AMERICAN & INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES FOR YAD VASHEM

Vol. 42-No. 1 ISSN 0892-1571 September/October 2015-Tishri/Cheshvan 5776 The American & International Societies for Yad Vashem Annual Tribute Dinner The American and International Societies for Yad Vashem Annual humanitarian and granddaughter of former President Dwight D. Tribute Dinner will take place November 15 at the Pierre hotel in Eisenhower — Mary Jean Eisenhower; and Professor of Jewish New York City. This year’s honorees are Rose and Philip Friedman. History and Jewish Thought and Senior Scholar at the Center for the Featured speakers are CNN’s lead political anchor Wolf Blitzer; Jewish Future at Yeshiva University Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter. FEATURED GUEST SPEAKER WOLF BLITZER olf Blitzer is CNN’s lead politi- winning “America Votes 2006” cover- South African President Nelson Blitzer has authored two books, W cal anchor and the anchor of age and “America Votes 2004.” Mandela among them. Between Washington and Jerusalem: The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Furthermore, he anchored the net- n March 2014, he was awarded A Reporter's Notebook and Territory of which airs weekdays at 5 p.m. ET, work’s coverage during the inaugura- Ithe Sol Taishoff Award for Lies – cited by The New York Times providing viewers with in-depth tions of Presidents Barack Obama Excellence in Broadcast Journalism Book Review as one of the most reports about the political, internation- and George W. Bush. by the National Press Foundation. notable books of 1989. al and breaking news stories of the Blitzer is also at the helm of the net- The previous year, he was recognized Blitzer earned a bachelor of arts day. In addition, he anchors Wolf, air- work’s breaking news coverage, as the eighth recipient of the Urbino degree in history from the State ing weekdays at 1 p.m. reporting on stories from Press Award from the Italian University of New York at Buffalo and ET, focusing on the most around the country. Most Embassy for his excellence in journal- a master of arts degree in internation- important news from recently, he reported on ism. In 2011, Blitzer received the dis- al relations from the Johns Hopkins Washington and around the shootings from at tinguished Leonard Zeidenberg First University School of Advanced the world. Blitzer has Washington Navy Yard, Amendment Award from the Radio & International Studies in Washington, been with the network for the devastation of the Television Digital News Foundation, D.C. In addition, Blitzer has numerous more than two decades. Oklahoma tornadoes, the and the Panetta Institute for Public honorary degrees from educational Most recently, Blitzer Boston terrorist attacks, Policy’s Jefferson-Lincoln Award. institutions across the country. headlined CNN’s 2014 and the tragedy surround- midterm “Election Night in ing the mass shooting in America” coverage, pro- Newtown, Connecticut viding up-to-the-minute In addition to politics, HONOREES results from key races Blitzer is also known for across the country. He his in-depth reporting on ROSE AND PHILIP FRIEDMAN also served as moderator for the U.S. international news. hilip Friedman was born and raised in the former Soviet Union. After Senatorial debate in New Hampshire, Over the decades, Blitzer has Pspending 12 years in numerous positions in the electronics industry, he between Scott Brown (R) and incum- reported on a wide range of major emigrated to the United States and settled in New York City. bent Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D). breaking stories around the world that In 1984, Mr. Friedman started Computer Generated Solutions (CGS), a diver- Blitzer was pivotal to CNN’s election have shaped the international political sified IT solutions and services company provid- coverage throughout “America’s landscape. ing software, consulting, systems integration, Choice 2012,” serving as lead anchor Throughout his career, Blitzer has training and help desk support. Today, with on key primary nights, caucus nights interviewed some of history's most close to 7,000 professionals and a global pres- and the Emmy award–-winning elec- notable figures, including U.S. ence spanning North America, South America, tion night coverage. He moderated Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Europe, the Middle East and Asia, CGS main- three of CNN’s Republican presiden- Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, tains a leadership position delivering end-to- tial debates, including the first-of-its- Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter and end, award-winning solutions in over 48 coun- kind Tea Party debate. During the Gerald Ford. Blitzer has also inter- tries around the globe. 2008 presidential election, Blitzer viewed many foreign leaders — the In 1996, Mr. Friedman was named spearheaded CNN’s Peabody Dalai Lama, Pakistani President Asif Ali Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young, Inc., Award–winning coverage of the pres- Zardari, former Soviet President Mikhail Inc. magazine, Merrill Lynch and the City of idential primary debates and cam- Gorbachev, former British Prime New York. In 2007, Mr. Friedman was awarded paigns. He also led CNN’s Emmy- Minister Margaret Thatcher and former the Ellis Island Medal of Honor. In 2007 and 2008, he was appointed to repre- sent the State of New York on the Presidential Business Commission and to serve as an honorary chairman on the National Business Advisory Council. Mr. Friedman’s contributions to the US economy and society were twice rec- IN THIS ISSUE ognized by the United States Congress. How Count Bernadotte saved thousands of Jews from death...... 2 In 2011, Mr. Friedman received an honorary doctorate from Yeshiva Poland’s Holocaust history and rescuers of Jews...... 3 University. Soldiers: German POWs on fighting, killing, and dying...... 4 Mr. Friedman is the immediate past president of the American Committee of The secrets of Ukraine’s “Holocaust of Bullets” killing center...... 5 Shaare Zedek Hospital. He also serves as a trustee, member of the Executive Survivor defied death in Holocaust for the love of her sister...... 6 Committee and vice chairman of Yeshiva University. In addition, he serves on Why do Holocaust ceremonies ignore Jewish rescuers?...... 7 the board of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, and is a ASYV Annual Tribute Dinner...... 8-9 member of the Executive Committee of the Tom Lantos Institute. Mr. Friedman The anguish of separation. Children and their rescuers...... 10 recently joined the board of the American Society for Yad Vashem. He is a When a Dutch Jewish woman taught SS officers how to dance ...... 12 Fellow of the Foreign Policy Association and serves as a member of the US Holocaust survivor biopic led to SS guard investigation...... 16 Chamber of Commerce International Policy Committee. Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2015 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5776 THE SWEDISH SCHINDLER: HOW COUNT BERNADOTTE SAVED THOUSANDS OF JEWS FROM DEATH woman, Anne Hendrix, carried her Solution”, had already been liberated it. The Swedes, on the other hand, BY SARAH HELM, NEWSWEEK two-month-old sleeping in a box. by the Russians, exposing the Jewish saw no reason not to exploit his over- French ethnologist Germaine Tillion genocide to the world, but, by the tures. he midday ferry from carried lists bearing the names of autumn of 1944, at least a million pris- Thousands of Norwegians, as well Copenhagen drew up alongside T those murdered at the camp, includ- oners were still held in camps on as Danes, were being held in the the quay at the Swedish port of Malmö ing her mother, Emilie. On seeing German soil – including Buchenwald, camps, and Himmler was offering up on April 28, 1945. Moments later, white-coated Swedish doctors, the Dachau and Bergen-Belsen. Allied Scandinavian prisoners first. Perhaps women — many in striped garb — skeletal survivors screamed. “I don’t chiefs in London and Washington had others would follow if Sweden played began to move down the gangplank “all want to burn. I don’t want to burn,” little interest in protecting these pris- its cards right? By February 1945, in thin rags, shoes made of paper and cried one, imagining SS doctors. oners as they pursued their military Himmler had asked the Swedes to wood and odds and ends,” wrote a Swedish nurses fainted at the sight of objectives, believing reporter. More women followed, carried the ravaged bodies. the only way to help off the boat on stretchers: French, As the women settled down they inmates was to Polish, Norwegian, Dutch and many heard about the man who had initiat- secure a total victo- other nationalities. ed their rescue: a blue-blooded ry. It was just over 70 years ago and 10 Swede called Folke Bernadotte. Yet that victory days before the Second World War in Sometimes Bernadotte appeared was still many Europe would come to its official end. among them, tall and smartly months away and The women had come from dressed, with a gentle manner and an reports of atrocities Ravensbrück, a women’s concentra- air of efficiency. They called him their were mounting — tion camp 50 miles north of Berlin. savior. Yet, outside Scandinavia, the many such reaching Although most camps had, by now, story of his White Bus rescue — the Bernadotte’s ears biggest humanitarian mission of the while he stayed in Second World War — is little known, Paris. France had perhaps because after the war already lost thou- Bernadotte was appointed UN media- sands to the camps, White buses taking people to safety. tor to the Arab-Israeli conflict and was and families were shot dead by Jewish extremists, com- pleading for action. Though it was too send a mediator to discuss the prison- plicating his legacy. late to halt the Jewish extermination er release. Seasoned Swedish offi- in the east, there was still a chance to cials said Folke Bernadotte wasn’t up TWENTY-ONE THOUSAND LIVES save the thousands of Jews and non- to the task, but others thought the ot only were at least 7,000 Jews held in these German-based Count’s royal blood and confident air NRavensbrück women brought camps. With the International would appeal to Himmler. And on Bernadotte’s buses, but up to Committee of the Red Cross para- Bernadotte was only too willing. 14,000 prisoners from other concen- lyzed, pleas were increasingly direct- The Count met the SS chief for the tration camps too — men and women ed at Bernadotte and his Swedish first time on February 10, 1945, in a of many nationalities and creeds, Red Cross. secluded lakeside SS clinic at including several thousand Jews. Hohenlychen, about 50 miles north of MEETING HIMMLER AT THE Postwar infighting in Scandinavia Berlin, and just five miles from the LAKESIDE Count Folke Bernadotte of Wisborg. about who should take credit for the women’s camp of Ravensbrück. On been liberated by advancing British, rescue, as well as Allied reluctance to o most Allied observers, the arrival, Bernadotte presented his Russian and American troops, acknowledge that the neutral Swedes T idea of a prisoner rescue was interlocutor with a rare Norwegian Ravensbrück was still under Nazi could have pulled off such a coup, fantasy. The dangers of entering the [Scandinavian] artefact, which control. During these final, desperate played some role in obscuring the war zone were self-evident. delighted Himmler, always fascinated weeks, more than 6,000 women had value of Bernadotte’s mission. Intelligence on the camp locations by the Nordic race. Himmler seemed been gassed at Ravensbrück, others Despite his pedigree — he was the and about who was held in them was at ease with Bernadotte and told him shot, starved and forced on death grandson of King Oscar II, the last limited, and Hitler would not permit jokes. Bernadotte listened, observing marches, as the German SS attempt- monarch to reign over both Norway releases — particularly of Jews. But Himmler’s “well-manicured hands” as ed to empty the camps and destroy and Sweden, and descendant of Sweden had its own interest in the he waited for a chance to nail the deal the evidence of its crimes before the Napoleonic marshal Jean Baptiste rescues, which was, to some extent, over the first Scandinavian releases. oncoming Russian army arrived. Bernadotte — Count Folke self-serving. By 1944, with Allied vic- As Bernadotte left, the outline plan The 500 or so women lining up on Bernadotte of Wisborg was an unlike- tory in view, neutrality felt an uncom- agreed to, Himmler asked if he had a the Malmö docks that day had been ly hero. After a failed attempt in busi- fortable position to hold, and a rescue good driver, as there were Allied fight- snatched from this fate by a fleet of ness and a period as head of the operation offered the chance to play a er planes in the air as well as tank Swedish Red Cross buses and ambu- Swedish Boy Scouts Association, heroic role in the final days. The traps and barricades. Assured about lances, which had driven them across Bernadotte became vice president of Swedes were also in a unique posi- the driver, Himmler replied: “Good. bombed-out Germany to the Danish the Swedish Red Cross, a position tion; they had unusually good infor- Otherwise the Swedish papers will border and on to Sweden. More that would allow him to execute his mation about what was happening in come out with headlines saying, ‘War women followed over the next days: rescue mission. the camps, and good cause to believe Criminal Himmler Murders Count young and old, Jews and non-Jews. By October 1944, the Count had that prisoners might be released — Bernadotte.’” Frieda Zetler had been imprisoned persuaded the Germans to free Allied not by the Führer, but on the authority By the second week of March, a task first in the Lodz ghetto and then at airmen shot down over Sweden — a of Heinrich Himmler, the Reichsführer force had left southern Sweden, driven Auschwitz before being taken on to coup that earned him an invitation to of the SS, who ran the camps. across Denmark and crossed into Ravensbrück. She now tasted free- lunch with the most powerful man on Though it was Hitler’s resolution to Germany. The man who once led the dom alongside Yvonne Baseden, a the planet, General Dwight D. fight on until the last moment, by the Swedish Boy Scouts was now leading young British agent with Special Eisenhower, who had just liberated end of 1944 Himmler’s aides were let- a humanitarian army — 100 vehicles Operations Executive (SOE), the spy Paris and was setting up his Allied HQ ting it be known that the SS chief mostly belonging to the Swedish mili- and sabotage organization ordered at Versailles. Eisenhower showed knew the war was lost and was look- tary, including trucks, buses, ambu- by Winston Churchill to “set Europe Bernadotte his plans for victory in ing for a way out. Intermediaries said lances and motorcycles, manned by ablaze,” who had been captured while Europe, but, as the Count noted in his that Himmler was available for talks 250 Swedish soldiers, doctors and helping the French resistance. memoir, the American general made about a peace deal with the Allies, nurses. Their plan — as agreed with Baseden leant heavily on the arm of a no mention of how to save German excluding Stalin. He would also free Himmler — was to pick up comrade before being ushered into a prisoners. prisoners as bait to bring the Western Scandinavian prisoners from any tent for delousing. The eastern death camps, built by Allies to the table. The problem was camps they could reach before the Many women carried Red Cross the Nazis in Poland