Holocaust survivor in Michigan who supported immigrants, Palestinians dies at 87
A few months after Donald Trump became president for the first time, Rene Lichtman marched down Woodward Avenue in Pontiac along with other protesters holding up a sign that read "No Human Being is Illegal."
"You have to resist," he told the Free Press on the first day of May in 2017 at a rally in support of immigrants opposing raids by federal immigration agents.
As a Holocaust survivor aided by a Catholic family in France who took him in, Lichtman drew upon his life experiences as a Jewish child during World War II to guide his views, becoming a noted activist in Michigan. He often demonstrated in support of immigrants and Palestinians, speaking to students and others about the Holocaust.
Lichtman died last week at the age of 87 in Troy while in hospice care.
He had recently lived in Southfield and West Bloomfield and is survived by his wife, four children and four grandchildren, according to the Ira Kaufman Chapel in Southfield, family and friends. He died on Jan. 28, his funeral was held Saturday and religious and family services continued until Monday at a home in West Bloomfield. He was buried at Beth Moses Cemetery in Roseville.
At his funeral and in online tributes over the past week, the Jewish activist was remembered as an outspoken man whose views and ideas are once again relevant today amid concern over Gaza and immigration enforcement as Trump starts a second term. He was a controversial figure, drawing criticism at times from others in the Jewish community who objected to his frequent criticisms of Israel that invoked the Holocaust. In December 2023, he laid down in the street, with police around him, in front of The Zekelman Holocaust Center in Farmington Hills to bring attention to Israel's attacks in Gaza, holding a sign that read: "Jews and Allies say: Never Again for Anyone." The sign referred to the Holocaust, a controversial comparison that led to the Holocaust center dropping him as a speaker for its Survivor Talk Sundays series, according to a report in the Forward, a Jewish media outlet.
"One of the true greats of his generation," Rabbi Alana Alpert of Congregation T'chiyah in Ferndale said of Lichtman at his funeral in Southfield. "It is upon us to continue fighting for the world he so wanted for us."
Alpert spoke about how Lichtman being helped by a Christian family during the Holocaust helped him work across different cultures and faiths to fight for social justice.
"For all the trauma that he experienced, he received the gift from the Lepage family of the understanding that cross-ethnic solidarity is possible, that another world is possible," said Alpert, one of the founders of Detroit Jews for Justice. "Rene came through with a powerful belief in humanity, and a commitment of 'never again, for anyone."
Lichtman was born in 1937 in Paris, France to Jewish migrants from Poland. Lichtman's father was killed by the Nazis while serving in the French military after Germany invaded France, according to oral histories. A Catholic family in France had sheltered him for a few years after his mother had to go into hiding; they were later reunited and moved to the United States in 1950 when he was 12 years old, according to an obituary by Ira Kaufman Chapel.
Those childhood experiences shaped Lichtman's views as he became a frequent speaker in Michigan on the Holocaust and was one of the leaders of the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the Holocaust and the Hidden Children and Child Survivors of Michigan. Outside of his activism, Licthman was an abstract painter and had worked at Beaumont Hospital in instructional technology.
In 2019, he spoke at a 'Close the Camps' rally in front of The Zekelman Holocaust Center, speaking out against U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement and immigrant detention camps. One sign at the rally equated ICE to Nazis. On the other side of the street, others in the Jewish community and allies rejected such a comparison as offensive, holding up signs that read immigrant "Detention centers are not concentration camps" and "Stop exploiting the Holocaust."
Licthman "was a good man, a 'mensch,'" Charles Silow, executive vice president of the World Federation of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants, and co-president of Children of Holocaust-Survivors Association In Michigan, wrote in an online tribute, using a Yiddish-language word to describe a man of honor. "He was a pioneer in bringing awareness to the importance of what Hidden Children and Child Survivors of the Holocaust endured. Child Holocaust survivors had memories of what they went through, their experiences of persecution and those who rescued them have become an important part of Holocaust education and remembrance. Rene spoke of his experiences to countless groups and helped bring awareness of the importance of speaking out against antisemitism and social injustice."
When Detroit Jews for Justice was founded 10 years ago, Alpert spoke with Lichtman, whom she said was supportive of the group as well as Black Lives Matter and other protest movements. She was working on an op-ed objecting to then-Gov. Rick Snyder's call to halt the influx of Syrian refugees, asking him to bless her to make connections with the Nazi Holocaust in her piece.
He agreed, telling her that the point of Holocaust education should be to make it relevant for the current eras we live in and other causes.
Alpert said he told her: "There will always be some Jews, survivors who will say 'This is not the same. Nothing can compare to' and they continue to play the hierarchy of suffering game, leading them to always find reasons to do nothing. They find reasons to keep the Shoah like some kind of museum artifact, pure, on a shelf, but gathering dust. The Shoah and Holocaust memory must have relevance to today, to conditions we face. We experienced being blocked. ... We should not allow others to also be blocked from entering."
His family has asked that any donations in his memory be given to four groups, which include some Jewish organizations and a group that helps immigrants.
Free Press photographer David Rodriguez Munoz, The Monroe News and The Times Herald contributed to this report.
Contact Niraj Warikoo:nwarikoo@freepress.com or X @nwarikoo
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Rene Lichtman, Michigan Holocaust survivor and activist, dies at 87
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