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President Bush Visits Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust

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President Bush Visits Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust Vol. 34-No.3 ISSN 0892-1571 January/February 2008-Shevat/Adar I 5768 PRESIDENT BUSH VISITS ISRAEL’S YAD VASHEM HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL resident Bush had tears in his Peyes during an hour-long tour of Israel’s Holocaust memorial and told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the U.S. should have bombed Auschwitz to halt the killing, the memor- ial’s chairman said. Bush emerged from a tour of the Yad Vashem memorial calling it a “sobering reminder” that evil must be resisted, and praising victims for not losing their faith. Wearing a yarmulke, Bush placed a red- white-and-blue wreath on a stone slab that covers ashes of Holocaust victims taken from six extermination camps. He also lit a torch memorializing the victims. Bush was visibly moved as he toured the site, said Yad Vashem’s chairman, Avner Shalev. “Twice, I saw tears well up in his eyes,” Shalev said. At one point, Bush viewed aerial photos of the Auschwitz camp taken during the war by U.S. forces and called Rice over to discuss why the American government had decided against bombing the site, Shalev said. The U.S. had intelligence reports about the death camps during the war but chose to focus resources on the broader military effort, a decision that drew criticism years later. “We should have bombed it,” Bush said, according to Shalev. In the memorial’s visitors’ book, the president wrote simply, “God bless President George W. Bush, Yehudit Shendar, Deputy Director & Senior Art Curator, Museums Division, Yad Vashem Jerusalem, Eli Zborowski, Israel, George Bush.” Chairman of the American & International Societies for Yad Vashem, and Dr. Elizabeth Mundlak-Zborowski, Cultural Director at the American & “I was most impressed that people in International Societies for Yad Vashem during the recent visit of President Bush to Yad Vashem, Jerusalem on January 11, 2008. the face of horror and evil would not for- sake their God. In the face of unspeak- was in 1998, as governor of Texas. The candles reflected 1.5 million times in a while in hiding from the Nazis in able crimes against humanity, brave last U.S. president to visit was Bill hall of mirrors. At the site’s Hall of Belgium. He was informed upon, and souls – young and old – stood strong for Clinton in 1994. Remembrance, he heard a cantor sing a died in 1944 in the Buchenwald camp. what they believe,” Bush said. Bush, during his most extensive Jewish prayer for the dead. After the war, his daughter Ingrid discov- “I wish as many people as possible Mideast trip of his presidency, was Eli Zborowski, Chairman of the ered that the Nazis had confiscated their would come to this place. It is a sobering accompanied on his tour by a small American Society for Yad Vashem was furniture and valuables but had left reminder that evil exists, and a call that party that included Rice and Israeli excited to meet President Bush in Yad behind a single item: a meticulously when evil exists we must resist it,” he Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Vashem. “I could see that he really cares crafted wooden box adorned with a Star said. At the compound, overlooking a forest about it.” of David and a seven-branched meno- It was Bush’s second visit to the on Jerusalem’s outskirts, Bush visited a li was a member of the Jewish rah, containing a collection of 99 of the Holocaust memorial, a regular stop on memorial to the 1.5 million Jewish chil- Eunderground. His job was to trans- artist’s illustrations of biblical scenes. the visits of foreign dignitaries. His first dren killed in the Holocaust, featuring six fer underground confidential documents The originals are on display at Yad to the ghettos. He was hidden, together Vashem. The memorial recently decided with his mother and siblings, for 18 to produce a special series of 500 repli- months by two Catholic families in the cas, the first of which was to be present- IN THIS ISSUE town of Zarki, Poland. “We lived knowing ed to Bush. Nazi archive allows online requests.............................................................................3 that any minute someone could come Debbie Deutsch-Berman, a Yad The Nazi connection to Islamic terrorism....................................................................4 and kill us but I had hope. I also had Vashem employee whose grandfather Children of the Holocaust train.....................................................................................5 hope that the world would recognize was Deutsch’s brother, said she was A love triangle in... Bergen Belsen............................................................6 proud that Bush would be given her rel- The French Anne Frank..............................................................................7 what was done to us and that is really World remembers victims of Holocaust.......................................................................8 the case.” ative’s artwork. Studying the Holocaust in a time of Holocaust denial and