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A few years ago, on #HolocaustMemorialDay 
, I was lucky enough to be present at a talk given by the venerated Prof. Yehuda Bauer, one of the world’s greatest Holocaust historians, at which he tackled the question of whether the Holocaust was unique among genocides. /1
, I was lucky enough to be present at a talk given by the venerated Prof. Yehuda Bauer, one of the world’s greatest Holocaust historians, at which he tackled the question of whether the Holocaust was unique among genocides. /1
The answer surprised: It was unique-but not in numbers killed, or the proportion of a people annihilated, but this: that genocides are often instigated as a result of rivalries over land, resources or perceived threats, but that once it is clear that the targeted community is /2
...rendered impotent, stripped of all land, property, possessions and dignity, when demonstrably defeated, the impetus of the slaughter slows. But in relation to the Nazis, it was not enough that Jews were reduced to literal nakedness. The Nazi drive to slaughter was unabated. 3/
What is more, the Nazis stated it was their intention to annihilate Jews wherever in the world their conquests took them after Europe. 4/
This view of Jews as a global evil then, so threatening that American Jewish children might be next to be murdered, makes the Holocaust unique, according to Bauer. But the Nazi view was not uniquely Nazi. Not in history and not now. /5
We find it in the rantings of Islamists like Hezbollah, in numerous conspiracy theories, and it peeks through in the attempts of polite educated western folk to isolate Israel as some kind of cancer in the world that must be excised. /6
Antisemitism does not stand for all forms of racism. What makes it particular makes Jewish suffering particular and the Holocaust particular-and why, despite the fact that we rightly remember other genocides on this day, it retains its name: #HolocaustMemorialDay
