Holocaust Commemoration

They came first for the communists
And I didn’t speak up because I
Wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade
unionists,
And I didn’t speak up because I
wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews,
And I didn’t speak up because I
wasn’t a Jew;
And then … they came for me …
And by that time there was no one
left to speak up.

That poem expresses a universal conscience. Unfortunately, the universality of the poem did not evoke determination and the will to act by those around Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoeller, perhaps in part because he had a limited audience. Since the Holocaust, his immortal words of conscience denied and regretted has been widely distributed, and people have had the opportunity, in hindsight, to ponder on this age-old dilemma of “what would I have done?”

The tragedy of that time was that people in the immediate vicinity of the atrocities, while knowing what was occurring, thought little of it, because of an advance campaign of dehumanization of Europe’s Jews, that very community representing the universal, historical scapegoat. The reasons might be many, among the most compelling the fact that most of the death camps were located in areas of Europe where traditionally Jews held a despised place in the social contract, and where the local populations were themselves persecuted by the occupying Nazi oppression.

Still, like Pastor Niemoeller, there were individuals and families whose humanitarianism and courageous determination to assist Jews set them apart from the mass of those to whom death marches, concentration camps, Zyklon B and crematoria with their great chimneys belching human souls were ‘nothing to do with them’. Those courageous, charitable souls have been recognized as ‘righteous among the nations’. And they were represented by individuals as various as poor peasants, middle-class businesspeople, diplomats, clergy and nuns, who set for themselves the task of rescuing those whom they could from the torments of enslavement, torture, disease and extermination.

Nazi Germany distinguished itself in the annals of man’s cruelty to man by its dedication to the annihilation of world Jews, its determination to reach its goal despite being involved in a wide-ranging military battle to dominate the world. Its ambitions were boundless; to see the Third Reich ascend the world stage as the over-controller of all other countries of the world. The Nordic ideal of the perfect male; physical perfection mated with cerebral acuteness. The Axis countries never did quite reach the level of enthusiasm of Nazi Germany in its quest for not only world domination, but a world free of the presence of Jews, but they were granted the status of inclusiveness.

There are many Holocaust memorials in the world today, throughout Europe and North America, commemorating that awful event of vile madness. Where, while a dominant military nation reached the decision that it would commit itself to exterminating a nuisance ethnic-religious group for the greater good of humankind. Considering Jews a pestilence, a tribe of sub-humans whose hierarchy had as its goal - why, world domination; in politics, finances, media, religion and culture. Absent the ‘religion’, a mirror image of Nazi German’s aspirations. It is interesting that fascist Germany also planned a museum dedicated to Jews and all things Jewish, as a curiosity reflecting the arcane lifestyle and aspirations of a ‘disappeared’ race.

And it is also instructive to understand that once the Allies - those combined countries of the world who made a military pact to battle to a successful conclusion those allied Axis countries aligned with fascist Germany - became knowledgeable about the plight of the Jews, not one, with the notable exception of tiny Denmark, made an official attempt to rescue Jews, even when it was in their power to do so. The pathetic exculpatory reasons proffered after the fact simply pointed out that inaction was a result of latent or overt racism, a simmering anti-Semitism that pervaded Europe and North America, Latin America and Asia, but for a few amazing exceptions.

Inaction to rescue even orphans from death was a result of supreme indifference to the fate of Jews.

Modern history recorded the horror of the Irish famine and the Ukrainian famine, both dreadful mass starvation events that could have been avoided, but for the deliberate disinterest of the British and the Russians in forestalling those disaster; instead they instituted them. The Armenian massacre by a worn-torn Turkey another instance of humanity’s failures, even before the Holocaust. And then after the Holocaust the world turned its shamefaced attention on the appalling mass murder of helpless victims representing an insane vendetta against a specific group - and the League of Nations vowed that such an abomination would never stain the annals of world history again.

We now have, to add to the earlier litany of mass atrocities against humanity, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur. And now, we also have the United Nations, heir to the League of Nations, doing its utmost to wipe the scourge of racism out of human destiny, and for that singular purpose it encourages all nations to bear witness to their internal social compact, in honour of fundamental human rights and freedoms.

And for that reason, we have such vital bodies as the United Nations' sponsored Human Rights Council, whose appointed leading lights represent repressive dictatorships, sitting in judgement of liberal democracies who need no lessons in the observance of human rights and freedoms. And we also have the spectacularly dysfunctional event named The Durban Review Conference, the 2009 United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Durban II, held in the United Nations headquarters in Switzerland.

To which the world's foremost Holocaust-denier, fervent anti-Semite, human right- abusing racist, issuing existential threats against a UN member-country, insistent on the attainment of prohibited nuclear-defence/offence technology, is invited to speak as the 'honoured guest'. So he may ventilate at this most public of forums his, and his country's and his supporting countries' racist tirades against Jews.

And thus does the world unfold ... not necessarily as it must ... but as it tends to do.