The Holocaust - What Lessons to Learn?
Martin Gilbert's book The Holocaust: A History of the Jews During the Second World War traces the legacy of anti-Semitism in Europe from medieval times to the death camps of Auschwitz. According to Gilbert, the Holocaust was a specifically German event. It was an act of violence perpetrated upon Jews with historically and culturally driven causes deep in German culture. Thus, Martin suggests that the lessons to be learned from the Holocaust are not simply that of humanity's potential inhumanity during times of peace and war, as existed before and after the Weimar Republic in Germany and after Hitler's National Socialists came to power. Rather, the lessons from the Holocaust are the need for Europe to acknowledge the powerful legacy of hatred that still seethes against the Jewish people in Europe even to this day. This is why there is a for a Jewish state in the form of Israel to provide a powerful political, physical, and emotional sanctuary for Jews all over the world who have suffered the decimation of Jewish people and culture as a result of the events of World War II.Martin Gilbert does not state categorically that the Holocaust could happen again in similar form. However, his point of view does raise powerful concerns
Ultimately, the lessons of Karl A. Schleunes' book are more persuasive in their value of the lessons to be learned from the Holocaust for today. Genocide has occurred since the Holocaust, in Bosnia, in Cambodia, and in Rwanda, often between groups living once comfortable and peaceful lives side-by-side within those nations. Then, tumultuous political events cause uncertainty and destabilize one group, causing it to turn against a rising social or ethnic group. The lessons to be learned from the Holocaust for today are that one must always be policing the modern world for potential places of hatred erupting against vulnerable yet rising social factions-and one must police one's own heart in times of uncertainty for similar sources of anger and fear. What is familiar is often what is hated most-and the economic and cultural anxieties of Germany after World War I caused many Germans to turn against the human symbols of change in their midst, namely those of the Jewish people. Thus the lessons to be learned from the Holocaust are that often what is closest by us is what we hate-rather than a foreign demon far away. This is how the Germany government was able to rally support for its discriminatory laws, much in the way that White Southerners hated Blacks and vented their economic and political anxieties upon this nearby group, i
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Approximate Word count = 900
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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