WASHINGTON — On International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, local Holocaust survivors are alarmed by the rise of anti-Semitism in the world today.
Survivors gathered at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for a remembrance service where they prayed and vowed “never again.”
“Today we are closer to the spirit of the 1930’s,” Steven Fenves, 82 of Rockville, who survived Auschwitz, told a gathering of survivors and diplomats that included the German ambassador to Washington Peter Wittig and representatives of 50 different countries.
Fenves was just 13 years old when he was taken to Auschwitz from his home in Yugoslavia. He managed to survive because of his German-speaking skills.
Now retired from teaching at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Fenves sees revived anti-Semitism coming from two different directions.
“The right and left are meeting, radical Islamists and radical right-wing nationalists have the same agenda. It’s very scary and countries have to do something about it,” Fenves says.
Concerns over the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe have risen since four French Jews were killed in a kosher market in Paris at the hands of Islamic extremists earlier this month. But the attack followed attacks on a Belgian Jewish museum and a Jewish school in southwestern France. Police have ramped up security in Jewish neighborhoods and synagogues throughout Europe.
Because she’s Jewish, Halina Peabody of Bethesda lost her home in Poland when she was 7 years old. She survived the Holocaust by relying on forged documents that identified her as Catholic.
“I am absolutely stunned that this could happen again and I don’t understand why it has to happen this way,” Peabody says about anti-Semitism.
In the Holocaust Museum’s Hall of Remembrance, a floral bouquet, a gift from the Embassy of Poland, provided a spray of color near an eternal flame that burns in the sparse, concrete hall.
Survivors and others lit candles while listening to a string ensemble play Ani Ma’amin (I Believe).
“We are worried about the resurgence anti-Semitism in some parts of Europe. It’s a scourge. It seems it never goes away and it underlines the need for Holocaust remembrance,” says Ambassador Wittig.
To counter prejudice, the survivors say civilized nations must educate their citizens about the past and speak out against hatred.
“We have to stand up,” Peabody says.
Follow @WTOP on Twitter and on Facebook.
