Exclusive | Auschwitz survivor, 96, in NYC forced to hide Star of David as he gives Dems history lesson on antisemitism
It’s a dire case of deja vu!
A 96-year-old Auschwitz survivor said he now hides his Star of David chain because of spiraling antisemitism in the Big Apple as he gave Democrats a brutal history lesson about anti-Jewish hatred.
Jerry Wartski said the Democratic Party and the liberal Democratic Socialists of America are being infiltrated by antisemites who are fueling an environment that has Jews feeling unsafe in the streets as if it were Europe during the rise of the Third Reich.
“You have to keep your eyes open to what’s going on,” Wartski told The Post in a recent interview. “I cover up my Star of David chain under my shirt when I walk outside now.
“It’s the same old story,” said Wartski, whose parents were killed in concentration camps during the Nazis’ systemic slaughtering of Jews in the Holocaust. “I close the shirt. I don’t advertise. This is the `Land of the Free, Home of the Brave?’”
Wartski said he’s been growing uneasy over what he feels is a tangible change in New York and the US, which were once safe havens for Jews who fled the Nazis and oppression in other countries.
Now, Jews could face hostility here or abroad, he added.
“If you run away from New York, you run away from the United States. There’s nowhere else to go,” he said. “Europe is corroded.”
Poland-born Wartski and an older brother survived the Nazi wipeout of two ghettos — his hometown Ozorkow and Lodz — before his family was shipped to Auschwitz, where his mother was gassed to death when he was still a child, he said.
Later, he was relocated to Nordhausen concentration camp in Germany, where his father died just before the American liberation.
Today, he has grown disillusioned with the Democratic Party because it appears to be succumbing to anti-Jewish rhetoric under what he said is a coalition of socialists, communists and radical Islamists.
Wartski blasted democratic socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a staunch pro-Palestinian activist and outspoken critic of Israel, as part of the problem.
“Mamdani is definitely an antisemite — a big one. He doesn’t hide it.” Watski said. “I didn’t vote for him.”
Mamdani, the city’s first Muslim mayor, backs the controversial boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel, which some view as antisemitic.
Wartski backs President Trump, saying he’s fighting the good fight against the radical Islamists in Iran and supports Republican Bruce Blakeman for governor.
During a Post interview in 2024, he criticized Democrat Kamala Harris for likening Trump to Hitler.
The Holocaust survivor said despite his worries about the state of the city today, he’s lived a good life in New York, running his own sweater-knitting business before launching a career in real estate.
“I was lucky during the war. I was lucky in business. I survived,” he said.
