Secrets of the Dead: Escape from Auschwitz

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Secrets of the Dead: Escape from Auschwitz FAMILY PAGES: 19-23 No resolution to Women U. S .-Israel tensions need not Bibi looks for Hillary Cli nton and the leader­ suffer in ship of the U.S. H ouse of Rep­ American allies resentatives, Netanya hu pulled three sheets of paper from a silence beyond the manila accordion fo lder. Two featured the Israeli bureaucracy White House that approves Israeli construc­ tion projects, and the third was a simple chart coded into about fi ve NEWS ANALYSIS colors: a sketch of a new, reformed Israeli system that Netanya hu B Y R ON K AM PEA S envisioned replacing the existing one. WASHINGTON OTA) - For The point of Netanya hu's pre­ Benj amin Netanya hu , the fo r­ sentation was not that he was MATZAH MOUTHS! /Nancy Ki rsch mula fo r resolving U.S.-Israeli close to refo rm - the third sheet Ayelet Jaffee, left, and Tessa Gamm at the Jewish Community tensions came in the fo rm of a was more of a wish than a plan Center of Rhode Island's (JCCRI) Early Childhood model seder fl ow chart. - but to illustrate how he wasn't on Friday, March 26, at the JCCRI Social Hall. The Israeli prime minister directly at fault took the chart for spoiling with him Biden's visit. when he met At any stage / Women & Infants Hospital with Obama of the cur- a d mini s t ra ­ DR. MARGARET HOWARD rent process, tion offi cials and visited the an announce- Rhode Island is W hite H ouse ment by a mid-level Jeru- last week, two saJem bureau- replete with weeks after crat could PPD resources Israel angered dera il Israeli- the U.S. P a l e s tini a n / administrat ion negotiations, B Y N ANC Y K 1RSC II by announc- N e t a n ya h u [email protected] ing plans fo r explained. 1,600 new There were U'RE HOME housing units several rea- ROM the hospital in a Jewish BENJAMIN NETANYAHU sons the charts Y:ith the healthy infa nt neighborhood of eastern Jerusa- didn't work. For one they we re in you delivered a week or lem during a visit to Israel by Vice H ebrew, with print that was tiny two ago - maw/ tov. President Joe Eiden. and vi rtually unreadable. M ore .. A ren't you glowing with plea­ /Nancy Ki rsch But the fl ow chart presenta- substantively, however, Netan- THE CANDLE-LIGHTING sure, excitement and joy? M aybe tion didn't quite do the trick, and Ram Sheer, the grandson of Barbara Sheer (not pictured). covers not - even for women who are Netanya hu's relationship with See CONFLICT. Page 30 his eyes after the candles are lit at the model seder. experiencing normal "baby blues" President Obama re mains on the - the hormonal afterbirth roller­ rocks. coaster isn't easy. For women who NETANYAIIU'S PAPERS 'Secrets of the Dead: experience more severe hormonal At the outset of meetings with differences - diagnosed as post­ Obama, U.S. Secretary of State partum depression - the chal­ Escape from Auschwitz' lenges are greater. What's Inside: Fortunately for babies and their Rhode Island ritories were being killed at Aus- ing the events at Auschwitz, moms, resources exist, including Business .. ... ............ .. ..... 36, 37 chwitz each day, and plans were and alerting America and Brit- one unique program, that help Calenda r .. .. ... ...... .. .. .. .. .. 12, 13 community underway to kill 800,000 ain about Germany's plan for ease the emotional pain and suf­ Community .7-10, 14-15, 24-25 Hungarian Jews. Such g O)PBs HOMtvn:m the Hungarian Jews. fering. members, students a horrific massacre was A s a re sult, 120,000 ••••i EMOTIONAL ROLLER-COASTEII Family Pages ........... .. ..... 19-23 one of Germany's most Hungarian Jews were Th~ .......... ... .. .. .. .. ..... .... ~.~ view PBS film closely guarded secrets. saved from the gas In the fi rst fe w post-delivery days, mild mood swings, irritabil­ Health ...... ............ ....... .. 16, 32 D etermined to expose chamber, an effort B Y N ANCY A RESHAUS ity, tearfulness, fa tigue and con­ Israel. .. .. ... .... ........... ....... 18, 30 the truth about what that some historians Special to The Voice & Herald was happening at Aus- refe r to as the single fu sion occur in some 85 percent of Obituaries ... .. .... ... .. .. ... ........ .. 38 chwitz and stop the largest rescue of Jews women, said Dr. Teri Pea rlstei n, Opinion .... ..... ..... .. .. .. .... 4-6, 34 N APRIL 7, 1944, impending deaths of the during World War director of the Center fo r Wom­ Simchas/We Arc Read .......... 39 two prisoners, Hungari an Jews, Vrba IL This heroic story en's Behavioral Health at Women 0 both Slovak Jews and Wetzler - once is told in the docu- & Infants Hospital. Torah ....... ........ .. .... .. .. .......... 27 - Rudolf Vrba and free - immediately wrote mentary film, "Escap e Called "postpartum blues," Alfred Wetzler - escaped from these symptoms, part of the NEXT ISSUE: what later became known as The from Auschwitz;" the film is Auschwitz. At that time, 12,000 Vrba-Wetzler Report or The part of the Sec rets of the Dead normal delivery process, typica lly Jews from German-occupied ter- Israel Auschwitz Protocols - detail- See HOLOCAUST, Page 15 See CHI LD BIR TH , Page 16 r. ~=---~---~---:-:-::-----:-------::-~-~-~----------~ PAGE 2 Jewish Voice 8{_,l-1erald April 2, 2010 BOOKS Hidden Letters depicts a teen's life in occupied Holland Moving portrayal of Marion van sent to some Binsbergen- kind of camp, a lost teen, family Prit c hard , he provides and community annotated by advice and D eborah Sli er HIDDEN LETTERS reassurance. BY M EYER J. GOLDSTEIN and Ian Shine, Flip worries Special to The Voice & Herald and published about his in a work father, who N 1997, IN Amsterdam, a called H idden is not physi­ construction company fore­ Letters. Slier cally fit, Iman, while demolishing a and Shine, and what house, discovered two bun­ who produced camp he dles of letters hidden in the ceil­ this book, might be ing of a third fl oor bathroom. The have answered sent to. All letters had been written in 1942 by the foreman's of them an 18-year-old boy, Flip Slier, then question com­ w o r r y CO m - in a labor camp, to his parents in p re hen s i ve l y about being munity who wanted to Amsterdam. After reading them, and touch­ "sent to the memorialize their town and its the foreman donated them to the ingly and, in East," what inhabitants. Dutch National Institute of W ar so doing, have that means H idden L etters is also a social his­ Documentation on the condition produced a and how to tory of the destruction of the Jews that he be told what happened to va luable and avoid it. Flip's of the Netherlands. It contains a the boy and his family. beautiful book. belief that the timeline of events in Europe and Those letters have now been At the heart war will be the Netherlands from the time of translated by of the book are over in a year Flip's birth in 1923 until his arrival Flip's letters. l:Ji1td and ,innotl1rd h, lxhorah lirr ,nd I.in lune changes to a at the labor camp. Interspersed From April 25, rran,1.n«l ~,- ~I anon , Jn 81n ~r;;cn-l'rir.:hanl somber real­ amongst Flip's letters are short 1942, when he ization that essays and documents relating arrived at the the end is not either to something mentioned in Dutch labor in sight. write as often as he wants. At the Flip's letters or events going on camp located 80 miles east of Interspersed in the letters are end, receipt of packages is limited in the Netherlands or elsewhere. Amsterdam, until Sept. 14, 1942, stories of'1norma1" moments. Flip and he ca n only "legally" write Thus, this book can also be used to Flip wrote regularly to his par­ writes about breaking up with his once a week. learn and teach about the history ents in Amsterdam. During this girlfriend and about the delicious These letters also portray Flip's not just of Flip and his family, but period, conditions at the ca mp meal he and his campmates put emotional and spiritual struggles. all ofNetherland's Jews during the change from those at a camp together. Flip continually tries to At the beginning, he reassures Holocaust. The creators have also for unemployed youth - simi­ keep up his spirits and those of his parents that he is all right created a teaching guide for this lar to a Job Corp or CCC - to his parents. In the preface, the and well fed. Later, as the situa­ book that is ava ilable online. a prison camp. At the begin­ Seth Lowe Professor Emeritus tion in Amsterdam deteriorates, This book is ning, Flip can receive unlim­ of History at and hi s father is at risk of being a valuable con,­ ited packages from home and Columbia Uni­ tribution to versity Istvan "This book is also the literature Deak compares a Yizkor book of of the H olo­ Flip's letters caust, as Flip to The Diary the Slier family in Slier's personal Jewish Federation of Rhode Island's of Anne Frank. memoir of life It is a very apt the tradition of the in a Dutch labor Women's Event • Sunday, June 6 analogy. books that were camp in 1941, The book as a Sefer Zich­ The Hilton Hotel Providence presents Flip's created immediately aron, or book letters in a visu­ of memory, for 4PM ally striking following the ··· some secr~tsare .
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