Holocaust survivors harness social media to spread knowledge
BERLIN (AP) — Alarmed by a rise in online anti-Semitism during the pandemic, coupled with studies indicating younger generations lack even basic knowledge of the Nazi genocide, Holocaust survivors are taking to social media to share their experience of how hate speech paved the way for mass murder.
With short video messages recounting their stories, participants in the #ItStartedWithWords campaign hope to educate people about how the Nazis embarked on an insidious campaign to dehumanize and marginalize Jews — years before death camps were established to carry out murder on an industrial scale.
The plan is to release six individual videos and a compilation Wednesday over Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, followed by one video per week. The posts will include a link to a webpage with further resources, including more testimonies and teaching materials.
“There aren't too many of us going out and speaking anymore, we're few in numbers but our voices are heard,” Sidney Zoltak, a survivor from Poland who turns 90 later this year, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Montreal.
“We are not there to tell them stories that we read or that we heard — we are telling facts, we are telling what happened to us and to our neighbors, and to our communities, and I think that this is the strongest possible way.”
Once the Nazi party came to power in Germany in 1933, leaders immediately set about making good on their pledges to “Aryanize” the country, segregating and marginalizing the Jewish population.
The Nazi government encouraged the boycott of Jewish businesses, which were were daubed with the Star of David or the word “Jude” — Jew. Propaganda posters and films suggested Jews were “vermin,” comparing them to rats and insects, while new laws were passed to restrict all aspects of Jews'...
