Schwarzenegger is right: Capitol siege America’s Kristallnacht

 

This column about the Holocaust Stamps Project undertaken by teachers, staff and students at the Foxboro Regional School in Foxboro, MA, originally was published on Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015 in The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA.
The column is more relevant than ever, given the tragic and inexcusable events of Jan. 6, 2021, when the United States experienced its own Kristallnacht – “The Night of Broken Glass” – which occurred in broad daylight as thousands of white supremacists and extremists supporting President Trump stormed the Capitol building in an attempted insurrection or coup d’état, if you will, of the United States government.
Their goal was to prevent the formal counting and certification of each state’s voting in the Electoral College, which had just started when the mobs broke through barriers and took over the Capitol for several hours, shouting “Hang Mike Pence” and also shouting vulgarities at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as they roamed the Capitol looking to do them and other congressmen and congresswomen harm, or to threaten and kill them.
Kristallnacht was one of the first things that I thought of in the immediate aftermath of this tragic day in American history, when a sitting American president egged on a mob, telling them to “fight, fight, fight” – the culmination of months of Trump spreading a host of lies and false allegations about the election --- which were all debunked by state and national election officials of both parties, the former attorney general and the former head of the nation’s cybersecurity agency.
I reprint this column today for two reasons:
* To thank former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for sharing stories about his youth growing up in Austria in the years immediately following World War II, when Austria was occupied by the Nazis. He appropriately referenced Kristallnacht in this video, as he condemned the violence and urged Republican officials to condemn the president’s actions in leading up to the events of Jan. 6 and his speech to his supporters, in which he told them to march on the Capitol in his last-ditch desperate attempt to disrupt and prevent the election from being certified.
As Schwarzenegger accurately pointed out, the Nazis’ regime was built on lies upon lies upon lies and in building scapegoats. For the Nazis, the scapegoats were the Jews and others he chose to demonize; for Trump, that has been anyone not a far right Republican, but especially immigrants, minorities and Democrats.
Schwarzenegger’s warning is real; please heed it. View his earnest message at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_P-0I6sAck
* To educate people about Kristallnacht, which was carried out by mob rule against perceived “enemies” of the people, and to show how much permanent damage a violent mob can carry out.
The column --- one of many columns and stories that I’ve written about the Holocaust Stamps Project --- was begun by then-teacher Charlotte Sheer in 2009, who has since retired. This column, and its discussion of Kristallnacht, is must reading now as we as a nation try to heal from our own version of Kristallnacht.

The column, from Dec. 9, 2015, follows:
View the column online at: https://www.thesunchronicle.com/vip/opinion/columns/kessler-why-the-lessons-of-the-holocaust-ring-true-today/article_09b5e27d-8491-55ae-9e31-d37fffb4f489.html

“My personal goal was to have the project reach 6 million (stamps) by Nov. 9, the Kristallnacht anniversary … done.”
-- Charlotte Sheer

Kristallnacht, which means “The Night of the Broken Glass,” refers to the events of Nov. 9-10 1938, when hatred and rhetoric reached such a fever pitch in Germany and Austria that it was basically open season on all Jews. That happened in an era in Germany, right before the official start of World War II, when Germany was itching to blame its problems on a minority – never mind one that had helped build the country and kept it going.
So in many ways it wasn’t too surprising that Kristallnacht happened. During the riot-like event, Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues had windows smashed, many people were killed and The Final Solution to eradicate the Jewish people was launched in earnest by emboldened German and Austria civilians and paramilitary forces bent on murdering and maiming Jews.
They did a pretty good “job,” too, of meeting their goals as historical accounts reported that during Kristallnacht, 30,000 Jews were arrested and incarcerated in Nazi concentration camps, Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked and buildings were destroyed with sledgehammers. More than 1,000 synagogues were burned and more than 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed or damaged.
Kristallnacht remains a pivotal moment in the Holocaust, which is why Sheer’s goal was to collect 6 million stamps by that anniversary. That wasn’t surprising, because Sheer is one determined woman, and that’s a very good thing. For those who haven’t followed the Holocaust Stamps Project in my previous columns, Sheer is a retired teacher from the Foxboro Regional Charter School, but she never lost her passion for the Holocaust Stamps Project, which she founded several years ago.
I kid her a lot, because she sends regular updates on the project, which has a goal of collecting 11 million stamps – 6 million for the Jewish victims of the Holocaust and 5 million more for those of different nationalities and faiths who were killed by the Nazis. To date, 6.6 million stamps have been counted, which Sheer said is nearly 60 percent of the goal.
Why do I keep on writing about it? Because with the rhetoric during the presidential campaign being directed toward refugees and Muslims, it’s clear that the lessons of the Stamps Project haven't been learned.
That lesson is simply that the Holocaust came frighteningly close to working. Families were destroyed and children and women were slaughtered – all because of their birthright, which is why Sheer’s work, which has been carried on by Jamie Droste at the Foxboro school, is so important. The students have made numerous stunning collages; one of the latest is pictured with this column.
It’s a collage honoring Alice Herz Sommer, whom Sheer described this way: “The students want to call it, ‘Music is a dream’ taken from Alice’s exact words, ‘Music brings us on an island with peace, beauty and love. Music is a dream!’ which they borrowed from a YouTube interview with her at age 109. They fell in love with the lady and her philosophy of life, and were so sad when they heard she’d passed on.”
Sadly, there are millions of stories like Herz Sommer’s from the Holocaust; that’s what happens when the systematic degradation an entire race of humans – promoted by a government intent on their annihilation, as the Germans were during the rise of Nazism – is allowed to happen by a population that turns a blind eye to the persecution as long “as they’re not coming for us.”
The arrival of Sheer’s latest update on the project, coinciding with Kristallnacht, was telling in that it wasn’t too long after that some politicians reacted to the Paris terror attacks and the debate over  Syrian refugees by calling for stricter measures. What was especially disturbing was Donald Trump’s call, done in a pandering way, to create a registry of Muslim-Americans.
I was appalled by that, because it smacked of ignorance as to how the Holocaust began. It was the result of the government-sanctioned dehumanization of the Jewish people, which started with a “registry” for all Jewish residents of Germany and other Nazi=held nations.
The registry soon escalated into passing rules applied only to Jews, then forcing them to wear Stars of David on their clothing. Pogroms like those found in 19^th and early 20^th century Eastern Europe followed, with Jewish businesses burned and destroyed;  Kristallnacht was only one such pogrom. The mass evacuations to such ghettos as Warsaw in Poland and to concentration camps in Poland, Germany, Austria and all across the Nazi-held countries followed.
Such heinous crimes against humanity are why politicians need to be careful when they try to blame the world’s ills on one particular group. Today’s registry can, with a nudge from governmental-motivated hatred, become tomorrow’s Holocaust.
Don’t think it can happen here? The Japanese-Americans, who were interned during World War II, would beg to differ. And in the past, America closed its borders to Chinese and other ethnic groups, including Jews during World War II.
Immigration and the refugee issue are serious problems that demand comprehensive debate. But they don’t merit the debasing of one group of people being used as pawns by politicians ignorant of history.