When they came for me, no one was left to speak up

Merriam-Webster defines “déjà vu” as “something overly or unpleasantly familiar.” That aptly describes the repetition of two terrifying events that cast a pall — the potential of international armed conflict that could elevate bigotry and racism to a level not seen in decades.

Both events stem, in part — and are exacerbated by — indifference, inaction, and the failure to call the culprits out promptly and definitively.

In Spring 1935, Sophie Tenzer wrote from Chemnitz, Germany, to her brother in Paris, imploring him to return to Germany. To rejoin their family and their established business. Hermann — a Jew and a Social Democrat activist — had, along with Willy Brandt (later chancellor of Germany) and others, publicly confronted Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist Workers Party — the Nazis — and its brutal cohorts.

Upon being warned that his life was in danger, Hermann had fled to Paris early in 1934.

Hermann’s parents echoed Sophie’s pleas, assuring Hermann that all would be well. Nazism was just a passing fad, and life would soon return to normal. Violent public acts against Jews — although already a common occurrence in Germany in the early 1930s — were dismissed as unruly criminal conduct, evident worldwide, and still a frequently uttered justification in the face of similar outrages.

The 1934 assassination of Austria’s Chancellor Dolfuss, and the shrill demands by Austria’s Nazis for Anschluss — Germany’s annexation of Austria — were similarly dismissed in light of the non-aggression pact with Poland, the Vatican Concordant, and like vacuous agreements that gave the illusion of a collaborative Germany.

Hermann returned in 1935 with wife and infant son and resumed his business as well as his religious and anti-Nazi activism. But the ominous signs of imminent disaster did not abate. Within months, the September 1935 Nuremberg Decrees branded Jews and stripped them of essential rights.

Most of the world’s leaders stood mute on this existential issue, while nonetheless professing their devotion to democracy and freedom. Conscription and a planned German army of 500,000 men — as well as the establishment of the Luftwaffe, the air force — was announced, although it would violate the World War I-ending Versailles treaty.

In retrospect, it was a clear sign of what was to come.

And in another early indicator of unwise timidity in the face of tyranny, Britain’s Lord Lothian excused the Rhineland incursion as “no more than the Germans walking into their own backyard.” It presciently provided the preface to Neville Chamberlain’s “peace in our times” surrender at Munich a few years later.

Was it time to flee? Many did. But Hermann and most of this family delayed.

In March 1938, Hitler marched on — and annexed — Austria. The fall of the Sudetenland was foretold following the Allies’ infamous September 1938 agreement at Munich to yield to Hitler’s insatiable demands. And the savagery of tyrants — and the stupidity of timid politicians — was evidenced yet again just one month later when Hitler’s Gestapo and their black-uniformed squads commanded by the notorious butcher Reinhard Heydrich, rounded up thousands of Jews from Eastern Germany, and at bayonet point, forced them over the German-Polish border to Zbaszyn and other border villages, threatening to shoot anyone attempting to return.

Again, leaders of the civilized world — including the United States — stood mute. Their silence in the face of evil invited disaster, and it was not long coming.

Sophie Tenzer, who just three years earlier had predicted tranquility, was among those forcibly expelled — together with her husband Leo, their children, and virtually their entire family. Leo’s shocking narrative contemporaneously documented the horrors they then encountered. It can be found in the Berlin Jewish Museum.

Hermann, his wife Erna and son Charles, had again presciently fled some months previously, this time to Prague. However, in the chaos that ensued, Hermann’s little family separated. Hermann was on the Gestapo wanted list, and lacking immigration permits, he stealthily headed east. He is believed to have died in 1942 during the Riga Ghetto massacres.

Erna, clutching her young son in her arms, was able to escape, aided by her son’s French birth certificate and citizenship, which secured him a precious Auslasspass, or exit permit. However, Erna’s family was not so fortunate. They, too, were forcibly expelled to Zbaszyn in October 1938.

Shamefully, America did nothing in the face of imminent genocide.

“Those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to relive it.” — George Santayana

Tragically, we have not learned the lessons of history. This nation’s response to Russian aggression and its tolerance of anti-Semitic utterances by members of Congress provide apt illustrations.

