Thank you for this, Steve. I would love to send this to Mark Robinson, but for people filled like him who are filled only with ignorance and arrogance, it would not matter.
When World War 2 ended, General Douglas MacArthur stood on the deck of the USS Missouri and said it was his earnest hope that a better world would arise, one founded upon freedom, tolerance, and justice.
Defeating Donald Trump and Mark Robinson will go a long way to fulfilling General MacArthur’s wish.
Alas Mark Robinson is like Trump and he does not read. He DOES eat pizza regularly, daily even. He takes pizza boxes into his local porn shop and watches porn films while eating pizza.This has been reported by the owner of the porn shop. Easily verifiable .
Hard to understand how any Jew, LGBTQ, Muslim, brown, black or 'other' person would support and vote for a man whose followers deny Auschwitz happened. The hatred of his followers would no doubt 'allow' an Auschwitz, American made, to be erected. Never Again!
The vast majority of Jews are Democrats. Our disdain and disgust with the Hitler loving Republican candidate, trump, is deep and intense. My great aunts were killed by Hitler. We will never forget.
Sharon, I would note I haven’t forgotten that when Trump was President, whenever he addressed a Jewish group, he invariably would refer to Netanyahu as their Prime Minister. I also haven’t forgotten, during his tenure as President, Trump saying that “Jews had better get right with Israel before it’s too late.”
While I have my suspicions about what he intended, posting them would be irresponsible.
This series is powerful and thoughtful. Our family went to Poland in 1990, for my younger son’s bar mitzvah. We think my late husband’s family came from kutno because the last name is kutner. We went to Warsaw and krakow and the town of kutno as well as Auschwitz, Birkenau, majdenak, and treblinka.
The question that kept going through my mind was how could a thousand year history be obliterated. Quote from something I read: “Lord Almighty, will such a good and beautiful world actually be destroyed?” We know the answer. A mile from treblinka we saw new graffiti on a barn wall: “Zydy do Gaza” (Jews to the gas).
Your series has rekindled my recollections. Thank you
Jeanney, Dear Lord I don’t think I will ever understand. It is great that you could walk the grounds of these dear victims of unimaginable HATE. Thank you for sharing with us, it makes it too real, but we always must be connected to what history leaves for us to embrace the circle of life and death again (unimaginable)🙏🏻.
> "The ideologies of human hatred that created Auschwitz are alive and well in the 21st century. They have not been defeated."
We need you here, Steve. Donald Trump appears to be leading in battleground states. WTF? This is scary depressing. I live in a decidedly red state. My vote adds to a popular vote win for Biden, but that's about it. So all I can do is send money to the Biden campaign? I agree it couldn't be more important to defeat Trump, but will my money actually have an effect on these incredibly misguided people "in battleground states"? Which begs the question, how in the world can ANY American side with this utterly despicable and disgusting person? I'm back to where I started: WTF?
I also survive in a Ruby red state, Memphis and Nashville are the only bright blue spots. I quake before elections, knowing my vote really won't sway this state's political ignorance (ie. Blackburn and Hagerty for example). I am sickened learning the history of how racism, fascism and blind ambition lead humankind to a deep abyss. We must stop this Madness. Thank you, Steve, for the elucidation of history during this black hole of mankind.
Same here, DC. I’m in AZ and donating to the Biden campaign and also to Colin Allred and some others. I can’t imagine why anyone would support the ghoul Trump and embrace his baseness and his cruelty.
This was TFG’s question to those who laid down their lives for the American Constitution and the foundational American ideal of the universal (“all”) rights of freedom of the individual to enjoy “life, liberty, and happiness”. His classmates in high school were well aware of his disrespect for military service. That we freed the Jews from the camps? He doesn’t CARE about that. He wasn’t willing to get his hair wet to visit the American cemetery for military servicemen! Can you get more shallow?
