Vol. 37-No.4 ISSN 0892-1571 March/April 2011 - Adar/Nissan 5771 SURVIVALSURVIVAL ANDAND RESISTANCERESISTANCE Thirteenth Annual Professional Development Conference on Holocaust Education he Education Department of the This year’s keynote speaker was Profes- sure that the memory of those who per- also marks our organization’s 30th an- TAmerican Society for Yad Vashem sor Terri Warmbrand, who delivered re- ished is not forgotten and that the story of niversary. How befitting that we should and its Young Leadership Associates con- marks on “Unknown Jewish Resistance survival, resistance, and heroism is told have such an auspicious occasion.” vened the Thirteenth Annual Professional during the Holocaust.” Other presenters at and retold. Abbi and I do our best to pass am delighted to see all of you here Development Conference on Holocaust the conference were Peppy Margolis and this message and commitment to our chil- “Iand tell you that this is a record- Education. This year’s conference is the Helene Alalouf. dren. And I know that the educators in this breaking year in our Seminar’s number of largest in recent years, with close to 200 pening the conference was Jeremy room do the same, every day, with our chil- participants. This seminar has been grow- educators from the tri-state area, plus OHalpern, Chairperson of the Young dren and the children of so many; to pass ing with each passing year and has be- Texas and Ohio, in attendance. The Asso- Leadership Associates and himself a along the information you receive here come an event which we know long-time ciation of Teachers of Social Studies / grandchild of survivors. He was joined by today, to make sure that the lessons of the educators as well as students-in-training United Federation of Teachers, which once his daughter Brianna, who was the first Holocaust are not forgotten by future gen- look forward to attending,” said Eli again co-sponsored the Conference, Fourth Generation to ever join us at an Ed- erations. Zborowski, Chairman of the American So- points out that “[t]his conference is an in- ucation Conference. “All of us are here today for this precise ciety for Yad Vashem. Jeremy Halpern said in his open- reason – remembering and reminding. “As you know, the goal of the American ing remarks: “…it gives me great Through education we can convey the les- Society for Yad Vashem is to provide you pleasure to be here this morning sons of history, the calamitous conse- at this seminar with the resources to best with so many distinguished profes- quences of hatred and prejudice. Our job educate your students, helping form them sionals in the field of education, as is to educate new generations towards tol- into understanding and sensitive mem- well as the students who will take erance and acceptance with the hope that bers of the community. Through teaching these lessons into their fields of choice. I am particularly pleased to have my wife Abbi and my daugh- ter Brianna here with me today. “I am a grandchild of Holocaust survivors, or what is termed a ‘Third Generation’ person, two generations removed from the Shoah. Brianna, our eldest, has al- ready volunteered to help here today. She and her siblings, mem- bers of the ‘Fourth Generation’, are blessed by having their sur- vivor great-grandparents still with them, a unique privilege experi- enced by very few, and one which we are so grateful for. “As you can imagine, I grew up with survivors’ memories imparted Caroline Massel, Chairperson, Young Leadership Associ- Participants of the conference during discussion. ates of the American Society for Yad Vashem; Jeremy to me by my survivor grandpar- Halpern, Chairperson, Young Leadership Associates of the ents. The stories of their survival they will learn to prevent such horrors from the Holocaust, our program aims to raise American Society for Yad Vashem; Brianna Halpern, and that of the Holocaust are part happening again. It is our hope that these ethical questions and help students find daughter of Abbi and Jeremy Halpern; Eli Zborowski, of who I am and what I do. It is the lessons will increase awareness and re- sources of strength, hope, and renewal. Chairman of the American Society for Yad Vashem; Eliza- goal of the Young Leadership As- spect for each other’s differences. It is our hope that these lessons will in- beth Mundlak-Zborowski, Cultural Director of the Ameri- sociates to make sure that these “I am delighted to be part of this 13th An- crease awareness, tolerance, and respect can Society for Yad Vashem. stories are never forgotten, and it nual Professional Development Confer- for each other’s differences. valuable resource for increasing aware- is the reason that we gather here today for ence, sponsored by the American Society “As a survivor, this year’s theme, ‘Sur- ness and sensitivity to intolerance and such an important event. for Yad Vashem. In Jewish tradition, thir- vival and Resistance,’ is very close to my injustice, especially in today’s world.” “As time moves forward and the incom- teen is a most lucky number; it marks the heart, as it is for my wife, Dr. Elizabeth This year’s conference focused on Sur- parable horrors of the Holocaust recede point of a person embarking upon maturity Mundlak-Zborowski. Each story of sur- vivors and Resistance, a look at the expe- farther into history, I know that it is my gen- and coming into one’s own. It is the largest vival is different and unique to each sur- riences of those who survived and the eration’s sacred duty, indeed that of future seminar ever, with the largest number of vivor. My story is different than my wife’s. people who tried to help during the darkest generations as well, to keep memory alive. participants, both teachers and students. She was smuggled out of the ghetto as a hour of humanity. It is our collective responsibility to make This event has come into its own. This year (Continued on page 12) IN THIS ISSUE The wartime diary of Edmund Kessler...... 4 Restoring Poland’s Jewish past...... 5 Holocaust survivor believes in fate...... 6 Auschwitz shifts from memorializing to teaching...... 7 Young Leadership Associates of ASYV Annual Winter Gala...... 8-9 Four million victims’ names identified...... 10 “None is too many”: Memorial for Jews turned away from Canada in 1939...... 11 Running – Remembering– Caring...... 12 Outrage at growing trade in Holocaust artifacts...... 13 Eichmann trial veterans reunite...... 14 European Union project aims to establish network of Holocaust archives...... 15 Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE March/April 2011 - Adar/Nissan 5771

COMBATING HOLOCAUST DENIAL, ISRAEL RECOGNIZES FIRST SALVADORAN UN LEADS DELEGATION TO AUSCHWITZ CAMP FOR SAVING JEWS DURING HOLOCAUST n February top United Nations officials Gerhard Schröder; former Croatian Presi- srael’s Holocaust memorial on March 1 pers. Amid oppression, the documents Iled a visit by 150 eminent personalities dent Stepjan Mesic; former Mauritanian Iadded a Salvadoran diplomat to its list gave him a feeling of safety. and representatives of 40 governments to President Mohamed Vall; and Mevlut Cavu- of gentiles who risked their lives to help “Police would stop you, and if you were Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest and most soglu of Turkey, president of the Parliamen- save Jews during World War II. hiding, you were afraid that you will be de- notorious of all the Nazi death camps, to tary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Col. Jose Arturo Castellanos defied his tected and have to identify yourself,” combat denial of the Holocaust of millions Representatives of the heads of state of government by issuing Mayer said. “If you have a very of Jews and others during the Second Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, and Turkey also thousands of visas and official diplomatic document, it World War. participated, as did the mayors of 12 cities fake documents to as always helps.” “As the poet and philosopher George in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. many as 40,000 Jews, Salvadoran Foreign Minister Santayana said, ‘those who cannot re- “The purpose of the visit to Auschwitz- helping many escape Hugo Martinez, who was in Is- member the past are condemned to repeat Birkenau is to underline the horrific conse- death at the hands of the rael on an official trip, said he it,’” said UNESCO Director-General Irina quences of Nazi and Fascist ideology on Nazis. was emotional and proud to Bokova, who led the visit with Bertrand De- the Jewish people and countless members Castellanos was the meet people who might have lanoë, mayor of Paris, and the Aladdin of other minorities, and to inspire political, first Salvadoran to be been saved by his country- Project, which seeks to counter all forms religious, and intellectual leaders around added to the Yad Vashem man. of denial and promote a rapprochement of the world to combat the denial of the Holo- memorial’s list of “Right- “This is something that not cultures, particularly between Jews and caust and all forms of intolerance and de- eous Among the Na- only Col. Castellanos but the Muslims, based on mutual respect. humanization,” UNESCO said in a news tions.” country of El Salvador has “The genocide of the Jewish people was release. Castellanos, who died contributed to humanity,” he a unique and paradigmatic event that The Paris-based agency has strength- in 1977, served as El Sal- said. helps us to understand other historical ened its education program on Holocaust vador’s consul general in The granting of the Israeli genocides and other atrocities worldwide remembrance and human rights thanks to Geneva in the 1940s. He memorial’s highest honor for that originate in racism and hatred. If we new funds received from Israel. The pro- non-Jews to a Salvadorian cit- and a Jewish colleague, understand them, we can avert them in the gram develops school curricula and pro- El Salvador Foreign Minister izen focuses attention on ties George Mantello, often Hugo Martinez rekindles the future,” she added. vides training for teachers about the between the two small nations doled out the lifesaving eternal flame at the Hall of Re- She, too, stressed the vital need to Holocaust and human rights, with the goal on opposite sides of the globe. documents without the membrance at the Yad Vashem counter Holocaust denial. of promoting a culture of peace. In recent months a number knowledge of the Sal- Holocaust memorial. “We must always remember the millions This year, UNESCO organized two ex- of Latin American nations vadoran government. of innocent Jews and countless members of hibitions at its Paris headquarters; “The have unilaterally recognized a Palestinian other minorities who were systematically Shoah in Europe,” giving an overview of In the aftermath of World War II, in which state — a move that Israel rejects. Al- murdered at Auschwitz and the other death the Holocaust from the rise of Nazism to the Nazis and their collaborators murdered though El Salvador says it is committed to camps. We must counter anyone, any- the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war crimi- 6 million Jews, many survivors fled to Is- peace through negotiations, the Palestin- where, who seeks to deny the Holocaust or nals in 1946, and one presenting the orig- rael. Three Jews who were aided by ian Authority has said it is in discussions diminish its significance,” she told a news inal manuscript of the diary kept by Castellanos joined dozens of Salvadorans with El Salvador over possible recognition. conference in Paris ahead of the visit. “Every Sorbonne student Helen Berr from April bearing their nation’s flag for Tuesday’s Still, El Salvador is one of the only coun- day of the year, the United Nations strives to 1942 to February 1944. Helen and her ceremony in Jerusalem. tries in the world with an embassy in heed the lessons of that horror.” family were deported to Auschwitz in Yitzhak Mayer, 83, was a Jewish Jerusalem, which Israel claims as its cap- Among those in the delegation were Pres- March 1944. teenager in Hungary when he and his fam- ital but most of the international community ident Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, chair- The Auschwitz-Birkenau camp was ily were given El Salvador citizenship pa- does not recognize. man of the Organization of the Islamic added to the list of UNESCO World Her- Conference; former German Chancellor itage sites in 1979. COUNTRIES SIGN PACT TO FIGHT ANTI-SEMITISM, MACEDONIA OPENS HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL CENTER HOLOCAUST DENIAL ore than 80 countries signed an return, and we will make the world a safer memorial museum devoted to officials and diplomats from neighboring agreement to cooperate in the fight place.” AMacedonian Jews who were victims countries. M of the Holocaust during World War II against anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial. Israel was selected to lead the task opened in the capital Skopje. The Task Force for International Cooper- force for the first time in 2010. The inauguration ceremony was marked ation on Holocaust Education, Remem- The task force, established a decade by symbolic placing of three urns with brance, and Research and the Office for ago at the initiative of the Swedish gov- ashes of Macedonian Jews killed in the Democratic Institutions and Human Rights ernment, aims to promote the remem- Treblinka concentration camp in Poland, signed the agreement at Israel’s Foreign brance of the Holocaust through where 7,148 of them lost their lives after Affairs Ministry . education, research and memorial sites. being deported there in 1943. “This agreement is a step that doubles It is composed of 27 member countries, The urns were carried by Macedonian the power of 87 states’ cooperation in the mostly European. Six international organ- soldiers who marched through the center fight against the de-legitimization of Israel izations belong as observers, including of Skopje followed by several hundred and anti-Semitism towards Jews around the United Nations and the European People attend the opening ceremony of the people. the world,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Union. Holocaust Memorial Centre for Macedonian Daniel Ayalon, who signed the agreement The Office for Democratic Institutions “The lessons of the Holocaust in your Jews in Skopje. country must serve as an early warning on behalf of Israel. “There are those who and Human Rights, which has 57 mem- deny the Holocaust and are preparing for bers, deals with educational programs system to those of your neighbors, where “The only surviving member of the 81- the next Holocaust. We must remember and monitors instances of xenophobia, anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial are strong Misrahi family was my father,” Viktor the Holocaust so that the horrors will not mainly anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. resurgent,” Shimon Samuel of the Simon Misrahi, one of the rare survivors, told AFP. Wiesenthal Centre said at the ceremony. “Today, the ashes of our people were The memorial center, built in an area brought back here from Treblinka, and they ISRAELIS HONOR ABORIGINAL ACTIVIST once populated by the Jewish community, will remain here, at their home,” he added. WHO LED PROTEST AGAINST HOLOCAUST was inaugurated in the presence of Mace- Only an estimated 200 Jews live in ifteen descendants of the Aborigi- the study of resistance during the Holo- donian President George Ivanov, Israeli Macedonia today, most of them in the cap- nal activist William Cooper were in caust. Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon and ital Skopje. F Jerusalem for the announcement of a Mr Cooper’s grandson, Uncle “Boydie” UK GOVERNMENT APPOINTS FIRST-EVER ENVOY new academic chair at the Holocaust His- Turner, his great-grandson, Kevin Russell, tory Museum of Yad Vashem named in and 13 other descendants were in FOR HOLOCAUST-RELATED ISSUES honor of their forefather. Jerusalem for the event, organized through he British government has appointed membrance and research about the Less than a month after Kristallnacht, the Australian Israeli Leadership Forum. Tits first-ever envoy to deal with post- Holocaust. Burns’ appointment was ap- the night of ransacking of Jewish shops Uncle Boydie Turner, now 82, said the Holocaust issues. Foreign Secretary plauded in Israel. “We think it’s a very and homes across Nazi Germany, Mr. family had been trying to get recognition William Hague announced that Sir Andrew positive and important step ... and we Cooper led a march from his home in the for Mr. Cooper for a long time. “We’ve al- Burns, a former ambassador to Israel, wish him a lot of success in his work in Melbourne suburb of Footscray to the ways known about this story … we’ve al- would take the job. Hague said his country promoting Holocaust education and fight- German consulate to denounce the “cruel ways wanted other people to know about was committed to preserving the memory ing for the rights of the survivors,” Estee persecution of the Jewish people by the it,” he said. of the Holocaust and would support efforts Yaari, a spokeswoman for Yad Vashem, to make sure that the lessons of this period was quoted by AP as saying. “The Holo- Nazi government of Germany.” German Kristallnacht – “the night of broken in history are not forgotten. caust is an issue that is part of all of our officials in Australia refused to accept the glass” – is seen by many historians as the Burns will oversee efforts to resolve out- history.” written denunciation from Mr. Cooper start of the Holocaust, and it was widely re- standing issues and claims related to prop- Recent international efforts have fo- after the march on December 6, 1938, ported around the world. However, Mr. erty and art restitution. He will also take cused on providing restitution to aging but 72 years later his actions are being Cooper’s march is believed to be the only part in education efforts and promote re- victims of Nazi persecution. acknowledged with a professorship for private protest organized at the time. March/April 2011 - Adar/Nissan 5771 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 3

