Blog: My Turn

Believe in the Republic   Up front, I believe in the unfulfilled dream of our democratic exercise. The promise of individual dignity is a work in progress. There’s a sense of despair as we watch anti-democratic leaders, autocrats, oligarchs, and greed fueled people commandeer the Republic. We must overcome them. If we misread their intent or qualify it, we know the potential outcomes. Mostly, we must realize that the words we use and the world we see and hope for are not the ones they see or hear. What is strange to us is perfectly normal for them. We need to stop adjusting, rationalizing, and accommodating and make them. As we identify the toxic threat, we can redirect our future. As we continue to show our courage – simply not giving in – the people exploiting us will lose. 

As Ken Burns’ film about the American Revolution is about to air it is important to remember our Declaration of Independence from the monarchs and now oligarchs: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” There is nothing self-evident about this. It is up to us to make it so. 

Be Silly and Focused   I’ve written before about how silliness and joy are powerful weapons against the tyrant and autocrat who cannot understand them. Even so, funny people are grounded. At the end of The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin, literally replacing “Hitler” speaks:  “We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery…Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost…Do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed – the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people…” 

It Happens   I’ve just described Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, Stalin, Putin, Orban, and should I go on? Each one of these men are insecure and full of fear and perhaps even self-loathing, The end result is pain and suffering. 

Wanna be a lonely, pathetic “strongman”?   Shout out to Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s excellent book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. If you wish to submit your job application for pathetic “strongman” here’s a guide: Because you need constant adoration, you must require constant statements of loyalty from those around you who are using you for their own gain. Make sure you’re good at threatening people and have the capacity for violence. That shouldn’t be hard as you don’t like people anyway. You’ve likely committed a crime or two so make sure you seek office to gain legal protection. Don’t forget to hate, blame, and manipulate women (or girls) and humiliate the men around you while you’re at it. It’s good for your resume if you are a sexual predator. That will reinforce your definition of powerful manliness, and be a strong motive to get elected to avoid prosecution. Don’t listen or work with others because everyone else is stupid and weak. You’re not getting the job unless you have experience in mass communication so buy a few media outlets or at least get on them. They like things that are angry and shocking so be sure to build up your “manliness” by attacking the weak and vulnerable who are just trying to live their lives in peace and joy. Attacking LGBTQ+ is easiest. Bluster a lot as you plunder. Don’t forget to manipulate populist nationalism to let people know who does and does not belong. It’s better to tell people who doesn’t belong or have the right to exist. That might be trickier in America with the whole Statue of Liberty thing, so be sure to divide people by “race”, religion, ethnicity, or anything else you can come up with. People may not like it so be sure to forbid protests, comedians, our newspeople who criticize you. Oh, good trick, label everyone else “terrorists” or “enemies” of freedom. As you undermine law, order, and decency, it’s fun to use paramilitaries to act outside the law. It's just easier and the best part is that you can say you’re “for” “law and order”. It’s important you don’t laugh to yourself too much about this. Big rallies gives you the adulation you need and gives people something to do when there’s not much on TV these days anyway. Oh yes, don’t forget to pal up with other dictators who are slaughtering or imprisoning their people. People will be confused by that, but what do you care. You have money and they don’t. Create as much chaos, pain, confusion, and economic distress as possible because that’ll distract them. Oh, almost forgot because it’s hard for you to believe this, but it works. Be sure, as you victimize other people, that you constantly tell others that you are the victim. That’s a good one! Who said you didn’t have a sense of humor? 

The “Strongman” as Crazy Uncle   I am still guided by President Roosevelt’s, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” from 1933. He was offering the antidote to fascism. Hope over self-destruction. We have to be able to separate the leader from his followers. I’m not talking about those who have collaborated for self-gain and have hurt so many – that will be a matter of politics and law. But we must recognize that we humans are vulnerable. When people are traumatized or afraid they can embrace the irrational. As they attempt to get some control over their lives in moments when what they “knew” or expected from life are disappearing, we must respond with compassion not condemnation. They have embraced the “strongman” perhaps because he feeds their biases, frustration, and anger. For many, their most important “currency” isn’t financial but social. Family and friends are what makes life worth living. The “strongman” knows this and is playing the role of the crazy uncle. Sure he’s nuts, but he’s one of us and someday he might help us. If you try to use your logic and reason on them to tell them that they’re wrong, good luck! This is about their pride, sense of belonging, and sense of self-worth. 

