Vol. 33-No.1 ISSN 0892-1571 September/October 2006-Elul/Tishrei 5767

ELI ZBOROWSKI DR. MIRIAM & SHELDON G. ADELSON LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD YAD VASHEM REMEMBRANCE AWARD ne of Eli Zborowski’s most cherished childhood memories is sitting with his r. Miriam Adelson was born and raised in Israel with the shadow of the father, Moshe, in the comfort of their Zarki home on Shabbat afternoon Holocaust ever-present in her life. Her parents, the Ochshorns, fled Poland Oreading and exploring the pearls of wisdom found in Pirkei Avot, The Ethics Djust prior to the war. But significant portions of their families, who chose to of the Fathers. That warm and nurturing weekly interlude came to an abrupt halt in stay, perished during the Shoah. As Miriam so poignantly reveals, “I am the daugh- 1942 when the deportations to the death camps began. Soon after, Moshe ter of a mother who, when she was a teen, lost almost her entire family. One day Zborowski was murdered by the Poles. This thrust Eli, the oldest son, into his first everyone disappeared. I grew up feeling my mother’s pain.” Miriam recalls that fol- of many lifelong leadership roles. During the lowing the war, there was suddenly an influx of cousins in her life whom she had pre- war he was a member of the Jewish Fighters viously not known. Responding to the needs of young family members who lost their Organization, serving as a liaison between parents, the Ochshorns ghettos and non-Jewish partisan units. The brought them from family, his mother, sister, younger brother and Europe and helped himself survived the war in hiding with the help them to become estab- of righteous Poles. lished in Israel. Following the war, Eli met and married the for- Dr. Adelson earned mer Diana Wilf, a survivor from Drohobycz, her Bachelor of Science Poland. For 57 years, until she passed from this degree in Microbiology life in the waning days of 2004, Diana stood by and Genetics from his side and was an equal partner in all his com- Hebrew University in munal endeavors. The Diana Zborowski Shoah Jerusalem. Following Aftermath Research Center at Yad Vashem has her military service, Dr. been established in her memory. Adelson continued her An initiator, a leader and a visionary, Eli can medical studies, gradu- be credited with numerous “firsts” in the field of ating magna cum laude Holocaust remembrance. In 1963, he organ- from the Tel Aviv ized the first United States Yom Hashoah com- University Sackler Medical School. Specializing in Internal Medicine and Emergency memoration, an event that carried the Medicine, Dr. Adelson became the Head Physician in each of these areas for the endorsement of all Jewish organizations and all streams of Judaism. In 1970, he Rokach (Hadassah) Hospital in Tel Aviv. founded the first umbrella organization for all survivors, The American Federation of Growing up in a poor immigrant family in Boston, Sheldon Adelson went to work at Jewish Fighters, Camp Inmates and Nazi Victims. In 1974, he founded Martyrdom young age hawking newspapers on local street corners, and owned his first busi- & Resistance, the oldest, continuous periodical devoted to the Holocaust. That ness by the time he was twelve. An entrepreneur and a visionary, Mr. Adelson has same year, The Diana and Eli Interdisciplinary Chair for Holocaust Studies and created and developed to maturity more than 50 different companies, including Research at Yeshiva University was established by the Zborowskis. It was the first COMDEX, the world-leading computer exhibition. such academic endeavor. Under Eli’s dynamic leadership, the Society was the first In 1989, Mr. Adelson purchased the Sands Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, in order among Holocaust organizations to develop a Young Leadership Associates, encour- to bring Las Vegas to a new phase of business-centricity through the exhibition indus- aging members of the third generation to become involved in the Cause of try. After the sale of COMDEX to a Japanese company, in 1991 while honeymoon- Remembrance. ing in Venice, Dr. Miriam Adelson gained the inspiration for the theme for a mega Eli Zborowski founded the American and International Societies for Yad Vashem in resort hotel. Upon their return, Mr. Adelson proceeded with the implosion of the ven- 1981 and has served as chairman since its inauguration. In addition, he serves as erable Sands and the construction of the Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino. Since its a member of the Executive Committee of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and opening, the property has received recognition as revolutionizing the Las Vegas hotel Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem. The Beit Hakehilot, an education industry, changing the face of Las Vegas and becoming one of the largest hotels in and research center housed at Yad Vashem was sponsored through the gene- the world. Mr. Adelson’s company, Las Vegas Sands, is currently building (Continued on page 8) (Continued on page 9) IN THIS ISSUE American & International Societies for Yad Vashem Tribute Dinner...... 1, 8-9, 16 Wishing you The Holocaust survivors’ memoirs project...... 4 Remember Romanian Kristallnacht...... 5 a happy Files uncover Nazis’ trail of death...... 5 Auschwitz survivor broke his silence...... 6 and blessed Recalling Nuremberg...... 7 Massachusetts couple honored for saving Jews during the Holocaust...... 10 In pursuit of the desk murderers...... 11 New Year! Hungary’s Holocaust museum to inaugurate permanent exibit...... 11 Palestinians admired Fuhrer...... 12 L’Shanah Tovah! A tale of two stories about anti-Semitism...... 13 Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2006 - Elul/Tishrei 5767

SUPREME COURT RULES AGAINST U.S. SURVIVORS ISRAELI DIPLOMATS, HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS he U.S. Supreme Court rejected an tlement agreed to in 1998. PLANNING TO SUE IRANIAN PRESIDENT Tappeal from Holocaust survivors The judge overseeing distribution of the who claimed they had been cheated out of money previously ruled that more should group of Israeli diplomats and initial statements brought international con- money from the Swiss banks settlement. go to survivors in the former Soviet Union AHolocaust survivors hope to bring demnation, his successive tirades have On Monday, the court rejected the claim because they’re needier. A federal Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad drawn little attention. that survivors in the United States should appeals court previously agreed with the before the International Court of Justice in Israel is being judged by a double stan- get more money from the $1.25 billion set- judge’s decision. the Hague on charges of inciting geno- dard when it comes to international princi- cide. ples and laws, said Rosenne. If a low- Ahmadinejad has publicly called for level Israeli official had said the kind of PODCAST FROM YAD VASHEM Israel’s destruction, saying it should be things Ahmadinejad is saying, the interna- ad Vashem has launched a new lec- sented by Dr. David Silberklang, Editor of “wiped off the map.” In tional community Ytures series featuring the insights Yad Vashem Studies, the scholarly annu- an interview on Iranian would immediately put and perspectives of Yad Vashem’s al journal of Yad Vashem, and Series television, he declared sanctions on Israel, he researchers and historians. Editor for the English-language memoir Israel’s existence was added. Available in audio broadcasts and pod- series published jointly by Yad Vashem “the main obstacle Rosenne said there cast downloads from Yad Vashem’s web- and the Holocaust Survivors’ Memoirs faced by the Islamic are four reasons for tak- site , the program, featuring scholars from Project and is Israel’s representative on nation,” and in April, ing the Ahmadinejad Yad Vashem’s International Institute for the Academic Working Group of the Task he called Israel “a rot- case to the International Holocaust Research as well as holocaust Force for International Cooperation on ten and dried-up tree Court of Justice: First, it historians and educators, explores key Holocaust Education, Remembrance and that will be destroyed will focus international An anti-Israel banner in Tehran during a issues in the holocaust. Research, and a lecturer in Jewish History by one storm.” demonstration in July attention on the prob- The first lecture posted, “The Allies and in the Rothberg International School and The president of Iran, lem so that no one will the holocaust,” explores various issues in the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at which is a United Nations member, ever be able to use the excuse, as they surrounding the Allied response to the the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. repeatedly has said that Israel, another did following World War II, that they didn’t holocaust. Placing the Allies in the context The lecture is 35 minutes long. A sug- U.N. member state, should be annihilated, know what was happening. of the “bystanders” in the Shoah, the lec- gested bibliography and links to related said Dr. Meir Rosenne, who was the It also is necessary to break what ture examines their responses on the exhibits and material on the Yad Vashem Israeli ambassador to the U.S. when Rosenne called the “conspiracy of basis of their understanding of the war, website accompany the lecture. Lectures Ronald Reagan was president. silence” regarding anti-Semitism in their national interests, and the differing by other Yad Vashem historians exploring Rosenne is among the diplomats who will Europe. While not all Muslims are anti- time frames of the Shoah and World War various aspects of Holocaust history, attempt to have Ahmadinejad tried in the Semitic, Europeans are reluctant to II. research and education will be posted in World Court. admit that Muslims carry out most anti- “The Allies and the holocaust” is pre- the future. “The statements by Ahmadinejad are Semitic attacks, he said. clearly a crime,” said Rosenne in a tele- t is “no secret” that Ahmadinejad is THE WARSAW GHETTO PLAZA RENOVATION phone interview. In the 1948 genocide Isupporting and financing Hizballah convention, it is forbidden to incite people and other terror groups in an attempt to he Warsaw Ghetto Plaza – the site of David Mitzner, who was born in Warsaw to eliminate another people, he said. destabilize the Middle East, and the the official and survived the Nazis T According to the 1948 United Nations attack is not just against Israelis, it’s Yom Hashoah as well as 8 years in a Convention on the prevention and punish- against Jews, he argued. ceremonies in Russian prison in ment of genocide, adopted by the General Rosenne said he is not looking for Yad Vashem was Siberia, and his late wife Assembly in response to the Holocaust, intellectual satisfaction, but for action renovated. Ruth, and son Ira and punishable acts include genocide, as well such as cutting diplomatic ties with Iran The renovation daughter-in-law Mindy which was com- funded the renovation as incitement and conspiracy to commit or submitting a resolution condemning pleted before together with the Phyllis genocide. Rulers, public officials and pri- such verbiage from Iran. Yom Hashoah & William Mack family vate individuals are all liable under the “It’s unforgivable and unthinkable that last April, was from New York. convention. the world community stands by and made possible by The Mitzner family Iran signed the convention in 1949 and hears statements accompanied by con- the Mitzner fami- were in Yad Vashem ratified it in 1956. (Israel also has signed crete acts of terrorism [and does noth- and ratified the convention.) But Rosenne ing],” he said. ly from Houston From left to right: David Mitzner, and son, recently for the inaugu- said it is not just the fact that Ahmadinejad Rosenne differentiated between the and Phyllis and Jacob, Chairman of Yad Vashem directorate ration ceremony of the William Mack Avner Shalev, Ira and Mindy Mitzner and renovated Warsaw is making the statements but that the current international attention focused from New York. Marilyn Mitzner (Jacob's wife). Ghetto Plaza. international community is not taking any on the Iranian nuclear issue and the action against Iran. lack of attention on Iran’s anti-Israel “What is shocking is that nobody reacts to sentiments. The nuclear issue is not NAZIS PLANNED TO DEPORT JEWS it,” said Rosenne. Although Ahmadinejad’s only an Israeli problem, he said. TO THE SOVIET UNION document found in a Moscow tion centers in Berlin and Vienna. AUSCHWITZ WAS GERMAN, POLAND SAYS Aarchive suggests that the Soviet Germany and the Soviet Union had a non- leadership may have rejected a Nazi aggression pact at the time. But the Soviet oland wants UNESCO to change German Concentration Camp Auschwitz- German proposal to deport Jews from leadership apparently rejected almost Pthe way it describes Auschwitz to Birkenau.” Poles want future generations German-occupied territories to the Soviet immediately the idea of accepting more emphasize that to understand that the death camps were Union in 1940. than 2 million Jews from German-occu- Nazis, not Poles, the work of Germans, not Poles, Culture A Russian historian working in Germany pied countries, according to Polian. ran the death Minister Jan Kasprzyk said. has published an article in the “We cannot take these Jews. We have an camp. “In the years after the war, the former Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper awful lot of our own already,” Poland’s cul- Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp describing a letter he said he obtained Chekmenyov wrote in the letter to ture minister was definitively associated with the crimi- that raised the possibil- Molotov. He closed asked the U.N.’s nal activities of the national socialist Nazi ity of Germany reset- his letter by saying: cultural and edu- regime in Germany,” he said. “However, tling Jews in Ukraine “I would appreciate cational arm to for the contemporary, younger genera- and Siberia. your guidance.” change the designation from “Auschwitz tions, especially abroad, that association The historian, Pavel The possible depor- Concentration Camp” to “Former Nazi is not universal.” Polian, said the letter, tation of Jews to the dated Feb. 9, 1940, Soviet Union was ANTI-SEMITISM UP SHARPLY AROUND THE WORLD was written by one option mulled nti-Semitic acts have increased ties in the coming weeks as pictures from Yevgeny Chekmenyov, by the German gov- sharply around the world since July southern Lebanon start pouring in as the a Soviet official in A ernment seeking to 12, the first day of the war in Lebanon. refugees return to their homes,” said charge of resettlement, find a territorial solu- Until today, 70 different instances of anti- Hermon. and addressed to then tion to what the Semitism were reported, 15 of them vio- According to Hermon, the Leftist Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Nazis referred to as the “Jewish question.” lent. anti-Israeli arena is very active, espe- Molotov. During the late 1930s and early 1940s Amos Hermon, who heads the cially in the area of propaganda. “We The letter discusses a German proposal Nazi officials had also proposed other Taskforce against Anti-Semitism in the see a renewed phenomenon we saw made to the Moscow government to move ways of evicting Jews from Europe, such Jewish Agency, said that the increase in during the second Intifada and more than 2 million Jews from Poland, as deporting them en masse to the island anti-Semitic occurrences is felt mostly in Operation Defensive Shield where Austria and Czechoslovakia to the Soviet of Madagascar. countries which house large Lebanese there is a very quick shift from legiti- Union. Nearly 6 million Jews were murdered in and other Arab and Muslim communities. mate criticism against the actions of Polian believes it was written by Adolf Europe as part of Adolf Hitler’s “Final “We see a peak in activity since the Qana the IDF and the Israeli government to Eichmann and Alois Brunner, who were in Solution.” Most of them were murdered in incident and we certainly fear that there violent anti-Semitic actions,” Hermon charge of Nazi Germany’s Jewish emigra- six extermination camps. will be an increase in anti-Semitic activi- added. September/October 2006 - Elul/Tishrei 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 3

YOUTH SEE HOLOCAUST AND JEWISH CULTURE AS KEYS TO IDENTITIES GERMANY RETURNS ome of the more interesting findings Family is central to young Jews’ concep- that Gen Y Jews do consider themselves BOOKS BELONGING TO Sof the newly released Reboot study tion of self, with 69 percent saying their “different,” and place importance on that. PRE-WAR JEWISH LEADER of young U.S. Jews focus on how family is important to how they describe hen it comes to community erlin’s leading library said it had Generation Y Jews understand what it themselves. Winvolvement, young Jews are still Brepaired 17 books belonging to one means to be Jewish. eligion is another important identity disproportionately politically active — 29 of the nation’s great pre-World War II rab- Respondents — Jews aged 18 to 25 — Rmarker, with 51 percent saying it is percent of young Jews have “protested,” bis and returned them to his grand-daugh- were presented with 12 possible factors very or somewhat important to who they versus 12 percent of Catholics, 14 per- ter in New York. and asked how much each “matters” to are as individuals. But it doesn’t rank cent of mainline Protestants and 13 per- Leo Baeck, who had been president of being Jewish. Top on the list was “remem- much higher than job (49 percent) or polit- cent of African-Americans, and 21 per- the German council of Jews in 1933, lost bering the Holocaust,” which 73 percent of ical beliefs (48 percent), and it ranks cent have worked to get someone elect- his private library in Berlin when he was respondents said matters “a lot.” below gender, named by 54 percent. ed to public office, versus 11 percent, 11 arrested by the Nazis in 1943 and sent to Next were two universal values, “making Study researchers explain this finding by percent and 19 percent for the other Theresienstadt concentration camp. He the world a better place” and “leading an saying that Gen Y Jews rarely, if ever groups. survived the Holocaust but most of the ethical and moral life,” which garnered 64 experience anti-Semitism, and have But young Jews are less likely than books were never found. percent and 63 percent, respectively. never been excluded from society their peers to get involved with activities The 17 that have come to light were located in the Berlin State Library and Then came two more ethnocentric values, because they are Jewish. They therefore at their houses of worship (26 percent), have been sent to Marianne C. Dreyfus “understanding Jewish history” (58 per- don’t need a sense of communal cohe- versus 43 percent of mainline after conservation work. cent) and “learning about Jewish culture” sion to survive, unlike their parents and Protestants, 65 percent of evangelical The Prussian Cultural Foundation, (57 percent), underscoring the importance grandparents. Their values are, overall, Protestants, 28 percent of Catholics and which owns the Berlin library, said it had Gen Y Jews place on Jewish history and not very different from those