Remembering the Past/Anticipating the Future: A Professor From the White Working Class Talks With a Survivor of the Holocaust About Our Troubled World

Jerry’s Early Life in Poland and Introduction to Hitler ³

“I was born in 1927. Until age twelve I had a good childhood in Plock, Poland, a small town of 40,000 people,” Jerry begins. I check my tape player, which sits on the table between us in Jerry’s living room; my small video camera runs in the background. This setup is a familiar scene for us, and I quickly become engrossed in Jerry’s story.

“I had loving parents and siblings and many friends. We were middle class economically. My father was in management and worked for a factory making machinery and agricultural tools. Assimilated, we considered ourselves Polish, though as Jews we observed the High Holidays, went to synagogue, and arranged for a Rabbi to prepare me for my Bar Mitzvah.”

“I went to a progressive Catholic school that was excellent academically. When the Catholic kids had catechism, we Jews were provided with a room where a Rabbi taught us the Old Testament. Sometimes we’d hear anti-Semitic slurs when we left the class, like ‘Christ-killers.’ I don’t know if the kids meant that or were just repeating what they heard their parents say, or just acting as kids sometimes will, but it made us very uncomfortable. Otherwise my experience at school was good.”

“I was a good student who made top grades, though a prankster at times.” Jerry laughs. “The teachers had a black book to communicate with parents if a student misbehaved. Though meant to last the year, my book was filled by the end of a month.” Now we laugh together.

“So other than a few slurs from the non-Jewish students, your childhood sounds idyllic.”

Jerry pauses and stares ahead. Then, “I guess you could say that. But from the age of twelve through what should have been my adolescence, there is a gap filled with terror that only a Holocaust survivor can fully understand. I often pinch myself, wondering if it really happened. But I know it did. In a way, my parents’ generation lived a fools’ paradise, the writing was on the wall, or more precisely in Mein Kampf. But whatever truths there were, they were inconvenient, and life went on.”

“Would you talk about how your life changed in adolescence?” I jot notes as Jerry talks.

“Around 1939, my paternal grandparents, who lived in Hamburg, were expelled by Germans and came to stay with us. For the first time, we heard first person accounts of what was happening there. My father also listened constantly to the radio. He was a news junkie, similar to how I am now.”

“Is the radio how you first heard Hitler?”

“Yes, though it was almost eighty years ago, I remember it as if it were yesterday. Our neighbors invited themselves to our home to listen to nightly broadcasts from Berlin. We’d all sit around father’s new pride and joy, his latest model Telefunken radio. I remember it had a light that changed when you tuned the radio and adjusted the volume. We called it the magic eye. ⁴ Even when the radio was tuned, the sound was raspy, guttural, and ominous. As my father translated the German into Polish for us, we were stupefied and frightened by what we heard: Hitler’s yelling, the shrieking that seemed to be coming from a huge audience, the applause and Heil Hitlers, and then ranting again and again. Then after the neighbors left, we went back to listening to opera music, the anodyne for our fears.”

“I felt uncomfortable when my mother showed disdain, if not outright hostility, for the broadcast. I gathered from my parents’ animated dinner table exchanges that my mother was upset that the money my father spent for the radio could have been used for winter clothes. Their discussion often became heated when my mother dismissed the bombastic, apoplectic, paper hanger, and wannabe dictator, as a clown.”

“You see, during her teens, my mother had traveled with her adoptive parents throughout Europe, and in her mind nothing matched the German hospitality and kindness, culture and arts, music festivals and museums. Regardless of what we were hearing on the radio, my mother insisted Germany would never tolerate Hitler. ‘People will not go to war for him, they won’t follow him,’ mother argued with my father. Upset and worried, my father insisted, ‘You have those hundreds of thousands of people yelling and screaming for him. They’re ready to die for him. And you’re saying that he’s nothing more than a clown?’”

“We heard Hitler promising the sky, that his Reich (empire) would last one thousand years and be all powerful. It was a complete fantasy that turned into a disaster. But the Germans were euphoric. They were entranced by Hitler because he was a showman who aroused their emotions. Picture a speaker screeching and screaming and people being almost hypnotized by it. He had the whole crowd under his spell.”

“That’s why I’ve been afraid of Trump. He mesmerizes people too. When he was running, I didn’t think he could win either. I thought the public, particularly the evangelicals, would be too embarrassed to vote for him, a man boasting about his peccadilloes with women and then denying them. Deriding high taxes and in a brazen in your face challenge refusing to disclose his own. On the campaign trail lamenting the terrible shape of our military and then immediately as President extolling the armed forces that miraculously—and presumably of his own doing—became the envy of the world. Shivers ran down my spine when I viewed his basking in the glow of the crowds at the victory tours, so similar to Hitler. When I watch Trump, I can’t help seeing Hitler.”

“Do the similarities alarm you?”

“Not alarm—they petrify me.”

Comparing Trump With Hitler

“Jerry, this is powerful and frightening, coming from you. Many writers have compared Trump to Hitler, such as Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, Louis C. K., and Glenn Beck; a few others, such as journalist James Marshall Crotty, have objected that these kinds of comparisons denigrate the deaths of those who died in the Holocaust and make Hitler and Nazism less shocking than they should be. ⁵ I understand that we shouldn’t make those comparisons so easily, but the association of Hitler with Trump has merit. You were there during Hitler’s reign. You understand that period in a way the rest of us don’t. Before we go on with your story, would you say more about how Trump is similar to Hitler?”

“First, the deception, Trump’s narcissism and charisma. He grabs peoples’ attention and milks it dry. And he intuitively understands that the more atrocious and bigger the lies are—if made simple and repeated often enough—the more likely they will take root. Then, of course, the most morbid insolent similarity, defaming Mexicans, Muslims, and others just like Hitler defamed Jews before killing them.”

“That dovetails with a report I found online,” I say and read: “Hitler’s ‘primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.’ ⁶ Does that sound familiar?”

“Unfortunately yes. Just like his chants of Mexicans rapists and crooked Hillary.”

“And lock her up, build the wall, and drain the swamp,” I add. “As with Hitler, to make propaganda work, the propagandist must repeat his slogans unendingly” (Delia, 1971).

“It all became the lexicon of his supporters,” Jerry says. “This is what Hitler did with slurs against the Jews. In Mein Kampf, he calls Jews ‘maggots in a rotting corpse, a plague worse that the Black Death, a pack of rats, parasites, bloodsuckers,’ ⁷ and more, and his faithful legions took it to their hearts . . .”

