Vol. 37-No.5 ISSN 0892-1571 May/June 2011 - Iyyar/Sivan 5771 ANNUALANNUAL SPRINGSPRING LUNCHEONLUNCHEON OFOF THETHE AMERICANAMERICAN SOCIETYSOCIETY FORFOR YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM “MAY YOU GO “COMMITMENT TO HOLOCAUST FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH” REMEMBRANCE BEGINS IN OUR HOMES” ELI ZBOROWSKI, Chairman of the American NICOLE PINES LIEBERMAN, recipient of the Society for Yad Vashem American Society for Yad Vashem Achieve- ment Award t is difficult to believe that 30 years have Ipassed since a few of us came together to hank you Sharon, and Mr. Zborowski, for begin what is now the American Society for Yad T presenting us with this very special and Vashem. From the modest parlor meetings held meaningful award. Mr. Zborowski, your guid- in the homes of survivors in New York and New ance and leadership throughout the years Jersey, we have grown to almost 150,000 sup- have been an invaluable example for the next porters all across the country. generation. Your hard work continues to in- I would like for a moment to reflect on those spire us daily. early days. There is a Yiddish expression that Lucy Pantirer was born in Rozwadow, Poland, says yeder onhoib is shver – every beginning is on February 6, 1928, to Ethel and Leon Lorber. difficult. While that is true, beginnings are also Rozwadow was a small shtetl with a population full of hope and expectation for the prospect of of about 2,000 Jews in 1939. She remembers growth and fulfillment. At the same time, both the shtetl as mostly Jewish and recalls attending the burden and excitement of any new venture the Orthodox synagogue with her family. are enhanced by the people with whom you un- In September of 1939, the Nazis captured dertake the endeavor. Rozwadow and kicked her family out of their One of the people who joined us early on was town. She was eleven years old when World Isak Levenstein z”l, Rella Feldman’s father and War II began. Her family was sent to the Russ- the elder statesman of the Pantirer family. Over the years, we would frequently see the ian side of Poland, to a city named Kolonia where her paternal grandparents lived. Even- Levensteins at simchas and at Grossinger’s, where survivors often gathered to mark the tually Kolonia was invaded, and the Russians shipped her family via train towards Siberia Jewish holidays. There was a commonality of spirit between myself and Isak. We not only in June 1940. Thankfully, most of her extended family was shipped off together to Siberia, liked each other, but shared similar views in terms of our communal interests and respon- where they lived in rooms next to each other. Sadly, Lucy’s father died during their time in sibilities. It was through Isak Levenstein’s efforts that the Pantirer family became involved Siberia while at a labor camp. in the American Society for Yad Vashem. Lucy spent the war years moving from one city to the next, working in various labor Murray Pantirer z”l was an enthusiastic member of our Board. He regularly attended camps, attending numerous “schools” and learning many languages. By the end of the meetings and made a significant contribution to the Society. Together with his wife, Louise, war, Baba Lucy spoke five languages – Russian, Polish, Hebrew, Yiddish, and Uzbek. he was a Trustee of the Valley of Communities — a project which is unique among Holo- Even after the war, the three women continued to be wanderers. First, they went to caust memorials. Two decades later, the Valley stands today, as the only comprehensive Moscow; from there they planned to go back to Rozwadow, to return home, but it wasn’t commemoration to the more than 5,000 destroyed Jewish communities. safe due to pogroms. They instead traveled to Krakow, Poland. From there, the Bricha Linz Bindermichel This afternoon, in honoring the Pantirer family, we are paying tribute to three generations sent them to , Austria, to the displaced persons camp in the American Zone. In August 1946, she met a young man in the DP camp who gave her some choco- of committed and successful leadership in perpetuating the legacy of the Holocaust and late, a luxury then and still Baba’s favorite treat. The young man, Murray Pantirer, z”l, a the noble cause of remembrance. Louise and Murray Pantirer were ever present at our Holocaust survivor on Schindler’s List who had lost his parents and all of his siblings, early parlor meetings and could always be counted on for support of our annual tribute would become her beloved husband of 61 years. They were married in January 1947 and dinners and, in more recent years, our spring luncheons. It is not surprising that their stayed in the DP camp until January 1949, at which time they emigrated to the United daughter, Elisa Pantirer Pines, has followed in her parents’ footsteps and has made Holo- States. Her mother and sister followed seven months later. caust remembrance a priority in her life. In a Jewish household, the wife and mother is called in Hebrew akeret habayit. This lit- Honoring family history and the lessons of the past are as essential to Nicole Pines erally means the “mainstay” of the home. It is she who largely determines the character Lieberman, Elisa’s daughter and Louise’s granddaughter, as they are to the two previous and atmosphere of the entire home. Baba Lucy is not only an akeret habayit, but also a generations. For Nicole, Holocaust education and transmitting the message of “Never true eshet chayil, a woman of valor. She dedicated her life to building a home for her family. Again” are historical imperatives. Her dedicated and effective work with the American So- By choosing to host family events at her home, she set an example early on for her chil- ciety’s Young Leadership Associates is truly exemplary. dren and other members of the community. Lucy recognized her obligation to instill into I am pleased to extend a heartfelt “Mazel tov” to these three outstanding women. her children Jewish traditions, her love of family, and the joy of performing mitzvoth, by As future generations continue to endeavor to understand their parents’ and grandpar- way of her actions. Along with Murray, she raised three children, who were married, and ents’ world, their heritage, the Holocaust, and their rebirth to life, I have every confidence each had three children of their own, and the family, thank God, continues to grow. that the light that is slowly fading in our tent will be brightly rekindled anew by their heirs. Like so many of you here today, my grandmother survived and overcame the painful atroc- To the incoming leadership, I say, “May you go m’chail l’chayil — from strength to strength.” ities of the Holocaust, and then dedicated her life to transplanting and rebuilding her family and her home. Her story, and your story, is in many ways the story of the Jewish people. It is stories like Baba’s that bring home the importance of Yad Vashem. Among many things, IN THIS ISSUE Yad Vashem stands as a testament to our past and where we came from, the life and values our loved ones and lost ones carried through the Shoah, our nomadic experience as a people, Annual Spring Luncheon of the American Society for Yad Vashem...... 1, 8-9 and our struggle to build a home in Israel infused with these values and traditions. Yom Hashoah: Remembering victims of the Holocaust...... 2 On a personal level, Baba Lucy has also taught me and my mother, Elisa, about the re- Nazi propaganda for the Arab world...... 4 lationships among grandmothers and mothers and daughters. Her example inspires my Germany still keeping secrets on Nazi Eichmann...... 5 mother to host family gatherings to celebrate the High Holidays and the Pesach Seders. Holocaust refugees remember “Golden Gate to Freedom”...... 6 I have learned from Baba and from my mother that instilling values that are passed on to Shameful secrets in the fields of the Holocaust...... 7 future generations begins in the home. I understand the importance of one day, God will- Gathering the fragments...... 10 ing, instilling these values in my home. Trove of historic records of Holocaust goes online...... 11 As we join together today to honor three generations of women, and as we continue to Lessons from the Shoah...... 12 stress the importance of Yad Vashem to our children and to our children’s children, let us al- Stepping stones of the Nazi era...... 15 ways remember that a true and lasting commitment to Holocaust remembrance and educa- Forgotten strings recall Holocaust horror...... 16 tion, as well as the State of Israel, begins in our homes. Thank you and Am Yisrael Chai. Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2011 - Iyyar/Sivan 5771 YOM HASHOAH: REMEMBERING VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST Israel – The world has not learned the “Even after the Holocaust, a regime still six million Jewish people killed by the directed this year’s program. He said the lessons of the Holocaust but Israel has, exists whose leaders publicly deny the Nazi regime during World War II. Weiner childhood theme was chosen because Prime Minister Binjamin Netanyahu said at Holocaust,” Peres said. “This should make said, “There is a tendency to ask, as we most of the survivors today were children the beginning of Holocaust Martyrs’ and every person sick and shake their con- get further and further from the Holocaust, during the devastation. Among the liturgy, Heroes’ Remembrance Day. science. The fanatical leadership of Iran is why do we need these commemorations? several of the songs were lullabies. a danger to the entire world, not just Israel, Do a simple search on the Internet. ‘Did “Lullabies in many cultures can have a but to every household; a real danger to the Holocaust ever happen?’ You will get dark meaning too. The mother sings a the future of humankind. The nations of the sweet song to the baby but unburdens world will not accept Iran having herself at the same time,” Davis said. nuclear arms. They are now “The song I sang, ‘Dona, Dona,’ is a good being tested.” example of that. In the context of the Holocaust survivor Michael Holocaust it is a statement of horror Goldman spoke at the ceremony framed as a lullaby.” at Yad Vashem on behalf of the Lillian Polus Gerstner, Director of Special more than 200,000 others who Projects at the museum, said the commem- lived through the Nazi genocide oration is meant to honor the memories of and now reside in Israel. those who were lost as a reminder for the Holocaust survivor Simha Applebaum lights Goldman described how yearn- future. one of the six torches at the ceremony at Yad ing to live in a Jewish state Vashem in Jerusalem. helped him survive his ordeal. Speaking at the official state ceremony “We never stopped believing in Poland – About 7,000 Jews marched to held at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem honoring returning to Zion,” he said. the former German Nazi death camp of the six million Jews murdered by Nazis “In the hells of Auschwitz at From left to right: Michael Gluck, Eli Chomsky, Felice Auschwitz on May 2 in memory of the 6 and their allies, the prime minister said the night I quietly sang the song of Sendik, Jill Solomon, Dina Spierer, Eugene Gluck, Jean million Holocaust victims. Jewish state was capable of defending it- Avigdor Hameiri: ‘On the top of Gluck, Rose Mermelstein. Participants in the 20th annual March of self against any potential threat. Mount Scopus, shalom to thee Jerusalem.’ tens of thousands of articles, books, blogs the Living were carrying Israeli flags. They “We must not bury our heads in the sand I never stopped believing our enemies will written denying the Holocaust.” started from the former camp’s gate with and dismiss the threat with cheap words,” succumb.” Abe Zeker, a survivor of Auschwitz, the infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work he said. “Has the world learned the lesson Mauthausen and Dachau, who attended Sets You Free”) sign. of all this? I doubt it. Have we learned it? I the memorial, was 17 and weighed 70 The crowd walked about 3 kilometers (2 believe so. May the whole world know that USA – President Obama marked Holo- pounds when Gen. George Patton’s army miles) from the red brick buildings of when Israel and the Israel Defense Forces caust Remembrance Day with a statement liberated Dachau on January 18, 1945. Auschwitz I to the wooden barracks and say ‘Never again,’ we mean every word.” “honoring the memory of all those who suf- “They came too late,” said Zeker, who gas chambers of Birkenau, or Auschwitz II, At the same time, Netanyahu, who referred fered, died and lost loved ones in one of was accompanied by daughters Susie where a memorial ceremony was held at a to Iran time and again throughout his the most barbaric acts in human history” and Libu. monument to the camp’s victims. speech, called on the world not to be indif- during the period around World War II. Eugen Gluck was also 17 while working The march, which is traditionally held on ferent to the perils posed by Tehran and “More than six decades after the Holo- in pajama uniforms on underground oil Holocaust Memorial Day, also included hostile Islamist factions in the Middle East. caust, and at a time when Holocaust tunnels in Austria in conditions as cold as some Holocaust survivors. “It seems the world finds it easier to talk denial and genocidal ideologies persist, 35 degrees below zero. Of the 2,500 peo- Between 1942 and 1945, Jews from about the lessons of the past than identify our grief and our outrage over the ple from his town of Satmar, Romania, across Europe were brought to Birkenau them in the present and future,” he said. only 38 survived. by rail and killed in its gas chambers. At “But we, the Jewish people, cannot ignore Louis Katz was working with a Christian least 1.1 million people — mostly Jews, the lessons of the Holocaust during these woman in Pressburg, Slovakia, delivering Poles, and Gypsies — died that way or days. Because there are new tyrants who food to Jews in bunkers when he was from starvation, disease and forced labor are upon us, and as they deny the Holo- caught by the Nazis in January 1945. He at the camp that German Nazis built in oc- caust and call for the destruction of our was beaten so badly he was in a coma for cupied Poland during World War II. people, Iran and its satellites – Hezbollah two months. He was rescued while an in- The Auschwitz camp was liberated Jan- and Hamas – call and openly act to de- mate at the Theresienstadt concentration uary 27, 1945 by Soviet troops. stroy the Jewish state.” camp on the Czech side of the disman- Meanwhile, in Lithuania, dozens of peo- tled country. ple paid tribute to the nearly 200,000 Jews An exhibit, “The Auschwitz Album,” spon- who died 70 years ago when the Nazis in- sored by Mr. and Mrs. Eli Zborowski on be- vaded the country. half of the American Society for Yad Waving Israeli and Lithuanian flags, President Obama delivers his address on Holo- Vashem and co-sponsored by Eugen and about 100 demonstrators paid tribute to caust Remembrance Day, May 2, 2011. Jean Gluck, Alter and Marianne Goldstein, the dead by marching to the Holocaust sur- Nazis’ murder of six million Jews and so and Allen and Judy Hymowitz, was avail- vivor memorial outside the capital, Vilnius. many others have not diminished,” able to attendees. Visiting Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Obama said. “Germans, as a rule, did not take photo- Danny Ayalon said it was important to re- “From this tragedy we see the cost of al- graphs and worked very hard to keep the member the 6 million Jews murdered in lowing hatred go unanswered in the ‘Final Solution’ a secret,” said Dina Spierer, Europe by the Nazis because “anti-Semi- world, but from this justice we also see the chairwoman of the evening’s event. tism, xenophobia, and racism ... are still power of holding the perpetrators She asked those in attendance to “edu- threatening all of us.” of genocide accountable. Remembering Relatives of Holocaust victims lay flowers next cate the next generation to love your neigh- Some 90 percent of the country’s pre- these events only reinforces our solemn to the names of concentration camps, during a bor as yourself,” saying it would make it war Jewish population of 220,000 were ceremony marking the annual Holocaust Re- commitment to confront those who tell lies harder for acts of genocide to occur. “Let’s murdered by the Nazis and local collabo- membrance day in the Hall of Remembrance at about our history and to stop the spread of teach love and responsibility and make sure rators — the country’s largest loss of life in the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in hate in our own time.” this will never happen again.” such a short time. Most of the 70,000 Jews Jerusalem, May 2, 2011. The US president added that “We must *** in the capital were killed within a few Addressing the international community, heed the urgency to listen to and care months in 1941. the prime minister said, “Civilized people for the last living survivors, camp liberators Several survivors of the Holocaust, who around the world – all those who say they and the witnesses to the Shoah.” were children at the time of Nazi power, learned the lessons of the Holocaust – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Ne- opened a week of Yom HaShoah com- Yom HaShoah commemoration also they must unequivocally denounce those tanyahu cautioned that “the lessons of the memoration by lighting six white candles at took place in many Jewish communi- who call for the destruction of the Jewish Holocaust have not been learned,” and the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie. ties around the globe. state. Iran is even arming itself with nu- warned that hatred of Jews “still sweeps The crowd of some 200 was told that In the US commemorating events clear weapons to obtain that goal, and as across the world... (and) is now directed while each candle represented one million among other places were held in Bet of this moment the world has not stopped against their state and its right to exist.” Jews who were murdered by the Nazis Shalom Congregation in Minnesota, at it. The threat to our existence, our future, *** and their collaborators, the program fo- East End Temple in Lower Manhattan, is not theoretical, cannot be brushed aside, Synagogues throughout Queens ob- cused especially on the 1.5 million Jewish at Temple Emanu-El of Newton, MA. cannot be minimalized. served Yom HaShoah. children who did not survive. The Music of Survivors and witnesses to Shoah and “It stands right in front of us and hu- At Young Israel of Forest Hills, where the Children of the Holocaust was pre- their families were invited to light a can- mankind, and we must stop it.” Yom HaShoah first started in 1964 and sented by the Reform Cantors of dle of remembrance in St. Louis, MO. Iran also featured prominently during the then spread throughout the world, Rep. Chicago, the North Shore Havura of Rab- A community-wide remembrance of speech delivered at the event by President Anthony Weiner, State Sen. Toby bis, and the Chicago Milwaukee Associ- the victims, survivors, and heroes of Shimon Peres. He called the Islamic Re- Stavisky, and City Councilwoman Karen ation of Synagogue Musicians. the Holocaust including memorial can- public’s leadership a “danger to the entire Koslowitz gathered with survivors and Cantor Michael Davis, from the Lake- dle lighting, Kaddish, music, and poetry world.” more than 200 people to remember the side Congregation for Reform Judaism, took place in Maryland. May/June 2011 - Iyyar/Sivan 5771 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 3 JOHN DEMJANJUK FOUND GUILTY OF WAR CRIMES YAD VASHEM TORCH LIGHTER Munich court has found John Dem- of being a guard at the Treblinka death A janjuk guilty of war crimes, and sen- camp, but was released from jail in Israel TELLS AMAZING TALE OF SURVIVAL tenced the 91-year-old former autoworker after seven years when another Ukrainian bishop of my baptism. These good gentiles to five years in prison. was identified as the guard in question. BY GIL SHEFLER, cared for me.” Verdict came after 93 court days, includ- The U.S. Justice Department later re- THE JERUSALEM POST She lived a low-key and happy life until ing deeply affecting testimony from Dutch ported that Demjanjuk was suspected of the war ended, she recalls, staying away survivors and their kin, and monologues by Smuggled out of a Nazi labor camp as from danger and adopting her surrogate Demjanjuk’s chief attorney, Ulrich Busch, a baby, Dina Buchler-Chen ended up family’s traditions. who claimed his client was just as much a with a gentile family but was found, re- “I was a Catholic, I admit it,” she said. victim of Germany as any Jew. turned to the Jewish people. “Later I would sometimes cross myself in Reacting to the early news, Jewish lead- eventy-one is almost too young for a secret, but that ended pretty fast.” ers expressed gratitude to the court. person to be a Holocaust survivor, S Tragically, Blanka Buchler’s fears were “The most important thing is that he was which is why Dina Buchler-Chen’s unlikely justified. She didn’t survive the war nor did tried and judged and for the last days of his story stands out among those of the six her husband or anyone from Dina’s imme- life is confirmed as a perpetrator,” Stefan people chosen to light a torch at the official diate family. But cousin Blanka Ziczer- Kramer, general secretary of the Central memorial ceremony at Jerusalem’s Yad First, the opera singer, did, and came back Council of Jews in Germany, told JTA in a Vashem on the eve of Holocaust Remem- to claim Dina after the war ended. telephone interview. “How long he is going brance Day. John Demjanjuk in the courtroom. “My cousin came and snatched me to serve is secondary.” “I don’t remember the hardest part of away,” she said. “I wasn’t Maia or Maria. I “Even if there is going to be another ap- having been a guard at Sobibor and was being with my mother and grandmother in a was Dina and a Jew. It was very hard to peal, as his attorney has warned, this court liable for deportation because his U.S. cit- concentration camp,” she said over the get used to.” ruling now is a very important step in the izenship had been granted based on false phone, as she made her way to the re- direction of justice after more than 65 information. His citizenship was revoked in hearsal for the ceremony at the Holocaust years of injustice,” he added. 2002 and deportation was approved in memorial museum. “But I have an emotional Demjanjuk, born in Ukraine, was 2005. He was deported in March 2009. recollection: I can’t stand the dark and hate charged with being an accessory to the Efraim Zuroff, who heads the Jerusalem loud noises, and that’s from there.” murder of 27,900 Jews in Sobibor. He was office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told In 1941, aged one, Buchler-Chen was present at nearly every court date, always JTA he was pleased with the verdict deported with her mother and grandmother in a wheelchair or hospital bed. He wore against Demjanjuk, but disappointed that to Loborgrad labor camp outside her sunglasses, and said virtually nothing for a German court in Ingolstadt decided not hometown of Zagreb, Croatia, which was the duration of the trial. In April to extradite another accused war criminal then part of Yugoslavia. Knowing her 2010, Busch read aloud a statement in to Holland. child’s chances of surviving what lay ahead Dina Buchler-Chen. which Demjanjuk called the trial “torture,” A spokesperson for the court said that were nil, Blanka Buchler smuggled her In 1948 Dina was taken to Israel, and relieved only by his care attendants. 