During World War II, my mother saw children being handed out of train windows to strangers

[tavernier]

because they didn’t know where they were being sent and what kind of hell awaited them. When she was sent to Germany from her native country of Latvia, she met my father in a displaced person’s camp where I was born in 1946. Because she had seen these dreadful things, they stayed in her mind and her heart. She told me that she was fearful of nurturing me, holding me too long, showing me too much love, because she feared that the closeness would only hurt me if she ever had to hand me off to strangers from a train window.

So it appears that the monsters that ruled in those days have not died away as we feared, but only moved to a different continent to look for more fertile soil.

[Irish_Dem]

1. Yes the same evil has come to live in the USA now.

It has been brewing for 30 years and now is in full display.

Yes we know trauma travels down the generations.

[Bettie]

11. Remember, they were here then too

had a big rally in Madison Square Garden. Same ideas, more targets now.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/february-20/americans-hold-nazi-rally-in-madison-square-garden

Six and a half months before Adolf Hitler invaded Poland, New York City’s Madison Square Garden hosted a rally to celebrate the rise of Nazism in Germany. Inside, more than 20,000 attendees raised Nazi salutes toward a 30-foot-tall portrait of George Washington flanked by swastikas. Outside, police and some 100,000 protesters gathered.

The organization behind the February 20, 1939 event—advertised on the arena’s marquee as a “Pro American Rally”—was the German American Bund (“Bund” is German for “federation”). The anti-semitic organization held Nazi summer camps for youth and their families during the 1930s. The Bund’s youth members were present that night, as were the Ordnungsdienst, or OD, the group’s vigilante police force who dressed in the style of Hitler’s SS officers.

Banners at the rally had messages like “Stop Jewish Domination of Christian Americans” and “Wake Up America. Smash Jewish Communism.” When the Bund’s national leader, Fritz Kuhn, gave his closing speech, he referred to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as “Rosenfield,” and Manhattan District Attorney Thomas Dewey as “Thomas Jewey.”

“We, with American ideals, demand that our government shall be returned to the American people who founded it,” declared Kuhn, a naturalized American who lost his citizenship during World War II. “If you ask what we are actively fighting for under our charter: First, a socially just, white, Gentile-ruled United States. Second, Gentile-controlled labor unions, free from Jewish Moscow-directed domination.”

[Irish_Dem]

12. Yes evil never really goes away.

[Bettie]

13. No, it really doesn't

Dh is struggling a bit with his siblings being MAGAts because he always believed that they were good people at heart.

It's hard to believe that now, even when you love the people.

It's hard to reconcile that they will be nice to family members, but so hateful toward others.

They are all devoted church goers, but what is their church teaching? Seems like hate for anyone who isn't exactly like them is the message they are taking to heart.

ETA: They are Wisconsin Synod Lutheran, which makes the Missouri Synod Lutherans look positively liberal though.

[Irish_Dem]

15. Yes how can good people adore a known brutal criminal psychopath?

Who is taking a wrecking ball to the US and the world.
And committing unspeakable crimes on a daily basis.

They are not good people.

[COL Mustard]

24. My Mother was a 100% Trump MAGA voter who believed he could do no wrong

I remember asking her years ago, when we were talking about Hitler, how it could happen. It will always bother me that she could never see the similarities. Got to have an "other" to hate. Got to promote "law and order" and be for the "race".

At least we aren't putting people into killing camps...yet. I put nothing past Pee Wee German and his fellow henchmen.because I really don't know what's going to happen next.

[Irish_Dem]

26. People are dying in the camps here in the US and overseas.

And it will get worse.

We can see what the nazi Ice does in public.
It is far worse in private I am sure.

Yes evil lurks in the hearts of so many seemingly nice people.

We are witness the greatest moral collapse in US history.

[Lonestarblue]

16. Trump's father was one of those attending Nazi rallies in New York.

Explains at least some of his whacked out ideas.

[COL Mustard]

25. Quoting Jake "Joliet" Blues...

I hate Illinois Nazis.

And frankly, any other kind.

[mitch96]

31. 83 years difference and the same shit is happening..2026 Minneapolis ICE takes a child. 1943.Warsaw Ghetto

[Irish_Dem]

32. Yes and the Bovine man dresses just like a nazi. It is so damn creepy evil.

Heart breaking.

