Looking at Holocaust Websites.

Throughout my 18 part series about the Rise of Nazism in Germany, I started looking into the concept of whether Nazis were left-wing or right wing.

Let me start right off the bat by saying I believe Nazis are right-wing.  But I'm intrigued by the fact that some right-wing people believe Nazism is a left-wing kind of thing.

So....anyway.

In my posts, I started looking at the opinions of websites, mostly Holocaust ones, to see if they gave an answer to whether Nazis were left and right.

I'm going to continue that here in this post.

This adventure might all fit into this post.  I might just jump around from website to website quickly finding the left vs right verdict.  

BUT....

There's a fair chance I might fall down rabbit holes and go on tangents.  If that happens, I may break this project up into multiple posts.

* * *

The scores so far.

TWO for left-wing: Dinesh D'Souza and Conservapedia.  

I didn't really get D'Souza's opinion from a website. Well...I did, technically.  But it was via Amazon.  I had Googled and found D'Souza had written a book about the whole thing.  It's called The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left.

As for the sites I've found, so far, that name Nazis as being a right-wing thing, there are FIVE: The Budapest Holocaust Memorial Museum, The Holocaust Explained (from the Wiener Holocaust Library), The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Snopes, and The Political Compass.

And there have also been Holocaust museums that do not explicitly say that the Nazis were a right-wing or left wing phenomena.  

* * *

I've been using Touro University's list of Holocaust websites as my roadmap.  

I'm going to guess that most websites on their list are going to say either that the Nazis were right-wing or they're going to skip mentioning political leanings.  

But we shall see.....

* * *

The first up is the Holocaust Museum Houston.

The museum itself seems very left-wing.  Their current special exhibit, and the most prominent thing on their website, is called "Speaking up: Confronting Hate Speech".

If it was a right-wing museum, the special exhibit would probably be named something like: "Speaking Up: Confronting Political Correctness".  

Also, the exhibit shows bigotry against targeted groups in general vs bigotry against only-Jews.  I believe left-wing Jews are more likely to be passionate about social justice for all groups...equally. Or sometimes some tend to even put our own group last. Right-wing Jews seem to focus on social justice for Jewish people. And that may vary from white-Jews only to all people as long as they're Jewish.     

* * *

Well, I looked at Houston's virtual tour, which is pretty cool.  It's like the ones used for real estate websites.

I didn't go through the whole museum—just the beginning part which talked about the rise of Nazism.  In that section, there was nothing about whether Nazis were left-wing or right-wing.

So I shall not add them to any list.

* * *

Now I'm on The Holocaust Museum LA in Los Angeles.  

I'm looking through their education stuff.

They have a teacher's guide PDF with some history.  

The PDF says this: 

The party was explicitly anti-communist and anti-Marxist. It condemned the liberalism of the Weimar Republic and sought for a return to the “authenticity” of Germany. The party valued nationalism, “Aryanism,” and a revival of nativism.

Unless someone wants to argue that communism and Marxism is NOT left-wing, I'm going to say that this sounds like the museum would agree that Nazis were right-wing.

I also feel that the paragraph is actually speaking directly towards the people who'd try to claim that the Nazis were left-wing.  Maybe it's the word "explicitly".

More stuff from the PDF:

Adolf Hitler capitalized on Germany's unstable environment in the 1920s and 30s, blaming Germany’s defeat and failing economy on Liberals, Marxists, and Jews.

And...

The Nazis utilized vigorous propaganda to exploit the public fear of a communist take-over and portray Hitler as a protector and savior of Germany.

What political party in the United States obsessively exploits the fear of communism?  

Anyway....although they don't say explicitly "Nazis were right-winged", I'm going to mark them in that club, because I think they said enough to make me believe this is their viewpoint.

The score now is 6 to 2.

* * *

Moving onto the next website.

This one is The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education.  They say they serve Kansas, Western Missouri, and The Midwest.

Kansas and western Missouri are not in The Midwest?

Rabbit hole.....

* * *

Lord Wiki says Missouri and Kansas are included in The Midwest.

So...it would probably be more apt to say the museum serves Kansas, Western Missouri, and the rest of the Midwest.

I'm also wondering if The Midwest doesn't have any other Holocaust centers.

* * *

The center prides themselves on being a bridge to the non-Jewish community.  And one of the reflections of this priority of theirs is that 1/3 of their board members are non-Jewish.

I see two different pictures here.

A) They partner with other marginalized communities, so those communities can both learn about the Holocaust and also share their histories of oppression.  (left-wing approach)

B)  The other board members are evangelical Christians who passionately want Jews returning to Jerusalem for Christian mythology reasons.  Like right-wing Jews, they pay lots of attention to the Holocaust and much less attention to other horrible things in history.  (right-wing approach).

* * *

There's a lot of people listed on the board members page. 

It would be a really huge rabbit hole to go through each board member to see if they fit more into A or B.  

And I'm not even sure which board members are the non-Jewish one.

That being said...I did Google one of the Vice-Presidents.  I went to her Twitter page and started scrolling through. I didn't find any politically-revealing Tweets.  So, next I went to her likes,  

On July 20, 2021 she liked a Tweet that celebrated the ban of conversion therapy in Kansas city.  So I'm going to guess she is NOT evangelical.  

And scrolling down, I see other woke stuff.

* * *

I could have just scrolled down a bit to see if the center leans left or right in their thinking.

They describe their goal as:

Through a study of the Holocaust and the stories of the people who experienced it, the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education seeks to increase compassion and understanding. We teach what can happen within a democratic society when hatred and bigotry go unchallenged. We encourage individual responsibility by showing how the actions of one person can make a difference. We relate the events of the past to contemporary issues of intolerance.

* * *

I like what the museum says here:

The Nazis could not have accomplished the murder of two-thirds of European Jewry and the destruction of 1500 years of Jewish culture, community and history in the space of 12 years without the complicity of others. Such complicity included not only those who collaborated with them, but also those who remained neutral or indifferent, and those who kept silent.

I wonder how many of the people saying that the Disney Corporation should stay out of politics would go to a Holocaust museum, walk around and say, How could something like this happen?  

Being neutral and indifferent to politics and oppression is dangerous enough.  But what's worse is those who push others to stay silent.

I bet every influencer or celebrity who has decided to speak up...even in small ways...has been met with comments: You used to be funny.  Stick to acting.  This is not why I followed you.  Unfollow! Go woke go broke.

* * *

I can't easily find anything with the center describing the Nazis as left-wing or right-wing.  But judging by the titles of the lesson plans for teachers, the museum does seem more left-wing to me. I mean the museum seems left-wing which would mean if asked, they'd probably say the opposite of Nazis.  

Examples: 

"Bystanders in the Holocaust and Rwanda", 

"Connecting a Holocaust Memoir to Modern Genocides"

"Nazi Laws vs Jim Crow Laws"

"Recognizing Genocide-A Study of the 8 Stages"

One of the parts of the last one is about the famous quote from Martin Niemoller.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out-because I was not a socialist. 

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out-because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out-because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me, and there was no one else to speak for me.

I'm wondering if right-wing people ever use this quote when discussing the Holocaust.  I can imagine them relating to or agreeing with the general sentiment.  But I imagine they'd be really uncomfortable with the mention of unionists and socialists.

I imagine there are probably right-wing people who try to spread very altered versions of the quote and would be disgusted if they saw the original version.

* * *

I actually found the term "right-wing" in the section on Niemoller.  

Well...and I just finally noticed that this section isn't exactly from The Midwest Center for Holocaust Education.

I didn't notice that I had been sent off to The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which I already know puts the Nazis in the right-wing category.

That being said, I think what a museum links to says something about their viewpoints.  I mean unless they're showcasing viewpoints that offend them.  

Anyway...the right-wing is in reference to Niemoller.  He was right-winged, antisemitic, and voted for the Nazi party in 1933.

Later he had a change of heart.

Just like people get off the MAGA train at different stops; same goes for those getting off the Hitler train.

* * *

I'm going to move on.  It's hard, because there seems to be a lot of great material on the Midwest site.  But I'm bookmarking it for future posts.   

I think having these sites will be better when researching instead of relying solely on Google.

* * *

Now I'm going to look at the Safe Haven Holocaust Refugee Shelter Museum.

It's in Oswego, New York....which, looking at Google Maps, is close to Rochester and Syracuse New York.  And it's about 4-5 hours away from NYC.  

According to their website, 982 refugees were allowed into the United States as guests of FDR.

So...I guess instead of Schindler's List, it would be FDR's list.

I wonder how they were chosen.

Maybe this page will answer that question.  It has their story.

They label FDR's refugee rescue as a symbolic gesture.  He sent a woman named Ruth Gruber to Italy to get 1000 refugees. Or around 1000 refugees, I guess.  I wonder why they fell short of 1000.

The people were chosen for having skills that would help them run a camp.

I'm not sure what that means.

Yeah. I should keep reading...

It just seems to me that it takes a wide variety of people to run a camp.

I'm probably thinking of something more in line with a summer camp.

BUT....

