AMERICAN & INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES FOR YAD VASHEM

Vol. 44-No. 2 ISSN 0892-1571 November/December 2017-Kislev/Tevet 5778 AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR YAD VASHEM HOLDS ITS MOST SUCCESSFUL TRIBUTE DINNER IN THIRTY-SIX YEARS n Sunday, November 12, 2017, Treasurer Marvin Zborowski along Wiesenthal Center; and senior Yad Bob and Amy Book were introduced Othe American Society for Yad with his sons Mark and Ziggi Vashem colleagues Dorit Novak, by close friend and transformational Vashem (ASYV) gathered at the Zborowski, Master of Ceremonies Shaya Ben Yehuda and Michael philanthropist Jay Schottenstein, who Pierre Hotel in New York City for its Tony Orlando kicked off the evening Fisher. spoke about their exceptional leader- Annual Tribute Dinner, honoring with stories of his own connection to During his greetings, Lenny ship on behalf of Yad Vashem. Bob Robert H. and Amy A. Book, Abbi and support for Israel. He then intro- announced the creation of the Eli and Amy dedicated the Northern Halpern and Barry Levine. With over duced Leonard Wilf, chairman of the Zborowski Legacy Circle, to recog- Garden of the International School for 600 attendees, this year’s Tribute American and International Societies nize individuals and families who Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem in Dinner raised a record-setting $8.5 for Yad Vashem, who provided greet- have made Yad Vashem a part of their honor of their son Douglas and in million, including significant support ings and recognized all esteemed estate plans. memory of Sam Halpern, z”l. directed toward Yad aroline Arfa Massel, Vashem’s unique educational CASYV Board member, programs with the Israel introduced Young Defense Forces. Leadership Award recipients The theme for the evening Abbi Halpern and Barry was “Carry the Torch,” and Dr. Levine. Abbi and Barry were Ron Meier, American Society presented with the Yad for Yad Vashem executive Vashem Young Leadership director, remarked, “We are Award in recognition of their thrilled to honor Bob, Amy, extraordinary service as co- Abbi and Barry, who exempli- chairs of ASYV’s Young fy our theme of Carry the Leadership Associates. Abbi Torch as distinguished lead- and Barry, both members of ers of the second and third the third generation, have generations, respectively. The dedicated themselves to extraordinary outpouring of preserving the legacy of attendance and support for their grandparents and all our exceptional honorees this Holocaust survivors and vic- evening is a true testament to tims and to ensuring that the esteem in which they are other young leaders will join held by family, friends and them in advancing Yad those whose lives they have Vashem’s sacred mission. touched. We are grateful to All of the honorees proudly our honorees and to all who 2017 Tribute Dinner honorees: Robert & Amy Book, Abbi Halpern, Barry Levine. and enthusiastically are involved for advancing expressed their gratitude to Yad Vashem’s sacred mission of Holocaust survivors in the room. ollowing Lenny’s remarks, Mark the ASYV family and inspired all who Holocaust remembrance and educa- Lenny also introduced special guests, FMoskowitz spoke passionately were in attendance with their extraor- tion.” including Patrons of the Mount of and personally about his experience dinary vision, leadership and commit- Rita Levy and Mark Moskowitz Remembrance Sheldon and Miriam on the 2016 Yad Vashem Leadership ment for Yad Vashem. served as Tribute Dinner co-chairs, Adelson; Ambassador Dore Gold, Mission and invited everyone to join Following the award ceremonies, supported by Dinner Chair Emerita from the Jerusalem Center for Public him on the 2018 Yad Vashem David Halpern, ASYV treasurer, pro- Marilyn Rubenstein, and honorary Affairs; Malcolm Hoenlein, from the Generation to Generation Mission to vided a moving “In Memoriam” tribute Dinner chairs Neil W. Book, Scott M. Conference of Presidents of Major Vienna and Israel, July 2–9, 2018. In to the Holocaust survivors who had Book, and Douglas B. Book. American Jewish Organizations; speaking about the 2016 mission, been lost, highlighting those from the Following the Motzi, led by ASYV Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Mark highlighted the tremendous ASYV community who had recently impact the presence of young leaders passed. He concluded his touching had on the mission experience. “It remarks with a moment of silence. was extraordinary to witness the The evening culminated with a IN THIS ISSUE spark that was ignited in our young fundraising appeal led by entertain- ASYV Annual Tribute Dinner...... 1-2, 8-9 leaders — sparks of Jewish identity ment industry icon and international After Nazis killed her family, this woman joined the partisans...... 2 and a strengthened connection to philanthropist Haim Saban, who is a Yad Vashem identifies 225,000 Hungarian Holocaust victims...... 3 Israel and their Jewish heritage,” leader in his commitment to a strong Combat and genocide on the Eastern Front...... 4 Mark noted. “The transformation of relationship between the United Behind the pages of the world’s most famous diary...... 5 these young leaders left an indelible States and Israel. Mr. Saban spoke Germans use albums to close the pages of Nazism...... 7 mark on all of us who shared their passionately about Yad Vashem’s The Netherlands is still hoarding a collection of art looted from Jews....10 experience.” partnership with the Israel Defense “Megillat Hitler”...... 11 The event then turned its focus Forces (IDF) to make the study of the Nazi concentration camps on British soil...... 12 toward the esteemed honorees. Yad Holocaust an integral part of its edu- Remembering the Holocaust...... 15 Vashem Leadership Award recipients (Continued on page 2) Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2017 - Kislev/Tevet 5778 AFTER NAZIS KILLED HER FAMILY, THIS WOMAN JOINED THE PARTISANS TO FIGHT BACK don’t care,’” Holm told JTA at her New throw the hand grenades,” she soldier had shot at her and narrowly BY JOSEFIN DOLSTEN, York Upper East Side apartment. “I recounted. “The hand grenades were missed. THE TIMES OF ISRAEL never [used to] think I’m going to be very scary because if you pulled the During her time as a partisan, Holm alive, and that’s the way I survived ring [incorrectly], it could kill you.” didn’t think about life after the war. azis came for Rose Holm’s fam- with the partisans.” Partisans would sleep in the forest “I didn’t think I was going to be ily in the afternoon. By the N Today, Holm is elegantly dressed with little to no protection from the ele- alive,” she said. evening, the 16-year-old was lying and soft-spoken. She wears a pearl ments. She became close with the friend among corpses in the underground necklace and offers home-baked he first winter was a very, very who recruited her, and the two went bunker where she and her family had cookies. bad winter. We used to sleep on to marry shortly after the war, sur- been hiding. “T As a partisan, it was a whole differ- in the woods under the snow,” Holm rounded by the friends they made as “I was between those dead ones, ent story, she said. said. partisans. In 1945, the couple moved and I didn’t know if I’m alive or I’m “I was like a wild one,” she said. “I to a displaced dead,” Holm, now 92, recalled. didn’t know what I was doing. persons camp in Among those shot and killed were Whatever I’d been told, that’s what I Germany before Holm’s parents, her brother and one was doing.” leaving in 1949 of her sisters, as well as some 85 Holm is among a shrinking group of for New York, other Jews hiding in the bunker out- living partisans. where she found side Parczew, a town in the eastern “Each year there are fewer Jewish a job in a dress- part of Poland. Only one family mem- partisans who are able to share their making factory ber other than Holm survived: a sister experiences,” Sheri Pearl Rosenblum, and he in a card- who had left the bunker with her hus- director of development and outreach board box factory. band and young daughter before the for the Jewish Partisan Educational Joe Holm later Nazis came. Foundation, told JTA in an email. opened his own That unimaginable incident would On its website, the group features butcher shop go on to motivate Holm to fight back the testimonies of Jewish partisans, before the couple against the Nazis. including Holm and founded a factory her late husband, Joe. producing It collected testi- women’s A still from the Warsaw ghetto uprising, in which Jewish resistance fight- monies from 51 ers held the Nazis at bay for nearly a month in April and May of 1943. sweaters about Jewish partisans from 10 years after 2002 to 2015; only 16 They would make do with whatever moving to the United States. They are still alive. food they got from non-Jewish Poles, had two children. Holm was one of just who had been threatened that they Joe died in 2009. Today, Holm lives five women in her unit, would be killed if they did not aid the in their home surrounded by photos of which started with 25 fighters. her husband, children, four grandchil- people but grew to “For survival you do everything, you dren and three great-grandchildren. around 250 by the end don’t think you’re a human being,” Holm once would not speak about of World War II. she said. their wartime experiences; talking Partisan fighter units Sometimes the partisans would get about them makes her sad. In 2013, were reluctant to have a pig to grill in the forest. however, she told her story in a video women and children “The first time was very hard, but for the Jewish Partisan Educational as members, but the when you’re hungry you don’t ask Foundation. The group also honored Rose Holm at her apartment, holding a photo of her late husband, friend who recruited questions,” Holm, whose religious Holm and her husband at galas in Joe, October 31, 2017. her — her future hus- family had observed Jewish dietary 2010 and 2011. A few months later, she met a child- band — told the other laws, said of eating pork. There’s also another emotion that hood friend who recruited her to join a fighters that the two were a package Many times she came close to comes with telling her story: incredu- group of Jewish partisans. Members deal. dying. In one incident, Holm entered lousness that she went through what of the fighting unit, which was under As part of the unit, Holm and the the house of a non-Jewish Pole to get she did and survived. the command of Chiel Grynszpan, other women carried supplies and food and supplies. A German soldier “My whole life, I’m just laying some- lived in the forest by day and fought helped detonate hand grenades. The discovered her and she ran, holding times in bed and thinking, ‘Is this the Nazis at night. group focused on destroying bridges on to a sweater the Pole had given true?’” she said. “I was thinking that I “I was thinking ‘I have to take and roads that Nazis were using. her. Later she found bullet holes dot- was reading [the story in] a book, that revenge, whatever’s going to be, I “A train used to come, so we used to ting the side of the sweater, where the it’s not from my life.”

