JANUARY 2010 VOLUME 24 NUMBER 1 Elie Wiesel tells Hungary to ban Holocaust denial BUDAPEST (Reuters) - Hungary should consider Peace Prize in 1986 told a meeting of Jewish and Hungarian leaders in parliament. banning Holocaust denial to improve its image abroad In July a court ruling dissolved the far-right Hungarian Guard, a radical and contain lurking hostility towards its minorities, nationalist organization, which staged intimidating marches against Roma Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner nationwide, in black uniforms and insignia, which critics say are reminiscent of Elie Wiesel said recently. the Nazi era. Hungary is grappling with its worst economic “I ask you, why don’t you follow the example of France and Germany and downturn in almost two decades and rising aversion declare Holocaust denial not only indecent, but illegal? In those countries Holocaust towards ethnic groups, mainly the country’s large deniers go to jail,” Wiesel said. Roma population, lifted the far-right Jobbik party into Wiesel warned against what he called the perils of indifference and said the European Parliament earlier this year. Hungarians were responsible for how they handle memories of the past. Based on poll readings Jobbik is also likely to Hungary at present has no law protecting communities against imflammatory win enough votes in next year’s elections to get into remarks. Attempts to outlaw such language have failed to pass in parliament or parliament. win the approval of President Laszlo Solyom. “Wherever in the world I come and the word Anti-Roma tensions have heightened in the country where 6-7 percent of the Hungary is mentioned, the next word is antisemitism,” said Wiesel, 81, who was 10 million population are Gypsies. deported along with hundreds of thousands of other Jews to Nazi death camps “Hungary does not meet European Union standards in this respect as there is during World War Two.“I urge you to do even more to denounce antisemitic no efficient protection for communities against hate speech,” Gyorgy Kollath, elements and racist expressions in your political environment and in certain constitutional law expert told Reuters. publications,” Wiesel said. After Hungary’s occupation by Nazi Germany in 1944 the Hungarian “I believe that they bring shame to your nation and they bring fear to its Jewish government actively collaborated in the deportation of hundreds of thousands of community and other minorities, such as the Roma,” Wiesel, who won the Nobel Jews to death camps. (Reporting by Gergely Szakacs; editing by Ralph Boulton) until a consensus on his actions—or PIUS XII FASTRACKED TO SAINTHOOD inaction—concerning the persecution of In a move that surprised Vatican watchers and Jewish and Israeli leaders, millions of Jews in the Holocaust is Pope Benedict XVI signed a decree on December 19, 2009 recognizing the “heroic established, a beatification is inopportune virtues” of Pope John Paul II and Pope Pius XII, a move that moves them both and premature. While it is entirely a matter on a faster track to sainthood. Benedict waived the customary five-year waiting for the Catholic Church to decide on whom period and allowed the investigation into John Paul’s life and virtues to begin religious honors are bestowed, there are immediately. But it was venerating Pius XII that has infuriated Holocaust survivors, strong concerns about Pope Pius XII’s who were already angered by the disappearance, just a day earlier of the iconic political role during World War II which “Work Makes Free” sign above the gates to Auschwitz. should not be ignored.” In response, the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Most Jewish leaders, including Yad Descendants issued the following statement: “One day after the Nazi death camp Vashem’s Avner Shalev, have repeatedly Auschwitz is desecrated, Holocaust survivors are shaken by the profoundly asked for the beatification process to be insensitive and thoughtless Vatican announcement advancing the wartime Pope stopped until the Vatican’s secret archives, containing thousands of documents, Pius XII on the path to sainthood.” is opened for review. But the Vatican says the 16 million files relating to Pius Elan Steinberg, vice president of the organization said that pairing the XII’s 19-year reign will not be ready for public viewing until 2014 at the earliest. announcement on Pius—who remained publicly silent during the Holocaust— The issue has been a thorn in the side of relations between Israel and the with that of John Paul II, himself a victim of the Nazis, is a particularly disturbing Vatican for years. Israeli Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog once called sainthood and callous act. Steinberg added that it went against private assurances the Vatican for Pius XII unacceptable, and