“and to his gatherings with the crowd refrains and repetitions, just like Trump’s rallies,” I add.

“. . . and eventually to Treblinka and Auschwitz,” says Jerry. Our passion cooled by the reality of this memory, we sit in silence for a while. I look down at my notes; Jerry sighs.

“There’s an adversary—a scapegoat—who must be conquered,” I say into the silence.

“Yes, Hitler focused on Jews first and foremost, and to a lesser extent homosexuals, gypsies, the disabled, Jehovah’s witnesses, political opponents, and ethnic minorities—anybody who did not fit his ideal,” Jerry says.

“Similarly Trump has many scapegoats—immigrants, Muslims, Mexicans, minorities, liberals. All but ‘real Americans’—White, preferably rural, Christian, and conservative,” I add.

“As with Hitler, the master race must be protected. Both Hitler and Trump knew how to exploit the worst elements of human beings as well as how to stir them,” Jerry continues, wiping his eyes.

“It’s a reality show,” I say. “Emotion and hope for the uneducated. I read that Hitler once mused, ‘What luck for governments that the peoples they administer don’t think!’” ⁸

“And Trump ‘loves the poorly educated,’” ⁹ Jerry reminds. “His supporters don’t have to think too much. In these respects, Hitler and Trump were cut from the same cloth.”

“Trump employs simple symbols and slogans, like in a sporting event,” I say. “For Trump, it’s the red ‘Make America Great Again’ hat.”

“And for Hitler, it was the dreaded swastika.”

“Isn’t there a similarity in that both men want you to believe in their superiority?” I ask.

“Yes, Hitler proclaimed that only the ‘genius, the great man’ could save Germany,” ¹⁰ reminds Jerry.

“And Trump claims ‘he alone can fix it.’” ¹¹

“Trump presents himself as a great man parading his wealth,” offers Jerry.

“Maybe, but there are a lot of wealthy people who can’t sway others,” I respond.

“True, but still some think that standing by him elevates them to his stature. It’s a tonic for an inferiority complex. He’s a poor man’s rich man. We’re in the same club.”

“Do you think people thought about Hitler in the same way?” I ask.

“Oh, yes. He’s one of us, yes.”

“I think that kind of identification is a key,” I agree. “He talks like ‘the people’ talk, in that he uses simple language with definitive words—some of his favorite being ‘believe me,’ ‘great,’ ‘winning,’ and ‘money.’ ¹² He digresses, interrupting a thought with unrelated topics, and includes little to no detail or sustained argument. With his off the cuff and seemingly spontaneous speech, he is saying, ‘I’m one of you, you know? I’m talking to you, plain as can be. You’re my buddy.’”

“They both were obsessed with the adulation of the crowds,” Jerry says. “Hitler had huge numbers at his rallies because the Nazis would punish no-shows. Though Trump lies about how many show up, he hasn’t gone that far—yet. But the similarities are too close for comfort.”

“Is there anything in your experience with Hitler that might help us to understand peoples’ attraction to Trump—after the spontaneous emotion has worn off, I mean?”

From Admiration to Confusion and Terror in 1939

“It’s hard to admit, but there was a time I was intrigued with the German army.” I nod for Jerry to continue. “The first few weeks they came into Poland, many of us Jewish children were impressed by them. The Germans were so clean and smelled like a combination of good cologne and leather boots. English Leather cologne still makes me think of them. They wore impressive uniforms, marching and singing joyful songs in their daily parades. At first I thought maybe Mother was right, that the Germans couldn’t be so bad. So when the kids of the ethnic Germans in our town dressed up like the Hitler youth in their black pants and white shirts, my Jewish friends and I scraped together similar outfits. We followed the Germans, marching and chanting ‘Heil Hitler’ until a neighbor told my parents about it.”

“I also was intrigued when the Germans converted Beit Midash, a small house of worship in our town, to a brothel. We young boys were not supposed to know such places existed, but our stirring hormones made us snicker and whisper about our find. At the time, the marching and discovering the brothel were all exciting fun and games. Of course, we didn’t understand what it all meant. But now I can see how suddenly adulthood was thrust on us and how these events stood as a metaphor for the humiliation we would continue to face.”

“I wonder how much Trump’s supporters are similar to what you experienced? There’s an attraction to the forbidden and the glitter and showmanship, without consideration of the long-term consequences?” I muse. Then I ask Jerry, “At what moment did you realize that what was impressive and exciting about the Nazis was in fact horrifying?”

“I don’t know the moment, but I do remember matters worsening when the police and the SS arrived a few months later and we began hearing the word ‘Nazi.’ Jews were subjected to ever stricter restrictions. For example, we were forced to live on only a few designated streets. Since my family already lived there, our displaced relatives and some friends moved in with us. Our three-room apartment for five now had ten people living in it. But it all was happening gradually, so we didn’t realize the trouble we were in, until the attacks began.”

“Tell me about the attacks.”

“Gendarmes—military police—attacking old Jews on the street and shaving off their beards was a Nazi favorite; beatings and assorted personal humiliations were par for the course. The Germans also rounded up people and forced them to do hard labor. Once when I was only twelve, I was caught and taken to a local hospital where they were sprucing up a lawn and digging out big trees. We younger kids were given rakes to clean up the brush. The older folks who couldn’t handle the harder work were beaten. It was the first time I realized how bad things were.”

“Were you surprised when you experienced that for the first time?”

“Not really. By then we already knew things were bad, because of the new laws, the crowding, the ever harsher posters, and shorter curfews. One of the worst things was the confusion. The Germans used the power of deception and confusion to keep us off balance as much as they depended on their brutal strength and weapons.”

“Give me an example of how that worked.”

“Signs and posters about curfews were plastered everywhere. One day they might read that the curfew is six o’clock. So you go out at two o’clock thinking you are okay until six, and you are beaten and arrested at four-thirty because the posters they put in other places said the curfew was at four. It was psychological warfare and deception.”

“I feel some of that confusion now,” I offer. “I’m never sure what Trump is going to say or do. He seems to contradict himself, first going in one direction and then another. As soon as our attention turns to one topic, he’s tweeting another lie that the media and the rest of us turn to. I wonder if this is intentional, to keep us off guard?”

Jerry nods. “You know it is. And to get rid of the heat from the previous lie.”

