This Baby Boomer grew up hating Nazis -- and still does

The Nazis are in D.C. this weekend.

Sounds weird, doesn't it -- Nazis in our nation's capital city? Last time we contemplated Nazis roaming through D.C. was in "Man in the High Castle," and that was sci-fi. Before that, it was George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, demonstrating in front of the White House against President Eisenhower's effort to send military aid to Israel. Nazis don't like Jews -- you probably heard about that. Rockwell thought there was a Jew in every boardroom and behind every tree. He should have been concerned about members of his own organization -- one of them gunned him down outside an Arlington, Va., laundromat in 1967.

Prior to World War II, Nazis curried favor inside the beltway. They found isolationists and white supremacists willing to listen. As Philip Roth envisioned in "The Plot Against America," Charles Lindbergh and his Nazi sympathizers did not get into the White House in 1940 and keep the U.S. out of the war and the Nazis in power.

Baby Boomers grew up hating Nazis. Our fathers fought in World War II and they hated Nazis. Movies and TV shows extolled the virtues of killing them. Until "Hogan's Heroes," which transformed concentration camp life into comedy. My father refused to watch the show. "None of that is funny," he would say. We kind of know what he was mad about but we did think it was funny. "I zee nuthing!" Oh, Schultz. Ha ha.

Nazis tried to kill my father. Not him, specifically, just any G.I. that wandered into France in June 1944. If they had succeeded I would not be here, in this form, anyway. I might be a grandmother in Belarus. I might be a Pacific Ocean sea slug. As in George Bailey's alternate universe, I may not have ever been born.

At the heart of my Nazi hatred is what Hannah Arendt called "the banality of evil." Hitler and Goebbels and Eichmann were easy to hate. But what about the millions of Germans who followed Hitler? Those who worked as low-level bureaucrats tallying the amount of gold yanked from dead people's mouths at Auschwitz and Birkenau? Someone had to keep those records. How far along are we with The Final Solution? Halfway? Two million more Jews to go!

Most of Hitler's support came from the compliant. This will always be Germany's shame. "We thought that smoke from Buchenwald was a barbecue." We were proud of bringing down this rotten regime.

Now we have our own rotten regime. Arendt would recognize the signs of totalitarianism. Trump is a liar and a braggart. His followers are true believers. Bad combination.

The Nazis march in D.C. today. Would I kill a Nazi just for being a Nazi? I don't think I have it in me. Would I punch a Nazi? Too old for that. Do I oppose everything that these people stand for? Absolutely. I wish I could be in D.C. this weekend at what are being called "counter-protests." Thing is, how can you counter such a rotten philosophy? This is a white pride rally. A bunch of goofballs, including KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, who say that the white race is superior and your Indian/Somali/African-American/Nicaraguan neighbors are inferior. This cannot be as you have seen the proof with your own eyes. Your neighbors from India shoveled your snowy sidewalks after your heart attack. You watch the Academy Awards with your Somali friend who had no movie theater in his village. You've been a member of NAACP and seen the good works on this organization and the  stalwart stance it has taken against white supremacy. Your Syrian cardiologist saved your life. And so on.

The Nazis marching today in Washington aren't worth spitting on. Same goes for their leader, Donald Trump. They are beneath contempt but we must be ready to fight them with the tools we have. Truth. The Free Press. Poetry. Maybe violence, if it comes to that. It did once.