The Blog of
Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation Aotearoa New Zealand
Tabarovsky on Antisemitism since October 7
Dr Izabella Tabarovsky is a scholar of Soviet antizionism and contemporary left antisemitism. We interviewed Izabella and asked her to comment on antisemitism since October 7 and the current state of academia.
Dr Izabella Tabarovsky is a scholar of Soviet antizionism and contemporary left antisemitism. She is a Senior Fellow with the Z3 Institute for Jewish Priorities, a Research Fellow with the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and ISGAP, and a contributing writer at Tablet Magazine. Holocaust Foundation interviewed her and asked for her comments on antisemitism since October 7 and the state of academia.
Zuroff steps down: comments on education, October 7
“Holocaust education was the best cure for antisemitism,” he stated in an interview with Australian actor Nathaniel Buzolic, who has been vocal in his support of Israel since October 7. He immediately followed that statement and said, “It turns out it’s not true.”
The last Nazi hunter, Efraim Zuroff, stepped down from the position of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel Office director after 38 years, Zuroff announced on Facebook on Tuesday morning.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1948, Zuroff has dedicated his life to identifying and bringing to justice Nazi war criminals who evaded capture for decades. His interest in Holocaust studies began early, and after completing a degree in history from Yeshiva University, he moved to Israel in 1970 to work at Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.
Zuroff staunchly combatted antisemitism.
“Holocaust education was the best cure for antisemitism,” he stated in an interview with Australian actor Nathaniel Buzolic, who has been vocal in his support of Israel since October 7. He immediately followed that statement and said, “It turns out it’s not true.”
He then explained that Holocaust denial is a problem “in the Muslim world and the Arab world, where they don’t teach anything about the Holocaust… where they have a deep tradition of antisemitism,” implying that Holocaust denial is another form of antisemitism.
Zuroff's career in Nazi-hunting began when he joined the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles in 1978. He later returned to Israel, where he played a crucial role in launching “Operation: Last Chance,” a campaign which offers financial rewards for information leading to the conviction of Nazi war criminals. This operation has been implemented in over a dozen countries and has led to numerous prosecutions, including that of Sobibor death camp guard John Demjanjuk in Germany.
Zuroff has been instrumental in exposing Nazi collaborators in post-Communist Eastern Europe, particularly in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. His work has led to the indictment and extradition of several war criminals and the cancellation of pensions for those found guilty of Holocaust crimes.
Continued fight against Holocaust denial
When asked during his interview with Buzolic about a story concerning hunting Nazis that stood out, Zuroff was quick to respond, stating, “The most important Nazi war criminal whom I helped bring to justice was a man named Dinko Sakic,” who was “one of the commanders of a camp called the Jasenovac,” in Croatia. It is estimated that in this particular camp, 90-130 thousand people were murdered.
“They were murdered in the most horrific way imaginable,” Zuroff added. He then drew a parallel between Nazi soldiers and Hamas terrorists when he described the way the former handled prisoners and emphasized, “exactly what Hamas did.”
When asked what Israel means to him, Zuroff put his hand over his heart and asked, “You want me to start crying here?” adding that Israel means “everything” to him, as “it’s the negation of the Holocaust.”
Despite ending his nearly 40-year tenure at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, where for 13 years he was responsible for Eastern European Affairs as well, Zuroff stated in his announcement on Facebook that he will continue looking for further opportunities to combat Holocaust denial and antisemitism.
Call for Special Envoy to combat antisemitism
The Holocaust Foundation supports the recent call for the appointment of a special envoy to combat antisemitism. Quoting a recent media release by NZJC and HCNZ, it is time for New Zealand to get “serious about battling the world’s oldest hatred – antisemitism. We call on the government to appoint a special envoy…”
The Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation, Aotearoa New Zealand supports the recent call for the appointment of a special envoy to combat antisemitism. A media release by New Zealand Jewish Council and the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand stated it is time for New Zealand to get “serious about battling the world’s oldest hatred – antisemitism. We call on the government to appoint a special envoy to combat antisemitism and work with envoys internationally to rout out this scourge in Aotearoa New Zealand”.
The release points out that special envoys have been appointed by UK, USA, Canada and numerous European nations including Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, and Sweden. Holocaust Foundation agrees that it is time for New Zealand to do likewise.
Also cited was a recent survey of Jewish parents of school-aged children. “A staggering 80% of respondents said their children had suffered antisemitic episodes in their schools. This was an increase in the survey results last year when just over 50% of the parents who completed the survey said their children had been subjected to antisemitism in school since October 7th 2023.”
We urge the New Zealand government to heed the call for the appointment of a special envoy.
Yad Vashem confronts Columbia University President
Antisemitism is surging throughout the world and nowhere is this more evident than on university campuses. Yad Vashem Chairman, Dani Dayan, has written to Columbia University President Minouche Shafik urging her to show leadership and moral clarity in the face of unveiled Jew hatred on her campus.
Minouche Shafik. Image: Yahoo News
Antisemitism is surging throughout the world and nowhere is this more evident than on university campuses. At least 40 anti-Israel protest camps have appeared on USA campuses.
Yad Vashem Chairman, Dani Dayan, has written to Columbia University President Minouche Shafik urging her to show leadership and moral clarity in the face of unveiled Jew hatred on her campus.
Madam President, the Presidency of Columbia University is one of the most important leadership positions in the academic world. The President of Columbia is not – as sometimes erroneously referred – an administrator. He or she is chosen to be a Leader.
All the decisions you recently made were administrative in nature: to call the NYPD to evacuate the illegal encampment, to allow its re-establishment, to activate or deactivate credentials, to move to online teaching. Even your decision to negotiate is administrative in nature.
Madam, the time requires leadership decisions. Your illustrious career brought you to the Presidency of Columbia not to be a CEO or a Crisis Manager but to lead. To lead academically and even more important, to lead morally.
President Shafik, when thousands of Columbia faculty, staff and students call for the elimination of the State of Israel and the abolition of Zionism, you must take a stand. Not a political stand. A moral stand. When it becomes crystal clear that abolishing the existence of the Jewish State is a prevalent ideology in Columbia – the President of the institution cannot remain silent. The Talmud teaches us: “Silence is admission”. Silence inevitably will be interpreted as tolerance or, even worst, consent.
Your decision to deal only with the behavior – or the manners – of the demonstrators is not sustainable. A polite KKK member is as despicable – and probably more dangerous – than a thuggish one. A moral leader will fight both with the same determination.
Madam President, time has come for you to take a stand: can the promotion of the elimination of Israel – with or without genocide of its Jewish population - be a legitimate cause, advanced in academic syllabi, lectures, events, demonstrations and encampments in Columbia University or – like apartheid, misogyny, homophobia, white supremacism – is so despicable that will not be tolerated. Each day, each hour you evade making a public decision of this nature and acting accordingly – you actually decide affirmatively.
