Vol. 38-No. 2 ISSN 0892-1571 November/December 2011-Kislev/Tevet 5772 PRESERVING THE PAST – GUARDING THE FUTURE: 30 YEARS OF ACHIEVEMENT ANNUAL TRIBUTE DINNER OF THE AMERICAN & INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES FOR YAD VASHEM he annual gathering of the American passed on but whose spirit joins us on this and prejudice. We are always pleased to the imperative of Holocaust remembrance Tand International Societies for Yad joyous occasion. I am proud to see how far have with us and recognize the major lead- and thus help ensure that no nation – any- Vashem is an experience in remembrance we have come since that first meeting, ership of this spectacular 800 member as- where, anytime – should ever again suffer and continuity. This year the organization thanks to the generosity of all who are here sociation. a calamity of the unprecedented nature is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. At tonight and those we remember with love. “The Young Leadership Associates are and scope that befell our people some 70 the Tribute Dinner that was held on No- We witness the growth of Yad Vashem, its the guardians of the future and will be re- years ago in Europe,” said Rabbi Lau. vember 20 at the Sheraton Hotel in New many sites and museums built, and pro- sponsible for ensuring our legacy. Recognizing the tremendous contribu- York, survivors were joined by the genera- grams established, through our efforts. “Our thoughts tonight are bittersweet; we tion of the Societies’ chairman Eli tions that are their inheritors of Jewish con- “And we see our future leaders, the remember our loved ones and all which Zborowski to the cause of Holocaust re- tinuity. Young Leadership Associates, many fol- was lost in the Holocaust, but we are en- membrance, Rabbi Lau said. The theme of the 2011 dinner was “Pre- lowing their parents’ footsteps, who are de- ergized by our determination to ensure a “Eli, I pray that the Creator of the world serving the Past – Guarding the Future: 30 termined to ensure remembrance. future free of hatred and prejeudice. I am continues to grant you a long, healthy, and Years of Achievement.” The contributions vigorous life that will enable you to carry on of 30 “Pioneers” and 30 “Visionaries” were your hallowed labor of memory, as well as recognized at this year’s event, which was to transmit your torch onwards to the com- attended by more than 800 hundred peo- ing generations.” ple, including members of the diplomatic he importance of the work of the corps, dignitaries, and heads of major Jew- TAmerican Society for Yad Vashem ish organizations, showing their support of and Eli Zborowski’s personal devotion to the Yad Vashem Memorial. Holocaust remembrance was the central The release of the biography of the theme of the speech delivered by the founder of the American Society for Yad Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, Vashem, Eli Zborowski – A Life of Leader- Avner Shalev. ship: Eli Zborowski: from the Underground “As we gather to celebrate the thirty to Industry to Holocaust Remembrance, years of achievement that have marked written by Rochel and George Berman – the unique existence and activity of the was noted at the event. Under Eli American Society for Yad Vashem, I join Zborowski’s leadership more than $100 you in recalling and saluting the founding million has been raised to support the pioneers who established the Society three Holocaust Memorial. In his address to the decades ago. All were distinguished by a Dinner guests Eli Zborowski said: matchless verve and dedication to ensur- “On this 30th anniversary of the Ameri- ing remembrance of the Holocaust that can and International Societies for Yad they and their loved ones had personally Vashem, I reflect back on our courageous David Halpern, Dinner Chairman; Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate; Eli endured. That group of vigorous, deeply beginning, when a group of friends, dedi- Zborowski, Chairman of the American & International Societies for Yad Vashem; Ira Mitzner, Din- committed survivors has been led from the cated survivors, met to discuss the forma- ner Chairman; and Leonard Wilf, Chairman of the Board of Trustees. start by Eli Zborowski, the Society’s vision- tion of an organization committed to “Of the many endeavors the American gratified by the presence of so many ary founder. Remembrance. Firm in their resolve to Society has undertaken in recent years, friends, indeed a record number. May we “Eli Zbrowski is a dear friend and true help make Yad Vashem the world’s center none brings us more pride than the growth look forward to celebrating the next twice- partner in the ongoing mission to establish for Holocaust remembrance and educa- and development of our Young Leadership time 30 years of the Societies’ achieve- Yad Vashem in Jerusalem as the world’s tion, we established the American and In- Associates, members of the second and ment towards our 120th Anniversary.” leading institution for Holocaust remem- ternational Societies for Yad Vashem. third generations. Each year, for the past inner guest speaker Rabbi Yisrael brance. Those were the Pioneers. decade, they have sponsored a Profes- DMeir Lau, Chairman of the Yad “Eli was instilled by his parents with the “Over the years, this group of Pioneers sional Educational Conference, on various Vashem Council, talked about the utmost values of integrity, diligence, and respon- was joined by an outstanding group of Vi- themes relating to the Holocaust, that at- importance of the work that is being done sibility, as well as a strong Zionist legacy. sionaries, who were determined to ensure tracts several hundred teachers from the by the American Society and its supporters These principles have motivated him to en- the future of our organization, and through Tri-State area and beyond. By transmitting and contributors. sure the future of Holocaust commemora- this the future of Yad Vashem. the lessons of the Holocaust to present “You are the loyal guardians of the em- tion and education for generations to “We gather here tonight to pay tribute to and future generations, these young peo- bers of memory, the carriers of the torch. come. He was among the first Holocaust the Pioneers and Visionaries, those who ple are increasing awareness and fostering “Your shining example extends world- survivors to bring these goals to the center are with us today and those who have sensitivity in reducing hatred, intolerance, wide, so that others may learn from you (Continued on page 15) IN THIS ISSUE American & International Societies for Yad Vashem Annual Tribute Dinner...... 1, 8-9, 15 Amidst the shadows of trees...... 4 Diaries reveal how much wartime Germans knew...... 5 The schoolgirl who survived the Holocaust by fooling the Nazis...... 6 Ignoring Romania’s Holocaust complicity: Not an option...... 7 Unraveling the Mengele mystery...... 7 Rare survivor attends Israeli memorial...... 10 Heroic tale of Holocaust, with a twist...... 11 Recipes recall darker days...... 11 Grandchildren of Nazis delve into family past...... 12 Elusive justice: The search for Nazi war criminals...... 14 Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2011 - Kislev/Tevet 5772

HOLOCAUST MASS GRAVES MEMORIALIZED HITLER’S FIRST “OFFICIAL” PLAN TO MURDER JEWS he Lo Tishkach Foundation, in coop- from Jonathan J. Rikoon, facilitated by the BOUGHT BY HOLOCAUST ORGANIZATION Teration with the Association of Jew- United States Commission for the Preser- he first known document in which At the time of the letter, Hitler was in Mu- ish Communities of Ukraine (VAAD) and vation of America’s Heritage Abroad. TAdolf Hitler wrote about the “irrevo- nich, where he was struggling to find a pur- the United States Commission for the Memorial stones were to be inaugurated cable removal” of Jews has been bought pose after the slaughter in the trenches of Preservation of America’s Heritage in Baryshivka, Fastiv, Dymer, Brovary, and by a Holocaust museum in Los Angeles. WWI. Abroad, is commemorating the mass mur- Tarascha. The 1919 diatribe charts his plans for In July that year he was appointed a po- ders of Jews in Ukrainian towns with the The memorialization of these sites marks their extermination a full 21 years before lice spy of an intelligence commando when setting of memorial stones at these sites, the first stage in a vast renovation and the massacres began in Russia and in he was sent to infiltrate the German Work- marking 70 years since the mass killings memorialization project currently under- death camps in occupied Poland. ers’ Party. of Jews during the Holocaust. taken by the Lo Tishkach Foundation, The paper, known as the “Gemlich Let- However, he became obsessed with the which was set up in 2006 by the Confer- ter,” was sent to Adolf Gemlich, who was notion of a “non-Jewish” idea of Socialism ence of European Rabbis and the Confer- in charge of the post-World War I German and liked the anti-Semitic, anti-Marxist ence on Jewish Material Claims Against army. ideas of the party. Germany with a remit to preserve the Writing about the “Jewish Question,” he Just two months later, founder Anton memory and protect the thousands of Jew- describes Jews as being “like a racial tu- Drexler became impressed with Hitler’s or- ish burial sites across the European conti- berculosis,” says that there needs to be an atory skills and invited him to join the party. nent. “elimination of the privileges of the Jews,” EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTER Since 2009, the Lo Tishkach Foundation and calls for an “Aliens Law.” “The danger posed by Jewry for our peo- has surveyed hundreds of sites across The most chilling line, however, is a line ple today finds expression in the undeni- Ukraine, taking in the Oblasts of Cherkasy, in which he makes no apology and does able aversion of wide sections of our Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kiev, Odessa not try to cover up his intentions when he people... it arises mostly from personal and Zakarpattia, and representing over writes: “The ultimate objective of such leg- contact and from the personal impression one third of the territory of Ukraine. islation must, however, be the irrevocable which the individual Jew leaves, almost al- As results from these surveys are Memorial stones to be set at mass grave sites. removal of the Jews in general.” ways an unfavorable one. processed, detailing the current situation The letter has been bought by the Holo- “And thus comes the fact that there lives Renovation and memorialization projects on the ground at these sites, many further caust remembrance organization for amongst us a non-German, alien race at these sites have been made possible renovation and memorialization projects £100,000 and will go on display at the Mu- which neither wishes nor is able to sacri- following surveys at all Jewish cemeteries are scheduled. seum of Tolerance. fice its racial character or to deny its feel- and Holocaust mass grave sites in Kiev The Lo Tishkach Foundation said it was Scholars have known about the letter for ing, thinking, and striving. Oblast, undertaken by local youth and stu- grateful for the support provided by the some time, and it is considered significant “This thinking and striving after money dents, and coordination by the Lo Tishkach United States Commission, enabling the because it shows just how far back Hitler and power, and the feelings that go along Foundation. protection and memorialization of these started vocalizing his ideas to wipe out with it, serve the purposes of the Jew who The placing of official memorials at these sites, so that the memory of Jewish victims Jews. is unscrupulous in the choice of methods sites has been enabled by a kind donation killed in the Holocaust will not be forgotten. Historian Saul Friedlander said: “It is and pitiless in their employment. Hitler’s first written statement about the “In his effects and consequences he is MOSCOW GETS FIRST PRIVATE MUSEUM Jews. It shows that they were at the very like a racial tuberculosis of the nations. OF JEWISH HISTORY heart of his political passions from the be- “An anti-Semitism based on reason must ginning.” lead to systematic legal combating and elim- he first private museum of Jewish scrolls, ritual lamps, and many other items Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon ination of the privileges of the Jews, that Thistory has opened in Moscow. The of interest. Wiesenthal Center, said he acquired the which distinguishes the Jews from the other museum’s collection covers more than 200 The newly-opened museum also recre- four-page letter through a dealer in May. aliens who live among us – an Aliens Law. years of the history of Jewish life in Russia ates a special area that was common for He said: “In terms of the Holocaust we “The ultimate objective of such legisla- from the late 18th century through to the most synagogues – the genizah. This have nothing that would compare to this tion must, however, be the irrevocable re- late Soviet period. document.” moval of the Jews in general.” The museum’s collection totals over 4,000 exhibits, most of which were re- MONTENEGRO TO MAKE JUDAISM A STATE RELIGION deemed from private col- ontenegro’s Prime Minister Igor declarations by the Montenegro officials. lectors. The first part of it MLukšić told Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi “This is truly an important and exciting step rediscovers the Jewish Yona Metzger his country would recognize taken by the leaders of Montenegro and will identity through traditions, Judaism as a state religion. certainly provide a boost for the develop- culture, beliefs, and the During a meeting held in the capital Pod- ment of our community and raises Jewish way Jewish communities in gorica, the head of state said the Jewish pride in our wonderful country,” Alfandri said. Russia used to live. faith will receive the same legal status as The meetings were coordinated by The second part of the Roman Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity Rabbi Levi Matusof, RCE’s Director of Eu- collection digs into the so- and Islam. ropean Jewish Public Affairs in Brussels. cial issues. It considers the “I will do everything I can to encourage In recent years several states in the Jewish community within a this issue, whether through legislation or Balkans have showed an interest in reviv- historical context, exploring amending existing regulations,” Lukšić told ing local Jewish communities that have ex- the professions and crafts of the Jews, and their rela- Metzger, who was accompanied by a del- isted in the region since antiquity. tions with the government. egation from the Rabbinical Center of Eu- Macedonia has helped fund a Jewish mu- A significant number of exhibits tell the sto- room was used to store worn-out Hebrew rope (RCE) and the local Jewish seum in its capital Skopje; Greece’s Thes- ries of the USSR’s Jewish community. books and papers on religious topics, community. saloniki has highlighted its rich Jewish The display features dozens of photo- mainly Torah scrolls that were stored There are no more than a handful of heritage to attract tourists and business- graphs, portraits, rare documents, art there before they could receive a proper Jews living in the republic but state officials men; and last year Albania appointed its pieces by Jewish handicraftsmen and cemetery burial. hoped elevating the religion’s status would first-ever chief rabbi. Still, the Jewish com- their working tools and equipment, and The founder of the museum, Sergey encourage interest and investment from munities in the Balkans have never recov- religious cultural relics. For example, the Ustinov, vice-president of the Russian Jews around the world in Montenegro. ered from the Holocaust, and their exhibition offers the chance to see an Jewish Congress, has sponsored the cre- Yasha Alfandri, president of the Jewish numbers keep dwindling due to old age, armchair used for the traditional circum- ation of the Jewish History Museum in community, was quoted as welcoming the emigration and assimilation. cision ritual, cases for storing Torah Moscow. 70 YEARS SINCE OPERATION BARBAROSSA ID CARDS TO COMMEMORATE SHOAH DEAD arking 70 years since the German of Jews in the first srael is unveiling new identity cards for up with the idea to incorporate Holocaust MNazi invasion of the Soviet Union in months of the East- Iits citizens that will commemorate the symbolism into the design, a sort of hon- June 1941, Operation Barbarossa, the ern front war; and the Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust of World orary citizenship for the six million victims. Center for Research on the History of So- Jews’ mistaken be- War II. “We haven’t forgotten them,” said viet Jews during the Holocaust at Yad liefs in the great mili- The serial numbers will begin at Dadon of the Holocaust victims. “They are Vashem’s International Institute for Holo- tary power of the Red 6,000,000, the number of Jews who per- with us ... and they will be with us in the caust Research held a daylong sympo- Army and that anti- ished in the genocide. The new cards will future.” sium in June exploring the invasion as an Semitism among So- also include six Stars of David, represent- The numbers serve a purely technical ideological war. Historians discussed po- viet citizens was a ing the six million victims. function for indexing the number of cards litical, economic and ideological aspects of matter of the past. Baruch Dadon, head of the new ID card printed. But Dadon said the symbolic the war between Nazi Germany and the The Symposium took place with the sup- project in Israel’s Interior Ministry, said a numbering was not trivial. Soviet Union, and its critical and destruc- port of the Genesis Philanthropy Group government committee tasked with plan- “We are the state of the Jews,” said tive impact on the Jews living in those and European Jewish Fund, and the ning the updated, biometric cards came Dadon. “I think this was necessary.” areas; the Wehrmacht’s role in the murder Gutwirth Family Fund. November/December 2011 - Kislev/Tevet 5772 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 3

