Vol. 36-No.5 ISSN 0892-1571 May/June 2010-Iyyar/Sivan 5770 1010TH ANNUALANNUAL SPRINGSPRING LUNCHEONLUNCHEON OFOF THETHE AMERICANAMERICAN SOCIETYSOCIETY FORFOR YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM

ore than 200 people attended the Annual Spring Luncheon, which took place May 27th, 2010, at the Grand Hyatt in New York City. This year’s Luncheon theme was M“Continuity.” Lili Stawski, Spring Luncheon Chairwoman, opened the event. Honoree and survivor Doris Gross was introduced by her daughter Lili Gross Barasch, and Honoree and Young Leadership Associate Yonina Gomberg was introduced by her grandmother and Yad Vashem Benefactor Gladys Halpern. Marilyn Rubenstein, a Yad Vashem Benefactor and longtime supporter of the American Society, introduced this year’s guest speaker, Professor Joseph Kertes, recipient of the Canadian National Jewish Book Award and the U.S. National Jewish Book Award for Fiction for his latest novel, Gratitude. The luncheon’s theme of Continuity was evident throughout the entire event as we saw many third-generation participants take their place among the guests. As a member of the Young Leadership Associates, Yonina pledged on behalf of the third generation to assume a leadership role in the American Society for Yad Vashem and continue the mission of Re- membrance so that the world may never forget.

Doris Gross, 2010 Spring Luncheon Honoree, Eli Zborowski , Chairman, American Society for Yad Sam and Gladys Halpern; Fred Halpern; Yonina Gomberg, Honoree; Eric Gomberg; Cheryl Vashem; Yonina Gomberg, 2010 Spring Luncheon Honoree. Halpern; and Estelle and Rabbi Avrum Feldman.

Members of the Young Leadership Associates.

Lionel Barasch, Andrea Moneton, Fela Moncznik, Carol Moneton, Doris Gross, Lili Barasch, Kim- berly Barasch, Nicholas Barasch and Gene Moneton. IN THIS ISSUE Annual Spring Luncheon of The American Society for Yad Vashem...... 1, 8-9 Yom Hashoah observed around the world...... 2 Heirs sought for Holocaust fortunes...... 5 Great escape...... 6 The Arab position on the Holocaust...... 7 Yad Vashem ramping up effort to combat Holocaust denial...... 10 Death on the Baltic...... 11 Memories of the Holocaust...... 13 Athens unveils its first Holocaust memorial...... 14 My sister Kathy...... 15 Revealing the young bureaucrats behind the Nazi terror...... 16 Robin Klatt, Alice Klein, Ilana Kahn and Adina Burian. Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2010 - Iyyar/Sivan 5770 YOM HASHOAH OBSERVED AROUND THE WORLD Israel – Yad Vashem picked “Voices of gle until the end of the war to save the tan, on the Upper West Side, there was a sign now in place is a replica of the orig- the Survivors” as the theme of this year’s Jewish community from annihilation. daylong recitation of names of the dead. inal, which is undergoing renovation after Holocaust Remembrance Day. A special According to B’nai B’rith, thanks to that In Lower Manhattan, some survivors it was stolen in December and recovered exhibition of the works of Holocaust sur- struggle half of Romania’s Jewry survived. went to the Museum of Jewish Heritage two days later. vivors opened at Yad Vashem. Many of these Jews immigrated to Israel — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, to By tradition, the march started with the “The voice of the survivors is the link that and contributed greatly to its development. relate their experiences to visiting school- blowing of the shofar, at the gate. binds the painful and tormented history of Aleksander Czoban-Sarel, president of children. The Auschwitz camp was liberated in the Jewish people during the Holocaust to the “Moshe Shor” B’nai B’rith lodge in Tel More and more, though, survivors are January 1945 by Soviet troops. Aviv, escaped the Nazis at not the principal bearers of their own sto- the age of 14 after both of ries. That responsibility is falling with *** his parents were murdered. greater urgency to their children and, as Canada – Holocaust Remembrance Along with his younger sis- the Park Avenue Synagogue ceremony Day was marked by solemn ceremonies ter, he survived by hiding underscored, to their grandchildren. The in Canada and abroad just as a report among Poles and adopting war, after all, ended 65 years ago. Holo- was released showing that violent attacks a false identity. He vowed to caust survivors are not getting any against Jews worldwide more than dou- continue to convey his per- younger. Worse, one by one they are not bled last year. sonal story to future gener- getting any older. Survivors of the Buchenwald concen- ations. The emphasis on a new generation is tration camp gathered with U.S. veterans “We remained alive, even inexorable. That “transfer of memory” and German dignitaries at a ceremony though we could have was behind the Park Avenue Syna- marking the 65th anniversary of the found ourselves among the gogue’s reliance on grandchildren, said camp’s liberation. dead at any moment and at Menachem Z. Rosensaft, a lawyer, who any time. Destiny wanted organized the program us to survive. I am proud with a cantor at the syna- that I chose to live in Eretz gogue, Elana Rozenfeld. Israel,” he said. Interlaced with the sto- ries of ordeal and en- *** durance were songs in USA – Toby Edelstein, 9 Yiddish, written for the years old, stood on Yom most part during the (R to L) President of Israel Shimon Peres; Israeli Prime Minister Hashoah evening before a Holocaust. Benjamin Netanyahu; Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American synagogue audience of about One song written after Society for Yad Vashem; and Elizabeth Zborowski, Cultural Direc- tor, American Society of Yad Vashem, in Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 350 to talk about his grand- the war was a sad, sweet on Holocaust Remembrance Day. mother. The details were few, number called “Mayn but they were enough. Shvester Chaye” (“My Sis- the future, to hope and to rebirth,” Yad Grandma, Aviva Rohloff Zylberberg, was ter Chaye”). This was a Vashem said on its Web site. a child herself during the Holocaust, that tribute by a Yiddish poet, Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin opened cataclysm of cataclysms in the blood- Binem Heller, to his sister, the Every Person Has a Name ceremony soaked 20th century. A Jew in Germany, who raised him in their by reading aloud the names of children she survived by passing as a Christian. house “with tumbledown Participants in the March of the Living at Auschwitz. who had taken shelter in France only to be Other young people — some in their 30s steps.” Chaye, with the found and sent to Auschwitz. but most in their teens — also rose at the green eyes. Chaye, with the black braids. Holocaust survivors laid flowers at the President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Park Avenue Synagogue, on East 87th Chaye, who died in the Treblinka extermi- site of the concentration camp near Benjamin Netanyahu, opposition leader Tzipi Street, to recount in a few unadorned sen- nation camp, not quite 10 years old. Weimar, Germany, to mark the date. Livni, Knesset members and Holocaust sur- tences how a grandmother or a grandfa- About 56,000 people, including Jews, vivors also participated in the ceremony. ther eluded the Nazis’ industrialized *** Communists, and Gypsies from across Peres read the names of his own family slaughter of Europe’s Jews. Poland – Thousands of young Jews, Europe, were killed at the Nazi camp. members and recounted their story, includ- Cara Levine told of Anne and Saul Cel- along with Holocaust survivors, marched The U.S. Army freed Buchenwald on April ing that of his grandfather Rabbi Zvi nik, who hid in Warsaw after escaping from at Auschwitz to remember those who per- 11, 1945. Meltzer, who was rounded up with other that city’s ghetto. Jennifer and Matt Bala- ished in the Nazi death camp, and to In Toronto, the city’s Jewish community Jews in the Vishniev synagogue that was ban spoke of Irene Anshelewitz honor Poland’s late president. gathered for a service at Earl Bales Park. then torched by Nazis. Schwadron, who endured through concen- The 10,000 or so people from around Toronto’s remembrance service is the Peres commemorated the world attending the annual March of second largest commemoration outside “my family members, who the Living walked the stretch of about 3 of Israel, drawing in about 2,000 people were slaughtered with 2,060 kilometers (2 miles) between the red- from across the Greater Toronto Area. of their fellow community brick Auschwitz compound and the death This year’s ceremony focused on Holo- members in Vishniev in Au- camp’s wooden barracks section of caust survivors living in Toronto and high- gust 1942 at the hands of Birkenau. lighted their contributions to Canada, the Nazis and their local At least 1.1 million people — mostly organizers said. conspirators, who gathered Jews, Poles and Roma — died in the gas But on a day meant for remembering the city’s residents in the chambers at Auschwitz or from starva- past violence against Jews, a new study wooden synagogue and tion, disease and forced labor at the points to continuing prejudice. brutally murdered by shoot- camp that German Nazis built in occu- The study from Tel Aviv University re- ing and fire.” pied Poland during World War II. ports that there were 1,129 anti-Semitic The B’nai B’rith World Many in the annual march also wore incidents worldwide last year that ranged Center and the Jewish Na- black arm bands or carried black ribbons from vandalism and arson against Jewish tional Fund held a unique in memory of Poland’s President Lech targets to beatings of Jews. The figure is Elana Rozenfeld, the cantor at Park Avenue Synagogue, with a boy ceremony in Israel dedi- Kaczynski and his wife, Maria, who were the highest since the survey began more about to read on Holocaust Remembrance Day. cated to the commemora- killed in a plane crash along with 94 oth- than two decades ago, and is up from tion of the heroism of Jews who rescued tration camps and a death march. “Our two ers en route to WWII-era observances in 559 incidents the year before. fellow Jews during the Holocaust. great-aunts were killed,” Matt Balaban western Russia. In his Holocaust Remembrance Day The ceremony took place in the Scroll of said, “but the bullets somehow missed our Israeli Ambassador Zvi Rav-Ner read statement, Prime Minister Stephen Fire Square, located in the Martyrs’ Forest grandmother.” Michael Silverstone talked out a message in Hebrew, English and Harper acknowledged the continuing where six million trees have been planted about Henry Vogelstein, who fled Nazi Polish saying this year’s marchers were presence of the kind of hatred and bigotry in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. Germany in 1939, emigrated to the United also “paying homage” to Kaczynski and that led to the Holocaust. Some 600 people participated in the cere- States and returned to Germany as an the other plane crash victims. “Anti-Semitic crimes in Canada, includ- mony, including 250 junior high school stu- American combat soldier. “Lech Kaczynski and his wife were ing recent vandalism at Jewish schools in dents and some 250 Border Patrol recruits. If an event may be said to possess a friends of the state of Israel and of the Calgary, Montreal and Toronto, demon- During the ceremony, Ambassador of commodity, then, by definition, memory is Jewish nation. Today we will march in sol- strate the continuing need for both action Romania to Israel Losiper noted that the the principal one for Holocaust Remem- idarity with the entire Polish nation,” Rav- and education,” he said. issue of Jewish rescuers has been neg- brance Day. But it is a perishable commod- Ner said while standing by the infamous “They remind us of the necessity of lected over the years. The ambassador ity. Preserving it requires work. gate with a sign reading “Arbeit Macht standing firm and taking decisive action paid tribute to the Holocaust-era leaders of The day was observed in various ways Frei,” or “Work Makes You Free.” against the evils of anti-Semitism. Our the Jewish community, including the pres- around the city. As usual, the largest event The inscription was meant to mislead government is doing both while taking ident of the community and the chief rabbi, was a ceremony at Temple Emanu-El. At inmates into thinking they were arriving at steps to ensure that the lessons of the who conducted an uncompromising strug- the Jewish Community Center in Manhat- Auschwitz to work, not to die. The metal Holocaust are remembered.” May/June 2010 - Iyyar/Sivan 5770 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 3

FORMER SS SOLDIER SENTENCED TO LIFE SECRET GERMAN FILES TO REVEAL POSTWAR MYSTERY ormer SS member Heinrich Boere “Despite the passage of decades, this OF THE “HOLOCAUST ARCHITECT” trial clearly shows that Nazi war criminals Fwas convicted and sentenced to life he story of the man known as “the How much did Germany know about can still be brought to justice if there is po- in prison for killing three civilians in Nazi- architect of the Holocaust” is well where he was? litical will to do so, which unfortunately is T occupied Holland. known, but nobody knows who helped Weber is hoping to obtain at least par- not the case in most European countries,” Boere, 88, had admitted to the district Adolf Eichmann flee Germany in the tial access to the files being reviewed by he said. court in Aachen, Germany, that he shot the postwar era. three judges at the federal administrative three in 1944, but insisted he was following After fleeing Germany, Eichmann was court in Leipzig. military orders and could have faced im- captured in Argentina by Israel’s Mossad “I think it’s impossible that in Germany prisonment in a concentration camp or the and hanged after a trial in Jerusalem. we are hiding documents about a con- death penalty if he refused. There were speculations that the Vati- victed Nazi mass murderer,” she said. The shootings were ordered in reprisal for can helped war criminals hide or escape The American Gathering of Holocaust attacks carried out by the Dutch resistance. after the Second World War – allegations Survivors and Their Descendants group Lead judge Gerd Nohl said that the mur- Church officials have always denied. has also called for the release of the files. ders were of “practically incomparable mali- But a secret 4,500-page document by “The withholding of files on Eichmann ciousness and cowardice — beyond the the German intelligence service, the BND, more than a half century after the war is decency of any soldier,” according to German could shed light on the postwar life of the unconscionable and indecent,” said vice- news reports. The defendant, who is half coordinator of the Nazi genocide policy. president Elan Steinberg. German and half Dutch, was an enthusiastic While BND claims that the files must re- The BND argues that much of the infor- National Socialist and handed over fellow cit- main secret, freelance reporter Gabriele mation came from a “foreign intelligence izens to be executed, the judge said. Heinrich Boere. Weber has sued the agency to declassify service,” and opening it up to public Efraim Zuroff, Israel director and chief the documents that may answer the scrutiny would harm future co-operation Zuroff has been among many observers question: who helped Eichmann escape? with that unidentified country. Nazi hunter for the Simon Wiesenthal Cen- of the ongoing trial in Munich of John Dem- ter, praised the efforts of prosecutor Ulrich janjuk, 89, for involvement in more than Maas and said the trial proved that Holo- 29,000 murders in the Sobibor death camp. A JEWESS WHO MET HITLER caust perpetrators could still be held ac- Boere had told Focus magazine last year countable for their crimes. arguerite Simmons has never for- Marguerite’s granddaughter Katy Muller, that he was following orders. gotten the day she met Adolf Hitler. from Yeadon, said: “Hitler loved children so “The conviction of Boere, who volun- M “It was not difficult: you just had to bend Today she is 104, lives quietly in Guise- he came up to my father, patted him on the teered to join the SS and openly admitted a finger,” he said. ley, Leeds and is very probably the only liv- head and asked him where he was from. the crimes he committed, is an important After the war, Boere was found guilty of ing Jewish woman to have talked to the My father told him he was from Cologne reminder that the overwhelming majority of murder in Holland and fled to Germany, architect of the Holocaust while he was and he walked off. the murderers of the Holocaust did so will- where he took on German citizenship. ruler of Germany. “My grandmother was ingly and without any coercion whatso- Meanwhile, the Dutch death sentence was And it is even more very nervous about meet- ever,” Zuroff said in a statement. commuted to a life sentence. improbable that any- ing him and she knew one can have met the that he wasn’t well liked JEWISH GROUP PRAISES GERMANY, US man and then been but she was still quite ex- FOR CHASING NAZIS hunted by his hench- cited. She must be the men after being pho- only living person that he Simon Wiesenthal Center gave cases it is the lack of political will, more tographed with him. has met Hitler.” T Germany and the United States than anything else,” he said. Marguerite had to A photograph was taken top marks for pursuing and prosecuting The report said the most disappointing abandon her life in of the pair with the Nazi Nazi war criminals but slammed Aus- case was that of Sandor Kepiro, con- Germany before the dictator and when it was tralia, Canada and several former east- victed by Hungary of helping to organize outbreak of the Second published someone recog- bloc countries for “complete failure” to the 1942 murder of at least 1,200 civil- World War when she nized Marguerite as being bring suspects to justice. ians in Serbia but never punished, al- was recognized as a Jewish and it caused wide- In an annual report released on the though the center has located him in Jew in a photograph with her young son, spread outcry. eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Budapest. John Muller, and Hitler. The negatives and copies of the photo- the Los Angeles-based Jewish organiza- The report listed Estonia, Lithuania and Marguerite said: “When the Nazis came graph were confiscated and destroyed. tion said that contrary to widely held be- Ukraine along with Australia, Canada and I had to get out of Germany. It was very She was hunted down by the SS, who lief it is still not too late to apprehend Hungary as countries “in which there are scary growing up in Germany as a Jew. demanded that she report to their passport and try Nazis. no legal obstacles to the investigation and “Hitler addressed my little boy when he control. Fearing for her life, Marguerite fled “It is clear that at least several such prosecution of suspected Nazi war crimi- was only a few years old. to England in 1936, leaving her son and criminals will be brought to trial during nals, but whose efforts (or lack thereof) “He was a famous man and I knew he then husband behind in Germany. the coming years,” wrote the report’s au- have resulted in complete failure during was hated. I was very scared.” On her arrival in England she was in- thor, the center’s Israel director, Efraim the period under review.” Marguerite and six-year-old John were terned on the Isle of Man and she was