AMERICAN & INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES FOR YAD VASHEM

Vol. 40-No. 5 ISSN 0892-1571 May/June 2014-Iyyar/Sivan 5774 AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR YAD VASHEM ANNUAL SPRING LUNCHEON his year’s Annual Spring this year’s luncheon. It is only through remaining vigilant coming to terms with evil. T Luncheon honored Dr. Deborah The trial, as Lipstadt says, was a and continuing to properly educate hairman of the American E. Lipstadt. She is a world-renowned victory for history and historians. people that we can fight Holocaust CSociety for Yad Vashem expert on Holocaust history and a Survivors heaped praise on Lipstadt deniers and make sure the world Leonard A. Wilf reminded us of the never forgets. importance of raising the awareness Dr. Lipstadt captivat- of the next generation. He praised ed the audience when the co-chairs of our Young Leadership she discussed her Associates, Abbi Halpern and Barry book The Eichmann Levine, for their efforts to reach out to Trial. The book gives the third generation. Mr. Wilf also an overview of the trial pointed out that the mission of the and analyzes the dra- American Society for Yad Vashem is matic effect the sur- best exemplified by our honoree and vivors’ courtroom testi- guest speaker, Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, mony — which was who has spent her life making the itself not without con- world aware of the atrocities of the troversy — had on the Holocaust. world. Until the trial, we Jessica Glickman Mauk, an active regularly commemo- member of our Young Leadership rated the Holocaust Associates, introduced Dr. Lipstadt. but never fully under- She pointed out that, even as recently stood what the mil- as yesterday, we were reminded in a lions who died and the Wall Street Journal article of the con- hundreds of thou- tinued presence of anti-Semitism, and sands who managed of how the need for Dr. Lipstadt's work to survive had actually continues to be as important and nec- Marilyn Rubenstein, Honorary Spring Luncheon Chair; Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt, 2014 Spring Luncheon Honoree; and experienced. essary today as when she first began. Leonard A. Wilf, Chairman of the American Society for Yad Vashem. Her book gives a Marilyn Rubenstein, the Honorary worldwide defender of the truth about as their heroine. She explained that it view of the world as it continues to con- Spring Luncheon Chair, along with Mr. the atrocities of WWII. Professor was only after the trial that she under- front the continuing reality of genocide Wilf, presented Dr. Lipstadt with the Lipstadt is the Dorot Professor of stood their meaning about standing and ponder the future of those who sur- American Society for Yad Vashem Modern Jewish and Holocaust up to false allegations. vive it. The Eichmann trial, which was Achievement Award. She was recog- Studies at Emory University in Dr. Lipstadt spoke about the contin- Atlanta. Her book Denying the uing need to be vigilant in uncovering Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Holocaust deniers, especially in light Truth and Memory was the first full- of the homework incident recently length study of those who attempt to exposed in a school in California. The deny the Holocaust. A notorious per- one-page instruction sheet given to son in that study was David Irving, the students stated: "When tragic whom Lipstadt called “one of the most events occur in history, there is often dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust debate about their actual existence. denial.” Irving’s response was to file a For example, some people claim the libel suit against Professor Lipstadt, Holocaust is not an actual event, but which was the subject of her latest instead is a propaganda tool that was book and the topic of her speech at used for political and monetary gain." IN THIS ISSUE The new Holocaust discoveries...... 2 The diary of another young girl...... 3 The Jewish press and the Holocaust...... 4 The Jews who fought for Hitler...... 5 Front (l. to r.): Gladys Halpern; Sharon Halpern, 2014 Spring Luncheon Chair; Mindy Schall. Hitler’s Jewish neighbor looks back in horror in new book...... 6 Back (l. to r.): Abbi Halpern, Co-Chair, Young Leadership Associates; Jeremy Halpern; and David New study explores role of Polish peasants in Holocaust atrocities...... 7 Halpern. American Society for Yad Vashem Annual Spring Luncheon...... 8-9 the trial of the century, has become a nized for her deep commitment, dedi- Jews “on the edge”...... 10 touchstone for judicial proceedings cation and lifetime work on behalf of How a Soviet general inspired Holocaust Memorial Day...... 11 throughout the world, and offers a Holocaust education and remem- Pope at Yad Vashem: Never again, Lord, never again!...... 16 legal, moral and political framework for brance. Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2014 - Iyyar/Sivan 5774 THE NEW HOLOCAUST DISCOVERIES ghettos and camps throughout umph of evil, was the sin of the “inno- ignorance. And still the killings did not BY RABBI BENJAMIN BLECH, Europe from 1933 to 1945. cent” bystander. stop, the torture did not cease, the VIRTUAL JERUSALEM There were 30,000 slave labor or years our efforts to under- concentration camps were not closed, camps; 1,150 Jewish ghettos; 980 Fstand the Holocaust focused on the crematoria continued their barbar- he latest revelation about the concentration camps; 1000 prisoner the perpetrators. We looked for expla- ic task. T Holocaust stuns even the schol- of war camps; 500 brothels filled with nations for the madness of Mengele, The “decent” people were somehow ars who thought they already knew sex slaves; and thousands of other the obsessive hatred of Hitler, the able to rationalize their silence. everything about the horrific details of camps used for euthanizing the elder- impassive cruelty of Eichmann. We ust last year Mary Fulbrook, a Germany’s program of genocide ly and infirm, performing forced abor- sought answers to how it was possi- Jdistinguished scholar of German against the Jewish people. tions, “Germanizing” prisoners or ble for the criminal elements, the history, in A Small Town Near It’s taken more than 70 years to transporting victims to killing centers. sadists and the mentally unbalanced Auschwitz wrote a richly and painfully finally know the full facts. And what is detailed examination of those almost beyond belief is that what real- Germans who, after the war, success- ly happened goes far beyond what fully cast themselves in the role of anyone could ever have imagined. innocent bystanders. For the longest time we have spo- “These people have almost entirely ken of the tragedy of six million Jews. escaped the familiar net of ‘perpetra- It was a number that represented the tors, victims and bystanders’; yet they closest approximation we could find were functionally crucial to the eventu- to the victims of Hitler’s plan for a al possibility of implementing policies Final Solution. Those who sought to of mass murder. They may not have diminish the tragedy claimed six mil- intended or wanted to contribute to this lion was a gross exaggeration. Others outcome; but, without their attitudes, went further and denied the historicity mentalities, and actions, it would have of the Holocaust itself, absurdly claim- been virtually impossible for murder on ing that the Jews fabricated their this scale to have taken place in the extermination to gain sympathy for way that it did. The concepts of perpe- the Zionist cause. trator and bystander need to be But now we know the truth. amended, expanded, rendered more Lodz The reality was much worse than A group of boys taking part in Jewish religious practice in ghetto, even though it was banned. complex, as our attention and focus whatever we imagined. The best estimate using current to achieve the kind of power that shifts to those involved in upholding an The unspeakable crime of the 20th information available is 15 to 20 mil- made the mass killings feasible. ultimately murderous system.” century, more than the triumph of evil, lion people who died or were impris- That was because we had no idea Mary Fulbrook singled out for cen- was the sin of the “innocent” oned in sites controlled by the of the real extent of the horror. With sure those who lived near Auschwitz. bystander. Germans throughout the European more than 42,000 ghettos and con- But that was before we learned that It wasn’t just the huge killing centers continent. centration camps scattered through- Auschwitz was replicated many thou- whose very names — Auschwitz, Simply put, in the words of Hartmut out the length and breadth of a sup- sands of times over throughout the Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Berghoff, director of the German posedly civilized continent, there’s no continent in ways that could not have Majdanek, Belzec, Ravensbruck, Historical Institute in Washington, longer any way to avoid the obvious gone unnoticed by major parts of the Sobibor, Treblinka — bring to mind the “The numbers are so much higher conclusion. The cultured, the educat- populace. Millions of people were wit- ghastly images by now so familiar to than what we originally thought; we ed, the enlightened, the liberal, the nesses to small towns like Auschwitz us. It wasn’t just the Warsaw ghetto. It knew before how horrible life in the refined, the sophisticated, the in their own backyards. wasn’t just the famous sites we’ve all camps and ghettos was, but the actu- urbane — all of them share in the And so Elie Wiesel of course was by now heard of that deservedly live al numbers are unbelievable.” shame of a world that lost its moral right. The insight that most powerfully on in everlasting infamy. And what makes this revelation so compass and willingly acceded to the needs to be grasped when we reflect Researchers have just released doc- important is that it forces us to victory of evil. upon the Holocaust’s message must umentation that astounds even the acknowledge a crucial truth about the “We had no idea what was happen- be that “The opposite of love is not most informed scholars steeped in the Holocaust that many people have ing” needs to be clearly identified as hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of previously known statistics of German tried to ignore or to minimize — a “the great lie” of the years of Nazi art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. atrocities. Here is some of what has truth that has profound contemporary power. The harsh truth is that almost The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s now been conclusively discovered: significance: The unspeakable crime everyone had to know. The numbers indifference. And the opposite of life is There were more than 42,500 Nazi of the 20th century, more than the tri- negate the possibility for collective not death, it’s indifference.” AT SOBIBOR: BUILDING IN THE HEART OF A DEATH CAMP prisoner revolt. who’ve excavated at Sobibor since along with Polish archeologist Wojtek BY MATT LEBOVIC, After carrying out a meticulous plan 2007. From their perspective, the Mazurek. THE TIMES OF ISRAEL to kill the camp’s SS masters, more site’s historical integrity and future For seven years, Haimi and than 300 Jewish prisoners fled to the research prospects are best served Mazurek have unearthed thousands here the Nazis once mur- forest; however, fewer than 50 by building outside the camp, and not of personal items belonging to dered more than 250,000 W escapees survived until the war’s on top of Holocaust-era remains. Sobibor’s victims. They’ve also Jews, authorities plan to construct a end. “We lost the fight, and they are con- remapped key parts of the camp by visitor center and other structures in “Now people will finally be able to tinuing with the visitor center and now uncovering fences, buildings and — the heart of Sobibor, the former death see the camp from the road, and a very long memorial wall,” said last year — what the researchers camp in eastern Poland. know the truth about what was there,” Israeli archeologist Yoram Haimi. “We believe to be an escape tunnel. The construction — slated to begin the 91-year-old Engel told the Times think they should do it outside the In Camp II, site of the future visitor next year — was approved by an of Israel in a phone interview from her camp. Never build something inside center, Jewish victims undressed and international steering committee, home in Branford, Connecticut. the camp. But this is not our deci- handed over their valuables before including representatives from Israel’s “Nobody knows about Sobibor,” sion,” he told the Times in an inter- being herded along the so-called Yad Vashem. With a projected cost of said Engel. “They have no idea what view. “Road to Heaven,” a snaking path $5 million, the project makes Sobibor it is to be inside a killing machine. I leading to the gas chambers. The one of the last former extermination CLEARING THE GROUND think it is very important that they are path — once camouflaged and centers to add significant tourist infra- doing something inside the camp,” n 2006, Haimi discovered that two enclosed by barbed wire — was structure. said Engel, one of only several Dutch of his uncles were murdered at uncovered by Haimi and Mazurek “I am very impressed that they are I Jews to survive Sobibor. Sobibor. Within a year, the exuberant during early excavation seasons, building these things at Sobibor,” said However, not everyone agrees that researcher — typically focused on ending a decades-old debate about Selma Engel, one of only seven construction inside the camp itself excavating ancient Israel — arrived its precise location. remaining Sobibor survivors who makes sense, including archeologists on-site at the former death camp, (Continued on page 13) escaped from the camp during a 1943 May/June 2014 - Iyyar/Sivan 5774 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 3 THE DIARY OF ANOTHER YOUNG GIRL Those who worked on Rywka’s diary see this document,” Janec recalled of seniors and small children deemed BY DAN PINE, JWEEKLY.COM content themselves with the words of the day Anastasia brought it to her useless to the ghetto’s slave labor a cold and hungry child who faced the office at the Holocaust Center of force. he was only 14. A sensitive worst in humanity: “At moments like Northern California in 2008. ywka started her diary 11 Jewish girl with a flair for writing, S this,” Rywka wrote, “I want to live so “It was an incredible experience. I months later, on October 3, trapped in the maelstrom of the R much.... Really one needs a lot of said, ‘This is really remarkable, but in 1943, abruptly ending it on April 12, Holocaust. The only repository for her strength in order not to give up.” order to move forward, we need to 1944, four months before the Nazis deepest feelings: a diary, found aban- udy Janec noticed a new e-mail consult people who know more than I liquidated the ghetto and transported doned soon after the war. in her inbox. do.’ So we very carefully and cau- all remaining prisoners to Auschwitz. Her name was not Anne. J The staff archivist at the S.F.-based tiously scanned some of the pages.” Rywka took her diary with her on Her name was Rywka. Holocaust Center of Northern that train. Orphaned, starving, desperately California had been forwarded an e- Somehow it survived the journey and relying on faith in God, Rywka Lipszyc mail by the center’s director — a note the terrifying first hours there, when (pronounced “Rivka Lipshitz”) wrote from an émigré from the former Soviet Rywka would have been stripped of while living in a hell on earth, the Lodz Union now living in the Bay Area. It every possession. Her little sister, ghetto. Seven decades later, her story was 2008. Cipka, was immediately selected for at last has come to light. Anastasia Berezovskaya, who is not the gas chamber. The diary, tossed into The Diary of Rywka Lipszyc — pub- Jewish, wrote to the Holocaust the garbage, was likely rescued by a lished by San Francisco-based Center, saying she had a World War Sonderkommando, a Jewish prisoner Jewish Family and Children’s II–era document in her possession in charge of the grimmest job at Services in partnership with Lehrhaus and wanted to know whether the cen- Auschwitz: manning the mechanics of Judaica — was exhaustively ter would examine it. mass death. researched, authenticated and anno- Hand-scrawled in Polish, the docu- “Probably someone in the ment appeared to be an anonymous Sonderkommando dug it out,” theo- diary, covering a six-month period rized historian Fred Rosenbaum, starting in October 1943, and written founding director of Lehrhaus Judaica in the Lodz ghetto, the longest-stand- and the author of an 11-page essay ing Jewish ghetto of the war. about the Lodz ghetto included in the Before she discovered it in 1995 newly published book. “Then it was among her late father’s effects in his Zinaida Berezovskaya, the Red Army doctor available for the doctor, and she had who found the diary at Auschwitz. Moscow home, Berezovskaya had to have the good sense to realize the never heard a word about the diary. After that, experts examined the significance of it, and keep it. No legends, no old stories, no family work and weighed in, among them “I don’t want to overstate this, but it’s lore. Zachary Baker, Stanford University’s almost miraculous.” “The only thing I knew was that my Reinhard Family Curator of Judaica Berezovskaya picked up the diary grandmother was in the war,” said and Hebraica Collections, and Robert when the Red Army liberated Berezovskaya, a San Francisco ther- Moses Shapiro of Brooklyn College, a Auschwitz in January 1945. apist. “She was a pretty strange prominent scholar of the Lodz ghetto. But had Rywka survived? woman and [stayed out of contact They in turn brought in academics She had. Janec discovered that tated. It took a team of historians, with] the family in her last years.” and researchers from Poland, includ- much of the girl’s final imprisonment archivists and translators years to Anastasia has deduced that her ing translator Malgorzata Markoff and was spent at a nearby labor camp, finalize the newly published book. grandmother, Zinaida Berezovskaya, annotator Ewa Wiatr. Their work, for Christianstadt, and later at Bergen- More than anything, the survival of a former Red Army doctor, entered the first time since the diary was writ- Belsen, where she was liberated. the diary itself constitutes a modern- Auschwitz with Soviet liberators and ten, uncovered its treasures, includ- Eventually the trail indicated Rywka day miracle. It was found at Auschwitz plucked the diary from the ashes of ing the identity of its author. had been hospitalized in Germany in in 1945 and then remained hidden for the camp. The granddaughter found “Ewa worked on the transcription, the months after the war. years in a closet in Siberia. the diary wrapped with an explanato- and that’s when she found out who The last known record of her dated With its extraordinary recovery, ry cover note and an accompanying the writer was,” Janec said. “Rywka from September 1945, indicating she preservation and publication, the Russian newspaper article, with a identified herself in part of the diary.” was still in a hospital, too sick for world gains a renewed understanding photo from February 1945 showing That triggered an entirely new transfer. After that, no death record, of the human price of the Holocaust. the exact spot where the diary was detective assignment: Who was no transfer record, no gravestone. “It’s the kind of discovery that is so found. Rywka Lipszyc? Was she dead or Nothing. powerful, you know immediately it’s Anastasia’s grandmother kept the alive, and how on earth did her diary Before Janec knew that, she had important,” said Anita Friedman, diary hidden in her home in Omsk (in survive the smokestacks of found a tantalizing bit of information, a executive director of JFCS. “I knew southwestern Siberia) until her death Auschwitz? record suggesting Rywka had died at we had to publish this diary.” in 1983. She had apparently made a Janec consulted with the U.S. age 16 in Bergen-Belsen. That came The 170-page book includes not few futile attempts to learn more Holocaust Memorial Museum in from the testimony of a survivor only the full text of the diary, but also about it, but no one had any answers. Washington, D.C., and the named Mina. Janec wondered if Mina a deep analysis of it by National Then Anastasia’s father kept it in International Tracing Service, a was the same person named in the Jewish Book Award winner Alexandra Moscow until his death in 1995. German-based agency that research- diary as Rywka’s cousin. Zapruder, as well as essays about the Anastasia then took it back to San es lost Holocaust victims. She trav- Perhaps she was still alive. It turned Lodz ghetto, the Lipszyc family, the Francisco, where she had immigrated eled to several European countries out Mina and her sister Esther (both provenance of the diary and the mys- four years earlier. and to Israel’s Yad Vashem. Along the mentioned in the diary) were alive and tery of Rywka herself, of whom no “I knew it was an important docu- way, she picked up a paper trail, start- well in Israel. trace has been found. ment,” she said of her thinking at the ing with records of the Lodz ghetto That’s when Janec made the call. It reads like a detective novel with time. “I thought I’d like to show it to archives, which included mention of “They were completely shocked,” an unsatisfying ending. someone and do something with it. In the Lipszyc family. Janec recalled of that initial contact. A Soviet Red Army doctor found the 1995, the Internet was not widely There were six in all. Parents Yankel “It made their hearts sick to know she diary beside a crematorium at available, so I asked around. People and Miriam Lipszyc, and their four had lived. [In 1945] they were very Auschwitz-Birkenau. It was remark- didn’t have a clue.” children, Abramek, Cipka, Tamarcia sick, too, and were sent to Sweden.” ably well preserved. But how did it get A few organizations had expressed and Rywka. Before they left for Sweden in July there? Why did the doctor keep the mild interest, some asking Anastasia Yankel died in the ghetto in 1941, 1945, the cousins had seen Rywka, diary hidden away for decades until to send the diary in the mail. But she from complications following a beat- lying in the hospital unconscious. The her death, and why did her son do the wasn’t eager to part with it. And so, for ing at the hands of German guards. doctor told them she would not sur- same for another 10 years? the most part, the diary remained Miriam died of starvation a year later. vive more than a few days. The sis- Most poignantly, what happened to closeted for another 13 years, until Little Abramek and Tamarcia perished ters departed, believing they would Rywka? she finally brought it to Janec. in the szpera (Polish for “curfew”), the never see their cousin again. Some questions have no answers. “You can imagine what it was like to horrific 1942 roundup and murder of (Continued on page 15) Page 4 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2014 - Iyyar/Sivan 5774 BOOKBOOK REVIEWSREVIEWS THE JEWISH PRESS AND THE HOLOCAUST The Jewish Press and the optimism” reigned almost every- chaotic pogroms that had always been wondered why there wasn’t a greater Holocaust, 1939-1945: Palestine, where. In other words, these newspa- the enemy, not the proper Germans cry going up for the many thousands of Britain, the United States, and the pers in various parts of the world were with their worldly and breathtaking arts Jews being massacred in countless Soviet Union. reporting what was happening to their and culture. . . . “Jewish Lidices”! Was “Jewish blood” By Yosef Gorny. Translated by coreligionists in Europe. It’s just that eanwhile, once the aforemen- cheaper than “gentile blood”? Many Naftali Greenwood. Cambridge most everyone reading these articles Mtioned newspapers and their newspapers loudly protested the fact University Press: New York, 2012. doubted the numbers murdered and publics realized that what they‘d that the Bermuda Conference of 1943, 284 pp. $81.90 hardcover. the premeditated and organized thought were overblown reports com- called most especially to somehow aspect of these ruthless acts. Thus, REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN ing to them from Eastern Europe were rescue Europe’s Jews, had no Jewish what was happening was frequently the truth, they all beat their breasts in representative present . . . and came hen this reviewer first noted compared to previous anguish. Then they to no real solution of any kind! And the publication of Yosef W outbreaks of anti- began passionately cri- then there was the angry talk sur- Gorny’s The Jewish Press and the Semitism. In sum, many tiquing themselves, cri- rounding the Jewish owners of the Holocaust, 1939-1945, her father thought it would soon end tiquing one another, cri- New York Times and how they ginger- immediately came to mind. Why? She — as these outbreaks tiquing their govern- ly “universalized” the Jew as just could vividly recall how he always usually did — and the ments, and presenting a another victim of the Nazis — among wondered what the rest of the world greater majority of the multitude of sugges- their many victims. The New York was thinking and doing — or not Jews of Europe would tions to the democra- Times refused to recognize that the doing — while he was struggling to survive. No one imagined cies. Some called for Jew, unlike any other victim, was pin- survive Hitler’s Nazi hell in Europe. Hitler’s devilish “plans” for the gates of Palestine to pointed by the Nazis for extermination, Indeed, throughout the years this the Jews for no one in his- be opened. Some and thus deserving of special emer- reviewer has met and read about tory had ever had them! called for easier immi- many other survivors who wondered Interestingly, the above gency measures vis-à-vis rescue! gration to America. the very same thing. . . . Not surpris- is very similar to how All in all, Gorny’s work proves high- Some called for havens, ingly, then, Holocaust researchers Lithuanian Jews reacted in ly absorbing, and exceptionally fasci- have been increasingly drawn to this the early years of the war any havens, to be found nating. Sadly, it also especially high- area of study. The result is Gorny’s when escaping Polish Jews plainly told for suffering Jews. Some called for lights the “powerlessness” of the Jew thought-provoking book like, telling us them of how the Nazis were horribly the rescue of children. Some called during those years — powerless all what people in the free world were mistreating them. The general reac- for protest marches. Some demanded over the world. And this “powerless- being told, how they reacted, and, tion: Lithuanian Jews didn’t believe it. a Jewish army be allowed to form and ness” led, according to Gorny, to most importantly and interestingly, Oh, they understood that things fight. Some demanded that the Nazis “unresponsiveness.” how they understood it all. Needless weren’t good for the Jews under the be clearly and definitively told that, in Needless to say, Gorny’s The to say, readers of M&R will find Nazis. But they had absolutely no idea the end, they would pay heavily for Jewish Press and the Holocaust Gorny’s volume especially intriguing of how bad they were — nor could they their damnable deeds! Many newspa- should be a part of any Holocaust since it focuses specifically on the have believed it — until they experi- pers, noting the tremendous hue and scholar’s library. Jewish press in Palestine, Britain, the enced it themselves. So, the question cry over what happened in Lidice in United States and the Soviet Union. is: why should Jews living so very far 1942 when the Nazis massacred Dr. Diane Cypkin is a Professor of So what do we learn? Till about away have believed it? After all, it was many of the villagers in retribution for Media, Communication, and Visual November/December 1942, “cautious the roughnecked Russians with their the killing of a highly placed Nazi, Arts at Pace University. CHILDREN’S BOOKS ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST he world must remember.” The following books are fiction candlesticks were hidden in the elder On his grandfather’s farm, Etienne “T This often echoed phrase has about the Holocaust written specifi- sister’s petticoat, they often clinked helped with the pears and other brought many people and forces cally for children ages 9 to 12. These together, giving away their location. chores and took excursions into the together in an effort to understand the books show the Holocaust and its When the family neared the gate to woods on Reveuse, the horse. At a past and forewarn about the future. times through the eyes of children. the Swiss border, they realized that certain point in the woods, he heard The expanding number of museums, Though these books educate about they could not chance the candle- children but didn’t see any. After a books, films, and so on have brought the Holocaust, they are also sticks clinking together. short discussion with Madame the subject of the Holocaust into the wonderfully written stories of So, to keep the candle- Joboter, a woman who helped the limelight. But still, there are many friendships, fears, and brav- sticks from making grandfather with house chores, adults who either don’t believe in the ery. Honestly, I found most of noise, they were hidden Etienne was told that the location reality of the Holocaust or find the these difficult to put down, inside Clara’s dolls. where he heard voices was haunted subject too gruesome to discuss. and each brought a tear to When they reached the and that he was not to go there ever If we don’t discuss the Holocaust my eye. They are all worth gate, Clara not only had again. The grandfather pushed these and teach our children about it they reading. to pretend that the fami- stories aside and claimed that they will fall prey to ignorance. Our chil- The Night Crossing. ly had only been away stemmed from fears of guilty people. dren must learn the truth about the By Karen Ackerman. on a holiday, but had to The grandfather did not explain what past, since they are the builders of our Random House Children’s carry the family’s most he meant by that. Etienne again went future. The strength of our society Books: New york 1995. 