Latest news with #Shoah
The Herald Scotland
4 hours ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Holocaust survivor burned in Boulder speaks after antisemitic attack
The one thing that remained constant: their family stayed together. It's a message that resonates with her nearly 90 years later and why she was marching in Boulder on Sunday. She was part of a small group bringing attention to the Jewish hostages held by Hamas to bring them home when she was attacked. A man threw Molotov cocktails at the group, injuring 12 people. Steinmetz, 88, told NBC News earlier this week that she and other members of the group Run for Their Lives were peacefully demonstrating when they were attacked. "We're Americans. We are better than this," she told the news outlet. They should be "kind and decent human beings." Steinmetz spent much of her life trying not to talk about what her family endured. Her father's message to her was always to move to forward. In 1998, she sat down to share her story with the University of Southern California's Shoah project, which documents the lives of Holocaust survivors. In an interview stretching almost three hours, Steinmetz talked about her family's escape, the relatives who died in the war, and the lessons they learned. She was 61 when she did the Shoah interview, one of thousands of 52,000 stories recorded over eight years. "Family is what's most important," Steinmetz said. She was too young to remember much from her family leaving Italy in 1938 when Benito Mussolini stripped Jewish people of their citizenship at the direction of Adolf Hitler. What she remembers, she said in the interview, was an atmosphere of trauma. Boulder attack: Firebombing suspect Mohamed Soliman charged with 118 criminal counts Her father, who had run a hotel on the northern Italian coast after leaving Hungary, visited embassies and wrote letters to various countries to try to move his family as Hitler's power grew. Each time, their move was temporary. Each time, they brought only what they could carry. But each time, they stayed together. "Things were not important, people are important. What you have in your brain and in your heart that is the only thing that's important," she said. "And that's totally transportable." In the past few years, Steinmetz has told her family's story at Holocaust remembrance events and classrooms, libraries and churches. She wants people to understand history to understand that Jewish people are being targeted again. "Hitler basically took (my father's) life, his dream away.... The rest of life was chasing, running, trying to make a living," she said. The family eventually settled in in Sosua where the Dominican Republic Resettlement Association (DORSA) had established a refugee camp for Jewish people. Life was difficult there, she said, as her family and had to learn to build houses, farm the rocky terrain, and raise their families. Steinmetz and her sister, three years older, were soon sent to a Catholic school, where only the head nun knew they were Jewish. A nun used to let her change the clothes of the Baby Jesus figurine at the church, and for a few minutes each day, she felt like she had a doll. She remembers sleeping next to her sister, and crying inconsolably. "I never cried again. Years and years and years later, when something happened, my mother and father died, I had a hard time crying. And to this day, I have a hard time crying," she said. "It is just something I don't do." The family didn't speak of these moves for years, she would say. "They couldn't help where they were living, it was the only thing they could do to stay alive." The family settled in Boston in 1945, and soon learned much of their family in Europe had died, some in the war, others after. The family would move several times again as her father found different jobs, and she and her sister began going to Jewish summer camps. It was there, she said, that she "fell into the Zionist spirit. I loved the feeling that there would be a state of Israel." She finally felt like she had a community, she said. "These were my people,"she said. "This group was very tight. I was very welcome there. It was a really important part of my life." Her life, she said, was shaped by the war. "It was an experience that affected everything we did," she said, lessons she and her husband, who died in 2010, passed to their three daughters. In all the years of moving from place to place, she remembers they never went to sleep without saying a prayer for their family in Europe, to "bless Aunt Virgie, Emra and Oscar and Pearl... our grandparents." When she met some of this family again in the mid 1950s, "I knew them. They had been part of my everyday life ... they were part of my vocabulary." At the end of telling her story, of two hours and 54 minutes of mostly emotionless factual testimony, the interviewer for the Shoah project asks if there is anythingshe hopes people could take away from her story. "We need a broader picture of all of humanity," she said. "We need to educate ourselves and always need to be on top of what is going on in the world and be alert and be responsive to it." And it's why she continues to tell their story, to warn about antisemitism - even as hate against Jews soars to historic levels. Just last year, Steinmetz showed up to a Boulder City Council meeting in support of her local Jewish community. A woman sat down next to Steinmetz, she recounted in a video interview in June 2024. The woman had a Palestinian flag and a sign that read, "from the river to the sea," a phrase that can be used to promote antisemitism. Steimetz turned to her and said: "Do you realize that that means you want to kill me? You want me destroyed?'" The woman just turned away. "Jews in Boulder and maybe Denver and probably in cities all around the world, are afraid of wearing their Jewish stars," Steinmetz said. People are taking down their mezuzahs so that no one will know that it's a Jewish house, she said. But in the following breath, Steinmetz rejected the notion that silence is ever an option. "It is up to each of us to say something, to say something and do something. 'You can say no; I'm a human being just like that other person. We are all humans.'"
