There was a lot of excellent commentary yesterday in the international press marking the date that Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army. But not matter how much we learn about what happened at Auschwitz and the other death camps, we are left in the end with a number of questions, which Rüdiger Suchsland asks in Telepolis (my translation):
Why did Germans commit these awful crimes? Why did so many Germans – at least 100,000, perhaps as many as 500,000 were directly involved in the Holocaust – participate in this event? Why did so few refuse to participate, even though it has been shown there were hardly any repercussions for refusing? Why did the overwhelming majority of Germans accept genocide against the Jews as a reasonable response, when it was publicly announced by the Nazi officials? Why didn’t even one Bishop speak out openly in support of the Jewish population, when they were willing to do so to prevent euthanasia for handicapped Germans?
Incidentally, Suchsland is certainly correct that the genocide was widely known after 1942. In the interesting book Reisen ins Reich 1933-1945, Oliver Lubrich compliles the impressions of foreign journalists who visited Germany during the NS-period. The American radio correspondent Harry Flannery – who could barely understand German – told his listeners already in 1941 about "Jews being deported to concentration camps." After the war, of course, few admitted to knowing anything.
The editor of the right-wing Junge Freiheit , Dieter Stein, used the occasion of commemorating the liberation of Auschiwtz to attack Turkey for denying the genocide against Armenians. This fits the right-wing opposition to Turkey joining the EU, and the demonization of the Turkish community in Germany:
Zu Jahresbeginn wurde der Stoff laut Presseberichten sang- und klanglos
wieder vom Plan gestrichen – auf Druck türkischer Diplomaten. Wie diametral
entgegengesetzt der Umgang mit der Vernichtung der Juden in Deutschland und der
Armenier in der Türkei ist: In Deutschland ist die Leugnung der
Judenvernichtung unter Strafe gestellt, in der Türkei ist es mit Strafe
bedroht, die Tatsache des Völkermordes überhaupt zu behaupten! Ein Thema, das
von den Befürwortern des EU-Beitritts der Türkei elegant zur Seite geschoben
wird. So unehrlich geht man mit dem Thema „Erinnerung“ um.
Finally, the writer Aharon Applefeld has some moving words for those who see Auschwitz as a reason for engaging in pre-emptive wars to fulfill what President Bush called God’s mission to bring freedom to all:
This is not a story with a happy ending. A doctor who survived, from a
religious background, who sailed to Israel with us in June 1946, told
us: "We didn’t see God when we expected him, so we have no choice but
to do what he was supposed to do: we will protect the weak, we will
love, we will comfort. From now on, the responsibility is all ours."
