Never Again? A lie.

If it were to happen now, we would have a precedent that we could look out for, so it wouldn't happen again.

A woman, unnamed on the DVD, in the Voices of the List part of the Schindler's List DVD. If this were to happen now...

"Never again" has been said less and less my adult life. The people who lived through the Holocaust are nearly gone. And the people who they raised are dying. And soon, the Holocaust will be nothing more than something we covered once in Social Studies.

Imagine, if you will, being told that because of your religion or ethnicity, you have to wear a special tag so everyone will know where you are. Imagine that one day, by fiat, the government takes what you have the in the bank and your investments, then comes and rounds you up and takes you out of your house and herds you into rundown apartments, six to eight to a room. You can't go anywhere without permission. You can't buy or sell or own anything. People you know, friends and relatives, are herded into trucks to be forced to work at hard labor, then never returning.

Imagine the world turning upside down as if it were a nightmare and no one does anything. Imagine that there's no visible chance that it's going to end. Don't just read the words, but yourself in that position and feel it. Feel what it is to watch indiscriminate murder every single day and wondering when it's going to be your day.

In one of the extras on the DVD, they talk of the day they took the children from the camp and sent them to Auschwitz, never to return. Imagine watching as your children, your babies, are herded onto a truck and knowing that you will never see them again. Imagine being told to lie on the ground as you watch them leave or you will be killed.

One of the pictures was of a boy, eight or nine years old, with big ears and a crooked smile. In the picture, an old black-and-white, he looked happy and very pleased with himself. He was one of the children who never came back.

I can't imagine it. It's all bigger than I can think of.

But it happens. It still happens. Never again is a lie. Anti-Semitism is a on the rise in Europe, and we may turn into an anti-Muslim country. The murmurs are there. But they're faint and don't seem to be threatening. Maybe they didn't in the mid-1930s.