Fla. Jewish community decries viral white nationalist video

NAPLES, Fla. — The "Sieg Heil" salutes and speech propagating Nazi ideologies are familiar to Sabine van Dam, a Holocaust survivor living in Naples.

She just never thought she would see it happen again.

When van Dam saw a video of members of the National Policy Institute, an "alt-right" (short for alternative right) organization that promotes white nationalism, stretching their arms in Nazi salutes and yelling “Hail Trump” during a conference in Washington, D.C., over the weekend, she froze. Her parents were jailed and ultimately killed in separate concentration camps in Germany.

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“It choked me,” van Dam said Tuesday. “I never thought I’d live to see this again."

A video released by The Atlantic magazine this week shows Richard B. Spencer, the organization’s president, yelling “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory,” at a crowd, which responds with cheers and arms outstretched in Nazi salutes.

Civic leaders, Holocaust survivors and activists throughout Florida are decrying the words and actions seen in the video — words and actions that, some say, are expressed by a group of people whose angry nationalist sentiments have become emboldened with the election of Republican Donald Trump.

“In the days since the election, reports of physical attacks, vandalism and harassment have flooded our local offices,” said Hava Holzhauer, Florida Anti-Defamation League director.

One report the Florida ADL is investigating involves two young children who came home from school this week with swastikas drawn on their arms by another child. A call over Halloween described a mock black figure hanging from a tree in an upscale Miami neighborhood, Holzhauer said, while another reported fliers being distributed on the University of Florida's campus with the message, “Tired of anti-white propaganda in college? You are not alone.”

“I hear from a lot of people that they are afraid, because violence doesn't start with a fist, it starts with an idea," Holzhauer said. "Before the Holocaust, there was 12 years of name-calling to make a group of people outside the norm of society. It's good people's radars are going off."

“Hate groups feel they have a mandate because of the way Trump reflected their feelings during his campaign,” said Robert Hilliard, 91, of Sanibel Island, who helped save sick and starving Jews as they were liberated from Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

Hilliard’s act of courage as a young private, calling on President Truman for humane treatment of the Holocaust survivors, made headlines in 1945 and has been memorialized in books and film.

“The process of Hitler becoming chancellor is eerily identical to the same process Trump used,” the retired Emerson College professor said Tuesday. “People wanted change, and he promised it. They overlooked his white supremacy message. I think people who voted for Trump could find themselves in the same position as the people in Germany who voted for Hitler.”

Rosette Priever Gerbosi, a Holocaust survivor living in Naples, said when she saw the video, she screamed. “When those hands went up. It’s haunting," she said. "My parents were sent to Auschwitz and gassed on arrival. I was a hidden child for a year and a half. To see this happen in this country, it’s unacceptable.”

Rabbi Bruce Diamond of Fort Myers' Community Free Synagogue spoke with his congregation last week in the wake of recent nationwide hate incidents. He thinks the outpouring of white supremacist feeling comes in reaction to President Obama leaving office in January when Trump is sworn in as the 45th president.

“They feel exultant, happy in their own dark way, for having a white president,” he said.

Diamond doesn’t believe the neo-Nazi messages will become mainstream.

“People have a fascination with neo-Nazis," he said. "They may watch that stuff, like slowing down to watch a car wreck. It doesn’t mean they want to be in one.”

Amy Snyder, executive director of the Holocaust Museum & Education Center of Southwest Florida, said she hopes the community will move forward with a positive message of tolerance and understanding.

“We do feel that every person, no matter their religion, politics or skin color, is deserving of respect,” Snyder said Tuesday. “I certainly think it’s important to remember as American citizens we need to stand against this speech. Our survivors in this community have expressed fear and outrage that something like this can be condoned.”

Follow Alexi C. Cardona and Patricia Borns on Twitter: @Alexi_Cristina and @PatriciaBorns