The memories of 20th century events inexorably fade from our collective rearview mirror, leaving us to ponder on this International Holocaust Remembrance Day: What might we still learn from the Holocaust?
The question is all the more relevant and poignant because the brave Holocaust survivors on whom we have relied to be the bridge between generations, people who put a human face on the mind-numbing 6 million Jews murdered by Adolf Hitler’s “Final Solution of the Jewish Question,” are beginning to leave the world stage. Soon, their personal narratives of terror, mass murder, helplessness and irreconcilable loss during the Shoah, and their struggle to retain hope and love again in the post-World War II era — narratives that once riveted generations of young people in classrooms, synagogues and churches — will be relegated to social media holograms.
If they could, what lessons would these survivors of history’s greatest crime leave for today’s troubled world — and what guidance would they provide for young people seeking to formulate their fledgling “moral GPS”?
We can’t speak for every survivor of the Holocaust, but we were blessed to have known and worked with one: Simon Wiesenthal.
Wiesenthal, namesake for our Simon Wiesenthal Center, shared insights and hard truths with us, and with the world, based on his tragic experiences. A victim of the Nazis, he lost some 89 members of his family in the Shoah and became the unofficial ambassador of millions of murdered Jews as he brought 1,100 Nazi war criminals before the bar of justice, with little help from a largely uncaring world.
Among his words of wisdom were these warnings from Wiesenthal:
- “The history of mankind is the history of crimes. Recognize that there is evil in the world and be prepared to take action.”
- “Our first reaction to Hitler was Jewish jokes. By the time we woke up to the threat, it was too late. When someone — anyone — declares they mean you harm, or worse, take them at their word.”
- “Antisemitism did not die with Hitler in his Berlin bunker in 1945.”
- “Can it [the Holocaust] happen again? The next time the victim may not be a Jew, the perpetrator may not look like Hitler, but when you have organized hatred, a crisis in society and technology, anything is possible. Had the technology that Nazi Germany used been available in 1492, no Jew would have survived in Spain, no Catholic in England, no Protestant in France.”
- “Was I surprised by how many Nazis there were? No, only by how few anti-Nazis there were. Silence is admittance.”
- “We cannot defeat antisemitism on our own. The Holocaust exposed how alone we Jews were in time of dire threats. One lesson we must take from the Shoah is that we need new allies and new friends to fight Jew-hatred.”
- “While the Jewish people alone were targeted by Hitler’s Final Solution, millions of innocent non-Jews also perished. If we want the world to remember our tragedy, we must be willing to speak out when others become victims of crimes against humanity.”
- And finally: “Freedom is not a gift from heaven. It must be fought for every day.”
To this we would add this dictum: Standing in solemn silence for 6 million dead Jews is of no value if you show little or no regard for living Jews.
We hope that this International Holocaust Remembrance Day will inspire Germans to show solidarity with their Jewish neighbors who are victimized by antisemitism, including on the streets of Berlin.
We hope that this International Holocaust Remembrance Day will awaken a French judiciary to hold perpetrators of deadly Jew-hatred culpable for crimes in a court of law.
We hope British police will better protect religious Jews targeted for hate crimes in their own neighborhoods.
We hope our elected officials, faith leaders, and our neighbors across the United States will act with bipartisan resolve and solidarity against the hate crimes suffered by American Jewry.
We hold out hope that today’s commemoration will finally witness social media giants ending the marketing capabilities of antisemites and bigots on their powerful platforms.
If we learn but one new lesson from the Shoah this Jan. 27, it is this: It always starts with words, it always starts with Jews — but it never ends with just words and it never stops with just the Jews.
Rabbi Marvin Hier is the founder and CEO of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Rabbi Abraham Cooper is associate dean, director of the Wiesenthal Center’s global social action and vice chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.