My Turn   Shout out to the Portland frog! We must keep calm and not take the bait. We’re strong enough to respect ourselves and our democratic hopes. People who try to project power as “strongmen” are pathetic, but dangerous. How long do we accept their buffoonery before we say that we matter? Using non-violent demonstrations and laughing at the strong man is a good start. We must continue to limit access to guns and turn the temperature down. Arming paramilitaries and increasing violence is the tool of choice for dictators. Despite what the rumor mill says, Hitler did not take away the guns. Instead, his SA “brownshirt” thugs got their weapons from the German Army depots in a plot to create violence so that a dictator could justify a crackdown. We’ll talk about the Second Amendment later. For now, it’s good to remember that it focused on the 18^th century concept and federated nation-building idea of “well-regulated militias”. We must investigate white supremacists in the military and police and declare white supremacist movements as terrorist organizations. Demand transparency and oversight. Protect any groups or people that are targeted. Follow the money. We must say enough, there is a better way. We must value and protect the media, comedians and the teachers. When it seemed that we were powerless, a nationwide protest to save Jimmy Kimmel (whether you like him or not) showed that this is up to us. We must educate ourselves about the merits of civic behavior and encourage workplace training. We do this not by focusing on the “strongmen” and giving him air to fill his balloon, but by highlighting the everyday, extraordinary person who stands up for their neighbor and themselves. We have plenty of examples to find.

10 November 2025 

Kristallnacht Remembrance   The Nazi-organized November pogrom (violent attacks on Jewish communities with the aid or indifference of the government) took place on November 9-10. 1938. It was a threshold moment for Hitler and the Nazis who had been given power in 1933 and had destroyed checks to his power, destroyed the Weimar constitution, assumed control of the military and police, and changed German society. This evening marked a radicalizing shift in policy and actions towards Jews. Synagogues, businesses, and homes were violated and destroyed, and tens of thousands of German Jews were arrested or murdered. There were willing collaborators across society and fire and police departments stood by, generally refused to help German Jews, and hosed down adjacent buildings as synagogues and Torah scrolls burned. A new level had been reached, and anti-Jewish policy was increasingly radicalized as World War II approached. For years I helped to direct an annual Kristallnacht Remembrance in partnership with Keene NH’s Colonial Theatre to remember the violence and remind our community that mass atrocity crimes are a process not an event. By paying attention to that process, we have the power to intervene, to stop the acceleration. It was a public event that included the Jewish community, mayor, fire and police chiefs, survivors, witnesses, community organizations like MoCo Arts, school groups, interfaith community, and other community members and officials. City institutions chose to use the remembrance as an opportunity to repeat their mission of service and protection to all – in the light of a time when that was not true. Remembrance allowed us to come together, for each other, and use memory to teach responsibility and awareness. It fortified us and sustained us for many years and created a community alert to antisemitism, hate, and targeting. We are a resilient people when we take care of each other. 

Hate in the 1930s   Of the many friends Hitler had in the United States in the 1930s, I would like to focus on Fritz Kuhn and Fr. Charles Coughlin. Kuhn was a German World War I veteran who immigrated and became a US citizen in 1934. Germany had the second highest immigration quota due to the 1924 Immigration Act that gave preference to white Europeans. The act, being heralded today by some in the administration, was written and passed by members of the KKK and others who jumped on the Anti-immigrant bandwagon. The KKK’s slogan and soon to be allied movement, was “America First!”  Kuhn was a fascist, pro-Hitler, isolationist, and antisemite. He created the German American Bund on the hopes of being Hitler’s man in the U.S. and recruited mostly immigrants who were anti-Communist to his movement. At first, the Nazis offered funding but became increasingly concerned that Kuhn’s antics might draw too much attention at a time when Germany was content to let America be isolationist and ignorant. Fr. Charles Coughlin was a Catholic priest born in Canada who became a U.S. citizen. He was an antisemitic, anti-Communist, pro-Nazi, outraged radio host whose audience was the largest in American history (29 million listeners out of 130 million Americans).   His newspaper, Social Justice, had a circulation of 200,000 in 1940. He had his own paramilitary, the Christian Front militia (“Fr. Coughlin’s Brownshirts”) organized like a terrorist cell. In Boston, they showed Nazi military propaganda films. Like the Oath Keepers today, they recruit from military and police for weapons and credibility. His followers were poor and working class Irish and Germans from Northeast and Midwest. His National Union for Social Justice was a political movement focused on replacing capitalist democracy. He published the fraudulent, Russian-invented antisemitic conspiracy fantasy, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion; Nazi propaganda; Goebbels’ speeches; and praised was praised by Der Stürmer. He verbally attacked refugees as communists and Jews and ranted about the “left-wing” “liberal” media. He worked closely with the German-American Bund. His rallies were replete with American flags and crowds riled up by hatred. 

