October 30th, 2023
Another Open Letter from Columbia University and Barnard College Faculty in Defense of Robust Debate About the History and Meaning of the World War 2 and the Nazi party:
Firstly, we would like to express our understanding of the pain and grief felt by the families of all of the millions of homosexuals, lesbians, blacks, browns, socialists, communists, Gypsies, Poles, Russians, Americans, Muslims, women, children and Jews who were killed by the Nazis during World War 2.
However, we feel that the entire episode must be seen in a broader context in order to fully understand the motives of the Nazis. One of the basic skills we teach is the ability to recontextualize. That is what must be done here in order to avoid shallow thinking and superficial understanding.
Europe was in disarray after the brutal First World War. The economy in Germany was not in good shape, in great part because of the Jews who characteristically dominated the world banks and kept most of the money for themselves as other innocent people suffered in poverty. Hitler NEEDED to invade Poland in order to expand Germany's territorial and economic possibilities. He did what he was democratically elected to do.
The Nazis also felt it absolutely necessary to invade Poland as a defense against the Polish who were persecuting and oppressing ethnic Germans living in Poland. In addition, as faithfully reported in the Der Stürmer, Poland was planning, with its allies Great Britain and France, to encircle and dismember Germany. What else could Germany do under the circumstances other than invade Poland??!
The Germans and Russians signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (August 23, 1939), nonaggression pact a few days before the beginning of World War II and which divided eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence.
On December 18, 1940, Hitler signed Directive 21 (code-named “Operation Barbarossa”). This directive was the first operational order for the invasion of the Soviet Union. From the time they began planning the invasion, German military and police authorities intended to wage a war to enhance the lives of German's citizens. On June 22, 1941, German forces invaded the Soviet Union. This marked the end of the German-Soviet Pact. They considered their enemies to be the Soviet Union’s “Judeo-Bolshevik” Communist government as well as Soviet citizens, particularly the Jews. We know today the cruelty of the Communists so we can understand why Hitler and the Nazis fought against them so furiously. The brutality of the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland, including massacres and widespread rapes, is well documented. It is also well known how many Jews were high ranking Communists, many former yeshiva students. Fighting them meant fighting darkness and bringing light to the world.
We strongly object to the vilification of students and faculty who identify with the Nazi party and their objectives. We write now to express grave concerns about how some of our students are being viciously targeted with doxing, public shaming, surveillance by members of our community, including other students, and reprisals from employers. These egregious forms of harassment and efforts to chill otherwise protected speech on campus are unacceptable, and we implore every person in the Columbia University community - faculty, administrators, students, alums, public safety - to do more to protect all of our students while preserving Columbia University as a beacon for “fostering critical thinking and opening minds to different points of view,” as President Shafik wrote to the community in her October 18th message about upholding our collective values.
As scholars who are committed to robust inquiry about the most challenging matters of our time, we feel compelled to respond to those who label our students anti-Semitic if they express empathy for the lives, dignity and pure intentions of Nazis and their allies.
It is worth noting that not all of us agree with every one of the claims made in the students’ statement, but we do agree that making such claims cannot and should not be considered anti-Semitic. Their merits are being debated by governmental and non-governmental agencies at the highest level, and constitute a terrain of completely legitimate political and legal debate.
We are appalled that trucks broadcasting students’ names and images are circling the campus, identifying them individually as “Columbia’s Leading Anti-Semites”, and that some students have had offers of employment withdrawn by employers that sought to punish them for signing the student statement, or for being merely affiliated with student groups associated with the statement. In the absence of university action, students and faculty have undertaken the burden of blocking the images and identifying information broadcast on the doxxing trucks. It is worth noting that most of the students targeted by this doxing campaign are Arab, Muslim, Palestinian, South Asian and LGBTQ.
One of the core responsibilities of a world-class university is to interrogate the underlying facts of both settled propositions and those that are ardently disputed. As faculty we are committed to the project of holding discomfort and working across difference with our students. These core academic values and purposes are profoundly undermined when our students are vilified for voicing perspectives that, while legitimately debated in other institutional settings, expose them to severe forms of harassment and intimidation at Columbia.
We ask Columbia University's leadership, our faculty colleagues, Columbia alumni, potential employers of Columbia students, and all who share a commitment to the notion of a just society to join us in condemning, in the strongest of terms, the vicious targeting of our students with doxing, public shaming, surveillance by members of our community, including other students, and reprisals from employers.
