The newly elected German leader is likely to strengthen the voices that seek
to de-emphasize the historical significance of the Holocaust.
Most Germans, I am quite certain, have never heard of the Prague Declaration;
nor do they have any inkling of its critical significance vis-a-vis
the election of the president of the Federal Republic. Yet it is
that document — probably more than any other — that casts a giant
shadow on the record of recently elected German President Joachim
Gauck, and should raise very serious doubts as to his suitability
for this prestigious post .
Beginning with its ominous warnings that “societies that neglect the past have
no future” and that “Europe will never be united unless it is able
to reunite its history [and] recognize Communism and Nazism as a
common legacy” [writer's emphasis], the declaration’s primary goal
is to promote the canard of historical equivalency between the two
most lethal totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century. This false
comparison, which purposely ignores the critical differences between
the irreversible Nazi ideology that demanded the total annihilation
of a people the world over based solely on their lineage, and which
was implemented by industrialized mass murder unprecedented in human
history, and its Communist counterpart, whose victims were primarily
identified on the basis of economic and political factors, is the
foundation for the demand for parity between the crimes of both regimes,
which should all be considered genocide.
Robbing the Holocaust of its significance
The significance of such a false equivalency cannot be underestimated. First
and foremost, it will rob the Holocaust of its justified status as
a unique tragedy of unprecedented scope and nature, and elevate Communist
crimes beyond their true historical significance. On a practical
level, moreover, it will help the post-Communist countries, among
whose nationals were many zealous Nazi collaborators and active participants
in Holocaust crimes, to hide or deflect attention from their lethal
role in the mass murder of European Jewry. Unlike Nazi collaborators
elsewhere, who assisted in the initial stages of the Final Solution
— defining and identifying the Jews; robbing them of their livelihood,
property, and possessions; arresting them and deporting them to death
camps in Poland — many of the Nazis’ helpers in Eastern Europe were
integrated into the apparatus of mass annihilation and actively participated
in the mass murder of Jews in their countries of origin, but in many
cases elsewhere as well.
While under Communist domination from the end of World
War II until the early ’90s, these nations were unable to honestly
deal with their Holocaust crimes, but in the wake of the breakup
of the Soviet Union and the transition to democracy in Eastern Europe,
they were afforded such an opportunity. To date, however, such efforts
have for the most part abysmally failed as the ruling governments
found it politically difficult, if not impossible, to teach the truth
about the scope and level of local collaboration in Holocaust crimes,
let alone to bring to justice hereto unprosecuted Shoah perpetrators
and/or restitute stolen Jewish communal and/or private property.
By elevating Communist crimes to the hallowed status of genocide, however, the
signers of the Prague Declaration hope to shift the focus from the
mass murder of Jews during the Holocaust to the suffering of East
Europeans under the yoke of Communism, thereby transforming perpetrator-nations
into countries of victims. Even better, the assessment of Communist
crimes as genocide would allow East Europeans to counter the accusations
against them for Holocaust crimes by creating a false symmetry between
their criminals and Jews who committed crimes against them in the
service of Moscow. The fact that the former were motivated by ultra-nationalistic
patriotism, while the latter’s motivation was a direct result of
their decision to sever their ties with the Jewish community would
of course be ignored by those positing this ostensibly meaningful
equation. And if the guilt for such horrific crimes cuts across all
national and religious lines, the criminals need not fear being held
accountable for their crimes, since if practically everyone is guilty, ultimately few, if any, will ever be brought
to justice.
A close look at the practical steps called for by the Prague Declaration makes
crystal clear how problematic its adoption would be. Thus, for example,
it calls for August 23, the date of the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression
pact, to be designated as a joint memorial day for all victims of
totalitarian regimes. The choice of this date clearly implies that
the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany are equally to blame for the atrocities
of World War II, as if the regime which conceived, built, and operated
the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp is just as guilty as the country
whose troops liberated that center of industrialized mass murder
and stopped the killing. Were this proposal to be accepted — and
several declaratory resolutions supporting it have already been passed
in European forums — Holocaust memorial day will soon be a relic
of the past.
