It’s A Jungle Out There

At the risk of sounding hopelessly naïve, I thought those horrors and stupidities, the outrageous lies and manipulative propaganda aimed at one group or another were relegated to history or, at least, to a shrinking segment of society. And yet, here I am, listening to the Republican presidential candidate blame Jewish voters if he loses. Here I am, scratching my head as white supremacist Neo-Nazi groups cheer on a former US President and his VP pick as they reiterate an old racist fallacy that immigrants eat pets, with real-world consequences for Haitians trying to build a better life. Here I am, watching an engineering genius, justly credited with the success of Tesla and Starlink, promote the “great replacement theory” that there’s an international conspiracy, led by Jews, to overrun white countries with minorities. Really? Really?

To Pause and To Ponder

One of the biggest surprises of my recent visit to Omaha was the discovery of the Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center, a little-known gem with a big mission. Bak is an artist who blends history, symbolism, and personal experience to create layered, thought-provoking paintings. He is also a Holocaust survivor whose haunting memories and unanswered questions inform all of his work.

Holocaust Remembrance

When I was growing up, I thought of my parents as the lucky ones. So many had perished during the Holocaust that I did not associate that term with them. After all, they had never been carted off to a labor camp or death camp. They were hunted, but they were not caught. Did that count? Clearly, the upending of their lives was traumatic but not equivalent to the tragedy of whole families and whole communities – be they Jews, Romi and Sinti, Jehovah’s Witnesses, LGBTQ, disabled, political enemies like German Communists, Socialists, and Social Democrats, or members of the Resistance – exterminated systematically. That’s a long list of “others,” isn’t it? When one group is persecuted in a Fascist regime, they are usually not alone for long.

Remembering the Righteous

Because my parents survived the Holocaust, I have thought endlessly – and not very productively – about how so many otherwise decent people did nothing. But the other side of the coin is this: If I were witness to such terror, could I find the courage in myself to act?

There are so many who did find the courage to help in whatever way they could. Non-Jews who put themselves in harm’s way have been dubbed The Righteous Among the Nations. I came across some of their stories while researching my family’s escape from the Nazis for my upcoming book, In the Wake of Madness.

Remember

My parents fled the Nazis, arriving in New York in 1941. Born just four years after Germany’s surrender, I was keenly aware of the Holocaust, though my parents rarely shared details, wanting to face forward rather than look back. But, at school, I was puzzled that the Holocaust was barely mentioned in World War 2 history texts. As Germany was developing into an ally against Communism, it seemed that some wanted to downplay the regrettable “mistakes” of the past. Even to me, the systematic murder of six million Jews and other “undesirables” was impossible to comprehend, and seemed a little like ancient history.

Fast forward to the present day, and we see a disheartening trend, particularly among Millenials (now in their forties) and Generation Z (those born 1997-2012). In many ways, these generations are among the best-educated and most socially conscious, yet there is a disturbing lack of knowledge when it comes to the Holocaust.

Bettie DennyJanuary 27, 2023Holocaust, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Netherlands survey Comment

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