Dear Friend,
Yesterday, hundreds of Jewish Rhode Islanders came together at the Wyatt prison in Central Falls to protest the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility there and deliver a clear message — that “Never Again” is now.
I wanted to let you know what motivated me to participate in yesterday’s rally and civil disobedience, and why I feel so strongly that this moment calls for all of us who believe in the mantra of Never Again to step up.
My grandfather’s name is Ralph Preiss. He was born in Rosenberg, Germany in 1930. He was very lucky, and survived the Holocaust. Much of his family — my family — did not.
When I was little, I felt a lot of anger about what my grandpa experienced. Sometimes I was angry at Hitler. Sometimes I was angry at faceless Nazis. But more often than not, what really made me sick to my stomach was to think about the people in my grandpa’s town — my grandpa’s neighbors — who watched the escalating violence happening in their community, and choose to go about their lives, business as usual.
We are now living in a moment where we cannot afford to go about our lives, business as usual.
Our government is waging daily escalating violence against our neighbors. Our tax dollars are being used to separate parents from their children. Concentration camps are being operated in our name and under our flag. ICE is targeting families in our communities and warehousing them in for-profit prisons like the Wyatt.
So if we believe in Never Again, then this is our fight. This is our responsibility, as Americans and (in my case) as a Jew.
There will always be leaders who use racism and hate to target vulnerable communities. The difference between Again and Never Again comes down to us. It comes down to whether we choose to go about our lives, business as usual, or whether we choose to join together and fight back.
Because Never Again isn’t just about remembering how the Holocaust ended. It’s also about how it started, with a gradual process of legal exclusion and state-sponsored dehumanization that led eventually to the deaths of my grandpa’s family and so many millions of others. It’s about understanding that path — from beginning to end — and then throwing ourselves in the way of that path however we possibly can.
There are a lot of differences between 1930’s Germany and America today. But the biggest difference is that we weren’t around in 1930s Germany, while we are here now, in America in 2019. Let’s make that difference count.
–Aaron
P.S. If you want to support local organizing to protect immigrant families here in Rhode Island, one way to do so is by supporting the Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance (AMOR) at www.amorri.org.
