#WeRemember: International Holocaust Remembrance Day is January 27th

 "It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere." - Primo Levi, 1986 The Drowned and the Saved

Never Again is Now.

 

Today, January 27, 2026 is recognized by the United Nations as International Holocaust Remembrance Day and is observed around the world.

We must never forget what happened, six million Jews murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, and remain vigilant now and in the future to battle against the mass destruction of innocent human beings.

Primo Levi was right, it can happen anywhere - even in Israel, and even here.

Two years, three months and twenty days ago on October 7, 2023, Hamas, an Iranian proxy, invaded and attacked Israel killing 1,200 and taking 240 hostages. This strike ignited a Middle East war between Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas, which has its base of operations in Gaza. 

This was the largest mass killing of Jewish people since the Holocaust. Two days after the Hamas terrorist attacks, before Israel had responded to the attacks, on the steps of the Sydney Opera House in Australia over a thousand protesters chanted, “Gas the Jews.”

On December 14, 2025, an Islamic State (IS) inspired terror attack occurred at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, during a celebration of Hanukkah attended by 1,000 people. Two gunmen killed 15 people (11 men, 3 women and a 10-year-old girl). 

Sadly, the Cuban dictatorship backs Hamas, and is spreading anti-Semitic tropes helping create scenarios that endanger Jewish lives around the world.

Seven years and three months ago on October 27, 2018, Robert Bowers entered the Tree of Life synagogue with an AR-15, and three handguns shouting anti-Semitic slurs and opened fire killing eleven, and wounding six others.

It was believed to be the deadliest attack against Jewish people in U.S. history, but it was not the first, nor the last.

Sarah Milgrim and Yarón Lischinsky, two Israeli Embassy staffers, were gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC by Elias Rodriguez, a member of the Chicago branch of Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) on the evening of May 21, 2025.

It is happening again. Never again is now. 

Unfortunately the international community has failed more than once since 1945 to prevent another mass slaughter. Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge murdered between one fourth and one third of its population between 1975 and 1979, civil libertarian Nat Hentoff pointed to another genocide that could have been stopped in Rwanda in 1994, and in 2016 we witnessed another in Syria where religious minorities, including Christians were being targeted.

Today, we are witnessing the genocide of Muslim Uyghurs in China.  This month in Iran over 30,000 Iranians were murdered by theocratic regime in Iran for protesting against the government. 

Anti-semitism remains the canary in the coalmine that warns us that something is terribly wrong.

It is important to remember that antisemitism is on the rise world wide and people of the Jewish faith need our solidarity and support now more than ever in confronting rising hatred and intolerance to ensure that what Nazi Germany did never be repeated.

This afternoon, the European Parliament held a special session to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Survivor Tatiana Bucci will address MEPs, recalling Auschwitz and the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered in the Holocaust. You can watch it here.

At the same time it is also important to remember and honor the martyrs and heroes who resisted the Nazis. One of these heroes was Raoul Wallenberg, who saved over 100,000 Jewish people, and was disappeared by the Soviets in January 1945.

They are exemplars in moral courage that are much needed today. Let us continue the fight.

 

This solemn day marks 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the Nazi death camps and a site of terrible cruelty, where more than 1.1 million men, women, and children were systematically murdered.

As we reflect on this dark chapter in human history,… pic.twitter.com/S0EGX5ree9

— Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (@TheRWCHR) January 27, 2026

Wallenberg saved 100,000 Jews in WW2, but was disappeared by Soviet communists on this day 81 years ago.

“I will never be able to go back to Sweden without knowing inside myself that I'd done all a man could do to save as many Jews as possible.” - Raoul Wallenberg, Letter and Dispatches 1924 - 1944 

Raoul Wallenberg (Aug. 4, 1912 - disappeared Jan. 17, 1945)

 Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat saved 100,000 Jews in Hungary, according to the World Jewish Congress. He was imprisoned and disappeared by Soviet military intelligence (MERSH) after the war 81 years ago today.

