Since learning about Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago dinner with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes, two loathsome antisemites, last Tuesday night, I’ve reflected on one of the most profound memories of my lifetime. In January 2005, I had the great privilege to be in Elie Wiesel’s company as a member of the White House staff during the commemorations around the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
I hope that Steves's sobering post and audio today, his Warning, can be shared far and wide through social media forums, political leaders, and in classrooms. The silence, the cowardice, the indifference of the GOP party must be called out. It is our job to bear witness for those who witnessed the extermination of 6 million Jews. We must heed the words of Elie Wiesel and call out indifference. A call to action -Never Again!
To Bear Witness To The Unspeakable. Before starting to listen to your recording, I was overwhelmed by the words "to bear witness" from Elie Wiesel and you. You both are witnesses to the unspeakable. The unspeakable takes the form of words, becomes the truth of faces, has the sound of the human voice in all of its manifestations, it is the human evidence of the ravages of violence and the finality of death. The unspeakable becomes Truth. To be a witness of truth is terminal. One does not move from this point. One must not move from this point. To move from it is to take on a different path, the path of normalization and, ultimately, indifference. And now I will listen to you.
We cannot forget we must not forget. Too many people have forgotten. Too many people dismiss it. Having been to Auschwitz and Birkenau I will not forget. But I’m nearly 81 years old; who will remember when I’m gone. If we don’t remember we will repeat.
I too had the opportunity to be in the company of Elie Wiesel. I also was present at the dedication of the U S Holocaust Memorial in DC when he implored President Reagan NOT to go to Bitburg to speak at a cemetery that contained not just Americans but Nazi SS troop graves. He told Reagan it "Was not Your Place, Mr. President". Not in the sense of ownership, but in the sense of an American President should not be seen as a supporter of Nazi's in any way, that the presence of Nazis in the cemetery defiled the ground and no American President should speak there. (As a side note it was an overcast morning, but the sun broke through as Wiesel approached the microphone)
Perhaps his view stemmed from the prohibition of Cohen's (priests) from entering cemeteries and he viewed the President as America's highest Priest in that regard. Elie came out of his horrific experience at the hands of the Nazis not filled with hatred, but the resolve to DO Something, to make sure there was never anyone in his circumstance as a survivor of such hatred in the future. "Never Again" was his mission and by transporting us to his suffering with his voice and his words and his being, he indeed made each of us his witness for the rest of our lives. And it is INDIFFERENCE to evil that is the enemy of good that Trump mined for, found, and leveraged in his "Deplorables" to create the MAGA threat Republicans treat with indifference today. Thank you fo calling them out
My father was a Holocaust survivor and his parents, my grandparents, were murdered. My sisters and I bore witness to our father’s deep, deep trauma. It permeated our lives though he never talked about it; it was too painful. He was a humanist who taught us that if one person is persecuted, we are all persecuted. There is no freedom for anyone unless there is freedom for everyone. I honor his memory by striving to see the world without indifference. I tell his story over and over. But I’m not a public figure and my words don’t go much further than the people in my life who already understand this and also fight against indifference. There is still so much evil and anti-Semitism in our world and the people who are most indifferent will never find the courage and humanity to fight against it. The one thing I’m grateful for is that my father isn’t alive to see the leaders of his beloved adopted country stand by, indifferent, while an ex-president embraces anti-Semitism and white supremacy for all the world to see.
Steve thank you and love the questions and the lessons your children are learning!
As a child I was taught to question and think and reason and use Common Sense…We have people who represent us at every level who ARE INDIFFERENT COWARDS. As a child raised Lutheran MO
Synod came time for confirmation approximately same age as Jewish children are bar & bat mitzvahed to accept
The responsibilities of their faith(usually
Faith of one or both of their parents) I told pastor teaching the classes that I wanted to learn about and study the major faiths
Before I chose (fortunately HE had been a chaplain in military so he said we’d live
The requirements plus those of our own for a month studying each faith)my class
Was not thrilled…personally wish all faiths would get to experience what I did as it gave me Respect,Tolerance,Empathy and
To Listen Carefully and Question… people
Who are antisemites and racists have not been taught what Love is they are all
INDIFFERENT…we can each learn and grow and hold hands to work to save our democracy We Are Still in Peril….Steve
You Honor to the CORE of your being
Everything Elie Wiesel tried to teach us
My second husband Was as Reform Jew
(Much more accepting and tolerant than
Conservative or Orthodox Jews) and
Married Hon C. Michael Shalloway and
Am privileged to carry his name and
Felt needed to share that two years after
Marriage I studied for two years and
Became a Reform Jew I still celebrate
All of both faiths Best qualities!! At this antisemitism time it’s probably not the smartest thing to share publicly for my
Antisemitism rises and falls as it has for well over 2,000 years. It existed before the Roman Era and peaked shortly after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. That brings to mind a Rolling Stone song from the late 60s, Sympathy for the Devil:
And I was 'round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
In the first century AD, the Romans threw as many Jews as it could find out of Palestine. The next big peak was the Middle Ages when Jews could roam freely in European towns but at sunset had to return to their gated communities. Next of course was Hitler who was the worst of all, as Steve says, killing 6 million of them. Why? Many thoughts but I think it was political thinking because much of the German citizenry somehow came to believe the Jews caused Germany to lose WWI. Sounds crazy, right?
Now it seems antisemitism is on the rise right here in the land of the free. Did Trump cause this rise. Well, who else really. So, we cannot be indifferent, unconcerned, uncaring. Wiesel spells out what is dangerous. Take it to heart.
Thank you Steve for continuing to bear witness. Your ending was especially on point. Elie Wiesel was one of the greats of our time. He brought suffering out of the shadows and was a light to the world. Never forget. Never again. These words need to constantly be repeated. Antisemitism is ingrained in western culture, and it must always be fought. The GOP is indifferent to antisemitism. (What do the big Jewish donors to the GOP think of this?) GOP politicians may be indifferent to antisemitism, but they're certainly not indifferent to winning and keeping their jobs. Selfish cowards of small character. They're waiting for Trump to implode on his own and don't want to criticize him out of fear of alienating his MAGA voters, who they need. I doubt the strategy will work because Trump will destroy the GOP on his way out the door. It's up to decent Americans like yourself, the readers of this newsletter and others to make sure hate-filled Trump does as little damage to the country and world as possible. Witnessing Weisel is a good way to fight his indecency and malice.
A Hebrew word ingrained in the minds of young (and older) Jewish children is 'zachor,' to remember. We are taught that we all have the responsibility to stand up whenever hints of anti-Semitism might amass into another Holocaust. Never again!, we are taught. It, therefore, is sickening -- and scary -- that Trump and his minions continue to court the proud anti-Semites among us. How any thinking, feeling person could support Trump is beyond me.
Dear Steve Schmidt such truth you espouse brings me at once great peace and great hopelessness. Since covid19 I was able as a dumb-uniformed American study the etiologies of antisemitism and American African racism I am heartbroken.
I grew up in Boston's Little Italy that originally was home to turn of the century jewelry.
In our marketplace jews spoke Italian.
In my twenties holocaust survivors living in my neighborhood as merchants on Salem Street started to show me their death camp tattoos.
I am fortunate to have known my former city counselor Mike Ross and met his father who worked to build our Boston Holocaust Memorial.
Thanks to your work and Timothy Snyder and Stephen Kotkin and of course Bill Maher who brought you people on his show.
As I say I am heartbroken to learn of these awful histories and THEIR SENSELESS PERSISTANCE TODAY..and I find some consolation to have some answers.
Though I’m not sure the left is beyond reproach here. Granted, little time has passed since Donny had his MaraLago tea party, but I’ve yet to hear a hue & cry from progressives and media about it either. Indifference?
I am a retired physician-ethicist who trained at the Univ. Of CT in the department of psychiatry chaired by Benjamin Wiesel, MD, a physician of singular personal history and character. He was born to parents who emigrated from Vienna, Austria, becoming a neurologist working with the distinguished Dr. Foster Kennedy in NYC. When WWII broke out, as did so many Americans, he joined the Army. His tour of duty would take him to Europe, and eventually to the death camp, Buchenwald, liberated by his unit. This experience, which does not lend itself to conveyance by words, had a life-changing impact on him. They were met by a mass of surviving skeletal human forms crawling toward them, and upon the soldiers reaching them, these weakened beings embraced their liberators by their legs, as if unable to release their grasp. Many did not survive their brief moments of freedom, due to extremis conditions of starvation and disease, as well as inability to tolerate well-intentioned attempts to feed them protein. When Dr. Wiesel returned to the USA, he was standing in Times Square, looking at a TV monitor showing the liberation of Buchenwald. Tears flowed down his face, to his amazement. “I was there on site,” he thought to himself, “and functioned very well without emotional collapse. Where did this reaction emanate from?” His response was to return to complete a second residency in psychiatry. This man, who had the most beautiful sense of humor of anyone I’ve ever met, had seen the worst of humanity, and needed to understand his reaction(s) to it. I recall faculty referring to him as “the iron fist in the velvet glove”. He had been tempered by his encounter with evil, but retained his compassion and regard for human worth and dignity. He was and is my hero.
How hard it is to witness so many of today’s would-be “leaders” renege on the challenge to grapple with what our ancestors recognized as good v. evil, character, virtue v. vice etc. Fortunately, Steve Schmidt has carved out a space to do just that.
I hope that Steves's sobering post and audio today, his Warning, can be shared far and wide through social media forums, political leaders, and in classrooms. The silence, the cowardice, the indifference of the GOP party must be called out. It is our job to bear witness for those who witnessed the extermination of 6 million Jews. We must heed the words of Elie Wiesel and call out indifference. A call to action -Never Again!
Thank you, Steve. He suffered profoundly and yet was one of the most human of all beings. We all need to bear witness for those who cannot. ✌️
To Bear Witness To The Unspeakable. Before starting to listen to your recording, I was overwhelmed by the words "to bear witness" from Elie Wiesel and you. You both are witnesses to the unspeakable. The unspeakable takes the form of words, becomes the truth of faces, has the sound of the human voice in all of its manifestations, it is the human evidence of the ravages of violence and the finality of death. The unspeakable becomes Truth. To be a witness of truth is terminal. One does not move from this point. One must not move from this point. To move from it is to take on a different path, the path of normalization and, ultimately, indifference. And now I will listen to you.
We cannot forget we must not forget. Too many people have forgotten. Too many people dismiss it. Having been to Auschwitz and Birkenau I will not forget. But I’m nearly 81 years old; who will remember when I’m gone. If we don’t remember we will repeat.
I too had the opportunity to be in the company of Elie Wiesel. I also was present at the dedication of the U S Holocaust Memorial in DC when he implored President Reagan NOT to go to Bitburg to speak at a cemetery that contained not just Americans but Nazi SS troop graves. He told Reagan it "Was not Your Place, Mr. President". Not in the sense of ownership, but in the sense of an American President should not be seen as a supporter of Nazi's in any way, that the presence of Nazis in the cemetery defiled the ground and no American President should speak there. (As a side note it was an overcast morning, but the sun broke through as Wiesel approached the microphone)
Perhaps his view stemmed from the prohibition of Cohen's (priests) from entering cemeteries and he viewed the President as America's highest Priest in that regard. Elie came out of his horrific experience at the hands of the Nazis not filled with hatred, but the resolve to DO Something, to make sure there was never anyone in his circumstance as a survivor of such hatred in the future. "Never Again" was his mission and by transporting us to his suffering with his voice and his words and his being, he indeed made each of us his witness for the rest of our lives. And it is INDIFFERENCE to evil that is the enemy of good that Trump mined for, found, and leveraged in his "Deplorables" to create the MAGA threat Republicans treat with indifference today. Thank you fo calling them out
My father was a Holocaust survivor and his parents, my grandparents, were murdered. My sisters and I bore witness to our father’s deep, deep trauma. It permeated our lives though he never talked about it; it was too painful. He was a humanist who taught us that if one person is persecuted, we are all persecuted. There is no freedom for anyone unless there is freedom for everyone. I honor his memory by striving to see the world without indifference. I tell his story over and over. But I’m not a public figure and my words don’t go much further than the people in my life who already understand this and also fight against indifference. There is still so much evil and anti-Semitism in our world and the people who are most indifferent will never find the courage and humanity to fight against it. The one thing I’m grateful for is that my father isn’t alive to see the leaders of his beloved adopted country stand by, indifferent, while an ex-president embraces anti-Semitism and white supremacy for all the world to see.
Steve thank you and love the questions and the lessons your children are learning!
As a child I was taught to question and think and reason and use Common Sense…We have people who represent us at every level who ARE INDIFFERENT COWARDS. As a child raised Lutheran MO
Synod came time for confirmation approximately same age as Jewish children are bar & bat mitzvahed to accept
The responsibilities of their faith(usually
Faith of one or both of their parents) I told pastor teaching the classes that I wanted to learn about and study the major faiths
Before I chose (fortunately HE had been a chaplain in military so he said we’d live
The requirements plus those of our own for a month studying each faith)my class
Was not thrilled…personally wish all faiths would get to experience what I did as it gave me Respect,Tolerance,Empathy and
To Listen Carefully and Question… people
Who are antisemites and racists have not been taught what Love is they are all
INDIFFERENT…we can each learn and grow and hold hands to work to save our democracy We Are Still in Peril….Steve
You Honor to the CORE of your being
Everything Elie Wiesel tried to teach us
My second husband Was as Reform Jew
(Much more accepting and tolerant than
Conservative or Orthodox Jews) and
Married Hon C. Michael Shalloway and
Am privileged to carry his name and
Felt needed to share that two years after
Marriage I studied for two years and
Became a Reform Jew I still celebrate
All of both faiths Best qualities!! At this antisemitism time it’s probably not the smartest thing to share publicly for my
Safety BUT I’m Not Indifferent I will
Speak Up and as a Protestant & Jew
Catholic, Episcopalian honor All Faiths
With Respect And Love…..Blessings 🌹
Muslims, Hindu, Mormon Christian
Baptists,Methodists, Congrgational
However…Radicalized Evangelical folks
Have been brain washed by Maga and pray
For their souls they are white Supremicist
And antisemites and we Must Say NO🌹
Judges & their families are targets pray
By sharing I’ve honored my late husband:)
Antisemitism rises and falls as it has for well over 2,000 years. It existed before the Roman Era and peaked shortly after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. That brings to mind a Rolling Stone song from the late 60s, Sympathy for the Devil:
And I was 'round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
In the first century AD, the Romans threw as many Jews as it could find out of Palestine. The next big peak was the Middle Ages when Jews could roam freely in European towns but at sunset had to return to their gated communities. Next of course was Hitler who was the worst of all, as Steve says, killing 6 million of them. Why? Many thoughts but I think it was political thinking because much of the German citizenry somehow came to believe the Jews caused Germany to lose WWI. Sounds crazy, right?
Now it seems antisemitism is on the rise right here in the land of the free. Did Trump cause this rise. Well, who else really. So, we cannot be indifferent, unconcerned, uncaring. Wiesel spells out what is dangerous. Take it to heart.
Thank you Steve for continuing to bear witness. Your ending was especially on point. Elie Wiesel was one of the greats of our time. He brought suffering out of the shadows and was a light to the world. Never forget. Never again. These words need to constantly be repeated. Antisemitism is ingrained in western culture, and it must always be fought. The GOP is indifferent to antisemitism. (What do the big Jewish donors to the GOP think of this?) GOP politicians may be indifferent to antisemitism, but they're certainly not indifferent to winning and keeping their jobs. Selfish cowards of small character. They're waiting for Trump to implode on his own and don't want to criticize him out of fear of alienating his MAGA voters, who they need. I doubt the strategy will work because Trump will destroy the GOP on his way out the door. It's up to decent Americans like yourself, the readers of this newsletter and others to make sure hate-filled Trump does as little damage to the country and world as possible. Witnessing Weisel is a good way to fight his indecency and malice.
A Hebrew word ingrained in the minds of young (and older) Jewish children is 'zachor,' to remember. We are taught that we all have the responsibility to stand up whenever hints of anti-Semitism might amass into another Holocaust. Never again!, we are taught. It, therefore, is sickening -- and scary -- that Trump and his minions continue to court the proud anti-Semites among us. How any thinking, feeling person could support Trump is beyond me.
Dear Steve Schmidt such truth you espouse brings me at once great peace and great hopelessness. Since covid19 I was able as a dumb-uniformed American study the etiologies of antisemitism and American African racism I am heartbroken.
I grew up in Boston's Little Italy that originally was home to turn of the century jewelry.
In our marketplace jews spoke Italian.
In my twenties holocaust survivors living in my neighborhood as merchants on Salem Street started to show me their death camp tattoos.
I am fortunate to have known my former city counselor Mike Ross and met his father who worked to build our Boston Holocaust Memorial.
Thanks to your work and Timothy Snyder and Stephen Kotkin and of course Bill Maher who brought you people on his show.
As I say I am heartbroken to learn of these awful histories and THEIR SENSELESS PERSISTANCE TODAY..and I find some consolation to have some answers.
John Payne
Boston Mass.
So simple yet so undeniably profound: the antithesis of much that is good in this world is indifference.
We’ll said indeed Steve.
Though I’m not sure the left is beyond reproach here. Granted, little time has passed since Donny had his MaraLago tea party, but I’ve yet to hear a hue & cry from progressives and media about it either. Indifference?
Elizabeth Carlson blessed are you for your
Response to my comment….it’s a vulnerable act to share my personal life
But Elie Weisel and Steve Schmidt’s courage are worthy of my being as open with The Warning Community with trust
With great appreciation & gratitude ❤️
Elie Wiesel’s words are as powerful as any words spoken by anyone in history, in my opinion. Thank you for the much needed reminder.
I am a retired physician-ethicist who trained at the Univ. Of CT in the department of psychiatry chaired by Benjamin Wiesel, MD, a physician of singular personal history and character. He was born to parents who emigrated from Vienna, Austria, becoming a neurologist working with the distinguished Dr. Foster Kennedy in NYC. When WWII broke out, as did so many Americans, he joined the Army. His tour of duty would take him to Europe, and eventually to the death camp, Buchenwald, liberated by his unit. This experience, which does not lend itself to conveyance by words, had a life-changing impact on him. They were met by a mass of surviving skeletal human forms crawling toward them, and upon the soldiers reaching them, these weakened beings embraced their liberators by their legs, as if unable to release their grasp. Many did not survive their brief moments of freedom, due to extremis conditions of starvation and disease, as well as inability to tolerate well-intentioned attempts to feed them protein. When Dr. Wiesel returned to the USA, he was standing in Times Square, looking at a TV monitor showing the liberation of Buchenwald. Tears flowed down his face, to his amazement. “I was there on site,” he thought to himself, “and functioned very well without emotional collapse. Where did this reaction emanate from?” His response was to return to complete a second residency in psychiatry. This man, who had the most beautiful sense of humor of anyone I’ve ever met, had seen the worst of humanity, and needed to understand his reaction(s) to it. I recall faculty referring to him as “the iron fist in the velvet glove”. He had been tempered by his encounter with evil, but retained his compassion and regard for human worth and dignity. He was and is my hero.
How hard it is to witness so many of today’s would-be “leaders” renege on the challenge to grapple with what our ancestors recognized as good v. evil, character, virtue v. vice etc. Fortunately, Steve Schmidt has carved out a space to do just that.