Lesson 1: The Importance of Holocaust Remembrance – The Responsibility of Memory

The first lesson is the importance of Zachor, of the duty of remembrance itself. For as we remember the six million Jewish victims of the Shoah — defamed, demonized and dehumanized, as prologue or justification for genocide — we have to understand that the mass murder of six million Jews and millions of non-Jews is not a matter of abstract statistics.

For unto each person there is a name — unto each person, there is an identity. Each person is a universe. As our sages tell us: “whoever saves a single life, it is as if he or she has saved an entire universe.” Just as whoever has killed a single person, it is as if they have killed an entire universe. And so the abiding imperative — that we are each, wherever we are, the guarantors of each other’s destiny.

Lesson 2: The Danger of State-Sanctioned Incitement to Hatred and Genocide — The Responsibility to Prevent

• The enduring lesson of the Holocaust is that the genocide of European Jewry succeeded not only because of the industry of death and the technology of terror, but because of the state-sanctioned ideology of hate. This teaching of contempt, this demonizing of the other, this is where it all began. As the Canadian courts affirmed in upholding the constitutionality of anti-hate legislation, “the Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers — it began with words”. These, as the Courts put it, are the chilling facts of history. These are the catastrophic effects of racism.
• As the UN marks the commemoration of the Holocaust, we are witnessing yet again, a state-sanctioned incitement to hate and genocide, whose epicentre is Ahmadinejad’s Iran. Let there be no mistake about it. Iran has already committed the crime of incitement to genocide prohibited under the Genocide Convention. Yet not one state party to the Genocide Convention has undertaken its mandated legal obligation to hold Ahmadinejad’s Iran to account.

Lesson 3: The Danger of Silence, The Consequences of Indifference — The Responsibility to Protect

• The genocide of European Jewry succeeded not only because of the state-sanctioned culture of hate and industry of death, but because of crimes of indifference, because of conspiracies of silence.
• We have already witnessed an appalling indifference and inaction in our own day which took us down the road to the unspeakable — the genocide in Rwanda — unspeakable because this genocide was preventable. No one can say that we did not know. We knew, but we did not act, just as we knew and did not act to stop the genocide by attrition in Darfur.
• Indifference and inaction always mean coming down on the side of the victimizer, never on the side of the victim. Indifference in the face of evil is acquiescence with evil itself.

Lesson 4: Combating Mass Atrocity and the Culture of Impunity — The Responsibility to Bring War Criminals to Justice

• If the 20th Century — symbolized by the Holocaust — was the age of atrocity, it was also the age of impunity. Few of the perpetrators were brought to justice; and so, just as there must be no sanctuary for hate, no refuge for bigotry, there must be no base or sanctuary for these enemies of humankind. Yet those indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity – such as President Al-Bashir of Sudan – continue to be welcomed in international fora.

Lesson 5: The Trahison des Clercs — The Responsibility to Talk Truth to Power

The Holocaust was made possible, not only because of the “bureaucratization of genocide”, as Robert Lifton put it, but because of the trahison des clercs — the complicity of the elites — physicians, church leaders, judges, lawyers, engineers, architects, educators, and the like. Indeed, one only has to read Gerhard Muller’s book on “Hitler’s Justice” to appreciate the complicity and criminality of judges and lawyers; or to read Robert-Jan van Pelt’s book on the architecture of Auschwitz, to be appalled by the minute involvement of engineers and architects in the design of death camps, and so on. Holocaust crimes, then, were also the crimes of the Nuremberg elites. As Elie Wiesel put it, “Cold-blooded murder and culture did not exclude each other. If the Holocaust proved anything, it is that a person can both love poems and kill children”.

Lesson 6: Holocaust Remembrance — The Responsibility to Educate

• In acting upon the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, states should commit themselves to implementing the Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust, which concluded: “We share a commitment to encourage the study of the Holocaust in all its dimensions… a commitment to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to honor those who stood against it… a commitment to throw light on the still obscured shadows of the Holocaust… a commitment to plant the seeds of a better future amidst the soil of a bitter past… a commitment… to remember the victims who perished, respect the survivors still with us, and reaffirm humanity’s common aspiration for mutual understanding and justice.”

Lesson 7: The Vulnerability of the Powerless — The Protection of the Vulnerable as the Test of a Just Society

The genocide of European Jewry occurred not only because of the vulnerability of the powerless, but also because of the powerlessness of the vulnerable. It is not surprising that the triage of Nazi racial hygiene — the Sterilization Laws, the Nuremberg Race Laws, the Euthanasia Program — targeted those “whose lives were not worth living”; and it is not unrevealing, as Professor Henry Friedlander points out in his work on “The Origins of Genocide”, that the first group targeted for killing were the Jewish disabled — the whole anchored in the science of death, the medicalization of ethnic cleansing, the sanitizing even of the vocabulary of destruction.

