Vol. 39-No. 2 ISSN 0892-1571 November/December 2012-Kislev/Tevet 5773

ANNUAL TRIBUTE DINNER OF THE AMERICAN & INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES FOR YAD VASHEM CELEBRATING RESISTANCE: ARMED RESISTANCE, GHETTO FIGHTERS, AND SPIRITUAL RESISTANCE “THE TORCH WILL CONTINUE TO “WE CAN DEAL WITH ANY CHALLENGE” AMIR ESHEL, ILLUMINATE OUR SACRED MISSION” Major-General, Commander of Israel’s Air Force LEONARD WILF, Chairman of the American & International Societies ix months tery of the Jewish people, a hell on earth for Yad Vashem Sago I was created by human beings, where Jews had privileged to re- been murdered simply for having been onight’s hear, as a son of Holocaust survivors, ceive the com- Jews, had a profound effect on all of us in Ttheme is Major-General Eshel undertook a unique mand of the the air above. “Resistance: and special historical mission to which he Israeli Air We stared down at the camp, thinking Armed Resist- aspired a long time. Force. The re- how, in this place, had flourished the death ance, Ghetto At this time of celebrating heroes, I wish sponsibility for factory created by the nation that previ- Fighters, and to pay tribute to the hero who was in our the most cen- ously had taken the leading role in the cul- Spiritual Re- midst: our recently departed friend, tral defensive and offensive force for the ture and science of Europe. We saw but sistance.” It is founder and chairman, Eli Zborowski, z”l. protection of the State of Israel was given could not comprehend. therefore appropriate that we honor three It was because of Eli’s vision and deter- to my hands. From above, we could imagine seeing people — Cesia and Frank Blaichman, and mination that we are able to stand here In my office, in the headquarters of the the small figures of people marching along Liev Schreiber — who, in their own ways, today, proud of what we have accom- Israel Air Force, hangs a single picture. the selection platforms straight to their represent the brave nature of resistance plished in the area of Holocaust commem- The picture is not very large, but to me, it deaths. during World war II. oration and education, in Israel and says it all. We, the Sabras, who had been educated Cesia and Frank Blaichman were throughout the world. Eli made it his life’s On September 4, 1943, 1000 Jews, who in our youth on the ethos of the New Jew, teenagers when the war broke out. They mission to honor the memory of our heroes had been transported from Drancy in had often looked with disdain upon the so- exhibited heroic courage when they each, and martyrs and ensure that it be held for France to Auschwitz-Birkenau, were mur- called “Jews who went to the slaughter like separately, became resistance fighters. eternity. dered and cremated, as had so many been sheep.” They miraculously survived the war, built We miss Eli dearly, but it is our commit- murdered just before and still after them. How many trials and tribulations did the their lives, and vowed to remember. Their ment to continue in the path he forged. We Precisely 60 years later, I led a formation Jews of Europe endure in the ghettos, in connection to our organization goes back will carry out the work of the American & of three F-15 fighter jets of the Israeli Air the transports, and in the camps, until their to its inception when together with Eli, z”l International Societies for Yad Vashem, Force, in a symbolic flight over the skies of final annihilation by overwhelming forces? they spearheaded the construction of the and continue to be dedicated to the cause the death camps in Poland. What bravery did it take to undergo all “Memorial to the Jewish Soldiers” at Yad of remembrance. At these fraught times of The cockpits were manned exclusively by this? I understood how wrong we were Vashem. They continue to dedicate them- terrorism and anti-Semitism, it is important pilots who were the children or grandchil- about our attitude to the victims and to the selves to the cause of Holocaust remem- that we renew our pledge to educate our dren of Holocaust victims and survivors. survivors. brance. children and grandchildren and indeed the Most of my own mother’s family was bru- The sight that we saw from above on that We are also delighted to have with us the world about the perils of intolerance and tally murdered by gunfire in the death gul- September day in 2003 was identical to the celebrated actor of stage and screen, Liev hate, those which gave birth to our biggest lies in eastern Poland, today Belarus. For sight seen by thousands of Allied pilots Schreiber, whom we are privileged to catastrophe, the Shoah. As your chairman all of us, this flight was both a personal and who flew over the camps in 1944. They honor as well. Mr. Schreiber, a recipient of I pledge to you that the torch held by my national journey, a journey that touched saw but did not know. They did not realize. the Tony Award and numerous Tony, predecessor will continue to illuminate our every raw nerve and asked every difficult But their leaders knew. Nevertheless, Emmy, and Golden Globe award nomina- sacred mission and burn bright. question. Auschwitz and the rail lines leading to the tions, helped show the world the role of I now wish to extend my deepest grati- In that photograph on my wall, one can camp were not designated as military tar- Jewish resistance during the war, through tude to Marilyn Rubenstein, for her role as see two of those jets, with their blue Magen gets! his portrayal of the partisan Zus Bielski. dinner chairperson and supervisor. Marilyn David, the Star of David. Below one sees The thought that a relatively small bomb- Cesia and Frank Blaichman displayed put her heart and soul into ensuring that the remnants of the crematoria, the selec- ing attack could have prevented the deaths unparalleled bravery in their own lives, and this event would be one to have made Eli tion platform, the remaining huts, and that of Hungarian Jewry and the Jews of ghetto Liev Schreiber brought the story of Zus proud. To Marilyn, and to her fellow chair- terrible, infamous gateway into the camp. Lodz arouses difficult thoughts, feelings, Bielski’s courage to screen. persons — Ira Drukier, Mark Wilf and Je- From above, the concentration camp and questions. Questions that have no Our guest speaker, Major-General Amir remy Halpern — thank you for a job well looks like a peaceful park, green fields in good answer. Eshel, commander of Israel’s Air Force, is done. a village-like pastoral setting. The thought I thought to myself about the amazing also no stranger to valor. As you will later And thank you all for being here tonight. that this was the appearance of the ceme- (Continued on page 16)

IN THIS ISSUE American & International Societies for Yad Vashem Annual Tribute Dinner...... 1, 8-9 Trove of everyday items reveals Lithuania’s dark Holocaust secret...... 5 Proudly bearing elders’ scars...... 6 “Why would anyone want to burn Jews?”...... 7 Rywka’s diary...... 10 Archive reveals new details of Holocaust in Moldova...... 11 Holocaust museums in Israel evolve...... 11 A maharajah comes to the rescue...... 12 The Nazi who saved Sigmund Freud...... 13 Ignoring Jewish history...... 15 Torah travels from hell on earth into outer space...... 16 Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2012 - Kislev/Tevet 5773

