Vol. 33-No.3 ISSN 0892-1571 January/February 2007-Tevet/Shevat 5767 UN MARKS HOLOCAUST DAY AS CONSTANT REMINDER TO PREVENT FUTURE GENOCIDES

n January 29, the United Nations of human cruelty. were sent straight to the gas chambers,” Omarked the annual International He said the she added, recalling how her own father Day of Commemoration in memory of the presence at and brother were taken away, never to be victims of the Holocaust with an urgent today’s ceremo- seen again. appeal that the remembrance of the mil- ny of disabled “We thought we had no more tears but lions of Jews and others murdered by the persons and the we still wept, and I still weep today when I Nazis serve to prevent new massacres, a Roma and Sinti think of” those who were marched directly rebuff for those who deny that the tragedy community to the gas chambers, she said. “And I ever occurred, and moving testimony from showed that, think of it every day, many times.” survivors. even now, the She said that, while those who survived “The Holocaust was a unique and unde- act of bearing hoped and pledged “Never again,” their niable tragedy,” Secretary-General Ban witness can offer warnings were in vain. “After the mas- Ki-moon said in a video message played new perspec- sacres in Cambodia, it is Africa that is pay- to a special memorial ceremony in the tives, while the ing the highest price in genocidal terms,” General Assembly Hall on the Holocaust participation of she said, referring in particular to the in which 6 million Jews, 500,000 Roma young people events in Darfur, Sudan, and calling for and Sinti and other minorities, disabled highlighted the UN action in response. and homosexuals were killed. value of going nder-Secretary-General Shashi “Decades later, the systematic murder beyond remem- UTharoor, who moderated the event, of millions of Jews and others retains its brance to ensure More than 500 people gathered at the UN headquarters in New York to mark said it had two key purposes: “Of course, power to shock. The ability of the Nazis to that new genera- the annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of we meet to mourn that part of our human command a following, despite their utter tions know this the Holocaust. family that is missing – to remember the depravity, still strikes fear. And above all, history. since the Holocaust. This makes it all the individuals and tell each other their sto- the pain remains: for aging survivors, and eneral Assembly President Sheikha more important that we remember the les- ries. But we also meet to unearth the les- for all of us as a human family that wit- GHaya Al Khalifa called for paying sons of the past so that we do not make sons we can draw from their lives and nessed a descent into barbarism. tribute to all victims – the needless deaths the same mistakes in the future. We must their fates.” He emphasized the importance of of millions of Jews and the suffering remain vigilant. The forces of hatred, big- He said the first among those lessons remembrance in tribute to those who per- endured by the many minority groups that otry and racism are still at work in the “is that, just as human beings have an ished and in global efforts to stem the tide were also victims, some of whom were world.” almost infinite power to destroy, they also present in the Hall. Thomas Schindlmayr, who works on dis- possess an enormous capacity to learn, to “Today’s commem- ability issues for the UN but was speaking grow and to create.” oration is an impor- in his personal capacity, discussed the Ceremonies were held in other UN out- tant reminder of the persecution of people with disabilities posts around the world. “The sheer universal lessons of under Nazi Germany. “They were stripped dimensions of the organized murder of the Holocaust, a of any legal protection unique evil which and denied control cannot simply be over their own lives consigned to the and bodies,” he said, past and forgotten. recalling the forced The Holocaust was a sterilization of persons historical event, with disabilities and which cannot be other abuses. While denied. Its conse- much had been quences still rever- learned since then, berate in the pres- the notion that per- ent.” she told the sons with disabilities ceremony. are somehow inferior “It is a tragedy that is still prevalent, he Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American and International Societies for the international com- warned. Yad Vashem and Simone Veil, keynote speaker at the annual International munity has not been he keynote speak- Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust at the able to stop new hor- Ter, Simone Veil, a UN , President of the Foundation Pour la Mémoire de la Shoah. rors in the years member of the Constitutional Council of Eli Zborowski, Chairman American and International Societies for Yad France and President of Vashem and Under-Secretary-General of the UN Shashi Tharoor. IN THIS ISSUE the Foundation Pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, said that by creat- Jews and others, the very scale of the Updated Encyclopedia Judaica hits shelves...... 3 ing this annual observance, the UN had systematic attempt at destroying an entire Saving the Jews. Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust...... 4 remained faithful to its founding principles. people, make the Holocaust a unique When remembrance fails...... 5 “For those of us who were deported, not calamity that cannot – and should not – be A Shoah survivor writes about his miracles...... 6 a day goes by that we do not think of the forgotten, let alone denied,” the Director- Their private Holocaust...... 7 Shoah,” said Ms. Veil, who was a prisoner General of the UN Office in Geneva told a Young Leadership Associates tenth anniversary...... 8-9 in Auschwitz, and was at Bergen-Belsen ceremony at the Palais des Nations. Survivors seek more Holocaust funds...... 10 when that camp was liberated by the Earlier, the General Assembly con- “Secondary Holocaust effect”...... 11 British Army. “What obsesses us the most demned without reservation any denial of Report from the American Society for Yad Vashem...... 12 is the memory of those from whom we the Holocaust, with only Iran publicly dis- Catholic clergy rescued Italian Jews...... 13 were brutally separated when we arrived associating itself from the consensus res- Poland must deal with its past...... 14 at the camps, and who we later learned olution. Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2007 - Tevet/Shevat 5767

YAD VASHEM LAUNCHES WEB SITE IN FARSI WHITE HOUSE STATEMENT: TO COMBAT HOLOCAUST DENIAL HOLOCAUST DAY OF COMMEMORATION srael’s Holocaust memorial, Yad sary of the Auschwitz death camp’s liber- resident Bush issued a statement lives to try and save the Nazis’ intended IVashem, has launched a version of its ation by the advancing Soviet army, and Ppaying tribute to the victims and victims. Web site in Farsi to educate Israel’s most came a day after the U.N. General survivors of the Holocaust on the occa- Remembering the victims, heroes, bitter enemy, Iran, about the Nazi slaugh- Assembly adopted a resolution condemn- sion of the United Nations designated and lessons of the Holocaust is particu- ter of 6 million Jews. ing the denial of the Holocaust. Only Iran International Day of Commemoration. larly important today, as Holocaust The site was unveiled last week of rejected the resolution. “On the second International Day of denial continues, urged on by the January to coincide with the U.N.’s annu- he U.N. resolution did not single out Commemoration, we remember and Iranian regime, which perversely seeks al Holocaust remembrance day. Tany country, but Israel and the mourn the victims of the Holocaust. to call into question the historical fact of “Every year, nearly 20,000 people from United States both suggested that Iran Sixty-two years after the liberation of the Nazis’ campaign of mass murder. Auschwitz, we must continue to edu- We must continue to condemn the Muslim countries, including Iran, visit the should take note. cate ourselves about the lessons of the resurgence of anti-Semitism, that same Yad Vashem Web site,” said Avner Yad Vashem’s Farsi site includes 20 Holocaust, and honor those whose lives virulent intolerance that led to the Shalev, Yad Vashem’s chairman. “We historical chapters, including dozens of were taken as a result of a racist ideol- Holocaust, and we must combat bigotry believe that making credible, comprehen- photos, arranged chronologically, from ogy that embraced a national policy of and hatred in all their forms, in America sive information about the Holocaust the rise of the Nazis to power until the violent hatred and bigotry. It is also our and abroad. available to Persian speakers can con- postwar trials of Nazi leaders. The site responsibility to honor the survivors and May God bless the memory of the tribute to the fight against Holocaust also includes a poem by Abramek those courageous souls who refused to victims of the Holocaust. And may we denial.” Koplowicz, a Jewish boy murdered in be bystanders, and instead risked their never forget.” January 27, marked the 62nd anniver- Auschwitz at age 14. LIFE FOR GERMAN JEWS ECHOES 1930S A COALITION OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS CALLED FOR A DELAY IN RESTITUTION DEADLINES ife for Jewish people in Germany elections in September. Far-right politi- Lhas become reminiscent of the cians now sit on three state governments coalition of Holocaust survivors Italian company Generali, that are due to 1930s, a community leader claimed in Germany. Acalled for a delay in restitution dead- lapse in coming months. recently, after figures showed the number harlotte Knobloch, the president of lines, so a newly opened archive may be “Now, with 19 miles of previously sup- of neo-Nazi hate crimes had increased by Cthe Central Council of Jews, examined. pressed documents from the Nazi period 50 per cent in two years. warned: “Anyone who still talks in terms of The coalition of 24 groups from across being made public, isn’t it time to halt the Sixty-one years after the end of Hitler’s unfortunate one-off incidents is failing to the United States said in an open letter rush to judgment, the rush for closure, and Third Reich, his followers continue to bru- grasp a danger facing the whole of socie- require the full, transparent accounting that the opening earlier this year of talize and intimidate Jews and other ty. The aggression has become reminis- that we survivors are morally and legally minorities across the country. cent of 1933.” archives in Bad Arolsen, Germany — per- entitled to move forward without any fur- haps the largest repository of Holocaust- ther impediments?” the letter said. But the latest crime figures have That was when Hitler began a boycott of era information — could lead to new infor- “We call on all institutions of good faith, shocked politicians and human rights Jewish businesses and his stormtroopers mation for survivors and their families in government, in the media, and in the groups alike. Between January and unleashed their reign of terror – beatings seeking restitution. institutional world, to support us in our August 2006, some 8,000 offences were and threats – that ultimately led to the They cited recent settlements with morally justified demand for transparence reported to the Federal Criminal Office – Holocaust. Holocaust-era insurers, including the and justice.” 20 percent more than the previous year She accused both politicians and socie- and 50 percent more than in 2004. ty of deliberately neglecting the spiralling BIALYSTOK JEWISH GHETTO UPRISING ANNIVERSARY The incidents include drunken neo- anti-Semitism and right-wing radicalism Nazis hurling The Diary of Anne Frank despite warnings. vents marking the 63rd anniversary Some 800 people were killed on the spot into a bonfire as they chanted Nazi-era Mrs. Knobloch said that these attributes Eof the uprising in the Bialystok and the rest started to be transported to songs, and one shortly after, that when a were “firmly anchored in certain sections Jewish ghetto in eastern Poland were death camps. The uprising lasted for teenage boy was forced to wear a sign of the population.” held in the city. It was the second-biggest almost a week. Some 300 to 400 insur- saying he was the “biggest pig” for A German foreign ministry spokesman Jewish armed rising against Nazi gents had only 25 guns and 100 pistols. befriending Jews. said: “It is a problem we must face now if Germans during World War II, after the About 1,000 Jews, who found shelter in The issue has been catapulted back into we are to preserve Germany’s image Warsaw Jewish Ghetto Uprising. Over the nearby forest, survived the war. public consciousness after the success of abroad and its chosen multi-cultural path 40,000 people lived in the ghetto, which Around 10,000 were taken to death camps the extremist National Democratic Party at home. The situation as it stands is sim- the Nazis began to liquidate in 1943. at Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz. (NPD), led by Udo Pastörs, in regional ply intolerable.” ITALIAN PRESIDENT INAUGURATES NEW HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL IN MILAN CHIRAC HONORS FRENCH WHO RESCUED JEWS FROM HOLOCAUST talian Head of State Giorgio the Milan Jewish community told EJP INapolitano was one of the major she felt the memorial will host an impor- resident Jacques Chirac honored ed the ceremony. guests at the ceremony celebrating the tant part on the history of the Holocaust, Pnearly 3,000 French people who hirac praised the “Righteous,” say- establishment of a Holocaust Museum open to all the people that crowd the sta- rescued Jews from the Nazis, in a cere- Cing that, thanks to them, “we can Memorial in Milan’s Central Station. tion on a daily basis. mony at the Pantheon in central Paris. look our history in the face, sometimes Donated by the Italian railway compa- “What should strike the visitors -she It is the first such formal tribute to the seeing profoundly dark moments, but also ny to the local Jewish Community, the underlined- is that, unlike most places group, known as the “Righteous of the best and most glorious” moments. Milan memorial is like this through- France.” Chirac — who, 12 years ago, Thanks to them, “we can be proud to be hosted in a huge out Europe, this became France’s first president to recog- French,” Chirac said. two-room space site remained nize the French government’s role in the Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis in the under- literally mass deportation of Jews during the and their collaborators, part of the Nazi ground of the untouched in Holocaust — also extended the tribute to “final solution” aimed at wiping out the train station. the last 60 those anonymous French nationals who Jews of Europe. One-quarter of France’s Formerly years.” Modena risked their lives to save Jews. Jewish community perished during the Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Holocaust, compared with 90 percent in known as “the said. “So many Memorial has inducted more than 21,000 Poland and 75 percent in the Netherlands. invisible station,” people left from the six-thousand worldwide — including 2,725 French citi- Speaking at the Pantheon, Chirac urged the centre of square-meter zens — into its “Righteous Among the the French people to be “merciless” in the Milan and nobody space overlooks Nations” group for non-Jews who saved fight against Holocaust denial, which he noticed” she con- platform 21, the From L to R: Milan’s Mayor Letizia Moratti, Enzo Jews. Only 240 of the French inductees called a “crime against truth, an absolute cluded. ill-famed depar- Gattegna, chairman of the Italian Union of Jewish are still alive. Seventy-four of them attend- perversion of the soul and the spirit.” Napolitano ture point from Communities, Filippo Penati, President of Milan’s called the initia- which more than Province. GERMANY TO PUSH FOR EU LAW tive “very mean- 8,000 Italian and foreign Jews were CRIMINALIZING HOLOCAUST DENIAL deported towards Nazi extermination ingful” and praised the intention of keep- camps between 1943 and 1944. ing alive the memory ofHolocaust, that he erman Federal Minister of Justice for justice matters, Zypries stated that When track 21 was in use, Jews were defined “one of the harshest lessons in GBrigitte Zypries said at a press con- “denial of the Holocaust is an example of crammed into wagons situated in the contemporary history. ference that Germany will attempt to what would be punishable by law if stan- underground level. Hidden from sight, a Particularly struck by a ceremony that make denial of the World War II-era dardization took place.” then very modern lift was used to raise was accompanied by the rattling of the Holocaust, in which millions of Jews died It is currently illegal to deny the the railway wagons to the ground level, trains from the ground floor, the president at the hands of the Nazis, illegal through- Holocaust in Austria, Belgium, France, also stressed the importance of recalling from where a locomotive would eventu- out the European Union. The plan is part Germany and Spain. Germany once that “an everyday life place of a great ally haul them to Auschwitz. of Germany’s platform for its 2007 EU before pressed for similar EU law, but was town hosted great atrocities.” Sara Modena, Cultural Councillor of Presidency. Speaking on Germany’s plan blocked by Italy. January/February 2007 - Tevet/Shevat 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 3 EXTENSIVELY UPDATED ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA HITS SHELVES These are among roughly 2,700 new stuff,” says Berenbaum, a Holocaust life in New York City? Their answer: BY PETER EPHROSS, JTA entries in the new edition, to be published scholar known for his work in creating the Give a portrait of several neighbor- Dec. 8 by Macmillan Reference USA and U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. hoods, such as the historic German he editors of the Encyclopaedia Israel’s Keter Publishing. The 22 volumes It took a lot of effort to create that “stuff.” Jewish neighborhood of Washington Judaica’s new edition confronted a T contain more than 21,000 entries on Several years in the making, the encyclo- Heights and the contemporary, heavily whole new world. Jewish life. pedia relied on a worldwide team of schol- Orthodox neighborhoods of Williamsburg In the more than 30 years since the first