Marta and Curt came to Washington

A different time. A different America.

So Stan Pearlman, my father and best friend, died on Dec. 20, 2023, and a couple of months later—while going through the drawers of his office desk—I stumbled upon an envelope that held 30 or so slides.

I proceeded to forget about them and forget about them and forget about them … until, oh, a month ago, when I finally dropped the bundle off at a local shop that specializes in digitalization.

This past weekend, I received the images.

And they were … magical. And emotional. And heartbreaking. And heartwarming. My grandparents rowing a boat. My mom and dad as new parents. All the neighborhood kids on my red deck. All vivid and bright and staring into my soul.

One picture, in particular, stood out. I have placed it at the top of this post. I am guessing it was taken in, oh, the mid-1960s.

The people you are looking at are my maternal grandparents—Marta and Curt Herz. They escaped Nazi Germany in 1937, came to New York via boat, stayed with a cousin while working as janitors at a movie theater. They lost everything—family, wealth, comforts. But came here because, in America, they saw a savior.

They saw a light.

I bring this up because as we speak a man named Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who also came to America chasing that light, sits in a notorious gang prison in El Salvador. He was, it turns out, an innocent person swooped up by an ICE unit determined to obey a lawless aspiring dictator. Garcia is married to a United States citizen; he has three American children; he was never charged or convicted of any crimes. He is one of a growing number of immigrants, in the United States legally, who are being kidnapped by our government and taken to undisclosed locations. If it feels eerily Nazi-like to you, don’t dismiss that feeling. Don’t brush it off.

Furthermore, as you read this, ask yourself: Why are we not up in arms about this? Why are we not marching through the streets demanding Garcia’s return? Why have we turned so numb, so disinterested, so lazy?

What happened to the America Marta and Curt sought to find?

Where is the light?