I’m Armenian. Genocide occurs in many Nationalities. However the the amount and the occurrence. There’s no other nation that gets half the attention they do. Why is that?
Sossi, I'm sorry for your pain. All genocide = ATROCITY and deserve to be acknowledged. I can only speak from my experience. My father was born in Hungary in 1943 during The Holocaust and the beginnings of WWII. He was not Jewish but still suffered the many negative affects of living through a genocide. My grandparents, uncle and my father immigrated to the U.S. in 1953. I think The Holocaust gets so much attention because so many survivors immigrated to the U.S. afterwards. So many survivors had family or friends here. Eventually, they told their stories which became part of the fabric of many of our lives.
Over the course of 2021, the Israeli military arrested nearly 8,000 Palestinians, including more than 1,300 minors and 184 women. How many Israelis do you think are in Palestinian prisons?
Thanks, Greg, for this moving and honest piece. I especially appreciate the photographs of the astonishing memorial artwork, and your comment that the horror creeps up as one progresses through the stelae, with no need for any written interpretation.
I hope to be able to go to this memorial some day. I had a life-changing experience at the National Memorial to Justice and Peace in Montgomery Alabama. The visitor walks through the obelisks that hang from the ceiling of the outdoor structure. They are about the size of an adult human being and as you walk through you stretch your neck to see the names of people, county by county, whose lives were taken by lynching. There is another set of the obelisks in the garden which will be installed one by one as memorials in counties that have completed a truth and reconciliation process. The nearby Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration gave me a foundation for understanding and effectively arguing for reparations.
We must understand and we cannot forget that HITLER STUDIED AMERICA to learn how to effectively wipe out and oppress those who are considered less than human by white supremacists. If you can't get to Berlin, go to Montgomery. https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/memorial
Moving piece, Greg, thank you, for the powerful visuals as well. The Germans responded appropriately to the Holocaust - classroom instruction, memorials, preservation of the camps for all to see, national shame. Where is OUR shame? Where are our national curricula (so much horror we need several), our memorials to the atrocities we have committed, our apologies and pleas for redemption? The American conscience has taken a holiday. It’s past time for its return.
From reading Greg for a few years, I think I can read between the lines of this very powerful piece. It seems to be about the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, which is breathtaking, even in pictures, but there's much more there.
Nazism, or more generally fascism, doesn't just SPRING out of nowhere. There is always an undercurrent preceding its full revelation. First, a general malaise falls over a country. You may have just got routed in World War I, or you may have just experienced a presidential administration that was a warning shot across the bow. Either way, you breathe a sigh of relief that, well, THAT'S over, and we're all going to make sure that it never gets that bad again. But other people (baby fascists) have other ideas. These guys need a hook to take advantage of the mood, and they know they can't present themselves as what happened previously. So, they're insidious about their agenda. They tell you what you want to hear until they have a following. Then it ramps up until they finally come into the power they sought all along. It's only then that their real agenda is revealed.
Right now, America is in the middle of this insidious undercurrent of fascism. There are STILL people, both left and right, who believe that it just CAN'T happen here. It can, and unless we remain vigilant, it will. The fat lady will not sing for this one, but a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy in a red hat at a Trump rally, or maybe a DeSantis rally, will be singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me."
Thanks, Steve. Nazis, yes, are not unique to Germany. In the US they are on the rise. We must take the threat seriously. Since I published this piece, Nazis were arrested trying to blow up a power plant in Maryland. This is real.
For me, I stopped at the word “acknowledgment.” It tolled like a bell throughout the rest of this God almighty powerful piece. And it is a “we,” as you say. It so made me think how any holocaust begins in the home. What’s said there. Sunday thoughts. 🙏.
Thanks, J. We don’t acknowledge our sins. Black Lives Matter was a movement to get people to acknowledge that the lives of Black Americans also matter. Oh how that offended all the racists.
Genocide, like the Memorial in Berlin, is a stark and ugly thing indeed. The original people of the Americas suffered nothing short of genocide at the hands of European colonial power, a toxic cocktail of economic and religious ideas. The First Nations deserved better, and so did the victims of Nazism
Thanks, Greg. If you read the book Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, I believe that she said Nazis did study us but thought we were too extreme in our treatment of minorities. Also, if you go to Montgomery, AL (of all places!) they have a wonderful monument to the victims of lynchings in the past. It has the hanging slabs that completely overwhelm you.
Thanks. I’ll have to visit that one when I’m next in Paris.
I’m Armenian. Genocide occurs in many Nationalities. However the the amount and the occurrence. There’s no other nation that gets half the attention they do. Why is that?
Yes, good point-- and, btw, I’m Jewish.
