Daughter of Holocaust survivors gains German citizenship, worries about Kanye’s anti-Semetic comments

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) - A leader in Holocaust Education in Tallahassee celebrated a major achievement this year.

Barbara Goldstein is the Executive Director of the Holocaust Education Resource Council and the daughter of two Holocaust survivors.

In March, she gained German citizenship nearly ninety years after her grandparents fled Nazi Germany with her mother in July 1939.

Goldstein provided the needed proof to regain the citizenship, including her grandparent’s passports, issued by Nazi Germany in 1935 and 1938.

Goldstein leafed through the passports Thursday morning.

“This was actually held by people in 1935. This went all over the world. And without this I don’t know if they would’ve survived,” she said.

Her family was stripped of their German citizenship when they left German soil and sailed East, to China.

“They survived in the Shanghai ghetto for ten years. They were able to leave in 1949,” she said.

They took a ship to Israel, and eventually in 1955, they settled in New York.

Fast forward to 2022, and Goldstein and her daughter are now proud German citizens.

“[It’s] very emotional, because it’s our family. We wouldn’t be doing it if our family hadn’t been forced to leave Germany,” she said.

That inspirational story is now on the frontlines in a battle against hate. In recent days, an anti-Semitic tirade by rapper Ye (who once went by Kanye West) sent shockwaves through the Jewish community.

“It’s horrible, he has followers, he is a media person. If he’s trying to get attention, it’s a lot of attention he’s getting,” she said.

Goldstein said we all need to push back by educating the masses, to open eyes- and hearts.

“Anti-Semitism is still racism, and it’s a hate. And we all have to not be hateful of anybody.”

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