Yesterday, January 27, was International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Each year, I activate that remembrance by contemplating our human compulsion to othering, vilifying, excluding, exploiting, criminalizing, punishing, and exterminating a group of people. German born post-war, I am vigilant sensing right away fascist ways of thinking, and governing. Germany’s history is edged in my bones with the fervent wish for Justice for all. Most importantly, before it is too late and we as citizens find out that the state (and its executioners) killed innocent people. Years later we might argue we did not know. But how can that be? We might ask ourselves – post-war born German, or American born. We were and are complicit.  

Justice starts before incarceration: with equal rights and human rights for all through access to food, housing, medical care, education, protection from racism, from hate crimes, etc.  In our current America, all of us are asked to wake up – from the false idea of the “good American,” the self-delusion in the “land of the free” – to the nightmare of world topping numbers in incarceration rates, death penalty cases, lengthy and harsh sentencing laws, parole refusals, and more. Not to forget the increasing exonerations of innocent (mostly Black) people having been robbed of their lives, destroying families and communities. Many more innocent people are still sitting in American prisons, often in subhuman conditions. No doubt, racism plays a huge role in this.  

 

For your contemplation of these countless, and mostly untold, injustices in our own country and state, 

I am including as a starter a link to an article about these interwoven complex issues: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/01/28/maryland-parole-life-criminal-justice-politics

 

Please research for yourselves some of these social realities. What are your beliefs? If we want to be “Good Americans” we have to address these gross injustices. When commemorating the Holocaust, why not go a bit further? To honor those victims, and give it true meaning, we must be willing to see what is happening in our own backyard. The Holocaust also started with vilification and criminalization. Back then and now, “they must have done something wrong” is a common and lazy answer to avoid responsibility.   

 

Here is more about the very moving and classic case of Walter Lomax, who is mentioned in above article:

 https://centurion.org/cases/walter-lomax