Obituary for Hinda Kibort

Obituary: Hinda Kibort spoke of the horrors of the Holocaust
Terry Collins, Star Tribune
Published June 14, 2003

When Hinda Kibort urged people always to carry themselves with dignity and self-respect, it came from her own personal trauma. She was a Holocaust survivor.

So whether it was speaking to an audience or testifying before state legislators, Kibort, of Edina, held back nothing regarding her experiences in a Nazi concentration camp. She always hoped that her message about living through one of the most atrocious crimes in history would make those who listened to her stronger.

Kibort, a well-known member of the Twin Cities Jewish community, died Thursday at Fairview Southdale Hospital in Edina after a heart attack Wednesday. She was 83.

"I think she'll be remembered for being willing to tell her story," said Molly Grisham, spokeswoman for the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas. "Because she knew the more she told it, the more people she'd reach and the more it would teach about the ills of hatred and bigotry."

Born in Lithuania, Kibort said in a March 2001 Star Tribune article that she and her fellow Holocaust survivors were an "army of witnesses" during the period when 6 million Jews and thousands of others were killed by Nazis during World War II. She moved to the Twin Cities in 1951.

The article said that Kibort urged her audiences to keep their self-respect and build a new life, as she and other survivors had done, "starting over without a family, without a country . . . without everything" -- except self-respect.

Along with her late husband, Leo, Kibort spoke about the Holocaust for more than 30 years in the Twin Cities, Grisham said. One of her last noted appearances was in April, before the state House Ethics Committee, which was deciding whether to censure Rep. Arlon Lindner, R-Corcoran, for comments suggesting that Nazi persecution of gays and lesbians has been exaggerated.

Kibort testified about seeing gay men wearing pink triangles in a concentration camp where her mother was killed. When asked about Lindner's comments, she said, "If he denies a part of what happened, he denies the Holocaust." The committee deadlocked.

"She told people she didn't go through the hell of Holocaust to be forgotten, and that's why she had to bear witness so that the other people who died in the Holocaust would be remembered," Grisham said.

Private services will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Adath Jeshurn Congregation in Minnetonka.

Survivors include a son, Chuck Kibort of Edina; daughters Joni Sussman of Edina and Sandie Kibort of Seattle, and eight grandchildren.

Terry Collins is at tcollins@startribune.com.

With Permission of the Minneapolis Star Tribune

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Last modified on October 22, 2009