There is a sickness in the discourse related to the Holocaust that, I'm afraid, we are partly responsible for. This is the universalization of the Holocaust.
Understandable Misunderstanding
After the war, the Jewish community was in a state of... shock doesn't begin to describe it, indeed. As part of the 'Never Again' declaration, a tactic was adopted as part of Holocaust Education and mirrored by Hollywood and those in the Arts. When it came to discussing the Shoah with the non-Jewish People at large, the core of the message became:
"It could have happened to you, too!"
aka Humanizing the Tragedy. The problem with this approach, which leads to Universalizing the Tragedy, is that the Holocaust was, in fact, a unique event in history, and Jews played a unique role in it as well.
Hindsight is 20/20, however, and you can't fault the logic at first glance: “If a non-Jew can picture himself as a victim of the Holocaust, and that it could have happened to him too, it's going to make it more likely that any other such event in the future, whether against Jews or non-Jews, would happen again.”
This is why in many ways, Orthodox and traditional Jews are rarely put at the forefront of movies or museum displays, even though they were, per capita, the most affected communities. To have a movie of thoroughly religious, Halacha-observant victims would be seen as too alien and alienating for a non-Jewish viewership or even to a Jewish public who grew up disconnected entirely from this lifestyle. Not that it would have been easy to produce such a movie without any Orthodox Jews involved, and knowledge of what the day to day life is like.
Make your movie, on the other hand with English-speaking, vaguely ethnic-looking actors who act thoroughly like Westerners (save maybe a kiddush or candle-lighting scene in the background), and you’ve struck Oscar gold. It will be much easier for the audience to identify and empathize with them. It makes a lot of sense, both marketing-wise and to Humanize the Tragedy.
It was a severe miscalculation.
Misfiring Mischling
The goal was achieved perfectly. Indeed, the tragedy was humanized. Which led to it being universalized. Which led to it being trivialized.
For starters, if anyone could have been a Jew, then anyone could have been a Nazi. Welcome to Political Discourse in 2023, where every victim is compared to Jews during the Holocaust, and every perpetrator is compared to the Nazis.
Whether it's PETA comparing slaughterhouses to Auschwitz, left-wingers comparing immigrant detention centers to concentration camps, right-wingers comparing FEMA or Australian covid camps to concentration camps, the covid passport is the modern yellow star, the anti-French Burqa laws are the new Nuremberg laws, the list of ludicrous comparison never ends. Actually, it usually ends with one's pet causes, where all the other comparisons are absurd except the one that I happen to agree with; this one entirely makes sense, is perfectly accurate, and doesn't trivialize the Holocaust. Unlike the ones I disagree with, of course.
Of course, what are the people I politically disagree with, if not Nazis and/or Hitler himself? Whether it's Obama, or Trump, or Bush, it's entirely accurate (but inaccurate when I like the President). It's Putin and Assad, or it's Zelensky and Bibi. It's Soros and Schwab and Gates or Peterson and Rogan and Shapiro. And let’s not forget the most frequent comparison of all, the Israeli Defense Forces and Israeli Jews, of course.
If you were to add everyone's claim equally, you would believe that the Axis actually won WWII and successfully took over the entire Western world.
Stop Making It About Jew!
Once the Holocaust has been universalized, if we try to re-center ourselves as its primary target and victims, if we try to re-claim its uniqueness, to re-proclaim its singular place in History, we become sordid thieves trying to appropriate what belongs to others.
A widespread accusation against Jews is that we 'erase' non-Jewish victims:
Another is that the Holocaust wasn't unique, and as such, we are "appropriating" suffering of others:
Both of those claims are absolutely ridiculous. They perfectly encapsulate how the public school system is failing Americans regarding Holocaust Education and the development of critical thinking.
Forgetting a second the fact that Romanians are not Romani, it's true that the Nazis targeted the LGBT community. The reason why there's very little focus on them is that they represent between 5,000 to 15,000 killed, meaning between 0.04-0.12% of victims.
People rarely discuss that a similar number of Spanish Republicans & J. Witnesses were in the camps because they, too, are a tiny proportion of the dead. Up to 25,000 Slovenes were killed in the camps, possibly five times more than LGBT victims. When have you ever heard about them?
It's not an attack on the LGBT+ community for Holocaust-related events to be mainly focused on the Jewish and other communities, who lost millions or hundreds of thousands versus those part of much smaller groups that the Nazis also killed. No one is saying that they should not be honored and celebrated. No one is stopping anyone from doing so. But why should they be front and center?
It's especially egregious considering that most of them were sent to regular prisons rather than camps. It was seen as a civil offense that was already part of the german penal code when the Nazis took over the government. They were targeted, yes. They were horribly mistreated, yes. It doesn't change the fact that it's ridiculous to expect a group that represents 0.04-0.12% of all victims of the Holocaust to be the focus of Holocaust-related ceremonies that are not specifically LGBTQ-centric, something no one is preventing from happening.
It's entirely unfair to blame a group, any group, that represents the overwhelming majority of victims of any horrible tragedy or massacre and claim erasure on the part of a tiny minority, no matter how much they, too, horribly suffered (and no doubt those LGBTQ individuals arrested by the Nazis did).
No amount of suffering they went through will change this simple fact, however: Over 12 million were killed in the Holocaust. About 10,000 were LGBTQ. That's why people don't mention it often. Because almost 10 other groups died in *much* more significant numbers.
There were also non-African slaves in the Colonies and the South. Still, it's not erasure to focus on African-American victims considering they made up the vast majority of slaves. It would be ridiculous to ask that the non-African victims get an equal seat in that discussion. No one denies they exist; if their descendants want to honor them, they absolutely should. Still, it would be ridiculous to ask for Roots to be reshot with a more racially diverse cast to ensure the inclusion of every single group that was victimized instead of, by far, the most substantial group.
All Lives Matter-ing the Holocaust
As far as the wretched op-ed quoted above, it goes without saying that they themselves do not believe in what they wrote. Can you imagine that they would dare publish something along the lines of
"By claiming Black Lives Matter, it only encourages more acts of violence against non-Blacks" - Courier-Journal.
Of course not. What next? Publishing an article claiming it's time to cancel Black History Month because it leads to increased violence against other marginalized groups? We need to stop centering MLK Day on MLK, as MLK is not about racial divisions in America but rather about a universal message that resonates around the world?
If someone points out Orthodox Jews are assaulted at a higher than any other minorities in America, it does not in any way encourage people to assault other minorities. Even having to write these words, having to read those words being written, is enough to be headache-inducing.
We were partly responsible for wanting to humanize ourselves, thinking that if others could relate, they would realize we are not so different, and it would keep us safe. Instead, it has only served to otherize us and endanger us. It has robbed us of our ability to protect ourselves or even point out when we are attacked. It's time for Jews to fight back.
Time to teach the world about the uniqueness of the Holocaust once again and to teach them about the uniqueness of the Jewish people, too.
This is an important piece of writing Yisrael. Keep up the good work!
I really liked this one. It reminded me that, though we probably disagree on quite a few things across the spectrum, there’s by default much more that we Jews have in common than don’t. B’vrakha!