“Antizionism is not antisemitism” may be absolutely true but the fact that many peoples’ working definition of “antisemitism” is roughly “something bad which might have happened to Jews but that certainly ended after the holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel and which neither I nor anyone in my family or cultural group could ever do” and Zionism is roughly “an ideology interchangeable with every other ideology I think is bad that is also something all the piggish money hungry world controllers I don’t like got in on” does not inspire terrible amounts of confidence

i watched the “is the time coming to lay the Holocaust to rest?” episode of big questions and i am appalled.

i couldn’t even believe that this would even be a question?

first of all, jewish voices need to be centered within these conversations. i don’t care what some random guy who claims to be a human rights expert has to say. not when there are jewish people (SOME OF WHICH WHO ARE LITERAL VICTIMS OF THE NAZIS) who are being talked over and disregarded.

second, talking about the holocaust, how it was even possible, and the extent of the violence, DOES NOT somehow put it above other genocides. believe it or not, but jewish people are not always vindictive and greedy for attention.

lastly, there genuinely is no point to this question. the jewish community will not stop talking about this, not any time soon. we can never forget what happened and all of the lives lost, families shattered, and people traumatized during the shoah.

Me, naively at 10: oh hey I just read a bunch of books about people surviving the holocaust. This antisemitism thing is pretty bad. But where could it be coming from? All the Nazis are gone and we hate them. Everything is fine now right?

Me, at 19: oh fuck- it is everywhere. It has weaseled its way into the core of every social movement, if it didn’t start out like that in the first place. It is in every political talking point about how there’s a “secret entity” ruling America. It’s in calls for death or violence against “Zionists” and their “organizations” without the definition of what that means. It’s in the acceptance of antisemitic people and movements as long as they have other desired components. It is everywhere and there is no inclination to stop it.

Today I told my 4-year-old that we're gonna start playing the quiet game every day and try to go longer and longer without making any noise. She think it's just a game. Really, it's practice. Because I see the pre-Holocaust shit that's happening everywhere and I'm getting ready for the day we end up having to go completely into hiding in someone's basement or attic or something.

Then again, I've never met a single goy who'd actually hide Jews, so part of me wonders what the point even is.

This is heartbreaking. I have nothing to add, this vent speaks for itself.

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day. This whole week l have been thinking alot about the Holocaust. So last night I re-read maus. One panel really stuck out to me during this reading. For context this is in Maus 2 when Art is talking to his therapist, a Holocaust survivor, about how he feels he could never measure up to his father who survived Auschwitz. At this point in the story his father had already past. May his memory be a blessing.

The dialogue, “but you weren’t in Auschwitz. You were in Rego Park,” hit me like a punch to the chest. I have no better way to explain the paradoxical guilt I felt and continue to feel as the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. I did not live during the Holocaust. It had ended before my grandmother reached eighteen years old. And yet, the Shoah seems to loom over me. Forever a reminder, that I am alive by sheer luck. My great grandfather’s parents as well as two of his brothers were murdered in Auschwitz. My great grandmother’s twin sister was also murdered in the Holocaust. Despite hours of research, I still have no idea where exactly she died.

Using the term guilty for what I feel doesn’t seem exactly right but there is no better word in the English language. Maybe if I was smarter or more articulate I could find better words.

A key theme of this chapter is intergenerational trauma. This is the same chapter that has this iconic image.

On this Holocaust Remembrance Day, I simply want to acknowledge the real and extremely painful intergenerational trauma and inherited survivors guilt felt by descendants of Jewish survivors. I know I struggled in the past with feeling like I even have any right to feel this way considering I am three generations removed from any of my family that were murdered in the Holocaust. If any other Jews struggle with thoughts like this, I want to assure you that your feelings are valid and real. Intergenerational trauma is complicated and the feelings that come with it don’t simply disappear once a certain number of generations from the event pass.

This post is specifically about the Holocaust and jewish intergenerational trauma stemming from our persecution and genocide. If this post resonates with you as a non-Jew who has intergenerational trauma I am glad, but please do not derail this post.

I understand and agree with pointing out that the Holocaust didn’t just affect the Jews that lived in Europe, and shedding light on the stories of Jews in other territories under Axis control. Every life lost or uprooted in the Holocaust matters and deserves to be remembered, not just Ashkenazim.

However, I’ve been seeing a bit of an overcorrection to the point that this valid & important point get twisted by some into the idea that Ashkenazim weren’t actually all that affected by the Holocaust at all and may have actually been safer than other Jews due to being White/European*, and I wanted to walk through exactly why that is so far from the reality and gets into really dangerous Holocaust Distortion.

The fact is that the vast majority of Holocaust victims were Ashkenazim. How do we know this? Well, first and most obvious without even getting into the numbers: the Nazis were most active in Eastern Europe, where most Jews were overwhelmingly Ashkenazi. Germany had colonies elsewhere and the affect the Holocaust had on Jews living in Africa and Asia is not any less important (and the fact remains that their stories are a genuine gap in Holocaust education that needs to be filled), but this doesn’t change the fact that the center of Nazi activity was Europe, and thus that is where their impact on Jews was most intense. But it’s important to not just go off of what seems “obvious” because what’s obvious to any given person is subjective and subject to bias. So let’s look at the numbers:

Estimates prior to the Holocaust put Ashkenazim at 92% of the world’s Jewish population (or roughly 14 million of the 15.3 million total Jewish population), meaning that it would be physically impossible for less than 4.7 million (or 78%) of the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust to be Ashkenazim.

Even that number is only possible to reach by assuming that only Ashkenazism survived and literally every non-Ashkenazi Jew died in the Holocaust, which we categorically know is not the case due to the continued existence of Sephardim & Mizrahim, as well as other Jews. So the number has to be higher than 78%.

