About Genocide

In today's Washington Post, Richard Cohen muses on past events at Wannsee, a beautiful lake near Berlin.

Wannsee was the setting of a conference of top Nazis on the answer to the "Jewish Question."

Cohen's column brought out some seriously deranged comments by assorted anti-Semites.

Having read them all, I offered my comment, reproduced below.

The holocaust is old (not ancient, but old) history. It was bad, but no worse than other genocides that happened before, during and after the Jewish holocaust.

It is important to Jews because many Jews believe that they did not do enough to prevent it. That is why Jews say "never again" to remind themselves to always be on guard, regardless of how comfortable they may be, against a repetition.

It is fair to say that Jews have survived many attempts made by gentiles to destroy their Jewish identity and/or to kill them off: in Egypt, in the Babylonian exile, in the Diaspora initiated by the Romans, in the multitude of pogroms and expulsions in Europe, the Inquisition, virulent anti-Semitism in Europe and the Middle East, the holocaust, the incessant attacks against Israel by Arab states and Arab jihadists.

Therefore it is ok for a Jew like Cohen to reflect on the events at Wannsee. There is no call for local anti-Semites to spew their insane venom on this bulletin board.

Armenians speak and write about the Turkish genocide against them.

Russians remember the attempted genocide by Germans against them.

Other groups that have suffered attempted genocides should also write and speak about their suffering. They should never let the world forget about the grave injustice they have suffered.

Maybe if all speak up, would be perpetrators of new attempted genocides would hold back and seek peaceful ways of resolving their insane hatreds.