The Final Solution

I have never thought that much about anti-Semitism. It's like the fallout shelter my father built in the early 1960's in the basement of the house where I live now -- when nuclear obliteration was a stark possibility and massive retaliation the illogical strategy for preserving civilization -- the vestige of a shrouded past, the symbol of a shadowy evil that oscillates in my mind between fantasy and reality.

The difference, of course, is that I lived through the Cold War and remember the fearful uncertainties of superpower confrontation, while growing up mostly oblivious to any manifestations of anti-Semitism.

I have no recollection of any ethnic slur, derogatory remark, or prejudicial act ever directed at me because I was Jewish. Most of my juvenile contemporaries would probably have agreed with the conclusion drawn by one of them as he expressed it to me years later: he assumed that the synagogue was just another denominational church, where its own particular brand of religion (or Christianity) was practiced. After all, like him, that's where I could be found every Sunday morning, on the Christian Sabbath, although I was there for religious education, not for worship. Some of my Gentile friends were naturally envious of my Judaism when they discovered that it entitled me to Hanukkah gifts on eight consecutive nights, these in addition to the sackful bestowed upon me every Christmas morning by a beneficent Santa Claus, the belief in whom my ecumenical-minded, indulgent parents were loathe to shatter.

Later in life, when, for a thankfully brief period, I was required to sell on the floor at Schewel Furniture Company, I occasionally encountered a customer eager to "Jew me down," an infelicitous turn-of-phrase he expostulated as casually as "no way," to which I initially took silent umbrage but soon learned to turn a professional tin ear, chalking up his insensitivity to improper breeding and rustic naivete. Other than my elder son coming home one day and reporting that a fellow bus rider had called him a "kike" -- echoing the "dirty Jew" accusation hurled at my mother, she says, fifty years prior to that -- a term neither the giver nor the receiver probably knew the meaning of -- anti-Semitism has been refreshingly absent from my universe.

Certainly -- as my mother could bear witness -- it was prevalent, though by no means rampant, in an earlier generation. Even in Lynchburg, which I have found to be remarkably free of any anti-Jewish sentiment -- excepting an occasional Falwell malapropism -- I have heard whispers from my elders of a time when Jews were excluded from elite neighborhoods and country clubs, barriers which collapsed long before I sought entry into either. My mother maintains to this day that a clandestine quota system denied me acceptance to an Ivy League college, while I attribute my rejections to a dearth of extra-curricular activities.

Even a stint on the State Advisory Board of the Anti-Defamation League -- an international organization which researches, investigates, and responds to acts of anti-Semitism -- could not convince me that these scattered incidents posed any serious threat to the well-being of American Jewry. At the time of my involvement, the two most troubling issues were anti-Semitism on college campuses and Holocaust denial, which often went hand-in-hand. Entering the proverbial lion's den, at the behest of the state director, I examined both topics in an address to a gathering of students and faculty at Virginia Tech.

As anti-Semitism has receded in the rear view window of American attitudes and behavior in my lifetime, awareness of its parallel phenomenon, the Holocaust, has grown proportionately. The destruction of European Jewry has come to be identified as the sole legacy of the Third Reich, the ideological foundation of its territorial ambitions, and the signature event of the war it launched in pursuit of those goals. "Unique and fundamentally different from the many other atrocities committed by the Nazis . . . it has found expression in several forms of remembrance and commemoration," including memorials dedicated to the millions who perished, museums portraying their way of life, and solemn observances, both religious and secular. It has become the subject of serious scholarly study and research in a growing number of colleges and universities and part of the history curriculum in many high schools. (Hamerow, pp. 463-464)

It is impossible to speak about the Holocaust without minimizing it. It pricks the psyche on isolated occasions in the same way the name of a long-forgotten acquaintance -- whom one briefly knew or encountered in a life span of sixty years -- makes one sit up and take notice when it appears on the obituary page. Remembering that person with poignant fondness, one is overcome momentarily with the same emotions evoked by the Holocaust: sorrow, emptiness, resignation, profound loss. And then he turns the page -- and moves on with the business of the day.

