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Hello everyone!
The last three months have been very intense, with personal, family, and business engagements necessitating quite a bit of travel and consuming a lot of my mental and physical bandwidth. But on Monday evening I returned home from my last major planned trip for several months, and I’m eager to resume writing regularly again!
The piece below has been in the works for several months; at times I wondered if I would EVER finish it. I did a lot of research and writing for this that I ultimately ended up removing because it was too long and was too extraneous to the primary subject at hand. (And yes, I know this piece is still lengthy, but I do hope you’ll take the time to read it; I’ve put a great deal of work into it because I can think of few subjects more deserving of our attention in 2024.) I think much of that deleted material will eventually see the light of day in some fashion, but for today, I’m happy to finally share “Steeple People” with you! And as it turns out, it couldn’t come on a more appropriate day.
In Italy, April 25 is Liberation Day (Il Giorno della Liberazione), also known as The Celebration of the Resistance (La Festa della Resistenza), among other names.
Having lived here for just 18 months, I’m still new to Italian political history, but as Wikipedia explains, “The liberation put an end to two and a half years of German occupation, five years of war, and twenty-three years of fascist dictatorship [under Mussolini].”
On this public holiday (since 1946), there are speeches, marches, and protests around the country, often accompanied by the stirring anthem of the Italian resistance movement, “Bella Ciao.” (I encourage you to take a few minutes to listen to it.)
Milan—where I sit now, writing to you—was liberated from the Nazis 79 years ago today. A day to celebrate indeed.
Steeple People
My husband and I recently returned from a weekend in Warsaw, where we celebrated the 95th birthday of my father-in-law, Leszek. He and my late mother-in-law, Mati, were both born and raised in Poland but left in the 1950s. They first moved to England, where my husband and his older brother were born, before spending the next five or more decades in the U.S. and Australia.
Last year, Leszek moved from San Francisco back to Warsaw, in part to be closer to us in Milan, but also to be closer to his family and friends in Poland. A month or so after he arrived, we paid him a visit.
Warsaw is a vibrant metropolis of nearly 1.8 million people, with grand public parks, stimulating museums and galleries and theaters, packed bars, a lively riverfront, and a truly impressive array of international restaurants. You may be surprised to hear that it frequently makes Top 10 lists as one of the best cities in Europe for vegans, with noteworthy vegan sushi, ramen, gyros, burgers, delis, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern and Moroccan food—and, of course, vegan takes on traditional Polish dishes. (I am not vegan, but I will tell you that one of the best bakeries I’ve ever been to in my life—anywhere—is eter, a vegan bakery in Warsaw.)
Leszek’s room, on the seventh floor in a new senior community, overlooks a large park with a children’s playground. A few blocks away is a stately church with a steeple that rises gracefully above the surrounding buildings.
As we sat chatting one afternoon, he explained that this neighborhood used to be part of the Jewish Ghetto in World War II. He pointed toward the church and said matter-of-factly that it had been the only thing left standing after the Ghetto was destroyed.
“Do you know why that was?” he asked. I did not.
“Because the Nazis would climb the steeple with their machine guns and shoot the Jews below.”
He opened a magazine on his desk and showed me this photo of the neighborhood where we sat talking. I was speechless.
In the 10 months since, my mind has been haunted by what he told me. And as I’ve pondered it, I’ve realized that while the Nazis he referred to lost their war almost 80 years ago, we still live in a world full of “steeple people.” They shamelessly play by their own rules, doing whatever they must to top the system and then use that perch to dominate and exploit others, always for their own selfish gain, no matter the cost to those they harm and oppress.
Vladimir Putin is one of them. So is Benjamin Netanyahu.1 And so is Donald J. Trump, former President of the United States, who recently clinched enough delegates to secure the Republican party’s nomination again in 2024.
Don’t Look Away
On June 16, 2015, Trump infamously descended the escalator in his eponymous tower2 to announce he was running for president, while claiming casually and without evidence that Mexico was “sending” rapists and criminals to the U.S.
In the nine long and difficult years since, many of us appear to have grown weary of and numb to his endless outrages, inured to the absurdities and insanities that he daily visits upon our eyes and ears. We’ve tuned out his endless lies: Up is down. Black is white. The villain is a clown, and the fraudster3 is a savior.
