I recently watched the meeting between President Trump and El Salvador’s President Bukele with a heaviness in my heart that felt all too familiar. In exchange for generous payment, Bukele offered Trump a commitment to hold undocumented immigrants and other prisoners in a vast and ugly gulag. As I listened to Trump adding that he would like to send American citizens to Bukele’s concentration camps — huge gulags with torture and no return to freedom — I felt the weight of historical patterns repeating themselves, stirring deep echoes of intergenerational trauma.
Trump came into power at the end of January 2025. Now, just three months later, the Salvadorean detention facility is in use. The facility is supposedly there only to hold criminals, but it is already used to stash gays and other people without criminal records. The definition of what Trump calls “really bad people” could expand quickly, leaving countless vulnerable human beings in its wake. This troubling development does more than remind me of my family’s history — it awakens a profound sorrow and urgency that connects past suffering with present danger.
My grandfather was an upright Catholic high school teacher of history and Greek. He loved his family, God, and his country, Germany. In 1933, he was ambushed and beaten by Hitler’s stormtroopers and taken to the police quarters for interrogation. A student had informed authorities that my grandfather, Dr. Paul Baumgart, had spoken critically about the Nazi Party. I can still feel the ripples of fear that must have coursed through my family when, from that point on, my grandparents faced frequent home searches, Paul was forbidden to teach, and a few years later, he was sent to a detention camp for dissidents. This ruthless behavior by the Nazi government was made possible through a combination of emergency decrees, legal manipulations, and the broader erosion of the rule of law — a gradual dismantling of human dignity that began with small compromises.
In January 1933, Hitler came into power. Only three months later, in March 1933, the concentration camp Dachau, near Munich, was opened. Originally, Dachau was built for political prisoners, like trade unionists and socialists. After 1934, Dachau became the prototype for an entire concentration camp system, which eventually held, besides political prisoners, millions of incarcerated Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals — each one a person with dreams, loves, and a life story cruelly interrupted.
In 2024, a few days after the election, I sat with a Mexican-American woman who had voted for Trump. With tears welling in her eyes, she confessed to me, “I thought he was only going to take criminals. Now, many of my immigrant friends are afraid of ICE.” Her voice carried the painful recognition of unintended consequences. A Mexican-American physician shared how he now keeps his passport with him “at all times,” in case he is stopped by ICE — his professional achievements offering no shield against the anxiety of potential profiling. “Parents are now terrified to take their kids to sports games away from their hometown,” a soccer coach revealed, his voice tight with emotion, “because they may be interrogated by police and immigration officials.” This man chose to rent a minibus as an alternative, so all the kids could attend their games — a small act of resistance and care in the face of spreading fear.
If we are not informed, we are like frogs in a pot of water, slowly coming to a boil — our capacity for empathy and moral clarity gradually numbed as the temperature rises. Are we unknowingly gliding into a regimen of terror, as happened in Germany? Are we, like the Germans between 1933 and 1936, becoming complacent in dangerous situations, failing to recognize the looming crisis before us? Germans were gradually losing their freedom of speech and other civil rights. Even German Jews believed, with heartbreaking hope, “Nothing will happen to me, as I fought in WWI” or “I pay my taxes and contribute to the country that will keep me safe.”
A frog gradually gets used to the water in its pot, which becomes hotter and hotter until the animal is boiled alive. Like the frog, we could become accustomed to increasing constraints and controls, our moral sensibilities slowly deteriorating. We might try to cool ourselves down with rationalizations, like “Tariffs take time to work” or “Dictatorship won’t happen in our country,” but the water is about to boil. Do we have the sense to pay attention to the current warning signs, to feel the suffering of those already affected, and address what is happening before it is too late for all of us?
The Trump administration has initiated several measures that civil rights advocates see as threatening our civil liberties. And his actions are only the beginning of this nightmare that touches the lives of real people with families, hopes, and inherent dignity. Staying informed is crucial to avoid getting boiled like this frog. To think about this reality is both frustrating and overwhelming, but it is necessary if we are to preserve our shared humanity.
The Trump administration has taken the following concerning steps that affect the emotional and psychological wellbeing of millions:
• Announcing large-scale deportation operations targeting undocumented immigrants, with rhetoric suggesting far-reaching consequences for immigrant communities — creating traumatic uncertainty for families who have built lives, relationships, and deep connections here.
• Discussions about utilizing facilities outside the United States, such as in El Salvador, to hold certain detainees — separating human beings from legal protections and the compassionate oversight of their communities.
• Plans to mobilize federal law enforcement agencies in immigration enforcement operations — potentially fracturing the trust necessary for healthy communities to thrive.
• Homeland Security initiatives that include monitoring social media for content that could be considered government-critical — chilling the authentic expression that nurtures democratic dialogue.
• Directives affecting educational content in military academies and some federally controlled educational institutions, raising concerns about academic freedom — the lifeblood of critical thinking and empathetic understanding.
These measures are intended to induce fear. They prevent independent thinking and can turn people into drifting numbness, or worse, into hard-boiled frogs — disconnected from their own capacity for compassion and moral courage.
Sadly, 2025 is a time comparable to 1933. But we can still wake up, reconnect with our shared humanity, and find our voices. It is our civic responsibility to do so. Now, and not a moment later, do we need to contemplate which kind of country we want to live in: A place where bullying, blackmail, and revenge are standard modes of relating? A place where nobody is quite sure what a lie is and what the truth is?
Do we want to live in a country where fear permeates everything and where our human ability to trust and to feel safe has been taken away? That is what it is coming to. Right here. Right now. It’s time to turn off the flame, get out of the boiling pot of water, and reclaim our values and our capacity for collective compassion.
To do this:
You cannot stay silent! Your voice carries the weight of humanity’s long struggle for dignity.
You must confront this threat and stop it so that we can return the United States to its ethical high place globally, where the wounds of our past can heal through conscious engagement with the present.
The Germans of 1933 went along with a developing autocracy carelessly, each small compromise eroding their connection to each other’s suffering.
The Americans of 2025 must uncompromisingly resist, with hearts wide open to the pain of others and minds clear about the consequences of complacency.
There is great danger, but also an essential opportunity in this moment. Let’s use this time to feel our hearts, think deeply, and build the country we desire for ourselves, our children, and our grandchildren. Let us be awake and creative while choosing the necessary building blocks for a healthy and free future. Then, we can thrive together, healing the fractures that divide us and creating a society rooted in understanding, compassion, and justice.
