By Dr. Rafael Medoff
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has earned international condemnation for his recent statements calling the Holocaust “a myth.”
Condemnations are not as effective as diplomatic or economic sanctions, but they do have a certain value. They help establish the standard of conduct to which the international community expects governments and their leaders to adhere. At least in theory, condemnations discourage extremism by defining what is, and what is not, acceptable in civilized discourse.
That’s why it was so important that at the 2004 international conference on antisemitism, held in Berlin, then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell stated for the first time that those who compare Israel to the Nazis are crossing the line from legitimate criticism of Israeli policies to outright antisemitism.
Equally significant is the fact that in the US government’s 2005 report on antisemitism around the world, Holocaust-denial was for the first time cited as a manifestation of antisemitism. Thus the United States is now on record as saying that Holocaust-denial is bigotry, not a legitimate interpretation of history.
These were valuable steps in the process of establishing an international code of conduct that treats Holocaust-deniers and other antisemites as pariahs. From presidents to ordinary citizens, everyone needs to be reminded of the boundaries that decent people are expected not to cross.
The problem with condemnations, however, is that once they are out of sight (or out of the news), they are often out of mind. There needs to be a more permanent reminder that civilized people reject the Iranian president’s statement as lunacy.
Thinking about what form such a reminder might take, I asked myself, what would Ed Koch do?
As mayor of New York City from 1978-1989, Koch earned a reputation as someone who was not afraid to speak truth to power, foreign tyrants included. I was reminded of that by an anecdote Koch related at the Wyman Institute’s recent national conference, held at the Fordham University Law School.
In his remarks, Koch spoke about his famous predecessor, Fiorello LaGuardia, who was well known for his undertaking symbolic protests that insulted the Nazis, from denying a masseur’s license to a German citizen in New York to stationing an all-Jewish police guard outside the German Consulate.
It was in the spirit of LaGuardia, Koch said, that after the Chinese government’s massacre of student protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989, he proposed to the New York City Council that the corner in front of the Chinese Mission to the United Nations, 43rd Street and 12th Avenue, be renamed ‘Tiananmen Square.’ “I placed the sign there myself with great pleasure,” Koch recalled. Some time later, the sign was taken down (no surprise, perhaps, since there was a building full of Chinese government representatives 20 feet away); “I personally replaced it,” the inimitable Koch recalled.
It was a small but striking gesture. Every morning, when the Chinese ambassador arrived at the building, he was reminded that millions of Americans were outraged by the brutality of the Chinese government.
Perhaps a similar protest would be in order today. Why not rebuke the Iranians by renaming the corner near the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, 41st Street and Third Avenue, after someone whose life represented the reality of the Holocaust...?
Next spring, Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial and research centre, will name two Americans as ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ – that is, non-Jews who risked their lives to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. The designees are the Reverend Waitstill Sharp and his wife, Martha Sharp, Unitarians who left their home and congregation in Massachusetts to travel to Vichy France in 1939. They became central figures in the underground rescue network established by journalist Varian Fry, the only other American ever recognized by Yad Vashem for his Holocaust heroism. Fry’s network helped more than 2,000 refugees escape Hitler, including some of the world’s most famous writers and artists (such as Marc Chagall).
Every morning when he comes to work, the Iranian ambassador to the UN, M. Javad Zarif, would be reminded that New Yorkers acknowledge the Holocaust and reject the ravings of Iran’s president.
I asked Ed Koch what he thought of the idea of renaming the corner of 41st and Third ‘Rev. Waitstill and Martha Sharp Corner.’ “It’s a great idea,” he replied, and added his hope that both Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Councilman Daniel Garodnick, who represents that district, will support the proposal. And if the Iranians have the chutzpah to tear the sign down, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see Koch himself out there, putting it back up.
Dr. Rafael Medoff is director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, www.WymanInstitute.org. Reprinted with permission of The Jewish Star [Long Island, NY].
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