There is a naïve belief that academy is immune to bigotry and the causes that students and professors lead are inherently “good causes”, even if sometimes ahead of their time. Nothing is further from the truth. Heidelberg University in Germany was not less prestigious than Columbia. In the 1920s it was a center of liberal thinking. A decade later a mob of Heidelberg students burned Jewish and other “corrupt” books in Universitätsplatz ("University Square"). Its faculty developed pseudo-academic fields like race theory, eugenics and forced euthanasia. Heidelberg did have administrators. Unfortunately, it lacked moral leadership.
The Jewish People was dispersed for two millennia, subject to persecutions, forced conversions, discrimination, pogroms and finally the extermination of six million Jews in the Holocaust. We returned to our ancestral homeland. Pursuing the destruction and erasure of the Jewish State is not less abominable than racial laws. Will Columbia be remembered as Heidelberg? To a very large extent, it is up to you, Madam.
Madam President, Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace laureate defined indifference as “the most insidious danger of all”. And the great civil right leader and fellow Nobelist Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. added that “the hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.” A great moral conflict was delivered to your doorsteps. Raise to the occasion. Lead with moral principles, not only with administrative regulations. Speak up.
Zuroff: Jonathan Glazer a useful idiot for enemies of the Jewish people
Glazer specifically said that he refutes his Jewish ancestry and secondly accuses Israel (whom he doesn’t mention by name) of “hijacking the Holocaust by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many, for so many, innocent people.”
First published in Jerusalem Post
As Jewish history teaches us, there will always be “useful [Jewish] idiots” like Jonathan Glazer, and some of the dangerous anti-Zionists will be Jewish.
Jonathan Glazer poses on the red carpet during the Oscars arrivals at the 96th Academy Awards in Hollywood, March 10, 2024. Image: Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters
The natural response to Jonathan Glazer’s acceptance speech of an Oscar for his recent movie The Zone of Interest, is one of utter disgust and disappointment.
Glazer specifically said that he refutes his Jewish ancestry and secondly accuses Israel (whom he doesn’t mention by name) of “hijacking the Holocaust by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many, for so many, innocent people.”
These days, such an accusation by a Jew is probably the most damning accusation imaginable, and when it is leveled at us by the director of an apparently highly successful film, which focuses on the Hoess family of the commander of the Auschwitz – Birkenau death camp, and purports to deal with “where dehumanization leads,” it is hard to ignore.
To add to the irony, this past Friday, Yediot Achronot had a very lengthy profile on Glazer by Benjamin Tobias, their film correspondent, who described Glazer as a “proud” Jew.
The new normal since October 7
The truth is, however, that Glazer’s comments should hardly surprise anybody. How many times have we recently read about Jewish groups that support the Palestinians? Just the other day, I read an article in The Jerusalem Post about the dedication of the new Holocaust Museum in Amsterdam, attended by President Isaac Herzog. Among those who came to “greet” the president were members of a Dutch Jewish anti-Zionist organization called Erev Rav, which organized the protest together with Jews Against Genocide, the local Palestinian community, and Socialists International.
The 76th Cannes Film Festival - Press conference for the film ''The Zone of Interest'' in competition - Cannes, France, May 20, 2023. Director Jonathan Glazer attends. (credit: Yara Nardi/Reuters)
Jewish groups of this sort have emerged in many Jewish communities, especially in the United States, such as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and IfNotNow, and have become much more active and visible in the wake of the Hamas mass murders of October 7.
For those of us born after 1948, such criticism of Israel is unusual and hardly popular. The establishment of the State of Israel turned many opponents of Zionism into ardent supporters of the lone Jewish state.
Who remembers the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism and the opposition to Zionism of numerous Reform rabbis? Who remembers the anti-Zionist socialist Bund, one of the largest Jewish parties in Poland? Or the notorious Yevsekstiya, the Jewish section of the Soviet Communist Party, whose goal was for all Russian Jews to join the party and abandon Judaism? In fact, Zionism was a small minority movement in world Jewry until the middle of the 20th century.
Three events changed practically the entire Jewish world – the Holocaust, the establishment of an independent sovereign Jewish state, and Israel’s stunning victory in the Six Days War. From a distinct minority of world Jewry, Zionism became the majority ideology of the committed Jews of the world, and one of the most important elements of modern Jewish identity.
So, it is particularly unpleasant when successful and famous Jews accuse the state of Israel publicly and unfairly of exploiting the Holocaust to commit war crimes, probably the most disgusting accusation one can make against the Jewish state. But we should not overestimate the impact of such accusations. In most cases, they are a function of ignorance, or a desire to find favor with audiences who have little knowledge of the circumstances; or out of fear of losing fans.
As Jewish history teaches us, there will always be “useful [Jewish] idiots” like Jonathan Glazer, and some of the dangerous anti-Zionists will be Jewish. The best way to combat their lies is to teach the history of Zionism and Israel’s efforts to make peace with our neighbors, and expose the extremism of our enemies and the crimes committed against us, as painful as that might be.
Dr Efraim Zuroff is the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Israel Office and Eastern European Affairs.
Pogroms and Press Complicity
Retired Associate Judge of the High Court, David Robinson, writes: “If the press is to avoid having blood on its hands it must be very careful not to inflame a very volatile situation and go down in history as causing a pogrom.”
“If the press is to avoid having blood on its hands it must be very careful not to inflame a very volatile situation and go down in history as causing a pogrom.”
On Saturday the 7 October 2023, on Shabbat and the celebration of Simchas Torah (Rejoicing of the Law), and 50 years since the Yom Kippur War, over 1000 Hamas terrorists broke through the border between Gaza and Israel. In a very carefully planned attack they tortured, raped, burned alive, beheaded and in other brutal ways murdered all they encountered. About 200 including the aged, infirm, handicapped, children and babies were kidnapped and dragged to Gaza to be hostages. One of the lucky four hostages to be released to date, a woman in her eighties, described how she was beaten by her captors when being dragged to Gaza. Young people attending an open air concert were not spared, 260 were murdered in cold blood.
David Robinson
The terrorists, proud of their achievements, videoed the massacre. One grabbed the mobile phone of a dead victim to boast to his parents in Gaza that he had killed ten Jews. His parents in their reply were very proud of their son’s achievements as if he had scored ten goals in a football tournament.
Many of the citizens in Gaza were delighted at the massacre and were pictured dancing in joy, desecrating the dead bodies of the victims and taunting the hostages. In one video they practically knocked each other down for the chance to stomp on dead Israeli bodies. It is not possible to express in words the horror of families of the hostages, witnessing the scenes captured and displayed by the perpetrators of this massacre.
In all, 1400, mostly civilians, were massacred and more than 200 taken hostage. What happened was nothing less than genocide and the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
The effect of this massacre spread around the world and many Governments including the UK, USA, Canada and Australia immediately unreservedly condemned the massacre and expressed solidarity with Israel in opposing the evil that is Hamas.
