"I am forced to look out for emigration and as far as I can see U.S.A. is the only country we could go to." –Otto Frank
In 1941, Otto Frank applied for entry to the U.S. He was rejected. Well, that’s partly true, he was granted a single visa, but it was cancelled when Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S. You’ve probably seen lots of posts over Holocaust Remembrance Day—posts about refugees, women and children turned away at Ellis Island and their death dates and locations: Bergen-Belsen, Auschwitz, Majdanek.
We who learned about the Holocaust in school looked to our grandparents as though to say, “What kind of world did you live in, that you would send children away to their deaths?”
And if we dared to voice our judgment, they may have replied, “We were afraid. America was just recovering from the Depression, and we didn’t think we had the resources. There were some who blamed Jews for the Depression. How could we be sure? It was best to protect our own interests.” Or they might have said, “It wasn’t me at all. It was the government. I lived in a farm in North Dakota. What could I have done?”
When our children and our grandchildren read the history of our time, of current-President Donald Trump’s Muslim exclusion, will they shake their heads, unsure how we could have stood by and allowed the worst to happen to desperate people?
“I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are still truly good at heart...” –Anne Frank
Oh, Anne. I wish I had your optimism.
I, too, share your horror. But. A counterpoint. The ACLU received over $24 million in donations in only 48 hours. And in this time of darkness (that sounds dramatic, but it's really just an honest assessment of the times), I'm currently hanging my hope on the good people who are fighting for what's right.
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