Mira Kelber

"If we are to succeed, we have to do it together"

- As a Jew, you must always stand up for yourself and face prejudice and racism. We are born to do that, just as we are born Jewish. My public involvement began four years ago. I was 16 years old and I wrote an editorial article about anti-Semitism. I was then contacted by SVT, who wanted to do a report about me. Ever since then, people have asked me to do lectures, interviews, and more. It was so clear that this was something new: a young Jewish person in Malmö, who dared to speak out about anti-Semitism.

- I am just an ordinary person who was put in this position by fate and I speak out because there are so few others who dare. I'm a witness. I say what it's like to be a second generation Holocaust survivor and I talk about today's hate crimes.

- I do this so that my children and grandchildren can grow up without stories of persecution. It is a struggle for the future. And I do it for my relatives who were murdered in concentration camps. They have no voice but I have, and therefore I see it as my duty to tell.

- My father, grandmother and grandfather were the only ones who survived in my family. They fled during the war and came back to Poland in 1945. At school, my father was beaten, threatened, and harassed, and in 1969 he was forced to flee again, to Sweden. What he experienced became a trauma that he carried with him all his life. Much of what he did was because of his childhood experiences, I understood that now in retrospect.

- I dare to speak out because my father dared to speak out. If I have inherited his story of flight, then perhaps I have also inherited his courage to speak. So I do not see risks, only an opportunity to make things better. I cannot just sit back and complain about anti-Semitism and let someone else do the work.

- I have to be optimistic to be able to do what I do and I want to believe things will get better. Anti-Semitism is not a problem just for the Jews, but for society as a whole. The same applies to the discrimination of Roma, blacks, homosexuals, or other groups.

- I don’t have any obvious solution. The only thing I know for sure is that we need to start standing up for each other. I cannot say why anti-Semitism exists or what society has to do to make it disappear. But I know that if we are to succeed, we must do it together.