AVNER SHALEV, CHAIRMAN OF YAD VASHEM, JEWISH HISTORY MUSEUM TO OPEN IN WARSAW RECEIVES PRESTIGIOUS JERUSALEM AWARD ON ANNIVERSARY OF UPRISING vner Shalev, Chairman of Yad He initiated the establishment of The n ambitious museum devoted to the Warsaw’s Jews against the Nazis, said Ag- A Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial in Sam Spiegel Film & Television School in A1,000-year history of Poland’s Jews nieszka Ruzinska, the museum’s head. Jerusalem, was awarded the prestigious the city, and positioned the Israel Festival will open on the anniversary of the Warsaw Culture Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski an- 2011 Patron of Jerusalem (Yakir Yerusha- as a Jerusalem event. ghetto uprising. nounced a subsidy of 10 million zlotys ($3 layim) Award in recognition of his public ac- Shalev was appointed Chairman of Yad Some 500,000 visitors are expected million) to help finish the building on time. tivities. Vashem in 1993. each year to the Museum of the History of The funds are to come from state and War- The award was presented in a ceremony From the beginning of his tenure, Polish Jews to view multimedia exhibits on saw coffers. at the Tower of David Museum. Shalev has strived to redefine Holocaust the life and culture of Jews in Poland, and Since 1967, the award has been pre- remembrance and education, introducing their fate in the Holocaust sented by the Mayor of Jerusalem on a far-reaching multiyear redevelopment and the present day, as Jerusalem Day to individuals who have plan with the goal of preparing Yad Jewish culture is being Vashem to meet the challenges of gradually revived. Holocaust commemoration in the “The Jews were a part of 21st century. the Polish landscape, now To that end, he has put education they are gone,” said histo- at the forefront of Yad Vashem’s ac- rian Marian Turski. “We tivities by opening the International want to fill in this vacuum.” School for Holocaust Studies, as “This (museum) is about well as enlarging Yad Vashem’s people who were here, who archives and research facilities, and created their works here, building a new museum complex. who contributed to the He is Chief Curator of the Holo- progress of the civilization,” Young Israelis stand in front of the building under construction for caust History Museum that opened said Turski, who is head of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland. in 2005. the Jewish Historical Insti- “Shalev dared to position Holo- tute, which is cooperating on the project. President Barack Obama visited the The building is an austere concrete-and- neighboring Monument to Warsaw Ghetto contributed to the city of Jerusalem, and caust remembrance in the 21st century at glass structure, divided by a jagged chasm Heroes and was briefed on the progress of whose public service has been focused in the center of public discourse, in Israel that symbolizes Moses’ Biblical parting of the museum in May. Israel’s capital and on its behalf. and abroad. Time and again, he pulls it the Red Sea that allowed the Jews to flee Poland’s Jewish community numbered Born in Jerusalem, Avner Shalev served from the margins of social and cultural de- slavery in Egypt. 3.5 million before World War II, but most first in the Israeli army as Bureau Chief for bate to the heart of our creative efforts,” It will open to visitors on April 19, 2013, the were murdered during the Holocaust under Chief of Staff David Elazar during the 1973 sayd Dr. Martin Weyl, Holocaust survivor 70th anniversary of the doomed uprising by German Nazi occupation. Yom Kippur War and later as Chief Educa- and former Director of the Israel Museum, tion Officer and head of the Education to the Award panel. Corps. In 2003, Yad Vashem received the Is- WILL IS THE MAJOR OBSTACLE IN NAZI PROSECUTIONS After retiring from military service, Shalev rael Prize, and in 2007 Shalev received lack of political will is more to blame else, that has hindered the efforts to bring served as Director General of the Culture the Legion of Honor from French Presi- than aging in the failure to prosecute Holocaust perpetrators to justice, along with Authority in the Ministry of Education and dent Nicolas Sarkozy. A Nazi-era war criminals, the Simon Wiesen- the mistaken notion that it was impossible Culture, and Chairman of the National Cul- That same year, he received, on Yad thal Center said in an annual report. at this point to locate, identify, and convict ture and Art Council, and was on the board Vashem’s behalf, the Prince of Asturias “The lack of political will to bring Nazi war these criminals,” the report said. of directors of the Israel Museum in Award for Concord from Spanish Crown criminals to justice and/or to punish them Croatia, Denmark, and Britain get D rat- Jerusalem. Prince Felipe. continues to be the major obstacle to ings for making only a minimal effort and achieving justice, particularly in post-Com- for not having any practical results. NAZI WAR CRIMINALS MAY GET THEIR DAY IN COURT munist Eastern Europe,” said the center’s Austria, Canada, Estonia, Latvia, Lithua- urt Schrimm is the man the German death camp or event. Schrimm says it also report. nia and Ukraine are rated as failures in Kgovernment has put in charge of gave German courts jurisdiction over “The campaign led by the Baltic coun- practice for having the necessary laws but chasing down and bringing to justice the crimes that occurred outside their borders, tries to distort the history of the Holocaust not pursuing prosecutions. people responsible for the atrocities of the in places like Poland. and obtain official recognition that the The center listed as most wanted Alois Holocaust. Jewish organizations are applauding the crimes of Communism are equal to those Brunner, the Adolf Eichmann deputy re- In October he announced that he was move. The American Gathering of Holo- of the Nazis is another major obstacle to sponsible for deporting Jews to death reopening hundreds of cases of suspected caust Survivors and their Descendants the prosecution of those responsible for camps from Austria, Greece, Slovakia and war criminals that could lead to the prose- says this is the final opportunity for many the crimes of the Shoah.” France. He was last seen in Syria, where cutions and convictions of dozens of for- survivors to see justice in their lifetime. But Only the United States receives an A rat- he sought postwar refuge, in 2001. He mer Nazi guards and officials. even Schrimm admits that many of the ing in the report, for proactive prosecution would be 99 today. Schrimm decided to reopen the cases people who are implicated are over 90 of war criminals. “The chances of his being alive are rela- because of a major legal breakthrough he years old and may not last through an ex- “While it is generally assumed that it is the tively slim, but until conclusive evidence of achievedt last year with the conviction of a tended investigation. age of the suspects that is the biggest ob- his demise is obtained, he should still be former Nazi guard named John Demjan- Meanwhile, even Demjanjuk, who by stacle to prosecution, in many cases it is the mentioned on any Most Wanted List of juk. Demjanjuk was accused of contribut- some accounts was one of the most sadis- lack of political will, more than anything Holocaust perpetrators,” the report said. ing to the deaths of nearly 30,000 people tic guards at the Polish death camp in at a death camp in Poland. which he worked and was convicted for According to Schrimm the case gave him helping to murder tens of thousands of HOLOCAUST ORGANIZER “WANTED PRAISE FOR ROLE” legal precedent to prosecute suspected people, was only given 5 years in prison dolf Eichmann, a major organizer of 50-year-old Eichmann, who lived in Ar- war criminals even when they couldn’t be and is currently free on parole pending an A the Nazi Holocaust, longed to leave gentina from 1950 to 1960 under the pseu- connected to a specific crime, only to a appeal. hiding and return to Germany to get recog- donym Ricardo Klement. “Name: Adolf nition for sending millions of Jews to their Otto Eichmann. Profession: former SS JEWISH GHETTO VICTIMS REMEMBERED deaths, according to a new book. lieutenant colonel. Tired of farming rabbits in anonymity in “How much longer fate will allow me to memorial ceremony for thousands of Vilnius after the Nazis marched them there Argentina after World War II, Eichmann live, I don’t know,” Eichmann wrote in the Jewish victims of the Holocaust was from the ghetto,” lawmaker Emanuelis Zin- A came forward in 1956 in a recently discov- remarkable letter. held in a church in the Lithuanian capital of geris told The Associated Press. ered letter, asking West German Chancel- Vilnius, with volunteers reading the name “It was especially touching to see It is not known if Adenauer saw the letter, lor Konrad Adenauer if he could return so Stangneth said. She added Eichmann and and profession of every resident who lived dozens of young and old Lithuanians read- he could claim his place in history. in the Jewish ghetto. ing those names in their church from dawn former Nazis in hiding abroad first wanted The letter, along with hundreds of other to have it published in a newspaper in Ar- Organizers said the list of names, gath- till dusk. This is the right way to remember uncovered documents in German gentina and in Germany. But because of ered from a census taken in 1942, includes victims of the Holocaust,” he said. archives, forms the basis of author Bettina the content of the letter in which Eichmann thousands of names and would require at About 95% of the country’s prewar Jew- Stangneth’s book, Eichmann before acknowledged the Holocaust, they decided least 15 hours to read. ish population of 220,000 people was killed Jerusalem. Stangneth said she was The ghetto was established after Nazi by the Nazis and their collaborators during stunned when she found the typed letter in not to publish the letter for fear of implicat- Germany took over Lithuania in 1941. A World War II. a misidentified state file. ing themselves as war criminals. large part of the ghetto’s population died the day of the ceremony marked the 68th “It’s a tactical letter from Eichmann,” “Eichmann lied about many things, but from either starvation or disease, and anniversary of the destruction of the Vilnius Stangneth said. “He wanted his place in his- he never lied about the Holocaust,” those who survived where subsequently ghetto, which effectively marked the end of tory. He always thought he could be the re- Stangneth said. shot outside Vilnius or sent to death Lithuania’s Jewish community. deemer of the German people. He wanted Stangneth said he was eager to get camps. In June, lawmakers voted to pay $53 mil- to relieve them of their (post-war) guilt.” recognition for his role in the Nazi regime. “There were thousands on names read lion in compensation for the seizure of “It is time for me to step out of my “He was so unspeakably proud of his – names of Jews who died in a forest near Jewish property by Nazis during the war. anonymity and introduce myself,” wrote a name. He wanted his famous name back.” Page 4 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2011 - Kislev/Tevet 5772 BOOKBOOK REVIEWSREVIEWS AMIDST THE SHADOWS OF TREES Amidst the Shadows of Trees: A Holo- read about how, indeed, her father “was Lenina or the Order of Lenin, “among the formative. Happily, though, time would caust Child’s Survival in the Partisans. constantly sent away on missions to treat highest medals bestowed in the Soviet bring understanding, solace, and joy. Her By Miriam Brysk. Yellow Star Press: Ann wounded partisans in scattered parts of Union.” father would eventually reopen his practice Arbor, Michigan, 2007. 183 pp. $14.95. [the] forest.” How “he had no attendant t the same time, we read about the in America — Brooklyn to be exact — re- staff to help him, nor a sterile ambient en- reality of life with the partisans and REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN A spected and loved by all. Miriam, his vironment in which to operate. He had no how very hard and raw it was. How parti- daughter, would earn a Ph.D. from Colum- “For a moment in time long ago medications to ease the pain and prevent sans themselves generally only accepted bia University, and herself become a re- The trees turned black and gray infection. All that he could offer the injured new members if they came armed. Un- spected research scientist, professor, The resin and sap from their veins was some vodka.” How “the wounds were armed, you were more than likely left in the artist, and poet, and write this fine book. Exuded silent bloody tears disinfected with alcohol, forest and to a tragic end. How Moreover, while she is retired now, one Bystanders at Babi Yar and Ponar which was used to steril- being a woman alone among gets the distinct impression that Miriam still Also there in my town of Lida” ize Papa’s hands. Papa them was dangerous. Thus has more things she’d like to do. Excerpt from “Silent Trees” carried with him a small women generally paired off On a personal note, interestingly, within by Miriam Brysk satchel of boiled surgical with a man for safety’s sake. the text the author writes about how when ach memoir written by a Holocaust instruments and cloths, How children in a fighting parti- she first met her “American family” — she Esurvivor is exceptionally valuable. hoping they would suf- san unit were considered a lia- had uncles here — they “could not em- Each adds to the documentation of the fice.” Then, how, miracu- bility. They could cry or scream pathize with what we had lived through. . . . event in its entirety. Each highlights an- lously, her father helped and cause the death of fighters. they failed to grasp what it meant to have other aspect of the unbelievable but true. establish a forest hospital, There was anti-Semitism survived, to be one of the Holocaust’s liv- Amidst the Shadows of Trees by Miriam secured by its remote- among partisans. There were ing victims. In particular they made igno- Brysk is aptly subtitled, A Holocaust Child’s ness and surrounding roving hooligans in the forest rant remarks” like “‘You will soon forget the Survival in the Partisans. For the author re- swamps from the Ger- who caught Jews for German past; we don’t want you to dwell on the counts how at seven years old, she, her mans. How the partisans reward. There were the Ger- war; remember you are now in America.’” provisioned it with medical mans ruthlessly hunting for mother, and her father became members Many experienced that . . . including this of a partisan group operating in the supplies, the result of de- Jews. Then, too, there was the reviewer’s family . . . They simply don’t un- Lipiczanska forest, within fifty miles of Lida, termined and courageous relentless cold and hunger. derstand. Some things just can’t be forgot- Poland. The partisans smuggled the whole raids on “municipal hospitals in the sur- Finally, the author openly shares with us ten, nor should they be. Then again, how family out of the Lida ghetto because her rounding towns.” How her father, as chief the impact that her father’s fiery temper — could someone far from the Holocaust father, Dr. Chaim Miasnik, was “renowned of staff of this forest hospital, staffed it, saw undoubtedly aggravated by his intense ever understand any of it! for his surgical skills” and they were in dire that the hospital was supplied with food, wartime responsibilities — and her own need of a doctor. and operated night after night saving so fears and trepidations during the war, had Dr. Diane Cypkin is a Professor of Thus from Miriam’s, or rather as she was many . . . Not surprisingly, at war’s end, on her. It took years to work things out. Media, Communication, and Visual Arts at then called, Mirele’s vantage point, we Dr. Miasnik was awarded the Orden The childhood years are fundamental and Pace University. A CONTEMPORARY ULYSSES DOVE ON A BARBED WIRE A Life of Leadership: Eli Zborowski from spared the details of the harrowing escape Dove on a Barbed Wire. Yonah did not enjoy school, and when at- the Underground to Industry to Holocaust of Eli and his mother, brother, and sister By Deborah Steiner- van Rooyen. Devo- tending he would stand up to the Polish Remembrance. from the hands of the Nazi occupiers, nor rah Publishing, 2010. 145 pp. $21.95. bullies. By Rochel and George Berman. KTAV of the circumstances of his father’s murder 13-year-old Yonah was on the way home REVIEWED BY RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN Publishing House and Yad Vashem Publi- at the hands of the Poles. Still, Eli has re- from school on a September afternoon in cations, 2011. 