The first time I heard someone being called Hitler, my heart stopped. I was in Williamsburg, right near the elevated subway tracks on Broadway. It was a little less than 25 years after the camps were liberated by the American and Russian armies, but the reverberations of anything Holocaust were still pulsating through the times. I was almost thirteen years old when the old man used the term and I could not believe what I had heard. Especially, because the person using that repulsive appellation was not directed at anyone other than himself.
You see, I was with my father who had taken me to buy my first hat for my bar mitzvah. Two people were running the store. There was the father, a very old man, who probably had started the business, and his son, who stood by and watched, as he held his tongue. The father, a bit too old to understand the entreaties of a little bar mitzvah boy, probably one-eighth his age, was trying to convince me to buy the hat that I did not really like. He plopped it on my head, and made some adjustments, as I stood there cringing respectfully, like his son, holding my tongue. Out of respect for a zokein, my father did not let me argue. The old man’s hands shook with what was probably the onset of Parkinson’s disease, as he slid them across the crown, making two indentations, which in my opinion were not uniform. While he was putting the two creases in the hat, he both asked and affirmed at the same time in heavily accented English, “Y’vahnt mit di pintshes?”
At that point, he saw my sour disposition and reassured me in a very firm manner which had me gasp, “Ich bin a Hittler far fooftzik yohr! Ich vais a gutteh Hittle un a gutn pas! (I have been a hatmaker for fifty years! I know a good hat and a good fit!”)
I could no longer think. I was frozen in fear. I was not sure what he meant at the time, and my knowledge of Yiddish was at best sparse, but hearing the few words, “Ich bin a Hittler” made me freeze and immediately say, in my mind, “Anything you want! I’ll take the hat and get out of here! Fast! My father did not understand my anxiety and some 50-plus years later, it still is as fresh as ever.
I think many Democrats, Palestinian protestors, and even a number of Israeli protestors must have known my story. They know that the epithet, “Hitler,” can send a chill up one’s spine. But the use or actually, misuse, of that foul moniker over and over again makes it a worthless invective that has become a trite, overused curse word that is bandied about like kindergarten children calling each other “meany” or “baby.”
It is almost as if the name “Hitler” has become an ambiguous adjective, a mere nickname, for someone whom you don’t like. A name that had been known to initiate fear and trauma to an entire generation of people, has become comparable to a “dislike” button on a social media platform.
I could not help but think of how the few remaining survivors of the Yemach Shemo’s death camps reacted when they learned that Kamala Harris had called a special press conference to encourage the unconvinced voters to vote for her by relating that Donald Trump had likened himself to Hitler. Never mind the fact that he does, in fact, have Jewish children and grandchildren and that prominent members of his inner circle are not only Jewish by birth but are practicing Torah-observant Jews.
We live in a world of sound bites and snippets. After all, it’s much easier to call someone a name than to explicate exactly the Nazi philosophy and to expand upon the Nazi ideology, and all its aberrant philosophies and try to apply them to your adversary. After all, if someone would try to define Trump’s policies by applying actual Nazi dogma to him or to any mainstream candidate for that matter, they would look like a total ignoramus, devoid of any sense of history and reality. So just call him a Nazi or say he appreciated Hitler and poof, you think you have accomplished instilling a sense of fear in the average voter.
I wonder what would happen if instead of calling names, they would try policy. I’d love to see the press release, “According to Vice President Harris, Mr. Trump has promoted an annihilation ideology centered on Aryan racial supremacy. In addition, according to Harris, Mr. Trump’s desire to have less governmental influence and control interfering with business is only a ploy that is of course congruous with Nazi philo…whoops! His fight for the expansion of private education to parochial schools is exactly what the Nazis um.. um…”
Let’s try this, “According to insider sources, Mr. Trump is planning to round up members of his inner circle, including his lawyers, ambassadors, and cabinet members. We also have inside information that Mr. Trump has plans to take his speechwriter, Stephen Miller, who identifies as a practicing Jew, together with Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin; Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, former president of Goldman Sachs, and Howard Lutnik of Cantor Fitzgerald, and send them to the concentration camp that he has established on the outskirts of Nevada where he has already exiled Ambassador David Friedman and of course his son-in-law and his daughter, Ivanka, together with his grandchildren…”
Comparing individuals or movements to Nazis without any connection to their true evil machinations and open philosophies trivializes the atrocities committed and distorts public understanding of history. Suddenly Nazism, means, “the refusal to allow millions of illegal aliens, many who are criminals to not only enter your country, but immediately receive more grants and rights than its citizens.” Suddenly in the mind of the average Joe, and middle-American Trump supporters who, like our Vice President and her running mate, Mr. Walz don’t know history, “The Nazis were not that bad, were they?”
“I like Trump and he’s a Nazi, so a Nazi must be someone who does not want illegal criminal immigrants, wants to deregulate, and wants to keep conservative values. What’s wrong with that?”
The etymological morons have embraced another word as well – genocide. Genocide was coined as a response to the Nazi attempt to eradicate the Jewish race from the planet. It was defined as the deliberate and systematic destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. His definition focused on the intent to destroy a group, not just through mass killings, but also by eradicating its culture, identity, or existence through forced assimilation, population transfer, or other means.
But now the word joined Hitler and Nazi, thrown around without any thought or context. “Genocide.”
Suddenly the unintended deaths of 20,000 or 30,000 Arabs out of 450 million Arabs, who are casualties of a war that was initiated, instigated, and perpetrated by their own leaders is labeled, “genocide.” The use of the word in that bizarre context was even affirmed or at least acknowledged by none other than the Vice President, who nods in agreement if not in total embrace of the idiotic misuse of the term.
Using “Hitler” or “Nazi” as insults for contemporary figures or movements, or the word genocide for deaths as a result of acts of self-defense in an ongoing war, results in hyperbole that diminishes the historical reality. These comparisons are thrown around to describe individuals or policies that people may find harsh, unjust, or offensive — whether in politics, social issues, or even minor personal conflicts.
These comparisons are insulting to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust. To Holocaust survivors and their descendants, who hear terms like “Nazi” thrown around lightly, it can be deeply painful, as it trivializes their suffering and erases the harsh realities of a world that they saw and the horrendous experiences that they lived through.
In an era where more and more people downplay the Holocaust, accurate remembrance is essential. Every misuse of those terms contributes to the erosion of the memory and obfuscation of the lessons of that dark period in history.
Despicable insults with those vituperations discourage thoughtful and articulate debate by shutting down conversation and painting opponents as irredeemably evil. The thoughtless throwing of that evil man’s name at a political adversary is utterly worthless. It has no more meaning than that of the old hatter squeezing pinches in a bar mitzvah boy’s hat declaring that he, too, had been a Hittler for more than 50 years.