But we simply must not look away, must not allow ourselves to be lulled into a sense of complacency, to be habituated to his horrors. The stakes are simply too high. Far, far too high.
As CNN reported in February:
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member country4 that doesn’t meet spending guidelines on defense in a stunning admission he would not abide by the collective-defense clause at the heart of the alliance if reelected.
“NATO was busted until I came along,” Trump said at a rally in Conway, South Carolina. “I said, ‘Everybody’s gonna pay.’ They said, ‘Well, if we don’t pay, are you still going to protect us?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ They couldn’t believe the answer.”5
Trump said “one of the presidents of a big [NATO] country” at one point asked him whether the US would still defend the country if they were invaded by Russia even if they “don’t pay.”
“No, I would not protect you,” Trump recalled telling that president. “In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.”6
Watch this video. Watch the crowd respond to this maniac. Watch the woman just to the left of the podium wearing her "JESUS is my Savior, TRUMP is my President" shirt, nodding her head and then breaking into enthusiastic applause and cheers with the rest of these fools, as Trump says he would "encourage Russia to do whatever they hell they want.”
The Biden White House rebuked the former president’s comments, saying in a statement:
“Encouraging invasions of our closest allies by murderous regimes is appalling and unhinged—and it endangers American national security, global stability, and our economy at home.”
The Biden-Harris 2024 campaign also released a statement:
“Trump’s admission that he intends to give Putin a greenlight for more war and violence, to continue his brutal assault against a free Ukraine, and to expand his aggression to the people of Poland and the Baltic States [is] appalling and dangerous.”
As reporter David Axe noted with fury in Forbes, whatever the hell Russia wants includes executing civilians in the streets; starving, beating, and electrocuting Ukrainian prisoners; and abducting and trafficking nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children. Whatever the hell Russia wants also includes bombing a theater in Mariupol, Ukraine, in March 2022, where around a thousand people had taken refuge, seeking shelter from Russian shelling and bombing. But Russia did whatever they hell they wanted and bombed the theater, in the process blowing up, burning or crushing to death at least 600 innocent people, including the elderly, women, children, and babies.
Trump has spent the past six months actively opposing legislation in the U.S. Congress to provide additional military aid to Ukraine, a country that recently began running out of ammunition as they marked the grim second anniversary of Russia's invasion. Speaker Mike Johnson bent the knee to Trump for months, refusing to even bring the aid package up for a vote before finally relenting just last weekend. The final tally in the House on Saturday was 311 to 112, an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote in favor of the aid to Ukraine. Still, it should be noted that all 112 “No” votes came from Republicans, who’ve apparently chosen to be part of what Liz Cheney now refers to as “the GOP Putin caucus.” (Just three years ago, Cheney was the GOP conference chair and the third-highest-ranking Republican in the House. She was ousted from her position of power by her Republican colleagues for refusing to bend the knee to Trump.)
One could be forgiven for thinking that Trump is behaving exactly like Putin’s puppet, as Hillary Clinton so presciently warned about on October 19, 2016.
Whatever the Hell They Want
The spire my father-in-law pointed to that day last summer belongs to St. Augustine's Church (Parafia Świetego Augustyna w Warszawie). During our most recent trip to Warsaw, my husband and I walked by the church on our way to breakfast. I already knew at that point that I had to write this piece, and as I looked up at the steeple, I was once again thinking about the Nazis, ensconced in their perch, shooting the Jews below like vermin.
Just a minute farther down the sidewalk, I stopped abruptly, jolted, just before I would have stepped on this grisly carcass.
In 2024, I hope I don’t need to remind you about the Holocaust, one of the most evil chapters of humanity’s history. (Though with neo-Nazis marching through the streets of America in broad daylight, perhaps I do.)
During the War, Poland played unwilling host to Auschwitz, the Nazi concentration camp, where it is estimated over 1.1 million people were killed. Though Auschwitz was the most infamous camp, there were numerous others. For example, Treblinka. I admit I’d not heard of it before I began researching this piece. But over 800,000 prisoners were killed here in just 16 months—meaning, on average, more than 1,600 people every day. In a concentration camp I’d never even heard of.
