An Antisemitism that Never Stops
Just this past week, a survey on Holocaust awareness in the Netherlands revealed quite a disturbing result. It showed that 23% of adults believe that the Holocaust is a mere myth. Twelve percent of all those surveyed said that it was either a myth or that the numbers of those murdered were greatly exaggerated. The survey also found that 54% of all respondents — and 59% of those under age 40 — do not know that 6 million Jews were murdered.
Perhaps it is a desire to pull the wool over their own eyes, but consider that the Netherlands’ history saw 102,000 of the 140,000 Jews who lived in the Netherlands before World War II, killed during the Holocaust.
“We continue to witness a decline in Holocaust knowledge and awareness” said Gideon Taylor, the president of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
“To address this trend, we must put a greater focus on Holocaust education in our schools globally. If we do not, denial will soon outweigh knowledge, and future generations will have no exposure to the critical lessons of the Holocaust.”
Three years ago, Prime Minister Mark Rutte publicly apologized for his country’s failure to prevent the deportation and murder of the Jews in the Netherlands. In 2021, he opened a Holocaust monument in Amsterdam and a museum is scheduled to open close to the monument next year.
While many will try to bury the reality of such recent flagrant anti-Semitic atrocities such as the Holocaust, it is reassuring to know that researchers were persistent in uncovering and identifying 17 people whose remains were found in a mass grave discovered in a medieval well in Norwich, England. They were the victims of a heinous antisemitic attack back in 1190 CE. Through carbon dating, and genome sequencing, and comparing genetic data from modern Jews, the 17 bodies that were found were identified by researchers as most likely belonging to one Jewish family of Ashkenazi origin. The massacre was carried out by people heading on a church supported Third Crusade and were most likely provoked by thoughts of antisemitic conspiracy theories and blood libels. The total number of people killed in the massacre is not known. The remains were reburied at the Jewish cemetery in Norwich and accompanied by a commemorative plaque.
Jewish history is replete with these horrific events, and it makes our minds and hearts venture on into the future to consider what awaits the Jewish people during the time of Jacob’s trouble and what they will undergo in the Tribulation period.