We live in troubling times. Antisemitism is surging across the globe, reaching levels not seen since the end of World War II and spawning atrocities like the Hanukkah massacre at Australia’s Bondi Beach that killed 15 people.

This hate hasn’t spared South Florida. Just weeks ago, a medical office in West Boca Raton was defaced with a swastika and racial slurs. The Miami nightclub played the rapper Ye’s song “Heil Hitler” as antisemitic influencers including Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes sang along proudly.

Israel, the world’s one Jewish state, faces not mere political criticism but seething, vicious slander that denies its right to exist — alone among the world’s countries — and demonizes its people with language and imagery drawn straight from history’s darkest chapter.

Shockingly, a 2023 poll found that 20% of young Americans think the Holocaust is a myth.

In this scary environment, I felt compelled to fight back.

I recently acquired an original architectural drawing, or whiteprint, of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria. Drawn in October 1941 by SS architect Walter Dejaco, this document represents the earliest design concept for Crematoria II and III, the facilities in the massive Birkenau complex where hundreds of thousands of people were murdered with industrial efficiency. As historian Laurence Rees writes in his recently published book “The Nazi Mind,” the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria represented the “final evolutionary stage of the Holocaust.”

The document serves a vital purpose in the essential fight against Holocaust denial, arguably the cruelest manifestation of antisemitism. Deniers claim that the gas chambers never existed and that the Holocaust is either grossly exaggerated or fabricated out of whole cloth.

The whiteprint is irrefutable evidence of the Nazis’ murderous intent. It demonstrates the meticulous planning that went into their attempt to kill every Jew they could get their hands on.

It will eventually be donated to a Holocaust museum, where future generations can be confronted with documentary proof of the Nazi genocide and learn the horrible, but important, truth of what happened.

The artifact was secured for $1.5 million, a figure chosen to honor the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis, children who never had the chance to pursue their dreams, fall in love, or contribute their gifts to the world. The proceeds from the purchase will support an early childhood curriculum emphasizing altruism and empathy, designed to inoculate young minds against the dangers of extremism and hate before such poison can take root.

This acquisition is part of a broader commitment to confront antisemitism and extremism. I was honored to help the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) purchase the former home of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, which stands just beyond the camp’s walls. Höss lived there in splendor with his wife and five children while directing the murder of a million Jews. CEP has transformed this home of a mass murdering antisemite into the Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism and Radicalization (ARCHER) at House 88, a groundbreaking initiative using cutting-edge technology to fight back against antisemitism, extremism and terrorism.

As important as remembrance is, without action, it is insufficient. No matter how passionately and reverently we intone “Never Again,” if we don’t take the fight to the antisemites, it won’t make a difference.

Soon there will be no living voices to bear witness to the horrors of the Holocaust. That makes our obligation all the more urgent. We must preserve their memory and testimony, teach it and, crucially, do everything in our power to defeat the antisemitism raging in our own time.

Let us honor the murdered not merely with tears but with resolve. Let us transform artifacts of genocide into tools of education. We must teach our children, from their earliest years, that every human life has infinite worth and that indifference to hatred makes us complicit in its consequences.

The whiteprint of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria reminds us that evil is planned and executed by human hands. Our response must be equally deliberate: to instill our children with righteous values and build a world where such evil can find no fertile ground.

About the author

Elliott Broidy is a philanthropist and chairman and CEO of Boca Raton’s Broidy Capital Holdings, LLC. He is co-chair of The Fund to End Antisemitism, Extremism, and Hate.