THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

With his book, Werfel reminded the Germans of an historical event that was quickto pass from memory. Gabriel Bagdarian, the book’s hero, prepares for the last nightof his life, having lost all his family and friends. “Why not look for shelter? Such aquestion did not arise.” No mortal could have lived after such darkness fell. Indeed,pitch-darkness fell after the Armenian genocide, yet no one paid real attention. Nosuch question arose, not in Germany and not in the rest of the enlightened world. TheTurks vehemently denied the genocide and presented a totally different picture. Hitler,who counted on a world that does not ask questions, understood the power of denialand took it all the way to the Final Solution. No excuses and denials, he lay it allopenly on the table. You can destroy, and no one will inquire. Hitler was a denier ofprevious holocausts and based his annihilation of the Jews on the forgotten anddenied Armenian Massacre. He hid the destruction of the Jews in the open publicarena. No one protested.Werfel’s book brought the horrors to light. Henry Morgenthau Sr., the Americanambassador to Turkey, said: “I am convinced that in the entire history of the humanrace no such horrible event occurred, the biggest crime of modern history . . . of allmodern history’s dark pages, this is the darkest.” 1Hitler probably figured that if the massacres on Europe’s doorstep just twentyyears earlier were forgotten, who would remember his own at the dawn of “theThousand-Year Reich”? If the world did not act for the Christian Armenians who hadhurt no one, why would it mind if he rids it of the hated Jews? Hitler thoughtassociatively and was impulsive. He had the combination of a devout believer, fullycommitted to his opinions, and a gambler’s extremism of all or nothing. This is howIan Kershaw, the most recent Hitler biographer, describes him in his book Hitler1889–1939: Hubris:There is no need to underestimate the contribution of Hitler’spersonality to the way he seized power and exploited it. Singlemindedness,inflexibility, cruel removal of all inhibitions, cynicaloperative talent and a gambler’s instinct to throw all in t he ba lance . ..We must never paint Hitler in inhuman colors and thus exempt ourselves from dealingwith the human aspects of his personality. For us and for the world he was total evil,but he was also: