There are approximately 28,000 Righteous Among the Nations – people recognized as having put themselves at risk to save Jews during the Holocaust. I couldn’t find a specific estimate of the population of Europe (yes, not all Righteous were European, but the majority were, and rounding works for these purposes) during WWII, but estimates seem to put it at about 500,000,000. A little bit of math tells us that someone who would help Jews during the Holocaust isn’t one in a million, but they are one in about 18,000.
18,000 is a pretty big number, so let’s put it in some context. You probably don’t know 18,000 people. That means that if you’d help Jews, statistically, no one else you know would. Caesars Superdome (where they held the Superbowl this year) seats 83,000 – only 5 people in that giant crowd would have helped. There are just over 30,000 students at Columbia – two people (or maybe only one) who would have helped Jews, against how many at the student protests?
I know it’s comforting to think you would have helped Jews. And who knows? Maybe you, whoever is reading this, would have. It’s not impossible. But the number of people who think they would have helped is orders of magnitude bigger than then number of people who actually did.
To all the goyim out there who learned about the Holocaust and imagined what they would have done, I want you to understand that Jewish children generally don’t (because we know that every possible answer is deeply upsetting to a 9/10 year old). But something that Jews do think about is “would this person hide me?” Would this person risk death everyday for months or years for me? Would this person lie repeatedly to armed and very intimidating men for me? Would they be willing to risk themselves? Their families? When there are extreme penalties for hiding me, rewards for turning me in, and virtually all of society is telling them that they’d be morally correct for doing so, would they still hide me?
I have goyim in my life that I believe would do so. I have goyim in my life, people who I consider friends, that I don’t think would. It’s not a small ask, and I don’t hold it against them that they’re not willing to take a bullet for me.
But to tie all this back to OP’s meme, there are people at pro-Palestinian rallies who are throwing Nazi salutes. If you’re not fighting back against them, what makes you think you would have fought actual Nazis? There are people posting signs with antisemitic slogans. If you’re not tearing them down, what makes you think you would have opposed Nazi propaganda? There are people advocating for the ethnic cleansing of half the world’s Jewish population. If you’re not opposing them – not just thinking, “well I don’t agree with that” but actually working to prevent that from happening, then what makes you think you’d do anything more against the Nazis?
If you are out there, standing up to antisemitism, thank you. And if you look away, or don’t want to get involved, or don’t want to start trouble, or now’s just not the right time, I understand. Antisemites frequently come in groups and are aggressive, it’s perfectly reasonable to want to avoid conflict with people who are probably more willing to escalate than you are. But either way, if you were ever curious what you would have done if you lived in 1930’s Germany…you’re doing it.