ITALIAN DOCTORS FOOLED NAZIS BY INVENTING AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR YAD VASHEM THIS FAKE DISEASE HOLDS ITS MOST SUCCESSFUL TRIBUTE DINNER... n 1943, a team of ingenious Italian Kesselring and Herbert Kappler — (Continued from page 1) tom-designed sweatshirts with the Idoctors invented a deadly, conta- two ruthless Nazi commanders. cational training for 120,000 sol- ASYV, Yad Vashem and IDF logos, gious virus called Syndrome K to pro- The doctors instructed “patients” to diers each year, highlighting activi- which all guests received at the end tect Jews from annihilation. On cough very loudly and told Nazis that ties which include day seminars at of the evening. October 16 of that year, as Nazis the disease was extremely danger- Yad Vashem for 90,000 soldiers a In closing, MC Tony Orlando closed in to liquidate Rome’s Jewish ous, disfiguring and molto contagioso. year, programs at the newly estab- remarked, “We will never forget the ghetto, many runaways hid in the 450- Soldiers were so alarmed by the list of lished IDF training base in the six million who perished. As we year-old Fatebenefratelli Hospital. symptoms and incessant coughing Negev, and special programming carry the torch and pass on the les- There, anti-Fascist doctors, including that they left without inspecting the for the chief of staff and the IDF sons from the darkness of the Adriano Ossicini, Vittorio Sacerdoti patients. It’s estimated that a few high command. Mr. Saban’s com- Shoah, the brightest of lights lies and Giovanni Borromeo, created a dozen lives were saved by this bril- pelling remarks generated an out- right here within each of us.” gruesome, imaginary disease. liant scheme. pouring of support for Yad The American Society for Yad “Syndrome K was put on patient The doctors were later honored for Vashem’s programs with the IDF. Vashem is proud to thank all of its papers to indicate that the sick person their heroic actions, and ASYV Young Leaders, a record friends and supporters for carrying wasn’t sick at all, but Jewish” and in Fatebenefratelli Hospital was number of whom attended the din- the torch for Yad Vashem and help- need of protection, Ossicini told declared a “House of Life” by the ner, circulated around the ballroom ing to make the 2017 Tribute Dinner Italian newspaper La Stampa last International Raoul Wallenberg to collect pledge cards from donors. by far the most successful one in year. The “K” stood for Albert Foundation. The Young Leaders all wore cus- ASYV’s 36-year history. November/December 2017 - Kislev/Tevet 5778 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 3 YAD VASHEM IDENTIFIES 225,000 HUNGARIAN HOLOCAUST VICTIMS of the earth and remains among the process, in particular the Polish said. The important pages were BY AMANDA BORSCHEL-DAN, undocumented. I know that Yad Names Project, and we hope that with scanned and sent to Yad Vashem, THE TIMES OF ISRAEL Vashem is committed to leaving no the continued support of the French which is in the process of uploading stone unturned in the effort to identify Foundation we will achieve similar the pages into its database. orn in Budapest in 1937, as many Holocaust victims as possi- results to those we obtained in col- The team, trained by Yad Vashem, Chayim Herzl remembers being B ble,” Herzl told The Times of Israel. lecting names of Jewish victims from must be fluent in Hungarian, and have taken by his mother Eugenia to visit en years ago, approximately 40 Hungary,” said Shalev. skills in German, Romanian, Serbian his father Reuven Salgo at a labor percent of Hungarian victims and other languages of the region to camp outside the city in 1943. T were identified after the advances decipher the handwriting of the “My hand was small, and I was able made by Holocaust historian and pre–World War II documents. to pass some food to him through the Holocaust survivor Serge Klarsfeld. In December, the intensive research fence. That was the last time I saw Klarsfeld in the 1980s launched the collection is finishing, but the team will him,” said Herzl. Nevek Project, gathering names from continue to decipher documents to He lost his mother in early 1945 lists of prisoners of forced labor and add more names and stories into the when men from Hungary’s Arrow concentration camps during World database. Cross took her from their safe house War II. Because of funding and n our database, we have outside the ghetto, organized by bureaucratic issues, he abandoned 4,700,000 names of Jews mur- diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, while he “I his project. dered in the Holocaust. That means hid under the bed. Building on Klarsfeld’s Nevek Project, that more than 1 million are not identi- Having lost his father at age six and Yad Vashem–trained historians have fied,” said Avram. Whereas in central his mother at eight, Herzl has only added some 225,000 victims’ names and western Europe some 95% of the fleeting memories of his parents. over the past 10 years of intensive victims documented as Jews were Now, thanks to a comprehensive research. This major project was fund- arrested, sent to transit camps, and decade-long project to collect names ed by the Fondation pour la Mémoire then sent on to death camps, in eastern of Hungarian Holocaust victims, com- de la Shoah and supported by the late Europe there is less of a paper trail. pleted in a collaboration with Israel’s French politician and Holocaust sur- Chayim Herzl (Salgo) was born in 1937 in Although he said the teams of Holocaust memorial museum Yad vivor Simone Veil, who served as its Budapest, Hungary, the only child of Reuven researchers at Yad Vashem will con- Vashem and funded by the Fondation and Eugenia Salgo. tinue to document victims, it is impor- n addition to Poland, which has tant to note, said Avram, that the Isigned a cooperation agreement teams have “exhausted most of the with the institution, Yad Vashem is easy sources, and now look for implementing the information-gather- names scattered in less-explored ing model it founded in Hungary in its sources where they will sometimes names recovery efforts in the territo- ries of the former Soviet Union and the Balkan States. Dr. Alexander Avram, director of the Hall of Names and the Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, explained the project’s procedures and resonance. Unlike the initial goal of the Nevek Project of attaching a name to every victim, the Yad Vashem project “has revealed part of their individual sto- ries, and in some cases, for the first Hungarian Jews were marched down Wesselenyi Street in the heart of Budapest’s Jewish quarter, time was able to connect a rare pho- on their way to be deported to Auschwitz. tograph with the name of the faceless pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, Herzl first president. Recently, Yad Vashem murdered,” said Avram. has regained something he calls hosted an event that included a special The intensive work began in 2007 “indescribably priceless” — informa- tribute to Veil. and was conducted under the leader- tion. “Simone Veil saw special impor- ship of three Yad Vashem historians Through the project, Herzl learned tance in the collection of names of who trained a staff of some 20 Eugenia (Geni) Salgo, née Herzl, mother of that his father died just days before the Hungarian Jews. She witnessed first- researchers who were on the ground in Chayim Herzl (Salgo). end of the war in a POW death march, hand the arrival and extermination of Greater Hungary: Hungary, Slovakia, read a book of 500 pages to reach after having been forced into a labor Hungary’s Jews at Auschwitz- parts of Romania, Serbia and four or five names.” corps in the Hungarian army fighting Birkenau. It was important to her that Transylvania. Through special diplo- “We are focusing our efforts in the on the Eastern front. Beyond that, he their identities be memorialized, and matic agreements forged with the countries where we have a more sig- now has a document with his father’s she therefore decided to support this Hungarian government in 2005 and nificant gap in names of victims,” said signature. The signature, his father’s important initiative,” said Yad Vashem 2006, said Avram, the researchers Avram. In Hungary, for example, orthographic fingerprint, is the only Chairman Avner Shalev. were granted full access to all state although there were organized trans- piece of his father’s writing Herzl owns. But the scope of Yad Vashem’s archives for this specific project. ports, “nobody cared to register the “Through the efforts of Yad names collection project goes well “It is not easy in these countries to names of the Jews on the transports,” Vashem’s names collection project in beyond identifying Jewish Hungarian find documentation about the he said. Hungary, I was finally able to find a victims. It is, to date, the largest proj- Holocaust and Jews,” said Avram. As in the case for Herzl, who discov- sense of closure in knowing what ect Yad Vashem has undertaken and “They are no key words for cata- ered his father’s fate through the Yad happened to my father. Finding a doc- represents a holistic approach to col- logues; there is no archive in Europe Vashem project, Avram hopes to find ument containing his signature is evi- lecting information and documents that has a topic ‘Holocaust’ and cata- more than mere monikers for the dence to the world that my father lived that far surpasses previous efforts. logues for this or for Jews.” remainder of the victims. and a testimony to the tragic fate that “This is the most successful project The team pored over archive mate- “We can sometimes build a person- befell him and so many Hungarian that Yad Vashem’s Archives has rial from all sorts of offices — includ- al story. Previous attempts were to Jews,” said Herzl. undertaken. The holistic approach of ing the Ministries of the Interior, document names of victims; in this “The job is not yet complete: My the project has become a model for Defense and Agriculture — “page by project, we are trying to go further mother, from the day she was taken other endeavors we are currently pro- page, to map those documents impor- than that,” he said, and transform the from me, has vanished from the face moting in the name-gathering tant to Jews and the Holocaust,” he name into a person. Page 4 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2017 - Kislev/Tevet 5778 COMBAT AND GENOCIDE ON THE EASTERN FRONT Combat and Genocide on the about this violence and also “con- acts of the German army in the Soviet less Russian civilians were robbed of Eastern Front: The German Infantry’s form,” Nazi governing officials, we Union. From Rutherford we learn this everything and left to die of starvation War, 1941–1944. read, utilized all propaganda means hearkens back to the history of the or the bitter cold. Partisans were By Jeff Rutherford. Cambridge available to create a “Nazi con- “Prusso-German Army [which] tradi- hanged and left to “dangle” to make the University Press: New York, 2014. science.” The hoped-for result: “A tionally [since 1870] subscribed to a populace realize the punishment for 423 pp. $35.20 softcover. truly moral and ethical German living radicalized notion of military necessi- any act deemed anti-Nazi. Worse still in the Nazi racial state would intuitive- ty in which the institution focused on was the collective punishment doled REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN ly understand the necessity and right- defeating the opposing army without out when one person or no person was he world will always wonder just eousness of eliminating Jews and regard for normal ethical or moral to be found guilty of some “crime”! T how Germany, one of the most other undesirables considerations.” How How did the German soldier gener- cultured nations of its time, would also from the Nazi body did the aforementioned ally feel about this? It was part of war be the birthplace of so many individu- politic.” ideological training fit . . . and the war was to be won at all als who, during World War II, found The Wehrmacht sol- into all this? It made cost. These Russian civilians, who genocide acceptable! Researchers diers of Army Group murder and all manner German soldiers had also been have tried to explain this enigma from North, and specifically of murderous acts that taught were dirty fighters and simply their varied vantage points: psycho- the 121st, 123rd and much easier! animals, meant absolutely nothing logical, sociological, historical. Military 126th Infantry Divisions he 121st, 123rd and were “mere obstacles to final vic- historian Jeff Rutherford, in his excep- specifically examined T and 126th Infantry tory.” Germany and what was good tionally well-researched work, here, were, of course, Divisions, subordinated for Germany mattered! Combat and Genocide on the Eastern representatives of that to the Sixteenth Army, Jews, meanwhile, meant less than Front: The German Infantry’s War, society. Called up on were “charged with nothing. To the Nazis they were the 1941–1944, gives us his thought-pro- the October 10, 1940, destroying the Red enemy! Sometimes the Nazis could voking view of just how this hap- they were three of the Army in the Baltic fully depend on their collaborators pened. ten divisions that would States, capturing the when it came to the Jews. Rutherford First off, Rutherford points out that invade the Soviet Union region’s vital port facili- particularly points out how this was Christian Gerlach, a researcher who in June 1941. Before the actual inva- ties, maintaining contact with the the case in some Baltic countries. In has written a good deal about violent sion took place, there followed more northern wing of Army Group Center, fact, one German soldier watching societies, found that the Nazi society “ideological education,” which basical- and most importantly seizing Lithuanian gangs would write in his itself was violent. And this violence ly made sure the soldiers realized just Leningrad.” In their initial advance, diary how stunned he was by the was not merely a result of “govern- what they were fighting for. The recom- there were the usual battles, some- “heinous” acts he witnessed perpe- ment policies but was rather an mended text for instruction on “the times degenerating into pure sav- trated on Jews. Otherwise, these expression of the German popula- German Volk” was Hitler’s Mein agery. Nonetheless, it was their Wehrmacht troops, working with tion’s attitudes and values.” All the Kampf. Indeed, these men were to be defensive battles leading to the long- Einsatzgruppen (murder squads) that participants were sure they were “racial warriors.” term occupation of parts of the above followed closely behind them, thought bringing “order” back to a Germany Still, it was “the Wehrmacht’s adher- areas — unexpected, since Germany nothing of helping them. that was being destroyed. Thus the ence to a doctrine of military necessi- thought it would defeat the Soviet Needless to say, Combat and enemies, “communists, ‘asocials’ and ty,” or, in simpler terms, the need to Union in just weeks — that appear, Genocide on the Eastern Front is an later a multitude of groups including do “whatever was necessary to pre- sooner or later, to have brought out absorbing work! the mentally and physically disabled, serve its combat efficiency and the very worst in these