All camps are kind of like little communities, so it seems most people would have something to contribute.  

The first priority, in choosing refugees, was for  those who had been in concentration camps and had escaped.  

Were they priority out of sympathy and compassion?  Or was the United States looking for people good at escaping things?

* * *

Just like today, some people were welcoming and compassionate towards refugees. Other people were not.

The Safe Haven website says that FDR had to promise congress that these refugees would leave the United States after the war.  The fact that he had to promise this makes me think that there was significant opposition to the refugees being rescued.

The journeys of the refugees took two weeks on a ship that was crowded and very hot.  Adding seasickness to the mess, it wasn't a pleasant trip.

I'm tempted to complain that they were treating refugees like unwanted dirt.  But apparently the ship was usually used for soldiers.  And while part of the ship was used for refugees, on that particular journey, the ship also had wounded soldiers.

Now I'm wondering if I should skip the complaining OR should I complain about the United States government's treatment of both refugees and the military.

I'm pretty sure air-conditioning wasn't a thing yet.  But maybe they could have added more fans?  Maybe less crowding.

Although I'm wondering if the crowding on that journey was more substantial than on ones with only soldiers. Maybe when not being used to transport close to a thousand refugees, everyone gets more legroom and there's less spreading of body warmth. 

* * *

When the refugees got to their new temporary home, some of it felt a bit too familar in a bad way.

Well, first of all the trip involved a train journey.  Hopefully, it was better than the cattle cars that took them to the concentration camps in Europe.

Other things the camps had in common with the death and concentration camps in Europe is barbed wire and military personnel.  

I wonder how the treatment of the refugees would compare to how refugees in camps and detention centers are treated today. And I wonder how these camps compared to Japanese interment camps.   

You know what's horrible?

Or I should say one of the many horrible thing.

There's a part of me that's thinking...why are they complaining?  These people came from The Holocaust!  Anything is a step up!

And I think I felt this way sometimes when learning about Australian detention centers.  

It's not that I feel anyone deserves this kind of treatment or that this kind of treatment is acceptable.  

It's more like I expect that people will be accepting of bad treatment if it's an improvement from how they were previously treated.  

Many of these refugees, though, had comfortable or extra-comfortable lives before the Nazis came into power.  So the desire to go back to that original level of comfort probably outweighs the gratitude that they're no longer in an extremely abusive situation.  

Or maybe not.  I have no idea.

And what about people who have not ever lived in middle class or upper middle class situations?  Are they more likely to tolerate shelter/camp situations?  

And where do we draw the line between demanding guests and mistreated guests?  

I wouldn't expect to be placed in a four star hotel room or even a two star one.  But I'd want clean toilets and enough toilets.

Whether or not it had bobbed wire, I would hope for something that's at least as good as college dorms or summer camp.  

That might not be good qualifier, because there's so much variance when it comes to dorms and camps.

The family camp we went to in the 1980's had no doors on the toilet stalls and showers were outdoors and communal   

The camp that Tim and I met at had private bathrooms in the cabins —toilet and shower.

I think some summer camps even have air-conditioning.

I DEFINITELY think refugees should have air-conditioning...especially if they're in Texas.  

Anyway...all in all.  Just because someone escaped a death camp filled with Nazis doesn't mean they should expected to be Pollyanna about overcrowded and overheated ships and then being sent to another prison camp situation.  

* * *

Since the Safe Haven website is about the aftermath of the Holocaust experience rather than the origins, they don't provide their insight into whether Nazis were left-wing or right-wing.

I'm bookmarking a PBS documentary about Safe Haven.  I might watch it if I do a post about the American response to the Holocaust.  The description of the video says: FDR Agreed to admit this small token group in lieu of a much larger plan to create many safe haven all over the country and bring in possibly hundreds of thousands of refugees.

I wonder who or what stopped the plan of bringing in hundreds of thousands of refugees.

These days it's more often right-wing people who are oppositional to refugees.  Was it the same back then?  Were left-wing people as pro-immigrant and refugee-supportive as they are now?

I wonder if there were people who were supportive of refugees as long as they were not Jewish ones?  Well, I can definitely expect that there were racists and Nazi-types who were welcoming of white/Aryan refugees.  But I wonder if there were people who would welcome most other refugees, regardless of skin color...but not Jews.  Because they saw Jews as money-hungry, controlling bank goblins who make life miserable for decent people.  

* * *

This post is probably long enough.

So I will probably continue this with sequels.  

* * *

Actually, I change my mind.

I'm tired of this project.

I do like looking at the various Holocaust museums.  But I can do that with other research posts.

I think it's very likely that most official Holocaust sites are going to either say that the Nazis were right-winged or link to another website that says the Nazis were right-wing.  OR they're going to be in the category of no comment.

* * *

Now I'm going to face the struggle of what to research and write about next.

Should I choose randomly?

Should I choose the subject that has most recently made me feel very uncomfortable and unsettled?

Should I go with the American response...since I am kind of wanting to learn more about Safe Haven?

Yeah.  You know what.  Maybe I will start there.

I'll watch the documentary and then see where that takes me.  

* * *

I don't want to leave the above so vague and cryptic

So I'll briefly explain.  There was a post on Instagram about the Jewish influence on the comic industry and how some Jewish people feel that Jewish influence has been erased.

I don't know much about the origins of the comic book industry, so I can't weigh in on whether there was a small, medium, or huge Jewish influence.  (though that has changed a bit since originally writing this...because of a conversation in comments)

But...the story sounded like what many on the left would usually label as cultural appropriation and in usual cases like this there would be cries of, Representation Matters!

Opening up the comments, I expected to see a mix of those things along with a few antisemitic things and a few anti-Israel things.

But I didn't see anyone speaking up against cultural appropriation or speaking up for representation.  Instead the general message was that Jews were making a big deal out of nothing. (though between writing and proofreading, I went back to look again and some comments were added that were supportive rather than hateful)

I'm not bothered by right-wing people being unsupportive.  I expect them to roll their eyes at cultural appropriation and representation.  But left-wing people.  Seeing it come from them, hurts.  Most of all, because I'm Jewish and take it personally.  But second, hypocrisy is painful to me.  I believe that some of these same people would have a very different reaction if it was a different group complaining about cultural appropriation.   

I feel a bit guilty, because a few months ago I privately complained about a left-wing cousin complaining that people were not standing with Jews as Jews had stood with them.  She had an attitude of woe-is-us.

I felt she was being too negative.  I mean I definitely understand that there is left-wing antisemitism.  I'm not blind to it!  But I felt and still feel that there are also many left-wing people who do speak out against antisemitism and support Jewish culture/causes. (I mean non-Jewish, left-wing people)  I've seen it on Twitter, and it makes me feel comforted.  

Although now....I'm sitting here worried.  What if they ARE all Jewish?

Shit.  That would suck.

But no.  I don't think that's true.

Anyway, though....maybe my cousin, at the time, had experienced what I saw yesterday on Instagram.  Maybe that's what put her in the mindset.  And knowing what I've been feeling since reading those comments, I can totally understand.  

Edited to add 12/5/2023: Dear Past Dina:  Wait until you see what's coming. 

Learning about the Rise of Nazism in Germany (Part 18)

To read the first post in this series, click here.

To see an index of posts in the series, click here. 

As far as I know, no one is really reading these posts.

Strangely, I'm not bothered by the fact.

I mean usually in the past, I would find it lonely. I'd feel rejected.

But now, I just enjoy the research and the writing.

* * *

I think my game plan is to finish with what I want to get from The Holocaust Explained website...which will likely include a zillion tangents and rabbit holes.

Whatever Other-Holocaust sites I don't get to in my left vs right quest...maybe I will just look at all of those in one post.  I mean quickly zooming through to see if the website labels the Nazis as being left-wing or right-wing.

I can't say I'm going to visit every single Holocaust site that exists out there.

I've been using Touru University's lists.  I'll go through those until I get tired of it.

After I finish with those two quests...If I'm still interested in all of this, I'm going to have other related posts that I don't think would fit in the title "Learning about the Rise of Nazism in Germany."

Some ideas for my related post include:

1. The American Jewish response to Nazis and the Holocaust.

2. The Republican/right wing American response to the Holocaust

3. The Democrat/left wing American response to the Holocaust.

When I wrote these down weeks ago, I'm not sure if 2 and 3 referred to just during the Holocaust or also in the decades following the Holocaust.

4. The response of Palestine to the Holocaust—both the Jews and the Arabs in the 1920's-1940's.  I imagine most Jews in Palestine pushed for the rescue and immigration of European Jews while most Arabs did not want a lot of Jews coming in.  BUT....any opposites?  Any Jews in denial about the need to provide refuge?  Any Arabs involved in helping to rescue Jews during the Holocaust?

5. The response from Australia to the Holocaust.  I know about the Kimberly Plan.  I'd love to learn more.  Plus, I miss researching Australia!

6. The history of antisemitism in Europe.

7.  Holocaust minimizing and outright denial.  

8.  Racism in the United States and Europe during the 1920's. I'm thinking (When I made this list) that I meant racism not including antisemitism.  

