Posted on 04/28/2006 11:27:17 AM PDT by Alouette
Many well-intentioned people attempt to categorize the Holocaust as the genocide of another oppressed minority, and relegate the lesson to one of tolerance and mutual understanding. Museums, memorials, and foundations have all been dedicated to this concept of "tolerance", thereby blurring the fundamental differences between anti-Semitism and other hatreds. The Holocaust was not just another genocide. There is no argument that our world is in dire need of more tolerance; however, labeling the Holocaust as the mere product of bigotry is a manifestation of moral ambiguity and a lack of understanding of the essence of the Jewish nation.
All other genocides throughout history were the consequence of the acquisition and consolidation of power. This power sought may have been territorial, economic, religious or political, but the goal was to obtain that power. From Pol Pot's genocide in Cambodia to Idi Amin's in Uganda to Stalin's in the Soviet Union, these tyrannical despots crushed dissent, instilled fear and secured power.
The Holocaust, however, is a mysterious historical anomaly. The Jews were arguably the most patriotic demographic in pre-Holocaust Germany. The German Jewish Reform movement went so far as to declare "Berlin is our Jerusalem and Germany is our Zion." German Jews went to great lengths to shed their differences, assimilate into their surroundings and disappear into German society. Until then, German Jewry was the most assimilated Jewish community in history, with a 42% intermarriage rate that was rapidly increasing. German Jews were involved in every aspect of German society, holding positions that Jews in America have yet to acquire.
Germany was the cradle of Western civilization. A science, according to every definition of the word, was created to identify the Jew. Extensive genealogical records were researched by Europe's most sophisticated military, which proceeded to hunt down any person who had even one Jewish grandparent, ensuring the most comprehensive of exterminations. Executing systematic genocide by day and listening to classics by Wagner at night, over 40% of the concentration camp officers had either MDs or PhDs. Not the "intolerant animals" one would expect.
This irrational hatred is best illustrated by Hitler's fateful decision to allocate his remaining resources to the complete extermination of the Jews at the expense of emerging victorious against the Allies. His hatred of the Jews, deeply encoded in his soul, overcame the rational strategic decision to defeat the Allied forces. Many say that decision is what cost him the war.
To the intellectually honest student of history, hatred of the Jews is unique in that it transcends time and circumstance. When poor, Jews are hated for being lazy parasites, and when rich, for conspiring to dominate the economy and take over the world. In the same breath as being blamed for communism and socialism, Jews are hated for the exploitation and selfishness of capitalism. At the very heart of the matter, Jews are hated for one thing: being Jews. Why?
Who better to ask than the most successful anti-Semite in history, Adolph Hitler? He taught: "The Jews have inflicted two wounds on humanity: circumcision on the body and conscience on the soul." A war on the Jewish people is a war on G-d. A war on the Jews is a war on the absolutes of "good" and "evil", morality, ethics and compassion. To a Jew, what is good is beautiful. To an Aryan, what is beautiful is good. Aryan philosophy dictated that the mentally disabled and deformed should be immediately exterminated, not cared for and nurtured. The weak should be crushed and the strong exalted. Hitler hated the Jews for inflicting G-d upon the world, exposing evil for what it is, and for being a light unto the nations - a sacred task burned into the Jewish soul. Through the depths of our suffering, the Jews exposed the purity of Hitler's evil by being its object in the eyes of the world, and even in death, remaining that light.
Is the lesson we should learn from this tragedy that prejudice is evil and we need more tolerance, or is there a more powerful message we must understand?
Hitler's primary purpose was to destroy Jewry. The assertion that the Holocaust was a genocide like any other, and just another coincidental example of intolerance, is not fighting the objective of Nazism, but rather succumbing to it. Classifying the nation of Israel as a nation like all others and relegating our history and heritage to chance is the most dangerous and effective way of destroying the essence of our people and the eternal covenant forged between the Children of Israel and G-d.
The most important message of the Holocaust is not tolerance; it is Jewish identity. Whether the Jews of the Crusades, the Marranos of Spain, or the refuseniks of the Soviet Union, Jews have raised their cups for centuries and sang in a joyous whisper, "Every generation there are those who seek to destroy us and the Holy One, Blessed be He, saves us from their hands." Claiming that the Jewish genocide of the Holocaust was incidental to the war, rather than its very purpose, and that tolerance is the only lesson to be learned, is, in a sense, the destruction of our Jewish identity and the denial of our Jewish destiny.
