The 80^th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference was commemorated last week. The event was presented in this way by Diane Cole in her review of Peter Longerich’s book Wannsee: The Road to the Final Solution (Oxford University Press, 2022):

A single meeting can distill the essence of evil. Eighty years ago, on Jan. 20, 1942, Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the SS intelligence service and security police, presided over a high-level meeting with 14 Nazi colleagues at the elegant Wannsee villa near Berlin. The agenda: to discuss “the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe.” (The Wall Street Journal, January 19, 2022)

In 1933 the Nazi attack on the Jewish people in Germany began with legislation and demonstrations of hatred. These were intensified on both levels in the coming years. From 1938 I applied immediately the laws discriminating against Jews to all the countries taken into the Reich. After the War began in 1939, the killing of Jewish civilians was an integral part of conquest, but Reinhard Heydrich brought the nightmare of the ghettos into the horror of the death camps in the Wannsee Conference.

The New York Times has a report on the Wannsee Conference by Katrin Bennhold, “80 Years Ago the Nazis Planned the ‘Final Solution.’ It Took 90 Minutes.” There is also an account of the United Nations’ condemnation of denial and distortion of the Holocaust, “the Nazi genocide that killed nearly six million Jews and millions of others” (Rick Gladstone, “U.N. Approves Israeli Measure to Condemn Denial of the Holocaust”).

The resolution reaffirms that the Holocaust “will forever be a warning to all people of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice.”

Anti-Jewish bigotry, usually called “antisemitism,” is a Protean monster that takes many shapes and forms. The strange visitor to the synagogue in Colleyville, Texas on January 14^th came with a perception, which shows that any mistaken view about Jews and Judaism may lead to devastating results. Mercifully, in this case, there was no loss of innocent lives but such an international incident is extremely worrying! Dr. Deborah Lipstadt of Emory University in Atlanta offers a very pertinent reflection, “For Jews, Going to Services Is an Act of Courage,” in The New York Times.

The history of the Shoah (Holocaust) is studied at Seton Hall and other universities so that people of good will have ways of educating our peers and of guiding the younger generation to wholesome attitudes and to deeds in the service of positive interfaith and intercultural relations.

Each year on January 27^th the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau is commemorated by the United Nations as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. May this year’s commemoration be an occasion to express gratitude for the U.N. resolution enacted on January 20, 2022.