#195: The Holocaust - An Unprecedented Crime and an American Betrayal?

History for the Curious - The Jewish History Podcast - JLE

This episode examines the Holocaust's uniqueness as an ideologically driven, non-pragmatic genocide, contrasting it with other 20th-century atrocities. It also critiques American media and political failures to act durin

Key takeaways

• Holocaust was unprecedented due to its ideological, not pragmatic, motive.

Transcript preview

When American and British troops entered Buchwald and Dachau and Bergen-Belsen, the American press suddenly exploded with front-page graphic horrified coverage. And the editors and reporters reacted as if they were discovering a completely unknown, a completely hidden secret for the first time, whereas in reality, their own newsrooms had been receiving detailed accounts for years. And ultimately the American media failed to alarm the public, not so much because they suppressed the facts, but because they lacked the moral drive to interpret them. How do we know that they were receiving detailed accurate reports? I'm Manarizner and I host internationally renowned historian Rabbi Aubrey Hirsch. Join hundreds of thousands of curious listeners as we travel through 2,000 years of Jewish history through triumph and tragedy, exile and survival, faith and resilience, uncovering the people, events and turning points that created the Jewish journey and continue to shape us into who we are today. Lelunishmat, Schlomer Ben Moshe-V ester and Lea Bat Masaltov and Mordecai, Soli and Lea Kalate, one whose Yart's side was three weeks ago and one in three weeks time. They were both very proud to support the J.L. E. E. L. E. L. E. L. E. L. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. And welcome back. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H. H Yes, just off a plane a few hours ago. Yes, and a shout out to Ellie and Lily Aaron. So first of all we get a big muzzle top rubber here before we even start. I don't know if you know, but it is our fifth year anniversary of this podcast. We started in, I believe it was June 2021. And we're still going. And we're still going, believe it or not. Listen has asked how long we're going to be going on four. How much of history is still yet untold? There is no lack of podcast of podcast. series to create, let's show. So there's something quite exciting for us and for the listeners. It's something that's been requested. There's almost been a community of history for the curious fans and a lot of people would love to see some behind the scenes. They'd like to see more visual information. There's many times we've had after an episode, can you send us that document or where did that come from? And you obviously travel around the world too and people would love to know more of it, where have you've been and to experience almost a trip with you've been and to so that they can actually get to experience it in person one day. Due to all that we are going to be opening a WhatsApp group where anyone can join and the link will be in the description below and you'll be, tell us what you'll be sharing there. Well those things that are absent from the audio, so maps, maybe an article, a photo and image and that way we can supplement what you're hearing with what you're seeing. And in Mietashem we will send out twice a week something to do with history for the curious. So make sure you join it's going to be admin only and yeah link in the description and feel free to share. So we're starting this week a three week series on the holocaust and it's two topics with one common theme. How to view the holocaust how to frame it is slightly different to our holocaust the holocausts our holocaust series in the past where we've usually focused on a story or a part of the holocaust that was less known but this is zooming back a bit a bit. rather here, should give us a bit of background. Everyone knows there was a genocide that took place. The word genocide is thrown about these days. However, there are other genocides that have happened in the 20th century in Armenia and Cambodia. How is the Holocaust different from others? Okay, perhaps we'll start by stating that it's important to acknowledge and understand that the suffering in each of the cases that you mentioned was real and that large scale tragedy is horrific. but that doesn't make them the same. Mass murder, even of tens of thousands, when there's an attempt to overwhelm an enemy or a group, although it may well be a genocide, is not what the Holocaust was. The Holocaust is unprecedented, and we will demonstrate this both historically and philosophically. And when we do so, we find the uniqueness of the Holocaust primarily in what is called pragmatism. meaning. Unlike the other targeted large mass killings in the 20th century, the Holocaust was not there to grab land or political power or control of a country. The goal of the Nazis was simply destruction. No practical gain needed to ensue, and particularly in Eastern Europe, where most Jews lived before World War II. There was basically nothing to be gained by their removal, other than ridding the world of Jews. There wouldn't be a change of government. There wouldn't be a change of government. They would be no military outcome. The Nazi ideology was anti-Semitic at its very core. And that was the primary objective by which success or failure was evaluated. And it never deviated even when the Germans were losing the war. They planned to murder every Jew, irrespective of nationality, age, gender, or economic status, wherever they could find a Jew. And this all-encompassing genocidal objective carried out by by an established government gives the Holocaust its distinct definition. What would you say would be the relationship between the Holocaust and World War II? Because Hitler had a plan to take over Europe. It's very debated, meaning it's quite clear that both were goals. It could be, and there are arguments in favour of it, saying that, riding the world of the Jews, was actually the primary goal. We'll get to this more. later when we take quotes from what Hitler said or wrote. But in understanding the Holocaust, it takes place across 21 different countries. And if you compare them, I don't know, Holland and the