Category: McGuill, Quebec

This article is taken from the McGill Daily dated Feb. 26, 2020.

by Abbas Mehrabian. On February 18, Holocaust survivor and social activist Suzanne Weiss spoke at Concordia University about her life, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Islamophobia, and the climate crisis.

“Back in 1942, Adolf Hitler marked me down for death. I was only one year old. Why did Hitler want to kill me?’’ Weiss started her speech by recalling the first time her life was at risk. Born into a Jewish family in Paris in Nazi-occupied France, she answered the question herself: “Because he was a racist, a white supremacist.”

It took her several decades to find out how she was saved: “There was a civilian resistance which obstructed the Nazi rule and provided refuge for thousands of Jews, including me,” she told the attendees, adding, “It was also a multitude of individuals who helped [in various ways]. A multitude of small individual acts of courage and kindness forged a chain of solidarity across the country, which helped defeat the Nazis.” Her parents did not survive – Weiss’ mother was deported to Auschwitz, while her father died of war wounds, leaving her an orphan.

After the liberation of France, at age nine she was adopted by a Jewish American family in New York. Her stepfather had a narrow view of women, believing their destiny was to “find a mate, marry, and take care of [their] husband and household and their children.” She rejected this stereotype, and at age 17, she left home and took refuge with a girlfriend. Weiss recalled, “It was illegal for a girl of my age to leave home without permission. My parents had me arrested and charged my girlfriend’s mother for influencing me to be a lesbian!”