I haven't written in this blog in a long time, but occasion of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz has gotten me thinking about the causes of the Shoa (holocaust) and its lessons for us. I have identified 3 that seem to be particularly important.
The first is anti-semitism. The fact that the Jews were the primary targets and, by a large majority, the main victims was not by accident or coincidental. Anti-semitism is the world's oldest, most widespread prejudice, and it continues as a significant force to this very day. It's all well and good to universalize the holocaust, but ignoring the central role of anti-semitism means missing perhaps the most important lesson of all. We as Jews have mostly realized this, and it's one of the main reasons that support for the State of Israel remains strong. We know that anti-semitism is still a major threat, and we know that we must be prepared to defend ourselves and that we cannot, ultimately, rely on anyone else to do this for us.
The second lesson is the matter of taking people seriously when they proclaim their genocidal threats loudly and clearly. The Nazis agenda was NOT hidden, although there were many who preferred to ignore it and to assume that they could not possibly really mean what they said. In the same way, the world prefers to ignore the vile threats and incitement that is constantly coming from Iran and from the Arab world, particularly from those who have taken on the "Palestinian" identity. The open, sustained calls for the destruction of Israel and genocide of the Jewish people from Iran and the Arab world are rarely even reported on, and, when they are, the reporting is nearly always weak and excusing of it.
The third lesson is that "peace" is NOT the answer. You can NOT negotiate with ideological tyrants and thugs and expect to placate or pacify them. This was the approach of Chamberlain when he gave the so-called "Sudentenland" (a part of Czechoslovakia where many ethnic Germans lived) to the Nazis and then returned home to England, proclaiming that he had achieved "peace in our time", and we all know how utterly poorly THAT worked out! You can sign all the petitions you want about any number of things, but you must prepared to exert real force if you expect to make any changes that matter and to prevent genocides and other horrors. This lesson is very difficult for us peace-loving Westerners to accept. We yearn for peace, and we abhor war. We find it very hard to accept that the road to peace almost always involves fighting along the way -- real, military fighting. We wish it were not so. But, unfortunately, it is.
