Holocaust

November 20, 2020 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

No Matter How Deep Antisemitism Runs, It Must be Uprooted!

It is one thing to expose the vile monster of global antisemitism week after week, but beyond the exposure, we must make an effort–at least individual if not corporate–to fight it. As a result of our voices and actions, in some cases, we can nip it in the bud or even reverse it. An encouraging–and yet limited– example of this, is what happened at CNN a few days ago in a statement made by senior anchorwoman Christiane Amanpour. My intention is not to freely bash Ms. Amanpour, but rather to analyze her statement and apology in the scope of the current rise in antisemitism.

During the second week of November, she made this statement, ” This week 82 years ago, Kristallnacht happened. It was the Nazis’ warning shot across the bow of our human civilization that led to genocide against a whole identity, and in that tower of burning books, it led to an attack on fact, history, knowledge and truth. After four years of a modern-day assault on those same values by Donald Trump, the Biden-Harris team pledges a return to norms, including the truth.”

She received a lot of criticism and days after, at the end of her program, she issued this apology, “and finally tonight, a comment on my program at the end of last week. I observed the 82nd anniversary of Kristallnacht, as I often do. It is the event that began the horrors of the Holocaust. I also noted President Trump’s attacks on history, facts, knowledge and truth. I should not have juxtaposed the two thoughts. Hitler and his evils stand alone, of course, in history. I regret any cause my statement may have caused. My point was to say how democracy can potentially slip away, and how we must always zealously guard our democratic values.”

Much was said in those two short statements. First, I must commend Ms. Amanpour for remembering the defining events of Kristallnacht. As a Jew who lost members of my family in the Holocaust, I make a point of remembering AND telling the current and future generations about the atrocities of Kristallnacht and how it triggered the Holocaust. Beyond the initial acknowledgment though, the statement quickly turned caustic. I find it interesting that Ms. Amanpour spoke of genocide against a whole identity, but couldn’t see herself using the words “Jews” or “Jewish.” It seems that whenever used in a positive context or to describe victimhood, people seem to shy away from such words, but when needed to describe “crimes against humanity”, “occupation of Palestinian land” or “colonization”, the word easily roll off one’s tongue. Another case of double-standards?

She was spot on, about the genocidal agenda, but she could only speak of an “identity” and a tower of burning books. The reality was that thousands of buildings, including many synagogues, were leveled, not to mention the death of over 100 Jewish people. But then, Ms. Amanpour described the massacre as “an attack on fact, history, knowledge and truth.” While there is an element of truth in that statement, it looks like these values were listed to facilitate a connection between Nazi ideology and Trump policies–a connection that is truly NOT based on fact, history, knowledge and truth. The fact is, Kristallnacht was an organized pogrom and boycott against the German Jewish community. It was all about the genocide of European Jewry. Her words appeared to be an attempt at minimizing and distorting the Holocaust.

The facts are that no other US administration has done more for Jewish people and other minorities than this current one. But was seems to be implied here is that President Trump has been leading an attack on fact, history, knowledge and truth against Americans across the board. This is a view that, while promoted by much of the more liberal media outlets, doesn’t justify comparing President to Hitler and his genocidal agenda.

Ms. Amanpour almost immediately received a lot of criticism from across various communities and issued an apology within a couple of days. The people spoke up and called CNN which resulted in the aired apology. Was she compelled, led, or forced to do so we do not know, but her apology was almost as damaging as her initial libel. She properly summarized Kristallnacht as “the event that began the horrors of the Holocaust” and even though she clearly said that she should have not compared Trump to Hitler, she still equated Trump’s policies to “attacks on history, facts, knowledge and truth.”

My concern is that Ms. Amanpour’s statement has graver consequences than a statement followed by an apology. It is a symptom of a deeper problem that I have tried to expose in the past. I see four issues in that apology:

• Her diatribe was not an isolated incident: She regularly accuses Israel of crimes not committed, based on her personal wrong assumptions about history and the geopolitical situation in the Middle East. She has gone as far as calling Jewish people terrorists and children murderers in 2008 on CNN when, in an interview, she stated “And, although the number is small, there are terrorists — Jewish terrorists, including some who would even kill Palestinians children.”

• Her diatribe unequivocally exposes her real mindset: I have said this before, the very fact that someone would be willing to make such comments about the Jewish people, or any other people for that matter, shows that it is part of their mindset. It is always good when they apologize, but these apologies are usually short-lived and often overshadowed by the next libel. The very fact that Ms. Amanpour thought to compare President Trump to Hitler is the bigger problem.