licensed, online ver- ars, including some and Borough Park. edition was published, Jewish life has sion also will be 1,200 new contribu- “We gave it a lot of flavor, something been revitalized in the former Communist A available, but the hope is tors. Luckily, the field that the first encyclopedia was much world, Las Vegas and Atlanta have that institutions, and of Jewish studies has less interested in,” Berenbaum says, become fast-growing Jewish communi- some individuals, will be experienced expo- though he’s quick to praise the editors ties, and women have taken a much more willing to fork over $1,995 nential growth in of the first encyclopedia for their prodi- active role in Jewish life — and their con- — the online version will recent years. gious efforts in the pre-Internet era. tributions have been increasingly recog- cost a few hundred dol- “You’re going to a Also adding contemporary flavor to nized. lars more — to have man or woman who the new edition are entries discussing “The original edition did not take into everything they wanted to has devoted his or baseball player Shawn Green and the account that 50 percent of Jews are know about the Jews her entire life to a recent popularization of Kabbalah. women,” said Judith Baskin, the director printed, and at their fin- topic and you say, Not surprisingly, Israel is the largest of the Jewish studies program at the gertips. ‘Give me 500 words,’ ” single “entry,” with an entire volume University of Oregon and the encyclope- The comprehensiveness offered by the Berenbaum says. devoted to the Jewish state. Coming in dia’s assistant editor for women and gen- collection is not available in any one Those scholars pored over all the second is the Holocaust. der. online source, says Jay Flynn, a publisher entries — from Aachen to Zyrardow — Even entries on Holocaust-related The new edition, the encyclopedia’s with Thomson Gale, which owns and updated 11,000 of them. matters created more questions: Should second, attempts to rectify that oversight Macmillan Reference USA. verall, the new edition has more the noted Holocaust scholar Deborah with more than 300 new entries on Jewish “Certainly, you can go out and find a Oentries, covering Jewish life in the Lipstadt have her own entry, or should women, including biographical entries on biography of Billy Crystal and you can Southern Hemisphere — Australia and her biography be part of an entry about well-known figures, such as former U.S. read it. What we’re really trying to deliver” South America, for example — and the the highly publicized 2000 trial that Rep. Bella Abzug (D-N.Y.) and entries on is accessibility and authority, Flynn says. sections on American Jewish life and Lipstadt won after historian David Irving lesser-known women, like Beatrice Plus, Jews buy books out of proportion the Holocaust have been strengthened. sued her in a British court, claiming she Alexander — founder of the Madame to their numbers, says Michael The dilemmas Berenbaum and his defamed him in a book by calling him a Alexander doll collection — and Asenath Berenbaum, the encyclopedia’s executive team faced about how to cover certain Holocaust denier? Barzani, an Iraqi woman trained by her editor. topics are well, almost, talmudic. For The decision? Berenbaum is cagey. father in the 1600s as a Torah scholar. “It’s the smell of leather and all that example, how do you describe Jewish “Read the encyclopedia,” he says. DEATH CAMP SITE TO BE RENOVATED ITALIAN INSURANCE FIRM he International Auschwitz Council barracks at the sprawling complex, has SETTLES NAZI-ERA INSURANCE SUIT Tagreed to modernize a 51-year-old become old-fashioned compared to mod- taly’s leading insurer, Generali, has cies during the Holocaust and refused to exhibition at the site of the Nazi death ern museums like Yad Vashem in Israel Isettled a class-action suit over insur- pay or give any information on the policies camp and build walls to prevent the ruins and the United States Holocaust Memorial ance policies issued to thousands of afterward. of gas chambers from sinking into the Museum in Washington. Holocaust victims, following years of con- The settlement includes all claims ground. Some Holocaust survivors in Israel fear flict with Jewish survivors and action received by the International Commission The decision to renovate and preserve modernization could make the camp groups. on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims, as remains of the vast Nazi death camp in seem more like a museum and damage Generali was one of the biggest insurers well as new ones. The law firm did not southern Poland marks a change in the the somberness of the site where nearly in eastern Europe before World War Two, give an estimate of how much the claims long-standing approach to maintaining the 1.5 million people, most of them Jews, and its insurance policies were popular could be worth. site, which has been left as the Allies were slaughtered by the Nazis. with the Jewish community to provide for All those seeking compensation have marriage dowries and schooling for their until March 31, 2007 to file a claim form found it when they liberated the camp at Cywinski said no changes would be children. (www.nazierainsurancesettlement.com). the end of World War II. made to the remaining crematoria, bar- U.S. law firm Kohn, Swift and Graf said Many European insurers and banks have But two of the gas chambers are slowly racks and watchtowers, and he pledged to in a statement posted on its web site that been involved in lawsuits over assets sinking into the ground and will likely slide keep the powerful exhibits of hair, glasses the settlement covered all individuals or seized during the Holocaust. out of sight within the next two decades if and other personal belongings that were their ancestors who purchased a Generali The law firm said individuals who had nothing is done. How to save them stripped from victims. policy between 1920 and 1945 and still already received compensation from prompted debate on the council, with a Possible changes include building an held it at the time of the Nazi persecutions. Generali for their policy would not be eligi- majority favoring a Polish expert’s propos- educational center and introducing audio- The lawsuit alleged that Generali with- ble for further compensation resulting al to halt the erosion by building walls guide tours - though Cywinski promised held the proceeds of the insurance poli- from the settlement. sunk into the ground on either side of the the place would not become “technologi- slipping chambers. cal or multimedia.” The council also backed a proposal to Several Nazi camp sites, including HOLOCAUST CENTER CONSTRUCTION UNDER WAY IN MAINE renovate an aging exhibition dating back Bergen-Belsen, have received onstruction has begun on the multi-media equipment, and staff offices. to the early years of communist rule in makeovers, which experts say is part of a CMichael Klahr Center on the cam- The University will maintain the facility as Poland. trend to make them more attractive for pus of the University of Maine at Augusta, part of its unique partnership with the Piotr Cywinski, the new director of the tourists. Some feel similar renovations at which will be the new home of the HHRC. Working with the University, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Auschwitz will to make the Nazi’s largest Holocaust and Human Rights Center of HHRC will strengthen its educational, cul- Museum said the exhibition, in austere camp seem less foreboding. Maine (HHRC). Since tural and outreach pro- its inception in 1985, gramming. SPIELBERG CHALLENGES HOLOCAUST DENIERS HHRC staff worked he new resource from home offices and Tcenter will host: WITH DOCUMENTARY finally, after twenty annual week-long sum- teven Spielberg presented a docu- Spielberg said at a news conference. years, a permanent mer seminars for edu- Smentary about the Nazi massacre “I really believe that listening to the home for the HHRC is cators, workshops for of tens of thousands of Jews at the Babi stories of Holocaust survivors from all being built. students and educa- Yar ravine in Ukraine, several weeks around the world is going to change the The Holocaust and tors, student tours, after Ukraine marked the 65th anniver- world and already has in many ways,” Human Rights Center diversity leadership of Maine and the institutes for teenagers, sary of the tragedy. Spielberg said. University of Maine at film and music work- The film by Ukrainian director Serhiy The film was produced by the USC Augusta sponsored an shops, lectures, and Bukovsky, “Spell Your Name,” for which Shoah Foundation Institute, a Los Architectural design of the Michael Klahr anonymous interna- Center community events. Spielberg co-executive, produced, con- Angeles-based organization founded by tional design competi- The HHRC’s Education tains the testimony of Jewish survivors Spielberg in 1994. tion that resulted in 124 submissions from Resource Center is named in memory of who escaped brutal execution and The director has produced several around the world. The winning design is Michael Klahr, who was a child survivor of those who rescued friends and neigh- documentaries on the Holocaust, by Harold Hon and Son Wooten of the Holocaust. Brooklynite Phyllis Jalbert, bors during the Holocaust. including 1996’s “Survivors of the Shepley Bulfinch Richardson and Abbott formerly of Maine, has given the HHRC a “The stories and experience of sur- Holocaust,” 1998’s “The Last Days,” and is inspired by a flower, a symbol of generous gift to honor Klahr, her late hus- vivors in Ukraine need to be seen and 2000’s “Eyes of the Holocaust” and life, beauty and renewal. band, who died from cancer in 1998. heard by the people of the world, who 2004’s “Voices from the List.” His The new resource center will have The Holocaust and Human Rights may not know what happened in “Schindler’s List” won seven Academy classrooms, both permanent and tempo- Center of Maine has raised more than Ukraine during the Holocaust,” Awards in 1994. rary exhibit space, a resource room with $1.8 million towards its goal of $3 million. Page 4 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2007 - Tevet/Shevat 5767 BOOKBOOK REVIEWSREVIEWS THE GI’S RABBI: WORLD WAR II LETTERS OF DAVID MAX The GI’s Rabbi: World War II Letters of July, 1944, the moment Rabbi Eichhorn Joint Distribution Committee, “the Rabbi Eichhorn did for his own men. How David Max Eichhorn. landed in Normandy, his dedication to his American Red Cross, the French Red he counseled all the soldiers. How he Edited by Greg Palmer & Mark S. Zaid men was matched only by his dedicated Cross, the French Secour Nationale, the prayed with all of them. How he made Introduction by Doris L. Bergen. University determination to find and help any and all American Army, and all the various sure there were High Holiday services for Press of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, Jewish survivors of appendages thereof to improve conditions Jewish soldiers, even if that mean doing a 2004. 260 pp. $29.95 Hitler’s brutalities. for the surviving Jews there. Later still, in major clean-up of a synagogue damaged For as Rabbi Austria, he would do much the same for and desecrated by the Nazis. How he dili- REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN Eichhorn traveled the displaced in that country, working with gently distributed matza from off the back “Every man who has been with the soldiers of other groups. of his little jeep Passover time. How he oppressed must and will be restored the XV U.S. Army inally, and poignantly, we will most made sure burial was proper for all. How to his family and to his rightful place Corps, ministering to Fespecially note how Rabbi Eichhorn he wrote compassionately to all parents in society. This is a promise and a their needs, he was organized and conducted “the first Jewish consoling them for dreadful losses . . . pledge which I bring to you from your also always “asking religious service” – a Shabbat service – at In sum then, Rabbi Eichhorn’s letters, American comrades-in-arms and people in the various the Dachau concentration camp, one strategically and wisely augmented by his your Jewish brethren across the cities and villages week after it was liberated. The service sermons and other writings, tell us much seas.” through which [they] . “was attended by every Jewish male and . . . from a new perspective . . . from a . . passed, ‘Are there any Jewish people From a speech delivered by David female whose health permitted.” There man who cared . . . about a traumatic and here?” Tragically, more often than not the Max Eichhorn, Chaplain XV Corps, were touching speeches given. “The Ark unforgettable time period we all still grap- answer was, no. But, every now and then U.S. Army, at the first Shabbat was opened and” Rabbi Eichhorn, “recited ple with to fully comprehend. – joyous and incredulous – someone service in Dachau, May, 1945. ‘Shechecheyanu’ . . . ‘benshed Gomel’ Interestingly, Rabbi Eichhorn would would rush up to his “little jeep with the big and went through a brief Torah service.” write that his wartime goal was to be “a t first glance this book, The GI’s Magen David” . . . The Rabbi gave a heartrending speech. good soldier and a good rabbi.” Readers ARabbi: World War II Letters of David We will most especially note the lengths (An excerpt is offered above). There was of this book will all quickly agree he more Max Eichhorn, edited by Greg Palmer and to which Rabbi Eichhorn went to help the the singing of “God Bless America” and than attained his goal! Mark S. Zaid, seems to be simply about survivors he met while traveling. How “Ha-tikva.” In short, there was joy and lots A postscript: For those interested, Rabbi an American-Jewish rabbi who devotedly often, in fact, he raised money and collect- of tears. And all this happened, even as Eichhorn’s first service at Dachau was served his country and his men. But it is ed food from his own men to give them. American troops guarded the perimeter of filmed by George Stevens of the U.S. about much more. And this “much more” Indeed, his men recognized the desperate the area. Unfortunately, there was reason Army Signal Corps. will make it of particular interest to readers need and were more than eager to help. to fear anti-Semitic actions . . . of M&R. Later, stationed for a longer period in Of course, others reading this volume Dr. Diane Cypkin is a Professor of Media We will most especially note how from Paris, Rabbi Eichhorn would work with the will especially appreciate the many things & Communication Arts at Pace University SAVING THE JEWS STEALING TO SETTLE A SCORE WITH LIFE Saving the Jews. Franklin D. Roosevelt The Book Thief. By Markus Zusak. helps to forge an everlasting connection and the Holocaust. Liesel Meminger, and the meaning of her Random House Children's Books, 2006. between Liesel and Max. By Robert N. Rosen. Foreword by stealing is not left unexplained. She has 560 pp. $24.95 Gerhard Weinberg and Afterword by Alan been robbed of a brother, who dies at the he Book Thief” is a long, winding M. Dershowitz. New York, Thunder’s REVIEWED BY JANET MASLIN start of the book. Her mother disappears, “Ttale, punctuated by Death’s com- Mouth Press, 2006. 654 pp. $32.00 and then Liesel is left in foster care. A mentary. (“By the way — I like this human arkus Zusak has not really written great deal has been taken away from her. idea of the grim reaper. I like the scythe. It REVIEWED BY RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN “Harry Potter and the Holocaust.” It M She steals books to settle the score. amuses me.”) Most of it is confined to just feels that way. “The Book Thief” is he author of Saving the Jews, The first book taken by Liesel offers a Molching and has a coyly claustrophobic perched on the cusp between grown-up sampling of Mr. Zusak’s real but easily outlook. As Liesel and her best friend, Tlawyer and historian Robert N. and young-adult fiction, and it is loaded oversold charm. It is called “The Grave Rudy Steiner, trade dubious endearments Rosen of Charleston, South Carolina, with librarian appeal. It deplores human Digger’s Handbook,” and is subtitled “A (most of which translate as “You filthy defiantly attempts in a well-researched misery. It celebrates the power of lan- Twelve-Step Guide to Grave-Digging pig!”), they also commit small, meaningful and highly readable tome to save the tar- guage. It may encourage adolescents to Success.” Liesel acts of defiance against the Nazi regime. nished reputation of President Franklin D. read. It has an element of the fanciful. And finds it at the Even transgressions as tiny as the steal- Roosevelt regarding the tragic fate of it’s a book that bestows a self-congratula- cemetery where ing of apples are woven and rewoven into European Jewry during WWII. Rosen’s tory glow upon anyone willing to grapple her brother is the story. interest in this with it. buried. And it “So much good, so much evil,” Death complex theme “The Book Thief” resembles other, bet- becomes her link says of human nature. “Just add water.” piqued in 2001 ter novels that have been widely popular. to the past, even Beyond its many variations on that idea, when he visited Its roundabout approach to the Holocaust after she is put in with his daughter suggests “Everything Is Illuminated” Lite. “The Book Thief” adds up to a string of the care of Rosa Ali, then a student Its embattled, feisty young heroine has a anecdotes that are tinged with quiet hor- and Hans at Andover’s Potterish appeal as she makes her way ror. At its most effective, the book’s tone Hubermann, Phillips Academy, through a mystifying adult world. There is can be terrifyingly matter of fact. “For the whose household the Holocaust a Vonnegut whimsy to the mordant turns book thief, everything was going nicely,” is colorful to the Memorial in of fate here. And Mr. Zusak’s narrator Death observes, as the extermination point of dangerous downtown offers constant manipulative asides, as in camps flourish in the summer of 1942. whimsy. Hans finds life-affirming ways to the clever Lemony Snicket books, “For me, the sky was the color of Jews.” Boston. They play the accordion, for example. although in this case wit is not much of an It’s possible to be overwhelmed and both were baffled Liesel lives in a town called Molching, option. The narrator is Death. impressed by such moments in Mr. by the etched which is close enough to Munich