In campaign ad, Holocaust survivor blasts Harris for calling Trump ‘fascist’

Jerry Wartski, who was held at Auschwitz, says he ‘knows more about Hitler than Kamala will ever know’ and that she owes survivors an apology, calls GOP candidate ‘a mensch’

Jerry Wartski, 94, in a video expressing support for former US president and Republican 2024 candidate Donald Trump, October 26, 2024. (X video screenshot: used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
Jerry Wartski, 94, in a video expressing support for former US president and Republican 2024 candidate Donald Trump, October 26, 2024. (X video screenshot: used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)

A 94-year-old Holocaust survivor on Friday criticized US Vice President Kamala Harris for calling former US president Donald Trump a “ fascist.”

Jerry Wartski appeared in a video for Trump’s campaign, saying, “I know more about Hitler than Kamala will ever know in a thousand lifetimes,” referring to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

“Adolf Hitler invaded Poland when I was 9 years old. He murdered my parents and most of my family,” he added.

In the video, Wartski rolled up his sleeve to reveal a number tattooed on his arm while he was a prisoner at the Auschwitz concentration camp.

He said Harris owes Holocaust victims and survivors an apology.

Wartski called Trump “a mentsch,” saying he would be “good for Israel” and “never double-crossed anyone and he never showed any weakness.”

Wartski, an honorary president at the Israel Heritage Foundation advocacy group, met Trump at a memorial marking one year since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre that took place at the burial place of Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson in Queens, New York.

Harris called Trump “a fascist” during a CNN town hall this week, after one of his White House chiefs of staff said the former president told him he wished he had generals like Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s.

She said his comments denouncing the “enemy within” mean he may prove willing to target Americans who disagree with him should he win the November 5 election.

Despite Democrats’ historic advantage among Jews, Republicans believe that the domestic turmoil and spike in antisemitism unleashed last year by Hamas’s invasion of Israel — including at protests against Israel’s conduct in progressive redoubts such as college campuses, will erode Jewish support for Harris. Republicans also point to increased calls among some progressive Democrats to cut defense spending to Israel.

Critics have panned Trump for employing antisemitic tropes, including last month, when he claimed American Jews would be a leading cause of his electoral loss if more don’t back him in November.

JTA contributed to this report.

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