How should the story of the Holocaust begin?
We landed in Poland a few hours ago. Kraków's modern airport terminal, 1990s classic British pop on the radio, and the Hard Rock Cafe in Kraków’s market square told me that I was in modern-day Poland. But the open golf-cart-like vehicles offering tours of “Jewish Kraków,” the “Ghetto,” and “Schindler’s Factory” and the wandering groups of Jewish tourists and the signs advertising day-trips to Auschwitz all pointed to the past.
During our thought-provoking orientation in
New York, we were issued a warning: Don’t look at
the Jews of pre-war Poland through the lens of the Holocaust. After all, the
Jews of 1930s Europe didn’t know what was coming. They didn’t see themselves as standing on
the edge of devastation.
We tell teachers to place the Holocaust
within the context of Jewish history and the history of antisemitism. Holocaust
museums and curricula often begin with “Jewish life before” the Nazi genocide.
Exhibitions and textbooks start with an overview of Judaism—rituals of prayer,
festivals, the life cycle—painting a picture, through family photographs and
beautiful Judaica, of individual lives. By focusing on the vibrancy of Jewish
culture, we are humanizing the Nazis’ Jewish victims. We are saying—and
screaming—“Look! Look what they took away! Look what was lost!”
But is this the right place to start?
When we begin the Holocaust story with the
question “Who were the Jews?”, I’m worried we’re teaching that Jewish history
was leading up to the Holocaust all along; that the Jews of Europe did
something wrong and somehow brought genocide upon themselves; that there
was—and continues to be—something intrinsic about Judaism that warrants hatred.
When we begin the Holocaust story with the vibrancy of Jewish culture, I’m worried that another story becomes lost: Driven
by twisted ideas about race, the Nazis were obsessed with blood. To them, a
Jew’s beliefs and actions were irrelevant. Individuals were marked for
sterilization or murder if they had Jewish heritage, regardless of how they
identified. The six million includes secular Jews and Jews who were proud of
their assimilation and Jews who were married to—and had children with—non-Jews.
The six million includes people of Jewish descent who identified as Christians.
The six million includes those who did not fit—and still do not fit—the Jewish
community’s Halachic criteria of who can and cannot be considered Jewish. The
Nazis focused on blood. And not only the blood of people of Jewish, Roma,
Sinti, or African descent, but also the blood of the so-called Aryan race,
included those Aryans—the disabled and homosexuals, for example—whom the Nazi regime considered defective.
Should Holocaust
education begin with “Jewish Life Before” the Nazi era? And, if this might not be the best
place to start, then how should we begin the story?
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ReplyDeleteDiscussing Jewish life before the Holocaust is relevant for the victims, their families, and all of society. Yet this is not enough to prevent genocide or other atrocities from continuing today. What are the true lessons learned from the Holocaust? How do certain groups attract such hatred, brutality, and lack of empathy along with little, no, or slow action by society as a whole? Perhaps the discussion should start there ?
ReplyDeleteI just finished reading your blog from back to front. I am struck by your candid ability to pose questions that no one else seems to raise, confronting what lurks in the shadows around our (mis)understandings of the Holocaust and its place in history for all victims. The interweaving of your own story makes your writing that much more accessible and noteworthy because you're not just writing as a detached scholar. You are writing from the perspective of your family history and how that has been both a blessing and a source of great tension and challenge. I am compelled in particular by your question pointing out that often Jewish history has been told as if the Holocaust is the end of some line, a "pinnacle" experience. I've always thought this and have never seen it in words. Thank you for sharing your personal history, this particular experience, and bringing your scholarship to bear on all of it. Keep writing.
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