ITALY’S FIRST HOLOCAUST MUSEUM TO BE BUILT IN ROME BUTCHER OF LYON KLAUS BARBIE country’s most famous controversial SERVED AS WEST GERMAN SPY BY LISA PALMIERI-BILLIG, wartime issues. It will explore both the laus Barbie, the Nazi war criminal down in Bolivia and obtained his extradi- JERUSALEM POST positive and negative roles of the Vatican Kalso known as the “Butcher of Lyon” tion to France in 1983. He was convicted – its proverbial silence during the 1943 ayor Gianni Alemanno and the mu- for his hideous treatment of Jews in Nazi- of crimes against humanity and sentenced deportations, contrasted with the opening nicipal authorities of Rome an- occupied France, was a paid agent of the to life in prison. He died in 1991. M of its institutions to thousands of Jewish nounced the construction of a Holocaust German intelligence service BND during As local head of the Gestapo, Barbie refugees; and its helping Jews by provid- museum as a focal point in the city’s 10- the 1960s, according to news magazine personally tortured prisoners and was re- ing false documents, but also helping year “Stati Generali” plan for major projects Der Spiegel. After the war, in which he had sponsible for the deaths of up to 4,000 Nazis flee to South America after the war. in the city. served as SS officer and as the head of the people in Lyon. In April 1944, he ordered Evidence will be shown regarding trai- Italy’s first Holocaust museum, based on Nazi police Gestapo in Lyon, France’s the deportation to Auschwitz of a group of tors, as well as righteous Italians who preliminary plans drawn by architects Luca third-largest city, Barbie fled to Bo- risked their lives to save Jewish fellow cit- Zevi and Giorgio Maria Tamburini, will be livia and lived there under the izens. built in the central area of Villa Torlonia. name Klaus Altmann from 1951. The conversion and resignation of The 2,500-square-meter building – esti- He was recruited by the BND – Rome’s chief rabbi, Israel Zolli (later mated at a cost of 19 million euros, to be West Germany’s foreign intelli- known as Eugenio, Pope Pius XII’s first covered by the city – will be part of a des- gence agency – in 1965. name), at the height of Nazi persecutions ignated 4,000-sq.m. area adjacent to both A file on Barbie, whose code- will be addressed, as will the stories of former dictator Benito Mussolini’s villa and name was Eagle, says he was of many other Italian rabbis who, unlike the two millennium-old Jewish catacombs “complete German attitude” and a Zolli, stayed on to care for their commu- that will be restored and opened for visits. “committed anti-Communist.” He nities until their bitter end as martyrs. The museum’s director, Marcello Pezzetti, provided at least 35 reports and Another section will focus on the ongoing has a vast plan in mind, specifically aimed was seen as a reliable source, al- work of Patrick Desbois, a Catholic priest at increasing Italians’ awareness of their though it is not yet known what kind of in- 44 Jewish children from an orphanage at who has uncovered and dug up previously own role in the Holocaust. formation he gave the agents. Payments Izieu. Barbie was also reported to have unknown and hidden mass graves in “Italy, like Austria, was a partner of Nazi for his work were made to him via a branch worked as an officer for Bolivian intelli- northeastern Europe where Nazis mur- Germany – not a victim, as the populace of the Chartered Bank of London in San gence and helped to plan concentration dered over 1.5 million Jews in the towns generally holds. Unlike Germany, we have Francisco. A few weeks after he was re- camps and formulate torture and repres- and hamlets of Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, never even begun the process of soul- cruited, he took over the Bolivian arm of a sion techniques to fight anti-government Russia, and other countries. searching. Italians don’t feel involved – German company which operated globally, rebels while Bolivia was under a dictator- Pezzetti and Leone Paserman – presi- they do not consider themselves as having selling decommissioned weapons from the ship. dent of the Shoah Museum Foundation – collaborated,” he explained. German military. According to BND The revelations about him come only a “This museum, which will cover global plan to characterize the new museum as records, he was supposed to report when- week after the newspaper Bild cited newly Holocaust history but will have a special a place for research and work-in- ever the Bolivians were running short of released documents as showing that Ger- section on Italy, will speak directly to Italians, progress, particularly for students and weapons or ammunition. man intelligence services knew that Adolf and not just Italian Jews,” he continued. teachers. Courses will be organized, and The agency ended its work with Barbie Eichmann was hiding out in Argentina “When the Nazis, aided by Italian Fas- there will be many temporary exhibitions in the winter of 1966–67, seemingly on eight years before Israeli agents kid- cists, raided the ghetto of Rome on Octo- and events. fears that he could become a blackmail tar- napped him there in 1960. Eichmann, one ber 16, 1943, they knew very well what the The mass murder of Gypsies, the men- get of other intelligence services over the of the main executors of Adolf Hitler’s fate of all the 1,125 deported would be,” he tally and physically disabled, homosexu- murders he committed as a Nazi official. In “final solution,” was brought to Israel for asserted, adding, “We will be telling a story als, political prisoners, Catholics, the early 1970s, the French Nazi hunters trial, where he was convicted and exe- that will, unfortunately, unveil a black heart, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and others will be Beate and Serge Klarsfeld tracked Barbie cuted in 1962. but the formation of contemporary Italian part of the permanent exhibition. identity – including that of new immigrants In addition, there will be events touching ISRAEL, UNESCO TO JOINTLY PROMOTE – must incorporate this knowledge.” on the Holocaust’s relevance to more re- HOLOCAUST EDUCATION The museum will be divided into three cent history, linking it with knowledge of sections: archives, a library, and a vast other genocides and racist persecutions srael and UNESCO have signed an UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova video collection. It will cost approximately such as in North Africa under the colonial- Iagreement to promote Holocaust ed- and Nimrod Barkan, Israel’s permanent $30 million. ist powers, Armenia, Biafra, Sudan, Com- ucation and combat its denial. delegate to UNESCO, signed the agree- The section on Italy promises to draw ex- munist Russia, and China under Mao The agreement signed in Paris between ment. treme interest, with documentation on the Zedong. Israel and the United Nations Educa- B’nai B’rith International praised the tional, Scientific and Cultural Organiza- agreement reached between Israel and tion commits to the establishment of a UNESCO. NAZI HUNTERS GIVE LOW GRADES TO 13 COUNTRIES center within the organization devoted The agreement “will provide the impor- new report by a prominent Nazi- In all, nine countries received failing entirely to developing and promoting tant framework needed for UNESCO to im- Ahunting group gives more than a grades from the center and five received Holocaust education and combating its plement the teaching of Holocaust dozen countries, including Hungary, “Ds.” denial worldwide. The center will function awareness and remembrance while Ukraine, and Canada, low grades for Zuroff noted that counterintuitively, per- in accordance with resolutions adopted at strengthening the relationship between Is- bringing suspected Holocaust-era war haps, the number of new state-launched the U.N. General Assembly in New York rael and UNESCO through a cooperative criminals to justice. investigations has risen in recent years, and UNESCO, according to Israel’s For- partnership,” the organization said in a The Simon Wiesenthal Center eign Ministry. statement. “Increased attention to Holo- gave top marks to Germany – the Israel will fund part of the project “after caust education is essential to combating first time any country besides the reaching understandings with UNESCO anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiments, U.S. has been given an “A” grade regarding its treatment of political issues as well as the Holocaust denial and glorifi- for prosecuting suspected Nazi war on the agenda,” according to the Foreign cation recently experiencing an alarming criminals. Ministry. resurgence worldwide.” The report covers the period be- tween April 2009 and March 2010. JEWISH GROUPS BEGIN HUNT The director of the Weisenthal FOR UNMARKED HOLOCAUST GRAVES Center’s Israel office, Efraim Zuroff, said Hungary received a failing ewish organizations are to search In Berlin, Jewish organizations said they grade for not imprisoning Dr. San- Hungarian Sandor Kepiro is currently the SWC’s most Jfor countless unmarked graves of would try to identify graves. dor Kepiro, a Hungarian military of- wanted Nazi suspect. Holocaust victims across Eastern Eu- They said teams would be “driving up and ficer convicted in 1944 in the mass murder rope. down the back roads of small villages... even though 65 years have passed since of civilians. The groups think that more than two knocking on doors and asking the elderly to the end of World War II. recount what they saw during the war.” He called Canada’s efforts “a terrible fail- million Jews were rounded up by the Ger- A total of 456 new cases were opened Last December, researchers made a ure” for not extraditing former Nazis even man military and shot, with their bodies in the period covered by the recent re- preliminary inspection of five sites in after stripping them of citizenship. left in unmarked mass graves. Ukraine. The center gave a failing grade to port, compared with 315 the year before The shootings took place before the and only 63 in 2006–2007. Nazis organized mass killings at the gas One of them, where 5,000 Jews were Ukraine, saying it “has to the best of our shot and dumped, is now a swamp. Germany received its top mark for con- chambers of death camps. knowledge never conducted a single in- Jan Fahlbusch of the American Jewish victing, in 2009 and 2010, the first two The plan is to memorialize and protect vestigation of a local Nazi war criminal, let Committee, who is in charge of the effort Nazi war criminals since 2002. sites in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, and alone prosecuted a Holocaust perpetrator.” to memorialize the graves, said it was im- “People assume because of the age of But in a related development, Ukraine re- Poland. portant that the people who live there know the defendants that nothing will actually scinded the National Hero of Ukraine After Hitler invaded Russia, hundreds of what happened in their home villages. award given to Stepan Bandera, a nation- happen,” Zuroff said, but “passage of thousands of Jews were routinely killed by “There’s a lot of ignorance among the local alist partisan whose group briefly fought for time does not diminish the crimes of the the advancing army, even before the for- population and it is important to raise aware- the Nazis. killers.” mal industrial killing in death camps began. ness of the crimes of the past,” he said. Page 4 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE March/April 2011 - Adar/Nissan 5771 BOOKBOOK REVIEWSREVIEWS THE WARTIME DIARY OF EDMUND KESSLER The Wartime Diary of Edmund Kessler. the early days of the German occupation, ity. Yet according to Kessler, this charis- hatchets, rubber nightsticks, and knuckle- Edited by Renata Kessler. Introduction beginning on June 30, 1941, is a detached, matic religious leader’s initial response dusters,” who perpetrated much of the vi- by Antony Polonsky. Academic Studies relentless and searing account of almost was quite different. Thus he writes that dur- olence. As Kessler observes, “the sight of Press: Boston, 2010. 250pp. $30. fantastic violence. Kessler carefully recon- ing those early days, blood does not weaken the lust to kill, on structs the manner in which such violence “The Ukrainian archbishop preaches a the contrary, it stimulates it,” while “the REVIEWED BY OMER BARTOV quickly accelerated from humiliation and sermon in which, instead of calming the ex- public enjoys gaping at this spectacle, at his is a rather extraordinary little beatings to torture and murder, as the city’s cited mood and taming their barbarous in- this martyring of innocent people.” Al- Tbook, largely the product of years of gentile population discovers that there was stincts, he demagogically incites the mobs, though, according to Kessler, “rarely does research, travel, and careful stitching to- a license to kill Jews. Once and in the name of their sacred someone cast a disapproving glance at the gether of details and contributions by Re- such permission is given, religion, calling upon the pop- assassins or reacts with pity or disgust,” nata Kessler. The heart of this volume is one discovered that “the in- ulation to retaliate against the there are nevertheless “instances of indi- the wartime diary of her father, and a set difference of man to man is Jews for their supposed bes- viduals who actively defend a publicly of his poems (as well as one possibly by beyond belief.” tial murder of political prison- beaten and humiliated woman or warn a his wife Fryderyka), both written in Ger- hese mechanisms of ers, even though these Jewish passerby against the death waiting man-occupied Lwów (Lemberg, Lvov) in Thuman behavior were prisoners included some Jews for him at the next step.” When “someone 1942–1944, when almost the entire Jewish triggered by the overwhelm- too” (p. 34). loudly protests in defense of the bestially population of the city was murdered by the ing presence of the German Given this additional spiri- beaten Jews or even puts up an active re- Nazis and their local collaborators. The occupation and the growing tual and moral support, all hell sistance to his assailants… he is quickly diary takes up a mere 32 pages, and the realization that the new rulers broke loose in the city. “A fa- silenced and called a stooge for the Jews.” poems another 33. The rest of the text in- were determined to use, natic mob orgy of bloodshed But such courageous expressions of em- cludes of several introductions, and a re- abuse, and ultimately murder and pillage began.” And yet, pathy and humanity were, notes Kessler, markable account by Kazimierz Kalwinski, the Jews. But the specifics of as Kessler insightfully re- “isolated instances” (p. 35). the last surviving son of Katarzyna and how, and how quickly, this marks, “it took place accord- he account of this early pogrom, in Wojciech Kalwinski, who sheltered 24 awareness translated in mob ing to a certain system,” Twhich Jewish citizens of Lwów were Jews in a bunker under their pig shed in the violence are described succinctly and in- whereby “the orchestrators… were the forced to exhume and wash the bodies of last two years of the German occupation, sightfully in Kessler’s terrifying text. As Germans. It was they who decided when murdered political prisoners, and were among whom were Edmund and Fryderyka, Kessler notes, “the Ukrainian mob, encour- to begin the pogrom, when to stop it, and then beaten to death or shot in large num- as well as Leon Wells. The volume ends aged by the behavior of the Germans, is how long to torture the victims.” Indeed, bers, is as harrowing as it is detailed. De- with several reflections, of which the most further prodded by rumors spread about the Germans “act capriciously toward their spite its relentless horror, it should be read important is Renata Kessler’s account of her the bestial tortures Jews supposedly in- Ukrainian subordinates, even beating them by anyone who wishes to understand how search for her parents’ fate and, as she sees flicted on arrested political prisoners” (p. when they are slow or overzealous in car- the Holocaust unfolded in these regions of it, also for her own identity. 34). Yet another element allowed the vio- rying out orders. They thus emphasize that Eastern Europe. Kessler also makes a What makes this book so remarkable is lence to spiral out of control. The Metropol- they are the masters while the native strong point about Jewish responses to precisely its eclectic nature and the contra- itan of the Greek Catholic Church in Lwów, Ukrainians and Poles exist merely to carry this violence, noting, “the Jews generally dictions between the various perspectives, Andrey Sheptyskyi (Andrzej Szeptycki), out their commands” (pp. 34–5). Neverthe- behave passively… with a dumb resigna- recollections, and interpretations of the na- subsequently became known for his res- less, it was Ukrainian militiamen, “abun- tion.” They “seek no explanation” for the vi- ture of the event. Edmund Kessler’s own cue of Jews and condemnation of Nazi dantly equipped with torture instruments – olence, for “they know it is sufficient that diary, the majority of which is devoted to genocidal policies and Ukrainian complic- iron-shod clubs, sticks, shovels, hammers, (Continued on page 15)

