Holocaust victims 'live on in our memory'
By David Briceno
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12:01 a.m. PT Apr 30, 2008
This year, Holocaust Remembrance Day falls on May 2 and designates a time for people to pause, reflect and bring to mind the victims of the Holocaust - even if just momentarily.
Although no set institutionalized ritual exists in America to remember the large-scale extermination of Europe's Jews, Holocaust Remembrance Day should remind people of the horrors that government can create and should remind us of the fragility of freedoms when power becomes absolute, abusive and intolerant, as in the case of the right-wing German Nazis under Hitler.
So, how could such a terrible thing happen? Hitler didn't mention in his book "Mein Kampf" (1925-1927) that he would eventually exterminate the Jews, but early on he did blame the liberal Jews for losing World War I. He also blamed them for the dismal economic, political and social conditions that existed then.
Then, he not only blamed Jews for weakening and ruining Germany with liberal influences as manifested in the media, but he succeeded in directing latent hostilities against the Jews.
Thus, as everyone knows, the Nazis successfully transformed Jews into scapegoats.
The war against the Jews was fueled with convincing, effective propaganda, which ignited the fire of intolerance in nearly every German breast.
Also, the Treaty of Versailles - a treaty Hitler highly despised - had imposed severe hardship on the Germans and sucked the vitality of his people.
When did it start? Perhaps, the Nazi program officially began 75 years ago when, two months after Hitler was sworn in as chancellor of the German Republic, the Sturmabteilung (storm troopers) began attacking Jewish-owned department stores on March 11, 1933. This officially sanctioned violence against Jews.
Only nine days later, the first concentration camp, Dachau, was established near Munich. Its first prisoners who entered two days after that, March 22, were mainly German communists and socialists.
By the time World War II ended the Nazis had killed a total of 6 million Jews. Six million lives gone forever. Vanished. Wiped out.
The Holocaust has a pellucid political lesson to be learned. Those who ignore it do so at their peril. Namely, one must speak up against injustice, otherwise perish.
Pastor Martin Niemoeller, a Nazi victim himself, once said: "They first came for the communists and I didn't speak up - because I wasn't communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up - because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up - because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up - because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me - and by that time no one was left to speak up."
It is our duty and right to speak up against intolerance, repression and racism. We must use our First Amendment rights to further guard against further erosion of our most precious constitutional freedoms. Hardly anyone would disagree that the First Amendment allows free speech protection for most American citizens. Or that it mandates government can't pass laws that interfere with the rights of citizens to express public and private opinions. But free speech also protects against tyranny (like that from Hitler's Third Reich) and contributes to a healthy, vibrant democracy or republic.
Here in America, it stands to reason if people are powerless to speak out against a dictatorship, tyranny can only become further entrenched as a result. Our founding fathers had enough sense to realize that through free dialogue and opinions, a nation would be guaranteed a long, healthy democratic life and would also be insured freedom from any repressive American tyranny.
After all, gagging liberties leads to a dictatorship deaf to the voice of the minority like the Jews under Hitler. One must speak up to prevent future Holocausts from reoccurring.
Although there have been 40 small-scale holocausts worldwide since Hitler, the incontrovertible evidence is that when freedom of expression was banned, so went other freedoms out the window.
Samuel Butler once said: "To die completely, a person must not only forget but be forgotten and he who is not forgotten is not dead."
The 6 million dead live on in our memory. On Holocaust Remembrance Day let us remember not only the fragility of the human condition, but also how truly precious our freedoms are. Let us guard against tyranny with eternal vigilance and remembrance to prevent an American Holocaust.
David Briceno lives in Grass Valley.
