by
Hermina Hirsch
Update, 7:15 a.m. Friday: Holocaust survivor Hermina Hirsch will sing the national anthem May 18 at Comerica Park, WWJ reports.
Ron Colangelo, vice president of Communications for the Tigers, tells WWJ Friday morning:
"On Saturday, May 21, Hermina is going to perform the National Anthem. That’s the beauty of baseball, isn’t it? She has gotten a tremendous amount of support and it’s just fantastic that she has wanted to do this and that she’s a Tigers fan. Maybe it brings us a lot of luck for a magical 2016 season.”
Original article Wednesday:
Hermina Hirsch, 89, a Holocaust survivor, grew up on my old block in Oak Park. She was one of many Holocaust survivors on the block, including my parents.
She was always very nice and she loved my mother's sense of humor.
"Miriam, you're such a riot," I recall her once telling my mother, who died nearly five years ago.
Her son Danny is also a friend.
So, this story grabbed my attention.
Roberta Jasina of WWJ reports that Hirsch, who was in Auschwitz and lost her parents, three brothers and uncles and aunts at the hands of the Nazis, has an interesting item on her bucket list.
She wants to sing the National Anthem at a Detroit Tigers game.
“At my age, I figure that this would do it,” Hirsch, a mother of three grown children, who lives in Southfield with her husband, tells WWJ. “I don’t want to die before I sing at a baseball game.”
The Tigers organization says there has been a flood of support for Hirsch and its working to accommodate her request, WWJ reports.
WWJ asked Hirsch if she'd be nervous singing before thousands of fans, to which she replied:
“If I lived through the concentration camp, it couldn’t be that bad."
