Build Better
Build Better March 30, 2026 When you walk through the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial at the Wassmuth Center, you are surrounded by the ideas of people who changed the world: Frederick Douglass, Mahatma Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr. Their words are etched in stone because they spoke truths that endure, truths that point toward something larger than any single life. But none of the people quoted on those walls were perfect. Some caused real harm. And the Memorial does not ask us to pretend otherwise. The Memorial asks something harder: to accept that a person can articulate a profound truth about human dignity and still fail to live it fully. Wisdom can come from flawed sources. The work of justice has never depended on finding perfect leaders, but on building shared commitments strong enough to outlast any individual’s failures. This tension is in the news right now. A recent New York Times investigation revealed that Cesar Chávez — who organized one of the most important labor movements in American history, giving voice and power to farmworkers — sexually abused women and girls within the movement. Dolores Huerta, who co-founded United Farm Workers with Chávez, has come forward at age 95 to say that she, too, was assaulted. The courage and sacrifice of that movement were real. And so was the abuse. Huerta’s decades of silence reveal how deeply hierarchical movements can trap even the strongest people inside systems that prioritize a leader’s reputation over the safety of the people they were built to protect. This is not a new story. We have seen it in religious institutions, political parties, corporations, entertainment industries, and in the revelations of the Epstein files. The settings change; the structure repeats. When a movement focuses on a person rather than a set of principles, protecting that individual becomes paramount, and the people the movement was meant to serve become expendable. The lesson is not that leaders don’t matter. They do. But when we place people on pedestals, we create the conditions for the very abuses we are working to prevent. Pedestals concentrate power. They discourage dissent. They make it easy for those closest to a leader to look away, and for those harmed to believe that their suffering is a necessary cost. What if we built differently? We have evidence that it is possible. When white supremacist groups established a compound in northern Idaho in the 1970s, the community’s response could have coalesced around a single charismatic figure. Instead, Bill Wassmuth and others deliberately built a coalition: the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations. Its leadership was distributed across clergy, educators, business owners, law enforcement, and neighbors. The work belonged to the community, not to one person. Years of threats and intimidation tested the coalition’s resolve. And when Wassmuth eventually left Idaho, the movement did not collapse — because it had never depended on him alone. The principles held. The coalition outlasted the hate groups it was built to confront, enduring through the work of organizations, including the Wassmuth Center. That model — principles over personality, shared ownership over hierarchy — is what we carry forward today through the Wassmuth Powerful Practices that guide our work. These practices are designed to be lived by everyone, not held by any one person. Here is what that looks like: Design for Belonging — shaping the spaces and systems around us so that everyone is included and able to fully participate — means no one has to trade their safety for access. Listen Deeply — offering your full presence without judgment or the impulse to fix — creates the conditions for people to speak the truths that hierarchies silence. Stay Curious — approaching people and situations with openness and humility — helps organizations catch their own blind spots before they harden into culture. Notice and Name Bright Spots — looking for what is working and saying so out loud — builds momentum without requiring a single heroic figure to carry it. Align Actions with Values — pausing to check our commitments before we make decisions, especially in moments of conflict — is the discipline that keeps a movement honest when it would be easier to look away. Collect Joy — savoring and sharing moments of connection and delight that sustain us — ensures that endurance does not come at the expense of wholeness. These practices do not rise or fall with any single leader. They are habits that any person, in any role, can take up — at a kitchen table, in a classroom, at a board meeting, or in a movement for justice. They distribute leadership across a community rather than concentrating it at the top. We can learn from the people whose words live in the Memorial without idolizing them. We can honor what Chávez’s work accomplished while refusing to excuse what it cost the people inside the movement. We can hold Huerta’s lifetime of courageous leadership in one hand and her agonizing silence in the other, and let both sharpen our resolve to build structures where no one has to make that choice. The bright spots in history are real. So are the failures. The question is whether we build organizations and movements that learn from both, or keep replicating systems that demand loyalty to people over fidelity to shared commitments. The wise words that fill the Memorial were not carved in stone to honor the people who said them. They are there to inspire and challenge us. This is the unfinished work: to build something together that embodies our highest values.
