Legendary civil rights protector. John’s family escaped the Holocaust and came to the United State where John has been doing remarkable work and activism.

“I do remember Kristallnacht, which is the Night of Broken Glass. We were living next door to the synagogue when the Nazis brought us to the square, and dynamited the synagogue. They took all of the prayer books, the Torah, and the scrolls kept in the front of the synagogue and made a bonfire.”

“They arrested my father and took him to the jail along with 125 other Jewish men. And we know that, of those 125 men, about 25 either died or committed suicide, or some went berserk, I’m sure.”

“We were in a detention camp in Holland for over a year waiting to get on the Holland America Line ships. During that time my father started a school… he was approached by the Dutch authorities about starting a school in Westerbork, but he declined. It turns out Westerbork became the transition camp where Jews were brought before the trains took them to Auschwitz.”

Recorded on June 16, 2026