May 2026
linking historical reflection with a coordinated, forward-looking commitment to prevention, legitimacy, and the protection of vulnerable communities.
Turning“ Never Again” into operational reality
Deputy Director of the Miller Center on Policing and Community Resilience at Rutgers University, Goldenberg launched this initiative to operationalize“ Never Again” in 2023. This year’ s program moved beyond memorial participation and ad hoc reflection toward operational relevance for police and sheriffs.
Goldenberg worked with delegation Vice-Chair Marvin“ Ben” Haiman, executive director of the University of Virginia’ s Center for Public Safety and Justice, to structure the experience as a moral-sequencing exercise.
Before walking under the“ Arbeit Macht Frei” gate, participants spent days confronting law enforcement’ s role in genocide, the fragility of democratic institutions, and the conditions that normalize cruelty. Christophe Buche’ s session on Hannah Arendt and“ de-pluralization” resonated deeply. Democratic collapse, they were reminded, does not begin with camps. It begins with the erosion of shared reality, dignity, and compassion.
The moral question at the center of policing
“ We have to be more than police …. We have to be human beings with values.”
Holocaust survivor Allan J. Hall crystallized these themes. Recalling his time in the camps as a ten-year-old carrying his two-yearold brother, he posed a question that cuts to the core of policing:
“ Yes, you have to enforce the law. But is the law right?”
New Jersey Police Chief Magazine / 9