How This Holocaust Survivor Became a Techic Star: Video
Tova Friedman, an 84-year-old survivor of Auschwitz, is seen during an interview with her grandson at her daughter’s home in Morristown.
Mitsu Yasukawa/NorthJersey.com
Tova Friedman has the demeanor of someone with little time to waste.
She has an economy of words, but the directness with which she speaks in no way diminishes the power of her message: humanity must never forget the horrors of the Holocaust.
Friedman, 86 and still working as a physician, observed the horror herself.
She is one of a very small number of Holocaust survivors, and as the world observes the 80th anniversary of independence Auschwitz And International Holocaust Remembrance Day On Monday, she knows her message needs to be amplified to new generations so that those who suffered and died are not in vain.
But as Friedman, a child imprisoned in Auschwitz during the Holocaust, and his gang grow up, concerns grow that the Holocaust is being distorted, denied and even forgotten.
“I share this story like many others who do, because we cannot forget all the innocent men, women and children who were slaughtered because they were Jewish,” Friedman said. Including people with disabilities, gays and lesbians and other ethnic minorities.
“I ask the world to remember them. Memory is very, very important,” he said.
Early lessons as a child helped him survive the ghetto in Poland
Friedman knows better than most the importance of words and warnings: From her earliest days, she remembers her mother telling her how to behave in a Jewish ghetto in Poland. Don’t look soldiers in the eye. Don’t cry or get drunk or complain. Don’t do anything that kills them.
“My mother didn’t cover anything,” Friedman said.
Friedman survived the ghetto, and later Auschwitz Birkenau, but barely. He misses being tattooed. His head is being shaved. Taken to the gas chambers with other children, Pitti was told, and then, inexplicably, rescued.
He said the brutal experiences of survivors should never slip from memory.
“It’s a warning, a watch, to say look what can happen if we don’t stop hating, don’t stop suspecting each other for any reason, whether it’s skin color, gender differences, politics or whatever. Be anything.”
Can you name a concentration camp?
Claims Conferencebased in New York, is a multinational advocacy group for survivors, their descendants and others interested in preserving the history of the Holocaust, working with museums, educational institutions and non-profits including Remember And US Holocaust Memorial Museum Surveying people in eight countries for an index of Holocaust knowledge and awareness.
Some of the results were alarming.
In the countries surveyed – the United States, Romania, Hungary, Poland, France, Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom – many people were not aware of the scope of the Holocaust. In the US, France and Austria, for example, 21% believed that the number of Jews who perished was 200,000 or less – far less than the actual number, 6 million.
While this difference in the number killed in the millions may be hard to fathom, the distinction does matter.
“Everybody was a man for himself,” said Greg Schneider, executive vice president of the claims conference. “The Holocaust continued in Europe for many years, and the magnitude of it is significant. It’s really shocking and disturbing that so many people don’t know that.”
Almost half of Americans surveyed (48%) were unable to name a single person ghetto or concentration camps—even Auschwitz-Birkenau, where Anne Frank Taken after she and her family were discovered, and where Tova Friedman lost her young life. Or Bergen-Belsen, where Anne Frank eventually died.
Lack of knowledge about horrors ‘deeply troubling’
A significant percentage of Americans (44%) also say that Holocaust denial is common, and nearly half of Americans (49%) surveyed say that Holocaust distortion is common.
Schneider called the lack of knowledge about the Holocaust “deeply troubling.”
“It’s more than just that people don’t understand the Holocaust that should alarm us. It’s not just the facts and figures,” but a lack of understanding of how “hate is scrutinized for horrific acts.” can lead to.”
“Of course this matters to the Jewish people, but at the end of the day it’s not just about the Jews,” he said. “That’s the lesson of the Holocaust — it was an event intended to exterminate the Jewish people, yes. But the lessons are ultimately universal.”
Reasons for hope, even survivors are dying
A majority (76%) of people surveyed in the US believe that something like the Holocaust could happen again, a 30% increase from the percentage of people who believed it five years ago. Schneider blamed the alarm raised by a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the resulting escalation of hostilities.
But the news wasn’t all bad, and that’s why Schneider finds hope. Americans overwhelmingly believe that Holocaust education is important and should be in American schools: 96% and 95%, respectively, agree with these sentiments.
“We live in such a polarized society,” he said. “It’s so hard to get that many people to agree on anything. What is really needed now is for them to get public policy right.”
He’d like to see schools and teachers supported as they teach this terrifying but important piece of history, and for it to be more than a day or two of instruction or blurbs in the textbook. “We need more textbooks and tools, more sophisticated technology so students can understand not only what happened, but the implications for modern-day society.”
Race against time to preserve the stories of the survivors
The Claims Conference is recording the stories of Holocaust survivors such as Tova Friedman and others as part of its #RememberBirth campaign. The group knows they’re in a race against time, though: There are about 24,245,000 survivors worldwide, according to Claims Conference 2024 Demographics Reportand most of them were children when the Holocaust disrupted their lives and tore their families apart.
Their median age is 86.
“We’re living in an age when institutions and facts don’t have the power they used to,” Schneider said, when lies or distortions on social media far outnumber traditional gatekeepers. Can go viral on media. The guard rails, as they were, are being removed from the platform.
“And this is happening at a time when we are losing survivors and eyewitnesses,” like the soldiers who liberated the camps and are found dead, and barely alive.
Tuva on tikok, teaching the youth
Friedman, who lives in Highland Park, New Jersey, hasn’t just told her story to an advocacy conference, or to classrooms full of school kids, or to parties.
He has written a book, “Daughter of Auschwitz,” but she’s also reaching a whole new generation thanks to her grandson, Aaron Goodman. When she admits she barely understands Tuckok (she was initially surprised when Aaron rejected her online “I didn’t realize it was that interactive,” he said of the process tovatok The account has around 515,000 followers and 10.2 million likes.
Just when it looked like TikTok might fall into obscurity in America, Aaron took over An Instagram feedas well.
He said he’s glad the videos caught on. “I wanted to teach young people, because when I’m not here, they’ll be here,” and they don’t have time for people who would try to deny or minimize their story.
When asked if she might be slowing down, Friedman laughed. “Quite the opposite! I don’t have many years left, so I’m going fast. I’ve never gone so fast in my life.”
But the increase in hostility worries him: “The world has turned against the Jews, and those who have never met a Jew are hostile.” “It is a mantra of intolerance.
“If we don’t learn to understand each other and hate each other, we may all end up as ashes.”
Reach ptrethean@usatoday.com, ptrethean@usatoday.com, Bluesky at @biphaedra or @bi_phaedra on threads.
