A THREAD: Hi, Benni here! If you don’t know, I was born and raised in Germany. Svetlana moved here when she was five. Here, every German child is put through many many classes of history at school. As a child though you don’t really understand what they are trying to tell you.

You watch a lot of old grainy black and white films of politicians shouting in German, read lots of texts of which German political party did what to harden their follower’s believes and world view and eventually see videos of dead bodies being carried out of concentration camps.

As a child I was horrified but ultimately thought of it as ancient history. German politics is so very different today. People might not agree on how to bring the country forward but they mostly all agree that it actually needs to go forward. We share basic human principles.

Seeing all these images from the US however shows me that a lot of people still make the same mistakes. EVERYONE should be on the street when minorities get attacked. Everyone should be on the street when media gets censored and harassed. No matter the reason.

When years of German history class has taught me one thing it’s that most of the horrible things here could have been prevented if more peope stood up for each other, ESPECIALLY when it‘s not them who are affected. Everyone deserves the same dignity and respect.

Svetlana agrees but I‘m better at putting this into words.