I just had lunch with a concentration camp survivor who votes Republican.

[Cyrano]

My friend's grandfather is in his 80s, in good health, spry, lives in California, and decided to make a swing around the country to visit his grandchildren. He's here for about four days and today I went out to lunch with him and my friend.

I've seen many people in southern Florida with that concentration camp tattoo on their arm, but it's something you never get used to. My reaction is always sorrow for the person who has it and rage at the Nazis who put it there. But beyond that, I always wonder how anyone managed to survive the hell they had lived through, and my certainty that I myself would never have made it had I been there.

During lunch, the topic turned to politics and I almost fell off my chair when my friend's grandfather said he voted Republican. As it turned out, he didn't have much regard for Bush, or any of them. He thought most of them were "... schmucks looking out for themselves."

"Then how can you vote for them?" I asked, trying not to scream.

"I have stocks," he answered. "I want something to leave to my grandchildren."

My friend recognized my oncoming diatribe, kicked me under the table before I could get a word out, and changed the subject.

I'm still stunned that someone who came of age in Germany during the Nazi era, saw firsthand what they did to Jews and others, lost much of his family in the camps, and survived to come here, fails to connect the experience of his youth with what's happening here today.

My mind is still reeling over this encounter and I'm about as confused as I ever want to be. Had my friend not stopped me, what could I possibly have said to this man? What would you have said?