An informative, detailed piece at Beliefnet of an Austrian woman, Kitty Werthmann, who describes how Austria voted for Adolph Hitler, then documents her eye witness account of his regimes rise and takeover, regulations, euthanasia, gun confiscation and more.
My headline comes from the end of the must-read piece, where she states "Then they took our guns."
“Next came gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long afterwards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.Read the entire piece, it is well worth the time it takes.
“No more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up.
“Totalitarianism didn’t come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.”
“This is my eye-witness account.
“It’s true. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity.
“America is truly is the greatest country in the world.
“Don’t let freedom slip away.
“After America, there is no place to go.”
Ms. Werthman is not the only one that has tried to warn America.
In 2011, Russian immigrants in New York, those that lived through communism and came to America to be free, aligned themselves with Republicans, because they said Democratic policies were 'too socialistic" with their focus on "on “income redistribution” and rich-versus-poor “class war," and called it too painful for them to see.
These are people who have lived through the worst of communism, socialism and in Ms. Werthman's case, watched the rise of fall of Hitler up close and personal, and they are warning Americans of where they see the country heading.
The question is if Americans will heed their warning or will we allow ourselves to be led like sheep to slaughter by the liberal segment of our population.