By Laurie Baron
SAN DIEGO — While on his atonement tour of Auschwitz, Elon Musk speculated that the Holocaust would not have occurred had there been social media back in the 1930s and 1940s. Aside from the fact that there was “social media” back then in the form of decrypted communications, letters, radio, and telegrams, I’ll be fair and explore the possibility that he’s right (as well as far right).
Musk contends X’s free speech policy would have successfully undermined Hitler’s appeal. Of course, under that policy, Musk would have given free rein to Hitler to post on X as he has done for conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones. Maybe he’s right. Look how successful social media has been in curbing the support for Donald Trump!
During the mass shootings on the Eastern Front, could smart phones be hidden on the nude bodies of victims? How difficult would it be to post messages when laying under corpses? Maybe a rogue Einsatzgruppen member could video a massacre [one soldier managed to film one of the executions for about 90 seconds], but if he sent it out on TikTok, could the SS trace the signal back to his phone and would it be removed because no one was dancing in it?
Musk believes that social media would have alerted the world to the mass murder committed in Auschwitz. Would the Nazis let camp personnel and inmates keep their smart phones, perhaps devoting an hour each day when both could either phone friends or surf the internet? Would they make WIFI available? If so, how many bars of signal strength? Would Jews be issued chargers on arrival? Would there be electrical outlets to connect them to in the barracks? Perhaps Jews who were former electricians might devise a way to plug their chargers into the electrified barbed wire fences without electrocuting themselves. If prisoners had access to Facebook, would they report what they were enduring or just send photos of the gruel they were given to eat? How much could they bear witness on X within the 280-word limit?
Finally, Musk seems unaware that the world knew a good deal about what was happening to the Jews. Everything from 1933 until the outbreak of the war was public knowledge. After that, reports from Allied intelligence services, Catholic nuncios, dissident Germans, escaped Jews, and resistance movements made it clear that Germany’s persecution of the Jews had escalated from ghettoization to annihilation. Indeed, by December 1942 the Allies issued a joint statement condemning Germany for “carrying into effect Hitler’s oft-repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe.” Knowing and mobilizing governments to effectively rescue Jews were two different things. We are cognizant of terrible wars currently being waged, but social media hasn’t stopped them. I suspect if Musk were alive during the Holocaust and aware of Nazi crimes, he’d be more interested in hiring Wernher von Braun for SpaceX than in helping their victims.
*
Baron is professor emeritus at San Diego State University. He may be contacted via Lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com