In fact, the majority of Nazi perpetrators were never punished for their crimes, even with light sentences. Of the 6,500 personnel at Auschwitz, only 49 were convicted. Of the 100,000 people indicted on war crimes between 1942 and 1992, only 13,000 were tried and a mere 6,487 were convicted. The John Demjanjuk case in the 1980s created a new precedent for prosecuting those serving at a death camp, not merely as accomplices, but liable for the murders. One wonders why it took until 1986 to hold all Nazi perpetrators responsible for their crimes. The Demjanjuk precedent made possible the recent conviction of Auschwitz guard Oskar Groning, but as survivors and former Nazis are passing away, and the decades of wasted opportunities on behalf of the millions of victims demonstrates that the indifference of others did not just enable the crimes of the Holocaust, but hampered attempts to pursue justice.
Perhaps Natalie Portman’s opinion requires more studying than our confrontational, easy to rage, left-right debating rings offer. The trauma of the European Jewish Holocaust is so overwhelming, even as we mark a fifth and sixth generation of Jews who have not experienced WW2 directly, that we simply cannot dismiss it as any convenient slogan related to any part of our cause-tribal society. As we’ve seen in the above short survey, the Holocaust is still with us on numerous, tangible levels, and simply refuses to leave our head spaces, no matter who we are.
Standup comic Myq Kaplan tells a remarkable Holocaust joke that might illustrate how that catastrophic event continues to morph in our culture. Speaking about time travel, Kaplan states with certainty that any Jew who lays his hand on a time-travel device, knows what’s the first thing he must do — go back in time and kill Hitler when he was still young, before he had a chance to start the Holocaust.
Now, imagine, he says, this Hitler kid growing up with thousands of Jewish time travelers trying to assassinate him every day — wouldn’t you end up hating Jews if you were him?
Which probably means there’s nothing we can do about it — whether we chillax about it, Natalie Portman style, use it against Jews as the BDS are doing, or utilize its memory to bolster our security arguments, a la Netanyahu — the Holocaust trauma will remain bigger than all of us.
Until one of those time travelers gets it right.