When Hatred Goes Unchallenged...This Is What Happens
- Gary Toyn
- Jun 9
- 7 min read
From historical atrocity to modern-day antisemitism, the terrifying parallels between 1941 and 2025
For the last three years, I’ve been researching and writing my next historical novel that focuses on the Holocaust’s earliest, yet most overlooked events. Unlike those who live in the Baltics and Eastern Europe, most of the English-speaking world know next to nothing about it, and are unaware of its significance.
I'm talking about the "Holocaust by bullets, " where where local militiamen began rounding up Jews and murdering them.
These deadly antisemitic acts began in June 1941 in Lithuania. Before the Nazis had fully seized control of this Baltic nation…before the arrival of the SS Einsatzgruppen death squads – and long before any death camps like Auschwitz or Treblinka had even been conceived.
The largest mass murder site was in the Ponary Forest near Vilnius Lithuania, a place some historians call the birthplace of the Holocaust.
The Ponary Massacre lasted for nearly three years. In just this one location, up to 100,000 people were killed, including 72,000 Jews. There were over 200 mass killing sites all across Lithuania, and many more in neighboring countries like Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine and Belarus.
At the very beginning, the Ponary massacre was initiated by local militias who marched their victims into large pits dug originally to store petroleum products. Some victims were forced to line up at the edge of the pits, others were herded into trenches. Most were forced to disrobe and the gunmen would sell the clothes to the locals. Once they were in the pits, and couldn't escape, the gunmen aim their guns. One bullet at a time, they were murdered. Their bodies fell into the pits, and the next wave of victims were forced at gunpoint to step up and await their turn.
They shot mothers holding their babies.
They shot children clinging to their fathers.
They shot teenagers and grandmothers.
They shot anyone and everyone they assumed was Jewish.
Then they shot anyone else who they thought would oppose them.
Even nuns and priests.
They shot neighbors who offered shelter, friends who stayed loyal, and strangers who showed mercy.
As the Nazis watched, they took good notes. They learned the techniques necessary to accomplish genocide. They learned that indeed, eliminating European Jewry was not only feasible, but with the right planning and organization, it could likely succeed.
This little-known atrocity forms the backdrop of my novel’s true-to-life story. Yet, when I started writing, I figured my contribution would be to help my readers become more aware of of a disturbing yet little-known event during World War II.
I assumed I was writing about an important historical incident set safely in the dark and distant past.
But today’s headlines suggest that the antisemitic fires that ignited the Ponary Massacre are still burning bright- but they are now represented under new flags.
Antisemitism Is Not Just WWII History…It’s Today’s News.
Despite Jews accounting for 0.2% of the 8 billion worldwide population, social media is disproportionally teeming with messages and memes that blame Jews for everything from economic inequality and geopolitical unrest, to killing Jesus.
Antisemitism in the form of Holocaust denial and distortion are no longer confined to fringe corners—they’re found on major college campuses, in political discourse, and even mainstream media. Accusations that Jews somehow have the power to control governments, manipulate public opinion, or that Jews are only loyal to other Jews, and incapable of being good citizens, echo the very lies that once justified ghetto walls and firing squads.
The frightening rise in antisemitic violence has captured headlines recently, and illustrates the increasing intensity of antisemitic rhetoric, and how that rhetoric has increased antisemitic attitudes, activism and attacks.
Here are just four recent examples of threatening antisemitism.
Boulder, CO: 12 Victims burned in antisemitic attacks on a Jewish student center.
Washington D.C.: Double murder tied to “Globalize the Intifada” slogans.
France: Paris Holocaust memorials vandalized.
San Francisco: Jewish bagel shop targeted with antisemitic graffiti
And the number of thwarted attacks grows as well. From a plot to harm a pro-Israel organization in a suicide attack, to a plot to perpetrate a mass casualty attack at the Israeli Consulate in New York, the lethal intent of these attacks continues to escalate.
Incidents of U.S. and global antisemitism have reach record highs.
In the first four months of 2025, the Antisemitism Research Center has documented over 2,000 incidents, putting it on track to record 6,000+ incidents this year, surpassing the record number of recorded incidents in 2024, its highest total to date.
And the number of incidents is coming not only from far-right ideologies like the Ku Klux Klan, as Islamist and far-left ideologies account for the vast majority of incidents – 82%:
This surge isn’t limited to the U.S. or Europe—it’s happening worldwide.
