Nuremberg

Defendants in the dock at Nuremberg Trials (front row:  Hermann Goring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and Wilhelm Keitel), National Archives and Records Administration (Identifier 540128), (PD- Federal Govt.)

“Of one thing we may be sure.  The future will never have to ask, with misgiving:  ‘What could the Nazis have said in their favor?’  History will know that whatever could be said, they were allowed to say.  They have been given the kind of a trial which they, in the days of their pomp and power, never gave to any man.

But fairness is not weakness.  The extraordinary fairness of these hearings is an attribute of our strength.”

–        Excerpt from the closing argument by Robert Jackson at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials

Last year marked the 70^th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.  This year, Pres. Francois Hollande of France commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day by meeting with Pres. Hasan Rouhani of Iran, a nation that denies the Holocaust.

Everywhere, antisemitism and antisemitic violence are on the rise.

According to the Kantor Center for the Study of European Jewry, there has been at least a 40% increase in such incidents worldwide, since 2013 [1].   Violence against Jews has included the killing of four men in a kosher supermarket in Paris, the stabbing of a rabbi in Marseilles, the killing of a guard at a Copenhagen synagogue, the beating of a man in a Berlin subway, and an attack on congregants at a London synagogue.

The EU has chosen to interject itself into the Palestinian conflict by labeling Jewish goods as from occupied Judea, Samaria a/k/a the West Bank, and the Golan Heights – never mind that there are 200 other territorial disputes across the globe which have not received this attention, including China’s occupation of Tibet [2].

That Israel is routinely described by the UN as conducting a war of extermination against Palestinians (rather than defending itself against the terrorism of al-Qaeda, the PLO, Hamas, Hizballah, and others) does not help the situation.  The European refugee crisis which is bringing large numbers of Muslims into Europe is only expected to exacerbate matters.

None of those participating in the Nuremberg trials – whether for the prosecution or defense – could have imagined that the horrors so extensively documented there would be forgotten in the space of a generation.  But we are perilously close to that now.

A few dusty relics in a museum, a ceremony that has lost its meaning, cannot keep the truth alive.  The truth must live in our hearts.  Otherwise, it loses its power.

Empty gestures will not suffice to keep evil at bay.

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness…” (Isaiah 5: 20).

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[1]  The Jerusalem Post, Diaspora, “Analysis:  European Anti-Semitism Likely to Grow in 2016”, 1/5/16, http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Analysis-European-anti-Semitism-likely-to-grow-in-2016-439422.

[2]  CNN, “Anti-Semitism Thriving in Europe” by Michael Oren, 2/17/16,  http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/17/opinions/europe-anti-semitism-thriving-oren/index.html.

Our hearts go out to the recent victims of violence in Germany and their families.

READERS CAN FIND MY VIEWS ON ABUSE AND ABUSE-RELATED ISSUES AT ANNA WALDHERR A Voice Reclaimed, Surviving Child Abuse  https://avoicereclaimed.com