to exterminate the that London and Washington had “no Allied fronts closed up, and bring them boxes; others carried babies. A Dutch Jews according to their “Final truck with Himmler,” as Churchill put (Continued on page 13) September/October 2015 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5776 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 3 POLAND’S FRAUGHT HOLOCAUST HISTORY FUELS DEBATE OVER REMEMBERING HEROIC RESCUERS OF JEWS Poland. Nazis. But at the same time large “The (Polish) reaction was com- BY VANESSA GERA, AP The debate comes against the numbers of these people were anti- pletely hysterical,” said Grabowski, backdrop of a dramatic, more posi- Semites,” said Bilewicz, an associate the historian. “What Comey said was s a Catholic Pole, Elka should- tive change in attitudes toward professor at the Center for Research basically and entirely true: that other- n’t even have been in the ghet- A Poland’s Jewish history since the on Prejudice at Warsaw University. wise good people under very particu- to of Czestochowa, in southern country’s repressive Communist era. “They were more violently anti-Nazi lar circumstances during the war Poland. But the nanny was so devot- The democratic European Union than they were anti-Semitic, but they started murdering Jews and felt ed to the 12-year-old Jewish boy she nation is increasingly celebrating the hated Jews. Sometimes they even absolutely no remorse or guilt. He had raised since infancy that she large Jewish population that flour- said ‘there is only one good thing mentioned the Germans, Hungarians refused to leave. She ended up ished in Polish lands for centuries about Hitler: that he resolved the and Poles, and he also could have being sent to the Treblinka death until the Holocaust — the new Jewish issue in Poland.’” mentioned the French and Italians camp — where she was murdered POLIN Museum of the History of This still-painful and unresolved and Ukrainians. His only sin was the with the Jews. Polish Jews is a key example of this relationship to the darker side of sin of omission.” Today the boy, Sigmund Rolat, is efflorescence. Poland’s wartime history leads to fre- Bilewicz attributes what he calls an 85-year-old Polish-American Under Rolat’s plan, the memorial quent controversies. Polish “hypersensitivity” in such businessman and philanthropist on a would be next to the POLIN hen the Polish film Ida won debates to a “lack of acknowledgement Museum and near a monu- W an Oscar this year, Polish of Polish suffering during the Second ment to the Jewish fighters of nationalists denounced it as “anti- World War” — widespread ignorance the 1943 Warsaw ghetto Polish” for depicting Polish peasants outside of Poland to the huge civilian uprising. who killed a Jewish family during the losses, the destruction of Warsaw, the But there is still stiff resist- war, without any hint that the country fact that many non-Jews were also ance by the Polish govern- was under German occupation or sent to concentration camps. ment and mainstream society any acknowledgement of the exis- Rolat, the Holocaust survivor spon- to acknowledge the uncom- tence of some rescuers. soring the project, faced a recent set- fortable truth that Poles — who were tortured, impris- oned and murdered in huge numbers by the Germans — also took part, willingly at times, in the murder of Jews. Nobody questions the hero- ism of the Polish rescuers, who risked immediate execu- tion along with their entire families. Israel’s Holocaust Sigmund Rolat. memorial Yad Vashem has documented more than 6,500 such mission. He aims to build a memori- Poles. al in the heart of Warsaw’s former pponents of the memorial, ghetto to his beloved Elka and the however, argue that the former thousands of other Polish Christians O Warsaw ghetto should remain prima- who risked their lives for Jews during rily a site of Jewish mourning, not a World War II. site of Polish national glory — given While the project has the blessing of how little help actually reached Poland’s chief rabbi, it has also Poland’s 3.3 million Jews, most of sparked strong opposition. Many whom perished. They stress that scholars and some Jews fear that a saving Jews was the rare exception monument to Polish rescuers at and that rescuers had to fear not Warsaw’s key site of Jewish tragedy only the Germans but also betrayal will bolster a false historical narrative by other Poles. that Poles largely acted as rescuers of Yad Vashem says even after the Jews during the Holocaust. In reality, war, Polish rescuers sometimes many Poles were indifferent to the asked the Jews they had helped not plight of Jews during the war, and to tell anybody, not wanting their some participated in their persecution. neighbors to know. A sculpture representing Jan Karski, a Polish World War II–era resistance fighter, in Warsaw. Official Polish narratives about the “Polish anti-Semitism was ubiqui- Poles were also outraged this sum- Holocaust already typically highlight back when an international art jury tous before the war and unscrupu- mer after FBI director James Comey, the Poles who risked their lives to picked an unusual concept from the lous,” reads an open letter against in a speech at the U.S. Holocaust save Jews. Poland has been active- many proposals: a forest nursery next the memorial project written by three Memorial Museum in April, listed ly promoting the memory of Jan to the Jewish history museum whose Polish scholars — Bozena Keff, Poles among the war’s perpetrators. Karski, a resistance fighter who trees would later be replanted in loca- Helena Datner and Elzbieta Janicka “In their minds, the murderers and brought proof to the West of the — and signed by many others. “That accomplices of Germany, and tions linked to Jewish life. destruction of Poland’s Jews. was the context for the Righteous, Poland, and Hungary, and so many, Rolat says that project cannot be Yet little is said about the wide- who acted despite and not with the many other places, didn’t do some- implemented because it would not be spread passivity that existed despite consent of the majority.” thing evil. They convinced them- permanent and would require contin- such enormous Jewish suffering, or Michal Bilewicz, a psychologist selves it was the right thing to do, the uous maintenance funds. He has cases where Poles used the break- who specializes in anti-Semitism and thing they had to do,” Comey said. vowed to still build something beauti- down of law and order to blackmail the Holocaust, describes Polish Then-president Bronislaw ful and appropriate, insisting that one and murder Jews themselves, driven behavior toward Jews during the war Komorowski called the comments can never do enough to show grati- by greed or anti-Semitic hatred. as extremely complex and difficult to “an insult to thousands of Poles who tude to people like his nanny — a “Poles were victims, but at the convey. Many assume that Poles helped Jews,” while Prime Minister woman whose last name he doesn’t same time they were also victimizers collaborated with the Nazis, but this Ewa Kopacz said: “To those who are even know. of the most fragile members of soci- is wrong: Poland’s underground incapable of presenting the historic ety,” said historian Jan Grabowski, “Elka was as important to me as a state and army even had a unit to truth in an honest way, I want to say an opponent of the memorial and child as my mother was,” Rolat said. help Jews. that Poland was not a perpetrator but author of Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal “And she died only because she “They did not collaborate with the a victim of World War II.” and Murder in German-Occupied loved a Jewish child.” Page 4 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2015 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5776 BOOKBOOK REVIEWSREVIEWS SOLDIERS: GERMAN POWS ON FIGHTING, KILLING, AND DYING Soldiers: German POWs on detention centers in America and see what they had done “from a rela- were helping them — hence they Fighting, Killing, and Dying. Britain didn’t realize that many of their tively safe distance”! In sum, all these were paying for it . . . . Thus, easily, By Sönke Neitzel and Harald conversations were being listened to “tales” became nothing more nor less “distinctions between military combat- Welzer. Translated by Jefferson and recorded . . . and if they did sus- than fun-filled “adventure stories that ants as legitimate targets of attack Chase. Vintage Books, a division of pect it, it appears, they soon forgot! focus[ed] on . . . flying skill and abili- and civilian noncombatants who Random House: New York, N.Y., Initially, the purpose of this surveil- ty to produce destructive results.” should have been protected, basically 2013. 437 pp. $16.95 Softcover. lance was, obviously, to discover any- German sailors, meanwhile, shared dissolved.” And the Jews? The thing that would help the Allied war memories of the “tonnage” they sent REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN “National Socialist moral codes had effort. Now, however, it gives us a to the bottom of the sea . . . convinced many soldiers that Jews “All we’ve achieved is that our repu- much more “up close” look at just till, what interests represented an objective problem that tation as soldiers and Germans has what the World War II Sthis reviewer and needed to be solved” — hence sol- been completely besmirched. People German soldier was the readers of M&R diers generally felt quite correct as say: ‘You carry out all the orders thinking . . . the regular most here is, undoubt- regards the “job” they were doing. when people are to be shot, whether German soldier, not so edly, the musings of the “For the soldiers, murder [was] des- it is right or wrong.’ No one objects to much the SS. German ground sol- tiny, as though some sort of higher the shooting of spies, but when whole Interestingly, most all diers, members of the power had preordained that select villages, the entire population, includ- their conversations were Wehrmacht, those who people — whether well educated, ing the children, is wiped out, or the laced with violence, vio- came face to face with attractive and stylishly dressed or not people are sent away, as in POLAND lence become an “every- their victims. Intriguingly, — had to become victims.” In fact, or RUSSIA, then, my God, one can day reality” to them. Even as we all know, for years that first quote opening this review is say it is pure murder, it is exactly what more interestingly, as the Wehrmacht was not the Huns of old did. But then of singular and highly unusual. Then these soldiers spoke implicated in any geno- course we are the most civilized peo- about all the death and cidal acts. Its “slate” was again, soldiers did, at times, wonder ple in the world, aren’t we?” killing they were involved supposedly clean of — if Germany were to lose the war — Lieutenant General Friedrich von in, the words “‘death and that! Finally, though, the if retribution would follow should their Broich (German POW — Trent kill’” were “rarely used.” It “was taken truth plainly came to light, and as the present ruthless acts be discov- Park) for granted.” Instead, pilots, members authors of Soldiers clearly state early ered.... he above quote is but a sam- of the Luftwaffe, for example, excited- on in their volume, “There is no doubt True, the Wehrmacht was not the pling of some of the thought- T ly and “vivid[ly]” shared details about that the Wehrmacht was involved in out-and-out inhumane, bloodthirsty provoking material found in this their determined “hunts” for Allied criminal acts, from the killing of civil- murderers the SS soldiers were . . . exceptionally unique book by Sönke planes — military or civilian. Indeed, ians to the systematic murder of but they did their share of “helping” — Neitzel and Harald Welzer, first pub- the authors here note how a civilian Jewish men, women, and children.” a very sizeable share. “None of the lished in German as Soldaten and plane carrying the American actor So, how did they feel about it? large-scale executions such as Babi now translated into English as Leslie Howard was brought down by When it came to taking the lives of Yar . . . [could have taken] place with- Soldiers: German POWs on Fighting, Luftwaffe fighters. Pilots also talked civilian populations, the reasoning out Wehrmacht involvement.” Killing, and Dying. What makes this joyfully about their impersonal strafing volume so unique? The material pre- of ground targets — military or civil- which placated the conscience of Dr. Diane Cypkin is a Professor of sented here was obtained covertly. In ian. Daylight raids were the most fun, Wehrmacht soldiers was that they Media, Communication, and Visual other words, German POWs held in it seems, since pilots could actually (these civilians) were partisans or Arts at Pace University. THE FASCISTS AND THE JEWS OF ITALY The Fascists and the Jews of Italy: true that the Race Laws were initially text and operation of the Italian anti- war began to go badly for Italy. A Mussolini’s Race Laws, 1938-1943. concerned with the persecution of Semitic laws, from their shaping and month before his overthrow, Mussolini By Michael A. Livingston. Cambridge Jews and their exclusion from Italian drafting (and, in view of conversions initiated plans for Jews’ deportation to University Press: New York, N.Y., 2014. political, economic, educational, and intermarriages, their painstaking forced-labor camps. Furthermore, 268 pp. $90. social and cultural life, and that the consideration of “who is a Jew”) to contrary to commonly held belief, deportation of Italian Jews to Nazi their day-to-day administration by the these laws were as harsh as the REVIEWED BY MARK L. BLACKMAN extermination camps (nearly 7,000 bureaucracy and their interpretation Nuremberg Laws and, rather than decade ago, then Italian Prime identifiable persons, or almost 20% of by the judicial system (which was being imported from, and imposed A Minister Silvio Berlusconi was the prewar total Italian remarkably independ- under pressure by, Germany, were compelled to apologize for remarks Jewish population, died) ent), evidenced by spe- distinctly Italian — and Fascist — in that he made about Mussolini’s didn’t begin until after cific cases. The work’s character, rooted in Italy’s history and “benign dictatorship”: “Mussolini did Mussolini was overthrown subtitle is fitting: while not an anomaly. Where they differed not murder anyone. Mussolini sent in the summer of 1943 and Mussolini didn’t origi- from the Nazis’ equivalent was in the people on holiday to internal exile.” the Germans occupied nate the Race Laws, he presence and influence of the Roman Over the years, it seems that Il Duce northern Italy. Yet, by did directly edit them. Catholic Church, which had reached has largely and undeservedly benefit- weakening the Jewish n doing so, Livingston accord with Mussolini in 1929 with the ed in the eyes of numerous historians community (the oldest in Ioverturns common Lateran Treaties, and which, despite and public perception for, well, not Western Europe) and by assumptions and beliefs, its own preaching of anti-Semitic doc- being Hitler. In actual fact, Mussolini gathering detailed informa- such as that anti- trines, tended to regard Jewishness was directly responsible for the tion about them, the laws, Semitism was uncom- as primarily a matter of religion, as deaths of many political opponents though not inherently mon in Italy (not so; opposed to the Nazis’ racial criteria. and the persecution of Italian Jews genocidal, helped facilitate indeed, the word “ghet- So the Church favored biological under his own