LEGACY OF LIFE: MEMORIES AFTER MY DEATH Memories after my death. grandma Hermina and ten other relatives A MEMOIR OF THE HOLOCAUST By Yair Lapid. Keter-Books:Jerusalem. lost in Auschwitz. Legacy of Life: A Memoir of the Holocaust. born in 1925, a year older than Sachs. 2010. 414 pp. In Hebrew. Tomi’s first embedded brush with war’s By Israel Joe Sachs. MavenMark Books, Then, too, there was the wider family of car- horror was at age nine on April 5, 1941, the REVIEWED BY RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN LLC: Milwaukee, 2010. 259 pp. $16.95. ing uncles, aunts, cousins, and even many day of the Hungarian invasion of Yu- friends that gave warmth and security re- uthor Yair Lapid, well-known Israeli REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN goslavia. While his resourceful mom, gardless of local anti-Semitic acts. A journalist and media personality, has Katalina, who later protected both of them Each and every story of Holocaust sur- But then, in 1939, after the family had honored his legendary late father Yosef in the Budapest Ghetto, was visiting family vival chronicles a miracle. For Hitler, Ger- moved to an area just outside Sosnowiec, (Tomi) Lapid (1931–2008) in Budapest, he and father Bella many’s industry of death had everything the war came and with it the brutal and in a most creative and re- escaped to Belgrade, experienc- diligently and devilishly worked out. In sustained Nazi persecution of the Jews. vealing way, in this ing that night a German air raid. sum, German pünktlichkeit (accuracy) was Sachs’s family, like all Jewish families, tried posthumous “autobiogra- They were lucky to make it out determinedly harnessed to its best to stay alive and to- phy” that allows us a rivet- of a burning house, dodging see to the systematic ghet- gether. In the end, however, our ing entry into the falling debris. Eventually, follow- toization, organized con- author was taken away by the fascinating life of a Holo- ing Bella’s loss of his lawyer’s li- centration, and final Hitlerites, shoved into a packed caust survivor who rose to cense, the family moved to cold-blooded extermina- railroad car, and left alone. He become one of Israel’s Budapest. tion of the Jews. Put sim- never saw his parents again. most colorful and leading Tomi credits Raoul Wallen- ply, no Jew was to escape By accident, he did see his politicians. berg, the Swedish diplomat and Nazism’s tentacles. brother again . . . under the sad- Tomi Lapid, founder of heroic Righteous Gentile, with On second thought, dest of circumstances . . . the now defunct Shinuy saving his mother and other though, Israel Joe Sachs’s At this point Sachs’s tale Party, served as Justice young women who were on a autobiographical Legacy of turns to the years he endured Minister and Deputy death march. Adolph Eichmann, Life: A Memoir of the Holo- backbreaking labor in Nazi Prime Minister under the German officer responsible caust chronicles more than slave labor camps. We read of Prime Minister Arik Sharon, and in July for the deportation of Hungarian Jews so a miracle. For, while this the intense and relentless cold 2006 was appointed Yad Vashem’s chair- late in the war and whose signature on reviewer has critiqued and hunger he suffered. We man by his friend Prime Minister Ehud March 19, 1944, sent Dr. Bella to other such volumes, none read of his fear of punishment Olmert. Born as Tomislav Lampel to a well Auschwitz, faced an eight-month trial in of them has been about someone who sur- for just about anything. We read of his fear -off Jewish familyin Novi Sad, Yugoslavia, Jerusalem which ended on December 13, vived almost six years under the Nazi boot. of reporting to “sickbay” — often the first in 1931, Tomi survived the destruction of 1961, with a death sentence. Tomi, who Moreover, none of them has been about step to deportation, Auschwitz, and exter- both the Yugoslav and Hungarian Jewries. covered this historic trial for the daily someone who basically did much of this mination. And then there was his overrid- Of the eighty thousand Yugoslav Jews less Maariv, regards it as “the end of the silence surviving all alone . . . sans brother, ing loneliness. than ten thousand remained, whereas five- era” (p. 156), as his friend, prosecutor Dr. mother, or father. Still, in the midst of all this, there were hundred ninety thousand of Hungary’s Gidon Hausner, also a former Yad Vashem And yet, Sachs surely drew this emotional moments of kindness. Fellow Jewish eight hundred twenty-five thousand per- chariman, pointed a blaming finger at the strength of his from his loving family. There slave laborers helped as best they could ished. man in the glass box, in a moment that fi- was his father, a master tailor in Przyrow, when Sachs took ill. A good turn the au- His father, lawyer and journalist Dr. Bella nally made Tomi a true Israeli. Poland. There was his mother, an accom- thor did for another was remembered with Lampel, was taken to Auschwitz and mur- The survivors were enabled to begin plished seamstress. There was his brother, (Continued on page 13) dered in Mauthausen with paternal (Continued on page 12) March/April 2011 - Adar/Nissan 5771 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 5 HOLOCAUST: THREE MIRACLE BABIES “We were on the train for about 20 days,” best incubator. My mother just held me all “It was so similar, I could not believe it BY HELEN BURCHELL, BBC said Anka. the time.” when he told me,” said Mark. “There was no food, no water, no hy- He quickly got in touch and the three hree babies born just days before HANA’S STORY giene. We were like sardines – and dirty – Holocaust babies met for the first time at the liberation of a Nazi concentration T because it was a coal wagon.” any years later, Eva would discover the Mauthausen memorial in 2010. camp have been reunited at a Holocaust It was only when the train eventually that she was not the only baby born Memorial Day event in Cambridge. M HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL stopped that Anka realized where she and at Mauthausen camp in April 1945. Eva Clarke believed she was the only the other prisoners were being taken. Like Anka, Hana Berger Moran’s mother n 27 January 2010 Eva, Hana, and baby born at Mauthausen camp, until In- “We knew about Mauthausen. So many had stayed alive by disguising her growing OMark told their remarkable stories at ternet searches revealed that two others people were taken hostage and they never belly. a Holocaust Memorial Day event at Cam- were alive and well in America. came back,” she said. “She was a spitfire, and so adamant to bridge’s Guildhall. Eva’s mother Anka was Mark Olsky, Hana Berger Moran, and “When I saw the sign at the station, my bring this child to life,” said Hana, who now in the audience. Eva were born within days of each other. birth pains started, but we had to get off the lives in California. “Having been brought up as an only child “I always grew up thinking that I was a train.” “She managed to conceal her preg- I am so delighted, because I call these miracle baby, and now there are three of people my brother and sister,” Hana said. She recalled the kindness of a local nancy. Her rags were big and she told me us,” said Eva. “We feel such a sense of togetherness. farmer, who was helping to transport the she always wore a big black coat.” KZ Mauthausen-Gusen in Austria was Like a family. prisoners to the camp. Hana was born as her mother was being one of the largest labor camp complexes “I must have looked like something he transported from Freiberg sub-camp. in German-controlled Europe. had never seen,” said Anka, who de- “The other women prisoners at Freiberg scribed herself as “a scarcely-living, had sewn two items for me from their pregnant skeleton with a shaved head.” rags,” Hana said. “But he took pity on me and gave me “One was a little shirt and another was a a glass of milk. little hat. The clothes bore the crest of the “And I must tell you now that never in Freiberg camp and are now in the Wash- my life do I touch milk, but this glass of ington Holocaust Museum.” milk was like an elixir. Eva only found out about Hana in 2009, “It was marvelous. I think at the time when she read her story in a newsletter that may have saved my life. published by the Veterans’ Association of “That glass of milk brought my hu- the American 11th Armored Division – the KZ Mauthausen-Gusen was liberated days after manity back,” she said. unit that liberated Mauthausen. the babies’ births. Eva was born in the farmer’s cart, Within 24 hours the pair were sharing weighing just 3 pounds and surrounded their stories by email, and began making “I am amazed that we survived and I con- Anka Bergman, Eva Clarke, Mark Olsky, and Hana by “women with typhoid fever and cov- plans to travel together to a Mauthausen tinue to live my life as best as I can, and to Berger Moran. ered with lice.” memorial service to be held in spring 2010. fill those shoes that are so empty. Every Anka remembered that her baby daugh- day is a promise.” In April 1945, three heavily pregnant MARK’S STORY ter was completely still and did not make a Mark agreed: “Even though it goes back women were among those being trans- sound. aving spent years trying to find out 65 years, it feels like I’ve found a whole ferred by train from Freiberg and When the cart reached the first aid sta- more about other survivors from new family,” he said. Auschwitz to the camp. H tion at Mauthausen, a doctor, who was Mauthausen, Mark Olsky eventually gave However, the fact that the three of them Each had been careful to disguise her also a prisoner, cut the umbilical cord and up. and their mothers had survived was tinged pregnancy for as long as possible. smacked her, and only then did Eva begin “I knew the information was out there, with sadness, he said. There was only one outcome for prison- to cry. but this was before the Internet was in- “I’m hesitant to say I feel good about the ers unable to work, and very few babies vented and it was very difficult.” fact that we survived, because it just hap- born in camps lived more than a few days. “My baby was wrapped in newspaper be- cause there was nothing else there,” said Originally from Poland, Mark’s mother pens to have been less bad for us. “Our mothers were all very strong “There are so many more who didn’t women, and we are very grateful for that,” Anka. was being transported on the same train “I was given a bunk for myself, which from Freiberg to Mauthausen when Mark make it. So many who were unlucky and said Eva Clarke, now aged 65. for no good reason were killed in the war.” was a miracle as all the rest slept anyhow. was born. She lives in Cambridge with her 94-year- Both Hana and Mark have now returned “And I had my baby in my arms in the “My mother actually went into labor right old mother, Anka, and has spent years to the United States, but the three will con- paper, and I was the happiest person in all in the middle of one of those coal cars,” he working with schoolchildren to educate tinue to talk, to email, and to share their the world.” them about the Holocaust. said. stories so that future generations never for- Eva tells her mother’s story regularly, “The train was stopped at the time, in the EVA’S STORY get about the Holocaust. and maintains that it was only because of middle of Czechoslovakia, and some of the “I think it’s very important to remember va’s father, architect Bernd Nathan, Anka’s strength – and the fact that the locals brought the prisoners some food.” all those thousands and thousands of peo- Ewas shot in Auschwitz, and his wife, camp was liberated by the American army Years later, Mark’s own son decided to ple who died, who were killed,” said Eva. 27-year-old Anka, spent eight months in days later – that she survived. take up the search for more information “And especially all those thousands who the same camp before being transferred “A baby that small would be straight in an about his family history. have never had one single person remem- by train to Mauthausen. incubator these days,” she said. Again, he came across the miraculous ber them because all of their families, and By this time, she was just days away “There were no incubators. I was stories of Eva and Hana on the army vet- their communities, were destroyed. from giving birth. wrapped in paper, but perhaps I had the erans’ website. “It’s my duty to tell that story.” RESTORING POLAND’S JEWISH PAST The Polish representa- stage of the unique col- to pave a road from the city to the airport. BY NOAH KLIEGER, YNETNEWS.COM tives later told their Israeli laboration in the Polish After the war, the Communist regime pro- counterparts that the war- city of Radom. A monu- hibited citizens from holding on to items of ixty-five years after Jewish cemeteries den of a prison in Lublin ment built by the Polish historical value, thus preventing the Polish were demolished by the Nazis, they S had initiated the renovation prisoners using old Jew- tombstone maker from selling his treasure. are now being restored and renovated by of a local Jewish cemetery ish tombstones was un- The tombstones were discovered only the unlikeliest of volunteers - Polish inmates. and that dozens of prison- veiled. decades later when Haim Kintzler, chair- Hundreds of prisoners from some 50 Pol- ers volunteered to take part An interesting story lies man of the Radom Jews association, vis- ish jails have been spending the last few in the effort. The Israelis behind these tombstones. ited his hometown and learned of the months renovating and performing restora- were also told that the plan During the German occu- cemetery’s sad fate. When he discovered tion work on Jewish cemeteries as part of a had been coordinated with pation, a Polish tomb- the hidden tombstones, he recruited the special and unprecedented collaboration Poland’s chief rabbi and the stone maker decided to help of the mayor of Radom and together between Israel’s Prison Service and the Pol- Director of Poland’s Foun- move 70 gravestones they convinced the tombstone maker’s ish prison service. More prisons are sched- dation for the Preservation from the local Jewish sons to return them to the municipality, uled to join the project in the future. of Jewish Heritage, Monika cemetery to a warehouse which promised to feature them in a spe- It should be noted that the prisoners par- Krawczyk. near his house. Choosing cial new museum. ticipating in the project have volunteered to The Israeli Prison Service the most extravagant It took Kintzler 13 years to realize his do so after learning of its significance from officers immediately saw headstones, he planned plan and showcase the tombstones. While Jewish cemetery in Warsaw. their wardens. the project’s huge potential on selling them when the the municipality could not afford to keep its The project was first conceived in 2005 and shortly thereafter made the offer to time came. In doing so, he in fact saved promise, a solution was found with the help when Israeli and Polish prison service rep- their Polish counterparts to turn the initia- them. of the organizers of the Polish cemeteries resentatives met during an international tive into a national project. The Germans used the thousands of renovation project. It was decided that a conference and decided to cooperate in Last November a special ceremony was tombstones that remained in the cemetery monument featuring the tombstones would various fields. held marking the completion of the first to build a runway for their fighter jets and be set up to mark the special project. Page 6 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE March/April 2011 - Adar/Nissan 5771 SURVIVORS’SURVIVORS’ CORNERCORNER

HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR BELIEVES IN FATE “When you get an opportunity, you take With time on his hands, the young man Filled with ambition, Manski plunged into it,” Manski recalled of his New Year’s Eve often roamed the city. What stood out was his new life, taking classes to improve his BY SEANA K. MAGEE , KYODO NEWS escape into neighboring Lithuania in 1939. that every time he turned around “there English, working part-time, and then grad- olocaust survivor Samuil Manski be- Because of work with the Soviet military, were people behind you, showing the way uating from college. Hlieves strongly in fate, having been he knew when to cross the border. Fearing to go.” n 1946, he married Estelle, started a in the right place at the right time after flee- he could be shot for desertion, he got a Ifamily and was well on the road to be- ing Europe with a visa granted by a Japan- doctor’s note after feigning illness by coming a successful hosiery salesman. ese diplomat before ending up in Boston. smoking and standing near a fireplace. As life moved on and his three sons grew “How can you not believe in fate?” asked Manski, his cousin, and another girl up, he appreciated how the visa had Manski, 90, during a recent interview. “I slipped into Lithuania but were caught and brought him a new life. Yet he did not think don’t fight fate.” held until bribes won their freedom. about Sugihara, whom he had never met He vividly recalls what happened almost Once safely in the Lithuanian town of in person, until a Boston Globe reporter in- 70 years ago and hopes the world will not Ejszyski with relatives, they secured fake terviewed him by phone in the early 1990s. forget what he endured. papers to remain there. As the year wore “So all of a sudden a bell starts ringing in 1 For almost 1 ⁄2 years he journeyed away on the Soviets swallowed up the country. my head,” the former salesman said, from his native Poland, living in Lithuania, So when rumors circulated that a Japan- adding that the idea to build Sugihara a traversing the Soviet Union, entering ese diplomat was handing out transit visas memorial at Temple Emeth near Boston Japan and winding up in Massachusetts, to travel through Japan to Curaçao, an is- “began to cook.” living with his father. land in the south Caribbean Sea, his Finally, after he collected enough money, A lifesaving piece of paper issued by Chi- mother jumped at the chance. the memorial was unveiled April 30, 2000. une Sugihara, at the time Japan’s deputy On August 9, 1940, Manski received his Sugihara’s image is etched on black consul general in Lithuania, is what gave visa. His oldest son, Chuck, now proudly marble with a passage from Samuel 17:10 him that chance. displays the passport and the handwritten describing him in English, Hebrew and visa at his Chicago home. Japanese as a “valiant man whose heart Manski, his mother, brother, and sister “To this day, I am not certain why the is like that of a lion.” and three relatives were among upward of Japanese took the trouble to issue visas to On top of tirelessly working with Israeli 6,000 Jews granted visas by the diplomat, us Jewish refugees,” the elder Manski and Japanese diplomats to keep the story reportedly in defiance of Tokyo’s orders. wrote. “Whatever the reason, again God alive, Manski has spent time in local “At that time he (Sugihara) had to be in was with us.” schools as well, often working with other that particular place and I had to be in that With their visas, the family set off for younger temple members. particular place at the same time and the Japan in January the following year but Despite an unbridled enthusiasm, his de- conditions were ripe for something like had to leave their 82-year-old grandmother Holocaust survivor Samuil Manski holds a cer- clining health has prevented him from this,” Manski said. “To me it matters that I behind. tificate of the Japanese government’s gratitude making more appearances. There are ten- am here. . . . It is a part of fate.” In the dead of winter they boarded the for years of spreading the story of Chiune Sug- tative plans, however, to link him with col- ihara, a wartime Japanese diplomat in Lithua- The Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact Trans-Siberian Railway to begin the lege students via webcasts. nia who granted lifesaving visas to Jews. meant his eastern hometown of Lida fell lengthy ride to Vladivostok, where they For his hard work Manski was awarded under Soviet control. took a “cattle boat” for western Japan. He also remembered periodic rumors a certificate of appreciation last July by “The fact that Lida was occupied by the On the second day of the “rough” cross- sparking fears the Nazis would convince Japan’s consul general in Boston. Russians rather than by the Germans ing, they landed in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefec- their Japanese allies to send them back to “Mr. Manski takes it as his role to relay saved my life,” he wrote in With God’s ture, on February 24. “My first impression Europe. the Sugihara story to the next generation,” Help, a book he penned at the urging of his was of a fairyland, with small houses, flow- On April 30, their documents were finally said Masaru Tsuji, former Boston consul family and which was published in 1990. ers, clean streets and very polite people,” approved. general who is now in Japan. The Polish native never saw a Nazi, but he wrote after setting foot in Japan. Happily, the family boarded the Heian As a lightning rod for preserving the past, they later killed his grandmother, grandfa- They then headed for Kobe to secure Maru, landing in Seattle on May 18. Shortly Manski also seems determined to rightly ther and other relatives after he fled. visas for the United States. afterward they headed for Boston. honor individuals such as Sugihara. LAST TWO SURVIVORS OF TREBLINKA DEVOTE LAST YEARS TO MEMORY OF VICTIMS the “Final Solution,” the Nazi plot to rid Eu- Only a select few — mostly young, wire fence and catapulted over. He kept rope of Jews. strong men like Willenberg and Taigman, running, ignoring dead friends in his path. BY ARON HELLER, AP Along with the lesser known Belzec and who were both 20 at the time — were He said his blue eyes and “non-Jewish” hey are believed to be the last two Sobibor camps, it was designed with the spared an immediate trip to the gas cham- look allowed him to survive in the country- Tsurvivors of the most chillingly effi- bers and assigned side before arriving in Warsaw and joining cient killing machine of the Nazi Holocaust: to maintenance the Polish underground. the Treblinka extermination camp in occu- work instead. Later in life, he took to sculpturing to de- pied Poland. On Aug. 2, 1943, a scribe his experiences. His bronze statues Samuel Willenberg and Kalman Taig- group of Jews stole reflect what he saw — Jews standing on a some weapons, set train platform, a father removing his son’s man, 87-year-old Israelis, are devoting fire to the camp and shoes before entering the gas chambers, their final years to trying to preserve the headed to the a young girl having her head shaved, pris- memory of the 875,000 people systemati- woods. Hundreds oners removing bodies. cally murdered in a one-year killing spree fled, but most were live two lives, one is here and now at the height of World War II. Almost all of shot and killed by and the other is what happened them were Jews. “I Nazi troops in the there,” Willenberg said in an interview at Only 67 people are known to have sur- surrounding mine his Tel Aviv apartment. “It never leaves me. vived the camp, fleeing in a brazen revolt fields or captured by It stays in my head. It goes with me al- shortly before Treblinka was destroyed. Polish villagers who ways.” Following the recent death of a prominent returned them to His two sisters were murdered there. He chronicler, Israel’s national Holocaust me- Treblinka. described his survival as “chance, sheer morial says the two Israeli men are now The survivors be- chance,” choking back tears. “It wasn’t be- the final living link to one of the most noto- came the only cause of God. He wasn’t there. He was on rious death camps in human history. Samuel Willenberg and Kalman Taigman. source of knowledge vacation.” “The world cannot forget Treblinka,” said sole intention of exterminating Jews, and about Treblinka, because the Nazis all but In all, the Nazis and their collaborators Willenberg. “Soon there will be no one left Treblinka was by far the deadliest. Victims, destroyed it in a frantic bid to cover their killed about 6 million Jews during the Holo- to tell,” added Taigman. transported there in cattle cars, were tracks. caust. The death toll at Treblinka was sec- Treblinka holds a notorious place in his- gassed to death almost immediately upon Willenberg said he was shot in the leg as ond only to Auschwitz — a prison camp tory as perhaps the most vivid example of arrival. he climbed over bodies piled at the barbed (Continued on page 14) March/April 2011 - Adar/Nissan 5771 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 7 AUSCHWITZ SHIFTS FROM MEMORIALIZING TO TEACHING display will start with an explanatory sec- people faced at Auschwitz,” he explained. narrow barracks onto fleets of buses to BY MICHAEL KIMMELMAN, tion on how the camp worked, as a Ger- “Our role is to show the human acts and Auschwitz II, or Birkenau, the vast extermi- THE NEW YORK TIMES man Nazi bureaucratic institution, a topic decisions that took place in extreme situa- nation camp the Nazis built a few miles tions here — the diversity of thinking and away — has strained an antique exhibition or nearly 60 years, Auschwitz has now largely absent from the present exhi- reasoning behind those decisions and their conceived when not many people came. told its own story, shaped in the af- bition, which was devised by survivors dur- F consequences. So, we may pose the Today, travel agencies in Krakow hawk day- termath of the Second World War. It now ing the 1950s. question, should a mother give a child to long tours combining Auschwitz with the pic- unfolds, unadorned and mostly unex- Back then they wished to erase the the grandmother and go plained, in displays of hair, shoes and memory of their tormentors, as the Nazis to selection alone, or take other remains of the dead. Past the notori- had tried to erase them, so they said as lit- the child with her? This ous, mocking gateway, into the brick ranks tle as possible in their exhibition about the was a real choice, without of the former barracks of the Polish army Germans who had conceived and run the a good solution, but at camp that the Nazis seized and converted camp. They focused on mass victimhood Auschwitz you had to into prisons and death chambers, visitors but didn’t highlight individual stories or tes- make the choice.” bear witness via this exhibition. timonials of the sort that have become commonplace at memo- A barrack once used for rial museums as devices sterilization experiments, to translate incomprehen- one of the few left nearly sible numbers of dead undisturbed since the war, into real people, giving may be reopened, and a visitors personal stories new visitor center, replac- and characters they can ing the cramped one in relate to. Those piles, in- use today, constructed to cluding prostheses and handle crowds. There will Exhibitions of shoes, suitcases and other items taken from those mur- suitcases, also stressed be few bells and whistles, dered at Auschwitz illustrate the scale of the killing. the sheer scale of killing Mr. Cywinski insisted, few if any videos or turesque Wieliczka salt mine, with its rock at a time when the world touch-screens in the main galleries, which salt chapel, sculptures and chandeliers. still didn’t comprehend, would be impractical for masses of people. “We must take into consideration that and much of it refused to Nothing must overshadow the evidence of more and more people just drop by,” Mr. Efforts are under way to update the exhibitions at Auschwitz. admit to, what really hap- the site itself, he stressed. Zajac said. “We may not endorse this Above, Piotr Cywinski, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau pened here. “The more we use special effects,” he tourism, but we don’t charge admission. State Museum. As Marek Zajac, a 31- said, “the more we draw attention away This is a cemetery. You don’t charge ad- year-old Polish magazine editor who from the authenticity of this place, which is mission to a cemetery.” Now those in charge of passing along serves as secretary for the International unlike any other.” The gradual passing of survivors has the legacy of this camp insist that Auschwitz Council, pointed out: “People All or nearly all visitors will be shep- also meant that Auschwitz faces a histori- Auschwitz needs an update. Its story who visited after the war already knew herded by guides to field questions and cal turning point. needs to be retold, in a different way for a what war was, firsthand. They had lived keep crowds moving. “Teenagers now have grandparents born different age. through it. So the story of a single death hat changes to Auschwitz must en- after the war,” Mr. Cywinski noted. “This is Partly the change has to do with the sim- did not necessarily move them, because tail first of all calculating how to a very big deal. Your grandparents are ple passage of time, refurbishing an aging T they had seen so much death, in their fam- move increasingly large masses of people your era but your great-grandparents are display. Partly it’s about the pressures of ilies and in the streets, whereas the scale more efficiently, effectively and swiftly history. tourism, and partly about the changing of of death at Auschwitz was shocking.” through the site is an uncomfortable turn “The exhibition at Auschwitz no longer generations. What is the most visited site The new exhibition would go on to de- of history lost on no one here. An explo- fulfills its role, as it used to,” he continued. and the biggest cemetery in Poland for scribe the process of extermination, lead- sion of mass tourism, dark tourism and “More or less eight to 10 million people go Jews and non-Jews alike, needs to explain ing visitors step by step through what education programs in Europe and else- to such exhibitions around the world today, itself better, officials here contend. victims experienced, and end with a sec- where that send students abroad, has they cry, they ask why people didn’t react A proposed new exhibition at the tion on camp life, meaning the “daily dehu- tripled the number of visitors to Auschwitz more at the time, why there were so few Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum here, manization and attempts to keep one’s over the last decade. Some 450,000 peo- righteous, then they go home, see geno- occupying some of the same barracks or humanity,” said Piotr Cywinski, the bearish, ple visited Auschwitz in 2000. Last year, cide on television and don’t move a finger. blocks, will retain the piled hair and other red-bearded 39-year-old Polish director of that number was 1.38 million. They don’t ask why they are not righteous remains, which by now have become the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. The increase — most obvious during themselves. icons, as inextricable from Auschwitz as “If we succeed we will show for the first warm months in the long, crawling lines and “To me the whole educational system re- the crematoria and railway tracks. But the time the whole array of human choices that oceans of visitors pouring into and out of the (Continued on page 15) BULGARIAN ATROCITIES DURING WWII garia officially annexed the occupied territo- centives, including houses and land con- these plans, leaving the population to en- BY MARCIA IKONOMOPOULOS ries, which had long been a target of Bulgar- fiscated from the natives. dure those conditions for another three ian irredentism, on 14 May 1941. In this situation, a revolt broke out on 28 years. In May 1943 deportation of Jews from he Bulgarians were forever singing Throughout the Bulgarian zone, Bulgar- their praises and distorting history by September 1941. It started from the city of the Bulgarian occupation zone began as T ian policy was that of extermination or ex- stating that they “saved their Jews.” In Drama and quickly spread throughout well. In the same year the Bulgarian army pulsion, aiming to forcibly Bulgarize as 2008 the President of Bulgaria apologized Macedonia. In Drama, Doxato, Choristi, and expanded its zone of control into Central in Israel and acknowledged their complicity many Greeks as possible and expel or kill many other towns and villages, clashes Macedonia under German supervision, al- in the murder of 11,000 (actual figure was the rest. broke out with the occupying forces. On 29 though this area was not formally annexed 13,000). The JCC in Manhattan was to A massive campaign was launched right September, Bulgarian troops moved into nor administered by Bulgaria. show the film “The Optimists” (about the from the start, which saw all Greek officials Drama and the other rebellious cities to sup- As a footnote, over 98% of the Jews of “Righteous” Bulgarians) but canceled the (mayors, judges, lawyers, and gendarmes) press the uprising. They seized all men be- the Bulgarian Zone of Occupation in showing after protests from Greek Jews deported. The Bulgarians closed the Greek tween 18 and 45, and executed over three Greece (or, as the Bulgarians liked to call that the panel discussion did not include schools and expelled the teachers, replaced thousand people in Drama alone. An esti- it, “New Bulgaria”) died in Treblinka, sent someone to present the other side of the Greek clergymen with priests from Bulgaria, mated 15,000 Greeks were killed by the Bul- there through the complicity of the Bulgar- story...a victory for justice. and sharply repressed the use of the Greek garian occupational army during the next ians. The only ones who survived were a In light of the fact that Greece is suing language: the names of towns and places few weeks, and in the countryside entire vil- handful who had survived slave labor in Germany for reparations due to the mas- were changed to the forms traditional in Bul- lages were machine-gunned and looted. Bulgaria (most of the men taken by the sacre of Greek Christians, I am going to garian, and even gravestones bearing he massacres precipitated a mass ex- Bulgarians from “New Bulgaria” to “Old propose that they do the same against the Greek inscriptions were defaced. Todus of Greeks from the Bulgarian Bulgaria” to work as slave laborers were Bulgarians. Below are some excerpts (and Large numbers of Greeks were expelled into the German occupation zone. Bulgarian thrown on the passing trains that held their history) demonstrating the brutality of the and others were deprived of the right to reprisals continued after the September re- relatives on their way to Treblinka, (accom- Bulgarians in the Bulgarian Zone of Occu- work by a license system that banned the volt, adding to the torrent of refugees. Vil- panied by the laughter of the “righteous” practice of a trade or profession without pation in Greece. lages were destroyed for sheltering Bulgarians) and some who had fled permission. Forced labor was introduced, The Bulgarian Army entered Greece on 20 “partisans” who were in fact only the sur- the Bulgarian Zone of Occupation to the and the authorities confiscated the Greek April 1941 at the heels of the Wehrmacht vivors of villages previously destroyed. The German Zone because the Bulgarian oc- business property and gave it to Bulgarian and eventually occupied the whole of north- terror and famine became so severe that the cupiers were harsher than their German colonists. By late 1941, more than 100,000 eastern Greece east of the Strymon River Athens government considered plans for counterparts. (eastern Macedonia and western Thrace), Greeks had been expelled from the Bul- evacuating the entire population to German- except for the Evros prefecture, at the bor- garian occupation zone. Bulgarian occupied Greece. The widespread winter Marcia Ikonomopoulos is Museum Direc- der with Turkey, which was occupied by the colonists were encouraged to settle in famine of 1941, which killed hundreds of tor of Kehila Kedosha Janina and President Germans. Unlike Germany and Italy, Bul- Macedonia by government credits and in- thousands in the occupied country, canceled of the Association of Friends of Greek Jewry. Page 8 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE March/April 2011 - Adar/Nissan 5771 YADYAD VASHEM:VASHEM: IT’SIT’S II YOUNG LEADERSHIP ASSOCIATES OF THE AMERICAN

