Hidden antisemitism is also antisemitism. The difference between open and hidden anti-Semitism is that the hidden one can sometimes be even more harmful that the open one. And short is the path between open and hidden hatred. It just waits for suitable conditions to ignite and collect its bloody fruits.
Xhabir Deralla
The creation of the word Antisemitism is related to German journalist Wilhelm Marr, who writes about this as early as 1879. He also writes that hatred against various liberal, cosmopolitan and international political trends in the 18th and 19th century often isbrought in relation to the Jews. In that time too, nationalists and other destructive political centers of power attacked political ideas such as equality, civil rights, constitutional democracy, socialism and pacifism. And with equal fierceness, they hated the Jews. At the same time, those structures fiercely opposed free trade as well, financial capitalism and many other modern tendencies in the then world economy. And they promoted hatred on ideological, racial or ethnic grounds.
Fifty years later, Adolf Hitler comes to power and on behalf of the state orders, sponsors and leads the brutal extermination of the Jews, and at the same time of all those with ideas that had been linked or associated with them.
Even jazz was labelled as Black-Jewish communist music, and even jazz musicians were brutally persecuted during the Nazi regime. Minor key chords had especially been forbidden, while composers and musicians were required to give preference to compositions in major key “according to the sound spirit of the German nation”, as Czech-Canadian writer Josep Skvorecky describes in his novel “The Bass Saxophone”.
There are examples of Antisemitism today as well, at every step. It often hides behind expressions that speak of prejudices which, on the other hand, we think are “folk expressions and tales”. The very term Jew is often used in a derogatory sense. “The Jews killed the Son of God” – some fools might say, who think they are religious and “forgetting” that Jesus was a Jew and that he was crucified by the Roman government in Israel.
There is “thinking” in a similar wayabout the Holocaust as well. Often one can hear that the Holocaust was made up or that the number of victims of the Holocaust is not that big as is claimed. That it’s a conspiracy… Without arguments, without awareness about the background of such claims and even less awareness about where such thoughts can lead to, things that are on the same line with the most dangerous and most inhumane doctrines of human civilization are expressedvery easily.
The minimizing, and even denying of the Holocaust is also part of the state policy of some countries in the world today, and some state leaders often manifest Antisemitism in various ways. Those same leaders are heads of states in which there is no democracy.
Quite often, people simply are silent about the Holocaust in the style: “I don’t know about that…”. And the same goes for textbook and the media. According to UN Resolution 60/7, member states have an obligation to observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day, let me remind again.
Even one victim is too many, not to mention six million Jews, hundreds and thousands of ideologically, racially or biologically “unsuitable”, or more than 50 million victims as much as is the total death toll in World War II…
How much can the number of victims of the Holocaust be “inflated”? About 100,000? About one million? A staggering number of millions of people still remains, whose lives have been taken by an ideology based on divisions and hatred. Unparalleled devastation and bloodshed beyond the power of comprehension. Every one of the victims, every child, woman, man… had a name and last name, a certain color of eyes, weight, dreams, wishes, talents, plans, inclinations, flaws, virtues, a specific smile, tears… And, they were all killed by an ideology that was based on hatred towards those who were different.
Hate speech easily and quickly leads to violence. Hatred towards the Jews today is hatred towards others tomorrow and vice versa. Hatred based on ethnic affiliation today is hatred towards races or religions tomorrow. It immediately means also hatred towards those who think and act differently, who look different… The next step is a call for persecution and killings and their execution.
Children in schools are taught to do the Sign of the Cross, but Christian love remains behind the walls of ignorance. Children in school don’t learn what human rights are. And even if they do, just like with the Sign of the Cross, they don’t learn what is behind that. Education on human rights means also education on the Holocaust. Education in schools also implies awareness and respect for diversity, tolerance, non-violent communication between people, peacebuilding… Is all this in the eyes of the child when it returns from school? Here, let me not demand too much, is it there at least on the day when the child finishes primary school of nine whole years? Or, even if this is too much, at least at the end of secondary school? Is it there? Is it in the family? Have we made it clear in our heads about the Holocaust?
January 27th is a day of commemorating the Holocaust, a day when the Red Army freed Auschwitz (Poland, 1945).
This is a nice day to look inside, in ourselves, at least for a moment. Whatever we see inside is better that being blind, deaf and mute about everything that is thriving inside us. Maybe that is something we want to be… Examine yourself. That is the first step towards becoming a better person. There are several more such days in the year. Some are religious, some are international. Some belong to other religions, but they are the same, but on a different day…
I wish you a nice day socializing with your inner world.
This and the column “Holocaust“ (25/1/2019) are dedicated to the International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27). In writing these texts, data and materials of printed and online encyclopedias on World War II, novels and other sourceshave been used. The following are especially interesting online sources:
Holocaust Fund of the Jews from Macedonia
Yad Vashem – The World Holocaust Remembrance Center
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
Photography attached to the text: The Black Wall in Auschwitz I, The Black Wall, between Block 10 (left) and Block 11 (right) in the Auschwitz concentration camp, where executions of inmates took place. Poland, date unknown; National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD)
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Photograph of the author: B. Jordanovska
Translation: N. Cvetkovska
