Tag Archives: Adolf Hitler

December 27, 2022

Open Letter to Whoopi Goldberg regarding comments about the Holocaust and the Jewish People

By davidgroen1

Dear Whoopi, 

In February 1941, between 300-500 Jewish men of sound mind and body were rounded up in Amsterdam by the Nazi occupying forces. Every single one of them was deported out of the city,  most of them to the Mauthausen concentration camp.  The majority of those were either shot, pushed of a rock quarry at the top of the “stairs of death”, or literally worked to death.  This event symbolized the beginning of the Holocaust in the Netherlands. While one of these men was my mother’s favorite cousin, David van Hasselt, even if there wasn’t this personal element attached to the story, I would still be enormously offended by your comments. 

If there was any accuracy to your comments, which there is not, finding it necessary to insist that the Holocaust wasn’t motivated by race is like saying that slavery was really only about getting cheap help. It whitewashes the murder of 6 million Jews, diminishes the pain and suffering of those that experienced it and the burden of responsibility and vicarious anguish felt by future generations. 

In September of 1919, 14 years before Adolf Hitler came into power, he categorized the Jews as a race, not as a religious community.  He described the Jewish presence as a “race-tuberculosis of the peoples “, and said that “the ultimate goal must be the removal of the Jews altogether “.

In 1923,  10 years before seizing power, Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf, “by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord”.

While Hitler did have a disdain for the mentally and physically deficient, he also hated Homosexuals, Gypsies, Poles, and any race not seen as Aryan. This is why Jesse Owens’ victories in the 1933 Munich Olympics made him such a hero, something I would have commended you for taking time to recognize, as he showed his superiority in his athletic prowess right in front of Hitler’s face. 

What this all comes back to is that your comments are not only incredibly and continuously insensitive,  their inaccuracies are dangerous.  The reason why myself and so many others find the need to make telling this story our life’s work, is because as soon as it’s forgotten, or distorted as you are doing, the danger of history repeating or even somewhat duplicating itself becomes significantly greater. 

And finally Whoopi,  despite the fact that your comments put your mental stability in question, because of the last name you go by, Goldberg, the Nazis would have come for you before seeing the color of your skin. A fact you would be wise to acknowledge. 

Sincerely ,

David Groen 

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July 8, 2020

Open Letter to Desean Jackson in response to his anti-Semitic comments

By davidgroen1

DJDear Desean,

As a son of Holocaust survivors and a defender of the Jewish people I feel it is my obligation to address your recent comments. The initial quote, which you were happy to credit to Adolf Hitler, read as follows:

“(They) will extort America,” the quote read, “(and) their plan for world domination won’t work if the Negroes know who they were.”

You went on to indicate that you have great admiration for the Reverend Louis Farrakhan. Louis Farrakhan, the man who has referred to Judaism as “a deceptive lie and theological error”. To be frank, those are some of the nicest things he has said about my people. In a response to be called out for his anti-Semitism he replied, “When they talk about Farrakhan, call me a hater, you know how they do – call me an anti-Semite. Stop it, I’m anti-termite!”  He also once said, “I don’t care what they put on me. The government is my enemy, the powerful Jews are my enemy.”  And while I can go on for many pages, I leave you with one more.“Do you know that in Europe in every nation where they were, they led an industry in commerce in trade in banking? And the gentiles were angry with them because everywhere they went, they ruled. So the gentiles rose up against the Jews and persecuted them in Europe.” 

This is the man you said you have great admiration for, right around the same time that you made your initial anti-Semitic statement.  It has been suggested to me that your statement is based on nothing more than stupidity. In order to determine whether or not I believed that to be the case I decided to read some of your additional Twitter comments.  What I found were highly intelligent, often self-promoting comments from someone who clearly is very aware of what he is saying. I believe your statements to neither be ambiguous nor reticent.  On the contrary, you know how you feel and you are very comfortable sharing it with others, as is your right in the United States of America,  However, I too have a right to tell you how I feel, and therefore I ask you.  If you were in my position would you be satisfied merely because you apologized?

I do not remember a time in my life when I did not know about what the Jewish people went through during the reign of Hitler.  More specifically, I always knew what happened to my family, and as I got older I learned what my parents dealt with when they were at the same age as you were when you were catching footballs and living a great lifestyle with the money paid to you by none other than yes, your Jewish employer.  For 5 years  the Nazis occupied my parents native Holland. My father worked with the resistance but had to flee his neighborhood to survive, always on the run and never certain if he would live to see another day. My mother had to move from hiding place to hiding place knowing that if she were ever to be caught by the Germans, death would be welcome after what they would likely do to her.  She would sleep underground in what she said felt like a coffin for 16 months.  When the war ended my father would learn that his mother, father, sister and brother-in law were murdered by the Nazis and my mother would learn of the same fate befalling her father and brother.  Not to mention the additional relatives and friends they would never see again.  6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis.  There were countless accounts of torture, medical experimentation, rape and beatings. And Desean, this goes back a mere 75 years. So I ask you again, would you be OK with what you said if you were in my shoes? Would you be so quick to accept an apology?