Most Jews, I think, other than survivors or their children, view the Holocaust with no less detachment than Gentiles. Of course we are shocked, saddened, sickened by the words and pictures that expose so nakedly man's cruelty and depravity -- and yet, other than a fleeting guilty acknowledgement that these poor creatures are co-religionists (with whom I, an unobservant Jew, really have little in common) and that we share some ancient ethnic bloodlines, I regard them as no more than the victims of some otherworldly historical tragedy.

One thought only transforms me from a sympathetic bystander into an empathetic participant. Alan Dershowitz wrote it in his memoir of Jewish self-analysis, Chutzpah, upon visiting the site of a concentration camp: There, but for the grace of God, go I. If our forebears had not had the courage, foresight, and energy to flee Russian persecution one-hundred-twenty years ago, some strange generational iteration of ourselves or our parents would most certainly have died at the hands of the Nazis. Or even more mind-bending, we might never have been born.

It is difficult enough to contemplate the number of Jews who perished during the course of World War II, 5,978,000, 38 per cent of the worldwide Jewish population of 15,748,000, 60 per cent of the European Jewish population. (Hamerow, p. 453) But also lost were millions of future lives -- a teeming multitude of scholars, teachers, writers, artists, musicians, inventors, entrepreneurs, engineers, scientists, parents, children, friends, lovers, leaders, ad infinitum. And with those lives, born and unborn, disappeared a one-thousand-year-old civilization, which, until 1939, had survived isolation, oppression, dispersion, discrimination, denigration, and marginalization, while gifting to the world its unique language, music, art, literature, food, theater, dance, religion, and philosophy -- all reduced to bones and ashes in the blink of an eye, in five years of unrelenting horror.

This unthinkable course of events assumes an aura of dispassionate inevitability in Theodore Hamerow's 2008 sobering study: Why We Watched: Europe, America, and the Holocaust. Hamerow makes a persuasive case that varying degrees of anti-Semitism in Europe and America effectively foreclosed the prewar rescue of European Jewry and sealed its fate once the war started.

While the emancipation of European Jewry in the middle years of the nineteenth century released tens of thousands from the ghetto and offered them the promise of equal rights and equal opportunities, it signaled the evolution of a religious-based anti-Judaism -- in which Jews had been scorned and denounced for their refusal to accept Christianity -- into a more insidious, secularized anti-Semitism. Now Jews were condemned not only for their adherence to a false doctrine but also for their greed, materialism, and clannishness; their heresy was identified as moral and cultural, not merely theological. (Hamerow, pp. 16-25 )

All of a sudden, as Jews were gaining acceptance in traditional social circles, acquiring influence in national and international affairs, and displaying a talent for enhancing their wealth and power -- often at the expense of non-Jews -- they were also arousing uneasiness, resentment, and hostility. The secret designs of World Jewry for complete control over state and society -- whether by means of capitalism or socialism -- became a theme of the new anti-Semitism. (Hamerow, pp. 23,25)

The German philosopher Eugen Duhring prophetically elucidated "The Jewish Question." He wrote: "The most pernicious qualities in the Jewish character were not the result of religious or historical experiences or cultural tradition; they were hereditary, rooted in the genetic composition of the Jews, reflecting an unchangeable racial character. They could not be overcome or modified by adaptation or acculturation or assimilation." Because "in their inner being Jews would always remain inalterably and incorrigibly alien . . . sooner or later Germans were bound to realize how irreconciliable with their best interest is the infusion of the Jewish race into their national environment." (Hamerow, p. 29)

That sentiment was not limited to Germans. Anti-Semitism was persistent and pervasive throughout Europe and America in the prewar years.