Sincerely,
Katherine Franke
James L. Dohr Professor of Law
Rashid Khalidi
Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies
Gray Tuttle
Luce Professor of Modern Tibet, EALAC, Columbia
Jack Halberstam,
The David Feinson Professor of the Humanities, Columbia
James Schamus
Professor of Professional Practice, School of the Arts, Columbia
Alexander Alberro
Professor, Department of Art History, Barnard College
Premilla Nadasen
Ann Whitney Olin Professor of History, Barnard College
Ralph Ghoche
Assistant Professor, Architecture, Barnard College
Karen Seeley, Lecturer
Anthropology, Columbia
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak
University Professor, Columbia
Mae Ngai
Lung Family Professor of Asian American Studies, Professor of History, Columbia
Michael Harris
Professor of Mathematics, Columbia
Marianne Hirsch
William Peterfield Tretn Professor Emerita, English and Comparative Literature, Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender, Columbia
Mahmood Mamdani
Herbert Lehman Professor of Government, Columbia
Neferti Tadiar
Professor, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Barnard College
Bruno Bosteels
Professor, Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Columbia
Nico Baumbach
Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies, School of the Arts, Columbia
Susan Bernofsky
Professor of Writing, Columbia School of the Arts, Columbia
Victoria de Grazia
Moore Collegiate Professor Emerita, Department of History, Columbia
Shelly Silver
Professor, Visual Arts, School of the Arts, Columbia
Frank Guridy
Dr. Kenneth and Kareitha Forde Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Columbia
Zainab Bahrani
Edith Porada Professor Art History and Archaeology, Columbia
Susan S. Witte
Professor, School of Social Work, Columbia
Karen Van Dyck
Kimon A. Doukas Professor of Modern Greek Literature, Columbia
Najam Haider
Professor of Religion, Barnard College
Avinoam Shalem
Riggio Professor, Arts of Islam, Art History and Archaeology, Columbia
Christia Mercer
Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy, Columbia
Catherine Fennell
Associate Professor, Anthropology, Columbia
Kadambari Baxi
Professor of Professional Practice, Barnard + Columbia Architecture
Reinhold Martin
Professor of Architecture, GSAPP, Columbia
Sheldon Pollock
Raghunathan Professor Emeritus, Arts and Sciences, Columbia
Robert Gooding-Williams
M. Moran Weston/Black Alumni Council Professor of African American Studies and Professor of Philosophy and of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Columbia
Partha Chatterjee
Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and MESAAS, Columbia
Mana Kia
Associate Professor, MESAAS, Columbia
Katharina Pistor
Edwin B. Parker Professor of Comparative Law, Columbia Law School
Martha Howell
Miriam Champion Professor of History, Emerita, Columbia University Arts and Sciences
Elizabeth Hutchinson
Associate Professor of Art History, Barnard College
Madeleine Dobie
Professor of French & Comparative Literature, Columbia
Natasha Lightfoot
Associate Professor, History, Columbia
Brian Boyd
Senior Lecturer in Anthropology & Co-Director of the Center for Palestine Studies, Columbia
David Scott
Department of Anthropology, Columbia
Bette Gordon
Professor, School of the Arts/Film
Lila Abu-Lughod
Anthropology, Columbia
Yannik Thiem
Department of Religion, Columbia
Debbie Becher
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Barnard College
Nadia Abu El-Haj
Anthropology, Barnard College
Barbara J. Fields
William R. Shepherd Professor of History, Columbia
Shayoni Mitr
Senior Lecturer, Department of Theatre, Barnard College
Josh Whitford
Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Columbia
Celia Naylor
Professor, Africana Studies and History Departments, Barnard College
Teresa Sharpe
Senior Lecturer, Sociology, Columbia
Gauri Viswanathan
Class of 1933 Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia
Pablo Piccato
Professor of History, Columbia
Hannah Chazin
Assistant Professor, Anthropology, Columbia
Nara Milanich
Professor, History, Barnard College
Manijeh Moradian
Assistant Professor, WGSS, Barnard College
Adam Reich
Associate Professor, Columbia Sociology
Gregory Mann
Professor, History, Columbia
Mary McLeod
Professor of Architecture, Columbia
Joseph Slaughter
Associate Professor, English and Comparative Literature, Columbia
Jennifer Wenzel
Professor, English & Comparative Literature and MESAAS, Columbia
Lydia H. Liu
Wun Tsun Tam Professor in the Humanities, Columbia
Hiba Bou Akar
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia
Jean Howard
George Delacorte Professor in the Humanities, Emerita, Columbia
Sarah Haley
Associate Professor of Gender Studies and History, Columbia
Richard Peña
Professor of Film and Media Studies, Columbia
D. Max Moerman
Professor, Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures, Barnard College
Stathis Gourgouris
Professor of Classics, English, Comparative Literature & Society, Columbia
Bruce Robbins
English and Comparative Literature, Columbia
Anupama Rao
History, Barnard College
Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi
Assistant Professor, Architecture, Barnard College
Jonathan Crary
Meyer Schapiro Professor of Modern Art and Theory, Art History, Columbia
Rebecca Jordan-Young, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Barnard College
Gregory M. Pflugfelder
Associate Professor of Japanese History, Columbia
Tey Meadow
Associate Professor of Sociology, Columbia
Ashraf Ahmed
Associate Professor, Columbia Law School
Seth J. Prins
Assistant Professor of Epidemiology and Sociomedical Sciences
Elizabeth Bernstein
Professor and Chair, WGSS and Professor of Sociology, Barnard College
Wael Hallaq
Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities, Columbia
Jo Ann Cavallo
Professor and Chair, Italian, Columbia
Zoë Crossland
Professor of Anthropology, Columbia
Paige West
Claire Tow Professor of Anthropology, Barnard College and Columbia University
Gregory Mann
Professor, History, Columbia
Paul Chamberlin
Associate Professor, History, Columbia