for its How can a tale told by Death be mistak- Zusak’s novel. It’s also possible to wish message: “By late 1942, the United residents to see Jews being sent to the en for young-adult storytelling? Easily: there were more of them, that their impact States and its allies were aware of the Dachau concentration camp nearby. because this book’s narrator is sorry for were sharper, and that the book were less death camps but did nothing to destroy Since Liesel is Lutheran, she is not in any what he has to do. “To me, war is like the fussy, more certain of its own strength. them.” danger of sharing this fate, although the new boss who expects the impossible,” he To be sure, “The Book Thief” attempts The New Deal president, who was much effects of the war on Germans are strong- confides, on one of many occasions when and achieves great final moments of tear- admired by that era’s Jews as an iconic ly felt. But Liesel finds herself forced into a he campaigns to win readers’ approval. jerking sentiment. And Liesel is a fine figure, has come under criticism by schol- Hitler Youth uniform. And perversely, the “You see?” he says, about the demise of heroine, a memorably strong and daunt- ars for his alleged failure to do more for Führer’s “Mein Kampf” becomes one of one of the book’s best-liked characters. Europe’s doomed Jews. Rosen labori- the books that are important in her life. less girl. But for every startlingly rebellious “Even death has a heart.” ously examines the context in which FDR Mr. Zusak does his imaginative best to episode there are moments that are slack. The youthful sensibility of “The Book operated with its variety of pressures, “The Book Thief” will be appreciated for Thief” also contributes to a wider inno- make sure that no Nazi touchstone like claiming that he tried his best to first Mr. Zusak’s audacity, also on display in cence. While it is set in Germany during “Mein Kampf” is treated in a predictable defeat Nazism and thus save as many his earlier “I Am the Messenger.” It will be World War II and is not immune to blood- way. Hitler’s book first helps to save a Jews as possible. In addition, the presi- young Jewish man named Max widely read and admired because it tells a shed, most of this story is figurative: it story in which books become treasures. dent had to overcome an isolationist unfolds as symbolic or metaphorical Vandenburg, who is hidden by the America with anti-Semitic tendencies to Hubermanns. Then, with its pages turned And because there’s no arguing with a abstraction. The dominoes lined up on its sentiment like that. boot. Hitler’s goal of world domination cover are compared to falling bodies. The blank by white paint, it is transformed into (Continued on page 15) book thief of the title is a schoolgirl named an entirely different book altogether. And it First published in The New York Times January/February 2007 - Tevet/Shevat 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 5 ANTI-SEMITISM THREATENS GERMANY’S JEWISH LIFE who serves in the northern towns of The rabbi does not expect the number ment all over the world but I have the BY MADELINE CHAMBERS Oldenburg and Delmenhorst. of Jews in Germany to rise much and impression that societies in other coun- says anti-Semitism is a factor. he first rabbi to be ordained in “We are building something on the ruins, tries deal with it differently. We would feel “If anti-Semitism grows, people might Germany since the Holocaust is so on the scars left behind but it’ll be some- better if German society changed its T leave,” he said. worried about being identified as a Jew thing different,” he said. approach.” that he often wears a baseball hat over his “I don’t think there is any way to bring he number of far-right offences in He said society had to show it does not skull cap. back the Jewish life and culture we had TGermany, many of which were anti- tolerate right-wing extremism and a ban of “It’s a fact — it isn’t smart to display I’m here. Ever.” Semitic, jumped 20 percent in the first the NPD could send a signal. Germany Jewish. This is a problem and we have to eight months of 2006, already has tough laws against offences face it,” German-born Daniel Alter, 47, told according to the latest such as Holocaust denial and using the Reuters in an interview. available police data. Nazi swastika symbol. He is worried about neo-Nazi attacks Last year activists burnt He notes how before the 1930s, and says anti-Semitism in Germany — Holocaust victim Anne Germany’s 600,000 Jews identified with still tortured by memories of the Holocaust Frank’s diaries and made a the country they had lived in for genera- in which Nazis wiped out 6 million Jews — teenager wear a sign say- tions and supplied some of its greatest puts the growth of Jewish communities ing he was a Jew. Many minds. here at risk. Jewish establishments “Jewish cultural heritage was part of As a Jew he feels unsafe in several have police guards and a German cultural heritage and Jewish peo- German cities, not all in former communist German all-Jewish football ple were German patriots — soldiers who east Germany where the far-right National team suffers weekly abuse. fell in World War One didn’t imagine what Democratic Party (NPD) has made elec- The latest figures prompt- would happen later.” toral gains recently. ed Chancellor Angela His parents cannot talk about the Alter, whose father survived Auschwitz Merkel to condemn the rise Holocaust and Alter’s bond with Germany in right-wing violence and concentration camp, dismissed talk in the German-born Jewish rabbi Daniel Alter is complex. “Would you identify with a urge Germans to fight it. German media of a possible blossoming country where much of your family and But Alter is not interested in statistics. of Jewish life in Germany. That Germany has about four times as culture had been wiped out?” many Jews as it did 15 years ago is due “I go on how I feel. I might have felt safer Jewish schools, theatres and shops “My dream in the long run is to live in to immigrants from the former Soviet 20 years ago. Now the right-wingers dare have sprung up but Germany’s Jewish Jerusalem.” communities will never compare to those Union who account for most of the to claim the streets.” in Britain or the United States, says Alter, 105,000 registered Jews, he says. “There is racism and anti-Jewish senti- First published on scotsman.com WHEN REMEMBRANCE FAILS DETECTIVE WORK UNCOVERS NAZIS IN US of the Center for Monitoring and fiscated property and introduce the BY EFRAIM ZUROFF, Israel director of Combating Anti-Semitism, of threatening Holocaust as part of the school curricu- the Simon Wiesenthal Center the lives of an Orthodox priest and his lum. BY JAMES VICINI (Reuters) children to force the removal of a statue Two factors, however, made the imple- ince 2000, anti-Semitism in Western ainstaking detective work, scouring honoring World War II dictator Marshal mentation of these tasks particularly diffi- Europe – and the Muslim world – historical records and an occasional S Antonescu, who was responsible for the cult. The first was that the local population P has virtually monopolized the agendas of lucky break have helped the U.S. govern- murder of hundreds of thousands of in every one of these countries had active- the Jewish defense agencies, but recent ment solve some of the coldest cases of Romanian Jews. ly assisted the Nazis in the mass murder events in Poland, Croatia, Lithuania and he common denominator of all these of the Jews. The second was the rapidly the Holocaust era and find more than 100 Romania seem to indicate that we should recent incidents is their link to the growing awareness of the importance of Nazi collaborators. start paying more attention to what is hap- T Holocaust and the local anti-Semitic tradi- the universal significance of the events of “You get to put together some of the pening in Eastern Europe. tions which spawned active complicity by the Holocaust and the increased sensitiv- most intricate detective puzzles,” said Eli And while it has been well known for the local population in the murders. ity to Holocaust-related issues in NATO Rosenbaum, director of the U.S. Justice years that Jew-hatred continues to be a Thus the date on which the cemetery in and the European Union. Department’s Nazi-hunting Office of serious problem in Russia and the former Vilna was vandalized is the day of the These factors made it virtually impera- Special Investigations. Soviet republics which have not been Nazi invasion to Lithuania, which tive for the post-communist countries, “We’ve got the coldest cases of all,” he admitted to NATO and/or the European Lithuanians mark as the beginning of their said, using the police phrase for old, Union, it is generally assumed in Israel who more than anything else sought ostensible (and in fact practically nonex- unsolved cases. “If you can prove one of and the West that those countries which membership in these bodies, to ostensibly istent) resistance to the Soviets, while for these cases, you can do just about any- have achieved membership in those bod- accept the obligation to address their Jews who refuse to celebrate, it marks the thing.” ies, or are close to obtaining entry, have Holocaust past despite their lack of ability, onset of the annihilation. fully adopted liberal and democratic and the absence of local political support, He described how his investigators dis- Rabbi Schudrich was attacked by Poles norms, leaving behind their centuries-old to do so. covered Elfriede Rinkel, a San Francisco yelling “Poland for Poles,” the slogan of anti-Semitic traditions and prejudices. ifteen years of independence later, woman sent back to Germany last year the anti-Semitic prewar political power So the following incidents probably Ftherefore, relatively little practical after admitting she served as a guard at called the National Democrats (Endecja), come as a surprise to those unacquainted progress has been made. While many of its Ravensbruck concentration camp dur- whose hostility to their Jewish neighbors with the current situation. the leaders of those countries have apol- ing World War Two. was a contributing factor to the relatively In late May, Rabbi Michael Schudrich, ogized for local participation in Holocaust The U.S. Holocaust Museum in limited assistance extended by Poles to the chief rabbi of Warsaw and Lodz, was crimes – usually in Israel, not at home – Washington obtained copies of the per- Jews during the Holocaust. Rabbi Aloni’s physically attacked by extremist Polish and made declarations which ostensibly sonnel cards from the concentration camp attackers yelled the standard Nazi call of nationalists on a main street in Warsaw obligate them to deal with all the practical as part of its efforts to preserve Holocaust Juden Raus (Jews out!), and in the case while walking home from Shabbat servic- Holocaust-related issues, very few Nazi records and shared them with his office, of Arad, it seems fairly clear that the es. war criminals have been prosecuted, and Rosenbaum said. charges against him are a direct response Two weeks later, under the exact same in countries like Lithuania, one of the few to his recent expert testimony against Of the 1,000 names, his investigators circumstances, Rabbi Zvi Aloni was phys- to convict, none of those convicted have Lithuanian Nazi war criminals. found that the 83-year-old German native ically accosted by Croatian neo-Nazis in been punished. Thus, the memory of the Holocaust, and citizen was the only one living in the the center of Zagreb, not far from the syn- Under these circumstances, the events which in Central and Western Europe United States. They did further research agogue and local community headquar- of the recent months are hardly surprising. continues to serve as an antidote to anti- on her responsibilities at the camp for ters. In addition, the community received In fact, if they are not dealt with promptly Semitism and racism, is serving the oppo- female prisoners. an e-mail in which a Croatian student from and stringently by the local authorities, site purpose east of the Elbe, where post- As part of the investigation “we Googled Split threatened to blow up the communi- they will only encourage additional anti- Soviet and post-communist regimes were her name,” Rosenbaum said. The ty center with the help of Hamas. Semitic incidents. only able to honestly face the complicity of researchers found an article in a Jewish On the weekend of June 23-25, about But it must be clear that the physical vio- their nationals in Holocaust crimes after newspaper about the death in 2004 of her 20 tombstones were vandalized in the lence and vandalization of the recent achieving independence and/or democracy. husband, a German Jew and a Holocaust main Jewish cemetery in Vilna. Less than months are only the tip of the iceberg of This development also forced them to survivor. a week before this incident, a pre-trial unresolved Holocaust issues that contin- face the practical issues related to their Rosenbaum interviewed Rinkel about a investigation was launched by the Office ue to cast their ominous shadow over Holocaust history which have proven to year ago and asked whether she ever told of the Prosecutor-General of Lithuania Jewish life in Eastern Europe. Thus, until be extremely unpopular. National leaders her husband about what she did during against none other than Dr. Yitzhak Arad, more serious progress is made by post- were called upon to acknowledge guilt the war. “She waved it off and said, ‘Yes, former chairman of the Yad Vashem direc- communist countries in honestly facing and apologize for crimes (usually to the but he wasn’t interested.’” But he said torate, on the suspicion of war crimes their World War II past, we are likely to State of Israel), and governments were Rinkel now claims she never told her hus- committed while serving with Soviet anti- see even worse manifestations of these expected to commemorate the victims, band. Nazi partisans in World War II. deeply ingrained problems. In Romania, right-wing newspapers prosecute the perpetrators, accurately She was the first woman deported since have falsely accused Marco Katz, director record their Holocaust history, return con- First published in Jerusalem Post (Continued on page 14) Page 6 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2007 - Tevet/Shevat 5767 SURVIVORS’SURVIVORS’ CORNERCORNER PEBBLES FROM THE “KINDERTRANSPORT” ad things,” to be sure, didn’t begin Some were lucky. Falk’s uncle, a the trains that traveled through Holland BY LORRAINE AHEARN “Bwith Kristallnacht, the 1938 “nogoodnik” who played cards with to a ferry across the English Channel. pogrom in which Jewish men were round- police friends, was tipped off to buy a An estimated 10,000 Jewish youths elly Falk may be the only person to ed up in cities across Germany, syna- train ticket to Basel, Switzerland, and were sheltered in England for the dura- perish in Auschwitz who has a N gogues return safely the next day. Another of tion of the war. Some lived adopted fam- tombstone in Greensboro. No remains. burned and so Falk’s adult male relatives wasn’t lucky. ilies; others, like Falk, in a series of hos- Just a stone, showing someone here many Jewish He was taken to Dachau, the concentra- tels and homes for children, such as the remembered. shops’ windows tion camp near Munich. Balfour estate in Scotland. That person is her son, Walter. And in smashed that “He must have said something wrong,” In the U.S., there had also been a contrast to his mother’s desolate fate, the it was literally Falk said. “He came home in a cigar Children’s Rescue Bill introduced in tale of how he was spared the same called “crystal box.” Congress to provide a temporary safe demise is one dim shaft of daylight that night.” No, even Falk and his mother left for his grand- haven for Jewish children age 14 and penetrated, briefly, the black vault of the in the small city parents’ country village, where it was under, but the bill never got out of com- Holocaust. of Karlruer, calm, for now. But immediately, Falk’s mittee. His is the forgotten interlude of the where 11-year- mother set about finding the boy a way espite an outpouring from the “Kindertransport,” which delivered Walter old Walter out of Germany. American public of offers to shelter Falk and some 10,000 other Jewish chil- D Falk lived with e applied for an exit visa to children, a coalition of immigration oppo- dren from the jaws of Nazi Germany to his widowed Palestine — a route the Nazis nents lobbied against the effort. Publicly, England. H mother, the regime actually encoraged before the they testified that the rescue bill would The story is bittersweet, like the dark Walter Falk at his mother’s storm was war. Palestine was a British protectorate. cause the country to be “flooded with for- chocolates that Falk, 79, arranges on a tombstone approaching. Sending Jews there eigners” and peo- china plate for his afternoon coffee. Already, they’d been evicted from their was a way for ple “who could On one hand, he cannot escape the fact lovely, terraced apartment because a Nazi Germany to antago- never be loyal to that his mother, a small, careful woman Party member moved in next door. Falk nize England. the United States.” who could not bear to leave her elderly was sent to a segregated school for But through a friend, Privately, how- parents in Germany, was meanwhile Jewish children, on the grounds of an Falk’s mother learned ever, opposition to taken on a cattle car to the death camp in insane asylum. of the kindertransport the rescue bill Poland in September 1942 and herded Yet, until Kristallnacht, the well-to-do program, which had wasn’t strictly out into a gas chamber — one of 6 million to Jews who went back centuries in gotten the stamp of of fear that the die, including 1.5 million children. Germany engendered hope that it would- approval from Neville children would But there is the paradox: Before the cur- n’t last, that it might blow over. That frag- Chamberlain, the endanger the U.S. tain of night fell on Germany, strangers ile illusion shattered like glass on Nov. 9, British prime minister In his diary, now swooped in and snatched these 10,000 to 1938. better known for one Pebbles of memory housed in the safety. Which is how Falk lived to be an Falk’s makeshift school had dismissed of history’s blunders. National Archives, a highly-placed State old man, to pour his coffee and tell the tale early, and he returned home to find the Seeking to appease Adolf Hitler and Department diplomat, J. Pierrepont in the quiet of his Greensboro kitchen. picture windows of the Jewish shoe store avert another world war, it was Moffat, recalled a conversation at a “It’s an unanswered question,” he begins, downstairs broken, new shoes strewn Chamberlain who left Berlin with a “non- cocktail party for the Washington elite. in his still-thick Black Forest accent. about in the street. aggression pact,” a worthless piece of “The problem with the (child rescue) “Some people say, ‘The good Lord want- Upstairs, his mother was crying. Nazis paper, it turned out, because Germany bill,” Moffat quoted the wife of then U.S. ed it that way.’ Other people would say, had raided the home, pulled curtains and invaded Poland a year later. Commissioner of Immigration James ‘Where was the good Lord when they paintings off the walls, looking for a safe. But it was in that window between Hougheling as saying, “was that 20,000 killed all those people? All my life, bad Finding nothing, they left. Clearly, they Kristallnacht and the march into Poland children would all too soon grow up into things happened around me. And still, would be back. Sept. 1, 1939 that Falk boarded one of (Continued on page 14) here I am.” A SHOAH SURVIVOR WRITES ABOUT HIS MIRACLES reality of what was happening,” Klainman my life,” according to Klainman, 78. “The Hebrew, Spanish and Italian, and was BY LARRY LUXNER, JTA wrote. “The end had come. They were seventh was my being able to write the recently appointed official representative going to shoot me and burn me. I thought story.” of the Holocaust Museum in Buenos n his 68th birthday, Jorge Klainman Odecided he could remain silent no of my loved ones, and that soon I would And now, with anti-Semitism again rising Aires. more about his Holocaust horrors. be joining them. I reached a state of mind throughout his adopted country, Klainman “I’ve dedicated the rest of my life to The Polish-born, retired businessman where I just wanted, with all my being, to feels compelled to share that story with explaining the Shoah to students from all sat at his electric typewriter, he said, “and get it over with.” Argentines who over the country,” he said. “Since I’ve suddenly the curtains of my memory But Klainman’s may not have yet moved back from Israel, thousands of stu- began to part, revealing events that hap- Ukrainian execution- gotten the mes- dents have heard my testimony.” pened 50 or 60 years ago. After that, my ers somehow missed sage. Klainman says he has “lots of work to life changed completely. I felt liberated.” their target, and later en years from do” in explaining the reasons behind the The result was “El Septimo Milagro,” a that night fellow “Tnow, there Holocaust to fellow Argentines, many of harrowing Spanish-language tale of life Jewish prisoners won’t be any whom grew up with anti-Semitic attitudes and death in a series of Nazi concentra- risked their lives to Holocaust survivors encouraged by the Roman Catholic tion camps that has captivated readers bring his bleeding left to transmit the Church and the thousands of Nazi war from Buenos Aires to Barcelona. body to the camp truth to young peo- criminals who were welcomed by Translated into English as “The Seventh infirmary. A kindly ple,” he said in an Argentina’s military dictatorship after Miracle” and into Hebrew as “Nes Ha- doctor there gradually interview at his World War II. Shev’i,” Klainman’s first-person account nursed the teenager Argentine Holocaust survivor and writer Jorge Buenos Aires apart- “I’ve visited many colleges and universi- differs from most other Holocaust mem- back to health. Klainman holds a copy of his book, "The ment. “They’ll begin ties throughout Argentina, giving speech- oirs in its extraordinary attention to detail. Fate intervened five Seventh Miracle." forgetting the es for high-school kids,” Klainman said. “I It ranges from the 1939 roundup of Jews more times before he was liberated by Jewish Holocaust, just as they’ve forgot- even spoke at a Catholic seminary, and from his Polish hometown of Kielce to American soldiers in 1945, and Klainman ten the Armenian Holocaust. So it’s impor- afterwards the kids cursed the Vatican for Klainman’s frightful March 1944 was saved from certain death. tant that everybody knows what hap- ignoring the Jews. encounter with psychopathic concentra- In 1947 — with the help of international pened. That way they’ll be able to under- “Usually when I finish speaking, after an tion camp commandant Amon Goeth, the Jewish organizations — Klainman set sail stand the terrible struggle of the Israeli hour, for three or four minutes they sit SS officer portrayed by Ralph Fiennes in from Italy to Rio de Janeiro, caught a people against the fundamentalist Islamic there in silence. Then they surround me, Steven Spielberg’s movie “Schindler’s plane to Asuncion, Paraguay, and smug- savages who want to throw us into the sea.” hundreds of kids, hugging me, crying, List.” gled himself across the heavily guarded Klainman, a jewelry retailer by profes- asking for my autograph. Once I took a Goeth marked Klainman, then 15, for border into Argentina, where he eventual- sion, lived in Tel Aviv from 1971 to 1990 taxi in Corrientes and the driver recog- execution by firing squad. ly married and raised a family. and again from 1999 to 2004. He is fluent nized me. He took my hand and kissed it, “My mind refused to comprehend the “Six actual miracles occurred and saved in Polish, Russian, German, Yiddish, (Continued on page 15) January/February 2007 - Tevet/Shevat 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 7

ISRAEL MUSEUM ASKED “VERDICT ON AUSCHWITZ” TO RETURN HOLOCAUST Rather, they were the middle- to low- took part in the selection process as the VICTIMS’ PROPERTY BY TOM TUGEND, JTA level functionaries, the hands-on torturers trains pulled into the camp actually saved and killers, who had distinguished them- lives by assigning some of the men and he parliamentary investigatory com- he name Auschwitz has become selves by their brutality and dedication to women to forced labor. If his clients hadn’t Tmittee for the location and return of synonymous with the horrors of the T the job at hand. done so, the attorney proposes, all the property of persons killed during the Holocaust. One was Wilhelm Boger, an SS political arrivals would have been killed immedi- Holocaust has asked the Israel Museum How did Auschwitz-Birkenau function as to hand over hundreds of artworks and officer and inventor of the Boger-Swing ately. a 24/7 annihilation camp, and who were Judaica, claiming they belong to torture device, on which the genitals of At the end of the trial, six defendants the men who operated the gears and Holocaust victims whose property was prisoners were were given life sen- levers of the killing machine? seized by the Germans during WWII. smashed. A glimpse of the answers is found in tences and three were In a letter dispatched by the company’s Another was “Verdict on Auschwitz: The Frankfurt acquitted. The rest Attorney General, Nadav Haetzni, he Josef Klehr, an Auschwitz Trial, 1963-1965.” were sentenced to maintained that the Israel Museum is in illiterate medical The three-hour documentary capsulizes prison terms ranging possession of numerous works of art orderly who one of the longest trials in German histo- from three to 14 years. seized from Holocaust victims. strutted about ry. It lasted 20 months and included 22 For all its historical Haetzni cautioned the museum that impersonating a defendants, 360 witnesses from 19 coun- and educational value, according to law, all property of Holocaust tries and batteries of lawyers, and was doctor and killed the trial, and by exten- victims must be transferred to the commit- covered by 200 journalists. The presiding thousands sion the film, lacks tee so that it can be returned to its rightful An Auschwitz gas chamber, as seen in the docu- owners. judge’s reading of the verdict took 11 through phenol one important dimen- mentary film “Verdict on Auschwitz.” In the event that owners cannot be hours. injections. sion. hile Auschwitz-Birkenau was cer- located, the committee will transfer the Filmmakers Rolf Bickel and Dietrich Otto Kaduk, a Zyklon B handler, tainly a killing field for vast num- property or its value to needy Holocaust Wagner culled their material from 430 described the operation of the gas cham- W bers with an engineer’s precision. Until his bers of Roma, or Gypsies, Soviet prison- survivors, or institutions that perpetuate hours of original audiotapes of the trial. ers of war and political offenders, the vast the memory of the Holocaust. They discovered the tapes in the base- arrest he had been operating an old age home. majority of victims were Jews. In response, the museums’ spokes- ment of a Frankfurt courthouse. woman, Rachel Schechter, said that the By the nature of the subject, this is a dif- Yet in focusing on the nuts and bolts on On the defendants’ bank sat 22 former how Auschwitz functioned, the victims museum has not received a letter on the ficult, often agonizing film to watch, with SS men, now paunchy and middle-aged fade into the background. This missing matter. “When it arrives we shall respond in sober civilian suits. These were not the few light moments. One is inadvertently aspect may lie partly in the legal mechan- willingly,” she said and added: "The Israel big shots like Auschwitz commandants supplied by defense attorney Hans ics of the trial, but also reflects the reluc- Museum regards the protection of these Rudolf Hoess or Arthur Liebehenschel, Laternser, who gives new meaning to the tance of the West and East German gov- treasures as a national mission for the who were executed in Poland shortly after word chutzpah. ernments in the 1960s to fully confront the sake of the people of Israel and the the war. Laternser argues that the SS men who Jewish dimension of the Final Solution. world." THEIR PRIVATE HOLOCAUST have tried ... To leave small children like least 10 more people, and I have no doubt ment with the adults who were supposed BY RONIT ROCCAS that?!” that it would have grown. It is important for protect her in her childhood are as present During the course of two years, 2003- me to say: Everyone I interviewed is in the today as they were then. oram Mor was 9 years old (his name 2005, Ezer-Ulitzky interviewed 32 men book; I didn’t make any selection. “We were in the ghetto,” she relates, was Jerzy Mieczyk then) when the Y and women who were children during the Everyone who opened himself to me – I “and afterward we weren’t together, and I Germans invaded Poland. Four years Holocaust, and in every case survived in felt that he deserved the respect of having don’t know how it happened that my father later, at the end of 1943, his family – his monasteries, convents or the homes of and mother were not together. Where was father, his mother, he and his sister – his story told. Initially, I interviewed the Christians without their parents at their my father when they took my mother to found shelter in the home of a Polish fam- people and I didn’t know what I would do side. Mor is the eldest of them; the Treblinka?” Yisraeli was 5 years old at the ily that lived in a village near Warsaw. Mor with it, I didn’t have any organization youngest are David Frishbein (Horoczek), time and her brother, Michael, was 10, already knew then that the shelter was behind me, and I wasn’t even sure that who was born in 1941 in Dubnow, in and their father had given them money given to them not only in return for money, there would be a book, but the way was Poland-Ukraine, and the twins Shosh and the addresses of Polish friends and but also thanks to the affair that the important to me. People opened up to me. Ram and Tammy Shoham, who were born sent them on their way. He told her broth- woman had conducted with his father. “I There were those who recounted all the that same year in the ghetto in a town er: “You are now responsible for your sis- knew when my father got out of bed and details, as they appear in the book, for the near Vilna. ter.” For months the two tried to reach one went to the Polish woman,” relates Mor in first time in their lives. They wanted peo- zer-Ulitzky is neither a historian nor of the Polish families, chasing trains and “Quilt of Time” by Hanna Ezer-Ulitzky , ple to know what had happened to them from a family that went through the hiding. which was published by Gvanim with the E after the war, what some of them called Holocaust. She is 72, was born in Israel, Finally, Yisraeli relates, “My brother did- help of Yad Vashem and the Amos Fund ‘my private Holocaust.’” has been a widow for a year and a half n’t have strength for me. I was injured, full of the President’s House. “This was part SEPARATION AFTER SEPARATION and lives in Hofit. She has a master’s of fleas, hungry and without clothes ... It of the price we paid for staying there.” ivka Yisraeli, then Rena Motyl, was was difficult for him. From a distance he However, some time later, the father was degree in history and the philosophy of 3 years old when the Germans saw some lake and wanted to drown me murdered by the Germans and the education, and in the past ran therapeutic R occupied Poland. Like most of the inter- ... Luckily for me it was winter and the lake woman who was hiding them demanded workshops in interpersonal relations, viewees, her memory plays tricks on her. was all frozen. Later on, she is angry: “My they leave. Mor was already 14, his sister dealing with stress situations, among She remembers some things well; others father was in hiding ... He had a place to Joanna was only 7 and their mother real- other things. The idea of interviewing sur- have been forgotten and erased, and she eat, to sleep, and they threw us, two little ized there was no way of keeping them vivors who were children at the time was has needed long years of life in order to children, into this terrible world.” together and alive. She decided to send suggested to her by Dr. Nachum Bogner, try to reconstruct the years in which she here are things that Yisraeli doesn’t her son to work for a Polish farmer, but who five years ago published the book “At was passed from hand to hand. Like many remember, but she knows that in the first she asked him to take his sister and the Mercy of Strangers” (Hebrew, Yad T of the interviewees, even today she expe- end they succeeded in reaching the leave her in the street; perhaps someone Vashem) – a study of children who sur- riences the loss of her parents with a force Polish Matuszewski family – she was hid- would take pity on the orphan, who had a vived in Polish territory, most of them that entirely overwhelms her, and espe- den in a town and her brother was sent to crucifix placed around her neck, and take thanks to a borrowed Polish identity. cially the moving from place to place, from the countryside. From the distance of her in. The idea was that Ezer-Ulitzky, a con- person to person, after the war. “Like a years, despite the terrible things she The interview with Joanna, now Ilana temporary of the survivors, would focus package,” she says. “They took me, the experienced during the war, Yisraeli has Nachshoni, appears in the book immedi- on something that Bogner and others package, and returned me to the much more difficulty with what happened ately after the conversation with Mor. have not dealt with in depth – the histories Christians because they, my relatives, afterward. She knows that her father sur- “Snow, December, bitter cold,” she of these children after they arrived in went to Mexico.” vived in hiding and was on his way to his relates. “They leave a small girl in the Israel, the process of their absorption and The survivors’ monologues are present- children, but something went wrong – no street ... No one knew for sure what would the ways in which they have chosen to ful- one knows what – and he never came. happen ... I went back to the house we fill themselves despite the difficulties, the ed verbatim in the book, with slight edito- At first she was sent to some childless rel- had left. I remember that. The woman said residues and, above all, the series of sep- rial changes, and only now and then are atives, cut off from her brother, who was to me, ‘Your mother isn’t here any more!’ arations that in most cases did not end they interrupted by comments from the sent to Germany, who remains alienated ... Today I know that my mother jumped even after the war. author, who mostly expresses her sympa- into the river. I can’t free myself of my “I received three names from Dr. thy with their pain or tries to illuminate and distant from her to this day. Later, the anger towards her. Why did you jump into Bogner,” relates Ezer-Ulitzky, “and it things with comments that seem to come relatives decided to move to Mexico, and the river? You were a nurse. You could moved on from there. I went to see all of from psychotherapy. Of all the intervie- sent her back to the Polish family. “One have put on a nurse’s uniform and gone to them – from Kiryat Gat to Kiryat Motzkin – wees, it is clear that Yisraeli’s state is loss after another,” she says. But her a hospital and looked for work. You could and had I wanted to interview more peo- especially difficult. Throughout the inter- father’s brother heard about this and have at least tried. In any case you ple, there would have been no problem. I view, she weeps, and it seems that the bit- decided to remove her from the Polish jumped to your death, at least you could stopped this at a stage at which I had at terness, the anger and the disappoint- (Continued on page 13) Page 8 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2007 - Tevet/Shevat 5767

ith a lot of hard work and effort put forth by the Event Wmarked its 10th Anniversary with a very successful even over 600 people in attendance, the American Society for Yad Va hundreds of new young people in their 20's and 30's who are comm special evening. The evening was highlighted by a raffle, whic American Society and the Young Leadership Associates, and whi January/February 2007 - Tevet/Shevat 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 9

Chairman, the Young Leadership Associates nt at the West Side Loft in Manhattan. With ashem Young Leadership Associates drew out mitted to Holocaust Remembrance to this very ch helped to raise additional funds for the ich will help further Education and Outreach.

