My parent's lifetime ago
the world watched
millions of human beings
be ripped from their lives
tortured
abused
murdered
under a banner of
ugly, fear-fueled supremacy.
"That'll never happen here."
are the words I hear.
My father was three years old in 1933
when the walls of Hitler's first concentration camps
rose
to imprison
anyone perceived
as opposing Nazi policies.
"That'll never happen here."
are the star-spangled rally cries I hear
Six million people died
at the hands of vicious, small men
empowered beyond reason,
smoothing their barbarity
to their believers
behind slogans and chants
and the polished fear-fueled facade
of Nazi swag.
"That'll never happen here."
is what I hear
as swastikas are brandished
in Charlottesville and beyond
by marching white supremacists
carrying fear and guns and self-righteous hate.
The holocaust survivors
spent...spend...their lives
staring at the tattooed numbers on their arms--
I can't begin to understand
what it is to live
with the burden and gift
of that kind of survival.
"That'll never happen here."
is what I hear
as our president pardons and praises
an Arizona sherriff for
brandishing the kind of inhumane brutality
against those perceived
to be illegal immigrants
that Hitler himself would've recognized.
It seems pretty clear to me
that the 83 years
between
the Holocaust
and
President Trump's America
are collapsing into each other.
It seems pretty clear to me
that there are terrifying similarities
between the forces
that pushed Hitler to power
and the forces that are giving
President Trump free rein
to do, say, and sign what he pleases.
It seems pretty clear to me
That this is EXACTLY what's happening here.
Sources
Arizona Sherriff Joe Arpaio
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: History of Holocaust
https://www.ushmm.org/learn/timeline-of-events/1933-1938
Jewish Virtual Library: History: Organized efforts to push back against rise of Hitler 1933
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/could-we-have-stopped-hitler
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