Nazism and other flavors of white supremacy absolutely cannot be tolerated. And this is why. (And yes, any supremacy, but if you are intellectually honest you will admit that the way human history has worked out for a long time now, white supremacy is the problem.)
Okay, one last thread. And then I'm watching Gilmore Girls. Idk what they're teaching about Nazis in school these days but here goes…
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
When Hitler marched into Poland in 1939, my grandma was two years old. It was not immediately obvious that anything was changing in her town
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
When she was 4 years old, she was playing outside when she suddenly heard yelling and screaming. She looked across the yard to see Nazis.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
And to see the dead body of her three year old neighbor boy who had been playing loudly in his yard. The Nazis were annoyed by the noise.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
They shot him dead on the spot. 3 years old. Dead from a Nazi bullet.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
A couple of months later, my grandmother and her family were woken up very early in the morning. They were told to get up and go outside.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
They were marched to the train station. Her father got on one train. Her mother, her baby sisters, and her were put on another.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
On the first day my grandma, who was five now, was in Majdanek, she and the other children were told to line up outside before breakfast.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
The Nazi soldier counted each child. One…two…three…four…five…six…seven…eight…nine…the tenth child was shot.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
The soldier told the children that any bad child would be shot. So they must work and not complain or be loud.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
My grandma was a Polish Catholic, which was only a couple steps above a Polish Jew. One of the officer's wives decided she wanted a child.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
So she "adopted" my grandma. Changed her name. Told her her mother was dead. And that she was a German now.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
The day the news broke that the Allies were coming to Poland, the German officer and his wife left in a hurry. In so much of a hurry…
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
That they forgot my grandma, their special new daughter. She was found in one of the officer's homes after 3 days alone.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
The Red Cross took her in, and they asked her her name, which she barely remembered. They spent six months looking for her family.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
They were eventually found, somehow all alive. Aunts and uncles weren't, but mother, father, and baby sister were.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
https://twitter.com/YourRacingBelle/status/897622849162293248
And she did not tell me this story until the day she took me to the gates of Majdanek. Where she broke down screaming at the memories.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
That was in 2001. 56 years after she was rescued by the Red Cross. Those horrors did not fade with time. They were ingrained in her brain
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
Studies show the Holocaust changed the DNA of its victims. Changed their mental make up. I live with that DNA, with that change.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
And if you believe that Neo-Nazis are "good people" or they "deserve a voice", I remind you of a three year old boy shot dead.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
That is what giving the Nazis a voice in 1933 led to. It led to my grandma sobbing outside a place where she was imprisoned.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
The Nazis did not start with these things. They started with a voice. And a message. And it ended in unspeakable horrors.
— Katie ✨This is me trying✨ (@YourRacingBelle) August 16, 2017
Still think this couldn’t happen here in this country? Maybe you’d better read this, then.
