The Meaning of Never Forget

IN the late 1930s my great grandmother left her native Austria to visit the United States for a few years. She never went home again.

The Nazis killed her parents and siblings. They gassed her friends, relatives and teachers. Everyone she cared about from her small town died, and the rest let it happen. She never went home again.

May 1 is Yom Ha-Shoah, the day when the world Jewish community mourns the slaughter of six million of their people at the hands of a nation possessed by hate. It is a day to remember, it is also a day to remember in the right context. The Holocaust, perhaps the most brutal expression of widespread race-hatred and genocide in history, deserves a place apart from the contemporary political debate.

NOT only does indiscriminate invocation of Third Reich imagery trivialize the evil of the Holocaust, it justifies injustice and often represents slander. The most egregious misuse of the Holocaust analogy is the comparison, on any level, of Jesse Jackson with Adolf Hitler.

I was atonished to hear someone demonize Jackson in this manner several years ago. Since then I have understood differing degrees of this association to be held by quite a few American Jews. Jackson called Jews "Hymies" (he apologized), met with Yassir Arafat, critized Jewish landlords and did not explicitly repudiate the anti-Semitic Louis Farrakhan (although he did repudiate Farrakhan's anti-Semitic statements). Therefore, these people argue, Jackson can be compared to Hitler.

Milton Himmelfarb, former research director of the American Jewish Congress, attacked Jackson as anti-Semitic in the National Review last November. To bully Jews into voting Republican, he implied that those who vote for Jackson despite his statements are doing the same as Germans who overlooked Hitler's anti-Semitism.

To argue that these correlations do a grave disservice to Jackson is to dignify this slander with a response. Jackson's very message is the opposite of everything the Nazis stood for--he may be the most committed defender of equality, dignity and freedom today. However one interprets his verbal slips or political positions on Israel, comparing him in any way to Hitler is flat wrong.

But such allegations do more than illegitimately condemn Jackson; they also undermine the importance of the Holocaust. Himmelfarb, for example, was willing to invoke the slaughter of six million Jews to improve the prospects for his political party. I believe others use Holocaust imagery against Jackson to vent racist attitudes. If this continues, how can we avoid the Holocaust becoming a political football?

THE Holocaust is also wrongly invoked by both extremes of the Palestinians homeland debate. Some far right political leaders interpret the Holocaust as a carte blanche for mass detentions, brutal beatings or even expulsion of Arabs from the territories. Since we suffered, the argument goes, no one can prevent us from making Palestinians suffer too. "Never again--and who cares what you think," wrote Meyer Kahane, the foremost exponent of this view, in The New York times.

Kahane's racism is in itself proof that some Jews have perverted the Holocaust to justify oppression. A related approach has infected many others who resist calls for a Palestinian homeland. They are so overwhelmed by the horror of the Holocaust that they can only think of Jews as victims, not oppressors.

These Jews will respond to all questions about immoral Israeli actions by referring to atrocities committed against Jews, and they paint a picture of a persecuted Israel perched on the brink of destruction in the Middle East.

The inability to acknowledge Israeli trangressions stifles all political compromise, and the "fragile Israel" tack is dangerous as well. Israel towers militarily over the Palestinian stone throwers. As Abba Eban has argued, making Israel seem vulnerable only encourages her enemies.

THE far left devalues the Holocaust as well. At the summit for progressive Jews, the New York Tikkun conference, one speaker said that Jews should sympathize with Palestinians who are experiencing another Holocaust.

This distortion of history is not necessary to convince Palestinians of sympathy for their cause; vocal opposition to Israeli policy makes the point clear enough. But the willingness to equate the Jews so quickly with other groups threatens the core of the Holocaust's meaning. Jews should be especially vigilant against oppression and racism of any kind precisely because of thier people's unique experience.

The Holocaust's uniqueness is also a critical reminder of the importance of Israel. Despite its shortcomings, Israel is a crucial guarantee for a people long persecuted across the globe.

What then is the appropriate context for the Holocaust? If one cannot allow the Holocaust to play an active role in political debate, why should we never forget?

The memory of the Holocaust impresses upon the world the depth of human depravity. It should inspire vigilance against racial hatred and insistence upon basic standards of human rights. And it serves these functions best when kept apart form contemporary political debate.

Invoking the Holocaust is not a necessary condition for preventing another one.