Emma Adler (2021)
Why is it important that the remembrance, history, and lessons
of the Holocaust be passed to a new generation?
It is difficult to think that the Holocaust was only eighty years ago. We think of it as a thing of the past, ancient to young people like myself, something that could never happen in this day and age. On January 6, 2021, a man wore an Auschwitz sweatshirt while he and many others stormed the capital building. Marjorie Taylor Green, a United States congresswoman, an elected official, spread anti-semitic conspiracy theories about how Jews were using lasers in space to start the California wildfires, Nazi sentiment has been growing in the German police force. A Jewish cemetery in France was defaced with swastikas a little under a year and a half ago. This is not ancient, this is now.
My family is one of a few Jewish families in my town. My sister and I are the only known Jewish kids at my school of 1200 students. My family is not particularly religious, I would consider myself an atheist, however we do celebrate Hanukkah. The closest synagogue is a 45 minute drive from my house so I've never attended Sunday school.
In elementary school, when teachers started assigning Christmas themed work during the holiday season, I was always exempt, which allowed me to do whatever I liked in the weeks preceding Christmas time. During this time I was also a novelty to my fellow students. In my first two years of grade school my mom would bring in latkes and applesauce, as well as dreidels, a menorah, and gilt. These things both delighted and mystified my peers, who had hardly heard of Judaism. I was never bullied for it, I've never really been bullied in general, most people thought it was cool, I think. However when I tell people now, I often find that a person will go: “Oh! You're Jewish? Boy oh boy do I have some jokes for you!” Of course that is my own sarcastic interpretation but it is not dissimilar to the actual reaction, in which the person will precede to list off their proudly collected Holocaust jokes.
This is the part I don't understand so much. I don't understand the need to joke about the Holocaust nearly 80 years after its occurrence. Even so, the majority of these comedians are people who would've never had any part to play, they would not have been the grandchildren of survivors, or the grandchildren of Nazis. They are completely disconnected from the genocide that took place. So why the need to joke? Of course it is prevalent in the media. Is that it?
I'm not sure. However I do know that my experience as one of a few Jews in my area has made me even slightly more aware of the small anti semitism or racism that still prevails in this country. Slavery may no longer exist in America, however racism is still abundant. It is the same with many things, although perhaps to a lesser degree. The persecution of Jews is no longer popular, but using their suffering as a school boy's joke is highly prevalent.
I am currently reading Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, comparing the caste system in America to that of India and Nazi Germany. Did you know that, when planning how to segregate the Jews, the Nazis looked to America's example? In fact, in the beginning, they saw America's treatment of African Americans as too harsh for them to go through with. Eugenicists from America aided the Nazis when they were devising their strategy to separate the Jews from the “Aryan” population. It is strange to think that the Nazis took inspiration from the “free country,” that the example America provided to the world was not one that it would ever take responsibility for. However it is precisely this reason that it is so important that the Holocaust is never forgotten, that people remember it and how awful it was; but also how it was inspired not just by hate in Germany, it was not an isolated occurrence, the persecution of the Jews has been going on since the beginning of Judaism. Besides this, it is not isolated to Germany, Jews have been alienated all over the world, even here in the United States. Jews were also targeted by the Ku Klux Klan, and discriminated against when trying to escape eastern Europe. Even during World War Two, while the United States was criticizing Germany for its concentration canıps, the United States government was setting up internment camps for any people in America of Japanese descent.
In order to become truly more accepting of those who were previously alienated or persecuted, we must inspect the past and the systems that led to such things as the Holocaust. In order for the Holocaust to be the last event of its kind, we must understand every role that was played in order for it to have occurred. This is why passing on the history to the next generation and the all generations after is so integral to preventing something like the Holocaust from happening again. History will always want to repeat itself, it's through knowledge and understanding that we can prevent it from doing so.