What Starts with Words Ends Up with Horrible Things

Stand for Israel  |  May 2, 2019

GERMANY-TRIAL-HOLOCAUST-NAZI
Auschwitz survivor and plaintiff Max Eisen holds a photo of himself and his Hungarian Jewish family before their deportation during the Holocaust, as he waits for the third day of the trial of former Nazi death camp officer Oskar Groening on April 23, 2015 at the Courthouse in Lueneburg, northern Germany. Groening, a 93-year-old man dubbed the 'bookkeeper of Auschwitz' is being tried on 'accessory to murder' charges in 300,000 cases of deported Hungarian Jews who were sent to the gas chambers, and faces up to 15 years jail. AFP PHOTO / POOL / JULIAN STRATENSCHULTE (Photo credit should read JULIAN STRATENSCHULTE/AFP/Getty Images)

At 90 years old, Max Eisen is still working to keep the promise he made to his father, who was murdered during the Holocaust. While Max survived the Holocaust and went on to do great things in the world, The Jerusalem Post’s Sheri Oz writes about how he is shocked that the same anti-Semitism that led to the deaths of his father and six million other Jews is on the rise today:

When he landed in Canada at the age of 20, a short few years after the Holocaust had wiped out his family, he did not expect he would ever see antisemitism take on the shape of the Jew-hatred he had experienced in Nazi Germany. Yet that is exactly what he sees happening in North America now, especially in the United States.

Talking with Holocaust survivor Max Eisen on the phone, you can easily mistake his voice for that of a young man. At 90 years of age, he still speaks at venues across Canada, keeping his promise to his father to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive.

This year marks the 20th time he will be at March for the Living, a march that goes from Auschwitz to Birkenau to commemorate the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. “Through his lectures and the March,” Canadian National Director of the March Eli Rubenstein says, “Eisen has probably educated over 100,000 students and adults. Those who learn from him are filled with gratitude for the experience.”

“BDS is a big problem for me because what starts with words ends up with horrible things.”

What about BDS is so troublesome?

“Some of the extremist statements against Israel emanating from the BDS movement remind me of the propaganda used by the Nazis against the Jews in the Holocaust era. To single out for extreme criticism the only Jewish state in the world the way the BDS movement does with Israel, in many cases has roots in anti-Semitic feelings and will inevitably lead to more antisemitism.

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