In contrast our foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta posted on twitter:-
“Aotearoa New Zealand is deeply concerned at the outbreak of conflict between Israel and Gaza. We call for the immediate cessation of violence. The protection of all civilians, and upholding of international humanitarian law is essential.”
It is interesting to compare this post with the New Zealand Government’s position following pogroms of Jews in Russia in 1891 when the New Zealand House of Representatives led by Sir George Grey passed a resolution for a petition to be presented to the Emperor of Russia to repeal the restrictive laws imposed on the Russian Jews.
Immediately after the attack, following consultation with the authorities in New Zealand, the Auckland Jewish Community closed Kadimah School (the only Jewish day school in New Zealand) and advised that the Auckland Hebrew Congregation Shabbat services would not take place at the Remuera complex that weekend. It is an indictment of the society in which we live that the Jewish community in Auckland felt intimidated enough to take these unprecedented steps. This did not follow any aggression by the Israelis. It was a reaction to the slaughter of Israelis which was followed by Hamas’ call to international Jihad against Jews.
Although the Jewish Community had expressed solidarity and sympathy with the Muslim Community for the dreadful massacre of 50 worshipers in two Mosques in Christchurch, the Muslim Community was openly aggressive in its support of Hamas.
Hamas has been, and is, openly hostile not only to the Jews in Israel but also to Jews throughout the world including New Zealand. Its charter which was in force when a majority of the Palestinians in Gaza voted in its favour clearly states:
The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight Jews and kill them.
It also states:
The establishment of Israel is entirely illegal… …Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.
The River is the Jordan River and the sea is the Mediterranean. In other words, Hamas which had the support of the majority of Palestinians living in Gaza seeks the annihilation of the State of Israel and the death of all its inhabitants.
It is hard to see what more Hamas can do to satisfy its supporters and the Government in New Zealand that both its military and political wings are terrorists. Consistent with its charter it has authorized and carried out the torture and slaughter of Israelis thus establishing that its charter means what it says and cannot be dismissed as mere rhetoric. In case anyone did not believe in the extent of the slaughter, the murderers recorded their deeds to boast to their supporters and terrorize their enemies.
Although years were spent in preparing for this massacre, Hamas did nothing to protect their Palestinian citizens from the attacks which they must have anticipated from the Israelis. Unlike the Israelis they did not build bomb shelters or safe rooms and unlike the British in World War 2, when Londoners were able to shelter in the underground during the Blitz, they have not allowed shelter in the hundreds of kilometers of tunnels built with reinforced concrete. Instead they use the citizens of Gaza as human shields. By placing their rocket launches and ammunition near hospitals and schools they endanger their citizens using them as human shields. Even though Israel does its best to avoid civilian casualties, innocents do get killed. Hamas use the victims to further their narrative and with a complicit press, they gain public sympathy.
Unfortunately a rocket launched by Islamic Jihad aimed at Israel misfired and blew up in the carpark of a nearby hospital. Hamas immediately reported that an Israeli rocket had struck the hospital killing hundreds. Although Israel denied it was responsible for this incident the international press hastily published the Hamas version of events, blaming Israel. In the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby to reporters:
What I have said to people publicly, is “Don’t assume it’s Israel. You have no proof that it’s Israel. Many people have made a clear case it’s not. At the very best do not start propagating another blood libel.
The term blood libel refers to the false allegation that Jews use the blood of Christian children for ritual purposes. The Nazis made effective use of the blood libel to demonize Jews. Blood libels often resulted in pogroms against the Jews, one of the first of which occured in Norwich England in 1144.
Unfortunately the Archbishop of Canterbury is entirely correct when warning journalists of the risks of starting another blood libel. With Hamas calling for Jihad against Jews throughout the world, including New Zealand, it is extremely likely that a false accusation that Israel has bombed a hospital in Gaza will result in violence against the local Jewish community. Calls for genocide including cries to “Gas the Jews” could very easily escalate to physical violence against person and property.
If the press is to avoid having blood on its hands it must be very careful not to inflame a very volatile situation and go down in history as causing a pogrom.
David Robinson is a former Associate Judge of the High Court of New Zealand and is on the board of the Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation, Aotearoa New Zealand
Media Release: Auckland Museum’s Apology
In response to the antisemitic thuggery of Hamas supporters, Auckland Museum has now apologised for the lighting of its building in expression of solidarity with the Jewish nation. This is shameful.
Media Release by Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation, Aotearoa New Zealand
Auckland Museum’s Apology for expressing solidarity with Israel
17 October 2023
Civilised nations across the world, including UK, Australia, and USA, have seen fit to show solidarity with Israel at her time of grief, by lighting prominent buildings with Israel’s colours. Sydney Opera House, 10 Downing St, The Brandenburg Gate and buildings in Kyiv and the European Commission have responded appropriately after the worst slaughter and atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust.
Auckland Museum houses a Holocaust room and our Holocaust Foundation has directed Holocaust memorial events on its premises.
In response to the antisemitic thuggery of Hamas supporters, Auckland Museum has now apologised for the lighting of its building in expression of solidarity with the Jewish nation.
This is shameful.
Media Release: Suggested Moral Equivalence Repugnant
Our grief is further compounded by the equivocation of several New Zealand leaders, in their response to Hamas’ attack… This is a time for moral clarity. Antisemitism is virulent and knows a multitude of expressions. It must be called out.
Media Release by Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation, Aotearoa New Zealand
Suggested Moral Equivalence between Hamas and IDF, Repugnant
13 October 2023
While we deplore the misappropriation of Holocaust memory, it is important to observe that Hamas’ 7 October attack on Israeli civilians saw the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Jewish people were tortured, murdered, raped, burned alive, and in recent days there has been verification of reports of babies being beheaded.
Many Israelis have been abducted and taken into Gaza. Among them is at least one Holocaust survivor.
We stand firmly with Israel at this time and share the deep grief felt by Jewish people worldwide.
Our grief is further compounded by the equivocation of several New Zealand leaders, in their response to Hamas’ attack. All suggestions of moral equivalence between the actions of Hamas and its followers, and those of the Israeli Defense Forces, whether stated or implied, we consider repugnant and reprehensible.
This is a time for moral clarity. Antisemitism is virulent and knows a multitude of expressions. It must be called out.
Statement on Hamas attack on Israel
A pogrom is conventionally defined as a mob attack resulting in a massacre, with the approval of authorities, against the persons and property of a religious, racial, or national group. As the details of the barbaric acts against Israelis become clear, the leadership of Hamas, the Iranian Regime, and the Hamas paymasters, the Qatari Regime, are guilty of carrying out and supporting a pogrom, and actually celebrating these unspeakable crimes…
Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) has issued a statement regarding the Hamas attack on Israel:
STATEMENT BY ISGAP EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DR. CHARLES ASHER SMALL ON THE ATROCITIES
A pogrom is conventionally defined as a mob attack resulting in a massacre, with the approval of authorities, against the persons and property of a religious, racial, or national group.