ANTI-SEMITISM IN EUROPE ON THE RISE BULGARIA TO JOIN HOLOCAUST INTERNATIONAL BODY nti-Semitic attitudes in ten European harbor anti-Semitic sentiments, up from 47 ulgaria’s Cabinet has approved a remembrance, and research. The member Acountries remain at “disturbingly percent in 2009. Bproposal for the country to join, as an states also agree on the importance of en- high levels,” according to a new poll from In Spain, 53 percent of the population ex- observer, the Task Force for International couraging all archives, both public and pri- the Anti-Defamation League, released in pressed anti-Semitic attitudes, and in Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Re- March. Poland 48 percent did. membrance, and Research (ITF), the Gov- In France the overall level of anti-Semi- The levels in Austria and Germany were ernment’s press service said in a tism increased to 24 percent of the popu- lower, with 28 percent and 21 percent, re- statement. lation, up from 20 percent in 2009. spectively. ITF, which describes itself as “an inter- The poll finds that 45% of the French be- In the United Kingdom, the levels were governmental body whose purpose is to lieve French Jews are more loyal to Israel lower, but compared to the rates in 2009 a place political and social leaders’ support than to France; 35% believe that Jews sharp rise was revealed. While the survey behind the need for Holocaust education, have too much power in the business found 10 percent of the population held remembrance, and research both nation- world; 29% believe Jews hold too much anti-Semitic attitudes in 2009, 17 percent ally and internationally,” was established in power over the world’s international finan- do today. 1998 at the initiative of the Swedish prime cial markets; and 35% believe Jews talk “The survey is disturbing by the fact that minister at the time, Göran Persson. about the Holocaust too much. anti-Semitism remains at high levels across It currently has 31 members, including “France has seen an increase in the level the continent and infects many Europeans most EU states — only Cyprus and Malta of anti-Semitism…all the more disturbing at a much higher level than we see here in are not, while Portugal is one of three ob- in light of the shooting attack at the Jewish the United States,” Foxman said. “In Hun- server countries (along with Macedonia school in Toulouse,” said Abraham H. Fox- gary, Spain, and Poland the numbers for and Turkey and, soon, Bulgaria) — as well man, ADL National Director. anti-Semitic attitudes are literally off the as Croatia, Serbia, Switzerland, Norway, Bulgarian President Rossen Plevneliev attends Out of the countries surveyed, the most charts and demand a serious response Israel, Argentina, Canada, and the US. a commemoration service at the Sofia Syna- anti-Semitic is Hungary, where 63 percent from political, civic, and religious leaders.” “Bulgaria’s joining the group is a logical gogue in August, following the terrorist attack step, proof of our country’s contribution to in Bourgas, which left five Israeli tourists and POLAND’S JEWISH GHETTOS REVEALED IN COLOR the international efforts to clarify historical a Bulgarian bus driver dead. facts and the common work to spread the he 72nd anniversary of the establish- nich. He had hidden his photograph slides knowledge. It is also motivated by the un- vate, to make their holdings on the Holo- Tment of the Warsaw ghetto, in Octo- in a leather satchel. Jaeger, according to precedented contribution of our country caust more widely accessible. ber 1940, was commemorated in October, Life.com, recounted his fear that the pho- through the saving of Bulgarian Jews dur- Bulgaria and Israel have had a close re- and rare, newly released color photo- tos would reveal his close connection to ing World War II, which is highly appreci- lationship over the past decade, which in- Hitler and the Nazi leadership, but said the ated by the Jewish people,” the Cabinet tensified since the current Government took Americans were more focused on a bottle statement said. office in 2009, with Prime Minister Boiko of brandy and a tiny ivory gambling toy that ITF member states must support imple- Borissov visiting Israel in January 2010, a were also in his bag. The soldiers never mentation of national policies and pro- trip that included a visit to the Yad Vashem noticed the incriminating photographs. grams in support of Holocaust education, memorial to victims of the Holocaust. Following his encounter with the Ameri- cans and fearing arrest and confiscation of ITALY’S PRIME MINISTER VOWS TO FIGHT ANTI-SEMITISM, HOLOCAUST DENIAL talian Prime Minister Mario Monti sary. Earlier, many had taken part in a Elderly Jewish man speaks with German offi- Ipromised his country’s Jews that he torchlight memorial march through the city. cers rounding up Kutno Jews, German-occu- would stand beside them in the fight Monti promised that the government pied Poland, 1939. against anti-Semitism and Holocaust de- would act against mounting racial preju- nial. dice and xenophobia in Europe. graphs from ghettos around Poland, pub- “We know that anti-Semitism has not Remembering racist persecution during lished on the website Life.com, provide a been eradicated in Europe,” Monti said at World War II, he said, “means also assum- unique glimpse into the daily lives of the a ceremony night marking the 69th an- ing a responsibility to combat every form Jews during the years 1939–1940. niversary of the World War II roundup and of anti-Semitism and racism, and to work The photos depicting the Warsaw and deportation of 1,024 Roman Jews to so that minorities are protected and not Kutno ghettos are the work of high-ranking Auschwitz. “We will not leave you alone.” discriminated against.” Nazi photographer Hugo Jaeger, who had Monti, who was joined by Rome’s Warning against the dangers of Holocaust rare access to the upper echelon of the mayor, several government ministers, and denial and revisionism, Monti urged the Third Reich, including Adolf Hitler. At the other officials, spoke before several thou- crowd to remember what Holocaust sur- time, the Nazi regime supplied Jaeger with sand people gathered outside Rome’s vivor Primo Levi once wrote: “Those who the most cutting-edge technology, includ- Warsaw, German-occupied Poland, 1940. Great Synagogue to mark the anniver- deny Auschwitz are ready to do it again.” ing a camera that was capable of taking color and three-dimensional photos. his archive, Jaeger buried the photos in a Jaeger was described as “Hitler’s photog- number of jars on the outskirts of town. He GERMANY DONATES $13 MILLION rapher” by Life magazine, which purchased drew a map that would eventually lead him TO YAD VASHEM HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL his collection of 2,000 photos in the 1970s. back to the photos. In 1955 Jaeger dug up erman Foreign Minister Guido membrance,” Yad Vashem Chairman Life.com describes how in 1945, while Al- the collection and transferred it to a bank Westerwelle, during his visit to Israel Avner Shalev said. lied armies were advancing into Germany, in Switzerland, where it was kept in a safe. G in February, signed an agreement granting Westerwelle, who met Holocaust sur- Jaeger found himself face to face with A decade later he sold the photos to Life 10 million euros (13 million dollars) to Is- vivors at the Center in Jerusalem, spoke of American soldiers in a town west of Mu- magazine. rael’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial “a program against forgetting.” Center over the next 10 years. Among the survivors meeting Wester- HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY AND EUROPEAN HYPOCRISY “The agreement signifies the German welle was 80-year-old Vera Dotan, who erman Nobel laureate Günter “enemies of Allah,” gives renewed vigor government’s wish to help facilitate Yad survived Auschwitz and the death march GGrass, a former Waffen SS soldier and legitimacy to anti-Semitism. Vashem’s various activities in Israel and the Nazis forced the prisoners to make as in Hitler’s army, published a poem re- During the pre-Holocaust age, Jews in globally which further commemoration, the advancing Red Army closed in on the cently which criticized Israel for “aggres- Europe were characterized as Commu- documentation, and education of the extermination camp in early 1945. sive warmongering against Iran” and nists and capitalists, misers and free- events of the Holocaust,” Yad Vashem said Her father was murdered immediately on identified the Jewish State as a “threat to spenders. Jews were targeted as an in a statement. arrival in Auschwitz, and her only brother world peace….” ethno-religious group as well as individu- Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar said died of typhus two days before the camp Yom HaShoah/Holocaust Memorial Day als. In the godless Europe where Christi- that the agreement constituted an impor- was liberated. is a widely recognized day of commemo- anity is largely dead, it is politically tant source of funding, and will be used to For 40 years she hardly spoke a word of ration throughout Europe. Holocaust me- incorrect to target individual Jews or Ju- expand Yad Vashem’s activities and to lo- German. That changed in the 1980s, when morials and museums abound in Germany daism; however, it has become more ac- cate and purchase significant Holocaust she heard that some people did not take and other countries that willingly cooper- ceptable to target the Jewish State for documents from archives in Europe, mak- the Holocaust seriously. ated with Nazi Germany in the murder of hate. And, since Jews are automatically ing them accessible to the public via the in- “I then told myself, together with my hus- the Jews. Yet, throughout Western and identified with Israel, they are once again ternet, Israeli media reported. band: We must tell our story. People must Northern Europe today, Jews feel like an a target for hate and violence. In March a “This decision reflects the importance that know the Holocaust is not a fairy tale.” endangered species. Residual anti-Semi- rabbi and three young children were killed the German government attaches to the From then on, she has told her story tism, largely borne of envy and age-old in Toulouse, France, and, while Europe subject of the Holocaust. The commemora- again and again — also in German. prejudices shared at many “kitchen tables,” was “shocked,” the appeasement of the tion of the Holocaust is an endless task.” She said that she was “very grateful” for is still prevalent in today’s Europe. This, Arab-Muslim world continues, as well as “This agreement strengthens the obliga- the funding agreement. “We need a lot, coupled with the influx of Muslims who Israel bashing by the European media, ac- tion of the German government and the and when it comes from Germany, it is have been taught that the Jews are the ademia, and most governments of the EU. German people regarding Holocaust re- maybe worth even more,” she said. November/December 2012 - Kislev/Tevet 5773 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 3 HUNGARIAN NAZI CAPTURE PLOT NAZI-SEIZED ART “MADE IN ISRAEL” ORDERED RETURNED TO AMERICAN MAN he most wanted Nazi criminal in the concentration camps of thousands of Hun- Berlin museum must return thou- “Hans Sachs wanted to show the poster Tworld, Ladislaus Csizsik-Csatary, ac- garian Jews. A sands of rare posters to an Ameri- art to the public, so the objective now is to cused of sending nearly 16,000 Jews to Ibolya said the investigation into the Csa- can man, part of his Jewish father’s unique find a depository for the posters in muse- their deaths during World War II, was lo- tary case was continuing and that prose- collection that had been seized by the ums where they can really be seen and not cated and captured in Budapest this July cutors were waiting for information from Nazis, Germany‘s top federal appeals hidden away,” Druba told the AP. thanks to information obtained by the Israel, including the possible testimony of court ruled. The posters were seized from Hans Wiesenthal Center. survivors, and Canada. The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe Sachs’ home in 1938 on the orders of Nazi Prosecutors decided to charge Csatary “I expect this case to continue for confirmed Peter Sachs, 74, was the rightful Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, with the “unlawful torture of human be- months, even taking into account that we owner of the posters collected by his father who wanted them for a museum of his ings,” a war crime that carries a maximum are treating it as one that we would like to Hans and ruled he is entitled to receive own. them back from the German Historical Mu- Born in 1881, Hans Sachs was a dentist sentence of life in prison. conclude as soon as possible,” Ibolya said. seum. who began collecting posters while in high Tibor Ibolya, Budapest’s acting chief “I confirm that Laszlo Csatary was iden- The ruling ended seven years of legal school. By 1905, he was Germany’s lead- prosecutor, said Csatary recounted his tified and located in Budapest,” said Efraim battles over a vast collection dating back ing private poster collector, and later Holocaust-era activities to authorities dur- Zuroff, director of the Wiesenthal Center’s to the late 19th century that is now be- launched the art publication Das Plakat ing questioning, saying he was following Jerusalem office. “This whole operation lieved to be worth between $6 million and (The Poster). orders and carrying out his duty. was ‘made in Israel.’ It’s the product of our $21 million. After the seizure of the posters in the “The suspect denied having committed work in cooperation with (British newspa- The court said if the museum kept the summer, Hans Sachs was arrested during the crimes,” Ibolya said, adding that during per) The Sun,” Zuroff told Ynet. posters it would be akin to perpetuating the the November 9, 1938, pogrom against the his testimony Csatary’s “attitude toward “It was important for us to cooperate some of his fellow men of a certain religion crimes of the Nazis. (with the newspaper) so that it gets wide The case ended up with the Karlsruhe ... is not what we would consider normal.” media coverage, more than we can ever According to a summary of the case re- court because of the posters’ unique and tu- achieve,” he said, adding that The Sun in- multuous journey through more than 70 leased by prosecutors, Csatary was a po- vested large funds in tracking and even lice officer in the Slovakian city of Košice, years of German history. The posters were confronting Csatary “in hopes that the cov- collected by Sachs, were stolen from him by at the time part of Hungary. erage would increase the pressure on the In May 1944, Csatary was named chief the Nazis’ Gestapo, became the posses- courts and public opinion in Hungary, as sion of Communist East Germany for of an internment camp at a Košice brick well as the world at large.” factory from which 12,000 Jews were de- decades, and then moved to the Berlin mu- ccording to Zuroff, the affair is “a seum after Germany’s reunification in 1990. ported to Auschwitz and other Nazi death proof of inadequacy of the Hungar- camps. Authorities said Csatary was pres- A The court acknowledged that Peter ian authorities, which Sachs did not file for restitution of the Peter Sachs holds up a book with some of his father, Hans Sachs’ favorite posters. knew for 14 years that posters by the official deadline for such he is living in peace and claims, and that the postwar restitution reg- Jews known as Kristallnacht and thrown in quiet. It is shocking es- ulations instituted by the Western Allies the Sachsenhausen concentration camp pecially these days, could not be specifically applied in his north of Berlin. when anti-Semitism is case. But the judges ruled that the spirit of When he was released about two weeks overflowing in Hun- the laws was clearly on Sachs’ side. later, the family fled to the United States. gary.” Not to return the posters “would perpet- After the war, Hans Sachs assumed the Holocaust survivors uate Nazi injustice,” the judges wrote. “This collection had been destroyed and ac- expressed mixed feel- cannot be reconciled with the purpose of cepted compensation of about 225,000 ings upon hearing the the Allied restitution provisions, which was German marks (then worth about $50,000) news of Csatary’s cap- to protect the rights of the victims.” from West Germany in 1961. ture. Hagen Philipp Wolf, a spokesman for He learned five years later, however, that Ladislaus Csizsik-Csatary. Pension Gesner, 88, Germany’s cultural affairs office, which part of the collection had survived the war ent when the trains were loaded and sent said “we were in Košice until we were oversees the public German Historical Mu- and been turned over to an East Berlin mu- on their way. transferred to Auschwitz in April 1944. I seum, said the decision would be re- seum. He wrote the Communist authorities Csatary “regularly” used a dog whip don’t remember Csatary clearly, but I’ve spected. about seeing the posters or even bringing against the Jewish detainees “without any heard his name. A total of 4,259 posters have been iden- an exhibit to the West, to no avail. He died special reasons and irrespective of the as- “Why does God give these people such tified so far as having belonged to Sachs’ in 1974 without ever seeing them again. saulted people’s sex, age, or health condi- long lives?” Gesner wondered. “It’s too late father. They were among a collection of The posters became part of the German tion,” the prosecutors’ statement said. because he has already lived his life. As it 12,500 that his father owned, which in- Historical Museum’s collection in 1990 As one train departed with some 80 Jews is you don’t have much of a life at that age.” clude advertisements for exhibitions, after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. crammed into one railcar, Csatary refused Holocaust survivor Marianna Boaz was cabarets, movies, and consumer products, Peter Sachs has said he only learned of a request by one of the Jews to cut holes not consoled by the news either: “It’s a dis- as well as political propaganda — all rare, the existence of the collection in 2005, and in the walls of the wagon to let more air in, grace for humanity that he has only been with only small original print runs. It is not began fighting then for its return. the statement said. captured now and what happened with clear what happened to the remainder. When he receives the posters back “We took into consideration the severity Demjanjuk can happen again,” she said. Sachs’ attorney in Germany, Matthias Sachs will repay the compensation that his of his acts, but we should not forget that “It might be better than never, but the Druba, said his client now hopes that he can father received, Druba said. He said it was the suspect is due the presumption of in- world is still silent because he got to live find a new home for the collection where it not yet clear what the amount would be in can be displayed to a wider public. current terms. nocence,” Ibolya said. “In our estimation, his life, unlike others whose deaths are his he will not be able to escape.” fault,” Boaz noted. Ibolya said considering Csatary’s age, he Eva Franick seemed more content, say- FIRST HOLOCAUST HISTORY BOOK IN FARSI was in good physical and mental condition, ing that the news made her feel good. “It’s PUBLISHED FOR IRANIANS although experts had yet to examine him. nice to know that there are people out Csatary was convicted in absentia for there who still care about serving justice to hile Iranian President Mahmoud net is where the real impact of this book Ahmadinejad continues to deny will be.” war crimes in Czechoslovakia in 1948 and those people, because we no longer have W the Holocaust, lending his anti-Semitic “I want the entire young Persian-speaking sentenced to death. He arrived in the the strength. rhetoric to the already reprehensible trend, world who have access to the Internet to Canadian province of Nova Scotia the fol- “Even if he is 97, having his life end like a 65-year-old Jewish American-Iranian have the ability to download it, read it, and lowing year, became a Canadian citizen in this is also a punishment,” she said. from Orange County, California, has de- research it,” he said, according to Fox News. 1955, and worked as an art dealer in Mon- The British newspaper said on its online cided to write a four-volume book in Farsi, When Babaknia began researching his treal. site that the Hungarian Nazi war criminal in an attempt to reveal the truths and indis- subject 15 years ago, he was surprised to In October 1997, Canadian authorities “was identified and found” in the Hungarian putable facts of the time in a language learn that there was no Holocaust material said the 82-year-old had left the country, capital. which, thus far, has virtually no record of available in Farsi. apparently bound for Europe, before they “Ten months ago, an informant gave us them. Not only was there no description of the information with which we have located had the chance to decide his fate in a de- Ari Babaknia’s book entitled Holocaust, Holocaust, but there was little historical Csatary Laszlo in Budapest. This informant portation hearing. His citizenship had been which he eventually hopes will be available context for the younger generation of Ira- received a $25,000 premium that we of- revoked in August and the deportation free of charge within the borders of Iran, nians to learn about the mid-20th century fered in exchange for the information,” said order was based on his obtaining citizen- will enable Iranians to access information events that shaped the world. Zuroff, adding that “The Sun was able to ship by giving false information. about systematic slaughter of the Jewish “I wanted to know where the rest of the photograph and film him with information Canadian authorities alleged that Csa- people that occurred at the hands of Nazis. world was,” Babaknia said, according to tary had failed to provide information con- we had provided them in September “It is not enough to sell this book,” said Fox. “Where was Churchill? Where was cerning his collaboration with Nazi 2011.” Babaknia, a Jew who went to medical Roosevelt? What was the reason for world occupation forces while serving with the Zuroff noted that the information had school in Iran in the 1970s and is now a leaders to be indifferent?” Royal Hungarian Police and his participa- been forwarded to the Budapest prosecu- fertility specialist in Newport Beach, Cali- After all, he said, “forgetting the Holo- tion in the internment and deportation to tor’s office in September 2011. fornia. “The power and reach of the Inter- caust is repeating the Holocaust.” Page 4 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2012 - Kislev/Tevet 5773 BOOKBOOK REVIEWSREVIEWS

AMERICA’S SOUL IN THE BALANCE America’s Soul in the Balance: The Holo- Gregory J. Wallance, in his absorbing length the number of immigrants into the Meanwhile, it definitely didn’t help mat- caust, FDR’s State Department, and the and well-researched book, America’s Soul United States . . . We could do this by sim- ters any that on the second floor of the Moral Disgrace of an American Aristocracy. in the Balance: The Holocaust, FDR’s ply advising our consuls to put every ob- State Department, home to the Secretary By Gregory J. Wallance. Greenleaf Book State Department, and the Moral Disgrace stacle in the way and to require additional of State, indecisiveness reigned. Secretary Group Press: Austin, Texas, 2012. 328 pp. of an American Aristocracy, makes it plain evidence and to resort to various adminis- of State Cordell Hull, at 71, had no diplo- $26.95 hardcover. that many who worked in the State Depart- trative devices which would postpone and matic background and no management ment have a lot to answer for. postpone and postpone the granting of the skills. He was out a lot because of health REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN According to Wallance, a major role in visas.” Needless to say, the great majority issues. He was insecure. Thus, according n January of 1943, the World Jewish the State Department’s “dis- of these immigrants were to Wallance, it was Undersecretary of ICongress in Geneva asked “the most grace” was undoubtedly Jews. State Sumner Welles, “far more decisive senior American diplomat in Switzerland, played by “Assistant Secre- nd what of the others, and experienced,” that “effectively ran the the minister of the legation,” to relay a re- tary of State Breckinridge Athose with less of a State Department.” Welles was “a brilliant port “to the State Department for transmis- Long, in those years respon- role in this “disgrace,” who diplomat, Roosevelt’s chief foreign policy sion to Jewish leaders in the United sible for legislation, visa is- worked in the State Depart- strategist, and a man willing to take risks States.” This document, known as cable sues, and special war ment and felt much as Long like no one else.” Unfortunately, though, 482, “reported on both a step-up in the im- problems, among others.” In did? According to Wallance all this led to Hull’s unbridled hatred of plementation of the German government’s fact, a clue to the man and that included most all of Welles . . . and Welles’s eventual destruc- plan to murder all Jewish men, women, his prejudices can already be those who worked on the tion, doubly sad since Welles appears to and children on the European continent . . seen in 1938 when Long, third floor of the State De- have been the Jews’ only friend in that De- . and the dying Romanian Jews who had after reading Adolf Hitler’s partment — many of them partment. been deported to the nightmarish land of Mein Kampf, commented in assistant secretaries, many Of course, none of this would have mat- Transnistria in the Nazi-conquered his Diary that “the book was of them directly involved tered had there not been a war going on, Ukraine.” In February of 1943 in cable 354, ‘eloquent in opposition to with communications, and and Jews in Europe being killed . . . waiting the State Department, in reply, referring to Jewry and to Jews as expo- many of them aristocratic . . . waiting for someone, waiting for some- cable 482, chided the “American minister nents of Communism and Groton private-school grad- thing to rescue them . . . when rescue, in for even having sent” the cable. chaos.’” Thus, not so surprisingly — and in uates, convinced of their “Anglo-Saxon su- fact, was possible . . . The story of America’s activity, or rather keeping with the above — we discover periority.” In sum, these men from the Indeed, America’s Soul in the Balance inactivity, as regards any type of aid to the how, but two short years after, Long, now wealthy American patrician upper classes gives us a very clear picture of it all, and a hapless and helpless Jews of Europe dur- assistant secretary of state, wrote in a had no great empathy for the “sufferings of very tragic and heart-wrenching picture it is. ing World War II, initially persecuted and 1940 in-house State Department memo- human beings from different ancestries, re- P.S. Wallance writes that in 1945 Cordell eventually murdered by the Nazis, is a randum that “We can delay and effectively ligions, or economic backgrounds” . . . and, Hull won the Nobel Peace Prize. It really is very, very sad one. Who is to blame? stop for a temporary period of indefinite like Long, little if any empathy for Jews. difficult to figure out for what. “THE DEMONIC MAESTRO” THE HEART HAS REASONS: Hitler. being found unfit to serve. An Austrian by By A.N. Wilson. Basic Books: New York, birth, he became a German citizen only in HOLOCAUST RESCUERS AND 2012. 224 pp. $24.99 hardcover. 1932 prior to becoming Chancellor. Unlike many, he sought not to serve in WWI, with REVIEWED BY RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN THEIR STORIES OF COURAGE new research disclosing that his comrades The Heart Has Reasons: Holocaust Res- tity cards and other vital papers, and print- ward-winning British author and biog- considered him an oddball and mocked his cuers and Their Stories of Courage. ing illegal books and posters, the sale of rapher A.N. Wilson offers us a must- physical awkwardness. He did earn (it was A By Mark Klempner. The Pilgrim Press: which supported hundreds of children in read, breathtaking interpretation in concise not difficult) the Iron Cross, First Class, at Cleveland, Ohio, 2006. 272 pp. $24.00. hiding. Pieter Meerburg, who co-founded form of the enigma called Hitler, whose un- the recommendation of a Jewish officer, a rescue network at only 21 years of age, paralleled modern bloody trail ended with Hugo Gutmann, who was saved, but not by REVIEWED BY MARK PINKUS orchestrated the stealthy removal of hun- the murderous destruction of six million Eu- Hitler, when imprisoned by the Gestapo in enerations of readers have been dreds of Jewish children from the ropean Jews in the context of World War II’s 1937. Throughout, Hitler knew how to get captivated by Anne Frank’s Diary of “Creche,” a building in Amsterdam where 50 million victims. his superiors’ approval as well as that of G a Young Girl since its release more than Jewish children were detained before Wilson argues, though it people of means and influ- fifty years ago. They’ve been particularly being sent to concentration camps. The is contestable, that what ence, such as industrialist fascinated by Dutch heroes rescuers’ stories and person- is so frightingly unusual Krupp. A masterful manipula- such as Miep Gies, who about Adolph Hitler, the tor, he played people off alities vary widely, but the risked her life to hide the thread that connects them all leader who moved and against each other, excelling Franks from the Nazi mesmerized millions, is in “political poker” and un- is their unwavering courage regime. Books about such and compassion during one that he was so usual. abashedly throwing tantrums heroism during World War Namely, that he was to his gain. of the darkest periods in his- II have continued to pour in tory. merely a product of his he author emphasizes over the years, but there changing times, with sci- that Hitler’s Mein s told to Mark Klemp- T remains the need for a ner, whose own father ence replacing religion Kampf (My Struggle), written book that conveys the A and Darwin’s survival of while he was imprisoned in narrowly escaped the Nazi hard-earned wisdom of the scourge, the stories act as the fittest as moral guide. 1923 for five years for con- rescuers and how this wis- It was tragically ironic that spiring against the Weimar both a window to the past dom relates to contempo- and a vision for the future. the first nation producing Republic, already offers his rary issues. The Heart Has books would be the first Final Solution plan as it Framed by Klempner’s quest Reasons is such a book. for spirituality in his life, the burning them, at the speaks of gassing Jews, The author has assem- Führer’s order. Hitler’s book asks questions about holding them responsible for bled a collection of early life offers no clues as to unique lead- how people of faith and con- the WWI debacle. Mein Kampf also con- poignant narratives told by Dutch rescuers, ership ability nor outstanding talents. On science can navigate ethically in an in- nects world Jewry to the “scourge” of both all of whom helped hide Jewish children the contrary, his natural laziness, coupled Bolshevism and capitalism, mindless of the creasingly complex world. If the rescuers during the Nazi occupation of Holland. His with lack of initiative and unproductive implied contradiction. This anti-Semitic could remain committed to acting with love book features amazing stories of fearless- imagination, kept him down. Unusually, charge, contends Wilson, is alive today. and generosity, even while under the boot ness. For example, after being thrown into however, Hitler turned his salient weak- Hitler’s rabid anti-Semitism was curiously of the Nazi regime, they surely have some- prison for transporting Jewish children to nesses to the advantage of rising to no absent when he was losing his beloved 47- thing to teach us today — about being safe places, Hetty Voyte successfully as- less than absolute power. “But he could not year-old mother, Klara, to breast cancer in courageous in addressing injustices, about sisted some British paratroopers in the cell bring himself to get out of bed in the morn- 1907 with an attending Jewish physician, maintaining an open heart, and about not above hers to escape. For that, she was ings. Hence his own slide into poverty. Edward Block. giving in or giving up. Their critiques of sentenced to work at a labor camp, where Hence he made his ruin into a personal Though rejecting the Catholic Church of modern society can be as startling as their she further defied the Nazis by secretly ru- myth with which a whole bankrupt nation their childhood, both Hitler and Goebbels, memories of the Nazi years, yet most have was able to identify.” who became Propaganda Minister, cre- ining the gas masks she made in an as- retained an unshakable optimism, an- Hitler even tried to avoid conscription into ated a party resembling in its structure a sembly line there. Rut Matthijsen worked chored in their time-tested conviction that the Austro-Hungarian army, ultimately (Continued on page 13) tirelessly behind the scenes, forging iden- each individual can make a difference. November/December 2012 - Kislev/Tevet 5773 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 5 TROVE OF EVERYDAY ITEMS REVEALS LITHUANIA’S DARK HOLOCAUST SECRET dicated the location. Some were found in ive years ago the Lithuanian Center aged on this visit to identify 89 names of BY OFER ADERET, HAARETZ a nearby well at a depth of three meters. Ffor Military History, a private organi- the 4,000 victims from the Seventh Over the years the rain and snow had zation, bought the site. The original plans n the shiny glass table lie jewelry, Fortress. He was bothered that histori- swept the items into the well. “We pumped were to build a museum there with a center coins and metal utensils — similar ans knew the names of the murderers, O out the water and sifted what we found,” to study the area’s fortifications. The orga- to those in a catalog of antiques. The years but no one knew the names of the vic- said Orlov. nization’s members, including Orlov, have left their mark on the items, but they tims. The items found among the sand and started to investigate the history of the site are still in good shape. Some collector “It’s insane that the murderers live on stones were “the personal items of the vic- and very quickly realized that it had served would probably pay a nice amount for in history while the victims remain anony- tims,” he said. A Jewish prayer book and as a concentration camp during the Holo- them. mous,” said Orlov. “We only found a few bank documents were also found. caust period. But these items are not for sale. It is of the names, but that’s better than noth- he weather was not the only thing “I thought it would be impossible to find doubtful whether anyone even would think ing.” that made discovering the items dif- anything there, other than ‘a few thousand’ of buying them if they knew where they T Germans did not carry out the mass ficult over the past 70 years. After the So- were killed there,” he said. “We made a came from. They were found about a year murder at the site — that was organized viet Union took over Lithuania following the goal of finding their graves.” ago in Kovno, Lithuania, also known as and carried out from the beginning to the Second World War, the site was covered After a year of searching they found the Kaunas. Vladimir Orlov, a young local ar- end by local Lithuanians. The provisional site: a mass grave of chaeologist, found the items — and re- government in Lithuania, which existed 4,000 murdered Jews. vealed a dark secret hidden for 70 years. between the end of the Soviet occupa- Later, not far away, At a 10-day seminar held at the Interna- tion and the time of the German occupa- they found the personal tional School for Holocaust Studies at Yad tion — after Germany attacked the belongings. The collec- Vashem in Jerusalem for Lithuanian edu- Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 — tion is not impressive or cators, Orlov presented his research in a ordered the creation of the concentration very big, said Orlov. talk: “The Beginning of the Holocaust in camp at the site. Lithuania (VII Fort Findings).” There are only 25 items in total, but they are very Everything was carried out by local res- Kovno is the second largest city in idents. “Not everyone was a criminal or Lithuania. The archaeological site was important since they prove the entire story from the lower class. Some were edu- found in one of the 10 fortresses, built sur- cated and had families,” said Orlov. rounding the city in the 19th century, that was true, he said. The nationalistic awak- Dr. Irit Abramski of Yad Vashem ac- were used as prisons. In the summer of companied Orlov on his visit here. They 1941, some 4,000 Jews from the city were ening in Lithuania in re- share a language as Abramski was born quickly gathered in the seventh fort and cent years, in which war in Lithuania and her mother was a Holo- murdered. Some were shot using machine criminals from the Nazi- caust survivor of the Vilna ghetto. “All the guns and others were killed by hand Belongings of Jewish victims were buried under asphalt and garbage occupation era are being family on her side was killed,” she said. grenades. for seven decades. honored as national he- “Orlov discovered something completely Over the past seven decades, the per- roes, makes such authentic evidence even sonal belongings of the Jews killed over with asphalt and was also used as a more important. Alongside the victims’ be- new, which was unknown, and it is im- there — eyeglasses, rings, pen knives, garbage dump. The stories about the site longings were also items left by the mur- portant to make it public knowledge.” scissors, and coins — were hidden by the were forgotten as the generations passed. derers: shell casings and bottles of alcohol. The importance of the research is in dirt. Hebrew letters decorated some of the Only a few in Kovno knew the truth about Orlov, a computer engineer by training, who is conducting it: “Not us, the Jews, items, and are the only testimony as to the the site, but they never spoke about it, said is one of a group of 450 educators and re- are telling [the story], but an independent identity of their forgotten owners. Orlov. It didn’t interest anyone and no one searchers from Lithuania who attended the Lithuanian researcher who revealed the Orlov said he located the items based on researched it. There was barely any infor- seminar at Yad Vashem’s International role of the Lithuanians and their respon- historical documents and pictures that in- mation available, he added. School for Holocaust Studies. He man- sibility for the murders,” said Abramski. JEWISH LEADER TO FDR: DON’T SEND NEW YEAR GREETINGS sistence that nothing could be done to res- n May 1, 1943, American and British “We’ve had enough Rosh Hashana BY RAFAEL MEDOFF, cue Jews from Hitler. Oofficials were concluding the pro- greetings from the president of the United THE JERUSALEM POST FDR’s aides claimed, for example, that ceedings of their conference in Bermuda States,” Silver declared. We’d like to see no ships were available to transport on the refugee problem. It was clear that some action on the matters which mean very year, on the eve of Rosh refugees — but a Baltimore Jewish Times no concrete rescue plans would emerge. the most to us.” Hashana, American political leaders, E editorial pointed out that empty troop-sup- That evening, at a Zionist conference in Sadly, Rabbi Silver’s appeal fell on deaf candidates for office, and other VIPs send ply ships were “frequently going out of their Philadelphia, Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver of ears. When Rosh Hashana rolled around in the Jewish community their wishes for a way to find ballast” to weigh them down on Cleveland delivered the sharpest public September 1943, President Roosevelt sent happy new year. their return trips, and that the Allies had challenge yet to President Roosevelt’s another vague greeting to American Jewry. Although these boilerplate messages managed to find ships to bring tens of Jewish refugee policy. ive days later, 400 rabbis marched to consist of general platitudes, without refer- thousands of Polish refugees to Iran, A rising star in the American Zionist lead- Fthe White to House to plead for res- ence to any of the actual issues or prob- Uganda and Mexico. ership and an advocate of greater ac- cue; FDR refused to meet with their lead- lems troubling American Jewry, Jewish The administration asserted that tivism, Silver was critical of Rabbi Wise ers. Three weeks after that, Allied leaders leaders respond with fulsome expressions refugees would take jobs away from Amer- and other FDR supporters for accepting meeting in Moscow issued a statement de- of gratitude. But in 1943, one Jewish icans — but Con- the White House’s ex- ploring Nazi atrocities against a long list of leader decided that sympathetic words gressman Samuel cuses on rescue. In occupied nations — but omitting the Jews. without accompanying action would no Dickstein revealed his keynote address at To get the action that Silver wanted, longer do. A Holocaust was raging. in a radio address the United Palestine Jews would have to take matters into their Enough was enough. that the Department Appeal’s national con- own hands. At the end of 1943, a cam- Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, leader of the of Agriculture was ference, Silver pulled paign of newspaper ads, rallies, and Capi- American Jewish Congress, the World spending $30 mil- no punches. tol Hill lobbying by the activist Bergson Jewish Congress, and the American Zion- lion “to import into “Our former friends Group brought the rescue issue to the front ist movement, was the most prominent and this country Mexi- in government cir- pages. The Bergson pressure, combined influential of Jewish leaders of the 1930s can and other resi- cles” — note Silver’s with behind-the-scenes efforts by Treasury use of the term “for- and 1940s. He was also deeply attached dents of this Department staffers, eventually forced hemisphere to help to relieve our labor mer” — “content themselves with sending to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the President Roosevelt to establish the War shortage.” us prolific expressions of sympathies on New Deal, and the Democratic Party. Wise Refugee Board, a government agency to US officials said that the immigration Jewish persecution,” Silver complained. sometimes privately referred to FDR as rescue Jews from the Nazis. quota system prevented admitting more “When pressed to do something about it, “the All Highest,” “the Great Man,” or other Although understaffed and underfi- refugees — but immigration “has for years they regretfully remind us how difficult it is terms of reverence. nanced, the War Refugee Board helped been held far below the legal quotas” by to do anything for these unfortunate people save an estimated 200,000 Jews during “I still repeat the new American Hosanna, the administration as a matter of policy, the under present war conditions. the final 15 months of the war. Had FDR ‘Thank God for Franklin D. Roosevelt,’” World Jewish Congress charged. “[T]he “The whole subject of a Jewish home- created it sooner, instead of contenting Wise declared after reading the president’s admission of immigrants has been ob- land in Palestine has suddenly become himself with sending the Jewish commu- Rosh Hashana greeting to American Jewry structed by the piling up of formalities, taboo in Washington,” Silver charged. The nity pleasant Rosh Hashana greetings, in 1938. questionnaires, [and] inquiries... The whole president’s most recent holiday message many more would have been rescued. But by 1943, there was a growing sense thing could be summarily dropped, fully or to the Jewish community “quite pointedly, of disappointment in the Jewish commu- in part, by a simple order of the chief exec- and not by accident, omit[ted] any mention The writer is director of The David S. nity over the Roosevelt administration’s in- utive.” whatsoever of Palestine.” Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. Page 6 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2012 - Kislev/Tevet 5773 SURVIVORS’SURVIVORS’ CORNERCORNER SAVED IN SHANGHAI During World War II, some 20,000 Jews some of their possessions with them. Nina ing Jews such visas, Sugihara saved more BY MICHAL SHMULOVICH, found refuge from the Holocaust in the vi- Wertans belonged to this group. than 3,000 people. THE TIMES OF ISRAEL brant Chinese city. David Kranzler, a noted But in order to get a transit visa, you SHANGHAI, AN OPEN CITY Holocaust historian, calls it the “miracle of need an end visa. “My parents received a 20,000 Jews were protected from the Shanghai” — a rare bright spot in the dark till an active woman who wakes up paper from the Dutch consul that stated Holocaust in the Japanese-occupied tragedy of that era. at 5 a.m. each day at her home in Tel that in order to go to Curaçao (a formerly city. Nina Admoni, whose husband S Wealthy Jews from Baghdad had been Aviv’s Ramat Aviv Gimmel, Admoni, now Dutch island off the coast of Venezuela), would later head the Mossad, was one living in Shanghai since the 19th century. 79, headed the Israel-America Chamber of one did not need an entry visa.” This doc- of them Commerce for 26 years. She looks back ument essentially served as an end visa ina Admoni (née Wertans) was six Then, Russian Jews came to Shanghai be- on her experience in for her family, and others, because it pro- when Germany invaded her native N Shanghai fondly, even idyl- vided them with a destination. Poland. Fleeing falling bombs and seeing lically. “The Chinese people “On the basis of that piece of paper, the starving people beg for food along the in Shanghai were very Japanese consul gave us a transit visa (in Trans-Siberian Railway were some of her kind,” she said softly. 1940), and we also got an exit visa from first encounters with World War II. “That’s what I remember.” the Soviets” — not a small feat at the time That was before she made it to Shanghai. “The idea, when the war because people could not “come and go Thanks to good fortune and kindness, first started, was to go to as they pleased,” she added. Nina’s childhood years in Hongkou Vilnius,” she said, because “My father bought tickets from Intourist (Hongkew), Shanghai, were a world apart that’s where her mother from the horrors of Europe. She played [the travel agency] and we took a train to was from and where her hopscotch with her Chinese and Jewish Moscow, and then the Trans-Siberian Rail- friends and wandered along the Bund, the grandfather was a leader in way to Vladivostok, a 10-day trip. You had city’s main fairway, to and from school the Jewish community. to pay in dollars,” Nina said. And it was ex- each day. So the family drove to Vil- tremely dangerous to be found with dollars A young Jewish refugee and her Chinese girlfriends in Shanghai nius, “bombs falling on the at that time. Shanghai, China’s main port city and during World War II. business capital, had become a vivacious way.” But the Soviets en- When the train stopped along the route melting pot, a unique blend of East-meets- fore and after World War I to escape tered the area fairly soon afterward. “My people banged on the windows, begging West. With traces of its traditional past, ev- pogroms, anti-Semitism, and the Soviets. father was considered a capitalist, and it for food. “It was a very sad sight,” Nina ident in things like the historic shikumen The third influx of Jewish immigrants, was not terribly nice for him. He was con- said. houses, Shanghai mixed the enchantment from Germany and Austria, arrived in the cerned, but he was more concerned that The family then took a ship from Vladi- of the Far East with international flair, cour- 1930s, fleeing the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Germans were coming soon.” vostok to Suruga, a Japanese port. From tesy of the eight countries — the US, UK, the Nazis. They looked for a way out, and heard Suruga they went to Kobe, one of Japan’s France, Russia, Italy, Austro-Hungary, And soon after this impoverished group that a Japanese consul in Kaunas, Lithua- main cities, where she entered first grade Japan, and Germany — which had been arrived, it was followed by the next: nia, a man named Chiune Sugihara, was at St. Marie’s School. It was run by nuns, given territorial concessions across the city refugees from Poland and Lithuania in issuing transit visas for Jews through but she was excused from “crossing” her- during the 19th century. mid-1941. At least they were able to bring Japan. By going against orders and issu- (Continued on page 14) PROUDLY BEARING ELDERS’ SCARS The Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem in them into a number would not be my first attooing was introduced at Auschwitz BY JODI RUDOREN, Jerusalem and other museums are trying or second or third choice,” but, he added, Tin the autumn of 1941, according to THE NEW YORK TIMES to make exhibits more accessible, using in- “it sure beats some of the other tattoos that the United States Holocaust Memorial Mu- dividual stories and special effects. Argu- some of the young people are drawing on seum’s Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, hen Eli Sagir showed her grandfa- ments rage about whether that approach their skin.” and at the adjacent Birkenau the next ther, Yosef Diamant, the new tat- W trivializes symbols long held as sacred and It is certainly an intensely personal deci- March. They were the only camps to em- too on her left forearm, he bent his head to whether the primary message should be sion that often provokes ugly interactions ploy the practice, and it is unclear how kiss it. about the importance of a self-reliant Jew- with strangers offended by the reappropri- many people were branded, briefly on the Mr. Diamant had the same tattoo, the chest and more commonly on the left fore- number 157622, permanently inked on his arm. own arm by the Nazis at Auschwitz. Nearly Only those deemed fit for work were tat- 70 years later, Ms. Sagir got hers at a hip tooed, so despite the degradation, the tattoo parlor downtown after a high school numbers were in some cases worn with trip to Poland. The next week, her mother pride, particularly lower ones, which indi- and brother also had the six digits in- cated having survived several brutal win- scribed onto their forearms. This month, ters in the camp. “Everyone will treat with her uncle followed suit. respect the numbers from 30,000 to “All my generation knows nothing about 80,000,” Primo Levi wrote in his seminal the Holocaust,” said Ms. Sagir, 21, who memoir, Survival in Auschwitz, describing has had the tattoo for four years. “You talk the tattoos as part of “the demolition of a with people and they think it’s like the Ex- man.” odus from Egypt, ancient history. I decided After the war, some Auschwitz survivors to do it to remind my generation: I want to rushed to remove the tattoos through sur- tell them my grandfather’s story and the gery or hid them under long sleeves. But Holocaust story.” over the decades, others played their num- Mr. Diamant’s descendants are among a Livia Ravek was branded with the number 4559. Now her grandson, Daniel Philosoph, has the same bers in the lottery or used them as pass- handful of children and grandchildren of tattoo. At right, three men who stood in the same line in Auschwitz have nearly consecutive numbers. words. Auschwitz survivors here who have taken ish state in preventing a future genocide or ation of perhaps the most profound symbol Dana Doron, a 31-year-old doctor and the step of memorializing the darkest days a more universal one about racism and tol- of the Holocaust’s dehumanization of its daughter of a survivor, interviewed about of history on their own bodies. With the erance. victims. The fact that tattooing is prohibited 50 tattooed survivors for the new Israeli number of survivors here dropping to “We are moving from lived memory to by Jewish law — some survivors long documentary Numbered, which she di- about 200,000 from 400,000 a decade historical memory,” noted Michael Beren- feared, incorrectly, that their numbers rected with Uriel Sinai, a photojournalist; it ago, institutions and individuals are grap- baum, a professor at the American Jewish would bar them from being buried in Jew- will make its premiere in the United States pling with how best to remember the Holo- University in Los Angeles who is among ish cemeteries — makes the phenomenon next month at the Chicago International caust — so integral to Israel’s founding the foremost scholars of the memorializa- more unsettling to some, which may be Film Festival. and identity — after those who lived it are tion of the Holocaust. “We’re at that transi- part of the point. When she asked survivors whether gone. tion, and this is sort of a brazen, “It’s shocking when you see the number lovers kissed the number as they might a Rite-of-passage trips to the death in-your-face way of bridging it.” on a very young girl’s hand,” Ms. Sagir scar, Ms. Doron said, “some of them camps, like the one Ms. Sagir took, are Mr. Berenbaum said that “replicating an said. “It’s very shocking. You have to ask, looked at me like, ‘What are you, nuts?’ and now standard for high school students. act that destroyed their name and made Why?” (Continued on page 15) November/December 2012 - Kislev/Tevet 5773 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 7 “WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO BURN JEWS?” In the spring of 1944, Martin Hecht Palestine,” Hecht says. “Father decided to In 1940, the area became Hungarian ter- “LOOK AT THE CHIMNEY, BOY” and his family were sent to Auschwitz look into it and traveled to Israel for a visit. ritory. The Germans left their handling of e were put on cattle cars and they from their village in Transylvania. “Peo- Two of my sisters and one brother stayed Hungary’s Jews for the end. Hecht remem- began pushing people inside until ple were dying like flies and we took there, while my father and the youngest bers the day the Germans entered the vil- “W there was no room to breathe. People were comfort in the fact that there would be brother returned to the village in Romania lage, in the spring of 1944, very well. pushed against each other until some of more room on the stools.” How did he and decided to further the visa process “Wehrmacht forces entered the village, them were crushed to death. It was shock- survive and reach Israel? and immigrate with all of us.” dragging their artillery on horses because ing. You have to understand, it was the first But the war in Europe changed those of the conditions in the area. We saw them BY ROI MANDEL, YNETNEWS time I ever traveled on a train. plans. coming from afar and got all excited. We “Several hours later, the train stopped artin Hecht turned 80 last Decem- While war raged in Europe and the mass didn’t know who they were. and the doors opened. We stopped at the ber 10. This date has a special murder of Jews was underway, life in the “The soldiers tied their horses in the big M city of Sighet, where Elie Wiesel lived. meaning for him: until several years ago, Romanian village continued, as if it were a area we owned and we welcomed them in There was hardly any room on the train, his birthday was marked on a completely our home. We brought them but the Germans kept pushing in more and different date — March 2, 1931. food and made sure they were more people. He pulled this random date out of his comfortable. We assumed they “Today I understand that it was that stage head in 1945, when he was asked for his were hungry and tired. We in the war when they wanted to speed up personal details a moment before boarding knew nothing of their inten- the annihilation of Hungary’s Jews, because a ship from Germany to Southampton, tions.” they realized they were losing the war.” England, as part of a group of orphaned The intentions became clear The train traveled for two days, while children who survived the Holocaust. two weeks later, when SS sol- more and more people died from suffoca- “Britain’s condition was 1,000 orphans diers arrived at the village tion, hunger, or diseases. Suddenly the under the age of 16,” he tells Ynet. “I was alongside Hungarian police. It train stopped and the doors opened — it a little boy who survived the camps, I had was a Friday, Hecht remem- was the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. no idea when I was born, so I made up a bers, several hours before the “We saw armed soldiers with raging dogs date. Thanks to the Romanian archives, I start of Shabbat. The force set shouting, ‘Raus — out!’ The people from recently discovered my real date of birth.” up barriers on both sides of the the train were told to form two lines — men main street, and brutally en- “WHAT’S SS?” on one side and women and children on tered the houses one by one, the other. My three brothers and I stood on echt was born in the village of clearing the inhabitants who the men’s side, and my mother and sisters Ruskova in Transylvania into a well- gathered outside the syna- H were sent to the other line. established family which owned land in a gogue. “Suddenly, one of the soldiers pulled my village where most of the population was “‘Raus!’ The German soldiers father to the other line. The four brothers composed of traditional Jews. shouted and removed the Jews were left alone. We were led to the show- “The Jews were financially established out of their homes. No one un- ers, our hair was trimmed and we under- compared to the non-Jews who worked derstood what was going on went disinfection and were taken to the our land,” he says. “There was a main and why they were doing it.” huts. It was the last time I ever saw my par- street with Jews’ houses on both sides, Hecht and his family were and synagogues at the start and end of the transferred along with the vil- ents and sisters.” street. Hecht received a striped uniform and a Martin Hecht. lage residents to the nearby “We had good neighborly relations with town of Viseu de Sus, where number on his shirt, but unlike other the Christians, even though we sometimes different planet. Because of the geograph- the Jews of the area were all expelled to Auschwitz survivors, he did not get the num- encountered anti-Semitism,” he recalls. ical distance between the village and the and held in ghettos. ber tattooed on his hand. “The situation was “‘Jew, go to Palestine,’ the locals would city, and the fact that the village was tech- It was the first time he had left his village, so chaotic that they didn’t give us tattoos. The sometimes shout at us — most of them of nologically disconnected from the world, the first time he was exposed to modern transports from Hungary were so full and Ukrainian descent.” the village’s Jews knew nothing of what life and saw a light bulb with his own eyes. quick that they couldn’t keep up,” he says. In 1935, the Hecht family considered im- was going on. The shock, he says, was huge. Hecht and his three brothers were taken migrating to Palestine. The father of the “There was no radio and no newspapers, “Three weeks later, the SS soldiers or- to a hut, where they were greeted by the family and four of his children, two sisters and even no electricity in the village,” he dered us to form lines again and led us to camp’s veteran prisoners. “One of them, and two brothers, were granted a visa and recalls. “The adults may have known the railway station.” The Hecht family who saw the shock on my face, asked me: looked into the possibility of settling in the something about the Jews’ fate, but the boarded the second transport out of four. ‘Do you know where you are?’ I said no. city of Rehovot. children knew nothing. I didn’t know a thing That was the moment when 12-year-old ‘You’re in Auschwitz, there’s no way back “My brother Moshe was the idealist. He about the Germans. I had never seen Ger- Martin realized that something bad was from here. Everyone dies here in the end.’ encouraged the family to immigrate to mans before.” about to happen. (Continued on page 14) JAN KARSKI: “MEMORIES OF THE HOLOCAUST HAUNTED HIM TO THE END” e escaped from the Soviets, barely pel the Allies to take direct action to stop up about his wartime experiences. Not BY JONATHAN GURWITZ, Havoiding the massacre of Polish of- the genocide. He was a living refutation of long afterward, I was one of his students. SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS ficers at the Katyn Forest, then from the the claim, “We did not know.” nlike Schindler’s List, Story of a Nazis. Returning to Warsaw to join the Pol- Karski was tormented throughout his life n May President Obama bestowed USecret State and the rest of ish resistance, he adopted the nom de the nation’s highest civilian honor — by what he had witnessed. He tormented Karski’s life had no uplifting conclusion. I guerre that he would the Presidential Medal of Freedom — on himself with the notion He faced death threats throughout his life keep for the rest of his 13 individuals. One of them was Jan that he had not done from unrepentant Nazis and their sympa- life — Karski. Karski. Karski was an institution at enough. In 1981, at a thizers. Tragedy stalked him until his final Karski undertook Georgetown University, where his conference organized days. His wife jumped to her death from many missions as a classes were favorites among upper-divi- by Elie Wiesel, Karski the balcony of their apartment in 1992. sion students in the School of Foreign courier for the Polish reflected on his agony: They had no children. Service. He was visibly striking, hand- government-in-exile. “The Lord assigned me Perhaps the final tragedy is that Karski The Gestapo captured some, always finely dressed and stand- a role to speak and write received the Medal of Freedom posthu- and brutally tortured during the war when, as ing rigidly straight. He had the air of mously — he died 12 years ago — and him — the reason for it seemed to me, it might nobility — an air exaggerated by his thick the ceremony that should have recol- those unusual facial help. It did not.” What Polish accent and unusual facial fea- lected his bravery to an unknowing and features. He escaped more could one man tures, with eyes that betrayed a life of often uncaring world has become over- yet again, and his final have done? tragedy. shadowed by an international dispute He was born Jan Kozielewski in 1914 in missions included dan- In 1944, Karski wrote gerous visits to the Story of a Secret State, prompted by White House affronts to Lodz, Poland. He was Catholic. As a Poland. young diplomat in the autumn of 1939, he Warsaw ghetto and a his autobiographical ac- In Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop was called to active duty as a Polish cav- Nazi death camp. count of the war years. the Holocaust, E. Thomas Wood and alry officer with the storm clouds of World Karski made his way Then, at some point, he Stanislaw M. Jankowski give an account of War II on the horizon. For Kozielewski, to London, where he buried the past. For Jan Karski. Karski’s last visit to the Warsaw ghetto, the war as a soldier in uniform was short- delivered the first eye- decades he did not talk lived. Germany overran Poland from the witness reports of the Holocaust to Allied about the war. In the late ’70s, director during which he met with one of the Jewish west. In an often forgotten episode, Rus- leaders. In 1943, he went to Washington, Claude Lanzmann approached him to offer resistance leaders. “Remember this,” he sia also invaded Poland from the east, in where he gave personal testimony to testimony in his Holocaust documentary, implored Karski. “Remember this.” accordance with a secret pact between members of Congress and President Shoah. Karski complied. The episode Karski never forgot. His memories of Hitler and Stalin. Franklin Roosevelt. He tried in vain to com- seemed to spark in him the desire to open the Holocaust haunted him to the end. Page 8 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2012 - Kislev/Tevet 5773 CELEBRATING RESISTANCE: ARMED RESISTANCE, ANNUAL TRIBUTE DINNER OF THE AMERICAN &

Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, and Leonard Wilf, Chairman of the American Leonard Wilf, Charles Blaichman, and 2012 Annual Tribute Dinner Honoree Frank Blaichman. & International Societies for Yad Vashem.

Mark Moskowitz, David Halpern, Barry and Marilyn Rubenstein, Cesia and Frank Blaichman, Liev Boaz and Lolly Zborowski, Major-General Amir Eshel, and Dr. Lilly and Avner Naveh. Schreiber, and Leonard Wilf.

More than 600 people attended the annual tribute dinner of the American & International Societies for Adina and Lawrence Burian with Major-General Amir Eshel. Yad Vashem. November/December 2012 - Kislev/Tevet 5773 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 9 , GHETTO FIGHTERS, AND SPIRITUAL RESISTANCE & INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES FOR YAD VASHEM

Leonard Wilf, Jeremy Halpern, and 2012 Annual Tribute Dinner Honoree Liev Schreiber. Red Army World War II Jewish veterans.

Alexandra Lebovits and Morris and Caroline Massel with Liev Schreiber. Leonard Wilf, Liev Schreiber, and Barry and Marilyn Rubenstein.

Left to right front row: Rose Holm, Cesia Blaichman, Frank Blaichman; left to right back row: Debrah Charatan, Ann Zygelman, Charles Blaichman, Bella Sekons, Noah Blaichman, Aviva Blaichman, Micah Sam and Gladys Halpern, Sharon Halpern, Jeremy and Abbi Halpern, and Brianna. Blaichman. Page 10 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2012 - Kislev/Tevet 5773 REPORTREPORT FROMFROM YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM

YAD VASHEM MEMORIAL PORTRAITS OF JEWISH INTELLECTUALS ON THE RUN SPRAYED WITH GRAFFITI meetings with his delicate pencil. Intellec- a painter, holding numerous exhibitions. In en graffiti scrawls were found at the BY YEHUDIT SHENDAR tuals from the literary and theatrical circles, 1975, aged 67, Mario Stahl passed away, Yad Vashem memorial complex in musicians, filmmakers, artists — every one leaving behind a set of drawings dating T mmigrants’, as we were coined, al- Jerusalem of them influential and prominent in their back to the time of his escape from Nazi ways seemed to me a mistaken de- Three ultra-Orthodox Jewish men have “‘I forte – found themselves exiled in a foreign Germany. notation, as we did not leave our homes to been arrested in Israel, suspected of de- land, at a crossroads demanding a deci- find a new country to live in. We did not facing the national Holocaust memorial sion: where to now? leave our country of our own free will... with anti-Zionist graffiti. hey first found safe harbor in the What we did was escape — we were One of the slogans daubed in paint on Tcountries bordering Germany; how- the walls of the memorial read: “If Hitler ousted, exiled.” Thus reflected Bertholt Brecht on his flight from Germany in Feb- ever, as the danger increased, many con- had not existed, the Zionists would have tinued on in search of calmer shores, far invented him.” ruary 1933, similar to that of other German intellectuals in the wake of Hitler’s rise to from the eye of the storm. Those depicted The suspects have admitted vandalizing in the drawings are a faithful reflection of the site, a police spokesman said. power in January that year. A photograph portrays a handsome man the meandering journeys of many. Miracu- donning a fine sports suit, with an adorable lously, only two of the wanderers were girl wearing a dress typical for the period, murdered in the Holocaust (Paul Morgan the relaxed air of a family holiday in a sum- and Theodor Wolff). Of the rest, a mere mer vacation town about them. The year is handful set their sights on Eretz Israel (Else Lasker-Schüler, Arnold Zweig, Her- mann Vallentin) or Britain (Sybille Binder, Lucie Mannheim); the majority settled down in two scenic coastal towns, sepa- rated by the expanses of the Atlantic. Many Suspicion for the attack had fallen on radical ultra-Orthodox Jews who oppose of those who managed to obtain US visas the creation of the state of Israel. (Marianne Oswald, Moriz Rosenthal, Jean- One of the slogans, all in Hebrew, was Pierre Aumont, Max Simon Ehrlich, Alfred signed “world ultra-Orthodox Jewry.” Döblin, Claire Goll, Emil Ludwig, Ludwig Another read: “Thanks, Hitler, for the won- Hardt, Felix Bressart and Albert Basser- derful Holocaust you organized for us. Only mann) joined the diverse community of Pa- thanks to you we got a state from the UN.” cific Palisades, California, a pastoral town in the mountains with a vista of the Pacific A third went: “Honorable government of Mario Stahl and Judith Kerr, Küsnacht, Dr. Matthias Stahl holding a self-portrait Ocean. Here, the Jewish writer Lion Poland, stop allowing the Zionists to hold Switzerland, 1933. painted by his father, Mario Stahl. manipulative ‘memorial’ ceremonies in Feuchtwanger, himself a refugee, estab- Auschwitz.” 1934; the place — Sanary-sur-Mer, a lished a gathering place and a dwelling, His son, Dr. Matthias Stahl, orphaned Some ultra-Orthodox Jews believe a Mediterranean coastal town on the French Villa Aurora, home to a community of Ger- from his father at the age of 14, knew only Jewish state can be established only after Riviera. The individuals in the photograph man émigrés. Of those German-speaking a little of his father’s fate, as Mario chose the coming of the Messiah, and that the are Mario Stahl and Judith Kerr. Despite exiles remaining in Europe, most directed not to share stories and memories from the state of Israel is therefore illegitimate. their appearance, the two shared Brecht’s their steps to the coastal town in the time of the Holocaust. Dr. Stahl’s proposal A small number of extremists believe the fate: they were forced refugees — German French Riviera, Sanary-sur-Mer. to donate his father’s drawings to Yad myth that Israel’s founders conspired with Jews and opponents of the Nazi regime Here, too, was the destination of Stahl. Vashem was enthusiastically welcomed, Hitler to bring about the Jewish state. who were condemned and expelled from Despite his elegant appearance, a drawing as this collection of drawings sheds light In a statement, Yad Vashem Chairman German society. of his living quarters speaks of a very mod- on a unique group: they were people of Avner Shalev said: “I believe that it was im- Along their escape route, many of the ex- est existence, appropriate to the hard distinction, connections, and means, who portant to know the identities of those who iles passed through Zurich and Paris. They times that had befallen him. From the did not share the cruel fate of European spray-painted the graffiti. The suspects are met as brothers in fate — not just as intel- south of France, Stahl fled to Italy, where Jewry in general, or German Jewry in par- extremist ultra-Orthodox Jews, anti-Zion- lectuals, but also as former Berliners who he survived the Holocaust. At the end of ticular. Nonetheless, they stand witness to ists, who are on the fringes of society, and shared a common language. Stahl, an the war, he immigrated to Sweden, the the rich culture that was annihilated with do not represent the majority who respect artist born in 1908 and a student of Käthe birthplace of his future wife. In the town of the murder of their brethren — an unfath- the memory of the Holocaust.” Kollwitz and Emil Orlik, documented these Malmö, Stahl gradually gained renown as omable loss to human civilization. RYWKA’S DIARY THE VOICE OF A YOUNG GIRL IN THE GHETTO hospital ward. She and Mina slowly recu- discover the Page of Testimony commem- she shouldn’t be writing. I was always BY DEBBIE BERMAN perated in Sweden, but they never heard orating Rywka submitted by Mina Boyer in telling her not to write because there were 1955 (updated in 2000). With the assis- other, more important things to be doing, am just a tiny spot, even under a mi- anything more of their cousin until last tance of Yad Vashem staff, the family was like running the house. I needed help.” croscope I would be very hard to summer, when they were told about the “I contacted through Hadassah Halamish, In April 2012, San Francisco JFCS Exec- see — but I can laugh at the whole world diary’s discovery, thanks to a Page of Tes- Mina’s daughter, who was deeply moved utive Director Dr. Anita Freidman, a long- because I am a Jew. I am poor and in the timony Mina submitted to Yad Vashem in to learn of the diary’s discovery so many time supporter of Yad Vashem’s ghetto, I do not know what will happen to Rywka’s memory. years later. international Shoah Victims’ Names Re- me tomorrow, and yet I can laugh at the Rywka’s diary was found in the ashes of or Esther and Mina, reading the diary covery Project, traveled to Israel to meet whole world because I have something the crematoria at Auschwitz-Birkenau in reawakened painful memories of Esther and Mina and to allow the family to very strong supporting me — my faith.” early 1945 by Zinaida Berezovskaya, a doc- F their wartime experiences, but it also pro- read Rywka’s words from the original diary, So wrote 14-year-old Rywka Lipszyc in a tor who arrived at the camp with the liberat- vided them with the strength to share the which is planned to be published in the diary she kept in the Lodz ghetto from Oc- ing Red Army. The diary (in Polish, Yiddish, rich legacy of their family’s faith, expressed near future. tober 1943 until April 1944. Rywka was and Hebrew) documented Rywka’s daily so poignantly in Rywka’s diary. “I am terribly sad that I never had the op- born in September 1929 in Lodz, Poland, life, along with her hopes, dreams, and deepest emotions. Berezovskaya stored it “I tried to cut myself off from it, but then portunity to meet her,” said Hadassah Ha- the daughter of Miriam and Jankiel Lip- in an envelope, along with a newspaper suddenly it came back,” said Mina. “I had lamish. “I know we would have had a lot in szyc — descendants of a great Polish rab- clipping about the liberation of Auschwitz. a few sleepless nights, because I was re- common. I have learned so much from her. binic line. After losing her parents and For over half a century it remained un- living everything. But I will not give [the Even under the most impossible living con- siblings to disease and deportation, Rywka touched, until Berezovskaya’s granddaugh- Nazis] the satisfaction that I cannot sleep. ditions, Rywka never lost the divine spirit spent the remainder of the war with her ter discovered it among her father’s effects That I will never do.” inside her. cousins, Mina and Esther Lipszyc. Surviv- in June 2008 and brought it to the Jewish Esther, the oldest of the cousins, took on Now she has returned to us again. Es- ing the hunger of the Lodz ghetto, the hor- Family and Children’s Services (JFCS) the responsibility for raising Rywka after ther and my mother have had the honor of rors of Auschwitz, and a grueling death Holocaust Center in San Francisco. her parents’ death. She recalled how cen- raising large families in Israel, thereby march, the three cousins finally arrived at Archivists at the center immediately tral the diary was in Rywka’s young life. ”It keeping alive the memory of the dead. Bergen-Belsen weak and very sick. Esther began to investigate the identity of the took me right back. There’s even a section Anyone who reads Rywka’s diary will be last saw Rywka on her deathbed in the diary’s author, which ultimately led them to in the diary where she writes that I told her honoring her memory, too.” November/December 2012 - Kislev/Tevet 5773 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 11 ARCHIVE REVEALS NEW DETAILS OF HOLOCAUST IN MOLDOVA The case of Derevenchuk-Babutsak and Holocaust Museum, the Gabises were community. We visited them. They were BY RICHARD SOLASH, his killing of the Gabis family is one of among some 300,000 Jews living in ready to work with us — actually, more RADIO FREE EUROPE about 50 investigations and trials that are Bessarabia, the territory that largely con- than willing,” he explains. “It’s because of contained in the archive. They were carried stitutes today’s Moldova, and the neighbor- our own government and sanctions we n July 1941, Ura and Motl Gabis, two out by the Moldovan KGB starting in 1944, ing region of Bukovina in 1930. have against Belarus [that] we were told brothers living in the town of Edinet, in I after the Soviets liberated the area, and Tens of thousands were killed during the very clearly that it’s not a good idea to col- what is today Moldova, were taken with continued into the late 1950s. Romanian/Nazi assault, while others were laborate with the local KGB.” their mother and father from their home at In total, there are some 15,000 pages of sent to regional internment camps and U.S. law prohibits the transfer of equip- gunpoint. They were lined up along the testimony, interrogation transcripts, and ghettos. From there, Ioanid says, most ment that the Holocaust Museum would wall of a barn and shot. Their crime was other documents — all contained on a were carted off to the killing fields of ship to Minsk to assist in the copying of their Judaism. Transnistria, today a documents. The shooter, Stepan Derevenchuk- breakaway region of For the countries that hold Holocaust- Babutsak, was an unemployed son of Moldova. era documents, there may also be a polit- peasants who knew which homes were “One hundred and fifty ical advantage, perceived or real, to Jewish. His gun came from local authori- thousand Jews from working with the U.S. museum, which is ties who sent civilians to get an early start Bessarabia and Bukovina partially government-funded. on the systematic cleansing to come reached Transnistria alive At the handover ceremony for the when pro-Nazi Romanian and German [in 1941–42],” he says. archives, Chişinãu’s Leanca expressed soldiers swept in. “Two years later, only hope that the move would help convince Evidence that these local attacks were 50,000 were alive. That’s U.S. lawmakers to repeal trade restric- ordered by the Romanian military under the story. Transnistria was tions against Moldova stemming from So- then-Prime Minister Ion Antonescu — and the ethnic dumping ground were not spontaneous, as was long of the Romanian pro-Nazi viet-era limitations on Jewish emigration. claimed — can be found among the more government.” But foremost, Leanca said, was his than 40 million pages of archives held at The Moldovan govern- country’s commitment to “paying respect the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in ment estimates that there to the tragedy that occurred on our soil to Washington. Jews are deported to Transnistria in 1941 or 1942. are some 15,000 Jews liv- make sure we draw the necessary les- The plan, complete with a map of target ing in the country today. sons looking forward.” villages, turned neighbors into murderers computer hard drive that was handed over oanid spearheaded the museum’s ef- Indeed, leaders of Moldova’s Jewish by Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister Iurie forts to obtain the archive. To succeed, on ground fertile for anti-Semitism. I community are hoping that the new in- Leanca at a ceremony in March. the museum had to overcome political hur- But now, a tranche of documents newly sight into Holocaust-era crimes will have Reading this particular case, Altskan dles by enlisting U.S. Vice President delivered to the Holocaust Museum by the reverberations at home. quotes the shooter, Derevenchuk-Babut- Joseph Biden to push for an amendment Moldovan government is providing re- “Unfortunately, the extent that today’s sak, during an interrogation in 1944, where to Moldovan restrictions on the interna- searchers with fresh evidence of the students and youth are informed about he denies committing any crimes. tional transport of personal data. the tragedies of the Holocaust is not suf- plan’s execution — and a look into the Then comes a twist. In fact, national politics often come into ficient,” says Aleksandr Bilinkis, the vice lives of victims and perpetrators alike. While their parents fell dead beside play when the museum tries to expand its president of the Organization of the Jew- “A plan is evidence of a crime, but when them, the brothers, Ura and Motl Gabis, repository. ish Communities in Moldova. you don’t have the result of this plan, then survived. They would live to testify against Altskan says that among the countries of “Moreover, the topic is not talked about it’s only half of the story,” says Vadim Alt- their shooter, who would be sentenced to the former Soviet Union, the museum has skan, coordinator of the museum’s Inter- 20 years of hard labor. yet to obtain postwar trial records held in or is distorted. Historical facts are twisted. national Archival Program. “So what we This and other cases not only provide ev- Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turk- In some places even the opposite hap- now have is the implementation, or results idence of barbarism, but also tell stories of menistan. pens, when information about the — who did this and how it actually co-opted ignorance, survival, and even love. “The most important out of the four is Be- tragedies of these years is checked and worked. We have details — how it worked According to Radu Ioanid, the larus. First of all, it was under Nazi occu- [then] distorted to satisfy the prevailing at the village level.” Bucharest-born archival director at the pation [and] you had a large Jewish political needs.” HOLOCAUST MUSEUMS IN ISRAEL EVOLVE These changes have different meanings gash in the mountain, emerging into day- guilty compensation for the Holocaust BY EDWARD ROTHSTEIN, and effects, and some are familiar from light, overlooking the Jerusalem hills. rather than as something that emerged as THE NEW YORK TIMES museums devoted to the subject in other Even the poor relation of these at Yad a result of nearly a century of development. countries. But in Israel this is far from a t isn’t only the history of the Holocaust Mordechai, a kibbutz in the south named The association between the Holocaust mere museological matter. that you see on display in Israel’s Holo- after the leader of the Warsaw ghetto up- and the state initially had a very different I The major Holocaust institutions, for ex- caust museums. It’s also the history of the rising, creates a similar ample, are on hilltops offering grand vistas. history of the Holocaust. There is an ar- drama, calling its whole ex- At the Ghetto Fighters’ House, which may chaeology of trauma to be found if you look hibition “From Holocaust to have been the first Holocaust museum in closely, and in its layers and transmuta- Revival.” You literally walk the world to open, in 1949, you emerge tions you see how a nation has wrestled downward into the histori- from its tales of darkness onto a bright with the burden of one of history’s im- cal narrative and gradually plaza, overlooking an aqueduct, an out- mense horrors. work through tales of re- door amphitheater and the plains stretch- Through examining how Israeli muse- sistance until you emerge ing toward the sea. ums treat the Holocaust — including the again into the landscape, A companion institution at the kibbutz, Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum in a kib- in which important battles Yad LaYeled, may be the world’s only chil- butz in the far north of the country, whose were fought during Israel’s founders included survivors of the Warsaw dren’s museum devoted to the Holocaust. War of Independence. ghetto uprising — we can see how visions You descend a ramp into the darkness, as hese museums de- of that past are changing, sometimes in if it were a tear in the texture of ordinary Tliberately treat the unsettling ways. experience; gradually the walls close in. landscape as a part of the One museum on another, smaller kib- Sound effects are meant to simulate a history; indeed, as a reso- Photographs at Yad Mordechai depict children who died in the Holo- butz, for example, was described in the child’s preverbal experience. Inscribed lution. From the start, that caust. newspaper Haaretz as “Warsaw-Ghetto along the way are brief recollections, al- was one meaning the Holocaust took on: significance, highlighted in the themes of Disneyland” for its new emphasis on sound most heartbreaking in their simplicity: the founding of the State of Israel was the Ghetto Fighters’ House and Yad and lighting effects, including a simulation “Everyone will look at my yellow star and seen as an answer to the Holocaust and a Mordechai. Both were established during of a cattle car heading to a death camp. they’ll know: she’s 6, and she is Jewish.” deliverance from it. That is one reason that the early decades of a nation left with only The director of the museum at the Ghetto And you emerge from that journey into il- the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day intermittent episodes of peace. At the time Fighters’ House said that it would increas- lumination: first through a gallery about here is observed by a moment of nation- an element of shame was associated with ingly emphasize the broadest lessons of children who survived, and ultimately into wide stillness: a siren sounds, commerce the seeming passivity of Jews who were the Holocaust: an “ethical imperative” of the Galilean landscape. halts, and cars pull over to the side of the murdered in Europe. So the emphasis of “tolerance” that could “influence Israeli so- And, of course, the Holocaust History Mu- highway. these institutions was at first placed not on ciety.” And when Yad Vashem in Jerusalem seum at Yad Vashem sits on its own hill, the Museums reinforce that connection be- survival, but rather on rebellion. reworked its main exhibition in 2005 — Mount of Remembrance. In its latest incar- tween the Holocaust and the state. It has Exhibitions at the Ghetto Fighters’ creating the most powerful exposition of nation, with a new exhibition design by Dorit become so strong that it has even led to a House, for example, focus on Jewish re- this history I have seen — it too modified Harel, and with Moshe Safdie as architect, distortion of the history by some who twist sistance, ranging from an escape by pris- its approach, with a new focus on feelings the history is recounted along a zigzagging the connection into cause and effect, pre- oners from a fortress prison in Kovno (now and individual stories. path, leading upward through a cement suming that the state was created as a (Continued on page 13) Page 12 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2012 - Kislev/Tevet 5773 A MAHARAJAH COMES TO THE RESCUE second group, which brought the total to Mandel had contacted Yad Vashem after man, Cyla Rozengarten and the siblings BY HILLEL KUTTLER, JTA “some 750.” one of its officials spoke in May on the Ilona and Janusz Goldlost, Roza and A map of the Balachadi site, called the Hamador L’chipus Krovim (Searching for Rachel Hoch, and Eliza and Maria Spalter. ike many European Jews whose sur- Polish Children’s Camp, plots the location Relatives Bureau) radio program about an Rabbi Elias Shor chaperoned them from vival of the Holocaust led them far L apparently separate incident she had just Mumbai to Israel. afield, Zygmunt Mandel relates a gripping, of the dormitories, school, playground, learned of, involving 1,200 Polish refugees Now retired from a 40-year career as an heartbreaking tale. His final stop before at- soccer field, tennis court, roads, and flag- who reached India by sea. intelligence-security specialist in the Israel taining his ultimate destination, Israel, in pole. The four-page report states that the ndia’s serving as a refuge is a “fasci- Defense Forces’ Signal Corps, Mandel 1943 is striking: India. camp included a 30-bed hospital ward and nating” aspect of the “transnational said he is “happy” that India and the ma- Days after Germany’s conquest of dispensary, with the children having ar- I phenomenon” of Shoah history, said Atina harajah welcomed him. He also is grateful Poland in 1939, Mandel; his mother, Bar- rived in “naturally very poor” condition and Grossmann, a history professor at New to Cynowicz and Walter and Lotte Daus, a bara; stepfather, Zygmunt Rappaport; and many needing appendix, tonsil, and dental York’s Cooper Union. German-Jewish couple who had escaped older sister, Lila, fled their native Krakow treatment. to Mumbai and re-established their um- for Kovel and then Lvov. The Soviet army Their medical improvement brella manufacturing company. The sent them to Tesma in Russia’s Ural Moun- “after only a few weeks’ resi- Dauses briefly hosted Mandel and Erlich in tains. (Lila remained in Lvov and was mur- dence … was most marked” and they “soon settled down and are Mumbai and later joined them in Israel. dered during the Shoah.) They reached Mandel, a widower with two sons and Buchara, Uzbekistan, where the parents most happy in their new sur- roundings,” added the report, four grandchildren, kept up for a time with died of typhus. Mandel stayed briefly at a some of his India mates. Magnushever Polish orphanage in Samarkand before apparently written in 1942. The children received three meals changed his surname to Magen and being transported to Ashgabad, Turk- moved to France, but Mandel hasn’t heard menistan. daily, along with afternoon tea. On the maharajah’s first visit, from him in 20 years. He knew that Eliza Other Polish orphans converged there Spalter married an IDF general, Nehemia from elsewhere in the Soviet Union, and they dedicated the camp’s main road in his name. Kain. Mandel speaks occasionally with Er- Mandel joined them on a truck convoy that lich, a successful restaurateur in Paris who “After Russia, life [at the camp] departed on July 14, 1942. The passen- once ran Jerusalem’s King David Hotel. was good,” Mandel, 84, said in gers, including 12 Jewish children, jour- Zygmunt Mandel. The Jewish children’s stay in India is “in- a recent telephone interview. neyed 2 1/2 months and more than 1,300 The era’s geopolitics complicates the teresting because ultimately it’s about who “We were sleeping on sheets, had enough miles through present-day Iran, story, Grossmann said, with England being the survivors are, how they survived, why food, things were clean, we were given Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and into India. “paranoid” on multiple levels: sitting on a the doors closed,” Grossmann said. “If you clothes — they took care of us.” They finally reached Maharajah Jam powder keg in India, which would gain in- look at [Holocaust history] from the mar- A Polish priest ran the school, which em- Saheb Digvijaysinhji Jadeja’s summer es- dependence in 1947; worried about how its gins — India, East Asia, Africa, even ployed 30 teachers in six classes spanning tate in Balachadi, a village northwest of Palestine policies played among India’s Shanghai — it makes it richer. There were ages 4 through 18, Mandel added. He re- Mumbai. The maharajah was away much Muslims; and mindful of its alliance with not that many Polish Jews who ended up of the time serving on the Imperial War members sports competitions and field the Soviet Union against Germany. in India; it was mostly Polish [Catholics] in Council in London, and it was in the British trips, “just like in a normal boarding In 1943, Hershel Cynowicz, a Jewish India.” capital that Poland’s prime minister in exile school.” Agency for Israel representative in Mum- In her dissertation on the episode, New requested that he house the displaced or- India’s role remains little known, even to bai, arranged for the 12 Jewish children Delhi professor Anuradha Bhattacharjee phans. experts on the Shoah. When reached at staying at Balachadi to go to prestate Is- wrote that the Balachadi camp and a sec- A report about the episode, contained in his Petach Tikvah home, Mandel had just rael, Mandel said. They traveled by ship to ond one at Valivade are significant for rep- a thin folder known as the Kenneth X. Rob- bid farewell to researchers from Yad the Suez Canal port of El-Qantara, then by resenting “the first offer of a domicile for bins Collection at the U.S. Holocaust Me- Vashem, Israel’s central Holocaust-com- train to Haifa. A Jewish Agency document the Polish civilian population being evacu- morial Museum, reveals that the Polish memoration institution, who had inter- lists Mandel and the 11 other Jewish chil- ated out of the Soviet Union.” children reached Balachadi in two overland viewed him about his India experiences. dren at Balachadi who reached Haifa on The offer, she said, “came at a time when transports: an initial group of 260 orphans, They had known nothing about the or- April 24, 1943: Edmund Erlich, Paula no country in the world was willing to ac- accompanied by 20 adults; and Mandel’s phans’ stay in India, he said. Gilert, Avraham Magnushever, Fima Kauf- cept the Polish refugees.” SURVIVOR LETS GO OF RAGE, 67 YEARS LATER Post — why she would not write the same “You would not believe the deprivation, where she worked at two labor camps. Lib- BY GIL SHEFLER, letter today. the lows that humans can sink to,” she said. eration came only in April 1945. THE JERUSALEM POST “Such a letter I would not be able to write, agan joined the ghetto’s resistance After the war Dagan quickly made aliya and I’m amazed when I read it,” said the movement and on one occasion trav- thanks to her husband, a British army soldier atsheva Dagan says she is amazed D diminutive woman in an interview held in eled under the guise of a gentile to War- she met in Brussels. She was one of the first to reread the “fire and brimstone” let- B the flower-filled living room of her apart- saw — where she personally delivered a survivors of the Holocaust to arrive in Pales- ter she published in a 1945 edition of the ment in Holon. “Its main issue was re- dispatch to Mordechai Anielewicz, the heroic tine, where she caught word of the trial of Post, addressed to a notorious Nazi fe- venge, revenge, revenge.” leader of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising — Grese, her former captor at Auschwitz. male guard at the Auschwitz death camp. In the decades since Dagan wrote her and then back again. When, in 1942, the “I wanted to travel to Germany to testify The year was 1945, and Isabella Rubin- tirade, she has led a full and happy life. Radom ghetto was about to be liquidated, but the British, who ruled at the time, would stein was angry. She married, raised a family, had a mean- she escaped using fake documents. She not give me a travel certificate,” she said. Irma Grese, a notorious female guard at ingful career as an educator, and pub- took on the identity of a non-Jewish maid and “So The Palestine Post’s editor found me Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp where lished prose and verse about her went to work for a family in Germany. and asked me to write for them. It was a Rubinstein was a prisoner for two years, experiences during the Holocaust. “I worked for a fervently Nazi family fire and brimstone piece. I could not write was on trial, and the survivor wanted to In April the 87-year-old author was where I took care of two teenagers,” she [something like that] today. see her former tormentor writhing in pain. among the six survivors honored by light- recalled. “Many years after the war I met “Back then the urge for vengeance So she penned a piece describing Grese’s ing a torch during the state ceremony for them in Hamburg. The daughter was very iniquity in detail, and the punishment she sought some release... nowadays I look for Holocaust Remembrance Day at Yad cold to me, but the son was warm. They thought she deserved, and sent it to The the human connection and I do not blame Vashem in Jerusalem. could not believe I survived.” Palestine Post. the younger generation for the sins of their Dagan is the first to admit she has been Her ruse did not last long. Her real identity “We, your victims, do not want you to parents or grandparents.” lucky. was discovered by the Gestapo and she die,” read the letter addressed to Grese, The incendiary letter to the Post was the “I even have a lucky number,” she said, which the newspaper ran in full on October was sent to Auschwitz in April 1943. There, first in her literary career. She later wrote, and rolled up her sleeve, revealing the 29, 1945. “We would much rather that you she survived the worst horrors imaginable. in a much more subdued tone, children’s live, as we had to, with billows of filthy number 45554, which the Nazis tattooed She was given tasks like collecting prickly books like Chika the Dog in the Ghetto and black smoke from the chimneys of the cre- on her left arm as a means of identification. nettles, which were used to make tea, bare- Today the Siren Cried. Dagan also wrote a matoria constantly before your eyes. “It’s a palindrome.” handed, and removing precious items from collection of poems. “We want to see you dragging heavy Dagan was born in 1925 in Lodz, the the bodies of those killed in the gas cham- Despite the ordeals she lived through — stones, barefoot and in rags. We want to eighth of nine children. When the Nazis in- bers. She survived by relying on the cama- the murder of her parents and siblings, the see you beaten, cruelly and mercilessly as vaded Poland in September 1939, her raderie of a group of eight women and a torture by the Nazis in the ghetto, and the you, cruel and without mercy, beat us. large family scattered. One brother went to strict regimen of self-discipline. death camps, all of which she says is “We want you to go so hungry that you Palestine, another joined the Polish “The most important thing was the sus- painful to speak of to this day — she re- cannot sleep at night, as we could not. We Brigade, and others sought refuge in the pension of gratification,” she said. “Those mains an optimist. want to see your blonde hair shaved off, as Soviet Union. Dagan moved with her par- who ate everything they had did not last, but “The Holocaust is not only horrors,” said you made us shave our heads.” ents and younger siblings to the relative those who put a little on the side did better.” Dagan. “When I wrote for children about 66 years later, Batsheva Dagan — for- safety of the central Polish city of Radom. When the Red Army approached the Holocaust I had to give them a happy merly Isabella Rubinstein — told The But in 1940, a ghetto was set up in Auschwitz in January 1945, Dagan was ending, and so I did. My stories always Jerusalem Post — formerly The Palestine Radom and life suddenly became mean. forced on a death march to Germany, have a happy end.” November/December 2012 - Kislev/Tevet 5773 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 13 HOLOCAUST MUSEUMS IN ISRAEL THE NAZI WHO SAVED SIGMUND FREUD sale of some of Freud’s antiquities to foot EVOLVE BY DAVID M. COHEN, the bill. Even more remarkably, Sauer- HUFFINGTON POST wald got the Gestapo to pay for transport- (Continued from page 11) with sentiment; that is more of a risk for ing many of Freud’s books and the Kaunas) in Lithuania to the secret recording Yad Mordechai than a Disneyfied ap- igmund Freud was 82 years old and famous analytic couch to London. They of history in various ghettos. A wall at Yad proach, which is not particularly effective suffering from cancer of the jaw S are now in the Freud Museum in Hamp- Mordechai is inscribed with the name of and has already been toned