Vol. 38-No. 3 ISSN 0892-1571 January/February 2012-Shevat/Adar 5772 “THEIR HOPES AND GOOD DEEDS REACH TO HEAVEN” UN HONORS MEMORY OF CHILDREN WHO PERISHED IN n January 27 the United Nations separated from their families, suffered formation’s Holocaust and the UN Out- and can understand the impact of their Ohonored the memory of the more from hunger and cold, and lived in fear reach Program, which organized this words and attitudes towards those who are than 1.5 million boys and girls who per- and uncertainty. week’s events. different from them. ished in the Holocaust, with top officials “Yet, somehow, many of these children “Today, the United Nations remembers “Hateful words can translate into hateful stressing the need to speak out against in- found ways to cope with the horror and these children and pledges to continue to actions and the consequences can be dire. tolerance and to protect the lives and Children and young people must be taught human rights of children around the world. their history, including the terrible mistakes “One and a half million Jewish children of the past, so that they can be vigilant perished in the Holocaust — victims of per- against all manifestations of hatred from secution by the Nazis and their supporters. the outset,” she said in a statement. “Tens of thousands of other children li Zborowski, Chairman of the Ameri- were also murdered. They included peo- Ecan Society for Yad Vashem, speaking ple with disabilities as well as Roma and at the opening of the exhibition “A Monument Sinti. All were victims of a hate-filled ideol- of Good Deeds – Dreams and hopes of Chil- ogy that labeled them ‘inferior.’ dren During the Holocaust” on January 26 in “This year’s International Day of Com- the UN headquarters in New York, said: memoration in Memory of the Victims of “On this day of remembrance, I think back the Holocaust is dedicated to the children of those unspeakable atrocities and recall — girls and boys who faced sheer terror my friends, full of hope, youngsters, mem- and evil. Many were orphaned by the war, bers of the underground Zionist Youth Or- or ripped away from their families. Many ganization, our meetings, the discussions died of starvation, disease or at the hands about Zionism and hope to reach Eretz Is- of their abusers. We will never know what rael to build a Jewish State. Looking back I these children might have contributed to think about the courage and daily struggle our world. And among the survivors, many to survive under these conditions. were too shattered to tell their stories. “The years of my work in the Jewish un- “Today, we seek to give voice to those derground, and later in hiding, were of accounts. That is why the United Nations hope and not of despair. continues to teach the universal lessons of “My father was killed by Polish murderers, the Holocaust. It is why we strive to pro- and if I felt bitterness it was offset by the fact mote children’s rights and aspirations — that part of my family and I were saved by every day and everywhere. And it is why two Polish families who hid us for two years. we will continue to be inspired by the shin- “After liberation I remained with my deep ing example of great humanitarians such belief that a human being is basically as Raoul Wallenberg in this, the centennial ‘good.’ I felt, and continue to feel, an obli- year of his birth.” gation to work for the cause of remem- The UN held a ceremony at its New York brance through research and studies and headquarters January 27 to mark the Inter- through the teaching of the history of that national Day, which is observed annually, Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American Society for Yad Vashem, and UN Under-Secretary-Gen- tragic period. the anniversary of the liberation of the eral for Communications and Public Information Kiyo Akasaka at the opening of the exhibition “A “Today we especially recall the children of Auschwitz death camp. The event marked monument of Good Deeds – Dreams and Hopes of Children During the Holocaust” in the UN head- the Holocaust, the victims, including a small the culmination of a series of events held quarters in New York, January 26, 2012. number of survivors, and speak about their this week, focusing on the theme “Children tragedy around them, as this exhibi- work to ensure the protection of the lives dreams and hopes of which I am a witness. and the Holocaust,” that included film tion so eloquently shows. and human rights of children around the “When we speak of teaching the history of screenings, exhibits, and talks, sharing “While the story of Ann Frank is univer- world,” said Mr. Akasaka. the Holocaust we also remember the res- children’s stories during that era and sally known, many children, whose names Noting the presence of survivors and cuers. Their courage and heroism has been spreading awareness of their experiences. are forever lost, also recorded their expe- their families at the ceremony, General As- given a place of honor at Yad Vashem in “One-and-a-half million Jewish children riences each in their own way. sembly President Nassir Abdulaziz Al- Jerusalem, in the Garden and Boulevard of perished in the Holocaust, together with “Without doubt, the best tribute to the Nasser said, “The presence of each of you the Righteous Among the Nations. thousands of Roma and Sinti and other memory of the children who perished in the here today tells us that every human being “This Exhibition, ‘A Monument of Good young people,” Kiyo Akasaka, Under-Sec- Holocaust – and to those who survived – has a sacred duty to speak out in the face Deeds…,’ tells the story of a small girl, in retary-General for Communications and is to keep teaching its universal lessons.” of injustice and intolerance, regardless of the forest, a lone survivor, who believed Public Information, said at the ceremony. This, he added, is the most important ob- any color, religion or ethnicity.” she was indeed the last surviving Jew in “Those who managed to survive were jective of the UN Department of Public In- He called for honoring all the victims by the world. Her wish was to be remem- taking preventive action so that hatred, in- bered through good deeds – by ‘A Monu- justice, discrimination, inhumanity, ethnic ment of Good Deeds that would reach the cleansing, and mass killings have no heavens…” IN THIS ISSUE chance to occur anywhere to anyone. “We pledge to remember the millions who Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust...... 1,2 he Holocaust, said UN High Com- perished, among them the one and a half The Death of the Shtetl...... 4 Tmissioner for Human Rights Navi Pil- million innocent children. Their hopes and Belatedly recognizing heroes of the Holocaust...... 5 lay, serves as a reminder of the perils of good deeds indeed reach to heaven and re- The exodus from Jamaica...... 6 discrimination and intolerance, of how main their living monument in our hearts. In Poland, unburying a nation’s Jewish past...... 7 powerful the incitement to racial hatred can “On behalf of Yad Vashem and the Amer- Fugitive girl’s art brings tears at Yad Vashem show...... 8 be, and of the importance of intervening ican Society for Yad Vashem, we thank the Auschwitz museum publishes prisoner sketchbook...... 9 early to prevent such a tragedy from occur- United Nations and its staff for hosting this From the basement of Der Stürmer to the Yad Vashem website...... 10 ring again. exhibit in these hallowed halls. To the Biography of an inspirational survivor...... 11 She also stressed the importance of diplomats, our special guests and friends, The future of Holocaust education...... 12 ‘learning from the past” so that young peo- thank you for joining us. Preservationists worry about “forgotten” Nazi camps...... 15 ple today are aware of historical events (Continued on page 2) Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2012 - Shevat/Adar 5772 “THEIR HOPES AND GOOD DEEDS REACH TO HEAVEN” (Continued from page 1) surely the most drastic sign of the attempt course long been active in Holocaust edu- contemporary relevance. It encourages “We want to acknowledge with thanks to annihilate a people. The vast majority of cation and remembrance efforts in that local events commemorating the Shoah the extraordinary work done by Yad Jewish children in Europe, nearly one and country. As a trustee of the Holocaust Ed- that were held this week throughout Vashem’s Museum Curator, Ms. Yehudit a half million, were killed during the Holo- ucational Trust, Ben Helfgott was part of a Britain, attended by local government of- Inbar, and her team in conceiving and pro- caust. All of those children, whether they delegation that met with Prime Minister ficials and often featuring the participa- ducing this exhibit. Thanks to the American perished or were saved, carried within David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister tion of survivors. The Trust’s main Society for Yad Vashem and its staff for them the essence of the whole of human- Nick Clegg at 10 Downing Street on Janu- ceremony was held this year on January helping organize this event. ity. Let us pay tribute to them.” ary 24. They were joined by students who 26th in London, attended by Members of “If ‘Never Again’ is to become a reality – hairman of the Claims Conference have taken part in the Holocaust Educa- Parliament and community leaders. it will come about through our efforts in ed- CJulius Berman, in his letter to the tional Trust’s ‘Lessons from Auschwitz “At the United Nations, Claims Confer- ucation and remembrance.” ence Treasurer Roman Kent has been a s. Irina Bokova, Director-General of fixture of that institution’s Holocaust re- MUNESCO, said in her message on membrance events for several years. On the occasion of the International Day of January 24 a moving exhibition opened Commemoration in Memory of the Victims at the U.N., “The Face of the Ghetto: Pic- of the Holocaust: tures Taken by Jewish Photographers in “The United Nations Educational, Scien- the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, 1940–1944.” tific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) The exhibit was compiled by the Topog- was founded on the idea that lasting peace raphy of Terror Foundation in . can only be built on mutual understanding. “The ghetto’s Jewish Council had the Transmitting the memory of the Holocaust photos taken in a desperate effort to is a vital part of the struggle to combat ig- show the productivity of the Jewish resi- norance and prejudice through education dents in order to spare them from depor- in humanist values, the sharing of cultures tation. Between January and September and knowledge of history. 1942, the Nazis deported more than “In our troubled times, we must remember 70,000 from Lodz to the Chelmno that unprecedented disaster that took the . There were no fur- lives of six million men, women, and chil- ther deportations until June1944, when dren, simply because they were Jewish. the Nazis began to liquidate the Lodz “The murderous folly of the Nazis and ghetto, by then the last remaining ghetto their collaborators, the outcome of racist in Poland, with 75,000 Jews still alive. In and anti-Semitic ideology, also cost the June and July 1944 the Germans re- lives of millions of other people… Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. sumed deportations from Lodz, and “The Holocaust has shaken the founda- about 3,000 Jews were deported to tions of humanity forever. As the last sur- Chairman of The American Society for Yad Project,’ in which students from around the Chelmno. The Germans deported the vivors pass away, a struggle has begun to Vashem, Eli Zborowski, wrote: U.K. together visit Auschwitz. surviving ghetto residents, including preserve traces of past Jewish life and the “Sixty-seven years ago today, the re- “The two government leaders signed the Roman Kent, to Auschwitz in August memory of the persecutions and mas- maining prisoners at Auschwitz were liber- Trust’s ‘Book of Commitment,’ pledging 1944. sacres. On this day, UNESCO reaffirms its ated by the Soviet army. Sixty years after that the government will continue to per- “Below are excerpts from Roman’s determination to combat all forms of Holo- that liberation – which still came too late for petuate the memory of the Holocaust. The speech at the U.N.: caust denial. Education is a key front in this far too many — the United Nations Gen- Prime Minister wrote: struggle and also UNESCO’s unique con- eral Assembly designated January 27 as ith each year that passes since ‘There are truly no words, no tales, no tribution, through our work for youth, train- International Holocaust Remembrance ‘W the end of the Holocaust, we pictures which can possibly convey the ing of teachers, and curriculum design. Day. It has been used as an opportunity have a greater responsibility than ever to brutality, terror, and bestiality that oc- This task, to which I am personally com- around the world to educate and commem- remember the dreadful events that took curred on a daily basis in these places of mitted, lies at the heart of the resolution on orate, ensuring that the Shoah’s legacy will place. By learning from history, we must horror. Can pictures bring forth the stench Holocaust remembrance adopted by the not be forgotten. pledge that nothing like this ever happens of dead bodies that permeated the air 24 Organization in 2007. “Many of our own board members, who again. I commend you for the excellent hours each day as they were being slowly “The history of the genocide perpetrated have devoted much of their lives as sur- work that you do, educating new genera- carted in a wagon for by walking during the Second World War does not be- vivors to the importance of bearing wit- tions about the suffering of the past and human skeletons?...Thus, looking at this long to the past only. It is a ‘living history’ ness, have used this occasion in recent ensuring that we never forget one of the exhibit, I realize that we survivors are liv- that concerns us all, regardless of our years as an opportunity to tell their stories darkest periods of our history.’ ing witnesses as to what transpired. background, culture, or religion... to audiences not necessarily familiar with “Ben is also the new president of the Therefore, it is our responsibility to do “The 2012 International Day of Com- the Shoah or the sufferings of the Jews Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, established everything in our power to make sure the memoration in Memory of the Victims of under . I want to highlight two such in 2005 by the British government. The world understands that ghettos and con- the Holocaust is dedicated to the remem- examples. Memorial Day Trust works with schools, centration camps must never be permit- brance of children. The murder of children, “In the United Kingdom, Claims Confer- colleges, and communities across the UK ted to exist again on the face of this which amounts to eradicating the future, is ence Vice-President Ben Helfgott has of to educate about the Holocaust and its earth.’

