Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff’s emotional visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau marked something of a triumph for Jewish Americans: one of their own representing the U.S. at the epicenter of the Nazi genocide that tried — but failed — to wipe out their people.
But Emhoff’s six-day visit to Europe is also highlighting a painful reality. Poland, from where his family fled persecution more than a century ago, faces rising antisemitism, along with the U.S. and other countries, Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, has taken up the fight against it as his signature issue, even though President Joe Biden’s administration has few tools outside the bully pulpit to stamp it out.
Emhoff said he was deeply moved by his Friday visit to the former Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and death camp, where roughly 1.1 million people were killed during the Holocaust, more than 90% of them Jews. As snow flurries fell from a gray sky, Emhoff wiped away tears when he placed a wreath at a wall where SS troops executed thousands. He later described seeing human hair and children’s shoes taken from the Nazis’ victims and hearing from survivors.
