Lessons From The Holocaust
Who has the right to learn from the history? What exceptionalism does history allow? How much will the future allow?
My own study, relationship, obsession with the Holocaust started with my early years, a young boy, fascinated with the world and how this event could have happened. My first question to Mr. Drury, my Grade 7 teacher was, “Why aren’t you teaching us about this?”
In high school, I learned more about who I was. It’s a long story but my name “Deubelbeiss” was a derogatory term given to Jews without a last name, in the 17th century. I’ve written about that history here. You’ll find many Germans who have converted to Christianity and buried their Jewish roots. Many (millions) in fact, participated as Nazis in the suffering of the Jews during WWII. Read Hannah Arendt’s impeccable biography of Rahel Varnhagen: A Life Of A Jewess. She talks about this at length. But it is not a topic Jewish scholars have had much to say about. It’s been avoided … and we can guess the reasoning.
Gradually, obsessively, riding rattling trains where my forebearers once we’re sent to their demise; slowly by reading and consuming ideas of writers who could help me sort out the questions about the Holocaust I had (Gilbert, Levi, Borowski, Celan, Faludy, too many to list) I came to some sane place of solace but yet anger too.
Yet here I stand and though the lessons of the Holocaust seem so clear - the world is witnessing more of the same. I say this without emotion and purely on the logic and numbers and facts of what is known regarding Gaza. And the recent words of the President of Israel - Herzog.
It IS the world’s largest “lager” or concentration camp (as one Israeli academic politely called it). Since 2006, and what Jimmy Carter called, “the most free and fair election), a whole generation has grown up imprisoned. It wasn’t just Israel that became the prison guard of Gaza, much of the civilized world joined its blockade and endorse this with aircraft carriers, sanctions and munitions.
Normal Finklestein wrote about one of Israel’s most murderous episodes of killing, unprovoked during the Great March of Return. (daily snipers killing across the border, innocents). He asks the rhetorical question - Do Prison Camp Guards Have The Right Of Self-Defence? Hundreds killed indiscriminately by snipers. But that pales compared to all the other Israeli operations.
Using just pure logic, the population of Gaza has the right to its freedom and to seek that freedom from its guards. Israel’s president Herzog recently stated, “there are no innocent civilians in Gaza.” Meaning, I assume, they did nothing to stop the murderous Hamas regime, so they are too, guilty and can be freely exterminated by Israel.
It’s horrific, a leader would ever say this. I could digress but won’t. I’ll stick to the point - that being, Israel too is murderous by fact, by history, without debate. 1,000s of innocent children have died through Israel’s bombs, excursions, punishments, targeting or whatever word you use. So then, all Israel’s citizens by default, who 90% or more supported those attacks of Gaza (not counting the non-Jew population) and policies, are too, guilty and can be freely exterminated.
So here we sit …. between two evils.
One person on my list of those who helped me learn about the Holocaust was the Canadian poet Irving Layton. I will have to detail my relationship and talks and letters with him, one day. He epitomizes the Israel we see today. He writes in his poem - To My Sons, Max and David …
The wandering Jew: the suffering Jew
The despoiled Jew: the beaten Jew
The Jew to burn: the Jew to gas
The Jew to humiliateBe none of these, my sons
My sons, be none of these
Be gunners in the Israeli Air Force.
The Holocaust left us many lessons but they all gather into one - “Never again.” But so many have turned that into “Never again to Jews.” It was Layton’s stance and it is the stance of most Israelis.
I reject that exceptionalism and that approach of military might. So do many Hasadim, believing Judaism is commanded through the Torah to be in exile and live scattered, under G_d’s guidance. Judaism is a religion not a country, not a Zionist project. It is not a warrior cult guarded by an air force.
The only way the world will work is if we reject the yolk of patriotism, the drum beat of “I’m superior”. We all think the world couldn’t be like that, we can’t “imagine there’s no countries”. I can.
Leonard Cohen was swept up in Zionist rhetoric as a young poet and Israel used this for all the proganda worth they could, his trip in the late 60s being paraded as a stamp of approval of the right of Jews to the Holy land. But nothing could be nearer the truth. In age, in wisdom and as he put on his Buddhist robes, he rejected the fierce, warrior flag waving might that Israel portraited. From his Book of Mercy;
The covenant is broken. We need a new one. Of love. Of reconciliation.
You can’t keep whipping your horse and expect it to not refuse to pull your cart one day … that about sums it up.
You can read my book and forward, my most recent collection focused on the Holocaust here. I’ll create a list of other collections and essays soon.
Going out on a 1,000 kilometre bike ride. To find peace, clear my head. Enjoy people as they are, beautiful, in place and home without allegiances and ideologies.
Shalom.
I so much agree with what you write here. The hypocrisy of a "never again" that applies only to the Jews, when it is Israel who is slaying and imprisoning and denying rights to the Palestinians. None of that excuses what Hamas did to innocent Israeli's on October 6. Nor does what they did excuse what the Israeli's are doing to to the Palestinians in Gaza. But then, look at what has been happening in Ukraine? I wrote in a blog post early in the war "Never say 'never again' if we don't stop the slaughter in Ukraine now, because it has lost all its meaning." The so-called civilized world stood by and let Putin invade and bomb civilians and rape and torture and kidnap children and bomb one prosperous cities into rubble, while it slowing trickled in arms to the Ukrainians instead of standing by their side in this fight. And why? Because they weren't in NATO, a member of an elite club? If it had been, we would be risked nuclear war and escalation, but because this nation did not have that badge of distinction, we let it be bombed to bits? So "never again" means nothing, it appears. And now it's going on in Gaza, but because the Palestinians are not a "favored nation" the US stands aside, arms Israel, allows them to bomb and starve millions of people, while mildly lecturing them on rules of war, the need of aid . . . . A lukewarm response to the atrocities going on in Ukraine and Gaza is a failure in my eyes, a lack of moral clarity and strength. I'm glad we're doing something to help Ukraine, but it's not nearly enough. I'm glad we're cautioning Israel about the need to protect civilians, but that's not enough either. A sad state of affairs all around. And another horrific repetition of what should "never again" happen.