• Her apology was only skin deep: Ms. Amanpour probably got called in by her boss and asked to issue some kind of an apology to preserve ratings and control the justified ire of the Jewish community and of many other people of goodwill. Her half-baked apology didn’t sound sincere, and that is very sad.

• Her words don’t seem to put her job in jeopardy: Outside of this recent half-baked apology, claiming that she regretted having made her comments, her repeated diatribes have not been taken back or even put her CNN anchor’s position in jeopardy. She has repeatedly denigrated Israel and promoted the Palestinian narrative with no consequences affecting her job.

At the end of the day, I still think that it is a good thing that her libel was exposed for what it is and that she was forced to issue a statement of apology. Even if she wasn’t sincere, she needed to be exposed for her ignorance of history–willful or not– and blatant antisemitism.

• We must teach historical truth to others, especially our children and regardless of how uncomfortable any part of history was.

• We must show our Jewish community support when they are being attacked either verbally or physically.

• We must refrain from character assassination as retribution, no matter how frustrated and angry we might become.

• We have to stop believing that this doesn’t concern us if it is not directly affecting us personally.

• Ignorance should never be used as an excuse, especially in the age of instant communication.

• We cannot remain silent on the assumption that one voice will not amount to anything.

The Bible is actually clear about this as we read in Proverbs 24:10-12, “If you are slack in the day of distress, Your strength is limited. Deliver those who are being taken away to death, And those who are staggering to slaughter, Oh hold them back. If you say, “See, we did not know this, Does He not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does He not know it who keeps your soul? And will He not render to man according to his work?”

Not to speak is to speak, not to act is to act, and to look the other way turns us into co-perpetrators. We all have a choice!

November 6, 2020 By Olivier Melnick 1 Comment

Kristallnacht and the Temple Mount: What Can They Possibly Have in Common?

Sometimes when I look at the history of Israel and the Jewish people, I feel like I am watching the opening credits of a Star Wars movie. The main theme appears in text form from the bottom of the screen and slowly moves up as its size reduces towards the horizon and eventually disappears off the screen completely. As years go by, I continue to see the absolute necessity to tell people about critical markers on the timeline of Israel and the global Jewish community. This is why I continue to educate my audience about things like the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, BDS and other important events that plague the Jewish people.

If it happens today, it is part of the news, but as soon as tomorrow hits, it becomes part of history. The problem is that not all of history is worth recalling, but whose choice is it to pick what part of history to remember? We all have different interests, customs, traditions and even agendas. They all dictate what we choose to remember, commemorate or celebrate. This being said, there are events that transcend history and must be recalled by all, lest history becomes forgotten, erased or altered, putting us in a dangerous position where history could repeat itself.

One of these nefarious events took place on the night of November 9-10, 1938 and is remembered every November as Kristallnacht or “The Night of Broken Glass.” But, before we can look at Kristallnacht, we must consider what just happened to the Temple mount that will help us to understand how the two are connected.

This is not the first attempt and probably not the last one either, but 138 countries of the United Nations approved a draft resolution naming the Temple Mount solely as an Islamic holy site, by the name of al-Haram al-Sharif. The title of the resolution itself is so politically charged that it shows the slant taken, “Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including east Jerusalem.” It is important to note the few countries that voted against the resolution. They were Israel, Australia, Canada, Guatemala, Hungary, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and the United States. The European countries who supported the resolution were Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK to name just a few who also claim to be friends with Israel?

The Temple Mount currently hosts several buildings that are all Muslim. The Dome of the Rock with its gorgeous golden roof–often mistaken for a mosque–is an islamic shrine containing the rock/location from where, according to Islam, Abraham ascended to heaven. The Dome of the Rock was built in the 7th Century AD and further renovated and restored throughout the centuries. The Temple Mount also includes the Al-Aqsa Mosque that was built in AD 705, just a few decades after the Dome of the Rock. Many archeological excavations and studies have been made on the Temple Mount. It was believed for a while that there were no Jewish connections to the area, or at least, as stated by British archeologist Dame Kathleen Kenyon, “no trace of the Temple remained.” She eventually changed her views to declare that much of the remains of Herod’s Temple (2nd Temple) could still be found. Additionally, remains of Solomon’s Temple (First Temple) were also discovered underground, proving without the shadow of a doubt that the geographical location known as the Temple Mount did indeed host both the first and second Temples in Jerusalem. For an in-depth archeological, historical and biblical study of the Temple and its surroundings over the centuries, Dr. Randall Price wrote his authoritative volume, The Temple in Bible Prophecy: A Definitive Look at Its Past, Present and Future.