Ukraine, France and Lithuania, they couldn't have been more different to each other. Each had vastly different amounts of Jews, percentage-wise. Finland had 2,000 Jews in total. So it's not because of Jewish influence that they needed to have a Holocaust there. And unlike other genocides, particularly when we describe the mass graves, where 2 million Jews were murdered, it required people from one country, Germany or Austria to travel to a completely different country, Poland, Romania, and kill the Jews there. Jews they had never met, who they had no dealings with, who did this language they didn't speak. And therefore the very idea. that people would do this. And the understanding cause of the Holocaust genocide is itself almost inexplicable. And in fact, even within the groups targeted during World War II itself, there were other groups that were targeted besides for the Jews. The well-known Holocaust author, Lawrence Reese, explicitly separates the fate of the Jews from these other groups persecuted by the Nazis, whether it's the communists, whether it's the communists, whether it's Jehovah's witch. whether it is the gypsies or Roma as they are nowadays generally referred to. They may have faced severe persecution and murder, but it was haphazard, it was localized as we will see. Only the Jews are targeted for global eradication and generally for these other groups persecution was tied to behavior. It was driven by what you could call geography rather than history. And often in cases of behavioral compliance or political allegiance, this persecution is suddenly dropped, whereas for the Jews existence itself is the crime. This is probably the first time in history that Jews aren't able to convert their way out of trouble. Yes, and the only metric of victory over this, you could call it invisible enemy, was absolute annihilation. Yes, and the only metric of victory over this, you could call it, invisible enemy, was absolute annihilation. They are being destroyed for the crime of having been born. And the Holocaust is decoupled from any military objective, going back to your point earlier, as we clearly see in 1944 and in Hitler's last speech in April 45, which we will return to, it was deemed more important than winning the war. Hitler centers his entire ideology around anti-Semitism in his book, Meenkamp. So yes, he despises communism and pacifists, and a whole list of people people people. who he hates. But in 1939 he gives a speech and says as follows, if international jury inside and outside Europe should succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, the result will be not the Bolshevization of the earth and thereby the victory of jury, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe. Which means their financial standing was irrelevant, how they were were in society in any particular country, their educational levels, it is all a goal of eradication. And of course at this point it's got to be mentioned that the origins of the Nazi ideology owe its image of the Jew to Christian anti-Semitism. Listen to the main Nazi accusations against the Jews. There's a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. The Jews are there to corrupt the civilization of their host people and countries. The Jews are parasites, bloodsuckers. So the Nazis adopt Christian theology, but they reject their religion. And then they link it to an even deadlier idea. Social Darwinism, which is, human races are basically locked in a constant struggle with one another. And the stronger you are, the better it is, the more beautiful it is. And whoever is better has the moral right and the duty to rule over others. and if it's deemed necessary to destroy them. So you're saying the uniqueness of the genocide of the Holocaust doesn't lie in the numbers even though they were probably you know unsurpassed in modern history and I guess even in brutality it's just the ideology and the concept which is completely irrational. Yes and secondly the universality of this disease therefore called Drew wherever they exist and we will get to eight practical elements which are the result of the result of these two points of the irrational element and of the fact that it's universal. Whereas other genocides are pragmatic. Armenia. There's political expansion, there's acquisition of land, there's elimination of rivals and competition, and the controlled by the dominant group. So yes, a million people were killed in the genocide, but the Armenians are intended to be eradicated in mainly ethnic Turkish. areas, not internationally. In Rwanda, the Tutsis were targeted by the dominant clique of the Hutus, who wouldn't give up power even if it meant killing three quarters of a million of their countrymen, but it's for power, for the control of the country. And if you go back in history, slavery, it went on for centuries, against the blacks, with great cruelty. But they didn't hate them per se. Yes, they considered them inferior. But they didn't send them inferior. But they didn't send extra, but they didn't send extra, but they didn't send to hunt them down and killed them. They exploited them for money. But what about the role that money played in the Holocaust? The Germans stole billions from the Jews in art and money. That's not an ideology. That was just greed. Yeah, so there is a tremendous effort to rob the Jews of their property before or after they were murdered. But no serious historian could ever and has ever claimed that robbery was the basic reason for the murder. was the outcome of the Holocaust, not its cause. And the contradictions go much deeper. The Holocaust was so all-consuming that the Nazis or the Germans at least killed their own. Christian converts, Jews who for two generations had been worshipping in churches. They weren't just secular or religious Jews. They were Protestants. Indistinctinishable from any Protestant German. And they despised Judaism. There were 5,000 of them. in the Warsaw ghetto, church-going Jews, they would be shipped off to Treblinka nonetheless. And it goes further, because the genocide would have been impossible without the help Germany received from Europe's religious educational and political institutions. Some were active participants, we've spoken about this in previous podcasts. Most,