of their non- 46 percent of African Americans. not discovered how the library acquired culture as defining Jewish identity. Jewish peers. The study is based on in-depth inter- the books. No compensation had ever By contrast, expressing Jewish identity One exception is that a higher percent- views with 35 scientifically selected been paid to Baeck for his loss. through traditional rituals came low on the age (39 percent) of young Jews consider young Jews and group interviews with Baeck (1873-1956) lived in London after list. “Keeping kosher” matters “a lot” to 33 their ethnic origins important, versus 27 another 37 in focus groups, representing the Second World War, founding the Leo percent, while “attending synagogue” percent of other urban whites and 22 per- a wide geographic and religious spec- Baeck Institute to study the history and comes last, rated highly by 30 percent. cent of suburban whites. This illustrates trum. culture of Jews in Germany. BRUSSELS HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL VANDALIZED LEGAL ACTION OVER HOLOCAUST he Brussels Jewish Memorial for ments were also found on the floor of the PERSONAL BELONGING THolocaust victims has been vandal- Memorial, which is located in Anderlecht, ized, in an attack a Brussels district with an Holocaust survivor is taking the ory of the disappeared,” Cywinski said. described as “devas- important Arab population. AHolocaust Museum at Auschwitz to Leleu-Levi has now taken the matter to tating” by the head of a Belgian Prime Minister Guy court over a suitcase that he claims court in Paris, France. he Auschwitz museum says it has Belgian Jewish associ- Verhofstadt, who was on holi- belonged to his father who was murdered by the Nazis. only a few suitcases identified as ation. day, was said to be “shocked” T Michel Leleu Levi, who now lives in having belonged to camp inmates, and The gate of the by this attack, his cabinet Paris, managed to hide from Hitler’s only three that were owned by people sent Memorial’s crypt was announced. troops, together with to the camp from pulled out, documents The Brussels National his mum and siblings, France. were destroyed, win- Monument to the Jewish View of the vandalized National but says his father, “Whatever the court dows broken and an Monument to the Jewish Martyrs of Martyrs of Belgium bears the Pierre Levi, was not verdict is, this legal urn containing ashes Belgium, located in the district of names of 25,411 men, women so lucky and per- case is in itself a defeat, Anderlecht in Brussels. from the Auschwitz- and children deported from ished in the concen- and it will only produce Birkenau Nazi death camp was desecrat- Belgium to Auschwitz-Birkenau during tration camp, where losers,” Cywinski said. ed and emptied. Condoms and excre- WWII. he had been deport- A French court is to ed in 1943. rule on the legal dis- U.S. COURT ALLOWS HOLOCAUST LEGAL ACTION During a visit of an pute in the autumn. French legal author- U.S. appeals court overturned a rul- as ending the bar on legal action. exhibition in Paris at the Memorial of the ities decided earlier Aing that had stopped Holocaust sur- In response to the early claims, 17 this year that the vivors from seeking more money from a major German corporations — including Shoah in February Suitcases from the Auschwitz 2005, Leleu Levi Memorial of the fund set up by German companies to Allianz, Deutsche Bank, DaimlerChrysler spotted his father’s suitcase. He said he Shoah exhibition in Paris should act as compensate victims of forced and slave and Volkswagen — established the recognized the piece of luggage from the custodian of the suitcase pending a court labor in World War Two. German Foundation Industrial Initiative to last time he saw his father, shortly before verdict. Law firm of Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & prepare for more claims. he was deported to Auschwitz. According to Polish daily newspaper Toll said a lower court had deemed the Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll said He now wants his dad’s suitcase, that is Zycie Warszawy, it is the first time a dispute a political or diplomatic matter out Holocaust survivors believe they have currently exhibited in the Polish museum descendent of a Holocaust victim has of reach of U.S. courts, but the Third U.S. been short-changed by the fund and are back, as a last reminder of his father. taken legal action over personal objects Circuit Court of Appeals now ruled that seeking more money. But the museum has refused to hand the housed in the museum. U.S. legal action could go ahead. “The interest monies collected from the suitcase over, despite the name of Leleu Set up in 1947, the Holocaust Museum According to the appeals court judg- German companies could range to $700 Levi’s dad being printed on it, saying it is includes several hundred camp buildings ment, Holocaust victims and their families million or more, and will be used to com- an important part of a historical collection. and ruins, as well as the remains of the gas chambers and crematorium. had been prevented from seeking com- pensate survivors of medical experimen- “We want to find an amicable solution with The site, which also includes a Holocaust pensation for decades after World War tation, forced and slave labor and other Mr Leleu Levi, but he has not established memorial, was made a UNESCO world Two by various international agreements Nazi wrongdoing,” the firm said. contact with us,” said Piotr Cywinski, sec- heritage site in 1979. and treaties. The lawsuit named Allianz, Deutsche retary of the International Auschwitz At least 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, But following the fall of the Berlin Wall in Bank, DaimlerChrysler, Volkswagen, Council, which manages the former death were killed by the Nazis at Auschwitz and 1989, a new treaty was signed by BASF, BMW, Commerzbank, Degussa- camp. its Birkenau annex during WWII. Germany, the United States, Britain, Huells, Deutz, Dresdner Bank, Fried. I understand his feelings and I share his France and the former Soviet Union, Krupp Ag Hoesch Krupp, Hoechst, Rag, sadness, but we must preserve the mem- First published by EJP which was interpreted by German courts Robert Bosch GMBH, Siemens and Veba. POLISH PARADE ACCUSED OF PROMOTING ANTI-SEMITISM ADL SAYS ANTI-SEMITISM oland was again forced on to the gate activities at the sanctuary, which the INCREASED IN MIDWEST Pdefensive over its attitude towards Pope will visit during a pilgrimage to hough the number of anti-Semitic But the ADL has recorded 26 incidents Jews after the Simon Wiesenthal Centre Poland. Tincidents declined across America during the first three months of this complained of the “anti-Semitic tenor” of a The fraught Polish-Jewish relations last year, the Anti-Defamation League year, with about 85 percent occurring in Good Friday procession. were not helped by reports that Andrzej said it is troubled that the number of inci- the Chicago area, said Adam Schupack, Beards and Stars of Davids worn at the Lepper, who is in line to become deputy dents in the upper Midwest is on the rise the Midwest office’s associate director. Way of The Cross ceremony at the prime minister, has received an honorary Kalwaria Zebrzydowska sanctuary “per- degree and supported a private Ukrainian so far this year. One incident involved swastikas and The ADL documented 45 anti-Semitic petuated medieval stereotypes of Jews,” university with a reputation for anti- anti-Semitic writings spray-painted on a incidents last year across a six-state Shimon Samuels, the center’s head of Semitism. synagogue on Chicago’s North Side in region that includes Illinois, Indiana, international relations, said in a letter to Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yushchenko, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and February. the foreign minister. It also contravened has condemned the university, the South Dakota, said Lonnie Nasatir, region- The ADL said it recorded 1,757 inci- Poland’s responsibility to combat anti- Interregional Academy of Personnel al director for the ADL’s Greater dents across the country last year, a Semitism under its obligations to the Management, as “an institution that sys- Chicago/Upper Midwest office. That num- three percent decline from 2004’s nine- European Union, Mr. Samuels said. tematically publishes anti-Semitic arti- ber was down about 12 percent from 2004. year high of 1,821. He called on the government to investi- cles.” Page 4 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2006 - Elul/Tishrei 5767 BOOKBOOK REVIEWSREVIEWS BLOOMS OF DARKNESS THE HOLOCAUST: Blooms of Darkness. grows attached to Marina, who too finds By Aharon Appelfeld. Keter Publishing, the young lad to be a reassuring presence FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Jerusalem, 2006. 265 pp. $17.95. in her own unstable and dangerous world. The Holocaust: Frequently Asked death marches? What were the concen- Questions. tration camps? What were the extermina- BY RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN Thus, the mutual and supportive bonding leads in time to tender and poetic intima- Edited by Avraham Milgram and Robert tion camps? What is it about the haron Appelfeld’s deep springs of cy that comes to an untimely end with the Rozett. Jointly published by Yad Vashem Holocaust that makes it so important to AHolocaust experience and memo- Russian victory over the Germans and the and The Knesset (The Israeli us? Who were other victims of Nazism? ries continue to flow unabated and touch tragic separation imposed on this unusual Parliamentary Association for Holocaust How was their fate similar to and different us with repeated themes as expressed by couple. Remembrance and Aid to Survivors). from the fate of the Jews? What condi- a master story-teller who succeeds in con- As in his previous works, a Christian Jerusalem, 2005. 44 pp., paperback. tions prevailed in the ghettos? What were necting us to them the gas vans? When did the world learn faith that, while not formal, is still a source BY Dr. BELLA GUTTERMAN time and again. of spirited devotion for simple folks such about the Holocaust? How did information His latest novel as Marina, while the pre-war prosperous his timely, concise paperback reach the free world? What was the with autobiographi- and university-educated Jews have lost Taddresses the current use and mis- nature of Jewish armed resistance? What cal features centers their traditional roots though not the caring use of the is “Holocaust denial”? How was the mur- on eleven-year-old Jewish values and optimistic thrust. Holocaust, and der of the Jews humanly possible? Hugo, who is about Author Appelfeld’s characteristic terse ignorance of the Sixty years after the collapse of the to be entrusted by style, that hides more than it reveals, is facts, by provid- Third Reich, the memory of the Holocaust his mother into the well suited for the horrifying subject-mat- ing answers to has evolved paradoxically. Although the protection of Marina, ter at hand, creating a suspenseful aura frequently asked Holocaust is frequently mentioned in the a prostitute, even as questions. for the unavoidable drama to unfold. media, there seems to be “Holocaust Hugo’s family and his familiar world of love Written by a fatigue” in Europe, and most people know and comfort would disappear into the con- Rabbi Israel Zoberman, spiritual leader team of experts, very little about the Holocaust. This pam- suming evil. of Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia the information phlet was published with basic information Hidden by Marina, Hugo is exposed to a Beach, Virginia. He is son of Polish combats trivial- about the Holocaust, especially in light of new and unusual environment as he Holocaust survivors . ization, manipu- the past decade, with genocidal murder lation, distortion and mass terrorist attacks, disregarding and denial, attempting to provide “a human life. This clearly written booklet is THE JEWS ARE COMING BACK human face” to the study of the Holocaust. an attempt to combat ignorance with Sample questions are: What were the knowledge. The Jews Are Coming Back: The Return Hungary, Italy, Israel, Netherlands, of the Jews to their Countries of Origin Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia) on after WWII. the return, or prospective return of the THE HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS’ Edited by David Bankier, in association Jews to their countries of origin after with Berghahn Books. Jerusalem, 2005. World War II, presenting a comparative 320 pp., soft cover. overview of attitudes in various MEMOIRS PROJECT woman enduring the worst during the BY Dr. BELLA GUTTERMAN European countries during and after the Second World BY MENACHEM Z. ROSENSAFT Holocaust,” writes Dr. David Silberklang, he end of World War II in 1945, War. The the Series Editor, in his foreword to the n 1942, Jadzia Szpigelman, now Jane with millions of individuals on the essays discuss book. “Certainly, other Jews, regardless T Lipski, was a 17-year old member of move, including armies, workers and such issues as I of gender, shared much of what these the Jewish resistance in the ghetto of prisoners of war returning from the transitional women describe. At the same time, issues Bedzin, Poland. The following year, after Germany, war criminals and former col- period; that were specifically feminine are her family had been deported to laborators trying to escape prosecution, acknowledging addressed in these memoirs—whether Auschwitz, she managed to escape to was a period of intense turmoil and fear. the fate of the the beginnings of awareness of young Slovakia, where she met her future hus- Reconstruction and resurrection of Jews; sur- men in one memoir, or marrying and bear- band. Soviet partisans took them to Jewish life was only beginning, as sur- vivors who ing a son in another. Reading personal Moscow to be honored as heroes, but vivors and other stateless people liber- were foreign- accounts from five different female view- ated from camps and emerging from imprisoned them instead. She never saw points in one book ers and nation- her husband again. Jane bore her son in hiding attempted to return to their coun- als, classified is a rare and tries of origin, to reclaim their homes, a Soviet prison, and miraculously, they enlightening expe- as refugees or both survived. livelihood and property. Repatriated illegal aliens; rience. Each story Jews returned to face a mixture of good At the outbreak of World War II, 16-year enriches our read- orphans and the custody of children; old Margit Raab and her family fled their intentions, indifference, jealousy, the “hierarchy of suffering”; and an ing of the others.” shame and guilt, while overcome with home in Czech Silesia to Eastern Poland. To date, six vol- especially interesting essay describes After her father was killed in a bomb-raid, loss, grief, despair, and rage. Most the “unspeakable”: written memoirs of umes have been encountered negative reactions, with the family fled westward to Tarnów, where published by the the concentration camp published in the Gestapo killed Margit’s mother. the 1946 pogrom in Kielce, Poland, Italy. The book discusses the stands Holocaust Margit was deported first to the Plaszów Survivors’ reflecting the extreme of violence and taken by various governments and gov- labor camp, from there to Auschwitz, and Memoirs Project death. Survivors did not expect the neg- ernments-in-exile on Jewish property, ultimately to Bergen-Belsen, where she together with Yad ative reactions of indifference, preju- repatriation, nullification or upholding of was liberated. Vashem. (Three other memoirs, Journey dice, disbelief, envy, discrimination, “Aryanization” of Jewish interests, the Isabelle Choko was an adolescent in the Through the Inferno, by Adam Boren, By lack of knowledge or understanding, restoration of rights to refugees, includ- Lodz ghetto before being imprisoned at Leaps and Bounds, by Margaret outright hostility and fear of reclamation ing the rights of those who were victims Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, where her Bergmann Lambert, and Legacy and of property, and the like, and therefore of Nazi persecution to return to their mother died in her arms shortly before the Redemption, A Life Renewed, by Joseph they were all the more shocked. places of residence, and resume their liberation. As a teenager, Frances Irwin E. Tenenbaum, were previously published Kielce was a vicious symbol of all that former positions and occupations, and survived two years in Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Project, together with the U.S. awaited Jews who had managed to sur- postwar antisemitism. vive persecution, war, concentration and a death march to Mauthausen. Lotti Holocaust Memorial Museum.) camps and death marches as they Prof. Bankier is John Najman Kahana-Aufleger saved her family in the The Project is an initiative of Nobel attempted to return home to their pre- Professor and Head of the International camps of the German and Romanian Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, who war locations, and met with death. Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad occupied part of Ukraine known as has observed that, “The Holocaust must Some of the issues discussed in this Vashem, teaches at the Hebrew Transnistria. never be studied exclusively from the per- volume are antisemitism, anti-fascism University of Jerusalem, and is current- The memoirs of Jane Lipski, Margit spective of the perpetrators. Each sur- and patriotism, the new postwar social ly at work on the forthcoming “Secret Raab Kalina, Isabelle Choko, Frances vivor’s story is unique, and adds to our hierarchy, the restoration of Jewish Intelligence and the Holocaust.” This Irwin, and Lotti Kahana-Aufleger have understanding of the Holocaust and the learning and community life, the reac- book continues the story of the Jews been published by Yad Vashem and the understanding of future generations.” tion of postwar intellectual circles, and after World War II, following Bankier’s Holocaust Survivors’ Memoirs Project in Collectively, these accounts provide a more. “Probing the Depth of German Stolen Youth, Five Women’s Survival in sense of both the diversity of European The 14 essays in this volume are by Antisemitism; Nazi Europe and the the Holocaust. Jewry and the commonality of their fate. scholars from and about almost as Final Solution” (edited with Israel “These five stories provide insights into The latest volume in what the New York many countries (Belgium, France, Gutman). what it meant to be a young Jewish (Continued on page 13) September/October 2006 - Elul/Tishrei 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 5 AN OVERDUE TRIBUTE FILES UNCOVER NAZIS’ TRAIL OF DEATH UNVEILED central-west German spa town after World also played a big role in restricting access. BY COLIN NICKERSON War II, fill some 16 miles of file drawers Many scholars say the Red Cross has ccording to the Albanian concept and shelf space behind the bland exterior kept records private because it doesn’t of besa, a sort of code of honor, a he death books seem utterly ordi- A want historians treading on its turf. person in need must be provided with nary, their covers inscribed with nei- walls of a former SS barracks. T The files were placed under the control In any event, Germany in April abruptly every possible measure of protection ther swastikas nor other frightening Nazi of the Red Cross, responsible for tracing dropped its longstanding opposition to and assistance. It was thanks in no small symbols. They are just the black-and- millions of the dead and missing from the granting full access to researchers — and measure to this idea that nearly all of white, cardboard-covered composition camps and slave labor battalions. Since the Red Cross indicated that it, too, would Albania’s 2,000 Jews — and hundreds of books that generations of schoolchildren 1945, the organization has responded to go along. The change came after the foreign Jewish refugees — were spared have used for handwriting practice. And, 11.3 million queries from people in 62 United States intensified diplomatic pres- as World War II tore through Europe. indeed, every entry is in neat cursive. countries, mainly from relatives seeking sure for openness. In April, journalist and amateur On April 20, 1942, the commandant of The archives contain 50 Holocaust historian Jack Goldfarb wit- the Mauthausen concentration camp in million documents with the nessed the unveiling of a granite monu- Austria approved the special killing of 300 names and information on ment devoted to Albania’s heroism, thus prisoners to mark the Fuehrer’s birthday. some 17.5 million people, fulfilling his own personal pledge of besa The execution list runs for pages, each including concentration that began more than eight years ago. individual receiving a single line — name, camp inmates, forced The monument is displayed at a birthdate, place of birth, inmate number, laborers, and other victims and an epitaph, ‘’By order of R.S.H.A. shot,” Holocaust memorial park in Sheepshead of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. the acronym for the Central Office for Bay, Brooklyn. he files at Bad Security of the Reich. “I have a tremendous satisfaction Arolsen provide stark The cause of death for each was a sin- T knowing that both my Albanian friends details of slave laborers gle bullet to the base of the skull: and those that carried out the heroic forced to repair German Genickschuss — neck shot. The execu- work have been honored here in New railroads under bombard- tions on that spring day occurred at two- York,” Goldfarb told the Forward. ment from Allies, digging minute intervals. Every snap of the firing Goldfarb first learned of Albania’s tunnels to hide V-2 rockets, pin was duly noted in fussy script in the wartime history during a series of trips or working on the assembly Totenbuch, or death book, for 1942-43. Udo Jost, archive manager for the tracing section, viewed files he took to the region in the 1990s, just lines of BMW, Siemens The birthday celebration murders started recently at the facility in Bad Arolsen, Germany. as Albania was emerging from decades electronics, and other well-known firms. at 11:20 a.m. of communist rule. information about lost loved ones, but also Researchers say that the opening of the 11:22. Neck shot. In 1943, the Nazis asked Albanian from survivors seeking to document their records is long overdue. 11:24. Neck shot authorities for a list of the country’s incarceration and inhumane treatment “These are terrible stories from a terrible 11:26. Neck shot. Jews. They refused to comply. “Jews under the Nazis. time,” said Ulrich Herbert, professor of “There is extraordinary material in Bad were then taken from the cities and hid- Although all Third Reich concentration 20th-century history at Germany’s Arolsen on the functioning and structure den in the countryside,” Goldfarb camps were cruel and murderous, not all University of Freiburg. “It’s frustrating and of the camps and slave labor systems,” explained. “Non-Jewish Albanians would were meant for genocide. Many were even appalling that these records have said Johannes Houwink ten Cate, profes- steal identity cards from police stations designed to provide a workforce of slave been kept off-limits to historical research sor of Holocaust and genocide studies at [for Jews to use]. The underground laborers for industry and government proj- for so long.” the University of Amsterdam in the resistance even warned that anyone ects. Major Holocaust archives in the United who turned in a Jew would be executed.” Netherlands. “It’s one of the largest collec- In addition to tracking the dead and States and Israel are open for general Goldfarb worked with Israel’s Yad tions of historical documents from World missing, the Red Cross has also used the research. Vashem and with Bernd Fischer, a spe- War II, enough to keep scholars busy for files to help survivors secure pensions, The Bad Arolsen files range from broad cialist in Albanian history at Indiana generations.” medical benefits, or reparation payments outlines of mass murder to sharp shards University – Purdue University Fort Perhaps most shocking about the Bad by providing proof that their “lost years” of unfathomable cruelty. Wayne, to compile the material neces- Arolsen files is the way the most horrific were spent in camps or labor battalions. There is, for example, the terse account sary for the approval of the new monu- atrocities are detailed in ho-hum bureau- “These are archives of horror, yes, but of the Gestapo interrogation of a 31-year- ment. cratic language. also of hope,” Jost said. old hospital nurse named Elisabeth “This is a story that needs to be told,” “In the concentration camps, unlike the he files have been kept off-limits to arrested in Koblenz. Fischer told the Forward this week. extermination camps, everything was the public, primarily because of T ‘’This woman is a half-Jew who lives “There were actually more Jews in the carefully recorded,” said Udo Jost, archive Germany’s assertion that access would [with her non-Jewish boyfriend] and country after the war than before — manager for the tracing section of the violate the privacy of victims. Some acknowledges they have had sexual rela- thanks to the Albanian traditions of reli- International Committee of the Red Cross records hold highly personal information, tions” in violation of Nazi racial purity laws, gious tolerance and hospitality. In that oversees a gigantic archive whose including medical details, criminal according to the two-sentence report. Albania, when someone crosses the millions of files have for six decades been records, suggestions of homosexuality, She was issued a patch of a yellow tri- threshold of your home, your honor kept largely hidden from public view. The and — most controversially — evidence of angle superimposed on dark triangle, depends on defending him.” documents, captured by Allied troops and collusion between inmates and their cap- making a Star of David, to show she was held in London before being moved to this tors. But bureaucratic bullheadedness (Continued on page 13) First published in Forward REMEMBER ROMANIAN KRISTALLNACHT Romanian Kristallnacht, recalls the devasta- “During these days, the Iron Guard Romanian president Ion Iliescu and current BY BARUCH COHEN tion in his memoir The Quality of Witness: A Legionaries also occupied the Malbim Beith Romanian President Traian Basescu after Romanian Diary, 1937-1944. “What hap- Hamidrash [synagogue] and tortured many acknowledging the Holocaust, almost noth- was 21 years old. I was there. I am a wit- pened in Vacaresti, Dudesti [Jewish areas] Jews there. They killed the cantor of the ing has changed in Romania. Reparations ness. I and surrounding neighborhoods remains The pogrom in Bucharest on Jan. 21, Coral Temple while he was conducting the for the confiscation and theft of Jewish prop- indescribable. Suffice it to list the destruc- 1942, took the lives of 130 Jews. Gangs of Minchah services. They also killed Jews erties during the Holocaust era have not tion, the looting and the bestial crimes. But Iron Guard Legionaries looted hundreds of who had come there to say Kaddish. been made, and Romanian politicians still Jewish homes and dragged their inhabitants even that is impossible. The fury of the loot- Dozens of Jews were first tortured and have not made a firm commitment to away, and beat, tortured and killed them. ers has not spared anybody or anything. transported to the Jilava forest. All men were Holocaust education. They demolished and burned to the ground Shop after shop with shutters wrenched off shot.” n 2004, Iliescu rewarded two known hundreds of Jewish stores. They desecrated their hinges, windows smashed, walls Today, Romania has finally acknowledged IHolocaust deniers and anti-Semites, and torched 25 synagogues, including the burned, rooms emptied, made it impossible its atrocities during the Holocaust years of Corneliu Vadim Tudor and Ghorghe Buzatu, majestic ancient Spanish and Portuguese to guess what had been seen before,” 1940 to ’44 and its government has prom- with the country’s highest medal of honor. temple, and destroyed Torah scrolls. Dorian wrote. ised to ensure that the Holocaust will be Today, there are still reports of vandalism These are the images I live with to this day. he great beautiful Sephardi syna- taught in high schools and universities. and desecration of synagogues and Jewish The Iron Guard criminals looted and devas- “Tgogue has been completely However, Holocaust education in Romania cemeteries in Romania. There are also tated the Jewish neighborhood of Bucharest destroyed. They set [it] on fire with cans of is said to be optional. It should be mandato- reports of graffiti denying the Holocaust, and during the three days of Romania’s terrible, gasoline placed in four corners, and looters ry, and taught as an integral part of anti-Semitic books and books that contain but seldom mentioned, “Kristallnacht,” which danced by the flames. The list of beaten and Romania’s history. anti-Semitic statements are released by the tortured people is endless, and crimes cover took place from Jan. 21 to 23, 1941. They efore World War II, some 800,000 state-owned publisher. In the private media, the complete range of a demented imagina- took away innocent people from their BJews lived in Romania. They were a without objection or interference from the tion, Jews forced to drink gasoline with homes, their workplaces and places of wor- community proud of their contribution to all government, anti-Semitism exists. ship, killed them and hung them, like cattle, Epsom salts, crosses cut on the skin of their fields of Romanian society. Today, a mere from hooks in slaughterhouses with tags backs, torture and killing, on and on…” 6,000 to 8,000 elderly Romanian Jews live in Baruch Cohen, a Holocaust survivor, is the reading “kosher meat.” The chief rabbi of Romania at the time, the country. research chair of the Canadian Institute for Emil Dorian, another witness of the Alexander Safran, wrote in his memoirs: Despite the promises made by former Jewish Research. Page 6 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2006 - Elul/Tishrei 5767 SURVIVORS’SURVIVORS’ CORNERCORNER AUSCHWITZ SURVIVOR BROKE HIS SILENCE called a relocation, but no one came back young prisoner like me was three to four But a heart attack at 60 awakened old BY JOHN O’DONNELL from there.” weeks.” images. Lustiger later escaped his guards under played back a film of my life. I or decades, Arno Lustiger remained DEATH MARCH a hail of gunfire and was found uncon- “Iremembered the men I had met in Fsilent about his wartime experi- ustiger spent most of the war in dif- concentration camps who had resisted. ences. scious by American soldiers. Lferent concentration camps, joining The war ended on Lustiger’s 21st birth- They have been written out of the history The cruelty of his Nazi tormentors, the the Jewish resistance movement. books. I wanted to change that.” destruction of his family and the suffering day. It was the start of an adult life already As the net closed in on the Nazis, the heavily scarred by experiences which “I said, if I survive, then I will write this in six concentration camps were memo- treatment of prisoners worsened. With history. My books are a gravestone, an ries he tried to suppress. would remain a closely guarded secret for Russia’s army approaching, Lustiger was most of his life. epitaph to those people. They fought for “I was not able to articulate what had ordered on a “death march” out of the honor of the Jewish people. They happened,” said the Auschwitz survivor, Auschwitz. REBUILDING A LIFE should not be forgotten.” whose father and brother died in the “Those who could were ordered to ustiger’s priority became to rejoin a Lustiger praises Germany for facing up camp. “I didn’t say one word about what march,” he recalls. “Those who could not society which had rejected him. He to its past and criticises many of its neigh- had happened to me for 40 years.” L march were shot.” turned down a chance to emigrate to bours for not following its example. Then in his early 60s, a near-death The destination, for those who survived America, choosing instead to stay with his “Poland and other countries, such as experience prompted Lustiger to break his temperatures as mother and sister, Romania and Hungary, should do the silence. Today, the retired entrepreneur is low as minus 20 whose health was same. The collaboration of others in the an acclaimed Holocaust historian on a degrees Celsius, ailing. murdering of the Jews was covered up mission to champion the memory of the was a newly built “At this time, no during Communism. But they were wit- Jews who suffered alongside him. camp in Poland one wanted any- nesses of these crimes. They knew what “You’ll never survive this,” Lustiger and ultimately thing to do with happened.” recalls one SS guard taunting him as he an underground Although Lustiger speaks openly about was marched through a concentration Germany,” said aircraft factory in his past, his wartime scars are sensitive. camp. “And if you do, no one will believe Lustiger. “And the Langenstein, Jews that stayed The faded prisoner number A5592 given you.” to him by the Nazis remains tattooed on But Lustiger survived to tell his story and central were also treated Germany. as pariahs because his arm — his telephone number, Lustiger over the years, the 82-year-old’s history once told his curious daughter. books have found their way into thou- “Who could the global Jewish have imagined organization had Many stories of the cruelty he saw stay sands of homes in the German and Arno Lustiger hidden. “During the war, I had a bad expe- English-speaking world. that towards the decided that all end of the war the destruction of the Jews Jews should leave Germany.” rience every day,” he said. “I don’t talk Lustiger was just 15 when Nazi troops about them. I try not to think about those would become more important than win- He rejected compensation for his slave marched into his native Poland. His fami- people.” ning the war?” said Lustiger. labor, afraid that he would be counted ly abandoned an attempt to flee after their Through research, he has thrown further “Langenstein was the worst camp I had among those who some said lied to get cars ran out of petrol and returned to their light on Germany’s darkest chapter. Some been in. In Blechhammer, you were kept money. He even declined to out a former then Nazi-occupied home near the questions, however, will never be capable of working. But in Langenstein SS man, whom he met by chance on a German border. answered. “The more I have learned the conditions were unnecessarily hard. train, someone Lustiger described as a Many of their Jewish neighbours were about this episode,” said Lustiger, “the They hardly gave us anything to eat. good camp guard. taken on the 25-mile journey to another less I understand it.” town, Oswiecim, Auschwitz. “Nobody Many people died through starvation and Settling in Frankfurt, he set up a knew what it was,” said Lustiger. “It was hard work. The life expectancy for a women’s fashion firm and raised a family. First published by Reuters

VICTIM OF NAZIS CANNOT SUE GERMAN A JEW, A CZECH, AN OFFICER DRUG COMPANIES AND AN OLYMPIAN man left sterile by Nazi medical Aexperiments during the Holocaust star was counterintuitive. The game was his surviving, non-Jewish teammates and cannot sue two German drug companies, BY JOE ESKENAZI invented in Scotland as a form of aquatic was voted onto the Czechoslovakian rugby and, despite the grace of its partici- Olympic committee, a high honor. But a a federal appeals court ruled. ny story about Jewish athletes pants, is a mind-blowingly violent and communist takeover of his homeland did The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals begins, more often than not, with A physical game. While most people would- what the Nazi invasion couldn’t — con- upheld the dismissal of Simon “Did you hear the one about …” n’t think of a sport with the word “polo” in vince him to leave. Along with his wife and Rozenkier's lawsuit, saying that his In other words, a joke. And Helen the title as brutal, they can’t see what 8-month-old Helen, he immigrated to New “exclusive remedy” is through a fund set Epstein has heard them all. But she can’t goes on underwater (and neither can the York City in 1948. up by the German government in 2000. help wondering — when did it become so referee). The action can be exceedingly There, he continued to raise his family in Rozenkier applied for compensation from funny to spread Nazi propaganda? that fund and received two checks totaling rough. a manner ill-befitting a Jewish stereotype. In a San Francisco presentation, the And while Kurt Epstein’s Jewish team- After Sunday school, the Epsteins were $9,993, the ruling said. author of “Children of the Holocaust” and Rozenkier sued Schering AG and Bayer mates opted to boycott the Nazi Olympics, far less likely to eat bagels and drink cof- six other books displayed a hideous Nazi AG in 2003, while his application for com- he went, proudly, as a Czechoslovakian fee than whisk off to the country for hiking caricature of the “prototypical” Jew: a sal- pensation was still pending. He alleged and a Jew, feeling the best way to take on or swimming. low, boney, pot-bellied, knock-kneed, they "had cooperated with the Nazi the Nazi propaganda was to take on the o those jokes Helen Epstein was bespectacled, bearded ninny. regime in causing his sterilization." Nazis. Stalking about — she takes them per- U.S. District Judge William Bassler dis- Needless to say, that’s not what Kurt While he got the chance to do that in the sonally. There were many, many Jews in missed Rozenkier's lawsuit. In its ruling, Epstein looked like. pool, when the Nazis marched into Europe and elsewhere who excelled ath- the federal appeals court agreed the case Helen’s father was a strapping 6-foot-1 Czechoslovakia in 1939, he was quickly letically. But there were far, far more Jews raises "a nonjusticiable political question." officer in the Czechoslovakian army who deported to a concentration camp. First it who were slaughtered in World War II, so, U.S. Circuit Judge Alan Lourie wrote twice represented his nation in the was Terezin (which had been his military understandably, prewar leisure activities that former President Bill Clinton was per- Olympics: in Amsterdam in 1928 and in garrison in his army days), then a fortu- have been somewhat obscured. sonally involved in negotiations that the infamous Berlin Nazi