The America Frist Committee   The AFC brought together isolationists, failed Bundists, Coughlin supporters, far-right extremists, antisemites, religious bigots, the disenfranchised, and the greedy. Many respectable business leaders and politicians gave it legitimacy. They opposed the New Deal and President FDR and feared that war would undermine their European investments and markets. In September 1940 America First became an official nonprofit. They called for “Anglo-Saxon purity” and launched an antisemitic magazine, The Cross and the Flag.  

Resisting   Leaders must constantly remind us to push back against hate, anger, and fearmongering that are toxic to democracy and dignity. President FDR responded to threats and problems with caution, patience, timing, and education. He was clear about believing in democratic norms and helped to reshape American attitudes in ways that would lead to the civil rights movement. Leadership matters. But we can be leaders too. We must reject political violence, anti-democratic forces, and accept our responsibility to build a “more perfect union”. We must have confidence and courage. 

Resisting the Bund   In 1937, Kuhn’s German American Bund tried to establish a Hitler Youth-type training camp in Southbury, CT. Kuhn stated: “The principles of the Bund and the KKK are the same”. How did the people of Southbury respond? How did they meet the challenge? Rev. M. Edgar N. Lindsay was one of two pastors who used the Sunday before Thanksgiving to preach about the Nazi “menace”. The Southbury churches rallied behind their neighbors and demonstrated peacefully, and through zoning regulations, prevented a Bund camp from being built. Southbury is about 25 miles from Yale University where the America First Committee (AFC) began. 

The German American Bund Loses   In 1938 Nazi Germany cut off funding for Kuhn’s Bund and forbade membership for German citizens. Hitler was intent on keeping the U.S. isolationist. In 1939, Kuhn pulled off his greatest event, a rally in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. 22,000 attended as Nazi drums pounded and uniformed Nazis marched and gave speeches. The film of the rally is often used today as a frightening warning. However, what most people forget is that 100,000 protested outside the arena. Mayor LaGuardia was outraged by Kuhn and ordered an investigation into Bund financial records. They discover that the $14,000 raised at MSG rally had been embezzled by Kuhn and he was arrested and convicted. Other Bund leaders were jailed for various offenses and membership dwindled. After December 1941, the Bund was outlawed by the U.S. Fritz Kuhn was imprisoned for larceny and forgery from 1939 to 1943. In 1943, he was reinterned as an enemy agent. In 1945, he was deported and imprisoned in post-war Germany before dying in 1951. 

Father Coughlin Loses   Fr. Charles Coughlin ranted and justified the Nazi November 9-10 pogrom (Kristallnacht): on air by claiming they had it coming to them because Christians were being persecuted. The owner of the WMCA station that hosted Coughlin’s broadcasts immediately ended them. The Nazi German press decried his censoring as the silencing of free speech by "Jewish organizations camouflaged as American.” In 1942 the U.S. government suspended the free mailing privilege of “Social Justice” and the Archbishop of Detroit forced Coughlin to close his newspaper and forbade its distribution by mail. Coughlin vanished from the public arena, working as a parish pastor until retiring in 1966. He died in obscurity in 1979. 

My Turn   Kuhn and Coughlin were defeated because Americans took responsibility for each other and trusted in their confidence in democratic norms. We must resist the temptation to respond to hate with hate. We respond with confidence, humor, discipline, peaceful protests, and the ballot box. We find strength by recalling the destructive events that took place in the past, the people affected by them or targeted today, and we stand together. At the Cohen Center’s annual Kristallnacht Remembrances, the participants recommitted themselves to being members of a community that stands against hatred and violence. Together they would say: 

We remember that night as a moral obligation to the victims and the survivors as well as for ourselves, for the sake of our children, and for our community. We recognize our responsibility to care for others in our midst who might be overlooked, targeted, or victimized in their circumstances. We remember so that                individuals may refuse to become perpetrators, “bystanders” or   collaborators. We remember in the hope that present and future   generations take responsibility for building a world free of   antisemitism, bigotry, intolerance, and hate. Therefore, we     remember Kristallnacht to remind ourselves to care for one another, to build peace, and be a community in which compassion, respect and justice thrive.

On this Veteran's Day, let us also remember the sacrifice of our veterans who risked all to defend the idea of liberty, freedom, and dignity. 