The Imagination Gap
The Imagination Gap March 23, 2026 Whether we recognize it or not, we are constantly deciding how much other people’s lives matter to us — in the stories we tell, the policies we tolerate, and in the moments we speak up or stay silent. Dignity is not something we grant. It is something we acknowledge. Or fail to. And what is being tested, what has always been tested, is whether we actually believe that every person’s life is valuable. Most of us would say yes without hesitation. But belief is not the same as imagination. And imagination — the capacity to feel the weight of someone else’s experience as equal to our own — is where we most often fail. It is not a failure of information. It never has been. In 1942, when Japanese American families on the West Coast were forced from their homes, their businesses, and their communities, the facts were not hidden. Neighbors watched it happen. They saw the suitcases, the boarded-up storefronts, the children pulled from school. Most did not act out of hatred. Many simply could not imagine themselves in those families’ place. The suffering was visible, but it did not register as urgent — because it was happening to someone else. A decade earlier, as Mexican American families were swept up in mass deportation campaigns that removed as many as two million people from the country, including many American citizens, the same dynamic held. Families who had lived in their communities for decades were loaded onto trains heading south. The loss was enormous and the injustice was plain, but for most of those unaffected, it remained someone else’s problem. That pattern has never stopped. When we read a headline today about families being separated, most of us feel a flicker of concern — and then we scroll past. Not because we are cruel, but because those families remain abstract. We do not know their histories, their hopes, their lives. Without that specificity, suffering stays at a comfortable distance. But consider what changes when a story becomes particular, when the headline becomes a mother in your community who fled violence, rebuilt her life, and now faces deportation to a country where she has no one left. Suddenly the policy is not a debate. It is life. This is why the Dignity Dispatch exists. Not to tell you what to think, but to close the distance between the abstract and the personal. Each week we share history that reveals patterns, stories that make those patterns personal, and concrete ways to act on what you learn. Because the gap between knowing that injustice exists and feeling compelled to address it is almost always a gap of imagination. When a policy affects someone you can picture — a friend, a neighbor, a family you have come to know through their story — it becomes much harder to look away. We are not asking you to carry the weight of every injustice at once. We are inviting you to widen, just slightly, the circle of lives you pay attention to. Read one story this week about someone whose experience is unfamiliar. Learn one piece of history you were not taught. Ask one question about who is affected by a decision you previously took for granted. These are small acts, but they are the building blocks of a more imaginative — and therefore more just — community. The opposite of injustice is not perfection. It is attention.
The Rooms We Build
This is ultimately the work. Not perfect institutions, but open doors. Not grand gestures, but the steady, faithful practice of asking, every time we gather:
Who is not yet here? What would it take to make room?
Who is here, but feels like they don’t belong? What would it take to welcome and value them?
These questions, asked seriously and often, are how we keep building the rooms we all long to live in.
Architects of a More Just and Peaceful World
Architects of a More Just and Peaceful World March 9, 2026 The flowers and posts from yesterday’s International Women’s Day are still fresh, and Women’s History Month asks us to keep this energy alive. We must reckon honestly with how far women have brought this world, how much further there is to go, and what is ours to do next. The rights of women — hard-won over generations of organizing and sacrifice — are now under coordinated attack. Reproductive autonomy is being legislated away. Gender-based violence remains pandemic in scale. Economic inequality persists with stubborn consistency. And the institutions designed to protect human rights are weakening at precisely the moment they are needed most. History is consistent on this point: where women’s rights contract, instability grows. This and the unraveling of peace are not separate crises. They move together. We are living through a time of extraordinary global conflict. The number of active wars has grown year over year, and 2026 is on pace to be the most violent year in recent memory. As we see the war in Iran expand across the region, adding to the crises of Ukraine, Sudan, and others, we rightly wonder: how do we build peace? New technologies make conflict more precise and, paradoxically, more remote — distancing decision-makers from the human cost of what they unleash. We have centuries of history showing us the steps that lead here. And yet, we repeat them with devastating outcomes. That is why conflict and peacebuilding — and the women who have always been at the center of both — deserve our focus. Far from bystanders, these women have often shouldered the costs of conflict and led the work of rebuilding. While men die in disproportionate numbers on the front lines — a loss that hollows out families and communities in ways that reverberate for generations — women face a different and targeted brutality. Sexual violence is frequently deployed as a deliberate strategy, a weapon of terror and destabilization. The women of Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Ukraine, Sudan, and so many other places know this reality