And so it is our responsibility as citoyens du monde to give voice to the voiceless, as we seek to empower the powerless — be they the disabled, the poor, the refugee, the elderly, the women victims of violence, the vulnerable child — the most vulnerable of the vulnerable.

We remember – and we trust – that never again will we be silent or indifferent in the face of evil. May this International Day of Holocaust Remembrance be not only an act of remembrance, but a remembrance to act.

            (Aish.com)

Irwin Cotler is a member of Parliament and the former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada. He is Emeritus Professor of Law at McGill University, and has written extensively on the Holocaust, genocide and international humanitarian law.

“There was a straight road to Auschwitz,” says Wendy Lower, John K. Roth Professor of History and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College in California. “When you look back, the Holocaust was inevitable.”

Lower, a historian who spent five years living and researching in Germany, says that while genocides are all a bit different, there are consistent aspects to every mass killing. By leveraging history, she believes, one can almost predict these killings before they start.

Prof. Benedict F. Kiernan, the Whitney Griswold Professor of History, professor of International and Area Studies, and director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University, agrees. He tells JNS.org that genocides usually proceed from a combination of causes, long-term and immediate.

First, harsh historical or social conditions create the “fertile political ground that is necessary for emerging genocide perpetrators to be able to recruit supporters and gain the positions of power from which they may implement their criminal policies,” explains Kiernan. He lists warfare, carpet bombing, mass poverty and suppression, catastrophic environmental degradation, and political or economic destabilization as among the long-term conditions from which genocidal extremists may profit the most.

“Without such widespread historical conditions, a genocidal minority would often remain politically isolated or impotent,” says Kiernan.

Second, the extremist leaders share certain characteristics, he notes. These include being obsessed with their own ideological preoccupations, which can range from racism or religious hatred, territorial expansion, romantic agrarianism, and obsession with recreating or rivaling and distant past.

“Not all of these ideological features are harmful on their own, but on their combination is usually disastrous,” Kiernan says.

“You have to have a combination of hateful people and power,” says Peter Hayes, the Theodore Zev Weiss Holocaust Educational Foundation Professor at Northwestern University. Hayes says almost all modern genocides are state-directed, meaning that even the most evil leaders can likely not carry out a full-blown genocide without their country being behind them.

In Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler had that national support. His genocidal platform can be traced as far back as the 1920s, when in Munich, he laid out National Socialist German Workers’ Party’s 25-point plan.

“Among the points was that no Jews can be members of the German race,” notes Lowry. “They put these points on posters and plastered them all over the city.”

Yet it wasn’t until the depression struck in the 1930s that Hitler’s party began to gain steam. Hayes pointed out that in 1928, Hitler’s party only received 2.5 percent of the vote. In 1932, it received 37 percent.

“Hitler was not very successful until there was an intervening factor in the sense of a major economic catastrophe. … All these regimes and genocides begin in a kind of vocabulary of cleaning, a magical thinking that goes into all of them, that they will make their countries great again by stamping out the forces of evil within them,” says Hayes. “It takes an extreme crisis for people to be willing to buy such nonsense.”

In Germany, the Jews became the scapegoat.

“The old proverb is that anti-Semitism rises and falls in inverse relationship to the stock market,” Hayes quips. “No one likes to blame themselves.”

The portents of genocide became increasingly clear in the late 1930s, when the German leadership had a shift in language. In speeches and newspaper articles, Hayes says the Nazis began to use a word they had never used before: annihilation. Before then, the Nazis referred to the “removal” of the Jewish people. “Annihilation” was different.

Then, there was Kristallnacht in November 1938.

“This was the first real act of physical violence against the Jews—their property and their bodies,” Lowry says.

Only a few years later, the Germans made a decision to shoot at Jews as their armies moved into the Soviet Union. It started with the shooting of men and boys in July 1941. By August 1941, they were shooting Jewish women and children, too—“any Jews in the path of their armies,” says Hayes.

That same year, the first zyklone-b gas chamber was constructed—and tested.

“There were key turning points where fire bells should have gone off—and sometimes they did,” says Hayes, but the Jews had little ability to protect themselves or in many cases to leave due to immigration restrictions and simply being outgunned.

The Holocaust might have been the first example of this systematic type of genocide. But it was not—and likely will not—be the last, Hayes believes. Today, he says, we are obligated to learn from the past.

Moving forward

Education is essential, says Hayes, explaining that one should be able to recognize the difference between extremist activity or political parties and the potential for genocide. In France, for example, while there has been a rise in terrorism against Jews, the state is on the side of the people being attacked.