56 valued possessions. back to the location and this time saw depends solely on the education of pp. $5.99 paperback. Acting brave and strong, and talked to some children. They our children. lara and her older sis- Clara successfully seemed to be hiding in the woods and So how do we educate our children? Cter, Marta, were chased home answered the Nazis’ questions with waiting for a train. Etienne didn’t There are a growing number of lesson by other children — one of them used quick and clever answers. The family understand, and when he told his plans and activities to use in the to be Clara’s best friend. Since the successfully made it into Switzerland. grandfather, his grandfather did not classroom for educating about the persecution in Austria was increasing, The Shadow Children. believe the story. Etienne’s further Holocaust. But these programs and Clara’s father decided that they would By Steven Schnur. HarperCollins journeys to this location yielded him information will take time to spread, make a “night crossing” out of Austria Publishers: New York 1994. 96 pp. physical items such as a pocketknife. so parents and educators may want and into Switzerland. The family sold $35.45. Later, Etienne found a pen that made the children to read. Perhaps you can everything of value, including the ears after the Second World a blue mark on his arm. The grandfa- read these books with your children mother’s wedding band, but the moth- YWar, a young boy, Etienne, ther then told the story. and then discuss the feelings and er insisted on keeping the Shabbat made his annual visit to spend the Many children had been sent by events that are within them. candlesticks. Though the Shabbat summer months with his grandfather. (Continued on page 15) May/June 2014 - Iyyar/Sivan 5774 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 5 THE JEWS WHO FOUGHT FOR HITLER They fought alongside them, detail, and you soon realize the “I had to do my duty, like everyone,” Jews were part of this act of bringing healed them and often befriended “accommodation,” a battlefield he says. “We weren’t Jews fighting in everybody together. them. But how do Finland’s Jews Sophie’s Choice, has left deep psy- a Finnish army — we were Finnish “Politicians were determined to pro- feel today about their uneasy — chological scars. people, Finnish soldiers, fighting for tect every citizen, even former and little mentioned — alliance Aron Livson’s first taste of military our country.” We have met in the cafe- Communists. If they had broken with the Nazis? action came in 1939. A 23-year-old teria in the basement of Helsinki’s ranks, even for the Jews, it would son of a milliner from the city of synagogue, alongside Livson’s wife have annihilated that argument.” BY PAUL KENDALL, Vyborg, he was drafted into the army and other members THE TELEGRAPH when the Soviet Union invaded of the Finnish n September 1941, a medical offi- Finland. In common with many Jews, Jewish Veterans Icer performed a deed so heroic he he was determined to do his duty to Society. The atmos- was awarded an Iron Cross by the the best of his ability, laying down his phere is friendly, German high command. With little life for his country if necessary. jovial even, in the regard for his own safety, and in the lmost without exception, the way conversations face of heavy Soviet shelling, Major A Jews of Finland descended among veterans Leo Skurnik, a district doctor who had from Russian soldiers who had been sometimes are, but once fostered ambitions of becoming posted to the region during their mili- there is no mistak- a concert pianist, organized the evac- tary service. (Under Russian rule, ing Livson’s serious uation of a field hospital on the Jews had been forced into the army intent. When he’s Finnish-Russian border, saving the at the age of 10 and made to serve for making an impor- lives of more than 600 men, including up to 25 years.) They were viewed tant point, he bangs members of the SS. with some suspicion by the rest of a walking stick on Skurnik was far from the only soldier Finland, which itself had been ruled the floor in unison Finnish Jewish soldiers outside a field synagogue a few miles from to be awarded the Iron Cross during by Russia until its independence in with each word for German troops. the Second World War. More than 1917, and the war that broke out in emphasis. ne general, Hjalmar Siilasvuo, four million people received the deco- 1939, known in Finland as the Winter As well as doing their duty as sol- Owas positively proud of his sol- ration. But there was one fact about War, was regarded by the small diers and proving their loyalty to their diers’ Jewish ancestry. In the memoirs him that makes the recommendation Jewish population as a chance to country, the veterans insist they were of Salomon Klass, another Jewish remarkable: he was Jewish. And prove they were loyal Finnish citizens. happy to fight for another reason: as soldier who was offered the Iron Skurnik was not the only Jew fighting Livson fought in the Karelian far as they were concerned, Finland Cross, Klass, who had lost an eye in on the side of the Germans. More Isthmus and, although the army was and Germany were fighting separate the Winter War, tells a story about the than 300 found themselves in league eventually forced to retreat by the far wars, they say; one a war of self- general calling him into a meeting and defense and one a war of conquest. “I introducing him to German officers had nothing to do with the Germans,” present as “one of my best company says Livson. “There were no commanders.” “General Siilasvuo Germans where I was serving. They knew full well who I was and what were 200 km north of my regiment.” segment of the population I belonged But not every Jew was so lucky. On to,” Klass wrote. The Germans said the border with Russia, in the region nothing. of Karelia, Finnish and German Perhaps more uncomfortable are troops fought side by side and Jews incidents, revealed by the Finnish his- had to contend with two enemies: one torian Hannu Rautkallio, of friend- in front of them and one within their ships struck up between Jews and ranks. ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers. They lived in permanent fear of their “I have heard a story about one identity being revealed, but, incredi- Jewish soldier who was making his bly, on the occasions that it was, the way back to camp with a German of a German soldiers took the matter no similar rank,” says Simon. “The Jew further. The men were Finnish, they said to the German, ‘When we get had the full support of their superior back to camp, don’t tell people I’m Leo Skurnik, left, and Salomon Klass. officers, and the Germans — while Jewish.’ The German replied, ‘But with the Nazis when Finland, which larger Russian force, he fought so often shocked to find themselves nothing would happen to you — had a mutual enemy in the Soviet valiantly, demonstrating such great fighting alongside Jews — did not you’re a Finnish soldier. It’s me who Union, joined the war in June 1941. skill and initiative, that he was promot- have the authority to upbraid them. In would get into trouble.’ ” The alliance between Hitler and the ed to sergeant. fact, where they found themselves Feelings ran particularly high race he vowed to annihilate — the For a while, an uneasy peace reigned outranked by a Jewish officer, they among the injured. A scrapbook that only instance of Jews fighting for between Finland and the Soviet Union, were forced to salute. belonged to Chaje Steinbock, a Germany’s allies — is one of the most but, when Hitler launched Operation There may have been German Jewish nurse in the main hospital in extraordinary aspects of the Second Barbarossa, his surprise invasion of the troops in Finland and the German Oulu, 370 miles north of Helsinki, con- World War, and yet hardly anyone, Communist state, Finland saw an command and Gestapo in Helsinki, tains several heartfelt messages from including many Finns, knows any- opportunity to regain the territory it had but Finland rejected Hitler’s demands German patients. “To my darling, thing about it. lost in the Winter War and joined forces to introduce anti-Jewish laws. When what you are to me I have told you,” “I lived here for 25 years before I with Germany. Heinrich Himmler, the architect of the begins one from a soldier calling him- heard about it, and I’m Jewish,” says Like all Jews, Livson had heard Final Solution, visited Finland in self Rudy. “What I am to you, I have John Simon, a New Yorker who Hitler’s venomous tirades against his August 1942 and asked the prime never asked. I do not want to know it, moved to Helsinki in 1982. “It’s not a people. He knew something about minister Jukka Rangell about the I do not want to hear it, because to story that’s told very much.” Kristallnacht, the attacks against “Jewish Question,” Rangell replied: know too much may destroy happi- The reasons why it’s rarely told go German Jewish homes, businesses, “We do not have a Jewish Question.” ness. I will tell you just one thing: I right to the heart of what it means to schools and synagogues in “You have to remember,” says John would give you everything your heart be Jewish and that race’s quest to be November 1938. But, when the Simon, who has been interviewing desires. You are the woman I have accepted by a long list of unenthusi- orders arrived to rejoin the fight veterans about the war for several loved over everything else. Until now, astic host nations. The Jewish veter- against Russia, he didn’t for one years, “that only 20 years beforehand, I had never believed that anything like ans — a handful of whom are still minute consider disobeying. Finland had gone through an ugly, this existed.” alive today — insist they’re not Livson is 97 now and a frailer ver- brutal civil war which had split society Another woman, Dina Poljakoff, ashamed of what they did. But spend sion of the tough soldier he once was, in half. Ever since, there had been a who worked as a nursing assistant, is an evening in their company and talk but his voice remains loud and clear, concerted effort, led by a few brilliant believed to have made such an to other members of the community his handshake firm and his opinions politicians, to unite the country — to impression on her German patients who have examined the events in unwavering. get the Reds and the Whites together. (Continued on page 14) Page 6 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2014 - Iyyar/Sivan 5774 SURVIVORS’SURVIVORS’ CORNERCORNER

HITLER’S JEWISH NEIGHBOR LOOKS BACK IN HORROR IN NEW BOOK for a time ran neck and neck with cars parked there, so I knew he was were banned and burned by the BY DEBORAH COLE Hitler’s Mein Kampf in the best-seller there even before I left the house.” Nazis. rankings. Feuchtwanger believes he as a He and a few other relatives pooled dgar Feuchtwanger, the son of a Feuchtwanger, who is 89, is about child had a keener sense of what his together to give Ludwig the then hefty Eprominent German Jewish fami- to go on a German tour for a book of thoroughly German Jewish parents sum of 1,000 British pounds, upon his ly with roots in Bavaria going back his own, When Hitler Was Our and their friends could not believe: release, that would allow the family to centuries, vividly remembers nearly Neighbor, starting, of course, in that the country they loved would turn escape the Third Reich. bumping into his neighbor Adolf Hitler Munich. on them with such speed, hatred and, Fourteen-year-old Edgar was sent as a boy. He now lives in Britain, where his finally, blood-lust. to England first, and his parents It was 1933 and Hitler, who had just parents were able in 1938 to buy a “We were aware of the threat prob- joined him two months later. become German chancellor, kept a visa that would save the family’s lives ably even in 1932,” he said, his His aunt Bella, however, stayed sprawling flat on Munich’s elegant behind in Prague and would die at the Prinzregentenplatz next door to Theresienstadt concentration camp. Feuchtwanger’s family home. hen the war broke out in Eight years old at the time, Edgar W September 1939, Feucht- had been taken by his nanny for a wanger was beginning a new life at a walk when they nearly collided with British boarding school. the country’s most powerful man. His start was difficult, with the “It so happened that just at the English boys making fun of his moment when we were in front of his German name, calling him “fish fin- door, he came out. He was in a near- ger” and “Volkswagen.” ly white mackintosh,” Feuchtwanger But he would go on to outlive Hitler, told AFP. study at Cambridge, marry a British “We were in his way. He looked at general’s daughter and become a his- me and there were a few casual tory professor at the University of bystanders in the street — it was Southampton. about half past eight in the morning, He said French journalist Bertil Scali and they of course shouted ‘Heil approached him a few years ago with German-British historian Edgar Feuchtwanger, 88, who as a child lived with his family in Munich Hitler!’ He just lifted his hat a little bit, near the private residence of Adolf Hitler on Grillparzer Strasse, in Paris on January 17, 2013. the idea of a “literary” memoir that as any democratic politician would do would expand on the given facts. — he didn’t give the (straight-armed just as the noose was tightening English still lightly accented by his The German publication in April has Nazi) salute — and then he got into around Germany’s Jews. native German. drawn wide media coverage, with his car.” euchtwanger said his family at “But of course we didn’t realize how Munich-based national daily Feuchtwanger, who said several Ffirst had only an abstract sense radical that threat was, how lethal it Sueddeutsche Zeitung saying it read Jewish families lived in the neighbor- of the danger posed to them by the would get. My father had got that like a “spooky fairy tale — more Franz hood, made eye contact with Hitler, National Socialists and their person- quite wrong.” Kafka than the Brothers Grimm.” who looked at him “quite pleasantly.” able neighbor. That changed during the Feuchtwanger, who is still looking “I have to emphasize that if he had “He went around Germany cease- Kristallnacht pogrom of November for an English publisher, said his birth- known who I was, I wouldn’t be here,” lessly and he tended to come into 9–10, 1938, when his father Ludwig, place now seemed completely trans- he said. Munich at the end of the week, spend who worked for a publishing house formed. “Just my name would have been like a short time — he sometimes went to until he was stripped of his job, was “I tend to look at the German news- a red rag to him.” his favorite restaurant, the Osteria — swept up in the mass arrests. papers on my computer. One feels He was referring to the fact that he and then he would move on to his He was seized at their flat, within that somebody like (Chancellor) was a Jew, but also to his famous mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden,” view of Hitler’s front window, and held Angela Merkel, she’s blissfully without uncle, Lion Feuchtwanger, one of the he said. at the Dachau concentration camp charisma,” he said with a hearty most popular German authors of the “After about 1935–36, you couldn’t north of Munich for six terrifying laugh. early 20th century. any longer walk past his front door. weeks. “One’s had enough charismatic per- He penned a scathing 1930 satire of You were kept to the opposite side of Lion Feuchtwanger had already fled sonalities in German history to last for the Nazi leader called Success, which the road, but you could see these for France in 1933 because his books good and all.” HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR MEETS HER LIBERATOR AFTER 68 YEARS was liberated, I wanted to thank them, soldiers who liberated the was taken to the Majdanek concentra- BY NAOMI NIX, but I didn’t know who to thank.” Mauthausen concentration camp, one tion camp, where she was killed. THE WASHINGTON POST that didn’t have any suc- arsha Kreuzman says the rest t’s been almost 70 years, but cess until she met Joe Mof the family was then taken to IMarsha Kreuzman still remembers Barbella, quite by chance. Plashov, a labor camp just outside of the moment she lay outside the steps Their unlikely meeting Krakow, built on top of two former of a Nazi crematorium wishing she — and now a budding Jewish cemeteries. could die. friendship — has given There, she recalls, Nazis would Kreuzman had already lost her Kreuzman a pleasant punish or kill those who were too sick mother, father and brother to the twist to an otherwise trag- or weak to work. Holocaust, and death seemed ic story. “If they were able to work, they inevitable, she said. That tale begins in would be able to live,” said Michael But then an American soldier picked Marsha Kreuzman. Krakow, Poland. Riff, director of Ramapo College’s up her 68-pound body and whisked After the Germans invad- Center for Holocaust and Genocide her to safety. Since then, the now-90-year-old ed Poland in September 1939, Studies. “It was a matter of life or “I wanted to kiss his hand and thank Holocaust survivor has been on a Kreuzman and her family were sent to death.” him,” she said. “From the first day I decades-long quest to find American the Krakow ghetto. In 1940, her mother (Continued on page 12) May/June 2014 - Iyyar/Sivan 5774 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 7 DIARY OF SECOND WORLD WAR GERMAN TEENAGER REVEALS YOUNG LIVES UNTROUBLED BY NAZI HOLOCAUST Newly published diary hailed as that kept Nazi Germany turning,” is D-Day landings by planning an offen- one mention in the entire diary. On remarkable documentary evidence how Der Spiegel magazine described sive in the Ardennes, but Gitti — by February 27, 1943, she ends a trivia- of how millions of Germans relied the author. “She is a young woman now a member of the Nazi Party — is packed account about how she and on collective indifference to skilled in the art of blotting out ugli- more concerned about her hairdo. her friend Waltraud go to the opera endure the horrors of war. ness, willing to believe what she’s told She writes that she has just been and get chatted up by soldiers on the way home with the entry: “Jews all BY TONY PATERSON, over town being taken away, including THE INDEPENDENT the tailor across the road.” er neighborhood was bombed rigitte Eicke is now 86. She still Hby the allies, the Jews around Blives in East Berlin’s the corner were being sent to Prenzlauerberg district, where she Auschwitz and the Red Army had lived during the war. Just around the launched its final assault on Berlin. corner from where she worked as a But Brigitte Eicke, a teenaged secretary, there was a “collection cen- German, was unconcerned. She was ter” for Jews who were being sent to far more interested in going to the cin- the Auschwitz death camp. ema, dancing to gramophone records In a recent interview to coincide with and trying to cope with a “disastrous” the publication of her diary, she said: perm. “My son always said to me: how could The 15-year-old Berlin schoolgirl, you be so oblivious? But I never saw nicknamed “Gitti,” started keeping a a thing.” She added: “There were diary in December 1942, when the some Jewish girls in my first class German capital was being bombed photograph taken in 1933 but, by the nightly and the Nazi Holocaust was time the next one was taken, they killing thousands. As a trainee secre- were all gone. When I asked my tary, she recorded her daily experi- mother about them, she said they had ences to improve her stenography Central Berlin in 1945 after a bomb raid. moved to Palestine.” skills. Decades would pass before she Now, some 70 years on, her diary and, ultimately, one of the lucky given a “disastrous” perm by her hair- grasped the enormity of the Nazis’ has been published for the first time in ones,” it added. dresser and is worried about going to crimes. “It was only when I visited Germany and is being hailed as Here is Gitti’s entry for February 1, work “looking a fright.” Buchenwald in 1970 that I saw photo- remarkable documentary evidence of 1944: “The school had been bombed Then on March 2, 1945, while graphs of the camps. It took me years how millions of Germans relied on when we arrived this morning. Hitler’s troops are trying to halt the to realize what had gone on,” she collective indifference to endure the Waltraud, Melitta and I went back to Red Army’s advance just 60 miles said. horrors of war and ignore the brutality Gisela’s and danced to gramophone east of Berlin, Gitti, now 18, goes to Unlike thousands of young German of the Nazi rule. records.” In another raid on her Berlin the cinema. She writes: “Margot and I women, Brigitte Eicke appears to Entitled Backfisch im Bombenkrieg neighborhood in March 1943, two went to the Admiralspalast cinema to have escaped being raped by Red (teenaged girl in bombing war), people are killed, 34 are injured and see Meine Herren Söhne. It was such Army troops when they took Berlin. Eicke’s diary is an often banal more than 1,000 are made homeless. a lovely film, but there was a power But she lost her father and an uncle account of everyday life. She started Gitti writes: “It took place in the middle cut in the middle. How annoying!” on the eastern front. Some German writing it just months before Anne of the night, horrible, I was half The humdrum tone is all the more commentators have suggested that Frank began her diary, but the con- asleep.” disquieting when it comes to the her naive and apolitical account of her tents could hardly be more different. In November 1944, Hitler is trying to steady disappearance of Berlin’s experiences was an unconscious sur- “Gitti is merely a cog in the wheels cripple the advances made after the Jews — an issue that receives only vival attempt. NEW CASE STUDY EXPLORES ROLE OF POLISH PEASANTS IN HOLOCAUST ATROCITIES new research pertaining to Polish said that this particular case study on, but I thought it was all part of a BY JUDY MALTZ, HAARETZ Jewry during the Holocaust. represented a widespread pattern popular, disorganized activity — In his latest study, Grabowski evident in other areas of rural Poland killing people who no longer enjoyed olish peasants and villagers delved into the history of one particu- as well. protection of the state and were in a played an instrumental role in P lar rural county in southeastern “I have become more and more con- free-for-all situation. What I did not rounding up and denouncing Jews Poland, where many Jews were vinced that the bleak picture we are know — and there was not even one during the Holocaust, often taking ini- betrayed or murdered by local resi- seeing in this one area is the picture,” single article in the entire published tiative without any encouragement dents, after they had escaped mass he said. historiography about this — was the from the Germans, according to a deportations and killings and were rabowski’s findings would seem extent to which these efforts were study by Holocaust historian Jan desperately seeking hideouts in the to corroborate those of the organized. And this was all going on Grabowski. G countryside. renowned historian Jan Gross, whose practically without any German In Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and The county, Dabrowa Tarnowska, controversial bestsellers Neighbors involvement — in most cases, the Murder in German-Occupied Poland, which is about 50 miles northeast of and Golden Harvest paint a damning Germans were sitting in cities 15–20 Grabowski argues that Poles living in Krakow, had a Jewish population of picture of Polish complicity in Nazi miles away.” the countryside served as enthusias- 5,000 before the war. Roughly 350 of atrocities committed against the Polish collaboration with the Nazis tic accomplices to the Nazis and that the county’s Jews survived by 1942, Jews. Excerpts of Grabowski’s book was less common, he said, in areas many Jews who had managed to sur- by which time the Germans had com- have already been published in of the country, such as Galicia, where vive the ghettos and escape trans- pleted most of the roundups and Poland, where, like Gross, he has ethnic Poles were a minority, and out- ports to the death camps eventually deportations in the area, but only come under widespread attack. numbered by ethnic Ukrainians. lost their lives only because they were about 60 of them were alive by the Grabowski described his latest “If you look at Galicia, you’ll see turned in by their Polish neighbors. end of the war, the majority having research as quite “surprising” and that the Poles there were on the hit Grabowski, a professor in the been killed or betrayed to the “dramatic.” list of the Ukrainians, and this made department of history at the University Germans by local Poles, according to “For one, I had always thought to them more likely to be sympathetic to of Ottawa, is also on staff at the Polish Grabowski’s findings, based on court myself that the main instigators, the Jews who were also being perse- Center for Holocaust Research. He records and personal testimonies. actors and perpetrators were the cuted by the Ukrainians,” he said. presented his findings at a special Speaking at a session during the Germans,” he explained. “Second, I “But there still needs to be more symposium held at Yad Vashem on symposium, the Polish-born scholar knew there were horrific things going research done on this subject.” Page 8 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2014 - Iyyar/Sivan 5774 PHOTO HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE AMERICAN SOCIET May/June 2014 - Iyyar/Sivan 5774 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 9 TY FOR YAD VASHEM ANNUAL SPRING LUNCHEON

