Dominique Salomon was born on a farm in the south of France in 1945. His mother was hiding there from the collaborationist police who, three years earlier, sent his entire family to concentration camps. He came into the world a few months after January 27 when the allies liberated Auschwitz, 80 years ago now.
Almost a century has passed since Hitler came to power, the World War and the Holocaust, but for Salomon, not much progress has been made. “The concern these days is the same as then. We have started again,” he laments from the living room of his house in Barcelona, which is characterized by having a lot of two things: books and plants.
He sits on his couch, where he shares a seat with documents, folders, and more books appearing from every corner. She retired years ago and transferred the small cheese company she set up when she arrived in Spain (after a brief period working in the Moroccan and Luxembourg consulates), but she is still tremendously active despite being about to turn 80.
He is a member of the JUNTS association, which has nothing to do with Carles Puigdemont’s party. They are an entity that has brought together, since 2008, Palestinians and Jews in Catalonia and that travels throughout the territory to give talks and explain the situation in the region. Especially since October 2023, when the conflict in Gaza began.
When she gives talks at civic centers or institutes, she speaks in the first person. As a Jew who lost her family in the Holocaust, but also as an anti-fascist, communist and anti-Zionist. “From my experience I demand that there be no more genocides, against any people, not even against the Palestinians,” he says, “especially when the murder of my family is now used to justify the murder of thousands of Gazan families.”
From my experience I demand that there be no more genocides against any people. Especially when the murder of my family is used to justify the murder of thousands of Gazan families.
Hers is, as she herself says, a very Jewish story, despite not being observant. Now, he affirms that if he continues to identify with that creed it is because of the Holocaust. “In my house it was an omnipresent topic. If it hadn’t been for that, perhaps I would have forgotten my religion, but it was impossible,” he points out.
His mother’s family is from Poland, but had to move because of the pogroms. Some of it ended up in Paris, where his mother met his father, who came from a Jewish family in the Alsace area. A few years after getting married and having their first child, they learned that, after the Nazis entered France, Jews would be persecuted. “But they were so integrated that my mother didn’t believe it. Not until they made them put the Star of David on their chests and began to see signs in shops prohibiting the entry of dogs and Jews.”
His parents both lost their jobs. Some friends began to disappear. And that was almost their fate, after a neighbor reported them to the authorities. So her mother decided to process false papers for herself, her mother, her sisters, nephews and her son and move south, to an area that had not yet been occupied. His father, however, joined the resistance.
“My mother arrived in a very rural area and, despite being quite far away, prejudices had arrived,” says Salomon. “It was said that Jews were animals and that they had tails. In fact, when they arrived, they surrounded them looking for traces of tails to make sure they were not Jews.”
Her mother was saved because she found a peasant woman who, “without fully understanding the risks she was taking,” decided to hide her in her block. The rest of his family was not so lucky: they were all arrested and taken to concentration camps.
“My mother looked towards the entrance of the town every day to see if they were coming back. And they never came back. Until the 70s we were not sure what had happened to them. Someone edited a book with the names of all the people who went to the camps, in which convoy and on what date they were massacred in the gas chambers. And then we knew,” he explains while emphasizing his words by brandishing a cigarette that he never manages to light.
The one who did return was his father, who after being in the resistance with the maquis, returned briefly to reunite with his mother before joining Leclerc’s army, with whom he entered Germany. In that short period of time, Dominique was fathered. Her mother spent the entire pregnancy in those difficult months protected by that farmer named Gabrielle, who became her godmother and with whom she was in contact until she died. “She was a very good woman, who took unnecessary risks,” he says.
The anti-Zionist awakening
Salomon spent a quiet adolescence, already in Paris, temporarily and geographically removed from the horror that his family had gone through. But the nightmare was present in all the after-dinner meals and family conversations. Even so, he did not consider himself a particularly politicized person or aligned with the anti-fascist cause. It was during May ’68 when he became aware and, from the demonstrations and confrontations with the police, he understood many of the experiences he had lived until then.
After that explosion of the French student body, which surprised her at the age of 23, she was able to put her ideas in order. Among other things, she gave a name to the disenchantment that enveloped her the two times she had visited Israel. The first was at the age of 14, when he hitchhiked across the country. “I didn’t particularly like it, but I didn’t think about it. I went because it was logical to do so: I was born with Jewish history and, one way or another, the message is getting through,” he says.
Israel is and will be the most dangerous place in the world because it will always be at war: after six million Jews were massacred, we brought the problem to the Middle East
On that trip, she lived with Palestinians and began to see the discrimination to which they were subjected and something began to stir her. He tells it while holding the book ‘Les refugiés’, which his father published after returning from the front. “Here are the theses of a good part of the Jewish people of the time. It’s not especially racist or anti-Palestinian, but there is some distaste for it. They think that Israel is a place where Jews can have security and, in some way, there are colonial theses,” he says.