DEMJANJUK ASKS JUDGE TO RECONSIDER MASS GRAVES UNEARTHED IN TREBLINKA CITIZENSHIP BID British forensic archaeologist, Caro- Nazis, but the survey has demonstrated onvicted Nazi war criminal John that he served as a death camp guard was A line Sturdy Colls, has unearthed fresh that simply isn’t the case.” CDemjanjuk wants a federal judge to a Soviet-made fake. evidence to prove the existence of mass She added: “I’ve identified a number of reconsider a decision denying his bid to re- Federal authorities had said Demjanjuk, graves at the Nazi death camp Treblinka. buried pits using geophysical techniques.” gain his U.S. citizenship. who has denied serving as a guard at any Some 800,000 Jews were killed at the The program’s presenter wrote that the pits U.S. District Judge Dan Aaron Polster re- Nazi camp and is free on bail, was trying site, in northeast Poland, during the Sec- contain the burnt remains of thousands of jected the retired autoworker’s citizenship to cast himself as a victim following his ond World War, but a lack of physical evi- bodies. claim in December, saying Demjanjuk lied conviction in Germany on more than dence at the site has been exploited by The forensic archaeologist, who has now about where he was during World War II. 28,000 counts of accessory to murder. Holocaust deniers. presented her findings to the authorities re- Demjanjuk’s attorney asked the judge to Demjanjuk’s public defender, Dennis As Jewish religious law forbids disturbing sponsible for the memorial at Treblinka, reconsider the citizenship request, saying Terez, said in the latest filing that the judge burial sites, Caroline and her team from said: “I really hope this is the first stage in he had not seen all the newly discovered should give him the chance to question the the University of Birmingham have used a long-term program to seek out those hid- den graves of the Holocaust.” documents that could help his cause. government’s claims and ask what caused “ground-penetrating radar.” Survivor Kalman Taigman remembers Demjanjuk was convicted by a German a retired FBI agent to become suspicious of Her work at the site, where the Nazis his arrival at the camp’s railway station, court that found he had served as a guard documents released by the Soviet Union. tried to destroy all traces of industrial-scale at the Nazis’ Sobibor death camp in occu- In a response to the original defense citi- packed into a cattle wagon. killing, is being followed in the forthcoming pied Poland. He was sentenced to five zenship filing, the government included an “I was with my mother. We were about documentary The Hidden Graves of the years in prison. affidavit from former FBI agent Thomas Mar- 100 people in a wagon. They opened the Holocaust. Demjanjuk, who’s in his 90s, has been in tin who said the March 4, 1985, report writ- doors, firing guns and hitting us, and sent The program’s presenter, Jonathan poor health for years and has been in and ten by him was based on speculation about us into a yard. I ran with my mother and out of a hospital since his conviction. a Soviet forgery, not any investigation. Charles, wrote that the ground-penetrating tried to calm her. His lawyers argued that the government The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk was a radar had also discovered the foundations “They told me to leave my mother but I failed to disclose important evidence, includ- Soviet Red army soldier captured by the of buildings and that two are likely to have didn’t do it quickly and I was hit on the ing a 1985 secret FBI report uncovered by Germans in 1942. The German court been gas chambers. head. When I got up, she was gone. She The Associated Press that indicates the FBI found he agreed to serve the Nazis as a Sturdy Colls said: “All the history books went with all the rest of the women to the believed a Nazi ID card purportedly showing guard at Sobibor. state that Treblinka was destroyed by the .” January/February 2012 - Shevat/Adar 5772 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 3

HUNGARY LAUNCHES WALLENBERG MEMORIAL YEAR NAZI HUNTERS LAUNCH NEW DRIVE overnment ministers from Hungary, happened during the Holocaust to gener- TO PROSECUTE WAR CRIMINALS GSweden, and Israel, on January 17, ations to come.” he Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal It is co-managed by the US-based Tar- launched the Raoul Wallenberg Year, com- The Nazis, who occupied Hungary in TCenter launched a new drive in Ger- gum Shlishi foundation and is aimed at memorating the centennial of the birth of early 1944, launched mass deportations of many to catch the last perpetrators of the helping governments locate Nazi war crim- the Swedish diplomat who saved the lives Hungarian Jews to concentration camps Holocaust still at large based on a major inals in 33 countries. of tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews such as Auschwitz with the collaboration legal precedent set this year. Zuroff said that the previous campaign during the Holocaust. of local authorities. Efraim Zuroff told a news conference that turned up 603 suspects around the world, While serving as Swedish envoy in the Martonyi said the Holocaust was the the Center would offer a reward of up to of whose cases 102 were submitted to Hungarian capital, Budapest, from July “tragedy of the whole Hungarian nation.” 25,000 euros ($32,450) for information prosecutors. 1944, Wallenberg gave Jews Swedish “During the Holocaust, the Hungarian leading to the capture and conviction of He said the new drive would focus on travel documents and set up safe houses state was weighed in the balance and now elderly people implicated in Nazi German or foreign men who served in for them. He is also credited with dissuad- found wanting ... It was unable to defend crimes during World War II. death camps or the , spe- its citizens and, while under occupation, “The passage of time in no way dimin- cial mobile death squads deployed mainly assisted their deaths,” he said. ishes the guilt of the killers,” Zuroff said. in occupied Poland and the Soviet Union There is some confusion what happened “Old age should not afford protection to before the camps opened. With perpetra- to Wallenberg after the war. The Soviets mass murders. Each of the victims de- tors dying off, or becoming too frail to face initially denied Wallenberg was in their cus- serves that an effort be made to find their trial, he said the number of potential defen- tody, but then said in 1957 that he died of murderers.” dants may amount to only about 40. a heart attack in prison on July 17, 1947. He said a groundbreaking precedent set Zuroff said the Simon Wiesenthal Center After the Soviet collapse, that version of by the conviction in Germany in May of for- now gave Germany relatively high marks events was challenged by Alexander mer camp guard John Demjanjuk, 91, for cooperation after decades of indiffer- Yakovlev, the one-time chairman of a pres- could open the door to a new wave of crim- ence and worked closely with the central idential panel investigating the fate of re- inal cases. office for the investigation of Nazi war pression victims. In 2000, Yakovlev said he A Munich court sentenced the Ukrainian- crimes, based in the southwestern city of had been told by a former KGB chief that born Demjanjuk to five years’ imprison- Ludwigsburg. Wallenberg was killed in Lubyanka prison. ment for helping the Nazis kill almost “We want to do whatever we can to help That year, also conceded that the 30,000 Jews during his time at the Sobibor the German legal authorities bring these An undated black and white photo showing Soviet authorities had wrongfully perse- World War II hero Raoul Wallenberg. extermination camp in German-occupied Holocaust perpetrators to justice,” Zuroff cuted Wallenberg and posthumously reha- Poland during World War II. said. ing German officers from massacring the bilitated him as a victim of political In a legal first, it found that simply “We are hoping that this effort will inspire 70,000 inhabitants of the city’s ghetto. repression. demonstrating Demjanjuk’s employment at and encourage and motivate faster action.” Hungarian Foreign Minister Janos Unverified witness accounts and newly the camp, rather than his involvement in He said those providing information Martonyi, Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt uncovered evidence have suggested, specific murders, was enough to implicate would be given 5,000 euros for the indict- and Israeli Cabinet member Yossi Peled however, that he may have lived beyond him in the killings committed there. ment of a suspect, 5,000 euros for a con- were joined at the inaugural event at the his official death date. “The Demjanjuk case should pave the viction, and 100 euros per day for the first National Museum in Budapest by mem- “We can’t (even) take flowers to Wallen- way for the prosecution of many people 150 days of imprisonment, for a maximum bers of Wallenberg’s family and Holocaust berg’s grave,” Martonyi added. “We are still who on a daily basis, for an extended pe- total of 25,000 euros. survivors he saved. waiting for the full historical revelation of riod of time, were involved in mass mur- Zuroff announced an international tips Speakers stressed Wallenberg’s heroics his life and death.” der,” Zuroff said, joined at the press hotline: +49-1573-494-7307. and the importance of passing on the les- Wallenberg commemorations and cele- conference by an opposition deputy, Diet- Nietan acknowledged that Germany had sons of the Holocaust. brations of his efforts in Hungary include a mar Nietan, and former MP Gert Weis- long dragged its feet in the postwar years in “He risked his life in a struggle against memorial concert on April 15, the issue of skirchen. hauling Nazi war criminals to court but had one of the evil ideologies that has haunted a Wallenberg postal stamp on May 10, The new drive, called Operation Last an obligation now to make up for lost time. our continent,” Bildt said. “There is a duty conferences, and a September memorial Chance 2, follows a previous program “This society must face up to its responsi- never to forget, always to remember. We event at the Dohany Street Synagogue — launched in the Baltic states in 2002 and bility — there must be no statute of limita- have to pass on the knowledge of what the largest in Europe. extended to Germany in 2005. tions or line drawn under history,” he said.

CHURCH SAYS EICHMANN WAS “KIND-HEARTED” SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY: rotestant church officials in Austria Eichmann’s family had enlisted Mensing- BIOGRAPHY CLAIMS COCO CHANEL WAS A NAZI SPY and Germany lobbied the West Ger- Braun’s help because they wanted Eich- P new book about the life of Coco working for Abwehr, Germany’s military in- man government to try to help Adolf Eich- mann to be tried by an international court Chanel published in the United telligence agency,” publisher Alfred A. rather than an Israeli one. A mann, one of the main organizers of the States aims to strengthen claims the Knopf said in a statement. Bishop Hermann Kunst, the representa- Holocaust, after his arrest by Israeli agents French designer collaborated with the But a representative for the Chanel fash- tive of the Evangelical Church at the West in 1960. One church leader described Nazis during World War II as a spy code- ion house poured doubt on the book’s al- German government, passed the letter on Eichmann as “fundamentally decent” and named “Westminster.“ legations. to the German Foreign Ministry with the “kind-hearted.” The book, Sleeping with the Enemy: “What’s certain is that she had a relation- note that the assessment was “at least in- The superintendent of the Protestant Coco Chanel’s Secret War, by Paris-based ship with a German aristocrat during the teresting.” Church for Upper Austria, Wilhelm American journalist Hal Vaughan, claims War. Clearly it wasn’t the best period to That means that not only an Austrian Mensing-Braun, based in the Austrian city have a love story with a German even if church official, but a German one as well, of Linz where Eichmann spent part of his Baron von Dincklage was English by his effectively lobbied the German govern- childhood, wrote a letter to the foreign af- mother and she (Chanel) knew him before ment on behalf of Eichmann. fairs department of the Evangelical Church the War,” the Chanel group said in a state- The intervention didn’t work. Eichmann in Germany in Frankfurt claiming that the ment. was sentenced to death in 1962 and mass murderer “had a fundamentally de- The fashion house also disputed that the hanged. designer was anti-Semitic, saying Chanel cent disposition,” was “kind-hearted,” and Before his arrest, Eichmann had been would not have had Jewish friends or ties was characterized by “great helpfulness.” the most notorious of the Nazi war crimi- with the Rothschild family of financiers if At that time, Eichmann was about to be nals still at large after World War II. He had she were. put on trial in Jerusalem for crimes against been in charge of coordinating the depor- But the book draws on English, French, humanity. tation of Jews from Germany and Nazi-oc- German, and American archives to claim Braun went on that he could not imagine cupied Europe to the concentration camps, Chanel, whose menswear-inspired fash- that the former SS officer “would ever have which made him directly responsible for ions propelled her to become one of the been capable of cruelty or criminal acts.” the murder of six million Jews. most influential figures in fashion, went on missions with Dincklage and others to help AUSCHWITZ HAS A RECORD NUMBER OF VISITORS IN 2011 recruit new agents willing to serve Ger- many. he memorial site of Auschwitz- strain to the barracks and other struc- that not only was the designer the lover of It gives her Abwehr agent number as F- Birkenau says it saw more than 1.4 tures. Many are already in a state of se- T a German officer, Hans Gunther von 7124 and code name as “Westminster,“ million visitors in 2011, a record high for vere dilapidation due to the passage of Dincklage, which has been well docu- named after the Duke of Westminster with the former death camp. time, and the officials overseeing the site mented, but they were spies who went on whom she had a love affair. She died in The figure underlines how the death are struggling to preserve what they can. missions to Madrid and Berlin. In addition, Paris in 1971, aged 87. and labor complex has become one of The museum and memorial site said the book claims Chanel was deeply anti- She has long been speculated about as Europe’s most visited Holocaust remem- most of the visitors last year were from Semitic. being a spy, but was released after being brance sites. Poland, but other nations represented in “Vaughan reveals that Chanel was more questioned about her ties to While the large number of visitors is large numbers are Britain, Italy, Israel, than just a Nazi sympathizer and collabo- by a judge in France. The book prints seen as important for Holocaust educa- Germany, France, and the United rator. She was a numbered Nazi agent some excerpts of her court testimony. tion, mass tourism there is also adding States. Page 4 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2012 - Shevat/Adar 5772 BOOKBOOK REVIEWSREVIEWS THE DEATH OF THE SHTETL The Death of the Shtetl. lived and died. And we, his students, learn were — murdered by Ukrainian gangs tions in Nazi resistance groups all over By Yehuda Bauer. Yale University Press: much . . . vying for the opportunity to kill them, Poles, the area — resistance both possible and New Haven, 2009. 208 pp. $23.00 paper- irst off, importantly, we come to see and, less often, Belorussians. impossible! Hence “in East Galicia and back. Fvividly how the thirties — with their Then again, Bauer, the historian, is not central Volhynia. . . there are reports of political, economic, and social turmoil in afraid to admit that “character,” chance,” resistance groups in forty shtetlach, and REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN Poland and the kresy — resulted in a and “luck” played a major role in whether of fifty breakouts in attempts to flee from ehuda Bauer is a highly regarded tremendous increase in anti- Jews survived the Nazi oc- the ghettoes.” “In the northern parts of YHolocaust researcher and writer. All Semitism. Soviet occupa- cupation or not. For who the the kresy . . . [there are] more than sixty his works underscore the miracle of Jew- tion in 1939 only made head of the Judenrät was in shtetlach for which there is fairly solid ev- ish survival. Concomitantly, his writings matters worse as, among the ghetto you were impris- idence of resistance groups.” conscientiously and respectfully com- other things, Ukrainians, oned in, where the ghetto Indeed, Bauer makes it quite clear that memorate the lives of all those who did Poles, and Belorussians saw was located in the kresy, there was no lack of courage among the not survive. Finally, Bauer’s learned con- some few Jews rise in a when you made your es- Jews of the kresy, but of time. The Nazis tributions to the study of the Holocaust Communist community less cape, and exactly who you and their collaborators brought death are truly invaluable. In sum, we are all ex- concerned with the Jew as met when you escaped — quickly to the kresy, much more quickly ceptionally fortunate when another of his Jew and more concerned all these details made a than they did to other regions . . . and any works is published. with the knowledge and abil- major difference. For, in fact, kind of minimally “successful resistance” In his most recent volume, The Death of ities the Jew had to offer. the author notes that individ- needed time. the Shtetl, Bauer focuses on an area that Thus by 1941, when the ual Ukrainians and even Interestingly, in this volume the author has garnered much less study, the east- Nazis arrived on the scene, Germans saved Jews! On also notes that the shtetl showed signs of ern part of Poland, known as the kresy Ukrainian nationalists had the other hand, there were “dying” when the Soviets came. Why? (“marches),” basically East Galicia, Volhy- come to hate Jews with a Soviet partisans who killed Jews were given freedoms they never had. nia, and Western Belorussia. Bauer fur- passion; Poles generally them! Jews began to look beyond the shtetl. ther sharpens his focus by examining a hated them a bit less, while Belorussians n The Death of the Shtetl we also come Jews began to dream of their place in a few shtetlach (“small towns”) from each of were more moderate in their dislike. Thus, Ito realize what an important role youth world open to them. It makes one wonder these areas. In doing so he looks, most too, sadly, we also come to realize just why movements, active before the war, would as to just what might have been . . . especially, at life before the war and what so few Jews survived the war from the come to play during the war years. In the happened when war came. Sadly, we all kresy — only “2 percent of 1.3 million.” For kresy, Zionist youth movements were par- Dr. Diane Cypkin is a Professor of know the end. In the process, the author escape from the Nazis was just the begin- ticularly popular. Many of these same Media, Communication, and Visual Arts definitively shows us just how shtetlach ning. Jews could be just as easily — and young people would hold leadership posi- at Pace University. IN THE SHADOW OF THE SHOAH BERLIN AT WAR In the Shadow of the Shoah. hometown Zamosc where her youngest Berlin at War. Fear, prejudice and a beaten-down apa- Selected Poems by Frieda W. Landau. sister, Mania, survived in hiding, found her- By Roger Moorhouse. Basic Books: New thy played their parts as well. Before the Poetica Publishing Company: Norfolk, Vir- self in Kielce as a was raging in York, 2010. 464 pp. $29.95 hardcover. war, Berlin was a city of 4.3 million where ginia, 2011. 