The Seventy Years Declaration

The Seventy Years Declaration was a declaration initiated by academics Dovid Katz and Danny Ben-Moshe and released on 20 January 2012 to protest against the policies of several European states and European Union bodies on the evaluation, remembrance and prosecution of crimes committed under communist dictatorships in Europe, specifically policies of many European countries and the EU treating the Nazi and Stalinist regimes in Eastern and Central Europe as equally criminal. Presented as a response to the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism initiated by the Czech government in 2008 to condemn communism as totalitarian and criminal, it explicitly rejects the idea that the regimes of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler can be compared, i.e. the totalitarianism theory that was popularized by academics such as Hannah Arendt, Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski and became dominant in western political discourse during the Cold War, and that has gained new momentum in many new EU member states following the fall of communism, resulting in international resolutions, establishment of research institutes and museums, and a day of remembrance. The declaration also claims communist regimes did not commit genocides, citing a 1948 definition that deliberately excluded politically motivated mass killings as demanded by the Soviet Union when it was adopted. More recent definitions do however include such crimes, and e.g. The Holodomor is recognized as a genocide by the United States, Ukraine and other countries. The declaration advances the position that the Holocaust was "unique" as compared to other genocides, a subject of some debate. This position first appeared in discourse in 1967, but does not figure in scholarship of the Holocaust,^[1] has become less common since the 1994 Rwandan genocide,^[2] and was described as a "vacuous" and "deeply offensive" position by Peter Novick.^[3] The declaration was signed by 70, mostly left-wing, parliamentarians from Europe (MEPs and national MPs). It was released on the 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin.

Background

The Prague Declaration and the totalitarianism paradigm

The SPD leader and concentration camp survivor Kurt Schumacher is famous for his early comparison of Nazism and Communism, claiming the ideologies were similar. He notably made the comparison in a famous 1930 speech confronting political extremism, and in a famous 1946 speech.

Ever since the 1920s, the issue of comparisons or attempted equalization of the evils of Nazism and Communism, and especially Comparison of Nazism and Stalinism, has been the subject of extensive controversy.^[4][5] Initially, this comparison was made by the Social Democratic Party of Germany in their campaign against the Communist Party of Germany and the Nazi Party. Leading social democrat Kurt Schumacher famously called Communists "red-painted Nazis," arguing that the Communists and the Nazis posed an equal danger to liberal democracy and that the two movements enabled each other.^[6][7]

During the Cold War, the theory of two totalitarianisms, fascism and communism, gained strong momentum in the Western world, for example through the work of Hannah Arendt (notably her influential book The Origins of Totalitarianism) and other scholars, such as Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski, who argued that Nazi and Soviet regimes were equally totalitarian.^[8] According to Volker Berghahn, "as Carl J. Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski later put it in their classic analysis of the totalitarian paradigm that came to sweep the board in Western ideological discourse in the 1950s, Nazism and Stalinism were "basically alike" and represented very modern and brutally destructive versions of twentieth-century dictatorship."^[9]

Since the end of the Cold War, eastern and central European countries have established institutes and enacted laws to address crimes committed by former totalitarian regimes in their countries, both communist and fascist. Examples include the Czech state Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, the Polish state Institute of National Remembrance, the Lithuanian state Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania, the German state Hannah Arendt Institute for the Research on Totalitarianism and the Hungarian state House of Terror museum. The theory of two totalitarianisms also gained new momentum in the West in the 1990s, especially following the publication of the 1997 French book The Black Book of Communism, which said that "the genocide of a "class" may well be tantamount to the genocide of a "race,"" arguing that deaths caused by Hitler's and Stalin's regimes were "equal." In its introduction, Stéphane Courtois argued that communism and national socialism are slightly different totalitarian systems, that communism is responsible for the murder of around 100 million people in the 20th century, that the National Socialists adopted their repressive methods from Soviet methods, and that "a single-minded focus on the Jewish genocide in an attempt to characterize the Holocaust as a unique atrocity has [...] prevented the assessment of other episodes of comparable magnitude in the Communist world".^[10] The United States Congress claimed in 1993 that 100,000,000 victims died in "an unprecedented imperial communist holocaust," establishing the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.^[11]

