My dear Grandma and Grandpa, you are already at rest, but I want to apologize to you and to many Holocaust survivors like you for the hurtful statements made by writer Amos Oz.
It has not been long since Holocaust Remembrance Day, a day that for me symbolizes your story of survival and heroism. You were young children when World War II broke out and you lost those dearest to you. You didn't grow up at the knees of your grandparents, who were murdered by the Nazis; you didn't eat Friday evening meals with your family, who were nearly all murdered; and you didn't have the quiet, peaceful childhood you did your best to ensure we had.
Year after year, you told us how horrible the Nazis were, how they shot your relatives indiscriminately, how they aimed their guns and exterminated our people in the most horrible ways. You told us that the Nazis' brutality could not be expressed in words, that these were more than monsters, that they had nothing in common with human beings, that their only goal was to rape, humiliate, annihilate, and "purify" in the name of hatred and without exception.
Writer Amos Oz has chosen to call the "price-tag" vandals "neo-Nazis." I would like to preface my remarks by saying that the price-tag attacks are a hate crime, a criminal act that must be punished severely. Any such hate crime, regardless of which side commits it, should be addressed through the accepted channels, and those responsible should be punished.
But I'm not writing about how serious those crimes are; I'm writing about the hurtful use in recent years and once again now of the word "Nazi."
I have heard this term used more than once by young people in the street, by students cursing a strict teacher, and now again when I read Amos Oz's statements.
I wonder how we, as Jews, have turned such a hurtful term into a regular part of our vocabulary. How have we reached a situation in which a writer and intellectual compares real neo-Nazi organizations, who see themselves as the Nazis' heirs, to the price-tag criminals? Where has our internecine hatred led us that it has wiped out all limits and prompted us to cheapen the use of the term "Nazi"-
Criticism, dialogue, and freedom of expression are legitimate and important in a democratic state. But is there no limit to the words people will use to offend? Is there no limit to phraseology people will use to make headlines?
My dear Grandma and Grandpa, I apologize to you for the way that descendants of Holocaust survivors are using the word "Nazi." I apologize that we do not completely understand the painful, horrible significance of the word and throw it around as if it is nothing. Please forgive us.
Katia Ritbin is a lawyer and the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors.
טעינו? נתקן! אם מצאתם טעות בכתבה, נשמח שתשתפו אותנו