By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
KEENE – State Sen. Jay Kahn’s parents, Jews from Germany, came to the Unites States when they fled the Holocaust. Kahn, D-Keene, said he remembers saying to his mother that something like that will never happen in America.
“I felt so secure in my home, and then I noticed over the last half dozen years it might happen here,” Kahn said. “The seeds of hate are present everywhere.”
Kahn led a ceremony on Monday held in Keene’s Central Square to commemorate Genocide Awareness Month, an initiative Kahn pushed for years ago when he was an administrator at Keene State College.
Peter McBride, the director of the Cohen Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College, said care must be taken now as the conditions are ripe for “terrible things.”
“Many of the things that are going around us we could consider to be the precursor to genocide,” McBride said. “We need to care for one another and be careful of the signs.”
Last week saw the murder of six Asian American women in a Georgia shooting where a white male shooter killed eight people, as there has been a rise of anti-Asian hate crimes and sentiment. Keene resident Ken Jue said many Asian Americans have known this hate and bigotry for a long time.
“I’ve known it all my life,” Jue said.
Dr. Yves Pacifique Gakunde, originally from Rwanda, is the Environmental Preferred Purchasing Program Coordinator for the City of Keene. He said America needs to pay attention to the dehumanization and acts of violence that are increasing throughout the country.
“I always ask myself why we have not learned from our past mistakes,” Gakunde said. “Some people may think that is the past, or that was far away from this community or this country. I have bad news for you. Yesterday was Cambodia or Rwanda, but tomorrow it could be any community including this country. No community is immunized from genocide and mass killings.”
Keene is leading the state in recognizing Genocide Awareness Month, and Mayor George Hansel said that in partnership with Keene State College, the community can take a global leadership position on educating and warning the world about the dangers.
“We have a very loud voice,” Hansel said.
The Cheshire County area is home to members of the Proud Boys, and anti-Semitic hate groups that took part in the Jan. 6 siege on the United States Capitol building. It is also home to the Soaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, a religious community considered to be a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and whose members have gone on the record denying facts about the Holocaust.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, nearly every state in New England experienced a significant rise in white supremacist propaganda in the last year.
Massachusetts recorded 276 incidents of white supremacist propaganda in 2020, compared to 147 in 2019 and 35 in 2018; followed by Vermont with 150 incidents in 2020, compared to 81 in 2019, and 14 in 2018; Rhode Island saw 52 incidents in 2020, compared to 10 in 2019, and 4 in 2018; New Hampshire had 48 incidents in 2020, compared to 29 in 2019 and 3 in 2018; and Maine had 13 incidents in 2020, compared to 14 in 2019 and 13 in 2018.