88-year-old Klaas Carel Faber, convicted daughter out of the camp in a cotton- she went on to build her life in the young Survivor Thomas Blatt, one of the rare more than 60 years ago by a Dutch court padded box with nothing but a note stating country. She studied biochemistry and mi- escapees from Sobibor, told JTA during of complicity in 22 wartime murders, would her name, her date of birth and the name crobiology, got married and raised a fam- the trial that “All the guards [at Sobibor] not be extradited because Faber’s consent of a cousin who she hoped would take ily of her own. Now retired, Buchler-Chen were murderers… it is enough to prove he as a German citizen was required, and he care of her. devotes a large part of her time to Hadas- was there.” refused, according to AP. “Somehow my mom managed to smug- sah, the women’s Zionist group, and Demjanjuk immigrated to the United “This decision is absolutely outrageous,” gle me out – don’t ask me how,” she said. helped open a shelter for women in States after World War II. He lived in sub- Zuroff said in an interview from Jerusalem. The box containing Dina was taken to Jerusalem. She has two children and six urban Cleveland from 1952. His later “It makes my blood boil.” the Jewish community center in Zagreb, grandchildren. years were spent fighting accusations of Kramer noted that, of 150,000 war where it was left just outside the entrance. “I love being a grandmother,” she said. involvement in wartime crimes against hu- crimes investigations in post-war West “The staff initially feared it was a bomb,” She has never forgotten the kindness of manity: he was accused in the early 1980s Germany, only 6,500 resulted in trials. she said. “Through the note they knew the Beritics, who took her in all those years who my cousin was. The note is still kept ago. Before they passed away she visited at Yad Vashem.” them several times in Zagreb, taking her HOLOCAUST VICTIMS LAID TO REST IN ROMANIA Blanka Ziczer-First, her mother’s cousin, grandchild with her on one occasion. In he remains of about 40 Jews killed the Elie Wiesel Institute, Alexandru Flo- whose name was on the fate-determining 1994 the Beritics were recognized as Right- during the Holocaust and found in a rian, told AFP. note, was a nonmarried opera singer with T eous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem, at mass grave were laid to rest on April 4 in The exact number of victims, including no experience rearing children. a grand ceremony held in Croatia. an emotion-filled ceremony in northeastern women and children, has not been deter- Fearing her own life might be in danger Buchler-Chen said she doesn’t think much Romania. mined, but Cioflanca told AFP, “We found if she kept the baby, she sought out the of the what-ifs, the endless number of alter- Five rabbis from Britain and the United help of a neighbor with ties to the resist- the skulls of at least 35 people, but there nate scenarios which just as easily might States performed the funeral service under ance. Through her, Dina was placed in the were other body parts, so we can talk have played out and led to a reality very dif- a grey and cloudy sky. care of a woman in the countryside who about at least 40 people.” ferent from the one she is familiar with. Dressed in black, they carried the re- was paid for her services. The victims were buried just a few yards In response to a question, she said that mains, unidentified and contained in paper “But that didn’t work well,” Buchler-Chen away from thousands more Jews killed if her mother’s cousin had not picked her bags and cardboard boxes, and put them during the pogroms. said. “After a while they checked up on me up after the war she probably would have into a single grave in the Jewish cemetery “I ask the forgiveness of the deceased and saw how neglected I was. She kept stayed with the Beritics, like an unknown of Iasi, overlooking the city. for the suffering that has been brought to me locked up in the attic and hungry. Peo- number of orphaned Jews who were “We have come here to help these peo- their holy bones,” rabbi Meir Schlesinger ple ask me what my first memory is and it’s placed with gentiles by desperate parents, ple rest in peace. We believe it is God’s said, referring to the belief that the re- of the ceiling of that house. I have no better and been brought up as part of the family. will,” British rabbi Meir Twersky, whose mains should have been left where they memories.” “I’d have stayed there and become a grandparents are buried in Iasi cemetery, were originally found. Luckily, she was relocated, otherwise Catholic,” she said. “Perhaps later in life they told AFP. But Abraham Ghiltman, the president of she might not have survived. This time would have told me who I was. When I went “We are gathered here today to remem- the Iasi Jewish community, said it was a Buchler-Chen was placed with Djina- back they reminded me that they put up a ber these men, women, and children who “relief” to see “those whose memory was Gertruda Beritic, a Catholic woman, who photo of my mother by my bed so that I re- were brutally murdered in a forest in 1941 forgotten” to be lying next to their fellow raised her alongside her two sons as her member her. But these were honest, good (...) only because they were Jews,” Israel’s citizens in the Jewish cemetery. own. people, and such a thing truly exists.” ambassador to Romania, Dan Ben-Eliezer, “They were so beautiful, they looked like concentration camp,” she said over the said during the official ceremony. “We hope that the events we witnessed Hollywood movie stars,” said Dina, who phone, as she made her way to the re- According to the Elie Wiesel National In- during the Holocaust will never happen was christened Maia, or Maria, at the local hearsal for the ceremony at the Holocaust stitute, the victims were killed in the sum- again, neither in Romania nor in the rest church. “They took me in and baptized me. memorial museum. “But I have an emotional mer of 1941 at Popricani, close to Iasi, by of the world,” he added. On my birth certificate I have a Star of recollection: I can’t stand the dark and hate the Romanian army, an ally of the Nazis According to an international commis- David and the signature of a priest and loud noises and that’s from there.” during World War II. sion of historians led by Nobel Peace lau- They were among more than 15,000 reate Elie Wiesel, himself a Jews killed in Iasi during pogroms in Romanian-born Jew, between 280,000 GERMANY INCREASES ALLOCATIONS TO SURVIVORS and 380,000 Romanian and Ukrainian 1941. he new deal reached between Ger- The Claims Conference will allocate the Jews were killed in territories run by the A Romanian historian, Adrian Cioflanca, many and the Claims Conference German government money to agencies found the site thanks to the testimonies of pro-Nazi Romanian regime during T means that the German government's con- around the world that provide in-home Romanians who had witnessed the 1940–1944. tribution to homecare funding for Holo- nursing and vital help with basic activities killings. The Popricani mass grave is the first to of daily living such as eating, dressing and, caust survivors around the world will rise “We will continue the historical research be discovered since 1945, when 311 bathing, and other services that greatly in order to try to determine where the vic- corpses were exhumed from three loca- from $156 million in 2011 to about $180 ease the lives of elderly Holocaust victims tims came from, whether it was from Iasi tions in Stanca Roznovanu, close to Iasi, million in 2012. The allocations will rise to and enable them to remain living in their or the surrounding villages,” the director of according to the Wiesel Institute. nearly $200 million by 2014. own homes. Page 4 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2011 - Iyyar/Sivan 5771 BOOKBOOK REVIEWSREVIEWS NAZI PROPAGANDA FOR THE ARAB WORLD Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World. light just how many Germans were in- that it was the Jews that had actually Palestine — all to please the Muslims By Jeffrey Herf. Yale University Press: volved in this push to Nazify the Arab caused the war because of their Zionist and keep oil flowing to Britain. Addition- New Haven, 2009. 335 pp. $30.00 hard- world. We are made aware of the substan- goals — Muslim land in the Middle East, ally, as the war wore on, Hitler would cover. tial support the Muslims themselves gave and the more land the better! Further- promise the Muslims their long-awaited this campaign — most especially Haj Amin more, the Nazis spread the idea that Jews freedom from the British. In sum, an Axis REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN el-Husseini, the “lifetime” Grand Mufti of were creating an “army of 50,000” for victory would bring them their independ- The VFA (Voice of Free Arabism) Jerusalem. And we see “eventual use against the ence. What the Nazis forgot to mention broadcast July 7, 1942: clearly that the failure of the Arabs.” Hence, they would was that they would be the new rulers . . . “You must kill the Jews before they Nazis in this direction was finally “destroy Islam just as Meanwhile, in the midst of all this, the open fire on you . . . The Jews are surely not due to lack of try- their ancestors had been at- Nazis couldn’t stop admiring, or at least planning to violate your women, to kill ing. From the “Fall of 1939 to tempting to do for thirteen appeared to be unable to stop admiring, your children and destroy you . . . March 1945, the Nazi regime centuries.” Obviously the the Muslim dedication to their religion. This is your best opportunity to get rid broadcast shortwave Arabic truth mattered not at all The piety. The purity. All this, so unlike of the dirty race, which has usurped programs” to the area “seven here. the Godless Communists, the Russians, your rights and brought misfortune days and nights a week.” And speaking of sup- who Hitler’s men erroneously claimed and destruction on your countries . . . Moreover, this material posed Jewish power, the had “killed four million Muslims.” Your sole hope of salvation lies in an- spread over the airwaves Nazis continuously told the In sum, Hitler and his supporters did all nihilating the Jews before they annihi- was supplemented by printed Muslims, by way of radio they could in the region to spread their late you.” propaganda in the form of and print media, that Amer- kind of hate. And it all might have worked riginally presented in Arabic, this is “Arabic-language leaflets and ica was run by the Jews. if not for the Axis defeat, first in Stalin- Obut a small sampling of the radio ma- brochures.” For that matter they referred grad, and then, more immediately, in terial broadcast into the heart of the Muslim Nor, in fact, was it particu- to the President as “The 1943 in Tunisia. Middle East and North Africa by the Nazis larly difficult for the Nazis to attract the Grand Rabbi Roosevelt.” In short, Amer- Interestingly, Herf claims that “the during World War II. It is all quite horrifying. Muslims to them and make them their al- ica, according to the Nazis, was an enemy ideas” spread by “Nazism and fascism It makes one think of what might have hap- lies. For, cleverly, Hitler’s men made it a to the Muslim world and should be treated ceased to play a major role in European pened to the Jews living in those countries point of first emphasizing all that the two as such. politics after 1945, but traces” of them — of the 700,000 of them — of the blood- groups had in common, their “affinities.” hen it came to the British, hated by can still be found among the Muslim bath that might have been . . . And it makes Once that was done, the Nazis could inject W the Muslims because they were countries of the Middle East and North Jeffrey Herf’s book Nazi Propaganda for the their own brand of poison in this “point of their overlords, the Nazis, who also hated Africa. Listening to some of what comes Arab World very important. Why? Sadly, entry” — poison advantageous to them. them, told the Muslims that the British were out of that part of the world today surely few know about this side of the war . . . nor For example, both the Muslims and the “firm supporter[s]” of future “Jewish ex- validates the author’s claim. the conquest and subsequent Holocaust Nazis hated the Jews. The Koran encour- ploitation” in their region. Needless to say, Hitler planned there. aged Muslim hatred by stating that “‘You this proclamation is particularly thought- Dr. Diane Cypkin is a Professor of Thus, Herf’s research in “underutilized will meet no greater enemy of the believers provoking when one recalls everything the Media, Communication, and Visual Arts and unused archival sources” brings to than the Jews.’” The Nazis here added British did to prevent Jews from getting to at Pace University. THE SONDERBERG CASE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING The Sonderberg Case. other prestigious honors. He is a humani- By Elie Wiesel. Translated from the tarian ambassador par excellence. COMMEMORATED IN EVOCATIVE BOOK French by Catherine Temerson. Alfred A. Wiesel’s latest literary “home-run,” The Brave and Desperate: The Warsaw thousands of Jews. Further deportations Knopf:New York, 2010. 178 pp. $25.00. Sonderberg Case, is a suspenseful Holo- Ghetto Uprising. were shelved when the ghetto uprising caust-related novel, testimony to his being By Danny Dor, Ilan Kfir and Chava Biran. broke out on April 19, 1943. REVIEWED BY RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN uniquely at home both in the vineyard of Ghetto Fighters’ House, 2003. 208 pp. On May 16, Jurgen Stroop, the SS gen- ith over 50 books to his illustrious Jewish knowledge and in more general $195. eral in charge of crushing the revolt and liq- credit, Elie Wiesel, who prefers to philosophy and literature and possessing uidating the ghetto, informed his superiors W REVIEWED BY SHELDON KIRSHNER write in French and have his work trans- the traditional Jewish penchant for re- he had successfully carried out his orders. lated, continues to bless us at age 82 with sponding to questions with questions, hen Germany conquered Warsaw These tragic events are recalled in Brave his multiple pursuits, including recently as while spreading nuggets of humanizing W in September 1939, the city’s and Desperate, published in Israel by Beit a musician of his childhood songs and wisdom. He converses with Talmud and 360,000 Jewish residents were effectively Lohamei Haghetaot, the Ghetto Fighters’ melodies. Indeed, if any- Kabbalah sages and is doomed. House Museum. one deserves to be known equallly at ease with the With the Polish capital in their hands, the The original edition, released in Hebrew, as “Our Teacher and likes of Voltaire, Camus and Germans set up bread and soup distribution came out in 2003 to coincide with the 60th Rabbi” in these unsettling Gogol, masterfully utilizing centers for its starving population. In a por- anniversary of the rebellion. times of post-Holocaust the literary construction of tent of the horrors that awaited Skillfully edited by Danny perplexities for Jew and tales within tales. Jews, who comprised one- Dor and expertly designed Gentile, it is this humble The book’s protagonist, third of Warsaw’s population, by Tzipi Birak-Bizanski, the yet honored survivor. He New Yorker Yedidyah (“God’s they were not permitted to join book is a useful addition to emerged from the “king- friend”), gives up at his profes- the food lines. Holocaust historiography. dom of the night” resolved sor’s urging a career on stage “Nicht fur Juden” – Not for The text, supplemented to help save humanity, for one as a theater critic, Jews – the Germans pro- by personal accounts, is struggling with his shaken teaching us that words count claimed. sharp and precise. The faith in his early classic more than theatrical acts in a In October of that fateful photographs, some appar- Night, and contending with Jewish context, for “man is a year, the German administra- ently never seen before in his brethren’s fate in So- book” (p. 16). Wiesel himself tors issued the first of what print, are stark and viet captivity in Jews of Si- was a journalist in Paris fol- would be numerous anti-Se- graphic. lence, ever faithful to his lowing World War II. mitic decrees, all intended to Brave and Desperate, Jewish moorings and their universality. Assigned by his editor to cover the trial demoralize, weaken, and iso- whose title pretty well Wiesel, a 1986 Nobel Peace Laureate – of 24-year-old Werner Sonderberg, a Ger- late Jews. sums up the emotions that he should receive one for literature too – is man student at New York University who is The Germans also humili- accompanied the uprising, on the very short list of those who serve as charged with murdering his uncle Hans ated Jews – cutting off the beards of the charts major developments in the ghetto. humanity’s conscience. He courageously Dunkelman, Yedidyah ponders Werner’s observant and beating and forcing On October 3, 1939, four days after the speaks for human rights in addition to his seemingly contradictory response of passersby to dance and sing at gunpoint. fall of Warsaw, Adam Czerniakow – an in- Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, and “Guilty…and not guilty” (p. 74). On November 15, 1940, the ghetto was dustrial engineer who had studied in Ger- his academic work as the Andrew W. Mel- Hans, who is really Werner’s grandpa, is sealed. Shortly afterward, 100,000 Jews many and who had represented the Jewish lon Professor in the Humanities at Boston an unrepentant ex-Nazi officer of the noto- from neighboring towns were pushed into community in Poland’s Senate – was sum- University. Wiesel is a recipient of the rious Einsatzgruppen, boasting to Werner what would be the biggest ghetto in Nazi- moned to Gestapo headquarters to head United States Congressional Gold Medal of his murderous record and only regret- occupied Europe. Many died of disease up the new Council of Elders. along with the Presidential Medal of Free- ting that Hitler lost the war with hope of yet and starvation. The Judenrat, in conjunction with a Jew- dom, and is the founding chairman of the a future victory. My own mom’s sister with In the next three years, the German oc- ish police force, administered the ghetto for U.S. Holocaust Museum Council, among (Continued on page 14) cupiers methodically deported tens of (Continued on page 14) May/June 2011 - Iyyar/Sivan 5771 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 5 HOLOCAUST-ERA SOAP FIND RAISES NEW QUESTIONS vides support to families in mourning and She noted, however, that one museum, by visitors and that his answer is, “It didn’t BY STEWART AIN, THE JEWISH WEEK other services. the Chamber of the Holocaust on Mt. Zion happen.” “They asked if it was real,” Mermelstein in Israel, actually displays a bar of soap “There is nothing we can hold our hats fter Holocaust survivor Joseph said. “I said I wish it wasn’t, but it is. … My purportedly made by the Nazis from on that would indicate the Nazis tried this AWeinberger entered a nursing mother was in a concentration camp, per- human fat. The museum, maintained by even experimentally,” he said. home, his nephew began cleaning out his haps he got the soap from her. … It’s a one the Diaspora Yeshiva, is located in a cellar Asked about the Nuremberg Trials, Black Borough Park apartment and discovered in a billion chance you find something like and built in 1949. Lipstadt said she knows said the evidence presented there “gave an old suitcase containing his naturaliza- this.” of no other museum with such a display. the rumor some legs.” In addition to the tion papers, German currency, and a book t first there was talk of burying the he Virginia Holocaust Museum in Russian film, two British prisoners of war about the Nazi doctor, Josef Mengele — all Asoap in a dignified ceremony. But as TRichmond shows footage of a Russ- testified that they worked at the anatomical relatively standard-issue belongings. more and more people heard of it, ques- ian film that was played at the Nuremberg institute, but Black said their testimony was Then Yitzchok Mermelstein reached into tions were raised about whether the Nazis Trials. It shows Russian soldiers coming “inconsistent.” One of them gave the court a bag and pulled out a mundane artifact, ever really did use human fat to make upon a skeleton in a vat at the Gdansk the “recipe” that was in the institute for but one with the power to drive home the soap. The soap, which is making the soap — and there was no men- reality of the Holocaust with the force of a brownish in color and meas- tion of using human remains. sledgehammer. It was a bar of soap bear- ures about two inches by one Black said he read the report of the tests ing the initials “RIF.” inch, was then locked up in conducted five years ago in Warsaw, but “When I opened the bag and saw ‘RIF,’ I Misaskim’s offices for safe- he noted, “The forensic work was never re- remembered hearing that the Nazis made keeping. leased.” Jews into soap, and I thought that maybe A staff member at Misaskim Regarding the initials “RIF” on the soap this was one of the bars,” recalled Mermel- researched the matter and bars, Black said it is widely believed this stein, 52, of Flatbush. posted a story about it on the stood for, “Jews rest in peace.” In fact, he “I believe I heard about it at the Holo- group’s website. In it, she re- said, it was the initials of the soap manu- caust Museum in Washington and that Yad counted how Joseph Wein- facturer, Reich Center for Industrial Fat Vashem has a couple of bars,” he added. berger had spent the war Provisioning. “I wrapped it in a towel. Seeing the Men- hiding from the Nazis in cel- “The Nazis did a lot of things that were gele pictures and realizing that my uncle lars and bunkers; the Nazis very ghoulish, but for some reason the used the suitcase when he came to Amer- killed his parents and nine of Some of the belongings found in a suitcase of Holocaust survivor shock value of the soap, of leather goods ica, I put two and two together.” his 13 siblings. Joseph Weinberger. and lampshades made of human products Mermelstein said he went home and The staff member, Suri Roth, found that Anatomical Institute, from which it was de- capture the imagination,” Black said. looked on the Internet for information judges in the Nuremberg Trials accepted duced that the Nazis used human fat to (Mark Jacobsen’s recent book The about such soap and saw a picture of a bar the testimony from someone who said he make soap. Lampshade is an account of the author’s purported to have been produced by the had worked at a laboratory that was in- Jay Ipson, the museum’s founder, said attempt to authenticate whether a lamp- Nazis from the bodies of concentration volved in the production of soap that con- he knows questions have been raised shade made from human skin could be camp inmates. A picture of one of those tained human fat. A bar of such soap was about the veracity of the soap story and traced back to the Nazis.) bars of soap “looked the same as I had, actually introduced as evidence in the tri- that all he is doing is showing visitors what Black said there is no proof that such ob- only it had a different number” below the als. Five years ago, that soap was tested was presented at the Nuremberg trial. jects contain human product “and if it does, initials RIF. (The initials are believed to be by Poland’s National Remembrance Insti- A survivor, Ipson said that after the war we don’t know it is from Jews. … And the those of a German soap manufacturer.) tute, which announced that it did indeed many survivors had bars of this soap that difficulty is tying it back to the Nazis. There Mermelstein said he then visited his contain human fat. they believed contained human remains. is nobody who was close enough to have uncle in the nursing home but that his But Roth said Holocaust experts today He said one survivor who spoke at his syn- seen the process. There were stories in Ro- uncle, who has dementia, was unable to believe that only a small amount of soap agogue a few years ago recalled seeing mania, Auschwitz and Danzig. But if you fol- remember where he got the soap or any- containing human fat was ever produced. survivors burying a number of bars of soap low them to their source, there is nothing.” thing about it. Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt in a cemetery in Munich. Mermelstein said he would like to have Mermelstein said that “since I know that told The Jewish Week that “there is no But Peter Black, senior historian at the the bar of soap from his uncle’s suitcase human remains have to be buried,” he proof that the Nazis made Jews into soap United States Holocaust Memorial and tested to see if it contains human fat. If it contacted people he knew at Misaskim, an in a mass fashion. … There were attempts, Museum in Washington, D.C., said ques- does, he said, it would be buried with Orthodox Brooklyn-based group that pro- but it was never practical.” tions about the soap are frequently asked proper respect. GERMANY STILL KEEPING SECRETS ON NAZI EICHMANN make available some of its files, which it is interesting things,” Weber told Deutsch- a few people into a spin,” Weber be- BY SIMON STURDEE, EJP now doing, but only step by step. landfunk radio this week. lieves. ccording to Spiegel magazine, they The suspicion is that the government of ifty years after Adolf Eichmann went The fact that Eichmann in the event kept show that the BND, or rather its fore- chancellor Konrad Adenauer wanted to on trial in Israel, Germany is still A quiet on this aspect, and on other Nazis in F runner Organisation Gehlen, was aware as prevent Eichmann being captured in case keeping mum on how much it knew before Argentina, raises the suspicion that there early as 1952 that Eichmann was in Ar- he revealed highly embarrassing details Mossad agents kidnapped the Nazi war was a “deal behind the scenes” between gentina — eight years before his capture. about the pasts of high-ranking figures in criminal in Argentina in 1960. West Germany and Israel, Weber said. the West German elite. Organizers of a Berlin exhibition, “Facing Adding fuel to the fire are accusations Eichmann’s kidnap came at a Justice – Adolf Eichmann on Trial,” say that the West German embassy in Buenos frosty time in relations with com- Germany’s Bundesnachrichtendienst Aires appeared to be well aware that Eich- munist East Germany (GDR), (BND) foreign intelligence agency refused mann was in Argentina, despite its claims which had long accused West access to the relevant files. to the contrary after his capture. Germany of rehabilitating old “We made a request to the BND around “Nazi diplomats got top jobs in South Nazis in high positions, and at a a year ago to be able to look at these files. America (after 1945), particularly in coun- particularly tense period in the The response was negative,” Lisa Hauff, tries run by dictators,” said Kampe. Cold War. curator at the exhibition at the Topography “Every Nazi criminal on the run got their n 1961 the GDR erected the of Terror museum, told AFP. Berlin Wall and the CIA spon- identity papers issued at the embassies, This is “absurd” and “outrageous,” said I sored the doomed Bay of Pigs in- from (Josef) Mengele, the concentration Norbert Kampe, head of the Wannsee vasion of Cuba. The following year camp doctor, to Eichmann. It cannot pos- Conference memorial, which helped on the was the Cuban missile crisis. sibly be that ... Bonn didn’t know about it.” exhibition at the museum on the site of the “Bonn is on trial with Eichmann,” Eichmann’s sons applied for passports at Gestapo and SS’s former Berlin headquar- A video screen shows Adolf Eichmann during his trial in the ran the headline of GDR newspa- the Buenos Aires embassy in 1954, using ters. exhibition “Facing Justice – Adolf Eichmann on Trial” (Der per Neues Deutschland, reporting their real surnames and even putting as Eichmann was a key organizer in the de- Prozess – Adolf Eichmann vor Gericht) at the Topography on what it said was “panic” in Ade- their father SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer portation and murder of millions of Jews of Terror documentation center in Berlin. nauer’s government. (“SS Lieutenant Colonel”) Eichmann, re- and others during World War II. He es- This is not that spectacular, observers The most prominent example was Ade- ports said. caped from captivity and ended up, like say, but the BND’s reluctance to release nauer’s chief of staff, Hans Globke, who “There should be another ruling in the many other war criminals, in Argentina in these files, and the fact that it is still block- had been involved drawing up anti-Jewish coming weeks that we hope will release 1950. ing access to others, has raised suspicions legislation under the Nazis. Spiegel quoted most of the remaining files, if not all of After his capture by Israeli agents, he that it may be hiding more explosive se- CIA files as saying Bonn was “on the brink stood trial in Jerusalem and was executed them,” Weber’s lawyer Reiner Geulen told crets. of hysteria.” in 1962. AFP. “I have seen some of the (released) files, “Eichmann was like a walking bomb be- Freelance journalist Gaby Weber last A spokesman for the BND, Dieter Arndt, and a great deal is blacked out. They are year won a legal victory forcing the BND to cause he knew so much ... and if he had declined to comment while Weber’s legal basically just trial documents with very few spilled the beans he would have sent quite action was ongoing. Page 6 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2011 - Iyyar/Sivan 5771 SURVIVORS’SURVIVORS’ CORNERCORNER

