If you once pledged to adhere to the precept of 'Never Again,' you must speak out against modern hatred and misinformation

Author of the article: Avi BenloloPublished Jan 26, 2024  

As we commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27, we ponder whether the world has gleaned any lessons from the largest hate crime in history, which ended just 79 years ago. This was the question I posed earlier this week at the national headquarters of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The reprehensible surge in antisemitism on our city streets since Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault on Israel leaves us questioning why, despite increased investment in Holocaust education over the last two decades, antisemitic incidents have been on the rise in North America and Europe.

The issue primarily lies with young adults who seem to be influenced by social media and Holocaust denial. In a poll released this week, for instance, the Campaign Against Antisemitism found “worrying levels of anti-Jewish prejudice among the British public, with particularly frightening rates among young people.”

It should have been the opposite. There should have been more sympathy and understanding for Jews and for Israel. However, social media has been inundated with antisemitic tropes since Hamas’s barbaric assault. An Angus Reid survey released last month revealed that young Canadians between the ages of 18 to 34 falsely believe that Islamophobia is a bigger problem than antisemitism.

This is despite police statistics across the country repeatedly reporting that the Jewish community is most affected by discrimination. The implications are disturbing. It suggests that antisemitism has become normalized; that the hate sown on university campuses and now in high schools is seeping into the mindset of our youth, outpacing our own ability to educate about the Holocaust.

Had he been alive, my friend and mentor, Holocaust survivor Max Eisen, would have been disappointed, not only by the 1933-like levels of antisemitism but also by the silence of those he imparted his wisdom upon. Like numerous other survivors, Max had invested decades in Holocaust education, specifically to prevent antisemitism.

Part of our work together was in Vancouver, where we advocated against antisemitism. Despite these efforts, and the unparalleled work of Vancouver’s police service, reports of antisemitism increased there by 62 per cent last year. In Toronto, police said in December that antisemitic incidents had increased 211 per cent since the Oct. 7 massacre.

The central question is whether the lessons about how antisemitism motivated the Nazis to commit genocide have been internalized by young adults. It may be true that previous Holocaust pedagogy needs an update, as young people consume more information from social media than from books and museums.

Holocaust education must also place more emphasis on complicity. The most critical lesson about the Holocaust is the complicity of the masses. Had the German population risen up against Hitler and his henchmen, they would have halted his momentum and prevented him from reaching a genocidal stage. Those who actively helped Hitler were accomplices; those who stood by and said nothing were complicit.

This complicity extends to the antisemitism we witness today on university campuses, in unions and corporate in boardrooms. For those of you who stay silent while your Jewish neighbours are revisiting the trauma of the Holocaust (and of Oct. 7) through daily antisemitic attacks, you are complicit.

We often see organizations like the United Nations marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day while simultaneously defaming and attempting to delegitimize the Jewish state. This is hypocrisy. Commemorating the Holocaust (or dead Jews) does not give cover for disproportionate attacks against Israel.

The lessons the Holocaust provided humanity are vital for anyone who struggles to promote a society based on integrity and morality. If you truly want to observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day, honour its victims and survivors by standing up to antisemitism today.

If you once pledged to adhere to the precept of “Never Again,” speak out against modern hatred and misinformation, particularly as it relates to the rape of Israeli women and the heinous acts of murder that took place on Oct. 7.

And if you believe yourself to be an advocate of human rights, follow the basic golden rule of loving your neighbour and doing unto others as you expect them to do unto you. Don’t stare silently out of your window as the world around you darkens. Before it’s too late, speak out against the hatred being paraded through the streets.

Observing and memorializing the Holocaust is more than standing at a memorial in Ottawa or drawing a picture at school. It’s a call to action to recognize that the liberation of Auschwitz on Jan. 27, 1945, was not the end of antisemitism. It was the beginning of a new human era that was supposed to change the world for the better — to eradicate the evil scourge of racism from the face of the earth. Today you can start fulfilling that dream.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/holocaust-remembrance-day-should-be-a-call-to-action-against-antisemitism

Published Sep 29, 2023 

Despite the public outcry over Canada’s honouring of a former Nazi in our parliament, Post columnist Colby Cosh idrew consternation from the Jewish community this week. He argued Wednesday that it “seems possible (to me) to have sympathy for the young Hunka’s decision” to join a Ukrainian SS unit. 

“Sympathy” you say, for Yaroslav Hunka’s service in the Waffen-SS Galicia unit? You mean the same unit that was allegedly involved in mass murder of Jews, Poles and even Ukrainians during the Second World War? A University of Ottawa political scientist who specializes in Ukraine explained the unit to CTV: "They massacred entire villages of Polish residents in this region… including women and children because they were accused of being associated with Soviet partisans."

Cosh appeared to justify his sentiment because after the war, “a conscious decision was made not to treat them as if they were German members of the SS or other ideological collaborators”. That Canadian government decision was made to justify the allowance of so many Nazi war criminals admitted either erroneously or by turning a blind eye to their heinous crimes. But that decision was obviously wrong and insulting to victims of the Holocaust and to many others who were murdered by SS units like Hunka’s Waffen-SS.

Once “sympathy” or excuses are made for those who sided with mass murderers and with pure evil, the lines between right and wrong get blurred. Indeed, that is the very problem in our society today when the virtues of right and wrong are questioned and everything we know, even the truth, is deconstructed.

Despite the fact after possibly being involved in mass murder with his unit and then sneaking into this country under false pretense, Cosh expects us to feel sorry for the 98-year-old Hunka: “what I see is an old man who was cruelly let down at the end of his days by naive descendants and a halfwit glory-seeking politician. If he does deserve to suffer, well, suffering is what he’ll get”.

Sympathy and suffering? What about the millions of victims of Nazism? Did they not suffer for real? Did they not pay the ultimate price because of hatred and bigotry? Did they have a chance to flee the so-called bloodlands to the greener pastures of Canada?

Following the war, Canada shamefully admitted thousands of Nazi war criminals to live out their remaining days free and clear. While we let these monsters in, we sent back Jewish refugees on the MS St. Louis to the gas chambers in Germany.

Hunka and any elderly Nazi still alive deserves no sympathy. They deserve to face justice. They deserve to be stripped of citizenship, denaturalized, and immediately removed from this country. His extradition request by Poland should make it easier on the Canadian justice system which has shown little appetite over these years to prosecute and extradite Nazi war criminals.

Our Parliament’s honouring of Hunka as a war hero was embarrassing enough. The resignation of the Speaker and the Prime Minister’s apology are insignificant and purely a distraction compared to the incredible learning opportunity this debacle provides all Canadians.

For the first time, all of Canada saw, noticed and learned about the real-live Nazis who live within our midst. Several years ago, along with my friend Max Eisen, together we led a delegation of Holocaust survivors to Ottawa to appeal to the government to unseal the Deschenes Commission files to allow greater public scrutiny about the Nazis who live among us.

We pushed for the prosecution of Nazi war criminals like Helmut Oberlander who was a member of the Einsatzgruppen death squads, serving as an interpreter.

Under pressure mainly from the Ukrainian community, successive Canadian governments were biding their time. Nature would take its course as Nazi war criminals would pass away, burying this nation’s dirty little secret with them. The hiding away of our Nazis has become such an ethos in our nation that our government, in a moment of shame, even wanted to delete the Hansard evidence of the debacle in parliament.

There is no feeling sorry or sympathizing with Hunka or any other person who participated in the Nazi war machine, directly or indirectly. This episode was our country’s moment of truth about our horrible Nazi cover-up.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/avi-benlolo-no-sympathy-for-the-nazi

With the rising tide of antisemitism, we have come to believe that the words, “Never Again” have become meaningless. 

