The Singularity and Familiarity of the Holocaust Informs Us Today: Reflections from a visit to Yad Vashem

 

On Yom HaShoah 28 April 2022 27^th Day of Nisan

By MG Kaplan

Earlier this year, for the first time, I visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial and Museum in Jerusalem.  I’d been to Israel several times before, but this time a visit to Yad Vashem was a priority, following a couple of years of genealogical research of my family, which revealed both the tragedy and devastation of so many lost people, including dozens of family members.  I expected an emotional time at Yad Vashem, and that is what I experienced.  It was made even more resonant when I thought about our current state of affairs here in the U.S.   How are we doing in managing the kinds of dynamics that when not managed can lead to something as extreme as the Holocaust?  How are we doing in trying to become the pluralistic democratic republic based on Enlightenment values, that we were intended to be?  

The Jewish Holocaust was a singular event.  It is not just the number of people; it is both the intent to destroy an entire group of people but also the way in which it was done.  The planning, the precision, the efficiency, and the ability to get much of German society (and other European countries) on board with the annihilation of all of the Jews of Europe was a singular historical event.  From a distance, the Jewish Holocaust of almost half of the world’s population of Jews, the murder of another several million people including targeted groups such as Roma, people living with disabilities, LGBT folks, and others seems so obviously misguided and horrific that it can’t be conceived of as something that could happen again.  I always felt that way, knowing theoretically that my family (and Jews in general) had lost many people, but not feeling too personally connected to that loss, and believing that it would never happen again.  Never Again.  It all seemed so unreal.  My view was that progress had and would continue to unfold, that human beings had learned an important lesson.  I knew little about the early part of the 20^th century, which were not great times for Jews in the U.S., featuring extensive targeting and stereotyping, exclusion from social institutions, blatant exclusion from top universities, and more.  Growing up during what has been called the “golden years” of Jewish life in the USA, antisemitic targeting and hatred was not a significant part of my experience.  I knew and observed stereotypes about Jews, but that seemed both limited and far away from the life of my family, the exception but not the rule. 

At the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, the first exhibits are of the propaganda campaign against Jews which began well before large-scale murders and deportation to concentration camps.  This detailed and extensive propaganda, which I describe below, was a reflection of fear and insecurity in Germany, probably a more intense version of the kinds of fears and insecurities that we can see today in the U.S., and much of the western world.  In the U.S. we are in the midst of a steady and accelerating demographic change in which Whites, who are still by far the largest racial group (60% of the population), are decreasing, while groups of color, particularly Latino/as and Asians are increasing.  This kind of demographic and cultural change, though in the background for a long time, is now accelerating and appears to be increasingly connected to economic factors, including a rapidly expanding wealth and income gap, and socioeconomic stagnation which makes it harder for Americans to progress up the economic ladder.  The economic fears were resonant in Germany in the period after WW1, but also at play were cultural issues.   Germany was characterized by 2 conflicting dynamics:  1) an increasingly progressive and open society, and 2) economic disruption and anxiety, at first related to crushing debt and humiliation after WW1.  The global Great Depression quickly ended the social progressiveness.  The economic disasters, and perhaps a feeling among many Germans that something was being lost in their traditional culture helped create a backlash that focused on blaming others.  In this environment, Hitler and The Nazis rose, and focused the blame for Germany’s problems on “the other.”  Jews were their main target, and this is captured in the first part of Yad Vashem, with articles, advertisements, pamphlets, etc. which pictured Jews with extremely exaggerated physical features, and described them as evil, conniving, threats to children, etc.  On display in the museum are actual devices that would measure the size of the skulls of Jews, to prove that they were Jewish and defective or abnormal in some way.  Looking at this, especially given a couple of thousand years of harshly negative anti-Jewish stereotypes, it isn’t hard to see how Hitler was able to foment such visceral antisemitism.  The propaganda campaign of lies and gaslighting about Jews was intense and ongoing; there was no room for truth.  The interplay of socioeconomic difficulties with cultural polarization is familiar, and similar, today.