Today is Raoul Wallenberg Day in Canada in honor of his courageous example. Irwin Cotler, a Canadian member of parliament, in an OpEd in The Jerusalem Post last year, described the rescue carried out by Wallenberg:

"From mid-May to the beginning of July 1944, some 440,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz – the fastest, cruelest, and most efficient killing field in the Holocaust. Wallenberg arrived as a member of the Swedish Legation in Budapest in mid-July 1944. In a remarkable demonstration of ingenuity and inspiration, bluff and bravado, he rescued some 100,000 Jews in the last six months of 1944 and the beginning of 1945, more than any other single government or organization."

Nonviolent resistance to the radical evil of the Nazis by courageous Danes and German housewives also worked and saved thousands of Jewish people from the Holocaust.

It should come as no surprise that Wallenberg was abducted by Soviet Communist forces. The Nazis and the Soviets had been partners in the partition and conquest of Poland six years prior, in September 1939. 

Let us honor Raoul Wallenberg for all the lives he saved, and let us also continue to demand justice for this good man, who had his life taken by Josef Stalin.

The Russians refuse to reveal what they did to Wallenberg, and his family has filed a lawsuit against them.

In 2016, Sweden declared him dead.

In honour of #RaoulWallenberg Day, read this poignant piece and interview with @IrwinCotler by @HilleltheScribe

"[Raoul Wallenberg] demonstrated how one person with the compassion to care and the courage to act can prevail over evil.”https://t.co/mw5lfxmg5M

— Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (@TheRWCHR) January 17, 2026

Why the UK's victory in the Battle of Britain makes the International Day of Democracy today possible

"Fascism was the shadow or ugly child of communism… As Fascism sprang from Communism, so Nazism developed from Fascism. Thus were set on foot those kindred movements which were destined soon to plunge the world into more hideous strife, which none can say has ended with their destruction." - Winston Churchill, The Second World War, Volume 1, The Gathering Storm (1948)

 

Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the greatest Briton

 

Today the United Nations is observing International Day of  Democracy and the United Kingdom is observing Battle of Britain Day. It is fair to say if the British Democracy had not triumphed over Nazi Germany in that great battle, then we would not have an International Day of Democracy, and the past 80 years would be very different.  

 

This double observance heightens the importance of remembering the wisdom of Winston Churchill and honor the man who twice saved democracy from Nazi and Soviet totalitarianism.  

 

Today in 1940, the Battle of Britain's most decisive clash saw the Royal Air Force repel the largest Luftwaffe air strike against the United Kingdom. Months earlier on June 18, 1940 in a speech in The House of Commons titled "Their Finest Hour" Prime Minister Churchill explained the stakes of World War II and the start of the existential clash for Great Britain: 

I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”

It is shocking in 2025 that some today claim that it was a mistake to go to war against Nazi Germany, and attempt to white wash the profound evil of Hitler's regime in Berlin. 

 

At the same time the apologists for international communism like to extol their so-called "antifascist"credentials while remaining silent or finding bizarre revisionist explanations on the connections between fascism and communism that Mr. Churchill succinctly outlined in the quote at the top of the page. 

 

Of equal concern is the attempt to deny the fact that Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin signed a pact in August of 1939, that secretly included the division of Central and Eastern Europe between Nazi Germany and Communist Russia, that started World War II. 

 

This alliance lasted until the summer of 1941 when Hitler ordered the invasion of the Soviet union. Consider for a moment that it was Britain and France who honoring their alliance declared war on Nazi Germany on September 1, 1939 when Poland was invaded by Hitler's Third Reich. 

 

Churchill did not equivocate and in a radio address on October 1, 1939 described the Russian's role as invaders along with the Nazis days after.

 "Poland has been again overrun by two of the great Powers which held her in bondage for 150 years, but were unable to quench the spirit of the Polish nation. The heroic defense of Warsaw shows that the soul of Poland is indestructible, and that she will rise again like a rock, which may for a spell be submerged by a tidal wave, but which remains a rock."

