Remembering the Wannsee Conference and the Liberation of Auschwitz
Parts of this article are posted by participants of the January 27, 2005, BlogBurst (see list at end of article), to remember the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, sixty years ago, on January 27, 1945.
On January 20th, we marked the anniversary of the 1942 Wannsee Conference. In the course of that Conference, the Nazi hierarchy formalized the plan to annihilate the Jewish people. Understanding the horrors of Auschwitz requires that one be aware of the premeditated mass-murder that was presented at Wannsee.
Highlighting these events now has become particularly important, even as the press reports that '45% of Britons have never heard of Auschwitz'.
A more cynical writer might point out that Auschwitz has always been a blind spot for the British. But Briton was not alone in its callous disregard for Jewish life: the United States sent Jewish children from the shores of New York back to Europe. And France, of course, was the only Allied country that actively assisted the Nazis after occupation - they eagerly sent three-fourths of the country's Jews to Hitler's gas chambers.
Today, anti-Semitism has returned to Europe. In Russia, whose army liberated Auschwitz, blood libel is actively endorsed by politicians and intellectuals.
Too many people far too often accuse concerned Jews of hysterics when they warn that the poison of Jew-hatred is again spreading - virtually unchecked - into daily European life. In response, many Jews - especially in the United States - are content to go to Holocaust memorials, to hold all-night vigils, and to sigh heavily if only to continue seeming "reasonable". They won't call out their friends or colleagues for, at the end of the day, simply not caring that Jews are again being physically assaulted in open daylight on the streets of Europe. The great philosopher Karl Popper once tried to defend his father's conversion away from Judaism by angrily insisting that "assimilation worked" in Austria-Hungary. We hear the same refrain from some today - that by not supporting Israel too loudly, that by not being too visibly Jewish - we will help Jews get along in the world. The problem is that this premise is demonstrably false. Those who blithely insist that "it can't happen again" should be reminded that fin-de-siècle Vienna was the most liberal, and the most Jewish, of all modern European cities. That was right before it willingly gave itself over to anti-Semitism and eventually to Nazism. Jew-hatred must be called out for what it is, and those who refuse to do so must be confronted with what it is they are being silent about.
On January 20th, we marked the anniversary of the 1942 Wannsee Conference. In the course of that Conference, the Nazi hierarchy formalized the plan to annihilate the Jewish people. Understanding the horrors of Auschwitz requires that one be aware of the premeditated mass-murder that was presented at Wannsee.
Highlighting these events now has become particularly important, even as the press reports that '45% of Britons have never heard of Auschwitz'.
A more cynical writer might point out that Auschwitz has always been a blind spot for the British. But Briton was not alone in its callous disregard for Jewish life: the United States sent Jewish children from the shores of New York back to Europe. And France, of course, was the only Allied country that actively assisted the Nazis after occupation - they eagerly sent three-fourths of the country's Jews to Hitler's gas chambers.
Today, anti-Semitism has returned to Europe. In Russia, whose army liberated Auschwitz, blood libel is actively endorsed by politicians and intellectuals.
Too many people far too often accuse concerned Jews of hysterics when they warn that the poison of Jew-hatred is again spreading - virtually unchecked - into daily European life. In response, many Jews - especially in the United States - are content to go to Holocaust memorials, to hold all-night vigils, and to sigh heavily if only to continue seeming "reasonable". They won't call out their friends or colleagues for, at the end of the day, simply not caring that Jews are again being physically assaulted in open daylight on the streets of Europe. The great philosopher Karl Popper once tried to defend his father's conversion away from Judaism by angrily insisting that "assimilation worked" in Austria-Hungary. We hear the same refrain from some today - that by not supporting Israel too loudly, that by not being too visibly Jewish - we will help Jews get along in the world. The problem is that this premise is demonstrably false. Those who blithely insist that "it can't happen again" should be reminded that fin-de-siècle Vienna was the most liberal, and the most Jewish, of all modern European cities. That was right before it willingly gave itself over to anti-Semitism and eventually to Nazism. Jew-hatred must be called out for what it is, and those who refuse to do so must be confronted with what it is they are being silent about.
