Itongadol.- Israeli bus driver called a Holocaust survivor a \’Nazi\’ after mistaking his Dutch for German.
Martin Leeda moved to Israel after surviving three Nazi concentration camps. Today he divides his time between Israel and the Netherlands, where he works as a guide in the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam, and is an active part of the Jewish community there.
Last Friday when he and his wife Jeta traveled on a Metropoline bus no. 47 from Ramat Hasharon to Tel Aviv, the bus driver mistook their Dutch for German and began shouting at them that they were Nazis. The driver has since sent the couple and apology, and Metropoline claims he is currently facing a disciplinary hearing.
After the couple paid for their ticket and sat at the front part of the bus, reserved for the elderly, Leeda began speaking with his 69-year-old wife in Dutch. According to him, the driver then got upset and ordered them to move to the back of the bus.
"He shouted at us loudly," Leeda recalls, "he said that we are goyim (gentiles), that our parents are too and that we are probably Nazis."
The driver then threatened the Holocaust survivor, and told him that if he was younger he would have kicked him.
"We could have spoken in Chinese, it\’s irrelevant. Even I who suffered at the hands of the Nazis know the difference between German and them," he said, referencing the driver\’s hatred.
Leeda expressed shock and disappointment at the incident: "Here I come, a Jew, a Holocaust survivor, being called a Nazi. Every decent Israeli should be ashamed hearing that story."