9. Homophobia in the 1920's and 1930's...though I think I also want to learn about LGBTQ life in general.

10. Antisemitism in the 1920's around the world.

11. Right-wing American Jewish response to the Holocaust.  Examples: Ben Shapiro, Steven Miller, and Jared Kushner.  (Oh!  So maybe with 2 and 3, I meant only during World War II vs then and now)

12. Nazi hunters

13. Children and grandchildren of Nazis

14. Resistance via art.  (How did people use music, theater, fine art, film, books, etc. to speak out against the Third Reich.

15. Holocaust refugees. (What was the asylum process like. What places were most welcoming? Which were least welcoming?)

16. European Jews post Holocaust

17. Jewish life in Mexico

* * *

Are you wondering why I have the right-wing response to the Holocaust but not the left?

Well...to be honest, so was I. 

But then I realized I am Jewish and left-wing, SO....I already know the response.  Whenever I share my opinions regarding the Holocaust on my blog, that's a left-wing response.

I'm half-joking.

I do think that most of the Holocaust websites I'm looking at are center-left or center.  So I feel like I'm seeing a left-center-left opinion there.  

In terms of very far-left views about the Holocaust, I think I'd get into that a bit with Holocaust minimizing and anti-semitism.

No. I'm not saying that every far-left person is antisemitic or a Holocaust minimizer.  But I do think some are.

If someone is anti-Zionist than they are a Holocaust minimizer....unless they have some other brilliant plan about where all the Jewish refugees should have gone. (edited to bold and enlarge on 12/4/2023)

* * *

I was just thinking that some Holocaust museums could be center-right.  But it's a version of right-winged I'm just not used to anymore....since the party has been pretty much taken over by the far-right.

* * *

Either The Holocaust Explained has added new stuff since I last looked a few days ago.

OR...I missed a lot.

In my last post, I went from a brief section about Jewish life....to their section on Romani, homosexuals, Polish, and Jehovah Witnesses.

But there's actually a lot more stuff about Jewish life that I somehow didn't see before.

So I'm going to start looking at that.  

* * *

Well, now I'm seeing that a lot of the Jewish stuff is about Jewish life in general....the Jewish religion and Jewish culture rather than being specifically about Jewish life in Europe prior to the rise of Nazism.

I'm not going to look at all that now.

But they do have some personal biographical stories that might be insightful.

* * *

One of the people featured is Gerty Simon a Jewish photographer from Berlin.

She worked in the 1920's and 1930's...well, probably just early 1930's.

She photographed Albert Einstein.

I don't know much about his timeline. Was he very famous then?

I'm not sure if she was a somewhat successful photographer who ended up photographing someone who became very famous.

OR...if she was a very successful photographer who was given the opportunity to photograph someone very famous.

Then again....I don't think every celebrity photograph is taken by someone very successful.  Well, of course not these days.  But in the various bygone eras, there were probably rising photographers who were given the chance to take a photo of famous people.  I mean within a studio setting rather than a paparazzi situation.

Anyway...getting back to the Nazi stuff.

Gerty Simon's story had a fortunate outcome.  She and her son emigrated to the UK where she continued on with her career.

Her husband stayed behind.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe work related.  He was a lawyer; though had to downgrade to a notary.  I think because of the antisemitism.  

After Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, he went into hiding and eventually escaped; then joined his wife and son in London.

* * *

The Holocaust Explained says that Simon was at particularly high risk from the Nazis, because she was Jewish, AND many subjects of her photography were socialists and anti-Fascists.  

Antifa!

I'm wondering. Besides being at high risk, was Simon also maybe more likely to understand the risk?

I think artists are more likely to be woke.

And woke people are more likely to be willing to see injustice and understand how it's a threat.

* * *

Now I'm falling down a rabbit hole....

I'm guessing it's not a myth that writers, singers, actors, actresses, etc. are more likely to be left-wing.  But how unlikely is it for a Conservative to be in art and entertainment?

Are there just as many right-wing artistic people than left, but the left just happens to have more power which leads to right-wing artists being disfranchised?

OR do left-wing artists outweigh right-wing ones so much that their rareness leads to feeling/being ostracized and alienated?

I guess what I'm trying to ask is the left-wing dominance about power in number or more about power in who you know and who people want to support and not support.

I'm also curious about support for the arts.

I imagine support or lack of support can range from 

1. Art is not a real job.  Movies, TV shows, books, music, theater and art is all a waste of time. 

2. We love TV, movie, books, music, etc.  But it's not real work.  It's not a career to go into.  It's definitely not a career for OUR kids to go into.

3. We love art!  We love movies, books, music...all that stuff!  Careers in it would be great...but wishful thinking. It's okay to put some effort into a career but very important to put more effort into a back up plan.

4. Life is art. Art is life. And we are going to strongly nurture and support any creativity that our children have.

I feel right-wing people are more likely to be in groups 1-2.

I think left-wing people are more likely to be in group 4.

And 3 is probably a mix.  

* * *

I started to feel guilty for this rabbit hole/tangent...thinking it's not appropriate for the discussion.

BUT....then I remembered that one of the posts I want to do is resistance via the arts. And I'd probably talk about resistance to Nazis and the Holocaust back then and resistance to MAGA and other racist, nationalistic movements that are in the world today.  

* * *

Now I'm going to read an article from a website called Artnet News.  The title is: "Why Did the Art World Vote for Hillary? Psychologists Say It’s Because Democrats Are More Creative Than Republicans"

They give examples of who supported Clinton vs who supported Trump.

Team Clinton: Beyoncé, Steven Spielberg, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Annie Leibovitz, Stephen King, Frank Gehry, Calvin Klein, Lena Dunham, and Rihanna

Team Trump: Hulk Hogan, Tila Tequila, Kid Rock.

Because of my time on Twitter, I know there are other celebrities that can be added to either list. Well, I'm not sure if they were vocal about supporting Clinton.  But in the time since 2016, I know of celebrities who are strongly pro-Trump or anti-Trump.

Anti-Trump:  Patricia Arquette, Bette Midler, Alyssa Milano, Ken Olin,  Ron Perlman, Rob Reiner, Stephen King.....

Those are ones that just come quickly to my mind.  I'm sure there are others.

Some of the pro-Trump ones include Adam Baldwin, Scott Baio, Rick Schroder, Kirsty Ally...

Now I don't think all the individual left-wing artists are more creative and talented than right-wing ones.  

I think it's more about the whole picture and not one a case of every right-wing person lacking talent or not having enough talent.   

* * *

It's been a few days since I wrote the above.

I'm not sure I can get the momentum back.

But maybe if I continue reading the article...I will.

I don't think I got very far a few days ago.  Probably not past the few few lines. 

* * *

Oh.  

I'm wrong.

I had gotten past the first paragraph.

Yay me.

* * *

A group of psychologists from England and Canada joined forces to answer the question of whether creativity is linked to a particular political affiliation.

The article talks about a previous study done in 1992.  It looked at what type of shapes people preferred

with the idea/knowledge that creative people prefer more complex shapes and less creative people prefer simple shapes.

I'm assuming this shape preference correlation was determined by an earlier study and not just a random opinion.

So....supporters of David Duke, a white supremacist, preferred the simple shapes.  The non-white-supremacists preferred the more complex shapes.  

In the newer study (2016) participants were asked which statements they prefer.

A) We must “smash the perversions eating away at our moral and traditional beliefs

B) Everyone should have their own lifestyle, religious beliefs, and sexual preferences

I think I'd be confused if taking this test.  Because the second one kind of sounds like every single person must have their own unique lifestyle, religious beliefs, and sexual preferences.  Like you must not have the same religious beliefs as your neighbor or sister.  

Okay...to be honest, I would probably get what they meant.  But I do think the wording is a bit off.  Either way, though, I definitely prefer B to A.

Anyway, the study had the participants do various assessments.  The results indicated that Democrats were more creative.  

There was another component to the study and that's about whether social risk-taking is more associated with Democrats or Republicans and creative vs less creative people.

Other research connected to the study was one where counties were examined.  Those that voted Republican issued less patents.

* * *

I'm thinking of the Political Compass.  The question asked of participants in the study would fall under the authoritarian vs libertarian line.

I wonder if left vs right...which on the Political Compass is about high taxes/social programs vs low taxes/no social programs....I wonder if there's a substantial difference in creativity there.

I'm also now wondering these days how common is it to have someone who's fiscally conservative but very open-minded when it comes to religion, lifestyle, sexuality, etc.

* * *

Artnet has a link to a related article.

It's pretty interesting.  It looks at which career fields donated most to Trump and Biden via a study done by Bloomberg.

Fundraising professionals were the most likely to donate to Biden (96%).  That's interesting. 

The ones most likely to vote Trump?  Homemakers (96% and people on disability 93%).

What???!!!

As for the artistic folks.

They looked at architects, artists, photographers, musicians, actors, writers/authors, producers, and editors.

They all were very much more sided with Biden.