79 pp. $15.00. town. She was bypassed by the maraud- 200,000 had protested against Adolf REVIEWED BY JIM LANDERS ers who boarded her train but luckily mis- Hitler’s rise to the chancellorship. In April REVIEWED BY RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN took her for a Gentile. Landau’s family and e know more all the time about the 1939, 2 million watched the long military his inspiring and deeply penetrating my own were fortunate to make it out of W sufferings inflicted by Nazi Ger- parade through the city that celebrated Tfirst harvest of poetry by Frieda W. Poland before the Iron Curtain was closed, many. Much of the horror seems impon- Hitler’s 50th birthday. Landau, who has resided in Virginia Beach making escape nearly impossible. The derable, but there is no lack of sympathy n 1943, Britain’s Royal Air Force hoped since 1998, is a most welcome addition to Landaus, like my family, found shelter in with the victims. The greater mystery is Ia massive bombing effort aimed at the literary expression as well as therapeu- displaced persons camps in Austria and why German society would abandon the Berlin would break the regime. After one of tic sharing of the Second Generation of Germany. tenets of civilization. these raids, a foe of the Nazis asked in her , demonstrating the he Landaus arrived in the United Berlin at War does a fairly good job of diary: “Why does no one stand on the Shoah’s lingering impact and hovering TStates in 1951, in time to celebrate asking and, sometimes, answering ques- street and shout ‘Enough! Enough!’? Why shadow upon the survivors’ children and Frieda’s 5th birthday, and settled in New tions about this mystery. Berliners knew is no one going crazy? Why is there no likely even beyond the second generation. York’s Brooklyn. Landau vividly recalls the that their Jewish, gay, Gypsy and handi- revolution?” Landau, who has contributed as writer Holocaust survivors who became close capped neighbors were being deported to There were revolutions that swept sev- and photographer on military affairs to friends of the family, substituting in a way for a dark fate. What did they do? Very little. eral German cities in the imperial collapse such well-known publica- murdered relatives. The What did they think? The that ended World War I. But tions as Newsweek, US friends were unaware that the Berlin imaginaion seems to even Operation Valkyrie, the News and World Report and little girl understood their terri- have failed. assassination and coup at- co-authored with her late fying reminiscing. “I sit in the A modern accounting lists tempt directed by German husband, Alan Landau, Air- corner, listening wide-eyed/As 55,696 Berliners among the officers against Hitler in borne Rangers (Motor the grown ups talk about the 6 million Jews killed in 1944, caused barely a stir Books Publishing, 1992). time/The ovens worked over- the Holocaust. among Berliners. She came into the world in time and/All roads led to Roger Moorhouse, a Moorhouse uses many di- 1946 during the traumatic Auschwitz./They’re speaking British specialist in modern aries, journalist accounts, experience of a pogrom in in German,/Thinking I won’t German history, helps to and SS “mood reports” to Lodz, Poland. In her poem understand./They forget that explain this by turning to piece together his book. The “Birthday” Landau connects German was my first lan- the . Polish experience seems to have her birth, an event fraught guage,/Not the ‘hoch’ German resistance fighter Jan left him wavering, uncertain with natural risks, with the of the north, but the Karski went to Washington of how to account for the extraordinary harrowing cir- softer/Bayrisch, the dialect of in 1943 and met with Jew- Nazi regime’s endurance. cumstances of such an anti- Bavaria.” ish leaders. He described At one point, he writes: Semitic attack. “I was born in Landau picked up the Ger- what was happening in the “Even the rising death toll Poland. In Lodz. In June/In the middle of a man language from her German nanny, concentration camps. Supreme Court on the Eastern Front failed to spark any post-war pogrom./I came into the world though as Landau recounts in the poem Justice Felix Frankfurter responded, “Mr. widespread civilian opposition and resist- kicking and screaming/While those outside “Mamaloshen,” her Yiddish means much to Karski, I am unable to believe you.” ance to the Nazis; on the contrary it en- screamed hatred of my kind./They did her as she bemoans the danger of losing Frankfurter elaborated by adding, “I did gendered a sense of apathy and more than scream: they kicked and beat it: “But in my dreams, I still speak the not say this young man is lying. I said I depression. Nevertheless, as the war and killed/The pitiful remnant who survived mother tongue.” Yiddish is also my first lan- am unable to believe him. There is a dif- ground on to its conclusion, the patience the/Murders by the ‘master’ race, aided/By guage, before Hebrew took over, following fernce.” and stoicism of the Berlin public would be the mob outside the hospital./My mother my family’s arrival in Israel in 1949 when I Moorhouse writes: “One has to assume tested to destruction.“ could hear them as I emerged/My birth and was three and a half years old. that the vast majority of both Aryan and Yet even as the Soviet Red Army neared act of love and defiance “ Painful is the loss of close relatives along Jewish Berliners either knew nothing of Berlin, members of the Hitler Youth handed My own grandmother, Rachel Zoberman, with a second loss of growing up without the Holocaust or else were unable to be- out cyanide capsules at a performance of upon my family’s return to Poland from having them around. In “The Grandmother lieve and accept what little they might the Berlin Philharmonic. This was fear and Russia in 1946, while traveling to her (Continued on page 14) have heard.” resignation, not defiance. January/February 2012 - Shevat/Adar 5772 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 5 JEWISH REMEMBERED IN GROWING WEB DATABASE “Nobody would have known that these Rosen got involved in 2006 after reading Ghetto in Poland and later was sent to five BY COURTNEY CAIRNS PASTOR, kids existed,” Rosen said. “Now they have a story about the database. She had been concentration camps, while Rosen’s father TAMPA BAY TIMES a name; they have a place. It’s not much fled to Russia to join the army. The couple met in France after the war he Zoldan children died when the — but it’s huge.” and moved to the United States in 1956. eldest was 6. But no memorial would Rosen, a casting director who lives in T Rosen’s mother, Bronia, wrote poetry and list their names, no tombstones would Carrollwood, is organizing a local effort to short stories about her life in the ghetto, but mark their graves. collect testimonials and submit them to her father, Abe, rarely talked about the war. That may be why Rose Rosen had never Yad Vashem, the Holocaust research and “It was just something they didn’t really heard of them until last March when she in- memorial center in Jerusalem that man- address,” said Rosen, 52. “They just lived terviewed a relative about family members ages the database project. their lives and did an incredible job of it.” who had died in the Holocaust. Yad Vashem started collecting names of Jewish victims in the 1950s. The effort got urvivors don’t always want to come Rosen knew that her uncle’s wife had a forward, some fearing that their lives sister who died at the Birkenau extermina- a big push in 2004 when the database S went online. Since then, 1 million names are still at risk if they talk about it. Other sur- tion camp with her husband. But she didn’t vivors, though, are realizing as they age that have been added for a total of 4 million, ac- realize that Channah and Isaac Zoldan they need to share their memories before cording to the research center. An esti- had children. they are lost. Rosen is working with Gulf mated 2 million more names are needed They had three, said her aunt, a Sara- Coast Jewish Family & Community Services to complete the list. The information is sota resident who shares Rosen’s name. and other area Jewish organizations, and The baby, David, was just 18 months when stored on the Web and in Yad Vashem’s tries to reassure survivors that Yad Vashem they were killed. His sister, Gita, was 6, Hall of Names. will respect and care for their stories. and his brother, Hirsh, was 4. osen is among coordinators nation- She and her volunteers have collected If her aunt had never mentioned them to Rwide helping in the effort. Volunteers Rose Rosen’s parents, Holocaust survivors Bro- almost 300 pages of testimony in the Rosen, history would have forgotten them. record pages of testimony from the victims’ nia and Abe Rosen, in Marseille, France, in Tampa Bay area and are trying a new ap- Instead, their names have become a per- descendants. The testimonies are impor- 1951. Bronia was pregnant with son Bernie. proach to reach more people who could manent part of an international memorial tant because many victims’ identities were The names of Channah and Isaac Zoldan were contribute information at upcoming events. of Holocaust victims. David, Gita, and not documented, Rosen said. Some west- added to the database. They were killed in It’s touching to see your family recorded March 1944 at age 28. Their three children, Hirsh are listed now in the Central Data- ern European countries logged Jewish in this way, Rosen said. Visiting the data- Gita, 6, Hirsh, 4, and David, 18 months, were base of Shoah Victims’ Names. The online names and deportation information, which base almost feels like visiting a . also killed. database documents Jewish people killed made recording the information easier, but She had never met her grandparents, in the genocide, relying on pages of testi- parts of eastern Europe, the former Soviet interested in learning more about her family aunts, and uncles who died in the Holo- mony from surviving friends and family Union and Greece did not keep complete after her parents died. Both had survived the caust, but the pages of testimony gave her when no official documentation exists. records, according to Yad Vashem. Holocaust — her mother lived in the Lodz a place to pay her respects. BELATEDLY RECOGNIZING HEROES OF THE HOLOCAUST legacy, co-sponsored the conference at lobby Congress to support the rescue of public relations expert who has studied the BY ISABEL KERSHNER, Yad Vashem. Jews, roaming the hallways of Capitol Hill Bergson group. “This was before Vietnam.” THE NEW YORK TIMES he Bergson group formed in 1940 and knocking on doors, displaying a de- he Bergson group was no less ostra- when about 10 young Jews from gree of chutzpah that made the traditional, cized by the leaders of Israel after its hen 20 people gathered for a mod- T T Palestine and Europe came to the United pro-Roosevelt Jewish establishment un- founding in May 1948. An early showdown est ceremony in the tranquil ceme- W States to open a fund-raising and propa- comfortable. came that June when the group dis- tery of this kibbutz in central Israel, the ganda operation for the Irgun, the right- The group took out a series of fiery, full- patched a ship called the Altalena to Israel intimacy and quiet dignity of the event be- wing Zionist militia. The group was page advertisements in The New York loaded with weapons for the Irgun, in vio- lied the tumultuous historical forces cours- organized by Hillel Kook, a charismatic Times and other major dailies highlighting lation of an agreement with the new state ing beneath it. Irgun leader who adopted the pseudonym the mass murder, soliciting donations at to stop independent arms acquisitions. The occasion was the reinterring of the Peter H. Bergson. Mr. Merlin was his right- the bottom of each one to pay for the next. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime remains of Samuel Merlin, a founder of a hand man. With help from celebrity supporters like the minister, ordered his troops to fire on the small but brazen band of militant Zionists The group began by raising money for il- director and writer , the impre- ship. Sixteen Irgun members and three and Holocaust rescue activists who shook legal Jewish immigration to what was then sario Billy Rose, and the composer Kurt soldiers were killed in the confrontation. America and challenged the Jewish estab- the British Mandate of Palestine and pro- Weill, they staged a flamboyant pageant Mr. Merlin, who was on board, was shot in lishment in the 1940s, but who until re- moting the idea of an army composed of called “We Will Never Die,” filling Madison the foot. cently have been largely excluded from stateless and Palestinian Jews. But the mis- Square Garden twice before sending the Mr. Merlin and Mr. Kook went on to serve official Holocaust history. sion abruptly changed in November 1942 show on the road. as members of Israel’s first Parliament, but The activists, known as the Bergson In October 1943, the Bergson group or- the Bergsonites soon had an ideological group, have been credited by modern histo- ganized a march of 400 Orthodox rabbis on falling out with their own political leader, rians with playing a pivotal role in rescuing the White House, most of them in traditional Menachem Begin, the Irgun leader who hundreds of thousands of European Jews. black garb, a spectacle the likes of which later became Israel’s prime minister. They But the group was rejected by the Jewish had never been seen in Washington. remained at odds with the left-wing Mapai establishment it challenged, both in the Finally, in January 1944, under heavy and Labor leaders who dominated the United States and in Israel, where its mili- pressure from the Treasury secretary, state for its first 30 years. tant tactics and right-wing Zionism clashed Henry Morgenthau Jr., President Franklin The dissension led to the Bergson with the mainstream. Mere mention of the D. Roosevelt set up the War Refugee group’s being blanked out of the early his- group stirs up old passions and painful Board by executive order, leading to the tories of the Holocaust. “My father and his questions about what America did or did rescue of 200,000 Jews. group went against the grain of those writ- not do to save European Jewry, and the “Without Hillel Kook and the Bergson ing the narrative of the war,” said Mr. extent to which schisms within Jewish group,” said David S. Wyman, author of Kook’s daughter, Rebecca Kook, now a ranks hampered more effective action. the book The Abandonment of the Jews: political scientist at Ben Gurion University More recently, prominent historians have Esther Rafaeli, 85, widow of a Bergson group America and the Holocaust 1941-1945, of the Negev in Israel. member, at the grave of Samuel Merlin, whose begun to recognize the group’s achieve- which first re-evaluated the role of But with the perspective of time and the remains were reinterred in Israel. ments. On July 17, 2011, Yad Vashem, the Bergsonites, “there would have been no opening of additional Holocaust era official Holocaust remembrance authority after reports of the Nazi annihilation of two War Refugee Board.” archives, including Mr. Merlin’s, the Berg- in Jerusalem, held a symposium on it for million European Jews emerged. Like earlier Yet the American Jewish leadership at son group has begun to be reworked into the first time. reports of the mass killing of Jews, the news the time fought the newcomers, saying Jewish history. For those attending the reburial of Mr. barely made the inside pages of major their tactics would lead only to increased Mr. Merlin’s detailed account of the res- Merlin a few days earlier, including some American newspapers like The New York anti-Semitism. Rabbi Stephen Wise, the cue campaign was published posthu- widows and children of the group’s mem- Times and The Washington Post. Jewish community’s chief representative, mously. Mr. Merlin died in the United bers, the event was a symbolic start of a The Bergsonites were appalled by what wrote to a colleague in 1944 that the States in 1996. process of reconciliation. they saw as the indifference of the Roo- Bergsonites “are a disaster to the Zionist In a foreword to the book, Seymour D. “This is a moment of healing for American sevelt administration and the passivity of cause and the Jewish people.” Reich, a veteran leader of major Jewish or- Jews and Israeli Jews,” Rafael Medoff, di- the Jewish establishment, which staunchly Jewish American leaders were appar- ganizations, wrote, “The time has come to rector of the David S. Wyman Institute for supported the administration and largely ently afraid of making waves, and of losing acknowledge, unequivocally, that Rabbi Holocaust Studies in Washington, said accepted its argument that the primary their own prominence. Wise and his colleagues were wrong.” shortly after reciting Kaddish, the Jewish American military objective was to win the “This was an era in which militant civil ac- Instead of attacking Mr. Bergson, they prayer for the dead, over Mr. Merlin’s grave. war, not to save European Jews. The tion was just not done, certainly not by should have focused on the rescue mis- The institute, which has been instrumen- group embarked on a provocative cam- Jews,” said Charley Levine, an Israeli- sion, he wrote, adding, “That was their ob- tal in promoting the Bergson group’s paign to publicize the genocide and to based international communications and ligation, and they failed.” Page 6 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2012 - Shevat/Adar 5772 SURVIVORS’SURVIVORS’ CORNERCORNER

SEVENTY YEARS LATER, GHOSTS OF WORLD WAR II REMAIN INDELIBLE list, he was told “no Germans allowed.” But Fred would be the good cop, coaxing in- out. Party poopers are party poopers no BY STEPHANIE BECKER, NBC six months later he was drafted and telligence out of German prisoners, matter whom they’re allied with. shipped to Fort Ritchie. chitchatting about local soccer teams and But my favorite Guy story is very contem- here’s a ghost in my house. No, I’m When I asked these Ritchie Boys how favorite foods. If that didn’t work, Plan B porary. When we went to interview him at not delusional. In fact, I saw it being T was to play on the prisoner’s deathly fear his home, a very attractive woman (who created. they felt toward the Germans they were in- of the Russians: Guy, pretending to be a looked to be in her early 40s) let us in. She It’s about the “Ritchie Boys”: thousands of terrogating, they said, almost to a man, had Guy’s last name and a noticeable Ger- World War II soldiers, mostly German- that they were soldiers first and had a job scary Russian officer, would gratefully offer man accent. speaking Jews, who fled the Nazis and to do. Guy spoke for many when he said: to take the recalcitrant German off the I figured, ah, Guy’s granddaughter grew fought for their new nation — the United American’s hands. Nothing up in Germany. But you never can tell States — as intelligence officers. Many was more terrifying to a Ger- these days. Diplomatically I asked: “So, Ritchie Boys lost their entire families to the man than to be a POW in where do you fit in the family hierarchy?” Nazis. With their intimate knowledge of the Russian custody. She answered, “I’m his wife.” enemy and the German language, plus their ne war story that I do not have a poker face. She laughed tragic personal histories, they are among the Obrings a smile to and explained, “Yes, I’m his second wife and most interesting but least known of the Guy’s cherubic face involves I’m 40 years younger.” Nice guys finish first! “Greatest Generation” of fighters. sexy siren . ut my favorite of the Ritchie Boys in They are nicknamed for Fort Ritchie, a A German exile, Dietrich de- our story is Si Lewen. At 93 he has rather isolated base tucked away in the fied her homeland by per- B mountains of Maryland. There they spent forming for U.S. troops an adorable, elfin quality and more energy months in intensive training before making throughout the war. At one than my 8-year-old nephew. He’d urged us their way back to the front to interrogate show, Guy and Fred man- to hurry and come to his home for the in- their former countrymen. aged to sneak backstage terview in June, rather than wait for the re- The surviving Ritchie Boys are now old and get her attention. Fred’s union in July: “At my age, you never know.” He said it playfully, but then added more men in their 80s and 90s with long memo- Memories of World War II have influenced Si Lewen’s artwork mother had been Marlene’s ries. For the first time in 70 years, a dozen since he served as an intelligence officer for the U.S. 70 years massage therapist back in soberly: “My wife and I wake up every of them showed up for a reunion thanks to ago. Cameraman Anthony Derosa filmed him in his studio. Germany, and she was morning and wish each other happy birth- an 89-year-old bundle of energy named