Photos by Bernard Delierre. Page 10 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2014 - Iyyar/Sivan 5774 REPORTREPORT FROMFROM YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM JEWS “ON THE EDGE” 1944: BETWEEN ANNIHILATION AND LIBERATION which ending will come first? Events activists and neutral diplomats stepped Lublin, actual gas chambers were BY PROFESSOR DINA PORAT were occurring fast, one after the up their rescue activities in Budapest, revealed for the first time. The industri- other, raising serious questions in ultimately contributing to the survival of alization of murder, the technology that he expression “on the edge,” their wake. over 100,000 Hungarian Jews. acted in the service of Nazi ideology, taken from Nathan Alterman’s T In March 1944, the Germans invad- However, in June, Jews from the the ability to commit crimes of such poem Joy of the Poor, very aptly ed Hungary and immediately com- Greek island of Corfu were rounded up enormity in secret and over such a long expresses the feeling which prevailed menced preparations for the swiftest and deported, and in July, the Kovno period of time — all of them still deeply in 1944 among the Jews of Europe, and most organized deportation any ghetto in Lithuania was liquidated. disturbing — were finally exposed. who were in the throes of a double Nazi ideology, which was cen- Following these events, the Jewish race on which their very lives depend- tered around the burning jurist Raphael Lemkin coined the term ed. On the one hand, cities from east desire to kill every single “genocide” in 1944, and participated in to west, such as Vilna and Minsk, Jewish individual, dictated the drafting of a UN resolution for its Warsaw and Riga, Belgrade and such efforts even in the final prevention, approved in 1948. Sofia, Paris and Rome, were being year of the war, when the In October, an uprising in Auschwitz liberated from the yoke of Nazi Germans needed every was staged by the Sonderkommando, Germany; the Red Army was advanc- means at their disposal to fight the group of Jewish prisoners tasked ing, and the western Allies continued at the front, a need that includ- with the unspeakable job of handling to bombard Germany, their landing in ed the urgent requirement for the bodies of the murdered victims. Normandy tipping the scales still fur- trains to bring them equipment They blew up one of the gas cham- ther. On the other hand, in the same and arms, and for every pair of bers with the help of explosives year, the Jews of Hungary were sent The crowds greet the liberating armies, Paris, France, hands that could still work to smuggled in to them by a group of to Auschwitz, the Lodz and Kovno August 25, 1944. produce weapons that would young Jewish women. The question ghettos were liquidated, the last of Jewish community had ever wit- turn the tide of the war in their favor. we must ask ourselves is, from where their former inmates were deported nessed: from the middle of May, over n June, the “Auschwitz Protocols” did these men and women, impris- and murdered, and death marches 430,000 Jews from Hungary were sent were disseminated around the oned in this indescribable place, draw were initiated from the liberated terri- I almost exclusively to Auschwitz, where world. This detailed account, written by the strength to organize, band togeth- tories to the heart of what remained of the vast majority were murdered in the Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, two er, choose the right moment, and the Third Reich. It was a year in which space of two months. A ray of light that young Jews who managed to escape actually hope to succeed? everything depended on the scales of year was the beginning of the return of from the infamous concentration and These events are at the heart of the time, and the Jews remaining in the remnant of those exiled to death camp, exposed for the first time tension between annihilation and lib- Europe were asking themselves: will Transnistria, a region in southern the central role of the camp in the eration, a tension that was literally a the Red Army from the east and the Ukraine where conditions were among extermination system. Shortly after- question of life and death for the Jews Allies from the west arrive before the the most horrific. At around the same wards, with the liberation of Majdanek, at that time, who were living on the Germans come to murder whoever is time, Zionist youth, other Jewish the hard labor and death camp near very edge. still alive? Or, as Alterman wrote, “WE FOUND YOUR NOTE” MYSTERIOUS LETTER REUNITES FAMILIES SEPARATED SINCE THE HOLOCAUST and Rachel were killed, and only the author of the letter meant that he right on the border,” Alex explained. BY DEBORAH BERMAN Penina, Esther and Chedva had sur- was a descendant of Esther, but was “For years he entered Ukraine and vived. Nurit and Dorit, two of Penina’s actually the grandson of Rachel Gold suddenly, when he entered Poland, he hen sisters Nurit Baruch and granddaughters, visit her grave every née Decker, who might not have been found the name Esther Abramovich — WDorit Oz Gross visited their year and hold a joint memorial service murdered as they thought but might the sister of his grandmother.” grandmother’s grave at a Petach Tikva for her and her sister Esther. They took perhaps have survived the war. Alex helped his father continue his cemetery, they found a chilling mes- upon themselves the role of diligently They immediately dialed the phone research in Israel to track down Esther, sage from someone who claimed to be safeguarding and preserving the number that appeared in the letter. and eventually contacted the local bur- a long-lost relative — someone who Decker family memory, in the belief “We left my phone number because ial society, who told them exactly was reaching out to them across that they were among the only surviv- my father does not speak Hebrew well where her grave was located within the decades of separation in the wake of ing descendants. and we were afraid that he might miss cemetery compound. Alexander visit- the Shoah. The letter was written by During their annual visit in the sum- the call,” recalls Alex Gold, Alexander’s ed the cemetery, where he left the let- Alexander Gold, whose family mer of 2012, they noticed a dusty plas- son. “The phone rang and I heard the ter in the hope that someone from the research led him to the grave when, tic bag under a memorial candle. The emotional voice of a woman who said: family would find it. after years of tireless search efforts, he printed letter inside included a tele- ‘We found your note.’” A short time after the graveside tele- found new information on Yad phone number, and called on visitors Following the war, Alexander’s phone conversation, an emotional Vashem’s Central Database of Shoah to the grave to make contact, stating: mother Freida had returned to east- reunion took place at Dorit’s home in Victims’ Names and was determined to “Shalom, I am the grandson of Esther ern Ukraine and searched local Modiin. The families compared photos do everything in his power to seek out Abramowich. My mother, the late Milka archives for every scrap of informa- and documents and cross-referenced his surviving lost family. The informa- Freida Gold, was her niece. The tion that would help her determine if information about the Decker family. It tion in the Names Database and the daughter of Rachel, Esther’s sister. My any members of her family had sur- turned out that all the information con- mysterious letter led to the reunion of name is Alexander Gold.” vived. It was only when Alexander firmed that they were indeed related. two branches of the family that had not fter their initial shock, Nurit and decided to conduct a search on the “The reunion was monumental for my known of each other’s existence since A Dorit realized that something in Names Database listing the country family, and so important to my father,” the end of World War II. Alexander’s story did not add up: as Poland, instead of Ukraine, that he said Alex. “After years of research, try- Growing up, Nurit and Dorit believed since they knew that Esther found a Page of Testimony commem- ing to find any surviving members of that most of the extended Decker fam- Abramowitz had only one son, who orating Rachel Gold, submitted to Yad his family, it was very, very exciting. ily from Budzanow, Poland, had been was executed by the Nazis, Vashem by her sister Esther We saw that we had the same photo- murdered by the Nazis. They had Alexander could not be her grandson. Abramovich in 1955. graphs, and our documents bore the always been told that of the seven Upon further consideration, they “My father did not think to search for same family names. It was a really Decker children, Aryeh, Sima, Leibish entertained the thought that perhaps Poland — the town Budzanow was special moment.” May/June 2014 - Iyyar/Sivan 5774 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 11 HOW A SOVIET GENERAL INSPIRED HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY The article dealt with the split weeks after its liberation. The letter- the Horizon film. “On that day,” I said, BY FRED BARSCHAK, THEJC.COM between Holocaust scholars at the writer urged that it should be made “I think your place is with us.” time. One camp, called the available to scholars. He agreed to come to London. On ome of the most chilling words “Intentionalists” and led by Lucy From that moment, Fleming bom- the day of the commemoration, long ever spoken by a Nazi to a Jew S Davidowitz, maintained that Hitler’s barded the Russians with telegrams queues formed outside the venue an occur at the end of the film purpose from the very beginning was and finally obtained permission for hour before opening. Some 1,500 Schindler’s List. On the day Germany the destruction of European Jewry. him and his colleague, Professor people attended, many of them sur- surrenders, an SS officer tells The second group, called Robert Jan van Pelt, to spend two vivors. Schindler’s bookkeeper: “The worst “Functionalists,” saw the phenome- months studying the contents of the There were a number of excellent thing we ever did to you is that, when non as a two-way process, with not archive. speeches, and I particularly recall the you come to tell people what we did, only orders coming from the top It contained all the drawings and contributions of the late Rabbi Hugo no one will ever believe you.” down, but also initiatives coming from architects’ plans of everything in Gryn and Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, both It was this thought — making people the bottom up. Auschwitz, showing who had supplied former Auschwitz inmates. The film believe the unbelievable, and the What Bullock did in this was shown, and finally came General need not just to commemorate, but article was to produce a Petrenko’s talk. It lasted for about 20 also to present the evidence of how synthesis of the two ideas, minutes and then, towards the end, and when, and where, and on whose which, he said, were not came the words: “My government initiative the Holocaust had taken mutually exclusive. But would like to support the naming of place — that informed much of the one thing, he maintained, January 27 as an annual Holocaust work of the Yad Vashem — on whose was a constant — Hitler’s memorial day.” committee I sat — and kindred organ- twin dream of the destruc- any years were to pass before izations. tion of the Jews and the such a day was actually set up, But the emphasis changed radically M destruction of the Soviet and there were many contributors to in 1991. Before that date, Holocaust Union. move the idea forward, but the fact deniers were treated as “Second I then rang Bullock, and remains that the utterance of those World War flat-earthers,” but in that after introductions (I’d met words by the general was the first year, their ranks were swollen by the him at Oxford in the time the idea of an annual memorial arrival of a full-blown denier, David 1950s), he asked me what day had been raised. Irving. I wanted from him. I Apart from thousands of Jewish par- Irving, in the previous 30 years, had replied that if he would tisan fighters, there were probably acquired credibility as a Second General Petrenko. consent to give a lecture, some 200,000 Jewish soldiers in the World War historian, and especially we would reprint 20,000 copies of the the crematoria; who had built the gas ranks of the Red Army; there were as a researcher. He achieved this Listener article, and send them to chambers; and every detail of the certainly 300 Jewish generals. despite having been successfully every history faculty and sixth-form operation from its beginning to January I tried to address the general’s sued for libel by Captain Broome, college in the world. 1945. It named participants who remarks in my vote of thanks. I said: commander of the Russian Arctic There was a momentary pause, and worked in Auschwitz, and who sup- “The Jewish people and the Russian Convoy, PQ 17, whom he had wrong- then Bullock said that was an offer no plied the instruments of destruction, people share one aspect of their lives ly accused of cowardice. one could refuse and agreed to give with precise details of contracts, con- in common. They count their innumer- Irving was successfully sued on four the lecture in London later in the year. struction and operating procedures. able dead ‘approximately.’ I’ve heard other occasions, but this was still sev- We arranged it for the autumn, at Here, indeed, were the “nuts and that word all my life. Approximately six eral years before his crushing libel the Logan Hall, and pre-sold 1,000 bolts” of Auschwitz. It was the most million victims of the Shoah, approxi- defeat against the journalist Deborah tickets. Bullock had given his talk the comprehensive information of such mately 22 million Russian casualties, Lipstadt, when Mr. Justice Grey title “Hitler and the Holocaust.” As he an operation in the Second World including six million killed, or is it six branded him an anti-Semite and began speaking, he said he would War. Fleming and Van Pelt published and a quarter million or six and a half Holocaust denier, and Professor address two or three related but sep- their findings in 1992–93. million? A quarter of a million up, or a Richard Evans, in his evidence, arate issues. The only remaining question for us quarter of a million down. And in the showed how he lied about Hitler. he first was the scope of the was how to publish the information. field of accurate scholarship it is entire- Back in 1991, he still had supporters Holocaust. Bullock stated that But sitting in the audience at the ly right that that word ‘approximately’ among the academic community, and T his research showed that at the least, Logan Hall that night was a young be used. We shall never know precise- it was not immediately clear how to some five million, and at the higher BBC producer named Isabelle Rosin, ly the figure of the slaughtered.” deal with him. end, some six million victims had who worked for Horizon, a science But in the field of commemoration, Up to that year, Irving, who had been exterminated, and that this per- documentary series on BBC2. the word “approximately” has no written some 30 books on the centage of destruction of an identifi- She began to urge her bosses to place. I have never met any approxi- Second World War, had contented able homogenous group was the allow her to make a film disclosing mate mothers or fathers, brothers or himself by asserting that, in so far as highest in history. Fleming’s and van Pelt’s findings. At sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts, there was a Holocaust, it was on a The second issue was that he first, the Horizon producers were cousins or friends. Each is remem- much smaller scale than previously traced Hitler’s personal knowledge reluctant, simply because it was a sci- bered as a unique individual and thought, and, in any case, Hitler and control of the genocide. But it ence program. Her point was that recalled with great precision. knew little about it. It was all the work was the third part of the lecture that here was history revealed in architec- So where are we now? Acts of of Himmler and the SS. was to prove sensational. Bullock tural drawings. Finally she got her extermination have not ceased, nor His change of tack can best be drew our attention to the work of Dr. way, and in 1994 The Blueprints of has Holocaust denial vanished. summed up by his statement: “More Gerald Fleming, reader in German at