AMERICAN & INTERNATIONAL SOCIETIES FOR

Vol. 41-No.5 ISSN 0892-1571 May/June 2015-Iyyar/Sivan 5775

THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR YAD VASHEM ANNUAL SPRING LUNCHEON

his year’s sold-out Annual T Spring Luncheon was held on May 13th at the Jewish Museum on 92nd Street. Over 200 people attended the event, which honored Danielle Karten for her contributions to Holocaust remembrance and education. Our guest speaker was Alyson Richman, an accomplished author, who spoke about her new book The Garden of Letters. Also featured on the program were Co- Chair Daniella Pomeranc and fea- tured speaker Rachel Shnay, who are active members of our Young Leadership Associates. Danielle Karten was presented with the American Society for Yad Vashem Achievement Award by Chairman of the American Society for Yad Vashem Leonard Wilf along with American Society Executive Director Ron Meier. She was recognized for her com- mitment to Holocaust commemo- ration and remembrance, which are central to the Karten family. She continues a longstanding family tradition of being actively involved in the American Society for Yad Vashem, which is being passed on to her children — Jonathan, Sharone and Izzy. Rachel Shnay delivered a Ron B. Meier, executive director of the American Society for Yad Vashem; Danielle Karten, honoree; and Leonard A. Wilf, chairman of the American description of the emotional trip Society for Yad Vashem. she took to with her ted her grandfather’s picture her family’s amazing story of sur- Chairman of the American grandfather, in which they visited among those on exhibit in the vival in . From her Society for Yad Vashem Leonard Auschwitz and her grandfather’s New Museum. grandmother’s daring escape Wilf, spoke about the 70th hometown. Rachel also told n her closing remarks, from German-occupied Poland to Anniversary of the end of WW II. those gathered about her first trip IDaniella Pomeranc told those Siberia and her grandfather’s He reminded the Luncheon atten- to Yad Vashem, where she spot- gathered at the Luncheon about dedication as a partisan, dees of the importance of remem- Daniella’s family’s commitment brance, education and commem- to Yad Vashem has been passed oration to ensure that those, who IN THIS ISSUE to the third generation. perished in the Shoah, will not be ASYV Annual Spring Luncheon...... 1, 8-9, 11 The chairman of the American forgotten. This year’s Luncheon An old Holocaust secret newly told...... 2 Society for Yad Vashem, Leonard program included a special pres- I pretended to be German to survive the Holocaust...... 3 A. Wilf, reminded us of the impor- entation by Rachel Shnay and The Jewish Kulturbund Theatre Company in Nazi ...... 4 tance of raising the awareness of remarks from Daniella Pomeranc Through hell and back...... 6 the next generation. He praised about their experiences as grand- The lost children of the Holocaust...... 6 the co-chairs of our Young children of survivors. It gives us Lost in the rubble of Warsaw...... 7 Leadership Associates, Abbi great pride to know that members Old Nazis never die...... 7 Halpern and Barry Levine, for of the next generation are dedi- Letters from Jewish liberators...... 10 their efforts to reach out to the cated to Holocaust remem- The Holocaust hero TV producer who exposed the Nazis’ true evil...... 16 third generation. brance. Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2015 - Iyyar/Sivan 5775 EX-AUSCHWITZ GUARD DESCRIBES CAMP IN CHILLING DETAIL arrival as chaotic, with Nazi guards “Everything was going very fast. survived the camp, were injected with. BY DAVID RISING, yelling orders, dogs barking and fam- Yelling, crying, pushing; even dogs Groening showed no reaction to THE TIMES OF ilies being ripped apart. But Groening, were barking. I had never experi- Kor’s statement, and his attorney, 93, maintained the opposite, saying “it enced anything that fast or that crazy Hans Holtermann, said his client former SS sergeant described was very orderly and not as strenu- in my entire life,” she told The would try to answer what questions in chilling detail how cattle cars A ous” on the ramp at Birkenau. before addressing he could, but he didn’t believe that full of were brought to the “The process was the same as the court. Groening knew Mengele. Auschwitz death camp, the people Auschwitz I. The only difference was Her two older sisters and parents roening guarded prisoners’ stripped of their belongings and then that there were no trucks,” he said were taken directly to the gas cham- baggage on the ramps, but his most led directly into gas chambers. G during the second day of his trial. bers, while she and her twin sister, main task was to collect and tally Oskar Groening is being tried on “They all walked — some in one both 10 at the time, were ripped away money stolen from the new arrivals 300,000 counts of accessory to mur- direction, some in another direction… from their mother to be used as human and then send it to Berlin — a job for der, related to a period between May guinea pigs for notorious which the German press has dubbed and July 1944 when around camp doctor Josef him the “Accountant of Auschwitz.” 425,000 Jews from Mengele’s experiments. Hungary were brought to While he previously testified he was “All I remember is her the Auschwitz- Birkenau “horrified” by individual atrocities he wit- arms stretched out in complex in Nazi- occupied nessed, he suggested his daily despair as she was pulled Poland and most immedi- thoughts were more pedestrian, like away,” Kor remembered. ately gassed to death. when the guards heard a train loaded “I never even got to say During that period, so with Hungarian Jews would be arriving. goodbye.” many trains were arriving “If this is Hungary, they have bacon Kor, who now lives in that often two would have to on board,” he remembered thinking. Indiana, is one of more wait with closed doors as Though he had been investigated than 60 Auschwitz sur- the first was “processed,” twice before and no charges were vivors and their families Groening testified at the brought, Groening was indicted under from the US, Canada, Lueneburg state court. a new line of German legal reasoning Israel and elsewhere who Though he was more reg- Former Auschwitz-Birkenau guard Oskar Groening as a young man in an SS that anyone who helped a death camp uniform; and now. have joined the trial as ularly assigned to the function can be accused of being an co plaintiffs as allowed under camp’s Auschwitz I section, he said to where the crematoria and gas accessory to murder without evidence German law. he guarded the Birkenau ramp three chambers were.” of participation in a specific crime. times, including one busy 24- hour No pleas are entered in the German Thomas Walther, who represents Groening, who worked for an insur- shift. The main gas chambers were system, and Groening said as his trial many co plaintiffs, said he and his ance company after the war, has testi- located at Birkenau. opened that he considers himself clients were happy Groening agreed fied as a witness in other Nazi trials. “The capacity of the gas chambers “morally guilty,” but it was up to the to testify, but suspected he was with- Outside court, Kor said she wished and the capacity of the crematoria court to decide if he was legally guilty. holding many details. Groening would use the trial to try and were quite limited. He faces between three and 15 years “There is an ocean of truth, but with dissuade “misguided young people” “Someone said that 5,000 people in prison if convicted in the trial, which many islands of lies,” he said. today from becoming neo -Nazis, but were processed in 24 hours, but I did- is scheduled through July. Kor, the first coplaintiff to address the she was still satisfied with his testimony. n’t verify this. I didn’t know,” he said. va Kor, 81, was one of the Jews court, described her experience and “I’m going to take whatever confes- “For the sake of order we waited until Ewho arrived at Auschwitz in asked Groening whether he knew sion he gives — it’s better than no train 1 was entirely processed and fin- 1944. Though she doesn’t remember Mengele or details about files he kept, confession,” she told reporters. ished.” Groening personally, she said she in hopes of learning more about what “Maybe this is the best thing he has Auschwitz survivors describe their can’t forget the scene. diseases she and her sister, who both ever done in his life. Isn’t that sad?” AN OLD HOLOCAUST SECRET NEWLY TOLD Israeli brothers Avraham and tions that they never dared to ask. references to it in historical literature. the residents are responsible for their Peretz Hassid knew not to question Their mother Shoshana had been And if little has been written about actions towards others,” the article their Greek-born mother Shoshana through enough, they told them- Corfu, there is almost nothing about quotes one of the elderly residents as about what happened to her during selves, and they had no desire to hurt the nearby island of Ereikousa. A sin- saying. “We all belong to one family, the Holocaust, but an American her further. gle article was published in Israel in and we are all cousins.” author with her own family secret Shoshana took her secrets with her The old man was not quite right. has changed the way they viewed to the grave. And neither brother Perhaps he did not know what hap- their family’s history. imagined that they would one day pened on the island in 1943; perhaps receive a phone call that would turn he knew and chose to remain silent, BY NIR COHEN, YNETNEWS their lives upside down. as did all of his neighbors over the ozens of black-and-white pho- “We have a story about your mother years. In the seven decades that have Dtos are scattered across the that you have to hear,” said the per- passed, not one of the Christian peo- small dining table in a modest house son on the other end of the line. Their ple living on Ereikousa has spoken of in Rehovot. Some of the people look- mother’s lifelong secret, her personal the Jewish family of five who hid on ing into the camera are smiling; oth- story, was about to be revealed — the island during the Nazi occupation. ers have a melancholic look. One and she was not there to confirm or It was an act of concealment shared does not need to know the figures in deny it. The secret of Ereikousa was by all of Ereikousa’s residents, who the photos to sense a tragic story about to come to light. risked their lives and those of their deeply hidden. But until now, there families. And it is a legacy that passed A STORY WITHOUT AN ENDING was no one to tell it. from the original keepers of the secret Avraham and Peretz Hassid have he events of the Holocaust in to their children and grandchildren. been the owners of the photo collec- T Greece have always been stud- The unraveling of the secret started tion since their mother Shoshana and ied in Israel through the framework of more than a year ago. Director and aunt Nina passed away. But the peo- the destruction of the large and thriv- writer Yvette Manessis Corporon, an ple in the pictures remained a mystery. ing Jewish community of Salonika. Emmy winner of Greek origin, pub- Avraham is convinced that the little The smaller yet equally flourishing Shoshana and her brothers. lished her book When the Cypress girl in one of the images bears a community on Corfu, which num- 1977, describing the tiny island as a Whispers, inspired by memories of resemblance to his mother. Perhaps bered about 2,000 people before the magical landscape, whose hundreds her grandmother, a resident of the children by her side are her war, was taken by rickety fishing of residents run a remarkably unified Ereikousa. younger siblings, perhaps on one boats to the trains bound for community. “A markedly egalitarian The book recounts a key event in Purim on the Greek island of Corfu. Auschwitz, and was also almost society,” the article says of the island. the life of Corporon’s grandmother — The brothers Hassid had many ques- entirely destroyed. But there are few “We have no police and no courts; (Continued on page 5) May/June 2015 - Iyyar/Sivan 5775 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 3 I PRETENDED TO BE GERMAN TO SURVIVE THE HOLOCAUST Shlomo Perel convinced a father who told me ‘always stay a I managed to free myself from his Jewish cemetery there.” German soldier he wasn’t a Jew, Jew’ and my mother who told me ‘you grasp. When I turned around he And how did the war end for you? got close enough to the Führer to must live.’ Luckily, mother’s voice pre- found out I was circumcised. He was “Hitler issued an order that ‘all of the take his picture, and found himself vailed and I said: ‘No, I’m German.’ surprised and said: ‘You’re a Jew!’ I Hitler Youths must take arms, to in a Hitler Youth school, wearing “And then a miracle happened — for was sure this was the end for me, but defend the homeland,’ and I was sent uniforms with a swastika — all to some reason he believed me. All of he said: ‘Know that there is also a dif- to the front with a bazooka in hand. I stay alive. the men had to pull down their pants ferent kind of Germans.’ was guarding, along with other 20- and those found circumcised were “He didn’t inform on me so as to not year-olds like me, the bridge of a free- BY SMADAR SHIR, YNETNEWS executed, but not only did that soldier expose himself as a homosexual. I way. When the American army came, hlomo Perel rummages through not order me to take off my clothes, knew his secret and he knew mine, I was taken hostage, but the lie was Sa cardboard box, finds the photo he called me a ‘Volksdeutscher’ (an and after that incident he took care of so deeply ingrained within me that I he was looking for and says dryly: ethnic German living outside me until he was killed.” didn’t even tell the Americans I was a “Here, that’s Hitler. I photographed Germany). Later on, Perel was sent to a Hitler Jew. I sat in captivity like everyone him with my Aqua camera from 50–70 “He brought me to his unit, where a Youth school in Braunschweig. else, but for me it was a surreal situa- meters away. I looked him in the eye. senior officer took a liking to me and “For three and a half years I studied tion: A Jewish youth wearing a Nazi I was 16 years old then, a translator in appointed me a Russian and Polish Supremacism and developed Army uniform in American captivity.” the German army, with uniforms and translator — a role I had for nine defense mechanisms which made me Perel and the other Hitler Youths a swastika, and I didn’t know who I months.” forget that I was a Jew,” he says. were freed after a few days, as the was at all. During that time, Hitler came to visit “I changed my name to Josef, the group was not recognized as war “For years I’ve been told, both to my the front lines. “Only the high-ranked Germans called me Jupp, and as the criminals. face and behind my back, that I’m not generals approached him and were days went by, the lie turned into a “And for me, it was all over. I was a classic Holocaust story because I allowed past his wall of bodyguards. I reality. I felt like any other Hitler Youth free. But what do you do with this free- wasn’t at a ghetto or a camp, I was hiding with a camera,” Perel and I was so convinced, that no one dom? Who am I, anyway? The next received education and pocket says. suspected I wasn’t. I stopped eating day I met two people identifying as money and plenty of food. Someone Jews returning from Bergen-Belsen. I told me once: ‘Your Holocaust is a asked them what that was and they Deluxe Holocaust.’ But he could not pointed at the concentration camp that imagine the fear I lived with every day was not far from there. I was in shock. and what I did, just so I wouldn’t get I’ve lived here for years, had fun with found out.” women, and right under my nose were Perel was born in the city of Peine in the extermination trains. It was a full- Germany. In 1936, three years before on confrontation of both of my identi- World War II broke out, his parents ties, Shlomo and Josef.” Uziel and Rivkah Perel took their four A MEETING WITH children and relocated to the city of THE EXECUTIONER Lodz in Poland. “ started, my parents had a erel went to Bergen-Belsen (“a shoe store and residents were forbid- Ppile of dead bodies, awful den from buying from Jews,” he smell”), and then continued to recalls. Shlomo Perel in his home. to meet his brother Isaak, who was “When Germany invaded Poland, “After the war, I was asked many kosher and believing in God, but I transferred to the and the Jews were ordered to enter the times: ‘Why did you photograph Hitler believed I’ll stay alive. I felt immortal, survived Dachau. After that, Shlomo Lodz ghetto, and my parents realized instead of killing him?’ And I tell the like ‘it won’t happen to me.’” moved to Palestine and joined the this is a place you enter alive, but you truth: Had I shot Hitler, I’m not sure I During these years, two identities Hagannah. don’t know how you come out. So they would’ve hit him, but I would’ve sure- were fighting for control over Perel’s “I went on a ship to the besieged sent me, a 14-year-old teenager, and ly been killed on the spot. And I didn’t body — Shlomo and Josef. and fought in the War of my 30-year-old brother Isaak, to (the want to get into the history pages as a “I was schizophrenic. During the Independence as a Jew, as Shlomo Soviet-controlled) eastern Poland. hero, I preferred being an anti-hero day, I was a German youth who want- Perel.” “Before we left my father told me in and survive.” ed to win the war, I sang songs In Tel Aviv he met Devorah, a Pole Yiddish: ‘Don’t ever forget who you Does this question anger you? against Jews and yelled ‘Heil who had been exiled to Siberia, and are.’ Meaning, ‘Stay a Jew.’ Mother “Not anymore. People can’t under- Hitler’ — and at night, in bed, I cried together they have two sons. After added in Yiddish: ‘Go, you must live.’ stand the situation I was in. When I out of longing for my family, and per- undergoing heart surgery, he started When a mother sends her children was looking at my chest, I saw a formed all sorts of ‘operations’ on writing his memoirs. I Was Hitler away knowing she’ll never see them swastika, but in my head I remem- myself to survive. I tried to pull on my Youth Salomon is the name of his again — that’s the greatest love of bered I was a Jew whose father foreskin and wrapped it with a tight book, which was later adapted in the all.” ordered him to stay a Jew and whose elastic dressing, in the hopes that if I 1990 movie Europa Europa. “A German judges’ panel refused to THE FÜHRER AT CLOSE RANGE mother ordered him to live. I didn’t did that every night, despite the pain, know who I was at all. the skin would stretch and it won’t submit (the movie) to the Oscars, he two brothers crossed the “When talking about the Holocaust, show that I’m circumcised. claiming it wasn’t a documentary,” he T border, with the elder sibling there’s a clear division: The victims “My second enemy was dreaming. says. going to his acquaintance in Vilna, were Jews, and the perpetrators were When you’re awake, you can control “They dared suspect my story was while Perel found shelter at a Jewish the Nazis, while I was both. From the what you say, but during a dream you fiction. So I went to Germany with an orphanage in Grodno. moment I wore the uniforms with a could cry out something about mother Israeli journalist, we located friends of “At the morning of the German inva- swastika on, I became my own enemy and father, and a roommate can hear mine from the Hitler Youth school and sion of the , all of the and I had to escape myself to sur- you.” they confirmed that for three and a children were woken up and told to vive.” n the winter of 1943, wearing his half years, they did not suspect I was escape east. I arrived with the fleeing How did you manage to hide the IHitler Youth uniforms, he took the a Jew. We also managed to locate the masses to the outskirts of Minsk. The fact you were circumcised? tram through the Lodz ghetto, “and German soldier who believed I was German surrounded us in an open “I found all sorts of ways to avoid this was the first time I saw the hor- German and saved my life. I asked field and ordered us to stand in a line, medical examinations, and I always rors. It was only after the war that I him why he did it, and he said: ‘An and then it was my turn. The German entered the shower stall closest to the learned mother was killed in a internal voice told me to believe you.’ soldier who stood in front of me wall so no one could see me. sealed truck, with the gas from the I felt ambivalent about him, he ordered me to put my hands up and “But I was sexually abused. An army engine entering the cabin and peo- could’ve been my executioner, but on asked: ‘Are you a Jew?’” doctor had his eye on me and one of ple suffocating during the drive. She the other hand he saved me. I forgave That was a pivotal moment in the nights, when I entered the shower has no grave. Father died two him when I saw how much he did Perel’s life. “I knew that if I told the after everyone left, he surprised me weeks after the army entered Lodz after the war for the Jewish communi- truth, I’d be facing immediate death from behind and tried to rape me. I from exhaustion, disease and star- ty left in Lübeck, and I even had him and I had to choose between my fought him with all of my strength until vation, and he was buried in the at my house in Givatayim.” Page 4 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2015 - Iyyar/Sivan 5775 BOOKBOOK REVIEWSREVIEWS

THE JEWISH KULTURBUND THEATRE COMPANY IN NAZI BERLIN The Jewish Kulturbund Theater formers suddenly unemployed were most of their German-Jewish public then “decapitating Holofernes, the Company in Nazi Berlin. miraculously employed once again was generally accustomed to? (Of army general for King By Rebecca Rovit. University of and could practice their beloved art as course, here, Rovit makes clear, there Nebuchadnezzar, to prevent an Iowa Press: Iowa City, Iowa, 2012. part of the Kulturbund, which, in fact, was most definitely a difference of attack on her home city of Bethulia.” 287 pp. $35.88. had independent branches all over opinion among factions within the Needless to say, such a play “embod- Germany. It was even more miracu- community and even in the theater.) ied unmistakable, even ironic, paral- REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN lous because many of them had Nazi officialdom, however, didn’t see lels to the times” and hence must n Rebecca Rovit’s beautifully writ- absolutely no funds to “fall back on,” it like that at all! Among other direc- have been very satisfying to the Iten and conscientiously making the Kulturbund a true “life- tives, Singer was strictly told not to German Jews come to see it! researched book entitled The Jewish saver.” Finally, many — like the great present works that had any “assimila- Meanwhile, especially fascinating Kulturbund Theater Company in Nazi majority of their audience members tory” tendencies. Judaism was not to for this reviewer and Eastern Berlin, we read about how from 1933 — had no plans to leave Germany. be mixed with German culture in any European Jew is the difficulty the to 1941 the finest of Jewish theater For most everyone way. Aryan culture was Kulturbund had in doing plays like artists — actors, musicians, and thought Hitler and to remain pure. The Sholom Aleichem’s Der Haupttreffer designers alike — dismissed from Fascism were just a Kulturbund was not to (The Big Win), retitled Amcha by its their positions owing to Hitler’s “purge passing phase, soon to perform “plays by non- German translator. It was the kind of of prominent Jewish artists and intel- be forgotten . . . and Jewish Germans and material the Nazis wanted the lectuals from Germany’s cultural insti- Germany was, after all, .” For that mat- Kulturbund to do. It was so very differ- tutions,” came together to create a their home . . . . ter dramas by Strindberg ent from German theater work, and theater of their own: “an all-Jewish Interestingly, this last and Ibsen’s Peer Gynt the Nazis wanted that difference to be theater.” Brave and determined, Dr. leads to the most were forbidden too. For boldly evident. But, in fact, most Kurt Singer, “the former director of thought-provoking these works, it was German Jews were very assimilated. Berlin’s Municipal Opera, had negoti- material in Rovit’s book, decided, “portray[ed] They simply couldn’t relate to their ated the conditions for the Kulturbund which specifically deals Nordic ideals.” Instead, Yiddish-speaking compatriots in with Ministry of Propaganda SS- with the Berlin branch of “Jewish-themed plays” Poland, Lithuania, and Russia . . . Kommandant Hans Hinkel, the Nazi the Kulturbund (but, were to be done; “but They just didn’t have a “feel” for the official assigned to Jewish cultural undoubtedly, applies to [Hinkel] censored even material or the Yiddish cultural world affairs.” In sum, Singer agreed that all the Kulturbunds in those plays because of generally. this would be a “closed” theater. In the country): Many wondered just their messages about a triumphant By the way, just to give my reader- other words, it would be open only to exactly what a Jewish theater should Jewish collective.” ship an idea of the talents that were a Jewish theater artists and be seen look like in Germany where most Then again, because Hinkel and his part of the Kulturbund in Berlin, Heinz only by the Jewish community. Jews (certainly then) were so very censors knew little of the arts, and Condell, a costume and set designer Additionally and most importantly, assimilated. The great majority of (thankfully) were themselves con- for a great many of the company’s pro- Singer agreed that Nazi officialdom — those in the Kulturbund simply saw fused (and at times, it appears, slip- ductions, survived the war to come to generally Hinkel and his staff — their theater as a theater for Jews. shod) as to what should be permitted New York City. Once in New York, he would censor all the plays to be Thus — with artistic standards kept presentation, plays like Judith by worked for Maurice Schwartz’s Yiddish mounted. This meant they would high — their objective was to present Friedrich Hebbel were mounted — Theater, the Artef, and for many, many decide which plays could be done the best of theater by the best of writ- which according to Nazi rules should years the New York City Opera. and which plays needed “editing” in ers from all over the world. For wasn’t not have been! First off, Hebbel was order to meet Nazi “standards” vis-à- that what most of these German- a German non-Jew. Furthermore, in Dr. Diane Cypkin is a Professor of vis a Jewish Theater in Germany. Jewish theater artists had always the play, Judith, a Jewish heroine, Media, Communication, and Visual Thus, many of the finest Jewish per- been doing? And wasn’t that what saves her people by seducing and Arts at Pace University. MEMOIRS OF THE MURDERED KL: A History of the met the general- head of the SS, established a larger indefinite and endless mission. In the Concentration Camps. ly distinct history of the mass murder facility at Dachau; this would be the late 1930s, they were holding By Nikolaus Wachsmann. Farrar, of Jews. only camp that existed from the Germans seen as unfit members of Straus & Giroux: New York, N.Y., KL is a definitive history of the beginning of Nazi power to the end. society. These were the so-called aso- 2015. 880 pp. $40. German concentration camp system. The camps were about the consolida- cials-alcoholics, drug addicts, homo- (The title is the German abbreviation tion of power and then about its allo- sexuals, members of minority religions REVIEWED BY TIMOTHY SNYDER of the word for concen- cation. The first victims like Jehovah’s Witnesses and people n popular memory,’ writes tration camp, were Communists and deemed “work-shy,” like prostitutes or “INikolaus Wachsmann, “the con- Konzentrationslager.) Mr. Socialists, people who vagrants. Dachau became the model centration camps, Auschwitz, and the Wachsmann, a German might have challenged for a true system of six concentration Holocaust have merged into one.” In historian who teaches at Hitler. In 1934, after the camps in prewar Germany, along with our confusion, we have narrowed the Birkbeck College, SS decapitated the rival Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald, horror of Nazi practice. Auschwitz London, gently disas- SA in the “Night of the Flossenbürg, Mauthausen and was both a concentration camp and a sembles popular memo- Long Knives,” it sealed Ravensbrück. Although in principle killing site for Jews, which was unusu- ry and draws a complete its victory by taking com- the “asocials” were to be reformed, by al. If we recall Auschwitz and forget and convincing picture. plete control of the the end of the 1930s the SS began to the other camps, we neglect the peo- He begins with the camps. see their labor as the basis of a spe- ple who were concentrated in them, numerous improvised At this point, it might cial economy. most of whom were not Jews. When camps that the two para- have appeared that con- etween Hitler’s rise to power and we identify Auschwitz with the military wings of the Nazi centration had lost its Bthe beginning of World War II, Holocaust, we neglect the other death Party, the SA original purpose: all Nazi power drastically altered the lives factories dedicated to the extermina- (Sturmabteilung, or “storm battalion”) enemies, within and without the Nazi of German Jews. They were, however, tion of Jews, places where more Jews and the SS (, or “protec- Party, had been defeated or intimidat- less than 1% of the German popula- were gassed than at Auschwitz, and tion squad”) established in the weeks ed. But Himmler was ready with a tion, and the basic Nazi policy in the omit the shooting pits, where more after Hitler rose to power in early new rationale: the camps could serve years before World War II was to cre- Jews were murdered than at 1933. These were often tiny holding as a tool to improve the German race. ate conditions that would force them to Auschwitz. Auschwitz is simply the cells, sometimes in basements or He found support from Hitler, which emigrate. Jews entered the camp place where in 1942 the history of the warehouses. , the meant that the camps would have an (Continued on page 14) May/June 2015 - Iyyar/Sivan 5775 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 5 AN OLD HOLOCAUST SECRET NEWLY TOLD (Continued from page 2) track down a few more isolated granddaughter Rosa was named after Mendelowitz told her in turn that the rescue of Jewish tailor Savas, details. “Nina married a man whose her grandmother.” Spera was her step-grandmother, who escaped from Corfu during the surname was Levi, Spera married a Japheth located Nina’s grave at who had married a second time to her Holocaust. And although the book man named Vittorio Moustaki and Kiryat Shaul cemetery, and on the grandfather, after she had gone was well received and won critical Rosa apparently also married, lived in headstone was written her father’s through a bitter divorce with a man acclaim, Corporon believed that until Rehovot and had children, but we did name, Shabtai — the Hebrew version named Vittorio Moustaki. she knew what had happened to the not know their names,” Corporon of the Greek name Savas. Buried by Mendelowitz and her mother knew Jewish family, the story had no end- said. Julia did not have children, and her side, Japhet discovered, was her Rosa (Shoshana), who had died just ing. died in Greece. husband Rahamim Levi. a few years earlier. She gave “My grandmother said Savas fled to “It was a very frustrating time,” says Corporon information about Rosa’s FINDING SAVAS Ereikousa with his three daughters Coporon. “I received an email that family in Rehovot — Bnaya, Avraham and his granddaughter when the read: ‘Unfortunately, we have aphet then turned his attention to and Peretz Hassid. Nazis came to Corfu, and the reached a dead end, let us know if Spera, assuming that if she had J MEETING ON THE STREET islanders hid them,” Corporon told you have more details.’ come to Israel, she could well have Ynet. “But I had one name — Vittorio changed her first name. The name n April 2014, Peretz Hassid’s “Every night, under cover of dark- Moustaki. I went to the MyHeritage Spera, Japhet guessed, comes from Iphone rang. On the other end was ness, they would come out of hiding site (a specialist in researching family the Spanish word Esperanza or hope; Aaron Godfrey from MyHeritage. and come to my grandmother and she trees), which I knew has a giant data- the Hebrew version, Tikva, was a “We have important information would welcome them with joy. The base of over a billion names, and common Israeli name. about your mother from the period of Nazis were conducting searches on typed the name ‘Vittorio Moustaki.’ My Acting on this assumption, he went the Holocaust,” Godfrey announced, another island to which Jews had fled, coffee cup almost fell out of my hand looking for all the women called Tikva and asked for a meeting. but despite explicit warnings that any- when I got results.” who came to Israel from Greece after The Hassid brothers, who were sus- one hiding Jews would die along with Corporon found a large family tree the Holocaust. The first name to jump picious, agreed to meet with Godfrey all his family, no one revealed the that lists Vittorio Moustaki and some secret. Everyone knew Savas and his first names of his family of Israel. But daughters were hiding in the parson- the details did not correspond — the age, but no one told.” ages and relationships of the family did not match. She got in touch with A SHOCKING DISCOVERY the principal contact listed on the fam- orporon decided to try to locate ily tree, and within an hour received CSavas’ descendants, to find out back a family photo. Yvette quickly what had happened to them. She checked the information with people never imagined the huge emotional who knew the tailor’s family. The peo- roller coaster to come, one that would ple in the picture were not the ones span the globe. she was looking for. She initially turned to the veterans of Frustrated at the impasse, Corporon the island, some of whom remem- asked MyHeritage for help. “It’s a bered the Jewish tailor and his three needle in a haystack,” she was told, “but we will do all we can to help.” The details of the mysterious story Spera and her husband Vittorio. reached the web- site’s founder, Gilad out at him seemed promising. Tikva and Japhet on the street outside their Japhet, a specialist Levi, a resident of 21 Geula Street, house. And soon they realized that in difficult family his- Tel Aviv. the story they had been told was true. tories. He offered to “This is the same street in which I “They knew everyone’s name and help and was imme- found Nina,” says Japhet. “I thought it the family connections between diately sucked deep- wasn’t a coincidence. I assumed two them,” says Avraham. “They told us er into the story. family members who survived the that our mother hid with three aunts, “There is little infor- Holocaust and came to Israel proba- whom we had met, and with Savas, mation here, some of bly wanted to live next to each other.” whom we knew nothing about, in a vil- it contradictory,” Japhet described his findings in a lage in Ereikousa and that Christians Japhet wrote to his detailed email to Corporon. “Year of hid them throughout the war. My staff. “My chances of immigration to Israel — 46. It seems mother’s time in the Holocaust had finding relevant infor- that was on the ship Henrietta Szold. been a black hole for us until that mation through the Father’s name: Savas. Wow! moment.” available data are Mother’s name: Rosa. I believe that Among the pictures in the Hassid Savas and his daughters. unfortunately less this Tikva is the Spera we’re looking apartment, Japhet identified a photo daughters, Spera, Julia and Nina, and than 0.1 percent.” for, because the pieces of the puzzle of Savas. The MyHeritage a little granddaughter named Rosa. But Japhet decided not to let it go. fit together so well. The chances of researchers told the Hassids that their Some thought that their surname was He plunged into a mountain of docu- this being a coincidence are low.” aunts were not their biological family “Israel,” but no one was sure, and no ments and rescued information, and With a little more detective work, but had formed an intimate connec- one knew what had happened to began to study names. That same Japhet located Tikva’s granddaughter tion with their mother as their fates them. night, he found Nina. Excited by the in the US, Michelle Mendelowitz, and became intertwined. Corporon then turned to the Yad discovery, he reported his findings. told Corporon how to reach her. “She “The Germans invaded Corfu and Vashem Holocaust museum in “I am delighted to report that I did it,” may lead us to Rosa’s children in began to round up the Jews,” says Jerusalem, whose staff had helped wrote Japhet. Of all the women in Rehovot,” he wrote. “I am giving you Japhet. “We assume that Savas, who survivors from Corfu, in order to Israel called Nina, he had found one the honor of contacting her and I look was a tailor and used to visit the locate Savas’ descendants. One who arrived from Greece after the forward