Last Friday was Holocaust Remembrance Day. A British associate of mine sent me the link to Archbishop Rowan Williams' message, which was distributed to honor that occasion. Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is Primate of All England and spokesperson for the worldwide Anglican Communion, which includes the Episcopal Church. He is a man of extraordinary good will and an advocate for religious diversity. And yet, he managed to get through almost his entire speech without mentioning the word "Jew." This is astounding! How does one commemorate the Holocaust and fail to mention the major group that was singled out for obliteration?
The Archbishop's message focused on a powerful theme: the need to speak up for the "stranger" and the "neighbor" and to turn "strangers" into "neighbors." But, in many of the countries in which they were murdered, Jews were not "strangers." They were "neighbors" -- fully assimilated Germans, Poles, French, Dutch, Greeks, Scandinavians.
The only group Archbishop Williams singled out in his remarks was survivors of contemporary genocides whom he encountered on a recent visit to the Congo. All the horrific genocides that followed the Holocaust must be acknowledged. But on Holocaust Remembrance Day, this doesn't justify omitting any reference to the Holocaust against the Jews. (It was not until the end of Archbishop Williams' remarks that Jews were mentioned, and that was only in an oblique reference to the good work of the Council of Christians and Jews in the U.K.)
Archbishop Rowan's omission is only the most recent in a worrisome trend. In Rostov-on-Don in Russia, a new Holocaust memorial plaque fails to mention Jews. In Poland, the Gorodische Holocaust memorial makes no mention of Jews. Yet, it was in the notorious concentration camps of that country -- Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, Treblinka -- that most of the 6 million murdered Jews were systematically wiped out during the Holocaust. Ironically, when Auschwitz was first turned into a museum in 1947, there was no mention of Jews in the official decree. It simply stated: "On the site of the former Nazi concentration camp, a monument to the martyrdom of the Polish nation and of other nations is to be erected for all time to come."
In explaining the impact of this trend, it wasn't a scholar or Holocaust memoirist who made one of the most eloquent statements that I've seen. It was Polin Travel, a guided tour and genealogy company. "The striking thing is that when you visit those places today, almost nothing is visible of those camps' former existence. The German crime was not only the murder of those people, but also the eradication of the memory of their very existence and the manner in which they were killed. This was meant to be the perfect crime, and its cover-up took a tremendous effort."
This poignant observation applies equally to Archbishop Williams' well-meaning statement. Such omissions make us complicit in the eradication of memory.
Failing to acknowledge the unique targeting of the Jews in the Holocaust effectively does what the Nazis failed to do. It eradicates the Jews by writing them out of history. This seems to reflect a new form of political correctness. In the interest of "inclusivity," we create equivalence between the Holocaust against the Jews and the wide net in which Hitler snared so many other victims.
Holocaust denial runs along a continuum. At one end are the mad rantings of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who, contrary to vast troves of historical evidence, denies that the Holocaust occurred at all. At the other end are the well-meaning people who acknowledge that something terrible happened, but gloss over the primary target of that evil -- the Jews. This end of the continuum is, in some ways, more insidious than the extreme position of our Iranian nemesis, because it seems so benign and egalitarian.
The world stood silent when 6 million Jews were annihilated. In his Holocaust Memorial Day remarks, Archbishop Williams speaks movingly about the need to speak up. But by omitting any mention of Jewish suffering during the Holocaust, we are once again committing the sin of silence.
Follow Georgette Bennett, Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TanenbaumCenter
Anglican Orders were ruled invalid (for good reason) by the Pope during the latter part of the 19th century. During the Cromwellian period in England all of the valid holdover bishops were run out of the country-leaving England without valid priests.
The present Anglican clergy has "solved" this by having a Greek Orthodox bishop present during ordinations-thus solving the "validity" problem-although the Vatican still holds a grudge against any church which doesnt obey the Pope. Thus, it can be argued that Anglicans are "valid" Catholics-just disobedient ones.
In Rostov-on-Don in Russia, a new Holocaust memorial plaque fails to mention Jews.
In Poland, the Gorodische Holocaust memorial makes no mention of Jews.
Failing to acknowledge the unique targeting of the Jews in the Holocaust effectively does what the Nazis failed to do. It eradicates the Jews by writing them out of history. This seems to reflect a new form of political correctness.†(Bennett - paraphrase).