intimately. They are often the ones left to hold everything together when the fighting moves on: raising children alone, rebuilding economic life, tending to the traumatized and the grieving. The burden of survival falls heavily on their backs. And still: they build. Women have always been at the center of rebuilding what violence destroys. Not because they are peripheral to power, but because they have so often been excluded from the rooms where war begins, they have built different rooms entirely. Rooms where the conversation is about what people actually need: food, safety, education, healthcare, a future worth building together. Increasingly, women also serve in uniform as soldiers and as a growing presence in international peacekeeping forces. Research consistently shows their participation improves outcomes for civilian populations. And their work does not begin when the guns go quiet. Peacebuilding is prevention as much as repair. It is tending the conditions that allow communities to survive and, eventually, to thrive. In 1977, a Kenyan woman named Wangari Muta Maathai started planting trees. She had watched poverty and ecological destruction erode her community and recognized them as the kind of instability from which conflict grows. She started by teaching women to plant and care for trees, one at a time. This Green Belt Movement grew into a force that restored land, created livelihoods, and helped women build confidence and civic voice. Desertification that had left communities destitute began to reverse. The movement spread across the continent and demonstrated that peacebuilding does not always begin at a negotiating table. Sometimes it starts with a seed and a woman who believes a better future is possible. This Women’s History Month calls us not only to celebrate what women have built, but to protect the rights that make that work possible. Women have always been among the most powerful architects of a more just and peaceful world — in movements that span continents and in the church groups, book clubs, and community organizations that sustain connection and belonging when the world feels like it is pulling apart. Understanding this history is not an act of nostalgia. It is how we find our footing, recognize what is ours to do, and build the kind of future we know is possible.
Progress is Not Permanent
Progress is Not Permanent March 2, 2026 Women today are more educated, economically independent, and politically represented than at any point in human history. And those gains are under attack. In country after country, progress is being met with organized resistance. Rights that took generations to secure are being contested, narrowed, and in some places eliminated. Progress and regression are unfolding simultaneously, and history reminds us that neither direction is guaranteed. Human dignity is not conditional. It does not depend on geography, ideology, or election cycles. But around the world, women and girls encounter laws and cultural norms that treat their rights as negotiable. Women’s History Month invites us to celebrate hard-won advances, and to name the work that remains. Rights rarely disappear overnight. They erode — incrementally, strategically, and often under the language of reform or as a return to “traditional values.” In the United States, this erosion has taken the form of organized anti-democracy and White Christian nationalist movements calling for rigid, hierarchical systems rooted in patriarchal authority — systems that begin in the family and extend outward into civic life, resting on the premise that men hold primary authority while women and children occupy subordinate roles. The consequences are significant. Since 2021, thirteen states have enacted abortion bans. In some of those states, women have faced delayed or denied care for ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, and cancer treatment while legal teams debate whether their conditions qualify as emergencies. Bodily autonomy has become geographically determined. Legislative efforts in multiple states are also working to narrow protections against discrimination. At the federal level, policy blueprints such as Project 2025 and Project 2026 outline sweeping changes that could weaken education, employment, healthcare, and voting rights. These are not hypothetical threats. They are policy positions with named authors, legislative sponsors, and implementation timelines. The same pattern is visible globally, and the warning signs are even starker. In Afghanistan, girls remain barred from secondary and university education. Just six years ago, Afghan women held more than a quarter of the seats in Parliament. Today, women are excluded from national leadership, and many former officials live in exile. The near-erasure of women from public life illustrates how quickly rights can disappear when institutions fail to protect them. Democratic backsliding in countries such as Hungary, Israel, and Turkey has also coincided with declining women’s political representation and weakened legal protections. History is consistent: when women’s rights contract, broader human rights instability often follows. The status of women is an indicator of democratic health. This is precisely where education becomes prevention. When people understand how dehumanization works — the ways language shifts, legal standards narrow, and normalization dulls concern — they are better prepared to interrupt it. The loss of rights rarely begins with a single dramatic event. It starts when harmful ideas go unchallenged and small changes go unquestioned. The forces working against women’s rights are real, organized, and growing. So is our capacity to respond. The question before us is not whether these challenges exist. They do. But history also tells us this: when people choose to meet such moments with courage and conviction, progress that once seemed impossible is eventually won.