Britain and France were convinced that Russia and Germany were allies and plans were drawn up to attack Russian oil fields in order to deny them to the Nazis in what became known in the planning stages as Operation Pike.  Months later the reversals continued for Christendom. The Fall of France to the Nazi war machine took place between May 10 and June 25, 1940 over the span of 46 days ending in the evacuation of Dunkirk. This disaster is what led to Operation Pike being scrapped.

The British Empire was alone for almost a year between June 25, 1940 through June 22, 1941 as the sole main resistance to Nazi Germany. The United States would remain neutral until Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and the Soviet Union was a de facto ally of Nazi Germany until Hitler invaded communist Russia on June 22, 1941 in Operation Barbarossa. The United Kingdom was all that stood between the survival of Christian civilization and a new Dark Age that Adolf Hitler called the Thousand Year Reich. If one is truly Anti-Nazi then one must celebrate and honor the legacy of Winston Churchill, who early on identified the Nazi threat and issued calls to to resistance with one of the most important in a radio address to London and the United States on October 16, 1938.

"Dictatorship – the fetish worship of one man – is a passing phase. A state of society where men may not speak their minds, where children denounce their parents to the police, where a business man or small shopkeeper ruins his competitor by telling tales about his private opinions; such a state of society cannot long endure if brought into contact with the healthy outside world. The light of civilised progress with its tolerances and co-operation, with its dignities and joys, has often in the past been blotted out. But I hold the belief that we have now at last got far enough ahead of barbarism to control it, and to avert it, if only we realise what is afoot and make up our minds in time. We shall do it in the end. But how much harder our toil for every day’s delay! Is this a call to war? Does anyone pretend that preparation for resistance to aggression is unleashing war? I declare it to be the sole guarantee of peace. We need the swift gathering of forces to confront not only military but moral aggression; the resolute and sober acceptance of their duty by the English-speaking peoples and by all the nations, great and small, who wish to walk with them."

Four years earlier on November 16, 1934, after the Nazis had just been in power a little over two years Winston Churchill warned of their threat to peace:

There is a nation which has abandoned all its liberties in order to augment its collective strength. There is a nation which, with all its strength and virtue, is in the grip of a group of ruthless men, preaching a gospel of intolerance and racial pride, unrestrained by law, by parliament, or by public opinion. In that country all pacifist speeches, all morbid war books are forbidden or suppressed, and their authors rigorously imprisoned. From their new table of commandments they have omitted “thou shall not kill.”

Sadly the world did not listen to Churchill until it was too late to avoid a major conflict, but at least it was not too late to stop the Nazi war machine although it came at great cost and suffering. Churchill understood that to defeat Hitler the Soviet Union would have to change sides and when the Nazis invaded Russia the British Prime Minister joked, "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would at least make a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.” The price of ending Hitler was cozying up to Josef Stalin, another genocidal totalitarian monster.

Churchill was not blind to the nature of his wartime ally and understood the threat of Josef Stalin and the Soviet Union and thankfully his warnings on March 5, 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton Missouri were listened to this time and may have avoided World War III, albeit with a cold peace.

"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow." 

He then went on to make a remarkable statement about the circumstances that led to World War II and how it was completely avoidable:

Last time I saw it all coming and cried aloud to my own fellow-countrymen and to the world, but no one paid any attention. Up till the year 1933 or even 1935, Germany might have been saved from the awful fate which has overtaken her and we might all have been spared the miseries Hitler let loose upon mankind. There never was a war in all history easier to prevent by timely action than the one which has just desolated such great areas of the globe. It could have been prevented in my belief without the firing of a single shot, and Germany might be powerful, prosperous and honoured to-day; but no one would listen and one by one we were all sucked into the awful whirlpool. We surely must not let that happen again.

Churchill was not only an Anti-Nazi but also an Anti-Communist and a conservative who on May 24, 1948 observed: "Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy." 

He also understood and celebrated the importance of free speech. In the midst of the war in 1943 he observed: 

"Everyone is in favour of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage."  