No serious scholar or archeologist would venture to say that the Temple Mount has no Jewish connections, unless they had an agenda and wanted to push a narrative to delegitimize Israel’s presence and right to self-determination. This is exactly what we are seeing at the present time. This resolution is yet another attempt at re-writing history and delegitimizing Israel. This allows Israel’s foes to paint the Jewish state as an oppressor, invader and colonizer, trying to claim Muslim land, when in fact the real estate where the Temple Mount is located precedes Muslim history by at almost 2,000 years, Solomon’s Temple era having started around 1000 BCE. Biblically speaking, the destruction of the second Temple that took place in AD 70, was prophesied by Yeshua Himself in Matthew 24:2, “And He said to them, “Do you not see all these things? Truly I say to you, not one stone here will be left upon another, which will not be torn down.” It is nothing short of a miracle that we can actually find even traces of the two Jewish building at that location.

So, when the United Nations declare that the Temple Mount has no Jewish connection, they de facto become co-conspirators in the crime of delegitimization of Israel. The danger here, is that if people believe that Israel has no right to the area, it further feeds the narrative of Israel’s occupation and crimes against humanity. Now, the question still remains, “How does the Temple Mount connect historically to Kristallnacht?” Well, it doesn’t connect historically, but it does connect politically, and this is how.

First, a little background on the events that transpired in Germany on the night of November 9-10, 1938. During that dreadful night, a critical event took place that would seal the fate of six million European Jews. That was 82 years ago. The event is known as Kristallnacht or “The Night of Broken Glass.” The reason given by the Nazis was the assassination of German official Ernst vom Rath, shot two days prior by Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish teenager reacting to his parents’ deportation. In reality, the boycott/pogrom of Jewish synagogues, schools, businesses and homes resulting in the death of almost 100 Jewish people and the destruction of 7,500 properties was well planned, and anything but a reaction to the death of a German official. Additionally, 30,000 Jewish people were sent to concentration camps. Historians agree that Kristallnacht was the onset of the Holocaust, shifting Nazi antisemitism from mere rhetoric to pure violence and murder. It set in motion the death factories aimed at accomplishing “the final solution.” They almost succeeded!

So, it is very important to remember Kristallnacht and tell our children about it, especially in light of current world events. We have seen an increase in acts of antisemitism worldwide, in several cases leading to the death of people in Europe and the United-States. Antisemitism has now become a reality almost on a daily basis. It can no longer be ignored, and yet in the eyes of many, it is not really that important of an issue. As a matter of fact, a recent survey showed that 32% to 50% of young Americans had very little to no knowledge or understanding of the Holocaust. Most couldn’t even name one concentration camp.

Alongside the ignorance of history, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is becoming mainstream. So mainstream that people don’t bother checking if any of its accusations are based on facts or fiction. People in Hollywood, in government and even in several Christian denominations are doing their best to cripple Israel and the Jewish people. They are not trying to bring justice to the Middle East as they would want us to believe but rather, they want to completely eradicate Israel from “Palestine”.

The Jewish people have also been accused by some, of creating propaganda with the events of Kristallnacht, the ghettos and the Holocaust, to build a case for themselves to move to “Palestine”, uproot the “native Palestinians” and settle down under the guise of Zionism. When people buy the false narrative of Jewish occupation on a “Muslim only” Temple mount area, they can easily be swayed into buying a revisionist position on Kristallnacht. After all, one of the best ways to completely eradicate a people group is to erase their history. If their history cannot be proven, maybe it never happened, and if it never happened, or was best grossly exaggerated, it also becomes easier to paint this people group as the problem. As it stands, most people are not history buffs. The era of the Internet and social networks has turned us all into consumers of information, and in and of itself, this is not a bad thing. The problem is that we used to be consumers of well prepared, nutritious meals as we took interest in the details of history. Today, most of us only have time for junk food as we barely digest the brief internet soundbites and headlines rarely checked for veracity. So, when people de-judaize the Temple Mount, nobody pays attention or if they do, they don’t question it. The generation that believes that the Temple Mount is a Muslim site only will have no problem believing that Kristallnacht was Jewish propaganda to claim the land of Israel. If and when history repeats itself, this current generation suffering from “self-imposed historical Alzheimer” might not see it coming before it is way too late. That is the very reason why we cannot remain silent!

October 30, 2020 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

Can the Jews be Replaced Theologically or Ethnically?

