What Does the Holocaust Teach Us as Americans?

 

Periodically on this site, people have voiced their annoyance about the reminders that are posted regarding Holocaust Memorial Day, which is observed today. In Israel, everyone stops for two minutes at the sound of sirens to honor those lost. Those of us old enough to have been taught about the Holocaust in school or by our parents already know the story, yet there are some who would prefer not to be reminded of this tragedy. Given how blessed Jews are to live in this country, how often does the story need to be repeated?

In a survey conducted in 2020, an alarming number of respondents knew little about this period:

The survey, touted as the first 50-state survey of Holocaust knowledge among millennials and Generation Z, showed that many respondents were unclear about the basic facts of the genocide. Sixty-three percent of those surveyed did not know that 6 million Jews were murdered, and over half of those thought the death toll was fewer than 2 million. Over 40,000 concentration camps and ghettos were established during World War II, but nearly half of U.S. respondents could not name a single one.

Yet we can still ask, why do we have to remember this terrible event? Jews need to remember because throughout our existence we have been the scapegoats of countries and civilizations. In many cases, we were determined to “fit into” the wider community, wanting to be appreciated and accepted as dedicated citizens and contributing members of society. Our desire to fit in and in many cases assimilate has come back to haunt us, as one country after another has decided throughout history to humiliate, ostracize, and in some cases kill the Jews. Yet today, many Jews have still decided that they want to be like everyone else; many Jews on the political Left are one example. And some societies still refuse to accept our allegiance and dedication to their countries; anti-Semitic acts frequently occur in European countries.

* * * * *

But I would like to propose that in recent years and now in 2021, the Holocaust has a lesson for all of us; our entire country has slowly been telegraphing the message that unless we succumb to the dominant forces of Leftism, we could be in danger. In fact, those opinions are being stated publicly, saying that we must be “de-programmed” or even killed. If you listen carefully, you will notice a few parallels to the rhetoric before World War II:

  • These people are evil.
  • They are irredeemable.
  • They are hateful and greedy.
  • They are racists and white supremacists.
  • They don’t care about saving the earth.
  • They don’t care about equality or fairness.
  • They are irrational religionists.
  • They are arrogant and think they are better than us.
  • They are potential domestic terrorists.
  • They love guns and violence.

And this list is incomplete.

If you compare this rhetoric to those used against the Jews in the past, you will find many similarities.

I would also suggest that if we try to convince the Left that we are good human beings; if we try to fit in as American citizens and be widely accepted; if we point to our acts of charity and generosity—the Left simply may not care. They are convinced that we are every worst stereotype of evil that people can imagine. And more.

So, what can we do?

First, we have to acknowledge the seriousness of the situation. We are not just talking about the future of our country; we are talking about potential action against us as individuals. So when you hear of people being censored, fired from their jobs, driven off the internet; when you hear stories of proposed gun buy-backs, religious organizations being discriminated against; virulent attacks on free-speech—what are we to think?

I am not suggesting that people be paranoid. But we must be vigilant. We must speak out against injustice. We must continue to write, publish and gather together to discuss the actions of the Left and condemn them as often as we can.

Or there will be no rights to protect.

* * * * *

We can’t take our rights for granted. We cannot assume that our freedom is so woven into the fabric of our country that it can’t be lost. Like the Israelis today, let’s take a moment to stop and reflect on the lives lost to protect our freedoms, and how we can prepare for the months and years ahead.

Let’s take a lesson from the Jews.

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  1. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    The Reticulator (View Comment):
    Take the example of Poland and the Holocaust. Poles, Germans, and Jews were living together before the war. Sometimes they were living in separate villages, and sometimes not. Their living together was not the cause of the Holocaust, and the Holocaust was not the inevitable result. So I still don’t see how you make the claim that the lesson of the Holocaust was that different people can’t live together, when these people obviously did live together and interact with each other.

