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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Huckleberries Online

Trib: A refuge amid anti-refugee rage

In his weekly Cheers & Jeers column, Opinion Editor Marty Trillhaase of the Lewiston Tribune gives cheers to ... Idaho state Rep. Hy Kloc, D-Boise.

Contrast his thoughtful and heartfelt prose with how state Rep. Heather Scott, R-Blanchard, used the refugee crisis to pivot into a vicious tirade against what she called an "Islamic agenda of domination and takeover." "I was born in a displaced persons camp in Essen, Germany, at the end of World War II," Kloc wrote in a op-ed this week. "My father Sam, my mother Libby and my brother Jack were Holocaust survivors." Most of Kloc's family was murdered during the war and he spent three years in a refugee camp before his family was allowed entry into the United States. "My parents never forgot being on the deck of the ship that brought us to America and seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time," Kloc wrote. "Nor did they ever forget their feelings of gratitude to this country that had offered them a home when they had none." It's a perspective missing among those stirring up anti-refugee hysteria. Full column here.

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D.F. Oliveria
D.F. (Dave) Oliveria joined The Spokesman-Review in 1984. He currently is a columnist and compiles the Huckleberries Online blog and writes about North Idaho in his Huckleberries column.

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