AJ R Info r mation Volume LV No.11 November 2000 £3 (to non-members)

Don't miss...

Israel's stymied hopes p9 Science Season of mists and anniversaries Notebook pl2 Mixed marriages pl3 Reflections on 'inevitable'wars fromTroy to the present

Leadership ovember is a mist-shrouded month replete Many a conflict since the siege of Troy has been with anniversaries: the Seventh, the Ninth, exacerbated by a Thersites figure. Kaiser Wilhelm vacuum N the Tenth and the Eleventh. Some of these played that role on the world stage in the run-up to f the intemperate historic red-letter days marked a beginning, and the Great War His successor was Goebbels, most and ill-timed visit others an end - and .some signified both. Thus 7 vociferous advocate of the Final Solution in wartime Ito the Temple November 1917 simultaneously spelt the demise of Germany. If Goebbels acted Thersites at Hitler's Mount in Jerusalem Tsar Nicholas and the inauguration of Tsar Lenin. court, Zhdanov did so at Stalin's, and Jiang Qing at by Ariel Sharon On 9 November 1923 the beerhall Putsch Mao's. Though those ogres have long departed the was c-alculated to transformed Hitler from a Bavarian tub-thumper into scene, the passage of time has brought no shortage boost his popularity a force in national politics. 10 November 1938 tore of Thersites look-alikes. Lord Tebbitt plays the part among Israels the veil from the barbarous face of Germany and in the immigration debate, Ian Paisley in Ulster and rejectionist right, precipitated the country's slide into the abyss. 11 AyatoUah Khameini in Iran. Israel, for its part has the he totally November 1918 concluded four and a half years of thersites twins Ovadiah Josef and Ariel Sharon. niiscalculated mass slaughter and launched a twenty-year interval But the absolute Thersites clone of our time is the degree of between two global wars. Finally, on 10 November Yassir Arafat. Giraudoux's Thersites dies gloating violence with 1989 the Fall of the Berlin wall symbolised the wider because thousands will soon share his fate; the which Palestinian Soviet collapse and lifted the threat of global war terminally ill Arafat provoked the current conflict out opponents of any from mankind, probably forever of a craving for posthumous glory as saviour of Arab peaceful settlement However, at the non-global level conflict has Jerusalem D ^ould grasp this remained a running sore disfiguring Southeast Asia, pretext. Africa and the Middle East. Cynics - and not only Faced with large they - would say it was ever thus since the dawn of scale civil disorder, civilisation. Consigning the prophet Isaiah's vision fomented by Arab of swords beaten into ploughshares to the realm of television and radio fantasy, they invoke Heraclitus' dictum about war stations and clerics, being the father of all things. Without the Trojan 3 civilised society War, they argue. Homer could not have laid the ^^^nnot lower its foundations of worid literature in the Iliad and the ^fences. Chairman Odyssey. The protagonists of these epics appear Arafat failed to over and over again in the works of Chaucer, ^•oy his police Shakesf>eare, Racine, Goethe and Jean Giraudoux. force- of 30,000 As most schoolchildren know Achilles, the Greek to dampen the hero of the Trojan War, could kill a man with one conflagraUon; blow. This is what he did to another Greek, father ihe>' used Thersites, who had mocked him. Giraudoux's La lU' ^ir weapons to guerre de Troie n aura pas lieu (Tiger at the Gate) •"•n the attackers. posits a situation where the Greeks and Trojans are If the prospect of on the verge of reaching an accommodation when * mst setUement is Thersites, whom Achilles had left to expire Datiish Prime Minister Mr Poul Rasmussen, right, unacceptable to miserably, is discovered by some Greeks and with conferring with ProfDr Uffe Oestergaard, left at the ^^at, who wUl his dying breath denounces his Trojan assailant; this opening of the Danish Centre for Holocaust & Genocide Studies (see page 15) ^«^eedhim?D makes war inevitable. AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 2000

The Jews' muse Profile nder the impact of the Harry Potter phenomenon some JC readers Gerald Granston four European countries. Gerald and his U have hazarded the guess that the father were among those lucky enough to barmitzvah-aged wizard might be 'one of lthough born in Chemnitz, Gerald be able to land at Southampton in June us'. To me that was obvious from the Granston - then Gerd Griinstein - 1939 when a cousin agreed to act as start, since the whole of English literature A spent most of the first six years of guarantor and put them up on arrival. is a Jewish creation. The identity of the his life in the Baden Wiirttemberg village For three years from 1940, Gerald author of the first epic in Old English is of Hechingen where he was brought up attended boarding school when his lost in the mists of time, but its very title - by his maternal grandparents whose Crystal Palace school was evacuated to Beowulf - points (pace Leonard and family had lived in the village since the Broxbourne in Hertfordshire where he 'Virginia Woolf IFo//" Mankowitz et at) to eighteenth century. His father remained remained until 1943- By this time, his Jewish provenance. with his family textile business in Chem­ father had been released from internment The next major writer, Geoffrey Chaucer, nitz until it was aryanised in 1938. In the and had a new partner and a second made a mikve attendant the protagonist same year, Gerald's mother, who had been child. Gerald returned to live at home of The Wife of the Ritual Bath's Tale". ill for many years, died. Her illness had with his new family in West Hampstead. William Shakespeare composed the trans­ meant that the family did Leaving school at l6, he vestite drama King Leah, and in his not take up the visas for spent two years as an ap' comedy Voll Ponem, Ben Jonson created emigration to Palestine. prentice in the tailoring the original 'cheeky chappie'. John The family business in trade, followed by two Milton's preoccupation with the issue of Hechingen was also happy years of nationa' divorce caused him to write Samson's aryanised although the service in the RAF. For a Agunot; in a lighter vein Milton's friend buyer subsequently paid couple of years he Andrew Marvell addressed a poem to His the balance of the true worked in the theatre, Goy Mistress. market value into a Swiss mainly in stage manage­ The 18"' century was the period of account which assisted ment but "with the odd Sheridan's Shul for Skandal and of the Gerald's maternal grand­ cameo Jewish part." A trip Scots poet Rabbi Burns; its most parents when they left to New York in 1956. quintessentially Jewish creation, Gray's Germany for Switzerland initially to visit his grand­ Allergy to Country Churchyards, can be and then the USA. mother, turned into 3 attributed to the fact that Thomas Gray In May 1939, six-year year in which Gerald dis­ was a cohen. old Gerald and his father Gerald Granston covered the excitemeO^ The high tide of Romanticism brought travelled to Hamburg of how the Americans do us Byron's Hebrew Melodies, the geron- where, with 938 other German Jewish business. He returned to London and, o(^ tophile John Keats' Ode to Nightingale passengers, many released from concen­ the basis of his American experiences, House, and Coleridge's Rhyme of the tration camps on condition that they left revolutionised the family belt-making Modern Mariner (a poem in the Belsize the country, they boarded the luxury liner business, entering into an exclusive con­ Square Ballads sequence). St Louis with visas for Cuba. He recalls tract with Marks & Spencer and moving Under Queen Victoria, the Jews' muse the sheer excitement and sense of adven­ the manufacturing side of the business to continued to flourish. The period saw the ture on the outward voyage, emotions the north-east of England. Thanks to the gestation of Browning's Pipik Passes, of which turned to panic and fear with the advice of a director of M&S, the business Tennyson's In Menorah and Macaulay's implications of the Cuban authorities' re­ diversified into clothing in the early 1970* Lays of Ancient Rome - particularly the fusal to allow the ship to dock and its and went from strength to strength. ^^ dental epic Horatio's Bridgework. passengers to disembark. "It was like be­ 1987, both Gerald and his half-brother Gradually, though, the literati switched ing in a prison." After six days, the were able to retire when the business ^^ from articulating Jewishness through their captain was ordered to sail the ship and bought out by one of M&S' suppliers. tides to expressing it via their names. This its passengers back to Germany. He re­ Since the sale of the business, anO trend started with Samuel Schneider fused and made for Florida where US regarding himself too young to retire- Coleridge, continued with Jerome Klapka coastguards were sent to escort the refu­ Gerald has worked part-time headhunting Jerome and found its apogee in Mohel gee vessel away from the coast. After for the industry he knows so well- H^ Coward. Nomen est omen! negotiations on behalf of the passengers, takes none of the income which, instead, U Richard Grunberger the St. ZoM IS deposited its human cargo in goes to supporting 35 charities. He is regular visitor to the USA where he stu AJR Information Personnel has family. A sought-after speaker on hi Richard Grunberger - Editor-in-Chief Ronald Channing - Executive Editor St. Louis experiences, he lectures at tn Marion Koebner - Stoff Reporter Gloria Tessler - Arts Correspondent New York Museum of Jewish Heritag Dr Anthony Grenville - Historical Researcher Andrea Goodmaker where his artefacts and photographs o Katia Gould - Editorial Adviser Departmental Secretary & Advertising the time are on display. He also accept Gerta Regensburger & Lionel Simmonds - Proof Readers invitations at home and abroad to spea'' AJR Information, 1 Hampstead Gate, 1 aFrognal , London NW3 6AL about his early experiences. Tel: 020 7431 6161 • Fax: 020 7431 8454 • e-mail: [email protected] D Marion Koebne' AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 2000

