Vol. 34-No.1 ISSN 0892-1571 September/October 2007-Tishri/Cheshvan 5768

CECILE AND EDWARD MOSBERG MATTHEW BRONFMAN Yad Vashem Remembrance Award Yad Vashem Young Leadership Remembrance Award was born in Krakow, Poland. I had a set of parents, two sisters, grandpar- atthew Bronfman learned of the horrors of the Holocaust at a young ents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. When the war started, I was thirteen age. The deep impression this made upon him led to a commitment Iyears old. We were thrown out of our house and sent to the Krakow Mthat the world must never forget nor repeat those darkest moments Ghetto. Then we were sent to the Plascow Concentration Camp, Mauthausen of history. Matthew has dedicated himself to instilling younger generations with Concentration Camp and Linz. I am the only survivor of my family. I lost my an understanding of the lessons and legacy of the Holocaust. whole family. In 1944, my two sisters and one of my wife’s sisters were trans- Advocacy for humanitarian causes is part of the Bronfman family tradition. ported from Auschwitz to Stuthof. In 1945, they were shot and thrown into the Matthew’s father, Edgar M. Bronfman, was Baltic Sea. The next day was liberation. the President of the World Jewish Congress My father had been killed in a for more than two decades and the 1997 hon- round-up in 1941. My mother was oree of the American & International sent to Auschwitz in 1944, and at Societies for Yad Vashem. the same time, my wife’s younger Following in the footsteps of his father, brother was taken in the same trans- Matthew has become a key leader in the port. They were both killed in a gas Jewish communal world. He was recently chamber, and then were sent to the elected as Chairman of the Governing crematoriums. During the summer, Board of the World Jewish Congress, where people were transported in enclosed he chairs the Budget and Finance cattle cars, and during the winter, in Commission and is a member of the open cattle cars, so that the weath- Steering Committee. The World Jewish er could add to the already tragic Congress is an international federation of and horrific conditions. Jewish communities and organizations. By In the extermination camp Belzec, building consensus between groups, it located in the eastern part of Poland, I works to act as a diplomatic envoy for the lost sixteen members of my family. My worldwide Jewish community. grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins Matthew joined the Board of Directors of the 92nd Street Y in 1991; were murdered there by the Nazis. chaired the Capital Campaign from 1997-2002; served as President from Luck was the component which was how anyone survived. You consider 2000 to 2003; and as Chairman from 2003 to 2006. He currently serves as yourself lucky if you had a job. I was a strong boy and not afraid to try any- Chairman of the Program Committee and Chairman of the Bronfman Center thing. I worked in many jobs. I worked in Mauthausen Concentration Camp in for Jewish Life Committee. Endowed by the Bronfman Family, the programs the stone mines. There I had to climb 186 steps down and up, carrying a boul- of the Center for Jewish Life are designed for those beginning their explo- der. If you stopped for a moment, they either shot you or they pushed you off ration of Judaism, continuing their studies, and seeking a better under- the cliff to your death. standing of Jewish values, texts, history and rituals. On May 5, 1945 at the end of the war, the Nazi guards told us that they want- Fredrick Mack, President of the 92nd Street Y, had this to offer on the occa- ed to help us. They claimed that the Americans were coming, and the Nazi sion of Matthew Bronfman’s being honored by the American & International guards wanted to save us. They marched us to caves in the mountains, which Societies for Yad Vashem: “I can think of few people more deserving of this were set up with dynamite. It never went off. That is how I survived, and am honor than Matthew Bronfman. As I know from being not only his longtime alive to testify to these atrocities, which were perpetrated on our families and friend, but also his fellow 92nd Street Y board member for almost a decade the six million Jews of Europe. and a half, Matthew is a person of great honor and integrity, who seeks to do After the war, when I found out that I was really the only survivor in my fam- his best in everything he undertakes. His dedication to the 92nd Street Y is ily, I decided to utilize the health care opportunities. I was physically very sick. well-known, as is his unwavering devotion to the Jewish people and to Israel. I was sent to a hospital in Italy for eight months for treatment and rehabilita- He is an example to us all. tion. Upon returning to Krakow, where my girlfriend (soon to become my wife) With a B.A. from Williams College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business and her father were, we decided to move to Belgium. We got married there. School, Matthew became involved in numerous and diverse business inter- (Continued on page 8) (Continued on page 8) IN THIS ISSUE Yad Vashem Annual Tribute Dinner...... 1, 8-9, 16 “Japanese Schindler” is honored...... 3 Facing a grim reality in Austrian town...... 5 Saved by a saint in a tank...... 6 A nation’s lost Holocaust history, now on display...... 7 Yad Vashem is the recepient of Prince of Asturias Award for Concord...... 10 Story of the Warsaw ghetto...... 11 French priest uncovers horrors of Holocaust in Ukraine...... 12 Jews of Ispas: Where the truth lies?...... 13 Holocaust diary of Polish Anne Frank...... 14 Holocaust center gets Kacztner’s archive...... 15 Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2007 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5768

CLAIMS CONFERENCE TO SPEND MORE ON WELFARE WORLD HERITAGE COMMITTEE OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS RENAMES AUSCHWITZ DEATH CAMP vivors. These are considered unrestricted he Auschwitz concentration camp in bol of the Holocaust. Birkenau was the BY ANSHEL PFEFFER, HAARETZ funds and the conference can allocate TPoland has been officialy renamed neighboring camp and the site of the main them as it sees fit. Most of the money for he board of directors of the Claims by UNESCO to make clear it was estab- gas chambers and crematoriums. these organizations has come in recently Conference decided to make a lished and run by occupying Poland, which was sub- T from sales of formerly Jewish property, major change in how they allocate funds German Nazi forces. jected to a brutal occupa- primarily in the former East Germany. intended for the welfare of Holocaust sur- The camp will now be known tion by Adolf Hitler’s In 2005, $44.5 million was given within vivors and the education and commemo- as “Auschwitz-Birkenau. forces, sought the name Israel by the conference, most of which ration of the Shoah. German Nazi Concentration change to ensure that went to build and renovate geriatric wards Until this year, there was a clear division and Extermination Camp (1940- future generations under- in various Israeli hospitals. of funding, with 80 percent going to wel- 1945),” said Roni Amelan, a stand it had no role in Out of the 20 percent earmarked for fare and health purposes, and the remain- spokesman for UNESCO’s establishing or running education, the Yad Vashem Holocaust ing 20 percent for education and com- World Heritage Committee. the camp, which was memoration. Starting this year, it was memorial received $1.5 million – 5 per- The committee agreed to made a World Heritage cent of its operating budget. In the past change the name from site by the UN decided by the conference that the Auschwitz crematorium. amounts dedicated to education would be Yad Vashem has received large sums “Auschwitz Concentration Educational, Scientific frozen, and the health and welfare alloca- from the Claims Conference to finance the Camp” at a meeting in New Zealand fol- and Cultural Organization in 1979. tions would increase significantly. building of the new museum that opened lowing a request from Poland, and the The UNESCO committee considered a Most of the funding of the Claims a year-and-a-half ago. change is effective immediately, request to change the name last year, but Conference – officially known as The There has been a lot of criticism in Amelan said. postponed the decision to consult with Conference on Jewish Material Claims recent years that not enough of the Auschwitz, where the Nazis killed more historians and other interested parties Against Germany - is given directly to spe- money has been going to the actual sur- than 1 million people, has become a sym- after failing to agree. cific survivors who receive their stipends vivors, and too much went to education and compensation from Germany and and the chairman of the memorials. MASS HOLOCAUST GRAVE FOUND IN UKRAINE Reuven Merhav, chairman of the other sources, such as the Swiss banks Shvartsman said that Jewish communi- Executive Committee, said that they had arrangements, via the conference. BY NATASHA LISOVA, AP ty knew about the mass killing but did not not changed the manner of allocation, In addition, the conference allocates know where the bodies were located. but only added an ad-hoc budget, due to mass grave, holding the remains of some $90 million a year to organizations Anatoly Podolsky, director of the Ukrainian special needs. thousands of Jews killed by the for improving the social welfare of sur- A Center for Holocaust Studies, said there are Nazis, has been found in southern believed to be some 250-350 mass grave Ukraine near the site of what was once a VOLUNTEER FROM FLORIDA RECEIVES YAD VASHEM AWARD sites from the Nazi occupation, during concentration camp. which some 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews are n July 18, Donald Hirschhorn, the The grave was found by chance, when believed to have been killed, including Names Recovery Campaign workers were preparing to lay gas pipelines O those massacred near their homes and Coordinator for the Jewish Genealogical in the village of Gvozdavka-1, near Odessa, those deported to camps elsewhere. He Society of Palm Beach County and said Roman Shvartsman, a spokesman for said most of the site have been discovered. South Florida, was presented with a the regional Jewish community. “Ukraine was an enormous killing field, Certificate from Yad Vashem. “On The Nazis established two ghettos dur- hundreds of thousands of Jews were mur- behalf of Yad Vashem, I would like to ing World War II near the village, and dered and the entire region is literally filled take this opportunity to extend our brought Jews there from what is now with hundreds of mass graves,” Zuroff said. heartfelt appreciation to Donald Moldova, as well as Ukrainian regions, Ilia Levitas, the head of Ukraine’s Hirschhorn for his activism, dedication Shvartsman said. In November 1941, they Jewish Council, put the number of mass and outstanding volunteerism as coor- set up a concentration camp and killed Jewish graves in the country at over 700 dinator for the Shoah Victims Names about 5,000 Jews, he said. and said more than 100 are without mon- Recovery Project” – said Alexander “Several thousand Jews executed by uments to the victims. Avraham (right), Director of the Hall of the Nazis lie there,” said Shvartsman. According to Shvartsman, the names of Names at Yad Vashem. The award was Efraim Zuroff, director of the Israel office 93 Jews killed at the Gvozsdavka-1 site presented to Donald Hirschhorn (left) of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said the have been established. He said Jewish at the 27th Annual IAJGS Conference finding was no surprise: “It underscores community members plan to conduct stud- in Salt Lake City, Utah. the enormous scope of the plans of anni- ies at the site to identify more victims. hilation of the Nazis and their collabora- Odessa’s chief rabbi, Shlomo Baksht, SPECIAL SHOAH SEMINAR AT YAD VASHEM tors in eastern Europe.” hopes to fence the site off and erect a mon- “The scope is enormous, the number of ore than 40 educators from across museum, historians and educators. ument to the victims by the end of the year. places where murders were carried out is Ukraine’s Jewish population was devas- Mthe United States participated in a “The Echoes and Reflections project very large, and that is why, even now at special seminar at Yad Vashem in July. serves as a model of how three major tated during the Holocaust. Babi Yar, a this point, so late after the events, graves ravine outside the capital Kiev where the The week-long Echoes and Reflections international organizations can come are still being discovered,” he added. Summer Institute took place at the together, create path-breaking educa- Nazis slaughtered some 34,000 Jews Yitzhak Arad, a Holocaust scholar and a International School for Holocaust Studies tional materials, combining the best over two days in September 1941, is a former director of the Yad Vashem at Yad Vashem, and was held in partnership pedagogical tools, visual history and powerful symbol of the tragedy. Holocaust Museum, said his research with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and historical accuracy. About 240,000 Jews were killed by the indicated some 28,000 Jews were gath- the USC Shoah Foundation Institute. “This week’s institute is an opportunity Nazis in the Odessa region, according to ered in the area from surrounding towns. Echoes and Reflections is a multimedia to explore the issues raised in Echoes and Shvartsman. He said a mass grave with He said 10,000 of those died, at a rate of curriculum on the Holocaust developed by Reflections, together with world-renowned remains of about 3,500 Jews was found in around 500 people a day. the Anti-Defamation League, USC Shoah Holocaust researchers and educators. the region last year. Foundation Institute for Visual History and “As misinformation about the Holocaust Education, and Yad Vashem. and anti-Semitism spread through the inter- REMEMBERING RUSSIA’S LARGEST HOLOCAUST MASSACRE The Summer Institute aims to enhance net, it is vitally important that teachers have and supplement staff and educators’ the tools to provide accurate information in memorial ceremony took place near buried here is remember this horrific understanding of key content in Echoes the classroom and beyond,” said Avner ARostov-on-Don to commemorate tragedy, when tens of thousands were and Reflections via the Yad Vashem Shalev, chairman of Yad Vashem. nearly 30,000 Jews and thousands of wiped out in one day, and to pass their other victims murdered here 65 years ago memory on to our children – so that the in the biggest single Holocaust may never ROLL OF BUCHENWALD DEAD IS COMPLETED atrocity of the again be repeated, not for n Weimanr, a roll of 37,000 people died between 1937 and 1945. Holocaust in Russia. any people,” expressed Imurdered by the Nazis at Buchenwald Knigge said in an interview that incom- The event occurred Yuri Rubinov, the concentration camp has been completed petent record-keeping as the Nazi sys- at the “Zmievskaya Chairman of the Jewish after 10 years of work. tem gradually collapsed was partly to Balka” Memorial near community of Rostov- The book of the dead lists inmates blame, with names misspelled or vital the village of on-Don. worked to death, killed by disease and star- data muddled. Zmievka. Busloads of The event wrapped up vation and those executed up to 1945 in the He added that 10,000 were estimated to people made their with an award ceremony. camp near the German city of Weimar. have vanished in the last days of the way here via the On behalf of the It was presented July 15 to the Second World War, when the Nazis forced same route taken by Federation of Jewish International Committee of Buchenwald sur- the weakened prisoners to join them run- vivors “as a sort of symbolic grave-marker, “ ning away from the Allied armies. those who met their death here – the Communities of Russia, Rabbi Zeyev said Knigge, the director of the Buchenwald In these “Marches of Death,” many fell crowd holding the same constituency as Wagner presented medals to two persons and Mittelbau-Dora Memorial Foundation. dead at the roadside and could not be those who perished here – young and old, bestowed with the title “The Righteous of The roll will be far from complete. More identified by Allied authorities who found Jews and non-Jews, from all walks of life. Nations” for risking their lives to save than 56,000 inmates are believed to have the bodies. “The only thing we can do for those Jews during World War Two. September/October 2007 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5768 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 3