In the succession states of Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, hunger and suffering brought on by the Great Depression and the rise of right-wing authoritarian governments resulted in the Jews being singled out as targets for blame and reprisal. Jews were accused of being too clannish, ambitious, covetous, and radical; of becoming too influential in political and economic life; of seeking to rule the native populations through the power of money and the promotion of Communism; and of trying to dominate the professions of business, law, and medicine. Laws were promulgated restricting membership in these occupations. Outbreaks of anti-Semitic violence were frequent and intense. (Hamerow, pp.47-63)

Even a moderate statesman like Jozef Retinger, personal secretary to the Polish government in exile in London, believed that "there were too many Jews in his country and that most of them were and would always be unassimilable, and that their role in economic life was excessive and detrimental." In the minds of other succession state officials, Jews were an alien and disruptive element in their national communities. According to Retinger, "The only solution to this burning question is emigration."(Hamerow, p. 59)

Each of these countries instituted measures to limit the immigration of Jews and began to explore ways to expel or resettle their indigenous populations. But when their policies of civic exclusion and deprivation proved to have a minimal effect and the international powers, especially Britain, showed little interest in providing areas for resettlement and colonization, the Jewish question loomed larger than ever.

In France, a debate raged between those who, motivated by compassion and benevolence, felt a moral duty to help Jewish victims of cruelty and injustice and those who argued that these immigrants would compete with Frenchmen facing the hardships of the Great Depression.

The well-known playwright, novelist, and essayist, Jean Giraudoux, complained that "the hundreds of thousands of Ashkenazis" who had escaped from "the Polish and Romanian ghettos" were now forcing "our compatriots" out of various artisan occupations and undermining the time-honored customs and traditions of those occupations. (Hamerow, p. 75) "Many tradesmen and shopkeepers felt threatened by foreigners who were competing, often successfully, with native-born workers . . . In the last years preceding the second World War . . . there were growing protests, demonstrations, marches, and sometimes riots directed against Jews, especially Eastern Europeans." (Hamerow, p. 77)

These were refugees who would not and could not be assimilated. They would always be alien, different in culture, language, spirit, and collective character. Even the assimilated Jew, wrote one patrician Frenchman, despite his "impeccable appearance, his elegant manner, and his refined tone, would remain unalterably foreign, because of his genetic make-up, his essential nature." (Hamerow, pp 64-89)

The spokesmen for this highbrow variety of anti-Semitism targeted Jewish academics, journalists, musicians, writers, and film producers, whom they saw as competitors in fields traditionally dominated by non-Jews. (Hamerow pp. 78-79) They claimed that the French national character was being corrupted by Jewish greed and aggressiveness. (Hamerow, p. 81)

Furthermore, the qualities that made the Jew a threat to the country "were inherent and therefore ineradicable. They could not be overcome by gradual assimilation and acculturation. They were incorrigible because they were biological in nature; they were racial." (Hamerow, p. 82)

At a meeting at the Quai d'Orsay on November 24, 1938, Georges Bonnet, the French minister for foreign affairs, explained his government's position on the matter of Jewish refugees. With 40,000 already in the country, "France could not stand a Jewish immigration on a large scale." The country was "saturated" with foreigners within its borders. The limit to what it could do -- and would do, in the next two years -- had now been reached. (Hamerow, pp. 87-89)

Because of Great Britain's long-standing commitment to the ideals of religious tolerance and ethnic inclusivity, its Jewish population enjoyed a generally unqualified acceptance into the country's economic, political, and social life. There seemed to be little overt hostility toward Jews -- no reports of mass demonstrations or street riots, no vandalized stores, no broken windows, no assaults against shopkeepers or tradesmen.

