The Holocaust is not ancient history when you’ve lived through it.
“I heard my mother call out to me, don’t cry, I will come for you later, that was the last time I heard her voice,” said Irene Zisblatt, a Holocaust survivor.
Zisblatt is 95; she was 13 when the Nazis separated her from her family. She survived Auschwitz, where the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele conducted experiments on her. Zisblatt’s entire family was murdered.
She knows firsthand where hatred can lead, and sees it with people around the world supporting Hamas.
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“Oh my God, I am devastated, support of Hamas is like taking Hitler and saying, these are your Jews, do whatever you want with them,” Zisblatt said.
Zelda Fuksman’s family fled to the forest of Poland, then into the Soviet Union to survive the Nazi onslaught. NBC6 asked her what the barbaric atrocities committed by Hamas against Israeli civilians bring to mind.
“The horrors of the Holocaust,” Fuksman said. “In the United States, to have all this antisemitism growing is shocking to me.”
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The Anti-Defamation League says antisemitic incidents have spiked upward by nearly 400% from this time last year in the United States. Fuksman is profoundly disturbed to see people expressing sympathy for Hamas here and in countries around the world.
“These people don’t need a reason to hate Jews, it’s not Hamas, it’s not the land, it’s not the Palestinians, they’re just haters,” Fuksman said. “They have to learn that this is a terrorist group, that they’re not fighting for a country, they’re fighting to destroy a people.”
I asked Zisblatt is she thought the rising antisemitism is dangerous.
“Very dangerous, because it grows, it doesn’t stay in one place, like a bomb, it explodes, and then it’s everywhere, and then it’s uncontrollable and we cannot let that happen because that’s how the Holocaust happened,” Zisblatt said.
One truism among most Holocaust survivors is the willingness to speak out against hatred of all forms, because they’ve seen where unchecked hatred and bigotry can lead.
“If we can just get rid of hatred, we would be so different, there wouldn’t be this you and not me, or me and not you,” Zisblatt said.
