former were killed in the course of a war started by Germany and not prevented by timid leaders who preferred appease the dictator rather than stand up to him. The latter were deliberately hunted and killed for one reason only – because they were Jews.
As horrific as the war was, no country lost more than a tiny percent of its population. The Jewish people lost over thirty percent of its people. One out of three Jews in the entire world was killed during the Holocaust.
3) There is a message to be learnt from the Holocaust, but all those who tell us “forget about the Holocaust, it happened sixty years ago” have yet to learn it. As long as the nations of the world do not examine their part in the Holocaust, whether by acquiescence or collaboration, we will continue to close our eyes to the deeds of tyrants and to witness mankind’s indifference to the suffering of others whether in Ruanda, the Congo, the Sudan or other places in the third world. That is the unlearnt message of the Holocaust.
For me personally, I see a frightening parallel between the events then, over sixty years ago, and those of today. And I cannot convince myself that I am imagining things. Then, the Jews of the world were deligitimised and faced annihilation. Today, the State of Israel, the only place in the world where Jews are not only not the minutest minority but are an absolute majority, is being deligitimised and threatened with annihilation.
Anti-Semitism throughout the world is on the increase. It may be camouflaged as ‘legitimate criticism of Israeli politics’, be denied with the claim that anti-Zionism does not equal anti-Semitism or be shrugged off with the claim that Arabs are also Semites. It is on the increase in university campuses. It is on the increase in some Christian denominations and only partially off set by support in others. It is on the increase in counties were there are but a handful of Jews, if any. And in the Moslem world, where there is no room for increase, it has become more virulent, threatening and vicious.
Can you convince me that I am imagining it?
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And while on the subject of the rewriting of history by glossing over some details, by over-emphasizing others I have to give one example that absolutely stunned me. “The allied armies were no better than the Germans. Look how they destroyed (the German city) Dresden in bombing raids.”
Maybe that seems fair enough IF we overlook that Germany began the war, sent her planes and V1 and V2 rockets to bomb England and caused the evacuation of thousands of children to escape the continual German bombing, and destruction, of London. Can we honestly overlook such facts in the name of rapprochement and political correctness?
I can’t understand how the British allow this one pass without even a hiccup. But it explains why young prince Harry thought nothing of wearing an SS uniform to a costume party.