HOLOCAUST MUSEUM TO INCLUDE BERGSON NAZI HUNTERS CRITICIZE SLOW GERMAN JUSTICE SYSTEM he United States Holocaust War Refugee Board would be completed n Berlin, a prominent Jewish rights The report criticizes the fact that TMemorial Museum pledged to rec- by the spring of 2008. As part of that revi- Igroup gave Germany an “inadequate” Germany obtained no convictions and ognize the activities of the sion, the museum would rating for the first time for sluggish prose- filed no indictments, despite 22 investiga- Bergson Group in its perma- “provide some visual materi- cution of suspected Nazi war criminals, tions being initiated in the last year and 20 nent exhibition. als and artifacts relating to after previously topping the annual rank- ongoing investigations. The Bergson Group, also the Bergson Group to better ings of 26 nations. “It’s not deliberate, it’s a lack of zeal, a known as the Emergency highlight its activities.” “In light of the high number of sus- certain tiredness,” Zuroff told Reuters. Committee to Save the The change comes after a pects and the political consensus Germany doesn’t have enough young, public campaign by the Jewish People of Europe, behind prosecuting Nazi murderers, we enthusiastic prosecutors. “ David S. Wyman Institute used newspaper ads and expect better results from the German America was the only country to be for Holocaust Studies to public rallies to draw atten- pressure the museum that justice system,” said Efraim Zuroff, awarded the top grade, the work of the tion to the plight of European included two petitions, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, U.S. Office of Special Investigations being Jewry during the Holocaust. statements from members which hunts former Nazis. singled out for particular praise. Their activities were consid- of Congress and a public by In its annual reports, the organization During the last six years, Germany has ered too radical at the time appeal by Nobel laureate gives countries grades for efforts to pros- convicted three former Nazi war criminals by the Jewish establishment, Elie Wiesel. The institute ecute Nazi criminals. This is the first time while the United States has convicted 34. which preferred to exert Hillel Kook, aka Peter Bergson had privately raised the since the center began issuing its reports There are 1,019 investigations of possi- influence more quietly. issue years ago with the museum staff, six years ago that Germany received an ble Nazi war criminals underway world- Steven Luckert, the museum’s chief and the institute’s director, Rafael Medoff, unsatisfactory grade. wide, the report said. curator, said in a letter that an overhaul of said the museum had promised as early the exhibition segment dealing with the as 2002 to make the adjustments. “JAPANESE SCHINDLER” WHO SAVED POLISH CITY REMEMBERS HOLOCAUST VICTIMS LITHUANIAN JEWS IS HONORED ON 65TH ANNIVERSARY OF GHETTO LIQUIDATION diately after the war. Disgraced in Japan, menorah-shaped monument was ceremony marking the unveiling of the BY DAVID MCNEILL, THE INDEPENDENT he was forced to eke out a living as a part- time translator, and ended his life working unveiled in the end of August in steel monument. hen Japan’s Emperor Akihito and A for a trading company with connections to Kielce to remember the Polish city’s The Nazis — who occupied Poland Empress Michiko visited the mon- W Russia. He died in 1986, and his family 20,000 Jews killed in the Holocaust, on during World War II — sent Jews in ument of Chiune Sugihara in Lithuania, had to wait until 14 years later for the then the 65th anniversary of the liquidation three transports from Sept. 19-24, many television programs back in Japan 1942, to the death camp of Treblinka for Foreign Minister Yohei Kono to formally of the Nazi-era ghetto. had to run stories explaining who this extermination. apologize. Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael obscure diplomat was. The Nazis also killed between 1,200 A year before he passed away, he was Schudrich, led a prayer for the dead in For years, few Japanese knew the and 1,500 Jews, including pregnant honored for his work in rescuing the the presence of the city mayor, resi- incredible story of how the man dubbed women and children, on the spot. Lithuanian refugees by the Holocaust dents and representatives of the “Japan’s Schindler” saved about 6,000 The memorial was designed by a sur- Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance German and Israel embassies during a vivor of the killings, Marek Cecula. Jews from the Nazis during the Second Authority in Israel. World War, despite working for an DUTCH AIRLINE LIKELY TO PROBE CLAIMS ally of Germany. Unlike Oscar Schindler, the German industrialist IT HELPED NAZI WAR CRIMINALS TO FLEE GERMANY who turned against the Nazis and utch filmmakers working on a docu- Netherlands History, said documents rescued almost 1,100 Jews from the Dmentary found papers in show that some Germans paid hand- Holocaust, Sugihara had to wait until Switzerland that appear to show at least somely for assistance, and that KLM was just seven years ago for his bravery one KLM representative asked the Swiss “intensively involved. But some adopted to be officially recognized. government in 1948 to allow German false identities, and KLM acknowledges Sugihara was the acting consul in nationals cross the border without all the that some of its passengers were proba- Lithuania’s temporary wartime capi- required papers, and then to fly to Buenos bly fleeing Nazis. It insists, however, that tal when he was ordered to abandon Aires, The Times of London reported. its role was not to police its passengers. his post as the Germans advanced in The KLM employee is identified only as “The checks we have done in our 1940. A fourth of the city’s population Herr (Mr.) Frick. archive so far have not delivered any spe- was Jewish, mostly prosperous and KLM, acronym for Royal Dutch Airlines, cific information about this sort of trans- well integrated, and few were ready has always denied that it had a policy of portation. But that does not mean that it to believe the horror stories from assisting Nazis to escape justice at the has not been done,” KLM spokesman Bart nearby Poland until it was too late to hands of the Allies after WWII, when hun- Koster said. flee. By an accident of history, the dreds escaped to Argentina. He said that he would advise the com- mild-mannered diplomat – one of just KLM officials say some war criminals pany’s board to commission an independ- two left in the city – became their last may have flown to Argentina on its planes ent inquiry. hope for survival. but that does not mean the airline assist- He told the Dutch radio: “If we really The crossroads in Sugihara’s life Chiune Sugihara ed them, or knew who they were. want to be sure what happened, we have came one night in July 1940, when he woke up to find a group of desperate Historians and journalists have Argentina was, after the war, the refuge of to have a thorough investigation, he said. searched through Sugihara’s background senior Nazis such as Joseph Mengele, An inquiry could reopen controversy refugees outside his window, demanding visas to the Soviet Union. He decided to to discover what made him take his the doctor at Auschwitz nicknamed the about the role of the Dutch Royal Family momentous decision. There were hints in Angel of Death, and Adolf Eichmann, who as the late Prince Bernhard, father of help, but his repeated requests to Tokyo for permission to issue the visas were his past that the man who once planned planned the extermination of the Jews. Queen Beatrix, was on KLM’s board in the denied. Despite facing disgrace or worse to study medicine was plagued with a Marc Dierikx, of the Institute for postwar years. for his family, Sugihara decided to follow conscience. While stationed in his conscience and sign as many visas as Manchuria, for example, he resigned HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS WIN LANDMARK PENSION CASES he could, in defiance of his government. from his post after witnessing the brutali- Sugihara’s courageous decision was all ty meted out by Japanese troops to the n July, a German social security court hometown in Poland in September 1939. the more remarkable given his background. local Chinese. ruled in favor of two Jewish Holocaust The tribunal ruled the man should obtain a I From solid middle-class stock, he graduat- But many suspect that the key to his survivors. The rulings will likely expand the credit for this part of his ordeal. The man’s ed from Tokyo’s elite Waseda University, change of heart may have been a Jewish number of Holocaust sur- lawyer said thousands of and served under the Foreign Ministry in refugee called Zalke Jenkins, whose fam- vivors eligible for benefits people would benefit from Japan’s puppet state of Manchuria, one of ily had fled to Lithuania from the Russian from Germany. the ruling. The second case the more brutal military occupations of the revolution. Sugihara met the 11-year-old Two Jewish men involved an 82-year-old war. A gifted linguist, he was once tipped for in a shop and gave him some money, an appealed the rejection of Israeli who was confined an ambassador’s post. act of kindness rewarded with an invita- their pension claims to the to the Jewish ghetto in Yet this is the man who sat for almost a tion to visit Jenkins’ family. The diplomat Federal Social Security Trans-Dniester, part of the month from 31 July to 28 August 1940 spoke afterward at how moved he was by Tribunal in Kassel. The tri- Soviet Union. The area painstakingly writing out 10-day transit the strength of family bonds in Jewish life, bunal overruled lower court was controlled by pro-Nazi visas by hand, even enlisting his wife, which reminded him of home. decisions and said the men Romanian forces. Yukiko, to help him. By the time they The Emperor’s seal of approval is for were entitled to claims. The ruling comes 62 The man was a Soviet citizen for 70 boarded a Berlin-bound train on 1 many of his family the highest honour that years after the end of World War II. years. He was told Holocaust pensions September 1940, still scribbling out the Japan can bestow for Sugihara’s bravery. The first case involved a man who contest- were not available to Soviets and were ed when his persecution started. He said it only given to people in places invaded by last visa, they had saved about 6,000 peo- “The visit by the imperial couple makes began when Nazis forced him to wear a yel- German troops. The tribunal overruled ple, including hundreds of children. me feel as though his actions have again low Star of David on his sleeve. That this decision, saying the man was entitled Sugihara’s reward for his heroism was been rewarded,” one of his surviving fam- occurred after German forces invaded his to a Holocaust pension. dismissal from the Foreign Ministry imme- ily members told the Asahi newspaper. Page 4 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2007 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5768 BOOKBOOK REVIEWSREVIEWS A SON’S “REFUGE” VICTORY OVER HITLER Refuge: Surviving the Nazi Occupation Aid Society, the family was settled in Victory Over Hitler. By Avraham Burg. adamant that Israel ought to connect to. of Poland. By Kalman Horowitz. Fidlar- Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan. As a Tel-Aviv-Mishal, 2007. 382 pp. Burg relates the Palestinian problem young child, Leo attended yeshiva. Later, and the plight of the Palestinian refugees Doubleday, 2006. 272 pp. $24.95. REVIEWED BY RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN the family moved to Queens, where he with the Holocaust refugees and Israel’s REVIEWED BY DEBORAH SCHAPIRO, attended public schools. He graduated vraham Burg’s solid credentials as creation that displaced the Palestinians, NJ JEWISH NEWS from Queens College and earned a doc- A an establishment leader – former asking for the Palestinians’ forgiveness ccording to Leo Horowitz, “The hos- torate in physics from the Stevens Knesset Speaker who served as chairman and understanding. With this selective A tility worldwide toward the Jews has Institute of Technology in Hoboken. His of both the Jewish Agency and the World reasoning, he fails again to see the wider never really changed. The only difference achievements, and his father’s building of Zionist Congress – only add credence to context of Palestinian culpability, then and now is that the Jews have the means to a new life after the Holocaust notwith- his critical critique of the Jewish state, so now, in their own tragedy, and their cynical defend themselves.” The source of his standing, it was Kalman’s tales of the that no one can rightly claim that he does use and abuse by the Arab states. pessimism is clear; as the son of a Polish Jews’ suffering not only at the hands of not deeply care about it. The son of the he author regards the Eichmann Holocaust survivor, he grew up hearing the Nazis but of so many others that has legendary Yosef Burg who represented T trial of the ‘60s as the turning point and absorbing his father’s colored Leo’s outlook. He said that in all the religious Zionists for from an Israel that denied tales of Jewish suffering at the the schools he attended, he many years and was the Holocaust to one was taught “liberalism, hands of both the Nazis and among Israel’s leading obsessed with it to its detri- brotherly love, and ecumeni- the Poles during World War II. fathers, presents us with ment. He vigorously cism..., but it didn’t seem to Speaking in his father’s voice a soul-searching account opposed the valued visit to me that the world worked and to preserve his father’s of bitter disappointment that way.” It was to bring Auschwitz by Israeli high- memories and honor the vic- with Israel’s direction, as some measure of gratifica- schoolers, which he claims tims and other survivors, he well as fervent hope for a tion to his father that Leo taints their view of humani- published Kalman Horowitz’s changed course. decided to write the memoir. ty, isolating them instead of memoir. Victory over Hitler is “My father used to tell his drawing them closer. Yet indeed a lover’s quarrel Refuge: Surviving the Nazi story to anyone who would again, another illustration of for a descendent of Occupation of Poland listen, so by the time I start- Burg’s unbalanced, though recounts in torturous detail the ed typing it, I knew basically German Jewry who origi- sincere approach. Instead, familiar — though none the everything. He would just fill nally penned the rather he recommends for Jewish less horrific — tales of suffer- in any blanks I left.” depressing title of Hitler and Arab students to jointly ing, from the excruciating alman’s story, as cap- Won for a book that ought visit Spain and learn about to be widely read and forced labor, to the starvation- tured by his son in the Golden Age of Jewish- K debated. The author’s and disease-plagued ghettos, Refuge, includes chilling details about the Muslim fruitful co-exis- genuine pain and hurt and to the enormity of the packed cattle cars complicity between the Nazis and the tence. It is a good idea but frustration ultimately stem headed for the death camps. But Refuge Poles in slaughtering the Jews. “Kalman” ought not replace Holocaust education. also conveys the familiar but joyous pre- from the constraining realities in which explains in the Prologue: “We understood From Spain he suggests that the students war lives of Europe’s Jews, the large and Israel has found itself, not yet at full peace that anti-Semitism among the deeply should continue to the Muslim centers in loving families, the rhythms of religious with its neighbors, while being perhaps devout Polish Catholic people was prima- Europe, to witness “the new European life, and the festivity of holiday celebra- the only state whose very legitimacy is rily due to the teachings of the Catholic Islam.” Isn’t Burg aware of the anti-Semitism tions. And, ultimately, the book chronicles being questioned. Burg wishes for his Church, which laid the blame for the death it is generating? Another contemplated trip, the miraculous events that resulted in of their savior at the feet of the Jews....” country to no longer live in the shadow of a wise one, is to the United States, to learn of Kalman Horowitz’s survival — sadly, the He relates how the Jewish world of pre- a menacing Hitler and be free of the threat American Jewry, who he admirably only one in his immediate family. In 1945 war Eastern Europe was obliterated, bit that his spirit still represents. But what describes as “the most influential minority in Kalman met and married Celia, a fellow by bit, beginning with Germany’s invasion does one do if the president of the seven- the civil society of the superpower of super- survivor, and began to create a new life. of Poland in 1939. The loading of the ty-million-strong Iran would like to con- Leo Horowitz was born in 1948 in Jews of the Sobolov ghetto onto the clude what Hitler began? One would powers.” Meanwhile, Burg unleashes a reck- Bamberg, Germany. After several years in Treblinka-bound trains is described, as argue that given Israel’s long standing less charge concerning the American the American sector of Germany, the are the tortured thoughts of the desperate security concerns and demanding needs response to the attacks of September 11, Horowitz family — then with two children, Jews: “I suppose, the human psyche of immigration absorption, it has surpris- 2001,” to satisfy the thirst for blood and the a third would be born later — left Europe attempts to shield itself from excruciating ingly developed into a vibrant democracy revenge instinct of the American way of life.” for the United States. realities by rationalization, and thus, we and a very open society, embracing diver- The author’s utopian thrust and With the help of the Hebrew Immigrant (Continued on page 15) sity and the world at-large that Burg is so (Continued on page 15) POSTCARD FROM TRUSKAWIEC SPA: STORY ABOUT LOVE AND BETRAYAL IN WAR-TIME POLAND Postcard From Truskawiec Spa: Story n sum, when Emilia Rubinstein, the ny. In the meanwhile, Emilia, herself quite Jadwiga, await trains taking them to About Love and Betrayal in War-Time Idaughter of well-to-do Polish Jews, “Nordic” looking, took on the identity of a Treblinka. This is a particularly well writ- Poland. By George Oscar Lee. Xlibrus first met Zbyszek Czartoryski, a non- non-Jew, Jadwiga Slowikowska, and lived ten segment. We meet many more good Corporation, U.S.A., 2006. 391 pp. Jewish Pole, that beautiful summer night openly on the Aryan side of the Warsaw non-Jews, young and old, when fate $22.99 at Truskawiec Spa, she ghetto. Through interesting allows Jadwiga to escape from that train could have no idea the part happenstances, Jadwiga REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN and be helped by caring village Poles. he would play in her life, or found refuge with a non- We meet more exceptionally brave Jews y name is Zbyszek, may I ask what lay ahead. While Jewish woman, and got a when Jadwiga joins up with partisans “Myou to dance with me?” there was that pin on his clerical position at a hospital. once more,now as a fighter. (Early on Lee It all started not unlike many other jacket lapel signifying In turn, that would lead to ties makes us aware of what a crack shot she romances throughout time. A handsome membership in an anti- with the Underground, where is, foreshadowing the future). Finally, as to young man sees a pretty girl, and Semitic organization, she she would become an excel- the villains in this story, we see many, approaches. What could be more charm- though little of it. He was lent forger and an ardent including Zbyszek, punished for their evil ingly delightful? What could be more gracious. He was manner- courier. actions, with Jadwiga primarily responsi- “romantic”? But, the young man was Polish, ly. He was such a wonder- And Zbyszek? Oddly ble. All in all, Lee allows us to experience the girl Jewish, and it was Poland, 1938. ful dancer! And the war? enough, he stayed in her life. the growth and development of a true From such simple lyric “threads,” That was far from every- After all, he was her Jewish heroine in Jadwiga, Emilia George Oscar Lee, the author of Postcard one’s mind. There was only boyfriend and cared about Rubinstein! From Truskawiec Spa: Story About Love beautiful music and danc- her,or so she thought,until he For students of the Holocaust, and for and Betrayal in War-Time Poland, a novel, ing that night. determinedly betrayed her. all those who enjoy a true-to-life novel, weaves a fascinating tapestry of a story. It Then the Nazis came to Poland, and Indeed, he personally escorted her to the Postcard From Truskawiec Spa will not is absorbing and truly satisfying to the everything changed. As we all know, Gestapo. Jadwiga couldn’t believe it,and disappoint. reader. It is a tale with intriguing twists ghettos were created and Jews were didn’t,till the very last moment when cap- and turns, with serendipitous meetings forced into them. Luckily, Emilia’s par- ture was inevitable. Dr. Diane Cypkin is a Professor of Media and partings, with admirable heroes and ents found refuge with a faithful non- Thus, we are taken to the terrible and Communication Arts at Pace vicious, clever villains. Jewish employee of their elevator compa- Umschlagplatz, where many, among them University. September/October 2007 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5768 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 5 FACING A GRIM REALITY IN AUSTRIAN TOWN UNSETTLING REALIZATIONS whose house is directly across from the “It was the second-biggest and most BY TOM HUNDLEY, CHICAGO TRIBUNE s you walk through the quiet village, sealed-up entrance of the camp’s vast important underground plant for Nazi underground industrial complex, said he Germany, and the [Messerschmitt project] arden Street, Flower Street, Park it is discomfiting