by Akim Reinhardt
I write this not to counter Holocaust deniers. That would be a waste of time; the criminally insane will spew their fantastical vitriol no matter what you tell them. Nor do I write this in the spirit of “Never forget!” As a historian I am committed to remembering this and many more genocides, particularly the most devastating and thorough genocide of all: the European genocides of Indigenous societies. At the same time, I understand the ultimate futility of admirable slogans such as “Never Forget!” For everything is forgotten, eventually. Everything and everyone.
Rather, I say “The Holocaust happened” as a reminder that human beings are quite capable of the worst. Not during any particular era, but at all times. Not a particular group of humans, but all of them. For no ethnic group is cut out to be the villains or the victims. Inflicting horror is a fully human affair. Any person can become a monster if pushed far enough, and many don’t need all that much pushing. Every society is ready to be awful. If flattered sufficiently, any large group of people will tacitly approve the horrors that others inflict on their behalf and in their name.
Why do humans act so atrociously, while other humans countenance it, or at least sit by unbothered as it happens? The phenomenon is so common that the answer cannot be exotic. The reasons can’t be too specific. Humans do not need some grand excuse to enable their worst behavior, or to cheer it on, much less sit by untroubled. Humans are quite capable of, and even given to, inventing their own petty little lies to serve as ludicrous justification for their hellish actions. This is History’s lesson, recited over and over again. To insist otherwise is to give humanity far too much credit.
Yet, insist we do.
These lies generally come in two forms. The most common and criminal is erasure. The sin of omission. The lie of active forgetting. While humans are doomed to forget and be forgotten, that is a passive process. Instead I am referring to active forgetting. Erasure comes when a society takes active steps to forget the horrors it has committed.
These steps often include developing a counter mythology to help erase the truth. Think of your typical mid-20th century American Western. Myths about savage Indians harassing “innocent” settlers, particularly white women and children, requiring the cavalry ride to the rescue. This is just one of many examples of how American society actively erased the truth about settler genocide of Indigenous societies. Not savage Indians, but Indigenous civilizations whose only “crime” was thousands of years of occupation and use of American land and resources. Scores (if not more) of ethnic cleansing and genocide campaigns repackaged as “civilization” rightfully replacing bloodthirsty, ignorant “me talk dumb ug-um Indian” savagery. And all of this in turn allows a society to actively forget, or erase, the atrocities it has committed.
The crime upon the crime.
The second form of the lie that justifies human horror is citing a world-shattering development (or exaggerating problems as such) to explain why a society descends into nightmarish behavior.
“The Holocaust happened because Germans were pressed to the extreme edge, carting wheelbarrows of German marks to buy a loaf of bread.”
If you add “and Jewish bankers were responsible,” you get the first lie. But even without that ludicrous make believe, you have the second form.
Did post-WWI Germany suffer from hyper inflation when it sold off its gold reserves to pay unfair war indemnities demanded by victorious France and Great Britain? Sort of. The inflation actually began during the war, a result of funding the war effort. Afterwards, it was compounded by various German monetary policies as well as the indemnity. It all added up to 1 U.S. dollar being worth about 1.2 trillion German marks in November, 1923. But is that what led to the rise of Hitler. Not really.
By 1924, German currency was stable. Hitler began his infamous political career in 1919, before the hyperinflation began. He did not become dictator of Germany until 1933, nine years after it ended. The causes explaining Hitler’s rise are numerous and complex. The Great Depression played a much larger role than the brief period of hyperinflation years before. And of course the Great Depression was not a special calamity inflicted only upon the German people, but a global affair. However, most nations did not react by descending into genocidal fascism.
So the second lie is a brand of absolution that justifies human horror is often a series of simplifications and perversion of the truth. As such, it can also is the stuff of fairy tales. Just look at popular culture.
Since the turn of the 21st century, dystopian fiction has been quite the rage in movies, TV, and literature. It’s understandable given all the instabilities of real life: wars, boom/bust economies, school shootings, climate change, shifting labor markets, massive waves of migration, the alienation produced by social media, etc. No wonder many people want to relieve some anxiety by imagining it ends in something far worse.
These dystopian fictions often feature a trope: some massive calamity that serves as backstory and setting. Climate disasters, the end of human fertility, news of an approaching meteor, alien invasions, the rise of zombies, nuclear war, or some other catastrophic wrenching of the social order, whether vivid or vague, complex or simple, is typically summoned so an author can justify humans doing awful things to each other.
It seems authors of much (most?) dystopian fiction believe that some kind of collapse or near-collapse of civilization is needed to bring about the worst. But why should such fictions so commonly conjure a world-altering fiasco to justify the dystopian turn?
As if they need that.
As a trope, it strikes me as naive to the point of being childish. Just read a history book. Humans need no cataclysmic impetus to rain holy hell upon each other.
What’s the absolute worst you can think of? Guaranteed, humans have already done it. Indeed, they may be doing it right now. And in either past or present, they’ve not needed a massive, external, existential and/or material disordering to justify it.
All you ever need is bad people in positions of power. That’s all it takes. The wrong shit heads getting their hands on the right levers. And then the most diabolical of efforts and outcomes are possible as all the other, little shitty people, who’d previously been kept in check, come running and howling to join the orgy.
The German extermination campaign of Romas and Jews
The Spanish mission labor camps and subsequent American genocide of Indigenous California.
Rwanda and Burundi
Srebrenica
Darfur
The Turkish slaughter of Armenians
The Chinese cultural genocide of and forced labor camps for Uhigurs. Right now.
The Burmese ethnic cleansing, murder, and rape of Royhingas. Right now.
The shockingly repressive patriarchies of Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, to name just two nations. Right now.
The Israeli war crimes in and destruction and impending ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Right now.
What “the fate of humanity hangs in the balance” crisis led to any of those? None. These, and countless other atrocities are merely the result of humanity’s worst instincts and traits expressing themselves in earnest. Greed. Anger. Hatred. Sadism. They’re always there, lurking, waiting to erupt, to be voiced, to attract, and run free, unconstrained. It is simply a matter of time, no end times needed. Just wait, and humanity will show you what it’s capable of.
We are the animal that relishes killing for the sheer joy of it. We are the primates reveling in our fabricated narratives of especialty. We are the bringers of doom who sing of our own glory. We are the blind, murdering the blind; the deaf, murdering the deaf; the makers of machines and waking dreams, walking upon the distant memories of all we have trampled beneath us. We are fire and death. We are the wrath of angry children, and the shrug of disinterested adults.
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Akim Reinhardt’s website is ThePublicProfessor.com