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Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation Aotearoa New Zealand
Wannsee and the Education Myth
Certainly in the case of Nazi Germany, education did nothing to prevent the rise of a genocidal regime and the subsequent murder of six million Jews. Indeed, it seems clear that many of the philosophical assumptions underlying the education of the time only propelled Jew hatred. But what of the present day?
On a Winter’s day in the early 1940’s, fifteen men gathered in a grand estate in one of Germany’s most cultured cities. Among them were some of the best educated leaders of Europe’s most advanced society. Indeed, more than half of the men present held doctorates earned at the finest European universities.
The date was 20 January 1942 and the meeting was what became known as the Wannsee Conference. Nazi leaders had gathered to plan the execution of The Final Solution. A strategy was established by which the eleven million Jews considered to be within reach of the Nazi regime could be efficiently eliminated. The best of German technology would be applied to a task considered essential to the advancement of society. Such goals were consistent with the prevailing ideology and would enjoy support from many within the educational institutions, the church and society more broadly.
Image: House of the Wannsee Conference via JTA
As we mark the 80th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference we must confront the oft-heard mantra and myth: the answer to antisemitism is education. Certainly in the case of Nazi Germany, education did nothing to prevent the rise of a genocidal regime and the subsequent murder of six million Jews. Indeed, it seems clear that many of the philosophical assumptions underlying the education of the time only propelled Jew hatred.
But what of the present day?
Recent surveys both here in New Zealand and overseas have revealed alarming trends. Of particular concern to our present topic is the finding that antisemitism, specifically anti-Zionism, is somewhat disproportionately present amongst academics and at institutions of learning.[1] (Elsewhere we have made the observation that anti-Zionism is the weapon of choice for Western antisemites.[2] It may also be the form of Jew hatred most likely to go unchallenged.)
The statement “the answer to antisemitism is education”, is, in its unqualified form, quite unhelpful. It ignores the reality that all educational endeavours proceed on the basis of certain worldview[3] assumptions - and those assumptions are seldom declared.
Let me be clear: our Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation is an educational trust. We do indeed believe that Holocaust education can be exceedingly valuable, and we strive to produce outstanding resources in the form of exhibitions, events, websites and an App. But my point is this: none of us proceed from a position of neutrality - the notion of unbiased education is a fantasy. Whether our worldview is declared or undeclared it guides us today just as it guided the well-educated Wannsee fifteen who planned the industrialized murder of Europe’s Jews.
Those of us committed to keeping Holocaust memory alive have choices.
Will we take the politically lubricated path that sanitizes and universalizes the Holocaust, presenting it as merely one among many forms of racism and unkindness, diminishing it by harnessing its power in service of other causes? Or will we take the more difficult road and insist on antisemitism’s uniqueness and particularity, daring to declare that the Holocaust, taken in its broader historical context, did not - and I would argue - could not have happened to any but the Jews?[4]
It is our underlying worldview that will answer that question. And it will determine the nature of our educational and memorial efforts, and whether they will be fit for purpose and a truly faithful witness.
Footnotes:
1 https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/08/19/cuny-and-the-warfare-of-academic-antisemitism/
https://www.thecollegefix.com/study-uncovers-antisemitic-behavior-among-university-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-staff/
2 See A Brief Survey of Antisemitism available on our App:
get.theapp.co/fd5x
3 Worldview:
1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.
2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group. In both senses also called Weltanschauung.
https://www.thefreedictionary.com/worldview
4 Roma, homosexuals, and others perished in the Holocaust but it was the Jews who were intensively targeted for elimination. The number of non-Jews to have died in the Holocaust is usually stated to be five million. However, according to Yehuda Bauer the correct number is one tenth of that figure, at most.
From AIJAC: Poignancy and controversy in Holocaust commemorations
“The memory of the Holocaust is under attack from many quarters – from deniers to those who would distort the history through re-writing, relativising and universalising.”
Originally published by AIJAC’s Australia/Israel Review
Six candles, each one representing a million of the Jewish people who perished in the Holocaust. Six young people, each one the grandchild of a survivor lighting a candle each. Around them, a 400 strong crowd watched in silence.
