Holocaust survivor: 'I've seen this before

As suppression breaks out across the globe, driven by a new generation of combative leaders, one woman is reminded of the devastating impact of totalitarianism that wrecked her childhood. LUCY JOHNSTON reports.

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A WOMAN who survived both Hitler and Stalin says the warning signs of totalitarianism are flashing in the West once again. Erika Fabian was four years old when the Nazis came for her family in Budapest. Eight decades on, the Holocaust survivor and author says she recognises the early stages of authoritarianism and fears Western democracies are repeating the mistakes Europe once paid for in blood.

"I feel like a canary in the coal mine," she says. "What my latest book, Liars' Paradise, describes is the slow occupation of entire nations and deprivation of freedom, including America today."

Ms Fabian says her warning is grounded in lived experience of how fear spreads, how people stop speaking up and how democracies hollow out long before they collapse.

It is a message shaped by a lifetime under tyranny — and one she believes Britain should take seriously.

Ms Fabian is the mother of world-renowned eye surgeon Prof Dan Reinstein, whose London practice has treated figures including former prime minister Boris Johnson.

What alarms her now, she says, is not a single law or leader but a growing pattern across Western democracies where speech is policed and fear does the work of the state.

"In America today people are afraid of saying something against President Trump in case someone knocks on their door."

Ms Fabian, who lives in California, says history shows that people begin censoring themselves long before repression becomes obvious.

"That is how it starts," she says. "And by the time people realise what is happening, it is often too late."