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Meaning of the Holocaust Being Distorted and Demeaned

(Los Angeles Times) Marvin Hier - Over the last few years, U.S. political discourse has been saturated with opponents accusing each other of Nazi-like policies or behavior. The Holocaust was a watershed event in the history of mankind, in which 6 million Jews - one-third of the world's Jewish population - were exterminated. But today the word is used in ways that cheapen it. A congressman referred to the need for universal healthcare, saying Americans die every year because they lack insurance. "I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner to end this holocaust in America." A presidential candidate, speaking out against abortion, referred to "the holocaust of liberalized abortion." A syndicated columnist applied the term to the Gulf oil disaster, calling it an "ecological holocaust." "Whatever mishap occurs now, they call it 'holocaust,'" said Elie Wiesel, Nobel laureate and chronicler of the Holocaust, noting how "a commentator describing the defeat of a sports team, somewhere, called it a 'holocaust.'" There are many injustices and manifestations of evil in our world, and standing up to them is not only our right but our obligation. But that does not include distorting and demeaning the great evil that was the Holocaust. The Holocaust had one purpose: the total annihilation and extinction of a race. The Holocaust was the story of ordinary Germans, who listened to Bach and Beethoven, who loved their families, but who for six years rounded up men, women and children and escorted them to the gas chambers. As the commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoss, wrote in his confession: "Once, a woman with four children, all holding each other by the hand to help the smallest ones, passed by me. She stepped very close to me and whispered, pointing to her four children, 'How can you murder these beautiful, darling children?'" That's what a holocaust is. Rabbi Marvin Hier is the Founder and Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
2010-07-02 10:11:13
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