What the Holocaust Teaches Us
Amid the year's turmoil, the world is recognizing 80 years since the end of the Holocaust. Commemorations began on Jan. 27, when many world leaders joined survivors in Oświęcim, Poland, to mark the liberation of Auschwitz. This month, we observe the liberations of Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, and Dachau, as well as Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) on April 24. Ceremonies will occur in North America's 175-plus Holocaust centers and museums, and at thousands more memorials, schools, and communities around the world.
The fact that we remember is important, but what does the Holocaust teach us? It's hard to answer this question given how frequently references to the Holocaust appear in our discourse while at the same time detailed knowledge of the subject has seemingly declined. Yet there are some big lessons worthy of review.
First, crimes like the Holocaust require a series of conditions. They often happen in failed states. The inability of Germany's Weimar Republic to secure liberal democratic values and civil discourse provided fertile ground for Nazism's rise. The Nazi Party came to power through a democratic process despite (or perhaps because of) a platform that degraded individual dignity, pushed harmful stereotypes, promoted false nostalgia for 'better days,' and used communications technologies to propagandize and recruit. Once in government, it turned toward authoritarianism, undermining national institutions, the media, the civil service, the intellectual classes, and the law so the state would mirror its ideology and its goals.
To be sure, many other countries since 1945 have had ruling parties that share similar characteristics, but which did not bring about a genocide. Therefore, getting to the Holocaust required additional steps, including the apathy of the masses, the complicity of the elite, and the failure of the international community. Holocaust survivor Marian Turski warned us all to be vigilant against indifference for good reason: turning inward at times of strife prevents us from being brave and leads to the exploitation of the vulnerable. In perpetrator countries, most people were passive witnesses, but there was also considerable participation by elites including artists, university professors, Catholic and Protestant clergy, media moguls, business leaders, and even physicians. Just as the elites proved weak, so too did the international order, as shown by the number of countries eager to appease or function as if all is normal. Just consider how the U.K. and France gave Hitler much of Czechoslovakia in 1938, or when the U.S. and dozens of others decided at the Evian Conference to refuse to allow more Jewish refugees into their countries, or when the Soviets agreed with the Nazis to occupy and divide Poland in 1939. These failures only emboldened fascism and its crimes.
Finally, and critically, the Holocaust needed antisemitism, a common hatred older than Western civilization that cut across all segments of society. Thousands of years of hatred of the Jews had already led to the murders of hundreds of thousands, but under authoritarian rule it provided the framework needed for the Nazis to find willing participants and collaborators, and for large swathes of the population to variously ignore or join in violence against Jews.
We all have the possibility to become perpetrators or passive witnesses to such crimes, but we can only know this if we also understand that the Holocaust happened to real people with hopes and dreams, flaws and challenges, and an intrinsic humanity. This lesson is essential, and it is why Holocaust survivors shared their personal histories with the world. By opening our eyes to the crimes of the past, they create a lens for the future; one that binds us, Jews and non-Jews alike, to this subject and to one another. If we ever hope to truly learn from the Holocaust, we must engage with the history as it happened to those who lived it.