[SheltieLover]

2. Heartbreaking

[democrank]

3. So awful then, so awful now.

Willingly, purposefully traumatizing children. Why on earth should we fund that?
Shameful!

[unblock]

4. The irony is that one of my escape plans is based on an easy path I have to Austrian citizenship

Owing to my mother and her parents having lost everything but their lives during the holocaust.

They escaped fascism in Europe for a safe haven in America.

We may end up going back for the same reason.

[tavernier]

5. My kids have already discussed that,

If only for an excuse to travel to a European country where they know the language. My sweet mom and dad made it a point to teach them when they were little.

[unblock]

6. Mini-unblock has already stated the process for herself.

[Wicked Blue]

7. I often think about going to Estonia with my family

because my parents were citizens, and I'm eligible for citizenship.

But I'm afraid because of what's been happening in Ukraine. Putin's megalomaniac expansionism will spread to the Baltic nations unless he and his evil regime are somehow stopped.

[tavernier]

8. It's a valid fear. That's what Putin would love to do.

I fell in love with Tallinn when I was there. Amazing Old Town!!

[Wicked Blue]

9. Agreed. It's beautiful.

I'd love to visit again and also see Riga.

[unblock]

17. My grandparents first fled from Austria to Belgium! That didn't last long!

Gotta keep moving until you find something stable.

Maybe New Zealand lol

[moonscape]

10. My parents escaped Eastern Europe

for the same reason. I’m glad they didn’t live to see this. I cannot move because I’m simply too old and sick to do it, but wish also I hadn’t lived to see this, nor any of us.

[tavernier]

22. But my wish and prayer for you is to see this UN-done.

[Bettie]

18. Both of our families came over too long ago

for us to be welcome anywhere without having a substantial amount of money in the bank.

We don't have that, so short of winning the lottery...we have to stay, no matter what happens.

I'm afraid for my kids, who are just starting their adult lives.

[tavernier]

23. As much as I say I will go

THIS COUNTRY IS MINE.

I guess it means enough to me to keep marching, keep voting, keep praying. ❤️

[Bettie]

30. Me too

Ithe USA is my country, as much as it is theirs.

[Blue Full Moon]

14. We willingly brought them over here.

Operation paper clip, then they began to scrub their crimes. Warner Von Braun is the best example. Up to about 5 yrs ago it told about him being over a concentration camp that hung the 3 slowest workers. That was NASA's website.

[Joinfortmill]

19. That, my friend, says a lot about where we are.

I was born in 1949, in the U.S. The war lingered, even here, and cast a long shadow.

[musette_sf]

20. Another child of a EE DP here

K&R

[yellow dahlia]

21. Thank you for sharing.

[surfered]

27. The choice of uniform of ICE Commander Greg Bovino is very reminiscent of those dark times.

They are embracing Nazi chic…

Our family shares a similar story: a displaced refugee who meets an Americsn GI.,.,

[FuzzyRabbit]

33. Not to mention his Nazi haircut.

[AloeVera]

38. Is that for real???!!

Unbelievable.

[Danmel]

28. We visited Riga in 2019

We saw the synagogue that was burned to the ground with it's congregants worshipping inside. We saw the Rumbala forest where 10s of thousands of Jews were massacred and a Holocaust museum.
My father survived Auschwitz. I'm grateful he isn't here to see this. What ICE is doing reminds me of how my father described the Gestapo. It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

[IbogaProject]

29. Hitler got his initial funding from Wall Street

Prescot Bush helped with that and helped launder Nazi Wealth after the war. Then the GOP imported almost 300,000 Germans (Nazis and supporters) as soon as Eisenhower was in office in 1953. The GOP aren't figuratively Nazis, they are Actual Nazis.

[malaise]

34. Sadly vile humans are always present

This comes to mind
Man to man is so u just
Children yah don’t know who to trust…

[tavernier]

35. Ain't that the truth.

We are still discovering secrets and hidden truths from WWll that no John Wayne movie ever revealed.

[malaise]

36. I will never understand humanity

I give thanks for the decent folks everywhere.

[Scalded Nun]

37. Monsters like these never die or go away

They return to the shadows awaiting the next opportunity to unleash their madness.