My aunt just got back from 2 1/2 weeks in Europe.

How nice!

Yes, she is delighted that she went. Budapest, Prague and Vienna are all beautiful and the classical music in Vienna was marvelous. Then she proceeded to tell me about their visit to the various Jewish ghettoes in these cities, filled with residents whose parents and/or grandparents had lived there before being taken away in 1938.

In each ghetto, as I saw for myself in Italy, there are museums full of photos of the local Jews before 1938 and descriptions of all their wonderful contributions to Austrian, Hungarian and Czech society. She looked at the elegant people in the photos and listened to accounts of how they were forcibly dragged from their beautiful homes, into the street, and boarded onto transports to the concentration camps, where most were murdered, their bones dumped into mass graves.

Then my aunt told me about the rise of Neo-Nazi party in Austria and Germany.

"But...I thought it was illegal!" I said.

"Don't kid yourself, Nancy," she said. "They are there under a different name, and they are growing."

It's amazing. Every time I think I understand how bad antisemitism is today, I take another look and realize I am still pretty naive.

The witnesses to the 20th century Holocaust are dying out. Their children are aging. And the denials of what went on are growing, spreading, insinuating themselves into European society and even American college campuses.

The Jews in these European cities cannot even imagine how we live here, insulated daily from antisemitism, completely unaware of it if we choose to be.

I did a quick search, and found this story in the London Daily Mail, about an event in Austria that took place last year:

Survivors of a Nazi death camp were shot at and abused as they gathered to remember their liberation.
Masked neo-Nazi thugs screamed 'Heil Hitler!' and 'This way for the gas!' at ten elderly Italian men and women, who returned to the site of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.
The gang also fired air guns at a group of 15 French survivors, many dressed in the striped pyjama-style uniforms they wore as inmates. One suffered a head wound while another was injured by a shot in the neck. The four thugs managed to escape.
Jewish leaders in Austria were appalled by the weekend scenes that marred events marking the 64th anniversary of the camp’s liberation by American troops.

I had to hang up the phone before I could ask my aunt this: what positive or constructive thing can one do when you come back from a traumatic trip like this?
What is there to be done here at home?

I have called her back and left that query on her answering machine.

I am pleading with you, readers, to tell me your ideas on this.

to read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1180599/Neo-Nazis-attack-concentration-camp-survivors-memorial-service-345-000-dead.html#ixzz0bEBW8P45