This brings us to a final key lesson, one that deserves emphasis: no one who comes to understand this history can abide the conditions that led to the Holocaust, including hatred of Jews. This subject changes us, forcing an awareness of the signs and forms of hate and other risks to peace. To make use of this knowledge, we must reject cynicism and apathy. If we do not, to echo the Holocaust survivor and intellectual Emil Fackenheim, we risk giving the Nazis posthumous victories. To prevent this, we must understand this history, know how it is relevant to our future, and remember the victims and survivors of the Holocaust in ways that will lead to the world they deserved and not the one they experienced.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Why the wrong memorial will water down the Holocaust
On Wednesday, the Holocaust Memorial Bill returns to the House of Lords. What a waste of energy over seven and more years this project has been. The motives are good. Unfortunately, the idea is not. In the great battle against growing anti-Semitism in our society, precious weapons are being mistargeted. There are strong second-order objections to the memorial and its accompanying 'learning centre'. They include the vast cost, over £200 million; the lack of room in Victoria Tower Gardens and the loss of green space; the security risk at the heart of government and Parliament which the police and parliamentary authorities increasingly fail to control; and the fact that the gardens will soon be overcrowded by the overspill for the coming 30-year project to restore the fabric of the Houses of Parliament next door. There will be parliamentary amendments tomorrow to address these last two points. Most of the Bill's opponents, many of whom are Jewish, do want a memorial, but a much smaller and more beautiful one. The present design is a grandiose hand-me-down, by the somewhat discredited architect David Adjaye, already used elsewhere. Opponents also do not want the learning centre. Tristram Hunt, the distinguished director of the V&A, thinks it could be much better managed at the Imperial War Museum. The key objection relates to what is really being commemorated. If you track the history of Holocaust Memorial Day since it was instituted a quarter of a century ago, you will find increasing pressure to water down the concept. There have been several occasions – ITV's Good Morning Britain this year, for example – in which coverage has entirely failed to mention the Jews at all, let alone the fact that the Holocaust killed six million of them. People such as the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, unfailingly hostile to Israel and previously friendly to murderous Hamas, have thus found it possible to take part in Holocaust Memorial Day without having to confront the grim truth of history. Over time, the uniqueness of the Jewish experience thus slips away. A process begins in which the word 'Holocaust' is taken to stand for any persecution of any group by any other group. From there, it is a short step to suggesting, as pro-Gaza mobs always do, that Israel itself is committing genocide against Palestinians. This is not an isolated outbreak of a few fanatics, but a deliberate plan to strip the Jewish state – and all Jews – of their moral authority. The ultimate aim is to preach the equation 'Jews = Israel = Nazis'. This libel is so widespread as to have become one of the main tropes of anti-Semitism. The danger is that the wrong sort of commemoration will facilitate this. Delegations from anti-Israel countries and 'humanitarian' organisations emerging from Parliament will stroll into Victoria Tower Gardens, pose outside the Holocaust Memorial and deliver their piece to camera about alleged war crimes, starvation of children etc. You can just imagine the ineffable Greta Thunberg doing exactly that. Sad to say, both main political parties are putting on whips to get the memorial Bill through Parliament. This suggests an underlying uncertainty about the rightness of their cause. Traditionally, votes on matters of conscience are not whipped. Surely Holocaust commemoration is a classic conscience issue in which party considerations have no place. I fear that establishment politicians, frightened of being labelled anti-Semitic, have supported this great big project without thinking about it. Yet thought is exactly what is needed to correct the errors of Holocaust education today. By the way, there exists a splendid role model for commemoration in, of all places, Poland. The POLIN museum in Warsaw movingly and expertly relates its country's part of the full story we all need to know – how Jews lived there for a thousand years and how, in the end, and most horribly, they died. Like many parishes, our village held its annual fete last Saturday. The problem, in advance, was the weather. Nowadays, weather forecasting is so much more accurate that if it says, two or three days before, that it will rain, it probably will. So event-planners must take it seriously. This avoids the occasional spectacular washouts of the past, after which everyone used to say, through gritted teeth, 'Rain failed to dampen the spirits'. Our organisers therefore did the prudent thing and announced that the fete would