Choosing Compassion
Choosing Compassion February 23, 2026 When you walk into the Philip E. Batt Education Building at the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights, you are not simply entering a building. You are stepping into an ongoing conversation about human rights. More than 30 works of art line the walls and fill the alcoves, each inviting reflection on what it means to live in community with others. One of the most striking pieces is Compassion, painted by Mary Frances Donelinger. The painting is a visual meditation on interdependence — a reminder that no life stands alone and that communities endure through mutual care. At its center are words from a Catholic nun who inspired Bill Wassmuth, the Center’s namesake. Sister Joan D. Chittister reminds us: Compassion is not sympathy. Compassion is mercy. It is a commitment to take responsibility for the sufferings of others. Compassion makes no distinction between friends and enemies, neighbors and outsiders, compatriots and foreigners. Compassion is the gate to human community. That image of compassion as a gate feels especially poignant now. A gate is not a symbolic decoration; it determines who is welcomed, protected, or turned away. In moments of social tension, the question is not whether we admire compassion, but if we use it to drive our collective decisions and keep the gate open. When compassion guides decision-making, it opens pathways to stronger care systems and a deeper recognition that our well-being is intertwined. Yet we are living in a moment when compassion itself is increasingly contested. Rather than focusing on the urgent challenges facing Idaho families — access to healthcare, economic stability, safety, and opportunity — some proposals emerging from the Statehouse risk narrowing who is considered worthy of care, who is allowed through the gate. A bill introduced last week, for example, would criminalize certain forms of assistance to people who are undocumented. For faith communities, food pantries, domestic violence shelters, and after-school programs, this could create an impossible moral position: serve neighbors in crisis or face legal consequences. Behind policy language are real people seeking safety, stability, and dignity whose lives are directly impacted by our collective compassion. Beyond policy specifics lies a deeper question about the kind of community we are building. Laws and public rhetoric do more than regulate behavior; they signal whose suffering matters and whose humanity is recognized. When compassion is framed as weakness or dismissed as naive, exclusion can begin to seem normal. This is often how human rights violations begin. Gradual shifts in language and priorities make it easier to look away from the suffering of others. And still, compassion remains one of humanity’s most enduring values. Last week’s rare overlap of Lent and Ramadan offers a reminder of our shared moral inheritance. Though rooted in different faith traditions, both observances invite reflection, restraint, and generosity. They encourage people to notice suffering — their own and others’ — and respond with intention. The calendars may not often align, but the message is consistent: communities grow stronger when compassion is practiced. Ultimately, compassion is a daily decision to widen the circle of care, especially when doing so feels inconvenient, uncomfortable, or unpopular. It asks us to resist the temptation to divide the world into those who deserve dignity and those who do not. As civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson encouraged us, “Never look down on anybody unless you are helping them up.” His words name compassion for what it truly is: a practice of meeting vulnerability with care, a way of keeping the gate to community open even when it is difficult. Every act of care — expressed through public policy, advocacy, or everyday kindness — becomes a hand on that gate. Each time we choose compassion, we push it open a little wider, creating space for dignity and belonging. When fear urges us to close it, we can be strong and hold it open for one another. Healthy communities are not built by deciding who must stand outside, but by choosing to let compassion guide who we become together.
