See Stanley Jason (July 4, 2019). Is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Fascism’ Claim Too Extreme? [Published in New York Times International under title: It Depends on How You Define Fascism.]  New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/04/opinion/fascism-trump-ice.html

See Shanes, Joshua (June 28, 2019). Why we must keep looking at politics through the lens of the Holocaust.
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-when-holocaust-historians-have-a-responsibility-to-talk-politics-1.7417583

After visiting migrant detention facilities that are run by the United States Customs and Border Protection Agency in Texas, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, issued a statement that the United States is “headed toward fascism.”  She also called the American detention facilities “concentration camps”

The US is running concentration camps on our southern border, and that is exactly what they are,” the freshman New York Democrat said Monday night in an Instagram Live video. “If that doesn’t bother you … I want to talk to the people that are concerned enough with humanity to say that ‘never again’ means something.

All information forthcoming in the press so far indeed confirms the ugliness and serious deficiencies of the basic childcare being given by the agency – let alone the overwhelming objections many of us raise to the basic policy of separating these migrant children from their parents.  Note also that the migrant children include many infants literally less than a year old!  The Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem joins absolutely in these protests.  We condemn both the basic policy and the terrible physical and emotional care being given to the children.

Understandably a huge uproar followed the remarks of Representative Ocasio-Cortez.  One specific issue that has taken a major role in this uproar has been the question whether comparisons can be made to the concentration camps of the Holocaust.  Ocasio-Cortez was attacked for misunderstanding the nature of the Holocaust. In fact, the critique of “concentration camps” in itself did not specify the Holocaust but referred to any and all concentration camps.  At the same time it certainly also picked up on the camps of the Holocaust and reinforced this meaning by the reference to “Never Again” which we know as a distinct response to the Holocaust.

Entering the fray, the United States Holocaust Museum – which we note is a U.S. government agency – issued a statement rejecting any attempts to analogize the handling of the migrant children to the Holocaust concentration camps.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum unequivocally rejects efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary.  That position has repeatedly and unambiguously been made clear in the museum’s official statement on the matter – a statement that is reiterated and reaffirmed now.[1]

A great many genocide scholars have now expressed deep objections to the museum policy.

Under the leadership of Professor Samuel Totten, Professor Emeritus at University of Arkansas and Distinguished Fellow of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem, author of the recent Genocide by Attrition: The Nuba Mountains of Sudan and the forthcoming Dirty Hands and Vicious Deeds: The U.S. Government’s Complicity in Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide, at least two major public statements have been circulated. These statements assert that “there are times when the use of Holocaust analogies is legitimate and worthwhile particularly as it applies to comparative studies of genocide.”

The statement emphasizes that the scholars clearly “look askance at facile, mindless and crass use of Holocaust analogies,” but differentiates these from responsible analysis and comparison.

The scholars signing the statement also emphasize their strong general support for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The following is the “Open Letter from Scholars of Genocide Studies Concerning USHMM’s Position – Holocaust Analogies” – and in it there is also a recap of the names of the scholars who earlier had signed a first draft of the letter:

July 3, 2019

Ms. Sara J. Bloomfield
Director
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Washington, DC

Dear Director Bloomfield:

We, genocide scholars across the globe, are writing in support of our colleagues in the field of Holocaust Studies vis-à-vis the issues they recently raised concerning the use of Holocaust analogies as expressed in the USHMM’s recent “Statement Regarding the Museum’s Position on Holocaust Analogies.”

At the outset, it is imperative to clearly state that we, genocide scholars, look askance at the facile, mindless, and crass use of Holocaust analogies, but also believe that there are times when the use of Holocaust analogies is legitimate and worthwhile, particularly as it applies to comparative studies of genocide.

As you are well aware, our colleagues in Holocaust Studies wrote as follows:

“We are scholars who strongly support the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Many of us write on the Holocaust and genocide; we have researched in the USHMM’s library and archives or served as fellows or associated scholars; we have been grateful for the Museum’s support and intellectual community. Many of us teach the Holocaust at our universities, and have drawn on the Museum’s online resources. We support the Museum’s programs from workshops to education.

“We are deeply concerned about the Museum’s recent “Statement Regarding the  Museum’s Position on Holocaust Analogies.” We write this public letter to urge its retraction.

