Those were the words of my late mother, a German born, Jewish refugee back in 2016.  

Those words have lived with we me since that day, reverberating as the events of the world have unfolded, leaving us today in a time of racism, bigotry, and of course, antisemitism.

Born in Leipzig, Germany in 1922, my mother witnessed the rise of the Nazis. She experienced discrimination and saw their violence first hand. She was fortunate that in 1939 her father wisely was able to get her family out of Germany. By 1941 she had made it to California, where she settled. She was 19 when she crossed under the Golden Gate Bridge. She did the best she could to assimilate and live the life of an American. But she never forgot what she had witnessed during her youth in Germany.

In January of 2016, my mother had just turned 94. A proud woman, she was fading away, losing strength and functional capacity. She gave in to the concept of caregivers, but still held on to whatever independence she had. One day that month, we thought we were going to lose her, as she spent the whole day in a barely responsive state. But to our surprise, she awoke the next day. I was happy to hear that she had awakened and was able to sit up for breakfast. I stopped by for a visit. Too proud to be fed, and too formal to eat in bed, she sat at a breakfast nook and attempted to eat the fresh strawberries that had been laid out for her. She loved berries, not only because they are good, but because she appreciated the luxury that they represented. German kids and refugees didn’t get such luxuries. She never forgot that.

Right about that time, the Presidential primaries were occurring in California. In an effort to engage her in conversation, I asked whom she was going to vote for. “Hillary,” was the answer. I could barely hear or understand her, but since it was down to Hillary and Bernie, I knew what she said. “Why not Bernie?” I asked. “Can’t win,” she mumbled. She was practical and insightful even at the end. All this time, she sat with her head down, eyes mostly closed, struggling to get each strawberry loaded onto a spoon and then lifted to her mouth. She would not accept help.

She was so weak and quiet that I thought I needed to agitate her a bit. So I asked her about something that I thought would get a rise out of her. “What about Trump?” I queried. That startled her. Whereas she was barely audible when responding about Hillary and Bernie, this was different. She sat up, opened her eyes, and said clearly and loudly, “That’s the way it starts.” She had heard Donald Trump, the chanting crowds, the yelling and screaming as he demonized the “Mexicans” and their “drugs and rapists.” It was eerily familiar to her. There was something so different about the tone of her response that it struck me and has stayed with me ever since. I realized at that point that for my mother, and Jewish refugees and survivors, the possibility of a recurrence of what they had witnessed was very real. My mother passed later that month, but her words live on.

Her memories and fears do as well.