In her small꧙, defiant way, Inge Auerbacher defeated the Nazis just by surviving. But now, it’s Kristallnacht all over again.
Deported from her native Germany to a concentration camp in then-Czechoslovakia at age 7, Auerbacher is a living punch in the teeth to her Third Reich tormentors. But she can’t wrap her mind around the recent epidemic of bomb thr🤡eats and grave des🌺ecrations directed at people — because they’re Jewish.
“It’s like a stab in your heart all over again. It’s horri♈ble, horrible!’’ Auerbacher, 82, told me.
R൲ecent events brought her back to Kristallnacht — “the Night of Broken Glass’’ — the grotesque hours in which Nazi sadists unleashed violence against Jews throughout the Reich in 1938, shortly before she turned 4 years old. It left lasting psychic scars.
“We don’t take [the recent threats] too seriously — yet,’’ ꦆshe said. “Of course, we didn’t back then, either.”
She 🍃addꩵed, “How can this be happening in the United States? It’s shameful!’’
More than 🐼100 bomb threats have been leveled at Jewish community centers, institutions and day schools across America and in Canada since Jaꦏnuary, and Jewish cemeteries have been desecrated — attacks that have drawn investigations by the FBI.
All sorts of bias crimes have increased in number. In Kansas, a white man allegedly shot dead an Indian man and wounded two others last month after, witnesses said, he shouted, “Get out of my country.’’ Yet attacks against Jews — verbal, property-based o🍨r physical assaults — far outnumber all religiously based crim𒁃es, according to FBI statistics. This demonstrates that despite the tremendous attention given affronts to members of other groups, Jews have targets on their backs.
The wave o♕f terror has struck New York City. Police sources told The Post Wednesday that Jew-bashing graffiti and anti-Muslim mail has been found throughout the city, including a swastika etched into a wall inside a Brooklyn courtroom (now covered by a Post-it not𒁃e), and anti-Jewish scrawls on a Queens sidewalk, a Penn Station wall and a church on the Upper West Side.
And someone proclaiming him- or herself “Muslim slayer” sent a letter declaring, “I fantasize about killing non-whites” to an employee at a Muslim cultural ce🎐nter in Brooklyn on Tu🔯esday, according to police sources.
All told, reports of bias offenses i🍃n the city have increased by 55 percent this year through Feb. 26 compared with a similar period last year. But anti-Semitic hate crimes are up an incredible 94 percent.
This happened on Long Island, at 11:05 a.m. Monday: A bomb threat was phoned in to the Mid-I🧔sland Y JCC in Plainview, prompting 🎃police to evacuate some 400 people, from tots to senior citizens and about 125 staffers, for about an hour and 15 minutes.
Rick Lewis, 49, a father of three teenagers and chief executive officer of the JCC, told me he was “saddened and disappointed’’ — but he won’t be coweꦛd.
“Not only do I have my own children, I feღel responsible for all the children here ඣduring the day,’’ he said.
A sweep turned up no explosives. Though the𒉰re have been reports that some fri🌌ghtened parents have yanked kids from Jewish schools and centers, Lewis said all his charges were in place the next day. Good for them.
Authorities don’﷽t know if the threats, often made with robotic-sounding voices, are the work of a single person or group, or if some have been made by sick copycats. There’s been suspicion that at least some calls may come from overseas. But the truth is that acts of anti-Semitism have appeared all♌ over the world for as long as Jews have existed, despite allegations from the left that President Trump — who belatedly condemned bias attacks during his address before Congress Tuesday — is enabling hate crimes.
Offenses against Jews and Jewish institutions surged in 2015 nationwide, continuing a trend thatꩲ for years has made Jews the No. 1 targets of religion-bashers. Yet previous presidential administrations have escaped blame.
After languishing in the camp for three years, Auerbacher moved to the US with her parents after World War II — they were among the 1 percent who survived the camp. She b🐼ecame a naturalized American citizen and worked as a ch🐠emist. The Queens resident, who never got married or had children, is an author who has traveled around the world, including to Germany, spreading a message of peace and reconciliation — but never forgiveness of the Nazis — as a public speaker.
I have no doubt that acts of anti-Semitism will ওcontinue, as will all hate crimes. But the fiends committing these atrocities must be brought to justice, and quickl🦂y. The voices of the dead cry out for it.
POTUS showed us!
In tone (presidential), substance (strong and patriotic) and even things he didn’t express (such as ragging on the media), President Trump’s congressional address on Tuesday was masterful.
Some liberal friends will doubtless never forgive me for this. But𒁏 Trump deserves credit for showing America, the world and even hard-core Democratic foes that he just might be capable of leading.
I have three words for the speech: He killed it.
Rachel’s a sad off-color joke
Rachel Dolezal became ꧃a Washington state 🌱NAACP chapter president and adjunct college professor by presenting herself as African-American.
Then her parents outed 🤡her as white in 2015. It’s time she quit whining.
Unemployed (though she’s found a taker for her memoir), Dolezal, 39, mewled to The Guardian that she lives on food stamps, expects to b⭕e homeless soon, and her only job offers have been in porno flicks and reality TV.
Still, she doesn’t consider herself white — and stands to insult transgender people by claiming that race, like gender, is “fluid.’’ What rot. She’s even changed her name to Nkechi Amare Diallo, a West 🤡African moniker meaning “gift of God,’’ the Daily Mail reports.
S🦄tripping for the cameras would at least be honest work.
She doesn’t deserve it.
PopuLaLa vote
About : Take heart, musical fans. “La La L🙈and’’ los🎀t the Academy Award — but won the popular vote.