3 November 2025 

Compare and Contrast:  “Godwin's Law” states: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." It is all too easy and too common to throw around “Hitler”, “fascist”, “Nazi”, or “Communist” name-calling in what passes itself off as political discourse. That is recklessness shaped by laziness, anger, fear, and ignorance. Reducing devastatingly powerful names and terms into slurs may feel satisfying or allow us to vent, but it is counterproductive and damaging. As an example: After the Trump/Hegseth meeting with our top military commanders (some of whom courageously retired afterward rather than be manipulated into authoritarianism) an online post reduced the significance and got it wrong: “German generals were summoned to Berlin…They were told that their previous oaths to the Weimar Republic were void, and that they had to swear a new oath to the Fuhrer. Most did, in order to keep their jobs. Sound familiar?” Well, no. The significant difference and dangerous misunderstanding in this post is that the German military never swore an oath to the Weimar Constitution, but to the President of the Republic. When President Hindenburg died, Hitler merged the roles of President and Chancellor, and the military were obligated to swear loyalty to him. Although the outrage about the unprecedented meeting of our military leaders was genuine, reducing it with incorrect comparisons cannot help us find solutions and recognize our particular challenges and opportunities. 

We Should Care About Our Own History   The United States has a wonderfully complex history. We grow stronger by honestly and responsibly asking questions of it. Why was fascism (and then Nazism) appealing to many Americans in the 1930s? What connections were there to our founding? Our Civil War? The KKK? Anti-immigrant sentiment? The immigrant experience? Eugenics and Jim Crow? We should be less concerned about wondering if we are acting like Germans in the 1930s and recognize instead the dark forces we have had to repeatedly beat back during our own history. There are definite connections to behaviors, justifications, political shenanigans, personalities, and corporate maneuvering towards fascism. Fritz Kuhn’s German American Bund espousing Nazism was in many ways an import, but how did he and Father Coughlin attract an audience? The questions we need to ask must reflect more home grown, not German, realities.   

Fascists and Nazis   Fascism is not an ideology, but a reactionary political behavior – encouraging violent rejection of the status quo. Nazism is a form of fascism, but in addition to being focused on strongman leadership, ultra-nationalism and war, they were uniquely driven by antidemocratic and race-based ideologies of purity of blood and antisemitism. We may be troubled by authoritarianism in our Republic and echoes of fascism today. We must identify and label fascist and Nazi-leaning actions and beliefs. But we must also recognize the differences between then and now, our own history of opposing them, and focus on the opportunities. 

Origins and Misconceptions    In 1933, newly elected President Franklin Roosevelt was accused of wanting to become a “socialist dictator” with his New Deal approach to the Great Depression. From then on, the corporate-motivated slur of “socialist” misunderstood or less likely conveniently ignored that the Nazis were not socialists. Context is everything. Nazi was shorthand for “National Socialist German Workers' Party.” Taking just a second, something is wrong. Nationalists were in favor of a strong state, militaristic leaders and authoritarian rule while socialists were concerned with the worker, democracy, and think internationally. How do we reconcile this? The Nazis were the first modern German political party attempting to break through the old way of doing politics in Germany. They were seeking to blur the lines and appeal to a broader constituency. If terms were used loosely enough, people could hear what they wanted to hear and dismiss and deny things that did not represent them. 

Weimar Republic

At that time, Germany was divided politically, socially, religiously, regionally, and economically – and the parties represented those identities. Catholics voted for the Catholic Center Party; Farmers voted in the German Farmers’ Party;  Conservatives and monarchists voted with the German Peoples’ Party (DVP), or if more right wing, The German National People's Party (DNVP); and if you were working class, you perhaps would vote for the Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany (SAPD) or, if more left-leaning, the Communist Party (KPD); while advocates of democracy voted for the Social Democratic Party (SPD). While the conservative parties represented the old Germany and the leftist parties expressed Marxist beliefs in different ways, it was difficult to form coalitions. This was especially true of the left where there were clear distinctions and hostile divisions between socialists and communists. 

Socialists and Communists

The SPD sought a democratic path to socialism and separated itself from any affiliation with the Soviet Union while he KPD argued for a violent revolution working with Stalin. Germans could distinguish between them. For the Nazis, their goal was to appear socialist in order to deepen the wedge and perhaps attract followers as they reached out beyond identity lines in the name of “unity”. It was cynical manipulation by a party that was fascist. They did attract some socialists, but the majority of those remained with the Social Democrats. If we fall into the trap of “Nazis were socialists” then we ignorantly accept the Nazi manipulation, the contradictions, and their blurring of reality. If we accept the reductionist narrative that the “left” are “communists” we are ignoring reality once again. 

