Remembering Those Who Suffered and Those Who Saved on Holocaust Remembrance Day

January 27, 2017

The Glenn Beck Program

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Never forget.

Remembering the time I spent in Poland in the gas chambers, on the rail tracks and with brave Christians that saved Jews from death. Here are some images and memories I dug up from an old blog post recounting that experience:

Boarded the plane immediately for a long flight to Poland. We were about to stare evil in the eye.

Having Tania and my four children near me made this pensive flight more bearable. My family slept, read and laughed over the next 12 hours. Tania finished "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom. I had finished it the week before and now was reading all I could to understand the mindset of the Germans, Poles and those rounded up during the seemingly never ending years of the Holocaust. I have never had more nightmares.

I didn’t want to step on that blood soaked land. The sun went down and rose again just as we were about to land. I had slept very little and I was getting sick. By the time we landed I was feverish and exhausted. My body was playing self-defense.

We dropped my family off at the hotel. The children slept for a few hours and then went to the zoo. The adults however would not see their pillows as we had much to do.

Our first stop was the only operating synagogue in Warsaw. It was as rainy, cold and as gray as I had imagined a former Soviet country. I met with the Chief Rabbi of Poland. We had an amazing conversation. And while I was still 18 hours away from the gates, Auschwitz loomed over all of us.

Later, I met with local university students to talk about history, the future and courage.

Always being rushed, never having enough time, I slowed us down again in the Warsaw Ghetto. I couldn’t get over the size of the wall. I tried to imagine the people, sights, sounds and emotions on both sides of that wall. I don’t think there is a better example of the theory of “out of sight, out of mind” --- at least for those on the other side of this wall.

We reflected at a memorial to those lost, ironically, built out of the stone cut for the intended use by Hitler commemorating his Victory. The Lord has a way of making all those who work against Him and His people into Haman of the Old Testament.

Tired, emotionally spent and with my neuropathy finding it’s own again, we arrived at the airport where we had landed just eleven hours earlier. Tomorrow promised the best and worst of humanity.

The first thing you notice in Warsaw is how new everything is --- and also how many ugly gray buildings from the communist years still remain. This is not a country that has seen much prosperity or happiness, at least politically speaking. After the Germans occupied and destroyed the country, their own people and almost all of the Jewish population, they were freed by Stalin’s thugs. They then turned around and did the same thing just with a different attitude and uniform. People still feel the strings a soviet puppet.

Yet the new generation is glorifying the old ways once again. The number of Soviet images you see around out number --- by FAR --- the number of clubs or public images of the Founders in Philadelphia (not including those paid for by the state.)

Freedom is so rare in the history of this planet --- most humans have never tasted it. And those who enjoy the most freedom now are oblivious to not only its scarcity in human history but how fragile and fleeting it really is. Men are at their best when free and closest to the backside of real want. Today, the meaning of want has been carelessly reduced to ‘free wifi’ or the latest Apple gadget. The empty ‘things’ we want are now referred to as things we need.

I wanted to find people who have lived the difference. And I did.

I was expecting to meet two people today before the tour of the camp that understood the difference between want and need --- and also understood duty, honor, compassion and faith. One was a little old lady who just wanted to tell her story. She wanted no credit, no pats on the back, no money, no glory, no nothing --- except to be heard.

She was even hesitant to have her picture taken --- which explains why many of our pictures of her came out like this:

She saved her first Jewish person when she was just 16. Jewish people were only allowed to eat under 300 calories a day, that’s equal to a little more than a bottle of soda. When a hungry Jewish child begged her for food, she told her to meet her the next day. She could have been killed for helping. But did it anyway --- and fed many hungry, starving Jews, saving their lives. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg...

After that overwhelming experience, we slept hard for 6 hours. At the crack of dawn, we are up and fed and ready to hit the road. While this trip was filled with horrifying, unimaginable evil --- there were also moments of light. Like this one taken on a bus in the morning:

Take a good look at that picture. Look closely at our faces. Remember that look --- that was the morning. Tomorrow, you are going to see what just a HALF DAY touring Auschwitz did to those faces. We leave the two small children behind. We will meet them at the airport later. This day will be hard enough to process as an adult.

First stop in Krakow to the grave site of one of the most important rabbis in Jewish history. He was responsible for compiling Jewish law. His grave was meant to be destroyed by the Germans --- just one of the many despicable habits they had --- but as a German solider approached the grave, lightening hit the surrounding fence, jumped to the German’s bayonet and threw him back.

