OT: The Holocaust after the Holocaust

First of all I'd like to say that I'm so tired I can't even sleep.

Here's an excerpt from an article from the SF Chronicle:

In 1950, the Iraqi parliament passed a law called Ordinance for the Cancellation of Iraqi Nationality for Jews, Law No. 1 that stripped Iraqi Jews of their citizenship. In 1951, the Iraqi parliament passed another law, confiscating all Jewish property. Within a year, most of Iraq's ancient Jewish population, my family included, fled to Israel.

-From the The Vanishing Jews of the Arab World, by Semha Alwaya, SF Chronicle 3/6/05

Just replace "Iraqi" with "German" and change the year from 1950 to the mid 1930's and well, you have the beginnings of the holocaust in Nazi Germany.

A friend of mine is a descendant of the Iraqi Jews and the stories of his grandparents' escape to Israel is similar to this one. Jews, Christians and Muslims co-existed in the middle east in relative peace for a long time, until the 20th century. What happened?

Just because we beat Hitler in WWII that didn't mean his ideas died with him.

I guess the price of freedom truly is eternal vigilance.