“Though I live with a generalized fear that Trump will lash out one day and push the nuclear button or start a war, or over time that the earth will implode from neglect and abuse, I still feel relatively safe day to day. Of course, I have concerns about the damage Trump’s policies will do to women’s rights. But it’s folks who aren’t in the majority or moderately well off that I worry most about every day—the poor, gay people, Muslims, Blacks, Mexicans, Jews.” As I look at Jerry, a picture of my Jewish spouse comes into view. A chill goes down my spine.

“Would you talk about what it was like to be discriminated against during the Holocaust?” I ask. “Being rounded up because you were Jewish and taken to ghettos shows what can happen under an oppressive regime. I hope that doesn’t happen here, but given the photos of undocumented Mexicans being rounded up for deportation, along with the Attorney General’s inflammatory words and restrictive policies on immigration, it’s not out of the question.”

Being Rounded Up and Living in Ghettos

“In 1941 my mother, two sisters, and I were told suddenly we were going to be ‘resettled,’” Jerry says. “One day we were ordered by German soldiers—mind you, not even the dreaded SS, just the Werhmaht—to take whatever belongings we could carry with us and stand in the street to wait for ‘transportation.’ We had no idea where they were taking us.”

“Around midnight, the flatbed trucks arrived and we had to climb aboard. With five or six hundred of us packed like sardines in the trucks, there was hardly enough room for us, let alone our belongings. After a long trek in rain and sleet, we wound up in East Prussia. ¹³ We slept on straw on the floor in an empty army camp for two nights. Lacking any toilets, we attended to our biological functions in a field covered with a sheet of ice.” ¹⁴

Noting that Jerry is emotional, I say, “Let’s take a break, and eat some of that matzo ball soup I brought.”

Jerry blows his nose and then flashes a smile. “Good idea. It’s my favorite. Not like that nothing soup we got in Bodzentyn.”

***

After enjoying the food and casual conversation, I say, “Tell me about Bodzentyn.”

“Finally we were taken to a small town—shtetl in Yiddish—where we were housed inside a vacant storefront within an unwalled ghetto, and fed small portions of bread and watered down soup. ¹⁵ The hunger was excruciating and it was dangerous to be on the street. Once a visiting gendarme caught me and took me to a local tavern to kill me. He seemed to have a quota each time he came to town. The psycho had a gun to my head when a quick thinking store owner saved me by saying she didn’t want her floor to get dirty. He let me go.” ¹⁶

“After a few months, my older sister and I left that hellhole and trudged all night through a forest for eighteen miles to the town of Starachowice. There, with money that friends gave us for the tickets, we boarded a train to Warsaw, hoping to reunite with our father who was in the Warsaw Ghetto. Relying on our ‘non-Jewish’ physical appearance, we hoped to pass as Gentiles and prayed nobody would ask for our papers, because we had none. My mother and younger sister, who miraculously survived Typhus, stayed behind in Bodzentyn. We hoped that eventually our sister’s health would improve and they could join us in Warsaw. But that was not to be. According to records, not long after we left them they were taken to Treblinka, a death camp and gassed.”

We pause for a while, as Jerry collects himself. The story devastates him and brings tears to his eyes. Soon he continues. “I stayed in the Warsaw Ghetto while my sister, passing as a Gentile and with forged identification, got a job in a coffee shop outside the Ghetto. Within the Ghetto, people were dying from dysentery, typhus, and starvation. Deportations were rampant and ominous rumors that death camps were the destinations, no matter how unbelievable, in time became a horrific reality. For a while I was part of a group that took belongings from houses of those who had been deported and bartered them for food outside the ghetto, constantly risking being caught by blackmailers.” ¹⁶

“I fought in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising. After running out of ammunition, I hid in a cellar of a burned out building and lived off liquefied and rotten potatoes and apples. One day, disoriented and sick with dysentery and scabies, I left my hideout and was caught and marched to the Umschagplatz, where trains were waiting to take us to our death. Some shots were fired and in the bedlam I got away from the convoy. Later that night I escaped the Ghetto through a small hole of missing bricks in the surrounding wall. I put on a clean shirt I had carried with me, a symbol of hope, and passed as a Polish kid in Warsaw, beginning a new era.” ¹⁷

“What happened then?”

“I stayed in Warsaw for a while, then later worked on a farm. Neither my language nor my appearance and mannerisms attracted the attention of my fellow Polish citizens. It’s true that a Polish boy my age helped me survive by hiding me. But it’s also true that anti-Semitism in Poland—some based on fear and some on hatred of the Jews—was rampant, and you never knew who might turn you in. I worried that a blackmailer hunting for a Jew—like a hungry carnivore hunts for his prey—might spot me. If that happened, it was either pay up or be turned over to police, neither one a good option. But I always got away. I don’t know if my escapes were just dumb luck, or luck combined with my guile in striking a deal, begging for mercy, growling with indignation, or using my athleticism to run fast. You would say I had agency and I used it.” ¹⁸

“It was a hard way of life—always hiding one thing or another—and I was glad when I could come to the United States where I didn’t have to conceal my identity.”

“Let’s take a break,” I say, “and then talk about your coming to the United States.”

Coming to the United States

“After the war, I took accelerated courses at school provided for youth whose education had been interrupted by war,” Jerry says, when we begin. “After two years, I had enough credits to enter the university where I completed a year of law school. I went by two names then—my passport showed my real name, Jerry Rawicki, and my forged documents given to me by the underground identified me as Jerry Rakowski. The name that different friends knew me by varied depending on whether I was open or not with them about being Jewish. This double life ended in 1948 when I got a visa and left for the United States.”

“Arriving in the United States must have been a shock.”

“That’s an understatement. The crossing was rough and there was a lot of seasickness. But catching a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty as The Queen Mary was easing its bulk into the New York Harbor almost seventy years ago made me forget the crossing. It was a cold day, but to me it was a feeling of warmth and safety beyond anything I could ever dream about. We stayed on Ellis Island for a few nights where we slept in our clothing on small wooden bunks.”

“Did the authorities ask you a lot of questions?”

Jerry nods. “I couldn’t understand much of what they said. But I held on to my papers and I wrote things for them, such as the name of my aunt from New York who was expecting me. Some of the people from the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society (HIAS) ¹⁹ spoke Polish and Yiddish and helped with the immigration procedures. One day, the door opened and so did heaven, as I walked out and met my aunt, who recognized me from my photo. With her greeting, I knew I was in a free world.” Jerry tears up and we sit silently for a few moments.

