Vol. 36-No.2 ISSN 0892-1571 November/December 2009-Kislev/Tevet 5770 WHOEVER SAVES A LIFE, SAVES HUMANITY ANNUAL TRIBUTE DINNER OF THE AMERICAN & INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES FOR YAD VASHEM “OUR MISSION WILL BE PERPETUATED “THE HOLY MISSION OF YAD VASHEM BY SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS” MUST BE CONTINUED” ELI ZBOROWSKI, Founder and Chairman of the ISAAC HERZOG, the State of Israel Minister of Social American Society for Yad Vashem Affairs and Services ood evening and welcome to the Annual Tribute ood evening, ladies and gentlemen. First of all I GDinner of the American & International Societies for Gwould like to dedicate a few words to a great per- Yad Vashem. It is my pleasure to warmly welcome the son, Eli Zborowski, for creating and leading this organiza- dais guests, members of the diplomatic corps, representa- tion. And I also want to say a few words about Avner tives of national organizations and all of our many friends Shalev. Those of you who set foot on the grounds of Yad and supporters who have joined us this evening. Vashem in Jerusalem in the last twenty years could see I would like to recognize two special guests. We are priv- the incredible development and the outstanding success ileged to have with us our friend, colleague and partner, of Yad Vashem, and this is all due primarily to the hard Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, work of Avner and his team. and the Hon. Isaac Herzog, the State of Israel Minister of I want to congratulate today’s honorees – both great Social Affairs and Services who is our Guest Speaker. ladies – who exemplify the stories of our lives. The theme of this Dinner, “Whoever Saves a Life, Saves Humanity,” has been central I am happy to be here on behalf of the Israeli government. I am carrying a certain lin- to the lives of our two honorees. Fanya Gottesfeld Heller owes her survival to two eage. My grandfather, Yitzhak Herzog, following the war, was travelling around Europe Christians who hid her and her family from the Nazi death squads; and Tovah Feldshuh, for six months on a rescue mission to save Jewish children who lived in monasteries or a world-renowned actress, has used her creative talents to portray the life of Irena Gut with Christian foster parents. He found and rescued 15,000 Jewish kids. My father, Israeli Opdyke, a Christian rescuer, in the award-winning Broadway play, Irena’s Vow. President Chaim Herzog, was a British officer who fought all major battles of WWII in While the American & International Societies for Yad Vashem were not officially inau- Northern Europe and participated in the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. gurated until 1981, our activities on behalf of Yad Vashem began in 1964. That year the Seventy-one years after Kristallnacht, there are people around the world who deny that first Yom Hashoah commemoration, held on the 27th day of Nissan, in accordance with the Holocaust ever happened, who want to destroy the state of Israel, who deny Israel the Israeli law, was sponsored by major Jewish organizations and by religious institutions the right to exist. Following WWII the international community decided to change the from all streams of Judaism. This event took place at Young Israel of Forest Hills and led rules of the game to make sure that another Holocaust would not happen again. A series to commemorations in every Jewish house of worship throughout the United States. In of international laws designed mostly by Jewish professors were passed to ensure that 1971, we commissioned the first Yad Vashem traveling exhibition on the history of the the international community has enough power to contain people who act viciously Holocaust. And shortly thereafter, in 1973, we launched Martyrdom & Resistance, the first against other people and nations. But all of a sudden, in our time, the same tools that newspaper devoted to remembrance. were handed to the international community after the war are being used by enemies of Just as we have been dedicated to the capital expansion of Yad Vashem as well as to Israel, by Holocaust deniers, to destroy our country. Seventy-one years after the onset of research and educational projects, we have simultaneously been committed to the devel- the events that led to the Holocaust, we still need to remind young people around the opment of a strong infrastructure for our organization — one that will ensure that our mis- world that the Holocaust did happen, and that is where Yad Vashem fits in. sion will be perpetuated by successive generations. Yad Vashem examplifies not only the commemoration and the study and the research, Children of survivors have served on our Board for the past two decades. Ira Drukier, but Yad Vashem is also at the forefront of combating Holocaust denial, hate for Israel, Leonard Wilf, David Halpern, Cheryl Lifshitz, Dr. Axel Stawski, Melvin Bukiet, Harry Karten, and and anti-Semitism. I am very proud to be affiliated with Yad Vashem. I think that the role Lili Stawski were among the first of their generation to become active. This planning has borne of my generation, as the young leaders who are here today, is to make young people fruit. Our entire Executive Committee, consisting of 20 people, is of that age group. around the world understand that the Holocaust was not just another catastrophe; it was Our two chairs for this evening are descendants of survivors and exemplify this endeav- a philosophy of hatred aimed at the Jewish people, a philosophy of eradication of Jews. or. Mark Wilf is a son of our Benefactors Joseph and Elizabeth Wilf. We are proud to have Our role is to transform the lessons of the past into today’s reality. Mark on our Executive Board. I would like to thank all of you for supporting Yad Vashem. This is a holy cause that Caroline Massel, whose survivor grandparents, Regina and Salo Guttfreund z”l, were among stems out of the earth of Jerusalem. Each and every leader of the world who sets foot on my best friends, has been the central force behind our Young Leadership Associates. Starting Jerusalem’s soil, first and foremost is brought to Yad Vashem. We confront them with the in 1997, with a small core group, the Young Leadership Associates now proudly boasts a mem- story of the Holocaust; we want their hearts to burn with pain, and we want them to bership of 800 young people, many of whom do not have a direct family connection to the understand the full scope of what went on in the Holocaust. For that the holy mission of Shoah, but view remembrance as a historical imperative of the Jewish people. Yad Vashem must be continued, and for this we are gathered here tonight. To commit I turn to my friend and colleague, Avner Shalev, Chairman of Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, ourselves eternally to the empowering, fostering, and strengthening of Yad Vashem. To and say to you and to all those present, make sure that it will teach generations of people until the end of time a lesson of the “My friends, these young people, already active, provide us with assurance that successive most horrific tragedy in the history of humankind, to explain the story of Israel and the generations will continue the work that we began and will carry the torch of remembrance with plight of Zion, and to make sure that someone on Earth defends the true rule of law and dignity and pride as part of the National Remembrance Authority — Yad Vashem.” the true rules of human rights. IN THIS ISSUE American Society for Yad Vashem Annual Tribute Dinner...... 1, 8-9, 16 Does new German memorial honor Nazis, ignore Jews?...... 3 A vow fulfilled...... 4 Schindler’s apprentice...... 5 Preserving the faces of the Holocaust...... 6 The Jew who bargained with Eichmann...... 7 A prayer book’s journey...... 10 New light on Nazi crimes...... 11 A believer in heroism, to Jews’ lasting gratitude...... 12 Revisiting the sham of Theresienstadt...... 14 German car firm “used hair from Auschwitz”...... 15 Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2009 - Kislev/Tevet 5770

ISRAELI LEADER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU POLISH CITY ERECTS MEMORIAL BLASTS HOLOCAUST DENIERS TO KINDERTRANSPORT CHILDREN t the same podium where Iran’s to the “systematic assault on the truth” monument was unveiled in the November 9, 1938, in which Jewish busi- A Holocaust denier had stood the day launched by Iranian President Mahmoud A Polish port city of Gdansk remem- nesses were ransacked across Germany before, Israel’s prime minister held up the Ahmadinejad, who has called the bering 10,000 Jewish children evacuated and about 30,000 Jewish men were minutes of the Nazi meeting where the Holocaust a myth. to Britain to save them from the Nazis. rounded up. The children were saved “final solution to the Jewish question” was The Israeli prime minister said the The bronze memorial commemorating a from the Nazi ghettos and death camps, agreed upon. Iranian fanatic threatened to scuttle the program known as the Kindertransport but most never saw their parents again. Then Prime Minister Benjamin UN’s mission to promote peace and shows five children with suitcases. It went The children came mainly from Germany, Netanyahu spread security. up in front of the main train station in Austria, Czechoslovakia and Danzig. out the construction Netanyahu commend- Gdansk, a city on the Baltic Sea coast that The monument was designed by Frank plans for the ed delegations from the at the time was Danzig, a free city lost to Meisler, a sculptor who was himself on Auschwitz-Birkenau U.S. and other nations Germany after World War I. one of the transports and who has also death camps signed that walked out on The children were sent to foster homes designed Kindertransport monuments in by Reichsfuhrer Ahmadinejad’s disjointed in Britain after the Kristallnacht pogrom on Berlin and London. Heinrich Himmler. address Wednesday Netanyahu turned night calling Israel and DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER to his audience at the U.S. “warmongers.” TO HONOR HOLOCAUST HEROES the United Nations “To those who gave General Assembly and asked: “Is this a this Holocaust denier a hearing, I say on ilmmaker Michael King is producing China, Portugal, Argentina, Japan, Britain lie? This June, President Obama visited behalf of my people, the Jewish people, F and directing the feature-length and the United States. the Buchenwald concentration camp. Did and decent people everywhere: Have you documentary The Rescuers, Heroes of Among those to be profiled in the film President Obama pay tribute to a lie? no shame? Have you no decency? the Holocaust, which focuses on the are Princess Alice of Greece, who hid “And what of the Auschwitz survivors “What a disgrace! What a mockery of efforts of non-Jewish diplomats. Jews in her palace in Athens, and whose arms still bear the tattooed num- the charter of the United Nations! The film will be shot throughout Europe Portuguese diplomat Aristides de Sousa bers branded on them by the Nazis? Are Perhaps, some of you think that this and will retrace the route of thousands of Mendes, who ignored orders and issued those tattoos a lie?” man and his odious regime threaten escapees from the Nazis as they fled to visas to thousands of Jews in France. Netanyahu provided a dramatic rebuttal only the Jews. POLAND TO PUBLISH ONLINE LIST OF WWII DEAD OPENING OF HOLOCAUST MASS GRAVE istorians are set to publish an online The Internet list, which is the result of BEGINS IN GERMANY Hlist of some of the estimated six mil- three years of painstaking research and lion Polish citizens who died at the hands comparison of different databases, ranges xcavation of a suspected mass lite camps of the Sachsenhausen concen- of Nazi Germany during World War II. from Holocaust victims, Poles who died in grave believed to contain the tration camp complex. Excavations began E “The list will be posted at combat in the resistance at home and fight- remains of more than 750 murdered Jews on April 22, the 64th anniversary of the lib- www.stratyosobowe.pl, and will initially ing the Nazis under Allied command, to has begun near the town of Jamlitz, some eration of Sachsenhausen. contain 1.9 million names. There will also civilian victims of German reprisals. 120 kilometers southeast of Berlin. If the site is that of Lieberose, records be an appeal to Internet users to provide The next step, Kunert said, is to expand the The Hungarian historical website, Mult indicate the SS shot 753 Jewish men and us with extra details,” Polish historian list to at least 3.5 million names, notably via Kor.hu, reports that the majority of the vic- women there because they were not well Andrzej Kunert told AFP. more research in Germany’s archives. tims were Jews deported from Hungary by enough to be force-marched away from Around six million Poles are believed to But the 10-year project could end up list- the Nazi’s government at the late stages the camp before the approaching Soviet have died during the 1939-1945 Nazi ing still more names, he said. of World War II. Nation News, however, Red Army. occupation of their country. The figure The Internet project is financed by claims the site holds the remains of “Men Peter Fischer, spokesman for the includes some three million Jewish Poles, Poland’s culture ministry and the Institute and women from Poland and Ukraine.” German Central Council of Jews, said: who made up half of the overall victims of of National Remembrance, set up in 1998 Excavation was prevented under the pre- “There is no doubt that this is the histori- the Holocaust. to investigate historical crimes. vious East German government and since cally authentic place of one of the worst the reunification of Germany legal battles massacres around Berlin.” over land ownership have prevented the Archaeologists, pathologists and prosecu- HOLOCAUST TRAUMAS STILL CAUSE DISTRESS opening of the suspected gravesite. tors will examine the grave site. After the FOR MANY SURVIVORS German historians believe the site is that completion of the dig, it is expected the site of the Lieberose camp, one of the satel- will be turned into a Holocaust memorial. survivors than among the control group. BY JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH, However, symptoms of depressive dis- THE JERUSALEM POST orders and post-traumatic stress disor- HOLOCAUST REFUGEE MUSEUM OPENS IN ITALY der were no more common among ore than 60 years after World War museum commemorating Jewish tions, including a synagogue, canteen, Holocaust survivors than among the II, many Holocaust survivors in Holocaust refugees has opened orphanage, and hospital, were set up. M comparison group. A Israel and the US have been found to near the Italian town that gave them shel- Three newly restored murals painted by “The Second World War ended in 1945, experience psychiatric problems such as ter on their way to Palestine. one of the refugees, Romanian-born Zivi yet for some – but not all – of those who anxiety, emotional distress and sleep dis- The Museum of Memory and Welcome Miller, form the centerpiece of the muse- survived the Holocaust the psychopatho- turbances, according to a study published was inaugurated in January near Nardo, um. The murals were painted on a long- logical impact seems to have been pres- Thursday in the British Journal of in southern Italy. Israel’s ambassador to abandoned building. ent over the years, and even six decades Psychiatry. Italy and Rome’s chief rabbi, Riccardo Di One mural is of a lighted menorah; one later,” the researchers wrote. “The report- Researchers based in Jerusalem and Segni, joined local officials for the cere- depicts the journey of Jews from southern ed sleep disturbances are noteworthy and the US held face-to-face interviews with mony. Italy toward Palestine; and the third shows could result from repeated 145 European-born Between 1943 and 1947, as many as a Jewish mother and child asking a British and traumatic imagery or Jews who had survived 150,000 Jews fleeing Europe for soldier to allow them to enter. dreams regularly appearing the Holocaust. Of Palestine, then still under British control, Di Segni in his speech thanked local during sleep.” these, 55 had been in found shelter in and around Nardo, in the officials for keeping to the opening date Severe adversity, such as concentration camps heel of Italy’s boot. “despite the grave international situation.” that experienced during the and 36 in ghettos or in The museum is in the seacoast village Local media said police stopped four neo- hiding, while 54 had Holocaust, can affect peo- of Santa Maria al Bagno, one of the main fascist youths who tried to distribute anti- fled their countries to ple in different ways as they refugee centers, where Jewish institu- Israel flyers during the ceremony. escape the Nazis. get older, they noted. In Anat Shemesh and later years, feelings AUSCHWITZ INMATES’ NOTE DISCOVERED Dr. Itzhak Levav of the attached to the encapsulat- Health Ministry, Asaf ed memories of the adverse message written by Nazi prisoners “They were young people who were try- past events might return, and placed in a bottle was discov- ing to leave some trace of their existence Sharon and Jenny A Brodsky of the Myers- possibly reactivated by ered by builders working near the site of behind them,” said the museum other events such as the Auschwitz death camp. spokesman. JDC-Brookdale Holocaust Remembrance The bottle was discovered April 20 hidden The note’s authenticity has been veri- Institute in Jerusalem, Day, visits to the extermina- in a concrete wall in a school that prisoners fied and the museum will receive the and Dr. Robert Kohn of A Holocaust survivor during a cere- tion camps in Europe, or had been forced to reinforce, according to note soon. Brown University in mony at Yad Vashem. war, they concluded. an Auschwitz museum official. Meanwhile, the Czech government Rhode Island also “In older individuals, who often engage The official told reporters that the mes- voted to contribute about $100,000 interviewed a comparison group of 143 in retrospection, past memories might sage was written in pencil, dated Sept. 9, toward the repair and upkeep of the for- European-born Jewish Israelis who had vividly evoke those early years of depriva- 1944, and signed by seven inmates from mer death camp. It is the second country not been exposed to the Holocaust. tion, losses and persecution, and as a Poland and France. At least two survived after Germany to promise funds following They found that anxiety disorders, emo- result repressed or suppressed feelings the Holocaust, the official said. a Polish plea for help. tional distress and sleep disturbances were more frequent among Holocaust might emerge,” they wrote. November/December 2009 - Kislev/Tevet 5770 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 3