“Scholars in the humanities and social sciences rely on careful and responsible analysis, contextualization, comparison, and argumentation to answer questions about the past and the   present. By “unequivocally rejecting efforts to create analogies between the Holocaust and other events, whether historical or contemporary,” the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is taking a radical position that is far removed from mainstream scholarship on the Holocaust and genocide. And it makes learning from the past almost impossible.

“The Museum’s decision to completely reject drawing any possible analogies to the Holocaust, or  to the events leading up to it, is fundamentally ahistorical. It has the potential to inflict severe  damage on the Museum’s ability to continue its role as a credible, leading global institution dedicated to Holocaust memory, Holocaust education, and research in the field of Holocaust and genocide studies. The very core of Holocaust education is to alert the public to dangerous developments that facilitate human rights violations and pain and suffering; pointing to similarities across time and space is essential for this task.

“Looking beyond the academic context, we are well aware of the many distortions and inaccuracies, intentional or not, that frame contemporary discussions of the Holocaust. We are not only scholars. We are global citizens who participate in public discourse, as does the Museum as   an institution, and its staff. We therefore consider it essential that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum reverse its position on careful historical analysis and comparison. We hope the  Museum continues to help scholars establish the Holocaust’s significance as an event from which the world must continue to learn.”

Like those who signed the original letter (among them being such notable and highly regarded scholars as Omer Bartov, Donald Bloxham, Deborah Dwork, Hilary Earl, Sidra DeKoven Ezrahi, Christian Gerlach, Henry Greenspan, Simone Gigliotti, Marion Kaplan, Robert Melson, Dirk Moses, Norman Naimark, Helene Sinnreich, Dan Stone, Timothy Snyder, and Eric D. Weitz), we strongly support the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and many of us have given talks at and/or workshops at the USHMM, served as consultants to the USHMM on various issues, and/or conducted research in the archives and/or library of the USHMM, etc.

We should note that we find it more than a little confusing that the USHMM has actually generated and distributed statements about Holocaust analogies that are at odds with one another. That hardly comports with an institution of its nature and standing, and, unfortunately, sows confusion where there need not  — and should not —  be such. Indeed, it seems as if the USHMM, itself, has been and continues to be confused over what its exact stand is vis-à-vis the use of Holocaust analogies. That, in turn, has led to confusion amongst its supporters, educators, and even those scholars who often make use of the USHMM’s archives, scholarly monographs, etc.

In closing, we  — scholars of genocide –  consider it essential that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum reverse the position it states in its most recent press release on the use of Holocaust analogies as it applies to historical analysis and comparison. We further urge that the USHMM revisit the more nuanced position it has itself previously formulated (in the statement that the press release references) and retracts the so-called “position” adopted in its press release.

We thank you advance for your serious consideration of this request.

Most sincerely,

Dr. Samuel Totten, Professor Emeritus University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Author of Genocide by Attrition: Nuba Mountains, Sudan (Transaction Publishers, 2015); Co-author of The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide: An Introduction (University of Toronto Press, forthcoming), and editor of Dirty Hands, Vicious Deeds: The U.S. Government’s Complicity in Crimes against Humanity and Genocide (University of Toronto Press, 2018). (Dr. Samuel Totten, 18967 Melanie Rd., Springdale, Arkansas 72764; 479-927-0318; samstertotten@gmail.com)

Dr. Israel W. Charny, Director, Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide, Jerusalem. Author of The Genocide Contagion, and Chief Editor of Encyclopedia of Genocide. Co-founder and Former President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (2005-2007)

Dr. Roger W. Smith, Professor Emeritus of Government, College of William and Mary. Former President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (1997-1999)

Dr. Joyce Apsel, Clinical Professor, Liberal Studies, New York University  and President, Institute for Study of Genocide. Former President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (2001-2003)

Dr. Daniel Feierstein, Professor and Director of the Genocide Studies Centre, Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero and Professor and Director of the State Crimes Observatory, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Former President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (2013-2015)

Dr. Andrew Woolford, Professor of Sociology and Criminology, University of Manitoba. Former President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (2015-2017), and Member of the College of the Royal Society of Canada

John M. Evans, Former U.S. Ambassador to Armenia (2004-06) Author of Truth Held Hostage:  America and the Armenian Genocide: What Then? What Now? (London: Gomidas Institute, 2016)

