Never again? How the woke stole the Holocaust

Ann Farmer

February 06, 2025 11 Reactions

A kind of selective amnesia appears to have afflicted other commentators, who entirely neglected to mention Jews in their HMD memorials. Nicole Lampert says that one presenter on ITV’s Good Morning Britain “earnestly explained how the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was an opportunity to remember how ‘six million people were killed in concentration camps during the Second World War as well as millions of others, because they were Polish, disabled, gay or belonged to another ethnic group’”. She adds: “First the Nazis tried to erase us. Now those who claim to be against the Nazis are erasing us from that memory.”

Norman Fenton observes that ITV issued an apology only after complaints by Jewish organisations.

Similarly, Deputy PM Angela Rayner failed to mention Jews in her HMD statement, which read: “Tonight, I’m lighting a candle to remember all those who were murdered just for being who they were, and to stand against prejudice and hatred today. Never again.” To date, no apology has been issued.

Ms Rayner could be seen as highlighting the dilemma of the modern left-liberal progressive politician with regard to the Holocaust: how to show sympathy for the Jewish people while not looking unsympathetic to the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, whose situation has been aggressively appropriated by far-Left activists in a campaign of marches, demonstrations and even selective vandalism.

The targets of such attacks included a portrait of British politician Lord Balfour, slashed and sprayed with red paint, in protest at his historic role in the creation of the modern State of Israel.

But these are far different times, and under woke ideology, which divides humanity into oppressors and oppressed – into majorities and minorities – the State of Israel may be criticised or even attacked because it is oppressing the Palestinians, even though the latter are far more numerous, and according to the same ideology, attacking Israel means oppressing an oppressed minority.

Increasingly, however, it seems that while it is perfectly acceptable to criticise the failings and the allegedly genocidal actions of Israel, we must not acknowledge the fact that the Palestinian people are represented by a terror group with genocidal intentions against Israel – that the “poor victims” of the Israeli defence forces are actually hostages of Hamas.

 It might be thought that if Western politicians were threatened by the same malign forces, they would be less inclined to lecture Israel on the need for dialogue with those intent only on kidnapping and murdering them.

But Western nations have been threatened by terror and still live under that threat, although perhaps this explains politicians’ reluctance to call out the threat: perhaps they hope that by not being too vocal about Islamist terrorism, their nations may be spared even worse outrages. Whatever the reason for their selective timidity, it does seem as if the Jewish state, far from being seen as a positive response to the Holocaust, is fast becoming the scapegoat of the nations, as the Jewish people were once the scapegoat of the Nazis. However, to the far-Left mindset, “the Jews are the new Nazis”, so attacking them is only fair.

Holocaust memorial is now, apparently, political, and as one Jewish commentator remarks, “I’ve lost count of the times that I’ve been told Jews need to stop selfishly hogging the Holocaust”. Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobsonfamously asked “When will Jews be forgiven the Holocaust?” And his answer was: “Never”.

It is beyond ironic that the woke ideology actually “coat-tails”on the Holocaust, explaining why silencing any discussion of certain issues is now regarded as a priority: it is believed that to allow free speech on these issues is to risk another Holocaust. According to this thinking, the aggressive anti-Israel rhetoric of the far Left, which might indeed lead to violence, is perfectly acceptable, but a clumsy gesture of greeting by billionaire Elon Musk is greeted with horror as a Nazi salute. Describing Israel’s defensive actions as genocide is treated as fair comment, while expressing the scientifically-backed view that a man cannot become a woman and a woman cannot become a man justifies censorship and cancellation, even of celebrities.

Newly re-elected President Trump, who has already declared war against woke, seems to be our only hope of overthrowing this 21st century tyranny.

The Holocaust is too big to brush under the carpet, too terrible to ignore. Instead, the wokerati have resorted to something worse than Holocaust denial – “Holocaust theft”, placing it at the service of their favoured narrative. But now that they have stolen the Holocaust, will we ever hear that expression “never again” in quite the same context?  

Should we memorialise the Shoah?  

Ann Farmer writes from the United Kingdom. She has a Master’s degree in Jewish-Christian relations.

Image credits: Bigstock