The lowest difference was with artists and photographers. Seventy-eight percent went for Biden.

The highest difference was with producers and editors—90% and 94%.  Wow.

What does that mean for the 14% of writers/authors who are pro-Trump.  

How about the 16% of actors who are pro-Trump?

I guess the 10% of producers can make films and then hire the 16% of actors.

* * *

Now I'm looking at the actual Bloomberg article.  It has fun blue and red circles representing companies and career-fields.

I'm happy that more circles are blue.

The bluer the circle, the more likely the employees supported Biden with donations rather than Donald Trump.

Some of the very very blue: Harvard, Google, Facebook, John Hopkins, MIT, University of Chicago.

Quite Blue: Disney (yay!) Starbucks, US Government, hospitals

Lighter Blue:  Delta, Walgreens, US Department of Defense

Grey: Southwest Airlines, American Airlines, US Postal Service....

Beige: Lowes, McDonalds, Publix, Fed-Ex, 

I need to keep reminding myself that this is not the company itself but the employees.

Red: US military, Us Marines, NYPD

Then there is a second circle thing with career types.

Very Very Blue: librarians, professors, producers, therapists and psychologists, editors.

Quite Blue: scientists, lawyers, authors, teachers.

I'm VERY glad about teachers.

Lighter Blue: nurses, pharmacists, IT professionals, flight attendants, project managers

Grey: Cooks/chefs, sales managers, CEO's, students, secretaries, 

Beige: Realtors, dentists, caregivers

And here there are different shades of red (vs above...just a light red)

Very very red: Homemakers and people on disability.

Quite red: HVAC professionals, plumbers, stay-at-home moms

Light red: Truckers, electricians, farmers, police officers, construction workers

Pink: Manufacturing employees, custodians, pastors, firefighters.

This is fascinating.  

But yeah.  It really does look like people in creative careers are more likely to be left/democratic.

* * *

Slowly crawling out of this rabbit hole...which was all because of a German photographer.

I think I'm actually going to stop with The Holocaust Explained and this will probably be my last post in this particular series.

Before I end, though....I'm going to explore another Holocaust website.  

And depending on my mood and what I find...we may be a short distance from the conclusion of this post or miles and miles away.

* * *

One thing I want to add is I probably mark off homemaker when I donate.  

I consider myself a writer...and a creative person.  But since I'm financially unsuccessful with writing, I don't feel right marking that as my career.

I was thinking...are the 4% of Pro-Biden homemakers unsuccessful creative types like me?

I wonder if many financially unsuccessful artists still mark themselves as having the creative careers.  I guess maybe the ones who don't suffer from a ton of imposter syndrome.

* * *

It's about two days later.

This post is going to take a long time to finish.  Probably.

I don't think I did any research yesterday.

Most of my time was spent being attuned to Lake House drama.

I was also lethargic which I tried to cure with two expressos.  Or three?  That was on top of my usual morning coffee.  And then I tried to appease my low blood sugar feelings by eating a handful of carrots...even though my stomach was feeling a bit off.  That wasn't the best decision.

* * *

One thing I hadn't noticed before about the beautiful Bloomberg chart is each circle has an actual percentage.

I figured this out when I started asking how Artnet News knew 96% of homemakers support Trump.

Okay.  And what the fuck is up with those getting disability?  Why the hell would disabled people support Trump over Biden?

And these are the disabled people who didn't feel they could or should mark down a career type.  I would feel people in that situation would feel more disgruntled with capitalism and be more down with left/socialism.  

Isn't it the left that is more supportive of providing supports for people unable to find jobs?

Anyway...back to the percentages.

The most important thing is Disney employees gave 84% of donations to Biden vs Trump.  It's so nice to know that.  

Also...I can use my beloved iPhone and laptop knowing that 92% of their employees gave to Biden instead of Trump.  

* * *

Well...looking at the Bloomberg bubbles.

I can definitely believe that left-wing people are more likely to be creative.  

* * *

Because my parents are both Trump supporters (or defenders), I find a huge amount of comfort in the Bloomberg bubbles and percentages.

I'm sure there's a lofty explanation for that.

I'm not sure how to explain or define it.

I guess part of it is comfort in numbers...and the fact that the numbers are coming from the type of people I like and/or admire.  I mean at least in terms of their career paths.

Also, I think it's kind of infuriating and unfathomable to have family members that support Trump despite all that has been revealed. And since (adult) Trump supporters outnumber Biden supporters in my family, when it comes to family discussions and situations, I end up feeling outnumbered.

So, it's nice to know that outside my family...the people I tend to see as being cool or super cool are on the same team as me—Disney employees, government employees, Target employees, Google employees, librarians, professors, psychologists, graphic designers, scientists, actors, occupational therapists, architects, pharmacists, restaurant servers, artists, veterinarians, software engineers, other engineers, IT professionals, scientists, authors.....

* * *

I'm going to leave this fun and comforting rabbit hole and move onto a Holocaust website.

For this post, I'm going to be looking at The Zekelman Holocaust Center which is in Farmington Hills Michigan.

Farmington is 24 minutes from Detroit.

Looking on Google Maps, the architecture of the museum is pretty interesting.  I kind of like it.  

They've worked the Holocaust uniforms into the design. Interesting choice.

In the same building...or attached?  There is a place called The Zekelman Family Campus.  But it's permanently closed.  I wonder what that was.  

Well...I'm getting the idea from Google that maybe this is what the museum used to be called?  

* * *

The website for the Society of Architectural Historians has a page about the museum, describing the various symbolic elements of the building.   

They talk about the museum as being in Detroit, so Farmington is a suburb I guess.

Detroit has about 96 thousand Jews and many of them live in Farmington.

* * *

I wonder what percentage of Holocaust museum employees or volunteers donated to Biden rather than Trump.

How about museums in general?

Was that on the Bloomberg page?  

Well..I looked.  I don't think they're on there.   

* * *

The Board of Director page is illustrated with a photo of some of the board members with a special guest speaker.

Who was that guest speaker?  

George Takei.

You can't say we-are-a-left-leaning museum more loudly than having George Takei featured on your Board of Director Page.

I am going to predict that this museum does NOT side with Conservapedia about the Nazis being left-wing rather than right-wing.  

I will say, though, that the museum needs to work on their gender equality wokeness.  All of the top board governing people are men.

* * *

I'm looking at their exhibit page.  And with this aspect of the museum, I feel it's more right-leaning.

Why?

Because unlike the other museums I've looked at so far, the Zekelman Museum doesn't seem to have an exhibit about other victims of bigotry and/or genocide. 

Now I haven't looked at their online education section yet.  Maybe that has something?

But still.  I feel most Holocaust museums also try to tie in other injustices.  And exhibits ARE a huge part of a museum.

I think left-wing Jews are more likely to be social justice warriors not just with injustice against Jews but also against other people.

I think right-wing Jews are more likely to focus on atrocities committed against Jews.  

For left-wing Jews, "Never Again" seems to mean we need to pay attention and fight against genocide.

For right-wing Jews, "Never Again" seems to mean we need to stay vigilant and make sure Jews are safe.

* * *

Now I'm going to look through their online education stuff.

I'll jot down anything that is interesting to me....

And maybe go on a tangent or fall down a rabbit hole.

* * *

Okay.  Good.

I'm glad to see these lines on this page of the online education...which expand the subject of injustice beyond antisemitism.  

Where do you see hatred in our world today? 

What can be done to help change its course? 

I'll answer the second question: 

Vote

Pay attention

Be willing to see the injustices.  Don't turn away.

I mean we can turn away sometimes.  We don't have to read every tragic article and watch every video of brutality.  Personal mental health is important too...and there are only so many hours in a day.  

But if we turn away so often that we're able to believe that things are fine, life is fair, that we're all in the same boat....

Then we're turning away too often.  

* * *

This page talks about a 1936 antisemitic children's book called Trust No Fox.

It was written by an 18-year-old kindergarten teacher named Elvira Bauer.

According to the Bloomberg circles, only 16% of teachers are Team Trump.  That's reassuring to me.  

Though the numbers there might change as teachers become restricted about what books they can have in their classroom and how much they're allowed to say regarding racism, history, and LGBTQ+ issues.

I think part of the master plan is to replace left-leaning teachers with right-wing ones.  Or really I should say: replace left-leaning teachers with white supremacist teachers.

* * *

Now I've somehow landed on a PDF of a lesson plan from the museum.

One of the things they say: 

Many Jewish people thought that what was happening would eventually come to

an end, or were not able to leave because they did not have a place to go. Further,

many could not afford the journey, or were not successful in their efforts to leave. They

needed citizenship papers, immigrant and travel visas, and often needed a sponsor that

would be financially responsible.

I wish people would have this in mind when they say things like, I support immigration.  But it needs to be done legally.

Fuck that.

We live in Texas which is not at war...yet.

There are really shitty things happening here and/or developing.  But the shit hasn't hit the fan yet...it's just slowly inching towards it.