to learn that the A supports the project. represented the last hope of Hitler and Street — the bland names can be elegant mansion with the distinctive arch- G “I do. I’m even proud to live on this dev- [SS commander Heinrich] Himmler for found in any Austrian village. The solid, way, now occupied by a wealthy local astating field of horror where the grass turning the tide of the war,” said Rudolf two-story houses that line these family, was once the SS headquarters and has literally grown over our history. I think Haunschmied, a local resident who as a streets, the BMWs in the driveways, the that political prisoners were tortured and we can use this project to show that evil boy in the 1970s played in the abandoned neatly trimmed hedges, potted gerani- murdered in the basement. can be overcome by good things, like lib- underground complex and later, as an ums and inevitable garden gnomes It is equally unsettling to discover that a eral democracy and hard work,” he said. amateur historian, unlocked many of speak of contented middle-class normalcy. comfortable one-story home with a fine Unlike Auschwitz-Birkenau or Treblinka, Gusen’s secrets. His work inspired A few residents always knew the stone porch once served as the camp Gusen was not an extermination camp, Mayer’s project. truth, but they chose to ignore it, or at brothel where female inmates were forced built for genocide. It was, instead, a camp Gusen was liberated by the U.S. Army least not to dig too deeply into it. to work. where the slave laborers who supplied the on May 5, 1945. At that late point in the Occasionally, they did dig into their Male slave laborers whose diligence Nazi war machine were worked to death. war, it had become an overcrowded tran- back yards to install swimming pools pleased their masters were rewarded with An estimated 37,000 died here. sit camp for prisoners from Auschwitz and and were startled when they found brothel privileges. Frau Traude, whose voice is heard on other camps that the Nazis were evacuat- human skeletons. A busy pub now sits where the camp’s Mayer’s audio walk, was 11 when the SS ing ahead of the advancing Soviet army. But even then, there was a reluctance main watchtower stood. Playground first arrived to establish the camp just a The Americans were stunned by the to confront the fact that their comfort- Street follows the path of the old rail line few yards from her little village. mountains of corpses, the emaciated pris- able suburban community was built on that once transported inmates to the “We were quite smitten with the Germans oners, the rampant disease. U.S. Army Lt. the remains of one of Nazi Germany’s camp. because they were so nice and sweet,” Col. Milton Keach took command of the most dreadful concentration camps. By contrast, the nearby Mauthausen site said Traude, who is now 80 and asked area and immediately ordered residents Few people outside academic circles has been preserved as a national memo- that her last name not be used because of Gusen to be rounded up and brought have heard of Gusen. It is not nearly as rial to the victims of Nazi crimes. It she still lives in the area. She was less into the camp to see the crimes committed well-known as the infamous Mauthausen receives tens of thousands of visitors smitten a few years later when she wit- in their name. camp four miles away, even though each year. nessed the massacre of children who The men of Gusen were ordered to dig Gusen was larger, claimed more victims “In Mauthausen, you feel you are in a were tied up in cloth sacks and heaved mass graves and place the corpses in and, in the Nazi scheme of things, was sacred place. You feel you shouldn’t even against a stone wall by camp guards. them. The women were ordered to cover far more important. eat an ice cream there. And then Gusen the bodies with dirt. Traude, 18 at the Christoph Mayer, a 32-year-old artist — everything is so normal, it is like noth- SITE CLOSE TO QUARRIES time, was among the women who per- who spent a happy childhood in this ing happened here,” Mayer said. Not sur- formed this task. community, believes it is time to con- prisingly, some local residents are unhap- he Gusen site was originally chosen “My mother and I had to shovel soil onto front the reality. His specialty is interac- py with Mayer’s project. Several have put Tfor its proximity to the granite quar- the bodies,” she said last month. “We tried tive art, and he has designed a remark- up no-trespassing signs. ries that supplied the stone for Third Reich to look away, but the soldiers wouldn’t let able audio tour during which visitors “People are worried about their property architect Albert Speer’s monumental us. They grabbed our heads and forced walking through Gusen can listen on values,” said Ferdinand Naderer, a former building projects. Later, it became an us to look.” headphones to the recollections of sur- deputy mayor. “They are worried that if a important center for small-arms produc- A few weeks later, the Americans hand- vivors, of townspeople who watched the lot of visitors are coming here to look at tion. In its final phase, a 50,000-square- ed command of the area to the Soviet terrible events unfold before their eyes, their houses, they will be made to feel yard underground industrial space was army, and Gusen began its long slide and most disturbingly, of camp guards guilty for living here.” built to house production facilities for a toward comfortable oblivion. who perpetrated the crimes. But Naderer, a 57-year-old engineer new Messerschmitt jet aircraft. LESSONS FROM THE PAST? Anti-Semitism “should be an illness of Jews.” Benz said, “We have to counter Another exhibit item cites the newspa- BY TOBY AXELROD, JTA the past,” Erler said. “Unfortunately, anti- that rumor with enlightenment.” per of a radical Turkish group in Germany, Semitism is not in the closet. It is a part The exhibition covers Christian anti- which says Judaism is a religion “rooted in he image of a horned Ariel Sharon of European current events, it is in the Jewish attitudes, racist anti-Semitism, terror” that divides people into a class of with vampire-like teeth is one of T middle of society.” post-Holocaust hatred of Jews, which is “rulers-Zionists,” and a class of “slaves to several jarring displays that greet visitors The visually powerful exhibit, which sometimes expressed as Holocaust the sons of Israel.” these days to Germany’s Foreign was designed by Israel’s Muli ben denial or resentment against reparations, Curators said they used only 10% of the Ministry building in Berlin. Sasson and is funded in part by the and anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism - raw material they had collected for the Among others is a depiction of German Center for Political Education, is namely, the denial of Israel’s right to exist. exhibit. President George Bush surrounded by arranged on a series of panels that form “In a time when two-thirds of the “It was hard to choose,” said Yad bearded rabbis as his gurus and a linked rooms. Vashem’s Doron Avraham, who curated description of Israel as the “Fourth It presents both the the exhibit along with historian Juliane Reich.” reality of Jewish diversi- Wetzel of the Center for Research on Anti- Unlike during the Third Reich, these ty and the power of Semitism. images on public display are not official stereotypes that propa- “As an Israeli, I am very used to such German propaganda but part of a gate hate and, some- expressions. But I was surprised by the German government exhibition on con- times, violence. The volume.” temporary anti-Semitism that aims to exhibit includes the he exhibit includes some Israeli show that anti-Jewish sentiment in the results of surveys show- examples of harsh self-criticism to German Republic, and in Europe gener- T ing strong anti-Semitic underscore the point that the litmus test ally, is not just a relic of the past. sentiment in Europe, for anti-Semitism is not whether or not “Anti-Semitism? Anti-Zionism? Israeli such as the Anti- Israel is criticized, but how, exactly, Israel Critique?” opened August 1 in the atrium Defamation League’s and Israelis are portrayed. of Germany’s Foreign Ministry. In 2005 poll that found that “I am always shocked by the Sharon September it will begin an extensive tour 50% of Europeans think caricatures, by the rawness and the evil in of German cities, starting at Berlin’s Jews talk too much them,” Benedikt Haller, the Foreign Technical University. about the Holocaust. German people promulgate that Israel is Ministry’s liaison to Jewish organizations, The exhibit, a collaborative effort hile the exhibit includes exam- the biggest threat on earth, you can’t have said after viewing the exhibit. “Debate is between the Yad Vashem Holocaust ples from many countries, it takes enough exhibits like that,” the president of good, but we are firm about the fact there Memorial and the Berlin-based Center W a close look at anti-Semitism in Germany Berlin’s Jewish community, Gideon Joffe, are boundaries.” for Research on Anti-Semitism, takes on whether from the far right, far left or told JTA. Barbara Witting, director of the Jewish an issue of enduring controversy: Just Islamic extremists. One panel of the exhibit cautions high school in Berlin, said she hoped stu- when does criticism of Israel cross the “We in Germany are in danger of see- against the “Nazification of Israel,” saying dents would see the exhibition. border of legitimacy? ing anti-Semitism as a problem of others, Israel’s actions “are not in any way com- “It is important to recognize that the “There is a clear boundary in debates such as Poles, and to consider ourselves parable with the Holocaust, neither in their problem is still alive,” she said. “In about solidarity with Israel,” Gernot free of it,” said Wolfgang Benz, director intention nor in their dimension. Germany they know what happens if you Erler, minister of state at Germany’s of the 25-year-old research center, which Comparisons between the Mideast con- do not interfere right from the beginning.” Federal Foreign Office, said, introduc- is part of the Technical University . flict and the Holocaust make light of the Over the last year, several Jewish ing the exhibit to some 200 guests at Benz cited German sociologist and genocide against the Jews and are a students transferred to Witting’s school the opening. “Israel’s right to exist with- philosopher Theodor Adorno, who once defensive reaction against historical after enduring anti-Semitic taunts in in clear and recognizable borders is a called anti-Semitism “a rumor about the responsibility.” other schools. non-negotiable point.” Page 6 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2007 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5768 SURVIVORS’SURVIVORS’ CORNERCORNER THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE NAZI MASCOT But his SS masters never discovered ing my hand so I couldn’t cry out loud, up for execution, and Alex thought he, too, BY NICK BRYANT. BBC NEWS the most essential detail about his life: because if I did, they would have seen was about to die. their little Nazi mascot was Jewish. me hiding in the forest. I can’t remem- “There was a soldier near me, and I lex Kurzem came to Australia in “They didn’t know that I was a Jewish ber exactly what happened. I think I said, ‘Before you kill me, can you give me 1949 carrying just a small brown A boy who had escaped a Nazi death must have passed out a few times. It a bit of bread?’ He looked at me, and took briefcase, but weighed down by some squad. They thought I was a Russian was terrible.” me around the back of the school. He harrowing psychological and emotional orphan.” examined me and saw that I was Jewish. baggage. FALSE IDENTITY His story starts where his childhood “No good, no good,’ he said. ‘Look, I don’t Tucked away in his briefcase were the memories begin – in a village in Belarus hen the shooting stopped, I had want to kill, but I can’t leave you here secrets of his past fragments of his life on 20 October 1941, the day it was invad- no idea where to go, so I went to because you will perish. that he kept hidden for decades. “W ed by the German army. live in the forests, because I couldn’t go “‘I’ll take you with me, give you a new In 1997, after raising a family in “I remember the back. I was the only name and tell the other soldiers that you Melbourne with his Australian bride, he German army invad- one left. I must are a Russian orphan.’” finally revealed himself. He told how, at ing the village, lining have been five or the age of five, he had been adopted by JOINING THE CIRCUS up all the men in the six.” the SS and became a Nazi mascot. city square and “I went into the for- o this day, Alex Kurzem has no idea His personal history, one of the most shooting them. My est but no-one want- why Sergeant Jekabs Kulis took pity remarkable stories to emerge from World T mother told me that ed me. I knocked on on him. Whatever his motives, it certainly War II, was published recently in a book my father had been peoples’ doors and helped that Alex had Aryan looks. And entitled The Mascot. killed, and that we they gave me bits of together, they kept the secret. “They gave me a uniform, a little gun would all be killed.” bread but they told “Every moment I had to remind myself and little pistol,” Alex told the BBC. “I didn’t want to me to move on. not to let my guard down, because if ever “They gave me little jobs to do to polish die, so in the middle Nobody took me in.” anyone found out, I was dead. I was shoes, carry water or light a fire. But my of the night I tried to He survived by scared of the Russians shooting me and main job was to entertain the soldiers. To escape. I went to Alex was forced to keep his Jewish identity hidden scavenging clothes the Germans discovering I was Jewish. I make them feel a bit happier.” kiss my mother goodbye, and ran up into from the bodies of dead soldiers. had no-one to turn to.” PAINFUL MEMORIES the hill overlooking the village until the After about nine months in the forest, a Young Alex saw action on the Russian local man handed him over to the Latvian front, and was even used by the SS to lure n newsreels, he was paraded as “the morning came.” police brigade, which later became incor- Jewish people to their deaths. Reich’s youngest Nazi” and he wit- That was the day his family was massa- I porated in the Nazi SS. Outside the cattle trains which carried nessed some unspeakable atrocities. cred – his mother, his brother, his sister. “I was very traumatized. I remember bit- That very day, people were being lined (Continued on page 13) SAVED BY A SAINT IN A TANK Sam Goetz long wondered about the How do you write the final chapter of the Still, many couldn’t confront some mem- cuted or imprisoned at Belzec. During its larger-than-life soldier who liberated story, now that both generations – victims ories, like “the moment of separation from 10 months of operation in 1942, historians him from a Nazi camp. Decades later, and liberators – are passing? their parents. They would go round and say, 434,508 Jews died in Belzec’s three they met again. About 120,000 Holocaust survivors round it.... To see your parents taken gas chambers. Only a handful survived. live in the United States – about 10,000 away, without even a kiss, a goodbye. In September 1943, Sam, too, was BY SANDY BANKS of them in Los Angeles and Orange Those moments stay with you the rest of deported from the Tarnow ghetto, and n May 6, 1945, Goetz, then 16, was counties. Los Angeles is home to one of your life. There is no healing, no closure.” moved to a series of concentration camps among 18,000 prisoners liberated the largest and most active survivor’s in Eastern Europe, where inmates were O DEATH COMES TO TARNOW from the Nazi concentration camp at groups in the world, The 1939 Club, beaten, starved, forced to endure biting Ebensee, Austria, by the U.S. Army’s 3rd which takes its name from the year or Goetz, that moment came the winters without shoes and dressed only in Cavalry. The squadron commander, a tall, Adolf Hitler invaded Poland. Goetz Fweek after his 14th birthday, in June flimsy cotton pajamas. They were worked young sergeant, climbed down from his served as the club’s president in 1965- 1942. The schools in Tarnow, Poland, had to the point of collapse and death. tank and pronounced them free. 66. Some survivors emerged warped by already been closed to Jewish children. For inmates, the sight of smoke and the We “kissed his hands and touched his anger and bitterness. Others spent Parks, skating rinks, movie theaters, even smell of bodies burning in the camps’ crema- uniform, as if touching a saint,” Goetz years locked in silence and shame. city streets were off-limits. Gestapo toriums were a grim and constant torment. would recall years later in his memoir, “I Most, like Goetz, healed through hard agents began roaming the city’s Jewish ANSWERING THE CALL Never Saw My Face.” work – avenging, through their eventual quarter, randomly shooting Jews. “Each of us wanted to make sure the success, the evil done to them. Sam’s parents were herded at gunpoint ob Persinger knew nothing about man was real ... that this was neither an “For years, many didn’t even talk about with thousands of their neighbors onto trains B concentration camps or the tragedy illusion or a dream” ... it with their children,” Goetz said. “They bound for Belzec, a death camp in Poland unfolding for Europe’s Jews when he was Goetz spent years combing through war didn’t want to impart guilt to the kids. And where German officials were pioneering the drafted at 19. Pearl Harbor had been archives in Washington, D.C., without the kids wanted to know, but didn’t know use of gas chambers for mass killings. bombed seven months after his high ever learning the soldier’s identity. “I was how to ask.” In one week, 8,000 of Tarnow’s Jews – school graduation, and the Iowa farm boy haunted by it,” says Goetz, now an It wasn’t until the 1970s, “when these one-third of the population – would be exe- (Continued on page 14) optometrist in West L.A. “Who was that Holocaust deniers began to surface, with man in the first tank? What is his name? all their talk about the ‘lies of the 6 million’ Is he alive today?” [Jews killed], that I couldn’t keep quiet. I On Saturday, Bob Persinger – now a said education is the only way we can bespectacled, gray-haired veteran – leave our legacy.” strode through the lobby of a Century City So Goetz proposed to UCLA a chair on hotel and reached out to shake Goetz’s Holocaust studies. The chair was created in hand. The Holocaust survivor stared back, 1979, the first at a U.S. public university. measured reality against his memories, Twenty years ago, Goetz organized a then opened his arms for an embrace. project to videotape the testimonies of And the soldier who had seemed so tall 60 Holocaust survivors. “I realized the sur- years ago stood cheek to cheek with the vivors are dying at a fast rate,” he said. man he had saved. “There’s a great danger of losing their sto- THE FINAL CHAPTER ries, of not knowing. “But it was difficult getting people to participate. We had 600 he Holocaust is not the kind of expe- members. Only 30 responded. It’s too Trience you put behind you. For most painful.” survivors, there’s no making peace with Ultimately, 56 survivors agreed to share memories