Sixty years after the liberation of Auschwitz, world leaders have commemorated Holocaust Day. For those countries with no history of Nazi collaboration, coming to terms with evil foreigners is not particularly challenging. Nonetheless, perhaps enough time has passed that it is now possible to learn from it.
Twenty-five years ago, my German friends were taught their history only up until World War II. The war was not mentioned, let alone the Holocaust.
In my history lessons in England, we also were not taught about the Holocaust. For that matter, we were not taught about the victims of colonisation either, which would have been more confronting.
We were taught about heroic British soldiers in the battles of World War II. We had to understand the threat to England. But the death camps were taboo. When I asked the history teacher why, I was told off for asking impertinent questions. Dates of battles were important. Critical thinking was not.
I learned about the Nazi Holocaust in my Jewish youth club. Over many years, I saw reams of footage of gas chambers and emaciated bodies. Extraordinary women survivors told of their dehumanising experiences. Many more never spoke about it. I learned time and again of the 6 million Jews massacred. I did not learn about the murder of 250,000 psychiatric patients.
It was only in adulthood that I discovered that not all victims of eugenic theories and Nazi operations were Jewish. There were many others who did not fit the Aryan fantasy, including mentally and physically impaired people, lesbians, gay men, gypsies, socialists and other political opponents. Most in my Jewish community were simply not interested in the others.
In my early 20s, I attended a workshop for Jewish women on the relationship between Jewish and African communities in Britain. It was run by Leah, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. The women who came eagerly ranted about black anti-Semitism. They had no interest in looking at their own racism. Despite the security of their own lives, they could not move beyond their history of persecution. The Holocaust had become the essence of their Jewish identity. Leah left and cried.
Many in my insular Jewish community learned from the Holocaust that no one else but Jews looks out for Jews. For many years, it was drummed into me that you look after your group, because no one else cares. The resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe, undeniably terrifying given our history of persecution, fuels this protective identity.
This insularity and protective group behaviour originates from and perpetuates persecution. And so the Israeli state moved from persecuted to persecutor.
According to a Time article, the Israeli state's abuse of its citizens who survived the Holocaust is astonishing. The trauma of the survivors who got to Israel was not recognised by those supposed to help them. They were drugged and locked away. All nations are better at seeing oppression when it is somewhere else.
The Israeli Government does not commit genocide. It does commit murder. To talk of the Israeli Government as a persecutor of the Palestinians risks accusations of anti-Semitism. But in honour of those who suffered the Holocaust and those who established the state of Israel, the Holocaust does not excuse illegal occupation of the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Nor is it justifiably a tool in the propaganda that trivialises the death of Palestinians.
It was chilling to watch an initiation ceremony for the Israeli Army at Yad Vashem (the Israeli Holocaust museum), yet I fear that while these 18-year-olds are powerfully reminded of the Holocaust, they are not taught to learn from it. Such an emotive introduction to war may well help to create martyrs. It is less likely to contribute to peace.
It is tempting to see the Nazi Holocaust as something unique, partly because it was so meticulously organised. For some, it cannot be discussed alongside genocide in Cambodia, Rwanda, East Timor, Bosnia or Darfur. And what are the right words to describe massacres of indigenous peoples? To define the Holocaust as unique renders it harder to learn from.
I have never heard anyone who helped with mass murder in the gas chambers talk about their experiences. For most pawns in the Nazi machine, it is probably too hard to overcome their shame. Perhaps they came to believe that those murdered were merely collateral damage in their pursuit of the Aryan dream. Perhaps many of the 18-year-old German boys thought they were servicing mankind as they rid the planet of vermin. Their masses of victims were not human. They were other than themselves.
While the propaganda that surrounds us here and now may make this seem incomprehensible, the propaganda of Nazi Germany does not. We are probably all capable of murder in the right circumstances.
To talk of the power of propaganda is to state the obvious. Perhaps one of the lessons from Nazi Germany is the crucial importance of independent media. Yet almost all the Western mass media is owned by a handful of powerful people whose interests are well served. There is little outcry as we sit in the comfort of our living rooms and watch journalists embedded in war zones report the so-called Coalition of the Willing invade Iraq.
It is terrifying that millions of Americans watch Fox TV and apparently believe it to be value-free journalism. Germans presumably thought the same about the Nazi propaganda machine.
It is so much easier to fear, hate and murder the other - those we do not understand. To protect ourselves and our group, people in other groups can appear sub-human. Watch the bullying in our playgrounds, or on the world political stage, to see the power of in-group and out-group behaviour. You are with us or you are against us. It is that potent combination of fear, with the security and power of knowing our group is righteous.
It is not only many within my Jewish community who find it easier to condemn racism in communities other than our own. Will the American attendees at Auschwitz return home from the commemoration to recommend a day of remembrance for the near annihilation of native Americans, or announce initiatives to finally address this homeland issue?
Propaganda filled with stereotypes can so easily exacerbate fear. Our deeply ingrained need to belong to a group is so much more powerful than our need to make wise decisions. The basis for such decision-making is critical thinking, working out what to believe and how to act after careful consideration of the evidence and reasoning in a situation.
We can nurture or diminish our uniquely human abilities to think critically and to consider the ethical implications of our actions. Encouraging critical thinking involves condoning children asking hard questions and increasing understanding of self-serving distortions. This is as important as learning to read and write.
Our schools and sports clubs could put more emphasis on teaching children about group dynamics, prejudice and discrimination. Politicians could contribute by curbing their baser instincts to bash segments of society.
"I hope and I believe the entire world, especially the free world, will indeed learn the lesson from these events, the events of World War II," said Moshe Katsav, the Israeli President at the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz. Yes, indeed.
* Emma Davies is the programme leader - children and families, at the Auckland University of Technology's institute of public policy.
<EM>Emma Davies:</EM> Lessons in horror of persecution
Opinion
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.