Games of 1936. itously brief, two-day sojourn at Auschwitz If ever a graduate student or researcher established the fund as "the exclusive In fact, Kurt Epstein had several Jewish before he was packed off to a Polish labor wanted to study the subject, Epstein said forum for claims by Nazi-era victims of teammates on that 1936 team, and camp. she’d happily turn over her father’s medical experimentation against German Jewish athletic clubs — many of which pstein’s fantastic physical shape archive to help paint a truer picture of companies." regularly bested the top European teams, Eand athlete’s will probably helped Jews’ place on the athletic fields. "In this context," Lourie wrote, "judicial thrived throughout Europe. So while you’ll him survive the war; he emerged as a 90- “Rethink your stereotypes if you’re review of Rozenkier's claims would be lucky to find more than a few Jews in, pound walking skeleton and, at 41, was Jewish,” she said. “There are plenty of express a lack of respect for the Executive say, an NFL huddle, the Nazi’s claim of about as old a survivor as you could find, people in the world who stereotype Jews. We don’t have to stereotype ourselves.” Branch’s long-standing foreign policy Jewish physical weakness doesn’t sit well his daughter said. interest in resolving Nazi-era claims with the Epstein family photo album. After his harrowing war experience, Kurt First published in the Jewish news weekly through intergovernmental negotiation." By Nazi standards, a Jewish water polo Epstein received a hero’s welcome from of Northern California September/October 2006 - Elul/Tishrei 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 7 RECALLING NUREMBERG By the time Triest was 16, he had grown she moved to a town near the camp to be down over the Bay of Biscay in 1943. BY MEGHAN MEYER anxious to leave the Germany he loved. close to her husband. Thirteen-year-old That same year, the Army drafted Triest. He had seen businesses destroyed on Margot was left at a home for Jewish He shipped out in April 1944 as a machine solated in a dark cell at Nuremberg, Kristallnacht, neighbors refugee children. gunner. With this assignment, Triest’s life Julius Streicher easily became I arrested and synagogues In August 1942, the expectancy dropped. enraged. The founder of the anti-Semitic destroyed. Childhood friends Triests were put on a “If I had stayed a machine gunner, you newspaper Der Stürmer launched into joined the Hitler Youth and train to a transit camp wouldn’t be talking to me today,” he said. another tirade as soon as Howard Triest stopped talking to him. His in France. He tried to persuade the Army to assign entered the cell. As an interpreter helping parents realized the situation Somehow, their him to military intelligence. After all, psychiatrists interview the prisoners, 23- had grown dire. The family mother managed to German was his first language. But the year-old Triest had the run of the prison, took a train to Luxembourg find a postcard. She Army rarely acts logically, he said. and had become accustomed to Sept. 1, 1939, the day addressed it to Triest landed on Omaha Beach two Streicher’s outbursts. Germany invaded Poland. Margot and tossed it days after the D-Day invasion. Shortly Streicher had some very important per- In Luxembourg, the family from the train into the thereafter, he encountered a lieutenant sonal papers and would entrust them only waited to scrape together French countryside. who had been ordered to find more to a “good German,” like the blond-haired, enough money to buy pas- Someone picked it up German-speaking soldiers for military blue-eyed interpreter. He reached past sage to New York. Having the and delivered it. “Be a intelligence. Triest spent the rest of the the psychiatrist and handed the papers to money for two tickets, the good girl,” it said. war as a translator. Triest. Triests couldn’t decide who At the transit camp, His battalion liberated the Buchenwald He never learned that the interpreter would go first. Margot would- Howard Triest the Triests were put concentration camp. Triest took photos of was Jewish. n’t leave their parents. Their on a train to the dead and the skeletal survivors. He Triest never disclosed to the Nuremberg mother wouldn’t leave their father. So Auschwitz. They died, either during the interrogated residents who lived near the prisoners that the Nazis killed his mother Howard went alone. journey or in the camp’s gas chamber. camp, who insisted they knew nothing of and father, and that he himself had nar- “I was the only one with ants in his pants Margot remained in hiding in France. what had happened there. rowly escaped to the United States. ready to go,” he said. “I was confident my When the Gestapo intensified their search Everywhere, he searched for his miss- He simply took the papers from the bel- parents and sister would follow soon.” for Jews, Margot and another older child ing friends and family. lowing Streicher and later gave them to were sent across the border to he war’s end found Triest in JEWISH AND GERMAN his superiors. Switzerland on foot with 10 smaller chil- TCzechoslovakia, near the “We had a job to do,” said Triest, 82, sit- hen Howard left, his parents had dren each. She arrived in Geneva on April Theresienstadt transit camp. The camp ting on the back porch of his home west of Wplans to buy ocean passage in the 19, 1943, her 14th birthday. had gained notoriety as a propaganda Delray Beach. “I thought that was a good spring. All went according to plan as they stop for visiting dignitaries, billing itself as AVENGING HIS FAMILY way of getting the papers.” boarded a train bound for Rotterdam and a spa and retirement community where ESCAPE FROM MUNICH their ship on May 10, 1940. That day, ews that his family never made it to elderly Jewish residents tended gardens Hitler invaded the lowlands, just as the Ntheir ship reached Howard Triest and put on plays. All the while, 33,000 oward Triest was born “Hans” Triest train approached the Belgium- when he arrived in the United States in Jews, including Triest’s grandfather, died Hin Munich in 1923 to two loving par- Netherlands border. 1940. there. ents, Berthold and Ly. He grew up in a Suddenly, they were swept up in the “I wish my father would have gone,” He didn’t know what happened to his neat apartment on the tree-lined confusion of a world where it was impos- Triest said. “Because of my father’s arrest grandmother, Rosa Westheimer. A Czech Reitmorstrasse, a quiet street that shaped sible to be both Jewish and German. my mother wouldn’t leave. By staying liaison agreed to find out whether she was his rosy childhood memories of Germany. They were arrested and taken off the together, none made it.” in the transit camp. His sister, Margot, six years his junior, train not because they were Jewish, but Desperate to fight his family’s captors, Later, someone came to his quarters. does not share his nostalgia. The Nazis because they were German. The Dutch Triest tried to enlist in every branch of the “There’s a woman out there who claims rose to power during her formative years. were at war with the Germans. A Dutch tri- U.S. military. None would have him. He she’s a relative of yours.” Unlike his sister, Triest has memories of a bunal later decided the Triests were wasn’t an American citizen. It was his grandmother. Triest’s joy gave woman delivering fresh milk to the door of Jewish, not German, and let them go. But He learned English by attending plays, way to the realization that he had a prob- the apartment. She remembers storm there was nowhere to go. They went to watching movies and working in a tool fac- lem on his hands. Legally, his grandmoth- troopers knocking on that same door. Belgium, by now under German control, tory. He changed his name to Howard, er wasn’t supposed to be in Howard Triest has returned to Germany where Howard Triest’s father was arrest- after the movie star Leslie Howard. His Czechoslovakia. again and again since the war. Margot ed and taken to a camp in Vichy France. namesake became another casualty of “I had an old woman who is Jewish and hasn’t. Triest’s mother was arrested too, after the war when Germans shot his plane (Continued on page 15) JEWISH PARTISAN STORIES EMPOWER TEENAGERS DISPELLING STEREOTYPES LEARNING ABOUT HOLOCAUST Holocaust education program then. Even now, it makes me feel better to Since then, Braff has tracked down and Adesigned to heighten awareness BY SUE FISHKOFF, JTA know that they didn’t just go.” interviewed 42 Jewish partisans in seven among Canadian and European teachers That’s exactly why filmmaker Mitch Braff countries. marks its fifth anniversary this year. ydney Pickman thought she “knew The Mark and Gail Appel Program in set up the foundation five years ago. He, he foundation has developed curric- everything” about the Holocaust. Holocaust and Anti-Racism Education is S too, was an educated young Jew who ula and study guides for classroom The 16-year-old from Queens had T the brainchild of two York University aca- knew nothing about the Jewish partisans use. It also runs workshops at schools, learned about it in school and at BBYO youth groups, summer camps, syna- demics, Mark Webber and Michael in World War II. Brown. conventions. But, like most of her friends, gogues and Hillels. Sometimes, “We thought there was a need to ensure she’d never heard about the Jewish parti- one of the elderly partisans that the next generation of teachers would sans, the young men and women who comes along to tell his or her know how to teach the Holocaust and fought the Nazis. story. combat racism and anti-Semitism,” said Her eyes were opened recently, when A regular on Braff’s lecture cir- Webber, a professor of German studies. the San Francisco-based Jewish Partisan cuit is Mira Shelub. Born in An initiative of York’s Centre for Jewish Educational Foundation presented a Poland, Shelub, 81, escaped the Studies and the Canadian Centre for workshop to 200 teenagers at a BBYO Vilna Ghetto and joined a Jewish German and European Studies, the pro- convention in the Catskills Mountains in partisan unit in 1942. She spent gram brings together Canadian and New York. almost three years with them. European university students. Pickman watched taped interviews with She told the students about her Thirty-two students are enrolled in this men and women who, when they were her life in the forest, about slogging year’s program. The vast majority are not age, had lived in the forests of Europe, through swamps surrounded by Jewish. scrounging for food, blowing up German Nazi soldiers, about carrying Brown, a senior scholar at York, said the trains, skirmishing with soldiers, trying to Mira Shelub, a Jewish partisan for three years during ammunition for her fiance’s program’s objective is to give the next machine gun, about comrades strike any blow against the Nazi war WWII, talks with students at the Gideon Hausner Jewish generation of teachers the tools “to dispel Day School in Palo Alto, Calif. who didn’t come back from sabo- machine. She learned that 20,000 to stereotypes” spawned by the Sept. 11, tage operations. 2001, terror attacks in the United States 30,000 Jews had taken part in this resist- Then he met Oakland resident Murray “We all think of the Holocaust as a real and the current war in Iraq. ance. Not only did they fight back, they set Gordon, who escaped a Nazi ghetto in sad time in Jewish history, but her talk He added that participants “are extraor- up camps in the forest to protect other Lithuania at age 15 and spent the rest of showed us the Jewish people also stood dinarily aware of the potential for evil that Jews too old or too weak to fight. the war as a partisan fighter. Braff decid- up and did something,” said Ronit racism presents and much more knowl- Pickman said she thinks differently now ed to devote himself to telling Gordon’s Roodman, 13. edgeable than their peers about the about the Jewish role in World War II. story, and that of the other Jewish parti- “It’s like Jewish pride. Their families Holocaust and its implications for Jews “Knowing that someone was fighting back sans, to the next generation of young were being destroyed, and they still had and non-Jews in the past and the pres- would have given me hope, if I were alive Jews. the power to stand up.” ent.” Page 8 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2006 - Elul/Tishrei 5767

ELI ZBOROWSKI LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD (Continued from page 1) by the former Mayor Edward Koch to the Reagan to the United States Holocaust rosity of Eli Zborowski and his late wife Diana. New York Permanent Commission on the Council, which oversees the operation of the They were also Benefactors of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Project 2001. in Washington, DC. He holds an honorary Eli has played a key role in a Doctorate from Yeshiva University. range of organizations dedicated A lifelong Zionist and communal leader, Eli to the preservation of Jewish is Past Chairman of the American Zionist memory. He is Founder and Youth Foundation; Past Chairman, Salute to Honorary President of the Israel Parade; and for many years served as American Federation of Jewish National President of the American Israel Fighters, Camp Inmates and Nazi Chamber of Commerce. He continues to be Victims; Vice President, World active in the Young Israel of Forest Hills, Federation of Polish Jews; where he is a past president. Benefactor, Ephraim Wilf In his professional life, Eli has engaged in Foundation; Benefactor, Moshe numerous entrepreneurial endeavors, includ- Zborowski Gemilat Chesed Fund- ing serving as president of Sheaffer Latin Free Loan Association; Trustee, America Corporation and of All America Memorial Foundation for Jewish Telecommunications. Culture; and on the Executive U.S. Ambassador Dan Kurtzer, Marvin Zborowski, Mark Palmer, Eli Eli is the proud father of two children and Committee of the Claims Zborowski Chairman of the American and International Societies for seven grandchildren. This past July, he mar- Conference. He was one of six Yad Vashem, Avener Shalev, Chairman of the Directorate Yad ried the former Dr. Elizabeth Mundlak, a child survivors, and the only American, Vashem, Ehud Olmert, Mayor of Jerusalem, Joseph Wilf, Sigmund survivor from Czestochowa, Poland. They to greet Pope John Paul II during Storchlitz, David Halpern and Sam Halpern at the Dedication make their home in New York City. his historic visit to Yad Vashem in Ceremony for the Commemorators Path marking the 20th Yad Vashem and the American & 2000. Anniversary of the American Society for Yad Vashem , Jerusalem International Societies for Yad Vashem are His outstanding contributions to the cause Holocaust. He was appointed by President proud to present Eli Zborowski with a of remembrance have led to his appointment Carter and re-appointed by President Lifetime Achievement Award. RABBI IS “LET’S SIT IRA MITZNER AND MARILYN RUBENSTEIN ARE DINNER CHAIRS ra Mitzner, of Houston, TX and Marilyn and development firm based in Houston. Barry were the first American Founders of the AND LET’S IRubenstein of Roslyn, NY, both 2005 Active in numerous communal endeavors, he Braude School in the Galilee in Israel. Marilyn abbi Israel Meir Lau is the Tribute dinner hon- is an Associate Trustee as well as a Board is a member of the Executive Committee of R1937, Rabbi Lau spent the orees, have been the American Society for Yad Vashem. He member of Partners Council of Women’s the labor camp of Czenstochov, named Dinner Chairs also supports UJA-Federation, the United Health and a member of eight, he was liberated, togeth of the 25th Anniversary States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Israel of the Board of Dinner of the American Bonds, and the Foundation for Polish Jewish both parents. Directors of the In 1946, through the efforts & International Societies Communities. The Mitzners are Yad Vashem Marcus Avenue Early for Yad Vashem. The Benefactors who have donated funds to Childhood Hanoar Movement, Rabbi Lau i announcement was upgrade the Warsaw Ghetto Plaza at Yad Development program, ed, with a ship transport of made by Eli Zborowski, Vashem, together with Ira’s parents, David, a Inc. Given their Eastern orphaned children, to Israel, w Chairman of the Holocaust survivor, and the late Ruth Mitzner. European family history, grew up in his uncle’s home. Societies. arilyn Rubenstein and her husband the Rubenstein Family Ira and his wife Mindy were honorees at the MBarry were honorees at the 2005 became a Benefactor of the Synagogue at Yad After many years of intensive s 2005 Tribute Dinner. Ira is President of the Tribute Dinner. In addition to supporting Vashem. Marilyn Rubenstein serves as a received his certification by th Rida Development Corporation, a national and Women’s American ORT, the Shoah National Vice Chair of the American Society for Rabbis of Israel, and as a ca Foundation and UJA-Federation, Marilyn and international commercial real estate investment Yad Vashem. teacher and orator, he became n known at many diverse schoo DINNER COMMITTEE CHAIRWOMEN NAMED gogues, army camps, university es, settlements, and in the mass Stella Skura, Elly Krakowski and Doris Gross have been named Dinner Committee Chairwomen for the 25th Anniversary Tribute Dinner. In naming them to this position, Eli Zborowski said, "These women along with their husbands were in the fore- Israel. front of the establishment of the American Society for Yad Vashem. Each of them played a significant role at the time we found- In 1971 he received his ordina ed the Society and have been active and dedicated to our work ever since." became District Rabbi of Nort Aviv. In 1978 he published his we STELLA SKURA ELLY KRAKOWSKI DORIS GROSS book in Practical Judaism, as we tella Skura, along with her husband, Sam, lly Krakowski and her husband Israel oris Gross and her late husband Sam, volume work on Jewish La are Benefactors of the Valley of the Krakowski were enthusiastic supporters of held the first suburban Parlor Meeting S E D Medicine. Communities and spon- the American Society for the Society in their sors of the Learning from its inception. The home in Roslyn, NY. In 1979 Rabbi Lau was electe Center at Yad Vashem. first parlor meeting to Doris, a sculptress and position of Chief Rabbi of Netany Attended by Dr. Yitzhak raise funds was held in an author, has been 1982, despite his relatively young Arad, the Chairman of their home in Manhattan. active with the Society was appointed as a member of t the Yad Vashem This meeting was since its inception and played a prominent role serving o Directorate, the Skuras attended by Gideon has been a devoted hosted the founding Hausner, who then member of the Annual Spring In 1988 he was elected Chief R meeting of the Society in served as the Chairman Luncheon Committee for the election for Chief Rabbi of Is their home. Stella served of the Yad Vashem the past six years. Mrs. and charismatic speaker, he wa as the Chairwoman of Council. Elly has Gross was honored for between religious and secular J the Sixth Annual Spring Luncheon. She is remained active throughout the years and holds her role in spearheading the Society at the Israeli television, Rabbi Lau’s fam engaged in numerous community and cultural the position of Recording Secretary. The 20th Anniversary Tribute Dinner for the the intifada, “Let’s sit down toget activities and is a Lifetime member of Krakowskis were among those honored at the American and International Societies for Yad Hadassah. Society's 20th Anniversary Dinner. Vashemheld in 2001. together. The time has come for September/October 2006 - Elul/Tishrei 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 9

