V E Day Remembered

I was in high school in Indianapolis, Indiana, ready for summer vacation and looking for a summer job to help out at home, when the war ended in Europe.

We literally escaped the ensuing Holocaust by a single day, leaving for Paris and eventually boarding the Queen Mary (yes, the one in Long Beach) on one of her final trips before war turned her into a troop ship.

My father, removed from ownership of a good-sized factory in Germany that sold butcher supplies and machinery by a directive of the Nazis that took over, was now a pants presser, and was happy to receive a weekly salary minuscule compared to what he earned in pre-Nazi days.

While there was glee from coast to coast that the "boys would be coming home" including two of my older cousins, there was no merriment in our household.

There was no going back and there could never be compensation for lost earnings and, more important, lost dignity.

The Nazis had cleverly manipulated the laws so that my father could never claim anything had been wrested from him.

He ended up getting a monthly social security check from the bank in Baden. That was all.

I cannot complain about my life in America, but I still bitterly resent my parents' being deprived of everything that had been theirs for generations and no legal way to try and get something back.

My father never went back. I did and, I must admit, played the part of the ugly American, railing against each and every presumed antagonistic gesture by the older Germans who now pretended they knew nothing, joined nothing, and were innocent.

Now, American Jews proudly drive their Mercedes and Audis and Beemers, not caring that the fathers and grandfathers of those who now manufacture these luxury cars were the ones who designed built and then shoved millions of Jews, homosexuals and mentally challenged people into crematoria.

I wish someone, or a group of someones would picket these dealerships on VE Day with the continuing message of "Never Again!

Maybe our City Council could pass a resolution of remembrance that VE Day should not fade from memory as those of us grow ancient and fewer in number who remember the German atrocities and their lack of guilt.

These long-ago Nazis are now being brought back to life by the anti-Semitic, pro-white Tea Party-ers who seem to be searching for a 21^st Century version of a charismatic Adolf Hitler to lead them from a democracy that led to the election of a black President back to treading on the compassionate principles of fairness and equality they abhor.

On this 66^th anniversary of VE day, may the same accusations that brought about the Nurnberg trials bring closure to the Sarah Palins and Michele Bachmans, the Glenn Becks and Joe the Plumbers who seek to bring the idea of Caucasian superiority that enthralled willing converts to Nazi-dom.

Never again!