It was a supposedly civilised Europe that committed this crime.

It’s appropriate that this piece comes to the fore again in light of the Ryan Commissions report – the fact there are even any comparisons speak volumes for what has come to light in such explicit terms.

what is an explanation point ?

Real orthodox Jews have a very different understanding of ‘chosen-ness’, which is a very misunderstood concept among gentiles – as well as some Jews who end up rather embarrassed and uncomfortable with this highly central aspect of Judaism. It has no racist connotations whatsoever.

After WWI, Germany was a mess – at certain points, their money was literally not worth the paper it was printed on. That’s a very scary thing to have happen, because you’re never sure if you’ll get food or clothing or medicine if you get sick. And when things are going that badly and people are scared, they often look for someone to blame or something to do, because then they are less scared. They also look for a leader, because they need someone to protect them.

Hitler was a very charismatic speaker, who filled the role of leader really well. And he picked the Jews as the people to blame, along with Communists, intellectuals, homosexuals, etc. He also gave the German eople a vision of themselves as perfect and ideal, with a higher calling that could only be fulfilled if they got rid of undesireables. All those things are very, very inviting ideas if you are starving and frightened and it worked.

It’s also true that orthodox Jewish religious doctrine encourages Jews to think of themselves as “God’s Chosen People” and a cut above the rest of us. Put that together with certain behaviors that set them apart(distinctive clothing and hair styles among the Chasidim, for example) and it’s not hard for unscrupulous people in power to take the heat off themselves by pointing at the “foreigners”, the ones who aren’t “real” Germans, whatever. The same scapegoating is currently underway in the US, with Muslim Americans and Arab-Americans as the victims. During WWII it was Japanese-Americans and in WWI the German-Americans. We’re not currently rounding up the Muslims or Arabs and putting them inc oncentration camps, the way we did the Japanese-Americans in WWII, but who knows what will happen next year?