Katarzyna Utracka writes in "Warsaw – the City that is No More" in The Warsaw Institute Review:
[B]y 1939 Warsaw was already home to almost 1,300,000 people, ranking the seventh biggest city in Europe. [It] was beautiful, diverse, and truly European, often referred to as ‘the Paris of the North.’ Warsaw was also home to the second largest Jewish population in the world, just behind New York.
In autumn of 1940, the German authorities established an all-Jewish district, thus creating the largest ghetto in occupied Europe [with] over 450,000 people concentrated within less than 1 square mile. [St. Augustine’s Church] was incorporated into the ghetto.
According to the St. Augustine Church’s official website:
During World War II…the Germans used [the church] as a warehouse for property stolen from Jews, and then as a stable. Father Franciszek Garncarek was murdered by the Germans on December 20, 1943, and Father Leon Więckowicz was arrested for helping Jews and died on August 4, 1944, in the Gross-Rosen concentration camp.
During the Warsaw Uprising, the church tower served the Germans as an observation point and a machine gun nest.
(translated by Google from the original Polish)
Cities Unknown further explains:
After the Uprising, the Germans made a point to destroy what was left of Warsaw, inch by inch, stone by stone.
The story of the church's survival is ambiguous, and it's not known exactly why its destruction never happened, because there was certainly a plan to blow it up, but somehow this did not come to fruition. But because of this ambiguity we are left with these stunning photographs of a city left in ruins, with this lone ranger standing high above the rubble.
Again, from "Warsaw – the City that is No More":
Warsaw sustained unimaginable damage. No other European city suffered as much. Around 80% of its buildings laid in ruins. The Germans destroyed every bridge and station in the city. 90% of monuments, 80% of hospitals, 75% of schools and industrial plants were non-existent.
One researcher, Marian Chlewski, estimates that during that period alone, the Nazis transported 45,000 train cars of looted goods from Warsaw…including textiles, furs, carpets, money, factory machinery, appliances, commodities, food, textiles, and other valuables.
One of the greatest losses was undoubtedly the Saxon Palace, located at one of the most important plazas in Warsaw. Its history spanned four centuries. After the collapse of the Warsaw Uprising, it was blown up by German troops. Solely pieces of the central arcade survived the explosion, which continues to house the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier today. On November 11, 2018, as Poles were celebrating the centenary of Poland regaining independence, the president of Poland, Andrzej Duda, announced plans to reconstruct the palace. The reconstruction of Warsaw, therefore, continues to this day.”7
(Note: I edited articles quoted in this section for brevity and clarity. All emphases are mine.)
According to the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, located in the heart of the former ghetto, 90% of the Jewish community in Poland perished in the Holocaust.
We must remember—we MUST—that this is what it looks like when a country led by a dictator invades a neighboring country and does whatever the hell it wants.
The Threat is Real
Days after Trump ignited a global firestorm with his “I’ll encourage Russia to do whatever the hell they want” comments, he held another campaign rally. True to Trump form, he did not in any way try to backtrack or clean up the damage.
Instead, he doubled down and reiterated the fact that under a second Trump administration, the United States could not be counted on to come to the aid of its fellow NATO countries. “Look, if they’re not going to pay, we’re not going to protect. Okay?”
My answer is simple: No, Donald, it is most definitely NOT okay.
Maya Angelou once said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” I would add that if you didn't believe them the first time, or the second time, or even the 803rd time, then believe them the 804th time. Because this monstrous, self-interested imbecile is who Donald Trump really is.
In 2022, my husband and I spent Christmas in Poland (a NATO country). We celebrated the holiday at the family apartment of a lifelong friend of my late mother-in-law. Over dinner, talk of the Second World War surfaced. This happens often in Europe. In my experience, such talk is not predictable reminiscing of the “bad old days.” It is simply matter of fact; reminders of the War are everywhere, inescapable.
Our host pointed at the wall to the left of where I was sitting and explained that it had been devastated by German bombs. She showed me photographs of the apartment after the air raid, and sure enough, the wall was simply not there; in its place was a gaping hole. (I really wish I had taken a photo of those photos, but alas, I didn’t think of it at the time.)