290 pp. $25.00. fused to issue a blanket condemnation of ublished first in Israel in Hebrew by 1939, when he was apprehended by the the Polish people. As the first of six sur- Yad Vashem in 2007, and now in an German SS and thrown into a truck without REVIEWED BY P vivors to greet Pope John Paul II at Yad attractive and improved English format, communicating with his parents, who were YOCHEVED MIRIAM ZEMEL Vashem, he spoke to His Holiness in Pol- this compelling account is bound to ac- murdered soon afterwards, along with the lysses has been eclipsed by Eli ish and welcomed him to “the Land of Is- quire an honored place in the vast litera- rest of Gromnik’s Jews. This abrupt and UZborowski.The Greek hero’s multi- rael, the independent Jewish state.” ture of Holocaust memoirs. It tragic interruption to all that ple adventures symbolize man’s tenacity in li spoke to the Pope about his res- is the family drama wrapped young Yonah knew, ironically overcoming a variety of difficulties using Ecuers. While acknowledging the role in dramas of the author Deb- saved his life, even as “the cunning, strength and courage. Eli of Polish people in the death of his father, orah Steiner-van Rooyen nightmare began.” It lasted the Zborowski, the founder of the American & Eli explained, “My mother, my two siblings, and the book’s heroic protag- war’s five years with Yonah’s International Societies for Yad and I were given refuge by onist, Yonah Steiner. unimaginable survival. Vashem, and former president Polish neighbors who kept us 1951-born American Debo- From Pustkow to Danzig to of Sheaffer Latin America, hidden for 18 months at the rah was approached in 1969 Mielec to Tarnow to Flossen- achieved that and more. After risk of their own lives. Given by her grandpa Solomon burg to Auschwitz to Mau- the loss of his father at the this, how can one possibly Steiner with a special re- thausen, it was a hellish journey age of 16, he heroically saved generalize about the Polish quest as she was about to of a Jewish boy from a loving not only himself, but scores of people?” This positive atti- embark on a global travel family through a world of inhu- others from destitution and tude enabled Eli to be instru- venture while postponing her manity with its own death-and- victimization. Unlike Ulysses mental in opening the door to college education. Beloved life rules. Yonah was wise to who suffered from hubris, diplomatic relations between Solomon, the first family member to leave learn from older and experienced inmates false pride, Eli has maintained Israel and Poland. Poland for the States in 1912, wanted via with whom he aligned, but also in knowing his humility and his belief in This exciting book takes us Deborah to reconnect to his Israeli nephew how to keep to himself. On his unsuccess- God and in his fellow man de- through the passages of Eli’s Yonah Steiner, son of his martyred brother ful first escape form Pustkow in Poland’s spite all his ordeals. life, allowing us into the Simon, who along with brother Paul were southeast, where he spent 4 months, he Eli’s exploits and their rami- home in which he lived and the sole Holocaust survivors of the large was able to kill with his bare hands a Ger- fications form the basis for this his relations with his family Steiner family. All that Solomon had was man Shepherd dog. The second escape, exciting narrative. But it goes one step fur- and friends. We are privy to such everyday an old envelope with Yonah’s name at kib- from Danzig in East Prussia where he ther. Rochel and George Berman, the bi- details as why he enjoys French toast, and butz Ginosar in Israel. worked in a submarine factory, was facilitated ographers, underscore the leadership how his father’s business acumen and Solomon had visited Polish Gromnik, with the help of “The Boss,” a seasoned fel- qualities that Eli has displayed through his honest dealings stood as models for Eli’s near Krakow, in 1932, but his attempts to low inmate with whom he bonded and who life, both in taking others with him out of the success and good relations in business. persuade his family to join him in the led him into the Tarnow ghetto. In the Tarnow cauldron of the Holocaust, and through his Eli Zborowski’s stellar advance from States fell on deaf ears, as Yonah’s patri- ghetto with its 150,000 residents, Yonah journeys to make the Holocaust a symbol poverty when he arrived in America to archal grandpa Aharon, Solomon’s father, could not get any support from the terrified of struggle and courage rather than of vic- owner and president of Sheaffer Latin would not listen, and later on Simon, Jews. Caught again, he ended up in Mielec, timization and despair. America is brought to light. In spite of Eli’s Yonah’s father, nixed the idea in spite of his in Poland’s west, and, lying about being a The authors take us from Žarki, the town severe economic straits, and the facts that wife Rachel’s urging to sell their property steel cutter, he was assigned to the Hen- in Poland where Eli grew up as one of his wife, Diana, was expecting, and that Eli and leave before it was too late. Yonah and klewerks factory of the Messerschmitts’ three children in the privileged and princi- knew very little English, Eli was not de- his three older brothers, Paul and the twins planes. His talents were recognized though pled home of Moshe and Zisel Zborowski, terred. Determined to work for himself, Willi and Rudi, grew up happy and often he had no prior training, and he studied to whom the book is dedicated. We are not (Continued on page 15) unruly on the very large family farm. (Continued on page 14) November/December 2011 - Kislev/Tevet 5772 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 5 DIARIES REVEAL HOW MUCH WARTIME GERMANS KNEW icy, is now being implored by the Führer life, and the development of Nazi propa- wave of internal terror, he began working BY ELKE SCHMITTER, SPIEGEL ONLINE in his hour of need. What strange ganda. as a government employee in the Laubach hypocrisy!” This document now has a counterpart, District Court. He was an unknown entity ewly published diaries by a Nazi-era The extensive diary written by Klem- the diaries of judicial inspector Friedrich in a town with strong Nazi sympathies. It court official document details that N perer, a professor of Romance literature Kellner. The 900-page book begins in was there that Kellner wrote his diary: a others conveniently ignored. While many who had been fired from his job in Dres- September 1938, told from the perspec- conversation he conducted with himself Germans would later claim they knew den, was published in 1995 under the title tive of a German citizen who was not a out of despair that was also an analysis of nothing of Nazi crimes, Friedrich Kellner’s Nazi. It also reveals what informa- the present and a planned legacy. critical observations show that such infor- tion Germans could have obtained “The purpose of my record,” he began, mation was available. about the Nazis if they had on September 26, 1938, “is to capture a The penultimate year of the war began wanted to. picture of the current mood in my sur- with a speech exhorting Germans to perse- roundings, so that a future generation is vere. Italy was no longer Germany’s ally, AN ORDINARY FAMILY not tempted to construe a ‘great event’ and the Soviet army was approaching the ellner, born in 1885, a few from it (a ‘heroic time’ or the like).” In the borders of Poland, Hungary and Romania. years later than Klemperer, same passage, on the same day, Kellner The Allied landing in France was imminent. K was not a privileged man. The son revealed a bitter clear-sightedness, when After addressing soldiers and his fellow of a baker and a maid, he embarked he summed up German postwar history Germans, Adolf Hitler turned his attention to on a judicial career after graduating in one sentence: “Those who wish to be the Lord himself in his speech to ring in the from the Oberrealschule, a higher acquainted with contemporary society, New Year of 1944. “He is aware of the goal vocational school. At 22, Kellner with the souls of the ‘good Germans,’ of our struggle,” he said. The Lord’s “justice completed his one year of compul- should read what I have written. But I fear will continue to test us until he can pass sory military service as an infantry- that very few decent people will remain judgment. Our duty is to ensure that we do man in the western city of Mainz, after events have taken their course, and not appear to be too weak in his eyes, but and in 1913 he married Paulina that the guilty will have no interest in see- that we are given a merciful judgment that Preuss, an office clerk. The couple’s ing their disgrace documented in writing.” spells ‘victory’ and thus signifies life!” only son was born three years later, Ten closely written volumes document Two very different men in the German when Kellner returned from the the things Kellner experienced and ob- Reich noted their thoughts about Hitler’s French front after being wounded in served and, most of all, what he read and expression of religious sentiments in their the First World War. heard. He cut out speeches and calls to diaries. The first, Victor Klemperer, lived They were an ordinary, lower- action from newspapers and analyzed with his wife in a “Jew house” in Dresden, middle-class family, but they were them, and he made notes about ordi- where he wrote about the dictator, using a Friedrich Kellner, photographed in his Laubach apartment also politically active. He distributed nances and decrees. He contrasted the false name: “New content: Karl becomes in 1940. flyers, gave speeches, and re- information provided by the government religious. (The new approach lies in his ap- Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten cruited new members for the Social Dem- with the facts, both in everyday life in proximation of the ecclesiastical style.).” (I Will Bear Witness 1942-1945: A Diary ocratic Party (SPD). Kellner had read Hesse and at the distant front. He lis- The second, Friedrich Kellner, lived with of the Nazi Years). It is perhaps the most Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and he took the book tened to foreign radio stations when he his wife in an official apartment in a court important private document about the seriously, saying that it brought shame to could. But most of all, he analyzed the building for the Hessian town of Laubach, Nazis, because it offers an extremely Gutenberg. After the 1932 elections, in propaganda from a critical standpoint. where he hid his written account of the war clear-sighted and detailed account of the which the Nazi Party became the strongest Commenting on the 1939 “Treaty of in a living-room cabinet. In his commentary 12 years of the “Thousand-year Reich” faction in the parliament, the Reichstag, Friendship” with the Soviet Union, he on the Hitler speech, Kellner wrote: “The from the perspective of someone who Kellner requested a transfer from Mainz. In wrote: “We must resort to aligning Lord, who has been maligned by all Na- was marginalized. The account details 1933, two weeks before Hitler’s appoint- ourselves with Russia to even have a tional Socialists as part of their official pol- small annoyances and major crimes, daily ment as Reich chancellor and the first (Continurd on page 13) SEVEN DECADES AFTER HITLER’S FALL, GERMAN GRANDCHILDREN OF NAZIS DELVE INTO FAMILY PAST sprung up across Germany to provide re- tually captured and hanged in 1947, in I do not want to close my eyes and pretend KIRSTEN GRIESHABER, search guidance and psychological support. front of his former home on the grounds of nothing ever happened, like the rest of my THE ASSOCIATED PRESS “From the outside, the third generation Auschwitz. family still does ... I want to stop the curse has had it all — prosperity, access to edu- “When I investigate and read about my ainer Hoess was 12 years old when that’s been haunting my family ever since, cation, peace, and stability,” said Sabine grandfather’s crimes, it tears me apart he found out his grandfather was for the sake of myself and that of my own R Bode, who has written books on how the every single time,” Hoess said during a re- one of the worst mass murderers in his- children.” Holocaust weighs on German families cent interview at his home in a little Black tory. Hoess is no longer in contact with his fa- today. “Yet they grew up with a lot of unspo- Forest village. The gardener at his boarding school, an ther, brother, aunts, and cousins, who all ken secrets, felt the silent burdens in their As a young man, he said, he tried twice Auschwitz survivor, beat him black and call him a traitor. Strangers often look at families that were often paired with a lack of to kill himself. He has suffered three heart blue after hearing he was the grandson of him with distrust when he tells them about emotional warmth and vague Rudolf Hoess, commandant of the death his grandfather — “as if I could have inher- anxieties.” ited his evil.” camp synonymous with the Holocaust. ike others, Hoess had “He beat me, because he projected on Despite such reactions, descendants of L to overcome fierce re- Nazis — from high-ranking officials to lowly me all the horror he went through,” Rainer sistance within his own Hoess said, with a shrug and a helpless foot soldiers — are increasingly trying to family, who preferred that find out what their families did between smile. “Once a Hoess, always a Hoess. he “not poke around in the 1933 and 1945. Whether you’re the grandfather or the past.” Undeterred, he spent he Nazis — the first generation — grandson — guilty is guilty.” lonely hours at archives were too ashamed to talk about Germans have for decades confronted and on the Internet re- “T the crimes they committed and covered the Nazi era head-on, paying billions in searching his grandfather. everything up. The second generation compensation, meticulously teaching Rudolf Hoess was in often had trouble personally confronting Third Reich history in school, and building charge of Auschwitz from memorials to victims. The conviction in May 1940 to November their Nazi parents. So now it is up to the Munich of retired Ohio autoworker John 1943. He came back to grandchildren to lift the curses off their Demjanjuk on charges he was a guard at Auschwitz for a short stint in families,” said Bode. the Sobibor Nazi death camp drives home 1944, to oversee the murder It was only during her university years — how the Holocaust is still very much at the of some 400,000 Hungarian Dr. Josef Mengele, Rudolf Hoess, and Josef Kramer. reading books about the Holocaust — that forefront of the German psyche. Jews in the camp’s gas chambers within attacks in recent years as well as asthma, Ursula Boger found out her grandfather But most Germans have skirted their less than two months. which he says gets worse when he digs was the most dreaded torturer at own possible family involvement in Nazi The commandant lived in a luxurious into his family’s Nazi past. Auschwitz. atrocities. Now, more than 65 years after mansion at Auschwitz with his wife and five Today, Hoess says, he no longer feels “I felt numb for days after I read about the end of Hitler’s regime, an increasing children — among them Hans-Rudolf, the guilty, but the burden of the past weighs on what he did,” recalled Boger, a shy, soft- number of Germans are trying to pierce father of Rainer. Only 150 meters (yards) him at all times. spoken woman who lives near Freiburg in the family secrets. away the crematories’ chimneys were blow- “My grandfather was a mass murderer — southwestern Germany. “For many years I Some, like Hoess, have launched an ob- ing out the ashes of the dead day and night. something that I can only be ashamed and was ashamed to tell anybody about him, sessive solitary search. Others seek help After the war, Hoess went into hiding on sad about,” said the 45-year-old chef and but then I realized that my own silence was from seminars and workshops that have a farm in northern Germany; he was even- father of two boys and two girls. “However, (Continued on page 12) Page 6 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2011 - Kislev/Tevet 5772 SURVIVORS’SURVIVORS’ CORNERCORNER

THE SCHOOLGIRL WHO SURVIVED THE HOLOCAUST BY FOOLING THE NAZIS “I heard about the event and called them if I thought they were trying to hide Terezín. At each point Helga thinks the VANESSA THORPE, THE OBSERVER someone in north London who knew something, to protect me.” worst thing has happened to her so you Helga. They told me she was just about to The Weiss apartment was handed over see how people become used to bad n an Auschwitz station platform in get on a plane back to Prague, but that she to Germans and the family was trans- things. Eventually, when the family are 1944, Helga Weiss and her mother O was coming round for a coffee first,” said ported to Terezín by rail. Known as There- sent to the camp they take some cake and fooled one of the most reviled men in mod- Butterfield. “I raced up to see her and we sienstadt in German, the city on the eat a little every day.” ern history, Josef Mengele, and managed talked for no more than 10 or 15 minutes. northwest perimeter of Prague had be- Butterfield points out that memories of to save their lives. Not long into her teens, Terezín are not all painful. Weiss grew up Weiss lied about her age, claiming she She is an amazing woman with a great, come a transit hub where Czech Jews feisty attitude.” there, fell in love for the first time, and spent was old enough to work for her keep. Her time with both her parents, before her father mother persuaded the Nazis under Men- Butterfield, who also publishes Anne Frank’s diary, asked to was killed at Auschwitz. “My father told me gele’s command that Helga was in fact her that, whatever happens, we must remain daughter’s older sister, and she was sent see a sample of the writing in one of Weiss’s surviving exer- human, so that we do not die like cattle,” to the forced labor barracks and not the Weiss has said. “And I think that the will to cise books. “We had an aca- gas chamber. create was an expression of the will to live, demic report done, and once it The story is one of many recorded in a and survive, as human beings.” was clear what the diaries were concentration camp diary that was sold to n 4 October 1944, Weiss and her I went to Prague to see her. Ac- publishers around the world at the Frank- mother were also transported to counts of the past are often O furt book fair. The private journals of Helga Auschwitz, where they faced Mengele, Weiss are to be published in the UK for the shaped by the knowledge of who was directing children and older first time next year by Viking Press, while what was to happen next. What women towards the gas chambers and fit is so important about the diary is foreign rights have been snapped up by Helga Weiss three days before her family was deported in De- adults towards the forced labor camp. that it is Helga’s reality. You are publishing houses across the world. cember 1941. Thanks to her subterfuge, she was one of Weiss, an artist in her early 80s who lives there with her. It is a very differ- only 150 to 1,500 children believed to have in Prague and is also known by her mar- ent thing from a memoir.” were put to work before being sent on to survived of the 15,000 sent to Terezín. ried name of Weissova-Hoskova, men- efore Weiss was sent to the Nazi-con- extermination camps. Her diary, which be- She was then transferred from Auschwitz tioned her journal during occasional public Btrolled ghetto of Terezín as a child, gins in 1939, records noises that still haunt to a labor camp at Flossenbürg, where she appearances, but until now public interest she witnessed the insidious progress of the her; the “thunderous steps, the roar of the escaped death a second time when she in her written story has always been over- Holocaust in Prague. “One thing after an- ghetto guards, the banging of doors and was forced to