Let me offer a quote to you, from none other than the great poet and civil rights icon Maya Angelou.

When someone show you who they are, believe them the first time.

I do not accept your apology, nor will I till I hear you denounce the anti-Semitic comments made by the man you admire so much, Louis Farrakhan. When you do that, I will be willing to accept that you are truly sorry for your comments. Until that time I will see your apology as just a way to make sure you continue getting a very nice paycheck, signed by none other than the Jewish owner of the team you play for.

Sincerely,

David Groen

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August 27, 2019

Why we need to stop the misuse of the word “Nazi”

By davidgroen1

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In recent years there has been a growing and concerning trend in regard to a word as familiar globally as any other word.  That word is Nazi. The trend I speak of is in the use of the word in a descriptive, subjective form, as opposed to the literally specific form necessary to keep an understanding of the evil it represents.

A number of people who knew that I intended to write this piece have actually thanked me for doing so.  Any attempt to try to change the thought pattern of an anti-Semite or other form of bigot that uses Holocaust denial as a means of forwarding a perverse agenda is a waste of time.  A more worthwhile venture is to make sure those who have open minds and pure hearts are afforded the opportunity to know the truth.  The truth is that improper use of the word Nazi dilutes the horrors of what took place under the Nazi-occupation in Europe.

This post is neither a political statement nor an apology for those that misuse power.  This is more of a perspective check. Calling someone a Nazi because they do something damaging to other individuals, or even worse calling them one because it is your perception they are doing so, detracts from some critical facts.

Adolf Hitler’s Nazi war machine sought out and killed in staggering numbers.  According to jewishvirtualibrary.org the numbers break down as follows.

Jews: up to 6 million

Soviet civilians: around 7 million (including 1.3 Soviet Jewish civilians, who are included in the 6 million figure for Jews)

Soviet prisoners of war: around 3 million (including about 50,000 Jewish soldiers)

Non-Jewish Polish civilians: around 1.8 million (including between 50,000 and 100,000 members of the Polish elites)

Serb civilians (on the territory of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina): 312,000

People with disabilities living in institutions: up to 250,000

Roma: 196,000–220,000

Jehovah‘s Witnesses: around 1,900

Repeat criminal offenders and so-called asocials: at least 70,000

German political opponents and resistance activists in Axis-occupied territory: undetermined

Homosexuals: hundreds, possibly thousands (possibly also counted in part under the 70,000 repeat criminal offenders and so-called asocials noted above).

As a son of Dutch Jewish Holocaust survivors, the Jewish number hits very close to home, as it does or has done for many others I have known or still know over the course of my lifetime.  The Nazis destroyed entire worlds.  They wiped out an entire Jewish civilization in a large percentage of Europe.  They tortured, they raped, they conducted experiments, made people dig graves before shooting them in cold blood, and put together one of the most efficiently cruel means of mass murder by gassing to death multitudes of people.  Frankly, although these facts are accurate, this does not capture the true horror of what took place.  For that one needs to research the numerous pictures and accounts of the events that took place.

And yet many people today refer to anyone with ideologies opposed to their own as a Nazi.  This is not a left and right issue.  This is also not a justification nor a means of disregarding dangerous viewpoints or ideologies.  What this is instead is a specific statement as to what separated Nazi Germany from much of what people refer to today as Nazi behavior.  I’ve seen people on the right call Barack Obama a Nazi.  I’ve seen people on the left call Donald Trump a Nazi.  You can criticize, even despise the Iran deal or the situation on the border, but neither of these facts put either president even close to being in the same category as Adolf Hitler.  Furthermore, even if one would feel strong critique for Israel’s handling of the Palestinian situation or feel a disdain for Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, invoking Nazi atrocities as a comparison to today’s Israel is nothing more than a disingenuous use of a term to promote a dangerous anti-Semitic political agenda.

None of this is to say that we should turn a blind eye to the dangers that exist both in our respective countries or abroad.  But it is important to note, that if one is to learn from history it starts by doing everything necessary to study it accurately.  What the Nazis did  between 1933 and 1945 is perpetrate an evil unlike anything the world had ever seen.  To improperly identify and remember what took place not only dishonors all those murdered, it puts us all in greater danger of seeing it take place once again.

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