Sawt Falasteen - Holocaust survivor urges German MPs to tackle resurgent antisemitism

In a speech that left some MPs visibly moved, 87-year-old Friedman recounted her experiences as a survivor of the Auschwitz extermination camp and appealed on those present to "use your power to fight".

"Don't let antisemitism grow and bloom here," she said.

Born in 1938 close to Danzig (modern-day Gdansk in Poland), she survived Auschwitz after being sent there at the age of five together with her mother.

Her family emigrated to the United States after the war, where she became a psychotherapist.

"I walked out of Auschwitz thinking I'll never have to be afraid again to be Jewish, never again, but here we are," she said.

"Now, 81 years later, much of the world has turned against us," Friedman told the audience.

"I just hope with all my heart that you become, say, a little tougher" in combatting antisemitism, she told those present, including Chancellor Friedrich Merz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

"Jews around the world again feel exposed, targeted, and hated," she said.

Friedman gave the example of her own grandson having to hide his Star of David and her granddaughter leaving her student dormitory after being harassed.

"Shouts of: 'Hitler was right!' and 'Gas the Jews' are heard on the streets of New York, Paris, Amsterdam, London," she said.

She was applauded for several minutes at the end of her speech, held as part of a special session to commemorate Nazi Germany's murder of six million European Jews during World War II.

Germany has grown increasingly alarmed about rising anti-Jewish sentiment since the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.

A record 6,236 antisemitic crimes were recorded in 2024, compared with just 2,641 in 2022, according to figures from the federal domestic intelligence agency (BfV).

Nearly half of those incidents were attributed to right-wing extremism.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has a narrow lead in some national polls, and the party includes figures who have called for the country to move away from its "culture of remembrance" of Nazi atrocities.

D.Qudsi--SF-PST