Photo by Melanie Einzig Page 10 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2007 - Tevet/Shevat 5767 REPORTREPORT FROMFROM YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM SIXTY-FIVE YEARS LATER SON OF SAVIORS OF A JEWISH GIRL JUST TEN PERCENT OF BABI YAR VICTIMS ACCEPTS HOLOCAUST AWARD IDENTIFIED could not refuse. highest human level of courage and BY KORIE WILKINS The Rapaport family had been expelled benevolence like your parents did.” Czubatyj was given a certificate and a ally Czubatyj always heard the from their home in the city of Radechov in BY AMIRAM BARKAT medal, as his parents were given the story of how his parents saved the the Ukraine. W title of “Righteous Among the Nations,” ixty-five years after 33,000 Jews life of a young Jewish girl during World ”My parents, to me, always seemed very the highest award given to non-Jews by were massacred in the Babi Yar War II. But the heroic efforts of his par- meek and mild,” said Czubatyj. “I wouldn’t S the Israeli government and the Yad ravine in Ukraine, the Yad Vashem ents, Danyla and Rostyslawa, became all have thought my parents would do some- Vashem Holocaust Memorial. Rabbi Holocaust museum in Jerusalem and sev- the more real when he accepted an award thing like this. But they did. My mother Charles Rosenzveig, founder of the eral Jewish organizations are teaming up from the Israeli Consul General on their said she did it because it was the right Holocaust Memorial Center in to identify the approximately 1 million behalf. His parents are credited with risk- thing to do. They had to do it.” Farmington Hills, said the Czubatyjs Jews killed in the former Soviet Union dur- ing their lives to save Hela Rapaport dur- he Israeli consul, Baruch Binah, said become the sixth people in Michigan ing the Nazi occupation of Ukraine in the Tthe Czubatyj family took a great risk ing World War II. given the honor. 1940s. in harboring Rapaport, who was later As researchers interview the last surviv- In 1944, the Czubatyj family left ing witnesses and examine old docu- ”My mother would have loved to see this reunited with her sister and moved to Israel after the war. They could have been Ukraine to escape Communism, settling ments, the question they hear repeated day,” said Czubatyj. She died last killed if the girl’s true identity was discov- in Michigan in 1950. over and over again is: “Where have you February. His father is also deceased. ered. ”We remember those who have ”This is such a huge honor,” he said. been until now?” A Jewish friend asked Czubatyj’s parents committed the crimes,” he said. “But we “It means so much to my family.” It was at Babi Yar, near the Ukrainian in 1942, seeking help sheltering the also remember those few who rose to the capital of Kiev, where German and teenage girl. Czubatyj said his mother First published in Free Press Ukrainian soldiers and policemen carried out the mass murder. Sixty-five years later more than 90 percent of the Jews killed HUNGARIAN WOMAN HONORED there have yet to be identified. Yad Vashem has recorded the names of FOR HOLOCAUST HEROISM some 3,000 Jews killed at Babi Yar. While skar Schindler had his list. Clara of January 2006. Jerusalem. it also has the names of some 7,000 Jews OAmbrus-Baer and her family had mbrus-Baer was 19 when the he Jewish state has a long mem- from Kiev who were killed in the their home in Budapest, and a nearby AGermans invaded Budapest in ory,” said Mekel. “We remember Holocaust, the museum’s researchers “T vacant textile factory. 1944. Her family turned its home into a our enemies. We don’t easily forgive. don’t know where they died or were The Baers, like the German industrial- safe haven for Jews hiding from the But we remember our friends, too, par- buried. ist, provided a safe haven for Jews dur- Nazis, and also provided elaborate hide- ticularly those who saved Jews during The incomplete records stem from the outs in a vacant textile factory that her ing the Holocaust – saving some 50 peo- the Holocaust.” fact that at the time of the massacre, only ple targeted by the Germans, including parents once managed. Julian Ambrus, Clara’s husband of 60 the number of dead was reported, and not the future chief rabbi of Vienna. The She recalled the times when the years, said his wife also bribed German their identifying details. Other Israeli government honored Clara Germans came and banged on the front guards to free imprisoned Jews and pro- Einsatzgruppen squads – mobile killing Ambrus-Baer for her life-saving efforts door of her home, when the discovery of vided the ex-prisoners with a hideaway. units that murdered about 1 million Jews more than six decades ago. the hidden Jews would have led to the “She saved several hundred,” he said. between 1941 and 1943 in the western “I never expected this,” said Ambrus- death of her own family. After the war, Clara and Julius moved Soviet Union, northern Romania and east- Baer, now 81 and living in Buffalo. “I did- “We had a couple of dogs,” Ambrus- to Switzerland – where they became ern Poland – operated in a similar way. n’t want to get praised for what I did. I Baer said. “And whenever anybody took it for normal that somebody saves came to the door, then I always told them friendly with Oskar Schindler’s brother. The project to identify Soviet victims, Schindler was renowned for saving more which began on Holocaust Remembrance people’s lives.” the dogs were very vicious - which was- Ambrus-Baer received a “Righteous not true – and I had to put them away. It than 1,000 Jews by insisting their work Day, in April, has so far collected several was essential to keeping his factory in thousand “pages of testimony” filled out Among the Nations” award, presented to gave everybody some time to hide.” people who risked their lives to save Ayre Mekel, Israeli consul general in Poland open. by the relatives and acquaintances of “We became very close friends,” Julius those killed in the Holocaust and a few Jews during the Holocaust. It is the high- New York, said the heroism of Ambrus- est honor bestowed on non-Jews by the Ambrus said. “We had dinner every dozen lists of victims’ names and memory Baer and her family was verified by the state of Israel, with 21,310 recipients as week.” books written by survivors of various cities Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in and towns. The project was initiated by Yossi SURVIVORS SEEK MORE HOLOCAUST FUNDS Hollander, an Israeli entrepreneur in the hi-tech sector who lives in the United only a very few survivors will remain. We world,” it read. BY MATTHEW WAGNER should give them the money they deserve They also said that 80% of the funds States. Yad Vashem is working with now, while they are still alive, and not wait should be earmarked for aid to needy Jewish organizations that operate in the ad Vashem, the Jewish Agency, and until it is too late.” Holocaust survivors, while 20% be used former Soviet Union and Jewish commu- Holocaust survivor groups joined A memorandum demanding that 60 per- for memorializing the Holocaust, educa- nities in the area. Y forces with Pensioner Affairs Minister Rafi cent of the funds be spent in Israel was tion, research and documentation, as well Avner Shalev, chairman of the Yad Eitan to demand more money from the signed by Eitan; Bielski; the chairman of as strengthening Jewish heritage. Vashem directorate, said the museum Conference of Jewish Material Claims he conference allocates approxi- had the names of more than 90 percent of Against Germany. Tmately $90 million a year for Jewish victims killed in western and cen- They also demanded that Israel be Holocaust survivors’ needs, and its total tral Europe, 35 percent to 40 percent of given equal representation in the running assets are estimated at $1.7 billion. It rais- those killed in Romania, Hungary and of the Claims Conference. es funds from the sale of unclaimed Poland – and only about 20 percent of “If money continues to be allocated the Jewish property in former East Germany. those killed in the former Soviet Union. way it has been, it will still be sitting in the The most valuable of those properties Some 600,000 Jews were killed during bank when the last of the Holocaust sur- have already been claimed. the Holocaust in Ukraine alone, and some vivors is gone,” Jewish Agency Chairman In a letter to Claims Conference 300,000 in Belarus, according to Yad Zeev Bielski told a press conference in President Israel Singer and Chairman Vashem. Jerusalem. “Israel is the center of the Julius Berman, Eitan wrote, “Israeli repre- Researchers have gleaned the names Jewish world,” he said. “Therefore, we A young couple at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem. sentation in the Claims Conference and need a change in the way the Claims of the victims from records kept by the the Center of Organizations of Holocaust its various committees should be substan- Conference functions.” Germans, as well as pages of testimony Survivors, Noah Flug; the chairman of Yad tially expanded to reflect the central role of Eitan said he had visited Holocaust sur- and record books. Yad Vashem has col- Vashem, Avner Shalev; and the chairman the State of Israel within the Jewish peo- vivors in Israel and found that they were lected about 3.5 million pages of testimo- of the Fund for the Welfare of Holocaust ple, and the number of Jews and suffering due, in part, to problems with the ny so far, of which only a few hundred Survivors in Israel, Zeev Factor. Holocaust survivors who were absorbed way the Claims Conference allocated thousand relate to people from the former “In light of the centrality of the State of in Israel and live in Israel today,” the funds. Soviet Union. Israel... 60% of the funds... will be allocat- Jewish Agency said in its statement. “Holocaust survivors are at the end of ed in Israel and the remainder will be dis- First published in the Haaretz their lives,” he said. “In another 15 years, tributed in the rest of the countries of the First published in The Jerusalem Post January/February 2007 - Tevet/Shevat 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 11 HOW MUCH LONGER CAN HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS WAIT? A new study reveals that Holocaust “far less than prevailing market values,” The 11 countries administering the vast among member states should take no survivors are still owed as much as he said, adding that the Soviets had also archive agreed last year to open it up for more than six months. That was eight $175 billion in restitution payments, six confiscated “large amounts of stocks and research, delighting researchers who months ago, however. decades after the Shoah. Meanwhile, bonds” belonging to Jews from the hoped to finally gain access to the docu- he agreement was just the first step efforts to open up a key German Reichsbank in Berlin at the end of the war. ments. The group had argued for nearly a Tin a long legal process to revise the Holocaust archive have stalled. he new study decade over objec- 1955 treaty which governs the archive. hile no amount of money can ever Thas reopened tions that opening the However, only Israel and the US have so Wmake up for the wholesale slaugh- the at-times virulent archive would violate far fully endorsed the amendments adopt- ter of European Jews during World War II, debate over how the privacy of some ed last May by the 11 countries involved. restitution payments from Germany and best to help elder- victims, with the The other members say they are work- other countries go some way toward ly Holocaust sur- German government ing on the necessary legislation. “We are redressing the balance. However, a new vivors in Europe, long resisting pres- moving very fast,” Liesbeth Lijnzaad of the study reveals that as much as $175 billion the US and Israel, sure from the other Foreign Ministry in the Netherlands, which is still owed to survivors of the Shoah. many of whom are countries to allow now holds the committee chairmanship, The study, prepared by international very poor. access. told Associated Press. “If a treaty enters economist Sidney Zabludoff for the “Things are mov- According to the into force within three years of signature, Jerusalem-based Jewish Political Studies ing much too slow- Associated Press, that is a huge achievement. It rarely hap- Review, reveals that hundreds of billions ly,” Menachem which was granted pens.” of dollars have still not been paid out. Rosensaft of the Polish survivors mourn fellow prisoners who access to part of the were killed in Buchenwald. Academics and groups representing Restitution efforts have intensified in the International archive, the invalu- elderly survivors are frustrated by the slow years since the end of the Cold War, said Network of Children of Jewish Holocaust able contents include a carbon copy of an pace of progress, arguing that urgent Zabludoff, a former White House, Survivors ,told Reuters. original list of Jews saved by German access to the material is needed to help Treasury Department and CIA official. He There have been a number of high-pro- industrialist Oskar Schindler, eye-witness combat Holocaust deniers, and that the added that increased public pressure, file restitution cases in Germany in recent accounts of the genocide at Auschwitz by long-winded legislative process needs to motivated by new reports about the scope months, as valuable paintings and proper- liberated inmates, and hundreds of pages be speeded up. of Nazi looting and attempts to conceal ty have been returned to Jewish victims of of personal “behavior” reports written by “The survivors want open access to the accounts by Swiss banks, has played a the Holocaust and their families. members of the SS about concentration material. That gives the greatest protec- role in facilitating payments. Meanwhile, the Associated Press camp inmates. The archive is adminis- tion to them and their legacy,” Paul European countries have pledged $3.4 reported that the archive of the tered by the International Tracing Service Shapiro of the US Holocaust Memorial billion in restitution payments. However International Tracing Service, a unique (ITS), an arm of the International Museum, who has lobbied for years for only around half of that sum had been archive containing vast amounts of docu- Committee of the Red Cross, located in the archive to be opened, told the paid by 2005, the study showed. ments related to the Holocaust, still the German town of Bad Arolsen. Associated Press. During the entire post-war period, only remains off-limits to researchers, with offi- German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries “They are disappearing before our eyes. about 20 percent of the assets looted from cials saying it could take years before its announced last April that Germany had How much longer does the world expect Europe’s Jews was returned, Zabludoff valuable contents become available for changed its mind and would work with the them to wait?” he said. said. The Nazis forced many Jews to sell study — exasperating researchers and US to make the archives public. She told their possessions and property, often at Holocaust survivors. reporters in Washington that agreement First published in Spiegel Online "SECONDARY HOLOCAUST EFFECT" INFLUENCE OF KLAUS BARBIE BREAKS LINK TO AGE-OLD JEWISH LANGUAGE EXPLORED AT YAD VASHEM and learning. new display of sketches drawn by In 1952 and 1954, Barbie was tried in BY MICHAEL TARM, AP That Yiddish civilization evolved over a the French artist Rene Diaz at the absentia in France , and found guilty both millennium, as Jews sought to escape A or Barney Sidler and his fellow persecution by first settling in German trial of war criminal Klaus Barbie have times. In 1971, Nazi hunters Beate and inmates at the Buchenwald concen- F areas in central Europe, then by moving been put on display at the Yad Vashem Serge tration camp, misery and death were eastward to Poland, Lithuania and other Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. Klarsfeld everyday features of life. regions nearby in the 14th century. The opening of the