from concentration camps where their stories. “And once they got started, millions were humiliated, tortured and they couldn’t stop,” Goetz said. “We had forced to witness unspeakable brutality. to go to two-hour tapes.” September/October 2007 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5768 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 7 AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR YAD VASHEM ANTI-SEMITISM BIDS FAREWELL TO AMBASSADOR MEKEL WEIGHS ON BRITISH JEWS ith anti-Semitism in Britain at he American Society for Yad Mission to the UN was when W record levels, life is changing in TVashem’s Leadership held a recep- he urged the UN to declare subtle and not-so-subtle ways for the tion at the home of Ambassador Arye the International Day of country’s Jews. Mekel, outgoing Consul General in New Holocaust Remembrance on Armed guards escort Orthodox Jews in York and his wife, Ruth. This was a January 27th, the anniver- Manchester walking to synagogue. farewell event with Ambassador Mekel, sary of the liberation of Vendors sell Arabic-language editions of who is returning to Israel. Auschwitz. “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” out- American Society Chairman Eli mbassador Mekel side train stations. Academic and labor Zborowski and Vice Chair of the Board Aworked hard to con- unions routinely issue calls to boycott the Leonard Wilf thanked Mekel for his sup- vince the representatives of Jewish state. port of the Society during his five years in the “undecided” countries to Jews in Britain say they feel a growing New York. support the decision. sense of unease and insecurity. Mekel, a son of Holocaust survivors who One of the “unknown heroes” Last year saw the highest number of spent the first three years of his life in a who helped Ambassador Mekel reported anti-Semitic incidents in Britain Displacement Camp in Germany is a big get the votes was business- since record-keeping began in 1984 — a supporter of the American Society for Yad man, Eugene Zuriff, whose 33 percent increase over the previous Vashem and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. company owns the Smith & year. Anti-Semitic incidents in Britain have In his previous position as Deputy Head Wollensky restaurant. He met doubled in the last decade. of Israel’s Mission to the UN, Mekel fought Mekel in his restaurant and Jews are violently assaulted and sub- for the decision to display an exhibition American Society for Yad Vashem Chairman Eli Zborowski offered his help. Zuriff hap- jected to threats. Schoolchildren face from Yad Vashem at the UN building, an presents the Yad Vashem “Auschwitz Album” book to pened to be close with the rep- abuse. Communal property and syna- unprecedented accomplishment. The exhibi- Ambassador Arye Mekel. resentative of Ecuador and he gogues are damaged and desecrated. tion “Auschwitz Album,” brought to the U.S. 2005, and later toured the country. made a few phone calls. The And Britain is home to a growing cottage by the American Society for Yad Vashem, However, Mekel’s most remarkable result – Ecuador voted for the decision. The industry of mass-produced, anti-Semitic was displayed at the UN on January 25, achievement as Deputy Head of Israel rest is history. literature. The sharp rise in anti-Semitism has not gone unnoticed in Parliament, which in A NATION’S LOST HOLOCAUST HISTORY, 2005 formed an investigative committee to address the Jewish community’s concerns. In its first report in September 2006, the NOW ON DISPLAY All Party Inquiry into Anti-Semitism recom- hen Israelitische Kultusgemeinde German-speaking world, Ingo Zechner, house visit and describe the living condi- mended investigating the reason for the W Wien, or Jewish Community director of the Vienna group’s Holocaust tions, Anatol Steck of the Holocaust muse- low number of prosecutions of anti- Vienna, decided to sell a vacant building Victims Information and Support Center, um said. In many cases it is now possible Semitic crimes and developing strategies in the summer of 2000, two employees said. Indeed, Vienna once had the third- to trace every administrative step, from to combat rising anti-Semitism. The report were sent to look for any archival material largest Jewish population in Europe. someone’s first contact at the emigration found that only a minority of police forces that might have been left behind. Some of Vienna’s Holocaust-era files can office to when the family boarded a train or in the country were even equipped to What they found exceeded any histori- already be viewed on microfilm at the a ship, Mr. Zechner said. record hate crimes as anti-Semitic inci- ans dream: Stacked floor to ceiling in two Holocaust museum in Washington and at For Jews who perished, Mr. Steck said, dents. rooms of one apartment sat some 800 the Central Archives for the History of the the questionnaires are like the last testa- As in other places in Europe, anti- dusty boxes containing, among other Jewish People in Israel. And, according to ment of the victims. Ultimately, two-thirds Semitism in Britain isn’t limited to the things, about half a million pages of plans arranged with Simon Wiesenthal of Vienna’s Jewish community survived extreme right. On the far left, in unions detailed records of the community during before his death, a proposed Vienna the Holocaust, but more than 65,000 and other forums, where liberal-leaning the Holocaust – archives not known to Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies Austrian Jews were murdered. Jews once felt politically at home, activists have survived. will unite under now leading the charge against Israel are “Opening each box was extremely excit- one roof Mr. driving Jews away. ing,” said Lothar Hlbling, the chief Wiesenthal’s Nazi- British Jews are choosing to move to archivist and one of the discoverers. hunting files with Israel in record numbers. British aliyah “Eight hundred excitements.” the Jewish last year set a new record with 738 new Now, after seven years of quiet work Community files immigrants, a two-thirds increase over the reordering, preserving and microfilming and will serve as a year before, according to the Jewish the archives, a joint project of Jewish research institute Agency for Israel. Community Vienna and the United States for visiting schol- Holocaust Memorial Museum in ars and a show- CLAIMS CONFERENCE Washington, the documents are officially case for the unveiled at the museum. exhibitions. WINS INCREASE When combined with community fter the IN SURVIVOR PENSIONS records stretching back to the 17th centu- A Nazis ry that had been shipped to Israel in the annexed Austria ermany agreed to a cost-of-living 1950s, the Vienna cache makes up one of in 1938, they Gpension hike for at least 50,000 the largest Holocaust archives of any began disbanding Holocaust survivors in Europe. Jewish community, some two million virtually all Jewish The decision was announced after annual negotiations with Germany led by pages. With it, historians will be better groups. Two This photograph taken from the exhibition shows Jewish children on vacation. able to understand how the Holocaust months later, the the Conference for Jewish Material Walter Feiden, 79, of New York City, is unfolded and provide a window into the Nazis reinstated Jewish Community Claims Against Germany. the only survivor of his Viennese family. daily life of Vienna’s Jews. The archives of Vienna, Mr. Zechner said, enlisting it to According to an announcement, negotia- His father, Moses, went to the community Jewish Community Vienna, the represen- help carry out their initial plan, which was tors also secured an additional 1,500 pen- organizations offices to research names tative body of the city’s Jews, will also be for Jews to depart Austria after paying sions for survivors who are or were citizens and addresses in phone books before of great help to families in uncovering fees and leaving behind most of their of certain Western European countries. securing affidavits of support from two “These are very important break- exactly what happened to their relatives. property. American strangers: a Jewish manufac- “For most of the last six decades, peo- Discovered within the Vienna apartment throughs, which will benefit Holocaust sur- turer and a district attorney named vivors in many countries,” said Claims ple believed that one could not study the were card indexes, produced by the com- Feiden. Yet, the United States consulate action of Jews in the Holocaust period munity’s emigration office, with the names Conference Executive Vice President rejected Moses Feiden’s visa request Gideon Taylor. “We are continuing to because the Nazis systematically of 118,000 Jews from families that had after learning he was born in Poland, not destroyed the records of Jewish commu- sought its assistance to emigrate in 1938 negotiate with the German government Austria. On Oct. 15, 1941, the Feidens over a range of other critical issues.” nities and organizations,” said Paul and 1939. These indexes were the key to were deported to the Lodz ghetto, where The cost-of-living increase will take Shapiro, director of the Holocaust muse- sorting through thousands of emigration Moses died; Emilie, Walter’s stepmother, effect Oct. 1, 2007. Under the new plan, ums Center for Advanced Holocaust questionnaires already stored in was transported to Chelmno and gassed. the German Ministry of Finance will Studies. “Most Holocaust scholarship has Jerusalem. Just recently, Mr. Feiden learned of a let- increase monthly payments from $235 to been written based on the documentary The questionnaire, filled out by the head ter found in the archives indicating that $268 for eligible Holocaust survivors living record created by the perpetrators of the of a household, solicited four pages of right before the family’s deportation, the in the European Union. About 14,500 sur- Holocaust.” detail about family and economic status, Dominican Republic had approved visas, The Vienna archives, in their entirety, references and contacts abroad, pertinent and that a Jewish community official had vivors in non-E.U. former Eastern bloc are believed to be the largest collection of information for those seeking visas. A asked the Gestapo to strike the Feidens countries, including Ukraine, Moldova and material about a Jewish community in the Jewish community official would make a (Continued on page 13) Belarus, will see their payments increase from $168 to $221. Page 8 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2007 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5768

CECILE AND EDWARD MOSBERG Yad Vashem Remembrance Award (Continued from page 1) After a few years, we came to the United States and settled in New York. Six years later, we moved to Elizabeth, New Jersey, and five years after that, we moved to Union, our present residence. I met Harry Wilf in Europe after the war. We re-established contact while I was still living in New York. He took me into his construction business in 1959. He helped me with everything. He is no longer alive, yet I thank him every day for having helped to shape my life with such great success. You can never for- get someone like Harry Wilf. My family and I never will. I am blessed with a wonderful wife, three daughters, two sons-in-law, who are like sons to me, and six grandchildren. I have been honored as a Holocaust survivor by Ben-Gurion University, The Rabbinical College of America, and Israel Bonds. My wife and I have rescued eleven Torahs, which were hidden in Europe during the Shoah. Each one has been donated for use to different facilities, such as; Yad Vashem, Jerusalem in honor of Eli Zborowski, to Temple Israel, Union, New Jersey, to the Mount Freedom Jewish Center, Mount Freedom, New Jersey, Adath Shalom, Parsippany, New Jersey, to Park East Synagogue, New York, New York, to Solomon Schechter Day School of Essex and Union County, New Jersey, and to the Joseph Kushner Hebrew Academy, New Jersey. Cecile Mosberg, nee Storch, was born in Krakow, Poland. She had a family in which there were two parents, two older sisters and one younger brother. She and her father were the only survivors. When the war began, they were ELI ZBOROWSKI AND DR. MIRIAM ADELSON thrown out of their home and were transient for a period of time. First, they went to Weilczka, the to Mielecz, next to Dubienka, and back to Wieliczka. ARE DINNER CHAIRS They gained entry into the Krakow Ghetto and remained until its liquidation. li Zborowski and Dr. Miriam Adelson, both 2006 Tribute Dinner honorees h Then they were transferred to the Plascow Concentration Camp, from where been named Dinner Chairs of the 2007 American & International Societies her oldes sister was sent to Belcz Extermination Camp and murdered. Her EYad Vashem Tribute Dinner. other sister was transported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp and then to Eli Zborowski is the Founder and Chairman of the American & International Socie Stuthof Concentration Camp. There she was taken on a death march, at which for Yad Vashem. On the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Societies, Mr. Zborow point she was murdered by a bullet, and thrown into the Baltic Sea. The next received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his distinguished service and enduring c day was liberation. Her little brother was transported to Auschwitz, where he mitment to commemoration. He is a survivor who emer was murdered. Her mother was murdered with a benzene injection and then from the devastation of the Holocaust and become thrown into a pile of burning bodies in Plaszow, some even half alive. My wife international leader in the Cause of Remembrance. was sent to Bergen Belsen, Gelenau and liberated in the stone mines of determination and dynamic stewardship have inspired Mauthausen Concentration Camp. After liberation, my wife found her father, Leib Storch, in Krakow, where they lanthropists throughout the world to support projects w lived for a short period of time. From there they moved to Belgium, and were have rendered Yad Vashem the Global Guardian joined by her boyfriend, Edward Mosberg. They got married in Brussels, Holocaust Remembrance. Belgium and lived there for four years. Finally, the small family moved to Beit Hakehilot, an edu- Manhattan, New York, in 1951 and then to New Jersey in 1959. They are cation and research cen- blessed with three daughters, two sons-in-law and six grandchildren. ter housed at Yad Vashem was sponsored through the generosity of Eli MATTHEW BRONFMAN Zborowski and his late Yad Vashem Young Leadership Remembrance Award wife, Diana. In addition, they are Benefactors of (Continued from page 1) Eli Zborowski -ests. He is the Chairman of BHB Holdings, an investment company and the Yad Vashem’s Project managing director at ACI Capital, a New York-based private investment firm. 2001. With the establishment of the Young Leadership He currently serves on the boards of Bronfman Fisher Real Estate Holdings, Associates, Eli was in the forefront of enlisting future generations in Holocaust remembrance. James River Group, Earnest Partners and Palace Candles Inc. Dr. Miriam Adelson A deep and abiding interest in the financial growth of the State of Israel has led Dr. Miriam Adelson is a member of the Executive Matthew to invest in the financial growth of the State. He is one of the controlling Committee of the American Society for Yad Vashem. She was born and raised in Is shareholders of Israel Discount Bank (IDB) and of Supersol, Israel’s largest in the shadow of the Holocaust, which is ever-present in her life. Her parents, Menu supermarket chain. In addition, he controls the IKEA franchise in Israel, where he and Simcha Farbstein, left Poland before the Shoah, but significant portions of their f has numerous real estate holdings. ilies missed the opportunity to leave and consequently perished. Matthew’s past business ventures include: Chairman and Chief Executive After earning her Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology and Genetics f Officer of Candle Acquisitions Company, a private-label specialty candle man- Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Dr. Adelson worked in the area of biological resea ufacturer; Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Sterling Cellular Holdings, throughout her two-year service in the Israeli Defense Forces. Following her mil LP, a privately held cellular telephone company. He has also held positions service, she continued her medical studies. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Aviv University Sackler Medical School. Clinics that she established, along with her h with Goldman Sachs & Co. and Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited. band Sheldon G. Adelson, have successfully treated thousands of heroin and coc Matthew and his wife Stacey make their home in Manhattan. drug addicts in this country and in Israel. Through his work for Yad Vashem, with the 92nd Street Y and with the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson are Patrons of the Mount of Remembrance World Jewish Congress, Matthew provides an ardent voice for the conti- longstanding benefactors of Yad Vashem. The building of the new Museum of Holoc nuity and growth of the Jewish people. The American & International Art at Yad Vashem was enabled by their generous support. It was given in memor Societies for Yad Vashem are privileged to honor Matthew Bronfman with Dr. Adelson’s parents, Menucha and Simcha Farbstein and members of their fam this year’s Young Leadership Remembrance Award for his commitment to who perished in the Holocaust. the noble Cause of Remembrance. September/October 2007 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5768 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 9

GUEST SPEAKER AMBASSADOR DAN GILLERMAN mbassador Dan Gillerman was appoint- intensively engaged in talks with Palestinian and ed Israel’s 13th representative to the Arab leaders, trying to further economic cooper- A United Nations in July 2002, and ation within the region. assumed his post on January 1, 2003. Among the councils Ambassador Gillerman Prior to his appointment, Ambassador Gillerman serves are: The Prime Minister’s National had been the CEO of Nagum Ltd. and Economic and Social Council; the President’s Agrotechnology Ltd. Since 1985, he has served Committee of the Coordinating Council of as Chairman of the Federation of Israeli Israel’s Economic Organizations; and Chairman Chambers of Commerce. He has also served as of the Israel-British Business Council. In addi- a member of the board of the First International tion he is a member of the executive board of the Bank of Israel, a Director of Bank Leumi and the ICC (The International Chamber of Commerce – Central Bank of Israel, as well as numerous other The World Business Organization). boards of private and public entities. Ambassador Gillerman was born in Israel in Ambassador Gillerman has played a prominent 1944 and was educated at Tel Aviv University role in helping to steer Israel towards economic and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He liberalization and a free-market economy. He has and his wife Janice have two children, Keren also been deeply involved in the economic and David, and three grandchildren: Lia, Ron, aspects of the peace process and has been and Jonathan.

