Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Holocaust Survivor Donates $1 Million To Veterans Charities

An 83-year-old Jewish Holocaust survivor is giving $1 million in honor of the troops who liberated France in 1944.

Bernard Darty was seven years old when French police arrested his mother and sent her to Auschwitz, Darty wrote in a Fox News column. He hid in the outskirts of Paris until American troops liberated France two years later.

“I vividly remember the arrival of the hundreds of thousands of American troops who landed in Normandy to liberate us in June 1944,” Darty wrote. “They were our saviors, doling out packets of sweets to half-starved, war-weary children who had almost given up hope for freedom. The gratitude I feel to these men is beyond words.”

In their honor, Darty, whose family struck it rich in retail, is now giving $500,000 to the Wounded Warriors Foundation, which helps wounded American veterans, and another $500,000 to the American Red Cross.

“In giving this donation, I want to thank Americans with all my heart for rescuing us during the war,” Darty said in a statement, according to the Daily Mail.

Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.