But right now....to get a new driver's license or ID, it takes about three months!!  In the bygone day, this was something you could decide to do last minute.  And yeah...then you'd have to spend hours in a dreadful line.  At least, though, you could get one in a fairly short amount of time.

These days, we have to make an appointment to get an ID...and the appointments are booked for about three months.

So...if a simple but very necessary thing like getting an ID is so challenging...during peacetime.  How do people manage to do all that needs to be done for an exodus?

Moving is stressful.

It's expensive.

It involves saying very hard good-byes to people and things that have to be left behind.

And when something is very difficult, we will cling fiercely to any amount of hope that tells us maybe all of this isn't necessary.  Maybe we can stay.  Maybe we can be okay.

Note: I should add that we were able to get a passport...fortunately.  But that took a stressful few hours to arrange... I don't mean the actual passport meeting.  I mean searching through the Internet to figure out how to get an appointment.  And there was a fair bit of a wait time there as well.  Plus...with passports, it takes several weeks to get the passport back in the mail.

 

* * *

Well, I think I'm done with the Zekelman Holocaust Center...and this post...AND this particular series in general.

I'm going to continue this project, though, by studying related topics.

And really....even this post didn't really talk much about the Rise of Nazism in Germany.  I think I jumped away from that quite fast.  I pretty much went right into a rabbit hole.  

Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

Nice!

 What they say:  She's nice!!  You'll like her!!

What I hear:  She has really good social skills!  She makes us comfortable, because she has good social skills.  YOU have bad social skills.  Please don't embarrass us.  Please don't ruin this for us.  Please pretend you are normal.  Please try to BE more normal.  We wish you were more like her.

What I wish they'd say instead:

She's weird...in a cool way.  She reminds me of you, kind of.  I think you'll like her.

I think she's autistic like you!

She's really into Disney World.  I think you'll like her.

You know how you were really into Australia.  Well, she's really into Norway in the same way.  

She gets really obsessed with things too!

It sounds like I'm saying I don't want to meet anyone unless they are autistic and/or have special interests.

To be honest, I do very much prefer meeting those kinds of people.

But in terms of other people, I'm just saying that "nice" is a loaded word to me.  I think...because of my autism and my self-esteem issues.  

I think, though, that there have been times where I have used those lines towards other people.  I mean I have probably talked someone up by describing them as nice.  I'm not sure why.  But I'm going to make an effort to never do it again.

Nice usually means superb neurotypical social skills.  It doesn't tell us whether or not the person is racist, misogynistic, homophobic, self-centered, egotistical, abusive, etc.  

It doesn't tell if they have hobbies or interests that match with ours.

It doesn't tell us if we have a life experiences in common.

I think nice should be saved for superficial things...like hair, shoes, and nail polish.

She's a big fan of Disney World.  She has a dry sense of humor. It takes getting used to it.  And also... Her hair is pretty nice.   

 

Read my novel: The Dead are Online 

Learning about the Rise of Nazism in Germany (Part 17)

To read the first post in this series, please click here.

To see an index of posts in this series, please click here.

I have finished with The Holocaust Explained's section on how the Nazis rose to power.

Now I'm going to move over to their section titled "Life Before the Holocaust".  

I will read a portion of that section for this post; then do my other post tradition of looking at another Holocaust website.

* * *

The first section is about pre-war Jewish life.

The Holocaust Explained says that before the Holocaust, the largest population of Jews was in Eastern Europe.

There were 3 million in Poland.  

2.5 million in Russia.

980,000 in Romania.

I didn't realize there were so many in Romania.

I never really associated Romania with Jews.

Western Europe had 300,000 Jews in the UK and 565,000 in Germany.  

The Western European Jews were more assimilated.  

Here's something that matches what still happens today in terms of assimilation.

In the big cities, in eastern, Europe such as Warsaw, Poland...the younger folks were more assimilated.

Yeah.  I think that kind of assimilation happens here with immigrants—younger people do more assimilating into the dominant culture.  Though I imagine it happens in both big cities and smaller towns.

* * *

In rural areas of Poland and Russia, Jews tended to live in small communities called Shtetls. 

I wonder if that's where my great-grand parents lived.

They came from Kyiv which we used to see as being Russian.  But then later, it became Ukrainian. 

Reading through the family history document....

It says my (paternal) great-grandmother and great grand-father made their first home in Sabara.  My great-grandfather was the village blacksmith.

I'm guessing the village was a shtetl.  

* * *

I'm plugging various place names, from the family history document, into Google Maps and coming up empty.

Then I realized....once the Jews were gone, the Gentiles probably renamed the villages.

The one place that I was able to get on Google Maps is Volhynian.  It's a province?  My great-grandmother was sent to live in a village/shtetl there with her siblings after her parents died.  And according to the document, this is where she met my great-grandfather.

Anyway, though....

My paternal ancestors were long gone from Eastern Europe when the Holocaust began. They immigrated to Nova Scotia, Canada in 1913 and onto Chicago in 2020.  

* * *

I plugged in the city my great-grandfather is said to be from (Berdychiv)...

Wait and I missed something before—Olevsk.  This is where my great-grandmother lived.  I think maybe it's in the Volhynian area?

My great-grandfather was from Berdichev.  Although the document says Berdicher.  I'm not sure if the name has been changed or something was lost in translation.

Neither of these places, though, are that close to Kyiv.

Berdychiv is a 2-3 hour car drive away.

Oles'k is about 3 hours away.

I'm wondering if my family says Kyiv, because it's a more well-known city.  Kind of like...I think someone once told me they were from Sydney but then let me know it was actually Wollongong.   

Although, looking at Google Maps...Wollongong is only an hour from Sydney.

The other possibility is that it's my mother's side of the family that's from Kyiv.

* * *

I'm going to let it go.

I want to look more into where Jews were living back in the 1930's.

Lord Wiki has a nifty chart of Jewish population throughout the decades.  

In terms of Jews making up a population. The largest in 2020 was Israel.  They make up 74% of Israel.

In 1980, Jews made up a much larger percentage of Israel—87%.

There were 8.9 million Jews in Europe in 1900.

Now there are 1.3 million.

That's quite a reduction.

Seeing that reduction, in a way, makes me feel like Hitler and other antisemitic Europeans won.  Or sort of won.

Did Hitler want to erase Jews from the planet?  Or just from Europe?

* * *

Well...I played around with the chart and wrote a bunch of stuff; then deleted it.

The chart was less nifty than I originally thought, because there are various missing pieces of data.

Well, at first I was looking at the 1900's and comparing that to 2020.

Then I decided that I should really be comparing 1942 to 2020.

And then for a lot of countries, either 2020 or 1942 is missing.

Then I started comparing 1942 to 2010.

By that time, I was feeling bored and overwhelmed.

Now I'm looking at Lord Wiki's list of expulsions and exoduses of Jews.

That might be interesting.  

Lord Wiki says that Jews were expelled from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky in 1862 by Ulysses S. Grant.  I had no idea!

I'm just going to look at the modern ones....

I mean post civil war.

There's a ton prior to that.

It's overwhelming.

From 1880's to 1910, 2.5 million Jews emigrated from eastern Europe.  Many of them came to the United States.  Lord Wiki says this was mostly due to the pogroms (riots against Jews).  In our family history document, it doesn't mention pogroms.  Instead, it says my great-grandfather was trying to avoid military service.

My great grandparents left in 1913...a few years outside the main exodus.  

I wonder if pogroms, though, were still happening then.  

From 1947 to 1972, the Jewish population of Arab/Muslim countries was greatly reduced from the then count of 900,000.  Lord Wiki talks about how that has been politicized in the Palestinian/Israel debate.  Those very much on the Jewish/Israeli side push the narrative that Jews faced violence and forced expulsions.  Those on the Palestinian side push the narrative that Israel was actively seeking to bring in Jews to increase the Jewish population.

Personally, I bet there are truths to both narratives.

* * *

Lord Wiki goes into more details...has examples of when Jew were expelled from Arab/Muslim countries.

I'm thinking I should avoid going deeper into that rabbit hole.  For now.  I might come back to it in the future—look at antisemitism post-Holocaust.

* * *

I feel I've done especially bad at staying on subject with this post.

I think I just got kind of enchanted by population numbers. 

NOT by the reductions in numbers.  Just the numbers.

I think statistics can sometimes be very alluring to autistic brains.

Maybe?

I'm not sure.

I remember there was something on one of the autism tests.  I hadn't been sure if it applied to me; then I thought about my obsession with going over various local Covid statistics every day.  

I don't think there's a question on the autism test about statistics exactly. Maybe numbers in general?

Shit.  

I'm totally going off track again.

The problem is...I don't even know where the track is, what the track is, and how to get back on.

I'm trying to decide if I should read another section on the pre-war Jewish page of The Holocaust Explained.  Or should I start looking at another Holocaust website.

I kind of like doing little bits at a time from The Holocaust Explained website.  So maybe I'll go to the other Holocaust site.  

* * *

I'm feeling a bit out of sorts right now, because of the sell-the-lake-house drama.

Not only is it stressful and sad.  But it's happening smack in the middle of all the kids returning to school.  

