Watch: Holocaust Survivor Injured in Boulder Hate Attack Urges Americans to Reject Antisemitism

Barbara Steinmetz, an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor, delivered a heartfelt and urgent message to the American public just days after surviving a horrific terrorist attack in Boulder, Colorado. Steinmetz was among a group of demonstrators advocating for the release of Israeli hostages when they were ambushed by a man wielding a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails on Pearl Street. The group, part of the grassroots movement “Run for Their Lives,” had gathered peacefully to bring attention to the 58 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza.

Eight people, ranging in age from 52 to 88, were hospitalized with burn injuries following the attack. As of Tuesday, two victims remained in serious condition. Authorities have charged 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national, with 16 counts of attempted murder and hate crimes. According to law enforcement, Soliman disguised himself as a gardener to get close to the Jewish demonstrators before launching his violent assault. The FBI is currently investigating the incident as a terrorist attack and an act of targeted anti-Semitic violence.

Despite suffering burns herself, Steinmetz showed remarkable resilience and clarity in her first public remarks. “This has nothing to do with the Holocaust,” she said. “It has to do with a human being that wants to burn other people.” She went on to question the broader societal shift that allowed such hatred to erupt: “It’s about what the hell is going on in our country. What the hell is going on?”

Steinmetz’s words carry particular gravity given her own harrowing history. Born in Hungary, she spent part of her childhood on an island off the Croatian coast where her parents ran a hotel. That peaceful life was disrupted when Mussolini revoked the citizenship of Italian Jews in 1938. Her family fled from country to country, from Hungary to France, then to Portugal, before finally finding asylum in the Dominican Republic in 1941. The United States had denied their initial request for entry, but the Dominican Republic took them in, and they settled in the coastal town of Sosúa. Barbara and her sister spent four years in a Catholic convent, where only the Mother Superior knew they were Jewish.

The refuge in Sosúa offered the family rare stability during the war years. After World War II, the Steinmetz family was finally able to move to the United States, where they resumed life in New Hampshire. Barbara eventually settled in Boulder, Colorado, in the mid-2000s, becoming an active member of her community.

Now, more than eight decades after escaping Nazi persecution, she finds herself once again a victim of anti-Semitic violence. Yet her response is not anger, but a powerful call for compassion and moral clarity. “We’re Americans,” she said. “We are better than this. That’s what I want them to know. That they be kind and decent human beings.”

Barbara Steinmetz's message serves not only as a personal reflection of survival but as a call to the nation’s conscience, a reminder that hatred must never be allowed to define a society.