What's the Difference...? (continuation) NEWTONS ••' between Communists and South Africa was Lord Milner. He sur­ Leading Hampstead Solicitors Nazis rounded himself with younger colonial lthough both perpetrated previous­ administrators nicknamed 'Milner's Kin­ 22 Fitzjohn's Avenue, ly unimaginable atrocities, they dergarten'. By the late 1930s some of London NW3 SNB differed in one essential respect: Milner's Kinder had advanced to key po­ A ^ All English legal worIc while the Nazis murdered strangers - or sitions in the Establishment (Geoffrey people they branded as such (i.e. German Dawson was Editor of The Times, Lord undertaken and German, Jews) - the Communists, in the main, Lothian Ambassador to Washington etc.). Swiss & Austrian claims killed their own nationals. What makes They had also mutated from self-confi­ ^ German spoken the Communists marginally less repellent dent Empire builders into arch-appeasers is the fact that their subsequent victims and formed an influential lobby nick­ ^ Home visits arranged had actually had a share, however named the Cliveden Set (after Lady Tel: 020 7435 5351 •marginal, in elevating their scourges to Astor's country house). Fax: 020 7435 8881 supreme power. Tens of thousands of The late 1930s produced a totally differ­ Russians fought in the Civil War from ent batch of Kinder. These eventually which Stalin eventually emerged as a Red formed a lobby called RoK whose influ­ Czar more absolute than his Romanov ence can't be compared to that of the predecessors - and many more battled in Cliveden Set. China to bestow omnipotence on Mao. In PARTNER in long established English Solicitors contrast, not a single one of the millions ...Germany and Austria (bi-lingual German) would be happy of Nazi victims in Eastern Europe had had The German symbol is the eagle, sover­ to assist clients with English, German 2ny share whatever in bringing Hitler to eign of the avian Kingdom under whose and Austrian problems. Contact power in Germany. To put it in a mighty wingspan eaglets like Prussia, nutshell: the Communists butchered 'their Saxony and Bavaria all nestle. In law Henry Ebner own' and the Nazis 'others'. German identity is biologically and not culturally transmitted. Descendants of Myers Ebner & Deaner ••• between Stanley Baldwin settlers whom Catherine the Great had 103 Shepherds Bush Road andTS Eliot 'planted' in the Volga Region automati­ London W6 7LP In March 1936 when Hitler ordered the cally receive German citizenship on their Telephone 020 7602 4631 ^ehrmacht into the demilitarised Rhine- return - a privilege denied to German- ALL LEGAL WORK 'and, Britain and France could have born second generation immigrants from UNDERTAKEN stopped him in his tracks. Instead Prime Turkey or Yugoslavia. But the 'biological' Minister Baldwin stood supinely by and definition does not operate in reverse. A the French followed suit. Thirty-two whole phalanx of foreign-descended months later, on the Sunday evening after luminaries - Beethoven (Dutch), Fontane ^ristallnacht, ex-PM Baldwin made a (French), Busoni, Brentano, Chamisso radio appeal for funds for the Kinder- (Italian) - are defined as German. As to AUSTRIAN and GERMAN transports. In other words, the man Hitler, the Germans classify him as PENSIONS 'auded for 'saving the nation' during the Austrian and the Austrians return the General Strike was salving his conscience compliment. ^s the results of appeasement became The Austrian emblem is the double PROPERTY RESTITUTION clear. eagle symbolising the German-speaking CLAIMS In so doing, he differed markedly from and non-German speaking haloes of the EAST GERMANY- BERLIN T S Eliot whose interwar poetry had bris­ Habsburg state. Since its demise the tled with Stiirmer imagery - from "the country has been schizoid about national On instructions our office will Jew squats on the windowsill" via "Rachel identity. It felt ultra-German in 1938, and assist to deal with your nee Rabinowitz, tears at grapes with deeply Austrian in 1945. No less schizo­ applications and pursue the rnurderous claws" to "the rats are under­ phrenic is the partly Slav-descended matter with the authorities. neath the pile, the Jew is underneath the population's Slavophobia. For further information and lot". For a postwar (and post-Holocaust) This flies in the face of the heavy Slav reprint of his poems Eliot made one input into Austrian culture - with Wessely appointment please significant alteration: 'the Jew' (who and Horvath prominent in theatre, and contact: Squats, etc) became 'the Jew'. Kokoshka and Wotruba in art. Actually it ICS CLAIMS is in light music, the quintessential 146-154 Kilburn High Road ••• between Milner's Kinder and Austrian art form, that 'foreigners' like London NW6 4JD others of that ilk Suppe (French) Johann Strauss Qewish) In 1902 Britain won the Boer War The Lehar (Hungarian) and Benatzky Qewish), Tel: 020 7328 7251 (Ext. 107) 'Op official who oversaw the subsequent made the greatest contribution. Fax: 020 7624 5002 incorporation of the Boers into British D Richard Grunberger AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 2000

Reviews

and in 1991 Chancellor Vranitsky publicly On the other hand is a pervading, almost The country that admitted Austrian involvement with Nazi cumulative sense of Weltschmerz un­ jumped over its own crimes. Since then there have been many, relieved by the sudden bursts of creative if belated, steps forward. Despite the energy that inspire the Nobel Laureate shadow notorious phrase attributed to Helmer, the with projects he hopes will alleviate Minister of the Interior, "I believe in human misery but which, all too often, Hella Pick, GUILTY VICTIM. IBTauris, 2000, stretching things out", there have been turn out to be fruidess. £24.50 the offer of pensions to emigres, the Inevitably, then, the memoir's title ella Pick came to England on the $6,000 one-off payment, the return of the assumes a poignant significance. The sea Kindertransport as a refugee from Mauerbach collection and the visits to is never full for this sometimes naive H Austria. Unlike many of us who Mauthausen by schoolchildren. Whether optimist, disappointed all too often by severed our connection with the country Haider represents a step back to anti­ the vagaries of human nature, the dictates of our birth that rejected us, she has kept semitism and xenophobia, time will tell. of realpolitik and the seeming inability in touch with Austria through her work as Hella Pick's account is clear and of mankind to learn from the searing a journalist and diplomatic editor of The curiously unemotional. She lets the veil of disaster which has marked his life and Guardian and on private visits. Her time objectivity slip only once in telling of her which no one wxard suffices to as a journalist has spanned important feeling of being reconnected to the land encapsulate. events in postwar Austrian history and of her birth. As a factual account of an Wiesel's friendship with Cardinal she is therefore well placed to relate and important period of history it is well- Lustiger, Archbishop of Paris, stands out comment on them. researched and informative. like a light in the darkness amid 3 The central point of her book is 'The n Martha Blend catalogue of disillusionment, rivalrous Big Lie' - that Austria was the Nazis' first antipathy and petty irritations. President victim instead of their enthusiastic Reagan's visit to the Bitburg cemetery ano collaborator. The Allies provided Austria Naive polemicist President Mitterand's long-concealed with this alibi during their 10-year Vichy past distress Wiesel for whom occupation and the country readily E]ieWiesel,ANDTHE SEA IS NEVER FULL, memory of the Holocaust and reaction to accepted it. At first, there were some Harper Collins. 2000, £19.99. this memory remain the bottom line. The attempts at denazification, but they were lie Wiesel, perhaps the most well-documented hostility between soon superseded by attention to the next prominent survivor of the Holocaust, Wiesel and Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesentha' threat - Soviet Russia - and so well- Ehas become today the bete noir of gets yet another screening. Numerous known Nazis were restored to prominent Holocaust deniers and those who run-ins with Israeli politicians and positions in many walks of life, including castigate 'the Holocaust industry'. On dignitaries and fellow Jews involved H^ the government. another level, he has enjoyed con­ commemorating the Holocaust feature After Austria regained its independence, siderable acclaim as an author and throughout the book. In contrast, the lie was maintained and this policy Nobel-laureate and has rubbed shoulders Lustiger's warmth and sincerity overcome continued under its long-serving Jewish in a more or less intimate capacity with a the author's initial reservations ^t Chancellor, Bruno Kreisky, a charismatic number of the movers and shakers of encountering a converted Jew. but flawed personality. (His character the last three decades of the twentieth While this book is interspersed witn assassination of Wiesenthal is well- century. It is not surprising, then, that this often striking insights into a number O' documented.) second volume of his memoirs, which contemporary philosophical issues and His recipe for postwar recovery was to contains elements of a polemic, differs reads overall as compellingly as one build up the economy and forget the greatly from the first. All Rivers Run to the would expect from a master storytelled' past. In both these he succeeded. In 1980 Sea, which was written from a more the author's thought-processes, on he invited back distinguished emigres introverted perspective. occasion, might benefit from som^ who colluded with him by glossing over On one level, nevertheless, Wiesel pruning and editing. their losses of family and possessions, remains the young boy from Sighet, whose D Emma K/e'" thus feeding the hand that bit them, to world has been shattered by the Holo­ reverse a popular saying. Kreisky's caust and whose nights are often haunted ambitions for Austria made him a player by the father whose last moments he was Night of broken glass on the world stage. He was one of the unable to witness or comfort. As a result, first to realise that a Middle East the text is punctuated by a seemingly Joshua Goldstein. MARTIN NIGHT Kings Head. settlement had to involve talking to the inexhaustible store of dream sequences. Islington. PLO. However, his ambivalent attitude to More mundane, perhaps, is the funda­ hat is best for a traumatised fellow-Jews (he called them 'an ugly mental tension in Wiesel that is echoed in man? A stiff upper-lip 'get on race') made him a hate figure in Israel. this memoir. On the one hand is the Wwith life' attitude or consulting His 'anmesia' enabled Austria to evade its wonderment experienced by the boy the psychiatrist? This is the dilemma th^ responsibilities to its victims. survivor at the honours and distinctions 'perfect' Grove family has to fac^ Cracks appeared in this policy with the heaped on him by a world held in awe unconsciously. discovery of the guilty past of Waldheim, of his achievements and his tragic past. Rich American girl Billy Huntingdon' AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 2000

