Remembering History

Last Thursday was International Holocaust Remembrance Day which explains why I’ve been seeing quite a few articles about World War II, especially about those who are still alive. Those who survived the German camps are especially trying to make sure a history of what they went through remains after their death. They are trying to teach the youngsters what has transpired in the hopes we never go through this horror again.

Unfortunately, I think a lot of people are forgetting. The history didn’t sink in.

When I first learned about WWII in high school, I was horrified about the concentration camps and the treatments of the Jews, wondering how in the world does a whole nation of people follow a leader into such atrocities? And if one had to live through such times, how does one protect oneself from turning into cruel torturers and murderers. Since high school I’ve been reading various books about Nazi Germany in the effort to understand: William Schirer’s WWII history, Albert Speer’s bio and own take on how he fell into Hitler’s charm, a book on the psychology of Hitler, books on firestorms, book on the last 5 days of the war, an autobiography of a young girl living on Hitler’s hilltop. And there’s more books that I’ve yet to read.

It is only recently that I have come to a conclusion on how a whole nation devolved into such evil: they didn’t need to be convinced by Hitler, they already hated the Jews and thus just needed someone to light the spark and to give them permission to act out their basest desires. Not all of them, but maybe a good chunk of the population. Those who didn’t subscribe to such hatred were either jailed, killed or went underground with their opinions.

Having read a few more books on WWII than the average American, I’m primed to compare people’s actions with the German’s behavior, whether such comparison is valid or not. I think I’m just primed to be hyperaware.

But I think a lot of Americans did not really pay attention to history. They know Hitler was bad and Nazism was bad, but they might not be aware of or sensitive to the historical parallels.

This week I learned that black colleges had bomb threats on Monday and Tuesday, so threats and violence against blacks have gone up. Threats and violence against Jews are also up. The coronavirus pandemic is not helping matters as people lose patience and start acting more impulsive.

The 2016 election probably fired up those with hatred more than anything because the election signaled that there was way more people than previously thought that harbored hatred and maybe subscribed to the Jewish bigotry and the black racism. I’m guessing here but it could not be lost on those who secretly harbored such hatred that there were others with similar opinions, and they just needed to find them.

So, hatred and the ensuing violence are rising.

And yet, only a certain group of people are decrying the violence; the others are silent. Those others are complicit. Through their silence, these ordinary people are complicit. Maybe, this is what the “banality of evil” means: everyday ordinary people maintain their silence because they agree with the haters, just like the Germans did.

The articles that came up this week and I thought interesting enough to keep in Evernote:

• This one is about the Nazi officer’s housekeeper who courageously hid 12 Jews in a Nazi officer’s basement. When he found out, she made a deal with him to keep them safe: she basically agreed to have sex with him. A Nazi officer’s housekeeper hid 12 Jews in the basement. All of them made it out alive.
• Here’s a story about a young woman who used to work with a Nazi survivor who went to the Holocaust Museum every week to talk to the visitors about his experience. He was afraid of people forgetting history and history repeating. For the Love of Henry Greenbaum.
• This article is about an undercover FBI agent who spent 25 years infiltrating Nazi and white supremacy groups. The article shows that America definitely has problems with hatred circulating in such groups and these groups appear to have been emboldened in the last few years. He Spent 25 Years Infiltrating the Nazis, the Klans and the Biker Gangs.
• And finally, the YouTube about Kitty Hart appeared in my feed. She was sent, along with her mother, to Auschwitz when she was 16 and endured life there for two years. I believe the rest of her immediate family (her father, her brother, her grandmother) did not survive. About 30 of her relatives also perished as well as some of her friends. Part of the video showed her journey back to the camp with her son and we listened to the stories of her life there. Like how she had only one clothes, no under garments, and had to stand outside in the inclement weather during roll call. Like how she had to safeguard her bowl because the prisoners had no other eating utensils. Lose it and you didn’t have anything to put food in. Also, if I understood correctly, that bowl was also used for defecation; otherwise, it was done on the floor where people slept. Water was not readily available for cleansing and yet the guards set you to the gas chambers if you were not clean. And the horrors went on and on and on. Kitty Hart Relives the NIghtmare of Auschwitz.

Some choice quotes that showed the author understood that evil comes when ordinary people stand by. We may be undergoing such era.

“The Holocaust did not happen overnight or even over a few years. It was the result of a steady drip of poison over MANY years that disenfranchised, then dehumanized, and then murdered millions of innocents. And it could not have been done without the buy-in of ordinary citizens.

Teachers, doctors, lawyers, clergy, shopkeepers, friends, lovers, neighbors, the same kind of ordinary people that each of us see around ourselves every day. The same kind of people as us. We are never too far from that buy-in. It is always looming. Henry knew that.”

“For the Love of Henry Greenbaum”, Charlotte Clymer website, Charlotte Clymer, January 28, 2022.

“Yesterday, it was revealed that the McMinn County Board of Education in Tennessee voted, 10-0, to ban “Maus”, the iconic, Pultizer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, which is geared toward educating children. Banned, supposedly, for nudity and violence.

Somehow, all the other books in McMinn County Schools that feature violence and nudity–Shakespeare and Hemingway, and, yes, the Bible–were somehow not banned. Those are deemed appropriate. Those are okay for children, we’re told. Just not the one about the Holocaust.

It’s not just the Holocaust, of course. Books on white supremacy, the history of slavery in the United States, LGBTQ narratives, etc. — these books are being banned by school districts, too, and at a far greater rate in the past year.”

“For the Love of Henry Greenbaum”, Charlotte Clymer website, Charlotte Clymer, January 28, 2022.