Interviews with Stephen Kapos, Suzanne Weiss and Rene Lichtman - all Child Survivors of the Holocaust in France and Hungary
Interview with Rene Lichtman
Ten holocaust survivors have just
published a letter in 'Mondoweiss',
condemning Genocide in Gaza. It was originally sent to the Guardian, Independent and New
York Times. Not surprisingly these ‘liberal’ outlets weren’t interested in
anything which strays from the accepted Zionist narrative which says that the only
lesson of the Holocaust is that Israel has the ‘right to exist’ as a Jewish Supremacist
state and the ‘right to self-defence’ i.e. commit genocide’ against the Palestinians.
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Stephen Kapos and fellow holocaust survivors and children at London demonstration against Genocide in Gaza
Stephen Kapos, who has led the protest
of holocaust survivors in London, was supposed to be interviewed by the
Guardian but three times it cancelled the appointment. Clearly he and the other
signatories are the Wrong Type Of
Holocaust Survivor.
Stephen
and his comrades draw the lesson that racism is wrong whoever the perpetrator is and whoever the victims are, whereas US imperialism and its Israeli client
state concludes that Israel’s racism is justified by the Holocaust.
As
Moshe Feiglin, former Likud member of the Knesset, in an interview with Israel’s Channel
12 explained:
As Hitler said, 'I can't live if one
Jew is left,' we can't live here
if one 'Islamo-Nazi' remains in Gaza'
The
fact that leading Zionists like Feiglin and Yoav Gallant (who described
the Palestinians as ‘human animals’
just as Himmler described
the Jews) shows the depths to which Zionism has sunk.
The
co-founder of Human Rights Watch, Aryeh Neier, has recently said that Israel is engaged in genocide in
Gaza. He’s also said that using accusations of antisemitism to attack Israel’s critics
“debases the whole concept of antisemitism.” As Holocaust survivors, we are
writing to agree wholeheartedly with Professor Neier — who himself only
survived the Holocaust by escaping Nazi Germany as a child in 1939.
At
a recent Holocaust memorial, Netanyahu declared: “We’ll defeat our genocidal enemies. Never again is now!”
Meanwhile,
at another memorial, Biden warned of a “ferocious surge of antisemitism” on college campuses.
In
our opinion, to use the memory of the Holocaust like this to justify either
genocide in Gaza or repression on college campuses is a complete insult to the
memory of the Holocaust.
The
dehumanization of Palestinians, describing them as “human animals,” the killing
of tens of thousands of civilians, indiscriminate bombing, the destruction of
universities and hospitals, and the use of mass starvation — these are clearly
stages of ethnic cleansing and genocide. They cannot be defended any more than
sending weapons to commit this genocide or refusing funding to UNRWA. With no
better arguments, our politicians have resorted to misusing the memory of the
Holocaust while claiming that protesting against Israeli genocide is somehow
antisemitic.
As
Holocaust survivors, we have no special authority on the Middle East but we do
know about antisemitism. It’s simply wrong to claim that it’s antisemitic to
oppose Israeli genocide. It’s also wrong to claim that calling for equal rights
for Jews and Arabs “from the river to the sea” is antisemitic.
As
Holocaust survivors, we are just a few individuals but we want to add our
voices to the growing global movement to demand a permanent ceasefire, an
Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, and for the West to stop arming and supporting
genocide.
Signatories
Jacques
Bude (Brussels
Belgium), survived in hiding in Belgium, parents killed in Auschwitz.
Marione
Ingram (Washington
DC), survived in hiding in Nazi Germany.
Stephen
Kapos (London UK), survived
the Budapest ghetto.
H.
Richard Leuchtag
(Houston TX), escaped Germany in 1938.
Rene
Lichtman
(Southfield MI), survived in hiding in France.
Adam
Policzer
(Vancouver BC), survived in hiding in Hungary.
Lillian
Rosengarten
(Cold Spring NY), escaped Germany in 1936.
Suzanne
Ross (New York), escaped Nazi-occupied Belgium
Suzanne
Berliner Weiss (Toronto
Ont.), survived in hiding in France, mother killed in Auschwitz.
Ervin
Somogyi (Oakland, CA),
survivor
from Hungary.
Rene Lichtman
An article in The Forward describes how Rene Lichtman 86, laid down in the road
outside the Zekelman Holocaust museum in the Detroit area to protest Israel’s genocide
in Gaza.
With
members of Jewish Voice for Peace Lichtman held up a sign which read: “Jews and allies say never again for
anyone.”
After the
protest, Lichtman got a call from Rabbi Eli Mayerfeld of the The Zekelman Holocaust Center who told him that the board had
voted to remove him as a speaker in its Survivor Talk Sundays series.
For 10
years, Lichtman had spoken to school and other groups about his childhood in
France during the Holocaust and how his mother had left him with a Communist Catholic family
outside Paris to hide him from the Nazis.