It's also happening very fast.  

So while I think some of the family would have appreciated more time to say good-bye; look through stuff and decide what they want to take home with them...there's only a few days to make those decisions and there's not much time, because of the whole back-to-school thing.  

Oh!  And along with all of this stress and sadness, we're given a message of: Well, the deal might fall through, anyway! 

Last night I started panicking a bit, because some of my old Cabbage Patch Dolls are somewhere in the playroom.  I had this feeling of not wanting to lose them and then guilt, because why are they there anyway? And did I ever give them any love and attention all those times I went to visit the lake house?

Nope.

I don't like minimizing and comparing.  But I did think of refugees forced to leave all their stuff behind. It really wasn't minimizing, though.  Just kind of thinking...for various reasons, these things happen in our lives.

We lose places.

We lose things.

And no matter what the cause....it can be sad.

But yeah.  Of course, I'm quite glad that our post-lake house life isn't going to take place in a concentration camp or death march.  

Actually, instead my parents are offering big family vacations in lieu of the lake house.

* * *

I want to add that the lake house for me in the past 6-7 years have been much more negative than positive.  I have a lot of emotional baggage tied up in the lake house.  SO....

Maybe my emotions are much more complicated because of that.

* * *

Now that I'm thinking more about it...we've had huge dramas throughout both decades of our lake house days.

I don't know....

There's such a mix of good and bad.  But in the past few years, the bad and sad have outweighed the good.

I think I won't know how I feel about the lake house until much later in the future.  Will the happy memories outweigh the bad?  Or will the bad outweigh the good?

Right now, I'm being flooded with the bad memories.  

And then I feel guilty and like a black sheep. Because for most other members of my family...I think the lake house has more happy memories.

* * *

I do have happy memories of the lake house.  But most of them are from before 2015.

After that, things went downhill...especially after 2017.

At least for me. 

* * *

Went to feed the cats and then to pee.

Cried lots of tears on the toilet.

I had more and more thoughts I could add here, making any possible reader wonder why I would dare say this is a post about Nazi history in Germany.

So...I'm just going to leave this subject with this:  To all of us who spent many nights of our life at the lake house:  I hope we go through life with some happy memories of our time there, and I hope we create many future happy memories elsewhere.

* * *

Back to the Holocaust stuff.

The website I'm looking at for this post is The Florida Holocaust Museum.  

My original purpose of looking at other Holocaust sites is to see if other sites agree with Conservapedia and Dinesh D'Souza about the Nazis being left-wing rather than right-wing.

And that quest is still important to me.

But I like looking at other stuff as well.  

* * *

The Florida Holocaust Museum is in St. Petersburg.  

I'm not sure where that is?

Is it south?

Looking at Google Maps.

It's near Tampa...like on a little tiny peninsula.  It's like a peninsula within a peninsula.  

Here's the Street View of the museum on Google Maps. 

The entranceway is a triangle.  

Maybe that represents the yellow, pink, etc triangles that people wore.

Or maybe it has a totally different meaning....

* * *

The museum has a virtual tour. 

I think I'm going to see what that's all about.   

* * *

I'm glad to see that the museum has a section called Lessons for Today. It raises awareness about genocides and other hateful acts that are occurring in modern times.

I think learning about the Holocaust is extremely important, because history is important and to recognize antisemitism is important.  But I think it's very unhelpful to learn about the Holocaust as if it's a complete historical anomaly.  

 * * *

The museum talks about Jewish life prior to the Holocaust.  

They say: Beginning with the French Revolution, Jews looked more upon themselves as members of their host nations, and began to adopt the culture and traditions of modern society.  It is said that their watchwords became "adaptation and compromise" as they were thrust into the mainstream.

And later:  The Nazis exploited the weaknesses of Weimar Germany and blamed the Jews for Germany's loss of World War I, for galloping inflation that wiped out the wings of the middle class in the early 1920s, and for the communist revolution in Russia.

These days, MAGA doesn't often blame Jews for communism and other woes of the world.  Instead they just blame ONE particular Jew—George Soros.

I do wonder how many of the MAGAs, who often throwing around the name Soros or the word Globalism, know that these are antisemitic dog whistles?

How many MAGA are being intentionally antisemitic and how many have no idea?

I will say that a video was shared by a MAGA family member that talked about globalism and the real enemy...I think it also mentioned bankers and Hollywood.

I don't think my MAGA family members recognized the antisemitism.  And they're Jewish!

I might search through family texts later to see if I can find the video.

* * *

The museum tour says that 2/3 European Jews ended up dead.

That's a lot of death.

* * *

The virtual tour says that many pre-Holocaust German Jews saw themselves as German first and Jewish second. 

I think in the United States it varies. I imagine most Jews feel they are American first and then Jewish.  But for some people, Judaism plays a huge role in their lives. They might feel their Jewish identity is more important.

* * *

In 1933 Germany, the career fields that had a large proportion of Jews were law, medicine, trade, banking, and commerce.

Eleven percent of doctors were Jewish.  

Fifty percent of clothing stores were owned by Jews.

Again, I find statistics interesting.

The more important thing of the story, though, is that Jews were an included and a respected part of the community.

That's not to say that the included and respected deserve less genocide than those who are ostracized and alienated.

It's more like a cautionary tale.  No matter how safe you feel in your community, if you're a historically maligned group, it's not too far-fetched to expect things to turn to shit again.

* * *

This quote from the virtual tour reminds me very much of what has happened in the United States.

While anti-Semitism had been and still was rife throughout Europe, now the government echoed the virulent, bigoted and hateful sympathies.

It's more like this with racism, misogyny, and homophobia now.

We expect there to always be outright bigotry but from the fringes of society.

We expect our president to condemn the racist people and not see the beauty in BOTH sides.

We expect our president to easily denounce white supremacist groups without persistent prodding.

* * *

Oh...some of this stuff is very interesting.

This museum is actually very helpful in terms of learning about the rise of Nazism.

They say that the Germans were actually not very eager and cooperative when it came to Jew-hating.

The Nazis called for a boycott of Jewish businesses on April 1, 1933.

It sounds like it was more suggestive than law.

And many Gentiles ignored the suggestions.

The boycott ended after only one day.

The Germans didn't give up on their antisemitism quest.

A few days later, on April 7...Jews were purged from civil service jobs.

Who often replaced the Jews in those jobs?

Nazis or Nazi-supporters.  

* * *

Now the virtual tour looks at other communities, besides Jews, who were targeted by the Nazis.

The Roma and Sinti originally came from India.  I don't think I knew that.

It's estimated that 220-500 thousand European Roma and Sinti were murdered by the Nazis.

Lord Wiki says there are now around a million Romani people living in the United States.  

I'm looking at his list of famous Romani people.  Names I've heard of: Bob Hoskins, Charlie Chaplin, Yul Brynner, Adam Ant, Robert Plant.

There's a lot of other names I'm ignorant about.

* * *

The virtual museum says that before the Nazis/Third Reich, Berlin might have been considered the homosexual capitol of the world.

I wonder what they mean by "might".

I'm guessing they are guessing...but basing their guess on facts and evidence.

In Germany, homosexuality was against the law.  But it wasn't a law that was actively enforced.  

When Hitler came into power, he made things less lenient.  

The Nazis changed a law in 1935 that made it possible to arrest and convict men for any sexual advances.

50,000 men were arrested for homosexuality.  Some went to regular prisons, but 5-15,000 were sent to concentration camps.

I'm not sure why they refer to only men.

Was it lawful to be lesbian?

I'm thinking about what... I think it was Conservapedia?  It was part of the argument that Nazis were left-wing.  They said Nazis were pro-homosexual.

* * *

I searched my blog for it.

I wrote about it in Part 4

Conservapedia says:  On a similar note, thanks largely to the Frankfurt School (in particular Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse) redefining fascism and Nazism as being right wing and manipulating the American Jewish Committee into assuming that the Nazis were such, the Nazis were also falsely assumed to be sexually rigid and puritanical relating to sexual relationships, when in reality, they were bohemians and sexual deviants/perverts.

And in case you want to argue that sexual deviant/pervert doesn't refer to homosexuality, there's a link in parentheses.  See: Nazi Germany and Homosexuality.  

I really wonder how they twist all this.

But not sure I want to go down that rabbit hole at this time.  

* * *

Now...it's a couple of days later.  I didn't do any writing or researching yesterday, because we were dealing with lake house stuff.

As for rabbit holes, though.....

I probably don't ever want to ever go down a Conservapedia-view-on-homosexuality-and-Nazis rabbit hole.  But I do someday want to go down a Nazis-and-homosexuality rabbit hole. Or maybe I'm more interested in German and European attitudes towards the LGBTQ+ community before Nazis took over.  

* * *

The next section of the virtual exhibit is about Jehovah Witnesses.

In terms of numbers, around 11,3000 were imprisoned and 2,500-5000 died.

They were targeted for their apolitical beliefs and behaviors—refusing to join the military, not joining Hitler youth groups, not doing the Heil Hitler salute.