Dr. Thomas Brudholm, Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Author of Resentment’s Virtue: Jean Améry and the Refusal to Forgive (Temple University Press, 2008); Emotions and Mass Atrocity: Philosophical and Theoretical Explorations (Cambridge University Press, 2018, co-ed. with J. Lang); and Hate, Politics, Law: Critical Perspective on Combating Hate (Oxford University Press, 2018, co-edited with B.S. Johansen)

Dr. Maureen S. Hiebert, Associate Professor, Political Science; Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Military, Security & Strategic Studies, University of Calgary. Author of Constructing Genocide and Mass Violence: Society, Crisis, Identity (Routledge)

Dr. John K. Roth, Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA. Author:  The Failures of Ethics: Confronting the Holocaust, Genocide, and Other Mass Atrocities

Dr. Victoria Sanford, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Lehman College, and Director, Center for Human Rights & Peace Studies, Doctoral Faculty, The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Dr. Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, Dr. Marsha Raticoff Grossman Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Stockton University, Galloway, NJ

Dr. James Waller, Cohen Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Keene State College, Keene, NH. Author of Becoming Evil: How Ordinary People Commit Genocide and Mass Killing (Oxford University Press, 2007), and Confronting Evil: Engaging Our Responsibility to Prevent Genocide (Oxford University Press, 2016)

Ms. Tanya Domi, Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University, Affiliate, Harriman Institute, New York, NY

Dr. Timothy Williams, Postdoctoral Researcher, Centre for Conflict Studies, Marburg University, Germany

Dr. Mark Baker, Former Director/Adjunct Associate Professor, Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation, Monash University, Melbourne Australia. Author of The Fiftieth Gate: A Journey Through Memory (HarperCollins 1997/Text Publishing 2017)

Dr. Kimberley Ducey, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, The University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg (Manitoba), Canada

Dr. Ari Kohen, Associate Professor of Political Science and Schlesinger Professor of Social Justice in the Harris Center for Judaic Studies, University of Nebraska—Lincoln

Dr. Johanna Ray Vollhardt, Associate Professor of Psychology, Clark University, Worcester, MA

Dr. Khatchig Mouradian, Lecturer in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University, New York, NY

Dr. Helen Jarvis, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Co-author with Tom Fawthrop of Getting Away With genocide? Elusive Justice and the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (Pluto, 2004). Major Author of Cambodian section of Modern Genocide: Understanding Causes and Consequences (ABC-CLIO, 2013); “Trials and Tribulations: The Long Quest for Justice for the Cambodian Genocide” in S. M. Meisenberg and I. Stegmiller (Eds.) The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (Asser, 2016)

Dr. Robert Hitchcock, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Dr. Brenden W. Rensink, Associate Professor, Department of History, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT. Author, Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands (Texas A&M University Press, 2018)

Dr. Adam Muller, Professor and Director of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada

Dr. John Hagan, MacArthur Professor, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL

Dr. Eyal Mayroz, Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney. Author of Reluctant Interveners: America’s Failed Responses to Genocide, from Bosnia to Darfur

Dr. Elun T. Gabriel, Associate Professor of History, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY

Mr. George Dalbo, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Author of “The Holocaust as Metaphor: Holocaust and Anti-Bullying Education in the United States,” in Holocaust Education Revisited: Wahrnehmung, Vermittlung und Rezeption (Springer, 2019)

Dr. Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, AR research initiative, Dakar,  Sénégal. The Longest Genocide – Since 29 May 1966 (Dakar and Reading: African Renaissance, 2019), and co-author, with Lakeson Okwuonicha, of Why Donald Trump is Great for Africa (Dakar and Reading: African Renaissance, 2018)

Dr. Ann Weiss, Independent Scholar, and Director of Eyes from the Ashes Educational Foundation. Author of The Last Album: Eyes from the Ashes of Auschwitz-Birkenau (WW Norton, with 2nd edition by Jewish Publication Society)

Michael Bazyler, Professor of Law and The 1939 Society Scholar in Holocaust and Human Rights Studies, Dale E. Fowler School of Law, Chapman University, Orange, CA

Ms. Sara Cohan, Education Director, The Genocide Education Project, and a USHMM Teacher Fellow

Dr. Paul G. Conway, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, SUNY College at Oneonta, New York

Dr. Armen Marsoobian, Professor of Philosophy, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, CT. Author of Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Genocide and Memory (with J. Lindert) (Springer,2018), and Fragments of a Lost Homeland: Remembering Armenia (I. B. Tauris, 2015)

