98-year-old Holocaust survivor to Jewish students: ‘Never let hatred define you’

As Jewish students around the world begin a new academic year amid heightened antisemitism on university campuses, a 98-year-old Holocaust survivor is urging them to stand proudly as Jews and never allow hatred to define them.

The International March of the Living is launching a global initiative on Sept. 1 centered on an open letter from Holocaust survivor and educator Nate Leipciger to Jewish students returning to campuses and schools around the world. The date marks the 87th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.

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The initiative is being promoted in partnership with Jewish and Zionist student organizations worldwide. Participating organizations include the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS), The Jewish Agency for Israel, ASHER, the World Zionist Organization, the Israeli-American Council (IAC) and Students Supporting Israel (SSI).

In the letter, Leipciger draws on his own experience of surviving Auschwitz-Birkenau and other Nazi concentration camps to urge a new generation of Jewish students to confront antisemitism without allowing it to determine their identity.

“Antisemitism is old. Your future is not,” he writes.

In 1948, Nate immigrated to Canada, where he married Bernice. They had three daughters, and he later became a grandfather of 16 and great-grandfather of 12.

Nate has participated in the Toronto March of the Living 22 times, more than any other Holocaust survivor from the Diaspora. During the trips, he has urged young people not to hold hatred in their hearts.

My name is Nate Leipciger, and I am a 98-year-old Holocaust survivor. Today marks the 87th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II—the day that changed my life, and the lives of so many others, forever. I was 15 years old when the Nazis deported my family from the ghetto to Auschwitz-Birkenau. My father and I survived together. Most of our family did not.

As a new academic year begins, I am writing because many of you are returning to campus carrying more than books, plans and ambitions. Since Oct. 7, 2023, you have also carried grief, fear, anger and a painful awareness of how quickly antisemitism can enter spaces that promise knowledge, openness and belonging.

You may have seen the murder and kidnapping of Jews met with excuses, celebration or silence. You may have heard ancient accusations in modern language, or been asked to answer for distant events before anyone asked whether you were mourning, afraid or safe. Some of you have wondered whether to hide a Star of David, a kippah or your voice.

Please remember: You are not responsible for the hatred directed at you.

You do not have to conceal who you are to earn the right to belong.

Never permit those who hate you to define you.

Antisemitism has recognizable habits. It assigns collective guilt to Jews, reduces individuals to symbols and demands that Jews answer for being Jews.

The injury is especially deep on a campus. A university should be a place where evidence matters, difficult questions are examined honestly and disagreement never becomes intimidation. Criticism of any government, including Israel’s, is legitimate. Harassing or excluding Jewish students, celebrating violence against Jews or demanding that they renounce part of their identity is not criticism. It is discrimination.

Do not allow anyone to force you into a false choice between your Jewish identity and your place in the wider world.

Jewish identity is not merely a response to persecution. It is an inheritance of faith, learning, family, creativity, justice and hope. Across millennia, Jews have studied, questioned, prayed and thrived. We are defined by what we create and carry forward.

Learn that inheritance. Read Jewish history beyond persecution. Ask your family for its stories. Enter a synagogue, a Jewish student center or a Shabbat table. Learn a Hebrew word, a melody or a page of text. The more deeply you know who you are, the less power a slogan has to define you.

No one should demand that you deny Jewish history, disown the Jewish people or surrender your connection to Israel. For those of us who lived when Jews had nowhere safe to turn, a Jewish homeland is not an abstraction. It is an answer to Jewish powerlessness.

Jewish rights are not a special favor to be granted only when we are popular. As I have said before: Jewish rights are also human rights.

Be courageous, but do not stand alone. Find one another. Support the classmate who is afraid or isolated. Build alliances. Stand against racism, hatred of other minorities and every form of dehumanization and discrimination.

Just as importantly, diligently study Jewish history so that you are able to confront the lies and propaganda being spread against the Jewish people and the Jewish state.

Jewish pride is strongest when joined with moral courage.

I would like to remind you that during the Holocaust, Jewish youth made the ultimate sacrifice to preserve the dignity and honor of the Jewish people—fighting to their deaths in the Warsaw Ghetto and across Nazi-occupied Europe.

Today, we do not ask you to risk your lives. But please be aware that there are others, the same age as you, who put their young lives at risk every day in the State of Israel, defending the Jewish state and the future of the Jewish people.

After everything I witnessed, people ask how I can still have hope. I have hope because I have seen Jewish life rebuilt. For almost three decades, I have walked at Auschwitz with thousands of March of the Living students who came to affirm Jewish life. I have seen them listen, learn and change.

The future of Jewish life is passing into your hands.

Carry it without apology, with compassion and strength. You belong to a people that has endured exile, persecution and attempts at erasure, yet continues to learn, celebrate, love and hope.

Antisemitism is old. Your future is not.

Nate LeipcigerHolocaust survivor and educatorMarch of the Living

You can watch a film of Nate Leipciger’s message here.

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