As a Holocaust survivor, I was appalled to read “ADL Downgrades Swastika As Jewish Symbol” (July 30). Will the ADL “downgrade” the Holocaust next? For the ADL to state, as it is reported, that the swastika “is no longer considered an act of ant-Semitism” is an absolute outrage. That statement being endorsed by Abe Foxman, national director of the ADL, himself a hidden child during the Holocaust, makes the ADL’s position even more preposterous.
Debra Lauter, director of the ADL’s civil right’s division posits that “it has been increasingly clear to ADL as it conducts education programs across the country that young people don’t know the significance of the swastika and its relation to the Holocaust, and that often it is being used to intimidate non-Jews, including African-Americans.”
I have lectured on the Shoah to no less than 12,000 young people. They all knew the significance of the swastika “as it relates to the Holocaust.” In my experience and what I’ve read and heard, the display of the swastika is the unequivocal symbol of anti-Semitism and exclusively targets Jews, not African-Americans. The Ku Klux Klan and the white supremacists are the exclusive agents of hatred of the African-Americans. They include the Jews as well, for good measure.
ADL’s “downgrading” the swastika for what it stands, is no less than a desecration of the memory of the Six Million.
Port Washington, L.I.
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