Genocide was broadcast in 94 coun- The raising of an inverted Hitler people died in the back seat of Teddy Surrey University and someone who tries to an audience of 130 million salute, not just on the football field but Kennedy’s car in Chappaquiddick had been engaged in Holocaust people. at the very gates of Auschwitz, testifies than were gassed in Auschwitz.” scholarship for more than 30 years, The film also chronicled the libera- to the persistence of the longest hatred At the beginning of 1993, I chanced during which time he had confronted tion of the camp, and the four officers and with it “the assault on truth and upon a placard outside the Irving more than once. who commanded the operation. One memory,” in Deborah Lipstadt’s phrase. newsagent at Finchley Road station. In 1991 Fleming came across what of them, the Soviet General Petrenko, Perhaps, after all, that persistence It advertised an article in the Listener he described to me as a KGB maga- was still alive. is what is meant by the words in the magazine by historian Professor Alan zine. In it there was a letter to the edi- We were preparing to organize the Haggadah: “In every generation men Bullock, entitled The Evil Dream. I tor asking why what he called the 50th anniversary of the liberation of have risen up to destroy us.” The was an avid reader of anything “Auschwitz archive” was kept under Auschwitz. I got hold of a Russian need to confront this ongoing attempt Bullock wrote — he was the first biog- lock and key in Moscow. The archive interpreter and found the general’s to deny historical truth devolves upon rapher of Hitler in 1956, and in 1993 contained all the material removed phone number. I told him that we each generation anew and in this bat- was bringing out another book on from Auschwitz in the first three were planning a special screening of tle, there are no permanent victories. Hitler and Stalin. Page 12 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2014 - Iyyar/Sivan 5774 RECALLING THE 1943 ROSH HASHANAH HOLOCAUST ESCAPE OF DANISH JEWS regime and the Danish government, Danish universities, which shut down he implications of the Danish BY RAPHAEL MEDOFF, the Nazis declared martial law and so that students could assist the smug- T rescue operation resonated THE JEWISH VOICE decided the time had come to deport glers. More than 7,000 Danish Jews strongly in the United States. The Danish Jews to the death camps. But reached Sweden and were sheltered Roosevelt administration had long s the final minutes of Rosh Georg Duckwitz, a German diplomat in there until the end of the war. insisted that rescue of Jews from the A Hashanah ticked away, 13- Denmark, leaked the information to Esther Finkler, a young newlywed, Nazis was not possible. The refugee year-old Leo Goldberger was hiding, Danish friends. Duckwitz was later was hidden, together with her hus- advocates known as the Bergson along with his parents and three honored by Yad Vashem as one of the band and their mothers, in a green- Group began citing the escape of brothers, in the thick brush along the Righteous Among the Nations. As house. “At night, we saw the Denmark’s Jews as evidence that if shore of Dragor, a small fishing vil- word of the Germans’ plans spread, [German] searchlights sweeping back the Allies were sufficiently interested, lage south of Copenhagen. The year the Danish public responded with a and forth throughout the neighbor- ways could be found to save many was 1943, and the Goldbergers, like spontaneous nationwide grassroots hood,” as the Nazis hunted for Jews, European Jews. thousands of other Danish Jews, effort to help the Jews. Esther later recalled. One evening, a The Bergson Group sponsored a were desperately trying to escape an The Danes’ remarkable response member of the Danish Underground series of full-page newspaper adver- imminent Nazi roundup. gave rise to the legend that King arrived and drove the four “through tisements about the Danish-Swedish “Finally, after what seemed like an Christian X himself rode through the streets saturated with Nazi storm effort, headlined “It Can Be Done!” On excruciatingly long wait, we saw our streets of Copenhagen on horseback, troopers,” to a point near the shore. October 31, thousands of New signal offshore,” Goldberger later wearing a yellow Star of David, and that There they hid in an underground Yorkers jammed Carnegie Hall for the recalled. His family “strode straight the citizens of the city likewise donned shelter, and then in the attic of a bak- Bergson Group’s “Salute to Sweden into the ocean and waded through the star in solidarity with the Jews. ery, until finally they were brought to a and Denmark” rally. three or four feet of icy water until we The story may have had its origins beach, where they boarded a small Keynote speakers included members were hauled aboard a fishing boat” in a political cartoon that appeared in fishing vessel together with other of Congress, Danish and Swedish and covered themselves “with smelly a Swedish newspaper in 1942. It Jewish refugees. “There were nine of diplomats, and one of the biggest canvases.” Shivering and frightened, showed King Christian pointing to a us, lying down on the deck or the names in Hollywood — Orson Welles, but grateful, the Goldberger family Star of David and declaring that if the floor,” Esther said. “The captain cov- director of Citizen Kane and The War of soon found itself in the safety and Nazis imposed it upon the Jews of ered us with fishing nets. When the Worlds. In another coup for the freedom of neighboring Sweden. Denmark, “then we must all wear the everyone had been properly con- Bergson Group, one of the speakers For years, the Allied leaders had star.” Leon Uris’s novel Exodus, and cealed, the fishermen started the was Leon Henderson, one of President insisted that nothing could be done to the movie based on that book, helped boat, and as the motor started to run, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s own for- rescue Jews from the Nazis except to spread the legend. But subsequent so did my pent-up tears.” mer economic advisers. win the war. But in one extraordinary investigations by historians have con- Then, suddenly, trouble. “The captain In blunt language that summed up night, the Danish people exploded cluded that the story is a myth. began to sing and whistle nonchalant- the tragedy — and the hope — that myth and changed history. n Rosh Hashanah — which fell ly, which puzzled us. Soon we heard Henderson declared: “The Allied gov- When the Nazis occupied Denmark Oon September 30 and October 1 him shouting in German toward a ernments have been guilty of moral during the Holocaust in 1940, the in 1943 — and the days that followed, passing Nazi patrol boat: ‘Wollen sie cowardice. The issue of saving the Danes put up little resistance. As a numerous Danish Christian families einen beer haben?’ (Would you like a Jewish people of Europe has been result, the German authorities agreed hid Jews from Holocaust persecution beer?) — a clever gimmick designed avoided, submerged, played down, to let the Danish government continue in their homes or farms, and then to avoid the Germans’ suspicions. hushed up, resisted with all the forms functioning with greater autonomy smuggled them to the seashore late at After three tense hours at sea, we of political force that are available… than those of other occupied coun- night. From there, fishermen took them heard shouting: ‘Get up! Get up! And Sweden and Denmark have proved tries. They also postponed taking across the Kattegat Straits to neighbor- welcome to Sweden!’ It was hard to the tragedy of Allied indecision… The steps against Denmark’s 8,000 ing Sweden. This three-week opera- believe, but we were now safe. We Danes and Swedes have shown us Jewish citizens. tion had the strong support of Danish cried and the Swedes cried with us as the way… If this be a war for civiliza- In the late summer of 1943, amid ris- church leaders, who used their pulpits they escorted as ashore. The night- tion, then most surely this is the time ing tensions between the occupation to urge aid to the Jews, as well as mare was over,” Esther recalled. to be civilized!” HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR MEETS HER LIBERATOR AFTER 68 YEARS (Continued from page 6) rounded up some of the camp’s prison- n’t enter the camp with the medical have been connected to the Army It was a strategy Kreuzman and her ers, including Grunberg. German doc- unit until the day after it was liberated, division that liberated Mauthausen. family would come to know intimately. tors inspected each person and sent he said. “I always look for liberators,” she “They didn’t let us live, but they did- those they deemed capable of working “When we got there, we saw all said. “I wasn’t giving up.” n’t let us die,” Kreuzman said. to the right and those who were consid- these people were skin and bones,” Then, in October, nearly 70 years At one point, Kreuzman didn’t finish ered unable to work to the left. Barbella said. after her liberation, she came across building a road because it was rain- Grunberg was sent to the left — and Kreuzman said she remembers lying a wedding anniversary announce- ing, and guards responded by beating later to Auschwitz to be killed. down just outside the camp’s cremato- ment in The Star-Ledger for Joe and her with a wet horse’s whip. The scars “Then I was alone,” Kreuzman said. rium when the soldiers arrived. She Anne Barbella’s 65th anniversary. from knots that were tied into the whip In January 1945, Kreuzman and heard the words: “You’re free.” “A veteran of World War II, Joseph remain on her back to this day, she other prisoners were marched for five She fainted and a soldier carried her served in the 11th Armored Division said. Another time, they hung her days and four nights to Auschwitz. to a field hospital, where doctors which liberated the Mauthausen con- upside down on a door for several She said she was eventually trans- would start nursing her back to health, centration camp,” the announcement hours during the night after she tried ferred to concentration camps across she said. said. to visit her brother, she said. Eastern Europe: Bergen-Belsen, then fter the war, Kreuzman spent a The next day, a tearful Kreuzman n Yom Kippur in 1943, Flossenburg and finally Mauthausen. A few years in England before called the Barbellas and told Anne OKreuzman’s father was found By that time, Joe Barbella was serv- moving to the United States in 1952. Barbella that she was one of the Jews hiding in a ditch, where the camp’s ing in the 11th Armored Division. Barbella returned to New Jersey, whom Joe liberated. bathrooms were. Nazi soldiers lined Because he had learned to type at building a comfortable life with his They arranged a meeting at the him and dozens of other Jews up one Central High School in Newark, when wife, Anne. Barbellas’ home later that month. by one in front of the camp’s occu- he was drafted into the Army, he was Working as a nurse and living in “They really welcomed me with pants and shot them to death, accord- quickly assigned to be a record keep- New Jersey, Kreuzman always won- open arms,” Kreuzman said about the ing to Kreuzman. er for the division’s medical unit, he dered about the American men who two-hour visit. “They shot him in front of us,” she said. crossed enemy lines to free her and Barbella said he felt like he has said. On May 5, 1945, U.S. soldiers from other Jews from the Austrian concen- known Kreuzman for years, though Her brother, Stephan Grunberg, the 11th Armored Division would tration camp. he shied away from her descriptions would be next. cross the Linz border in Austria and She even wrote letters to men in of his work as heroic. “I’m just an ordi- On May 13, 1944, Nazi soldiers liberate Mauthausen. Barbella would- telephone books she thought might nary solider,” he said. May/June 2014 - Iyyar/Sivan 5774 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 13 AT SOBIBOR: BUILDING IN THE HEART OF A DEATH CAMP (Continued from page 2) scale, there has been a long-term had little more to offer a visitor than Haimi and Mazurek await permis- t the end of 2013, archeolo- cooperation between countries with barrenness, isolation, and an eerie sion to excavate, including — they A gists unearthed a metal name- different history and traditions, as well feeling of emptiness,” Heideman told hope — underneath an asphalt-paved plate belonging to Annie Kapper, a as with different approaches to the the Times. square, built as a memorial in 1965. murdered Jewish girl from remembrance of the victims of the The importance of bringing more Under this square — almost the size Amsterdam, as well as a shovel prob- Shoah,” said the deputy minister. “My people to Sobibor outweighs the of a soccer field — they expect to find ably used in the crematoria, said intention in the nearest future is to “somewhat necessary destruction” remnants of the gas chambers. Mazurek. invite to the project all the countries involved in creating new facilities, she Even in parts of Sobibor not “paved “It’s very sensitive to touch this whose nationals were killed in said. over” since the Holocaust, questions place,” Mazurek told the Times. Sobibor,” he said. “Having a museum, albeit one set remain. At the mass graves area, “Every artifact is important, since it In an interview with the Times, the up facing the path on which people unauthorized excavations during the means it was one more human life. deputy minister praised the steering walked to their deaths, is meant to 1990s caused considerable damage, The feeling is always a bit sad, but it’s committee for funding more than half pay tribute to their death by perpetu- said Mazurek. As with the asphalt very important we can discover these a decade of excavations at Sobibor, a ating knowledge and memory of what square memorial, there is no record of artifacts and show the world,” he said. project he called “of unprecedented transpired there,” said Heideman. who conducted what Haimi called “a scope and scale.” In response to archeologists’ con- botched dig,” or what was found in the The visitor center’s cerns about building inside Sobibor, ground. design was selected deputy minister Zuchowski said For six years, the University of through an internation- “exhaustive research” has already Hartford’s Sobibor Documentation al architectural compe- tition held last year. The one-story structure — chosen from among 63 submissions — will include almost 10,000 square feet of exhibi- tion halls, classrooms and a cafeteria. Project plans