join a 16-day “death march” shadowed by her success as a postwar other was forbidden: employees lost their hysterical weeping always sound – and to the camp at Mauthausen. She remained painter. The British publisher Venetia But- jobs, we were banned from the parks, foretell – the same.” there until the end of the war. “I asked terfield heard of the diary’s existence last swimming pools, sports clubs. I was banned “She was obviously very clever and quite Helga whether it had felt wonderful to be summer when Weiss visited London for a from going to school when I was 10,” Weiss mature,” said Butterfield. “She was ob- liberated,” said Butterfield. “She said, no, concert at the Wigmore Hall commemorat- told the Observer at the time of the London sessed with school at first, like any child of it was not that special because by that ing fellow inmates at the Terezín camp in concert. “I was always asking my parents, that age. Then there are terrible goodbyes point she was so ill and had seen so many former Czechoslovakia. ‘What’s happening?’, and became angry at as her friends begin to be taken off to terrible things it was hard to feel anything.” “RIGHTEOUS” MOVED TO ISRAEL AFTER SAVING JEWS IN HOLOCAUST Yael Rosen, coordinator of Atzum’s 9-year- Righteous Gentiles started moving to food to Jews near Odessa when she was BY NATHAN JEFFAY, FORWARD old project to make records of their stories. Palestine soon after World War II. The new a child and then helped her family to hide “People are amazed when they hear about Israeli authorities welcomed them, giving a Jewish doctor along with her mother and t’s a bigger sacrifice than most people the heroes living in their midst.” them citizenship and special pensions could ever imagine. But for Hester her two children. Inspired by the doctor, I Atzum also helps the immigrants secure since the mid-1980s. Grinberg-Boissevain, risking her life by hid- after the war she trained as a nurse and the medical and social services they need Those who came in the early days tend ing innocent Jews during the Holocaust accepted return hospitality: She lived with in their old age, recruits volunteers to visit to speak fluent Hebrew and have inte- just wasn’t enough of a contribution to the the doctor during her training. She loves Is- them, provides financial assistance, and grated into Israeli society. Grinberg-Bois- Jewish people. The Dutch nurse also de- rael and describes herself as “the happiest arranges events like the Rosh Hashanah sevain met a Jewish man on a kibbutz, cided to move to Israel. person in the world.” converted to Judaism “for the sake of our Until three years ago, the residents of Remarkably, one of the people at the kids” and married him. Ramat Yishai, near Nazareth, knew noth- party would never have been born if not for For others, especially the later arrivals ing of the remarkable story that brought her family’s heroism. The romance of Tzipi like Jaroslawa Lewicki, their strongest con- their now retired community nurse to Is- Shurani’s parents blossomed through the nection to Jews remains their wartime acts rael. Then, the social charity Atzum urged fence of a Nazi work camp in Hungary. of heroism. Grinberg-Boissevain to share it. Her father, Latzi, was a Jewish prisoner, s a child in Lvov, Ukraine, Lewicki, As a child, together with her parents and while her mother, Irena, was a Christian together with her mother and grand- siblings in Haarlem, Netherlands, Grin- A whose family home faced the fence. berg-Boissevain helped to hide a Jewish mother, took food to 25 Jews who were “When he was still in the camp, my father family. After the war, she trained as a hiding in a bunker in the local ghetto. She told my grandmother, ‘If I come out of here nurse, and at 27, she packed her bags and also helped her grandfather hide two Jews. alive, she will be my wife,’” Shurani said. moved to a kibbutz. Lewicki moved to Haifa in 1995 after Shurani’s grandmother made sure he did. “Israel was a special state, a new state, hearing that Israel was offering citizenship She dug a tunnel, through which 35 Jews and there was an opportunity to help build to Righteous Gentiles. escaped. Her mother led one of the and help care for people,” she told the For- Lewicki faced a bleak social and eco- groups, which included Latzi, and the cou- ward at a Rosh Hashanah party for so- nomic situation in Lvov. “I felt that this was ple married after the war. called Righteous Gentiles, who are known Israel saying a big thank you to me all The final episode of Shurani’s story holds as such for hiding Jews from the Nazis. these years after I helped Jews, and that the irony of the Righteous Gentiles: Many Grinberg-Boissevain is one of at least meant a lot,” she commented. of them have a devotion to Israel stronger 130 Righteous Gentiles who made the de- The rescuers chatted at the Rosh than that of the Jews they rescued. Her Jaroslawa Lewicki, who rescued Jews during Hashanah party as waiters brought lunch, parents made aliyah in 1949 together with cision after the war to move to Israel. It is the Holocaust, was grateful for the chance to and it became clear that their heroism has most of the 35 escapees, and her mother, only now with the group dwindling fast from move from Ukraine to Israel. old age that members are starting to tell determined not only where they live, but widowed in 2002, still lives in Nahariya. and write down their stories. Grinberg- party, viewing these undertakings as part also their personal relationships. Many of the escapees chose to search Boissevain, for example, has a homemade of a moral responsibility. For Lewicki, her closest Israeli friend was for greener pastures. pamphlet that she shares with friends and “We think that these people did so much Avraham Shapiro, a man she helped to “The others left Israel, for New York and acquaintances. and that anything we can do for them is a save. Shapiro, who moved to Israel 50 elsewhere,” Shurani said. “My father “People in Israel, even in the communi- drop in the ocean by comparison — but years before her, died early this year. begged my mother to go. But she said that ties where [Righteous Gentiles] are living, that we must still provide that drop in the Lidiya Krimer, who in 1991 moved to this is her country and refused to leave, in- just have no idea that they are there,” said ocean,” Rosen said. Upper Nazareth from Odessa, distributed sisting, ‘I stay here.’” November/December 2011 - Kislev/Tevet 5772 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 7 IGNORING ROMANIA’S HOLOCAUST COMPLICITY: NOT AN OPTION to rise to power. The regime’s policy plat- omania failed to acknowledge these other German-allied country other than OLEKSANDR FELDMAN, form was staunchly anti-Communist and Rgenocidal outrages, along with a mul- Germany itself. THE ALGEMEINER ultra-nationalistic. Members were known titude of similar acts carried out against Ro- Yet in the face of all the clear evidence for their virulent anti-Semitism. During this manian and Ukrainian Jewry, for over a of the destruction of communities and loss ore than 70 years after the start of period, the growing weakness of Roma- decade after the fall of Communism. Adding of life, Romania maintained its innocence. World War II, one would think that M nia’s main territorial guarantors France and further insult to the memory of the murder In an attempt to absolve themselves of any few secrets remain from what might be the Britain became increasingly obvious. The victims, no responsibility was ever taken for guilt or responsibility Romanians have con- most heavily researched and examined Iron Guard already favored an alliance with the fate of murdered Jews inside Romania sistently laid blame on the Germans, the period ever in world history. Each year, Nazi Germany and hoped their alliance or in the Ukraine during their occupation Hungarians, virtually everyone else in the however, historians uncover new elements would ensure similar territorial guarantees there. area except their own regime and the peo- to the scope of horror that defined this era from the Germans. Until today there remain serious distor- ple who supported it. – and in particular the Holocaust. The The result was a tragedy for the Jews of tions of history regarding Romania’s role in Evidence of pogroms and the fact that sheer magnitude of human evil is difficult Romania, who consequently suffered inex- WWII and more specifically the Holocaust. death trains were dispatched from Roman- enough to comprehend, but when one plicable evils at the hands of ian cities was eventually, reluctantly ac- looks at the mass murder of an entire peo- their own countrymen and knowledged by the authorities. Even then ple, it becomes all the more unfathomable. neighbors. In 1941, in one it was under the guise that such tragedies were not ethnically based and took place One such example must be the complic- pogrom (of many) alone, because of the Communist sympathies of ity of the Romanian government in the 15,000 Jews perished in the the murdered victims (i.e., Jews). murder of more than 400,000 Jews, the city of Iaşi. The horrific act was Tragically, as recently as 2003, Roman- vast majority of them in the villages and carried out by squads of Ro- ian officials, including then-president Ion Ili- forests of Ukraine. Among Hitler’s allies, manian soldiers and police- the Romanians are all too often forgotten. escu, declared that it was “unjust to link men. The Jews also suffered Romania to the persecution of the Jews in Unlike Japan and Italy, Romania wasn’t regularly from violent mobs in Europe” and that numbers were being in- driven by a global conquest complex. Its what amounted to state-spon- flated for the sake of media impact. The motivations for an alliance with Germany sored genocide. odd “academic” revisionist or extremist were not principled or ideological; they The brutality of the Romanians kook who denies the Holocaust is uni- The death train from Iaşi. were simply based on what was viewed to extended beyond Romania’s formly ostracized by the civilized world. Yet be in Romania’s narrow national interest. borders and into Ukraine, where many Jews In recent years, only following significant hardly an eyebrow was raised when the Yet the crimes perpetrated were no less fell victim to German-controlled Romanian international pressure, did the Romanian national leader of a bona fide nation-state evil and perhaps even worse than those of forces. During the Odessa Massacre in government agree to create a panel of his- essentially denied the Holocaust, or at many other nations typically thought of as 1941, Romanian soldiers gleefully took part torians to investigate their nation’s actions least Romania’s sanguinary complicity in partners with the Nazis. in a gruesome attack against over 19,000 during the Holocaust. mass murder. In 1939, at the outbreak of WWII, Roma- Ukrainian Jews. The Romanians sought The commission compiled undeniable If Romania wants to be a respected nia adopted an official policy of neutrality. reprisal for a bomb attack they believed to evidence that implicated Romanian culpa- member of the community of nations, it However, the increasing instability in Eu- be carried out by Jews. The entire local Jew- bility in the systematic murder of Jews. It must confront and accept the horrors of its rope and growing anti-Semitism led a Fas- ish community was assembled in a square, also found that Romania bore responsibil- past in the same ways as have so many cist political force known as the Iron Guard sprayed with gasoline and burned alive. ity for the deaths of more Jews than any other European governments. UNRAVELING THE MENGELE MYSTERY More than 30 years after the infamous tember 1943, “Mengele was cleared of the found among the captives because he had the police. At the end of April 1947, the of- Nazi doctor died under mysterious cir- accusation of causing an accident.” no tattoo. “Mengele was in a deep depres- ficial had requested that authorities in Vi- cumstances, an internal police report n January 1945, the Nazis hastily evac- sion and was even considering suicide,” enna interrogate Mengele, who had reveals just how much effort Israel in- Iuated Auschwitz with a death march. according to the segment of the police re- supposedly been arrested there. But in a vested in tracking him down. About a week later, Mengele was spotted port pertaining to that period. Several conversation with the police, “he was un- BY OFER ADERET , HAARETZ in the Mauthausen concentration camp by weeks later, the captives were liberated, in- able to add details” about the affair. one of the twins evacuated from cluding Mengele, who succeeded in elud- On June 20, 1949, Mengele boarded the engele was executed by Israeli ing the Americans. North King, which was sailing from Italy to “Mcommandos,” reported Haaretz in His wife Irene and his son Rolf lived after Argentina. In his personal bag he carried December 1973, citing news agency re- the war with Irene’s parents in a town near forged International Red Cross papers ports. “Unknown men, apparently Israelis, Gunzburg, Bavaria. “During their stay in bearing the name of Helmut Gregor, an killed Mengele,” it was reported several the town no strange man was seen to visit Italian-born mechanic. Israeli police were days later. Spokesmen for the Brazilian po- them,” said the Israel Police report, adding unable to figure out how he had received lice were quoted by the country’s news that the two left in 1948. “There are reports agencies as saying that three unknown to the effect that the Mengeles met in se- men – who had infiltrated the home of the cret during this period, but there is no con- infamous Nazi doctor on the border be- firmation of that.” tween Brazil and Paraguay – beat him to n January 5, 1947, the Jewish Tele- death in front of his wife and children. The Ographic Agency published a report report ended as follows: “The search for the from Warsaw to the effect that American three men, who fled afterward, continues.” forces in Germany had caught a group of Shortly afterward, it turned out that this Nazi criminals and extradited them to so-called “Mengele” was actually an old Poland. The report also said that the Polish farmer of German descent who had noth- military delegation to Nuremberg had ing whatsoever to do with the “Angel of asked the Americans to extradite Dr. Men- Death” from Auschwitz. Dr. Josef Mengele. gele, who had supposedly been arrested Rumors about the killing or capture of Auschwitz, who had previously suffered near Berlin. Josef Mengele have filled newspapers for al- during experimentation at his hands. Four A letter sent by the Polish Central Jewish most four decades. An internal Israel Police months later, at the end of April, Dr. Otto Historical Committee in June 1947 to an in- report, part of which was recently obtained Hans Kahler, a friend from the doctor’s war ternational organization of survivors in Vi- by Haaretz, reveals the major intelligence ef- days, met him by chance. He said Men- enna reported that Mengele had been Hungarian twins Eva and Miriam Mozes, sur- fort invested by local law enforcement offi- gele “didn’t want to believe the report that extradited to Poland with the first group of vivors of Dr. Mengele’s experiments. cials in finding and capturing him. had been broadcast over the radio that day Nazi war criminals who had been active in the forged immigration papers, but had a On May 24, 1943, Mengele was sent as about Hitler’s suicide.” According to Auschwitz. In the letter, it was also claimed theory that the wife of one of his cousins a doctor to Auschwitz, where he served Kahler’s testimony, Mengele showed up that “for technical reasons” no date had had helped him. In any event, upon arrival, until he was evacuated on January 18, suddenly in the unit where he had served been set for the beginning of Mengele’s trial. Mengele received an Argentine identity 1945. He had completed his medical stud- as a medical officer during the withdrawal Later, Israeli police succeeded in locating card from the local police. Within a short ies five years earlier at Goethe University from the Sudetenland, in the uniform of an in Israel the man who was then head of the time, he began to work as the South Amer- Frankfurt. According to the report, “On officer of the Wehrmacht, the German Polish military delegation – the source of ican representative of the family busi- June 21, 1943, while riding a motorcycle army, rather than in his SS uniform. the reports about Mengele’s arrest. He told ness – the German Karl Mengele and inside the concentration camp in A few weeks later, the unit surrendered them that he had received the information Sons firm, which manufactured agricultural Auschwitz, he was injured in an accident. to the U.S. Army and was taken to a pris- about the arrest from the U.S. representa- machinery. The company, which was There were no details about the type of in- oner of war camp, where Mengele and tive attached to the International Military founded in 1871 in Gunzburg, still operates jury, but according to the records, he re- Kahler shared a room. The U.S. soldiers Tribunal in Nuremberg. Another official, under the same name. ported for his regular job four weeks after checked the POWs for tattoos, which were who provided erroneous details about Seven years later, in November 1956, the accident.” Three months later, in Sep- a trademark of the SS. Mengele was not Mengele’s fate, was also found in Israel by (Continued on page 13) Page 8 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2011 - Kislev/Tevet 5772 PRESERVING THE PAST – GUARDING TH ANNUAL TRIBUTE DINNER OF THE AMERICAN &

Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate; Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council; Senator Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Former Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland; Jeremy Halpern, Young Leadership Associates Chair; Sam Halpern, National Vice Chairman; Eli Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American & International Societies for Yad Vashem; and Rabbi Michael Zborowski, Chairman of the American & International Societies for Yad Vashem; Elizabeth Zborowski, Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland. Cultural Director.

