The actual Kristallnacht was a country-wide pogrom in November 1938 in which the Nazis killed hundreds of German Jews, threw tens of thousands in concentration camps, destroyed hundreds of synagogues and thousands of Jewish businesses.
@tzimmer_history Calling Flanagan a moderate has always been a stretch, but what is up with Torres? I've been spending my days trying to convince people fed up with the US' reflexive support for Israel that we all need to stick together if we want to beat the forces of fascism. He's not helping with that kind of boneheaded, fascist-embracing proclamation.
The intended effect of equating student protests with the horrors of the mass atrocities committed by Nazi Germany is to legitimize violence against the protesters.
What a shameful, disgusting instrumentalization of the Holocaust.
It’s really fitting that these unhinged self-regarding “moderates” see shattered windows in an office building and go straight to “Kristallnacht” - a euphemistic expression referring to the shards of broken glass that obscures the enormous level of violence against Jewish people.
The November 1938 pogrom was not just an act of vandalism that left windows shattered - it was a key escalation towards the systematic persecution of German Jews - a crucial step in a process of radicalization that ultimately, during the war, led to the slaughtering of millions.
Anyone who believes the Holocaust matters - as a historical event and as politically and morally meaningful reference, warning, and call to action - must unequivocally reject such bizarre and utterly ridiculous instrumentalization, such mendacious trivialization.
@tzimmer_history In the current context of intifada intimidation, it is a worrying escalation. Mendacious would be saying something like “don’t ever learn from the past until it’s already too late.”
“Antisemitism is a problem of the opposite political party” is a trope known as “political pawns” which holds that antisemitism is a political problem, when in reality it as a systemic societal problem.
@tzimmer_history I agree 100%. This is shamefully ridiculous. I am saddened by lots of overwrought comparisons to Nazis, the Holocaust, and genocide these days.