Nazis.
21 08 2009
On my 21st birthday, I woke up in the morning and drove to Dairy Queen. I got soft serve vanilla ice cream with strawberry topping and I ate it for breakfast. Why? When I was a child I asked once if I could have ice cream for breakfast, and my mother said, “You can have ice cream for breakfast when you’re 21.” And so I did.
My father spent his 21st birthday in a prisoner of war camp. Deaf in one ear, and completely flat-footed, he could have easily been a “4-F” and escaped service for medical reasons. He was a peaceful man but he, like so many of his generation, felt the need to serve his country, and to fight againgst the fascism that was threatening to engulf the democratic nations of Western Europe, and had even attacked the United States.
When he was 20 years old, he’d been taken prisoner by the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge, was marched for miles, imprisoned, and starved. Like many men of his generation, veterans of World War II, he didn’t talk about it much. He held his memories close to his chest. If he talked to anyone about them, I didn’t know. It was only many years after his service and just before his death that he shared some of those memories with me.
Starvation does strange things to people. He told me that after a while in the camp, he had the same recurring dream, every night – a stack of pancakes topped with two fried eggs, sunny-side up. He’d dream that dream over and over, a still frame, a picture of a breakfast that never came. He told me that his fellow prisoners got so hungry that once they had killed and eaten a cat that had strayed into the camp. You don’t forget a story like that.
Or the story of the man in the camp, who snapped. In peace time, we’d have called him a boy. Suddenly and without warning in the middle of the day, out in the yard, his mind went. He ran for the fence in a desperate effort to escape. There was nowhere to go, and in broad daylight with armed guards everywhere, he didn’t stand a chance. My father, who was quick to pick up languages, had learned some German. “Don’t shoot! He’s crazy! He’s lost his mind! He doesn’t know what he’s doing!” my father called out to the guards as he ran out in the yard waving his arms. The man kept running for the fence, and he climbed, and the guards didn’t shoot. They waited until he reached the top. And then they shot him. They left him there for three days as a warning to anyone else who might have been thinking about escape.
Any survivor of World War II has stories. Millions were never able to tell them. Their lives ended on battlefields, and in gas chambers, at the hands of the Nazis. My dad was able to tell me some of his experiences, but most of those memories died with him, like they died with many vets and victims of the war. I didn’t even know he’d received a Purple Heart until after his death. But he survived. He survived to marry the girl he left at home, to buy a house, to get a college degree, to start his own company, and to raise a family of five children.
I asked my dad if he ever got his stack of pancakes with the fried eggs on top. I imagined it being his first meal after the Russians had liberated the camp. The Germans had heard that the Russians were coming, and they left quickly in the night. The prisoners hadn’t known what was happening until two days later when the Russian army came and let them out, confused and near death. No, he told me, he never did have the pancakes and eggs. It took months in the hospital to build his system back up to where he could eat normally. He began at 5′11″ weighing less than 100 pounds, and started with an IV, then a liquid diet, then cream of wheat, and finally solids. A fellow prisoner, he said, on his way from the camp to the hospital in France had managed to get a hold of a box of donuts and had gorged himself. He died a free man, but still a victim. By the time my dad was able to eat that stack of pancakes and eggs, the desire had passed.
I remember as a child I was not allowed to watch Hogan’s Heroes. It wasn’t a joke in my house. There was nothing funny about prisoner of war camps. There were no handsome well-fed prisoners with secret tunnels under their bunks, and pirate radio equipment who always managed to play their captors for the fool. There were frightened, emaciated young men whose minds and bodies were broken an ocean away from home, who were shot on fences , and who ate cats, and watched their friends die. There was nothing to laugh about. Those were Nazis.
I am tired of people comparing Obama to Hitler. I am tired of seeing signs with swastikas and nazi symbols at health care rallies. I am tired of people saying that a health care plan designed to uplift millions of Americans to give them dignity, and choice and the ability to care for their families, is like Naziism. I am tired of Rush Limbaugh.
As time passes, and as the greatest generation becomes a memory, passing into history one soul at a time, it is up to the generations that follow them to keep “Hitler” and “Nazi” out of the clutches of those who would make them political buzzwords for people they don’t like, or policies they don’t understand. Those words remind us of the worst that people can be. There is nothing horrible about Germans in particular that caused them to do these things. This is humanity’s dark potential, and something that we all need to remember, whether we were there or not, or whether our family was affected or not, because this is what people can do to each other. To strip those words of their power and meaning in order to create political fear for self-gain is inexcusable and needs to be confronted and refuted whenever it arises, by all of us, whether we support the current health care bill and the current president or not.