Equally problematic are the Declaration’s calls for
“the adjustment and overhaul of European history textbooks” and the
establishment of an “Institute of European Memory and Conscience,”
which will create educational programs, as well as a museum for all
victims of totalitarian crimes. A major function of that institution
would be to support “national research institutes specializing in
the subject of totalitarian experience,” but if the record to date
of such existing institutions is any indication, it is institutions
such as the Center for Genocide Research, and the Museum of Genocide
Victims in Vilnius, Lithuania, and the Museum of the Occupation In
Riga, Latvia, which are most guilty of distorting the history of
World War II by focusing almost exclusively on Communist crimes,
to the virtual exclusion of those committed by local Nazi collaborators.
Elevating such citadels of Holocaust distortion to the status of institutions
like Yad Vashem and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum would lend undeserved
legitimacy to those least worthy of such recognition. Rewriting European
history textbooks in the spirit of the false equivalency between
Communist and Nazi crimes would in effect raise future generations
on a purposely falsified account of the events of the Holocaust,
which would blur the critical distinction between perpetrators and
victims, thereby absolving the criminals of all responsibility. Needless
to say, such steps would do irreparable damage to the positive results
achieved during the past half-century in the fields of Holocaust
commemoration, research, and education.
Germany’s ‘Holocaust fatigue’
Joachim Gauck is one of only three Western Europeans who signed the Prague Declaration
and certainly the most prominent among them. In fact, he is the most
important figure to sign the declaration besides the late Czech president
Vaclav Havel. As the first director of the Stasi Archives and a leading
human rights activist in Communist East Germany, Gauck justifiably
seeks greater recognition for Communist crimes, a worthy and legitimate
goal that merits support. In this case, however, the document he
signed to achieve this objective does so at the expense of historical
truth in a harmful and destructive manner, which will have extremely
negative repercussions for Western civilization in general, and for
Germany in particular. In addition, in public statements, such as
his speech “Welche Erinnerungen braucht Europa?” to the Robert Bosch
Foundation, Gauck appears to reject the uniqueness of the Shoah and
claim that dealing with the mass murder of European Jewry has become
a substitute for religion in civil society.
Germany, in my opinion, is currently at a critical
juncture in relation to the memory of World War II and the Holocaust.
On the one hand, there is growing knowledge and widespread sensitivity
to Holocaust crimes, but “Holocaust fatigue” cannot be ignored, and
the voices stressing German victimhood during the war and its aftermath
are becoming bolder and more strident. As the era of Nazi war crimes
trials slowly, but inevitably, comes to an end, and the debates over
the past are relegated to the history books and the public arena,
the president of Germany will play an increasingly vital role in
serving as a moral compass for German society.
His public stance and pronouncements will have a strong influence on the direction
Germany will take in the coming years vis-a-vis Holocaust-related
issues and their significance in both local and universal terms.
Joachim Gauck’s signature on the Prague Declaration is an ominous
and very dangerous sign that he is likely to lead the Federal Republic
in a different direction than hereto pursued. Instead of building
on the foundation of Germany’s to a large extent successful, even
if far-from-perfect, confrontation with its Nazi past, he is likely
to strengthen those voices which seek to de-emphasize the importance
of the Holocaust in German history and consciousness. Instead of
serving as a model for the countries of post-Communist Eastern Europe,
which have hereto utterly failed to confront their bloody records
during World War II, he is likely to strengthen their tendency to
flee responsibility and wallow in their victimhood, a stance which
would be a tragedy first and foremost for them, but also for Germany — not to mention the negative consequences for the future of Europe.
It is precisely for these reasons that Gauck appears to be the wrong person to
assume that lofty post at this important point in time.
timesofisrael.com
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