ver 700 people attended the American Society for Yad Vashem Young Lead OPavilion in New York City. This year’s Gala honored Miri Ben-Ari with The American Society for Yad Vashe on behalf of Holocaust remembrance. The event showcases the work of the Young this event benefits education programs sponsored by this group. Ms. Ben-Ari is the CEO and co-founder of Gedenk (“Remember”), a non-profit people. Ms. Ben-Ari is a Grammy Award–Winning violinist, originally from Israel, w with jazz, R & B and hip-hop. She has been recognized as a musical pioneer. The Young Leadership Associates, a group of dedicated leaders and highly mo Vashem’s efforts to remember the Holocaust and commemorate its victims and s Yad Vashem through educational programs, social events, and activities. We would like to thank this year’s Gala Co-Chairs, Abbi & Jeremy Halpern, Jeff Wi Committee and the Event Committee, for their hard work and dedication in helping The American Society for Yad Vashem would like to thank Michael Zeiger of Admi Adir Gallery, Astor & Black, Bradford Portraits, Debbie & Michael Doppelt Jewelers zie-Childs, Nanette Lapore, Parker Fashion, the Pines family, Pioneers for a Cure, Galvanic Spa, Supersol, Thompson LES Hotel, Diane von Furstenberg Studio, Vict erous donations to our auction, which helped to make this year’s Gala such a suc Caroline Massel, Chairperson, American Society for Yad Vashem Young Leadership Associates; Miri Ben-Ari, recipient of the Young Leadership Associates Remembrance Award; Jeremy Halpern, Chairperson, American Society for Yad Vashem Young Leadership Associates.

Danielle hoffer; Ben Hoffer, Member of the Event Steering Committee; and Aaron and Jen Hoffer.

Rebecca Hanus, Event Chair Emeritus; and Jaci Paradis, Co-Chair, 2011 American Society for Yad Vashem Young Leadership Associates Gala.

Miri Ben-Ari, recipient of the Young Leadership Associates Remembrance Award, views the Tolkatchev Exhibit on display at the 2011 Young Leadership Associates Gala.

Emily Kaufman, Hannah Jacobson, and Ariel Zborowski. March/April 2011 - Adar/Nissan 5771 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 9 INN OUROUR HANDSHANDS NOWNOW N SOCIETY FOR YAD VASHEM ANNUAL WINTER GALA dership Associates’ Annual Gala on Thursday, March 24, 2011 at the Metropolitan em Young Leadership Associates Remembrance Award in recognition of her work g Leadership Associates of the American Society for Yad Vashem. Proceeds from

organization dedicated to promoting awareness of the Holocaust among young who has created her own unique sound by a revolutionary fusion of classical style tivated young professionals, are an integral part of the American Society for Yad urvivors. They ensure the continuity of this mission at the American Society for

lf, Jaci Paradis, Barry Levine, and Laurie Kolin, along with members of the Steering g make this event a success. iral Imports for his generous donation of Tishbi Wines. We would also like to thank , Lawrence Elbaum, the Halpern family, Rita Hazan, Hotel Roger Williams, MacKen- Renaissance Hotels, Ari Schottenstein, Debbie & Steven Siegler, Shalom Bombay, torian Seasons, Wolf & Lamb, and www.theMATCHBOOKonline.com for their gen- ccess.

Jeremy Halpern, Young Leadership Associates Chairperson and Event Chair; Abbi Halpern, 2011 Young Leadership Associates Gala Event Chair; Miri Ben-Ari, recipient of the Young Leadership Associates Remembrance Award; Elizabeth Mundlak-Zborowski, American Society for Yad Vashem Cultural Director; and Eli Zborowski, Chairman, American Society for Yad Vashem.