GERMAN “GHETTO PENSION” REQUESTS BOOK DOCUMENTS HOLOCAUST TO BE RE-EVALUATED IN THE FORMER SOVIET UNION early 70,000 rejected German The Claims Conference, which does new encyclopedia documents the the territory of the USSR” features NSocial Security claims from not process or administer the claims, A history of the Holocaust in the newly discovered and mostly unpub- Holocaust survivors are to be reopened. joined with other survivor organizations former Soviet Union. lished photos, facts and recollections. A monitoring group established by the to press for the changes because The book is a project of the Russian The book also contains documents that Claims Conference and German Ministry “inconsistent and overly strict interpre- Holocaust Center and Rosspen pub- shed new light on Jewish life during the of Labor and Social Affairs will check tation of eligibility criteria by local lishing house. occupation and Holocaust. claims turned down since 2002, with the German authorities resulted in wide- Ilya Altman, leader of the project and The encyclopedia includes articles by oldest claimants being processed first. spread denial of claims.” co-chair of the Russian Holocaust nearly 100 authors from 12 countries, The re-evaluations follow years of lob- As of now, the kind of payment Center of Moscow; Alla Gerber, presi- including biographical articles and bying and three court decisions this sum- received for work in ghettos — such as dent of the Moscow Holocaust those devoted to the key issues of the mer that liberalized payment criteria for money, food or clothes — is no longer Foundation; and Anatoly Podolsky, Holocaust. Germany’s 2002 “ghetto pension” law, a decisive factor, and remuneration director of the Ukrainian Center for The authors used materials from which applies to survivors of Nazi-occu- need not have been provided directly to Holocaust Studies, presented the ency- more than 70 archives and museums in pied or-incorporated ghettos who per- the claimant. In addition, ghettos in clopedia at a seminar on the Holocaust. the Russian Federation and former formed “voluntary and remunerated work.” Transnistria are to be covered. Leaders of the project, scientists, for- Soviet countries, as well as Israel, mer prisoners of ghettos and concen- Germany, Poland, the United States, tration camps, and educators participat- and France. ANTI-SEMITIC VANDALISM AT CHICAGO CEMETERY ed in the seminar at the Institution of Some of the articles were written by early 60 headstones at a Chicago are buried there. Political, Ethnic and National Studies of former concentration camp and ghetto NJewish cemetery were spray-paint- The vandalism likely occurred on Jan. 6, the Ukraine’s National Academy of prisoners, as well as survivors. ed with anti-Semitic graffiti. according to Sheriff Tom Dart, who called Sciences in Kiev. One thousand copies of the book, in Swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans the damage a hate crime. The “Encyclopedia of Holocaust on Russian, were printed. such as “juden ras” (German for “Jews “What they did here is especially despica- out”), “Aryan Power” and a Star of David ble,” Dart said at a news conference last hanging from a gallows were found on Friday afternoon, the Chicago Tribune report- AUSTRIAN TEENS HELD IN ATTACK ON SURVIVORS headstones at the Westlawn Cemetery in ed. “The desecration of graves has a level in ive Austrian teenagers were arrest- reports. Some of the visitors, including northwest Chicago. About 46,000 people the circle of hell that goes to the very bottom.” Fed in connection with a neo-Nazi survivors of the Ebensee slave labor attack on Holocaust survivors. camp, were standing near a stone pit at PROJECT TO SURVEY HOLOCAUST-ERA MASS GRAVES The survivors and others were attacked the site when the incident occurred. while commemorating the 64th anniver- The arrested teens, who had fled the new project will survey mass Estonia will assemble geographical data, sary of the liberation of a concentration scene, range in age from 14 to 17 and A graves and Jewish cemeteries in take photos and report on the condition of camp near Salzburg on May 9. come from the Salzburg area. They have the Baltic states where Jewish communi- the sites. Of particular importance for the Calling the incident one of the worst in been charged and released on their own ties were largely destroyed during World program is assessing the need for fences postwar Austria, authorities said the incident recognizance. They reportedly admitted War II. or demarcations in keeping with Jewish also illustrated the growing right-wing under interrogation that they had planned The aim is to identify and repair the ne- law. Local governments will be encour- extremism among Austrian youth. The teens to disrupt the commemorative ceremony glected sites from the Holocaust era, aged to contribute financially to the pro- involved apparently had no previous record. marking the liberation of the camp. which often are the last reminder of once- tection and improvement of the sites, the Two people were wounded in the attack, Austrian Interior Minister Maria Fekter vibrant Jewish communities, according to statement said. in which teens allegedly fired plastic bul- described the case as a “very serious” a statement released Monday by Lo The “identification and protection [of the lets from air guns and harassed visitors example of rising right-wing tendencies. Tishkach-Do Not Forget, a project coordi- cemeteries] is fundamental to the battle verbally, according to reports. One of the Alois Lissl, chief of the Upper Austrian nated by the Conference of European against Holocaust denial,” Lo Tishkach guns was found later near the scene, security directorate, said the teenagers Rabbis, the continent’s main Orthodox Executive Director Philip Carmel said. according to police. professed to be unaware that if convicted rabbinical association, and sponsored by The Genesis Philanthropy Group and The masked youths also allegedly as youths, they could spend up to five the Conference for Jewish Material the Claims Conference are supporting the shouted “Heil Hitler” and gave the Nazi years in prison for breaching the law that Claims against Germany. project. Lo Tishkach was launched in salute, shocking a group of visitors from bans the Nazi party and any activities Youth groups in Latvia, Lithuania and early 2008. France and Italy, according to news aimed at reviving it. DOES NEW GERMAN MEMORIAL HONOR NAZIS, IGNORE JEWS? controversial. included since the other stone might bear against including the Jews.” BY TOBY AXELROD, JTA “It is always a strange aftertaste when the names of SS members. dding fuel to the fire, a left-wing you put them together,” said Kay “There was no problem with simple sol- A blogger using the name Lindener controversy has erupted in a Schweigmann-Greve, head of the diers, but the Jewish community could not Butjer has accused the town’s mayor, a A German town over a new memorial Hannover branch of the German-Israel accept there being SS and Gestapo member of the conservative Christian that critics say honors SS soldiers and Society. there,” Fuerst told JTA. Democratic Union Party, of ignoring ignores Jewish Holocaust victims. Towns and cities throughout Germany Hoppenstedt said professional Jewish and Gypsy victims while highlight- The interfaith German-Israel Society have war memorials, but Grossburgwedel research was conducted to determine ing Nazi soldiers. The blogger called for a says the memorial unveiled Nov. 15 in had nothing for its World War II soldiers. whether any of the soldiers “had any protest “against this form of institutional- Grossburgwedel, near Hannover, hints of war crimes in their files. ized falsification of history.” recognizes members of the notori- We found nothing.” “It is completely understandable that the ous Blackshirts. But the mayor of Clues that a sixth soldier had been Jewish community does not want to have Burgwedel, which has jurisdiction in the SD, a so-called security serv- its murdered relatives on a memorial with over Grossburgwedel, rejects the ice connected to the Gestapo, could SS men,” said Efraim Zuroff of the Simon charge. not be confirmed. The decision was Wiesenthal Center’s Jerusalem office. “We were accused of honoring made not to excise any of the six Zuroff told JTA in an interview that “the SS members, and we are definite- names. fact that someone was not charged with ly not doing that,” Mayor Hendrik Fuerst said the mayor informed war crimes does not mean that they were Hoppenstedt told JTA. him immediately once a decision not involved in war crimes. German per- While five members of the SS had been made. secution policy back then was far from Blackshirts are among those “I told the mayor that I respected comprehensive; it was quite lenient.” named on the memorial, he said, him, but that the Jewish communi- Fuerst said he had no complaint about they were never charged with any ty still could not approve of having how the city handled the matter and war crimes and are not receiving Jewish victims on one stone and applauded the involvement of local teens any special honor. The memorial in Grossburgwedel. SS people included on the other,” in researching the history. The concept of dual remem- When older residents of Grossburgwedel Fuerst said, adding that a main square Conversely, he said he found the tactics brance is controversial in Germany. proposed the idea some years ago, in Grossburgwedel is named after of opponents “not good.” In 1985, President Ronald Reagan Hoppenstedt said, the town decided to Jewish doctor Albert David, who took “They say that the town did not speak caused a stir by joining then-Chancellor have two memorials: one for civilian vic- his life in 1941 when the Gestapo came with me,” Fuerst said. “That is not true.” Helmut Kohl for ceremonies at Bitburg tims, the other for military ones. to arrest him. Hoppenstedt said he hoped the memorial Cemetery, where the graves of SS sol- Local Jewish leaders were consulted, Schweigmann-Greve in a statement would “fulfill its purpose both for the families of diers lie alongside those of regular sol- and Michael Fuerst, head of the State said it was regrettable that local citi- those named, and for those who have no per- diers. And in 1993, Berlin rededicated the Association of Jewish Communities in zens, “given the choice of including sonal connection to that time, that they will Neue Wache, a central memorial honor- Lower Saxony, told the mayor that his members of Nazi organizations or see it as a symbol of what happened and ing soldiers and victims that has remained organization did not want Jewish names Jewish citizens of Burgwedel, decided what we have to do to prevent it in the future.” Page 4 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2009 - Kislev/Tevet 5770 BOOKBOOK REVIEWSREVIEWS DENYING HISTORY: WHO SAYS THE HOLOCAUST NEVER HAPPENED AND WHY DO THEY SAY IT? Denying History: Who Says the documents, eyewitness testimony, photo- “We debate every other great historical show us how deniers, very unlike consci- Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do graphs, etc. — to support any and all issue as a matter of course, but influential entious and responsible historians, will do They Say It? By Michael Shermer & Alex claims. (One piece of evidence can nei- pressure groups with private agendas all they deem necessary to prove their Grobman. University of California Press: ther prove nor disprove anything!) Only have made the Holocaust story an excep- points. Among other tactics, rather than Berkeley, California, 2009. 334 pp. then, with substantial evidence in hand, tion... Students should be encouraged to looking for support for their own claims, $18.95 paperback does the historian feel confident enough investigate the Holocaust story the same deniers will joyously pounce on the slight- to turn claims into history. way they are encouraged to investigate est hint of disagreement in survivors’ tes- REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN hat done, Shermer every other historical timonies as regards a particular happen- n a world where anyone can trumpet T and Grobman zero event.” Sadly, many ing. Then, clutching that hint, they will use Ihis own “facts” about anything, in on their study of college newspapers ran it to heartily discredit everything in a book Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Holocaust deniers. the ad because student or article written by a legitimate Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say They begin by introduc- editors felt freedom of historian. (Dear reader: Please note, not It?, by Michael Shermer and Alex ing us to a number of speech demanded it! everyone remembers everything in the Grobman, should be required reading for “prominent” ones, among So, why are these same way, nor does everyone experience everyone! them, David Irving. Irving individuals, and a good- everything similarly.) Why? It clearly and definitively explains has written many books ly number more, Soon after doing this, deniers press their just how to identify the truth in a sea of propagating fallacious deniers? It has to do claims, supported, if at all, by the flimsiest “untruths.” And with supposed “informa- views as regards the with the deniers obses- of “evidence.” Another common feat tion” from everywhere daily bombarding Holocaust. He also sion with Jews as con- deniers use is quoting primary texts com- all of us, we all need that ability. eagerly lectures on the spirators. It has to do pletely out of context or misquoting them. At the same time, Denying History same. The authors pres- with the deniers need to For, among other things, deniers don’t should be of particular interest to readers ent Ernst Zündel, anoth- find an enemy upon mind at all mistranslating the German of M&R. For, while telling us who er dedicated denier. whom they can saddle from primary texts to make words mean Holocaust deniers are and why they are Zündel himself “publish- everything that, accord- what they want them to! deniers, Shermer and Grobman, in an es and distributes books, ing to them, has gone Interestingly, the authors’ ultimate goal admirable study, painstakingly show us flyers, videos, and audio- wrong in the world. It in writing Denying History is not only to just how these individuals handle the tapes through his has to do with the fact reveal deniers tactics in contrast to legiti- truth. The result: It quickly becomes Toronto-based Samizdat that Jews have always mate historians’ techniques vis-à-vis his- exceptionally obvious that deniers have a Publishers” — all spread- been the target of anti- tory, but most importantly, to prepare all of hidden agenda in which lies work best! ing his lies as regards the Jews and World Semites; hence these anti-Semites (which us to vociferously rebut deniers outra- In sum, early on, the authors make plain War II. And then there is Bradley Smith, is just what they are) find it easy to point geous claims! For according to Shermer to readers the method used by all consci- whom this reviewer, also a professor, con- to the Jews, once again, as the evil trou- and Grobman, both exceptionally knowl- entious and responsible historians siders the most dangerous of them all. ble-makers in the world. Thus, for deniers, edgeable in the area of Holocaust denial, researching anything. In order to confirm “Smith is best known for his Herculean the Holocaust is just another Jewish con- a denier’s claims left unanswered can that what is supposed to have happened efforts to instigate an ‘open dabate on the spiracy, a way to make Germans feel easily come to be believed by a naïve and actually did, credible historians look for a Holocaust . . .’” guilty, a way to make the world feel guilty, unknowing general public . . . “convergence of evidence.” In other Throughout the early 1990s Smith pur- a way for Jews to get money for them- Dr. Diane Cypkin is a Professor of words, they look for many sources — and chased a number of advertisements in selves and for Israel. Media and Communication Arts at Pace usually a variety of them, including written college newspapers. The ads proclaimed: Finally, the authors of Denying History University. A VOW FULFILLED AFTER THE HOLOCAUST A Vow Fulfilled – The Fran Laufer Story: ing arms of her warm, Chasidic family. At Memories and Miracles. By Fran Laufer. thirteen, she was alone in the Nazis’ lair, IN THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY Targum Press: New York, 2009. 210 pp. surviving on her wits and audacity. At fif- Day After Night. By Anita Diamant. ment. Men and women slept in separate $21.99 softcover. teen, she was working at a labor camp, Scribner, 2009. 304 pp. $27.00 hardcover. barracks; days were long and boring, the stealing a daily vitamin from her overseer future uncertain. REVIEWED BY MALKA FORSTER REVIEWED BY DEBRA SPARK, to keep herself alive. At nineteen, she was In her latest novel, Day After Night, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE veryone loves a success story. We in Bergen-Belsen, battling typhoid. And at Anita Diamant imagines what life inside Ecan’t resist the vicarious thrill of twenty, she met the man who was to fter 1945, some Holocaust sur- Atlit must have been like for its female escaping into the lives become her husband, A vivors, unwilling or unable to return inhabitants. She follows the fortunes of of real-life heroes who, her family, and her future. home, set their sights on Palestine. Given four Holocaust survivors in the months against all odds, mirac- It seems inconceivable. the 1917 Balfour Declaration, Jews might leading up to a dramatic nighttime libera- ulously and heroically How can a person who have expected to be tion of the camp by the soar above. It’s no has suffered so continue received in the land of Palmach, the special wonder, then, that a to live – and not merely to milk and honey with open forces arm of the Jewish book like AVow live, but to live a Torah- arms. But not so. militia. Fulfilled – The Fran filled life of meaning and In 1939, the British As with the biblical hero- Laufer Story: Memories purpose? issued a “White Paper” ines in her best-selling and Miracles has the Fran Laufer proves that that altered the promise The Red Tent, Diamant’s power to capture our with faith and resilience of the Balfour Declaration aim is to speak for those attention. of spirit, the impossible is by creating immigration silenced by history. In this When I first saw the possible. quotas that kept Jews (at case, the untold stories book’s eye-catching A legendary philan- times quite literally) at belong to Shayndel, cover, I thought that it thropist and founder of the sea; they weren’t allowed Leonie, Zorah, and Tedi, would be like many famed Fran Laufer off the ships that had though the novel ranges other Holocaust books. Collection, a unique collec- transported them from even further to describe After reading the book – tion of international Europe. Of those illegal the hearts and minds of in virtually one sitting – I antiques, now, in this book, immigrants who made it the camp’s cook, the was surprised. AVow she shares her saga of a to shore, some even nurse, and others. Fulfilled is more than a journey from barbed wire found themselves behind We first meet Tedi, a Holocaust diary – it is a soul-stirring story to antique brass, and shows how one can barbed wire once again, Dutch Jew who wants of selflessness, strength, and ultimately rise even from the depths of degradation to freed from a concentra- only to forget her past success in the face of evil; it is a tribute to accomplish incredible feats. tion camp only to land in Atlit, a British-run and embark on a new life in Palestine. the human capacity to rebuild and to love “We, the survivors, can only hope that internment camp, located south of Haifa Soon, though, Tedi fades into the after unthinkable horrors. we are leaving a legacy of courage, deter- on the Mediterranean. background, as the plot is largely car- “Horrors” is an understatement. mination, and heroism.” These are Fran’s Though Atlit had its friendly aspects – ried by Shayndel, a former resistance According to the book’s flap, at age 9, powerful and poignant words, and they food, Hebrew lessons, an infirmary and fighter; Leonie, forced into prostitution Frimciu (Fran) was ensconced in the lov- (Continued on page 15) exercise classes – it was still imprison- (Continued on page 13) November/December 2009 - Kislev/Tevet 5770 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 5 SCHINDLER’S APPRENTICE who is the former project director of the U.S. able to share and create community.” at any moment,” Berenbaum said. BY SHARON UDASIN, THE JEWISH WEEK Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. “The ties are also based on a lot less After the war, Leyson spent three years ore than 60 years ago, little Leon “We now understand that many victims and guilt because they survived together,” he in a displaced persons camp and was MLeyson steadied himself on top of a almost all survivors faced life-and-death situ- added. finally able to move with his parents to Los box each morning, climbing the makeshift ations almost routinely.” But as the absolute youngest worker, Angeles, while his brother and sister emi- step stool to operate the controls of a met- fter the Nazi invasion of Leyson’s Leyson felt that his relationship with the grated to Israel through the illegal Aliyah alworking lathe machine that towered A town in northeast Poland, the beloved factory owner was particularly Bet. Leyson served in the American Army over his skinny 13-year-old body. Leyson family was forced to resettle in the special. during the Korean War and then studied Today that pint-sized worker is 80, the Jewish ghetto of Krakow. Leyson’s father, was little so I stood on a box so I at Los Angeles State University — now youngest survivor of Oskar Schindler’s an accomplished toolmaker, was one of “Icould reach the controls better and Cal State Los Angeles — which led him to factory in Krakow, the workplace that the first Jews that Schindler hired, after see over the machine. I think maybe become an industrial arts teacher for the saved more than a thousand Polish Jews the elder Leyson lost his initial factory job Schindler was a little bit amused about next 39 years. This past December, from death. He shared his story with New on account of being Jewish. that,” he said. “He used to stop and talk to NBC’s Los Angeles affiliate aired an Yorkers for the first time Tuesday evening, “Eventually he hired one-by-one my family me, ask me how I was doing. Sometimes Emmy-winning half-hour documentary on at an event organized by Chabad- members who survived,” Leyson said. after some of these visits he would actual- Leyson’s life called A Child on Schindler’s Lubavitch of Midtown. Only after Steven While his oldest ly order a double List, and Leyson will be displaying the Spielberg’s Schindler’s List premiered in brother escaped the ration of food for me.” statue at the Rodgers Center for 1994, did Leyson begin speaking about invasion and some- Leyson does recall Holocaust Education at nearby Chapman his experiences working in Schindler’s how made it safely seeing younger chil- University. enamelware factory and how he and back to the family’s dren playing at the “Once it became public who I was, some of his family members were able to hometown, Leyson’s factory, but they were everybody wanted to come and have me survive the Holocaust. other two brothers too young to work and speak – the dam burst,” said Leyson, In Leyson’s opinion, Schindler’s List and his sister all were eventually taken whose public appearances first began at paved the way for the slew of World War II eventually ended up to Auschwitz at the Chabad in Los Angeles. “I’m always resistance films that have become popular in at Schindler’s facto- end of the war. And amazed when people come to hear me — Hollywood today — films like Defiance, ry. Schindler actually he too, even as a sometimes I think I’ll show up one day and “Valkyrie” and Inglourious Basterds, which removed Leyson’s worker, feared that he there will be nobody there.” tell of survival rather than victimization. sister from Brunnlitz and his colleagues But Leyson continues to speak to audi- Defiance particularly strikes a chord with concentration camp could be taken away ences nationwide, delivering powerful Leyson because he grew up very close to in Czechoslovakia at any second. messages of survival and resistance, as a the story’s location, he said. simply by adding her “I was skeptical the tribute to all of the victims and their self- “Ever since Schindler’s List came out to his list and there- whole time about sur- less rescuers. things turned a little bit,” Leyson told The by saving her life. viving,” Leyson said. “Everyone who lived during that period Jewish Week prior to the event. “There “He was an extraor- “Things were getting of time resisted” – from opening up under- was more interest generated in those dinary human being, worse and worse. At ground schools to staging rebellions to events like Schindler, those people who not just for us but for one point I didn’t think surviving concentration camps. “It’s just rescued Jews. Rescuers didn’t come out everyone who was Schindler would be not the kind of resistance that makes a and admit what they had done until in his company,” able to accomplish splash. It was resistance. Believe me, no Schindler’s List came out.” Leyson said. Leon Leyson. what he did. These one came willingly.” While Defiance juxtaposes Jews as both “Everyone who Nazis were not stupid Not a day goes by when Leyson does rescuers and resisters, a movie like was on Schindler’s list probably thought – they were just evil. And so he had to not think of Schindler and the time spent Inglourious Basterds allows Holocaust vic- they had some special relationship with bribe a lot of Nazis and a lot of officials at his factory, and he was actually able to tims to fulfill lifelong fantasies of killing Hitler, Schindler.” befriended him.” reunite with his hero 20 years after their according to Michael Berenbaum, director of “They realized that they were an Scholars agree, noting that despite the first meeting – but this time, in California. the Sigi Ziering Institute and professor of the- extraordinary community that was going workers’ seemingly favorable situation, “When I tried to introduce myself he ology at the University of Judaism. to survive communally,” Berenbaum said. their survival was always hanging by a interrupted me and said, ‘I know who you “Most of us seldom face life-and-death “They just had it bad enough for there to mere thread. are, you’re Little Leyson,’” he remembers. choices, seldom face the decisions that be a sense of shared destiny and good “It was the most fragile of triumphs that “Twenty years later, that gives you the are absolutely ultimate,” said Berenbaum, enough for them to have enough left to be could’ve ended up in a very different way idea what kind of guy he was.” NAZI LEADER’S GRANDNIECE, JEWISH WOMAN FIND PEACE a guilt-ridden life. she would yell ‘It’s all lies, it didn’t hap- him, but disconnected from the rest of the BY ARON HELLER, AP “I looked into the darkest darkness and pen,’” Goering recalled. family. “It’s all a part of this guilt,” she said. there is nothing left to fear. I finally The young Goering, baffled at how the Through a common friend, she was ettina Goering ran away from home released it,” she said. “It was the deepest systematic killing of 6 million Jews had introduced a couple of years ago to Rich, Bat 13, lived on a promiscuous com- kind of therapy you could do.” occurred, rebelled. who was struggling with her own story of mune in India and later fled to the U.S. he 52-year-old Goering, a doctor of At 13, she ran away and cut ties with the victimized parents and the ghost of a and had herself sterilized. It was all part of T oriental medicine, has struggled family. She became a hippie and then a brother she never knew. Rich went an attempt to escape the legacy of her with her identity her entire life. Her father, communist and traveled the world. But her through years of intensive therapy and last name. Heinz, was adopted by his infamous uncle teenage years were marked by drug escaped to art, where she painted dark Her great-uncle was the infamous Nazi after his own father died, and followed in abuse, and her twenties included three troubling images of the demons lurking leader Hermann Goering. Adolf Hitler’s his footsteps to become a fighter pilot for nervous breakdowns. inside her. second-in-command, he headed the the Luftwaffe. er journey also took her to India Together, the two women began to heal. vaunted Luftwaffe airforce and was a Heinz was shot down over the Soviet Hwhere she become a disciple of n their first meetings, Rich said she felt leading architect of the “Final Solution” to Union and returned from captivity in Osho, the new-age guru bestknown for Icontempt for Goering. “It was very exterminate Europe’s Jews. 1952 to find that his two brothers had promoting free love, before moving to the intense and I definitely projected this on His grandniece’s odyssey to cleanse killed themselves and the family’s for- United States, where she still resides. Bettina,” she said. But ultimately, she said, herself of the family’s tarnished past has tunes were gone. There she married and changed her they have formed a “great sisterhood.” brought her to Israel, where a documen- Hermann Goering was sentenced to name. For this article, she asked to con- Goering credited Rich for letting her tary about her relationship with a child of death along with 11 others at the ceal it for fear of drawing attention, partic- finally shed a burden. The newfound inner Holocaust survivors is being featured at Nuremberg trials in 1946, but he commit- ularly from neo-Nazi sympathizers. peace gave Goering enough confidence the Jewish Eye film festival in this south- ted suicide by swallowing a poison pill in Still, she said she couldn’t shake the to come to Israel for the first time. ern Israeli city. his cell the night before his scheduled ghost of her great-uncle. It was there At a screening this week, she faced Bloodlines records Goering’s emo- execution. every time she looked in the mirror. tough questions from survivors at the film tional encounters with Ruth Rich, an Goering said her father, who died in “The eyes, the cheekbones, the profile,” festival. Later, in a visit to the Yad Vashem Australian artist whose brother was 1981, never spoke about the Holocaust, she said. “I look just like him. I look more Holocaust museum, she watched the murdered by the Nazis and whose par- or about his notorious uncle. like him than his own daughter.” famous footage of Hermann Goering from ents emerged broken from the But her grandmother was less evasive The most drastic step she took was to the Nuremberg trials with less pain than Holocaust. The film has aired in — she adored him. As head of the Red have her fallopian tubes tied at age 30. ever before. Australia and will be screened next at Cross in Nazi Germany, she also hob- She said she feared she would create “The hardest part is admitting that I the Boston Jewish Film Festival. nobbed with the regime’s other top lead- another monster. “It’s my bloodline and I could have liked him. I was so shocked by Goering, in an interview, said it was only ers and had many pictures of herself didn’t want to continue it,” she said. “I did- that,” she said. “Now I am accepting thanks to her meetings with Rich, where alongside Hitler. n’t want any more Goerings.” myself more for who I am, whatever that she faced the pain of an angry victim, that “We would be watching a documentary Her only brother independently decided to encompasses — the good, the bad and she was finally able to break through from on TV together about the Holocaust and have a vasectomy. She is now close with the ugly.” Page 6 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2009 - Kislev/Tevet 5770 SURVIVORS’SURVIVORS’ CORNERCORNER PRESERVING THE FACES OF THE HOLOCAUST try who have let Sutz create three-dimen- driver, who was Hungarian and sympa- register for the war. I was put on a trans- JULIAN GUTHRIE, sional life masks of them – masks that will thetic, told us that we were going to the port truck. I never saw my mother, father, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE serve as another form of documentation gas chamber, and that if we wanted to brother, and sister again.” jump into the ditch on the way, to try to rtist Robert Sutz took pictures of to the murder of Jews by the Nazis. Last First at Sachsenhausen and later at escape, that we should do so, but he said Gloria Lyon, who sat patiently in her month marked the 70th anniversary of the Auschwitz, Shine worked construction, A if we gave him away, he would die, too.” San Francisco home. With her strawberry start of World War II. building barracks. When he learned So on that dark and cold night in late blond hair pulled in soft curls up and off “My documentation is a little bit different,” through a source that the camp was soon December 1944, Lyon, without her face, Lyon had a sweet smile that said Sutz, 79, who has completed the clothes or shoes, was the only belied the words she would speak. masks and heard the stories of 62 sur- woman to jump. “I was 14 when I was sent to Auschwitz vivors, with dozens more interviews “I thought, the only way I will in 1944,” Lyon began. “We had to line up planned. “Future generations will be able to get out of here otherwise is com- without any clothes on and stand in front see what these survivors really look like.” ing out of that chimney as of Dr. Josef Mengele for selection. He had With each mask, Sutz – whose father’s smoke,” she said, her voice far this little baton, and he wore a white family perished in Auschwitz and away, back in the memory of glove. He indicated with that baton Treblinka – does a video interview. that night. whether you should go to the left or to the ’ve heard the worst stories imagi- Lyon spent the next 24 hours right, to extermination or to work. I worked “Inable,” Sutz said. “Many told me freezing in the ditch before behind the gas chamber.” of scenes where they were lined up in sneaking back into a girls’ bar- The next day, Sutz photographed the morning and had to stand for hours. Every 10th person would be shot. The rack. The next morning, in Herman Shine, sitting shirtless in his next day, it would be another stroke of luck, everyone every eighth person in the barrack was loaded on a killed by dogs. train for another Nazi camp, “I’ve heard many sto- Bergen-Belsen. That camp was Holocaust survivor Gloria Lyon with artist Robert Sutz. liberated on Jan. 27, 1945. Both of Lyon’s ries, too, of wintertime in to be “liquidated,” as the Russians were parents and three of her four siblings sur- the camps,” he contin- moving closer, he and a friend plotted vived. One brother was beaten to death in ued. “A survivor told me their escape. of a prisoner who was Auschwitz three days before liberation. “They were going to mow all of us down caught sneaking bread Lyon said she was proud to spend a with special machine guns,” he said. back into the camp. The recent morning sitting for Sutz’s portrait. He and his friend Max Drimmer – who prisoner was stripped “What an interesting way of honoring now lives close by in Burlingame – naked and put in a barrel. those who are no longer here,” Lyon said. escaped in September 1944. They spent All of the other prisoners “And I’m honored that my face will be one three days hiding in a hole in the ground had to shovel ice in until of the faces of the Holocaust.” before walking 18 miles to a hiding place he