thrilled to see him. The two day, because you never know if we will Guy Stern. He’s the director of the Holo- “If you were not disciplined and profes- starstruck soldiers convinced Dietrich to let have a chance to say it again.” caust Memorial Center outside Detroit — sional, your rage would take you over, them drive her 25 miles to see a fresh crop Then he and his wife started arguing and a Ritchie Boy. make you less effective as an interrogator.” of German POWs. whether they had been married 73 years Guy was the only member of his imme- These little Jewish guys could make Sexy dames are sexy dames no matter or only 69. Si says he felt married to her diate family to survive the Holocaust; the German prisoners talk without lifting a fin- whom they’re allied with. Despite Dietrich’s from the moment of their first date. We others perished in the . He ger. Guy explained his interrogation tech- disloyalty to the Fatherland, the prisoners should all have such happiness. was just 15 when he came to the U.S. to nique, a tag team with fellow Ritchie Boy rushed the wire fence, wild to see her. Si has always been an artist, so when he live with an uncle. When he first tried to en- Fred Howard. American MPs immediately threw them all (Continued on page 14) THE EXODUS FROM JAMAICA Some 260 Jews sent to refugee camp “Together with the Polish refugees in Lis- t all began in November 1941. Some Joint said it would pay for it. The 200 who in Jamaica during World War II spent bon, whose documents were found to be I500 Polish Jews were staying in Lis- were lucky enough to enter the list of the three years in paradise while their rela- invalid and were given an ultimatum, was bon, Portugal – one of the only Western living arrived at the Lisbon port on January tives were murdered in concentration also Dr. Shlichter, a surgeon from Brussels countries which still let Jews in. As their 24, 1942, joining some 850 Jewish camps. One mystery remains: Are any who escaped the through the skin visas to the United States were no longer refugees on a ship making its way to the of them still alive? of his teeth. He sent on behalf of all of us valid, they faced deportation. This meant US, Latin American countries, and Cuba. they would return to the Nazi occupation DAVID REGEV, YNETNEWS a telegram to Winston Churchill for his n February 9, the ship docked at the birthday and asked him for help. lands and be sent to the death camps. OKensington port, bringing 157 hahar Bar couldn’t believe his eyes. “A day before the end of the ultimatum, refugees headed to the Gibraltar Camp. SOn a dusty carton bag, between the the response arrived: The British govern- They were later joined by some 100 addi- shelves loaded with material on the activi- ment will send the refugees to a colony in tional refugees from Luxemburg and the ties of the Joint during the Holocaust, he Jamaica, where they’ll be able to live as Czech Republic. saw one word: “Jamaica.” Unsurprisingly, free citizens! “At first we were slightly shocked,” testi- his first thought was that the file ended “When the list of refugees whose request fied Stanton. “There was nothing in the there by mistake. “Jamaica reminds me of to immigrate was approved arrived, we rooms apart from blankets, beds, a chair Bob Marley,” he says. “What does the suffered a heavy blow. My two brothers and table, but it was much better than the Holocaust have to do with Jamaica?” couldn’t join, as the exiled Polish govern- place we came from. The camp manager But a peek into the file revealed a treas- ment demanded that they join the Anders introduced himself at the dining hall and ure: The unknown rescue story of 260 Army. My mother knew she would never said he hoped we would be comfortable. Jews who were rescued from bleeding Eu- There was a hospital there with doctors rope in 1942, in the middle of World War II, see them again, and a year later she be- and nurses.” and sent to a camp in Jamaica. They spent came ill from grief. Immediately after the Later, she testified, the refugees asked three years there, dealing with the tropical war she died in New York.” for books, newspapers, and a radio – and weather and the kashrut problem and The testimony of Miriam Stanton, who received them. “The food wasn’t bad ei- mainly with idleness in the faraway golden arrived in Jamaica at the age of 28, is the ther. There were fresh vegetables. We cage while their relatives were murdered most detailed document on the refugees’ asked for fish and got kosher food as well. in concentration camps. life in the camp, which was built in the We prayed at the Sephardic synagogue At the end of the war the camp was dis- summer of 1940 on a sugar orchard out- established by the Joint in the camp, and mantled, and its refugees were scattered side the capital of Kingston. She shared Jewish refugees in Jamaica. we had a sense of acceptance and em- all over. A rare documentation remained in her memoirs with the British Library as part About 200 of them decided to ask for the brace.” the Joint archive and is revealed here for of a project recording the testimonies of help of the exiled Polish government, and The spacious camp was built in a valley the first time. It tells the unbelievable story Holocaust survivors. a day before the deportation date they surrounded by hills with palm trees. Imme- of the transfer from the European hell to a Bar, a 30-year-old archivist and a history reached an agreement with the British gov- Caribbean country with white beaches and MA student in charge of categorizing the ernment that would see them evacuated to diately after their arrival, the Jews received reddish sunsets. One mystery remains: Joint’s material, encountered the story by the Gibraltar Camp in Jamaica, a British their own compound, and the photos Where did the Jews who spent three years chance, following a request from one of the colony at the time. found in the archive document their rou- of their life in the camp go to? And are any families inquiring on the fate of its loved The British government demanded in re- tine: a group of young Jewish girls in white of them still alive? ones after 70 years. turn that the Jews fund their stay, and the (Continued on page 15) January/February 2012 - Shevat/Adar 5772 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 7 IN POLAND, UNBURYING A NATION’S JEWISH PAST Jews in Poland is estimated to be just particularly in the wake of the famous War- large stone, carved with a Star of David, on BY DON SNYDER, NBC NEWS 15,000, according to government esti- saw ghetto uprising of April 1943. After bru- the spot. He considers the spot his par- mates. tally quelling the insurrection, the Germans uzanna Radzik wants Polish children ents’ memorial, although they were also leveled the site, leaving countless victims to know that almost every Polish TEACHING THE NEXT GENERATION Z buried in the ruins. town and village was part of the Holocaust. aith motivates Radzik, a 28-year-old “This area is still dead 68 years after the There were about 3.5 million Jews in Catholic theologian. “We have a long Germans destroyed it,” said Chomatowska. Poland before World War II, making up 10 F history of Christian anti-,” she “It is my obligation to remember the people percent of the overall Polish population. said. “We should do our repentance for and the place that was here before.” And in some pre-war Polish towns Jews that and be strong about fighting anti- There are few physical reminders of the comprised as much as 70 percent of the Semitism.” former ghetto. One of them is Muranow’s residents. Radzik supervises The School of Dia- sometimes hilly terrain, which results from But although Polish children learn about logue, sponsored by The Forum for Dia- the fact that much of the rubble was not the Holocaust in school, many believe the logue Among Nations, a Polish cleared and new housing was built on top non-profit organization that of the ruins. seeks to eliminate anti-Semi- However, Chomatowska is proud of re- tism and to foster better rela- cently completed murals by Warsaw artist tions between Poles and Jews. Adam Walas in the entryway leading to an The school deploys educa- apartment complex. The artwork features tors throughout Poland to teach prominent Jews who lived in Muranow be- young people about Judaism fore the war, such as Ludwik Zamenhof, Zbigniew Nizinski found an unmarked grave and the places in their towns creator of Esperanto. near Lublin, in southeastern Poland, where 70 where Jews once lived and Asked what motivates her, Choma- Jews, mainly women and children, perished worked. These educators high- towska said, “I was always interested in during the Holocaust. After researching the story, he discovered the names of 26 out of the light shared religious traditions Jewish culture and history, and a world that 70 people killed, and the tombstone seen here and teach about Jewish holi- disappeared.” was erected. days and their connections to Christian calendars. LOOKING FOR UNMARKED GRAVES honored at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official In Kielce, where 24,000 Jews Holocaust memorial, on April 25, 1995. lived before the war, making up ike Radzik and Chomatowska, Zbig- One of the unmarked graves Nizinski Holocaust remembrance advocates plastered images of Polish niew Nizinski brings to light a world Jews on buildings in Warsaw that were part of the Jewish approximately one-third of the L discovered is near Stoczek Wegrowski. that disappeared. Inspired by the Bible and ghetto before World War II wiped them out. city’s population, the educators’ Buried here are Rywka Farbiarz and seven effectiveness was clear after a fervent belief that the memory of the other Jews murdered by the Germans on killing was confined to death camps like they visited. dead must be preserved, Nizinski has ded- November 26, 1942. Farbiarz’s 10-year- Auschwitz and Treblinka. “I’ve been living here since I was a baby,” icated his life to finding unmarked graves However, the Holocaust also happened old daughter, Chasia, survived the mas- a local teenager wrote, “and I did not know of Jews murdered by the Germans. in little known places like Stoczek We- sacre, lying silent beneath the dead. the meaning of the monuments for Holo- In particular, the 52-year-old Baptist trav- growski, a town of about 5,000 where 188 Chasia, who now lives in Israel, visited caust victims I passed by every day and els to tiny villages in eastern Poland. “We Jews were shot dead on September 22, the grave with her two sons in June for the where the Jewish cemetery is.” Thanks to 1942. The massacre took place on Yom discover and rescue the graves from com- unveiling of a memorial stone Nizinski the program, she now does. Kippur, the most solemn Jewish holiday. plete oblivion and place memorial stones,” placed there. he said. “It is so unjust that there are so “We bring history to children in towns and BRINGING LIFE BACK TO THE OLD “WE MISS THEM” villages who have never met a Jew or seen GHETTO many Jewish burial sites that are not vis- izinski, Chomatowska and Radzik’s a synagogue,” Radzik said. “When we ited because there are no relatives left.” ut it is not just Radzik’s organization work reflects growing recognition show them where the ghetto was in their Nizinski usually travels by bicycle, finding N Bthat is highlighting the role of Jews in elderly people who remember where mur- that acknowledging the nation’s Jewish town and that Jews were killed there, it all Poland’s past. dered Jews are buried. That’s how he met history is essential to Poland. becomes real.” Beata Chomatowska, a 34-year-old jour- 90-year old Wladyslaw Gerula near Prze- Dr. Alina Molisak, who teaches Jewish lit- Radzik represents an increasing number nalist who lives in Muranow, a neighborhood mysl in southeastern Poland. erature at Warsaw University, cites the of Poles who believe Jewish heritage is in- built on the rubble of the former Warsaw The Germans killed Gerula’s parents for tremendous influence of Jewish authors on tegral to Polish history and that citizens ghetto, has created the web site Stacja Mu- must learn about that aspect of the past to hiding Jews. They also killed the hidden Polish literature. “You can feel the Jewish ranow (Muranow Station) to educate resi- absence,” she said, reflecting on the Holo- understand contemporary Poland. The dents about their neighborhood’s history. Jews. Although Gerula does not know his caust, “not only in literature, but in culture Holocaust all but wiped out the country’s It’s estimated that up to 300,000 Jews parents’ burial place, he knows where the and science. We miss them.” Jewish population – today the number of from the area were sent to death camps, three Jews are buried, and he placed a SEVENTY YEARS ON, WWII POGROM STILL HAUNTS SURVIVORS fter surviving one of the worst Holo- “This sent a strong message to the Nazis While walking to the police headquarters Iasi. “We were not human beings anymore. A caust which began ex- and to other perpetrators who were just fig- where most of the arrested Jews were It was like we were coming out of Dante’s actly 70 years ago in Romania’s east, uring out at that point in time how to com- rounded up, “I saw lots of bodies in the hell,” he says. Leizer Finchelstein still wonders how or- mit mass murder,” he adds. streets of Iasi, lots of blood in the gutter,” The survivors were forced to bury those dinary folk could turn into mass murder- The “method” tried during the Iasi he recalls. who died in the train in mass graves dug ers. pogrom was then copied across Eastern After several hours at the police head- hastily in the Jewish cemetery. About 1,200 About 15,000 Jews out of the 45,000 Europe, from Russia to Ukraine and quarters, where Jews were beaten and Jews rest here. living in the city of lasi were brutally killed Poland. killed by dozens, Finchelstein and hun- Finchelstein was put in a camp but man- in the summer of 1941. Shapiro, like Finchel- dreds of others aged to earn his living by working for a In only a few days between June 28 and stein and dozens of were taken to the local Christian Orthodox carpenter. July 6, they were forced out of their homes, Jews from Israel station and forcibly n November 1941, he returned to Iasi. executed on the streets, or forcibly whose relatives died in crammed into train IBut within months he was sent to a crammed into “death trains,” where only a the pogrom, gathered cars. forced labour camp in Bessarabia. small number survived, according to a re- in the end of June in “Doors were “When I came back to Iasi after the war, port by an international commission of his- Iasi to officially mark locked from the out- a doctor would not have needed any torians headed by Nobel Prize for Peace the 70th anniversary of side, all small win- equipment to make an X-ray. He could di- laureate Elie Wiesel. the massacre. dows and cracks rectly see my ribs. I had just skin and Huge concrete mass graves scattered Finchelstein, a tall were sealed. We bones,” Finchelstein says. in the green hills surrounding Iasi are the and lively 88-year-old had no air, no water, Despite all he went through, he still keeps silent reminders of the massacre. retired carpenter, has Roundup of Jews during a pogrom in Iasi, Ro- and the heat was up hope. “Hope should be the last to die. If I “The Iasi pogrom is a turning point be- never missed a single mania. unbearable,” he re- had lost hope, I would not be here.” cause Romanian authorities, with some commemoration. calls. Finchelstein stayed in Iasi after the war participation from the German authorities, “I had only read about pogroms. Before, “People died like flies. You would see while his brothers and sisters moved to Is- killed Jews on the streets of the city, in I had no clue of what it really meant. I think someone standing, and then a minute af- rael. front of the neighbors, friends, and ac- no one can imagine how terrible it is,” he terwards he was dead.” He lived through decades of Communist quaintances of those Jews,” recounts told AFP in an interview. To try and survive, people drank their dictatorship and saw the return to democ- Paul Shapiro, director of the Center for Finchelstein was 17 when he, his parents urine or sweat pressed out of their shirt. racy in 1989. After all these years, he still Advanced Holocaust Studies at the US and eight brothers and sisters were forced Finchelstein was taken out the train in wonders: “how could ordinary people turn Holocaust Memorial Museum. out of their house by Romanian soldiers. Podu Iloaiei, a village 20 kilometers from into such mass murderers?” Page 8 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2012 - Shevat/Adar 5772 IS JEWISH LIFE IN HUNGARY AND POLAND SUSTAINABLE? but also illustrate the differences between tance of Polish Jewish history and heritage thored the report, told JTA. “While the Or- BY RUTH ELLEN GRUBER, JTA various Jewish communities. to world Jewry. thodox part will remain a core of it, it rep- They also demonstrate the increasing Because of this, the report said, and “be- resents only a minority,” he said. t’s not easy to decipher the compli- Icated trajectory of Jewish life in post- importance of alternative forms of engage- cause of the remarkably positive reaction of “Culture is a main identity factor for Communist Europe. ment in nurturing identity among younger the Polish state and most of civil society to young Jews,” he went on. “The most im- “There are claims and counterclaims Jews. Jewish interests and concerns,” Jewish pro- portant things are happening on the inter- about contemporary European Jewish life,” he research in Hungary showed a grams in Poland “have a very high multiplier face between the Jewish community and Jonathan Boyd, the executive director of Tcommunity reinvigorated over the last effect,” with a direct impact “both on the society at large.” London’s Institute for Jewish Policy Re- 20 years but facing the challenge of low en- world community of Jews of Polish origin, onathan Ornstein, the director of the search, said. “At one end of the spectrum gagement in communal life, with only 10 and on Jewish and non-Jewish Poles alike.” JJewish Community Center in Krakow, there are reports of a remarkable renais- percent of the Jewish population af- said the report gave a good overall picture sance of activity; at the other there is a filiated with a Jewish organization. of Jewish life in Poland today and many of strong narrative of decline.” Young people especially appear its complexities. Boyd’s institute recently published a pair alienated from established Jewish “It accurately portrays Polish Jews as of reports written by local researchers in communal structures, such as the being optimistic and not overly concerned Hungary and Poland that offer a more nu- umbrella Federation of Hungarian with anti-Semitism, which stands in marked anced view. The reports looked at the de- Jewish Communities — or Mazsi- contrast to the rest of Europe,” he told JTA. velopment of Jewish life in these two hisz. But he added, “I would have liked to see countries since the collapse of Commu- The JPR Hungary report calls for more focus on the somewhat unnatural nism and examined the challenges their an urgent overhaul of Mazsihisz structure of the community, where official Jewish communities face going forward. and the entire institutional system religious life is Orthodox but few of the The reports, Boyd said, “illustrate that of organized Hungarian Jewry to members are. Polish Jewry coming to both perspectives are correct: While Jew- ensure that decisions on issues af- terms with that situation, and having its in- Krakow Rabbi Boaz Pash presents a talk to visitors in the ish life has undoubtedly been reinvigorated fecting the whole community are stitutions more accurately represent the 16th century Remuh Synagogue in Krakow. since the collapse of Communism, consid- made in a democratic and transpar- people, is to me the greatest challenge we erable investment is required to ensure the ent fashion. Therefore, it said, preservation and study face moving forward.” long-term sustainability of Jewish life in It also calls for greater religious pluralism of Jewish heritage — from , syn- The reports were the first two of a series both places.” and more cooperation and coordination agogues, and Holocaust sites such as death of JPR investigations into contemporary Hungary, with an estimated 100,000 among the plethora of often competing