Remembering Berlin, Facing America: Lessons from WWII for Today’s Democracy

"Fascism does not arrive fully formed — it is built, tolerated, and excused until silence becomes complicity. The question is whether we will choose courage now." - Mary Coughlin

Walking through the Road to Berlin exhibit at the National WWII Museum, I was overcome with awe, sorrow, and an uneasy recognition. My husband and I moved slowly through the stories, artifacts, and images, absorbing the weight of a time when the world was forced to confront the spread of fascism.

At the end of the exhibit, we came face-to-face with the Holocaust, not a sudden eruption of evil, but the inevitable result of tolerating scapegoating, marginalization, and dehumanization. It did not happen in a vacuum. It was built step by step: antisemitism tolerated, justice weaponized, truth censored, propaganda embraced, neighbors divided, hate normalized. Each compromise made the next atrocity possible.

And I thought about us, about now.

In the United States today, the same patterns are reemerging. Black and Brown communities continue to be targeted. LGBTQ+ people are vilified. Immigrants are scapegoated. Books are banned, history is distorted, and dissent is silenced. Courts and laws are twisted to shield the powerful and punish the vulnerable. Hatred is not just permitted; it is paraded as virtue.

It is tempting to look back at history and ask, How could they not see it coming? But the more chilling question is: Are we seeing it now and still choosing not to act?

That realization leaves me both scared and resolute. I wonder: if America falters, will the world come to our side? Or will they see us as complicit in our own unraveling?

Yet fear is not the only lesson I carried out of that museum. The story of WWII is also a story of solidarity, of people and nations who, however fractured and late, ultimately chose to act. They chose courage over complicity, truth over propaganda, and human dignity over despair. Evil was not inevitable, and neither was victory. Both were shaped by choices.

The question is whether we will choose courage now.

Reflection & Call to Action

History warns us that fascism thrives on silence, division, and resignation. It advances when ordinary people convince themselves it’s not “their fight.”

But history also shows us that resistance is possible — when people stand up, speak out, protect the vulnerable, and refuse to abandon one another.

So I ask you, as I ask myself:

• Where are you tempted to look away — and what would it mean to look closer instead?

• Whose voices are being silenced around you — and how can you help amplify them?

• What small act of solidarity, courage, or truth-telling can you choose today?

We do not live in a vacuum. The choices we make now will ripple into generations.

History is watching. And so are those who will inherit the world we leave behind.

"Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are,"

In fierce hope,

Mary