The issue of Holocaust denial is back in the headlines
following the recent (December 11-12) Holocaust denial
conference in Teheran. But despite all the pain and anger
toward the Iranians, this conference was perceived around the
world as an unsuccessful joke at the Iranian President's
expense.
Meanwhile real Holocaust denial has been going on for decades
— not in Iran, but in the countries where the Holocaust
took place, and is being done not in the form denial
typically takes but with great sophistication and even in the
guise of approval and rectification.
*
Recently I paid a short visit to Austria that allowed me to
see Holocaust denial from a totally different perspective.
Before I describe what I saw, a brief explanation on "how to
deny without denying" is in order.
The idea is to minimize and close the matter, as if both
sides have reconciled with one another and solved the problem
between them. Generally this is done on a small scale when
someone from the general public insults someone severely in
public and then tosses out a sentence like, "I hope you
didn't take it too hard," or even sends a bouquet of flowers
that makes the sender feel not only has he atoned for his
sin, but now he deserves something in return.
The Germans and the Austrians did this in a bigger way
(perhaps because the Holocaust was something bigger). The
Germans, wanting to be re-accepted into the circle of
upstanding nations, offered Holocaust victims reparations as
early as the fifties.
The staunch opposition to reparations in those was in
Eretz Yisroel was not unfounded. Back then there were
already people who understood that this was a cynical way for
the Germans to do penance for deeds that cannot be forgiven.
Really the reparations could have been accepted, but not as
atonement or compensation, but rather a reimbursement for
money that was simply taken away from the Jews.
*
In order to understand the economic side of the Holocaust
(beyond the heinous human side, which defies comprehension)
consider the following example.
Imagine the entire population of the State of Israel is
removed and the inhabitants of another land take possession
of the homes, factories, banks, industries, merchandise,
money, jewelry, diamonds, clothes, appliances — and
everything else in the country.
The value of all this would come to hundreds of billions of
dollars, if not much more. Sums impossible to imagine.
The State of Israel has about six million Jews. Likewise
there were about six million European Jews who perished and
some of them were very wealthy — bankers,
industrialists and merchants with many assets. The Nazis
simply murdered them and inherited their property. Hundreds
of billions in assets. The reparations are a fraction of the
amount owed. Therefore they should indeed have been demanded,
and more demands made and still more without seeing this as
an kaporoh or tikkun by the Germans in any way.
But in their minds the Germans and the Austrians rectified
their misdeeds and the more time passes, the more they are
beginning to feel the moral rectitude to preach morality to
the Jews.
*
Recently I experienced an example of this technique of
tossing out a crumb to feel morally upright when I spent a
Shabbos in the town of Baden, near Vienna.
Baden was a town where gedolei Yisroel used to
vacation, and thousands of Jews lived in the nearby towns.
All of them were killed in the Holocaust and the botei
knesses were destroyed.
A young Jewish lawyer from Vienna decided that this issue was
important to him. He contacted the Austrian authorities and
asked them to fund the construction of a shul in
memory of the destroyed botei knesses in Baden and the
surrounding area.
"Fine," the Austrians replied happily. "We'll give you
whatever you want." They gave him $1.5 million to rebuild old
shul and kehilloh offices.
On Shabbos we davened in the shul. Truth be told, such
a beautiful, well-kept, polished, clean and neat beis
knesses is a rarity. It looks as if almost nothing has
been touched since the shul was built two years ago. In fact
almost nothing has been touched since then. The sinks
are smooth and shiny enough to serve as concave mirrors, not
a single crumb lies on the floor, there are no siddurim
on the tables and the sefer Torah was rolled to
parshas Terumoh. In other words nobody has read from
it since.
Outside the shul is a memorial wall, a sort of monument to
all of the botei knesses in the area. And in essence
that is what the whole shul is — a monument. There are
no mispallelim, no minyanim, no activities. For
one very simple reason: There are no Jews. The Austrians
killed them.
*
And how do the Austrians feel? Now they're feeling just fine.
After all, didn't they give a million and a half dollars to
the Jews from whom they took billions? Furthermore the
Austrians are keeping a little secret even the president of
the Jewish community (that very same Viennese lawyer) didn't
share with us. The condition for the construction of the shul
was that behind it a building for cultural activities would
go up. But we saw the modest sign and even walked a bit to
find that most of the large building that was once a shul and
kehilloh offices is now the local "Culture Hall." In
other words they took an enormous plot of land that belonged
to the Jews and closed a deal with a bright lawyer over a
bouquet of flowers and a monument. Here we have a little
lesson on how the Holocaust is denied by memorializing it.
Forget about the Iranians. Take a look at the Germans, the
Austrians, the Poles and the Hungarians. Those who
perpetrated the Holocaust. They know better than anyone else
how to deny it.
