Anatomy of Hate

History can inform the future, but it can’t decide it.

“The Shoes on the Banks of the Danube Promenade” memorial commemorates the Hungarian Jews who were murdered there in the winter of 1944-1945.

As a podcast host, I’m usually the one asking my guests questions. A while back, though, I decided to turn the microphone around so the guest could ask me the last question in the interview.

One of the most interesting questions arose recently when a guest asked me, “How, in the current political climate, can you serve as an 'upstander' to anti-Semitism?” We had been discussing her powerful collection of essays on the role of theater, dance, music, visual art, and film in fighting anti-Semitic hate and encouraging introspection and social responsibility. (See. below.)

I explained how I have used the podcast multiple times as a platform to share information about the Holocaust, including historic sites I visited that my listeners might not know about:

The luxury villa outside Berlin, where, in only two and a half hours, 16 high-ranking Nazis, including Adolf Eichmann, established the organizational structure that would oversee the murder of 11 million European Jews.

The Berlin plaza where, in May 1933, the Nazis burned over 20,000 books they considered objectionable.

The transit camp in northern Holland, where most of the 102,000 Dutch Jews murdered during World War II, including Anne Frank and her family, were taken before being shipped to a death camp.

Using the podcast to discuss the Holocaust’s roots in post-World War I European history, its perpetrators, victims, and memorials, made sense given how I approached the topic as a high school history teacher decades earlier. My guest seemed to appreciate my explanation.

Our conversation eventually shifted to a brief discussion about whether traditional Holocaust studies or the arts are more effective at fostering public empathy and social change. The traditional historical approach provides an understanding of the broader context in which the Holocaust occurred. The arts, on the other hand, have been crucial for raising awareness of the victims and their suffering and resilience. In the spirit of the moment, I suggested that a combination of both approaches might be best.

As I thought about our conversation later, my response to my guest’s initial question began to feel inadequate, not because what I’m doing lacks value. I appreciate the belief that if you reach even one person, light one light, or make even a small dent in an issue, your work is meaningful. But my response felt lacking because I haven’t yet used the platform to explore one of the root causes of anti-Semitism, one of the underlying forces that has traditionally kept it alive.

Anti-Jewish hatred is partly a psychological phenomenon. It’s a manipulative tactic that makes one group believe, “You don’t have this or that because someone else does,” or “you’re suffering because of someone else’s actions. But if you follow me…”

This psychological tactic deliberately diminishes the listener’s sense of personal responsibility, making them more vulnerable to political manipulation. For example, the same group of young, mostly single white males who chanted “Jews won’t replace us” at the ‘Unite the Right’ white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, was later called “very fine people” by the then-president. Statistics show that white males without a college degree overwhelmingly voted for him in subsequent elections.

Adolf Hitler and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, used this tactic masterfully in the 1930s. They convinced the public that Germany had fallen into a severe depression after World War I because “Jews had stabbed it in the back” at the end of the war. Jews were depicted as the “haves,” with wealthy Jewish business owners and bankers controlling everything. It’s no accident that the Nazis targeted Jewish businesses during their organized rampage on November 9/10, 1938, now known as Kristallnacht, the night of the broken glass. Hundreds of Jewish storefront windows across Europe were shattered on the sidewalks and streets, their businesses looted.

Anti-Jewish hatred can incubate in a real or manufactured petri dish of disparity and political ambition.

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If I were to teach a unit on World War II and the Holocaust today, I would introduce students to the Shoes on the Danube Promenade memorial in Budapest. There, along the Danube River, sixty pairs of rusted bronze shoes memorialize the place where, during the winter of 1944-1945, a violent anti-Semitic group forced Jews to remove their shoes and then tied the individuals together in small groups. They then shot one or two members of each group who fell into the river, dragging the rest of the group to drown in the icy water. The shoes were picked up and sold on the black market.

Horrible. Grotesque. Unfathomable.

The memorial as a historical statement urges us to recognize the brutality that took place along the river. The memorial as art encourages us to feel that brutality. Together, the memorial asks us to bear witness to the void left by the now-missing men, women, and children who wore the shoes.

Yet, despite how terrible that practice was, the memorial might do little to reduce anti-Semitism because, on its own, it doesn’t explain the “why” behind the practice. It doesn’t help us understand the perpetrators’ perspective behind their actions.

Today, I would also ask my students who the perpetrators were and what Jews represented to them that was so abhorrent that they had to be eradicated. This additional exploration would make students more aware of the underlying causes that led to anti-Jewish hatred and the Holocaust.

But what of that lesson’s long-term impact? I know that, despite decades of instruction from teachers and various institutions, surveys show that a significant portion of Americans have a broad awareness but only a shallow knowledge of the Holocaust. Misconceptions and uncertainty are common .¹ Deep down, I know that if we want to genuinely reduce anti-Jewish hate, society must weaken the conditions that allow manipulators’ messages to attract followers. Education can’t do it alone.

As a former teacher, the realization that history has its limitations left me cold and feeling inadequate. When I mentioned this feeling to a colleague, she offered a lesson from the Talmud, the Jewish book of wisdom.

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly NOW. Love mercy NOW. Walk humbly NOW. You are not obligated to complete the work but neither are you free to abandon it.

So, as an “uplifter,” I will find and invite a guest to join me at the microphone to discuss the underlying causes of anti-Jewish hatred—and how those causes might also relate to our nation’s long-standing hatred of immigrants.

Only society can address the root causes that give rise to and sustain hatred, but in the meantime, maybe my conversations will continue to reach a listener, light one light, and make a small dent in the issue.

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This week, episode #407: “Why Might the Arts Teach the Holocaust More Powerfully Than History Alone?” features Dr. Karen Berman, who co-edited a two-volume series of 33 essays on the role of theater, dance, music, visual art, and film in fighting anti-Semitic hate and encouraging introspection and social responsibility. Joining me as a co-host is my friend and past guest of episode #370: “Walking Where History Happened: A Daughter’s Holocaust Journey,” Irene Stern Frielich.

1. American Jewish Council survey, January 2023.