comprehensive set of the Italian stage of the to” is of Italian, or, more Jews who had converted to anti-Semitic racial laws that were a Holocaust. So contends American exactly, Venetian, origin), and that Catholicism, and particularly stood up counterpart to Nazi Germany’s legal scholar Michael A. Livingston. consequently, Italians didn’t support for their non-Jewish spouses and chil- Nuremberg Laws. Livingston has a juridical emphasis, the Race Laws and they were only dren. The Italian laws, in their nomi- Similarly, there is a widespread view applying legal methodology, rather half-heartedly enforced. As Livingston nal, if superficial, legalistic structure, that Fascist Italy’s leggi razziali (Race than following the more common shows, in actuality, they were actively, gave a veneer of “legitimacy” both for Laws), enacted in November 1938, political approach. He relies on both rigorously enforced with regularity their administrators and even some of were neither as severe nor as rigidly Fascist and Jewish archives, and and applied with increasing dedica- their victims. The main difference enforced as the Third Reich’s. It is examines the legal framework, con- tion until 1943, particularly after the (Continued on page 14) September/October 2015 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5776 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 5 THE SECRETS OF UKRAINE’S SHAMEFUL “HOLOCAUST OF BULLETS” KILLING CENTER 15,000 Jews were slain, and also the when she witnessed the chilling atroc- Ukrainians like Yaroslav, witnesses to BY WILL STEWART, MAILONLINE site of a Nazi camp where his grand- ity here — remembered: “We saw this horror, wanted to end their vow of father Claudius Desbois had been arrests, killings, executions. silence on the terrible things they had eventy years on from the end of held as a prisoner of war. “They brought them to the edge of a seen in their youth. the Second World War, the full, S Gradually, elderly locals who had pit and shot them. But you could see “People who were present at the shocking scale of the Nazi-inspired kept quiet all their lives — mainly the pit move, because some of them killings wanted to speak before they Holocaust in Ukraine is finally being under Soviet rule — opened up to were still alive. We were young and it die,” he said. revealed — thanks to pioneering work him, as hundreds more did in many was hard to watch. It was a tragedy, a “Many people were requisitioned to by a French Catholic priest to other villages and towns in Ukraine. great tragedy. dig the mass graves, to fill them, to research the truth of the industrial- One account from Rava Ruska was “The day we came to see they bring the Jews in horse-drawn carts, scale killing. of a Nazi officer who spotted brought a lot of Jews here. There to bring back their suits, to sell the a young Jewish woman run- must have been 60 or 70. We looked suits, to put ashes on the blood. Fifty ning out of the ghetto to buy on. We didn’t go too near, we stayed different jobs.” butter at the market. He over there, but we children could still He explained: “Thirteen German pri- ordered her to be stripped see everything.” vate trucking companies came to naked, and demanded the Olha told of how 15 German sol- work in Rava Ruska. trader smear her with the diers stood all around the pit where “The Nazi killers hired these butter, after which he their captives were standing in German companies to move the bod- decreed her beaten to death groups. ies to mass graves. People must with sticks. They opened fire on the helpless understand, Rava Ruska was a huge In another case he Jews, who dropped back-first into the killing center: first for the Jews, then recounted how “an pits. for political prisoners, and then for the unspeakably cruel German nother witness, Gregory Haven, local population and the Roma. Each soldier grabbed a Jewish A recalled how the Germans had, person who was killed here was an woman’s child from her.” before the killings, “ordered all the individual. We cannot forget this.” He added: “He was barely Jews in the village to wear an arm- Some 32,000 were buried around two years old, and he took band on their right arm with the Star of Rava Ruska and in neighboring towns Father Desbois is seeking to identify the sites of mass graves him and banged his head David. like Bakhiv, where for years farmers and erect memorials, but also to help relatives track where repeatedly against the “The cloth was white their ancestors were slain. wall.... The child died in and the star black. The pools of blood in front of the parent’s Jews had to give up Around 2,000 mass graves of eyes.” the milk from their Jewish victims have been located n separate testimony, an elderly cows.” where men, women and children witness called Yaroslav showed The Nazis “began by were shot and buried by the Germans I Father Desbois to a site outside the shooting old people and their collaborators. town, and told him how he witnessed and children, they left But there may be up to 6,000 more the horror of mass killing as a 13- people between the sites to uncover, with victims of this year-old boy in 1942. ages of 18 and 45 to “Holocaust of bullets” — so called He was the first of the elderly vil- make them work.” because unlike in Poland and lagers to speak: many others followed “Three kilometers Germany, where gas chambers were him, here and in other locations. away, they killed them, used as the means of slaughter, here Yaroslav described how the Jews people fell like flies. I most were summarily shot and buried arrived on foot and were forced to didn’t see them but I nearby. undress before being marched to “the heard the shots. I saw In many cases, the Jews were side of a grave” in Rava Ruska. a young Jew who ordered to dig pits and then to strip “Yaroslav brought me in the forest brought corpses in a Witnesses have told of how the Nazis killed Ukrainian Jews “for naked before they were mown down fun,” “out of anger, boredom, drunkenness,” or “to rape the girls.” with 50 farmers, very old people who cart to the Jewish by their murderers. were present at the killings,” Father cemetery. It was during the winter of have dug up human remains — and Some were buried in the unmarked Desbois said. 1942, there was blood and the ground in so doing found mass graves — as plots while still alive. “They described one by one what was red.” they plouwed the fields. Blood oozed through the soil at the happened. One person said a After one of the mass killings, in the One veteran, Tikhon Leshchuk, now sites of these graves, according to German arrived alone on a motorcy- evening, he recalled: “We began to 89, recalled how his father, a priest, accounts assiduously collected by the cle. smell an odor and then, as it smelled hid a Jewish girl in their house French Catholic priest, Father Patrick “He rode around the village. At the of death, they forced people who had throughout Nazi occupation. Desbois, who began his search by time, everyone wondered why. It carts and horses to bring sand there. n June 27, 1941, German seeking to trace his grandfather’s turned out, he was planning the site of “They also put chlorine, that allowed troops came into Rava experience as a prisoner of war held “O what would become Rava Ruska’s them to lower the level of the pit by Ruska. The solders destroyed the in a concentration camp by the Nazis Jewish mass grave.” one meter, and the blood stopped Jewish cemetery and soon made a in Ukraine during the Second World On this occasion, some 1,500 Jews running.” Jewish ghetto in the town center. War. were marched to the huge pit, dug Locals went there “because the “The market square and the Jewish He uncovered accounts of how earlier by other Jews who had been Jews had undressed there and peo- quarters around it became a ghetto. Jews were killed by the Nazis “for killed with explosives. ple saw the Germans taking the civil- All the Jews from Rava Ruska and fun,” or “out of anger, boredom, The group seen by Yaroslav were ian clothes of women and men, they the nearby villages were brought drunkenness,” or “to rape the girls.” then shot, their bodies layered on top came to see if they could find some- there,” he said. Yet the Soviet Union, for its own of each other and covered by local thing — money, rings, gold watches.” His best friend at school — a Jew — motives, obscured the full scale of the youths from the village who had been The priest’s grandfather, a French suddenly vanished, presumably shot Holocaust on its own territory. requisitioned by the Germans. political prisoner, went home after his by the Nazis. Leading historian Mikhail Tyaglyy Their clothes were ransacked for internment, during which he survived “One day when we were in the vil- told MailOnline the number of Jewish cash and valuables. eating dandelions and grass. lage, my father’s friend came. She victims in Ukraine is between 1.4 mil- After the burial “the earth moved” Desbois said: “He never spoke. He was a Jew and she brought her 10- lion and 1.6 million, significantly high- from the helpless last struggles for life only said that outside the camp was year-old girl and asked my father to er than the oft-quoted figure of around of those wounded but buried alive in worse than in the camp. I wanted to let her stay with us. one million. this mass grave. understand why, and I discovered that “My father agreed, and Anna, the The priest’s search took him to four A week later, blood was still seeping 18,000 Jews were shot in this village, girl, hid with us all through the years of sites around Rava Ruska, close to the out from this macabre site. Rava Ruska.” German rule. I’m not sure what hap- Ukrainian border with Poland, where Elderly Olha Havrylivna — aged 12 It became clear to him that elderly (Continued on page 11) Page 6 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2015 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5776 SURVIVORS’SURVIVORS’ CORNERCORNER

SURVIVOR DEFIED DEATH IN HOLOCAUST FOR THE LOVE OF HER SISTER Wearing dresses from Gypsies her at night. She then got her sister to an aban- BY JONAH MANDEL, killed before them, they were loaded When the Nazis realized Russian doned cowshed, where she nour- THE TIMES OF ISRAEL onto trucks and driven to Estonia to forces were heading toward the ished her with leftover milk until join thousands of other women on a camp, they attempted to kill as many uzanna Braun, who experi- Russian forces arrived the next day. death march aimed at killing or weak- inmates as possible with lethal injec- enced the horrors of the Not long after, at a hospital in S ening as many as possible. tions containing strychnine and gaso- Holocaust and defied death at least Danzig, Agi’s life was once again After her mother was shot dead dur- line. three times, believes she survived saved by medical staff who amputat- ing the march, Suzanna did not speak s the Nazi orderly was going because of her determination to save ed her gangrened feet. for a month. But it hardened her from woman to woman injecting her sister — and some divine inter- A “The whole time, not my brain but resolve to look after her only surviving the poison, Suzanna told her sister vention. rather divine providence worked for relative. and three other women to turn their The first time she beat death was me,” Suzanna said of her survival. arms over so the sheer luck. “And I cooperated with that provi- injection would hope- Suzanna was just two weeks shy of dence, with the sixth sense.” fully miss a vein. 16 when she, her sister Agi and her The two eventually immigrated to The poison took parents were rounded up in their Israel, where Suzanna married, had a effect quickly. hometown of Kosice, in what is now daughter and now has two grandchil- “My hand stopped Slovakia, and sent to the death camp dren. Agi, who married but remained working,” she said in Poland, Auschwitz-Birkenau. childless, eventually died in 2013, showing a pale, There, the women were separated aged 88. rounded scar. from the men. As her father was taken That was when Suzanna decided to Looking around, away to the gas chambers, he shout- go public with the sisters’ story by Suzanna seized a ed his last words to her: “Take care of going back to her hometown along wad of hay from their your sister!” with filmmaker Yarden Karmin to doc- bedding and began Agi, four years older than her sister, ument her story. The documentary is putting pressure on was already in ill health. called In the Third Person. Suzanna Braun, who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust, holds her arm, she Now 86 and living in a retirement “This entire story is being told a photo of herself and her sister, Agi. recounted. home in Shoresh, a small village west because I wanted to commemorate “I didn’t think about anything, only “It exploded like a geyser.” of Jerusalem, Suzanna recalls every her,” she said. “My last task is not to how to save my sister. Because father Quickly she started digging into the detail of how the women were stripped asked me to take care of her.” flesh with stalks of hay to gouge out live well, go to the cinema and other and herded into the “showers” where At one point, they were forced to the poison. She managed to do the frivolities, but to tell the story.” there was a faint odor of gas. cross a wide river, but Agi could not same for her sister and another All along it was about saving her big Locked behind a steel door with swim, so Suzanna made makeshift woman. sister. soap in their hands, some women wooden floats to carry her to the other “It was like providence,” she said. “I wasn’t afraid to die. It wasn’t waited for water. Others, who had side. Covered in blood, she dragged her about me,” she said, explaining that heard the rumors, began panicking. They survived the march but were sister to a nearby hill and rolled her the film was a way of preserving her It was only when the doors opened taken to Stuffhof camp in Poland, down it. A Nazi officer was passing, so memory. they realized they had cheated death. where Agi was put into the infirmary she played dead, and he kicked her “I wanted something to remain after “They were out of gas,” she told and Suzanna would sneak in food for down the same hill. her.” AFP. FROM PSEUDONYM TO SPEAKING OUT: ANNE FRANK’S BEST FRIEND decades later she would be speaking on the bridge of her nose. started at the Jewish Lyceum, and BY STAV ZIV, NEWSWEEK about the Holocaust as the childhood Born in Amsterdam after her parents now she’s my best friend.” friend of one of its most famous vic- moved there from Paris, van Maarsen he restrictions on Jews began acqueline van Maarsen will tims. remembers at a certain point German piling on after the German inva- never forget the sight of Anne T J n a Friday afternoon at the end children began to appear in her class. sion of the Netherlands in May 1940. Frank’s shoes, left on the floor in front of May, an 86-year-old van She was too young at the time to As Anne describes in her diary entry of her bed. The Franks had vanished, O Maarsen spoke about her friend, and understand that many of them were from June 20, 1942, “our freedom and the normally tidy home was in about why it is she travels around the Jews emigrating out of Germany after was severely restricted by a series of disarray. Van Maarsen, Anne’s best world to do so as an octogenarian. Hitler and the Nazis’ rise to power. “I anti-Jewish decrees.” Jews were to friend, was accompanying another She and her husband Ruud Sanders had a little friend who was my age wear a yellow star, and children could girl into the apartment to fetch a had arrived in New York City to attend and she came from Germany,” she attend only Jewish schools. They kitchen item that had been lent to the the Champions of Jewish Values says. “My father told her father, ‘It’s were prohibited from using streetcars Franks, she recalls. Anne and Jacque International Awards Gala, where van good that you came here because and cars, going to the theater or had promised to leave one another a Maarsen received the Champion of you’re safe.’ So I was puzzled; I was movies, using swimming pools and note, should either of them need to the Human Spirit Award “for her dedi- only 5 years old and asked the girl, athletic fields and visiting Christians in disappear, but such a message was cation to promoting Jewish values ‘Why were you not safe in Germany?’ their homes. Anne wrote, “Jacque nowhere to be found. Nor could they and keeping the memory of Anne I was quite astonished. And she said always said to me, ‘I don’t dare do locate the red and beige plaid diary Frank alive.” the word ‘anti-Semitism,’ which I did- anything anymore, ’cause I’m afraid with a clasp on the side that Anne had Van Maarsen settled into a spot on n’t understand at all.” it’s not allowed.’” received for her 13th birthday just a a small sofa in the corner of the Hotel Though she didn’t know them yet, But Anne’s attitude was, “We can’t few weeks prior. Elysee’s upstairs lounge, with her the Franks were one such family who go to the cinema, so we make a cine- Van Maarsen couldn’t have known husband seated beside her. A yellow- fled Germany in the early 1930s, soon ma ourselves,” van Maarsen recalls. then that the diary was in an attic tinged light filled the room above after Hitler was named chancellor on The girls would cut out pictures of film across the city’s streets and over its wooden furniture and a maroon car- January 30, 1933. “Because we’re stars and sort the postcards they col- web of canals, and was to be Anne’s pet with gold patterns, contrasting Jewish, my father immigrated to lected. They played Monopoly and companion for the next two years in with the bright daylight filtering Holland in 1933,” Anne wrote in one chatted about all sorts of things; Anne what she called “the Secret Annex.” through the windows overlooking of her first diary entries. In another especially liked talking about their She couldn’t have guessed that it Manhattan’s East Side. Van Maarsen entry, written just two days after she classmates, van Maarsen says. would eventually be read by millions is slight, with a short crop of hair and received the diary, she wrote, “I only Once, Anne declared that they should of strangers or that more than seven glasses that seem to float unframed met Jacqueline van Maarsen when I (Continued on page 15) September/October 2015 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5776 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 7 WHY DO HOLOCAUST CEREMONIES IGNORE JEWISH RESCUERS? something relatively new. There had Europe to help rescue themselves. acknowledges, but that isn’t the prior- BY GEDALYAH REBACK, been some research and some books Comparing the conditions Jews tried ity of Schneider’s initiative. ARUTZ SHEVA but it’s a miniscule part of the histori- surviving under to what others were “We’re focusing on Jews who or those who have attended ography of the entire Holocaust. living under, he reached that conclu- undertook rescue activities. In most FHolocaust commemoration “We know that thousands of Jews sion. Compare Russian prisoners of cases, it was impossible to both res- events or have visited Yad Vashem, were involved in rescuing other Jews. wars or Polish officers who never cue (Jews) and fight the Nazis. If they are likely familiar with the There has been a focus over the revolted over the whole course of the you’d fight, the Nazis would obviously Righteous Among the Nations, a long years on the means of murder war, to Jews who were in concentra- try to weed them out of the forest list of acknowledged non-Jews who employed by the Nazis — the Nazi tion camps and ghettos and did revolt. wherever they were hiding.” exerted immense effort to protect and murder machine and the Nazi army. “That’s not the conclusion the aver- Schneider points to a specific inci- save Jews during the Holocaust. These have been issues of very age Jew today would necessarily dent that pushed one Chaim Waltz to They are often heralded as examples intense research,” says Schneider, reach.” launch the initiative for the recognition of coexistence despite an atmos- who says that research has come at art of the mission of the Jewish in the first place. phere of unrelenting anti-Semitism. In the expense of following patterns of PRescuers Citation is to reinstill “Chaim Waltz of Holland was res- the process, they are shown as para- Jewish resistance to and subversion the idea that Jews are not only capa- cued as a child by three men: two digms for continued mutual tolerance. of Nazi orders to deport or execute ble, but prone to be hardened heroes. non-Jews and one Jew. He didn’t But, what about the Jewish heroes? Jews. “Unfortunately, Jewish self-res- “We are raising these stories and know much about it until he heard a That is a question that Alan cue has not been a great point of bringing them to attention to help lecture by Yehuda Bauer that it is Schneider, director of the B’nai Brith interest by historians.” Jews reach this conclusion. This more typical of Jews to recognize World Center in Jerusalem, and sev- The reasons are many, says notion that Jews went to their deaths contributions of others and not their eral others have asked after reaching Schneider. like sheep to the slaughter is just not own heroes.” the conclusion that in the effort to “It’s interesting, Patrick Henry’s true. This phrase was very common He cites the mandate of Yad showcase a sense of diversity and book dealt largely with Jewish self- just a few years ago. That was not Vashem to recognize the Righteous pluralism in Holocaust commemora- rescue,” referencing the Whitman actually the case, across the board, Among the Nations and the thou- tion, the heroics and bravery of College professor’s We Only Know and there were many cases of resist- sands of names it has added to that Jewish rescuers have actually been Men, “and this non-Jewish professor ance — armed resistance.” database. downplayed or overlooked. reached the conclusion that Jews did Jews fought in Allied armies in great “It got Waltz thinking that his two “Our focus on Jewish self-rescue is more than any other national group in numbers and as partisans, Schneider (Continued on page 14) ARCHAEOLOGISTS DELICATELY DIG UP NAZI DEATH CAMP SECRETS AT TREBLINKA taken out the other side for mass bur- Those maps helped them zero in on a pathologists for further study and final BY ALAN BOYLE, NBC ial, and later cremation. handful of sites. disposition. This case was different: “Without that technology, I never rchaeologists have unearthed THE FIRST DIG IN DECADES The archaeologists’ prime directive would have been able to do this work unprecedented physical evi- was to disturb the remains as little as A fter the war, Treblinka was at Treblinka, because no one wanted dence documenting the extent of the possible. turned into a memorial. Out of excavations there,” Sturdy Colls said. “What we were doing there was killing at the Nazis’ Treblinka death A respect for the victims, no excavation “Nobody wanted the ground to be dis- closing the lid again on that grave camp in Poland — and they let film- was allowed there. That is, until turbed unnecessarily.” site. ... It didn’t cross my mind that it makers document the finds as well. would be me reinterring the remains,” The grisly results are revealed in she said. Treblinka: Hitler’s Killing Machine, an hour-long documentary. But they’re GHOULISH STARS OF DAVID revealed in a way that pays respect to t another site, the archaeolo- the estimated 900,000 Jewish victims A gists found the first physical evi- of that killing machine. dence of the brick bathhouse where “The ethical dimension of the work hundreds of thousands were killed. that I do is really important to me,” They uncovered the building’s foun- Caroline Sturdy Colls, an archaeolo- dation, as well as yellowish tiles that gist from Staffordshire University who were stamped with six-pointed Stars led the excavation, told NBC News. of David. Treblinka is a name as infamous as That ghoulish touch, which matches Auschwitz and Dachau in the witnesses’ descriptions of the site, Holocaust list of horrors, but the site was part of the Nazis’ plan to lull their in eastern Poland is different: There Jewish prisoners into compliance were no inmates liberated by Allied Archaeologist Caroline Sturdy Colls and her colleagues excavate a trench at the Treblinka concen- before they were killed. troops, no photos showing disused tration camp. Sturdy Colls plans to return to the gas chambers. The Germans finished Sturdy Colls and her colleagues won site this year for further investigation, their work at Treblinka in 1943 and At three widely separated sites, the approval from Polish authorities as with the aim of documenting bulldozed the camp. To cover their investigators dug down to find bones well as Jewish religious leaders to Treblinka’s history in an exhibit and a tracks, they went so far as to plant conduct a limited dig. from previously unknown mass book. Following up on what she’s crops and build a farmhouse on the “There are some questions that can graves on the grounds of the labor found so far will take “at least another leveled ground. only be answered by archaeology,” camp. Some of the bones showed two years,” she said. Eyewitness accounts from survivors Sturdy Colls explained. “As we enter, evidence of cut marks, which Sturdy She expects the study to counter and captured guards brought the true unfortunately, an age without sur- Colls said would be consistent with the lingering claims of Holocaust story to light: One camp at Treblinka vivors, archaeology can provide much tales of victims being chopped up deniers — and show that, despite its was primarily a forced-labor facility. more new evidence.” before burial. best efforts, Nazi Germany couldn’t Another camp was designed specifi- Over the course of six years, the Discovering the bones made for an erase the evidence of a monstrous cally for herding thousands of victims archaeologists developed computer- emotional moment — but covering human tragedy. at a time into one side of a “bath- ized maps of the area using aerial them back up was unexpectedly emo- “They did a very good job of hiding house,” where they were gassed to photography, GPS technology, tional as well. Sturdy Colls is accus- it, but in actual fact, they didn’t ‘steril- death with carbon monoxide exhaust ground-penetrating radar and a laser- tomed to crime scene investigations ize’ this landscape,” Sturdy Colls said. from tank engines. The bodies were scanning technology known as lidar. where the evidence is handed over to “They weren’t that efficient.” Page 8 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2015 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5776 THETHE AMERICANAMERICAN && INTERNATIONALINTERNATIONAL SOCIETIESSOCIETIES GUEST SPEAKER HUMANITARIAN MARY JEAN EISENHOWER RABBI DR. JACOB ary Jean Eisenhower was born in Washington, D.C. such as the Global Humanitarian Eradication of Landmines; J. SCHACTER Mduring her grandfather Dwight D. Eisenhower’s first Children’s Mercy Hospital in London, England; earthquake abbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter is term in office as president of the United States. She was relief in India; disaster relief to victims of September 11, RUniversity Professor of Jewish christened in the Blue Room of the White 2001, and their families; support of schools for History and Jewish Thought and House and grew up in nearby Gettysburg, Pa, the underprivileged in China and Sri Lanka; a Senior Scholar at the Center for the in a home with property abutting the home for leukemia victims and their families in Jewish Future at Yeshiva University. Eisenhower farm, where President Cuba; Operation International Children; New Eisenhower eventually retired. She attended Horizons (a library project in Vietnam); The sur- several schools in Pennsylvania until her vivors of Rwanda; Japan tsunami relief; Haiti; father, John, was named as US Ambassador and Friends of Egypt, among others. One hun- to Belgium. She lived in Brussels with her fam- dred percent of all funds received through the ily from shortly after her grandfather’s death in organization go to the efforts and projects as 1969 through 1972. Mary Eisenhower is chair- specified by the donors. Following September 11, man emeritus of People to People 2001, Mary’s focus intensified toward getting International, which was founded September 11, 1956 by young people from around the world together to learn about her grandfather. Mary says that she joined PTPI hoping to each other and conflict management. Her vision resulted in carry on her grandfather’s dream, but that now it has “Peace Camp 2003: An Evolution of Thought and Action” become a dream of her own. President Eisenhower founded and “The Global Peace Initiative.” Both efforts have brought PTPI with the financial backing of his friend Joyce Hall, people from diverse areas, more than 30 nationalities, founder of Hallmark Cards, who insisted it be headquartered together in Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, to discuss issues and in Kansas City. Mary Eisenhower established the PTPI reach a better understanding of their unique and individual He is the son of Rabbi Herschel Friendship Fund in 1999 following an inspirational visit to an cultures. The program remains active today. Schacter, an Army Chaplain during orphanage in Morocco. The fund is designed as a way for Mary is continuing her humanitarian work as the chief WWII, who led survivors of people to help the friends and facilities they visit throughout development officer for Outreach International, a humanitar- Buchenwald in parayer service after the world and to help the PTPI Chapter network assist each ian organization devoted to permanently eliminating poverty liberation of the concentration camp. other. To date, the fund has provided assistance to causes throughout the world. From 2000 to 2005 Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter served as dean of the Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik Institute in Boston. He was the first rabbi of the THE AMERICAN AND INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES FOR YAD VASHEM Young Israel of Sharon, MA, from 1977 to 1981, creating a new, vibrant CORDIALLY INVITE YOU TO ATTEND THEIR and committed community. From 1981-2000, he served as the rabbi of The Jewish Center in New York City, moving the congregation from 180 to ANNUAL TRIBUTE DINNER over 600 members over the course of his tenure. Dr. Schacter holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Languages from Harvard COMMEMORATING 70 YEARS University and received rabbinic ordi- nation from Mesivta Torah Vodaath. SINCE LIBERATION He graduated from Brooklyn College in 1973, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with the Abraham S. Goodhartz Award for Excellence in Honoring Judaic Studies. Dr. Schacter was a ROSE AND PHILIP FRIEDMAN teaching fellow at Harvard from 1978 to 1980, director of Yeshiva University’s Torah u-Madda Project from 1986 to 1997, and an adjunct Featured Speaker assistant professor at the Stern College for Women at Yeshiva WOLF BLITZER University from 1993 to 1999. In 1995, he was awarded the prestigious Daniel Jeremy Silver Fellowship from Sunday, November 15, 2015 the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard The Pierre Hotel University. He also currently serves 2 East 61st Street at Fifth Avenue as a member of the faculty of The New York City Wexner Foundation and The Wexner Heritage Foundation. Reception 4:30 PM Dr. Schacter is co-author of the award-winning A Modern Heretic and Dinner 6:00 PM a Traditional Community: Mordecai M. Kaplan, Orthodoxy, and American Mark Moskowitz Judaism, published by Columbia Dinner Chair University Press in 1996, and he is author of close to fifty articles and reviews in Hebrew and English. Leonard A. Wilf Ron B. Meier, PhD Rabbi Schacter holds a number of Chair Executive Director prominent Jewish communal positions. He was awarded several fellowships and grants to further his scholarly Kosher Dietary Laws Observed Black Tie Optional research. September/October 2015 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5776 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 9 SS FORFOR YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM ANNUALANNUAL TRIBUTETRIBUTE DINNERDINNER