to hearing the outcome of the neighboring island, fled there from Corfu native said that the name rang war, and who had the previous sur- conversation.” Corfu with the help of friends, taking a bell, while another even said that name “Israel.” Her father’s name, as it “My head exploded and spun at the with him his daughters and a little girl Nina, Spera and Rosa were with him appeared in the official recordings, same time,” says Corporon. She called Rosa who had been left alone on the illegal immigration ship was Savas, and her mother’s name wrote back to Japhet: “You solved the when her family was taken.” Henrietta Szold in 1946. The ship was was Shoshana. puzzle, they should save you a place On June 6, 1944, a transport from captured by the British and its pas- “Shoshana could also be called in heaven.” Athens arrived at Auschwitz- sengers were deported to Cyprus. Rosa,” Japhet wrote to his staff, “and Corporon contacted Mendelowitz in Birkenau, carrying 2,044 Jews of Staff at Yad Vashem managed to there was a good chance that the Los Angeles and told her the story. (Continued on page 15) Page 6 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2015 - Iyyar/Sivan 5775 SURVIVORS’SURVIVORS’ CORNERCORNER THROUGH HELL AND BACK the government, but we were The women were transported to the furniture and everything,” Andre said. BY BILL HAND, SUN JOURNAL deprived as far as food and clothing Dancy concentration camp and from Samuel managed to locate the boys and toys,” he said. t was on May 8, 70 years ago, that there on to Auschwitz. They were through social services and, for a IGermany surrendered to the Still, they managed to get by. never seen again. time, sought in hopes that his wife Allies. Andre Herscovici has good In 1942, Rose sent Henri and Andre “My father never saw her,” Andre and daughters had survived reason to remember and reflect, for for a two-week summer vacation at a says of his youngest sister. “And she Auschwitz. as a young Jew in , he lived preventorium at Beaurouvre, 95 miles was exterminated at Auschwitz.” While his father searched, the boys through the Nazi occupation and from home. aul Coche and his wife, who ran were sent to a Jewish orphanage in Holocaust. It was “kind of like a sanitarium or Pthe preventorium, found them- Jouy set up for children who had lost And half of his family didn’t. orphanage for people very poor or selves with 15 Jewish children whose one or both parents in the Holocaust. Andre welcomes me to his home in affected by certain sicknesses,” Andre parents were being whisked away “I was never a religious person,” Fairfield Harbour, N.C., and we sit at from their homes to their Andre said, but in the orphanage “we the dining room table where a stack of deaths. The Coches learned to recapture our Jewishness. papers and files await. At 83, Andre “decided to hide us We learned some Hebrew. We has a sharply etched face, neat white throughout the entire learned some holidays. We basically hair and sharp, almost startling eyes. war,” Andre said. learned that we were Jews. He talks slowly, almost without emo- “They saved our lives.” “I was a very upset young man tion, describing a life filled with victo- There were no hidden because of my experience during the ry, defeat, celebration and loss. rooms or attics involved, war, losing my mom and sisters. I was He was born in Paris to Samuel and Andre said. “We were determined to do something.” Rose Herscovici. According to the hiding in plain sight,” So, in July 1947, he and his brother Ghetto Fighters House Archives, his mixing with the other and father joined a group organized father was a tanner and his mother 200 or so students who by the orphanage who aimed to ille- was a seamstress and housewife. stayed at the chateau. gally join the newly forming nation of When Germany invaded France in “They risked their lives, Israel. They boarded the ship Exodus 1940, Samuel was called to war, leav- obviously,” he said of the and sailed into history once again. ing Rose to care for Andre and his Coches. Other people in The journey of the Exodus, a steam- town and even their fel- er packed with 4,515 people, most older brother Henri and little sister Andre Herscovici looks over documents he has gathered about his Georgette. A few months later, a family’s history in the Holocaust in France. low students were , would later be younger sister, Claudine, was born. unaware they were celebrated in movies and books. The “We had to survive through the dis- said. He was 9 then and his brother Jews. “We’d behave as Christians,” British were determined to keep the crimination and persecution,” Andre 11. While they attended, his mother he recalled. “So if they prayed, we passengers from entering Palestine recalled. He and his family donned stayed home with his sisters prayed.” Sometimes when Germans and so, near Haifa, rammed and the yellow Star of David patches on Georgette, 4, and Claudine, 2. came to the chateau, the boys were boarded the ship while the Jews put the left side of their jackets, stars with The boys had not been there long hidden somewhere in the house or in up a desperate fight to avoid being the “Juif,” French for “Jew,” sewn when a neighbor and family friend, the fields until the Germans left. deported. inside. “We were not allowed to take Madame Roby, wrote them. “My dear After the war, Samuel returned from “They had frigates that were a lot buses or even get out in the evening children Henri and Andre,” the letter his unit to find other people living in better than our lousy ship,” Andre to go to a movie,” he said. read, “Don’t come back home. The his apartment: his wife and children said, and the Jews were quickly over- “Things were difficult for our mother. Germans have taken your mother and were gone. powered. She received a certain allocation from sisters.” “Somebody took over and took our (Continued on page 13) THE LOST CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST Polish researcher explores the States and Israel. Semitism in her country led her to untold story of Jewish children Her study presents a grim picture of information documenting the human who were adopted by Christian a serious identity crisis, families which story of the Jewish children who were parents during World War II and fell apart because of the war and fam- saved by Polish families during the experienced a difficult identity cri- ilies which fell apart at the end of the Holocaust. sis at the end of the war, some war. Why was there no interest in what refusing to return to their families “Childhood in the Holocaust is an the children had to say? or to Judaism. issue which has been pushed aside,” “There was a feeling that the infor- Michlic says about the exclusion of BY TALI FARKASH, YNETNEWS mation was distorted. Children’s testi- children’s experiences from the aca- monies are naturally less accurate. bout a million Jewish children demic research. “There is a dispute Their interpretation of reality is some- A lived in Poland before World over the use of survivors’ testimonies, times different. The fact that they War II. Only few of them survived the particularly children, and it’s extreme- were young made historians question Holocaust, mostly after being “adopt- ly problematic, because if you look at their ability to remember. A child was ed” by non-Jewish parents. But for an research as a source of understand- of course the ultimate victim, and his unclear reason, the story of these ing history, the children and their testimony was a symbol — but only “miracle children” was pushed aside experiences aren’t even there.” on the psychological level. and neglected by historians for many A HISTORY OF A HOLOCAUST “Historians didn’t feel that it was an decades. WITHOUT CHILDREN important voice through which the cir- Until Professor Joanna Beata Children in the . cumstances and historical events — Michlic came along. Professor Michlic Jewish organizations, orphanages rofesor Michlic is the founder of and the history of the childhood in is a Jew of Polish descent, a social and kibbutzim in Israel, and collected the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute P general – during and after the historian who specializes in research live testimonies. She also spent some and a lecturer at the University of Holocaust should be examined. And into the Holocaust and its effects on time in Israel as a scholar as part of Bristol in the United Kingdom, and is children and family. She embarked on the prestigious Fulbright program, a sort of enigma. She was born and this is, in my opinion, an important a journey retracing those children’s which advances academic-scientific raised in Poland. A study she con- part of the documentation. It’s true (Continued on page 12) footsteps, delved into archives of cooperation between the United ducted as a student about anti- May/June 2015 - Iyyar/Sivan 5775 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 7 LOST IN THE RUBBLE OF WARSAW bearing the name “Stanislaw the family would increase their ended the Nazi occupation, a farmer BY VANESSA GERA, AP Pomorski” — meant to hide his chances. and his wife came to the orphanage to adopt a boy. Lifting Miecio’s chin, he young boy emerged from the Jewish origins. A shopkeeper agreed to adopt the wife turned to the priest and said, rubble of Warsaw, clinging to a A Polish policeman took the baby to Stefania, but it was more difficult to T “Father, we want this one.” woman he knew only as Mrs. Wala. a home for abandoned children. shield Jewish boys, because they “No, you don’t,” Father Andrzej said. She turned and walked off, and seven- The next year, Tirosh’s father, were circumcised. “He is weak, and always sick.” year-old Mieczyslaw Kenigswein was Samuel, was helping other Jews plan Pietak found a place for Miecio with But the couple insisted. That night, alone, lost in the Holocaust. the ghetto uprising when he decided a woman he remembers as Mrs. to flee with his family. Wala. She had a daughter about his the farmer’s wife bathed him. Despite Now six, Miecio and his four- age and agreed to take him in for his efforts to hide his private parts, year-old sister, Stefania, were money. she discovered his circumci- packed in padded sacks and During the 1944 bom- sion. The next morning, the thrown over the ghetto walls. bardment, the German farmer returned Miecio to Then the parents climbed over. response to the the orphanage. They found shelter with a Warsaw uprising, Today, he is grateful the Polish family, the Raczeks. sirens signaled for peo- couple didn’t keep him. Had The family hid behind apart- ple to take shelter and he stayed on the farm, he ment walls or in closets during Miecio ran into a cellar might never have been German inspections. The pun- with Mrs. Wala. found by his mother. ishment for helping Jews was The bombing caused ith six million Jews severe: death to all rescuers the four-story building W dead and survivors and their families. above them to col- bereft of loved ones, the Mrs. Raczek decided after a lapse. The survivors Kenigsweins were lucky: few months she could no emerged to an apoca- Both parents and their three longer bear the risk. lyptic scene. Moshe Tirosh. children survived, and Pietak stepped in again, this “In one hand, Mrs. Wala held a suit- Regina Kenigswein eventually time to smuggle the case and, in the other, her little tracked down her children. Kenigsweins to the Warsaw daughter’s hand,” he said. “I held onto The woman who adopted Stefania zoo, where the director and her skirt and we ran.” did not want to give her up but was his wife, Jan and Antonina “At one point, we stopped and I lost persuaded when offered money. Zabinski, had been sheltering hold of her. ... She turned to me and The youngest, Stanislaw, had been Jews. made an expression that said she evacuated with other foundlings to the Then named Mieczyslaw Kenigswein, Tirosh is the boy on On a rainy night, the family was very sorry that she was leaving city of Czestochowa, where his moth- the right. Mother Regina is at the top left, with daughter er found him. Stefania by her side. In the front are children Stanislaw and climbed into a horse-drawn me, and then she walked away with Rachel. carriage for the trip, past her daughter.” She found Miecio 10 months later in a church-run orphanage in Krakow, He is now 78, an Israeli with a German guards on both sides Miecio pressed his hands together where he was taken after the war. At Hebrew name, Moshe Tirosh. During of a