Hitler did not seek to destroy the memory of the Jew; in fact, he was committed to establishing museums dedicated to an "extinct race". The best memorial to the six million Jewish martyrs is the perpetuation of that which Hitler sought to destroy: Jewish identity. Fighting the rampant extinction of our people at the hands of assimilation and intermarriage, by integrating Jewish education and observance into the life of every Jewish child, instilling Jewish pride, and fulfilling our Jewish destiny - that is the lesson our nation must learn from its greatest tragedy.
Plus, Pan-Germanism, which was explicitly and volubly anti-Semitic, had been articulated in the 1880's as a buttress of a frustrated German nationality. Its influence was already quite strong, as was traditional anti-Semitism, before the Great War.
Barbara Tuchman traces some of the early anti-Semitic laws of Germany to the Black Death, and to rumors that Jews had somehow caused the epidemic by poisoning wells with some esoteric substance known to them and secretly held.
The prohibition against Jewish ownership of real property and the urbanization of the German Jews was one of the early consequences of that 14th-century outburst of anti-Semitism.
Any refusenik group that rejects society's norms or refuses to identify with the rest of society gets this treatment. As an example, the early Christians faced ghoulish rumors about them based on distorted descriptions of their sacraments ("drinking blood", etc.) -- this in a society that knew the taurobolium, the Asiatic "baptism of blood" that featured the slaughter of a live bull, and the ecstatic self-castrations of the priests of Cottyto.
Paul of Tarsus was prosecuted for practicing a "gutter religion" not sanctioned by the otherwise complaisant policy of Rome -- and the complaint against him was instituted by the Jews, as a matter of fact.
I don't think the author, however, overstates Hitler's determination to kill every Jew he could get his hands on -- with certain exceptions, such as those miserable Jews who were helping the Nazis hunt down other Jews.
I do query the statement about the prevalence of final degrees among SS officers in the death camps, however. Without having any reason to reject the number, it just sounds frankly incredible.
The Nazi's were socialist, Nazi stood for the National Socialist Party. They created the modern left.
Freeman's goal, is to make good men better. It is over 2,000 years old and is one of the very few orgainations that have survived the test of time.
(Denny Crane: "Every one should carry a gun strapped to their waist. We need more - not less guns.")
edcoil,can you link that or provide some documentation?
Don't forget the other 6 million.
You're missing the point. Hitler (mach shemo!) sought from day one to exterminate the entire Jewish people from the earth. The other six million victims were not killed as part of such a project.
No, he would have gone through the Slavs (Russians) and other so-called sub-human races, and ended up annihlating his good buddies the Japanese. The only Aryans he would have killed would be any who stood up to him and questioned the genocide(s). He never would have killed any simply BECAUSE they were Aryan, as he would the others. Individuals or groups of individuals (such as a town that rebelled against him) would have had to actually do something that threatened his regime to be killed.
...so those non jewish people are worth less?
What's even less surprising is the "I'm just doing my job" mentality shared by countless government minions when assigned a morally repugnant task.
(Executing systematic genocide by day and listening to classics by Wagner at night, over 40% of the concentration camp officers had either MDs or PhDs. Not the "intolerant animals" one would expect.)
Some things never change. It seems like it's been going on for many years that the more education one gets the more difficult it is to tell right from wrong.
You know I did not say that. You know exactly what I meant.
You obviously have a problem with Jews (and btw, I'm not Jewish).
far as i know, bill gates is still a gentile
Yeah, that's it I hate all the Jews. You ratted me out.
Twelve million people died in the Concentration camps. Six million of those people were Jewish. Basically half the people who suffered were Jewish.
Flash to the year 2006. The Jews jealously guard a lot of records and sites from the Holocaust. There are scholarships and movies showing the *Jewish* experience in the Holocaust. The Jews have sued the United States and other nations in world courts (and won) because of the Holocaust. There are memorials all over the world commemorating what happened to the *Jews* at the hands of the Nazis.
But don't forget the other six million. The Nazis killed Catholics, Communists, Political Dissidents, homosexuals, people born with birth defects, "subhumans" like Serbs and Gypsies and others. Just because these people aren't connected by religion/skin color/ethnicity that doesn't mean they didn't suffer. Just because they're not powerful enough politically to push monuments and movies through the proper channels, that doesn't mean they didn't undergo the horrors.
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