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| Photo Credit: The Nazi concentration camp at Dachau was liberated by American soldiers of the 45th Infantry Division, Seventh Army, on April 30, 1945. Prisoners who were able to stand and to comprehend that the hour of deliverance had come cheered the liberators just days before the final collapse of the Third Reich. |
As a former Social Studies teacher who taught a 30-day unit on the Holocaust, I had the good fortune to have had several Holocaust survivors and numerous college professors speak to my classes over the years.
As we discussed how Germany, a country with a constitution, an elected government, and a system of law was taken over by an ego-maniac (Hitler, and the Nazis), the lyrics of the song from the musical South Pacific, a”You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught," were offered as one of the explanations.
When asked by the students if there weren’t any “good Germans” who stood up to the Nazis, the poem “First They Came” by Pastor Martin Niemöller was introduced.
The parallels between the Germany of the 1930s and the United States of America today are frightening.
We have a government today that violates the Constitution, refuses to obey the decisions of the courts, and kills American citizens... READ MORE https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2026/03/a-holocaust-teachers-warning-will-good-americans-speak-up-this-time-pennlive-letters.html?gift=6cf2e016-c23b-421b-b8fd-e1b2d895a4ba