August 22nd, 2009 at 7:37 PM
Hey I’m a New Yorker but I read your blog faithfully. I don’t even know who writes for this blog (Is it Shannyn Moore from “Countdown”?) but I am continually impressed and refreshed by your strong perspectives. I have been to town halls near me and I find the Third Reich imagery to be tiring, lazy, irresponsible, and wildly inappropriate. When did “Nazi” become a term that we can toss around so carelessly?
Thank you for sharing your father’s experience and heroism – although I know he would never consider himself a hero. But I do and I thank him for his service. I appreciate how you highlight that it isn’t the “Germans” in particular who allowed tyranny and fascism and ethnic cleansing to thrive… it is an unchecked impulse that exists in humanity at large.
I don’t understand how opening access to healthcare for more Americans counts as “Nazism” but I am glad to see people out there that share my views with a strong voice.
August 22nd, 2009 at 7:40 PM
HamletsMill: Hats off to you, thank you for all the info. you have supplied. Your post on the forum is awesome,and I will try to help,I believe very strongly in this fight, but don’t have your way with words.
August 22nd, 2009 at 7:40 PM
“to keep “Hitler” and “Nazi” out of the clutches of those who would make them political buzzwords for people they don’t like, or policies they don’t understand….To strip those words of their power and meaning in order to create political fear for self-gain is inexcusable and needs to be confronted and refuted whenever it arises, by all of us, whether we support the current health care bill and the current president or not.”
Isn’t the media and the left using these Hitler signs for self gain AGAINST the protestors, making them look crazy and racist. The reality, if you would look closer, you will see that most of the Hitler pics are from the Larouche organization (democrat) and NOT typical of the majority of average ‘protestor’s.
I also have to wonder where the outrage was when Bush (even while you most likely disagreed with him) was given the same treatment? (If you need, I can post plenty of pics of him as Hitler, being hung, people carrying signs saying “Kill Bush”…)
It IS outrageous, but it is used in politics of both sides. To hear the left become enraged, now that the shoe is on the other foot, and of course blaming it on race, is interesting. Was it a race issue when Bush was depicted as Hitler, a Nazi or as the Joker? Was it race when people made a movie about Bush being assassinated? One of your posters is using it to suggest Palin reminds her of the time of Hitler even while your article suggests we all need to stop on both sides.
I hope you don’t erase this post, because I REALLY want to know how you can explain this seemingly double standard. Thank you.
I don’t think it should be used by anyone frivolously, left or right. I don’t care who is using it. My blog started in May of 2008, so there’s a partial answer. I don’t consider myself “the left becoming enraged.” This was a personal story about what is happening now and how it affects me. I don’t see any double standard. Hope that helps. AKM
August 22nd, 2009 at 8:05 PM
This story was particularly hard for me to read. It put my feelings into words and great insight into how twisted the political arena has become. I lost my father, a WWII vet last Sunday, August 16, 2009.
The Nazi’s and what they did should never be applied to anything other than the NAZI’S! Period.
August 22nd, 2009 at 8:33 PM
BBHounds:
I’m sorry for your loss.
August 22nd, 2009 at 8:51 PM
I’m sorry for what happened to your dad in Germany, but if America don’t wake up and see that Obama is setting into motion for history to repeat itself. He my not be Hitler but he is a pawn directing America towards having its own Holicost. If we as Americans don’t do something to stop it we will experience here on our soils what Germany experinced at the hands of a communist government. The government will strip you of your rights an control everything. Do you want that? If not then pray and take action to stop it.
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:22 PM
BBHounds – I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s never easy to lose someone you love especially a parent. I lost both of and I feel like an orphan now.
August 22nd, 2009 at 9:35 PM
((((BBHounds)))) So sorry for your loss. Watching, hugs for you as well. Both of my parents are gone, too. They struggled through the Depression and WWII, but enjoyed life during the later, prosperous years. It’s good that these dear people, who survived such difficult times, lived to see a period of security.
