View over the River Spree to Nikolaiviertel and Alexanderplatz. The Nikolaiviertel is the reconstructed historical heart of the German capital Berlin. The Nikolaikirche gives its name to the neighbourhood five minutes away from Alexanderplatz. The Alexanderplatz is a large public square and transport hub in the central Mitte district of Berlin, near the Fernsehturm the Rotes Rathaus, the town hall of Berlin. Photo by Stefan Widua on Unsplash [Download]

Holocaust survivors harness social media to spread knowledge

With short video messages recounting their stories, participants in the #ItStartedWithWords campaign hope to educate people about how the Nazis embarked on an insidious campaign to dehumanize and marginalize Jews years before death camps were established to carry out murder on an industrial scale.

The plan is to release six individual videos and a compilation Wednesday over Facebook, Instagram and Twitter followed by one video per week.

There aren't too many of us going out and speaking anymore, we're few in numbers but our voices are heard, Sidney Zoltak, a survivor from Poland who turns 90 later this year, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Montreal.

Propaganda posters and films suggested Jews were vermin, comparing them to rats and insects, while new laws were passed to restrict all aspects of Jews' lives.

Charlotte Knobloch, who was born in Munich in 1932, recalls in her video message her neighbors suddenly forbidding their children from playing with her or other Jews.

After the war, he returned to his town and learned that all but 70 of its 7,000 Jews had been killed, including all of his classmates and his father's entire family.

Original article