FAMILY GETS FIRST AWARD FOR SAVING OTHER JEWS IN SHOAH “In terms of research, [study of] Jewish Some 300 children lived in the orphanage, ports, even when it seemed like a lost BY NIR HASSON, HAARETZ heroism pales in comparison to the Jews’ where the Birenbaums did everything they cause. We knew how to find ... people who suffering and the Nazis’ murderousness,” could to keep them from being transported could help us. Once it was a notary who ld black-and-white footage on says Alan Schneider, director of the B’nai to the death camps. designed a rescue plan, once it was a doc- YouTube shows children celebrat- O B’rith World Center in tor who forbade sending the children due ing at a Purim party in post-World War II Jerusalem. to a contagious disease in our hut....” Amsterdam. In the silent, four-minute clip Jews cannot be named In one case, Hennie Birenbaum per- posted by Yad Vashem, the kids are Righteous Gentiles, he adds. suaded the camp commander that 50 of dressed up as kings, queens, princesses, “Gentiles risked their lives the children were actually Christians, born and Arab sheikhs, marching in pairs and and the Jews were all in dan- laughing. Nothing about them indicates to German soldiers and Jewish women. ger. But some of them took Equipped with forged documents, she they are orphans who survived the Holo- risks beyond the call of duty caust, which had ended only a year ear- managed to save all of them but one. and we thought it was neces- The orphanage operated until February lier. sary to honor them,” Schnei- The video was recorded in 1946 at the 1944, when the Birenbaums and the re- der says. maining children were sent to the Bergen- Children’s Home of Yehoshua and Hen- The Birenbaums saved not Belsen concentration camp. nie Birenbaum, whose children received only themselves and their six The Birenbaums set up an orphanage the Citation of Jewish Rescue, the first children, but dozens of or- Yehoshua and Hennie Birenbaum with five of their own children. there for 40 children, almost all of whom award of its kind, on Holocaust Memorial phans. survived. They reestablished their Chil- Day. The ceremony was held in the For- efore the war, Yehoshua and Hennie “My parents used to sneak up to the est of the Martyrs outside Jerusalem. BBirenbaum, who married in 1927, camp headquarters, see which children dren’s Home in Amsterdam after the war The newly created citation, recognizing lived in Berlin. After Kristallnacht in 1938, were listed on the next transport and try to and in 1950 immigrated to Israel with 15 the heroism of Jews who rescued Jews, they fled to the Netherlands. When the stop them from being taken,” says Sonja orphans. is being awarded by the B’nai B’rith or- Nazis occupied Holland, they were sent to Birenbaum, the couple’s daughter. “It was a heartwarming sight, after I re- ganization and the Jewish National Fund. the Westerbork concentration camp. In a report submitted to the Dutch gov- turned to Amsterdam, when a child The ceremony marks the culmination of The couple set up an orphanage there ernment after the war, Yehoshua Biren- strolling with his mother recognized me a decade-long effort to raise awareness that was recognized by the camp authori- baum wrote: “We’d already succeeded, and hugged me, beaming with happiness,” about Jews who saved other Jews. ties and by Jewish aid organizations. more than once, to put off children’s trans- Birenbaum wrote. HOLOCAUST REFUGEES REMEMBER “GOLDEN GATE TO FREEDOM” is father roused Harry Gluckman Speaking at his Alameda home on the he Gluckmans arrived with just $3.36 The grandfather was a German veteran Hawake from a deep sleep, urging the 70th anniversary of his arrival, Tand a few suitcases with clothes and of World War I. 11-year-old to get out of his cabin bed and Gluckman called the day his “re-birthday.” paperwork. The boy arrived as Heinz “He said, ‘I’ve served my country. Noth- climb to the deck of the steamship He clutched a newspaper clipping Glucksmann, but immigration officials ing will happen to us.’ He even had his Heiyo Maru. that showed him wearing knee-high socks, recommended the family change the name old sword over the fireplace, and the Iron The boy rushed outside to see the smiling as he stood in a crowd that to something easier for Americans to Cross,” Gluckman said. Golden Gate Bridge soaring above him. In posed after walking onto a San Francisco pronounce. The boy and his parents left Germany the pre-dawn darkness of Oct. 21, 1940, pier. Growing up in the southern German city for Poland, then crossed through Lithua- he gaped at its beams and towers as the The immigration station opened in 1910. of Stuttgart, Gluckman was expelled from nia to Moscow, where they boarded the Japanese liner sailed beneath the famous It was a processing point for most of German public schools by the anti-Semitic Trans-Siberian Express for a long journey gateway that had opened just three the Jewish refugees who arrived to San Nuremberg laws of 1935. across the continent. They sailed from years earlier. Francisco before it burned down and was His family enrolled him in a Jewish Korea to Japan, and left Japan on Octo- “My father always referred to it after that closed forever in early October 1940, just school attached to the Stuttgart syna- ber 4, Gluckman’s 11th birthday, arriving as ‘My Golden Gate of Freedom’ weeks before the Gluckmans arrived. gogue, but on November 9, 1938, the boy in San Francisco nearly three weeks whenever we crossed the bridge or came Many of the Jewish families did not have watched townspeople pull books and later. near it,” Gluckman said. chairs from the school, beat up a rabbi, The family of three settled on Sutter The family was among up to 600 Jewish and burn the buildings down. It was Street. Gluckman’s father found work at refugees who sailed into San Francisco Kristallnacht, or the Night of Shattered the I. Magnin department store. His Bay between 1939 and 1941, fleeing Nazi Glass, when Nazis ransacked Jewish mother became a housemaid for a persecution in Germany, Austria, Lithua- homes, shops, and places of worship wealthy family in Pacific Heights. nia, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. across Germany and Austria. Their last contact with Gluckman’s They were part of a largely forgotten Pa- It was also the night when the Gluck- grandparents came years later in a post- cific exodus that was much smaller than mans became determined to flee, or at card believed to haver been sent from the the stream of thousands of refugees who least to get their two children out of Ger- Auschwitz concentration camp. The reached the East Coast. many. vague message expressed that they Gluckman, 82, is one of a handful of sur- Heiyo Maru ship that brought Gluckman fam- A British rescue organization called the were doing fine. viving refugees in the Bay Area who ily to San Francisco. Kindertransport adopted Gluckman’s “My father spent every waking moment vividly remembers the transoceanic voy- the American sponsors they needed in 3-year-old sister in 1939, taking her to searching for ways to bring his parents age to San Francisco. The Angel Island order to get a U.S. visa, but found them by England where she would be kept safe. out,” Gluckman said. Immigration Station Foundation has spent calling or sending letters to American Jews His parents signed their son up for the The grandparents were murdered at months trying to track down others, who shared their surname. The Gluck- same program, but Germany invaded Auschwitz in late 1943 or early 1944, hoping to share the little-known stories mans’ sponsor was a man in New York Poland in September 1939, launching Gluckman said. He lost 58 family mem- while there are still people who can they had never met, but who shared their World War II just before he was set to tell them. last name and agreed to vouch for bers in the Holocaust. leave. Wiping tears as he talked, Gluckman After the outbreak of war in Europe made them if they promised never to contact him The Gluckmans applied for exit visas escape across the Atlantic Ocean for financial help, or even to express grat- said his name in German means “lucky and kept looking for other ways to get man.” difficult, hundreds of European Jews took itude, once they reached America. out, eventually finding the Pacific route. advantage of a small window of time “In those early days of the concentration He went to his office closet, pulling out “(My grandfather) read that if you could a piece of cardboard where his father when the Pacific Ocean was open to pas- camps, the Germans would let them go pay for the entire trip in German senger travel. if they had a place to go, on the condition had drawn a family tree that stretches marks in Berlin, they were willing to take back to the 19th century. Gluckman “In 1940 and 1941, right up to Pearl Har- they leave all their assets behind,” Wong you,” Gluckman said. bor, the Pacific was still open,” said said. “Everything they owned was handed keeps it updated, he said, as he used a They stopped first in Breslau, now known finger to trace a line to his grandchildren. Eddie Wong, director of the Angel Island over to the regime.” as the Polish city of Wroclaw, where foundation. One family, before leaving Europe, spent “Hitler did not wipe out all of the Jews,” they paid a final visit to the boy’s paternal The Gluckmans crossed most of the their savings on two expensive fur Gluckman said. “There were enough of grandparents. The grandparents had world to get to California, fleeing Nazi coats, Wong said. The mother and daugh- us here to restart the family.” been unable to get an exit visa, but ex- Germany by way of the Trans-Siberian rail- ter wore the coats on the trip to the pressed confidence to family members First published in the San Jose Mercury road, then boarding ships in Korea and United States so they could sell them upon that they would survive, Gluckman said. News Japan. arrival. May/June 2011 - Iyyar/Sivan 5771 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 7 SHAMEFUL SECRETS IN THE FIELDS OF THE HOLOCAUST A new book has outraged hard-line by the Princeton historian Jan Gross and They have been incensed by Gross’s causing outrage followed by soul-search- Polish nationalists by exposing the his former wife which details how some suggestion, not only that the plundering of ing and a government investigation which widespread plundering of Jewish Poles profited from Jewish suffering during Jewish property and corpses occurred dur- found that Poles, and not the Nazis, were graves by their countrymen. the Holocaust. The revelations have ing the Nazi occupation and beyond, but indeed responsible for that atrocity. touched a raw nerve in a country still that it was far more widespread than pre- oland was home to approximately 2.5 BY JEROME TAYLOR, THE INDEPENDENT viously admitted. Pmillion Jews before the Second World t first glance it looks like an ordinary Znak’s offices in Krakow have War, but the vast majority perished at Nazi A rural scene from the middle of the received hate mail and been hands after 1939. Holocaust researchers last century. Squinting in the bright sun- scrawled with graffiti since ex- have estimated that about 250,000 Polish light, a group of Polish farmhands pose for cerpts of the book were published Jews managed to avoid the death camps a portrait after a successful day of toiling in in the Polish media, forcing Henryk while remaining in Poland, but that only the fields. Wozniakowski, the CEO of the 40,000 of them survived the war. Only on closer inspection is it possible to publishing house, to publicly de- Gross’s book says that Poles killed tens make out what the scene truly depicts – a fend the novel before its release. of thousands of the remaining 210,000 or mass grave-robbing exercise that shines “It’s a sensitive and controver- denounced them to the Nazi occupiers. an uncomfortable spotlight on a little- sial subject but it is a chapter of Speaking from New York, Professor Gross known chapter of Polish history during the history that needs to be told,” he said he believed debate in Poland over at- Second World War. said. “This book concentrates on titudes towards the country’s Jews during Resting on the ground in front of the first the black moments between the Second World War had matured to a row of farmers is a gruesome stack of Poles and Jews. While a majority level where most could accept that some Polish villagers hunt for trinkets in a Jewish grave near Tre- skulls, the last vestiges of thousands of of Poles were passive observers atrocities were carried out against Jews, blinka. Jews who were killed at a Nazi-run death of the Holocaust, and a minority largely for material gain. camp outside the village of Treblinka. Far deeply scarred by the Second World War were active helpers, a significant minority “There will be a reaction, but I think it will from harvesting their own crops, these Pol- and proud of its record of opposing the were engaged in criminal activities against be calmer and more restrained than [after] ish farmers were treasure hunting in the Nazi occupation against horrendous odds. the Jews.” some of my previous works,” he said. “There killing fields of the Holocaust, looking for The Polish version, produced by the pio- Gross’s books have often caused a is a group of Polish historians who for the gold teeth and trinkets that their Nazi mur- neering publishing house Znak, is already storm in Poland, a country he left in the past eight years or so have engaged in the derers may have missed. causing a stir thanks to a small number of 1960s for the United States. Ten years ago study of Polish-Jewish relations. They have The photograph is the starting point of copies that were obtained and then con- he examined the 1941 massacre of 1,600 shown that bravery and cruelty coexisted. It Golden Harvest, a controversial new book demned by hard-line Polish nationalists. Jewish villagers by their Polish neighbors, is part of human nature.” THE MEMORY OF HOLOCAUST, FORTIFIED taped recollections at the museum in torical consultants, Michael Berenbaum ditional details. Some atmospheric gal- BY EDWARD ROTHSTEIN, Skokie, where in the mid-1970s almost half and Yitzchak Mais — the survivors’ arti- leries are surprisingly effective, and it ulti- THE NEW YORK TIMES the population was Jewish, and a good facts, biographies and interviews amplify mately seems appropriate that Nazi portion of that was made up of survivors, the historical archive. There are sketch- memorabilia is shown through transparent efore the $45 million Illinois Holo- that is what happened — at least until books and scrapbooks, uniforms and floor panels over which we walk as we caust Museum & Education Center B 1976, when the National Socialist Party of relics. Two Yiddish diaries here were writ- reach the postwar period. opened in Skokie, two years ago, there America first sought permission to parade But the survivors’ perspectives can also was some urgency in completing its ten by Aron Derman while he fought as a through the town’s streets. be a weakness. The concluding gallery 65,000-square-foot building, which now partisan in the Polish forests. There is a gives too much emphasis to the effects of stands so incongruously monumental in the planned National Socialist Party march the midst of Chicago’s suburban land- in Skokie — effects that will be of little im- scape. At one time, 7,000 Jews bearing the portance in future decades. scars of the Holocaust had lived in Skokie And because the survivors’ experiences with their families, and they were aging. are necessarily personal, the message of Many had contributed artifacts to the mu- these museums also takes on a particular seum; some participated when it was just shape. Survivors knew their neighbors in a storefront on Main Street; some had their the pre-Holocaust world. Often they were oral histories recorded for its exhibition and part of a wider community, leading ordinary their lives chronicled in the institution’s im- and sometimes prosperous lives. As their posing companion book, Memory and world was dismantled, they had to ask, Legacy. again and again, how friends and neighbors And though they had survived one of his- allowed this to happen. They imagined what tory’s greatest scourges, many, as we are it might have been like, had there been re- reminded by the closing years of their bi- bellion or resistance. And in drawing les- ographies, did not live to see this project sons from their experiences, some began completed. to see the Holocaust as an extreme mani- That is a shame, because although the festation of a refusal to care about injustice museum has its flaws — some of which or the fate of one’s neighbor. are shared by others of the 16 major Holo- caust museums in the United States — it Their approach was amplified by others is an impressive achievement, its perma- who wished to avoid making the Holocaust nent historical exhibition surveying Ger- Ultimately, after court challenges and bra scavenged from stolen thread and seem too particular, emphasizing instead many’s descent from high civilization to demonstrations, the plans of this Nazi-in- cloth by Hannah Messinger in a German more general humanitarian issues. The Nazi inferno, as it obsessively dragged Eu- spired group were changed, and scarcely labor camp, and a leather belt that Samuel lesson, most broadly, and most blandly, is rope’s Jews to their deaths in ditches and two dozen acolytes gathered to demon- Harris — the museum’s president, who that those who learn from the Holocaust crematoriums. strate in Chicago. But as a concluding was imprisoned in Nazi camps from ages must learn the importance of empathy and Like the Los Angeles Museum of the Holo- gallery in this museum shows, the contro- 4 through 12 — had kept with him as his take a stand against injustice. caust, which opened last fall, it will also most versy galvanized the community of sur- sole comfort. ecome an “upstander,” the museum likely be among the last such institutions cre- vivors and reawakened old vulnerabilities. The museum is also displaying a Ger- Burges, not a “bystander.” A conclud- ated by survivors of the cataclysm, bearing Artifacts and memories were contributed man rail car, refurbished in 1943, the type ing 10-minute film, narrated by Barbra witness and offering lessons. That participa- for the creation of a small museum, which used to transport Jews east to the camps. Streisand, is a call for social action. “Now tion is one of the sources of strength of such opened in 1984. A speakers’ bureau of sur- The exhibition’s historical films were cre- it’s up to you” is its repeated moral. We are museums, but strangely, too, it is also a vivors was established to share experi- ated by Northern Light Productions. reminded of the prevalence of genocides, source of weakness. ences. And lobbying began, to include the he building, designed by the archi- which, despite the cry of “Never Again!,” In its history, in fact, this museum encap- Holocaust in Illinois public school curricu- T tect Stanley Tigerman, leaves its in- show how much still needs to be done. sulates one aspect of the evolution of such lums (a requirement eventually established dustrial skeleton exposed, so that nothing The museum also presents a special ex- institutions. Refugees from horrors have by the state legislature in 1990). This mu- is made artificially pretty. And as the visitor hibition for children, which, its literature ex- always tended to congregate in particular seum (which contains a permanent exhibi- weaves through the jagged, twisting gal- plains, “provides a safe space where they communities, not to keep their memories tion, along with art shows, an auditorium, leries, the particularity of the personal ob- can brainstorm strategies on how to speak alive, but, paradoxically, to allow them to and a children’s display) is the climax of jects becomes powerful. It would be helpful up for those experiencing hatred, preju- be forgotten; the past would become an that community’s efforts, where 150,000 to get a better sense of how specific sur- dice, and discrimination through bullying aspect of shared experiences that did not visitors a year are welcomed. vivors’ lives unfolded — their stories and acts of intolerance within their local need mentioning and would not spur cu- And all through the main exhibition — emerge only in fragments along the way — and global communities.” riosity. And judging from some of the video- designed by David Layman, with two his- but the companion book incorporates ad- (Continued on page 14) Page 8 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2011 - Iyyar/Sivan 5771 ANNUALANNUAL SPRINGSPRING LUNCHEONLUNCHEON OFOF THETHE AA he American and International Societies for Yad Vashem held their T New York City. It was the largest attended Luncheon and celebrated the Societies’ 30th A her daughter Elisa Pantirer Pines and her granddaughter Nicole Pines Lie Holocaust remembrance. The late Mr. Murray Pantirer and Mrs. Louise Pantirer were among the Societies were founded in 1981 by Mr. Eli Zborowski together with a hand

Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American Society for Yad Vashem; Sharon Halpern; Nicole Pines Lieber- man, recipient of the 2011 American Society for Yad Vashem Achievement Award; Louise Pantirer, recip- ient of the 2011 American Society for Yad Vashem Achievement Award; Elisa Pantirer Pines, recipient of the 2011 American Society for Yad Vashem Achievement Award; Rella Feldman, Chairwoman of the 2011 Annual Spring Luncheo;, and Alan Pines.

Elisa Pantirer Pines, recipient of the 2011 American Society for Yad Vashem Achievement Award; Nicole Pines Lieberman, recipient of the 2011 American Society for Yad Vashem Achievement Award; and Louise Pantirer, recipient of the 2011 American Society for Yad Vashem Achievement Award.

Marilyn Rubenstein; Dr. Joanna Michlich, 2011 Annual Spring Luncheon Guest Speaker; and Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American Society for Yad Vashem. Seated: Lili Goldberg, Jeanne Jemal, Gabriela Shnay, Jill Finestone; standing: Nancy Chetrit, Rose Gold- berg, Elyse Goldberg, Debbie Cooper, Dale Goldberg, Elisa Pines, Nancy Waldenberg, and Deborah Berg.

Stella Skura, Cheryl Skura Lifshitz, and Iris Lifshitz Lindenbaum. Guests at the American Society for Yad Vashem 2011 Annual Spring Luncheon. May/June 2011 - Iyyar/Sivan 5771 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 9 AMERICANAMERICAN SOCIETYSOCIETY FORFOR YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM Annual Spring Luncheon on Tuesday, May 24, 2011 at the Pierre Hotel in

Anniversary. In marking this occasion it honored Mrs. Louise Pantirer, eberman, three generations of leadership and dedication to the cause of

first to hold a parlor meeting during the Societies’ formative years. The dful of dedicated Holocaust survivors.

Joseph and Elizabeth Wilf.

Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American Society for Yad Vashem, accompanied by Jean Gluck, Reb- betzin Lau, and her daughter.

Miriam Field, Selma Gruder Horowitz, and Pearl Field.

Alan Pines; Elisa Pantirer Pines, recipient of the 2011 American Society for Yad Vashem Achievement Award; Nicole Pines Lieberman, recipient of the 2011 American Society for Yad Vashem Achievement Award; and Avi Lieberman.

Caroline Massel, Chair of the Young Leadership Associates; and Nicole Pines Lieberman, recipient of the 2011 American Society for Yad Vashem Achievement Award.

Sheila Erlich Pruzansky; Anna Erlich; Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American Society for Yad Vashem; Nicole Pines Lieberman, Sharona Loeffler, Tamara Loeffler, Elana Loeffler, Daniella Schwebel, and Ilisa and Susan Erlich. Klapper. Page 10 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2011 - Iyyar/Sivan 5771 REPORTREPORT FROMFROM YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM

YAD VASHEM RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONS AWARD ISRAELI COUSINS UNITED PRESENTED IN NEW YORK BY HOLOCAUST DATABASE Mrs. Ilona Lukacsi lived in Rakoscsaba morality and human values in the midst of BY ARON HELLER, ASSOCIATED PRESS BY MADELYN COHEN (now part of Budapest), Hungary, where a moral vacuum. This tribute attempts to she, her husband Jozsef, a shoemaker, and convey the gratitude of the State of Israel ver since she became an orphaned n April 27, 2011, the American So- her sister Jolan took responsibility for saving and the Jewish people to those who stood E12-year-old in Russia, Liora Tamir ciety for Yad Vashem and the Con- O the family of Ede Hajos, a Jewish worker in by their side during a time of persecution thought she was alone in the world – hav- sulate General of Israel in New York Jozsef’s shoe-making workshop. Jozsef and great tragedy. Those recognized re- ing lost every single member of her family presented the prestigious Righteous either in the Nazi Holocaust or Soviet made the brave decision to help the Hajos ceive a medal and a certificate of honor, Among the Nations award to Mrs. Maria prison camps. family, and brought the family to his home in and their names are inscribed on the Wall Rakoscsaba. He was required to That changed because of a recent serve in the Hungarian military as a search of a database of names of Holo- conscript and was gone for long caust victims. She discovered that her stretches of time, leaving the day-to- murdered grandparents were commemo- day care and protection of the Hajos rated there by an uncle she never knew, family to his wife and sister-in-law. who had moved to Israel. While Ede Hajos was taken by This April, she was united with his son – the Nazis to the forced labor her cousin – at an emotional ceremony at camps in 1942 or 1943, his family Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial was saved thanks to the heroic ac- in Jerusalem. tions of Jozsef, Ilona and Jolan, “My mother didn’t tell me anything about the family, I thought they were all gone,” which included hiding and caring Esther Fox, friend of Maria Rabb, and Maria's daughter, for Hajos’ wife Mrs. Ede Hajos Maria, at the ceremony in New York. said Tamir, 65, shortly after embracing 73- (Hajos Edene), nee Margit Grunwald, and year-old Aryeh Shikler. “Now I have a of Honor in the Garden of the Righteous cousin. I still can’t believe it. It’s surreal.” his daughters Eva and Erika and her sis- Among the Nations at Yad Vashem, the ters Klara and Erzsebet Grunwald during Tamir’s daughter, Ilana, made the re- Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remem- the war. Their care and concern for the union possible. For years she scoured Maria Rabb with the Righteous Among the Na- brance Authority in Jerusalem. To date, Hajos family enabled them to survive un- archives for any information about her ma- tions award. more than 22,000 people have been hon- harmed. Ede wasn’t as fortunate. He died ternal grandmother, Yona Shapira. ored as the Righteous Among the Na- Rabb in honor of her late mother, Mrs. in the concentration camp. Initially, she learned that her grand- tions. They come from more than 40 Jozsef Lukacsi (Lukacsi Jozsefne), nee This honor is bestowed posthumously to mother traveled from Poland to pre-state countries and include Muslims and Chris- Ilona Klimes, and late aunt, Mrs. Laszlo the Lukacsi sisters, as Ilona passed away Israel in the 1920s and spent six years tians from all denominations; the only trait Lukacsi (Lukacsi Laszlone), nee Jolan in 1976 and Jolan in 1995. there before she was arrested and de- common to all is their courage to stand up Klimes, for saving Jewish lives during the The honor of Righteous Among the Na- ported by the British because of her Com - for their moral principles. Holocaust. tions recognizes those people who upheld (Continued on page 13) GATHERING THE FRAGMENTS ince its inception, Yad Vashem has ernment. When the lawyer passed away, 1944. According to the card, the two were BY ROBERT ROZETT, Sstrived to collect every relevant his family sent his entire archive to Yad in the camp until it was liberated on May 9, THE JERUSALEM POST source of information, each of which en- Vashem. From that document I learned 1945 – the last day of the war in Europe. lightens us in its own unique way about the So uncovering one thread, following oth- s the generation of survivors dwin- that my grandmother at some point had six million Jews murdered and the millions ers, and weaving them together has dles, it’s of paramount importance been transported from Auschwitz to Traut- A more persecuted and victimized during the yielded at least a tiny part of the greater that we dedicate ourselves to continuing enau. It would be a long time before other Holocaust. Yet some shards remain locked tapestry. Yet even from such a small illus- the process of gathering fragments. fragments would come to light. in the memories of those who were there, tration there are things we can During the Shoah, an entire world was still waiting to be expressed in word or art. learn. This story illustrates that shattered. The remaining scattered frag- Others languish in desk or dresser draw- Hungarian Jewish women sent ments vary infinitely in size, shape and tex- ers, in old suitcases, or in shoeboxes. And to Auschwitz, later reached ture – from documents to diaries, some are precious, kept close to the heart other camps, where they testimonies to artifacts, photographs to and seldom shown to others. The frag- worked and suffered. It shows ments we collect have universal that companies besides the in- meaning for us as human beings, famous IG Farben concern, national meaning for us as Jews, some still thriving today, were and often very personal meaning complicit in their suffering. as well. So, especially now, as the As a child I always knew that my generation of survivors dwin- grandmother Irma, my father’s dles, it is of paramount impor- mother, had been in Auschwitz. My tance that we dedicate grandmother died in 1970, when I ourselves to continuing the was still quite young, and all I knew process of gathering fragments of what she had endured were the Among the millions of documents re- and putting them into context. The tools of disjointed bits and pieces she had cently made available to Yad Vashem by the 21st century – the Internet, social net- works, digitization, and international coop- works of art. Despite their wide disper- told me. Among other diffuse facts, I re- the International Tracing Service (ITS) in eration – offer much hope that we will sion, they can still be found in many member her telling me she had engaged Bad Arolsen, Germany, I found several ref- enrich and expand our portrait of events. places – government and private in some sort of factory work, and that she erences to my grandmother, with the help Seventy years after the advent of the sys- archives, libraries, and even in the homes was together the entire time from her de- of my colleagues. She appears on a list of tematic mass murder of the Jews and the of people who went through the vortex of portation to her liberation with her daugh- women prisoners in Parschnitz, which is coalescence of the Final Solution, it is vital the Shoah, and members of their families ter-in-law. At the end of the 1970s, when I also known as Parschnitz-Trautenau, that the enriched tapestry – and the in- left behind. Each fragment tells its own first read Raul Hilberg’s monumental book dated October 1944. Directly following her sights we draw from it – remain in constant tale and, like a thread, has a beginning The Destruction of the European Jews, in on the list is her daughter-in-law. So they view. The more we further our knowledge and an end. These threads of information, which he discusses labor in Auschwitz, it were definitely together in the camp in au- of the Holocaust and keep it in our con- intersecting and combining, are then seemed to me I had learned that she had tumn 1944. At the head of that list, it says sciousness, the better chance we have of woven together into a broad and deep probably worked for the giant IG Farben the women were working for AEG. So now molding a world free from prejudice, ha- tapestry that depicts a multifaceted story concern. it is much more plausible that the factory tred, and crimes against humanity. stretching over time and space. In this Quite a few years later, when I was al- work my grandmother engaged in was in way we can reconstruct as much of the ready director of the Yad Vashem Library, Parschnitz, not Auschwitz, and for AEG The writer is director of the Yad Vashem shattered Jewish world as possible, the I saw a fragment that told me a bit more and not IG Farben. Lastly, on her daugh- Libraries, author of Approaching the Holo- events that led to its destruction, and the about her travails. It was a deposition my ter-in-law’s ITS registration card, the date caust: Texts and Contexts, and a soon-to- lives that continued to be lived while the grandmother had written for a lawyer to ob- she (and most probably my grandmother) be published study on Hungarian Jewish devastation unfolded. tain compensation from the German gov- reached Parschnitz is listed as August 1, forced laborers on the Eastern Front. May/June 2011 - Iyyar/Sivan 5771 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 11 TROVE OF HISTORIC RECORDS OF HOLOCAUST GOES ONLINE and Japan to the Dominican Republic and become moral and spiritual leaders, politi- rind, who lived in the Polish town where BY CRISTIAN SALAZAR and Bolivia. The records, being made available cians, and artists. her family was from. RANDY HERSCHAFT, AP online for the first time, open a singular There was the 16-year-old teenager who That document, a list of Polish Jews ex- would become an author and one of the pelled by the Nazi German government trove of papers and photographs view into the lives of survivors that the JDC and living in the border town of Zbaszyn, documenting the lives of Holocaust aided during that cataclysmic period. world’s most esteemed humanitarians — A Poland, between 1938 and 1939, showed victims and survivors includes notable “We can get broader pictures of the ac- Wiesel — listed on a document naming that her great-aunt was named as Baum- names like Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie tual everyday social life in 426 orphaned boys from rind’s contact in the United States. It was Wiesel and former Israeli Prime Minister the aftermath of war,” Ken- the Buchenwald concen- a tantalizing clue that would help her doc- Menachem Begin. But Benzion Baumrind’s neth Waltzer, director of tration camp who were ument him as a cousin. name might have stayed forgotten to his the Jewish Studies Depart- taken to Paris by the “My discovery allowed him to have a descendants without the records kept by a ment at Michigan State committee in 1945. Also place in somebody’s memory,” she said. humanitarian aid agency. University, said of the col- on the list: a future Chief lection. Rabbi of Israel and one The committee, commonly known as Until now, the organiza- of the youngest surviving the Joint, was founded in 1914 to help tion’s archive has been prisoners of Buchen- Jews in need in war-ravaged Europe and largely inaccessible to the wald, Israel Meir Lau, public, kept at a private who was 7 years old storage warehouse lo- when he was liberated. cated a short subway ride Begin, the future Israeli out of Manhattan. prime minister, is named Volunteers entered on a list of 9,000 Polish names in a database for Jewish refugees receiv- over a year; rare, fragile ing the agency’s aid in documents were scanned Vilna, Lithuania, in 1940. into the computer system. Another person named Users of the site can sub- in the files is Peter Max, mit names to identify peo- This photo provided by American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee the famed New York ple they recognize in the shows Claus Hirsch standing on a artist whose cosmic-col- photographs, which may In this April 21, 2011, photo, Claus Hirsch re- street corner in Shanghai, where his ored works became a be later added to captions. acts as he is interviewed at the American Jewish family lived after fleeing Nazi perse- signature style of the “A website like this is Joint Distribution Committee offices in New cution during World War II. hippie 1960s. where history meets tech- York. Hirsch is one of the volunteers entering ooking back, it’s amazing that nology,” said Gideon Taylor, an executive data for JDC. people had the will to organize, to with the New York-based committee. “It’s “L Palestine. During World War II, it pro- create organizations to help people who This photo provided by the American Jewish taking history out of the dusty files... and vided assistance to refugees from Lithua- fled other countries and were in dire Joint Distribution Committee shows a group of bringing it out into the community.” nia to Japan and helped Jews escape need,” said Max, who was 6 months old French Jewish refugee children who arrived The committee plans to put even more Europe, including by booking them on from Marseilles via Spain at the Rossio train when his family, the Finkelsteins, fled documents from its archive online later this ships headed for the Americas. station in Lisbon in 1943. summer. Berlin and found safe haven in Shanghai, Claus Hirsch, 76, of New York, fled A genealogist discovered Baumrind, one The project is one of a growing number where the JDC also had a relief opera- Berlin with his parents and brother and of 6 million Jews killed during the Holo- around the world aimed at making avail- tion. found asylum in Shanghai and had to rely caust, was in her family with one stray doc- able on the Internet primary records about For Linda Cantor, the past president of on the Joint for hot meals. As a volunteer, ument buried in a database of historic the Holocaust. the Jewish Genealogical Society of New going over lists of names and keying papers and photos kept by the American “It is a world phenomenon that’s York and a volunteer who helped put the them into the database, it has been an Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. launched by the technology,” said David M. names online, the collection helped her emotional experience. With over 500,000 names and more than Kleiman, president of Heritage Muse Inc., find a relative she never knew about. “It’s nice to see a name on a list,” he 1,000 photographs, the searchable collec- a New York-based genealogy technology A researcher with 30 years of experi- said, before he began to weep. “I saw tion documents the relief organization’s firm. ence in genealogy, even she was sur- names of people I had known years ago. vast efforts during World War II and the The collection offers glimpses of the lives prised when she came across a And I hadn’t thought about them in 30 or postwar era in 24 countries, from China of children who survived the Holocaust to document that connected her to Baum- 40 years.” HAND-DRAWN MONOPOLY RECALLS LIFE IN GHETTO Disease, famine, and sub-human condi- “It’s strange to understand how can peo- ifteen years ago, the brothers decided BY KEVIN FLOWER, CNN tions aside, the camp’s prisoners did every- ple make games for children in this special Fto donate the game to Israel’s Holo- thing they could to maintain a semblance of place — in the ghetto,” says Sima icha and Dan Glass are not your or- caust remembrance museum, Yad Vashem, normality. For one prisoner, an artist named Shacher, a researcher at Beit Theresien- dinary Monopoly players. where it now sits on permanent display. The M Oswal Poeck, this meant designing and stadt, a center dedicated to documenting In 1938 the two young brothers were reasons were simple, according to Micha. drawing a makeshift version of a famed life in Theresienstadt. happy school children. They lived with “Because there are many, many people board game. An unofficial version of the One of the reasons the games were cre- their parents in the Czech city of Brno. who think that there was not a Holocaust popular board game Monopoly was born. ated, Shacher says, is because the chil- Their mother was a photographer who — we had a very happy family before the dren were separated from their liked to document the family’s life in pho- war and after the war there was nothing,” parents and the adult prisoners look- tos, and their father an electrical engineer he says. ing after them did what they could to who enjoyed taking his boys skiing. Micha’s younger brother Dan says the The idyllic life of the Glass family was to be make life more tolerable. It was an im- passage of time has made him reflect shattered a year later with the Nazi inva- portant way for them to maintain a more about the past and the importance of sion of Czechoslovakia. sense of humanity and purpose in a memory. The game, he said, is an impor- hellish environment, says Shacher. “Before (the) war it was normal living. tant symbol. His memories of playing the game are And then the war came and a completely “It is something very, very unique. We foggy, but Micha Glass recalls hiding different world. You can’t understand it. wanted it to be shown to the public — to the board and its pieces under his mat- Everything changed,” Dan recalls. show there exists such a thing — there tress so they would not be discovered. Both of the boys’ parents were arrested. was a Theresienstadt, there were kids, Hand-drawn Monopoly from Theresienstadt. n 1945, Soviet troops liberated Their father was sent to a forced labor there were children, there were survivors.” Theresienstadt, and miraculously camp, and their mother detained and tor- Fashioned from cardboard and drawn by I the Glass boys and their mother survived. For both brothers the game brings up dif- tured for six months. hand, “Ghetto” Monopoly was created as It was not until their release that they ficult and painful memories, but through it In 1942, the boys and their mother were a distraction for Theresienstadt’s thou- learned that their father had been killed in all they are able to see the silver lining. sent to the city of Theresienstadt, an area sands of children and used as a tool to Combined, the brothers Glass have six of northwestern Czechoslovakia where the Auschwitz, and that most of their extended teach them about life (and death) in the children and 15 grandchildren. This, they Nazis established a ghetto for the Jews of family was also dead. ghetto. say, is what has made surviving the hor- Bohemia and Moravia. The family eventually made their way to Properties in the game were not popular rors of the Holocaust bearable. At ages eight and 10, Micha and Dan Israel to begin a new life, and with them city streets and landmarks, but rather “What is good,” says Dan, pointing to his became intimately familiar with death. they brought their ghetto Monopoly set. buildings and locations from the ghetto it- older brother, “is that I am standing here Over 35,000 people perished in There- Over the course of years the boys would self — all named after German cities and sienstadt while another 84,000 were sent occasionally play the game and continued with my brother and that I have a big loving on to be murdered in the Nazi death a grim reflection of the reality faced by the to hold on to it in adulthood to serve as a family. This is the main good thing. This is camps further east. camp’s prisoners. reminder of what they lived through. what I have.” Page 12 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2011 - Iyyar/Sivan 5771 LESSONS FROM THE SHOAH cil, it seems set to replace it with Bashar message for the Twitter generation. With the lum, and emphasize study of the history of BY LIAT COLLINS, Assad’s Syria. perspective of barely three months – during Palestine and the acts of massacre which THE JERUSALEM POST Israel commemorates Holocaust Mar- which he changed his mind more than once have been carried out against Palestini- tyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day – or – Obama takes the most epic event in more ans, the most recent of which was the war hree statements come to mind Yom Hashoah as we call it – in the spring, than four millennia of Jewish history and re- against Gaza.” whenever I write about the Holo- T fittingly between Passover and Independ- duces it to its lowest possible common de- Confusing indeed. caust. The first I can attribute to Elie ence Day. nominator, and then distorts it some more. By the “war against Gaza” I assume they Wiesel: “The Shoah wasn’t a crime against Here it is marked with an eerie two- he world is marking 50 years since the mean Operation Cast Lead, a war against humanity, but a crime against the Jews.” minute siren for which the traffic draws to trial of Adolf Eichmann, a trial which Hamas missile attacks from Gaza on Israel. The second was told to me by writer Haim T a halt and people stand frozen. Fewer and gave us terms like “the banality of evil.” Missile attacks that are still taking place, for Guri: “Israel was created not because of fewer have their own dreadful memories, Have we learned its lessons? It doesn’t that matter. The Palestinians are not the the Shoah but in spite of it.” I don’t remem- but this is not about the survivors. They seem so when, under the same principle new Jews, and Gaza is not a ghetto. ber who told me the third, but it is no less don’t need a special day to remember how of universal justice, Israeli leaders cannot If their version of human rights permits valuable: Had there been a Jewish state in they’ve been through hell. This is about the travel to places like Britain for fear of being targeting an Israeli school bus and indis- the 1930s, the Holocaust might not have people who didn’t survive but nonetheless arrested for “war crimes.” criminately launching rockets on any civil- happened at all, or would have been on a live on in every generation. As the Shoah becomes more universal- ian population within reach, then you can much-reduced scale. Children in Israel learn about the Holo- ized it is being dumbed down – the greater understand their reluctance to add the Do I get tired of emphasizing these three caust from an early age. Even toddlers in the attempts to apply it to all, the less rele- Shoah to study programs. points? Of course. But I can’t bring myself day-care centers are taught to stand for vant it becomes. The Holocaust, as Wiesel Several people have e-mailed me re- to stop. the siren, and schoolchildren hold cere- noted, was about the systematic attempt to cently telling me they feel like this is a re- As history becomes replaced by narra- monies. But it’s hard to explain the horror eradicate the Jews, their religion, and their peat of the 1930s. Those who live abroad tives and universalism sets the tone, these or take in the meaning of the number of culture. cite attacks on Jews, but above all a per- lessons seem set to disappear. They are those killed. That’s why it’s so important to That was it. We can and should learn vasive feeling that permits and even fos- being transplanted by more fashionable in- learn the personal stories. from it but we can’t change it. ters such incidents. clusive versions: The Holocaust does not It’s easier to relate to the individual expe- The Shoah was not about the Palestinians, The tiny Jewish community of Corfu belong to the