down. The when he fled to London from Vienna in stead. every camp and ghetto where rebellion oc- museum now has a new director, Anat 1938. Freedom gave him a final burst of On the day of his escape, the Gestapo curred; the museum’s displays also make a Pais, and plans for an exhibition about creative energy, and in the last 18 months would not let Freud board the train for connection between those battles and the Poland between the world wars. But some of his life he finished a book, Moses and Paris until he provided a statement that resolute history of the kibbutz itself, which pedagogical efforts in both museums em- Monotheism, which he had hesitated over absolved them of any blame. “I can held off Egyptian forces — after war was phasize less the need for resilience in con- for years, and compiled a summary of his heartily recommend the Gestapo to any- declared on the fledgling state in 1948 — fronting murderous ambitions than the life’s work, An Outline of Psychoanalysis. one,” Freud wrote. The Nazis did not see just long enough to prevent their march to- need for tolerance, broadly applied. When asked about his productivity at the the irony. ward Tel Aviv. As recently as June, rockets his concept is familiar from Ameri- time, he was known to give a rather curi- reud loved London and often told his launched from Gaza hit the kibbutz. can Holocaust museums, which ous response: “Thank the Führer.” T friends he thanked Hitler for making But because both of these kibbutz institu- also search for broad relevance as the After Hitler came to power, many Jews F it necessary for him to leave. Sauerwald tions also developed out of branches of left- last generation of survivors dies. But it saw the writing on the wall and left Ger- stayed in touch and then came to London wing Zionism, which would have been wary leaves Holocaust museums intellectually many. Einstein, for example, did so al- himself to see the old man; Freud promptly of forms of nationalism associated with the orphaned. What “lessons” are we sup- most at once. But Freud steadfastly complained about English doctors and Israeli right, a mixture of sentiments has posed to take away? The impulse has refused, even though many friends asked him to get his Vienna doctor to come emerged there in recent decades. These been to generalize, to say that a Holo- warned him that the Nazis were bound to to treat him. As the doctor was a Nazi he founding lessons can take on different em- caust museum can’t be “just” about the take over Austria. When they finally did in didn’t need an exit visa, and Sauerwald of- phases. One recent tendency is to general- murder of Jews during World War II. March 1938, Freud still would not con- fered to drive him to London. The doctor ize what was once particular. Why? Is there a problem, say, with an sider leaving. He only changed his mind operated on Freud the day after he arrived So in 1995 the Center for Humanistic Ed- American slavery museum being “just” on March 22nd when the Gestapo ar- — an operation Freud believed gave him ucation was established by the Ghetto about American slavery? Why should rested his beloved daughter Anna. another year of life. Fighters’ House, stressing what it calls the Holocaust museums deal with notions of Gripped with fear, Freud frantically paced One might have expected the Freud “universal lessons” of the Holocaust rather tolerance or racism in general, or even up and down his apartment chain-smok- family to be very grateful to Sauerwald, than national ones, attacking “indifference genocide in general? Why do we think that ing cigars — and he did not even know of but sadly they were not. After the war, one to the suffering of others.” When I recently the proper lesson comes from generalizing the pills she had taken with her so that of Freud’s nephews, Harry, who was an spoke with Anat Livne, the museum’s di- rather than comprehending the particular? she could commit suicide if tortured. American officer, tracked Sauerwald In the end, Anna was allowed to return down and had him arrested. Sauerwald home as a result of intense pressure from was charged with war crimes, specifically two close friends of Freud — Princess with robbing the Freud family of its assets. Marie Bonaparte, Napoleon’s great-grand- Sauerwald’s trial lasted longer than niece, and William Bullitt, the American those at Nuremberg. He spent months ambassador to France. These connec- tions, however, would not have been sick in jail before he ever set foot in the enough to persuade the Nazis to let Freud court. From his cell Sauerwald appealed leave. Here, he had an improbable stroke to the Freud family for help, but Anna of luck. The Nazis imposed a komissar to Freud was ambivalent. She hesitated be- run every Jewish business in Austria, just cause her brother Martin hated Sauer- as they had done in Germany. The komis- wald, ironically, because he had been sar’s job was to fleece Jews of as much helpful when Martin was rash enough to money as he could. By sheer fluke, the criticize the Nazis openly. Nazis appointed as Freud’s komissar Dr. Eventually, however, Anna wrote a letter Anton Sauerwald, a forty-four-year-old detailing how Sauerwald had saved her chemist whose hobbies included bomb- father. But even then, she did not actually making and gardening. It was Freud’s sign it. After my book, The Escape of Sig- good fortune that Sauerwald’s professor mund Freud, came out in England, I was had been one of Freud’s friends. contacted by Anna Freud’s last secretary, As an academic, Sauerwald felt he had Gina Le Bon. She had never heard of to read Freud’s books so that he could Sauerwald even though she worked for perform his Nazi duties properly. Recog- Anna for some 20 years. He had been air- brushed out of Freudian history. Yellow stars are projected onto visitors in one section of Yad Mordechai. nizing Freud’s brilliance, slowly the Nazi chemist became convinced that he should Sauerwald saved 16 Jews in all. He rector, she mentioned plans for programs The moment we generalize, we strip away help Freud. He hid damning evidence that failed to obtain exit visas for four of to encourage “tolerance” between Jews details: we lose information and create the analyst had secret bank accounts in a Freud’s sisters, and they all died in con- and Arabs. equivalences that may be fallacious. number of European countries. Then he centration camps. Anton Sauerwald is an None of this is evident in the exhibitions In Israel, as the earlier “lessons” of mu- helped Freud and sixteen members of his unsung hero who deserves far better than right now. But a similar strategy is em- seums are being submerged, there has family get exit visas. These cost a great he received. Perhaps when Freud was ployed by many American museums that been an increased focus on simulating the deal of money, which Freud did not have, thanking the Führer, he had another Nazi attempt to draw lessons of tolerance from experience, trying to spur empathy. Feel- but his helpful komissar arranged for the in mind. the Holocaust, most notably the Museum ings are evoked because nothing else can of Tolerance in Los Angeles (which has be assumed. This is to be expected at Yad been involved in a controversial construc- LaYeled, which is a children’s museum, “THE DEMONIC MAESTRO” tion of an Israeli version in Jerusalem). but elsewhere it has serious limitations. (Continued from page 4) some 300 committing suicide and 30,000 At Yad Mordechai, whose approach is This has even affected Yad Vashem, with controlling church organization, with a fa- interred in concentration camps at Dachau, more dated than the one at the Ghetto its new attention to individual stories. Is this natical youth movement at its center. In ad- Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen. Presi- Fighters’ House, attempts to create rele- an example of that museum’s response to dition to becoming Chancellor on January dent FDR’s condemnation of Nazi conduct vance have been more a matter of adding contemporary nonchalance, an attempt to 30, 1933, Hitler acquired dictatorial powers fell short of opening wide America’s gates new display technology than any rethinking seduce us into shock? through the Enabling Act. The Nazis did to Jewish refugees blocked from leaving of the museum’s mission. But the mu- No. Yad Vashem is a stunning coun- enjoy high popularity and Hitler was Germany as of October 1941. seum’s director at the time, Vered Bar terexample. It may imply a traditional, na- warmly embraced. 50,000 of Berlin’s citi- Wilson ponders the terrifying scenario of Samakh, told Haaretz in 2011 that the in- tional lesson in its presence and zens joined the Nazi party upon Hitler’s as- a Hitler-like budding figure somewhere in stitution should incorporate notions of placement — it was, after all, founded by cension to power, albeit 250 renowned the world. He concludes in his inimitable “peaceful coexistence” and deal with a Knesset law in 1953 — but it scrupu- writers and professors emigrated from style, “…one man stands out as the de- “racism and xenophobia.” lously avoids moralizing or posturing. The Germany. The 1935 Nuremberg Laws monic maestro who made Auschwitz a “You have to learn a lesson from every- museum offers no lessons and promises were dismissed by most of the outside possibility… That gruesome pioneer was thing,” she said. “I don’t want to get into it, no relevance. world, while the 1936 Berlin Olympics were Hitler.” Nonetheless the question is raised, but the abuse at the checkpoints of the The stories, facts, and analyses accumu- sugarcoated with reduced overt anti-Jew- how could Hitler be both “usual” and “de- Warsaw ghetto bridge isn’t far from what’s late until you begin to comprehend some- ishness. The loss of Jewish professionals monic,” “the first and the most hypnotic happening today at our checkpoints in thing beyond comprehension. The was significant. For example, 75 percent of artist of post-literacy”? Judea and Samaria.” museum’s implied conclusion is sensed German dentists were Jewish. The Kristall- This view, thankfully, is not explicit in the rather than taught: after the harrowing his- nacht events of November 9 and 10, 1938, Rabbi Israel Zoberman, spiritual leader of museum. But it suggests that temptations tory, you are brought back, finally, to the whose 75th anniversary is in 2013, re- Congregation Beth Chaverim in Virginia are strong to replace historical analysis present, in somber gratitude. sulted in possibly 2,000 dead Jews, with Beach, is the son of Polish Holocaust survivors. Page 14 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2012 - Kislev/Tevet 5773 “WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO BURN JEWS?” (Continued from page 7) each time someone fell down he was shot One day, as the US Army was approach- Thanks to the nuns’ sensitive care, the “I couldn’t understand what he was talk- to death. When we arrived at the forest the ing the camp area, the SS soldiers ordered children began adjusting to their new life, ing about. ‘Your family was already burned Nazis began a selection process. My two everyone to form lines. The camps’ gates learned how to eat and sleep and mainly a long time ago,’ he said. ‘Look outside, do eldest brothers were separated from us opened and the death march began. how to deal with the nightmares. you see the chimney? This is where Jews and taken into the woods with another Those who fell down were shot immedi- TURNING POINT are burned.’ And I, a 12-year-old boy, didn’t group. Jack and I were left all alone. ately, while those who managed to stand understand anything. Who’s burning? “Suddenly we heard gunshots. They on both feet hoped to survive at least one artin and Jack sought to reach Who’s being burned? Why would they were executed.” more day. Martin held Jack’s hand and the MPalestine, to be with their siblings want to kill us?” Martin later tried to locate the place two clung to each other so as not to fall. who had immigrated in 1935, but were where his two brothers were shot to death, The moment of liberation was sudden. banned entry to the Land of Israel. “They “WE CARRIED ROCKS, BUT DIDN’T but was unsuccessful. “There was a lot of “Before we could even say Jack Robinson, told us it was impossible, that we had only BREAK DOWN” chaos and this murder wasn’t registered in we suddenly saw American tanks and sol- one option now — to go to England.” everal days later, Martin and his the archives,” he says. diers coming out of them and opening fire Martin and Jack were part of the group three brothers were put on a train at the SS,” Martin recalls. “One of the of children, some of whom arrived from the S WINDOW OVERLOOKING again. This time it stopped at the Dörnhau American soldiers, who was Jewish, Theresienstadt concentration camp in the CREMATORIUM forced labor camp. “A slaves’ camp,” he shouted at us in Yiddish, ‘Hide behind the Czech Republic, who boarded a ship to notes. artin and Jack were put on another tank.’ They had already liberated several Southampton. “We carried rocks, but didn’t break down. Mtrain with the prisoners, when camps on the way and knew exactly who England’s Jewish community embraced City children wouldn’t have survived, but planes suddenly appeared in the sky. They we were.” the orphaned children. Martin and his we were strong in the village and knew were American jets, bombing the railroad. And so, in one moment, Martin and Jack brother were adopted by the community what manual work was all about. I was a “A friend of mine from the village was hit turned from Muselmanner (prisoners suf- members and integrated into educational fighter,” he says. by shrapnel in the jaw. I was filled with fering from a combination of starvation and institutions. His dream to immigrate to Is- Under unbearable conditions, without blood but wasn’t hurt. The SS removed us exhaustion) into free men. rael was shelved and Martin settled in food and in the terrible cold, they worked from the wagon and ordered us to march. “The American soldiers didn’t know what England. like slaves. “People were dying like flies, One of them tried to separate Jack and to do with us. They tried to help and even And yet, he found it difficult to rehabilitate and we took comfort in the fact that there me. We were so weak that we couldn’t re- gave us chocolate and sweets, but that his life. He remained lonely, and only in would be more room on the stools in the sist, but thanks to the havoc I managed to was the worst — people who survived the 1998 he married Aida and immigrated with hut, which were always crowded. slip away from my group, grasp Jack’s death march suffocated after swallowing her to Israel. They settled in Rehovot — “One day, senior SS officers arrived and hand again, and bring him to mine. The the candy because they were so hungry.” the city where he was slated to live with his announced that the small children who rest were executed.” Hours after the release, the soldiers parents and siblings had the war not bro- could no longer work would be transferred They marched for days until they moved on, leaving the survivors free but lost. ken out. to children’s homes, and they ordered the reached the Flossenbürg concentration “Suddenly we were alone, free, and had For many years, he avoided talking kapos to collect 500 children for shipment. camp in the Bavaria area, where political no idea what to do,” says Martin. “Where about his experiences during the Holo- “My brother Jack and I were told to stand and Jewish prisoners were held. does one go from here? Where are we caust. His wife, Aida, says that all her at- with the group of children when suddenly, “They sent us into showers with a strong anyway? We saw a distant house and ap- tempts to get him to talk were in vain. “He miraculously, one of the kapos, who must flow of water, which was partly boiling and proached it. The landlord saw us, panicked would close up and wouldn’t share,” she have pitied me because I was the smallest partly frozen. The flow and the temperature and ran away. We entered the house, ate says. one there, pulled Jack and me back to the were so strong that some of the people whatever we could find, and changed our The first visit to the monastery in Ger- hut and took two other children instead of died on the spot.” clothes, but we mostly just slept.” many in 2005 was the turning point. “As a us. The group was taken to the gas cham- Martin and his brother were sent into a Several days later, additional American child, he lost his entire childhood,” says bers and we were rescued.” hut near the crematorium. “We were the soldiers arrived and took the survivors, in- Aida. “Martin has a phenomenal memory The four brothers worked at the Dörnhau closest hut to the electric barbed-wire cluding Martin and his siblings, to a nearby of history and small details, but he forgot camp for about half a year. One morning, fences, and the execution area and road city, where a Jewish community which sur- everything from that period. SS soldiers ordered the prisoners to form leading to the furnaces were in front of our vived the Holocaust was being formed. “But when he saw the archive findings — lines and begin marching. The Russians window. We would see people being exe- The children were taken to the hospital when he saw his name on the Nazi lists in were already beating the Nazis, who cuted by gunshots or hanging and people and released after medical exams. Then the camps he was held in and the numbers began transferring the remaining Jews to being led to the crematorium. they were on their way again — this time given to him in each camp, the memories other forced labor camps. “Nonetheless, I knew that I must stay to the Kloster Indersdorf monastery in the came back. He realized that he had a “It was a very difficult winter. We were alive. I was small but determined not to let town of Dachau — where orphaned chil- childhood, that he had a name, and that he wet and dirty, we marched for a month, and them kill me,” he says. dren who survived the horror were taken. had a date of birth — December 10, 1931.” SAVED IN SHANGHAI (Continued from page 6) assistance from Jewish groups. Life in While war destroyed the lives of so many AFTER THE WAR self, she recounted, smiling. the designated area — the ghetto — was children in distant Europe, Nina’s concerns hortly after the war, aged 14, carry- While in Japan, they were temporarily harsh. But it proved safe. were whether she would be first, or sec- ing mostly memories, Nina parted put up in a very nice hotel, and the Jewish Nina, as a young girl, was free to leave S ways with her Chinese neighbors and her community came to help. “I thought the the area and play with her friends; her fa- classmates, and came to California. Japanese were very nice…. There were ther, on the other hand, was not allowed The hours of lessons with her father paid flowers everywhere, the hotel opened up to move around, and could not continue off. When she entered an elite school in into a garden. Everyone took their shoes the work he had found as an engineer. New York City, she skipped two grades. off when entering. It was lovely,” she said. People needed passes to leave the des- After just a few months, the local authori- ignated area, passes which became in- “They would have moved me up another ties reminded them that they were in Kobe creasingly difficult to obtain. grade, but I didn’t have enough American on a transit visa only. They had to move on. With hours of free time on his hands, he history background.” Nevertheless, she The only place that would receive them taught his daughter geography, history, graduated high school at age 16. was the open city of Shanghai. mathematics, and literature. “He had a When asked where she feels most at large map on the wall, and he followed home, Nina answered without missing a STATELESS JEWS the war closely, using pins to mark the beat — “Israel.” hanghai, an international city, was di- progress of the war… That’s how I But when asked where she feels that she Svided into sections — the British In- learned. grew up? ”Shanghai… and maybe Berke- ternational Settlement and the French “I was young, and I really enjoyed play- ley.” Concession. ing with my Chinese friends — although I It was at Berkeley that she met her hus- Nina’s family first moved to the French didn’t speak a word of Chinese. You band, Nahum Admoni — an Israeli student Concession. They lived on Avenue Joffre. know, at that age you don’t really need a born in Jerusalem — who whisked her But by late 1943, the Germans told the common language; children find ways to away to Israel, where he later rose through Japanese that the Polish Jews were “state- speak to each other. We played a lot of Jewish refugees take a rickshaw for a ride in the ranks of the country’s intelligence es- less” — Poland no longer existed, as it was games,” she recounted, nostalgia in her Shanghai during World War II. tablishment. under German rule, they claimed. The voice. ond, in her class. She did not know the ex- From 1982 until 1989, Nahum served as Germans demanded that Shanghai’s Nina attended the excellent Shanghai tent of the horrors at the start of the the head of the Mossad — the clandestine “stateless Jews” be moved to a designated Jewish School — “with the best teach- Holocaust — and if her parents did, they Israeli organization that helps safeguard area, where the poor German and Austrian ers.” As the war progressed, though, shielded her from the devastation. Israelis and Jews around the world. Jewish refugees already lived. some of her teachers were interned at Still, she does remember the American Nina Admoni must have particularly rec- The Russian and Baghdadi Jews helped camps because they carried British pass- B-29 planes’ bombardment of Shanghai, ognized the importance of that work, given by arranging housing, and they got some ports. several years after Pearl Harbor. her own family’s story of wartime survival. November/December 2012 - Kislev/Tevet 5773 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 15 IGNORING JEWISH HISTORY HOLOCAUST RAILROAD CASE TO PROCEED he most shocking example of igno- or the first time, the U.S. Court of Ap- worked for the railroad but also “were ten- BY YOCHANAN VISSER, YNETNEWS Trance of Jewish history and religion Fpeals has found that a case may be ants in MAV-owned homes.” at this UNESCO site is to be found in the brought against a foreign national railroad, “They were living in company housing, resh manifestations of European so called “Rear Synagogue.” The building in a Holocaust-related case that seeks bil- and all of a sudden they were kicked out and anti-Semitism raised their heads F today serves mainly as a cultural and ex- lions of dollars. their possessions were left in the apart- once again when Jewish religious leaders hibition center for the local population. The court in Chicago refused to dismiss ments,” he said. “The MAV still owns them. were physically attacked by thugs in Berlin Jewish religious and ritual items are dis- a suit against the Hungarian State Rail- And the MAV owns warehouses along the and Vienna at the end of August. roads (also known as the right-of-way, where Jews played in showcases on the synagogue’s Recent data show that anti-Semitism in MAV) brought by Hungar- leased storage space. Those upper floor. They include an open Torah Europe is on the rise again, especially in ian victims of the Holo- leasehold arrangements were scroll with its text visibly on display (forbid- Eastern Europe. The situation seems to be caust who claimed the breached as part of a pattern den according to Jewish law). worst in Hungary, Poland, and Ukraine. A railroad must compensate of genocidal conduct.” In the main hall of this holy site, to the left recent Anti-Defamation League poll car- them for the property it In addition, Weisberg said, ried out in Hungary revealed that a majority and right of the niche that formerly hosted took from them in violation the suit alleges that personal of that country’s population holds anti-Se- the Holy Ark containing the Torah scrolls, of international law. property such as candlesticks mitic views. two small statues are on display today. “The Jews of Hungary and jewelry were taken. There are European countries, however, One depicts the biblical incident of the Sin were relatively OK until “Although the MAV does where the situation seems to be better at of the Golden Calf. The second replicates 1944, and the MAV actually not currently own the jewelry first sight. One of them is the Czech Re- the crucifixion of Jesus. employed Jews right up to that was taken, we allege public. Dasa Juranova, a spokesperson for the the minute it deported them that it still owns the pro- Data presented in the Prague Jewish Třebíč ghetto’s management, explained to [to concentration camps],” ceeds,” he said. community’s report showed that during me that the choice of the statues was the said Richard Weisberg, a The Court of Appeals sent 2011 there was no year-on-year increase work of the director and the management professor at Yeshiva Univer- the case back down to a of anti-Semitic events in the Czech Re- of the site. sity’s Cardozo Law School lower court with instructions public. Another member of the Czech manage- who is a lawyer in the case. “Some of our that it ensure that all legal remedies in Indeed, visitors to Prague are likely to ment of the ghetto, Lenka Nevrklova, con- clients were MAV employees, and nothing Hungary have been exhausted before al- come away with the impression that all is ceded that not enough was being done to like that could ever have happened in lowing the case to proceed in the United well with the Jewish community of the explain the history of the Jews of Třebíč. France.” States. Weisberg said the plaintiffs would Czech Republic. Thousands of tourists an- However, the display of statues in the He was referring to the French National argue that there is such anti-Semitism in nually visit the well-maintained Jewish his- synagogue of the former ghetto — a matter Railroad, which survivors also sued but Hungary that “the idea our clients who are torical sites of Prague. clearly prohibited by Jewish law — as well which American courts have ruled has sov- Jewish victims of the Holocaust would pre- A member of Prague’s Jewish commu- as the choice of the statues, testifies to ereign immunity and thus protection from vail in Hungarian courts on Holocaust-re- nity told me that, at worst, Czechs are gen- something far worse than negligence. suits here. lated claims is something we feel we would erally indifferent to the Jews. He said the It is obvious that its Czech management But in the case against the MAV, Weis- be able to deny. … It would not make any relative absence of Muslims in the Czech regards the site as a part of the Czech her- berg said, some of the plaintiffs not only sense given the climate in Hungary.” Republic contributes to the tolerant cli- itage and not as part of the Jewish inheri- mate. He also said he is proud of the situ- tance in Europe. ation in the Jewish Quarter in Prague. Insensitivity of this kind to matters of PROUDLY BEARING ELDERS’ SCARS But the fine state of preservation of Jewish religion and history is becoming a (Continued from page 6) thing called the Holocaust. The thing I re- Prague’s Jewish Quarter contrasts starkly worrying trend in Europe. It finds its ex- some of them said, ‘Of course.’ ” late to more is my grandfather.” with the former Jewish ghetto in Třebíč. pression in attempts to prohibit o me, it’s a scar,” said Ms. Doron, The Israeli who tattooed Livia Ravek’s circumcision and ritual slaughter “Twho grew interested in the num- number, 4559, on her son, Oded Ravek, in several European countries. bering while drawing blood from a tattooed and grandson, Daniel Philosoph, did it Among them are traditionally lib- arm in an emergency room. “The fact that free. eral countries like the Nether- young people are choosing to get the tat- It was a Friday. Mr. Ravek, a 56-year-old lands, which historically was one toos is, in my eyes, a sign that we’re still glass artist who lives in Ottawa and was of the countries where Jews en- carrying the scar of the Holocaust.” here visiting family when he was tattooed joyed broad freedom of religion. Numbered follows Hanna Rabinovitz, a two years ago, brought Sabbath flowers to In Germany, this trend has al- middle-aged woman who puts her father’s his mother. “She was really upset about it ready led to criminal charges number on her ankle after his death. The at first,” he said. “When I explained the rea- against a rabbi following the rul- film also tells the story of Ayal Gelles, a 28- sons for why I did it, we cried together. I year-old computer programmer, and his ing of a Cologne court that cir- said, ‘You’re always with me.’ ” grandfather, Avraham Nachshon, 86, both cumcision constitutes an illegal he 10 tattooed descendants inter- of whom bear the number A-15510 on their form of bodily harm to babies. Tviewed for this article echoed one arms. The chief rabbi of France, Giles another’s motivations: they wanted to be “Like an inheritance or something,” Mr. Jewish cemetery in Prague. Bernheim, has recently warned intimately, eternally bonded to their sur- Gelles said of his tattoo. “It’s provocative, I vivor-relative. And they wanted to live the The Třebíč ghetto, founded in the 15th about the growing rejection of Jews and guess. Everyone is kind of appalled at first, mantra “Never forget” with something that century, is advertised by the Czech gov- Judaism in his country. Anti-Semitic inci- kind of shocked by it.” ernment as the best-preserved Jewish dents in France have increased by 53% would constantly provoke questions and Mr. Gelles said he had an epiphany see- conversation. ghetto in Europe. compared with the same period last year. ing cows branded at a ranch in Argentina, It is evidently for this reason that UN- It is encouraging that some in Europe Ms. Sagir, a cashier at a minimarket in leading him to get the tattoo and to adopt the heart of touristy Jerusalem, said she is ESCO added the Třebíč ghetto to its pres- have apparently seen the writing on the a vegan diet. He did not tell Mr. Nachshon asked about the number 10 times a day. tigious World Heritage List. wall and have taken to the streets to of his plan. There was one man who called her “pa- Visitors to the Třebíč ghetto will immedi- protest the rise in anti-Semitic attacks. But “If I knew, I would have said to you not to thetic,” saying of her grandfather, “You’re ately notice that no attempt has been clearly much more needs to be done. do it,” the grandfather told his grandson trying to be him and take his suffering.” made to tell the full history of the Třebíč There is obviously a direct link between one recent evening. And there was a police officer who said, ghetto’s Jews. the “growing rejection of Jews and Ju- “I dream every night about it,” Mr. “God creates the forgetfulness so we can In stark contrast to the wall of names at daism” and the rise in anti-Semitic attacks Nachshon said as he told his Holocaust forget,” Ms. Sagir recalled. “I told her, ‘Be- the entrance of the Warsaw ghetto and the story, which includes several months at in Europe. cause of people like you who want to for- memorial in the Lodz ghetto in Poland, Birkenau, where his mother and sister Anti-Semitism in Europe has a long his- get this, we will have it again.’ ” there is no memorial of any kind to the were killed in the gas chambers. “Many tory, and has always been fed by distor- One recent Friday, Ms. Sagir accompa- 1,700 Jews of Třebíč who perished in tions about Jews and their history and times we’re running away from the Ger- Hitler’s death camps. nied her uncle, Doron Diamant, 40, a car- religion. mans. Sometimes the whole night I was Their abandoned homes have been penter and father of four, to the tattoo The way to combat this problem is to ed- running. Maybe this time they won’t catch turned into cozy apartments, shops, and me.” parlor. He was the fifth descendant of ucate the masses, not only about the Holo- pubs that serve the local population. The Mr. Nachshon swims, does yoga or runs Yosef Diamant — who died last year at 84 caust but also about Jewish history and European Union and the Třebíč municipal- on a treadmill each morning, returning — to be tattooed. religion. ity provide the funding that has enabled home by 2 p.m. to feed the neighborhood It was done in 15 minutes, for about $40. UNESCO world heritage sites are their restoration. cats and pass the hours in front of the TV. When the tattoo artist, a Russian immi- Other than its two synagogues, the only uniquely fit to provide this type of education. A couple of times a week, Mr. Gelles grant, joked that he is “not so patriotic” to building still recognizable as part of the Therefore UNESCO, as well as the comes for supper at his Tel Aviv apartment, do it at a discount, Mr. Diamant quietly ghetto is its former hospital. The structure Czech government, should take action to and they watch TV together. seethed. was recently renovated. But instead of be- rectify the situation in the Třebíč ghetto. “Every time I see it, it’s a reminder to call “This is the reason he sits here, this tat- coming a museum, the ghetto hospital has A first step should be to respect the holi- him,” Mr. Gelles said of the number. “I find too and what this number represents,” Mr. become a gentrified apartment building for ness of the Rear Synagogue and to ban it kind of hard to relate to people I don’t Diamant said. “We got the country be- the Czechs. the exhibition of statues at the site. know and places I haven’t been to and this cause of these people.” 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. , PERMIT NO. 9313