Cont. Saying the unsayable Pip Simmons.AN DIE MUSIK.TricycleTheatre. GERMAN and falls in love with the sad brown eyes of a Kitburn. ENGLISH BOOKS German-Jewish Kindertransportee. They oming out of the theatre I asked BOUGHT marry and Benjamin Lipsky transforms myself: was what I had just seen himself into Bennet Grove, successful ail- Cdrama? It lacked the two essentials Antiquarian, secondhand and American insurance broker, who has his of Aristotle's definition of tragedy: plot modern books of quality children baptised to save them from the and characterisation. Instead, the cast always wanted. misery to which being Jewish would, he declaimed bits from Anne Frank's Diary, We're long-standing advertisers is convinced, inevitably condemn them. Bruno Bettelheim and Shakespeare. At here and leading buyers of books times this technique is realistic, for Ben has adopted the stiff upper lip from A)R members. attitude to his past, while his wife thinks example when an SS guard makes pris­ that he should not deny his origins or his oners leapfrog and do push-ups for an We pay good prices and problems. Olympic 15 minutes. At other times it come to collect. appears to be surreal; in one sequence an However, what Lipsky has learnt from For immediate response SS man suddenly switches from feeding Kristallnacht cannot be unlearnt. It is that please contact: the world is divided into window- the Franks bread and human bones to shooting the father dead. A programme Robert Hornung MA(Oxon) smashers and those whose windows are 2 Mount View, Ealing, smashed - and he is determined that his note may explain these conundrums: "An die Musik was not a scripted play but London W5 IPR Sensitive overweight son, mockingly Email: [email protected] tiubbed Roundman at school, should not devised as physical theatre in an attempt to convey a response to the hell that was Telephone 020 8998 0546 belong to the latter. In fact, this very night (5pm to 9pm is best) is the College's traditional "Martin Night" the reality". As a "response" designed to when the tough boys are coming to beat arouse emotion, the piece is effective. up the weakling Roundman. A scene where a cane-wielding guard Ben is determined to send his son to turns prisoners into trained animals, alter­ Military Academy to toughen him up; natively grovelling in self-abasement and mother and son decide to leave him. In performing classical music, not for the Ben's mind the parting stirs memories of guard but for us, the audience, is brilliant Kristallnacht and the murder of his and unsettiing. It is also useful as informa­ parents in Treblinka, while the sight of tion: two Romanian student-actresses told his father's tears makes the Roundman me they had known nothing of the Holo­ BELSIZE Want to avenge the wrongs done to his caust until they joined this production. family, and he decides to go to the However, what is missing in Simmons' SQUARE Military Academy. The irony of the "response" is the personal element. Apart SYNAGOGUE situation escapes Ben; he has turned his from the display of Nazi cruelty and Jew­ 51 Belsize Square, NW3 4HX gentle son into one of the window- ish submissiveness, we learn little about breakers and, as if to emphasise the how the victims felt as individuals. For We offer a traditional style irony, as the tough boys arrive and begin example, when the Hdftling musicians of religious service with Cantor, Choir and organ to break the windows in their house, are made to strip on stage, the painful "Martin Night" turns into Kristallnacht, dramatic irony - that they feel shame at Further details can be obtained revealing the terrified little Jewish boy their nakedness when going into the gas from the synagogue secretary Telephone 020 7794 3949 cowering behind Ben's tough-guy fagade. chamber - is overlooked. The dehumani­ We may think that Ben was wrong to sation of the prisoners is portrayed with Minister: Rabbi Rodney J Mariner Cantor: Rev Lawrence H Fine try to toughen up his son into a window- physical precision, but the failure of the breaker, but are we sure that he would Nazi machine to crush the kindness, cour­ Regular Services: have been right to let his wife turn the age and spirit of resistance of many Friday evenings at 6.45pm Saturday momings at 10am boy into one of those whose windows prisoners is left unexplored. I also wish Pip Simmons had done his homework Religion School: Sundays at 10am to 1pm are broken? Is the Holocaust survivor so Nursery School: 9.15am to 12.15pm better. For example he gives the impres­ damaged that he cannot do the right Belsize Under 3's: 9.30am to 11.30am thing because for him there are only sion that life in the camps was non-stop Perpetrators and victims? torture by sadistic guards. I was in four Space donated by Pafra Limited camps between Auschwitz and Belsen However, the play is not gloomy or from April 1944 to April 1945, hungry, didactic; it is full of wit and amusing sleepy and eaten alive by skin lice all the family situations. Altogether this is a time. But I was beaten only once, and drama that every refugee should see. I BELSIZE SQUARE SYNAGOGUE then by a Jewish Kapo, because I had took my wife who said to me after the 51 Belsize Square, London N.W.3 fallen asleep during work. I still remem­ Performance: "You see, I'm not the only Our communal hall is available for ber Herr Gross with gratitude: his beating one to think that you survivors are cultural and social functions. saved me from a worse one by the guard. difficult to live with!" Tel: 020 7794 3949 n Andrew Herskovits UAH AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 2000

conceivable that some black citizens felt offended by those golliwogs but Mr Bright is not the kind of person to be influenced by such a possibility. In fact he has come Tj^^^io^SJd^^ out with a wonderful idea: 'If German and Austrian children had played with golliwogs they would never have become AUSTRIAN APOLOGIST? Social Democratic Party, whose chairman Nazis when growing up.' And if they had Sir - I refer to the review of Hella Pick's he was from 1966 to 1983. played with dolls looking Jewish - huge book Und welche Rolle spielt Osterreich Vienna. Austria Heinrich Rosenkranz nose and sidelocks (as portrayed in Der (November 1999) and wish to express my Stiirmer) there would have been no anti­ disagreement with the inaccurate content semitism. Let Israeli children (too late for of Chapter 13 concerning restitution etc. WORN OUT CASE? Mr Sharon) play with dolls looking like Opinion is one thing, fact quite another Sir - Am I the only one who came to this Arabs, and Arab children with Israeli-like and there are so many errors that it country by Kindertransport who is dolls and we have peace in Israel. becoming increasingly irritated by the difficult to know where to begin. Like So there you are, Mr Livingstone. You actions of a few enthusiastic, although I Hella Pick, I came to England from may attempt to remove thousands of cars feel misguided, people? They are, Vienna on a Kindertransport. Unlike her, I polluting the London air (also causing loss deliberately or otherwise, trying to have an additional 'qualification' namely of employment), you may attempt to re­ perpetuate the 'Oh how I have suffered' that I returned to Vienna where I have move unlicensed, overcharging ice cream syndrome. Those of us who were lucky lived for the last 34 years. It then took me sellers from St James' Park (more un­ enough to get here suffered, on the ten years to work out Vienna's main employment), or get rid of those beloved whole, neither physical nor mental abuse. problem: that nothing is as it seems. pigeons from Trafalgar Square (two more And although I am only too well aware Her position at the Guardian gave job losses) but banning the golliwogs, a that each of us lost close relatives in Hella Pick access to all those in the top reminder of Britain's splendid benevolent unspeakable circumstances, we were by tier starting with Kreisky; naturally, she colonialism, is indisputable evidence that no means unique. was also welcomed in Vienna in her you are a racist. At least as far as Mr Frank private capacity and would have been The plaque in the House of Commons Bright is concerned. told what it was intended she should to thank the British for letting us in is one London WI2 Eric Sanders disseminate abroad about Austria. I thing, but the erection of a statue of a would like to issue a warning about the Kind complete with transparent suitcase recently published English translation of at Liverpool Street station is completely A GLARING OMISSION her book which is likely to transmit to inappropriate. The latest fad is that some Sir - I have just finished reading Eric the English-speaking world the super­ Kinder describe themselves as 'Holocaust Hobsbawm's Age of Extremes. It is a book ficiality, not to mention the mendacity, survivors'. This is an insult to the gallant of 627 pages written by a professional which Austrian poliricians are able so few who actually survived the camps and historian in which there is but one single deftly to convey with their charm and are the true heroes among us. Curiously sentence referring to "the horror of the smiles. enough, they are the last ones to talk. Holocaust", surely the most 'extreme' A / 040 Vienna Albert Sternfeld Arundel, West Sussex F Goldberg happening during this period, when about half Europe's Jews (and probably [Hella Pick's book (English version) is reviewed more than half of the Gypsy population) on page 4 - Ed.] RABID RABBI as well as other civilians were murdered Sir - The former Sephardi Chief Rabbi with the assistance of German industry Ovadiah Yosef says the Holocaust came and others. If, being an architect, I wrote NOT AN ORDINARY JOE about because of the sins of our about architectural history and omitted Sir - When dealing with the major ancestors. My great-great-grandfather, a the discovery of the arch or of reinforced political role a number of Jews played in most saintly man, was the Gaon of Posen. concrete, I could hardly expect to find a the course of history in various countries Even the non-Jews respected him and serious publisher for my work. one major figure wasn't mentioned. The called him "der Judenpapst" because he Hobsbawm is neither a neo-Nazi not Austrian Jew Dr Bruno Kreisky was did a lot of healing. I wonder what 'sins' an antisemite (for example he refers to Chancellor of Austria and head of the first he committed? I hope that, on Yom outstanding German-Jewish Nobel prize­ Social Democratic government in the Kippur, the Rabbi will have asked winners and the damage done to German history of the country from 1970 to 1983. forgiveness for what he said. science by Jewish scientists leaving Ger­ Before that he had held the post of London SWl 6 Ruth Leggatt many during the Hitler years.) I cannot Foreign Minister from 1959 to 1966 in understand this near-omission. various coalition governments. Though Macclesfield. Cheshire Marianne Walter his conflict with Simon Wiesenthal and BEYOND HIS KEN his friendly relations with some extremists Sir - It is obvious that nasty Mr among the Arab leaders are open to Livingstone has deeply affected Mr Frank RIGA GHETTO MONUMENT criticism, his statesmanship was never Bright's mind (October letters). The alleged Sir - Your report on the "neglected disputed either in Austria or inter­ loss of 300 jobs by abolishing the memorial site" in the Bikernieki forest nationally. He died in 1990. He is still a golliwogs clearly proves that our Mayor near Riga (October 2000) diverges some­ revered personality especially within the of London is a racist. Of course it is what from my personal experience AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 2000 twenty years ago, of a visit to the missed. Generally, the system works well Sir - In Paul Yogi Mayer's Judische Rumbuli execution site near Riga. I was and ensures that the Exhibition doesn't Olympiasieger I read that the Horst Wessel Working in the Latvian Historical State become crowded. Lied was originally a popular song archive in Riga, when, halfway through Your readers may be interested to learn "...vorbei, vorbei sind nun die schonen my stay, I was informed by my hosts, the that we have now had over 100,000 Stunden, die wir verlebt am... Nordsee- Latvian Academy of Sciences, that I would visitors. The AJR helped the creation of strand." Do any of your readers know be taken to the Rumbuli forest memorial the Exhibition in lots of different ways - when this song first came out, and who site by a doctor whose father was shot by thank you for your co-operation, patience wrote the music and the lyric? the Germans during the war. Spread over and encouragement. London NW3 Ludwig Berlin the vast site were several enormous stone London SWl Suzanne Bardgett figures in heroic and mournful poses. In Pmjea Direaor, Holocaust Exhibition, the centre of this meticulously kept area ImperialWar Musuem stood a black marble altar-like structure, about two metres high and ten metres Leipzig museum long. I remember distinctly that this huge PIANIST'S BOYCOTT n 1933 Leipzig had Germany's sixth- marble slab was inscribed in Latvian, Sir- So, Carinthia managed to attract a largest Jewish community. The Jews' Russian and either Yiddish or Hebrew. number of celebrities this summer (SB's I contribution to the economic, cultural On placing my ear to the flat marble August column). One at least who didn't and social development of Leipzig, the top, I heard a distinct regular ticking attend was Andras Schiff. He refused to Leipzig region and beyond, has been which sounded like a metronome in ac­ perform at an Austrian Government largely forgotten. In particular, the youn­ tion. The architect of this impressive function and, in an interview, stated his ger generations are unaware of Leipzig's structure had encased a large metronome belief that antisemitism in Austria was Jewish history. There is a significant and in a concrete box a few metres under the alive and well. growing interest in Leipzig's Jewish commemorative altar, on which flowers Leatherhead, Surrey Robert Miller history. The City Museum of Leipzig had been placed. My companion, looking wants to present Jewish history as an at me standing there in silence, said: "Un­ integral part of Leipzig's history. The less we blow ourselves up beforehand, ANOTHER MISSION Museum is in the process of establishing this metronome will still be ticking away ACCOMPLISHED a collection illustrating Jewish life in Leipzig. It seeks documents, objects of hundreds of years from now". My visit to Sir - Further to your article about Nora any kind, advertisements, books pub­ the Rumbuli forest murder site was a Danzig (September 2000), a memorial lished by Jewish publishing houses in deeply moving experience. stone to the 150 Jews of Schliichtern and Leipzig, ritual objects etc. Our documen­ l-ondon NWl I Gerald Fleming surrounding villages who died in the tation centre will also serve as a meeting Holocaust was formally unveiled in the place for all Leipzigers and visitors, Schluchtern Jewish cemetery in Sept­ whether individuals or groups, interested GERMAN PENSION ember in the presence of members of the in Leipzig's Jewish history and culture. To Sir - F Goldberg (September 2000 letters) Frankfurt Jewish community, dignitaries preserve the few remaining objects is correct in assuming that the exchange of Hessen State and the town of documenting Jewish life in Leipzig we rate is a factor influencing the amount of Schluchtern and some former Jewish need your assistance. We especially ask his monthly pension. However, the rele­ residents of Schluchtern. The surviving former Jewish citizens of Leipzig to vant exchange rate is the one between former members of the Schluchtern support us. Sterling and the Euro. The Deutschmark Jewish community together with the ceased to exist as an independent Hesse authorities and the town of Please contact Dr Volker Rodecamp currency when the Euro was born. It Schluchtern contributed equally financially (Director) or Dr Andrea Lorz, Stadt­ then became a constituent part of the to the project. The stone replaces that geschichtliches Museum Leipzig, Altes Euro at a permanently fixed conversion erected by the town of Schluchtern in Rathaus, Markt 1, D-04109 Leipzig. Tel: rate of 1 Euro = 1.95583 DM. The foreign 1946. Help and encouragement also came 0341 965130, Fax: 0341 9651352 or email: currency markets ceased to trade in from the late Ignatz Bubis. The Burgo­ [email protected] D Deutschmarks and the other Euro cur­ master of Schluchtern and his colleagues rencies, and traded solely in Euros. were very sympathetic and helped to Unfortunately for British recipients of make the project successful. German pensions, the Euro has declined Disley, Cheshire Gerald V.Wolf in value against Sterling by some 15% JACKMAN• since its birth on 1 January 1999, thereby SILVERMAN dragging down with it the Sterling value NONSENSE RHYMES AND of amounts denominated in DM. COMMERCIAL PROPERTY CONSULTANTS '-ondon NWl I Manfred Alweiss OTHER SONGS Sir - Can anyone complete this nonsense rhyme which finishes, "Finster war's, der MUSEUM BLUES Mond schien belle, als ein Wagen blitz- Sir - Very sorry to learn that Martin Jaul eschnelle langsam um die Ecke fuhr. had difficulties with our timed ticket Drinnen sassen... Leute, schweigend ins 26 Conduit Street, London 'WIR 9TA system. We hope we've now ironed out Gesprdch vertieft...."? Telephone: 020 7409 0771 Fax: 020 7493 8017 ^he gremlins and the signing is not Rochdale. Lanes Irmgard Treuherz AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 2000

