Never Again Means Armed: A Holocaust Survivor’s Daughter Warns America
The Shot Heard ‘Round the World—and Why It Still Matters
Two hundred fifty years ago today—April 19, 1775—American patriots stood at Lexington and Concord, muskets in hand, facing down a British army sent to seize their weapons. That act of defiance sparked a revolution and gave birth to a nation founded on liberty and resistance to tyranny.
That same fire burns in me. I am the daughter of Holocaust survivors—Jews who lived through the systematic disarmament, persecution, and genocide of six million of our people. My parents survived. Most did not.
They taught me this: the Nazis disarmed the Jews before they tried to exterminate them. That history is not just a memory. It’s a warning.
The Day the Nazis Took the Guns
Picture Berlin, 1933. A Jewish shopkeeper keeps a hunting rifle above his mantel. It’s legal. Registered. Symbolic of a father’s duty to protect his family.
Then one night, Hitler’s brownshirts—the SA—kick in his door. “Jews can’t be trusted,” they snarl, and rip the rifle from his hands. His permit? Worthless. His rights? Revoked. His home? No longer his sanctuary.
By 1935, the Nuremberg Laws stripped Jews of citizenship—and their right to bear arms. In 1938, the German Weapons Act banned Jews from owning guns, ammunition, even ceremonial daggers. Just days after Kristallnacht, a Nazi decree demanded all remaining Jewish weapons be surrendered—or else.
This wasn’t chaos. It was calculated: legal disarmament, followed by terror. Bureaucrats stamped “unreliable” on permits. Propaganda painted Jewish gun owners as threats. The Gestapo enforced it all with raids and arrests. By the time the ghettos and camps opened, Jews had nothing to fight back with.
An armed Jew might have died standing. A disarmed Jew died on his knees.
The Echo in America’s Gun Laws
Now imagine an American father in 2025, standing in a gun shop, filling out a background check. He’s law-abiding—but his name goes into a federal database of 4 million legal gun buyers (FBI, 2023). Scholar John Lott warns: such databases can be weaponized—just like Weimar’s lists were used to target Jewish gun owners.
Why track the innocent when only 14% of illegal purchase attempts are prosecuted (ATF, 2023)? That’s not safety. That’s surveillance.
Or consider a California mother banned from owning an AR-15. “Assault weapon,” they say—despite such rifles accounting for less than 2% of gun crimes (DOJ, 2004). The 1994–2004 federal ban didn’t reduce homicides, and mass shootings still happened—like Columbine in 1999.
And red flag laws? In California, 70% of firearm seizures under red flag orders occur without a hearing (San Diego Union-Tribune, 2022). In Maryland, 60% of these orders are later overturned (Baltimore Sun, 2023). Just like the Nazis, the state decides who’s “unreliable,” then acts first and answers questions later.
Each restriction—permits, magazine limits, waiting periods—is sold as “common sense.” But taken together, they form a wall: vague rules, arbitrary enforcement, and total state control. Just like 1930s Germany.
Survivors Speak: Voices from the Ashes
Henry Oster, in Cologne, watched the SA confiscate his father’s legal hunting rifle in 1933. By Kristallnacht, they had nothing left to defend themselves (USC Shoah Foundation, 1996).
Ruth Winkelmann’s father—a WWI veteran—was forced to surrender his pistol in 1935. The police were polite. That didn’t save them. By 1938, the family was in hiding (AP, 2024).
Kate Haberman, from Hungary, saw her uncle arrested for hiding a shotgun. When her family was deported to Auschwitz in 1944, they had nothing but prayers (Kupferberg Holocaust Center).
Peter Silverman’s father was beaten for owning an illegal pistol. Years later, Peter escaped to the woods alone. “One bullet,” he said, “could’ve shown we weren’t sheep” (Montreal Holocaust Museum).
Their stories are not isolated. They are the pattern.
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By 1934, 2,000 Jewish-owned guns were seized in Berlin.
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Post-Kristallnacht, 20,000 firearms were confiscated, with 7,000 Jews arrested.
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By 1939, the Jewish population was almost entirely disarmed—just before mass deportations began.
(Halbrook, Gun Control in the Third Reich; Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews)
The Second Amendment Is a Line in the Sand
Our Founders gave us the Second Amendment not for hunting, but for resisting tyranny.
My parents’ survival is my testimony. They lived because someone defied orders. Others died because they complied. Stalin, Mao, Hitler—every totalitarian regime disarmed its citizens before unleashing violence.
Today, America has 120 million gun owners. That’s a firewall. But each new restriction—registries, bans, red flag laws—chips away at it.
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Chicago has some of the nation’s strictest gun laws and 617 homicides in 2023 (Chicago PD).
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Colorado’s suicide rate remains unchanged despite red flag laws—22 per 100,000 in 2021 (CDC).
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California’s 10-round magazine limit mimics Nazi-era caps that left Jews powerless.
These laws don’t save lives. They disarm the law-abiding—and history shows where that leads.
Jews Can Shoot: Never Again Is Now
Jews Can Shoot exists because my parents survived—and because millions didn’t. We stand to ensure that no Jew, no American, ever faces a firing squad without the dignity to fight back.
Our message is clear: Gun control doesn’t disarm criminals. It disarms the people tyrants fear most—those who resist.
On this anniversary of Lexington and Concord, remember: “Never again” is not a phrase. It’s a vow. And it means armed.
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By Doris Wise, Founder of Jews Can Shoot
About the Author
I’m, Doris Wise, the daughter of Holocaust survivors. I run Jews Can Shoot to honor their legacy and to make sure history never repeats. My work is about one thing: empowering Jews—and everyone else—with the truth that self-defense is not just a right, but a necessity.