died.” Herman Shine, the Auschwitz escapee, Artist Robert Sutz poses with some of the life masks he has made of established for them by a Polish Catholic. The common thread says he has not stopped talking about Holocaust survivors. They were on the run for 10 months, and among survivors, Sutz what happened since the day he was lib- kitchen in San Mateo. Still fit at 86, Shine said, is “pure luck” – and “a tremendous erated by the Russians. finally liberated on Jan. 30, 1945. is one of the few people to ever escape desire to live to tell.” As Sutz prepared his plaster bandages As the tape went on his face for the mask, from Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp. Lyon, whose family name is Hollander and plaster mix, Shine spoke of his life Shine was instructed by Sutz not to talk. “I am alive thanks to not one but to a and who was born in Czechoslovakia, and escape. His wife, Marianne, whom he “There are still deniers of the dozen miracles,” said Shine, his left fore- said she and her family had no idea what met in Auschwitz when he was 17 and she Holocaust,” Shine said, getting in a few arm bearing the faded black concentration was happening when they were rounded was 15, was nearby. last words before the plaster went on. camp tattoo of 70196. His shirt was off so up the day after Passover in 1944 and “I was born in Berlin in 1922,” Shine “Fortunately, we are around to repudiate the plaster bandages could go on his neck transported to camp. said. “My mother was German, my father them. But there will come a time when all and face. “One day I was singled out by Mengele was Polish. One day in September 1939 – of the survivors are gone. That’s why Shine and Lyon are among dozens of and put on a truck with 30 women,” Lyon two weeks after the start of war – I was everything has to be written, documented, Holocaust survivors from across the coun- said. “We were all without clothes. The told to report to police headquarters to painted, and spoken of.” AUSCHWITZ MEMORIAL LAUNCHES FACEBOOK PAGE legacy of the Holocaust already have ven- not to use the vehicle.” The Facebook venture is not the muse- BY MONIKA SCISLOWSKA, AP tured onto Facebook. The Simon There’s been no suggestion that um’s first attempt to take advantage of new Wiesenthal Center counts more than Facebook is an inappropriate place to dis- technologies to reach a broader audience. o try to reach young people around 2,000 “fans” on its site and also has used cuss the Holocaust and Auschwitz, a It launched a Polish-language channel on the world, the memorial museum at T Twitter. potent symbol of Nazi Germany’s attempt YouTube in 2008 and an English-language Auschwitz has launched a page on The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to eliminate European Jewry. page two months ago. Some 22,000 people Facebook, the social networking site usu- launched its Facebook page in 2008 and don’t think Facebook is the worst have viewed the video so far. ally home to news and photos about has more than 5,500 fans. It also is on place for education, and let’s be “You can see that although many years friends, funny videos, and the minutiae of “I Twitter and YouTube. honest — the world has changed,” said have passed since the Holocaust, this is still modern life. “Facebook is just another way to reach Piotr Kadlcik, the head of Poland’s Jewish an important reference point for people and The page aims to be a forum for discus- people,” said David Klevan, the education community. “Facebook can be such a that each generation has its own thoughts sion, reflection and learning about the manager for technology and distance place, and I don’t see anything dangerous and reflections on it,” Sawicki said. Nazi death camp, and many people have learning at the Washington museum. “Just or wrong about the Auschwitz museum Between 1940 and 1945, some 1 million left a simple message in English, Hebrew like museums often hold programs in cof- having a profile on it.” people, mostly Jews, were killed or died of and Polish: “Never again.” fee shops or other places in their local Facebook turned five years old this year starvation, disease, and forced labor at In one week since opening, the page communities, this is where people gather and has more than 175 million users the camp, which the Nazis built in occu- has drawn more than 1,800 “fans,” who — they gather on Facebook.” worldwide. There are scores of Facebook pied Poland. Sawicki said the memorial’s have subscribed, and the number is grow- Efraim Zuroff of the Wiesenthal Center groups dedicated to Auschwitz started by 1 million annual visitors are primarily stu- ing by the hour. About 1,000 signed up on in Jerusalem said the idea of using the individuals, but the page — found by dents and other young people. Thursday alone. Internet is “to reach out to as many people searching the site with the keywords There is an unofficial Facebook page Pawel Sawicki, a spokesman for the as possible.” “Auschwitz Memorial” — allows people to dedicated to Israel’s Yad Vashem Auschwitz memorial, said the museum Although the Web is also rife with far- take part in discussions moderated by the Holocaust memorial, which says it plans viewed its venture onto the popular site as right sites that attempt to distort or deny memorial’s staff. an official page in the coming weeks. “kind of an experiment.” the Holocaust, Zuroff said that was no So far, the site has seen no postings by “We certainly view the Internet as a key “Facebook is the tool that young people reason for others to dismiss using it. Holocaust deniers, Sawicki said. If they do tool in disseminating accurate, credible are using to communicate, so if we want “The vehicle depends on the content,” show up, they will be removed quickly, he information about the Holocaust to as to reach them, we should be using their he said. “If the content is helpful, if the said, adding that engaging such people in wide an audience as possible,” said Yad tool,” Sawicki told The Associated Press. content is educational, there’s no reason dialogue is “a waste of time.” Vashem spokeswoman Estee Yaari. Other organizations that deal with the November/December 2009 - Kislev/Tevet 5770 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 7 WITNESSES OPEN UP TO PRIEST ON HOLOCAUST IN SOVIET UNION Begun after Germany invaded the archives, heightening their credibility, says had to tread on was a classmate. BY MARIA DANILOVA and Soviet Union in June 1941, the slaughter Paul Shapiro of the U.S. Holocaust “You know, we were very poor, we didn’t RANDY HERSCHAFT, AP by bullets was the opening phase of what Memorial Museum, who wrote the fore- have shoes,” Petrivna told Desbois in a he Holocaust has a landscape became the Nazis’ Final Solution, with its word to Desbois’ book. single breath, her body twitching in pain, Desbois’ work also is having an impact engraved in the mind’s eye: barbed- factories of death operating in Auschwitz, Desbois writes in his book. “You see, it is T on efforts to preserve Holocaust sites. In wire fences, gas chambers, furnaces. Poland, and other camps. not easy to walk on bodies.” December of 2008, the 26-nation Less known is the so-called Holocaust esbois devotes his 233-page book, Desbois, 53, a short, soft-spoken man International Task Force on the Holocaust by Bullets, in which more than 2 million Dpublished by Palgrave Macmillan in with dark, thinning hair, says the stories called on European governments to Jews were gunned down in towns and vil- August, to his work in Ukraine, where he give him nightmares. The most difficult is ensure the protection of locations, such as lages across Ukraine, Belarus and says he has uncovered more than 800 “to bear the horrors that the witnesses tell the mass graves Desbois is uncovering, Russia. Their part in the Nazis’ Final mass extermination sites, more than two- me, because often the people are simple, according to Shapiro, who helped draft Solution has been under-researched, thirds of them previously unknown. very kind, and want to tell me everything,” the resolution. their bodies left unidentified in unmarked Since the book was written, he has Desbois said. mong Desbois’ key findings is the mass graves. expanded his search for mass graves “You have to be able to listen, to accept, widespread use of local children to Shoah, French filmmaker Claude into Belarus and plans to look early this A to bear this horror,” said Desbois. “I am help bury the dead, wait on German sol- Lanzmann’s documentary, stands as the year in areas of Russia that were occu- not here to judge the people’s guilt; we are diers during meals, and remove gold teeth 20th century’s epic visual record of the pied by the Germans. here to know what happened.” and other valuables from the bodies. His Holocaust. Now, another Frenchman, Sometimes bursting into tears, old men Desbois’ small team includes a translator, work also has yielded evidence that the Catholic priest Patrick Desbois, is filling in and women from Ukrainian villages recount a researcher, a mapping expert, a ballistics killings were most frequently carried out in a different part of the picture. to Desbois how women, children, and elders specialist, and a video and photo crew. He the open, in daylight and in a variety of Desbois says he has interviewed more were marched or carted in from neighboring often joins his witnesses in their homes, leav- ways — shooting victims, throwing them than 800 eyewitnesses and pinpointed towns to be shot, burned to death, or buried ing his shoes outside. He tends to a peas- alive into bonfires, walling up a group of hundreds of mass graves strewn around alive by German troops, Romanian forces, ant’s cow while the man tells his story. Jews in a cellar that wasn’t opened until dusty fields in the former Soviet Union. squads of Ukrainian collaborators, and eth- Desbois has deep personal roots in his 12 years later. The result is a book, The Holocaust by nic German volunteers. project, dating to 2002, when he first visit- Desbois’ witnesses are mostly Orthodox Bullets, and an exhibition that ran through Even then, it was methodical, Desbois’ ed Ukraine to see the place where his Christian, and he comes to them as a priest, March 15 at New York’s Museum of research shows. First, Germans would arrive grandfather was interned as a French dressed in black and wearing a clerical col- Jewish Heritage. in a town or village and gather intelligence on prisoner in World War II. lar, taking in their pain and trying to ease their Brought to Ukraine by a twist of fate, how best to transport the victims to extermi- When he arrived, the locals told him of a suffering. Many have never before talked Desbois has spent seven years trying to nation sites, where to execute them, and stream of blood that had run from the site about their experiences. document the truth, honor the dead, how to dispose of their bodies. where the Jews were executed, and of a In the village of Ternivka, about 200 relieve witnesses of their pain and guilt “It was done as systematically as it was miles south of Kiev, where 2,300 Jews dismembered woman hanging from a tree and prevent future acts of genocide. done elsewhere,” said John Paul Himka, were killed, a frail, elderly woman, who after the Nazis threw a grenade in a pit full About 1.4 million of Soviet Ukraine’s 2.4 an expert on the Holocaust and Ukraine at identified herself only as Petrivna, of people. When he was offered a visit to million Jews were executed, starved to the University of Alberta in Canada, who is revealed the unbearable task the Nazis more villages, he did not hesitate. death or died of disease during the war. not connected to Desbois’ work. “You can imposed on her. “I am in a hurry to find all the bones, to Another 550,000-650,000 Soviet Jews read as they’re figuring out the best way The young schoolgirl saw her Jewish establish the truth and justice so that the were killed in Belarus and up to 140,000 to do this, the best way to shoot ... it’s neighbors thrown into a large pit, many world can know what happened and that in Russia, according to the U.S. Holocaust absolutely systematic, no accident here.” still alive and convulsing in agony. Her the Germans never left a tiny village in Memorial Museum. Most of the victims Desbois’ interviews and grave-hunting task was to trample on them barefoot to Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia without were women, children and elderly people. tie in to millions of pages of Soviet make space for more. One of those she killing Jews there.” KILLING KASZTNER, THE JEW WHO BARGAINED WITH EICHMANN Ross. Entitled Killing Kasztner, the Jew Who Kasztner’s own family (though not him). For ning documentary about the Hungarian BY RICHARD Z. CHESNOFF, Dealt with Nazis, the 116-minute film won the most part, the passengers were a repre- Holocaust, Kasztner’s name is never THE JEWISH WORLD rave reviews in Israel, where it was dubbed sentative range of the Hungarian Jewish heard, his face never seen. community, from ultra-orthodox rabbis to he history of the Holocaust runs as “one of the ten best films of the year,” and secular scholars, from some of the wealthy fathomless with tales of personal again at the Toronto Film Festival. T and prominent who’d supplied the ransom to tragedy. Yet few remain more dramatic – ezso Kasztner was a dashing workers and penniless members of Zionist or more contentious – than the story of RBudapest journalist, a Zionist leader and socialist youth groups. Rezso Kasztner, the heroic Hungarian who became active in Jewish community It was the only incident during the Nazi Jew who tried to negotiate directly with the affairs. He faced a horrible dilemma. The Nazis had invaded Hungary slaughter when the Germans allowed any in 1944. Europe’s last intact Jews to escape. Jewish community was o those he saved and their descen- scheduled to be the next vic- T dants, Kasztner became a hero, a tim of the Final Solution. Jewish Oskar Schindler who made a diffi- Murder-mastermind Adolf cult but responsible moral choice. To oth- Eichmann had already set up ers, especially those whose families were shop in Budapest and was not chosen to be saved, Kasztner became wasting no time in preparing an unforgivable villain, a man who played to pack Hungarian Jews into G-d, consorted with the devil and actually Auschwitz-bound cattle cars. caused the deaths of hundreds of thou- Kasztner entered into a sands of Jews by withholding crucial infor- bizarre “blood for wares” mation from the general public about the negotiation with Eichmann Auschwitz death camp. himself. Hitler’s war Accused after the war of being a collab- Those rescued by Mr. Kasztner spent months at the Bergen- machine was deep in trou- orator by another Hungarian Jew, he was Belsen concentration camp before being taken by train to free- ble. In exchange for $10 mil- the center of a tendentious libel trial that dom in Switzerland. Drawings by one survivor, Istvan Irsai, on lion in cash and 10,000 rocked Israel during the early 1950s and A still from the film shows a scene from a trial display at the YIVO Institute, chronicled life at the camp. Behind trucks (“for use only on the eventually was gunned down in Tel Aviv in Israel, which aired allegations that Malkiel the drawing, a list of passengers on board the train. Eastern Front”), Eichmann by a man convinced Kasztner had Grinwald had libeled Mr. Kasztner, accusing betrayed his own people. him of agreeing to the rescue in exchange for Nazis to save a half million of his people promised he would halt the Hungarian But had he? For more than 50 years, keeping quiet about the extent of Nazi atroci- from the gas chambers. killings. Predictably, Kasztner failed to get there has been little or no discussion of ties in Hungary. Kasztner ultimately failed in most of his Anglo-American backing for the scheme. Kasztner. While Schindler, Swedish diplo- Was Rezso Kasztner a heroic rescuer of grand ambition. But he did succeed in But he gambled for time and ultimately mat Raoul Wallenberg and others became his people or a cold-blooded rogue collab- saving tens of thousands of Hungarian raised a multimillion-dollar ransom of icons of righteousness for their role in sav- orating with its worst enemies? Through Jews, only to be accused in the postwar gold, jewelry, diamonds, and cash that did ing Jewish lives, Kasztner was almost a reenactments of his politicized trial, accusa- years of being a villainous collaborator. buy tens of thousands of Jewish lives. taboo subject. His work was unmentioned tions after 50 years by Kasztner’s assassin, Kasztner – and his brutal murder on the Among them: 1,684 Jews who boarded a in Israeli textbooks. Holocaust museums Ze’ev Eckstein, that there was a conspiracy, streets of Tel Aviv 12 years after the train in Budapest that finally reached the paid scant if any attention to him. When and a stunning confrontation between the Holocaust had ended – are the subjects of safety of Switzerland. A Jewish communi- his name was raised, it triggered rage and now-free killer and Kasztner’s daughter, a remarkable new film by prize-winning ty committee chose those who made it to bitter debate. Indeed, in The Final Days, audiences can finally judge this forgotten New York documentary director Gaylen freedom. They included some members of Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award-win- man for themselves. Page 8 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2009 - Kislev/Tevet 5770 WHOEVER SAVES A LI ANNUAL TRIBUTE DINNER OF THE AMERICAN &

Fanya Gottesfeld Heller, recipient of the 2009 Yad Vashem Education Remembrance Award (center), with Tribute Dinner Guest Speaker Hon. Isaac Herzog, Minister of Social Affairs and Services of the (l to r) Natasha Hanina; Dr. Jacqueline Heller; Miriam Hanina; Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad State of Israel (center), with (l to r) Michal Herzog; Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Vashem Directorate; Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American & International Societies for Yad Directorate; Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American & International Societies for Yad Vashem; Vashem; and Ben Heller. and Elizabeth Zborowski.

