Doug Emhoff Visits Europe To Raise Holocaust Awareness And Fight Anti-Semitism – NPR

This International Holocaust Remembrance Day, government officials from various countries gathered at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp site to remember the victims and honor the survivors.

Among them, for the first time, was the first Jewish wife of a President or Vice President of the United States.

Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff will visit Krakow, Poland, and Berlin this week to promote both Holocaust awareness and the Biden administration’s efforts to combat anti-Semitism.

Your trip will include a stop at Oscar Schindler‘s, a Shabbat dinner with a local Jewish community, a gathering with Ukrainian refugees, a panel discussion with interfaith leaders, and visits to various museums and other historical sites.

And it’s more about listening and exchanging ideas than implementing specific policies, senior administration officials told reporters on a call Wednesday. Emhoff, whose great-grandparents fled persecution in present-day Poland in the early 19th century, has led the Biden administration. Efforts to Address Rising Anti-Semitism In recent months.

“The visit certainly has special significance … for him, for our administration, for American Jews and, frankly, for Jews around the world,” an official said. “And it’s not lost on us that it’s a pretty incredible time for him to come back as a Jewish American, as the first second gentleman … and work on these issues.”

Solemn scenes of a day of remembrance

One day after arriving in Krakow, Emhoff headed Drive about 40 miles west to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Memorial to tour the site of the concentration camp, which includes a gas chamber and crematorium.

Emhoff, wearing a kippah, laid a wreath at the reconstructed building. Wall of Deathwhere guards executed thousands of prisoners between 1941 and 1943.

Emhoff wiped away her tears several times, pulling at the ribbons of the wreath, which read “of the people of the United States.” After touring the Birkenau ruins, Emhoff placed a stone on the ground, in keeping with jewish tradition.

He and Deborah Lipstadt, the US special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, joined Holocaust survivors and other officials in a ceremony. commemorating the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp.

“Reflecting on history, we know that the intolerance that fueled the Holocaust did not end when the camps were liberated,” Emhoff and Lipstadt wrote in a joint opinion piece published Friday in the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“Anti-Semitism may be considered one of the oldest forms of hate, but its insidious impact and profound dangers are not relegated to the past.”

The Biden administration is concerned about the role of social media

antisemitism is more and more visible in the US these days, with high-profile figures in entertainment, sports, and politics publicly promoting tropes and conspiracy theories, and the number of recorded hate incidents targeting Jews in a steady climb.

More than 85% of Americans believe in at least one anti-Jewish trope, according to the results of a Anti-Defamation League survey released earlier this month. Twenty percent of Americans believe six or more of those tropes, the highest level they’ve measured in decades.

“Modern technology and the Internet, particularly social media, allow ideas to spread with unprecedented speed,” a senior administration official said.

The Biden administration seeks to combat rampant anti-Semitism, including rejecting disinformation and Holocaust denial. Emhoff’s trip is part of those efforts.

In December, Biden created a workgroup with representatives from more than 20 federal agencies, dedicated to combating anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other forms of bias discrimination.

The group holds weekly meetings, reviews actions other countries have taken and works to produce and implement a national strategy, the officials said.

Emhoff held a White House roundtable on anti-Semitism with a dozen Jewish community leaders in December, saying it was “just the beginning of this conversation.”

“As long as I have this microphone, I will speak out against hate, bigotry and lies,” Emhoff said at the roundtable.

Since then, he has also met with the Bipartisan House Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism Y spoken to Jewish students at Arizona State University during a visit to the state.

On Thursday, Biden issued a declaration remembering the Holocaust and reminding people of the hate that exists today.

“Across our country, we are seeing swastikas on cars, anti-Semitic banners on bridges, verbal and physical attacks on Jewish businesses and Jewish Americans, even Holocaust denial,” he said. “It is vile. It goes against everything we value as Americans. And each one of us must speak out against this poison.”

On the itinerary: meetings and memorials

On Friday night, Emhoff will attend a Shabbat dinner in Krakow with members of the Jewish community.

Events planned for Saturday include a visit to the Oskar Schindler Enamel Factory Museum (Schindler famous bran over 1,200 Polish Jews by employing them at his plant during World War II), a roundtable on anti-Semitism, and a meeting with Ukrainian refugees.

On Sunday, Emhoff will tour Krakow’s Jewish Quarter and visit historical sites in the southern city of Gorlice before heading to Berlin.

On Monday, he will participate in a meeting with other anti-Semitism envoys at the Topography of Terror Museum and will tour both that museum and the Museum of Jewish Life. Later, she will meet German community leaders and government officials at a dinner hosted by US Ambassador to Germany Amy Gutmann (whose late father escaped from nazi germany).

Emhoff will conclude his trip on Tuesday with a panel discussion with Jewish, Muslim and Christian religious leaders, and then meet with Ukrainian refugees at the Oranienburgerstrasse synagogue. as well as visit monuments dedicated to the victims of Nazi persecution and meet with Holocaust survivors.