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Harvey Arfa Cheri Deshe Linda & Murray J. Laulicht Lidia & Jimmy Resnick Gail & Bruce Bukiet Trudy & Sol Englander David Mandelbaum Bella and George Savran Karen & Michael Bukiet Rochelle & Maks Etingin Shelley & Josef Paradis Betty & Howard Schwartz Wayne Zuckerman

YOUNG LEADERSHIP ASSOCIATES DINNER COMMITTEE Abbi & Jeremy Halpern Barry Levine

Nadav Besner Julie & Reuben Kopel Sivan Ochshorn Rachel Schnay Maeira & Michel Lauren & Justin Brody Alexandra Lebovits Dara & David Orbach Michael Shmuely Werthenschlag Jennifer Drukier Nicole & Avi Lieberman Jaci & Gonen Paradis Aliza & Elie Singer Cori & Jason Wilf & Matthew Birnbaum Ilana Lifshitz Elliot Pines Jennifer & Mark Smith Orin Wilf Yonina & Eric Gomberg Iris & Adam Lindenbaum Tali & Justin Pines Brett Tanzman Rachel & Jonathan Wilf Aviya & Alex Halpern Jessica & Andrew Mauk Daniella Pomeranc Keren Toledano Lolly & Boaz Zborowski Rebecca Hanus Nicole & Joseph Meyer Mindy & Alan Schall Ariel & Joshua Weiner Jocelyn & Gregory Klar Page 10 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2015 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5776 REPORTREPORT FROMFROM YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM THE ANGUISH OF SEPARATION: CHILDREN AND THEIR RESCUERS arrived at an unfamiliar, French- ents, due to the traumas that they had family could provide warmth, love and BY IRENA STEINFELDT speaking Jewish orphanage.” experienced, would be unable to give stability. Many children ran away to idding farewell to their rescuer the children a warm home or raise return to the homes of their rescuers, n 1942, three-year-old Bernard families after the war exacted a them properly. When no family mem- viewing them as their “real” family. Tuch of Antwerp, Belgium, was B I high price not only from the children, bers survived, the rescuers could not he case of Jan and Wilhelmina brought to the home of the Willems but also from the rescuers who had understand why the child should be Strating from the Netherlands is family, who lovingly sheltered and T cared for them for months and often raised in an institution at a time when exceptional. This childless couple hid cared for him. After liberation, when years. In many cases, the ties they themselves could offer him or they learned that his parents had not Samuel de Leeuw (b. 1941) in their between the benefactors and those her a loving family. survived, Bernard’s uncle came to home in Heerlen. After the war, they saved developed into a pro- Even when the children were reclaim the little boy. However, Samuel’s mother, Elizabeth, came to foundly close relationship, with the returned to the Jewish world, some Bernard refused to leave the home of reclaim her child. The three adults shared experience during the children found it extremely difficult. decided that Samuel would have his rescuers. The uncle, who wished Holocaust period Sometimes, they still to be united with the only other sur- three parents. He would live with his fusing them into a had a faint memory of mother in Amsterdam, but Jan and vivor of their family, turned to the cohesive family unit. their original family; in courts, and the family was forced to Wilhelmina would share all family There were also other cases, parents events and enjoy Samuel’s visits. restore the child to his relative. cases in which res- or relatives suddenly In many cases, however, it was only Bernard later recalled how his uncle, cuers and survivors reappeared in the decades after the end of the war and who thought it best for the child to cut off all ties child’s world as com- the anguish of parting after liberation, sever all ties with the Willemses, because one side or plete strangers. The that survivors revisited their past, and refused to give them access to him. the other could not upheaval was terrible Sadly, a short time later, Bernard’s Bernard Tuch, a child in hiding, 1943. Yad once again sought out contact with bear to experience Vashem. – for a second time, uncle — a young and traumatized the excruciating children were forcibly their rescuers. Many of them still turn survivor himself — found it too difficult pain of separation again. In certain cut off from the life and family to today to the Department of the to care for him, and regretfully cases, there were disputes, including which they had become accustomed. Righteous Among the Nations at Yad brought him to an orphanage. In his legal ones, related to the continued Moreover, the challenge of rebuilding Vashem with requests to recognize testimony, Bernard Tuch laconically custody of children. Some rescuers a new life was enormous: Surviving their rescuers, lest their inspirational describes the painful transition: “From refused to return the children, believ- parents returned from the war bruised and exceptional kindness be forgot- a loving Catholic Flemish home, I ing with all their hearts that the par- and penniless, whereas the rescuing ten forever. RETURN TO LIFE AFTER THE LIBERATION west from the Soviet Union, where family members, friends and loved pendent leadership, set up education- BY PROF. DINA PORAT they had fled and managed to survive ones who might also have stayed al and foster-care facilities for children the war years. alive, against all odds. Many decided and youth, published dozens of news- n May 8, 1945, when the With the advent of liberation, pierc- to go back to their prewar homes, but papers and magazines, collected tes- defeated Germans finally capit- O ing questions arose in the minds of they encountered utter destruction. In timonies on the fate of Jews during ulated to the Allied Forces, great joy the survivors: How would they be able some places, especially in Eastern the Holocaust, and became a signifi- spread throughout the world. Europe, Jews met with severe out- cant factor in the Zionist movement’s Throughout the European continent, breaks of anti-Semitism — more than international aspirations toward the barely freed from the clutches of the 1,000 Jews were murdered in the ini- establishment of a Jewish state. Nazi regime, military parades and cel- tial postwar years by the locals. The bout two-thirds of the survivors ebrations followed one another in most appalling episode was the who chose not to remain in close succession. Yet one group of A Kielce pogrom — a violent attack in Europe after the war set their sights people did not take part in the gener- July 1946 by Polish residents against on Eretz Israel. Yet going to Israel al euphoria — the Jews of Europe. their Jewish neighbors — in which 42 was a formidable struggle, in view of For them, victory had come too late. Jews were murdered, some of them the policies imposed by the British The day of liberation, the one for the sole survivors of entire families, Mandate that barred them from enter- which every Jew had longed through- and many others were injured. ing. As part of the effort to break out the years of the Holocaust, was The Kielce pogrom became a turn- through the borders and prohibitions, for most a day of crisis and empti- ing point in the history of She’erit the illegal immigration movement — ness, a feeling of overwhelming lone- Hapleita, or the surviving remnant, as Ha’apala — was organized, whereby liness as they grasped the sheer Holocaust survivors began to be survivors boarded old vessels in vari- scale of the destruction on both the known. A mass migration entitled ous Mediterranean ports and sailed personal and communal level. Some Habricha (The Escape) saw as many for Eretz Israel. The remaining third of six million Jews had been mur- Moment of liberation by the US Army of a Jews as possible finding their way to the survivors emigrated to the US, dered — about one-third of world transport carrying some 2,500 prisoners from territories controlled by British and US Latin America, South Africa, Canada Jewry — and those who had survived Bergen-Belsen to Theresienstadt. troops in Germany, as a step before and Australia. were scattered throughout Europe. to go back to living a normal life, to leaving Europe. These refugees Ha’apala, as well as emigration to Tens of thousands of survivors of the build homes and families? And having joined the tens of thousands of other countries, was a pivotal stage in camps and the death marches, liber- survived, what obligation did they Jewish survivors liberated in Central the survivors’ postwar recovery ated by the Allied armies on German bear toward those who had not? The Europe, and together they amassed process. Holocaust survivors con- soil and in other countries, were in a overwhelming majority of survivors in the DP camps across Germany, tributed, each in their own way, to severely deteriorated physical condi- took no revenge on the Germans, but Austria and Italy. Oftentimes, these building a better world for themselves, tion and a state of emotional shock. set out on a path of rehabilitation, camps were established at the sites for their children and for future gener- Others emerged for the first time from rebuilding and creativity, while com- of former Nazi concentration camps, ations that would never know the hor- various places of hiding and shed the memorating the world that was no among them Bergen-Belsen and rors of the Holocaust. As survivor false identities they had assumed, or more. Buchenwald. Riva Chirurg, who lost dozens of fam- surfaced from partisan units in whose uring the Holocaust, many Jews The activities of She’erit Hapleita in ily members in the Lodz ghetto and at ranks they had fought for the libera- lived with the feeling that they the DP camps were a powerful Auschwitz, said: “If more than 20 peo- tion of Europe. In the wake of interna- D were the last to survive. expression of the survivors’ efforts to ple, second and third generation, tional agreements signed at the end Nevertheless, after liberation, sur- return to life after the war. They gather around my Pesach Seder of the war, some 200,000 additional vivors went far and wide in search of formed new families and an inde- table, I know I have done my share.” Jews began to make their way back September/October 2015 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5776 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 11 THE SECRETS OF UKRAINE’S SHAMEFUL “HOLOCAUST OF BULLETS” KILLING CENTER (Continued from page 5) Hitler’s troops, and Father Desbois and he bled everywhere. He band- and Societies in Ukraine, said that six pened with her mother, but Anna sur- and his humanitarian organization aged his knee, he was half million Jews were killed in the vived and later became a school Yahad – In Unum, are seeking to undressed, and then he emptied his Holocaust in Europe. teacher in Rava Ruska.” identify the sites and erect memorials, round. He even killed Jews who still “Of these, 1.5 million to 1.6 million but also to help relatives track had their clothes on, he couldn’t wait, were Ukrainian Jews,” he said, “In where their ancestors were slain he was so crazed with rage. He fired other words, one in four were and now lie buried. at everybody, he was crazy.” Ukrainian Jews.” wenty-five years ago, I A sign of what was to come under He added: “There are certain “T learned that in Rava the Germans was seen in the Lviv stereotypes about participation of Ruska there was a camp where pogrom of June 1941 immediately Ukrainian nationalists in pogroms in 25,000 Soviet prisoners were after the Nazis entered the city after the early war years which were plant- killed by the Germans,” he said in pushing out the Red Army. ed by Soviet history. this village, once a thriving town A Ukrainian mob, eagerly backed by “It is true that the local population with 42 percent of its population the new occupiers, stripped and beat did cooperate with German Nazis in Jewish. Jewish women in the streets who the occupied territories, but the major- “There was a memorial for the were subjected to public humiliation. ity of them were ethnic Russian. Soviet prisoners. But there were This was part of an orgy of anti- “Russia makes a point about no memorials for the mass graves Semitic violence, including beatings Ukrainian nationalists because it is of the Jews.” and killings, which led to the deaths of keen to divert suspicion from itself.” He has now ensured there is a 4,000 Jews in Lviv. The notion of Ukrainian nationalists memorial here — erected in May “The topic of the Holocaust was colluding with the Nazis was a vivid this year — and that the graves, almost banned in Soviet times,” horror played on by Soviet propagan- and the memory of what hap- Mikhail Tyaglyy, historian of the da, and now seized on again by the pened, are protected. Ukrainian Center of Holocaust Russian authorities in branding But it was his experience in Studies, told MailOnline. “Fascist” those who currently want to Rava Ruska — which was also on or modern Ukraine the subject is be outside Moscow’s sphere of control. the main railway line to the death Fdifficult, too, because it means Hitler had planned to eradicate over Although some “radical nationalists” helped the Nazis, camp of Belzec in Nazi-occupied admitting a role for nationalists in col- half of Ukraine’s population so that they did most of the killing of local Jews in Ukraine (pictured) themselves. Poland where up to 600,000 were luding with the Nazis, in part because the country’s rich farmland could be exterminated in gas chambers — some preferred a German occupation repopulated with Germans in their so- A witness from Bakhiv, Temofis that led him to expand his search to Stalin’s as the lesser of two evils. called quest for Lebensraum. Ryzvanuk, then 14, told Father across the country. Soviet history neglected the anti- By 1945, some three million non- Desbois how Germans beat the Jews “We want to show that we will come Semitic aspect of the Jewish killings, Jewish Ukrainians had been mur- with whips to force them to dig the back,” he said. lumping these deaths holes in which they would be buried. “We will come back to the last grave together with total loss- “We were so afraid of the Germans. where they killed the Jews.... We es in the USSR. They had things on their caps, they have a duty to victims because each “We are touching the were terrifying. and every one of them had a name.” topic of Ukrainian “My father’s brother said: ‘Don’t be He has estimated that there may be nationalism here and it afraid, no one is going to kill you. another 6,000 sites still to find, report- is a complicated matter. They’re only killing Jews. And they ed Deutsche Welle. The situation in Ukraine realized that they were going to be Elsewhere in Ukraine, he heard from was not so different to killed.’ Nikola Kristitch, who was aged eight in what was going on in “They stripped them naked, men 1942, when he saw a vision of hell that other Soviet regions and women. When they had killed haunted him for the rest of his life. which were occupied them, they put them beside each He was hiding in the trees when he by Nazis — everywhere other, head to head, to pile in as many saw dead children being thrown by they relied on local as possible, to save space. The hand into a pit — a mass grave. nationalists, who often The pogroms were a part of systematic anti-Semitic violence, Germans had automatic rifles and Adults “were completely naked and blamed Jews for sup- including beatings and killings, which led to the deaths of 4,000 when they got close to the pit they walked with the rabbi at their head. porting the ‘Moscow- Jews in Lviv. shot them.” He gave a sermon, to all those who Bolshevik regime,’ as they said at the dered by the Germans in addition to Temofis described the bloody exe- were already there. And the cars kept time. those killed in the Holocaust. cution as a “production line” that was coming, there were more and more “Such attitude easily inspired The priest is unapologetic over his “so well organized” that it only took a people and they went into the pit in pogroms as we had in Western campaign in Ukraine. few minutes for everyone to be killed. rows. They all lay down like herrings. Ukraine. “Why do we come back to Ukraine?” “They had barely got out when they “They lay down and there was one “It is true that radical nationalists he asked. “Because one day we will fell and were pushed in and piled submachine gun and two Germans, helped Nazis in guarding and per- have to go back to Iraq, because one together, head to head like herrings. they had the skull and crossbones on formed other tasks. But Nazis did not day we will have to go back to the last Then the next wagonload arrived, and their caps. They fired a burst at the trust mass killing of Jews to locals.” mass grave in Darfur.” then the next,” he said. people lying there, and then more Tyaglyy added: “It is vital for all Unless the lesson is learned from Desbois warned: “A whole part of went in and another burst. Ukrainians to keep memories of what the Holocaust, “tomorrow will be the the genocide has not been declared. “They kept shooting them until happened in Ukraine, to come back to same story.” “The challenge is to collect the max- nightfall. And we watched. Then the it, because this experience can teach Historian Mikhail Tyaglyy said the imum amount of evidence about the Germans went back again to get the us many important lessons needed truth about the Holocaust in Ukraine killing of the Jews in these countries villagers to cover the grave. nowadays.” must be taught to young people. and find out about the mass graves. “That night, the people covered it in, He said: “There may be differences “It is important to all times and all “Tomorrow the witnesses will disap- but the ground was still moving, for in calculating the number of Jewish generations. Radical extremism and pear and the deniers will overreact, another two days. The ground population in Ukraine before the war; anti-Semitism still exist, and this is saying that the Jews falsified the story. heaved. I remembered one of the it is about including or not including why it must be taught. “I always say, the Holocaust was not girls, a young girl. Her panties were the Eastern regions of Poland after “If we look at modern German soci- a tsunami. It was a crime. And when around her ankles. Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. But in gen- ety, we can hardly see any signs of there’s a crime you have evidence. “A German fired at her and her hair eral we can say that at least a half - if anti-Semitism and xenophobia there, It’s very easy to find evidence in these caught fire. She screamed and he not more - of all Ukrainian Jews were but it became possible because of villages.” took an automatic rifle, got into the killed in the Holocaust in our territory.” long-term wise educational, cultural In all, more than one million grave and fired. Iosif Zisels, co-president of and historical policies of the German Ukrainian Jews were murdered by “The bullet ricocheted off his knee Association of Jewish Organizations state within the last decades.” Page 12 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2015 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5776 WHEN A DUTCH JEWISH WOMAN TAUGHT SS OFFICERS HOW TO DANCE letter J, which authorities stamped on Ignoring the summons, she stole German prisoners of war captured by BY CNAAN LIPHSHIZ, the documents of Jews after the Nazi another woman’s passport and the Allied forces. “So of course THE TIMES OF ISRAEL takeover, Paul Glaser said at a lecture moved to a different city, living under Roosje pretended to be Danish” to he delivered about the biography at a false identity in a boardinghouse ven before Nazi racial laws camp officials who didn’t know her, to the Limmud FSU Jewish learning run by a German woman who was turned her into a wanted person get on the list, Paul Glaser said. E conference in Moscow earlier this married to a Dutch Nazi. Then a for- in her native Netherlands, Roosje At the refugee camp in Sweden, year. mer lover betrayed her to the authori- Glaser had limited patience for rules. where she ended up after the ties — this time for A lighthearted and sometimes frivo- exchange, Roosje Glaser began giv- payment — and she lous Jewish dance instructor who ing dancing lessons to other dis- was deported to loved jazz music and the company of placed persons like herself. Poland. handsome men, Glaser ignored the Feeling betrayed by the Dutch 1940 Nazi takeover of Holland and As a fluent speaker nation, she settled in Sweden until her the murderous anti-Semitism it of German and death. She ignored Dutch officials’ brought. When she couldn’t ignore it, accomplished admin- requests that she report for inclusion she mocked it. istrator, Glaser landed in the postwar census and be repatri- An amateur photographer whose a position as an assis- ated to the Netherlands. Glaser Aryan looks allowed her greater tant to a German offi- fought to stay in Sweden, where she mobility than other Jews, had Glaser cer at Auschwitz. But lived to her dying day. not only flouted Nazi laws that forced before she did, she Glaser’s brother, Paul Glaser’s Jews to wear yellow patches, but underwent medical father, who survived the Holocaust in used to pose for photographs with experiments that ren- hiding, never told his family about unsuspecting German occupation sol- dered her unable to Roosje Glaser or about his Jewish diers next to cafe signs that read “no bear children. roots. It was through a chance “She had charm and Jews allowed.” Roosje Glaser, left, with her dance students during an excursion in encounter with a person who turned Her flamboyant defiance eventually 1942. she spoke to the out to be his second cousin that Paul got Glaser sent to Auschwitz. But at Germans like she was Glaser learned the truth about his the death camp, that same trait In violation of Nazi racial laws, one of them, like a classmate. She family and of his aunt’s existence. helped her survive as a dance instruc- Roosje Glaser continued to run her lacked that victim mentality,” said “When I confronted my father about it, tor to the SS until she staged a clever successful dance school. She even Paul Glaser, who interviewed his aunt he admitted but asked me not to tell escape. The remarkable life story of made it into the cinema reel in 1941, for the book close to her death and anyone about this story because soon- Roosje Glaser, who died in 2000, was as part of a Nazi-era item that was has spent the past 15 years gathering er or later, he said, it would be used only recently documented in a new meant to show that Amsterdam’s cul- additional materials about her against all of us,” Glaser recalled. biography about her written and pub- tural scene was unhampered by the extraordinary life story. It was a common reaction in a coun- lished in Britain this year by her Dutch occupation. But her jealous ex-hus- Using what he called “natural try where Nazis and their local collab- nephew. band, who had turned into an ardent charm,” Roosje Glaser began giving orators killed 75 percent of the pre- “On the one hand, it seems that at Nazi, informed the Nazis of her her German bosses dance lessons Holocaust Jewish population of times she didn’t understand the Jewish roots. after hours, sometimes together with 140,000 — the highest death rate in severity of her situation,” said Paul Summoned and marked by authori- their girlfriends or the dreaded occupied Western Europe. Glaser, the son of Roosje Glaser’s ties, Glaser was unable to find a Aufseherinnen – female guards. “By Roosje Glaser and her brother had brother and author of Dancing with venue for the graduation ball of her night she was giving dancing lessons a tense relationship. Though they met the Enemy. “On the other hand, she dance class of 1942. So she had the to people whose day job it was to kill a few times after the Holocaust, they survived by seizing a series of oppor- graduation in a barn in the country- her and her people,” Glaser said. fought each time. Her brother blamed tunities that show she knew what she side. Pictures of her dancing with her n 1944, Roosje Glaser heard that her for the capture of their mother was doing.” students are the last taken of her as a Ithe Swedish Red Cross was work- because of her flamboyant life style, Roosje Glaser’s first act of defiance free person before she was sent to ing out a deal to exchange Danish which he thought drew attention to was to remove from her passport, the Auschwitz. nationals at Auschwitz for three the rest of the family. ID CARDS OF THOUSANDS OF JEWS DISCOVERED IN LITHUANIA documentation of Jewish heritage in hese new records will provide The director of Yad Vashem’s BY YORI YALON the former Soviet Union and Baltic T information about Jews who Archives Division, Dr. Haim Gertner, region. were killed in the Holocaust and their said the finding is “a very special and ad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Found among the ID cards in stories lost. rare collection. Most Eastern European Museum archivists found some Y Kaunas was that of poet and author communities did not keep order- 26,000 previously unknown identifica- Leah Goldberg, who moved to Israel ly lists of residents before the tion cards belonging to Jewish citi- in 1935. war, and the Nazis did not often zens in the national archives in The cards were kept with a collec- list the names of the people Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania. tion of all ID cards issued by the murdered in these areas. local population authority in “For this reason, the fate of Kaunas, to Jews and non-Jews, many Lithuanian Jews, including from 1920 to 1940. those from Kaunas, is unknown Each resident received a copy to us. This collection that we are of their card, while the original now photographing, thanks to was kept by the local authorities the assistance Yad Vashem for internal use. receives from the Genesis The identification cards contain Philanthropy Group, allows us to Brocha Gdalioviciene-Polianskyte ID card — her story is personal information, including not yet known. recreate the list of the city’s first and last name, father’s Jewish residents before the war name, date of birth, profession, One of the cards belonged to a and to give these victims of the Poet and author Leah Goldberg ID card from Kaunas nationality (Lithuanian or Jewish) woman named Brocha Gdalioviciene- Holocaust a face and a story. and a photograph and signature of Polianskyte. It was issued in the “Scanning these documents, The cards represent about two the resident. 1930s, and Yad Vashem staff do not uploading them to our database and thirds of the Jewish population in the The cards were moved during the know what happened to her in the displaying them to the public will help city before the Second World War. war and returned to the city’s archives Holocaust, but are now beginning to us tell the story of this community dur- They were found as part of a wide- following liberation. research her fate. ing the Holocaust.” ranging effort to locate any and all September/October 2015 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5776 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 13 THE SWEDISH SCHINDLER: HOW COUNT BERNADOTTE SAVED THOUSANDS OF JEWS FROM DEATH (Continued from page 2) Reichsführer’s agreement that he of the camp — here are the stores, The commandant said, at the time, to a holding center at Neuengamme should go at last to Ravensbrück. By there is Siemens. Some of the there were 3,000 “Jewesses” in camp before transferring them across the time he reached the camp, the inmates appear behind the windows Ravensbrück, which was almost cer- the Danish border and on to Sweden. main gas chamber had been disman- and the barbed wire looking at us. tainly an underestimate. Others said it The Allies had been alerted to the tled, though gassing was continuing They know that ‘transport’ usually was more like 4,000. By early May, as operation by Stockholm and no objec- in mobile trucks. means death.” victory in Europe came closer, 7,000 tions were raised. No safe passage At last Jean found herself moving Ravensbrück women and 17,000 “NOW YOU WILL BE FREE” was granted to the Swedes either, toward men who smiled “with tears in prisoners in total had already arrived though the British had requested that he first prisoners taken from their eyes as they see us. Suddenly on the Malmö quay. How many of the the buses be painted white with red T Ravensbrück were once again we are about to mount the buses and Ravensbrück women would still have crosses on their roofs, so RAF fighter Scandinavian — among them Nelly there is a scramble for places.” lived to see the Russians arrive at the pilots might identify them. Bernadotte’s Langholm, a Norwegian from Jean’s convoy moved off, but amid camp on April 30 is impossible to say, task force was nevertheless strafed by Stavanger who had been in the camp an Allied air attack they were forced to but women continued to die of starva- Allied planes, and his own car was hit, for two years. “We couldn’t believe it,” leave the buses. “We are too slow to tion and sickness even after the though the Count made a dive safely she said. “We had to walk to the take cover ... and suddenly we are camp’s liberation and Russians found into a ditch. It soon emerged that gates. We saw the buses and there machine gunned. For a moment I bodies piled all around the camp. German trucks were also being painted were these Swedish men in grey uni- taste the bitter irony of being killed by Those who reached Malmö were white, with red crosses, in an attempt to forms with red crosses on their arms. our own allies on the road to freedom certain their lives had been miracu- fool the Allies. I think they told us. ‘Now you will go to but they are gone and I live. Looking lously saved. “I would not be alive Sweden. Now you will be free. Can around I see a terrible scene. Behind without Count Bernadotte,” says THE BLACK COMPROMISE you imagine?’” me a woman is bleeding to death.” Baseden, now 92 and living in here were terrible moral dilem- Over the following London. The small British contin- T mas too. Himmler’s terms for days, rumors spread gent — numbering about 12 — were agreeing to the rescue — particularly that more buses almost left behind and only made it the rule that for now only would come, but