Crossing the line from rhetoric to antisemitism
Just so I’m absolutely clear, not all rhetoric critical of Israeli policy is antisemitic, but rhetoric crosses the line when it advocates:
-Incitement to Violence: Justifying or promoting harm against Jews in the name of extremist ideologies or religions.
-Stereotypes and Conspiracy Theories: Spreading dehumanizing or false claims about Jewish power, influence, or global conspiracies.
-Holocaust Denial and Distortion: Denying, minimizing, or accusing Jews of fabricating the Holocaust or exaggerating its impact.
-Delegitimizing Jewish Identity and Israel: Denying Jews the right to self-determination or holding Israel to double standards not applied to other nations.
-Collective Blame: Blaming all Jews for the actions of individual Jews or the policies of the State of Israel. (U.S. State Department’s definition of antisemitism)
Free speech vs. hate speech
However vile, repulsive, and offensive antisemitism may be, I am not calling for government censorship.
I’m calling for everyday people to stand up and confront it. To point it out. To call it what it is.
Unpopular speech is fundamentally protected in America. That’s what sets this country apart from many others that legislate what can and cannot be said. But defining "hate speech" legally is a slippery slope—it empowers the government to determine which ideas are acceptable and which are not, effectively giving the government the power to pick winners and losers.
In America, bigots are free to say what they want, but they are not free to choose the consequences of that speech. Our system leaves it to the people—not the government—to impose the social and moral repercussions of dangerous rhetoric.
But that responsibility doesn't fall on the main stream media. It takes a groundswell of people willing to enforce community standards through social pressure and collective condemnation.
That means it’s up to all of us to take a stand.
Silence is not neutrality; it’s complicity.
As John Adams warned, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
Antisemitism must be opposed by individuals—especially threats of violence—whenever and wherever they appear.
How?
By responding on social media and calling out antisemitism in all its forms. By publicly and peacefully condemning any speech that crosses the line. That's because a civil society must hold everyone accountable who promotes hatred and violence—against Jews or against any other group for that matter.
When antisemitism is met with silence, it grows. Silence emboldens the antisemites.
Silence implies acceptance.
And once silence becomes the norm, speaking out becomes dangerous. It isolates those who resist, making them targets and weakening the broader resistance.
To paraphrase Pastor Martin Niemöller—a German Lutheran pastor who initially supported Hitler but later opposed the Nazi regime and was imprisoned in concentration camps:
First they came for the rich, and I did not speak out— Because I was not rich.
Then they came for the highly educated, and I did not speak out— Because I was not highly educated.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the middle class, and I did not speak out— Because I feared retribution.
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak for me.
(with apologies to Pastor Martin Niemöller)
Ponary didn’t happen overnight. It happened step by step.
The massacre in the Ponary Forest didn’t begin with bullets.
It began with words—whispers in the marketplace, stereotypes repeated in newspapers, and conspiracy theories muttered in classrooms and churches.
In the years leading up to the Nazi occupation of Lithuania, antisemitic attitudes—already simmering beneath the surface—were stoked by nationalist fervor, ignorance, apathy, and economic scapegoating. Jews were also blamed for communism, for capitalism, for disloyalty, for “controlling too much.” By the time German forces arrived, many Lithuanians were already primed to see their Jewish neighbors not as fellow citizens, but as the new enemy.
The Holocaust in Lithuania didn’t have to be forced on the population; it found willing collaborators. But it started with words. With slogans. With stereotypes. With mis-information.
Today, we see chilling echoes of that same progression. Slogans like “Free Palestine,” “From the River to the Sea,” and “Globalize the Intifada” aren’t just political chants—they are purposeful calls to violently dismantle the Jewish state. It isn’t mere social activism—it’s the same variety of jack-booted antisemitism that led to the Holocaust, but in a new uniform.
Just as in Lithuania, where rhetoric led to incitement, and incitement led to mass murder, today's climate of unchecked hate rhetoric is not harmless. It is a step. And steps have consequences.
The forest at Ponary is now a silent graveyard that warns us what happens when a society stops challenging those first, seemingly small, steps of hate.
When antisemitism is tolerated in classrooms, on college campuses, and in public discourse, should we be surprised when it erupts in the streets?
If we fail to learn from history, we risk walking those same paths again—but this time, we’ll go there with our eyes wide open.
(If you’re interested in learning a bit more about my new book, go here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FBCLY642 )
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