Holocaust Survivor Belts Out National Anthem at Detroit Tigers Game
Image by Getty Images
— A Holocaust survivor sang the national anthem before a Major League Baseball Game between the Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay.
Hermina Hirsch, 89, performed the national anthem on Saturday at Comerica Park in Detroit, fulfilling a long-time dream.
Hirsch told local television station WWJ in an interview in April in which she called on the ball club to allow her to sing that she would not be nervous singing in front of thousands of baseball fans.
“If I lived through the concentration camp, it couldn’t be that bad,” Hirsch said. “I don’t want to die before I sing at a baseball game.”
After an outpouring of fan support, Hirsch was asked to sing at a game.
Hirsh, who was born in Czechoslovakia, lived through a series of Nazi camps beginning in 1944, at the age of 17. She was liberated in January 1945.
She reportedly has been a Tigers fan since moving to Detroit with her husband in 1953. The couple immediately began attending baseball games
Hirsch has been singing the national anthem for years during regular meetings of Holocaust survivors in the area.
Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
