Well for my father communists were a very real threat to his life, the Stasi of the DDR could have killed him.
I was born after the german reunification so that stuff was “just” history to me growing up, but as I got older I got to learn more of how miserable life was under Honecker from history books and first hand accounts.
I get the feeling that communist means a very different thing to you based on how you phrased that post.