USA Today
6 hours ago
- General
- USA Today
Holocaust survivor burned in Boulder speaks after attack: 'We are better than this'
Holocaust survivor burned in Boulder speaks after attack: 'We are better than this' "Jews in Boulder and maybe Denver and probably in cities all around the world, are afraid of wearing their Jewish stars." Show Caption Hide Caption Boulder community honors attack victims, condemns antisemitism The Boulder Jewish Community Center hosted a vigil for community members to come and support victims of a fire-bomb attack. Barbara Steinmetz survived the Holocaust as a child, fleeing from one country to the next as her Jewish family was stripped of its citizenship. They left Italy for Hungary, then to France and finally Portugal before finding refuge outside of Europe in the Dominican Republic. The first five years of her life with her big sister Margaret and parents was a blur of escapes, never with anything more than what they could carry. The one thing that remained constant: their family stayed together. It's a message that resonates with her nearly 90 years later and why she was marching in Boulder on Sunday. She was part of a small group bringing attention to the Jewish hostages held by Hamas to bring them home when she was attacked. A man threw Molotov cocktails at the group, injuring 12 people. Steinmetz, 88, told NBC News earlier this week that she and other members of the group Run for Their Lives were peacefully demonstrating when they were attacked. "We're Americans. We are better than this,' she told the news outlet. They should be 'kind and decent human beings." Steinmetz spent much of her life trying not to talk about what her family endured. Her father's message to her was always to move to forward. In 1998, she sat down to share her story with the University of Southern California's Shoah project, which documents the lives of Holocaust survivors. In an interview stretching almost three hours, Steinmetz talked about her family's escape, the relatives who died in the war, and the lessons they learned. She was 61 when she did the Shoah interview, one of thousands of 52,000 stories recorded over eight years. 'Family is what's most important,' Steinmetz said. She was too young to remember much from her family leaving Italy in 1938 when Benito Mussolini stripped Jewish people of their citizenship at the direction of Adolf Hitler. What she remembers, she said in the interview, was an atmosphere of trauma. Boulder attack: Firebombing suspect Mohamed Soliman charged with 118 criminal counts Her father, who had run a hotel on the northern Italian coast after leaving Hungary, visited embassies and wrote letters to various countries to try to move his family as Hitler's power grew. Each time, their move was temporary. Each time, they brought only what they could carry. But each time, they stayed together. 'Things were not important, people are important. What you have in your brain and in your heart that is the only thing that's important,' she said. 'And that's totally transportable.' In the past few years, Steinmetz has told her family's story at Holocaust remembrance events and classrooms, libraries and churches. She wants people to understand history to understand that Jewish people are being targeted again. 'Hitler basically took (my father's) life, his dream away…. The rest of life was chasing, running, trying to make a living,' she said. The family eventually settled in Sosúa where the Dominican Republic Resettlement Association (DORSA) had established a refugee camp for Jewish people. Life was difficult there, she said, as her family and had to learn to build houses, farm the rocky terrain, and raise their families. Steinmetz and her sister, three years older, were soon sent to a Catholic school, where only the head nun knew they were Jewish. A nun used to let her change the clothes of the Baby Jesus figurine at the church, and for a few minutes each day, she felt like she had a doll. She remembers sleeping next to her sister, and crying inconsolably. 