Alex Brummer has warned that Britain is becoming an increasingly hostile environment for Jewish people three years after the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel.
Brummer drew parallels between modern antisemitism and the Holocaust following recent visits to Kibbutz Kfar Aza and the site of the Nova music festival.
Kibbutz Kfar Aza was the location from which 30-year-old British hostage Emily Damari was abducted, while 1,200 people were killed in the overall assault, marking the worst attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust.
Brummer recalled seeing blood-stained walls inside Israeli family homes where victims were dragged from safe rooms and beds before being mutilated, raped, murdered, and captured. He also described makeshift memorials at the Nova festival grounds where young people were killed while dancing, as well as burnt-out vehicles and a bus shelter where fleeing families were mowed down while awaiting rescue.
He noted that in a small country with close family ties, almost everyone knows someone among the dead. He added that even the United Nations headquarters in New York, which he described as frequently being the scene of anti-Israel propaganda, uncovered graphic evidence of rape, gang rape, and sexualised torture committed against hostages taken by Hamas on October 7.
Growing Antisemitism and Political Reactions
Despite the findings, Brummer stated that Hamas and violent Iranian-backed Palestinian factions have become heroes of the political Left, leading to incidents targeting Jewish communities from Bondi Beach to Manchester under Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
He expressed concern that the contribution of Britain's Jewish community across high streets, art galleries, theatre, music, media, and commerce is becoming invisible. He stated that the current atmosphere resembles the early days of Nazism during the 1930s.
Brummer strongly criticized Prime Minister Andy Burnham, alleging that the Prime Minister implemented sanctions on Israel for political advantage to shore up his standing among party faithful and the Muslim electorate.
He also criticized Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband for using the terms "ethnic cleansing" regarding Israeli actions in the West Bank and describing policies in Gaza as "horrific." Brummer noted that these statements were made last month during the holiest season of the Jewish calendar, causing deep distress among British Jews and drawing praise from Hamas fighters.
Brummer further condemned a resolution passed at the Green Party conference declaring that "Zionism is Racism," calling the motion an abomination from a party with Members of Parliament at Westminster. He stated the resolution ignores 78 years of Israeli independence and Britain's history with Jewish self-determination dating back to the Balfour Declaration of 1917.
Highlighting demographic facts, Brummer pointed out that Israel has a mosaic population of 10.3 million people, which includes more than 2.1 million voting Palestinian Israeli citizens. He added that up to 50 percent of physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and care workers in the Israeli health system are Arabs.
Aunt Sussie and the Hungarian Holocaust
The warnings follow the recent death of Brummer's Aunt Sussie, born Margrit Brummer, who died at the age of 98 in Hertfordshire. She was the last surviving sibling of a family torn apart by the Holocaust.
Sussie was the youngest of nine children born to Sandor and Farni Brummer in the rural town of Tiszaujlak, now Vylok on the Hungarian border with Ukraine. Sandor was an orthodox Jew with a distinctive red beard who ran a local dairy business and hosted social drink-and-card evenings at home, while Sussie carried milk urns to the village center.
Brummer's father, Michael Brummer, escaped Europe in 1938 to join his elder brother Philip, who was serving as a rabbi in Merseyside. Before departing, Michael was beaten by fascist thugs at a local railway station. Upon arriving at Victoria station in London, he accidentally entered the women's waiting room and was assisted across the city to a Liverpool train by an English woman, prompting a lifelong admiration for British kindness.
In 1942, two older siblings were taken from their homes by the Hungarian Arrow Cross militia. Although the family was able to send letters, food parcels, and winter clothing for about a year, all communication ceased, and they were never heard from again.
In June 1944, Nazi official Adolf Eichmann arrived in Hungary to deport more than 700,000 Jewish residents. Arrow Cross militias acting on Nazi orders rounded up the Jewish population of Tiszaujlak and locked them inside the local synagogue.
Days later, Sandor, Farni, uncle Martin, aunts Rosie and Sussie, and cousin Sheindy, who was raised as a daughter, were placed onto cattle trucks bound for Nazi death camps. As the train departed, former neighbors refused requests for water and instead offered salt.
Survival Across Nazi Concentration Camps
Upon arrival at Auschwitz after days in cattle trucks without sanitation, the family was confronted by Nazi guards and dogs. Sandor and Farni were separated from the three young women, while uncle Martin was transported to the Theresienstadt camp in what is now the Czech Republic.
Before being separated, grandmother Farni squeezed the hands of Sussie and Sheindy, instructing them to claim they were 16 years old if asked. As recalled by Sussie's daughter Fiona at her mother's funeral, this advice saved their lives, as children under 16 were sent directly to the gas chambers. Sandor and Farni were stripped, marched to the gas chambers, and murdered, with their bodies burned in crematoria.
Sussie, Sheindy, and Rosie were stripped, given thin cotton shifts without underwear, and sent the following day to Kivioli in Estonia to perform hard labor producing iron construction rods while surviving on watery soup containing maggots.
As Soviet forces advanced, the three women were transferred to Stutthof concentration camp in Poland. Sheindy was separated in a toilet block to be killed but escaped by jumping through a window to rejoin Sussie and Rosie. Their quiet demeanor and constant togetherness earned them the nickname the "three quiet mice."
The trio was later transported on a three-day rail journey to Bergen-Belsen while malnourished and bald. Surrounded by skeletal survivors and unburied bodies, they received cleaning fluid and soup from a woman from their hometown who was suffering from typhus.
Liberation and Arrival in Great Britain
As Allied troops advanced amid gunfire, the three women were placed on a train to Copenhagen and met by the Swedish Red Cross. They were taken to Malmo, Sweden, where medical staff nursed them back to health with food and ice cream, and where they learned to ski.
While in Sweden, they informed the Red Cross that their brother Philip was a synagogue minister in Brighton, England. A telegram was sent to the Brighton family, who had presumed the sisters died at Auschwitz alongside their parents.
The three survivors were flown on a civilian Dakota aircraft to RAF Northolt in Middlesex and transported to Victoria coach station, where they were reunited with Michael Brummer. All three women subsequently married and established families in Britain.
Reflecting on his late aunt's belief that Britain was the most tolerant nation on Earth, Brummer questioned whether Holocaust survivors arriving today would still receive the same compassion, safety, and welcome.