Strength in Community
Strength in Community February 16, 2026 A room full of people committed to connecting, learning, and creating compassionate communities carries real power. This spirit is at the heart of our work at the Wassmuth Center, and it came vividly to life at last month’s Cultivating Compassionate Communities Conference. Nearly 300 people gathered not simply to attend an event, but to practice what it means to be in community — listening across differences, grappling with complexities, and imagining how to create a more just and joyful world. The Wassmuth Center’s third annual conference became a living example of how communities grow stronger when people come together with curiosity and courage. Throughout the day, participants engaged in sessions and conversations that invited reflection and action. Whether exploring how to rebuild connection across deep divides, examining the neuroscience of compassion, or wrestling with what authentic allyship looks like in practice, we leaned into learning that was both challenging and hopeful. This year’s conference theme — Everyone Is Welcome Here – Let’s Make It Real — invited participants to move beyond aspirational language and consider what belonging actually requires. Across sessions and conversations, we explored what it looks like to create more welcoming schools, workplaces, congregations, neighborhoods, and civic spaces through thoughtful design, courageous leadership, and daily practices that honor the dignity of all people. Keynote speaker Dr. Mitchell Maki grounded these ideas in history, sharing the story of Japanese American incarceration during World War II and the long struggle for redress that followed. His reflections challenged us to learn from the most difficult chapters of our country’s past so we can develop the moral clarity to recognize and respond to injustice in our own time. There was an unmistakable energy throughout the day: warm exchanges in-between strangers, serious questions posed, and a shared recognition that the challenges before us are significant but not insurmountable. Participants left with new relationships, deeper knowledge, practical tools, and a renewed commitment to stay engaged in their communities. Whether or not you were able to join us for this year’s conference, we encourage you to seek out places to connect, learn, and create. From neighborhood associations to faith communities, workplaces to classrooms, there are countless ways to step into this important work and draw strength and courage from each other.
How Will We Respond?
How Will We Respond? February 9, 2026 From the halls of the Idaho Statehouse to a Boise sidewalk to the social media account of the US president, we have seen how quickly dignity can be violated. The events of the past week are not isolated or unprecedented. They reflect a recurring dynamic in American history: during periods of political anxiety and social change, pressure mounts to silence dissent, mark certain communities as suspect, and test how firmly we will defend one another’s humanity. Again and again, ordinary people are faced with the same question: Will we accept these erosions as inevitable or respond with courage and care? In Idaho, that question surfaced when a veteran public servant with more than three decades of experience protecting civil rights was abruptly removed from the Idaho Human Rights Commission. This happened after controversy arose over the concerns she shared online about the killing of Alex Pretti and ICE activity in Minnesota. Estella Zamora’s reappointment was withdrawn before legislators could vote to confirm her. Zamora’s removal echoes earlier chapters in history when those charged with protecting democratic values were pushed out for speaking too plainly. During the civil rights era, educators and government workers lost their positions for opposing segregation or advocating too openly for equal protection under the law. The consequences were lasting: institutions weakened, expertise was lost, and the public was clearly sent the message that defending human dignity carries personal risk. In this case, Zamora was effectively sidelined for speaking in defense of human rights, illustrating how easily principled voices can be silenced when moral clarity becomes politically inconvenient. Then, on Friday, a wave of fear swept through a Boise neighborhood when a parent was taken by federal officers outside a preschool during morning drop-off. No warrant was shown, and the targeting of a Latino parent sent a chilling signal of racial profiling. Scenes like this are unfolding across the country. We have also seen this kind of action repeated throughout US history — from the immigration raids that followed World War I to the mass deportation campaigns of the 1950s that relied on public visibility to intimidate entire communities. The impact has always extended far beyond the individuals detained: children traumatized, families separated, and communities forced to live with constant uncertainty. In Boise, school district leaders moved quickly to reassure families about students’ rights, but the sense of vulnerability lingers, especially for people of color. Nationally, another familiar warning sign appeared when a video posted on the president’s social media account depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes as part of a video promoting false claims about the 2020 election. And while the clip was widely condemned and eventually removed, it demonstrates how rapidly dehumanizing narratives can spread. Such imagery draws from a long history of racist caricature used to discredit leaders, suppress political participation, and justify exclusion. These tactics have repeatedly been employed when democratic norms are under strain and when weakening trust in shared humanity becomes a tool for consolidating power. Taken together, these events reveal a broader pattern of dignity violations. They show how quickly people can be reduced to symbols in political conflicts rather than recognized as full human beings with families, histories, and hopes. These moments are pivotal – not only for those directly harmed, but for the communities that decide whether to look away or speak up. When tension rises, we face a choice. The most durable progress in our history has come when people invested more deeply in relationships, slowed their judgements, widened their listening, and insisted that every person’s worth is non-negotiable. This is not idealism. It is a proven civic practice. Improving our communities has always depended on people willing to hold fast to shared humanity even – and especially – when it is unpopular or inconvenient. We do not need to share political views to share a commitment to one another’s humanity. Communities endure not because they avoid disagreement, but because they refuse to let disagreement eclipse compassion. A just society is sustained through transparency, restraint, courage, and the daily practice of treating one another as neighbors first. So how can you make that commitment tangible where you live? Reach out to someone who feels shaken. Support educators and families trying to keep children steady in uncertain times. Participate in local civic life with curiosity rather than contempt. Small acts of presence, multiplied across cities and states, have always been the foundation of meaningful change. Our future will not be determined only by what happens in capitol buildings or on national stages. It will be shaped in kitchens and classrooms, community halls and front yards — places where people like us show up for one another and choose dignity over division and connection over fear.