It scared the rest of the soldiers enough that they just left it alone, under a tree. But it didn’t scare them away from the other grave stones... They had plans for the others.

It’s hard to wrap your mind around the evil that goes into something like this. At first glance, this looks like an ordinary stone wall. But this is a wall made entirely of broken headstones:

Many of them have the hands of the Aaronic priesthood blessings. I later found out they not only built the wall, but the destroyed cemeteries and headstones were used for sidewalks! It was overwhelming to see this --- the evil --- they just did not view Jews as human beings. I just kept thinking --- how do people become that evil?

I think I understand EVIL and GOOD more than I ever have before... and the day is just beginning...

Next, Tania and I visited a beautiful synagogue used during the war as a horse stable. Yes, a horse stable. It is in the town much of ‘Schindler’s List’ was filmed. This was a brave community --- they built the synagogue in the 1800s right next to the street. Unusual from a people that feel as though they should almost hide from those that are not Jewish.

Also, my understanding of why Israel is so crucial to not just the Middle East --- but to the entire world --- the best way to prevent another holocaust from happening again is becoming clearer.

When we visited a small town, what appeared to be a grassy field actually turned out to be a stone wall. The remains of a moat from the 1400’s. There was a fire in the town --- and the Jews were being blamed for starting it. The King, who loved the Jews, gave them this part of the town and built the moat, thinking it would keep them safe. The safety only lasted while the King was alive.

THAT’S why it’s so important that Israel is allowed and capable of defending themselves, not through charity or any other country or the U.N. --- because it WILL NOT LAST.

Tomorrow... Auschwitz.

I knew that this day was going to be tough. But other than close, personal tragedies we’ve experienced in our own lives, our day at Auschwitz is hands down the most emotionally difficult thing I’ve ever experienced. If you have been here you know that you will never experience anything like it in your life. Never. I was prepared for something horrifying --- but now I know there is nothing that could ever adequately prepare you for this place...

We had barely made it through half the day, saw the trains and a few other things --- and already the emotion has hit us like a ton of bricks.

And you can see it on our faces:

No matter how many motion pictures you’ve seen or books you’ve read --- you’ve NEVER seen evil like this before. My whole family was afraid to go to Auschwitz, and there’s solid justification for that fear. This history will hit even the most apathetic creature right to the core. But we held each other up --- here’s a picture of our family moments before we went into Auschwitz:

There are many buildings to go through. The whole atmosphere is evil --- strangely as it may seem, the grounds don’t feel evil. But it doesn’t feel good or positive in any way either. The other thing is it’s strangely void of any spirit. It’s like a dead spot on planet earth. I’ve never felt anything like it. But evil was on display at every turn. One building was full of shoes, suitcases, glasses, gold teeth and more. The items were stripped off their victims and redistributed to German citizens.

Each represents a person, a person who was face to face with perhaps the biggest evil the world has ever seen. I was already overwhelmed at this point, but there was another room I hadn’t visited yet. It would be the room that broke me up and pushed me over the edge.

This room was filled with prosthetics and braces — worn into the chambers and later taken off the dead bodies. This was all that was left over:

What remained were only the ones NOT good enough to send to Germans to pass on to their kids and relatives. This was just a fraction of the carnage. My question was --- why didn’t anyone bother to ask where all the free shoes were coming from? The Germans didn’t know? Or was it they just didn’t want to know?

That’s when my daughter just couldn’t take it any longer. She turned around and left the gates. It was extremely painful to watch. But I couldn’t help but think --- if only it were so easy to leave those gates 70 years ago. This is a horrible, horrible place.

But that was just the beginning. Up next we saw the place where they did operations on women --- without anesthesia. The images were so disturbing --- even though we had complete access, everyone just knew it was time to turn the cameras off. We shot nothing. All I can tell you is no one --- and I mean no one --- said a word for several minutes after.

When the Nazi’s weren’t busy torturing prisoners and performing hideous "surgeries" --- they had another pastime: executions.

This wall was for the Polish who betrayed the Germans, and committed horrible crimes like feeding a hungry Jew. Not many Jews were executed here --- the Nazi’s felt it was a waste of resources (bullets) to use them on Jews.

We all stood outside, afraid to go into the final area: the gas chambers. By this point, we thought we knew what we were going to see. But we still had no idea.

This is the gas chamber. In the roof is the square shaft of blue light. This is where the Zyklon B was dropped.

I have always assumed that it killed relatively quickly. But when I saw this wall:

I knew I was wrong.

