Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, April 19, 1990 TAG: 9004190576
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE RELIGION WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Such a "split personality" about the Holocaust - the systematic destruction of 6 million European Jews by the Nazis before and during World War II - can be found in America as well, Frazier said.
"Basically, we want to put the past behind us and not struggle with the issues," he said.
Some prefer not to struggle. In recent years, a few groups have voiced the opinion that the Holocaust never happened, it couldn't have happened.
Such denial is just one of the issues that Jews and non-Jews around the world will be considering again Sunday on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
In Hebrew, the word Shoah - "violent storm" - is used to refer to the Nazi extermination effort, and the day of remembrance is called Yom Hashoah.
The Israeli government set aside the 27th day of the Hebrew month of Nissan for Yom Hashoah. The date is now recognized by Jews around the world. It usually falls in April, though occasionally in early May on the Gregorian calendar used in the United States.
The commemoration will continue during a Week of Remembrance that will end April 29. In the Roanoke Valley, events will include symposia, an art exhibit, a radio show and a dramatic presentation. While the Holocaust remembrance does not specifically involve religious observance, its religious aspects are unavoidable.
During and after the Holocaust, classical Jewish traditions about God, his involvement in the world and covenant with the people of Israel faced as serious a challenge as Judaism had ever felt.
For many, the result was a renunciation of belief in God; for others, an inexplicable theological mystery; for others, yet another incident in the Jews' long history of surviving suffering, and thus a confirmation of God's existence.
There are other similarly difficult humanistic questions. How could any people deliberately inflict such torture on others? How could other people sit back and do nothing while the Holocaust was in progress?
Answers remain elusive.
The questions of human involvement have taken on fresh significance with the resurgence of nationalism and anti-semitism that accompanied new freedoms in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.
"Good and bad viewpoints are allowed to develop in freedom," said Rabbi Frank Muller. There will be those who want to blame Jews for the problems that accompany freedom, he said.
Despite vastly increased opportunities to emigrate to Israel and the United States, not all of the 2 1/2 million Jews in the Soviet Union are going to leave, Rabbi Jerome Fox said.
"We hope for the flourishing of Jewish life there. But the Russians are so frightened of their economy falling apart . . . that some will be going back to anti-semitism," Fox said. "We hope the liberal spirit will come out, too."
Fears related to the proposed reunification of the two Germanys were assuaged somewhat last week as the new government of East Germany acknowledged German responsibility for World War II aggression and atrocities against the Jews.
The new parliament recognized the state of Israel and sought reconciliation with all Jews. It also announced it would honor the "inviolability" of its border with Poland.
A legitimate academic school of historical revisionism in Germany is seeking a clearer understanding of what happened during the Nazi era and why, Frazier said.
However, there are other groups - such as the Institute for Historical Revisionism in Torrence, Calif. - that deny the historical event of the Holocaust.
"They've published a variety of reasons why the Nazis could not physically have been able to kill as many Jews as has been charged," Frazier said. Some such groups allege that most of the purported victims are still alive in Europe.
"No reputable historian accepts their testimony, evidence or arguments."
But, "as we are coming near the end of the lives of the witnesses, who have been the best voices," Frazier said, questions about the Holocaust will revert to reputable historians who "must preserve in integrity what has happened."
"The way in which modern popular culture is fascinated with the Nazi era . . . is the most serious kind of problem," Frazier said, resulting in the existance of hate groups such as the skinheads, even in Southwest Virginia.
The real revisionism is taking place in the proliferation of movies, books and television shows that have fictionalized Hitler and the Nazi era, he said, offering those who partake of them "vicarious excitement and danger of the Holocaust."
"When the Holocaust is turned into an industry, the real lessons it has to teach are lost," Frazier fears.
Muller, rabbi of the Reform congregation at Temple Emanuel, said he does perceive "a lack of sensitivity" on the issue of the Holocaust among people "who say, `Enough already. It's time to move ahead.'
"But it could happen again," Muller said. "That is why we are so adamant that we remember it, why we have to teach it."
As rabbi of the conservative congregation at Beth Israel synagogue, Fox said he sometimes has to remind young people "this is not ancient history. If the Nazi plan had succeeded, my parents, your grandparents, would have been killed."
But while he supports the preservation of the camps and the teaching of the Holocaust, Fox said he worries "Jewish history is presented as an endless vale of tears," when it is not.
Jerusalem's Museum of the Diaspora, which traces the dispersion of the Jews throughout the world from their ancestral home in Palestine, "highlights many periods of creativity and freedom," he said.
Jews have experienced several such periods in post-biblical times - 1,000 years ago in Spain, 500 years ago in Eastern Europe, in modern times in the United States, Canada and Western Europe, and in the state of Israel.
While commemorating the Holocaust, Fox said, it is important to remember that Judaism also has a positive history, "and not give a totally negative presentation."
Days of Remembrance, a weeklong commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust, will begin Sunday in the Roanoke Valley and will include a number of public events.
\ Through April 28: "Art of Theresienstadt," an exhibit of paintings and drawings from the so-called "Paradise Ghetto" outside Prague, Czechoslovakia. This was masked as the Nazis' model ghetto, shown to Red Cross officials. In reality, it was a transit camp in which 35,000 died and 88,000 were sent on to annihilation in other camps. Roanoke Valley History Museum, Center in the Square.
\ Sunday: "An Ecumenical Service of Remembrance," conducted by the Rev. Alvord Beardslee, professor of religion at Hollins College, with a dramatic reading by The Acting Company. Seven Holocaust survivors who now live in Southwest Virginia will be honored. 3 p.m., Unitarian-Universalist Church, 2015 Grandin Road.
\ Tuesday: "A Symposium on the Holocaust," moderated by Jake Wheeler, professor of political science at Hollins College and host of the public television program "Nightline." Panel includes Susan Cernyak-Spatz of the University of North Carolina and a survivor of Auschwitz and Theresienstadt, and Charles W. Sydnor Jr., president of Emory and Henry College and an expert on the history of the Nazi era. 3:30 p.m., Green Drawing Room, Main Building, Hollins College.
\ Wednesday: "Focus on the Holocaust," a call-in radio talk show on WFIR-AM. Host Gary Minter will be joined by Hollins College professors Allie Frazier and Alvord Beardslee, and Marcia Brumberg, education director for Roanoke's two Jewish congregations. 2 to 4 p.m. 345-5955.
\ Thursday: "The Holocaust: Explaining the Unexplainable," lecture by Karl Schleunes, professor of history at the University of North Carolina and author of "The Twisted Road to Auschwitz," a study of the Nazi era. Schleunes will address the difficulties of making sense of the Holocaust. 8 p.m. Roanoke Valley History Museum, Center in the Square.
These programs were planned by the Roanoke Chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the Roanoke Jewish Community Council and the Hollins College Department of Philosophy and Religion.
All events are free and open to the public. For more information, call 362-6452.
by CNB