Holocausts: An Historical Reckoning
Holocaust, derived from the Greek, is a large-scale calamity involving fire. Today, the term is specifically used to describe the German genocide of the Jews. But it has a long history. The European mass murder of Indigenous peoples in North and South America killed 55 million or 90% of the population, between 1492 and 1600, in a little more than one hundred years. More bloodbaths were to follow. In Africa, many millions were killed in the Congo by Belgium. Germany wiped out the Herero and Nama peoples in Southwest Africa. In the Middle East, that was quickly followed by the Turkish slaughter of the Armenians. Then came Auschwitz. Since the end of World War Two, barbarisms and genocides have continued: in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Myanmar and Gaza. Naomi Klein says, “The Nazi Holocaust is finally being placed in history connected to the terrors that came before and after.”
Recorded at Swarthmore College.
Speaker
Naomi Klein
Naomi Klein is a professor in the Department of Geography at the University of British Columbia, the founding co-director of UBC’s Centre for Climate Justice, and Honorary Professor of Media and Climate at Rutgers University. Her writing has appeared in leading publications around the world, and she is a columnist for The Guardian. The New York Times says, “She is that nearly extinct breed of activist: one who never stops questioning orthodoxies and interrogating her own beliefs.” She is the award-winning author of such bestsellers as This Changes Everything, The Shock Doctrine, No Logo, No Is Not Enough, and On Fire. Her latest book is the highly acclaimed Doppelganger.
From Tom in Colorado –
Naomi Klein gives a bold and brilliant talk. She argues that the Nazi Holocaust, though deeply abhorrent, was not a unique event. The settler colonialism practiced by European societies entailed the forcible elimination of indigenous populations and hence a series of holocausts. The Nazi Holocaust involved the application of these long-standing genocidal policies to a European population. Thus it was not really a grotesque departure from European and North American culture, but rather a special continuation of its venerable colonial practices. Klein provides important new insights about how to think about the Nazi Holocaust, how it relates to Zionism, and how it connects to the ongoing Gaza genocide.
William H Dentzel –
Thank you Naomi, Feels so good to hear a recap of a long cultivated disconnect that some of us knew but could never quite feel able to share with everyone in a way that could be fully appreciated. You knit it all together in a beautifully done yet terrifying tapestry of truth that I will immediately share with my millennial children. May homo colossus please one day find peace while still a guest on this planet Earth!
Louie Z –
I had never before understood that the genocide in Germany in the 1940s was a holocaust, not The Holocaust. Naomi Klein has once again opened my eyes to the greater historical context.
From a professor at the University of Colorado –
I love Klein. She’s a real hero. I use her work in my classes.
From a listener in California –
A great talk by Naomi Klein.
From Elizabeth in CT (verified owner) –
I was thrilled with today’s program, “The Holocausts” with Naomi Klein. I loved that she told the students that their taking care of one another is the new resistance! Despite all the well-orchestrated hasbara, Israeli propaganda, many of us are very proud of our young people, led by young Palestinians!
dan raphael –
Naomi is so precise and powerful with her language, her knowledge of history and the ability to see the patterns. I learned so much in less than an hour.
Ivy Lobato –
This is an excellent, eye-opening and thought-provoking speech with some hope for our children’s future at the end.