“HIAS still does its humanitarian, nonsectarian charitable work,” Jerry says, “but now it’s at odds with the government over Trump’s rather draconian immigration posture. HIAS actually sued president Trump over his immigration ban. ²⁰ 1948 and 2017—alternate universes.”

“Indeed. When you got to the United States, did you talk about the Holocaust?”

“No I didn’t, and people didn’t seem that interested either. So after a few months, I forgot there had been a Holocaust. I was a young guy by then, about 21, and I wanted to assimilate. I started to play tennis and meet girls.”

“Did you worry about being Jewish?”

“I wasn’t worried, but I didn’t shout about it either. Maybe the word ‘Jew’ subliminally reminded me of what for so many years I had been concealing.”

“We’ve covered much ground,” I say. “Let’s stop so that next time we can focus on how the experiences you have described affect your thoughts on the current political situation, such as immigration and building the border wall with Mexico.”

“Okay. My feelings about all things Trump are generally based on my experiences during the Holocaust,” says Jerry.

As I drive home, I consider that though I have interviewed Jerry many times about his past and we’ve talked a lot about his political beliefs, we have not tried to connect the two. I wonder how this conversation will go.

Keep Them Out and Make America Great Again

“Your stories about being an immigrant and what you witnessed during the rise of Nazism and Hitler make me think about Trump’s attack on immigration,” I say, beginning our next meeting.

“The plight of immigrants has seldom been as tragic as that of Jews in the 1930s and now the refugees fleeing the Middle East,” Jerry says. “In the isolationist United States of the 1930s, the America First advocates made it difficult to accept Jewish refugees. ²¹ The analogy between the America First then and Trump’s America First now is foreboding.”

“I understand that immigration has to be controlled, but a country can never be hermetically sealed,” Jerry continues. “The US was built by immigrants. Scapegoating Muslims has been Trump’s political ploy just as Hitler used Jews for the same purpose. How ironic that those spouting anti-immigration propaganda are descendants of immigrants. Trump’s great grandparents were German and Scottish.”

“And his son-in-law’s Jewish grandmother has spoken out about how difficult it was to enter the US during the Holocaust, with the unwelcoming anti-immigrant sentiment at the time,” I remind. “She had to scrub blood off stones in the town square after the Nazis killed intellectuals, lost her family, and tells a harrowing story of her journey from Poland through Europe and finally to America.” ²²

“She’s probably turning over in her grave, with what’s going on now,” Jerry says.

“How do you feel about Trump’s promise to build a wall on our border with Mexico?” I ask.

“Threatening the wall fits with Trump’s boastful character and provided a handy, repeatable slogan during the presidential campaign that got a big response from his supporters. Trump touted the wall under a guise of security, and his supporters read it as a way to protect racial purity and protect their jobs. But the budget, ecology concerns, private landowners, and other difficulties make it unlikely the wall will ever be built.”

“Given your experiences, do you have sympathy for the undocumented Mexican immigrants that are hiding to avoid deportation?”

“Of course I do. I remember like it was yesterday the fear of being caught by the Nazis. Yes, some of these immigrants broke the law, but they are not all rapists and villains. If they contribute to the economy and don’t participate in criminal activities, then why not let them stay? They do jobs others shy away from and they pay taxes. How can we break up families, deporting undocumented workers and leaving their grieving American kids behind? That smacks of brutality that only despotic regimes would engage in.”

“I agree,” I say. “I think Trump’s policies on immigration are a way to show the importance of his slogans, such as ‘America first’, and ‘make America great again.’ All these sayings promote nationalism and imply that somehow Americans are superior to the rest of the world and need to protect this excellence by enforcing boundaries.”

“Nationalism is something that has been practiced, or has festered—depending on its nature—since time immemorial,” Jerry replies. “Ultra-right conservatives tend to equate nationalism with patriotism, but they are not the same.”

“Snyder ²³ describes Trump as a nationalist,” I say, “‘who encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best . . . A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best . . . A nationalist will say that “it can’t happen here,” . . . [while] a patriot says that it could happen here, but that we will stop it.’”

“That’s right. Nationalism has little to do with the well-being of the country. Hitler used nationalism as a cover and distraction from his murderous rampage. Trumpian nationalism dressed up as benevolent populism bodes no good,” Jerry continues. “It is isolationism at its worst in a world where we need friends and partners in military, security, and economic cooperation. Trump trashes all of it. His lack of a global worldview is a recipe for disaster and is fueled by his craven ideology, something that could easily morph—let’s hope it does not—into dictatorship. It is reminiscent of the isolationist orientation of some of the pro-Nazi sympathizers in the US who wanted America to stay uninvolved in what was going on in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s. ²⁴ It’s a natural progression from ‘America first’ to dictatorship. This creates an insular society that enables dictatorships and that in the end could destroy the social order. We’ve seen that happen again and again in the course of history.”

I interject, “And once someone has control of the narrative—as Trump has been doing with his tweets and responses to the mainstream media . . .”

“. . . and just as Hitler and Goebbels did with their subservient ideological leaning newspapers and radio . . .,” adds Jerry.

“which was the new media at the time . . .,” I remind.

“Yes,” says Jerry. “Goebbels considered the press as the common enemy, the ‘messengers of decay.’ ²⁵ Trump’s Goebbels—Bannon—says the media should ‘keep its mouth shut.’ ²⁶ And Trump backs him by presenting the media as the opposition. ‘Lying media’ is one of his favorite expressions.” ²⁷

“Any facts he doesn’t like get called lies,” I say. “Truth no longer matters. Instead there are ‘alternative facts’ and ‘posttruth,’ which Snyder defines as prefascism.” ²⁸

Jerry nods. “And how far is this from fascism? Not far, I’m afraid.”

“Whew . . . this is intense and scary. So what do we do? How do we restore belief in truth? I think we should address these questions next time.”

Seeking Truth in Politics: Balancing Propaganda

As I drive to Jerry’s home for our next conversation, I review what I know of his involvement in politics. Jerry learned English from watching the televised hearings on McCarthy, a “no good, sickening demagogue,” he called him. He also was “dumbfounded” by his English professor at City College of New York, a dyed-in-the-wool communist, who made fun of his accent and his leaving Poland, a communist paradise, to come to the “decadent” United States. “More and more,” Jerry had explained, “I started to understand that America was not the paradise we refugees had thought it was. People were being beaten up for going out on strike. Segregation and fear of lynchings characterized the south and anti-Semitism was everywhere. ²⁹ “Yet,” Jerry had said, “I felt American people and democracy were inherently good.”