Even so, he denies the majority and points out that the Jews will never have peace with Israel’s policies: “It will be the most dangerous place in the world because it will always be at war,” he insists. “After six million Jews were massacred, we brought the problem to the Middle East.”
He began to understand this in 1967, during the Six Day War, when Israel called thousands of Jews from around the world to volunteer to build trenches and supply schools as a place of refuge. Dominique joined one of those expeditions.
“We went to help, but we were not racist. What we knew was based on the newspapers we read and everything seemed logical to us. But, when we started to see the reality, it was very difficult for us to accept,” he recalls.
His change of heart occurred in a cafeteria where he bought Les Tempes Modernes, the magazine edited by Jean Paul Sartre. It was an issue that in one half included the Israeli arguments and in the other there were theses in defense of the Palestinian people. “I read an article called ‘Israel, made colonial’ and I understood everything. And I took the path in reverse: from my experience, I understood that I have the duty to defend the Palestinians and their right to live.”
He déjà vu from the extreme right
When Salomon returned from Israel, May 68 broke out. Just after those days, it was clear to him. “I was going to fight against any fascist regime.” And the one that was on the rise at that time was the Francoist one. So she followed in the footsteps of her husband, who was already in Spain, and joined the FRAP (Frente Revolucionario Antifascista y Patriota).
But before they could meet, he was arrested and spent three years in prison. Shortly after leaving, as he continued with his anti-Franco activity, he once again fell into the hands of justice and, to avoid serving another sentence which, this time, would have been 16 years, he crossed the Pyrenees on foot and settled with his wife in Swiss. After the amnesty of ’77, both came to Catalonia.
Since then, Dominique Salomon has not given up her anti-fascist militancy, which for her includes being anti-Zionist. “You cannot be leftist and Zionist because it means excluding the other. It is said that Israel is the only democracy in the region, but what democracy occupies, monitors and massacres?” he asks.
This woman, the daughter of survivors, recognizes that she is not optimistic at all. Not even after the ceasefire. “I am glad that they can go a few weeks without bombs falling on them, but it is not the end of the war. The solution is a state for the Palestinians, but with Trump’s return and 80% of the Israeli population rejecting the idea, that will not be possible,” he says.
It is said that Israel is the only democracy in the region, but what democracy occupies, monitors and massacres?
During the conversation, he mentions the recently re-elected president of the United States several times. Both he and his acolytes make him have a feeling of déjà vu. And when he spoke with elDiario.es Elon Musk had not yet made his controversial greeting. “That violent speech against migrants or that the Israeli Minister of Defense calls Palestinians animals to dehumanize them… I have already experienced all of this and it reminds me of when my cousins were looking for the tail,” he says.
Salomon observes with disbelief and sadness how the extreme right wins more and more governments and how in Spain it rises in the polls. And he wonders what has gone wrong so that self-identifying as a fascist is no longer a source of shame. The sadness contrasts greatly on the face of this pinkish-haired woman, who finishes her explanation with an anecdote.
Recently, at the door of an educational center, he spoke with a couple of teenagers who told him that at their school they were discriminated against because of their ideology. Which one? Salomon asked. “We are Nazis,” they replied. Then, she told them that she was Jewish and that her entire family had been murdered in gas chambers. To which they limited themselves to asking her if, as a Jew, she had killed Jesus Christ. “They already asked me that in the 60s!” he laments.
This woman shares the fear of many other people, who fear that history could repeat itself. But, he corrects them. “It is already repeating itself. Just because it doesn’t happen in Europe doesn’t mean there aren’t fascist regimes massacring entire peoples,” he says, referring to Palestine.
“People tell me that the conflict is very complicated to understand, but it is not. Just as it is not difficult to understand who was the victim and who was the executioner during the Holocaust,” he says. “What is complicated are the geopolitical interests that prevent governments from taking a position with the same harshness as they would in other wars,” he summarizes.
As an example, he gives the event that JUNTS celebrates every January 27 to commemorate the Holocaust. For years, various Catalan town councils have called them to participate in their official events. They have always accepted, happy to be able to remember their own. But since the events of October 7, 2023, they only accept with one condition: to also be able to talk about Palestine. “All the City Councils have denied it to us,” he says bluntly.
For this reason, they have returned to the streets, where, he assures, they have freedom of expression. In various cities like Barcelona they have had to settle for going out to the square in front of the town hall, where they will celebrate a tribute with a lighting of candles “in which all the victims will take place.”
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