divisions. homosexuals, and Jews,” were tar- emerge victorious on the battlefield,” Because the divisions were ill Dr. Diane Cypkin is a Professor of geted. In order to get as many which, according to Rutherford, was equipped for the winter of 1941–42 Media, Communication, and Visual Germans as possible to feel right the driving force and best explains the both in foodstuffs and clothing, count- Arts at Pace University. SURVIVOR AV PERLMUTTER: “ANGEL” WATCHED OVER HIM the night, when the exit was left nessed Hitler riding by in an open car. Thea, meanwhile, was transferred BY JANE ULMAN, unguarded, he calmly walked out and Av’s non-Jewish friends began beat- to a Youth Aliyah camp east of JEWISH JOURNAL ran. ing him, and he no longer attended Amsterdam in Loosdrecht, with a plan Avraham Abba Perlmutter, who was school. The following fall he enrolled to join her parents in Palestine, where here’s Adolf Perlmutter?” given the name Adolf by the Austrian in a Jewish middle school. they had immigrated illegally in June “W one of the German soldiers government, was born on August 28, On the night of November 9, 1938, 1939. shouted, bursting into Suzanne 1927, in Vienna, to Chaim and Malka Kristallnacht began. The Perlmutter Germany invaded the Netherlands Cohen’s house in Amsterdam in Perlmutter. His sister, family’s store was on May 10, 1940. And while Av contin- March 1943, rushing past a 15-year- Thea, was three plundered. ued attending school, playing soccer old boy living there who was known years older. Two months later, and celebrating his bar mitzvah, anti- as Avraham or Av. Chaim owned a tex- Av’s parents arranged Jewish measures were enacted grad- Upstairs they found one of the tile store, providing for him and Thea to ually. Cohens’ sons, in his early 20s, and the family with a mid- leave for the n October 7, 1942, after non- ordered, “You come with us.” On their dle-class, very obser- Netherlands on a ODutch Jews were ordered to way out, they grabbed Av, realizing he vant life. Every morn- Kindertransport — a move from coastal areas, Av was sent was the one they were looking for — ing, Av prayed with rescue operation for to Amsterdam, where he was placed his official name was Adolf — and led his father in the small children — to join Av’s with Suzanne Cohen and her adult both young men into a police van. shul located on their aunt and uncle, Anni sons, within two miles of where Anne They headed to the Jewish Theatre, apartment building’s and Aby Bachrach. “It Frank and her family were already which had been converted to a deten- first floor. was like an adven- hiding. His relatives in The Hague tion center from where Jews were Av was a self- ture,” Av said. were all murdered later in Auschwitz deported to camps. described “wild child.” They arrived in Wijk and Sobibor. “The moment I came in, I was think- At 6, he was asked aan Zee, a village on After Av escaped from the Jewish ing how to get out,” Av recalled. He not to return for a sec- the North Sea coast, Theatre in March 1943, he ran back noticed that pairs of German soldiers ond year in Jewish where they spent two to the Cohens’ house, where he hid in at the exits changed shifts regularly. school because of his misbehavior. months at a Catholic campsite run by the backyard. At one door in particular, they actually He attended public school and played nuns before being transferred to a The next morning, Ellie Waterman, abandoned their post to fetch their soccer with neighborhood boys. series of refugee camps. Then, in a member of an underground organi- replacements. He mentioned this to Av’s life changed on March 12, December 1939, after a bout with zation founded by Dutch Christian the Cohen son, who deemed it too 1938, with the annexation of Austria diphtheria, Av was released to Sientje Joop Westerweel, coincidentally dangerous to try escaping. “They’ll by Nazi Germany. Two days later, Av and Joop Van Straten, relatives by showed up. “It was a pure miracle,” Av shoot us,” he told Av. followed the crowds to one of marriage, who lived in The Hague, 40 said. Thea had asked the group to Av was undeterred. In the middle of Vienna’s main streets, where he wit- miles south. (Continued on page 6) November/December 2017 - Kislev/Tevet 5778 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 5 BEHIND THE PAGES OF THE WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS DIARY ings that he showed it to everyone.” without much success, until publisher starring Millie Perkins, in 1959. BY NADINE WOJAKOVSKI, Many people wonder at the polished Doubleday decided to take a chance Otto married Fritzi in 1953 and they THE JERUSALEM POST style and expression of Anne’s diary. on it. It published the first English ver- moved to Basel, Switzerland. In 1963 t’s been 70 years since The Diary While the Franks were in hiding, the sion, titled The Diary of a Young Girl. he set up a charitable trust; the royal- Iof Anne Frank was shared with the Dutch education minister, who was in This was the turning point. ties from the diary, the play and any world. The stepdaughter of Anne’s exile in London, appealed on British t was Jewish author and war cor- other related source was, said Otto, father Otto Frank tells Metro the radio for people to keep war diaries. It Irespondent Meyer Levin’s raptur- “Anne’s money.” The proceeds have inside story of its publication. was at this point that Anne started to ous review in The New York Times on been distributed to many charities. Pride of place on Eva Schloss’s rewrite the diary with the intention of June 15, 1952, that changed every- Otto bequeathed the unedited ver- bookcase in her London home is The publishing it after the war. thing. His review ended: “‘I want to go sion of the diary to the Dutch govern- Diary of a Young Girl, also known as t was Jewish historian Annie on living even after my death,’ Anne ment. After his death in 1980 the gov- The Diary of Anne Frank. IRomein, notes Schloss, who told wrote. ‘I am grateful to God for giving ernment decided to publish the diary in Schloss’s fascination with this iconic Otto that it was his duty to publish it. me this gift, this possibility of develop- its entirety. It became available to all book is not merely due to the fact that But finding a publisher was not easy — ing myself and of writing, of express- publishers. To date the diary has been she and Anne met as child immi- until a 1946 article by Romein’s hus- ing all that is in me.’ Hers was proba- translated into over 60 languages, with grants in wartime Amsterdam, but more than 30 million copies sold. rather because of a much closer chloss retains special connection that has dominated her Smemories of her stepfather, life for over 70 years. After the war, and the “grandfather” Otto Anne’s father Otto married Eva’s became to her three daughters. mother Fritzi. Had she lived, Anne His sensitivity — not wanting to would have been Eva’s stepsister. marry Fritzi until Eva was mar- When the Russians liberated ried — coupled with his warmth Auschwitz in January 1945, Eva and kindness, was a constant and her mother ended up on the source of consolation and reas- same homeward-bound transport surance after the trauma of the as Otto Frank. Together, they war years. made the long arduous trip to Even when it was decided that Odessa, returning to Amsterdam Eva should become a photogra- in June 1945, after the war. Otto pher, after her school years, it and Fritzi became friends and was Otto who gave her his Leica eventually married in 1953. camera. “I think Otto was an Back in 1940, the 11-year-old exceptional, wonderful, thought- Eva and Anne had already met. ful and intelligent man. He was They were part of a group of really an amazing person,” remi- friends who cycled, skipped and nisces Schloss. gossiped about boys in “He was a wonderful grandfa- Amsterdam’s Merwedeplein Otto and Fritzi Frank in London, 1957. ther to our three daughters. He Square after school. But for Eva, band, Jan, helped put the diary in the bly one of the bodies seen in the often talked to them about Anne.” years later, the diary was a revelation. spotlight. In his front-page piece in mass grave at Bergen-Belsen, for in She believes the maturity of Anne’s “I was the same age as her and I Dutch newspaper Het Parool, he August 1944, the knock came on that writing comes down to the education was quite amazed how Anne had a wrote: “To me, however, this apparent- hidden door in Amsterdam. After the she received at home. “Otto read all much more mature view of the world,” ly inconsequential diary by a child... people had been taken away, Dutch of Dickens’s books with her and he Schloss, who has just celebrated her stammered out in a child’s voice, friends found Anne’s diary in the probably discussed many things with 88th birthday, recalls. embodies all the hideousness of fas- debris, and saved it. her, from which she formed her own “She wrote about feminism and pol- cism, more so than all the evidence at “There is anguish in the thought of judgment. It shows you how important itics, and she said you don’t have to Nuremberg [trials] put together.” how much creative power, how much it is not to leave all education to the wait till tomorrow to do good deeds Eventually Dutch publisher Contact sheer beauty of living, was cut off teacher. A parent is very important in and help people. She was really quite produced the book Anne Frank, Het through genocide. But through her the education of the children.” amazing for that age.” Achterhuis, translated as The Secret diary Anne goes on living. From Similarly, the message of education Eva — who was just 16 when the Annex, in 1947. Holland to France, to Italy, Spain. The is one Schloss also shares with her war ended and whose father Erich Eva’s mother Fritzi became involved Germans too have published her audiences today as she travels the and brother Heinz Geiringer were in helping Otto get the first edition book. And now she comes to world telling her own story of survival sent to Auschwitz, but later perished published. “They came together in the America. Surely she will be widely in Auschwitz, as recounted in her in Mauthausen concentration camp evenings often and talked about pub- loved, for this wise and wonderful three published books, Eva’s Story, — witnessed the story behind the lishing it. Otto worked conscientious- young girl brings back a poignant After Auschwitz and The Promise. publication of the diary. Otto had ly, editing what should stay in.” Otto delight in the infinite human spirit.” Otto never expected his daughter’s received it in the summer of 1945 left out intimate thoughts, like Anne’s The review made the diary an diary to play such an important part in from Miep Gies, his secretary before flirtations with Pieter and her negative overnight bestseller, which “thrilled postwar education. It has become one the war (at Opekta, his trading com- thoughts about her mother. and amazed” Otto. of the great literary documents of the pany in gelling agents for making jam) In his own diary entry for June 25, Otto gave Levin the opportunity to war, to be ranked alongside master- and one of the people who had hid- 1947, Otto marked one word: “book.” adapt the diary into a play, but he was pieces like Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man. den the family in the annex at “How proud Anne would have been if unsuccessful in finding a producer to The diary ended up dominating Prinsengracht 263. It was Otto who she had experienced it,” he later said. take on his work. In the end Otto and Otto’s life. “He was completely con- had picked out the checked-cover But, recounts Schloss, the first edi- Levin were embroiled in a bitter dis- sumed, not necessarily by her, but by diary as a gift for Anne’s 13th birthday, tion wasn’t particularly successful pute, over which Levin took Otto to her thoughts and the message he in June 1942, just weeks before the because people weren’t in the mood court. Levin later wrote a book called could use.” He traveled extensively to family was forced into hiding. On to read more terrible things after all The Obsession, where he described the US, Israel and Germany, dedicat- handing over the diary to him after the the suffering that had been endured in his feelings of being cheated out of ing libraries and schools in the name war, Miep told Otto: “This is your the war. “Moreover, no one thought his rightful due. Instead, the play- of his daughter. daughter Anne’s legacy.” what a little girl writes about day to wright couple Frances Goodrich and “He spoke to young people about “It took Otto three weeks to read it, day would interest anyone.” Albert Hackett obtained the rights to Anne and her message,” concludes reading just a bit each day, as it was Undeterred, Otto got in touch with the play, and it premiered on Schloss, “together with his own mes- so painful,” says Schloss. “He was so various foreign publishers, who had it Broadway in 1955. The play was a hit, sage, which was about peace and tol- proud of Anne’s thoughts and her writ- translated. Then he tried America, but and led to the first Anne Frank film, erance.” Page 6 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2017 - Kislev/Tevet 5778 SURVIVOR AV PERLMUTTER: “ANGEL” WATCHED OVER HIM (Continued from page 4) French. in June 1944, they advanced toward evacuation plans. find a hiding place for him. ne day in September 1943, Germany, and by September were Two days later, Av persuaded one of “I was very Orthodox Jewish and I Othe boys heard the familiar approaching Grubbenvorst. the Beijers’ sons to accompany him to strongly believed that an angel of pounding of German boots and When several German soldiers Sevenum, now in Allied hands. They God was guarding me,” Av said. quickly hid in a prearranged spot. moved into the Beijers’ house, Av arrived on November 26, 1944, which Waterman told Av to meet him at After the Germans left, they split up, hid in the stable. Pap then built him Av considers his liberation date. “I felt the train station. After a series of believing they would be safer. a more secure hiding place, a con- fantastic,” he said. stops and train changes, Av exited Av wandered for about 20 minutes cealed hole in the hill behind the Wanting to help the British army, at what he believes was Zutphen, a before a German soldier stopped barn. Av lay on his back all day, with Av worked as an interpreter for a city in the east-central Netherlands, him, asking for identification and red ants for companions, venturing month as soldiers directed the locals where Waterman led him to the summoning a police van. He placed out only in the evenings. in rebuilding the bridge. At Av’s house of an elderly couple. Av in the partitioned back, guarded n November 22, 1944, the request, one soldier sent a letter to After dinner, as German soldiers by two Dutch police officers. OAllies liberated the village of his parents in Palestine. In January, approached, Av hid in a bedroom Thinking the policemen might be Sevenum, about five miles west of the Jewish Brigade came for Av, to closet. As one of the soldiers anti-Nazi, Av slid toward the rear Grubbenvorst, launching a heavy reunite him with his parents. Av said approached, Av began hiccupping out doors of the van as the police offi- barrage eastward toward the goodbye to the Beijers. Years later, he submitted their names and that of Pastor Vullinghs to Yad Vashem, which recognized