AJR /Ce/[^(frts

of the Leeds group, gave a talk on the NEWS FROM THE GROUPS subject of Jews in Slovakia from the war years to the present. A full report will appear later D The next meeting will be on Sunday 5 November (postponed from 29 October) when Dayan Refson will speak on "The philosophy of remem­ bering and mourning."

Pinner hat there were few corners of the earth that Anthony Goldsmith had Tnot visited in his work as an exporter became clear as he regaled his audience with stories of vanishing cream from Nigeria, toy pistols disappearing in New York, Thailand after a typhoon, retrieving keys from a car boot in the Malaysian jungle and the talking chiefs of Tonga. Special treats included Chinese South London A/R members visit Nightingale House: From left, Helen Aronson, Herbert Wolff, Lore Robinson music from Singapore, the Australian didgeridoo and a New Zealand Maori choir. Souvenirs on display included a South London Christadelphians and the Society of diesel engine and a cobra. Members also wenty members took up an Friends helped; however most Church met Sharon Druce, just appointed as the invitation from Nightingale House, leaders were more sympathetic to the new AJR northern regional co-ordinator. Clapham, to visit what is reputed German churches. T U Walter Weg to be the largest home for the elderly in D Ruth Leggatt Europe. With nearly 400 residents, the The next meeting will be on Thursday 16 The next meeting will be on Thursday 2 Novem­ home has twelve separate dining rooms November at 2 pm when the speaker will be ber at 2pm when Sir Horace Phillips will talk serviced from a central kitchen, an Norma Brier from Norwood Ravenswood. about his 'Experiences as a Jewish Ambassador • extensive medical suite with regular The Chanukah party will be on 7 December when Esther & Alf Keiles and family will entertain. clinics, facilities for physiotherapy, Brighton and Hove occupational therapy and dentistry as n attentive audience heard Aubrey West Midlands well as a hairdressing salon. An arts and Milstein talk about his involve­ There will be a Chanukah party on 10 Decem­ crafts centre, a library and a concert hall ment with the Haganah. He first A ber Furdier details in next issue. cater for leisure activities. There is also a came to Palestine as a youngster in 1939 synagogue where one of the residents, hoping to attend the Hebrew University Regional group functions are open aged 90, takes the services. The home is but met Yigal Alon who persuaded him to all AJR members set in an attractive garden. The visitors to use his skills as 'a gcxxl shot' and show See A/R Group contact details on page 10 were treated to a splendid tea and felt kibbutzniks how to use rifles in self- reassured that such good facilities can be defence. He was also active during the found on their doorstep. time of the arrival of illegal boats in AJR'Drop in'Advice Centre at the Paul Balint AJR Day Centre U HerbertWolff Palestine. Later he joined the British Army's Ordinance Corps, returning to 15 Cleve Road, London NW6 3RL utting the current debate about Palestine in 1946; he also worked with between I Oam and 12 noon on the following dates: refugees and asylum seekers into Aliyah B during the siege of Jerusalem. Wednesday I November perspective, the Wiener Library's Dr D O/en Rosen P Thursday 9 November Jo Reilly spoke about non-Jewish The next meetings are on Monday 30 Oaober Tuesday 14 November responses to the 1930s 'refugee crisis' at 10.45, when Judy Ironside will talk about the Thursday 23 November when, between 1933 and 1939, 35,000 Brighton & Hove Jewish Film Festival, and Wednesday 29 November Jews fled the Nazis, many of them after Monday 20 November at 10.45 when Sandra Tuesday 5 December Kristallnacht. It was said that refugees Barnett will talk about returning to Gombin, AJR, I Hampstead Gate, la Frognal, Poland searching for roots. were unwanted aliens who were stealing London NW3 6AL the jobs and the bread from British No appointment is necessary, but please bring people. Whilst the Jewish community Leeds along all relevant documents, such as funded the refugees, many non-Jewish Dr Erika Harris, lecturer in political Betiefit Books, letters, bills, etc. groups such as trade unions, the science at Leeds University and member

