Holocaust, slavery are vastly different

Leonard Pitts' recent column titled “Don't let others define us” (Jan. 5, thegazette.com), which talks of keeping the memory of the slavery horror alive, is a disservice to those 27 million worldwide who today are victims of the crime of slavery. He compares the plight of the Jews in Nazi Europe to the cotton plantations of our early history.

What Pitts misses is that slavery in America and other places was a crime driven by business. One man's greed was another man's horror. It was not hate that brought the black man to the Americas; it was money. It was pure hate and not money that sent the Jews to the gas chambers.

Slaves were considered property, and harsh measures were instituted to keep the slaves enslaved, but they were not routinely murdered, as were the Jews.

To recall and remember the Holocaust is to remind all humans that we must guard against our human ability to be inhuman. Some slaves were sons and daughters of kings, some were just unlucky to be captured in raids, others were simply sold into slavery. It was all for money with little emotion involved.

Ken Lowen

Central City