The Holocaust did not begin with gas chambers. It did not begin with Auschwitz, Treblinka, or Sobibor. It began with words. It began with propaganda, the normalization of hatred, the dehumanization of Jews, and the gradual removal of rights. It began with a society being taught that Jews were different, dangerous, and somehow responsible for the problems of others.

From 1933 onward, the Nazi regime systematically isolated German Jews from public life. Antisemitic propaganda poisoned minds. The Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of citizenship and legal protections. Kristallnacht transformed hatred into organized violence. Ghettos followed. Then mass shootings. Then extermination camps. By the end of the Second World War, six million Jewish men, women, and children had been murdered.

The phrase “Never Again” emerged from the ashes of that catastrophe. It was supposed to be a universal warning. A promise that the world would recognize the warning signs before persecution became violence and before violence became genocide. It was a moral commitment to confront antisemitism wherever it emerged.

Today, however, we are witnessing something deeply disturbing. Not only is antisemitism once again becoming normalized in parts of society, but there are also efforts to appropriate Jewish history, Jewish suffering, and Jewish memory for political purposes.

Nowhere was this more visible than during the commemoration of the deportation of Jewish children from Loods 24 in........

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