Holocaust Survivors Speak: Lessons From The Death Camps

Hitler’s Holocaust is one of the most iconic
examples of human cruelty, systematic desensitization

and social manipulation in human history.
That such brutality could possibly take place

in our modern world is a testament to the
power of a lie repeated often enough.

Humanity must learn from the horrors of our
past so as not to repeat them time and again.

So when those who survived the Holocaust speak,
we, collectively, should listen.

This video will convey the words of Holocaust
survivors and their family members.

These are their words, their stories, their lessons.

“What do they know—all these scholars,
all these philosophers, all the leaders of

the world? They have convinced themselves
that man, the worst transgressor of all

species, is the crown of creation. All other
creatures were created merely to provide him

with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated.
In relation to them [the animals], all people

are Nazis; for the animals,
it is an eternal Treblinka.”

“So, as many of you know, I spent my childhood
years in the Warsaw Ghetto where almost my

entire family was murdered along with about
350,000 other Polish Jews. People sometimes

will ask me whether that experience had anything
to do with my work for animals. It didn’t

have a little to do with my work for animals,
it had everything to do with my work for animals.”

Linking the human Holocaust to our treatment
of animals has long sparked controversy, disgust

and outrage. Opponents view the connection
as belittling and disrespecting the experience

of Holocaust victims and survivors.

But what do we say when those making this connection are themselves survivors?

“I totally embrace the comparison to the
Holocaust. I feel that violence and suffering

of innocents are unjust. I believe that the
abuse of humans and animals and the Earth

come from the same need to dominate others.
I feel that I could not save my family, my

people, but each time I talk about cruelty
to animals and being vegetarian I might be

saving another life. After knowing what I
know about the Holocaust and about animal

exploitation I cannot be anything else but
an animal rights advocate.

-Susan Kalev, who lost her father and her
sister in the Holocaust

One survivor, known only as by his code name
“Hacker,” when he participated in the Animal

Liberation Front raid on the University of
Pennsylvania head injury lab, stated,

“I believe in what Isaac Basheivs Singer
wrote … Human beings see their own oppression

vividly when they are the victims. Otherwise
they victimize blindly and without a thought.”

“When I see cages crammed with chickens
from battery farms thrown on trucks like bundles

of trash, I see, with the eyes of my soul,
the Umschlagplatz (where Jews were forced

onto trains leaving for the death camps).
When I go to a restaurant and see people

devouring meat, I feel sick.
I see a holocaust on their plates.”

Marc Berkowitz and his twin sister Francesca
were among Josef Mengele’s victims, forced

to undergo brutal medical experimentation.
He watched his mother and other sisters march

to their death in the gas chambers.

In fighting for the lives of Canada Geese
in danger of being killed, Berkowitz said,

“I dedicate my mother’s grave to geese.
My mother doesn’t have a grave, but if she

did I would dedicate it to the geese.
I was a goose, too.”

“In 1975, after I immigrated to the United
States, I happened to visit a slaughterhouse,

where I saw terrified animals subjected to
horrendous crowding conditions while awaiting

their deaths. Just as my family members were
in the notorious Treblinka death camp. I saw

the same efficient and emotionless killing
routine as in Treblinka, I saw the neat piles

of hearts, hooves, and other body parts, so
reminiscent of the piles of Jewish hair, glasses

and shoes in Treblinka.”

“For most of the society, life was lived
as if none of this was happening. People had

regular jobs, concentration camp workers went
off to work in the morning and came home at

night to loving families, a home-cooked meal,
a warm bed. It was a job for them as it is

for the animal experimenter, the trapper,
game agent, or the factory farm worker.”

-Anne Muller, who lost many of her family
members in the Holocaust

“It is wrong to harm others, and as a matter
of consistency we don’t limit who the others

are; if they can tell the difference between
pain and pleasure, then they have a fundamental

right not to be harmed. … Unless you believe
in fascism, that might makes right –

we do not have a right to harm others.”
-Henry (Noah) Spira, animal activist and Holocaust

“I know firsthand what it’s like to be
hunted by the killers of my family and friends,

to wonder each day if I will see the next
sunrise, to be crammed in a cattle car on

the way to slaughter. In the midst of our
high-tech, ostentatious, hedonistic lifestyle,

among the dazzling monuments to history, art,
religion, and commerce, there are the black boxes.

These are the biomedical research laboratories,
factory farms, and slaughterhouses – faceless

compounds where society conducts its dirty
business of abusing and killing innocent,

feeling beings. These are our Dachaus, our
Buchenwalds, our Birkenaus. Like the good

German burghers, we have a fair idea of what
goes on in there, but we don’t want any reality checks."

So what lessons should we take from the
horrific and unthinkable tragedy of Hitler’s Holocaust?

“The point of understanding the Holocaust
in Europe is to prevent and halt other ones,

not to remain narrowly focused on that particular
one, traumatic though it was.”

“That’s the real lesson of the Holocaust,
isn’t it? That people could do everything

and anything to those that they deemed ‘sub-human.’
Which is, of course, what we do to animals.”

Not everyone has learned the same lessons
as the survivors we’ve heard from today.

Albert Kaplan, a passionate vegan animal activist
who lost family members in the Holocaust wrote,

“The vast majority of Holocaust survivors
are carnivores, no more concerned about animals’

suffering than were the Germans concerned
about Jews’ suffering. What does it all mean?

I will tell you. It means that we have
learned nothing from the Holocaust. Nothing.

It was all in vain. There is no hope.”

"and life is an eternal Treblinka."

“And then, it finally dawned on me. “Never
again” is not about what others should not

do to us. “Never again” means that we
must never again perpetrate mass atrocities

against other living beings. That we must
never again raise animals for food or for

any other form of exploitation. And that’s
when I became an activist for animal rights.”

Please see the videos here for more information
on what the animals are going through right

this very moment all over the world. Share
this video around so

that these lessons are not in vain.

Many of the quotes I shared today are from
Holocaust Educator Dr. Charles Patterson’s

book “Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of
Animals and the Holocaust,” a powerful,

respectful and thoroughly researched text.
You can find the link to this book along with

other resources on the blog post for this
video linked in the video description.

If you want to help support this activism, see
the link here or in the description below.

Now go live vegan, hear their voices, and
I’ll see you soon.

And I recall the admonition by famed Yiddish
writer Isaac Bashevis Singer,

"that for the animals, all men are Nazis, and life is
an eternal Treblinka.”

Subtitles by the Amara.org community