This is a subtle form of politically correct anti-Semitism similar to demonizing Israel and Zionists. The “liberal†Churches and many academics are also involved in the BDS movement.
Is it that the gays and lesbians of these nations are "others", therefore do not hit the radar screens of these esteemed instuitutions which portend to fight against genocide?
Interestingly ...the Anglican Church has spoken out against these laws.....they are not silent.
Others were targetted by the Nazis, but their primary target - over 90% of those murdered - was the Jews. Williams' failure to even MENTION Jews when talking about the Holocaust is offensive.
The gas chambers were constructed to kill millions of European Jews.
The sole purpose of the Nazi's Wannsee Conference was to organize the murder of all of Europe's Jews.
Six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Holocaust Memorial Day is on the date that Auschwitz was liberated.
"However, a calculation that is both conservative and reliable indicates that at least 1.1 million people were gassed to death at Auschwitz—90 percent of them Jews."
http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/killing
But the Archbishop did not think that these Jews, and 5 million others, merited even a passing mention.
Whether we speak of the genocide of the native americans by protestants or catholics, of the Rwandans by protestants and catholics, of the Bosnias by christians, of the Armenians by muslims, of the Hindus by muslims, of the Chinese by Maoists, the Russians by Stalinists... when we ignore the particulars we ignore the causes. We intentionally blur Truth. We not only cleanse ourselves of the sin, but allow the cleansing of our towns of the next ethnicity - see South Sudan (regrettably of course).
One must to conclude that the speech by a good man was cleansed of Morality for the sake of rhetoric.
hariaum
Anyone who is familiar the facts with 1930's Germany knows that numerous members of Protestant and Catholic faiths did not stand silent as the Nazi state began its reign of terror.
Ministers and people of conscience of these faiths who stood against the Nazis were targeted and eliminated by the Hitler terror state like any "other enemy of the state".
Albert Einstein stated that the only institutions in 1930's Germany to vocally oppose the Nazis were the churches....and once the war started Hitler dealt with these ministers en masse by sending them to the eastern front to quickly die.
It's easy to point a wide finger into history and distort the reality of nazi germany to those who don't know the particulars...
Also...it does a great disservice to those who risked or lost their lives in the fight against Hitler or as victims of Hitler...
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Scandinavians? Sweden neutral - 0 Jews killed. Denmark - Jews all saved. Norway - 758 deported and murdered.
Why list ''Scandinavia'' which is not a country but a geographical area which includes a neutral country and a country where all the Jews were rescued?
Why not Ukraine, a province of the Soviet Union?
Wikipedia:
'' Between 1941 and 1945, approximately 3,000,000 Ukrainian and other non-Jewish victims were killed as part of Nazi extermination policies, along with between 850,000 - 900,000 Jews who lived in the territory of modern Ukraine.''
Do I have problem with such attempts? Yes, I do. Out of 106 relatives only 20 something lived in Riga after WWII. Only recently most of their names were printed onto Riga Ghetto memorial. All names, all 6 million names must be printed, must be remembered not only in Yad Vashem. Of course if people try not to fail humanity again, want to learn something from the tragedy of Shoah.
Except of course it wasn't unique. The Roma were also targeted for complete annihilation. And this perhaps is why there is less and less mention of the Jews as a distinct group of victims - the fact that for decades Jewish groups have sidelined or completely ignored the other victims of the Holocaust. Remember that Elie Wiesel said that the inclusion of Roma in the Holocaust Memorial Committee would 'degrade the memory' of Jewish victims.
There's another problem with concentrating solely on the Jewish victims, the tendency for the Holocaust to become a historical ghetto, only relevant to Jews because everybody else is left out and so the event loses any resonance outside that, often closed, community. And I always thought the point of Holocaust Memorial Days was less about remembering the one group than learning from the horror never to let it happen again.
The unique feature of the holocaust was its level of planning, industrialization and organization. It is not a closed thing, as the UN day demonstrates. If the intent of commemoration was to prevent something similar happening again, the news didn't make it to Cambodia or Rwanda.
This reminds me of the North Korea's government to punish people who were "not sincere" in their mourning for Kim Jong Il. The Archbishop was obviously not remorseful enough. What should his punishment be?
When people of goodwill with mindful messages are attacked in this twisted manner...it serves no beneifit to anyone.
Thank you for a very insightful post, Dr. Bennett.
Don't ask for whom the bell tolls.
Seems to be a lot of them when it comes to this subject.
Never again.