thanks to a Swedish driver called Scandinavians be saved — had none appeared. Sven Frykmann, who personally put meant leaving desperate wretches Ravensbrück was by them onto a bus. behind. Bernadotte had not, at first, now almost unreach- A SHOT THROUGH THE WINDOW been allowed by Himmler to rescue able and many of Scandinavian Jews — mostly Danish Bernadotte’s drivers llied reluctance to acknowledge and some Norwegians. If Hitler got to were heading home. A that the neutral Swedes could hear that Jews were being released, But the Count want- have pulled off such a coup did not he said, Himmler would be obliged to ed to bring out more prevent the UN from recognizing call off the entire operation. prisoners. The atroc- Bernadotte’s skills by appointing him Bernadotte apparently submitted to ities committed at as the Security Council mediator in his orders, and yet Swedish historian Bergen-Belsen, the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1947–48. Sune Persson cites Swedish docu- reached on April 15 The Ravensbrũck women’s coats were marked by crosses en route to The UN peace plan, which ments showing that from the start of by the British, had distinguish them as prisoners. Bernadotte was charged with imple- the operation Bernadotte “was active- been flashed around Later, reports said 17 Ravensbrück menting, was, however, immediately ly working on the Jewish cause” and the world, fueling fears for the women women died in Jean’s convoy. RAF considered a betrayal in Israel –large- had soon secured the release of more of Ravensbrück. Bernadotte sought a planes were said to have been respon- ly because it did not envisage than 400 Danish Jews from final meeting with Himmler. Himmler sible. The British ambassador in Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Theresienstadt camp. did not reach Hohenlychen until the Stockholm voiced “regret” but remind- In order to kill the plan, Jewish Himmler had banned Bernadotte following morning, appearing tired ed the Swedes of earlier warnings of no extremists — members of the Stern from rescuing women held at and nervous and “tapping his teeth.” “safe-passage.” Other convoys were gang, or Lehi — killed the mediator. Ravensbrück. There was gassing Bernadotte presented his latest pro- hit, but Bernadotte’s buses continued On the orders of Yitzhak Shamir, one under way at the women’s camp — a posal: to take more prisoners, includ- to arrive and the women mobbed them, of the Stern gang leaders and a future fact Himmler didn’t want discovered. ing all the French women, from as reports spread that the SS would Israeli prime minister, the assassins Whether Bernadotte knew this was Ravensbrück — to which Himmler eventually blow up the camp. pushed the barrel of a submachine the reason we don’t know, but, yet suddenly announced that Bernadotte “We suspected they were going to gun through the back window of again, he took the view that his res- could take all the Western Allied pris- take us to the crematorium despite Bernadotte’s car and pumped six bul- cue had to be conducted on oners from the camp, as well as all rumors of liberation,” said Basia lets into him. Israeli press condemned Himmler’s terms or not at all. the Jews. Ravensbrück had filled up Zajaczjiwsja, a Polish Jew who the murder at the time, but, over the Compromises — painful though they with Jews in the last months of the worked as a Siemens laborer. And years, the name Bernadotte became were — had to be made if men and war as Jewish women, marched in Erna Solewicz, another Polish Jew, controversial in Israel, and among women were to be saved. Over the from Hungary and from remembered a sudden order given in some of Israel’s supporters around Easter weekend Bernadotte flew back Auschwitz —many of them Polish her block that “all Jewish women had the world. The awkward fact that the to Berlin to try to improve those terms, Jews — ahead of its evacuation, were to leave the camp.” man who, as UN mediator, was killed but his plane stalled in thick black forced into slave labor here, many of The next day, the Jewish women on the streets of Jerusalem for betray- smoke as the Allies launched a day- them at a Siemens electrical plant, were taken to the gates. Guards “tore ing Israel, had rescued thousands of light raid over the capital. As soon as based at the camp. Bernadotte off our marks and numbers,” said Jewish lives from the Nazis, was diffi- the all clear sounded he landed and ordered his buses to turn again Basia, referring to their yellow trian- cult for some to assimilate. made contact with Walter towards Ravensbrück to carry out the gles — in Ravensbrück Jewish pris- Certain commentators — even in Schellenberg, Himmler’s right-hand most dramatic episode of the mission. oners did not wear stars. This way Sweden — have found cause to man, and another meeting at As the buses queued in the woods nobody would know that Jews were downplay Bernadotte’s courage dur- Hohenlychen was soon arranged. outside, the camp women still feared being released — no word could ing the rescue mission. Some have This time, Bernadotte found Himmler selection for death. When Jean reach Hitler’s people, who, even now, even questioned whether he ever “not only grave but nervy,” as he Bommezin de Rochement, a Dutch might somehow halt the rescue. intended to rescue Jews at all. wrote in his memoir. While he was out woman, heard her name called out The ripping off of numbers and At a memorial ceremony, held to of the room, Schellenberg told she was sure it was for gassing. She marks — and the reluctance of mark the 70th anniversary of the libera- Bernadotte that Himmler wanted the wrote in a diary: “We leave the camp Jewish survivors to say that they were tion on April 30 this year, Ravenbsrück Count to act as his intermediary in the direction of the gas chambers. Jews on arrival for fear of further hor- survivors remembered Bernadotte. directly with Eisenhower. Bernadotte We move forward and for many of us ror — would also make it harder later Among them was Selma Van der refused. When Himmler returned, this is too much. They are seized by a to count the precise number of Jews Perre, a Jewish Dutch woman, who Bernadotte saw his chance to win nervous fit ... we have to drag them who were saved from the camp on told me: “Without Bernadotte I would more concessions and secured the forward.... We move and see the back the white buses. probably not have got out alive.” Page 14 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2015 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5776 GERMAN PHILOSOPHER BLAMED JEWS THE FASCISTS AND THE JEWS OF FOR “SELF-DESTRUCTING” IN HOLOCAUST ITALY n a startling revelation in his so- in modern philosophy. before Jerusalem: The Unexamined (Continued from page 4) called Black Notebooks, one of Speaking with The Jerusalem Life of a Mass Murderer all the more I from Germany was institutional, Germany’s leading philosophers of Post, Efraim Zuroff, the chief Nazi important. rather than attitudinal, in the absence the 20th century, Martin Heidegger, hunter for the Simon Wiesenthal “She conclusively proves that of a large-scale agency obsessed blames the Jews for the Holocaust. Center, said, “The latest findings Arendt misread Eichmann.” with targeting Jews; the “Department According to an article in the Italian regarding Heidegger’s views of the Arendt (1906–1975) wrote in her of Demography and Race,” or daily Corriere della Sera by mass murders of European Jews book Eichmann in Jerusalem that Demorazza, was composed of fewer Heidegger expert Donatella Di clearly reveal a total lack of under- the Nazi official was merely a face- than 70 career bureaucrats rather Cesare, “The Shoah was an act of less bureaucrat. than hundreds of ideological anti- self-destruction by the Jews. This is According to her critics, she failed to the view that emerges from the new grasp the lethal anti-Semitism that ani- Semites like the SS. It was not that volume of Heidegger’s Black mated his behavior and world outlook. the Fascists were softer toward the Notebooks.” The Auschwitz survivor and Jews but that anti-Semitism simply Heidegger wrote during the Austrian-Jewish journalist Jean wasn’t a preoccupation for them. Holocaust in 1942 that the “commu- Améry slammed Arendt for her work. While nominally racial, the leggi nity of Jews” is “in the age of the Di Cesare wrote that the Shoah for razziali considered both “race” and Christian West — the age of meta- Heidegger is “presented as playing religion in “borderline” cases, a num- physics — the principle of destruc- a decisive role” in a main tenet of ber of which are cited by Livingston, tion.” He wrote further: “Only when Heidegger’s philosophy of the histo- pertaining to employment, property what is essentially ‘Jewish,’ in the ry of being. and marriage, and he devotes a chap- metaphysical sense, combats what After analyzing Heidegger’s newly ter to the wide and complex spectrum is Jewish, is the peak of self- discovered writings, she found that of Jewish response to the Race Laws, destruction in history reached.” “In this sense, the extermination of from setting up their own schools and Heidegger, a towering figure in the the Jews represents the apocalyptic providing charity to forging docu- school of continental European phi- moment when that which destroys ments to challenging interpretations losophy who died in 1976, was the Martin Heidegger. ends up destroying itself. As the of the laws provisions. While there rector at the University of Freiburg standing of the criminality of the peak of ‘self-destruction in history,’ was no hope of overturning the unjust and summarily dismissed Jewish annihilation of the Jews by the Third the Shoah makes possible the purifi- laws, there were some attempts by professors at the outset of the Nazi Reich.” cation of being.” Jews and jurists to restrain or limit movement in the 1930s. uroff, who heads the Jerusalem Heidegger, as an anti-technology their application. However, despite He was a member of the Nazi Zoffice of the Wiesenthal Center, proponent, saw the Jews as the exemption provisions (discrimi- Party. added, “It also makes one wonder to embodiment of a technological world nazione), which were limited and tem- The German-American Jewish what degree Hannah Arendt was that he loathed. He plays down the porary, the laws were not easy to philosopher Hannah Arendt, a for- influenced by him in the Eichmann Holocaust and at times denies the evade or get around, and, over time, mer student and lover of Heidegger, trial. It makes research by Bettina existence of extermination camps in fewer and fewer cases were decided had defended him as a leading light Stangneth in her book Eichmann his notebooks. in favor of the Jews. WHY DO HOLOCAUST CEREMONIES IGNORE JEWISH RESCUERS? (Continued from page 7) events in other countries and were describe instances of help extended mon threats. non-Jewish rescuers were recognized, able to prepare themselves ahead of by one Jew to another. Schneider refers to one incident and while the Jewish rescuer came to time in case the Nazis extended their “These awe-inspiring expressions of where historian Professor Saul the ceremony, that he was not even policies to Hungarians. They were courage, self-sacrifice and solidarity Friedländer argued before a crowd mentioned — let alone receiving recog- well organized. deserve to be documented, that “Jewish solidarity died in the nition! Years later when hearing this “Many Jews were fleeing from other researched and imparted, and Yad Holocaust.” It apparently caused a speech, he realized this was exactly his Eastern European countries into Vashem is committed to dealing with heated uproar with those in atten- case. He brought together some sur- Hungary, where Jews were being per- this topic in all its manifold activities, dance, particularly from Professor vivors and rescuers to form a commit- secuted but not murdered. They were including on our website. Dina Porat, the current chief historian tee to raise this issue. able to take advantage of that and “However it is practically impossible at Yad Vashem. “We’ve also been lobbying the rescue Jews in Hungary. to define criteria which will enable us When asked if he thought there was Knesset and Yad Vashem to do more “We think there’s a very important to decide what act of help deserves a certain sentiment that non-Jews on this issue. Yad Vashem last year lesson here about Jewish solidarity special distinction or a medal.” should be recognized more for any reason, Schneider continued that published its first book wholly dedicat- that should be learned through these In that, there is a key difference Jews have given him and other ed to the subject of Jewish rescue.” illustrated stories of people who between Jewish and non-Jewish res- organizers a number of reactions or Schneider admits Yad Vashem has engaged in rescuing fellow Jews.” cuers. excuses for the trend to recognize been making more of an effort to refo- For its part, Yad Vashem has “With non-Jews the basic criterion is gentile saviors but not Jewish ones. cus on this aspect of history. While defended its position and noted it the element of risk to the rescuer: i.e. e’ve gotten reactions like, the book does not bring any new does in fact go to great lengths to a person who knowingly chose to put “W‘Jews were bound to rescue material to light aside from some detail the many stories of Jewish himself or herself in danger and fellow Jews,’ based on ideas like ‘kol newly translated material already courage and defiance during the chose to leave the safety of the Yisrael eravim zeh b’zeh’ (‘All Israel is published in other languages, he says Holocaust — including those who bystander’s position and identify with responsible for one another’) or ‘al that the book takes a new look at that saved lives. the victims to the extent of being will- ta’amod b’dam re’ekha’ (‘Don’t stand previous research through the freshly ewish defiance and resistance ing to share their fate. on the blood of your brother’). But of minted lens of this overlooked aspect “Jduring the Holocaust took “In what concerns Jews, this distinc- course our answer has been, ‘Then of Jewish history. many forms and Holocaust history is tion cannot be made, since all Jews why present any citations to police- “The important part of this book is laden with stories of Jewish heroism, were destined for extermination and men, soldiers or anyone who has a that the editor broke stories up into 10 solidarity and self-help,” including therefore were in mortal danger no certain responsibility or was trained or chapters in a very good academic “helping someone to evade forced matter what they did. Helping fellow paid to do something? Why recognize fashion. He determined 10 different labor or deportation, setting up a res- Jews could have augmented that dan- anything outstanding?’ types of rescue, because in each cue network, assisting in escape ger in a particular instance, but evading “And that’s exactly the point. I think country, over the course of the war attempts, passing letters and informa- danger altogether was not an option.” people who do the outstanding or the situation changed and there were tion, giving a fellow inmate a piece of Schneider feels that Jews have for- take the brave step that is counterin- different opportunities for rescue. bread, providing encouragement, gotten not only how their own kind tuitive instead of rescuing them- “In Hungary, for example, the smuggling food or false papers, etc.,” has been heroic in the past, but also selves” deserve recognition, for “rec- Holocaust only started at the end of Yad Vashem said in a statement. the notion that people should still feel ognizing that, ‘If I can cross the bor- the war. They watched from afar at “Almost all survivor testimonies a sense of comradery against com- der, maybe others can, too!’” September/October 2015 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5776 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 15 FROM PSEUDONYM TO SPEAKING OUT: ANNE FRANK’S BEST FRIEND (Continued from page 6) clearly fictitious. She says she writes lion copies. the Holocaust, anti-Semitism and prej- exchange help learning German and about this revelation in her most For many years, van Maarsen pre- udice. arithmetic, though nothing much recent book, Your Best Friend, Anne ferred the anonymity of the pseudo- “People love Anne, I found out.