![Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp](https://static-asset.amac.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/25121156/Auschwitz.jpg)
This week, I visited Auschwitz.
I had never before visited any of the death camps. The experience is absolutely chilling. Auschwitz, of course, was a complex of camps, the three largest of which were Auschwitz I, the camp most famous for the terrifyingly Orwellian German slogan welded onto its entrance, “ARBEIT MACHT FREI”; Auschwitz II, also known as Birkenau, the massive death factory at which the Germans operated four large gas chambers, each of which could be used to murder 2,000 people at a time; and Auschwitz III, a large labor camp. Visiting in January, with the ice covering the ground, is a reminder of the cruelties that are possible when human beings commit to the perverse disease of Jew-hatred.
Auschwitz was liberated some 79 years ago this month. But that perverse disease is alive and well. As survivor Marian Turski says, “Auschwitz did not fall suddenly from the skies, it was all tiny steps approaching until what happened here behind me did happen.”
That gradualism masked the greatest evil in world history. As we descended into Krakow for the visit, I read the diaries of Victor Klemperer, a secular, intermarried Jew who had converted to Protestantism and who lived in Dresden during the period of Hitler’s rule. Klemperer details the slow but steady changes that turned Jews into outcasts, no matter their ideology or even religious practice. Klemperer, for his part, considered himself a good German and the Nazis the outliers; even in 1942, Klemperer wrote, “I am fighting the most difficult of battles for my German-ness now. I must hold on to it: I am German, the others are un-German.”
His protestations meant nothing.
Why?
Because Jew-hatred is and was a conspiracy theory rooted in the supposed power of the Jew. And there is nothing new about that theory; it is seductive and easy and ancient. In Egypt, Pharaoh spoke thus: “Look, the children of Israel are too numerous and large for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase.” In Persia, Haman told Ahasuerus, “There is a certain people, scattered and dispersed among the other peoples in all the provinces of your realm, whose laws are different from those of any other people and who do not obey the king’s laws.” In Poland, Bogdan Chmielnicki told the Poles that they had been sold by the Polish nobility “into the hands of the accursed Jews.” In Russia, the bestselling “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” alleged a Jewish conspiracy to exploit and control the gentile world. In Germany, Hitler wrote that the Jews sought to make the gentile world “ripe for the slave’s lot of permanent subjugation.” Today, across the Muslim world, the toxic proposition that the Jews control the world is a popular notion and provides justification for murderous terrorist attacks on Jewish civilians: according to a recent poll from the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, only 5% of all Middle Eastern and North African Arabs condemned Oct. 7 as an “illegitimate operation.”
Across time and place, such ideas sprang from religion, from ethnic polarization, from nationalistic excess. Today, at least in the West, such ideas spring from an ideology that suggests a hierarchy of oppression that dominates Western societies, in which disproportionately successful groups are victimizers and disproportionately unsuccessful groups the victimized. It is no coincidence that LGBTQ+ and BLM activists, who propagate that victim/victimizer narrative, side with the genocidal Jew-hating terror group Hamas. According to a recent Harvard/Harris poll, some 67% of people aged 18-24 in the United States say that the Jews “as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors.”
Visiting Auschwitz, one can see the apex results of such perverse ideas. Another Holocaust may not be right around the corner; geopolitical conditions are not what they were in 1940, and no serious power has the means and capacity to accomplish anything like the Holocaust today (though Iran armed with a nuclear bomb would be a different story). But certainly the slogan “Never Again” cannot be used by those who currently hand-wave the atrocities of Oct. 7 in the name of fighting supposed “Jewish power.” The only way to stop Jew-hatred is to stop conspiratorial thinking — particularly the conspiratorial thinking of those in the West who despise meritocracy itself and instead see the mirage of the “powerful Jew” hiding behind every problem.
