Author Archives: Sam Dubbin

Many candles in a vigil, symbolizing the millions of lives that were destroyed by the Nazis.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, we echoed the sentiments of our colleague Izzy Arbeiter: 

To me the most important date in history is January 27, 1945, the liberation of Auschwitz.  That is the day the slaughterhouses of the Jewish people were shut down, and hopefully forever ceased the killing of the Jewish people.  If it weren’t for that day, it could still be going on, and the families we brought into this world wouldn’t have been made and be able to accomplish what they have accomplished, in this country, and in Israel. 

For most survivors, the war did not end until all of Europe was liberated in May 1945.    

This year, the commemoration occurs at a time of political upheaval in our country, and an unfortunate trend of people analogizing political events and disagreements to the Holocaust, Hitler, or Nazism.  Analogies to Kristallnacht, the Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz or other death camps, or any of the unspeakable crimes of the Holocaust, reflect a very serious misunderstanding of the vast scope of Nazi Germany’s crimes, and the crimes of its collaborators. They also denigrate the memory of 6 million Jews, including one and a half million Jewish children, who were murdered in the Holocaust. 

We all have a responsibility to speak out against hate, bigotry, and violence, which have the potential for ever-greater abuses.  At the same time, we must do everything in our power to remember, and to educate every living soul about the unprecedented crimes against the Jewish people for which we commemorate the anniversary of January 27, 1945.

HSF-USA statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. January 27, 2021.
Samuel J. Dubbin gives testimony before the Senate Judiciary on September 17, 2019.

Attorney Samuel Dubbin’s Testimony to the US Senate

After a decade of incremental home care increases, Members of the Senate Select Committee on Aging cited evidence from its 2014 hearing that “the levels of home care funding by the Claims Conference would meet only 25% of the current needs of impoverished survivors.”

To make matters worse, emergency services funding has not increased at all.

Samuel Dubbin before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Hearing on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims