There is little that we
think that we do not know about the Holocaust. As young children, we learn that
Hitler was a bad man and that he killed everyone who did not have blond hair
and blue eyes. Later, we learn that people were experimented on and that
Jewish, homosexual, disabled, and gypsy people were primarily targeted and that
there were other people who joined Hitler willingly to participate in the
massacre. “The Fake Threat of Jewish Communism,” however, spreads our knowledge
further; at least that is what I found.
It was surprising to me that the author chose not to focus primarily on Hitler as the person behind the entire idea of Antisemitism. Of course, I have always known this to be true; it is common sense that one person alone could not carry out an entire genocide simply by manipulation; however, I do not believe that I have ever encountered literature that names Adolf Hitler as less the cause of antisemitism than the effect. In reality, people had been suspicious of Jews as far back as the middle ages in Europe, in which they were viewed as dirty and conniving and were shut into ghettos. The article lists Hitler and Germany as the leaders of a horrific charge against Judaism; I have never associated the word “allies” with the other actors in the Holocaust, because almost all of the blame falls directly on the man who perpetrated the event.
This is important because
I feel as though there is an image of the Holocaust as an event that came out
of nowhere because one man was able to manipulate the world. It gives a false
sense of security; as long as we look out for other “Hitlers,” nothing like the
Holocaust will ever happen again. In reality, we must look out for any
long-term prejudice and hatred against a certain group of people. When this
bias is normalized in our society, that is when it turns dangerous, because while
no rational person can claim that the Holocaust was positive, they may find nothing
wrong with calling all Muslims “terrorists” and all immigrants “illegal aliens.”
They aren’t being put into internment camps, so nothing is wrong. Well, maybe
they are being put into internment camps… but they aren’t dying. Okay, some
people are dying, but not on purpose. Our government would never mistreat
others. Maybe they would, but at least the people in danger are not Jewish.
Therefore, it could not be as bad as the Holocaust.
That may have been a bit overly tangential, but this is what I thought of while reading this article. The author takes a wide, collective approach to the idea of Antisemitism that is not often seen but is incredibly important to our full understanding of the negative effects of prejudice and hate.