WATCH: Writer-Director Heidi Ewing Says Hasidic Jews Killed In Holocaust Partly Because Refused to Blend In

Heidi Ewing is a director, producer, and writer of documentary films, including One of Us, which chronicles the lives of three ex-Hasidic Jews from Brooklyn.

Recently interviewed about this film on the Charlie Rose Show with guest host Jeff Glor, Ewing has made the outrageous claim that their refusal to blend in was partly responsible for their murder in the Holocaust.

I am speechless. Jews of all stripes, whether proudly Jewish or hiding it, were slaughtered in the Holocaust. The suggestion the ones who were proud were partly at fault for their fate is hideous.

Update: Ewing has released the following apology:

IN RESPONSE TO THE CHARLIE ROSE APPEARANCE, A STATEMENT BY CO-DIRECTOR HEIDI EWING:

I am sorry if my words on Charlie Rose caused any pain and would like to clarify their meaning. The devastating losses that the Jewish community suffered at the hands of the Nazis is unspeakable. Almost half the population of world Jewry was destroyed by the Nazis and their collaborators, whole communities destroyed. In the midst of this sweeping genocide, Hasidic Jews suffered disproportionate losses during the Holocaust partially because they were more easily identified and therefore had more difficulty hiding. This has been documented by multiple historians.  It took great courage for Hasidic Jews at that time to refuse to change their appearance to look more like the general European  public. I am only filled with respect and admiration for any person who chooses to live their own truth.

17 thoughts on “WATCH: Writer-Director Heidi Ewing Says Hasidic Jews Killed In Holocaust Partly Because Refused to Blend In”

  1. Does Ms Ewing then believe that it is OK to kill Muslims – especially women wearing hijabs or niqabs – because they refuse to blend in?

  2. She didn’t say it’s ok to kill Jews, she said that disproportionately more hassidic Jews were killed because they were easily identifiable. It’s more like saying that Muslim women who wear the hijab get more islamophobic insults or attacks directed at them compared to Muslim women who don’t. Except that I don’t believe that her statement re Holocaust is actually accurate.

      1. I did say that I didn’t believe her statement was accurate. Just that it’s not true that’s it’s the same as saying the killing of Hassidic Jews was justified.

    1. except it’s a lie, 100 % lie. Jews who dressed and looked like all the rest of Germans burned right next to the kippah payiot Jews.

      1. See my (long winded) answer above. I did say her statement is not accurate, but that it’s not the same as her saying the murder of Jews was justified if they were Hassidic. Although there are cases of Jews having escaped because they passed themselves as Germans and had false papers. I spoke to a couple of such survivors myself. And there is the case of Stella Kubler.

        1. My brother in Law’s Dad was saved b/c he was taken with a group of Poles and mistaken for one of them- nearly worked to death in coal mines but not exterminated.

          I wasn’t disagreeing with you just added my 2 cents about Heidi.

  3. “This has been documented by multiple historians.”

    Ok, then name them.

    Show me a credible historian who supports BOTH claims a) That Chasidic Jews “suffered disproportionate losses during the Holocaust” and b) that was because “because they were more easily identified”. (And she says “partially because of” which I find a bit odd.)

  4. WOW, talk about revisionist history– actually GERMANY was the place were most JEWS assimilated, home of the REFORM movement. The country where JEWS fought for the Kaiser and thought it would make them acceptable, seen as patriotic Germans first. . Where Jews abandoned outward symbols of Judaism. Germany home to the most educated in Europe were the most easily pushed to murder and war.

    It was an orthodox Jewish Rabbi who thought “if JEWS ONLY XYZ” he could come to an agreement with nazis. The appeaser got a lot of people killed and he was murdered in concentration camp by those Jews he screwed.

    http://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/Pendant-of-Lodz-Ghetto-Judenrat-head-up-for-auction-508099

  5. I didn’t see the film, so if she provides evidence of her claims, I am happy to stand corrected and to apologise, but I am calling bullshit. I do believe that her comment was not intended to be offensive and that she means that the Hassidic Jews suffered for their integrity and went to their deaths rather than give up their Judaism. However, I don’t believe it’s accurate. Firstly, it’s a strange claim to make when the numbers are so astronomical – when some 80% of Jewish communities were murdered, to claim that Hassidic Jews’ losses were disproportionately high, is a bit nonsensical. It’s difficult to be out of proportion of an already very high number. There were 1.6 children murdered, so one could claim that child victims were disproportionately high. And we know the reason for this, it was because they were more weak and vulnerable, not because they were more “visible”. Then the claim that it was because they were more identifiable – I would believe it if she claimed that’s why more got caught earlier. But the war went for 4 to 6 years. The racial laws came in in Germany in 1933, 34. I’m sorry to be graphic, but by the time most Jews were murdered, they were not identifiable, they were branded with tattooed numbers, had their heads shaved and were in striped uniforms. Unless she means that Hassidic Jews had refused to have their clothes taken and heads shaved, and were executed on the spot, but that’s not what she said. And if she did claim this, I would dispute it – in Jewish law, you can break any commandment to save a life. The most religious Hassidim, will answer their Hatzolah phone or beeper on Shabbat. It would go against Judaism to make a choice to rather be killed than discard their distinctive clothing. I don’t believe any religious Jews would “proudly” go to their death if there was a choice to save their lives. It’s true that Hassidic Jews lived in communities, as opposed to interspersed between society in big cities. But in those days, in Europe, many Jews lived in Jewish communities, because in the nineteenth century there were laws forcing them to do so. So yes, there were Jewish villages herded onto trains, or marched systematically into camps, but many of these communities were not Hassidic. I have personally spoken to several survivors who described these marches from their town where 1/2 or 2/3 of the street was Jewish. They got papers with their names and had to turn up etc (you all know the rest). It had nothing to do with their clothing or appearance.

  6. Poland was invaded first. Ninety percent of the Jews in Poland were murdered. Hasidism was founded in Poland. Poland had a higher percentage of Hasids than nearly anywhere else. It’s geography, stupid.

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