Among 34,000 people in the town of Oświęcim is just one Jew – a young Israeli named Hila Weisz-Gut. It’s an interesting choice of residence, given the most famous feature of the town is its proximity to the Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz – where at least 1.1 million people, mainly Jews, died between 1940 and 1945.
Nearly every member of Weisz-Gut’s grandmother’s family was lethally gassed there upon arrival in a cargo transport from Hungary. Today, Weisz-Gut can see Auschwitz III-Monowitz, where her grandmother survived, from her bedroom window.
She moved from Israel to join her Polish husband in Oświęcim, his hometown, in 2023, fully aware of her own family’s tragic history.
For Weisz-Gut, maintaining a Jewish presence in the town – even if tiny – is vital. As the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camp nears, on January 27, a disturbing trend is emerging across Europe, monitoring groups say – the rise of antisemitism.
Factors in this may be anger over the war in Gaza and a growing far-right presence in some countries, where electoral successes have lent far-right politicians and their supporters a louder voice. The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights said some organizations had reported a 400% increase in antisemitic incidents since the October 7, 2023 terror attacks in Israel.
The story of Oświęcim, whose population was nearly 60% Jewish in 1939 before the Nazis arrived, serves as a stark reminder of what unbridled antisemitism can unleash.
Weisz-Gut currently works at the town’s Oshpitzin Jewish Museum, educating Israeli visitors about the region’s once-vibrant Jewish community. The museum has said she is the only Jewish person living in Oświęcim.
This past year, living so close to Auschwitz has taken on greater significance for Weisz-Gut. On October 7, 2023 she sat horrorstruck as she watched social media videos of Israelis running for their lives at the Nova music festival after Hamas militants attacked. Her mother, who lives 10 minutes from the Lebanese border in northern Israel, has had to take refuge in an underground shelter amid strikes launched by Hezbollah.
Since the attack, Weisz-Gut has felt forced to take account of the specter of increasing prejudice in Europe on a personal level. While on a trip to London, she said, her mother and husband urged caution, suggesting she remove her Jewish star necklace. She also wore long sleeves to cover a tattoo in Hebrew. “Since the war with Gaza, people don’t separate between Jewish people and Israeli people,” she said. “There are no clear boundaries.”
The Community Security Trust, a Jewish security charity, recorded 1,978 antisemitic incidents across the UK in the first half of 2024, a record high. A sharp uptick in anti-Muslim hate has also been reported in the UK since the October 7 attacks.
France, which has the largest Jewish population in Europe, recently reported a sharp rise in antisemitism since October 7, with reported incidents increasing by 284%. In Germany, there has also been a steep increase in reported antisemitic crime, according to a government report, with greater incidence of violence.
Much of the problem occurs online and via social media. “The digital world is the Wild West. There are no rules, there is no law. There are almost no consequences,” explained Derviş Hızarcı, the head of the board at KIgA, a Berlin-based organization whose international network, ENCATE, fights hatred and antisemitism. “I think online hate is the biggest challenge after October 7.”
Still, Weisz-Gut remains committed to living a Jewish life in Europe, specifically in the town co-opted by the Nazis to create the largest death machine in modern history.
“For me, it’s a statement that they tried to break us and exterminate us, but they failed,” she said of her presence in a place so associated with the Nazi regime. “We are the generation that is here to say ‘you didn’t succeed. No more. Not again.’”