(l to r) Joseph Wilf, Vice Chairman, American & International Societies for Yad Vashem; Elizabeth Jeremy Halpern, Young Leadership Associates Dinner Committee Guest Speaker the Hon. Isaac He Wilf; Elizabeth Zborowski, Cultural Director; and Eli Zborowski, Chairman, American & Chair and Member of the Board, delivers greetings from the Hon. Services, State of Israel, delive International Societies for Yad Vashem. Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Tribute Dinner.

Barry Levine, Young Leadership Associates Dinner Committee Chair delivers greetings from the Hon. Shimon Peres, President of the State of Israel. Close to 1,000 guests attended the 2009 Annual Tribute Dinner at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Tow November/December 2009 - Kislev/Tevet 5770 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 9 IFE, SAVES HUMANITY & INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES FOR YAD VASHEM

h Tovah Feldshuh, Recipient of the 2009 Yad Vashem Remembrance Award (center), with (l to r) Caroline d Massel, Dinner Chair and Young Leadership Associates Chairperson; Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad d Vashem Directorate; Elizabeth Zborowski, Cultural Director; and Eli Zborowski, Chairman, American Cheryl Lifshitz, Executive Committee, American & International Societies for Yad Vashem; Michal & International Societies for Yad Vashem. Herzog, Minister Isaac Herzog; Stella Skura; and Elizabeth and Eli Zborowski.

Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the American & International Societies for Yad Vashem; Hon. erzog, Minister of Social Affairs and Isaac Herzog, Minister of Social Affairs and Services of the State of Israel; Leonard Wilf, ers greetings at the 2009 Annual Caroline Massel, 2009 Dinner Chair and Young Leadership Associates Chairman, Board of Trustees; and Tovah Feldshuh, recipient of the Yad Vashem Leadership Chairperson, greets guests at the 2009 Annual Tribute Dinner. Remembrance Award.

wers. Members of the Young Leadership Associates of the American Society for Yad Vashem at the 2009 Annual Tribute Dinner. Page 10 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2009 - Kislev/Tevet 5770 REPORTREPORT FROMFROM YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM HOW MUCH DID THEY KNOW? REAL-TIME MEDIA REPORTS DURING WWII was undertaken specifically for the event. peared from neighborhoods and news- Indeed, in 1943, the Star ran a chart BY ESTEE YAARI Looking at a diversity of media as well as reels at the same time. seeking to answer the question, “What geographic areas, the workshop helped Yet, noted Dr. Jan Grabowski, the situa- has happened to the Jews of Europe?” ne of the most troubling issues tion in Poland — where the death camps While the Bermuda Conference was about the bystanders’ role during clarify what bystanders knew about the O were located — was different. Poles taking place in April 1943, political the Holocaust has always been what they Holocaust in real time. It also provided received their information either from activist Watson Thomson spoke on the knew about the Nazis’ plans for the Jews greater insight into the Nazis’ use of the German-directed propaganda or from the CBC national radio network about the — how this information was related to media to manipulate public opinion.” clandestine Underground publications. mass extermination of Jews by SS them and, of course, when. he Germans targeted their propa- Posters and news reports became squads in the Soviet Union and the Did the average Frenchman in Paris Tganda — posters, films, newspa- increasingly anti-Semitic, warning Poles extermination camps in Poland. He know what was happening to the Jews pers and newsreels — at specific popula- tions. Dr. Kerstin Stutterheim, who exam- that Jews were dangerous agents of condemned Canada’s indifference being deported from his country? What ined newsreels in Germany, and Dr. Roel death. Tellingly, Grabowski pointed out toward the Jewish victims and called for about the Poles, who witnessed trainloads Winkel, who looked at a cross-section of that when reports of the mass murder of the immediate rescue of European of prisoners being transported across the newsreels in various countries in Europe, Jews were delivered through the Jewry. Dr. Frisse was careful to note land? In Europe, was there any way to pointed to German propaganda strategy, Underground press, or via the BBC Polish that this kind of presentation was not know what was actually happening? The broadcasts, local necessarily representative of all the Allies have come under criticism for not Underground operatives Canadian media, and that indeed, the doing enough to rescue European Jewry urged the London-based press in Quebec, for example, was not — but did they actually have enough infor- news service to stop broad- so sympathetic to the plight of the mation to compel them to act? casting items sympathetic Jews. These questions and more were tackled to the Jews, as it harmed Participants agreed that more studies at a recent weeklong scholarly workshop the Polish cause. needed to be conducted, particularly a held by Yad Vashem’s International he bystanders in comparative examination of what was Institute for Holocaust Research. “TEurope knew what happening in the Allied countries. Most Examining how the Holocaust was report- was happening,” stated of the researchers agreed that a topic ed in various media — particularly in Prof. Bankier. “Even if it that requires further study is how the Europe — during WWII, researchers from was not spelled out — and media reports on the Holocaust influ- Israel, Canada, Germany, Italy, Belgium, it never was – years of enced people’s positions vis-a-vis the the UK, Hungary, Russia, Holland and the by which the populace was so conditioned propaganda had conditioned the people Jews during the war. United States came together for in-depth to anti-Semitism in the late 1930s and the of Europe to understand the meaning of “The workshop was a most rewarding discussions of how the various media war years that by the time Jews were Jews being loaded onto a truck to an ten days which allowed me to meet many reported the Holocaust as it unfolded. being deported, local populations were ‘unknown’ destination.” distinguished Holocaust scholars in a “For the very first time, this workshop already accustomed not to think about Turning his attention to the Canadian vibrant atmosphere,” said Dr. Colin brought together serious research on real- Jews at all. Thus in Germany and other media, Dr. Ulrich Frisse of the University Shindler, who presented a paper on “The time media coverage of the Holocaust,” areas of Europe, once the war began and of Western Ontario studied two major March of Time: Inside Nazi Germany explains Prof. David Bankier, Head of the the anti-Jewish policies of the Nazis were media outlets, the Canadian Broadcasting 1938.” “The experience inspired me to International Institute for Holocaust gaining momentum, a striking element of Corporation (CBC) and the Toronto Daily start the research for a new television Research at Yad Vashem. the newsreels was the lack of reference to Star, and concluded that at least in these drama as soon as I returned to “In fact, some of the research presented Jews. In Western Europe, Jews disap- media, the Holocaust was reported. Cambridge.” A PRAYER BOOK’S JOURNEY after spending such a long time with a bought me, and wonder: ‘What happened tragic fate. Heinz was first taken to the BY DEBORAH BERMAN non-Jewish family. to the owner of this book?’” Malines (Mechelen) concentration camp, he books made a tremendous In 2005, after returning from Tisha B’Av situated in a former barracks by the river his is the story of a prayer book and impact on Samuel; he cherished services, Rozenberg decided to try to find in the Belgian city. On 4 April 1944, he the souls it touched as it journeyed T T them and kept them with him as he began out more about Heinz Eschwege. was sent on transport number 24 to across the borders of war-ravaged a new life in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in Searching on Yad Vashem’s Central Auschwitz. With the Allied forces closing Europe to new beginnings in Brazil, and 1950, where he studied medicine and Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, he in, Heinz died on 29 January 1945 in the then, decades later, finally brought com- Mittelbau concentration camp during a fort and closure to a bereaved brother in death march. the United States. “I had no choice but to send Alfred the The book is a sefer kinot, a prayer book prayer book, which I had kept in my pos- containing liturgical prayers for recitation session for 60 years,” explained on Tisha B’Av – the Jewish day of fasting Rozenberg. “I did so with pride and deep and mourning for the destroyed Temples. satisfaction, but also filled with sorrow to It was originally published in 1836 in have finally discovered the sad fate of Rodelheim, Germany. While a Yiddish Heinz Eschwege.” inscription names the original owner, by lfred Eschwege has recently sub- the 1930s the prayer book was owned by mitted a photograph of his brother, the young Heinz Eschwege, who took it A which he had received from another with him when he and his brother Alfred Shoah survivor, to Yad Vashem. The pho- were forced to flee their hometown of tograph has been attached to the Page of Manheim, Germany as the Nazi occupa- Testimony, and completes Alfred’s efforts tion took hold. to preserve the memory of Heinz Immediately following liberation, the Eschwege whose life was cut short by sefer kinot found itself up for sale at a Nazi brutality at such a young age. Brussels market, among other books left When Alfred Eschwege received the behind by their Jewish owners. It became book from Rozenberg, he was deeply one of several Jewish titles bought for 10- moved. “I was at a loss for words,” he year-old Samuel Rozenberg by his father. became a respected member of the found that a Page of Testimony had been recalled. “The book is the only remaining Samuel had been in hiding in the village of Jewish community. Year after year submitted for Eschwege in 1990 by his tangible object I have that belonged to Quaregnon under the assumed identity of Rozenberg used the sefer kinot, read the brother, Alfred. Surprised and delighted, my brother.” In an emotionally charged Paul Allain, and survived the war thanks to name inscribed and wondered about the Rozenberg decided to contact Alfred, cur- e-mail to Rozenberg, Eschwege wrote: “I the kindness of Maurice and Lea Pierart identity of its previous owner. rently residing in New York. Through him, cherish Heinz’s prayer book above all (honored by Yad Vashem as Righteous “As I became older, the shadow of Heinz Rozenberg finally learned what had hap- my other possessions. Thank you again, Among the Nations in 1994). His father Eschwege followed me,” Rozenberg pened to the prayer book’s owner. from the bottom of my heart. It’s not very bought the books to bolster his son’s explained. “Every Tisha B’Av eve I would After the war ended, Alfred succeeded often that you find people with a kind- knowledge of Jewish customs and rituals read from the prayer book my father in finding out the details of his brother’s ness like yours.” November/December 2009 - Kislev/Tevet 5770 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 11 NEW LIGHT, LITERAL AND FIGURATIVE, ON NAZI CRIMES century; the other displays artworks by is halfway toward raising a $5 million they had been shipped from Auschwitz. BY EDWARD ROTHSTEIN, Samuel Bak. There is also a 5,000-book endowment. Rabbi Fabian Schonfeld remembers a THE NEW YORK TIMES circulating library and archives storing The curators of the new main exhibition rare train conductor in the midst of the videos, photographs, artifacts and other are Mr. Flug and the center’s assistant t first it seems like an anomaly. You relocations of the Jews, who fished Mr. materials. director, Ayala Tamir. KPC Design con- walk up to the campus entrance Schonfeld’s phylacteries out of the trash A he center has been at ceived the displays, dividing the Nazi era from the enormous parking lot that defines where an SS officer had tossed them and Queensborough for about 24 years, into five chronological sections, each por- Queensborough Community College as a T returned them to the young man. growing out of a class about the trayed on a four-sided, freestanding col- commuting institution, and the first struc- Unfortunately, we are not given enough Holocaust taught by William Shulman, umn. You walk around them, assisted by a ture that greets you, just before the biographical material about these people who was the history department’s chair- timeline that also becomes a multimedia administration building, is the new Harriet to understand who they are or how their and Kenneth Kupferberg Holocaust excerpted stories fit together. And while Research Center and Archives. The $5.5 their accounts are powerful, it is frustrat- million building, which was dedicated in a ing that we are missing other specifics public ceremony this week, is clad in and have to guess so much, particularly glass, steel and the distinctive sand-col- because it is in the details that the full ored limestone quarried near Jerusalem. scale of the Holocaust can be felt. And inside its new permanent exhibition But these survivors provide one reason space is bathed in daylight from the win- for the center’s refusal to shroud itself in dows and translucent walls, creating a darkness. The exhibition opens with a deliberate contrast to the dark subject of slide show of European Jews before the mass murder. Holocaust engaged in the most mundane The effect is unexpected. It causes you activities: going on a picnic, shopping in a to pay attention, this anomalous light, street, gathering for celebrations. All that even if the glare dims the ghosts of photo- was destroyed, but another set of photo- graphs projected on the walls, and even if graphs appears at the exhibition’s end it makes the videos of Queens Holocaust labeled “Life After the Holocaust,” show- survivors appear less vivid in image if not ing similar normality in the lives of sur- in personal detail. The light almost allows vivors. This is an account of restoration, of you to miss the room’s somber allusion: emergence into light. the way the rectangular geometry of a This is a little too glibly bright of course, glass wall suddenly gives way to skewed and, unfortunately, to a certain extent, that lines and irregular shapes, invoking the is also true of the center’s larger vision, shattered windows of Kristallnacht, the The modest 2,000-square-foot permanent exhibition gives an impressive capsule history of the fate which is not that different from those of night in 1938 when Jewish shops and syn- of Jews in Germany during the Nazi period. other institutions and educational treat- agogues were smashed and burned all ments of the Holocaust, even at the Anne man. But until now the center had been screen. Each column displays photo- over Germany and Austria. Frank House in Amsterdam. In his dedica- housed in the basement of the college’s graphs and facts, quotations from some of It seems that Charles Thanhauser of tion speech Mr. Martí said that the building library and displayed its exhibitions at the the survivors we meet in the videos, and Tek Architects, who designed the building, was “not a museum.” Student Union Building. Under the direc- artifacts, ranging from a Jewish teenag- means this natural light to cast an inverse t is not a memorial,” he continued. “It tion of Arthur Flug for the last four years, er’s prewar diary to a Hitler Youth dagger. shadow over the narrative. The light “Iis a laboratory.” It provides the tools the center has presented public lectures, “Full and Rich Lives; 1919” one is shows where this exhibition is meant to to help the 15,000 students at the college along with shows on subjects like labeled, giving a portrait of Jewish life lead, and why the center itself has been learn the “lessons of the Holocaust.” American cartoonists’ treatment of Nazi before the Nazi era; “Ghettos Formed; given pride of place at the gateway to the Those lessons teach tolerance, the Germany, or the Christian clergy mem- 1938; Kristallnacht” reads another, on college, in Bayside. But understanding importance of combating prejudice, the bers who saved Jews; each exhibition’s which we read about the “forced isolation this requires some exploration of the cen- need to speak out when any group is mis- materials are preserved in shipping trunks and control” of the ghettos. ter’s ambitions. treated. In videos here, students who for loan to colleges and other Holocaust “Extermination; 1943; Germany Declares Though I have some qualifications, its served as interns and interviewed sur- centers. Itself ‘Judenrein’” reminds us that 18,000 modest 2,000-square-foot permanent vivors describe how those talks have This new structure heightens the cen- people were killed in just one day in 1943 exhibition gives an impressive capsule made them more enlightened, more ter’s visibility. It was built under the guid- in the camp at Majdanek, Poland. history of the fate of Jews during the Nazi aware of prejudice and hatred. One of the The survivors in the videos may provide period, recounting events without distor- ance of the college’s president, Eduardo other exhibitions at the center shows just some of the most indelible images. Steve tion, sentimentality and (for the most part) J. Martí, and received financial support how difficult these lessons are, describing Berger, who was forced by the Nazis into homily. The gallery serves as a prelude to from the city and New York State, along other genocides of the past century: in the rest of the center, which includes two with private donations, including a $1 mil- work as a machinist, recalls being