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A SURVIVOR OF the Holocaust has spoken of his fears that what led to World War II ‘is happening again’ in Europe.
Speaking to Channel 4 News on Holocaust Memorial Day, Leslie Kleinman said he can see the ‘nasty things’ he witnessed when he was younger ‘coming up again’.
There are fears that antisemitism is on the rise in Europe.
“I’ve been through it, and believe me, I know I wouldn’t like it to happen again, I wouldn’t like to happen again,” he says, breaking down in tears.
“We should live together, in harmony, as one people. After all, we’re all human beings.”
In spring 1944, Kleinman was 15 when his father was taken to Auschwitz.
Weeks later, soldiers returned for the rest of his family. He, along with his mother and seven siblings, were taken to Auschwitz as well.
The Evening Times reports that he was told to say he was 17, and that saved him from execution. He told the paper previously:
My mother and six of my brothers and sisters were sent to the left of the line. I was sent to the right. I had no idea where they had gone but later that night other prisoners told me that they would have gone to be gassed and their bodies already cremated. My family would have been gone within hours.
After a horrific year, when he didn’t speak about for decades, he was liberated from the camp on April 13, 1945.
Kleinman now shares his experience with young people through the Holocaust Education Trust.
President Michael D Higgins spoke this evening at a memorial day ceremony in the mansion house, at which three survivors of the Holocaust were in attendance.
“Seventy years after the Holocaust, it remains an atrocity which we regard and remember with horror, revulsion, and disbelief. We owe so much to the survivors of that atrocity, who continue to bear witness to the terrible inhumanity that can emerge from hatred, prejudice and intolerance,” Higgins said.
“We are approaching a time, however, when the Holocaust will become a chapter that has passed from the possibility of personal recall into history,” he warned.
It will remain important that future generations learn about and comprehend that baleful chapter in World history, and all of the hateful assumptions and practices that preceded it; assumptions and practices that now seek to re-emerge in so many places to continue the prejudice, discrimination and persecution which lead to the great failure of humanity that was the Shoah.
“As we remember the hateful discrimination that led to the Holocaust, and the horrors of that period, we must remember also today what emerged from that tragic episode of European history – in particular the resolution of the people of Europe to seek to found a new community of nations and peoples founded on the principles and values of human rights and human dignity,” he said.
300 Auschwitz survivors — most now in their nineties — will on Tuesday return to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Between 1940-45 some 1.1 million people, including one million Jews, perished in the twin death camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau created by Nazi Germany in Oswiecim, southern Poland.
Liberated by the Soviet Red Army on January 27, 1945, the camps have become an enduring symbol of the horrors of Nazism and the Holocaust, which claimed the lives of six million European Jews.
“It is the last big anniversary that we can commemorate” with a large group of survivors, said Piotr Cywinski, director of the museum at the site of the former death camp.
“Their voices became the most important warning against the human capacity for extreme humiliation, contempt and genocide.
“However, soon it will not be the witnesses of those years, but us, the post-war generations, who will pass this horrible knowledge and the crushing conclusions that result from it,” he said in a statement posted on the camp’s website.
One hundred Auschwitz survivors from Israel were expected to be among the group of around 300 former prisoners due for the landmark ceremonies.
Additional reporting © – AFP 2015
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Used to listen to Newstalk but Chris Donaghue does my head in with his politically correct büllshit…….
I stopped due to him too. That, and Moncrieff is trying too hard these days.
If there is a PC bandwagon doing the rounds you can be sure that Sean Moncrieff will be on it. A decent enough interviewer though. I’ll give him that. That said it, most of the people he interviews are book-pluggers.
Chris Donoghue personifies the modern politically correct ‘New Man’.
Incapable of uttering an honest opinion on anything.
He doesn;t have an opinion. He suckles on Ivan’s tittie.
Sean Montcrieffe has a problem with the letter ‘E’
University becomes UnivUrsity
Have a listen.
I used to listen to newstalk breakfast also but for me Ivan did my head in.
Rte lies and propaganda https://youtu.be/aG7JmlQXBt0
It’s Ivan does my head in. Too much blue shirt propaganda.
Even without Kenny? Funny the way they tried to convince us they couldn’t do without him when he was on 90K a year.
That breakfast republic is torture, all they play is cheesy shite dance crap you hear in every girls clothes shop.
I blame Jennuendo Maguire
Now would be a good time to cut RTE’s budget again then. Let them compete in the real world.