exhibition coincided tracked him So was Yiddish, the language of prewar iddish began as a fusion of medieval with a symposium held at Yad Vashem the down. European Jews that scholars say was German with Hebrew and Aramaic – influence of the Klaus Barbie trial on Unfortunately, another, if lesser known, victim of the Y languages Jews spoke before dispersing Holocaust remembrance in France, with requests for Holocaust. from areas in and around what is now the participation of the artist, Nazi hunter extradition Nearly all Buchenwald’s prisoners Israel. As they moved into Eastern Serge Klarsfeld, who was responsible for were denied spoke the Germanic language, which Europe, Yiddish also picked up Polish and Barbie’s eventual capture in 1983, French several times. dates back to the 11th century displace- Russian words. Cultural Counsellor in Israel Prof. Tobie T. Only in 1983 ment of Jews in Europe, said Sidler, who Nathan, and the Chairman of the French was Barbie recalls the words of encouragement Early detractors, who sometimes includ- inmates would whisper in Yiddish amid ed Jews themselves, would deride Society for Yad Vashem Richard successfully the horror. Yiddish as a hodgepodge dialect with little Prasquier. deported from “People would say to each other, “Zorg merit as a language in its own right. Klaus Barbie was born in 1913 in Bad Bolivia to zihk nihst. Got vet undz helf” – which But by 1900, Yiddish was widely favored Godesberg, Germany. He joined the Nazi France. Sylvia Zimmerman and means, `Don’t worry. Got will help us,” by Jewish writers. Ultimate acknowledg- party in 1932 He was Serge Klarsfeld. said Sidler, 73. ment of its merits came in 1978, when and the SS charged with crimes against humanity, Most of the 6 million Jews killed by the Yiddish-language writer Isaac Bashevis and SD crimes for which the statute of limitations Nazis hailed from the Yiddish-speaking Singer won the Nobel prize for literature. three years does not apply. They included responsibil- heart of Eastern Europe, where Nazis In his acceptance speech, Singer later. ity for: the February 1943 raid on the also pillaged and burned the close-knit sounded a hopeful note. When the General Union of French Jewry, during Jewish shtetls, or villages – similar to “Yiddish has not yet said its last word,” Germans which 85 Jews were arrested and trans- ones portrayed in the musical “Fiddler on he said. “It contains treasures that have invaded ported to Auschwitz; the deportation of 44 the Roof.” not been revealed to the eyes of the southern Jewish children hiding in the village of world.” “Yiddish speakers fared especially poor- France in Izieu , near Lyon; and the last transport of But as elderly Holocaust survivors die, ly because their language was, to the Nazi 1942, Barbie Jews from Lyon to Auschwitz in 1944. an irreplaceable link to Yiddish language ear, a debased, corrupted version of the was appoint- Barbie was also accused of deporting 842 and culture is being broken, Yiddish language of the (German) Fatherland,” ed head of members of the French underground (the wrote Miriam Weinstein in her recent book enthusiasts say. The defendant, Klaus Barbie, the Gestapo Resistance) – half of whom were Jewish – “Yiddish: A Nation of Words.” The number of non-orthodox Yiddish speakers, most of whom are Holocaust arrives at the defendant’s inLyon, from Lyon, as well as for the torture and “Because almost no one but Jews bench. where he the murder of Jean Moulin, a prominent spoke the language, Yiddish became an survivors, has fallen below 500,000 world- commanded operations involving the member of the Resistance. easy marker for enemies looking to root wide and will “soon collapse altogether,” arrest, torture, murder and deportation of On 4 July 1987, Klaus Barbie was found them out,” she wrote. Katz said. “It is a devastating time ...For thousands of Jews and underground fight- guilty of crimes against humanity, and The Nazis gutted prewar Yiddish culture us, it is the secondary Holocaust effect.” and hence decimated the main wellspring Sidler, who was just 12 when U.S. ers. Barbie’s inconceivable cruelty earned sentenced to life in prison, the maximum of Jewish culture for centuries, according troops liberated the camp in 1945, strikes him the infamous title, “the Butcher of penalty permitted under French law. In to leading Yiddish scholar Dovid Katz. a pessimistic chord about the chances of Lyon.” 1991, Barbie died of cancer, in prison. “The idea that Hitler failed to annihilate Yiddish surviving as he knew it. After the war, Barbie worked as an The sketches on display are part of a much of the European Jewish civilization “I still speak Yiddish to my sisters and agent for American counter-intelligence in larger collection belonging to the Rene is soothing self-deception,” said Katz, cousins,” said Sidler, who moved to the Germany. In 1951, he immigrated to Diaz, which he drew for over eight weeks head of the Vilnius Yiddish Institute in Chicago area after the war. “But in anoth- Bolivia and settled in the capital, La Paz , at Barbie’s trial in 1987, and then touched Lithuania, a prewar hub of Yiddish arts er few years, it’ll be nonexistent, I fear.” adopting a false name, Klaus Altman. up in 1993. Page 12 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2007 - Tevet/Shevat 5767

HOLOCAUST PROJECT IMPROVES “THE AUSCHWITZ ALBUM” IS ATTRACTING STUDENT TEST SCORES LARGE CROWDS IN THE UNITED STATES ad Vashem’s exhibition “The exhibition created in Chicago. hen the Florida Chapter of the kugel. YAuschwitz Album,” is attracting large The next stop for the exhibition was the WAmerican Society for Yad Vashem rom their statements about their crowds in the United States. University of Miami – The Sue and Leonard developed a Holocaust curriculum around Fwork, it was clear that the students The exhibition is based Miller Center for the Yad Vashem Names Database, our learned a great deal about tolerance, and on the album, which was Contemporary primary interest was to involve the stu- the dangers of prejudice. Now, we find found by the late Lili Jacob Judaic Studies. 200 dents more closely with the reality of that in 1945, and turned out to people participated event. The multicultural students at Lake be photos that were taken at the opening recep- Worth High School, in Lake Worth, Florida of her own transport to tion of the exhibition became actively involved in the fate of the Auschwitz in May of 1944. on November 9th, victims by working with the yizkorbuch The album, believed to be sponsored by Mr. (memorial book) of Luboml, Poland, a the only visual evidence of Norman Braman, DVD of interviews with former residents of the horrors that took place and thousands of Jews undergoing the selection process on Luboml, and the Yad Vashem record of inside the notorious death people viewed the the victims. the Birkenau arrival platform known as camp was donated by Lili exhibition at the Using the Yad Vashem Names the " ramp". The people in the back- Jacob to Yad Vashem. University. Database on the Internet, the remedial ground are on their way to Crematorium The exhibition was creat- Speakers at the reading classes created bracelets for Rochel Berman, a director of the Florida ed in order to be displayed at the United reception included Mr. Norman Braman, each family, with a bead for every victim in Chapter, guides Lake Worth High School stu- Nations headquarters in New York in Mr. Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the the family — by name. dents in creating a list of events in the destruc- tion of the Luboml Jewish community. January 2005, marking 60 years since the American Society for Yad Vashem, Art classes created woodcuts, from liberation of Auschwitz. Professor Haim Shaked, head of the images in the Luboml book or original that the curriculum had still another major The American Society for Yad Vashem Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies, designs. impact. sponsored the exhibition, which was and Dr. Michael Birnbaum, who gave a The French class wrote poems about The statewide school evaluation in shown from January until October 2006 at lecture on the significance of Auschwitz in the victims of Luboml. Florida, known as FCAT (Florida the Field Museum in Chicago, and close the Holocaust. Comprehensive Assessment Test) is the to 240,000 people viewed the exhibition! The great interest in the exhibition most important factor in the educational Mr. Lester Crown, who brought the exhibi- encourages the American Society for Yad program. Teachers and principals are tion to The Field Museum, expressed Vashem to continue and send it to be dis- evaluated on how well students progress great satisfaction about the interest the played all over the United States. on these tests. Lake Worth High School, where our curriculum was developed, is consistently among the lowest-scoring in the state. Throughout the development of THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR YAD VASHEM the curriculum, the teachers with whom AND THE ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS we worked stressed “FCAT strategies,” OF SOCIAL STUDIES formal techniques for students to exam- OF THE UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHERS (ATSS/UFT) ine, evaluate and internalize new material. Following the introduction of the Invite all Superintendents, Principals and Educators of History, Aaron Ziegelman, who was born in Luboml, American Society curriculum, the 71 stu- Judaic Studies, English, Humanities and Global Studies holds a woodcut by student Adlert Nozifort dents in the remedial reading classes that (history, social studies) to the showing Ziegelman and his sister as children. used our material averaged a jump of 115 9th Annual Professional Development Conference Social Science students traced the his- points, and one student score improved tory and genealogy of victims, and creat- from 886 a year ago to 1526 — 640 ECHOES AND REFLECTIONS: ed posters. points! Sparked by this extraordinary per- A Multi-media Curriculum on the Holocaust In shop class, the students reproduced formance, the entire school’s rating This curriculum was created by the Anti-Defamation League, a memorial to Luboml in Jerusalem, in improved from D to C. The Principal has perfect Hebrew and simulated stone. attributed this victory to the Holocaust USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, The cooking class made challah and studies, which so engaged the students. and Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority “I WAS ASHAMED TO BE GERMAN” DATE: Sunday, March 11th, 2007 rs. Liselotte Hassenstein received the “Righteous Among the Nations” was TIME: 8:30 AM - 3:00 PM Mthe title of: “Righteous Among the presented to her grandchildren, Susanne 8:30 AM - Breakfast Nations” from Yad Vashem. and Christian Hassenstein, in a ceremony The late Mrs. Hassenstein and her hus- at the Israeli Consulate in New York. 9:00 AM Program Commences band, Otto, who was responsible for 16 The award was presented by Israel’s PLACE: Marymount School/Pratt Mansion forestries in Brody, Poland, helped the Consul General in New York, Ambassador Jews who worked under his supervision. Arye Mekel and the Development Director 1027 Fifth Avenue When the harassment of Jews (between 83rd and 84th Streets) became worse in 1942, Mrs. New York, NY 10028 Hassenstein started to hide Jews in their house. Word got around and more Jews came around and Featuring the Most Recent Educational Units Liselotte didn’t turn anybody away. on Perpetrators, Collaborators and Bystanders She hid mothers and children in during the Holocaust Ghettos their large attic and brought them Survivors and Liberators Jewish Resistance Rescuers and food. Non-Jewish Resistance The Children “I was ashamed to be German,” she wrote in her memoirs, “I could All registered participants will receive a FREE copy not send them away because it of this newly developed curriculum upon completion of the program. would have been sending them to Additional copies available at $100 each. death.” Curriculum includes lesson plans and multi-media resources Liselotte Hassenstein herself was Left to Right: Ambassador Arye Mekel, Susanne Hassenstein, for implementing educational materials. sentenced to death by the Ambassador Hans-Jurgen Heimsoeth, Christian Hassenstein Germans, and only the arrival of and Shraga Isaac Mekel. To register for this conference, please contact: the Russians in 1945 saved her. Education Department Her husband, Otto, was fired from his gov- of the American Society for Yad Vashem, American Society for Yad Vashem ernment position as punishment. Shraga Isaac Mekel, in the presence of 500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor, New York, NY 10110-4299 Liselotte Hassenstein passed away 2 the Consul General of the Republic of RSVP Tel: 212.220.4304 / Fax: 212.220.4308 years ago at the age of 99. Germany, Ambassador Hans-Jurgen [email protected] Yad Vashem’s medal and certificate of Heimsoeth. January/February 2007 - Tevet/Shevat 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 13 MAJOR CREDIT FOR THE RESCUE OF ITALY’S JEWS YAD VASHEM GOES TO CATHOLIC CLERGY, YAD VASHEM SAYS TO COLLECT NAMES FROM THE FORMER lthough the Vatican was justifiably order. Shortly after the Nazis occupied few hundred to over 4,000. Acriticized for its deafening silence Italy, Padre Ruffino Niccacci of the High-level Catholic officials, as well as SOVIET UNION during the Nazi deportation of Jews, a Damiano monastery received an unusual ordinary clerics, extended a helping hand. ad Vashem and the Immigrant loud chorus of refugee assistance res- assignment from his bishop: Find homes Monsignor Quadraroli, a secretary at the YAbsorption Ministry have embarked onated in its monasteries, convents and and hiding places for more than 300 Jews Vatican, issued countless false IDs to on a project to record the names of churches. A large number of priests, who just arrived from Trieste. refugees and sent them to the convent on Soviet-era Jews who perished in the monks and nuns sheltered and fed des- Padre Niccacci, a peasant turned priest, Via Cicerone to be fed and sheltered. And Holocaust. perate Jewish men, women and children, managed to have many of the refugees in northern Italy, Abraham Cohen, on the Their emissaries will spend a month a chapter in the Holocaust that too many sheltered in buildings on the monastery run from the Nazis, recalled the assis- attempting to visit the roughly one million historians have overlooked or minimized. grounds and dressed them as monks and tance he received from unknown clerics: Russian immigrants in Israel to create a In Italy, the clergy played a major role in nuns to hide their true identities during fre- “The Catholic Church helped me a lot. database of names, the ministry said. rescue activity, according to Mordecai quent Nazi searches. Others were placed They found a place for me to stay and a The “Immortalization Month” campaign Paldiel, research chief of Israel’s Yad in parishioners’ homes and blended into priest went with me from Ivrea to Azeglio aims to gather as many names as possi- Vashem, which uses stringent standards the community. He also provided them on a bicycle. . . There, we found another ble of the hundreds of thousands of Soviet to honor Holocaust heroes. Paldiel, who with false priest, who arranged a place for me to Jews who perished. Yad Vashem has 3.1 himself was hidden as a child by Father credentials hide.” million names of Jewish Holocaust victims Simon Gallay of France, says that much to speed usan Zuccotti, Holocaust historian, in its database, of which only 350,000 of the credit for the rescue of most of their jour- Sgives a very balanced view in names belong to Soviet Jews. Italy’s 45,000 Jews is due to the clergy. ney to assessing the overall picture: “When the According to the ministry, only 20 per- “There can be little doubt that the rescue other Germans finally retreated from Rome cent of the victims from Soviet areas have of 85 percent of Italy’s Jews,” he says, monaster- after nine months of occupation, at