We don’t have to suggest that what is happening here today exactly parallels Germany in the 1920s and 30s to ask ourselves if some of the dynamics at play then, are occurring today.  After all, these are constantly repeating human dynamics, even if they show up different and with different levels of intensity and impact.  Which groups do you see being stereotyped and demonized now?  Desperate immigrants who illegally cross the US border, Asians during the pandemic, Trans people in general, and the ongoing mistreatment of Black people?  Think about the ways in which we demonize each other around political identity.  As you think about this, consider our shrinking middle class, the cost of higher education, and the difficulties many have with socio-economic mobility.  Take note of a rapidly growing wealth and income gap and the increasing focus on the elites vs. the rest of us.  Now think about the level of polarization in our politics.  This is more concerning than anything I can recall in my life, and probably the biggest most multi-faceted social, cultural and political challenge that we’ve faced since the 1920s and 30s.

I am convinced that the U.S. will be managing these kinds of dynamics for as long as we can keep the democratic republic given to us almost 250 years ago.  Some of this is to be expected.  A diverse democracy is a hard thing to keep.  An ebb and flow, a give and take, is essential; our progress will never be in a straight line.  Change followed by backlash to change is to be expected in most societies and organizations.  Two steps forward and a step back are the norm of our national evolution when it comes social change and diversity.  Tolerance needs to be the minimum standard, with acceptance, empathy and admiration as the goals.  We need to be able to see the ways that we all benefit when we strive to be a pluralistic democracy.  Human existence isn’t a zero-sum game in which we have to constantly identify with a group and pit ourselves against another group.  That may seem like a contradiction given that this essay started with my reflections about the experience of Jews, but we will always be balancing our group identities with our individuality. 

In these difficult times the most patriotic thing any of us can do, is figure out how we can make our diverse, pluralistic democracy work.  This means we have to be able to see our fellow humans as individuals, not just members of groups.  At the same time, we can’t ignore their group identities.  I have frequently had the experience of meeting people in any number of groups of which I had been explicitly or implicitly encouraged to see only through stereotypes.  Almost always when I can connect to individuality, stereotypes drift into the background.  An Israeli friend of mine shared a profound experience of meeting another young woman from Iran, in a 3^rd country.  My friend identified as a European, not an Israeli, and the young woman she met was not wearing the chador, and dressed in a very modern and western style.  As they each revealed themselves to the other, their strongly-held stereotypes were replaced by an interest to understand each other as individuals.  I had a version of this at a recent dinner with friends who have very different political views than I.  I told myself to focus on them as individuals, not on our different political identities.  It not only made for a much nicer dinner conversation, it also laid the groundwork to help us manage to stay connected as societal tensions continue to rise, which I believe will happen over the next several years.  We were building our bank account of good will.  In order for a pluralistic democracy like ours to survive difficult times and prepare to thrive as those dynamics wane, we need to have these relational bank accounts.  The Holocaust shows us what can happen when we don’t. 

We should hold the Holocaust as a singular event, but at the same time we should see the similarity – the familiarity – with how easily we objectify and dehumanize others.  Post-WW1 Germany didn’t have the history, laws, and constitution that we have in the U.S.  We have tried to balance group-ness and individuality for our entire history.  From the start we represented various groups that occupy the same land, and we are at least supposed to have the same opportunities to pursue our individual happiness.  After all, it is from these various groups that we emerge as individuals.  

Ultimately our individuality, meaning our individual experience of being human, is the most basic and  important experience we have.  The values of The Enlightenment, the philosophical backbone of our Constitution, are passionate about individuality and individual rights, while giving us guidance in balancing individuality with other people and other groups.  This balance is hard to keep. We have work to do, always, but sometimes we have extra work to do.  That time is now, and if we step away from it, where are we?  More importantly, who are we?

"When I grow up and get to be twenty 

I'll travel and see this world of plenty.

In a bird with an engine I'll 

sit myself down, Take off and fly, into

space far above the ground.  I'll fly,

I'll cruise and soar up high Above, a

world so lovely, into the sky...

Abramek Koplowicz, murdered in Auschwitz at age 14

Poem exhibited at Yad Vashem with Abramek's original journal