bridge. and kept repeating “Jesus, where is first, he didn’t recognize her. The a visit to Warsaw, he recalled surviv- Pietak sat next to the driver. When my aunt?” Mrs. Wala had taught him orphanage director, not knowing he ing the war not knowing if his parents they approached the guards, he pulled to do it — to appear Catholic. out a bottle of moonshine and splashed Polish underground fighters pulled was Jewish, didn’t want to give him up. were dead or alive — and how ran- “How can he be yours if you are the horses and himself with it. him into shelter. They gave him a card dom twists of fate saved his life. Jewish and he is a Pole?” the director “Halt!” the Germans ordered. When saying he was an orphan and sent Tirosh’s earliest memories are of asked. they smelled the alcohol, they shout- him on. With the help of another hunger and misery in the Warsaw The boy was told to pull down his ed: “Polish pigs, go away!” stranger, he made his way to an ghetto. pants, his circumcision again the They made it to the zoo. By this orphanage. Called Miecio as a boy, he was proof of his Jewish heritage. time, most of the animals had been He was evacuated with the other nearly five when his mother, Regina, After the war, Samuel Kenigswein gave birth to her third child under killed or hauled off to Germany, and orphans to southern Poland, and lived made a fortune manufacturing shoe floorboards, biting her knuckles to Zabinski had turned it into a pig farm. out the war in a monastery. polish. Two more children were born. keep from screaming so the Germans he Zabinskis could not keep “There I endured hell,” he said, Then their luck ran out: Samuel would not discover them. T them indefinitely. With the help describing hunger, flea infestations Kenigswein’s heart gave out in 1948, The parents made the excruciating of Pietak, the family found shelter in and beatings by older boys who dis- soon after his fifth child was born. decision to part with the infant to the tiny apartment of a captain in covered he was Jewish after pulling In 1957, the rest of the family emi- increase his chances of survival. Poland’s underground army. But the his pants down. Disease was rife. grated to Israel. Tirosh became an With the help of a young Pole, necessity of buying so much food for Every day, nuns carted away the army officer and married. Zygmunt Pietak, his mother smuggled such a small household was certain to corpses of children. Today, he speaks with joy of his the newborn out of the ghetto and left arouse suspicion. On New Year’s Eve, just weeks three children, six grandchildren and him on a street corner with a card So it was decided that splitting up before the arrival of the Soviet army an extended family of 56. OLD NAZIS NEVER DIE have even advised the Syrian gov- execution. But his deputy, Mr. Like Brunner, he was part of a BY , ernment, according to , Brunner, was among those who wave of German soldiers and scien- director of the carved out new lives in the Middle tists who made their way to North s the decades roll by, there are Center’s Israel office (though with- East, where governments some- and the . Leaders A fewer and fewer Nazi war crim- out the benefit of an eye and three times recruited them to build up mil- in and especially viewed inals left alive to track down. Which fingers he lost opening letter bombs itary and intelligence programs. the Germans as more sympathetic made the recent reports suggesting over the years). A few years ago, as the Times’ to their aspirations than Britain and that , the top lieutenant It turns out Mr. Brunner wasn’t an Berlin bureau chief, I worked with a France, which still had significant to , may have died as anomaly. Many of the most notori- colleague on an article about the interests in the region. During World recently as a few years ago in his late ous Nazi fugitives — members of most wanted Nazi in the world, Dr. War II, many Arab nationalists had 90s all the more surprising. the SS and the — fled to . Investigators and Nazi hoped the German field marshal Even more startling for many, after the war, but hunters were searching for him in would sweep the though, was the fact that he wasn’t hundreds fanned out through the , but we discovered that Heim Allies out of the Middle East. hiding in or Brazil but in Middle East, primarily to Egypt and had absconded to Egypt, converted That respect for German military , Syria, where he had lived Syria. Eichmann was captured by to and quietly lived out his might and expertise survived the fall from the 1950s under the name the in Buenos Aires and days in a working-class neighbor- of the Third Reich. Following the Georg Fischer. Apparently, he may brought back to Israel for trial and hood of . (Continued on page 14) Page 8 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2015 - Iyyar/Sivan 5775 PHOTO HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE AMERICAN SOCIET

2015 Spring Luncheon honoree Danielle Karten accompanied by her son Izzy Karten. Executive Board Member Marilyn Rubenstein.

(front row) Selma Gruder Horowitz and Miriam Field; (back row) Danielle Karten, Pearl Field and Luncheon guests on a guided exhibit tour at The Jewish Museum. Harry Karten.

Eve Wald, Rose Moskowitz and Lili Stawski. Sigmund Rolat, Harry Karten, Samantha Asulin, Israel Yoram Edry, Danielle Karten. May/June 2015 - Iyyar/Sivan 5775 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 9 TY FOR YAD VASHEM ANNUAL SPRING LUNCHEON

Terri Pomeranc, Daniella Pomeranc and Sally Pomeranc. Members of the Karten family.

Top row (L to R): Hope Ziff, Marci Waterman, Rachel Shnay, Esther Chetrit, Azita Aghravi, Gail Perl, Wilma Aschendorf, Debbie Cooper. Bottom row (L to R): Lisa Chodosh, Gabriela Shnay, Brenda Abuaf, Alyson Richman, guest speaker, author of TheGarden of Letters. Ruty Fouzailoff.

ASYV supporters at the Annual Spring Luncheon. Stella Skura, Cheryl Lifshitz and Paquita Sitzer. Photos by Bernard DeLierre. Page 10 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2015 - Iyyar/Sivan 5775 REPORTREPORT FROMFROM YADYAD VASHEMVASHEM LETTERS FROM JEWISH LIBERATORS company had been moving across up because of the bombing of the rail- The soldiers’ response when they BY ROBERT ROZETT Germany for several weeks, and most road tracks and never reached met the SS guards near the train and recently Sammy had written home Dachau. Sammy wrote: “When our then in the camp itself was “to take no earest Mom, Dad and Jackie, from Nuremberg. Nonetheless, on the company first approached the camp prisoners.” They did this because of a There is so much I must write “D day they approached Dachau and we came upon a railroad on which burning righteous anger and the belief to you about. I know you have been later entered the camp, these soldiers there were many boxcars — all of that the SS were “no better than worried about me but the very fact would be in for a great shock. them filled with dead bodies, and the swine.” Sammy wrote that they killed that you have this letter should assure 350 SS men. The shooting of SS men you that I am still well and trusting in at Dachau is well known to historians, God. A little tired and worn out per- but remains a matter of controversy, haps and maybe a little older now especially regarding the number killed. than my 22 years — but well, never- Sammy’s letter may well put that con- theless.” troversy to rest, since it was written Thus begins what appears to be a only two days after the event, as unso- typical letter to his family by a young licited testimony in a letter home; it can American soldier fighting in Germany be considered free of bias. in spring 1945. But as the letter con- ollowing on the heels of the tinues, it is anything but typical. Its killings, Sammy next experi- young author, Sammy, a Jewish sol- F enced something no less compelling, dier from the Midwest, went on to but an occurrence of a different kind recount two consecutive scenes that altogether. When the soldiers encapsulate in high relief the entered the camp, Sammy related, encounter with Nazi camps by some prisoners surged forward, some of the Jewish soldiers who liberated falling on the ground at their feet and them. kissing their boots in gratitude. When On April 29, 1945, Sammy served in Dachau , Germany. Concentration camp prisoners raise the American flag after the liberation. the soldiers handed out cigarettes the company that spearheaded the On a street in the town, just outside stink was horrific. There were many and rations, people fought over drive toward the village of Dachau of the camp, they came upon a train. young children, women and men who them. A Jewish prisoner asked and the infamous concentration camp The cars were filled with dead bodies, had been lined up and machine- Sammy if it was true that there were that had been established there in among them women and children gunned to death by the SS just a few Jewish soldiers among the spring 1933 by the Nazi regime. who had died of starvation and dehy- days previously.” As they entered the Americans. Sammy answered him Before crossing into Germany proper, dration, or had been shot. This train camp itself, which they had smelled that he himself was a Jewish non - his unit, the 45th Thunderbird came to be known as the Dachau from far away, they saw additional commissioned officer and the prison- Division, had taken part in the bloody Death Train. It was composed of signs of atrocities — the dead, the cre- er “nearly went mad.” He wrote: and costly battle to thwart Germany’s some 5,000 prisoners who had been matoria and the hellish barracks — and “Soon I had about 50 Jewish men and last major offensive in the Ardennes dispatched to Dachau from they met prisoners in striped uniforms women hugging and kissing me. They Forest during the previous December Buchenwald on April 7, 1945, and had who told them of their terrible ordeal of were starved for ‘das Yiddish geist,’” and January — the Battle of the traveled for three weeks. It was held brutality, suffering and murder. (Continued on page 13) Bulge. Hardened warriors, Sammy’s YAD VASHEM SHOWCASES SURVIVORS’ TOYS ning to the car just to bring me my “The children in the Holocaust were Schwartz’s mother sold a precious BY PAUL GOLDMAN, NBC teddy bear.” very vulnerable and first to be attacked; stone every time the family needed Her family, along with Miszou, they [also] symbolize the future and money for food and accommodation na Rennert mislaid her best friend escaped death on this occasion, but hope of any given community.” on their long journey for survival. IMiszou the teddy bear as the Rennert’s father and grandfather were Children’s toys not only provided While Schwartz and her parents German bombs started falling. later caught and killed by the Nazis. comfort; some allowed their families lived through the war, her grandmoth- Her family was fleeing the Nazis’ Rennert eventually moved to Israel to survive. er, aunt, uncle and cousins died in 1939 invasion of Poland when the from France with her own two children. black-and-white picture of the Nazi concentration camps. In 1970, road they were traveling came under Now Miszou — which is showing its ASchwartz family attack. age, having lost an ear, nose and sits in the center of the “I ran and hid under a tree ... and mouth — is part of the “Stars Without exhibit. In it, Claudine Miszou was left in the car,” said a Heaven: Children in stands between her the Holocaust” exhibit parents, Miklosh and in Yad Vashem Irena, cradling a doll Holocaust museum in called Collette. Jerusalem. Some 70 “The doll’s dress is toys, drawings, diaries made from one of my and letters help tell the mother’s old dresses stories of the millions and the hair was of children who were taken from my hair,” swept up in the catas- she said. Little did trophe. four-year-old Ina Rennert looks at her childhood teddy bear, which is now housed The experiences of Claudine know that in a display case at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem museum. the Holocaust’s chil- Collette would help save her family she and her husband settled in Israel; dren — the 1.5 million after they were forced to flee Nazi- they have four children and 25 grand- Claudine Schwartz looks at a display of children’s toys, including her who died as well as occupied Paris. children. doll Collette, which form part of the “Stars Without a Heaven: those who survived — “My mother hid in the doll very valu- “It warms my heart to see children Children in the