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The
reason for his removal was his views on the war in Gaza.
“What’s
going on in the museums today, in the universities, is McCarthyism — Jewish
McCarthyism. Voices that are pro-Palestinian will get destroyed. You will lose your
livelihood. The teachers will be thrown out. That’s the world we’re living in.”
The
Zekelman Holocaust Center naturally did not respond to requests from The Forward for comment because it knows
that its reasons for doing what it did cannot be justified.
But the decision
of the Zekelman proves one thing.
That its purpose is not to use the Holocaust to warn about the dangers of
racism and where it can lead. The purpose of these holocaust centres is altogether
more sinister.
The Zekelman and bodies like the Holocaust Educational Trust exist to propagandise a narrative
that reinforces Zionist racism and ethnic cleansing. They depoliticise the holocaust, divorcing it
from the actual political conditions that led to the Nazis exterminating Jews and many others.
Suzanne's mother who died in Auschwitz
For these
Zionist re-education centres, only the Jews experienced holocaust. All other
groups were mere victims of war and random killings. This narrative derives
from Israel’s Yad Vashem which,
since 1953, has crafted a holocaust historiography to accord with its belief
that the Holocaust justified the creation of a ‘Jewish’ state based on the same
principles of purity of race as Nazi Germany. This is one of the key themes of
my book, Zionism During the
Holocaust.
Suzanne Weiss
The
Zionist use of the Holocaust to justify genocide demonstrates its contempt for
the Jews who died in Auschwitz. It tramples over their memory. These holocaust memorial centres serve not to enlighten but to
indoctrinate. Zionism holds that Israel inherits the memory of the Jews who
died in the holocaust whereas Israel is the successor to those who killed the
Jews. Gaza today is a death camp like Auschwitz except that instead of poison
gas, high explosives are used to murder the inmates.
Rene was
repeatedly told not to connect the holocaust with contemporary events because
that would be ‘political’. His function when lecturing to students was to
emphasise the horrors of the holocaust. It was to be left to others, the
professional holocaust mongers and Zionist historians to draw the necessary conclusions.
Only they could be relied on.
An interview
that Rene did for the Zekelman Centre is still on their website. Perhaps even
they haven’t had the gall to take it down – at least not yet. It dwells on the time he spent in hiding in France
with the Lepage family who ‘were both
Christians, Catholic, and left-wing, communist.’ It covers his struggle to
regain his lost Jewish identity, which
he had to lose when in hiding and it ends with this paragraph:
Rene's story is also important in another sense. When Jews were trying to survive the Nazi occupation in France, it wasn't the French nationalists or right-wing that sheltered Jews but the Communists and the Left. We should bear that in mind today when 'anti-Semitism' is the badge of the right-wing as they defend Israel. It is the Left they accuse of anti-Semitism. This, more than anything, shows the bogus nature of the false anti-Semitism narrative.
Rene explained that for young people,
“The Jewish
values that you should be proud of have to do with social justice. If you’re
going to be a social justice warrior or fight for social justice, you’re not
going to be popular. The people who did the rescuing in those days were not
popular with their neighbors because they were endangering the neighbors by
hiding Jews. So, by fighting for your social justice values, you’d better have
some allies to support you.”
Ironic really in view of what the
Zekelman Centre did when Rene put into practice the Jewish values that he talked
about above. There is also another interview
that Rene did with US Holocaust Museum.
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Interview with Suzanne Weiss
Suzanne
Weiss, an 83 year-old Holocaust survivor, is still active in the fight for
justice. Suzanne was a full-time worker and former activist with the American organisation
the Socialist
Workers Party, when that group was still sane. Today it defends Israel’s
genocide in Gaza. Suzanne cut her teeth in campaigns for solidarity with Cuba
and the anti-war campaign over Vietnam.
Suzanne as a young girl in 1949
During the
present genocide she succeeded, despite efforts by the University of Toronto to
obstruct her, to speak to the student encampment. The students are demanding that
the University of Toronto disinvest its funds from Israel.
The Ontario
Federation of Labour (OFL) called on its members to defend Palestinian freedom
and student rights to demonstrate. Below are some of Suzanne’s remarks:
Suzanne speaking at a rally in support of Gaza
"As a
survivor of the Nazi holocaust. I know that unity and solidarity is crucial to
survival and freedom. Many individuals and a whole community saved me and
thousands of Jews and others fleeing Nazi execution.
"The
presence today, of unionized workers organized by the Ontario Federation of
Labour, is an outstanding example of solidarity. The world’s people want and
need this infusion of solidarity.
"Your
encampment is a threat to the global witch hunt campaign (IHRA) to change the
meaning of anti-Semitism (Being against Jews because they are Jews). The IHRA campaign
attacks you as anti-Semitic because you criticize Israel’s racist apartheid.