also Archeologists Wojtek Mazurek (left) and Yoram Haimi, excavators call for erecting a of Sobibor since 2007. memorial wall — The latest excavations yielded sev- almost a mile long — between the eral complete skeletons — possibly visitor center and the area of mass Poles who were shot by Soviet sol- graves, parallel to the “Road to diers, said Haimi. Also uncovered Heaven.” The wall will be inscribed were open-air cremation pits, close to with historical information about the the mass graves, bringing the total of camp and will encircle the mass such pits mapped to nine. graves themselves, including the “When we opened near the mass prominent “ash mountain” memorial. Metal nameplate of murdered Jewish Dutch girl, unearthed at the end of 2013. graves, we smelled fluids from the BALANCING COMPETING bodies,” said Haimi. “It’s been 70 been conducted at the proposed con- Project has recorded findings from INTERESTS years, and still we smelled them,” he struction site. each excavation season. A documen- said. he plans for Sobibor are not “It is not considered acceptable by tary film about the digs, called Deadly As Haimi and Mazurek dug at T only welcome, but long over- our civilization to create a permanent Deception at Sobibor, is in post-pro- Sobibor, the Polish-German due, said some Holocaust educators. archeological zone in an area of eter- duction. Reconciliation Foundation conducted For decades, Sobibor has been the nal rest,” said Zuchowski. “This was “It’s quite amazing to see this fund-raising for the visitor center. least visited of the former death the scene of the crime, as well as the process unfold,” said Avinoam Patt, a Created in 1991 to assist Nazi victims camps, due to both its remote location place of eternal rest — a kind of professor of modern Jewish history and promote dialogue, the and the lack of tourist facilities. cemetery,” he added. involved with the project. “The arche- Foundation has distributed more than “We have to remember that the When ground is broken next year, ologists are incorporating testimonies one billion dollars to 700,000 vic- of survivors into their research, and tims, in addition to funding proj- we are getting all kinds of information ects at sites like Sobibor. we did not have before,” Patt told the Working closely with the Times. Foundation, the Polish govern- The question of building inside for- ment’s Sobibor steering commit- mer death camps revolves around tee includes representatives from “competing interests,” including the Israel, the Netherlands and the pull between historical and commem- Slovak Republic. In 2012, the orative motives, said James Young, committee unanimously voted to professor of Judaic studies at the construct a visitor center, muse- University of Massachusetts, and um and new memorial struc- author of several books on Holocaust tures. The Majdanek State memory. Museum — which oversees Visitors to Sobibor will experience activities at the former death what Young called “a weird kind of camps Majdanek and Belzec — collapse between the two processes was brought in to supervise the of forensics and memory.” project. “Despite these tensions, there “The international aspect of this should be room for ongoing discus- project is particularly important The proposed visitor center will overlook the cynically named “Road to Heaven,” on which victims were sions to find accommodation for both for me,” said Piotr Zuchowski, herded toward the gas chambers. building and excavation,” Young told Poland’s deputy minister of culture Nazis tried to demolish these sites to archeologists will be on hand to the Times. “It seems to me that they and chair of the Sobibor steering erase all memory,” said Holocaust supervise activities and — as permit- can adjust, so long as it’s quite clear committee. scholar and educator Elana Yael ted by Polish law — halt construction in everyone’s mind to what end they “For the first time in a project of this Heideman. “Until now, Sobibor has to retrieve artifacts, said Zuchowski. are doing this,” he said. Page 14 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2014 - Iyyar/Sivan 5774

THE DOCUMENT THAT THE JEWS WHO FOUGHT FOR HITLER MIGHT HAVE CHANGED Continued from page 5) 53rd infantry, and the German SS Nevertheless, after the war, as the HISTORY that, like Skurnik and Klass, she was division with whom they were fighting, horrors of the Holocaust revealed n his will, suppressed by the awarded the Iron Cross (the third and suffered heavy losses. themselves, a discomfort about their INazis, Weimar-era president final Finnish Jew to have been offered “It was really awful,” says Samuli. special treatment spread, among both Hindenburg disavowed the leader the medal). “Non-Aryan women were “There were a lot of casualties and the Finnish Jews themselves and the he’d appointed, according to a defec- not meant to tend to Aryan men and my father didn’t have enough medica- wider Jewish community. At a meet- tor’s testimony in newly opened the Germans knew my mother was tion.” But Skurnik never gave up. At ing of war veterans in Tel Aviv in 1946, British papers. Jewish, but despite all this, they liked one point he even ventured into no- the Finns were almost thrown out as Declassified British intelligence her,” says Aviva Nemes-Jalkanen, the man’s-land to rescue wounded traitors. Had it not occurred to them, papers have shed new light on the daughter of Steinbock. German soldiers when no other offi- they were asked, that, by helping testimony of a pre–WWII German Germans are even reported to have cers dared. Finally, with no sign of a Hitler, they had prolonged his time in diplomat who claimed that a single visited a field synagogue that was letup in the Russian shelling, he took power and thus ensured that more document, which was once in his pos- erected near the front line. “It was an the decision that the field hospital had Jews went to the gas chambers than session, could have changed the unbelievable picture,” Rony Smolar, to be evacuated. That operation, would otherwise have been the case? course of history by preventing Adolf the son of Isak Smolar, the man who across five and a half miles of bog- That discomfort is still detectable Hitler’s consolidation of power. founded the synagogue, told a confer- land, won him the Iron Cross, but, like today. When I repeat the line about A London Times report described ence in the United States in 2008. Klass, who won his decoration for Finland “helping Germany,” I feel the the claims of Baron Fritz Günther von “German soldiers in their uniforms sat clearing a path for a German charge temperature in the room drop. Tschirschky und Bögendorff, a confi- shoulder to shoulder with praying up a hill, and Dina Poljakoff, Skurnik “We did not help the Germans,” dant of Weimar-era president Paul Jewish men. The Jewish worshippers turned his award down. snaps Kent Nadbornik, the chairman von Hindenburg. He defected from of the Finnish Jewish Veterans Guild. Nazi Germany to the UK in 1935. “We had a common enemy, which Tschirschky claimed he helped to was the Russians, and that was it.” draft Hindenburg’s last will and testa- emantics aside, the veterans’ ment, a document which he said blast- Sother principal justification — ed Hitler and called on the German that it proved their loyalty to the people to embrace democracy. Finnish state — has also been under But Hitler, whom the 84-year-old attack in recent years. The “party line” Hindenburg had begrudgingly is that the existence of Jews in the appointed chancellor in 1933, got army not only put paid to the country’s wind of the document upon the presi- anti-Semitism; it also protected the dent’s death and gave orders to entire Jewish population of Finland “ensure that this document comes from the Holocaust. into my possession as soon as possi- A key quote supposedly delivered ble,” according to the London Times by the wartime commander-in-chief account of Tschirschky’s testimony. Gustav Mannerheim to Himmler — Hindenburg’s son, a loyal Nazi, “While Jews serve in my army I will passed the will to Hitler, who presum- Chaje Steinbock, a Jewish nurse, kept a scrapbook containing heartfelt messages from German not allow their deportation” — has soldiers. ably destroyed it. been questioned by historians, who According to Tschirschky, the will was noticed that some of the Germans hen the Germans decided now think Mannerheim wasn’t even a powerful attack on Hitler’s ambition. even showed a certain respect for the “W they’d like to give this deco- aware Jews had fought in the Finnish In it, Hindenburg wrote that the army Jewish service.” ration to my father, they told General army until a visit to a memorial serv- should be independent of politics, and f course, many of the details of Siilasvuo. He then told my father, who ice at a synagogue in Helsinki in he called for the establishment of a Othe Holocaust were still secret thought it had to be a mistake and 1944. “Perhaps,” says Simo Muir, “in constitutional monarchy with clear sep- at this point. The Jewish soldiers did- decided to see what happened when the postwar era, the value of Jews aration of powers. n’t know about the gas chambers and Berlin found out he was a Jew. But, fighting for Finland has been overem- In a 1947 interview, defector the horrors of Auschwitz, Dachau and after a while, General Siilasvuo came phasized.” If they were guilty of any- Tschirschky had reportedly told The Bergen-Belsen. But most were in con- back to my father and told him the thing, it was of trying too hard to fit in. Times that the will called for abolishing tact with relatives in Poland and other award had been approved. He said, Unlike Islam, which urges its follow- all racial and religious discrimination. countries in Eastern Europe. ‘My good friend, do you think I can ers to reform the law of their host He insisted that “Hitler would never “They got letters,” says Simo Muir, take that kind of decoration? Tell your nation so that it complies with Muslim have come into power, and there adjunct professor of Jewish studies at German colleagues that I wipe my law, Judaism’s key texts emphasize would have been no war, if the wish- Helsinki University. “They knew about arse with it!’ The general told them, the importance of adhering to the law es of Hindenburg had been known to the deportations.” word for word, what my father had of the land, even if the society is sec- the German people.” Leo Skurnik was certainly aware of said.” The Germans, infuriated, then ular. Hundreds of years of persecu- Two drafts of the will survived after the dangers. A talented scientist told Siilasvuo to hand Skurnik over for tion and a desire to escape the ghet- Hindenburg’s death, according to the whose career had been blocked by punishment, but he refused. tos, attend university and play a prop- report. One was tracked down by the anti-Semitism in Finland, he had trav- There were plenty of other acts of er part in politics and society, have Nazis in Switzerland and destroyed, eling salesmen in his family who had mini-rebellion during the war. A doctor added to Jews’ strong drive to fit in. and the other was kept by Tschirschky, written to him about the gathering stationed in Oulu, who was less — or, “Over the centuries, Jews have until he destroyed it — he claimed out clouds over Europe. “He knew some might argue, more — principled wanted to prove that they were the of fear — before fleeing Germany. enough to be afraid,” says his son, than Skurnik, refused to operate on best kind of citizens,” says Lea British authorities never entirely Samuli. Nevertheless, as a doctor Germans and was transferred to Mühlstein, a rabbi at the Northwood trusted Tschirschky and he reportedly responsible for both German and another sector. Sissy Wein, a Jewish and Pinner Liberal Synagogue. “They spent most of the war in an intern- Finnish soldiers, he refused to dis- singer who was Finland’s answer to wanted to show there was no conflict ment camp. Questions remain as to criminate. Vera Lynn, refused to sing for the between being Jewish and being a why Hindenburg would have waited “If you want to describe my father, German troops. And Aron Livson’s patriot; that there was no double loy- until his death to launch his most bit- the one feature that came across very father and brother, stationed in the alty.” ter critique of the Nazi leader. strongly was his humanity. He had city of Kotka displayed their disdain But the Finnish Jews were on an Within hours of Hindenburg’s death, taken the Hippocratic oath and, for their so-called “allies” on a daily impossible mission. Whatever they Hitler consolidated the offices of pres- because of that, he wouldn’t turn basis. “My brother, who was an acting did, there would always be one ident and chancellor, and thus tight- away an injured man, whatever his sergeant for the air defense, used to inescapable difference between them ened his grip on power. Several days nationality.” refuse to greet the Germans, and my and their Finnish compatriots: the lat- And there were many injured father, when the Germans came into ter were fighting for their future, but, if later, the Nazis announced the dis- Germans who needed his help. The his shop, would throw them out,” says Hitler had won, the Jewish soldiers covery of the deceased president’s sector where Skurnik was stationed Livson. Such behavior in another part would have had no future. What were “political testament,” a possible for- saw some of the fiercest fighting of of Europe would have meant their they supposed to do? That is the gery, which made complimentary ref- the war, and both his regiment, the certain death. question nobody can answer. erences to Hitler. May/June 2014 - Iyyar/Sivan 5774 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 15 THE DIARY OF ANOTHER YOUNG GIRL (Continued from page 3) about that.” found self-expression. Though war old memories. They had no idea this At that moment, Rywka Lipszyc van- Another reason he believes the brought her formal education to an diary existed. They thought Rywka ished from history. That is, until more diary is of historical value is because end when she was 10, Rywka wres- had died, and were upset to find out than 60 years later when the grand- of Rywka’s religious faith, expressed tles with language to master her that, many months after the war, she daughter of the army doctor who found in nearly every entry of the diary. thoughts. Over time, she becomes a was still alive. This poor child was all the diary came forth and handed it over “While we have other diaries of more confident writer, despite