How could it possibly be that some 80 years after the Holocaust, that there is a violent resurgence of Antisemitism? We suffer from this pernicious hatred in the Palestinian territories where authorities incite and school curriculum motivates hate. We feel it on university campuses where our children face faculty who dare call them colonizers and fellow students run boycott campaigns against the Jewish state. And we see the silence and complicity of our political leaders who look away from rallies like Al Quds Day where pro-Palestinian demonstrators call for our destruction.

The more jaded and indifferent we become about renewing our famous call of Never Again, the harder it will become to fight back. As we stand here in Poland to mark the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, our enemies are circling ever closer. They think they smell blood. This week, the greatest exporter of hate and antisemitism, the Islamic Republic of Iran, boldly declared that it would flatten Tel Aviv and Haifa. Words become deeds  Holocaust survivors were taught, and those who ignore threats are at the mercy of purveyors of hate.


A confluence of events enabled Hitler, a psychopath who rise to the top of the political elite in Germany. Some blame Germany’s failing economy. Others say that Hitler lifted German pride after its defeat in the First World War and the reparations it was forced to pay the allies. His hatred of the Jewish people played into centuries-old antisemitic canards that empowered him and propelled him to leadership and eventual license to the murder of Six Million Jews, while the rest of the world looked away (sound familiar?).


As we stood on the hallowed grounds of Auschwitz this week, where 1.2 million Jews and some non-Jews were brutally beaten, gassed and burned, we reflected on the indifference and silence that once again stands before us today. We reflected on a world on the brink of disaster as countries like Russia freely invade a democratic country (Ukraine) and brutalize its population. We thought about the danger to the world with a nuclearized Iran, a destabilized Pakistan and North Korea and an expansionist China poised to attack Taiwan.


Instability, fear, poverty and despair drive mass populations into the cold embrace of psychopaths, as was the case in Germany. Add vicious and historic antisemitism to the mix and make it absolutely permissible and you end up with genocide. Sadly, our world hasn’t changed much since the Holocaust and in recent years, the Jewish world and its friends (and we have many non-Jewish allies) are coming to terms with this dire reality. But it's this reality that should and must embolden us to fight.


Once a year we pause to reflect on Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). But the rest of the year, we must fight back vigorously, passionately and with conviction. Imagine what a Jew must have felt like during the Spanish Inquisition? When she was accused of causing Black Death by poisoning the wells in England? How about the Jew who had to run from angry mobs following Sunday mass, when he was accused of deicide? We cannot imagine how fellow Parisian Jews felt when their hero, Colonel Alfered Dreyfus was falsely accused of treason and stripped of his medals.


We can never imagine the fear and instability a Jew felt like in those dark days. The difference between now and then is that today the Jewish State has our back.


I stand by the railway tracks at Auschwitz where Jews were offloaded from trains in the middle of the night, separated from their families and gassed and forced into slavery. I speak in the very spot Max Eisen stood and retell his story to my delegation of Canadians and Americans. The heavens open up above. A ray of light breaks the darkness and streaks across the tracks. I smile because we won. Never Again is our battle cry. It’s an action of defiance. We are here. Hitler is not.

National Post
Avi Abraham Benlolo is the founder and chairman of the Abraham Global Peace Initiative.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/avi-benlolo-the-jews-have-survived-hitler-didnt

He was a man on a mission, and was relentless in his quest to save humanity

Author of the article:Avi BenloloPublishing date:Jul 15, 2022  

Max was keenly aware that his fight was against time and this drove him on a singular and relentless mission to heal the world and make it a better place for the entire human race. He was a man on a mission, and was relentless in his quest to save humanity.

At an early age, Max witnessed the cruelty that human beings could inflict upon each other. As a child, his antisemitic teacher made him sit at the back of the classroom with his Jewish classmates. He felt the pain of isolation, marginalization and dehumanization as his non-Jewish friends and neighbours turned against him, and as his family was eventually driven from their home and packed onto a train to Auschwitz.

It was 1944 and the war was nearly over. The Nazis were losing, but their hatred of the Jewish people was so complete and persistent that even Max and his family could not escape the horrible nightmare unfolding before their eyes.

He was torn from his mother’s warm embrace on the train tracks at Auschwitz. He never saw her or his siblings ever again. He naively asked a fellow prisoner where they were taken a while later, only to find out that they were gassed and went up the chimney like so many other poor souls.

Fortunately, Max was selected for slave labour alongside his father and uncle. They protected him as best they could for a while longer, while Max adapted to this hell on earth. Yet soon enough, they too fell ill and seconds before he was taken to the gas chamber, Max’s father made him swear a promise that would echo throughout time and place: “Tell our story. Tell the world what happened here at Auschwitz. Never forget us.”

In time, Max regained his freedom and built a new life and a new family in Canada. In the 78 years that followed the Holocaust, Max dedicated himself to the relentless pursuit of justice.

But eventually, Max began to see the creep of antisemitism once again, years before it would become obvious. Over the past decade, he became alarmed by what he was seeing on university campuses. He was shocked by the boycott movements against Israel, which reminded him of the very antisemitism his family experienced when their own businesses were boycotted or confiscated by the Nazis. This drove Max to press harder to educate more and more people about the consequence of hate and intolerance.

Throughout most of his life, his energy was completely focused on keeping the promise he made to his father. During our 10 educational trips to Auschwitz, Max never showed anger or despair. He dedicated himself completely to education. During the COVID-19 pandemic, and despite his failing health (which he kept quiet), Max would speak on Zoom two or three times a day to thousands of students from around the world. He not only taught them about the Holocaust, he made them promise to be kind, compassionate and caring people.

In his final years, Max became a moral compass to millions of Canadians. His best-selling memoir, “By Chance Alone,” would impact hundreds of thousands of students, teachers and the public alike. His exposure on television programs like “60 Minutes” and other newscasts increased his ability to affect millions of people.

Among his numerous well-deserved awards were four honorary doctorates and the Order of Canada. Like the closing of a loop or the transfer of a baton, the last recognition award he received happened to be from the Abraham Global Peace Initiative, the foundation he helped me launch just one year ago, and which also named a Holocaust education fund in his honour.

Max gave us everything he had and asked for nothing in return. Once, as he was giving an eye-witness account at Auschwitz in front of Block 21, a ray of light pierced the clouds and beamed upon him like a spotlight. He was there to pass on a message — a warning — to humanity, to never be silent in the face of injustice.

His contribution to this nation will yet be written in its history books. One day soon, schools will be named after him as a show of defiance against hate and intolerance. Max chose life. He showed us that even after tragedy, there is a life worth living through meaning. I will miss my teacher, my mentor and my friend. Shalom Chaver.

National Post

Avi Benlolo is the founder and chairman of the Abraham Global Peace Initiative.

June 17, 2022 - In a shocking ruling this week, Germany’s highest appeal court said that a Judensau (“Jews' Sow”) — in this case, a sandstone carving of a rabbi lifting the hind legs of the sow and two Jewish children suckling on it — can remain on the exterior of the Wittenberg Stadtkirche Catholic church in the east German city of Wittenberg, even though it's “antisemitic.”  

In Judaism (and coincidentally in Islam, as well), pork is considered profane or unkosher.  Kosher meat comes from animals that chew their cud and have split hooves — like cows, sheep and goats.  The Judensau carving is thus not only meant to be an insulting portrayal of religious Jews, it is meant as an affront to the Jewish religion itself. It was erected in the 13th century, when it was perfectly acceptable to mock and shame the Jewish population of Germany. 

