Today is the 76th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night that in Nazi Germany 1000 synagogues were burned; 7000 Jewish were businesses were destroyed; some 30,000 Jews were arrested and 91 Jews were murdered. At the time, little did people know that the horrors of that night would pale compared to what was coming under the name the Final Solution. Many decent people say, "that can never happen again." Yet the mindset that was behind Kristallnacht is alive and well. Here in America, much of the Christian Right's foulest propaganda against gays comes directly out of the Nazi play book. Exchange gay for Jew and some of the claims are near identical: that we are diseased, that we threaten Christina civilization, that we prey on children. The list goes on and on. Then in Russia, we see Vladimir Putin's disgusting regime passing anti-gay laws that are reminiscent of Nazi laws against the Jews. Farther afield, we see ISIS murdering men, women and children who do not subscribe to ISIS's toxic form of Islam. It is happening again and far too many once again are doing nothing to stop it. A friend posted a link on Facebook to a blog post by a friend that remembers the horrors of November 9, 1938, and the fact that the ghastly mindset is still alive and well and that all too often, at least in America, backed by those who claim to be "godly Christians." Here are some excepts (images included):
In a Weekend Edition Saturday piece [November 9, 2013] commemorating the 75th anniversary ofKristallnacht, the Holocaust survivor Margot Friedlander notes of what translates to The Night of the Broken Glass, “I did not hear fire engines and we understood then that they didn’t come because they wanted the synagogues to burn. We never thought that Germans would stand by, and not do something about it.”
Kristallnacht more properly translates, colloquially, as “The Night of the Broken Crystal.” The symbolism was plain: Jews enjoy their ill-gotten luxury while “real” Germans starve; let us smash their riches, and their owners. The anti-Semitism had been building, of course, but with the assassination of the German diplomat Ernst von Rath by the Polish-Jewish Herschel Grynszpan, the Nazis (via the S.A.) finally had their excuse for widespread, and rampant, terrorism against the Jews of Germany and Austria.
Between 9 and 10 November 1938, 1000 synagogues burned; 7000 Jewish businesses were destroyed; 30000 Jews were arrested and 91 murdered—a tiny foretaste of the genocidal horror to come.
“Never again?” Hardly. The world has “stood by and done nothing” countless times since 1938, and will doubtless do so again.
In the Weekend Edition piece cited above, Stefan Redlich, spokesman for the Berlin police is quoted as saying, “The Berlin police protects all Jewish schools, all hospitals, all kindergartens and all synagogues in the city” [while] “noting that 250 policemen stand guard in front of Jewish properties throughout the city.
“But German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently said she is not proud of this fact: ‘I feel deep shame that there is not a single Jewish building in Germany without police protection because we still have to worry about anti-Semitic attacks.’
Meanwhile, in the former Soviet Union, where the population eagerly acts on Putin’s pogroms against gay Russians with salivating bloodlust, preparations are under way for the Winter Olympics. A good time, perhaps, to invoke this Jewish Chronicle cartoon, published as Herr Hitler and his minions played host to the 1936 Olympiad.
Never forget? Never again? Don’t make me laugh.
Russian police with LGBT's
No comments:
Post a Comment