DR. MIRIAM & SHELDON G. ADELSON YAD VASHEM REMEMBRANCE AWARD (Continued from page 1) drug addicts. Dr. Miriam and Sheldon Adelson are dedi- one of the largest resort in the world in Dr. Adelson has authored numerous scien- cated supporters of numerous Jewish com- Macau, China. tific papers about the effects of drug addiction munal endeavors throughout the world. The Mr. Adelson is the recipient of numerous on the human immune system. She serves building of the Museum of Holocaust Art at honorary degrees and awards. A Yad Vashem was enabled by their gener- stimulating motivational speaker, he ous support given in memory to Dr. has lectured at various colleges and Adelson’s parents, and the members of universities, including the University the Zamelson and Farbstein families who of New Haven, Harvard Business perished in the Holocaust. An entire sec- School, Columbia Business School, tion of this year’s Commemorative Journal Tel Aviv University and Babson will be devoted to the ways in which College. Holocaust art is used to teach the lessons As a medical professional, Dr, and legacies of the Shoah. Miriam Adelson has devoted her As a member of the Executive career to the fields of internal medi- Committee of the American Society for cine and emergency medicine. In Yad Vashem, Dr. Adelson has been an 1986, Dr. Adelson began to develop able and inspiring presenter at numerous a unique specialty in the areas of Society events. chemical dependency and drug The American & International Societies addiction. Dr. Adelson heads both for Yad Vashem are pleased to present the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson with their family at the Dedication the Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. of the Museum of Holocaust Art , Yad Vashem, Jerusalem Yad Vashem Remembrance Award to Dr. Adelson Clinics in Tel Aviv and Las Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson for their Vegas. These clinics have successfully on the faculty of Rockefeller University as a commitment to the noble Cause of treated thousands of heroin and cocaine guest researcher. Remembrance. SRAEL MEIR LAU: AN INVITATION TO PARTICIPATE T DOWN TOGETHER, IN THE COMMEMORATIVE JOURNAL S LIVE TOGETHER.” By Cheryl Skura Lifshitz, Journal Chairperson 37th generation of practicing rabbis. Born in Poland in horror years of the Holocaust in the ghetto of Piotrokov, ach year, in conjunction with the Tribute Dinner, the Society publishes a and in the Buchenwald concentration camp. At the age Commemorative Journal. These award-winning publications have become er with his older brother, Naftali (Lavie-Lau), after losing E important and treasured keepsakes. of Aliyat The theme of this year’s Journal is “Yad Vashem: The Global Guardian of mmigrat- Holocaust Remembrance.” Through vintage photographs and artwork, the refugee Journal is an opportunity to pay tribute to our honorees, to memorialize a loved- where he one, or to express appreciation for Yad Vashem. The Journal will consist of four sections: study, he The Partnership of the Societies with Yad Vashem he Chief In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the American Society for Yad Vashem, we invite you to aptivating submit personal photos recognizing your participation in any of the following events: Yad Vashem nationally projects and inaugurations; Society Dinners and Luncheons; Young Leadership events; Chapter ls, syna- campus- activities. media in Educating the World This section will feature Holocaust art depicting the atrocities. Images will be provided by the ation and Yad Vashem archives. We welcome your interest in sponsoring a page in this section. thern Tel ell-known Rescuers and Reunions Around the World ell as a 2- The Journal will recognize rescuers for their courage and bravery in the face of danger. We aw and invite you to submit a photo of your rescuer(s) at a reunion, at a ceremony at Yad Vashem or the ed to the wall on which they are honored. ya, and in g age, he Rabbi Israel Meir Lau Yad Vashem on the World Stage the Council of the Chief Rabbinate. In this capacity, he Since its inception, Yad Vashem has attracted visitors across the globe who are Heads of State on the Committee for Medical Ethics. and world leaders. Images will be provided by the Yad Vashem archives. We welcome your Rabbi of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and in 1993 he unanimously won interest in sponsoring a page in this section. srael. A forward-thinking and worldly communal leader, as chosen on the belief that he could bridge the gap Personal photos on these subjects are welcome, and will be returned following publication of the Jews in Israel. In a well-known interview broadcast on Journal. mous words have been repeated again and again during ther, and let’s live together. We always knew how to die Those wishing to sponsor a tribute page should call Rachelle Grossman at (212)220-4304 us to know also how to live together.” for an ad blank. Page 10 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2006 - Elul/Tishrei 5767 REPORTREPORT FROMFROM YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM MASSACHUSETTS COUPLE HONORED FOR SAVING JEWS DURING THE HOLOCAUST ad Vashem has recently added two whose German citizenship was annulled earning of Feuchtwanger’s plight Feuchtwanger by train to Cerbere, on the Ymore American names (to the earli- for their anti-Nazi stance. With the out- Lfrom Varian Fry, an emissary for the Franco-Spanish border, where Waitstill er sole US honoree) to its list of Righteous break of the war in September 1939, Leon US Emergency Rescue Committee, Sharp was waiting for them. He told them Among the Nations: Waitstill and Martha Feuchtwanger was ironically interned by Waitstill and Martha Sharp took it upon that he had bribed the French border Sharp. the French government as an “enemy themselves to organize Feuchtwanger’s guards to allow the flight of the Waitstill was a minister in the Unitarian national” and held first in Camp des escape. A new identity card was pro- Feuchtwangers, but urged them to be church in Wellesley, Massachusetts, and Milles, near Aix-les-Bains, then in St. duced, where he appeared as Wetcheek careful, for he could not guarantee that his wife Martha a noted social worker. In Nicholas, near Nîmes. (the English translation of the German the same guards would be on duty when 1939, the Sharps accepted an invitation ith the defeat the Feuchtwangers would attempt their by the Unitarian Service Committee to Wof France in crossing. It was decided that Marta help members of the Unitarian church in June 1940, Feuchtwanger would go first, and with the Czechoslovakia. Feuchtwanger’s life help of the cigarettes that she freely dis- Arriving in Prague in February 1939, the was in danger, tributed to the guards, she distracted them Sharps also aided a number of Jews to since under the for enough time to be allowed to pass the leave the country, which had come under French-German frontier undisturbed. As for Leon, he also Nazi control on March 15th. The Sharps armistice agree- crossed over successfully with the help of continued their charitable work until ment, the French his false identity card under the name of August 1939, leaving Prague when government had Wetcheek. The Sharps waited for them on warned of their possible arrest by the undertaken to hand the Spanish side, and the whole party Gestapo. over to the Nazis continued on to Barcelona. The intention On June 20, 1940, Waitstill and Martha any Germans upon was to reach Lisbon, Portugal, and catch Sharp landed in Lisbon, Portugal, on a request,and a boat sailing for New York. mission to help refugees from war-torn Feuchtwanger was o get to Lisbon, the party of four first France. Making their way into Vichy-con- one of the persons Thad to head to Madrid, but were trolled France, that had allied itself with on top of the Nazi Unveiling ceremony in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations. afraid to use the sole airline making that the victorious Nazi Germany, they sought wanted list. His wife Right to left: Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate Avner Shalev, route, the German (and Nazi-controlled) ways to help fugitives from Nazi terror, Marta tried desper- Martha Sharp Joukowsky, survivor Eva Esther Feigl, and U.S. Lufthansa, so instead they went by train. Jews and non-Jews alike. They then ately to save him, Ambassador to Israel, H.E. Mr. Richard Jones. Waitstill bought a first-class ticket for learned that Leon Feuchtwanger, a world and asked Myles Leon, hoping that the Spanish police famous German-Jewish author of histori- Standish, of the US consulate in Feuchtwanger). The Sharps then rented a would be less diligent in inspecting travel- cal fiction needed to be taken out of Marseilles, to help liberate her husband room in Marseilles near the main train sta- ers in that compartment. He also gave him France urgently. from internment. This was done, with tion, from where one could cross via an a briefcase bearing the large heading In 1933, with Hitler’s rise to power, Feuchtwanger fleeing dressed as a underground passage directly into the sta- “Red Cross.” Lion’s wife Marta traveled Feuchtwanger had settled in France woman. Taken to Marseilles, it was now tion and thus avoid the police control at third-class. where, together with other German anti- urgently necessary to get him out of the the station’s entrance. Throughout the long trip to the Spanish- Nazi intellectuals, he continued his literary country, for fear that the French police, In September 1940, Martha Sharp, Portuguese border, Waitstill watched over work, as well as his anti-Nazi writings. He then under Vichy control, would be look- dressed as a native peasant woman, Leon Feuchtwanger, keeping inquisitive was numbered sixth on a list of persons ing for him. accompanied Leon and Marta (Continued on page 14) YORAM KANIUK APOLOGIZED YAD VASHEM SLAMS BRITISH MP TO YAD VASHEM FOR NAZI COMPARISON role, described his experience of the “Yad Vashem urges all people to BY MERAV YUDILOVICH Holocaust museum to journalists. BY ETGAR LEFKOVITS keep the Holocaust out of cheap politi- cal exploitation and demagoguery. n press conference to announce film YAD VASHEM RESPONDS n an unusually harsh condemna- adaptation of his novel Adam’s tion, Yad Vashem blasted as Such use of the Holocaust misrepre- I fter Kaniuk criticized the Holocaust I Resurrection, starring Jeff Goldblum, “grossly illegitimate” and “malicious sents both today’s reality as well as museum in response to a reporter’s Yoram Kaniuk ‘lets slip’ criticism of A that of the Shoah, distorts historical question, the museum released a state- demagoguery” a comparison made by Holocaust museum. Goldblum, however, facts and context, and diminishes the ment saying: “We never forced anyone to a veteran British parliamentarian calls his Yad memory of the Holocaust’s victims and come to Yad Vashem. Thousands visit to between Israel’s offensive against the Vashem tour events,” the Yad Vashem spokesper- the museum daily of their own accord. Jeff Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Nazi’s “one of most extermination of the Jews during the son said. moving experi- Goldblum personally asked to be given an After the Nazi invasion of Poland in in-depth tour of the museum, and stayed Holocaust. ences.” Yad “Whereas it is legitimate to disagree 1939, more than 450,000 Jews from Vashem for over four hours. At the end of the tour, Warsaw and its environs were forced he even asked for help doing research to with Israeli policies and actions, it is responds: We into the squalid confines of the Warsaw prepare for his role in the film. We regret grossly illegitimate and malicious to never forced Ghetto. Kaniuk’s choice of words, and invite him compare them to the most evil and anyone to come By July 1942, nearly 100,000 people to visit also.” massive crime in modern history in here. had died there of disease, cold and Yoram Kaniuk After the uproar stirred up by Kaniuk’s order to heighten the disagreement,” a The new Yad starvation. comments, the author clarified: “I am sorry Yad Vashem spokesperson said in a Vashem Holocaust memorial museum eginning that summer, 300,000 if anyone was hurt by what I said. My statement. took hard renowned Israeli author Yoram Jews were deported from the Kaniuk’s recent comment that, “They intention was to say that for many years I Sir Peter Tapsell, a Tory MP, said that B have had the feeling that a media specta- British Prime Minister Tony Blair was ghetto to death camps throughout turned Yad Vashem into a Disneyland for Poland, 265,000 of them to Treblinka. tourists.” cle is being made out of the most horrific “colluding” with US President George In 1943, the Ghetto was completely Kaniuk made the statements during a of things. The comments, which were W. Bush in giving Israel the okay to demolished, following the Warsaw press conference in Jerusalem to entirely my own opinion, simply slipped wage “unlimited war” in Lebanon, a Ghetto Uprising, with nearly all of the announce a new film – an international co- out. It is clear that Yad Vashem is an “war crime” he claimed was “gravely remaining Jews killed by the Nazis. production based on his novel “Adam instructive institution of enormous impor- reminiscent of the Nazi atrocity on the Resurrected,” a hallucinatory spectacle tance. I myself visited dozens of time. I Jewish quarter of Warsaw.” Blair has faced withering criticism in whose main character is a Jewish clown was also not referring to Jeff Goldblum’s “Tapsell’s remarks, and indeed, simi- the UK for his staunch support for US who is forced to be pet dog to a death visit to the museum, which was personal lar comparisons between Israel and policy in the Middle East, which clash camp manager during the Holocaust. and was done without newspapers and the Nazis, illustrate a woeful ignorance with the traditional British support for Kaniuk took the podium immediately cameramen. of history and a warped sense of per- the Arab world dating back to Colonial after actor Jeff Goldblum, who was in “My opposition was aimed at the proto- spective,” a spokesperson for Israel’s times, a worldview which is still strong- Israel as a guest of the Jerusalem film fes- col that has been created, which dictates Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ ly maintained in the British Foreign tival, and who was cast in the film’s title (Continued on page 14) Remembrance Authority said. Office. September/October 2006 - Elul/Tishrei 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 11

HUNGARY’S HOLOCAUST MUSEUM YAD VASHEM MOURNS THE PASSING OF JUDITH WILF TO INAUGURATE PERMANENT EXHIBIT The Officers, Board of Directors, and to the many refugee children whose edu- permanent exhibition at Budapest’s A picture of Catholic Bishop Ottokar Staff of American and International cation was interrupted by the war. AHolocaust Memorial Center illus- Prohaszka – who died in 1927 and is con- Societies for Yad Vashem mourn the Their hardship during the war instilled trates how Hungarian political and reli- sidered by Hungarian Catholics as one of passing of Judith Wilf, beloved wife of the in Judith and Harry Wilf a commitment to gious leaders helped lay the groundwork the most distinguished church figures of late Harry z’l, mother of Leonard and Klal Yisrael that translated to providing for the persecution of Jews in the decades the 20th century – bears the caption: Beth Wilf, grandmother of Orin (Lisa), support for cultural, education and health before the Holocaust. “Leading figure of conservative anti- Halle, Jenna care services in the United States and The exhibit goes beyond the Holocaust Semitic ideology,” without further details. and Harrison Israel. Passionate Zionists, their imprint deaths of the 550,000 Hungarian Jews In a country like Hungary, where numer- and great- on the growth of the State of Israel is and 50,000 Roma killed by the Nazis dur- ous historical events – both ancient and grandmother prevalent throughout the country. Harry, ing World War II by illustrating the oppres- recent – are just starting to be compre- of Harley and a founding member of the American and sion Jews faced even in the 1920s and hensively investigated and discussed Alex. Judith International Societies for Yad Vashem, 1930s. publicly, naming names is a guaranteed passed away was a leading light in the organization By touching upon the role Hungarians lighting rod for tension. on June 29th, until his death in 1992. played in facilitating the Holocaust – he exhibit also includes detailed his- 2006. She will Harry and his brother Joseph were instead of simply blaming the Nazis – the Ttories of several Jewish and Roma be remem- founding partners in Garden Homes collection is expected to cause controver- families and how the Holocaust affected bered as a Management Corporation, a real estate sy. them, a haunting depiction of how nor- renowned development, building and management business leader, philanthropist, and company located in Short Hills, NJ. “The exhibit examines the relationship mality was destroyed. treasured friend. The Harry and Joseph Wilf families are between the state and the citizens,” said Other displays deal with the Auschwitz- Judith Wilf was born in Poland, the 5th major donors of the New Historical exhibit director Judit Molnar. “It shows Birkenau death camp – where a third of of seven children. Her parents, Deborah Museum at Yad Vashem. how Jews were first deprived of their basic the victims were from Hungary; the after- and Leon, moved the family to Tarnow True to her family tradition, Judith Wilf rights, and over the years of their posses- math of the Holocaust and its survivors; when Judith was a small child. Judith took a great personal interest in Jewish sions, freedom, human dignity and, finally, Gentiles who saved Jews, and Hungary’s attended a Polish public school and a endeavors, especially in the cause of their lives.” 