Hitler's legacy: systematic slaughter
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But using "genocide" or "holocaust" to describe the ethnic Albanian exodus dilutes history. Even "Nazi" is regularly thrown around to describe someone who is simply not pleasant, such as Seinfeld's gruff soup seller, the "Soup Nazi." Used casually, the words lose the connotation they deserve: evil in its most efficiently murderous form.
Writing in the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot on April 8, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel states, "What is happening in Kosovo is not a Holocaust. A Holocaust is a genocidal plan. Milosevic is committing grave crimes, but the comparison of other disasters to the Holocaust has led to the diminution of its significance. Every disaster has a become a Holocaust and every criminal a Hitler."
Further, Milosevic at least has an excuse, even if it's implausible and dated. Kosovo's ethnic Albanians, led by the insurgent Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), want autonomy now and an independent state later. Before Milosevic launched his repression of Kosovo a year ago, KLA irregulars were ambushing Serb police and civilians at random. They are a threat to Kosovo's Serb minority, which has given Milosevic the opportunity to use nationalism to whip the Serbs into a frenzy and consolidate his grip on power.
Kosovo is the crown jewel of Serb orthodoxy -- the Jerusalem of Serbia -- and was lost in 1389 to marauding Muslim Ottomans, who left Kosovo's soil littered with Serb corpses. The Serb leader fashions himself as Slobodan the Redeemer, and in a tit-for-tat move, is trying to wrench Kosovo back from the majority Muslim ethnic Albanians. Hitler, on the other hand, never faced a restive Jewish population in Germany. There was no JLA assaulting Nazi patrols and demanding independence -- rather, Jews were gathered within and beyond Germany's borders and murdered for the simple reason that they were Jewish. Nor does Milosevic harbor any evident Hitlerian ambitions. There are no plans for bringing the rest of Europe under Serbia's fold.