Additionally, the fact that the proportion of the world’s Jewish population that was Ashkenazi fell so drastically during to the Holocaust and still hasn’t recovered (from 92% in 1930, only recovering to close to 75% in the last couple decades) means that not only a higher overall number of deaths were Ashkenazim, but that a higher proportion of the total Ashkenazi population died than from other groups.

We also know that 85% of Jews killed in the Holocaust were Yiddish-speakers. The fact that Yiddish is endemic to Ashkenazi culture (and not all Ashkenazim would have even been Yiddish-speakers) due to assimilation means that at least—and most likely more than—85% of Jews killed in the Holocaust were Ashkenazi.

So, no, Ashkenazim were not some privileged subcategory of Jews who avoided the worst of the Holocaust. They were the group most directly devastated by it.

That doesn’t change the fact that the devastation the Nazis and their allies wreaked on other Jews is every bit as important to acknowledge and discuss, and must not fall by the wayside. The stories and experiences of all victims & survivors deserve to be heard, remembered, and honored, not just the most common or most statistically representative of the majority of victims. However, we can (and must) do that without allowing the facts of the Holocaust to be distorted or suggesting Ashkenazim were somehow less affected by the Holocaust or more privileged under the Nazis. The Nazis hated all Jews. Antisemitism affects all Jews. Period.

*without getting too deep into how categories like Ashkanzi/Sephardi/etc. don’t map neatly onto race like so many people seem to want them to. that’s a different post, but just pointing that out

I’m taking a Holocaust and Modern Genocides class and before we get into the the actual genocide my professor has been going into the history of Pre-Holocaust European antisemitism and Jewish life. This is because she said that she wants us to A)Understand the attitudes that built it up and B) So that the class would understand the casualties as real lives lost and not just numbers in a book.

It’s so strange hearing my goyishe classmates like actually audibly have break throughs about the diversity and actual life that existed within the European Jewry. Like it is so clear that none of them have ever thought of us AS anything more than numbers and sad faces to exist in movies. Like some people were legitimately shocked to find out that there are different branches of Judaism or that Ashkenazim and Sephardim have different cultures and traditions.

To make a long story short the guy who sits close me in that class said he didn’t know Jewish people had different political opinions or what Yiddish was but that’s a different story and I feel entitled to compensation because of it

Tonight at sundown Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, is commemorated around the world.  

If you want to to honor the memory of one of the victims by lighting a candle, you can do that at the Illuminate website.

It will give you the name of one person for who you can viritually light a candle. If you want, you can also learn a bit about their life and share a small message.

Currently, there are over 800.000 candles lit. The goal is to reach 6 million to honor each and every vicitim.

I'm sorry but I kind of can't stand goyim who go "I would've hidden Jews from the Nazis!!!". When you think about the Holocaust the first thing you should be thinking about is the brutal suffering, the dehumanisation, the millions of innocent souls killed. You should mourn the Jews, not fantasize how you would've fit into the story as a hero.

This is who you're supporting by continuing to support the Harry potter / Fantastic Beasts franchises, by the way ♡

From the article:

The exchange promoting a denial that transgender people were targeted in the Holocaust was triggered by a tweet questioning why individuals like Rowling increasingly find themselves aligned with Nazis, who burned books on transgender healthcare and research in 1933. Rather than defending her position, Rowling seemed to dismiss the notion altogether that transgender individuals were targeted, asking, "How did you type this out and press send without thinking ‘I should maybe check my source for this, because it might’ve been a fever dream’?" When others provided her with sources, she responded by linking to an anti-trans account calling the first transgender woman to undergo gender reassignment surgery in Germany to a "troubled male.” The thread in question also denied that transgender people were targeted by the Holocaust.

[SRC.]

And yes. You supporting those franchises is supporting her. Not only has she said it herself, but any time you buy merchandise or engage with new media, even without her direct involvement, you are paying. Your money is going to her, and she is using that money to influence UK laws / the anti-trans scene.

If you STILL advocate for HP/FB and follow me, fucking leave. I hate your guts and will never consider you an ally.

ofmd being based off of real life slave owners is INSANE because imagine someone made a show based off the holocaust and yaoified hitler

It makes me feral to see the rise of antisemitism being sighed at by hyper-vigilant activist types, who shake their heads and tell each other-

“So sad the Jews now have to deal with this hate thing because of the Israeli government.”

That has never been how antisemitism functioned. Read about the Dreyfus Affair, Kristallnacht, anything- I beg of you. There has always been a convenient excuse, a clause for “however, this time, targeting them is okay.”

Instead of real solidarity, learning, or doing, you peddle meaningless words skillfully in a way only a person more concerned with words than action can.

“Collective liberation,” you say as you post an infographic about a worldwide intifada against “Zionist entities”, uncaring of what that entails.

“Anti- Racism!” you check your nails while someone explains the “white supremacy” and the supposedly polish indigenous roots of one of the most documented “foreign” peoples on this planet.

“Anti-zionism, not antisemitism,” You yawn, as you nod along to a friend explaining who really is in charge of society.

If this describes you, you are promoting material leading to the next pogrom. And if- If- it does happen, I know you will do the same and shake your heads.

“I can’t believe the Israeli government.”

“there’s nothing wrong in principle with jews having a homeland but not THAT homeland” where do you want them to go. if they’re not allowed to go back where they came from where do you want them to go. europe? Where they’re not from? are the sites of concentration camps where Jews “belong”? is that the “homeland” you had in mind for them? no, please, tell me. what’s a better homeland for jewish people than their literal homeland which they got driven out of in the first place

recently found out a lot of people apparently were never taught that the holocaust killed way more than just 6 million jewish people, and killed an additional group of several million other non-jewish people, like gays, disabled, romani people, etc ... the education system truly does fail society