Perry: When is it OK to compare aspects of what’s happening in Minnesota to Nazi Germany?

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Billy Bragg, the legendary English folk singer, opens his new protest song about Minneapolis, “City of Heroes,” by making an analogy to the Holocaust. “The ghost of Martin Niemöller / Haunts the halls of history / When they came for the communists / He said ‘It’s nothing to do with me.’”

Bragg is referring to the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller. Niemöller was antisemitic and initially supported the Nazis, but then as Nazis seized churches, he finally spoke out against them and was arrested and sent to a concentration camp. After the war, he wrote the famous “First They Came” poem in which he lamented his own silence when the Nazis came for vulnerable groups to which he didn’t belong, leaving no one to speak for him.

In his song, Bragg pivots from Niemöller to the heroes of Minneapolis, who in his telling, speak up right from the beginning for immigrants, refugees and 5-year-olds. Because whereas “In Dachau, Martin Niemöller / Suffered for his complicity / But in this city of heroes / We learn the lessons of history.”

Before I get into the latest argument about the Holocaust — a predictable one involving Gov. Tim Walz and the legacy of Anne Frank — take a minute and think about what Bragg is doing with history. Analogies are arguments. We, the Minnesotans, are in the position of the Lutheran pastor, but unlike him can make a choice to stand up for people right from the beginning even if they aren’t people with whom we identify directly. The analogy, then, is not saying that the current situation is the same as Nazi Germany, but that the types of choices and actions are at least very similar, and so history (and poetry) can be our guide.

The recent kerfuffle about Anne Frank came after Walz said, “We have got children in Minnesota hiding in their houses, afraid to go outside. Many of us grew up reading that story of Anne Frank. Somebody’s going to write that children’s story about Minnesota.” Republicans and their allies at the U.S. Holocaust Museum protested. This wasn’t the first time Republicans have gotten mad at Walz for comparing them to the Nazis. I’m tempted to just say “a hit dog will holler,” as I, too, think about the Gestapo when I see President Donald Trump’s secret police marauding through Minnesota. (Note: If the masked agents keep their identities secret, they are secret police.)

I spoke over the phone to Emily Tamkin, author of "Bad Jews: A History of American Jewish Politics and Identities." She said that the Holocaust exists in this weird self-contradictory state in which it’s “so exceptional and apart from anything else in history and nothing can be compared to it,” but at the same time, “because it’s such a singular horrific event, everything gets compared to it.” What she wants us to do is ask a set of questions when deciding whether to compare something to the Holocaust, rather than seeking a simple yes/no assessment of whether a comparison is OK. She suggests asking, “What is this comparison meant to accomplish? What is it meant to achieve? What elements is this comparing, who has power, and what am I supposed to do with it?”

Assessed through this lens, she said, Walz was arguing that it was wrong for Anne Frank to have to hide because of her identity, and that this is something we look back on with shame. Today in Minnesota, and beyond, “These children [also] have to hide because of identity, and that should shame us,” she said. “To me, running this comparison through those questions makes clear that it is not only a sensible comparison, but a powerful one.”

All of this latest happened right around Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was last week. Vice President J.D. Vance made a simple statement honoring the “lives lost,” without ever naming whose lives were lost (six million Jews, hundreds of thousands of Roma, three hundred thousand disabled people, and so many others) or who killed them. Although I am concerned about the distressing number of Republicans who seem to be pro-Hitler, the Holocaust is also an example that we can’t just isolate any history, let alone this history, as an abstract event in the past to be remembered, but not acted upon now.