8 AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 2000

• • • Viewpclnt • • •

Israel's stymied hopes for peace Season/ srael's senior statesman, former Prime of Yizhak Rabin, a government headed Enjoy Minister Shimon Peres, asked what by Peres handed 500 villages to the Pal­ possible advantage the Palestinians estinians, but the terrorist response prior * Excellent Food * Sdmulating Talk * I could gain from initiating a new to the elections had probably cost • Enlivening Discussion * intifada, adding that it was "totally another three years. • Meeting new friends * unnecessary". Speaking in London when Assuming that Arafat was negotiating AjR-KT LUNCHEON CLUB completing a diplomatic mission to Rome, in good faith, Peres failed to compre­ Paris and Berlin, he visited Downing hend why he had rejected a settlement. on Wednesday 15 November 2000 Street the day that the brutal murder of Israel had decidedly not rejected his de­ at l5CleveRoad,NW6 3RL rwo Israeli soldiers, by a mob while in mand for a fact-finding commission as it II.45am for 12.15pm the custody of the Palestine-controlled had nothing to hide, but PM Barak Guest speaker: Ramallah police station, had shocked needed to negotiate its composition. In Susi Bechhofer, author of Israeli public opinion to the core. a conflict fought increasingly on televi­ Rosa's Child, who will relate how she Prime Minister Ehud Barak had offered sion and radio (and Palestinian media set about finding her Jewish roots. the "most generous proposals to the were continually fermenting violence) it Palestinians" at Camp David, strongly was unclear just when the Palestinians Reservations £7.50 for everyone! were attacking outside their own territo­ from Sylvia, Renee and Susie supported by President Clinton, said ries. "There was no need for anybody to Tel: 020 7328 0208 Shimon Peres, including concessions on the main issue of Jerusalem, but Arafat get killed or injured," said Peres. had made an outright rejection. Jeru­ Though Israel abhorred violence, she salem had never been an Arab capital was strong enough to defend lives and city and neither the Jordanians nor the to seek peace. With the end of the AJR VISIT TO Egyptians had conceded territorial sover­ Cold War, war in the Middle East was eignty to the Palestinians; only Israel not an option. In Peres' view, terror The Imperial recognised the Palestinians and had could also prove extremely costly to the War Museum conceded them territory. Palestinians. A leader of a state in for­ Holocaust Exhibition The Israeli government's "moral con­ mation - with three million people, 120,000 administrators, trading with on viction" not to dominate the lives of another people had underlain the Oslo many countries - could not act like a Thursday 18 January 200! agreement, but would the Palestinian terrorist leader. The Palestinian leader­ £8 per person including coach fare, people miss an opportunity for peace a ship had "no right to sacrifice a guided tour of the exhibition, third time? In 1948 the Arabs waged war generation of young people", he said. lunch, tea & biscuits rather than accept the lion's share of Israel would "defend our land and our partition; in 1996, after the assassination peace", he added. D Ronald Channing Coach leaves AJR Day Centre 1.00pm, returning there approx. 4.30 - 5.00pm Booking essential. Please contact Joan Altman, PAUL BALINT AJR DAY CENTRE AJR, I Hampstead Gate, IA Frognal, London NW3 6AL 15 Cleve Road, West Hampstead NW6 Mon. & Weds. 9.30am-3.30pm.Tue$. & Thurs. 9.30am-5.30pm. Suns. 2pm-6.30pm Telephone 020 7431 6161 NOVEMBER 2000 Afternoon entertainment programme - rf§= Wed 1 The Eddy Simons Duo Sun 19 DAY CENTRE OPEN - no Thank^'ou Britain Annual Lecture Thur 2 The Geoffrey Whitworth Duo entertainment Sun 5 DAY CENTRE CLOSED - Mon 20 KARD & GAMES KLUB The Lord Chancellor Volunteers' Annual Party Tues 21 Christine Fisher accompanied by Mon 6 KARD & GAMES KLUB Geoffrey Whitworth (piano) LORD IRVINE OF LAIRG Tues 7 Entertainment with Michael Heaton Wed 22 Tricia Dibb (Soprano) (piano) accompanied by Michael Heaton The Law: An Engine for Trade Wed 8 Entertainment with Margaret Eaves (piano) (piano) Thur 23 Colla Voce Camerata accompanied 22 November at 5.30pm Thur 9 Guitar and Piano with Jonathan by Charlotte Ellis (piano) The British Academy Nolan and Mitra Tham Sun 26 DAY CENTRE OPEN - no Sun 12 DAY CENTRE OPEN - no entertainment 10 Carlton House Terrace entertainment Mon 27 KARD & GAMES KLUB London SWIY 5AH Mon 13 KARD & GAMES KLUB Tues 28 The Singing Duo - Jack & Rita To obtain tickets contact Tues 14 Accordion Plus Trio - Jill Goldman, Davis Rosemar; Lambeth as above Ellen Lanksford (accordion) and Wed 29 Jenny Kossew entertains on or Tel: 020 7969 5264 Gordon Mabbett (keyboard) accordion E-mail: [email protected] Wed 15 LUNCHEON CLUB Thur 30 Katinka Seiner & Laszio Easton Please quote .AJR Information Thur 16 Angela Arratoon accompanied by (violin) with piano >% Eldad Neumark (piano) accompaniment AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 2000

FAMILY ANNOUNCEMENTS The Matchmakers" FORTHCOMING EVENTS NOVEMBER 2000 Deaths International Jewish Until Julia Pascal: London Tliur 16 Lunchtime recital. Brenner. Trude Brenner died Partnership Agency 5 Nov Continental. Areola Horatia Raphael, piano. peacefully on 20 September 2000 Theatre, Stoke Newington. The Manor House, 80 East Phone: 0049-89-92367894 in her 94* year. Beloved mother 020 7383 0920. £6-i8. Spm. End Rd., 1.15pm. of Jon and Margrit. Loving Grand­ Fax: 0049-89-92279864 1 Nov- The Last Goodbye. The Sun 19 Film: The Story of Chaim mother to Simon, Stephanie, Our agency works around the 10 Dec rescue of children from & 26 Rumkovski & the Jews of Nazi Europe. Etz Chayim Lodz. Imperial War Andrew and Miriam. She will be world only for Jewish people of Gallery, Northwood & Mu.seum. 2pm and 3.30pm. sadly missed and always remem­ all ages to find the new right Pinner Liberal Synagogue Mon 20 Mr Terry Henderson bered with the greatest affection. partner for marriage or life. 01923 822592. (Goldsmith's College): Max Thurs 2 Lunchtime recital, John Weber and his relevance Preston. Rudy Preston (Pollack) Maybe this is also Georgiou, piano. The today. Club 43, 7.45pm. born 10.6.1927 Vienna, died something for you. Manor House, 80 East End Tues 21 David Mendeb Primo Levi- 1.9.2000, Greenford. Rudy arrived Please contact us by phone or fax Rd., 1.15pm. Witness, Writer, Man of in England on a Kindertransport. Prof Bernard Genius. Spiro Ark at Ealing for more information Wasserstein: The end of Synagogue, 8.30pm. £3. He spent some time in a hostel in German and French also spoken Jewish history? Inst, of Mon 27 Prof John Klien Do Sheffield, also a period in Israel. Jewish Studies, UCL. Russians remember the Rudy's last employment was with Gustave Tuck Theatre, Holocaust' Inst.of Jewish Sir Robert MacAlpine as an indus­ Gower St. London WCl. Studies, UCL. Gustave Tuck trial photographer. In 1949, he SWITCH ON ELECTRICS 6.30pni. Theatre, Gower St., WCl. Fri 3 British Library: Tour with 6.30pm. married Martha (nee Wilpred), Rewires and all household liana Tahan (curator) of Dr A. GrenviUe: AJR another Kind from Nuremberg. electrical work. Hebrew illuminated Information & the She survives him, together with manuscripts Spiro Ark. settlement of Jewish PHONE PAUL: 020 8200 3518 their two sons Robert and 11am. £6.50. Refugees in Britain. Club Mon 6 Dr Louise London: 43, 7.45pm. Stephen, daughter-in-law Linda Whitehall & the refugees - Thur 30 Prof David Cesarani: and grandchildren Leanne and ALTERATIONS then and now. Club 43, Holocaust without end - Paul. Rudy will be remembered as 7.45pm. the impact of the Holocaust a kind, decent, family man, and a OF ANY KIND TO Frederick Cohen since 1945.Imperial War good friend. LADIES' FASHIONS (President of the Jersey Museum 7pm. JewLsh Congregation): Elizabeth Bosworthy & I also design and make Remembering the Jews in Lydla Clatworthy: Violin Personal children's clothes Professional Viennese gentleman the Channel Islands during & piano recital of Brahms, West Hampstead area the German Occupation Mozart. Sternberg Centre. wishes to exchange large 1940-1945. Wiener Library 1.15pm. comfortable room for similar in 020 7328 6571 £2. 6.30pm. Until 28 Keeping the L^t. London for up to two persons for Thurs 9 Prof Tony Kushner and a Jan 2001 Photographic exhibition on two weeks or longer at same or representative from Europa the Jews of Cochin. Jewish TORRINGTON HOMES Roma In an evening to Museum, Camden Town. different times. Telephone 0043-1- Mrs Pringsheim, S.R.N. commemorate Kristallnacht. 5967157. MATRON Wiener Library. 7pm. ±4/Ji,2 For Elderly, Retired and Convalescent (cone.) ORGANISATION CONTACTS CLASSIFIED fLicensed by Borough of Bamet) Sun 12 An evening with Bernard Club '43, Belsize Square Synagogue. Miscellaneous Services • Single and Double Rooms. Kops. Sternberg Centre. Hans .Seelig. Tel: 01442 254360 • H/C Basins and CH in all rooms. Manicure & Pedicure in the 8pm. Imperial War Museum, Lambeth • Gardens, TV and reading rooms. Mon 13 comfort of your own home. I)r Edle Friedman: Jews Rd, Umdon SEI. 020 7416 5320 • Nurse on duty 24 hours. and Racism. Club 43, Telephone 020 8343 0976. • Long and short term, including 7.45pm. Institute of Jewish Studies, UCL. trial period if required. Peter Sherwood (SEES): 020 7679 3520 Day Centre Jewish Themes in postwar From £300 per week Shirley Lever at the Paul Balint Hungarian Literature. Spiro Ark 020 S201 7172 020 8445 1171 Office hours Inst.of Jewish Studies, UCL. AJR Day Centre. New clothes for 020 8455 1335 other times Sternberg Centre for Judaism. Gustave Tuck Theatre, Jewish Museum, Finchley. 80 East sale, dresses, underwear, cardi­ NORTH FINCHLEY gans etc. Tuesday 24 October, Gower St., WCl. 6.30pm. End Road, London N3 2SY. Tel: 020 Tues 14 Alexandra Valavelska in 8346 2288/ 8349 1143 9.45-11.45am. -3 Dec Achtung Kabarett, New The Jewish Museum, Camden Residential Home End Theatre, 9.30pm (Sat Societies Town, 129-131 Albert Street, NWl Clara Nehab House matinees 3.30pm). 020 Association of Jewish Ex- 7472 5800. 7BN. Tel: 020 7284 1997 tiara.demon.co.uk