The IHRA opposes the wearing of the Keffiyeh and persecutes all defenders of
Palestinian freedom.
Suzanne with her life long lover John
"Your
three demands for the University to disclose its investments; divest from
Israel apartheid, and put an end to all academic partnership with Israeli are
in line with the world Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. The BDS world
movement is a road forward to victory for Palestinian freedom.
"Our
demonstrations persist in demanding that our Canadian government, although
itself complicit, acts for an immediate and unconditional cease fire to stop
the genocide, to send food, and medical aid to the besieged Palestinians in war
torn Gaza.
The UofT
academic administration should make these demands as well."
Suzanne as a troubled teen
Stephen Kapos and Tony Greenstein Interview 9 November 2023
Stephen Kapos is an
87 year old holocaust survivor. Stephen survived the death squads of the fascist
Arrow Cross/Nyilas in Budapest in 1944 because he was hidden by the Protestant
Good
Shepherd Mission in church houses in Budapest. Of the quarter
million Budapest Jews, some 50,000 were murdered. Nearly all the Jews living
outside Budapest, some 437,000 were deported to Auschwitz where the vast
majority were exterminated.
On 19 March 1944 the Nazis invaded Hungary. On 15 May the deportations to Auschwitz began and they lasted till July 7 when Admiral Horthy stopped them as a result of massive western pressure. Hungarian Jews had been given 3 weeks notice of what was going to happen when the Vrba Wetzler Report or Auschwitz Protocols were given to the leader of Hungarian Zionism, Rudolf Kasztner. [see VRBA ON THE REPORT]
A bus of the Good Shepherd carrying children in Budapest
Kasztner preferred to make a deal with Eichmann in which 600, later 1684 rich Jews, Zionists and his own family were able to leave Hungary on a sealed train in exchange for keeping quiet about the fate of the other half million Hungarian Jews. Kasztner and his henchmen actively misinformed Hungary’s Jews about where the deportation trains were going. Indeed Kasztner distributed postcards the deportees had been forced to write in Auschwitz which purported to come from the fictitious Waldsee saying how wonderful life was. As Vrba was later to write in the Daily Herald (February 1961)
I am a Jew. In spite of that
– indeed because of that I accuse certain Jewish leaders of one of the most
ghastly deeds of the war. This small group of quislings knew what was
happening to their brethren in Hitler's gas chambers and bought their own
lives with the price of silence. Among them was Dr Kasztner. … I was able to
give Hungarian Zionist leaders three weeks’ notice that Eichmann planned to
send a million of their Jews to his gas chambers… Kasztner went to Eichmann and
told him, ‘I know of your plans; spare some Jews of my choice and I shall keep
quiet.’
In Israel where
Kasztner went after the war, those Hungarian Jews who survived Auschwitz accused
him of collaboration with the Nazis.
This resulted in the Israeli
state, on Kasztner’s behalf, suing one of his detractors, Malchiel Greenwald,
for libel in 1954. After Kasztner was shown to have lied when he denied
testifying at Nuremberg on behalf of Himmler’s personal emissary in Hungary Kurt
Becher, the verdict against him was inevitable.
In 1955 Judge
Benjamin Halevi concluded that Kasztner, on behalf of the Jewish Agency, had ‘sold his soul to Satan’. Kasztner had also
gone to Nuremberg after the war to
testify in favour of other major Nazi war criminals such as Hermann Krumey and
Dieter Wisliceny. Krumey, Eichmann’s deputy, had personally supervised the
mechanics of the Hungarian holocaust. Wisliceny had presided over the deportation
of Slovakia’s Jews, the first Jews to be deported to Auschwitz as well as the
annihilation of Greek Jewry.
The full story is
best told in Ben Hecht’s Perfidy.
Hecht was a Revisionist Zionist who allied with Peter Bergson’s Emergency Committee
to Save the Jews of Europe which the Zionist leadership in the United States fought
and tried to undermine. Bergson’s Committee led to the setting up of the War Refugee Board by
Roosevelt which saved an estimated 200,000 Jews.
The second Israeli
government of Moshe Sharrett fell as a result of the trial verdict but today
the Zionists prefer not to mention the widespread collaboration of the Zionist
movement during the war.
There has been a
widespread attempt by the Zionist movement to rehabilitate Kasztner. See e.g. the
Holocaust Educational Trust’s The Kasztner train – a personal
perspective or Yad Vashem’s decision
to accept his archives.
Stephen however did
survive, not thanks to the Zionists but Christian rescuers. This episode forms
the central part of my book. The Kasztner Affair was the main reason why Israel decided to stage the Eichmann Trial.
Today the Zionists
have the chutzpah to call the
Palestinians the New Nazis whereas in fact it is they who most resemble the Nazis.
As I said in a speech
in 2019, Israel is Hitler’s Bastard
Offspring.
Tony Greenstein