The Jewish people have long been the thorn in the flesh of mankind. From century to century and from continent to continent, we have been unwanted, abused, harassed and exterminated, and yet, by the grace of the Almighty, we still exist (Jeremiah 31:35-37). Our very existence is irritating to many, and instead of taking it up with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they take matters in their own hand and go after the Jewish people, wherever we might be. The results have been increasingly lethal all over the globe.

Somehow, when it comes to the Jews, people passionately try to replace us. In all cases, the real Jews being replaced are becoming irrelevant or are being painted as impostors, easily turning them into a target for elimination. There are two main venues to replace the Jews: Theologically or ethnically. They both rely on faulty biblical views that need to be looked at, so that we can help people understand who really is a Jew, who are the ten lost tribes and what promises from God are still in effect for the real Jews.

Theologically, Israel has a place in the Bible in just about every single book. While not by name, it can easily be argued that God’s starting point to deal with the Jewish people and their descendants goes back to Genesis 12, where He makes an unconditional, eternal promise to Abraham and his descendants, reiterated in Genesis 15 as the Abrahamic Covenant, that is still very much in effect today, and absolutely unchanged as to its recipients. That is if you take a literal, grammatical/historical view of the Bible–an approach that isn’t necessarily favored by all. Theologically, many of the Church Fathers contributed to what would morph into the racial antisemitism of the Holocaust era and even the new antisemitism of today. Justin Martyr and Tertullian are two of them.

Justin Martyr (AD 120-185) was an early Christian apologist who is still revered in Church circles today. He is the author of the most important and most complete Christian tract against Jewish people in the second century, if not in all of the early Church Fathers’ writings, entitled Dialogue with Trypho in which he attempts to prove that Christianity has supplanted Judaism. Justin Martyr might also have been the first to erroneously claim that the Church was the true “Israel of God”, making him possibly the father of Replacement Theology. In the following example, he quotes Isaiah 42:1-4 and then introduces his reasoning for how he believes that the Church replaces Abraham’s descendants in God’s covenants (bold italic is Justin Martyr and italic is Scripture): “Again, in Isaiah, if you have ears to hear it, God, speaking of Christ in parable, calls Him Jacob and Israel: “Jacob is my servant, I will uphold Him; Israel is my elect, I will put my Spirit upon Him, and He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not strive, nor cry, neither shall any one hear His voice in the street: a bruised reed He shall not break, and smoking flax He shall not quench; but He shall bring forth judgment to truth: He shall shine, and shall not be broken till He have set judgment on the earth. And in His name shall the Gentiles trust. (Isaiah 42:1-4)”
As, therefore, from the one man Jacob, who was surnamed Israel, all your nation has been called Jacob and Israel; so we from Christ, who begot us unto God, like Jacob, and Israel, and Judah, and Joseph, and David, are called and are the true sons of God, and keep the commandments of Christ.

In this instance, Justin Martyr used the allegorical approach to change a literal teaching into a subjective one, yielding a conclusion not supported by the Word of God. We can always prove our own points using an allegorical approach, but is God convinced?

What about Tertullian (AD 160-220), the Christian author who produced a large body of literature in Latin? He was also an apologist who taught against heresy. Tertullian has been called “the father of Latin Christianity” and “the founder of Western theology.” He was one of the first Church Fathers to formulate Trinitarian terminology. That contribution, along with other writings helping the early development of Christianity, then in its infancy, cannot be ignored.

In his work De Adversus Judaeos, “Against the Jews,” Tertullian goes after the Jewish people. Back then, his theological anti-Judaism was purely ideological. He used the Hebrew Scriptures to methodically disprove the relevancy of the Mosaic Law. He claimed that the Mosaic Law was given by God to the Jews because they were an inferior race of criminals whose crimes culminated in the killing of Christ. He then went on to prove that all blessings to ethnic Israel were then passed on to the “other nation” of God; The Christians. By the second century, the inferiority of Judaism had already taken root in Christian theology and was not questioned. The question is no longer “Is Judaism valid?” but “What are we to do with Judaism as a whole?” His contributions further paved the way for Replacement Theology, “There is proof that they [the Jews] were marked out indelibly as answerable for the crime of idolatry. In fact, our people — that is, the later — having forsaken the idols to which previously we used to be devoted, were converted to the same God from whom Israel departed, as we mentioned above. For thus the younger people — that is, the later — rose above the older people, while it was obtaining the grace of divine honor from which Israel has been divorced.”….”Originally, God gave the Law to Adam and Eve. It contains all the “hidden commands” of the Mosaic Law. In fact, it is the source of all Law from God. He who writes the Law has the right to modify it, so it should not be surprising that God would reform or “finish” the Law over time. How could Noah or Abraham have been considered righteous if God’s Law had not been given before Moses? How could Melchizedek have been “called a priest of the most high God” without the equivalent of Levitical law in place? In fact, God’s unwritten Law was kept “by the ancestors” for centuries before Moses. ….From this we understand that the law of God was already in existence before Moses, as [it has been given] first neither at Horeb, nor at Sinai, nor in the desert, but [it has been given] first at a more ancient time — in paradise — then afterwards to the patriarchs. And thus also, it has been given to the Jews at certain times when [God] wanted and has been reformed at certain times. The result is that now we do not pay attention to the law of Moses in such a way as though it were the first law, but as a subsequent one.”