1944 occupation by Germany, which The display titled “From Deprivation of Bais Yaakov school for her Hebrew edu- remembrance. She was a National Vice ended the Jews’ relative safety here. cation. Judith was a member of the Chair of the American Society for Yad Rights to Genocide” includes personal Despite the restrictive “Jewish laws” and belongings of Holocaust victims, short Hanoar Hazioni youth organization dur- Vashem. She was also active with many the WWII alliance with Germany, ing her early years. other American and Israeli institutions. films, photographs and interactive fea- Hungarian authorities managed to block tures, both in Hungarian and English. She spent the war years engaged in Former Prime Minister Benjamin Nazi demands for the Jews’ deportation hard labor in Siberia and Uzbekistan. Netanyahu made a special presentation Hungary first passed laws limiting Jews’ until German troops occupied Hungary in rights in 1920 and by 1938, they were When she returned to Poland following to Judith Wilf at the Knesset in Israel in March 1944. Then, more than 400,000 declared second-class citizens as the war, she discovered that it had 1998 in recognition of her outstanding countryside Jews were sent to concentra- Hungary sought to “curb the expansionist become a graveyard for her family and support of the health care needs of the tion camps in just 56 days. moves of Jews in public life and the econ- millions of fellow Jews. people of Jerusalem. In 1910, Hungary’s 910,000 Jews made omy,” according to one of the displays. Judith met her future husband, Harry Judith Wilf was the Guest of Honor at up 5 percent of the population, More than While the exhibit points out the general Wilf, in Uzbekistan and they were mar- the American and International Societies a fifth of Budapest’s population of responsibility of Hungary’s post-World ried in 1946 in Valdenburg. Harry’s fam- for Yad Vashem Annual Tribute Dinner in 880,000. Today, around 100,000 Jews are War I political, intellectual and social elite ily also fled their hometown of Jaroslaw the year 2000 where she received a Yad believed to live in Hungary, which now has in the “ideological preparation” of the in Poland at the outbreak of the war. In Vashem Remembrance Award. a population of 10 million. Holocaust, it also highlights some of the years of their marriage, before entering Our heartfelt sympathy goes to the individuals it considers at fault. (source: Associated Press) the business world, Harry was a teacher entire Wilf family. IN PURSUIT OF THE DESK MURDERERS ers of different colors, microfilm and or Serge Klarsfeld, his epiphany Klarsfeld confronted Kiesinger with BY BRUCE EDWARDS books on the Holocaust and its perpetra- Fcame when he visited Auschwitz in shouts of “Nazi, Nazi” and slapped his tors. 1960, the place where his father, Arno, f not for a chance encounter at a Paris face, bringing the German chancellor’s he collection represents a Nazi- was murdered. It was then that he real- Metro station, history probably would wartime past into the public spotlight. I hunting career that has taken her ized that he should follow the lead of have forgotten the likes of Kurt Lischka, T Recalling that incident nearly 40 years and her husband to almost every corner of Beate, and that those who were responsi- Maurice Papon and Klaus Barbie. They ago, Klarsfeld says resorting to dramatic the globe and to some not so hospitable ble for mass murder on an unprecedented would have continued to live out their lives acts of protest was the only way to draw places like Syria, Chile and Paraguay. It scale should be held to account. after the war in relative obscurity, their attention to their cause. And while others may past crimes an ever-fading memory. larsfeld was arrested on the spot have wanted to forget Kbut received a suspended, one-year But when a young German-born au pair the past, the Klarsfelds bumped into a University of Paris jail sentence. Undeterred, she continued were determined to her public campaign against Kiesinger political science student on that subway draw attention to their platform one day in 1960, the who didn’t survive “the slap” heard around efforts to bring the for- Germany. He lost the 1968 election to course of history changed. And for men mer Nazis to justice. like Lischka, Barbie and numerous others, then-mayor of Berlin, Willy Brandt. That often meant very Kiesinger was the first in a long line of ex- the pair would become their worst night- public displays of mare. Nazis forced to confront the Klarsfelds protest, risking arrest or and their pit bull-like tactics. Others tar- For nearly 40 years, Beate and Serge worse. Klarsfeld have dedicated their lives to geted by the pair were Kurt Lischka, In 1966, Klarsfeld Gestapo chief for Jewish affairs in France, tracking down those who were major cogs says she was fired from in the Nazi killing machine and “the Final and one of those responsible for arrang- her job at the Franco- ing deportations to the death camps. Solution”, the annihilation of the Jews of German In 1970, the Klarsfelds hatched a plot to Europe during World War II. Alliance for Youth after kidnap Lischka from his home in Germany While their better-known counterpart, the she wrote a newspaper and return him to France for trial, but the late Simon Wiesenthal, focused much of article accusing the new plan failed. The Klarsfelds, however, did- his efforts on those who ran the infamous German chancellor, Beate and Serge Klarsfeld n’t give up. death camps, like Auschwitz and Kurt-Georg Kiesinger, In 1972, Beate led a group of Buchenwald, the French couple have has not been an easy job tracking down of hiding his past as a key figure in the protestors into Lischka’s Cologne office. gone after what Beate Klarsfeld calls the those who disappeared after the war to Nazi Ministry of Propaganda under Josef Lischka, according to Beate, pulled out a “desk murderers,” those who signed the take up lives of respectability. Their task Goebbels. handgun and threatened them. Some orders and those who collaborated with was made more difficult because the Cold “I can tell you, in the very beginning time later, Serge returned the favor by their Nazi masters to arrest and deport War was the focus, and ex-Nazis were when I started my campaign against Jews to a certain death. For her indefati- seen as a good investment by the United Kiesinger, I was dreadfully alone,” she confronting Lischka on the street and gable pursuit of such war criminals,Beate States and its allies in the fight against recalled. sticking an unloaded gun in his face has twice been nominated for the Nobel communism. There was little interest, Refusing to give up, Klarsfeld organ- before walking away. Peace Prize. Klarsfeld says, in rehashing the past and ized a campaign in Germany to oust Lischka, however, couldn’t escape his Seated in a slightly worn upholstered bringing those who “followed orders” to Kiesinger, who was seeking reelection. past. After Germany ratified a treaty allow- leather chair in her large fifth- justice. But as a German, and a Christian Disguised as a reporter, she gained entry ing for the prosecution in Germany of war floor office on the Rue Boetie, not far from married to a Jew whose father died at the to Kiesinger’s Christian Democratic crimes committed in France, Lischka and the Champs Elysees, Beate Klarsfeld is hands of the Nazis, Klarsfeld says she Union party congress meeting. What took two other former SS men were tried in surrounded by ceiling-high bookcases became acutely aware of the crimes com- place next made Klarsfeld a force to be 1979 for their crimes, convicted and given with shelves neatly stacked with file fold- mitted by her countrymen. reckoned with in the ensuing years. (Continued on page 14) Page 12 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2006 - Elul/Tishrei 5767 PALESTINIANS ADMIRED FUHRER “Germany was interested in the settle- tant for the sympathies which Arabs now German interest in strengthening the BY YAAKOV LAPPIN ment of the (Palestine) question on the feel towards Germany is their admiration Arabs as a counterweight against such basis of the Arabs obtaining their full for our Fuhrer, especially during the possible power growth of the Jews.” istorical documents in Britain’s demands,” Vollhardt was reported to say unrests, I often had an opportunity to see National Archives in London show H to Palestinian leaders, according to a how far these sympathies extend. When JEWISH REFUGEES ABANDONED that Nazi Germany attempted to ship report by the British War Office. Vollhardt faced with a dangerous behavior of an arms to Palestinian forces in the 1930s. also assured Arab leaders that “the Arab mass, when one said that one was he records also show that the news A British Foreign Office report from 1939 Germans German, this of increased Nazi-Arab cooperation reports of “news of a consignment of arms T could continue was already gen- panicked the British government, and from Germany, sent via Turkey and to support the erally a free caused it to cancel a plan in 1938 to bring addressed to Ibn Saud (king of Saudi Palestinian pass.” to Palestine 20,000 German Jewish Arabia), but really intended for the Arab cause A second Nazi refugees, half of them children, facing Palestine insurgents.” Britain’s chief mili- by means of agent, Dr. Franz danger from the Nazis. tary officer in Mandatory Palestine also propaganda.” Reichart, was Documents show that after deciding that noted reports “regarding import of German reported to be the move would upset Arab opinion, German arms at intervals for some years documents actively working Britain decided to abandon the Jewish now.” photographed with Palestinian refugees to their fate. British documents from the same peri- and sent to Arabs by the “His Majesty’s Government asked His od, and German records photographed by Whitehall by British Criminal Majesty’s Representatives in Cairo, an American spy and sent to the British an American Investigation Baghdad and Jeddah whether, so far as government, said that a number of Nazi spy revealed Division “to help they could judge, feelings in Egypt, Iraq, agents were sent to Mandatory Palestine, that in 1937, coordinate Arab and Saudi Arabia against the admission in order to forge alliances with Palestinian German offi- Nazi Germany shown 'great sympathy' by Palestinians, and German of, say 5,000 Jewish children for adop- leaders, and urge them to reject a partition cials had cal- documents say propaganda.” tion… would be so strong as to lead to a of the land between the Jewish and Arab culated that Reichart was refusal to send representatives to the populations. “Palestine under Arab rule would… also head of the German Telegraphic London discussions. All three replies were One Nazi agent, Adam Vollhardt, arrived become one of the few countries where Agency in Jerusalem. strongly against the proposal, which was in Palestine in July 1938, and was report- we could count on a strong sympathy for German records show that the Nazis not proceeded with,” a Foreign Office ed to have gained strong influence with the new Germany.” viewed the establishment of a Jewish report said. Arab leaders, meeting with Palestinian state with great concern. A 1937 report “If war were to break out, no trouble that leaders throughout 1938. Vollhardt held ‘ARABS ADMIRE OUR FUHRER’ from German General Consulate in the Jews could occasion us, in Palestine several meetings with leading Arab politi- Palestine said: “The formation of a Jewish or elsewhere, could weigh for a moment cians and told them “that the Palestine he Palestinian Arabs show on all state… is not in Germany’s interest against the importance of winning Muslim question would be settled to the satisfac- “Tlevels a great sympathy for the because a (Jewish) Palestinian state opinion to our side,” Britain’s Minister for tion of the Arabs within a few weeks,” new Germany and its Fuhrer, a sympathy would create additional national power Coordination of Defense, Lord Chatfield, adding that “it would be fatal to their whose value is particularly high, as it is bases for international Jewry such, as for told the British cabinet in 1939, shortly (Palestinians’) cause if at this juncture based on a purely ideological foundation,” example, the Vatican State for political before Britain reversed its decision to par- they showed any signs of weakness or a Nazi official in Palestine wrote in a letter Catholicism or Moscow for the tition its mandate, promising instead all of exhaustion.” to Berlin in 1937. He added: “Most impor- Communists. Therefore, there is a the land to the Palestinian Arabs. NAZI’S DAUGHTER AND VICTIM FILM SHOWS SUFFERING OF JEWS MEET IN NEW DOCUMENTARY BRITAIN SENT TO OUTBACK EXILE In 1946, he was condemned in Poland whom had lost everything in the BY TOM TUGEND to death by hanging and a Polish camera- BY KATE CONNOLLY Holocaust. They made the best of what man filmed the event. they had.” onika Hertwig was 1 when her he horror experienced by Jewish ntil she was 13, Hertwig believed When the overcrowded Dunera set sail father was hanged as a war crimi- and anti-Nazi outcasts shipped to M that her father had died as a war T from Liverpool, its 2,500 internees were nal in 1946. U the Australian Outback by the British hero and said she was devastated when told they were bound for Canada. Amon Goeth, memorably portrayed by Government during the war has been doc- she learned the truth. atched over by 309 poorly trained Ralph Fiennes in Steven Spielberg’s umented in a new film that highlights the “Inheritance” is the creation of James British soldiers, the men endured movie “Schindler’s List,” was the SS com- darker side of Britain’s fight against Nazi W Moll, a longtime Spielberg associate and a horrendous conditions. They were mandant of the Plaszow forced labor and Germany. founding director of the Shoah stripped of their personal concentration camp, who relaxed by The men, mainly scientists, academics Foundation. possessions.They were beaten and shooting inmates from the balcony of his and artists who had fled to Britain from Moll was producing additional material insulted as “Jewish swine” and forced to villa. Nazi Austria and Germany at the outbreak for the “Schindler’s sleep below deck on floors awash with Helen Jonas- of the war, were considered a security List” DVD, he recalled human waste. The hatches and portholes Rosenzweig, then threat after the fall of France. in an interview, and were battened shut. 17, was picked On the orders of Winston Churchill, they needed permission to “There was so little air that to get the job among the prison- were dispatched from Liverpool on the use some photos of of peeling potatoes on deck was seen as ers as Goeth’s maid Hired Military Transport (HMT) ship Goeth. “I tracked down a life-saver,” said Walter Kaufmann, 82, a and was terrorized Dunera in July 1940. Monika, called her on Jewish refugee now living in Berlin whose by him for two Their arrival in Australia – after a 57-day the phone, and the first book Touching Time details the Dunera years. She sur- journey in appalling conditions – was seen thing she said was ‘I experience. vived, thanks to as the greatest injection of talent to enter am not like my father,’ ” Klaus Wilcynski, 86, author of The Oskar Schindler, Australia on a single vessel. said Moll, now presi- Prison Ship, recalled being told to walk on and lives in the They were taken to a detention camp in Holocaust survivor Helen Jonas-Rosenzweig, dent of Allentown the deck in bare feet. “Soldiers had United States. the Outback, where they set up an left, meets Monika Hertwig at the Plaszow Productions. smashed beer bottles so people cut their Now, more than impromptu university to pass the time. concentration camp memorial. “It struck me then feet.” 60 years later, the Among the passengers were Franz that one side of the Holocaust that has Mr Burgan said the story was well- two women are the unlikely protagonists Stampfl, the athletics coach to the four- never been explored was the impact on known in Australia. But it is still under of “Inheritance: A Legacy of Hatred and minute-mile runner Roger Bannister, Wolf the children, grandchildren and even embargo by Britain’s Official Secrets Act the Journey to Change It.” Klaphake, the inventor of synthetic cam- great-grandchildren of the perpetrators.” until 2040. Their first meeting in the documentary is phor, and the photographer Henry Talbot. Hertwig had been told by her mother The medical army officer Alan Frost, memorable. They stand, holding hands, in John Burgan, 44, the director of Friendly about the Jewish maid in the Goeth who was the first Australian to go on front of the Plaszow memorial stone, Enemy Alien, said he made the film to household, and told Moll she would like to board when the Dunera docked at which recalls the brutality of one woman’s illustrate that, while refugees are often talk to her. Jonas-Rosenzweig was reluc- Sydney’s Darling Harbour, was appalled father and the suffering of the other. seen as a burden, they contribute a lot to tant to meet the daughter of the man she by the conditions. Later, they visit Goeth’s villa and Jonas- the countries in which they settle. had served, but eventually agreed. His report led to the court-martial of the Rosenzweig, who is Jewish, demon- “Refugees are invariably unwanted and Hertwig, 60, is now educating German officer-in-charge, Lt Colonel William Scott. strates how she breathlessly rushed up unloved when they arrive, but being at the children, including her grandson David, When the Japanese attacked Pearl the stairs, two steps at a time, to answer bottom of the heap, they knuckle down about the Holocaust. Harbour, the men were reclassified as the call of her master, who regularly and make the best of the chance they’ve “This is my work,” she says. “You can’t “friendly aliens,” and hundreds were slapped her face for imaginary infractions. been given, to become an asset to their change the past, but maybe you can do recruited into the Australian army. After The reign of Goeth, dubbed the adopted country,” said Mr Burgan. something about the future.” the war most stayed in Australia. “Emperor of Plaszow,” is recalled in old “Nowhere is that better illustrated than photos and film snippets. First published by JTA with the story of the Dunera boys, many of First published in The Daily Telegraph September/October 2006 - Elul/Tishrei 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 13 FILES UNCOVER NAZIS’ TRAIL OF DEATH A TALE OF TWO STORIES (Continued from page 5) on the center of Kalkum. There is a a Jewish ‘’race defiler.” She was sent to Jewish businessman named Aaron from Ravensbrueck concentration camp, dis- the Dutch city of Rotterdam, whose ABOUT ANTI-SEMITISM appearing into the maw of the Holocaust. records indicate good health when he was y any rational calculus, Incident B But she didn’t disappear entirely: If noth- admitted to a camp in 1943, but who died BY JEFF JACOBY Bwas far more significant. According to police and eyewitness reports, the ing else, interrogation sheet No II-H-537 weeks later of “collapse of the heart, loss wo incidents occurred on July 28. — a form stashed in a long-forgotten of blood circulation, fractured limbs” — killer forced his way into the offices of the Both took place on the West Coast; manila folder — gives evidence that almost certainly the victim of torture. T Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle by both involved an American venting his Elisabeth was a woman who once lived, There is a woman named Katrina, from hostility to Jews. But only one of them holding a gun to the head of a 13-year-old laughed, and loved. the French border region, who was arrest- girl. Once inside, Naveed Haq ‘’The files are a kind of rescue from total ed by the Gestapo “for complaining she became, in the days that followed, the big national story about anti-Semitism. The announced, “I am a Muslim American, anonymity,” Jost said. ‘’Her story is at was involuntarily sterilized by authorities angry at Israel,” least known.” after giving birth to a colored bastard.” other was treated as a serious but local matter, and drew only modest coverage and opened fire As the Allies closed on Germany, SS he Red Cross will continue manag- with two semi- troops often tried to obliterate damning around the country. Ting the archives and also continue automatic pis- documents. At the Gross-Rosen concen- its mission of fleshing out the fates of Nazi Incident A involved a guy spewing crude tols.Pam tration camp in present-day Poland, for victims. anti-Semitic slurs when he was arrested Waechter died example, death lists were destroyed. But “Many times, these are people who for drunk driving; after sobering up, he on the spot; five the SS saw no danger in leaving behind know only that they were seized by the publicly and profusely apologized. other women ‘’delousing” records — scraps of pink Germans and forced to labor. They Incident B involved a Muslim gunman’s paper that detailed how many lice were remember their inmate number, the name premeditated assault on a prominent were shot in the removed from the head of each prisoner. of their camp, but nothing else — not even Jewish institution; his attack left one abdomen, Inmate No. 87986 in Camp Block 8, had where, precisely, they had been held,” woman dead and sent five to the hospital, knee, or arm. a single louse plucked from his scalp on Jost said. three of them in critical condition. When one of Naveed Haq Jan. 14, 1945. As an example, he showed the docu- Which would you say was the bigger the women managed to call 911, Haq Decades later, seeking to prove that he ments of Jelena, a Ukrainian woman story? took the phone and told the dispatcher: had indeed been an inmate of the camp, pressed into industrial labor in Germany in Unless you’ve spent the past several “These are Jews and I’m tired of getting the man turned to the Red Cross, which 1942. months submersed in the Mariana pushed around and our people getting discovered that single mention of his “We were finally able to discover her Trench, you know that the intoxicated driv- pushed around by the situation in the name among the millions on file. details from files of a camp outside er in Incident A was Hollywood’s Mel Middle East.” “It was enough,” Jost said. ‘’Because Berlin,” he said. “She worked in a factory Gibson, who railed at a Los Angeles At a time when jihadist murder is a glob- one louse was found on his head, this making telephone parts for Siemens. County police officer about the “[expletive] al threat and some of the most malevo- man could prove he was a victim and may When liberation came, she just wanted to Jews” and how “the Jews are responsible lent figures in the Islamic world — Iranian be entitled to compensation.” go home. But all these years later, she is president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and he Bad Arolsen records deal mainly for all the wars in the world.” The story asking, ‘What was it that happened to Hezbollah chieftain Hassan Nasrallah, to with concentration camps and slave was soon everywhere. In the first six days T me? Where did they take me? Why did I name just two — openly incite violence laborers, who were often Jews, but also after his arrest, the media database Nexis suffer?’ against Americans and Jews, the attack included citizens from every country con- logged 888 stories mentioning “Mel “These files cannot replace stolen lives Gibson” and “Jews.” And that didn’t in Seattle should have been a huge story quered by the Third Reich. or stolen years,” Jost said. “But they can include the countless websites, talk everywhere. Yet, after six days, a Nexis There is a Russian slave laborer killed fill in some of the awful blank areas.” on Sept. 14, 1943, at 4:25 p.m. while shows, and smaller publications that also search turned up only 236 stories men- “defusing dud bombs” dropped by Allies First published in The Boston Globe took it up. (Continued on page 15)

HOLOCAUST MUSEUM THE HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS’ MEMOIRS CONSTRUCTION BEGINS (Continued from page 4) young Jews who were forced to flee their farms throughout Tuscany. early 700 guests and speakers Jewish Week has called a “distinguished home in southern Poland in 1939, only to Among the memoirs that have been braved rain in Skokie June 22 to series,” is Fighting for Survival, by E.H. be arrested by Soviet authorities in Lwow accepted for publication by the Project N witness an official start to the new Illinois (Dan) Kampelmacher, the story of an the following year and transported to labor and Yad Vashem are On the Fields of Holocaust Museum and Education eighteen-year-old boy who left his family camps north of the Arctic Circle. Loneliness, by Hersch C. Altman, the Center. and fled his native Vienna to Holland Released after 18 months, they traveled autobiography of a 12-year-old boy who, As part of the sod-turning, organizers where, as an illegal refugee, he was thousands of after surviving the destruction of his home buried a milk can containing memories of imprisoned in the state prison at miles across the and town, and the murders of his parents about 30 Chicago-area Holocaust sur- Veenhuizen and wrote a diary relating his Soviet Union, and sisters, managed to survive in barns, vivors on the site. That replicated an oper- experiences. The book goes on to tell of passing through forests, fields and attics; the as yet un- ation, code-named Oyneg Shabbos, or his survival during the war working on Central Asia, titled memoirs/diaries of Marek (Moty) Dutch farms, acquiring forged documents before finding Stromer, written in April and May of 1944 “Joy of Sabbath,” by Polish Jews during from the underground, and hiding in a refuge in a in hiding, in which the author describes his World War II in which a group led by Dutch woman’s home in Utrecht from late Cossack village experiences in the Lemberg (Lwow) ghet- Emanuel Ringelblum buried three milk 1942 onward. in the Caucasus, to and beyond; the memoirs of Ruth cans containing papers chronicling Jewish By the Grace of Strangers, Two Boys’ surviving six Wachner Pagirsky, who was evicted with life during the Holocaust in a Warsaw Rescue During the Holocaust, consists of months of Nazi her family from Germany to Poland in ghetto. Ringelblum was executed in 1944, two memoirs. Reaching the Light at the occupation, and 1938, and eventually survived more than but two of the cans were discovered years End of the Tunnel, a rare insight into the participating in two years under a false identity as a later. Holocaust experience in Bulgaria, is the Soviet Polish forced laborer on a farm in The new edifice will have roughly Norbert J. Yasharoff’s account of how, as advance through Germany; and the memoirs of two sur- 43,000 square feet on a 2-acre site and an eleven-year-old youth, he was forced Poland and into Germany as draftees in a vivors of Treblinka, Israel Cymlich and will include exhibit space, classrooms and to move with his family into the Sofia ghet- Polish brigade of the Red Army. Oskar Strawczynski, a Jewish woman a 270-seat auditorium. to, an experience that inspired him to In Yesterday: My Story, Hadassah saved by Christians in Belgium, Flora Among artifacts scheduled to be dis- express himself through poetry. The fam- Rosensaft describes her last moments Singer; and a Danish survivor of played when the new building opens are a ily was later evicted to Pleven, and after with her five-and-a-half year old son at Theresienstadt, Elias Levin. Torah scroll rescued from a burning syna- the war, they lived under Communist rule Auschwitz-Birkenau, how she and a group The books published by the Holocaust gogue on Kristallnacht, a forged ID card in Sofia. The other memoir in this book, of fellow inmates kept 149 Jewish children Survivors’ Memoirs Project are a critical from a member of the Jewish Seeds of Grace: The Diary of Gabriel alive in Bergen-Belsen under unspeak- resource for rabbis, educators, historians Underground and a blanket used to hide a Mermall, relates the story of Gabor able conditions, her historic testimony at and all who seek to explore and under- child smuggled out of a ghetto. Mermelstein as a slave laborer in the the first trial of Nazi war criminals, and her stand the Jewish people’s tragic recent Other artifacts include: Hungarian military’s Labor Service, and experiences as one of the leaders of the past. Their rightful place is on the Yellow star, required to be worn by all his rescue in 1944, together with his survivors in the Bergen-Belsen Displaced shelves of all libraries, Jewish and secular Jews. young son. Unable to rescue his wife, Persons camp. alike. Our goal is to have these memoirs Uniform worn by a concentration camp who was deported to Auschwitz, Gabor In Days of Rain, Enzo Tayar chronicles integrated into high school, university and inmate. hid with his son in the Ruthenian forests, how the tranquility of his Florence boy- adult education curricula, so as to provide Brick from a gas chamber at Auschwitz. aided by a poor Hungarian lumberjack hood was replaced by fear and uncertain- both the Jewish victims of the Holocaust Foundation officials expect the new site who generously supplied them with food ty as Italy instituted increasingly severe and the survivors with the dignity of a per- to attract 132,000 student visitors annual- for more than six months, and ultimately anti-Jewish measures and the Germans manent historical presence, not as imper- ly, 110,000 more than the 22,000 who hid them in his hayloft. invaded their former ally. Drawing on the sonal statistics, but as individual protago- have visited the Main Street museum Guarded by Angels, How My Father and diary he kept for the pivotal year 1943, he nists with names, voices and emotions. annually. Harris said the museum’s edu- Uncle Survived Hitler and Cheated Stalin, describes his escape from Florence and They are available on Amazon.com and cational importance extends beyond chil- by Alan Elsner, is the dramatic story of two his finding refuge on a succession of BarnesandNoble.com. dren and students. Page 14 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2006 - Elul/Tishrei 5767 ‘ZION’ IS AN EYE-OPENER ABOUT ANTI-SEMITISM IN PURSUIT OF THE DESK MURDERERS which were created about a hundred (Continued from page 11) Brunner who commanded the SS units in BY JOHN DOUGLAS years ago, pretty much give warning that prison sentences. Nice that arrested Serge Klarsfeld’s Jews are going to take over the world. am continually amazed at what some But to this day, the Klarsfeld’s most father, Arno. He, like many others, would ilmmaker Marc Levin travels around, people believe. famous catch was the former Gestapo perish at a place called Auschwitz. I interviewing representatives of vari- There apparently are people out there F chief in Lyon. Klaus Barbie was nick- Brunner disappeared after the war and, ous factions about their feelings concern- who believe there were no Jews in the named the “Butcher of Lyon” for his like Barbie, wound up working for a ing the World Trade Center theory and World Trade Center when the terrorist countless atrocities, including the brutal Western intelligence service (West “The Protocols.” It is obvious from what he attack occurred on Sept. 11, 2001. It torture and death of French Germany). The Klarsfelds finally tracked reveals that hate is still on the march all seems they were warned of the attack and Resistance leader Jean Moulin. But Brunner to Syria, where he apparently over the world. stayed home that day. Barbie’s trial focused on his lived for years under the protection of the “The Protocols of Zion” is by no means Can you imagine anyone stupid enough deportation of 44 children from a chil- Syrian government. a perfect film. It tends to wander around to really believe that? Is there no story so dren’s home in the hamlet of Izieu to Despite the efforts of France and its various subjects. And there also has to ridiculous that it would be rejected by all Auschwitz. They never returned. Germany to seek Brunner’s extradition, be a darn good reason for filmmakers to who hear it? Apparently not, because we Barbie would not have escaped justice Syria has refused to even acknowledge insert themselves into a work, as Levin meet people in “Protocols of Zion” who for decades without the help of the Central his existence. Klarsfeld speculated that has done. He was constantly getting in are convinced those of the Jewish faith Intelligence Agency, who used him after the Syrian government, under the iron- front of the camera to give his take on the were sitting at home watching “Good the war as an anti-communist expert. fisted rule of the late President Assad and issues. The case was never made for why Morning America” when America was “When the Cold War started, the thought now his son, regarded Brunner as an Levin was an element in the film. attacked in New York. A lot of this drivel was to fight against communism, so all asset. In spite of this serious shortcoming, comes from members of the more funda- these Nazi criminals were anti-commu- “When he came from Egypt to Syria he plenty of good information is dispensed mental religions here and abroad. nists so they were used,” Klarsfeld says. unmasked himself, they had known who here that you can shuffle any way you “Protocols of Zion” is a documentary “Barbie was used by the secret service of he was – an enemy of the Jews with some want. I was unaware of the World Trade that takes a look at this particular conspir- the United States and the French had advice to give,” she says. “I think he Center conspiracy theory and the exis- acy theory. It also weaves in the belief theirs and the British had theirs.” worked in the arms business after the war, tence of “The Protocols of the Elders of some people have concerning “The The Klarsfelds eventually tracked Barbie so he was very helpful to the Syrians.” Zion,” and I am glad to have been intro- Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” writings to Bolivia where he was living Brunner has twice been convicted in duced to them. that were supposed to have survived for under an assumed name and protected absentia in France, the last time in 2002, The positives of this sometimes jaw- centuries and are used as a reason to for years by the right-wing government in when he was sentenced to life in prison. dropping film definitely outweigh the neg- suspect Jews of all sorts of horrid activi- power. In 1983, with a change in govern- Klarsfeld adds, however, that at 93 years atives. ties, including using the blood of non- ment, he was finally returned to France. of age, Brunner is likely dead. Jewish children for rituals. The writings, First published in The Grand Rapids Press At Barbie’s trial four years later, Serge And while the couple are best known for Klarsfeld was one of the more their Nazi-hunting work, they have also than three dozen lawyers representing the spent much of their time ensuring that YORAM KANIUK APOLOGIZEDTO YAD VASHEM victims. The evidence of Barbie’s involve- those who perished in the Holocaust are ment in the Izieu roundup was gathered not forgotten. (Continued from page 10) ble time.” He said he visited the museum’s by Serge and helped seal the former he Beate Klarsfeld Foundation, that every official visitor to Israel must audio-visual center, which was very help- Gestapo chief’s fate. Barbie was convict- established in the late 1970s, has stop at the Western Wall then immediate- ful to him in researching the role he is to T ed and given a life sentence. He died in funded Holocaust exhibits and published ly go to Yad Vashem to be impressed by play in the film. prison. a number of books, including one the horrors. A visit there should not be out Speaking of his guide, Dana, Goldblum he Klarsfelds’ crusade to hold war researched by Serge Klarsfeld. “The said her devotion to the subject and her of duty or obligation,” Kaniuk said. Tcriminals to account has not been Memorial to Jewish Children Deported involvement in the site were simply GOLDBLUM: ‘MOST MOVING without peril. The couple has been arrest- from France” is a 1,550-page tome that admirable. He described his visit as “very EXPERIENCE’ ed on numerous occasions, deported meticulously details the lives of the Jewish moving” and “a total knockout,” and noted from countries unsympathetic to their children who never returned home. Goldblum, who was unintentionally that he was impatiently awaiting a second, cause and often receive death threats. They also founded the Sons and swept up in the even more in- “It’s still the generation of Germans who Daughters of Jewish Deportees from sensitive situa- depth visit. voted for Hitler,” she says, noting her France, an organization which helps sup- tion, told Ynet “I cried father had died before she embarked on port the Klarsfelds’ activities in France. In that his visit to from the her career. Roglit, Israel, the pair were responsible for Yad Vashem moment I Sixty years after the end of the war, the creation of a memorial to the 80,000 was one of the walked in and there remains one Nazi fugitive on the French Jews who perished during the war. strongest and watched the Klarsfelds’ list: former SS They also were instrumental in getting the most emotional movie that Hauptsturmfuhrer Alois Brunner. The French government to establish a pension experiences of showed what Austrian for a time was Adolph fund for the orphans of the Holocaust. his life. “The life was like Eichmann’s deputy, helping to arrange the The Klarsfelds’ work has not gone unno- and what it deportation and murder of Europe’s Jews, power of the ticed. Both have received numerous hon- turned into,” including 47,000 Jews from place is enor- ors, including France’s Legion of Honor Goldblum Austria and 43,000 from Greece. In 1943, mous,” he said. and the Raoul Wallenberg Prize. said. When I Brunner was placed in charge of the He added that The couple’s work has also become a stepped out of Drancy transit camp near Paris where he the guides and Jeff Goldblum at Yad Vashem family affair. Their two children, Arno and there and into deported 25,000 Jewish men, women and staff of the Lida, both lawyers, have taken up the museum were incredibly generous and Jerusalem’s amazing landscape, I knew I children to their deaths in 14 months. would never forget this moment, he said. cause. during the four-hour tour, “told me stories For the couple, hunting Brunner has a I had never heard before about that terri- First published on ynetnews.com very personal side. In 1943, it was First published in Times Argus MASSACHUSETTS COUPLE HONORED FOR SAVING JEWS DURING THE HOLOCAUST (Continued from page 10) Feuchtwanger gave a lengthy account of for them, the Sharps were able to add Leon Feuchtwanger, a fugitive from travelers at a safe distance, so as to their escape from France with the assis- Eva Esther to this group of children, and French law, to avoid arrest, coupled with lessen the danger of his disclosure by tance of Waitstill and Martha Sharp. take her out of the country. Her parents the offense of bribing French border the Spanish police, and the risk of his Having accomplished this, Martha stayed behind. guards, and the equal risks of arrest being returned to Vichy French hands. Sharp returned to France, and journeyed Mrs. Feigl lives in New York, and gave while traveling incognito through Spain, he Fascist dictatorship in Spain, to Vichy to plead for permits (laissez- testimony of her timely rescue by the a country leaning toward Nazi Germany, Theaded by Franco, was at the time passer) for a group of children – 9 of Sharp couple. After the war, Martha and keeping in mind the Sharps’ merito- considering aligning itself with Nazi them Jewish – to leave the country, Sharp helped raise funds for Hadassah, rious