Ben Shapiro, 39, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, host of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” and co-founder of Daily Wire+. He is a three-time New York Times bestselling author; his latest book is “The Authoritarian Moment: How The Left Weaponized America’s Institutions Against Dissent.” To find out more about Ben Shapiro and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website.
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We better learn from this history because chopping up and mutilating our children under the guise of “gender affirming healthcare” is a little too Dr, Mengele-ish in my book.
In light of the recent legislation in Maine, and possibly other states, we are on a very slippery slope.
Remember that Muslims were part of WWII in league with Hitler Nazis. Maybe not all then, but they’ve been haters since their Mohammed came out as a prophet for acceptance of the Jewish community, but was denounced as heretic instead. That’s when he tried the Christian church, but eventually they figured out what he truly was. A reading of his writings reveals his hatred for both.
Do not be deceived. Hatred for the Jewish world remains higher for now, but Christians are also in danger for the Islamic hatred.
To anyone who tells you the holscost never happen. I can tell you this. My friend’s father in WW2 his father’s army unit liberated one of the concentration camp. He had a truck in the attic which we were not to look in. Well we did. He had black and white photos he had taken of the conditions in the camp and the prisoner’s. Those images still stick in my head. Dead bodies stacked like fire wood.
Well said, Ben Shapiro.
The current administration and the marxist democrat party have both Jews and Christians as segments of the population they would like to control and destroy.
These people are anti religion,anti America and seek to eliminate those who stand against their immorality,hatred and destructuion.
Are their FAILED forced policies of baby killing, rampant illegal drugs use, minor gender change operations, class warfare, attacks on parents, illegitimate wars, open borders , using federal agencies against citizens, cheating in elections, destroying our energy independence,ignoring our veterans, seniors, mentally challenged Citizens at all beneficial to those who legally live here??????
NO – it’s about CONTROL,power,restricted freedom, destruction of Faith,Family and Freedom!!!
Their actions and policies are EXACTLY what leads to the atrocities and selective racist hatred of nazi Germany.
Make no mistake , the enemy is ANY group that stands in their way.Their insatiable greed for power and control has NO moral,ethical or divine guidelines whatsoever!!!!
THROW THEM OUT – America can do and deserves WAY BETTER!
This is a lesson that we need to say never again this is a sad time for humanity all based on hate people in this country should see just what hate brings many of the dummies on campus would shut there mouth and go back to book studies and ones that promote hate should be expelled never allowed back to college there is no need for anyone like that in this country.
I’ve been to Dachau. Its abhorrable and frightening yet leaves a lastingmemory.
I do credit the German govt for keeping these death camps accessible.
You are disgusting
What a neon beacon of hatred and ignorance/stupidity. Go back to your parents’ basement where you live your miserable life.
obviously you have stated your OPINION (and you know what they say about opinions!). Do you have any real facts to prove what you just put out there?
The only civil response I can think of, which is neither hallal or kosher, is hogwash. You might want to get your education from other than the local bund
WOW, you are an evil and disturbed individual.
What is it you want to see? Try going to the helacost museum in Washington DC.
For every HS, Jun College & College
ALL Majors GE level course
L’Chaim
Absolutely true. Thank you Mr Shapiro.
To those who respond to the trolls, please use their fake names in your comments so when they are deleted, we all know who your comments were directed towards. I usually read these articles on my phone and sometimes when the original comment is deleted, it appears that the comments were about the article itself.
Thanks, Dan
College presidents should keep being fired until there’s a real stand taken against anti semitism, the president of MIT needs to be fired by allowing thousands of Hamas fans to take over parts of campus and classrooms shouting free palestine nonsense
A huge thank you to the Libs of TikTok led by the outstandingly amazing Chaya Raichik, the stuff she uncovers about the Hamas fans is jarring
Our young
You seem to have an unnatural fascination with circumcised penises. I’m betting “work makes you free” is written on the welcome mat at your home, right Fritz?
I bet you take your 8th grade history notes from watching “Hogans Heroes”.
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