Yesterday, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I saw a video showing a pregnant descendant of Holocaust survivors get dragged out of Ireland’s Holocaust Memorial Day state ceremony after protesting the president for trafficking in Holocaust inversion by using his speech to draw parallels between the Holocaust and Gaza.
In another clip marking the day, I watched as the presenter on a British morning show spoke about the six million “people” who were killed in concentration camps during the Holocaust without actually mentioning the Jews. She did, however, mention the “millions of others, because they were Polish, disabled, gay, or belonged to another ethnic group”.
Let’s see if I understand this correctly. More than half of the people murdered in the camps by the Nazis were Jews and were targeted precisely because they were Jewish, but somehow, we have reached the point where, when talking about the Holocaust (and on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, no less!), people are either actively choosing to erase us from the narrative or essentially telling us to stop centering ourselves with regard to our own genocide. By the way, here’s a spoiler alert. In 1939, the year in which World War 2 began, it is estimated that there were approximately 16.6 million Jews in the world. As of October 2024, there are 15.8 million Jews in the world (around .2% of the world’s population). In other words, we still haven’t returned to our pre-Holocaust numbers – that’s what an actual genocide looks like.
Jew hatred targeting both individuals and institutions has reached terrifying, unprecedented levels across the political spectrum and around the world, and despite the apparent fondness of some people to say with regard to the Holocaust that, “those who don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it”, I think we can point out, rather unequivocally, that the grand, well-documented history of antisemitism is, indeed repeating itself.
If you can’t be bothered to call out Jew hatred regardless of where it comes from, even when it comes from your own people…
…Saying “Never again” is meaningless.
…Posting about Elon Musk’s little stunt (for which he should be called out regardless of what he meant) is virtue signaling.
…Saying that you would have hidden Anne Frank is not at all believable.
…Claiming to support Israel while doubling down on trivializing the Jewish community’s fears and concerns about 20% of Americans supporting Hamas doesn’t make you an ally to Jews.
And we—the Jews you know and the Jews you don’t—see you. We see your indifference, your gaslighting, and your selective, performative indignance when it serves your own needs and biases.
As we examine our relationships and try to identify those who show up for us as allies and those who do not, we see you.
Never again is now, history is repeating itself, and we see so many of you turning a blind eye – allowing it all to happen. Don’t say you didn’t know. We know you do. Because we see you.
