During the Covid-19 pandemic I have had the opportunity to binge watch Netflix. I have watched or glanced at so many films I could probably not remember all of them. A few of excellence, though, stick with me. "The Eichmann Show," a docudrama portraying the 1960 trial of Adolph Eichmann, the generator of the Final Solution to the Jewish Question – the murder of six million Jews in Europe from 1933-1945 is one such film. The trial took place in Jerusalem after Israeli Mossad agents captured him in Argentina. I strongly advocate its viewing.
Revisiting the Holocaust, the killing of six million Jews including 1.5 million children as well as millions of others remains for me the single most important historical event that solidified my left of center humanitarian political stand. I deliberated many years ago the differences between the right and the left on the political spectrum before I arrived at my conclusion. The presidency of Donald Trump with its avowed extremist nationalism and racism's white separatist allure brought to us by a charismatic, corrupt and fatally narcissistic conman serves to emphasize why the rejection of Donald Trump must be perfected. Under Trump's generalized blanket of anti-immigrant spewings and its proclivity to let stand its supporters’ advocacy for violence it becomes crystal clear why we must reject it by all non-violent means necessary. Trump is the face of Fascism in our time and is no less frightening then it was during the beginning of the Nazi menace a generation or two ago. It is racist, it is authoritarian in nature and antidemocratic in practice.
"The Eichmann Show" was riveting. Whether one knows much about the Holocaust or whether one is being introduced to it by this film it is imperative to know how simple it is for a once rational nation state to drift into totalitarian Fascism and why we must pay any price to reject it.
Revisiting the Holocaust, the killing of six million Jews including 1.5 million children as well as millions of others remains for me the single most important historical event that solidified my left of center humanitarian political stand. I deliberated many years ago the differences between the right and the left on the political spectrum before I arrived at my conclusion. The presidency of Donald Trump with its avowed extremist nationalism and racism's white separatist allure brought to us by a charismatic, corrupt and fatally narcissistic conman serves to emphasize why the rejection of Donald Trump must be perfected. Under Trump's generalized blanket of anti-immigrant spewings and its proclivity to let stand its supporters’ advocacy for violence it becomes crystal clear why we must reject it by all non-violent means necessary. Trump is the face of Fascism in our time and is no less frightening then it was during the beginning of the Nazi menace a generation or two ago. It is racist, it is authoritarian in nature and antidemocratic in practice.
"The Eichmann Show" was riveting. Whether one knows much about the Holocaust or whether one is being introduced to it by this film it is imperative to know how simple it is for a once rational nation state to drift into totalitarian Fascism and why we must pay any price to reject it.
The questions perpetrated by the Holocaust are eternal. How can rational humankind produce such evil that takes the deaths of 50 million and a World Warbefore it is expunged? The film was summed up in prophetic fashion by its maker in a way that can easily be applied to our Trumpian time:
For each of us who has ever felt that God created us better than any other human being has stood on the threshold where Eichmann once stood and each of us who has allowed the shape of another person's nose or the color of their skin or the manner in which they worship their God to poison our feelings toward them have known the loss of reason that led Eichmann to his madness. For this was how it all began with those who did these things.