To stand in this room where hundreds of thousands died was horrifying. The children were always on the top of the bodies. Heroes to the end. the adults all assumed the air would be clearer higher and they tried to give these children a chance to live by holding the up close to the ceiling. It didn’t work. The gas killed everyone --- but not instantly. It took at twenty long horrific minutes. And the walls show it. Many of the children weren’t with their mom or dad, but with strangers. Oh, the special hell that awaited all those who were silent.

When I walked back behind one the execution and rape rooms --- that soldiers used for their own gratification --- there was yet another layer of evil to pile on. It was a swimming pool. Yes, just a few feet away from people (including children) being tortured and murdered --- they were outside enjoying themselves with a nice refreshing soak in the pool.

Even after the gas chamber, we couldn’t leave yet. We walked out of Auschwitz 1 and loaded a bus, tried to eat something even though none of us were hungry, and rested before heading to Birkenau.

We came to a place known as Auschwitz 2 --- many of you may know it as the camp from the film Schindler’s List. Mengele performed most of his experiments here, and almost two million people were murdered here.

We went to the gas chamber of the last camp. The crematorium was built by a private company and had been patented so, in case these acts of horror took off, only they could profit. There were two stories of crematoriums in the camp, and here is the logo of that company on one of the doors:

Aside from moments of tragedy and joy with family --- this day was the most life changing of any in my life. The only thing in my life that has been harder hitting has been the death of a family member. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, but I would wish it for my best friend --- you connect with yourself and history in a way I have never experienced.

The final picture --- a warning put there by us after communism fell. Remember, the horrors we witnessed today were held behind the Iron Curtain until the USSR fell. To me the first part of this plaque says it all:

It is true. I, like my family and probably everyone else who has ever seen this --- was left completely speechless. There’s nothing left to say.

Glenn: Pay attention to what the State Department's RADICAL reset is signaling

John McDonnell / Stringer | Getty Images

For years, the U.S. State Department operated on inertia—an institution locked into a cycle of caution, consensus, and risk aversion.

Speeches were careful, strategies were diluted by committees, and action was often defined by what couldn’t be done. The language was always the same: "nuance," "complexity," "stakeholders." Rarely was it about results.

That has changed.

What’s come out of the State Department in the last hundred days is a complete departure—not just in tone, but in structure.

Under Secretary Rubio, the department isn’t just adjusting tactics. It’s undergoing a philosophical reset.

The most telling shift is this: the department is no longer preoccupied with managing decline or defending abstractions. It’s operating from the premise that U.S. foreign policy must serve actual national interests, not vague global norms or ideological missions.

Look at the key decisions. The Global Engagement Center—an office that claimed to combat disinformation but increasingly acted as an internal censorship tool—is gone. Not repurposed. Not renamed. Eliminated. Aid programs that masked themselves as diplomacy while undermining core U.S. positions have been cut. Contracts to NGOs with open hostility toward U.S. policy goals? Revoked.

This isn’t cosmetic. It’s structural.

The department’s reorganization is consolidating power downward—removing bureaucratic silos, emphasizing merit over ideology, and restoring clarity to diplomatic goals. This isn’t about optics. It’s about removing friction between strategy and implementation. On immigration and border enforcement, there’s now a foreign policy posture that treats visa privileges as exactly that—privileges, not entitlements. Visa holders who break laws or support terrorist groups lose their status. Period. No press conference required. Just enforcement.

Regional partnerships are now framed by expectations, not entanglements.

Countries that allow mass illegal migration into the U.S. are being held accountable. Agreements are being structured around reciprocity. When those agreements are ignored, consequences follow. China’s influence in the Western Hemisphere, long treated as inevitable, has been directly challenged. Beijing’s role in Panama, particularly regarding the canal, has been dismantled through diplomacy backed by leverage, not lectures. That wasn’t done through press statements—it required statecraft, pressure, and the willingness to say no.

In Europe, there’s been a reframing of NATO obligations. Not as symbolic unity, but as measurable responsibility. The benchmark is no longer two percent. The conversation is now five. That changes the nature of the alliance. In Africa, the posture is shifting from dependency to commercial engagement. Trade, not aid. Access, not assistance. Diplomacy with terms, not with guilt.

The contrast is stark.

This isn’t a matter of tone or branding. This is a systemic shift away from a model that rewarded process over outcomes, toward one that is rediscovering the purpose of diplomacy: to secure advantage, resolve conflict, and protect national interests.

