Concentration camp survivor, US witnesses say “Holocaust echoes” during Capitol infiltration |

Born in Berlin in 1930, she was only three years old when Hitler came to power and began the persecution of Jews in Germany.

Speaking at a virtual ceremony for International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the HolocaustDr. The events that took place with the storm on Capitol Hill showed that “democracy is weak and we cannot take anything for granted,” Butter said.

“It is up to us, our people, our democratic institutions and our constitution to preserve and protect it,” she said. Therefore, she believes that everyone in the United States should be aware of what happened during the Holocaust, by those who survived.

She said, “It is our responsibility to be active citizens, to face hatred and to deal with violations of our democracy, and in this way it can be preserved and protected.”

Herzzerreißender account

Dr. Butter recounts how his family fled to Amsterdam to escape the Nazis, but only two years later the Nazis invaded the Netherlands and “the persecution of the Jews intensified.”

She said, “We were deported to two detention camps.” “First a German concentration camp in the Netherlands, then in Bergen-Belsen in Germany, because my father was able to apply for Ecuadorian passports because he thought this could save our lives.”

After an exhausting year in Bergen-Belsen, their Ecuadorian passports allowed them to be accepted into a prisoner exchange program run by the Nazis.

“Unfortunately, my father died on the train bound for Switzerland, and when we arrived in Switzerland, my mother and brother were immediately hospitalized,” she recalls.

Painful separation

The 14-year-old was separated from her family and moved to a refugee camp in Algiers for nearly a year before coming to the United States in 1945.

“I separated from my mother and brother for eighteen months before we met in New York to start a new life,” she said. “I have lived in the United States since then and have been fortunate enough to take advantage of many opportunities.”

Talk

Dr. Butter admitted it took 40 years before she followed the advice of Elie Wiesel, who deemed testimony and testimony a “duty” of all survivors.

She has been teaching students about the Holocaust and the lessons she learned during those traumatic years since the late 1980s, and she reiterates the need to never be indifferent to what is happening here and now.

She said, “We have to go ahead, be awake, and act.” “It’s very easy to get caught up in everyday life, but a lot of things happen around us and it is really important to express yourself.”

‘Leave the Holocaust’

According to Israeli Professor Yehuda Bauer, the Holocaust was “an unprecedented genocide … because of its global form.”

He said, “The Jews were destined to be destroyed all over the world,” not only in Europe.

The professor warned that this was a “precedent” that could be repeated. “If we deal with mass hate crimes and ruthless genocide today, we must start with the Holocaust.” Not just to remind us, but to act according to the history in which we live. ”

“We have to remember this and react to the lessons we learned from it,” said Professor Bauer.

The Satellite in Jewish History

Ari Fullman, who also spoke online on Memorial Day, is the son of a Holocaust survivor who met and married in the Lodz ghetto.

Award-winning animated documentary Waltz with BasherIt tells the story of the Ludo ghetto in September 1942, in which 15,000 Jewish children were deported to concentration camps for three days – and never returned.

Mr. Follman quoted the last sentence of the film, in which a survivor of the ancient Holocaust from Lodz said: “Once we are all out of this world, all Holocaust survivors will take an acceptable stand in the face of events.” So Far Away – It’d be like watching Jewish history from a satellite during WWII. ”

He said this is the reason why he spent eight years of his life “finding new dimensions and new ways of telling stories when it comes to the Holocaust.”

For him, he said, comics and animation could be used for educational purposes, “all over the world to keep the story alive.”