'I never cried again. Years and years and years later, when something happened, my mother and father died, I had a hard time crying. And to this day, I have a hard time crying,' she said. "It is just something I don't do.' The family didn't speak of these moves for years, she would say. "They couldn't help where they were living, it was the only thing they could do to stay alive." The family settled in Boston in 1945, and soon learned much of their family in Europe had died, some in the war, others after. The family would move several times again as her father found different jobs, and she and her sister began going to Jewish summer camps. It was there, she said, that she "fell into the Zionist spirit. I loved the feeling that there would be a state of Israel." She finally felt like she had a community, she said. "These were my people,"she said. "This group was very tight. I was very welcome there. It was a really important part of my life." Her life, she said, was shaped by the war. "It was an experience that affected everything we did," she said, lessons she and her husband, who died in 2010, passed to their three daughters. In all the years of moving from place to place, she remembers they never went to sleep without saying a prayer for their family in Europe, to "bless Aunt Virgie, Emra and Oscar and Pearl... our grandparents." When she met some of this family again in the mid 1950s, "I knew them. They had been part of my everyday life … they were part of my vocabulary." At the end of telling her story, of two hours and 54 minutes of mostly emotionless factual testimony, the interviewer for the Shoah project asks if there is anythingshe hopes people could take away from her story. "We need a broader picture of all of humanity," she said. "We need to educate ourselves and always need to be on top of what is going on in the world and be alert and be responsive to it." And it's why she continues to tell their story, to warn about antisemitism ― even as hate against Jews soars to historic levels. Just last year, Steinmetz showed up to a Boulder City Council meeting in support of her local Jewish community. A woman sat down next to Steinmetz, she recounted in a video interview in June 2024. The woman had a Palestinian flag and a sign that read, "from the river to the sea," a phrase that can be used to promote antisemitism. Steimetz turned to her and said: "Do you realize that that means you want to kill me? You want me destroyed?'" The woman just turned away. "Jews in Boulder and maybe Denver and probably in cities all around the world, are afraid of wearing their Jewish stars," Steinmetz said. People are taking down their mezuzahs so that no one will know that it's a Jewish house, she said. But in the following breath, Steinmetz rejected the notion that silence is ever an option. "It is up to each of us to say something, to say something and do something. 'You can say no; I'm a human being just like that other person. We are all humans.'"
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
German upper house marks 60 years of diplomatic ties with Israel
Germany's upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, on Friday marked 60 years since the country officially took up diplomatic relations with Israel, forged in the lingering shadow of the Holocaust. The close and friendly relations between the two countries today cannot be taken for granted given Germany's responsibility for the murder of Jews during the Shoah, according to the draft resolution. The minister for federal and European affairs of the state of Hesse, Manfred Pentz, called the step at the time "a miracle of reconciliation," saying it "shows the greatness of which human forgiveness is capable." Diplomatic ties were formally established on May 12, 1965, following an agreement between Germany's then-chancellor Ludwig Erhard and Israeli prime minister Levi Eshkol. The move came after a gradual rapprochement following the atrocities carried out during the Holocaust, during which Nazi Germany murdered some 6 million Jews. In the following decades, Germany and Israel have built a close network of political, economic, military, scientific and cultural cooperation. To mark the diplomatic milestone, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier received his Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog in Berlin earlier this month, and repaid the honour with a subsequent two-day visit to Israel. The anniversary comes at a time of strained relations. Germany has expressed concern over Israel's military operations in Gaza, which have resulted in high civilian casualties and a worsening humanitarian crisis. Israel, in turn, has voiced alarm over what it sees as rising anti-Semitism in Germany. Bundesrat President Anke Rehlinger, addressing the chamber on Friday, noted that sympathy for the people of Gaza was not incompatible with a commitment to Israel.