As the details of the barbaric acts against Israelis become clear, the leadership of Hamas, the Iranian Regime, and the Hamas paymasters, the Qatari Regime, are guilty of carrying out and supporting a pogrom, and actually celebrating these unspeakable crimes. The murder, torture, mutilation of bodies, and sexual crimes against innocent Jewish children, women, and the elderly are nothing less than a pogrom. Hamas is the murderous shock troops, and the Iranian and Qatari Regimes are their overseers.
"On behalf of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) team of scholars, researchers, policy experts and students from around the world, we stand in full solidarity with Israel, as it faces a genocidal war launched by Gaza-based Hamas, a terrorist group listed by the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Organization of American States, and many other international actors. Hamas is supported by the Iranian Regime and its paymasters the Qatari Regime."
“Make no mistake about it,” Dr. Charles Asher Small, the founding director of ISGAP, continued. “Hamas openly declares its aim of annihilating Israel and murdering Jews. And it does so with the full support of the Iranian Regime, the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, and with the guiding principles of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist network financed and empowered, closely linked to the Qatari Regime, the paymasters for this axis of hate.”
“We call on the international academic community to show its full understanding and support for Israel at this critical time,” Dr. Small added, “and to counter supporters of Hamas, including the Iranian and Qatari Regimes, and their eliminationist ideology on campuses worldwide.”
“We applaud the dozens of countries that have expressed their support for Israel and its full right of self-defence, offered their assistance, and pledged to fight the cancerous evils of Hamas and its pernicious antisemitic, anti-Western, and misogynist worldview.”
Dr. Small added, “The ideology of Hamas, the Iranian Regime, the Qatari Regime, and the Muslim Brotherhood all share an ideology that is literally inspired by ancient European antisemitism and Nazi ideology, which is founded on a belief and rhetoric that incites to genocide.”
ISGAP, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, is the leading global organization dedicated to studying antisemitism in all its forms, and to connecting scholars to combat it on campuses and beyond. Its founding chair was Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace laureate, and its current chair is Natan Sharansky, the human rights activist who spent nine years (1977-1986) in the Soviet Gulag for his struggle as a Jewish activist and political dissident.
For additional comments, please contact Dr. Charles Asher Small, Founder and Executive Director, ISGAP;
Director, ISGAP-Woolf Institute Fellowship Training Programme on
Critical Contemporary Antisemitism Studies, Cambridge, UK
at charlessmall@isgap.org
Antisemitism and the Funding of Higher Education
Narratives that prevail in academia soon filter down to politics, media and culture more broadly. The founder of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, Dr Charles Asher Small, recently spoke of his findings concerning Muslim Brotherhood funding of many of the world’s finest universities. The implications for antisemitism are significant.
Narratives that prevail in academia soon filter down to politics, media and society’s culture more broadly. There is evidence that those narratives are sometimes influenced by donors.
The founder of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, Dr Charles Asher Small, recently spoke of his findings concerning Muslim Brotherhood funding of many of the world’s finest universities. The implications for antisemitism are significant.
Woke Antisemitism
David L. Bernstein is the author of Woke Antisemitism: How Progressive Ideology Harms Jews. The Holocaust Foundation interviewed David at a course on curriculum development at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy at the University of Oxford.
Antisemitism comes in many forms, among them Islamist, Christian, economic, and conspiratorial antisemitism. Many correctly associate antisemitism with the far right and yet it is increasingly prevalent on the progressive left.
David L. Bernstein is the author of Woke Antisemitism: How Progressive Ideology Harms Jews. The Holocaust Foundation interviewed David at the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy at the University of Oxford.
Review: The slaughter of Lithuanian Jews
…Koniuchowsky survived the Kovno Ghetto and decided to record the testimonies of all the (few) Jews who had miraculously survived in the small shtetlach (villages with Jewish communities) in the provinces. Of the 220,000 Jews who lived under the Nazi occupation in Lithuania, only about 8,000 survived.
This book review was originally published by The Jerusalem Report. Used by permission.
On April 4, 1945, Leyb Koniuchowsky sat down in Kovno with Lithuanian Holocaust survivor Dina Zisa Flaum and carefully recorded by hand her testimony in Yiddish regarding her harrowing experiences during the Holocaust. Flaum was one of the very few survivors of the community of Rasein (in Yiddish), or Raseiniai (in Lithuanian), a pre-war community of some 6,000 Jews, and Koniuchowsky was a man on a mission, a sacred mission. Originally from Alytus, Lithuania, Koniuchowsky survived the Kovno Ghetto and decided to record the testimonies of all the (few) Jews who had miraculously survived in the small shtetlach (villages with Jewish communities) in the provinces.
Of the 220,000 Jews who lived under the Nazi occupation in Lithuania, only about 8,000 survived. The overwhelming majority of them, however, were from Lithuania’s large urban Jewish communities in Vilna (Vilnius), Kovno (Kaunas), and Shavli (Siauliai), where the Nazis had established ghettos and kept alive several thousands of Jewish forced laborers. The decimation in the small communities was almost total.
Flaum’s testimony was particularly important because she had seen at least one of the mass murders in Rasein (not all the Jews were murdered at the same time) and could identify several of the killers. This is her description of one of the most horrific crimes she witnessed:
“While lying in the hay [close to the murder site], I clearly saw two women standing near the pit [which the victims fell into after being shot] smashing the skulls of small children with a large rock or killing the children by smashing their heads together. One of the women was the student Klimaite.”
Koniuchowsky started his project in Lithuania immediately after the end of World War II, and later continued in the displaced persons camps in Germany for several years. By the time he finished in 1948, he had collected testimonies about over 100 communities, and he sought a publisher to publish his collection in its entirety. And that’s where the story of this book hit a very unfortunate snag. By this time, he had immigrated to the United States, and he could not find any publisher willing to print his entire book as recorded by its author. And, believe it not, that was still the situation 32 years later when I first met Koniuchowsky in 1980 in Israel while I was working as a researcher for the Office of Special Investigations of the US Justice Department, established to prosecute the Nazis who had entered the United States illegally by hiding their service with the Nazis. I tried to convince Koniuchowsky to let me see the material, but he adamantly refused.
He kept on saying that he collected the testimonies for the kedoshim [martyrs], to which I replied in utter desperation, that those who had turned them into kedoshim were walking around free, and that there is every chance that they will die in peace and tranquility if we cannot have access to his material – all to no avail. Only nine years later was the problem solved, after Prof. Dov Levin, a survivor of Kovno and the world’s leading expert on the fate of Baltic Jewry in the Holocaust, finally convinced Koniuchowsky to donate his collection to Yad Vashem, even though they did not commit to publishing his magnum opus.
According to press reports, Koniuchowsky was getting old, and he wanted to make sure that he kept his promise to the victims. “They yelled, ‘Brothers and sisters, Yidden, please remember us! Take revenge for our poor blood! And I didn’t forget for a minute of my life.” What Yad Vashem did do was publish a book titled Expulsion and Extermination; Holocaust Testimonials from Provincial Lithuania. It gives an in-depth treatment of the various stages of the persecution and murder of the Jews, using excerpts from the testimonies to illustrate the trials and tribulations suffered by the Jewish inhabitants of the more than 200 Lithuanian towns and villages that had Jewish communities.
The unique historical significance of Koniuchowsky’s project becomes clearly apparent because the witness statements provide critical dimensions and details of the tragic fate of approximately half of Lithuanian Jewry, the most important of which are the major role played by local volunteers from all strata of Lithuanian society in the mass murders, and the incredible cruelty of the perpetrators.
In view of the persistent efforts of successive Lithuanian governments since independence to hide and/or minimize the role of locals in the murders, The Lithuanian Slaughter of Its Jews is an invaluable addition to the historical record of the annihilation of Lithuanian Jewry, and it makes available vital information for the English-speaking public. This is not an easy or comfortable read, and the format is not read- er-friendly, but its 569 pages present a message that must be heard and learned.
I cannot conclude this review without two additional points. The first relates to the potential importance of the testimonies in the efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice. Koniuchowsky’s collection consisted of 1,684 pages of testimony in Yiddish, and listed the names of 1,284 participants, only 121 of whom we had information about from other sources.
Dr. Efraim Zuroff is the chief Nazi hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and director of the Center’s Israel Office and Eastern European Affairs. His latest book (with Ruta Va- nagaite) is Our People; Discovering Lithuania’s Hidden Holocaust, published by Rowman & Littlefield.
Given our ability to trace the immigration destinations of thousands of Holocaust perpetrators, especially from the Baltics, to the Anglo-Saxon democracies, the decades-long delay in obtaining access to the testimonies was a veritable tragedy, which allowed many killers to escape punishment. The fact that it was a survivor, well aware of the horrors of the Holocaust, who refused to cooperate, makes it much more painful. One final note. This volume has 121 testimonies from the Koniuchowsky collection, but for some reason additional witness statements were not included, including the testimony of Dina Flaum cited above. Their omission is not explained.
The Corruption of the Term Genocide
Dr Rawiri Taonui, who is part of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission’s National Anti-Racism Taskforce (despite a history of bullying and discrimination), claimed that the Holocaust, which killed 6,000,000 Jews was “equal & opposite” to the situation of the Arab Palestinians today…
The term ‘genocide’ is increasingly being hijacked by activists and bad faith actors who are happy to stomp on the graves of real victims of mass atrocity to achieve their political or ideological objectives.
Last week, Sanjana Hattotuwa, a researcher from “The Disinformation Project” claimed that, following the Posie Parker visit, online rhetoric directed at the trans community had risen to “genocidal” levels. He offered no proof and the media that published his words clearly didn’t see fit to question his extraordinary claim.
The man who originally coined the term ‘genocide’ was Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin. He did so to establish new international laws to prosecute the Ottoman Empire in the wake of the systematic destruction of the Armenian population. Genos means a race, and cide means to kill. Thus, genocide means the systemic murder of a group / or the destruction of a culture.
Hattotuwa directed followers online to a statement released by a new genocide education group named after Lemkin, that incredibly claimed that gender-critical counterargument is the spearhead of a nascent fascist movement. Oddly, this institute has four articles mentioning Uighur Muslims and 137 that mention the United States Police. While an important issue, no reasonable person would refer to Police violence in the U.S. in the same breath as ‘genocide’.
Hattotuwa is not the only high-profile New Zealander to abuse the word. In 2018 Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman was censured by the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand for accusing Israel of carrying out a ‘genocide’. The Holocaust Centre media release was titled “Grotesque, Reckless Use of ‘Genocide’ by NZ Members of Parliament” and went on to say “… It is not only a grotesque distortion of the term ‘genocide, but it is inaccurate, inflammatory and fuelling hate speech in New Zealand…”
And also last week, Dr Rawiri Taonui, who is part of the New Zealand Human Rights Commission’s National Anti-Racism Taskforce (despite a history of bullying and discrimination), claimed that the Holocaust, which killed 6,000,000 Jews was “equal & opposite” to the situation of the Arab Palestinians today, whose population has increased year on year since 1948. This is an echo of Ms Ghahraman’s “reckless and grotesque” 2018 comments.
Hattotuwa, Ghahraman, and Taonui’s gross misapplication of the term genocide is repulsive. But it is also extremely dangerous. And great that the Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation called it out.
If people truly believe that trans people or an Arab Palestinian population are under imminent threat from feminists or Jews, respectively, then violence may be justified to stop the ‘genocide’.
Certainly, after a week of rhetoric comparing the gender-critical feminists and others to Nazis (the ultimate genocidaires), Posie Parker’s ‘counter-protesters’ clearly did feel justified to use violence.
A young man was caught on tape viciously attacking a 72-year-old woman, and while these are the actions of an unhinged individual, such a criminal could lean into a defence that their violence was a fair response to a ‘genocidal’ opposition. Misuse of the term is being used to incite and may be viewed by its abusers as an effective tactic to create unrest and force a final political solution of strident state censorship.
Misuse of the word ‘genocide’, especially when the term is abused in relation to the Holocaust per Ghahraman and Taonui, is a form of “soft-core” Holocaust denial. As a culture, we need to collectively address this dangerous corruption of a term that, for the descendants of many New Zealanders, from Europe, Africa and indeed around the world, meant what the word was always intended to mean: the conscious and systemic destruction of their people.
We need to call figures like Hattotuwa out for what they are when they abuse this term – atrocity-deniers – and demand honesty and specificity in our political discourse.
This article was first published on Plain Sight
IHRA’s Success and Difficult Dilemma
…the same countries which are the worst offenders when it comes to distortion, such as Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Croatia, Poland, Hungary and Romania cannot be punished, or expelled from IHRA.
This week we observe International Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27, the day of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp as mandated by the United Nations in 2005. If there was initial skepticism regarding this initiative, especially in countries which already had designated their own memorial days linked to the dates of important local events in the history of the Shoa, like Israel for example, I think that by now there is general approval for the need for an international memorial day observed all over the world on the same date. Thus one day can be devoted primarily to mourning, while the other day can be reserved for dealing the very important political issues which relate to the causes which led to the Shoa, and particularly anti-Semitism.
One organization which has accurately recognized the connection between the Shoa and its anti-Semitic roots, and is trying to uproot the latter, is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which has become one of the most important groups promoting Holocaust education throughout Europe, North and South America, and Israel. IHRA was founded in May 1998 by Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, who was shocked by a survey which showed that many Swedish schoolchildren lacked knowledge of the Holocaust, as well as his visit to the site of the Neuengamme concentration camp in Germany. Originally named the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research, Germany and Israel joined the initiative the same year as its first members.