The Jews themselves were marked as profane by the church and its adherents.  In fact, it might be argued that this particular church, and the area of east Germany more generally, may have been the very birthplace of what seven centuries later become the Holocaust. It was in this very town where, in 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to a church door, marking the birth of the Protestant Reformation.  Luther would go on to write the very playbook for what would become Nazi Germany. 

In his book, “On the Jews and their Lies,” he calls for the expulsion of the Jewish population, the burning of synagogues and Jewish schools and the destruction of their homes, their Talmudic writings and prayer books.  Luther’s call for violence against Germany’s Jewish population was reinforced by the well-documented history of religious antisemitism, especially by Christianity. If we cannot convert them, Luther purportedly believed, we must then destroy them.  

To understand the racial and religious hatred that motivated the Holocaust, one must look at the facade of Germany's churches and the very history of its religious movements, which, contrary to modern religious tenets in Christianity, sowed hate and antisemitism within the population for centuries.  Some have argued that leaving the Judensau in its place provides a historical context for educational purposes. They have said it serves as a profound reminder of the birthplace of antisemitism in Germany.  

Should we take down all reminders of human profanities of centuries past? If we forget the past, are we not destined to repeat it? These are valid questions that push our resolve at a time when we are witnessing major cultural shifts in the recognition of historic racism and discrimination. Every case differs in terms of time and place and must be weighted in the context of the present and the past.  

Because the Germans murdered six million Jewish children, women and men as a product of their severe and violent antisemitism, they must be held accountable, so long as the scourge of hatred persist in their country.  Given this historical context, it remains shocking that while Germany has outlawed antisemitism itself and the image of the Swastika, and with it Nazi ideology, its top court says that placing an explanation below the carving is enough. Would either the church or the court allow for any other group to be caricatured in this humiliating way?  

The rising tide of antisemitism in Germany should have motivated the court to send a message that it will no longer be tolerated. In 2021, German Jews were targeted a record of 3,028 times in antisemitic attacks, the highest number since authorities started keeping track of them in 2001.  Last month, Lufthansa Airlines issued an apology after its staff denied around 100 Orthodox Jewish passengers from boarding a flight, in what has been described as an antisemitic incident. In a country that has previously put a lot of effort into promoting Holocaust education and outlawing antisemitic imagery, this trend continues to be disconcerting.  

The court's decision to leave the Judensau in its place is an uncompassionate affront to the victims of the Holocaust and to the Jewish community in Germany.  National Post

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/avi-benlolo-antisemitic-jews-sow-gets-a-free-pass-from-german-court-despite-dark-history

In April 1944, a five-year-old French Jewish boy named Alain Lazar Weil was packed into a train in Paris and shipped to Auschwitz, where he was murdered in the gas chamber. Similarly, a Jewish Czech girl named Vera Schlesingerova was sent to Theresienstadt and then onward to Auschwitz. She was gassed to death by the Nazis at the age of seven. On April 27, 1944, Alberto Segre, an Italian Jew, was deported from Milan and was murdered in Auschwitz. A 42-year-old Dutch Jewish woman named Mina Leuw was murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz in 1942.  

Each victim of the Holocaust had a name. Each victim had a life. Each victim had a family. They woke up each morning, brushed their teeth, had breakfast and went to school or work. They were no different than you and me.  

The Nazis proudly kept meticulous records of the six million Jewish people they murdered. They were shipped by rail on cattle cars throughout Europe. It did not matter if you were Polish, Italian, French, German or Hungarian — your fate as a Jewish person was sealed. There was no mercy for the 1.5 million children who were shot in pits in places like Babi Yar and beaten and gassed in death camps like Sobibor and Majdanek. If you were a mother or a father, you would be stripped naked alongside your children and killed.  

Jiri Teller was born in Prague on April 26, 1925. He was just 18 years of age when he was murdered at Auschwitz, after being deported from Theresienstadt on May 18, 1944. Roza Brin, a 20-year-old Jewish-German woman, was murdered in the gas chamber of Auschwitz in 1942. Born in Casablanca in 1917, Maurice Benloulou moved to Paris, where he was eventually deported and murdered in the Holocaust.  

The Nazis ascribed numbers to their Jewish victims, tattooing them on their arms like cattle. Hungarian Holocaust survivor Max Eisen was tattooed upon arriving in Auschwitz and being selected for slave-labour duties, along with his father and uncle. His number is "A9892." His father Zoltan Eisen’s number was "A9891" and his uncle’s number was "A9893." By the sequence of these numbers, its evident that Max Eisen was standing in a line between his father and uncle, who were shielding him from the horrors to come.  After being worked to exhaustion, Zoltan and Eugene Eisen were murdered in the gas chambers like the other 1.3 million people who passed through the gates of Auschwitz. "Arbeit Macht Frei" (“Work sets you free”), read the sign on the gate of the Auschwitz labour camp, mocking the prisoners as they entered each day after working in the surrounding fields. It was said that the only way any Jewish prisoner could leave Auschwitz was through the chimney, which billowed smoke 24/7.  

There is no hell on earth like Auschwitz. It is the biggest cemetery in the world. Nearly 80 years after the Holocaust, ashes and bone fragments still spill out of the soil like tears. Its blood-soaked ground cries out in pain.  No Jew was immune to the violent antisemitism that took hold in Europe. The Germans influenced and motivated neighbours to turn against each other in killing fields throughout the continent. 

In the book "Holocaust by Bullets," Father Patrick Desbois meticulously documents the travesty and horrors of how ordinary people, especially in rural areas of eastern Europe, helped murder their Jewish neighbours by digging mass graves by the local ravine and shooting them.  No country would take in Jewish refugees fleeing the gas chambers. Among the worst human-rights offender was Canada, whose official stated policy was “none is too many.”  People wanted to forget the atrocities of the Holocaust in the decades that followed. 

The names of its Jewish victims were rarely mentioned until 1961, when Israel tried and executed Adolf Eichmann, the chief architect of the deportation of European Jews. The trial may have awoken a new generation of advocates to speak out and say, “Never again.”  But as we face a mounting surge of antisemitism around the world, today we must look in the mirror and ask: have we defeated this primal evil from the face of this earth once and for all? Apparently the Holocaust was not enough to satiate humanity’s thirst for blood. We see the atrocities committed in Ukraine following the gassing of children in Syria and the horrific genocides in Rwanda, Darfur and Bosnia, and we ask ourselves: when will humanity have enough bloodshed?  

We hold out hope for "never again," but I am worried for the next generation if we fail to confront war and tyranny. The shock of the Holocaust is wearing off and humanity is once again forgetting its horrific lessons.  "Never again" is becoming "ever again," as the seeds of hate and intolerance are germinating once more. We cannot forget the Holocaust nor its victims, because, as the saying goes, those who forget the past are destined to repeat it.  

National Post  Excerpted from a speech given by Avi Benlolo at a Holocaust memorial held at the Israeli Consulate in Toronto on April 28.

Few would argue with the notion that humanity is more educated today than ever before. Despite our advancements in science, medicine, business, academia and the professions however, study after study has pointed to a dumbing down of student knowledge about the Holocaust. As we commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 80th anniversary of the infamous Wannsee Conference in Berlin, which hatched the so-called "Final Solution," making genocide official Nazi policy, yet another study released this week found that nearly a third of North American students think the Holocaust was exaggerated or fabricated.

Given the fact that a Liberation75 study found that 40 per cent of students reported learning about the Holocaust through social media, this revelation demonstrates that our educational system is failing in first and foremost, educating students about a major historical event and second, teaching students how to think critically about social media. In fact, I would assert that every single subject taught at school should include critical analysis of information derived from social media platforms.

