Is ‘Never Again’ an empty slogan?

Jan. 27 is the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and genocide is still a tragic reality. Did the Holocaust teach us anything? Is “Never Again” an empty slogan?

In the postwar era, the massacres – driven by race, religion or ethnicity – never stopped: Ethiopia, Cambodia, Turkey, East Timor, Rwanda and Sudan, among them. In Nigeria, Muslim militias have killed 62,000 Christians since 2020.

But Auschwitz is unique. During World War II, the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews, one-third of the world’s Jewish population. Auschwitz was the most infamous death camp.

Together, the trains, gas chambers and crematoria were mechanized murder. Visitors can see displays of tons of human hair and a room filled floor to ceiling with the suitcases of those whose journeys ended in death.

Here, 1.1 million were murdered, including 960,000 Jews. In a way, Auschwitz is the world’s largest Jewish graveyard.

The cattle cars kept rolling almost up to the end. The Allies could have bombed the railways but chose other targets. Saving Jewish lives wasn’t a strategic priority.

When the civilized world saw the ghastly evidence and heard the horror stories, it vowed “never again.” They were words written on the wind.

While dignitaries and survivors attend a program at Auschwitz on Monday, it will be just 14 months since the cold-blooded murders of 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, with atrocities to rival the Nazis at their most depraved – gang rapes, sexual mutilation and babies decapitated before their parents’ eyes.

The international community is determined to bestow statehood on the Palestinians who committed the atrocities and applauded the atrocities. In a poll by the Arab World for Research and Development, 75% endorsed the massacre, 85.9% rejected peace with Israel under any conditions, and 74.7% demanded a Palestinian state “from the river the sea.”

In the nation of Holocaust survivors, Hamas and its allies are planning a border-to-border Auschwitz as Iran races toward nuclear weapons.

Of the United Nations’ 193 member states, 146 recognize the mythical state of Palestine, even though, in a free election, Hamas would come to power. The Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, has the same goals as Hamas and pays a bounty for the murder of Jews.

The European Union, the United Nations and the United States under the Biden administration paid billions in annual subsidies to the butchers. Serving as a conduit, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency distributed $1.18 billion in 2021.

How is the mass murder of Jews any different from the killing of Tutsis in Rwanda, Kurds in Iraq or Uyghurs in China?

While one innocent life is no more precious than another, Jews have been subjected to persecution the longest – over 3,000 years. Along with the Nazis, Egyptians, Babylonians, Syrians, Greeks, Romans, medieval Christians, communists and Muslims have had a hand in the slaughter.

Jews occupy a pivotal role in history. Western civilization started at Sinai. All of the West’s achievements are based on a moral foundation laid down in a God-given code that Jews transmitted to humanity.

Adolf Hitler believed Jews invented the God of the Bible. He considered the Judeo-Christian ethic an abomination that went against the laws of nature, including survival of the fittest. He saw Christianity as an offshoot of Judaism and “a religion fit only for slaves.” Destroy the Jews and repeal the code.

What starts with Jews doesn’t stop with Jews. The Jewish people have been called the miner’s canary, providing an early warning system of noxious fumes. Attacks on them often herald a much broader assault on humanity.

To get the Jews, Hitler started a world war that killed an estimated 20 million in Europe. Every totalitarian ideology has targeted the Jews. Islamism aims to continue where the Nazis stopped.

Once again, Jews are at the center of a worldwide conflict. The war rages from Europe and Africa to Asia and the Middle East and includes Jews, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists. The Muslim Brotherhood had a slogan, “First the Saturday people. Then the Sunday people.”

The best way to ensure that another Holocaust never happens is for the good guys to remain heavily armed, ever vigilant and in a strategic position.

Rabbi Meir Kahane, the late Israeli leader, once remarked: ‘I’d prefer a powerful and proud Jewish state that is hated by the entire world than an Auschwitz that is loved by one and all.”

This column was first published at the Washington Times.