Holocaust + +

 

 

 For the past ten years or more I have tried to "honour" Holocaust Memorial Day on this blog, mostly with an extract from Primo Levi's records of his experiences, "Is this a Man.?" and "Truce."  This year being the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, by the Red army, there is so much media interest that a modest reference here to the details of the atrocity would be superfluous. 

I gather from one programme  on BBC Radio that Levi found it difficult in the early years after the War to find a publisher: people preferred something more noble or optimistic - in the UK details of derring-do such as "The Wooden Horse " and the "Dam Busters."  It was not until the 1960s that interest grew in the darker sides of the conflict.

In another  programme I heard an interview with one of the few remaining Auschwitz survivors.  I didn't catch his name but he was 92 years old so presumably born in or about 1932 (five years before me) and would have been aged about seven when the war began and 13 or so when he was liberated.  He had an older brother and admitted that their relationship included fierce arguments typical of brothers as well as mutual protection. He was one of the survivors taken to Windermere and had a successful career in the UK.  

The interview concluded with his saying that the cycle of inhumanity is returning again.  When asked who were the current victims I expected him to suggest refugees and migrants drowning while trying to cross the Channel, "illegal" residents in Trump's America, persecuted dissidents in Myanmar, Uyghurs in China . . .

 But no.  It was Jews, the resurgence of anti-Semitism.

Frankly , given the relentless slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza for the past  fifteen months, and  the transfer of terror to the West Bank now that there's a (temporary?) pause in Gaza, I am not surprised.

Yes I know that there are thousands of Jews around the world  who are as horrified by the Israeli government's actions as the rest of us, and not all those who live in Israel support what is done in their name.  But the tarring of the brush takes hold and, in this age of false news and misinformation, becomes even more virulent.

The trick of the populists the world over, rather than to offer solutions to undoubted problem, is to identify and blame "the other."

 We should retaliate with moments of light, as the brave episcopalian bishop, the Rt Rev'd Mariann Edgar Budde did at  the US service of "Thanksgiving" (!) for the transfer of power to Donald Trump.

“I ask you to have mercy, Mr President,” she said from the pulpit at the National Cathedral prayer service for the inauguration, “on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away. And that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land.”

 There is no "other"  Only "people like us.".