David Halpern, Dinner Chairman, opened the Caroline Massel, Chair of the Young Leadership evening’s program and welcomed the nearly 1,000 Associates, spoke on behalf of the Young Leader- Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate; Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American & guests in attendance. ship Associates. International Societies for Yad Vashem; Barry and Marilyn Rubenstein.

Dr. Miriam Adelson and Sheldon G. Adelson anno Julius Berman, Esq., Chairman, Conference on Society for Yad Vashem Educational Programs. D Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, intro- the lessons of the Shoah to their students.” Mr. Adels Ira Drukier, Member, Board of Trustees, delivered duced Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American Barry Rubenstein, Member, Board of Governors, to ensure the continuation of its vital educational ac the response on behalf of the Pioneers. & International Societies for Yad Vashem. delivered the response on behalf of the Visionaries. the American Society for Yad Vashem in its crucial November/December 2011 - Kislev/Tevet 5772 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 9 HE FUTURE: 30 YEARS OF ACHIEVEMENT & INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES FOR YAD VASHEM

Dr. Miriam Adelson; Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American & International Societies for Yad Elizabeth Zborowski, Cultural Director; Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American & International Vashem; Sheldon G. Adelson; and Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate. Societies for Yad Vashem; Jane Wilf and Mark Wilf, Member of the Board.

Iris Lindenbaum, Young Leadership Associates, Adina Burian, Member of the Young Leader- Ira Mitzner, Dinner Chairman, introduced the pro- read greetings from the Honorable Benjamin Ne- ship Associates, reads greetings from the Hon- Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Chairman of the Yad Vashem gram guests. tanyahu, Prime Minister, State of Israel. orable Shimon Peres, President, State of Israel. Council; Israel Krakowski, Member of the Board.

ouncing their $25 million donation for the American r. Adelson said, “We look to these educators to bring Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Chairman of the Yad son added, “We are proud to partner with Yad Vashem Vashem Directorate, gave greetings and reminded Mark Moskowitz, Member of the Executive ctivities. We encourage others to join us in supporting us of the importance of remembering the name Committee, delivered closing remarks at the Harry Krakowski introduced the Guest Speaker, l work.” and story of even one survivor. end of a very memorable event. Rabbi Israel Meir Lau. Page 10 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2011 - Kislev/Tevet 5772 REPORTREPORT FROMFROM YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM

HOLOCAUST HEROINE HONORED BY ISRAEL HOLOCAUST KADDISH PREMIERES AT YAD VASHEM “She came from a family of politically ac- had come up with to let them know she By RENÉE C. LEE, tive leftists,” he said. “She had a deep had been arrested. special concert was held at the War- HOUSTON CHRONICLE sense of justice and injustice. My mother “We were well trained,” Heymann said. Asaw Ghetto Square at Yad Vashem. wanted to fight evil, and she saw evil in the “We always knew the danger.” The concert featured the Jerusalem Sym- hen the Nazis invaded the Nether- Nazis.” he Germans never arrested Hey- phony Orchestra, IBA conducted by Gil lands in 1940, Chanan Florsheim W Erika Heymann lived in Berlin and was mann or his sister, who died two Shohat, and soloists from the U.S. and was comfortably living and working at a T married to a Jewish politician before the years ago. They took care of themselves from the Israeli Vocal Ensemble Choir, nursing home south of Amsterdam. Two rise of Adolf Hitler. She fled to Amsterdam until their mother was released from the conducted by Yuval Ben-Ozer. years later, the young Jewish man’s life in 1933 when her husband was arrested concentration camp in 1944. The featured piece was “Kaddish – I Am was upended. and put in a concentration camp. Here” by Dr. Lawrence Siegel. The piece The Nazis, rooting out the Jews, de- She became a permanent resi- is a unique creation which tells the stories stroyed the nursing home, and Florsheim dent and opened a boarding of Holocaust survivors to music. The first needed somewhere to hide. He found house. part describes the social and cultural life of refuge in an unlikely place – the home of a Florsheim, who declined to be Jews in Europe before the Holocaust. The German national named Erika Heymann. interviewed, was one of three second part presents personal stories of A Jewish organization sent him to Hey- Jewish men who lived in Hey- Holocaust survivors, and the piece con- mann because she was known to secretly mann’s Amsterdam apartment. cludes by describing the resiliency of the harbor Jews. She rented rooms to them, The men used false names, dis- Holocaust survivors. fully aware that she was breaking the law guised themselves and pretended “Kaddish – I Am Here” premiered in the and putting herself and her two children at to have jobs in the city. United States three years ago and played risk. A small mistake, however, would later n September 1943, German several times there. The concert at Yad lead to her imprisonment in a concentra- authorities knocked on her tion camp. I Vashem was its Israeli premiere. Florsheim, now 88, never forgot Hey- door. They had received a tip and “I worked for 25 years to adapt testi- arrested everybody in the apart- Dieter Heymann, at the Holocaust Museum Houston, ac- monies and create songs out of them,” Dr. mann’s sacrifice. A few years ago, he nom- cepted an award in honor of his mother, Erika Heymann, inated Heymann for the Righteous Among ment, including Erika Heymann. Siegel told Arutz Sheva. “I felt that I could Florsheim made a daring escape who protected three Jewish men during the Nazi occupation do a really good job taking the words of the Nations award, which honors those of Amsterdam. who risked their lives to assist Jews during by climbing over a balcony, said survivors and turning them into vignettes the Holocaust. Yad Vashem named her as Dieter Heymann, who was then 16. She later told her children she had made about their lives before, during, and after a recipient last year. With help from friends, Florsheim quickly just one mistake in hiding the Jews. She the Holocaust.” Heymann’s son, Dieter Heymann, a re- acquired a new name and false documen- had failed to check out the young barber Siegel spoke of his tremendous pride to tired Rice University professor, accepted tation and eventually made his way to who was sent to her apartment to give a be in Israel to see his special piece pre- her medal at a ceremony held by the Holo- Palestine. Erika Heymann was sent to a haircut to one of the Jewish boarders. The miere there. Bringing “Kaddish - I Am caust Museum Houston. Israeli Consul Dutch concentration camp for nine barber betrayed them by tipping off Ger- Here” to Israel was a special project that General Meir Shlomo presented the award months. man authorities, Heymann said. was almost a year in the making. on behalf of the state of Israel. Florsheim, Dieter Heymann and his older sister, He said his mother stopped taking in “It was a tremendous team effort and I’m along with Heymann’s family and friends, Sonja, were visiting an uncle when the boarders after her release and wanted to very, very impressed with the level of pro- was also there for the special occasion. Germans arrested their mother. When they move back to Germany, but was too weak fessionalism,” he said. Dieter Heymann, 84, said his mother returned to an empty home, they noticed to do so. She died in 1952 from leukemia. Siegel added that there has been inter- probably would not have made much of the vacuum cleaner was plugged into the “She was an absolutely amazing est all over the world in his composition, in- the award if she were alive. wall. It was the secret signal their mother woman,” Heymann said. cluding in places like China. RARE SURVIVOR ATTENDS ISRAELI MEMORIAL MARKING 70 YEARS SINCE BABI YAR MASSACRE ith tears in his eyes, Michael Sidko Had the world raised its voice in protest tion camps or the forests beyond the public viet estimate, 100,000 people were mur- W laid a wreath of flowers at Israel’s at this horrendous atrocity, Lau surmised, eye. It happened where everyone could dered there. official Holocaust memorial during a what ensued afterwards might not have see it “and the world did nothing.” Sidko said he was gathered along with a solemn ceremony on October 6 marking happened, and many more Jews might Retrospectively, said Lau, when he small group of children while the adults 70 years since a World War II massacre he have survived the Holocaust. thought about it, he realized that the Babi were being slaughtered. For some inexpli- barely escaped. Yar massacre had taken place prior to the cable reason, a German guard allowed Sidko was six when he was taken with January 1942 Wannsee Conference, at him and his 13-year-old brother to break his family to the Babi Yar ravine outside which the top Nazi command had discussed off from the group, and then they fled. Kiev, Ukraine — then part of the Soviet the final solution to the Jewish problem. They returned home, but a Ukrainian Union — to be murdered along with the Babi Yar, he said, may have given Hitler neighbor reported them to the Gestapo rest of that city’s Jews. In the two-day the impetus to continue further. and they were sent to a concentration killing spree in September 1941, Nazi The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in camp. The brothers escaped that as well troops gunned down more than 33,000 June 1941 marked a turning point in the and were on the run for two more years, Jews and buried them in mounds of dirt. German plan to “solve the Jewish problem.” until the end of the war. Michael Sidko’s Among those murdered were Sidko’s t Babi Yar, the Jews were forced to brother Grisha is no longer alive. hand over valuables, strip, and line At the ceremony, Sidko rekindled the eter- mother and two of his siblings. He and his A up on the edge of the ravine. They were nal flame at Yad Vashem alongside Ukrain- older brother, Grisha, were among the few then shot with automatic fire and covered ian Minister of Culture Mykhailo Kulynyak. who managed to escape the killing fields. by dirt. The Nazis gunned down 33,771 “It was hard,” he said, in Russian. “I saw “How is it that everyone was killed and Jews over two days. my whole life before my eyes.” only we survived?” he asked, hands quiv- Similar mass murders took place Despite Israel’s troubled history with ering. “I still can’t believe what happened throughout the former Soviet Union. Ukraine, Yad Vashem is set to sign a there and how I managed to get away. I Michael Sidko, 76, left, one of the lone survivors After the war, a 1961 poem about the breakthrough agreement with the country’s thank God I am here today.” of the Babi Yar massacre, rekindles the Eternal massacre by Yevgeni Yevtushenko was national archives that it hopes will shed At 76, he is one of the only living sur- Flame during a ceremony marking 70 years set to music, and Babi Yar became a sym- more light on the massacres and help the vivors of an atrocity that has become one since the massacre, at the Hall of Remembrance bol of Nazi evil. Holocaust memorial in its project of collect- of the defining events of the Nazi genocide at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, in “At that area, the mass murder systemat- ing the names of all 6 million Jews killed in of 6 million Jews. Jerusalem. ically started, and for many years it was de- the Holocaust. The chairman of the Yad Vashem Coun- Lau was speaking at the Jerusalem The- nied,” said Avner Shalev, chairman of the Among the material in the Ukrainian cil, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, who is a former ater at the close of a day of memorial Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. “That archives is documentation from village, city Chief Rabbi of Israel and who was a child events marking the 70th anniversary of the very famous piece of poetry started a new and regional administrations, from which it Holocaust survivor, theorized that the mas- cold-blooded murder of 33,771 Jews. process and immediately it caught the minds is expected that details about the daily life sacre at Babi Yar in Kiev 70 years ago may After 70 years, said Lau, people still ask and hearts of so many people in the world.” of Jews before and after the Nazi invasion have been an experiment by Hitler to test themselves how such a mass murder Babi Yar also served as a slaughter- can be drawn. world reaction to the elimination of the could have taken place. It was not a mur- house for non-Jews, such as Gypsies and “This is a significant achievement,” Jewish people. der that was carried out in the concentra- Soviet prisoners of war. According to a So- Shalev said. November/December 2011 - Kislev/Tevet 5772 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 11 HEROIC TALE OF HOLOCAUST, WITH A TWIST “This film is an event,” said Benjamin most graphic account, never corroborated, that the occupation authorities suspected BY ELAINE SCIOLINO, Stora, France’s pre-eminent historian on was given by Albert Assouline, a North mosque personnel of delivering false Mus- THE NEW YORK TIMES North Africa and a consultant on the film. African Jew who escaped from a German lim identity papers to Jews. “The imam was “Much has been written about Muslim col- prison camp. He claimed that more than summoned, in a threatening manner, to put he stories of the Holocaust have laboration with the Nazis. But it has not 1,700 resistance fighters — including Jews an end to all such practices,” the document been documented, distorted, clari- T been widely known that Muslims helped but also a lesser number of Muslims and said. fied and filtered through memory. Yet new Jews. There are still stories to be told, to Christians — found refuge in the mosque’s Mr. Satloff said in a telephone interview: stories keep coming, occasionally altering be written.” underground caverns, and that the rector “One has to separate the myth from the the grand, incomplete mosaic of Holocaust he film, directed by Ismaël Ferroukhi, provided many Jews with certificates of fact. The number of Jews protected by the history. Tis described as fiction inspired by Muslim identity. mosque was probably in the dozens, not One of them, dramatized in a French film real events and built around the stories of n his 2006 book, Among the Righteous, the hundreds. But it is a story that carries recently released in France, focuses on an two real-life figures (along with a made-up IRobert Satloff, director of the Washing- a powerful political message and deserves unlikely savior of Jews during the Nazi oc- black marketeer). The veteran French ton Institute for Near East Policy, uncov- to be told.” cupation of France: the rector of a Paris actor Michael Lonsdale plays Benghabrit, ered stories of Arabs who saved Jews In doing research for the film, Mr. Fer- mosque. an Algerian-born religious leader and a during the Holocaust, and included a chap- roukhi and even Mr. Stora learned new sto- Muslims, it seems, rescued Jews from clever political maneuverer ries. At one screening a woman asked him the Nazis. who gave tours of the mosque why the film did not mention the Ashkenazi Les Hommes Libres (Free Men) is a tale to German officers and their Jews of Eastern European origin who had of courage not found in French textbooks. wives even as he apparently been saved by the mosque. Mr. Stora said According to the story, Si Kaddour Beng- used it to help Jews. he explained that the mosque didn’t inter- habrit, the founder and rector of the Grand Mahmoud Shalaby, a Pales- vene on behalf of Ashkenazi Jews, who did Mosque of Paris, provided refuge and cer- tinian actor living in Israel, not speak Arabic or know Arab culture. tificates of Muslim identity to a small num- plays Salim — originally Simon “She told me: ‘That’s not true. My mother ber of Jews to allow them to evade arrest — Hilali, who was Paris’s most was protected