Four Reasons Why Jews and Other Victims of the Nazi Regime Stayed in Germany

When we look back at the atrocities of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia against so many millions of people, one can't help but wonder why those people stayed in their countries when they had so much time and opportunity to leave before things got so terrible.

Why didn't the German Jews leave in the early or mid-1930s when the government and pubic opinion was really starting to get hostile to them?  Why did they stay in Germany until they were no-longer allowed to leave?  Did they not see what was coming?

When a government becomes hostile to a group of people, why do those people stay instead of finding friendlier lands to raise their families?

Here are four reasons why people choose to remain in a miserable state which endangers themselves and their children.

Patriotism

Patriotism is often described as one's loyalty to their country.  In the United States, many people will

German Jewish schoolchildren greet Nazi soldiers with salute.

say they love their country, but dislike their government.  What do they mean by country?  When asked, they will often speak of the geography of the area they live in or speak about some of the ideals that the government is supposed to have (whether or not they actually exist).  Many Americans explain their patriotism using terms like "freedom or democracy" to describe their government.  When it is pointed out that the government restricts their freedom, they often turn a blind eye and refuse to listen, or they make excuses - passing on the governments' reasoning (war on terror, etc).

Government uses the emotions of the people to keep them loyal, no matter how much abuse they endure.  Government spends millions of dollars to fly fighter jets over full stadiums, while the National Anthem plays, and fireworks light up the sky, to catch people when they are in an emotional state
(before their favorite sports team's big game).  Logic goes out the window, only feelings matter.  It doesn't matter that the NSA is listening on every one of your phone calls, reading every email and text, and your local police are militarizing in your home town.  The waving flags, images of wounded combat troops on the Jumbo-Tron, and the tune of America the Beautiful playing in the background all tell you that you're free and you're safe, while at the same time convincing you that you live in the greatest country on earth, and that it's hell everywhere else.

German Jewish couple welcomes Nazi soldiers into their neighborhood.  

These same tactics were in place in Nazi Germany.  While having just suffered defeat, they sold the idea that Germany can be great again and that it will rise to the ideals on which they believed they were founded and destined to bring to the primitive outside world.

Most German Jews were proud Germans who believed strongly in the enlightened ideals that their government promised.  They believed Germany to be the greatest nation on earth.  They loved their freedom and saw their lack of actual freedom as a small price to pay for their security and imagined freedom.  

The Nazis instilled a sense of pride in Das Vaterland.  The Soviets taught their children about the Call of their Motherland.  Children in the United States are taught about the need for Homeland security.  The names differ slightly, but that tactic is the same.

Love and pride in the Fatherland, Motherland or Homeland have proven to be a plague that allows insane megalomaniacs to be catapulted into power.

Roots

You've heard it uttered by many people, phrases like "My grandfather built this house!  This is where I'm going to stay!" or "My ancestors settled this land, this is where I'm gonna die!" or something along those lines.

German Jews have a history in that area that goes back as far as 1500 years.  For much of that time, they fared pretty well overall.  Many European Jews had ancestors who fled from other lands and settled somewhat safely in that area.  But it's important to remember that just like we are warned in buying financial products, past performance is not an indicator of future success.  Just because things used to be good doesn't mean they will continue to be.

In the U.S., over 59% of the people die within the state that they were born in.  Many of them never see other states, let-alone other countries.  So many people exist in a prison of their own creation.  The citizens of the United States are well-known world-wide as being the least cosmopolitan people on earth.  In other words, the people of the United States tend to live in a bubble of isolation, fully convinced that where they live is the best place on earth, while never having stepped foot anywhere else.

To a thinking person, this is insanity.  Science demonstrates the detrimental effects of isolation on the human brain.

Sadly,  this accurately describes over half of the U.S population.  While it may not be the clinical definition of insanity, it is clearly not a healthy worldview.

We all know the old adage that teaches us to walk a mile in someone's shoes before you judge them but, statistically speaking, Americans have pretty much made up their minds that they are better than all the other countries without even leaving their living rooms.

Then there are the others who hold paradoxical beliefs.  They do go visit other countries for vacation. While they know their country is the best, they have their favorite "getaway spots" where they go to enjoy a small bit of sanity for a couple weeks before returning to their 50 weeks of miserable "real world" life.  To them, the getaway is not real... it's a fantasy that they get to indulge in briefly.  They never stop to think that perhaps - just maybe - the people that live in those places they visit might have a better and happier life. That's not possible in their minds, because we all know that this is the best country on Earth.

Much of this is the result of public schooling which has over the years indoctrinated us all from our early childhood that America was the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, Land of Opportunity, etc. From Kindergarten and even preschool, children are taught to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, without even understanding the meaning of the words they recite.  This programming is everywhere, all around us at all times.

Being rooted in one geographic area for an entire lifetime is bad, but generations and generations of

living in one place is much worse.  The world is vast and liberty never thrives in one place.  In fact, the very definition of liberty is the ability to travel to other locations without hindrance.  Notice that this is usually what governments work to restrict first - by creating their borders and then regulating the movement across those borders - all under the guise of keeping you safe from dirty outsiders and of course to protect "your" jobs.  Once they have you confined to an area within their "jurisdiction", you are much easier to control, tax/rob, and manipulate for their nefarious purposes. A slave that is unwilling to leave the plantation saves the plantation owner from the hassle of building a fence and hiring guards.  In fact, in the United States, they have even figured out how to convince the slaves to demand a fence with guards, electronic monitoring, and drone surveillance!

Fear

Turn on the news at any time of any day and you will be inundated with reasons to live in fear.  The media has taught you that you need to fear the Taliban, then Al Qaeda, Bird Flu then Swine Flu, then Anthrax, then Mad Cow syndrome.  Following those panics, came outbreaks of SARS, E. Coli, then ISIS/ISIL and Ebola... When those stories faded from the public consciousness, a Measles outbreak in Disneyland took center stage.  Now Measles is gone and it's Listeria in the ice cream as the current Panic Du Jour.  

For each one of these crises, the government sets itself up as the supposed protector.  While government is usually painfully slow at doing anything, for these panics, there seems to instantly be a very large and extensive set of bills introduced into the various legislatures overnight.  The solution is always the same...   More power for them and less liberty for  you. 

While all this is going on, the U.S. Department of State is issuing travel warnings telling citizens about the dangers of going to foreign lands. It should be noted that the State Department has been placed under the control of the Department of Homeland Security.


Hope

The belief that things would get better.  This is based on a false assumption that government wants to fix problems.  The fact is that government wants and needs people to be dependent on them.  That is the source of their power and wealth.  Government creates dependents by crippling people's ability to fend for themselves, to feed their families, or make a living.  Ever-increasing taxation, regulatory

burdens, inflation, and an ever-growing body of laws that restrict freedom and stifle innovation force the victims into accepting government assistance at every turn and to welcome government into every aspect of their lives.   With this, they begin to feel that by making their voice heard either at the ballot box, or some administrative bureau that things can improve.  That is never the case.  Government never reduces its power.  It exists to grow in scope and power and exists only for the sake of its own expansion.  Power is never returned to the people voluntarily.  They only lose it in revolution, which is usually violent and only succeeds in replacing the old government with a newer one which will grow and do the same as the one just replaced sometime in the future.

Many of the Jews of Nazi Germany throughout the 1930s did not believe that the persecution against them would continue indefinitely.  They believed that the state valued their industrious nature and that ultimately the government would see that they needed the Jewish people.  At that time, 24% of Germany's Nobel Prize winners were Jewish.  Many Jewish leaders believed that they would find safety and redemption in the fact that they drove a large part of the German economy.  Their mistake was in thinking that the government values the same things that the people do.  A booming economy does not serve the state.  The state seeks something different - it seeks power and self-realized and self-sufficient people are a threat to state's quest to achieve its desires.

Revolution will only replace one deadly and corrupt government with one that people think is less so. Revolution is not the answer.  Evolution beyond nations, beyond states, and beyond government will bring a true and lasting peace.  Self-rule is the beginning of a liberated world.

"It's better to leave a country many years to early, than to try to leave one day too late."

Passover: What We Can Learn from the Jewish Celebration of Freedom

For those who are unaware, Passover is a remembrance and celebration of the exodus of Egypt by the Hebrews.  The celebration revolves around a ritual dinner called a Seder (Heb: "Order", ritual dinner) that takes the observer through the retelling of the exodus story through symbolic foods and four glasses of wine.

During the meal, which is eaten in stages, the telling of the story is read out of a Passover Haggadah (Heb: The telling).

The story begins in Ancient Egypt, where the Hebrews were living as slaves under the harsh rule of the Pharaoh.  Saltwater is used as the symbol for the tears that were shed by the slaves to remind the modern people of the sadness of life as a slave.  Bitter herbs (usually strong horseradish) are also eaten in order to remind modern people of the pain and suffering of the slaves.

Throughout the Seder, wine serves as the symbol of royalty - the idea that those partaking in the meal

are no-longer slaves, but are in-fact kings.  The wine is usually drank while reclining on a cushion to symbolize the leisurely life of a sovereign.

The telling of the Passover/Exodus story is the central theme of all of Judaism.  There is a command in the Torah/Bible that instructs parents to speak of the exodus to their children every single day, not just at the Seder.

So, what is so great about the Exodus that it demands so much of a central role in Jewish life?

Quite simply, this story is about your identity and the importance of that moment in history when a group of millions of people gave their Divine God-King the finger, told him to pound sand, and left the country against his orders, and depleting the entire country of all its wealth in the process.

It elevates the rebellion against government into a holy act!

The story then goes on to educate us about the most heinous sin in all of the Bible, aside from the Golden Calf (which was a symbol of their old life of slavery) - the demand for a new king, which began in the book of 1 Samuel.

When the children of Israel (which, by the way means "rules with El"; El meaning "the highest authority"), demanded a King, Samuel who was a judge/arbiter gave a stern warning about the repercussions of this path.  His warnings are written in one of the greatest arguments for anarchy ever written in the opinion of this author.

1 Samuel 8:10 So Samuel spoke all the words of the Lord to the people who had asked of him a king. 11 He said, “This will be the custom of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and place them for himself in his chariots and among his horsemen and they will run before his chariots. 12 He will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and of fifties, and some to do his plowing and to reap his harvest and to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will also take your daughters for perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive groves and give them to his servants. 15 He will take a tenth of your seed and of your vineyards and give to his officers and to his servants. 16 He will also take your male servants and your female servants and your best young men and your donkeys and use them for his work. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his servants. 18 Then you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

19 Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said, “No, but there shall be a king over us, 20 that we also may be like all the nations, that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”21 Now after Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the Lord’s hearing. 22 The Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to their voice and appoint them a king.” So Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Go every man to his city.”

While many of us within the liberty movement see religion as another means of keeping people controlled and enslaved, there is actually a very strong argument that can be made to support a Voluntaryist/Anarchist society from within those religions themselves.  It is statistical fact that most Christians have gone their whole lives without really reading much of the Bible, and when they do read it, it's done in a piecemeal fashion, reading a verse here and there, then listening to a 20 minute sermon filled with anecdotes or pop psychiatry once a week.  The full story arch of the Bible is rarely seen.  This is slightly less true among the Jewish people, since reading the entire Torah is a once yearly tradition built into the synagogue services - though it's read in Hebrew, and those attending service who are not fluent in Hebrew will be left only with an impression of how beautiful (or not) the cantillation was, and will have to rely on the words of the sermon given by the rabbi for any wisdom to be gleaned.

These conditions are found in many religious organizations, most of which themselves are beholden to the state through their 501(c)3 tax-exemption, which places limits on what they are allowed to say or teach else they face tax consequences.

This creates some quite fertile ground for the makings of an anarchist revolution within the very religious organizations that many anarchists and libertarians dismiss as being pro-state.  It's much easier to teach a person something about their own religion that they may have been unaware of, rather than convince them to abandon their religion altogether.