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.

[Lonestarblue]

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

Explains at least some of his whacked out ideas.

[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.

[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.

[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.