In the post-World War I 1930s, with Germany facing unrest and fear, Communism was indeed perceived as a threat (Ukraine famine, soviet purges, an ideology of violent expansion and overthrowing the elites…) Stalin was funding much of it and Communist loyalties were to him and the ideology. Today, there is no organized and threatening Communist Party (especially in the U.S.). Putin’s funding of a campaign of disinformation, antidemocratic, social division and violence does echo those times. However, it is a different threat, and we must perceive it as so. Those who invoke the specter of Communism are tapping into German fears of the 1930s, but also our fears that carried through the Cold War and created blacklists. It is a convenient red herring, disinterested in truth, but fueled by and banking on fear and ignorance for personal gain and power.

My Turn   We can use history as a tool to compare and contrast, An image taken by Franz Konrad of the SS during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, the “Warsaw Ghetto Boy”, is a photo taken at a murder scene. For the perpetrator, that was not an issue. Indeed, the perpetrators posed for their friend behind the camera for pictures that would be submitted in the report on the operation. They wanted to be seen because they saw themselves as powerful and right. An obvious comparison would be of an American lynching. After all, the KKK was one of the groups behind the writing and passing of the 1924 Quota immigration system and would later side with American Nazis and antisemites in the 1930s. In 1930, a lynching took place of two black American teenagers in Marion, Indiana. It was one of the few lynchings outside the deep South, so it was a boon for white supremacists and racists to argue that this is a common American practice. Lawrence Beitler, unlike Konrad, was a reluctant photographer of over 15,000 white men, women and children who showed up. Like the Warsaw Ghetto killers, there was glee in be photographed as it reinforced their sense of white power. Like the Nazis (that would come after them) they would self-identify as white Christian nationalists - many of whom believed in the mythical white replacement conspiracy theory that still drives racist manipulation and destruction today. In both cases mentioned here, murder was not just possible, it was permissible. However, we must go beyond simple comparisons and look for contrasts. Why were the Nazis in the photo later convicted and executed for war crimes when the Americans in their picture were not? Does it change the questions we if we recognize that the Nazis and their collaborators were acting during wartime while the American lynching mobs were not? Does that matter? What allowed for public lynching? That is a deeply American question. And yet, despite the difficulties and contradictions, we cobbled and forged together a nation rooted in a premise that things can improve. We resisted and bested fascism, Nazism, and Communism in the 1930s. We decided that faith in the Republic and its demands were more powerful than fear. Leadership, the rule of (not by) law, and individual citizens standing up for each other made the difference. It was not perfect nor without controversy, but it emerged from a nation aspiring to build a more perfect union, not a self-destructive authoritarian state.

27 October 2025  

The Pursuit of Happiness Over Politicization of Everyday Life   Over seven million people gathered across the nation to express their right to be left alone. This generation may not remember a time when every decision (what car to drive, what sticker to use, what opinion to express, how to talk with friends and family…) was not measured by politics. The sheer invasiveness of politics in private lives and in our public spaces warns us that we are navigating how life will look in a totalitarian state. That is not the promise and hope of the American Revolution nor why our imperfect Republic was established. We were created in the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not, as the Declaration of Independence proposed, freedom from the autocrats and religious ideologies that divided and destroyed Europe for personally perceived gain. 

A Process Not An Event    Mass atrocity crimes take a long time to develop. Institutions have to be weakened, perpetrators need to be recruited, collaborators and away-lookers need to be cultivated. We see past viciousness and atrocities as something that would never happen here…until they begin to. Our senses, reactions, priorities, and energies are dulled, and we enter a new reality. Can we perceive that things have shifted and continue to shift or are we too busy accommodating? The powerful, choosing power, wealth, division, and exploitation are keenly aware of the momentum they are creating. Their interests are not ours and they know it. 

Warning Signs    Experts in my field have enough longitudinal evidence of how societies find themselves in increased risk of atrocity. My former colleague Dr. James Waller has identified a number of those areas of concern such as governance and economics.  Democratic governance decreases the risk of atrocity as people’s needs are heard and political stability and future expectations of stability frame discussions and policies. However, when a minority elite has power and uses an exclusionary ideology to secure that power, a country’s risk increases. Do those in power try to include a vast majority or do they isolate, manipulate ever-present divisions, and villainize those in the opposition?  Is violence and militarism promoted as virtue? Are state structures secure and trusted or weak and corrupt? Are there checks and balances in place? Economic health can also reveal risk factors. Are there levels of economic discrimination? Is there a growing wealth gap with unequal access to goods and services? Are there gender inequalities? Are education and free speech under assault? Is a country isolated or connected to other nations. The more interconnectedness, the more international laws apply.    

