As the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, I have articulated on many an occasion and have initiated many programs on the basis of the idea that the Holocaust should teach us profound lessons about hate in general. ADL has a variety of programs, for the FBI, the CIA, local law enforcement, teachers and students that embody these messages about what we need to learn about the horrors that took place in Europe before and during World War II.
As we commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, that infamous meeting where the Nazis formally adopted the "Final Solution" and put it into practice as state policy, however, it is a moment to focus on what was unique about the Holocaust amid the other atrocities and genocides of the modern era.
Wannsee, convened by SS leader Reinhard Heydrich on January 20, 1942 in an affluent Berlin suburb, was all about a modern state in one of the most civilized nations on earth committing itself to the systematic destruction of another people.
It is unique not only because of the decision itself but because of all the elements that it entailed. The Jews were defined in such a way that people who never considered themselves Jewish were taken away to the camps because they had Jewish blood in them. This racial component was taken to lengths that were unprecedented.
The Jews of Europe were not involved in any war against the Germans. They were unarmed civilians who lived in countries on both sides of the conflict but none of that mattered.
The Jews of Germany, the first victims, were loyal citizens of their country, not engaged in any illegal or violent actions against their homeland.
How did it come to pass that a state could make a willful decision to murder millions of innocent people in a planned way?
It could not have happened without centuries of anti-Semitism deeply embedded in the culture of Europe.
The ideas about Jews that set the stage for the Holocaust were around forever. In the minds of Jew-haters throughout the centuries -- and it was not easy growing up in Europe throughout the years to avoid some sort of prejudice toward Jews -- the Jew was not merely someone to dislike, but someone to fear.
On its face, this was absurd since Jews had no armies, no power to speak of, and lived second-class lives at best. But the notions about the Jew were in the realm of fantasy, bearing no connection to reality.
So the Jews were responsible for the death of Christ, even though the Romans were the power and the users of crucifixions.
So the Jews were accused of murdering Christian children to use their blood for ritual purposes though there was nothing in Jewish law or practice remotely resembling that idea.
So the Jews were accused of poisoning the wells and causing the Black Plague though there was not a single case where this was shown to be true.
And in modern times, the fabricated document known as "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," allegedly the plan of Jews to take over the world, had zero connection to the real life of Jews in Europe and elsewhere.
What all these ideas had in common was not only how deeply they were believed by many, but that they shared a common insidious theme: that the reality about the Jew is not what it seems, apparent powerlessness hid sinister and powerful intentions and capabilities that were a threat to all.
The history of anti-Semitism in Europe, a pervasive phenomenon, was therefore necessary for what later transpired, but not sufficient.
What changed was the Nazi racial ideology, which brought to a halt the safety valves that constrained most extreme cases of violent Jew hatred.
One of those constraints was the possibility of Jewish conversion to Christianity. While most Jews had no interest in converting, the very fact that Jews could become someone else stood in the way of regular mass killings of Jews.
So too was the idea that Jewish survival in a despised condition was important as testimony to the truth of Christ. As obnoxious at it was, this notion of Jews as living testament to the truth of Christianity generally inhibited the most extreme solutions for the so-called "Jewish problem."
The Nazi racial ideology closed off all escape routes. The Jewish threat to society was now described as permanent and impossible to live with. And so came about the horrible and seemingly inevitable conclusion to such phantasmagoric assumptions, the Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution.
As we commemorate that momentous event, we must learn once again the lessons for all of the power of hate. At the same time, we must remember that the Holocaust was a unique tragedy that did not come out of nowhere.
The sad reality is that Wanasee was not the beginning of the Final Solution. The Final Solution was already part of state policy of the Nazi regime by the time of the meeting in Berlin. And many Europeans took part in it, turned against their neighbors, former teachers, doctors that looked after their children.
Remember America never had any war on its soil at all duringthe war, as Neither Pearl Harbor or the Phillipnnies was part of the United States. I shutter to think of what would have happened to those people had we actually seen the kind of stuff the rest of the world saw. Would we have killed them all? Its hard to say, but we certainly would not have let them go.
google:
"andre bauer stray animals"
"debate cheer uninsured"
"debate cheer death panels"
"cain blame poor"
"gingrich janitor"
"broun who will shoot"
...that's how.
I'm not so sure.
For those of you who want to understand more, please read in order:
"The Authoritarians" by Bob Altemeyer
"The Coming of the Third Reich" by Richard Evans
"Conservatives without Conscience" by John Dean (Nixon's WH Counsel)
"Broken Government' by John Dean
(..and if THAT doesn't curdle your blood, you may be a Zombie. Or a fascist.)