AN INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE IN THE DINNER JOURNAL ach year in conjunction with N the Tribute Dinner, the EAmerican & International Societies for Yad Vashem publish a have Commemorative Journal. Through s for vintage photographs, this publication is an opportunity to pay tribute to hon- eties orees, to memorialize a loved-one or wski to express appreciation for Yad com- Vashem. rged Marilyn Rubenstein, a 2005 Tribute e an Dinner Honoree and a Yad Vashem His Benefactor, is this year’s Journal phi- Chair. Rita Levy and Professor which Rochelle Cherry are the Co-Chairs. n of Rita Levy, who was a 2007 Luncheon Honoree is the daughter of Nathan Marilyn Rubenstein, Journal Chair Rita Levy, Journal Co-Chair Professor Rochelle Cherry, Journal Co-Chair Katz z”l, a Society Board Member. Rochelle Cherry was a 2007 Luncheon Presenter and is the daughter of Sol Silberzweig, z”l, a Yad Vashem Benefactor. The theme of this year’s Journal is And you shall tell your children, (Exodus 13). The story of the Shoah will be portrayed in four sections. Each section will begin with the cover of a Yad Vashem Educational Unit symbolizing the subject of the section. A world-renowned Holocaust scholar will provide an intro- ductory essay to each section.

I Wanted To Fly Like A Butterfly

The vitality and vibrancy of Jewish life in pre-war Europe will be portrayed in this section. We welcome personal photographs of life before the war. Essay by Dr. Yehuda Bauer.

How Was it Humanly Possible?

This section will examine how human beings willingly participated in the mass murder of millions of Jewish men, women, and children. Survivors and their srael families are encouraged to share photos from the war years. Essay by Dr. Israel Gutman. ucha fam- Resistance from arch The many forms of resistance, including spiritual resistance, revolt, partisans and the uprising in the death camps, will be presented in this section. Photos itary of resistance experiences will be welcome. Essay by Dr. Yitzhack Arad. m Tel hus- Return To Life aine This section will feature photos of families as they rose from the ashes of the Holocaust, including liberation. Pictures may feature survivors and family and members as they took their places in the post-Holocaust era following the war. aust Essay by novelist professor Hana Yablonka. ry of milies Those wishing to sponsor a tribute page should contact Rachelle Grossman for an ad blank at (212) 220-4304. Page 10 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2007 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5768 REPORTREPORT FROMFROM YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM YAD VASHEM GRANTED FIRST TRANSFER OF MATERIAL FROM UN NGO STATUS ontinuing its relationship with the ITS/AROLSEN ARCHIVE ARRIVES AT YAD VASHEM United Nations, Yad Vashem has C he first transfer of material from the ers: personal records of various prisoners tain information on some 17.5 million indi- received NGO status at the UN’s International Tracing Service in the Nazi camps, as well as lists pre- viduals. Copies of some 20 million pages Department of Public Information (UN/DPI). T archives at Bad Arolsen, of documentation from Bad Arolsen Affiliation with the Department of Information Germany arrived at Yad have been contained in Yad at the United Nations will help enable Yad Vashem in August. The Vashem’s Archives since the 1950’s. Vashem to continue its efforts to disseminate transfer took place following “Over the years, Yad Vashem has accurate and comprehensive information a decision by the ITS amassed a great deal of experience about the Holocaust around the world. International Commission to and knowledge in digitizing archival Over the past several years, Yad permit the transfer, on information and making it user- Vashem has been working with UN/DPI embargo, of material to friendly,” said Avner Shalev, on Holocaust education and information archives in the member Chairman of Yad Vashem. projects, including building a website for states, to allow them to pre- “However, the material received last UN centers around the world as part of pare the groundwork for night is complex and vast, taken last year’s International Holocaust making the material avail- from a number of camps, which is Remembrance Day events, done in con- able to the public. The organized in complicated and vary- junction with the USC Shoah Foundation, embargo will be lifted only ing ways. We expect it will take a lot and the CDJC in Paris. A special forum for when all 11-member states of resources to sift through the mate- UN staff members from Europe and Asia have completed the ratifica- rial and catalogue it. We are, as a is planned for October at Yad Vashem. tion process. The material- first step, checking whether the The forum aims to deepen UN person- 12 million documents, com- material we have just received con- nel’s knowledge of the Holocaust, as well prising 1.4 terabytes were tains new documentation or whether as to provide material, ideas and informa- handed over by Michael Yad Vashem CIO Michael Lieber (right) receives millions of pages of it compliments the material Yad documentation from ITS IT System Administrator Michael Hoffman tion for preparing projects and activities Hoffmann, IT System Vashem brought from Bad Arolsen in at Yad Vashem. that will enable implementation of the UN Administrator of the ITS, to the 1950s.” resolution to annually commemorate the Michael Lieber, CIO of Yad Vashem. pared within the camps themselves, Digital copies of more material from Bad memory of the victims of the Holocaust The 12 million scanned documents including transfer records, personal pris- Arolsen are expected to arrive at Yad (on January 27). The resolution was received last night primarily include mate- oner accounts, and details of the sick and Vashem towards the end of this year, as passed by the UN General Assembly in rial describing concentration camp prison- the dead. In total, the ITS archives con- well as in 2008 and 2009. November 2005. Yad Vashem has also presented tempo- rary exhibits at UN headquarters in New YAD VASHEM IS THE RECIPIENT York. In January 2005, marking the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, OF PRINCE OF ASTURIAS AWARD FOR CONCORD Yad Vashem created a special traveling exhibit, “Auschwitz: The Depth of the Dear Friends, than Yad Vashem. The work of Yad and injustice. Yad Vashem has launched a Abyss.” In 2006, Yad Vashem’s “No n behalf of everyone at Yad Vashem truly widens the horizons of comprehensive initiative to advance Child’s Play” exhibit was displayed in the OVashem, it is our pleasure to let you knowledge and reminds us all that each Holocaust education in Europe , and cur- know of the extraordinary honor that will of us is responsible for the defence of rently cooperates with museums, Visitor’s Lobby of the UN. be bestowed upon Yad Vashem as this freedom and human rights." research and educational institutions and year's recipient of the prestigious Prince Hillary Rodham Clinton, senator of organizations in numerous European HOLOCAUST MUSEUM of Asturias Award for Concord. The jury the United States of America countries. It is actively involved in interna- HONORS ROMANIAN announced its decision just a few hours tional bodies such as the United Nations, before we ushered in Rosh Hashanah, ad Vashem is a unique place; a OSCE and the Task Force International srael’s Holocaust museum posthu- and the official presentation of the Award “Ymemorial and place for commem- Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Imously honored a Romanian reserves will be made on October 26, 2007 in orating, a cultural and education center... Remembrance and Research that was officer who blocked the deportation of Oviedo, Spain, in the presence of the It is a place against oblivion that returns to established in 1999 by the Prime Minister Romanian Jews to Nazi death camps. Spanish royal family. the victims of the crime against humanity, of Sweden." Theodor Criveanu was inducted into The Prince of Asturias Award for the Shoah, their names. Yad Vashem is Koffi A. Annan, former Secretary- Yad Vashem’s “Righteous Among the Concord is an internationally coveted also a place for hope. The hope for recon- General of the UN. Nations” group of non-Jews who rescued prize that is bestowed upon a person or ciling and understanding, for tolerance Jews from the Nazis. His son, Willie institution "whose work has made an and humanity, for peace and good coexis- hereby respectfully recommend Yad Criveanu, accepted the award on his exemplary and outstanding contribution to tence." “IVashem for the Prince of Asturias behalf. mutual understanding and peaceful coex- Angela Merkel, Chancellor of the Award for Concord. I am able to say more The 20,000 Jews of Czernowitz, istence amongst men, to the struggle German Federal Republic about Yad Vashem’s invaluable work on Romania, were interned during the war against injustice or ignorance, to the memory and hope at a later date, but trust and slated for deportation to death camps. defense of freedom, or whose work has n the 21st century, the legacy of the you may accept the above statement in As a reserves officer in the Romanian widened the horizons of knowledge or has “IHolocaust will be very much deter- support for this award." army, Criveanu was assigned the task of been outstanding in protecting and pre- mined by education. Through its wide Elie Wiesel, 1986 Nobel Peace Prize presenting authorities a list of Jews who serving mankind's heritage." Previous variety of teacher-training programs, inter- Laureate and Holocaust survivor were required to work in the ghetto, and winners of the Award include UNICEF, national research conferences, and semi- were thus spared deportation. According Médecins sans Frontières, H.M. King nars Yad Vashem is creating the human We are all humbled by this achieve- to testimonies given to Yad Vashem, Hussein I of Jordan, and Stephen infrastructure necessary to combat ment, and we are honored to share it with Criveanu risked his own life by handing Hawking. Prince of Asturias Award win- Holocaust denial and ensure that we our friends and partners and our Friends out permits beyond the allowed limit, ners in other categories include The Bill stand up against injustice whenever it Societies from around the world, without including to Jews who were not essential and Melinda Gates Foundation, Simone raises its head. As the generation of sur- whom we could never have come this far. to the work force. Yad Vashem said it Veil, Václav Havel, and Nelson Mandela. vivors dwindles, Yad Vashem continues to Our achievements are your achieve- ments, and you should all take deep pride could not estimate how many Jews he In its candidacy for the award, Yad transform their shards of memory into in our shared success. saved. Vashem was supported by a veritable building blocks for a better world – one On this note, we would like to wish you "Who's Who" of leading world figures characterized by tolerance and mutual Criveanu married the daughter of one of all a wonderful New Year, and a g'mar and men of letters. Their recommenda- respect among all peoples. We must all the Jews he saved. He died in Romania in chatimah tovah. May this auspicious 1988. tions were truly inspiring, and we are join their mission." beginning to the year continue, and may “My father’s life was based on justness, deeply honored by their support. To Shimon Peres, President of the State all our successes in imparting Holocaust correctness. He was a great humanitari- quote just a few: of Israel remembrance translate into a better future an, that was his nature,” his son said at can think of no more appropriate a for our children, grandchildren, and all the the ceremony. “He was a gift from God for “Irecipient of an award for exempla- or over fifty years, Yad Vashem generations to come. my mother’s family and to so many more.” ry and outstanding contributions to the “Fhas continually issued a clarion Avner Shalev, More than 21,000 non-Jews have been mutual understanding and peaceful call for our obligation to protect and pre- Chairman of the Directorate honored by Yad Vashem, of these, 53 coexistence amongst men and to the serve basic human values and freedoms Shaya Ben Yehuda, Romanians have been honored. struggle against injustice and ignorance while combating racism, anti-Semitism Managing Director September/October 2007 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5768 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 11 LITHUANIAN NATIONALISTS TARGET STORY OF THE WARSAW GHETTO FORMER YAD VASHEM CHIEF indictment against Nazism. BY REBECCA ASSOUN, EJP Carefully concealed and later partially The affidavits Arad gave in the trials of n exhibition in Paris featuring retrieved in the ruins of the ghetto after the BY ANSHEL PFEFFER, HAARETZ Lithuanian Gestapo officials Aleksandras war, this unique testimony has been Lileikis and Algimantas Dailide, who were A unique archive material from the he Lithuanian-born historian Yitzhak passed down to posterity under the name subsequently deported from the U.S., Warsaw ghetto, documents the develop- Arad, a retired Israel Defense of “The Ringelblum Archives”. T angered political elements in Vilnius. ment of the resistance movement in the Forces brigadier general and former In 1999, UNESCO’s International he Lithuanian Holocaust is unique in ghetto during the first years of WWII. director of Yad Vashem, has been invited Advisory Committee recognized the uni- that it was largely carried out by The exhibition is entitled “The Clandestine to go to Vilnius to attend the discussions T versal significance of the Emmanuel locals, especially members of the Order Archives of the Warsaw Ghetto.” of the International Commission for the Ringelblum Archives and recommended Police, who began butchering Jews the In November 1940, all of Warsaw’s Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and them for inclusion in the Memory of the moment the Soviets left in 1941, even Jews, some 360,000 people in all, were Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania. World International Register. before the German army arrived. Only a crammed into a quarter surrounded by According to a request received recently An expert on Warsaw’s Jews, historian few thousand of Lithuania’s 220,000 Jews walls and guarded by a triple police cor- at Israel’s Justice Ministry, if Emmanuel Ringelblum, in 1930 befriend- survived the Holocaust. don: German, Polish and Jewish. The Arad goes, he could find him- ed Itzhak Giterman who was in charge of Lithuanian nationalists Warsaw ghetto was cut off from the out- self being interrogated on the the Polish section of the American Jewish object to the Holocaust’s side world, besieged by hunger, cold, suspicion that he took part in Joint Distribution Committee. commemoration, claiming sickness and terror. the murder of Lithuanian He participated in efforts to help Jews the people who should be It contained close to 450,000 inhabitants civilians during the expelled from Germany in 1938. memorialized are the vic- in 1941, because of the constant inflow of Holocaust. Lithuania’s chief At the time of the German invasion in tims of 46 refugees, in spite of the terrifying mortality prosecutor is investigating September 1939, he joined in the civil years of Soviet occupation. rate. But at the heart of this hell on earth Arad at the behest of right- defense of Warsaw as secretary of the A large share of the and under such dire conditions, the wing extremists in the coun- Jewish Social Services Coordination Lithuanians persecuted by Resistance began to organize itself. try, following affidavits Arad Committee which later gave rise to the the Soviets had been Nazi A group of men and women gave them- gave as an expert witness Jewish Mutual Aid (ZSS) which played an collaborators. selves the Yiddish name “Oyneg during trials of Lithuanian Despite opposition from Shabbes” (“Joy of the Sabbath”) war criminals. nationalists, the internation- and joined the historian After the German army Emmanuel Ringelblum in the conquered Lithuania in 1941, al commission was estab- lished as part of Lithuania’s patient and perilous task of the 15-year-old Arad fled his Former director of Yad Vashem studying and collecting informa- efforts to gain European hometown ghetto and joined Yitzhak Arad. tion on the fate of the Jewish Union membership. The a unit of Soviet partisans until the Red community within the ghetto and commission invited historians from Army took over the region. After the war more generally in the Nazi- Lithuania, Germany and the U.S. Arad he boarded an illegal immigrant ship to occupied territories. was invited to represent Yad Vashem. Israel, joined the Palmach (a pre-state The Jewish Mutual Aid (ZSS) Arad does not intend to go, and Yad elite strike force), and later served as an organized soup kitchens. Ghetto Vashem’s director, Avner Shalev, informed officer in the IDF, retiring in 1972 as head dwellers set up committees and the chair of the commission that in view of of the Education Corps. In civilian life, came together to set up public the proceedings against Arad, Yad Arad became a scholar and lecturer on kitchens, collect clothing and Jewish history, specializing in the Vashem has decided to suspend its partic- supply medical aid. German