… came of it. Frank, which is published in Dutch nym Anne had assigned her in the This little girl, the whole world knows s van Maarsen recalls, Anne and German. diary, Jopie. “I didn’t want to talk her now, and I know she would have A was the more boisterous of the “I had two lives during the war,” says about it,” she says. “I didn’t want to loved it,” van Maarsen says. two, and unlike her introverted best van Maarsen, who went from wearing lose my own identity, because people “Everything I do is in memory of Anne, friend, always wanted to be surround- a yellow star and attending the Jewish are interested in me because of this because I’m not the kind of woman, ed by people. “I said, ‘We are so dif- Lyceum to being a non-Jew in the friendship.” She studied in Paris to and never was the kind of girl, that ferent, how is it possible that we are eyes of the Nazis before they could become a designer bookbinder — a wanted to have attention,” she adds, such good friends.’ And she said, be called up and sent to the camps. “It profession that allowed her to work remembering the extrovert and intro- ‘That’s just the thing why we are good was very weird and I felt awful, and alone in her workshop — and married vert that became friends seven and a friends,’” van Maarsen recalls. after that,” she recalls, “I went to a Sanders, whom she knew as a neigh- half decades ago. “We were so differ- non-Jewish school bor when she was a child. ent, I know that Anne would have and nobody talked She remained quiet about her identi- loved it, but I didn’t like it.” about the Jews and I ty as Anne’s best friend, “but at a cer- Van Maarsen explained that the fre- didn’t tell the people tain moment I felt...it was necessary quent travel and list of commitments what had happened because things happen around her are worth it if she can reach a to my family.” [memory] that I didn’t like,” she says. “I younger generation and help them After the war, Otto had the idea that some people were grasp the often unfathomable events Frank appeared at taking too much profit off of her celebri- of the Holocaust. the van Maarsens’ ty. So I started to write about it. I knew Nowadays, that work often takes door. Van Maarsen that it would start but I thought I have to her to Germany. In the Netherlands, had been certain do this because Anne would have been she says, the Jewish community is Anne and her family furious if she had known, that she not particularly interested in Anne were in Switzerland, would be misused.” Frank. “They think, ‘We have our based on a rumor or the last several years, she has story, it’s the same story, why Anne Jacqueline van Maarsen. the Franks them- Fbeen writing books, traveling to Frank?’” she says. “And I try to tell selves had started speak — particularly with students and them it’s the diary that reaches peo- Anne was one of the first class- before going into hiding to cover their young people — about Anne and the ple, and because of the diary I can mates to disappear, before the situa- tracks. Otto knew already that his wife Holocaust, and giving interviews to the talk about it. Because of Anne — tion became dire. Her parents, Otto had perished at Auschwitz, van media. “I do it to show what can hap- everybody knows Anne — I can use and Edith Frank, had already been Maarsen recalls, and soon found out pen when racism and anti-Semitism is her for my speeches.” making arrangements to go into hid- that his two daughters, Anne and pushed too far, and I hope it helps,” she “I always have a full house, not ing, but a call-up notice for her sister Margot, had died at Bergen-Belsen. says. “I know that it has impact when I because I’m Jacqueline van Maarsen, Margot from the SS hastened their “He was very sad and wanted to talk tell my story and it has all to do with but because of Anne. I know quite departure by several days. Their part- to me all the time about Anne. And I Anne,” she adds. “That’s why people well Anne attracts people,” she adds, ners in hiding, the van Pels family didn’t like that. I didn’t want to remem- get interested.” In other words, her and “it’s very important I can talk (called the van Daans in Anne’s ber these bad times, it was so sad,” friend Anne sparks interest all over the about the Holocaust again and diary), also arrived earlier than says van Maarsen, who was just 16 at world and allows her to speak about again.” planned, as “the Germans were send- the time. “He was crying quite a lot. It ing out call-up notices right and left was very difficult for me,” she adds. The American Society for Yad Vashem and causing a lot of unrest.” She was finally able to read the prom- mourns the passing of lifelong friend and sup- Van Maarsen found herself in a ised but never sent goodbye letter porter Barbara Arfa, beloved wife of Harvey unique situation among her class- that Anne had written to her and and devoted mother of Executive Board mem- mates at the Jewish Lyceum. Her copied into her diary. After Otto ber and Founding Chairperson of our Young father came from an observant learned of Anne’s death, he began Leadership Associates Caroline Arfa Massel. Jewish family, but he was not as reli- reading her diary, which two of their Barbara was born in 1947 in Munich, gious, and married a Roman Catholic helpers in hiding, Miep Gies and Bep Germany. She was the only child of Regina and woman, van Maarsen and Sanders Voskuijl, had gathered and put in a Salo Gutfreund, z”l, survivors of the Holocaust explained at the Hotel Elysee. At first, drawer after Anne and the others and early supporters of the American Society her mother became Jewish for the were arrested on August 4, 1944. for Yad Vashem. Barbara always marveled that purposes of the congregation in “I was astonished that he — at a in spite of the horrors her parents had faced Amsterdam, and when the Nazis certain moment I don’t know — he during the Holocaust, they created a world of arrived, the family was entered into wanted to publish the diary. And I happiness, love and Yiddishkeit. Throughout her life, Barbara showed their list of Jews. But as it became thought, ‘Who can be interested in her beloved parents the utmost respect. increasingly clear just how grim the this writings of a young girl and about Barbara was trained as a journalist at Columbia Graduate School of future was for Jews in occupied the war,’ nobody wanted to think Journalism. She eventually made her career as president of men’s out- Holland, van Maarsen’s mother man- about the war anymore,” van erwear company Gruner & Co., Inc., which had been founded by aged a feat that would save all of their Maarsen says. “But I wrote a letter to Barbara’s father, Salo Gutfreund, z”l in 1949 when he purchased a lives. She convinced the German him and I said maybe Anne’s diary will vacated British government raincoat and parachute factory in Israel. authorities that she wasn’t Jewish one day be famous, which I didn’t Barbara went on to run the company and was joined by her husband (which was true) and was able to get think, but I just wrote it for him to be Harvey, a real estate attorney, in 1992. Their daughter, Caroline, joined the names of her husband and friendly.” the company in 1994. daughters off the list as well. ndeed, on June 25, 1947 — just Barbara dedicated herself to Holocaust remembrance and education. “I never knew how it exactly went,” Iover 68 years ago and a couple In addition to her work for Yad Vashem, Barbara and Harvey support- van Maarsen says, though she weeks after what would have been ed Holocaust education at The Ramaz School in New York City. They recently found out her mother may Anne’s 18th birthday—the first ver- also supported many other Jewish causes. The family has set up the have spoken to Hans Calmeyer, a sion of Anne Frank’s diary was pub- American Society for Yad Vashem – Barbara Arfa Holocaust Education German lawyer who headed the inte- lished in Dutch. Translations in Fund to continue her commitment. rior administration office in occupied German and French followed in 1950, Barbara was respected and admired by all who knew her. She was Holland that dealt with cases of and an English translation was pub- meticulous in everything — in her integrity in business, in her desire doubtful ancestry. Calmeyer is said to lished in the United States in 1952, to help others, in the way in which she set up her home, and most of have saved a few thousand people by with a preface by Eleanor Roosevelt. all, in her love and caring for family and friends. She always carried approving applications unusually The diary has been translated into 70 herself with dignity and elegance. often, even when documentation was languages and sold more than 30 mil- American & International Societies for Yad Vashem NON-PROFIT ORG. MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE U.S. POST 500 FIFTH AVENUE, 42nd FLOOR PAID NEW YORK, N.Y. NEW YORK, N.Y. 10110-4299 PERMIT NO. 9313

Web site: www.yadvashemusa.org Society Editor (212) 220-4304 Editor-in-Chief for Yad Vashem, Inc. Vashem, Yad for New York, NY 10110 NY York, New Ron B. Meier, Ph.D., Ron B. Meier, EDITORIAL BOARD EDITORIAL *Published Bimonthly by the American by the Yefim Krasnyanskiy, M.A., Krasnyanskiy, Yefim 500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor Avenue, 500 Fifth Martyrdom & Resistance *1974-85, as Newsletter for the American *1974-85, as Newsletter for the Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp Inmates, and Nazi Victims **deceased Eli Zborowski** Marvin Zborowski Mark Palmer Sam Skura** Israel Krakowski** Mandell William Sam Halpern** Isidore Karten** Norman Belfer Joseph Bukiet** to the September/October 2015 - Tishri/Cheshvan 5776 - Tishri/Cheshvan 2015 September/October Belsen s the documentary progressed s the documentary last year, Reichental developed Reichental last year, In the film there is a poignant scene “Embracing Alexandra Senfft, the Senfft, Alexandra “Embracing A However, during filming across However, urge people not to forget. My mission She is the same, we must remember. she is now has also met my brother, now a good friend and a new member of our larger family.” agrees to go with where Reichental to the spot in Bratislava where Senftt her grandfather was buried after being hanged for war crimes in December 1947. leafy suburbs of south Dublin. granddaughter of the Nazi war crimi- in nal Hans Ludin who was implicated to sending 35 members of my family death in the gas chambers, was not an act of forgiveness. Instead it was an embrace of a ‘kindred spirit.’ to Alexandra sought me out in order demonstrate our common humanity. to proclaim the truth and She wants a warm friendship with Ludin’s grand- a warm friendship with Ludin’s She Alexandra Senfft. daughter of belongs to a group in Germany Nazi of SS and senior descendants to functionaries who are seeking come to terms with the wartime sins of their fathers and grandfathers. They had learned in the German was media in 2014 that Reichental traveling across Europe filming about from journey his life’s War. relatives of Germany and Slovakia, —senior SS officers including those of Hitler’sof Hans Ludin, one inner war criminal — circle and a convicted Ludin signed Reichental. contacted Slovakia’s of the deportations off family. Jews, including Reichental’s in social Bergen- : 80% of Luneberg , she has cho- Hilde Michnia. Shoah Hamburg tor after seeing the tor after in documentary RTÉ no interest in any of this. By her action of not meeting, in deny- ing the murder of inmates in Belsen sen to justify and dis- tort her own role dur- Third Reich.” ing the worker Hans-Jürgen Brennecke con- firmed that he had filed charges through the federal prosecu- MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE “That I did not meet Hilde was not “That I did not meet Jews we have a He continued: “As “Atonement as I see it is about “After the screen- “After Reichental Tomi Slovakian Jew, A hand, because in my naive thinking in my naive hand, because of her own time. she was also a victim but rather the fact the big letdown, stuck in the 1940s: that Hilde is still me.” this is what disappointed it is a rich and tradition of atonement; not a rabbi, nor noble concept. I am But I am a Jew. am I a very observant and for me product of my background, atonement as a person’s I understand a new heart and a to acquire effort new spirit. Hilde had and reparation. repentance January this year. He January this year. approached Gregg at the screening of the film in a local cin- of ema as part to mark events Holocaust Memorial Day. ing, Hans-Jürgen Brennecke, a man whose father was also a Nazi criminal and who speaks about him honestly in our film, sent a let- ter to the German prosecutors state outlining why Hilde Michnia still has a case to answer. That letter has now had a response and Michnia is being investigated,” Gregg said. lost 35 members of his wider family circle in Nazi concentration camps. He was one of the minority of Slovak Jews to survive the the German city of Jewish population was the country’s murdered during the Second World Hamburg I reached Close to Evil . She is also sus- that he took part in that he took part . I started out being . I started Close to Evil Belsen WHOSE BIOPIC LED TO SS GUARD INVESTIGATION SS GUARD LED TO BIOPIC WHOSE Guardian at the age of nine. concentration camp. Holocaust survivor whose Holocaust survivor biopic documentary has led to biopic documentary Bergen-Belsen “I was prepared to meet Hilde, who “I was prepared But Reichental, who lives in Dublin, But Reichental, Gregg and a In the film, Reichental, “In my film A story Reichental’s Tomi I WANTED RECONCILIATION, SAYS HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR HOLOCAUST SAYS RECONCILIATION, I WANTED Tomi Reichental. Tomi had been a perpetrator and who I thought had seen the light and changed her values. I was prepared to reconcile with her and shake her out to reconcile with one of my jailers in open to the idea that the SS guard Hilde Lisiewitz (later Michnia) must be person to the young a different woman that was convicted of war crimes in 1945. told the German television producer contact Michnia at her home near SS guard at pected of forcing prisoners on an evacuation/death march in 1945 on which 1,400 women perished. directed by the Irish documentary to seek out Gerry Gregg principally some sign of atonement from said he even Michnia. Reichental wanted to shake the hand of his jailer in the Nazi camp if they ever met. but she declines to meet the former Jewish child prisoner who was sent to Belsen an investigation into an elderly an investigation be a member of the woman alleged to that his intention SS has revealed out and reconcile was only to reach guarded him in with the woman who Belsen BY HENRY MCDONALD, MCDONALD, HENRY BY THE GUARDIAN has prompted German federal prose- cutors to question 93-year-old Hilde an Michnia about her alleged role as Page 16 Page