There is a lot of discussion about the potential parallels between what we are living through currently and the time period of the Nazi’s rule over Germany. The author of this article, a Jewish citizen of Israel, writes about how we cannot undermine the atrocities of this time period by making casual comparisons. But we also need to remember how history unfolded because there are some eerie similarities. You can read the full article HERE.
Let me be clear: Banning entry to concerts or restaurants, restricting travel, and denying employment or school enrollment can never be compared to sending people to concentration camps or gas chambers. There is no equation, period.
Yet if we wish to give more than lip service to safeguarding the future – and the present – of the Jewish people and humankind, it is vital to remember that those unfathomable horrors did not arise in a vacuum. The slaughter of six million could not have been carried out without the prior acquired acquiescence of the German people. Just as the Jews were not immediately rounded up as slaves when they arrived in Egypt, but rather flourished there until they were labeled a threat to the polity and coaxed into paid labor, which in time turned forced and brutal, the evils of Nazism unfolded in stages.