Students are comparing Trump’s win to the Holocaust. It needs to stop

On college campuses, the reaction to Donald Trump winning the presidential election last week has gone from sadness to madness to ignorance and bigotry. Hundreds of George Washington University students participated in a “post-election group cry,” where at least one student compared Trump’s victory to Kristallnacht, or the night of broken glass in Nazi Germany when nearly 100 Jews were murdered.

The student newspaper at Indiana University made a similar comparison. The Indiana Daily Student reported an increase in “hate crimes” since the election, and interviewed Bloomington high school German teacher Vanessa Domizlaff, who said, “Nov. 9 plays out as a significant date, and it keeps resurfacing as a significant moment where there is a huge shift in power.”

“What’s making me fearful is this violence that we have been seeing, and now it’s coming into expression,” Domizlaff said. “Mostly because people are gaining bravery, and it is exactly how Kristallnacht came into form. It gave nameless brown shirts the power to bully.”

As the grandson of Holocaust survivors, I believe these comparisons need to stop.

Comparing the looting of Jewish businesses, synagogues, and homes, which started on Nov. 9, 1941, to Trump capturing the presidency on Nov. 8, 2016, is bigoted. Aside from incorrectly comparing the dates of these events, students are either misinformed or don’t care to learn about Kristallnacht.