Staring History in the Face

The crimes committed by National Socialism in World War II were undeniably horrific; the atrocities that occurred in Europe by German soldiers were so terrible, that for many years after 1945 it was very difficult for Germany to fully accept and admit to what had been done by their countrymen. It has only been relatively recently that the entirety of the barbarity of the Nazi regime has become unquestioned in German society; it was understandably difficult for ordinary Germans to accept the fact that the Nazi Party had had mass support and that millions of Germans from all backgrounds did terrible things with the military or could not possibly have been unaware of what was happening to the Jews of Europe. This aversion with the past is gone now. Germany has stared its history in the face and no longer blinks at what it sees.

The German term for this is Vergangenheitsbewältigung - coming to terms with the past. While it has taken many years for Germany to truly come to terms with its Nazi past, the same cannot be said for other countries.

The crimes of the Nazis were so terrible that other countries were able to place the blame for the bad things that happened in the war entirely upon them. So it was that Austria was able to, up through the 1990s, claim that it was the first victim of Hitler - this despite the fact that Nazi membership was disproportionately high among Austrians, Austrians were overrepresented in the SS, and one out of every two concentration camp guards was Austrian. Calling themselves the victim when they were in fact not allowed Austria to escape the kind of post-war punishment that Germany received, as well as the general taint of the Nazis in general.

The French for decades after World War II liked to claim that their Resistance was of mythological proportions, fighting against both the Germans and the hated Vichy regime, which was little more than a puppet government. Yet, the Germans had relatively few administrators in France during the war, meaning that the government was autonomous and legitimate, and regarded as such by the vast majority of French citizens. This inconvenient fact means that all of the Jews that France willingly transported to the concentration camps of the East was not actually at the behest of Germany but rather a willing collaboration on the part of a legitimate, racist French government. What the French still are having difficulty coming to terms with is the way they treated their non-white colonial African soldiers - and this while they were fighting a regime that itself was extremely racist.

This myth of resistance and scant collaboration was prevalent all over Europe until very, very recently. Hundreds of thousands of Europeans willingly participated in the systematic murder of innocent civilians - Jews, gypsies, ethnic minorities - but for most of the post-war years were able to blame this on the Nazis. Most of the resistance movements were not nearly as large as they were made out to be after the war, as well. Having a significant part of your countrymen participate in genocide and mass murder doesn't feel or sound too good for most people, as it should not. But ignoring or misconstruing these facts does humanity and each individual country a disservice. More importantly, it is a continuing slap in the face of the millions of innocent people who were killed in the war.

One of the many tragic aspects of the Holocaust was how little anyone did to stop it. In the 1930s and 1940s, Americans consistently showed concern for the fate of the Jews in Europe, yet supermajorities of the population at the same time refused to allow them to emigrate to the United States. Britain certainly knew about what was happening in Eastern Europe, yet did very little to do much about it. Before and after the war, Poles engaged in pogroms that killed Jews - and this in a country that saw millions of its citizens, Jewish and non-Jewish, systematically murdered while being treated as sub-humans by Nazi occupiers.

The United States, generally speaking, likes to look back on the Second World War as one of its finest hours. America was a beacon of liberty, fighting a barbaric racist regime so that Europe and the world could be free. While this noble war was being waged, President Roosevelt rounded up hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese-American citizens, took them from their homes, and imprisoned them in camps - all because of who they were, not for what they had done. In the midst of fighting a country that had legalized discrimination, segregation, and racism, the United States itself had an entrenched system of legalized discrimination, segregation, and racism. The army was segregated until 1948; there was a legal, Constitutionally-upheld system that separated blacks from white society. Many of the American soldiers who fought to free Europe came back to a society that purposefully excluded an entire group of people for arbitrary reasons and did nothing to change it - Civil Rights legislation would only come some 20 years later.

While these uncomfortable truths are talked about in classrooms throughout the United States, they are almost never put into the context which they should be: that one country that practiced discriminatory and racist policies against a minority group was fighting against another country that practice discriminatory and racist policies against a minority group. And while the United States agreed that what was happening to Europe's Jews was unacceptable, they did nothing to stop it for years, while also continuing to oppress millions of their own citizens.

The Nazis are an easy scapegoat because they did indeed usher in humanity's darkest hour - they showed what we as humans are capable of, and it was terrible. But the Nazis' crimes should not excuse the crimes of others. It is right and just that Germany accepts the entirety of the actions of the Nazis, just as countries like France, Austria, and the United States needs to accept the uncomfortable truths buried in their pasts.

Anti-Semitism and racism was not unique to Germany or Europe - far from it. Recognizing and accepting this is one large step in making sure that the darker side of humanity never again resurfaces. We must all stare history in the face and not blink.