© 2024 MICHIGAN PUBLIC
91.7 Ann Arbor/Detroit 104.1 Grand Rapids 91.3 Port Huron 89.7 Lansing 91.1 Flint
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Holocaust survivor sings national anthem at Tigers game

Steve Carmody/Michigan Radio

An 89-year-old Holocaust survivor has fulfilled her longtime wish to sing the U.S. national anthem at a Major League Baseball game.

Hermina Hirsch sang Saturday at Comerica Park in Detroit before the Detroit Tigers played Tampa Bay.

The Czechoslovakia native lives in Southfield, Michigan. She was 17 when her family was split up and sent to concentration camps in 1944. Hirsch was liberated in January 1945. She and her older sister were shuffled between five concentration camps, including Auschwitz, until she was liberated in January 1945, according to her granddaughter, Andrea Hirsch.

WWJ-TV has reported that Hirsch has been a Tigers fan since she moved to the Detroit area more than 60 years ago. Hirsch has been singing the anthem for years during Holocaust survivor meetings in the Detroit area.

Related Content