Never Again

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.