#OnThisDay (1938), we mark 82 years since #Kristallnacht, when Nazis (and their enablers) across Germany & Austria razed synagogues, smashed windows and murdered almost 100 Jews in a violent pogrom - known as ’Night of Broken Glass'.
My #THREAD with some thoughts & lessons:
My #THREAD with some thoughts & lessons:
1. Kristallnacht, was a murderous example of the capacity of humans to escalate from harassment, indifference, demonization and singling out of Jews - to violence.
First by words and through dehumanization, and then through the Nazi infrastructure of death.
First by words and through dehumanization, and then through the Nazi infrastructure of death.
2. In the weeks that followed #Kristallnacht, approximately 30,000 Jews were transported to concentration camps — a sorrow foreshadowing of the further evil that would soon ensue.
3. Today, across Europe (and now America), we see this dehumanization again: shootings, stabbings, violent assault, Synagogues vandalized, boycotts, swastika graffiti, Nazis being honored & history whitewashed, while a country like Iran seeks wholesale destruction of Israel.
4. As the great Spanish American philosopher George Santayana said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
5. This singling out of Jews again - and by extension, the Jewish state (Israel) - represents a collective form of amnesia, indifference & willful disregard of history, indicating that perhaps (for some) very little has in fact been learnt from history.
6. For some, the phrase '#NeverAgain' may be no more than an empty slogan.
But not for us. Not for the Jewish people, the Jewish state or those with a clear moral conscience.
But not for us. Not for the Jewish people, the Jewish state or those with a clear moral conscience.
7. The great Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, implored us to “take sides”, warning “neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
8. #OnThisDay (and every day) we remember our Jewish brothers and sisters murdered in the #Kristallnacht by the Nazi machinery of death, while so many of their fellow citizens stood idly by, many cheering on.
May their memories always be blessed.
May their memories always be blessed.
9. But even remembrance, albeit imperative, is not enough alone.
> We must speak out.
> We must act out.
> We must never remain indifferent in the face of such hatred, bigotry and Antisemitism.
*END #Kristallnacht THREAD*
> We must speak out.
> We must act out.
> We must never remain indifferent in the face of such hatred, bigotry and Antisemitism.
*END #Kristallnacht THREAD*
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