“Heartless and cruel” vandals defaced art gallery posters featuring Holocaust survivors on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day Wednesday in Manhattan — and those who lived through the Nazi terror said they fear ominous echoes of their youth.
“I was shocked,” Eva Nathanson, an 84-year-old Hungarian Holocaust survivor who was part of an art exhibit promoted on posters along West 57th Street.
The hateful act would “hurt any day — but especially on Holocaust Remembrance Day,” she added.
Vandals struck just before the start of the solemn commemoration, marking 80 years since liberation, scratching off the faces of survivors now in their 80s and 90s, while leaving neighboring posters untouched.
A new Chelsea gallery exhibit called “Borrowed Spotlight” pairs celebs like Cindy Crawford with Holocaust survivors like Ella Mandel, pictured here. Bryce Thompson
Holocaust survivor Eva Nathanson is pictured here with actor Josh Peck. BRYCE THOMPSON
“I never thought in my lifetime that I’d have to deal with this kind of situation again,” said Nathanson, who was hidden for two years as a child and nearly executed at the banks of the Danube River with her mother before surviving the war.
Rising antisemitism in New York – which led the nation with 1,437 antisemitic incidents last year — reminds her of “when I was growing up.
“I’ve never been afraid in the US, and right now I am worried.”
The posters showcase a new Chelsea gallery exhibit called “Borrowed Spotlight,” a photo project that pairs celebs such as Chelsea Handler, Jennifer Garner, and Billy Porter with Holocaust survivors providing their testimonies to educate against antisemitism.
The remnants of one poster show supermodel Cindy Crawford with a shorn Ella Mandel, a 98-year-old Auschwitz survivor who was 13 when the Germans invaded her native Poland.
“I was the only survivor,” said Mandel about her will to go on in the shadow of unfathomable horror. “And then you can’t help thinking and asking why?”
The ripped Holocaust survivor posters echo more than 18 months of vandals doing the same to Israeli hostage posters, often invoking political themes like oppression and colonialism to justify tearing the faces of the elderly, women and children. “How long is everyone going to keep pretending it’s about Israel?” outraged actor, Jewish advocate and son of mega-producer Marc Platt, Jonah Platt, wrote on “X,” pointing to old-fashioned antisemitism as the motive on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Vandals defaced art gallery posters featuring Holocaust survivors.
The vandalism won’t stop the survivors, Bryce Thompson, the photographer of the exhibition, told The Post.
“If anything, it motivates them, and channels their determination to use their voice more now.”
Nathanson said she won’t let the haters win.
“This won’t stop me from telling my story.”