not be held in the public garden by the church but in the village's two interconnected halls. The trouble was that, on the day, there was virtually no rain during the fete's opening hours. We all felt slightly silly because we could have stuck with the original plan and saved ourselves a lot of trouble. Should we have followed the old way and just held the thing outdoors, rain or shine? I am not sure of the answer. But I do know that everyone enjoyed the make-do atmosphere among the crowded stalls and the noisy Punch-and-Judy show inside, finding community in adversity. Business was brisk. The splash headline in our local paper says, 'Post office to remain open'. My first reaction was to laugh at this non-news. After all, it is in the nature of shops to open. But I quickly realised I was wrong. It was indeed news. The unspoken policy of the modern Post Office is to close itself down. A decision in the opposite direction certainly deserves the front page. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Chamberlain hoped to ‘avoid worst' as Second World War loomed
Neville Chamberlain wrote 'I still hope we may avoid the worst' six days before the start of the Second World War, a letter has revealed. The former prime minister is infamous for his failed appeasement policy, which saw him offer Adolf Hitler numerous concessions to try to avoid war. Now a newly discovered letter suggests he clung on to the hope his strategy would pay off up until the moment Germany invaded Poland on Sept 1 1939. Writing to Captain William Brass, the Conservative MP, on Aug 26 1939, he said: 'I still hope we may avoid the worst, but if it comes we are thank God prepared for it.' Chamberlain's confidence in Britain's readiness for war would prove to be misplaced as within nine months the Nazis had captured swathes of Europe. More than 330,000 British Expeditionary Force troops had to be hastily evacuated at Dunkirk between May 26 and June 4 1940, to enable Britain to 'fight another day'. The day before Chamberlain's hopeful note, however, Britain had signed the Anglo-Polish military alliance, promising to support Poland if its independence was threatened. Hitler had originally scheduled his invasion of Poland for Aug 26, but when news of the Anglo-Polish pact reached Berlin, he temporarily postponed the attack by six days. Chamberlain's policy of appeasement saw Britain make no response to Hitler's annexation of Austria in March 1938, a move Winston Churchill warned at the time was a mistake. During a speech in the House of Commons, Churchill said: 'The gravity of the annexation of Austria cannot be exaggerated.' Hitler quickly moved on to trying to control the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, and by Sept 1928 Chamberlain had flown to Hitler's holiday home to negotiate in person, to no avail. Chamberlain said at the time: 'How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing.' The Munich agreement saw Chamberlain sign over the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia to Germany from Oct 1 1938, in exchange for Hitler giving up on plans for further expansion across Europe. Churchill called it a 'total and unmitigated defeat' and it failed to stop Nazi Germany annexing more Czech land, including Prague, and launching an invasion of Poland – which finally sparked war. Chamberlain lost the confidence of Parliament and resigned as prime minister in May 1940, when Churchill stepped up to lead the nation. The one-page letter, on 10 Downing Street letterhead and dated Aug 26 1939, has emerged for sale at RR Auction in Boston, US. It is tipped to fetch $20,000 (£15,000) because of its historical significance. An RR Auction spokesman said: 'Behind the scenes, British diplomats were still scrambling to avert war. Chamberlain hoped that deterrence, through strong alliances and military mobilisation, might still dissuade Hitler. 'At the same time, Britain was accelerating preparations – air raid precautions were being implemented across cities, reservists were being called up, and public morale was being steeled for the possibility of conflict. 'Thus Britain found itself in a state of grim resolve: committed to defending Poland, preparing for war, yet still clinging to fragile hopes that Hitler might yet be deterred. 'Within a week, however, those hopes would be extinguished as Germany launched its invasion of Poland on September 1.' The sale takes place on Wednesday. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Miami Herald
a day ago
- Miami Herald
‘Can't be silent anymore': Hundreds march in Aventura to combat surge in antisemitism
