I grew up in a fishbowl of Holocaust survivors. My childhood was steeped in descriptive, 4D stories - so clear and alive that I could smell them.  And I don’t say that metaphorically; I say that deliberately. These weren’t just tales passed down at dinner tables—they were intentional imprints meant to be so vivid that I could taste them so that I would never forget them. The scent of burning wood that wasn’t from fireplaces. The metallic sting of fear. The sterile air of displacement.

These survivors—my parents and relatives—carried an invisible wound: an ever-present fear that it could and would happen again. They feared that hatred could return, maybe not in Nazi uniforms, but in new disguises. And they did everything they could to inoculate me against that possibility. But they didn’t raise me in fear—they raised me with awareness. They wanted me to recognize the early smoke signals, the ideological embers that appear before the fire.

Suddenly, one day, I smelled it again. I witnessed it out my living room window as I watched UCLA demonstrators walk past my house to protest President Biden, who was speaking a few blocks away. They held signs that read “from the river to the sea” and supported the Hamas terrorists who did inconceivable things to pregnant women, children, the elderly, and others as they infiltrated into Israel on October 7.

The signs didn’t come in German. They came disguised in slogans and chants about justice on university campuses during demonstrations funded and fueled by ancient hatred dressed in new hashtags. And while many saw legitimate protest, I saw uncontained and accelerating wildfire.

I listened to the national conversation, the legal debates, the high-minded concerns about First Amendment rights, academic freedom, and university autonomy. I understand those arguments. I respect their elegance. But they all live on the left side of the equation—the realm of ideals, philosophy, and principles.

But I live on the right side of that equation. The side of outcomes. The side that asks what happens next? What do those slogans produce when left unchecked?

That’s where President Donald Trump enters my story. A man who, by all accounts, is chaotic, narcissistic, and divisive. But he did something no one else was willing to do: he stood at the gate and said, “Not here. Not now.”

And he didn’t do it quietly - he stormed in. He didn’t bring a fire extinguisher—he brought a tsunami.  And it worked.

Now, I know some will respond: “But what about the deportations?” “What about his rhetoric?” “What about the impact on academic research?”

Here is my response.

If we could travel back in time to 1933—just as the Nazi movement began to take root—what arguments made then would you still defend now? What would be different in your argument? Would you defend the right of Nazi students to march in German universities? Would you insist on protecting the “academic freedom” of professors calling Jews parasites? Would we say it’s an “affront to liberty” to block early propaganda films from being shown to the youth?

If the answer today is “freedom of speech,” would it also have been in 1933 Berlin?

I ask because I know how this story ends. My parents taught me. And while I wasn’t there, I lived it through them.

So here’s my truth: President Donald Trump is not someone I admire in the conventional sense. But in this critical moment in history—when the smoke is rising again—he acted. He broke the rhythm of history and, in doing so, may have saved my children from reliving my grandparents’ fate.

If someone like him had stood at the gates of Europe in 1938, I might have grown up baking Challah with my grandmother, smelling the sweet smell during Kiddush on Friday night. But instead, I heard stories about my grandmother and many others being baked in ovens because of hatred and antisemitism.

I may be a bit twisted inside. I wrestle with the contradictions of Trump. But I also say it plainly and without apology.

Thank you, President Trump.

To those still arguing about the freedom to teach or march for hate—I respect your intellect. But I’ve lived too close to the edge of history’s knife to take comfort in philosophy alone.

We must recognize that some fires must be drowned and not reasoned with.

Some policies are shaped by history, while others become history shaped by policy.  What side of the equation do you want to be on?

Harry Zimmerman is a retired commercial airline pilot, a former board member at the Clinton Foundation, and a current member of the Congressional Medal of Honor leadership board.

This op-ed is published in partnership with a coalition of organizations that fight antisemitism across the world. Read the previous article by Dr. Shmuel Katz.