taken to Armenia, Ukraine, China, Cambodia, smaller changing exhibitions: currently, lion gift from Harriet Kupferberg, a long- replace his broken glasses. He had to Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur. one is about other genocides of the last time supporter of the college. The center choose from thousands piled in one room; (Continued on page 13) TENNESSEE PROFESSOR SUES GERMANY FOR NAZI ART SEIZURE n 82-year-old Holocaust survivor ents, when the family anglicized its name that made it possible for our family to sur- cials,” the lawsuit says. A and his family are suing the by adding an “i”. vive,” said Westfield, who retired from Overton Thompson III of Bass Berry & German government over an extensive Walter Westfeld, though, was arrested a Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “His Sims law firm in Nashville and Vanderbilt art collection, including paintings by El few days after Kristallnacht on currency heirs have a right to what was taken away law professor Jeffrey Schoenblum filed Greco and Peter Paul Rubens, seized violation charges for trying to move his art from them. We are not trying to recover the suit October 3, 2008. by the Nazis and sold at auction during work to the United States, and the Nazis particular pictures because we really don’t “Westfeld had much of his entire art col- World War II. auctioned hundreds of his paintings and have the resources to find the 400 or lection taken and he was treated in such a The lawsuit is unusual because it is tapestries to pay his fine, the lawsuit says. more items auctioned off at the demand of horrific manner before he was exterminat- seeking damages for lost art rather than Among the items were an El Greco that the state’s attorney in Dusseldorf.” ed,” Schoenblum said. “Our hope is that the the return of items that once belonged to Adolf Hitler wanted for his personal collec- The lawsuit, filed in Davidson County matter can be resolved without pursuing Holocaust victims, lawyers said. The suit tion, paintings by Dutch masters Frans Chancery Court, says today’s Germany is lengthy litigation. Germany needs to reme- estimates the 400 or more works would be Hals and Peter Paul Rubens and works by responsible for the actions of Hitler’s dy for what was done with respect to this worth “tens of millions” of dollars today. French impressionist Camille Pissarro. regime and wants a jury to award an prominent art dealer and his property.” Retired economics professor Fred Westfeld remained in prison and con- unspecified amount for the loss to Schoenblum said the lawsuit is unusual Westfield said he was celebrating his 12th centration camps until he was killed in the Westfeld’s heirs. because it seeks payment rather than the birthday when he last saw his uncle, Auschwitz death camp in Poland. Lempertz auction house in Cologne, art works. Previous cases, such as a Walter Westfeld, a renowned art collector. n 2004, Westfield said he was doing Germany, claimed the property was claim against Elizabeth Taylor for a Two days later came Kristallnacht, when Ian Internet search for his uncle’s name destroyed during bombing in WWII, but the Vincent van Gogh painting, have sought Nazis looted and burned Jewish syna- and learned the Boston Museum of Fine lawsuit includes a copy of the December to have the art returned from current own- gogues and businesses across Germany Arts was looking for Walter Westfield’s 1939 sale catalog and price list. ers to the family’s estate. and Austria. descendants. he conversion and sale were part For now, Westfield’s family and attor- The young Westfield fled Germany A museum archivist was trying to find “T of an integrated policy in which neys are waiting to see if the German gov- shortly thereafter as part of a British out if the Nazis illegally sold “Portrait of a Jews were deprived of their artwork on ernment accepts litigation papers. Under refugee program in response to Man and a Woman in an Interior” by the fabricated grounds to appear as if the gov- the Hague Convention, the country has Kristallnacht that brought about 10,000 17th-century Dutch master Eglon van der ernment was just enforcing laws, the goal three months to accept the lawsuit or Jewish children to England. He later Neer, he said. being to raise substantial liquid funds on reject it on grounds that it is a sovereign moved to the United States with his par- “It was essentially my uncle’s money sale for the government and party offi- government, Schoenblum said. Page 12 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2009 - Kislev/Tevet 5770 A BELIEVER IN HEROISM, TO JEWS’ LASTING GRATITUDE often cold and hungry — to Jews hidden stars and carry identity cards stamped times, she said, sometimes accusing her BY JOSEPH BERGER, on farms outside the city. She also ferried with a J. So Dr. Strobos patched together of concealing Jews and searching the THE NEW YORK TIMES radios and stashed boxes of pilfered guns false papers by swiping documents from rooms for two or three hours. A Dutch spy for the Dutch resistance. She was seized gentile guests and inserting new photo- in the Gestapo headquarters would some- he walls of Dr. Tina Strobos’s light- or questioned nine times by the Gestapo graphs and fingerprints. As roundups times alert her to an impending raid. filled apartment here are dappled T and was once hurled against a wall and increased, her six-bedroom row house, at “‘You’re going to have a visitor tomor- not only with paintings but also with the knocked unconscious. 282 Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal, became a row,’ he would say,” she remembered. “I many plaques she has received from Why would she take such gambles for way station; most Jews stayed briefly, until never knew who he was, but he was Jewish organizations, even though she is people she sometimes barely knew? the underground network could find them always right.” not Jewish. t’s the right thing to do,” she said more durable refuges. Erudite and fluent in German, with a tal- Dr. Strobos, a sturdy 89, is honored with nonchalance. “Your conscience “We never hid more than four or five ent for striking a sweetly innocent pose, every so often for the quietly valiant things “I she learned to charm the Germans. she did almost 70 years ago as a medical When she suspected that the Gestapo student during the German occupation of knew that a prominent factory owner had the Netherlands: working with her mother, lived in her home for a year, she surren- she hid more than 100 Jews who passed dered his name but insisted that she through their three-story rooming house in believed he had been a gentile. Amsterdam. “Some Jews are like violets in the woods,” That sanctuary, which included an attic the Gestapo agent advised her. “They hide lair that was never discovered, was just a by having blue eyes and blond hair.” 10-minute stroll from a more famous hide- Another time the Gestapo told her that it out: Anne Frank’s at 263 Prinsengracht. always identified Jews by the look of the Indeed, the question of why the Franks inside corners of their eyes. did not have an escape hatch for when “My mother and I were not laughing, but the Gestapo barged in gets her fairly my God, they were really nuts,” she said. worked up. During the five years working for the At her home, the Jews were stowed underground, she took interludes to study away on the upper floors with quick medical books at a hospital. access to the attic, which had a secret “You have to be a little bit selfish and compartment for two or three people to look after yourself; otherwise you just die cram into. “A carpenter came with a tool- inside, you burn out,” she once told an box and said: ‘I’m a carpenter from the interviewer. “There’s just so much you can underground. Show me the house, and I’ll Dr. Tina Strobos in her Westchester apartment. do for other people.” build a hiding place,’” she recalled. After the war, she and her first husband, There was an alarm bell on the second tells you to do it. I believe in heroism, and at a time,” she said. “We didn’t have Robert Strobos, a medical student, traveled floor so she or her mother, Marie Schotte, when you’re young, you want to do dan- enough food.” to New York on a Fulbright scholarship, and could alert those above. They drilled their gerous things.” mong the people who lodged with she studied child psychiatry. They divorced fugitives in how to scramble out a window to But such an outlook has an origin, what A her was her close friend Tirtsah Van in 1964. In 1967 she married Walter a roof and make their way to an adjoining Donna Cohen, the Holocaust Center’s Amerongen, a blonde who passed for a Chudson, an economist, and they lived on a school, which was not likely to be raided. executive director, calls “learned behav- gentile, and her sister and brother-in-law. saltwater inlet in Larchmont, N.Y. She has Dr. Strobos, who was honored by the ior.” Dr. Strobos comes from a family of She hid an Orthodox couple with five chil- two sons and a daughter by her first husband Holocaust and Human Rights Education socialist atheists who took in Belgian dren, who brought their own kosher food. and two stepchildren. Center, based in Westchester, retired in refugees during World War I and hid She helped Jews in other hideouts, In the decades since her wartime expe- May as a psychiatrist and retains a nobili- German and Austrian refugees before including a prominent impressionist, rience, she has spoken out on issues like ty of manner that suggests a life she feels World War II. Dr. Strobos had close Martin Monnickendam, who painted her has been largely well lived. Her memory is Jewish friends and, for a time, a Jewish portrait, which now hangs in her apart- the torture of terrorists, which she argues keen enough to retrieve the tasty details fiancé, Abraham Pais, who went on to ment, at a residence for older people. is not only cruel but also ineffective. that bring her escapades to life. become a particle physicist, though not “You can see he’s a turmoiled type,” she “Even when they scared me to death She recalled carrying news and ration her husband. said slyly as she showed off the portrait. and hurt me, it confirmed me that I should stamps by bicycle — at great risk, and The Nazis required Dutch Jews to wear The Gestapo banged on her door many not say anything to them,” she said. NAZI WAR CRIMES TRIAL “COULD BE LAST OF ITS KIND” he forthcoming trial in Germany of Wiesenthal Center. institution with a specific remit to investi- suspected war criminals to face trial. T John Demjanjuk could be the last “These murderers walked into small gate and prosecute cases of genocide, An Office of Special Investigations occasion on which a Nazi war crimes sus- cities and killed men, women, and chil- crimes against humanity and war crimes. was established in 1979 to hunt for war pect faces prosecution. dren and walked away without a trace,” oldstone said that developments in criminals on U.S. soil, while legislation But the legacy of decades-old efforts to Hier told CNN. Ghumanitarian law and the evolution allowed even suspects who had bring the perpetrators of World War II “The sad thing is that had the world of international justice meant that modern acquired U.S. citizenship to be extradit- atrocities to justice means that those who wanted to prosecute Nazi war criminals institutions were more sophisticated and ed for lying on their naturalization commit similar offenses in the 21st centu- after Nuremberg, and had (countries) put fairer than Nuremberg had been, recog- papers about their Nazi pasts. ry will not be able to hide from their past nizing the rights of victims to But he said Demjanjuk’s trial could be so easily, according to a leading war representation but also ensur- the last of its kind — and not just because crimes prosecutor. ing a fair trial for defendants. of the age of suspected war criminals still Many leading Nazis such as Hermann The jurisdiction of the ICC at large. Goering, Rudolf Hess, and Albert Speer is currently recognized by “You can’t just have a trial with docu- were prosecuted by the main Allies — the 108 countries — though not ments. You have to have living witness- U.S., the Soviet Union, and the U.K. — by the U.S., Russia or China. es,” Hier said. “Most of those witnesses shortly after the end of the war at the But Goldstone said the court are very old, most of them are well into Nuremberg Trials. was “moving quickly” towards their 80s and beyond and they have to South African judge Richard Goldstone, universal ratification and said be in sufficient good health that they formerly the chief U.N. prosecutor for war U.S. President Barack can be questioned and travel to take crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, told Obama’s new administration part in the trial.” CNN that Nuremberg had been the “first was likely to be more cooper- But Hier said it was very important that for- attempt of any importance to hold war John Demjanjuk. ative and friendlier to the ICC mer Nazis be pursued to the grave, living out criminals accountable” and had laid the up the budget and the resources then than predecessor George W. Bush had their final years with the fear that their past foundations for the development of mod- every one of these elusive criminals would been in office. crimes could still catch up with them. ern humanitarian law. have been brought to justice.” Demjanjuk, an 89-year-old native “(Nazi hunter) Simon Wiesenthal Yet many lower-ranking servants of the But Goldstone said that the creation in Ukrainian deported from the U.S. in May, talked about two kinds of justice. There Nazi regime and its allies were able to 2002 of the International Criminal Court is alleged to have been a guard at the is the justice of handcuffs and putting escape punishment for their crimes, marked a “very important step forward” to Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied someone on trial. But there is also a assuming new identities, fleeing Europe ensure that future atrocities would not be Poland and is accused of being an acces- psychological fear of a knock on the or even finding employment with Soviet or so quickly forgotten. sory to the murder of more than 29,000 door,” he said. western security agencies as determina- While previous tribunals investigating people. “Every Nazi war criminal should live tion to bring them to justice waned with crimes in Rwanda and Yugoslavia were Hier said Demjanjuk’s extradition every night of his life with the possibili- the advent of the Cold War, according to ad hoc creations set up by the U.N. marked the culmination of greater efforts ty that in his case there will yet be a Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Security Council, the ICC is a permanent in the U.S. since the late 1970s to send knock on the door.” November/December 2009 - Kislev/Tevet 5770 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 13 FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE GHETTO: NEW LIGHT, LITERAL AND FIGURATIVE, RECOGNIZING THE RESCUERS ON NAZI CRIMES Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman wrote that (Continued from page 11) killing, intolerance does not necessarily BY DR. LEA PRAIS Lonka Kodzhibrotzka, Dror’s liaison offi- he broad lesson of tolerance also lead to it. cer, had passed on a report about nton Schmidt (1900-1942) was a T provides one impetus behind the Bland humanitarian lessons also make Schmidt to the ghetto’s underground growth of Holocaust centers; it is partly the scale of the events seem manage- proud Austrian with a zest for life. A Oneg Shabbat archives. In a note, written why this one was placed at the forefront of able, as if it were possible to eliminate He detested Hitler and Nazism, and in Yiddish over five pages, was a descrip- the Queensborough campus, where stu- hatred and prejudice with appropriate when, as a Wehrmacht serviceman in tion of the “figure of the German dents represent more than 140 nationali- teaching. The idea of a “hate crime” fits with Vilna, he became aware of the mass philosemite, who risked his life to rescue ties. Mr. Flug explained in an interview this view. It asserts that hatred itself is crim- murders in Ponary, he resolved to ded- the Jews of Vilna from their murderers.” how the center also helped develop a inal and deserving of punishment, that it is icate himself to rescuing the persecut- he title was “Anton Schmidt – “hate crimes” curriculum now being intro- something that can be eradicated as socie- ed. Schmidt helped many people forced From the Series: The Righteous duced into New York City schools. ty takes on work once left for religion. into labor in his unit, as well as Polish T Among the Nations.” Thus it turns out But this approach is worth examining. ut the concept is misguided. Hatred prostitutes who were closely watched, that the pioneers and Oneg Shabbat Similar lessons, after all, can be drawn does not make murder or assault but was particularly captivated by the B archivists were the first to apply the from many kinds of injustice; here they worse; it only provides a motive. Hatred members of the pioneering Zionist Talmudic term “Righteous Among the seem inadequate to the scope of the evil. itself is not criminal. It is acting on the youth groups. On the eve of the civil Nations” (Tractate Baba Batra, 15b) to They also strip away the Holocaust’s par- basis of hatred that is criminal. In other New Year, 1942, he invited them, non-Jews who had put their lives at risk ticularity and may even encourage the contexts, society punishes the act rather including their leader Mordechai to save Jews during the Nazi occupa- proliferation of Nazi analogies. It isn’t only than the thought, attacking discrimination Tenenbaum, to his apartment, and amid tion. In time, this term became univer- the wine-drinking and doughnut-eating sally known. he wished them success in fulfilling In 