Like the white Australians, white Canadians, and white Americans...Nazis also broke up families for the purpose of reforming children.

And it also makes me think of Greg Abbott trying to break up families with transgender children and woke parents.

I've heard that Abbott is investigating families—harassing them.

I don't know if there have been any removals.

* * *

Googled and read this article from PBS.

The bad news is families are being traumatized with accusations and investigations...plus the very rational fear of things getting worse.

The good news is, so far, judges have been able to block Greg Abbott and his partner in crime, Ken Paxton, from committing severe anti-family atrocities.

* * *

Next section is about the invasion of Poland, and the Polish people who were targeted by the Nazis.

It wasn't just Jews, LGTQ+ people, and Jehovah Witnesses.

The Nazis went after those who resisted or those who seemed likely to resist.

They went after "political, religious, and intellectual" leaders.  Could another word for those types of leaders be The ELITE?

It wasn't just intellectual people the Nazis targeted but also intellectual buildings.

Schools

Museums

Libraries

Universities.

When it comes to red America and blue America, which group is more likely to adore and celebrate schools, museums, and libraries?  And which group is more likely to have disdain?

Well...to be honest, I'm a little bit anti-school.

And though I love museums, in theory....they overwhelm me.

But I LOVE libraries.

Also, I'm only one person.

Most blue Americans are pro-school.

And of course, not all red Americans are anti-any-of-the-above.

My parents are very much red American, and they are VERY pro-schools, museums, universities, etc....and not at all anti-library.

* * *

And now I'm on the virtual exhibition's section about disability.

The Nazi response to disability was a mix of forced sterilization and murder.

Around 300-400 thousand people were sterilized, because they were epileptic, schizophrenic, or had other types of mental disabilities.

The murder of the disabled started in 1939.  It had the name of Operation T-4.  People in nursing homes and medical facilities were killed with lethal injections; then later they were murdered in gas chambers.  The website says they were experimental.  So maybe the Nazis used the disabled as guinea pigs before using the gas chambers on others.

All this was kept secret from society...I guess, because Nazis understood that relatives of the disabled might not be on board with their loved ones being murdered.

The secrecy failed a couple of years later.  The Nazis stopped the program.  Sort of. They encouraged individual physicians to keep on with the killings.

Note: Originally I was using the term "Euthanasia" instead of murder.  But I don't want to contribute to maligning the word or concept.  There's a big difference between a person deciding life is way too painful vs government/society deciding someone is too much of a burden and/or inferior.  

* * *

Now the virtual exhibit is going over the stuff I've already learned—stock market crash, Hitler in prison, Hindenburg.

I read it, because it's a good review for me.  

But I'm not going to write about it.

* * *

They have a very cool timeline.

I'm going to play with that.

I wish I could link to individual pages of the virtual exhibit.

I will, however, re-link to the main page...so if you're interested, you don't have to scroll up to find the link.

If you go to the virtual exhibit, you can just click through to find the timeline.  

* * *

The timeline starts in 1889.

Hitler was born.

Then there's nothing until 1914 when World War I began.

Note: I'm not going to sit here and list everything.

I was just interested in what they'd start with.

In September 1919, Hitler joined the German Workers Party which would later morph into the Nazi Party. A few months before that, Germany signed the Treaty of Versailles.  

This is important, because there was right-wing opposition to the Treaty.

From what I learned from other Holocaust sites, right-wing Germans were more antagonistic towards taking accountability for World War I and paying reparations.  

* * *

On April 1, 1920 the Swastika officially became the symbol for the Nazi party.  

The symbol is much older than the Nazis.

It has a connection to Hindus, Buddhists, and also Germans from long-ago.  

On July 1, 1921, Hitler became the Chairman of the Nazi party.  So it took close to two years for Hitler go to from a member of the party to the leader of it.

On November 9, 1923, Hitler tried to overthrow the government with violence and failed. A few months after that, on April 1, Hitler received a five year sentence.  It was in a minimum security prison.  

Fast forward, five years...Hitler gets out of prison.

Just kidding.

He didn't serve the full sentence.

He got out that same year on December 20.  The pressure from Nazis led to a much earlier release.

If Trump is convicted of something like espionage or insurrection, will Republicans manage to use partisan pressure to prevent law and order from applying to Trump?

* * *

I'm going to fast forward five years.

The Nazi Party gained their first seat in the Reichstag in September 1929.

There's a long space between Hitler becoming the leader of the party and the party gaining a seat in government.

I don't think the United States is going to have a very similar trajectory.  Third parties and independents rarely get a space in our congress.

Our fringe to mainstream storylines work within the context of the two main parties.  

* * *

I might go down a rabbit hole.

The website says the first town to get a Nazi in the seat was Thuringia.

Things I'm wondering.

What is this town like now?  Do they own up to being the first to put a Nazi in the Reichstag?

What is the demographics of the town?

What was the town like back then?

I also probably want to play on Google Maps...just for fun.  Because I like it.

* * *

I'm probably going to stop reading through the virtual exhibit, because reading it all plus going through a rabbit hole is going to give me another super overly long post.

But I do want to fulfill my mission to see if this museum is in the category of Nazis or left-wing or Nazis were right-wing.  OR...whether they don't explicitly say.

So I'm going to speed through.  Then I will circle back and look at Thuringia.

* * *

I have sped through the timeline.

In case anyone is curious, it ends with the Nuremberg trials in 1945.

* * *

I'm having technical difficulties.

First I got stuck on the timeline.

So I started back at the beginning of the virtual exhibit.  There I found an antisemitism timeline.  I glanced quickly through that.  And then I got stuck again.

* * *

I'm back....moving through the exhibit.

But I have stopped at a section explaining who was labeled a Jew in those days.

If you recall, a few months ago, Whoopi Goldberg ignorantly made the statement about the Holocaust not being about racism. It was just white people against white people.

In the middle reader novel, I'm currently reading (Three Keys by Kelly Yang) there's a line about race being a social construct...invented.  But RACISM is real.

Just because most of our modern society sees Jews as being white...that hasn't always been the case.

I think these days, light-skinned Jews have all the same white privilege as Gentiles.  But that hasn't always been the case.

So....

In Nazi Germany, it was not about religion or life choices.  Jewishness wasn't a trait that one could turn off to avoid persecution.

Jewish was defined as having three full Jewish grandparents, two Jewish parents...

Oh. 

Some of this is new to me.

Being married to a Jew made someone Jewish. I'm not sure how that works heredity-wise.

A person is also considered Jewish if they have one fully Jewish parent.

I guess with the two-parent thing, this could be one or two parents who are not fully (heredity) Jews.

I wonder about the children and grandchildren of people who converted to Judaism?  Would they be seen as Jewish by the Nazis?

In terms of their lives being spared, I don't have much hope for them.  Seeing that the Nazis murdered people for reasons outside of being seen as racially-Jewish.

BUT...maybe the Nazis would give the descendants of converts a reprieve if they turned away from Judaism...and also weren't Romani, Jehovah Witnesses, gay, lesbian, disabled, a socialist, a traitor to the Nazi party, etc.

* * *

I'm giving up on the virtual tour.

I got stuck again.

Anyway....besides the technical difficulties, I think it's a great website, and I imagine the physical museum in Florida is great too.

I'm going to give up on trying to find mention of left-wing or right-wing.  I looked through enough to conclude that they probably don't explicitly say either.

So...on to Thuringia.

I'm a tiny bit worried that I'm singling Thuringia out for no good reason.

I don't really remember, in earlier posts, learning that there was an election where one Nazi gained a seat.

It could be that like ten Nazis gained a seat...and Thuringia was just the first to release their election info.

* * *

I either read things wrong on the timeline or there was a mistake on the timeline.

This Australian history site Alpha History gives totally different information.

I wouldn't be so eager to conclude that the Aussie site is right and the Florida one is wrong if I didn't vaguely remember NOT learning that there was an election with one Nazi gaining that first seat.

I feel obliged to go back to the Florida site to see where things went wrong.

I have a feeling it's going to be more my fault than theirs.

I probably misread something.

* * *

I'm back on the timeline.

The Florida Holocaust Museum's exact wording is: NAZIS WIN FIRST SEAT IN REICHSTAG (GERMAN GOVERNING BODY) IN STATE OF THURINGIA.

It kind of sounds like they could be saying that this is the first time Thuringia had a Nazi in their legislature house.  Like it was the first Nazi in that particular local government.

But that would be very random...seeing that they didn't list the first Nazi in other local governments.

The date for this occasion is December 1929.  

Now I'm going to look at the Aussie site.

They don't have anything for December 1929.  

And on May 4, 1924, they have the Nazis winning 24 seats in the Reichstag.

I'm so confused.

Maybe there IS something special about Thuringia.

* * *

I just Googled  December 1929 along with Thuringia.

Lord Wiki says there was an election then.

Thuringia added six Nazi seats...and they were not the first.  There were 2 previous seats.  Four were added.

What am I missing?

And now I'm thinking there's no need to go down a whole Thuringia rabbit hole.