Yet an undercurrent of anti-Semitism flowed beneath "the placid surface of public conduct." Its blunt spokesperson was the celebrated author, H. G. Wells. He wrote that the Jews' tradition -- Biblical, Talmudic, economic -- held them together. "It is a tradition that stresses acquisitiveness." (Hamerow, p. 98)

"The Jew's rapacity, according to Wells, reflected his profound estrangement from the society that had provided him with asylum and opportunity: 'He is not a good citizen . . . He does not give his allegiance to the institutions, conventions, and collective interests and movements of the community in which he finds himself . . . He is an alien with an alien mentality.' " (Hamerow, p. 98)

"What Wells found objectionable in Jews was not their race or religion or conduct or appearance. It was their Jewishness . . . The ultimate source of his criticism was that they refused to identify with non-Jews; they insisted on following a path different from that of the rest of mankind." (Hamerow, p. 100)

To the French economic, xenophobic, and cultural arguments against Jewish immigration, the British attached three more. First, it would intensify anti-Semitism in the United Kingdom. "It would stir up the elements that batten on anti-Semitic propaganda," wrote the Daily Express. Sir Samuel Hoare, secretary of state for the Home Office, noting the difficulty "for many of our fellow countrymen to make a livelihood at all and keep their industries and businesses going," warned that "an unchecked flow of impoverished immigrants into Great Britain" -- who would compete with the native population for jobs and opportunities -- "would inevitably lead to the growth of an anti-Jewish movement which we all wish to see suppressed." (Hamerow, p. 108)

In 1938 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told his French counterpart, Edouard Deladier, that the current admission of five hundred Jewish refugees a week into Great Britain was fraught with "the serious danger of arousing anti-Semitic prejudice." (Hamerow, p.112)

Secondly, postulated the Daily Express, these asylum-seekers were very likely the authors of their own misfortune, having aroused ethnic hostility by their anti-social mentality and conduct, by becoming too prosperous. (Hamerow, p. 104) A third concern was the fear that an open door policy would only encourage the states of Central and Eastern Europe -- Poland, Romania, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania -- to pressure more Jews to leave, dumping millions of refugees in England's lap, a frightening possibility. (Hamerow, p. 114)

One possible solution to such a mass exodus was overseas settlement. A substantial influx of Jewish refugees might prove of benefit to the underpopulated (at least by whites), underdeveloped, and entrepreneurially deficient British colonies and dependencies. But most Jewish emigrants were reluctant to leave Europe -- even Germany or Poland -- for Kenya, Guiana, Australia, or New Zealand. Nor were the members of the British Commonwealth eager to receive them. (Hamerow, pp. 116-117)

Lord Bledisloe, the governor-general of New Zealand, feared their detrimental impact during a "period of acute economic depression," and their Communist and revolutionary sympathies. The Kenya Settlement Committee stated that "it would be impossible for any considerable number of artisans, clerks,and professional people to be absorbed into the economic life of the country without seriously jeopardizing the interests of existing residents." The Australians violently objected. Palestine was "out of the question," in view of "the failure of the British Mandate to attain some modus operandi between Jews and Arabs." (Hamerow, pp 117-118)

During the course of the war Britain accepted many refugees from allied countries occupied by the Third Reich -- Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Greeks -- but was reluctant to admit large numbers of Jews. The reason was that while the former could be expected to return home once victory was achieved, the Jews had no wish to go back to the communities where they had been regarded as aliens, parasites, and subversives. The likelihood that they would stay in Great Britain, in a more tolerant social environment, was alarming to the British authorities. (Hamerow, p. 193)

Across the Atlantic, prejudice against Jews was dying a slow death. On the one hand, "Jews were playing an increasingly important role in American society; on the other, they were still excluded from prestigious social clubs, banned from many hotels, and subject to unwritten quotas at private and public universities." (Hamerow, pp. 135-136)

Those wishing to restrict Jewish immigration added four new rationalizations to an already intimidating list. Skeptical of accounts of persecution, they raised the red flag of Jewish alarmism. They asked, "Weren't Jews always complaining about discrimination, oppression, bigotry, and injustice? Accusations against the Third Reich had to be carefully studied and evaluated. They might prove to be exaggerated, greatly exaggerated" -- like the reports about the atrocities committed by Kaiser Germany during World War I which had turned out to be mostly propaganda. (Hamerow, p. 140)