Zuroff. Germany and the United States were staying in a hotel in Cologne in 1934 and soon remarried to Erwin Simmons, who “While it is generally assumed that it is the only countries the report gave an “A” were told that Hitler and propaganda chief was a German Jewish refugee serving as the age of the suspects that is the grade for their “highly successful inves- Joseph Goebbels were also guests. an officer in the British Army. biggest obstacle to prosecution, in many tigation and prosecution program.” They were told to line the stairs to greet When John Muller turned 17 he came to him, but Hitler noticed blond-haired, blue- Britain to trace his mother and spent most NY DEALER OFFERS "SCHINDLER'S LIST" FOR SALE eyed John, who was wearing a Bavarian of his life working as a senior lecturer at outfit, and approached him. Leeds University. New York memorabilia dealer is sell- New York memorabilia dealer Gary Zimet, Aing what he claims is the last pri- who is seeking $2.2 million for his list, said vately-owned copy of a World War II three others are owned by museums, includ- AUSCHWITZ DOCUMENTS FOUND, manuscript of Jewish names known as ing the United States Holocaust Memorial REFERENCES TO ANGEL OF DEATH, JOSEPH MENGELE “Schindler’s list” and made famous in a Museum in Washington and the Holocaust 1993 movie of the same name. memorial Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. ocuments associated with the lives “The documents contain the names of Zimet, who is representing the manu- Dof several guards from the people who played a decisive role in mur- script’s seller, told Reuters it had been held Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp dering Jews at Auschwitz-Birkenau, who for over 55 years by the family of were recently discovered in the nearby were in charge of selecting Jews, or of the Schindler’s accountant, Itzhak Stern. The town of Oswiecim. use of Zyklon B,” said Cyra. Zyklon B was Stern family recently sold it to the current, Auschwitz Museum spokesman Pawel the poisonous gas used to kill the Jews. unidentified owner, Zimet said. Sawick said that the documents included A food coupon for sugar bears a signa- David Crowe, a professor at Elon College food coupons, death certificates, and a ture that is suspected to be from Joseph in North Carolina and a Schindler expert, map. The rest of the documents are still Mengele, the infamous Schutzstaffel had seen a picture of the list and reckoned being evaluated. (SS) doctor known for his inhumane ex- it could be one of many Schindler produced The documents were discovered in an periments. over the course of the war. attic of a home in the southern Polish town Mengele, one of the few high-level SS of- A suitcase belonging to Oskar Schindler with of Oswiecim that was undergoing renova- ficials who were never captured, is re- the original copy of a list of over 1,200 Polish “The Nazis were fanatical about keeping tion, Sawick said. ported to have drowned in 1979 in Brazil. Jews known as “Schindler’s list” is shown in records, new lists were constantly being “The sensational value of this discovery Another document includes mention of Dr. Stuttgart, October 15, 1999. made,” said Crowe. Dated April 18, 1945, typed on onion- is in the fact that these original documents, Victor Capesius, who conducted other The list was kept by German industri- skin paper, the slightly frayed list being bearing the names of main murderers from medical experiments and was known as alist Oskar Schindler, who saved more sold by Zimet contains 801 all-male Auschwitz, were found so many years after one of the camp pharmacists. than 1000 Jews from the Holocaust by names, and is 14 pages long. It details the war,” said Adam Cyra, a historian for None of the files are said to document employing them in his factory during the names of the workers along with their the Auschwitz Memorial in an interview the crimes against humanity conducted at World War II. birthdates and jobs. with the Associated Press. the concentration camp. Page 4 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2010 - Iyyar/Sivan 5770 BOOKBOOK REVIEWSREVIEWS THEY WERE JUST PEOPLE They Were Just People: Stories of Res- that those non-Jews who put their own Anna did that and more. She hid him for that never swayed them from determinedly cue in Poland During the Holocaust. lives and, oftentimes, the lives of their own many months . . . Felix and four other Jews doing what they felt was right. In fact, such By Bill Tammeus and Rabbi Jacques families on the line in order to save a Jew . . . all the while risking her life and the lives is the case with all those non-Jews that Cukierkorn. University of Missouri Press: or Jews are “just people” . . . of her family members! rescued Jews presented in this book. Columbia, Missouri, 2009. 236 pp. $24.95 I don’t know about that! n another story related in So, were these “just people”? paperback. Indeed, Felix Zandman, Ithis volume by Tammeus Then again, perhaps the authors refer to relating in this volume of REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN and Rabbi Cukierkorn, we those who saved Jews as “just people” for how Anna Puchalska, a read about how Andre another reason. Perhaps it’s their way of his reviewer would like to begin by non-Jew, saved him, himself Nowacki and his mother were showing us that we all have the capacity to Tstating that the book, They Were Just calls Anna “Extraordinary,” saved by the Kwiecinskis, an- do what they did. That we don’t have to be People: Stories of Rescue in Poland Dur- asking “How a mother could other exceptional, non-Jewish nine feet tall. That we don’t have to have ing the Holocaust, by Bill Tammeus and have the courage, the guts, family living in Warsaw. For any unique physical characteristics to take Rabbi Jacque Cukierkorn, is a fascinating the inspiration to risk the life two years Andre and his on what they took on . . . to save the life of and absorbing work. The conscientious re- of her five children. Herself, mother were with Mrs. a fellow human being. Yes, I can see that search, the reader-friendly writing — maybe. But five children?” Kwiecinski, an actress, and that’s it . . . That’s their reasoning . . . Still, they’re all well done. However, this He still can’t get over it! not everyone would have done what they reviewer does have a “bone to pick” with her three caring and compas- Moreover, in later years, did, nor, to be brutally honest, would every- the authors. sionate daughters. And they when Felix was asked if he one do it today. Thus, those who saved In the “Introduction” to their work the au- grew so close that, to this day, would have done what Jews during World War II are very special thors write that both the Jews that were Andre refers to the three Anna did, he answered, not people, rightly recognized for their “spe- rescued and those that rescued them were likely. And, surely, not if he had children to Kwiecinski daughters as his “sisters.” Nor cialness” by Yad Vashem. They are surely “just people.” Yes . . . and no . . . Yes, think of! were Andre and his mother the only Jews the angels among us. surely the Jews, those that saved them, So, what did Anna do? Put simply, Felix, this family helped. From time to time oth- and everyone else in the world has two a frightened, young Jewish boy from ers joined them. Dr. Diane Cypkin is a Professor of Media, hands, two feet, a face, etc. (except if Grodno, running from the Nazis, asked Interestingly, both Ms. Puchalska and the Communication, and Visual Arts at Pace they’ve been injured somehow). But to say Anna to take him in for just one night. Kwiecinskis experienced “close calls.” But University. BLOOMS OF DARKNESS HOLOCAUST BYSTANDERS Blooms of Darkness: A Novel as traitors and executed. The vulnerable The Years of Extermination: Nazi Ger- in the story to the experiences of the Jew- By Aharon Appelfeld. Schocken Books, and precocious Hugo grows attached to many and the Jews 1939-1945. ish communities targeted by Hitler. 2010. 288 pp. $25.95 hardcover. Mariana, and she too finds him to be a re- By Saul Friedlander. HarperCollins, 2008. The juxtaposition of the high politics of assuring though worrisome presence in 896 pp. $39.95, hardcover. the perpetrators with the individual histo- REVIEWED BY RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN her own unstable and dangerous world. ries of their Jewish victims represents the REVIEWED BY STEVEN WELCH sraeli survivor Aharon Appelfeld proves Thus the mutually supportive bonding most innovative and distinctive aspect of Ihis uncanny talent to connect us time leads to tender intimacy as well as a phys- ince the publication in 1966 of his Friedlander’s approach. and again to his deep springs of early Holo- ical one for this unlikely couple. The unique Sbook Pius XII and the Third Reich, In his examination of Nazi policy-making, caust exposure and those embedded mem- bond, born of such an extraordinary sce- Saul Friedlander has been one of the in- Friedlander keeps the focus on Hitler and ories which continue to flow unabated. nario, comes to an abrupt end with the ternationally acknowledged experts on the repeatedly stresses the centrality of the He was but seven years old when Ger- Russian victory over the Nazis. Once Holocaust. In The Years of Extermination Fuhrer’s fanatical anti-Semitic ideology in man troops entered his multi-cultured again Hugo is tried, undergoing a forced he has provided us with an up-to-date, au- seeking to understand why and how the hometown of Czrnowitz, and traumatic separation thoritative account of the murderous Nazi Holocaust occurred. For Friedlander, ideas Romania, and his young from a most significant fig- assault against European Jewry during are both important and primary. He rejects world as well as that of so ure in his life, this time a World War II. explanations that stress the many others would be mother-substitute. As was the case with force of circumstances or turned upside down, for- s in Appelfeld’s other his previous widely ac- that see the murder of Eu- ever altered. Blooms of Aworks, the Christian claimed volume, The ropean Jewry as a byprod- Darkness is Appelfeld’s faith while not necessarily Years of Persecution uct of a larger process of latest novel translated church-practiced, remains a 1933-1939, published capitalist rationalization or from the Hebrew. With au- source of inspiring loving- in 1997, this is a con- modernizing social engi- tobiographical features, it kindness for simple folks ventional, non-theoret- neering. centers on eleven-year- such as Mariana. In contrast, ical work of synthesis In Friedlander’s view, old Hugo, the only child of the pre-war well-off and uni- aimed at a broad audi- Nazism is best understood prosperous yet assimi- versity-educated Jews, like ence. The narrative is as a form of political religion lated Jewish pharmacists Hugo’s parents, have lost linear and the organi- of which the major article of who graciously lend sup- their traditional roots, though zation strictly chrono- faith was anti-Semitism. port to all in financial need. not the caring Jewish values logical. Each of the 10 “Hitler,” he observes, “per- The father is taken away and optimistic thrust. chapters is given a title ceived his mission as a kind and disappears, while the mother and son The author’s characteristic terse style, that simply indicates of crusade to redeem the succeed in escaping through the under- concealing more than revealing, is suited the time period cov- world by eliminating the ground sewers from the ghetto that is in the for the dreadful subject at hand in creating ered, such as “Decem- Jews.” process of being liquidated. The devoted a suspenseful aura in which the unavoid- ber 1941-July 1942”. In every chapter he pro- and desperate mother, who fails to secure able drama can unfold. The book’s title These 10 chapters are vides extensive quotations for her son as proper a hiding place as pos- connotes that even in the midst of the in turn grouped into three major parts: Ter- from speeches and private declarations that sible given the constricting circumstances, Shoah’s darkness and denseness of evil, ror (autumn 1939 to summer 1941); Mass leave no doubt about Hitler’s obsessive and turns as last resort to Mariana, whom she there are to be found consoling and prom- Murder (summer 1941 to summer 1942); pathological hatred for Jews. had befriended and supported since ele- ising flowers of rare beauty and humanity. and Shoah (summer 1942 to spring 1945). Hitler convinced himself – and a very mentary school. Mariana, whose hard and Such a flower is unassuming, child-like Any historian dealing with the Holocaust substantial number of his followers – that abusive life leads her to prostitution, is com- Mariana, whose embrace of a pursued faces the daunting task of organizing a “the Jew” was the driving force behind both mendably and even heroically willing to ac- Jewish child and his people, at a grave risk vast amount of information about a com- Bolshevism and capitalism. Stalin and cept Hugo, whose mom surprisingly and to herself, reassures us that both human plex set of interrelated episodes that un- Roosevelt, he insisted, were nothing but wisely bestows on her a substantial gift. evil and fear are not without the grace of folded across an entire continent. the latest frontmen for an ancient and on- Hugo, assuming a Christian identity, the penetrating light of love and decency. Friedlander has chosen to use the familiar going global Jewish conspiracy aimed at learns to adjust to hiding in a brothel, his She and other righteous gentiles remind us triad of perpetrators, bystanders and vic- destroying the Aryan race. This irrational new and quite unusual and unsuitable of an essential lesson, that the Jewish peo- tims to structure his narrative. and absurd world view provided the justifi- home for a child who is protected nonethe- ple are not alone in a universe that has While acknowledging the importance of cation for the genocidal program that less by his innocence, his smarts, and his analyzing Nazi policy-making, Friedlander often treated us as aliens. began to take concrete shape over the mother’s pre-parting warning not to be too is particularly concerned to move beyond course of 1941. inquisitive. The brothel visits of German Rabbi Israel Zoberman is the spiritual a German-centered approach in order to While Friedlander stresses the impor- soldiers will at war’s end doom Mariana leader of Congregation Beth Chaverim in provide what he terms a “more globally ori- tance of Hitler’s ideology as a crucial factor and the girls at her side, harshly regarded Virginia Beach, Virginia. ented inquiry” that allocates a central place (Continued on page 14) May/June 2010 - Iyyar/Sivan 5770 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 5 NAZI DEATH CAMP STORIES UNFOLD ON NEW USF SITE It wasn’t death; it was torment of the kind where they would hang them, hang them Many had never told their closest rela- BY LINDSAY PETERSON, that can reduce a human being to sub-an- up and beat them.” tives what they’d seen. THE TAMPA TRIBUNE imal status, to be willing to lacerate himself Adams also watched prisoners beat to Hirsh was surprised no one had ever col- and cut himself to get that slight bit of nour- death a “kapo,” another prisoner who had eonard Lubin got used to seeing bod- lected these stories for a nonfiction book. ishment.’’ cooperated with the guards. After the liber- ies in the final days of World War II. The story of the Holocaust has been told, L Lubin, 83, died in April. His 49-page in- ations, the soldiers shot SS officers with no The images that stuck in his mind were of Hirsh said, but never through the eyes of terview, in print and audio form, is now second thoughts. the living – half out of their minds, running, the GIs who found the survivors after the part of the USF Libraries Holocaust and ow in their 80s and 90s, the men some crawling like animals, from a con- prison guards abandoned their posts. Genocide Studies Center. It’s one of the were sometimes fuzzy on exact centration camp in Austria. N “Who would have thought there were any dozens that Hirsh Lubin, a military veteran from St. Peters- untold Holocaust stories?” completed as re- burg, told his story to Michael Hirsh, who irsh is a Vietnam veteran, screen- search for his book. interviewed nearly 150 military men and Hwriter and documentary producer The book tells the women for a new book, The Liberators: who donated several of his scripts to USF stories of the GIs a few years ago. Last year, as he was America’s Witnesses to the Holocaust. who happened upon Hirsh has donated his interview recordings starting to write Liberators, he was talking the concentration to his USF library contact, Mark Green- to the University of South Florida. camps scattered Lubin was 19 when he and the other berg, and mentioned he had the transcripts across Germany of his interviews. members of the 71st Infantry Division came and Austria, where “I could feel the phone start to vibrate,” upon the labor camp in a town called Wels. millions of men, he said. As they arrived, prisoners were pouring out women, and chil- USF had just opened its Holocaust and of an open gate. Unsure about who these dren were held as Genocide Studies Center, and Greenberg soldiers were, “they were running from us slave laborers until was the director. like crazy in a panic,” Lubin told Hirsh. they were killed or The university will launch a new Web One man caught Lubin’s eye. Starving like died from disease or the rest, he had found an empty tomato can, starvation. page: the Concentration Camp Liberators U.S. troops execute Dachau guards on liberation day. its top still partly attached and jagged all The soldiers were Oral History Project. Of nearly 150 inter- around from the way it had been opened. in their late teens and early 20s and what dates and the sequence of events, Hirsh views by Hirsh, 31 are available there now “He had it with both of his hands jammed they experienced never left them. Forrest said. But their memories of specific and the rest soon will be. up against his face, trying to get his tongue Robinson was so traumatized by the events, the sights and especially the “I’m trying to fill a hole in history that into it to lick the contents, and lick the top masses of dead bodies at Nordhausen he smells, were as clear as if they’d hap- everyone thought had been completely lid and sides of the top lid. Blood was pour- lost his memory for two weeks. pened the day before. written,” says Hirsh. ing down his face, and he was acting to- Albert Adams described finding the “One thing that surprised me was the “The problem is that the hole needed to tally insane,” Lubin said. ovens at Mauthausen still hot. One of the number of guys who still suffer from what we have been filled in 20 years ago. And if I’d “So in my nightmares, that’s what I see. prisoners gave him a tour of the camp. “He now know as PTSD. They still can’t get waited any longer, there would have been And to me that’s what the Holocaust was. showed me where they tortured them, these visions out of their heads,” Hirsh said. no way to fill it.” HEIRS SOUGHT FOR WEST GERMAN SPY AGENCY HOLOCAUST FORTUNES EMPLOYED ABOUT 200 FORMER NAZIS Many European Jews even bought he German spy service has admitted hunter, Hans-Henning Crome, to the task. property in Palestine before the war, in the that it employed about 