Untermenschen: A History of Targeting Others for Inequality, Hatred and Suffering

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“Untermenschen:
A History of Targeting Others for Inequality, Hatred and Suffering”
with authors Dr. Arthur Flug and Lou Gromet

Hundreds march in a torchlight parade condemning Jews! Non-citizens are denounced as vermin! Sick and disabled ridiculed! 1930’s? 2010’s?

Tragically, both periods have seen these events. The Charlottsville Torchlight march of neo Nazi’s is scarily familiar to similar scenes in America and Europe in the 1930s. The Nazis and their allies identified certain populations as Untermenschen, or less than human, and marked them for enslavement and/or elimination.

In this webinar, sponsored by the FJMC Committee to Combat Antisemitism, authors Arthur Flug and Lou Crumet, highlight the history of antisemitism and mistreatment of other targeted groups over centuries in Europe and in the United States. The PBS special, the “US and the Holocaust,” and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s exhibit, also brought greater awareness of the dichotomy of these events. The tragedy of Oct 7 is accelerating this resurgence of hate. During the coming Days of Awe and in close proximity to the one year anniversary of Oct 7, this webinar will discuss the impact of fading memories of those years in fact such hatred never really went away.

Arthur Flug, a Holocaust educator, and Louis Grumet, a public policy wonk, have joined together to produce a work that reminds us that targeting “others” for inequality can grow into discrimination and acts of hatred, which can grow into final solutions which harm and indeed kill millions of victims. Using the testimonies of Holocaust survivors who were targeted as teenagers and anti-racial and religious governmental practices of 17th through 20th centuries, the authors present a clear picture of what may be happening again in America and Europe, and its potential outcome. It is a reminder that for evil to happen, good folks have only to be silent.

Dr. Arthur Flug has served as the Executive Director of the Harriet and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust Center at Queensborough Community College and as Director of Instructional Management Systems for the New York City Board of Education. His career includes a record of public service as District Administrator for U.S. Congressman Gary Ackerman and as Chief of Staff for the Chair of the New York City Finance Committee, David Weprin.

He received his doctorate from Teachers College at Columbia University and is the author of the Laidlaw Brother Social Studies Reading Series. Along with Rabbi Isidoro Aizenberg, he co-authored a series of 14 catalogues highlighting exhibits at the Kupferberg Center. For several years, he spoke at a number of schools, synagogues and community organizations on issues relating to the Holocaust and hate crimes.

Dr. Flug has served as president of the Conservative Synagogue of Jamaica Estates and Chairman of the Board of the Hillcrest Jewish Center. During the summer of 1999, he served in the IDF’s Volunteers for Israel .Program.

Lou Grumet is the author of two books – The Curious Case of Kiryas Joel concerning a church state case for which he was the plaintiff in 1994, and This Land is My Land concerning a Mohawk armed takeover of state property in New York in which he was the state negotiator that ended the dispute. He was the Executive Director of the New York States School Boards Association for fourteen years as well as the New York State Society of Certified Public Accountants for twelve years. He also served as the Assistant Commissioner of the New York State Education Department for the education of disabled students and was the special assistant to New Yor Secretary of State Mario Cuomo. He was Chief of Research for the New York State Office of Local Government, as well as serving as the Assistant Director of Research for the New York State Commission on the Powers of Local Government. Grumet has a JD from NYU Law School, a Masters of Public Administration from the University of Pittsburgh and a bachelors in Public Affairs from the George Washington University.

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