Equal Protection
Strong Communities Require Equal Protection Under the Law February 2, 2026 Idaho prides itself on strong communities where neighbors look out for one another and everyone has the opportunity to contribute meaningfully and live with dignity. For generations, Idahoans across the political spectrum have embraced the hard work needed to build these communities. Fairness, personal responsibility, and respect for one another are not partisan ideals; these values are the foundation of Idaho’s civic character. Today, that foundation is under pressure, and our character — and the direction the country could take — is being tested. A newly introduced piece of legislation would prevent Idaho cities and counties from adopting local anti-discrimination protections that go beyond state law. Because Idaho’s Human Rights Act does not include sexual orientation or gender identity, the measure would eliminate some of the only legal safeguards currently available to LGBTQ+ residents in parts of the state. At its core, this bill raises a fundamental question: Are all people entitled to equal protection under the law? Idaho’s history shows that equality has often been contested. In the 1990s, voters came close to passing Proposition 1. This ballot initiative would have barred state and local governments from recognizing LGBTQ+ people as a protected class or extending legal safeguards based on sexual orientation, effectively locking discrimination into statute and preventing future efforts to protect civil rights. While that measure failed, Idaho did not act to close existing gaps. The Legislature has refused to “Add the Words” to the Idaho Human Rights Act to include sexual orientation and gender identity. As a result, LGBTQ+ Idahoans are left without consistent statewide protections, and the state has become a testing ground for policies that could serve as a model for exclusion in other parts of the country. The consequences of this policy are real. Without clear statewide safeguards, individuals have reported being denied housing, passed over for jobs, and turned away from businesses. Families face uncertainty about whether they can remain safely in their hometowns. Young people are growing up amid public debates questioning their worth as people. These conditions strain mental health, contribute to youth isolation and suicide risk, and undermine trust in public institutions meant to protect everyone equally. In response, communities across Idaho have stepped in to uphold equality locally. Two counties and a dozen Idaho cities, including Idaho Falls, Meridian, Sandpoint, Boise, and Driggs, have adopted ordinances affirming that discrimination has no place in their communities. In the absence of comprehensive statewide protections, these measures have helped establish clearer standards for fairness, safety, and accountability. They reflect the widely held belief that strong communities depend on respecting every person’s rights. They also demonstrate that inclusion and economic vitality go hand in hand; many of these localities rank among Idaho’s most dynamic centers for innovation and growth. The proposed legislation threatens to undo much of this progress. Removing these protections would carry serious human consequences and weaken Idaho’s social and economic fabric. At a time when the state is grappling with budget shortfalls, potential Medicaid reductions, and job losses, policies that allow discrimination risk destabilizing communities and discouraging businesses from locating or expanding here. Idaho has long valued pulling together and taking care of each other in difficult times. Inviting exclusion and discrimination runs counter to this tradition. The stakes extend beyond economics or local governance. For decades, Idaho has wrestled with how best to ensure that LGBTQ+ residents and others excluded from protective policies can live safely and without fear. Local ordinances have helped narrow that gap. This legislation threatens to undo that progress. Protecting people from discrimination — regardless of who they are or whom they love — is not merely a legal question. It is a declaration of our shared values and a measure of Idaho’s commitment to equality. At this pivotal moment, Idaho faces a choice — and the rest of the country should pay attention. Communities thrive when every person’s rights and humanity are respected. By learning from history and reaffirming our shared commitment to fairness, Idaho can continue building a state where every neighbor is seen, valued, and safe.
