The Holocaust as a Paradigm of Psychic Trauma in the 20th Century
January 23, 2007

Introduction

I am honored to be a guest speaker at this important conference on "the Holocaust as a Paradigm of Psychic Trauma in the 20th Century."

Although I did not experience the Holocaust directly, my wife Joan's family did. She and her siblings grew up with the knowledge of the tragedy as a fundamental element of their own identity.

Like Joan's family, thousands of Americans were touched directly by the loss of loved ones. Others were scarred permanently by the senseless destruction of an entire culture and society in Europe. Even for those whose families were not involved, the presence of survivors within their communities ­ sometimes with tattoos on their arms - was a constant reminder of the nightmare the Jewish people had endured.

The Holocaust was not just about European Jews. It was about Jews throughout the world. As one famous Holocaust writer has said: "Not all victims of the Holocaust were Jewish, but all Jews were victims. Simply to be Jewish became a crime. Their birth became their death sentence."

We cannot stop the flow of time. Unfortunately, as Holocaust survivors grow old and die, the memory of what happened to them and to their families may become faded or distorted. The urgency of preserving the reality of their experience for transmission to future generations becomes greater with each passing day. (This is a particularly poignant point for me as my father-in-law struggles with terminal liver cancer.)

The purpose of passing on this information is not only to commemorate events that are steadily receding into the past, but to make sure that similar outrages never re-occur.

I don't have to remind this audience how time and again over the centuries the Jewish people have seen that hate prepares the way for violence. The sad truth is that a refusal to expose and confront intolerance can lead to crimes beyond a sane imagination. This is but one reason why we have a duty to expose and confront anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry wherever they are found.

Tragically, anti-Semitism is alive and well today in many countries around the world. In its cruder forms, it can be found in popular media around the world, including in nearby Arab states. The United States Government has and will continue to call upon governments to end such libel and incitement wherever it occurs.

I would like to point out, though, that when it comes to the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, the history of Jews and Arabs is apparently not as bleak as one might assume from current media diatribes. Robert Satloff, the Executive Director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is in town, and I had the privilege of hosting him in my residence recently for a seminar on his personal research in this area.

In his lecture, Satloff described several stories of what he terms "the Arab righteous," Arabs who risked their own lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Let me repeat that: Arabs who risked their own lives to save Jews. These Arabs sheltered Jews in their homes, guarded their valuables from the Germans, and warned Jewish communities of SS raids.

For example, Satloff describes how the Sultan of Morocco and the Bey of Tunis provided moral and practical support to Jewish subjects and how the Imams of Vichy-controlled Algiers successfully forbade Muslims from serving as conservators of Jewish property. In Paris, the rector of the Great Mosque saved as many as 100 Jews by providing them with certificates of Muslim identity.

In sum, Satloff's research revealed that the behavior of people in Nazi-dominated North Africa was very similar to those in the European countries they conquered. Just as there were some who actively collaborated and some who were spectators, there were also righteous Arabs willing to risk everything to stand up to anti-Semitism in the darkest days of Nazi tyranny. Even as the leader of another criminal regime seeks to stir up a new storm against the Jewish nation, these stories are a welcome reminder that tyranny can never truly prevail over the righteous.

The United States will continue to call upon its friends throughout the world to denounce and fight any sign of anti-Semitism in their midst. When we find anti-Semitism at home, we will confront it. When we witness anti-Semitism abroad, we will condemn it.

In doing this, we know that we must act immediately and without hesitation. A lie told repeatedly and without challenge takes on the mantle of truth. The unspeakable becomes more and more easily pronounced.

In my view, the importance of this conference is two-fold. First, of course, it protects the memory of the Holocaust in a way that helps those survivors who are still alive, as well as their families. The discussion over the next few days will result in concrete recommendations on how to ease the remaining years of those who have suffered so much. It will also help the second and third generation survivors to come to terms with what their forbears experienced, and its impact on their own lives. Just as was the case with those who were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, their suffering results from nothing more than an accident of birth.

But there is another purpose for this conference that is equally important: It is to impress upon all of us that those who experienced the Holocaust are not alone. They represent people all over the world who have been subjected to injustice and sometimes inexcusable horrors --simply because of who they are. How we treat those who suffered through and from the Holocaust says a lot about who we are and how we value human life.

Unfortunately, although the Holocaust is history, it not only can be repeated but is being imitated in various forms around the world. So many people are suffering today as a result. Perhaps nowhere else on Earth is this more the case than in the region in western Sudan known as Darfur. There, since 2003, well over 200,000 people have been massacred by Sudanese government-backed militias; over two million have been displaced.

Those lucky enough to have survived face the threats of starvation, disease, and rape. We cannot stand idly by as villages are burned, innocents are slaughtered and women are raped. The United States has labeled the killing in Sudan "genocide." In the words of President Bush, "America will not turn away from this tragedy. We will call genocide by its rightful name, and we will stand up for the innocent until the peace of Darfur is secured."

We still have a long way to go before the people of Darfur can even begin to recover from the many calamities that have befallen them. But what better way is there to keep the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust alive, or to honor that memory, than to remain vigilant against senseless hatred and to take action to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing wherever the ignorant are led astray and hypnotized into committing horrifying acts?

Let me close by quoting Elie Wiesel's comments at the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz:

"The Jewish witness speaks of his people's suffering as a warning. He sounds the alarm so as to prevent these things being done. He knows that for the dead it is too late. But it is not too late for today's children. It is for their sake alone that we bear witness. It is for their sake that we are duty-bound to denounce anti-Semitism, racism, and religious or ethnic hatred. Suffering confers no privileges; it is what one does with suffering that matters."

Thank you. I wish you all a very successful conference.