Holocaust” exhibit. are essential to under- able stones,” she said. “I never knew looking at my doll here,” Schwartz standing the horror that beset so the doll had something important said. “Especially that we are here in Rennert, who is now 80. “I cried hys- many, Yad Vashem director Avner inside it, and only after the war my Israel because here we are at home: terically and I remember my mom run- Shalev said. mother told me about this.” here nobody can tell us, ‘dirty Jew.’” May/June 2015 - Iyyar/Sivan 5775 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 11 THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR YAD VASHEM ANNUAL SPRING LUNCHEON DANIELLE KARTEN: “WE WILL NEVER FORGET” irst, let us all take a moment of The Holocaust reached far and wide. dered and that her father, Moshe, and centration camps. Fsilence, honoring the memory of The Shoah did not discriminate; Jews sister, Rose, had been taken to Izzy’s family was sent to Belzec at all the people who lost their lives in were killed if you were Reform or Belzec …. An the same time as Julia’s family. After the Holocaust. Orthodox; Sephardic or Ashkenazi. Aktion aimed at the one and only liberation, the survivors needed to I’m here to accept this honor for a These and many other stories are Jewish family in her village of cope with their losses. Sadly, there few people: for my incredible in-laws, taught and stored at Yad Vashem. Milatycze. were no cemeteries, nor any graves, Julia and Izzy Karten, may God bless y true relationship with Yad Thankfully, Julia had the presence to visit. Therefore Izzy and Julia their memories. For my dear sisters- MVashem began when I married of mind to quickly wrap the family gold joined the American Society for Yad in-law, Berne Bookhamer and Marcia Harry and became a Karten. That is coins into a handkerchief and tie it to Vashem as benefactors. Toledano; and for my loving husband, when I also married Yad Vashem. her wrist. It was with these gold coins It was decided that the first major Harry, whose endless support I cher- During the first few years of my mar- that she paid farmers to hide her. project was to build the Valley of the ish, and above all, for my three sons, riage, I was fortunate enough to hear Since Julia posed too much of a Lost Communities, a huge monu- Jonathan, Sharone and Izzy, to whom the heroic survival story of my moth- threat to the farmers, who could not ment, dug out of natural bedrock at we are passing on this legacy today. Yad Vashem, on Mount Herzl, in So how did I, an Israeli woman of Jerusalem. This project symbolizes a Sephardic background, end up stand- large gravesite, and it is a monument ing here, you might ask? And rightful- for 5,000 lost European communities, ly so. whose names, including Izzy’s village Yad Vashem and the Shoah were of Swirz and Julia’s village of part of my childhood education in Milatycze, are engraved into these Israel. There is one particularly vivid stone walls. memory I would like to share with you he legacy left to us by Izzy and — my class visit to the Children’s T Julia is the core of our family Memorial at Yad Vashem. I stood con- values. This story of our family has sumed by this dark hall, the echoes of been told and well absorbed by the the children’s names, one name after second and third generations. Four another, the glimmer of the lights that Karten brothers survived, and they represented 1.5 million innocent child have 30 descendants. victims. I will never forget my teacher It is sad that the story of the Karten telling us that it would take over six family is not unique. Each of you hon- years to say all of those children’s Jessica Glickman Mauk, Danielle Karten and Young Leadership Associates Co-Chair Abbi ored survivors have your own story to names. Halpern. tell. Another strong memory comes from er-in-law, Julia Grossberg Karten, z”l. help her any longer, she was forced to Would all the survivors please stand a story my grandma Simi told me When the war started, she was only turn herself in to the Bobrka ghetto. and allow us to applaud you? Would about my grandpa, Rabbi Moshe, and 16. Her father, Moshe, felt the threat Here, she met Izzy, who offered her all the second and third generation of Sheich Yossef, her father. They, along of the Nazis, and asked his wife, shelter in the woods, where they got Holocaust survivors please join and with the other community leaders, Berta, to sew the family gold coins married and spent three harsh winters stand with them? were taken by Nazis, from their into the hems of their coats: this, in together with Izzy’s three brothers This, my friends, represents the homes “ulad znagiya” in a small vil- case they were split apart. She was a and the rest of the Partisans. revenge we took on Hitler. lage near Marrakesh, . The beautiful girl with blonde hair and blue You may read Isidore’s memoir in a Let’s applaud all of them. We are all Nazis planned to leave the sheep eyes and could easily pass as a book that Yad Vashem published, here for one cause. Our shared histo- without their shepherds. Back in the Polish girl, and so it was clear that Survival in the Forest — the Swirz ry must be kept alive through educa- village, the community sensed trou- Julia was the one to be sent out on Camp, the story of the four Karten tion and commemoration. Our fami- ble, fear and loss. Luckily, the end of missions to find food. brothers, who were able to help save lies must continue to grow as does the war came a month later, and they One day, Julia returned to discover over 400 lives that otherwise might our support for Yad Vashem. were all released alive. that her mother, Berta, had been mur- have died in the ghettos or the con- L’Dor v’dor. RACHEL SHNAY: “IT IS UP TO US TO SPREAD THE FLAME” t is hard for me to put into words feel fortunate to carry the names of ing an Israeli flag, coming as part of my grandfather, his children, grand- Isomething that is all-consuming, is these two holy souls. Aliya Bet from Germany and arriving in children, and with 102 honoree sur- rooted from my very core and causes Rachel — the victim in me — fuels then Palestine; the other, him rejoicing vivors from around the world, baruch a never-ending flow of emotions the responsibility I feel to share and with other survivors as they listen to Hashem. As part of a WIZO delega- between my heart and soul. It is my memorialize; she feeds the strong Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion tion for the , past, present and future. It gives me sense of urgency I feel to teach as declare the State of Israel outside of 60 representatives from WIZO New perspective on every life occurrence, many people as I can about the hor- the Knesset in Tel Aviv. How did he and York as well as many dignitaries from whether joyous or solemn, it forces rors of the Holocaust. Faiga — the hundreds of other Auschwitz survivors around the world attended this mile- me to feel grateful even at my lowest survivor in me — ignites the passion I transform themselves from helpless stone event, and I am happy to see points, and it offers me a zest and have for teaching Torah and Jewish prisoners into fearless soldiers, ready some of those women sitting in the love for life that some may not always values, and ensuring continuity. And to fight for their own Jewish statehood? room today. The Nazis’ goal was clear understand. that is exactly what Yad Vashem rep- Just a few years prior, Symcha was a and simple: to annihilate every Jew. My name is Rachel Faiga Shnay, resents. Its meaning — “a place and a Chassidic little boy, the son of a great Did they succeed? After sharing four and I am a grandchild of four name,” refers to memorializing those rabbi in Lodz, Rabbi Yaacov Dovid awe-inspiring days with the survivors Holocaust survivors. My name, alone, who perished and honoring those Horowitz, and the youngest of seven and their families, it was clear that the represents so much history. The orig- who survived. boys. He was forced to watch his Nazis’ objective was defeated. The inal Rachel Shnay, my grandfather’s Walking through the haunting struc- father be hanged by the Nazis, his message, related in beautiful tributes baby sister, was murdered in the ture of Yad Vashem, I cannot help but mother and four of his brothers mur- by both Ronald Lauder and Steven Belzec gas chambers at the tender feel as though I am looking at the dered in Auschwitz. Symcha survived Spielberg, was that the world can age of six and was one of the 1.5 mil- faces of my brothers and sisters. Auschwitz, went on to become one of never forget, especially in these days lion children taken from us; she was a Those strangers in black and white the founders of the lsraeli Air Force of rising anti-Semitism and the exis- victim. Faiga Shnay was my incredi- seem so distant, yet they all have and fought in the War of tential threat to the State of Israel. ble, strong-willed and beautiful grand- a face that seems familiar. My Independence. Seventy years after we defied and we mother who escaped to Russia and grandfather, Symcha Horowitz, is eventy years later, on January resisted, we paused our busy lives to was forced into a slave labor camp in actually one of those faces. He is in S27th, 2015, I was fortunate to honor, to memorialize and to simply Siberia; she was a survivor. In the two photographs in the liberation sec- return to Auschwitz to commemorate acknowledge their existence. Something most devastating of circumstances, I tion: one in which he is proudly carry- the anniversary of the liberation, with (Continued on page 13) Page 12 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2015 - Iyyar/Sivan 5775 THE LOST CHILDREN OF THE HOLOCAUST (Continued from page 6) cussed openly. But most of them are no escaped back to her ‘parents,’ until her which increased their revulsion that children have a different sense of longer alive, and the relations between grandfather took her away forcibly. He towards the discovery.” time, a different outlook. Very small them and the children they raised were was a religious person and he put her TRAUMA MOVED ON TO NEXT children couldn’t even remember their broken in a very traumatic way. in a kibbutz with other children, GENERATION because he felt that the gaps between them were too big and he wanted her How did the families that sur- to reaccept her Jewish identity.” vived the horror deal with the new Avinun’s story ended well. “She has difficulty? a wonderful family and a Jewish iden- e know that the best results tity, but for a long time she kept in “Wwere achieved in cases in touch with her adoptive parents, who which the children were not forced to didn’t even know she was Jewish. abandon their Christian beliefs. The There were periods of great difficul- family rehabilitation was the hardest. ties, of a mixed identity, of a rejection The Jewish identity was just one of anything related to Judaism and problem among a slew of difficult Jews. The adoptive mother refused to problems. For example, according to acknowledge the fact that the daugh- ter was Jewish, and just wanted her back even many years later. “And there were children who decid- ed to stay with their Christian identity, and kept their Jewish identity a secret for many years. This group has been A group of Jewish children just before they were executed by a Nazi . shrinking in recent years. There were children who found out the truth as name. They lost the reality of who “One of the most wonderful places adults, like Romuald (Jakub) Weksler- they were, as they were unable to use to learn about the connection was Waszkinel, who was already a their real name for a while.” through letters the children wrote to Catholic priest when he learned the These children at Auschwitz, liberated by the Soviet army on January 27, 1945, show their Jewish organizations during the civil truth, and to this very day he lives in PARENTS TURNED INTO tattooed arms to the photographer. struggle in Poland, asking that their Israel with a split Jewish-Catholic STRANGERS rescuers be protected.” identity.” the Jewish organizations’ documenta- n her study, Michlic documents According to Michlic, “Even if the tion, most of them faced difficulties JEWISH KIDS PRAYING TO heart-rending descriptions of parents survived, there were children concerning food. I VIRGIN MARY tragedies and traumas suffered by the who wanted to officially convert to “There were children, boys, who lucky children who survived with a he documentation discovered