least been recorded, as opposed to about 80% “can be safely attributed to the massive ies and 1,700 Jews arrested in Rome had been from Western European countries, and support extended to fleeing Jews by the convents, deported. Over 10,000 had survived. about 40% from nations like Hungary, overwhelming majority of the Catholic where it Every survivor owed his life to one, and Poland and Romania. clergy (without in most cases even waiting been usually to several, heroic non-Jewish sup- For example, Yad Vashem has the for clearance by their superiors) as well as reported Father Marie Benoit porters. But except for those caught in names of only 7,000 Jews murdered at of persons from all walks of life, even of the nuns prepared kosher meals for their that first, unexpected roundup in October, Babi Yar in the Ukraine, although it is officials and militiamen within the more Jewish guests. Not a single refugee was most deportees could also trace their known that some 33,000 Jews were mur- intensely Fascist Salo regime.” captured while staying at Assisi. tragedy to non-Jews who had, in the last dered there. Despite the Vatican’s official aloofness aria Benedetto (known as Father analysis, failed to provide support.” The project will be conducted during from the Holocaust MMarie Benoit when he was in However, there’s no denying that the February all over the country, especially in question, many Marseilles) transformed his monastery in network of Catholic institutions played a areas with large concentrations of immi- were surprised to Rome into a way station and rescue cen- significant role in providing asylum for grants from the former Soviet Union. They learn after the war ter to aid hundreds of Jewish and anti- Jewish refugees. will be presented with a “Witness that 450 Jews Nazi refugees. When Delasem “In no other occupied Catholic country,” Document” questionnaire. were hidden in its (Delegazione Assistenza Emigranti says Paldiel of Yad Vashem, “were Officials from the ministry will focus on vast enclaves dur- Ebrei), the highly-efficient Jewish service monasteries, convents, shrines, and reli- Church of San Damiano its branch offices, immigrant centers, ing the Nazi occu- agency, had to go underground during the gious houses opened to the fleeing Jews, clubs, housing projects, libraries, local pation. And hundreds of priests and bish- Nazi occupation, it carried out operations and their needs attended to, without any authorities, as well as working through ops throughout the Italian peninsula put from Father Benedetto’s monastery. Here, overt intention to steer them away from immigrant organizations. their lives in jeopardy to shelter, feed and Delasem stored its archives, held meet- their ancient faith, solely to abide by the The questionnaires, which will collect clothe the countless refugees. ings, processed refugees and provided preeminent religious command of the biographical information about victims One of the earliest organized rescue hiding places. In just 12 months, the num- sanctity of life. Through this, they epito- from the general public, survivors and the efforts unfolded in Assisi, the birthplace of ber of refugees receiving shelter and mized the best and most elevated form of families of victims, will be collated and St. Francis, the founder of the Franciscan meals at the monastery swelled from a religious faith and human fidelity.” kept in the hall of names at Yad Vashem. THEIR PRIVATE HOLOCAUST OTTO FRANK’S LETTERS DISCOVERED (Continued from page 7) interviewees. wo summers ago, Estelle Guzik, a so he explored possible escape routes family. Again. Yisraeli has not forgiven him Ruti Ben David, who was born in 1936 in Tvolunteer archivist at New York through Spain that would ultimately lead to this day. Tel Aviv, returned with her family to City’s YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, to exit via neutral Portugal. He also sought She remembers that she was injected Lithuania because of economic difficul- came across a curious file previously not visas to Paris and made attempts to with an anesthetic and woke up in a hotel ties, and was trapped there when the war indexed: a cache of letters written by Anne arrange passage for his family to the room. Despite the terrible uprooting, her broke out. She herself survived, thanks to Frank’s father, Otto. The roughly 80 docu- United States or Cuba. uncle did not think of taking her under his a Lithuanian family, but she lost her par- ments, including considerable correspon- erhaps the most interesting ques- wing. He just wanted her not to be with ents. When she came to Israel, after a dence from Otto Frank to friends, family Ption raised by the letters’ release is Christians, and took her to an orphanage, short period at the home of relatives “who and officials, reveal just how desperately why Otto Frank’s letters and pleas were still in Poland. From there she came to didn’t imagine what they were getting,” Mr. Frank — who survived Israel, to the Mikveh Yisrael boarding she was transferred to the Ahava institu- the Holocaust — was trying school. Later, when everyone went into tion. At the end of three years there, when to save his wife, Edith, his the army, she had to go to live with her she was in eighth grade, she was sent to mother-in-law, Rosa Hollander, uncle’s new family, where she experi- a youth group at Kibbutz Netzer Sereni. and his daughters, Margot and enced humiliations and difficulties from “If I broke down,” she tells Ezer-Ulitzky, “it Anne. which she is not free to this day. happened there...the feeling of being sec- The until now undisclosed “I don’t understand how I survived here, in ond class was manifested in our clothing trove of documents include this country, after the war,” she tells Ezer- that we got from Youth Aliyah, in the pos- letters Otto Frank wrote Ulitzky. “I didn’t have a home, I didn’t have sibility of participating in dance, instru- between April 30, 1941 and a corner of my own, I slept in one place mental and sports classes...The sabras December 11, 1941 (when and another. Virginia Woolf wrote “A learned subjects that we, the Youth Aliyah Germany declared war on Room of One’s Own.” A corner of my own children, were weak at, and therefore they the U.S.), as well as corre- would have sufficed for me.” sent us to work in the plant nursery while spondence from his U.S. SECOND CLASS they were studying, and thus the gap relatives and a university between us grew.” A page from the diary of Anne Frank, circa 1944, showing a friend, New York’s Nathan photo of her father, Otto Frank, who survived three years of hid- he well-known insensitivity that There are survivors who are obviously Holocaust survivors encountered on Straus Jr., the son of the ing in Amsterdam and his deportation to Auschwitz. T forgiving and have come to terms with the their arrival in Israel seems especially Macy’s department store’s life that was given them. But for many of harsh and infuriating when it happens to founder. The Franks began their two not answered. YIVO executive director them, there is still mainly pain, almost as children, who were trundled here without years in hiding in an attic above Otto Carl Rheins believes the Frank file raises vivid today as it was then, “for mother and parents, without a close, familiar adult at Frank’s office in July 1942. profound questions about U.S. immigra- father, for the lost childhood, for the pain their sides, and were passed from hand to The Otto Frank file measures at least tion policy. Meanwhile, YIVO has enlisted of separation from adoptive parents, and hand – sometimes from relatives who half an inch thick, and page-by-page tells “giants” of Holocaust studies to put the let- altogether for a life that could have been gave them up after a short while to institu- how the Franks tried desperately to ters in context: American University pro- built in one way and was built in an entire- tions and kibbutzim, which not only acted escape from Nazi-occupied Holland. By fessor Richard Breitman and David Engel, ly different direction,” as Ezer-Ulitzky says. insensitively but also related to them as the time Otto wrote his letters, the U.S. New York University’s Maurice Greenberg “second class,” according to some of the First published in Haaretz consulate in the Netherlands had closed, Professor of Holocaust studies. Page 14 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2007 - Tevet/Shevat 5767

HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS REUNITE POLAND MUST DEAL WITH ITS PAST according to a comprehensive report 1990) is that property that was taken from SIXTY YEARS LATER BY DANIEL SCHATZ recently drawn up by experts from the Jewish owners and heirs must be business sector, non-profit and non-gov- returned, with interest, to their former woman who was one of just a few y childhood was full of magical, Jewish owners. A wrong was committed. Athousand Lithuanian Jews to have Mwell-known tales, about characters ernmental organizations at the request of survived the Holocaust was reunited for the Israeli government. The wrong must be remedied. like Tevye the Milkman, as well as tales of 60 years after the end of World War II the first time after 61 years with a member he European Convention of Human love and joy and everyday life in the and the liberation of the extermination of a Catholic family who helped keep her TRights (1953), which the Republic of shtetls of Poland, told with warmth and wit camps, no viable solution has been found alive. Poland has ratified, states that “Every nat- by my grandparents. There were Moyshe to resolve this critical issue. Lea Ingel and Giedrute Ramanauskiene ural or legal person is entitled to the and Sorale and Feygele from the shtetl of oland was one of the main victims of embraced and held each other during Zamosc; people I never met, but who peaceful enjoyment of his possessions” PNazi Germany, and six million of its (Article 1). The convention makes it their emotional reunion at Kennedy Airport were brought to life through my grandpar- citizens – half of them Jews – were mur- yesterday. ent’s stories. absolutely clear that “no one shall be dered by the Germans. Since regaining its deprived of his possessions except in the They cried, acknowledging it might be Some of them became my childhood independence in 1989, joining NATO and the last time they would see each other, heroes. As a little boy yet unaware of public interest and subject to the condi- entering the European Union, Poland has tions provided for by law and by the gen- given their faltering health. Auschwitz, I wondered about my grand- established itself as a model for free and Ingel, now 84, said earlier she had no mother’s sadness: Even when eral principles of international law.” idea what she would say to telling funny stories, she seemed The Organization for Security to laugh with one eye and cry and Cooperation in Europe with the other. I don’t remember (OSCE) has also consistently when I found out that all charac- advocated that its member states ters, so alive in these vivid sto- deal with restitution of property ries, were murdered in stolen by the Nazis in a compre- Auschwitz. hensive and non-discriminatory In recent years I have had way. During its 10th several opportunities to visit for- Parliamentary Session in 2001, mer Polish shtetls, including the the OSCE adopted a resolution town of Zamosc where my grand- urging member states “to ensure mother’s family lived before the that they have implemented Lea, left, and Geidrute. Holocaust. These villages are appropriate legislation to secure Ramanauskiene, 77, whom she hasn't places where Jewish memory The Rotunda, used by the Nazis as a prison and execution ground, today the restitution and/or compensa- seen since she was sheltered at has been turned into history. houses a museum covering Zamosc's suffering during the Second World tion for property loss by victims of Ramanauskiene's family farm for a year. On a one-lane street leading to War. Nazi persecution…to Nazi victims "I'm not so good with the talking - with a small house on Ulica Gesia in democratic states in Eastern Europe and or their heir(s) irrespective of their current the language - because I haven't been Zamosc, I found the house where the throughout the world. citizenship or place of residence.” there for so long," she said, referring to Zalcman family once lived. It was from this Poland’s reputation as a force for moral The remaining ghosts of the past must Lithuania, where she left in 1945. She has house that my relatives, Moshe, Henale, good would be made greater by reaching be fought and old offences must be com- never returned. and Avrum Zalcman, were deported to the a just settlement, acceptable to all parties, pensated. It is high time we honor the Ingel traveled from Tamarac, Fla., to death camp of Belzec, just a few dozen on the issue of restitution of private prop- memory of those who were murdered dur- New York for the reunion, and kilometers away, in July 1942. erty seized from Polish Jews. ing the Nazi tyranny, and bring justice to Ramanauskiene came from the small There are no Jews in Zamosc today. No The Polish Parliament could take an the survivors and their heirs by rectifying town of Simnas, Lithuania. She still lives sign of a once-thriving Jewish life is pres- important step in this direction by passing the wrongful expropriations of property by on the same farm where her family once ent. The only memories left of Tevye the comprehensive legislation providing for the Nazi and communist regimes. sheltered Ingel. Milkman, Feter Moyshe and my own fam- the complete restitution of assets stolen By intensifying our efforts to return the Ramanauskiene's brother, Gintautas ily’s legacy are their properties, and the by the Nazis and the communist govern- confiscated properties to their rightful Ivanauskai, 73, was also supposed to property of thousands of other Jews that ment. The advanced age of remaining owners and by honoring the memory of make the trip, but was unable to travel was seized by the Nazis during World War Holocaust survivors makes the matter all the past, we safeguard the fundamental with his sister due to visa trouble, II and nationalized by the Polish the more urgent and the need to act all the principles of tolerance, freedom and although he may come later. Communist government after the war. more pressing. democracy – and help ensure that no The reunion was made possible by the It is estimated that there are currently The international standards are clear. child in the future will have to learn his New York-based Jewish Foundation for over 170,000 private properties held in The overriding principle that emerged in childhood heroes were annihilated. Poland that were wrongfully seized from the immediate post-war period in Western the Righteous, which gives financial sup- Daniel Schatz is a political scientist and Jewish victims of the Holocaust and com- Europe and was enacted in allied decrees port to mostly Christians from Eastern Swedish Candidate for Parliament Europe who helped rescue Jews from the munist terror. These properties have an and legislation that has continued to this Holocaust. estimated value of billions of dollars, day (see the recent German Property Law First published on ynetnews.com DETECTIVE WORK UNCOVERS NAZIS IN US PEBBLES FROM THE “KINDERTRANSPORT” (Continued from page 5) Extradited to Israel, he was tried and (Continued from page 6) Army, on a weekend pass. It was too soon the office’s creation in 1979. With an sentenced to death. But he was freed in 20,000 ugly adults.” to process it all, so he settled for being annual budget of $5 million, and a staff of 1993 after newly released records from As for Walter Falk, who had kissed his uppity with the Germans, he and a buddy 30 that includes 12 attorneys and 10 his- the former Soviet Union showed another mother goodbye and boarded a train out parking their combat boots on the facing of Germany, thinking they would be reunit- torians, it has deported or stripped the man was probably the sadistic guard. seats in the train