27 January 2023 , 00:01
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A Holocaust survivor has told how he believes anti-Semitism is on the rise in Britain and warned of its dangerous consequences.
John Dobai was a child in Hungary when the Nazis invaded. He lost two grandfathers, two aunts and a cousin aged 17 in concentration camps.
The 89-year-old, who lives in Kew, West London, spoke out ahead of today’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day to commemorate the deaths of millions of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and disabled people.
He said: “I have been in this house for more than 60 years and for 59 years I did not see any sign of anti-Semitism.
“But in the last 12 to 18 months we had graffiti on benches along the towpath saying, ‘Holocaust: six million lies’ and similar graffiti on walls and benches in the neighbourhood.”
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John was raised as a Catholic by parents of Jewish descent. Germany occupied Hungary in 1944 after it learned of secret attempts by Budapest to make peace with the Allies.
Holocaust survivor John Dobai at his home in Richmond, south west London (PA)They quickly introduced harsh anti-Semitic policies.
All Jews were forced to live in ghettos, wore yellow stars of David on their clothes and could not go to school.
John, an only child, said: “I was sent out by mother to buy something from the shops. On the way I met a classmate and I said to him, ‘I’m looking forward to going back to school.’
“And he said he had been told he was going back to school but I was not because I was ‘a dirty, stinking Jew’.”
After the invasion, John’s dad was sent to a forced labour camp.
He was released and returned to Budapest when the Soviets occupied Hungary in 1945. He was one of many Jews who acquired papers from Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg allowing them to live in a protected safehouse.
Between 25,000 and 100,000 lives are believed to have been saved by Mr Wallenberg’s actions during the war.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog yesterday warned the Holocaust “was not born in a vacuum” amid fears of rising anti-Semitism across the world.
He said: “We must never forget that the Nazi death machine would not have succeeded in realising its nightmarish vision had it not met soil fertilised with Jew-hatred, which is as old as time itself.
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“Even before a single extermination camp was built, in the minds of the masses, the Jew was already sub-human.
“It is precisely for this reason that this dark abyss is a terrible, profound and compelling lesson for all of Europe.”