US values are threatened by Trump policies

As the Trump administration disappears immigrants into foreign prisons and sees this as a source of American strength, I think back to when my dad was disappeared, why he came to America and, indeed, why I exist.

- Nicholas D Kristof

My dad's journey through war and concentration camps teaches me that authoritarianism does not strengthen a nation and that, notwithstanding Elon Musk’s warning that empathy is “the fundamental weakness of Western civilisation”, it has been one of our national strengths — and that because of our president, it is now in peril.

My father's family was Armenian. During World War II, my family members were living throughout Eastern Europe and were secretly involved in a network that was spying on the Nazis and transmitting information to the West. The Gestapo uncovered the network, and my dad's heroic cousin Izabela was arrested in Poland in 1942 and sent to Auschwitz, along with her daughter, Teresa. Izabela died in Auschwitz, and Teresa was subjected to medical experiments by the Nazis.

My father and other immediate family members were arrested as well for being part of the spy network. But they were detained in Romania, where officials and the police — the “deep state” — shielded them from the Gestapo, so they were imprisoned for a time but survived and were eventually released. (Bribery helped.)