Kylie Grunsfeld, Staff Columnist
As a Jewish woman who grew up within a Jewish community, I have found that a lot of people are very protective of the Holocaust and its history. Many are resistant to the idea that there might be another genocide — or an attempt at one — comparable.
Its devastation is, all things considered, recent history. Victims of the concentration camps are alive today, and many families still carry that trauma with them. Members of my own family were victims.
The Holocaust was a tremendous tragedy, immense in scale. It stands as one of the most devastating events in human history. But we cannot pretend that it is the only tragedy of its kind.
We say “never again.” As Americans and citizens of the world, we pledge ourselves to making sure that no tragedy like the one that happened to my people — and to all the other populations victimized — ever happens again.
And yet.
In the decades after the Holocaust, there have been numerous atrocities that bear striking similarities.
There were the Japanese internment camps — more accurately renamed as concentration camps by Asian American scholars — in America, the incarceration of Uyghur Muslims in China, the Rwandan genocide; the list goes on. These events were violent and incredibly impactful, and yet our schools do not touch on these topics the same way we do for the Holocaust.
We teach children about the Holocaust as a preventative measure, as well as a way to highlight the extent of Nazi cruelty in World War II. However, the issues discussed are not limited to the confines of history. We say “never again,” but scapegoating, ethnic cleansing and unjust incarceration is happening now — we cannot turn a blind eye to it.
Take Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers. There have been reports of medical neglect, overcrowding and lack of safe food and water. Denying or delaying necessary tools for survival to a population does not sound unfamiliar. While the severity of these detention centers cannot yet be compared to camps like Auschwitz — at least considering the information we have — there is certainly blatant evidence of dehumanization.
In Gaza, the Israeli Defense Forces do not discriminate as to who they will target — men, women, children, infants. If it were solely about eradicating danger, what could a 5-year-old have done that makes her deserving of death?
I am talking, in this particular instance, about Hind Rajab, a young girl who was in the process of escaping to West Gaza with her family when they were killed by IDF soldiers.
I am also thinking of Anne Frank.
I am thinking of how these two girls had barely started their lives when their humanity was stripped from them. Now, everyone knows their names. Despite their differences, both of their lives ended in similarly gruesome ways. Both deserved more. Both were seen in some way as a “threat” and killed alongside their families.
I cannot think of one without thinking of the other.
Of course we, as Jewish people, are allowed to grieve. For decades. For centuries.
But what point is there in resisting comparisons between the Holocaust and current crimes against humanity? In neglecting to acknowledge repeating patterns?
As trite as it may sound, a successful resistance hinges on unity.
Just because something looks benign at best and miserable at worst doesn’t mean it won’t later be revealed to be truly horrific. The American people did not immediately know how barbaric the Nazi concentration camps truly were. What may have seemed like a necessary evil to people who didn’t know any better turned out to be blatant ethnic cleansing.
Regardless of its eventual scale, the Holocaust was once a seedling of an idea, too. When it was just people being kicked out of their homes. When it was just their belongings being plundered. When it was just an attempt at suppression and relocation.
If we could go back, wouldn’t we do all we could to make sure it never happened in the first place?