Case in point, Israel’s Antisemitism Cyber ​​Monitoring System (ACMS) released shocking figures this week showing that antisemitic posts on five different social media platforms, including threats of violence against Jews, Zionists and Israel, were up 1,200 per cent in May 2021 compared with May 2020. ACMS found a 31.3 per cent year-over-year increase in antisemitic posts on Twitter alone in May 2021. It's not surprising therefore that study after study is finding that social media in particular is dumbing down student knowledge about the Holocaust, while spreading false narratives.

What we are seeing in schools is equally disconcerting. This week, it was revealed that the Ontario College of Teachers revoked the teaching licence of a Timmins teacher who pleaded no-contest to promoting antisemitism, Holocaust denial and 9/11 conspiracy theories in the classroom. Why then should we surprised then when we hear about students at another Ontario school who paraded across a field shouting “Heil Hitler." When booksellers are found selling conspiracy-laden books like “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” or similar films and board games, why are we shocked when the words, “Hitler Was Right” are scrawled on a major highway overpass?

These growing social trends point to a massive failure of the traditional bedrock institutions that once held together our social fabric. Even while the United Nations has now twice adopted resolutions condemning Holocaust denial, and despite the fact that most Western governments are adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's working definition of antisemitism, and despite the growth of international ceremonies marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day annually on Jan.  27 to mark the liberation of Auschwitz, the significance of these activities is clearly not penetrating society.

In order to move the needle on Holocaust education, The Abraham Global Peace Initiative is pushing forward a new values-based framework. While educating students about the Holocaust or any other issue for that matter, the focus must be on building moral and ethical values that allow for better personal choices. We need to focus on building good character in addition to better informed, factually based knowledge.

As we mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day each year, we can turn these negatives into positives by teaching students first, to honour their own nations — especially if they fought the Nazis to liberate Europe. The fight against Nazism is not just for the Jewish community. Canadian, American and British soldiers fought and died to preserve our freedom. Second, we must teach students to find the truth and not abandon facts. The Holocaust happened because the Nazis abandoned truth and replaced it with propaganda. We must teach students to be critical thinkers, especially as social media spreads false information. Thirdly, if we are going to press upon the next generation the importance of learning from humanity’s past mistakes, we need to inspire and empower them to do good. We can do this by promoting positive role models and showing them that they can change the world for the better.

Condemnations are no longer enough. Where is our national action plan? All of these incidents and more point to a need for a reformed Criminal Code that takes social media platforms, retailers and booksellers to task for selling material that propagates hate. To truly and meaningfully mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we must confront these crucial issues. It is vital for all of humanity to rally behind the lessons of the Holocaust so that we can defend our future as one.

National Post January 28, 2022

Avi Abraham Benlolo is the Founder and Chairman of The Abraham Global Peace Initiative.

VIENNA — Hundreds of thousands of Austrian Nazis went on with their lives following the Second World War and the Holocaust. Some estimates range between 800,000 and 950,000 Austrians actively engaged in Hitler’s war against the Jews of Europe and were part of the National Socialist Party. Many resumed ordinary lives and careers, melting back into society after the genocide. They raised families, enjoyed life and died in dignity. Unlike Jewish victims of the Holocaust, their families have a graveside to visit and pay their “respects.”

But what of the children and grandchildren of the six million Jewish children, women and men murdered in the Shoah? Where do they say Kaddish (Jewish prayer for the dead). Do they not deserve the same rights, at the very least as the descendants of Nazis? These were the sentiments spoken by Mr. Kurt Yakov Tutter at a reception in his honour at the Austrian Chancellory this week. In a moving tribute for his campaign to erect the Shoah Wall of Names in Vienna, he was awarded the Ehrenzeichen für Verdienste um die Republik, similar to the Légion d’Honneur in France.

Times are changing in Austria as the nation’s leaders are forcing the country into a moment of truth and reconciliation. Eighty-three years ago, during what is referred to as the November pogroms (also known as Kristallnacht), 112 synagogues and prayer houses were destroyed, while 8,000 people were arrested and 5,000 deported to Dachau concentration camp. Before the Holocaust, 191,481 Jews lived in Austria while no more than 5,000 were left in the country at its conclusion. One eye-witness account from November 10th, 1938 summarized the basic Austrian indifference to Kristallnacht: “In general, there is otherwise the usual Viennese calm.”

For decades Austrians avoided facing the historical truth of their own complicity in the Holocaust. Martin Engelberg, the only Austrian Jewish parliamentarian, told me that in his childhood, Austria’s history stopped in 1918. But today, Austrians are not only being taught about the Holocaust, they have now inaugurated a monument for the nation to recognize and name the 64,400 Austrian Jews who were murdered as a result of the nation’s warm embrace of Nazi Germany — referred to as the Anschluss.

At the Inauguration of the Wall of Names held on November 9 — the eve of Kristallnacht, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said, “we have to protect Jewish life. Our responsibility does not end at Austria’s border. We Austrians have a special responsibility to Israel. When Jews all over the world can live in freedom, only then does the meaning of never again become realized.” Indeed, under the previous leadership of Chancellor Sebastian Kurtz, Austria began a U-turn toward Israel — even raising the Israeli flag over the Chancellery during the Hamas aggression against Israel this past May. Austria has been leading the way at the European Union and mostly voting favourably for Israel at the United Nations.

Canada’s Honourary Consul General of Austria, Marc Bissell expressed that “Austria has taken many steps forward in recent years. The Shoah Wall of Names is a massive step forward. I feel it’s a recognition for both of my great-grandmothers whose names will be on it, that they are not forgotten and through this process, we have remembered them and that’s very special to me and my family.”

In my meeting with Karoline Edtstadler, the Federal Minister for the EU and Constitution at the Federal Chancellery and one of the architects of Austria’s fight against anti-Semitism, she expressed that the former generation of Austrians acted out of bad conscience. “Now we have the feeling that we want to have a flourishing Jewish life for the future of Austria. Monuments like this give meaning to history and how many people were actually murdered. We cannot have a future without reflecting on the past”. Indeed, Edtstadler has been at the forefront of liaising with the Jewish community here in Vienna and implementing a national strategy against anti-Semitism — one of three European nations to do so.

President of the Jewish Community of Vienna Oskar Deutsch lamented that while he is proud to see progress in Austria and a vibrant community life that is flourishing, anti-Semitism has increased markedly. Over the last six months, the community has registered nearly six hundred incidents of anti-Semitism. More significantly, the central community organization which he leads is posting security guards at all schools, synagogues and community institutions to ensure community members feel safe and secure living a Jewish life. Recently, the government allocated some four million Euros to assist the community with security and programs to preserve Jewish life in Austria. It’s a start.

On the heels of the unveiling of the Shoah Wall of Names, I was pleased to also attend and participate in the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism by Austria’s National Football Association, its National Football League and by FK Austria Wien, Vienna’s soccer team. Given the incidences of anti-Semitism at soccer games throughout Europe, the adoption and integration of the fight against anti-Semitism is critical and necessary now more than ever.

For far too long European Jewish community presidents were afraid. They wondered if there was a future for Jewish people in Europe. While the question is still on the table, European nations are starting to aggressively confront their past. However, they must do more in terms of integrating the combating of anti-Semitism into their national laws and frameworks, including prosecuting hate crimes and penalizing social media companies when anti-Semitism is disseminated on their platforms.

In Vienna, Mr. Tutter now has a place to say Kaddish and light a memorial candle for his parents as do many Austrian Jewish descendants who lost family and relatives in the Shoah. Austria may have turned a corner as it faces down its own complicity in the crimes committed against its own citizens. A new generation of Austrian leaders are willing and able to confront their nation’s past. They realize that, as the saying goes, those who do not remember the past are destined to repeat it. A monument is never enough. Continued education, advocacy and social action is necessary now more than ever to defend the past and protect the future.