American and Israeli colors lined the streets of Aventura, where a crowd of more than 500 people embarked Sunday on a three-mile march — escorted by police — to raise awareness for rising antisemitism at home and abroad. The rally, co-organized by Run for Their Lives and the South Florida-based Loving Moms United movement, comes nearly two years after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel. The trauma of that day continued to reverberate in Jewish communities across the globe, recently reignited by a violent terror attack at a sister rally in Boulder, Colorado. The June 1 attack in Boulder — carried out on one of Run for Their Lives' sister marches — left 16 injured, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor. The assailant, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, reportedly in the U.S. illegally, used homemade Molotov cocktails and a flamethrower-like device to target peaceful marchers. Authorities say Soliman had plotted the assault for more than a year and told police he intended to 'kill all Zionist people.' He now faces over 100 felony charges, including attempted murder and hate crimes. The Boulder march, like in Aventura, was part of a global effort to raise awareness for the more than 50 hostages still believed to be held in Gaza following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. The juxtaposition between the peaceful intentions of such rallies and the violence in Boulder weighed heavily on Sunday's participants in South Florida. Among the marchers was Jason Wasser, an Aventura native now living in Hollywood, whose childhood friend was among the Boulder victims. 'You would never think that in 2025 this would be the state of our country,' he said. 'Things seem ideal until they're not. Historically, it's always been the Jews who are first.' Israel has been locked in a devastating war with Hamas since Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian militants killed nearly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took another 251 people hostage. The ensuing Israeli counteroffensive has resulted in the deaths of nearly 55,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. Hamas is still holding 55 hostages, fewer than half of them alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Some of the marchers in Aventura on Sunday wore signs of the remaining hostages on their shirts to raise awareness. Cecile Mankes, a Jewish resident of Northwest Miami-Dade whose mother survived the Holocaust, walked wrapped around Country Club Drive in an Israeli flag and a blue, jewel-studded hat decorated with American and Israeli pins. 'Antisemitism has gotten to the point where we can't be silent anymore,' she said. 'I'm an American Jew first, not a Jewish American — there's a difference. I believe in this country more than anything in the world, I just don't know if it's safe for all of us anymore.' 'I am an American Jew first, not a Jewish American — there's a difference,' Mankes said. 'I believe in America. I am Jewish because I am. It's what I believe in.' Pearl Levitt, whose parents survived the Holocaust and once lived along the route of Sunday's march, shared an even more personal reflection. 'I'm glad they're not alive now,' Levitt said. 'They lost their parents. They were so sick from the camps. To have to look at this on the news and see it happening again — it would kill them.' Still, she walked proudly with hundreds of others. 'They think they can threaten us and kick us, but they'll never beat us down,' Levitt said. 'We're not going to let it happen again. And as upsetting as it is every day, we're just fighters, and we're going to fight for our rights.' Security for the Aventura march was tight. Aventura Chief of Police Michael Bentolila said 30 marked police cars escorted the rally, including an armored BearCat vehicle. Officers from the sheriff's office and North Miami Beach PD provided additional support. Vice Mayor Rachel Saltzman Friedland was also at the march, and told the Miami Herald that Aventura, home to many synagogues and a large Jewish population, had proactively implemented a zero-tolerance policy toward antisemitism before the war in Gaza escalated. 'We're on high alert at all times,' she said. 'We stand with Israel. We stand with the Jewish community. We stand with all communities — ending Jew hatred and ending antisemitism.' For Jaime and Janette Garmizo, who draped themselves in Israeli flags featuring yellow ribbons, the march was both personal and political. The flags were brought back from Hostages Square in Tel Aviv during a recent humanitarian aid trip. The yellow ribbons, interwoven into the Star of David on each flag, are meant to symbolize 'the unity Israel has to bring their hostages home, dead or alive,' Jaime said. Janette, through tears, added, 'Us Jews never lose faith. I wake up every day praying for good news.' The Garmizos' also wore dogtags bearing Hebrew inscriptions that read 'Bring them home.' Jaime wears his every day. Nathaly Haratz Kaswan, head of Loving Moms United, led the march wearing an Israeli-flag arm sleeve. She's become a key figure in hostage advocacy, even attending the State of the Union with Senator Rick Scott earlier this year. 'We are not ending this until they are all released,' she said. 'This is not over until then.' As the marchers reconvened at the Aventura Mall parking lot, they closed the march with recitals of the American and Israeli anthems. As attendees chanted 'Am Yisrael Chai,' the Hebrew saying meaning 'the people of Israel live,' Rabbi Yisroel Brusowankin of Chabad at Waterways told the Miami Herald that 'the only way forward is to continue living Jewishly — visibly, proudly and faithfully.' 'I think the haters are going to hate; antisemitism is the oldest hate in the world,' Brusowankin said. 'We're still here as a people because of our sacred mission, and nothing will stop that.'
