Jonathan C. Lewis
Author and Artist
Heil Trump!
A fictional travelogue; four minutes to read.
I booked my flight to Germany, the same day I first daydreamed about building an ark.
My name is Noah. It’s marquee name meaning Jewish Boat-Builder Saves World. Thing is, I’m not a ship captain courageously navigating the high seas towards a safe harbor.
American democracy is my calling. My life’s work, on land, is churning out good citizens.
But, in the Time of Trump, watching the news scares me. In the deepest recesses of myself, I gasp for air. My hands tremor, then tremble.
In my classroom, in the high school faculty lounge, on social media, when my book club gathers, I’ve been screaming that America is about to capsize. American fascism is at flood stage. The dark side of history is regurgitating itself.
I came to Berlin to escape Trump. I teach American history, I don’t want to live it.
Berlin—a graveyard of remembrance, of genocide, of human cruelty—is having none of that. The city is strong-arming my conscience with the history I teach. I’m sleeping worse than a WWII German soldier under bombardment.
Near the Brandenburg Gate, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe crouches on the ground. The maze of undulating, dark grey concrete blocks are symbolic tombstones, nameless markers for the missing. My body shivers as if my heart has been fast frozen inside a block of ice, then shattered. Soon, my America will need a similar memorial on the southern border, or maybe at Ellis Island.
Trudging along Berlin’s boulevards, I scrape away the veneer of privilege. Every monument, every memorial, is telling me, “You don’t belong here. Go home. Fight Fascism.”
I arrive at Neue Wache. The domed skylight focuses a single ray of sunlight onto the Mother with Dead Son statue. Inside the tomb, buried together, are the remains of an unknown soldier and an unknown concentration camp victim.
The stillness of the air prays for peace. Alongside me, a young mother pushing a stroller and a bent man with a tattered beard—the past and the future—stare. Mute and unmoving. Like two unlit votive candles. They’re cloaked in the solitude of sorrow.
I don’t have tears large enough to ever return to Neue Wache. Never again.
Across town, the Jewish Museum is another sacred space. From the sky, it is formed like a tortured Star of David. Inside, the galleries have angled floors, canted beams, narrow windows. Massive concrete walls collide. Disjointed hallways lead to empty spaces which lead to dead ends. Museum claustrophobia crawls into my armpits.
Jewish family life under twelve years of Nazi terror is revealed in 9,500 works of art, 7,000 household objects, 24,000 photographs. One day, major American cities will have history museums dedicated to the Hispanic families living through the Trump Terrors.
I came here to stop tracking the demagogues shredding my democracy. To blot out the despicables who hate others more than they love their country. To flee the headlines about masked government thugs doing the work of white nationalism.
But Trump has followed me to Berlin. He’s broken me. He scared me into abandoning my country.
Trump’s Hitler-like superpower is bringing out the worst in me. He’s taught me to hate and fear. To hate him and fear the mini-fuhrers who follow him.
“Heil Trump!”
