Spielberg: Hatred regrows
Addressing Holocaust survivors in Poland, he said extremists are once again targeting Jews.
KRAKOW, Poland - Film director Steven Spielberg told a group of Holocaust survivors on Monday that Jews are again facing the "perennial demons of intolerance" from anti-Semites who are provoking hate crimes and trying to strip survivors of their identity.
His warning came in a speech to dozens of Auschwitz survivors the evening before official commemorations marking the 70th anniversary of the Soviet army's liberation of the death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
About 300 survivors will gather with leaders from around the world Tuesday to remember the 1.1 million people killed at Auschwitz-Birkenau and the millions of others killed in the Holocaust. Leaders expected include the presidents of Germany and Austria, while the United States is sending a delegation led by Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who is an Orthodox Jew.
Spielberg, the Oscar-winning director of the 1993 Holocaust film Schindler's List, was introduced by an 81-year-old survivor, Paula Lebovics, who praised him as "a man who has given us a voice in history."
In a short speech, Spielberg then spoke of how his own Jewish identity evolved, first as a boy learning to read numbers from the numbers tattooed on the arms of survivors, and as an adult when he filmed Schindler's List in Krakow.
But he warned of "anti-Semites, radical extremists, and religious fanatics" who are again provoking hate crimes - a warning that comes after radical Islamists massacred Jews at a kosher market this month in Paris.
Spielberg also noted that there are now Facebook pages that identify Jews with the intention to attack them, and a growing effort to banish Jews from Europe.
"These people ... want to all over again strip you of your past, of your story and of your identity," he said. He stressed the importance of countering that hatred with education and preserving Auschwitz and other historical sites.