and saved by a certificate and deportation. popular Arabic-language from the mosque,’ ” Mr. Stora said. It was simpler than it sounds. In the early singer, a Jew who survived the Reviews were mixed on the film, which 1940s France was home to a large popula- Holocaust by posing as a Mus- In Les Hommes Libres (Free Men), a new wartime French film is to be released in the Netherlands, tion of North Africans, including thousands lim. (To make the assumed based on true stories, Tahar Rahim, seated, is a black-market Switzerland, and Belgium. (American of Sephardic Jews. The Jews spoke Arabic identity credible, Benghabrit operator and Michael Lonsdale portrays the rector of the rights have been sold as well.) The daily and shared many of the same traditions and had the name of Hilali’s grand- Grand Mosque of Paris. Le Figaro said it “reconstitutes an atmos- everyday habits as the Arabs. Neither Mus- father engraved on a tombstone in the Mus- ter on the Grand Mosque. Dalil Boubakeur, phere and a period marvelously.” The lims nor Jews ate pork. Both Muslim and lim cemetery in the Paris suburb of Bobigny, the current rector, confirmed to him that weekly L’Express called it “ideal for a Jewish men were circumcised. Muslim and according to French obituaries about the some Jews — up to 100 perhaps — were school outing, less for an evening at the Jewish names were often similar. singer. In one tense scene in the film a Ger- given Muslim identity papers by the movies.” The mosque, a tiled, walled fortress the man soldier intent on proving that Hilali is a mosque, without specifying a number. Mr. Mr. Ferroukhi does not care. He said he size of a city block on the Left Bank, Jew, takes him to the cemetery to identify it.) Boubakeur said individual Muslims brought was lobbying the Culture and Education served as a place to pray, certainly, but The historical record remains incom- Jews they knew to the mosque for help, Ministries to get the film shown in schools. also as an oasis of calm where visitors plete, because documentation is sketchy. and the chief imam, not Benghabrit, was “It pays homage to the people of our his- were fed and clothed and could bathe, and Help was provided to Jews on an ad hoc the man responsible. tory who have been invisible,” he said. “It where they could talk freely and rest in the basis and was not part of any organized Mr. Boubakeur showed Mr. Satloff a copy shows another reality, that Muslims and garden. movement by the mosque. The number of of a typewritten 1940 Foreign Ministry doc- Jews existed in peace. We have to re- It was possible for a Jew to pass. Jews who benefited is not known. The ument from the French Archives. It stated member that — with pride.” RECIPES RECALL DARKER DAYS death, hunger, and deprivation. But the others. The stories, which are organized by In 2007, Joanne Caras compiled and BY DEVRA FERST, FORWARD women caught in these horrors often dis- geographical regions across Europe, are self-published the Holocaust Survivor cussed food, reciting and recording often both remarkable and heartbreaking, Cookbook: Collected from Around the A crop of books link the Holocaust ranging from recollections of members of World. The book contains the stories and with culinary memories recipes. The experience of starvation in the Bielski partisans in Poland to recipes recipes of 129 survivors, but doesn’t con- ecile Rojer Jeruchim remembers the camps and ghettos fortified these culinary representing the refined Jewish cuisines of nect the two well. It encourages readers to last meal she shared with her memories, and the discussions took on C France and Germany. Collectively, the sto- prepare the recipes and share the stories mother. It was a typical Belgian lunch of profound meaning as psychological suste- ries and recipes help the reader peer into of the survivors with their families. The steak, mashed potatoes and Belgian en- nance and as a connection to a Jewish, the kitchen of a generation of recipes, though, are true to dives. “I hated Belgian endives!” she re- and even human, identity. European Jews and remem- the way Caras received calls. It was 1943, she was 12. his book, the third published in the ber their tales through the them — sometimes calling When a non-Jewish friend stopped by TUnited States to link recipes to stories dishes that sustained them. for a bissel of salt, or miss- during the lunch and offered Cecile the op- of the Holocaust, represents an important he clearest example of ing a step in the instruc- portunity to accompany her to voice les- evolution in the genre. While the first two recipes acting as psy- tions. She decided to sons, Cecile jumped at books preserve the recipes of survivors and T chological sustenance is maintain their integrity as the chance. “Not before seen in the first, and ar- artifacts, even though it you finish your endives, guably most powerful, book sometimes makes the or I will save them for of this genre, In Memory’s dishes difficult to re-create. you for dinner,” her Kitchen: A Legacy from the ach book reveals the mother said. Choosing Women of Terezin, originally Epower of food to re- to put off the disliked published in 1996. A Holo- call history, both personal dish for later, Cecile left caust artifact, it is a collec- and collective, and the im- with her friend. While tion of recipes written on portance that food plays in she was gone, her par- scraps of paper by women in sustaining traditions, even, ents were arrested and the Czechoslovakian camp and perhaps especially, sent to Auschwitz, Theresienstadt, exactly as they were first during tragedy. “One of the things that kept where they ultimately composed. me going during the war were memories of perished. Cecile and her 1940s-era photos of contributors Cecile Rojer Jeruchim with her sib- Cara de Silva, editor of In Memory’s my family, and so many of those revolved sister, Anny, survived lings on right, and Luna Kaufman with her mother on the left. Kitchen, explains in the introduction, “Peo- around family gatherings and food,” ex- the war by hiding in a Catholic convent. those who perished exactly as they were ple who were… starving not only remi- plains Florence Tabrys in her entry in “Today I often eat Belgian endives, as written by the original cooks, Recipes Re- nisced about favorite foods but also had Recipes Remembered. Another contribu- their subtle flavor brings me closer to my membered is the first to provide readers discussions, even arguments, about the tor, Judita Hruza, recalls grenadier march mother…,” she writes in Recipes Remem- with tested (and, if necessary, slightly al- correct way to prepare dishes they might — a dish of potatoes, pasta and fried bered: A Celebration of Survival, a new tered) recipes that can easily be re-created never be able to eat again.” onions fed to her by a cook of a household cookbook written and assembled by June at home, allowing the tastes of these dishes As Michael Berenbaum, a Holocaust she was ordered to clean. “Although this is Feiss Hersh in association with the Mu- to serve as reminders of the lives of the scholar and Jewish studies professor at a dish I associate with a terrible part of my seum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Me- women and men who created them. the American Jewish University, puts it, life, I continued to make it after the war, be- morial to the Holocaust. The tome comprises a collection of about discussing food “brought them back to a cause I have such strong memory of en- It may seem strange or even perverse to 80 survivors’ stories and their personal or place where they had food, family, a table, joying it that day,” she writes. link food and recipes with stories of the family recipes. Jeruchim’s entry includes a children. It was an important psychological Many of the book’s entries are propelled Holocaust, a time when there was such recipe for Belgian endives along with two act of resistance.” (Continued on page 12) Page 12 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2011 - Kislev/Tevet 5772 MEMORIES OF THE HOLOCAUST: BEN HELFGOTT murdered. Then the Nazis offered illegals have the swollen eyes and deep sockets would be welcome, but we were racially BY STUART JEFFRIES, THE GUARDIAN like Ben’s mother asylum. It was a ruse, that come from starvation.” Ben was finally abused and almost murdered by two Pol- but she and Lusia came out of hiding and liberated in Theresienstadt in Czechoslo- ish army officers.” However, there was ne morning, four days before Christ- were held in the synagogue. It was hardly vakia in May 1945. He then learned that good news. Ben’s sister Mala, and an- mas in 1942, Nazi soldiers went to O a place of sanctuary: for amusement, his father had been shot a few days earlier other cousin, had managed to survive. the synagogue in the Polish town of Pi- guards would shoot in through the win- as he tried to escape from a death march Later, Ben became one of “the Boys”, the otrków, where 560 Jews were crammed, dows, killing and wounding people. young concentration camp survivors who and demanded that 50 strong men Ben’s father managed to get a permit for were brought to Britain. Mala was taken accompany them to the woods. The men the release of his wife, but could not organ- to Sweden and the siblings were only re- were told to dig five pits and then shot. In ise one for Lusia. He begged his wife to united in London in 1947. one week in October, 22,000 Jews (out of come home, but she refused. She wrote to It was here that Ben built a new life. He a population of 25,000) had been sent from her husband: “You look after the two chil- learned English, went to university to study Piotrków to the Treblinka gas chambers, dren and I will have to look after the economics, and married, and he has a so the men were under no illusions what youngest one.” family of three sons, their wives, and nine they were digging. Nearly two years later, with the Russian grand children. Today he is a retired cloth- The following morning, the SS took the army advancing across Poland, Ben and ing manufacturer. rest of the people in the synagogue in his father, along with 300 other Jewish All that, though, misses an unexpected groups of 100 to the woods. They were told men, were taken from Piotrków to chapter in Ben’s story. On a summer’s day to undress next to the pits and then they Ben Helfgott, Holocaust survivor. Buchenwald concentration camp. It was in 1948, the 18-year-old went swimming at were shot. Among the victims was Ben the first of three concentration camps in that was headed to Theresien stadt. “I was Hampstead Heath ponds in London. He Helfgott’s 37-year-old mother and his which Ben was held during the war. Ben suddenly an orphan. I had heard that my came across some weightlifters doing ex- eight-year-old sister, Lusia. was 14 when he saw his father for the last mother and little sister were killed two-and- ercises. He asked whether he could try to Twelve-year-old Ben was working in a time, before he was transferred from a-half years before when I was still with my lift some of the weights. One man said that glass factory outside the ghetto and so re- Buchenwald to Schlieben concentration father and my sister Mala. We were able he thought the weights would be too heavy garded as “legitimate” by the Nazis. His 11- camp, where hand-held anti-tank to comfort each other. When I heard what for Ben, but he lifted 180 pounds with ease. year-old sister, Mala, somehow escaped weapons were produced. happened to my father, I was alone. There- He went on to become the only known sur- the roundup and his father had a permit to hat does Ben remember of those sienstadt was where I did all my crying. I vivor of Nazi concentration camps to live in the Piotrków ghetto. But his mother camps? “We didn’t have any mir- cried for 24 hours.” compete in two Olympic games, captaining and Lusia were seen as illegals and so W rors,” he says. “So you thought it was the After liberation, Ben returned to Britain’s Olympic weight lifting team at Mel- went into hiding, fearing that they would be others who looked terrible, that you didn’t Piotrków with a cousin. “We thought we bourne in 1956 and Rome in 1960. SEVEN DECADES AFTER HITLER’S FALL, GERMAN RECIPES RECALL GRANDCHILDREN OF NAZIS DELVE INTO FAMILY PAST DARKER DAYS (Continued from page 11) (Continued from page 5) lexandra Senfft is the granddaughter “If I had continued to remain oblivious by a feeling of kinship with family that didn’t eating me up from inside.” A of Hanns Elard Ludin, Hitler’s Slova- and silent about my grandfather’s crimes, survive. “If you make the same things your Her grandfather, Wilhelm Boger, in- kia envoy who was involved in the depor- I would have become complicit myself, mother made, you feel less alone,” Reni vented the so-called Boger swing at tation of almost 70,000 Jews. After Ludin perhaps without even being aware of it.” Hanau writes in her entry. As Hersh ex- Auschwitz — an iron bar that hung on was hanged in 1947, his widow raised the Senfft said she also wrote the book so plains, “Food is a connection to their par- chains from the ceiling. Boger would force children in the belief their father was “a her children could be free of guilt and ents.” naked inmates to bend over the bar and good Nazi.” shame, and that confronting family pasts These recipes, however, are more than ar- beat their genitals until they fainted or died. In her book, The Pain of Silence, Senfft is essential for the health of German so- tifacts. They were written down to be carried Boger, 41, said it took her several years describes how a web of lies burdened her ciety as a whole so that history does not forward. “It’s both helping the women who of therapy and group seminars to begin to family over decades, especially her repeat itself. come to terms with the fact her grandfather mother, who was 14 years old when her These days Rainer Hoess lectures was a monster. beloved father was hanged. schoolchildren about the Nazi era and “I felt guilty, even though I hadn’t commit- anti-Semitism. A few months ago, he vis- ted a crime myself, felt like I had to do only ited Auschwitz for the first time and met a good things at all times to make up for his group of Israeli students. evil,” she said. That day was “probably the most difficult Like Hoess, Boger never personally met and intense day in my life,” Hoess said, her grandfather, who died in prison in but it was also liberating because he re- 1977. After her father died five years ago, alized that the third generation of Jews she found old letters from her grandfather after the Holocaust did not hold him re- begging to see his grandchildren in prison sponsible. One Israeli girl even gave him — something that never happened. a little shell with a blue Star of David “It all just doesn’t go together,” Boger painted on it, which he now wears around his neck on a black leather necklace at all said. “He is the man who killed a little boy times. with an apple who came in on a transport Hoess was embroiled in controversy in to Auschwitz, by smashing his head 2009 when Israeli media reported he tried against a wall until he was dead, and then to sell some of his grandfather’s posses- picked up and ate that apple. sions to Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holo- “At the same time, he put a picture of my- caust Memorial. self as a little girl over his bed in prison. contributed [to the book] show the food that Email correspondence seen by the AP How am I supposed to come to terms with sustained them… and that now has carried backs up Hoess’ assertion that he would this?” their memories and traditions into the fu- have been just as willing to donate the ture,” says de Silva. With tested recipes, anja Hetzer, a therapist in Berlin, items. Hoess eventually donated every- these dishes can easily be prepared at T helps clients dealing with issues re- thing he owned from his grandfather — in- lated to their family’s Nazi past. While home and can even “inspire us to create our cluding a trunk, letters and a cigar cutter own traditions,” says de Silva. there are no studies or statistics, she — to the Institute of Contemporary History said, many cases indicate that descen- While not all the stories in Recipes Re- in Munich. membered are directly tied to food, Hersh dants of families who have never dealt Hoess