200 former In 1963 Mr Crome, now a pensioner, set BY ANNE BARKER, ABC NEWS T hope they would eventually live in the Nazi criminals for at least 15 years after up a team called Unit 85, which estab- n recent years European banks have Holy Land. the end of the Second World War. lished itself in the attic of Gehlen’s villa on Ibegun paying millions of dollars to the But six decades on, much of the money Some had been involved in massacres the BND compound. Co-operating with families of Holocaust victims whose is still locked away and land and houses in Poland and Russia, others were Nazi-hunters in Ludwigsburg, they started assets were dormant in bank coffers after are still vacant. Gestapo torturers; all found a berth in the to work through the records of the the war. Elinor Kroitoru works for the Company West German intelligence service. The agency’s 2,450 employees. But one country where banks are still for Location and Restitution of Holocaust cases have been brought to light because any had made only rudimentary at- fighting claims for restitution is Israel. Victims’ Assets, which has taken up the the Federal German Intelligence Service Mtempts to cover their tracks. A certain Thousands of European Jews opened Koblenz fight with the Israeli banks. (BND) is compiling a history of its espi- Kurt W, formerly of the Gestapo in , accounts in the Holy Land before or dur- for example, had claimed to be a passport “We have a few hundred plots of land onage activities since 1956 – and so pol- ing the war. They have gone but their control officer in Sajmiste, near Belgrade. In and they sum up to quite a nice amount of ishing up its image, in the manner of MI6. wealth lives on, in the banks. fact, Sajmiste was the site of a concentration millions of Israeli shekels,” she said. There was never any attempt to hide the Now, a group in Israel is embarking on a camp in which thousands of Jews were de- Two of the banks recently settled out of fact that the BND employed Nazis – it was worldwide search for the rightful heirs. set up in a hurry, with US help, to create tained and murdered. Kurt W. – a promising David Hillinger’s grandparents were court but of the other three, she claims officer in the BND – was thought to have Leumi still owes about 300 million shekels spying networks against the Soviet gassed in Auschwitz in World War II. Union – but it has always been vague been involved in the killings. ($90 million). But in 1940 before they died, his grandfa- about its war records. Georg W had been a young officer in the “We know about 10,000 accounts that ther deposited 1,400 English pounds in the Now the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Gestapo, and joined an Einsatzkommando we’re speaking of, but some of the Anglo Palestine Bank in what is now Israel. newspaper has been given access to files - in essence a killing squad - that murdered accounts were given back to the heirs Like so many European Jews, they from the 1960s that detail how the BND the Polish intelligentsia after the German in- after the war,” she said. hoped the money would assist their tried, belatedly, to weed out suspected war vasion. His unit killed 1,700 Poles, including “So I think it’s about around 7,000 escape from persecution after the war. criminals. Potted biographies of the women and children, in a single day in a accounts that we’re talking about today.” “He was afraid of the Germans, so he agents, with lightly disguised names, have wood outside Palmiry. By the end of the war, was thinking like other people also, ‘If I Now the company is about to begin a been published at www.faz.net/bnd. he was hunting down Jews and communists send money in Palestine, perhaps they worldwide search for the relatives of Holo- According to the newspaper the BND in hiding in Kassel. Then he joined the BND send me a visa and I can live in Palestine, caust victims who invested in Palestine was thrown into confusion by the discovery and rose through the ranks. He had plenty yes?’” Mr. Hillinger said. before they died. of two Soviet moles, Heinz Felfe and Jo- of opportunities to bump into old comrades After the war the Anglo Palestine and And Ms. Kroitoru suspects most have no hannes Clemens, in 1961. Felfe had pre- in the canteen – Helmut S, for example, other banks still held the deposits of thou- whose SS unit was deemed responsible for idea they are the heirs to a small fortune viously been a member of the SS while sands of Jews who had died in the the slaughter of 24,000 people, most of or even property. Clemens had been nicknamed “The Tiger Holocaust. them Jews, in the Soviet Union. “Many people didn’t even know that of Como” for his savage treatment of Ital- David Hillinger’s family had the documents Gehlen recorded his contacts and re- even their father bought a plot of land in ian dissidents during the war. for his grandfather’s account, which he says ports from the war and stored the micro- Palestine,” she said. The head of the BND, Reinhard Gehlen is now worth about half a million shekels. films in water-tight barrels in various sites Leumi Bank says it handed most of the - himself a former intelligence officer in the But Leumi Bank, which took over from in the Austrian Alps; he later traded them money in the accounts to British authori- Wehrmacht - decided that a criminal war Anglo Palestine, said the account did not for his freedom. One of his nuggets of in- ties after the war, and at most would only record could make his agents a security exist and refused to pay. formation was that several members of the be liable for the interest accrued. risk, giving Moscow blackmail material. “I was angry because it is Israeli banks American Office of Strategic Services – And recently it paid 20 million shekels – The old Nazis had served their purpose, stole Israeli money from people who died the precursor to the CIA – had been secret as a goodwill gesture – to the company providing agent networks and inside in the Shoah,” he said. members of the US Communist Party. representing the heirs. knowledge of the Soviet Union and East- David Hillinger is one of maybe hun- But the BND was a spy service without a dreds of thousands of heirs of Holocaust In the meantime, it has agreed to enter ern Europe. Now they had to be screened. real tradition, and even after the sacking of victims who deposited money in what are an arbitration process to resolve the Gehlen, one of the legendary Cold War the Nazis and Gehlen’s retirement in 1968, now Israeli banks. claims. spymasters, assigned a 32-year-old mole- it was plagued by moles. Page 6 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2010 - Iyyar/Sivan 5770 SURVIVORS’SURVIVORS’ CORNERCORNER

SURVIVAL TALES TOLD IN SNAPSHOTS: CZECH JEWS ENDURING THE HOLOCAUST Siegfried Kaufmann, who chose the vived by naïve denial. Children in the Riga other up, sometimes dividing a cadged BY JOSEPH BERGER, scapegoat; and Salaspils inmates watch- ghetto played soccer, walked to school piece of bread. THE NEW YORK TIMES ing a hanging. past bodies strung from gallows, and later, “We tried to keep each other’s head “Behind every picture there is several e have seen these images before, in Kaiserwald, heard their parents make fu- above water,” one of them, Hana Fuchs- hundred phone calls,” Mr. Pribyl, a 36- wizened men and women recalling tile plans to hide them under barracks Klenk, said. “We were willing to give W year-old Czech Jewish historian who stud- unspeakable events that occurred when floorboards. everything up if we could help somebody they were teenagers, sometimes tartly ied at Brandeis and Columbia, said in a In each film well-dressed survivors sit in else or that she needed it more.” mocking their own cluelessness. telephone interview from Prague. “I de- comfortable living rooms calmly recollect- The films show heaps of fly-covered In a series of four documentaries about cided everything people say will be docu- ing without a narrator’s intrusion. Mr. Pribyl corpses and naked, frightened women the little-known ordeals of Czech Jews dur- waiting to be shot in a trench. But it also ing World War II, for example, Anna Kraus captures eruptions of human quirkiness — Bauer looks back at her train journey to an sometimes generous, sometimes cruel — Estonian labor camp. “I remember I kept that bring the Holocaust down to an looking at the moon, telling myself it is earthly level. shining here, and it is shining at home too Gisela Danziger Herzl recalls how she — the very same one,” she says. “So spotted the suit of her husband, Karel, on maybe things won’t be so bad.” another man and “finally knew what I But what makes Forgotten Transports thought was going on.” In the Kivioli camp, stand out from the multitude of Holocaust Mrs. Herzl was about to be shot when the documentaries is that its director, Lukas German commandant interceded. Pribyl, did more than track down survivors “Gisela, make this chicken for me — it or burrow through film archives and depor- tastes like my mother used to make it,” tation records. Mrs. Herzl recalled his saying. “So the Over 10 years and visits to 30 countries, chicken saved my life.” he hunted down photographs of SS camp One SS officer, Heinz Droshin, pulled off commanders and snapshots taken by local his insignia and fled the camp with a beau- residents and workers who might have en- Deported women as conscripted laborers. tiful Jewish girl, Inge Sylten. Photographs mented with authentic pictures and footage countered inmates, sometimes trading bot- also avoided standard historical footage of of both are shown. from that time and place.” tles of vodka for the artifacts. The events like Nazi parades. “It was like they forgot where they are ogether the films trace the experi- impression conveyed is that a photogra- “You won’t see Hitler in my films,” he completely,” Mrs. Danziger said. ences of 76 of the 270 survivors pher was along for the nightmare ride of T said. “What I’m interested in is when you In Riga an SS officer catches a young among the thousands of Czech Jews de- the Czech Jews. take a person from a relatively normal life woman hiding red wool among clothes When Mrs. Bauer and friends who man- ported, not to the familiar Theresienstadt and suddenly throw them into completely she was sorting for shipment to Germany aged to stay together through the war ghetto or to Auschwitz, but to less-well- apocalyptic conditions — how does that and shoots not only her but also every speak of Aleksander Laak, their SS com- known camps like Jagala and Kaiserwald. person react?” fourth woman in her group. But at Kaiser- mander, there he is in his fearsome ramrod Mr. Pribyl chose that approach because his Working with a cameraman and the finan- wald in Latvia, another SS officer, after a authority, and, at the film’s end, there he is grandfather was sent to an obscure camp. cial backing of relatives and others, he trifling bribe, looks the other way while 15 years later in Canada, looking plump The films weave several strands in an pestered subjects for years to talk or hand men dig a tunnel so women from the ad- and content, surrounded by the kinds of approach echoing the chapter structure of joining camp can sneak under the fence relatives he never let his victims keep. Joyce’s Ulysses. Each film portrays differ- over photographs. In one visit to an SS offi- (When his crimes were revealed in 1960, ent groups in different locations — single cer’s kin, he pressed the doorbell insistently. and spend the night. he hanged himself.) women in Estonia, men in Belarus, families “Go to the garage,” he recalled an exas- The survivors sometimes chuckle as And when Jews at Salaspils, a Latvian in the Riga ghetto of Latvia, escapees from perated relative’s snapping. “Grandpa’s they look back in disbelief. Mr. Pribyl said camp, recall an Ernst Ballon who escaped the Lublin region of Poland. suitcase is there. Take it and leave us he felt that survivors had a sense of humor and the retributive hanging that followed, Each film also depicts a different mode alone.” and an optimistic outlook in common. But there are photographs of Ballon; the SS of survival. The men from Belarus quickly he film about Estonia shows how ultimately, Mr. Pribyl said, his research commander, Otto Teckemeier, who or- grasped their fate and hatched ways to join T women who grew close on the trans- proved that “the only recipe for survival is dered the hanging; the Jewish block elder, partisan units. The Estonian women sur- port to Jagala made sure to buck each to have a lot of good luck.” GREAT ESCAPE young Polish women who did housework diers marched into town on September 17, graphs, and sacks of clothing. Soldiers and looked after the children. “I had a good they were greeted with flowers and hugs. locked the gates of the courthouse yard BY GILA LYONS, TABLET youth,” Sonya told me. “I was one of the he afternoon of June 24, 1941, behind them. met Sonya Oshman at the world pre- privileged ones.” TSonya was the only one at home on For two days, the Jews neither slept nor Imiere of A Partisan Returns: The Legacy Sonya’s parents, Abraham and Tamara, Pilsudski Street. As she passed the tall ate. On December 8, Sonya’s grandpar- of Two Sisters, a documentary about the owned an appliance store. Abraham called brick chimney in the center of the house, ents and little brother were sent to their 1943 escape of 250 Jews, including Sonya, his daughter Sonyaleh. Many of his cus- she heard a bomb fall. Then another. She deaths, while Sonya, her parents, and her from a work camp in Poland through a 700- tomers, non-Jewish state officials, be- stood frozen while the entire house col- remaining siblings were locked into the foot tunnel dug by hand. friended him and called him Abramaleh, or lapsed in a heavy sigh of dust and boards. courthouse compound along with Novo- Sonya’s speech at the podium im- Meme. When there was tension between After the smoke settled, Sonya stood grudek’s remaining 1,500 Jews. It was a pressed on me her sheer will to survive, the Jews and Poles of the town, they stunned next to the brick chimney. makeshift ghetto surrounded by barbed gratitude for surviving, and mission to would often turn to Meme to mediate. The Germans had invaded Novogrudek wire and armed guards. The people inside share her story. The children attended Jewish schools and turned the Jewish neighborhoods to were craftsmen saved for their skills. Each Several weeks after the film screening, I sat where they studied Hebrew, Torah, and rubble. The shops in the marketplace, morning the ghetto gates would open and in Sonya Oshman’s sunny living room at her Jewish history, as well as math, science, mostly Jewish-owned, were burnt and tailors, shoemakers, metalworkers, car- assisted-living facility in New Jersey. At 86, and literature. She went on to study to smashed, as were the Jewish libraries and penters, saddlers, and mechanics, along schools. Of all the synagogues, only a few she was small but sturdy, with feathery brown be a doctor and was accepted to med- with their families, were ushered under walls remained. There were 300 casual- hair, round deep-set eyes, and thin eyebrows ical school in Bialystok, to begin in the gunpoint to their workshops to sew fur lin- ties, mostly Jewish. that arched upwards when she smiled. fall of 1939. ings into boots, manufacture guns, or By September of that year Novogrudek It was bitterly cold six months later, on In 1931, Sonya Gorodinsky was 9 years mend German army uniforms. was in danger of German invasion. The Pol- Saturday, December 6, when 6,500 Jews, old, the eldest of four children, with a sister On May 7, 1943, there was another ish authorities fled, knowing they would be half the town’s population, were instructed yet to be born. The family lived on Pilsud- roundup in the courthouse square. SS overpowered. The Jews there believed the to assemble at the courthouse yard. The ski Street, in a home next to Sonya’s ma- guards swarmed around the exhausted Russians would be more sympathetic rulers Gorodinskys trudged toward the town cen- ternal grandparents, who employed two (Continued on page 12) than the Germans, and so when Soviet sol- ter clutching pillows, boxes of photo- May/June 2010 - Iyyar/Sivan 5770 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 7 THE ARAB POSITION ON THE HOLOCAUST POLISH WOMAN’S JEWISH “SHOCK” Jewish community and helped by the the 1939 White Paper, which drastically British Mandatory government. limited the right of Jews to buy land in ore than 27,000 Jews were killed at BY SHLOMO AVINERI, HAARETZ But in the winter of 1938-39, the British Mandatory Palestine and placed a ceiling Mthe Sobibor death camp, built by the ne sometimes encounters the changed their policy after the government of of 75,000 on Jewish immigration. The Nazis in Poland. The BBC’s Steve Rosen- OPalestinian argument that there is Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain realized message to the Arabs was clear: The Jews berg travelled to Poland to meet a woman a basic injustice in the fact that they ap- that its appeasement of Hitler had failed. would remain a minority in Palestine. who only recently discovered that she, her- pear to have to pay the price for Europe’s Britain began to prepare for a war against the his policy did not completely achieve self, was Jewish and that her family had crimes during the Holocaust. It’s true, of Nazis, and as part of this it changed its Middle Tits goal; the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj been killed in one such camp. course, that Nazi Germany and its allies, East policy. Britain reintroduced the draft, Amin al-Husseini, found his way to Berlin Bogomila always suspected that her and not the Palestinians, are those guilty started massive production of tanks and air- anyway. An anti-British and pro-Nazi rebel- mother had a secret. of perpetrating the Holocaust. craft, and developed the radar. In light of the lion erupted in Iraq, led by Rashid Ali. But “She always looked frightened,” Bo- Nonetheless, any argument that links need to insure the Empire’s critical link to as far as the Jews were concerned, the gomila tells me. “My husband used to say, the establishment of the State of Israel India via the Suez Canal, Britain feared that British continued to consistently apply the ‘Your mother is afraid of her own shadow.’” exclusively to the Holocaust ignores the continued violent suppression of the Arab re- principles of the White Paper during the Last summer, her 67-year-old mother fact that modern Zionism preceded the volt in Palestine would push all Arabs in the war. The gates were shut to legal Jewish Barbara finally revealed her secret. She is annihilation of the Jews in World War II, region closer to Nazi Germany and Fascist immigration, the British navy fought illegal a Jewish child of the Holocaust. Suddenly, even if the Holocaust clearly strength- Italy. It consequently decided to move closer immigration, and ships seeking to save at the age of 37, Bogomila realized she ened the claim for Jewish sovereignty. to the Arabs and away from the Jews and Zi- Jews from the Nazi occupation (such as was Jewish, too. Yet the Arab argument that places all onism. As Colonial Secretary Malcolm Mac- the Struma) were returned to their port of “I was in shock,” Bogomila admits. “I did- responsibility on Europe is not com- Donald explained to the Zionist leadership, origin; some of their passengers died at n’t sleep at all that