soldiers direct artillery against a pocket of resist- Holocaust. He was director of Yad ipation in the international commission. There were more and more ance during the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Warsaw, Poland, Vashem from 1972 to 1993. The partisans’ organization in Israel also underground newspapers in April 19–May 16, 1943. As a world-class expert on Lithuanian sent a protest letter to Lithuanian print until the deportations began in the essential role for survival within the Jewry in the Holocaust, Arad was sum- President Vladas Adamkus. The Justice summer of 1942. The articles dealt with Warsaw Ghetto. moned as an expert witness for the U.S. Ministry declined to comment officially, but life in the ghetto, criticizing the Jewish From the very first weeks of occupation, Justice Department’s Office of Special government sources confirmed the Council and the police. faithful to his task as a historian, Emmanuel Investigations, which hunts down Nazi receipt of the Lithuanian request, adding As of October 1941, information on the Ringelblum set out to collect documents war criminals and collaborators who man- that Israel views it as “nothing short of massacres behind the Russian front, and relating to the Jewish community. scandalous.” aged to obtain American citizenship. later the testimony of an escaped depor- n 22 November 1940, one week tee from the Chelmno camp, describing Oafter the Ghetto was closed off, he ISRAEL MUSEUM LAUNCHES SITE the killings, reached Warsaw. invited a dozen people to his home to join The members of Oyneg Shabbes in the self-appointed task of elaborating a FOR WORKS STOLEN IN WWII became aware of Hitler’s determination to history of Polish Jews during the war. he Israel Museum has launched an names of artists (if known), countries of exterminate European Jews and hence- The group adopted the Yiddish name of Ton-line catalogue of works of art and origin (if known), dimensions and other forth devoted their efforts to gathering Oyneg Shabbes, since generally they Judaica looted during World War II and identifying characteristics. information on the process of extermination. met on Saturdays. given to the museum after the war. he Web site, which is entitled World To try and alert the world of the ongoing The exhibition “The Secret Archives of The Jerusalem museum houses several TWar II Provenance Research On- genocide, Emmanuel Ringelblum, Eliahu the Warsaw Ghetto” was conceived by the hundred works stolen during the line, was launched in cooperation with the Gutkowski and Hersz Wasser created an Shoah Memorial, in partnership with the Holocaust that either have no record of newly-established Company for Location information agency which circulated bul- Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw prior ownership or came from institu- and Restitution of Holocaust Victims’ letins through the underground press. (Zydowski Instytut Historyczny) and The tions that did not sur- Assets in Israel, which The first report, intended for the Polish International Contemporary Documentation vive the war. had pressured the government in exile, was sent to its clan- Library – the Museum of Contemporary The property was museum and other destine delegation in Warsaw and History (BDIC in French). originally given to the public institutions in reached London in April 1942. The Shoah Memorial has organized a Bezalel National Israel to publicize the The members of Oyneg Shabbes were cycle of events, with films, lectures and Museum, the Israel information in accor- well aware of the future importance of the debates on the ghettos of Central Europe, Museum’s predeces- dance with the law. testimony they were collecting as evi- Jewish life in pre-war Poland, and the various sor, by the Jewish Avraham Roet, head dence for the prosecution to be used in forms of resistance which have come to be symbolized by the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Restitution Successor of the restitution organ- court when the time came to formulate an Organization, which ization, praised the was charged with museum for fully ARCHBISHOP OF PARIS PAYS TRIBUTE reclaiming stolen An anonymous tempera painting from the acceding to the request Jewish property and 19th century, of a girl in profile, somewhat to list the information, TO HOLOCAUST VICTIMS reminiscent of Boticelli’s style, from a col- which transferred after initially balking at aris’ top Roman Catholic leader and During meetings at the Yad Vashem lection of paintings stolen by the Nazis. many works of art and the move. over 600 French pilgrims squeezed Holocaust museum, he spoke about the Judaica to Jewish The piece is part of the Israel Museum’s “This is a major moral P collection today. through the hallways at Israel’s Holocaust importance of remaining hopeful while institutions in Israel accomplishment for the memorial as they paid tribute to the vic- remembering the tragedy. and around the world. state of Israel,” said Roet, a Holocaust tims of the Nazi genocide. “Without hope, the remembrance of crime The works were subsequently moved to survivor. Almost 10 years after the Catholic Church is the despair of man,” Vingt-Trois said. the Israel Museum in 1965, when the Roet said that this was the first time in France officially apologized for its silence “Keeping the memory with hope, this is faith.” museum was founded. that a Jewish museum was searching during the Holocaust, the Archbishop of Vingt-Trois’ visit to Jerusalem sent an The on-line catalogue – accessible on for heirs for artwork stolen in the Paris, Andre Vingt-Trois, placed an orange important message that Christians, Jews the Israel Museum’s Web site, Holocaust and given to Jewish organi- and green wreath at a large stone memorial and Muslims all need to come together in www.imj.org.il – provides information on zations after the war. for the 6 million Jews who were killed during remembering the genocide, Iris Rosenberg, paintings, drawings and Judaica objects, The new Web site provides instructions the Holocaust. a Yad Vashem spokeswoman said. and includes images, titles of works, for requesting property restitution. Page 12 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2007 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5768 FRENCH PRIEST UNCOVERS LONG-BURIED HORRORS OF HOLOCAUST IN UKRAINE hildren, stomachs empty and knees camp, said in an interview with The sidered suspect, with many accused of some are reluctant to absolve these Cquivering, saw and heard Nazis Associated Press. The people whose sto- collaboration and sent to Soviet labor Ukrainian witnesses and participants of massacre Jews across the killing fields of ries Desbois records, he stresses, were camps. Fear of speaking out about the responsibility in the Holocaust. Ukraine. Teenagers were forced to bury “children, adolescents. They were poor. Nazi occupation lingered even after the Shapiro, however, said: “It is too late to the victims, shoveling dirt over neighbors They were afraid.” U.S.S.R. collapsed in 1991. be in a blame game. Our obligation is to and playmates. he destruction of Ukrainian Jewry is understand.” Today, these witnesses — now aged Tsymbolized by Babi Yar, a ravine ealing wounds between Jews and men and women — are unburdening outside the capital, Kiev, where the Nazis HChristians has been central to themselves of wartime memories, many killed about 34,000 Jews during just two Desbois’ career. He heads a group called for the first time, in testimonies to a days in September 1941. Yahad-In Unum (which combines the French priest. Their words may change For decades, the Soviets maintained Hebrew and Latin words for “together”) history, as they shed light on this poorly silence about what happened in Babi Yar. founded in 2004 by Paris’ influential known chapter of the Holocaust. Only after Russian poet Yevgeny Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, whose The project is central to a broader Yevtushenko drew international attention Jewish mother died at Auschwitz, and reassessment of the Nazi horrors in to the massacre with his 1961 poem “Babi Rabbi Israel Singer. Ukraine that followed the June 1941 inva- Yar” did the Soviets put up a monument. Troubled by his grandfather’s stories of sion of the Soviet Union. Recently, a team But there were many other killing fields. the Rava Ruska camp in western Ukraine, of rabbis visited a newly found gravesite in Desbois’ group has covered about a third Desbois visited in the 1990s and asked the Ukrainian village of Gvozdavka-1 of Ukraine so far, and the 500 mass the mayor where the Jews were buried. where thousands of Jews were killed dur- graves it has uncovered is quickly The mayor said he didn’t know. ing the Nazi occupation. approaching previous estimates that put One year, Desbois returned to find a That was just one site among many: the number in all of Ukraine at 726. new mayor — and 110 farmers waiting to Father Patrick Desbois and his mixed- Paul Shapiro, director of the Center for lead him to the grassy knoll. faith team have been crisscrossing Advanced Holocaust Studies at the U.S. “I was shocked. It was miserable. To see Ukraine for six years and have located Holocaust Memorial Museum in this place, and these old, weary faces,” more than 500 mass graves, many never Washington, predicts Desbois’ team will Desbois said. before recorded. reach a higher total. He calls their work Since then, Desbois has been on a mis- At least 1.5 million Jews were killed on “critical” to humanity’s understanding of sion to fill out historical records. Some of hills and in ravines across Nazi-occupied the Holocaust. his interview subjects have looked out on Ukraine, most slaughtered by subma- It fulfills a “memorial purpose, a scholar- grave sites from their kitchen windows for chine guns before the gas chambers ly research purpose, and a public educa- decades. became machines of mass death. tion purpose,” he said. The Paris exhibit, Some even helped dig those pits, or fill Researchers are only now peeling back the first time Desbois’ painstaking, them in. layers of Soviet-era silence about what behind-the-scenes work has been made Samuel Arabski, in a video testimony at they call the “Holocaust by bullets.” At least 1.5 million Jews were killed in Nazi- public, serves the third goal. the Paris exhibit, described a massacre in Part of Desbois’ work so far — video occupied Ukraine. Desbois “discovered that elderly eyewit- his village near Zhytomyr in central interviews with Ukrainian villagers, photos And they stayed afraid for decades after nesses who had never been asked about Ukraine in 1941, when he was 14: of newly discovered mass graves, World War II. this, when speaking with a priest, opened “A policeman gave me a shovel. ... archival documents, and shell casings — Soviet leaders gloried in victory over up. If you are ever going to bare your When I saw people still moving in the is on public display for the first time in a Hitler but focused on their nation’s overall thoughts, if you are a Christian, you will grave, I fell sick. A neighbor pushed me haunting exhibit at Paris’ Holocaust war losses, numbering as many as 27 mil- bare them to a priest,” Shapiro said. away so I wouldn’t fall in the pit. ...Then Memorial through Nov. 30. lion — barely mentioning the systematic Given Ukraine’s history of anti- my mother came, and asked me ques- “I’m not here to judge,” Desbois, whose slayings of Jews. Witnesses to the Semitism, from czarist-era pogroms to tions I wasn’t able to answer.” Catholic grandfather survived a Nazi Holocaust and even survivors were con- modern-day vandalism of Jewish sites, (Continued on page 15) “CHIVALROUS” ROMMEL WANTED TO BRING HOLOCAUST TO MIDDLE EAST “myth” the notion that Rommel fought a The unit was headed by Walther Rauff, the country’s Jews. BY TONY PATERSON, THE INDEPENDENT clean war in the desert. “With his victories, an SS commander notorious for his role in ore than 2,500 Tunisian Jews died he was simply preparing the way for the inventing mobile gas chambers. Rauff and in a network of SS slave labor rwin Rommel’s reputation as one of M Nazi extermination machine,” he added. his SS men were empowered to carry out camps before the Germans withdrew. Nazi Germany’s few chivalrous gen- E Müllner and Caron’s film relies on the work “executive measures on the civilian popu- Rauff’s men also stole silver, jewels and erals has been blackened by a new docu- of recent findings by German historians to lation” – the Nazi euphemism for mass religious artifacts from the Tunisian Jews. mentary film which depicts the legendary “Desert Fox” as an unscrupulous com- explain how in the run-up to the Second murder and enslavement. Forty-three kilograms of gold were taken mander who spearheaded Hitler’s World War, the Nazis, as part of their long- The Nazi attempt to capture the oil fields from the Jewish community on the island attempts to take the Holocaust to the term aim to export the Holocaust to the of the Middle East and exterminate the of Djerba alone. Middle East. Middle East, actively courted Arab national- region’s Jewish population were brought The gold and jewels were taken by the Rommel, the head of the German Afrika ists who were determined to Germans as they withdrew and were later Korps, who won fame for his initial suc- drive the Jews from the region. thrown into the sea off Corsica. Divers are cesses against the British in North Africa They reveal how, before still searching for “Rommel’s Treasure.” in 1942, was widely respected during and embarking on their campaign The documentary makers argue that the after the Second World War. Churchill in the desert, Rommel’s role Rommel played in supporting the once referred to him in parliament as a Afrika Korps soldiers were Nazis’ plans to export the Holocaust to the “great general.” schooled with the idea that: Middle East was largely forgotten after the Defeated by General Bernard “Anyone who fights Jewry war because of the field marshal’s later Montgomery’s “Desert Rats” at the battle can count on the sympathy of alleged involvement in the July 1944 plot of El Alamein in Egypt the same year, the Arab population” and how to assassinate Hitler. The Nazis respond- Field Marshal Rommel once claimed that the greeting “Heil Rommel” ed by arresting Rommel and leaving him his military campaign against the British became popular in Arab the choice of facing trial and certain exe- was a chivalrous affair and the nearest nationalist circles in the Rommel in action in North Africa where his early victories cution or committing suicide. He chose thing to “war without hate.” Middle East after the gener- earned him the nickname, "Desert Fox." the latter. However, a new two-part documentary al’s initial victories. Post-war Germany capitalized on the series broadcasted on Germany’s ZDF he documentary shows how, a to an abrupt halt by the British 8th Army’s notion of Rommel as a chivalrous Nazi television channel provides evidence that T month after Rommel’s defeat of defeat of Rommel’s Afrika Korps at El commander. However, records show that Rommel played a key role in the Nazis’ the British at Tobruk in June 1942, the Alamein in October 1942. he ordered his non-white prisoners to be drive to invade Palestine and exterminate Nazi SS followed Hitler’s order to Rommel was forced to withdraw the fed less than whites, and that he ordered the Jews of the Middle East. “destroy Jewry in the Arab World” by set- remnants of his army to Tunisia, where it unarmed black prisoners to be needlessly The historian Jörg Müllner, who made ting up a special “Sonderkommando” sustained a bridgehead until May 1943, shot during the making of a Nazi propa- the film, Rommel’s War, with co-author extermination unit to follow in the Afrika enabling Rauff’s SS to conduct a well- ganda film in 1940. In 1970, the German Jean-Christoph Caron, dismissed as a Korps’ wake. organized persecution campaign against navy named a destroyer after him. September/October 2007 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5768 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 13 JEWS OF ISPAS: WHERE THE TRUTH LIES? including celebrations in which Israeli according to Radu Ioanid, director for people as us.” BY NATASHA LISOVA, AP students are expected to participate. International Archival Programs at the Alexei Shtrai, the independent Israeli “We are very proud that our village did- U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. t is a story of courage and kindness scholar who uncovered the story, n’t allow bloodshed, didn’t allow Jews to Israel Minster, another member of during the first tragic days of the regards Ispas as an inspirational tale. “I I be killed,” Vasylyna Kulyuk, a frail 80- Holocaust in Ukraine – the tale of how a Ispas’ long lost Jewish community, has a believe the fact of saving Jews took year-old from Ispas, said in an interview. village rose up against an anti-Semitic different recollection. place; we just have to prove it,” Shtrai She described two of her former Jewish gang of killers to save its Jewish neighbors. Minster, now 86 and living near Haifa, said. classmates – Geyntsya Rozenberg and A researcher stumbled on the inspiring was staying in a neighboring village at The database of victims’ names at Rifka Gerstel – with tears in her eyes. story this year. Now, some of Ukraine’s the time of the