camps, to archival, museum, and library col- Jewish life in Eastern and Central Europe Jews, has the largest Jewish population in local Jewish groups and initiatives. This, it lections — “are of great importance.” funded by the Rothschild Foundation post-communist Europe outside the former said, could help foster the emergence and Moreover, it said, while Orthodox Jewry (Hanadiv) Europe. Future reports will deal Soviet Union. In Poland, the European training of a new generation of leaders. remained the primary established religious with Ukraine and Germany. Jewish heartland that was home to more “One of our purposes was to present stream, only a minority of the community “This research highlights the importance than 3 million Jews before the Holocaust, conflicting views on every issue we consid- identified with Orthodoxy. of avoiding generalities about Jewish life in the Jewish population today is estimated ered,” sociologist Andras Kovacs, an ex- The report urged greater investment in Central and Eastern Europe,” Sally at only 8,000–15,000. pert on Hungarian Jewish issues who was programs supporting Jewish cultural initia- Berkovic, the chief executive of the Roth- The reports were prepared on the basis one of the co-authors of the report, told tives and non-Orthodox alternative forms schild Foundation Europe, said in a state- of personal interviews with a range of Jew- JTA. “We wanted to provoke debate.” of Jewish engagement. ment. “Despite some shared experiences, ish community activists in each country, In Poland, research bore witness to the “There is a future for the Jewish commu- each Jewish community, with its distinctive followed up by focus-group discussions. rebirth of a community that remains tiny nity in Poland, but the community will re- characteristics, has responded differently Their results highlight similarities in the but has a disproportionate impact both at main small,” Konstanty Gebert, a leading to the challenges precipitated by the fall of post-Communist Jewish revival process home and abroad, in part due to the impor- Jewish intellectual and writer who co-au- Communism.” FUGITIVE GIRL’S ART BRINGS TEARS AT YAD VASHEM SHOW saves these drawings and takes them with finally decided to reunite and flee, they during the Holocaust. The area is now Lviv BY GWEN ACKERMAN, BLOOMBERG her.” failed to show up for a meeting with the in western Ukraine. Yad Vashem research led to testimony Polish woman who was hiding their daugh- “I always looked at Yad Vashem from sraeli artist Maya Cohen-Levy is Braun gave between 1945 and 1947 that ter, and were presumed killed. afar, as a national symbol, an institution, speaking animatedly when she catches I is kept in the Jewish Historical Institute in “I never heard from my parents again,” somehow not connected to me,” Cohen- her breath and her eyes fill with tears. Poland, with a copy in the Yad Vashem She’s just noticed four colored sketches the testimony says. archives. The documents gave Cohen- framed on the wall in front of her — drawn About 6 million European Jews were Levy and her siblings their first peek into by her mother as a 12-year-old hiding killed in the Holocaust during World War II the childhood of their mother, who died alone from the Nazis in a Polish widow’s in a systematic Nazi campaign across Eu- aged 38 after refusing to speak for years cellar. rope that included random executions, about her past. “This shook us up,” she says, recalling plunder, and death camps. There are no The children found the sketches — the story behind the sketches, on display accurate statistics on how many children which she only showed to her husband for the first time after being donated to Yad survived, in hiding or otherwise, although once — in an attic. Vashem Museum of Holocaust Art. “It’s like it is likely that the large majority hidden in we were living on the edge of a chasm and Eastern Europe did not, Yad Vashem says, suddenly we had to look in.” citing historical evidence. Renata Braun, who faced death if dis- Braun’s seven drawings were on ordi- covered by the Germans, stayed in a base- nary paper scraps, one of them with musi- ment in 1943 and 1944. While fugitives cal notes written on the back. All were put such as Anne Frank wrote, Renata was on permanent loan to the museum, though calmly working with pencil, gouache, and not all were in good enough shape to be A gouache-on-paper picture by Renata Braun watercolor. She copied photos of people restored. (later known as Rina Levy). The work shows Te- she no longer saw from the family album, Curator Eliad Moreh attributes Braun’s limena and the Judge Soplica in a scene from the and scenes from a book of the Polish epic survival, in part, to her love of art. epic poem “Pan Tadeusz” by Adam Mickiewicz. ll alone, the young girl went back poem “Pan Tadeusz.” Each sketch is Levy says. “Now I see how, without these highly detailed and neatly signed in the “A to the warmth of her home, to people, I wouldn’t have a story.” corner. what she had learned, and it was the cul- After the war, Braun moved to Israel, The pictures arrived at the museum in ture that gave her the strength to con- changed her name to Rina Levy, married, Jerusalem after director Yehudit Inbar hap- tinue,” Moreh says. “It is so strong that it had three children, became an artist, and pened to notice a short mention of the becomes her anchor.” died in 1969. She didn’t speak of the time drawings made by Cohen-Levy during an On the eve of World War II, Braun’s in hiding or the Holocaust, says Cohen- interview with an Israeli newspaper. home city of Lvov was the third largest city Levy, a painter and sculptor. “I was so excited because there are no in Poland and home to about 100,000 “I was 13-and-a-half when she died,” “The Prussian Homage” by Renata Braun. such finds like this today from the Holo- Jews, most of whom were merchants, Cohen-Levy says. “All I can say is that she Braun created the work while hiding from the caust period, especially those of children,” manufacturers, and artisans. believed in art as if it was something bigger Nazis. Inbar says of the day she came across the Between June 1941, when German than anything else.” Cohen-Levy’s father sketches mentioned in the paper. “Children In the testimony, Braun describes life in forces entered the city, and July 1944, held a canvas for her mother as she lay were hidden in very difficult circumstances. Nazi-occupied Poland, the arrests, fires when the Red Army took control, most of dying in bed just so she could continue to An adult can save things, but a child? Here and being forced to leave her childhood the Jews had been killed, according to the paint. “In some way, I felt I had to continue we have a girl, a talented girl, and she home. She tells of how, once her parents Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos painting for her.” January/February 2012 - Shevat/Adar 5772 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 9

NEW LIFE AUSCHWITZ MUSEUM FROM OLD ARCHIVES In a previous issue (M & R March/April) PUBLISHES PRISONER SKETCHBOOK we reported that Yad Vashem signed an agreement with Ukraine, which gives BY ALEX MACBETH, SPIEGELONLINE Yad Vashem access to Holocaust-era files that are expected to reveal infor- ound hidden away in a bottle, the mation about hundreds of thousands of FAuschwitz Memorial Museum has unidentified Jews murdered during the published sketches drawn by a Holocaust. The following article offers prisoner at the Birkenau extermination a glimpse into how information from the camp. They provide a rare first-hand archives could help reconstruct family glimpse of life and death inside. The book history. is part of the museum’s plans to launch a he opening of the archives in the catalogue of 6,000 artworks in its T former Soviet Union and the use of archives. advanced software are enabling Yad The sketches are chilling — prisoners Vashem to reconstruct family trees and to arriving at a concentration camp, children tell the stories of families whose existence being torn from their parents’ arms, a was unknown up until now. guard casually smoking outside a gas One example of such genealogical chamber as bodies are loaded into a restoration is the story of the Begun fam- truck. The images, recently published in ily, all of whose members perished in the a book by the Auschwitz Memorial Mu- Holocaust. The location of this family and seum, were taken from a unique sketch- Prisoners are seen arriving by train. reconstruction of its life was made possi- book drawn around 1943 at the Birkenau ble following the discovery of tax declara- camp. A former prisoner working as a tions and population registry forms that watchman discovered the 32 sketches in sat unseen for decades in archives in a bottle near the death camp’s cremato- Eastern Europe. According to Gertner, the rium in 1947. genealogical restoration of the Begun family is a fine example of the immense The Sketchbook from Auschwitz in- power of bureaucratic forms, “which can, cludes the 22 pages of drawings from an at first glance, appear to be moldy and un- unknown prisoner whose initials were ap- interesting.” parently MM. They represent a rare first- His colleague Masha Yonin related how hand historical account of the Holocaust. she felt goosebumps after the archival re- “These sketches are the only work of art search on the Beguns had been com- made in Birkenau that depict extermina- pleted: “We succeeded in bringing back tions,” said museum spokesman Pawel an entire family from the grave, after it Sawicki. had been erased from history. Now the While the circumstances make it hard to Kaddish [memorial prayer] can be said identify or trace the author, details in the over its members.” images themselves provide several clues Dr. Arie Begun, who was born in 1890, as to when they were created. The main was a physician in the city of Brest- gate at Birkenau, for example, is depicted Litovsk (known in Yiddish as Brisk ), before an extension was added. which is today called Brest, in Belarus. Up “The second wing of the main gate was A prisoner is seen stepping forward for a roll call. until the 17th century, Brest-Litovsk was built between 1943 and 1944, but is ab- the central metropolis of spiritual life and sent from the sketches. Thus we con- Torah study for Lithuania’s Jews. Its one- cluded that the sketches were drawn in time inhabitants included Menachem 1943 or before. From our records we be- Begin and the father of Ariel Sharon. On lieve that the author would have worked the eve of World War II, 40 percent of in the hospital sector or gathering lug- Brest’s population was Jewish. gage from the ramp,” Sawicki explained. Begun, his wife, and their two daughters The most striking aspects of the were murdered in 1942. None of their re- sketches in the book are the minute de- lations or friends survived the war. During tail and the artist’s emphasis on present- the 70 years that passed from the time of ing documentary evidence. “You can their murder, it was as if the entire family clearly see that the author was deter- had vanished. The only mention of the mined to present the largest number of Beguns appeared in a Yad Vashem form details,” Agnieszka Sieradzka, an art filled out in 1967 by a Tel Aviv resident, historian with the museum and the au- who wrote that he and Arie Begun were thor of the book, wrote in a statement. from the same city. “Badges of functionary prisoners, num- In the municipal archives of Brest, Yad ber plates of the trucks, and train cars Vashem researchers discovered a little- on the ramp, as well as block numbers, known collection of some 12,000 applica- are carefully depicted. The author of the tion forms for identity cards that had been Families in the death camp were often separated, as depicted in this scene. sketchbook hoped that someone would submitted by the city’s Jewish residents to the authorities immediately after the start find his work so that it would become a of the German occupation of the city. witness to extermination.” Among those documents was Arie The Polish-English publication, Begun’s application, which he had sub- launched by the Auschwitz archives on mitted together with his photograph. He Jan. 16, is part of a larger commemora- listed his profession as “physician.” tive project being undertaken by the mu- The researchers then located Begun’s seum. “The publication of the sketchbook tax declaration form, signed on October is part of the museum’s efforts to make 20, 1941, before the city’s Jewish inhabi- more and more material from our tants were moved into the ghetto. From archives available online,” Sawicki said. this form, the researchers learned that Dr. The images were released to mark this Begun was a dermatologist and that he year’s 70th anniversary of the start of ex- had a clinic on Pilsudskiego Street. Al- terminations in the gas chambers at though Begun declared a monthly income Birkenau. of 810 rubles, the tax assessor added the This spring the museum, which re- comment that Begun’s earnings were ceived a record 1.4 million visitors in much higher, reaching 6,840 rubles a 2011, is also planning to publish a cata- month. This was because Begun neg- logue containing images from the 6,000 lected to declare that he received 30 pa- or so works of art preserved in its archive tients daily in his home. collection. The crematorium, where more than a million people were killed, is seen here. (Continued on page 14) Page 10 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2012 - Shevat/Adar 5772 REPORTREPORT FROMFROM YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM

FROM THE BASEMENT OF DER STÜRMER TO THE YAD VASHEM WEBSITE Hitler approved the publication of Der at 19 Fanenschmidstrasse, in Nuremberg. ing to the archives’ records, the collection BY DR. DANIEL UZIEL Stürmer during the war years, even as Part of the collection came from various of- numbers 15,600 items, filed in 2,456 files. other papers closed down due to lack of ficial sources, but a significant portion was The collection deals primarily with Judaism he weekly anti-Semitic newspaper newsprint. However, the paper’s circulation collected from readers who responded to and anti-Semitism, but also contains some TDer Stürmer (literally, “The Stormer,” fell during the war. the editors’ frequent publicized requests to material about Christianity, the Freema- or “Attacker”) was founded in 1923 in he vulgarity of Der Stürmer was well send in interesting material. So, for exam- sons, and various international topics. The Nuremberg by , a local and Tknown also outside Germany, and its ple, soldiers stationed in Poland dis- gradual demise of Der Stürmer during the not particularly well-known member of the name became synonymous with Nazi anti- patched photographs of Jews and Jewish war is reflected by the relatively small Nazi party. Throughout his career, Stre- institutions. Those who had amount of material collected during this icher climbed the Nazi party hierarchy, looted Jewish homes for- period. The bulk of the collection (41.8%) eventually becoming the notorious warded books, works of art, was created from 1933 to 1938. Gauleiter (regional Nazi party leader) of and other items. The collec- Due to the keen interest of writers, cu- Franconia in Bavaria. He continued to tion also included many rators, and researchers, the materials serve as publisher and editor-in-chief of anti-Semitic cartoons drawn were digitized and meticulously cata- Der Stürmer until the end of WWII, taking by Philipp Rupprecht, logued in the 1990s, and in 2003, Yad advantage of his position to promote his known by his pen name, Vashem acquired a digital copy of the col- paper and increase sales. Der Stürmer “Fips.” Some of the graphic lection. Following the launch of the Yad was known for its extreme and explicit anti- materials in the collection Vashem photographic database on the Semitic content. Unlike other strongly anti- bear editors’ comments, Internet early this year, staff at the Semitic newspapers, such as the SS and were retouched in Nuremberg municipal archive and Yad newspaper Das Schwarze Korps (The Black preparation for publication. Vashem have begun to upload photo- Corps), which also dealt with other issues t the end of the war, graphs of unidentified Jews from the Der and did so with a certain amount of sophis- AAmerican forces Stürmer archive, with the hope that some tication, Der Stürmer addressed the lowest seized the archive, and of them may be identified. common denominator among its readers, Der stored its contents at an “In October, 219 photographs were and made anti-Semitism its main fare. A photograph sent by a German soldier to the editors of Stürmer American army base near chosen from the collection and released The circulation of Der Stürmer reached with the caption: “Bialystok, a street of Jewish businesses. In the right foreground, a typical Jewess.” Nuremberg, together with to the public on our online database,” ex- its peak in the 1930s, after the Nazis rose works of art and Jewish cul- plained Dr. Haim Gertner, Director of the to power. During Streicher’s trial in Nurem- Semitism. After the war, the Allies con- tural artifacts stolen by the Nazis. Where Yad Vashem Archives. “As with the entire berg, it was reported that some 600,000 victed Streicher of crimes against possible, books and Judaica items in the catalog of photographs, Yad Vashem wel- copies of the paper had been distributed humanity, and he was hanged. archive were restored to their owners. In comes all valuable comments from visi- weekly in 1935. Despite Streicher’s own During its circulation, the editorial staff of 1951, the Americans turned over what re- tors to the collection that will help restore lack of popularity within the Nazi party’s Der Stürmer created an archive, main- mained to the Nuremberg city archives, the identities of the people in these his- elite, he won the highest levels of support; tained in the cellar of the editorial building where it has remained to this day. Accord- toric pictures.” YAD VASHEM CALENDAR TAKES “PLEASE DO NOT STOP WRITING” A CONTEMPORARY TACK CHERISHED LETTERS DONATED TO YAD VASHEM seminars, the graphic artists designed the Jerusalem, Tel Aviv (may they be built and BY OFER ADERET, HAARETZ postcards which deal with the Holocaust, BY LITAL BEER preserved speedily and in our day, Amen) and its remembrance and significance. …Today we received a letter from you ad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ s part of the national “Gathering the he calendar project was conducted in and we read it avidly and with great love and Heroes’ Remembrance Author- Fragments” campaign conducted by Y conjunction with the Neri Bloomfield A because we had been waiting such a long ity, has sent out thousands of copies of a T Yad Vashem, a collection day was held on Wizo Academy of Design and Education time for some word from you. Blessed be new calendar for the new Jewish year. The Holocaust Remembrance Day 2011, en- and the Shenkar College of Engineering and His name, now that we know you are well, calendar is filled with postcards relating to couraging the public to bring personal Design. The Ministry of Public Diplomacy may it be His will that you always remain the Holocaust, and some, it seems, may items from the Holocaust era to Yad and Diaspora Affairs and the Conference so forever and ever. You should know that well be seen by some groups as insensi- Vashem for safekeeping. on Jewish Material Claims Against Ger- I am trying hard to send tive or even provocative. Yad Vashem One of the donors that many also aided in the project. your father to you. And I claims in its favor that this is one of the in- day was Mazal Matilda Einstein’s famous E=MC2 equation ap- shall also send you the stitution’s ways to “provide a more relevant Levy, who donated letters pears on the January 2012 page, accom- items left at home, together and modern expression to the memory of and artifacts belonging to panied by the text: “A world with the machine. I will then the Holocaust.” her family. Later, Mazal without Jews. Think about it.” finish up my business and One of the posters that added photographs and Liav Cohen from Wizo Haifa other matters and also stands out in the new more items to the collec- designed the image. come, and we will all live to- calendar appears with tion, which tells the story The picture adorning the gether. But please do not the month of December of the Hunio family of Yad Vashem calendar for stop writing to us, because 2012. The calendar fea- Rhodes. March 2012 looks like a one- the letter we received was tures a famous picture of Mazal’s mother, Rosa way railroad ticket –- and from six weeks ago, and we concentration camp pris- Levy, née Hunio, immi- says “One-way ticket.” An- were so worried that we oners in Bergen-Belsen grated to Eretz Israel in other image shows dress had not heard from you in crowded into their bunk 1938 together with her shirts arranged in a closet, so long… I would only like beds – and in the middle brother, Avraham. Their where one shirt is part of a to hear how you are, and of the picture is a large il- parents, Yoseph and concentration camp inmate’s how all your friends and ac- lustration of Bambi. The A picture of Bambi superimposed Mazal Tov Hunio, re- uniform. There is also a traffic quaintances are, and pray caption on the picture over concentration camp victims in mained in Rhodes, then Standing at back: Rosa Hunio and sign warning of a train cross- for your well-being... Greet- says “In 1942 Bambi a Yad Vashem calendar. The text under Italian rule. The Avraham Hunio, Rhodes, before ing with the text “1933–1945.” ings from your father and captured our hearts.” reads, “In 1942, Bambi conquered other children managed they emigrated to Eretz Israel. Iris Rosenberg, the your mother and from all The picture gives the im- our hearts.” to reach the United States and Uruguay. spokeswoman of Yad the members of the household. Greetings, pression the prisoners are watching the Rosa stayed in touch with her relatives by we are your father and mother who bless movie. 