Holocaust Remembrance Day: From the Babel to Sinai

Over the course of my years as a rabbi and founder and head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the biblical story I’m asked most about is the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11 verse 1).

“Now the entire earth was of one language and of uniform words… and the L-ord descended to see the city and the tower that the sons of man has built.” (Genesis 11 verse 5).

Why was that world, which spoke a common language and attempted to ascend the heavens so offensive to the creator that he had it destroyed? What message does that chapter have for the men and woman of the 21st century; inventors of rockets and computers that will one day propel our children and their descendants on journeys to distant planets and galaxies?

The sin of the Tower of Babel generation, say modern-day rabbinic commentators like Samson Raphael Hirsch and Joseph B. Soloveitchik, was not their technology but their warped ideology of supplanting individualism in favor of a fanatical allegiance to community.

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Yet, the Tower of Babel is not ancient mythology. This week, the United Nations commemorates International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz where, in our time, millions of innocent people were gassed in the name of glorifying Hitler’s Third Reich.

In his book, Nuremberg Interviews by psychiatrist Leon Goldensohn he writes about his 1945 interview with Rudolph Hoess, the Commandant of Auschwitz.

He asked Hoess: During the time you commanded Auschwitz, where did your family live? "In Auschwitz," Hoess replied. What did your wife say or think about what went on under your command? "My wife only learned about it in 1942.…She was very upset and thought it cruel and terrible. I explained it to her the same way Himmler explained it to me. Because of this explanation, she was satisfied and we didn't talk about it anymore. However, from that time forth she frequently remarked that it would be better if I obtained another position and we left Auschwitz.…”

Does the fact that you put the phenomenal number of 2 million men, women, and children to death, not to mention your supervision of exterminations and excursions in all of the other camps that you supervised since 1943 -- does that fact not upset you a little at times? "I thought I was doing the right thing, I was obeying orders, and now, of course, I see that it is unnecessary and wrong. But I don’t know what you mean by being upset about these things because I didn’t personally murder anybody. I was just the director of the extermination program in Auschwitz. It was Hitler who ordered it through Himmler and it was Eichmann who gave me the order regarding transports."

Do you ever have any thoughts of these executions, gassings, or burnings of corpses -- in other words, do such thoughts come upon you at times and in anyway haunt you? “No, I have no such fantasies.…”

What newspapers did your read during the last 10 years? "There were only the party papers, for instance, Das Reich, the weekly political paper published by [Joseph] Goebbels (the minister of propaganda).  I also read information circulars and magazines given out by the SS." Did you ever read Der Sturmer (published by the infamous Jew-baiter, Julius Streicher)? "Occasionally I got hold of one, but I myself disapproved of it because it was too superficial, pornographic, and had too much propaganda in it. I don’t think it was completely truthful, either.

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That is an interesting observation: you murdered 2.5 million Jews but you disapprove of Der Sturmer."Oh yes, all people with any sense disapproved of Der Sturmer.…”

That was the message of the Tower of Babel. Its antidote, however, was Mount Sinai – a small mountain where the G-d of Israel gave his Ten Commandments not to kings or emperors but to individuals like you and me, and reminded us we all matter and we are all responsible for what happens under our watch.