Screenshot of ADL video

The Anti-Defamation League has issued a statement on behalf of a group of hidden children of the Holocaust, who felt compelled to respond to the Trump Administration’s policy of separating children from their parents.

In a video, Rachelle Goldstein, co-director of the Hidden Child Foundation, a New York-based organization which represents Jewish Holocaust survivors hidden during the war, spoke to the lifelong pain she and others have endured as a consequence of being separated from their parents at a young age.

“As former Hidden Children of the Holocaust, we know that the trauma of separation from parents lasts a lifetime,” Goldstein said. “Now in our late 70s and 80s, we still ache from the losses we suffered as a result of this separation. It is very difficult for us to see such inhumanity taking place today at our southern border. Let’s be clear: We are not comparing what is happening today to the Holocaust. But forcibly separating children from their parents is an act of cruelty under all circumstances.”

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More than 2,300 children have been separated from their parents under the “zero tolerance” policy, according to the Washington Post.

The ADL video closes by urging views to sign a petition calling on the Attorney General to stop the horror at the border.

Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

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