Keep calling this out, Steve. Remembering keeps the horrors relevant. “Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.” - Elie Wiesel
Calling Steve Schmidt, calling Steve Schmidt, we await the message of truth in your reports. Thank you for providing Mr. Murrows voice and words to show the truth of Fascism. We can not repeat the atrocities of our mutual past. This version of the republican party wants to regulate thoughts by book banning because their delicate ears can not stand to hear the truth. God help us all. Please vote blue for the survival of our great country before we become our worst nightmares.
In 1980 I visited Dachau. The night before a German friend told me that going would ruin my entire day and to think twice about making the trip. I was 25. I have never forgotten this experience. The feeling as the train got closer to the camp, the heaviness that descended as I entered, walked around, the despair. It is not something you forget. I have often said everyone should visit one of the camps, it changes you.
I visited Dachau, while stationed in Germany in the mid seventies. It was a warm beautiful day that chilled me to my bones. The suffering and death that permeated the walls behind the heavy iron gates was thought chilling. I will never forget my life changing experience.
I visited Dachau in 1986 while traveling solo. Your description here, Susan, is very close to the one I had. It was one of the most somber days of my life, and one of the most educational. too. Yes, it changes you, and more people need to see and feel these camps so as not to forget the devastation of the truth of what humans have done -and will do.
I also visited in 1980. And again in 2007. The site for the earlier visit was stark and gave a small sense of what transpired there. In 2007, the whole place had been “touristified”. Lots of shiny info boards with enlarged photos, a much greater number of modern designed memorials. I have clearer memories of the 1980 visit. One thing had not changed however. The birds still did not sing.
My sister and I visited Dachau in 1967; I was 21 and she was 17. We saw the ovens, the barracks, and the pictures; OMG the pictures! Was there still a picture gallery when you visited in 1980? Many were taken by US servicemen on April 29, 1945 when they liberated the camp. Emanciated men trying to reach through the fence; and barracks full of those too sick to join the others; many sharing one bed. Are these pictures still there? Built to house 6,000, Dachau held up to 30,000 victims in unimaginable conditions. It did ruin my day as an enlightened "tourist".
When I returned home I sought out books to read about the horror I'd seen. Books by Corrie ten Boom and writings from a Nazi prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (who attempted to assassinate Hitler), and others. Some years later I watched "Sophie's Choice" starring Meryl Streep ..... have you seen it? When I realized what her choice was I cried and kept crying all night long ...... what she experienced others have experienced the exact same thing under Trump. In our "desensitized stupor" we hear of similar atrocities on the news and shake our heads ..... but do we cry all night long? Thanks to Steve we can see the ideologically cord joining Maga with monsters of the 3rd Reich ..... but most Americans have not lived through or learned what happened under Hitler, and close their minds to learning. Many Germans were like us, going about their daily lives and "liked" the message from "Mein Fuhrer". When their Jewish neighbors disappeared and bombs fell; and the only job they could get was at the local concentration camp, it was too late.
I was there in summer of '77 and the photos were still there. The photos chilled me to the bone. That chilling feeling lasted the whole day and the memory has lasted all these years later.
Yes, the photos were there. My kids have always thought I was a bit strange as I always watch documentaries and movies on Hitler and the Holocaust. It is because of that trip. Watched a movie last night on Amazon Prime, “Denial”. Was good. The truth is I still don’t understand the hatred of Jewish people. Have read and heard all the historical reasons, but always in my head is Why? And that question remains as I absorb what is happening today.
Judging from your comments, I don’t think it had changed too much from your visit in 1967. There were pictures and there was still one of the barracks left. In 2007 however, the old photos had been replaced by story boards and you could get a cheap headphone to get a commentary on the photo in your own language. The barracks were gone and I’m not sure if we could get access to the ovens. Lots of modern art styled memorials were placed strategically to acknowledge the various cultures, countries and religions. Lots of gardens (it was summer) but, as I said previously, I think the modernisation has detracted a little from what we could ascertain about camp life. I have seen Sophie’s Choice and it did impact me. I also read a book called The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris as told to her by a holocaust survivor. Tbh, I’ve seen enough to be aware of the horrors without going into the weeds.