Justin Pines; Nicole Pines Lieberman, American Society for Yad Vashem Event Chair Emeritus; and Elliot Pines. Page 10 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE March/April 2011 - Adar/Nissan 5771 REPORTREPORT FROMFROM YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM FOUR MILLION VICTIMS’ NAMES IDENTIFIED assemble all of the available knowledge 2004, the Central Database of Shoah Vic- the former Soviet Union, as well as BY LEAH GOLDSTEIN concerning Shoah victims. tims’ Names was uploaded to the Yad Greece, much information is still lacking. his second track for retrieving the Vashem website (www.yadvashem.org) uring the last five years we have t the end of December 2010, Alexan- names of Holocaust victims involves concentrated our names recovery der Avraham, Director of Yad T with some three million names, offering the “D A “mining” the archival materials in the Yad efforts in areas where most of the names re- Vashem’s Hall of Names, made an historic general public full and free access to the Vashem Archives for relevant missing main unknown,” says Avraham. “We have announcement: Yad Vashem has now col- victims’ names in English and in Hebrew, data. The Archives house the largest col- made great progress. In 2005, we knew the lected two-thirds of the names of all Holo- and later also in Russian. lection of Holocaust documentation in the names of some 20% of Jews murdered in caust victims – four million names. The Names Database is the result of world: 130 million pages of documentation, Ukraine, today we know 35%; in Byelorussia One of its central missions since its foun- decades of dedicated and painstaking 100,000 survivor testimonies, 400,000 the figure has risen from 23% to 37% today, dation, the recovery of each and every vic- work by Yad Vashem, in close cooperation in Poland (1938 borders) from 35% to 46%, tim’s name and personal story has resulted with an ever-growing number of partners in Hungary from 45% to 65%, and in Greece in relentless efforts – with the support of documenting the victims of Nazi persecu- from 35% to 70%.” Jewish and other organizations worldwide tion in Europe and beyond. Founded on a The active and urgent efforts to locate – to reach a complete account of the six sophisticated technological platform, ad- these names are being led by Yad million Jews murdered by the Nazis and vanced search capabilities – including Vashem’s Shoah Victims’ Names Recov- their accomplices. “soundex” (the indexing of words by their ery Project, through its ongoing worldwide The first endeavors in this colossal task pronunciation) and the unique Yad Pages of Testimony venture, interviewing led to the development of Pages of Testi- Vashem – devised synonyms search, members of Jewish communities in the mony, one-page questionnaires designed which allows for multiple spellings and FSU and other countries, photographing to restore the personal identity of each in- names of the same person or location – gravestones, and extracting names from dividual Holocaust victim. Beginning in the were developed to maximize results. memorial books and synagogue plaques. 1950s, campaigns have continued The documents from which the data are The Project also collects documents and throughout the years in Israel and among extracted are often difficult to decipher, re- quiring a high degree of expertise in hand- records from individuals and organizations, Jewish communities abroad requesting and creates new documentation – lists of writing in various languages. Some 50 Yad survivors, family members, or friends to names from various sources. Vashem experts trained in names cata- submit Pages of Testimony. “Pages of Testimony and Project cam- loguing digitally scan the documents, enter “Pages of Testimony rebuild an individual’s paign material have been widely distrib- the relevant information and record the identity, beyond a reference on a deportation uted to Jewish communal venues in Israel, names within. The information is then up- or camp inmate list,” explains Avraham. America, Europe, Australia, South America loaded to the Names Database, allowing “Those lists were created during wartime by and South Africa, encouraging people to online searches to be performed by visitors the Nazis and their collaborators, for their investigate whether or not their loved ones to the website. “The increasing interest of own murderous purposes. It is our moral im- killed during the Shoah are recorded at the global community in the human dimen- perative not to leave the commemoration of 2.2 million of the names of the Holocaust vic- Yad Vashem,” explains Cynthia Wro- our lost brethren to our enemies, who tims retrieved by Yad Vashem come from Pages sion of the Shoah is most evident on the clawski, Manager of the Names Recovery wished to destroy them. Today some 2.2 of Testimony. Internet,” adds Avraham. Project. “The grassroots efforts of local million of the names we have retrieved photographs, and 15,000 Righteous “More than 10 million visits are registered Jewish communities are critical in access- come from Pages of Testimony.” Among the Nations case files, as well as annually on Yad Vashem’s website, from ing the millions of additional names that In the 1990s, Yad Vashem extended its 25,000 artifacts and 12,000 pieces of art. over 200 countries and territories world- still linger in the memories of survivors or efforts beyond Pages of Testimony, ac- Through intelligent cross-referencing of all wide.” in the lore of their families. Through local tively gathering and processing lists of of these elements, the life stories of more The retrieving of four million names is a outreach campaigns, the Project aims to names originating from deportation trans- and more Holocaust victims are being re- significant accomplishment, but this obvi- ensure that no Shoah victim will ever be ports and camp and ghetto records. By or- constructed daily. ously means that one third of the Holo- forgotten.” ganizing and encouraging common By the year 2000, an intensive comput- caust victims remain to be identified. While “No cemeteries, headstones, or traces of workshops and mutual exchanges of data, erization project resulted in the creation of in Western Europe in particular there were life were left to mark the loss of the majority methodology, and expertise, Yad Vashem a database containing close to 2.5 million often lists kept of the Jews deported, in of the six million Holocaust victims,” con- became the leading force in this attempt to names of Shoah victims. In November countries of Eastern Europe and areas of cludes Avraham. OFFICIAL HOLOCAUST DAY POSTER SELECTED TRANSPORTS TO EXTINCTION portrait of a Holocaust-era Jewish perfect representation of what it needs to Launch of the New Shoah Deportation Database family covered by a black stain has be – the people are gone, they have faded A accounts, and various studies carried out been chosen as the official poster for 2011 BY LEAH GOLDSTEIN since 1945 on deportations, the “Trans- Holocaust Remembrance Day. ports to Extinction: Shoah (Holocaust) De- Adva Lutatti, 29, won the competi- My Dear, portation Database” aims to map the entire tion for best poster and was honored In a few minutes from now we shall deportation process in Germany and occu- by Yad Vashem Chairman Avner pull out of the train station and set off pied Europe during the war. Shalev and Minister of Information toward infinity. Take care of Mother. My The project focuses on three key fea- and Diaspora Yuli Edelstein. husband and I were given the chance to No less than 180 posters designed remain because we are workers, but tures. The first investigates the dates of by 259 artists were submitted to the our young son has to go and we don’t each transport, its geographical origins, competition, which was initiated by want him to go on his final journey actual route, pick-up points, journey time, the Information and Diaspora Min- alone [so] we are going together to our and type of vehicle used throughout the istry and Yad Vashem. The design- deaths… entire process. This information provides ers were requested to design a (R.-L.)Adva Lutatti with winning poster, Minister Edel- Our hair has turned white overnight; an accurate and detailed reconstruction of poster based on the theme “frag- stein and Yad Vashem Chairman Shalev. pray to God to save you from this thing the event, taking into account various inci- mented memories,” integrating belongings, from the screen. Only fragments remain to that has happened to us. This is the dents that occurred along the way. documents, and photos from the Holo- tell us of the original.” final message from us… The second feature is the bureaucratic caust period. The winning poster will be distributed in From “These are My Last Words: Final apparatus that was responsible for the de- Lutatti, a graduate of the Open Univer- schools, IDF bases, and youth movement Letters from the Holocaust” (Yad Vashem, portations. This included officials in Nazi sity’s Hasifa School for Design, designed centers and by local authorities. It will also be 2002) security services such as Adolf Eichmann, a poster that shows an old photograph of placed in newspaper ads and billboards. n December 2010, Yad Vashem’s Inter- but also ordinary local policemen and offi- a typical family, but with the family’s faces “The goal of the competition was to reflect Inational Institute for Holocaust Re- cials who rounded up Jews in villages and covered and nearly invisible behind a black the visual meaning the new generation gives search and Information Systems Division towns across the continent. In addition, the stain. “The poster presents two aspects of to Holocaust remembrance,” stated Yad completed the first part of a comprehen- project is investigating the degree of col- obliteration: the obliteration intended by Vashem chief Avner Shalev. sive and groundbreaking new project: to laboration of civil organizations, such as the Nazis, and the obliteration brought on The designer, Adva Lutatti, explained that construct an online database of each and European rail companies, in the deporta- by the passage of time,” the judges noted. she chose to use a photograph that would every transport of Jewish victims carried tion process. “This is expressed in the intentionally be easy to identify with. “The picture creates out by the Nazi regime during the Shoah. The victims themselves make up the faded areas positioned dramatically in the a mirror image of ourselves, makes us feel Using a wide range of documents, includ- third element of the project. Use of updated photo. The black stain makes the poster a like that could have been us.” ing official Nazi documentation, survivor (Continued on page 14) March/April 2011 - Adar/Nissan 5771 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 11 “NONE IS TOO MANY”: MEMORIAL FOR JEWS TURNED AWAY FROM CANADA IN 1939 many,” an immigration agent would say of “It’s important to remember the mistakes women, brides and grooms, teenaged ro- BY KATHRYN BLAZE CARLSON, Jews such as those aboard the ship in the country has made,” Dr. Messinger said mances, it became a metaphor for life,” NATIONAL POST May, 1939. The St. Louis was within two of the memorial, the first of its kind. said Mr. Farber, whose mother arrived at days of Halifax Harbour when Ottawa, anada’s mistake nearly cost Dr. Pier 21 in 1933. “[The St. Louis] was the ol Messinger was just six years old under pressure from high-ranking politi- CMessinger his life: En Swhen, as one of 907 German Jews cians within, refused to grant the Jewish route to France from Brussels, aboard the M.S. St. Louis seeking a place families a home. his mother lay on top of him to to escape persecution, the ship was “Nobody wanted us,” Dr. Messinger, now block machine-gun fire that 78 and a retired physician in Buffalo, N.Y., threatened to rain from German said in an interview with the National Post. planes overhead. Then later, “We were Jews, we were expendable … It just weeks after his family fled was terrible — terrible, terrible — of southern France for America in Canada and the United States, of all coun- 1942, the French rounded up tries, to not let us in.” the Jews and sent them to con- Turned away thrice, the ship had no centration camps. choice but to journey toward an uncertain Dr. Messinger said he appre- fate in Belgium. Dr. Messinger, then just ciates Canada’s gesture in a boy, would celebrate his seventh birth- erecting the steel memorial, ti- Sol Messinger, centre, fled Hamburg, Germany, with his par- day en route back to the very land his tled “The Wheel of Con- ents in the hopes of landing in Cuba in 1939. parents feared spelled disaster for their science,” which is part of a only son. $500,000 project initiated by the Canadian microcosm of the macrocosm of what Dr. Messinger said the German crew Jewish Congress and paid for by Citizen- was the Shoah.” had treated the passengers “as human ship and Immigration Canada. Mr. Farber explained that the congress beings,” even offering them “big break- “What brilliant symbolism: the very facility has never asked Ottawa to apologize for fasts, and ice cream with mini-umbrellas through which these refugees could have the wrongdoings of those in power at the pegged in the scoop.” Canada, though, entered and found refuge, only to have the time — most notably Frederick Charles would offer the family nothing. door slammed in their face, will now fea- Blair, the head of immigration, and Vin- The “Wheel of Conscience” monument by He and his parents managed to survive ture an enduring memorial to their mem- cent Massey, Canada’s high commis- Daniel Libeskind. The monument, the first of the Holocaust — thanks to a “series of ory,” Mr. Libeskind, who was born to sioner to Great Britain (and later its kind, memorializes Canada’s 1939 refusal of miracles,” he said — but 254 of the Jews Holocaust survivors in Poland and whose Governor General) who, according to the entry to the 900-plus Jewish refugees on board turned away by the Mackenzie King gov- projects include the Jewish Museum in 1982 book None Is Too Many, “worked the M.S. St. Louis. ernment would not. Berlin, wrote in the Ottawa Citizen last fall. through External Affairs to keep Jews out shunned first by Cuba and then by Amer- More than 70 years later, at Halifax’s For Bernie Farber, CEO of the congress, of Canada.” ica. He remembers sailing along the Pier 21 — the very place where the ship the Wheel culminates a decade of efforts “Within [the Jewish] tradition it is not re- Florida coast as Miami’s city lights disap- would have docked had Canada wel- to memorialize what has become known ally permissible to demand apologies,” peared into the dusky distance. comed it — a memorial designed by as the Voyage of the Damned. Mr. Farber said. “It is more accepted for Canada did not want the refugees trav- renowned architect Daniel Libeskind was “On this boat was the world: There were people to do T’shuva, which means to eling on the vessel either — “none is too unveiled on January 20. children, the elderly, young men and make amends.” MY COUSIN BETTY y cousin Betty Berlin was born and summarily executed, very likely includ- Life in the factory between 1942 and Jewish. He warned them not to stay out- MBluma Basiskaus in 1928 in the ing my uncle Yaakov, his wife and their chil- 1944 was only slightly better than the side, as the locals were killing any Jews Lithuanian village of Daug, now called dren. In anticipation of the occupation, ghetto. Food rations were barely enough found on the street even though the Ger- Daugas. My grandmother Leah (Sklarsky) cousin Betty and her parents, sister, and to stay alive if you were a strong person. mans were long gone. He urged them to Quint, through whom I am related to Betty, younger brother fled to a nearby farm and The weak never made it. Just to maintain stay in the house and he would send also lived in Daug with her husband and 12 hid in a barn. After several days with no discipline, every day the guards would ran- someone to lead them to safety. children. In the summer of 2004, I visited food, her brother left the barn to find some- domly select one or two prisoners, take In a day or so, a member of the Jewish Betty at her home in Brookline, Massachu- thing to eat. From a crack in the barn wall, them outside, and execute them. When the Brigade, a unit in the British Army, arrived setts. While there I asked if she remem- Betty saw her brother being captured and tide of the war began to turn and the Russ- unofficially and started out with this band bered my oldest uncle, Yakov Quint, who led away. That was the last they saw of him. ian army was moving westward, Betty, of survivors on a trek from Poland to Italy. was living in Daug at the time the Germans Shortly afterward, the police came look- Riva, and Michla were transported to There they were assigned to one of the with their Einsatzgruppen occupied the vil- ing for the rest of the family and they were Auschwitz for “the Final Solution”. many camps in the British zone of occupa- lage in 1941. After a moment, in an emo- also arrested. (Possibly they got the infor- he Auschwitz main camp, the Birke- tion that had been set up to house those tional tone she said that she remembered mation from the boy through torture.) By Tnau death camp and the Monowitz that had survived the Holocaust. Life was “Yankel” and his family very well, adding then the summary executions had stopped labor camp were liberated by soldiers of relatively good in this camp, and while that it was almost certain that they all met and so they were spared. Betty’s father the Soviet Union under the command of there they were reunited with Avraham, the same fate as six million other Euro- knew the police chief from before the war, Marshal Koniev, on January 27, 1945. their father. He had been badly injured in pean Jews. Then, without any further and he was able to bribe him to send them Betty did not say much about the months an Allied air raid while working in a factory questions from me, she spent the better to the Vilna ghetto, where many Jews were in Auschwitz prior to their liberation, and I in Poland but was now fully recovered. part of the next two hours telling of her ex- being held while their fate was being de- did not ask. However, she did tell about the Twice while in Italy the family tried to immi- periences during that eventful time in Jew- termined. During their confinement in the hours just preceding the arrival of the Rus- grate to Palestine, and twice the British au- ish history. Daug police station, they noticed mes- sians, when they could hear the sound of thorities turned them back. Reports from Poland on the treatment of sages left on the cell walls by recent pris- guns in the distance. The guards were At this point they made contact with our Jews by the Germans began reaching oners. One of the messages was from her quickly lining up prisoners for transport fur- family in the Boston area, who helped them Daug in the period of 1939–1940. Betty brother to his family, saying, “You may end ther west, and she, her sister, and their to come to the United States. They settled said that most people did not believe what up here also. But I will never see you. mother were among them. Suddenly, a in Brookline and changed their name to they heard and chose to remain in Lithua- Soon they are going to kill me.” quiet descended on the camp, and when Bass. Avraham found employment as a jan- nia hoping for the best. Besides, there The time they spent in the Vilna ghetto they looked around, the guards and their itor and Betty was hired by my father as a were very few places that they could go, was a period of unbelievable horror. Acts dogs were gone. The gates were open, seamstress in his upholstery shop. That is since the Russians had closed their border of barbarism were frequent and life was and many ran out and dispersed into the where I met Betty, and was quite amazed and traveling in any other direction would one nightmare after another. The guards surrounding countryside. After a while, at seeing a Jew who spoke fluent Italian as put them into German-occupied territory. A would build bonfires in the square and Betty’s group came upon a solitary farm- well as Yiddish, and had many of the man- few lucky people obtained exit visas from throw Jewish babies into the flames while house in the dead of night. nerisms of the first-generation Italians that I the Japanese consul in Vilna and made forcing the mothers to dance around the A woman came to the door but refused knew. They saved every penny they could their way to the Far East, where they sur- fires. Eventually, Betty, her younger sister to let them in, so they forced their way in and began buying real estate, eventually vived the war. On June 22, 1941, Germany Riva, and their mother Michla were sent to and spent the night there. In the morning becoming prosperous and again proving declared war on the Soviet Union; the Ger- Latvia as slave laborers in an aircraft fac- they looked out and saw a column of Russ- that America is a land of opportunity for all man army entered Lithuania and immedi- tory. They lied about Riva’s age since she ian soldiers coming down the road. They who are willing to work. ately began rounding up Jews with the full was 11; children under 12 were put to were dressed in white winter combat uni- Betty died of a heart attack in 2007 while cooperation of the local authorities. death, as were the elderly, since they were forms and were led by an officer with a at a family celebration. Her daughters An- That summer the village of Daug was oc- of no use to the Nazis. Her father, Avra- sword on horseback. They left the house nette and Jackie and several grandchildren cupied and the roundup of Jews began. All ham, was sent to work in a factory in and ran out to meet the officer, who by a survive her. that were arrested were taken to the forest Poland. stroke of good fortune turned out to be Submitted by our reader Sumner Burstein. Page 12 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE March/April 2011 - Adar/Nissan 5771

UKRAINE GIVES YAD VASHEM ACCESS TO HOLOCAUST- RUNNING – REMEMBERING – CARING ERA ARCHIVES The First Jerusalem Marathon n a modest ceremony, with no media he first-ever Jerusalem Marathon took Ipresence, a trailblazing agreement was Tplace on Friday, March 25. Over 10,000 signed last month between Jerusalem’s runners from 40 countries worldwide stepped off Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Authority from the Knesset at seven in the morning. They and the archives of the Ukrainian KGB. ended the run at Sacher Park. The excitement The agreement is expected to upgrade his- and adrenaline that filled the air were palpable. torical research on the fate of hundreds of In the spirit of “firsts,” a first-time joint project by thousands of Jews who were persecuted The American Society for Yad Vashem and The and murdered during the Holocaust in the Blue Card, an organization that helps needy Holocaust survivors in the U.S., formed a team of runners that participated in the marathon to raise funds and awareness for both organiza- tions. Undeterred by a terror attack that killed one woman and wounded 39 people on Wednesday afternoon when a bag exploded next to a bus stop across the street from the Jerusalem Inter- Team co-captain Gabi Hamani addresses participants at reception. national Convention Center (Binyanie Ha’uma), the excited participants, numbers pinned to their A German soldier being received by Soviet chests, lined up at the starting point to begin the Ukrainian women, 1941. challenging course. “Our answer to the murderous terrorists is that Soviet Union. The Ukrainian security serv- we will never stop running,” Jerusalem Mayor Nir ices will supply Yad Vashem with invalu- Barkat said at the Marathon’s gala dinner on able World War II documents, including Wednesday night. “Jerusalem doesn’t stop and lists of deported and murdered Jews, the won’t stop. The real Jerusalem will be showcased minutes of meetings held by officials of the in the marathon. A peaceful, happy and healthy Ukrainian security forces following the lib- city which is more beautiful than ever.” Mayor eration of the concentration and death Barkat, an avid runner himself, ran the half camps, and information on the trials of marathon. those involved in killing Jews. The team consisted of 10 runners from all over “This is a real breakthrough; it is a major the United States. The team captains were Gabi event of outstanding importance,” Avner Hamani, Deputy VP of Bank Hapoalim’s New Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem direc- York Branches, and Marshall Huebner, a promi- Participants in the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem. torate, told Haaretz. nent attorney at the firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell In the next few months, the institution’s LLC in New York. Both Marshall and Gabi, a researchers will visit the archives in Kiev Sabra, said running in this marathon was a for- to begin photocopying documents. After- midable challenge due to the hilly terrain of the ward, back in Jerusalem, they will catalog Old City; however, it was an inspiring and unfor- and process them, in an attempt to identify gettable experience. as many names as possible of Jewish The team members were given a privately Holocaust victims. These names will be guided tour and special reception at Yad added to Yad Vashem’s database, which Vashem. They visited the world-famous Holo- still lacks the names of some two million caust History Museum, and several other impor- Jewish victims, most of them from Eastern tant memorial sites on the Yad Vashem campus. Europe. Additionally, Yad Vashem is hope- Their visit was covered by JLTV (Jewish Life TV) ful that the new documents will enable and, along with coverage of the marathon itself, Holocaust researchers to retell the per- will be made into a one hour special to be broad- sonal histories of other victims who up until cast to thousands of homes in the U.S. now were identified only by a name. Marathon participants in the Holocaust History Museum at Yad Vashem.

