Bronia’s Afternoon with President Biden
President Biden speaking with Bronia and her daughter Etta in the Oval Office (from the President’s social media feed)
Last Thursday, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a lifelong dream came true for my 90-year-old aunt Bronia—she was able to share her life story with the President of the United States of America. Although she’d kept silent about what happened to her and her family during World War II for half a century, she’s spent the last 25 years speaking to tens of thousands of people from all walks of life in her efforts to help them comprehend the unfathomable atrocities committed by the Nazis and their accomplices during World War II.
By disclosing the terrible truth about the horrors she was forced to endure, Bronia hopes to inspire people to combat prejudice, hatred and violence wherever and whenever they see it. She also wants to honor the memory of her parents, three sisters, brother and dozens of cousins, aunts and uncles, all murdered at Auschwitz.
Bronia sorting photos of our family in the Diplomatic Reception room in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, across from the West Wing
The meeting between President Biden and my aunt was supposed to last thirty minutes, but they ended up spending a full 90 minutes together. Biden—who has said that it was the “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2017 that propelled him to run for president—has maintained a deep focus on the Holocaust.
When I spoke to my aunt just a few days after her meeting with Biden, her adrenaline was still high. “It’s hard to believe it actually happened,” Bronia told me. “Eventually the enormity will hit me. It was an incredible experience. That my life has taken me from Auschwitz to the Oval office is truly overwhelming. It’s beyond words.”
Bronia said it was hard to express just how impressed she was with the President. “He had tremendous empathy for survivors, such heartfelt feelings for what happened to us. He expressed outrage that it took so long for America to stand up to the horrors that were being inflicted, and spoke a lot about how strongly his parents had felt that America should have gotten involved sooner and how they believed that anyone who remains silent in the face of injustice is contributing to it.”
Biden had been briefed about Bronia before their meeting and had obviously paid close attention. “He knew my story and had seen photos of my family, which included your father, of course,” Bronia told me. “The President was very easy to talk to, though I mostly listened. He told me how he’d taken each one of his children to Dachau, as well as all of his grandchildren. He spoke about his involvement in the Civil Rights movement and the rabbi he marched with, and told me a story about how hard he worked to have both a rabbi and priest jointly officiate the marriage of his daughter to a Jewish man.”
Accompanying Bronia to the meeting was her daughter Etta. The three chatted in the Oval office for most of time (Bronia greatly appreciated its décor!), but Biden also took them on a tour of his private rooms, showing them where he eats and where he sits to write. “When it was time to say our goodbyes, I told the President what a huge honor this was for me, but he kept saying how it was his honor to meet me. The President of the United States truly treated me as his equal. It was very moving.”
President Biden and Bronia (a screen shot from a week-in-review reel)
After their very special time together, Biden gave Bronia a number of gifts (a crystal vase, White House pin, and presidential coin) and then turned her over to his media team where she gave a complete testimony. “At the end of my talk, I said that God gave us free will. Let us use our free will for good—to have a great America, free of racism.”
Soon after their meeting, images of Bronia and Biden started popping up on social media. Many of my friends texted to ask if it was indeed my aunt sitting across from our President. I feel very grateful to my cousin Etta for texting me early that morning and throughout the entire day, so that I could feel connected the whole time. It was a powerful and exciting day for our entire family.
The explanation of how this amazing event came to be centers around an incredible woman named Tova Katz, who first met Bronia sixteen years ago when she heard her speak at the Museum of Jewish Heritage. As a 22-year-old college student, Tova found Bronia such an inspiration that she became determined to befriend her and always stay connected.
“Tova is the most wonderful friend,” Bronia told me. “She has a big job and four children, but every single week she makes time to catch up. Tova even named one of her daughters after my beloved sister Mila—your aunt, the one you were named after.”
Tova worked for months to make this meeting at the White House happen, but Bronia didn’t know about it until less than two days before because the details hadn’t been settled and Tova didn’t want Bronia to be disappointed. “You can imagine my surprise!”
The process began with Tova filling out a generic contact form on the White House’s website, but she eventually connected with Chanan Weissman, the White House Jewish liaison. Tova’s letters to him about Bronia were powerful and persuasive. In one she wrote, “As International Holocaust Day approaches on January 27, and as the tide of anti-Semitism continues to rise across the country (with recent data illustrating that American young people know nothing of the Holocaust), what more powerful message could there be than bringing one of the few remaining child survivors of Auschwitz to share her testimony of survival, resilience and hope with the highest level of government?...Bronia is a national treasure; the perspective she brings to a national conversation on hate and bigotry is irreplaceable, and the timespan for hearing her powerful testimony grows shorter with each passing day due to her advanced age…Please help me bring her testimony to the White House, where all who hear it will be forever impacted and inspired to work harder for change in the fight against hate.”
Bronia and Tova right before heading to the White House
Bronia with Tova, and Tova’s daughter, Liat Mila, in 2016
It was Chanan who ended up securing the one-to-one conversation with Biden, setting a historical precedent as the first time a president hosted a Holocaust survivor in the Oval Office for the sole purpose of bearing witness to her story.
Tova flew from her home in Boston to Washington to witness the special meeting she had worked so tirelessly to arrange. “Tova told me she had to be there to kiss me,” Bronia said. “She took lots of pictures and was so happy.”
Tova and I have since connected, and she is now working to document the entire story—a truly amazing one that is filled with many unlikely coincidences. For now, I will leave you with President Biden’s powerful statement (Bronia is mentioned in the third paragraph). Next week, I’ll be sharing more of my aunt’s remarkable survival story with you. Stay tuned!
Statement by President Biden on International Holocaust Remembrance Day
JANUARY 27, 2022
Today, we attempt to fill a piercing silence from our past—to give voice to the six million Jews who were systematically and ruthlessly murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators, and to remember the millions of Roma, Sinti, Slavs, disabled persons, LGBTQ+ individuals, and political dissidents who were killed during the Shoah. It was a destructive force so unimaginable that it gave rise to an entirely new vocabulary of evil: words like “holocaust,” “genocide,” and “crimes against humanity.” We join with nations of the world to grieve one of the darkest chapters in human history—and to bear witness for future generations so that we can make real our sacred vow: “never again.”
This charge is even more urgent with each passing year, as fewer and fewer survivors remain to share their stories of lives lost and lives rebuilt.
As a child, I first learned of the Holocaust listening to my father at our dining room table. As a father and grandfather, I brought my own family to see its haunting remnants at the Dachau concentration camp. And today, as President, I’ll welcome Bronia Brandman to the Oval Office. A survivor of Auschwitz who lost her parents and four of five siblings, she could not speak of her experiences for half-a-century. Today, she’ll share her story at the White House—and speak for millions who never got the chance.
Today, and every day, we have a moral obligation to honor the victims, learn from the survivors, pay tribute to the rescuers, and carry forth the lessons of last century’s most heinous crime. From the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, to a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, we are continually and painfully reminded that hate doesn’t go away; it only hides. And it falls to each of us to speak out against the resurgence of antisemitism and ensure that bigotry and hate receive no safe harbor, at home and around the world.
We must teach accurately about the Holocaust and push back against attempts to ignore, deny, distort, and revise history—as we did this month, when the United States co-sponsored a UN resolution that charged the international community with combating Holocaust denial through education. We must continue to pursue justice for survivors and their families. And we must ensure that aging survivors have access to the services they need to live out their lives in dignity.
We cannot redeem the past. But, on this day, as we mourn humanity’s capacity to inflict inhuman cruelty, let us commit to making a better future and to always upholding the fundamental values of justice, equality, and diversity that strengthen free societies.
