Thu, 2 Jul 1998 18:45:48 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from staff@stewards.net) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1998 18:45:48 -0400 (EDT) To: , PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK From: staff@stewards.net (Eric Sommer) Subject: A Stewards' Thoughts on the Holocaust. >Hi Elena, > >Thanks for your message below on the issue of the `unique' or `non-unique' character of the holocaust. > >As you know, I am the chief coordinator of the Chiapas Alert Network, an organization which works to halt the extreme violence and intimidation currently directed by both paramilitary and military forces against the 3 million Mayan and other Indigenous people of Chiapas, Mexico. I am also a member of the Stewards Corporation movement, which is a new movement of poor people who seek to work together to care for one another and the Earth. > >From my perspecitve, the holocaust was an attempt to wipe out the Jewish people which also included various forms of `surplus' cruelty above and beyond the measures necessary to kill people. Similarly brutal measures were, as you well know, taken by the Nazi's against Gypsies, communists, homosexuals, etc. Two thousand years of Christian anti-semitism; authoritarian personality traits of the German and other instigators; the barbarism and racism inculcated by facist and Nazi ideology; and the deprivations the German people suffered after world war I and during the depression, are some of the causes pointed out by scholars as leading to the Hitlerian dictatorship and ultimately to the holocaust. > >In our time Kurds in the Middle East, Moslems in Bosnia, Tutsi's in Rawanda, Mayan People in Chiapas and Guatemala, and poor people around the world have also, in one way or another, been targeted for elimination. The Asian economic crisis will, by the end of this year, have put roughly half the people of Indonesia, or approximately 100 million people, below the poverty line and at risk of starvation, according to information released in the past few days by the Indonesian government and the World Bank. In light of such realities, the issue of whether the Holocaust is `unique' or not is, for me, a somewhat `scholastic' question. > >To some degree, I see every event, whether large or small in scope, as unique. At the same time, every event, whether world historical or trivial, also includes similarities or commonalisties with other events. The `Black Holocaust', for example, in which several million Black people perished under horrible conditions in the slave ships which brought them from Africa to the Americas, might for certain purposes be likened to the Jewish holocaust, though in other respects these two holocausts differ. Far more important than whether the holocaust is `unique' in an `absolute' sense (whatever that may mean) is that we remember the holocaust both to honor its victems, and to innoculate ourselves and our world against indifference to the dangers and realities of the holocausts and mini-holocausts which history call upon us to confront in OUR time. `Where is God? God is wherever justice is done'. > >Cordially yours, >Eric Sommer > >>>Date: Thu, 2 Jul 1998 09:08:16 -0500 >>>Reply-To: H-NET List for History of the Holocaust >>> >>>Sender: H-NET List for History of the Holocaust >>> >>>From: "Mott, Jim" >>>Subject: Re: Roth resigns from USHMM post ...(Prystowsky) >>>To: H-HOLOCAUST@H-NET.MSU.EDU >>> >>>From: Richard Prystowsky >>>So, there you have it. A first-rate scholar understandably resigns rather >>>than put up with such unwarranted grief. >>>For the record, I've never, ever heard John say anything or read anything >>>in John's work that would indicate that he minimizes the uniqueness of the >>>Holocaust. To try to draw lessons from this Event, as he and so many >>>others have done, including lessons involving analogies between Holocaustal >>>cruel behavior and other forms of atrocious behavior-again, as he and so >>>many others have done-is hardly to minimize the Holocaust's uniqueness. >>> Folks on this list should know that one of John's supporters is Lawrence >>>Langer, whose work has been so hard-hitting viz. attempts made by persons >>>to make the Holocaust somehow easier to bear or somehow not very unique. >>>I don't mean to offer an ad hominem here; rather, I merely want to remind >>>us that the museum has lost not an enemy to Holocaust studies or someone >>>who is insensitive to victims and their unique plight, but, instead, a >>>scholar of great integrity, humanness, and insight. Just ask the survivors >>>who know John personally whether or not he is a man worthy of our esteem >>>and admiration. >>>We're all the worse for this state of affairs, in my view. >>> >>>------------------------------------ >>>Richard J. Prystowsky >>>School of Humanities and Languages >>>Irvine Valley College >>>5500 Irvine Center Drive >>>Irvine, CA 92620 >>>Phone: 949-451-5206 >>>Fax: 949-451-5270 >>>e-mail: rjprys@ix.netcom.com; rprystowsky@ivc.cc.ca.us >>> >> >> >> >> >