Web site: www.yadvashemusa.org z”l ** ** Editor International Society (212) 220-4304 Editor-in-Chief for Yad Vashem, Inc. Vashem, Yad for Eli Zborowski, EDITORIAL BOARD EDITORIAL New York, NY 10110 NY York, New *Published Bimonthly by the Yefim Krasnyanskiy, M.A., Krasnyanskiy, Yefim 500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor Avenue, 500 Fifth Martyrdom & Resistance *1974-85, as Newsletter for the American *1974-85, as Newsletter for the Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp In- mates, and Nazi Victims **deceased Eli Zborowski** Marvin Zborowski Mark Palmer Sam Skura** Israel Krakowski Mandell William Sam Halpern Isidore Karten Norman Belfer Joseph Bukiet Colum- Colum- November/December 2012 - Kislev/Tevet 5773 2012 - Kislev/Tevet November/December has resonated . An Article of Hope An oward Elias, who runs the Hong oward Elias, who Kong Jewish Film Festival, said Kong Jewish Film crew, and how they became a family. crew, , which exploded on February 1, 2003. “You are devastated by the end of the are devastated “You “We, the pilots of the State of Israel, in “We, The Middle East today is in a state of tur- It is clear to us that only a strong defen- I look at our aircrews, at our ground crews “They said, ’Nobody wants to see a film While “They are a shining example of the The Public Broadcasting Service is Cohen was moved As a Jewish director, H special showings, often inviting Cohen and often inviting special showings, remem- with Holocaust others involved to speak on the space program brance and panels afterward. said Hilary film but there is a hopefulness,” An- director of the Los Helstein, executive where the film geles Jewish Film Festival, showed it a “We won best documentary. are still talking about year ago, but people it.” the skies above the death camps, declare that we have arisen from the ashes of mil- carry their silent cry, lions of victims. We we salute their bravery and courage, and we promise to be the defense shield of the Jewish People in their land, Israel.” moil. Israel stands in the midst of it all as a formidable rock in a sea of ideological ex- tremism that does not hesitate to utilize deadly weapons in its quest. No one knows what the future will bring. sive force, independent and powerful will be able to ensure our continued existence as a free people in our homeland and ensure our desire for a peaceful existence within. Air Force is the primary deterrent The Israel The ability to defend must be razor force. sharp. Ready and able at any moment for action against enemies both near and far. and at our air defense people. I see their devotion and determination and I am certain that we can deal with any challenge. friends were skeptical when he told them friends were skeptical he wanted to open it last November with Article of Hope An about a dead astronaut.’” But, as Elias pre- dicted, the audience voted to award it first prize. bia magnificence of diversity and what diver- sity brings to the world,” said Cohen. “And woven around them is the story of scroll, Torah the Holocaust and this little in in this horrific moment in our history, which there was an attempt to stamp out diversity.” among Jewish filmgoers, Cohen wants to among Jewish filmgoers, Cohen wants on public television. show it nationally, but requires financial support from eager, the producers. Cohen has to raise $35,000 more to guarantee it an airdate. He wants of to time it to mark the 10th anniversary the last flight of the space shuttle bia to create a documentary that would teach a about the Holocaust. But he aimed for way and decided the best universal story, to achieve one was to focus on the Columbia , and that he had uses the 60-year jour- , Greece, and a survivor Columbia . I felt that as a leader of the z”l MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE & RESISTANCE MARTYRDOM Saloniki We learn that Ramon, a decorated learn We Joseph was a climatologist learn that We the documentary For more than a year, An Article of Hope An Joseph, who died in 2008 before the film died in 2008 before Joseph, who I would like to add that several days later, I look at this photograph in my room After landing in Israel, a voicemail was ney of the Torah to weave together the sto- Torah ney of the ries of Ramon and Joseph, with footage of from NASA, animated drawings in the camp, and television life Joseph’s news accounts of the day the was lost. fighter pilot, was a hero in Israel well be- fore he became an astronaut. In addition he brought to space a Torah, to Joseph’s picture of the Earth, from the perspective of the moon, drawn by a Jewish boy killed at Auschwitz. who worked on an experiment Israelis had prepared for the until Ramon asked him about the lit- never, in his home, figured out how to Torah tle fulfill his boyhood promise to the rabbi. has made the rounds of film festivals, both Jewish-oriented and not. Synagogues and Jewish community centers have organized was completed, explains in the documen- explains in the was completed, to take asked permission tary why Ramon mission: “He thought he on his Torah the world as a symbol of would show it to the from the depths of how a person can go space.” hell to the heights of of Auschwitz. He had observed the flyover of Auschwitz. He said to from the ground at Thank today I was born again. me, “Amir, you.” I heard this and was tremendously had been moved. I knew that the effort worthwhile. I presented the same photograph that I have on my wall to the father of my good friends, the man that you all know as Eli Zborowski, survivors here in the US and as the Chair- man of this organization, he would under- stand and appreciate this special event. This is a photo that encom- every day. passes the Jewish people, tragedy and remember To pain, pride and hope. glory, and never to forget, to believe in ourselves, and to personify the words that we spoke above the skies of Poland. waiting for me. It was from Yitzhak Cohen, Yitzhak waiting for me. It was from a native of Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon. Ilan first astronaut, Israel’s to . Shoah concentra- Columbia is a crew of “WE CAN DEAL WITH ANY CHALLENGE” ANY WITH “WE CAN DEAL An Article of Hope An takes us to the launch Columbia Bergen-Belsen