acknowledges that his grandfa- with their Nazi family history suffer more strives to make the link between survivor This 1936 photo provided by Alexandra Senfft ther will probably never stop haunting him. and recipe clear and relevant by introducing from depression, burnout, and addiction, shows her grandfather Hanns Elard Ludin, left, After his visit to Auschwitz, he met Jozef each dish. When only a memory of a food in particular alcoholism. and Hermann Goering, right, standing in front Paczynski, a Polish camp survivor and the could be recalled, or when a survivor did not In one prominent case, Bettina Goering, of Adolf Hitler during a Nazi party convention former barber of Commandant Hoess. cook, Hersh asked professional chefs to the grandniece of Hermann Goering, one in Nuremberg, Germany. Ludin, was Hitler’s “Somehow, subconsciously, I was hop- contribute a recipe in the same spirit. of the country’s leading Nazis and the Slovakia envoy who was involved in the depor- ing that maybe he would tell me one pos- Although the chief purpose of these books tation of almost 70,000 Jews. head of the Luftwaffe air force, said in an itive story about my grandfather, is to help us remember the stories and Israeli TV documentary that she decided to “It was unbearable at times to work on something that shows that he wasn’t all recipes of these women and men, they also be sterilized at age 30 “because I was this book, it brought up fears and pain, but evil after all, that there was some good- serve another, equally important, purpose: afraid to bear another such monster.” at the same time I got a lot out of writing it ness in him,” Hoess confided. They ensure a connection to a Jewish culi- Some grandchildren of Nazis find a all down,” Senfft, a lively 49-year-old, ex- Paczynski asked Hoess to get up and nary legacy far older than the recipes them- measure of catharsis in confronting the plained during an interview at a Berlin cof- walk across the room — then told him: selves, helping us carry forward the long past. fee shop. “You look exactly like your grandfather.” and rich traditions of Jewish food. November/December 2011 - Kislev/Tevet 5772 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 13 UNRAVELING THE MENGELE MYSTERY (Continued from page 7) went to live on their farm, which he began gone to bed, her husband and Mengele The papers she presented to the author- Mengele showed up at the German em- to manage. The police report said: “Peter stayed up and talked. At about 2 A.M., she ities were forged and bore the name of bassy in Buenos Aires and presented his refused to receive any payment for his was awakened by shouts coming from the Wolfgang Gerhard, the man who had first original birth certificate. The embassy con- work and even insisted that he would pay living room. Her husband and Mengele introduced her to Mengele. The doctor on firmed the authenticity of the document, and them for his board and the services he re- were having a loud argument, and it was duty did not examine the body, did not pho- based on it, Mengele received a new Argen- ceived. He was a very introverted person, not clear why. tograph it and did not take fingerprints. tine identity card, this time bearing his real received no visitors and adamantly refused In spite of that, the family continued with Bossert asked to have the body cremated, name: Josef Mengele; date of birth: March to be photographed. The only people who its original plan, and the next day went on but was told that would be possible only 16, 1911; place of birth: Gunzburg. visited him were the Gerhards, who on a morning hike to the forests and along the with the permission of close relatives. Years later, when the German ambassa- those occasions would bring him German beach, in the company of Mengele. In the The morgue official asked Bossert to dor in Argentina was asked for an explana- newspapers and books.” afternoon, they returned home and later identify the body in the coffin, but she re- tion, he said: “I received instructions from wo years later, in 1963, Gitta Stam- went for a swim in the sea. fused, saying that she could identify the the Foreign Ministry in Bonn not to pay any Tmer happened to come across a t about 5:30 P.M., the sea suddenly coffin and she was in a rush to get to the attention to the issue, since there was no photograph of Josef Mengele in a local Abecame stormy. Bossert got out of funeral, which was being held in the ceme- legal arrest order against Dr. Josef Men- newspaper. She became suspicious be- the water with her children. From a dis- tery in Embu, about 30 kilometers from gele at the time, and the German delega- Sāo Paulo. cause of his surprising resemblance to her tance, she saw Mengele calling for help. tion didn’t request his extradition from “Swiss” farm manager. “That evening, At the cemetery, Bossert was once again Her husband quickly swam in his direction, Argentina.” Peter confirmed in a conversation with asked to identify the body. Fearing that the in an attempt to rescue him. After consid- he Israeli police report also provides them that he really was Josef Mengele and cemetery director would notice that the erable effort, he managed to pull Mengele a glimpse into the life of Mengele’s showed them papers with his real name. dead man was not the same man as the T out of the water, but almost drowned him- family. His wife, Irene, refused to join her At the time, he told them a little about his man whose name appeared in his papers, husband in South America. In 1954, she di- past and his connections with leading she pretended to have an anxiety and vorced him; about half a year later, she re- Nazis in South America,” according to the fainting attack in order to distract them. Ul- married. Four years after his divorce, report. timately, the coffin was interred in a double Mengele married Martha Maria Mengele, In wake of this discovery, Stammer plot, where the mother of the real Wolf- his younger brother Karl’s widow. wanted to dismiss Mengele. But a short gang Gerhard was also buried. Aside from According to the police report, Mengele, time later, a man who introduced himself as the director of the cemetery and the who became infamous for his experiments the “manager of the Mengele company” – gravedigger, nobody was present. Bossert on twins during the war, had two twin the German-based family business – later decided not to publicize the fact that nephews. Their father was Mengele’s showed up at the farm. He gave the Stam- Mengele had died, letting his family know other brother, Alois. The twins were born mers $3,000 – “to cover his living ex- in a letter under the heading “The last day.” on May 12, 1945 – just four days after Nazi penses,” he said, adding that it would be Immediately after, Mengele’s son Rolf ar- Germany surrendered unconditionally. very hard to find another safe haven for him. rived in Brazil once again. Mengele’s Dr. Mengele's home in Hohenau, Itapua, The report includes considerable detail Another woman who helped Mengele to friends gave Rolf the journals his father Paraguay. Photo taken August 2007. about the people who helped Mengele hide was Liselotte Bossert, a native of Aus- had left behind in his house. hide and escape. One of them was Gitta tria. In a conversation with Israeli police, self. Bossert’s husband was evacuated by Many years after the report about Men- Stammer, known as “Gi” for short. A native Bossert said that in 1977 she met Rolf ambulance, and Bossert remained on the gele’s drowning, the media were still carry- of Hungary, she immigrated to Brazil in Mengele, Dr. Mengele’s son, in Brazil. Rolf beach next to Mengele’s body. She cov- ing reports about sightings of the notorious 1948 with her husband, who was seeking arrived in Brazil with a passport he had ered the body with her robe and called for doctor in various places around the world. work there as an engineer. A decade later, stolen from his friend. Bossert’s husband help. At 11 P.M., an ambulance arrived and The Israeli government even offered a mon- the two purchased a farm with tropical fruit drove him to his father’s house on the took Mengele to the morgue. etary prize of $1 million for his capture. trees, coffee and rice plantations, and a farm. Rolf then gave his father $5,000 and Because of a problem with her car, In 1985, Mengele’s body was exhumed. small herd of cows. spent a week with him. Bossert was forced to hitch a ride with the With the help of the U.S. consul in Sāo During their leisure hours, the two would Bossert also told police about the circum- ambulance that was carrying Mengele. On Paulo, his dentist was found, and he was spend time at a club for Hungarians and stances surrounding Mengele’s death in the way to the morgue, she asked the able to provide authorities with X-rays of people from German-speaking countries. 1979. As they did every year, she and her driver to stop near her house so that she Mengele’s teeth. These were compared to There they also met the Gerhards from family spent their vacation at the Bertioga could change clothes. A heavy thunder- the remains of his body, which was then Austria. The Austrian couple suggested beach in Brazil. A day earlier, Josef Men- storm began shortly thereafter, causing a identified “with complete certainty” as be- that they employ on their farm a Swiss gele had arrived at their home, planning to tree to fall on the road. The ambulance longing to Mengele. In 1992, a genetic test man named Peter Hochbichler. The Stam- stay with them for a few days. Late in the was delayed once again. His body arrived was conducted, confirming his death con- mers agreed happily, and Hochbichler evening, after she and the children had at the morgue only at 2 A.M. clusively. DIARIES REVEAL HOW MUCH WARTIME GERMANS KNEW (Continued from page 5) Until now, the discussion over German sult, the deliberate killing was brought to themselves warned the population ‘friend.’ Russia, of all countries. The Na- guilt has fluctuated within the broad space light,” he wrote. against the revenge of the perpetrators. tional Socialists owe their existence en- between two positions. The one side em- For most Germans, the only conceivable UNDER NAZI WATCH tirely to the fight against Bolshevism phasizes the deliberate disinformation of end of the war was victory — or total an- (World Enemy No. 1, Anti-Comintern Pact). Nazi propaganda and the notion that ordi- y reading Kellner’s diaries and rec- nihilation. Where have you disappeared to, you war- nary citizens lived in fear and terror, con- Bognizing what Germans could have Kellner lived until 1970. Despite having riors against Asian disgrace?” cluding that they couldn’t have known known, it’s tempting to rethink how the ex- been under surveillance by the party and better. The other side takes the opposite pression “We knew nothing about those questioned several times, he escaped the CLIPPINGS AS EVIDENCE position, namely that most were aware of things!” came into being. According to Kell- concentration camps. In a denunciation ess than two years later, the warriors what was happening. ner, people simply ignored written in 1940, a Nazi official named Lhad returned, supposedly to preempt Kellner’s writings offer a the information available to Engst wrote: “If we want to apprehend an attack by the Soviet Union. On June 22, glimpse into what every- them out of both laziness people like Kellner, we will have to lure 1941, Kellner wrote in his diary: “Once one could have known and enthusiasm for Ger- them out of their corners and allow them again, a country has become a victim of about the war of extermi- man war victories. When to make themselves guilty. The time is not the non-aggression pact with Germany. No nation in the East, the this denial of reality no ripe for an approach like the one that was matter how our actions are justified, the crimes against the Jews longer worked, when too used with the Jews. This can only happen truth will be found solely in the economy. and the acts of terror much had been revealed after the war.” Natural resources are the trump card. And committed by the Nazi about what the Nazis were In the epilogue, the author’s grandson if you are not compliant, I am prepared to Party. He wrote about the doing in Germany’s name, describes how the publication of Kellner’s use violence.” But hardly anyone saw executions of “vermin” there was no turning back diaries came about. German publishers things the way he did. The women, over who made “defeatist” re- for the majority of Ger- were not interested at first. But then the tea, liked to refer to the Germans “taking” marks, and about “racial mans. “‘I did that,’ says my diaries attracted attention when, in April a city, a region, or even an entire country. hygiene.” In July 1941 he memory,” Nietzsche wrote. 2005, Spiegel reported that former US Kellner was horrified, by both the gullibility wrote: “The mental hospi- “‘I could not have done President George Bush had looked at and barbarism of the people around him. tals have become murder that,’ says my pride, and Kellner’s original notebooks in the George Using military news, obituaries of those centers.” A family that had Scans of the original 10-volume di- remains inexorable. Even- Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M who died (“for Germany’s greatness and brought its son home from aries show clippings and observa- tually, the memory yields.” University. freedom”), caricatures, newspaper arti- an institution later inad- tions made by the court official. Kellner himself wrote that Now that they have finally been pub- cles, and conversations with ordinary peo- vertently received a notice that the child “this pathetic German nation” had been lished, the volumes are likely to find a ple, Kellner fashioned an image of Nazi had died and that his ashes would soon be held hostage by the perpetrators. “Every- place next to the Klemperer diaries in Germany that has never existed before in delivered. “The office had forgotten to re- one is convinced that we must triumph so German libraries and on private book- such a vivid, concise and challenging form. move the name from the death list. As a re- that we are not completely lost.” The Nazis shelves too. Page 14 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2011 - Kislev/Tevet 5772 ELUSIVE JUSTICE: THE SEARCH FOR NAZI WAR CRIMINALS he American Society for Yad Vashem hosted the World Premiere Screening of Elu- mund A. Rolat, in attendance at the event were Executive Producers Nancy Spielberg, Tsive Justice: The Search for Nazi War Criminals on September 20, 2011 at the pres- Jack Kliger, and Leon Constantiner, Event Sponsors Sharon and David Halpern, Mark tigious Directors Guild Theater in New York City. The special evening, which included a Moskowitz, Alan Pines, and Young Leadership Chairs Nicole and Joseph Meyer. VIP reception, selected film highlights, a panel discussion, and the Yad Vashem archival Stephen Segaller, Vice President of Programming, PBS-WNET 13, was one of the exhibit “Marking 50 Years Since the Eichmann Trial,” was made possible by the generosity guest speakers. of the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Sigmund A. Rolat. The audience was treated to an in-depth and intriguing panel discussion after the film, Elusive Justice: The Search for Nazi War Criminals is a landmark PBS documentary featuring Elizabeth Holtzman, former U.S. Congresswoman and Chair of the House Im- about the global effort to identify, prosecute, and punish the 20th Century's most notorious migration Subcommittee; Howard Safir, former Associate Director of the U.S. Marshals killers. The film was produced and directed by Emmy-award winning journalist Jonathan Service, Commissioner of the New York Police Department, and Commissioner of the New Silvers and narrated by Candice Bergen, and features well-known Nazi-hunters Rudolph York Fire Department; Allan A. Ryan, former Director of the Office of Special Investigations Giuliani, Elizabeth Holtzman, Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, Allan A. Ryan, Howard Safir, and (OSI) in the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice; and David G. Marwell, Eli Rosenbaum. In addition to Event Underwriters Leonard and Emily Blavatnik, and Sig- an investigative historian who served at the U.S. Justice Department’s OSI.

