OPINION & EDITORIAL
Genocide not limited to Holocaust
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Also by Cynthia Martens:
- America maintains unhealthy obsession with body image (February 10, 2006)
- Genocide not limited to Holocaust (January 27, 2006)
- Undergraduate fears of commencement unjustified (February 3, 2006)
- Outbursts in class unacceptable (April 7, 2005)
- Teacher evaluations not always effective (February 17, 2006)
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by Cynthia Martens
Friday, January 27, 2006
2005 marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. More than 5 million people died in those camps, many of them the relatives of students living in the United States today. To honor the victims of the Holocaust, in November the United Nations Organization declared today, the 27th of January — the date of the liberation of Auschwitz — an international day of commemoration.
A French magazine recently highlighted the annual trips French high schools organize to Poland so students can learn about the horrors of the Nazi regime.
World War II is one of the most painful episodes in modern collective French memory. After losing over one million young men in World War I, France lost thousands of the next generation in World War II. Visit any small village in France and see the names posted of those lost in battle. Some villages lost nearly all their young men.
Yet France also was home to members of the Nazi party. French citizens sent fellow citizens to meet their deaths in concentration camps. The spa center of Vichy was headquarters for the French collaborators. Visit Vichy today and you'll meet with a World War II acknowledged only in whispers.
The Australian Embassy in Paris sits on the site of a train station that sent Jews to death camps. Former President of France François Mitterrand, himself once connected with Vichy, eventually placed a memorial alongside the embassy.
It's understandable that France, like much of the world, still struggles to come to terms with the devastation of the Holocaust. So, perhaps, is it understandable that France seeks to educate students about a not-so-distant part of its history by organizing trips to Auschwitz.
But by declaring the 27th of January an international day of remembrance of Holocaust victims, the UNO is missing a much larger and more painful issue: namely, that the Holocaust was hardly the only instance of genocide in recent history, and that humans remain capable of repeating the violence seen between 1939 and 1945.
The sad reality is that people have always been extremely violent toward one another, whether because of religious or political or perceived racial differences. Catherine de Medici started the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572, killing French Protestants by the thousands. When Europeans arrived in America and met with various Indian tribes, it's clear that genocide occurred; yet today the violence of these encounters is often downplayed. Africans died by the boatload on the Middle Passage on their way to an enslaved existence in the U.S.
Rather than focusing on one specific, albeit horrific, instance of human brutality, the UNO should create a day that raises awareness of the suffering of victims of genocide worldwide. This day of remembrance would certainly honor Holocaust victims, but also victims of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge, the Indian victims of European settlers in America, victims of Stalin or Tutsi victims in the Rwandan genocide in the mid 1990's.
Most students in the U.S. and in Europe don't have to look hard to find a relative who was involved in World War II. All of my Jewish friends lost family members in concentration camps; my maternal grandfather was a tail-gunner for the Allied forces, flying over China, who still today finds aspects of the war traumatizing.
What is most shocking about the Holocaust is not the extreme suffering and loss it incurred, but that people remain as capable as ever of singling out other groups of people for genocide.
One girl quoted in the French press said that she could relate to the pain of Holocaust victims very well, as her family had suffered the same fate in Cambodia.
Let's make January 27th a day to remember all victims of genocide, to ensure that the Holocaust never happens again. Let's all say, "Never again. Anywhere."
Cynthia Martens (cmartens@badgerherald.com) is a senior majoring in Italian and European Studies.
Anonymous (January 27, 2006 @ 1:28am):
The Holocaust was about humanity. One of the great writers about the Holocaust, the late Primo Levi, entitled his memoirs of Auschwitz, If This Is A Man. In so doing he delivered one of the most powerful challenges to emerge from the nightmare. The Jews of Europe did not ask to be treated as Jews. They simply sought to be treated like human beings. That is what Nazism denied. The Jews, they taught, were vermin, lice, and parasites. They were less than human. They could be eliminated without compassion. Killing them was an act of purification. Even to say such things, let alone to know that they were believed and acted on, is to tremble. But so it was.
So the Holocaust must be remembered, not only by Jews, but by everyone. That is what a National Holocaust Remembrance Day is about. It is not an act of Jewish remembrance but a day of universal reflection on what it is to be human. To which the answer is: to be human is to recognise the humanity of others, of those who are not like me, who do not live as I live or believe as I believe but who carry within them the mark of their Creator. Those who are not in my image are none the less in God's image. That is the vast proposition with which the Torah begins, and without it there cannot be a world of justice to the human condition.