Jews, but to anyone who has rience than to try to comprehend how six but you wouldn’t know it from the imagery might have been surprised by the burning been the victim of violence; and Israel million lives ended, whole family trees cut that floats around on “human rights flotillas” of Torah scrolls in the local synagogue grew out of the Nazi atrocities and not be- down at the roots. and among their land-based supporters. this month, but Jews elsewhere in cause of any intrinsic right of the Jewish This year, under the title “Gathering the As the Palestinians draw closer to the Greece are no strangers to anti-Semitic people to their own land. Sadly, it is often Fragments,” Yad Vashem launched a na- likely unilateral declaration of independ- sentiment. Ditto the Jews of Spain, Jews in the Diaspora who fail to internalize tional campaign to rescue personal items ence, they seem to grow further from ac- France, Denmark, and Holland. A Cana- the last message: Israel isn’t the cause of from the Holocaust period, calling for ordi- knowledging Israel’s right to exist. The dian student told me she no longer wears anti-Semitism around the globe, it is the nary citizens to provide documents, di- Jewish state, as Guri noted, would have a Star of David on campus, and some answer. aries, photos, artifacts, and works of art grown faster and stronger had there been British Jews have removed the mezuzot Twice a year the world marks Holocaust from those terrible years. no Holocaust; the Holocaust would have from outside their doors, placing them in- Remembrance Day. To be more precise, Future generations will find it ever harder been smaller and shorter had there been side where they cannot be seen. the world marks it once – on January 27, to relate to the Holocaust, not just because a Jewish state to offer sanctuary. My answer is that this is different from the day Auschwitz was liberated. For the the firsthand witnesses are dying out, but Recently, the topic of teaching the Holo- those terrible years partly because there past few years it has become a set feature because they are being brought up in a dif- caust in Arab schools has been the focus is an Israel, albeit threatened by Iran with on the United Nations calendar. Unfortu- ferent world. of heated debates. nuclear genocide and constantly as- nately, for the rest of the year the world It is an ever-changing world dominated According to Palestinian Media Watch, saulted by terror attacks and missiles, but body raises motion after motion turning Is- by the “now” and the “me.” the union of UNRWA workers in Palestin- a success story nonetheless. Indeed, a rael into the source of all evil. Its protection When President Barack Obama hosted a ian schools said, “We emphasize our Gallup poll released recently declared Is- of global peace and well-being is so ad- Seder at the White House he coolly com- adamant opposition to confusing the think- rael to be the world’s seventh most “thriv- vanced that having finally suspended pared the uprising in the Arab world to the ing of our students by means of Holocaust ing” country. There can be no better way Libya from the UN’s Human Rights Coun- story of the Exodus from Egypt. It’s a perfect studies in the human rights study curricu- to avenge the Shoah. THE BEST OF PEOPLE liberation they removed the body (what In Siberia conditions were harsh, living in young age. The investment had a name, BY AL BIENENFELD was left of it) to a Jewish cemetery. a wood structure with a dirt floor, drawing and the name was Helen. My mother’s father never seemed spe- water from a well. Nonetheless the family Over the years, my father became very y parents are Holocaust survivors. cial to me. Max Pechter was, as I remem- survived and ultimately made it to America skilled at trading bonds. How he learned For most of us living in America M ber, a mid-sized man. His wife Sarah was whole and intact. this I do not know. I suspect, that given a today, the Holocaust is something seen in a petite woman whom I recall as very gen- television documentaries or something we My parents met in Baltimore and mar- high school education, he might have be- tle. My mother told me how this “not so read about. To many younger people today, ried. Previously, my father had worked in come a billionaire. special” man once stood at the center of it probably means Schindler’s List, a well - the garment industry in New York, while my often thought that my father’s mother his village arguing with the “elders” and made movie, but off point in terms of truly mother worked in a factory during the day Iwas a cold woman. Recently I discov- “leaders” about the impending dangers. He expressing the horror of history’s defining and afterward in a bakery her parents had ered from my mother that this “cold moment in human depravity. The Holocaust started with her sister and brother-in-law. woman” somehow managed to bring a is the ultimate expression of evil. They subsequently moved to South Jer- small suit of clothes with her from Poland From this moment in history came my sey, to a rural area called Vineland, about to America that belonged to the son who parents, Henry and Helen Bienenfeld, two an hour from Atlantic City. They opened a died in the woods. As I understand it, she Polish Jews. They met in America a few small grocery store that did not do well. held on to it until the day she died. years after the end of the war. Their paths They then migrated to Philadelphia, where Today I believe that the “real Jews” are and experiences were different in coming my father obtained a loan from relatives the survivors and those in Israel. They to America. My knowledge of my father is who had come over much earlier and were know what it means to be a Jew, to live limited because he spoke little of the war very prosperous. He opened another with the constant threat of death, just for and, frankly, I failed to ask enough ques- larger grocery store and this time did very being a Jew. Those Jews like myself, who tions. I did not know until I was almost fifty well, but he was not happy. He wanted were born here in America and have never that he had a sister who perished along more out of life, and he began a new ca- feared for their lives due to a Nazi or Arab with his father and brother. Only he and his Helen and Henry Bienenfeld. reer in what would become his life’s calling, terrorist threat, are only partial Jews. real estate development, in particular Because of my parents, my two brothers mother survived, partially because of luck, warned that the Germans would kill all the building and owning rental apartments. and I never had to do without. We were but mostly I believe because of strength of Jews. They said he was crazy, and that he My father and mother worked hours that provided with life’s necessities and more. will. From what I now understand, his fa- could leave, but to keep quiet lest he start were not to be believed, first just to survive, We had the luxury of being able to spend ther and sister separated from his mother a panic. He and his wife gathered their four and then to prosper. They understood in- time reading books and going to the the- and the two sons. He spent time in a children and headed eastward. At one tuitively without being told that success ater, as well as going to work. Grandchil- forced labor camp before escaping to an point they were on a train headed toward was an endurance contest, a marathon, dren have gone to Duke and Harvard. As underground bunker with his mother, Siberia. The Russian soldiers were going not some “sissy” 5K run. My mother was a result of their lives I know what it means brother, and others for between one and through the train removing the “unhealthy.” my father’s unwavering supporter, through to be a Jew. It just took me a long time to two years. His brother went out one night Two of my mother’s siblings were ill and thick and thin. Over the years he made mil- figure it out. to look for food (they all took turns), but he some woman sitting nearby had threat- did not come back. They subsequently ened to turn them in. Then the “small and lions of dollars in fine investments. I tend I believe I come from the best of people. found his body and buried it in the woods, gentle” Sarah drew a knife and threatened to believe his best one paid dividends for Many may think this, but the difference is just weeks before the liberation. After the to cut this woman’s throat. over fifty years and was acquired at a very that I am right. May/June 2011 - Iyyar/Sivan 5771 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 13 NEW BNEI BRAK CENTER TO FOCUS ON ISRAELI COUSINS UNITED HAREDI-STYLE SHOAH COMMEMORATION BY HOLOCAUST DATABASE caust, particularly from Orthodox commu- (Continued from page 10) difficult because Jews there were often BY YAIR ETTINGER, HAARETZ nities. These items will be stored in the munist activities. These activities ultimately rounded up, shot, and dumped in mass new facility. landed her in the Gulag town of Vorkuta, graves without any documentation. The few months ago, bulldozers demol- Esther Farbstein, a Holocaust educator where Liora was born. names of Jews killed at German death ished a private home in the middle of A who serves as the academic adviser to the Then, KGB documents she obtained re- camps, on the other hand, often remain Bnei Brak. The now-vacant lot, situated be- planned center, explains: “This represents vealed the names of Shapira’s parents. Fi- because of meticulous Nazi records. tween two homes and closed off by a fence, the next stage in the transformation of the nally, she searched Yad Vashem’s Central Hugging his cousin for the first time, the bears a colorful sign: “A holy archive is to be Haredi community’s attitude toward the Database of Shoah Victims Names and gray-haired Shikler said the joy of the mo- built here, with God’s help.” The six-floor Shoah – and it is a necessary step.” She found a Page of Testimony under their ment was mixed with sadness over those building to be constructed at the site, which adds that even though the project can be names submitted in 1956 by a Simcha who couldn’t witness it. He, too, knew lit- is only at the planning stage today, is slated conceptualized as an alternative to estab- Shikler – Aryeh’s father. tle about his family history. to become a first-of-its-kind facility, and what lished Holocaust memorial and educa- “It definitely feels like I cracked a mystery Of their grandparents’ five children, two some say will be the symbol of a transfor- tional endeavors, including Yad Vashem in and now we have a better picture of our perished in the Holocaust, Shikler’s fa- mation in the ultra-Orthodox community’s at- Jerusalem, “I know that Yad Vashem will family,” said Ilana Tamir, 33. “I feel like I ther came to Israel, Tamir’s mother died titude toward the Holocaust. not oppose this place; it will support it.” gave my mother a gift, I gave her a family. in Russia, and another sibling emigrated Dr. Mali Eizenberg of the Massuah Insti- We had a hole in our hearts, and tute for the Study of the Holocaust, who we didn’t have a family or blood re- formulates curricula for female Haredi ed- lationships with anyone – and sud- ucators and has been involved in the new denly a family was born.” project, says the facility’s establishment ynthia Wroclawski, the will underscore what she calls “the Haredi Cmanager of Yad Vashem’s narrative”: the spiritual life of Orthodox name recovery project, called the communities at the time of the Holocaust. database “the repository for the Eizenberg explains that the concept of Jewish people” that allowed peo- the Kiddush Hashem facility originated dur- ple like Tamir to peel away crucial ing the Eichmann trial. Some of the people information about their own family involved in the trial, including Moshe histories. Shmuel Garnestein among the records that will Prager, who was an adviser to the prose- “I think everyone at some point in be housed in the future Holocaust center. cutors, felt “they [Haredim] had no place in their life becomes interested in Israeli discourse, that the Haredi narrative where they came from to see Liora Tamir, right, holds the hand of her cousin Aryeh In fact, the Kiddush Hashem Archive is a was not included in Holocaust memorials,” where they’re going, and the story Shikler, as they meet for the first time at the Yad Vashem long-standing Haredi enterprise dedicated according to Eizenberg, who devoted her of Liora Tamir is one such story,” Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. to commemorating the Holocaust. It was dissertation at Bar-Ilan University to she said. to the United States, never to be heard of established by the late Rabbi Moshe Prager. She recalls that he had reserva- Yad Vashem’s goal is to collect all 6 mil- again. Prager and is run today by Rabbi David tions about the emphasis at Yad Vashem lion names of the Holocaust’s Jewish vic- The two cousins live an hour away from Skulsky. However, it is actually located in and other institutions on ghetto rebellions tims, encouraging survivors to come forth each other – Tamir in Tel Aviv, Shikler in a series of places scattered around Bnei led by Zionist-affiliated organizations. He and fill out Pages of Testimony for those Haifa. They say they have much to share Brak. The planned facility is thus a break- felt such a tendency distorted the role and killed, before their names and stories are and much to learn. through, to be located in one place in the activities of religious communities, and lost forever. “We are connected by blood,” Shikler center of the Haredi city. their connection to the Holocaust. The project began in 1955 and had said, in a scratchy voice. “All you need to With an investment of NIS 7 million to Farbstein believes that for the ultra-Or- reached 3 million confirmed names by the do is listen and it all starts flowing out.” NIS 8 million, the building is slated to serve thodox community “a visit to the new facil- time the online database was launched in Tamir’s daughter said the situation as a museum for the public at large and a ity will reduce ignorance. It will present 2004. More than a million more names would take some getting used to. facility for the study of the Holocaust, re- historical information and offer resources. have been added since. The information “All of a sudden we have a family tree. plete with a new archive, a library, and a The museum there will inspire confidence can be accessed online in English, Hebrew Until now it was just one branch,” she memorial wing. Since 1964, the Kiddush and encourage visitors to deal with the and Russian. said. “I don’t know what you do with fam- Hashem has mainly collected thousands of subject of the Holocaust. They will ask Efforts continue, primarily in Eastern Eu- ily because it is really strange and new documents and objects related to the Holo- questions and get answers.” rope, where name collection is particularly for us.” HEALING BONDS OF THE SECOND GENERATION Pepi Nichols is a longtime leader of a some of the impact. Most survivors did not Golombek grew up being awakened in BY ARLENE NISSON LASSIN Houston group — called Second Gen- seek out psychological help because the middle of the night by his parents’ eraion, when it formed more than 30 years screams from their nightmares and even- magine growing up in a vacuum of your of the stigma attached, and trauma from ago, and now called Generations After — tually sought treatment for his own trauma. parents and siblings as the only living those events had a way of leaking into I for all descendants of Holocaust survivors. “It was very difficult and created a very blood-related family members. the next generation. There are more than 300 members on its dysfunctional family,” Golombek said. Michael Klaiman, Alan Golombek, Bella ome commonalities Gorko sees in mailing list. children of survivors are feelings of Gorko said many of these children grew Solender Forman and many others know S up to be overly responsible and were “In Houston, survivors clung to each being separate or “different” from the rest intimately of that experience because they overachievers. That was the case with other because they didn’t have family, but of the world; having an “escape plan” and grew up in the ‘50s and ‘60s as children of Golombek, a “good Jewish son out of a they were pushed to assimilate, forget the security issues; having food or hoarding is- Holocaust survivors. past and move forward,” Nichols said. tremendous sense of guilt.” For Klaiman and Golombek, their par- sues; and struggling with guilt and pain for “There wasn’t enough I could do for “It was the same for the second genera- the suffering of their parents. Both Forman ents were the sole survivors of their imme- tion. We didn’t discuss what our parents them, and I put them above my own family and Golombek grew up feeling “different.” diate and extended families. That meant went through and how it affected us. When after I married,” he said. Though her father didn’t speak about his they didn’t have an uncle, an aunt, a our group first gathered, it was important Klaiman, too, felt it was his responsibility trauma, Forman felt it on a daily basis. to make his parents happy, though grandparent, or a cousin — not a single liv- for us to get together to talk about it … for “What I remember most about my father he says he didn’t feel that as a burden. ing relative other than their parents and the first time — it was always the elephant “My parents pushed for education, and siblings. In Klaiman’s case, his parents in the room.” was his over-protectiveness , which I, of good Jewish spouses, it was so important built a tight-knit circle of other survivors The group, which began with 30 to 40 course, resented at the time,” Forman to them and I didn’t want to disappoint them,” who were treated as extended family. people, met with therapists to facilitate said. “He was always worried about me Klaiman said. “Their greatest happiness was “We called the adults ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle,’ discussion. coming home from being out with friends.I and we called their friends’ children found out later that he briefly tried to es- seeing their family expand with grandchil- There is a wide body of research on the dren and then great-grandchildren .” our ‘cousins’ even though we weren’t really cape Poland. When that didn’t work out, he effects of growing up as the children Though many said their parents did not related,” Klaiman said. returned home to find his entire family was of Holocaust survivors, said Simone lose faith in God, some, like Golombek, “I knew why we didn’t have any other gone. So, he always worried that I wouldn’t Gorko, a Philadelphia psychologist who is experienced their parents’ feelings of “an family from an early age, and it didn’t seem the daughter of survivors and who special- come back.” angry and vengeful God.” strange to me because our entire social izes in trauma therapy. She leads group Part of that protectiveness was not shar- As Holocaust survivors are now elderly, group was in the same boat.” and individual therapy for children of sur- ing bad news of any kind with her. When descendants are focused on education. Forman recalls her parents inviting vivors and published a paper in 2000 enti- he received a diagnosis of cancer, Forman “My own concern is seeing that some- friends to holiday dinners because if they tled Myths and Realities About Offspring of didn’t find out until two years later. Forman how, authentically, our parents’ stories are didn’t, “there would be no one there.” Holocaust Survivors: An Overview of Re- had friends who were constantly told of the not lost once they die,” said Sandy Lessig, This strange but common bond has search Findings. horrors their parents experienced — the a co-leader of Generations After. “We also brought Jewish baby boomers — called In her work she sees common behaviors opposite of her experience. Either extreme try to help our (Houston) survivors any way the second generation — together. among the second generation, illustrating scenario is common, Gorko said. we are able.” Page 14 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2011 - Iyyar/Sivan 5771 THE MEMORY PROPERTY LOST IN HOLOCAUST IS CATALOGED ONLINE OF HOLOCAUST, he project has already invited poten- About a third of the 750,000 Israelis who FORTIFIED BY ISABEL KERSHNER, T tial claimants to submit their details are above retirement age are Holocaust THE NEW YORK TIMES to the Web site, which is in 13 languages. survivors, and many live in poverty. (Continued from page 7) Many of the properties in the database are s millions of Israelis paused in re- Once the information-gathering phase is Participatory videos urge children to listed with the names of the original own- flection on May 2 at the sound of completed, the project plans to move on A ers, and sometimes their professions, in- “take a stand against intolerance and in- the siren marking Holocaust Remem- to a more aggressive stage of legal and formation culled from the public records to equality.” One such video, which drama- brance Day, the Internet here was public action to try to get the cooperation help potential claimants find a match. tizes schoolyard bullying, challenges the buzzing. The first online database of of governments that have not cooperated Some 650,000 pieces of property were up- child to select a course of action: “Say more than half a million pieces of prop- so far. This will involve lobbying politicians something now to the bully,” “Show my loaded in a week, and Mr. Brown hopes and possibly helping with class-action erty lost by Holocaust victims, many in that the list will grow to a million by the end support to the person,” “Go tell the adult lawsuits. Eastern Europe, had just been uploaded of the year. About 3.3 million Jews lived in nearby,” or “Something else.” Lea Nass, the deputy minister for senior as a first step toward restitution. Poland alone, he noted. This approach is also used to justify the citizens, said the official stamp of the gov- After years of quiet diplomacy that ac- Other Jewish organizations have dealt inclusion of the Holocaust in school cur- complished little, organizers of the new with restitution for decades. The Confer- ernment on the project should help ad- riculums. And it is strange. We wouldn’t project, financed by the Israeli govern- vance the cause. expect a museum about World War II to ment, said the idea was to harness Even if agreements are reached end with lessons about the evils of all technology in the struggle for resti- with countries, myriad questions will wars. We wouldn’t expect an examination tution and to make as much noise remain. Each country will have to of American slavery to end with platitudes as possible. establish criteria for verifying claims, about the many despicable ways people “This is an activist approach,” evaluating the property and working treat others as objects. Why then here? said Bobby Brown, executive di- out timelines for any payout. Why the reluctance to study history in its rector of the Holocaust Era Asset At the news conference in context instead of diluting it with general- Restitution Taskforce, known by its Jerusalem, Natan Sharansky, the ities and vague analogies? This path also acronym, Project Heart. “We be- chairman of the Jewish Agency for