Against just 1 or 6 million, hate matters.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

Usually, in this columnist-reader dance, I'm enlightened in ways that encourage me. You respond to something I've written with insight that helps me see a larger picture or a new perspective.

But, lately, I've been enlightened in ways that, frankly, concern me.

On March 5, I wrote about a Hispanic family in Brownsville whose 28-year-old neighbor, Robert Travis, has placed a sign above an arrow pointing at the Garcias' house, reading: WE MUST PROTECT OUR BORDERS.

The response was a collective ho-hum. Yes, The Register-Guard got a few letters denouncing the guy. I got a few supportive e-mails. But in Brownsville, sources tell me, it's been business as usual. Nobody marched in front of the man's house. No church rose up to show support for the family. The sign is still there.

Admittedly, I'm idealistic; given such a blatant example of hatred, I half-expected a group from Eugene to caravan to Brownsville, bearing organic gifts of good will to the family. And perhaps offering a few signs of their own.

Nope.

Then a week after the Brownsville article, I received more than a dozen e-mails and phone calls from readers - many sounding passionate, some plain angry - that a song about the states I'd referred to in a Q&A column actually dated back long before 1959, as I'd said. And included lyrics different from the ones I'd mentioned.

Hmmm.

The clincher came Tuesday after I'd written about a weird juxtaposition of culture I experienced over the weekend: watching a production of "The Diary of Anne Frank" followed by reading an article about Prussian Blue, a white-nationalist, teenage singing duo with a love for Hitler and a mother who suggests the Holocaust wasn't all that drastic.

Amid a sprinkling of positive responses, I got a list of 66 reasons why the Holocaust is a myth. An e-mail saying that if I believed 6 million Jews died, I was "naive and ignorant." A voice mail saying "the Holocaust is rather overstated." And an e-mail that gave a passionate defense of the twins, their mother and white nationalism in general.

What's wrong with this picture?

What's wrong is that so few of us seem to make the connection between then and now. In a sense, aren't the Garcias of Brownsville, like the Franks of Holland, being forced to live with the threat of bigotry aimed at them each and every day?

What's wrong - and you know I love trivia - is that people seem more concerned about trivial matters such as the words of a silly song than about blatant hatred.

What's wrong is that the leaders of Brownsville are unwilling to publicly decry the actions of a man who's making their community an undesirable place to live.

What's wrong is that people won't take time to read a history book - or take a hard look in the mirror - but will take the time to send me lengthy e-mails defending hatemongers.

"The Holocaust happened," says Nathan Fendrich, whose Holocaust presentations have enlightened high-schoolers in our area for years. "More than 5,000 Jewish villages were wiped off the map for all time. Virtually every Jewish section of every occupied city ceased to exist.

`Most nations, including all European countries, have made separate studies. The evidence is overwhelming. As Churchill put it: `It's probably the worst crime in all of human history.' '

But while it was happening, those who dared call attention to it were mere voices in the wilderness.

My suggestion isn't that 13-year-old twins wearing smiley-face Hitler shirts are the equal of the man himself, or that what's happening to the Garcias is equal to what happened to the Jews.

My suggestion is that whether it's 6 million being killed or one family being held up to daily humiliation, hate is hate. And silence from the rest of us is deadly.

Bob Welch can be reached at 338-2354 or at [e-mail].