night. I couldn’t eat for pletely correct. When the Arab revolt the change was prompted not by a British sea, others in the gas chambers. the next two weeks.” against British rule in Palestine broke conviction that Arab claims were justified, but Guilt for the Holocaust lies with Nazi Ger- I’m sitting with Barbara and Bogomila in out in 1936, its aim was to change the rather by realpolitik: There were more Arabs many and its allies. But an untold number the Jewish community center in Lublin. Be- British position, which had supported than Jews; the Jews would support Britain of Jews, perhaps as many as hundreds of fore World War II, more than 40,000 Jews Jewish immigration to Palestine since against the Nazis in any case, but the Arabs thousands – including my grandparents lived in this city. The Holocaust changed the Balfour Declaration. The revolt was have the option of joining Nazi Germany. from the Polish town of Makow Podhalan- everything. also meant to hurt the Jewish community The cruel paradox lies in the fact that ap- ski – were not saved and did not reach “My whole family was killed by the and discourage Jews who were planning peasement of the Arabs started just as Mandatory Palestine because of the posi- Nazis,” Barbara says. to immigrate. The British, in time-hon- Britain relinquished its appeasement policy tion taken by the Arabs: they succeeded in “I survived because a Polish family ored colonial tradition, cruelly sup- vis-á-vis Hitler and was preparing for war shutting the country’s gates during the agreed to hide me. When I was growing up pressed the revolt, assisted by the against Germany. This was the reason for darkest hour of the Jewish people. I realized the Polish ‘mother’ couldn’t be my real mother, she was too old. When I was 12 she told me the truth.” HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR FIGHTS APATHY I ask Barbara why she had waited so mood instantly darkens. “I can also re- I ask one 17-year-old boy why he is many years before telling Bogomila and BY RAY FURLONG, BBC member leaving for the last time.” here. her other two daughters of their Jewish “This was the most modern house in “I don’t know why, we’ve been told to heritage. edi Fried was never supposed to re- town, the first with a water-closet. So the come,” he says, laughing. “My husband is Catholic,” Barbara says, turn home. Packed into a cattle truck H last thing I did here was to flush the toilet. “What do you know about the Holocaust?” “He didn’t want the girls to know. His own in 1944, she was deported to Auschwitz “I thought we’d come back soon. We I ask. family didn’t like Jews. He didn’t want the with the other 17,000 Jews in Sighet, now didn’t. My parents didn’t come back. My “Nothing, we haven’t done it at school yet.” girls to have problems. I’d had problems Sighetu Marmatiei in Romania. sister and I survived just by chance.” A 15-year-old girl who was inside is a when I was small. In school the other chil- But like her town’s most famous son, the fter surviving Auschwitz, Hedi and little more forthcoming. She says Hedi dren used to make fun of me. They used Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, she survived her sister were moved to Bergen- spoke about her childhood in Sighet and to pull my curly hair to try to make it and has often returned to the town to bear A Belsen, later liberated by the British. After what happened to her family. straight. I was made to feel different.” witness to what happened with talks and the war they moved to Sweden, where “Were you surprised?” I ask. Today Jews in Poland continue to suffer lectures. Hedi worked as a psychologist. abuse. Now, aged 85, she’s made an emotional She has also been a tireless “I wouldn’t call it anti-Semitism,” says the final journey there. campaigner to keep retelling President of the Union of Jewish Commu- The rain streams down as we draw up the story of the Holocaust, trav- nities of Poland, Piotr Kadlcik. “It’s more a outside Sighet’s Jewish cemetery. elling the world to give talks broad dislike of Jews. What’s worrying is a “This is my pilgrimage, the last one,” and lectures, first returning to certain level of leniency of the prosecutor’s says Hedi, stepping over a large brown Sighet in 1968. office in relation to hate crimes, Nazi puddle. “So many survivors found it salutes and the vandalism of Jewish ceme- “When I come to Sighet I remember my impossible to talk about what teries.” childhood stories, and I see the ghosts. happened. But for me it’s actu- Barbara admits that she never planned When I walk the streets I see people ally therapy. Even now, coming to reveal her secret. It was Bogomila’s per- coming and going. But they’re not here here, I’m working through it. sistent questioning about the past that any more, none of them.” “At first I thought I could forced her to change her mind. There are rows of gravestones at odd never return to Auschwitz, but angles in the grass, many engraved with Hedi Fried. Her daughter had been bombarding her I did and since then my night- the word Auschwitz and several names. with questions about her ancestors, des- mares are not as strong. I still have them Hedi’s family gravestone contains, among “Yes,” she replies. perate to discover more about her family. but I no longer wake up in a damp sweat.” others, her mother and father. “Have you ever heard what happened After the initial shock of discovering she But Hedi is also concerned that new “They went up in smoke,” she says, “but here in your town before?” was Jewish, Bogomila says she is “very generations are not learning the truth about I had their names put here.” “No.” happy” with her new identity. She has even the Holocaust. A prayer for the dead is recited, and Monosyllabic answers are common to signed up for a course of Jewish studies in “My aim to come to Sighet was that the Hedi shows me her grandmother’s grave- teenagers. But the local schools clearly Lublin. children understand what their great-grand- stone nearby. She died long before the did not see Hedi’s visit as an opportunity She attends the small Sabbath meal Holocaust, when Hedi was a child. parents have done, because when I lived to teach their pupils about this town’s here in the community center. And she re- “I remember how she always used to here as a child I was a ‘damned Jewess,’’’ horrific recent history. cently visited the Nazi death camp Sobi- give me sweets,” she says, recalling a by- she says. Of the 17,000 Jews who lived here before bor, where a quarter of a million Jews were gone age when Sighet was a bustling Jew- “They don’t know what their grandparents the war, there’s hardly a trace – just a few murdered in the gas chambers. ish city. have done: some have been perpetrators, families and a single surviving synagogue. I ask Bogomila if she has told her own As we drive through potholed streets to a few rescuers, the majority bystanders. After the talk, Hedi joins in the folk dance, children the news. our next stop, she points at the low-rise And that’s what they have to learn: never, drawing on enviable reserves of energy “I would like to tell them,” she says, “but houses with crumbling 1920s facades. ever be a bystander.” for an 85-year-old. they are so small. Agatha is 10, Christo- “All of these were Jewish houses,” she At the Elie Wiesel museum in Sighet, But back at the hotel afterwards, she’s pher is six and Julia is five.” says, the only person in the town who can schoolchildren perform a folk dance for clearly tired when asked about the lukewarm “Are they really too young to be told?” I remember what it was like. Hedi. She gives a talk – but the event is response that her testimony drew from the ask. Her family moved into a new house in disorganised. local youth. “If I tell them, then my oldest child, 1937. “I was delighted with it. I thought we While she sits behind a table, teenagers “People don’t want to talk about it, espe- Agatha, will probably go and tell her other had invented functionalist architecture!” stand huddled in front of her looking em- cially what happened in their own commu- grandmother – my mother-in-law,” Bo- she says, as we stand outside an elegant barrassed. nity. The bystanders are ashamed of it,” gomila explains. but decayed building. Others are outside in the corridor. They she says. “And my mother-in-law doesn’t like Jews. “That was my window. I can see myself couldn’t hear a word even if they were “But tomorrow I am going to another As for my husband’s grandmother, she talking to my boyfriend,” she says. But the trying to – which they’re not. school.” hates Jews.” Page 8 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2010 - Iyyar/Sivan 5770 1010TH ANNUALANNUAL SPRINGSPRING LUNCHEONLUNCHEON OFOF THETHE CONTINUITY IN ACTION REMEMBER AND HONOR THE PAST Eli Zborowski, Chairman of The American Society Lili Stawski, Luncheon Chairwoman for Yad Vashem n behalf of the entire Yad Vashem Committee, I am ear Guests of Honor, Doris Gross and Yonina Oso happy to welcome you here today and thank you DGomberg; Luncheon Chairperson, Lili Stawski; our for your support. I am honored to serve as Chairperson of Guest Speaker, Prof. Joseph Kertes; dear friends: this year’s Spring Luncheon. On behalf of the American and International Societies Eli and Elizabeth Zborowski never cease to inspire me; for Yad Vashem, our Officers and Board, as well as Yad their total devotion and dedication to Yad Vashem are ut- Vashem Jerusalem, it is my pleasure to welcome you all terly amazing and if not for their hard work, Yad Vashem to our 10th Annual Spring Luncheon. would not be where it is today – so thank you! This afternoon’s program is a celebration of continuity… Also, we are very grateful and fortunate to have Rachelle The continuity of our work from generation to generation, Grossman, who helped make today’s event so special. and our ongoing efforts towards our future in preserving I very much appreciate and want to share my enthusiasm memory and commitment to education. Indeed, this year’s for the American Society for Yad Vashem. This year’s Luncheon theme is “Continuity,” and it is only befitting that theme is “Continuity” – and the best way to begin is at the our Guests of Honor should be Doris Gross, a Survivor, and Yonina Gomberg, the daughter beginning: going back to 1980, when one of the very first of Cheryl and Fred Halpern and granddaughter of Gladys and Sam Halpern, Survivors. meetings of Yad Vashem was held at the home of my parents Elli and Izzy Krakowski. It Doris is a Holocaust Survivor and is deeply committed to the cause of Remembrance. was my brother Harry Krakowski who offered to be the first supporter of Eli’s vision – Yad She, together with her late husband Sam, was part of our organization since its inception Vashem. and worked tirelessly on its behalf. Yonina, a very active member of our Young Leadership, Coming from a family of Survivors, both my immediate as well as my extended family, is part of our Third Generation, and with her peers is committed to continue our important one grew up knowing how important it is that one does not forget – that we remember and mission. Yonina and her peers are determined to carry the torch held by her grandparents, honor the past. As one of my daughters, Ariella, quotes Elie Wiesel: “One person of in- by Doris, and by the other members of our generation. tegrity can make a difference.” It gives us great Nachat to witness real CONTINUITY IN ACTION, the two Guests of In order for continuity to go on, we must all recognize how instrumental Yad Vashem is Honor, Doris the Survivor and Yonina the grandchild of Survivors. Look around: the ma- to all of us. As Elli and Izzy Krakowski, Survivors who passed on their stories and their jority of guests are 2nd-and 3rd-generation, starting with the Luncheon Chairperson, Lili values to my brother Harry, sister-in-law Andrea and onto the next generation, my dear Stawski, a daughter of Survivors, as well as the presence of both Chairpersons of the daughters Ariella and Ilana Stawski, and Rachel, Sarah, Sophie, and Leah Krakowski, Young Leadership Associates – Caroline Massel and Jeremy Halpern – both grandchildren L’Dor Va Dor. of Survivors – the leaders of our torch-carriers. We consider one of the Societies’ greatest Thus it is with great pride and joy that I acknowledge this year’s Yad Vashem’s Honorees: achievements in assuring continuity by having you, our children and grandchildren, with Doris Gross, a Survivor, and Yonina Gomberg, a grandchild of Survivors Gladys and Sam us in our work on behalf of Remembrance, which is the mandate of Yad Vashem. Halpern, who is an outstanding lawyer and works so hard for her community. The important work of our two outstanding women Honorees, together with all of you, dear friends, enables us each day to commemorate and educate. This year, we are honored to have with us Professor Joseph Kertes as our guest speaker. Last but not least, I would also like to acknowledge the efforts of Rachelle Grossman, our Event Coordinator, who together with the staff is responsible for the Luncheon arrangements.

Jean Gluck; Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American Society for Yad Vashem; and Fanya Gottes- feld Heller. Attendees of the 2010 Spring Luncheon.

Stella Skura and Cheryl Lifshitz, benefactors. Prof. Joseph Kertes, Guest Speaker, and Marilyn Rubenstein, benefactor. May/June 2010 - Iyyar/Sivan 5770 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 9 EE AMERICANAMERICAN SOCIETYSOCIETY FORFOR YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM TEACHING THE LESSONS OF HISTORY COMMITMENT TO REMEMBRANCE Doris Gross, Spring Luncheon Honoree Yonina Gomberg, Spring Luncheon Honoree hank you, Lili, for your introduction, and thanks to your hank you, Grandma, for that beautiful introduction. Tfamily and my daughter Carol and her family and my TCongratulations to Mrs. Doris Gross, my fellow Hon- sister-in-law Fela Moncznik and all my guests who came oree. Your story of survival and triumph is an inspiration here in support of the Society – a partner to Yad Vashem in to us all. It is truly a privilege to share this day with you. its sacred work on behalf of Remembrance. And thank you, Eli and Elizabeth Zborowski, for all that Seventy years ago I was a happy child nurtured by lov- you did for the American Society for Yad Vashem; Lili ing parents. Suddenly, however, my life turned upside Stawski, our Luncheon Chairwoman, and Rachelle down and the next five years pushed me through un- Grossman, for your efforts to make a beautiful and suc- speakable horrors. I experienced life in the ghetto, was cessful luncheon; and dear friends. sent to forced labor and to concentration camp. My entire I am so honored to be here today representing the third family perished except for my late brother Bernard and generation. myself. And I will always remember the last words my fa- My parents, Fred and Cheryl Halpern, and my grand- ther said to me: Don’t always be the first, but don’t also be the last. parents, Rabbi Avrum and Estelle Feldman and Sam and Gladys Halpern, always demon- My late husband, Sam, was equally dedicated to Remembrance and we were deeply strated the importance of family, yiddishkeit, tzedakah and Israel. I am blessed to have involved with this organization from its inception. such exemplary role models. I am honored to be this year’s Spring Luncheon Honoree together with an active member It was my grandparents, Sam and Gladys, who taught me the importance of keeping of the young leadership, Yonina Gomberg. This is a real tribute to the success of our work alive the memory of the Holocaust. Many of you know of their experiences during the where we all work together with our next generation, the younger people who dedicate Shoah. Grandpa Sam and his brother, z’l, Arie were in the Kamionka labor camp. After their efforts to remembering the history of the Holocaust. I am grateful to G-d for having escaping from the camp the night before the camp was liquidated, they went into hiding survived, for having married my beloved late husband, for having a beautiful family, for in the home of the Gorniak family. Grandma Gladys, her mother, and two aunts spent 18 my children and grandchildren. After all the hardship I went through I consider working months hiding in the home of Marian Halicki. My family owes its existence to these right- within the American Society towards helping Yad Vashem preserve the memory of the Six eous gentiles. Million, a privilege and an obligation. Teaching the lessons of history to our children and What we can’t possibly know, however, are the stories of so many others who were mur- their children for future generations to come is what we are about. dered. In anticipation of today’s luncheon I searched through Yad Vashem’s central data- In closing I again wish to thank all of you for bestowing this honor on me. base of Shoah victims names. I came across many women named Janina, or Jonina with a “J,” and a few whose names were spelled exactly like mine, with a “Y.” Yoninas who were victims of the Shoah. Reading the testimony dedicated to their memory affected me profoundly. Therefore, I gratefully accept this honor in the name of these Yoninas: Yonina Figer was born in Podzelva, Lithuania to Yekhezkel and Rivka. She remained in Podzelva, where she perished in the Holocaust. Yonina Gilersonaite was born in Kowno in 1936 to Solomon and Frida Kaplan. She was a child, only 5 years old when she perished in 1941. Yonina Grynbaum was born in Poland. Married to Avraham, she spent her days before the war as a housewife in Warsaw. During the war she was in the Warsaw Ghetto, where she perished. Yonina Kretinger was born in Vilkaviskis in 1905 to Bentzion and Feiga. She never had an opportunity to marry and start her own family…she perished in 1942 in the Shoah. Reading testimonies such as these affirmed for me why Yad Vashem is a unique insti- tution whose mission is indispensable when it comes to remembrance, documentation, research, and education. Many who are not as close to Yad Vashem or the Shoah as we, speak of the Holocaust and think of the collective six million – an incomprehensible number. But Yad Vashem fo- cuses us on six million individuals. The Pages of Testimony project, which is the effort to collect the names as well as any anecdotal information about these six million Jews who were lost to us, is just one of many ways that Yad Vashem commemorates the murdered and documents the atrocities of the Holocaust. I salute Mrs. Gross and all of you here today for your incredible work on behalf of the American Society for Yad Vashem and Yad Vashem Jerusalem. As a member of the Young Leadership Associates, I pledge to my fellow honoree, Doris Gross, to Eli Zborowski, to my dear grandparents and parents, and to all of you here today, that the third-generation is devoted to continuing your work. Indeed today’s theme, “Continuity,” epitomizes this commitment to remembrance. Ilana Stawski; Lili Stawski, 2010 Spring Luncheon Chair; Regina Petersiel; Elli and Israel I want to thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedules to be here today and Krakowski. for so generously supporting Yad Vashem. Personally, I feel humbled and truly blessed, that, baruch Hashem, I can stand here today, a grandchild of survivors. I, also, thank my husband Eric, and our sons Liam and Tobias, for being so supportive, inspiring and loving. Once again, thank you for this honor.