Recalling Kennedy’s assassination and the orderly change of power as well as the marching of Martin Luther King and then his assassination “as a shock and revelation at the same time,” Jerry summarized, “All these events, different sides, and diversity of opinion whet my appetite for politics, American politics in particular.”

***

Wondering how these experiences and the Holocaust play into his political beliefs now, I knock on Jerry’s door. Jerry greets me warmly while his dog barks. “I got lunch for us today,” he says, “some sandwiches.”

“Good, that will give us more time to talk about your obsession with politics and how you seek and evaluate truth in news.”

“Am I obsessed?” Jerry asks, as I turn on the tape recorder.

“Yes, and so am I.”

“Okay, I admit I have been obsessed, especially during this past election cycle.”

“From the way you say that, it seems like watching the news depressed you,” I say.

“It did,” Jerry answers. “I lost a year and a half during the primaries listening to so-called political cognoscente impressing the listeners with their punditry. They might sound like Delphic Oracles to some, but not to me. Still I got sucked in, like many others. I try to limit how much news I watch now, though I find myself still dwelling on politics since the election—just not with quite the same intensity.”

“Same for me,” I acknowledge. “Right after the election, I had trouble sleeping and had dreams about people needing rescue. Though now, four months postelection, I don’t have those dreams, I still try to limit news shows. I’m curious, what do you typically watch?”

“I’ve been a news junkie for a long while and the election juiced me up,” Jerry begins. “For news and commentary, I watch MSNBC or CNN—though with a grain of salt. For sheer unadulterated propaganda, I watch Fox.”

“What sense do you make of Fox News?”

“For a while I thought the commentators on Fox were knowledgeable and penetrating, but I came to understand that what they call ‘fair and balanced’ is anything but. They always get the last word and that word is propaganda. I stated my case in a letter I sent to the Tampa Bay Times before O’Reilly was fired.” Jerry opens the folder in front of him and reads:

There was once a Ministerium fur Propaganda that paved the way for the Genocide in World War II. It demonized, vilified, insinuated, incited, prevaricated, and mocked. It magnified real and perceived fears and allayed them with a promise of the Great Thousand Year Reich. It overstepped the most rudimentary norm of civil discourse substituting it with frenzied rallies unmatched in its fervor since hail the Cesar spectacles. Accentuating religious, ethnic and racial differences was the Ministerium’s hallmark. Every fact, statement and occurrence was twisted, spun, eviscerated and flaunted on the public. The art of incitement to violence had no parallel. Now we see the incarnation of the Ministerium in a form of Fox cable network. Presiding over the network and its willing accomplices . . . Mr. O’Reilly has been spreading pure unvarnished bias and malevolent propaganda . . .

“That’s a powerful and condemning statement, Jerry. Do you think MSNBC and CNN are is propaganda too?”

“Yes, but in different shades of gray—though not fifty of them.” Jerry laughs at his joke and I join in. “Of course, I have always gravitated toward the center left, and maybe I overlook some of the faults of liberal politicians.”

“I have trouble watching Fox,” I say. “It gets me too upset. I know that both Fox and MSNBC, in particular, play to their polarized audiences. But Fox News was designed to be a political operation and it shows. ³⁰ At least MSNBC tries to provide news and they have hired some centrist commentators, such as Bryan Williams, and even some right-leaning ones, such as Greta van Susteren. I probably shouldn’t say this, but the newscasters at MSNBC on the whole seem smarter and deeper to me and make more convincing arguments than those at Fox. And their commentators don’t seem as loose with the facts as those on Fox do.”

“Would you feel that way if they didn’t share most of your opinions?” Jerry asks.

“That’s hard to know,” I acknowledge, smiling. “But sometimes I do find MSNBC to be too predictable and I don’t always agree with their analyses. I’m also aware that both MSNBC and Fox do some of what they do because they are managed by their producers to do what is profitable. ³⁰ Really, to unwind, I prefer late night comedy shows as a way to get the highlights along with the deeper analysis provided in the New York Times and Tampa Bay Times.”

“Do you think watching all three networks leads you to a balanced perspective that gets to the truth?” I ask.

“I hope I can distill some truth, though it hasn’t been easy,” says Jerry. “You need all sides of the story. I make a conscious effort to try to be objective, but with the political mind-sets so wide apart, I sometimes give up.”

“It is as though they are reporting on different countries and series of events,” I respond. “I have to admit I don’t feel objective,” I say, checking the recorder, “if you mean listening to both sides with an open mind.”

“I do, though I have contempt for extreme positions on both sides,” Jerry says. “Extremists always seem to find the pulpit, but they are not good leaders. That’s true of Black leadership as well as White. Al Sharpton, for example, is a demagogue par excellence.”

“How do Black Americans get the floor if their leaders don’t take radical positions?” I ask.

“There is no denying that radical steps are sometimes necessary to change the status quo, but burning and plundering—like what happened in Ferguson after the Grand Jury refused to indict the White policeman—is not the way,” Jerry responds. “Neither are the shallow apologies for violence, a staple some of the Black politicians are good at.”

“But you know that the media reports on Blacks and Whites differently,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“Take hurricane Katrina. Blacks were described as criminals shown in photos as ‘looting’ food stores while Whites were shown as victims ‘finding’ food,” I explain.

“Of course, we don’t know the context for those different photos,” says Jerry.

“Others have argued that as well. ³¹ But in any case, you’re talking about only a few people who act out in these tragic situations. Even strong leaders can’t control everyone.”

“Granted,” says Jerry. “Still when it comes to politics, I would rather go with Plato who eschewed control in favor of harmony. ³²

“That’s nice if you can achieve it. But we’re far away from harmony these days. I feel strongly about this issue because of the racism I lived with in the rural south in the 1950s and 1960s. Even after our schools integrated in 1964-1965, my parents told me to stay away from ‘Colored Hill,’ where most of the Black people lived. I remember well the ‘colored’ section of the movie theater—Blacks were allowed to sit only in the balcony—and the annual Black face minstrel shows put on by the White Lions Club and Volunteer Firemen. Once I got to know the Black youth in my school and then in college, I rebelled against this racism. Seeking understanding of race relations and racial tension is what led me to study sociology in college and has been one of my main motivations for studying discrimination and maintaining interest in politics.”