It was a poignant, highly evocative moment. And it was this moment that New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern referred to as she began her address to those gathered at this year’s UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day event in Auckland on Jan. 27.
The fact that each of those candles represents one million lives lost is unfathomable, Ardern said. “It’s a horrific reminder of what happens when extremist ideology is unchecked and shows us what humans, unfortunately, are capable of when left unchecked.”
In a heartfelt speech, she emphasised that antisemitism is an assault against our shared humanity and has no place in our global society. “And yet we find ourselves in a world that seems to have forgotten the horrors of history.”
Ardern pointed to the defacing of Wellington’s Temple Sinai with antisemitic graffiti just a week before Holocaust Remembrance Day as an example. “This is not the legacy of a nation or the legacy of a world that has learnt and understands fully the impact of the Holocaust.”
For that reason, it is critical that work to educate and inform about the Holocaust continues both in New Zealand and overseas. Ardern said the work of the Holocaust Centre of New Zealand and Holocaust survivors “helps us to become the nation that we aspire to be”.
MP Alfred Ngaro speaking at the Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation’s UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day event in Bethlehem, Tauranga.
The Prime Minister’s presence at the event represented a stepping up in the official commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day this year. While former prime minister John Key launched the “Shadows of the Shoah” exhibition on Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2013, government representation at subsequent commemorations has been sparse.
However, this year the day also marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and, as such, was more widely recognised around New Zealand.
Besides Ardern, a number of government ministers attended commemorations. Minister of Ethnic Communities Jenny Salesa went to the Auckland event, Finance Minister Grant Robertson hosted an event at Parliament, and Minister of Housing Megan Woods attended the Christchurch event.
Additionally, National MP Alfred Ngaro, the chairman of the Israeli-NZ Parliamentary friendship group, attended several events, and various local government politicians turned out around the country.
While the improved recognition of the day was notable, the lead-up to the day also saw the Government hit by criticism for failing to send any representative to the Fifth World Holocaust Forum in Israel, one of the few Western nations not to do so (although New Zealand’s Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy did send an official message to the forum which will be included in the commemorative publication).
Opposition MP Gerry Brownlee of the National Party described the non-attendance as disgraceful, while National Party leader Simon Bridges asked whether antisemitism was behind New Zealand’s absence.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters told the media that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFAT) had advised him of the invitation just a week out from the event. Efforts were then made to send the Parliamentary Speaker, Trevor Mallard, but ultimately it was not possible to do so, he said.
MFAT confirmed that Peters’ office was not advised of the invitation until Jan. 16, despite the invitation having actually been received in September last year.
Dr David Cumin at the UNIHRD event in Bethlehem, Tauranga.
Israel Institute of New Zealand co-director David Cumin said the delay played a large role in New Zealand’s conspicuous absence. He also suggested it was, unfortunately, just the latest in a concerning pattern of behaviour from MFAT officials which puts New Zealand out of step with its traditional allies in regard to its relationship with Israel.
Holocaust & Antisemitism Foundation Aotearoa New Zealand co-founder Sheree Trotter said not sending an official representative showed poor judgement, but was also indicative of the broader issue of New Zealand’s problematic historical relationship with the Holocaust. Among the historical issues she cited was Wellington’s unwillingness to take significant numbers of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, its decision not to prosecute suspected Nazi war criminals residing in New Zealand and the fact that one of New Zealand’s major universities holds a Holocaust denial thesis in its library.
Sheree Trotter, Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation, Aotearoa New Zealand
She also added, “In recent years New Zealand has taken a hostile attitude towards Israel. Co-sponsoring UN Resolution 2334, which led to the withdrawal of the ambassador for several months, is just one example. We have no Embassy in Israel and the relationship continues to be uneasy. It’s hard not see a link between the attitude towards Israel and the lack of appreciation of the Holocaust.”
“The memory of the Holocaust is under attack from many quarters – from deniers to those who would distort the history through re-writing, relativising and universalising,” Trotter said. “In an age of increasing extremism, New Zealand needs to grapple with the meaning and significance of the Holocaust – the prime example of what can happen when toxic ideas gain a foothold in a nation’s psyche.”