In Warsaw, evidence is everywhere that the people understand full well the life-or-death stakes of the war in Ukraine. Indeed, Poland is uniquely vulnerable to a Russian invasion, as it shares a border with Ukraine that is 535 kilometers long.8
But the threat posed by Putin doesn’t end with my husband’s family and friends scattered throughout Poland, because he also has family in France (a NATO country) and England (a NATO country). My cousin Zach and his wife and their young daughter live in Lithuania (a NATO country), which—along with Poland—shares a border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad Oblast. We also have friends in Portugal, Germany, Norway, Greece, the Netherlands—all NATO countries. And, of course, we live in Italy, also a NATO country.
We are all in the same boat, and we will sink or sail together.
NATO marked its 75th anniversary earlier this month. President Biden noted in a statement marking the occasion:
"Now, like generations before us, we must choose to protect this progress and build on it. We must remember that the sacred commitment we make to our Allies—to defend every inch of NATO territory—makes us safer too, and gives the United States a bulwark of security unrivaled by any other nation in the world. And like our predecessors, we must ask ourselves what can we do—what must we do—to create a more peaceful future."
Thank you very much to all who’ve read this far. Please read Part 2 for a practical suggestion for how we can take action now to work for the more peaceful global future the President spoke of.
Note: All photographs included in this piece are my work, except where otherwise noted.
Allegedly.
Yes, this is the same Trump Tower where his 11,000-sf penthouse is located, which he claimed for years in financial documents was more than 30,000 sf, a move that eventually factored in his trial on charges of fraud, falsifying business records, issuing false financial statements, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, and conspiracy to falsify business records. Trump has also long claimed that the penthouse is on the 66th-68th floors, even though the building only has 58 floors. “The frauds found here leap off the page and shock the conscience,” Judge Arthur Engoron wrote in his 92-page judgment this past February.
I realize it’s difficult to keep track of all of Trump’s fraud, but this most recent case (which resulted in Trump being fined more than $350 million) is separate from the case brought by the New York attorney general in 2013 after Trump allegedly defrauded thousands of students in his Trump University. (He paid a $25 million settlement without admitting wrongdoing). It is also separate from the case brought in 2018, again by the New York attorney general, for “a broad pattern of illegal activity” by Trump’s charity foundation. (Trump paid a $2 million fine and admitted misusing charity funds to, among other things, purchase a $10,000 portrait of himself for display at one of his hotels. The foundation was dissolved.)
NATO stands for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It is a collective security system, as Wikipedia explains. If you’re interested in knowing more, the official NATO website is a good place to start.
You’ll not be surprised to hear that what Trump claimed here about NATO’s finances is factually false. As CNN noted, “Trump has for years inaccurately described how NATO funding works. NATO has a target that each member country spends a minimum of 2% of gross domestic product on defense, and most countries are not meeting that target. But the figure is a guideline and not a binding contract, nor does it create ‘bills’; member countries haven’t been failing to pay their share of NATO’s common budget to run the organization.”
This is especially rich coming from a man whose businesses have filed for bankruptcy six times and who 👏 has 👏 been 👏 notorious 👏 for 👏 decades 👏 for 👏 not 👏 paying 👏 his 👏 bills. And yes, in case it wasn’t clear, I just linked in one sentence to a dozen different articles about Trump’s decades-long history of not paying his bills. I do the research so you don’t have to.
Indeed, an architect was just hired last fall to carry this out, nearly 80 years after the war ended.
To give a sense of scale, that is roughly the distance from Jacksonville to Miami, Florida. Look at a map; it’s nearly the entire length of the state, top to bottom.
Thank you very much for this important article. I personally know little about Warsaw and learned much. My father was an 18 year old American soldier fighting for the liberation of Italy. He told me for his 100th birthday last month don’t let Trump win or all our battles and lives lost for Democracy will have been in vain. We must absolutely not forget the past or that The US is not an island. Our safety and Europe’s is tightly linked. Trump is a very very dangerous man. Thank you for reminding us all.