[Aaron Novick]

Context matters here. AOC called them concentration camps (they are), and the Museum was responding to that. So while yes, they did object to drawing any analogies at all,* their statement is appropriately understood also as an objection, specifically, to the claim that the ICE camps are concentration camps. And I maintain that it's spineless. But I will grant to you that their response is also extreme.


*which I guess is a trivial way to satisfy "never again", if you decide that "again" should be understood to mean "literally the exact same thing happening again with no differences whatsoever" then surely it will never happen again, eternal recurrence of the universe aside.

[John Isbell]

To my mind, if we are going to use language precisely (and I believe we should) it is worth noting that the term concentration camp, used by AOC, goes back to the Second Boer War, as Wikipedia notes: "Concentration camps were operated by the British in South Africa during the Second Anglo-Boer War from 1900–1902. The term "concentration camp" grew in prominence during that period." Links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Britis...ntration_camps ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intern...nese_Americans

In short, they are not exclusive to the Nazis, the term was already in common use by 1939, and for a reason. If we want an exclusive term, we might say death camps or extermination camps. Not a lot of governments have operated those, but the Nazis obviously did. There is political convenience to be had in blurring this distinction: witness the outcry when AOC labelled the camps on the US border as precisely what they are. I object to that political convenience, and the abuse of language on which it depends. It is immoral, to my mind, and I use the term politely.

Cheers,
John

Update: just to add that the term concentration camp or Konzentrationslager , used for camps that exterminated people, was quite specifically a Nazi preference. There are good books on Nazi use of language; here's a link to one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTI_%E...Tertii_Imperii
I don't see why we should favor exclusively - to the exclusion of all analogies - the term the Nazis found suited to their ends.

[Mark McDonnell]

I think Cortez was right, and had every right, to call those awful camps what she did. They do appear to fit the definition. I can, I'm afraid, also empathise with the museum's PoV. They might technically be 'wrong' to hold it, but given the Jewish experience I think it may run deeper than just 'spinelessness'. In the general public's mind, and in common parlance, concentration camp is synonymous with Nazi death camp and that isn't a comparison to be made lightly. And I know she didn't make it lightly, but I maintain the right to be still thinking about this one. I can see how the museum's stance makes a bit of a nonsense of the idea of watchful vigilance, but I don't think either party should be castigated.

Bowing out respectfully now.

Edit: mainly I was talking about calling Roger Kimball a Nazi. I don't think he is. Doesn't mean he isn't a very unpleasant man.

[David Anthony]

Quincy once said, the first to say Nazi loses the argument.

[Aaron Novick]

Mark, I'm glad you're thinking about this, and I post this without expectation of a response.

I think that the Holocaust Museum should see, as one of its central missions, to keep people informed in ways that lower the likelihood of Holocaust-type atrocities occurring again (keeping in mind that, while the death camps were the worst of these atrocities, they were not the extent of them). I think this is impossible if they take the view that analogizing contemporary situations to the Holocaust is verboten across the board—they have willingly eliminated the central resource at their disposal. That, I think, is, in a deep sense, spineless. It's certainly an abandonment of their mission.

Your point that people likely equivocate between "concentration camp" and "death camp" is a fair one. But I have a perhaps different view of the practical implications of this equivocation than you do. In my view, the thing to do is to make the (correct) point that the ICE camps are concentration camps. Then, if people object that they aren't death camps, the appropriate response is twofold: (a) to note that concentration camps and death camps are distinct, and (b) to point out that the Nazis did concentration camps first and death camps second.

Again, the whole point of "never again", as I understand it, is to recognize that the Nazi atrocities unfolded in a series of stages, so that we can recognize when a country is in the early stages and cut it off before it gets to the worst of them. And here is my fundamental contention: the US is several stages deep already. And, honestly, the Nazi comparisons don't really depend on whether we take the remaining steps into utter moral depravity. What we're doing now is already beyond the pale.

[Aaron Novick]

Originally Posted by David Anthony

Quincy once said, the first to say Nazi loses the argument.

well, let's take this one from the horse's mouth

When people are actively emulating the Nazis, the calculus changes

[Max Goodman]

My father and his parents survived WWII only because they left Europe. Both of his parents came from large families. Most of them stayed and were murdered by the Nazis.

Originally Posted by Mark McDonnell

the actual Nazis ... sent 6 million people to the gas chambers

The Nazis murdered 11 million people. Only a little more than half were Jews. Communists and other political opponents, gypsies, homosexuals, the mentally challenged...

This is not a knock against you, Mark. History remembers "the six million," which lets the Nazis off easy and seems to me (a Jew) as evidence of a Jewish chauvinism that diminishes the importance of the other victims.

That the Nazis weren't satisfied to murder only Jews should also be remembered by those of us who don't yet feel personally attacked by current leaders.

Originally Posted by Aaron Novick

What is the purpose of instilling the mantra "never again" in generations of Jews if, when "again" begins, we haggle and pick away at "well this isn't exactly the same..."

Beautifully put, Aaron. I'm sure I'll find frequent reason to repeat your words.

[Erik Olson]

I think concentration camps is a fit epithet to denote the mass detention centers of ICE on several scores. In the first place, it means according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

concentration camp, n.
2. a. A camp in which large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labour or to await mass execution.

And in the second place, it is appropriate and good to evoke Nazis and their past atrocities in the context for reasons already covered here. That is a powerful specter, and if ever there were a time fit to call on its warning for the sake of the present, it is now. That is, so long as it is not casually tossed off but meant in earnest and scrupulously applied. Methinks. If only I could add to this, but am called away.

[John Isbell]

It may here be worth adding the small footnote that disease, starvation and various other factors killed considerable numbers of people in the Nazi death camps. Such deaths are not unknown in the camps on America's Mexican border: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/imm...ation-n1015291

Cheers,
John

[James Brancheau]

I'd ordinarily agree that one should avoid the term Nazi. But we're in another place now. And, anyway, inspired by this dirtbag president, some are all but admitting it (and some are actually admitting it). They can now openly and confidently spew their hate and misinformation. You do not negotiate with these people-- a term I'm using loosely and that, unlike using Nazi, is becoming more and more debatable. You call them what they are. There are a handful of people I've known for years who have changed, or have come out of their racist closets and I won't associate with them anymore. Or they won't associate with me because I pounced. And everyone here knows I never do that . None of them, fortunately, were good friends or close family members, but I'd be prepared to disassociate from them too if need be. The other day my cousin's wife posted something especially vile on Facebook. I knew my cousin fairly well (though not so much recently), but not her. She posted this meme which featured a picture of these four Irish children who were supposedly sold into slavery in America in the 17th century. In bold print above them was Truth Matters (never mind that they didn't have cameras in the 17th century...) and somewhere below the four children it stated that all Irish people therefore deserve reparations for slavery too. (In other words, slavery didn't matter and African-Americans should just shut up.) Yeah, pretty much I did the verbal equivalent of lighting her on fire and can't say that I regret it (though it did take away the small pleasure of unfriending her).