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:04 PM
@janet Alexander #428
I borrowed some of your delicious words to wet-trout-slap some folks who really needed it…
Here’s the link to the story (sorry if it goes to moderation):
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/aug/23/health-care-reform-foes-supporters-demonstrate/
(Don’t get offended that we’ll probably get ripped to shreds on that board for our stance. It made me sick that Ms. McDevitt wore a t-shirt with a clown-faced President Obama on it.)
…thank you so much and please let me know what i owe you!
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:15 PM
Oh, AKM and Snoskred ~
If you get any new traffic from around Atlanta, that might be my teacher-kid showing your post to his World History and Psychology classes! I emailed him the link, today, and he’s very excited to discuss your post with both classes.
Thank you all for making a difference.
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:16 PM
Lani Formerly Bash Budweiser Palin – Thanks for the hugs. Yep, our parent’s generation went thru alot and survived. I honestly don’t know how they did it.
No matter what they never lost hope and they didn’t even have anti-depressants back then. My mother never trusted the Republicans. She always said they were for big business and never for the working people.
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:30 PM
Tina in Tennessee – We endured 8 years of Bush and I don’t recall liberals getting so hyped-up to totally trash the President. He’s out of office now but we are just learning of the dirty tactics they used, like heightening the terrorist alert, so he could get re-elected (and it worked). Bush and Cheney LIED to us on every level and their ok with that? Not a peep out of them for what Bush and Cheney did.
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:35 PM
Watching from New Jersey,
Because Bush and Cheney weren’t nazis, they were @@@holes…
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:36 PM
sorry…
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:48 PM
Watching from New Jersey ~ AMEN!
and
boodog ~ Amen to #453!
And don’t you guys think their particular brand of shenanigans was because they and their respective machines are self-serving “what-boodog-said” type people? Ya know… the kind that would do anything to further their political careers AND line their pockets?
August 22nd, 2009 at 10:54 PM
boodog – Thanks, I needed a good laugh.
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:06 PM
[...] the “Nazi” comments and signs (written about by AKM on the Mudflats in what is probably the best blog post I’ve ever read). And, locally, we saw it, unforgettably, as it permeated our Anchorage city [...]
August 22nd, 2009 at 11:59 PM
Elegant. Essential. Thank you…thank your dad.
August 23rd, 2009 at 12:05 AM
This is such high quality writing and such a pertinent issue that it should go to the NYT or Washington Post,, or LA Times. It deserves a wide audience. Go for it–it is another way to serve your country.
August 23rd, 2009 at 2:24 AM
My sister wrote a similar account about our dad which was originally aired on Memorial Day a few years ago.
I can barely read it without balling. AKM’s post hit me that way too.
My sister is a beautiful writer too. If interested, give it a look at her blog, Loose Leaf notes:
http://www.looseleafnotes.com/notes/2005/05/let_me_clue_you_in_about_my_fa.html
August 23rd, 2009 at 4:38 AM
{{{{{{{{{BBHound}}}}}}}}}}}
August 23rd, 2009 at 5:23 AM
Sunday Reading ver. 4…
It’s Sunday, and that means I’m going to share a few articles for your reading pleasure….
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:06 AM
[...] best by far is the piece written by Alaska Blogger Mudflats. I reproduce the last paragraph here in part: “…as the greatest generation becomes a [...]
August 23rd, 2009 at 8:07 AM
deist Says:
August 22nd, 2009 at 6:34 PM
HamletsMill:
My earliest memory in life is from Holland in the Hague, about 40 miles from where Anne Frank’s family was betrayed in Amsterdam. This occurred perhaps 15 years after the Frank family was caught and Ann got exterminated.
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Thank you for your post on your memories of Holland. I went by Anne Frank’s house several times when I lived in Holland but never took the tour. I just left it to my mind. I have other stories of what people told me happened during WWII in Amsterdam and Rotterdam but I will not post any more of them here. Enough has been said. The lesson learned is that humanity must step up to stop a lie while it is still small. Because once a lie becomes entrenched and attains military power the social psycho-pathologies involved are massive.
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BBHounds Says:
August 22nd, 2009 at 8:05 PM
BBHounds, please accept my deepest condolences of the passing of your father. May his soul rest in peace in the worlds beyond this one.
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otrplm Says:
August 22nd, 2009 at 7:40 PM
Thank you for the very kind words. I hope the Representatives and Media links page will be helpful to you when you feel moved to write to someone. Just keep it handy.
