Natalie Portman Pays Homage to Great-Grandparents Who Died in Holocaust, Quotes Anne Frank
Shiryn Ghermezian
Natalie Portman. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Jewish actress Natalie Portman dedicated an Instagram post on Tuesday to her great-grandparents who were murdered by the Nazis, in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“Today I honor my great-grandparents, Leiser and Leah Hershlag, who perished along with millions of others at the hands of the Nazis,” the 38-year-old, who was born in Israel as Neta-Lee Hershlag, posted alongside a photo of of her late relatives.
She then quoted Jewish diarist and Holocaust victim Anne Frank, who wrote, “I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.”
natalieportman
Today I honor my great-grandparents, Leiser and Leah Hershlag, who perished along with millions of others at the hands of the Nazis. In the words of Anne Frank: “I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness; I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too. I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.” #HolocaustRemembranceDay
In a recent interview with Harper’s Bazaar UK, the “Thor” star talked about her family’s Holocaust history, saying, “My great-grandparents were killed in the camps, and my grandfather’s younger brother was shot in Poland during the war.”According to the website Kveller, along with the Instagram post about her great-grandparents, Portman also shared on her Instagram stories a post from Integrity First for America, an organization that is fighting antisemitism and racism in the US by suing the neo-Nazis and other white supremacists who were behind the violence at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017.