'Never again' means nothing if Holocaust analogies are always off limits
Source: Washington Post
Never again means nothing if Holocaust analogies are always off limits
Yes, every situation is different. That doesnt mean we cant compare them.
By Danya Ruttenberg
Danya Ruttenberg is a rabbi and the author of "Surprised by God," "Nurture the Wow" and other books.
June 19 at 1:45 PM
The Holocaust was suddenly in the center of U.S. political discourse early this week. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) referred on social media to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detention centers as concentration camps, which provoked a backlash from conservatives and then a flood of support from liberals. And #Kristallnacht trended on Twitter on Monday night after President Trump tweeted that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will soon step up its work removing the millions of undocumented immigrants, seemingly signaling an escalation of his administrations tactics aimed at migrants.
Are these analogies just? Is it really reasonable to compare whats happening with immigrants under Trump to the Third Reich? Or should the Holocaust be off-limits for comparisons to current events?
If done with caution, those analogies can be useful. Looking at Holocaust history thoughtfully, carefully can help us to see the parallels between then and now. It can also help us to understand when those parallels are not apt, and what that does and doesnt mean about news as it breaks. Of course, analogies are imperfect, and every situation has its own nuances and context, but looking at monstrous events of the past can help us understand where we are in ways that can be difficult to see in the day-to-day.
Some who criticize drawing parallels between the United States today and Germany of the 1930s suggest that doing so demeans the memories of the Jews, political dissidents, LGBT, disabled and Romani people and others targeted by the Nazis that not every instance of oppression is genocide, and using this kind of language diminishes the suffering under Hitler.
But the Holocaust didnt begin with gas chambers, and its not business as usual in America right now. We already know that the path to atrocity can be a process, and that the Holocaust began with dehumanizing propaganda, with discriminatory laws, with roundups and deportations, and with internment. Those things are happening in our country now, and theyre known as some of the stages of genocide first articulated by Genocide Watch in 1996.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/06/19/never-again-means-nothing-if-holocaust-analogies-are-always-off-limits/
A "No Trespassing" sign hangs outside a detention center for unaccompanied immigrant children in Homestead, Fla. (Lynne Sladky/AP)
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Mosby
(16,168 posts)Is definitely a winning strategy.