A Holocaust survivor on Saturday fulfilled a life-long dream, singing the national anthem before a Major League baseball game between the Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay.
Hermina Hirsch, 89, belted out the Star-Spangled Banner at Comerica Park in Detroit, a month after she appeared on local television station WWJ and called on the Tigers to allow her to sing. She would not, she said at the time, be nervous singing in front of thousands of baseball fans.
“If I lived through the concentration camp, it couldn’t be that bad,” Hirsch said. “I don’t want to die before I sing at a baseball game.”
After an outpouring of fan support, Hirsch was asked to sing at a game.
Hirsh, who was born in Czechoslovakia, lived through a series of Nazi camps beginning in 1944, at the age of 17. She was liberated in January 1945.
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89-year-old American Holocaust survivor Hermina Hirsch. (screen capture: YouTube/CBS Detroit)
She reportedly has been a Tigers fan since moving to Detroit with her husband in 1953. The couple immediately began attending baseball games
Hirsch has been singing the national anthem for years during regular meetings of Holocaust survivors in the area.
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