them in 1994 as “Righteous Among the Nations.” The Perlmutter and Beijers families have remained very close. Av arrived in Haifa on July 16, 1945. Soon after his father picked him up, his aunt told him that his mother had died of an adverse peni- cillin reaction the previous January, two weeks before his letter arrived. Weeks later, Av was living in Tel Aviv with his father and assisting in his small jam factory when they learned that Thea, who had been captured and sent to Auschwitz, had survived. n 1947, Av joined the Haganah, Ithe Jewish underground, but was badly injured in a motorcycle-truck collision. He was discharged as a wounded war veteran on November 8, 1949, and made his way to the United States. He entered the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta in 1951 to study aeronautical engineering, graduating in June 1954. After earn- Av Perlmutter. Photo by Carla Acevedo-Blumenkrantz. ing a master’s degree at Princeton in 1956, he accepted a job at Kellett of fear and nearly choked, smothering cers talked. Av partially opened one Germans’ defense line. Aircraft Corporation in Philadelphia. the noise. The German opened the door, and when the van slowed, he That night as Av joined the Beijers A year later, Av met Ruth Gitberg closet door and slammed it, cursing. jumped out. in their neighbors’ basement, the at a synagogue social. They married “Fortunately for me, he didn’t look After running several blocks, he Germans forced everyone out, plan- on August 31, 1958, and had four very much,” Av said. stopped a man on the street who ning to evacuate all town residents children. He later earned a doctorate The couple then hid him in a back- took him home and contacted Joop across the Maas River to Germany. in mechanical engineering from the yard coal bin. But after the Germans Westerweel. An aide to Westerweel Afraid of entering Germany, Av University of Pennsylvania. returned a second time, Av left, not arranged for Av’s last placement. remained in Grubbenvorst, hiding Av and two colleagues at Kellett wanting to endanger the couple. Av traveled to Venlo, in the south- once again in the stable. With British formed their own company, Despite the late hour, Av knocked eastern Netherlands, where a pas- artillery shells exploding ever closer, Dynasciences, in 1961. When on a nearby door. “I’m Jewish. Can tor, Henricus Vullinghs, met him at he left, reaching the street just as a Dynasciences merged with Whitaker you hide me?” he asked the young the train station and transported him shell landed on the stable, demolishing Corporation in 1969, Av moved his man who opened it. The man, who on the back of his bicycle five miles it. Again, Av said, “I knew at the time family to Los Angeles and worked in had a wife and small child, con- north to the home in Grubbenvorst, that the angel of God was with me.” engineering and other ventures until cealed him behind some boxes in a town within three miles of the As the pounding continued, Av he retired in 2015. the basement. German border where Peter and crawled along toward the British Av is now 90 and the grandfather “These Christians who were hiding Gertrude Beijers lived with three of line, feeling for mines. Suddenly of five. He wrote an autobiography, Jews were extremely courageous, their six adult children. someone shouted, “Halt,” as Nazi Determined, which was published in because if they were caught hiding a Forty-two of the village’s 240 fami- soldiers jumped out from the road- 2014, and a Dutch version, in collab- Jew, they were treated like a Jew,” lies, all Catholic, were hiding Jews. side. “Where are you going?” one oration with the Beijers family, was Av said. Pastor Vullinghs told his parish- demanded. Av pointed to a nearby released in August 2017. The next morning, Waterman ioners that they were assured a house. Just then the British began For 20 years, Av has been speak- found Av and arranged for Dutch place in heaven if they saved a Jew. firing, and Av pushed himself free ing about his experiences — at Christians in several cities to hide As Av grew close to the Beijers and ran, despite the mines and the museums, schools and synagogues. him. Then, sometime during the family — he called the parents Mom bullets flying past him. “I always like to tell my story in summer, Av was placed in a board- and Pap — he began helping on the He reached a farmhouse where he hopes that it helps others, especial- ing house in Rotterdam, where two farm, becoming expert in growing found the entire Beijers family. The ly children.” he said. “I tell them that boys were staying, as well as a asparagus. bridge over the river had been regardless of difficulties, don’t give teacher, who taught Av English and After the Allies invaded Normandy destroyed, thwarting the Germans’ up.” November/December 2017 - Kislev/Tevet 5778 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 7 GERMANS USE ALBUMS TO CLOSE THE PAGES OF NAZISM Berlin. She opened such how-to link that to their own families. peaceful,” Chmell said. “We don’t BY ORIT ARFA, books, whose guidelines included: Because you learn about the want to see behind all these nice sto- THE JERUSALEM POST avoid levity while wearing a Nazi uni- Holocaust in history with all its atro- ries and pictures they gave us. My form; capture various angles of the ciousness, you can’t link it to the whole family didn’t ask further, ‘What t the weekly antique flea market in perfect “Aryan” profile; do not include great-grandfather whom you love and did he really do?’” Berlin, Christoph Kreutzmueller, a A portraits with “racially inferior” friends. know as a kind man.” With the support of his wife, but not Holocaust historian and curator for the During wartime, the men usually took arch of Life was founded by his siblings, Chmell became a sleuth. new permanent exhibition of the the cameras to the battlefields. Pastor Jobst Bittner of TOS His investigation led him to Antwerp, Jewish Museum in Berlin, picked up a M How family photos from the Nazi era Ministries, which in American terms is Belgium, where, through Google Nazi-era family album at random from are being maintained and kept today a Christian Evangelical ministry, Street View, he scoured balconies a book stand, fascinated not by the can give insight into how second-to based in Tübingen in southern from the vantage point of the sky- black-and-white pictures that were fourth-generation Nazi-era Germans Germany — a city that once boasted scraper in the photo. He eventually there — but by those that weren’t. come to grips — or not — with possi- a high concentration of avowed Nazi found the building where his grandfa- “They’re all torn out,” he said, point- ble family involvement in Hitler’s mur- party members. Several years ago, ther posed and soon learned what it ing to a page consisting only of tear derous, tyrannical regime. These two Bittner encouraged his congregants had housed. marks whose residue reveals the side flea market albums represent two to inquire into their families’ history “During World War II, it was the of a tank and soldiers posing on a approaches to the past: torn and during the Nazi era. With the main headquarters of the Deutsche Mercedes. The “war” page? “untouched.” Holocaust generation dying out, most Wehrmacht in Antwerp, and then I The album, however, opens with a searched for what the Deutsche picture of paradise: a German couple Wehrmacht exactly did there.” with their nude toddlers are picnicking His grandfather’s department was in a lush forest. As for the rest, most responsible for summoning Antwerp’s photos have been rearranged, out of 20,000 Jews for deportation. order. “When I found out this fact, it broke “There’s the innocent reading that my heart,” Chmell said, teary-eyed. [the album owner] hated the war and “For the first time, I could see the truth didn’t want to think of it anymore,” about my family. I always thought Kreutzmueller said of the reason for there was nothing bad in my family, the missing pictures. “The biased, and maybe my family never killed a ‘mean’ reading is that perhaps they Jew, but he was one of the main peo- showed murder. I think that he really ple responsible in this office and he’s didn’t want to think of war anymore responsible for 20,000 Jews. They because the remnants that you see went straight to Auschwitz.” are not of fighting.” Klaus Schock, a physicist, decided, In another album from the same on Bittner’s call, to open the lids of vendor (collected from an apartment boxes with albums, letters and even liquidated upon the resident’s pass- army medals that had been shelved in ing), photos are neatly organized and An SS officer questions two Jewish resistance fighters in the Warsaw ghetto, 1943. his grandparents’ home. labeled. They, too, open with “par- ccording to Michaela Buckel, families must rely on family albums At first, when he asked his parents adise” — a Nazi government-spon- project manager for March of for clues if they did not receive first- about his paternal grandfather’s serv- sored outing amid beautiful land- A Life, an organization that includes hand accounts. ice under the Nazi regime, they said, scapes in May 1938. In October that descendants of German Wehrmacht Until he heeded his pastor’s call, dismissively, that he had been a Nazi same year, the month in which soldiers and Gestapo and SS mem- Friedhelm Chmell, 40, felt indiffer- stormtrooper (the paramilitary wing of Germany began to deport its Polish bers who seek personal reconciliation ence on obligatory visits to concentra- the Nazi party) for a brief period. Jews, the matriarch and patriarch cel- with Nazi victims and their descen- tion camps. Documents and pictures revealed the ebrate their silver wedding anniver- dants, most German families keep “It never really touched my heart, so facts: his grandfather enlisted in the sary. A few pages later, in 1940, the albums in their homes ignored. I never felt anything,” Chmell, a hospi- stormtroopers in 1932 and then living room is newly adorned with a Among some of her friends, portraits tal nurse, said via Skype from his renounced his Nazi party member- radio, the tool for Nazi propaganda of grandparents hang in the living home in Tübingen. “I felt a little bit ship to become a professional soldier nicknamed “Goebbels Schnauze” rooms, sometimes in Wehrmacht uni- sorry, but it was nothing personal.” for the next 12 years. (Goebbels snout). form. As a young adult, Klaus Schock, 47, His grandfather’s album from “There’s another living room where “What you normally won’t find are a March of Life member from a small France could be mistaken for that of a you could see good old Adolf Hitler family pictures in SS uniform,” Buckel village near Tübingen, never wanted vacation: he took photographs of the under the light bulb, so he’s lit,” tells The Jerusalem Report. “In that to “touch” his family’s role in the war Eiffel Tower and other French land- Kreutzmueller said, noticing the tiny, case, it’s more likely these photos are years. marks that suddenly became the mustached figure in the framed pho- taken from the album, or the badges “In Germany, normally in school, Nazis’ playground. But the war of tograph on the wall. and insignia are blackened. Photo you go into detail about Nazi times annihilation and aggression was on Later, grooms appear in Wehrmacht albums are rarely hidden. Often you and the Nazi regime, and about the full, organized display in the “Russia uniforms at their respective weddings, just do not look at them.” Third Reich,” Schock said. “For me, it album.” and then from the war front. One son Most German families, Buckel says, was like something that had nothing Via Skype, Schock opened the seemed to have sent a photograph often tell stories of their own “victim- to do with my life. I was wondering album and showed neat, labeled titles from Russia in September 1941 — hood” — air raids, fallen soldiers, pris- why do we learn about this. It was a of images of dead Russian soldiers — Kreutzmueller surmised that he had oners of war. terrible time, so what? I wasn’t really some in a ditch, some being hanged. just been awarded the Iron Cross. “I’d say from experience that there is interested.” “I realized he must have seen a lot According to photo-historian Sandra definitely a difference between how According to the oral history of of things. Normally I’m a scientist and Starke, who co-curated the 2009 trav- the national German government Chmell’s family, his maternal grandfa- I’m more rational, but it shocked me.” eling exhibit on Wehrmacht photo commemorates and memorializes the ther worked at an army desk job, liter- The grandparents of Chmell and albums, “Focus on Strangers,” the Holocaust and how individual families ally. Two pictures of him in uniform Schock are no longer living, but Nazi regime encouraged amateur recognize the role their families were assembled as part of a family Schock recalls his encounters with his photography, in part so Germans played in the destruction/war,” she album arranged by his uncle: one of grandfather as a young boy. could record for posterity how nice life says. “Today, most people in him writing a letter at a desk and “As long as I’ve known him, he just was under Hitler’s reign. Germany would agree with the state- another of him posing on the balcony lived in the house nearby together “They supported the camera facto- ment that the Nazis were criminals at his Antwerp office. with my grandma, and so when I had ries, made the prices low, made com- and the Holocaust a genocide without “I always saw this picture with this to decide to go to the military or to civil petitions, courses, training, how-to comparison. But they will not likely office and everything seemed so (Continued on page 10) books,” said Starke at her home in Page 8 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2017 - Kislev/Tevet 5778 PHOTO HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE ANNUAL TRIBUTE DINNER OF T

Seated: Samantha Santiago, Doug Book, Sharon & Neil Book. Standing: Dorit Novak, director general, Yad Vashem; Ron Meier, executive director, American Society for Yad Vashem; Leonard Wilf, chair- Ron Meier, executive director of the ASYV; Edward Mosberg; Barry Levine, 2017 Tribute Dinner hon- man, American Society for Yad Vashem; Robert H. Book & Amy A. Book, 2017 Tribute Dinner hon- oree; Abbi Halpern, 2017 Tribute Dinner honoree; David Halpern; Leonard Wilf, chairman of the orees; and Scott Book. ASYV; and Caroline Massel.

Robert H. Book, 2017 Tribute Dinner honoree; Mark Moskowitz, 2017 Tribute Dinner chair and Leonard Wilf, chairman of the American Society for Yad Vashem. Cheryl Lifshitz, Marilyn & Barry Rubenstein, and Rita Levy.

The Karten, Toledano and Bookhamer families. Haim Saban. November/December 2017 - Kislev/Tevet 5778 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 9 THE AMERICAN & INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES FOR YAD VASHEM

Rose & Philip Friedman, Pinkas Lebovits, Dr. Herbert Dobrinsky, Judith Lebovits and Alexandra Lebovits. Sheldon and Dr. Miriam Adelson.

Leonard Wilf, chairman of the American & International Societies for Yad Vashem, delivers his open- Barry Levine, 2017 Tribute Dinner honoree; Adina Burian, 2018 Generation to Generation Mission ing remarks, in which he pays tribute to the founding chairman Eli Zborowski, z”l. chair and Mark Moskowitz, 2017 Tribute Dinner chair.