Fred Halpern, Sam Halpern and Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American Society for Yad Vashem. Nicole Pines Lieberman, Robyn Gelberg and Danielle Schwartz. Page 10 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2010 - Iyyar/Sivan 5770 REPORTREPORT FROMFROM YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM

THE AUSCHWITZ ALBUM: THE STORY OF A TRANSPORT – ILONA BERK’S STORY im Berk, a sports journalist and guide- ghetto, which itself was a collecting point ing in the Berehovo ghetto in Hungary dur- After the war ended, Ilona lived in Jin-training at the Holocaust Memorial for Jews from several other small towns. ing the darkest days of Nazi-occupied Eu- Sweden for a few years, and eventually Center Zekelman Family Campus in Farm- The purpose of the album is unclear. It rope. She was born in 1918 in the town of made her way to the United States. In ington Hills, Michigan, was attending a was not intended for propaganda pur- Uzhhorod, (Ungvar in Hungarian), which 1952, at age 33, she visited Miami viewing of the exhibit “The Auschwitz poses, nor does it have any obvious per- was in Czechoslovakia prior to Hungary’s Beach for a holiday, where she met her Album: Story of a Transport,” when he annexation. In May 1944, she was husband, who was from Grand Rapids, came upon a startling discovery that deported from the ghetto to the Michigan. They married in 1953 and set- caused his breath to catch in his throat and Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration tled in Lincoln, Nebraska; their son Jim his heart to skip a beat. He recognized his camp in this infamous transport, was born in 1954. Jim lives in West mother — Ilona Dorenter Berk — in one of whose ultimate purpose was the Bloomfield, Michigan, and is active in the the photos with a group of women, upon total extermination of Hungarian cause for Holocaust remembrance. arrival from the train to the notorious death Jewry by the Nazis. Ilona, the sec- oday, the numbers of Shoah sur- camp, Auschwitz. ond of eight children, with their T vivors like Ilona Berk are quickly The American Society for Yad Vashem mother, was deported and put onto shrinking. Amid a world in which Holo- brought this exhibit from Yad Vashem in this transport. She was one of the caust denial is resurgent — their spirit Jerusalem four years ago, when it had its lucky ones — upon arrival at the cries to each of us who remains: “Re- premiere at the United Nations in New York member.” camp, during the horrific selection City. Since then, the exhibit has travelled We need your help to make sure that process by the SS, she was se- throughout the United States to several the names and stories of the victims are lected for forced labor, and she sur- cities, colleges and museums in Los Ange- not forgotten. vived. Thousands of others were les, Miami, Chicago, and now Detroit. The American Society for Yad Vashem not as lucky. The Auschwitz Album is the only surviving supports the work of Yad Vashem in Today Ilona is 91 years old, and visual evidence of the process of mass mur- Jerusalem, the world’s pre-eminent der at Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is a unique lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. While Holocaust memorial, museum, and re- document and was donated to Yad Vashem telling her story, at many moments search center. by Lilly Jacob-Zelmanovic Meier in 1994. Ilona and Sam Berk, wedding day, 1953. she became very emotional. Un- Your support will help us to continue The photos were taken at the end of May sonal use. One assumes that it was derstandably, these are very diffi- our work in the field of Holocaust re- or beginning of June 1944, either by Ernst prepared as an official reference for a cult and painful memories to recall. Ilona search, remembrance, and commemo- Hofmann or by Bernhard Walter, two SS higher authority, as were photo albums remembers the trip on the transport took ration. Please be generous with a gift men whose task was to take ID photos and from other concentration camps. The pho- three or four days, and many people died today and please remember Yad Vashem fingerprints of the inmates (not of the Jews tos in the Auschwitz Album show the entire on the way, before reaching Auschwitz. in your will. who were sent directly to the gas cham- process except for the killing itself. She believes that her skills as a seam- To support the work of Yad Vashem bers). The photos show the arrival of Hun- lona Berk (nee Dorenter) was one of stress, and her ability to speak German, with a gift today, please contact garian Jews from Carpatho-Ruthenia. Ithe fortunate who survived. In 1944 helped her to survive that terrible time. She Madelyn Cohen at 212-220-4304 or Many of them came from the Berehovo she was a young Jewish woman of 25, liv- lost a sister and two brothers at Auschwitz. [email protected]. VIRTUES OF MEMORY: IDENTIFYING NOTES FROM THE WARSAW SIX DECADES OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS’ CREATIVITY GHETTO However, the word in whatever form – in studied in a manner that examines not BY YEHUDIT SHENDAR writing, in speech – is not the only instru- each individual work, but rather how the ment to guarantee memory. What happens artist remembers by means of expression, BY DR. LEA PRAIS he yoke of memory is borne by Holo- to those for whom the word is not the ap- and thus bequeaths the legacy of remem- he end of the war saw the gathering Tcaust survivors day in and day out. propriate vehicle for expression, who com- brance to others. Tof an astounding yield of personal Over the years, they have unburdened The new Yad Vashem ex- documentation written by Jews under Nazi themselves piece by piece: hibition “Virtues of Memory: occupation. some by writing, some by the Six Decades of Holocaust Entire archives, alongside chronicles of spoken word and some by Survivors’ Creativity” opens events, personal diaries, notes, and wit- means of the visual image, in up this body of artistic ex- ness reports, all created under the most art and in film. Each one has pression, enabling us, unusual circumstances, were revealed found a personal path to share those who were not there, and, as time passed, became an essential his or her experience with im- to touch a reality through vi- basis for Holocaust study. In addition to mediate family, fellow Jews and sual aspects. It presents a their historic importance and literary value, others, wherever they may be. language of powerful signs the discovery of these writings was itself The unique commandment and symbols, stemming intriguing: the fascinating, emotional tales they were given – not on the from the directness of the of their endurance when often the authors peak of Mount Sinai, but in the expression, and the urgent themselves did not survive. depths of the abyss – is that of need of the one who re- Astonished by the impact of these manu- telling their story, as stated in members to delve into the scripts, historians and archivists joined to- Exodus 13:8: “On that day you depths of memory, bleak gether to publish them. Their sense of shall tell your child” – the sons and unadorned. It is not an obligation was fueled in part by their under- and daughters of the human attempt to recreate reality, standing that they were fulfilling the moral race. but rather reality itself, both legacy and wishes of the writers. The last The testimonies of the sur- external and internal, tinted line in the diary kept by Chaim Aharon Ka- vivors first entered the public Adolf Frankl (b. 1903, Austria-Hungary, d. 1983, Austria), Distribution of Food with the hues of personal plan in the Warsaw ghetto, written on the discourse during the 1961 in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. experience. evening of 4 August 1942 at the height of the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem. mitted their memories to canvas, or by The exhibition is arranged by thematic or hunt to deport him to Treblinka, reads: “If my That is when we learned to listen to their chiseling or carving in wood – a language visual categories of the works. Survivor end is nigh – what will become of my diary?” personal accounts. The annals of each whose syntax is visual? testimonies, echoing the impetus of their Some of the writings were published as survivor became interwoven with each Since its inception, hundreds of artworks, creative expression, complement the exhi- early as the late 1940s. The Jewish Histor- other in a dense fabric of warp and weft the fruits of paintbrush and chisel, have bition’s presentation. ical Institute of Warsaw, where some Pol- – and the texture of the Holocaust’s col- been collected at Yad Vashem in nothing These “virtues of memory” thus take their ish Jewish historians who had survived lective memory slowly took shape. Since less than a wondrous fashion. This is a shape and form in a multi-faceted visual gathered, had one of the most valuable then, a supreme effort has been made to tremendous body of visual testimony, that puzzle. Each work is the voice of an indi- documentary treasures – the underground gather testimonies in every place where together with the printed and uttered words vidual; combined they form a multi-voiced archive known as Oyneg Shabbes (Oneg survivors live, turning each into a witness give a voice to the survivors. However, this choir, powerfully reverberating throughout Shabbat) – and, in its periodicals, pub- in the trial of history. corpus has yet to be comprehensively the exhibition space. (Continued on page 15) May/June 2010 - Iyyar/Sivan 5770 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 11 DEATH ON THE BALTIC sky as the prisoners lined up to be bodies filled the once extravagant banquet scared. This was it. After fighting for each BY JEREMY ELIAS , counted. Schmidt leaned back with his halls and living quarters. day for the last five years, it would all end THE JERUSALEM POST hands on his hips, slowly dipping his head Henry wasn’t there more than two hours in a minute or two. The exhaustion would to the sky. “Ich sehe schwarz,” he quietly before the bombing started. British Ty- be over, the struggle would finally end. n May 3, 1945, thousands of prison- phoons were roaring through the sky, The ship was almost completely capsized, ers were loaded onto ships in said. “I see black.” O blasting everything in their path. It was a the hull sticking up to the sky. My grandfa- Lübeck Bay, off the northern coast of Ger- But even Schmidt could not foresee the show, an extravagant display of power and many. They had endured years of Nazi darkness to come. ther hit the cold water, the rope no longer force, fire and destruction. They’d hit the brutality and were within hours of Allied lib- he night of May 2, the prisoners were serving its purpose. As he prepared for the U-boats. My grandfather had a front-row eration and the end of a seemingly endless Tawakened from their sleep to once inevitable, a voice rang through the air, seat, the air shaking from the blasts and hell. Before that hour could arrive, more again march. It wouldn’t be a long march, “Henry, Henry!” Like an angel from the cold water of the Baltic exploding with than 7,000 would be dead in one of the just to the coast. They’d finally run out of heaven, it was Peter Abramowitz, one of each hit. The prisoners on deck were greatest maritime disasters of World War land. My grandfather and the 500 others his closest friends from the camps. He was cheering. The pilots were ordered to bomb II. My grandfather was there. were marching to the sea. walking along the bottom of the ship, his everything in their path, and they’d been I’ve always known my grandfather’s Then they reached Neustadt. The Cap clothing still on. He leaned over the side. doing so with precision and effectiveness. story. I can’t remember a particular time Arcona sat idle, three kilometers off the “I’ll bring you up,” he said. At 2:30 p.m., however, their paths when he first sat me down from beginning sandy beaches of the harbor. The water Peter carried my grandfather on his crossed with the Cap Arcona. The first Ty- to end. So it’s as if I was born with a vague was filled with U-boats, barges and ships. back, the base of the ship too hot for bare phoon flew overhead, only about 1,000 understanding of what happened, and the The prisoners boarded a group of smaller skin. They walked to the partially sub- feet up. As it dove for the great ship, the rest of my life was for filling in the details. boats waiting to take them to the Cap Ar- merged section, able to sit down. They bomb ripped the far end of the deck open. In 1941, at 15, Henry Bawnik was cona. They filed on in reverse alphabetical looked around and counted – 300 people, Men and women fell to the floor as the rounded up on the streets of the Lodz order, starting with “Z.” naked. In a matter of hours, their friends, flames erupted. Prisoners screamed as ghetto. He would be leaving his family, and In its prime, the Cap Arcona was a who had been in the camps with them for the scene turned to utter chaos. They tried the one place he knew. Scared and anx- beautiful ship, making voyages from at least three years, were at the bottom of to put the flames out, but the fire hoses ious, he looked around the group of unfor- South America to Germany for the rich the Baltic. tunate Jews. Through the panicked men, On shore, the British had already seized and their barking tormentors, he saw control. They sent out Germans from the David, an older neighborhood friend he’d U-boat school to pick up the 350 survivors always looked up to. David was the one fa- of the 4,500 on board. Three small tug miliar face in the newly assembled boats pulled up to the Cap Arcona. “What group.Thank God for David, a protector, camp are we going to now?” my grandfa- my grandfather thought. ther instinctively asked. David was beaten to death within hours. “No camp,” the German replied. “The This was an unfamiliar world, and it war is over.” wouldn’t be a kind one. he frequent question is why the From his year in the Lodz ghetto, and TBritish would bomb the Cap Arcona some four years in the camps, there are and the two other civilian ships. The Allies countless stories. They are painted with were concerned that high-ranking Ger- senseless violence and inconceivable bru- mans were making an escape for Norway. tality. They are the kind that come from any The pilots were not aware of the ship’s true victim who bears witness to the madness passengers, and in fact thought it was filled of men and lives with the burden and with SS officers. Ordered to bomb every- courage to speak about it. thing in their path, the British Typhoons But the most prominent theme in all my would make an escape impossible. grandfather’s accounts isn’t murder and However, it has been documented that destruction – it is luck. And never was luck the British were informed of the ship’s more imminent than that afternoon on the cargo the previous day, but RAF personnel Baltic 65 years ago. never passed the message on. It was an In January 1945, as the Allies drew oversight that led to the sinking of the and famous. Coincidentally enough, it were cut. Soon more Typhoons, and more closer, my grandfather left Fürstengrube, a Thielbek, the Deutschland and the Cap Ar- was used in a Joseph Goebbels propa- direct hits. subcamp of Auschwitz, for Gleiwitz. It was cona. And with those three ships, more ganda film based on the Titanic, where My grandfather looked down at the the first leg of a death march north, contin- than 7,000 prisoners would lose their lives, the German protagonist prophetically smoking floor. Screams of death and pain uously missing liberation by days and never knowing just how close they came warns of imminent danger ahead – prov- permeated the air. The stairwell from sometimes hours. In Gleiwitz, they to liberation. ing his superior intellect. below, where thousands were being as- Benjamin Jacobs, a prisoner whose boarded cattle cars. With the lack of food, Now, the motor was completely shot. The space and sanitation, the cars became phyxiated, reached the deck through a story is almost identical to my grandfa- ship served as a floating cell for the tor- small door. They were fighting for fresh air, ther’s, wrote the most comprehensive ac- boxes for rotting corpses, starved and dis- tured. There was no more land for their eased. My grandfather and other prisoners clawing to escape the coffin of smoke. count of the Cap Arcona, The 100-Year labors, no more camps for their deaths. Most were quickly consumed by the Secret. Within that book, he writes, began using these corpses as furniture – They resorted to the sea, and a ship just fit a couch, a mattress. Death had been a flames. He looked at the SS guard still on “Those who perished were not just pris- to stay afloat. board. He was lost, the tormentor becom- oners. They were tough, tenacious, unre- daily occurrence. It wasn’t a tragedy but an The small rafts, loaded with prisoners, accepted inevitability. One day he too ing the tortured. Two Russian POWs lenting fighters, with hearts stubborn inched toward the 213-meter cruise liner. quickly tossed the guard overboard. enough to survive all the Nazis had cast would be a couch or a mattress, and that My grandfather wondered where they’d be was justification enough. Prisoners began taking their clothing off. upon them. And yet, they died on the very going. Another camp, he supposed. It had They’d risk the 3-km swim to shore. Most doorstep of freedom.” After 10 days in the cattle cars, they ar- always been that way. Wake up, move and rived at Dora-Mittelbau. Each living pris- who tried were paralyzed by the 7ºC water. Sixty-five years later, the British govern- work to live one more day. But of course oner dragged a dead body to a growing But those strong enough to bear the tem- ment has never made any public reference even that was not certain. The only thing pile of skeletons. The indistinguishable perature would be gunned down by SS, to the event, denying the dead the recog- he did know was that the Nazis weren’t men and women, with sunken cheeks and Hitler Youth, naval personnel and towns- nition they deserve. With the files sealed going to tell him much, and if they did, it hollowed eyes, were thrown upon each people, all of whom were firing their guns until 100 years after the disaster, informa- meant nothing. other, a tangled mountain of death. The from the sandy beaches of Neustadt. My tion that would bring the tragedy to the When the rafts got to the base of the Cap bodies were burned that night. grandfather couldn’t swim, but he took his public eye is locked until 2045. Arcona, the captain yelled down that no In April, the Allies again drew closer, and clothes off anyway. By then, all survivors and many of their more prisoners would fit. They’d been once again my grandfather was forced to Suddenly, the ship began to tilt on its children will be gone. And with their pass- loading the ship for more than a week. In flee an approaching liberation. The Ger- side. Hundreds of naked men and ing, a chest of personal memories, of when the hull, thousands were packed like sar- mans were running out of land. Soon there women fell overboard. My grandfather their friends died on the last page of the dines – no window, no air, just the swaying would be repercussions, and a light would ran to the high side of the ship and long and tragic epic, will be gone too. motion against the swell of the Baltic. shine on years of horror. For that they were grabbed a rope. He looked down at the The onus will then lie on us to tell their sto- not prepared, so they continued to march. The SS officer told the captain that load- approaching water. He watched as the ries. We’ll tell