Please stop talking about the Holocaust

Something rubs me the wrong way when I hear yet another well-meaning government official or other representative talk about how they support yet another Holocaust museum or memorial. How they really regret what the Nazis did and how the world looked on in silence, never again…yada yada yada. Spare me.

Recently, I read an editorial in the Wall Street Journal by Scott Morrison, the prior prime minister of Australia, you know the one who didn’t recognize a Palestinian State. And while I agree with his opinion that the the current prime minister Anthony Albanese along with his Labor Party made “Australia safe for antisemitism” as he put it, I was somewhat bothered to see that Morrison listed among his many bonafides, that he is a member of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and that he increased funding for Holocaust museums. What? How could I possibly hold that against him?

What really pains me is not Morrison himself, but rather the too many others like him who mention their Holocaust cred but are totally absent or, even worse, do things that put today’s living, breathing Jews in peril. To me, the words they express at this or that Holocaust remembrance event are just lukewarm pablum designed to appeal to Jews without really doing anything at all to prevent more violence targeting Jews. They fail to clearly and loudly voice their support of the Jewish nation that arose after the Holocaust. You know, the one that is between Jewish survival and yet another mass attack against Jews for being alive. If you really care about the Jewish people, I would tell them, please stop talking about the ones we so tragically lost due in large part due to the silence of people like yourselves who failed to act when there was clear and present danger. The six million victims of the Holocaust can never be resurrected. They are gone. What Jews today need is a viable and strong homeland so that another Holocaust never gains a foothold.

Yet, just over two years ago, a massacre of Jews occurred in Israel at the hands of today’s premier “Nazis,” the radical Islamists that form the overwhelming majority of the occupants of the Gaza Strip. The reaction among many liberals and progressives was to support those same people who barbarically attacked Jewish children, women and civilians, and even Holocaust survivors.

I’m sure those very same people bemoan the Holocaust and believe in the inauthentic version of the Never Again slogan, the one that means never again will we revert to the German Nazi version of the Holocaust when the majority of Jews in the world lived in Europe and Russia, the version where the Jews didn’t have a home of their own, the version where the Jews were helpless to defend themselves, the version where non-Jews did little to nothing to help them. They believe only in the version of the Holocaust that would require them to time travel, a la Back to the Future, to remedy what cannot be remedied. The version that makes them feel self-satisfied to believe they are the good guys who would defend all minorities unjustly persecuted and inevitably eradicated.

But that version of Never Again is not only meaningless, it’s worse than that. It allows these people, members of the Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine, the equivocating Chuck Schumer types, the Progressives who focus on the misdeeds of Netanyahu instead of the barbarism of Yayah Sinwar, to feel morally correct. It allows them to talk from both sides of their mouth, the insincere side that parrots a meaningless Never Again, while the other side of the mouth engages in talk that actually advances the destruction of Jews.

A perfect case in point is what happened recently at Bondi Beach, Australia. We had a prime minister, Anthony Albanese, talk about how dedicated he is to safeguarding Jews while just months earlier he came out in support of the very same people who engaged in a real genocide against Jews on October 7 and beyond by recognizing a State of Palestine. No pre-conditions necessary. I’m sure Albanese had attended as a government official role in Holocaust memorial activities.

[I wrote the preceding sentence BEFORE doing some internet surfing and guess what I found? Albanese had indeed mouthed platitudes about the Holocaust just two years ago at the reopening of Melbourne’s Holocaust Museum. Here’s what he had to say then: “This museum stands because we must never forget the Holocaust. Not the scale of it, not the depths of its cruelty. A savagery that was long in the planning and cold in its calculation.”]

His words became even more painful after the Bondi massacre. Listen:

“Since the atrocities of October 7, Jewish Australians have been bearing a pain you should never have had to bear again. And you are feeling fear. Anxious that the long shadows of the past have crept into the present.” He added: “As the conflict continues, antisemitism is on the rise. But we will not let it find so much as a foothold here.”

I hear you groaning. So am I.

As I suspected, Albanese is just one of a painfully long list of those who exploit the Holocaust to provide cover for their weakness in helping today’s living, breathing Jews. Today’s Jews are sick of hearing about fake sympathy while completely ignoring the needs of your citizens to be protected and, yes, to stand behind your words. If you, Prime Minister Albanese, truly believed that the “long shadows of the past have crept into the present” you would not have cheered on Israel’s enemies by claiming that they deserved a state.

So forgive me if I tell everyone how sick I am of Holocaust memorials and dedications and museums. I would trade them all for sincere conviction and action among the leaders of so-called liberal countries, mostly in Europe, but also Australia and Canada, to truly support the Jewish state through words and actions.

And you want to know the biggest irony of my Google search? I found the article about Albanese’s visit to the Melbourne Holocaust Museum in an article entitled “Australian PM Albanese, opposition leader exploit Holocaust to legitimise Gaza genocide.”

My brain automatically interpreted it to mean to legitimize (American spelling) their pro-Jewish credentials. It was only after reading a few paragraphs in that I scrolled back to the top and saw that it came from the World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org. Nov. 24, 2023). At least, Oscar Grenfell, the author, and I do agree on one thing: Albanese was exploiting the Holocaust. I guess it was a two-for-one bargain: he managed to let down both the far left and the entire Jewish community.

The sad thing is that he is not the only one. By conducting some further Google searching I found that Keir Starmer of Great Britain,  Emmanuel Macron of France, and Mark Carney all, at one time or another, spoke at Holocaust events.

Here’s what Starmer said at a Holocaust Remembrance Day Commemoration in Ottawa, last year: “We were reminded again that antisemitism isn’t a thing of the past. Since October 7, Jewish communities have faced renewed fear. That’s why ‘Never Again’ is more than a phrase — it must be a promise.”

Uh-huh.

Macron spoke quite eloquently in July 2017 at the Vel d’Hiv (site where 8,000 Jews were deported to Auschwitz) commemoration:

“I know that we all make a point of fighting anything that could lead to the same situation. But we must open our eyes and look reality in the face. In today’s France, the corruption of minds and moral and intellectual weakness that racism and anti-Semitism represent are still present, and notably so. They take new shapes, new faces and choose more surreptitious wording.”

You only need to stop for a moment, however, to see, behind the new façade, the racism of old, the entrenched vein of antisemitism.

Actually, his entire speech where he accepted responsibility for France’s role in the Holocaust was quite moving. Sadly, Macron, too, should have reflected on his own words and realized that the new facade he himself spoke of, the facade of Hamas terrorists and their avid supporters in Gaza and their far left supporters in France, are the latest incarnation of Nazism. He should have realized that recognizing a Palestine state with no preconditions was the type of behavior that Vichy France engaged in.

As for Carney, he’s not worth my time.

In conclusion, I think we need to stop the focus on the Holocaust. I say this as a person who was deeply affected by the Holocaust, starting at age 12, when I learned that my own parents were survivors of evil so deep that they could never find the words to adequately describe their ordeal. The Holocaust changed my entire perspective of the world and what seemingly nice people are capable of. 

But my parents, I believe, would have agreed with me that the most important way of honoring those who suffered unbearably during the Holocaust, would be to ensure a safe, respected, viable nation of Israel, whatever it takes. And right now if you truly believe in the slogan “Never Again,” the best way to express this is by standing up for Israel, no apologies, no stipulations, no “but we also care about the poor Palestinians”.

It is easy to talk about a past that is growing ever more distant; it is far harder to stand up for a nation under attack by the fashionably liberal as well as some extremists on the right. If you want to honor the memory of the Holocaust, there’s only one way to do it: clearly voice your unequivocal support for the Jewish state of Israel.