Auschwitz personnel, 1944.
Ordinary people, not monsters, make atrocities happen.
The endless stream of books and films that present those who supported and took part in atrocities as one-dimensional beasts, as simply monsters, sheds no light on how atrocities emerge. It offers no insight on how to prevent future atrocities.
Nazi horror didn’t start with genocide.
It started with words...
...with the dehumanizing of minority groups...
...and the mainstream acceptance of that dehumanization.
Once a minority group is seen as less than human, anything can be done to them. Discrimination seems "natural" - they are less than human so human rights do not apply.
In time, even mass murder is "acceptable" or "necessary".
And “it can’t happen here” is a dangerous delusion.
Nazis were made, not born.
I understand why people want to believe otherwise. Who wants to think such potential exists in everyone? In ourselves?
But we ignore the truth, hiding it with "monster" narratives, at our peril.
To stop mass atrocity crimes from happening, we have to understand this as a problem of human potential, not a problem of monsters.
We have to fight against dehumanization whenever we see it, even when - especially when - it seems to be coming from ordinary people in the mainstream.
We have to defend everyone's fundamental rights as our own.
Otherwise, we start down that road to infinite disaster.
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