Avi Abraham Benlolo is the Founder and Chairman of The Abraham Global Peace Initiative

National Post November 12, 2021

As anti-Semitism spirals out of control here at home and around the world, Holocaust survivors have a renewed sense of anxiety about the world around us.

Many have spent the last 76 years reliving the trauma inflicted upon them at notorious death camps like Auschwitz. Many have lived with constant nightmares, along with loneliness and grief over the loss of parents, siblings and relatives. Nevertheless, they went on to rebuild their lives, create new families and, most incredibly, become humanity’s moral compass.

Survivor Max Eisen has dedicated decades of his life to fulfilling a parting promise made to their parents that he would fight to ensure such a travesty never happens again — not to anyone. Eisen has dedicated his life to educating people about the Holocaust and advocating against hate and intolerance.

This week, I visited with him on the first-annual Holocaust Survivor Day. While thanking him for his years of service to humanity, our conversation inevitably led to his deepening concern that humanity is forgetting the lessons of the Holocaust, and that in many ways, history is repeating itself.

The same canards are replaying once more, each time hidden behind a veil. This time it's Israel. Last time it was the economy. And before that, it was treason and disease. The excuses for anti-Semitism are laughable and surreal beyond measure or comprehension, yet the act itself has brought forth violence beyond measure throughout the centuries.

All anti-Semitism has included boycotts of the Jews. All anti-Semitism has called Jews “occupiers,” “settlers” and “colonialists” — an attempt to marginalize and isolate Jewish populations around the world. And all anti-Semitism has included grandiose mythologies — from poisoning wells, to making matzah from Christian blood, to controlling the world’s media and banking system.

Adding onto these libels are today's ludicrous accusations of “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide.” It makes no difference that Israel’s government includes an Islamic party or that the Muslim community is deeply engaged and intertwined in Israeli society.

So why then should we be shocked, or even dismayed, when this week, the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) passed an outrageous resolution charging Israel with “ethnic cleansing” and supporting the “ban on goods produced and exported from the settlements” (a.k.a., boycotting Jewish businesses)? The language of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel comes out of the centuries-old anti-Semitic playbook.

And when Jews attempt to defend themselves against those who wish them harm, the world explodes in anger. That’s why the CLC and some political leaders want to stop the flow of military defence equipment to Israel. How dare Jews defend themselves? Who do they think they are? If they act in self-defence, even in response to a terrorist organization like Hamas … well, that’s just overplaying their cards.

“For me, to see this kind of poison, it brings back horrors,” said Eisen. “I know how deadly these words are. And I see these words now in Canada, in newspapers and online. It’s the lies that become the truth … people bought it and they got on board and this is exactly what happened in Europe pre-World War II.…

"So I am speaking for myself and perhaps other survivors, I’m in my 90s … we should not be forgotten because we have a message to deliver: knowing today what is happening and doing nothing, that is a million times worse.”

Unlike most of us today, Eisen’s generation has stared evil in the eyes. They have experienced the pain of war and of loss. Sadly, renewed silence over anti-Semitism points to a generational shift that is embracing old canards that endanger the very safety and security of the world. As we celebrate and thank our Holocaust survivors around the world for being our moral compass, we must continue their work with renewed and boundless energy.

Elie Wiesel advocated for always taking sides. He warned that neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. That silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. The lessons imparted upon us by Holocaust survivors require action now — before its too late.

Holocaust denial is growing at an accelerated rate. For anyone who hasn’t read through the outrageous beliefs of deniers, it is an eye-opening experience. Whereas once deniers kept their beliefs to themselves, today there is little shame in posting antisemitic views online. In fact, it is now almost commonplace for Jewish leaders to receive absurd antisemitic messages asking if we are still promoting the “Holahoax” or gaining “sympathy for Jews” by teaching about the Holocaust.

A big milestone in the fight against Holocaust denial was finally reached in 2020 when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg decided to ban it. He explained, “With rising antisemitism, we’re expanding our policy to prohibit any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust.” He added, “I’ve struggled with the tension between standing for free expression and the harm caused by minimizing or denying the horror of the Holocaust.”

We are glad to see Zuckerberg has finally listened to what has been said for many years, which is that there is a direct link between antisemitism and violence. How could there not be given the spate of violent antisemitic attacks around the world? The Holocaust itself first began with a process of dehumanization of the Jewish population, and was easily followed up with mass murder.

Holocaust denial is essentially based on four absurd principles: First, conspiracy theorist antisemites argue that the Holocaust was faked by the victors of World War II to weave their own story for their own agenda. Second, Holocaust deniers argue simply that the Holocaust did not happen; it was not a genocide. At worst, they say, it was a series of labor camps. Third, deniers argue that the Holocaust was exaggerated and the evidence proves a much smaller number of people were murdered. Finally, and most disturbingly, Holocaust deniers say that Jews brought the genocide upon themselves and therefore deserved it.

It is one thing to receive antisemitic messages if you are operating in the Jewish world. Its another if you are a young Instagram influencer with some 50,000 followers and trying to genuinely educate them. Recently, one influencer who posts under the name, “the savvy truth” was forced to shut down her comments section because of an onslaught of Holocaust denying antisemitism posted by some followers.

She posted Holocaust-related pictures as evidence of the genocide, alongside the following text: “Jews, Gypsies, [LGBTQ], political enemies, mentally ill … and anyone deemed inferior to the Aryan race were rounded up, stuffed into trains and were sent to concentration camps.  When arriving at these death camps, you were either gassed right away and killed, sent to work hard labor for the rest of your life, forced to walk death marches, or sent to be used as test subjects for eugenics.”

In reply, she received many sympathetic comments, including ones from grandchildren of survivors. But the disparaging comments ultimately led her to disable the comments section “to respect the victims from being disrespected by you idiots.” She asked, “How can you say that the #holocaust was fake? How can you tell Holocaust victims that their horrendous torture didn’t happen?”

Holocaust denial may be on the fringes of society at the moment, but Facebook has identified it as a serious problem. In fact, 11% of US Millennials and Gen Zs believe that Jews are responsible for the Holocaust according to a survey conducted by the Claims Conference. The problem is that while the survey found that Holocaust ignorance is quite high — with some 63% not knowing that six million Jews were murdered — the more troubling part is that some 49% have seen what is now called Holocaust distortion.

That “distortion” is being disseminated online in chat rooms and in response to Holocaust postings like the one mentioned above. Whereas in the past, fringe neo-Nazis reached only a handful of people through face-to-face recruitment and flyers, the Internet can reach billions of people, picking up those who are susceptible to conspiracy theories and hatred for Jews and minority groups.

These outrageous sentiments are becoming more perceptible online and on the street. Holocaust deniers contradict themselves by promoting Nazi ideology. After all, if there was no Holocaust, could there have been a Nazi ideology in the first place? We can visibly see this contradiction on a daily basis when swastikas are graffitied on synagogues, Jewish businesses, and on streets, as they were in Paris this past weekend. We also see it through state-sponsored antisemitism, as in the case of Iran — a hostile nation that is coincidentally launching its fifth annual Holocaust cartoon contest.

Jewish people face denial of their history and existence every day. There are those who attempt to deny the historical fact that Israel is not their homeland. They try and explain away archeology that shows we are indigenous to that land. And for more than 2,000 years, many have attempted to deny their faith by trying to convert them through religious inquisitions. And now, once again, deniers are trying to rewrite history by erasing the memory of the six million.

We cannot let them continue spreading their falsehoods. Now more than ever, we must double our energy to educate and advocate about the Holocaust — particularly in Europe and America. If not now, when?