1945, in Mandatory Palestine, their dreams. However, he stressed Mordechai Shenhavi defined the res- that first and foremost they must leave cuers as “Righteous Among the the ghetto. To make this happen, Nations.” In 1953, the Knesset passed Schmidt called on all the resources at the Yad Vashem Law, containing a spe- his disposal and, taking severe person- cial clause defining non-Jews who al risks, smuggled most of them to loca- risked their lives to rescue Jews as tions where they would be safe, at least Righteous Among the Nations. Eleven for the time being. Some remained in years earlier, in Vilna, Tenenbaum had Vilna; Tenenbaum and his circle were told Schmidt that in the Land of Israel moved to Bialystok, where they led the he would receive a gold Star of David. Underground; others fled to Voronovo Schmidt replied, “I will wear it with and Lida; and a few made it to Warsaw. pride.” In 1964, Yad Vashem posthu- Schmidt himself was arrested in mously recognized Anton Schmidt as a January 1942 and executed for his Righteous Among the Nations. And actions. thus, Schmidt earned the prestigious In the middle of 1942, members of the recognition for a second time. Dror youth movement in Warsaw found out what had happened to their bene- The author is a Project Manager at the factor, and decided to commemorate International Institute for Holocaust him in some way. In his memoirs, Research. The main gallery includes a century-old Torah scroll rescued from Czestochowa, Poland. the Holocaust that becomes diffuse this in deed, not prejudice in belief. That is way; a museum about black slavery I AFTER THE HOLOCAUST have seen ends with broad homilies about how it should be here as well. Anti- justice and prejudice. Semitism helped cause the Holocaust, but IN THE LAND OF MILK AND HONEY Why, though, is it necessary to general- it is in the workings of law and deed, in ize so sweepingly? Does an art exhibition turning belief into practice, that the (Continued from page 4) Though these tears in the fabric of have to justify its attention to a painter with Holocaust turned exceptional. during the war; and Zorah, “an angry little Diamant’s fictional world distract, the cir- lessons about beauty? Isn’t there some- Queensborough’s new center shouldn’t Pole” who has lost faith in everything in cumstances, setting, and generous sensi- thing in the particular that should be bear the burden of this criticism, since it the face of her concentration camp expe- bility of her book compel all the same. It’s attended to because it is not general? doesn’t slight the Holocaust or its particu- riences. interesting to get the facts, to learn, Does it make sense to say that lack of tol- larity. But as that history recedes and les- The story moves forward in part by mov- among other things, how the immigrants erance is a major cause of the Holocaust? sons become broadened and amplified, ing backward, telling what happened to arrived at Atlit, how the Jewish agencies While tolerance might help prevent mass the risk is worth keeping in mind. the women during the war, but mostly the tried to infiltrate the camp and how Jews narrative focuses on community life inside already residing in Palestine claimed pris- Atlit – the delousing showers that greet oners as family members in order to spirit ROMANIA DEDICATES MEMORIAL new arrivals, the flirtations and gossip that them away. TO VICTIMS OF THE HOLOCAUST sustain daily life – and the psychology of There are lovely descriptions of the the various characters as they try to han- land, particularly in the opening chapter, omania unveiled a monument in Romanian authorities set up the Elie dle their fear, anger, memories, and new and Diamant’s effort is always to portray Rmemory of 300,000 Jews and Wiesel International Commission on the sympathies. her main characters sympathetically. Gypsies killed during the Holocaust in the Holocaust in 2003 after a ministry in the Though at times the characters them- It is clear that much of what Diamant country, which at times in the past had Social Democratic government denied selves feel a bit one-note, they don’t read presents is informed by her thorough denied that the extermination even that there had been a Holocaust in as false, exactly – just less like fully real- knowledge of Atlit itself. If the details of occurred. Romania. ized fictional creations than representa- the text didn’t convince, her acknowledg- President Traian Basescu said that it Some Romanians still admire Marshal tives of what must have been thought and ments page certainly suggest that she has was the nation’s duty to “recognize the Ion Antonescu, a pro-Nazi leader whose experienced by Atlit women at the time. done her homework. genocide during World War II” and to administration was responsible for the On occasion, one feels that it is a person One senses, too, Diamant’s expertise honor the victims. deaths during World War II. They see him of contemporary sensibility, rather than a on Jewish tradition – Diamant is the Mr. Basescu was joined by Holocaust sur- as a hero who fought against the Soviet 1940s woman, who is parsing the wounds author of many books on contemporary vivors and other leaders during the ceremo- Union to recover Romanian territory. of the war and the political implications of Jewish practice – and her familiarity with ny to unveil the marble and concrete tomb- “It is important that Romania acknowl- the Jews’ arrival in Palestine. In part, this is both Holocaust experiences and the psy- like monument, which cost $7.4 million. edges its past; it’s not an easy past,” said because the women are so clear-minded chology of Holocaust survivors. Indeed, Only about 6,000 Jews live in Romania Radu Ioanid, who has written several about their emotions. (Would they have the factual details of the novel are so per- today. The country’s role in the Holocaust books on the Romanian Holocaust. been able to analyze themselves so well?) suasive and interesting (if troubling) that and in the deportation of Jews was “There are still people opposing this.” In part, it is because the inmates’ argument they make one long for the nonfiction ignored by the Communists who once Historians have documented several about the Jews’ rights to the land seems book Diamant might also have written. controlled Romania, and it was minimized pogroms in Romania, including one in fueled by contemporary concerns rather In the actual novel, the post-Atlit fate by subsequent governments after the col- June 1941 in the northeastern city of Iasi, than the desperation of the times. During one of Shayndel, Leonie, Tedi, and Zorah lapse of Communism beginning in 1989. where as many as 12,000 people are discussion of the Arabs, a man admits that functions as fascinating epilogue. In the “This monument is full of symbolism — believed to have died as Romanian and he never even knew there were Arabs on the yet-to-be-written book, one might learn hundreds of thousands were killed who German soldiers swept from house to land. A Hebrew teacher dismisses the Arabs the stories of the true inhabitants of Atlit would have contributed to the cultural and house, killing Jews. Those who did not die as “peasants,” but Zorah asks whether we – the very material, one imagines, that economic prosperity of Romania,” said were beaten, put on a train in stifling heat must “become like all other nations and got Diamant started on her novel in the Rabbi Menachem HaCohen, Romania’s and taken to a small town. Of the 120 on oppress our neighbors?” first place. chief rabbi. the train, only 24 survived. Page 14 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2009 - Kislev/Tevet 5770 REVISITING THE SHAM OF THERESIENSTADT intimate cafes, grand boulevards and at Theresienstadt were living under cafe; inmates cheering a soccer match. RON FEINBERG, THE JERUSALEM POST monuments, fine art and fine food. humane conditions. The ruse became The actors smile occasionally for the But in each of these cities is a reminder necessary after Jews from Denmark were camera, hiding the hideous truth of the he film is grainy and in black and of the Jews who were murdered during sent to the camp the previous winter and Holocaust from view. But look closely white. It jumps about, slowing down T World War II, initially forced into ghettos, Red Cross officials in Denmark and enough and you can see the future in at odd moments and growing dim occa- eventually transported to death camps Sweden began making inquiries about their faces. sionally. But it’s the people that hold your across the region. their whereabouts and health. Only a few months after the commis- attention. They walk about, wearing fash- But it’s in Terezin, near Prague, that one ver the next several months, the sion reported that inmates at ionable clothes, nodding a stiff hello when of the most unique, if bizarre stories of the camp was gussied they spot a friend. They watch a soccer O period can be found. And it’s all captured up in certain key areas. match, sit briefly outside a small cafe, lis- in the grainy film produced by the Nazis. Some living space was ten to a concert. The city – created in the 18th century enlarged and painted. and named for Maria Drapes were hung and Theresa of Austria – was furniture added. Grass taken over by the Gestapo in and flowers were planted. 1940, renamed A playground and sports Theresienstadt, and quickly fields were built. And a turned into a ghetto. Jews month before the orches- from Czechoslovakia, trated visit, 7,500 inmates Germany, Austria, and – mostly orphans and the Holland were transported to sick – were sent to the site and its population Auschwitz and their deaths soared. The city that had so Theresienstadt would been home for 7,000 resi- appear less crowded. dents before the war would An elaborate script was at one point hold 60,000 created that would have Pictured here are a group of children in the Theresienstadt ghet- The Theresienstadt ghetto was established in Czechoslovakia as a inmates. Men and women groups of inmates to. The photo was taken during a Red Cross visit on June 23, model Jewish settlement that could be shown off to the interna- were separated, housed in strolling along a central 1944. Approximately 13,000 children were sent to Theresienstadt. tional community. Propaganda films showed the comfortable barracks that were packed street, window shopping; The majority were deported to death camps and only a few hun- dred survived. conditions of the ghetto to counter stories of the miserable condi- with bunks that were three others would be taking tions of other ghettos. tiers high. There was little part in a soccer match, while yet others Theresienstadt were being treated fair- food, even less medicine. Sanitation was would be chatting and singing as they ly, transports to Auschwitz picked up It’s all a sham, of course, part of a bogus poor. Rats, lice, flies, and fleas were part headed off to work. speed. Over the last weeks of documentary produced by the Nazis dur- of daily life. So, too, death. On June 23, 1944, the Nazis had every- September and early October, the ing World War II at Theresienstadt, the early 150,000 Jews spent time at thing in place as the commission was camp was nearly emptied. Only 400 concentration camp an hour north of NTheresienstadt. Only 17,247 sur- escorted through the camp. The inmates inmates remained at the beginning of Prague in what was then Czechoslovakia. vived the war. The large number of dead played their parts to perfection, knowing 1945. And it’s one of the reasons you should became such a problem, that a crematori- they had little choice but to cooperate. By the time the International Red Cross visit this place if you’re traveling through um was built in 1942 to deal with the Camp officials were so happy with the took charge of the camp the following eastern Europe. corpses. Yet the Nazis portrayed the ghet- result, they decided to put it all down on May, the damage had already been done. The Holocaust continues to sound a to as a model Jewish settlement. film and use the movie for propaganda Over 30,000 inmates had died in the melancholy note in the major cities of the The charade was tested – and refined – purposes. camp of disease, starvation, and abuse. region. Warsaw, Krakow, Budapest and in the summer of 1944 when a commis- What remains today is a series of Nearly three times that number had been Prague are remarkable, warm and charm- sion of Red Cross officials was allowed to black and white vignettes – inmates at shipped off to the Nazi killing factories in ing, filled with cobblestone streets and visit the camp to make sure that inmates a concert; inmates sitting outside a the east. STOP USING YAD VASHEM AND ILLINOIS HOLOCAUST MUSEUM & HOLOCAUST REFERENCES IN PUBLIC DEBATE EDUCATION CENTER SIGN COOPERATION AGREEMENT group of prominent religious lead- ad Vashem, the Holocaust remem- Executive Director Richard Hirschhaut, he strengthening of the ongoing A ers called for an end to the use of Ybrance and education center in and Museum Interior and Exhibition Co- “T relationship between our two “inappropriate Nazi and Holocaust refer- Jerusalem, and the Illinois Holocaust Conceptual Developers Michael institutions furthers the global signifi- ences” in public debate. Museum & Education Center (IHMEC) Berenbaum and Yitzhak Mais. They met cance of the Illinois Holocaust Museum In an open letter to religious leaders, signed an important agreement to pursue with Shalev and senior Yad Vashem staff & Education Center,” said Pritzker. politicians, pundits and the public, the and promote a close and cooperative rela- in order to explore avenues of coopera- “Our cooperative relationship will allow group wrote that it has seen “an alarm- tionship in several key con- us to share Yad Vashem’s ing number of public figures use the texts, including education, wealth of knowledge about Nazis and the Holocaust as metaphors publications, museum the Holocaust with our in public debate on issues critical to this activity and commemora- Museum’s patrons.” country,” listing a number of recent tion. The agreement notes examples. “I am delighted to have that “emphasis will be “The Nazi regime that perpetrated this hosted the Illinois Holocaust placed upon optimal real- mass genocide was one of the most hor- Museum’s leadership here ization of Yad Vashem’s rific in world history,” says the letter, on the Mount of unsurpassed expertise and organized by the Interfaith Alliance and Remembrance, and look knowledge in Holocaust- signed by Jewish, Christian and Muslim forward to our cooperation related research, education clergy and faith leaders. “There is no in the future,” said Avner and commemoration, place in civil debate for the use of these Shalev, chairman of Yad together with the Illinois types of metaphors. Perpetrators of such Vashem. “With over five Holocaust Museum & language harm rather than help both the decades of experience in Education Center’s promis- integrity of the democratic process and Holocaust commemoration, ing and vital new position, the credibility of religious commentary.” documentation research, in its region and elsewhere, The letter also asks those involved in and our cutting-edge work in as an effective catalyst for public debate to generally “help restore education, Yad Vashem is (right to left) Director of Development, American Society for Yad Vashem Shraga enhanced, widespread civility to our national dialogue.” pleased to cooperate with Mekel; Illinois Holocaust Museum Interior and Exhibition Co-Conceptual Holocaust remembrance.” Among the 15 signatories are Rabbi the Illinois Holocaust Developers Michael Berenbaum and Yitzhak Mais; Chairman of the Illinois “We are grateful for this David Saperstein, director of the Museum in their important Holocaust Museum’s Board of Trustees J.B. Pritzker, Yad Vashem Chairman Avner opportunity to work closely Religious Action Center of Reform activities.” Shalev; Illinios Holocaust Museum Executive Director Richard Hirschhaut; and with Yad Vashem to Judaism; Rabbi Jack Moline of Agudas The agreement was Executive Director of the J.B. and M.K. Pritzker Family Foundation Jennifer Levine enhance our institution’s Achim Congregation in Alexandria, Va.; announced during a two- visit the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem. offerings to our patrons,” Rabbi David Gelfand of Temple Israel of day working visit to Yad Vashem by a tion. The group was also given in-depth said Hirschhaut. “The cooperation with the City of New York; Imam Mahdi Bray senior delegation from the Illinois tours of the Holocaust History Museum, Yad Vashem will enable the Illinois of the Muslim American Society Holocaust Museum, including the the Museum of Holocaust Art, the Yad Holocaust Museum to best commemo- Freedom; and Sayyid Syeed of the Chairman of the Museum’s Board of Vashem Archives, and the International rate the Jewish experience before, dur- Islamic Society of North America. Trustees J.B. Pritzker, the Museum’s School for Holocaust Studies. ing, and after the Holocaust.” November/December 2009 - Kislev/Tevet 5770 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 15 NEW COMPREHENSIVE RESEARCH PROJECT AT YAD VASHEM EU CONDEMNS IRANIAN new, comprehensive research proj- resources, prima- dle of Jewish life for cen- PRESIDENT’S REPEATED A ect documenting 101 killing sites in rily from Yad turies, whose names still HOLOCAUST DENIALS areas of the former Soviet Union has been Vashem’s resonate in Jewish com- he presidency of the European uploaded to Yad Vashem’s website, Archives and pri- munities around the “T Union condemns statements by www.yadvashem.org. vate collections – world. The use of all the President Ahmadinejad at the Quds Day Marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, documents, pho- sources available makes rally in Tehran where he repeated denials “The Untold Stories: The Murder