Originally published in The Chattanooga Times Free Press
I’ve rarely given in-person presentations since the pandemic. Taking a deep breath, I did speak to Civitan International’s Chattanooga chapter about my documentary: Untold, Stories of a World War Liberator. With Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) on April 23, it was relevant timing for a topic that’s very personal for me. My dad was a U.S military intelligence office during the war assigned to interrogate Nazi POWs. My documentary is based on his wartime letters.
I’m honored to carry on his legacy, especially for our youth, which is why pre-pandemic, I spoke at a local high school’s Holocaust education elective class. I began by asking the students why they’d chosen this Holocaust elective. One student said, “I wanted to hear both sides of the story,” and added that she’d read online that the Holocaust is just propaganda and didn’t really happen.
I explained to the Civitan audience that this wasn’t unusual. A U.S. Millennial Holocaust Knowledge & Awareness Survey in 2020 polled 11,000 millennials and Gen-Z Americans (ages 18-39)? About 63% of them didn’t know that 6 million Jews were killed. And 11% claimed that Jews had caused the Holocaust. That number was 14% here in Tennessee.
I wanted the students to understand that denial magnifies the “existence of evil”, a phrase dad used to describe Hitler’s reign. To underscore this, I recruited a student to read aloud one of Dad’s letters: “A large part of the population never belonged to the Nazi Party, but 99.9% blame Hitler only for losing the war and seem to suffer no pangs of conscience over the origins of the war or the ideology of the Party.”
He nervously cleared his throat and continued: “The stories of German cruelty and oppression are not just stories — they are the real thing. And much of this was done by what we call ordinary people … People who were jealous, griped, depraved, and plain scared…Confront them with the truth and they cannot believe it.” He handed the letters back to me, his hands shaking. The students sat silently, looking horrified.
The Civitan audience sat silently, too, as I shared the similarities between Hitler’s fascism and our current situation. Once an advanced culture, German society following World War I was focused its economic Depression. Hitler exploited the fear, humiliation, hate, and distress when he became chancellor. He used existing laws to destroy German democracy and create a dictatorship, and crush opposition. With a combination of legal moves, propaganda and intimidation, he crushed any opposition and transformed Germany. At the same time, Hitler promoted the superiority of the Aryan (White) race and promised national “blood purity”, a Middle Ages term that referred to the impurity of Jewish blood.
After my presentation, several Civitan members asked me to write about today’s echo of history. How Trump’s use of federal power is transforming American culture. His intimidation strategies aim to neuter potential sources of opposition: law firms, government agencies, nonprofits, universities, media, arts groups, healthcare and science-based organizations. His promises to seal our borders has broad appeal, and we hear echoes of the blood purity issue. Further, Trump mainstreams those echoes by pardoning White Supremacists like Proud Boys for their role in the Jan. 6 Capital insurrection.
What to do? First, understand that demeaning and denial allowed fascism’s 1930s rise and should be rejected today. Next, come together in the current chaos and don’t be intimidated into silence. Dad interviewed the few who opposed Hitler’s authoritarianism and admired their courage. They had few supporters and Hitler squashed them. So we must support today’s opposers, encourage and emulate them. They are our best future.
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It’s a shame that more people aren’t tuned into this. Great article!