Not gonna lie; I’m on the verge of tears right now.
Because this is what I see every night when I come into work. I work at a Jewish-run elder care non-profit. Even in the memory care unit, we’re seeing a rise in the residents’ anxiety levels, to the point where they’ve had to stop turning on the TV news stations (and these residents still love the news). Multiple residents are direct survivors of the Shoah; some barely escaped, and almost all of them lost family members in death camps. One resident was one of the children saved by the Kindertransport. Many other residents tell me stories of when they were kids, how their neighborhoods were destroyed and relocated and of the siblings and parents they no longer have. One newer resident was finally starting to settle in when Charlottesville happened. Even though we immediately changed the channel, she was shaken. She was inconsolable for hours. When I left for the night, she was still crying and refused to leave her room. Even now, weeks after the direct event, she still is wary to come to programs, fearing that if she is away from her room too long that her possessions and place will be stolen from her like they were in 1938. Even with dementia, even with Alzheimers, these residents remember what happened. They cannot forget their lost loved ones. They cannot forget the things stolen from them. They cannot forget, period.
Because this fight against Neo-Nazis isn’t just a theoretical thing. These groups know that people are forgetting about Shoah; they take great strength knowing that people from that generation are dying. When they regard WWII as a “dark cloud” hanging over the heads of this generation, it is not with a solemn regard, with they knowledge that we must not forget lest we repeat our mistakes. These White supremacists, these White Neo-Nazis, see Shoah remembrance as something they will gladly eradicate. When people gladly throw out the Nazi salute, chant the 14 words, or march under the banner of “hail victory,” they are two things and two things only – Nazi apologists and Nazi supporters.
Shoah survivors are not gone. They are still here. We need to stop ignoring that this normalization of Nazis marching in the street harms real people. It’s not just ideas. It’s not just “free speech”.
We cannot forget. We cannot forget. We cannot forget.
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