Reluctant to challenge or provoke Nazi Germany, they accused American Jews of intriguing to drag their country into a "ruinous military conflict" in which it had no serious stake, subordinating national interests to ethnic solidarity, and willing to risk war to help their co-religionists. (Hamerow, p. 140)

Third, they feared "that any substantial influx of Jews from abroad would strengthen their role in government, business, and the professions, and increase their influence in national life" -- an undesirable outcome and a tangible threat to other Americans. (Hamerow, p. 144)

And finally, in a curious contradiction that had plagued Jews since the turn of the century, they asserted that these foreigners would become either traitorous communists preaching a subversive ideology or successful capitalists accumulating disproportionate riches.

Not all opponents of liberalizing immigration policies were conservatives or nativists. Henry Pratt Fairchild had been described as "socialistic"or "Marxist" in his political leanings, and was a proponent of closer relations between the United states and the Soviet Union. To the common refrain that admitting too many persecuted Jews would ignite "the powerful undercurrent of anti-Semitism that smoldered beneath the surface of openly expressed public opinion," he added this bizarre postscript: by its readiness to accept the victims of European prejudice, the United States might unintentionally increase the extent and intensity of that prejudice, since countries as a result would accelerate their efforts to force them out. (Hamerow, pp. 227-228)

"Some exclusionists were motivated by anti-Semitism pure and simple. To them the inherent character or collective mentality of the Jews made them a threat to any non-Jewish community willing to accept them. The difference between Jew and Gentile was so deep-rooted, so fundamental, that no amount of tolerance on one side or assimilation on the other would overcome them. They were ineradicable." (Hamerow, p. 232)

In Canada, xenophobia, ethnic prejudice, and anti-Semitism were more widespread and intense than in the United States -- and all were compounded by the Great Depression. Jews were regarded as fundamentally different from non-Jews in character, outlook, and conduct. (Hamerow, p. 160)

"Jewish quotas were the rule in universities, the professions, and many industries. Jews were barred from acquiring property in certain neighborhoods, from vacationing in certain resorts, and from joining certain private clubs. They were excluded from the governing boards of many charitable, financial, and commercial organizations. There were even occasional street fights in large cities like Toronto and Winnipeg between Jews and militant anti-Semites." (Hamerow, p. 159)

In 1939, in a petition submitted to the House of Commons, 127,000 Canadians protested vigorously "against all immigration whatsoever, and especially against Jewish immigration," and insisted that the nation maintain its rigorous policy against the admission of foreigners. (Hamerow, pp. 157-158)

Nor would Latin American countries offer much of a haven, where barriers were imposing, and made more insuperable by a world conflict that disrupted their economies, shrinking both their traditional export markets and their importation of essential goods from abroad. Restrictionists preached a familiar sermon, warning that a sudden flood of immigrants might aggravate class tensions and even produce mass riots, that newcomers, once established in the host country, would become successful businessmen, financiers, professionals, or publicists -- at the expense of the native population -- and lead to the spread of anti-Semitism. (Hamerow, p. 378)

As Hitler's insatiable appetite for lebensraum pushed Europe to the brink of war, Americans began to view Nazi totalitarianism as a threat to their national security. "Yet growing U.S. opposition to Nazi Germany did not translate into growing sympathy for those whom its policies endangered the most." (Hamerow, p. 201) Eighty-three per cent of those surveyed in an April 1939 Fortune magazine poll said they would be opposed to a bill increasing current immigration quotas. (Hamerow, p. 208)

While a modicum of central European Jews found asylum in Western Europe and North America in the prewar years, the outbreak of World War II and the rapid territorial expansion of the Third Reich turned the slow-burning refugee problem into a raging firestorm.

