Freedom of speech is central to a free society and is constantly under attack. That being said, I must paraphrase something Winston Churchill once said, “that we are masters of our thoughts, but slave to our words and actions.”
In a recent Reader’s Forum letter entitled “A facistic insurrection,” the writer has once again chosen to use the Holocaust to reinforce her political opinions. In my opinion this is very dangerous, and shows a complete lack of regard for the millions who died because of the Nazi regime.
Today, Jan. 27, 2021, has been designated International Holocaust Rememberance Day. Today is the 81st anniversary of the date in 1945 when Soviet troops burst into the Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp. I’ve been pondering the significance of Holocaust Day and remembering what I saw on TV on Jan. 6.
“Camp Auschwitz” was among the slogans thugs displayed upon attacking the Capitol January 6. Concentration camps are the logical result of a fascistic insurrection. The slogan reminds me: my father, Reuben Berman, was a physician and lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, which ordered him to investigate Dachau in May 1945. The report was classified; he kept a copy and gave it to the Minnesota Historical Society in 1995. I remember that he told me, “The bodies were stacked up like cordwood. Don’t tell me the Holocaust did not happen. I was there; I saw it.”
