By Randy Rossi -
I just had the honor of going to the Skokie Holocaust Museum this week with a group from Grayslake and it had a profound impact on me for reasons that may surprise some people. Obviously, the critical point of all Holocaust Museums (I have now been to three including the one in Jerusalem) is to make sure that people all around the world never forget the horrible history of Nazi Germany and their allies who slaughtered six million Jews from all over Europe.
The goal of those museums is and should be “Never Again." That is a critical message and the Skokie Holocaust museum does a magnificent job of reminding everybody how horrible and barbaric the Nazis and their allies were as they murdered those millions of innocent Jews just because of their religion.
But what struck me as much as that horror, was the horror of how the most educated people in the world in 1939 which were Germans, could be convinced to follow one of the most horrible people in world history and either help him kill 6 million innocent people just because of their religious beliefs and culture or quietly stand by and do nothing from stopping that barbaric slaughter of innocent people.
The Holocaust Museum is the perfect example of Edmund Burke’s warning “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
Sadly, the vast majority of highly-educated German people did nothing to stop Hitler as he came to power and they allowed him to slaughter millions of innocent people and start WWII to conquer Europe. Had Hitler not invaded Russia and declared war on America after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Nazi Germany could still be ruling Western Europe and Communist Russia would be ruling all of Eastern Europe. Hitler came to power as the leader of the “Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party” which believed that the government should rule all aspects of the German people’s lives and “superior” German people should rule Europe.
Sadly, the German people became sheep that followed Hitler over the cliff of civilization into the bowels of barbaric behavior. Some of Hitler’s highest and most barbaric leaders were highly educated professors and lawyers that led the slaughter of not only Jews, but also mentally handicapped people, Gypsies, and Slavic people who they considered to be inferior to Germans and thus they felt they needed to be eliminated. The Nazis created an incredible propaganda machine that bombarded the German people with their horrific views and the German people blindly followed the Nazi herd over the cliff. Incredibly, the German people ditched their Christian values, morality, and common sense to be “liked” by the Nazi herd and they helped Hitler and his barbaric herd slaughter millions of innocent people and destroy civilized behavior.
The Skokie Holocaust Museum should not only remind us of the horror of the slaughter of those millions of innocent Jewish people, it should remind us of how critical it is to stick to and defend our fundamental values of freedom, civility, morality, our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights which protect every person no matter what their religious or political beliefs are. It should remind us to never allow the government to run our lives but instead we need to maintain our freedom and “We the people” determine our lives, not a socialist dictatorial government.
“We the people” control the government, the government does not control us. And it should remind us of why every American needs to pay close attention to politics and vote to protect our freedom, independence, and values and to never let a socialist government take control of our lives. Pericles was right when he said “Any citizen that doesn’t pay attention to politics has no right to live in Athens”. Political apathy is unacceptable in a successful democracy/republic.
I did find it interesting to talk to my Jewish guides and share opinions on this. First I mentioned to them that the Holocaust museum should remind every American how critical our 2nd Amendment is and I said that I would expect the strongest supporters of the 2nd Amendment would be Jews to make sure that the Holocaust never happens again to them. I was surprised to hear both of them say that they do not support the 2nd Amendment and do not want guns in their homes. I simply don’t understand that.
I will say this, the Jewish people I know in Israel are extremely pro-self defense and 70% of Israeli Jews enthusiastically support President Trump. Why is that? Because every Israeli man and woman has been in the military to defend their country against their enemies who have been trying to annihilate them every day since the UN made Israel a Jewish state in 1948. Every day they face the reality of missiles being shot into their country from their enemies. The threat of war and annihilation is very real to Israelis and they are forced to deal with reality to survive.
Unlike American Jews who live in the most powerful nation on Earth and sadly don’t fully understand how dangerous the world still is. Instead of appreciating the fact that President Trump made our military even stronger and has done more to protect Israel than any previous president, only between 25-30% of Jewish Americans support Trump vs. the 70% of Israeli Jews who enthusiastically support President Trump.
Everybody should visit the Skokie Holocaust museum as we approach the 2020 elections because the Democrat party has become the party of socialism (government control) and anarchy (open borders) which celebrates the slaughter of 62 million babies through abortion which is as immoral as things can get. According to a recent Gallop poll, 45% of Americans would vote for a socialist president and over 57% of Millennials would vote for a socialist.
The Holocaust museum is a critical reminder of why the American people must stand up for freedom and our Constitution and Bill of Rights so that no socialist government can take over our lives and our moral values. The Holocaust Museum is a reminder of the horror of giving up our freedom and letting any government control our lives and values. It is a reminder of why every citizen has to pay attention to politics and vote to protect their values and their freedom.
