“For millions of you, voting for Europe is the first election of your life. For many of us it could be the last.” With these words, eight Holocaust survivors launched an appeal to young voters to go and vote in the European elections and choose democratic parties, blocking the rise of the far right: a heartfelt invitation to respond […]
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“For millions of you the vote for Europe is the first election of your life. For many of us it could be the last one“. With these words eight survivors of the Shoah have launched an appeal to young voters to go and vote in the European elections and choose democratic parties, blocking the rise ofextreme right: a heartfelt invitation to respond to surveys that show a radical growth in trends even among young people. The document, entitled “Never again is now”, was presented to the press by the 95-year-old Ruth Winkelmann, who escaped the genocide by hiding with his mother and sister in a vegetable garden in Berlin: 16 of his relatives were murdered by the Nazis. “There is not nothing worse than living in a dictatorship, I have experienced it firsthand,” he said.
At his side is the youngest signatory, the 81 year old Eva Umlauf: born in a Slovakian labor camp in 1942, at the age of two she was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. He survived because of a defect in the locomotive delay the arrival in the concentration camp: in November 1944 the Nazis had suspended the killings in the gas chambers due to the approach of the Red Army, and she, together with her pregnant mother, arrived in the camp three days later. However, she was not spared the tattoo of the entry number on her arm. “I want young people to go out and vote and actually choose truly democratic parties, to ensure that we can still live in democracy,” she told the Rbb. Warning that a triumph for the AfD, the German far-right, would be “the beginning of the end“. On the other hand, the Nsdap, the Nazi party, achieved power legitimately, conquering the 33.1% of the votes at the elections of November 6, 1932: “We couldn’t prevent it then, but you you can do it today” reads Ruth Winkelmann from the appeal.
“Give your vote for the future, peace, democracy”, is the message of Leon Weintraub. Born in 1926, he still goes to schools today to tell when, once the Łódź ghetto, was deported to Auschwitz. He does not mention the AfD, but his appeal is clear: “Don’t let go the bad guys in power. Vote for democracy so that it doesn’t happen again.” The presentation of the letter to around fifty journalists was promoted by the international organisation Avaaz, active against right-wing extremism. Even young influencers have joined the appeal: among these Louise Hennigsen, a twenty-one-year-old student, who shared the interventions of the survivors via social media. “I hope that people realize how important it is to vote, how much voting matters and how much influence it has.”
