It’s an important time for Idahoans to read WWII literature. History keeps rhyming | Opinion

There seems no escape from the news of Trump and Musk revamping our constitutional system of government and installing all authority and power in the presidency.

Their rapid-fire attack on federal agencies and the firing of thousands of civil servants who keep the functions of government running has no precedent in American history and is already showing in polling that whatever authority Trump thinks he gained with his victory last November, 71% of his voters disagree with him on cutting Medicaid, and 60% disagree with him on cutting food and nutrition programs.

As the negative consequences ensue from this decimation of federal agencies and are reported daily, even Trump voters wonder about their choice.

If there was ever a moment to slip into the confines of a good book, such a time is now. Hope is the order of the day. The Trump regime cannot and must not be our future. Both in nonfiction and novels, we can find inspiration from those who have come before us and faced odds greater than what Trump commands.

It’s times like these when we hope for a greater good to prevail, when we expect things to get better no matter how dismal our once democratic life seems to be.

Now more than ever seems the time to recommit to a reading life that helps explain the human predicament in this decade of the 21st century. What is it about our own American history and the history of others that delivered us to this point in the life of our democracy, and how have people of our past dealt with the changing circumstances of their lives?

There is no better example of a novel that shows us where autocracy leads and how people have struggled mightily to survive the dictates of a murderous regime than “The Umbrella Maker’s Son.” It is based on the real-life experience of the author’s great-grandfather, Raphael, who intervened on the streets of Poland to save a Jewish man beaten by a Polish police officer. Raphael stabbed the officer with a dagger concealed in the stem of his umbrella. Fearing life imprisonment or execution, Raphael and his family fled Poland and wound up on Ellis Island in 1909.

The author of “The Umbrella Maker’s Son” moves his fictional protagonist modeled on Raphael to the late 1930s when a young Polish Jew, Reuven, is struggling with his family under the Nazi occupation of Poland. Facing Nazi atrocities in the Krakow ghetto and the concentration camp, Plaszow, Reuven convinces his family to escape and head east to a Russian town free of Nazis.

Reuven experiences trauma and loss as he guides and cares for his own family, all the while hoping to find his young lover, whose family is also confined to the Krakow ghetto.

Lending’s novel reads like a thriller with nonstop action and carefully drawn examples of the people who risked their lives to help others — at significant risk to their own lives. A Polish Catholic pharmacist plays a key role in helping Reuven and his family escape the ghetto. He is modeled on the career of Tadeusz Pankiewicz, who risked his own life running the only pharmacy in the Krakow ghetto, where he gave medicine and food to Jews seeking safety and also hid some he helped escape.

The Krakow ghetto confined 18,000 Jews, 12,000 of whom were deported to Belzec concentration camp and murdered.

Reading and reflecting on such a horrific experience, readers may hesitate picking up a copy of this book for fear that it is just too difficult to fathom something that happened almost a century ago.

But the passage of time can be no excuse for ignoring the lessons of history, especially something as horrifying as the Nazi genocide. Especially at a time when white Christian Nationalists here in America invoke Nazism as their north star. Reuven’s story is one of hope and resilience, how those who suffer unimaginable loss and trauma can stare adversity in the face and renew themselves, declaring victory over brutality all around them.

After reading “The Umbrella Maker’s Son,” a trip to the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights is in order, just to stand before the Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial and reflect on the courage those have shown when amid so much evil, they rose above the soul-shattering violence and prayed for a better day.

Mark Twain’s famous line comes to mind that “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

When Trump declares Ukraine the aggressor that started the war with Russia, he convolutes Putin’s war on Ukraine and ignores the United Nations report in late January that at least 12,456 Ukrainian civilians were killed between February 2022 and December 2024, and more than 30,000 were injured. Close to 7 million fled their country, mostly women and children. We are, indeed, living a rhyme of history, and there can be no accommodation when it comes to the support the United States must give Ukrainians.

Here in America and in the lands of our transatlantic allies, we need that better day. Let us honor those who have fallen victim to war and torture, and those who have found a way to tell their story for all to hear. Let us also never refrain from conversations when Trump or his apologists minimize the harm Putin has inflicted on thousands of innocents who, like Reuven, are only yearning for the peace and safety of their homeland.