Elizabeth Zborowski, ASYV Cultural Director; Charles Kushner, Sharon Halpern, Producer/director Jonathan Silvers, executive producer Nancy Spielberg, Abbi Halpern, and Young Leadership Event Chair Nicole Meyer. Nancy Spielberg, executive producer. and actor Peter Riegert.

David Halpern; Mark Moskowitz; Stephanie Risa Stein; Leonard Blavatnik; Nancy Spielberg; Alan Pines; and S. Isaac Mekel, ASYV Director of Development. David G. Marwell, Allan A. Ryan, Elizabeth Holtzman, Howard Safir, and Jonathan Silvers. DOVE ON A BARBED WIRE (Continued from page 4) foraging in human waste looking for gold to that a newly arrived Jeep was donated by the forthcoming war, and when leaving for with SS officers. Transferred to Germany’s get food, Yonah’s survival instinct was ever a Solomon Steiner of New Jersey. It was kibbutz Ginosar in 1951, he put into practice Flossenburg for nine months, he tried to alert. With the Germans losing, their plot to Yonah’s uncle! Subsequently Solomon the skills gained as a slave laborer for the sabotage the planes he worked on so that blow up the camp was thwarted by inmates sent him a ticket to join him, which Yonah Germans whom he both hated and admired. they would explode in the air. with electrical skills. Though many lives didn’t use, creating a long estrangement n September 1999, on the 60th an- He even hit back his kapo-like blockmas- were saved, many were lost in the ensuing which lasted till Solomon and Rose Steiner Iniversary of WW II, the author’s uncle, ter, gaining his respect. He witnessed the flight toward the electrified fences. Others, made aliyah in 1973. David Steiner, took 21 family members on arrival of well-groomed Czech, Hungarian, including Yonah, rushed to dig for potatoes. Yonah’s focus became finding his brother an emotional roots journey to Gromnik, German, and French women who became I’ll always recall my visit to Mauthausen with Paul, who, unbeknown to him, was also in where Yonah was finally able to cry, admit- prey to the wild soldiers and were tortured my wife Jennifer on a July 2002 day, and Mauthausen. Following arduous efforts, a ting to years of psychological detachment to death in horrific ways when deemed the contrast between the pastoral environ- book in itself, the two were reunited in that also had protected him. David Steiner, useless. There he learned from a German ment and what transpired at the camp. Czechoslovakia’s Bratislava, where ambi- who has become the family’s generous pa- prisoner and friend never to drink unboiled ollowing liberation by American tious Paul was operating a textile factory. tron, owns New York’s Steiner’s Studios water and to eat every morsel of the mea- Ftroops on May 5, 1945, Yonah Paul reluctantly joined irresistible Yonah, and Steiner Equities, and is an AIPAC past ger food. It would safe his life. Unbeknown shared the revenge he and other freed in- but ended up to the family’s chagrin with a chairman. The author fulfilled her pledge to to Yonah, his brother Willi died in Flossen- mates exacted on captured SS on a bridge French Catholic wife in France. In Ham- Grandpa Solomon: she found Yonah. burg in 1944. in nearby Linz with bayonets supplied by burg, Germany, Yonah met Rivkah, a Yonah died of cancer on May 26, 2009, The next torturous station was Austria’s the black American soldiers. In the same Ukrainian family’s sole survivor, and like five days after his family gathered to cele- Mauthausen, where he was assigned to its town in 1946, my family and I spent 6 many survivors quickly married. Yonah fol- brate his 83rd birthday, and is buried in his largest camp with 200,000 inmates. Yonah weeks in a refugee facility upon our es- lowed Rivkah to kibbutz Ein Gev, but was beloved kibbutz where Deborah first met learned for the first time that the Jews were cape from Poland via Czechoslovakia. A caught by the British. He was interred in him in 1969. The dove in the book’s title targeted to die and not only to work. He period of reckless conduct, which Yonah Cyprus not before daring sea missions of stands for the Hebrew, Yonah. was toiling on the quarry’s infamous was not proud of, ensued, expressing the bringing refugees to Palestine. He finally “Stairs of Death” when told of brother survivors’ outrage and pain. In Rome, made it to Ein Gev with seven buddies in Rabbi Dr. Israel Zoberman, spiritual Rudi’s presence, and resourcefully risked Italy, with Yonah working for the Americans January 1947, escaping by boat from leader of Congregation Beth Chaverim in his life only to find him already dead. Even as a truck driver, an officer informed him Cyprus. Yonah helped protect the kibbutz for Virginia Beach, Virginia. November/December 2011 - Kislev/Tevet 5772 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 15

ANNUAL TRIBUTE DINNER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: “WE COMMEND THE MEMBERS OF THE AMERICAN (Continued from page 1) & INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES” of public discourse, making it his life’s mis- sion to build a connection between the t gives me great pleasure to send warm greetings to the American & International So- events of the past and the hope of the future. Icieties for Yad Vashem on the occasion of the Annual Tribute Dinner. Eli’s unwavering passion towards this end This year, the American & International Societies for Yad Vashem mark their 30th an- energized him in his founding of the Ameri- niversary, and this year's dinner is a celebration of those remarkable individuals who can Society thirty years ago and has nur- helped establish Yad Vashem Jerusalem and the American & International Societies. tured his unceasing efforts to this day. These efforts have always reflected his faithfulness Their achievements and dedication to ensuring that the horrors of the Holocaust are re- to Yad Vashem’s needs and priorities, above membered and can never again occur are highly deserving of this recognition. all others. Eli’s pioneering vision and inspir- Yad Vashem is the leading Holocaust educational institution, and serves as a repository ing leadership have generated extensive for valuable eyewitness testimony of those who survived the Holocaust, information re- and innovative commemorative activities – garding European Jewry before its almost total eradication and invaluable docurnents such as the Society’s signature project, the Valley of the Communities at Yad Vashem – relating to World War Two. and have stimulated younger generations to We commend the members of the American & International Societies for their support find meaning in everlasting Holocaust re- in ensuring the future of Yad Vashem, and thank you for your commitment. membrance. “Eli’s perceptive insight regarding the powerful link between Holocaust remem- SHIMON PERES: “WE SHALL CONTINUE TO REMEMBER THE PAST” brance and Jewish continuity has served n the occasion of the Annual Tribute Dinner of the American & International Soci- as the essential foundation for the Ameri- Oeties for Yad Vashem, I want to warmly greet the distinguished participants of this can Society’s myriad achievements. Eli event and congratulate you on your 30th anniversary celebration – 30 years of great was instrumental in tying the permanent achievements. bond between the American Society and Yad Vashem. That bond has helped yield The years that have elapsed since the dark era of the Holocaust are many, but its memory the fruition of the Yad Vashem 2001 Mas- is still vivid, and the voices and faces of its victims still haunt us, more meaningful yet at terplan, including the completion of our the sound of today's strident calls for our annihilation and the tangible threats to our very new Museum Complex, the significant ex- existence. We cannot let our guard down, we cannot falter in our determination to prevail, pansion of Holocaust education worldwide, nor can we allow the distinctness of our past experiences to fade into the shadows of our and the effective integration of cutting edge memories. technologies in the pursuit of Holocaust "Preserving the Past – Guarding the future" encapsulates this essential need and must commemoration, education, documenta- tion and research. These achievements re- be upheld and I want to thank all those whose significant contribution to Yad Vashem's flect Eli Zborowski’s paramount dedication vital mission has been unflagging. And as we stand together as one, we shall continue to to and identification with Yad Vashem. remember the past, never to forget, and these memories will inspire us to build a secure, “I know that Eli’s matchless achieve- hopeful and thriving future for the generations to come. ments, his keen wisdom, and steadfast solidarity with Yad Vashem constitute an enduring legacy of leadership and loyalty BRONISŁAW KOMOROWSKI: “THE HOLOCAUST IS THE MOST IMPORTANT that will set the standard for all who steer LESSON WE MAY TAKE FROM THE HISTORY OF MANKIND” the American Society in the decades to come. He, and we, have the satisfaction of am happy that as the President of the Republic of Poland I may greet you and all those gathered. seeing how a younger generation is as- Ifor the 30th Annual Tribute Dinner of the American & International Societies for Yad Vashem. suming the continued responsibility of re- The Holocaust is the most important lesson we may take from the history of mankind. membrance through loyal support of Yad We must make an eternal commitment to confronting intolerance and hateful ideologies. Vashem. Yad Vashem is the institution of record for transmitting the lessons of the Holocaust world- “I wish Eli Zborowski, the American Soci- wide. Poland is grateful for its continuous cooperation with many Polish partners, including ety, and Yad Vashem much hatzlacha, suc- the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau and other Polish museums. cess, as we continue together to pursue our destiny of meaningful remembrance.” I want to specifically express the gratitude of Poland for the efforts of Yad Vashem to Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Ne- honor those brave people who risked their lives to save Jewish citizens of Poland. tanyahu, Israeli president Shimon Peres, The cruel murder of millions of European Jews took place, to a great extent, on Polish and President of Poland Bronisław Ko- territories occupied by Hitler's Germany and this places a special obligation on the Polish morowski sent their greetings to the Amer- people to remember the past and recognize a danger of anti-Semitism, as well as to re- ican and International Societies for Yad member the coexistence of Poles and Jews for hundreds of years. In Warsaw the new Vashem on their 30th anniversary. The annual tribute dinner concluded Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which is under construction, will tell the story of with the blessings recited by Rabbi Judah our long common life, including its brightest and darkest chapters. Oppenheimer of the Young Israel of For- I thank you for the achievements of societies for Yad Vashem. Through the assistance of Yad Vashem you help every- est Hills. one to build a better future for all of us. A CONTEMPORARY ULYSSES (Continued from page 4) group of more than a hundred orphaned the policeman should let him free, or face Society of Yad Vashem and their work in Eli designated the location of the future youngsters in their mid-teens, some with probable life-threatening consequences to furthering Eli’s dream are recorded. No- business as 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, younger siblings, were traveling with Eli on himself and his family. table is the positive role that awareness signed up for a mailing address at 545 Fifth freight cars without legal immigration pa- This resourcefulness has served Eli of the courage and tenacity of those who Avenue for $10 a month, printed letterhead pers. When their madrich (counselor) mys- throughout a successful business career, overcame the ordeals of the Holocaust stationery, and started his first company. teriously disappeared, Eli took over. He as well as that of a community leader. His plays in inspiring future generations of ater, when Eli became a successful recalls, “I assumed responsibility for find- accomplishments are legendary. Included Jews. Lbusiness leader, he provided nieces ing food to feed them, locating a place to among them are his initiating the first Yom The photographs both at the com- and nephews from Israel with an American sleep, and looking after anyone who didn’t Hashoah commemoration in the United mencement of each chapter as well as Jewish camping experience in the States, feel well.” In doing this, he demonstrated States, and his making this program an an- throughout the text poignantly capture established a business for his sister Tzila what Michael Korda, editor-in-chief of nual event in synagogues throughout the significant moments in Eli Zborowksi’s and her family in Israel, and, along with his Simon and Schuster, asserted as the qual- country. His endowment of the first chair in life. wife, Diana, made his home a gathering ity that all successful people have: “the Holocaust Studies in the world at Yeshiva Rochel and George Berman gracefully place for family, friends, and business as- ability to take on responsibility.” University is noteworthy, as is his having chronicle more than eight decades of the sociates. The authors comment, “As he The authors quote John C. Maxwell in spearheaded the contribution of more than life of a leader of our generation. Eli taught his family, any material success is his book, The Indispensable Qualities of a $100 million to Yad Vashem and its works. made enormous strides in assisting his by the grace of God. One’s primary moti- Leader, in this apt observation: “Crisis Eli’s other accomplishments are too nu- people to absorb a most difficult moment vation should never be just to make doesn’t make character, but it certainly re- merous to mention in this review. Those, in their collective history, and to rise money, but having it, to use it for tikun olam veals it.” as well as his exemplary achievements in above it with dignity, courage, and forti- (repairing the world).” xciting close calls demonstrate Eli’s a score of worthwhile endeavors, are dis- tude. His caring for others was manifested Eresourcefulness, as when he con- closed in this fascinating biography. early on. When he was twenty years old, vinced a Polish policeman who discovered The perceptive comments of some of Yocheved Miriam Zemel is a freelance in the summer of 1945, a crisis arose. A him with a cache of illegal documents, that the Young Leadership of the American writer living in Israel. International Society for Yad Vashem NON-PROFIT ORG. MARTYRDOM AND RESISTANCE U.S. POST 500 FIFTH AVENUE, 42nd FLOOR PAID NEW YORK, N.Y. 10110-4299 NEW YORK, N.Y. Web site: www.yadvashemusa.org PERMIT NO. 9313 ** ** Editor International Society Eli Zborowski, (212) 220-4304 Editor-in-Chief for Yad Vashem, Inc. Vashem, Yad for EDITORIAL BOARD EDITORIAL New York, NY 10110 NY York, New *Published Bimonthly by the Yefim Krasnyanskiy, M.A., Krasnyanskiy, Yefim 500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor Avenue, 500 Fifth Martyrdom & Resistance *1974-85, as Newsletter for the American *1974-85, as Newsletter for the Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp In- mates, and Nazi Victims **deceased Eli Zborowski Marvin Zborowski Mark Palmer Sam Skura** Israel Krakowski Mandell William Sam Halpern Isidore Karten Norman Belfer Joseph Bukiet November/December 2011 - Kislev/Tevet 5772 Kislev/Tevet - 2011 November/December MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE & RESISTANCE MARTYRDOM Page 16 Page