    I discovered this fact recently. Whether you speak of the Hutus and Tutsis, or the Israelis and Palestinians, it’s amazing how everyday life can be relatively peaceful. Sometimes they did leave in the same villages, or adjacent ones. So you make a very good point, @thereticulator.

    • #91
  2. lowtech redneck Coolidge
    lowtech redneck
    @lowtech redneck

    MiMac (View Comment):

    2) the civil atmosphere is important- everyone remembers the brownshirts marching in the streets in the late 20s and early 30s- but forget it was years of street clashes between Communist street thugs and far right street thugs beforehand that radicalized politics and led to the collapse of the centrist parties. The far left and far right wish to impose a binary choice on the public- but we must stress that is an evil illusion- both extremes are evil. This is important now b/c the BLM/Antifa types and Proud Boys are engaged in similar street theatre now- and BOTH parties need to step up and denounce street violence especially from their side of the political spectrum. So far the Democratic Party and MSM (but I repeat myself) has been especially duplicitous in its denouncing violence. Ever since the new left arose the left has a history of “no enemies to the left” thinking.

    There is a huge difference between organizing in defense against a violent mob and ‘street violence’….refusing the former option, especially while government institutions ignore or abet the violent mobs on the Left, is to empower pogroms.  Also, what makes the Proud Boys in particular ‘far right’?  Is it just that they are willing to return punches with the Left instead of run away and hide, or that a few idiot members went on an illegal sight-seeing tour of the capital? 

    Are you one of the people who would condemn Kyle Rittenhouse for acting on his own initiative to protect the town he works in from actual domestic terrorists, despite all the video evidence demonstrating one of the most clear-cut cases of disciplined self-defense ever caught on camera? 

     

    • #92
  3. lowtech redneck Coolidge
    lowtech redneck
    @lowtech redneck

    SkipSul (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):
    I think for a lot of us it just feels like a passive approach, but I guess we risk too much if we become aggressive.

    It does feel like passivity, but it’s not that exactly. This isn’t a call for being spineless, but it is a call to stand on principle and show love, even if it costs you.

    If you look back at the 1960s civil rights movement, you can see how this worked, even as other more militant elements constantly decried what they mistook for the same passivity. Martin Luther King was right over the long run.

    Martin Luther King had strong elite and institutional support, and domestic opponents with the capacity to feel shame.  Ghandi himself conceded that his ways would not have worked against all oppressors.  

    • #93
  4. RushBabe49 Thatcher
    RushBabe49
    @RushBabe49

    Up until very recently, the United States was different than the rest of the world, having been founded on an Idea, and not any ethnic group or tribe.  Americans pledged allegiance to the Flag, and the Country and its ideals, not to a tribe.  I believe that those days are now gone, as our children have been indoctrinated for decades in allegiance to their “ethnic roots”, or skin color (Black Power), or country of origin (which may have been in the distant past).  The US cannot long endure, once it has been fragmented into all the various individual groups who fight against each other, rather than for the Country (distinct from the State, which most people now identify as a separate force, not linked to them, except when it promises free stuff).

    I believe that someone on Ricochet a few years ago pointed out that people in Iraq and Afghanistan bear no allegiance to Iraq or Afghanistan, but to their Tribes.  This means that, when push comes to shove, which it does regularly there, they cannot fight together in a national army, and desert to fight with/for their individual tribes.  This is one reason why I have advocated for the US to stop defending Afghanistan, since it is not a real country if its own citizens will not fight for it.  

    • #94
  5. CACrabtree Coolidge
    CACrabtree
    @CACrabtree

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):

    Up until very recently, the United States was different than the rest of the world, having been founded on an Idea, and not any ethnic group or tribe. Americans pledged allegiance to the Flag, and the Country and its ideals, not to a tribe. I believe that those days are now gone, as our children have been indoctrinated for decades in allegiance to their “ethnic roots”, or skin color (Black Power), or country of origin (which may have been in the distant past). The US cannot long endure, once it has been fragmented into all the various individual groups who fight against each other, rather than for the Country (distinct from the State, which most people now identify as a separate force, not linked to them, except when it promises free stuff).