Writer David Efroymson in his work on Tertullian, his influence and legacy, stated that many followed after Tertullian with their anti-Jewish diatribes and added this profound statement, alluding to the distant, but destructive, impact that Tertullian’s teachings had: “The road from here to Auschwitz is long and may not be direct, but one can get there from here.” And indeed, the road to Auschwitz was slowly but steadily being built by this and other early Christian pioneers of anti-Semitism. It can also be argued that that road did not dead end at the Holocaust but has continued to this day in a variety of ways.

So, the vast majority of the Church Fathers who took the Bible allegorically, claimed that God was done with Israel and the Jewish people. As a result, the Jews were theologically replaced by the “new Israel”, i.e.: the Christian Church. This is very difficult to validate biblically, unless some verses are interpreted allegorically. But, when we start looking at God’s word non-literally, where do we stop?

There is another way to look at Israel and replace the Jews. That one is from an ethnic perspective. We have heard that “modern Jews are not the real Jews!” or that “the ten lost tribes have been found!” Replacing the Jews with Christians in God’s plan for the ages is Replacement Theology, but replacing the Jews with another ethnic group is different. For a long time now, some people have claimed Jewish identity as belonging to one of the ten lost tribes. Various people groups have claimed to be from the ten tribes. The most famous and enduring one is known as the “British Israelites” which has a lot of similarities with “Black Israelites” as to how they perceive their Jewish identity. While both groups have common beliefs, they also have a lot of differences.

Author David Baron debunked British Israelism in a book he wrote in 1915. As he documents, much of the biblical arguments used in the British Israelite ideology are not biblical at all. A lot of important details have to be ignored or seriously altered to enable the square pegs of British Israelism or Black Israelism to fit in the round hole of the biblical Israel narrative. To name just two, the eternal throne of David belonging to Yeshua the Messiah (2 Samuel 7:12-26) has not been passed onto the British Empire, and there is no biblical, historical, geographical or archeological evidence that any or all of the 10 lost southern tribes ended up in the British Isles (or anywhere else) after the Jewish dispersion.

Similarly, Black Israelism, in some sort of a mirror image of British Israelism, is claiming–mostly in the USA, although also in Jerusalem– that Black Hebrews are the real Jews today. The Black Israelism ideology is not monolithic at all, as many groups fall under it. The founder of the Black Israelites movement, Ben Ammi, claimed to have been visited by the angel Gabriel who told him to lead the “Children of Israel” to the Promise Land. The more extreme sub-sects of the movement promote Black superiority, racism and antisemitism. These groups have been rejected by both Judaism and Christianity. The danger with this sort of elitism, is the relegating of the group it believes it replaces, to a place of inferiority, leading to denigration, loathing and, in our day and age, violence like we recently saw in Philadelphia.

Why do people insist on replacing the Jews either theologically or ethnically? I believe that both attempts are coming from God’s enemy Ha Satan, who desires to position himself as god and who hates those whom God loves. When any people group is replaced, it becomes irrelevant and possibly obsolete. Once a people group is deemed obsolete, it is in way of “progress” or “expansion” and becomes at risk. Our people were in Hitler’s way when he tried to establish the Aryan supremacy 80 years ago. We know what happened next! Nobody has the right to replace the Jews in God’s plan or for anything else. God created the Jewish people (Genesis 12) and Israel (Genesis 15) and anybody trying to flex His master program will have to contend with Him. The Jews of today are the physical descendants of the Jews of the twelve tribes of yesteryear, period! Nobody can change that, as hard as they try.