;haron Halpern; Gary Koesten; Marcy Comerchero; Wendy Rosenblatt; Gladys Halpern, Neil Rosenblatt; Abbi Halpern, 2017 Tribute Dinner honoree; Jeremy Halpern; Brianna Halpern; Jasmin Leonard Wilf, Marvin Zborowski, Mark & Judy Zborowski. Halpern; Mindy & Alan Schall. Page 10 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2017 - Kislev/Tevet 5778 THE NETHERLANDS IS STILL HOARDING A COLLECTION OF ART LOOTED FROM JEWS BY NAZIS Austria, near the village where he was betrayal of their country by members and Company, it became the major BY AVRAHAM ROET, HAARETZ born — the world’s largest museum of of the local Nazi Party, who already vehicle for wholesale but nominally classical art and objects. To that end, then constituted about 10 percent of legal theft from the Dutch Jews. It was arlier this year, the city of he ordered the confiscation of art in the population, one of the highest pro- Liro Bank that handled the sale of EDeventer, Netherlands, played every country occupied by the Third portions in Europe. looted Jewish property of all kinds, host to an exhibition of works of art Reich. At the same time, Goering The country’s art dealers soon dis- using the revenues to cover the looted from Jews during the began stealing obsessively for his covered that the Germans were very expenses entailed in deporting the Holocaust. The show, held in the own private collection, often compet- interested in works by Old Masters and Jews from Netherlands. The victims Bergkerk Cathedral in this town east ing with Hitler for the same items. the like — and prices began to climb were forced to pay the authorities for of Amsterdam, featured 75 pieces, In Netherlands, they found fertile accordingly. Many of the merchants moving them from their homes to and was the initiative of two local art ground for their ghettos, and later for transporting historians, Eva Kleeman and Daaf efforts, as the coun- them to concentration and death Loedeboer. The married couple were try was home to a camps in Netherlands and beyond. assisted in their efforts by Professor large number of art The Dutch railroad was punctilious Rudi Ekkart, an art historian who for dealers, especially about exacting payment for each per- the past 20 years has headed the in Amsterdam. Many son it carried on its cattle cars toward Origins Unknown Agency, which were Jews, some of their death. deals with looted art in Netherlands. whom had only Another example of Dutch collabora- Much of the art confiscated from recently settled in tion with the Germans can be found in Jews during the German occupation the Netherlands, in Rotterdam’s Boijmans Van Beuningen can still be found in warehouses the wake of anti- Museum. Even before the war, Daniel belonging to the Dutch state, or in Semitic persecution George van Beuningen (1885–1955), museums around the country. in Germany, Austria whose family dominated the business Because the Dutch authorities have and Poland. They of transporting coal and other goods to been remiss in preserving archives believed they would Germany, was thought to be the rich- and documentation, however, it’s not be safe from the est person in this port city. A compul- possible to make an accurate Nazis in the free, sive art collector, he ended up donat- appraisal of the value of the plun- democratic and neu- ing part of his collection to the dered art, although unofficial esti- tral Netherlands. In Boijmans Museum, as it was then mates place it at between 150 million the 1930s, in the Hitler surveying work by Erich Heckel and Ernst Grundig. The photo known, on the condition that the insti- and 600 million Dutch guilders in midst of the global was featured in the film The Art That Hitler Hated. tution add his name to its own. 1940 terms, or between 3 billion and depression, art prices were relatively were happy to cooperate and traf- nly in recent years, however, 12 billion euros. low. Dealers with the requisite capital ficked in looted works; others, mainly Ohas the scale of Van Though the war ended more than could buy works cheaply and amass Jews, were forced to follow suit, often Beuningen’s cooperation with the seven decades ago, the scale of the large collections. giving up their holdings for bargain- occupiers become known. During the thefts from Jews by both the Germans etherlands’s conquest by the basement prices. During the next five war, he traded in classical artworks and the Dutch people themselves — NGerman army over the course years, thousands of paintings were plundered from Jews and sold them not only during World War II but after- of just four days came as a stunning moved from Netherlands into to Hitler, Goering and others. Ronny ward as well — is still coming to light. blow to the Dutch people in general Germany, most of them having been Naftaniel, a longtime head of the Following the German conquest of and to the local Jewish community in confiscated or extorted from Jews. Centrum Informatie and Dokumentatie the Netherlands, on May 10, 1940, particular. Most of the borders were A large number of artworks were Israël — the local organization fighting Adolf Hitler and his deputy Hermann closed, and attempts to flee, though stolen through an institution that anti-Semitism — and a former Goering began taking an intense per- widespread, were rarely successful. came to be called the Liro Bank. spokesman of the Dutch Jewish com- sonal interest in the acquisition of art, The Germans were successful in Established by the Germans on the munity, has demanded the removal in particular paintings by Old Masters. imposing their rule in large measure shell of the expropriated Jewish- of Van Beuningen’s name from the Hitler intended to establish — in Linz, thanks to the collaboration and owned bank Lippmann, Rosenthal (Continued on page 13) GERMANS USE ALBUMS TO CLOSE THE PAGES OF NAZISM (Continued from page 7) attempted Jewish genocide, they Antwerp and sent to Auschwitz, and “untouched” family album, photo- service, he always wanted me to go often connect with Holocaust sur- one of them survived. That is one rea- graphs become sparse after 1942 the military, and he was a passionate vivors and their progeny, but one of son why I could meet him, and we and virtually nonexistent from 1943, soldier,” Shock said. “He never talked connected on WhatsApp and I said the year in which Hitler’s downfall about, say, Nazi philosophy or ideolo- I’m sorry about what my grandparents begins with his defeat at Stalingrad. gy; but looking back, I would say he did to your family. It was such a spe- The idyll disintegrates. A downed never regretted it, and I don’t think he cial moment.” plane appears in September 1942. realized what he really did, what kind Schock believes he became a “soft- Women pose in front of an air raid of murdering he did.” er,” more emphatic person. “Looking shelter. Men are back home, holding Their respective processes of coming into my family’s past, it also revealed canes, presumably injured. Finally, to terms with their families’ history, rare prejudice, racism and anti-Semitism the end: a small boy standing in ruins, among their peer group, have changed inside of me. I realized that I am not leaving no progeny, as it were, to both their lives. Today, Chmell and better than my grandfather; I could safeguard the album and family lega- Schock are staunch Israel supporters, have done the same things. That was cy. fighting modern anti-Semitism as shocking for me. But this opened the As their WhatsApp profile pictures, expressed in hostility toward Israel, way that I could repent.” Chmell and Schock each proudly dis- propelled both by a sense of obligation He and his wife of seven years play family portraits — their own fam- they feel toward the Jewish people and never wanted children — until he vis- ily albums won’t be sold to the highest by their Christian faith. ited Israel for the first time. bidder at a flea market. Chmell loves March of Life members believe Christoph Kreutzmueller views old albums. “Before the trip, I realized something taking family pictures. face-to-face apologies by the descen- Chmell’s most meaningful encounters must be wrong with me but I couldn’t “To show how I love my family, to dants of Nazi perpetrators to Nazi vic- occurred spontaneously in Israel. figure out why I was so afraid to be a show that our lives — mine and my tims, as opposed to national procla- “In May, I was in Jerusalem and father. When I came back from Israel, wife’s — have been changed totally, mations, could most effectively facili- went on a tram, and met someone suddenly all the fear somehow disap- to remember all our family past but tate healing and reconciliation. In their who was the same age as me. His peared.” also to say our kids belong to the new marches across Europe, at sites of grandparents were collected at Back at the flea market, inside the generation.” November/December 2017 - Kislev/Tevet 5778 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 11 “MEGILLAT HITLER” General Charles Nogues, a leader of Bergel” to recall the rescue of Jews in ers over the Stars and Stripes,” BY DR. RAFAEL MEDOFF, the new “non-Vichy” regime. When those towns, in 1705 and 1795, Benzion Netanyahu, director of the UNITED WITH ISRAEL the conversation turned to the ques- respectively. U.S. wing of the Revisionist Zionists FDR pledged “the abrogation of all tion of rights for North African Jewry, The Jewish community of (and father of Israel’s current prime laws and decrees inspired by Nazi Roosevelt did not mince words: “The Casablanca, for its part, declared the minister) charged. A group of Jewish governments or Nazi ideologists.” But number of Jews engaged in the prac- day of the 1942 Allied liberation “Hitler GIs in Algiers protested directly to his public rhetoric apparently didn’t tice of the professions (law, medicine, Purim,” and a local scribe, P. Hassine, U.S. Ambassador Murphy. Editorials express his private feelings. etc.) should be definitely limited to the created the “Megillat Hitler.” (The orig- in a number of American newspapers Among the more remarkable docu- percentage that the Jewish popula- inal is on display at the United States echoed this criticism. ments of the Holocaust is a scroll, cre- tion in North Africa bears to the whole Holocaust Memorial Museum.) The At first, Roosevelt administration ated in North Africa in 1943, called of the North African population… The seven chapters of the scroll poignant- officials dug in their heels. Under “Megillat Hitler.” Written in the style of President stated that his plan would ly blend the flavor of the tale of Secretary of State Sumner Welles Megillat Esther and the Purim story, it further eliminate the specific and ancient Persia with the amazing insisted that technically, the region celebrates the Allies’ liberation of understandable complaints which the stroke of fortune that the Jews of was no longer under Allied military Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, which Germans bore toward the Jews in Casablanca had themselves just occupation and the U.S. could not dic- saved the local Jewish communities Germany, namely, that while they rep- experienced. It uses phrases straight tate how the local government ran from the Nazis. What the scroll’s resented a small part of the popula- from Megillat Esther, such as “the things. author did not realize, however, was tion, over fifty percent of the lawyers, month which was turned from sorrow “The under secretary of state was that at the very moment he was set- to rejoicing” and “the perhaps right from a strictly formal ting quill to parchment, those same Jews had light and viewpoint,” Prof. Michael Abitbol American authorities were actually gladness, joy and noted in his study of North African trying to keep in place the anti-Jewish honor,” side by side Jewry during the Holocaust. “But he legislation imposed in North Africa by with modern refer- was strangely underestimating the the Nazis. ences such as “Cursed immense influence wielded by the On November 8, 1942, American be Hitler, cursed be United States over North African inter- and British forces invaded Nazi-occu- Mussolini.” nal politics.” pied Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. It The Jews of North Eventually, under the accumulated took the Allies just eight days to Africa had much to cel- weight of public protests, the defeat the Germans and their Vichy ebrate. But after the Roosevelt administration made it French partners in the region. festivities died down, clear to the local authorities that the For the 330,000 Jews of North questions began to anti-Jewish measures needed to be Africa, the Allied conquest was heav- arise. The Allies permit- repealed. en-sent. The Vichy regime that had ted nearly all the origi- The implementation process, how- ruled since the summer of 1940 had nal senior officials of ever, was painfully slow. In April stripped the region’s Jews of their civil In 1943, 400 rabbis marched to Washington to beg FDR to help res- the Vichy regime in 1943, the forced labor camps in North rights, severely restricted their cue the Jews of Europe, but the president declined to meet with North Africa to remain Africa were officially shut down, entrance to schools and some profes- them. in the new government. although some of them continued sions, confiscated Jewish property, doctors, school teachers, college pro- The Vichy “Office of Jewish Affairs” operating well into the summer. The and tolerated sporadic pogroms fessors, etc., in Germany, were continued to operate, as did the Jewish quotas in schools and profes- against Jews by local Muslims. In Jews.” (It is not clear how FDR came forced labor camps in which thou- sions were gradually phased out. In addition, thousands of Jewish men up with that wildly exaggerated statis- sands of Jewish men were being May, the racial laws in Tunisia were were hauled away to forced labor tic.) held. abolished. Two hundred Italian Jews camps. President Franklin Roosevelt, Various Jewish communities around American Jewish leaders were loath who had been taken by the Allies to a in his victory announcement, pledged the world have established local to publicly take issue with the Tunisian forced labor camp, because “the abrogation of all laws and Purim-style celebrations to mark their Roosevelt administration, but by the they were citizens of an Axis country, decrees inspired by Nazi govern- deliverance from catastrophe. spring of 1943, they began speaking were released after several months. ments or Nazi ideologists.” The Jews of Frankfurt, for example, out. The American Jewish Congress And on October 20, 1943, nearly a But there turned out to be a discrep- would hold a “Purim Vintz” one week and World Jewish Congress charged year after the Allied liberation, full ancy between FDR’s public rhetoric after Purim, in remembrance of