MEMORIES AFTER MY DEATH SURVIVAL AND RESISTANCE (Continued from page 4) thousand six hundred eighty four Jews (Continued from page 1) caust denial and anti-Semitism and will opening up with accounts of their trying ex- who made it by train to Switzerland. He baby and raised by a Polish family, and enable young men and women to think perience, and the native Israelis com- was murdered in March 1957, and in Jan- for part of her life believed these were her about the responsibilities they have as in- menced identifying with them. Tomi wisely uary 1958 Israel’s Supreme Court over- natural parents. dividuals when confronted with prejudice stresses that in addition to speaking of the turned a June 1955 court decision that “In my case, after my father was mur- and intolerance. six million victims, we should also be cog- “Kastner sold his soul to Satan.” Through- dered, my mother, my brother, my sister, “The aim of the American Society for nizant of the survivors whose world as they out the sensational and divisive ordeal, and I were saved by righteous people Yad Vashem hosting these education con- knew it was lost. Another lesson; survivors Tomi, who supported Dr. Kastner, felt that who hid us for two years at a grave peril ferences is to transmit the lessons of this like Tomi’s mom were not aware that cul- he operated under harrowing and limited to their own lives. Each minute tured people are capable of horrific crimes. options. Some opposed him, such as the of each day was fraught with The late Congressman Tom Lantos, who mother of heroic paratrooper Hannah fear of being discovered. Fear chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Senesh who was caught and executed by was part of daily existence. Tomi were in the Budapest ghetto, together the Nazis. “The people who saved us, looking for food. Their friendship contin- Tomi shares the following as Yad whether the family who raised ued, and when Tomi became an Israeli Vashem’s Chairman; “Yad Vashem, I be- Elizabeth or those who hid my government minister, Tom, whose name lieve, is in charge not only of preserving family, were exceptional; it was Tomislav Lantosh, came to Jerusalem the Shoah’s memory but also the world’s was not the normal and pre- to congratulate him on behalf of the United conscience. Its purpose is to remind of the vailing behavior towards Jews. States. What an incredible saga of two per- Shoah that was but also to prevent the For their compassion and secuted children who were destined for next one. When Secretary-General of the courage they were declared prominence in their respective countries, United Nations Ban Ki-Moon visited us, I ‘Righteous Among the Na- even as Tomi rightly bemoans the fate of took advantage of the opportunity…and tions’ by Yad Vashem. If not so many Jewish children in the Shoah that spoke of the slaughter in Darfur…the for them, we would not be the world cruelly neglected. Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American Society for Yad Shoah took place when the world was here today. Tomi, prior to working for Maariv, was Vashem, with a group of conference attendees. silent, and we feel a special obligation to “In looking back we can say with the Israeli Hungarian newspaper alert and decry concerning what’s happen- that survivors, as well as the righteous historical event to present and future gen- Oykelet, where he first encountered the ing in Sudan. Your obligation is to put an who helped people survive, and those erations. Teaching about the Holocaust in controversial figure of Dr. Israel Kastner, who actively fought in countless ways an age-appropriate and historically accu- end to the horrific acts taking place this who was head of the committee to save against the evil forces of that time were all rate manner will promote greater sensitiv- very day.” Hungarian Jewry, and as such negotiated resisters. ity and understanding to reduce hatred, with Eichmann and other high Nazi offi- Israel Zoberman is spiritual leader of Con- “Studying the Holocaust is important to intolerance, and prejudice, prevalent in cials. Dr. Kastner was able to save one gregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia Beach. students today in a world of growing Holo- today’s society.” March/April 2011 - Adar/Nissan 5771 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 13

UKRAINE UNVEILS OUTRAGE AT GROWING TRADE NAZI RECORDS IN HOLOCAUST ARTIFACTS ON LOOTING kraine made public records chroni- The bar of soap – which is likely to be a “If you have some items of that period cling Nazi looting from Holocaust BY ALLAN HALL, MAIL ONLINE fake, as postwar research showed the please do not hesitate to send us pictures U victims across Europe, in an online release Nazis did not make soap from death camp and description of the items you have. thriving trade in Holocaust artifacts that a prominent reparations group says victims – is one of thousands of sought- “A very sad reminder of a very sad time, from the millions of Jews killed by could help trace stolen works of art to their A after Holocaust-related items for collectors. but nevertheless a real piece of Jewish the Nazis is outraging Jewish groups rightful owners. Concerns have been raised that the history to teach your children or for the worldwide. Ukraine’s State Archives posted some items could be falling into the hands of avid collector of these items. Internet sales of the yellow stars Jews 140,000 pages of documents from the Kiev right-wing fanatics. “The items from this period of history were forced to wear, dolls allegedly cud- headquarters of Alfred Rosenberg, the n December of last year, a neo-Nazi help people to remember those horrible dled by children in death camps like Nazi minister in charge of occupied Soviet Ifrom Sweden organized the theft of the times and never repeat them again.” Auschwitz and the paper money territories. The records cover Nazi looting The site currently has an “ex- used in ghettos in Poland are from 1940 to 1944 in Belgium, northern tremely rare Jewish Holocaust part of the latest craze for mili- France, the Netherlands, Italy, Yugoslavia, wood doll from concentration camp taria collectors. and the occupied Soviet territories, and re- Auschwitz” for sale at $2,500. Recently, a curiosity shop in late to plunder from Jewish communal and It also offers a pair of wooden Montreal, Canada, was con- private collections, Soviet museums, li- clogs allegedly worn by a prisoner demned by Jewish groups for braries, and other sources. at the Buchenwald concentration selling a bar of soap allegedly “Sixty-five years after the end of the war, camp in Germany for $5,000 made from the fat of Holocaust our knowledge of the extent of Nazi plun- (£3,400), several cloth yellow stars, victims. der is still incomplete,” Julius Berman, and another wooden doll allegedly The beige bar of soap, in- chairman of the New York-based Confer- from a child at Buchenwald. scribed with a swastika, was ence on Jewish Material Claims Against Another website, Historama, op- displayed in a glass case with a Germany, said in a statement. erates out of Israel and currently of- card that said “Poland 1940.” “With the publication of these records, fers ghetto work permits, arrest The store owner, Abraham we can help facilitate rightful restitution of This doll allegedly from a Jewish child at Buchenwald concentration warrants, and money. Most of the Botines – himself Jewish – looted objects and fill in the gaps in this im- camp is on sale for around $2,500. ghetto Jews in occupied Poland claimed the soap was “made portant piece of history,” he said. were killed. out of people... the fat of people” and said “Work Sets You Free” sign above the gates The documents are currently available Dr David Silberklang, of the Yad he believed it was important to display of Auschwitz, where 1.2 million Jews were only through a Russian-language search Vashem Holocaust center in Israel, said: and sell such items to “remember the gassed during World War II. The sign was engine. There are plans to translate the “It’s an indignity to the people who were Holocaust.” later recovered. website into Ukrainian, German, and Eng- killed and to the event. Alice Herscovitch, director of Montreal’s The Jewish Memory website, based in lish, Wesley A. Fisher, the director of re- “This is not a commercial event. It’s an Holocaust Centre, said: “The sale of ob- the U.S., said it collects from Germany, sesarch with the Claims Conference, said. Poland, and other European countries to event that affected all of humanity in the jects which glorify Nazis and hatred, to The Ukrainian collection is the largest offer Holocaust artifacts for sale. most horrible way – changed history in me, do nothing. stockpile of Rosenberg’s records, which It states: “Until now there is no place the most radical way. “They certainly don’t help us remember. were scattered after the war, and are also This is disgusting. where there are gathered different sam- “And I think that there’s something, it stored in 29 locations in nine countries, in- “These Holocaust items, they should not ples of badges, armbands, uniforms, kind of cheapens the memory of all that, cluding the Federal Archives of Germany be out there in a promotional, sales kind patches worn during World War II in con- the significance, by turning it to something and the U.S. National Archives. By provid- of way.” centration camps and Jewish ghettos. commercial.” ing online access to the Nazi files, Ukraine’s State Archives have joined an in- ternational project to post records related THERE IS A MIRROR IN MY HEART: to the looted cultural property that already REFLECTIONS ON A RIGHTEOUS GRANDFATHER includes state archives in the United States, Germany, Britain, and France. A Special Installation by Sebastian Mendes “I could not have acted otherwise, Vashem and celebrated as his native which opened in January 2011, gives form LEGACY OF LIFE: and I therefore accept all that has country’s “greatest hero of the twentieth to this act of heroism through the univer- A MEMOIR OF THE befallen me with love.” century,” his story is little known among the sal language of visual art. Created by Se- Aristides de Sousa Mendes general population. Through this multime- bastian Mendes, de Sousa Mendes’s HOLOCAUST dia exhibition, a large and varied audience n February 17, 2011, over 100 peo- grandson, the project also expresses the (Continued from page 4) may learn about one of the most heroic ple attended a special installation human need to understand, honor, and food — a priceless commodity in the labor O and righteous individual acts of the twenti- and a reception for the opening of the reflect on family history. The remarkable camps. For that matter, German civilians eth century and be inspired by a grand- above exhibit, at the Yeshiva University actions taken by the elder Mendes, a de- Sachs worked for from time to time might Museum in New York City. vout Catholic ultimately cost him surreptitiously leave some food for him. All The project was jointly spon- his job, his professional titles, of this mattered when it came to survival. sored by the Young Leadership and his family’s livelihood. Se- In 1945, at nineteen years of age, Sachs Associates of the American So- bastian Mendes’s lifelong fasci- was liberated by the Russians. Not sur- ciety for Yad Vashem and the nation with the actions taken by prisingly, like many other survivors, he Yeshiva University Museum. his grandfather and their impact went looking for relatives, particularly his Our thanks to Ben Hoffer, YLA on countless lives has shaped parents. He asked everywhere. He went Event Chairperson, and Jeremy the concept and content of this to displaced persons camps searching for & Abbi Halpern, and Caroline project — a feature of the exhibi- them. Sorrowfully, he came to the realiza- Massel, Chairpersons of the tion and performance that will tion that they were gone . . . YLA, for their leadership and resonate among visitors of all re- Thus at nineteen, Sachs went on to support of this project. The ligions. Mr. Mendes acts as a make a life for himself . . . courageously, Young Leadership Associates of personal guide throughout the resolutely, and thoughtfully. It is to be ad- the American Society for Yad exhibit, explaining his inspiration mired. Vashem include many Third for each of the pieces he created. Legacy of Life is an absorbing book and Generation young professionals a meaningful addition to Holocaust study. Sebastian Mendes, a distin- who are dedicated to the Soci- It is a book that testifies to the fact that guished artist working in the north- ety’s mission and work tirelessly Sebastian Mendes at work. something more than a miracle is possible! west United States, is an on behalf of remembrance and Holocaust It is no less a testament to the strength son’s effort to echo and pay tribute to his Associate Professor at Western Washing- education. of the human spirit to endure, hope, and grandfather’s legacy through art. ton University in Bellingham, Washington. The exhibition is inspired by one of the survive. he project offers a personal artistic He is currently Yeshiva University Mu- greatest rescue acts of the Holocaust, per- It reminds me of what my mother used to response to the events of June 1940, seum’s Artist in Residence, and a Visiting formed by the artist’s Portuguese grandfa- T say, translated here from the Yiddish: On Professor at Yeshiva University’s Stern ther, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, who when de Sousa Mendes, then serving as the one hand, a person is weaker than a College for Women. saved tens of thousands of Jewish and the Portuguese Consul General in Bor- fly; on the other hand, a person must be deaux, France, acted against the explicit non-Jewish refugees from the Nazis in the “There Is a Mirror in My Heart” is open stronger than iron! orders of his government and issued hand- first year of WWII. Though de Sousa through July 24th at the Yeshiva Univer- Dr. Diane Cypkin is a Professor of Media, written transit visas to thousands of Mendes was posthumously named one of sity Museum, located at the Center for Communication, and Visual Arts at Pace refugees. “There Is a Mirror in My Heart,” the “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Jewish History at 15 West 16th Street. University. Page 14 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE March/April 2011 - Adar/Nissan 5771 EICHMANN TRIAL VETERANS REUNITE ifty years after Nazi criminal Adolf odds with the macho image of the “new ’m glad I did it so that people will not for- unexplainable. It is still inexplicable....” he FEichmann was brought to justice, the Jew” of Israel. The emotional descriptions “Iget. The memory is very important to said, his voice choking with emotion. men who captured, investigated and pros- of the horrors they survived changed the the Jewish people,” said Avraham Aviel, 82, Eichmann was found guilty on 15 crimi- ecuted the Holocaust mastermind held a perception for many and allowed more who testified about surviving a firing squad nal charges, including crimes against hu- rare reunion in the Jerusalem hall where survivors to go public with their lingering before a death pit in Poland. “The trial is a re- manity and crimes against the Jewish his famous trial took place. pain. minder of the past and can serve as an ex- people. He was hanged the following year It also opened Israeli minds to stories ample to prevent tragedies in the future.” of underground Jewish resistance fight- Eichmann, a top deputy of Adolf Hitler, is ers and doomed but courageous ghetto known as the “architect of the Holocaust” uprisings. for his role in coordinating the Nazi geno- Six million Jews were killed by the Ger- cide policy. He attended the Wannsee man Nazis and their collaborators during Conference where Nazi leaders drafted World War II, many of them following the “Final Solution to the Jewish question.” Eichmann’s blueprint for liquidating the After the war, Eichmann escaped to Ar- entire Jewish population of Europe. gentina. In May 1960, after extensive sur- “This trial told the story of what really veillance, Israeli Mossad agents nabbed happened to the Jewish people. If it him there. weren’t for the trial, people wouldn’t be Rafi Eitan, the head of the operation, re- Gabriel Bach. talking about six million today,” said Men- counted how he and fellow agents shoved achem Resch, a retired police detective Eichmann into a car and spirited him to a at an Israeli prison, the only time Israel has who was on the special task force that safe house. In the back seat of the car, carried out a death sentence. questioned Eichmann. Eitan searched Eichmann’s body for dis- Gabriel Bach, who later became a The event brought together an aging tinctive SS scars on his arm and stomach. Supreme Court justice, was the deputy fraternity of spies, police detectives, “And once I felt it I was convinced. This is prosecutor in the case. He said he met Rafi Eitan. lawyers and witnesses who all played a the man – we got Eichmann,” he said dur- Eichmann after reading the autobiography The 1961 trial, in which Eichmann sat part in bringing the infamous Nazi leader ing a panel discussion at the reunion. of Hitler deputy Rudolf Hess, who de- inside a bulletproof glass booth and to trial. The daring agents who captured The team waited in Argentina for six days scribed how Eichmann chastised him for calmly listened to the testimonies of Eichmann are now well into their 80s and before an El Al plane whisked Eichmann to hesitating to order the shooting of 1,000 some who survived his efforts to kill them, needed assistance climbing the stairs to Israel. Jewish children. Eichmann explained that was a watershed moment for the young the stage of the Gerard Behar Center – a Avraham Shalom, later a Shin Bet secu- there was no point in killing the adults and state of Israel. Jerusalem auditorium that served as the rity service chief, was also part of the cap- sparing children who could repopulate the Until they heard gripping public testi- trial’s venue. ture team. He said Eichmann was polite race in the future. mony of Jews who survived extreme tor- Those who took the stand against Eich- and calm. “Obviously, it was not easy to remain ture and deprivation, many Israelis looked mann said their testimony made its mark “To think that this was a man who treated calm in the face of such a man,” Bach re- down on the survivors as weak victims, at on history. humans like nails or pieces of stone was called.