October 16, 2020 By Olivier Melnick Leave a Comment

80 Years After the Warsaw Ghetto…Danger Will Robinson!

In a recent article that I wrote, I went over the results of a US survey made with the millennials and Gen Z community. The results were terrifying. One of the questions posed had to do with the ability to name a death camp or a ghetto. Incredibly, 48% of all respondents were unable to name anything, and in some states, it was as high as 60%. Historically, Auschwitz and the Warsaw ghetto are the most known names within that category, and yet half the people didn’t have a clue at all.

This month we remember that eighty years ago in October 1940, in Poland, the Warsaw Ghetto was established. But what is it exactly that we remember, for those of us who do remember? So much can be said about the Warsaw Ghetto, and so much can be learned from what happened there and how it happened. To be sure, the concept of the ghetto didn’t get invented by the Nazis to control the Jewish population, but it was simply re-introduced and “put on steroids” so to speak!

The word ghetto or geto is Italian for “foundry” which is the area where the first ghetto was organized in Venice, Italy in 1516 in the district known then as Gheto Vechio, some four hundred years before the Warsaw ghetto. The large Jewish community that had been expelled from Spain in 1492 was moving to Italy to relocate, and the Venetian community decided to keep things separated for better control. You can still visit the Venetian ghetto area to this day.

Fast forward to 1940. The Nazi Party is struggling to control the Jews. Holocaust historian and author Raul Hilberg explained that there was a progression in how the world got organized to first control and eventually get rid of its Jews, “Since the fourth century after Christ there have been three anti-Jewish policies: conversion, expulsion and annihilation. The second appeared as an alternative to the first, and the third emerged as an alternative to the second.”

While the final solution concentrated on the complete eradication of European Jewry, the institutionalization of the ghetto paved the way and helped to organize that step. Forced conversions and forced baptisms of the Jews to Christianity had been attempted for centuries and had resulted in the loss of many lives. Expulsion seemed to be a good option for those who wanted to get rid of the Jews. It had occurred in Europe on many occasions (England in 1290, Hungary in 1349 and 1360, France in 1394, Austria in 1421, Spain and Sicily in 1492, Portugal in 1497, Nuremberg in 1499, Naples in 1510 and Milan in 1597.)

But for Hitler and his Nazi murderers, expulsion didn’t yield the results expected. Things had to move further along and much faster. Ghettos started to get organized by the Nazis all over Europe as early as 1939. Jews were rounded up and sent to controlled and enclosed areas. Many smaller ghettos were started across Europe, with the first large metropolitan ghetto in Lodz in April of 1940, closely followed by the Warsaw ghetto in October of 1940. Erected brick walls and barbed wires formed new boundaries for various Jewish communities that would have to survive in their new communal prisons.

The ghettos were somewhat organized with occasional, Jewish traffic in and out of their limits, with special authorizations from the Nazis. The Jewish people did their best to maintain a semblance of communal life. Schools were organized and even synagogue services took place. But things started to deteriorate very rapidly. Food became scarce, living conditions were extremely crowded and sanitation was insufficient at best. Typhus and other infectious diseases started to plague the ghettos, and the death toll became very high. Over 43,000 people died inside the Lodz ghetto, and 76,000 within the Warsaw ghetto before the summer of 1942.

In a sense, the ghettos became clearing houses for the “final solution to the Jewish question”, a euphemism for the total destruction of the Jews of Europe. Since the Jews were not leaving fast enough and the ghettos were bulging at their seams, something else had to be done to rid the world of the “Jewish virus.” Slowly but steadily, the Nazis started to deport the Jews out of the ghettos to the death camp of Treblinka, only 50 miles away.

Two heroes of the Warsaw ghetto are worth remembering. The first one was Mordekhai Anielewicz, the young leader of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB) who led the Warsaw ghetto uprising. This was the largest Jewish revolt during World War Two, which inspired others of the sort in various ghettos and camps. He is remembered as the symbol of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust.

The other hero was a Polish-Jewish historian named Emanuel Ringelblum. He managed to chronicle Jewish deportation and ghetto life. His records were preserved inside tin boxes and large metal milk cans. They were respectively recovered in 1946 and 1950 and have provided the world with over 25,000 artifacts documenting the Holocaust and life in the Warsaw ghetto. This was a priceless find made possible by the selfless desire of a Jewish man to document the horrors he had to live through. Such courage!

What will happen to this crucial part of history if the proponents of the “Cancel Culture” movement had their way? I can only imagine! But there is something that we need to come to grips with even today. I believe that even though we are not seeing the brick and mortar walls being erected with barbed wires around Jewish communities, ghetto life is lurking again. The purpose of a ghetto is to separate, ostracize and control a group of people. Could it be that the global Jewish community is being rounded-up into a virtual ghetto?