The Founding of the United States    The Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the American Revolution was, in great part, a response to and a rejection of religious violence in Europe. “He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages…” That “barbarous age” being referred to was the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) which had seen Europe devastate itself in wars of Christian sectarianism. The Treaty of Westphalia that ended that conflict stopped religious massacres and creating the guiding principle that state sovereignty would replace religious hare and identity by establishing a balance of powers, limiting mercenaries, and creating laws to protect states. This was the guiding principle in the establishment of the United States. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1791 read: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…” 

Crossing the Threshold    Triggers that allow a society to cross the threshold into mass violence are varied. They can come out of anywhere: natural disaster, assassinations, and/or elections when the minority elite feel threatened. No one can predict when that might happen. However, if those in power promote conspiracy theories, increasingly use and justify violence, ignore or rewrite history and claim to be defending or resurrecting a better, mythical past, then we need to pay attention. 

Questions to Ask    Are we really at risk of mass atrocity and authoritarianism? We need to ask some simple questions: Is there a defined target group and direct, public incitement to commit violence? Are the patterns consistent with extensive, group-selective violence, intent on destruction of groups under the would-be perpetrator’s control? Are significant segments of a target group subject to violence? Have genocidaires articulated a logic of annihilation (classifying the target groups and identifying “them” as an existential threat)? Is the violence organized, deliberate, and systemic? Is violence sanctioned by those in power. Is the violence spread out to target a geographic area? Is there a capacity to inflict large scale violence? 

My Turn    I am a patriot of our Republic. I am alert to the warning signs that currently exist in our country. I know also that nothing is inevitable – no matter how probable it might seem. I know that if we give into fear and powerlessness, we lose our greatest asset: the internalized belief in and dignity of our democratic experience. We will never agree on everything, and it is that acknowledgement that keeps us free. We do not seek to convert as much as to protect. The “No Kings” demonstrators demonstrated joy, happiness, silliness, discipline, non-violence, and reminded us of how life used to be and can be again. Make no mistake. Once those in power embark on an anti-democratic agenda seeking personal wealth, power, violence, and lawlessness disguised as virtue, we are all at risk. The very momentum they create radicalize individuals, institutions, and societies. However, by tapping into our history of dissent and the social contract that has bound us together in this experiment, separating church and state and allowing for private freedom, we can find the strength to resist. Nothing is inevitable unless we despair and isolate ourselves. Too many have sacrificed to allow for a kleptocracy to insult us. We must embrace our diversity as a strength, or silliness and sense of humor as a weapon, and our dignity and self-worth to be our foundation.

20 October 2025   

The Frightening Past   The past can be a painful place to visit or dwell in. It can be more comfortable to avoid it, be ignorant of it, rewrite it, or reshape it to reinforce whatever we need it to - or worse, make it fit an ideology. Today political justifications and villainization of the other thrive on reductionist and often wrong (yet attractively simplistic) narratives. Fascist, Nazi, and Communist histories are reduced and weaponized. Teachers, charged with helping students to thoughtfully investigate the past in order to build a better future, are threatened. History is deemed “divisive” if it raises questions of the past that might undermine a narrative that feeds one groups’ identity, power, and ideology. Much of this is based on identity needs and fear that is easily manipulated. That is why the work that we did at the Cohen Center for the past twenty-four years were guided by the insightful charge of its founder, Dr. Charles Hildebrandt, “to remember…and to teach.” Memory needed to be examined, confronted, questioned, and reflected upon. To help each other, we needed to face difficult history. To resist manipulation, we needed to make sure that we confronted history and the constructions of memory with informed, courageous, and responsible questions. 

The Son of a Perpetrator  Martin Rumscheidt came into my life because of Hank Knight and Franklin Littell’s Scholars’ Conference on the Churches and the Holocaust. Martin exemplified the courage that many of our contemporaries lack. Rather than shun history, Martin had to confront his own, very personal history. Martin grew up in a privileged Nazi home in Leuna in central Germany where his interpretation of history and his own identity was shaped by Nazi frameworks. Years after the war and after his father’s death he discovered that his father, an IG Farben executive, had been a perpetrator. His father’s wartime diary revealed his trips to Auschwitz. His own playmates had been the children of officers in Auschwitz III. His brother had been killed fighting for Germany and he and his mother barely escaped a strafing of their town by American aircraft. How could his father, even his country, be wrong? He had accepted his father’s explanations that those facing judgement in postwar trials, the family friends, were victims of “victors’ justice”. And yet, the narratives he was brought up did not ring true after the war. He fell in love with a young woman only to be astonished that she was a Jew. The stereotypes and fears evaporated, and questions were raised when his loving family, always friendly, forbid her entering their home. The more questions he asked his father, the more their relationship was in peril. Martin continued to love his imperfect father, but questioned “how much of him is in me?” 

