On February 20, 1939, New York City’s Madison Square Garden wasn’t filled with hockey fans or boxing enthusiasts but with members of the German-American Bund – more than 20 thousand of them who gathered to support the Nazi cause. Safely in neutral Belgium, my Jewish father celebrated his 36th birthday while Nazi sympathizers railed against the Jews more than 3600 miles away. To this day, I wonder if he would have been shocked by such sentiments infiltrating the land across the Atlantic – the place he hoped would one day offer refuge.
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