ends up encouraging those always ready lieve there are no secrets anymore Israel, said the Holocaust “was not to invoke wild comparisons to Nazism about the Holocaust.” only genocide, but it was also the and the Holocaust. Pointing to the success of public greatest theft in history.” None of this undermines the sheer drives in the past, like the cam- Yet there were also moments of force of the chronicle to which we have paign for Soviet Jewry and the set- kindness and heroism, one of which been exposed, but by making the overall tlement of claims of Holocaust has recently come to light. The perspectives so personal — and this in- victims by Swiss banks, Mr. Brown granddaughter of a Polish woman said the issue of property restitu- stitution is not alone — the museum may who lived just outside the Auschwitz tion had to be out there on Twitter also prevent us from fully understanding concentration camp during World and Facebook, although negotia- other aspects of the history. If we want to A Holocaust survivor at a ceremony of remembrance at the Yad War II presented Mr. Brown with his tions with countries where proper- find a lesson in the events, for example, Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. first piece of recovered property. ties were located “do not have to is it that individuals should not be by- She said her grandmother used to leave be made public right away.” ence on Jewish Material Claims Against standers or that nations should not be ap- food for the forced laborers outside the The project, a nonprofit global campaign Germany has focused on Germany and peasers? Is the lesson that everybody camp in pots hidden in the bushes. One of the Jewish Agency for Israel, a quasi- Austria. The World Jewish Restitution Or- should have a social conscience, or that governmental body, has set up offices in ganization was established in 1993 to night, when she came to collect the empty a different kind of political action is Milwaukee and Brussels. focus on Eastern Europe after the collapse pots, she found a jeweled necklace that needed when such forces emerge? Was This is the first worldwide list of property of the Communist governments. There has had been placed in one of them. the Holocaust a product of intolerance or confiscated, looted or forcibly sold during been some progress in the issue of com- The granddaughter, Magdalena Woj- an expression of more specific archetypal the Holocaust era to be made available to munity-owned property, but none on per- ciechowska, 40, of Lodz, Poland, returned hatreds? survivors and their heirs. Compiled from sonal property, according to Mr. Brown. the necklace to Mr. Brown, saying it was One of the challenges faced by Holo- hundreds of European archives, including The subject of restitution has long been “Jewish property.” After taking the neck- caust museums as survivors die is to un- tax records and voter registries, it includes a delicate one between governments, and lace to New York for the news conference, derstand their experience by seeing it real estate and land, movable property like this is the first time that the Israeli govern- Mr. Brown said he would hand it over for through more than their eyes, to examine art and jewelry, and intangible personal ment has become involved, providing Proj- safekeeping to Yad Vashem, the Holo- the past without homogenizing it with property like stocks, bonds, and savings ect Heart with an annual budget of more caust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remem- platitudes, to offer history without homily. accounts. than $2.5 million for three years. brance Authority in Jerusalem. THE SONDERBERG CASE WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING (Continued from page 4) may be no remedy, though both were vic- COMMEMORATED IN EVOCATIVE BOOK husband and three children were among timized by the same evil forces of, in the Einsatzgruppen’s victims in Sarnay, Wiesel’s language, “the great turmoil” (p. (Continued from page 4) news that the ghetto had been cleared of the Ukraine, along with countless relatives 30) or “the great Tragedy” (p. 43). the Germans. In 1942, Czerniakow com- Jews and rendered Judenrein. between Minsk and Pinsk. The author applies the Holocaust’s les- mitted suicide, no longer being able to fulfill Commanding far greater resources, the Werner confronts his grandpa prior to sons of guilt and responsibility, healing and German demands. Nazis eventually prevailed. In what is prob- Hans’ apparent suicide, for depriving him hope, to the tragic conflict between Pales- By then, the ghetto’s population con- ably an exaggeration, Stroop claimed that and all German youth of normalcy by con- tinians and Israelis, trying to acknowledge sisted of a small class of Judenrat employ- 13,929 Jews had been killed and 7,000 demning them to eternal guilt. “Because of all sides while seeking to protect the ees, police, and smugglers, a much larger shot while trying to escape from burning you, all of you, though we were born after “other,” that both have suffered from. He group of Jews struggling to survive on a buildings. the atrocities, we feel guilty. Because of probingly reflects on the opposite poles bowl of soup and a slice of bread per day, The official German casualty rate was you, my joy will never be unmitigated. Be- and messages of Auschwitz and and a slightly smaller mass of people just low: 16 killed and 86 injured. But historians cause of you, the child I see in his mother’s Jerusalem, alerting and sensitizing us to- getting by. believe the toll was considerably higher. arms makes me think of the children you ward mutually respectful personal and pro- The Jewish Fighting Force, which organ- Stroop, who was hanged after the war, sent to their deaths” (p. 167). Werner’s fessional relations, reminding us that all ized the uprising, was formed on July 28, wanted to minimize the heroism of the soulful anguish resonates in the sharing that we do bears moral consequences af- 1942, just as the greatest deportation in Jewish fighters. with Professor Wiesel of his German stu- fecting human lives deserving of tender the ghetto’s history got under way. Its top When the fighting ended, he was or- dents at Boston University. treatment. Tackling heavy-duty themes leaders were Mordechai Anielewicz, dered to plow the entire area of the ghetto Yedidyah’s intersecting drama concerns along with light ones in an enchanting Mordechai Tenenbaum, Joseph Kaplan, and replace it with a huge amusement his liberating discovery that he was born in framework of skillful interplay, Wiesel Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman, and Zivia Lu- park. The Germans leveled the remains of Poland to parents who gave him away for eases the burden of memory without dilut- betkin. Only Zuckerman survived. the ghetto, but it was left to Poland’s post- temporary safekeeping to their house- ing its sacred essence. Encompassing The odds against them were overwhelm- war government to build a park. ing, given the paucity of weapons and am- Today, the only physical reminder of the keeper Maria. His birth parents perished in much, which is our gain but a literary risk, munition at their disposal. The Polish ghetto is a 20-meter stretch of wall the the Holocaust and Maria, a loving and the author succeeds nonetheless in con- underground donated a small cache of 49 Nazis forgot to destroy. The wall is hidden righteous gentile, returned him to the Jew- necting three pivotal countries in three con- pistols and 50 grenades. Polish arms deal- between drab housing blocks that con- ish people. Not all Poles returned Jewish tinents in a delicate balance. The ers filled in the gaps. verge on it from all sides. babies, gratefully recalling Pope John Paul Sonderberg Case will long echo in a re- Much to SS chieftain Heinrich Himmler’s More than sixty years after the Nazis II, who instructed a Catholic couple in post- warded reader. war Poland to depart from “their” Jewish disappointment, the fighters rolled back the tried to eradicate the Jews of Europe, the baby. Yedidyah’s lingering pain of an in- Rabbi Israel Zoberman is spiritual leader first German assault on the ghetto. In an- defiant spirit of the uprising lives on, with complete past now resolved meets of Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia ticipation of Hitler’s birthday on April 20, Brave and Desperate skillfully distilling its Werner’s pain for which, however, there Beach. Himmler had planned to convey the joyful essence. May/June 2011 - Iyyar/Sivan 5771 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 15 STEPPING STONES OF THE NAZI ERA berg laws, and while many Germans still era in which the word “not” was struck off fused shelter only because of their Jew- BY AMNON RUBINSTEIN, believed the Nazis were a passing phase. the commandment “thou shall not kill.” ishness. THE JERUSALEM POST Liebermann was indeed a lucky man. And, therefore, it divides human history Europe at the time was full of homeless Before he died, he wrote the then-mayor into “before” and “after” more significantly Évian, Auschwitz, the Pinelli brothers refugees, but only the Jewish displaced of Tel Aviv, Meir Dizengof: “With much sor- than any other time. To Jews, this division all explain why, for Jews, the Nazi era is persons had no home to go to. When row, I realize that I woke up from the dream is especially relevant: the Holocaust was more significant than any other. they went back to their former home of assimilation to a nightmare.” he painter Max Liebermann was a not like a road accident, but a culmination countries, they found them Jew-less and His surviving wife was not that lucky. In lucky man. He died in the third year of stages of hatred, persecution and bru- infested by the same old hatred, culmi- T the seventh year of the Nazi era, she was of the Nazi era – in February 1935. The tality. To be a Jew after the Holocaust is nating in pogroms in a few cases. Great forced to sell the Wannsee villa to a Ger- Nazi era began in January 1933, when different from the days preceding the Nazi Britain closed the gates of Palestine to man Aryan. In the twelfth year, at age 85 Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Ger- era. True, Jews were not the only victims these refugees, thus preventing them and incapacitated by a stroke, she was told many. Liebermann was a world-famous of the murderous Nazi offensive: millions from joining the Jewish Yishuv – the only German Jewish painter, the father of Ger- of non-Jews – including community ready to give them shelter. man impressionism and of the Berliner se- Germans – were also killed. And one cannot forget the circles in the cession school. He was a committed But all Jews were by defini- pre-reconciliation Vatican, which encour- Berliner, born and bred in the capital. He tion sentenced to die be- aged Catholic monasteries not to return lived with his wife Martha in the Pariser cause of their birth. And in Jewish children – who were sheltered Platz, in an apartment overlooking the this they were alone. there during the war – to their families. Brandenburg Gate (when asked for his ad- And there is another im- There were many such cases, and we dress, he would say: “I live in Berlin,” first portant distinction: for shall never know how many children turning to the right). He was born in the Jews, the stepping stones were not claimed back because all their same house his father and grandfather of the Nazi era were not relatives had perished. The most notori- were born in. The Liebermanns also had a confined to the horrific ous case was the refusal of a French summer house in fashionable Wannsee events of World War II, but monastery to hand over the two Pinelli district – not far from another Jewish- extended to events which brothers to their Jewish relatives. It took owned villa where the infamous Final So- took place before and after a long time for the relatives to get custody the war. lution conference took place some years A portrait of Martha Liebermann by Anders Zorn. Through her of the two orphans. Only in July 1953 – later. When he saw from his window the suicide before she was taken, she escaped the Nazi era. rom a Jewish point of the 20th year of the Nazi era – were the Nazi march of victory, he commented: “I F view, Évian is a name brothers allowed to join their cousins in cannot eat as much as I would like to that the police would come and deport her as relevant as Auschwitz. In July 1938, Israel. vomit.” to the Terezinstat concentration camp. President Roosevelt convened an interna- These stepping stones – Évian, In the first year of the Nazi era, he re- They came in the afternoon with a tional conference in Évian-les-Bains to Auschwitz, the Pinelli brothers – explain signed from the presidency of the Prussian stretcher to carry her out. Despite her deal with the plight of “refugees” – the why, for Jews, the Nazi era is more sig- weakness, she managed to commit sui- Arts Academy to protest the academy’s de- word Jewish was not mentioned in the in- nificant than any other. cision not to exhibit works by Jewish cide by swallowing barbiturates before vitation. The conference ended with a flat artists. None of the members of the Acad- they dumped her on the stretcher. Her last refusal to give shelter to these refugees The writer is a Professor of Law at the emy showed any interest or sympathy. He words were: “If I cannot live in Germany, at from Germany and Austria. These people Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya and, a lived to see the first measures taken least I can die here.” belonged to the elite of Europe and would former minister of education and Knesset against Jews by the new regime, but The Nazi era is certainly more relevant have enriched the arts, industry, and sci- member, as well as the recipient of the passed away before it enacted the Nurem- to mankind than any other. This was the ence of any host country. They were re- 2006 Israel Prize in Law. KILLING JEWS IN THE BALKANS, SAVING JEWS IN THE BALKANS Español, all while becoming part and par- and his mother were imprisoned. Breda here approximately 150,000 Jews BY EDWARD SEROTTA, cel of Balkan city life. and Matilda had hoped to visit them, but W lived between Sarajevo and Thes- THE JERUSALEM POST In the north, their great city was Sara- something was happening. German sol- saloniki in 1940, today there are less than jevo, with a Jewish population of 10,000. 7,000. Yet these remnant communities are eventy years ago in May, Hana Mon- diers had blocked off the street, and the But the greatest of all Sephardic commu- a remarkable lot. One reason is they were tijo had not quite reached her first girls and their mother hid behind a curtain S nities was Salonika, or Thessaloniki as it re-established by former partisans. That birthday. Her parents, Menahem and Flora, in a nearby house. They watched as sol- was known after it became part of Greece meant they were – and still are – a feisty lived in a mostly Muslim neighborhood on diers loaded the patients and doctors into in 1912. More than 53,000 Jews lived in bunch. When war came to Sarajevo in the a steep hill overlooking Sarajevo. They a windowless van, and the girls saw it drive this bustling port city on the Aegean. 1990s, for instance, a handful of Holocaust were a poor family; Menahem worked as off. This was the first use of the carbon Through the centuries of survivors sent most of their a tailor. Matilda and Breda Kalef were 10- the Ottoman empire’s ex- family members to safety, then and nine-year-old sisters, and lived in a pansion, Balkan Jewish opened a nonsectarian hu- large house in Belgrade’s Jewish quarter, communities flourished. manitarian aid agency to help Dorcol. Their family owned a textile store, During the empire’s long everyone – Muslims, Serbs, and everyone – uncles, grandparents, par- decline, as industrialized and Croats. In fact, all ethnic ents – worked there. northern Europe sped past groups staffed their aid agency, And in the southern Yugoslav Macedon- the Ottoman economies in La Benevolencija, and they ian town of Bitola, Roza Kamhi and Beno the south, most Jews in the doled out food, medicine, and Ruso were a pair of 21-year-olds, deeply region became impover- jokes in equal measure. in love, and planning for their future. All of ished. But in these lands, No sooner had the former them were Jewish. there had never been a Yugoslav republic of Macedo- Then came Nazi Germany’s invasion of pogrom against them. They nia become an independent Yugoslavia in April 1941, and immediately had never been forced to country in 1991 than a small after, its invasion of Greece. The Wehrma- live in a ghetto. band of Jews – some of them cht was accompanied, or followed by, the What makes the story of aging partisans – made their SS and foreign ministry diplomats. After Hana in Sarajevo, Breda way to the new government the Royal Yugoslav Army collapsed in two and Matilda in Belgrade, and asked for support to build weeks, regular soldiers, committed Nazis, and Roza and Beno in a Holocaust museum so they and professional diplomats all began plan- Left: Dona Bat Kalef with her daughters Matilda and Breda in Belgrade. Right: Bitola so different is that could honor all those who had ning how to murder every living Jew in Yu- Roza Kamhi in her Skopje apartment with granddaughter Jasmina Tajkovski. they survived the Holo- perished. It took a few years to goslavia, and then in Greece. caust, whereas more than 96 percent of monoxide gas vans in Serbia, and this write all the legislation to return heirless Who were these Jews? Albahari, Arditi, their fellow Balkan Sephardic Jews did not. would be the preferred method for murder- property to the Jewish community, but the Farhi, Kanhi, Alvo, Amouli, Kalef, Saltiel, The four women – all alive today and still ing around 6,200 Serbian Jewish women, answer was yes. Molho, Behar, Montijo, Kabilo, Finci – living in the Balkans – owe their survival to their children, and the handicapped. Although General Beno Ruso did not live these were Sephardic family names, de- Muslim and Christian neighbors who Beno Ruso, Roza’s boyfriend, didn’t thank to see the new museum open its doors in scendants of those who had been expelled risked their own lives to protect them. Each anyone for hiding him during the war. from Spain in 1492. Unwanted by most of April, his girlfriend, who had become his of these women has a story to tell. That’s because he picked up a rifle, joined Europe, they had sailed east and found a wife, Roza, did attend. Although she is 89 Breda and Matilda, for instance, will Tito’s communist partisans and fought home in Balkan lands, then ruled by the years old and blind, her grandchildren and back. Ottomans. never forget that day in March, 1942. Their children escorted her through the mu- For the 450 years they had lived in the mother had gotten them false papers so By the time the war ended in May 1945, seum, and read to her the panels that told Balkans, the Sephardim kept their tradi- they could pass as Catholics, and that Beno, all of 24 years old, had reached the tales of Sephardic Balkan life, which had tions, their recipes, their customs, even morning was taking them to the Jewish rank of general. Then he raced home to blossomed for 450 years. their Spanish dialect, Ladino, or Judeo- hospital, where the girls’ crippled father Macedonia to look for Roza. Until 70 years ago. 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 May/June 2011 - Iyyar/Sivan 5771 - Iyyar/Sivan 2011 May/June *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 ollowing the end of World War II in War ollowing the end of World 1945, very few survivors came to The “Violins of Hope” have been played The “Violins says his search will continue Weinstein Upon arrival, the majority of them “put like memories, faded in the Violins, “It is a very complicated period that is F “Today I am like a policeman. I can “Today he has volun- By his own estimation, friction. The violin is a friction, but you can friction. hear a sound and it is making life a little bit more understandable,” he said. in orchestras throughout the world, in- Switzerland, Israel, and Turkey, cluding the United States. so that their music and memories can continue to be shared. Palestine. They could not fathom another They Palestine. and so a large percentage of them war, went to the United States, Weinstein said. it,” the violin in the attic and forgot about he said. decades following the war as years passed and generations that followed knew little about the instruments left be- hind. Many of them were thrown away, but some found their way to antique deal- ers and violin makers, where Weinstein tracked them down. to impossible to understand, impossible explain, but the sound of the violin is tak- it is difficult Today ing us back to this time. to convince people something like this This is our mission, that happened. everybody will understand a little bit the can identify a violin’s history from the history from can identify a violin’s and scars on it. scuffs which didn’t. identify which one suffered, the Holocaust came Those which were in so the workshop in horrible condition, to make a concert in- made the decision one,” said Wein- strument out of each more than 26 stein, who now safeguards of these instruments. of almost $200,000 teered the equivalent in labor on this project, but the more time passes, the harder finding these instru- ments becomes. Amnon’s private collection contains dozens of violins – some of which, private collection contains dozens Amnon’s of David the Star bear and restores, like the Holocaust violins he repairs symbol on them. MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE & RESISTANCE MARTYRDOM hen the first rehearsals were held hen the first rehearsals in 1936, most musicians coming in 1936, most musicians As news of the Nazis’ savage campaign As news of the Nazis’ “People who played ini- After Weinstein’s Only then did he Scouring warehouses, antiques mar- Each of their violins, some of which Weinstein’s father, Moshe, emigrated in father, Weinstein’s W Also a luthier, Moshe began servicing the Moshe began Also a luthier, Toscanini’s instruments of Huberman and orchestra. against the Jews of Europe reached Palestine, these musicians refused to continue playing German instruments, said Weinstein. on German instru- ments either broke them or burned them, and some came to my father telling him they would throw them away if he did not buy them,” said Weinstein. tial lecture, he launched a radio ap- peal for people to come forward with more stories about “Holocaust violins.” start receiving instru- ments that were played in camps, and the true search for survivors began. kets, and violin shops, he found violins belonging to Jewish artisans in Poland and to Klezmer families in central Eu- and rope, from the ghettos in Warsaw Auschwitz. concentration camps such as bear the Star of David, tells another ex- The luthier claims he traordinary story. to Palestine from Europe were still very to Palestine from Europe violin makers and fond of the German said. bow makers, Weinstein then a part of Poland. 1938 from Vilnius, Jewish people during the Holocaust, but Jewish people during was deteriorat- they knew the situation ing,” he said. FORGOTTEN STRINGS STRINGS FORGOTTEN RECALL HOLOCAUST HORROR HOLOCAUST RECALL