Shame not Guilt   Martin had no guilt for what had happened, but he felt responsible for the shame of his father’s actions. He was a humble penitent, able to make that distinction between guilt and shame. He began to recognize the deep-seated Jew hate he had been taught and described himself as an “antisemite in remission”. He wondered if he had any right to or even should try to rectify the past. Survivors told him, while holding his hands, that he must speak. He accepted the responsibility for a difficult past, worked with survivors, became a theologian questioning Christian antisemitism, and was a beloved speaker at our summer institutes helping teachers as their guide and companion. 

The German Brings the Jew Back to Auschwitz   Martin did not reject facing difficult things. Asked by the Jewish daughter of a survivor (if memory serves), he accompanied her in a trip to the Auschwitz-Birkenau site. Upon arrival, she hesitated, Martin held her hand and assured her that they would do this together. As the day grew darker, they found themselves separated in the ruins of the camp, each facing their own encounters with the past. Martin was in the part of the camp that his father had visited. He was unable to move. This time, she was the one to find him, to hold his hand, to help him find his way out. He would remember that day as the day “the German brought the Jew to Auschwitz and the Jew brought the German out.” I often think about this painful, yet deeply humane moment. His framing continues to puncture my safe space, that part of me that wants to face things alone, perhaps to keep it inside and not to burden others. And yet, we cannot do this alone. We all need companions along the road. We also need to get out of ourselves and our own deeply felt concerns and worries by listening to, and walking with, an other. If we can think about the face of the other as well as our own, we both become safer, more free. As a Christian theologian, Martin would talk about how the ability to mourn for others allowed for his own resurrection. 

Legacy of Courage   It has taken time, but Germans now continue this courageous confrontation with the past. Katharina Matro, a third generation German and high school teacher in Bethesda, Maryland talks of how, when being educated in Germany, she was exposed to her country’s history without mercy. Instead of guilt or despair, she discovered that she became a more informed citizen, a more critical thinker, more aware of social injustice, and a patriot who, as the German president stated, loves [her] country with a broken heart. She argues that this makes her a better democratic citizen as the past shapes her responsibility to people today. 

Franklin Littell.                  

My Turn    Few countries try to face their own difficult history and that includes the United States. That can change. If Martin and Katharina can face the responsibility towards a Nazi past and come out stronger, then who are we to be afraid? Confident, courageous, and responsible people and societies are not afraid of the past. Healthy democracies, building a better world for all its citizens, rely and thrive on it. We can mourn what was done in our name. We can recognize human imperfections, worry less about guilt and more about responsibility, and let ourselves escape the trap of “victimization”, fear-induced narratives that restrict our freedom, confidence, and hope. We will not be weaker by raising important questions of the past. Rather, we will gain the strength and confidence to hold each other’s hands while finding a way out of darkness and despair.

13 October 2025  

Welcome!

An opening insight into your blogger... I like to write to try to define and figure out questions that are on my mind. This was true even in college when my patient, understanding, and supportive roommate (and life-long friend) would tolerate the hammering of my old (new then) Smith-Corona typewriter in our small room at Norwich University. When I began my professional career as a Holocaust and genocide educator, my questions were formed by my then Catholic identity.  My first two directors and the people I met along the way (whom I will write about in this blog) during my tenure as the Coordinator of Educational Outreach for the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies encouraged me and expanded my thoughts, walked with me, and opened new paths. I engaged in interfaith dialogue, attended the Scholars’ Conference on the Churches and the Holocaust, served on the NH Diocesan Interfaith and Ecumenical Commission, engaged in interfaith dialogue and midrash, studied in Israel and proceeded to write down a history of Christian anti-Judaism and antisemitism (found on my website). I was on a journey of self-discovery and accountability as I tried to quantify and clarify. It was an important step in looking outward by looking inward. I identified problematic and destructive ideas, tropes, and constructs within my tradition and tried to take responsibility for them. The more I wrote and tried to detail, the less effective I felt. I had become more aware and self-aware, but it was not changing the viewpoints of others. I realized it was not about just getting it right but realizing that others were not on the same path. Giving them facts did not change their perceptions, or more importantly, their needs. 