10 AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 2000

in which she stayed and the formal dining room where she received an open SB's Colunnn invitation to Shabbat dinner. Other photo­ graphs depict a jeweller repairing a silver he Austrian Orpheus Trust Hebrew letter on a scroll; kosher cuisine investigates the fate of artists, being prepared with coconut curry Tmusicians and composers who had emories of a dying community leaves, turmeric and perfumed spices; to flee after the Anschluss and of whom are often edged with a special headscarved women praying fervently little has been heard since. The trust has tenderness and the Jews of behind a mechitzah and Jews beating the recently published more names that fall M into this category. These include Max Cochin are no exception. The ancient ground outside the synagogue with community was established in Cochin branches, a custom said to ensure pros- Geiger who was in turn concert master after the destruction of the first temple in at the Komische Oper, Berlin, and 586 BCE. Later Jewish settlers arrived as conductor of a radio orchestra in Vienna, refugees from the Spanish Inquisition. Ernst Goldner who emigrated to the The Rajahs of Cochin allowed Jewish States, and wrote the film music for culture to flourish in a climate of tolerance Exodus, and conductor Karl Alwin, who and respect. Thus a rich religious life was went from the Vienna Staatsoper to the maintained in which old traditions blen­ Opera National, Mexico. (Alwin's wife, ded with local customs. Elisabeth Schumann was a famous operatic soprano, a stalwart of the Staatsoper and the Salzburg Festival in the interwar years.) A theatrical marathon. At Hanover

Seder celebrated by the Jewish community in Cochin Peter Stein has staged an unabridged pro­ duction of Goethe's Faust lasting 22 perity. A valuable insight into the commu­ hours! The cost for costumes, decor and nity is provided by a glimpse of Hindus, lighting effects ran into millions. (Some of Christians and Jews gathering at the tomb the critics spoke of Stein's Faustian pact of Nehemia ben Abrahim, a Cochin with the devil). The production is due to grandee revered as a saint by all faiths. transfer to Berlin and Vienna later. Perhaps most telling is her record of a Painter Ernst Bloch, 90, a concen­ small group sitting down and discussing tration camp survivor who escaped via the purchase of tickets to Israel. Aliyah is Shanghai to New York, has bequeathed the goal since Cochin Jews believe that his paintings to the Dachau-Memorial this way of life will soon vanish. Museum which is currently exhibiting his Opening the exhibition the writer and work. broadcaster Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a Birthdays. Celebrations are planned Ugandan Indian, spoke emotionally of for Elisabeth Schwarzkopf s forthcoming the loss of the sense of homeland. "Your 85"" birthday. A fine soprano with a pictures are drenched in faith" she told worldwide following, she was equally in the artist. "In metropolitan London, faith demand by opera houses in New York, is not part of the bloodstream." Chicago, Milan and Vienna. Her career as Visiting the auciv ti'inh ij a revered Jewish A programme of related events at the an interpreter of Mozart and Richard Kholar. Cochin. exhibition will include a talk on Indian Strauss peaked in the Forties and Fifties The Jewish Museum's current exhibi­ Jewish embroidery on 12 November, a when she also sang in London to which tion. Keeping the Light, is a moving talk on the history of the Cochin Jews by she returned much later to conduct mas­ photographic biography by photographer, journalist and author Percy Gourgey on 3 ter classes. Suzon Fuks, who went to India in 1993 December and a discussion on the Jews International violinist Isaac Stern has to study Judaism among people who have of the Raj by author Mavis Hyman. There turned 80. Also 80 is Romuald Pekny, one never known persecution. The Belgian- will also be a children's programme. The of the grandseigneurs of the German born photographer became interested in exhibition continues until 28 January stage and veteran member of the Munich the Cochin community because of its 2001. Kammerspiele D Contrast to her own threatened European D Gloria Tessler background. (Her parents had been hid­ den during the war). Blood and dishonour The black and white photographs rep­ Annely Juda Fine Art The German Government has banned the resent a journey through a 2000-year-old biggest organiser of neo-Nazi concerts in 23 Dering Street (off New Bond Street) Jewish life threatened now not by perse­ Tel: 020 7629 7578 Fax: 020 7491 2139 Germany which takes its name from the cution but by time and secularisation. 1924 Nazi Party manifesto. The Fuks' search for her 'Judaicity', as she CONTEMPORARY PAINTING prohibition of any neo-Nazi party, which describes it, led her to a place bluntly AND SCULPTURE requires the consent of the constitutional Called Jewtown. Here we see the ashram court, will take considerably longer D

If AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 2000

Science Notebook ARE YOU ON A LOW

Farbenindustrie, fared even worse. On INCOME AND IN NEED The Nobel Prize and notifying the German government in 1939 OF HOMECARE HELP? that he had been awarded the Nobel the dictators Prize for Medicine, he was promptly AJR might be able to offer ach autumn the names are arrested. Although he was soon released, financial assistance. announced of the year's Nobel he was not able to accept his award until Members who might not E prizewinners. The Peace prize is 1947. Otherwise be able to afford awarded by the Norwegian Nobel The Soviet leadership was equally un­ homecare please contact: Committee while the prizes for Chemistry, sympathetic to certain Nobel awards. Physics, Physiology or Medicine, Liter­ Boris Pasternak's famous novel Dr Estelle Brookner, secretary AJR, Social Services Department ature and Economic Science are decided Zhivago had been banned in the USSR Phone No: 020 7431 6161 by the appropriate Swedish Academy. but was published in Italy in 1957 to Any country whose citizen receives such great acclaim. Pasternak was then ex­ a prize is usually delighted and fetes the pelled from the Soviet Writers Union and recipient, for such an international was forced to refuse the 1958 Nobel Prize /^ =^ accolade bolsters its national pride. But for Literature. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Companions not always! too, was expelled from the Soviet Writers In 1936 the Nobel Peace Prize was Union following his novels which of London Incorporating awarded to Carol von Ossietzky, a Ger­ unmasked the Soviet camp system, begin­ Hampstead Home Care man journalist and pacifist. His passionate ning with One Day in the Life of Ivan Vi:: ^ campaign for international disarmament Denisovich. When the KGB subsequently A long established company and against German rearmament had discovered his manuscript of The Gulag providing care in your home already earned him a prison sentence in Archipelago he was arrested and exiled * Assistance with personal care 1932 by the Weimar government. In 1933 abroad in 1974. However, this then •k General household duties the Nazis rearrested him and sent him to allowed him to receive the Nobel Prize * Respite care a concentration camp where he con­ for Literature which he had been awarded -k Medical appointment service tracted TB. A great international press in 1970. campaign ensued for his release and for Even the famous Russian physicist OUR CARE IS YOUR CARE' his nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize. Andrei Sakharov was not immune from 020 7483 0212/0213 When the prize was indeed given to official disapproval. He had played a Ossietzky, Hitler was so enraged that he crucial role in developing the Soviet introduced a law forbidding any German hydrogen bomb, believing that parity citizen from accepting a Nobel Prize. between the superpowers would prevent SPRING Ossietzky died in 1938. nuclear war. Later he called for an end to GROVE The consequences of the new law were the arms race. East-West co-operation and t^vi 214 Finchley Road soon felt. In 1938 the Nobel Prize for human rights. For this he was awarded 11 London NW3 Chemistry was awarded to Richard Kuhn the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. Five years London's Most Luxurious of the University of Heidelberg for his later he was exiled to the town of Gorky RETIREMENT HOME work on carotenoids and vitamins; he as a leading dissident and only released * Entertainment - Activities had determined the structures of vitamins in 1986 after staging several hunger * Stress Free Living A, B2 and B6. Because of Hitler's edict he strikes. * 24 Hour Staffing * Excellent Cuisine had to forego the award until 1949 when The voicing of politically unpalatable * Full En-Suite Facilities it was restored to him at a special opinions, especially when praised abroad, Call for more Information ceremony in Stockholm. The German bio­ has always been anathema to dictator­ or a personal tour chemist Gerhard Domagk, who had ships. 020 8446 2117 discovered the antibiotic Prontosil at IG D Prof Michael Spiro or 020 7794 4455

WELFARE BENEFITS UPDATE Simon P. Rhodes M.Ch.S. Minimum Income Guarantee STATE REGISTERED CHIROPODIST If you are a pensioner on a low weekly income, with savings of i8,000 or less and do Surgeries at: not already receive Income Support, you may be entitled to some extra money. Even if 67 Kilburn High Road, NW6 (opp M&S) you have claimed Income Support before and were unsuccessful, your circumstances Telephone 020 7624 1576 may have changed and you might now qualify. 3 Queens Close (off Green Lane) Edgware, Middx HAS 7PU Attendance Allowance Telephone 020 8905 3264 Contact Agi Alexander, Welfare Rights Adviser in the AJR Social Services Department for Visiting chiropody service available information on whether you qualify and how to apply. Telephone: 020 7431 6I6I

12 'gj'^iyiHrpn^';

AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 2000

LAND ARMY GIRLS FOR always held back. When rumours of com­ Mixed marriages in the pulsory divorce in mixed marriages THE CENOTAPH reached the Catholic hierarchy they let it Third Reich be known that they would not recognise y 1933, 10% of German Jews had this. They would continue to treat such 5^ intermarried; of those German Jews couples as married. To prevent such open Bwho survived the Second World War, defiance Hitler and Goebbels dropped 98% were partners in mixed marriages. the idea. Christian husbands in mixed marriages Finally in February 1943 Goebbels, were said to be living in 'privileged Gauleiter of Berlin, ordered the marriages'. Their wives were exempt from Fabriksaktion when all remaining labour- wearing the Star of David. But the men conscripted Jewish husbands of Christian were denied advancement at work, and wives were to be arrested. February 27 eventually faced dismissal. Finally in 1944 was a Saturday and factory work finished they were rounded up and put into a at 2 pm. When the men did not return forced labour camp run by the Organis­ from work their wives became anxious ation Todt. Brutally treated, they were and made enquiries at their local police told they would be released as soon as stations. They were directed to Rosen­ they had signed a divorce document. strasse, the Jewish welfare offices in Ruth Sellers, nee Hirsth, right, with the Land .\nny in Parkers Piece, Cambridge in 1941. Hardly any of them did because they Berlin-Mitte. There, to their surprise, they knew the consequence of their action found other women looking for their hus­ uth Sellers will be marching with would be the immediate deportation of bands. At first they demanded to send her local British Legion on their wives. messages to their husbands. When this R Remembrance Day this year. Jewish men married to Christian wives was conceded they asked for their hus­ According to a recent announcement, this were regarded as living in a Jewish bands' release. "Gebt uns unsere Manner will be the first time the Land Army household. Their children were treated as wieder!" they shouted. Goebbels, a prag­ will be permitted to walk past the Jews. In spite of these terrible pressures matist, gave the order to release the men. Cenotaph as part of Remembrance Day the overwhelming majority of couples re­ However, twenty-five men had already events. Ruth arrived in Harwich, Dover- fused divorce, thus becoming a thorn in been sent to Auschwitz. Their wives were court, in a Kindertransport in December the Nazis' flesh. Of course, the authorities not prepared to take this lying down, and 1938 and was in the Land Army from could have passed a law compulsorily di­ besieged the Gestapo headquarters at 1941 to 1944 D vorcing these couples. At various times Burgstrasse. The unbelievable happened they contemplated such a law, but they and the Gestapo chief ordered the prison­ ers, who had already been tattooed with their numbers in Auschwitz, to be re­ KINDERTRMNSPORT NEWS turned to Berlin. Back in the Burgstrasse they were warned not to give the slightest From David Jedwab hint about the real purpose of Auschwitz. They were then sent to a labour camp in AJR-KT Luncheon Club 20 September Gross-Beeren where their wives could see fascinating talk was given by Tim Angel, ex-Chairman of Bafta and MD of the them daily. They all survived the war. 200 year-old family business 'Angels', costumiers to the film, theatre and TV On May 19 Goebbels officially declared A industries. This side of the entertainment industry is not known to the general Berlin 'judenfrei', having previously in­ public and it was quite enlightening to learn the historical research required to get the structed the employers of Jewish labour costumes right for the period in which the play/film is set, for example Schindler's List. conscripts to remove the Star of David The company literally maintain acres of space for their uniforms and miles of racks from their clothes to fit in with his state­ and are represented worldwide. Tim Angel enlivened his talk with many amusing ment. anecdotes about well-known stars. He has been honoured with an OBE and by a visit Peter Prager to the company's headquarters by The Queen. Over 70 people attended the luncheon on 20 September. The AJR-KT audience enjoyed this get-together immensely. The next Luncheon Club meeting is on 15 November when the Speaker will be Susi 50 YEARS AGO Bechhofer, author of Rosa's Child, who will relate how she set about tracing her Jewish roots. On 13 December, Susannah Alexander will talk about her work at the URGENT CALL FROM ISRAEL Jewish Museum.. The AJR has received the following message from a close friend who is now on a visit in Israel: "I KINDERTRANSPORT Chanukah Party saw some of the camps for the new immigrants. On Wednesday 20 December at the AJR Day Centre, 15 Cleve Road, West Hampstead. People are living in tents, and now, as the cold Reception and drinks 6.00-6.30 pm, followed by a full buffet. Musical entertainment at season is starting, there is a desperate need for blankets and garments, especially children's wear. 8.00 pm finishing at 9-00 pm. Please appeal without delay to AJR members for Book your place by writing to the Kindertransport Office together with your their immediate help. Every day counts." cheque for £10. (Issued to 'Kindertransport'). We look forward to seeing you there. D AjR Information Novemtxr 1950

13 AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 2000

ever May Day procession in the street be­ Chad - how much more resonant than Love story or low their window. My mother had joined Antananarivo or Timbuktu! - listed in my Stalin was my Cyrano the Social Democrat Party in 1911, when stamp album. And then there were the political women were considered freaks glorious Soviet stamps on letters to my (Continuation) almost on a par with lesbians. Her fellow philatelist Harry from his uncle in ime passed. I turned sixteen and brother, my uncle, was a shop steward of Russia. Stamps showing the icebreaker the phoney war turned real. Bombs the Union of Bank Employees. Even my Chelyuskin which had circumnavigated Trained down on London. Buildings Jewish-oriented father voted the Labour the Arctic Ocean or Lieutenant Schmitt went up in flames. I slept on tube station Zionist ticket in the communal elections. who had landed his plane on the North platforms. Amid the disruption the under­ Within a few weeks of joining I was Pole; other collectors' items celebrated ground and buses continued to run, and happy to detect that all Young Austria ac­ the completion of the White Sea Canal, of mail continued to be delivered. One day I tivists were singing from a hymn-sheet the Dnieper Dam, of the Moscow Metro, received a letter asking me to join an that had The International printed on it in and so forth. organisation composed of refugee young­ invisible ink (invisible to avoid the risk of I recaptured the heady mood of Social­ sters calling itself Young Austria. I the comrades, enemy aliens in wartime ist construction at our Young Austria accepted with alacrity, having led a very Britain, being unmasked as Communists). group meetings. Here we sang ' The voice impoverished social life since arriving in I myself had learnt The International, of the city is sleepless/the factories thunder London. From one day to the next my with its stirring opening line 'Awake, and beat/how bitter the wind and relent­ situation changed as I was caught up in Damned of this Earth' from a casual holi­ less/ that echoes our shuffling feet. Bid ive an endless round of meetings, lectures, day acquaintance when I was twelve. turn to face/the rising sun/thanks to ouf recruiting drives and Sunday excursions. In those halcyon days, before my emo­ faith/new life's begun'. The same message What, however, made my cup run over tions started their roller-coaster between of the builders of Socialism triumphing and turned Young Austria into my barmitzvah trauma and epiphany at over adversity suffused the pages of spiritual home was the fact that it wore its Schonbrunn, I had also been a devoted Ostrovsky's How The Steel 'Was Tempered heart in the physiologically correct place, stamp collector. This passion for philately and of Sholokhov's' Virgin Sod Upturned that is on the Left. was fed by an interest in history, my best - books from the Young Austria library I had grown up in a leftwing family. school subject, and its link to politics. which I devoured. By now I had risen to The reason why my grandparents weren't Stamps also satisfied an adolescent hun­ the position of a YA cadre and devoted on speaking terms was because, forty ger for exotic places. As a long-time my entire life outside of work to the years earlier, my grandmother had burnt Tarzan addict, I thrilled to find a country organisation. the dinner while cheering on the first with the outlandish name Ubangi-Chari- To be continued D Richard Grunberget

Kurt Hamburger ("Hambi"). Son of Kindertransportee aged 6 when she Friedrich Hamburger. Lived at Siegmundshof SEARCH NOTICES arrived from Berlin; adopted by non-Jewish 6, Berlin and attended Holdheim-Schule, family in Hull and given a new name. Now please contact Erna and Angi Wright, Joachimsthaler Strasse 13 between 1937- aged 66, she seeks information about her 67 Rowan Way, Area 4, Chelmsley Wood, 1938. May have gone to England on true identity. Any information please contact Birmingham B37 7QT 0121 770 4765. Kindertransport. Sought by his best friend Marcia Goodman, AJR, 020 7431 6161. Federico (Fritz) Freudenheim, R.Tome Fortes Hermann Kempner. Engineer, born 1871, 110,04623-050 Sao Paulo, Brazil.Tel. +55 II- emigrated to London from Munich in 1939 to Moshe Wax/Vax. Born April 1927/1928 in 240 9429 join his niece, a daughter of Luise Torsch Romania, son of Ellya-Laib/Elias and Sara- (nee Kempner). Kempner was guardian to Golda nee Zeidenfeld. Last heard of in Otto Wassermann, born June I, 1914 in Jakob van Hoddis, aka Hans Davidsohn, (Ger­ hospital in Lubeck in June 1945 following Berlin. Arrested on 10 November 1938 and man-Jewish poet) between 1922-1939. liberation from Bergen-Belsen. Sought by his sent to Dachau. Released on 8 February 1939 Information about Kempner's stay in the UK brother Lazar/Eliezer in USA. Contact British and came to England in June 1939. His wife and any of his correspondence concerning Red Cross International Welfare Dept., 9 and three children fled to Denmark in 1942 van Hoddis are sought for an exhibition in Grosvenor Cres., London SWIX 7EJ.Tel 020 but were expelled and killed in Auschwitz. the Centrum Judaicum, Berlin next year. 7201 5109. BRCS ref 64173/MCA. Karel Platzko, son of Ernost (Ernst) Platzko. Contact Nicholas Jacobs, 10 Burghley Rd., Margot Elizabeth Cooper (nee Hirsch­ Fled from Vienna. Ernost entered Denmark London NWS lUE.Tel. 020 7482 2390. Fax feld). Born Berlin 27.3.1920. Last known days before the Germans occupation, was 020 7485 4220. address in the 1960s: Upper Richmond Road, expelled in late 1940 and killed in Sachsen­ Marianne Schaffer, lived in Berlin, worked Richmond, Surrey. Sisters Elizabeth (Sachs) hausen. Karel Platzko had a "Palestinian" d.o.b. 16.01.1911 who lived in Paris and passport so was not allowed to enter for Paul Hirsch at 9 Adams Road, Cambridge in 1938. Please contact Margaret Falconer, 21 Gertrude d.o.b. 12.09.1913, died 01.09.1938. Denmark He settled in Israel in about 1951. Mansionhouse Rd., Edinburgh EH9 ITZ.Tel Information concerning her or her relatives Information sought about both by researcher. 0131 667 3285. urgently sought. Please telephone (+44) 020 Contact DrVVilhjalmsson, Danish Centre for 8908 0582. Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Nordre Richard Peschek. D.o.b. unknown, may have Soegade 35, 1370 Copenhagen. Tel: +45 left Austria in 1930s, last known address Leopold Weiss/Muhammad Asad. In­ 33370070. E mail: vovtSdchf.dk 5 The Avenue, London NW6. His or his terned as an enemy alien (Austrian) in India descendants' whereabouts sought by his between 1939-1945. Would anyone who Vikers HIM, Lymington. Did you work curator absentis Dr Josef Krist, 1010 Vienna, shared his internment contact Martin here in a large house with Olga (Hungary), Liebiggasse 4; Tel +43 4080625; email Goldenberg, 4 Walden Lodge, 48 Wood Lane, Minny (Czechoslovakia) and Erna? If so. dr.krist(®members.debis.at London N6 SUB. AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 2000

