Steven Spielberg: 'The echoes of history are unmistakable in our current climate'

[Stuart G]

Source: CNN

Steven Spielberg had words of caution and hope on Monday while accepting an honor from the University of Southern California.

The Oscar-winning director spoke at an event where he was recognized for his work with the USC Shoah Foundation, an organization he founded in 1994 to record and preserve interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust.

Spielberg said in listening to the accounts of survivors, “the echoes of history are unmistakable in our current climate.”


Spielberg said radical views create “a dangerous environment” and lead to “a society that no longer celebrates differences.”

The legendary director’s words were as poignant as his films are at their best, so a full transcript of his remarks is below.

Celina Biniaz, 92, one of the last living Holocaust survivors from Oskar Schindler’s List, was also honored at the event. Biniaz survived the Nazi regime because her parents worked for Schindler, a German businessman who employed Jews to protect them from the Nazis. She left the Auschwitz-Birk

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/25/entertainment/steven-spielberg-usc-shoah-foundation/index.html

[Stuart G]

1. Our society now ". celebrates differences" The United States is now moving in another direction. Spielberg says.

At the food store where I shop, a person can hear at least 5 to 8 different languages as you walk around the store. We have as a society have changed. ................................................................This is what it was like when
my grandparents came to the United States in 1907...(at least where I live in Skokie Illinois)....Lots of different
languages from people who came from different countries. The children learned the new language at school where
they had to learn it to survive. My grandparents only spoke Yiddish, the language where they came from in Russia..
They both spoke some English...(enough to get by on.)...(at least that is what it is like in Skokie Illinois...a place where
foreign languages are totally accepted while people learn the new language..."ENGLISH."

....The coming to the U.S.A. was really for the children, so they could grow up in a country that was fair and equal,
and people would have the opportunity to succeed. ...and it is the exact same reason that people come here now.

[mopinko]

4. did not know he was from skokie.

explains a lot.

[ArkansasDemocrat1]

2. If we let them win, the Earth will become uninhabitable

There won't be an untouchable resource with which to save us like last time. The traitors made damned sure of that.

We. WILL. DIE!

[Kablooie]

3. They are against science, history and learning.

Just like Mao’s cultural revolution when millions died of starvation.

Today’s republicans are a mix of Hitler and Mao together.
Nazis and communists combined.

[et tu]

5. stand together

unite and vote~

[NanaCat]

6. Wow

I met Ms Biniaz when a Jewish friend invited me to an event at the temple they both attended. The account of what her family endured was gripping and heartbreaking. I had no idea she was still amongst us.

[EmmaLee E]

7. We learn from History -

That we do not learn from history.