New European
13-05-2025
- Politics
- New European
Germansplaining: The battle over free speech
Whether sparked by the refugee crisis, the pandemic, Russia's war in Ukraine or climate change, many people already describe today's Germany as GDR 2.0 – a reference to the old, totalitarian East Germany. That is absurd, but nevertheless it is a problem if an ever-larger number of people are hesitant to voice political opinions, and feel excluded from public discourse. The internet has become a playground for trolls, hate-mongers, and libel artists – and it's been out of control for ages. But what's spiralling now, among German judges and prosecutors, is something else entirely: the value placed on free speech. A few recent cases make the point. Take the 64-year-old whose flat was raided after he shared a meme of then-economics minister Robert Habeck (Greens), doctored to read Schwachkopf (half-wit) in the style of Schwarzkopf shampoo. Or the man fined €3,500 (£2,950) for a snapshot showing then-health minister Karl Lauterbach with his right arm raised. Or €1,500 (£1,260) for sharing an ironically annotated screenshot on X of trending topics with the hashtag #AllesfürDeutschland (All for Germany – a banned slogan once used by the SA, Hitler's original paramilitary group). Or this one: a suspended seven-month jail sentence and a fine of €1,500 for the editor of a far right rag that had published a photomontage of the SPD's Nancy Faeser, then interior minister, holding a sign saying 'Ich hasse die Meinungsfreiheit' ('I hate freedom of expression'). The court didn't trust the public to get the satire. And then there was the protester in Berlin with a sign reading 'Have we learned nothing from the Holocaust?' – convicted on the grounds that she had trivialised the Shoah. To be clear: I disagree with all the expressed views, in content, form or both. And yes, words matter – that's precisely what makes this debate so tricky. Years ago, I tested the responsiveness of German law myself, after a particularly nasty post about me. Had I simply been called 'the dumbest so-called journalist ever', fine. But this was a sexualised insult – clearly libellous. I filed a complaint. Here's what happened: nothing. I haven't bothered since. When politicians file similar complaints – as in most of the cases above – things can move fast, thanks to a 2021 change in our criminal code, which now penalises insulting a 'person in the political life of the people'. Wanting to shield people in a public office from abuse is understandable. Local politicians, in particular, are dropping out in droves after being hounded, online and off. But when the law hands out six-month minimum sentences for verbal offences, it starts to feel less like protection and more like Majestätsbeleidigung – lèse-majesté, modern edition. And by the way: who in their right mind would believe the interior minister actually walks around with a sign saying 'I hate free speech'? Unsurprisingly, these decisions have triggered a wave of criticism – from the public, the media, legal scholars, and politicians themselves. Because whether intended or not, they reinforce the far right's favourite narrative: that you can't speak your mind any more. Sanctions have been tightened in other areas, too. In cases of 'deadnaming' or 'misgendering', offenders can be fined up to €10,000 under the Self-Determination Act. Legal scholars think this isn't the end, yet: the coalition agreement envisages a new independent media watchdog to monitor 'fake news' and Hass und Hetze – hate and incitement. Frauke Rostalski, a criminal law and legal philosophy professor from Cologne University, recently issued this warning in Legal Tribune Online: 'The impression quickly arises that critical voices are to be silenced by criminal law means – by the very people who see themselves scrutinised by this criticism.' She doubts that those who want to make democracy and social discourse more resilient can do so by ever more criminal law interventions in freedom of expression. Rostalski argues that state interventions and individual hypersensitivities could stifle conversation and, at worst, result in 'relevant arguments being ignored, entire topics avoided, or speakers excluded from the discourse'. Many of these verdicts will probably be overturned on appeal. But the damage is done. They offer exactly what conspiracy theorists and far right influencers crave: an invitation to play the martyr. And the courts, of all places, should know better than to hand them that script.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
German president hails 'gift' of Israeli-German reconciliation
