Inside The Heart Of Darkness (Jonah Goldhagen's Reflections On Auschwitz's Meaning For Today)

Certain aspects of this past are still all but misunderstood, most important the critical question: What was the nature of Nazism? It was not just another fascist or totalitarian movement. The Nazis' destructiveness was not like that of other dictatorial or murderous regimes. True, for Hitler and his followers, Jews were an enemy before all others, the principal source of evil in the world. But the Nazis' destructiveness was of global scope. They sought to lay waste to Western civilization itself — Christianity included. Much of Europe and most of the rest of the world were to become a German-dominated slave plantation.

The Nazis were possessed of a vast destructiveness unrivaled in history. They viewed social and political conflicts and problems as racial and biological ones. Their reflexive solution was to slaughter people and to pulverize communities. Had the Germans won the war, they would have slaughtered tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions more around the world and enslaved the peoples of Poland, Ukraine, Russia and other countries. Auschwitz was the place most emblematic of the world that Hitler and the Germans were creating, a death factory embedded in vast slave production facilities. As we commemorate its liberation on Jan. 27, the people of Europe and the world should shudder at how close Hitler came to destroying civilization, to plunging the world into darkness that might have lasted his 1,000 years.

As the child of a survivor, I'm grateful the most monstrous tyranny in history was defeated. It gave me life. We in the West should reflect, as Jonah Goldhagen writes, on close we came to losing all that was good and noble about our civilization. We will remember Auschwitz even as the last survivors pass on into history if for no other reason than to remind us of what can happen when civilization collapses into barbarism. In our time, Islamofascism poses as grave a challenge to the survival of a life marked by decency, compassion, and freedom. It is the calling of our time to preserve the hopes of a world based on the love of God and treating everything human being with the dignity that comes with being a Child Of God. President Bush's words last week were no accident - they represent the exact opposite of the philosophy embraced by Auschwitz and the Nazis who set it up. The latter embodied the worst of human nature; in contrast, President Bush's clarion call for freedom proclaims the eternal yearnings of all that is best in the human spirit. There lies our answer to Auschwitz and the horrors of the 20th Century.

"In our time, Islamofascism poses as grave a challenge to the survival of a life marked by decency, compassion, and freedom. It is the calling of our time to preserve the hopes of a world based on the love of God and treating everything human being with the dignity that comes with being a Child Of God. President Bush's words last week were no accident - they represent the exact opposite of the philosophy embraced by Auschwitz and the Nazis who set it up. The latter embodied the worst of human nature; in contrast, President Bush's clarion call for freedom proclaims the eternal yearnings of all that is best in the human spirit. There lies our answer to Auschwitz and the horrors of the 20th Century."

Exactly! I cannot imagine what your family endured during this very evil time. On January 27, we should remind ourselves of everything about the holocaust so that we can have a greater chance of preventing future horrors like this and we should be reminded of the political figures from all civilized nations who admired Hitler before the world knew who he really was. Islamofasicsm is exactly a similar threat and look at the politicians who try to stonewall and block progress against that evil and others which are the result of tyrannical rulers operating in our world today. What lurks in the heart of mankind that he/she will look the other way while such atrocities enslave and take away all hope from those races and those populations? And, let us not forget about the growing hatred being encouraged against Christians around the world, and even in our own nation. Can history teach us to stand up in time to avert such awful events in the future. I doubt it.

This is not one question but many — a seemingly endless array of questions. What is the meaning of a person's death, of a person's murder? What is the meaning of a person's murder 6 million times over? What is the meaning when a person murders an infant he has never seen before?

............................................................

The number was 11 million that died in the Death Camps.

The key question not asked in the article is, "How could so many people have allowed themselves to be slaughtered like sheep?"

The answer is the most important lesson of the 20th century ... if several nicely dressed young men come to your door with guns to take you to a place you do not want to go ... shoot them in the head.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.