Marc Nodell
We are all aware that Holocaust denial is a tool in the arsenal of antisemites to minimize the horrors of the Holocaust. We have witnessed this coming from the left and the right.
There is a whole industry devoted to promulgating such outlandish lies denying or minimizing the Holocaust.
What we collectively are ignoring is the trend that has gained significant voice that I would label “Holocaust Diminution.”
What exactly is Holocaust Diminution? It is the equating of events that took place just prior to and during the Holocaust to political events occurring today and the cynical use of comparisons for political gain. It is equating one of the world’s most evil individuals, Adolf Hitler, who based his entire regime on ethnic purity and the genocide of Jews and all those who the Nazis viewed as inferior, to political opponents. It is a conscious decision and cynical ploy to use such comparisons for pure politics.
Comparing political opponents and parties to evil doers is not a new phenomenon. President Abraham Lincoln was referred to as “The Ape,” “The Illinois Beast,” “the despicable tyrant” and other terms. President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s detractors called him a communist and socialist, as did President Barack Obama’s critics.
So, what is the difference between the rhetoric of the past and today? Simply put, it is the continued use of comparisons of political opponents and elected officials to Nazis, to Hitler and to genocidal maniacs.
During this past election cycle, we witnessed political activists and candidates for office at all levels in our government equating their opponents to Nazis and fascists. It is one thing to disagree with someone on policy grounds. It is quite another to equate a candidate to Hitler. The demonization of candidates in such a manner is intellectual laziness and dangerous rhetoric. When one must associate your opponent with Hitler, then you have already cheapened your own argument. When you associate an entire party or platform with Nazism, you have removed any serious credibility to your own position.
Just recently, an elected official on the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors in Northern Virginia equated the deportation of illegal aliens who committed violent criminal acts to what Jews experienced on Kristallnacht. This same official then compared these deportations to the deportations of Jews and non-Jews to the death camps in Nazi-occupied European countries.
Another example is that of a well-known news commentator, Margaret Brennan of CBS, who made the outrageous statement that it was free speech in Germany that led to the Holocaust.
What is the impact of these conflations and outrageous comparisons? It diminishes the real horrors and examples we must remember from the Holocaust. It cheapens and demeans the memories of more than 11 million civilians murdered for simply being Jewish, or Roma, gay, mentally or physically challenged, resistors to the Nazi regime, righteous gentiles and others.
The long-term danger in this ill-conceived and disingenuous rhetoric is multi-fold. It desensitizes the citizenry to real genocides and results in the lack of desire to address true genocides and evils. When everything you disagree with is comparable to events during the Holocaust, then nothing is a Holocaust. When you compare your political opponents to the most vile and evil of individuals to cynically score points with voters, you shut down real discourse about critical issues and immediately cut off reasonable debate.
As human beings, it is very easy to turn our backs on this type of rhetoric and ignore these comparisons, especially when such comments are against someone or some group you do not align with. The danger is that in doing so we minimize the validity of any argument in the future when such comparisons are warranted.
What is particularly disturbing is the muted response, or worse, the actual acceptance of such behavior by the Jewish community. When you have Jewish legislators and elected officials equating their opponents to Nazis or Hitler, they are using the deaths of our co-religionists during the Holocaust in the most cynical and morally unacceptable manner.
What should our response be? We need to call out such comparisons and language from whatever source it comes. Our leadership organizations, our religious leaders, our community and lay leaders need to be vocal and push back on those making these despicable comparisons. They need to call to task and disavow such rhetoric.
As individuals, we also need to make it clear to our elected officials and media, and even our family and friends, that there is no place in our society for such language and that we expect better. We must make it clear we welcome debate about issues or policies, but we will not accept demonization using the imagery of the Holocaust.
If we continue to ignore this diminution of the Holocaust and character assassination by comparisons to Hitler, we will minimize the real horrors that occurred. If we do not step up now, and G-d forbid we start to see tangible evidence of genocidal or true dictatorial behavior, our voices will be ignored as nothing more than hyperbolic speech and our concerns will be ignored.
The sad irony of it all is that the very people who are so quick to misappropriate the Holocaust for their own personal or political agendas are the very same people who refuse to decry the very real Holocaust being committed against Jews by actual modern-day evil: Hamas.
Marc Nodell is a long-time resident of Northern Virginia who previously worked for a large multinational organization and in the biotech industry. He is active in fighting antisemitism by working with such groups as the AMCHA initiative and local grassroots organizations.