compartment. ed soon, the outbreak of war in U.S. citizenship of 103 individuals. Demjanjuk returned to the United Verboten! the conductor huffed. September 1939 erased any chance that he office brought a record 10 new States, and the office brought a new case Hah? they jeered back, cupping their his mother would safely exit Germany. prosecutions in 2002, and has 17 against him. A judge ruled Demjanjuk hands behind their ears. We don’t under- T Even while German air raids in the Battle cases in litigation. “We are swamped,” could be deported to his native Ukraine for stand German! of Britain darkened the English sky, Falk Rosenbaum said. being a guard at three Nazi concentration e was a salesman after the Army, managed to correspond with his mother, “We found in the former Soviet Union camps, a ruling that Demjanjuk is appeal- Hhad a good life with Ginger, but now via a Swiss relative. Nelly Falk’s letters and other communist countries a veritable ing, Rosenbaum said. he’s alone, with his cat and his papers and were careful, guarded treasure trove of evidence,” he said in He said the office’s mission in the future his china coffee cups. He still gets visits One day, they stopped coming. explaining the increase in cases. will shift to investigate naturalized U.S. cit- from Ginger’s home nurse, a Muslim rom out in the bare December gar- woman who left behind her own tale of Rosenbaum said his office is in a race izens who have participated in more den, he chooses the smoothest against the clock to bring cases as soon recent acts abroad of genocide, torture or F horrors in Africa’s Sierra Leone — exiting stones, the ones with the rough edges via England, just like Walter Falk. as possible, with most of the suspects state-sponsored murder, an expanded worn away, by weather or by time. He now in their 80s. “The grim reaper has mission that Congress approved in 2004. On a December afternoon, Isha Conteh washes them in the kitchen sink, then puts accompanies the old man to the Jewish been depriving us of suspects,” he said. The office now has 46 individuals under them in his pocket on the way to the The United States cannot prosecute the investigation, mostly from Rwanda and cemetery near Four Seasons. He puts on cemetery. his black skull cap, and holding the cases criminally, mainly because the the former Yugoslavia, Rosenbaum said. In August, his wife Ginger died — like events took place on foreign territory. But That for the first time exceeds the number smooth, cold stones in his palm, he places Walter Falk, she was a German Jew who one on top of his wife’s headstone, one on it can assist in the extradition of Nazi war of individuals — 45 — under investigation managed to escape the war, fleeing to his mother’s. criminals to stand trial abroad. for Nazi activities. Argentina. They met in New York City, This is the Hebrew way. For those who One of the office’s most notorious cases “We are very aggressively pursuing the where he emigrated after the war to be come later, the stones show that someone involved John Demjanjuk, who was modern cases,” he said. Of the Nazi with an aunt. was here, and remembered. accused of being the sadistic Nazi death cases, he said, “We are in the closing He never set foot in Germany again until camp guard “Ivan the Terrible.” phase of this effort.” 1950, by then a private in Uncle Sam’s First published on News-Record.com January/February 2007 - Tevet/Shevat 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 15

Yad Vashem – The Asper The Holocaust The Conference YAD VASHEM MOURNS THE PASSING International Martyrs’ and Heroes’ on Jewish Holocaust Remembrance Authority Material Claims OF BENJAMIN MEED Studies Program The International Against Germany School for Born Benjamin Miedzyrzecki on survived. After Warsaw was liberated, in Holocaust Studies February 19, 1918, in Warsaw, Poland; early 1945, Benjamin’s father insisted died October 22, 2006 of pneumonia fol- that he marry Feigele, with whom he lowing a lengthy illness; survived by his was living. JEWISH EDUCATORS SEMINAR wife of 61 years, Vladka, his children, In 1946, after various travails that Steven Meed and Anna Scherzer, and found them briefly in a British lockup on ‘Learning to make a difference’ five grandchildren. the Belgian border, Benjamin and Teaching the Shoah, Benjamin Miedzyrzecki was raised in Feigele managed to immigrate to New Antisemitism and Contemporary Israel Warsaw, Poland, in a religiously obser- York under the sponsorship of the vant home. His Jewish Labor SUMMER July 22, 2007 – August 9, 2007 father was a Committee. WINTER December 21, 2007 – January 6, 2008 tanner and a Meed became member of the involved in the e are pleased to offer this seminar in English for Jewish educators work- Agudat Yisrael Warsaw Ghetto Party and the Uprising Wing in Jewish day schools. This is a unique and prestigious program tak- Zionist Mizrahi Committee in ing place at the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem in movement. 1964, and in Jerusalem. Young 1968 he partici- How should we present Jewish life before, during and after the Holocaust? Benjamin pated in cere- How do we implement Holocaust education in our schools and instill a positive studied first in monies in New Jewish identity in our students? What is our responsibility and how will we trans- yeshiva school York to mark the mit Holocaust remembrance without survivors? How shall we commemorate but then attend- 25th anniversary Yom HaShoah in the future? These questions will be explored in-depth during ed public high schools and became comfort- of the uprising. our seminar. able with Polish language and culture. He was a founder of both the Museum He was attending business school at the of Jewish Heritage in New York and the SEMINAR CONTENT outbreak of hostilities in 1939. Holocaust Memorial Museum in years has elapsed since the almost total destruction of European Jewry. In 1940, when the ghetto was officially Washington, D.C., where he was chair- 60In light of new research, new materials have been produced to help us established, the Miedzyrzecki family man of the committee that oversaw the learn and teach about the everyday life of the Jewish people and the Jewish already lived within it and took in mem- creation of the museum’s permanent communities that were destroyed. bers of their extended family. Benjamin exhibits. The seminar will feature academic lectures by leading scholars and education- was made to labor removing bricks from The Meeds helped plan the 1981 bombed-out buildings to send to World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust al experts from Yad Vashem and Israeli universities in order to provide the par- Germany for reuse. He became a smug- Survivors held in Israel, the first event of ticipants with historical knowledge in the field of the Holocaust. Special attention gler, trading goods for scarce food, and its kind. That same year, the organizers will be given to widening the participants’ knowledge on pre-Holocaust Jewry it was thus that he met his future wife, established the American Gathering of and Jewish responses during Nazi occupation. The program will also discuss Feigele Peltel (later called Vladka), who Jewish Holocaust Survivors to prepare issues of contemporary antisemitism; uses of survivor testimony; interdiscipli- was, as a courier in the Jewish resist- for a 1983 gathering in Washington, nary teaching approaches; age-appropriate methodology; and the impact of the ance, a hero in her own right. D.C., which attracted 20,000 survivors Holocaust on the Jewish world and its effects on Western civilization. Posing as a Pole with forged papers, and their families. Mr. Meed served as Special workshops and discussion groups will enable participants to explore Benjamin smuggled his family out of the president of the American Gathering educational issues, pedagogical theories and practical applications in Jewish ghetto and into a hiding place behind a from its inception until his death. educational frameworks. false wall above a sausage factory in a “Ben Meed epitomized the survivors of non-Jewish part of Warsaw. Through the Warsaw ghetto uprising and the sur- CRITERIA FOR APPLYING Feigele, he became involved in the vivor community as a whole,” the direc- • The seminar is open to Jewish educators working in Jewish day schools. resistance as an expert on constructing tor of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, • There will be a maximum of 30 participants. hiding places. David Marwell, said. “His passing is a He lost a brother and a sister in the poignant reminder that the survivor com- MORE INFORMATION war, but his parents and another sister munity is getting smaller and smaller.” THERE IS NO COST FOR THE SEMINAR eminar tuition and hotel accommodations in a double room on a bed and Sbreakfast basis will be paid for by Yad Vashem. The seminar is largely sponsored by Yad Vashem, The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against SAVING THE JEWS Germany and the Asper International Holocaust Studies Program. (Continued from page 4) thwarted by the tough immigration policy, For more information please contact: involved the total annihilation of the and that the controversial non-bombing of world’s 19 million Jews, including the railways leading to Auschwitz or the American Society for Yad Vashem Europe’s eleven million. Consequently, death camp itself was due to FDR’s reluc- 500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd floor New York, NY 10110-4299 argues the author, FDR deserves praise tance to kill inmates as well as being pre- Ph. (212) 220-4304, Fax (212) 220-4308, Toll free (800) 310-7495 for depriving Germany of fully accomplish- occupied by pressing issues such as the ing this monstrous design by ending the D-Day invasion. Jewish leaders were on E-mail: [email protected] war as soon as he did. both sides of the fence concerning bomb- oosevelt’s waged war included ing Auschwitz. FDR’s genuine support for Ressential aid for the U.S.’s embat- the Jews, when that was not popular, is A SHOAH SURVIVOR tled allies, the British and the Russian. also expressed according to Rosen in the Assisting the British in North Africa was unsuccessful effort to convince Saudi WRITES ABOUT HIS MIRACLES also intended, contends Rosen, to pre- Arabia’s King Ibn Saud in February, 1945, (Continued from page 6) ized nobody would believe it was true,” he vent Rommel’s troops from reaching of the urgency of a Palestinian home for and told me, ‘God bless you, may you said. “So we [Klainman and his wife, Palestine and eliminating its Jewish popu- the Holocaust’s survivors. never die.’ ” Teresa] decided to travel to Poland to look lation. Early on, following the events of n the book’s Foreword, historian He said the reaction of Argentina’s for details. It was very traumatic, that first Kristallnact of November 9 and 10, 1938, IGerhard L. Weinberg calls us to Christians to his book is much stronger time back in Poland, more so for Teresa with the first mass attack on Jews and remember the times’ context and the great than the Jews because “the Jews already than for me.” synagogues, FDR sent a clear message American struggle, including over half a know this story.” “Jorge didn’t talk about it. I knew very lit- by withdrawing the American ambassa- million Jewish soldiers, to defeat humani- Klainman said he was inspired to write tle,” said Teresa Klainman, an Argentina dor to Germany. A sore point is the ill- ty’s enemy. In the Afterword, Harvard pro- “El Septimo Milagro” after his son Miguel native who had no idea what a concentra- fated voyage of the SS. St. Louis with 936 fessor Alan M. Dershowitz cautions that began asking him troubling questions tion camp was until she met her husband. Jewish refugees aboard, originating in no president, even as great as FDR, is about his past. “I knew he was a survivor, that he had no Hamburg, Germany in May 1939. The beyond reproach and that he should have “For 50 years I guarded my silence like family and that he was in camps, but it ship was turned away from Cuba and the fired Breckinridge Long, Special Assistant a hermit, but then I got tired of these delin- was a taboo subject. Whenever I asked, U.S. and forced to return to Europe in Secretary of State, for his obstructionist quents denying the Holocaust,” he said. “I he would tell me a few things, but he spite of the work of Henry Morgenthau, conduct. This important book provides us realized that by keeping silent, I was wouldn’t want to go into details, and I did- Secretary of the Treasury, ultimately with a more balanced perspective for fur- becoming an accomplice, collaborating n’t want to upset him, so I learned not to resulting in the murder of 227 of the pas- ther critical discussion of a watershed with them.” ask.” sengers by the Nazis. period, even as lingering and painful It took Klainman four months to write the The Klainmans would return to Poland FDR’s assistants, stresses Rosen, pre- questions persist. book. His original draft version ran 107 twice more, most recently as part of a pro- vented the death of many more when per- Rabbi Israel Zoberman, spiritual leader of pages; only 25 copies of that version were gram to bring Jewish children to Poland to suading countries other than Germany to Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia printed. teach them firsthand about the horrors of accept them. He also asserts that FDR’s Beach. He was born in Kazakhstan in “When I read what I had written, I real- the Holocaust. sympathy for the refugees’ plight was 1945 to Polish Holocaust survivors. Page 16 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2007 - Tevet/Shevat 5767 IN A CONFINED SILENCE n exhibition of the mixed media pho- Atography by Miriam Brysk entitled “In a confined Silence” opened January, 12 in the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida. “In a confined Silence” is a collec- tion of mixed media photographs by self-taught artist Miriam Brysk, who served as a profes- sor at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and who now lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Brysk was born in Warsaw, Poland in March 1935. After the German occupation in 1939, she and her parents escaped to the town of Lida, but that city fell in 1941 and its Jews herded into ghetto. Most were killed, but Miriam and her family survived until rescued by Jewish partisans in 1942. Her father helped the Russian par- tisans to open a hospital in a nearby forest and eventually was awarded the Order of Lenin by the Russian government. They later fled to Italy to escape the Soviet inva- sion and finally arrived in America in February 1947. Art has helped Miriam Brysk come to terms with the privations she experienced in an upbringing “filled with hope- lessness and darkness”. This art depicts what she calls “the raw pain” of her child- hood as she relived it through psychotherapy. All the pieces began as photographs. Each image depicts a real Jew who died in the Holocaust. “The images you see in this exhibit are real. The people are real. They actually lived during the Holocaust,” Miriam Brysk has stated. “It was very important to me to make the work authentic – not to sensa- tionalize, but to give these people the dig- nity of their lives.” The exhibit will be on display through March 23, 2007. For more information call (407) 628-0555.

Martyrdom & Resistance International Society for Yad Vashem NON-PROFIT ORG. Eli Zborowski, Editor-in-Chief MARTYRDOM AND RESISTANCE U.S. POST Yefim Krasnyanskiy, M.A., Editor 500 FIFTH AVENUE, 42nd FLOOR, PAID *Published Bimonthly by the NEW YORK, N.Y. 10110-4299 NEW YORK, N.Y. PERMIT NO. 10 International Society for Yad Vashem, Inc. 500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor New York, NY 10110 (212) 220-4304 EDITORIAL BOARD Eli Zborowski Marvin Zborowski Mark Palmer Sam Skura Israel Krakowski William Mandell Sam Halpern Isidore Karten** Norman Belfer Joseph Bukiet** *1974-85, as Newsletter for the American Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp Inmates, and Nazi Victims **deceased