HAVING LOST BOTH SETS OF MY GRANDPARENTS TO THE FINAL SOLUTION, IF I SAW SOMEONE HOLDING A FINAL SOLUTION SIGN, I WOULD RISK BEING IMPRISONED BY BEATING HIM UP WITHIN AN INCH OF HIS LIFE

EXCLUSIVE  Jewish George Washington University student whose grandparents survived the Holocaust is 'afraid' of anti-Israel protestor's haunting call for Nazi 'final solution' as university 'accommodates' pro-Hamas activists

 

By Jon Michael Raasch

 

Daily Mail

Apr 26, 2024

 

 

Heinrich Himmler (L) and Reinhard Heydrich were the architects of the Final Solution, the extermination of Europe's Jews

 

As hundreds gathered at George Washington University to participate in anti-Israel protests Friday afternoon Jewish students told DailyMail.com they have felt afraid, adding that the university is 'accommodating' the 'pro-Hamas' activists.

The demonstrations on campus have been going off and on since the October 7 attack, but recently students - taking a page out of Columbia University protestors' playbook - have established a pro-Gaza encampment that has yet to be taken down. 

Protestors set up the encampment early Thursday morning and hundreds later joined in on the demonstrations. 

And despite the university demanding the camp be disbanded by 7:00 p.m. Thursday evening, the tents and their occupants still stood in defiance by late Friday afternoon.

One protestor at George Washington University (GWU) Thursday was even seen carrying a sign calling for the 'final solution,' which was Adolph Hitler's plan for the 'annihilation' of Jewish individuals.

'To hear people calling for more violence makes me really afraid to come out of my house out of fear that someone's going to hurt me or do something to me,' Skyler Sieradzky, a Jewish GWU student, told DailyMail.com at Friday's protest. 

 

Skyler Sieradzky, a Jewish GWU student whose grandparents survived the Holocaust, said the ongoing pro-Gaza protests on campus have scared her and hearing rhetoric calling for the destruction of Israel has been alarming

One protestor at George Washington University (GWU) was seen Thursday carrying a sign calling for the 'final solution,' which was Adolph Hitler's plan for the 'annihilation' of Jewish individuals

Hundreds arrived at the GWU campus Thursday and Friday to protest Israel and the school's alleged support of the Israel-Hamas war 

Protestors set up the encampment early Thursday morning and hundreds later joined in on the demonstrations

 

'As someone whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors, seeing people using the Holocaust as something that we should be striving towards again, it makes me very sad and very scared.'

Sieradzky was one of a few counter-protestors who arrived to support Israel amid calls for its annihilation at GWU Friday. 

She draped her self in an Israeli flag, which earned her some disdain and dirty looks from pro-Gaza demonstrators. 

'It's very scary to see signs calling for the extermination of the state of Israel, calling for another intifada,' Sieradzky said. 'In the second intifada one of my family members was killed in a suicide bombing.'

 'When I see signs calling for violence against the state of Israel and more or less Jews as a whole, it makes me really scared.'

'I've also never been more scared to be Jewish,' the college student continued. 'I see antisemitic remarks being uttered behind my back about me in my classes. It just makes me feel very afraid. 

'Seeing the final solution sign made me really sad,' she added.

 

Police had set up barricades around the student Gaza encampment to block entry and exit from the student-led protest area

Activists cheered for hours as students mulled about the campus, some avoiding the protest by crossing the street or finding an alternate route to their destinations 

 

Two other Jewish GWU students also shared similar concerns, though their identities have been withheld as they fear reprisal from their college colleagues for speaking out.

'You have these chants, these slogans: by any means necessary, you a have a sign that says final solution, you have river to the sea, resistance is justified, all these slogans that take the movement into a situation where it's more anti-Israel than it's actually pro-Palestinian, more pro-Hamas than pro-Palestine,' a Jewish GWU student told DailyMail.com. 

'So what I think is problematic about this is that nobody from the movement condemns this, nobody from the movement speaks out against it.' 

'The discourse can lead to violence and the discourse right now is not was not good,' he said. 

Another Jewish GWU student told DailyMail.com the university has been complicit in accommodating the protests by blocking off roads, not enforcing their own rules and moving final exams to different buildings away from the protests to allow for students to test in a quiet area away from ongoing demonstrations. 

'They've made all these accommodations specifically to allow this to go on while at the same time saying that they were breaking the rules,' the Jewish student said before adding 'they're chanting and supporting terrorist organizations.'

'And so it seems like the administration is not really up to enforcing their own rules, which of course only empowers those who don't have respect for rules in the first place.'

'I'm definitely concerned that there'll be protests at graduation, and at a time when  families of graduating students come all the way to D.C. for supposedly happy occasion.'

'People might take that opportunity to instead do political protests and sort of put a damper on that day for for a lot of people.'

 

GWU protestors dressed a statue of George Washington in a Palestinian flag and traditional keffiyeh scarf 

 

Every pro-Palestinian GWU protestor approached by DailyMail.com for an interview declined to comment. 

Some, however, did admit that they were instructed by the protest organizers not to speak to the press. 

Jinan, a D.C.-based activist and chef who does not go GWU, told DailyMail.com she was there to support the students' demands that the university 'divest from the occupation and the state of Israel.'

She also was there to demand the Biden administration to pull funding from Israel.

'These are our tax dollars that are going to fund other wars and to protect other countries when we are ourselves are very vulnerable with inflation, healthcare, the student loan crisis and many other things.'

She applauded progressive 'Squad' members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., for both visiting Columbia University's 'Gaza Solidarity Encampment,' which was the inspiration for the GWU camp.   

Aya, an Israeli and Jewish high school junior that was at GWU touring the campus when she stumbled upon the protest with her parents called the event 'absurd.'

She was in Israel during the October 7 attack and was stunned by conversations she had with the protestors.

'They don't know what river or what sea they are talking about. It's all so stupid.'

When pressed on if she wants to attend a university that condones protests like the one she experienced, she told DailyMail.com: 'If it continues like this, absolutely not.'