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is working hard at accusing Israel of apartheid, colonization and human rights abuse in an effort to ostracize the Jewish people. No physical walls are necessary, just paint the Jews into the unwanted camp.

The Campus Intifadas are indoctrinating our young people into believing that Israel murders Palestinians every day and inviting pro-Palestinian apologists to lecture on US campuses. Jews are excluded from the marketplace of ideas, ironically enough, under the guise of freedom of speech. No physical walls are necessary, just paint the Jews as the oppressor and the rest of the student body will gladly denigrate them.

The myriads of antisemitic acts all over the world are a constant reminder of the danger that Jewish people run, simply for “being Jewish” Cemeteries are being desecrated, synagogues set on fire, diatribes and libels are posted online on all social networks (even though Facebook and Twitter finally agreed to block and cancel Holocaust deniers on their platforms.) No physical walls are necessary, just accuse the Jews of the ills of the world, and the world will gladly pass judgment and inflict the verdict.

When the ghettos proved not to be enough for those who hated the Jews with every fiber of their beings, Jewish extermination became the next logical step. No “Cancel Culture” demagogue will be able to prove otherwise. Today, the Jewish people are no longer in a ghetto between four walls topped by barbed wire, but it can easily be argued that we are being ghettoized by the media, politicians, the entertainment industry and even some of the churches. I dare not imagine what’s next if indeed we do cancel culture and we let history repeat itself!

“Indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, and in a free society,
some are guilty, but all are responsible.”
Abraham Joshua Heschel

October 2, 2020 By Olivier Melnick 3 Comments

We Must Work Together to Stop the Tragic Decline of Holocaust Awareness!

I have written many articles on this topic over the last two decades, and if I am again compelled to write another one, it is because of the importance of the topic, especially at this time in our history. What really compelled me to sound the alarm one more time, is the recent publishing of a survey by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The U.S. Millennial Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Survey, which is the first-ever 50-state survey on Holocaust knowledge among Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) and Gen Z. (born between 1997 and 2012), yielded some terrifying results. Additionally, that same survey gave us some insight on the rest of the adult generation.

This is the very first survey that was done for all 50 states of the union and as such, is much more comprehensive that the previous ones. Frankly, I was hoping for results that would show some hope as to the knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust, since I, along with many other organizations have worked tirelessly at exposing the gruesome details of this somber part of human history. I was shocked with exactly the opposite…things are getting much worse. To be sure, historical revisionism and Holocaust denial have been very problematic way before the “Cancel Culture” movement was a thing. We all should remember the 1996 law suit filed against historian and Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt by David Irving. She “dared” to call him [rightfully] a Holocaust denier who among other things, claimed that Auschwitz did not have any gas chambers. She and her publisher won the case, but the battle was far from over!

The remaining generation of Holocaust survivors is rapidly dying off, leaving behind them whatever testimony they can. Much has been put on audio and video tapes by the Steven Spielberg “ USC Survivors of the Shoah Foundation.” It includes my father’s testimony recorded in 1997. Then, there is the powerful and visually stunning, on-going work of the “Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation” based in New Zealand. That is just two of the great organizations dedicating time and resources to educate their audience about this part of history that we all wish we could forget but absolutely cannot afford to. We must also acknowledge groups like Maccabee Task Force and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, dedicated on exposing the lies of the BDS (Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions) movement.

So, now we need to take a look at the results of that survey. According to their website, “The Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Study was commissioned by the Claims Conference. Data was collected in the United States and analyzed by Schoen Cooperman Research, with a representative sample of 1,000 interviews nationwide and 200 interviews in each state with adults ages 18 to 39 via landline, cell phone and online interviews. Respondents were selected at random and constituted a demographically representative sample of the Millennial population across each state. ” Their website provides a lot of details about the survey state by state with answers to several related questions. Here are some of the questions that were asked to an audience of mostly millennials and Gen. Z, making the group 39 years of age or younger. The results are extremely alarming.

• Can you name one concentration camp or one ghetto?
Nationally, 48% couldn’t name one camp or ghetto out of 40,000 of them in Europe and North Africa. In some states the number was as high as 60%.

• What is Auschwitz?
56% of all millennials were unable to identify the most known death camp: Auschwitz-Birkenau. As to the other less known but still historically relevant such as Dachau, Treblinka, Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald, only 1-3% could identify them.

• How many Jews died in the Holocaust?
It is important to remember that overall, a total of 12 million people died in the Holocaust. Additionally, the number of millennials who didn’t know that six million Jews died in the Holocaust was a scary 63% nationally, as high as 67% in some states. Most respondents thought that two million or less died.

