I used to think we could get a lesson out of the Holocaust. I thought since it was so well documented we could use it to teach the danger in racist ideology (yes, I know ‘Jewish’ isn’t a race, but the Nazi’s cast it as such all the same).
I thought because of the documentation, denials would be easily refuted. I saw denials in racial ideology on a parallel to Holocaust denial — the denial that it was occurring — at the time. Denials of the people who lived near the death camps, or one of the Einsatzgruppen’s murder scenes — I wanted to understand that denial such that I could overlay what I learned and help break it in the current context of racism in the US.
I want so badly to solve that problem.
What I learned in my attempt to make these connections is that there is no amount of proof one can present a denying mind that will break the chains of its maladaptive preference. A mind in denial must want to break itself.
In this way, “looking for light,” in studying the “darkness of the Holocaust,” all *I* found was exactly what you said I would
— more darkness —
Thank you for helping me articulate what I have always thought my greatest failure in my inability to find a light anywhere in that hell.
Respectfully,
-Cyborg