the that “the anti-Jewish legacy of the rights for North Africa’s Jews were at and his private feelings. downfall of an anti-Semitic agitator in Nazis remains intact in North Africa” last reinstated. The victory that On January 17, 1943, Roosevelt 1620. Libyan Jews traditionally organ- and urged FDR to eliminate the Vichy “Megillat Hitler” celebrated was finally met in Casablanca with Major- ized a “Purim Ashraf” and a “Purim laws. “The spirit of the Swastika hov- complete. A SECRET JAPANESE HISTORY less to deport Jews to the concentra- Lithuania. government decided to consolidate BY MONICA PORTER, tion camps. The Japanese consul to Lithuania, the Jewish refugees remaining under THE JEWISH CHRONICLE By the late 1930s a number of anti- Chiune Sugihara, saved some 6,000 its control by transferring them to the Semitic German books had been Jews by giving them entry visas to Jewish ghetto in Shanghai, which was n my recent trip I discovered translated into Japanese, but they Japan, enabling their passage via the under Japanese occupation. Amongst something remarkable. I was O found few readers and had no signifi- trans-Siberian railway to Vladivostok, those protected in the Shanghai ghet- curious about the background to cant influence on the population. And and from there by boat to Kobe. The to were the staff and students of the Japan’s tiny Jewish community, so I in 1938 Prime Minister Fumimaro Japanese government required that Mir Yeshiva, the sole European yeshi- did a little digging and learned about Konoe and his military council prohib- visas be issued only to those who had va to survive the Holocaust. (With an astonishing episode of history. ited the expulsion of Japan’s Jewish gone through official immigration pro- visas issued by Sugihara, its 400 or We all know how cruel Japanese settlers — merchants and traders cedures and had sufficient funds. so members had fled from Lithuania soldiers were to POWs during the who had come mainly from Russia, Most of the refugees didn’t fulfill the to Japan in late 1940.) World War II, and how appallingly Germany and Eastern Europe, and criteria, but Sugihara knew they were s the war neared its end, they treated the Chinese. settled in the port city of Kobe, where in danger if they stayed behind, so he Germany pressed the But less well known is the fact A they established both Ashkenazi and ignored his orders and granted the Japanese army to liquidate the that — despite its alliance with Nazi Sephardic synagogues. life-saving visas anyway. 50,000-strong Shanghai ghetto, but it Germany — Japan offered Jews a At the outbreak of war, Jews Once in Japan they were given shel- refused to do so. The safe haven sur- refuge from the Holocaust. Many attempting to flee eastwards from ter, food and medicines. Many then vived intact and after the war the thousands were rescued by a Nazi-occupied Poland and finding received asylum visas for Canada, majority of Jews who had been in Japanese government which consis- themselves blocked by the Soviet Australia and elsewhere, as well as Japanese-controlled territories dis- tently resisted Nazi demands to Union, were offered an unexpected immigration permits for Palestine. persed to various Western countries implement anti-Jewish policies, much escape route via then-neutral In November 1941 the Japanese (Continued on page 14) Page 12 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2017 - Kislev/Tevet 5778 YAD VASHEM HONORS CHILEAN RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONS srael’s Holocaust center Yad Czernowitz to Transnistria resumed in were severed, and Switzerland began General in Zurich, but the appoint- IVashem has posthumously hon- June 1942, del Campo continued to to represent the interests of Chile. ment never came into effect, and del ored a Chilean diplomat who risked intervene with the Romanian authori- The documents del Campo issued Campo never returned to serve in his career to help rescue over a thou- ties on behalf of “the Jews under the were clearly not in line with the Chile’s Foreign Ministry, Yad Vashem sand Polish Jews during the protection of Chile,” Yad Vashem Chilean government’s policy; when noted. He died in Paris in the 1960s. Holocaust. said. Based on recorded minutes Swiss envoys asked the Ministry of o act righteously requires one Professor Sergio Della Pergola, “T to, first and foremost, recog- member of the Commission for the nize the reality of what is happening Designation of the Righteous, and around them. Del Campo was a for- Irena Steinfeldt, Director of the eign diplomat who lived in Romania Department of the Righteous Among and saw what was happening to the the Nations at Yad Vashem, present- Jews,” said Steinfeldt. “Instead of say- ed Dr. Christian Beals Campos, a rel- ing that it is none of my business and ative of Samuel del Campo, with the that I am not guilty of anything, he medal and certificate of honor on chose to open his eyes and act, and behalf of Yad Vashem, the State of thus, endangered his position.” Israel and the Jewish people. “Per Anger, a Swedish diplomat Del Campo was a diplomat in the who lived in Budapest in 1944, said, Foreign Service of the Republic of as the Germans were conquering Chile who served as chargé d’affaires Hungary, that there is nothing in the at the Chilean representation in company guidebook which tells us Bucharest from 1941 to 1943. During how we should behave in these situa- this time he assisted Jews by issuing tions. As such, these diplomats had to various documents — mainly to invent new ways [of helping endan- Polish Jews in Czernowitz, which is gered Jews],” she added. now part of Ukraine. Yad Vashem has recognized a During October 1941, a ghetto was From left to right: Dr. Christian Beals Campos, relative of Samuel del Campo; Sergio Della number of diplomats as Righteous Pergola, Member of the Committee for the Designation of Righteous Among the Nations; and Irena established in the city of Czernowitz, Among the Nations and is currently Steinfeldt, Director of the Righteous Among the Nations Department at Yad Vashem. and deportations to Transnistria preparing a special exhibition togeth- began. In the absence of an official from discussions in the Council of Foreign Affairs of Chile to clarify the er with the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Polish representation in Romania, the Ministers of Romania, Yad Vashem policy of the Ministry regarding the Affairs to honor them. representation of the interests of estimated that approximately 1,200 granting of Chilean passports, they On November 23, 2016, the Polish citizens in Romania was trans- Jews received Chilean passports pro- were told that “they would prefer not Commission for the Designation of ferred to Chile, and del Campo began viding them with protection against to grant new passports without the the Righteous Among the Nations to issue Chilean passports for Jews of deportation. approval of the Ministry of Foreign decided to recognize Samuel del Polish nationality. In the spring of 1943, diplomatic Affairs of Chile.” Campo as Righteous Among the After the deportations from relations between Chile and Romania Del Campo was appointed Consul- Nations. NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS ON BRITISH SOIL Though the islands had little strate- slave laborers toiled building the stand up, they were clubbed to death BY DR. YVETTE ALT MILLER, gic value, they carried enormous island’s defenses. Recent govern- or finished off with a knife.” Some AISH.COM symbolic value for Hitler, who relished ment documents that have been prisoners were crucified on the camp he very idea that Britain, which occupying British land. They were unsealed show an even more sinister gates. Some were publicly tortured to T fought against Nazi Germany heavily defended, and orders came in plan: the Nazis built extensive under- death. A rocky stretch of shoreline on and its allies throughout World War II, to build a complex of labor and con- ground tunnels on Alderney in which the island was known by locals as the was home to Nazi camps might seem centration camps on Alderney, the to manufacture launchers for V1 mis- “Valley of Death” because slave work- inconceivable. Yet thousands of Jews smallest and northernmost of the siles carrying unconventional ers who were too ill or exhausted to and others were imprisoned and mur- islands, just 60 miles from England’s weapons. The plan was to shoot mis- work any longer were thrown to their dered in a complex of four Nazi southern coast. siles armed with the nerve gas Sarin deaths onto the rocks and the sea camps on a picturesque spot of coun- at mainland Britain. below. British intelligence estimated tryside in Britain’s Channel Islands, onditions at Lager Sylt were that half of the slave laborers at Lager which were occupied by Germany Cbrutal. In 1944, a group of heav- Sylt died there. during the War. ily guarded prisoners was brought to For years, it was thought that about Visitors to the tiny island of the nearby island of Guernsey. Their 400 prisoners died in the Nazi camps Alderney, a British Crown dependen- arrival was recorded by a local priest, on Alderney, but recent research by cy, might notice three concrete pillars Reverend Douglas Ord: “Coming retired British Colonel Richard Kemp just south of the island’s airport. They down from the harbor was a column and John Weigold have revised that are all that remains of Lager Sylt, one of men in rows of five. All were in figure to closer to 40,000. Many of the of four concentration camps on the striped pajama suits and their foot- final resting places of the prisoners island and the only one whose build- gear varied from wooden sabots...to who died are unknown. ings remain at all. Many of the tourists pieces of cloth bound round the feet. That has led to remains of those who visit the island are unaware of Others were barefoot. There were who died on Alderney being desecrat- what took place there. more than 1,000 of them…. They ed within the past year. British and In 1940, with war raging, Britain’s were shaven-headed and in varying French energy companies have been Prime Minister Winston Churchill faced A waterlogged tunnel and the remains of the degrees of weariness or lameness…. building links between the two nations rail track in the Alderney site. an agonizing decision: maintain a mili- It tore the heart to see the effects of in order to connect with a planned tary presence in the tiny Channel Slave laborers, mainly from Eastern this systematic and deliberate degra- new power plant that is scheduled to Islands, which had been British Europe and Russia, were brought in dation of human beings.” be built in Alderney. Britain’s Sunday dependencies for centuries, or redirect to build the camps. One of the camps Recently declassified British intelli- Times recently published a leaked Britain’s forces elsewhere? Churchill staffed by the feared SS was Lager gence documents paint a chilling pic- archaeological report revealing that reluctantly pulled troops out of his Sylt. It was built to house and work to ture of the brutal conditions on Lager construction has already “severely country’s three Channel Islands — death Jewish prisoners, both from the Sylt: “Too undernourished and damaged” the island’s main burial Alderney, Jersey and Guernsey — and Channel Island’s tiny Jewish commu- exhausted to work efficiently, these ground for prisoners from the camps, in June of 1940, Hitler’s forces nity and from elsewhere in Nazi-occu- men were mercilessly beaten by the and that “greater damage” is expect- bombed the islands and then occupied pied Europe. German guards, and frequently, when ed as the planned energy link-up pro- them for the remainder of the war. For years it was thought that these they were too weak after a beating to ceeds. November/December 2017 - Kislev/Tevet 5778 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 13 THE NETHERLANDS IS STILL HOARDING A COLLECTION OF ART LOOTED FROM JEWS BY NAZIS (Continued from page 10) firm was taken over by a German After SNK was dissolved, in 1957, court case in which 202 paintings museum, so far unsuccessfully. More banker, who went on buying plun- responsibility for the art still in the were returned to her. Some of them to the point, the museum still has in its dered artworks, which were in turn possession of the Dutch state was were immediately sold, fetching a possession the looted works and transferred to Germany. transferred to its Ministry of total of $35 million, which was then refuses adamantly to part with them. Only a small number of Jewish art Education, Culture and Science, used to pay a battery of lawyers in the It is now known that, in order to dealers succeeded in selling their busi- which went to lengths to ensure that United States. The family, which has acquire the art collections for the nesses to non-Jewish trustees, there- the looted works would remain in had little connection to the Jewish Germans and for himself, Van by averting their confiscation by the Dutch museums and their store- communities in Netherlands, the Beuningen embezzled the company Germans. More often, Jewish dealers rooms. In the 1970s, the ministry United States or Israel, continues to in which he was a partner to the tune fled to England or the United States in decided to sell many works, with the press for the return of artworks from of a million guilders (about 20 million the war, abandoning valuable artworks proceeds going into state coffers. museums and private individuals in euros today). A legal process in Netherlands, or selling them to For example, the entire collection of Netherlands and elsewhere. demanding the return of looted collec- finance their escape. The assets left Jewish banker Fritz Mannheimer, who CLAIMANTS GIVE UP tions in which the businessman trad- behind were seized by the Germans, died on the eve of the war, was seized ed is ongoing, but the Dutch courts on the grounds that they were enemy by the Germans. The collection was uring the war, the Dutch govern- have so far rejected the heirs’ property. Most of them ended up in the subsequently returned intact to the Dment-in-exile stated that it would not recognize as valid any sale, demands. hands of Hitler and Goering. There Dutch authorities, and government were also a large number of suicides transfer or plunder of artworks that INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE representatives sold off some of the among the Jewish population immedi- were moved from Netherlands to fter occupying Netherlands, the ately after the German conquest, and A Germans waited more than half the property of those who took their a year before issuing anti-Jewish ordi- own lives, too, including classic works nances. Even before official action of art, was confiscated and shipped to was