During a CNN Monday night town hall in Charleston, South Carolina, Democratic front-runner Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was asked by an audience member what it means, for him, to be Jewish.He responded, saying "I can remember very vividly, as a kid, looking at picture books about what happened in the Holocaust. As it happens, my father's family was wiped out by Hitler."He continued speaking of his father's story, saying "my brother and I, and our wives, went to Poland to the town he was born in. He fled terrible poverty and antisemitism. The people in town, very nice people, took us to a place where the Nazis had the Jewish people dig a grave and shot them all; 300 people in there.
"In the neighborhood where I grew up, the people had tattoos on their arms from having been in concentration camps. I learned at a very early age what, if you like, white nationalism – which is what Nazism is in the extreme – is about. I think at a very early age I learned that it is absolutely imperative – not just me – that all of us do everything we can to stop racism and white nationalism."This answer is in keeping with previous statements Sanders has given on the topic. Last week he released a campaign ad in which he emphasized his Jewish identity, while also lambasting President Donald Trump for emboldening far-right white nationalists.