Sites of the tographs, letters, this project invaluable to of the Holocaust and of the right to exist of Jews in the Former USSR” chronicles the maps, illustra- all those who seek to the state of Israel,” the Swedish EU pres- murders of thousands of Jews by the Nazis tions, video testi- know what happened.” idency said in a statement. and their collaborators in 51 different com- monies, Pages of The project contains 139 “Such statements encourage anti- munities whose Jewish populations were Testimony, film video clips, of which over Semitism and hatred. We call on the massacred during the Holocaust. clips, lists of vic- 80 are witness accounts, leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran to The “Untold Stories” is a project of Yad tims and stories of most of them from the col- contribute constructively to peace and Vashem’s International Institute for Righteous Among lection of the USC Shoah security in the Middle East.” Holocaust Research, which tells the hith- the Nations – Foundation Institute for Ahmadinejad told a crowd at Tehran erto untold stories of the destruction of the which together Visual History and University that the Holocaust was a lie based Jews of the former USSR. create a multi- Education (formerly the on an “unprovable and mythical” claim. It is generously supported by Dr. Moshe dimensional his- Survivors of the Shoah Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank- Kantor, Chairman of the Board of torical and human Visual History Foundation) Governors, Russian Jewish Congress portrait. founded by Steven Walter Steinmeier immediately con- (RJC), and uploaded to the Internet at his hile the Lubny, Ukraine. A mother with her two Spielberg. There are also demned the remarks, calling initiative and in partnership with the RJC. world children at the assembly point awaiting, 1,459 photographs (includ- Ahmadinejad a disgrace to his country. “W with other Jews from the town, their execu- The new project began with the collec- knows about ing scans of original docu- “With his intolerable tirades, he tion, October 16, 1941. tion and registration of all the murder sites Auschwitz and ments). “The Untold shames his country,” and his “anti- in the former USSR being studied by even Babi Yar, more than a million Jews Stories” features chilling testimonies of Semitism ... must be collectively con- researchers at Yad Vashem. From this were murdered in towns and villages that people – at the time primarily children – demned,” he said. pool of data, 51 different communities remain relatively unknown,” said Avner who climbed out of the killing pits and Countries including Britain, France and whose Jewish populations were murdered Shalev, Chairman of Yad Vashem. “In managed to survive. It also sheds light the United States have also condemned – in Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia some locations thousands were gunned on local Jews’ attempts, after the war, to Ahmadinejad’s statements. In Britain, and Russia – were chosen. The historical down, in others a dozen men and women memorialize the murdered Jews and Foreign Secretary David Miliband background serves as the central feature tortured and killed. This important project destroyed communities, even as the described the comments as ignorant and of the site, from which links branch out to sheds light on what happened in these Soviets were seeking to quell any feel- abhorrent. In Washington, a White House a variety of primary and secondary communities, some of which were a cra- ings of Jewish identity. spokesman said the speech only served to further isolate the Islamic Republic. During celebrations marking the end of GERMAN CAR FIRM “USED HAIR FROM AUSCHWITZ” Ramadan, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blasted Israel, ne of the pillars of German industry, using slave laborers at its factories during wagonloads of human hair being deliv- Western powers, and foreign broadcast- the giant but debt-crippled Schaeffler the Second World War. However, the ered to the company in 1943. O ers, saying that a “Zionist cancer” was car parts supplier, was accused recently of company’s officially published history still Hair was routinely shorn from prison- gnawing into the lives of Islamic nations. using hair shorn from at least 40,000 only begins in 1946. ers, usually on arrival, at the death Auschwitz death camp prisoners to make The company’s own historian dismissed camps. The Nazi war machine used it to textiles at its factories in Nazi-occupied the allegations and said there was no evi- make army blankets and socks for U- Poland during the Second World War. dence to support the theory that boat crews. The Auschwitz museum on A VOW FULFILLED The highly disturbing allegations were Schaeffler processed death camp the site of the former death camp dis- (Continued from page 4) contained in new evidence unearthed by inmates’ hair industrially during WWII. plays a store filled to the roof with characterize exactly the life that Fran and Polish historians at the Auschwitz muse- But Dr Jacek Lachendro, a historian at inmates’ hair originally intended for so- her husband Simon built for themselves um, who said they had found rolls of fab- the Auschwitz museum, told Germany’s called “human recycling.” after the hell of Hitler’s death camps – a life ric made from camp inmates’ hair at a for- Der Spiegel television channel that 1.95 The Kiertz textile factory where the of courage, determination, and heroism. mer Schaeffler factory in Poland’s south- tons of cloth made from inmates’ hair had hair is alleged to have been processed Notwithstanding the tribulations of finan- ern region of Silesia. been discovered at a former Schaeffler tex- formerly belonged to the Jewish-owned cial setbacks and a stillborn baby, a The discovery was the latest in a series tile and army tank parts factory in the town Davistan AG concern on which the daughter’s divorce and a son-in-law’s of damaging blows for the ailing of Kiertz (formerly Katscher) after the Schaeffler empire was founded after it untimely passing, and despite their ever- Schaeffler concern, which employs Germans withdrew at the end of the war. was taken over by the brothers Wilhelm present haunting memories, the Laufers 200,000 people worldwide. The company The amount of cloth, which was pictured and Georg Schaeffler. Their company worked tirelessly and selflessly to fulfill the is currently saddled with debts and faces on Spiegel television as rolls of closely- made armaments for the Nazi war vow they had made to their martyred fam- the prospect of bankruptcy. woven brownish fabric, was said to have machine, but after the Second World ilies: to raise a new generation of Jews in In February, Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler, derived from the hair shorn from some War it re-emerged as one of Germany’s a Torah-true fashion. the concern’s flamboyant and usually fur- 40,000 Auschwitz prisoners. main suppliers of parts to the car indus- They succeeded in doing more than just coated millionaire owner, appeared at a Dr Lachendro said that subsequent try, specializing in needle roller bearings. that. The financial empire they built facilitat- trade union rally and wept openly as she analysis of the hair showed that some However, the devastating impact of ed the creation and support of numerous appealed to the government of the of it contained traces of the Zyklon B the credit crunch coupled with Jewish institutions: Rivkah Laufer Bikur German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, for a gas used by the Nazis to murder mil- Schaeffler’s misjudged hostile takeover Cholim, Young Israel of Hillcrest and state-funded bailout. In an attempt to clear lions. Former workers at the factory in of the tire giant Continental have since Deerfield Beach, the Great Synagogue in up rumors about the company’s wartime Kiertz who were interviewed on the pro- plunged the concern into its worst crisis Jerusalem, the Chasidic dynasty of Bobov role, Mrs. Schaeffler recently admitted to gram said that they remembered two since the war. and Mesivta Tifereth Jerusalem. Their ded- icated support of yeshivos and synagogues RIGHTEOUS AMONG THE NATIONS FROM FRANCE enabled them to spearhead the resurgence of Jewish life in the post-war world. POSTHUMOUSLY HONORED AT YAD VASHEM As Fran recounts her experiences, her ouise Roger, a Righteous Among the Odenheimer, their six-year-old son Herbert Rogers decided to move Ehud to the gentle Polish lilt can virtually be heard on L Nations from France, was posthu- (now Ehud) and his grandmother, Sophie. home of Jules’ mother, Louise, in the each page of the book, telling of pain, of a mously honored at Yad Vashem. Sophie died in the Gurs Camp where the village of Argy. fierce desire to live, and of the heartwarm- Her grandchildren, Robert Roger and family was interned. Julchen and Hugo were hud lived with Louise under an ing adoration felt for the husband who was Marie-Terese Roger, received the medal deported to Auschwitz in September 1942 Eassumed identity, Hubert Odet, everything to her. In a voice full of faith and certificate of honor on her behalf. where they were murdered. until the end of the war. and gratitude, she tells the story of a The event took place in the presence In early 1941, Ehud was removed from the He took part in the daily activities of woman who, together with her husband, of Dr Ehud Leob, who was rescued by detention camp with several dozen other the household, working on their farm, forged a new life for themselves and filled Louise Roger, as well as Avner Shalev, children and brought to a children’s home studying in the local school, even serv- it with profound love for and dedication to chairman of Yad Vashem, and France’s run by O.S.E., the Society for Rescuing ing as a choirboy in the local church. their family, their community, and the Ambassador to Israel, Christophe Bigot. Children, a Jewish organization in France. “Grandma” took care of Ehud, providing Jewish people. On October 22, 1940, the Jews of He was hidden with several different for all his needs and providing him a safe These are the years in which survivors Baden and Palatinate, Germany were Christian families until he arrived at the haven, despite the difficulties and risks. are emerging to tell their stories. This deported to France, where they were put home of Jules and Jeanne Roger. By the Louise Roger died on June 24, 1947. story, depicting a woman of valor who in detention camps. end of 1943, Jules’ underground activities Jeanne and Jules Roger were recog- turned a horror-filled youth into an incred- Among the deportees were the increasingly endangered the young nized as Righteous Among the Nations ibly meaningful life, will surely be counted Odenheimer family: Julchen and Hugo Jewish boy hiding with them, and the in 1989. among them as an invaluable contribution to Holocaust literature. 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, for Yad EDITORIAL BOARD New York, NYNew York, 10110 *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 Inmates, and Nazi Victims **deceased Eli Zborowski Marvin Zborowski Mark Palmer Sam Skura** Israel Krakowski Mandell William Sam Halpern Isidore Karten Norman Belfer Joseph Bukiet November/December 2009 - Kislev/Tevet 5770 2009 - Kislev/Tevet November/December MORAL DUTY REMEMBER TO MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE IS AS IMPORTANT AS EVER IS AS IMPORTANT OF HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE ANNUAL TRIBUTE DINNER FOR REFLECTION

OF THE AMERICAN & INTERNATIONALAMERICAN OF THE VASHEM YAD SOCIETIES FOR On behalf of all New Yorkers, congratulations and thank you for your dedication and hard work. I know that the American congratulations and thank you for your dedication and hard work. I know that the Yorkers, On behalf of all New Further, I would like to extend my congratulations to tonight’s honorees, Tovah honorees, I would like to extend my congratulations to tonight’s Further, I am privileged to acknowledge the commemorative efforts of the American & of the I am privileged to acknowledge the commemorative efforts Dear Friends: celebrate Please accept my warmest greetings and congratulations as you gather to CHARLES SCHUMER: YAD VASHEM IS COMMITTED TO THE CAUSE IS COMMITTED TO VASHEM YAD CHARLES SCHUMER: I wish you all to continue your precious mission for many years to come. I fully share the Dinner’s and This is true that those who helped their Jewish friends motto. As a Pole who understands how fortunate were my ancestors who lived together with our As a Pole who understands Dear Mr. Chairman, Dear Mr. Since I plan Dinner. Tribute Vashem Yad Annual I am very honored to be invited for the 25th WLODZIMIERZ CIMOSZEWICZ: IT IS OUR FUNDAMENTAL WLODZIMIERZ CIMOSZEWICZ: IT IS OUR This event serves to highlight the vital role of Yad Vashem in promoting Holocaust aware- Vashem Yad role of This event serves to highlight the vital Dear Mr. Zborowski, Dear Mr. on the occasion of the congratulations my heartfelt It is with distinct pleasure that I convey SHIMON PERES: YAD VASHEM PROVIDES AN ENVIRONMENT PROVIDES VASHEM YAD SHIMON PERES: Even though the Holocaust took place within living memory, there are those who would within living memory, Even though the Holocaust took place This September, I spoke at the United Nations only a day after a Holocaust denier was a Nations only a day after I spoke at the United This September, BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: THE WORK OF YAD VASHEM VASHEM YAD OF THE WORK NETANYAHU: BENJAMIN Dear Friends, & International American to the send warm greetings from Jerusalem I am pleased to WHOEVER SAVES A LIFE, SAVES HUMANITY SAVES A LIFE, SAVES WHOEVER & International Societies for Yad Vashem will continue to serve the community for many years to come. Best wishes for a Vashem Yad & International Societies for successful future and an inspirational dinner. Feldshuh and Fanya Gottesfeld Heller. I am honored to join this show of support in rec- Feldshuh and Fanya Gottesfeld Heller. individuals for all their hard work and dedication on behalf of ognizing these outstanding Their exem- and our community. Vashem Yad American & International Societies for the to us all. plary dedication to the ideals of Holocaust remembrance serves as inspiration International Societies for Yad Vashem. For close to 30 years, the American & 30 years, the For close to Vashem. Yad International Societies for to the cause of has been committed Vashem Yad International Societies for on of the organization to pass effort The humanitarian Holocaust remembrance. the the sacred legacy of the Holocaust has been indispensable. I applaud striving to transmit the les- for Vashem Yad American & International Societies for sons of the Holocaust to all members of our global community. the American & International Societies for Yad Vashem Annual Tribute Dinner. I am Dinner. Tribute Annual Vashem Yad American & International Societies for the American & International grateful for the opportunity to recognize the fine work of and this year’s honorees on this wonderful occasion. Vashem Yad Societies for neighbors not only saved the individuals but also saved humanity. Following the activities of neighbors not only saved the individuals but also saved humanity. which I had a chance to visit in Israel as the Prime Minister of Poland I would Vashem Yad like to express my deepest respect and support for this noble Institution. Jewish brothers for generations and how tragic was the [fate] of the Victims of the Holocaust Jewish brothers for generations and how tragic was the [fate] of the Victims And it is a privilege moral duty to remember. I am deeply convinced that it is our fundamental of the Survivors to remember those who helped them. to be on that day in Berlin to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Wall, let me of the Wall, to be on that day in Berlin to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall with this letter. address you and the distinguished guests ness, education and research. At a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise, and Holocaust ness, education and research. our history is indeed essential. reminding the world of the dark hours of denial is rampant, a place in which to commune with those provides an environment for reflection, Vashem Yad This is where the memory of voices can still be heard. who are no longer with us, but whose on for ever more, and where their names are inscribed in the victims of Nazi horrors can live Among the Nations are honored – men Righteous is also where the Vashem Yad perpetuity. brethren, evidence and women of valor whose heroic actions saved so many of our Jewish of human kind, a symbol of hope for our tomorrow. and dignity of the compassion forthcoming Annual Tribute Dinner to be held by the American Friends of Yad Vashem. Yad American Friends of Dinner to be held by the Tribute Annual forthcoming deny the undeniable. That is why the work of Yad Vashem is as important as ever. Its docu- Its as ever. is as important Vashem Yad That is why the work of deny the undeniable. for but also serve to educate and research bear witness to the horrors of the past mentation Yad American and International Societies for support and dedication to the Your the future. continues. work that this important is invaluable in ensuring Vashem given a hearing at the General Assembly. The original architectural plans of the Auschwitz- of the The original architectural plans Assembly. the General given a hearing at when I vis- August given to me this I held up in my own speech were Birkenau camp which Yad held in the of documentation They have joined the over 125 million pages ited Germany. archives. Vashem Societies for Yad Vashem on the occasion of your Annual Tribute Dinner. Tribute Annual of your on the occasion Vashem Yad Societies for Page 16 Page