Or maybe there is.

Maybe the rabbit hole is about trying to clear up my confusion.

* * *

Learned from Lord Wiki that the current leader of Thuringia is Bodo Ramelow who is from The Left Party.

I started to think things were all topsy-turvy, because Lord Wiki says that Ramelow was anti-lockdown.

But Lord Wiki says it's the furthest left party of the Bundestag... which is the new name of the German legislative house.

I don't think I knew they changed it from the Reichstag. 

Anyway....

So yeah.  The Left is left as in anti-capitalism, anti-military, and anti-fascism.

They're seen as far-left...which makes the anti-lockdown not overly surprising.

I can picture far-left people in the US (and elsewhere) also being anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown.

I think right-wing people kind of....

I can't think of the word

But it became such a trademark of the right-wing to be anti-lockdown and anti-vaccine that I think some far-left people veered from that mindset.

This is anecdotal.  But I had a left-wing cousin who was anti-vax.  She got the covid vaccine.  

All that being said, Ramelow ended up changing his tune.  He was anti-lockdown.  But when Thuringia ended up with the worst Covid cases in Germany, he said he regretted his decision and changed course. 

* * *

I Googled Thuringia and Nazis and came to an intriguing article in the German publication DW.  I think I've been on this site before...for a previous post.

The article's title is: "Why is everyone in Germany talking about Thuringia and AfD".

That's a bit hyperbolic.

Wouldn't it be funny if suddenly every hyperbolic thing became reality?

Or what if every time something hyperbolic was said, a new universe would be formed where that statement was a reality.

Like there'd be a universe where every single German was talking about Thuringia.

Yeah. Okay.

I'll get on with reading the article.....

The AfD is a far-right party.

Right-wing and populist.  So probably similar to MAGA.

This paragraph in the article, I think, answers my question about Thuringia: It's the first time since World War Two that a German politician has been elected to the highest role in state politics, akin to that of a governor in the US, on the back of support from a far-right party. And it took place in the very same state where the first Nazi politicians assumed  government roles in the 1930s, shortly before Adolf Hitler became German chancellor.

The problem is I don't really understand it.

Well, I kind of understand it...based on what I read in the paragraphs prior to that one.

The highest role didn't go to an actual AfD politician but the AfD was part of a coalition that got Thomas Kemmerich from the Free Democrats Party to win.

But then there was outcry and Kemmerich offered up his resignation and new elections.

* * *

I'm still lost.

I think I'm just going to give up.

* * *

I'm not ready to give up.

I'm going to read an article in The New York Times about the situation.

I'm going to try to focus mostly on the Nazi/past and not that the recent political drama.

* * *

The current situation is too interesting to ignore.

I can understand The New York Times a bit better.

So what happened is mainstream political parties in Thuringia upset Germans, because, for the first time since Nazi time, they worked with a far-right party.

In Germany, this was seen as taboo.

I think it was once taboo here as well...a mainstream political party openly working with the far-right.

This political happening in Germany sparked protests. The protestors said anti-fascist things. How Antifa of them!

Did George Soros plan all these protests then?

The New York Times says: For many Germans, allowing the far right to be kingmakers conjures up dark memories. It is a red line that many do not want to see crossed.

I wish Americans felt the same way.

Well...MANY of us do.

But too many are okay with the far-right.

Slightly-related story:  A left-wing member of our family tree posted pictures of Jan 6 insurrectionists wearing Auschwitz t-shirts and said something angry about Trump supporters.

Some Trump-supporting leaves on our trees were more offended by the anti-Trump statement than they were about the extreme antisemitism!

And these are people who are very passionate about being against antisemitism.

This is mind-boggling to me.

* * *

Hallelujah!  I think I found it.

The New York Times article says, It did not help that Thuringia is precisely where, in the dying days of the Weimar Republic more than 90 years ago, the Nazis first won power locally, before going on to win nationally — with the help of conservative parties.

Thuringia IS unique.  It didn't provide the first Nazi seat in the country-wide legislature.  But it was the first to have a Nazi in state government.  And the state Nazi seat came before the whole-country seat.

* * *

I'm going to take a break—feed the cats, take a shower, start the laundry...blah, blah, blah.

And then I'm going to...

Well, I guess I HAVE gone down a Thuringia rabbit hole.

I'm going to probably go further down and/or go down a rabbit hole regarding far-right politicians in local American governments.  

* * *

I'm back.

Well...this is interesting. Kind of disappointing and maybe worrisome.

The New York Times has a link to a Tweet from Bodo Ramelow.  It was a quote from Hitler boasting about the Nazi win in Thuringia.  It was anti-Hitler not pro...I think like a warning.

But now the Tweet is gone.

Why would he have deleted it?

Or maybe the link is just bad.  

* * *

I Googled Bodo Ramelow along with Nazi and Twitter.

I didn't find the one mentioned in The New York Times but did find one from 2019.

I don't quite understand it.

I mean I definitely don't understand the German.  But I'm also confused about the English translation.  

He Tweeted:  

May 8, 1945 was a real day of liberation for the victims of Nazi barbarism and for the occupied countries too - only for Nazis can this day be a "defeat" and the concentration camps were "disgraceful"!

 An AfD city council says such a sentence and the AfD is silent!

Oh!!!

Duh.

There is another statement below in an image.

I thought the AfD had said the thing about the Nazis and concentration camps.  I read it like three times trying to figure out why that was offensive.

I was thinking maybe it's that "disgraceful" was too much of an understatement.

I can't copy and paste the words in the image-thing, so I'm going to have to write it out myself into Google translate. 

It's good practice for my German-language learning.  I suppose....

So we have Es war...

It was...

Schandhafe

shameful.

It was shameful

Niederlage

Defeat.

All together so far:  It was a shameful defeat.

I'm feeling like the kid in The Christmas Story with the Little Orphan Annie decoder ring.

It was a shameful defeat...because they didn't drink their Ovaltine.

Continuing...

und kein tag

I actually know und.  That means "and".

I'm getting: and not a tag.

What???

I Googled and am getting that Tag means day.

Oh!

Yeah.

I was also reminded by Googling that Guten Tag means good day.

Sometimes my brain is so slow.

And now we have: der Befreiung

Oh...shit.

der Befreiung means of liberation.

So far we have: It was shameful defeat and not a day of liberation

If they're talking about the defeat of the Nazis, that is pretty scary.

The last part is Es war ein Tag der neuen Besetzung.

It was a day of new occupation.

I just noticed that on top of the message is the date: May 8, 1945.  I'm not sure if the AfD person put the date there or if someone else did when making the infographic.  

I'm just wondering if it's one of those things where a right-wing politician says something super bigoted but then later tries to walk back the comment. 

Why didn't Trump lose all mainstream supporters when he talked about there being fine people on both sides?

Why didn't he lose all mainstream supporters when he told the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by?

* * *

There's also a BBC article about the Thuringia drama.

They too have a link to the Hitler-quote Tweet, and that link also is a dead end.

I'm still confused about Thuringia and the rise of Nazism.

The BBC says In 1930 a Nazi entered the Thuringia government, the party's first big breakthrough in the Weimar Republic, culminating in Adolf Hitler's appointment as chancellor in 1933.

But the Nazis were entering the Reichstag before that. Right?

I'm so confused!!

I know state government vs federal government.  But isn't federal usually a bigger deal?

* * *

I've been Googling and Googling.

I finally went back to the BBC article. I think the answer to my confusion is in the no-longer-there Tweet. 

Though the link to the Tweet is gone, I'm now paying enough attention to see the Hitler quote is there.  

It's:  We achieved the greatest success in Thuringia. Today we really are the crucial party there... The parties in Thuringia, which up until now formed the government, cannot get a majority without our assistance.

So the reason the AfD fiasco is being compared to the Nazi situation is that the Nazis were needed/used in a political coalition.  

It's kind of like making a deal with the devil...

If a politician or political party needs power, who or what are they willing to align with to achieve that. 

I'm thinking....

It's always bad to align with evil things like white supremacists and other Nazi-supporting types of people.

It's bad to be that power hungry.

But I think it's even worse to align with evil things, because you like and agree with the evil.

It's one thing to reluctantly sign a deal with the devil, because you desperately want something.  It's a bit worse if you sign a deal with the devil, because you like the devil.

I feel this is a bad analogy, because I'm sitting here picturing Tom Ellis.

So let's turn to Trump

It would be bad enough for him to reluctantly cater to the Proud Boys and Oath keepers, because he wants votes from those groups.

It's much worse if he is eagerly seeking the support of the Proud Boys and Oath keepers, because he loves them and thinks they're special.

* * *

I just realized a better comparison is probably OTHER Republicans and the way they align with Trump.  I am angry and disgusted with all Republican politicians who support Trump.

But I guess with the ones who dislike Trump and still kiss his ass...I feel a mixture of anger, disgust, and pity.

The ones who kiss Trump's ass because they actually like him.  I think instead of pity, I have fear.

Though...both types are enabling Trump and endangering the United States and democracy.

Read my novel: The Dead are Online