Can you imagine being seven years old on a car trip with your family when your mom points to some old structures in a field and says "that's where Nazis killed Jewish people?" I remember my wide-eyed face plastered to the car window internalizing that moment. I'll never forget it.
We were living on an Army base in Mainz, Germany near Frankfort at the time. My dad was part of the Army of Occupation. The after-effects of World War II were all around us.
As we stared at the structures and landscape, my mom went on to tell us the story of how Adolf Hitler used antisemitism to stoke fear and hatred of Jews. The destruction of Jews became an official government polity when Hitler took power in 1933. The time period became known as the Holocaust defined as "the systematic, state-sponsored, persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945 across Europe and North Africa."
That's our car in the picture above where I left my wide-eyed face print on the window. In the picture to the right, I'm with my brothers and sister in a field near the remains of the internment camp. I'm the short blond girl.
Anytime I hear the word Nazi, the memory of that experience explodes in my brain and I'm taken back to that time when I learned how horrid Nazis were. I remember that wide-eyed seven-year-old girl crying inside and grieving for those who were murdered in the internment camps.
Sixty-four years later I continue to be distressed because in the year 2022 in the United States there are so many Nazi fascists touting their antisemitic racism. I see it, hear it, and read about it daily. They carry and salute the Nazi flag. They show up at Trump rallies. They stormed the U.S. Capitol. They drive around towns with Nazi flags displayed in their trucks. They are posting antisemitic BS on social media platforms. Public figures and politicians are right in the middle of it. They are a very small faction of American society, but their actions get replayed over and over by the media and that makes them seem like a huge dangerous group. If their numbers grow and they are not stopped, they will be dangerous.
These Nazis are really disgusting. I wish it were possible for all those who served in WWII to rise up out of the grave and give them a swift kick in the butt.
Among other things that he would do, my dad (on left) would shake his fist at them. You may find that humorous and it is, but those Nazis wouldn't find it so funny when real WWII patriots put knots on their heads.
Truly, though, physically fighting them would be unacceptable. The way to silence the small faction of fascists is to get louder than them and outsmart them with education. It would be a good time for all of us to research ways that "we can shake our fists at them." In his book How to Stop Fascism: History, Ideology and his youtube video, Paul Mason offers a blueprint for resisting and defeating the new far right. It may be helpful to hear what he has to say.
We do better when we work together. For the sake of posterity, we should work to defeat this fascist moment in time. We have the smarts, the passion, and the backing of the majority of our fellow Americans to shut these nasty antisemitic racists down. If we don't, we empower them and that's what led to the rise of Hitler, World War II, and the slaughter of six million Jews. And that's what led me to see, as a seven-year-old, where the slaughter took place and that's why that memory is ingrained in my mind forever. I don't want anyone else to witness something like that. It's time for real America to shut it down.
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At King Ryan Radio, we believe that working to create our best selves will manifest a better world for all.
Jo
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