Today, 35 countries are full members of IHRA, and 10 additional countries have Observer status. IHRA is playing a major role in a variety of areas connected to Holocaust commemoration, Research and education, as well as in combatting anti-Semitism. And in fact, its most outstanding contribution has most probably been its adoption in 2016 of its Working Definition of Anti-Semitism, which according to the Combat Antisemitism Movement has been endorsed/adopted until the end of 2022, by a total of 1,116 entities, among them 39 countries, 464 non-federal government entities, 339 educational institutions, and 274 NGO’s and organizations. The definition, unlike various other descriptions of anti-Semitism, covers all the existing variations from right and left, including those focused on Zionism, and which unfairly single out Israel for criticism, which are often overlooked or ignored.
There are, however, various problems which plague IHRA’s activities. The first and foremost is that resolutions must be approved unanimously by all the member countries, but there are no consequences for those countries which do not implement them. The most disturbing example has to do with the issue of Holocaust distortion, which is rampantly prevalent in the post-Communist “new democracies” in Eastern Europe. In those countries, they do not deny the Holocaust, but they hide or minimize the highly significant role played by their nationals in the mass murder of the Jews, and promote the canard of equivalency between Communist and Nazi crimes thereby deflecting attention from their crimes and focusing attention on their suffering.
Thus in 2020, IHRA issued a Ministerial Declaration which addressed the issue in unequivocal terms as follows: “We accept our responsibility as governments to continue working together to counter Holocaust denial and distortion…We will continue to work closely with experts, civil society and our international partners to further these goals.” Another declaration under the heading of: “Leading global efforts to counter Holocaust and distortion,” specifically mentions “a shocking increase in efforts to minimize the impact of the Holocaust and downplay the crimes of the Nazi regime and its collaborators. This trend, in which Holocaust distortion inches toward the mainstream, erodes our understanding of the historical truth of the Holocaust and fuels antisemitism.”
IHRA has even created a tool kit against distortion, and the German Presidency launched a global task force against Holocaust distortion which was given an extra-budgetary contribution. In addition, a global campaign to raise awareness about Holocaust distortion was launched, using slogans such as “#Protect the Facts,” and “#Say No To Distortion.”
The problem is, however, that the same countries which are the worst offenders when it comes to distortion, such as Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Croatia, Poland, Hungary and Romania cannot be punished, or expelled from IHRA. They remain members in good standing, and continue to deny the highly-significant role of their local collaborators in the murders. Thus, ironically, Croatia, a country which suffers from a significant proportion of Ustasha (Croatian fascists) supporters will ascend to the Presidency of IHRA, despite serious problems of Holocaust distortion ever since they became independent from Yugoslavia.
Dr. Efraim Zuroff is the chief Nazi hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the director of the Center's Israel Office and Eastern European Affairs. He serves on the International Council for the Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation, Aotearoa New Zealand.
Mother's Love and a Nobel Prize
Roald was aware of the incredible danger that lay beyond his hiding place. Although he was confined in difficult circumstances Roald remembers being surrounded by family and cocooned in an atmosphere of love.
(Originally posted 2013)
It was a great privilege to meet and photograph Nobel prize winner Roald Hoffmann earlier this year. As Roald recounted his story of surviving the Holocaust as a young child, the heroic tale of his mother captured my attention. I could not help but be drawn to this woman who in the midst of extreme adversity created an environment of love, nurture and intellectual stimulation for her young child.
After Germany invaded Poland and occupied the town of Złoczów, Roald’s family was placed in a labor camp. Roald’s father, Hillel Safran, was an engineer with a detailed knowledge of local infrastructure and so was an asset to the Germans while working in the camp.
As the situation worsened Hillel made arrangements for his wife Clara and son Roald to be hidden by a Ukrainian school teacher they had befriended in a village not far from their town. Along with two uncles and an aunt they were hidden in the attic and then storeroom of the local schoolhouse for the last fifteen months during the war.
In this cramped and difficult situation Roald’s mother, Clara made the best of a bad situation. A school teacher by training, Clara found herself confined in the attic storehouse of the school with books, paper and pencils at her disposal and a young son with many hours to fill.
Roald Hoffmann (then Safran) explains how his mother taught him to read using the school books that were stored in the tiny storeroom:
‘Mother invented endless geography games. I learned latitude and longitude at age six. She would say to me, “Tell me how you would go from here to San Francisco”. I had to describe the route in excruciating detail. It was not enough to say take a train. I would have to explain where I would catch it, where it went. I would have to describe all the surrounding bodies of water, whether to go through a canal or on the sea. And which sea. She invented a game called “Wet or Dry”. She would specify a latitude and longitude and I would have to tell whether it would be on ocean or dry land. This made for a longish game. But I’m still good at geography’
This resourceful and determined mother was not going to let incarceration imprison the mind and spirit. Could Clara have imagined that those many hours spent stimulating the intellect of her young charge would produce a future Nobel prize winner?
Whilst this young mother was in hiding Hillel Safran remained at the Labour camp. The Germans valued his skills and Hillel made use of the relative freedom of movement that his position afforded him to work with a resistance group that was planning a breakout. He was able to smuggle weapons into the camp. Unfortunately Hillel along with other leaders of the resistance group were betrayed. This led to their arrest, torture and execution in June 1943.
A friend who witnessed Hillel’s execution informed Clara of the terrible news via a letter to sent to the house. One can only imagine the sorrow of that dreadful moment. Clara poured her grief onto the pages of her husband’s notebook. In this notebook her husband had written notes from a book he was reading on relativity. How apt that the son of this young couple would become a chemist and poet.
The fifteen months in hiding did not mean that Clara avoided the harsh treatment of the Germans. During their time in the labour camp Clara received a terrible beating from one particularly sadistic labour camp director. Not content with just physical brutality, these perpetrators of terror also engaged in psychological torment. When Roald was four or five some of the drunken SS man wanted to show off and scare the people. They made the Roald sit on the dog house while they used it for target practice. They shot and killed the dog while saying to Roald’s mother, “Don’t be afraid, lady. We’re not going to shoot your son.”
Roald describes his mother as a strong, small woman:
”My uncles were weak from not being able to move after 15 months of confinement. When we walked to the Russian lines at the end of the war, the men had great trouble. Mother, however, carried me for three kilometers to the Russian lines. Mother was leader of this small group of five. Her brothers, lifelong, listened to her.”
Roald was aware of the incredible danger that lay beyond his hiding place. Although he was confined in difficult circumstances Roald remembers being surrounded by family and cocooned in an atmosphere of love.
What a legacy for a young mother to pass on to her child and what a joy it must have been for her to see her son succeed in the land that adopted them after the war. This small brave woman remarried, immigrated to New York in 1949, had another child in her forties and lived to the grand age of almost 95.
View Roald’s story
When Queen Elizabeth Helped Us Hunt Nazis
The late monarch used her royal powers for justice, against strong opposition, by making it possible to prosecute war criminals who escaped to the UK.
This past week’s media was dominated by the passing of Queen Elizabeth II at age 96, after reigning over the United Kingdom for seventy years. This was true in Great Britain of course, and throughout the British Commonwealth (which still has 15 fifteen countries), but it was also true all over the world, and even in Israel. The Jewish community in Britain also participated, and Chief Rabbi Mirvis not only very warmly eulogized the Queen, he even composed a lovely prayer “On The Passing Of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth,” in which he noted her “generosity of spirit…dignity, wisdom” and described her as “a most gracious monarch, who occupied a throne of distinction and honour.”
Very interestingly, the one positive characteristic in the prayer that was mentioned twice was justice. In Rabbi Mirvis’ words, Queen Elizabeth “signified order and justice,” and was “a steadfast guardian of liberty, a symbol of unity and a champion of justice in all the lands of her dominion.”
In fact, I personally can attest to the Queen’s devotion to justice, in relation to the Wiesenthal Center’s efforts to convince the British government to prosecute Nazi criminals, who had found a haven in Great Britain after World War II, an aspect of her reign that was completely overlooked in all the obituaries, eulogies, and commentaries.
Starting in the mid-seventies, it became known, initially in the United States and later in the major Anglo-Saxon democracies (Canada, Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand), that many Nazi criminals had emigrated to countries that fought against the Third Reich, by hiding their collaboration with the Nazis, and posing as innocent refugees fleeing from Communism. The United States, which admitted the largest number of such persons, was the first country to decide to take legal measures against these individuals. It established a special agency, the Office of Special Investigations, to prosecute them. As time went on, more and more such cases were discovered in the other Anglo-Saxon democracies, and pressure mounted on these countries to take action.
As the chief Nazi hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, my job was to find as many as possible of such cases, in order to help convince Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and New Zealand to decide to take legal measures against these Holocaust perpetrators, who up to that point, had escaped justice. As far as the United Kingdom was concerned, our saga began on October 22, 1986, when Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper submitted a list I compiled of suspected Nazi criminals who were living in the UK to the British consul in Los Angeles, Donald Ballantine. The list – 11 Latvians and 6 Lithuanians – was accompanied by a request to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that the government investigate the allegations, and if necessary create a legal mechanism to deal with the problem.
From the start, the British government was very reluctant to do anything. Its initial response was that despite the Prime Minister’s “deep revulsion at the atrocities committed during the Nazi era,” it was most likely that “legal constraints would prevent the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in Great Britain.” The reason was that prosecution was limited to crimes committed in Great Britain, and extradition to the Soviet Union or Israel was impossible, because of the lack of an extradition treaty with the former, and the provisions of the existing extradition treaty with the latter. In addition, the conservative media was absolutely opposed to prosecution and made no secret of their staunch opposition. Thus, for example, the Times editorial on March 3,1987, reminded its readers that “Britain is a Christian country…[whose] laws enshrine principles of justice tempered with mercy not vengeance,” and concluded that “it is wise and humane to let matters rest.”
And that sentiment was not the only problem we faced. Our major problem was that all the suspects had committed their crimes in areas that were now part of the Soviet Union. As a Jewish defense organization that was fighting for the rights of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel, we were hardly the type of group whom the Soviet authorities would help, which is why we appealed to the British government to request the information from the Soviets on a bilateral basis. Thus with little political will to proceed in London, our chances of obtaining positive results appeared to be very slim. Luckily for the cause, MPs Greville Janner and Merlyn Rees formed an All-Party War Crimes Group in the Parliament which helped to galvanize political pressure on the government to take action.
Dr Efraim Zuroff in Jerusalem, 2018.
Their efforts resulted in the government establishing an independent inquiry to assess the evidence against the suspects, which in turn endorsed a change in British law to enable criminal prosecution of Nazi criminals living in Great Britain. Such a step would have to be passed by the Parliament, as well as the House of Lords. The proposed bill passed in the House of Commons by a huge margin of 348 to 123, but was roundly defeated in the House of Lords. To the government’s credit, it was returned to the House of Commons, but again it was rejected by the House of Lords. The government refused to give up and submitted it once again to the House of Commons, where it was passed by a huge margin of 254 to 88, and at that point, Queen Elizabeth, for the first time in 70 years, used her power to sign a bill into law over the opposition of the House of Lords. That step created a legal framework to prosecute Nazi criminals who entered Great Britain illegally and sent a very important moral and judicial message that the United Kingdom, in principle, will not be a haven for those who committed the crimes of the Third Reich.
So Queen Elizabeth was indeed worthy of the praise she received as a “champion of justice in all the lands of her dominion.” Rest in peace dear Queen.
Dr. Efraim Zuroff is the chief Nazi-hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the director of the Center's Israel Office and Eastern European Affairs. He serves on the International Council of Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation, Aotearoa New Zealand.
Five EU countries that shouldn’t be throwing stones
With the exception of one case in Poland, not a single Holocaust perpetrator has been convicted and punished in any of these countries since independence… …they have totally failed to confront their crimes, and have failed in every aspect of dealing with the Shoah.
Dr. Efraim Zuroff is the chief Nazi-hunter of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the director of the Center's Israel Office and Eastern European Affairs.
Several days ago, I was shocked to learn that five heads of state from Lithuania, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, and Poland, all post-Communist Eastern European countries, had recently beseeched the leaders of the European Union to step up efforts to “preserve historical memory.” It was addressed to the European Council president, European Commission president, and the Czech prime minister, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency.
For the past three decades since their transition to democracy, these countries have excelled in grossly distorting their own respective histories of the Holocaust. Yet the quintet of leaders now maintains that the Kremlin “is seeking to rewrite history and use it to justify its aggression against sovereign states.” Thus, they urge the bodies of the EU to take a leadership role in “preserving historical memory and preventing the Russian regime from manipulating historical facts.” They contend that this concern “is particularly relevant in light of Russia’s intensive use of history for propaganda purposes in the context of the war in Ukraine.”
These heads of state know how to deal with this problem of rewriting history. They recommend the following four steps as the means of taking corrective measures:
the promotion of “European Remembrance narratives across the whole EU” through national educational programs;
providing adequate political and financial support to the Prague-based Platform of European Memory and conscience;
completing the project for a memorial to the victims of totalitarian regimes in Brussels;
stepping up the fight against disinformation.
These steps constitute a renewed effort to establish a false historical narrative as the “accurate/universally accepted” narrative of World War II and the Holocaust. Particularly ironic, coming from the these five countries, is their statement: “Without an accurate, honest, and comprehensive assessment of the past, we will not be able to effectively prevent future crimes on our continent or investigate the current ones in Ukraine.”
Each of these countries has produced its own false narrative of the events of the Shoah, either extremely minimizing, or completely erasing the highly significant role played by their own local Nazi collaborators. It must be noted that only in Eastern Europe did collaboration with the Nazis include participation in the systematic mass murder of Jews. None of them is ready to admit the full scope and significance of their complicity and culpability.
There is, of course, no doubt that the Russians are manipulating history to justify the invasion of Ukraine. Nevertheless, a plea by these leaders to “preserve historical memory,” is the height of hypocrisy and chutzpah. Before making demands on the EU, let them begin to practice what they preach at home.
