To mark Jewish American Heritage Month, Holocaust survivor Tova Friedman spoke of her experiences in an MTV special
This week MTV aired With One Voice: Fighting Hatred Together, an hour-long special to mark Jewish American Heritage Month. Presented for MTV News by Laurie Segall, the programme featured four young Jewish activists from across America discussing their fights against hatred, as well as an interview between Holocaust survivor Tova Friedman and former NFL linebacker Emmanuel Acho.
While the special is only available on catch-up in the US, we have the the entire interview between Friedman and Acho available to watch right here.
“The only way we learn and grow is through talking,” says Acho, as Friedman tells him of the horrors she faced during the Holocaust. As the author of Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, and host of a YouTube series of the same name, Acho is no stranger to facing difficult topics head on.
The pair meet at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York, which has a cattle car outside. Walking up to it, Friedman recalls the smells, screams and heat of the bodies inside when they were transported to the concentration camp. Aged 82, Friedman is one of the youngest living survivors of Auschwitz.
Over the 13-minute interview she shares stories from her past: getting bruises when her mother held her mouth shut as Nazis searched their home, having her head shaved when she arrived at Auschwitz and hiding amongst corpses when the Russians liberated the camp. She also reveals her worry about the rise of antisemitism and hatred. "If you can't find a common ground for what unites us,” she says, “you'll never solve this issue."
By Danielle Goldstein