"They Were Our Neighbors"

 A few years ago, Dan and I visited the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, where there was a special exhibit entitled, "They Were Our Neighbors."  Holocaust survivors voices told their stories of how their Christian neighbors, people with whom they shared meals, the highs and lows of life, whose children went to school and played together, turned them over to the Nazis with a ring of the doorbell.

"Are the people who live next door to you Jewish?"

"Yes, they are."

This story has haunted me for years.  I have long wondered how I might have reacted if I was the Catholic Pole living next door to the Jewish Pole, and had heard from friends and family that if I didn't give up my Jewish neighbor, me and mine would be taken into custody by the Nazis along with the neighborhood Jewish families.  Could I have stood strong by their side?  Would it have been considered caving in if my choice was to protect my family in lieu of theirs?

I'm writing about this now because another quote I remember from the exhibit was a Christian who stated, "No one ever thought the Nazis would do what they said they were going to do."  As in pull Jewish people from their homes, trash their businesses, ship them off to concentration camps in boxcars.  Gas them.  Women.  Children.  Babies.

At the time, I naively thought, what the hell did you think they were going to do?  People were disappearing, not coming home, you heard the rumors, you ignored them, you said, "No, of course not, the Nazis aren't going to do that!"

I believe there may be a correlation now.

Repeatedly, I have seen interviewers talk with people at Trump rallies, asking them what they think about the former President's documented statements that he will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.  "No, he really won't do that," Trump supporters say.  Add a tariff of 10-20% to all nondomestic goods sold in the United States.  "No, of course he won't do that."  End the Russian-Ukraine war in 24 hours.  "Ha, ha, no one can do that."  And on it goes.

Here's the thing.  His team learned mightily from their 2016-2020 run, and as best as can be determined, all the guard rails that might have kept the 2.0 version of Donald J. Trump from doing the things he states he is going to do but you, naively as I did, thought he wasn't going to do?  Gone.

Yes, this is not on the scale of Nazi Germany but still.  We are, in many of these circumstances, talking about our neighbors.

And ps, DJT--not one woman needs you to protect her.  Not.  One.