    I believe that someone on Ricochet a few years ago pointed out that people in Iraq and Afghanistan bear no allegiance to Iraq or Afghanistan, but to their Tribes. This means that, when push comes to shove, which it does regularly there, they cannot fight together in a national army, and desert to fight with/for their individual tribes. This is one reason why I have advocated for the US to stop defending Afghanistan, since it is not a real country if its own citizens will not fight for it.

    What?  You mean “nation building” might not be such a hot idea?  Who would have thought?  (Certainly not our State Department)

    • #95
  6. SkipSul Inactive
    SkipSul
    @skipsul

    RushBabe49 (View Comment):
    Up until very recently, the United States was different than the rest of the world, having been founded on an Idea, and not any ethnic group or tribe. Americans pledged allegiance to the Flag, and the Country and its ideals, not to a tribe.

    This is an oversimplification.  People always have multiple allegiances to different groups, religions, families, parties, etc., and these have always had what one could term tribal overtones about them.

    The Pledge of Allegiance was a late addition to US canon, and emerged from a proto fascist period when paranoia about immigrants (Catholics especially) was at a peak.  It was, moreover, part of the push to nationalize educational standards during the genesis of the factory-style schools we cannot seem to shake today.  We’re only noticing now that such schools, ideal systems for the mass imprinting of propaganda and uniform thought, have been turned so visibly and hostilely against that old culture, but machinery was put in place a long time ago by an older movement.

    One of the goals of that movement was to make Americans very tribal indeed, and forge a very uniform ideal of American ethnicity and militant loyalty.  We forget today that multiculturalism began as a reaction to that – it was borne of a resentment of the notion that one had to set aside one’s own familiar heritage (which, for many, was still quite recent) and conform to the then-dominant generic American WASP monoculture.  We can certainly agree that mutli-culti has gone flying off the rails in the other direction, but understand where it came from and what it was reacting to.

    Going back further: at least through the Civil War, Americans (especially in the southern states) often had more loyalty to their state than to any idealized US, and could be fiercely tribal about their religion, their region, their social class, and most certainly about their race.  And that racial obsession continued for many running right through most of the 20th century.  

    Did we have family-based tribes like Afghanistan or Iraq?  No.  But America had its own divisions just the same.

    • #96
  7. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio…
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    The Reticulator (View Comment):
    Take the example of Poland and the Holocaust. Poles, Germans, and Jews were living together before the war. Sometimes they were living in separate villages, and sometimes not. Their living together was not the cause of the Holocaust, and the Holocaust was not the inevitable result. So I still don’t see how you make the claim that the lesson of the Holocaust was that different people can’t live together, when these people obviously did live together and interact with each other.

    I discovered this fact recently. Whether you speak of the Hutus and Tutsis, or the Israelis and Palestinians, it’s amazing how everyday life can be relatively peaceful. Sometimes they did leave in the same villages, or adjacent ones. So you make a very good point, @thereticulator.

    I think that they did not live together comfortably.  This seems to be the lesson of many examples.  We all seem to agree that daily life was relatively peaceful in most periods, but this is true even in active war.  On most days during WWII, for example, there wasn’t much going on in the Pacific War.  But the conflict still existed.

    I submit that my hypothesis explains all of the facts.  I don’t see how your hypothesis explains the regular outbreaks of violence and conflict.  You seem to attribute these episodes to some nefarious group(s), but if there weren’t underlying tensions, I don’t see how the agitators would be able to gain any traction.

    Let’s take the example of Poland.  It seems to me that for a period of time, there was an independent Poland, and the non-Poles felt somewhat oppressed.  Then Poland was partitioned, and the German Empire ruled a sizeable chunk of it, and the Poles felt somewhat oppressed.  Then, in the aftermath of WWI, the victors resurrected an independent Poland, and the non-Poles felt somewhat oppressed.  Then WWII was launched to implement another partition of Poland, and the Poles were oppressed again.