“The majority population is more angered by the Muslim attacks on the Jews than feeling threatened by the Jews,” Hayes says.

In Hungry, the situation is different.

“Hungry is a borderline case that should be watched,” says Hayes. “Hungry, as a state, is not so protective [of its Jews] and is on the verge of the tipping the other way.”

Hayes also says that Russia has all the combined warning signs for genocide, including national humiliation since 1989, an increasingly difficult economic situation, and extensive anti-Semitism that “might find another outlet.”

“The greatest defense of recurrence of a holocaust is knowledge of the Holocaust,” Hayes says.

What can prevent a contemporary genocide?

“Once a group of people is recognized as vulnerable to genocidal operations, it has to be a priority to those who have the means to provide a safe haven, to get these people out of harm’s way and prevent that loss of life,” says Lowry. “We failed during the 1930s by not providing enough places of refuge. … We have to be more watchful today.”

Hayes says, “The best defense is the defense of liberal principles: the rule of law, treating all people fairly and opposition to theocracy. To stop genocide, these are things one has to defend.”

SIDEBAR: TIMELINE TO GENOCIDE

In hindsight, what events were pivotal in the igniting of the Holocaust?

Feb. 24, 1920: National Socialist German Workers’ Party publicly unveils 25-point Plan, including language that no Jew can be a member of the German race

1930s: Increase in anti-Semitic legislation; anti-Semitism begins to be realized through powers of the state

July 1932: German elections show a 34.4 percent increase in popular support of the Nazi party

Nov. 1938: German officials shift language from “removal” to “annihilation” when referring to Jews

Nov. 9-10. 1938: Kristallnacht, Nazis in Germany torched synagogues; vandalized Jewish homes, schools, and businesses; and killed close to 100 Jews

Fall 1939: First carbon monoxide gas chamber tested in Belzec extermination camp

July 1941: German army adopts policy of shooting Jews as it enters new territory in war

Nov. 1941: Nazis discover use of zyklone-b for use in gassing; experiment in Auschwitz extermination camp

                                                (JNS.org)

Many people will tell you that while they may not be observant, they are spiritual. What exactly does that connote? Does it mean meditating? Vegetarianism? Jogging?

It is none of the above, for all the aforementioned are self-focused. In this week’s parsha, we discover the meaning of spirituality. Kedoshim t’heeyou lee – “You shall be holy unto Me, for I, the L-rd Your G-d am holy…” (Leviticus, 19:2) is the proclamation of G-d.

What is the path to holiness? The parsha details for us the steps that we must take to attain that goal. Therefore, most of the mitzvoth of the Torah are mentioned in this parsha, for it is through the adherence to the mitzvot that we become holy and spiritual. These mitzvoth range from revering parents to loving our fellow man as ourselves, to refraining from taking vengeance or holding a grudge, to being on guard against gossip, to being kind to the stranger, to paying the day worker his wages on that self-same day, to keeping the Sabbath and not worshiping or fashioning idols, and many more. These mitzvot are so critical to Jewish life that every Jew – Kol Adas Bnei Yisroel, had to be present when they were taught (Leviticus 19:2). Another reason advanced by our sages for teaching these commandments to the entire congregation is to underscore the fact that sanctity cannot be attained through a hermit-like existence, but only through reaching out to others in chesed – kindness, thereby bringing them closer to HaShem.

One of the mitzvoth mentioned in this parsha is “not to place a stumbling block in front of a blind person “(Leviticus, 19:14). This means that we must be careful not to give misleading advice. We also have to insure that we do not have hidden agendas and that our motivations for giving advice are pure.

The question that must occur to all of us however, is why does the Torah not simply state that we are not permitted to mislead others. Why this convoluted passage–“putting a stumbling block in front of a blind man?”

The Torah wants to impart to us the seriousness and the importance of trust. Even as no sane individual would countenance tripping a blind person or allowing him to walk in front of a moving vehicle, so too, misleading someone who is unaware, is equally deplorable. We all know how painful it is to discover that we have been betrayed by people in whom we placed our trust, so we should take care not to do this to others. All relationships are built on trust. Neither individuals, nor families, nor societies can survive when trust is missing. When we come to the understanding that to deceive or mislead someone is no different than pushing a blind man down, then we will surely be sensitive to every word that we pronounce.

The path to spirituality and sanctity as outlined in this parsha is to strive for discipline, for moral and ethical excellence and to emulate the attributes of G-d. Even as He is compassionate, so must we aim to be compassionate; even as He is forgiving, so must we must aim to be forgiving, and that is the meaning of “You shall be holy unto Me, for I the L-rd your G-d am holy.”

    (Hineni.org)