about the “tough, tenacious, Max Schmidt, a young SS officer and ing the prisoners was an order, not an op- naked men and women sank into the sea unrelenting fighters” who lost their lives at camp commander, loaded my grandfather tion. My grandfather was in one of the last – 200, 100, 50 left treading. a time when the world went mad. And to and the 540 other prisoners onto barges groups to climb on board. He stood in the The approaching water was clear. Henry prove we’ve learned since then, we’ll show up the Elbe River. With no camps left, he back of the boat, with hundreds of other could see the prisoners descending to that a human life should never go unrec- would take them to his family’s estate in striped prisoners roaming the deck. Below darkness, their bodies slowly fading out of ognized and their deaths should never be Ahrensbök, Germany. them were levels of cramped men and sight. forgotten. This is my grandfather’s story, The area of northern Germany was be- women, leaning on each other, fighting for It wouldn’t be long until he reached the and it is theirs as well. We should strive to coming livelier. British bombers filled the air, fighting for everything. Their decrepit water and the same fate. He wasn’t make it ours. Page 12 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2010 - Iyyar/Sivan 5770 GREAT ESCAPE (Continued from page 6) “We wanted to show the world that Jews kind. Four feet underground, muddy with ghetto searchlights and turned on the tun- crowd. Among the guards was Zbisheck, are not sheep that go to the slaughter,” damp soil, Sonya and Aaron fell in love. nel lights. Nails in the barracks’ tin roof Sonya’s former neighbor, who looked her Sonya remembered. “We decided who- To remove dirt displaced by the tunnel, were loosened, amplifying the sounds of in the eye. ever will make it will make it and whoever the diggers filled sacks of it that they then the falling rain in order to mask sounds of Zbisheck’s family had lived across from would not would not. It was better to die passed back until it reached the hole under escape. The Jews quietly assembled, wait- the Gorodinkys on Pilsudski Street. this way than the other way. And maybe the bed in the ghetto. Half a million pounds ing in the darkness for their turn to lower Zbisheck and Sonya were playmates for someone will survive to tell the world what of earth were packed into false double themselves into the lighted earth. Sonya years. Perhaps when Zbisheck saw Sonya happened.” walls built in the courthouse barracks. Soil stood with Aaron and her brothers. Some in the crowd he was reminded of her bicy- Digging began right away, and details was hidden in corners where the attic ceil- families tied themselves to one another; cle, her summer dresses, the scallions in were kept to a select few in order to pre- ing slanted to meet the floor, and buried others held hands. her garden. Zbisheck motioned for Sonya vent information leaks. Not everyone was under floorboards that were ripped up and One couple had secretly given birth in to follow him. They entered a room in the for it. Some Jews feared the tunnel would then replaced. Ghetto residents smuggled the ghetto. Before the escape, the mother courthouse where the skilled workers be impossible to complete before the Ger- sacks of soil to toilets — holes in the strangled her child to death — the group waited, including her father. Sonya mans found out about it. There was one ground — outhouses at the end of the could not take the chance that the baby grabbed Zbisheck’s arm and whispered, man whom nobody trusted; to ensure that camp. One of the group’s carpenters laid would cry during its escape and alert “You saved my life and I thank you. But he wouldn’t talk to the Germans, the Jews a wooden track along the tunnel floor so guards above ground. please, can you help my sister and my killed him. they could use a cart to haul the dirt out. Like the Jews fleeing Egypt, the Jews of mother too?” Zbisheck answered under his hroughout the summer of 1943, y July 1943, the tunnel was about Novogrudek crawled as quickly as they breath that he had already risked his life to TSonya clawed at the soil underneath B240 feet long and near completion. could through the dirt. Sonya was in the save her. the courthouse to escape a place she had, But July was rainy that year, and the soppy middle. At her hands were people’s feet, at That day the ghetto population was re- until recently, loved her whole life. Much of earth leaked, muddying the tunnel. The her feet, others’ hands. She felt like a duced by half. Sonya heard later that her the tunnel was dug by children and small group feared the tunnel would collapse. mouse in a line of them, crawling silently. mother linked arms with relatives and her men, who could maneuver within its nar- Determined not to let his plan fail, Berl She hypnotized herself with a chant: 11-year-old daughter and said “Come, let’s row walls. An electrician named Rakovski Yoselevitch stole wood slats from his work- Sonya, you got to make it, you got to make go together to the grave.” Now only an es- diverted a current from the ghetto and shop to reinforce the walls and ceiling. He it. She then changed it to, God, please let sential 250 workers, along with some chil- strung electric bulbs along the tunnel ceil- also organized the digging of small drains me go through. Don’t bury me. Don’t bury dren, remained. They began to plot their ing. He also figured out how to disconnect and channels in the floor to divert water. me. Don’t bury me. Every movement she escape that night. the searchlights that surveyed the ghetto In the meantime, the wheat fields were made, she was sure that the world would he original breakout plan had been grounds, and he did so occasionally, so the harvested, leaving a vast area of open bury her alive. Tto storm the ghetto gates on a Sun- At the end of the tunnel, it was pouring day night, when the guards notoriously rain, and the escapees couldn’t see in the drank and grew lazy. In preparation, some new darkness above ground. Seventy of people bribed hand grenades from guards, them accidentally ran toward the ghetto others smuggled in guns from peasants and were shot by guards who thought par- outside the ghetto, still others stole iron tisans were ambushing them. Among them rods and knives from their workshops. The were two of Sonya’s cousins and Berl Jews would throw everything they had and Yoselevitch, the tunnel’s mastermind. run. The casualty rate would be high, but it When Sonya emerged, she immediately would be better than certain death at the lost Aaron and her brother in the confusion. hands of their oppressors. She heard shots and shouting from the Everyone was ready in their places on right, and to her left she could just make the appointed evening. A man near the out a road. “I got into a little ditch and out front gate was poised to throw the first from the ditch I went through a cornfield grenade. Sonya, waiting in the bunk, fin- where the leaves and the stalks were quite gered a small gold ring in the pocket of her high. During the night I crawled around. tattered skirt. A few weeks before her During the day I sat in the bushes and death, her mother had pulled her daughter waited.” She had no shoes. Her dress was aside and tugged at her finger. Pressing torn. She ate nothing. something small and warm into Sonya’s Germans would get used to these “short- ground between the camp and the forest. Early the morning after the escape, Ger- palm, she said, “Listen, my daughter. Have ages” and not suspect anything when one Rumors floated that the ghetto was to be mans stormed into the barracks to see why this ring. Maybe you will need it. Maybe took place on the night of the escape. liquidated further, leaving just 20 people no Jews had lined up for the daily roll. By you will survive.” The children dug lying down, bellies alive. Many of the Jews wanted to leave one account, they found an ironically for- Before the first grenade was thrown, a pressed against the earth. I asked Sonya immediately, but more decided to delay de- mal letter explaining that Jews were reinforcement of guards arrived at the if she remembered the smell of the earth, parture and dig 100 feet farther, which needed elsewhere. In another version, the main gate, braced for action. The action how it felt on her cheeks and under her fin- would put the tunnel’s exit closer to the for- letter informed the Germans that they were was called off. Each subsequent night, a gernails. “I did not smell or feel a thing,” est. They’d leave the digging of the actual liberating themselves and that they would reinforcement of guards arrived at dusk, she replied. “We were anxious to get out exit until the night of the escape. The first take revenge. Afraid to enter the tunnel in and the Jews eventually abandoned their as fast as we can because we had death people to go through would be the young, case bombs or traps had been set up in- escape plan. The wife of an injured doctor waiting for us. I don’t even know whether I carrying shovels to dig the final distance side, the Germans forced a member of the had leaked word of the plan, not wanting was breathing or not. I didn’t care at all, and guns and hand grenades should they Judenrat to crawl through. When he ar- her husband to be left behind and killed. Mamika. We were full of worries that we face guards when they surfaced. The older rived safely on the other end, he was But the younger Jews didn’t want to wait forgot about anything else. We just wanted people would wait and take up the rear so hanged. Peasants crowded into the court- for death. “We saw that everything was fin- to get out. We wanted our lives.” that if they moved too slowly or fainted they house to gaze at the gaping hole the Jews ished,” Sonya told me. “What was left was In order not to soil their only clothing and wouldn’t hold everyone else back. had left behind. only one person from each family. The arouse suspicion, the children dug naked In August, the tunnel was complete. It or two weeks Sonya ran through the young people started to scream, ‘We don’t or wore robes of burlap sacks or old cloth was 750 feet, and the Jews watched the Fforests during the night and tried to want to die like our parents died. We’ll run sewn especially for the task. Sonya dug late summer sky for signs of a storm that rest and hide during the day. She grew so away.’ ” But the older people didn’t want with her brother, Shaul, sometimes with a would provide cover during an escape. But hungry that when she finally saw a little them to run, because the Germans would cousin, and with her new friend, Aaron the nights were clear, and the moonless house with a light on at the bottom of a hill, kill whoever remained in retribution. Oshman, who at 30 was 10 years older days passed. While they waited, 11 skilled she couldn’t resist trying for help, despite Berl Yoselevitch, a carpenter, thought of than she and had been moved with his craftsmen, including Sonya’s father, were the frightening prospect that her fate de- a tunnel as a compromise. The weak and brother to the Novogrudek ghetto about a transferred to Koldichevo, a camp that ran pended on the kindness of the person in- injured wouldn’t have to run fast or fight. year earlier, when his ghetto in Ivinitz, a a weapons factory. Of Sonya’s family of side. Through the window she saw an old They would hide themselves when every- small town in White Russia, was liqui- seven, only she and her brother Shaul re- man at a table, patching clothes. He one else left. The Jews would dig a pas- dated. Theirs had been a wealthy family mained in Novogrudek. looked like pictures she’d seen of St. sage from under a bed located along the before the war; their father owned a hard- Over the next several weeks the Jews Nicholas, with white hair and beard. Sonya northern barracks wall, closest to the ware business. When Aaron arrived in rehearsed their escape to see how long it knocked on the window and when he outer walls of the ghetto and the woods. Novogrudek, he sat in an empty workshop would take. Two to three hours seemed came to the door he simply said, “I know The tunnel would drop four and a half crying for his parents. In a Shoah Testi- enough time for 240 people to pass who you are. I want to help you.” feet, then run north under the ghetto to a mony video interview, given before his through the tunnel. They submitted names The Novogrudek escape had been on field next to the forest. They would es- death in 2004, Aaron recalled the first time of those they wanted to leave with, and the radio, and the Nazis announced that cape on a moonless July night, when the he saw Sonya. “In walked a beautiful were instructed when to appear at the anyone who turned in a Jew would receive wheat and grass were uncut and high woman. She was 19 years old. She said, mouth of the tunnel. several pounds of sugar. But the man of- enough to provide cover as they ran. ‘Don’t cry, young man, you still have your Sunday, September 26, 1943, was a fered Sonya his cellar, about 10 feet from Once out, they hoped to join the Bielski life.’” Aaron discussed philosophy and Zi- moonless stormy night. Around 8 p.m., the house, where he stored potatoes. partisans and seek revenge. onism with Sonya. He was articulate and Rakovski, the electrician, cut power to the (Continued on page 13) May/June 2010 - Iyyar/Sivan 5770 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 13 MEMORIES OF THE HOLOCAUST: KITTY HART-MOXON tempts, the family escaped and obtained was of no value to us and we used it as then Breslau in eastern Germany), to work BY STUART JEFFRIES, THE GUARDIAN non-Jewish documents. toilet paper. We ate from rotting piles of in the Philips electronics factory. On 18 They had to split up to maximize their food that littered the place – though this February 1945, they were forced on a two- n Birmingham, after the war, people chances of survival. Kitty and her mother was forbidden.” would ask Auschwitz survivor Kitty week death march over the Sudeten I posed as Polish forced laborers and were She recognizes that she never gave up. Hart-Moxon about the tattoo on her fore- mountains without food or shelter, before transported to Bitterfeld within Germany to “You could see it in people’s vacant ex- arm: “Is that your boyfriend’s telephone being put on to open coal trucks and taken work in a munitions plant. But in March pressions when they gave up – by the way number?” “People simply knew nothing,” 1,000 km across Europe to work in an un- 1943, Kitty, her mother and 12 other they shuffled and stooped. You distanced says Kitty. “If I did say what happened to derground factory in north-west Germany. women suspected of being Jewish were yourself from these people, believing it me and my mother, people would say: Only about 200 survived the journey from betrayed and later sentenced to death by was contagious. It was a ruthless place, ‘That sounds farfetched.’ I would explain the original 10,000 who had set out. Her firing squad. the most unequal society in the world.” that I saw thousands walk into a gas cham- mother was by then 55 years old. e were prepared to die there, but Her proximity to the four crematoria and ber and never come out. But they could not t was sometime in March that Kitty it turned out to be a mock execu- gas chambers meant that she witnessed get their heads round it. They found it im- “W Iand her mother were taken to tion.” It was a piece of Nazi cruelty: the relentless killing from April to November possible to comprehend that there was Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, guards fired shots into the air. “Instead, we 1944, when the greatest number of victims massacre on a huge scale, that thousands from where they were put inside sealed were sentenced to life imprisonment in were murdered. “It’s been said that 1.5 mil- were murdered deliberately.” cattle trucks. The train was abandoned Auschwitz. First we were transferred to a lion died. We, who were there, say it was What was worse was that no one wanted and they were expected to die. Many prison in Dresden. Our cell had writing on in excess of 2.5 million. Our brains could to know. She and her mother had arrived women in her truck suffocated. “We took the walls: ‘We are on our way to at Dover in late 1946 to be met by her turns to breathe through a crack in the Auschwitz, see you in hell. No one uncle, the husband of her mother’s sister. floor. We heard a noise and banged on ever gets out.’ My mother was baf- “He said: ‘I don’t want you to talk about the walls when suddenly the door was fled. She knew Auschwitz as a anything that happened to you. I don’t want pulled open by three German soldiers. place where one went fishing in the to know.’ My mother and I became very We said, ‘Shoot us, we are not going numerous ponds.” angry at being silenced.” back in.’” They were taken to a nearby Auschwitz, Kitty says, was the Did you ever receive counseling? Kitty camp outside Salzwedel and were liber- Crewe of Eastern Europe – an im- favors me with a justifiable sardonic look ated on 14 April by American troops. portant rail junction. “In Auschwitz, as we sit in her living room in Harpenden, After liberation, Kitty and her mother be- the obedient prisoner who stuck to Hertfordshire. “Counseling? No. My came interpreters for the British army and the rules lived for three to six mother and I sorted ourselves out by later worked with the Quaker Relief Team weeks. Camp food could not sus- countless discussions about what had in a displaced persons’ camp. They discov- tain life for long. The camp soup happened to us.” Kitty wrote two books ered that they were the only survivors of was laced with a poison, a form of Kitty Hart Moxon, Holocaust survivor. about her experiences: I Am Alive (1961) their family. Kitty’s father had been mur- bromide.” Kitty and her mother survived simply not accept what we were and Return to Auschwitz (1981). She also nearly two years there. “There were occa- witnessing, but it was happening.” Among dered by the Gestapo. Her brother Robert has made award-winning films about her sions when I was lucky with jobs. If you those who died were 30 members of her died fighting at Stalingrad. Her grand- return to the death camp and about her couldn’t escape from working out in the own family. mother was murdered in the gas chambers time after Auschwitz. Kitty, a retired radiog- open, outside the camp, you could not How did she survive? “A few fortunate of Bełzec death camp. rapher, has been speaking for decades in survive long-term.” events.” One was when her mother, who Their work for the British army earned schools, colleges, universities to all who Over a period of eight months Kitty was had been working in the so-called hospital, Kitty and her mother special permits to live are prepared to listen. In 2003 she re- fortunate to work with a group of inmates managed to speak to a kommandant in the UK She started a new life in Birm- ceived the OBE for her work on Holocaust sorting belongings of those deported to called Hossler. “This was incredibly diffi- ingham. She married and had two sons education Auschwitz. It was in that place, she says cult. Two things baffled him. She was in and qualified in radiography. “I hid nothing She was born Kitty Felix in 1926 in with bitter irony, that she regained her her 50s, which was rare since there were from my sons. They grew up in an environ- Bielsko, a Polish town where Jews, strength and her health. “My life was saved no women of that age, and she spoke per- ment where everything was discussed be- Czechs, Poles and Germans mixed. She there – because of access to food and fect German, which seemed to impress cause I believed