- Banned
- #1
Hopefully we will not see a repeat of demonetization and actions as we are seeing once again
As so many have already noted, Trump’s statement about the Holocaust excludes any mention of its primary victims, the Jews. (Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the same omission in his statement last year, and President Obama, though his Holocaust Remembrance Day statements have been admirable, Jew-washed the “Hypercacher” murders in France by referring to the Jewish victims as just a “bunch of folks in a deli in Paris”). “Innocent people” levels all distinction in terms of victims of the Holocaust. This is not to say that any Holocaust statement ought to focus exclusively on the Jews. Other groups were targeted as well – homosexuals, Roma, the mentally and physically impaired – but the Jews were the occasion for, and primary victims of, “Nazi terror” and any mention of the Holocaust that does not begin with this fact is an assault on their memory. We turn to Ukraine, where the memorial at Babi Yar, the site of a massacre of 33,771 Jews, only commemorates the murder of the “citizens of Kiev.” In the same way that this is not a Holocaust memorial, Trump’s statement is not about the Holocaust.
Secondly, the Holocaust was not simply the murder of innocent people, it was not just another crime. In its organization, its perpetration, and its scale, it is unique among historical evil. It is an event for which the phrase “crimes against humanity” was invented. And crimes against humanity, as opposed to all other crimes, are, as Hannah Arendt writes, “crime against the human status,” that is, they are crimes against what it means to be human, what humanity truly is. It is precisely because the killing was not indiscriminate, precisely because it was not merely against “innocent people,” precisely because of its targeted nature, that “Nazi terror” was a crime against humanity. To omit this fact is to omit the Holocaust altogether.
- From Forward.com
Trump’s Holocaust Remembrance Day Statement Is A Threefold Disgrace
As so many have already noted, Trump’s statement about the Holocaust excludes any mention of its primary victims, the Jews. (Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the same omission in his statement last year, and President Obama, though his Holocaust Remembrance Day statements have been admirable, Jew-washed the “Hypercacher” murders in France by referring to the Jewish victims as just a “bunch of folks in a deli in Paris”). “Innocent people” levels all distinction in terms of victims of the Holocaust. This is not to say that any Holocaust statement ought to focus exclusively on the Jews. Other groups were targeted as well – homosexuals, Roma, the mentally and physically impaired – but the Jews were the occasion for, and primary victims of, “Nazi terror” and any mention of the Holocaust that does not begin with this fact is an assault on their memory. We turn to Ukraine, where the memorial at Babi Yar, the site of a massacre of 33,771 Jews, only commemorates the murder of the “citizens of Kiev.” In the same way that this is not a Holocaust memorial, Trump’s statement is not about the Holocaust.
Secondly, the Holocaust was not simply the murder of innocent people, it was not just another crime. In its organization, its perpetration, and its scale, it is unique among historical evil. It is an event for which the phrase “crimes against humanity” was invented. And crimes against humanity, as opposed to all other crimes, are, as Hannah Arendt writes, “crime
- From Forward.com
Trump’s Holocaust Remembrance Day Statement Is A Threefold Disgrace
