Look around

What global complacency about Ukraine can teach us about the Holocaust

Photo by Majkl Velner on Unsplash

The last few weeks have been somewhat of a rarity in discussions of Antisemitism: it’s making headlines and there are no dead Jews. 

Given that Antisemitic hate crimes account for over 62% of all hate crimes based on religion, it seems like the kind of thing that should be discussed far more often than in the event of a mass shooting or hostage crisis. And yet, even as conversations about Kanye West’s Antisemitism were ongoing and major brands were breaking ties with him, we saw posters hung from overpasses in Los Angeles and at college football games saying “Kanye was right about the Jews.” Celebrities and organizations continued to engage in anti-Zionist speech, because this is how deeply rooted the problem is, and it’s going to take a lot more than discussions of a rapper to create real change. 

This week, is Holocaust Education Week. One of the things that I wondered about for so long was how the Holocaust happened. I don’t mean the literal mechanics. I am more than sufficiently versed in those. What I mean is how the world looked away. How did people not ask where their neighbours were being taken? Once they knew what was going on, how did they just do nothing? Just sit back, and watch it unfold. And then eight months ago, Russia invaded Ukraine. And I caught a glimpse of how the world can see in full colour what is happening, and still sit back and do nothing. 

The war in Ukraine is not the Holocaust. They are absolutely not the same and this is not in any way a comparison of the two. This is a discussion of how we, the international community, can be informed about what is happening and not intervene. It’s a discussion that goes back to the root of why I stopped pursuing a career in journalism in favour of law. Just having the information isn’t enough if you’re not going to do anything with it. 

It is not true that there was no news coverage of the deportations and camps while the Holocaust was unfolding. Though it was not available in the way that footage is today on CNN, articles did appear in the New York Times and other major news outlets, if relegated to the back pages. Even when it wasn’t in the papers, on the streets of Vienna and Paris, people watched their neighbours taken from their homes and they said nothing; did nothing. That is the part that has always been so difficult for me to reconcile. How did the world allow this to happen? And how did everyone forgive themselves for it? 

In the last eight months I have watched videos of bombed apartment blocks, people being run over by tanks, refugees arriving in Poland, and President Zelensky appearing on television all over the world appealing for foreign military assistance. Many of us, myself included, are merely bystanders to the horror that is unfolding. We are shocked and saddened, but then we are changing the channel or getting ready for work, and moving on. And perhaps that is how the Holocaust happened. 

It is so easy to look away from terrible things. Perhaps it is out of a desire to protect ourselves from how dark the world can be, or maybe it’s the assumption that if everyone else is seeing the same thing, then someone must be doing something, so we don’t have to. 

But what if the world had made a big deal out of the reports of the annihilation of European Jewry that were coming out during the war? What would have happened if there had been marches in the streets calling for those in power to issue orders to their armies to step in and stop the genocide? Because there was that option, and no one took it. 

Today, we have access to information on a scale unimaginable in the 1940s, and yet, we still do nothing. 

That Kanye’s Antisemitism provoked discussion is such an anomaly because of how easy it has been to do nothing as Antisemitism has grown increasingly more prevalent in the mainstream. And doing something, so often, requires little more of us than a moment of bravery to do the right thing and not be a bystander. 

I firmly believe that we are not headed towards 1944, but when I am asked how the Holocaust happened, all I can say is: look around.