they had to know. If they recalls a blissful sporty childhood with her water.” Kitty tells me that at one point in him.” That conversation, in which she didn’t eat their meals, they were told how brother Robert – hiking in the mountains in Auschwitz she worked in the dysentery pleaded for her daughter not to be killed, grateful I would have been for any food in summer and skiing in winter. She was ed- block: when she came on duty one day all probably saved Kitty’s life. She tells me it the war and that no food must ever be ucated by nuns and was oblivious to anti- the patients had been killed on the orders was generally believed that those who wasted or thrown away.” Semitism until she and her Jewish of SS doctor Josef Mengele. were direct witnesses to mass murder Kitty’s mother lived with her until her swimming team were stoned during a com- She tells me about sorting men’s jack- would not be transferred to other camps death in 1974. Now widowed and retired, petition. A few days prior to Hitler’s inva- ets. “You had to search each one for valu- but summarily executed. Kitty has two sons and eight grandchildren. sion on 1 September 1939, Kitty’s family ables – gold, jewelry, currency. But to be On 11 November 1944, mother and “Auschwitz shaped my life,” she says. “It fled eastward to elude the Wehrmacht but found with a single valuable item was daughter were transferred to a camp near was all my teenage years, it was my com- were overtaken by the Nazis and became punishable by death. Any currency found plete education, my university.” trapped in the Lublin ghetto. After many at- Wroclaw (the Polish name for what was GREAT ESCAPE (Continued from page 12) look-out on a hill. One morning about two night, the Germans appointed a different which was available then only in the United Sonya buried herself there, thinking about weeks after she arrived, Sonya saw a inmate to guard their jewels. When it States. The couple married and departed a future without her family and friends. group of men walking toward her. From came Abraham’s turn, he knew he was for Brooklyn shortly after the birth of their During the day, she didn’t move. Late each their skeletal frames, she could tell that too tired to stay awake and hired a friend first son. night the old man would bring her bread, a they were escapees hoping for refuge. to take his turn rather than risk falling aron died six years ago, after 56 little milk, a cooked potato, whatever he They told her they had recently fled asleep on the job and being killed for it. Ayears of marriage. Sonya has two had. After six weeks, he came with only a Koldichevo, the camp where her father had But his friend was exhausted too and fell sons, both lawyers, and four grandchil- small bit of bread. He had nothing left for been held. Sonya asked about him. “He asleep in the barracks before even taking dren. She travels to schools, synagogues, either of them to eat. Sonya looked at the had escaped with us,” they told her. “He’s up the post. When a guard came to check community centers to share her story. “My ring her mother had given her and said, probably on his way to see you now.” that a watchman was there, he discov- name is Sonya Oshman,” she says, “and I “Please take this. Sell it for food.” The man Sonya stood guard for two days and ered an empty chair. The next day, the wish to speak of my father. From 30,000 refused. The whole town knew he was nights, forgoing sleep, watching for a famil- Germans made all the inmates gather Jews [in the region], perhaps only 150 sur- poor. If he came to them with a gold ring, iar figure. Finally, on the third day, a man around as they beat Abraham so badly vived, and from the Gorodinsky family, I they would know he was hiding a Jew. approached. He was smaller than her fa- that his body lost its shape. “However,” am now the only living member. My brother Nearby, at the edge of the forest, there ther, but, she thought, perhaps he’d shrunk said the doctor, “your father yelled to the who escaped with me died five years ago. was a house where people often came and under hardship. She sobbed waiting for soldiers when the beating began, saying, He was a major in the Israeli army. But I went by horse in the middle of the night. him to reach her, to see the crinkle in his ‘You will kill me today, but I have a son want to keep my father’s promise, so I am He had heard that these were the Bielskis, eyes, to hear him call her Sonyaleh. and a daughter and they will survive and standing here tonight and filling out the last and he offered to cover Sonya with straw When the man was near enough, Sonya tell what happened here.’ ” wish of my dad. I am telling you a little frag- in the back of his wagon and take her to saw that it was not her father. When they heard that the war had ment of my story. In this way, I hope my fa- that house. Sonya agreed. There she “Why are you crying, child?” ended, the remaining Jews of Novogrudek ther’s life will be one of the lives found her brother Shaul, some surviving “I am waiting for my father, Abraham marched back to their hometown. They remembered.” relatives, and friends from neighboring Gorodinsky, from Koldichevo.” found nothing but painful memories. With Meanwhile Novogrudek’s Jewish grave- ghettos. She also found Aaron, whom she “Stop crying, my child,” he said. “Your fa- other refugees, Aaron and Sonya walked yard is overgrown, its headstones mostly asked to marry her. ther is never coming.” across Europe to a displaced persons missing; peasants have scavenged the n the Bielski group, everyone had a job The man had been a doctor at camp in Italy. They hoped it would be a granite slabs to line their basements and Ito perform. While Sonya’s relatives Koldichevo, while her father had worked stopping point on the way to Israel, but the walls of cisterns. Once home to 6,500 made fur hats and boots, Sonya stood fixing watches and appliances. Each Sonya got sick and needed penicillin, Jews, Novogrudek now has one. Page 14 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2010 - Iyyar/Sivan 5770 ATHENS UNVEILS ITS FIRST HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL ANTI-SEMITISM INSTITUTE TO BE ESTABLISHED zower, in his book Inside Hitler’s Greece. herb garden, is also about healing. While BY HELENA SMITH, THE GUARDIAN “The others were immediately gassed six of the work’s pieces are triangular, con- AT UNIVERSITY OF LONDON and burned in crematoria.” juring broken-off pieces of the star, the t has taken nearly 70 years, but a mon- What remains of the country’s Jewish ument to honor Greece‘s Holocaust central piece, a massive hexagon block, JONNY PAUL, THE JERUSALEM POST I community today had campaigned long victims was finally unveiled in Athens. remains intact and is reminiscent of reju- and hard for the memorial to be erected. he University of London is set to Athens is the last EU capital to commem- venation and survival. The quest began in earnest last year when open a new institute for the study orate those who perished at the hands of “The herbal garden is a symbol of heal- T the municipality of Athens donated a prime of anti-Semitism, which will work in Nazi forces. ing and place,” said Maganias. “The idea piece of real estate, overlooking the ornate partnership with the world’s oldest “To get here has been difficult but now it is that people walk around the monu- cemetery where Pericles delivered his fa- Holocaust library, after London-based is done the message is simple. We have ment. The orientation of the star, en- mous funeral oration in honour of the Athe- Pears Foundation donated £1.5 million not forgotten and we will not forget,” said graved with the names of cities and nians killed during the Peloponnesian War to the project. Benjamin Albalas, president of the Jewish towns from which victims were deported, in 431 BC. Few areas resonate as much The new institute will become part of community in Athens. and the smell from the herbs aim to act with the ideals of freedom, equality and the college’s School of Social Sciences, Greece lost more of its Jewish population as a catalyst of memory.” democracy. History and Philosophy and will have in the Final Solution, proportionately, than he unveiling of the monument comes More symbolically, the site is also close close links with the College’s School of almost any other country in Europe during Tagainst a backdrop of growing at- to the synagogue in Melidoni Street where, Arts and its School of Law. the second world war. Around 65,000 men, tacks against Jewish targets in Greece. In under a ruse of food handouts, the Jews of January Crete’s historic synagogue was The Institute will work in partnership Athens were trapped firebombed twice following the vandalism with the Wiener Library, the world’s old- and captured by the of cemeteries nationwide. Constantine est Holocaust memorial institution, Germans. Plevris, a prominent neo-Nazi accused of which is set to move to the university in The acclaimed inciting racial violence with a book glorify- 2011 from its current central London lo- Greek-American artist ing Hitler, was also acquitted by the cation. DeAnna Maganias supreme court. The library will allow Birkbeck aca- conveyed what the “Incidents of anti-Semitism are definitely demic staff and students, as well as oth- Holocaust survivor on the rise and our fear is they will increase ers, to use its vast resource for Elie Wiesel describes with the economic crisis afflicting Greece,” research, teaching and outreach activi- as “man’s inhumanity said David Saltiel, who heads the Central ties in the area of anti-Semitism, reli- to man” in a plaque Jewish Council representing the country’s gious and racial intolerance. on the site. Carved in 7000-strong community. “We are delighted that the Pears Foun- the form of the Star of “We feel especially depressed by the de- dation donation enables us to establish David – the ancient cision of the supreme court. This monu- the institute and also that we will be able The Holocaust memorial in Athens in the shape of a broken Star of David. symbol of Judaism – to provide a home for the Wiener Li- acting like as compass, the sculpture ment, which as a community we dedicate women and children were dispatched to brary,” Prof. David Latchman, the master points to the cities and villages across to this city, is a reminder of what can hap- their deaths in Auschwitz between 1941 of Birkbeck, said. Greece from where tens of thousands of pen when a society loses its tolerance for and 1944. “Birkbeck commands an unparalleled Jews were gathered and deported. The people who are different.” An estimated 1,000 Athenian Jews combination of expertise in the field of community chose it on the basis of its “sim- Mary Michalidou, an expert on monu- were packed off to the concentration anti-Semitism and intolerance in a wide plicity” and “ingenious design.” ments in Greece, agrees that Athens’ camp in April 1944 after thousands fled range of disciplines, from political sci- “In keeping with the Jewish tradition it Holocaust memorial is long overdue. or went underground. Arriving there after ences to psychosocial studies and from symbolized death and the memory of “But,” she says, “while it should have a two-week train journey, they were met history to law,” he continued. death in a quiet and calm way,” said a happened earlier, its location aestheti- by Dr Josef Mengele. “He selected 320 cally and symbolically couldn’t be better. “Birkbeck will also offer related men and 328 women for his own ‘re- committee member who oversaw an inter- courses to attract a wide range of stu- national competition for the memorial. But It will now rank among Europe’s best search,’” writes the historian, Mark Ma- Holocaust monuments.” dents from a host of backgrounds – from the marble monument, which is set in a community, religious and educational leaders, school teachers; local govern- ment employees and civil servants. HOLOCAUST BYSTANDERS “The Pears Foundation commissioned (Continued from page 4) a world war the result would be “the an- Pope Pius XII comes in for heavy criticism a research/mapping report which estab- leading to the Holocaust, he insists that nihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.” for his “selective appeasement” of the Nazis. lished that there appears to be no aca- there was no extermination plan concocted Beginning in summer 1942, the bureau- While the Pope sought in some cases to demic faculty or institution at any UK in advance by Hitler and consciously pur- cratically organized, industrialized exter- raise objections to Nazi measures, his con- university undertaking the role we fore- sued by the Nazi regime. mination of the Jews of Europe in cern did not extend to the mass murder per- see for this new institute,” said Trevor In line with several recent studies, he ar- custom-built death camps hit full stride. petrated against the Jews. The Pope’s Pears, executive chair of the Pears gues instead that the Nazis up to 1941 ex- Such a massive undertaking was unthink- silence stands as a disturbing example of Foundation. tended the same model of terroristic able without the co-operation of mid-level the broader moral failure of the European “We believe that the study of anti- persecution developed within Germany in technocrats and organizers aided by the and American spiritual and intellectual elites Semitism is vital to the understanding of the late 1930s to the Jewish populations that leaders and populations throughout Nazi- in the face of the Holocaust. all racism and xenophobia. Our concern came under their control. This approach fo- controlled Europe. More than is the case in most Holocaust is that anti-Semitism is misunderstood cused on identification, segregation, expro- Friedlander paints a damning portrait of histories, Friedlander’s book strives to and viewed solely as a Jewish issue. We priation, concentration, and emigration, but the conduct of the bystanders. Passivity bring the voices of the victims into the believe anti-Semitism is a ‘societal ill- not on physical extermination. and indifference predominated, but in story. He quotes extensively from a wide ness’ – a rise in anti-Semitism signals he invasion of the Soviet Union in many cases the Nazis could count on the and diverse range of Jewish diarists, from something is wrong or worsening in so- TJune 1941 opened a second, much active support of non-German authorities the well-known, such as Viktor Klemperer ciety.” more lethal phase of mass murder, with and Emanuel Ringelblum, to more obscure and their security forces in facilitating the The institute is the result of several German mobile killing squads carrying out figures such as the 12-year-old Dawid Ru- annihilation process. years of work, reflecting the Pears Foun- mass executions of Soviet Jews. In retro- binowicz and the teenage Moshe Flinker. As he points out, “not one social group, dation’s philosophy of promoting under- spect, the introduction of mass killing be- Their observations are by turns poignant, not one religious community, not one standing of “the other” through better hind the Eastern Front can be seen as the painful, revelatory, and depressing. They scholarly institution or professional associ- education. This is exemplified in the beginning of what became the “final solu- infuse an essential individual, human di- ation in Germany and throughout Europe foundation’s work in Holocaust Educa- tion,” but Friedlander insists that these mension into the overarching narrative of declared its solidarity with the Jews.” tion; the School Linking Network, which murder operations –- which initially tar- mass destruction. In the later chapters, riedlander is especially critical of supports local authorities across the UK geted only Jewish males – were designed one is repeatedly confronted by jolting the failure of the Christian to bring together high school students primarily to hasten the collapse of the Red F “final entries” that signal that yet another churches, Catholic, Protestant and Ortho- Army and the Soviet system and were not individual has fallen victim to the vast Nazi from diverse backgrounds; and Shared dox, to respond to the onslaught against part of a calculated plan of mass extermi- killing program. Futures, an interactive educational re- nation of the entire Jewish population. the Jews. He identifies the virulent anti- Friedlander’s book represents a major source for students and teachers that The crucial turning point came with the Judaism cultivated by Christianity over contribution to the study of the Holocaust. explores Judaism in Britain today. entry of the United States into the war in centuries as a major contributor to the No small part of his achievement lies in his The Wiener Library is the world’s old- early December 1941. From Hitler’s per- anti-Semitic culture that, he argues, took ability to highlight the crucial role of human est institution for the study of anti-Semi- spective, this transformed a European con- hold in Germany under Nazism but also agency in history. His account reminds us tism and the crimes of Nazi Germany, flict into a true world war, and he was flourished in the rest of Europe as well. that the Holocaust was not a “natural” catas- the history of German and Central Euro- certain, of course, that the Jews were to The fact that Christian churches shared trophe, not something inexorable and un- pean Jewry, the Holocaust and its after- blame for this decisive escalation. He re- with Nazism anti-communist, anti-liberal stoppable, but was instead the terrible math. It is a major archive comprising sponded by ordering the extermination of and anti-materialist views rendered the consequence of conscious human deci- not only 60,000 books and 2,000 period- all Jews, thus fulfilling his January 1939 churches incapable of coming to the de- sions, aided and abetted by the widespread ical titles but also 1.5 million pages of “prophecy” that if the Jews brought about fense of the Jewish population. failure of the bystanders to act in opposition. archival material. May/June 2010 - Iyyar/Sivan 5770 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 15 MY SISTER KATHY adult supervision. In the past I had never So time passed. It was now December brother watching over her and defending BY DR. EDGAR EICHBAUM sought much of my mother’s attention, but 1937. My parents were taking me to the her against any of the boys who would be now when I saw the deep affection and train station on my way to Palestine, where n December 1931, the village of Peter- mean to her. care she gave to the baby, I became jeal- I was to live in a youth village. My father on shagen sparkled under a clean blanket In March 1941, I got the last letter from I ous of my little sister. Still I liked to hold her my right was very quiet. My mother on my of snow. My mother was in her last week my parents. There was a picture of Kathy, when she was smiling and not smelling, left sobbed continuously. My six-year-old of pregnancy, but her slim body and loose smiling, standing in line with her class- and I never tried to harm her. sister happily hopped along. shift hid her grown abdomen. mates. On the back of the photo she wrote Summer 1936, almost five years had Suddenly my father gripped my hand On the tenth of the month feverish activ- “Edi I miss you much, Love, Kathy.” passed. We had moved to Berlin. The Nazi and said: ity started in the house. I did not under- She was so pretty, my little sister. I kissed regime in Germany had already severely “Edward, you know that we love you very stand why, but became infected with the the picture and cried. restricted the civil rights of its Jewish resi- much. You are going far away and we do prevalent mood of expectation. ummer