Pauline Jelinek of the Associated Press informs us in a dispatch I received today that the world's Numero Uno "Holocaust Survivor", Elie Wiesel - who survived, incidentally, by choosing to flee ***with the Germans*** while pursued by the Red Army hordes - asked that a panel of of legislators read the Congressional Record from the years 1939 to 1945 -- part of the Hitler era.
''The senators who had power ... did they speak up?'' about "Nazi hatred and persecution", Wiesel asked accusingly. "They knew...Washington knew!''
He was speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, ". . . urging lawmakers to fight "re-emerging anti-Semitism and other prejudice around the world."
What might Wiesel be speaking of now?
As I was having my coffee break, I searched for some clues, and I found the following telling statistics of right-wing victories in Europe in 1999:
* The Danish People's Party: 13 seats of 179 seats in the Parliament (7%)
* The Progress Party of Norway: 25 seats of 165 seats in the Parliament (15%)
* The People's Party of Switzerland: 44 seats in the 200-seat National Council (22%)
* Belgium's Vlams Bloc (sp?): 15 of the 150 seats in the Chamber of Representatives (10%) and 18 of the 56 seats on the Antwerp City Council (32%)
* The Austrian Freedom Party: 52 of the 183 seats in the National Council (28%)
Of course it does not follow that these "right wing" representatives are representing "anti-semitism and other prejudice" - but we can safely infer that what we see here is a TREND of disaffected citizens.
Translated into numbers, we're talking millions upon millions.
Wiesel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
''I belong to a traumatized generation that has witnessed the defeat of Nazism and communism, but not that of hatred,'' said Wiesel. ''Had I considered the possibility hatred would re-emerge so soon, I would not have believed it.''
He neglected to tell them the quote for which he is best known, at least in right-wing circles:
"Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate--healthy, virile hate--for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German. To do otherwise would be a betrayal of the dead."
He is the one who should know. His hate embedded in that quote is recorded for all times in Legends of Our Times - and numerous other places.
The hearing at which Wiesel spoke is described as having "brought together a disparate group of witnesses to talk about the ''Legacy of the Holocaust.''
''Hatred did not die in Auschwitz,'' Wiesel lectured the committee. ''Jews perished there, not anti-Semitism. Hatred is still alive and well.''
He also told them this:
''Nazis and neo-Nazis are everywhere. I don't know who finances them, but they are active and vocal and we find them everywhere.''
Predictably, he also offers a solution what to do about those "who deny the Holocaust or espouse hatred and prejudice":
''Should there be a way of checking when and where their words cross the line of free speech, which is so important to us?'' he asked. ''When it becomes a cycle of hate and violence, what are we to do? What can you do as the lawmakers of this land?''
Always tempted to censor critics - First Amendment or not!
The Middle East was also of concern to members of this hearing:
American Jewish Committee Executive Director David A. Harris urged the panel to look at what his organization called the ''shocking revival of vitriolic anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial'' across the Arab world.
''Islamic anti-Semitic activity in the Middle East can no longer be ignored or downplayed or viewed as little more than an Arab negotiating tactic in the complex Arab-Israeli peace talks,'' he said in his prepared testimony.
''There is an urgent need to reject this behavior unconditionally,'' he said, citing comments by the Mufti of Jerusalem trivializing the Holocaust during the Pope's pilgrimage there last month.
The National Conference on Soviet Jewry also weighed in. Members of that group suggested that U.S. officials ". . . should emphasize to their counterparts in former Soviet states the importance of democracy and minority rights", according to this article.
''We would never have imagined a post-Soviet landscape littered with neo-Nazi and fascist-oriented extremists visibly trying to revive the ... ideology against which the Russian people battled so fiercely,'' said Mark B. Levin, executive director of the group, which advocates on behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States and Eurasia.
Wailed Wiesel:
''It is with sadness and frustration that we must face reality ... ethnic hatred in Kosovo and Rwanda, nationalist hatred in Chechnya, political hatred in the Middle East."
May we point out that he conveniently forgot the kind of ethnic hatred showcased in Canada that pursues senile old men in wheelchairs or on stretchers, or the kind of ethnic hatred in Germany that imprisoned a political scientist ". . . not for what he said, but for what he should have said. . . ", or the kind of Israeli's ethnic hatred in Palestine that shoots at rock-throwing youngsters with rubber bullets consisting of a core of lead, maiming tens of thousands, breaking the bones of thousands more in state-approved torture?
Or, to say it starkly:
The kind of ethnic hatred that stated without shame - as a famous Israeli rabbi did after Baruch Goldstein killed 29 Palestinians in February 1994 at prayer - that ". . . a million Arabs aren't worth the dirt under a Jew's fingernails"?
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
"I received a gift of the book, "Time /CBS News People of the Century." I noted that they had Elie Weisel write about Adolf Hitler.
"My initial reaction was surprise that such would be chosen (ahem!!!) to write about Hitler. However, after clearing my thoughts it made perfect sense.
Wiesel wrote,"Not being a professional historian, I take on this essay with fear and trembling. That's because, although defeated, although dead, this man is frightening."
(Letter to the Zundelsite)