by Christianity. These experiences, were forced to dress up as girls in hid- false identity. T Michlic described dozens of unfortunately, were not part of the his- ing, and they continued to dress as “It was so traumatic,” she says, “that cases of difficulties in bidding farewell torical memory for many years. Some girls for years, and their gender had to after the war, when the children’s rel- to the adoptive family. Sara Avinun, of the children didn’t really talk about be restored. Some of the lucky chil- atives arrived to take them home, one of the interviewees in Michlic’s it and suppressed it, but even those dren who managed to survive the they saw them as complete strangers. research, documented her story in the who did were not heard. And so you Holocaust with one parent, and Some of the Jewish children who book Rising from the Abyss, which could see a child who wants to emi- arrived in Israel, succeeded in devel- were transferred to a Jewish orphan- Michlic sees as one of the most power- grate to Israel on the one hand, and oping very close relations. But what age in Poland after the war tried to ful and important depictions of the child continues to go to church every happened in cases in which the par- escape to the people they saw as experience during the Holocaust. But Sunday on the other hand.” ent remarried? their parents. The emotional connec- this documentation, she says, didn’t The division of the religious identity “We must remember that the par- tion between them was very deep in receive the proper research attention continued. Michlic describes many ents who survived had their own prob- some cases, and the separation was in previous years either. cases in which small children contin- lems. They had survived concentra- heart-rending.” tion camps, death camps, even Who were the Christians who Soviet occupation, and years of hid- took in those children? ing in Aryan areas. Some suffered “The rescuers came from a very from mental and emotional problems. wide variety. Some took care of them They didn’t always have the ability to as if they were their own children. deal with the child’s traumas. Children Others expressed anti-Semitic views, were sometimes left in orphanages and some were violent towards the for a long time, until their parents adoptive children, as well as towards managed to get back on their feet.” their biological children. There were And what happened when the also cases in which families murdered parents didn’t survive? the children they were entrusted with. “It wasn’t always clear who was “In homes in which children were responsible for the children. abused — sexual abuse too, by the Sometimes it was an aunt or uncle, way — they were very happy to find sometimes an extended family. Today out about their Jewishness and leave. we know from research that children But in families in which they felt loved who were taken care of by relatives and appreciated, there were huge dif- Many Jewish children who escaped the Holocaust by being hidden as Christians discovered their sometimes felt like they don’t belong ficulties. Some of the parents didn’t true heritage later. and didn’t receive the level of care they even know that the child they adopted “She describes the experiences of a ued to pray to Virgin Mary, or kept her needed. Some of them just didn’t know was Jewish, and the separation was little girl, who at a certain stage, after picture. And it accompanied them how to deal with a child who had gone heart-rending. It took some of them a number of difficult experiences of even when they already knew they through what they went through. years to really say goodbye.” sexual abuse, abandonment and were Jewish. “Most of the children,” Prof. Michlic Michlic further notes that under the more, found herself in a Christian “Others,” she explains, “found it dif- concludes sadly, “were not smiling Soviet regime, “the issue became a orphanage. She was taken away from ficult to get used to the idea that one ‘poster kids,’ but scarred children with taboo. The Polish families were afraid there by a childless Polish couple and can be Jewish again. These are chil- difficult problems. The untreated trau- to reveal their connection to the Jews’ created a renewed childhood for her- dren whose entire family, community, ma moved on, when they became par- children, and therefore did not maintain self,” Michlic says. was erased. They were afraid to ents, to the second and third genera- it. The archives were sealed. Only “After the war, when she was nine return to their Jewishness, afraid to tion. Today’s Israelis have been raised today, when they have become local years old, her uncle arrived, and she speak Yiddish. In many cases, they and are still being raised in the shadow culture heroes, the issue can be dis- simply refused to go with them. She were raised on anti-Semitic stories, of this trauma. It isn’t over yet.” May/June 2015 - Iyyar/Sivan 5775 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 13 RACHEL SHNAY : “IT IS UP TO US TO SPREAD THE FLAME” (Continued from page 11) tracks in Auschwitz that led over a were forced into the gas chambers stories of the survivors, each its own so simple yet so profound. million Jews to their deaths, a group never imagining that their dreams of miracle. According to Jewish law, when a of Israeli Air Force solders walked Zion, of an army to defend us, of a Mr. Kent continued, in what I think person dies we hold a huge responsi- past us. With snow falling around us homeland, would ever come true. was the most bone-chilling statement bility and follow strict rules to make and only the light from our candles As survivor Roman Kent said so of the trip, “A minute in Auschwitz was sure that their lives are properly illuminating our faces, we took the beautifully in his speech at the com- like an entire day, a day was like a memorialized. All of that for one life, memoration, “We survivors year and a month an eternity. How one Jew. Performing all of these acts do not want our past to be our many eternities can one person have is the highest form of any mitzvah in children’s future.” I cannot in a single lifetime?” How is it that the Torah because we do not receive urge enough how important those 102 survivors, pure angels, sit- anything in return; it is the most self- education and tolerance are. ting a few feet ahead of us endured less act possible. And yet six million As part of the Young Leaders so many eternities? That question will could not receive the same honor. of Yad Vashem, I find it imper- forever be lingering in my mind. y coming here today, by your ative to spread awareness to s my grandfather holds my Binvolvement with Yad Vashem, as many people as possible, A hands, I thank Hashem for we continue to attempt to diminish the Jew and non-Jew alike. How those hands. Those hands are so pain, the suffering, the dehumaniza- lucky is our generation that strong, so powerful, yet so gentle and tion not only of their lives but of their we get to play a game of vulnerable. And what will we do with deaths. I always tell my students to Jewish geography consisting our hands? Our hands of privilege, of look past the number because it is of which day schools, sum- freedom, of life? I ask him, “Papi, I completely intangible; rather, think of mer camps and teen tours we just don’t understand, how did you every single life as an individual like attended, while I overheard survive?” Without hesitation he simply you and me. I show them a family tree the survivors at dinner play a said, “My name is Symcha Michoel, and what two people can create in just similar game but with names Symcha means happiness and gives a few generations, hundreds of of towns, ghettos, concentra- me mazal; Michoel is the angel branches. The Talmud states, “Saving tion and displaced persons Michael, who is always watching over a single life is like saving an entire camps? It was an honor to me.” Why is it that I, 25-year-old world,” but I cannot help but wonder meet many of the survivors Rachel Shnay standing here before just how many worlds one can Featured speaker and member of the Young Leadership there, and being in their pres- you, get to live a beautiful life with destroy? We must always remember Associates Rachel Shnay. ence changed many of us in a endless opportunity while the 6-year- that the Nazis did not only murder six once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stop profound way. As we sat under the old Rachel Shnay never had a million, but they murdered every single and sing “Hatikva” together. The tent that canvassed the entrance of chance? We may carry their names, possible generation that could have, words pierced through to our core: Auschwitz-Birkenau, we were in com- we may tell their stories, but we can should have come out of those beauti- “Lehiot am chofshi be’artzenu”, “To be plete awe to be experiencing such a never forget their sacrifice. It is Yad ful souls...millions upon millions. a free nation in our home,” the exact moment in history. Tears streamed Vashem that has ignited the fire, and As our group walked down the same same words that many sang as they down our faces as we listened to the it is up to us to spread the flame. THROUGH HELL AND BACK LETTERS (Continued from page 6) fered. It was a very hard life during FROM JEWISH LIBERATORS ndre made it to the dock at the war. After the war I was deter- A Haifa, but no farther. The pas- mined to do something for the Jews. I (Continued from page 10) some of the Jews he met and how he sengers were put into three prison volunteered. My adult life was he wrote, “and I so much wanted to tried to help them, thanking his moth- ships and taken to France, where the involved in volunteering. I wanted to make them happy. I sang from er for teaching him to be a “mensch.” English intended to force them start my life finally for myself.” ‘chaznish shtieklach’ for them and merican soldiers in Europe, ashore, but the Jews refused to leave He returned to France, though only also ‘a Yiddishe mame.’ One asked if A including the Jews among and France refused to let the English briefly. “There was always an under- I wouldn’t write my Jewish name for them, did not enter the war with a force them out. Andre remembered current of anti-Semitism in France,” them on a piece of paper. Soon I was clear understanding of Nazi atrocities. his fellow passengers taking a blanket he said. But while in the military, he scribbling [it].” Some, especially the refugees among to fashion a British flag with a swasti- had a chance to see America. “I was Sammy most probably was the first them, may have had some under- ka on it as a means of protesting how able to visit here, and see the way Jewish soldier to enter Dachau. The jux- standing and even personal experi- they were treated. Jews were living here in freedom,” he taposition of shooting SS men and then ence with early Nazi persecution of Eventually the British decided to said. singing for Jewish survivors is nothing Jews, but they had only the vaguest take them through the Straits of In 1963, he settled in America, rais- less than surreal, but it was all too real. ideas of the machinery of repression Gibraltar, up the European coast and ing a family around Brooklyn and New ammy was not the only American and murder that had developed dur- back to the British Zone in northern Jersey. He eventually retired to his Ssoldier to ask himself why he ing the war, until they actually saw its Germany. There Henri, Andre and present home. was fighting and find his answer in his results. The sights and smells they their father were put in the Last summer he and his brother, encounter with Nazi atrocities and the met shocked and angered them Poeppendorf prison camp. who still lives in Israel, traveled to the surviving prisoners. Nor was he the deeply, and meeting Jewish survivors He doesn’t recall if they were old school where they had been hid- only one to feel that no punishment touched their hearts. released or escaped, but the three den as boys — a chateau now empty was enough for the perpetrators of the Reading these letters seventy years managed to find their way back to the and in disrepair. Their return was to crimes. On April 18, 1945, two different later, we should not allow the passage orphanage and, from there, return honor the family who had protected Jewish soldiers from New York City of time to blunt the forceful indignation again to Israel, this time legally. them, to witness the daughter of