We are all in this together!
August 23rd, 2009 at 8:08 AM
Thanks for that wonderful homage to your father and my father and all those who served and suffered through WWII and all the awful wars.
The author Alan Furst writes great historical espionage novels about what WWII and the years leading up to it from the perspective of Europeans, which I highly recommend. I highly recommend Dark Star and The Polish Officer, the latter being largely about resistance movements and the brave, normal folks in Europe who did what they could — the folks we rarely hear about amid all the battle stories. These are not like the formula novels churned out by the Ludlums, not at all, and well worth the read.
August 23rd, 2009 at 8:10 AM
thank you for your articulate piece!
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:18 AM
AKM’s post is now at HuffPo:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/akmuckraker/nazis_b_266507.html
August 23rd, 2009 at 2:17 PM
AKM I have been reading and re-reading this post all weekend and have sent it to everyone, left right or in between. It has moved me to tears. Like many, I have been following the Mudflats since the day I Googled “What was McCain thinking?” and this site came up. A day hasn’t gone by when I do not check in. This blog has been my touch stone to connect with like thinking com-passionate people. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
I am a first and second generation descendant of European immigrants who’s family members lived thru and died at the hands of the Nazi’s.
Members of my Grandfather’s family were imprisoned in death camps in Poland. They were devout Catholics. Some were university teachers, farmers, tradesmen, students, male and female who were part of the resistance. I remember hearing the nightmarish accounts from my aunt of family members who still lived in Poland when I was young.
During WW2 my uncle Walter was a radio operator on the B-17 Flying Fortress and was shot down on his first mission over Germany. He spent a year and a half in German POW labor camp. Our family did not know if he was alive or dead. Like your Dad, he survived the war and was given a Purple Heart, raised a wonderful family and worked at Monsanto all of his life. He just passed away earlier this year.
My mother lived on the south coast of Wales during the war, in Penarth. She spent most of her childhood in a bomb shelter with her family trying to survive the deadly and devastating Nazi U-2 fire bombs.
My Grandmother used to tell us the story of the night as the sirens were blaring, Mother was around 15 yrs old, absolutely refused to go into the cold, damp, dark bomb shelter one more time. They had a very heated mother-daughter ‘discussion’. Grandma literally dragged my Mother down the stairs by her hair into the basement shelter next door to their home. That night the U-2 bomb hit the Buckland family house and caught fire. Afterward going thru the remains and rubble of their home, they saw a piece of my Mother’s mattress with a hole in it. The bomb had gone right thru her bed.
Thank you again for your Noble Peace prize post…IMO.
August 23rd, 2009 at 3:25 PM
My dad ( alive and well at 85) flew the B-17s (downed 3 times) at age 19. He later married and raised 10 kids..and finally (2008) let us at his WWII info to copy and give to all the grandkids. My sibs and I grew up relatively protected by the WWII code. Years later, on a Christmas morning, I (along with at least 2 siblings) almost fell down when my dad started talking to my 5 year old nephew about WW II planes and how he fell out of a plane and had to unload his boots. We were sitting in our living room looking around like: Who is this guy??? Gradually my dad has opened up, my brother Paul gets permission to hold my Dad’s WWII stuff and I run off and copy it. My friends tell me to read the Tom Brokaw book…that may be my vacation book (hardware reading) and a beachy book! My son is 3, but I pray my dad lives long enough to share some flashy plane stories with his grandson!!
August 23rd, 2009 at 4:52 PM
A brilliant piece of expression.
Thank you very much.
August 23rd, 2009 at 5:11 PM
I come from a line of Czech arsonist. The year was 1938 when the village priest knocked on my maternal great-grandfather’s door and told him the Nazis were pulling people out of their houses and shot in the village my family owned. My great-grandfather got on the train immediately and travelled to the village, where he and the priest set fire to the archive annex next to the church itself – destroying the birth records removed any proof of Jewish heritage. The dead were dragged off to the quarry in the woods. Many decades later, my mother came to own the property where “the Nazis flooded the quarry so it could not be used”. I didn’t know the story and suggested she has the water pumped out. She was appalled, then silent, then she told me it’s in fact a mass grave. She sold it…and the local folks still spread the story and make sure it remains undisturbed. When I was a child, we would travel from Prague to the village of Dublovice to observe some ceremonies and listen to a classical music concert every spring. It was called the “Home Survivors Concert” and I never knew why everyone greeted my grandfather with such grave respect. Now I do.
