His words still resonate today
A powerful moment from the past has resurfaced — when Holocaust survivor Bernard Marks courageously confronted Donald Trump’s top immigration official.
Marks, who passed away at 89 in December 2018, shared a deeply moving message during a 2017 immigration town hall that continues to echo in the U.S. today.
Wearing a “Keep American Families Together” sticker, Marks addressed then-Acting Director of ICE, Thomas Homan, challenging the Trump administration’s deportation stance and drawing a haunting parallel to his own history.
Reading from a prepared statement, he recalled:
“As a young boy in Poland, I was taken by the Nazis simply because I was Jewish.”
Marks, who had endured the unimaginable horrors of Auschwitz and Dachau, painfully revealed that his entire family had perished in the camps.
“I was separated from my family, who were killed in Auschwitz. I survived, but they didn’t.”
“I am a survivor of Auschwitz and Dachau.”
Turning to Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones, who had organized the event and was working with ICE, Marks delivered a sobering warning:
“I spent five and a half years in concentration camps for one reason — because people were targeted. Sheriff Jones, we elected you to serve us here, not to enforce policies in Washington, D.C. It’s time you stand with the people.”
He concluded with a chilling reminder:
“History is not on your side.”
His words were met with overwhelming applause from the crowd — a testament to the power of lived experience and moral clarity.
Though the speech was brief, its impact has endured, especially as deportations under controversial laws continue today.
One Reddit user reflected:
“He was brave to share such a traumatic story so boldly. He’s absolutely right — when a Holocaust survivor tells you history isn’t on your side, you should listen.”
Another wrote:
“It’s frightening how his warning still applies nearly a decade later.”
In a later op-ed for The Sacramento Bee, Marks described anti-immigrant rhetoric as a “danger all too familiar to me.” He expressed pain at seeing fathers and grandfathers arrested over minor infractions and labeled criminals.
Bernard Marks was only seven when the Nazis invaded Lodz, Poland. He survived forced labor, multiple concentration camps, and liberation by U.S. troops at age 13. Of his extended family of 200, only five survived.
After the war, Marks dedicated his life to education and remembrance. He founded the Eleanor J. Marks Foundation, named for his late wife, which holds Holocaust-themed writing contests for students.
He believed the U.S. had the potential for change, stating:
“If more of us speak up, maybe we can build a better country — one without hate.”
