Looking at the light in the Darkness
History tells us that there will be dark times and often acts of genocide are some of the most darkest moments in our history. But as we live through the coronavirus pandemic a century after the Spanish Flu, in my view the beginning of the right circumstances which laid the right path for Hitler and the Nazi’s to come to power between 1920-33.
Let’s start at the beginning, Germany was blamed for the first world war and was forced to pay reparations to France. As the war ended, the Spanish Flu, the H1N1 virus, broke out and in the conditions of the closing months of the war the virus was able to spread across the western front and the second wave co-inside with the end of the war.
This was the deadliest pandemic, until the ongoing HIV pandemic, we often see small epidemics relating to the influenza virus. But this can be brought under control by vaccination quickly. But the coronavirus pandemic has not killed anywhere near as many as Spanish Flu.
In the Treaty of Versailles, Germany the aggressor in the war and consequently made Germany responsible for making reparations to the Allied nations in payment for the losses and damage they had sustained in the war. Those reparations plunged Germany into a recession which cost billions, compounded by The Wall Street Crash.
The crash of the stock market crash put the world into a recession, this allowed the Nazi’s to build the narrative that the treaty which brought peace to Europe had been unfair on Germany. It made mainly the Jews the scapegoats for the problems that Germany, for undefined reasons.
As the road to the ‘final solution’ was slow we saw the effect of fake news in spreading mistruths about Jews controlling the world. This anti-Semitic prejudice always re-emerges at times like this, documented since the start of the pandemic, mistruths that Jews are spreading the Coronavirus.
United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres in November warned of a “steady stream of prejudice” against Jews during the coronavirus outbreak, as he received an award from a global Jewish body.
Guterres said “age-old blood libels” against Jews had been “given new life” amid the pandemic, as Jewish people and other minorities were falsely accused of spreading the pathogen.
As the far-right and some Conservatives opposed the health measures over the last year, we can’t forget those who have followed the rules and I have spent most of the last year shielding or mainly housebound. This I found really tough after the year was shaping up to be one where I was able to do more, it became one where I was mainly stuck at home.
Those times were scary, but as the year turned the light was slowly returning though I still thing as the pandemic continues, we need to bare for a tough few months as we go through the winter.
At Auschwitz, the final year of its operation, known as ‘frenzied killing’, would lead to the area killing well over half a million and make the camp the deadliest place in the world. In the period following the Hungarian Revolution 320,00 Jews between 15 May and 8 July 1944, were deported and killed.
A few weeks later the beginning of the end was coming with the invasion from the Allies at Normandy and Soviet invasion of Ukraine, beginning the chain of events over the next year which would topple the Nazi regime and expose the genocide committed by Nazi Germany.
When we see the images of places where genocides and massacres have taken place are disturbing, but yet a reminder of how small discriminatory acts, misinformation, and the use of fear can be brought together to justify percussion of minorities.
One of my memories of going to Auschwitz, was the night as I left walking along the railway lines at Birkenau lit with candles on a cold March night was how cold it was despite being wrapped up in coats and jumpers. The inmates only had thin uniforms.
In the dark times there are always those who have come forward to support their communities, but not at greater risk of those European’s who risked their lives to protect not only Jews but Roma, political opponents, LGBT and BAME people.
Although BAME Germans and Europeans were incarceration, sterilization and murder, there was no targeted programme like ‘the final solution’ or the ‘T4 programme’ to wipe out BAME people. We need to recognise the other groups who are on the edge, hidden away as they are often the first to experience
2020 also was a wake-up call when it comes to the subconscious bias, we all have. The murder of George Floyd, during a pandemic which has disproportionately affected BAME people, was a wake-up call. History tells us whether that be the slave trade, European colonialism, apartheid that white-European Christian has been the ruling class for centuries.
Nelson Mandela’s struggles to fight against white minority rule showed what resistance can do. Once apartheid was overthrown in South Africa, it could have been so easy for him to go after his oppressors, but he chose the path of reconciliation rather than revenge.
It’s important we offer light to those who are outsiders, we all have our own subconscious biases and are taught things about certain groups of people. The key threat we have seen is when groups like the Nazi’s, or even the harden Trump supporters come together knowing there are others who share their views.
The Nazi’s didn’t have this technology, but platforms like Facebook and forums can be a place where these groups can organise and grow by spreading misinformation. Hitler himself used a phrase like ‘fake news’ when he had stories which gave him bad press coverage.
In recent weeks we have seen what that can do, the mob which overrun the US Congress was in my view was fuelled by former President Trump and his supporters.
Trump, we know has been impeached for the second time and his trial by the senate is underway if convicted on charges of Incitement of insurrection he could be banned from public office and be the first US president to be successfully impeached.
Hitler also encouraged his supporters and the Nazi Storm Troopers to storm the Reichstag in the Night of the Long Knives, which was a coup cementing his place as and they then played a key role in the Night of Broken Glass in 1938.
These were coup attempts, and dark warning in the case of Germany we know what happened next, and the scene out of Washington was a reminder of how democracy’s die.
In my view, it’s important that we are aware of the dark places on the web, but equally the light can be mutual aid groups, support groups and equally a place where they are able to spread this false narrative about certain people. We need to realise that we are responsible for what we post online.
Twitter wasn’t around in the 1930s, imagine if the Nazi regime and Hitler had that power to use social media in ways used by Trump? Would we be having these debates about ‘whether it was right to block POUTS from various platforms?’
I think the web is learning of its social responsibility, it’s only been around thirty years. However, the problem with the internet is how do you regulate it in countries where free speech is legally protected and not become methods for spreading propaganda or mistruths.
A principal of the internet is ‘No one person, company, organization or government runs the Internet’, and the idea of unfretted information cannot be a true one. We have limited, filtering of sites that include hate speech inciting racism, sexism, homophobia, or other forms of bigotry, as well as terrorism.
Even when the holocaust ended or any genocides, the biggest challenges for the targeted groups are rebuilding their life’s. In a war, millions were displaced across Europe, not just those in the contraction camps. Many had to spend months in the camps under allied control while waiting to be resettled either where they came from or in Palestine which became Israel in 1948.
We didn’t learn the lessons immediately; Alan Turing was key in defeating the Nazi’s but was convicted for being gay, believing to lead to his suicide in 1954. Homosexuality remained illegal in most of Europe until the 1960s to 80s and areas under Soviet control took until the late 80s and 90s to legalise homosexuality.
For many survivors of precaution by the Nazis or any other groups, will be continued to be haunted with what we could describe as PSTD. But in a war when everyone suffered were told to move on and forget, it took some of the survivors and even members of the SS and German military decades to tell the truth about what happened.
On 18th January, the government introduced a bill giving the high court the power to determine if genocide is taking place. This is seen as an important test of Britain as it could place human rights at the heart of any future trade deal.
We need to remember that the trauma of the coronavirus pandemic will be something we will all share a moment in history. How will we react? Knowing the recent history of the last pandemic, which played a role in the rise of Hitler by creating the narrative of the Jewish conspiracy.
In the UK, disabled people those born with got some protections towards the end of the war with the 1944 Disability Employment Act promised sheltered employment, reserved occupations and employment quotas for disabled people.
These mainly focused on injured servicemen, not those born with disabilities until Remploy came along created ‘sheltered work’ for disabled people in specially designed factories. But it would take until 1996 for full legal protections to be given.
I feel the lasting lessons we need to remember from the Nazi regime and other genocides, as well as places where minority groups are targeted, that the light will return. We always need to do better, the promise that governments made following the second world war and a duty we all share, not to let those would divide us wi