How Not to Talk About the Holocaust
It’s rarely a good sign when the Holocaust trends on social media, and this week was no exception. On Sunday, in an interview with 60 Minutes, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi declared that he needed more evidence to determine whether the Holocaust took place. “There are some signs that it happened,” he said. “If so, they should allow it to be investigated and researched.” That same day, on Twitter, a writer engaging in the usual internecine feuding on the left falsely claimed that America’s entry into World War II accelerated the Holocaust; a pile-on predictably ensued.
As a grandson of Shoah survivors who is named after one of its victims, I certainly found these spectacles discomfiting. But they are far from unique. Indeed, it seems as though every month we are subjected to another politicized paroxysm over the Nazi genocide, in which the millions murdered are victimized once more by partisans who instrumentalize their deaths for contemporary political debates.
