The nation is still reeling from Sunday’s heinous attack in Boulder, Colorado, on elderly Jews as they demonstrated to advocate for the return of the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza. Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national, has been charged with attempted murder and hate crimes in connection with the attack. The resurgence of antisemitism in the U.S. should be alarming to every American. But for one victim of Sunday’s attack, it prompted a question that every sane, rational American should be asking: “What the hell is going on in our country?”
“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN OUR COUNTRY?”
•Barbara Steinmetz, the 88-year-old Holocaust survivor who was attacked with a flamethrower and Molotov cocktails by an illegal jihadist in Boulder on Sunday pic.twitter.com/u1djxip1Pa— Jews Fight Back 🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@JewsFightBack) June 4, 2025
The person who asked that question is 88-year-old Barbara Steinmetz. She was at the gathering on Sunday and suffered minor burns and should make a full recovery. If anyone has earned the right to ask that question, it’s Barbara Steinmetz. In an interview with NBC News a few days after the attack, she said, “We’re Americans, we are better than this.” Rabbi Marc Soloway is the head of the Congregation Bonai Shalom, where Steinmetz is a member, and he wondered how someone who escaped the slaughter of six million Jews is now processing that kind of hatred here at home.
READ MORE: Columbia U Protester, ‘Jew-Hater,’ Had Links to Terror Groups, Now Faces Years in Prison
Barbara Steinmetz spent much of her early years fleeing hatred. She was born in Hungary, and her parents ran a hotel on an island in the Adriatic Sea that, at the time, belonged to Italy. In 1938, dictator Benito Mussolini stripped Italian Jews of their citizenship. In 1940, her father took the family back to Hungary, and two years later, they went to France.
Life in France didn’t last long. When the Nazis invaded, the family fled again to Portugal, where they joined thousands of others looking to escape Europe. Steinmetz’s father applied for asylum for the family to several countries, including the U.S. The Dominican Republic was the only country willing to take them in. The family settled in the town of Sosua. But life in the Dominican Republic was less than idyllic. There was hard work for all the new immigrants. They dealt with hordes of mosquitoes that carried malaria, and an abundance of tarantulas. Steinmetz’s parents arranged for her and her sister to attend a Catholic boarding school, where the Mother Superior was the only one who knew they were Jewish. They had to appear in every way to be Catholic. Steinmetz said of that experience, “For four years, the convent was our home. Although formidable, the sisters were kind.”
Not 1 squad member came out to condemn the attack in Boulder today.
Their silence is deafening.
— Sassafrass84 (@Sassafrass_84) June 2, 2025
The family ultimately came to the U.S. after getting help to secure visas from a fellow Hungarian who had settled in Boston. Her parents returned to hotel work, and Steinmetz and her sister went to summer camp. At one point, while living in New York, Steinmetz recalled a conversation she had with her father that made her realize the struggles her parents went through to get to America to provide a better life for herself and her sister. She told her father that she was unhappy living in New York. Her father replied with this eye-opening statement, “You think I care that you’re unhappy? You’ve got a roof under your head [sic], you’ve eaten and we’re not on the run. You think I care that you’re unhappy?”
ALSO READ: The Press Reach a New Low With Puff Pieces on Colorado ‘Free Palestine’ Terrorist and ‘Islamophobia’
Barbara Steinmetz moved to Boulder in the mid-2000s, where she no doubt never thought she would see the hatred that she fled as a young girl. She said that she “wants people to be nice and decent to each other, kind, respectful, encompassing.” Most Americans want that as well. But since October 7, 2023, the virulent antisemitism that sprang up on college campuses has metastasized into other areas of American society. From the firebombing of the governor’s mansion in Pennsylvania, to the tragic killing of a young couple in Washington, D.C., and now the attack in Boulder. It was allowed to fester and grow by Democrats and the left, and their media henchmen. What did they think was going to happen? Barbara Steinmetz said, “I tell Holocaust survivors that their testimony is imperative.” Incredulously, in America in 2025, that appears to be true more than ever.
Holocaust survivor, Barbara Steinmetz, was born in Hungary in 1936. She and her family fled Europe during World War II, escaping the horrors of the Nazi regime. Now residing in Boulder, Colorado, Steinmetz has dedicated herself to educating others about the Holocaust and fighting… pic.twitter.com/Cvqn45uvuJ
— Stories of Antisemitism (@SOAonX) April 21, 2025
Editor’s Note: Donald Trump and his team have been fighting against the left’s extreme agenda.
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