Kansas GOP finally blasts Holocaust comparisons that show huge holes in history class

First, we are very glad that Kansas Republican leaders finally came out and said that it’s hateful to compare COVID-19 public health measures to the Holocaust.

Fact: The murder of 6 million Jews is not at all like having to put a piece of paper or cloth over your face to limit the spread of a deadly virus.

The planned extermination of an entire people — a plan that very nearly succeeded, by the way — is not a close cousin of the plan to save lives with a remarkably safe and effective vaccine. Joe Biden pressuring you to forego your freedom to spread illness is not like the Nazis attempting to annihilate Roma and gay and disabled people along with all Jews.

“The Final Solution” was not like anything else. So stop hurting those who survived it, or had loved ones who did, or loved ones who didn’t, by claiming otherwise.

We don’t know what took Kansas Republicans like Senate President Ty Masterson and House Speaker Ron Ryckman so long, or what it was about the umpteenth such antisemitic outpouring that coaxed them out of their long silence.

Even holding hearings on the “overreach” of COVID mandates invites these ravings. No doubt the upcoming special session cracking down on lifesaving mandates, purely for political gain, will occasion more of the same.

But here’s the thing: The fact that these odious comparisons keep right on being made proves the need for exactly the kind of history lessons that Kansas Republicans so passionately oppose.

We have to believe that most people saying this stuff really do not know any better, and what an indictment of our current curricula that is. So instead of spreading panic about “critical race theory,” which isn’t even being taught, what about backfilling the canyon of ignorance about a period that so many reference without any understanding?

It’s not even clear that most people making Hitler comparisons can think of any other way to say, “This is really bad.” And how bad is that?

Republican state Rep. Brenda Landwehr, of Wichita, said last month that COVID-19 masking and vaccine requirements reminded her of the way Jews were treated under Hitler. In response, officials in her party said nothing at all.

No prominent Republican disputed her statement that COVID mandates amount to “modern day racism. This is racism against the modern day Jew. Which is anyone who disagrees.”

“Modern day racism” implies that racial discrimination is otherwise a thing of the past, which would be lovely but isn’t true.

Either she doesn’t know what she’s saying in comparing the suffering of anti-vaxxers to that of Jews during the Holocaust, or she does know and is trying to cause pain.

Either way, Masterson defended her: He said her way-out-of-line comments only showed how “extremely serious” she and others are about fighting mandates.

Learning diversity, inclusion does not shame children

Now that an obscure and unsuccessful Kansas City, Kansas, mayoral candidate with no constituency in Topeka has shown up at a hearing in a yellow star, however, it’s apparently safe to state the obvious.

Daran Duffy, who finished last in a five-candidate mayoral primary field in August, told lawmakers at a Friday hearing that he’d worn the star as a reminder that “every single thing that Hitler did he did in accordance with the laws of his country.”

This is a popular talking point in right-wing media in the context of COVID. And it’s one that does untold damage. It’s also curious that a group that considers itself strongly pro-Israel would regularly repeat a message so painful to Jews.

Kansas Republicans including Landwehr have also suggested that diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in schools might damage the mental health of white students through group blaming and shaming.

We are pro-shame, of course, for the guilty. And do not believe that children, who are not guilty, are so fragile that they can’t bear to be told the truth about what happened before they were born.

What’s a lot more dangerous than the risk that white kids taught about how Reconstruction was systematically undermined might suffer from depression as a result is that young people who never learn from the past will grow into older people whose ignorance continues to hurt others, and themselves, too.

In June, we urged anyone who really doesn’t see why Holocaust comparisons are a problem to please visit the Auschwitz exhibit at Kansas City’s Union Station.

The exhibit, which was supposed to end in January, has now been extended through March, and that’s wonderful news. Added to the exhibit is an extremely precious donation from 96-year-old Kansas City survivor Sonia Warshawski: A scarf that had belonged to her mother, who died in Majdanek, one of the three concentration camps, including Auschwitz, where Sonia was sent.

Please honor Sonia Warshawski, all survivors, and the truth itself, by seeing this exhibit. If you do, these comparisons will become painful to you, too. And we will all be better for it.

This story was originally published November 16, 2021 at 5:00 AM.