1942 was the year Walt Disney’s fa- Vashem and one of the heads of the cal- mail. endar project, said she does not think the you day and night. mous movie was released, and it was also Among the many letters Mazal gave to Before donating this letter to Yad the year the was decided on. calendar is in bad taste. “Yad Vashem Yad Vashem, one is written in Hebrew in does not deal only with the memory of the Vashem, Mazal Levy never knew of her The International School for Holocaust Sephardic cursive script, sent by Yoseph grandparents’ plans to immigrate to Israel. Holocaust, but also with the Holocaust in Studies at Yad Vashem has been running and Mazal Tov to their children in the Holy Sadly, their plans were never realized; modern terms.” The Holocaust is relevant a postcard design project for the past Land: With God’s help, 5 Heshvan 5700 Yoseph Hunio died and was buried in to our lives and teaching the Holocaust is decade. Hundreds of design students from Rhodes (may the Supreme One preserve Rhodes in 1942. In July 1944, Mazal Tov not just a history lesson, said Rosenberg. all over Israel have taken part, along with it) To my beloved relatives… siblings never Hunio, née Philosoph, was deported to- “The Shoah has for a long time not been professional graphic artists from Israel and to part, the children of Yoseph and Mazal gether with the other Jews of Rhodes to just historical facts, but their significance. abroad, as well as amateur illustrators. Tov Hunio, Avraham and Rosa (may God Athens and from there to Auschwitz, where These works present that,” she added. After participating in various Yad Vashem preserve them and give them life), she was murdered on 16 August 1944. January/February 2012 - Shevat/Adar 5772 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 11 BIOGRAPHY OF AN INSPIRATIONAL SURVIVOR The Jewish Journal seeks to recognize table spread with coffee cake and fruit. Eli GRB: One of the most interesting things GRB: Without doubt, his greatest single local authors and when possible, we try to Zborowski recounted in astonishing detail that we were able to trace through Eli accomplishment is assuring that the Holo- interview them so that they can express the events of his life, starting with his Zborowski’s entire life was that he was so caust will be remembered, and remem- their motivations rather than simply write a childhood memories, his experiences in often inspired to use his abilities to fill bered correctly, for many generations to review. This interview is with George and hiding, serving as a courier for the under- unmet needs. This would become the come. He inaugurated the first synagogue- Rochel Berman of Boca Raton, who have ground, in the DP camp, his arrival in basis for his success in business. While he based Yom Hashoah – Holocaust Com- just completed the biography of Eli America, and his rise to business leader- became financially successful, he always memoration Day program, and with Zborowski. The book is called A Life of ship and consequent wealth. Each ses- felt that it was through the grace of God, characteristic tenacity, Eli convinced other Leadership. It is published by KTAV Pub- sion began with gracious hospitality and and should be used to improve the world. congregations to follow suit. lishing House of New Jersey in collabora- ended five or six hours later when Eli We also admired the passion, persever- His keen interest in developing educa- tion with Yad Vashem of Jerusalem. It Zborowski escorted us to the elevator in ance, and tenacity which he consistently tional programs about the Holocaust led contains a foreword by Sir Martin Gilbert, his signature courtly manner. exhibited in both his business and his Jew- him to form the American and International the official biographer of Winston Churchill. JJ: What leadership qualities does Eli ish communal activities. Societies for Yad Vashem, where he laid The questions were asked by Rabbi Jack Zborowski possess? How did he acquire JJ: Why wasn’t he embittered by his the groundwork for the Young Leadership Riemer, who is a regular reviewer for the them? Shoah experiences? Associates, an organization that comprises Florida Jewish Journal. GRB: Leadership requires courage. It is GRB: Embitterment usually arises from nearly 1,000 third-generation descendants Jewish Journal: Who is Eli Zborowski? the expression of that courage that impels a feeling of having been victimized. The of survivors and even young Jews who George and Rochel Berman: Eli people to do the right thing. question then goes back to have no direct family connection to the Zborowski has been in the forefront of At the age of 15, Eli was a why Eli Zborowski did not Holocaust. This group creates Holocaust Holocaust remembrance for over half a daring courier for the Jew- regard himself as a victim. education opportunities for teachers century. Among many other “firsts,” he is ish underground. He took A victim is helpless. Eli throughout the United States. responsible for the first synagogue-based on many other risks, even- Zborowski never felt that he Eli also endowed the first chair in Holo- Yom HaShoah commemoration in the tually becoming familiar was helpless; he had a caust Studies at Yeshiva University and United States. Since 1981 he has been with risk as just one factor great deal of self-confi- the Diana Zborowski Center for the Study chairman of the American and International to be included in any proj- dence. A bright, handsome of the Aftermath of the Shoah at Yad Societies for Yad Vashem. ect plan. child, he was a favorite Vashem, which has already sponsored JJ: Why did you decide to write this When his father built their among members of his ex- major international colloquia. book? home, he demonstrated tended family. His parents A century from now, these contributions GRB: We provided communications his respect for the workers also contributed to his self- to Holocaust remembrance will be Eli services for several years to the American by sitting and drinking with confidence. His mother Zborowski’s most lasting monument. and International Societies for Yad them during breaks. Many taught him to speak a pure JJ: What do you hope the reader will get Vashem. We came to know Eli Zborowski years later, when Eli ac- Polish, while his father pro- out of this book? through this connection. We often won- quired a factory in Mexico one of his first vided a great deal of business knowledge, dered how an immigrant with no knowl- acts was the installation of a subsidized negotiating skills, and moral strength. His GRB: We hope that Eli Zborowski’s story edge of English achieved so much while cafeteria. Eli’s commitment to fairness and Holocaust experiences were about strug- will illustrate the complex impact of the creating several successful businesses as equality among men inspires and attracts gle and courage rather than victimization Holocaust in the decades following the Lib- well. How did he organize these societies? followers. and despair. eration. We also hope the book will help What was it about Eli that enabled him to Leadership is about taking responsibility. In addition, any bitterness he might have the reader understand the vibrancy of attract the required volunteer skills and the Eli has been taking responsibility since he felt would have been offset by his gratitude shtetl life before the war and the intense funds? Had his Holocaust experiences ul- was a teenager: for his family, for orphans, to his rescuers, who risked their lives for longing for a return to Zion even prior to the timately strengthened him? As many of his for the sale of Sheaffer products in Latin him and his family. Holocaust. accomplishments are not widely known, a America, and ultimately, responsibility for Eli maintains a very warm relationship Eli Zborowski’s life as a teenager ap- book exploring his life would appeal to a assuring Holocaust education and remem- with Poland. To this day he is admired peals to young people, empowering them broad audience. brance in future generations. Responsibil- among non-Jews in Zarki and highly re- to engage in tikkun olam. In his foreword JJ: What was it like working with Eli ity is not a quality that one can acquire garded by the Polish government. This en- to the book Sir Martin Gilbert, the Holo- Zborowski? from others. Essentially accepting respon- abled him to play a significant role in caust historian and official biographer of GRB: We interviewed Eli Zborowski nu- sibility is a personal decision: an instinctive opening the door to diplomatic relations Winston Churchill, says, “In this book there merous times in the Florida offices of the characteristic that permeates Eli’s life. between Israel and Poland. is not a single dull page, not a single story American Society for Yad Vashem. At each JJ: What did you come to admire most JJ: What do you think will be his lasting that does not resonate today with the ca- session we arrived to find a conference about Eli Zborowski? achievements? pacity to inspire new generations.” BEING STRATEGIC ABOUT PRESERVING JEWISH HERITAGE Borsky is trying to do something about and I, along with half a dozen Israeli jour- sites: from the active synagogue in BY RUTH ELLEN GRUBER, JTA this — which is why I was in Slovakia. nalists, were on a five-day tour that Borsky Bratislava to Presov in the far east, where The vice president of the Bratislava Jew- led to Jewish communities and heritage the magnificence of the surviving syna- n 1989, on the eve of the fall of Cmmu- ish community, Borsky is also Slovakia’s sites around the country. gogue utterly dwarfs the potential of a Jew- nism, the American poet Jerome I leading Jewish scholar and expert on Slo- The aim was to introduce the Slovak Jew- ish community that now numbers only a Rothenberg published a powerful series of vak Jewish heritage. At 37 he is the leading ish Heritage Route, an educational and few dozen people. poems called “Khurbn” that dealt with the Slovak Jewish activist of his generation, touristic itinerary Borsky devised as a We saw synagogues used as art gal- impact of the Holocaust on Eastern Europe. engaged in everything from religious, cul- means of integrating Jewish heritage and leries, and one now used as an art school. In one section, he recorded conversa- tural and educational memory into local There were little Jewish exhibits, and ru- tions he had had in Poland with local peo- initiatives to his own tourism, culture, and ined synagogues still undergoing repair. In ple who had little recollection of the personal commitment to education so that Jews, one of these, the partially ruined syna- flourishing pre-war Jewish presence. raising his daughters in their history, and their gogue in Liptovsky Mikulas, Goldstein and “Were there once Jews here?” the poem a Jewish home. fate are not forgotten. his wife stopped to chant prayers so that goes. “Yes, they told us, yes they were “I’ll do anything to sup- Borsky first con- the sounds of Jewish liturgy could once sure there were, though there was no one port his efforts, he has ceived it five years again be heard. here who could remember. What was a made such a difference ago, and I believe it is One of our most meaningful encounters Jew like? they asked. to Jewish life here,” said an important strategic was with a high school teacher in the small “No one is certain still if they exist.” Andrew Goldstein, a endeavor that could town of Spisske Nova Ves who for nearly I often think of this poem when I travel to British Reform rabbi who Maros Borsky standing in the Orthodox provide a model for a decade has made care of the Jewish far-flung places in Eastern and Central Eu- has played a hands-on synagogue in Zilina, Slovakia. The shul is other countries. Only cemetery and continuing research into the rope, and it was certainly on my mind on a role in nurturing Jewish one of the sites on his Slovak Jewish Her- 3,000 Jews live in Slo- history of the destroyed Jewish community trip to Slovakia. revival in the Czech Re- itage Route. vakia today, but there an integral part of her class curriculum. That’s because yes, there are still Jews public and Slovakia for more than two are synagogue buildings or Jewish ceme- “The saddest thing for me was not to see here, and the post-Communist revival has decades. teries in literally hundreds of towns and the empty synagogues, but to learn that reinvigorated Jewish communities in the Now chairman of the European Union for even major cities. The Slovak Jewish com- the Orthodox synagogue in Zilina is still in- region. Progressive Judaism, Goldstein comes to munity does not have the resources to tact but not used for services,” Goldstein But also, despite this, numbers are still Bratislava once a month to hold classes save or even to care for all these places. told me after the trip. “On Rosh Hashanah so small that even in many places where and lead a non-Orthodox Shabbat service So Borsky convinced communal leaders the tiny community just meets in a nearby Jews once made up large parts of the pop- as an alternative to the one conducted by to sanction a strategy that concentrates on hall and reminisces — there is seemingly ulation, Jewish history and heritage have the city’s only resident rabbi, Baruch just a few. This resulted in his Slovak Jew- nobody to lead even a short service.” been, or run the risk of being, forgotten. Myers, who is affiliated with Chabad. ish Heritage Route, which includes 24 flag- Rothenberg’s poem was rarely out of my “Look,” my friend Maros Borsky reminded Goldstein and I met in Bratislava nearly ship sites in all eight regions of the country. thoughts. me in Bratislava. “Kids who were born after six years ago when Goldstein and his wife Our tour took in more than a dozen of the “Were there once Jews here?” 1989 don’t even remember Communism.” Page 12 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2012 - Shevat/Adar 5772 THE FUTURE OF HOLOCAUST EDUCATION the amount of Holocaust education in the selves bear the main burden of responsibil- spite Israeli deterrence, there are scenar- BY STEPHAN J. KRAMER, democratic world has increased in the past ity for securing our existence. The fight ios under which the Iranian regime could THE JERUSALEM POST decade or two. And yet there are valid rea- against anti-Semitism remains a primary well attempt to use its future nuclear arse- sons to worry. nal to “wipe out the Zionist regime from the n the 27th of Nissan we remember task. It is a sorry state of affairs when Jew- A recent UNESCO-commissioned study pages of history.” the victims of the Holocaust. How- ish communities need police protection O by Israeli educational scientist Dr. Zehavit No less alarming than the Iranian inten- ever, remembrance is not a static picture from anti-Semites. It is a disgrace when Gross of Bar-Ilan University showed that tion is the miserable failure of the demo- of the past; it is also a dynamic task for the Jews, recognizable as such by their clothes Holocaust lessons in Western countries cratic world even to significantly slow the future, which poses major challenges for or just by a kippa, must be watchful in the often lead to massive anti-Semitic reactions Iranian effort to obtain atomic weapons. the Jewish world. streets of London, Paris, or Berlin lest they from students. This does not mean the di- Obviously, the prospect of another Holo- One of these challenges is education of become targets of abuse and violence. mensions of Holocaust education should be caust against millions of Jews is not con- our own youth. We are grateful that many But of course, the main targets today are reduced. On the contrary, we need a much sidered a reason for action. survivors are still with us. We embrace the Jews of Israel, who are threatened with wider educational effort aimed at all age them with the full strength of our love. And a second Holocaust by the Iranian leader- his is a sobering thought. Of course, a groups and population strata. yet the generation of those who emerged ship. The debate as to whether it is permis- Tnuclear Iran would be a strategic threat he message we need to get across from the jaws of the Nazi beast is increas- sible to compare these would-be to the West, too. Israeli Holocaust researcher is straightforward. He who defiles an- ingly retreating from our lives. Tomorrow’s T annihilators with the Nazis is beside the Prof. Yehuda Bauer once observed that Jewish children will have to remember the other human being’s dignity, let alone point, for if they should ever succeed, the World War II was started by an anti-Semitic Holocaust without the immense emotional takes his life out of baseless hatred, com- results are likely to be similar. regime that murdered six million Jews. How- power of meeting actual survivors. It will be mits a transgression against the spirit of The threat to Israel’s very existence is ever, he noted, 29 million of the 35 million an important task of Jewish education to humanity and against God who created all not new. In 1948 Israel’s Jews faced Arab people who died between 1939 and 1945 bridge this gap. of us in His image. It is not enough for par- armies which invaded the newborn Jewish were non-Jews. This, Bauer said dryly, We also must demand that the non-Jew- liaments to make Holocaust denial punish- state with the explicit purpose of destroying should give non-Jews a reason to ponder. ish world keep the memory of the Holo- able by law. Rather, let us repeat to the it. The ability of the nascent Israel Defense Yet we see that the world has not learned caust alive – and much remains to be done nations of the world the commandment of Forces to defend the country was by no its lesson. We must do all we can to in this regard. True, six years ago, Interna- the Torah: “The stranger who lives in your means a foregone conclusion. Later change this attitude. This, too, is part of the tional Holocaust Remembrance Day was midst… you will love him as yourself.” threats, in 1967 and in 1973, were re- legacy of the Holocaust and its victims, established by the United Nations, and it is Of course, I am not naïve. The hatred of pelled, but the enemy’s message remained whom we remember and honor on Re- being observed in many countries. True, Jews is unlikely to disappear. We our- clear: We want to kill you. As for Iran, de- membrance Day. A QUIET DRAMA IS TAKING PLACE AMONG ULTRA-ORTHODOX HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS Auschwitz concentration camp with an apple National Insurance Institute and the funds same hut in the concentration camp. BY YAIR ETTINGER, HAARETZ she received as a gift; a girl who was humil- that come from Europe, the foundation Sometimes, the tables are divided sponta- iated by a petty and cruel Nazi guard who started about three years ago to support the neously