the hor- alone in some field hospital.” to exactly the right people. teens in the war, it’s rare to have one rors around her. In the new book, Burstein co- osenbaum could not believe his by a religious teen,” Rosenbaum said. Those horrors dominate the diary: authors a chapter. She remembers Reyes when he first examined “Most of them are not religious. The ever-present cold. The fear of that writing gave Rywka much satis- Rywka’s notebook. The Lodz ghetto Here’s one who has faith in God, and deportation. Grief over lost family faction in the ghetto, and that it was much on his mind, as he had just that becomes her only comfort and members. Almost every entry ends helped her forget about the hunger finished collaborating on a memoir by shield from the hell she’s living in.” with a cry from the heart, a Eva Libitzky, 90, a Lodz ghetto sur- The diary captures that hell in chill- wail of sorrow. vivor whose son, Moses Libitzky, ing detail. ywka’s diary is a book today lives in Oakland. When Rywka begins it, she and her Rof latter-day psalms, He knew immediately that the diary sister Cipka are the sole survivors of in which the young author the immediate family. She cries out to God for help and works in a clothing factory comfort. making materiel for the “It is very powerful, very German war machine. touching,” Rosenbaum said. As Rosenbaum notes in “Heart-wrenching in many his essay, the Lodz ghetto places. It’s also uplifting and was an urban slave labor inspirational: a girl who has camp. Unlike, say, the an abiding faith in God Warsaw ghetto, from which despite it all.” some Jewish workers could Though she could not come and go (and occasion- have known the dramatic ally sneak out), the Lodz effect of her words 70 years ghetto was sealed tight. The later, Rywka’s penultimate Rywka’s cousins, Mina and Esther, were the only members of area around it was a dead entry, from April 11, 1944 their immediate and extended families to survive the zone, meaning those inside includes this passage: Holocaust. These photos were taken in 1948. were trapped, subject to “Thank you, God, for the filled in important details about the starvation, deportations and count- spring! Thank you for this Lodz history of the ghetto, as well as pro- less other abuses. mood! I don’t want to write Children looking for coal in the ghetto. viding powerful new testimony to the That did not stop the Jewish prison- much about it because I don’t want to and pain. As for herself, Burstein savagery of the Holocaust. ers from attempting to maintain nor- mess it up, but I’ll write one very sig- writes, “We have our great revenge in “It’s an original document written in mality. Rywka writes about attending nificant word: hope!” that we’ve survived against those who real time,” Rosenbaum said. “Her school, Torah study and Jewish holi- In March 2012, the diary was hand- wished to destroy us. We have a big thoughts are not filtered by what day celebrations. She has a schoolgirl delivered to Mina Boyer and Esther family, a tribe among the glory of came later. We have other diaries crush on an older mentor, Surcia, and Burstein, Rywka’s surviving cousins Israel.” from the Lodz ghetto, but none cover often dishes on her fellow teen girls. in Israel. Friedman of JFCS delivered She’s right. A full-page photo near the period Rywka wrote about. That It is eerily, tragically, like any other it in person, the powerful moment the end of the book depicts dozens of period is of great significance teen diary from any other era. captured on Israeli TV news. Rywka’s family members and their because it was a period of the most Rywka also reveals herself as a “I knew it would be painful for them,” descendants in Israel. The smiles say acute starvation. And she writes young writer infatuated with her new- Friedman said, “because it brought up it all. CHILDREN’S BOOKS ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST (Continued from page 4) Harcourt: New York, 2011. 156 pp. Ellen, Annemarie, Annemarie’s compartment. A small package that their parents out of Germany in a last $6.99 paperback. mother, and Annemarie’s sister left was of severe importance was left effort to save their lives. Many of wo young girls, Ellen and the next day for Annemarie’s uncle’s behind, and it was up to Annemarie these children had ended up in the T Annemarie, were not only house. Annemarie’s uncle, Henrik, to get it to the boat before the boat grandfather’s small town. The towns- neighbors but best friends. On the was a fisherman and was out on the left. Running through woods, people tried to help these Jewish New Year, water when they Annemarie carried the children, gave them Ellen and her family arrived. Several times, important envelope food, mended clothing, went to the synagogue Annemarie’s mother under bread and and tried to give them a for services and were and her uncle seemed cheese in a basket. On place to sleep. One day, told by the rabbi that to be talking in some her journey, she was the Nazis came and, the Nazis had taken kind of code, but she stopped by Nazis with under penalty of death, the lists that had all the wasn’t sure what they fierce dogs. The Nazis ordered all the children names of the Jews. were talking about. went through her bas- rounded up to be sent on Ellen’s family were Then uncle Henrik ket and found the a train, supposedly so warned that the Nazis announced that there envelope. Since she that the Nazis could might come that night was going to be a funer- did not know what was house and feed them. to take them away. al for great-aunt Birte, in the envelope, it was The townspeople deliv- Ellen was to stay with but there was no such easier for Annemarie ered the children to the Annemarie’s family person. After privately to remain brave. The Nazis, hoping that what and pretend that confronting her uncle Nazis left the contents the Nazis had said was true. Quickly Annemarie and Ellen were sisters. about this fact, her within the envelope they discovered that the children Ellen’s parents left without Ellen uncle told her that they had not told untouched, and she barely made it would be rounded up onto cattle cars. knowing exactly where they were her the truth because it is easier to be in time for the boat. Later, her uncle None of the children ever came back. going. Late that night, several Nazis brave if you do not know everything. explained what was in the envelope The townspeople hadn’t spoken of came to Annemarie’s family’s apart- That night, the casket arrived in a and why it was so important for the the children for years, attempting to ment and insisted on looking around. hearse and then the mourners trip. Her friend Ellen and the rest of hide their guilt, but the children They questioned Ellen’s dark hair, but came. Among the mourners, were the group had made it safely to refused to be forgotten. Annemarie’s father was clever and Ellen’s parents. The mourners were Sweden. Number the Stars. “proved” to the Nazis that she was his taken in two groups to uncle By Lois Lowry. Houghton Mifflin daughter. Henrik’s boat and hidden in a secret Reviewed by Jennifer Rosenberg. American & International Societies for Yad Vashem NON-PROFIT ORG. MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE U.S. POST 500 FIFTH AVENUE, 42nd FLOOR PAID NEW YORK, N.Y. NEW YORK, N.Y. 10110-4299 PERMIT NO. 9313

Web site: www.yadvashemusa.org Society ** ** Editor Editor-in-Chief (212) 220-4304 for Yad Vashem, Inc. Vashem, Yad for Ron B. Meier, Ph.D, Ron B. Meier, New York, NY 10110 NY York, New EDITORIAL BOARD EDITORIAL *Published Bimonthly by the American by the Yefim Krasnyanskiy, M.A., Krasnyanskiy, Yefim 500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor Avenue, 500 Fifth Martyrdom & Resistance May/June 2014 - Iyyar/Sivan 5774 - Iyyar/Sivan 2014 May/June *1974-85, as Newsletter for the American *1974-85, as Newsletter for the Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp Inmates, and Nazi Victims **deceased Eli Zborowski** Marvin Zborowski Mark Palmer Sam Skura** Israel Krakowski** Mandell William Sam Halpern** Isidore Karten Norman Belfer Joseph Bukiet Rabbi Arthur Schneier, an Arthur Schneier, Rabbi process needs to advance “So he said Shalev. somehow,” asked them and they immedi- ately responded. I think that’s the most political that it can be, and coming from him, I think there is a power in that invita- tion.” American rabbi accompany- ing the pope on the visit, said it was a remarkable moment in the history of Israel-Vatican relations — all which after in were only made official Austria- an 1993. Schneier, Shalev also said that the pope’s Shalev also said “Everyone knows that the peace Schneier noted that during the visit “I think this trip is a very positive and it even further “He is the one to take Church did not do enough to oppose Church did not do were plan, though there the Nazis’ churches, many cases of individual and average clergy members save Jews. Christians who helped President Shimon Peres to invitation Mahmoud and Palestinian President for a the Vatican Abbas to come to a “bold state- prayer meeting was that have noted ment.” Many analysts is unusual and suggests the invitation for this pope, perhaps path a different hearkening back to a time when the Holy See played a much more promi- nent role in politics. born Holocaust survivor and the rabbi of the Park East Synagogue in New has been involved in trying to York, forge better relations between Jews since 1965. and the Vatican house shortly after to the president’s the pope did Vashem, Yad the visit to specifically mention anti-Semitism and racism. constructive step in the relationship between the Catholic church and the Jewish people and also the Vatican’s That is of Israel. respect for the state a very significant and clear reaffirma- tion of something that began with to a 1965 II,” he said, referring Vatican decision of the Catholic Church to that it does not view Jews to be state death. responsible for Jesus’ than his predecessors. In the history of mankind, we can’t look at it meas- ured in days or weeks,” Schneier 20 years after said. “For Israel, it’s diplomatic relations. I think it will give further encouragement to other reli- gious leaders who are either silent or afraid of interfaith relations.” MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE as a break in humanity. He as a break in humanity. vner Shalev, the Chairman of the Chairman vner Shalev, the Yad Vashem directorate, Vashem Yad the A the visits who has overseen Shalev, Another survivor in the audience, Afterwards, Ha-Elion, who spent 21 Ha-Elion, Afterwards, “His focus was asking humanity, said separately from the formal cere- said separately mony that “anti-Semitism is strength- ening in Europe — there is no deny- ing it,” he said. Everything that we do here is focused on getting people to learn from what happened not long ago, so clearly we have to do more in terms of education.” Vashem, Yad of all three popes to words were a said that Pope Francis’ not just to the Vatican’s testament recognition of the Holocaust, but to view of the pope’s this particular Shoah also noted that the pope had offered archives from to open the Holy See’s II, which have War the period of World thus far been closed, and said he by his believes the pope will stand word regardless of what might be found. Some critics say the Catholic I think his approach was appropriate,” said Ha-Elion, 89. said she wished the Aviezer, Miriam pope had seized the moment to say something about anti-Semitism. pope greeted six Holocaust survivors, pope greeted six Holocaust and listening to shaking their hands These of their stories. brief highlights Avraham Ha-Elion, included Moshe Shik, Joseph Harshalom, Chava and Eliezer Grynfeld Gottdenker, Sonia Tunik-Geron. Auschwitz as well as hav- months in other concentration ing been in three speech felt said the pope’s camps, more like a prayer than an address. how did we deteriorate to such a situ- for ation? It was a general question more than it focused only humanity, and specifically on the Holocaust. But Pope Francis accompanied by Israeli President Shimon Peres, Israeli Shimon Peres, Pope Francis accompanied by Israeli President Avner Lau and Benjamin Netanyahu, Rabbi Israel Meir Prime Minister in during a ceremony directorate, Vashem Yad Chairman of the Shalev, Vashem. Yad the Hall of Remembrance at LORD, NEVER AGAIN! NEVER LORD, POPE AT YAD VASHEM: NEVER AGAIN, NEVER VASHEM: YAD AT POPE

ope Francis gave a short speech ope Francis gave during his visit to Yad Vashem in Vashem Yad during his visit to

As part of the official ceremony, the ceremony, of the official As part Pope Francis, on the third and final The pope continued: “Grant us the “Here before the boundless “Who convinced you that Rather than mentioning Jews —Rather than mentioning or P day of his Holy Land tour, became the day of his Holy Land tour, Pope Vashem. Yad third pope to visit Francis rekindled the eternal flame in Hall of Remembrance the museum’s and then laid a wreath. He bowed his as a farewell listening head deeply, The letter was read aloud in Italian. letter was from a young woman to her sister just days before her deportation The woman, Ida from Romania. died Goldish, and her young son Vily a few days later. grace to be ashamed of what men have done, to be ashamed of this despised of having massive idolatry, and destroyed our own flesh which you formed from the earth, to which you gave life with your own breath of life. Never again, Lord, never again!” tragedy of the Holocaust, that cry — — ‘Where are you?’ echoes like a faint voice in an unfathomable great evil has abyss,” he said. “A befallen us, such as never happened Lord, hear under the heavens. Now, hear our plea, save us in our prayer, this horror.” Save us from your mercy. you were God? Not only did you torture and kill your broth- ers and sisters, but you sacri- ficed them to yourself, because you made yourself a in this place, we Today, god. hear once more the voice of Adam, where are you?” God: the pope posed in a speech he delivered in Italian. Nazis, Germans, concentration II — War or World camps Francis took a more global and theological The approach to the Holocaust. speech began with the question “Adam, where are you?” —line a from Genesis 3:9 in which God inquires into the first human when it whereabouts beings’ Adam and Eve is clear that have gone astray. May, addressing humanity as “Adam” addressing May, descending to the and blaming it for that led to the murderous behavior Jews. deaths of six million BY ILENE PRUSHER, HAARETZ BY Page 16 Page