President Shimon Peres believes that Pius XII did had given the Jewish community. “No documents have been released altering the not try hard enough to save Jews. view of Pius as ‘the silent pope.’” When Benedict XVI signed the papers, he placed Pius XII just two steps Steinberg noted that less than a year after Richard Williamson, a bishop from away from full canonization. In 2007, Benedict asked for time for reflection in the Society of Pius X, publicly denied the Holocaust, “we are left bereft in our order calm down interfaith tensions. That’s why his latest move is a surprise. feelings and appeal to the Vatican to prevent the inevitable blow to interfaith Once a member of the Hitler Youth, the current pope maintains that Pius XII relations which will follow from this.” saved many Jews by hiding them in religious institutions, and that he kept silent to The World Jewish Congress (WJC) also criticized the decision by Pope avoid aggravating their situation. Benedict XVI to pave the way for the beatification of his controversial war-time Abraham Foxman, a Holocaust survivor and the director of the US-based predecessor Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli), who was pontiff of the Catholic Church Anti-Defamation League, said “We are saddened and disappointed that the pontiff from 1939 to 1958. WJC President Ronald S. Lauder declared: “As long as the would feel compelled to fast-track Pope Pius at a point where the issue of the archives of Pope Pius about the crucial period 1939 to 1945 remain closed, and cont’d on p. 3 American Gathering of NON-PROFIT Jewish Holocaust Survivors U.S. POSTAGE 122 West 30th Street, Suite 205 PAID NEW YORK, N.Y. New York, New York 10001 PERMIT NO. 4246 January 2010 visit our website at www.americangathering.com TOGETHER 1 “Don’t let the light go out” by MENACHEM Z. ROSENSAFT TOGETHER “Don’t let the light go out, it’s lasted for so many years” sang Peter, Paul and Mary in “Light One January 2010 Volume 24 Number 1 Candle,” my favorite Chanukah song. c•o•n•t•e•n•t•s In late December 1948, my parents said a very Pope Pius XII Fastracked to Sainthood...........................................................1 special shehecheyanu prayer as they lit the Chanukah Elie Wiesel Tells Hungary to Ban Holocaust Denial........................................1 candles in the Displaced Persons camp of Bergen- “Don’t Let the Light Go Out” by Menachem Rosensaft..................................2 Belsen in Germany. Remembering the Past..................................................................................3 Barely five years after their entire families had been Peres Honors Survivors on Chanukah............................................................3 murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, they could Ghetto Pension Payments Reviewed.............................................................4 not truly thank God for granting them life or for sustaining them as part of the Arbeit Macht Frei Sign Recovered.................................................................4 small surviving remnant of European Jewry that had emerged from the Holocaust. The Financial Sustainability of Holocaust Museums by Gail Beckerman.........5 Too many faces were missing—their parents, their siblings, my mother’s first Never Forget: Holding Collaborators Accountable..........................................6 husband and her five-and-a-half year old son, my father¹s first wife and her Holocaust Denier Fined by German Court by Jamie Romm............................6 daughter. Gretel Bergmann: A Leap into History...........................................................7 30 years later, Holocaust Center Rededicated at Teaneck High.......................7 But for the first time, they were celebrating the festival of lights with their son—I was then almost eight months old—and their focus must have been on this Chanukah Miracles All Around by Yuval Azoulay..........................................8 moment of rebirth, of renewal. Their shehecheyanu, I suspect, was in large part New View of the State Department’s Shameful Past by Gregory J. Wallance.....8 for me seeing the burning Chanukah candles for the first time, with no memories Kristallnacht Commemorated at UN..............................................................9 of the past, of death and destruction, of other flames. Holocaust Survivor Heirs Sue for Van Gogh Drawing by Dan McCue............9 By Working Together We Can Accomplish Miracles by Gloria Jacaruso.....10 Fast forward 61 years. On the first night of Chanukah, 2009, a display for a fragile Torah scroll Judges slam survivor benefit law as unclear by Ofra Edelman......................10 which was brought from Hamburg, Germany, to the United States in 1939 by 90-Year-Old Charged in Nazi