Never
Another Kristallnacht
Evil
will not prevail
There
is an old saying, “those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat
it.” We are entering an era where our national government will ignore the
lessons of history and all of us will be doomed to repeat them. I fear it will
not end well.
Donald
Trump’s campaign, including the candidate himself, embraced the spurious notions
that white people are superior to those with different skin tones, that
Christianity is the preferred religion and that physical violence against those
“others” as well as those who dare to disagree is acceptable. Threats and
intimidation are approved and used to try and silence critics.
Let
me take you back to Germany on the night of November 9-10, 1938. On that night,
while government officials looked on but did nothing to stop it, members of the
German SA Paramilitary and German civilians systematically sought out Jewish
businesses, synagogues, homes and hospitals. They smashed windows, looted,
arrested many Jewish men and killed hundreds. Buildings were demolished with
sledgehammers. Jews were moved to concentration camps. The pretext for these
extreme actions was the earlier assassination of a German diplomat by a Jew
living in Paris and later by claims that Jews were inferior to Aryans and could
not be allowed to marry pure Germans. All of this was preceded by systematic government
sponsored propaganda that blamed Jews for all of Germany’s ills. And so began a
purposeful and public “pogrom” to rid the German state of Jews.
That
night became known as “Kristallnacht,” or the night of the broken glass, from
the shards of the windows that filled the streets. Incidents recently reported
here in the Daily News and others are apparently the beginnings of our own “Kristallnacht.”
Casa
Guadalupe is a respected non-profit in West Bend that helps Spanish speaking immigrant
residents learn English and American culture. It is completely apolitical. It
does, however, provide needed services to people of the same ethnicity Donald
Trump deemed rapists and criminals. Many of those immigrants work on our local
dairy farms and in our restaurants. They play a vital role in our local
economy. Someone, in the dead of night, put rocks through front windows of Casa
Guadalupe’s office on North Main Street not once, not twice, but three times
since late November.
If
these were isolated incidents, it might be written off as just kids creating mischief.
Unfortunately, Casa Guadalupe’s window damage was preceded by similar attacks
on the homes of two people who had the temerity to display large “Hillary for
President” signs in their yards during the recent election. They too had rocks
put through their windows and dents put in their siding. Democrats have had
signs stolen and damaged in past elections, but never have peoples’ homes been
damaged. These are law-abiding, tax paying West Bend citizens whose property
was damaged as payback for disagreeing with the community’s political majority.
Just think if someone had been sleeping in those rooms as rocks came through the
windows.
This
behavior is unacceptable. Damage to property is never appropriate to advance a
political agenda. There is another old saying that fits here as well. “The only
thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men (and women) to do
nothing.”
Law
enforcement still looks for those who caused the damages. No arrests have been
reported. Cowards who break windows with
rocks under cover of night cannot be allowed to continue. Those responsible
have most likely not kept silent about their “good deeds” in defense of the
empire. If we are not to descend into the anarchy that faced German communities
in the lead up to World War II, the good people of our city need to speak up
and report the rumors and leads to the police. Let the justice system do what
it does to correct illegal behavior.
Our
city leaders have been strangely silent as these attacks were reported to local
police and reported in this paper. Where is their outrage and condemnation of
these cowardly attacks on our citizens’ property and a respected community institution?
Silence equals complicity and clearly sends a message that fascism in pursuit
of ideological and racial purity is the new norm.
As a
society and community we will be noted in history by how well we treated each
other and took care of those who find themselves on the fringes. West Bend is
better than allowing cowards to break windows in the dark. At least, I still
have hope that we are and that we will not experience another “Kristallnacht.”
It is up to all of us.
Waring
R. Fincke is a retired attorney and vice-chair of the Democratic Party of
Washington County.
