I have lived my life in the shadow of Auschwitz. This is what it has meant | Jason Stanley

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The Nazi death camp was liberated 75 years ago, but across the world its malign influence lives on

My uncle Max survived several years in Auschwitz. I was not close to my uncle. When we visited my first cousins in their house on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, he was often in the basement – as a tailor, a trade he learned in a camp for displaced persons, he liked to work long hours. Once, catching me for some unfathomable reason singing Deutschland, Deutschland über alles at age nine or so, he told me about a day in Auschwitz. From that point on, I was frightened that he would tell me more, and avoided him.

Max died of a heart attack in his late 50s. Except for his relationship with my cousins, with whom I was then so close, he did not play much of a role in my life. But Auschwitz did.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/3aKMRVb

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