How Did The Germans Let That Happen?

 Growing up closer to the end of WWII, that was the question we asked with probably more attention than my daughter’s generation. I was born ten years after the war ended. My daughter was born almost 50 years after. For us, it was a slightly more pertinent question. 

It’s not a competition; it’s just to say Jake Tapper doesn’t really get to define terms, or hide behind historical analogues. Or wait until the “camps” are liberated.

“We can’t do business as usual right now anyway,” Schwesnedl told Tapper. “Our city has been invaded by masked gunmen kidnapping family members, friends, and neighbors of ours to send them to concentration camps.”

Tapper, who is Jewish, quickly pushed back on the language.

“Just one note,” the longtime CNN anchor said. “I’m not here to defend ICE, but I’m not a big fan of people using the term ‘concentration camp’ to describe detention camps. That has a very specific meaning…”

Schwesnedl shrugged and cut in as he insisted the comparison was appropriate.

“I understand that,” he said. “But they take people to Fort Snelling, which literally was built as a concentration camp, and 'Alligator Alcatraz,' which I think we can all agree is a concentration camp.”

He clarified, “I’m not saying they’re Dachau. I’m not saying they’re putting people in ovens, yet. But these are concentration camps.”

Tapper appeared eager to move on. “Okay,” he said, waving his hand in apparent exhaustion.

“I don’t need to argue with you about it,” Schwesnedl said as they both pivoted around the sensitive and awkward live television moment.

“That’s fine,” Tapper said as he continued the interview to its conclusion without any further mention of the on-air dust-up.

Tapper’s argument could as easily be turned against use of the term “genocide” to describe anything but the Holocaust. “Concentration camp” has been applied to the Japanese internment camps in America during WWII, and they certainly weren’t Dachau.

Today ICE is operating facilities that are literally black boxes. The last one they publicized was “Alligator Alcatraz,” and the reaction to that camp was so severe they shut it down almost immediately. Since then what do we know about ICE detention centers, except that they won’t let anyone in? The few reports we have describe horrific conditions. Now, in the wake of ICE seizing a five year old boy and using him as bait to try to trap others, ICE insists its facilities are paradise, with better conditions than immigrants have ever lived in. Who wouldn’t want to be there? (Which, yes, has a familiar historical ring.) And ICE asks us to trust them. Have they ever lied to you?

Which answers the question I started with.