In this talk Peter Gourevitch explores the dynamics of “lessons to be learned” from the Holocaust. Drawing on the experience of a grandmother who fled and survived in the United States, and an uncle who stayed and died in Auschwitz, he discusses information that made some perceive the danger and others to ignore it. What information made his grandmother sense the danger, and her brother to ignore it? A professor of political science at UC San Diego, Gourevitch emphasizes the role political activism played in alerting some individuals to the impending threat from the destruction of democracy.