After Sophie's Choice I avoided movies about WWII including Schindler's List. When we travelled through Europe in 1967 we were able to spend as much time as we wanted .... since we were not part of any tour group. I appreciate that now after being rushed through the Cistine Chapel in 2000, when I sat in the Chapel in 1967 for an hour just looking.
In the last couple of years I have sought our books about art stolen by the Nazi's ... usually it's historical fiction, but I enjoy a story entwine with history. I'll check out the book by Morris. Thanks.
I visited Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam in 1967 and just the other day was showing my grandchildren pictures from that visit. In high school we put on a play about Anne Frank; something serious after we did Music Man & Bells Are Ringing.
I am trying to obtain books that I had years ago .... usually used from Amazon, with pretty good success. I'll look into getting that one for my grandkids.
And of course the Cretin News Network, following the orders of Nazi-loving Comcast CEO/largest minority shareholder in Warner Brothers Discovery John Malone that "CNN needs to tell both sides again," has fired Stelter. Back to Zuck The Fuck telling everyone that the reason he put Trump's rallies on live back in 2016 was "they get great ratings."
The Meedeeeyah will be the death of us yet, all the over-educated, under-intelligent, otherwise-unemployable, legend-in-their-own-mind upper class twits of the Press Corpse. Murrow would advocate they all be taken out and "disappeared" for their crimes against journalism and truth.
I enjoyed your respectful appreciation of Edward R. Murrow, Steve. My parents came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War, and the names and personalities of that time and those events were frequently evoked in our home as I was growing up, FDR and Murrow among them. And Auschwitz, and Buchenwald, too, as the likely end-points of the lives of the remnants of my family that never made it out of Eastern Europe; those who failed to emigrate with my grandparents in the wake of the First World War and who were destroyed by fascism. The lived experience of the two generations that preceded me was my introduction to historic anti-Semitism. My first personal encounters with it came from Catholic classmates, children I shared classrooms with, and played with on our suburban elementary school playground, who informed me, with certainty, that they learned from the priest in their after-school religious instruction class that, “the Jews killed Jesus.” Unfortunately, this was official and perfidious Church Doctrine into our own lifetimes. You hear that as a child, and you learn to recognize it every time it reappears, casually or pointedly, blatantly or insidiously, in one form or another, for the rest of your life. It’s meant to delegitimize you, judgment passed by both ignorant and highly educated thugs and bigots, who seek the assent and knowing approval of their own kind, and toward their own ends. Like a social herpes, viral anti-Semitism enters the body and lodges there forever, quiescent or else triggered to re-emerge by design, or circumstances, or malign intent. And this time around, the malign intent is Republican. I wish I could view Kari Lake as an aberration, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and all the rest of them that speak out loud, or in code, but I fear we’ve emerged from one pandemic only to find ourselves in the midst of another, as anti-Semitism rises around the world.
I thank you for your vigilance and your unsparing words, Steve. And for the reminder of Edward R, Murrow, a brave, and decent, and complicated man who picked up the fight where he found it, and stayed with it to the end. And who didn’t let the fascists kill democracy.
Perhaps the most sad part of Steve’s article, is the need to remind Americans about the Holocaust, it’s causes and parallels that can sadly be related to today’s current political and social condition.
The attempts to turn back the clock to an age and time that some Americans believe wa safe and the “Real” America.
The Real America is a country that has grown because of the multitude of contributions made by people who were not born hear. Or born of parents who were not born here. We refuse to recognize our diversity as strength and opportunity. Why?
I think fear has overtaken our view of America as the Land of Opportunity. Opportunity deniers are as bad as election deniers.
Fear and exploitation of fear is the fuel that is running our current path.