On my father’s side, my granfather’s brother was the Arch Bishop of the St. Vit Cathedral in Prague. He was in charge of the historical cathedral and one of the seven guardians of the Czech Crown Jewels.
Sometime in 1938, the archives of the Cathedral burned. There was no annual memorial where the survivors could remember their loved ones – uncle Antonin Stoy was persecuted not only by the Nazis, but by the Communists who came after them as well.
We all need to remember these events and call political tendencies what they are. Nazis hold a sad place of distiction in a league of their own. Neither Bush nor Obama administrations, nor their detractors, come close…not even with the sad shadow of Gitmo besmirching our national honor.
Kate in Pittsburgh
August 23rd, 2009 at 7:26 PM
AKM, thank you for posting my different take on things. The double standard that I see is that now that the right is protesting, they are seen as a ‘wild mob’, and when a few nut jobs use a Hitler/nazi reference, everyone is acting like the left never did it towards Bush. The ‘left’ acts offended yet there was no upset when these references were used against the last president.
That is what I am wondering…were you appalled back then? Was it okay to use it against Bush, or anyone else besides Obama. And why it is racist NOW? Was it racist THEN? I have to say that as a conservative, any objection to Obama’s policies, even with legitimate concerns, seem to be labeled as racist. How is disagreeing with this president different (racist) than disagreeing with other presidents? That is my question. I don’t ever think using Hitler or nazi is acceptable on either side, just to be clear.
Thank you again for civil discussion.
August 23rd, 2009 at 11:38 PM
why would using hitler or nazi not be acceptable? i am german and i think on the contrary given the monstrosity of the german crime it is important that people keep using the terms hitler or nazi to never let anything like it happen again. the world needs to understand how a ’situation’ can get so out of control it ends in world war and genocide.
in context with bush the swastikas came up as people regarded him as evil. i remember the hitler-pictures of bush were especially popular when he reigned a war on iraq based on proof of wmds never to be found. i myself have compared quite some of the changes the bush years brought with them (patriot act etc) with the control machinery of the nazis, at least a few times in my mind. shoot me, but it did come to mind!
comparing obama to hitler because of the health care reform seems totally out of context though. i really dont get that part. i have recently read somebodies comment capitalizing socialism in nationalist socialism trying to compare obama to the nazis and was very outraged by that. the nazis were really not about socialism, i thought this should be clear in everybodies mind by now. they were murderers and plunderers of the worst kind! on top of it the health care reform bill isnt even imposing anything like socialism on anybody at all. it is about protecting the individuals of a social democracy, not socialism.
(what is it in this country anyways? you just need to shout communism (i think this is what people hear when you say socialism) and everybody jumps to their guns. communism was stupid and didnt work. iz shakey legs buckled with the ussr. communism is dead! move on already. go on vacation to cuba, they love dollars there.)
the swastikas at the town hall meetings just show that indeed there are people in the united states who do not know what the nazis were about or even worse are happy to miss the point altogether. this is especially sad because this is the people who lost so many loved ones to wwii just three generations ago. it is not unique to the states though. it is sickening but it is happening everywhere, and at all times. people forget. we need to be reminded. ignorance is not bliss but has great potential of danger for abuse.
barack obama must have expected to be hated, given he applied for the whackiest job about. really, the hitler pictures shouldnt hurt but encourage the administration to get to the next step.
free education for everybody! (anybody jumping to their guns now? hello, time for reality-check!). i doubt anybody who truly understands both what nazis / hitler were and what the current president of the united states is doing would think of any comparison.
but who knows? some people are just truly crazy. bad news is they allow guns out here, too. …
August 24th, 2009 at 2:07 AM
What a moving piece, and one that needs repeating. I am always appalled at the willfuly ignorant, those that attempt to trivialize the horrors of the holocaust and the men, women and children that perished.
August 24th, 2009 at 3:02 AM
What is so remarkable about this abuse of history is that it is itself a
Nazi tactic, this scapegoating and libeling, this shut-down of intelligent discourse in the name of patriotism. As a veteran, I often see the right wing attempting to corner the market on patriotism, trying to make the case that only the right wing cares about the defense of the country, about veterans, about our soldiers—totally ignoring the obvious fact that while our armed services look like our actual demographics, our politicians do not. No, instead, we have old white men, fearful of a multicultural society, sending a multicultural army in harm’s way.