“Never Again” is a Moral Discipline
“Never Again” is a Moral Discipline January 26, 2026 On Tuesday, January 27, the world will observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day. We commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where an estimated 1.1 million people were systematically murdered by the Nazi regime between 1942 and 1945. When Allied forces entered the camp, they encountered emaciated people suffering from disease and starvation. Barely able to speak, survivors recounted what had taken place. What they described was not random brutality, but deliberate, bureaucratic, and sustained dehumanization — a process that stripped people of dignity, rights, and ultimately life. Remembering history is never only about the past. It is also about recognizing patterns of human behavior so we can work toward a better future. This year it feels especially urgent to remember. Over the past several weeks, events in Minnesota have drawn international attention as our federal government has deployed several thousand agents to the Minneapolis metro area to enforce immigration policies. On Saturday, January 24, ICE agents fatally shot Alex Pretti as he tried to help a woman who had fallen to the ground during a confrontation between agents and protesters. This occurred just two weeks after Nicole Good was killed while serving as a community observer during an enforcement operation. These tragedies have unfolded amid growing public concern about the expansion of government power and violations of people’s constitutional rights. As we mourn this tragic loss of life, we must also recognize the pattern of dehumanization underlying current events. At the Wassmuth Center, we call this progression the Spiral of Injustice — a process in which fear-based rhetoric leads to discriminatory policies, which in turn normalize coercion and violence against entire communities. We must pay attention when groups are portrayed as threats to public order or national identity; when extraordinary enforcement measures become routine; when militarized responses to dissent are called necessary; and when legal authorities expand faster than public accountability. These dynamics mirror the early stages of systems that gradually erode humanity, reducing people to problems to be managed rather than neighbors to be protected. Holocaust remembrance exists precisely to sharpen our moral vision at such moments. We can learn a lot from history about how the Spiral of Injustice devolves. The Nazi regime did not begin with death camps. It began with a series of social and legal measures that systematically marked certain groups as outsiders. The path to Auschwitz started with propaganda that framed Jews, communists, LGBTQ people, individuals with disabilities, and other minorities as threats to society. Identification badges became mandatory, visibly signaling who belonged and who did not. Laws stripped Jews of citizenship and forbade marriages between Jews and non-Jews, formalizing exclusion into the legal code. Jewish-owned businesses were boycotted and seized. What began as discriminatory rhetoric and policy escalated as violence was reframed as protection and exclusion as loyalty. This gradual normalization desensitized people to harm, making more extreme acts possible. The recent surge of federal immigration enforcement and the resulting deaths of civilians in Minneapolis and at detention centers across the country remind us that no societies are immune to such spirals. The atrocities of that era reshaped the world order, and the horror at those grave human rights violations gave rise to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a monumental effort to collectively say never again. Yet as the years pass and fewer survivors remain to share their warnings, the responsibility of remembrance becomes more urgent. Bearing witness to the Holocaust helps us identify warning signs today. We must learn to recognize the language, imagery, and narratives rooted in exclusionary ideologies that continue to circulate. Remember those who were murdered, reflect on the path that led there, and then commit to interrupting the Spiral of Injustice where you live. Check on a neighbor. Join an interfaith gathering. Deepen your understanding through a book. Speak with elected officials. Practice nonviolent responses. We must understand the stakes and act. Stay in community. Stay engaged. Stay aligned with your values. Never again is a moral discipline. Each generation must decide whether dignity will remain an abstraction or become a guiding principle. We honor the victims of the past not only by remembering their suffering, but by insisting — here and now — that fear, hatred, and state power must never eclipse our shared humanity.