taken, however, Jewish art deal- Germany. ers began trying to flee or to arrange The majority of Netherlands’s Jews fictitious transfers of their property to were ultimately deported to Auschwitz non-Jews. and Sobibor, and the property that remained in their possession, which included many works of art, was stolen by Dutch collaborators and transport- ed directly to Germany for sale. The competition between Goering A Child of the Honigh Family on Its Deathbed by Bartholomeus van der Helst (1645). and Hitler had the effect of pushing up Germany, and that it considered all the prices for art. Goering displayed no works. Hundreds of items remain in such transactions null and void. After special discretion or orientation when it the Rijksmuseum, the national muse- the war, all the works of art that were came to art, but rather grabbed every- um, in Amsterdam. tracked down — tens of thousands in thing he could lay his hands on. Toward the end of the 1990s, follow- Inspired by their leaders, many number — were unilaterally repatriat- ing international public pressure, the ed to the Netherlands. German officers and administrators Dutch, like the governments of many stationed in Netherlands, Belgium and Thus, after the war, the Netherlands other countries involved in the war, was able to enjoy revenues from the France also helped themselves to the started to deal with still-unresolved bounty. Many German museums took sale of art collections it had received at problems of property and life related no cost, and also benefited from the advantage of the opportunity as well to to World War II. The Dutch estab- expand their collections. addition of other prized works, which lished several different commissions were divided among museums in the he Allies, aware of the art-loot- of inquiry. One of them, the Origins ing phenomenon, decided, as country or have remained in the pos- T Unknown Agency, found that many session of the Culture Ministry to this early as 1942–1943, that all plun- items that were supposed to have dered property would be returned day. Jacques Goudstikker, a Jewish art dealer who been returned to their owners were after the war to its country of origin, The prewar owners and their heirs, fled Amsterdam in 1940. Over 1,200 artworks still in the state’s possession. The most of whom were Jews, demanded without compensation being made to owned by him were stolen; a few hundred have government published information the return of the art, even if they had been returned to his family. the then-current owner. To facilitate about some 5,000 of them, and received partial or full payment for it this, the Americans established the attempts were made to locate the during the war. They argued that the One of the most prominent of these Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives rightful owners. collections had been sold under dealers was Jacques Goudstikker, program. In 1945, the Netherlands who, in addition to owning many Old The heirs of Jacques Goudstikker duress and that there was no justifica- government set up the Netherlands Dutch and Flemish paintings (includ- were among those who received tion for their being confiscated now by Art Property Foundation (SNK) to ing works by Rembrandt, Vermeer some satisfaction. In 2006, members the state — and at no cost, no less. address the phenomenon. Anyone and Jan Steen), had in his possession of his family received the first of some Many of the Dutch Jews who were who knew of artworks owned by his or classical works from Italy and France, 350 works, although they say that hidden by non-Jewish families paid her family that had been stolen could among other places. Goudstikker leaves another 900 pieces that were them large amounts of money for the fill out an SNK form requesting their owned two well-known castles, in plundered. Leading the struggle for privilege, an operation that was often addition to a magnificent house on return. Tens of thousands of requests the restoration of Goudstikker’s prop- financed by the sale to collaborators Herengracht, one of Amsterdam’s poured in, despite the fact that the erty is his daughter-in-law, Marei von of artwork and other objects that they most prestigious addresses. majority of Netherlands’s Jews (some Saher, and her daughter, Charlene. had secretly retained when German In the early days of the occupation, 75 percent of a prewar population of Von Saher’s father, a former member authorities seized their property. Goudstikker decided to flee 140,000 Jews) were murdered in the of the German national soccer squad, But in many cases, following pro- Netherlands, together with his wife war, and of those who survived, at was also a member of his country’s tracted, exhausting and unsuccessful and son. The family embarked on a least a quarter were children, who Nazi Party. bureaucratic proceedings, claimants freighter bound for England, but dur- were unlikely to know much about Though Marei von Saher never met gave up on getting their property back ing the journey he fell into the ship’s their parents’ art collections. her father-in-law (she was born only from Dutch authorities. A case in point hold and was killed — a mysterious A substantial number of SNK appli- in 1944, and met her husband, is that of Bernard Houthakker, an death that has not been satisfactorily cants indeed took their property back, Eduard von Saher, in the U.S. in the Amsterdam antiques dealer who sur- explained to this day. Goudstikker but that still left tens of thousands of 1960s), and is related to the vived Theresienstadt. He provided employees who remained in items in the hands of Dutch state Goudstikkers only by marriage — she information to the Netherlands gov- Netherlands sold his artworks at authorities after their repatriation from waged a relentless legal fight against ernment about a valuable painting sharp discounts to Goering. Later, his Germany. Dutch authorities, and in 2006 won a (Continued on page 14) Page 14 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2017 - Kislev/Tevet 5778 THE NETHERLANDS IS STILL HOARDING A SECRET JAPANESE HISTORY

A COLLECTION OF ART LOOTED FROM JEWS... (Continued from page 11) (Continued from page 13) art would be returned to the heirs, on ne question that remains unan- or else emigrated to Palestine. Others that had been stolen from him and condition that they pay the Dutch Oswered is why Dutch Jewry has stayed in Japan, with some marrying had been returned to the state, but authorities the amount of money their not intervened as a community in the natives and assimilating into main- ultimately, for unclear reasons, aban- father had received from the matter of the return of artworks to stream society. So why did the doned the quest. Germans for the works, to provide for their owners. Similarly, world Jewry — Japanese, capable of such ruthless- nother story that remains unre- his livelihood. It was only 50 years the World Jewish Congress or the ness towards other groups, display a Asolved is that of Catalina von later, in 2002, that the public commis- Claims Conference — never tried to soft spot for its Jewish inhabitants? Pannwitz-Roth (1876–1959), a sion decided to return the collection to become involved. In Israel, the World It seems that many within the German-born Jew of Argentine the family without payment. Jewish Restitution Organization, Japanese leadership harbored a descent, who during the war sold off During the war, Jacques Hedeman, founded by the Claims Conference longstanding respect for Jews, in par- six paintings, including one by a textile merchant, stored a painting agency and the government of Israel, ticular for Jewish financial and com- Rembrandt, in return for an exit visa he owned by the 17th-century artist is supposed to deal with looted mercial acumen. This originated with from Netherlands to Switzerland. The Jacob Gerritsz, in the vault of an Jewish property. However, none of the historic treaty in 1854 between paintings were returned to the Amsterdam bank, before escaping to these bodies has yet taken action in Japan and the United States, which Netherlands, but after the war, Switzerland. The bank turned the regard to the return of artworks. opened trade links with the previously Pannwitz-Roth waived Underlying the WJRO’s isolated Far East country and herald- their restitution, and today failure to act for the return ed the arrival of Jewish merchants. the works are in the pos- of works of art is, apparent- The first, in 1861, was 21-year-old, session of the state. ly, the fact that some of the American-born Alexander Marks, who Generally speaking, in property plundered from set up businesses in Yokohama and almost every case where Jews in Europe, including went on to make a hefty fortune. Jews declined to take works by Old Masters, Another arrival was Jewish-American back artworks their family ended up in the United businessman Raphael Schover, who had owned, it was States and other Allied set up the country’s first foreign lan- because the Netherlands countries. It’s well known guage newspaper, the Japan Express. government demanded that American Jewry cate- But perhaps their highest esteem payment of the amount gorically ignores the issue was reserved for New York banker the Germans had paid its of looted Jewish property Jacob Schiff, scion of an illustrious collaborators for the that is in the United States. rabbinical family from Germany. works — even though the American Jewry’s avoid- During the Russo-Japanese war of state had not had to pay ance of dealing with these 1904-1905, he extended a $200 mil- for repatriation of the art. issues is a subject that lion loan to the Empire of Japan — Still, there are also the first major flotation of Japanese Charlene von Saher and the painting titled The Temptation of St. Anthony, by merits separate treatment. bonds on Wall Street — which provid- cases in which interven- Jan Wellens de Cock, which was owned by her grandfather, stolen by the Nazis, For its part, the German tion by the courts and by and returned to her family. government announced ed half the funds needed for Japan’s the public commission recently that it will step up its efforts to war effort. Why? Apart from sympa- produced positive results. An exam- painting, “Shepherdess with Child in return looted artworks. thizing with Japan’s underdog status, ple is the collection of Friedrich “Fritz” Landscape,” over to the Germans. In Netherlands’s rigid policy on the Schiff regarded the loan as payback, on behalf of the Jewish people, for Gutmann (1886–1944). In 1942, 2002, the Dordrecht Museum pur- return of objects of art was modified Russia’s bloody pogroms. A well- Gutmann was forced to sell his art- chased the work from a private indi- somewhat at the beginning of the financed Japan won the war. works to German dealers. He and his vidual in Germany. A subsequent 2000s, but remains far from perfect. And so decades later, the Axis pact wife, Louise Gutmann von Landau, investigation established that the To this day, anyone who asks for his notwithstanding, the Japanese could both of them converted Jews, were painting had been looted from property back is compelled to go not view the Jewish race as an enemy murdered — he in Theresienstadt, Hedeman. Ultimately, after the case through endless bureaucratic proce- to be destroyed. she in Auschwitz. After the war, their received extensive publicity, the dures that make it difficult to obtain Japan was quick to recognize the for- entire collection was returned to the museum and Hedeman’s heirs the items. Various heirs of major art mation of the State of Israel and estab- Dutch government. The Gutmanns’ reached an “agreement” by which the dealers have chosen the legal route, lish diplomatic ties. Interest in Jewish two sons were compelled to go to painting would remain in the museum and in some cases have been able to culture and religion gradually grew in court in an attempt to get the works and the latter would pay an undis- get part of their property back. back. In 1952, a court ruled that the closed amount to the heirs. Japan, even within the Imperial family. The first synagogue in Tokyo was opened in 1953 with a formal celebra- END-OF-YEAR TAX PLANNING FOR OLDER DONORS tion attended by Prince and Princess gift must be completed by December 31 (check Mikasa. The city’s present Beth David BY ROBERT CHRISTOPHER MORTON, cashed by ASYV) in order to qualify and no bene- synagogue and community centre DIRECTOR OF PLANNED GIVING stands on the same site, in a sleek fit may be received by the donor from the charity. modern building dating from 2009. If you are over the age of 70½, you can make a As the American Society for Yad Vashem is a There are about 1,000 Jews living in qualified charitable distribution (QCD) of up to public charity, it falls within the permitted charita- Japan today, the majority being ex- pats from around the world. $100,000 annually from your individual IRA (tra- ble recipients of an IRA Charitable Rollover. The donor must notify the administrator of the IRA to Tokyo has the larger of two commu- ditional or Roth) to the American Society for Yad nities; there is a smaller, Sephardic Vashem before the end of the calendar year. make a direct distribution to the charitable bene- one, in Kobe. And in Yaotsu, in central This type of gift is also commonly called the IRA ficiary in order to qualify. Japan, you can find the Chiune Charitable Rollover. This giving opportunity was made permanent Sugihara Memorial Museum, dedicat- ed to the consul who defied his supe- DETAILS by the passing of the PATH (Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes) Act in December of riors (an extraordinary act of insubor- A donor older than 70½ can individually distrib- dination in rigidly hierarchical 2015 by Congress. Remember, it is always wise ute up to $100,000 each year from his or her IRA Japanese culture) to save thousands (through its administrator) to the American to check with your accountant or tax advisor as of Jews about whom he knew little, Society for Yad Vashem without having to recog- part of your review process. except that they needed his help. In 1985, the year before his death, Yad nize the distribution as income to the donor. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Vashem named him a Righteous This distribution can be used to satisfy the RMD Among the Nations. The only (required minimum distribution) for the year the Telephone: 212-220-4304, extension 213 Japanese national to receive the distribution has been made. Please note that the E-mail: [email protected] honor. November/December 2017 - Kislev/Tevet 5778 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 15 THE UNHEARD STORY: BULGARIA’S RESCUE OF 50,000 JEWS DURING THE HOLOCAUST Bulgaria was actually an ally of Hitler. Bulgarian citizenship or nationality, requesting that all of Bulgaria’s BY KATRIN GENDOVA, Bulgaria gained its independence making it impossible for the Bulgarian Jewish population be sent to Poland. THE ALGEMEINER from the Ottoman Empire in 1878. Yet authorities to interfere. In response, King Boris told the the newly independent state did not The deportation of the Jews from German leader that the country need- ou have probably heard of receive all of the territories that it Thrace and Macedonia alerted ed the Jews for labor; he then created YSchindler’s List — Steven desired, leaving ethnic Bulgarians out- Bulgaria to what was about to follow in labor camps where 20,000 men were Spielberg’s movie, which brought to side of its newly formed borders. In its country. In March of 1943, trains sent to work — but remained in the life the story of a German member of order to gain its territories back, the arrived in Bulgaria to transport all of country. The king’s skillful and quick the Nazi party who saved the lives of country allied with Germany, because the Jews straight to a death camp in response to Hitler’s demand prevent- more than 1,000 Jews during the Hitler promised to help Bulgaria. But Treblinka. Arrests began early in the ed the second deportation of the Holocaust, by employing them in his that alignment came at a certain price. morning, as policemen gathered Jews Bulgarian Jews to the death camps. factories in occupied Poland. to await their deportation. However, he rescue of the Bulgarian Jews You may have also heard of the not a single Jew left the country. T remained a long-kept secret heroic rescue of the Danish Jews: The local Metropolitan Kiril, ordinary until the end of the Communist regime With the help of the Danish govern- Bulgarian citizens and members of in 1989. Fortunately, documents that ment, people and resistance move- the parliament mobilized against the recorded details of it were only hidden ment, 7,220 out of the 7,800 Jews in deportation, and succeeded in pre- and locked up — not destroyed. that country escaped the Nazis, and venting it. Historians were then able to show the found salvation in Sweden. The head of the Bulgarian Orthodox world the bravery of ordinary citizens What’s lesser known is the story of Church played a major role in the res- and the decisive intervention of the the 50,000 Jews who were saved by cue, having arrived on the day of the Orthodox Church and the king of Bulgaria. deportation at the railroads where the Bulgaria during the Holocaust. In his book, Beyond Hitler’s Grasp, The Sofia Synagogue in Bulgaria’s capital city. trains were supposed to depart. In February of 2017, President Michael Bar-Zohar states that “For Bishop Metropolitan Kiril sent a letter Plevneliev was given the Friends of years, Bulgaria’s Communist regime he rescue of the Bulgarian Jews to the king of Bulgaria, pleading for Zion Award in recognition of the had tried to suppress the real story T was preceded by a series of the Jews to be saved. The church 50,000 Jews rescued during the about [this] rescue for a very simple dark events — especially the loss of also opened its doors and provided Holocaust — and acknowledging that reason. The Bulgarian rescue had 11,000 Jews in Thrace and shelter for the Bulgarian Jews. Israel will not forget the lives saved by been carried out mostly by Macedonia, who were sent to the Owing to the pressure of the public Bulgaria. With all of its dark and hero- Communism’s three worst enemies: Nazis, despite the fact that those ter- outcry and the persistence of the ic moments, the story of a country that the Church, the royal court, and the ritories were under Bulgarian admin- bishop, the king canceled the depor- managed to protect its entire Jewish pro-Fascist politicians. The Communist istration. This happened because tation, leaving the trains for Treblinka population while being an ally to Hitler regime couldn’t admit that fact because Germany did not acknowledge the entirely empty. is one that deserves to be recognized it contradicted its basic beliefs.” annexation of Thrace and Macedonia Yet that did not stop Hitler from con- and remembered. Israel does — What’s even more astonishing is that to Bulgaria. Therefore, none of the tinuing to demand the deportation of hopefully the rest of the world will, these 50,000 Jews were saved while Jews living in those areas received the Jews. Months later, he tried again, too. REMEMBERING THE HOLOCAUST dreds and hundreds of people sitting mattress. I don’t remember if there means [turnip pieces] and it smelt BY IVOR MARKMAN, HERALD LIVE on the cement floor of the warehouse. was a pillow. I screamed and ghastly. I refused to eat it.” When it was light they were taken by screamed,” Fainman said. In the morning prisoners were given rene Fainman was just six when bus to Westerbork, a transit camp. It “The smell — I couldn’t breathe. one slice of bread with a tiny amount her family were given 10 minutes I was very desolate and muddy with Can you imagine unwashed bodies? of jam and margarine. to pack for a concentration camp “fences and many, many barracks.” People could only shower once in six “The next morning when they gave where she would not see a tree or This was the same camp Anne months.” that one piece of bread, I was jolly flowers again for nearly three years. Frank was later sent to before being Near the toilets was a long trough hungry and I ate it,” Fainman said. Taken to the notorious Nazi concen- sent to the Auschwitz extermination with taps, but the towels were the size “Everybody got up at 5 am for roll tration camp at Ravensbruck on camp. of face cloths. call. If the totals didn’t tally, prisoners September 16, 1942, Fainman was When they arrived, they were taken stood for hours, sometimes in the cold rescued by the Swedish Red Cross to a hall, where everyone had to snow, rain and hail. on April 27, 1945. undress. Their clothes were taken “People got frostbite or collapsed. Fainman was born in Schiedam, and the women given blue-striped The guards set dogs on them or came near Rotterdam, to a Hungarian clothing and wooden clogs. with whips. father, Bela Krausz, and a British Their hair was checked, and if they “The women guards were worse mother, Rachel Orkin, in 1936. had lice, they were shaven. than the men. They had big leather Life changed after the Nazis invad- “I was too small for a uniform, so the boots, flannel skirts and big leather ed. clothes that I had when I left Holland I coats. “I was at a little nursery school. One wore for a year and a half in “They weren’t cold, and of course day we couldn’t go any more and then Westerbork [and] another year in they had gloves, and everyone was we couldn’t go to the park,” she said. Ravensbruck,” Fainman said. shivering, but you weren’t human, you She could not go skating on the Every Tuesday a train came with a weren’t a person, so it didn’t matter.“ canals with her father. Jews were also large sign reading “Auschwitz.” The Blockälteste (barracks leaders) prohibited from riding bicycles or Nobody knew anything about Irene Fainman. had immense power. going to the movies. Auschwitz, but 1,000 Jews had to be “It was freezing cold, so a lot of peo- “Some were very cruel, some were Then the Nazis, with the help of the on that train. On February 3, 1943, ple didn’t wash. I saw people with not. We had this Blockälteste who took Dutch police, started taking them Fainman’s father and brother, Don, [sunken] cheeks, big eyes, shaven our name off the [deportation] list. away to concentration camps. were sent to Buchenwald concentra- heads,” Fainman said. “I don’t think I ever saw a tree or a On the night she and her family tion camp. “I had blonde curls and they all flower for a good few years. I was so were taken away, the door was bro- Two days later, she and her mother wanted to touch my hair with their excited when I saw one blade of ken down and two Dutch Nazis came were sent to Ravensbruck. filthy hands. grass.” in. Fainman was shocked when she “I just screamed, I couldn’t stop When the camp was liberated, “You’ve got 10 minutes to pack!” entered the barracks. looking at them and screaming.” Fainman and her mother were taken they said. There were three-tiered bunks with That evening “they gave us this to Sweden. Her brother survived the Fainman clearly remembers walking four people per bunk. “Everybody got soup with beetroot and turnips — war, and they were eventually reunit- to a warehouse, where she saw hun- the same dirty blanket and a straw something called Stück rube, it ed in England. American & International Societies for Yad Vashem NON-PROFIT ORG. MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE U.S. POSTAGE 500 FIFTH AVENUE, 42nd FLOOR PAID SMITHTOWN, N.Y. NEW YORK, N.Y. 10110-4299 PERMIT NO.15

Web site: www.yadvashemusa.org Society Editor (212) 220-4304 Editor-in-Chief for Yad Vashem, Inc. Vashem, Yad for New York, NY 10110 NY York, New Ron B. Meier, Ph.D., Ron B. Meier, EDITORIAL BOARD EDITORIAL *Published Bimonthly by the American by the Yefim Krasnyanskiy, M.A., Krasnyanskiy, Yefim 500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor Avenue, 500 Fifth Martyrdom & Resistance Eli Zborowski** Marvin Zborowski Mark Palmer Sam Skura** Israel Krakowski** Mandell William Sam Halpern** Isidore Karten** Norman Belfer Joseph Bukiet** American *1974-85, as Newsletter for the Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp Inmates, and Nazi Victims **deceased matters. November/December 2017 - Kislev/Tevet 5778 2017 - Kislev/Tevet November/December does cap- monies that I record- Auschwitz and wanted to ensure that the remarkable stories of those who survive the Holocaust were pre- served for posterity,” producer Lilon Roberts said. “In the years since, I have met and interviewed a remark- able range of incredi- ble people whose lives are an inspiration to us all. From the four hun- dred hours of testi- or by phone at: .” estination Unknown ture the essence of their experi- Destination Unknown Shoah D That is why we tell stories. “I was inspired to start this project “I was inspired to start ence in powerful ways, but the movie of what hap- isn’t just about the pain also about the strength pened. It’s that is required to move forward. In that sense, one survivor captures the essence of the entire Jewish people when he proudly says, “My grandchil- dren are the answer to Hitler’s Final Solution.” why hap- a reminder that something It’s calcifica- an inescapable pened. It’s that floats pain tion of the abstract scourge on around this 70-year-old a connection for It’s humanity. younger generations to a wound that suf- and grandparents their parents fered and survived through. fourteen years ago when I visited ed, I wanted a film which captured the essence of their experience, made a contribution to the history of those times and perpetuated the memory of the REMINDS US REMINDS , its victims, survivors and heroes victims, survivors , its Empower, educate and strengthen our educate Empower, can make a generous contribution You future by making an endowment gift to the future by making an endowment gift Your Vashem. Yad American Society for in Vashem Yad legacy will help to support Jerusalem and keep the memory of the Shoah alive forever. through a bequest in your will by desig- ASYV as a beneficiary of a nating or Charitable Trust Remainder Charitable can also contribute You Annuity. Gift [email protected] MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE That’s why stories matter. That’s why stories matter. That’s Not long ago, 58 people were killed mass shooting in U.S. history. And mass shooting in U.S. history. yet, the groundswell of support and aftermath unity that sprung up in its has nearly evaporated, in less than a directly of those month. Outside our collective souls seem to afflicted, have been unfettered from this tragedy like a breath leaving the body. live in We I suppose this is inevitable. an era in which the public binges on global tragedies, making each inci- dent the worst thing ever until the next worst thing ever comes along soon care about any- How can we after. thing if we’re trying to care about everything? those individual voices together in a those individual voices one a wider story, way that created of the only the pain that explored not but the building of Holocaust itself, My overriding new lives afterwards. a question was ‘How can you make such pain?’” life after and 546 were wounded when a gun- man opened fire on music festival It is the deadliest goers in Las Vegas. Holocaust survivors Eli Zborowski (left) and Ed Mosberg, who appear in the film. (left) and Ed Mosberg, who appear Holocaust survivors Eli Zborowski A PLANNED GIFT TO ASYV PLANNED GIFT TO A

DESTINATION UNKNOWN DESTINATION Destination

FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION: GENERATION: TO FROM GENERATION , which was

hy do we tell stories? Is it to hy do we tell stories? entertain; to capture the atten- to capture entertain;

THAT NO AMOUNT OF TIME CAN MASK A TRAGEDY A CAN MASK AMOUNT OF TIME NO THAT Our ASYV staff are here to help you accomplish your estate planning goals. are here to help you accomplish your estate ASYV staff Our Chris plan, please contact with your estate For more information or assistance “I wanted to make a film where the The film is a story of death W Morton, Director of Planned Giving: through a life insurance or retirement plan, by naming ASYV as a beneficiary of a through a life insurance or retirement plan, by naming or other retirement vehicle. IRA life insurance policy, 212-220-4304, extension 213. only voices are those of the survivors themselves, to capture something of the intimacy and immediacy I felt of them with some when talking Ferguson director Claire directly,” said in production notes provided to media. “The challenge was to weave and life, suffering and liber- and life, suffering and strength. It is ation, pain as complicated, emotional, as you think it is. It heavy and taxing of innocent men, women is the tale and children being torn from their into homes and their lives and sent off the treacherous darkness of deadly destinations — to uncertainty unknown. It is not easy or simple and it is not enjoyable. But it is important, not just for Jewish people but for all. tion of the mind for just a moment it amid the deluge of everyday life? Is from down lessons to teach; to pass to one generation to the next? Is it remember; to ensure that our histo- ries are never lost? Maybe each story own reasons for has its being told, and it is the audi- to form responsibility ence’s their own conclusions. why I felt the that’s Perhaps answer was all of the above and more while watching the upcoming Holocaust documentary Unknown released November 10 and features intimate testimony from twelve survivors. Page 16 BY BRANDON KATZ, OBSERVER BRANDON KATZ, BY