attack, but other survivors Israel’s Yad Vashem, based mainly on “We were at the same class and we Jewish leaders plan to raise a monu- later told him that the ethnic Ukrainians testimony given by survivors and rela- shared bread, “she said. “I would like so ment, host a delegation of students from had rallied to the defense of the village tives, often years after the event, lists much at least to exchange letters with Israel, and stage a ceremony honoring Jews. four people as having died in Ispas. those girls. Only let them be alive.” this small farming community in western “In the neighboring village ... they cut Between 17 and 46 villagers perished Rozenberg apparently perished during Ukraine. everybody into pieces, they killed every- elsewhere, the records show, suggesting the war. But Rifka Gerstel survived. And But 66 years later, there are conflicting one,” Minster said by telephone. “I was – perhaps – that some Ispas Jews sur- she does not recall Ispas fondly. accounts of what happened in Ispas dur- told that when they (the thugs) came to vived the initial pogroms. erstel, now 79 and living outside ing that terrible summer of 1941, when Ispas, our village, the elder – I know him, ad Vashem’s encyclopedia of GTel Aviv, told the AP that her neigh- he is a decent (man) – he didn’t allow it.” the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union trig- bors did stop a gang of anti-Semites YJewish communities of that area, gered an outbreak of anti-Semitic violence. Minster said he was unaware of looting says most of Ispas’ Jews were killed by from killing the village’s Jews – but then in Ispas, but heard through friends and Residents and one survivor say the some villagers turned around and the local population, while the rest were 2,000 villagers risked their lives for the neighbors that some residents of nearby deported eastward. robbed the Jews and drove them out of areas had pillaged Jewish homes. “Not sake of about 100 Jews, an account sup- their homes. “The fact that the priest tried (to save ported by some leaders of Ukraine’s everybody helped: some helped and the Jews) – I can believe it,” says Jean “They came into the house and took some looted,” he said. Jewish community and the scholar who everything,” Gerstel said in a telephone Ancel, a leading scholar on Holocaust in ykhailo Andryuk, head of the uncovered the tale. interview. “We had such a beautiful the area who co-edited the encyclopedia. Ispas village council, said resi- But another survivor says there were house. We had a cow. We didn’t say M “But the main question is – were the dents of his small community did not loot no heroes in Ispas. And a leading anything, because we were afraid for our Jews of Ispas saved or not? The answer their neighbors’ homes. Gerstel’s house, Holocaust expert says that most of the lives. We knew that the Ukrainians is clear and without any doubt: they were he speculated, might have been on the Jews of Ispas were killed by fellow vil- slaughtered all the Jews in one of the vil- murdered by their neighbors, by the local outskirts of the village and attacked by lagers. lages nearby.” population,” he said in an interview. the retreating anti-Semitic gang. At the start of World War II, Ukraine The next day, she said, the villagers Scholars say some 1.4 million of Soviet Several Ukrainian villagers who were had a history of anti-Semitism, from the marched the Jews away. Gerstel said Ukraine’s 2.4 million Jews died in pogroms of the czarist era to the silent children in 1941 said they vividly recol- she spent the rest of the war in a ghetto Holocaust. Today about 400,000 live in discrimination of Soviet times. As Nazi lect that day. in central Ukraine. Her father, brother, Ukraine. No Jews remain in Ispas, resi- troops and their Romanian allies began Tanas Shtefyuk was 15 when he heard grandfather and a baby nephew all died. dents say. occupying western territories under that the killers were approaching and “I suffered, I suffered very much,” she Oleksandr Feldman, head of the Kiev- Soviet rule, the ancient bigotry boiled hurried home to spread the news. said, her voice choking. based International Center for Tolerance, over into cases of local residents robbing Shtefyuk recalled that his crippled father, Told that Ispas was being honored for has urged President Viktor Yushchenko and killing their Jewish neighbors. Ivan, summoned the village elders. the treatment of its Jews, she said: “They to honor Ispas for its actions during the It was an early outburst of the sav- don’t deserve any monuments or any They made a difficult and dangerous Holocaust. The center plans to lay a agery that became the Holocaust. prizes.” choice, Shtefyuk said, to stand together stone in Ispas to commemorate the More than 2,100 Ukrainians have been There is no dispute over what hap- against the marauders and protect the event. cited by Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust pened in most of that area – now west- Jews who lived among them. Estee Yaari, spokeswoman for Yad Memorial for rescuing Jews during the ern Ukraine – that summer. Thousands Nadiya Vinnytska’s father, Volodymyr, Vashem said the story of Ispas needs to Holocaust, but these were mostly indi- of Jews were murdered and their houses was the village priest. He ran from his vidual acts of heroism. The Ispas story – looted. house to confront the attackers barefoot, be investigated further. if it could be confirmed – would be a Those still alive were rounded up by Vinnytska said, because he didn’t have “These are complex issues and events unique case of an entire community in Romanian troops and deported eastward time to put on his shoes. that took place and in the absence of Ukraine defending its Jews. to camps and ghettos. Some of them “Calm down. I will not allow you to kill conclusive documentary evidence or A leader of Ukraine’s Jewish communi- survived the war, but many were execut- Jews,” the priest said, according to conclusive testimonies it is difficult to ty has led a drive to honor the village, ed or died of starvation and disease, Vinnytska, now 83. “They are the same know exactly what happened,” she said.

THE SECRET HISTORY A NATION’S LOST HOLOCAUST HISTORY... OF THE NAZI MASCOT (Continued from page 7) begin with? Whenever I asked anyone at kosher restaurants. There are also ortho- from the deportation list. all, I got the same answer. The communi- dox Jews here: When their children ride (Continued from page 6) “This is a shocker to me,” Mr. Feiden ty did not prepare the list. On the other their bicycles in the Prater park, their side- victims to the concentration camps, he hand- said. “There’s no way to get back what I hand, the Gestapo people after the war locks blow in the wind. ed out chocolate bars to tempt them in. lost,” he said, adding that he was glad to insisted that they prepared no lists. But More than 60 years after the Holocaust, Then, in 1944, with the Nazis facing know the new information to “the extent someone had to choose the people and Vienna’s Jewish community has started to almost certain defeat, the commander of that it proves to me that my father tried look up the addresses.” thrive again. Now a new exhibition com- the SS unit sent him to live with a Latvian even harder.” ienna’s Jewish community num- prised of the documents found seven family. Also found in Vienna: the lists for 45 Vbered as many as 200,000 people years ago in the city’s Jewish Museum Five years later, he managed to reach deportations, each before World War shows what the community has suffered Australia. For a time, he worked in a cir- naming about 1,000 II and was at the over the last three centuries. cus and eventually became a television Jews scheduled for time the second On display are old documents, photo- repair man in Melbourne. transport in 1941 and largest in Europe graphs, identification papers, visa applica- All the time, he kept his past life to him- 1942 to destinations after Warsaw’s. tions, petitions and public announcements self, not even telling his Australian wife, like Auschwitz, Today, a mere — things that give a flavor of everyday Patricia. Theresienstadt, Lodz 7,500 Jews live Jewish life in the Austrian capital. The “When I left Europe I said ‘forget about and Minsk. Some of here. A small num- show, which has already attracted consid- your past. You are going to a new country these locations were ber went to school erable attention, may be the best-pre- and a new life. Switch off and don’t even known then as Jewish here as children; served collection of materials pertaining to think about it.’ ghettos. Not as widely The documents presented in the exhibition others arrived from Jewish life before the Holocaust. “I managed to do it. I told people I lost known, however, was include identity documents, visa applications, Hungary and “Ordnung Muss Sein” (“There Must Be my parents in the war, but I didn’t go into the fact that after a petitions and photographs. Czechoslovakia Order”) is the show’s ambiguous title. The detail. I kept the secret and never told certain time, they became transfer points during the 1950s. Uzbeks and Georgians collection features 500,000 pages of docu- anyone.” to death camps. “trickled” into the country after the fall of ments from the period between 1938 and It was not until 1997 that he finally told his Raul Hilberg, author of The Destruction the Iron Curtain. 1945 alone. That makes the Vienna archive family, and along with his son, Mark, set of the European Jews, viewed the depor- There are Jewish kindergartens, three the world’s largest Jewish collection of data about discovering more about his past life. tation lists in the archives last year. “The full-time schools and a home for the elder- from the era of National Socialism. After visiting the village where he was most troublesome question which ly. In the Leopoldstadt district, within view born, they found out his real name was Ilya Galperin, and even uncovered a film occurred to me is, who prepared the list?” of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, there are First published in The New York Times in a Latvian archive of Alex in full SS he asked. “Who picked these names to kosher butchers, kosher bakeries and and Spiegel Online regalia. Page 14 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2007 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5768 HOLOCAUST TRAUMA HOLOCAUST DIARY OF POLISH TEENAGER "AFFECTS DESCENDANTS" escendants of Holocaust survivors have UNVEILED SIXTY YEARS LATER higher than average rates of depression, D Reports of the gassing of Jews, which Sapinska stashed the diary in her home anxiety and trust problems for three generations BY ARON HELLER, AP were not common knowledge in the West library for more than 60 years. She said it on, Australian research shows. by then, apparently had filtered into the was a precious memento and thought it to A new study from the Queensland he diary of a 14-year-old Jewish girl, Bedzin ghetto, which was near Auschwitz, be too private to share with others. Only University of Technology has highlighted the dubbed the “Polish Anne Frank,” T Yad Vashem experts said. at the behest of her young nephew did profound influence the Holocaust had, both was unveiled in June by Israel’s The following day, she opened her entry she agree to hand it over last year. on its direct survivors and their relatives, Holocaust museum more than 60 years with a heated description of her hatred “He convinced me that it was an impor- more than 60 year after the World II atrocity. after the teenager vividly described the toward her Nazi tormentors. But then, in tant historical artifact,” she said in Polish. Through extensive interviews, PhD stu- world crumbling around her as she came an effortless transition, she described her In 1943, Rutka was the same age as dent Janine Beck, herself a grand-daugh- of age in a Jewish ghetto. crush on a boy named Janek and the Anne Frank, the Dutch teenager whose ter of a survivor, found clear flow on of “The rope around us is getting tighter anticipation of a first kiss. Holocaust diary has become one of the traumatic experience to later generations. and tighter,” Rutka Laskier wrote in 1943, shortly before she was deported to “I think my womanhood has awoken most widely read books in the world. Yad The children and grandchildren of sur- Auschwitz. “I’m turning into an animal in me. That means, yesterday when I Vashem said Rutka’s newly discovered vivors experienced depression and anxi- waiting to die.” was taking a bath and diary was authenticated by experts and ety at a higher rate than the general pop- Within a few the water stroked my Holocaust survivors. ulation, Ms Beck said. months, Rutka was body, I longed for some- utka’s father, Yaakov, was the They also had more difficulty trusting others, dead and, it seemed, one’s hands to stroke Rfamily’s only survivor. He died in which leads to difficulties in relationships. her diary lost. But me,” she wrote. “I didn’t 1986. But unlike Anne Frank’s father, The researcher said the traumatic after- last year, a Polish know what it was, I have he kept his painful past inside. After the effects of the Holocaust flowed to subse- friend who had saved never had such sensa- war, he moved to Israel, where he start- quent generations through the way sur- the notebook finally tions until now.” ed a new family. His Israeli daughter, vivors interacted with their children. came forth, exposing Later that day, she shift- Zahava Sherz, said her father never "Survivors were either over-protective or a riveting historical ed back to her harsh reali- spoke of his other children, and the clingy because they were fearful that document. ty, describing how she diary introduced her to the long-lost something would happen to their children “Rutka’s Notebook” watched as a Nazi soldier family she never knew. or they were dismissive and pushed their is both a daily tore a Jewish baby away “I was struck by this deep connection to children away in an attempt to prevent any account of the hor- from his mother and killed Rutka,” said Sherz, 57. “I was an only future hurt," Ms Beck said. rors of the Holocaust him with his bare hands. child, and now I suddenly have an older The study showed that the most affect- in Bedzin, Poland, he diary chronicles sister. This black hole was suddenly filled, ed survivors – those who spent time in and a scrapbook T Rutka’s life from and I immediately fell in love with her.” concentration camps or were the sole sur- detailing the life of a January to April 1943. She “I have a feeling that I am writing for the vivor in their family – had children who teenager in extraor- Rutka Laskier, far right, with her family shared it with her friend last time,” Rutka wrote on Feb. 20, 1943, were the most affected. dinary circum- in 1939. Stanislawa Sapinska, who as Nazi soldiers began gathering Jews "In addition, survivors from Hungary and stances. The 60- she met after Rutka’s fam- outside her home for deportation. Eastern European countries appear to page memoir includes innocent adoles- ily moved into a home owned by “I wish it would end already! This tor- have suffered from higher symptom levels cent banter, concerns and first loves — Sapinska’s family, which had been confis- ment; this is hell. I try to escape from than those from Western European coun- combined with a cold analysis of the fate cated by the Nazis to be included in the these thoughts of the next day, but they tries," Ms Beck said. of European Jewry. Bedzin ghetto. Sapinska came to inspect keep haunting me like nagging flies. If She concluded that three factors – the “I simply can’t believe that one day I will the house and the girls — one Jewish, only I could say, it’s over, you only die loss of family, type of Holocaust experi- be allowed to leave this house without the one Christian — formed a deep bond. once ... but I can’t, because despite all ence and country of origin – were the best yellow star. Or even that this war will end When Rutka feared she would not sur- these atrocities, I want to live, and wait for predictors of the psychological health of one day. If this happens, I will probably vive, she told her friend about the diary. the following day.” the survivor and the generations to follow. lose my mind from joy,” she wrote on Feb. Sapinska offered to hide it in the base- However, Rutka would write again. Her The research has implications for many 5, 1943. “The little faith I used to have has ment under the floorboards. After the war, last entry was dated April 24, 1943, and war-torn countries around the world, such been completely shattered. If God exist- she returned to reclaim it. her last written words were: “I’m very as Iraq, where large groups of civilians ed, He would have certainly not permitted “She wanted me to save the diary,” bored. The entire day I’m walking around were being traumatized, Ms Beck said. that human beings be thrown alive into Sapinska, now in her 80s, recalls. “She the room. I have nothing to do.” "Undoubtedly, survivors and their descen- furnaces, and the heads of little toddlers said ‘I don’t know if I will survive, but I In August, she and her family were sent dants have been unable to reach their full be smashed with gun butts or shoved into want the diary to live on, so that everyone to Auschwitz, where she is believed to potential in life," the