I lived in Arizona for 31 years, and knew of Kari Lake as what I saw as a reasonable newscaster. Since I moved away nine years ago, I had no idea how far she has fallen. Perhaps she hasn’t fallen, and she was always this way, we just didn’t see it. I have been shocked to watch this woman who used to deliver the evening news spew crazy stuff. I keep saying what the hell happened in Arizona? Then I remember Ev Mecham. Not to mention sheriff Joe. I guess this is nothing new for Arizona after all!
I once asked you in a tweet if you were going to get involved in helping the Democrats shape their messaging for the 2022 elections. I think your decision to write /call out very explicitly what is happening in our country is very powerful. Thank you for the time you are spending to shine a light on the 3 alarm issues facing every American today, and to educate and open the eyes of so many Americans who have fallen down the rabbit hole of lies, deceit, treachery, and Nazism.
I also thank you for shining your spotlight on the many Democratic candidates around the country who need all of our help in and getting elected.
To mobilize and co-opt a people, a convenient enemy must be manufactured. Throughout history, the Jews have served in this capacity repeatedly. Had my grandfather not foreseen the power and intent of Hitler and failed to flee eastern Europe, I might not be here writing this. Sadly, Trump and the GOP are using us again. Openly, in broad daylight.
Couple that with a news media that, for the most part, stands by and either fosters anti-Semitism or benignly supports it by remaining silent. The day that news organizations were forced to produce profits was the day truth began to be sacrificed for cash. Edward R. Murrow, David Brinkley -- and others who aspired to be in their lofty company -- worked in an environment in which facts mattered more than eye balls or readership. Those days are long gone. 'News' sells. The bloodier, the more confrontational, the more controversial, the better. Were it not the case, there might be other Murrows, other Brinkleys among us. Were it not the case, Trump and the GOP would be widely seen for what they are: criminals and accomplices.
I was born almost 71 years ago to a Christian mother and Jewish father. My mother insisted that I be baptized so that I would have a document proving that I was not Jewish. I never would have dreamed that a time would come again that I might need it, but as schools ban The Diary of Anne Frank and Maus, it is no longer unimaginable. I’ve not had the opportunity to visit the camps, but a trip to the Holocaust Museum in DC left me gasping as I got back outside into the fresh air.
What it will say will depend on who’s writing it. The weapons grade imbecile or someone equal to her may be doing the writing. That’s an absolutely terrifying thought but in today’s climate it is also possible. We must defeat the extremists to save our country and our freedom.
Remember Murrow with London and again during Joe McCarthy but never Vienna. Calling out Lake and her fellow travelers ( possibly a mixed metaphor there) should be straightforward but today it is not. You, Steve, speak in clear tones, but whom else? Who can hold up the mirror on them for all to see? We need an Oscar Wilde Dorian Gray image what can expose the evil found inside. Can see “ how “but not the “ the who” can deliver. Open to suggestions
Keep calling this out, Steve. Remembering keeps the horrors relevant. “Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.” - Elie Wiesel
Calling Steve Schmidt, calling Steve Schmidt, we await the message of truth in your reports. Thank you for providing Mr. Murrows voice and words to show the truth of Fascism. We can not repeat the atrocities of our mutual past. This version of the republican party wants to regulate thoughts by book banning because their delicate ears can not stand to hear the truth. God help us all. Please vote blue for the survival of our great country before we become our worst nightmares.
In 1980 I visited Dachau. The night before a German friend told me that going would ruin my entire day and to think twice about making the trip. I was 25. I have never forgotten this experience. The feeling as the train got closer to the camp, the heaviness that descended as I entered, walked around, the despair. It is not something you forget. I have often said everyone should visit one of the camps, it changes you.
I visited Dachau, while stationed in Germany in the mid seventies. It was a warm beautiful day that chilled me to my bones. The suffering and death that permeated the walls behind the heavy iron gates was thought chilling. I will never forget my life changing experience.