This recalibration will not be popular in foreign capitals used to ambiguity, or in institutions comfortable with drift. It’s also not universally admirable. It’s direct. It’s unambiguous. And it signals something rare in modern American foreign policy: conviction.

That alone is worth paying attention to.

Glenn: Why Memorial Day is not just another holiday

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They wore the uniform so you could live free. This holiday, ask yourself if you're living in a way that honors that sacrifice — or cheapens it.

Your son has been a Marine for what feels like an eternity. Only those who have watched their children deploy into war zones can truly understand why time seems to freeze in worry. What begins as concern turns to panic, then helplessness. You live suspended in a silent winter, where days blur and dread becomes your constant companion.

Then, in an instant, it happens. What you don’t know yet is that your child — your most precious gift — fell in combat 60 seconds ago.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives.

While you go about your day, unaware, military protocol kicks into motion. Notification must happen within eight hours. Officers are dispatched. A chaplain joins them. A medic may accompany them in case the grief is too much to bear.

Three figures arrive at your door. One asks your name. Then, by protocol, they ask to enter your home. You already know what’s coming. You sit down. He looks you in the eye and says:

The commandant of the Marine Corps has entrusted me to express his deep regret that your son John was killed in action on Friday, March 28. The commandant and the United States Marine Corps extend their deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss.

This moment has played out thousands of times across American soil. In 2003 alone — just two years after 9/11 — 312 families endured it. In 2007, 847 American service members died in combat. In 2008, 352. In 2009, 346. The list goes on. And with every name, a family became a Gold Star family.

Honor the fallen

For most Americans, Memorial Day means backyard barbecues, family gatherings, maybe a trip to the lake or a sweet Airbnb. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying these things. But we must never forget why we can.

Ask any veteran who lived when others did not, and you’ll understand: Memorial Day is not just another holiday. It is a solemn day set apart for reverence.

So this weekend, reach out to a Gold Star family. Acknowledge their pain. Ask about their son or daughter. Let them know they’re not alone.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives — not for accolades but for love of country and the preservation of liberty. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

They died for the Constitution, for our shared American ideals, and the worst thing we could do now would be to betray those ideals in a spirit of rage or division.

We cannot dishonor their sacrifice by abandoning the very principles they died to protect — equal justice, the rule of law, the enduring promise of liberty.

This Memorial Day, let us remember the fallen. Let us honor their families. Let us recommit ourselves to the cause they gave everything for: the American way of life.

They are the best of us.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump exposes Left’s habeas corpus hijack in border crisis

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Democrats accused the president of declaring war on civil rights. In reality, he’s defending habeas corpus while they drown it in delays and legal loopholes.

Tuesday’s congressional testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem turned heads for all the wrong reasons. Pressed to define “habeas corpus,” she stumbled. And while I respect Noem, this moment revealed just how dangerously misunderstood one of our most vital legal protections has become — especially as it’s weaponized in the immigration debate.

Habeas corpus is not a loophole. It’s a shield. It’s the constitutional protection that prevents a government from detaining a person — any person — without first justifying the detention before a neutral judge. It doesn’t guarantee freedom. It demands due process. Prove it or release them.

Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

And yet, this doctrine — so essential to our liberty — is now being twisted by the political left into something it was never meant to be: a free pass for illegal immigration.

The left wants to frame this as a matter of compassion and rights. Leftists ask: “What about habeas corpus for migrants?” The implication is clear: They see any attempt to enforce immigration law as an attack on civil liberties.

But that’s a lie. Habeas corpus is not an excuse for indefinite presence. It doesn’t guarantee that every person who crosses the border gets to stay. It simply requires that we follow a process — a just process.

And that’s exactly what President Donald Trump has proposed.

Habeas corpus, rightly understood

Habeas corpus is the front door to the courtroom. It simply requires the government to justify why someone is being held or detained. It’s not about citizenship. It’s about human dignity.

America’s founders knew this — and that’s why they extended the right to persons, not just citizens. Habeas corpus isn’t a pass to stay in America forever — it’s a demand for legal clarity: “Why are you holding me?” That’s it.

If the government has a lawful reason — such as illegal entry — then deportation is a legitimate outcome. And yet, the left treats any enforcement of immigration law as a betrayal of American ideals.

The danger today isn’t that habeas corpus is being ignored; it’s that it’s being hijacked. The system is being overwhelmed with bad-faith cases, endless appeals, and delays that stretch for years. Right now, the immigration courts are buried under 3.3 million pending cases. The average wait time to have your case heard is four years. In some places, people are being scheduled for court dates as far out in 2032. Where is the justice in that?

This is not compassion. This is national sabotage.

Weaponizing due process

The left uses this legal bottleneck as a weapon, not a shield. Democrats invoke due process as if it requires the government to play a never-ending shell game with public safety. But that’s not what due process means. Due process means the state must play by the rules. It means a judge hears a case. It means the law is applied justly and equally. It does not mean an open border by procedural default.

So no, Trump is not proposing the end of habeas corpus. He’s calling out a broken system and saying, out loud, what millions of Americans already know: If we don’t fix this, we don’t have a country.

This crisis wasn’t an accident — it was engineered. It’s a Cloward-Piven playbook, designed to overwhelm the system. Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

Abandon the Constitution?

Remember, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. But how do we balance the Constitution and our national survival without descending into authoritarianism? Abandon the Constitution? No. Burn the house down to get rid of the rats? Absolutely not. The Constitution itself gives us the tools to take on this crisis head on.

The federal government has clear authority over immigration. Illegal presence in the United States is not a protected right. Congress has the power to deny entry, enforce expedited removals, and reject bogus asylum claims. Much of this is already authorized by law — it’s simply not being used.

President Trump’s idea is simple: Use the tools we already have. Declare the southern border a national security emergency. Establish temporary military tribunals for triage. Process asylum claims swiftly outside the clogged court system. Restore “Remain in Mexico” so that the border is no longer a remote court room. Appoint more immigration judges, assign them to high-volume areas, and hold streamlined hearings that still respect due process.

That’s not authoritarian. That’s leadership.

The path forward

Trump is not trying to destroy habeas corpus. He’s trying to save it from being twisted into a self-destructive parody of itself. Leftists have turned due process into delay, justice into gridlock, and they’re dragging the entire country into their chaos.

It’s time to draw the line. Protect habeas corpus. Use it lawfully. Use it wisely. And yes — use it to restore order at the border. Because if we lose that firewall, we lose the republic.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Betrayal of trust: Medicare insurers face lawsuit over kickback scheme

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Editor's note: This article is sponsored by Chapter.

The U.S. government has filed a major lawsuit under the False Claims Act, targeting some of the biggest names in health insurance—Aetna, Elevance Health (formerly Anthem), and Humana—along with top insurance brokers eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote. The allegation? From 2016 to at least 2021, these companies funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks to brokers to steer seniors into their Medicare Advantage plans.

If the allegations are true, it means many Americans may have been steered into Medicare Advantage plans that weren’t necessarily the best fit for their needs—not because the plans were better, but because brokers were incentivized by illegal kickbacks.

The Kickback Conspiracy

Navigating Medicare Advantage’s maze of plan options is daunting, so beneficiaries rely on brokers like eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote, who claim to be unbiased guides. But from 2016 to 2021, insurers Aetna, Humana, and Elevance Health allegedly paid brokers millions in kickbacks to favor their plans, regardless of quality. Disguised as “co-op” or “marketing” deals, these payments were tied to enrollment targets. Internal emails revealed executives knew this violated the Anti-Kickback Statute, with one eHealth leader joking that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) would miss a $15 million Humana deal for minimal enrollments. Brokers used call routing to prioritize high-paying insurers, betraying beneficiaries’ trust.

Discrimination Against the Vulnerable

The scheme wasn’t just about profits—it targeted vulnerable beneficiaries. Medicare Advantage must accept all eligible enrollees, including disabled people under 65. Yet Aetna and Humana allegedly pressured brokers to limit their enrollment, as these beneficiaries were deemed to be less profitable. Brokers complied, rejecting referrals and filtering calls to favor healthier enrollees, incentivized by bonuses. This violated federal anti-discrimination laws and CMS contracts, undermining the founding principles of Medicare by discriminating against the very people it was created to aid.

False Claims and the Pursuit of Justice

The schemes led to false claims to CMS, with insurers certifying enrollments as “valid” despite kickbacks and discrimination. The government paid billions, unaware of the fraud. Examples include Humana’s $12,477 for a 2016 enrollment and Aetna’s $79,047 for a 2020 case. On May 1, 2025, the U.S. filed suit, seeking treble damages and penalties under the False Claims Act. Aetna and others deny the allegations, per May 2025 reports, promising a fierce defense. The case, demanding a jury trial, seeks justice for beneficiaries and taxpayers.

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