BY THE TIME Soviet troops arrived at Auschwitz on Jan. 27, 1945, the vast Nazi death-and-slave-labor complex in southern Poland was nearly empty. Ten days earlier, the SS had evacuated the remaining 67,000 inmates, sending them on brutal forced marches westward, to concentration camps inside Germany and Austria. Thousands died along the way; any prisoner who collapsed or couldn't keep pace was shot. Those who survived the death march out of Auschwitz — including Markus Jakubovic, a Jewish teen from Czechoslovakia who later became my father — faced months of additional terror, starvation, violence and slavery. For them, liberation would not come until after Germany's surrender in May.

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AS A small-r republican and an American patriot, I instinctively regard royal families as outlandish — and the British royal family, descendants of that villain George III, especially so. So when an uproar broke out after Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle declared their intention to "step back" from their royal duties and concentrate instead on earning a living, my reaction was a tad on the smug side.

"Well, it's a start," I tweeted. "But it would be even better if Great Britain would finally 'step back' from the royal family. Kings and queens and dukes and princes are ridiculous." For good measure, I added Huckleberry Finn's succinct opinion of royalty: "All kings is mostly rapscallions."

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WHEN GOING to war against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was popular, Joe Biden was for going to war.

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NEXT WEEK, Americans will pause to honor the civil rights giant whose famous dream was of a society in which no one would be judged by the color of their skin. This week, however, some Americans who claim to care deeply about civil rights are judging the Democratic candidates who will debate Tuesday night by the color of their skin.

Six candidates have qualified for the Des Moines event: Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders, Tom Steyer, and Elizabeth Warren. That sextet comprises Democrats who are male and female, straight and gay, old and young, superrrich and middle class, career politicians and political newcomers, ardent East Coast socialists and pragmatic Midwest liberals.

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I HATE to be the bearer of bad news, but another Democratic presidential debate is coming. It's scheduled for 9 p.m. Tuesday at Drake University in Des Moines. I'm planning to watch, but only because I have to for work. You, on the other hand, are under no such obligation, and if you're like most Americans, you have no intention of tuning in.

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