Hannah Arendt captured TFG’s state of mind perfectly in her reporting on Eichmann, the banality of evil. It isn’t easy for us to understand her phrase because it sounds as if she’s saying evil is not awful. But she spent weeks in a courtroom with the man who hurried up the gassing once they realized the Americans were coming, fearing that they would lose the war, they had to get the trains to be more efficient to kill more Jews and Romas and gays! Like TFG willing to destroy 244 years of peaceful transfer of power just because he could use his power to get adventitiously angry people to coalesce around his lie, the deaths and violence’s import to our future as a nation lost on him. TFG’s “job” was to keep TFG in power, no matter who got killed, about as shallow a motivation as one can imagine! And we know through the testimony at the 1/6 hearings that he KNEW he had lost! But how proud he still is of doing his “job!”
Eichmann too never stopped lying and was only surprised that no one believed him. His answer to everything was, “But I did my job really well!” Arendt realized that he really and truly was so shallow that the consequence of his “job” (millions of deaths) was irrelevant to his pride in having moved millions of people so efficiently. He did his “job” really well.
Why lying is a core character trait of those who can create Auschwitzes is that evil is not like the movies. No big black hat. No identifiable snigger. Nothing dramatic. It’s more like a fungus, so shallow you can scrape it off, so infectious you can get it be just being in a crowd, but so deadly unless lots and lots of strong sunlight and cleaning are applied…millions can die.
——
The sign at Auschwitz “Work is Freedom” is something I would like some more thought on as the year progresses toward our choice between democracy and fascism. Millions of Americans have no leisure. Universities are measuring “success” by “work.” When are we supposed to be reflecting on our ideals? When are we supposed to be enjoying “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?”
An essay on work and leisure would be much appreciated by this subscriber who is doing her best to go the other direction (spending a month in Ireland) to enjoy my freedom while I have it.
I’ve never forgotten what he said about those who served, which would include my father, my uncles, my step-grandfather, one aunt, and a cousin currently on active duty with the Army. According to Chump, they’re just suckers.
My father, uncle, grandfathers, great uncles (and aunt), first cousins (Full Bird Colonel in the Army, Captain in the Coast Guard, General in the Marines)! How can we forget—-not to mention John McCain who could have gotten out instantly, but knew how it would reflect on the honor of his family (his father was an Admiral)! TFG Ssaid he didn’t like military who were caught! He didn’t even know about McCain’s courage! TFG’s treatment of the slain Mexican American, his ugliness to the surviving parents! What is there that is American about this person? It’s heartbreaking.
It is always nice to hear stories about the service of other families. In Unity There Is Strength. One of my uncles served on the USS Cassin Young, which is a museum ship now in Boston. He was on it in 1944 and 1945 in the Pacific. He saw much action. Decades later, when he went to visit the ship, they treated him so nice and respectfully and gave him a special tour. Here is a link to the shop:
I grew up in a time when my public school education included the lessons of history — slavery, the world wars, Nazism, the holocaust. I remember watching QB VII on television as a young adult, and even though I had learned about World War II and the holocaust, the concentration camps, that television show evoked a visceral horror in me, that remains a half a century later. It makes my stomach churn to know there are individuals, fully aware of the atrocities of the past, who now work now to stifle that information from being taught to children today. I am both fearful for and fearful of these generations, for their lack of awareness and hence their indifference to the evil on our doorstep. Thank you, Steve, for using your voice and this platform to help ensure that these things are not ever forgotten.
I visited Auschwitz last month, for the first time, and likely the last. Once was enough. It was unimaginably worse than your worst imagination of it. The scale of the horror, cruelty, and depravity is overwhelming.
And for the past 76 years, the world’s one Jewish nation-state--Israel--has had to fight every day for its survival. This is especially true since the Hamas terrorists and their allies committed the worst one day mass murder and atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust, and the cancer of anti-Semitism--the world’s oldest hatred has metastasized on school campuses from New York to California where, as Alan Dershowitz put it, the “Hitler Youth” are attacking Jewish students verbally and physically and accusing Israel of committing “genocide” against the Palestinians who want to finish the real genocide Hitler and his allies executed. The world leaders--including those in the U.S.--have learned nothing from World II and the Holocaust. There are those who dismissively say, “What was, was.” I suggest that what was, still is! Thank you for being our Churchill, Mr. Schmidt! I hope your Warning is heeded in time to stave off an American catastrophe!
