Holocaust gathering lets some leaders score political points
President Vladimir Putin of Russia called for vigilance “not to miss when the first sprouts of hatred, of chauvinism, of xenophobia and anti-Semitism start to rear their ugly head.”
Prince Charles warned that hatred and intolerance “still lurk in the human heart, still tell new lies, still adopt new disguises and still seek new victims.”
And Vice President Mike Pence urged world leaders to “stand strong” against Iran — “the one government in the world that denies the Holocaust as a matter of policy and threatens to wipe Israel off the map.”
As dignitaries from scores of nations met in Jerusalem to remember the liberation of Auschwitz 75 years ago and express their resolve to combat anti-Semitism, the invocations of the past were as often aimed at scoring present-day geopolitical points as at sounding the alarm about a resurgence of bigotry and anti-Jewish violence.
The president of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said his country now resists “the poison that is nationalism.” Then he hauntingly cited the attack last fall on a synagogue in Halle, Germany.
“I wish I could say that we Germans have learned from our history once and for all, but I cannot say that when hatred is spreading,” he said. “I cannot say that when Jewish children are spat on in the schoolyard. I cannot say that when crude anti-Semitism is cloaked in supposed criticism of Israeli policy. And I cannot say that when only a thick wooden door prevents a right-wing terrorist from causing a massacre, a blood bath, in a synagogue in the city of Halle on Yom Kippur.”
Putin, as nationalist as they come, noted that “the Soviet nation was the one that put an end to the Nazis’ malicious plan,” and took credit for the Red Army having “liberated Europe.”
Alluding to his war of dueling historical narratives with Poland’s president over their countries’ actions during the Holocaust and roles in the outbreak of World War II, Putin said that “the memory of the Holocaust will continue being a lesson and a warning only if the true story is told, without omitting the facts.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, like Pence, did not let the opportunity pass to urge world leaders to follow the United States’ example in confronting Iran.
“The tyrants of Tehran that subjugate their own people and threaten the peace and security of the entire world, they threaten the peace and security of everyone in the Middle East and everyone beyond,” he said.
In a proud, if slightly bellicose, address, Netanyahu said Israel was “eternally grateful” to the Allied powers that defeated Adolf Hitler, but noted that during Hitler’s rise, “when the Jewish people faced annihilation, the world largely turned its back on us.”
He called Auschwitz “the ultimate symbol of Jewish powerlessness,” adding, “Today, we have a voice, we have a land, and we have a shield,” the Israeli armed forces. “And what a shield it is.”