I visited Dachau in 1986 while traveling solo. Your description here, Susan, is very close to the one I had. It was one of the most somber days of my life, and one of the most educational. too. Yes, it changes you, and more people need to see and feel these camps so as not to forget the devastation of the truth of what humans have done -and will do.
I also visited in 1980. And again in 2007. The site for the earlier visit was stark and gave a small sense of what transpired there. In 2007, the whole place had been “touristified”. Lots of shiny info boards with enlarged photos, a much greater number of modern designed memorials. I have clearer memories of the 1980 visit. One thing had not changed however. The birds still did not sing.
That’s right! Forgot about the birds. Everything was so, so quiet.
My sister and I visited Dachau in 1967; I was 21 and she was 17. We saw the ovens, the barracks, and the pictures; OMG the pictures! Was there still a picture gallery when you visited in 1980? Many were taken by US servicemen on April 29, 1945 when they liberated the camp. Emanciated men trying to reach through the fence; and barracks full of those too sick to join the others; many sharing one bed. Are these pictures still there? Built to house 6,000, Dachau held up to 30,000 victims in unimaginable conditions. It did ruin my day as an enlightened "tourist".
When I returned home I sought out books to read about the horror I'd seen. Books by Corrie ten Boom and writings from a Nazi prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer (who attempted to assassinate Hitler), and others. Some years later I watched "Sophie's Choice" starring Meryl Streep ..... have you seen it? When I realized what her choice was I cried and kept crying all night long ...... what she experienced others have experienced the exact same thing under Trump. In our "desensitized stupor" we hear of similar atrocities on the news and shake our heads ..... but do we cry all night long? Thanks to Steve we can see the ideologically cord joining Maga with monsters of the 3rd Reich ..... but most Americans have not lived through or learned what happened under Hitler, and close their minds to learning. Many Germans were like us, going about their daily lives and "liked" the message from "Mein Fuhrer". When their Jewish neighbors disappeared and bombs fell; and the only job they could get was at the local concentration camp, it was too late.
I was there in summer of '77 and the photos were still there. The photos chilled me to the bone. That chilling feeling lasted the whole day and the memory has lasted all these years later.
Yes, the photos were there. My kids have always thought I was a bit strange as I always watch documentaries and movies on Hitler and the Holocaust. It is because of that trip. Watched a movie last night on Amazon Prime, “Denial”. Was good. The truth is I still don’t understand the hatred of Jewish people. Have read and heard all the historical reasons, but always in my head is Why? And that question remains as I absorb what is happening today.
I believe the misguided hatred stems from the betrayal of Jesus by the Jewish leaders of their time seeking power from the oppressive Roman rule.
Judging from your comments, I don’t think it had changed too much from your visit in 1967. There were pictures and there was still one of the barracks left. In 2007 however, the old photos had been replaced by story boards and you could get a cheap headphone to get a commentary on the photo in your own language. The barracks were gone and I’m not sure if we could get access to the ovens. Lots of modern art styled memorials were placed strategically to acknowledge the various cultures, countries and religions. Lots of gardens (it was summer) but, as I said previously, I think the modernisation has detracted a little from what we could ascertain about camp life. I have seen Sophie’s Choice and it did impact me. I also read a book called The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris as told to her by a holocaust survivor. Tbh, I’ve seen enough to be aware of the horrors without going into the weeds.
After Sophie's Choice I avoided movies about WWII including Schindler's List. When we travelled through Europe in 1967 we were able to spend as much time as we wanted .... since we were not part of any tour group. I appreciate that now after being rushed through the Cistine Chapel in 2000, when I sat in the Chapel in 1967 for an hour just looking.
In the last couple of years I have sought our books about art stolen by the Nazi's ... usually it's historical fiction, but I enjoy a story entwine with history. I'll check out the book by Morris. Thanks.
I also downloaded and re-read the Diary of Anne Frank off Amazon. Cost me $2!