idden in a basement in central Tel in central idden in a basement Aviv, amidst the smell of sawdust amidst the smell Aviv,

“The Germans confiscated from the an artisan and is a luthier, Weinstein “The Germans needed them, to cheat own journey began after Weinstein’s Bronislaw Huberman, a violin prodigy “Of course they could never have fath- H Jewish people every violin, viola, cello they could and we are talking about thou- Amnon sands, gone with the wind,” said working amongst the dozens Weinstein, of violins and bows hanging from the walls and ceilings of his unique work- space. craftsman of string instruments. He is a relic of a bygone era, whose moustache and spectacles do little to hide his eccen- tric streak. He says almost all of the sur- vivors who played in the concentration camps owed their lives to their instru- ments. the Jewish people. In the camps, if some- body was playing the violin nobody would think the next door was a gas chamber. That was the plan of these horrible peo- who lost close to ple,” said Weinstein, 200 members of his family during the Holocaust. hiring a German apprentice who con- vinced him to lecture the German associ- ation of luthiers in Dresden on the subject instruments Austrian of how German and found their way to Israel. Ar- who was born in Poland in 1882, and the acclaimed Italian con- Toscanini, turo decided to form a philharmonic ductor, orchestra in Palestine in 1936, Weinstein explains. omed what the Nazis had planned for the and varnish, is a musical workshop and varnish, is a son have spent the whose owner and his down violins past 15 years tracking victims and played by Jewish Holocaust back to life. bringing the instruments Page 16 Page BY DAN MORGAN, CNN BY Amnon spends much of his time on the phone with clients around the world, trying to track down the with clients around Amnon spends much of his time on the phone Holocaust violins. rare the increasingly