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August 07, 1987 - Image 42

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1987-08-07

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

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42

FRIDAY, AUG. 7, 1987

Special to The Jewish News

759-3777

SOUTHFIELD

F-

AVIVA CANTOR

New York — Israelis involv-
ed with Holocaust research
are becoming concerned
about the current tendency to
go too far with "Americaniz-
ing the Holocaust" — making
it accessible to the American
experience — by packaging it
withina list of familiar evils,
thus robbing it of its uni-
squeness in human history.
Characteristic of going too
far in Americanizing the
Holocaust are statements
such as "the Holocaust shows
what prejudice, discrimina-
tion and intolerance can lead
to" and "the Holocaust is part
of the long history of man's in-
humanity to man," which
make it possible to avoid con-
fronting its quintessential dif-
ference and the basic ques-
tions it raises.
This view was' expressed by
Yitzhak Mais, director of Yad
Vashem's Museum.
American-born Mais, who has
been involved with Holocaust
studies since his aliyah in
1973, recently visited the U.S.
where he served as a consul-
tant to the United Jewish Ap-
peal on its Auschwitz exhibit,
now touring the country.
lb Mais, the uniqueness of
the Holocaust lies in "the
singling out of Jews to be kill-
ed because they were con-
sidered . racially dangerous."
The Nazi policy of wiping out
all the people of one group
without exception, "just
because they existed they had
to be killed," is what makes
it significant and fundamen-
tally different from the many
other inhumane events in
world history, he said.
The Holocaust, Mais con-
tinued, needs to be presented

,

11.

-

both as a uniquely Jewish
event and as one having
universal significance. Mak-
ing it accessible and relevant
to the American reality is
valid. If it is inaccessible, "one
can't learn from it; it remains
in an archive. If it's placed on
some inapproachable
metaphysical pedestal" the
question it raises as an event
that happened on this earth
cannot be confronted.
However, Mais said, there
are authentic and inauthen-
tic ways of making the
Holocust accessible. An
authentic way of Americaniz-
ing the Holocaust is to deal
with the American participa-
tion in the event: showing the
role of American liberators,
bringing in the experience of
survivors, discussing what
the U.S. government did and
did not do.
Inauthentic ways in which
Americanization of the
Holocaust is carried too far
involve placing it on a list of
the horrors of human ex-
perience. "If you don't
acknowledge the Holocaust's
uniqueness as the watershed
event in history that it is, you
are dealing with it and
avoiding it at the same time,"
he said.
Avoiding the Holocaust
eliminates the necessity to
confront the philosophical
assumptions it calls into
question such as the inherent
goodness of people, the belief
in progress, the value of
education in forming good
character and the superiority
of Western civilization.
Early post-war ways of
avoiding the Holocaust in-
volved seeing it as an aberra-
tion, an idea that still exists
in the popular mind, said
Mais. Statements such as
"the Nazis were insane" and

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