of 1945, the war ended. The dents. Their children were not allowed to not know when we will meet again. We A strange, heavy-set woman in a white horrors of the Holocaust became attend public schools. I was lucky to have paid for your trip, but if you wish to stay, we S dress took charge. She heated water in known all over the globe. An aunt, who sur- been accepted to the only, crowded, will just go home.” two large pots. My mother was locked in vived the carnage, informed me that my par- school of the Jewish community. I was ten Mom looked down to me, trying to smile, her bedroom. ents and Kathy were cremated in one of the years old, and considered myself almost a No. My mind was made up. I was going to The women smiled at me. “Soon the stork infamous “Lagers.” I lost all my family. grown up. Kathy became a beautiful little Palestine to be a pioneer. is coming to bring you a new baby. Go up to Today was December tenth 1945, girl, but to me she remained my baby sister “You Jewish swine – go to Palestine” the roof and watch for him.” She said. who hung on to me like chewing gum to Kathy’s birthday. She would have been I hurried upstairs and waited on the sounded the cry of Hitler-Youth in my ears. fingers. I always had a hard time to get rid “You see, she is happy that I am leaving,” fourteen years old now, a lady. We would snow-covered roof. The cold wind cut into of her company. have been best friends, and together plan- my face and my hands. Nothing happened. I said, pointing at my sister. *** Mother started to cry again. ning our future. The only sight was the black smoke belch- ommy, I am going to visit a friend,” How would I ever be forgiven for the cru- ing from the chimney. No stork. ”Kathy is too young to understand that “MI announced on my way out. she is losing her big brother for a long elty and dislike I had shown her when she From the bedroom window the lady in white ”Mommy, I want to go with Edward.” I was little? Now I would have asked her to called up to me: ”Edward, where are you hid- time,” father said. heard my four-year-old sister in the back- come with me to all my social events. But ing? The stork just left. He brought you a little I looked at her with much dislike, thinking ground. she was no more, just dust that the wind car- baby sister and some chocolate cookies.” that now, at last, I was getting rid of her for Oh my, this nag does not leave me alone, I a long time. ried around the globe. There was no grave I zoomed down from the freezing roof thought when mom begged me: “Take Kathy Two years passed. The Second World where I could show her my love and pay her and saw my mom in bed, smiling and hold- with you. She has no one to play with here.” War started. After many months of lonely my respect, and ask her to forgive me. ing a little screaming bundle. My father “Mom, you know that we do not play with was away on business. The midwife and difficult acclimatization to the new en- Her only tombstone is her birthday. So girls and certainly not with babies,” I re- since, for the last sixty years, on December pinched my frozen cheek, handed me sponded angrily and stormed out of the vironment and language, my fellow chil- 10, I remember you, Kathy. I see you, the some cookies. “Were you sleeping when house. I could still hear my sister crying. dren accepted me. On the Sabbath, four-year-old girl with one tiny hand holding the stork came down through the chim- “I wish she had never been born,” passed parents and siblings visited most of my mommy’s skirt, looking up to her and beg- ney?” the evil thought through my mind, but once I peers. I would look at those reunions with That is how my sister was born. was in the street, running while kicking an oc- heaviness in my chest. Now I missed my ging: “Mommy, can I go with Edward?” Little Kathy became the center of my casional stone in my path, and dreaming parents and my sister Kathy so much. She And I say “Yes, come with me, my best mother’s attention, and I found myself sud- about Gulliver’s journey or Robinson Crusoe’s would be eight years old in a few months. friend.” denly free to roam around without any adventures, I forgot that I had a sister. If she were here, I would be a proud big Leave me never again. IDENTIFYING NOTES LAUNCH OF NEW YAD VASHEM FROM THE WARSAW GHETTO ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE GHETTOS fter 6 years of research, the ground- differences, as well as the sources and na- l(Continued from page 10) Holocaust (1969), a collection of the Holo- Abreaking new Yad Vashem Encyclo- ture of the photographic material left be- ished selected documents from the repos- caust-era writings of Rabbi Shimon Huber- pedia of the Ghettos During the Holocaust hind. Each entry, written by experts in the itory. However, the tremendous scope of band, one of the notable contributors to the was launched in New York on May 13, field, includes the city’s [ghetto’s] present the documentary material, the precarious Oyneg Shabbes archive. These and many 2010, by the American Society for Yad location, wartime name and geographical state of some of the documents, the diffi- other books were a supremely important Vashem and New York University Press, coordinates and, where applicable, sec- culties in deciphering the handwriting and element in the formation of the Jewish nar- its distributor. Over 100 people attended tions on life prior to World War II, the Soviet in identifying the writers, in addition to var- rative of the Holocaust. However, it later this landmark event. occupation, German-Nazi occupation, the became clear that they did not include all The 2-volume Yad Vashem Ency- that had been written by their authors dur- clopedia of the Ghettos covers all ing the war; upon new study of the collec- the ghettos established by the tions, additional chronicles or notes are Nazis in Europe during the Holo- sometimes discovered. Recently, previ- caust and includes 250 photo- ously unknown pages were found in the graphs, 62 maps, essays and a Hersch Wasser Collection at YIVO, later DVD of wartime footage of ghettos identified as Rabbi Huberband’s writings. filmed in real time during the Holo- These chronicles, as well as sections left caust. Eli Zborowski, Chairman of out of Kiddush Hashem (in both its Hebrew the American Society for Yad and English editions), will soon be pub- Vashem, describes it as “a ground- lished in an article by the author of this ar- breaking undertaking.” ticle in the upcoming volume of Yad “The Encyclopedia is the out- Vashem Studies (38:1). come of pioneering research on the The importance of the texts so far un- unique phenomenon of ghettos,” Eli Zborowski, Chairman, American Society for Yad earthed lies in their contents and the time said Avner Shalev, Chairman of Vashem; Jennifer Hammer, Editor, New York University and place in which they were written – Yad Vashem. “With information on Press; Prof. Omer Bartov, John P. Birkelund Distinguished Rabbi Shimon Huberband. May-June 1942, the period of terror in the conditions, administration, leader- Professor of European History, Brown University; Prof. ious political and other constraints, made Warsaw ghetto – and in the writer himself, ship and coping methodologies that Dan Michman, Chief Historian, International Institute for publication of these documents a complex, Shimon Huberband, an unusual figure have never before been gathered Holocaust Research, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. drawn-out and i n c o m p l e t e affair. among the Oyneg Shabbes archivists, in together into one encyclopedia, it is a valu- ghetto setup, ghetto institutions and com- At the end of the 1950s and especially in part because of his association with Ortho- able resource for anyone interested in the munal life; murder, terror and killing oper- the 1960s, a greater number of writings dox Judaism. In his writings, Huberband history of the Holocaust.” ations; underground and resistance; and from the Holocaust started to appear. looked at the world of the religious Jew in Professor Dan Michman, Chief Historian number of survivors at liberation. n 1961, Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto the ghetto, though he did not ignore other of Yad Vashem and a contributor to the En- Professor Omer Bartov, John P. Iby Emanuel Ringelblum, founder and issues. After Huberband’s murder on 18 cyclopedia, spoke at the event and noted: Birkelund Distinguished Professor of Euro- director of Oyneg Shabbes, was published August 1942, Emanuel Ringelblum em- “More than a technical inventory covering pean History at Brown University, one of in Warsaw. The same year, YIVO in New phasized his noble character, his meticu- over 1,100 ghettos that existed under the the most renowned experts in the field also York published an edited Yiddish version lousness and his extensive knowledge, Nazis and their allies, the encyclopedia re- spoke at the event and noted: “This ency- of a Vilna ghetto diary kept by Herman calling him one of the pillars of the archive. flects an historiographic understanding that clopedia presents scholars and laymen for Kruk, and in 1966, Yad Vashem published “Only some of the material he collected ghettos were implemented only for Jews, the first time with a comprehensive view of The Scroll of Agony by Chaim Aharon Ka- was preserved. Most of it disappeared with and, as such, the phenomenon is conceptu- the ghetto phenomenon which was so cen- plan from the Warsaw ghetto. Around the him,” Ringelblum wrote in Huberband’s ally separate from the concentration camps.” tral to Jewish life during the Holocaust.” same time, the Zachor Publishing House memory. Any document from Huberband’s A series of introductions explain the his- The Encyclopedia is available for pur- put out Kiddush Hashem: Jewish Religious pen, any additional piece of information torical origins and the emergence of the chase from New York University Press. Call and Cultural Life in Poland During the from his own hand, is a real historic find. ghettos, their characteristics and regional 1-800-996-6987/ 212-998-2546 to order. International Society for Yad Vashem NON-PROFIT ORG. MARTYRDOM AND RESISTANCE U.S. POST 500 FIFTH AVENUE, 42nd FLOOR PAID NEW YORK, N.Y. 10110-4299 NEW YORK, N.Y. Web site: www.yadvashemusa.org PERMIT NO. 9313 ** ** Editor International Society Eli Zborowski, (212) 220-4304 Editor-in-Chief for Yad Vashem, Inc. Vashem, Yad for EDITORIAL BOARD EDITORIAL New York, NY 10110 NY York, New *Published Bimonthly by the Yefim Krasnyanskiy, M.A., Krasnyanskiy, Yefim 500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor Avenue, 500 Fifth Martyrdom & Resistance May/June 2010 - Iyyar/Sivan 5770 - Iyyar/Sivan 2010 May/June *1974-85, as Newsletter for the American *1974-85, as Newsletter for the Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp In- mates, and Nazi Victims **deceased Eli Zborowski Marvin Zborowski Mark Palmer Sam Skura** Israel Krakowski Mandell William Sam Halpern Isidore Karten Norman Belfer Joseph Bukiet in ," was Starnberg and kept in Genoa court. Engel, Prinz Albrecht Gestapo , then overturned his Hamburg Mémorial de la Shoah conviction. Engel died in 2006 – . 8. good end to a long-drawn-out process. However, valuable years process. However, Bundesgerichthof Excavation work uncovered the floors of And it took almost that long until the doc- These visitors can stare in amazement Or at a color photo from 2002 that shows It is hard to understand today why this It is hard to understand group in the It was a left-wing citizens A the ground-floor cells of Strasse the cells, as well as parts of the walls and provisional exhibition was put A foundations. on in 1987 as part of Berlin's 750th anniver- Topography That original sary celebrations. a row of information boards dis- Terror, of stayed put for playing text in the open air, over 20 years and eventually would attract half a million visitors annually. An umentation could be housed properly. architecture competition from 1993 ended architect Ursula Wilms and Then in chaos. landscape architect Heinz Hallman stepped in with their project, which was fin- ished in two and half years. Paris. Nachama, however, says that the To- says that the Paris. Nachama, however, was never supposed to Terror pography of are supply comprehensive answers. "We pleased if visitors leave us with more ques- tions then they started with." head of at the photograph of Karl Wolff, as he stands Himmler's personal staff, happily in front of his house on Lake and waters his plants. Friedrich Engel, the former head of the SS in Genoa, in a known as the "Butcher of convicted in absentia by an Italian military court for the 1944 murder of hundreds of Italian captives. Germany's highest court, the a free man. Hamburg of the Berlin Wall. No other place contains No of the Berlin Wall. history. quite so much German was neglected for so crucial historical site and 1956 the author- long. Between 1949 war-damaged build- ities demolished the been possible then to ings. It might have but people preferred reconstruct the site, horror. to forget this place of the site, not only 1980s that rediscovered perpetrators planned as a place where the the Holocaust but also as a site of the Ger- Around 15,000 people man resistance. were arrested by the the Holocaust museums in Washington and the Holocaust museums in Washington London and the were wasted, during which the area's gov- ernment quarters and other memorials rap- now appears Topography The idly changed. And the opportunity was as a latecomer. wasted to bring together the various Nazi memorials in the city under the umbrella of That would have been a single foundation. in a better position to cooperate with big documentation centers abroad, as well as Prinz Albrecht Strasse A woman inspects the remains of the original buildings along the woman inspects the remains A former Mu- Conference on Jan. in southern Germany, And they surrounded and in foreign posts, like young managers at a big company making their way leader Heinrich Himmler and SD chief Reinhard Heydrich, had their offices. themselves by men who didn't necessarily fit into today's stereotype of a Nazi war criminal, neither boorish sadists nor blood- They less bureaucrats. were ambitious university- educated men, aged around 30 and more likely to be ideologues than technocrats. They alter- nated between serving at the Berlin headquarters Einsatzkom- Wannsee Prinz Albrecht Giengen MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE & RESISTANCE MARTYRDOM to serve as a department head. He , or mobile death businessman, Josef rich Ehrlinger, for example, a lawyer rich Ehrlinger, from Then there was the Photographs of a group of young Nachama proudly walks through the Hitler was rarely at the complex. He pre- Hitler was rarely at the The "Final Solution" that was discussed The "Final Solution" E who at the age of 25 was already a staff before be- leader at the SD main office, coming a commander in the German se- curity police in Ukraine and leading the 1b mando case against him A squad. in 1969 was dropped be- cause he was deemed inca- Yet pable of standing trial. Ehrlinger lived for another 35 years. Best, Ernst Kaltenbrunner lawyers, Werner and Hans Nockemann, stare down from the walls — all were born in 1903. "One easily forgets that National Socialism was Andreas a young movement," say Nachama, the director of the new docu- mentation center. building, showing its concrete walls and "The site is our most im- dark stone floor. don't need portant exhibit," he says. "We impressive architecture, it is all there." He Across the way is the points to the views. Air Ministry of Hermann Göring, former few A now the German Finance Ministry. meters away is the Berlin state parliament, once the seat of the Prussian parliament. Adjacent to the site is a 170-meter section nich Spacil, who joined the SS at the age of 27. He was sta- tioned in an occupied area of the Soviet Union as an SS economist, then came back to Strasse appeared as a witness in the Nuremberg but was never prosecuted himself. Trials 20, 1942, was also prepared here. A group A here. 20, 1942, was also prepared and SS functionaries of ministerial officials venue for the con- based here chose the Nazis, where the ference of high-ranking of Europe's Jews was plan for the murder hatched. ferred to stay away from Berlin, sometimes Lair military head- ruling from his Wolf's quarters and sometimes from his Bavarian mountain retreat. But this was where the brains behind the Nazi crimes, such as SS And after the rupture up the career ladder. of 1945 most of them simply faded away into the background. extermination camps, directed the deadly extermination camps, death squads and campaigns by the SS opponents. kept an eye on the regime's at the famed , the Prinz Al- Gestapo 8 its head- BEHIND THE NAZI TERROR NAZI THE BEHIND . It was from secret police Gestapo , just a stone's throw from REVEALING THE YOUNG BUREAUCRATS BUREAUCRATS YOUNG THE REVEALING Wilhelm Strasse Wilhelm Reichssicherheitshauptamt Prinz Albrecht Strasse

ho exactly were the men who ho exactly were the planned and administered the planned and administered

In 1933 the Gestapo made the former art The center also reveals the worst histor- The exhibition can be seen at the new Sixteen of these thousands of cards

The index cards cover an entire wall, The index cards cover W school at today's government buildings, was the Third Reich's brutal headquarters for the repression. brecht Strasse ical legacy of the German Federal Repub- lic: the fact that thousands of murderers and their accomplices were able to lead undis- quiet lives in postwar Germany, The turbed by the criminal justice system. site of the exhibition is probably the most historically contaminated place in Berlin. The complex on what was once "Topography of Terror" documentation cen- documentation Terror" of "Topography ter opened by German President Horst just two days before the 65th an- Köhler, II. Unlike War niversary of the end of World the nearby Holocaust Memorial, which is dedicated to the Nazis' victims, this modest metallic gray building is designed to high- light the role of the perpetrators, those managers and bureaucrats who from their administered mass murder Berlin offices across Europe. that were collected by investigators in Berlin in 1963 jut out from the wall, rep- resenting the only former employees of this terror headquarters who ever faced And three of these cards are prosecution. raised further –the trio who showing That is just were eventually convicted. three out of a total of 7,000. amalgamation of the feared SS paramili- tary group and force – the men who worked at the very epicenter of the Nazi terror regime. quarters. The adjacent Hotel Prinz Albrecht The adjacent Hotel Prinz quarters. became the SS headquarters in 1934 and that same year the SS intelligence service, Albrecht palace the SD, took over the Prinz on nearby this complex of buildings that Hitler's offi- cials administered the concentration and several hundred of them in pink, beige or several hundred of them in pink, beige green, containing names, dates of birth They are the de- and handwritten notes. tails of some of the 7,000 former employ- ees of the and SS headquarters. It reveals the faces and SS headquarters. perpetrators of the of the almost unknown Holocaust. Nazi crimes? The new "Topography of The new "Topography Nazi crimes? center opened in documentation Terror" the former Berlin at the site of The Topography of Terror site in the center of Berlin. It was from site in the center Terror of Topography The this site that the Nazi death machine was administered. BY JAN FRIEDMANN, SPIEGEL ONLINE JAN FRIEDMANN, SPIEGEL BY Page 16 Page