On January 20, 1942, at the Wannsee Conference, the Third Reich gave official approval to the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. "Since the danger to Aryan society that the Jews represented was essentially racial -- that is, inherent in their collective genetic character -- it could not be overcome by education or assimilation or acculturation. The only answer was extermination." (Hamerow, p. 294)

Hamerow contends that the Third Reich's prosecution of total war and the resultant gradual shift in its military fortunes were what transformed its violent anti-Semitic prejudice into institutional genocide. Its single-minded adherents blamed world Jewry -- especially influential Jews in the United States and the Soviet Union -- for ceaselessly plotting against them and for continued foreign resistance to their government's policies and goals. (Hamerow, p. 293)

Despite learning about German atrocities early on, authorities in London and Washington were slow to publicize them. They feared that the Jewish community and like-minded humanitarian organizations would pressure them to do something to stop the slaughter -- like destroy railroad tracks leading to the death camps, or bomb German cities, or warn those responsible that they would be tried as criminals. But, they argued, no country engaged in a struggle for survival could afford to divert scarce resources from military to humanitarian efforts. (Hamerow, p. 305)

Furthermore, wouldn't acceding to those demands spark a complaint from the exiled leaders of other endangered ethnic communities -- Poles, Czechs, Serbs, and Greeks -- that the Jews were receiving preferential treatment? And wouldn't the knowledge that Christian lives were being jeopardized to save a small but influential minority of non-Christians reinforce the notion that this war was being fought at the instigation of the Jews? (Hamerow, p.307) Perversely, they shuddered at the thought that rescue efforts might prove so successful that the Nazis would lift their floodgates and expel a deluge of refugees. (Hamerow, p. 309)

Sadly, revelations about the Holocaust had little effect on prevailing attitudes about the refugee problem and the "Jewish question." While persecution and potential genocide on a large scale aroused a great deal of sympathy, as would-be immigrants, the victims were still seen as outsiders, competing with the native populations for food and shelter, aggravating the hardships caused by war. (Hamerow, p. 310)

During the early war years, American officials, including the President, were reluctant to display too much sympathy for Holocaust victims. They wished to avoid doing "anything that might divert public attention from the war effort and impair the nation's collective resolve to keep fighting until victory had been achieved." (Hamerow, p. 355) Roosevelt, ever the astute, experienced politician, recognized that paying special attention to persecuted Jews might reinforce long-standing complaints that he was too much under the influence of his Jewish aides and advisers. (Hamerow, p. 363)

"As it became increasingly clear that the Allies were likely to win, statements of support became more frequent and explicit." (Hamerow, p. 358) Unfortunately, they were too little and came too late.

Military action to save Jewish lives faced such formidable obstacles that it was rarely proposed. The realization that even the most heroic efforts could save only a small fraction of the victims -- one to two per cent -- discouraged all but a few minor initiatives. A general skepticism about reports of mass murder persisted; many people found a planned, systematic genocide hard to believe. Military operations to rescue Jews risked undermining the official position that the war was being waged in defense of all persecuted national and ethnic communities. They might prove detrimental to the total war effort -- by diverting resources, endangering American lives, and fostering domestic dissension. The best way to save the remnants of European Jewry, it was argued, was to defeat Nazi Germany as quickly as possible. (Hamerow, pp. 391-406)

Hamerow doubts that armed force would have been effective. He writes: "The available evidence strongly suggests that the obsessive anti-Semitism of the Third Reich . . . was too strong to be overcome by aerial bombardments or paratrooper raids. Even after the concentration camps were liberated by the Soviet Union, the Nazi genocide continued in the form of starvation, disease, exhausting labor, death marches, brutal beatings, and mass executions. Paradoxically, those who maintained that only victory on the battlefield could save the Jews were in essence right. The tragedy was that by the time victory came, so few were left to be saved." (Hamerow, p. 418)

