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1/ As the child of a Holocaust survivor, as someone who has written about the Nazi genocide of the Jews many times, I suppose I should be shocked and alarmed by these findings. But I'm not. Here's why: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/16/holocaust-us-adults-study
2/ The Holocaust is the most exhaustively researched, documented, memorialized crime of the 20th century. For my father, for me and my siblings, it remains a vivid reality. But for most of the world, it is history. And history inevitably fades from public awareness.
3/ The human mind is built to forget. Even the most intense and agonizing memories diminish over time — both for individuals, and for societies. “Never Forget” is an earnest vow, but it was never realistic. People always forget. https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/04/30/never-forget-world-said-holocaust-but-world-forgetting/59cUqLNFxylkW7BDuRPgNK/story.html
4/ Like other eruptions of savagery, the Holocaust was always bound to recede from common knowledge. This isn't the first poll showing that awareness of what the Germans did to Europe’s Jews is not well understood, especially by the young. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/04/12/two-thirds-of-millennials-dont-know-what-auschwitz-is-according-to-study-of-fading-holocaust-knowledge/
5/ And what about the 20th century’s other horrors? I’m certain most young Americans know next to nothing about Turkey’s genocide of the Armenians, or the Soviet starvation of 7m Ukrainians, or the extermination of 2 million Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/world/asia/khmer-rouge-cambodia-genocide.html
6/ The 6m Jews killed in the Holocaust amount to but a fraction of the 45m human souls tortured, starved & beaten to death by Mao Zedong’s regime in China. He engineered the greatest mass murderer in history, yet how much of that history do Americans know? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/08/03/giving-historys-greatest-mass-murderer-his-due/
7/ The spreading ignorance of the Holocaust makes news because Holocaust education is taught in schools & memorials have been erected in scores of cities. But in the end, history is kept alive only in the hearts and minds of people for whom it resonates 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺.
8/ For me, the Holocaust will always be a towering, terrifying, living memory. For me, “Never Forget” remains an inviolable command. For me, what happened to Europe’s Jews in the Nazi era is indelible—especially as antisemitism surges again in the world. http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2011/05/01/a_demon_gone_but_evil_remains/
9/ But if I have to choose between universal awareness of the destruction of the Jews 75 years ago or universal awareness of the human-rights horrors being perpetrated today — in Myanmar, in China, in Syria, North Korea — I choose the latter. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/world/asia/myanmar-rohingya-genocide.html
10/ Protecting the history of the Holocaust is very important. Protecting the lives of those threatened by the genocidal monsters of our era is more important. Making them a priority is the only way to keep “Never Again” from being an empty slogan.
End/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/01/27/opinion/never-again-again-again/
End/ https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/01/27/opinion/never-again-again-again/
