Survivor-Led Digital Campaign Launched by the Claims
Conference Shines a Light on Hatred Before the Holocaust
NEW YORK, April 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the
Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims
Conference) announces a new Holocaust survivor-led, digital
campaign, #ItStartedWithWords.
Before local anti-Jewish laws were enacted, before neighborhood
shops and synagogues were destroyed, and before Jews were forced
into ghettos, cattle cars, and camps, words were used to stoke the
fires of hate. #ItStartedWithWords is a digital,
Holocaust education campaign posting weekly videos of survivors
from around the world reflecting on those moments that led up to
the Holocaust – a period of time when they could not have predicted
the ease with which their long-time neighbors, teachers,
classmates, and colleagues would turn on them, transitioning from
words of hate to acts of violence.
"The Holocaust started with words," said Gideon Taylor, President of the Claims
Conference. "Hateful words that were yelled in the park, spat
on the street, and roared in the classroom. These words alienated,
belittled, and shocked; but worse, these words gave birth to the
horrific massacre of six million Jews. The
#ItStartedWithWords campaign will show through
first-hand survivor testimony that the Holocaust didn't come out of
nowhere. It literally started with words."
#ItStartedWithWords will use survivor
testimony to give context to the origins of the Holocaust -- the
foundation of antisemitism that Hitler and the Nazis used to
generate support across Europe
before a single act of war was undertaken. The goal of the campaign
is to show how words of hate can become actions, and how those
actions can have unimaginable outcomes.
Greg Schneider, Executive Vice
President of the Claims Conference said, "You don't wake
up one morning deciding to participate in mass murder. Hate speech,
propaganda, antisemitism, and racism were the roots that culminated
in genocide. The shocking results of our 2020 U.S. Millennial
Holocaust Knowledge and Awareness Survey, which found that 63
percent of Millennials and Gen Z did not know six million Jews were
murdered, clarifies for us how important it is, not just to teach
the history of the Holocaust, but to provide context for how such a
horrific outcome like the Holocaust started.
Sheryl Sandberg, Chief
Operating Officer of Facebook had this to say, "As the
years go by, survivors are getting older and fewer. So, it's
important for younger generations to hear their stories and learn
about the events that led up to the Holocaust. That's
why Facebook is proud to partner with the Claims Conference on
their #ItStartedWithWords campaign for Yom HaShoah. Words are
powerful. This campaign reminds us to learn from the past and
understand how hateful and harmful words used against others can
have grave consequences. I am grateful to the Claims Conference for
focusing on this lesson so we can remember the stories of Holocaust
survivors and ensure that this never happens
again."
Several well-known Holocaust survivors from around the world
recorded videos to be posted for the campaign.
Holocaust survivor Abe
Foxman, born in Poland
in 1940, now lives in the U.S. In his campaign video post he shares
his thoughts on the origins of the Holocaust, saying "The
crematoria, gas chambers in Auschwitz and elsewhere did not begin
with bricks, it began with words…evil words, hateful words,
antisemitic words, words of prejudice. And they were permitted to
proceed to violence because of the absence of words." LINK TO
VIDEO
Holocaust survivor and Chairman, Yad Vashem Council Yisrael
Meir Lau, born in Poland in
1937, now lives in Israel. His
hometown of Piotrkow Trybunalski had more than 10,000 Jews before
the war, but most were deported to Treblinka in 1942 and killed.
"They thought they could eliminate a people with words," he says in
his video post. "And then it turned out that it indeed happened."
LINK TO VIDEO
Holocaust survivor Sidney
Zoltak, born in Poland in 1931, now lives in Canada. In his video post, he remembers
witnessing hate at a particularly young age: "When I was four years
old in 1935, I visited my grandparents in a village where they ran
the general store. In front of their store there were young Poles
with signs 'Don't Buy From a Jew.' I didn't know what antisemitism
was, but that was the first act of antisemitism that I witnessed.
Antisemitism in Poland at that
time was not only tolerated, but it was encouraged." LINK TO
VIDEO
To provide educational resources from partner museums and
institutions, as well as the collection of the survivor videos from
the campaign, the Claims Conference has also launched
ItStartedWithWords.org, a web site that will serve as a resource
for educators around the world.
Nearly 50 museums and institutions from around the world are
participating in the campaign including: the United Nations (UN);
the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM); Yad Vashem;
the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA); Fondation
Pour La Memoire De La Shoah; the Anne Frank House, Netherlands; UNESCO; the Memorial of the
Murdered Jews of Europe,
Berlin; the Anne Frank
Center, Argentina; the Montreal Holocaust
Museum; Holocaust Educational Trust of the UK; the
Georgia Commission on the
Holocaust; Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education
Center; the Museum of Jewish Heritage; POLIN,
Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warsaw and many more.
About the Claims Conference: The Conference on
Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference), a
nonprofit organization with offices in New York, Israel and Germany, secures material compensation for
Holocaust survivors around the world. Founded in 1951 by
representatives of 23 major international Jewish organizations, the
Claims Conference negotiates for and disburses funds to individuals
and organizations and seeks the return of Jewish property stolen
during the Holocaust. As a result of negotiations with the Claims
Conference since 1952, the German government has paid more than
$80 billion in indemnification to
individuals for suffering and losses resulting from persecution by
the Nazis. In 2021, the Claims Conference will distribute
approximately $625 million in direct
compensation to over 260,000 survivors in 83 countries and will
allocate approximately $640 million
in grants to over 300 social service agencies worldwide that
provide vital services for Holocaust survivors, such as homecare,
food and medicine.