January 27th, 2018 marks the 73rd liberation of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The horrors and atrocities are well-documented, and we don’t need to recount specifics here. But, I would like to review the genesis of the largest and most systemic mass murder in the history of the world, and it’s connections to where we are today.

How did the billions of people on the planet not do something sooner? Why weren’t journalists writing about the “final solution”, the gas chambers, the ovens, the ghettos and the trains? Because it didn’t start with the gas chambers.

It was a slow creep into evil, and it was “too late” before the collective conscious awoke to what was in front of them. It began with a politician who divided his people instead of uniting them. It began with a government that singled out “the Jew”, and dehumanized them. It began with a political party who’s morals were so abhorrent and who criticized the press to no end, crafting the term “Lugenpresse” or “lying press”, that no one actually believed what was being printed. The Nazi Party created a callous people, ignorant in their beliefs, gullible in their minds, and tolerant of intolerance. And the parallels to the United States of America in 2018 are uncanny.

First and foremost, Donald Trump is dividing the people. He’s using hate-filled rhetoric, demonizing immigrants and using ICE as his personal deportation force. What began as a vow to rid the United States of “criminals”, has turned into a private army arresting fathers dropping their children off at school, or arresting domestic abuse survivors outside their court hearing, or detaining a 10 year old girl as she sits in the hospital after receiving treatment for her ailments. ICE agents routinely break laws, target citizens, and leverage their position of power to harass and prey on anyone they perceive to be undocumented. This is not normal. This is not OK. And this is how a Holocaust starts.

Where do these detainees go? To unsupervised “detention centers” with little to no oversight. There are already documented instances of Human Rights Abuses. What’s worse, the Trump Administration has plans to destroy evidence of their abuses. If we’re so focused on the abhorrent things Trump says, we’re going to miss the abhorrent things Trump does. And right now, that begins and ends with immigration. The Trump Administration is currently engaged in a “battle” to restrict legal immigration, while using Dreamers as bargaining chips. In an earlier article we published, Michael Manansala wrote about the Eugenic Foundations of Trump’s Policies, and it all stems from the belief that Trump and his peers are “superior”.

His “shithole countries” remark? White Supremacy. “Mexicans are drug dealers and rapists”? White Supremacy. Charlottesville, “Very fine people on both sides”? White Supremacy. The pattern here is more than troubling, especially when you consider his rhetoric is aimed to dehumanize immigrants. And it gets worse. The White House and it’s cronies push propaganda in the form of published crimes committed by “illegal aliens”. This is literally straight out of Nazi Germany, designed to make you afraid, and to perceive all immigrants as criminal.

Jewish family being deported vs. ICE deportation in the US.

Both perfectly legal.#HolocaustRemembranceDay pic.twitter.com/zoqW5GdRga — Nai Mei (姚耐梅)👩🏻‍⚕️ (@naimeiyao) January 27, 2018

Individually and collectively, we need to do better. We need to remember history so that we don’t doom ourselves to repeat it. Because like it or not, atrocities are happening daily in the United States. And soon enough, these could expand to a mass, systemic scale. So today, remember the Holocaust. And tomorrow, vow to ensure it never happens again.