Author: The Associated Press
Publication: www.hinduunity.org
Date: May 24, 2001
Aaron Krell was 12 and living in
Poland when he was required to wear a yellow star with "Jude," the German
word for Jew, on his clothes.
On Tuesday, Krell was reminded of
that humiliation while watching a news report about a nation he has no
link to.
Afghanistan's Taliban militia announced
it was requiring Hindus to wear a yellow piece of cloth on their shirt
pockets to distinguish them from Muslims.
"When I saw it on television, I
am only wondering one thing," said Krell, now 73 and living in New York.
"In those days a lot of people didn't care what happened to the Jews. Would
it be today that people wouldn't let it happen to the Hindus?"
Some Holocaust survivors, and many
Jewish organizations, see parallels between the Nazi yellow badges and
the Taliban yellow cloth.
The Anti-Defamation League in New
York called the order, "a stark reminder of the exclusionary tactics employed
by the Nazis as a precursor to genocide." The American Jewish Committee,
which monitors human rights, said Wednesday that Jews should be particularly
angered by the action.
"We thought that this kind of outrage
belonged to the last century and certainly if it recurred in some form
that the international community would not for one moment tolerate it,"
said Shulamit Bahat, director of the New York-based group.
Israeli legislator Michal Kleiner
issued a statement saying "the suffering of the Hindus in Afghanistan is
an issue for all Jews and the whole world."
Uma Mysorekar, president of the
Hindu Temple Society of North America, scoffed at the Taliban claim that
the yellow cloth was meant to protect the nation's more than 500 Hindus
from being forced to obey Islamic law.
"It's not an acceptable explanation
at all," she said from her office in the New York. "It's almost like Nazis,
making them wear an identity on the street to find out who they are."
Mysorekar, noting Afghanistan's
long history of human rights abuses, said she was pessimistic that the
United States or United Nations would be able to prevent mistreatment of
the Hindu minority.
"This particular nation has always
stood separately from the rest of the world. They've persecuted their own
people," she said. "It's very disturbing and very disgraceful."
Krell said the order raised his
memories of wearing the yellow badge and people pointing and saying, "There
goes the Jew."
"To say it was degrading is putting
it very mildly," Krell said. "It is below degrading. It gives you the feeling
you're almost subhuman."
Rose Conrad was 16 and also in Poland
when she was forced to wear the yellow star. She said she "resents with
a passion" any nation that tries to single out religious minorities.
"Nobody should go through it," said
Conrad, now of New York. "You have the feeling that you have to look around.
Who is going after you?"
Despite the comparisons to the Holocaust,
Conrad does not expect the international community will take action in
Afghanistan.
"I get angry," she said. "The world
doesn't do anything, exactly like they didn't do anything in our case."
