‘Camp Auschwitz’ incident not surprising

Mean-spirited behaviour needs to be called out and discouraged

It was shocking — but not surprising — that in a mob comprised of insurrectionists, rioters, racists and extremists, someone would deliberately target Jews by invoking the horrifying memories of Auschwitz.

One American rioter was wearing a T-shirt inscribed with the frivolous message "Camp Auschwitz" to incite others present at Trump's Washington insurrection earlier this month. It was immediately picked up by TV cameras and transmitted around the world.

The hateful inscription instantly offended Jews and others in every part of the world. There is no other place on earth so widely recognized as representing the evils of the Nazi regime and its capacity to inflict pain and torture for reasons of hate. It was a crime against humanity.

More than six million innocent people perished under the same emotions inspired by Donald Trump that brought thousands of ignorant Americans to Washington D.C. on Jan. 6, resulting in the deaths of five people and extensive damage to property regarded as national treasures.

The horrors of Auschwitz should never be forgotten but equally should not be remembered in a frivolous, mocking and demeaning fashion. Auschwitz was not a holiday camp. It was a death camp where millions experienced torture and death.

The term "genocide" was coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944 to denote "the attempt to destroy a nation or an ethnic group by depriving them of the ability to live and procreate or by killing them directly." For political scientists, the holocaust, which means a 'sacrifice' consumed by fire, epitomizes the worst evils of ethnic and racial hatred. To wear a T-shirt mocking that place is unforgivable.

The Holocaust was not the only example of the systematic destruction of a specific group. There was the murder of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915, the death of millions of Africans on slave ships, the extinction of the Beothuk of Newfoundland, military campaigns against First Nation peoples, the death of millions of Ukrainians by a Soviet engineered famine, and the Cambodians who perished under the Khmer Rouge.

In addition to Auschwitz, all of these tragedies point to the failure of human compassion in times of conflict. But Auschwitz seized the imagination of the world and still does.

The German Nazi regime kept meticulous records and so did their victims. The Nuremburg trials were embedded in international law and world history.

So the casual reference to Auschwitz by an ignorant American rioter has a hideous affect, given the number of Jews who are American citizens.

In fact, more Jews live in the United States than in Israel. And many more live in countries around the world: about 400,00 Jews currently live in Canada. It is a terrible thing for them to be reminded of the atrocities of the past in this way.

Mean-spirited behaviour is common every day at all levels of our society. That mean-spiritedness is the genesis of all larger expressions of hatred and violence as witnessed at the Trump insurrection.

We should call it out when we see it anywhere and discourage it, especially when it surfaces among people we know.

‘Camp Auschwitz’ was a death camp where millions experienced torture and death.

James Guy, Ph.D, is a professor emeritus of political science at Cape Breton University. He is the author of five books and numerous research articles of political science in journals in Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain.