Under cover of darkness, with the table set for the Passover Seder that should have been celebrated the next day, my grandparents, with my two-year-old mother and their nine-year-old niece in tow, fled their comfortable and familiar home to escape the clutches of the Nazi’s. After the horrors of Kristallnacht on November 9-10, 1938, in which Jewish homes, synagogues and businesses were destroyed, and 30,000 Jewish males rounded up and taken to concentration camps, my grandfather and his brothers began plans to escape Germany as quickly as possible. My grandfather, the oldest and most vulnerable to arrest, would leave only if all his brothers agreed to do the same, and they created a plan for each brother and his family to escape over a different border, hoping if one found safety he could help the others. On that April night in 1939, the timing was urgent. The day before, my grandfather had received a call from his childhood friend who was now a city official. He warned my grandfather that he was on the list to be arrested the next day by the Nazi’s for the crime of being Jewish. Without the bravery, moral courage, and conviction of his friend, one of several Righteous Among the Nations who risked their own personal safety and security to save my family and assist Jews, I, my children and my grandchildren would not be here today.
Tall, blond and blue eyed, my grandfather appeared more Aryan than Hitler and most of his henchman. He and his family had lived in Germany for generations. It was the only home he ever knew. He fought for the Kaiser in WWI, earning military honors, and was a leader in his hometown, a resort community on the Baltic Sea, both well-known and respected. None of this was enough to protect him from the Nazi hatred against the Jews that began in 1935 with the Nuremberg Race Laws. These laws distinguished Jews as separate race from Germans, part of the propaganda necessary to ultimately move to the effort to kill all the Jews in Europe.
The Nazis were able to promulgate the Final Solution because of the slow role of propaganda about the Jews, designating them as a separate race, second class citizens, enemies of the state, and ultimately subhuman. This did not happen overnight. The Nazis used a well-orchestrated campaign, threats, and intimidation to convince otherwise decent people that all their troubles were because of the Jews. It took time but they ultimately succeeded in instilling the belief that Jews were an inferior race, vermin, who needed to be exterminated from the earth.
After several harrowing years in hiding, with the help of the righteous willing to defy these Nazi laws, my grandparents, mother, cousin and most of the other family members made their way to the United States of America to begin a new life. My grandfather and his brother, successful businessmen, forced to leave everything behind, started a new business in New York. My grandmother and aunt worked right alongside them while raising the children and running their homes without the domestic assistance they had relied on in Germany. Despite the hardships they remained joyful, grateful to be alive and developed a stronger appreciation and observance of their Jewish heritage. My grandmother told me repeatedly about the moment she spotted the Statue of Liberty as they approached New York Harbor. After several terrible years, she felt she could finally exhale and begin to relax. America represented welcome, safety, and freedom for her, and no one loved this country more.
I was raised to know that my life was only possible because of the courage and moral clarity of those described at Yad Vashem as the Righteous among the Nations, those willing to take tremendous risks to assist Jews in defiance of a ruthless government. I was taught to understand the responsibility that comes with the rights and freedom we enjoy in this country, and the obligation to help others. The steps taken by the righteous to stand up and act, knowing the risks to themselves and their families, have been an inspiration and set a very high bar of civic responsibility.
But it is only recently that I have more fully begun to understand the risk they took to be righteous in that time and place. I was born and raised in the United States, and despite the resurgence of modern antisemitism, have lived my life in relative safety and security. Only recently have I begun to personally fear the actions of my own government, the deliberate denial of basic rights and due process for immigrants, and mass deportations with a shoot, ready, aim approach.
My son in law is one of the talented young people who came to the United States on a student visa to study at one of our universities. After graduation, he acquired Permanent Resident status, referred to as a green card, when he was hired by Vanderbilt University Medical Center to begin his career. He is the father of my granddaughter, an American citizen. The increasingly disturbing policies of the current administration affecting even those with legal status motivated him to meet again with his immigration lawyer to be sure he was doing everything possible to expedite the next step in his immigration story. After consulting his lawyer, he prepared for a meeting with a United States immigration official. During that meeting, which had the feel of an interrogation, he mentioned our plans for a family vacation to Niagara Falls this summer and wondered about traveling to the Canadian side of the falls. Despite his legal status, the official warned him not to travel to Canada at this time for fear that border agents might not let him return to the US.
Changing our plans to stay in the US this summer is disappointing, but not a huge sacrifice. But the sinister backdrop to the decision is disturbing. The intimidation, harassment and fear foreign students and immigrants feel in this moment is both real and painful. Foreign students with proper student visas have been taken by masked government agents from the streets of our cities in broad daylight, and deportations of those with legal status continue without due process. As of this writing, our government is not only denying due process to many but is willing to defy Supreme Court orders to return those deported without proper cause. The government itself is violating the rule of law.
As we prepare to remember the Holocaust during our community Yom HaShoah service and commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I have a new understanding and appreciation for the actions of the Righteous Among the Nations who helped Jews in resistance to the injustice of a ruthless and vicious Nazi Regime.
We remember the Holocaust with the words, “Never Again.” We teach our children to be upstanders, not bystanders, if they witness bigotry and injustice. The Final Solution of the Holocaust did not happen overnight. It was a several year slide toward that ultimate atrocity. We remember the Holocaust with determination that the inhumanity of the Nazis in denying basic human rights should never happen again.
We remember the Holocaust and know that once one group is demonized and dehumanized by a government, any group can face the same threat. Jews were not the only ones targeted. Perhaps that is part of what the righteous understood. If they did not try to help the Jews, they could be next on the list to be doomed.
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Many of us are familiar with the famous teaching of Rabbi Hillel, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?” This teaching represents the hierarchy of responsibility. We must take care of ourselves and our family first, but if we only think about ourselves, we are missing an essential element in the lesson of human responsibility.
As we remember the past, do we have the courage to be like the righteous now, in this time and place? Will we stand up for those who are not necessarily the same as us, as the righteous did during the Holocaust? Can we ignore the danger before us and think we can outrun the inevitable? Can we deny those in need now and believe unjust actions won’t turn on us in the future?
If not now, it will be too late.
To Learn more about immigrant rights and how you can help others: www.nilc.org
