Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the 90-minute meeting — held in a villa on the Wannsee, a lake on the western edge of Berlin — in which the Holocaust was planned, alongside nibbles and cognac. There was only one point on the agenda: “The organizational, logistical and material steps for a final solution of the Jewish question in Europe.”
The anniversary has a special resonance as the number of survivors of the Holocaust dwindles and as antisemitism and the ideology of white supremacy become resurgent in Europe and the U.S. Four people were held hostage in a synagogue in Texas last week, and antisemitic crimes have also surged in Germany.
The minutes taken that day, written in the language of bureaucrats, do not explicitly refer to murder. They use phrases like “evacuation” and “reduction” and “treatment” — but there was never any doubt what they laid out: “The complete elimination of the European Jews,” as Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s chief propagandist, wrote after reading them.
Texas synagogue attack: The F.B.I. has changed course on its earlier statement that the attack was not an act of antisemitism. “This was not some random occurrence,” the bureau’s director said. “It was intentional, it was symbolic, and we’re not going to tolerate antisemitism in this country.”
Related: The U.N. adopted an Israeli resolution that condemns denial and distortion of the Holocaust. Only Iran objected.
New York Times