http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/190580#.VMgcUSwsr-4This article in Israel National News quotes "the head Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center" to the effect that Eastern Europe should not equate the atrocities of Nazism with those of Communism and seems to be implying (I could of course be wrong) that any museum or "memory" project that chronicles or memorializes the trepidations of Communism of necessity must be seen as belittling the sufferings of the victims of the Nazis.
As we all know, this is a very,
very sensitive topic, and I know of no better place to discuss this issue than here at JTF.
I am aware that the Wiesenthal Center is a purely secular organization whose founder has often been criticized by Chaim. I am also aware that the people of Eastern Europe are no saints. But didn't the Communist governments of Eastern Europe already diminish the uniqueness of the Holocaust when they downplayed the Jews and victims, replacing them with "anti-fascists?"
I want to be careful as I have already been in a bit of trouble once today on Facebook...but it has always bothered me that in commemorations of Churban 'Europa' the Name of the G-d of Israel is never uttered. Always it is implied that the Qedoshim were victims, not merely of Xianity, but of the religious impulse itself, and that the only thing that can prevent something like this from ever happening again is to wage war on the religious impulse via ever greater secularization.
I am a former Xian and a Noachide. I simply don't understand why the Seven Laws of Noach are
never brought up as a possible solution to anti-Semitism. It's always religious and moral relativism that is recommended, implicitly or explicitly. I'm also quite uncomfortable that a militantly anti-G-d movement is not considered a prime enemy of Judaism and something only Xians could possibly oppose.
I hope some of you will share your own thoughts on these issues.