Sossi, I'm sorry for your pain. All genocide = ATROCITY and deserve to be acknowledged. I can only speak from my experience. My father was born in Hungary in 1943 during The Holocaust and the beginnings of WWII. He was not Jewish but still suffered the many negative affects of living through a genocide. My grandparents, uncle and my father immigrated to the U.S. in 1953. I think The Holocaust gets so much attention because so many survivors immigrated to the U.S. afterwards. So many survivors had family or friends here. Eventually, they told their stories which became part of the fabric of many of our lives.
Over the course of 2021, the Israeli military arrested nearly 8,000 Palestinians, including more than 1,300 minors and 184 women. How many Israelis do you think are in Palestinian prisons?
Reading this feels a smack to the back of the head, or is it between the eyes? 🎯 Thank you, Greg, for another revealing and important piece.
That is precisely the sobriety that hit me with this piece.
Thanks, Greg, for this moving and honest piece. I especially appreciate the photographs of the astonishing memorial artwork, and your comment that the horror creeps up as one progresses through the stelae, with no need for any written interpretation.
Thank you for this
Stelae with no words. No words needed. Perfect.
Where's god
Shared.
I hope to be able to go to this memorial some day. I had a life-changing experience at the National Memorial to Justice and Peace in Montgomery Alabama. The visitor walks through the obelisks that hang from the ceiling of the outdoor structure. They are about the size of an adult human being and as you walk through you stretch your neck to see the names of people, county by county, whose lives were taken by lynching. There is another set of the obelisks in the garden which will be installed one by one as memorials in counties that have completed a truth and reconciliation process. The nearby Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration gave me a foundation for understanding and effectively arguing for reparations.
We must understand and we cannot forget that HITLER STUDIED AMERICA to learn how to effectively wipe out and oppress those who are considered less than human by white supremacists. If you can't get to Berlin, go to Montgomery. https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/memorial
Thanks for this recommendation.
Moving piece, Greg, thank you, for the powerful visuals as well. The Germans responded appropriately to the Holocaust - classroom instruction, memorials, preservation of the camps for all to see, national shame. Where is OUR shame? Where are our national curricula (so much horror we need several), our memorials to the atrocities we have committed, our apologies and pleas for redemption? The American conscience has taken a holiday. It’s past time for its return.
The ignorance--is that the noun for “ignore?”--of our nation’s sins will be the death of us.
From reading Greg for a few years, I think I can read between the lines of this very powerful piece. It seems to be about the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, which is breathtaking, even in pictures, but there's much more there.
Nazism, or more generally fascism, doesn't just SPRING out of nowhere. There is always an undercurrent preceding its full revelation. First, a general malaise falls over a country. You may have just got routed in World War I, or you may have just experienced a presidential administration that was a warning shot across the bow. Either way, you breathe a sigh of relief that, well, THAT'S over, and we're all going to make sure that it never gets that bad again. But other people (baby fascists) have other ideas. These guys need a hook to take advantage of the mood, and they know they can't present themselves as what happened previously. So, they're insidious about their agenda. They tell you what you want to hear until they have a following. Then it ramps up until they finally come into the power they sought all along. It's only then that their real agenda is revealed.
Right now, America is in the middle of this insidious undercurrent of fascism. There are STILL people, both left and right, who believe that it just CAN'T happen here. It can, and unless we remain vigilant, it will. The fat lady will not sing for this one, but a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy in a red hat at a Trump rally, or maybe a DeSantis rally, will be singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me."
Always remember that RUSSIA is a democracy too.
Thanks, Steve. Nazis, yes, are not unique to Germany. In the US they are on the rise. We must take the threat seriously. Since I published this piece, Nazis were arrested trying to blow up a power plant in Maryland. This is real.
For me, I stopped at the word “acknowledgment.” It tolled like a bell throughout the rest of this God almighty powerful piece. And it is a “we,” as you say. It so made me think how any holocaust begins in the home. What’s said there. Sunday thoughts. 🙏.
Thanks, J. We don’t acknowledge our sins. Black Lives Matter was a movement to get people to acknowledge that the lives of Black Americans also matter. Oh how that offended all the racists.
Genocide, like the Memorial in Berlin, is a stark and ugly thing indeed. The original people of the Americas suffered nothing short of genocide at the hands of European colonial power, a toxic cocktail of economic and religious ideas. The First Nations deserved better, and so did the victims of Nazism
Thanks, Greg. If you read the book Caste by Isabel Wilkerson, I believe that she said Nazis did study us but thought we were too extreme in our treatment of minorities. Also, if you go to Montgomery, AL (of all places!) they have a wonderful monument to the victims of lynchings in the past. It has the hanging slabs that completely overwhelm you.
What kind of God would invent a "Manunkind"
This one won’t release my heart. Thanks, G