An increased focus on the crimes of communism after the fall of communism resulted in the 2006 Council of Europe resolution 1481, which condemned the "individual and collective assassinations and executions, death in concentration camps, starvation, deportations, torture, slave labour and other forms of mass physical terror" perpetrated by communist regimes,^[12] and in early 2008, the European Union initiated the European Public Hearing on Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes. In mid-2008, the Czech government initiated the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, signed by Václav Havel, Joachim Gauck, and others. It called for "Europe-wide condemnation of, and education about, the crimes of communism."^[13] As proposed by the declaration, the European Parliament in 2008–2009 with support of all political factions designated the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism as "a Europe-wide Day of Remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, to be commemorated with dignity and impartiality,"^[14][15] and a remembrance day for victims of totalitarian regimes was also adopted by Canada.^[16] In 2009, the European Parliament called for the recognition of "Communism, Nazism and fascism as a shared legacy," reconfirmed "its united stand against all totalitarian rule from whatever ideological background," and condemned "strongly and unequivocally all crimes against humanity and the massive human rights violations committed by all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes."^[15] The remembrance day was endorsed by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in its 2009 Vilnius Declaration, which said that "in the twentieth century European countries experienced two major totalitarian regimes, Nazi and Stalinist, which brought about genocide, violations of human rights and freedoms, war crimes and crimes against humanity" and condemned "the glorification of the totalitarian regimes, including the holding of public demonstrations glorifying the Nazi or Stalinist past."^[17] The European Parliament and the EU Council also endorsed the establishment of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience, as conceived by the Prague Declaration, by the governments of the Visegrád Group, the Polish EU presidency and several European state institutes, as an EU educational project to raise awareness about totalitarian crimes and to "prevent intolerance, extremism, anti-democratic movements and the recurrence of any totalitarian rule in the future."^[18] The Greens–European Free Alliance argued that "the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism should be the common basis for the research on and evaluation of communist regimes in all countries in East-Europe."^[19]

The Prague Declaration was opposed by Russian bodies and organisations affiliated with Putin's government, such as the Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia's Interests and World Without Nazism. It was also opposed by several European communist parties, such as the Communist Party of Greece and the Communist Party of Britain. There were isolated critiques of the Prague Declaration in 2009 by (in chronological order of appearance in print): Dovid Katz, formerly professor of Yiddish at Vilnius University, who founded the web journal Defending History in part to oppose the Prague Declaration; Israeli activist Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Israel office; British MP John Mann, who called it a "sinister document", Anti-German^[20] political scientist Clemens Heni, and others.^[21] The Prague Declaration was also criticised by eurosceptic John Laughland, who has instead compared the EU to Nazism.^[22] However, there has also been support for the Prague Declaration from Israeli academics such as Barry Rubin^[23] and Lithuanian centrist politician Emanuelis Zingeris, a former honorary chairman of that country's Jewish community.

Response by the Seventy Years Declaration

Against this backdrop, and on the initiative of Katz, Danny Ben-Moshe drafted the Seventy Years Declaration as a response to the Prague Declaration. Seventy members of the European Parliament signed it on 20 January 2012, to mark the seventieth anniversary of the 1942 Wannsee Conference in Berlin that had decided on the "Final Solution" (genocide) of European Jewry.

The text of the Seventy Years Declaration was published on 20 January 2012 in Defending History, and subsequently in European languages.^[24][25] Its launch was covered by Roger Cohen in the New York Times,^[26] Danna Harman in Haaretz,^[27] Frank Brendle in Taz.de,^[28] among others. In 2013, its own website was launched.

The Seventy Years Declaration condemns Stalinist tyranny and calls for distinct, separate recognition of the various European tragedies of the 20th century. The SYD explicitly rejects the Prague Declaration and its "attempts to obfuscate the Holocaust by diminishing its uniqueness and deeming it to be equal, similar or equivalent to Communism."[5] It was published on 20 January 2012, on the 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference and signed by 71 parliamentarians from 19 EU countries,[3] including eight MPs and MEPs from Lithuania. On the same day Audronius Ažubalis condemned the Lithuanian signatories,[27] arguing that "it is not possible to find differences between Hitler and Stalin except in their moustaches."[28] One of the signatories, MP Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, now the nation's Health Minister, responded to the foreign minister.[29]UK MP Denis MacShane entered the fray with a letter in support of Andriukaitis and the other Lithuanian signatories.