The greatest move taken in the United States to combat racism was the creation of Martin Luther King Day. The result was that schools throughout the United States dedicated their teaching at that time to the ongoing struggle against prejudice. In the same way a National Holocaust Remembrance Day would be the single most effective act any of us could do to ensure that the teaching of tolerance had a focus and permanent place in the school and world's curriculum.
Anonymous (January 27, 2006 @ 10:22am):
I hate to point something out but the treatment of Indidan tribes in the U.S. is hardly the same as what Stalin did to 70 million of his own people, what Hitler did to the Jews and Gypsies of Europe or what Mao did to 100 million of more of his own people. The U.S. never put in place a plan to wipe out all Indian tribes in the U.S. and while history is being re-written by the left in this country their are countless records of Indian Tribes wiping out entire towns in the west and slaughtering Women and Children along with able body men.
In addition, tribes in different parts of the country were busy killing each other long before the evil white Europeans arrived.
The Trail of Tears, Wounded Knee and other similar events were not the U.S. on its best behaviour but as a whole do not come close to equalling the behaviour of Hitler, Mao or Stalin. One need remember that the tribes fought back and that after victory we behaved rather harshly towards those we had defeated. Probably with rather racist motivations. But European Jews did not raid German villages and were rounded up and sent to concentration camps to be killed without any of the violent history that surrounded European Settlers and American Indian Tribes. Even if the Indians were here first, the Gales could say that about Austria, France, Britian and eventually Ireland where they made a last stand. Now the speak English instead of Irish.
Anonymous (January 27, 2006 @ 11:01am):
Congratulations, you talked about genocide since 1945 but never once mentioned that it's actually happening RIGHT NOW in Sudan.
Anonymous (January 27, 2006 @ 2:03pm):
It's happening right now in Sudan, but China likes it's oil so nothing is being done about it.
It's just another tragic NON-success story to be laid at the door of Kofi's UN.
Anonymous (January 27, 2006 @ 6:40pm):
In my own research on the Holocaust I've come across two things that are problematical. Why have revisionist historians, scientists and publishers been murdered, assaulted, had acid thrown in their face, and been imprisoned? This seems like Dark Ages stuff.
Here is a site that gives a partial list of these victims: http://www.zundelsite.org/english/debate/victims/index.html
And why was it necessary to torture confessions from Nazis during the Nuremberg trials?
Here is an article that details the extensive use of torture by the Allies against Nazi defendants:
http://www.vho.org/GB/Journals/JHR/12/2/Weber167-213.html
Jill Henry
Anonymous (January 27, 2006 @ 7:24pm):
Jill,
What are you saying? The Holocaust did not happen? Where are my relatives?
If you're truly interested in persuing the truth, I encourage you to research all points of view. Begin by visiting a Holocaust rememberance ceremony. Ask those crying, "where are your relatives?" Visit the Holocaust Museum in DC. Surely, you cannot believe the emaciated bodies were photoshopped, the shoes were from thriftstores, and the stories simply legends...
Josh
Anonymous (January 28, 2006 @ 10:36am):
Jill,
Ernst Zundel has gone on the record as denying that the Nazis killed any Jews, and as a supporter of genocide against Jews. If you were at all interested in the truth, as you claim, you would have learned that very quickly. Right now, I see no evidence that you are anything other than a bigot, racist, anti-Semite, and Nazi sympathizer. Go crawl back under whatever rock you came from.
Anonymous (January 28, 2006 @ 1:15pm):
"Africans died by the boatload on the Middle Passage on their way to an enslaved existence in the U.S."
Of course, the descendants of those that survived are in fabulous shape compared to their cousins in Africa.
Anonymous (January 29, 2006 @ 11:51pm):
Yes, there have been many horrific acts of genocide throughout history, but none quite like the holocaust. In terms of premeditation, scale, efficiency, and pure cruelty, the holocaust was genocide unlike the modern world had ever seen or (god-forbid) will ever see again. I think this day of remembrance will help us think about all acts similar to the holocaust around the world -- when we say "never again" we're NOT just talking about Nazi's and Jews. Instead, "never again" means never again will we stay quite while others are murdered senselessly. It saddens me to think about all of the other acts of genocide you mentioned in which we did stay quite. My point is: downplaying the importance of the holocaust will not help our world's situation.
Also, truth be told, closer to 11 million people were killed in the camps, of whom 5 million were Jews.
Anonymous (January 30, 2006 @ 12:04am):
Jill, I'm not sure how you made it this far in college, but I suggest you take some time off and visit the concentration camps in Poland where MILLIONS of innocent people were killed methodically. Really, take a step into reality and out of blind anti-Semitism. And for the love of god, seek therapy.