assistance to other Jewish fugi- Germany, and would certainly not have which she eventually received. the Women’s Zionist Organization, and tives of Nazi terror – Yad Vashem decid- hesitated to hand over Leon n November 26, 1940 this group was active in helping Jewish children ed on September 9, 2005 to confer upon Feuchtwanger to the Nazis if they had Oleft France, including the three reach Israel under the Youth Aliyah pro- the late Waitstill and Martha Sharp the asked for him. Arriving safely in Lisbon, Jewish Diamant sisters (Amalie, Evelyn gram. In that capacity, in 1947 she jour- title of Righteous Among the Nations. A also at the time a near-Fascist country and Marianne), and Eva Esther Feigl, all neyed to Morocco, and in 1951, to Iraq, medal and certificate of honor were pre- headed by Salazar, the Sharps arranged of whom, thanks to Martha Sharp’s to coordinate clandestine emigration sented to the Sharps’ daughter, Martha for the Feuchtwangers to quickly board a efforts, were armed with US visas. possibilities for Jews desirous to leave Sharp Joukowsky, in a ceremony at Yad ship heading for New York, and they Born in Vienna, Austria in 1926, Eva for Israel. She died in 1999; Waitstill had Vashem, on June 13, 2006, in the pres- sailed at the end of September 1940. At Feigl had fled with her parents in 1938, passed away in 1984. ence of a large audience, including the time, they were assured that the US and arrived in France. Arrested as n light of the risks taken by the members of the Sharp family, and Mrs. government had allowed their entry into “enemy aliens,” the Feigls desperately ISharps – first of being apprehended Eva Esther Feigl, one of the Jews res- the United States. In 1976, Marta sought ways to leave the country. Luckily by the French authorities for helping cued by the Sharps. September/October 2006 - Elul/Tishrei 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 15 RECALLING NUREMBERG (Continued from page 7) philosopher Hannah Arendt later called deporting forced laborers to Germany, Andreas, often thought about the horrors stateless on an Army base where there the “banality of evil.” signed a copy of “Europa arbeitet in perpetrated by the generation that came are only soldiers and officers,” he said. No one took responsibility for his Deutschland”: “I believed to do good for before them. They gave their children “What do you do with her?” actions, Triest said. They blamed Hitler, my fatherland and I did my best.” Jewish names, they explained in the film, A young couple took her in, but Triest who was dead, and his deputy, Heinrich Both were hanged. so that they would be linked to a common wanted to bring his grandmother back to Himmler, also dead. It was convenient, humanity. RETURN TO MUNICH Munich, her home. So he found a lieu- Triest said, to blame the dead. The Triests were impressed by the tenant’s coat for her. She pulled the hood The prisoners complained to fter the trial, Triest Jungs’ empathy. When they first went to over her head, hiding her face, and got Goldensohn about their Areturned to live in Europe in 1958, Anita Triest pictured into Triest’s Jeep. They drove to Munich. health problems. They Munich for the first time every man of the right age in Nazi uni- “She drew salutes all the way,” he said. had rheumatism, sties in since he fled the Nazis. form. Now that has changed. From Czechoslovakia, Triest was their eyes and indiges- Goldensohn came for a Ursula called Triest at his hotel later that assigned to Nuremberg. He had only four tion. Rudolf Hoess, com- visit, and Triest showed night and said she’d found someone else or five weeks remaining in his tour of duty. mandant of Auschwitz, him his hometown. who had lived in the apartment during the He knew very little about Nuremberg, only complained of cold feet. “Instead of being a per- 1930s. When Triest and Palackdharry that some kind of trial was to take place “They were a lot colder secuted person,” he said, returned the next day, they found Hans there. when he was hanging,” “I was the victor and they Fischach, Triest’s childhood friend who It was October 1945. Triest said. were the vanquished.” had joined the Hitler Youth and stopped Streicher was the only Triest was assigned to speaking to him. THE “BANALITY OF EVIL” obvious lunatic. It was Office of Military Triest had thought Fischach, who had n Nuremberg, 22 defendants stood easy to bait the virulent Government for Bavaria. gone to a Nazi school, was dead. He pre- Iaccused of crimes against humanity. anti-Semite. Triest He took reports from sumed they’d send him to the front lines For Triest, justice was personal. remembered a woman smaller cities on what after graduation. “From a former refugee who has lost his lieutenant, taunted they were doing to hunt “Now . . . this dead person was very family, you are transferred to a prison that Streicher by affixing down Nazis. much alive,” he said. “He had no regrets. holds all the top murderers who are paper dolls to a string Incredibly, no one Everything you told him, he said, ‘Oh this responsible not only for your family’s mur- noose and dangling them Julius Streicher at the Nuremberg seemed to be able to find is terrible.’ Then he went on to something der but the whole war,” he said. “That is a in his cell. This enraged Trials. any Nazis. Triest met peo- else. It was not very different from talking tremendous satisfaction.” Streicher, who pulled his pants down and ple who admitted to membership in the to Goering. His explanation was the A four-week assignment turned into a showed the lieutenant his rear end. Nazi Party. But they all had known and same.” year. Streicher grew to trust Triest and gave protected Jews, they said. Like the Fischach brought yearbooks with him The prisoners spent most of the day in him many of his papers. He always Nuremberg prisoners, the people of from his Nazi leadership school. He court and returned to their cells about 3:00 bragged about how he could tell if some- Germany denied their guilt. Everyone was showed Triest photos of himself in his uni- p.m. A guard was assigned to each cell on one was Jewish by the way they walked, looking for an American friend for protec- form. He’d been wounded in battle, he a constant suicide watch. One defendant and praised Triest’s “Nordic” appearance. tion. said. He appeared on television and radio had already killed himself before the trial. In his book, Goldensohn pegged “I never had so many friends,” Triest programs now, he said. At its conclusion, Goering cheated a Streicher as an “old psychopathic person- said. “They would tell you how good you Later, at home in Delray Beach, Anita death sentence by swallowing a fatal dose ality” expressing his inadequacy through were. How much they missed you. And by and Howard Triest saw Fischach on a of cyanide. “an obsessive preoccupation which for the the way, could you possibly do them a cable-television documentary about Nazi Triest spent two to three hours a day past twenty years has filled the narrow favor?” Germany. with the prisoners. Usually, he accompa- “He was in it as someone who was very stream of his life.” “JOURNEY TO JUSTICE” nied the psychiatrists, mainly Some of those assigned to Nuremberg much involved with the SS,” Anita Triest Goldensohn. On several occasions, he collected souvenirs to prove they’d been s interest in World War II height- said. “He didn’t mention the SS to us.” went in on his own. His mission was to there — pens, insignia and trinkets. Triest Aened with the 50th anniversary of Palackdharry submitted the film, collect as much information as possible. wanted something more. He wanted to the war’s end, Triest’s sons, Brent and Journey to Justice, for consideration at Of the three psychiatrists, Goldensohn prove to his family that he’d seen the men Glenn, decided to make a documentary several festivals. The few who have seen the movie had the most effective style, Triest said. responsible for their grief, that he’d about their father. They found Steve always ask Howard Triest the same ques- He spoke to the prisoners in German, deceived them and helped bring them to Palackdharry, an award-winning public- tion: “How can you, as a former Jewish rather than English. justice. television producer in the Detroit area. boy from Munich who has lost his parents “We would go in and talk to them about He combed local stores for books about Palackdharry travelled to Europe with in the camps, sit in prison cells with these life,” Triest said, “what they did and why the defendants or written by them. Some Triest, his wife, Anita, and their sons. They people and keep your cool?” they did it.” prisoners autographed the books. Some found his family’s old apartment in “My question was, what was I supposed The psychiatrists wanted to learn about did more than scribble their names. Munich, and the family who lived there to do? Pull a knife out and knife him? The the nature of evil. They came away frus- Streicher autographed two books, welcomed them in. cell opened for me after I was done, not trated in having found no common source “Hofjuden” and “Kampf dem Weltfeind.” Ursula Jung had always wondered them. They were tried. They were eventu- of mental perversion that had driven these “Mr. Howard Triest in memory! about her apartment’s former occupants. ally hung.” men to commit unspeakable horrors. Nuernbreg,cq 13.12.45. Julius Streicher.” She listened to Triest’s story with tears in They were chilled by what political Fritz Sauckel, the man responsible for her eyes. Ursula and her husband, First published in Palm Beach Post

A TALE OF TWO STORIES ABOUT ANTI-SEMITISM YAD VASHEM MOURNS THE PASSING OF (Continued from page 13) University of North Carolina, deliberately 101st Airborne Division, who attacked his tioning Haq — one-fourth the number rammed a car into a crowd of students, fellow soldiers at an American command DR. CHARLES TANNEN dealing with Gibson’s drunken outburst. saying he wanted to “avenge the death of center in Kuwait with grenades and rifle The American and International Why the disparity? Muslims fire, killing one and wounding 15; Hesham Societies for Yad Vashem mourn the o doubt, part of the answer is that around the Mohamed Ali Hadayet, who killed two passing away of Dr. Charles Tannen, a NGibson is a celebrity, and that “The world.” people when he shot up the El Al ticket “builder” of Yad Vashem. Passion,” his 2004 movie about the cruci- Michael counter at the Los Angeles airport in 2002; Very few people respond to a solicita- fixion, was criticized by many as a revival Julius Ford and Ali Hasan Abu Kamal, who was carry- tion call and agree to make a significant of the infamous anti-Semitic motif of Jews opened fire in ing a note denouncing “Zionists” and oth- commitment over the telephone. Dr. as Christ-killers. Gibson, who belongs to a a Denver ers who “must be annihilated and extermi- Charles Tannen was one of these few. traditionalist Catholic sect, was already warehouse, nated” when he opened fire on the obser- In 2003 he became a “builder” of a new suspected of harboring ill will toward killing one vation deck of the Empire State building. Yad Vashem’s Museum. Jews. His crude remarks on July 28 con- person and If the Catholic Gibson’s nonviolent big- His generosity is acknowledged on firmed it, and pushed the subject back into injuring five. otry is a legitimate subject of media scruti- Yad Vashem donor’s wall: “Paula and the spotlight. But if previous behavior and “I don’t know ny, all the more so is the animus that Dr. Charles Tannen, USA” religious belief explain the burst of interest what hap- This picture was taken by spurs Muslims like Haq and the others to Dr. Charles Tannen, formerly Chaim Los Angeles County Sheriff’s in the Gibson story, they only deepen the pened to him jihadist murder. As The New York Sun Tannenzapf, was born in Sadagora- Department on the night of question of why the Seattle bloodshed yesterday,” asked the other day, how many more Bukovina-Austria in 1909. Mel Gibson’s arrest Paula, who passed away in 2002, was played down. After all, Haq is not the his sister Haqs must erupt in a homicidal rage was also from Bukovina and, together first example of what scholar Daniel Pipes Khali told the press. “He told me that Allah before we open our eyes “to the possibili- with her husband, they survived the has called “Sudden Jihad Syndrome,” in was going to make a choice and it was ty that they are part of a war in which which a seemingly nonviolent Muslim going to be good, and told me people at Holocaust, working in the Ukrainian understanding the enemy is a prerequisite labor camp Hrinovca-Copaigorod. erupts in a murderous rampage. his job was making fun of his religion.” for victory?” Just this year, for example, Mohammed ther cases in recent years include Dr. Tannen is survived by a daughter, Taheri-azar, a philosophy major at the OHasan Akbar a sergeant in the First published in The Boston Globe Beatrice and grandson, Joshua. Page 16 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE September/October 2006 - Elul/Tishrei 5767

TRIBUTE CHAIRMEN TRIBUTE CO-CHAIRMEN Jo Carole & Ronald S. Lauder Ira Drukier Sara & Leonard Aronson Ruth & Alexander Hart Toby & Jerry Pollak Shelly-Faye Adelson Gloria Adelson Field Sivan Ochshorn Tsipi and Zigi Ben-Haim Kim & Gary Heiman Sally & Jack Pomeranc Zachary Adelson Marysia & David Feuerstein Myrna & Mark Palmer Cesia & Frank Blaichman Martin Heinfling Evelyn Reichenthal Elinor & Norman Belfer Jean & Eugen Gluck Barry Rubenstein Tzipy and Lawrence Bookman Meredith Heller Nina & Jeffrey Rubinstein Irma & Norman Braman Yasmin & Oren Lukatz Marvin Zborowski Toni & Victor Chaltiel Pnina & Anatol Hiller Alan Silverman Rhoda & David T. Chase Dr. Lilly & Avner Naveh Murry Zborowski Frances & Murray Chernick Susan & Arnold Holtzman Sara & Moniek Stawski Renata & Murray Alon Adina & Marcos D. 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Yehoshua Trigor Hala & Majer Goldstein Cecile & Ed Mosberg Arielle Zborowski Jakubowicz Rachel & Barnard J. Gottstein Maya Naveh Boaz Zborowski Hadassah Gradowski Sandi & David Nussbaum Millie & Abraham Zuckerman Orit Gutman Miriam Oster Anne & David Zygelman TRIBUTE COMMITTEE Tamar Gutman Lucy & Murray Pantirer Dahlia Aronson Angie & Moritz Goldfeier Marion & Hans Seidemann Eric Aronson Betty & Isaac Goodfriend Gilda & Fred Slifka HONORARY CHAIRMEN Harriet Becker Bila & Ernst Hacker Pola & Charles Sporer Renée & Robert Belfer Maria Herskovic Lillian & Milton Steinberg Hon. Moshe Katsav H.E. Ehud Olmert Nancy Beren & Dr. Larry Judy & Allen Hymowitz Sam Stern Hon. Julius Berman Hon. Edgar M. Bronfman Jefferson Henriette & Gustave Jacobs Henry Tenenbaum Dr. Yitzhak Arad Hon. Joseph Lapid Prof. Szewach Weiss Rosalie & Tobias Berman Sophie Kalina Edith & Rudolph Tessler H.E. Amb. Daniel Ayalon H.E. Amb. Arye Mekel Hon. Elie Wiesel Abe Besser Caroline & Daniel J. Katz Michele Cohn Tocci H.E. Amb. Dan Gillerman Hon. Avner Shalev Hon. Joseph Wilf Susan E. Best Frieda & Walter Katz Devora & Rabbi Mark Lilly & Sam Bloch Sima Katz Urkowitz HONORARY CO-CHAIRMEN Judy & Phillip Bloom Jan & John Kornreich Olga & Herman Wachtenheim Judi & Dr. Kenneth Burnstein Elsie & Leon Levy Regina & David Weinberg Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg Gov. Rick Perry Jane & Alan Cornell Ardith & Charles Mederrick Bernice & David Weiss Gov. Richard J. Codey Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman Gov. M. Jodi Rell Jeffrey M. Diamond Mindyleah & Sam Pollak Sen. Jon Corzine Gov. George E. Pataki Sen. Charles E. Schumer Zehava & Steven Wolosky Sen. Christopher J. Dodd Batsheva & Joseph Eden Miriam & Louis Rosenbaum Henry Wrobel Rena & Lewis Fagen Lillian R. Rozmaryn Julie & Scott Zelnick GENERAL CHAIRMEN Lynn & Erwin Fisch Arlene & Jerry Sanders Marjorie & Aaron Ziegelman David Geffen Jean & Ben Schreibman Dr. Israel Singer Leonard Wilf Fred Zeidman Shirley Gitenstein Dora & Stephen Schwartz GENERAL CO-CHAIRMEN DINNER CHAIRMEN David Halpern Zygmunt Wilf Ira Mitzner Marilyn Rubenstein Marilyn & Jack A. Belz Richard M. Joel Dr. Ingrid Tauber DINNER CO-CHAIRMEN Roberta & Irwin Chafetz Phyllis & William Mack Beth Wilf Joan & Theodore Cutler Fela & David Shapell Elizabeth Wilf Dr. Daniel S. Berman Dr. Dalia Kalai-Gishon & Michael S. Miller Gale Drukier Sam Skura Ruta & Dr. Felix Zandman Jill Goodman & Melvin Dr. Gadi Gishon Mindy Mitzner Bukiet Jan & Andrew Groveman Aliza & Elie Singer Sam Halpern Steven Spielberg Kay Zeidman Barbara & Dr. Bruce Dobkin Cheryl & Moshe Lifshitz Jane & Mark Wilf Leslie & Michael Adler Abraham Foxman Jean Rubinstein Rella & Dr. Charles Feldman Caroline & Morris Massel Rebecca & Michael Altman Claire Friedlander Rochelle & Henryk Schwarz Debbie & Richard Born Batsheva & Murray Halpern David Mitzner Harriet Becker Annette & Barry Goldberg Steven Schwarz Fred Distenfeld Cheryl & Fred Halpern Ann Oster Susan & Jack Bender Elaine & Joel Goldstein Mary & David Solomon Susan & Ed Falk Lieba & Jack Halpern Nancy & Larry Pantirer Berne & James Bookhamer Marilyn & Jack H. Pechter Marcia & Dr. Yaakov Toledano Chaya & Howard Friedman Deedee & Mark Honigsfeld Charles Primus Drs. 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DINNER COMMITTEE CHAIRWOMEN Doris Gross Stella Skura Elizabeth Zborowski Elly Krakowski Celina Zborowski Esther Born Gladys Halpern Dr. Romana Strochlitz Primus Rita Distenfeld Sharon Halpern Lilly Stawski Anna Erlich Selma Gruder Horowitz Audrey Wilf Eva Halpern Eta Wrobel DINNER COMMITTEE (in formation) Leslie & Michael Adler Judi & Kenneth Burnstein Roselyn & Dr. Mark Friedman Ruth & Steven Katz Elisa & Alan Pines Betty & Howard Schwartz Gail & Larry Altman Bernice Cohen Sharon & Dr. Jeffrey Frieling Rachel & Mark Klein Toby & Jerry Pollak Alan Silverman Barbara & Harvey Arfa Merry & Seymour Cohen Gloria & Yoram Golan Robin & Stuart Koenig Dr. Deborah & Stuart Rabner Ann & Bernard Sklar Chaya & Jimmy Aviram Sherrye & David Dantzker Annette & Barry Goldberg Linda & Murray Laulicht William Z. Reich Sherry & Henry Stein Elaine & Robert Baum Talya & Shmuel Davidovich Rachel Goldstein Susan & Frank Levy Jimmy Resnick Les Stern Lauren Belfer Cheri & Arnon Deshe Susan & Richard Goodstadt Chaya & Lorne Lieberman Jacqueline & Sigmund Rolat Keren Toledano Michelle & Benjamin Belfer Helene & Glenn Dorfman Tzipporah & Dr. Jack Gruber Christine & Richard Mack Jean & Menachem Rosensaft Freda & Michael Wadler Jill & Bill Benjamin Jennifer Drukier Michelle & Yossi Hadad Sheila & Martin Major Julie B. Ross Ariel & Josh Weiner Judy & Philip Bloom Edith Druyan Abbi & Jeremy Halpern David Mandelbaum Dola Rubin Lisa & Orin Wilf Dr. Debbie & Sheldon Bootin Sarah Eisner Dan Hoffman Stanley Nayer Bella & George Savran Shira & Dr. Daniel Yoshor Nanette & Dr. Arthur Brenner Trudy & Sol Englander Margalith Hoffman Susan & Mark Nevins Stephen Savitt Cynthia & Jeff Wisenfeld Gail & Bruce Bukiet Rochelle & Maks Etingin Susan & Arnold Holtzman Lauren Novick Mindy & Alan Schall Elaine & Irwin Zamore Karen & Michael Bukiet Allan Fried Amy & John Jacobsson Gonen Paradis Judy & Stanley Schneier Amy & Brad Zelnick Adina & Lawrence Burian Charles Fried Judy & Ruben Josephs Shelley & Josef Paradis Esther & William Schulder Eli Zborowski, Chairman Rachelle Grossman, Events Coordinator Tel. 212-220-4304 / 1-800-310-7495 - Fax 212-220-4308 Email: [email protected]

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