Russia’s forcible invasion of the Crimea and parts of the Ukraine — and its current threats to invade the remainder — provide current parallels to Hitler’s incursions in the Rhineland, Sudetenland, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and like nations invaded at the dictate of an inhumane despot.

There is little to distinguish Vladimir Putin from Adolf Hitler in the latter’s insatiable and diabolic quest for territorial acquisition or empire building.

And one German word for Hitler’s anti-Semitic Gruppen is aptly the “Squad,” members of which — without restraint — echo the Nazi playbook, blithely spreading the venom of racist anti-Semitic statements from the once-proud halls of Congress.

And to those who find the cited parallelism troublesome, a distinguished federal judge in Florida, Mark Walker, provided the answer recently in another context. To paraphrase: If the comparison is upsetting, “the solution is simple: Stop acting like” sounding like anti-Semites.

Notably, that has frequently been suggested, and as often been ignored.

On the international front, the tragic inquiry remains whether Neville Chamberlain’s timidity in the face of tyranny is to be repeated by the Biden administration. Certainly, the president’s initial response to Putin’s threats and his amassing a 100,000-member force — presidential responses since walked back a bit — are discomforting, to say the least. Putin’s sabre rattling persists, much as Hitler’s similar incursions and threats of invasions persisted — indeed, escalated — in the face of international timidity.

At the same time on the national — indeed, on a far broader world stage with each passing week — a seemingly uncontrollable tsunami of anti-Semitic violence has erupted. It has played out on national television from Texas, California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and even Williamsburg. It has awakened concerns — long repressed — as to whether it is time, yet again, to seek security elsewhere.

Like our national forefathers, the Pilgrims, Jews today face persecution and violence because of their faith. To some, that may sound melodramatic. But the warning signs of imminent danger are clearly present. And, other than rhetoric, little has tangibly been done to stem the violence and mindless rhetoric of anti-Semites.

Unlike other instances of racial, religious or group bias, no investigative or prosecutorial task force or the like has been assembled to root out the scum, nor has an ongoing broad scale public campaign been launched to proclaim the deranged nature of the bias.

The Squad marches on, unrestrained by congressional or party leaders needful of their votes, and unwilling to put principle first. The congress of a decade or two ago would long ago have ousted — or at least publicly censured — them. But just as timidity and an inability to act in the face of Russian terrorism encourages despots, so too these afflictions encourage the bigots and the dubious entities that fund and coordinate them.

If flight is an answer, where can one flee? Canada, Australia and New Zealand — though inviting — provide little assurance of immunity, especially as mere islands of sanity in a crazed world. Israel, the most obvious and inviting sanctuary, is under constant threat from Iran and its diabolically deranged leaders and allies.

And absent the active and tangible support of a United States truly committed to personal and religious freedoms and democratic governance, it could be an insecure haven — although, perhaps, the destined one.

The data shows an ever-increasing exodus — not only from the United States, but from such bastions of freedom as Britain and France. To date, that exodus — including the preparatory acquisition of second homes — is not yet of dispositive proportions. But it is, nonetheless, meaningful.

Or is the solution to stand and fight for a secure and meaningful existence in continued freedom and democracy?

Hermann and Erna Moerdler — my parents — chose to flee. And, thankfully, they were right to do so. Their existential quest was unaided by the deeds of so-called leaders, who later — but belatedly — awoke to condemn the disaster their timidity had encouraged. Political rhetoric, timidity and acquiescence never stopped bullying or a bullet. Immediate and steadfast public objection and unmistakable acts of defiance — such as those employed in the Cuban missile crisis — are a meaningful response.

For, as Pastor Martin Niemöller — a World War I U-boat officer — famously observed: “First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not one. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not one. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not one. Then (finally) they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”

To quote the sage, Yogi Berra, “It’s déjà vu all over again.” Vigorous public opposition and unmistakable consequences for inexcusable evil deter miscreants. Timidity and procrastination do not.

The question is where are those who should lead — or, at least actively join — the effort?

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