Germany's Sacrifice

"Attacks on synagogues are an almost weekly occurrence, and openly anti-Semitic chants are commonplace on well-attended marches from London to Rome. And yet it is here, in Germany, where the rise in anti-Semitism is most historically painful."

On Sunday, thousands of people marched through Berlin in response, and heard both Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joachim Gauck denounce the resurgence in anti-Jewish hatred."

"We’ve seen this before, of course. But there’s an important difference this time. The new anti-Semitism does not originate solely with the typical white-supremacist neo-Nazi; instead, the ugly truth that many in Europe don’t want to confront is that much of the anti-Jewish animus originates with European people of Muslim background."

Jochen Bittner, New York Times, 16 September 2014

Anti-Semitism reached its pinnacle in the years 1939 to 1945. Europe was then, as it is now, quite receptive to fascist Nazi propaganda depicting Jews as vermin planning to take over the world of finance, communication, politics, to exact a stranglehold on all that was decent and convert it to the poisonous use of the Jews who thrived on draining the blood of innocent children to mix with their Passover matzos. Once Jews were sufficiently dehumanized, the greater European public turned away from what followed.

The years following the Holocaust saw in many places of Europe a contrite population claiming it had no idea that Jews were being systematically murdered in death camps sprinkled all over the Continent. Those countries today, particularly Poland, where most existed, emphatically make the distinction that these were not Polish death camps, but German death camps placed in Nazi-occupied Poland. The stench of death emanating from the chimneys of the ovens covered the countryside, just as the black particulate matter of what was once millions of living bodies fertilized the soil.

"Until recently, Germany has been unwilling to discuss this trend. Germans have always seen Muslim anti-Semitism as a less problematic version of the “original” version, and therefore a distraction from the well-known problem of anti-Jewish sentiment within a majority of society."

"And yet the German police have noted a disturbing rise in the number of people of Arabic and Turkish descent arrested on suspicion of anti-Semitic acts in recent years, especially over the last several months. After noticing an alarming uptick in anti-Semitic sentiment among immigrant students, the German government is considering a special fund for Holocaust education."

There is a curtain of dark irony in the fact that German society is staggering under the weight of six million Muslims, a transition that began in the 1970s with the introduction of temporary workers from Turkey into Germany. Six million European Jews slaughtered; six million Muslims sheltered. There are now huge swathes of Germany that are in essence, Islamic, where the German public is in a distinct minority witnessing their heritage, culture and religion becoming that of a minority. And where there are Muslims there is, by default, anti-Semitism, and it is surging.

"But the rise of Muslim anti-Semitism is responsible for the recent change in the tone of hate in Germany. Until recently, the country’s anti-Semitism has been largely coded and anonymous. Messages might be spray-painted on walls at night; during the day, though, it would be rare to hear someone shout, as protesters did in Berlin in July, “Jews to the gas!” Another popular slogan at this and other rallies was “Jew, coward pig, come out and fight alone!” — shouted just yards from Berlin’s main Holocaust memorial. And this is the difference today: An anti-Semitism that is not only passionate, but also unaware of, or indifferent to, Germany’s special history."

Now, Germany under Chancellor Angela Merkel is a much-changed nation from what it was at mid-20th-Century. Its history casts a pall over its self-regard, and Germany today cannot understand the Germany of yesterday; that a nation so cultured and refined, proud of its heritage and its values could have become so pathologically deranged and hate-filled. The Germany of today leads Europe in the value of its compassion and intelligent pragmatism. And the Germany of today has risen to a humanitarian challenge.

Other countries of Europe have looked at and evaluated their experience in absorbing Muslims from earlier migrations from the lands of Islam which have failed to advance their economies and social status to satisfy the needs of their populations.  And they have found that experience wanting. They have witnessed the slow and steady erosion of their national essence as Muslim enclaves spread and make their demands that Islamic law in Sharia be given equal status with the laws of the land, and their culture and values are gradually swallowed by another.

But here is Germany showing the way of compassion, and demonstrating to the reluctant members of the European Union that the country that once attempted by violent force to command the stage now does so by generous acceptance of refugees and migrants fleeing their Muslim countries of origin by the hundreds of thousands; fleeing poverty, national dysfunction, intolerable oppression and violent conflict inflicted both by Islamist jihadists and the very regimes that are meant to support the needs of their people, not massacre them.

And in its generosity Germany is re-introducing virulent anti-Semitism back into the society that attempted to cleanse the world of Jews, giving the entire concept a new lease on life. Bearing in mind that sermons from the mosque each Friday remind the faithful to regard Jews and infidels as inferior disposables. Bearing in mind that the most basic precept of Islam is the obligation of all its faithful to ensure that Islam grows in influence, gradually to become the only recognized path to god; the goal to conquer the world.

German fascism failed to achieve that goal, but a much larger, more powerful ideology that is also a religion, a social and political movement, an army of jihad, is on the move, intending to achieve that goal. That the two have collided so gently at a time of a genuine humanitarian catastrophe is perhaps the most blatant and potentially frightening irony of all.

"The point is, it’s not about personal involvement; it is not in our blood, but it is in our history, in the timeline of a place that migrants have become part of. For Germans, accepting responsibility for the Holocaust has to mean feeling ultimately and more than any other nations’ citizens responsible for keeping the memory of its horrors alive — simply because those crimes were ordered from our soil.

Nothing more, but also nothing less has to be expected from every citizen of this country, no matter where her or his parents are from."

"What has become obvious this summer is that the “old” Germans have not yet managed to properly deliver this message to all the “new” Germans."
Jochen Bittner is a political editor for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit.

Good luck with that, Germany. German politicians hoping to convince their Muslim newcomers that a pluralist society of genuine human values concerned with upholding basic human rights views all members of society irrespective of origin, ethnicity, heritage, culture, religion equal and deserving of respect have their work cut out for them. For Islam is an agency without peer in its persuasive capacity, and mosque attendees listen carefully to what their imams inform them of, reading from the Koran, from the Hadiths.

"Radical preachers have actively contributed to this impression. In a Berlin mosque, a television crew secretly recorded the sermon of a Turkish imam who described the Germans as godless and railed against their alleged stench. In London, hate preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri called upon the faithful to murder female tourists in his native Egypt, saying: "If a woman, even a Muslim woman, is naked and you have no way of covering her up, it is legitimate to kill her."
"Other agents of the Koran speak moderately when addressing Western audiences, but their words turn decidedly more radical when directed towards Muslims. In an interview with SPIEGEL, television imam Yusuf al-Qaradawi, perhaps currently one of the most influential Islamic scholars around, magnanimously conceded that there is also room in heaven for devout Christians and Jews. But on his Arab-language website a short time later, he made it clear that he believes that Christians and Jews are ultimately nothing more than infidels."
Spiegel Online International, April 19, 2006