Now, in that context, just look at who is running for President...
We can avoid repeating past mistakes, but we must decide. 2012 is a big start in that process.
However, I do wish that the ADL would have a louder voice when there's similar attitudes and prejudices facing Muslims in the US. People used to say the same things about us, did they not? So we should be the first in line to stand up against hatred and prejudice (including the mosque in NYC).
That Aryan’s who deem themselves to be the chosen race, are not a million miles away from Israelis who are similarly persuaded? Except maybe, for the number of calamitous pratfalls it takes. To disavow any race so inclined, of such delusion.
"the systematic destruction of another people."
I have seen settlers interviewed. Who expressed views that would not have disgraced those possessed by storm troopers. When challenged to explain the rationale behind their understanding they were cowed, and refused to continue to converse. Obviously aware of the contradictions that could be revealed. The danger lies not in who humans are, but rather in what they are. Any being conditioned not to think or question for them self. Since this can result in a state that functions as a state within a state. Effectively subverting any notion of democracy. Whereby a few determine policies for the majority by virtue of some non-demonstrable greater power.
Recall the Milgram experiments (or google it)...
About 8 years ago, I had the intense privilege of visiting the National Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. Even though I am an amateur historian, I learned much new about the origins of anti-semitism there. I was impressed with the conscious and gracious presentations I was introduced to there. The opportunity to present the Nazi persecution and indeed much of Europe as inherently anti Semitic and indict them as inherently evil was rejected in favor of presenting reasoned and rational reasons why the hatred of difference (in those case, Jews) rose to such horrific proportions during that stage of history. To such heights that I could envision even reasonable people like myself to have possibly fallen into concordance with such state sponsored hatred. Instead of hating Nazis in retaliation, as I would expect most people of a persecuted culture to react with, the exhibition was one of saddened enlightment of how any country could indeed fall prey to inherent human distrust of "different". The experience has created understanding instead of raw emotional response
If we are to learn anything from the Jewish compassion in their respectful reaction and response to their shared torture, I hope it is to understand that within each of us, at least initially, lies a negative emotional response to difference that is rooted in a feeling of perceived threat. To achieve a hopeful and more peaceful future world I think each of us might be best served by vocalizing such authentic threatening feelings (as Juan Williams from NPR did) and learning how to disarm those feelings without acting on the perception that elimination of difference is our only ultimate solution.
After all, we, mankind, have evolved (albeit at glacial speed) to where we less frequently crucify "the different."
Martin Luther King Jr.
Free Palestine!
Free America!
1. Civilized peoples may not be any kinder than savages, but they do like their legalities. If you are going to torture and murder - better make it legal.
2. Civilized peoples can be persuaded by silver-tongued demagogues, too. It's not just the preserve of the ignorant nose-pickers out there.
3. When civilized peoples decide to destroy others, they like to do it in an organized manner and file the paperwork neatly.
4. Civilized peoples like to think they are in a "war" against the others, defending themselves, their culture and (of course) their dear, little kiddies - "genocide" sounds so ... judgmental.
5. Anyone can be led to hate another if they don't employ a healthy dose of scepticism about the motives of the wild-eyed ranters pointing the accusing finger. And in tough financial times, there is ALWAYS someone ranting on about the "others" among us.
There's a moral in there somewhere for us all ...
In response to (1)(2), recall (or google) the Stanley Milgram experiments.
To illustrate (3), look at the rich lode of sources for Richard Evans' "The Coming of the Third Reich". The perpetrators were oooh so careful to document every atrocity!
Then check out Evans' book and read it. It is a veritable recipe for how to destroy a democracy and create something else entirely...
Then read "Conservatives without Conscience" and "Broken Government" by John Dean and compare...
Finally compare what you read in the Evans book to current events, such as:
shooting of Holocaust Museum guard
murdering abortion doctors (multiple)
OK City bombing
Atlanta bombing
Giffords shooting
Hutaree movement - and armed right wing groups, in general - are there any left wing ones now?
Congressman Broun laughing at spectator asking who will shoot Obama
AM radio filled with hate spew - egging all these people on...and then denying it
The moral in all this for me is that we are on the brink of disaster, unless the good, common citizens of this country stand up at the ballot box and resist all this nonsense, rather than being cowed by it.
Hunkering down and hoping it will pass is not a path to success. Or survival.
Link: Holocaust TV mini-series, 1978, Wannsee Conference, 32/59
nessus