“I encountered the same prejudice when I moved from New York to Alabama and worked as an optician in the early 1950s,” says Jerry. “We had ‘White’ and ‘colored’ water fountains and waiting rooms at our place of business. So yes, race is a factor, but I’m not sure that Black leaders have the answers. Most of them don’t live with poor Black people, they don’t feel like them, and they don’t care about them; they just use them. There are a few—though not many—exceptions.”

“You’re expressing similar sentiments to what has been said about Democrats and poor White people,” I say, rather than question Jerry on his position about Black leaders.

“Exactly. Democrats say they are for the poor working class but in reality they used the White working class for votes just like the Black leadership used poor Blacks.”

“I think it’s more complicated than that,” I murmur, making a note to revisit this topic later. “So what’s the solution? Is the key for someone to run for office who is more centrist?”

“Yes, but it also has to be somebody who has a vision, with no hidden agendas.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible in politics,” I say.

“Maybe not, but the vision has to be something that the average person on the street can understand, identify with, and benefit from.”

“Someone like Bernie?”

“A socialist Jew. Are you kidding? A leader has to be a realist in heart and mind. We need someone who is socially smart as well as politically smart with feet grounded firmly in the realities of the moment. Sadly, I don’t see anybody like that around.”

“We also need someone who can reach different audiences, as Bernie tried to do in the Town Halls in West Virginia.”

“I doubt that will happen with our extreme polarization,” says Jerry. “We tend to fall into the trap of worshipping our leaders, like people worshipped Stalin or Mao.”

“I could be accused of taking an insular position as well,” I admit. “Just as I choose not to watch Fox News, I also find myself not wanting to talk to Trump supporters. Most of my friends are progressives; most of my Facebook friends share my orientation and those who don’t unfriended me long ago. The hardest thing though is not being able to talk to my family, who are all Trump supporters, about politics—a common problem now.” ³³

“Have you tried?”

“Not much. Long ago, I told my Mississippi brother-in-law to quit sending me conservative-leaning emails. Then right after Trump was elected, my 80-year-old brother emailed me a rather innocuous article praising Trump. I overreacted, lashing out about how bad Trump was. The next time I called my brother, he didn’t answer and twice after that he didn’t get on the phone after I talked to my sister-in-law, breaking our normal pattern. In my memory we’ve never had a spat about anything. The fourth time I called, he answered and we both pretended nothing had happened—the southern working-class way of dealing with disputes. Though we used to argue about politics, we haven’t mentioned Trump or current politics in our numerous calls since. I even find myself a bit nervous about visiting there because that area is ‘Trump country,’ and my brother will have Fox News on all day. Same is true with the community and most of our neighbors at our North Carolina mountain home. ³⁴ Though we used to talk superficially about political matters, ³⁵ since Trump, we now rarely do. Sometimes that makes for awkward silences, but it means we can continue to be neighborly.”

“Though I like to hear all sides, I share the same contempt for many of Trump’s supporters as you do,” says Jerry. “They were hoping Trump would shake his magic wand and all their troubles would disappear. Trump used a contemptible bundle of lies, pie in the sky promises, stoking dystopian hysteria, and rode it all the way to the top. I’m often asked by friends how I feel about him and those who put him in office; my answer: embarrassed.”

“This is probably a good place to stop for the day,” I say, sensing that we both are feeling low. As I prepare to leave, I feel sad that our conversation today did little to move us in the direction of hopes, much less possible solutions.

Apparently Jerry feels the same way. “How do we come to understand all this better?” he asks, “and not just parrot what we hear on the TV? For example, I’d like to understand how Trump managed to sway ordinary, good people. It had to be more than stirring their emotion, given that they unwittingly voted against many of their own interests. You grew up in a rural White working-class culture. Do you have any insights? Maybe understanding that phenomenon would provide a key to how we got into this mess and how we get out of it.”

“Not sure I know much about that culture anymore,” I say, “but it’s a good question to start the conversation next time.” As I drive home, Jerry’s inquiry, one that I’ve not spent much time trying to understand, stays with me. I feel motivated to dig deeper into issues of class, which doesn’t mean I’m yet ready to talk with Trump supporters.

Considering the White Working Class

Jerry begins our next session with, “You seemed to hesitate when I implied earlier that Democrats took the White working class for granted. If you disagree, how do you explain why Democrats lost their vote?”

“I did hesitate. While there’s no question that Democrats wanted this block of votes, they also passed acts that helped the working class, such as the affordable care act, expanded earned income tax credits, and the family medical leave act.”

“I wonder if most of the poor White working class even know that the Democrats were responsible for these benefits, especially since they get most of their news from Fox,” Jerry says.

“Good point. I certainly can’t claim to understand all this,” I say, “especially given the distance I feel from Trump’s voters. But I have some ideas from reading I did the past few weeks. Robert Reich, for example, argues that Democrats lost the White working class because politicians ‘pandered’ to the suburban swing votes and professionals they thought would determine the election, and then gave into the wealthy, big corporations and Wall Street to get campaign contributions. The Democrats let down blue-collar workers by not emphasizing enough the inequality between the haves and have-nots. So in that sense what you say is partially true.” ³⁶

“But the Republicans were more supportive of the inequality and are always pushing tax breaks for the rich and getting rid of entitlements for the poor,” argues Jerry. “It doesn’t make sense that blue-collar workers would vote against these interests.”

“They do it for the same reason that upper-middle-class professionals often vote against theirs,” I reply. “When professionals vote for Democrats who will increase their taxes, it’s because other values, such as human rights, are more important to them than increasing their wealth. In The Atlantic, Emma Green argues that anxiety about cultural change was more central for blue-collar workers than financial worry. ³⁷ These folks feared that American identity was in danger, that our way of life needed to be protected from foreign influence, such as immigration, and that discrimination toward Whites, especially White men, was a serious problem. So maybe some of the White working class rebelled against the Democrats’ positions on issues culturally relevant to them. For some, that was abortion; for others, religiosity or gun rights. They might have viewed these as more important than health care—which of course got so much negative press even as it helped some people.”

“That position seems unrealistic,” says Jerry.

“Let me give you an example,” I suggest. “Our housekeeper is White and poor and receives Obamacare, which she admits saved her life. One day before the election, my husband Art was listening to a speech by Obama, when she said, ‘I don’t want to hear anything he has to say.’ Art asked, ‘Don’t you like your Obamacare?’ She replied, ‘That’s not as important as my guns. I won’t stand for someone taking away my guns.’ Later she began getting social security disability, but she’s still a Trump supporter.”

