It has been 80 years since Auschwitz was liberated, yet its false narratives continue to entrap us today.

The Nazis lured the Jews of Europe onto the trains by promising work abroad, and at the end of their journey, they were met with deceitful assurances about showers.

There are also the lies the global community told itself as these horrors unfolded. They claimed to be doing all they could, despite not bombing the tracks leading to Auschwitz, the St. Louis ship filled with Jewish refugees being sent back to Europe, and Britain halting Jewish immigration to Palestine, thus preventing the escape of many thousands who could have been saved.

In the years that followed, lies were told for the sake of convenience. In 1985, President Ronald Reagan referred to Wehrmacht soldiers as “victims” at Bitburg cemetery, just like those in concentration camps.

Elie Wiesel challenged Reagan on live TV

It was too late to halt this final falsehood, but my father, Elie Wiesel, was determined to try. His response garnered worldwide attention.

“This is not about politics,” he asserted to Reagan on national television, “it’s about good and evil. We must never mix them up, as I have witnessed the SS in action and have seen their victims.”

My father was unsuccessful, as Reagan went on to honor those at Bitburg, blurring the line between the guilty and their victims.

Today, just 40% of individuals under 35 recognize the Holocaust as an established historical fact. The situation is even bleaker in the Middle East, where a mere 16% of Israel’s neighbors accept this reality.

Furthermore, the issue is not simply one of ignorance. Many in the younger generation, echoing Reagan’s moral ambiguity, perceive today’s Hamas fighters as victims comparable to the Israelis they abducted on October 7, 2023. For them, Hamas represents the oppressed hero.

My father stood against indifference. However, what we are confronting now is different. Opinion on the Israel-Hamas conflict is widespread; it is not indifference but rather confusion. Do well-meaning individuals mistakenly believe they are protecting their families, just as many Christians in the Middle Ages thought when they accused Jews of poisoning wells after witnessing the so-called blood libel?

It is challenging to confront evil directly. Witnessing jihadists in Gaza celebrate and fire weapons as 90 Palestinian prisoners are exchanged for merely three Israeli women is troubling.

One of the individuals set to be freed by Israel is Abu Warda, who was responsible for the deaths of 45 civilians in the 1996 bus bombings in Jerusalem. How can anyone say he shares the same moral standing as these women?

Hamas aims to eliminate Israel

It is simpler to believe that this militant group seeks their own state than to truly understand their declaration: that their mission, as outlined in the Hamas charter, is the annihilation of Israel. Following the ceasefire, Hamas has reasserted control over Gaza, and we will see them inflict further harm on its people.

In his Bitburg address, my father referenced the esteemed New York Times executive editor Abe Rosenthal, who had visited Poland and wrote a powerful piece in 1990 titled “Forgive them not, for they knew what they did.”

The American desire to forgive and forget is compelling, especially when the violence pardoned was committed against others. Yet we must not extend forgiveness to Hamas. Confronting evil is essential when and wherever it appears. We have no time to lose.

Good intentions alone are insufficient.

My grandfather Shlomo Wiesel, who lost his life at Buchenwald just a week after Auschwitz’s liberation, descended from a line of resilience. My great-grandfather was killed as a medic during World War I, forced into service by the Kaiser. Now, I see my father’s reprimand of Reagan utilized by those who despise Israel, claiming that combating indifference equates to blindly endorsing the extermination of a democratic nation.

Facing a mob is daunting, particularly when it includes our own – friends, coworkers, or even our children – engulfed in a profound moral confusion that devastates college campuses. On this anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation, we must critically evaluate these questions:

Will we continue to rationalize the images of Palestinian civilians celebrating and actively supporting Hamas in the October 7 attacks, similar to how previous generations rationalized the actions of the SS, the Wehrmacht, and the populace that sustained them?

Will we persist in conflating the roles of perpetrator and victim, of terrorism and just warfare, losing sight of the difference between Hamas, which uses human shields, and the Israel Defense Forces, which strives more than any other military to minimize casualties while targeting tunnels designed to facilitate another Holocaust?

Will we keep granting moral legitimacy to those who portray the small nation of Israel as the villain for attempting to survive?

To distinguish good from evil, we must first choose between truth and falsehood.

Forty years ago, President Reagan had not grasped this crucial lesson. Eighty years after Auschwitz’s liberation—have we?

Elisha Wiesel is the son of Marion Wiesel and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel.