To the editor:

A year ago, George, my 98 year old father-in-law, died at his home in California. When George was 13 years old, the Nazis took over Austria where his family lived. The Nazis arrested George’s father on the streets and sent him to the Buchenwald concentration camp.

George’s family was forced to “sell” their electric repair company to a Nazi supporter for almost nothing. George’s mother then sent her two children out of the country — George to Holland and his sister to England. His mother thought that she’d never see her children again, but with financial help from relatives, she was able to purchase visas that allowed her and her husband to leave Austria. The family reunited in Belgium and through a very lucky circumstance, they were granted visas to the US.

They left Belgium a month before the Nazis took over that country. The Dutch orphanage where George had lived for a year was bombed by the Nazis a few months later. All the children there died.

George joined the US army as soon as he turned 18. When they found out that he was fluent in German, he was recruited by the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), a precursor to the CIA. After leaving the army, George got a Ph.D. at Stanford and then joined the Stanford faculty. His specialty was cancer research. He authored over 200 scientific papers and he was a pioneer in the field of hyperthermia. George loved the United States, both for offering refuge to him and his family and for the opportunities the country gave to him. He saw this country as a beacon of hope and promise.

Why am I telling you this? In these times, immigrants are being targeted, just as the Nazis targeted Jews. The party in power is whipping up hate and encouraging people to blame immigrants for all our country’s problems. If my father-in-law had lived, he would be shocked and grief-stricken to see what’s happening.

So many lies are being told about immigrants and refugees. The current administration says that immigrants are causing a crime surge, but in fact, crime rates have dropped and immigrants are much less likely to be criminals than native-born Americans.

The current administration says that immigrants don’t pay taxes, but in fact, they pay in millions more than they take out.

The current administration says that immigrants take jobs from native Americans, but it’s plain that immigrants take the hard and dirty jobs that native-born citizens rarely want.

When the price of groceries soars because there’s no one to harvest crops or work in the meat-packing plants, when restaurants and hotels close down or cost more because they can’t find workers, will we finally stop listening to the hate-mongering?

Hatred of “the other” is a tactic the Nazis used. Find an enemy — a minority like Jews or immigrants –and blame them. George thought our country, his country, was better than that. We should be.

Susan Hahn

Ray Brook