researcher said. sacks and gassed to death.” will know what happened to the Jews.”’ have been killed upon arrival. SAVED BY A SAINT IN A TANK (Continued from page 6) amazement. We couldn’t believe what we waiting to be burned. and their children, grandchildren and was proud to be called upon to defend his were seeing.” There were “dead bodies friends – gathered at the Beverly Hills EXPLAINING THE YEARNING country. scattered here and there, all over the Hotel to honor the man who, in Goetz’s In March 1943 he left for a year of train- ground.” Thousands of inmates surged or Goetz, the reunion with Persinger words, “liberated 18,000 people on May ing in Georgia, then boarded a British ship forward, as thin as skeletons, shivering in F– arranged through a combination of 6, 1945.” for Europe. He saw comrades fall to filthy, striped pajamas. “Some just wore persistence and luck – was an important Persinger insisted that he was “just a German attacks as they pushed through the tops, some the pants, some had no step toward closing the circle. soldier, one little peon.” The real heroes, France and Germany. But nothing had clothes at all, standing ankle-deep in “By finding that person, you construct he said, were the men and women who prepared him for Ebensee, the brutal sub- mud,” he recalled. some element of goodness in that land- persevered, without succumbing to self- camp of Mauthausen. The German camp commanders had scape of evil,” said Saul Friedlander, pity and rancor, to “get their education, “We had never even heard about the deserted and left elderly Austrian civilians chairman of Holocaust studies at UCLA. raise their kids, make something out of concentration camps until a few weeks in charge. Persinger emerged from his “So this soldier, he was not the army of lib- themselves after coming out with noth- before the war ended, when I read in the tank, snatched a rifle from one of the eration, of course. But he symbolizes the ing. I have nothing but respect for these Stars and Stripes [the U.S. military news- guards, broke it over the turret of his tank good side for those who have experi- people. They’re head and shoulders paper] about one of the camps, maybe and hung it over a lamppost beside the enced the worst. It helps them psychologi- smarter than I ever was.” Bergen-Belsen, and how the American gate. cally to remember the idealized goodness of Still, they rose for a standing ovation [soldiers] were running into this.” “It was a spur-of-the-moment kind of the liberators. That explains the yearning.” when Persinger walked to the lectern, His reconnaissance unit was patrolling thing,” he said. “It brought on such a roar; Goetz mentioned to a patient, a World then again at his speech’s end. “a beautiful little town” in the Austrian Alps, it was pandemonium.... The prisoners sur- War II veteran, his attempt to track down When the cheering stopped, the danc- with roads flanked by forests and lakes. rounded us, dirty, open sores all over the mystery soldier. The patient was ing began. Dozens of gray-haired men Another unit had spotted the camp, two them, loaded with lice. heading to Austria for a commemoration and women crowded the floor, offspring miles from town up a mountain road. “I’d seen death before, but nothing like marking the 60th anniversary of in tow, linking arms and circling around Persinger was dispatched to check it out that. I remember thinking: If everybody Ebensee’s liberation. The speaker was the room in a rousing version of the and report back. could see this, there wouldn’t be nothing supposed to be a GI who had been pres- hora. He rolled his tank up to the compound’s like wars anymore. To treat human beings ent at the liberation. He agreed to pass The man who “freed our people in their barbed-wire gates. Inside, thousands of like that ... I couldn’t have imagined.” along Goetz’s business card. A few weeks darkest hour” rose above the crowd on people – dressed in rags, looking more In the crematorium – which had operat- later, the phone rang and Persinger was the shoulders of the sons and daughters dead than alive – were “milling around like ed around the clock, turning hundreds of on the line. of Holocaust survivors. He was, at that bees,” he said. corpses each day to ash – they found More than 300 people – survivors, most moment, as tall as Sam Goetz had “We stopped and peered down in bodies stacked along a wall, 400 or more, of them now in their 70s, 80s and 90s, remembered him. September/October 2007 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5768 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 15 HOLOCAUST CENTER DEATH CAMPS CALL FOR RIGHT GETS KASZTNER'S ARCHIVE TO CHARGE FOR ENTRY TICKET lection of his well-connected and wealthy Former concentration camps in BY ARON HELLER, AP Jewish friends, while hundreds of thou- ROGER BOYES , TIMES ONLINE Germany are funded by both the federal sands of others were being shipped to and regional governments, but the money, srael’s official Holocaust memorial and Some of the most notorious Nazi concen- death camps. directors insisted, just about covered museum has unveiled the private tration camps, now run as museums, could I asztner moved to Israel after the operating costs. archives of one of the most contentious soon demand an entrance fee from visitors Auschwitz, the biggest Nazi concentra- Kwar and became a top official in the to help to finance educational facilities. Jewish figures from the Holocaust era in tion camp, in southern Poland, receives ruling Labor Party. In 1954, local writer The prospect of paying to enter Dachau, an attempt to exonerate the man’s tar- more generous subsidies and has gained Malkiel Grunwald issued a self-published where SS guards used to issue threats to nished legacy. the support of Ron Lauder, the American pamphlet that accused Kasztner of being inmates that they would leave only Yad Vashem officials said the material philanthropist, to help to restore the splin- a Nazi collaborator. through the chimneys of the crematorium, released in July should finally put an end to tering wooden barrack rooms of The Israeli government sued Grunwald has created controversy in Germany as what it said was an unjustified smear cam- Auschwitz-Birkenau. for libel on Kasztner’s behalf, resulting in the country considers how best to paign against Rudolf (Israel) Kasztner. Of all the camps in Germany, Dachau a trial that lasted two years and riveted the acknowledge its past. Kasztner was hailed by admirers as a usually stirs the deepest emotions among nation. In its verdict, the court acquitted Pieter Dietz de Loos, president of the Holocaust hero for saving thousands of visitors. It was the first to be opened by Grunwald of libel and concluded that Kasztner International Dachau Committee, believes Jews. But critics reviled him as a collabo- the Nazis, in 1933, and was one of the last “sold his soul to the German Satan.’’ that there is no choice but to charge visi- rator who “sold his soul.’’ In 1957, after a to be liberated. Most of the living quarters Kasztner insisted all along that his deal- tors. He says that the museum cannot campaign of vilification, he was assassi- have been razed but one barrack room ings with top Nazi officials, including Kurt meet its obligation to educate the young nated by Jewish extremists. has row upon row of tiny beds. Becher, an envoy of SS commander about the horrors of the Holocaust. Kasztner, a Zionist leader in Hungary The crematorium building, with stone Heinrich Himmler, and Adolf Eichmann, Dachau, in a northern suburb of Munich, during World War II, headed the Relief ovens, stands outside the main museum the Gestapo officer who organized the is visited by 800,000 people each year but and Rescue Committee, a small Jewish building. Dachau was the scene of grisly extermination of the Jews, were neces- the camp museum can only afford to pay group that negotiated with Nazi officials to medical experiments – inmates were sary to save lives. one full-time educational assistant. Money rescue Hungarian Jews in exchange for forced to drink gallons of saltwater infect- is also running out to support Dachau sur- money, goods and military equipment. Kasztner was demonized in the Israeli ed with malaria, or were dipped into vivors. “In five years, we will be complete- In June 1944, the “Kasztner Train,” with public. A year after he was killed, Israel’s frozen water tanks. ly broke,” Mr Dietz de Loos said. 1,684 Jews on board, departed Budapest Supreme Court overturned the lower court’s The issue is complicated by the compe- The idea of an entry ticket to the camps for the safety of neutral Switzerland. ruling in the libel case, clearing his name. tition among the former Nazi camps for – museum officials at Buchenwald and Kasztner’s negotiations also saved Kasztner’s private archives, which were funding against East German sites that Ravensbrück have also given warning of 20,000 Hungarian Jews by diverting them held for research purposes after his cash shortages – has outraged the commemorate the victims of Stalinism. to an Austrian labor camp instead of a death, include three boxes of letters doc- Central Board of Jews in Germany. Christian Democrats, including Bernd planned transfer to extermination camps, umenting his correspondence with family, Neumann, who is in charge of cultural Jewish organizations and Nazi officials. “These are graveyards,” a spokesman according to Yad Vashem. said. “You do not pay to mourn the dead.” affairs in Angela Merkel’s Chancellery, are Robert Rozett, director of the Yad “There was no man in the history of the What appears to be the violation of a arguing that Nazi and Communist sites Vashem library, said that while Kasztner’s Holocaust who saved more Jews, and taboo is actually an argument about his- should be managed along the same prin- public legacy has remained in question, it was subjected to more injustice than Israel torical memory. There is no point, many ciples because all involved were “victims has long been established among histori- Kasztner,’’ said Joseph Lapid, chairman of Yad camp museum directors argue, in pre- of political dictatorship.” Vashem’s board of directors, himself a ans that he acted in good faith. serving the sites of the Holocaust if staff The Central Board of Jews said that this Holocaust survivor from Hungary. Kasztner himself didn’t board his are not present to explain how and why terminology was blurring the historical “This is an opportunity to do justice to a famous train to freedom, instead staying people were killed there. record, equating Stalinist crimes with man who was misrepresented and was a behind and negotiating the further release "Between a third and a half of all those of the Nazis and diminishing the victim on a vicious attack that led to his of Jews, risking his own life. requests for guided tours and educational Holocaust. Only free access to the old death,’’ he said, calling Kasztner “one of Rozett said the findings in the archives support are having to be turned down," Nazi camps could keep the German mem- the great heroes of the Holocaust.’’ “support the idea that he was dealing in said Günter Morsch, who supervises the ory straight, they argued, and money for But Kasztner’s detractors accused him rescue and not behind-the-scenes deals memorial sites in Sachsenhausen, teaching would have to be found else- of colluding with the Nazis to spare a col- to sell off Hungarian Jews.’’ Ravensbrück and Brandenburg. where, not by the sale of tickets. VICTORY OVER HITLER FRENCH PRIEST UNCOVERS LONG-BURIED (Continued from page 4) from all that separates it from fully euphoric sprit wants Israel’s foreign policy embracing the other. With the lessons of HORRORS OF HOLOCAUST IN UKRAINE to be an entirely ethical one, one that, for the Holocaust in mind and the many (Continued from page 12) site only after obtaining three independent example, recognizes the Armenian geno- halachic Russian immigrants, he rejects a A few of those bodies stirring beneath witness accounts. cide, in spite of the special relations with “Genetic Judaism” for one based on com- the dirt managed to survive. Many executions were never recorded, Muslim Turkey. He envisions a universal mon values and shared destiny. Quite a Executioners were generally allowed including those of Jewish women who Third Jerusalem Temple to address the perspective for an Orthodox Jew! one bullet per victim, but sometimes only acted as servants and sex slaves for Nazi suffering of all. The Yad Vashem If Burg’s goal was to shock or shake us, managed to wound, not kill, Desbois officers, and those of children who were Holocaust Memorial will be connected he surely succeeds on both accounts, giv- said. Witnesses to numerous massacres shot after failed attempts to gas them to physically and thematically to an ing us much food for thought from this told him of “stirring” death in trucks — an International Court of Justice for crimes once kippah-wearing paratrooper officer graves and of vic- experimental precursor against humanity, with judges from all who is deeply concerned for the Jewish tims who escaped to the gas chambers, nations. He also adds in Jerusalem, in an state, which is no doubt at the crossroads only to be executed Desbois said. internationally sovereign location, a uni- from within and without. in a later massacre. Holocaust scholars Nina Lisitsina was say at least 1.5 million of versal Organization Of Religions to pro- Rabbi Israel Zoberman, spiritual leader one of the sur- Soviet Ukraine’s 2.7 mil- mote humanistic values that will exclude of Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia vivors. At 5 years lion Jews were killed all fanatics who fight an enlightened agen- Beach, Virginia, is the son of Polish old, in 1944, she during World War II, and da. He would also like to free Judaism Holocaust survivors. was rounded up in later years Soviet anti-Semitism drove near Simferopol in Bullets found in Khativ, Ukraine, are on dis- more away. Today, A SON’S “REFUGE” Crimea and forced play at Paris’ Holocaust Memorial. along with other vic- Ukraine officially has (Continued from page 4) in forests, fields, and barns, encountering tims to strip off all her clothes to get about 100,000 Jews, though the real num- are led to delude ourselves to the truth. treacherous Poles and growing ever more ready for an execution. ber is believed to be about 500,000 of its However, in the deepest recesses of our hungry, tired, and ill. Near death, he was “I remember a woman next to me, a child 52 million people. minds, it was not possible to escape the found lying in a field by another Polish in her arms. I lost consciousness, and Yahad in-Unum’s researchers rely heav- ultimate tragic truth.” farmer and turned over to the Russians, couldn’t hear the shots. Apparently, they ily on family members of victims or sur- Kalman and some other Jews managed who had finally defeated the Germans. As weren’t bothering to finish everyone off. vivors. At the Paris exhibit, which is dis- to tear out the iron bars on the windows his son toiled to write the memoir in his “When I regained consciousness, it was played entirely in English and French, a and jump out while the train was moving father’s voice, Kalman closely monitored nighttime. I grabbed on to roots of a tree sign near the exit asks anyone with infor- — an act that almost certainly saved his the progress of the project. “My father saw to get out of the ravine. I don’t know how I mation about someone killed by Nazis in life. He and a friend landed in a bed of the entire manuscript but didn’t live long managed.” Ukraine to leave a note in an adjacent box snow; miraculously they made it to a enough to see it in book form,” said Leo. or to send an e-mail. Polish farmer’s house. The farmer fed and “He would say ‘That’s exactly the way it hap- Her story, too, is part of the Paris exhibit. Desbois cross-checks every statement “I want to return dignity to the families,” clothed the two desperate Jews, asking pened.’ It made him feel good that I was he said. “Every story helps us.” nothing in return. This was the only kind- recording — I guess preserving — his life with Soviet archives at the Holocaust ness Kalman would encounter for a long story.” Refuge was published in 2006; Kalman Memorial Museum in Washington and First published in the International Herald time. He spent the next two years hiding died in 2001, his wife four years later. German records. He registers an event or Tribune. Page 16 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2007 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5768

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Martyrdom & Resistance International Society for Yad Vashem NON-PROFIT ORG. Eli Zborowski, Editor-in-Chief MARTYRDOM AND RESISTANCE U.S. POST Yefim Krasnyanskiy, M.A., Editor 500 FIFTH AVENUE, 42nd FLOOR, PAID NEW YORK, N.Y. *Published Bimonthly by the NEW YORK, N.Y. 10110-4299 PERMIT NO. 10 International Society for Yad Vashem, Inc. 500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor New York, NY 10110 (212) 220-4304 EDITORIAL BOARD Eli Zborowski Marvin Zborowski Mark Palmer Sam Skura Israel Krakowski William Mandell Sam Halpern Isidore Karten** Norman Belfer Joseph Bukiet** *1974-85, as Newsletter for the American Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp Inmates, and Nazi Victims **deceased