The lies that fuel the growth of anti-Semitism; human nature hasn't changed
Two World War II aniversaries of importance this week
Two very different but related anniversaries arrive this week. One marks, in effect, the beginning of World War II, the other marks the end of that war, the deadliest war in human history.
The first is January 27, known as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The date this year marks the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the horror chamber and death machine built by Hitler as a tool to achieve one of his foremost goals – the elimination of Jews from the face of the earth.
The second is January 30, this year marking the ninety-second anniversary of Hitler’s appointment as chancellor of Germany. It was the beginning of Hitler’s 11-year reign as essentially King of Germany. An evil king if there ever was one.
His first task was to eliminate Germany’s existing governmental structure, a constitutional republic. His war against Europe, Russia, and America could not have happened under Germany’s democratic government. More about that to come.
The liberation of Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, marked the end of the Holocaust, history’s most chilling example of anti-Semitism. The liberation freed the death camp’s remaining 7,000 prisoner survivors – among the 1.1 million persons imprisoned there during the war, the great majority of whom were murdered.
It would have been incomprehensible in 1945 that anti-Semitism would someday be anchored by Holocaust denial, as it is today. The movement grows every year, proof that human nature does not change.
Since the dawn of the recent Israeli-Hamas war on October 7, 2023, anti-Semitism has ballooned in America and the world.
As I have written before, Israel has been its own worst enemy in this regard, failing to take care in limiting civilian casualties in Gaza and refusing to come to the treaty table for months after it had become evident that they had accomplished as much as would be possible of their stated goal to eliminate Hamas.
The byproduct of this war, however, has been a significant increase in anti-Semitism worldwide.
Israel’s role in making this happen aside, there is more to the story.
Technology has made it easier than ever to propagate anti-Semitism. The internet and its unbridled social media websites – notably X and now Facebook, not to mention what may lurk below in the more obscure but easily accessible dark web – have become a playground for the recruitment of young people, especially, to the world of anti-Semitism.
So, two things are going on. 1) More and more teenagers and young adults are unsettled and dissatisfied with the world around them. 2) The lies that are the root of anti-Semitism are no more than a few keystrokes away whether you live in Altoona or Knoxville or Burlington – the cities in Iowa or the ones in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, or Vermont.
The bottom line is that the Holocaust conspiracy theories and lies have found a significantly increased number of supporters over the past couple of years.
Here are a few of the Holocaust-denier arguments that have become recruitment tools among anit-Semites:
—Six million Jews – the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust – did not even live in Germany and its occupied territory during World War II.
Wrong. The number of Jews residing in Germany and its occupied countries or countries from which Jews were transported to the extermination camps was 8 to 9 million: Poland, 3.3 million; Russia, 2.5 million; Romania, 800,000; Germany, 300,000; the Baltic states, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia, at least 400,000; Hungary, more than 800,000; Czechoslovakia, 400,000; Austria, about 80,000; Holland, 140,000. For comparison, the number of Jews left in Poland after the war has been placed at somewhere between 200,000 and 380,000; in Germany, it was fewer than 20,000.
—The concentration camps had amenities such as movie theaters, soccer fields, and ice cream parlors.
Wrong by 99 percent. One of the concentration camps had such amenities for a short time. Only one: Theresienstadt made temporary improvements for a few months such as those referenced above to give an upcoming Red Cross inspection team a positive impression. Mass deportations to a death camp resumed immediately after the inspection, and the improvements disappeared.
—Hitler wanted to expel Jews from Germany, not annihilate them.
Wrong. About 300,000 Jews escaped Germany before 1939, and they often had to engage in risky subterfuge to get out of the country. Many others trying to escape were caught, imprisoned, and killed. After 1939, only small numbers were able to find a way out of Germany. The Nazis prevented them from leaving.
How Hitler dismantled Germany’s democratic government
The other upcoming anniversary relating to World War II this week is January 30, the ninety-second anniversary of Hitler’s appointment as chancellor of Germany.
If Hitler had not become chancellor, it is almost certain that World War II never would have happened.
One man could not lead a democracy into a worldwide war.
The remarkable story of how Hitler achieved this transformation, “How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 days,” by Timothy W. Ryback appeared recently in The Atlantic.
Hitler did it by using the existing system against itself, ultimately imposing his will on the people and country that essentially had become his personal property.
One of his first steps was to expunge hundreds, perhaps thousands, of government officials in key positions and replace them with loyalists.
Still, he feared public unrest as he proceeded to reshape the government. He considered using Germany’s army to deal with an uprising but was told by his defense minister that soldiers were trained to see an external enemy as their only potential opponent. Hitler did not like the answer. So, he did what he always did when people confronted him with a dissenting opinion or inconvenient truth, Ryback wrote. He ignored them and doubled down.
Ryback’s step-by-step recounting of how Hitler proceeded to conquer democracy is chilling and worth reading.
World War II remains one of the darkest chapters of world history.
Estimates of the number of people who died run as high as 75 million with far more civilian casualties than military casualties.
The six million Jews included in this number constituted one-third of the world’s Jewish population.
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I know, Kathi. Eerie and scary that we're seeing parts of the same playbook at work today. Thank you for reading. Always good to hear from you.
Thank you, Mary. Appreciate the kind words.