• Jews caused the Holocaust?
I cannot fathom why such a question would even be on the survey, and yet, 10%-19% of respondent believed that the Jews were responsible for the Holocaust.

• Should we continue teaching about the Holocaust?
64% of all millennials and Gen. Z believed that Holocaust education should be mandatory in school and 80% believed that the Holocaust should still be taught to prevent it from happening again.

• Have you noticed Holocaust denial on the social networks?
While most respondents didn’t blatantly deny the Holocaust, many of them (49%) have witnessed it on the social networks. As high as 70% have also seen Nazi symbols on the networks and in their own communities.

These statistics are frightening! But, at the end of the day, if nothing is said or done about them, they remain numbers. Even the six million Jews murdered in the camps have been transformed into an impersonal large number of casualties with no names. That is a contributing factor in the “Holocaust fatigue” and the indifference shown by many.

If a global catastrophe such as the Holocaust can become such a parenthetical event in the chronicles of human history, what is to happen to all other important events of the modern era? If such an indelible stain on the human psyche can be slowly but increasingly erased from history, what is to happen to other negative milestones on the spectrum of the human race? When you compound ignorance of the Holocaust and its peripheral history with the current push for denial, revisionism and antisemitism, the damage is much greater. Think about it, how can one debunk a lie or defend factual truth if one has very little if any, knowledge of what really happened?

As I already mentioned, Holocaust survivors are dwindling down. Today, they are in their eighties and nineties, many of them not in very good health. Within the next decade, survivors will be hard to find, and at the rate of disinformation and denial, the Holocaust will have become a myth. How tragic! But when it comes to education, it is never too late. Here are some ways it can be accomplished.

• Visit a Holocaust memorial/museum
The most comprehensive is probably Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. But, even in the United Sates, many major cities have their own Holocaust museum. The one in Washington D.C. is undoubtedly the most comprehensive of the US based ones. You can find one to visit in 31 of the 50 US states. You can also visit one in many other countries besides Israel.

• Visit a Camp
While this involves traveling is will be a bit more costly, but I recommend that people visit a camp like Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland or Dachau in Germany. I went to Auschwitz in the winter of 2010. This is where my grandfather died. I was a defining moment for me. The place is eerily quiet, and the air is thick with memories and visual clues of so much unnecessary death. A visit to the remains of a camp will sear the truth and the dark legacy of the Holocaust into your memory for the rest of your life.

• Watch a movie or program
Many movies have been produced in the last 75 years on the topic of the Holocaust. Those that are well researched, documented and narrated are well worth your time and will powerfully supplement or replace your visit to a camp or museum. . Schindler’s List (1993), remains a solid and well researched piece of work that many people should watch. Another less known worthy documentary is the 1955 work by French Director Alain Resnais, Night and Fog (Nuit et Brouillard), powerfully documenting the horrors of the Nazi murder factories. It was made only 10 years after the Holocaust and should be required viewing in American schools.

• Read a book
Even more books have been written on the topic, and many of them have become classics that should also be required reading in schools. An absolute must read is Night, the autobiographical book by Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Additionally, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl” also sheds great light on the horrors of that era. I would also recommend the classic scholarly work by Lucy Dawidowicz The War Against the Jews: 1933-1945, documenting Hitler’s obsession with the complete destruction of European Jewry. For a more in depth overview of antisemitism with great insight on the Holocaust, few have surpassed Robert Wistrich massive volume A Lethal Obsession.

None of us can do it all, but all of us can do something. We must educate ourselves and share what we learn with our younger generation. Most of them have no frame of reference by which to gauge the information they are being fed on campuses, in the media and on the social networks. Millennials great hunger for social justice often blinds them to the facts. At the end of the day, the best platform for unbiased education is in the home. Holocaust awareness starts as a family unit discusses the horrors of that era and exposes their children to the truth as graphic and disturbing as it maybe, with respect to various age groups, evidently. By the way, this is a fight that Jews and Evangelicals need too fight together against a common enemy.

One of the main reasons for such frightening statistics on the Holocaust and the Jewish people is because the topic is avoided or greatly watered down. But it is not just about the Holocaust, it is about human nature and our propensity to inflict pain and suffering to others if it can further our own selfish agendas. Not everybody will support this kind of violent hatred of other people, but by ignoring its power and its reach, we all are paving the way for history to repeat itself. My commentaries on the Holocaust might sound like a broken record to some, but as long as we get statistics like these, you will keep hearing my concerned voice.

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