I visited Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam in 1967 and just the other day was showing my grandchildren pictures from that visit. In high school we put on a play about Anne Frank; something serious after we did Music Man & Bells Are Ringing.
I am trying to obtain books that I had years ago .... usually used from Amazon, with pretty good success. I'll look into getting that one for my grandkids.
Steve we owe you soooo much for being a North Star and ragging against the evil of MAGA and Republicans.
https://apple.news/A4WE_GW6ySWy8Ua7T0wqtdg
Brian Stelter said, “We must make sure we do not give a platform to those who are lying to our faces.”
Definitely, “Friday reflections: the lie and the truth aren't equal”.
And of course the Cretin News Network, following the orders of Nazi-loving Comcast CEO/largest minority shareholder in Warner Brothers Discovery John Malone that "CNN needs to tell both sides again," has fired Stelter. Back to Zuck The Fuck telling everyone that the reason he put Trump's rallies on live back in 2016 was "they get great ratings."
The Meedeeeyah will be the death of us yet, all the over-educated, under-intelligent, otherwise-unemployable, legend-in-their-own-mind upper class twits of the Press Corpse. Murrow would advocate they all be taken out and "disappeared" for their crimes against journalism and truth.
Listening to Edward Morrow gave me absolute chills.
I remember my History books in Secondary school. The pictures. The horrendous sights. I was terrified.
It is absolutely inconceivable to me, how anyone would have the gall to even deny this truth.
Look at “ The Idiot” ( I won’t text his name) who lied about the Children at Sandy Hook.
It is a small scale, that reached the masses.
That hidden in Germany, those lies hidden and not spoken of, on a scale of extermination.
Humans are just the cruelest of Species.
Only through education and truth do we remain Humane.
Thank you. Steve! Brilliant as always. I have tremendous respect for your writing, heart, and truth. You again, have my Vote for President.
I enjoyed your respectful appreciation of Edward R. Murrow, Steve. My parents came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War, and the names and personalities of that time and those events were frequently evoked in our home as I was growing up, FDR and Murrow among them. And Auschwitz, and Buchenwald, too, as the likely end-points of the lives of the remnants of my family that never made it out of Eastern Europe; those who failed to emigrate with my grandparents in the wake of the First World War and who were destroyed by fascism. The lived experience of the two generations that preceded me was my introduction to historic anti-Semitism. My first personal encounters with it came from Catholic classmates, children I shared classrooms with, and played with on our suburban elementary school playground, who informed me, with certainty, that they learned from the priest in their after-school religious instruction class that, “the Jews killed Jesus.” Unfortunately, this was official and perfidious Church Doctrine into our own lifetimes. You hear that as a child, and you learn to recognize it every time it reappears, casually or pointedly, blatantly or insidiously, in one form or another, for the rest of your life. It’s meant to delegitimize you, judgment passed by both ignorant and highly educated thugs and bigots, who seek the assent and knowing approval of their own kind, and toward their own ends. Like a social herpes, viral anti-Semitism enters the body and lodges there forever, quiescent or else triggered to re-emerge by design, or circumstances, or malign intent. And this time around, the malign intent is Republican. I wish I could view Kari Lake as an aberration, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and all the rest of them that speak out loud, or in code, but I fear we’ve emerged from one pandemic only to find ourselves in the midst of another, as anti-Semitism rises around the world.
I thank you for your vigilance and your unsparing words, Steve. And for the reminder of Edward R, Murrow, a brave, and decent, and complicated man who picked up the fight where he found it, and stayed with it to the end. And who didn’t let the fascists kill democracy.
Thank you for this truth-telling, heart-felt post, Mitchell. Let's keep this conversation going!
I’m grateful to receive your comment, Lisa. Thank you!
Trust is earned in drops, and lost in buckets. Yes indeed. Appreciate you!
Perhaps the most sad part of Steve’s article, is the need to remind Americans about the Holocaust, it’s causes and parallels that can sadly be related to today’s current political and social condition.