LAST TWO SURVIVORS OF TREBLINKA TRANSPORTS TO EXTINCTION DEVOTE LAST YEARS TO MEMORY OF VICTIMS (Continued from page 10) order to continue their studies.” deportation lists along with additional de- The first stage of the project has recon- (Continued from page 6) “Treblinka had nothing, just killing, and mographic data derived from archival structed some 50 transports from Vienna, where more than a million people died in they almost finished the job. These camps sources enabled the Institute’s re- Austria, between 1939 and the beginning gas chambers or from starvation, disease left us almost nothing,” he said. searchers to present a socioeconomic pro- of 1943, the first of which departed for and forced labor. Without the survivors, he said, “it would file of the victims, as well as that of the Nisko, Poland, in October 1939. For the Taigman said he recalls the uprising just be a black hole, we would know noth- Jewish communities on the eve of their de- next four years, some 50,000 Jews were vividly, and that resisting the Germans was ing. With them, we know quite a lot,” he struction. deported from the city. “Vienna was cho- a “dream” for the prisoners. said. he result of the project is an online sen as our first focus because the mecha- He entered Treblinka holding the hand of One of the men most responsible for database accessible from the Yad nism of deportation there was developed his mother, who was quickly pulled away documenting the atrocities was Eliahu T Vashem website in English and in Hebrew, by the Central Office for Jewish Emigra- from him and murdered. He left watching Rosenberg, who was tasked with removing which provides a broad overview of the de- tion, established by Eichmann already in a Nazi flag burning in the distance from a bodies from gas chambers and dumping portation practice, as well as detailed infor- the summer of 1938,” explains Zisenwine. blaze they had set — a small piece of re- them into giant pits. He passed away in mation regarding specific transports and/or “The Office later became an agency of venge after nearly a year of torment. September 2010, but before his death re- victims. A unique conglomeration of Yad deportation, which coordinated the confis- “It was hell, absolutely hell,” said Taig- counted his experiences in a video testi- Vashem resources and databases, includ- cation of the Jews’ property, their concen- man, who lives in a retirement home south mony to Yad Vashem. ing those of the Archives of Tel Aviv. “A normal man cannot imagine “It poisoned, choked people within 25 Division, Commemora- how a living person could have lived minutes, all would suffocate. It was terrible tion and Public Relations through it — killers, natural-born killers, to hear the screaming of the women and Division, Hall of Names who without a trace of remorse just mur- the children. They cried: ‘Mama!’ ‘Tata!’, and Libraries, the site al- dered every little thing.” (Dad)” but in a few minutes they choked to lows researchers, family Taigman, who wandered in the Polish death,” he said. members and Holocaust countryside for nearly a year after his es- “The crematoriums were train rails students access to a cape, said his most lasting memory of Tre- which lay on a concrete base. On them comprehensive collec- blinka is fellow prisoners who had to were wood planks, we called it ‘grills.’ We tion of documents, pho- remove bodies — often their own relatives threw the body parts onto those ‘grills,’ tographs and names — from gas chambers. and with a match everything burnt. And relevant to the trans- Treblinka holds such a powerful grip on we stood there ... and it burned all night, ports. the Jewish psyche that the will of a recently all night long.” “The deportation of the deceased Holocaust survivor in Israel in- After the revolt, the Nazis attempted to Jews from their homes structed her children to cremate her body destroy all evidence of their atrocities. was a central compo- Jews board a train during the deportation of the Jewish community and sprinkle her ashes at the Polish memo- The camp structures were destroyed, the nent, or stage, in the im- of Macedonia, March 1943. rial site — so that she could finally be re- ground plowed and planted over. Today, plementation of the Final Solution,” notes tration in designated areas, and their united with her relatives who perished there. all the remains at the site are a series of Dr. Joel Zisenwine, Director of the Depor- eventual deportation out of Austria.” After the war, Willenberg and Taigman concrete slabs representing the train tations Project. “In their testimonies, many The next stage, already under prepara- made their ways to Israel, where they pur- tracks, and mounds of gravel with a me- of the survivors relate to the horror that tion, will cover the transports from Ger- sued careers and raised families. Willen- morial of stone tablets representing lost news of an upcoming deportation would many, Bohemia and Moravia (the berg became a surveyor in Israel’s communities. engender, and more so, describe in great Protectorate) to Theresienstadt. And after Housing Ministry, while Taigman was an The two remaining survivors have re- detail the traumatic experience of the ac- that? “The project aims to research depor- importer. The survivors have maintained turned to lead tours of the site. Taigman tual transport. We therefore view each tations from the whole of Europe as well as their special connection, meeting each made the trip just one time, saying it was transport-deportation as an historical event the Mediterranean basin (Saloniki),” says other often over the years. too painful to go back again, while Willen- in and of itself, and not merely a technical Zisenwine. “For the next few years we are David Silberklang, a senior historian at berg has gone on several occasions. process that simply moved Jews from concentrating our efforts on points of de- Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, “There are only two of us left. After we place to place. As such, the new database parture from central and western Europe, said that in contrast to other camps where go, there will be nothing,” said Willen- will provide researchers with a range of the beginnings of the most traumatic jour- Jews were also used for industrial labor, berg. “All I will leave behind are my sculp- testimonies found at Yad Vashem, and will neys the victims would ever take, whether Treblinka truly represented the essence of tures and, most importantly, my daughter also guide them on to further resources in they ultimately survived or not.” the Nazi Final Solution. and my grandchildren.” March/April 2011 - Adar/Nissan 5771 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 15 AUSCHWITZ SHIFTS FROM EUROPEAN UNION PROJECT AIMS TO ESTABLISH MEMORIALIZING TO TEACHING NETWORK OF HOLOCAUST ARCHIVES Brussels. “The nature of the events of the (Continued from page 7) The international council could convene BY NIR HASSON, HAARETZ Holocaust is that their documentation is garding the Holocaust, which really got as early as June to review the proposed spread all over the world because the avid Pastel was a Jew of Polish ori- under way during the 1990s, served its changes to the exhibition; an international Nazis tried to destroy not only the Jews but gin who emigrated to France before purpose in terms of supplying facts and in- competition would follow for a designer, D also the memory of Jews,” said the director World War II, as shown in a number of doc- formation. But there is another level of ed- and perhaps by 2015, Mr. Cywinski said, a of the Yad Vashem archive, Dr. Haim Gert- uments that piece together his fate during ucation, a level of awareness about the new exhibition might open. The $20 million ner. “Before you could reconstruct what meaning of those facts. It’s not enough to cost, including necessary preservation the Holocaust. He was caught early in the war and put in an internment camp at happened, you had to make an enormous cry. Empathy is noble, but it’s not enough.” work on the buildings, would be paid by the effort to collect every piece of information.” This is the theme to which officials here Polish government. Beaune-la-Rolande. On June 28, 1942, he was sent to Auschwitz. n the project are 20 archives and re- return often. Auschwitz, they say, must find Mr. Cywinski is also looking to raise some Isearch institutes from 13 countries in ways to engage young people (some $160 million more for an endowment to pre- He survived the camp but was murdered in January 1945 in a death march. The Europe and Israel. This includes Yad 850,000 students came last year), so they serve the whole of Auschwitz and Birkenau, Vashem, which houses the most important leave feeling what the director called “re- which requires millions of dollars a year in local priest decided to bury the dead in a mass grave. Because he didn’t know their archive containing more than 130 million sponsibility to the present.” conservation. Germany has committed documents. xactly how that might be accom- $81.5 million, Austria $8 million, and the names, he asked his assis- Eplished, if it can be, he admitted re- United States pledged $15 million, so far. tant to register the numbers mains to be fleshed out in the questions tattooed on their arms. The and historical information presented by the numbers were later put on exhibition and the tour guides. The very gravestones. notion that people increasingly see A Holocaust researcher in- Auschwitz as ancient history, that the site, terested in documenting with its haunted ruins, might no longer Pastel’s fate would have to speak for itself but needs to be made rele- go to four archives in four vant to a new century — all this reflects a different countries to collect wider change in education and scholarship the information. At the Yad about the Holocaust, and also the special Vashem archive in burden felt by officials at Auschwitz. Jerusalem, a document on “Auschwitz is a pillar of postwar Europe,” which Aharon Pastel, A memorial plaque marking the mass grave in Poland. Mr. Cywinski said, “and the key to under- David’s son who survived standing today.” the Holocaust, registered information on Flowers for victims of Auschwitz, left in Janu- The European Commission has funded Each generation has gotten the stories it his father can be found. There is also a ary during ceremonies marking the 66th an- the project to the tune of 7 million euros. wants from the site. Under Communism, photograph of father and son from before niversary of the camp’s liberation. the war. “This is an important and even historic Auschwitz served as a national memorial project, especially at a time when there is to Polish political prisoners, who were the “This may sound boring,” Mr. Zajac said, At Paris’ Holocaust museum, re- searchers will find Pastel’s registration a struggle over different narratives of mem- camp’s first victims. Birkenau, where hun- “but I believe tending to this place is a debt ory of the previous century,” Yad Vashem card from Beaune-la-Rolande. The docu- dreds of thousands of Jews from Poland, to the victims. I sometimes meet students chairman Avner Shalev said. “Europe is ment expelling him to Auschwitz is at the France, Germany, Hungary, the former So- whom I met here years ago, now grown, establishing here that it wishes to see the International Tracing Service at Bad viet Union and elsewhere were murdered, who say they were changed by their visit, Holocaust’s unique standing in the joint Arolsen, Germany, where researchers will lapsed into neglect, because it didn’t fit the who became responsible people, dedi- European historical narrative.” also find a photograph of Pastel during a narrative. cated to charity, leading ethical lives.” The idea is to use technology to preserve Passover seder at the camp. At the After the Berlin Wall fell, painful struggles He said many of them feel compelled to and document the Shoah. The project Auschwitz Museum in Poland, the re- between Roman Catholics and Jews return: “They feel ashamed to admit this aims to create a kind of shared language searcher will find the list of the buried, as it erupted over what was in effect symbolic because it sounds weird, but they miss the that will enable the various documents to was taken down by the priest’s assistant. “ownership” of Auschwitz, as a place of mar- place. They need to go back.” “talk to each other.” But now a new European Union project tyrdom and mourning, which led, among “I share this feeling,” he continued. “When The project will include a database that aims to create a unified network of Holo- other things, to the creation of the interna- I am at Auschwitz I start looking at the world lists the collections. A specially designed caust archives to make it easier for re- tional council, a board of advisors under the and at my own life. I remind myself of what’s thesaurus will try to overcome the lan- searchers and the public to find authority of Poland’s prime minister, which important, which is so easy to forget. In the guage barrier – so many of the documents information. includes survivors, museum directors, kingdom of death you can find the meaning are in different languages. A list of 5,000 The European Holocaust Research In- clergy, scholars, and representatives of Jew- of life. At the biggest cemetery in the world I key words will be translated into all the rel- frastructure Project was inaugurated in ish, Roma, and other groups. know what I live for.” evant languages. THE WARTIME DIARY OF EDMUND KESSLER (Continued from page 4) layer of experience and expression. Here We lead a subterranean life. Because concentration and extermination camps. they are Jews.” Attempts to bribe the per- all detachment is gone. Rather than chron- Without this shelter Death’s choking grip Debates about the role of local collabora- petrators were largely ineffective. When the icling the events, the poems provide awaits us. tors, as well as the contentious part chief rabbi of the city “proceeds to visit the glimpses of psychological agony, ranging This second poem leads us to the other, played by the Jewish councils and police, head of the Ukrainian church with a request from horror at the extent of the destruction apparently contradictory extreme of the veer toward ideological, national, and eth- for help and intervention,” according to to the enforced intimacy of hiding under- book. For Edmund Kessler, his wife, and nocentric positions, at times evoking sim- Kessler “he is received coolly and indiffer- ground in filth and endless fear. This can 22 other Jews were saved from certain ilar prejudices to those that were at work ently… The Metropolitan does not intend to be seen in the following extracts from two murder by the heroic acts of an entire Pol- during the event. To be sure, Kessler also intervene with the authorities in defense of of the poems: ish family, who hid and fed them for al- makes some bitter statements about the the Jews.” Upon returning to his home, the The ghetto, the Lwow Ghetto, is burning. most two years. The account of this Judenrat and Jewish police in Lwów, rabbi was beaten by the militia and dragged Our people drowning in rivers of blood. rescue by Kazimierz Kalwinski, the last which can be found in many other ac- to one of the prisons (pp. 36–7). Our blood is streaming from the mouths remaining son of the family, written over counts. But what is crucial in his diary is hile the diary goes on to describe and ears of the victims, five decades later, is remarkable for its in- the degree to which it meticulously recon- W many other horrors, the account of Blood which the earth has massively ab- sistence on a detailed reconstruction of structs the transformation of a normal so- the first pogrom in Lwów provides crucial sorbed, Blood which fertilizes the earth. the difficulties and hazards of putting up ciety (though one already greatly insight into the complex, increasingly vio- Golden sheaves of flames rise to the and hiding such a large number of people. disrupted by the previous two years of So- lent, and ultimately murderous interethnic skies. hat does this complex account of viet rule) into one of savage, unrelenting, relations in Eastern Europe, and especially The azure blue of the heavens turns red, W death and survival in German-oc- and murderous dehumanization and vio- in Eastern Galicia, during the German oc- The earth joins with the sky in a sea of cupied Lwów tell us about the Holocaust? lence, in which all citizens become com- cupation. fire and blood (p. 73). Most importantly, I would argue, it demon- plicit in one way or another, as victims and Kessler writes in a detached manner, as In our cellar hole, strates that local conditions largely dic- perpetrators, losers and winners, often if he were observing events from afar, In the blackness of existence, tated the manner in which the German changing roles more than once. And, that chronicling them rather than being sub- We live broken and humiliated, genocide of the Jews was perpetrated this slim volume also contains a no less jected to them. There is an eerie quality to Awaiting rescue. Bodies heaped to- and experienced. Overviews of the Holo- meticulous account of how one family the diary because we know that he was, in gether, Legs bent, caust tend to focus on the dynamics of or- chose to save a number of very specific fact, right there in the midst of all the blood Pale, chalk-white faces, ganizing a continent-wide genocide by a Jewish individuals simply out of a sense and gore, an assimilated, middle-class and Animals, no longer human. mighty industrial state with a modern and of shared humanity in the face of a world middle-aged Jewish citizen, who suddenly Eyes staring vacantly, effective bureaucracy. Studies of Jewish where such sentiments seemed to have found himself in hell on earth. For this rea- We lie in a row, Forced into mutual em- fate in the Shoah often examine condi- been crushed under the jackboots of the son, the poems that follow the diary pro- brace… tions in the large ghettos, labor camps, or Nazis and their numerous collaborators. vide another chilling, and very different, At the brink of human existence, International Society for Yad Vashem NON-PROFIT ORG. MARTYRDOM AND RESISTANCE U.S. POST 500 FIFTH AVENUE, 42nd FLOOR PAID NEW YORK, N.Y. 10110-4299 NEW YORK, N.Y. Web site: www.yadvashemusa.org PERMIT NO. 9313 ** ** Editor International Society Eli Zborowski, (212) 220-4304 Editor-in-Chief for Yad Vashem, Inc. Vashem, Yad for EDITORIAL BOARD EDITORIAL New York, NY 10110 NY York, New *Published Bimonthly by the Yefim Krasnyanskiy, M.A., Krasnyanskiy, Yefim 500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor Avenue, 500 Fifth Martyrdom & Resistance *1974-85, as Newsletter for the American *1974-85, as Newsletter for the Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp In- mates, and Nazi Victims **deceased Eli Zborowski Marvin Zborowski Mark Palmer Sam Skura** Israel Krakowski Mandell William Sam Halpern Isidore Karten Norman Belfer Joseph Bukiet March/April 2011 - Adar/Nissan 5771 Adar/Nissan - 2011 March/April MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE & RESISTANCE MARTYRDOM Page 16 Page