Saving The Shoah: A Brief Survey of Denial and Distortion
“Too often the Holocaust is considered as a standalone event, almost as though the Jews of Europe were simply unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the events of 1940s did not happen apart from the events of the 1930s. And those events did not happen apart from the German philosophical and theological writings of the previous four centuries…”
Our event entitled Saving The Shoah featured presentations by Dame Lesley Max and Professor Dov Bing. The evening’s theme was The Holocaust in an Age of Denial and Distortion.
As final speaker I presented a brief lecture on Denial and Distortion, outlining a tentative taxonomy for the evolving challenges to Holocaust memory. The lecture is presented below (13 minutes, audio plus slides).
This evening I will present a brief survey of Holocaust Denial and Distortion. My intention is to present the main categories and in most cases to provide an example of each. This is a work in progress and one that I hope to expand and refine. It also serves the purpose of setting out some of what will be examined in future meetings in this series.
I have relied in the first instance on the work of Holocaust scholar Dr Manfred Gerstenfeld, but have made a number of modifications and used different categories and definitions. Many of the categories will of course overlap and there will be debate as to whether some of these phenomena are best described as Holocaust distortion or Holocaust abuse. In my view, Holocaust abuse usually involves some degree of distortion and so should be included here.
But before beginning a survey of categories I wish to make some preliminary observations and comments:
Universalism versus Jewish particularity and distinction
In a future meeting I plan to present a detailed argument for the uniqueness of antisemitism - and its target, the Jewish people. But in the meantime I will opt to quote others.
In a recent article in the Jerusalem Post entitled CONTEMPORARY ANTISEMITISM IS NOT RACISM OR XENOPHOBIA, a professor at The Technical University of Berlin, said “Comprehending this unique character of Jew-hatred as a cultural category sui generis rather than as one form of prejudice among others is a precondition to challenging it successfully.”
American Jewish commentator Dennis Prager writes:
“Among those most committed to these dejudaizing interpretations are secular and non-Jewish Jews committed to the notion that the Jews are a people like all other peoples. Accordingly, they want to believe that antisemitism is but another form of bigotry, and that in the secular world it will die out...
Prager continues:
“...Modern scholars tend to promote secular and universalist explanations for nearly all human problems, including, of course, antisemitism. In contrast, the traditional Jewish understanding of antisemitism has been the opposite—religious and particularist. Among modern scholars there are a large number of Jews whose universalist worldviews make them particularly averse to the Jewish explanation of antisemitism. Indeed, they oppose any thesis, about anything, not only antisemitism, which depicts the Jews as distinctive, let alone unique.”
Decontextualisation
The Holocaust is the paramount event in the history of antisemitism, and it must be examined within that history.
The Shoah must be studied in its context. Too often the Holocaust is considered as a standalone event, almost as though the Jews of Europe were simply unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the events of 1940s did not happen apart from the events of the 1930s. And those events did not happen apart from the German philosophical and theological writings of the previous four centuries. Whether we choose to widen our view by centuries or by millennia we find a context that is both relevant and tragic. Aberrant Christian theology is correctly credited for nearly 2000 years of antisemitism but in fact Hitler’s attempt to rid the world of Jews finds an antecedent in Pharoah’s attempt to kill the Israelite baby boys.
Again, the Holocaust must considered within its context - whether the view is decades, centuries or millennia.
And not only does the Shoah have a past - it also has a future context. Many of the same ideas manifest today in the anti-Israelism so fashionable on the left - and hard right, and elsewhere.
And so to our very brief survey of ten categories, beginning with…
Denial: A denial of central facts pertaining to the Holocaust
David Irving’s denial of the facts of the Holocaust is probably the best known example and has been referenced in this evening’s material. The case is presented in the movie entitled Denial.
Minimisation: A diminution of the facts of the Holocaust
Surveys have revealed a significant percentage of the general population believe the Holocaust has been greatly exaggerated. But it is also within academia we find minimising distortion. In the academic publication Journal of Genocide Research we are told “’...that the Hungarian Jews shipped to Auschwitz were not singled out as Jews” and “... that the Wannsee Conference was not specifically directed at a ‘final solution’ of the Jews.”