Better Questions?   The repeated query of “Why the Jews” was an honest question, but the wrong one. More revealing was the question that they did not want an answer to, “How is this antisemitic”? The implication is that there is something about “them” that we need to figure out and not “us”. And yet (thank you Professor Wiesel) hatred does not begin with the target group, but from the needs of those who would target. Often justified as self-defense or self-preservation, people can always justify hate in moral terms. Violence is not only possible, it becomes permissible and even necessary. What if the questions were about us and not them? What if we realized that accepting hate, limits our freedom as well? 

Limits of Labels:   To approach complexity, we use labels and definitions to reduce complex information into smaller, more examinable chunks. As a tool, they are good starting points for inquiry. Used differently, they can reduce things to simple conclusions that need to be defended. By their very nature, definitions reduce complexity and we rely on our implicit (and explicit) biases to fill in the rest. We assign additional meaning and adjectives based on our own experiences or prejudices. unconscious assumptions, associations, attitudes, and stereotypes. Implicit bias desensitizes, simplifies, and reduces identity – the actual process and building blocks for atrocity.

Therefore, we must use definitions and labels (perpetrators, bystanders, victims…) as starting points. That is why I hesitate to try to define antisemitism. It is difficult to narrow down because the motives, needs, and perceptions of those who accept it are complex and varied.  To me, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition on antisemitism, attempts to do this. https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/eu-handbook-ihra-working-definition-antisemitism 

The "working definition" recognizes that the goal of any definition is to begin exploration and understanding and, in this case, help people to identify potential ideas, code words, symbols and actions that might be antisemitic and destructive. “Is this antisemitic?” is more helpful than labeling someone an antisemite. 

Empathy Towards Anger:   Survivors have taught me that anger is the first step towards healing m- if we do not let it consume us. When one expresses fear of, hate for, disgust with an other “group” my response is now shaped by empathy. What has happened, is happening, or do you perceive is happening to you that you need to look for “answers” that dehumanize and target rather than reflect? I prefer to listen and engage in conversation than condemn and reduce. This is what I learned in the sacred space of my classroom. Education (self-awareness) is needed when someone says something out of naivete or ignorance. Education can empower us by helping us to become aware of hate and to take responsibility for others in our Republic. However, if someone has expressed antisemitism as a provocation, it is difficult to educate. Instead, it is important to deprive them of oxygen. If there is a threat, it requires a legal response. 

I remember a school where a student posted a Hitler-inspired image on his social media and the school, rightly concerned for those who felt targeted, asked me to talk to the staff and students. In a moment of responsibility and realization, the student apologized just before I was to speak. I explained that everyone does stupid things and that although his actions were hurtful, he took responsibility and therefore should not be labeled as a Nazi or an antisemite. It did not mean that his actions were not hurtful and harmful. My questions to them were, Why did you repost it? Who felt targeted? Is it easier to condemn one person than to take responsibility for what comes next? 

My Turn    It is my turn to offer questions. How does the query, “Why the Jews”? expose and reinforce the biased assumption that where there are Jews, there must be antisemitism. There are numerous examples throughout history of neighbors living and working together regardless of their religious or cultural identities. Even in 1920s mandate Palestine, Jewish settlers and Palestinian neighbors tended to get along and work together. How did that change? becomes an important contemporary question. Is antisemitism the norm or a destructive aberration? What are the motives of those who accept it? Why would someone want you to believe that? Why do people hate and what is in it for the hater? These are better questions to ponder. Antisemitism may always exist, but it is not always the norm. 

Contextually, it is important to note that when one hate rises (and Jew hate has proven timeless and flexible), they all do. Note how fear of (start naming “groups”) begins to rise when Jew hate rises. Jew hate is a proven and effective construct that undermines human dignity and freedom from a variety of historical motives and contexts and is especially potentially lethal when linked to a conspiracy lie. Often, this follows a traumatic event which pushes people to rely on biases in an urgent attempt to explain the irrational. Once people, nationally or locally, embrace Jew hate and are rewarded (with temporary power, deflection from crises or relieving of psychological and identity needs) the need to focus on an “other” and expand the list of targets is difficult to resist. 

Hate is a reactionary, self-reinforcing, destructive, and self-destructive force. Antisemitism is toxic for democracies, justice, and human freedom. Those who push you to reduce complexity, offer targets and justifications, promote conspiracy theories, and make hate permissible will gain short term power and limit your options. Raising better questions reduces fear, engages those who are frightened, and helps us to build a more just democracy.