Re: [Cz-L] Lessons from the Report on the Holocaust in Romania

Dear Jessica, Dear all,

I agree with most of what Jessica writes, but am puzzled by some assertions.
For instance:
> and the naive blind eye of our own leaders that could not or
> would not envision the steam-rolling potential consequences of acts
> they were complicitly enabling.
I take it that by this Jessica means either Jewish leaders, or American
leaders. In either case, I do not know the basis for this assertion.

What disturbs me most in thinking about the Holocaust, is the fact that
individual people, admittedly, usually in groups or in mob situations,
were able to do the most heinous acts of violence. The details of what
happened in various villages in the vicinity of Czernowitz are too gruesome
to recount here. I struggle to understand how people could be so cruel.
I think there is no explanation.

Mimi

On 7/10/09 6:02 AM, "Attiyeh" <rea_at_ucsd.edu> wrote:

> After reading compulsively into the wee hours the Report on the
> Holocaust in Rumania, thanks to Irene Fishler's link, I am struck by
> how easily the warped, prejudiced thinking of an Antonescu was
> translated into widespread, devastating action against the Roma and
> the Jews alike between 1941 and 1944. Several factors had to be in
> place for this to happen: slavish compliance with political
> objectives couched as protection from supposed "terrorists" and
> conspirators; concentration of military and political power in the
> hands those who capitalized on fear and ignorance and the underlying
> biases of a demoralized populace; an organized, systematic
> identification process by which targeted peoples could easily be
> located; and the naive blind eye of our own leaders that could not or
> would not envision the steam-rolling potential consequences of acts
> they were complicitly enabling. Somehow in our post 9/11 world these
> all sound eerily familiar to me.
>
> One can obviously name other factors, as well. But it is unsettling
> to note parallels with conditions in today's world. These same
> factors could potentially combine and lead to similar consequences
> today even in democratic countries. Racial tensions and cultural
> conflicts are currently everywhere and economic and political
> instabilities abound, creating fertile ground for hate-speech and
> hate crimes. Political and religious movements use slogans and
> rhetoric to make new alliances and spread their messages. Jews remain
> a favorite scapegoat. But we are not the only group against whom a
> modern-day movement can be manipulated to turn by ideologues or the
> power-hungry. I can't help but think that as Jews we have a special
> responsibility now to use our own experience and the reminders of
> such documents as the Report on the Holocaust in order to be vigilant
> and outspoken against any groundswell of rhetoric or actions that
> could result in doing to others in the present what has been done to
> us in the past.
>
>
> [Jessica Attiyeh]
>
-snip-
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Received on 2009-07-10 14:32:58