October 7 was the worst day in Jewish history since the Holocaust. But already, efforts are underway to diminish the horrors visited upon Israelis and others who were living in Israel on that day. Among those horrors was the taking of hostages.

A small group of New York City-based Israeli artists put together an unfunded #KidnappedfromIsrael campaign to circulate photographs of the hostages, along with their names and ages. (More on that below.) Many people have printed out these photographs and posted them in public places to focus attention on their plight. Almost as soon as the public awareness campaign started, a systematic counter-campaign arose, involving vandals tearing down the posters.

These posters depict 240 human beings held in captivity. Nearly all are civilians. Many are grandparents. At least 33 are children, including one 9-month old baby.

What kind of moral degenerate would wish to conceal the fact that innocent men, women, and children are being held captive in underground tunnels?

Unfortunately, there is a method to their madness. This concerted effort to erase the hostages’ predicament from public consciousness finds parallels in the efforts to deny the Holocaust.

In some parts of the world, Holocaust denial is official dogma. In much of the Arab world, hundreds of books denying the genocide are still sold, and sitcoms about the “fake Holocaust” have been hits in Egypt and the Gulf countries. Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the West Bank Palestinians, does not completely deny the Holocaust occurred, but he contends that the real number of murdered Jews was only one sixth as large as claimed, and that this scaled-down Holocaust resulted from a collaboration between Zionists and Nazis, designed to spur Jewish immigration to Palestine. In other words, he asserts that the Jews helped orchestrate their own mass murder.

Outright Holocaust denial in the United States is restricted to the loonier fringes of the political spectrum, but a more passive form of denial emerges from widespread ignorance.

According to a 50-state survey conducted in 2020 based on 11,000 interviews of Millennials and Gen Z Americans, almost two-thirds of young adults do not know that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. About 36% believe that the real number was 2 million or fewer. More than one in 10 believe that Jews themselves caused the Holocaust. Almost half of the young Americans surveyed could not name a single concentration camp. Almost a quarter said that the Holocaust was a myth, or was exaggerated, or they weren’t sure.

It is tempting to view the tearing down of the posters as acts of adolescent petulance. But when you consider the woeful extent of Holocaust ignorance, tearing down the posters actually makes a sort of malevolent sense.  For an uneducated and gullible public, out of sight is out of mind.  

Sadly, the campaign may be succeeding, at least to an extent. Many of the hostages are Americans. In 1979, when Americans were held hostage in Iran, the media paid  constant attention to their situation. Ted Koppel became a star when ABC launched “America Held Hostage,” which ran every night, eventually transforming into “Nightline”.

Today, we hear little or nothing about the American hostages held by Hamas. Other than their family members, few if any of us know their names. We do not recognize their faces.

Ignorance is the ally of evil. If people do not know that two out of three of Europe’s Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust, they are less likely to recognize the evil of antisemitism. If people do not know that 240 men, women, and children, including babies, are being held captive, they are less likely to recognize how Hamas fosters the same type of evil.

The public should not forget the hostages, nor grow callous to the injustice of their captivity.

Below are the photographs gathered by the #KidnappedfromIsrael campaign. Their website is at https://www.kidnappedfromisrael.com/.  See them and bear witness.