The Seventy Years Declaration form part of the subject material of the documentary film Rewriting History, which premiered on Australian television in September 2012,[30] and is scheduled for a number of US screenings in 2013.^{[29][30][31][32][33]}[31]

The Declaration also opposes various alleged East European attempts to glorify Nazi collaborator organisations, specifically mentioning the honouring of the Waffen SS in Estonia and Latvia, and the Lithuanian Activist Front in Lithuania. It acknowledges the need to honour Jewish partisans who joined the battle against Hitler, a reference to Lithuanian government efforts to prosecute Holocaust Survivors who joined the resistance. The Declaration opposes attempts to inflate the definition of “genocide” to encompass sundry crimes of totalitarian regimes, calling for a strict definition in the spirit of the 1948 definition.

The Seventy Years Declaration was presented to Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, on 14 March 2012.^[34][35]

Criticism and Controversy

Israeli academic Barry Rubin has written, referring to the initiators of the Seventy Years Declaration, that "a relentless campaign has been waged by a tiny group of people to persuade Jews and Israelis to oppose the June 3, 2008 Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, as if it were some horrible anti-Semitic document. This is a slanderously wrong claim."^[23]

The Seventy Years Declaration was attacked by the incumbent Lithuanian foreign minister, who said in response that “It is not possible to find differences between Hitler and Stalin except in their moustaches (Hitler’s was shorter).”^[36][37] The response came in anger at the fact that eight Lithuanian Social Democrats (two MEPs and six MPs) signed the Declaration. A lively debate ensued when a subsequent article by the foreign minister^{[38] [39]} was replied to by MP Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis,^{[40][41][42][43]} then an opposition spokesman on foreign affairs. The foreign minister’s “moustache comparison” led to individual letters of support from British MP Denis MacShane^[44][45] to each of the eight Lithuanian signatories, and to coverage in the New York Times.^[26]

Text of the Seventy Years Declaration

On this the 70th anniversary of the formal adoption by the Nazi leadership of the “Final Solution of the Jewish Problem” we the undersigned

Remember:

With humility and sadness, the Final Solution plan which formalised and industrialised the by-then ongoing Holocaust of European Jewry

The horror and brutality of the genocidal campaign of total annihilation of European Jewry conducted by the Nazis and their collaborators

That the mass killing of European Jewry preceded that formal adoption of the Final Solution plan by half a year, and began on the Eastern Front in 1941 upon the initiation of Operation Barbarossa and the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union

That millions of non-Jews suffered in numerous ways under the Nazis and other forms of tyranny in Europe during the Second World War.

Recognise:

The Nazi campaign of annihilation of the Jewish people was philosophically, qualitatively and practically profoundly distinct and different to other forms of oppression experienced by European people during World War II, such as the horrors of Stalinism also before and after the War

Our dismay that the lessons of the Holocaust were not learnt and genocide continues to occur in the international arena

The nobility of Jewish partisans who survived ghettos or camps and went on to fight the Nazis and their allies

The efforts of European states to acknowledge forthrightly their role in the Holocaust past

That discussion about genocide in Europe must be based on the definition of the UN Genocide Convention 1948

That antisemitism continues in various forms in Europe and beyond.

Reject:

Attempts to obfuscate the Holocaust by diminishing its uniqueness and deeming it to be equal, similar or equivalent to Communism as suggested by the 2008 Prague Declaration

Equating Nazi and Soviet crimes as this blurs the uniqueness of each and threatens to undermine the important historical lessons drawn from each of these distinct experiences

Attempts to have European history school books rewritten to reflect the notion of "Double Genocide" (“equality” or “sameness” of Nazi and Soviet crimes)

As unacceptable the glorification of Nazi Allies, and of Holocaust perpetrators and collaborators, including the Waffen SS in Estonia and Latvia, and the Lithuanian Activist Front in Lithuania

Attempts to legalise or sanitize the public display of the swastika by racist and fascist groups

Efforts to have the Holocaust remembered on one common day with the victims of Communism.

Advocate:

Distinct days and distinct programs to remember the Holocaust and other victims of other twentieth century totalitarian regimes

EU member states continue efforts to acknowledge their own roles in the destruction of European Jewry

The need for ongoing genuine Holocaust education and memorialisation across the European Union

Opposition to all forms of contemporary racism and discrimination and its manifestation, including antisemitism, contempt for Muslims, hate of Roma, homophobia, and other prejudice and intolerance generated by extremist politics.

References

External links

• Seventy Year Declaration website
• The Defending History website
• The official website for the Rewriting History documentary