In an age of Jojo Rabbit and romanticized and cartoonish Holocaust-themed movies and television series, the line between fact and fiction is becoming blurred. From The Man in the High Castle to Inglorious Bastards, to Hunters now playing on Amazon Prime, we are confronted with alternate possibilities mixed with reality.

It’s not only in film. Numerous Holocaust-related novels are published and sold each year – including the latest best seller The Tattooist of Auschwitz. The Guardian says that the Auschwitz Memorial disputes the love story (the tattooist fell in love with a girl he was tattooing), claiming “the book contains numerous errors and information inconsistent with the facts, as well as exaggerations, misinterpretations and understatements.” The publisher maintains “every reasonable attempt to verify the fact against available documentation has been made.”

Alternate realities presented in mass culture threaten to diminish the Holocaust. Already we are seeing signs of this cultural shift. If it is acceptable to reinterpret the story of the Holocaust in differing modes of entertainment production, can we be surprised by its perversion last week at the Campo de Criptana festival in Spain? 

That city’s annual parade featured dancing Nazis with guns, scantily clad women dressed in concentration camp uniforms and waving Israeli flags, a float being driven by a Nazi on a motorcycle, crematoria motif and worse, along the parade route Rihanna’s “Where Have You Been” blasted for the Nazi actors and the crowds lining the street to dance to.

The organizers say that the parade was actually meant to memorialize the Holocaust! In an age of warped satirical cartoonish mass cultural entertainment – for this town and its organizers, in their mind, this perversion of the Holocaust was perfectly reasonable. Consider the months and months of preparation of dance routines, costume design and float construction. Hundreds of people were involved in creating this Holocaust “entertainment” piece. Did anyone think it would be construed as antisemitic? It was.

The same satire is derived from pure antisemitism found at the Aalst Carnival in Belgium. Over the last two years, stereotypical depictions of Jewish people have been exhibited in the parade. This year, a group walked around the parade dressed up like insects with fur hats worn by ultra-Orthodox men. These depictions are helped by the seeming mass acceptance of Holocaust revisionism coupled with a growth of antisemitism.

The Shoah is very personal and belongs to its victims, its survivors and their children. Preserving its historical truth and the memory of its six million Jewish victims and millions of non-Jewish victims is paramount now more than ever – especially in an age of alternative truths. As educators, it is our responsibility to educate with truth in hand, with survivor testimony and with expert analysis. Alternate reality can be entertaining and maybe serve our alter-ego, but let this be a warning: the road from revisionism to denial is very short.

"What took so long? So sorry but you had 76+ years to prosecute Nazi war criminals.  This week you announced you would be charging a 100-year old Nazi in addition to a 95-year old secretary". 

Dear Germany:

What took so long? So sorry, but you had 76+ years to prosecute Nazi war criminals.  This week you announced you would be charging a 100-year old Nazi in addition to a 95-year old secretary.  

Your prosecutors charged the 100-year-old man with 3,518 counts of being an accessory to murder at Sachsenhausen concentration camp from 1942 to 1945.  In the other case, a 95-year old woman was also charged with accessory to murder for serving as the secretary of the SS commandant of the Stutthof concentration camp. 

Yes. We all agree and expect they should be charged. That there is no statute of limitation to charging war criminals.  And no one should ever get away with murder no matter their age - even at 100.

But dear Germany, it was not until 2011 that a new legal precedent was set in connection with Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk's conviction as accessory to some 28,000 murders at Sobibor.  He died shortly after receiving sentence. Then, in 2015, you convicted 94-year-old Auschwitz guard Oskar Groening ('The Accountant of Auschwitz').  He also died before his sentence could be carried out because of a series of appeals. 

It's now common knowledge and widely reported that fewer than 50 of the estimated 6,500 Auschwitz guards who served there over the years were ever convicted.  And those are just the guards.  What about the commanders, soldiers, cooks, railway engineers, crematoria construction workers, architects, logistics officials, administrative staff, maintenance personnel and daytime workers from surrounding villages?  Who ordered the Zyklon-B canisters? 

Multiply this idea by over 40,000 concentration and labour camps plus ghettos spread across Europe and you start getting the picture of just how many people got away with murder.The number of "participants" could be well into the hundreds of thousands and possibly, 500,000 or more. 

We know that people had a choice.  They did not have to participate in the killing machine. Irena Sendler, a Polish social worker who worked in the Warsaw Ghetto and saved 2,500 children recognized this basic fact herself.  She said:  "Heroes do extraordinary things. What I did was not an extraordinary thing. It was normal".

I have visited the camps probably more than anyone should.  I have walked nearly every inch of Auschwitz, Majdanek, Sachsenhausen, Stutthof, and Ravensbruck. I have seen the pain and torment in the eyes of survivors. To understand the magnitude of what took place in those camps between 1939 and 1945, we must peel back the layers to understand why mostly ordinary people directly or as accessories participated in murder. 

So, pardon me Germany, but why had possibly hundreds of thousands of people who were accessory to murder not been brought to stand trial?  Why did you wait this long for a what appears to be a final attempt at reckoning of justice?  Unlike these perpetrators, the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of others did not have a chance to marry, raise families, and live to old age - like these Nazi war criminals whom you are now charging.  

Should we be satisfied?  We must ask these critical questions - not to relive this tragic past, but to ensure that it never ever happens again. And how can we be sure, dear Germany?  After all, just yesterday you reported that antisemitism is becoming more socially acceptable again.  You said that 2,275 antisemitic crimes have been registered up to January 2021.  Some 55 of those acts were violent. 

One wonders, therefore, if your population has really reconciled with its Nazi past? Had more Germans taken an interest in prosecuting more war criminals, could that have provided greater education and alleviated the growing antisemitic incidents? We do not know. 

Had Germany moved faster and with greater conviction to prosecute Nazi war criminals, it might have had an impact on our own prosecutions in Canada. We began mobilizing in the 1980s to investigate war criminals. The Deschene Commission found 774 possible war criminals in the country.  The list was whittled down to 20 strong possibilities. But legal stalemate after stalemate --including this week against a 96-year old accused war criminal - has seen very little justice served. 

Everything that happens in one place has impact on another.  This week's ruling in Poland against two academics who dared assert that there were some Polish citizens who may have been complicit in the Holocaust sent shockwaves around the world. It presents a chill to academic freedom and free speech itself. Holocaust research and action against its perpetrators must be central to ensuring nothing like the Holocaust ever happens again.  

Prosecuting war criminals is essential, especially in this climate of rising antisemitism. This week was especially horrible as we bore witness to synagogues being vandalized and desecrated, a Jewish frat house spray-painted with swastikas and even eggs thrown at an Israeli flag hung from the balcony of a student dormitory.  Worse, a TikTok video was circulating of an Orthodox man being chased by the very perpetrators who video-taped the incident. 

Germany, you have made some efforts to combat antisemitism by appointing Felix Klein as a special commissioner in this regard.  Also, you have been positive with respect to Israel.  In particular, you correctly stood up for Israel's sovereignty against the International Criminal Court ruling this week. We keep this mind and acknowledge all positive steps you have undertaken.  

At the same time, we need to ask you why have so many Nazis gotten away with murder?

It may have taken place 14,000 kilometres away, but the recent trial of a killer in New Zealand highlights the threat that white supremacist neo-Nazi groups pose to open societies. The killer entered a mosque and shot 51 people in cold blood and injured 40 others — all because of a racist ideology.