Indifference. Indifference. For a complete sociopathic narcissist like Donald Trump, his amorality would easily be turned -- through his indifference -- to a repetition of the Holocaust. He just would not care.
Steve, I have read about Auschwitz many times, and I thought I would nod my head in agreement as I read your column -- slightly immune to being horrified one more time, but it tore into me all over again. Thank you for your powerful writing. We need to continue to revisit Auschwitz and all that it says about humanity's capacity for abject evil.
Steve, as much as I appreciate your journey and these essays, I found this one very hard to finish without tearing up. Many of my late ex-husband's relatives in Poland met their end at the camps. His grandparents and parents managed to get to this country after WWI, but the family that stayed behind were not so fortunate. May their memories be a blessing...
For those who haven’t learned from this already, this should be required reading. The mental illness that allowed this to happen then is still among us.
This is one of the most moving and important pieces of writing I have read regarding the history of the holocaust and the persistence of the same hatred and bigotry exists now and drives much of what we see in our country today. I just hope some of our fellow citizens (and politicians) who need to learn this lesson, see this, read it and reflect long and hard. Thank you Steve!
We need to send the loudest, the boldest, the best manipulators among The Deniers to Auschwitz. They must see and feel the truth. They must walk among the remains of the innocent and the murderers. They must face the stark relief of horror and heroism that comes from insanity and manipulation by those in power. Then they must have a civics lesson. After that, they need to take the test that those applying for citizenship to the U.S.A. must take. Their civics lesson and their test should be the precursor to a choice: Door #1 or Door #2: the freedom provided to you by a democracy or by a dictator. Choose. Grow up. Go to that home and live with the consequences. Steve, we're all counting on you to continue your excellent insights and commentaries. It is your way of investing in a civic duty to strengthen our scaffolding of understanding what our precious freedoms really mean. We thank you.
Oh Steve, for once now I am speechless. Your truly haunting portrayal of Auschwitz pierced my soul. I have read books about it of course but I felt I was there with you as you so eloquently described each section. The shoes always get me. Always.
Growing up my Mother would read me stories about Corrie Ten Boom, a Holocaust survivor and how she never once lost her Faith. Never. I can't even imagine when facing such evil and degradation.
Your entire series in Poland has been such a gift to all of us as we struggle to face the evil we are dealing with here and around the world. It is almost beyond the mind's comprehension for normal, loving people like most all of us. But it is real, it is alive and it IS coming for all of us unless we stop it in it's tracks November 5th. Thank you just doesn't seem adequate. Just know how very very much what you do matters!! Be Blessed 🙌 and have a safe trip home. ❤️🇺🇸💙
Awww thanks Lisa!! You are so kind. I can barely write compared to our beloved Steve and boy what stories he has shared this last week. I feel honored to be a part of his journey. ❤️💙❤️
Thank you for this, Steve. I would love to send this to Mark Robinson, but for people filled like him who are filled only with ignorance and arrogance, it would not matter.
When World War 2 ended, General Douglas MacArthur stood on the deck of the USS Missouri and said it was his earnest hope that a better world would arise, one founded upon freedom, tolerance, and justice.
Defeating Donald Trump and Mark Robinson will go a long way to fulfilling General MacArthur’s wish.
👏👏
Alas Mark Robinson is like Trump and he does not read. He DOES eat pizza regularly, daily even. He takes pizza boxes into his local porn shop and watches porn films while eating pizza.This has been reported by the owner of the porn shop. Easily verifiable .
Hard to understand how any Jew, LGBTQ, Muslim, brown, black or 'other' person would support and vote for a man whose followers deny Auschwitz happened. The hatred of his followers would no doubt 'allow' an Auschwitz, American made, to be erected. Never Again!
