Seventy
years is the lifespan for latterday humans. It is also the
years that have passed since Hitler's "Final Solution" Wannsee Conference.
In the half year beforehand, the Nazis saw how easy it was to find enthusiastic
local killers in the parts of Eastern Europe they invaded
in June 1941.
Around a million Jews perished by
bullets there. Here in Eastern Europe, denial, never viable,
has been replaced by a new ruse: Holocaust obfuscation. Deflate
Nazi crimes, inflate Soviet crimes, redefine "genocide" by law, and find ways to turn local killers into heroes and to fault Jewish
survivors.
In 2008, a group of East European
members of the European Parliament proclaimed the "Prague Declaration". It has the word "same" five times, equalising Nazi and Soviet rule. Its demands: overhaul of textbooks,
a single commemoration day, and a "Nuremberg" process for communists.
But 70 parliamentarians from 19 EU
states have now signed the Seventy Years Declaration. A bold
new reaffirmation. The legacy of the Holocaust shall not
be undermined. thejc.com
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