international holocaust day

Arbeit macht frei.

It was one of the most ironic of signs. The commanders of Dachau and Auschwitz slapped the lie-filled slogan over the entrance to their concentration camps. Work sets you free, indeed.

For those who were forced through the gates, they would work (if they were not immediately gassed), but the only freedom over 6 million of them would ever know was the liberating power of death that would free them from one of the twentieth centuries parade of horrors.

There were other horrors, of course. Stalin's Gulag, Mao's execution squads. Cambodia's Khmer Rouge killing fields. Emperor Bokassa I's murderous insanity. They all starred in making the twentieth century one of the most dangerous 100 years for humanity.

But the German Holocaust stands alone in its single-minded process to not only hate those who the state saw as its cultural enemies, but to systematically eliminate them. And unlike the other moral catastrophes of the century, the Holocaust was not designed solely to deal with political enemies. Its murder was set in motion to eliminate people identified by race and religion as being a danger to western (in this case, as viewed by the German hierarchy) civilization.

That is why we honor today, on International Holocaust Day, those who died in the Holocaust -- primarily the almost 6 million Jews (two-thirds of  European Jews) -- and almost 11 million others. Handicapped. Russian prisoners of war. Homosexuals. Slavs (mostly, Poles). Gypsies. Christian ministers. Political dissidents. Or anyone the German government found to be inferior or bothersome.

And why do we do it? Why do we honor those who died outside the personal memory of most of us?

The question, of course, is both rhetorical -- and silly. We remember because the people who died under the totalitarian German regime were just like us. They were human beings, most of whom whose "crimes" were that they were born into a faith despised by many of their neighbors.

But we remember not only out of empathy. We remember because we cannot help ourselves shouting "never again" when we hear people deny that there was any such a thing as the Holocaust.

Of course, there are always the conspiracy-minded who deny the American moon landing, who believe Israel was responsible for blowing up the Twin Towers, who are convinced that President Obama personally flew to Texas and assassinated Justice Scalia, and who believe that their talents have been foiled by the Knights Templar who have ruined manufacturing jobs in New York City. If we do not remember history as it happened, we run the risk of turning over our past to the tin-foil hate brigade.

All of those are reasons enough. But there is a far more important reason. The hatred that inspired the Holocaust, Stalin, Mao, Franco, Pol Pot, and Che Guevara is still with us. It is a nasty little vice that seems to be inherent in human nature. Our ability to despise is one talent that does not need practice to be very effective.

Oswald Spengler was one of the brave German intellectuals who stood up against the Nazi regime. He could not imagine that any ideology would be so ignorant (his word) as to deprive a nation of some of its best minds and talents solely on the basis of some crazy notion of racial superiority.

And, yet, while he was criticizing the Nazis, he still used stereotypes of Jews that were very common amongst both leftist and conservative Europeans -- stereotypes that the Nazis skillfully used to justify their anti-Jewish laws, and eventually, their "final solution."

Maybe that is the lesson for me to take away from today's remembrance. When I see people whose actions I disagree with, I should see them as people who are as thirsty as I am in my life.

There is a scene near the end of Gandhi, where Gandhi is confronted by a mob of Hindu youth who try to keep him from meeting with Jinnah, who will eventually be the leader of a Pakistan sliced off of India.

What do you want me not to do? Not to meet with Mr. Jinnah? I am a Muslim! . . . And a Hindu, and a Christian and a Jew – and so are all of you. When you wave those flags and shout you send fear into the hearts of your brothers.
This is not the India I want. Stop it. For God's sake, stop it.

We never cease to be moral agents. When we encounter hatred, it needs to be confronted. But we do not counter hate with hate. We empathize with those who died in the Holocaust because they were human beings -- just like us. And so are the people with whom we disagree.

The next scene in Gandhi is his assassination -- where he is shot by one of the Hindu nationalists that he urged to "Stop it!" A hatred that continues to this day.

We can best memorialize those who died, not with hatred, but with kindness. Starting with our daily activities, Especially in Mexico, it is very easy to jump to judgment about actions by one another. A little bit of kindness would go a long way.

Would kindness have stopped the Holocaust? Most likely, not. But if people had spent centuries developing a sense of empathy instead of polishing their grudges, history may have taken a different turn.

We may never change the course of history, but each of us has a moral duty to at least be kind to ourselves and those we encounter.