More parallels of history

Editor’s note: This the second and concluding installment of excerpts from a speech Matt Walsh delivered this month to the Volusia-Flagler Jewish Federation and Tiger Bay of Volusia County.

March 2, 1944.

Journalist Laurel Leff writes in her book, “Buried by the Times” — that is, the New York Times.

“March 2, 1944,” Leff writes, “On page four of the Times, amid 13 other stories, appeared a five-paragraph item with a London dateline. 

“The first two paragraphs described the House of Commons’ decision to appropriate 50,000 pounds to help fund the InterGovernmental Committee on Refugees. Then came these paragraphs:

“During the discussion, S.S. Silverman, Labor member, read a report from the Jewish National Committee operating somewhere in Poland, saying:

“‘Last month, we still reckoned the number of Jews in the whole territory of Poland as from 250,000 to 300,000. In a few weeks, no more than 50,000 of us will remain. 

“‘In our last moment before death, the remnants of Polish Jewry appeal for help to the whole world. May this, perhaps our last voice from the abyss, reach the ears of the whole world.’

“Without skipping a beat, the story continued: ‘The Commons also approved an installment of 3,863 pounds to help the International Red Cross open an office in Shanghai … ’

There it was: Buried in the third paragraph of a five-paragraph story on page 4 — a quarter-million people about to be exterminated. This, after 3 million had already been slaughtered. 

And yet, the ears of the whole world did not hear the last voices from the abyss.

As Leff wrote: “From the start of the war in Europe, to its end nearly six years later, the New York Times and other mass media treated the persecution and the annihilation of the Jews of Europe as a secondary story.”

The parallels today, of course, are not completely the same — at least not because of the Internet and social media. Most of us have seen and heard the stories:

• The burning of the Jordanian pilot;

• The beheadings of American, British and Japanese journalists;

• The beheadings of the 21 Coptic Christians;

• The slaying of the editor of Charlie Hebdo and the Jews at the kosher deli in Paris;

• The young Jewish man gunned down outside of a Copenhagen synagogue;

• The crucifixions and mass executions by ISIS in Iraq;

• We saw news reports of the 140 Nigerian college students who were executed because they were Christians;

• And it has been almost a year since First Lady Michelle Obama participated in a Twitter campaign to bring back the 200 teenage Nigerian girls kidnapped by Boko Haram.

But the voices from the abyss are far greater than that — just as they were with the Jews in World War II. 

• In Syria, since 2011, 76,000 civilians have died at the hands of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad; 130,000 combatants have died — more than 206,000 people in all.

• More than 3 million Syrians have fled their homeland, left the country as refugees.

• An estimated 6.5 million Syrians are “internally displaced.”

• In Iraq, the Think Progress website reported in mid-March, since ISIS warned Christians in August that they could convert, pay extra taxes or be killed, ISIS has massacred and enslaved thousands of Yazidi faithful and razed their villages and killed hundreds who belong to the Shabak religious minority.

• At one time, there were 1.5 million Christians in Iraq; today, most have fled.

• In Nigeria, Boko Haram in 2014 murdered 6,350 civilians.

• In January, it massacred 2,000 people in just one day.

• As many as 1.5 million Nigerians have been displaced.

And then there are these smaller, individual, but telling stories from the abyss:

• Last month, I heard the American Jewish Committee’s Brussels bureau chief talk about how her grandfather will no longer go to synagogue in Copenhagen because he believes walking to its front door makes him a marked man.

AJC’s representative in Paris told an interviewer: For many Jews in Paris “everyday life has become a nightmare. Tiny decisions every day are an act of courage — taking the children to school, going to temple, going to the kosher supermarket. These are all acts of courage.”

• A few Sundays ago, in Stamford Hill, London, a drunken mob of 20 thugs shouted “Kill the Jews” as they stormed a synagogue, smashing windows and attacking worshippers inside.

• In Sarasota, a Jewish philanthropist told a group attending an American Jewish Committee dinner last month how his granddaughter recently was part of a group of Jewish Americans visiting Holocaust sites in Poland. 

He said she and her group were subjected to being spat upon — because they were Jews.

And a month or so ago, a retired Marine sent me a three- minute video of a Muslim woman detained by ISIS in the streets of Iraq.

They handcuffed her and brought her to stand before an imam and a mob of male thugs. They had their rifles slung over their shoulders and many of them were taking videos of the whole scene with their smartphones.

For two minutes, the imam ranted to the mob of the woman’s sins. And then they ordered her to her knees.

Suddenly, a man standing next to the imam pulled out his pistol, held the barrel on top of the woman’s head and pulled the trigger.

She was executed on the spot in front of the mob. No one reacted in horror.

These were the scenes 75 years ago in Nazi Germany. 

No one heeded the Jewish voices from the abyss. Today, it appears, almost no one is heeding the Jewish, Christian and Muslim voices from the abyss.

The parallels of history are remarkable.

No one heeded the Jewish voices from the abyss. Today, it appears, almost no one is heeding the Jewish, Christian and Muslim voices from the abyss.