I encourage all Peterborough voters to support Town Warrant Articles 9 and 10 on the upcoming ballot.

Just a few words about the recent federal government positions targeting immigrants and undocumented residents. This alarming trend hits very close to home for me. I would not be here today, having been born in America close to three-quarters of a century ago, if my Jewish family members had not been allowed to flee persecution first to France and later to America.

My mother’s parents married, and had a large family in Russia. In 1903 and 1905, there were “pogroms” (ethnic massacres) against the Jews in Khushinev where they lived.

My grandfather then went to Paris to find work. Later, my grandmother, traveling alone across Europe to Paris with her children, fled Russia at night, bribing the soldiers at the border. If France had not accepted immigrants, my ancestors might have remained at the mercy of the pogroms.

In the early 1920’s my mother and her family came to the United States as immigrants, assimilated and prospered as Americans. In 1937, my mother’s sister, Rose, returned to France and worked with the underground resistance against the Nazis. She was exterminated in a concentration camp. If America had turned my family away, they also could have died at the hands of the Nazis along with millions of Jews from across Europe.

In my view, persecution happened to them; it could happen to me. It could happen to others who are Muslim or Mexican instead of Jewish, and it could happen right here in the United States, “land of the free.” In fact, this current regime is encouraging an atmosphere of divisiveness and persecution just as the Nazis did. Already ugly incidents are happening at an ever-increasing rate just as they did in Germany as the Nazi regime took hold.

I must assume that most of the individuals who are now being barred from entry to the US or who have unclear documentation are law abiding, hard working, solid family members as were my parents and their families. Their children have gone to school with our children. They are our friends and neighbors. Articles 9 and 10 simply re-affirm that Peterborough will not support unnecessary and frivolous targeting of these individuals.

Amy Miller lives in Peterborough.