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Eighty years ago, when the Allied forces moved through broken Europe on the last day of World War II, my great grandfather, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, walked to the places that changed him forever.
What he saw there – a mountain of corpses, a skeletal survivor, evidence of unimaginable cruelty – will be with him forever. He feared that the world might one day try to deny that it had happened. So he took action. He decided to etch it into the history of the world.
He immediately ordered the US military, Congressional members and international journalists to visit the camp and document the atrocities.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower listens as questions from the US-Around Li, a freed slave laborer, the Nazi concentration camp in Ohrdruf, who was released on April 4, 1945. (Photo12/uig/getty images)
“The visual evidence and testimony in words of hunger, cruelty and bestiality were extremely overwhelming,” he wrote to General George Marshall.
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That foresight now feels painfully prophetic.
In 2020, a national survey by the Congress on Jewish Materials' claims against Germany revealed that 63% of American millennials and Z were unaware that six million Jews had been killed in the Holocaust. 48% were unable to name one of the more than 40,000 Nazi concentration camps and ghettos as one.
These are not just troubling statistics, they are warnings. In a world where misinformation spreads quickly and anti-Semitism is once again increasing, these gaps in knowledge are dangerous.
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In parallel, the US anti-Semitism incidents have hit record highs. According to the Prevention and Prevention League in 2023, there have been 8,873 documented anti-Semitism cases since the ADL began tracking such cases in 1979.
This is an increase of 140% from the previous year. These were growing physical attacks, vandalism in synagogues and Jewish schools, and the presence of anti-Semitic rhetoric on mainstream discourse and social media platforms.
Polish prisoners in striped uniforms stand in line in front of Nazi officers at the Buchenwald concentration camp in Weimar, Germany around 1943. (Frederick Lewis/Getty Images)
This year, as we celebrate the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation, I will be walking from Auschwitz to Birkenau along with the 80 Holocaust survivors, the president of Israel, Hamas Massakre, survivors of Israeli state Hamas Massakre, to take part in the international march of life.
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We walk silently, but our presence speaks loudly. That would say we remember. What we witness. We will advance the testimony of those who survived and those who died. As a general and president, as Eisenhower's great grandson, it is an honor to continue our legacy of telling the truth, standing on the very soil that the Nazis have tried to erase people.
My great grandfather remembers best for his leadership during the war, but his legacy as president also includes support for the Jews through his presidency. During his presidency, Eisenhower oversaw the strengthening of Israel's right to self-defense, support for Jewish refugees who fled Europe, and unacceptable accusations of all forms of anti-Semitism and prejudice.
In 1958 he dedicated the cornerstone of the Jewish Seminary Library, saying, “We must affirm the dignity and decency of man. Unless we do so, civilization itself is at risk.” He understood that the battle against hatred was not over the war or the Jews. It was universal.
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That's still true today. The denial and distortion of the Holocaust no longer creeps into our public discourse, and they are killing it. At university campuses, political rhetoric, and online forums, attempts to minimize or erase the truths that Eisenhower and millions of people fought are left shockingly defiant. In this context, education is not just a tool, it is a responsibility.
We need to teach not only what happened in the Holocaust, but why it happened, how hatred, dehumanization, and silence can unfold genocide.
Survivors of the Buchenwald concentration camp remain in the barracks after their release by the Allies on April 16, 1945. Ellie Wiesel, author of Nobel Prize-winning “Knight,” is on the second berth seventh from the left. (Corvis/Corvis via Getty Images)
We must understand that they hear the voices of the survivors, see the remnants of the camp and “never again” truly demand us.
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When Eisenhower visited Ohrdruf in 1945, he stood as a general. But his decision to shed light on those fears was also an act of a human who didn't want to look away. As his great grandson, I feel the weight of that decision and the privilege of moving it forward.
He once said, “The hope of the world is that wisdom can arrest conflicts between brothers.” That wisdom begins with memory. With the truth. And by ensuring that future generations never forget what he and many others saw with their own eyes.
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