Holocaust Rememberance Day

[Scott Gardener]

April 15th is more than the American personal income tax deadline this year; it's also Holocaust Rememberance Day. (Note that, being Sunday, the tax day is moved to tomorrow.) Today we remember and acknowledge one of the greatest terrors humanity has ever faced--the end result of hate, fanaticism, pseudoscience, and the tendancy to allow others to decide for us our morals and our fate. It is now over sixty years ago, and yet it's still a gaping wound in our species, that twelve million people were killed in an effort to eradicate whole races and nationalities, including most notably the Jews.

Today, Israel has the acceptance of most of the civilized world as a nation. But, there are those who continue to deny their right to exist. They claim that the Israelis are invading territory that once belonged to the Palestinians. This claim is dubious at best, as the people who form the Palestinian territories--the West Bank and Gaza Strip--were migrant, feuding tribes at the time of Israel's founding. None-the-less, the Palestinians have considerable support throughout the Middle East, including the endorsement of the governments of Iran, Syria, and Lebanon. These endorsements have come with violence and repeated acts of terrorism, coupled with repeated failures to abide by Israel's peace offerings. (I do acknowledge that Israel fought back in the last year--perhaps out of desperation, but they, too, none-the-less attacked innocents.) While the present day situation and ongoing conflicts are subject to debate, Iran and its associates have made an insult to humanity and civilization in claiming that the holocaust did not happen.

Is it really a plausible conspiracy--that an entire race of people conspired to confabulate rumors of the deaths of millions of people, and that the majority of the civilized world played along, actively constructing names, evidence, footage, bodies, relics, and an entire history? Or, is it that the truth that something so terrible is just hard to believe, however real the evidence is? I must accept the latter, because the facts are there. I met one of the survivors; she was old but retained substantial vitality. Rather, it is a perpetuation of hate and toxic, infectious ideologies towards which Iran endevours. While I do not advocate war with them, I would advocate that their own people evaluate their government and read history, lest it repeat itself.

It must never happen again.

When a government identifies a race or people and singles them out, take heed. When a ruling party declares one race inherantly superior or inferior to another, that government has started a process that leads to nightmares. When the rights of conscious, living beings are sorted and divided, the downward spiral leads us dangeriously closer to the railroad that ends in Auchwitz. When a person follows orders that are evil, forcing the next person to do the same, then the waves build into a tsunami potentially as devistating as the one that sixteen months ago devistated whole countries in the Indo-Pacific.

Don't let it happen again.

[Aki]

Aye, a horrible thing it was. Hitler's (and Stalin's for that matter.. ) crimes are surely some of the worst of humanity's sins.

Also, something interesting: a while ago, a German friend of mine visiting the 'States mentioned that he'd seen some soldiers sworn in or something like that and wasn't happy how they declared allegiance to the President. As the events of WWII have led the German military pledge to be to Germany instead of Germany's leader.

A smart thing to do, I think. For them "I was following orders" is no longer an excuse.

[ravaged_warrior]

While the present day situation and ongoing conflicts are subject to debate, Iran and its associates have made an insult to humanity and civilization in claiming that the holocaust did not happen.

I'm quoting Penn Jillette when I say this, but that takes a special kind of asshole.

[Scott Gardener]

Sad thing is, Hitler is only the number three worst human of all time. Joseph Stalin as previously mentioned takes number one. (So, anyone harping on Japan for allying with Hitler should stuff it, because we had our fair share of devils' contracts, too.) Second goes to Mao Zedong. Stalin and Mao together made atheism go from the least damaging to the most damaging religion in human history. And, the total number of Jews Stalin killed in the pograms of the early twentieth century rivals that of Hitler and the Nazis.

Let's face it; the twentieth century was a rough one. It's the period in human history that gave us all three of these monsters at the same time. Throw in Moussalini into the mix, while we're at it. Italy--the nation that gave us the Renaissance, Venice, many of the greatest artistic masterpieces ever conceived, and some really cool sports cars--even Italy could spawn a horrific dictator. As for the Nazis, I think after the Jews, the next most heavily injured nationality is the Germans; they're still healing their wounds.

The Nazis also stomped on countless metaphysical symbols. Before the Nazis came along, the swastika actually used to be a respectable metaphysical symbol. But, no one can look at the thing any more without thinking first of Hitler's cacophonic rants or the bloodshed of entire races of people. At one point, Hitler even trashed werewolves, trying to use our favorite shapeshifter as a namesake metaphor for some of his late, desperate effort guerilla fighters.