according to origin – a table of Ro- aybe you’ll reconsider?” Shoshi was to dominate her dreams for years to projects of the Misgav Lakashish NPO, manians, another of Hungarians, and Horowitz pleads with her mother, “M come; a girl who even after the end of the which are designed for Haredi survivors. Hanna Glendoar. “We have to fill in a Page another of Poles; and there is also a table war faced a difficult and dangerous journey About 400 men and women are involved of Testimony, and we have to do it now.” where the women prefer speaking Yiddish home, to Hungary, before being united with in the various frameworks operated in the But Glendoar, aged 85, shrugs her shoul- rather than Hebrew among themselves. her brother and her second cousin. city by Misgav Lakashish – a club for ders and once again refuses. “It puts me Shif says that the underlying fact here is She attributes the change mainly to her women, and a study hall for men in which off a little, I don’t know why,” she says, im- that the women here are linked to one an- present stage in life, but a key role was they study Torah, as well as visits to the mediately adding: “It has no connection to other by their connection to the Holocaust. also played by the club of ultra-Orthodox homes of housebound women. The volun- the fact that I’m Haredi.” For many of them, this is a fact that was Holocaust survivors that she joined a few teer visitors are students from the Bais She can’t explain the profound internal suppressed with great effort and for many years ago – a club that is apparently the Yaakov seminary as well as older women obstacle. The information she has is a gold years. She says that over the years, they only one in the world geared exclusively to who have undergone training in the Haredi mine for quite a number of people – her had trouble deciding how to approach the the Haredi community. department in the School for Holocaust children, grandchildren, and great-grand- subject of the Holocaust. Studies at Yad Vashem. children, over 200 people, as evidenced by “Once, we invited a psychologist to talk ccording to Dr. Idit the family tree hanging in her living room - about the Holocaust. She showed a film Dayan, coordinator of who have never heard from her in any sys- A about the Holocaust, and that aroused welfare at the Jerusalem tematic way what happened to her during tremendous bitterness among several Foundation, “For years there “that” period, the Holocaust, and the women, some of whom left in the middle. was silence. The way of deal- names of her 44 relatives who were killed, We weren’t sure how to continue, and we ing with the Holocaust in gen- out of a total of 48 before the war. She has found that we don’t want to force the sub- eral – and this is true of all the never given her testimony for documenta- ject on them. It’s clear that the prevailing sectors – was to raise large tion in Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust atmosphere is the Holocaust. families. Many survivors see Center, or anywhere else. “I went through what Jews went through, that as their victory. But they She knows that Yad Vashem is working not the nicest things. Thank God we were didn’t talk about the thing it- on collecting and finding the names of saved and thank God we made a home. self. One reason for that is those who were murdered, and openly ad- What we get here is a wonderful thing. The that often their survival in- mits that it is “neglect” that their re- women don’t complain. Sometimes we re- volved a failure to observe searchers are not familiar with the names call what we went through, but we don’t An ultra-Orthodox Jewish man stands next to an exhibit in the the mitzvot [religious com- of her relatives. And still, for now it’s talk about it too much.” Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. A sign that is part mandments], and there are enough for her that many of her descen- Rachel, who asks not to have her last of the exhibit reads in German: "Germans! Defend yourselves! many Haredim who want to dants are named after the victims. name published, says she didn’t tell every- Do not buy from Jews!". erase that past. Suddenly, Her refusal to share memories and infor- one about her experiences during the after bringing many children into the world, mation from the Holocaust period – mainly A quiet drama is taking place among Holocaust: “Only to those who wanted to they are willing to talk about the path that with official institutions – is not always Haredi Holocaust survivors. The Haredi sec- hear, not everyone is willing to hear. Any- brought them where they ended up.” comprehensible. But Glendoar feels that tor, which is often under attack, and even one who wanted to hear said, ‘Grandma, Kaliv she has actually undergone a significant more so recently, includes, like every sector, The weekly event in the center of the write it all down, soon there won’t be any- process, and recently broke a hermetic si- survivors who talk and those who remain Hasidim, in Jerusalem’s Ezrat Torah neigh- one left to tell us.’ I told them that they’re lence of over 50 years – even if only in her silent, each with his or her own story. But the borhood, probably represents the activity of invited to write down what I tell them, but I close inner circle. group of Haredi women who run Misgav the only Haredi club for Holocaust survivors didn’t tell much. Why go back to that after Today, around the Shabbat table, when Lakashish, headed by Tamar Shif, under- in the world. Every week, over 70 women at- so many years? So many things happen, a granddaughter or grandson expresses stood that Haredi survivors are unique. tend regularly, for a day of lectures, an ex- God sends us so many trials. Why do I interest, something opens up, a small Some of them feel that they have limited le- ercise class, and lunch, which includes a need to go back to what happened over 60 memory comes to light and is saved from gitimacy for telling the story, and the majority kugel or quiche in the summer, and hot soup years ago?” oblivion. are unaware of their rights, after many years in the winter. Shif and club director Ruhami Rachel Potash, on the other hand, the At her advanced age, as the head of a during which government authorities barely Marenstein say that here there is almost no daughter of a Hungarian rabbinical family, huge family – she won’t say the precise worked with Haredi survivors. open discussion of the Holocaust. said: “I tell a lot. I was a little girl of six in number of her descendants because it The organization that took up the chal- At first glance, it looks like any senior cit- the Holocaust. My father believed in ‘Re- may bring bad luck – she is allowing her- lenge was the Jerusalem Foundation. In izens’ club. On second glance, one discov- member what Amalek did to you,’ and sec- self to disclose some of the memories of a addition to running clubs for survivors and ers the stories about encounters between ondly he believed that children should girl who celebrated her 18th birthday in the helping them to receive their rights from the women who decades earlier shared the (Continued on page 14) January/February 2012 - Shevat/Adar 5772 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 13 GOEBBELS’ SECRETARY BREAKS VOW OF SILENCE war in May 1945. But while his propa- rau Pomsel recalls how Goebbels or- salute. I wasn’t as jubiliant as them. I knew BY ALLAN HALL, DAILY MAIL ganda presented him to the German peo- Fdered her and three junior secre- what was coming...” ple as a jovial fellow Nazi, she remembers taries, on February 18, 1943, into the As chief secretary, Frau Pomsel had ac- he former secretary of Hitler’s prop- him as a cold and distant monster. Sportspalast Stadium in Berlin. It was cess to top-secret papers which showed aganda chief has T “You couldn’t get close to him,” said Frau shortly after the defeat of the German Sixth how badly the war was in fact going for broken a 66-year vow of silence to talk Pomsel. “He never once asked me a per- Army at Stalingrad, the turning point of the Germany. about her service for the man who made sonal question. Right up until the end I war from which there was no way back. She spent the last 10 days of the Third Germans hate the Jews. don’t think he knew my name. Reich in the cellars of the propaganda min- Since the end of World War II, Brunhilde “He got away lightly with suicide. He istry. Russian artillery and American Pomsel, now 100, has refused all requests knew he would be condemned to death by bombers flattened the city by day, RAF air- for interviews and offers to publish her craft by night. memoirs. the Allies. His suicide was cowardly, but he In this troglodyte world she pumped out But after five months of negotiations she was also smart because he knew what the orders from Goebbels exhorting more has given a single interview to Bild, Ger- was coming if he didn’t take that way out. many’s biggest newspaper, in which she “I was working as a typist at the propa- and more resistance to a people crushed describes her four years as the chief sec- ganda ministry, and his radio station, and under the weight of the lost war. retary of the man closest to Hitler. was the fastest. It was an order to be trans- “On May 1 the news came that The Frau Pomsel describes how Goebbels’ ferred to work for him. You couldn’t refuse. Boss – Hitler – had committed suicide the children – the children he and his wife “I didn’t know about the Holocaust. I was day before. The Russians came shortly af- Magda would murder with cyanide in a stupid, politically uninterested little terwards and dragged me from the cellar. I sausage of simple means. I only learned spent the next five years as a prisoner of Hitler’s bunker in April 1945 – used to play Hitler’s master propagandist Joseph Goebbels the Russians in special camps,” said Frau with her typewriter on Sunday afternoons. about the Jewish extermination pro- rabble-rousing a crowd. She reminisces about eating goose with gramme after the war. Goebbels never Pomsel. the Reich’s propaganda minister at his is- mentioned it in his correspondence. On this day Goebbels delivered his infa- It was only after the war that she learned land home and about receiving dresses “I joined the party in 1933 – why not? mous “Total War” speech to the German Goebbels and his wife killed their six young from Magda because Allied bombs de- Everyone did. I worked with three other public, exhorting them to heights of fren- children by breaking cyanide vials in their stroyed her own home and everything in it. secretaries in a wonderful library in a zied sacrifice as he warned of a wave of mouths. She took down every word that palace on the Wilhelmplatz in Berlin. vengeful, barbaric Russians bearing down Goebbels then shot his wife before shoot- Goebbels uttered, both his private corre- “A lot of the stuff I did was somewhat bor- on the Fatherland. ing himself. Aides poured petrol on the spondence and his official orders, includ- ing. But I gradually became his chief stenog- She recalled: “This was a service order, corpses, but the remains were only partially ing those ordering roundups of Jews in rapher, recording everything that gushed out we had to attend. Magda Goebbels sat di- burned, and found by the Red Army. Berlin to please Hitler that the capital was from him and from his chief aides. rectly behind me as he raged. “I will never forgive Goebbels for what he becoming “Jew-free.” “I wanted to live up to this ideal that if a “The photos show the crowd going wild brought into this world,” said Frau Pomsel. Frau Pomsel was employed by boss trusted me, then I mustn’t disappoint as he asked them if they wanted total war “And the fact that he could murder his in- Goebbels from 1942 until the end of the him.” and springing to their feet to give the Hitler nocent children in this way.” NAZI SOLDIERS HAVING THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES BRAZIL APPROVES JEWISH STUDIES IN OCCUPIED NORWAY... AGREEMENT WITH ISRAEL AS THEY LAUNCHED THEIR REIGN OF TERROR razilian President Dilma Rousseff ap- Bproved an agreement to allow stu- hilling photos of German soldiers hav- Terboven was despised by both the Norwe- heim and surrounding areas, during dents, teachers and researchers in Brazil to Cing a roaring time in Nazi-occupied gians and many of his own men, and killed which 34 Norwegians were murdered by teach and research the Holocaust, anti- Norway months before they murdered hun- himself by detonating 110 pounds of dyna- extrajudicial execution. Semitism and other Jewish-related subjects. dreds of local Jews have been discovered. mite in a bunker at the end of World War II. “This served as a pretext for the arrest Under the agreement, Hebrew-language The pictures show members of Hitler’s It is not known who compiled the album, and detention of all male Jewish inhabi- and Jewish themes such as the Holocaust, Wehrmacht enjoying picnics in a sunny which is entitled “With the Reichskommis- tants of the area as part of the Holocaust anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia, and in- sar North Norway and Finland 10- in Norway. tolerance will be part of curricula in some 27 July, 1942,” but it would have “With the announcement of Germany’s schools, universities, and other educa- been for Nazi propaganda. surrender at the end of the war, Josef tional institutions in Brazil. At the end of the war it was Terboven committed suicide by detonat- As part of an inter-country exchange, seized as a souvenir by an Allied ing himself with dynamite.” Portuguese will be taught in academic cir- serviceman. n all there are 375 mounted gelatine cles in Israel. The album was acquired years silver print photos on 62 pages. I The agreement is the result of a longtime ago by the late Mark Dineley, a As well as the photos showing the Ger- effort by Osias Wurman, Israel’s honorary well-known military and arms col- mans relaxing, there are other pictures of consul in Rio and ex-president of the Rio lector from Salisbury, and it is now Nazi officials meeting and greeting one de Janeiro State Jewish Federation. being sold at auction by his family. another, a U-boat, and a water bomb. “Teaching the Holocaust in Brazilian Chris Albury, of Dominic Winter Some of the high-ranking Nazis include schools is key in a moment when revision- Auctioneers of Cirencester, Terboven, high-ranking German army ist waves grow, notably from the Iranian Gloucestershire, government, which try to wipe the memory Two German officers partake in a drunken drinking game said: “This is an im- in a bar in Norway in July 1942. for future generations,” Wurman told JTA. portant and virtu- meadow and sipping tea and eating bis- ally unique album. “We must shed light on the past in order to cuits at a tranquil garden party. “This album undermines clear the future.” Other black-and-white images depict the view that the Germans The Brazilian-Israeli agreement was four uniformed troops indulging in drinking were a nasty bunch of vio- signed initially in 2008, approved by the games in a bar, with one wielding a lent and murderous people Brazilian Congress in 2010, and recently wooden mallet as if to strike his comrade in the war. sanctioned by the presidency to aid in “de- with it as a joke. “There is little evidence of veloping and strengthening the friendship More pictures from the album, which has violence in this album, ties between both countries.” come to light from a British collector, show which deceptively depicts Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president, soldiers posing with bemused Laplanders them as a peaceful and be- attended a Holocaust Remembrance Day in northern Norway. nign occupying force. ceremony less than one month after she Reichskommissar While the pictures appear to depict the “Some of the pictures al- Terboven (far left) hosting a “tea party” with fel- started her term one year ago. low officers in Namsos, Norway. Germans as an agreeable occupying force most show them as a nice “The Holocaust is not and will never be and a “nice bunch of chaps,” they were bunch of chaps on their summer holidays. chief Alfred Jodl, and regional Nazi leader just a historic moment. The duty of the taken four months before the Holocaust in “But it is quite a chilling juxtaposition be- Karl Kaufmann. memory should not be mistaken for pas- Norway. cause lurking over the horizon is the Holo- Jodl was hanged following the Nurem- siveness of the ordinary remembrance,” From November 1942 the Nazis began caust in Norway. berg war trials for signing the orders to she said at the time. rounding up the Jewish population, who “There are some very nasty and influen- allow the summary execution of prison- “Memory is the human weapon to prevent were sent to death camps like Auschwitz tial people featured in this album who ers. the repetition of the barbarism. We must not where half of them were executed. played a major part in shaping Norway’s Kaufmann was the first Nazi leader to allow any kind of human rights violation in Nazi leader, Reichskommissar Josef Ter- history. deport German Jews after the Allied any country, and especially in Brazil. The boven, who ruled Norway during the occu- “A few months after these pictures were bombing of Hamburg in 1941 left many Jewish tradition and dignity integrate the pation, is pictured in many of the photos. taken, martial law was imposed in Trond- local Germans homeless. Brazilian nationality in a special way.” Page 14 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2012 - Shevat/Adar 5772 A QUIET DRAMA IS TAKING PLACE AMONG NEW LIFE FROM OLD ARCHIVES ULTRA-ORTHODOX HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS (Continued from page 9) been born in 1910 and as living at 132 (Continued from page 12) standing what really happened there,” she Two months later, on December 21, Marijas Street in Riga together with her know what their parents went through. It’s says. “Anyone asking about observance of 1941, Begun submitted his annual tax only daughter Austra, who was born in not necessarily Haredim. Not everyone the mitzvot is causing many of the sur- declaration. His address was different 1940. who has experienced terrible things has vivors to seclude themselves and to be on now: 73 Kostuszko Street. The re- A close study of later records also the emotional strength to tell, and they the defensive. There was an important reb- searchers learned from this change in ad- found in this archive showed that on Oc- don’t want the children to know what their betzin [a rabbi’s wife], a Holocaust sur- dress that Begun had been transferred to tober 22, 1941, Minka moved to 2 Katolu parents went through or even to hear vivor, who for a long time agreed to host the ghetto. “He works in a Jew-clinic in Street, which was inside the ghetto. How- about such weighty and difficult things. To students who asked her about the Holo- the ghetto and earns approximately 200 ever, by the end of that year, she had this day, if I dream about the Holocaust, I caust. In the end, she told me that she rubles a month,” wrote the income tax as- moved back to her original address, get up in the morning as though I haven’t couldn’t stand it any more. The girls asked sessor. which was outside. The researchers, who slept for a second. But I tell the grandchil- her questions like: ‘If there was no water, Eight months later, on August 31, 1942, knew very well why she had entered the dren very often, they always want to hear.” how did you do netilat yadayim [the ritual Begun filled out another tax declaration. ghetto, could not understand how she “For years, it looked as though the fam- handwashing before eating]?’” He was now earning only about 100 had emerged alive and how she had re- ily’s support was so strong that no frame- That stopped her from talking, and it’s ig- rubles monthly from his work in the Ju- turned to her home within only a few works were created to treat the survivors norance that creates that situation. denrat clinic. In contrast with the previous short months. apart from the family, with the exception of Leah Shahar, who coordinates the pro- form, it was now explicitly written that The answer was provided by three ad- serious problems,” explains Holocaust grams for Haredi Holocaust survivors in Mis- Begun was working “only inside the ditional documents. The first was an scholar Esther Farbstein, director of the gav Lakashish, tells about the initial ghetto.” This is