Rooted in Nazism, that ideology is based on Hitler’s false notion of racial superiority. At the top were the Germans, or “Aryans” — people with white skin, fair hair and light eyes who were supposedly physically stronger than all others. Based on theories of genetics, evolution and the notion of racial impurity, the Nazis classified races, placing Jews at the bottom of their made-up hierarchy.

It was a calculated strategy designed to delegitimize, marginalize and dehumanize Jews, along with groups like the Roma and even people with disabilities. Jews, for instance, were described and portrayed in Nazi imagery as rats and vermin. Physical measurements such as the size of their skulls, their noses and their height were used in propaganda materials to show that they had evolutionary deficiencies, in order to ready the German population for the eventual annihilation of the Jews.

Hitler and the Nazis may be gone, but their ideology survives and, in some cases, thrives. The New Zealand shooter produced a manifesto alluding to “white genocide” conspiracy theories. His manifesto allegedly contained anti-immigrant sentiments and concern over non-European immigrants invading the country — a common perception among white supremacists and nationalists.

With all this in mind, Canadians have much to be concerned about. In fact, a report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank based in the United Kingdom, identified significant white supremacist activity in Canada. Its report “identified 6,660 right-wing extremist channels, pages, groups and accounts across seven media platforms … the reach of these channels, pages, groups and accounts was significant, and collectively they reached over 11 million users across these platforms.”

This is hardly surprising. Part of the problem is our lax laws pertaining to online hate, and a lack of any sort of regulatory body to address the issue. It’s no wonder that hateful videos have recently shown up online calling Jews parasites and arguing for them to be removed from the country. And it took a number of years for the courts to take down an anti-Semitic and misogynistic newspaper that was circulated both online and in print.

The North American white supremacist movement became even more emboldened after the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. Those who took part in it were mainly members of the so-called alt-right movement and comprised many streams, including white nationalists, Klansmen and neo-Nazis. Marchers chanted racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric, including the now infamous slogan, “The Jews will not replace us” — a conspiracy theory, which suggests that Jews want to take over the world.

We have all been affected by mass shootings connected to racism and intolerance. In Quebec City, six people were brutally murdered and another 19 injured in an attack on a Muslim cultural centre in 2017. The following year, a white supremacist attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 worshippers and wounding six others.

The New Zealand mosque shooter may have been sentenced to life without parole, but the ideology that drove him to this rampage, like all hateful ideologies, survives and continues to infect generation after generation of disenfranchised people.

As the world continues to teeter on the brink of ethnic conflict, as race riots and demonstrations persist in America and Europe, and as class warfare is heightened by loss of employment due to COVID-19, white supremacists will attempt to seize on this instability and grow their base. We need to be far more concerned about this threat, and far bolder in addressing it. The time is now.

It’s often said that the Holocaust began on Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. The world had already turned upside down for German Jews, with increasing laws and regulations against them imposed by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party. The hate and incitement directed against the Jewish community came to a head on the evening of Nov. 9, 1938 — 82 years ago.

In a two-day spree, Nazi storm troopers, Hitler Youth and ordinary German citizens participated in the destruction of some 267 synagogues and the plundering of an estimated 7,500 Jewish-owned businesses, schools and community centres. About 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps — what would be the start of many mass deportations.

Approximately 91 Jews were murdered and hundreds injured over the span of 24 hours, although some argue the numbers were much higher. On Nov. 11, 1938, the Times of London reported that, “No foreign propagandist bent upon blackening Germany before the world could outdo the tale of burnings and beatings, of blackguardly assaults on defenceless and innocent people, which disgraced that country yesterday.”

The famous quote that would foreshadow future events in Germany — “Wherever they burn books, in the end (they) will also burn human beings” — was written by Heinrich Heine in 1827. An assimilated German Jew, Heine converted to Protestantism in order to be published and accepted by the German intelligentsia. Despite his wishful thinking, copies of his books would be burned in the 1933 Nazi book burnings of Jewish intellectual works.

Book burnings, which Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels said was proof that “the era of extreme Jewish intellectualism (is) now at an end,” would transform hateful rhetoric into consecutive phases of violence: Kristallnacht, ghettoization and genocide.

By 1938, Germany was on the road to self-disgrace. It wasn’t enough for the national socialist party to make its Jewish citizens a pariah of the state through marginalization, isolation, ridicule, shame and street violence. The worst part of it all was that no one spoke up. No one spoke out. Ordinary people participated in silence in this dehumanizing process that would lead to the greatest shame humanity has ever known.

We stand before the Almighty on this day of broken glass and cry out over the horrific behaviour on that night and the subsequent nights that led to the murder of six million Jewish children, women and men. Like the shattered glass of that night and the destroyed dreams of countless victims, we feel broken. We stand before you, therefore, as a Muslim and a Jew who have come together in brotherhood to renounce terror and hate.

Our mutual obsession is to ensure that nothing like the Shoah ever happens again — to anyone.

From these lessons, we examine our relationship with each other and with the world today. Five years ago, the world witnessed the Islamic State conquer strategic parts of the Middle East and expand its caliphate at an unprecedented speed. Its adherents pillaged, raped and murdered anyone they disliked, including the Yazidis, and changed the face of the region. We have seen the horrible gassing of civilians in Syria and the slaughter of innocents in France.

During the last decade, and amidst this chaos, which contributed to the existing conflicts in the region, groups of interfaith activists and prominent individuals were preaching about a peaceful future and a brighter tomorrow. For many people, these events were nothing more than entertainment and an opportunity to socialize. Little did we know that peace was right around the corner. It will soon become a lived reality.

Today, it is safe to say that the Abraham Accords are only the beginning. The warm peace agreements and positive developments in the Middle East are bringing the children of Abraham together after a long period of unnecessary conflict. What makes this peace unique is that it is not just establishing peace on a political and diplomatic level, it is establishing it on a human level, as well.

Who would’ve imagined that Muslim-majority countries would one day back the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, and then be followed by the largest council of Sunni and Shiite Muslim clerics? Or that the Albanian parliament would endorse the definition, making it the first Muslim-majority country to formally adopt it?

This groundbreaking peace movement throughout the Middle East is calling for an end to anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. For far too long, anti-Semitism has played a leading role in this region, much of it emanating from Nazi ideology — Hitler’s Mein Kampf is still regularly found in local shops and anti-Semitic materials are often sold at book fairs. That’s why we are proud that the Global Imams Council, which represents some1,000 imams, has formally adopted the IHRA definition.

The definition is crucial because it provides contemporary examples of anti-Semitism in public life. In order to truly achieve peace, we must eliminate the sources of extremism and terrorism. In recent years, attacks on Jewish synagogues and individuals have been formally classified as terrorist attacks that stem from hatred towards Jews — in other words, they were anti-Semitic attacks.

(This article was originally written by Avi Benlolo and Imam Mohammed Tawhidi)

As the memory of the Holocaust fades — and after the world recently commemorated the 76th anniversary of the end of World War II — there is growing concern among Holocaust survivors about who will remember them. One survivor recently asked: “Who will remember us when we are gone?”

Now, a national survey on the Holocaust knowledge of American Millennials and Gen Z reveals shocking results. The survey, conducted for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference), says it is the first ever 50-state survey of its kind. In all, it found that 63% of all national respondents do not know that six million Jews were murdered.

Just as surprising, 36% thought that “two million or fewer Jews” were killed during the Holocaust. Even though there were 40,000 camps and ghettos in Europe, it is astounding to learn that 48% of national survey respondents could not name a single one.

Millennials are generally considered those born between 1980 and 2000 — and have born witness to many social events, including having prolific access to Holocaust survivors and more opportunities to learn about this unparalleled genocide. For Generation Z — generally born after 1996 — this group is supposedly the most educated and knowledgeable in history, given their superb access to digital information.