The vast majority of Jews are Democrats. Our disdain and disgust with the Hitler loving Republican candidate, trump, is deep and intense. My great aunts were killed by Hitler. We will never forget.
Sharon, I would note I haven’t forgotten that when Trump was President, whenever he addressed a Jewish group, he invariably would refer to Netanyahu as their Prime Minister. I also haven’t forgotten, during his tenure as President, Trump saying that “Jews had better get right with Israel before it’s too late.”
While I have my suspicions about what he intended, posting them would be irresponsible.
Or how any morally sentient, self-respecting human being, irrespective of group identification or origin, could do so. A shonda!
A sincere disgrace. Shonda.
This series is powerful and thoughtful. Our family went to Poland in 1990, for my younger son’s bar mitzvah. We think my late husband’s family came from kutno because the last name is kutner. We went to Warsaw and krakow and the town of kutno as well as Auschwitz, Birkenau, majdenak, and treblinka.
The question that kept going through my mind was how could a thousand year history be obliterated. Quote from something I read: “Lord Almighty, will such a good and beautiful world actually be destroyed?” We know the answer. A mile from treblinka we saw new graffiti on a barn wall: “Zydy do Gaza” (Jews to the gas).
Your series has rekindled my recollections. Thank you
Jeanney, Dear Lord I don’t think I will ever understand. It is great that you could walk the grounds of these dear victims of unimaginable HATE. Thank you for sharing with us, it makes it too real, but we always must be connected to what history leaves for us to embrace the circle of life and death again (unimaginable)🙏🏻.
> "The ideologies of human hatred that created Auschwitz are alive and well in the 21st century. They have not been defeated."
We need you here, Steve. Donald Trump appears to be leading in battleground states. WTF? This is scary depressing. I live in a decidedly red state. My vote adds to a popular vote win for Biden, but that's about it. So all I can do is send money to the Biden campaign? I agree it couldn't be more important to defeat Trump, but will my money actually have an effect on these incredibly misguided people "in battleground states"? Which begs the question, how in the world can ANY American side with this utterly despicable and disgusting person? I'm back to where I started: WTF?
I also survive in a Ruby red state, Memphis and Nashville are the only bright blue spots. I quake before elections, knowing my vote really won't sway this state's political ignorance (ie. Blackburn and Hagerty for example). I am sickened learning the history of how racism, fascism and blind ambition lead humankind to a deep abyss. We must stop this Madness. Thank you, Steve, for the elucidation of history during this black hole of mankind.
I unfortunately am in a similar situation and feel as you do. My state, which has been described as purple by some, is not that.
Same here, DC. I’m in AZ and donating to the Biden campaign and also to Colin Allred and some others. I can’t imagine why anyone would support the ghoul Trump and embrace his baseness and his cruelty.
Perhaps they are utterly despicable and disgusting.
Some very fine writing, Steve…..Beautifully done.
“I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
This was TFG’s question to those who laid down their lives for the American Constitution and the foundational American ideal of the universal (“all”) rights of freedom of the individual to enjoy “life, liberty, and happiness”. His classmates in high school were well aware of his disrespect for military service. That we freed the Jews from the camps? He doesn’t CARE about that. He wasn’t willing to get his hair wet to visit the American cemetery for military servicemen! Can you get more shallow?
Hannah Arendt captured TFG’s state of mind perfectly in her reporting on Eichmann, the banality of evil. It isn’t easy for us to understand her phrase because it sounds as if she’s saying evil is not awful. But she spent weeks in a courtroom with the man who hurried up the gassing once they realized the Americans were coming, fearing that they would lose the war, they had to get the trains to be more efficient to kill more Jews and Romas and gays! Like TFG willing to destroy 244 years of peaceful transfer of power just because he could use his power to get adventitiously angry people to coalesce around his lie, the deaths and violence’s import to our future as a nation lost on him. TFG’s “job” was to keep TFG in power, no matter who got killed, about as shallow a motivation as one can imagine! And we know through the testimony at the 1/6 hearings that he KNEW he had lost! But how proud he still is of doing his “job!”