Today let us remember this great statesman, democrat, and conservative and call on all people of good will to learn form this greatest of Britons. His moral clarity, and the victory in the Battle of Britain 85 years ago, makes possible the celebration of the International Day of Democracy.

 

Hate speech laws, not free speech, facilitated the rise of the Nazis in Germany. Fact checking Face the Nation.

Let me begin by making an admission of bias. I am a free speech absolutist, and was recently interviewed on the topic, and it is available online. Earlier today on Face the Nation, CBS news correspondent Margaret Brennan made a disturbing claim, that although correctly challenged and rebutted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, needs closer examination. Below is the transcript that begins at 12 minutes and 12 seconds into the interview.

 

 

 

CBS News senior foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Brennan: "Well, he [ Vice President J.D. Vance ] was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide, and he met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups. The context of that was changing the tone of it. And you know that, that the censorship was specifically about the right."

Secretary of State Marco Rubio: "Well, I have to disagree with you. No, no, I have to disagree with you. Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal, because they hated Jews and they hated minorities and they hated those that they – they had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews. There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none. There was also no opposition in Nazi Germany. They were a sole and only party that governed that country. So that’s not an accurate reflection of history.

I also think it’s wrong – again, I go back to the point of his speech. The point of his speech was basically that there is an erosion in free speech and in tolerance for opposing points of view within Europe, and that’s of concern because that is eroding – it’s not an erosion of your military capabilities. That’s not an erosion of your economic standing. That’s an erosion of the actual values that bind us together in this transatlantic union that everybody talks about. And I think allies and friends and partners that have worked together now for 80 years should be able to speak frankly to one another in open forums without being offended, insulted, or upset. And I spoke to foreign ministers from multiple countries throughout Europe. Many of them probably didn’t like the speech or didn’t agree with it, but they were continuing to engage with us on all sorts of issues that unite us.

So again, at the end of the day, I think that people give all – that is a forum in which you’re supposed to be inviting people to give speeches, not basically a chorus where everyone is saying the exact same thing. That’s not always going to be the case when it’s a collection of democracies where leaders have the right and the privilege to speak their minds in forums such as these."

First, Weimar Germany had modern-like hate speech laws and vigorously enforced them but it did not have the desired effect. Making the Nazis hate speech illegal and outlawing their publications raised their profile and helped them gather more support. The New Yorker on February 14, 2015 in the article "Copenhagen, Speech and Violence" interviewed Flemming Rose, the foreign editor of the Danish daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten who set the record straight:

"Weimar Germany did have hate-speech laws, and they were applied quite frequently. The assertion that Nazi propaganda played a significant role in mobilizing anti-Jewish sentiment is, of course, irrefutable. But to claim that the Holocaust could have been prevented if only anti-Semitic speech and Nazi propaganda had been banned has little basis in reality. Leading Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch, and Julius Streicher were all prosecuted for anti-Semitic speech. Streicher served two prison sentences."

The outcome of silencing hate speech is not what those who advocate for it would expect as Rose continued to explain:

"Rather than deterring the Nazis and countering anti-Semitism, the many court cases served as effective public-relations machinery, affording Streicher the kind of attention he would never have found in a climate of a free and open debate. In the years from 1923 to 1933, Der Stürmer [Streicher's newspaper] was either confiscated or editors taken to court on no fewer than thirty-six occasions. The more charges Streicher faced, the greater became the admiration of his supporters. The courts became an important platform for Streicher's campaign against the Jews. In the words of a present-day civil-rights campaigner, pre-Hitler Germany had laws very much like the anti-hate laws of today, and they were enforced with some vigor."

When violence erupts in a society where the rule of law exists, it must not be tolerated, but dealt with an expeditious manner through the judicial system. However, where the poisonous tropes of anti-Semitism, and hatred against the Jewish people arise, it must not be censored by the government, but challenged by people of good will in the battle of ideas to expose both its intellectual and moral bankruptcy. 

