It’s very important for all of us in Britain to talk out now in opposition to our personal authorities’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.
I used to be seven years previous when Germany invaded and occupied their unreliable ally, Hungary, in March 1944. This makes me 87 years previous now. However my reminiscences of hiding as a hunted Jew on false papers, and the utter devastation of the climactic preventing round us, between a trapped German Military and the Pink Military, are nonetheless a crystal clear reminiscence. I see the burnt-out vehicles, tanks, lifeless horses and human our bodies, ammunition and helmets thrown about, burnt-out buildings, mountains of rubble and damaged glass in all places – similar to tragically destroyed Gaza is trying immediately.
For over a yr now it’s been clear that Israel’s plan is to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza as a way to power as many individuals as doable to depart. This coverage has many variations from Nazi Germany’s plan to destroy Jewish society in Europe – nevertheless it additionally has many similarities. That’s the reason, as a Holocaust survivor, I’ve felt compelled to affix varied pro-Palestine protests in London.
These protests have been quite a few and infrequently enormous. So it’s no shock that the authorities have imposed growing restrictions on them as a way to dissuade folks from attending. However I used to be nonetheless shocked when the Metropolitan Police known as me in for an interview.
We don’t know fairly how far these in energy intend to go along with their restrictions on the precise to protest. However we do know they wish to painting London’s pro-Palestine demos as tainted with anti-Semitism. That is although these protests have included 1000’s of Jews and that many Jews, together with myself, have addressed the protesters from the stage.
A yr in the past, in April 2024, I gave my first speech on a stage in Hyde Park the place I advised the massive crowd about Adolf Eichmann coming to Hungary to organise the deportation of 400,000 Jews to Auschwitz. I additionally spoke concerning the 15 members of my family who perished there and about my father who was taken to Belsen and Theresienstadt focus camps – though finally he did return. I ended the speech like this: We Jews who survived all this ache, killings, humiliation and destruction are in opposition to the usage of the reminiscence of the Holocaust by the Authorities of Israel as cowl and justification for the continuing genocide in opposition to the Palestinian folks in Gaza and the West Financial institution.
What was most putting concerning the speech was not what I stated however that the massive crowd listened in such respectful silence after which applauded with such enthusiasm. To recommend that such a crowd was anti-Semitic – not to mention doubtlessly violent – is absurd. But that’s precisely what a number of newspapers did after they revealed evidence-free articles the subsequent day falsely claiming that the group had threatened to vandalise Hyde Park’s Holocaust memorial.
Since then, pro-Israel politicians and journalists have continued to say that our protests are “hate marches” or “no-go zones for Jews”. Current claims that our marches are a risk to London’s synagogues are an additional improvement of this relentless – however baseless – marketing campaign. Anybody who has witnessed the overwhelming heat and help that our group of Holocaust survivor descendants – in addition to the broader Jewish bloc – expertise recurrently on the marches, will perceive fairly how baseless.
Most significantly, this entire marketing campaign is an intentional distraction from the primary situation, which is to cease the Gaza genocide now. As Israel resumes its indiscriminate bombing – murdering lots of extra civilians in Gaza – it’s very important for all of us in Britain to talk out now in opposition to our personal authorities’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
