The war was in Germany, Poland and it spread all over Europe and surrounded states. It was also spread to many countries like USSR, Hungary, Romania, Germany and Austria, the Baltic countries, and many others. However, Germany was bent on conquering all of Europe and therefor invaded almost every country in Europe.Italy first attacked Abyssinia in 1935 in order to obtain a more
territory. Germany and Italy had gained control of most of Europe and
parts of North Africa. They were advancing into colonies of England and
threatening to take control of the Suez Canal.
In the schema of historical materialism , communism is the idea of a free society with no division or alienation, where mankind is free from oppression and scarcity.The United Nations and many countries around the world are today commemorating
International Holocaust Remembrance Day,
on the anniversary of the 1945 liberation of the Auschwitz death camps.
Observing the day unites participants both in mourning and in embracing
utopian peace. "Never again" is proclaimed across Europe and around the
world. But is it really a shared message? The truth is that deep
conflicts and fierce rivalries persist between countries that applaud
themselves for spreading the lessons of the Holocaust.
Political
divisions lurk around the competing rhetorics of grief and harmony. Of
all countries around the globe, European nations are most eager to
spread the message – their message – of the Holocaust. Seventy years
ago, Germany was on the cusp of uniting the European continent by making
all its nations complicit in murdering their Jews. Today, Europe
eagerly works toward unification through remembrance of their complicity
in that genocidal terror.
To be sure, honouring the
victims of the Nazi era is the motive behind Holocaust commemoration in
most European countries. But the goal of these initiatives is not only
to reflect on Europe's dark past. What matters in Europe even more is to
build a future and to boast about a future that has absorbed the
lessons of the Holocaust – a future free of genocide, racism and
discrimination, and imbued with ideals of peace, tolerance and utopian
harmony. Unfortunately, European harmony may be desirable but it is not
so easily attained. And not only because it is rooted in genocide.
Beneath the harmonious rhetoric of tolerance and inclusion, Europe
smoulders with conflicts over exclusion and power struggles over how to
establish a world without hatred.
While the United Nations
has joined in recognising an International Holocaust Remembrance Day, in
truth Europe is the main advocate for 27 January as a unifying day of
memory. Both Israel and the United States (as well as Canada) prefer to
honour the April anniversary of the
Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
The
UK, Germany and Sweden introduced 27 January for Holocaust
commemoration in 2000 following debates, initiatives and worries that
were less about Europe's past and its Jewish victims as much as they
were about Europe's present and future – both devoid of Jewish
traditions and culture. After the collapse of communism and the fall of
the Berlin Wall, the political unification of Europe seemed within reach
– if only the continent wasn't so deeply divided. Economic, social and
cultural gaps separating east and west were the most recognisable
barriers. National identities and national memories still loomed large
and blocked the emergence of a supranational European consciousness. The
vision of a unified Europe could not be achieved without first
fostering a common European memory about the continent's recent past.
That, at least, was what politicians, intellectuals and pedagogues
insisted when they agreed to base European historical identity on the
liberation of Auschwitz. Collective identity demands a common vision for
the future as well as a shared past. The Holocaust granted both. And
the shocking experience of recent genocidal wars in the former
Yugoslavia – right on the doorstep of countries that had felt safe from
mass violence – further popularised the rhetoric of "Never again".
That
the Holocaust is used, abused, trivialised and exploited for commercial
and political benefit is often bemoaned (especially by Europeans) when
it comes to Israeli policies against Palestinians or Jewish-American
identity politics. But European post-communist appropriation of the
Holocaust is different. Taking their cue from Germany, which continues
to honestly face its past as perpetrator nation, other European
countries have owned up to their collaboration with the Nazis (Lithuania
is a notable exception). Indeed, European memorial politics is rich
with spectacular self-criticism, presented in ritualised apologies that
don't leave much space for the suffering of victims – or their children
and grandchildren.
Proud, even smug, from having learned
the lessons of its racist and genocidal past, Europe exploits the
Holocaust to spread the message of tolerance and peace worldwide. A
grand cosmopolitan vision, with Europe as the trendsetter, is pursued
through remembrance of the Holocaust in museums, schools and official
rituals.
The message of tolerance and peace is not only
addressed to Europe but also to those countries that, according to the
European view, haven't adequately learned the lessons of the Holocaust –
namely the United States, still too often engaged in war, and
especially Israel. Europe, of course, has learned the lessons of the
Holocaust best. That is the message of Auschwitz remembrance. Has it
really done so? In truth, the "other" is far away from the "us" of
European cosmopolitanism. Jews are welcome in many (though not all)
parts of Europe, but Jewish cultures – the European "other" of the past –
no longer exist and Jewish traditions are no longer known in
cosmopolitan Europe. Muslim cultures, the new European "other", are even
less welcome and ousted as soon as they become too different.
The
liberation of Auschwitz is worthy of International remembrance. The
problem is we haven't yet determined what lesson we have learned
altogether.