Czech Holocaust survivor warns against rising tide of antisemitism and racism across Europe

[Behind the Aegis]

In 1942, at the age of 16, Doris Grozdanovicova was arrested with her family and sent off to the SS concentration camp at the Czech town of Terezin.

Tens of thousands were sent there to die there during the Nazi occupation, including her mother. Another 90,000, among them her father, were sent on to be murdered at Auschwitz and Treblinka in Poland.

Ms Grozdanovicova, one of the very few survivors of the camp still alive, travelled to Terezin this week to unveil a memorial to those who lost their lives.

She had just returned from a visit to Germany where she had been speaking to school pupils about the terrible damage caused by antisemitism, racism and intolerance, and stressing the need to learn lessons from the past.

“It is sad to say, but we need to remember now what happened more than ever. It is very depressing to see what is happening in Europe, the extremism and the effect it’s having,” she said.

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[appalachiablue]

1. Impt. words of a survivor to heed, we're in troubling times again.

“So many countries in Europe suffered because of this hatred, I am sorry to see this hatred again in Europe in my lifetime.”
The rise of populism across the continent has seen right-wing nationalist parties win political power in a number of states, the latest Slovenia where the anti-immigration Slovenian Democratic Party is due to form a coalition government.The party’s leader, Janez Jansa, is an ally of Hungary’s hard-line prime minister, Viktor Orban, whose electoral success has been one of the most marked in the surge of nationalist victories in Poland, Austria and Italy.

The common denominator in the policies of these parties in a fervent anti-migrant rhetoric, even when it comes to refugees and asylum seekers, and a strident opposition to accepting them under the European Union’s quota system.
There has also been an accompanying surge of antisemitism, not just in those countries but elsewhere, with physical attacks, the desecration of cemeteries and Nazi slogans heard in marches.
In Warsaw, the Senate in February passed a bill which would make illegal to accuse the Polish people of complicity in Nazi-era war crimes, a move which has led to international condemnation and accusations of attempting to airbrush history and pandering to right-wing, antisemitic votes.

[Behind the Aegis]

2. Too bad many aren't getting it.

Bill Maher calls it a "slow coup" and I think that is exactly what is happening. The democratic principles of the US are under siege, but for some it is the "frog in the boiling water" scenario.