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<\/a><\/p>\nRob Reiner gives a posthumous address at the annual International Holocaust Survivors Night hosted by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany on Dec. 18, 2025. (Screenshot)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
For the survivors, families and advocates who tuned into the virtual event hosted by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference, Reiner\u2019s words carried added weight, having been recorded just weeks before he and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were killed in their home on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Ahead of Reiner\u2019s pre-recorded remarks, Greg Schneider, the executive vice president of the Claims Conference, said that Reiner had begun working on the organization\u2019s annual International Holocaust Survivors Night a few years ago, including appearances in the virtual screening in 2023 and 2024. The organization has disbursed restitution money to survivors since 1951.<\/p>\n
Schneider then read a quote from a 2017 Jewish Telegraphic Agency interview with Reiner.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, all this is reflected in my work. It\u2019s my sensibility. I\u2019m a Jew. I was raised a Jew. I value honesty and integrity and knowledge and education and all those values I was raised with,\u201d said Schneider, quoting Reiner.<\/p>\n
Concluding his introduction to Reiner\u2019s address, Schneider said, \u201cRob and Michelle, we will carry on your values of acting with honesty, integrity, knowledge and education.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Reiner came on the screen, surrounded by posters from some of his most acclaimed films, including \u201cThe Princess Bride\u201d and \u201cA Few Good Men,\u201d he began by describing his family\u2019s \u201cpersonal connection\u201d to the Holocaust.<\/p>\n
\u201cThank you again for asking me to join your evening, I can tell you that what you\u2019re all about means a lot to me,\u201d Reiner said in the video. \u201cPersonally, my wife, her mother, was in Auschwitz, and her whole family died there. Her mother was the only survivor, and my aunt was also in Auschwitz.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the USC Shoah Foundation shared a 1994 video of Singer Reiner embracing her mother, Holocaust survivor Nicole Silberkleit, who described her children as \u201cvery understanding, loving, and affectionate.\u201d<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DSYmPLmEshI\/<\/p>\n
In his address, Reiner then shifted his focus to urging \u201cresilience,\u201d which was the theme of the virtual event to honor Holocaust survivors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the theme of the evening is resilience, and if ever we needed to be resilient, it\u2019s now,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re living in a time where what\u2019s happening in our country is scary and reminiscent of what we\u2019ve seen happen in the past, and we just hope that we can all survive this and that we can hold on to our democracy, but I want to just thank everybody for being there, and let\u2019s be resilient.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Claims Conference\u2019s event was part of an annual menorah lighting ceremony on the fifth night of Hanukkah to honor survivors. It concluded with around 100 survivors lighting candles at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
This year, Claims Conference officials also used the event to draw attention to antisemitism, with the survivor event taking place just days after 15 were killed during an antisemitic attack on a Hanukkah event in Sydney, Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven in these difficult days, when antisemitism is rising and Jewish communities around the world are under attack \u2014 this very week on the first night of Chanukah in Sydney, Australia \u2014 we draw strength and inspiration from you, the survivors, from your personal and collective resilience,\u201d Schneider told the group of survivors in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n
One of the victims of the attack, Alex Kleytman, was a Holocaust survivor who had passed World War II living with his family in Siberia.<\/p>\n
\u201cLessons from the past should have protected Holocaust survivor Alex Kleytman \u2013 a husband, a father and a grandfather,\u201d the Claims Conference wrote in a post on Facebook Sunday. \u201cEducating about how words of hate can turn into violence must not be a hollow promise.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple\u2019s 32-year-old son, Nick, briefly appeared in a Los Angeles court Wednesday after he was charged in connection to his parents\u2019 killing. He has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder with a special circumstance of multiple murders.<\/p>\n
The other Reiner children, Jake and Romy, shared a statement with People on Wednesday expressing their grief over the loss of their parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cWords cannot even begin to describe the unimaginable pain we are experiencing every moment of the day,\u201d the statement said. \u201cThe horrific and devastating loss of our parents, Rob and Michele Reiner, is something that no one should ever experience. They weren\u2019t just our parents; they were our best friends.\u201d<\/p>\n