This week I have reflected on how damn lucky I am to have the life I do—to be well-educated, to have had the opportunity to do the tough work of deep healing, to be in the shape and health I am today, to live where I do. I’m fortunate not be terrorized day after day, though the prospect looms. I am lucky not to have trauma that paralyzes me or causes serious, debilitating mental illness. I have had only some of these. And maybe this taste makes all the difference.
I have also realized that my perpetual response to this grace is a deep, compelling urge to give back. I don’t know that I would (so deeply) feel this robust raison d’être if I hadn’t confronted my relatively small-time suffering in this life, if hadn’t suffered my own bouts with trauma and near-death. My own suffering helps me connect with the immense suffering of my ancestors and all others who suffer, especially unjustly.
In Hebrew, the word for charity or giving back is tzedakah. It shares etymology with tzedek, which means fairness or justice. Giving back is form of justice, which seems to take root in some who are privileged and free enough not to suffer as much as others do. We feel compelled to help those who unfortunately do suffer so much—whether human, animal, or ecosystem.
Remembering and studying more about the Holocaust this week has reminded me of my incredible fortune. It has also caused me to reflect and juxtapose our current political and cultural dynamics with those of Nazi Germany, though nothing today comes close to that full-blown atrocity. One of the dynamics that caused so many ordinary European citizens to turn against the Jews was conspiracy theories. Jews were (wrongly) blamed for causing the financial strife of pre-WWII Germany. They were persecuted for not looking like the model Aryan. Jews were also mischaracterized as carrying typhus and spreading sickness, when in truth it was because they were thrust into cramped ghettos and denied services that made them fall ill. Talk about gaslighting. Recently, Jews have been blamed for Covid via an antisemitic flier campaign.
So, if only unconsciously, many of us realize, on some level, the danger of conspiracy theories. They create a false enemy, often ironically blaming others for the very injustices committed by the conspiracy theorists. No responsibility is taken by these oppressors; their shadow is long and deep, cast by denial. The pernicious effects of conspiracy theories is clearer in hindsight, upon examining the lies that led to the oppression, victimization, torture, and mass genocide of innocent others.
Here at home, we recently witnessed the same sort of blaming, victimizing lies spread by QAnon, making Democrats out to be blood-sucking pedophiles, while their champion ex-president caged, abused, and mistreated children at our southern border (oh, the irony of projection).
Those who cry out for all speech to be free speech may not grasp the perils of the past, may not see the cause and effect relationship between false beliefs and mass murder. I imagine they are also among the growing number of Holocaust deniers. But free speech is not the right to spread dangerous lies that lead to death and suffering.
Our most recent ex-president still occupies a good share of news headlines. He is acting out the same deny and deflect blame-game and taking no responsibility. He claims every allegation against him for breaking the law and doing harm is “politically motivated.” He has accused Mexican people of being bad for our country and national identity. just as the Nazis made up stories about the Jews carrying disease, bringing financial ruin, and being an obstacle to German identity.
And then there was January 6. David Lee Preston, whose mother hid in the sewers of Lviv, Ukraine for 14 months to evade the Nazis, reflects in a recent newspaper column:
“Are my fellow Americans who breached the barricades and broke into the halls of Congress different from the Germans who thought they were doing their patriotic duty by burning synagogues and shattering Jewish-owned shops in 1938?”
I don’t think they were, and I remind of the blood-thirsty intent of those “patriots,” replete with a guillotine.
I’m not saying that 45, or Trumpism, would lead us down the path of neo-Nazism. I am saying the same dynamics of violent lies and murder-inciting conspiracy theories that converted a continent of everyday people like you and me into Jew-haters have been at play. It seems 45 deflects and blames for a dual purpose: to exonerate himself and simultaneously rile up his base against a feigned enemy, to perpetuate similar fear-based delusions so that violence becomes emotionally driven and thereby easily justified. This cult mentality becomes an army to enact whatever heinous wishes a dictator wishes, without recourse to truth, reason, or fairness—without tzedek.
Those of us who diligently smack down conspiracy theories may have more in mind and heart than simply arguing. Unfortunately, pointing out the truth to deniers doesn’t seem to help much. So, the cure for conspiracy theories, as far as I can tell, lies elsewhere, along seemingly convoluted paths, in archaic biases of our brains (tribalism, fear, survival instinct, trauma-organized nervous systems and psychology).
So, this week I am remembering the Holocaust foremost to honor the innocent, brilliant lives of so many who were needlessly annihilated at the hands of monsters. To recognize the authoritarian patterns now afoot that made the Holocaust possible. And to remember there is a little monster in myself, and perhaps in my neighbors and friends, that can grow when fed the right garbage and when denied the nutrition of truth.
Since our default is to forget what hasn’t personally plagued us, please join me in remembering what could affect us next more easily than we may believe. But just don’t remember, let yourself feel, as much as you can bear, what it must have been like to be in the Shoah (Holocaust) so that never again stands a better chance of surviving through our actions. To make it a little more real, you can be be paired with and learn about a Holocaust victim here. You can read survivor testimonies here.
