April 18, 2012|By Jeff Jacoby - Boston Globe
Holocaust Remembrance Day always falls during the week that follows Passover. At first glance, the two would seem to have little in common — one memorializes the millions of European Jews annihilated by Nazi Germany; the other commemorates the deliverance of the Jews from slavery in ancient Egypt.
Yet for all their obvious differences, a fundamental similarity links these two crucial chapters in Jewish history. Both were attempts at genocide — and in both cases the perpetrators justified their savageries by claiming that they were the real victims, threatened by the people they intended to wipe out.
At the Passover Seder, retelling the 3,000-year-old story, Jews read the passage from Exodus in which Pharaoh rationalizes the lethal repression he is about to inflict on the Hebrews. “Come, let us deal wisely with them,” he declares. “Otherwise they may become so many that if there is a war they will join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the land.” His notion of dealing wisely: slave labor, followed by mass murder. “Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, ‘Every boy that is born to the Hebrews, you shall throw into the Nile.’ ”
Thirty centuries later, the same pattern preceded the Holocaust.
“The Jewish people stands against us as our deadly foe,” railed Adolf Hitler in 1922, “and will so stand against us always.” More than 100,000 Jews had served in the German army during World War I; 12,000 had fallen in battle. Yet Germany’s defeat was blamed on a “stab in the back” by disloyal traitors — especially the Jews. To this baseless libel the Nazis added others, such as the grotesque claim of race defilement. “The Jews were responsible for bringing Negroes into the Rhineland with the ultimate idea of bastardizing the white race,” Hitler seethed in “Mein Kampf.” Such a villainous enemy could be shown no tolerance and given no quarter: “It must be the hard-and-fast ‘Either-Or.’ ”
Within weeks of coming to power, the Nazis launched the reign of terror that would culminate in the Final Solution. At every step, their crimes against the Jews were described as self-defense. “The Jews of the whole world are trying to destroy Germany,” screamed government posters as the Nazis unleashed a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses. “German people, defend yourselves!” In every issue of Der Stürmer, the Nazi newspaper published for more than 20 years by Hitler’s ally Julius Streicher, a front-page banner proclaimed: “The Jews are Our Misfortune.”
Down through the millennia, this has been the model for the most virulent, violent anti-Semitism. Jews were depicted, facts and logic to the contrary notwithstanding, as victimizers. Then they were victimized with astonishing ferocity and inhumanity.
Holocaust Remembrance Day always falls during the week that follows Passover. At first glance, the two would seem to have little in common — one memorializes the millions of European Jews annihilated by Nazi Germany; the other commemorates the deliverance of the Jews from slavery in ancient Egypt.
Yet for all their obvious differences, a fundamental similarity links these two crucial chapters in Jewish history. Both were attempts at genocide — and in both cases the perpetrators justified their savageries by claiming that they were the real victims, threatened by the people they intended to wipe out.
At the Passover Seder, retelling the 3,000-year-old story, Jews read the passage from Exodus in which Pharaoh rationalizes the lethal repression he is about to inflict on the Hebrews. “Come, let us deal wisely with them,” he declares. “Otherwise they may become so many that if there is a war they will join our enemies, fight against us, and leave the land.” His notion of dealing wisely: slave labor, followed by mass murder. “Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, ‘Every boy that is born to the Hebrews, you shall throw into the Nile.’ ”
“The Jewish people stands against us as our deadly foe,” railed Adolf Hitler in 1922, “and will so stand against us always.” More than 100,000 Jews had served in the German army during World War I; 12,000 had fallen in battle. Yet Germany’s defeat was blamed on a “stab in the back” by disloyal traitors — especially the Jews. To this baseless libel the Nazis added others, such as the grotesque claim of race defilement. “The Jews were responsible for bringing Negroes into the Rhineland with the ultimate idea of bastardizing the white race,” Hitler seethed in “Mein Kampf.” Such a villainous enemy could be shown no tolerance and given no quarter: “It must be the hard-and-fast ‘Either-Or.’ ”
Within weeks of coming to power, the Nazis launched the reign of terror that would culminate in the Final Solution. At every step, their crimes against the Jews were described as self-defense. “The Jews of the whole world are trying to destroy Germany,” screamed government posters as the Nazis unleashed a boycott of Jewish-owned businesses. “German people, defend yourselves!” In every issue of Der Stürmer, the Nazi newspaper published for more than 20 years by Hitler’s ally Julius Streicher, a front-page banner proclaimed: “The Jews are Our Misfortune.”
Down through the millennia, this has been the model for the most virulent, violent anti-Semitism. Jews were depicted, facts and logic to the contrary notwithstanding, as victimizers. Then they were victimized with astonishing ferocity and inhumanity.
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