Fascism Amnesia: A Failure of Witnessing

Conversations like the following were happening more frequently: “Where could we go? Where will they let us in and let us work? Is it safer to try someplace nearby or best to go farther away?” Or this: “Three generations of my family have lived in the same house in the same town. All of a sudden we are told to leave and walk out with a single suitcase.” (Story by Irene Fogel Weiss, (The Guardian 2015) as told to Kate Connolly)

Listen to this excerpt from The Atlantic, December 2022, by Gail Beckerman titled, “What It Feels Like When Fascism Starts.” She writes, “Among the many Holocaust anecdotes I heard again and again as a child […] none was more common than the tale of the brother who stayed and the brother who left. […] One brother couldn't bear to abandon his small shop, parents or homeland, while another brother packed a suitcase at the first inkling of danger and set off […]. The more impetuous one lives. The takeaway: when the social and political barometric pressure begins to drop, when you can feel that tingling: Leave.”

Can you tell what year these are from? Is it the 1930s in Germany? Or is it 1970s in Argentina? Or 2017/2018s in the United States? I raise this because in many ways, in many places in the world, “we” have been here before, and we certainly know how things can turn out. Though I was born in the United States post-WWII, many historical residues flood me. I am aware of how endangered many are feeling, and there is a foreboding in me, barely contained, just beneath the surface.

Since 2020, early in the COVID pandemic, we have seen imploding racism, increased anti-Semitism, anti-Asian attacks, increasing weekly incidences of gun violence and mass killings (in the United States we have more guns owned than the number of people), the banning of books, the overturning of the legal right of women to choose to end a pregnancy, and hatred of immigrants. These are all examples of reemerging deeply oppressive forces and the ways that regimes of power