Nazi Persecution of Jews - A Revelation and a Warning...

Neue Synagogue - Berlin (copyright Emma Biggins 2012)

I recently visited Berlin, staying in what was the Jewish quarter at the time Hitler and the Nazis came to power.  During a walk around the area, I stopped at the Neue Synagogue on Oranienburger Straße, the centre of what was the Jewish community in Berlin at the time.  Ironically, the local police chief protected it as best he could from the Nazis, only for it to be badly damaged during WWII allied bombings.  

Whilst my knowledge of the origins and history of Judaism are limited, both Emma (my partner) and I experienced a revelation during our visit.


It became clear, at least to us, why the Nazis persecuted the Jews and other groups like them.  The Nazis, in my opinion, were the epitome of Statism, where the State seeks to impose a total control of the population by demanding adherence to is own definition of what it means to be a citizen of the State.  It is an extreme form of Collectivism, where the State demands total conformity and subservience, a sacrifice of individual liberty and status for the collective good, in return for the security of being protected by the State.

It is possible to see why the German people were seduced by what Hitler and the Nazi party had to offer.  For a people exhausted, bankrupted and humiliated by WWI and its aftermath, the Nazis quickly redefined, with an almost religious intensity, what it meant to be German.  The Nazis promised a return to peace and prosperity, in return for obedience and conformity to the State.  Reading about Jewish life in Berlin before the Nazis, I suddenly and horribly realised why the Nazis, as extreme Statists, could not let them survive.  I also saw a sad parallel with our modern situation.
  
Before the Nazis, the Jews of Berlin had a Community.  What do I mean by that?

• They lived their lives and took their ethics from a centuries old religious belief system, a belief system that, whilst positive and not hostile to the State, did not originate with the State or its philosophy.
• The Jewish Community had elected leaders, respected individuals that were looked up to and whose wise decisions were followed.  Statists will always find this a threat, demanding, as it does, obedience and respect to and for itself and its officials.
• Many influential Jews were independent business people and had independent wealth, not needing assistance from the State.
• Jewish people looked after their own.  They built hospitals, homes for the elderly, schools and orphanages.  They did not look to the State to provide this assistance and therefore could not be induced to follow the State in return for that assistance.

The State cannot sanction sections of the community that refuse to conform to their control.  The Nazis, as extreme Statists, could not tolerate such a challenge to their wish to subjagate all areas of German society to their wishes.  Jews and their beliefs therefore had to be made to seem foreign, anti-German and dangerous.  I need not go into what happened as a result.

Sadly, Statism is alive and well in modern society.  Our political class, drunk on the easy assumption of power by making citizens believe that Government alone can provide safety and security, continue to maintain the Cult of the State.

In the US, it has culminated in such outrages as Waco, where a religious community was murdered on flimsy pretext.  Their crime, at least in my eyes, was wanting to live independently of, and having a belief system not sanctioned by, the State.

In UK society, it has manifested in the destruction of the Family.  The Family, after all, is the smallest form of Community in Society.  It has (or had) all the independent aspects that I have described above as belongiong to the Jewish Community of Berlin, pre-Nazi era.  If the State can destroy the family, then it has won.  Children then are not members of a family, they are wards of the State.  Adults are not senior members of families or, on a larger scale, communities, they are merely members of a greater "Society", controlled by the State.  I shuddered when I read last week of a UK Government Minister who insists that more children should be taken into care, overriding the rights of biological parents.  The State's record of looking after children in care is abysmal, to say the least.

Wouldn't it be lovely to think we could create Communities once again?  Communities that have a shared vision and belief system - would it matter what those beliefs were, as long as they were positive and non-invasive to others?  Communities that provide employment through independent businesses and security by looking after its own members.  Communities that give security that others in your locality are looking out for you and are willing to assist you in times of hardship.

Most importantly, communities that are independent and free from State control and therefore do not demand that you give up all individual rights in return for what is fake security, as does the State.

Pavement plaques, Tor Strasse, remembering Jewish residents, deported and murdered.