The attempts to turn back the clock to an age and time that some Americans believe wa safe and the “Real” America.
The Real America is a country that has grown because of the multitude of contributions made by people who were not born hear. Or born of parents who were not born here. We refuse to recognize our diversity as strength and opportunity. Why?
I think fear has overtaken our view of America as the Land of Opportunity. Opportunity deniers are as bad as election deniers.
Fear and exploitation of fear is the fuel that is running our current path.
I lived in Arizona for 31 years, and knew of Kari Lake as what I saw as a reasonable newscaster. Since I moved away nine years ago, I had no idea how far she has fallen. Perhaps she hasn’t fallen, and she was always this way, we just didn’t see it. I have been shocked to watch this woman who used to deliver the evening news spew crazy stuff. I keep saying what the hell happened in Arizona? Then I remember Ev Mecham. Not to mention sheriff Joe. I guess this is nothing new for Arizona after all!
I once asked you in a tweet if you were going to get involved in helping the Democrats shape their messaging for the 2022 elections. I think your decision to write /call out very explicitly what is happening in our country is very powerful. Thank you for the time you are spending to shine a light on the 3 alarm issues facing every American today, and to educate and open the eyes of so many Americans who have fallen down the rabbit hole of lies, deceit, treachery, and Nazism.
I also thank you for shining your spotlight on the many Democratic candidates around the country who need all of our help in and getting elected.
To mobilize and co-opt a people, a convenient enemy must be manufactured. Throughout history, the Jews have served in this capacity repeatedly. Had my grandfather not foreseen the power and intent of Hitler and failed to flee eastern Europe, I might not be here writing this. Sadly, Trump and the GOP are using us again. Openly, in broad daylight.
Couple that with a news media that, for the most part, stands by and either fosters anti-Semitism or benignly supports it by remaining silent. The day that news organizations were forced to produce profits was the day truth began to be sacrificed for cash. Edward R. Murrow, David Brinkley -- and others who aspired to be in their lofty company -- worked in an environment in which facts mattered more than eye balls or readership. Those days are long gone. 'News' sells. The bloodier, the more confrontational, the more controversial, the better. Were it not the case, there might be other Murrows, other Brinkleys among us. Were it not the case, Trump and the GOP would be widely seen for what they are: criminals and accomplices.
I was born almost 71 years ago to a Christian mother and Jewish father. My mother insisted that I be baptized so that I would have a document proving that I was not Jewish. I never would have dreamed that a time would come again that I might need it, but as schools ban The Diary of Anne Frank and Maus, it is no longer unimaginable. I’ve not had the opportunity to visit the camps, but a trip to the Holocaust Museum in DC left me gasping as I got back outside into the fresh air.
As always, thank you for your clear eyed views.
This isn’t anywhere near the importance of this article but it does hit the nail on the head… “ She is also a weapons-grade imbecile.”
It’s stunning to me and if our democracy survives what future political science will say about 2000-2024
What it will say will depend on who’s writing it. The weapons grade imbecile or someone equal to her may be doing the writing. That’s an absolutely terrifying thought but in today’s climate it is also possible. We must defeat the extremists to save our country and our freedom.
Remember Murrow with London and again during Joe McCarthy but never Vienna. Calling out Lake and her fellow travelers ( possibly a mixed metaphor there) should be straightforward but today it is not. You, Steve, speak in clear tones, but whom else? Who can hold up the mirror on them for all to see? We need an Oscar Wilde Dorian Gray image what can expose the evil found inside. Can see “ how “but not the “ the who” can deliver. Open to suggestions
FDR was deeply under appreciated as a Wartime Commander in Chief. For a new look see:
FDR At War, Boxed Set: The Mantle of Command, Commander in Chief, and War and Peace
by Nigel Hamilton. Get it at your local Library or purchase from your local bookseller.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0358376548/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_9SV5VFP1V279K8C443XC