Uncle Dave and the Cemetery at Oradell
I stood along with Uncle Dave, my wife’s uncle, on a road just above the gravesite where wife’s grandmother was buried. Dave, a quiet guy from New York City, made the observation that not one of the Jews, either living or dead, gathered here was untouched by the Holocaust.
Dave was right. The Holocaust stands alone among the mass atrocities against a people for their ethnic/religious identity. There have been other mass murders, some based on ethnicity, tribal group, religion, or political beliefs, but none has taken the toll on Jews as a group as did the Holocaust. Others were killed by the Nazis, including Roma, gay people, political enemies, and physically and mentally challenged people.
As a Jew, I know this at the most basic level of instinct and at a high level of morality. That the Holocaust is connected to Israel has been a double-edged sword as is seen in today’s Israel-Gaza war. For many years, the Holocaust was shunned even among some survivors until this atrocity became of use for political reasons. This is not a universal observation, but a personal one. That fact is another layer of horror and sadness added to the horror of the Holocaust.
Most Jews can tell of links to the torment of Jews both before and during the Holocaust. That is what Uncle Dave meant.
Now, with the Israel-Gaza war raging, the issue of the Holocaust is faced again. Many of those protesting against that war have been labeled antisemitic. If Jewish and against this war, the slander and libel of self-hating is added to the false charge of antisemitism. Among those on the far right, both Jews and non Jews, condemning the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack in Israel is not enough. A person, especially Jewish, can’t condemn that attack and also condemn Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
I abhor war… All wars! I agree with the late historian and veteran of World War II, Howard Zinn, that while that war was a just cause, it was not a just war. That topic, alone, fills libraries. It is my considered opinion that there has not been a just cause in war since World War II. It was right, a just cause, to fight the Nazis and fascism, but atrocities took place on all sides of that war. Technology has been added to the murder of civilians in contemporary wars rendering all war as immoral. Rather than making civilians safer in war, technology has made war more lethal. There aren’t millions killed at one time in war, but the number of civilians killed has become massive. There is no such thing as a smart bomb! The argument of civilian deaths as collateral damage in war is pure fiction. Technology does not make war safer for noncombatants today.
An argument can be made that a police action against Bin Laden and his henchmen was justified as a just cause following their horrific September 11, 2001 attacks in the US. However, the endless wars that grew out of a response were not just wars.
There’s a grave near where I stood with Uncle Dave all those decades ago. It’s Isaac Bashevis Singer’s grave, a great Jewish writer. Singer was opposed to mass death and was a champion of animals who faced death as a source of food for human consumption. The inscription on Singer’s grave, who wrote about the lives of fictional characters who came to the US following the Holocaust, interests me as a writer and as a Jew. I have to paraphrase here, but it reads pretty much as a testament to having the freedom to work through writing here. Even that right may soon be in jeopardy.
Uncle Dave and the Cemetery at Oradell