The situation is as lunatic as the world’s many cultures and nations depriving themselves of the intelligence and talent of half their populations, namely women.
Sincerely,
Djelloul Marbrook
August 24th, 2009 at 5:04 AM
“N”
Not everyone who disagrees with Obama is labeled a racist. In fact, many from the left frequently criticize him as well. Only those who criticize with an obvious racist bias are labeled racist.
You assume people were not appalled by previous protests which utilized Nazi imagery. On what do you base this assumption? I heard quite a lot of outrage when people protested against Bush. In fact, I heard many representatives of the Bush administration refer to the left as “a misinformed and angry mob,” “Nazi sympathizers” and “Unamerican.” This rhetoric was outdated when Dick Nixon used is. When will America outgrow it.
Finally, two wrongs do not make a right. (Pun not intended.) If you felt outraged by this imagery being used against Bush policies, all the more reason you should be outraged to see it dragged out again!
Great post and great comments.
August 24th, 2009 at 5:06 AM
n writes:
<>
I am happy to report that, at least in my experience, you are mistaken. As much as I despised Bush and thought he should have been impeached, I did reign in some of my relatives and friends when they referred to Bush as “Hitler-like”. Bush and Cheney had certain dictatorial and manipulative tendencies, they were awful for the country, but they didn’t sink to the level of Nazi Germany. And – my friends and family came to agree on new language which would describe the Bush administration without references to Nazis.
August 24th, 2009 at 5:17 AM
Brava, AKM. Thank you for a beautiful and moving post.
My school when I was a kid was in an area of mostly Eastern European immigrants. Lots of Lutherans, Catholics, and Jews concentrated on building new lives for themselves in the US. The principal, an incredibly wise woman, set aside a day in late April for a big school assembly for the older kids. I don’t think the day had a special name, the date moved around some, but we all knew that when we were older, we would have to spend a day in April in the gym. Well, that day was dedicated to having WWII survivors come to tell us their stories. Different people came every year, and we usually heard from 6-10 people, so by the time we graduated, we had heard quite a few of those stories. The man with his “Auschwitz room number” tattooed on his arm, the woman whose mother and brothers were shot before she and her sisters were raped by the German soldiers, the man who had to stand outside his sisters’ bedroom door while his sisters traded sex for food, the man whose family was killed by the SS because of his activities with the resistance – I remember all of them. Never again! was never explicitly attached to this day, but it didn’t have to be.
My family also had people in the war, and I grew up hearing some of their stories. I didn’t hear any of the most hair-raising ones until the last few years ago, though. I think people in that generation are starting to realize that they need to pass on their experiences to us. This is a good thing – ignorance is NOT bliss!
I may have posted this before on this blog, but one of the relatives who had lived in Germany during the relevant time period said, after watching an SP campaign rally on TV, “Hitler was a lot like her. He really knew how to rile up the crowd.” I figured he ought to know.
August 24th, 2009 at 5:40 AM
AKM, my maternal grandmother, who died in March of this year, was the only survivor of her immediate family. Her father, mother and two younger brothers were taken by the Nazis a short time after she left her small village in Hungary to live with distant cousins in distant lands.
Her parents were Orthodox Jews, and did not want their sons to leave home, but they insisted my grandmother leave, promising they would follow as a family unit after she secured a job in America and sent them enough money to travel.
My grandmother’s journey took her through Germany, where she experienced “Jewish only” stores and hotels for the first time. She also saw people walking around with yellow Stars of David pinned to their shirts. My grandmother was amazed by all of this, and as she chatted with an Austrian woman (who would later become her mother-in-law), she heard of atrocities occurring all over Europe.
My grandmother continued sending money to her brothers and parents via the American Red Cross for years (we later found they accepted this money long after they knew my grandmother’s family had perished in a real Death Camp).
I think she carried survivor’s guilt to her last days.
My mother never allowed us to watch Hogan’s Heroes either! But of course, we snuck and watched it while she was at work.
My other grandparents also had Holocaust survivor stories, but for some reason, my maternal grandmother’s resonated with me the most.
I can only assume that those who are using this type of imagery to protest our current government – whether from left, right or center – did not pay attention in history class. Thank you for starting this thread.