Holocaust survivor: Had Spicer been right, my dad might've lived

[kpete]

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A reader responds to Sean Spicer’s comparison of Bashar Assad and Adolf Hitler.

Letter to the editor:

How I wish White House spokesperson Sean Spicer were right when he said that Adolf Hitler had never used chemical weapons. If Hitler and his men hadn’t developed such an efficient use of gas as a deadly weapon, my family and I might not have been in Auschwitz at all.

The last time I saw my father was shortly after we were unloaded from the train at Auschwitz. A group of SS officers sent us in opposite directions: me toward the camp gate and my father to someplace unknown to me. In those first hours in Auschwitz I wanted to find my father, so I told a veteran prisoner what had happened and asked him if he knew where my father was now. He took me with him outside the barracks and pointed up to the sky where a chimney spouted flames and smoke. “Your father is up there,” he told me.

My father had been taken to a room where innocent people, young and old, were told a shower awaited them. The door was locked, but instead of water coming from the ceiling, Zyklon B was dropped into the room. Everyone inside died.

Spicer was so unfortunately wrong in saying that Hitler never dropped gas on innocent people, and for me he was heart-wrenchingly wrong. But ignorance is harmful, and an event like Spicer’s thoughtless reference to the Holocaust is just one example of the cost of ignorant leadership.

The world pays great attention to what the White House says and doesn’t say. When mention of Jewish victims or anti-Semitism was resoundingly missing from the White House’s statement on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a strong message was sent. When alt-right advocates can speak for the administration, the world learns that intolerance, racism and anti-Semitism are welcome within the ranks of American leadership. When days go by while the president says nothing in the wake of his press secretary’s insulting statement about the Holocaust, the silence is deafening.

I have been an American citizen for nearly 70 years, long enough to know that we should all expect more from our leaders. We should expect that they can lead with intelligence and expertise. We should expect that they work with an understanding of history to develop appropriate responses to threatening world events. And we should expect that our leaders will uphold American ideals of equality and inclusiveness.

These are elementary and fundamental expectations, and in normal times they would reside quietly as the basis for how we move forward as a country. But they must now be demanded of our leadership, loudly and publicly. As for my part in this endeavor, I call for the White House to replace Spicer with a spokesperson who speaks with wisdom, knowledge and integrity, and whose words reflect the fundamental values of America.

Gene Klein; The Villages, Fla.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/04/16/spicer-right-dad-mightve-lived-holocaust-survivor/100550432/