anti-semitism...............9 Chairman of Yad Vashem Avner “These are not just his paintings, they Yad Vashem launches Arabic website.......................................................................10 Shalev presented Bush with illustrations are his legacy, and the fact that they sur- Secret diary details Holocaust and Nazi crimes..............................................12 of the Bible drawn by the Jewish artist vived shows that as much as our ene- Joy in Dachau...............................................................................................................15 Carol Deutsch, who perished in the mies tried to destroy the ideas that these Memory of Holocaust victims honored through series of UN events.....................16 Holocaust. Deutsch created the works paintings embody, they failed,” she said. Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2008 - Shevat/Adar I 5768 AJC PRAISES RESTITUTION DEAL HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS SAY GERMANY UNWILLING acedonia’s plan to resolve outstand- programs. Macedonia’s tiny Jewish com- TO IMPROVE REPARATIONS DEAL Ming Holocaust property claims was munity, now a few hundred people, num- sraeli Holocaust survivors asked Germany has paid an estimated $25 praised by American Jewish Committee. bered more than 7,000 before World War II. IGermany’s finance minister to improve billion in reparations to Israeli Under the agreement with Macedonia’s AJC says it frequently raised the issue a reparations arrangement, but Peer Holocaust survivors, who, according to of restitution with Macedonia’s leaders, Jewish community, Macedonia will allo- Steinbrueck said no additional money Factor, numbered 350,000 to 400,000 cate $25 million for the construction and most recently with Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski in October, and with Foreign would be paid, they said. at their peak. It also transferred more initial operational expenses of a Survivors reasoned that the original than $700 million in goods and services Holocaust Memorial Center under con- Minister Antonio Milososki in December. In 2002, the Macedonian government 1952 accord with Israel did not account for to the Israeli government. struction in the capital city of Skopje. resolved outstanding Jewish communal their unexpected longevity or apply to tens Today, some 250,000 Holocaust sur- The center, located on returned Jewish property claims. With this new agreement, of thousands of Holocaust victims who vivors live in Israel. They are living longer property, will recount the story of the Macedonia is one of only a few countries came to Israel following the Soviet than was foreseen under the reparation Holocaust in Macedonia and will also pro- that has settled claims against private Union’s collapse. agreement with Germany, with all the vide facilities for cultural and communal Jewish properties with no apparent heirs. But Steinbrueck rejected the appeal, added expenses and high medical costs said Zeev Factor, a Holocaust survivor that implies, they say. Also, about one- HOLOCAUST AUCTION STIRS IRE who took part in the meeting. third of them are not covered by the “He said Germany reached an agree- agreement at all, because they escaped n Israeli auction house rate their parents’ suffering. ment with Israel on this matter ... and isn’t to Russia but did not technically live under drew censure for selling Yet other Holocaust sur- A willing to touch the agreement,” Factor Nazi rule, arriving in Israel after the fall of off Holocaust memorabilia. vivors were far from san- said, referring to the 1952 accord. the Soviet Union. Among hundreds of items guine about the sale, Steinbrueck told them that if German Critics inside Israel have said the coun- sold by the Ben-Ami Andres describing it as profiteering. officials conclude that problems can be try should be able to take care of its own auction house in Tel Aviv “I think it’s despicable,” resolved within the framework of the exist- elderly survivors without going to were two yellow Star of David said Yosef Lapid, a former ing agreement, then “they will be willing to Germany for more money. badges, which Jews were Israeli justice minister who is discuss it,” Factor said. After a storm of protest by Holocaust forced to wear under the now chairman of Yad The German government has said it survivors who charged the government Nazis. They were sold for Vashem’s board of gover- would be willing to discuss requests for with abandoning them, the state agreed $240 and $160. nors. Speaking on Israel additional payments if Israel submits a for- earlier this year to give the 160,000 The buyers were not identi- Radio, he added sarcastical- mal petition, but that so far, no such Israelis who survived Nazi ghettos and fied, but auction organizers ly: “When I was a child in the A yellow star of David, a patch request has been made. concentration camps a monthly stipend of said there had been interest Budapest ghetto, I had no that Jews were forced to wear Israeli Finance Minister Roni Bar-On nearly $300, in addition to tax discounts in the items from children of by the Nazis is displayed idea that the badges I was met with Steinbrueck, but did not submit a and other breaks.
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