COME AND SEE: THE HORRORS OF THE HOLOCAUST BY Alan G. Futerman and Walter E. Block
https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2023/12/come-and-see/
Alan G. Futerman and Walter E. Block are the co-authors of The Classical Liberal Case for Israel (published by Springer in 2021, with commentary by Benjamin Netanyahu).
The horrors of the Holocaust, particularly those involving the mass murder process itself, are impossible to conceive. We may read documents, watch documentary films, listen to survivors, learn its history, and visit concentration camps and museums. But we cannot perceive them.
Certain films, though, allow us access to the closest kind of experience we could expect. They permit us, in a sense, to see from within. One of these films is Son of Saul (2015). There is another one, set during the Nazi Blitzkrieg on Byelorussia that left 25 per cent of the country’s population killed. This is a Soviet film, released in 1985 and directed by Elem Klimov. Its name is Come and See.
This film, a true masterpiece, not only shows with excruciating detail the unbearable degree of Nazi destruction, but something more, something that is essential to the phenomenon of mass murder. In one scene, we follow Flyora (the main character, superbly interpreted by Aleksei Kravchenko) while he witnesses the extermination of an entire village. In that scene, we can see a hell that is difficult to put into words. The Einsatzgruppen and their collaborators sardonically laugh at the villagers, sadistically mock them and maniacally sneer at them, while they herd them to be burned inside a church. No one is spared, children, elderly, women. There is no escape, no logic, no reason. In an immortal scene, a group of Nazis take a picture with Flyora while one of them points a gun to his head. The surreal scene captures well that this event seems from another dimension, although it is placed on Earth.
So, what is it that the film portrays that is so special? It shows that, although this horror is performed by humans, it does not belong to humanity as such. That is, it consists of a fundamental intent of changing human nature—a departure from humanity. It is a systematic, premeditated intent to inflict the cruellest forms of sadistic destruction under the disguise of a rational system. In the film, this is implied by some of the phrases that are said through the speakers before the Nazi massacre occurs: “Germany is a cultured country.”
What happened on October 7, 2023, in Israel is an instance of this specific phenomenon. Of course, the Holocaust is an event of such scale and horror in history that cannot be compared. But the essential factor, the subversion of humanity mentioned above in conjunction with the most maniacal Jew-hatred, did take place.
According to what captured Hamas assassins themselves have confessed, they were told that they could do with Jews whatever they wanted. They could kill, rape, burn, destroy. Moreover, it was their duty to do just that.
And so, they did. They entered towns and streets, murdering anyone they could find. They broke into homes, tortured and killed children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children. Raped women and cut off body parts. Dismembered their victims and notified their relatives with their own cellphones. They transmitted their depredations through the social networks of the victims. They sardonically laughed. One assassin called his own parents with a victim’s phone to let them know of the good works he was doing in the mass murder process. They beheaded babies and burned entire families alive. A pregnant woman was stabbed, and a baby was put into an oven. They filmed the entire process with GoPros. Unlike the actions of the Einsatzgruppen, we don’t need to watch acted films to get a sense of the destruction. Hamas transmitted it live for the world to come and see.
Is it by chance that the same essential sadism and impulse for destruction occur? Not at all. The events of October 7 were inspired by the very same ethos that originated the Palestinian Arab National Movement, founded by Jerusalem’s Mufti Amin al-Husseini in the 1920s and 1930s. A great admirer and collaborator of Adolf Hitler, Amin al-Husseini also wanted to exterminate the Jews. In fact, that was his entire goal, and that of the Arab armies which invaded Israel with the intent of committing genocide after its birth in 1948. The Nazis believed in a master race, while the Mufti and his modern Hamas heirs believe in a master religion. The target is essentially the same: The Jew. The Hamas charter says so explicitly. Could it be that the lack of peace is not due to “settlements” but rather plain genocidal hatred? After all, no such occurrences took place before 1948. And, yet, there were pogroms galore before that time. Just come and see.
Students at elite institutions of higher learning such as Harvard and Columbia have full access to these videos and to the murderous declarations by Hamas leaders, as well as those by Hezbollah and Iran. These declarations explicitly call for genocide. But woke students prefer to stay asleep. Waking up would imply that they would have to change their views 180 degrees, and that they cannot do. No, Khamenei, Nasrallah and Haniyeh do not actually mean it, these students choose to think. (Or, if they do, then they are justified in supporting such atrocities.) Words can mean whatever they make them to mean, in the context of the “oppressed”. Kidnapped and raped women and orphaned children, now held in inhumane conditions in Gaza, are not perceived as innocent human beings, but as “occupiers”. It is better to tear down the posters, they think. Because what would the alternative be? What would it mean to recognise the nature of that which they are supporting? What would it mean to see Israelis as human beings? What would it say of them that a wrong pronoun or a “microaggression” deserves nothing short of eternal damnation, but the burning of babies is met with silence? Is not reality malleable? Is it not only about interpreting events rather than seeing them? No. They should come and see.
And what about Jews who rush to denounce Israel’s “evils” while the corpses of 1200 dead Jews are still warm? Those who feel the necessity to exceed their woke “allies” in their declarations and initiatives against the only state that would give them refuge if their Islamist friends came to power? In a sort of masochistic frenzy, they need to speak up and make it clear that no, not only do they not support Israel, but they especially hate it, because they are Jews. What would it mean for these Jews, who speak ill of the IDF, to recognise that October 7, 2023, is precisely that which occurs to Jews, that has occurred (and would certainly occur to them) if there were no IDF? The mere thought of it would make them chill. Better to tear down more posters. Otherwise, they would have to come and see.
In a Pavlovian reaction, the bombing of the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza was taken instantaneously as Israel’s fault. They had to take Hamas’s word at face value because, who else could have been responsible? What would it imply if it wasn’t Israel? It had to be. Some 500 people murdered, Hamas said. Why not? Protestors and angry social network users need it to be. Reality is what they say it is. They were waiting for this. Is there evidence, and even phone conversations by Hamas operatives saying that it was the Palestinian Islamic Jihad that was accountable instead? Yes, but who is showing it? Israel, of course. Videos and analyses of the rocket barrage mean nothing. But they do, they need only to come and see.
Let us not fool ourselves. Not everyone supporting Hamas and rallying at the streets and university campuses across the West is naive. Some do see and agree. Some of those who parade and chant “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free!” mean what they say, and like what they saw. It is not the “settlements”, the “occupation”, the “blockade”, or the like, it is rather Israel as such. The calls are for genocide. So, it is not only the naive, or simply social network and university snobs, who should come and see. It is also those who support Israel and Western civilisation that should see and see well.
If the civilised world does not denounce what these calls are really supporting and asking for, and at the same time does not allow Israel to finish the job of destroying Hamas, October 7 will only be a prelude of what’s coming for all of us. Universities, governments, societies, the West as a whole, needs to finally see, and come to its senses before it’s too late. Otherwise, we will not only see it on video, but really, existentially, perceive it, all too well.
Alan G. Futerman and Walter E. Block are the co-authors of The Classical Liberal Case for Israel (published by Springer in 2021, with commentary by Benjamin Netanyahu).
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