Hate speech has Marxist origins that are in opposition to free expression. Perversely, it claims that language can be violence to censor speech while at the same time defending physical violence as justified. When you outlaw speech and drive it underground you imbue it with power and credibility it does not deserve. 

This approach in Wiemar Germany weaponized hate speech laws against the Nazis that created a backlash that helped them take power, and once in power free speech was completely eliminated in Germany.  

Ms. Brennan's claim on Face the Nation was not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to what actually happened, and a disservice to her audience.

#WeRemember: International Holocaust Remembrance Day is January 27th

"It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere." - Primo Levi, 1986 The Drowned and the Saved

Never Again is Now.

Tomorrow, January 27, 2025 is recognized by the United Nations as International Holocaust Remembrance Day and is observed around the world.  

We must never forget what happened,  six million Jews murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, and remain vigilant now and in the future to battle against the mass destruction of innocent human beings.

Primo Levi was right, it can happen anywhere - even in Israel, and even here.   

One year, three months and twenty days ago on October 7, 2023, Hamas, an Iranian proxy, invaded and attacked Israel killing 1,200 and taking 240 hostages. This strike ignited a Middle East war between Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas, which has its base of operations in Gaza. 

This was the largest mass killing of Jewish people since the Holocaust. Two days after the Hamas terrorist attacks, before Israel had responded to the attacks, on the steps of the Sydney Opera House in Australia over a thousand protesters chanted, “Gas the Jews.” 

Sadly, the Cuban dictatorship backs Hamas, and is spreading anti-Semitic tropes. 

Six years and three months ago on October 27, 2018, Robert Bowers entered the Tree of Life synagogue with an AR-15, and three handguns shouting anti-Semitic slurs and opened fire killing eleven, and wounding six others. 

It was believed to be the deadliest attack against Jewish people in U.S. history, but it was not the first.

Unfortunately the international community has failed more than once since 1945 to prevent another mass slaughter. Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge murdered between one fourth and one third of its population between 1975 and 1979, civil libertarian Nat Hentoff pointed to another genocide that could have been stopped in Rwanda in 1994, and in 2016 we witnessed another in Syria where religious minorities, including Christians were being targeted. 

 Today, we are witnessing the genocide of Muslim Uyghurs in China.

It is important to remember that antisemitism is on the rise world wide and people of the Jewish faith need our solidarity and support now more than ever in confronting rising hatred and intolerance to ensure that what Nazi Germany did never be repeated. 

At the same time it is also important to remember and honor the martyrs and heroes who resisted the Nazis.  One of these heroes was Raoul Wallenberg, who saved over 100,000 Jewish people, and was disappeared by the Soviets in January 1945. 

 They are exemplars in moral courage that are much needed today. Let us continue the fight.

"How We Must Continue to Fight Antisemitism 80 Years After the Liberation of Auschwitz"

The latest piece for @TIME magazine by our Founder and International Chair, @IrwinCotler and the Chair of our Board @JayRosenzweig:https://t.co/kL93gQEMXk

"The Holocaust revealed the…

— Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (@TheRWCHR) January 26, 2025

Wallenberg saved 100,000 Jews in WW2, but was disappeared by Soviet communists on this day 80 years ago.

 “I will never be able to go back to Sweden without knowing inside myself that I'd done all a man could do to save as many Jews as possible.” - Raoul Wallenberg, Letter and Dispatches 1924 - 1944 

Raoul Wallenberg (Aug. 4, 1912 - disappeared Jan. 17, 1945)

Raoul Gustaf Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat saved 100,000 Jews in Hungary, according to the World Jewish Congress. He was imprisoned and disappeared by Soviet military intelligence (MERSH) after the war 80 years ago today.

Today is Raoul Wallenberg Day in Canada in honor of his couragous example. Irwin Cotler, a Canadian member of parliament, in an OpEd in The Jerusalem Post, described the rescue carried out by Wallenberg:

"From mid-May to the beginning of July 1944, some 440,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz – the fastest, cruelest, and most efficient killing field in the Holocaust. Wallenberg arrived as a member of the Swedish Legation in Budapest in mid-July 1944. In a remarkable demonstration of ingenuity and inspiration, bluff and bravado, he rescued some 100,000 Jews in the last six months of 1944 and the beginning of 1945, more than any other single government or organization."

