The images of Russia’s murderous bombing of the innocent men, women and children of Ukraine are so savage, we don’t want to see them.
A bloodied, pregnant Ukrainian woman is carried from a maternity hospital the Russians have bombed.
The dead bodies of a young Ukrainian mother and her two children – all killed by Russians — lie on a gray road, as a Ukrainian soldier tries to save the wounded father sprawled next to them.
Another young mother flees her bombed-to-rubble home with her toddlers and the only possessions she could save: “a T-shirt and underwear.”
“I’m ready to shield them with my body,” she says through tears, “but even that might not save them.”
Even though images like those turn our stomachs, tear our hearts and make us want to look away, they must be shown.
If we censor or sanitize the mind-boggling reality of this savage and senseless war started by Russian President Vladimir Putin, we’re taking a page from the Russians’ playbook. They’ve banned the freedom to show the true images of Putin’s war, which is why they’ve banned access to Facebook, Twitter and TikTok. The Russians have shut down their only so-called free media outlets that broadcast the truth. They’ve threatened other media outlets with 15-year prison sentences just for calling Putin’s invasion an “invasion” or a “war” — which is why many international news organizations have left the country.
Putin and his thugs may say they’re not afraid of the valiant outnumbered Ukrainians, or the devastating sanctions the free world has imposed on them.
But they are afraid of the truth. They know the truth of their war against innocent people is a weapon that can turn their own people against them – just like those images turned the world against Putin.
This is why the movement in some of our country’s school districts to ban graphic accounts of the murder of more than 6 million Jews during the Holocaust of World War II is so wrong. Only by showing the truth of how savage we can be to one another can we begin to try to stop this depravity from happening again.
We don’t have to look to Ukraine to see that truth is such a vital weapon against the violence of hate. We just have to see what we did after antisemitic incidents right here in the mid Hudson.
After a teenager desecrated a village of Florida Jewish cemetery with swastikas and symbols of the Nazi secret police, he was forced to learn the truth of the depth of depravity of the Holocaust. He worked for the Holocaust Museum and Center for Tolerance and Education in Rockland County. He saw images of the bone thin bodies of Jews piled like garbage to be burned after they were murdered in gas chambers — simply because they were Jewish. He read books and spoke with Holocaust survivors, including one woman who not only lost father and grandmother during the Holocaust, but whose mother and sisters were killed in a gas chamber and then incinerated in the same concentration camp she was in.
At the teen’s sentencing, one World War II veteran who helped liberate a German concentration camp said this about the impact of the truth:
“He’s a changed kid.”
Teaching children the truth about the horror of hate is one reason school districts from Pine Bush to Monticello who’ve had anti-semitic incidents are now taking part in the Anti-Defamation League’s No Place for Hate program.
We must know and see the truth of the brutal, murdering violence we humans can inflict on one another – whether it’s the Russians in Ukraine, the Nazis in Europe or here in America. When we try to erase it on our screens or in our schools, we become too much like the enemy we’re trying to defeat,
Steve Israel is a veteran journalist in the Hudson and Delaware valleys. Email: steveisrael53@outlook.com
This article originally appeared on Times Herald-Record: Don’t avert your eyes to images of war and destruction in Ukraine