Eichmann too never stopped lying and was only surprised that no one believed him. His answer to everything was, “But I did my job really well!” Arendt realized that he really and truly was so shallow that the consequence of his “job” (millions of deaths) was irrelevant to his pride in having moved millions of people so efficiently. He did his “job” really well.
Why lying is a core character trait of those who can create Auschwitzes is that evil is not like the movies. No big black hat. No identifiable snigger. Nothing dramatic. It’s more like a fungus, so shallow you can scrape it off, so infectious you can get it be just being in a crowd, but so deadly unless lots and lots of strong sunlight and cleaning are applied…millions can die.
——
The sign at Auschwitz “Work is Freedom” is something I would like some more thought on as the year progresses toward our choice between democracy and fascism. Millions of Americans have no leisure. Universities are measuring “success” by “work.” When are we supposed to be reflecting on our ideals? When are we supposed to be enjoying “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?”
An essay on work and leisure would be much appreciated by this subscriber who is doing her best to go the other direction (spending a month in Ireland) to enjoy my freedom while I have it.
——-
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/08/trump-mocked-us-military-troops-losers-whole-life/
https://docs.google.com/document/d/18yC1-ryreVgyIhk2uQaVqKJ2w17mjaV9h2xWGTOmToY/edit
I’ve never forgotten what he said about those who served, which would include my father, my uncles, my step-grandfather, one aunt, and a cousin currently on active duty with the Army. According to Chump, they’re just suckers.
My father, uncle, grandfathers, great uncles (and aunt), first cousins (Full Bird Colonel in the Army, Captain in the Coast Guard, General in the Marines)! How can we forget—-not to mention John McCain who could have gotten out instantly, but knew how it would reflect on the honor of his family (his father was an Admiral)! TFG Ssaid he didn’t like military who were caught! He didn’t even know about McCain’s courage! TFG’s treatment of the slain Mexican American, his ugliness to the surviving parents! What is there that is American about this person? It’s heartbreaking.
It is always nice to hear stories about the service of other families. In Unity There Is Strength. One of my uncles served on the USS Cassin Young, which is a museum ship now in Boston. He was on it in 1944 and 1945 in the Pacific. He saw much action. Decades later, when he went to visit the ship, they treated him so nice and respectfully and gave him a special tour. Here is a link to the shop:
https://www.nps.gov/bost/learn/historyculture/usscassinyoung.htm
Three of my mother's brothers, one of whom died in the Battle of the Bulge, and two of her sisters. I don't know how my grandparents made it through.
The wrong people seem to be using this diabolical history as a roadmap. Some deny it happened while making their plans to do the same.
Thank you for your eloquent words, Steve.
I thank and appreciate them for their service. One of my uncles served in Patton’s 3rd Army and saw much combat until Hitler was defeated.
My son, father and grandfather. TFG is despicable
I thank and appreciate them for their service.
Nicely stated Meg. Enjoy your time in Ireland.
I grew up in a time when my public school education included the lessons of history — slavery, the world wars, Nazism, the holocaust. I remember watching QB VII on television as a young adult, and even though I had learned about World War II and the holocaust, the concentration camps, that television show evoked a visceral horror in me, that remains a half a century later. It makes my stomach churn to know there are individuals, fully aware of the atrocities of the past, who now work now to stifle that information from being taught to children today. I am both fearful for and fearful of these generations, for their lack of awareness and hence their indifference to the evil on our doorstep. Thank you, Steve, for using your voice and this platform to help ensure that these things are not ever forgotten.
I visited Auschwitz last month, for the first time, and likely the last. Once was enough. It was unimaginably worse than your worst imagination of it. The scale of the horror, cruelty, and depravity is overwhelming.
Ordinary people were murdered at Auschwitz.
Ordinary people carried out the murders.