    The conflict seems to have been eliminated after WWII, and I think that this is because the ethnic Germans were kicked out of Poland and the Jews had mostly been killed by the Germans.  Ejection is an unpleasant solution, and massacre is monstrous.  

    • #97
  8. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    I think that they did not live together comfortably. This seems to be the lesson of many examples.

    I will let the Reticulator speak for himself, but I referenced your sentence here because life is often uncomfortable; for some it is mostly uncomfortable. In fact, I would suggest that G-d doesn’t expect our lives to be comfortable. He expects us to be loving, compassionate, hardworking, serving him and those in our lives. Whether we’re talking about countries or tribes or families, life is filled with discomfort, and we are called to learn to live with it and hopefully often rise above it. 

    • #98
  9. CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill Coolidge
    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill
    @CarolJoy

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    For those who don’t like Holocaust analogies, remember that the count of those murdered didn’t reach 6 million until it did. And the Holocaust started before the killing started..

    Mike Malloy, a radio commentator usually obsessed by the Far Left, once opened up his lines to have people answer one and only one question: “When is a nation on the road to participating in a holocaust?”

    And after 2 and a half hours of people calling in, Malloy came up with this conclusion: A nation is on the way to being able to commit a holocaust the first time that its officials or its citizens  imprison or injure or kill a single individual, for the sake of some specious policy.

    Because after that first individual has been diminished, it means the rationale that the end justifies the means has been established. From then on out, everything  is only a matter of degree.

    Consider the 74 year old Palo Alto man beaten up for wearing a MAGA cap. And also consider the non-mask wearing individual maced by a pro-mask individual.

    Or from just a few months ago, consider the cops that arrived at the front stoop of some guy in LA, and leaped from their squad car to pummel the man into unconsciousness. For his not obeying the mayor’s illegal COVID curfew edict.

    It took the Third Recih some 3 and a half years before it could convince German police officers to round up Jewish males in their town and send them off to a “work area” where they would be safe from the type of holligans who had participated in Kristlenacht. And it was to be only temporary.

    It took less than three months for mask believers to start macing non-mask wearers.

    • #99
  10. MiMac Thatcher
    MiMac
    @MiMac

    lowtech redneck (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    2) the civil atmosphere is important- everyone remembers the brownshirts marching in the streets in the late 20s and early 30s- but forget it was years of street clashes between Communist street thugs and far right street thugs beforehand that radicalized politics and led to the collapse of the centrist parties. The far left and far right wish to impose a binary choice on the public- but we must stress that is an evil illusion- both extremes are evil. This is important now b/c the BLM/Antifa types and Proud Boys are engaged in similar street theatre now- and BOTH parties need to step up and denounce street violence especially from their side of the political spectrum. So far the Democratic Party and MSM (but I repeat myself) has been especially duplicitous in its denouncing violence. Ever since the new left arose the left has a history of “no enemies to the left” thinking.

    There is a huge difference between organizing in defense against a violent mob and ‘street violence’….refusing the former option, especially while government institutions ignore or abet the violent mobs on the Left, is to empower pogroms. Also, what makes the Proud Boys in particular ‘far right’? Is it just that they are willing to return punches with the Left instead of run away and hide, or that a few idiot members went on an illegal sight-seeing tour of the capital?

    Are you one of the people who would condemn Kyle Rittenhouse for acting on his own initiative to protect the town he works in from actual domestic terrorists, despite all the video evidence demonstrating one of the most clear-cut cases of disciplined self-defense ever caught on camera?

     

    I expect Kyle to be acquitted of murder charges by a jury b/c he acted in self defense-he was foolish but that isn’t a crime nor does it excuse others to attack you. But the Proud Boys seek violent confrontation and  purposefully engaged in violence as a means to power and influence.

    • #100
  11. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    I think that they did not live together comfortably. This seems to be the lesson of many examples.