Nonviolent resistance to the radical evil of the Nazis by courageous Danes and German housewives also worked and saved thousands of Jewish people from the Holocaust.

It should come as no surprise that Wallenberg was abducted by Soviet Communist forces. The Nazis and the Soviets had been partners in the partition and conquest of Poland six years prior, in September 1939. 

Today, on #RaoulWallenberg Commemorative Day, we honour the enduring legacy of Swedish diplomat and hero of the Holocaust Raoul Wallenberg, a hero who refused to be a bystander. We also mark 80 years since his disappearance into the Soviet Gulag- a profound and ongoing injustice.… pic.twitter.com/54p7TdQRFb

— Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (@TheRWCHR) January 17, 2025

Let us honor Raoul Wallenberg for all the lives he saved, and let us also continue to demand justice for him, who had his life taken by Josef Stalin. The Russians refuse to reveal what they did to Wallenberg, and his family has filed a lawsuit against them. In 2016, Sweden declared him dead. 

Today marks the 80th anniversary of the disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg.

Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg displayed outstanding civil courage and bravery when he saved tens of thousands of Jews from the Holocaust.

Let us honour his memory by continuing to stand up against… pic.twitter.com/CgdhQlI8UY

— Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs (@SweMFA) January 17, 2025

#WeRemember: International Holocaust Remembrance Day is January 27th

"It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere." - Primo Levi, 1986 The Drowned and the Saved

Never Again is Now.

Today, January 27, 2024 is recognized by the United Nations as International Holocaust Remembrance Day and is observed around the world.  

We must never forget what happened,  6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, and remain vigilant now and in the future to battle against the mass destruction of innocent human beings.

 

 

Primo Levi was right, it can happen anywhere - even in Israel, and even here.  

Three months and twenty one days ago on October 7, 2023, Hamas, an Iranian proxy, invaded and attacked Israel killing 1,200 and taking 240 hostages. This strike ignited a Middle East war between Israel and the terrorist organization Hamas, which has its base of operations in Gaza. This was the largest mass killing of Jewish people since the Holocaust. Two days after the Hamas terrorist attacks, before Israel had responded to the attacks, on the steps of the Sydney Opera House in Australia over a thousand protesters chanted, “Gas the Jews.” Sadly, the Cuban dictatorship backs Hamas, and is spreading anti-Semitic tropes.

Three years and twenty one days ago on January 6, 2021, when the citadel of American democracy was laid siege by an angry mob that resulted in five deaths - Nazis where there in the crowd. Robert Keith Packer, age 56, was wearing a "Camp Auschwitz" t-shirt, making light of the notorious death camp. Auschwitz was the largest of the German Nazi concentration camps and extermination centers. Over 1.1 million men, women and children lost their lives there.

“The moment infants are killed in their beds, women are raped, people are thrown on the ground and murdered, cruelly, satanically, and having done no wrong - that is a Holocaust”

Ruth Haran survived both the Holocaust and the October 7 Hamas massacre. pic.twitter.com/hOP2Q4IbY5

— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) January 26, 2024

 Five years and three months ago on October 27, 2018, Robert Bowers entered the Tree of Life synagogue with an AR-15, and three handguns shouting anti-Semitic slurs and opened fire killing eleven, and wounding six others. It was believed to be the deadliest attack against Jewish people in U.S. history, but it was not the first.

Unfortunately the international community has failed more than once since 1945 to prevent another mass slaughter. Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge murdered between one fourth and one third of its population between 1975 and 1979, civil libertarian Nat Hentoff pointed to another genocide that could have been stopped in Rwanda in 1994, and in 2016 we witnessed another in Syria where religious minorities, including Christians were being targeted. Today, we are witnessing the genocide of Muslim Uyghurs in China.

