There are no halfway measures against bigotry, hatred and anti-Semitism. It's got to be rejected totally.
Abraham FoxmanRead
Sixty years after the end of the war, the time has come to make this information available. With the number of survivors and witnesses diminishing by the day, and the reality that the Holocaust is fading into the pages of history and memory, we should not have to wait any longer.
Interpretation
We must preserve the memory of the Holocaust before those who experienced it are lost.
Abraham Foxman emphasizes the urgent need to document and share the experiences and memories of Holocaust survivors, as their numbers are dwindling and the risk of historical amnesia increases. He advocates for immediate action to ensure that future generations understand the gravity of this event, highlighting the importance of remembrance as a crucial part of preventing similar atrocities in the future.
In practice
In a speech about Holocaust education, I would quote Foxman to stress the importance of remembering these events.
There are no halfway measures against bigotry, hatred and anti-Semitism. It's got to be rejected totally.
As much progress as we think we've made with legislation, litigation and education, anti-Semitism still continues to be the No. 2 hate crime in the United States. You can't eliminate it, but you can try to keep a lid on it.
As a kid, I was growing up in an era of celebration of the Civil War centennial, with a lot of 'Lost Cause' emphasis on the Confederacy. I used to play Civil War soldiers with my brothers as a child, and my older brother always insisted that he got to be Lee, and I got be Grant. I never knew that Grant won until quite some time had passed.
Your grandparents came of age in the Great Depression, when everyday life was about deprivation and sacrifice, when the economic conditions of the time were so grave and so unrelenting it would have been easy enough for the American dream to fade away.
Racial inequity in how the immense benefits of the original G.I. Bill were disbursed are well-documented, and we've all seen how these inequities have trickled down over time, leaving Black World War II veterans and their families without the benefits they earned through service and sacrifice.
An historian should yield himself to his subject, become immersed in the place and period of his choice, standing apart from it now and then for a fresh view.
The U.K. and the U.S. could not have been built today without Africa's aid. It is all the resources that were taken from Africa, including human, that built these countries today! So when they try to give back, we shouldn't be on the defensive.
The historian's distortion is more than technical, it is ideological; it is released into a world of contending interest, where any chosen emphasis supports some kind of interest, whether economic or political or racial, or national or sexual.
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