“That’s an intriguing story. Do you have other explanations for why the White working class supports Trump, other than emotional and cultural concerns?” asks Jerry.

“Hochschild says that the White working class has a ‘deep feeling’ that others—minorities such as Blacks, immigrants such as Mexicans, women, and gays—have inappropriately cut in line ahead of them. Additionally, they’ve bought into the Republican ideology that the poor are lying and cheating to get welfare and handouts and then they—the blue-collar workers—have to pay for it.” ³⁸

“All this seems to be connected to the backlash against identity politics,” I continue, “the feeling that liberal elites look out for those in all these groups except the White working class. And it’s not only that, they feel liberal elites look down on them as ‘deplorables.’ They’re partially right—about the problem, but not the solution. Trump—the establishment outsider who can’t be bought, they believe—will make sure ‘real’ Americans get what they deserve, restore American values and the American Dream.”

“Isn’t it true that many also voted against the Clinton dynasty?” says Jerry. “You know I had trouble with that as well.” I nod, remembering conversations where I supported Clinton and Jerry was noncommittal. “For White working-class people, it seemed that anything establishment or ‘government’ was suspicious and assumed not to be good.”

“I agree,” I say. “The relative deprivation in this group is hard to ignore: the loss of blue-collar jobs—who cared that the loss was due to automation and jobs moving offshore instead of undocumented workers taking their positions; the decreasing life span from serious illness, opioid and alcohol addictions, and other ‘deaths of despair.’ ³⁹ No wonder they hoped for change.”

“Trump acknowledged their pain and spoke to them about their worries,” says Jerry.

“As did Clinton, though she talked in terms of policies and not in ‘down home’ ways that connected to their everyday concerns,” I say.

“And Trump was willing to lie, such as to the coal miners about increasing jobs in coal.”

“He also pandered to the racist, sexist, and xenophobic opinions some in that group hold,” I say. “There’s no way around how important that is. And Fox News fanned the flames. Finally, people were freed to speak their prejudiced views in public—ones they had never stopped expressing in private or safe spaces. ⁴⁰ I’ve heard these views from our neighbors in the North Carolina mountains. Trump gave them permission to be politically incorrect in public . . .”

“and express all the hostility and rage they felt,” Jerry adds.

“and fear that soon Whites would be a minority population and lose control,” I say. “Though Trump was supported by those in rural areas with less than a college degree, only about a third had household incomes under US$50,000. So in fact, class—in terms of economics anyway—might be less of a factor in his election than race and gender. Trump was successful with the White vote in general and the male vote in particular.” I pull an article out of my file. “Trump received 63% of the votes of White men and 53% of the votes of White women. Though he got a higher percentage of votes from noncollege Whites (67%), he also got a higher percentage of votes from college educated White men. ⁴¹ Sometimes I think ‘Make America Great Again’ is code for ‘Make America White Again’ and keep White men in control.”

“Or the same ‘again’ as in ‘never again,’” ⁴² Jerry says, referring to the anti-Semitism in Europe in the 1930s and after.

“That’s enough for today,” I say. “Let’s return next session to this expression ‘never again.’ While it represents our deepest fears, perhaps the warning also provides a path to our hopes.”

“I’ll be ready. As I said earlier, we have to be hopeful,” Jerry responds.

Anticipating the Future: Moving From Fear to Hope

Jerry greets me at the door. We talk about how difficult writing this article has been, yet how we have felt compelled to continue these last six months, for ourselves as well as getting our thoughts out to others. “If Trump is impeached, readers might not care so much about what we’ve written here,” says Jerry.

“We should be so lucky,” I say, and he agrees. “I know that given your past, your fears about Trump are real.”

“As soon as Trump became a candidate, I was petrified that the kind of repressive situation I had gone through might happen again. And here we are. It’s now and it is happening. We’re not talking in the abstract. I shudder when I read our comparison of Trump to Hitler in the draft you sent last week, but I don’t want this paper to be a hatchet job. Am I exaggerating, making a mountain out of a mole hill? Maybe. Yet the underlying theme between these two hit me right between my eyes. Narcissism, temper, megalomania, the basic characteristics of a craven despot are present.”

“Do you think the increased attacks on synagogues and anti-Jewish signs point to rising anti-Semitism?”

“Yes, definitely. I connect the rise of violence and discrimination to Trump’s presidency. On one hand, some of his most ardent followers feel their alt-right oats as they exchange Sieg Heil salutes and Heil Trump cheers, ⁴³ hold onto their assault weapons, and chant their ‘make America great again’ slogans. On the other hand, I think some are disappointed that Trump surrounds himself with Jews, such as his son-in-law and Jewish grandchildren, among others. While I have no evidence, I feel that since his followers can’t flail at their hero Trump about this, they take it out directly on the Jews. Jews historically often have ended up as scapegoats.”

“Do you think we could have another Holocaust?”

“Just look at the situation in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Let’s not mince words, genocide is going on in our world right now. A holocaust in America is not out of the question, maybe not involving Jews, but others. Am I going too far in equating Hitler’s belief of a superior race with Trump’s preoccupation with beauty and involvement in beauty pageants? German spectacles of throngs of women are legend. Am I going overboard when I think of Nazis declaring physically impaired Germans as unfit to live and Trump’s distain for a physically impaired journalist? Maybe. Maybe not. But the Holocaust reminds me of the depth of depravity to which inhumanity can sink.”

“Do you worry more now than in the last few decades that it could happen again?”

“Yes, I do. At my age, I’m not worried about myself. I’m not going to live another ten years. But my children, grandchildren, you and friends and relatives—all have something to worry about. I am not a person who cries fire in a crowded theater, but I think that we should be concerned about what is happening here, and in Europe with the extreme right making some ugly noise. Luckily French people did not hesitate to call Le Pen for what she is—an anti-Semite and fascist—and she lost though Trump supported her. But for a while it was nail-biting time for me.”

“Now we have to think about what’s next,” Jerry continues. “As we speak, we are rocked by a potential national crisis. Our president denies the Russian incursion into U. S. politics, and he might have been caught lying to cover up his ties to this unfriendly foreign country. His handpicked cabinet of yes men and (a few) women up to his vice president are all mired in lies. Trump’s cabinet reminds me of how the historian Goldhagen labeled Hitler’s cronies as the executioners who made Hitler’s ascension to power possible. ⁴⁴ The prospect of Trump’s accomplices today turning into tomorrow’s executioners is terrifying. Maybe that is too farfetched. I hope it is. But there are very few real democracies in the world and I fear ours is coming apart.”

