Repeating History (Part One)

Our world today has me thinking a lot about our past, and how little we seemed to have learned from it.

I see us repeating our history in a couple of different ways and thought I would share my insights and see if it sparks any thoughts of your own on the subject. There will be three segments. The first segment takes us back to the 1930’s and 40’s when the Nazi party came into power and how it relates to things in the world today.

Some may think there is no correlation between the two. Some have even been told the Holocaust never happened, and it doesn’t seem to be something a lot of current students are aware of, as it’s been taken out of a lot of history lessons throughout our country. But for me, the Holocaust and it’s after-effects are quite personal.

As many of you who have been reading this column for some time are aware, I come from a Jewish heritage. For new readers, this is my history in a nutshell. My great-grandmother and great-grandfather arrived in this country from Lithuania and Germany respectively. My great-grandma Rose was put on a boat by her parents, who wanted a better life for her, and knew at the time if she stayed with them, she would likely die or be put into a concentration camp. I don’t know the full story of how my great-grandpa Max got here, but what I do know is that my great-great-grandparents died during the Holocaust. That event in history hits home, and hits home hard for me and my family.

I’ve done a lot of reading on the war and the Holocaust, and wondered how one man and one party could make people believe that any one race, religion, or social class was better or more important than another. I have wondered how a single person could perpetrate the atrocities on millions of people, and why more people didn’t stand up for what was right.

From my perspective and my point of view, it’s happening again, right now, all these years later. And I’m still wondering how things in the world today are allowed to happen. In my eyes, this is how these two events in our history, and our present, are so similar to one another.

First, I believe it all started with fear, and fear will cause many people to do things they normally wouldn’t.

We were all told how horrible this virus is. For the record, I do believe the virus is real, and for some, very serious. I also believe the virus, and subsequent vaccinations, are politically and monetarily driven. With that said, federal, state and local governments made decisions to “lock-down” and keep everyone separated, and in my opinion, living in fear.

Fear from actually living, and from other people. It forced us to be apart from family, from friends, and we were encouraged to report anyone not complying with these lockdowns. Read that again - encouraged to report our neighbors, family, friends, because they weren’t abiding to the rules and falling into line. So now, not only were people afraid of a virus, now they were afraid of their neighbors, family and friends. Fear, driven by more fear.

Fear has been perpetuated by the media, and no matter which news source you use as your “go-to,” they all feed the fears. Fear of the virus, fear of being in public, fear of a new variant, fear of those who are sick, vaccinated, not vaccinated. They report on the economy and drive more fear. Not enough money, not enough jobs,. In my opinion, most of what they report are lies to feed their own agendas. Rarely do our mainstream media outlets actually report news anymore, but rather, their opinions.

In history, Hitler convinced people, neighbors,, friends, and family, to report those who were Jews or anyone who was helping the Jews. He was dividing people, family, friends in the name of a false fear that a majority of people then bought into, hook, line, and sinker.

We’re being divided again, whether we realize it or not. It started with masks. Those who wore them were good little humans and those who didn’t were bad people who didn’t care about anyone. And where did the propaganda for masks begin? With our governments, who told us so.

Masks and vaccine cards are this generations’ inverse version of the Nazi’s gold star. If you don’t have it, you don’t get in, or get to go to certain areas. It’s already happening here and now. I was scheduled to go to a fiber/yarn event with my mom in California in February. The event itself is requiring proof of vaccine for entry, to teach there, to vend there and to volunteer there. No exemptions of any kind will be honored - not religious, and not medical. They are making it impossible for those who don’t “fall into line” and show their vaccine cards to make a living, gather with friends or go to the event. What this feels like to me, as an American can be described from a direct quote from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum that states “Soon after the Nazi party came into power, they adopted measures to exclude Jews from German economic, social, and cultural life, and pressure them to emigrate.”

Whether we see it or not, someone, a party or a government or whatever else you want to call it, is controlling it all. If we don’t stand up soon, we’re going to see first-hand how much or how little control we have over our own lives. We’re going to see more divisiveness, we’re going to see more fear, and sadly, our history may end up repeating itself with a lot more loss than the six-million Jewish people who lost their lives.

Next week, in the second segment of this series, I’ll talk more about the divisiveness, the segregatio, and how another point in history looks to be repeating itself. Until then, I’d like to leave you with this quote from George Santayana “Those who don’t learn from history are destined to repeat it.”