    I will let the Reticulator speak for himself, but I referenced your sentence here because life is often uncomfortable; for some it is mostly uncomfortable. In fact, I would suggest that G-d doesn’t expect our lives to be comfortable. He expects us to be loving, compassionate, hardworking, serving him and those in our lives. Whether we’re talking about countries or tribes or families, life is filled with discomfort, and we are called to learn to live with it and hopefully often rise above it.

    What she said.

    • #101
  12. lowtech redneck Coolidge
    lowtech redneck
    @lowtech redneck

    MiMac (View Comment):

    lowtech redneck (View Comment):

    MiMac (View Comment):

    2) the civil atmosphere is important- everyone remembers the brownshirts marching in the streets in the late 20s and early 30s- but forget it was years of street clashes between Communist street thugs and far right street thugs beforehand that radicalized politics and led to the collapse of the centrist parties. The far left and far right wish to impose a binary choice on the public- but we must stress that is an evil illusion- both extremes are evil. This is important now b/c the BLM/Antifa types and Proud Boys are engaged in similar street theatre now- and BOTH parties need to step up and denounce street violence especially from their side of the political spectrum. So far the Democratic Party and MSM (but I repeat myself) has been especially duplicitous in its denouncing violence. Ever since the new left arose the left has a history of “no enemies to the left” thinking.

    There is a huge difference between organizing in defense against a violent mob and ‘street violence’….refusing the former option, especially while government institutions ignore or abet the violent mobs on the Left, is to empower pogroms. Also, what makes the Proud Boys in particular ‘far right’? Is it just that they are willing to return punches with the Left instead of run away and hide, or that a few idiot members went on an illegal sight-seeing tour of the capital?

    Are you one of the people who would condemn Kyle Rittenhouse for acting on his own initiative to protect the town he works in from actual domestic terrorists, despite all the video evidence demonstrating one of the most clear-cut cases of disciplined self-defense ever caught on camera?

     

    I expect Kyle to be acquitted of murder charges by a jury b/c he acted in self defense-he was foolish but that isn’t a crime nor does it excuse others to attack you. But the Proud Boys seek violent confrontation and purposefully engaged in violence as a means to power and influence.

    I expect a To Kill A Mockingbird scenario, but even if you’re right, the political prosecution is bad enough, and it was certainly enough to drive that poor man in Nebraska to suicide.  

    If directly confronting Leftist mobs or guarding private property or public monuments is to be condemned, what means do you suggest for private citizens to protect themselves from Leftist mobs with de-facto state support?

    • #102
  13. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    I do disagree with something that you said in the OP, Susan. I don’t think that Jews assimilate. Jews seem uniquely impervious to assimilation. Historically, I think that many individuals did assimilate, but upon doing so, they essentially ceased to be Jews. So the continuing, self-identified Jewish community consists of those who did not assimilate. A notable fictional example of such assimilation is Tevye’s third daughter, Chava, who marries a Christian man and is banished. A notable historical example is the great British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli.

    It begs the question, what is assimilation? To what degree does a Jew need to give up his or her heritage to fit in? The Orthodox/Chassidic community is a very small part of the Jews. We have orthodox Jews at Ricochet. They dress like everyone else, work jobs, raise families, participate in their communities. Although their clothes look like everyone else’s, they have to meet certain requirements. They may not eat at your home if they keep kosher. Does that mean they are not assimilated or only partially assimilated, and are they to be criticized for those decisions? To what degree do they have to give up their “Jewishness” to be considered assimilated? I only observe some of the Jewish laws. I married a non-Jew and my folks loved him, as do I. Am I assimilated? Am I not assimilated?

    Assimilation is in the eye – and mind – of the beholder. A major bigot will never be satisfied, a nurtured bigot is unlikely to reexamine his beliefs. 

    I have heard that America is going from a high- to a low-trust society. If true, there could be more, not less, bigotry in the future. 

    Or maybe the whole multi-culti facade of our intelligentsia is just a cover for reshuffling the bigotry deck. 

    • #103
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