(Jewish Group) Bad Holocaust Analogies Ironically Show The Stunning Success Of Holocaust Education

[Behind the Aegis]

(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)

When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez referred to detention centers for asylum seekers in the U.S. as “concentration camps”, a controversy rightfully erupted. Some decried AOC for trivializing the Holocaust; others defended her statement as a legitimate image to draw attention to suffering and inhumanity. Others argued the fine points of terminology (she said “concentration camps,” not “extermination camps”).

Fundamentally, though, both sides of that controversy embodied and demonstrated a major Jewish victory: the stunning success, at least as measured by awareness, of Holocaust education. The question remains whether that victory was a pyrrhic one.

For decades, the Jewish community has been educating the world about the horrors of the Holocaust. Museums were built, best-selling books were written, and powerful movies were produced. In most of the Western world, the Holocaust is part of school curricula and Holocaust Remembrance Day is marked in most countries. And that exercise in historical memory was, in fact, incredibly successful.


Yes, there’s still Holocaust denial and obfuscation, but it would be almost impossible to find anybody in the Western world who doesn’t know what “concentration camps” are. Most human beings on the planet have a visceral, instinctive reaction when seeing a Nazi symbol — and that’s good.

But here’s the paradox: By highlighting the Shoah as the ultimate example of evil — which it was — we made it into the yardstick by which all evil is to be measured. We can’t be surprised, then, that when anybody wants to call something “evil” they will measure it by that yardstick.

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