95-year-old Holocaust survivor Ben Stern marched to an anti-racism rally in downtown Berkeley Sunday, just a few blocks away from the right-wing demonstration at Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Plaza.
Stern led a group of Jewish demonstrators to the counter-protest. He walked half a mile from his apartment, arm-in-arm with his daughter, Charlene Stern, and three local rabbis — Menachem Creditor, Yonatan Cohen and Julie Saxe-Taller.
Stern fought back tears as the march began.
”I'm not here alone with the live people," said Stern, ”but I see all the people of my past – my family, my friends who didn't make it."
Stern survived two ghettos and nine different concentration camps. He says no one stood up for the Jews of Europe, and that Americans today must unite against racism.
”It affects every one of us," said Stern. ”Not only us Jews, but Muslims, blacks, Mexicans, and different nationalities."
In the late '70s, Stern organized marches against neo-Nazis in Skokie, Illinois. In Berkeley Sunday, he told the crowd he believes he survived so he could continue to speak up against hatred.
”Today you proved that we stand together against the threat of racism, Nazism," said Stern.