early a decade ago, Dan Cohen set early a decade ago, out to make a film about the Holo- out to make a film

An Article of Hope An “It’s some very, very dark and depressing very dark and some very, “It’s As Joseph recounts in the documentary, On board the Joachim Joseph, an Israeli physicist, After this most symbolic flight, we flew di-

Released last year, Released last year, N TORAH TRAVELS FROM HELL ON EARTH INTO OUTER SPACE OUTER INTO EARTH ON HELL FROM TRAVELS TORAH subject matter, but really the message of but really the subject matter, said Garrett Reisman, the movie is hope,” a Jewish former astronaut who is helping to promote the film. “Embedded in these two incredibly tragic events, of a com- scale, there is the story of pletely different the constant human desire to achieve goodness.” into his Torah his dying rabbi pressed the hands, and asked him to promise to pro- tect it. Use it, he said, to tell the story of what happened here. unflinchingly delves into two tragedies — unflinchingly delves to contemplate, one almost too massive our minds. the other fresher in site at the Kennedy Space Center on Jan- uary 16, 2003, with intimate footage of the faces as they ride and then astronauts’ walk toward the space shuttle tion camp with thousands of other Dutch at 13, he was secretly bar There, Jews. — the scrolls Torah mitzvahed with a small of the Hebrew Bible — that had been smuggled into the camp. was born in the Netherlands, and deported as a boy to the seven — six Americans and Ilan Ramon, seven — six astronaut and the son of a sur- first Israel’s Also aboard, in Auschwitz. vivor of given to him by Torah, is a care, Ramon’s another Holocaust survivor. rectly home to Israel without landing again flew from the darkness on Polish soil. We into the light. For the duration of the three flying time there was radio silence hours’ between the jets. Despite being a bunch of Jewish pilots who normally talk nonstop, no one spoke a word. Each of us was busy with his own thoughts trying to understand what we had just done and the underlying meaning of this very special flight. a proud, strong, and independent State. A a proud, strong, and independent State. State that now has these powerful fighter of Death of the jets returning to the Valley grandfathers and grandmothers of our pi- At that moment, I felt in my very being, lots. the strength and power residing within our people, which demonstrated the ability to I pondered overcome and build itself anew. our ability to overcome any and all of those who seek to destroy us and to remain a free and proud people in its land forever. caust and dead astronauts, a story some caust and dead astronauts, depressing to tell. told him would be too (Continued from page 1) journey the Jewish people have traveled in 60 years, from the horrors of the BY LAUREN MARKOE, LAUREN MARKOE, BY POST THE WASHINGTON Page 16 Page