Swatiskas on the lawn

Before an upcoming election, a religious leader wrote, “A fresh enlivening, and renewing reformation spirit is blowing through our lands . . . . The word of God and Christianity shall be restored to a place of honor.”

What makes his words so remarkable is time and place. They were written in 1933 in Germany, and the Protestant minister was signaling his support for the “positive Christianity” espoused by Adolph Hitler.

Hitler’s “positive Christianity” was of course neither positive nor Christian. And for its victims, not only Jews, but especially Jews, it was a death sentence.

In Germany in the 1930s, Protestants and Catholics comprised 95 percent of the German population, Jews less than 1 percent. For the Nazis to achieve their goals, they needed the support or at least the acquiescence of the Christian population.

After Hitler came to power, the German parliament passed a series of laws whose goal was the purification of the Aryan race. In 1933 eugenics laws were enacted, leading to the sterilization and later euthanization of those with physical and mental defects. In 1935 came the Nuremburg Laws, which stripped German Jews of citizenship rights.

“It was Christians who stood idly by as the rights of the Jewish minority that had contributed so much to German culture were stripped away with very little or no protest by the Christian majority,” wrote church historian Harold Alomia.

On November 8 and 9, 1938, in pogroms against Jews, Nazi mobs smashed their way across Germany and Austria, beating and killing and destroying shops and synagogues. It was called Krystallnacht, the night of broken glass.

By 1942 Hitler and his cohorts had drawn up plans for the Final Solution, the extermination of all Jews, not just in Germany, but throughout Europe. We all know of the horror that ensued.

If history is to mean anything to us, it must lead us to a rejection of the hate wielded so effectively and terrifyingly by the Nazis. It must also lead us to reject the “displacement theory” spouted by white supremacists in our own country. Most importantly, it must lead us to stand with all those victimized by anti-Semitic attacks.

In Massachusetts and across the country incidents of hate towards Jews has spiked. In 2021 in New England the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) logged 155 incidents--assault, harassment and vandalism--for an increase of 42 percent, higher than the 34 percent increase nationally.

These statistics became personal for us last week when swastikas were placed on the lawn of a Stoneham family. The morning after Halloween the family found the cut-out swastikas, one of which bore the phrase: HELL BOUND HAVE FUN!”

“There is no place for this kind of hate and bigotry in our community,” Stoneham Police Chief Jim McIntyre said.

In a statement, the Anti-Defamation League of New England said the family targeted was Jewish and that the incident represented a “very personal kind of hate at a time when the Jewish community is feeling vulnerable.”

“Placement of a swastika on the steps of a home has the effect of shattering an entire community’s sense of security,” Peggy Shukur, the ADL’s interim regional director, said.

So what do we do about it? How can we show our solidarity with our Jewish neighbors? How can we convey our rejection of this hate?

As I write this, Stoneham residents who care about social justice, including high school students, are reaching out in support. It’s time to come together. It’s time to speak up.

Note: If you’d like to join a social justice online group in Stoneham, please contact me at hbjacques@gmail. You can also contact the Stoneham Human Rights Commission by email at hrc@stoneham-ma.gov For info about Stoneham High School student activism, contact SOARS advisor Ellie Kaufman at ekaufman@stonehamschools.org. To learn more about the ADL in Massachusetts, visit https://newengland.adl.org/.