'Auschwitz, we have returned!’ By Uri Misgav |
Apparently, the famous fly-over of Israel Air Force fighter
jets above the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp was only a
preview. On Sunday, Israeli infantry forces will come to the camp and
execute the final capture.
This has turned out to be a
precision military operation: first, the softening-up of the target from
the air then, as is the usual practice, reconnaissance missions (the
March of the Living and Witnesses in Uniform). Now, comes the time for
the ground operation based on the tactics of vertical outflanking − the
landing of a chartered plane, from which will burst forth a 250-person
mission, including 60 cabinet ministers and Knesset members, the state
comptroller, a Supreme Court justice, one of the chief rabbis, the
chairman of Yad Vashem Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in
Jerusalem and senior officials of the World Zionist Organization.
Here
is Zionism in a nutshell: To paraphrase the lyrics of the national
anthem “Hatikva” (“The Hope”), the Jewish spirit yearns with eyes
looking toward Birkenau.
The battle plan has been worked
out in great detail. Like everything military in Israel, it consists of
three parts. Stage one: The combat troops will patrol the pavilions of
Auschwitz, led by Education Minister Shay Piron and MK Shuli Moalem,
both of whom are seasoned guides of missions to Poland. Stage two: The
troops will march to Birkenau, led by a high-ranking senior Israeli
official. Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein explained this past week that
the “elected parliament of the Jewish people is travelling to the valley
of slaughter to feel some of the pain and to enable its memory to be
engraved in our hearts.”
Stage three: The warriors will
stand before the monument in Birkenau. Johnny Daniels, chairman of the
Mimaamakim organization, who initiated the event and is producing it,
has declared that an event on such a broad scale is intended to
reinforce the Holocaust’s memory has never happened before. He also
emphasized that the event would have a religious nature.
Daniels
is right. This is definitely a religion. The religion of the Holocaust.
The event will be a symbolic, metaphysical act in which the Jewish
nation will unite around the focus of its faith. Unfortunately,
President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not be
participating in this event; they were faced with a difficult,
tormenting dilemma but in the end decided to fulfill their obligations
at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
In any case, this
event is a triumph of the human spirit. To paraphrase former Chief of
Staff Mordechai Gur’s declaration, “Birkenau is in our hands!” And to
paraphrase the popular Israeli song associated with the Six-Day War of
June 1967 when Israel returned to Sharm El-Sheikh and the Straits of
Tiran, “Auschwitz, we have returned!” And to paraphrase a familiar
phrase used in connection with the peace process vis-à-vis the
Palestinians, Auschwitz without peace is better than peace without
Auschwitz. The giant headline on the front page of Yedioth Ahronoth can
already be prepared to accompany a photo of the Israeli delegation
between the death camp’s barbed wire fences; the headline will read:
“Going back home.”
“The meaning of this difficult
journey,” said Edelstein, “is immense. I hope and believe that it will
leave an impression that will be beneficial to both Holocaust survivors
and the Holocaust’s memory.”
The meaning will certainly
be immense and the impression will be horrible. The journey amounts to
the Jewish people’s defeat. It is a depressing tale about a nation that
has managed to survive a systematic campaign to annihilate it and
miraculously created a sovereign, prosperous state − only to run back to
the still-smoking crematoria and “close the circle.” This showcase
journey is only a symptom; it is a refined expression of an ongoing
process in which collective sanity is being lost.
Since
there is no limit to the cruelty of historical irony, this event is
taking place as Israeli democracy is tasting, step by step, the
political processes that led to the rise of fascist regimes in the
previous century: the worship of power and militarism, populism, racism,
hatred of those different, magnification of the images of real and
imagined enemies to satanic proportions, incitement against minority
groups, the use of scapegoats, the persecution of people who choose to
think differently, the silencing of voices of protest and, of course,
legislation, including a law that would outlaw the use of the word
“Nazis.”
It is prohibited to talk about Nazism. The only
thing that is permitted is to dwell on what it created. Why should we
Israeli Jews not just stay in Birkenau? After all, we can always pay a
quick visit to Israel as we sing in a loud voice: “Eternity is nothing
but ashes and dust.”
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