In Defense of the Holocaust Analogy

It was a character in Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer’s short story, "The Letter Writer," not the author himself, who said, "In relation to [animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka."

Nevertheless, Singer was a vegetarian and most of his main characters are either vegetarians, or on their way.

In Eternal Treblinka, by Charles Patterson, the author, who is a well-regarded Holocaust educator, presents, in harrowing detail, the similarities between our modern slaugherhouse system and Hitler’s Final Solution.

In 2003, PETA launched a campaign called "Holocaust on Your Plate, which juxtaposed scenes from Nazi death camps with scenes from slaughterhouses and factory farms. The Anti-Defamation League, among others, was outraged, and PETA eventually apologized.

I Googled "PETA Holocaust on Your Plate" and found dozens of letters from people-including vegetarians-who were appalled by the campaign. This letter is my favorite, and is from a vegetarian who was going back to eating meat after seeing the campaign.

Let’s deconstruct this:

• The Final Solution was based on the slaughterhouse system. It is an effective, efficient way to carry out mass killing.
• The Nazis didn’t treat their prisoners humanely; they saw them as objects (which they loathed) and clearly had no respect for them or their suffering.
• Modern factory farming? Ditto.

So far, the comparison is valid.

• Ah, but cows aren’t people. True, true.
• But they have the same capacity to experience terror and to suffer.

Comparison is still valid.

• Here’s the rub: If you think that the suffering of cows isn’t important, because it serves a purpose for us, then you are duly shocked by the comparison.
• But if suffering is suffering, and we should do our damnedest to decrease it, the comparison holds.

Nearly the entire planet was morally offended by the Holocaust, thank heavens.  And military might was enlisted to combat Hitler.

But why is there so little fury regarding how we continue to treat the one million animals that are slaughtered EACH HOUR for our food?

And that’s just food; the number doesn’t include clothing, experimentation, "entertainment," or "sport."