apparently the last docu- order published by the Germans on Oc- Holocaust Education Center at the suspicions of the families: “When we send a ment signed by Begun before his death. tober 7, 1941; it declared that any Jewess Women’s College in Jerusalem. “But in volunteer to a woman at home, I call first in A month and a half later, in mid-October married to a Latvian could continue to live their twilight years, the Haredi survivors order to coordinate the visit. In many cases, 1942, all those remaining in the ghetto with him if he consented and on condition understand that they can’t rely on the fam- the family agrees to have a volunteer come were murdered. that she underwent sterilization. ily framework alone.” to the house, but warns me that the volun- nother archive, in , was The second document is a list of 47 Farbstein says that the Haredi element teer shouldn’t dare ask anything about the A found to hold a list of the names of Jewish and gypsy women who underwent that isolates the survivors from non-Haredi Holocaust and shouldn’t dare to bring Pages the murdered Jews of Brest-Litovsk. It sterilization surgery in 1942 and 1943. survivors is also important. “It’s hard for of Testimony from Yad Vashem. had been drawn up by one of the Soviet Minka’s name appears on that list. In the them to talk about their faith with others, “We had such a case about two years committees investigating Nazi crimes that hospital-discharge form that the physi- because they were supported by their ago, with a woman whose children hadn’t had been set up under Joseph Stalin’s or- cian filled out, he wrote down in Latin that faith,” she said. “Many Haredim are preoc- heard a word from her about the Holocaust. ders, which accompanied the Red Army Minka’s operation had taken place on cupied with their mission, which stems They knew that she had a number on her as it reentered regions that had been lib- April 28, 1942. The third document found from the very fact that they survived. arm, and that’s it. The female volunteer erated from the Nazis. According to this was a certificate indicating that she had Haredi survivors are always asking: Why came to her home, sat in the room with her, list, Arie Begun was 52 at the time of his converted to Christianity in 1941. It was did I survive. That’s not a question that all and the woman immediately opened up death. More important, the list revealed issued on October 24, 1941, two days the survivors ask.” about everything on her own initiative. She that he had a family, all of whose mem- after Minka’s internment in the ghetto. Farbstein claims that the clearest illustra- told the volunteer the story that she had con- bers were murdered with him. The Yad The testimony of a relative who was still tion of the need of the Haredi community cealed, from beginning to end. The children Vashem researchers thus discovered the living helped Yad Vashem’s researchers to discuss the reality of the Holocaust is stood outside the door in shock, at one point three other members of Begun’s family: complete the narrative of Minka’s story. the discourse surrounding the observance they brought the volunteer pen and paper so of mitzvot in the Holocaust, which, she she would write it down. his wife Sofia, aged 48, and his two According to it, Minka was a Latvian Jew- says, is tainted by ignorance. “It’s impossi- “When the woman died, a year ago, the daughters, Sisilia, 22, and Shulamit, 16. ish woman who had married a Christian ble to understand the subject of observing one who told them their mother’s life story The fact that one of his daughters was named Vilhelms Chakars. In order to the mitzvot in the Holocaust without under- was that volunteer.” named Shulamit (Sulamifia in Russian) save her life and that of her daughter, she and that he signed the above official pa- converted after the Nazis took over Riga. pers “Arie,” instead of using the accepted After she was evacuated to the ghetto, SEVENTY YEARS LATER, Russian alternative, “Lev,” demonstrated her husband asked his priest for an au- GHOSTS OF WORLD WAR II REMAIN INDELIBLE to the researchers that the Beguns had thorization that she had been baptized. been a Zionist family. The husband then bribed police officials (Continued from page 6) thought he did. One, with a young artist’s ini- “Thus,” summed up Yonin, “from bu- with gold jewelry and they agreed to re- shipped off for D-Day, he shoved three tial views of landing on the beach in Nor- reaucratic forms, we recreated an entire lease her from the ghetto; apparently, he sketch pads into his backpack and drew mandy, survived. He handed me the pad family. Had it not been for the archival promised them that she would undergo his way across Europe. His real job was to and I was overcome with emotion, over- documentation, we would have never sterilization, in accordance with the Nazi man a loudspeaker at the front and “soften whelmed by the significance of what I held known about the family’s existence.” directive. up” the German troops, telling them about — a piece of personal history, a piece of Yonin described it as “a very moving Minka and her daughter survived the the delicious American food and then urg- American history, an artist’s most intimate event.” war. Minka passed away on March 8, impressions at a most vulnerable time. Last summer, Yad Vashem completed 1992, and her daughter died 15 years Si may have burned physical reminders the mapping of yet another such “un- later. Minka’s granddaughter today lives of the war, but he could not erase it from known” family. In an archive in Riga, cap- in Riga. Thanks to the recently discov- his memory. Its horrors influenced much of ital of Latvia, Yad Vashem researchers ered documents, she now knows that her his art over the last 70 years — particularly located books containing the administra- grandmother was Jewish. The grand- entering Buchenwald, the Nazi concentra- tive records of the city’s tenants’ commit- daughter agreed to the publicizing of her tion camp, two days after liberation. tees. In one of those records, dating from family’s story here, for the sake of her To Si, a German Jew who escaped the 1941, the name of Minka Chakars née grandmother’s memory, but refused to fate of millions, the survivors did not seem Edelman appears; she is listed as having have her own identity disclosed. human. Their images in shades of black and white fill a museum. While our camera rolled, Si picked up a stick of charcoal and IN THE SHADOW OF THE SHOAH furiously attacked a blank canvas, creating (Continued from page 4) thoughtfully engages us in the trying is- a haunting “Ghost.” I Never Knew,” the poet ponders pointedly, sues that the Shoah and the uneven As we prepared to leave, Si asked if I painfully, and powerfully, “You who gave me human journey have provided her with. wanted the “Ghost.” I felt almost ashamed my face and my name/Did you know what “The past is always there, barely to say “Yes!” so loud and so fast. He pulled was coming/Did you know how soon/Did glimpsed/Through the corner of your eye, my Ghost from the canvas stretcher, you know how hard/the darkness would fall /A presence felt more than seen/Tugging signed it, rolled it up, and handed it me. on your world/Is that what clouds your at your mind,/Catching you unawares,/C It’s not uncommon for producers to walk face/Or are you only squinting into the sun” asting a long shadow/Subsuming the fu- away from a story with a parting gift. My of- Landau recalls being honored in New ture.” Recalling the horrors of Buchenwald, “Ritchie fice is filled with pens, mugs, hats, and T- York’s PS 139 to greet then-Vice-Presi- On the book’s back cover, in “Remem- Boy” Si Lewen produced the haunting artwork shirts. But never have I been given “Ghost.” dent Richard Nixon on Flag Day, but has ber,” Landau pleads with us, through her something so magnificent. also not forgotten her teacher’s bigoted losses and ours, to tightly hold onto the ing them to “Give up! You’re surrounded by Since I’m no collector of original art, I comment she managed to overhear, precious yet precarious link of memory, American soldiers!” And they’d reply, “No, asked how I should frame it. “Frame it?” Si “Lamenting the choice of a dirty/Refugee that we may preserve and save from obliv- YOU give up; you’re surrounded by Ger- asked with a little chuckle. “Ach, save your kid instead of a real American/On such a ion’s fate and Holocaust deniers those who man soldiers!” Which was often closer to money! Just a few thumbtacks on your wall momentous occasion.” In the book’s In- should never be forgotten.”Gone, all gone, the truth. will do the trick.” troduction, the poet wisely highlights the names, faces, lives/Last year’s leaves But when Si came home, he destroyed For what it is worth to me, it should be ongoing role of the past, in spite of being raked, bagged and tossed/Trees falling in everything: clothing, books, boots, and framed in diamonds and gold. Thank you the past, in shaping both present and fu- the forest of the deaf/When there is no one those extraordinary sketch pads. At least he Si... for everything. ture, individually and collectively, as she left to remember/Did they ever exist?” January/February 2012 - Shevat/Adar 5772 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 15 THE EXODUS FROM JAMAICA PRESERVATIONISTS WORRY ABOUT (Continued from page 6) and depression. People cried. There “FORGOTTEN” NAZI CAMPS dresses playing ball; a synagogue with were some who said we should have the Holy Ark; refugees around the long stayed in Europe. The fear was of typhus uschwitz, the most notorious camp country, and most are in serious need of dining room tables. and we were quarantined for six weeks. Ain the Nazi killing machine, might upkeep and preservation. A stranger looking at the smiles in the It was very boring.” soon claim success in its campaign to pre- For example, the museum at Sobibor, pictures would think that these were va- Blood tests conducted on the refugees serve the legacy of the Holocaust. the site of John Demjanjuk’s crimes, was revealed that it was The foundation supporting the site in forced to close in June when funding from Dengue fever. “The southern Poland has attracted tens of mil- local authorities ran out. An estimated small stream at the lions of dollars from donor countries, and 167,000 to 250,000 people, mostly Jews, margins of the camp the camp’s barracks and other buildings were murdered at Sobibor, in eastern was filled with mos- seem set to be preserved for decades to Poland. In May, a German court convicted quito, and these thou- come. The museum memorial at the for- Demjanjuk, now 91, of complicity in the sands of small and mer Nazi death camp attracts more than 1 murder of 28,000 Jews there. clever creatures were million visitors per year. The museum reopened July 1 after the very fond of our Euro- Some fear, however, that the concentra- Polish Culture Ministry announced that it would be reorganized as a state-run insti- pean blood and passed tion of resources and attention on tution funded by the ministry. the disease on to us.” Auschwitz could overshadow other preser- uschwitz is the great exception to he camp was dis- vation efforts and threaten the integrity or the rule,” said Rabbi Andrew Baker, mantled at the even the existence of the memorials and “A T the director of international Jewish affairs for end of World War II, museums at lesser-known camps and the American Jewish Committee. Baker and the few Jews re- Holocaust sites in Poland. Girls playing ball in the Jewish refugee camp in Jamaica. “Because Auschwitz is treated as the was the point man for the AJC in its coop- maining there scattered eration with the Polish government to build cationers at a village hotel rather than symbol of the Holocaust and the whole all over. Testimonies and documents a large and impressive monument and mu- war refugees. found later on reveal that most of them world is supporting only this museum, everybody in Poland, including the govern- seum at Belzec, where 500,000 Jews were But the pastoral landscape and the emigrated to South America and to the ment, seems to think that this is enough,” killed. The center opened in 2004. smiles hid quite a few tensions. In order United States and a small number of The Auschwitz Foundation was set up in said historian Robert Kuwalek, a curator at to prevent friction with the local popula- them reached Europe. It’s unclear if any 2009 with the goal of raising $163 million the state-run museum at Majdanek, the tion, the Jewish refugees were forbidden of them emigrated to Israel. and thus guaranteeing an annual interest Nazi concentration camp and killing center to work or live outside the boundaries of Ever since discovering the box, Bar is income of about $6 million for the conser- near Lublin in eastern Poland. the camp. restless and continues to search for ad- vation of barracks, gas chambers, and “The problem is deeper because it is the representative of the exiled Polish ditional testimonies, and mainly for other artifacts and material. lack of basic knowledge that the Holocaust A government in Cuba, who visited someone who stayed alive. Stanton died To date, nearly 20 countries have an- the camp in December 1943, was under happened in forgotten sites like Belzec, six years ago at the age of 91, but the nounced support for the effort, bringing the the impression that the refugees were in Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek, and Joint has not despaired and is trying to total pledges to more than $122 million. good condition but that “the work prohi- Chelmno.” locate the last residents of the camp or Germany alone pledged about $82 million. bition sends many of them into a life of Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka were the their offspring. “We want to tell them Israel was the latest country to pledge boredom and depression, and therefore three killing centers of the so-called Oper- about the lives of the parents in Jamaica funds, with a $1 million contribution. they seek to immigrate as soon as pos- ation Reinhard plan to murder 2 million and what they did for them,” says the or- “It seems that the future of Auschwitz sible.” Polish Jews in 1942 and 1943. During that with regard to preservation is mostly se- ganization’s CEO Amnon Mantver. It was also reported that 20 religious operation, Kuwalek said, “more people cured,” said Tomasz Kunciewicz, director One of the only means left to do so is refugees refused to eat meat due to the were killed in a shorter time than in of the Auschwitz Jewish Center, an educa- one document, simple but moving: A list shortage of kosher meat. Auschwitz-Birkenau during the whole pe- tional institution in the town of Oswiecim, of 137 families which stayed in the camp. In April 1944, some 55 of the camp’s riod that that camp functioned.” where Auschwitz is located. Jewish refugees had yet to receive an These are the names of the people look- Despite their importance in the history of “However, regarding the more ‘forgotten’ immigration visa. Two months later, a ing out from the photos, only there’s no the Holocaust, these and other sites — death camps, such as Sobibor, the situa- harsh epidemic erupted. one to say who is who. Are any of them such as forced labor camps — are over- tion seems to be acute and there should “On the day before the invasion to Nor- still alive? Do their grandchildren know looked by the vast majority of visitors. All be similar international efforts made re- mandy we woke up sick,” said Stanton. that they spent the war years in a sunny are marked by memorials or museums, but garding fundraising as in the case of “We woke up with a fever and a red rash Caribbean country which gave them life? some are located in remote parts of the Auschwitz.”

HOLOCAUST-ERA PROPERTY DATABASE SETS MARK database of Holocaust-era property Arecords has become the largest pub- licly available, single-source database of lost Jewish property assets from that era. Project HEART – Holocaust Era Asset Restitution Taskforce, an initiative of the Jewish Agency for Israel in cooperation with the government of Israel, announced that the database hit the 1.5 million mark in the number of available records. The online database was unveiled May 1 with 500,000 records. The records have been made available to help Jewish fami- lies identify personal property confiscated by the Nazis and to help victims seek resti- tution, according to the project. The records include property addresses, lists of homeowners, professions, lists of known confiscated properties, business di- rectories, insurance policies, and other archival information. “This is the first worldwide list of prop- erty confiscated, looted, or forcibly sold during the Holocaust era to be made available to survivors and their heirs,” Anya Verkhovskaya, HEART project di- rector, said, adding that “the response to the database has been overwhelming, with approximately 100,000 hits happen- ing each week.” International Society for Yad Vashem NON-PROFIT ORG. MARTYRDOM AND RESISTANCE U.S. POST 500 FIFTH AVENUE, 42nd FLOOR PAID NEW YORK, N.Y. 10110-4299 NEW YORK, N.Y. Web site: www.yadvashemusa.org PERMIT NO. 9313 ** ** Editor International Society Eli Zborowski, (212) 220-4304 Editor-in-Chief for Yad Vashem, Inc. Vashem, Yad for EDITORIAL BOARD EDITORIAL New York, NY 10110 NY York, New *Published Bimonthly by the Yefim Krasnyanskiy, M.A., Krasnyanskiy, Yefim 500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor Avenue, 500 Fifth Martyrdom & Resistance *1974-85, as Newsletter for the American *1974-85, as Newsletter for the Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp In- mates, and Nazi Victims **deceased Eli Zborowski Marvin Zborowski Mark Palmer Sam Skura** Israel Krakowski Mandell William Sam Halpern Isidore Karten Norman Belfer Joseph Bukiet January/February 2012 - Shevat/Adar 5772 - Shevat/Adar 2012 January/February 8:30 AM –8:30 3:15 PM Free of charge, registration required* Sunday, March 4th, 2012 Sunday, 8:30 AM Breakfast 9:00 AM Program Commences 9:00 Manhattan Day School 310 West 75th Street (btw West End Avenue Avenue End 75th Street (btw West 310 West and Riverside Drive) New York, New York 10023 York New York, and Riverside Drive) New MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE & RESISTANCE MARTYRDOM The Holocaust, 9/11, and More The Holocaust, 9/11, Kosher Breakfast and Lunch will be served *To register for this conference, please contact: *To Humanities, and Global Studies to this program 500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor, New York, NY 10110-4299 NY York, New 42nd Floor, Avenue, 500 Fifth RSVP Tel: 212.220.4304 / Fax: 212.220.4308 / [email protected] Tel: RSVP DATE: DATE: REGISTRATION PLACE: new location TIME: Invite all Superintendents, Principals, and Educators of History, Judaic Studies, Invite all Superintendents, Principals, and Educators of History, All registered participants will receive COMPLIMENTARY educational resources All registered participants will receive COMPLIMENTARY Marlene W. Yahalom, PhD, Director of Education, American Society for Yad Vashem Yad American Society for PhD, Director of Education, Yahalom, Marlene W. Educators who attend and complete the program will receive a certificate for In-Service credit Educators who attend and complete the program will receive a certificate 14th Annual Professional Development Conference on Holocaust Education Annual Professional Development Conference on 14th Workshop topics include ~ Writings and documents from the Holocaust and how to incorporate these resources into les- topics include ~ Writings Workshop son plans ~ Strategies to teach about 9/11 ~ Using Survivor testimonies in the classroom ~ Sensitivity to children and trauma ~ Using Survivor testimonies in the classroom son plans ~ Strategies to teach about 9/11 The Education Department & Young Leadership Associates of The American Society for Yad Vashem & The Association of & The Vashem Yad American Society for Associates of The Leadership Young The Education Department & Teachers of Social Studies of the United Federation of Teachers (ATSS/UFT) & The Manhattanville College School of Education (ATSS/UFT) of Social Studies of the United Federation of Teachers Teachers MAKING SENSE OF TROUBLESOME TIMES: CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS — A RETROSPECTIVE A AND SOLUTIONS — MAKING SENSE OF TROUBLESOME TIMES: CHALLENGES Page 16 Page