Racism and antisemitism

"Why does antisemitism appeal to me?" This seems like a strange question. I read a variation of it in a book I just finished called The Last Train: A Family History of the Final Solution by Peter Bradley. The author discovered by chance that his father, grandparents, and many other relatives had suffered under the Nazi regime because they were Jewish. Bradley’s father managed to escape the death camps; his grandparents and other relatives did not.

Toward the end of the book, Bradley reflected on antisemitism. It has been around forever. Racism has also been around forever. One of the topics he discusses is the idea of infection; that good people can be antisemitic and racist sometimes without even knowing about it. An example he gave was George Orwell, who recognized he was infected and set about trying to change his way of thinking. He asked himself, “Why does antisemitism appeal to me?” I think that was an excellent question. It allows one to dig deep without placing blame on society or politicians or parents or whomever.

I grew up in the turbulent 60s. I was 10 when President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Bill into law. I didn’t know about it. I didn’t see it on TV nor did I hear it. I think I was insulated because my parents were Deaf. You might say it was a blessing in disguise. They didn’t watch the news because they couldn’t understand the newscasters. They read the newspaper every day but never discussed any of the stories with my brother or me. We didn’t understand sign language then and so we couldn’t follow any discussions they may have had.

I had my first inkling that my parents were, at the very least, prejudiced when I came downstairs on April 5, 1968, and turned on the TV to catch the morning news. In social studies, we’d just begun to be assigned to listen to some of the morning news. The anchors were reporting that Martin Luther King had been assassinated.

I wondered who that was. I went in and lip-read the news to my parents. Their first reaction startled me. They were delighted. They told me that he was a troublemaker. I wondered if this Martin Luther King was some kind of criminal. My parents’ mood changed, and they began to warn me there would be trouble from the Black people. But they didn’t say Black. They used a sign that I recognized would translate to the “n” word.

Of course, I later learned that Martin Luther King was no criminal. He was a civil rights activist and he’d been assassinated by a white man threatened by the idea that white supremacy was being threatened. Now I saw early clips of dogs being set on protesters by white cops. I saw young men being beaten with clubs. I was confused. My parents thought the people being beaten up were troublemakers. But they weren’t doing anything wrong when they were attacked.

When I started high school in 1970, I was going to have to take 2 city buses every day into downtown Baltimore. Mom told me that I should make friends with Black students so that I would be protected “in case” there was trouble. I felt disgusted. I’d had Black friends the last couple of years, and I didn’t feel threatened in the least.

We used to belong to a swim club. It was all white and there came a time when Black people began to picket. They wanted to be able to join the club too. My parents were up in arms about it. They didn’t want Black people to become members. I asked why and was given the stupidest reason I ever heard: they would pee in the pool.

As I got older, I began to understand more of the signs my parents used. I learned that they were not only prejudiced about Black people, but they were also bigoted about Jewish people, Puerto Ricans, and other Latin groups. When I asked why all they could offer were more stupid reasons to dislike non-whites.

My parents suffered discrimination. People made fun of them for their guttural speech. They were called “dummies” or “deaf and dumb”. They didn’t have equal job or educational opportunities. Sign language was denigrated as a lazy backward way of communication. I couldn’t understand how they could reject people of color and different religions when they, themselves, were rejected by most hearing people. When I asked, they didn’t seem to get the comparison and were highly insulted.

As a teenager, I only saw the fault in their prejudices and bigotry. I fought with them about the stereotypes they believed in so strongly. They were woefully ignorant, I thought, and unwilling to change. They never did change their views and would say, “We are what we are.” It doesn’t matter anyway. They are gone and the question isn’t why racism and antisemitism were appealing to them.

Is it appealing to me? No. I don’t get any benefit from believing I’m better than anyone else because I know it’s not true. We’re different colors depending on where in the world we are from. We have different religions, so many, that one can’t supersede others although Christians like to think theirs reigns supreme. We have different cultures. All are valuable and we can learn from each other.

I wish we could have respect for each other and get along. We’re all human, after all. But that’s wishful thinking as even now antisemitism is on the rise and African American males continue to be murdered by policemen for no good reasons. It seemed like we were moving in a better direction over the last sixty years but now we are taking too many steps backward, thanks to christian nationalism, white supremacy, and tRumpism.  We should be facing our history honestly instead of continuing to hide from it and cover it up.

It'll all come down to a choice. Who do we want to be?

This is what I wrote about the book on Goodreads:

Like most curious children who come upon closed trunks, Peter Bradley opened his father’s to look inside. It was a shock to learn that his father wasn’t born Fred Bradley; he’d been born Fritz Brandes. What other secrets were there? Bradley didn’t discover them until after his father died and the need to know grew. 

Fred Bradley didn’t speak much of his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp, his escape to England, and the disappearance of his parents. Peter Bradley was able to interview survivors who’d known his grandparents and father. In addition, there were documents that helped him trace the torturous journey of his grandparents from Germany to their final resting place. He tried to follow the route the train took which carried his grandparents and other relatives away.

I’ve read other books about the Holocaust, several by survivors like Elie Wiesel. The detailed brutality and inhumane treatment at the hands of Nazi oppressors made me sick. I thought this book was a little easier to read because Bradley was a generation removed and not a direct victim. He began the book with a history of antisemitism. He explained he might not have written the story but for the fact that he sees similarities to early 1930s Germany reappearing.

It's not an easy read but, for me, a necessary one.