“We have to hope that our institutions, the checks and balances, the separation of power in the three branches of government will prevail,” I offer.

Jerry shakes his head. “Just like Hitler, that’s exactly what Trump is trying to destroy.”

“Still German democratic institutions were new, not well established, and inherently fragile. By comparison, U.S. institutions are much older, better established, and generally stronger. ⁴⁵ This doesn’t mean they can’t be undermined, but our system of checks and balances poses a much more formidable barrier to Trump than Hitler faced. And Trump has opposition, not a private militia, as Hitler had. That Trump is already under investigation is a positive sign.”

“I hope you’re right,” Jerry says.

“Even if I am, we’re still in for some serious problems. It’s easy to think that Trump is THE problem—I fall into that thinking myself—but he is only an extreme expression of political, economic, and racial divisions that have been with us for a long time. ⁴⁶ They will still be there when Trump is long gone. Are there any grounds for optimism?” I ask, sighing.

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can come up with. We are probably closer to something very unpleasant.”

“Like a civil war?”

“No, we in the United States are too comfortable to be involved in bloodshed on a massive scale. Luckily Trump is not Madura, the Venezuela president, at least for now.”

“And he’s not Hitler, in spite of the similarities,” I say.

“Granted. But given Trump’s volatility, he might start a war with another country to cover his behind.”

“I fear that too. So is there anything we can do?”

“My political orientation looks to the past to reflect on the future. I feel a responsibility as a survivor to grieve over the loss of those who died in the Holocaust and to pay homage to them by keeping the horror and tragedy of the Holocaust in front of the world. In order to prevent such atrocity from happening again, we must keep searching to find the answer to how it was allowed to happen in the first place. Whenever I, as a survivor, talk to young people—or anybody really, I feel obligated to tell them about my experiences during the Holocaust in hopes that the fate that befell my generation will not befall theirs. I am concerned because those who don’t know history are bound to repeat it, a saying rooted in the philosophies of great men such as Santayana, Burke, Aristotle, and Socrates, who knew what they were talking about.” ⁴⁷

“Historian Timothy Snyder agrees with you,” I respond. “He concludes that history is important because it ‘allows us to see patterns and make judgments.’ He feels that young Americans must now begin to ‘make history,’ and to do that, they ‘have to know some.’ ⁴⁸ That’s why the talks you give, and the experiences you relate in this paper, are so important.”

“What about you?” Jerry asks. “I’m curious as to how these conversations have affected you? I know you’ve listened closely to my stories and you’ve thought deeply about the issues we’ve discussed. But you haven’t said much about your hopes and fears.”

“Certainly your experiences and comparison of what’s happening now to Hitler and the Nazis have added to the concerns I had already about ignoring climate change and Trump dropping a bomb. I also have fears about an impending economic disaster. What’s going to happen when it’s finally clear Trump can’t do all the things he promised—tax cuts, health care, deportations, and so on?”

“Don’t worry. Rich people will protect themselves. Any crash won’t be like the depression, when people were jumping out of windows. I don’t believe that billionaires like Trump, Zuckerberg, and all are going to go broke.”

“Maybe not, though those in the depression didn’t think they’d go broke either. But for now the rising stock market is another reason for rich people and those in the upper-middle-class ranks to stay quiet,” I say. “It’s balm for wounds, opium for the people. Who wants to complain when they’re making so much money?”

“Moderate Republicans, who might be able to affect some change, also stay quiet because they feel Trump is their only chance of getting what they want, such as tax cuts and repeal of Obamacare. What will it take for them to resist Trump?”

“What will it take to get any of us working together for the common good?” I ask. “To take into account the plight of the White working class without leaving behind the focus on human rights of minorities, the very poor, women, immigrants, and those with different sexual orientations, abilities, and religions. As a country, we’ve worked hard to acknowledge and respect rights of multiple groups, but there’s still the continuing threat of racism and inequality, including continued and heightened structural backlash and ‘White rage’ in response to advancements, with which we have to deal.” ⁴⁹

“How do we make America the best it can be but without bullying other countries and refusing to help those less fortunate around the world?” Jerry asks.

“We have a tough road ahead, but we can’t give up,” I say. “We have to keep thinking deeply about these issues, pushing ourselves and others to question premises, gather information, and open up possibilities rather than rejecting them. We have to keep talking and acting to honor the values we hold dear, which for me starts with love and compassion.”

“Even for Trump supporters?” Jerry asks.

“I’m working on that,” I respond. “I’ve realized from our conversations and the articles I’ve read that some Trump voters—though certainly not all—have complicated reasons for wanting change. No matter how difficult it is, how much rage and disdain I may feel, I want to be open to the possibility of communicating with them—those in my family and my neighbors in the mountains of North Carolina, as well as students I encounter in my classes.”

“Your research has demonstrated that the White working class is not one-dimensional in their reasons for support of Trump,” says Jerry. “I’ve found that helpful.”

“They also are multidimensional in terms of the jobs they hold,” I say. “For example, Edsall, citing Florida, ⁵⁰ points out that there are 65 million service workers, one-half who didn’t vote in 2016, who are split between the Democrats and Republicans. How about giving them some attention instead of bestowing it all on the working-class manufacturing sector, as newscasters and pollsters have been doing since this election? How about concentrating on upgrading their jobs, passing labor laws, and increasing wages and affordable housing? That should get Democrats some votes and, at the same time, improve the situation for many. I’m ready to work to do my part in promoting these goals.”

“I’m also ready to do my part in keeping history alive and passing it on to young people,” I continue. “I’ve learned from you how important that is. I admire how you have committed yourself to not letting others forget the Holocaust. I believe that each and every one of us has to be willing to take a risk when the situation calls for it—as you did when you got on the train to Warsaw without identification papers—and we have to resist hatred, discrimination, and violence no matter the odds—as you did in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.”

“Yes we do,” Jerry responds. “People ask me, ‘Why do you write letters, read blogs, and write your own. What motivates you?’ The short answer is: I care. I want to see a world of mystery, beauty, splendor, and riches all there ready for us to partake in. Apathy, like that which paved way for a war that consumed millions of lives, is our enemy. Silence is not an option.” ⁵¹

“Silence is not an option,” I repeat. “Our best hope is in continuing to speak out and to listen to each other in the spirit of seeking truth and justice for all humankind.”

“Amen to that.”