What is the international holiday for the victims of communism? Asking for a friend.<\/p>\n
There’s nothing about surviving a genocide that makes a person good or wise. <\/p>\n
Dana Milbank writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n International Holocaust Remembrance Day is always a somber time for Auschwitz survivor Irene Weiss. But this year\u2019s observance had an additional layer of grief: For the first time, Weiss is worried about her adopted homeland.<\/p>\n \u201cI am exceptionally concerned about demagogues,\u201d the 85-year-old Weiss told me at Wednesday\u2019s commemoration at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. \u201cThey touch me in a place that I remember. I know their influence and, unfortunately, I know how receptive audiences are to demagogues and what it leads to.\u201d<\/p>\n She knows better than just about any person alive. The Czech-born Jew lost her parents and most of her siblings in Hitler\u2019s death camps. Now, when she hears about plans to register Muslims and to ban Muslims from entering the United States, \u201cI\u2019m worried about the tone of this country,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n To Weiss, the ugly political environment in 2016 has an ominous precedent in Weimar Germany. \u201cIt has echoes, and maybe more so to me than to native-born Americans,\u201d she said after lighting a candle for Hitler\u2019s victims. \u201cI\u2019m scared. I don\u2019t like the trend. I don\u2019t like how many people are applauding when they hear these demagogues. It can turn.\u201d<\/p>\n This year\u2019s Holocaust remembrance comes at a time when Donald Trump, the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination, retweets to his nearly 6 million followers a message from @WhiteGenocideTM based in \u201cJewmerica,\u201d and a time when his nearest challenger, Ted Cruz, brandishes the endorsement of a minister who says Hitler was a \u201chunter\u201d sent after the Jews by God. There has never been a more important time for Americans to heed the moral authority of the Holocaust survivors still among us.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really frightening,\u201d said Al Munzer, hidden as an infant in the Netherlands with a Dutch family and their Muslim nanny. \u201cWhen you see these mass rallies that Trump is able to attract, you really wonder: How are they buying into this message of hate?\u201d<\/p>\n Munzer, who lost two sisters and his father to the Nazis, said he never thought such things could happen in America, but now he\u2019s not so sure. \u201cThinking that Germany was somehow unique is wrong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What is the international holiday for the victims of communism? Asking for a friend. There’s nothing about surviving a genocide that makes a person good or wise. Dana Milbank writes: International Holocaust Remembrance Day is always a somber time for … Continue reading