Justification: Placing blame on Jews or Jewish behaviour for the Holocaust
Five or six years ago I had a conversation with a German acquaintance while watching my son play sport. When he learned about my Holocaust work he explained that as a German growing up in Munich he was repeatedly taught about the Holocaust but it was always from the perspective of the Americans or the British. He complained that there was no consideration of why these events really occurred.
As my well educated acquaintance began to reveal his views I asked him to repeat some of his statements so that I could be sure I had not misunderstood. And what is it that this German believes?
A powerful and wealthy group of Zionists effectively sacrificed millions of their own Jewish people in order to create a pretext for the establishment of a Jewish state on Palestinian land. He believed the Jews were not innocent victims but in fact were responsible for the economic woes of the earlier years. It was the Jews who caused the suffering of other Europeans, through their control of international finance.
Deflection: Avoiding complicity for the Holocaust by shifting blame
Manfred Gerstenfeld writes: “In Germany, Holocaust deflection has taken specific forms. These include the false claim that the Holocaust was implemented solely by special units, denying that the Wehrmacht (the regular army) was involved to a great extent in the mass murders.
The philosopher Martin Heidegger attributed the responsibility for the crimes of World War II to modernity in general.”
Equivalence: Likening the Holocaust to other atrocities or causes
Nobel Prize laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, and animal rights groups have drawn a comparison between the treatment of animals and the Holocaust.
Deborah Lipstadt refers to false equivalence as a form of denial. She has said “When groups of people refuse to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day unless equal time is given to anti-Muslim prejudice, this is soft-core denial."
Inversion: Reversing the roles of Holocaust victims and perpetrators
One sometimes hears the charge that the Israelis are the new Nazis. Thus the victims have become the perpetrators. An example from Twitter: (kimsingh) what is ironic and absolutely devastating...that after surviving the Holocaust...the Jewish people displaced the Palestinians from their own land...and for the past 60 years...Israel has unleashed a Holocaust of the Palestinian people...The Jewish people vowed “never again”....but they themselves did it again...this time they became the oppressors...
Appropriation: Hijacking or recasting Holocaust terms, memorials or events in order to promote other causes, or in order to avoid the charge of antisemitism
UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn provides an example. Corbyn participated in a 2019 Holocaust event and signed a book stating: “Let us never allow antisemitism or any other form of racism to disfigure our society.” And yet Corbyn has called members of Hamas, which preaches the genocide of the Jewish people, his “friends.”
Decontextualisation: Neglect or denial of the broader historical context of the Holocaust
This I dealt with in my opening. To consider the Shoah apart from its broader context is to distort the Shoah. It was not an historical anomaly. It was the worst fruit of a hatred that for millennia has simmered and frequently boiled over. Attempts to rid the world of the people of Israel stretch back to the time of Moses, and beyond. In the modern period, pre-Holocaust and post-Holocaust philosophy and theology are rich with antagonism toward Jewish particularity. These are examples of essential context for any broad analysis of the Shoah.
Universalisation: A downplaying or denial of the Jewish particularity of the Holocaust while emphasising aspects that may have commonality with other causes
A January 2017 White House speech for International Holocaust Remembrance Day did not mention Jews or antisemitism. The White House defended the speech saying that by not referring to Jews, it was acting in an “inclusive” manner. Thus the Holocaust is morphed into a universal symbol of evil and suffering and is inevitably de-Judaized and decontextualised in the process.
Thus ends my survey of categories of Denial and Distortion. It has been very brief and has sought only to tentatively layout the categories within which these phenomena can examined. In order to address a problem we must first identify it. In future meetings we hope to address some of these issues in detail, perhaps with panel discussions.
Let me make a final observation: Holocaust memory today suffers at the hands of both its foes and its friends. It is possible to distort the Holocaust with the best of intentions. This becomes particularly relevant where there is a strong desire to market the Holocaust and to seek points of connection in a culture in which the Shoah is unknown or has been forgotten.
There is an argument that soft distortion is more dangerous than the obvious hard core denial of the lunatic fringe. With soft distortion the change is creeping and incremental and it often takes place within the camp. Those of us, who, in one sense or another, see ourselves as custodians of Holocaust memory must be alert to all forms of denial and distortion.
Thank you.
Perry Trotter, Founder, Holocaust and Antisemitism Foundation, Aotearoa New Zealand