Re: math

KEN GOODMAN (KGOODMAN who-is-at CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU)
Sat, 20 Jul 1996 04:30:48 -0700 (MST)

Having just returned from a trip which included visits to the Jewish museums of
Budapest and Prague as well as the museum at Terezin where the efficient Nazis
concentrated the very cosmopolitan Czech Jews- and later many of the Jewish
intellectuals of Western and Central Europe, I can't agree with Peter's
characterization of these recent attempts by French authorities to obliterate
the memories and messages of the holocaust as idiocy.

These offical acts of French authorities echo the Communist authorities white
washing the names of of the thousands of Jews both the Prague and Budapest
Jewsish communites had recorded on the walls of their synagogues of Jews who
died in the holocaust from their countries- 600000 in the case of Hungary.
It reflects tour books that record the events of Czech and Hungarian history
but skip over that there were Jews there as long as there were Christians and
that they were efficiently and thoroughy destroyed using the best technology
available by the German authorities and their allies.

That this is not idiocy but the result of creat9ing dehumanized victim
That this is not idiocy but the result of creating dehumanized victimm
categories who can then be "ethnically cleansed is borne out in the much more
recent history of Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia.

I'm sorry that Mike's attempt to pass on some satire has taken this somber
turn- but I think we must all ask ourselves how "civilized people" can act
so savagely to other humans. And we must oppose those who would obliterate the
memories.