Dr. Marcia Esparza, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York (CUNY). Editor, Journal of Genocide Research. Author of Silenced Communities: Legacies of Militarization and Militarism in a Rural Guatemalan Town (Berghahn Books, October 2017)

Dr. Tomas Borovinsky, Researcher at CONICET (National Scientific and Technical Research Council), and Assistant Professor of Political and Social Theory at UNSAM (National University of General San Martín), Argentina

Dr. Martin Shaw, Research Professor, Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals; Professorial Fellow, University of Roehampton, London; Emeritus Professor, University of Sussex. Author of What is Genocide? (Cambridge: Polity, 2015), and Genocide and International Relations, (Cambridge University Press, 2013)

Dr. Wellington Pereira Carneiro, Brasília, Mst Oxford. Author of Crimes Against Humanity, from the Holocaust to the Arab Spring (Sao Paulo, Brazil: Prismas, 2015)

Dr. Levon Marashlian, Professor of History and Political Science, Glendale Community College, Glendale, CA

Dr. George Kent, Professor Emeritus, University of Hawaii Honolulu Hawaii. Author of  “The Hunger Holocaust.” Genocide Prevention Now. No. 2, April 30, 2010. https://www.ihgjlm.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/HungerHolocaust.pdf

Dr. Hervé Georgelin, Lecturer of History, University of Athens, Athens, Greece

Dr. Kjell Anderson, Professor, Department of Criminal Justice, University of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia, Canada. Author of Perpetrating Genocide: A Criminological Account.

Dr. Emmanuel Taub, Researcher at the National Commission of Technical and Scientific Researching (CONICET – Argentina). Professor of Jewish Philosophy (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Universidad Diego Portales -Chile- and Universidad Católica de Oriente – Colombia)

Ms. Rebecca Tinsley, Founder and President of Waging Peace, and former journalist with the BBC. Based in London, England and Santa Barbara CA

Dr. Kerry Whigham, Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY; Academic Programs Officer, Auschwitz Institute for Peace and Reconciliation; Communications Officer, International Association of Genocide Scholars

Dr. Tetsushi Ogata, Visiting Assistant Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, Soka University of America, Aliso Viejo, CA

Dr. Alejandro Baer, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology. Stephen C. Feinstein Chair in Holocaust and Genocide Studies  University of Minnesota. Co-author (with Natan Sznaider) of Memory and Forgetting in the Post-Holocaust Era. The Ethics of Never Again (Routledge, 2017)

Dr. Benjamin Meiches, Assistant Professor of Security Studies and Conflict Resolution, University of Washington-Tacoma. Author of The Politics of Annihilation: A Genealogy of Genocide (University of Minnesota Press, 2019)

Dr. Hollie Nyseth Brehm, Associate Professor of Sociology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH

Ms. Linda Melvern, Journalist and Author of A People Betrayed (Zed Books Revised 2009) and Conspiracy to Murder (Verso 2004)

Ms. Laura C. Collins, PhD Candidate, School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University

Dr. Paul Slovic, Professor of Psychology, University of Oregon. Author of “The More Who Die, the Less We Care: Psychic Numbing and Genocide”

Dr. Rupert Brown, Professor of Social Psychology, School of Psychology, Sussex University, Brighton, UK. Co-author (with S. Cehajic) of “Dealing With the Past and Facing the Future: Mediators of the Effects of Collective Guilt and Shame in Bosnia Herzegovina.” European Journal of Social Psychology, 2008, 38, 669-684; and co-au8thor of (with S. Cehajic) of  “Not In My Name: A Social Psychological Study of Antecedents and Consequences of Acknowledgment of Ingroup Atrocities.” Genocide Studies and Prevention, 2008,  3, 195-211

Dr. Jennifer Leaning MD SMH, Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University

Dr. Donna-Lee Frieze, Genocide Studies Scholar, Contemporary Histories Research Group, Deakin University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Editor: Totally Unofficial: The Autobiography of Raphael Lemkin (Yale University Press, 2013)

 

Footnotes

[1] Steinbuch, Yaaron (June 24, 2019).  U.S. Holocaust museum denounces AOC’s ‘concentration camp’ remarks.  New York Post. https://nypost.com/2019/06/24/us-holocaust-museum-denounces-aocs-concentration