On the world premiere of the first dramatization of his exceptional autobiographical book, ”The Hooligan’s Return”, which we were proud to co-produce and host, novelist and essayist Norman Manea, a Holocaust survivor and one of today’s moral compasses, issued a powerful call to awareness in the face of the dangerous resurgence of antisemitism in new, insidious forms. His words compel us to confront hatred with vigilance and moral courage, reminding us that the struggle for human dignity is as urgent today as it ever was. Watch his message below.
The astonishing rise of antisemitism has brought back painful memory of the Holocaust. The nightmares of the camps, the cruelty, the despair, the human suffering, and the enduring power of resilience return with intensity.
I lived firsthand through two Romanian dictatorship, Nazism and communism, and later the revival of old nationalism in my country. Antisemitism is a component of the nationalist ideology, which coagulated evil, true political, and religious manipulation, the use of mass annihilation of a “troublesome” community designed as hostile to the national interest.
The disaster that follows has dire consequences, the Holocaust.
When communist ideology becomes supreme force of influence and governance it limits any individual choices, especially when classified as a suspect category.
The contemporary world is marked by complex ideological diversity, which influence the way people interpret reality and interact. Now we found ourselves in a chaos of potentialities, and anti-democratic poison has spread like a virus.
People seem to forget their experience, the danger, the failure of 20 century history, so today warnings are necessary. The appearance and dissemination of antisemitic manifestation in today’s Romania, as in the world, signal the beginning of a possible future catastrophe.
This complex situation revives for me the 1941 dark memory of embarking in the crowded train that took us to Transnistria extermination camps, the continuous danger that hung in the air, the cold of the winter in the desert, the hunger and diseases that lead to the rapid death of my grandparents, and their anonymous graves in the nearby forest.
These are the nightmares I often have even now, at 88 years old.
I mentioned all of these with the occasion of Remembrance Holocaust Day to remind about the five years old boy who found out in the Transnistria camp that he is a Jew.
We are here to follow a dramatization after my novel-memoir “The Hooligan’s Return”, a shortcut through the book that try to bring together some significant moments of the story. I think that was the right way to honor this important day.
Norman Manea
January 28, 2025
New York