As a grandson of Holocaust survivors, I’m appalled Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., compared the unsettling practice of separating immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border to history’s “darkest periods” such as the Shoah.
“This policy of family separation reminds us of the cattle cars of Nazi Germany when children were separated from their parents and marched to supposed showers,” Blumenthal, one of eight Jewish members of the Senate, said on Monday. “It reminds us of the Japanese internment camps. It reminds us of all the darkest periods.”
Blumenthal echoed former CIA and National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden’s remarks on Twitter, which compared the Trump government to the Nazi government.
Other governments have separated mothers and children pic.twitter.com/tvlBkGjT0h
— Gen Michael Hayden (@GenMhayden) June 16, 2018
My message to Blumenthal and Hayden is simple: Stop it.
If only Blumenthal and Hayden could talk to my only living grandmother (on my dad’s side), who was a hidden child during the Holocaust. If only they knew about my grandmother (on my mom’s side), who survived Auschwitz.
Both of them, like my fellow Jews, were targeted not because they were undocumented immigrants. Rather, it was only because they were Jewish. What is happening at the border is not genocide. Immigrants are not being sent to gas chambers or even forced hard labor.
After the Holocaust, my grandparents came to the United States legally. For instance, my mother and her parents had the proper documentation to leave Romania and first stopped in Italy for several months, in accordance with processing procedures, before settling in Cleveland.
If people want the practice of illegal immigrant family separation to cease, they should pressure Congress to reform immigration laws which would provide for a pragmatic and humane solution — such as a path to permanent residency for some undocumented immigrants — while also abolishing the diversity visa lottery system and sanctuary cities, in addition to building a wall or electric fence along the border to deter illegal crossings.
Moreover, Blumenthal and Hayden’s remarks pervert the memory of those who perished and survived the Holocaust, like my grandparents and their relatives.
Elie Wiesel warned about making such Holocaust comparisons. “Only Auschwitz was Auschwitz. I went to Yugoslavia when reporters said that there was a Holocaust starting there. There was genocide, but not an Auschwitz,” Wiesel said. “When you make a comparison to the Holocaust it works both ways, and soon people will say what happened in Auschwitz was ‘only what happened in Bosnia.’”
Apply that logic to the unfortunate case of family separations at the Southwestern border: People will say what happened in Auschwitz is what is happening at the U.S.-Mexico border.
While conditions at immigration detention centers are reportedly appalling, they are nowhere near the conditions that were at a place that was once hell on Earth.
Additionally, during the Holocaust, Jews did not choose to become Jewish nor go to Auschwitz, where they would not only be separated from their families, but be selected by the notorious Joseph Mengele for either hard labor or the gas chambers. Immigrant families trying to enter illegally are not forced to go to the border nor be separated for no reason. They are able to follow the law and seek asylum at ports of entry.
Furthermore, where is the moral outrage over actual genocides like in Syria, South Sudan, Myanmar (against Rohingya Muslims), Tibet, Iraq (against the Yazidis), North Korea, and Darfur?
If we’re going to preach “Never again,” let’s also say “No more.” No more false equivalences. No more hate. No more genocide. No more family separations.
Jackson Richman (@JacksonRichman) is an editor and daily columnist at The National Discourse.
