By Immanuel Shalev
Currently, Israel is the only country that has a law on the books
requiring the spending of government resources on the commemoration of
the holocaust. Perhaps more impressively, Austria, Belgium, the Czech
Republic, France, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland,
Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland and, most notably, Germany, have
laws that make the denial of the holocaust illegal. While one might
find it impressive that Germany takes responsibility for its past,
pays reparations and makes it a crime for its citizens to deny their
atrocities, the law to remember the Holocaust in Israel seems
superfluous and unimpressive. Jews get it, they will always remember
the holocaust.
Yet in an op-ed article written last month at a Jewish University in
New York entitled “Why It’s Time for Jews to Get Over the Holocaust,”
the Jewish author, Binyamin Weinreich, demanded that it is high time
to let the holocaust fade as a memory. Weinreich explains that he
believes the Holocaust to be important, but that it is singled out as
more important than any other event in history is unfair. Weinreich
has two grandparents who survived the holocaust. In a radio interview,
he explained that it’s okay for them to hold on to the memories, they
are emotiona and therefore are being irrational. For the rest of us
who can see clearly, we are meant to allow the Holocaust to fade and
take its place in history. It should not be an emotional memory but
merely a factual one. “As more time passes between the Holocaust and
the present, it is only natural for it to fade into the background and
become merely another historical incident. People can’t focus on the
past forever. It’s only natural that they move on, and it’s time for
Jews to accept that.”
Weinreich also takes issue with the laws against Holocaust denial:
“Surely this is an overreaction…One cannot be punished merely for
denying the truth. That is an individual’s prerogative, until it harms
somebody else.” What Weinreich does not consider is the unbearable
spiritual harm that is caused each time someone denies the Holocaust.
Indeed his article has rubbed the entire student body of his
university the wrong way, although many cannot articulate exactly why
they are so bothered by his comments. However, his op-ed brings to
light so much of what is important about history and communal memory.
Weinreich has mentioned in a radio interview that he believes emotion
to be blinding and believes that logic should prevail. Weinreich is
correct that emotions without logic are harmful and dangerous, but he
fails to consider that logic without emotion is meaningless. It seems
that Weinreich and others like him fail to consider the human spirit
in their life philosophies. Discounting spiritual harm and limiting
harm to that which can be seen makes everything more neat and tidy,
but it also amputates pain, meaning, connection and achievement.
Perhaps the most jarring demonstration of his grevious error is when
he demands that the Holocaust take its place in history: forgotten at
the edges of one’s memory. And yet, a person should be embarassed if
he lets a historical event take the edges of his memory. When one
considers the struggles of the Civil War a historical curiosity and
forgets the moral failings that led to that event, one can expect to
succumb to similar moral failings. Try as one might to discount
emotion, humans are spiritual beings.
The two sides you discuss relating to the treatment of the Holocaust today are equally
dispiriting. States that make it a crime to deny the Holocaust do a disservice to the entire
subject. These laws have good intentions given the extent of anti-Semitism, but the law need
not get involved. When someone expresses their denial of the Holocaust, every thinking person
with a shred of morality rightly views that individual with disgust, and that person loses the
respect of their peers. That punishment is far more effective than anything the State could
enforce with any legitimacy. On the other hand, to argue that we need to ‘move on’ from the
Holocaust is so arrogant it is absurd. There are people still alive who lived through this. In
terms of the moral universe, the repercussions of the Holocaust have barely even begun to
register. The Holocaust occurred in the midst of Western civilization that remains virtually
identical today. To truly suggest that we need to move on reflects a lack of more than just
curiosity, it reflects a blindness to the moral repercussions that we have not yet possibly
reckoned with.
The author of the article and grandchild of two Holocaust survivors, Binyamin Weinreich, has most likely grown up listening to the stories of pain and suffering his grandparents experienced. He has most likely come to understand the educational and professional opportunities that his grandparents were denied because of their religion. As the granddaughter of four Holocaust survivors, I can empathetically relate to the difficult and possibly traumatizing stories Weinreich may have heard growing up. Nevertheless, I think that what the author may not recognize is that the knowledge he has garnered over the years, about atrocity and human rights violations, is not common knowledge. For this reason, I deem it necessary for people like Mr. Weinreich to maintain the close connection he has to the Holocaust, its repercussions and its horrors, so that he may educate others on what has resulted from the Nazi regime. I do not think the Holocaust is something for the Jewish people to keep to themselves, but rather children and grandchildren of survivors have a responsibility to explain the Holocaust as a universal story that may be shared to prevent tragedy from continuing occur
I agree with the author of the blog, Immanuel Shalev, when he states that it is perhaps the most grievous thing for Weinreich to recommend that the Holocaust must take its place in history. Permitting the Holocaust to simply take its place in a history textbook implies to me an emotional detachment from tragedy. If for nothing else, the memories of the atrocities of the Holocaust should be used to mourn our dead in an attempt to memorialize the family and friends that lost their lives. This kind of ritualization is not possible if we relegate the Holocaust to a respective place in history.
I am crying as I read this article. I cannot believe that anyone would say “time to get over it.”
Although I had only one relative that perished, I cannot get over it. I have been hospitalized in a
psych ward because I cannot get over it. I constantly think about it and am still having issues with
how it could have ever happened in the first place. Maybe someone out there could help me to deal and/or cope with this better because the way I feel about it is affecting my daily life.