Why am I so anti-totalitarian?

I grew up with terrifying tales of how my German mother's family suffered first under the Nazis, then under the Communists.

Then men in her family were all writers, and could not publish under the Nazis.

That's right, they were de-platformed.

As a little girl, my mother had to "flirt" with a Soviet tank commander to stop him from destroying a village. Her mother - my grandmother - was killed in the Dresden firebombing; all they could find was the metal clasp of her purse in the rubble the next morning.

When I was a child, the dead of history were alive for me.

I cannot bear that they died in vain.

They warn me, and I warn you.