Anti-Semitism did not disappear with the unprecedented massacre of 62 per cent of prewar European Jewry. Gentiles were as hostile as ever to returning Jews, fearful they would demand the restoration of their homes and businesses, their savings accounts and investments, the positions they had held in journalism, education, and the arts. To the East, where the Soviet Union was imposing satellite regimes, Jews were suspected of being Communist agents and of supporting and engineering the shift to the far left. (Hamerow p. 425)

Nor did the decimation of the Jewish community in Europe end with Germany's defeat. It continued for at least another decade, as 500,000 survivors -- one-quarter of the remaining population -- reluctant to return to the sites of past hardships and suffering, fled West and South. Between 1938 and 1955, a flood of immigrants swelled the population of Israel from 400,000 to 1,600,000. During the same period, about 600,000 Jewish refugees entered the United States (80 per cent after the war), increasing its Jewish population from 4.7 million to 5.2 million. Despite this growth, the Jewish percentage of the overall American population fell from a high of 3.6 in 1927 to 3.1 in 1955 and to 2.5 in 1986. (Hamerow, p. 449)

Accompanying this decline in proportionality was a diminishing of the notion that the national character of the United States would be stained or corrupted by an unending flow of Jews from Eastern Europe. Jews found it easier to assimilate, to achieve "Americanization." The social and cultural barriers that had confronted them before the war began to shrink and disappear.

"There were no longer serious restrictions on the admission of Jews to higher education, either as students or teachers. They became eligible for membership in almost all social clubs and organizations, even the most exclusive ones . . . In growing numbers they were becoming congressmen, senators, and cabinet members." (Hamerow, pp. 449-450) Overt -- and even latent -- anti-Semitism seemed an anachronism.

This development was confirmed by any number of polls. Whereas in 1940, 21% of respondents thought Jews had too much control of "business, property, and finance," by 1959 that number had dropped to 6%. Those who thought Jews had too much power in the U. S. dropped from 56% in 1945 to 17% in 1962. Before the war, 63% of respondents thought Jews had "objectionable qualities"; two decades later the per cent was 22. In 1940, 43% of respondents indicated they would prefer not to have a Jewish employee or coworker; in 1962 only 6% objected to sharing the workplace with Jews. (Hamerow, pp. 456-459)

This is the environment I grew up in.

This process would not mature until 1960, the same time that the Nazi Genocide emerged from the shadows of memory, planted solid roots in the public consciousness, and was transformed into the Holocaust. This was not a coincidence, says Hamerow. It took that long for the Gentile world to realize that the Jewish question -- a source of concern and controversy in Western society for one thousand years -- had finally been answered and that it was now safe, proper, and even necessary to mourn and memorialize the dead.

The problem of "what to do about an ethnic minority which had remained stubbornly different, unwilling to accept the faith and tradition of the national community it was part of, and yet able to play an important role in the economy, culture, and politics of that community . . . had ceased to be an issue. It had at last been resolved -- or rather eliminated." (Hamerow, p. 469)

What the old monarchial order had tried -- and failed -- to attain by isolation, segregation, and discrimination, and the democratic system by toleration, emancipation, and assimilation, Nazi totalitarianism had accomplished by mass murder. (Hamerow, p. 469)

Large numbers of European Jews had been killed, and for those who remained or who found themselves anywhere in harm's way, the state of Israel beckoned. The pitiful remnant of world Jewry no longer represented a threat. "The rabid horde of hungry, impoverished, desperate victims of persecution . . . pounding on the gates of the prosperous democratic countries on both sides of the Atlantic" had either expired in the fires of the crematories, sought refuge in the newly-established national homeland, or been gracefully assimilated into the majority culture. (Hamerow, p. 473)

In its singular, horrific denoument, the Final Solution had forever silenced the Jewish Question and indeed all those carefully calibrated rationalizations as to why more had not been done to prevent its execution.

REFERENCES

Hamerow, Theodore S. Why We Watched: Europe, America, and the Holocaust. New York: W. W. and Norton & Company, 2008.