I hate the cavalier way people use the horrific to describe the irritating or inconvenient, like calling the lifeguards at our small beach Sand-Nazis because they were constantly blowing their whistles or calling airport security Baggage-Nazis, no explanation necessary. I cringe when I hear someone make a thoughtless reference to a contemporary, comparing him or her to Hitler. This is because, as a graduate student, I studied Germany and Eastern Europe. I hung out, during that time, in the cellars of beastly charisma, totalitarianism, naked nationalism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, tyranny, and genocide, becoming intimate with the unique qualities of the Nazi Reich and the people and circumstances which baked the cake known today as the Holocaust. Irreverent as I am, this piece of history has a sacredness for me. It was a lesson of shocking proportions that we could be learning from forever. The ability to pull off such an immense crime while verifying it and supporting it with the use of timetables, detailed records, the military structure and code, and the rule of law is uncanny. No nation amongst the civilized could possibly allow it to happen again. But it’s become so easy to accuse the cable company of fascism and the health care industry of being Nazis, that I bristle when I hear the words tossed about like balloons.
So I winced when first I heard former Mexican President Felipe Calderon compare Trump’s racist campaign to the “exploitation of raw nerves that Hitler did in his day.” But I understood that the president was not speaking lightly; not after Trump declared his intention to build a wall between Mexico and the U.S. in order to keep those Mexican rapists and drug dealers away from our borders. I understood what he meant on seeing the flushed cheeks of excitement on the first Americans to embrace the message. Then Anne Frank’s step-sister, Eva Schloss, now 86 years old, compared Donald Trump to Hitler and I thought, “She should know.” She lived under his authority. She survived Auschwitz.
illustrated by Stephen Gammell
Last night, my husband read, out loud, an article he found on BBC.com with the headline: Google Bans Plug-in That Picks Out Jews. This plug-in, run through Google’s Chrome browser, was developed by a group called “alt-right”, designed specifically to locate people with common Jewish names. These people are then subjected to anti-Semitic abuse through various social media conduits. Jonathan Weisman, an editor in the Washington bureau of the New York Times, is one of those Jews. According to Mr. Weisman, much of the hate mail came from people who flaunted their support for Donald Trump. So along with the people who hate Mexicans because they’re low-lifes and the people who hate Muslims because they belong to a group that’s taught to murder Christians, there are these Trump supporters who are determined to clip the Jewish cartel of power, which doesn’t exist, never did, but refuses to die because of people like Trump and those he exploits.
You’re not a Muslim or a Mexican? You’re not a Jew? Mazel Tov. But if you think you are safe from the concentric circles of fear and contempt spreading from Trumps mouth, beware. The quote of Martin Niemoller’s is almost too familiar to repeat. So why can’t we remember it?
In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist; And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist; And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew; And then . . . they came for me . . .
We should know these words as well as we know that gravity holds our feet to the Earth. Who is next to be crushed by the bigotry of Donald Trump and his cohort? The Japanese, Native Americans, African Americans, homosexuals, sufferers of Parkinsons, Methodists, Atheists, the educated? Women, of course. Don’t be fooled by promises of being among the Chosen Few. Beneath the rule of a tyrannical bombast like Trump, the chosen are always, only, temporary.
The Republican leadership is falling in line behind Trump’s candidacy, believing, I think, that once he’s elected president, they will be able to control him. They are confident that they will concoct from this inarticulate swaggerer a puppet for their purposes. This is exactly what the seekers of power thought they would do with Adolph Hitler. Many thought he was too absurd to find a significant following. Many thought he would settle down once he became part of the establishment and at least he was better than the alternative. Many thought he would be stopped before it all got out of hand. Many woke up too late, with a knife to their throats. Millions suffered. Millions perished. We have been admonished never to forget and yet, somehow, it seems we have forgotten. Perhaps we’ve sneered at history as a subject for learning too long, it not bringing with it big bucks. Now we find our freely chosen ignorance approaching from behind with its teeth bared and holding no sympathy in its heart?
Here I am comparing Trump to Hitler, to whom I’ve never before made any comparison. You see, it’s time. I’m scared. We should all be scared. The American Republic stands threatened by the first overtly anti-democratic leader of a large party in its modern history—an authoritarian with no grasp of history, no impulse control, and no apparent barriers on his will to power. (Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, May 20, 2016) Those supporting Mr. Trump seem to be under a spell, convinced that Americans are alligator wrestlers and mountain men, with Thor-like strength but in need of automatic weapons to protect life and property, not well-educated because anyone especially knowledgeable is weak-kneed and lily-livered, and not well-travelled because who wants to meet anyone who isn’t a White American? They’re the enemy, and if they happen to be standing between our borders, they are to be denied positions of influence, monitored, marked, and walled off. Isn’t this all strangely familiar? We’ve seen this before. It was called a ghetto. It was known as racial cleansing. It was called Blood and Soil. We must stop it from happening here.
“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides.”
― Elie Wiesel
Terrible Things by Eve Bunting
All artwork in this blog by Stephen Gammell