These figures mean nothing as is. The true success story here is that Newstalk are, on a shoestring budget, a tiny tiny fractions of the resources and finances, are solidly competing with RTE.
For music stations we need to go the way of the Americans and play music.
Nobody wants to hear a DJ.
That was ok 20 years ago before the internet. Peoples heads are too full of media commentary.
They want peace.
That’s why people are tuning in to Phantom.
Less is more.
I’m surprised at how small Lyrics listenership is, I find myself listening to it more and more, except for John Kelly who can play some woeful arty farty shite.
Never a more accurate head line on the Journal, RTE is Pro Fine Gael.
€290 million in tv licence fees should give them just a slight advantage over the competition.
Roll on truthful alternative media.
Roll on the infowar.
I can safely say I have never listened to any RTE Radio 1 show apart from the odd news or sports bulletin. Can’t stand any of the presenters. Bunch of overpaid talentless idiots
How do u know if you haven’t listened to any of them? I don’t listen either but I can’t say anymore than that.
Beano given that you have such strong optimists on RTE which you never listen to according to yourself I just wondering if you have any strong opinions on books you haven’t read or movies you haven’t seen that you want to share with us?
I’ve watched Duffy, Finucane, O’Callaghan, D’Arcy on telly and thought they were all $hite. I think it’s a fairly accurate assumption to think that they will also be $hite on the radio. Are you saying they’re not?
Good judge of character Beano.
Spot on!!!
Overpaid Dry Handpuppet Lackeys.
RTE should be scrapped
Sink or swim. Cut them loose. RTE takes vast amounts of public money to allegedly provide a public service AND they take money for colossal amounts of advertising. The RTE player is basically unusable now with all the advertising on it. Where is all that money going to? Into the pockets of the friends and relations, and of course their ”stars”.. The same talentless ”stars” that wouldn’t be poached to make the tea at a local radio station in Moldova, never mind the BBC.
Ryan Tubridy is FF, Miriam O’ Callaghan is FF. The media giant’s right hand woman Lucy Gaffney is going for top RTE job.
Any people like Miriam who has a brother running in the elections for ff should step aside during the elections and that goes for any one else in RTE. It is the state broadcaster and should be neutral.
RTE lost two of their best when they SHAFTED John Clarke & then let Alf Mc go too
Can’t wait to pay my broadcast licence in 2016
There was a European Court ruling a few years ago that state funded media outlets were not to engage in ratings wars.
Doesn’t seem to have had any effect on the chiefs at Montrose though.
The real test?
Take away the license fee. let these people stand on their own two feet on a level playing field.
Doubt if RTE would even make the top four.
Agreed Oran,
The are lots of instances where State funding or tax exempt status needs to be reviewed and removed. The two biggies being RTE and the RC Church.
When Bowie died, I heard ‘music’ on the radio for the first time in years. I guarantee Eurovision 2016 selection is one big free promo for a Nicky Byrne album down the line. RTE are an embarrassment.
I grab the morning news headlines on RTE Radio 1 and then switch over to BBC Radio 4 or LBC London.
I usually switch away when they start repeating the mantra “RTE Supporting the Arts” over and over and over again ad infinitum.
I heard that mantra repeated 5 times in 5 minutes a few months back.
(Reminds me of the “Allah Akbar” you hear endlessly on Middle East news reports).
I hit the button.
Joe Duffy is amazing, I love listening to Irish people moaning !
Now, if only we had a left wing radio station we could infer an election result.
Matt Cooper brings me home everyday. He’s my fave.
Cooper is – like all Newstalk presenters – a DOBshite, all their integrity as journalists is completely compromised as long as they live off the purse strings of their media oligarch despot of a boss.
Maybe but they extremely one sided
Bbc 4 extra great station
RTE Supporting the Arts?
Like dropping Lyric FM’s hour-long Jazz Alley presented by Donald Helme..
One hour of jazz a week which used to be 90 minutes.
Another example of mediocrity in management.
Good results or Journal reprinting hype ?
‘Everybody needs a bosom for a pillow’
Why can’t I stop singing that line.
Damn you, now it is in my head.
Pardon me but I thought that the first paragraph said that more than half listen to a local radio station and 46% listen to a national station. By this reckoning the local radio secttor is beating the pants off the national celebrity sector! What follows then is a blow by blow account of ratings for our failing national ego celebs! Strange reporting of the facts but nothing new for the Irish media?
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