Facism – Suzanne Berliner Weiss

MY VIEW: “The Other Betrayal of Anne Frank”

MY VIEW: “The Other Betrayal of Anne Frank”
(Toronto Star, January 23, 2022)

by Suzanne Berliner Weiss

The Toronto Star, our city’s daily, published on January 23 a two-page feature article called, “The Other betrayal of Anne Frank.” The article landmarks an investigation on a suspect who betrayed Anne Frank to the Nazis. The betrayal of her secret annex hideout also led to the death of Anne Frank and others hidden with her in a Nazi concentration camp

In my book Holocaust to Resistance: My Journey, which tells the story of my survival, I explain that in the scramble to secure individual life, many Nazi collaborators tore the fabric of society by betraying neighbors, sowing suspicion, preying on their neighbors’ fears, and enriching themselves in a struggle for personal survival. Continue reading MY VIEW: “The Other Betrayal of Anne Frank”

Solidarity with Kashmir

The following was given in a webinar to Socialist Action on May 24, 2020 in Canada, as part of a panel on India and Fascism.

This is the time of the Covid-19 pandemic, a threat to all humanity, and a time for solidarity and support.

In this spirit, we reach out to victims of apartheid Israel’s occupation of Gaza.

We must do the same for the people of Jammu and Kashmir, a disputed territory occupied by India. They are majority Muslims, who have suffered under complete lockdown and communications blackout.

It’s a question of land. India occupies Jammu and Kashmir and scrapped a constitutional ban on sale of Kashmiri land to non-residents. Now, all the land can be bought by anyone: Kashmir is up for grabs.

The Impact of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on the French Resistance

Commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto, 2020

I come from the Nazi Holocaust in France born under Nazi occupation. There, an anti-Jewish French regime, called “Vichy,” was allied with the Nazi invaders. The Nazis considered the Jews, Roma, people of colour, anyone not of German origin, “untermenshen” lower than human.

The French authorities campaigned against immigrants and refugees, blaming them for unemployment. Vichy passed harsh laws against Jews, including my parents.

In July 1942, a massive police raid in Paris imprisoned 13,000 men, women and children in the sports arena, Vel D’hiver. Among them were 4,000 children. Disoriented and stunned, they were all transported to concentration camps. They knew not what was in store for them.

The fact is that up to that point, the Jewish people believed the transports were taking men to Germany as slave labour. There was much discussion on the separate transport of women and children. Where were they going? Would their families reunite? How would they live? They did not know.