Holocaust Survivor: Trump’s ‘Zero Tolerance’ Policy Just ‘As Evil’ As What Happened To Me

Yoka Verdoner, a child survivor of the Holocaust, wrote in The Guardian on Monday that President Trump’s policy of separating children from their families at the border is just “as evil and criminal” as what happened to her after the Nazis occupied her home country of the Netherlands in 1942, making her “gnash my teeth with sadness and rage.”

“I know what they are going through. When we were children, my two siblings and I were also taken from our parents,” Verdoner wrote. “And the problems we’ve experienced since then portend the terrible things that many of these children are bound to suffer.”

Verdoner said her family separation had incredibly harmful effects on both her and her siblings, including “lifelong, profound depression.”

“My younger sister was separated from our parents at five,” Verdoner wrote. “She had no understanding of what was going on and why she suddenly had to live with a strange set of adults. She suffered thereafter from lifelong, profound depression.”

“In later life, I was never able to really settle down. I lived in different countries and was successful in work, but never able to form lasting relationships with partners. I never married. I almost forgot to mention my own anxiety and depression, and my many years in psychotherapy.”

The Hill added:

Verdoner concluded her essay by writing that what is happening in the U.S. is just as “evil and criminal” as what happened to her in Nazi Europe, and that it needs to end immediately.

Verdoner’s comparison comes as many Democratic and Republican lawmakers voice outrage over Trump’s policy that separates families at the border. Democrats note that the president can end the policy on his own, but Trump has defended it, saying he doesn’t want the U.S. to turn into a migrant camp.