I am in Berlin today for the launch of the Edelman Trust Barometer in Germany. It is also Holocaust Remembrance Day in Germany and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. In Berlin there are several events, including an illumination of the Brandenburg Gate with the letters of the global commemorative campaign #WeRemember.
I had my own journey back in time yesterday with guide Lee Evans. He took me to the Berlin Grunewald train station, where 40,000 Jews were sent to death camps in Poland, Czechoslovakia, or Latvia. There is a memorial to the Holocaust on Platform 17 by the Deutsche Reichsbahn, which managed the process.
The train station looks as if it is any suburban location in the U.S., with a shingled roof and Tudor style wood inlaid. The ramp up to the right of the station proceeds to the rail tracks. You proceed to the top, to be confronted by the horror of a series of metal grates with inscriptions next to the rails, with 186 cast steel plates for each one of the transports. Examples of the rails:
March 2, 1943—1,758 Jews sent from Berlin to Auschwitz March 4, 1943—1,143 Jews sent from Berlin to Auschwitz April 19, 1943—688 Jews sent from Berlin to Auschwitz
On the other side of the tracks are listed several transports to Riga and Theresienstadt. Evans told me about one of the transports in 1942 to Riga (my grandmother Sonia Gasulivitch lived in Riga until emigrating to the U.S. in 1916). The Jews of Riga had been liquidated by the local Latvian irregulars. On arrival in Riga, the Jews were taken from the trains in groups of four and shot.
Among those killed were three members of the Bauer family, a father who worked as a tailor, a mother and her 13-year-old son.
Evans lives in the apartment in Berlin that housed the Bauer family until 1942. He only learned about the fate of the Bauers through independent research. He conducted a proper funeral with a rabbi, sat shiva and installed the bronze plaques in front of the building to commemorate their lives.
I listened to Jonathan Greenblatt, director of the Anti-Defamation League at Davos. In the last five years, intense antisemitic attitudes have doubled from 11 percent in 2019 to 25 percent in 2024. Globally, in that same period, those with deep antisemitic feelings has doubled from one billion to 2.2 billion. In the past year there were 32,000 antisemitic incidents in the U.S., up from 900 in 2015. Jews represent 2 percent of the population of the U.S. but endure 50 percent of the total hate crimes.
As Jews, it is a day to mourn but also a day to commit to doing something to reverse this avalanche of hate and to counter Holocaust denial. A recent survey by the Association of Canadian Studies revealed that 18 percent of Canadians aged 18–24 and 15 percent of those aged 25–34 agreed with the statement, "I think the Holocaust was exaggerated."
I learned that Michael Dell has created a program on antisemitism for all employees as part of the DEI curriculum for incoming employees. I will put this to work at DJE companies. I will also continue to find ways for Jews to partner with other groups; I am co-hosting a dinner with Latino businessman Martin Cabrera in Chicago on Wednesday so that Jews and Hispanics can find ways to work together on discrimination.
Richard Edelman is CEO.