The absolute embodiment of the banality of evil.
I couldn't agree more, Dean.
Steve
And for the past 76 years, the world’s one Jewish nation-state--Israel--has had to fight every day for its survival. This is especially true since the Hamas terrorists and their allies committed the worst one day mass murder and atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust, and the cancer of anti-Semitism--the world’s oldest hatred has metastasized on school campuses from New York to California where, as Alan Dershowitz put it, the “Hitler Youth” are attacking Jewish students verbally and physically and accusing Israel of committing “genocide” against the Palestinians who want to finish the real genocide Hitler and his allies executed. The world leaders--including those in the U.S.--have learned nothing from World II and the Holocaust. There are those who dismissively say, “What was, was.” I suggest that what was, still is! Thank you for being our Churchill, Mr. Schmidt! I hope your Warning is heeded in time to stave off an American catastrophe!
So agree about Steve being our Churchill! Thank you
Thank you for your support. We live in dangerous times.
Indifference. Indifference. For a complete sociopathic narcissist like Donald Trump, his amorality would easily be turned -- through his indifference -- to a repetition of the Holocaust. He just would not care.
Steve, I have read about Auschwitz many times, and I thought I would nod my head in agreement as I read your column -- slightly immune to being horrified one more time, but it tore into me all over again. Thank you for your powerful writing. We need to continue to revisit Auschwitz and all that it says about humanity's capacity for abject evil.
Steve, as much as I appreciate your journey and these essays, I found this one very hard to finish without tearing up. Many of my late ex-husband's relatives in Poland met their end at the camps. His grandparents and parents managed to get to this country after WWI, but the family that stayed behind were not so fortunate. May their memories be a blessing...
For those who haven’t learned from this already, this should be required reading. The mental illness that allowed this to happen then is still among us.
This is one of the most moving and important pieces of writing I have read regarding the history of the holocaust and the persistence of the same hatred and bigotry exists now and drives much of what we see in our country today. I just hope some of our fellow citizens (and politicians) who need to learn this lesson, see this, read it and reflect long and hard. Thank you Steve!
We need to send the loudest, the boldest, the best manipulators among The Deniers to Auschwitz. They must see and feel the truth. They must walk among the remains of the innocent and the murderers. They must face the stark relief of horror and heroism that comes from insanity and manipulation by those in power. Then they must have a civics lesson. After that, they need to take the test that those applying for citizenship to the U.S.A. must take. Their civics lesson and their test should be the precursor to a choice: Door #1 or Door #2: the freedom provided to you by a democracy or by a dictator. Choose. Grow up. Go to that home and live with the consequences. Steve, we're all counting on you to continue your excellent insights and commentaries. It is your way of investing in a civic duty to strengthen our scaffolding of understanding what our precious freedoms really mean. We thank you.
They still wouldn’t believe it.
Thanks Steve .. this is a really good piece of work .. it should help everyone understand the pain that was inflicted.
Oh Steve, for once now I am speechless. Your truly haunting portrayal of Auschwitz pierced my soul. I have read books about it of course but I felt I was there with you as you so eloquently described each section. The shoes always get me. Always.
Growing up my Mother would read me stories about Corrie Ten Boom, a Holocaust survivor and how she never once lost her Faith. Never. I can't even imagine when facing such evil and degradation.
Your entire series in Poland has been such a gift to all of us as we struggle to face the evil we are dealing with here and around the world. It is almost beyond the mind's comprehension for normal, loving people like most all of us. But it is real, it is alive and it IS coming for all of us unless we stop it in it's tracks November 5th. Thank you just doesn't seem adequate. Just know how very very much what you do matters!! Be Blessed 🙌 and have a safe trip home. ❤️🇺🇸💙
Ditto! ❤️🇺🇸💙 Beautifully written, Lisa! 🙌
Awww thanks Lisa!! You are so kind. I can barely write compared to our beloved Steve and boy what stories he has shared this last week. I feel honored to be a part of his journey. ❤️💙❤️