It is also important to remember that antisemitism is on the rise world wide and people of the Jewish faith need our solidarity and support now more than ever in confronting rising hatred and intolerance to ensure that what Nazi Germany did never be repeated. 

At the same time it is important to remember and honor the martyrs and heroes who resisted the Nazis.  Including Raoul Wallenberg, who saved 140,000 Jewish people, and was disappeared by the Soviets in January 1945. They are exemplars in moral courage that are much needed today. 

In 2017 in the United States we saw Neo-Nazis on the march in Charlottesville, North Carolina first in a torchlight parade chanting anti-Semitic rants that the following day turned deadly in violent clashes that claimed an innocent life. We must remain vigilant and denounce this evil ideology wherever and whenever it arises.

It can happen here. It can happen anywhere. We are not "OK".

When violence erupts in a society where the rule of law exists, it must not be tolerated, but dealt with an expeditious manner through the judicial system. However, where the poisonous tropes of anti-Semitism, and hatred against the Jewish people arise, it must not be censored by the government, but challenged by people of good will in the battle of ideas to expose both its intellectual and moral bankruptcy. 

Hate speech has Marxist origins that are in opposition to free expression. Perversely, it claims that language can be violence to censor speech while at the same time defending physical violence as justified. When you outlaw speech and drive it underground you imbue it with power and credibility it does not deserve. They tried this approach in Wiemar Germany and it only helped the Nazis take power.

"To forget the victims means to kill them a second time. So I couldn't prevent the first death. I surely must be capable of saving them from a second death." - Elie Wiesel

 

#WeRemember: International Holocaust Remembrance Day is January 27th

 "It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere." - Primo Levi, 1986 The Drowned and the Saved

Today, January 27, 2023 is recognized by the United Nations as International Holocaust Remembrance Day and is observed around the world.  

We must never forget what happened,  6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust, and remain vigilant now and in the future to battle against the mass destruction of innocent human beings. 

Two years and twenty one days ago on January 6, 2021 when the citadel of American democracy was laid siege by an angry mob that resulted in five deaths - Nazis where there in the crowd. Robert Keith Packer, age 56, was wearing a "Camp Auschwitz" t-shirt, making light of the notorious death camp. Auschwitz was the largest of the German Nazi concentration camps and extermination centers. Over 1.1 million men, women and children lost their lives there.

 

Primo Levi was right, it can happen anywhere - even here.

Unfortunately the international community has failed more than once since 1945 to prevent another mass slaughter. Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge murdered between one fourth and one third of its population between 1975 and 1979, civil libertarian Nat Hentoff pointed to another genocide that could have been stopped in Rwanda in 1994, and in 2016 we witnessed another in Syria where religious minorities, including Christians were being targeted. Today, we are witnessing the genocide of Muslim Uyghurs in China.

 

It is also important to remember that antisemitism is on the rise world wide and people of the Jewish faith need our solidarity and support in confronting rising hatred and intolerance to ensure that what Nazi Germany did never be repeated.

At the same time it is important to remember and honor the martyrs and heroes who resisted the Nazis.  Including Raoul Wallenberg, who saved 140,000 Jewish people, and was disappeared by the Soviets in January 1945. They are exemplars in moral courage that are much needed today. 

In 2017 in the United States we saw Neo-Nazis on the march in Charlottesville, North Carolina first in a torchlight parade chanting anti-Semitic rants that the following day turned deadly in violent clashes that claimed an innocent life. We must remain vigilant and denounce this evil ideology wherever and whenever it arises.

Four years later and Neo-Nazis were storming the U.S. Capitol threatening the peaceful transition of power in the United States. 

 

The fragility of a free society was underscored during  the events in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021, and the importance of resisting enemies of freedom both foreign and domestic. 

 

 

This cannot be done by silencing free speech, even if it is hateful, but challenging it and exposing both its intellectual and moral bankruptcy.

"To forget the victims means to kill them a second time. So I couldn't prevent the first death. I surely must be capable of saving them from a second death." - Elie Wiesel