Los Angeles is burning again.
Police cars overturned. Flags defaced. Crowds in the streets — not marching in protest, but surging in anger, demanding open borders and shouting down the idea of enforcement as if laws themselves were the enemy.
Watching this unfold, I feel the knot rise in my chest.
And I think of my father.
He came to this country in 1947 — not because he was poor, though he was. Not because he was afraid, though he had every reason to be. He came because the place he was from had been obliterated.
He was German.
He was Jewish.
And in post-war America, that made him suspect from every direction.
Some hated him for being German — the enemy.
Others distrusted him because he was a Jew — even though that identity had nearly cost him his life.
The war may have ended, but the distrust lingered. America was eager to move on, but not yet ready to embrace the displaced — especially not the ones who blurred the lines between categories we find easier to hate.
“Many who sought a safe haven from persecution during the 1930s and 1940s found their efforts thwarted by the United States’ restrictive immigration quotas and the complicated, demanding requirements for obtaining visas. Public opinion in the United States did not favor increased immigration…”
— United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
That was the world my father stepped into.
And it’s the world he had to navigate with quiet strength, resilience, and humility.
He didn’t sneak in.
He didn’t demand to be taken care of.
He secured a sponsor. He filed the paperwork. He paid the fees.
He arrived in New York on the USS Bremen and stood in line at Ellis Island, waiting for this country to say yes.
By 1951, he was wearing a U.S. uniform — a baker in the Korean War — feeding the soldiers of a nation still unsure if it wanted him. That’s the legacy I come from.
So when I see angry mobs insisting that compassion means erasing process, I feel that old ache and a rising frustration. I understand the longing to come here. I really do. America still shines with promise.
But I also understand the cost of doing it right. The patience. The grit. The sacrifice.
My father didn’t demand America bend to him. He bent himself toward her promise.
I believe in compassion. I believe in mercy. But mercy without structure is not mercy. It’s mayhem.
This country needs rules. Because without rules, there is no justice. And without structure, there is no sanctuary.
We owe it to those who came through the fire — not to burn down the country that gave them shelter, but to protect it for those still coming.
Not through entitlement.
Not through rage.
But through honor.
Forged by fire.
Not fueled by rage.
Reference:
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Introduction to the Holocaust.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/introduction-to-the-holocaust
The Pondering Place 