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday honoured the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and Germany 60 years ago, forged in the shadow of the Holocaust. Speaking alongside Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Berlin, Steinmeier described the rapprochement as "a gift that we had no right to expect after the devastation of World War II and the rupture of civilization caused by the Shoah." Diplomatic ties were formally established on May 12, 1965, following an agreement between Germany's then-chancellor Ludwig Erhard and Israeli prime minister Levi Eshkol. The move came after a gradual rapprochement between two nations whose relationship had been deeply scarred by the atrocities carried out during the Holocaust, during which Nazi Germany murdered some 6 million Jews. In the following decades, Germany and Israel have built a close network of political, economic, military, scientific and cultural cooperation. But the anniversary comes at a time of strained relations. Germany has expressed concern over Israel's military operations in Gaza, which have resulted in high civilian casualties and a worsening humanitarian crisis. Israel, in turn, has voiced alarm over what it sees as rising anti-Semitism in Germany. Marking the diplomatic milestone, Herzog was received with military honours at Bellevue Palace, the official presidential residence in central Berlin. Steinmeier travels back with him to Israel on Tuesday for a two-day visit, with both presidents accompanied by their wives, Michal Herzog and Elke Büdenbender. 'A glimmer of hope' for more peaceful times? Steinmeier described the foundation of the modern Israeli-German relationship as deep and stable, saying "it bears the memory of the past as well as the shared values of two liberal democracies based on the rule of law." Steinmeier also expressed hope that the "incredible story of reconciliation" between Israel and Germany can serve as "a glimmer of hope" for more peaceful times. "Our own history should also give others hope, especially in these times," he said. "Peace is possible, reconciliation is possible." Herzog praised Steinmeier's words and actions as "an example and role model for moral clarity, for the courageous alliance between our countries and peoples." He noted that shortly after the October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel, the German president had travelled to Israel and expressed his solidarity and support. "This is the behaviour of a true friend." Steinmeier urges end of Gaza blockade Steinmeier, who dedicated much of his statement to the Gaza war, said he was "very aware" that the current situation in Israel "is anything but hopeful." Addressing Herzog, he said: "Your country was invaded by Hamas. In the face of the terrorist threat to Israel, your country cannot rest, must defend itself against Islamist terrorism and hostage-takers and kidnappings." But he also addressed the plight of Gazans, noting the "enormous" destruction and "growing suffering" of the civilian population in the sealed-off coastal strip. Steinmeier said he had asked Herzog to advocate for Israel to lift its blockade on humanitarian aid to Gaza. "The friends of Israel, and I count Germany as a special friend, are not naive," Steinmeier said. "They recognize the dilemma that Hamas is creating for the Israeli army by cowardly hiding behind civilians while continuing to fire rockets at Israel." "But I also fear that the suffering that the people in Gaza are experiencing is deepening the rifts further. And that worries me, as it does many other friends of Israel." Steinmeier appealed to Israel and its regional neighbours to explore the possibility of a peaceful solution to the conflict. Herzog emphasized that the "key to everything" was the return of the hostages who were still in the hands of Hamas in Gaza. If this is achieved, the situation in Gaza will change dramatically, he said. Deportations remembered Following their consultations at Bellevue Palace, the two presidents attended a gathering with German and Israeli youth and took part in a ceremony at the Platform 17 Memorial at the German capital's Grunewald train station, where thousands of Jews were deported during the Nazi era. In memory of the deportations, Steinmeier and Herzog laid wreaths at the memorial. The two heads of state lit candles and were given a tour of the site. The memorial consists of cast steel plates embedded in the railway bed. The 186 plates list the dates and destinations of all deportation trains from Berlin and the number of Jews deported on each train.
