The Legacy of the Holocaust...

Article by James Lewis. Edited by Rose Colville. Additional Research by Kathy Stein. 

No one would argue that the Holocaust was not one of the defining moments of the twentieth century. An event in which nearly six million Jews, as well as homosexuals, gypsies, Slaves, communists and journalists were killed should stand within the halls of historical records as a warning for future generations to take heed. The denial of which landed Dirk Zimmerman nine months in prison last year and Wolfgang Frohlich six and a half years in 2008. A legacy that played an important role in the European elections last year, as the British National Party, a party whose leader had previously questioned the validity of the Holocaust, won two seats in the European parliament, and has polarised political views in the United Kingdom. So what’s the issue? Perhaps it is a question of location.

If you were to walk to your nearest synagogue, they would probably have an issue with how we view the Holocaust. Understandably, the Jewish faith was thrown in chaos by the Holocaust, sparking new theories such as the ‘hiding of the face’ of God, or even the death of their divine entity. However, is the Holocaust a one off event, or just a reminder of the turbulent history of the Jewish faith? The exodus from Egypt is well known, but how about the massacres and martyrs under the Maccabeans? Or the killings lead by Neberkenezer written about in the Old Testament, and remembered at the festivals of Sukot and the weekly Sabbath Friday night dinner? Or perhaps the Yom Kippur and Six Day Wars, where Israel were caught battling against multiple states and their armies? Even in England we have seen examples of anti-semitism, were at least one hundred and fifty Jews either killed themselves or were murdered in Clifford’s Tower in 1190. It is true that these numbers may not have been on the scale of the Holocaust, but ignoring then, or putting too much emphasis on the Holocaust, would be to gravely misunderstand Jewish history. 

Or maybe instead, you should walk to your nearest mosque. It seems strange to bring the Muslim faith into this argument, but the implications of how the warning of the Holocaust was ignored are monumental in shaping the history that we are living today. Nazism used propaganda to poison the German people, and manipulate them towards the hatred of Jews and all that they stand for, using phrases such as ‘Conscience is a Jewish invention, it is a blemish like circumcision’. Although there may have not been any direct examples of indoctrination against Muslims in the West, the religious divisions between Muslims and Christianity (as well as Judaism) are now starting on the road towards replicating those seen in the times of the Crusades earlier in the Millennium. With two state-sponsored wars in the region, and with the potential for more incursions in countries such as Iran and western Pakistan, a new state of paranoia is starting to slowly envelop the West. Although it may be faint at the moment, for the sake of a peaceful future, perhaps the global media and world leaders should turn its gaze away from the Middle East, and the threats faced from the minority Muslim extremists. 

The most shocking of all though, are the numerous genocides that have occurred since the Holocaust across the globe. Take a plane to Rwanda, and you will find a country still reeling from a genocide in which conservative estimates would indicate that 500,000 native Tutsi and Hutu were murdered. Put in context, if the equivalent of the UK population today was exterminated, it would cost nearly four million lives. More radical historians would put the number of Rwandans killed closer to one million. Even more horrifically, this took place in a one hundred day period. Or travel a bit closer to home, to Bosnia-Herzegovina. In 1995, Bosnian Serb forces conquered the UN protected safe-area of Srebrenica. Bosnian Muslims men and boys were separated from the rest of the population, under the eyes of Dutch UN peacekeepers. They were then taken to a nearby football stadium where between 7,000 and 8,000 were executed and buried in mass graves. The legacy of Dachau and Auschwitz must have played on the minds of world leaders in the 1990’s, yet these atrocities were allowed to continue with very little intervention from so called world peace organizations like the United Nations. 

It would seem that the implications of the Holocaust have been forgotten or ignored as the living memories have begun to fade away. Even as the last generation of survivors begins to draw its final breaths, humanity is committing similar atrocities as those seen in Nazi Germany before and during the Second World War. As we are entering a world where we are beginning to prematurely judge those based upon their faith, the legacies of the Holocaust are beginning to grow faint. To ensure the twenty first century does not contain the horrific atrocities of the twentieth, a renewed emphasis must be placed on the atrocities committed and how to avoid any future replication.

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