Alarm, Protest and Outcry –When Should We Commemorate the Holocaust? |
During World War II, reports of Nazi atrocities had been circulating throughout the Jewish community of British-controlled Palestine, but it wasn’t until November 23, 1942 that the Jewish Agency Executive in Jerusalem first released the verified news of the Nazi plan for the Final Solution. Days later, the National Council of the Jewish Community of Palestine issued three days for “alarm, protest, and outcry” between Nov. 30 and Dec. 2 to commemorate the tragedy unfolding in Europe. In Tel Aviv, one newspaper page was dedicated to describing a massive parade where “young and old, bearded men, bareheaded youths and women marched side by side along Allenby Road.”
But in 2005, the United Nations declared that January 27 would be the annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day as it is the date of Auschwitz’s liberation. While acknowledging that the UN has served as a model for spreading misinformation and distortions rather than its purported mission of maintaining international peace and protecting human rights, our focus here is on its flawed logic in choosing January 27 to commemorate the Holocaust.
The core concern is that the term “liberation” is misleading and a form of Holocaust revisionism, as neither Auschwitz nor any other concentration camp was liberated by the allied armies, be they Russian, British, or American. In fact, the camps were liberated when their Nazi overseers simply abandoned the sites. There was no exchange of fire between the 322nd Rifle divisions of the Soviet 60th Army and the Germans on January 27th, 1945; the 7,000 starving and sick prisoners were left behind by their guards to meet whatever fate they would encounter. So too the 60,000 inmates at Bergen Belsen, who were all alone upon the arrival of the British almost three months later. The American 42nd Infantry “Rainbow” division was heroic in attacking German positions elsewhere, but they did not have to raise their weapons to free some 32,000 prisoners at Dachau on April 25, 1945.
Using a term like liberation is disingenuous and a great disservice to the post-war generation of students of the Holocaust. The opening of the heavy-spiked metal gates into the hell occurred seamlessly in the face of the German surrender, and the SS and their Polish, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian prison guards had either fled or were totally submissive to the Allied Forces. Liberation, without additional context, shifts the legacy of the Allied armies who were instrumental in liberating Europe from the Nazis, but did virtually nothing to liberate the camps until after the German retreat.
For me, the reality behind this misrepresentation detracts from the legitimate heroism and courage of military commanders and their soldiers in combatting the Nazis on all fronts of the battlefield. Moreover, the Allied soldiers—whether Russian, English, or American—who opened the camps faced the horrors of the people and conditions they encountered and responded with humanity and kindness. Their memoirs should be read and remembered rather than fictional aggrandizements.
To shift the narrative from the passive Jews being liberated theme to the more accurate theme of Jews fighting back, both Yad Vashem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum agreed to commemorate the Holocaust on the 27th of Nissan, the Hebrew date of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which usually falls in April. But fighting was not the means used by most survivors to defy the Nazi death decree, and observing Yom HaShoah on a day that represents Jewish resistance undercuts the significance of those other methods, such as partisans of the Vilna resistance who utilized “strategic retreat,” fleeing to the forest from the Vilna Ghetto to carry on raids against the Germans and their collaborators. Nor does it honor the many Jews and righteous gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews through any means necessary.
Thus, designating a single date, or even a single all-encompassing theme, for an annual commemoration, does not properly memorialize the six million Jews who died in the Holocaust or honor the myriad ways that the Jewish people were able to survive the genocide. That said, if one day is to be selected, it should be Nov. 30, the date of the very first commemoration of the Holocaust by the Jews in Palestine in 1942. But after almost 85 years, its message, “alarm, protest, and outcry,” is still the best way to describe a conflict that was as complex and multi-dimensional as it was inhumane and evil.