researches were conducted against a Obituary Danish Holocaust and background of bureaucratic stonewalling in the form of denial of access to Home Genocide Centre Office and Immigration Department files Peter Henry Julian Byl< he latest addition to the Holocaust until, after a campaign over three years eter Byk has died aged 71 at his research community, the Danish conducted by Dr Vilhjalmsson through home in Bromley, Kent. Born in TCentre for Holocaust and Genocide the press, he was finally permitted partial P1928 in Beriin, where his father was Studies, has been officially opened by the access in February last year. On current a successful lawyer, the southern German Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup issues, Dr Vilhjalmsson's hope is that the family paper manufacturing business Rasmussen. The Centre, in Copenhagen, Institute "...will influence opinion on ac­ started his lifelong interest in paper. As a has a staff of 14 including eight tion against Baltic war criminals living in ten-year-old, he arrived in England on a researchers and will be a constituent part Latvia and Lithuania who are not being Kindertransport in 1938. He went to of the Danish Human Rights Institute. It is pursued by assisting the Historical Com­ Magdalen College School Oxford and financed primarily by Danish Government mission in the Baltic." gained an exhibition to Sidney Sussex grants. The Director, Prof Dr Uffe D Marion Koebner College, Cambridge, in 1946. Later, in Oestergaard, a European Studies 1971, he took an Advanced Business specialist, will spearhead fundraising and Management Course at Harvard. Having ensure that contacts with the academic National service graduated from Cambridge in 1949, Peter community are developed and nurtured Some Israeli women will be able to serve Went straight into the family business as by inviting foreign academics, prominent part of their national service in Germany. Managing Director of Swan Mill Paper in the field of Holocaust and genocide The women, mostly from Orthodox Company on the death of his two uncles. research, to become associated with the backgrounds, will teach Judaism and He had recently celebrated 50 years as work of the Centre. Hebrew to Russian immigrants whose Managing Director of Swantex which The first - and senior - researcher to be links with Israel it is hoped will be produces disposable tableware, Christmas engaged is Dr Vilhjalmur Vilhjalmsson, an strengthened D crackers and gift wrap. He leaves a highly Icelander whose Jewish father was a child successful business with a turnover of survivor in Nazi-occupied Holland and nearly £30 million per annum and which who arrived in Iceland in 1951. Dr Controversial reconstruction employs over 300 people in Kent and Vilhjalmsson was approached by the Plans to restore the Garrison Church Wales. director to take up the senior research ap­ tower in Potsdam, where Hitler first Peter was greatly respected in the trade pointment on the strength of his research assumed power and which was damaged and was a highly regarded entrepreneur. on the treatment of stateless Jews in Den­ by Allied bombing in 1945, have caused His interests were walking, reading and mark during the Second World War. "My disagreement between local political politics. researches revealed that high officials and parties. Those in power favour its He leaves his wife Eva and three sons; immigration officers knew what would restoration as an anti-fascist memorial David (who has succeeded him as Man­ happen to Jewish refugees to Denmark if while their left-wing opponents fear it aging Director), Andrew and Robert D they were deported to Germany." Those could become a focus for neo-Nazis D

International Survivors Convention to take place in Buenos Aires oinciding with the commemoration tinian and Latin American society, of the within Argentina and neighbouring coun­ of the anniversary of the Warsaw dangers of forgetting and repeating and tries. C Ghetto Uprising in April 2001, the to mobilise support for the construction The Committee of the Memory of the Memory of the Holocaust Foundation in of the Museum of the Shoah and the Holocaust Foundation counts among its Argentina is planning its first International creation of official educational pro­ honorary members Elie Wiesel, Ralph Survivors Convention in Buenos Aires. grammes by the Argentine and Latin Appelbaum (designer of the Washington The city was an earlier refuge for more American governments. Holocaust Museum), Simone Veil (former than 1,5(K) Nazi officers, including Adolf Concurrently, the First Latin American President of the European Parliament and Eichmann and Erich Priebke, as well as Forum on the Shoah will take place in a former French Government Minister, for almost 8,000 Holocaust survivors. Buenos Aires and some of its pro­ Yehuda Bauer (Emeritus Professor of the Memory of the Holocaust Foundation's grammes will be co-ordinated with those Hebrew University in Jerusalem) and Is­ niain goals are the establishment of the of the International Survivors Convention. rael Singer (General Secretary of the first Spanish-speaking Shoah Education President de la Rua has invited senior World Jewish Congress). Centre and the first and only Museum of political governmental bodies from other Further information can be obtained '^he Shoah in Latin America, catering for Latin American countries. The programme from: Fundacion Memoria del Holo- 3 Spanish-speaking population of 450 will include visits to the site of the Israeli causto, Montevideo 919, Buenos Aires lUUion. Embassy which was bombed, a reception (cp 1019), Argentina. Tel: 0054 11 The Convention is part of a programme attended by government officials, a 48113588; Fax 0054 11 8113537; E mail: to encourage public awareness, in Argen­ concert at the Colon Theatre and tours [email protected] D

IS AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBB< 2000

Two centuries of family history (contit^uatiot)) NEWSROUND

n Lwowek (Neustadt bei Pinne) a few grandfather Max's many forebears dating Belgian compensation fund miles away, visitors to the dance hall back to the mid-eighteenth century, not Belgium's Jewish community is to receive I unknowingly dance away their Satur­ least Jakob Koebner, born here in 1744 compensation for assets lost by Holocaust day nights on the Jewish burial ground in and father of the founder of the Baptist victims from a new fund to be financed a 1950s style communal building. How Movement in Odense (Denmark). Great- by the Belgian Government, banks and can they know it had once been grandmother Johanna was born here, as insurance companies, reports the Jewish consecrated ground? No memorial plaque was her father. Many of their cousins Chronicle. The fund will also support or other clue of an earlier Jewish were born and buried here. projects combating antisemitism, racism presence grace the After visiting Rawicz and violations of human rights. site. Nine generations (Rawitsch), where we Israel's secularisation of Reissners, again looked in vain for any Introducing civil marriage, ending the ban our relations through sign of the small our grandmother, had on Saturday El Al flights and dropping the town's Jewish history, religious category from identity cards are lived and, in some knowing that at least cases, died in this part of the 'civil revolution' proposed by one branch of our Israel PM Ehud Barak. His proposals have undistinguished little family had been here town. Amongst their met with opposition from all sides of the in the nineteenth political spectrum. number were a rabbi, century, we made for a trader, a grain the provincial capital 'Residual' compensation funds merchant, a banker. Wroclaw (Breslau). A newly established 'Foundation for the They reflected the Wroclaw has a Jewish People', sponsored by the World history of their times: confident and almost Jewish Congress, plans to utilise unclaimed Michael Marcus Moses g>-aw5to»e of Clara Kobner cosmopolitan feel restitution funds for community projects Reissner, a grain merchant and carter, about it which radiates from the magnifi­ and education programmes throughout became a naturalised Prussian citizen and cent rynek and town hall. As an the Jewish world. The size of funds to be subsequently a sub-representative on the important city in pre-war Silesia with its put at its disposal and the use to which council of the Prussian Province of Posen university and heavy industry, it boasted these should be put are in dispute. at various times between 1834 and 1844. two synagogues and Jewish cemeteries Auschwitz commemoration ruling He died here in 1861. Simon Marcus until the Nazis decided otherwise. The An antisemitic Catholic group will be Reissner, born in 1831 was a veteran of site of the 'new' synagogue (built in 1872) permitted to commemorate the Poles shot the Prussian wars against Denmark and is now marked by a memorial stone com­ by the SS at a gravel pit on the outskirts Austria and died of cholera whilst nursing memorating the arson on Kristallnacht, of the Auschwitz camp compound. The a comrade in the field. Born in 1865, the night of 9/10 November 1938 when Polish court ruling adds to other con­ Leopold Reissner's business was 'aryan­ Jewish Germany burned. The one hun­ troversial decisions, such as the operation ised' in 1938 and he was deported to dred practising Jews of present-day of a discotheque in a former tannery Lodz ghetto (where he died) in October Wroclaw, mainly of Polish descent, use associated with camp atrocities. 1941. the earlier 'Stork' synagogue now under­ Leszno (Lissa) is a somewhat larger going restoration. A plaque in the Looted art's homecoming town and seems more confident in its courtyard testifies to the deportation to More than eighty works of art, looted by interface with the outside world. Until the extermination camps of Breslau's Jews the Nazis, have been returned to theif Second World War, it had a propor­ between 1941 and 1944. Of the two rightful owners, the heirs of Gustav tionately large Jewish population, as cemeteries, the 'Slesznej' cemetery Kirstein, from the city collections of evidenced by the large (and rather ugly) (named after the street in which it Hanover and Leipzig and from the synagogue built in 1626, two decades stands), inaugurated in 1856, has survived Federal German Government. The Worlo after Jews first obtained permission to relatively intact through one of fate's Jewish Congress' Commission for Aft settle in the town. Until restoration work quirks: in 1942, the cemetery was let to a Recovery assisted in the recovery process. began a few years ago, the building had German tree nurseryman and remained Hitler's favourite film-maker served as a store for building and other so tenanted, and thus untouched, until Plans for a film about Leni Riefenstahl. materials. Now the municipal coffers are 1947. It is the largest Jewish cemetery east now 97, are provoking anger and concern providing the means to reinstate its for­ of the Oder-Neisse line and the dominant in American Jewish circles. Oscar-winning mer main Jewish place of worship, inscription language is German. Here, we actress Jodie Foster plans to produce and although there is no Jewish community to found Heinrich Kobner, the university star in the film. use it. The main evidence of Leszno's bookseller and his wife Laura; Hugo Jewish past rests in the small Jewish Kobner, a doctor, and his wife Jenny; Haider loses museum where a large number of tomb­ Clara, who died at age 16, and others Jorg Haider intended to appeal against his stones - all with Hebrew or Yiddish new to our family tree. Suddenly, we lost libel action against an Austrian inscriptions - stand or lie, waiting to be have a large family who - in death - newspaper which criticised his trivial­ deciphered and then recorded on compu­ breathe life into our search for lost roots. isation of concentration camps. ter. Here we had wanted to find traces of D Morion Koebner

Published by the Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Briuin. I Hampstead Gate. IA Frognal. London NW3 6AL Tel: 020 7431 6161 Fax: 020 7431 8454 Printed in Great Britain by Freedman Brothers (Printers) Ltd. London NW II 7QB. Tel: 020 8458 3220 Fax: 020 8455 6860