With the exception of one case in Poland, not a single Holocaust perpetrator has been convicted and punished in any of these countries since independence. They are reluctant to return Jewish property and compensate survivors. In short, they have totally failed to confront their crimes, and have failed in every aspect of dealing with the Shoah.
Indeed, in the Baltic countries, they have glorified anti-Communist fighters, even if they were Holocaust perpetrators. These figures include active participants in the murders of Lithuanians Jonas Noreika and Juozas Krikstaponis and Latvians Herberts Cukurs, Voldemar Veiss and Vilis Tunkelis, among numerous others. They continue to promote the canard of equivalence between Communist and Nazi crimes.
Brussels should therefore put pressure on these countries to begin telling and teaching the truth about the Holocaust and the role played by local collaborators in their own countries, instead of complying with the requests in the letter of the quintet.
The Jewish people have two foundational narratives about our history in the 20th century: the Zionist narrative of our return to Eretz Yisrael, the land of Israel, and the chronicle of the Holocaust. When the Palestinians deny the former, we respond strongly, but Israel has failed to respond forcefully to the Eastern European distortions regarding the Holocaust that have been on offer ever since these countries obtained independence. The letter of the quintet should be a wake-up call for Israel as well.
Anti-Zionism, NZ and the IHRA Definition
The Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation welcomes the recent announcement that New Zealand has been accepted as an Observer by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
In recent decades it has been a go-to strategy for antisemites to clothe their hatred in the garb of anti-Zionism. In contexts where open hostility toward individual Jews and diaspora communities is frowned upon, antagonism toward the state of the Jews frequently wins a free pass.
As has been observed, antisemitism adapts itself to the values and perceived priorities of the period. The religious values of the Middle Ages and the racist ideas of the Nazi period have largely fallen from favour, thus providing less fuel for antisemitism. Instead it is the language and framing of social justice that presently help to keep the fires of antisemitism burning in the West.
Calumnies against Israel cast her as an international pariah, an apartheid state and a colonialist occupier displacing an ancient indigenous population. The facts of history and realities on the ground have done little to dampen the impact of a narrative that has now established deep roots in academia and mainstream media.
Thus the Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation welcomes the recent announcement that New Zealand has been accepted as an Observer by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. While this does not mean that New Zealand has, or will, adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism, it is a first and important step toward that goal.
Founded in 1998, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance is an intergovernmental agency seeking to strengthen and promote Holocaust education, remembrance and research internationally. To date 35 nations have become full members.
In regard to anti-Zionism, the strength of the IHRA definition rests in the examples included with the definition itself. Addressed directly are the right of Jewish self-determination and the double standards applied to the Jewish state.
More broadly, engagement with IHRA will strengthen the work of those seeking to protect and sustain a faithful telling of the events of the Holocaust, memorialisation, research, and the all important work of education.
We commend those who have taken the important step to take up observer status with IHRA.
What Really Changed in 1945? Yom HaShoah Speech
Enemies have been many and friends have been few. And the character of friends like those of Le Chambon is ultimately only proven in times of peril. The Shoah taught us that those considered friends are worse than irrelevant if they will not act.
This speech was given at the Yom HaShoah service,
Auckland Hebrew Congregation, New Zealand, 27 April 2022
In the fourteen years we have spent interviewing and photographing survivors for the Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation we have encountered stories of tragedy and depravity, and all too rarely, courage, compassion and conviction.
In 2019 we visited Auschwitz in Poland and Le Chambon Sur Lignon in the South of France. Some of you will recall that at last year’s event we played the three minute film we produced as a result of our visit to Le Chambon.
Although it is less than a day’s journey from Auschwitz to Le Chambon, they may as well occupy distant universes.
Auschwitz was a product of Europe’s most culturally, scientifically and educationally advanced society. In contrast, Le Chambon and the surrounding towns were home to mostly simple peasant farmers and villagers. Led by Protestant Pastor Andre Trocme, the people of Le Chambon were characterised by courage, compassion, and a willingness to defy authority in order to live according to conscience. As a consequence the 5000 people in the Le Chambon area were able to rescue up to a similar number of Jews.
If there is tragedy associated with Le Chambon it is that it was not replicated throughout Europe.
In 1945 the world emerged from war. What came to be known as the Holocaust was brought to an end.
But what really changed in 1945? We know the allies prevailed but in regard to what has drawn us together tonight, what really changed?
Did ordinary Europeans repudiate the Jew hatred that for centuries had manifested in economic, social and religious discrimination?
Were the masses of willing accomplices brought to account, or at least filled with remorse?
Did the philosophers who influence society from above abandon their intolerance of Jewish distinction and particularity?
Did theologians reject the toxic and incoherent supersessionism that for centuries had driven Christian persecution of Jews?
Was there a change of heart in the Muslim leaders so keen to see Hitler’s policies implemented in their own lands?
Were the western political and military leaders who knew what was happening to European Jews and yet chose to do little or nothing - were they brought to account?
Of the many nations that chose to close their doors to Jews fleeing certain calamity, how many were willing to acknowledge their moral failure?
Did the philosemitism and courage of Le Chambon begin to permeate other European cultures?
The answers to these questions are disturbing, confronting and relevant.
The Holocaust was unique and that very uniqueness must be fiercely defended. And yet it stands in a series of historical events that form an essential context. Namely, millennia of persecution, marginalisation and antagonism toward the Jewish people.
Indeed, antisemitism has come to function as a social constant, as reliable as gravity, as unrelenting as the waves of the sea.
Enemies have been many and friends have been few. And the character of friends like those of Le Chambon is ultimately only proven in times of peril. The Shoah taught us that those considered friends are worse than irrelevant if they will not act.
Another painful lesson of the Shoah is that when an entity declares its genocidal intentions it must be believed.
In the 1930s, some of Europe’s brightest minds chose not to see what was obvious - that European Jewry was destined for disaster. The act of seeing the obvious, bore just too great a price. And the call to think the unthinkable, required vanishingly rare courage.
Thus, tonight we commemorate the liberation and yet recognise with sadness that in the broader context it represents, as it were, a punctuation - an abeyance in a state of Gentile hostility extending three and half millennia, of a persistent hatred that reinvents itself from age to age.
Sadly, too little changed in 1945. And if we have a debt to those who perished it includes a willingness to think honestly about the causes of the Shoah. And a call to honour and emulate those who act in the spirit of Le Chambon.
It is not sufficient merely to remember. If the need arises, we must be willing to think what many deemed unthinkable, and to see what many refused to see.
And having thought and having seen, we have a debt to act.
Antisemitism in New Zealand 2021 - Download the Survey
The Holocaust Foundation contributed to the Survey of Antisemitism in New Zealand 2021, conducted by the New Zealand Jewish Council. Download the report.
The Holocaust Foundation contributed to the Survey of Antisemitism in New Zealand 2021, conducted by the New Zealand Jewish Council. The full report can be downloaded via the link below.