How Could We Let That Happen

Many times when I tell people that I majored in [modern European] history in undergrad, I wind up in conversations concerning WWII and the Holocaust. This is fine with me, because if I’m honest, that was part of my whole interest in that time period. But a recurring line of questioning people have for me is, “How could we let that happen? Did we just not know? Did we not know how bad it was? Did we not care? Surely we just didn’t have all the information?” While there are a million ways to answer that historically, such as explaining that anti-semitism was not a purely German problem, or that the United States was not the world super power that it is today, as WWII helped to cement that super power status (these questions come from fellow Americans, so the “we” is often “America”), I will allow historians better qualified than myself to make those arguments. Instead I want to address the naivety of these questions.

Humans want to think the best of our fellow human. Really, I think we do. It has to do with our need to see ourselves as individuals as morally righteous, strangely enough. It’s also about who we consider our “fellow human.” We can’t imagine a reality in which our ancestors are less compassionate than ourselves, and we absolutely believe that we are the most moral humans to walk the Earth. Even though there is an obvious fallacy in this logic, it does get one thing right: we are no more compassionate than our ancestors.

The aforementioned conversation comes up because the Holocaust is widely considered the greatest atrocity committed by man. Don’t mistake me for downplaying its importance: the systematic slaughter of approximately six million Jews, and approximately five million more individuals is completely sickening. It is absolutely a genocide with which the world must continue to reckon. We can never ever forget it, and Holocaust deniers should be put in their place.

However, it is not the only instance of humans ignoring the plights of others.

None of the others should be forgotten either, and in fact, we need them for the context of understanding how we could let the Holocaust happen. I can not possibly list them all. I’m not even covering all of history, and I will absolutely be excluding many examples from the time period I will cover. Yet I will try to make my point with the examples I have chosen.

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was just one of the measures taken to ensure the genocide and systematic oppression of indigenous people groups in the United States. The Trail of Tears is a specific example of the cruelty these people faced. Forced to leave their home, the Cherokee were “relocated” from the mountains of North Carolina and Georgia to the plains of Oklahoma, many dying along the way. It didn’t end there. The government continued to systematically oppress and control indigenous people groups, including most recently the debacle of Standing Rock. How could we let that happen?

Similarly, the aboriginal people in Australia were decimated by colonialism. Their numbers fell from well over half a million people to fewer than 50,000 during British colonization, leaving far less than 10% of their original population. They were killed both intentionally and carelessly. They were targeted further during the 20th Century by separating 20,000-25,000 aboriginal children from their families with the intent to cause the aboriginal people to die out. How could we let that happen?

In 1845, the Potato Famine began and plagued Ireland until 1852. A million people died as a result and just as many emigrated, many to the United States, where they were still systematically discriminated against. Ireland was under English rule at the time, and England did not lift a finger to help. The Irish had already suffered at the hands of the English, with attempts to stamp out any sense of Irish culture, including language. Despite measures taken to do so, such as teaching children the Gaelic language, the country has still not fully recovered from English rule, nor the Potato Famine itself. How could we let that happen?

Around the same time as WWI, the Ottoman Empire systematically killed its Armenian citizens. Although recognized as genocide by the description of genocide given by the UN, very few nations have officially recognized it as such, the United States not included in that short list. Turkey has taken an official stance of denial, although individual citizens and groups of the nation have attempted to denounce the event and their nation’s role. How could we let that happen?

During the 1990s, Serbian forces murdered Bosnian Muslims as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign. Some estimates account for over 100,000 killed in the conflict. To read one story from a woman who actually made it out alive, click here. As she points out, few people she grew up with after finally being accepted to the United States even knew about Yugoslavia’s existence. We refused to see what happened for what it was and lived in ignorance. How could we let that happen?

In 1994, the Hutu led Rwandan government led a genocide against the Tutsis which killed somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 Rwandans. Although a short lived conflict and genocide, it killed a significant number of the population of Rwanda. How could we let that happen?

The Sudan conflict has been an on and off fixture for well over 50 years and continues today. In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, the Lost Boys of Sudan were shuffled from country to country in their attempt to live and not be murdered. It took many years for first world nations to take note and respond. By then, many had died on their journeys from Sudan to Ethiopia to Kenya. 10,000 young Sudanese men arrived in Kenya in the early 1990s. It was finally determined it would not be feasible for them to return to their homes and families, at which point some were taken in as refugees in the United States. But only after years of ignoring their plight. How could we let that happen?

Do you get it yet? Do you see where I’m going with this?

In 2011, the Arab Spring began. It was a movement in many Arab nations that caused revolutionaries to protest their governments. In Syria, it led to war. That war is ongoing. Just this week, the government took back Aleppo, a rebel stronghold. Civilians, including young children have been slaughtered in this war. The number will only continue to grow, despite the fall of Aleppo having been speculated as an indication that the war is coming to an end. The people who have managed to get out of Syria have often been met with hostility by people of other nations. These are people who would have stayed in Syria forever if they had felt that they could. They left because they saw no other option, and yet the west as a whole has rejected them.

How could we let this happen?

Until you can answer that question concerning Syria or any of the other events that happened in your lifetime, you have no moral ground over your ancestors. That’s where that question comes from anyway. We want to believe that we’re better. That humanity is better. That maybe somehow we are more human than in the past, making these horrific events impossible now. In hindsight with the Holocaust, we see so clearly where we failed (“we” in this case being both Americans and the world at large). Surely we wouldn’t do the same thing today, right? Right?? But as you can clearly see, it’s a pattern of human behavior with no end in sight. So stop asking that question of others who can not respond. Ask it of yourself. Until the world recognizes that we have a duty to our fellow human, whether that person looks like us or not, we can not hope to understand love and human decency. I’m as guilty as anyone. I’m in a master of social work program and want to actually do something about these things, but I get it wrong all the time. I miss seeing the hurting people around me because I’m scared of the responsibility that goes with recognizing it. But I have to. We all have to.

How can we let this happen? Again?