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  • 2 days ago
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00:00For decades we have spoken to people across the country sharing our painful memories.
00:09We have done this out of deep sense of duty to ensure that what happened to our families
00:18and six million Jewish men women and children is never forgotten. Soon there will be no
00:26our witnesses left. That is why I ask you today to just listen not to just listen but to become
00:36my witnesses. What happened to them is indescribable. They were murdered in the most horrific way shot
00:47into open so um open pits in Braco forest. This was actually taken place all over the country.
01:01The forest killings. My father and brother were deported to Buchenwald. I was sent with my five
01:08year old cousin Anne first to Ravensbruck and then to Bergen-Belsen. I later learned that my father
01:18was murdered by trying to escape a death march just days before liberation. In the camps we were stripped
01:28naked, shaved, put through freezing cold showers and even the prison and given the prisoner a barb.
01:39When we looked at each other we barely recognized each other. We all looked the same. We were stripped
01:50not only of our freedom but of our identities, our dignity, our humanity. It was as if they had taken
02:00away our very souls. When I arrived in Burgen-Belsen the first thing that hit me was the smog and the stench.
02:12It was a hell on earth. Those still alive shuffled about like skeleton and just collapsed where they stood.
02:25Disease was everywhere and I became very ill with typhus. I could hardly move.
02:33One day from the window of my barracks I saw people running and all I could think of was
02:41how have they got the strength to run. I couldn't move a muscle. That was on the 15th of April 1945
02:51when we were liberated by the British. Having endured the Holocaust we survivors never imagined we would
02:58witness antisemitism at the level it is today. What we have seen in Manchester on Yom Kippur
03:08and in Sydney on Hanukkah has shaken me to the call. How 81 years after the Holocaust can Jewish people once again be targeted in this way.
03:24Remembering the past is no longer enough. I speak to you leaders of this country. I proudly call home
03:35home and I plead that you do what you need not needs to be done to tackle this hate.
03:46When I was in Burgen-Belsen I still had hope because without hope there's no survival.
03:54Today I have hope. I hope in the next generation the thousands of young people who have heard my testimony.
04:04Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today and thank you for listening.
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