Most concerning, given the iconic standing of the most notorious death camp in human history, 56% of US Millennials and Gen Z respondents were unable to identify Auschwitz-Birkenau and “there was virtually no awareness of concentration camps and ghettos overall,” according to the survey. In some states like Arkansas, Delaware, and Arizona, the ignorance level hovered over 67%.

Sadly, the survey advises that some 11% of US Millennials and Gen Z respondents believe Jews caused the Holocaust. In New York, a state that contains a city with the most number of Jews who reside there, the survey reveals that 19% of respondents believe Jews caused the Holocaust.

Even while some 59% of respondents indicate they believe something like the Holocaust could happen, perhaps the way we are teaching the Holocaust needs to be re-evaluated. In my experience, we need studies conducted on effective methodologies that teach about the Holocaust — especially as Holocaust survivors are unfortunately passing away.

The rise of digital media has also planted conspiracy theories and false information about the Holocaust. The fomentation of antisemitism and Holocaust denial on social media has created false narratives and ideologies concerning the Holocaust. In fact, many Holocaust deniers plant information that is misleading — and this impacts the knowledge level of new generations.

It is no coincidence that the survey found that 49% of US Millennials and Gen Z have seen Holocaust denial or distortion posts on social media or elsewhere. Similarly, 50% indicated that they had seen Nazi symbols on their social media platforms. For this reason, as I have written elsewhere, social networking platforms like TikTok and Facebook are ramping up their hate speech policies.

Still, there is little comfort in this survey’s results. Some would argue more education is needed. The question is — how can we make Holocaust education more effective for millions of students to digest and understand? Our traditional means may no longer be relevant, and new concepts and platforms need to be developed.

People are talking about the American Nazi war criminal, Jakiw Palij, who was stripped of his citizenship and deported to Germany for his alleged crimes as a former labour camp guard during the Second World War.

Canadian media is widely reporting on this “last” Nazi war criminal in America. But how has Canada dealt with “our” Nazi war criminals who snuck into this country under false pretense to escape justice for their horrific crimes? Many came here and lived mundane and ordinary lives — raising families and going to work daily. Their past remained hidden for decades.

In fact, no one really knows how many Nazi war criminals entered this country. We do know that a special commission enacted by then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in 1985 to investigate claims about Nazi war criminals residing in this country found around 774 possible war criminals in this country. An addendum listed 38 names and provided an additional list of 71 German scientists and technicians.

The Deschenes Commission headed by Judge Jules Deschenes subsequently whittled down the list to 20 strong possibilities and referred them to government with detailed recommendations on how to proceed.

Of the 20 possibilities, Canada obtained around 10 denaturalizations — a strategy taken from the Americans to deport war criminals who falsified their involvement in war crimes to get into the country. According to reports, Canada failed to deport any. Two left on their own and seven of the remaining eight had natural deaths while remaining in this country.

Of these, it appears that as recently as this past May, one defendant remains with an open case — Helmut Oberlander. He is accused of serving in a Nazi death squad that murdered Jewish and non-Jewish civilians.

Oberlander says he was a low-level interpreter, but the government has tried to revoke his citizenship four times. He has denied lying to unlawfully enter Canada or killing anyone, and reportedly no evidence has been presented to a court that he personally participated in war crimes.

However, given recent new application of prosecution policy in Germany to try Nazi war criminals as “accessory to murder,” alleged war criminals who claim they were just following orders or were not part of the killing would likely face conviction if deported to Germany.

It is all too little too late. But there should never be age limitation for murderers and their accomplices.

The last published report from Canada’s Program on Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes ended in 2015. The report further states that “the majority of cases related to the Second World War have been concluded.”

Our handling of the Nazi war crimes files is a national shame. But it’s not ours alone. Many other countries, including America, will one day reconcile themselves to how we allowed so many to get away with heinous crimes.

Insufficient research has been conducted about the mass crimes committed in small and large towns throughout Eastern Europe by the Germans and their accomplices. Untold numbers of towns and villages recruited civilians to facilitate the murder of Jewish neighbours in forests and fields nearby. 

In fact, Father Patrick Desbois has documented well over 2,000 instances through many years of investigative work, including interviews of elderly townspeople who witnessed and sometimes participated in the atrocities.

In his new book titled “In Broad Daylight”, Desbois documented how gentiles turned on their Jewish neighbours. He carefully documented the process in which Nazis gave the order to the local police chief who then recruited dozens of men to assist. The process was exact and similar in all cases whereby Jews were isolated into raw ghettos usually fenced into an area for a period of time while their gentile neighbours dug carefully selected pits and helped in their transport for the final killing. It’s hard to imagine that little children, the elderly and frail, women and men were brought together as families, made to strip of their clothes (so the Nazis could recycle them) and lined up in pits and shot pointblank. 

Witnesses routinely recount the screaming and the fear once the people realized they were about to be murdered. The killers spent full days shooting and shooting and shooting – while many of the townspeople looked on.

Entire villages and towns were therefore complicit in the murders. In fact, Desbois’ book captures the capitalist-like spirit – the systematic process in which thousands of ordinary people volunteered to participate in the murder. He writes about the “architect” – the people who drew up the plans for the murder, including the size and measurement of the pits. 

He describes “The Requisitions” in which the Nazis demanded or requisitioned people’s trucks, horses, shovels and labour itself to facilitate the murders. He talks about the “diggers” and the “transporters” whose jobs it was to dig the pits and to transport the Jews to them – and of the catering and cooks who prepared the meals for the murderers so that there wouldn’t be delay.

When Desbois asked one of the “diggers” about who gave the orders and the dimensions, one said: “The Germans. It was the German from the Gestapo. He stood off to the side while we dug the grave…He had paced it out. The grave was deep…he simply measured four meters for the length and four meters for the width, and he drew them with his shovel.” So while the Germans directed the killing, ordinary people – recruited mainly by local police – were active agents throughout the process. It could not have happened this way had gentile neighbours not turned against their Jewish neighbours – had they resisted the Nazis.

Thus, what we know about the murders in concentration camps is only half the knowledge of what truly took place in the Holocaust. Aside from concentration camps, Jewish people were murdered openly on streets; in ghettos; by herding into barns and setting them on fire; and of course through the SS mobile killing squads like the Einsatzgruppen. 

In fact, it is believed that 2 million Jews were murdered in this way or 40% of all Jews. Let us not forget Babi Yar in Kiev where about 100,000 people (mostly Jews) were murdered by Germans in 1941 by shooting. 

Let us not forget this account about the Krepiecki Forest, just outside of Lublin and Majdanek. “The Jews were driven down from the trucks and they were led to the same place where the children were murdered. Some of the Jews held their children in their arms. I observed the massacre from a distance of about 150 metres but from a different direction than before. Germans drove the Jews down to the pits. There were horrible screams. 

A group of six SS officers and Lithuanians shot into the Jews who were already in the pits. I’m sure that they were SS men because on their caps they had death’s head insignia and on their sleeves the signs of SS.” (Source: www.holocaustresearchproject.org/einsatz/krepiecki)

Researchers have only scratched the surface of our understanding of the perhaps millions of people who lie beneath fields and ravines – whom we will never know about. They are undocumented and erased from history. There are no gravestones to mark their existence.Their property had been immediately stolen by their neighbours and all personal belongings recycled or burned. 

We cannot possibly account for this incredible crime against humanity which was committed by the Germans – but also by those who collaborated and conspired with them. Those who stood by and said and did nothing.

More research is necessary to uncover and document as many mass graves as possible. Unfortunately, too many neighbours and Nazis have gotten away with murder. But the least we can do is to identify the mass graves and mark them with a headstone for eternity.