the wrote home about their first encoun- they express. Nor should we allow He did not fight in the early wars that Coches in a memorial event. ters with Nazi atrocities. time to diminish the heartfelt impulse determined Israel’s borders and sur- He worries about the international Keal, from Queens, wrote to his they depict to comfort and soothe the vival because he was only 15, but he situation with Muslim extremists (“It’s wife, posing the question, is any “ret- victims. We must try to learn from worked in the ports of Haifa and rode very dangerous, not much different ribution vicious enough?” Jake, from them that in the face of radical evil, armored trucks to be protected from than the Nazis who promised to elim- Brooklyn, wrote: “Dear Folks… If you war may be unavoidable and when Arab fire. When he came of age, he inate Jews and homosexuals and had any doubt as to the authenticity of necessary must be fought with deter- joined the military and was stationed anybody who was not Aryan,” he these atrocity stories, you can remove mination. But like these battle-hard- at a kibbutz, and also served in the says). He talks with his brother on the it right now…. It’s a sight I’ll never for- ened soldiers, we must never lose our building up of Elat in the Negev phone. He teaches skiing at Sugar get. They [the camp survivors] empathy and compassion for the Desert. Mountain. begged us not to show the Germans innocent victims of ideologiy’s vio- He remained in Israel for a number He’s been through hell and back, any mercy. They told me stories of lence and hate. of years but eventually decided he but he’s grown, and he’s found con- barbarism that is beyond the realm of wanted to start his own life. “Our life tentment in his American home. “I imagination.” In subsequent letters Robert Rozett is the Director of the was not really very fulfilling. We suf- really love this country,” he says. Jake wrote more at length about Yad Vashem Libraries. Page 14 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2015 - Iyyar/Sivan 5775 OLD NAZIS NEVER DIE (Continued from page 7) including , who had com- economy and former SS standarten- aware that Egyptian leaders hoped to defeat of the Arab coalition by the manded the Sobibor death camp. führer, lived with his entourage. The avenge the humiliating defeat by Israelis in 1948, German advisers More than 50 Germans were known Waffen SS member and German Israel. Dr. Hans Eisele, twice convict- were discreetly sought out as the best to have gone to Syria, while at least Special Forces commando Gerhard ed for crimes as a concentration resources for building new, stronger 70 more went to Egypt. Mertins trained Egyptian paratroopers camp physician, fled to Cairo as armies. In a French documentary last n most cases, the but also represented investigators once again closed in on year, The Nazi Exiles: The Promise of Irecruitment of people German businesses him. When the West German govern- the Orient, the French-German film- accused of war crimes like Mercedes and ment demanded that the Egyptians maker Géraldine Schwarz traced the was kept discreet. Yet Siemens. extradite him, they bluntly refused. paths of German soldiers of fortune, many of the Germans in Often enough the The Israelis were concerned fugitives and propagandists, including 1950s Cairo, known as government in Bonn enough about the Cairo Germans — Lt. Gen. Artur Schmitt, who fought the “Alemanni,” lived was happy to see its in particular their missile-making with Rommel in North Africa. The openly as they helped former soldiers at work expertise — to dispatch an undercov- Arab League recruited Schmitt to help modernize and train the in the Egyptian capital, er agent to Cairo. A letter bomb near- form a more effective fighting force. Egyptian army. They as long as their Nazi ly blinded the German secretary After a trip to the Golan Heights in rented luxury apart- pasts did not cause working for one of the rocket scien- 1951, Schmitt wrote to an Egyptian ments, drove Mercedes - embarrassment. tists. Another device addressed to Dr. colleague that the Arab defeat by Benzes on their week- “Contact with the Eisele exploded prematurely in the Israel had been “the consequence of end trips to the Red Sea German military advis- hand of his Egyptian postman. But by Egyptian leaders’ inability to take and had memberships ers” led to “a funda- and large they escaped retribution. advantage of the early stages of fight- at country clubs. mentally positive atti- The question for future researchers is ing to wipe the state of Israel off the In some cases they tude toward the how much influence the Germans had map with a blitzkrieg of two weeks at were merely following Federal Republic, over these rapidly changing nations most.” the jobs. With military . which has repeatedly and their security apparatus. “The Meanwhile, a Syrian agent traveled activity suspended in made itself felt agree- world as it is today was shaped after to Rome to seek out Walter Rauff, postwar , a career offi- ably in negotiations,” a staff member World War II, so the ’50s are a really who had helped develop the vans cer had few options but to find a new at the German Embassy in Cairo key era,” Ms. Schwarz said by tele- used as mobile gas chambers, to lead profession or seek his fortune abroad. wrote in 1957. phone from Berlin. “The Germans were a search for military and intelligence In her film, Ms. Schwarz tracked down Some, like the propagandist Johann advising the army, the secret service advisers. Within months dozens of the villa in Cairo where Dr. Wilhelm von Leers, remained committed Nazis and the police at the moment when Nazis made their way to Damascus, Voss, a leader of the German defense and anti-Semites, and were well these countries were being built.” MEMOIRS OF THE MURDERED (Continued from page 4) and his extraordinary individual attention he accords to experiences of Jews who were select- equation only when Germany began choice to volunteer to enter the camp Germans, Jews and , noting ed for labor, since some of them sur- to destroy its neighboring states. After to gather intelligence and organize where he can something about their vived to write accounts. The memoirs the of in 1938, resistance. lives and their places of origin, often by the likes of or Elie some 1,521 Austrian Jews were sent The German invasion of Poland did in Ukraine or Belarus. Wiesel bear the weight of the to Dachau. That summer more than not just mean camps for some Poles The special technique used to mur- Holocaust. Their power is such that 2,000 German Jews were also sent to but also ghettos for almost all of the der these Soviet prisoners at they create a kind of narrative arc from camps. After , the nation- country’s Jews. The Holocaust, how- Auschwitz, gassing, was based on concentration to extermination. In KL, wide organized by Nazi ever, began not when Germany the earlier German “euthanasia” pro- Mr. Wachsmann’s vast erudition allows authorities that November, 26,000 invaded Poland in 1939 but when gram that murdered people deemed us to see Auschwitz against the larger German Jews were sent to camps, Germany invaded the Soviet Union in handicapped with carbon monoxide. backdrop of the Holocaust and forces generally for short periods. The pur- July 1941. Although this is not his The use of Zyklon B at Auschwitz was us to different conclusions. The mem- pose was to intimidate heads of main subject, Mr. Wachsmann ably an adaptation of a program with which oirs are accounts of a special moment, households so that Jewish families relates how the pogroms and the camp commandants and guards of an intersection between concentra- would leave Germany. shooting of some Jews in the summer would have been familiar. As Mr. tion and extermination when victims of ith the German invasion of of 1941 became a policy of total killing Wachsmann demonstrates, the evo- the former could observe the horror of W Poland in September 1939, of Jews in Soviet territories by the end lution of Auschwitz into a gassing the latter. the character of the camps changed. of the year — a policy extended in facility for Jews only makes sense Mr. Wachsmann’s most impressive Now the main victims were Poles, 1942 to occupied Poland and then to against four separate backdrops: the achievement in this synthetic work is who were murdered and worked to all of occupied Europe. Auschwitz development of the technique of his portraits of individual human death in appalling conditions. Right became the major site of the gassing for the “euthanasia” program; beings. It takes hard effort to assem- after the invasion, 110 Poles were Holocaust only in 1943, as the Red the German advance into and retreat ble enough sources on inmates or SS placed in a cage in Buchenwald; 108 Army advanced westward, and first from eastern Europe; the associated men to sustain them as characters in of them were dead by Christmas. At the death pits and then the other decision to kill all Jews while the war a book of this length. The prisoners the new camp built for Poles at death facilities could no longer be was going on; and the development had a range of references to describe their ordeals, from the Book of Gusen, the mortality rate was 5% per maintained. of the camp itself. Exodus through Dante’s Inferno. In month. Between March and This meant one more adaptation for Mr. Wachsmann calculates that 80% the generations since, their experi- December 1940, more than 13,000 Auschwitz. It had been created to of the Jews who reached the entry ence has become one of our points of Poles were sent to Dachau. In the punish Poles and became a death gates to Auschwitz were selected for reference in moral discussions, and it years 1940 and 1941, Poles were the factory in 1942 in order to murder immediate murder. They were not, in is all the more gratifying to see the largest group of inmates in the con- Soviet prisoners of war. As Germany other words, concentration camp camp inmates portrayed here with centration camp system as a whole. conquered the western Soviet Union inmates at any point: like the Jews who unvarnished humanity. Mr. The new camp at Auschwitz, built on in the second half of 1941, it starved stood over the death pits of the East or Wachsmann has in effect united the the site of a Polish military base, was millions of prisoners of war in enclo- those gassed at Chełmno, Treblinka, best of the German and the British constructed in 1940 to intimidate the Sobibor Bełżec sures that can hardly even be called and , they were simply schools of grand World War II history: Polish population. As Mr. Wachsmann camps, and it selected tens of thou- murdered. Jews who arrived at hugely but humbly exhaustive writes: “Today Auschwitz is synony- sands for “special treatment” — mur- Auschwitz actually had a better research with attention to character mous with the Holocaust, but it was der — at the camps. Some 9,000 chance of survival than Jews who and to detailed narrative. His argu- built to impose German rule in were murdered in Sachsenhausen were deported to those other death ments will be described as “revision- Poland.” There is still much to be alone in September and October facilities, because at such places there ist,” which is true only in the sense learned from Polish sources about 1941; more would be killed at was no selection for labor. that all good history revises and cor- Polish prisoners of the camp, for Auschwitz. Mr. Wachsmann treats ur understanding of Auschwitz is rects the errors of collective memory, example about the resistance leader these Soviet victims with the same Ounavoidably influenced by the which follows its own muses. May/June 2015 - Iyyar/Sivan 5775 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 15 AN OLD HOLOCAUST SECRET NEWLY TOLD (Continued from page 5) meeting with Shoshana’s sons I wandered from place to place with for the rescue. Corfu. The German documents from occurred at its close. Sigalit Hassid, no clothes and no food. I feared that Corporon, who has found the end Auschwitz place Shoshana’s father, Shoshana’s daughter-in-law, sud- the Germans would catch me.” to her book, was suddenly hit by a Peretz Belleli, at Buna-Monowitz, denly recalled that a few years earli- The file states that Shoshana was fateful event. In April 2014, thou- the forced labor camp next to er, her daughter Inbar had been the only one of her family who sands of miles from Israel, a neo- Auschwitz. According to the records, investigating the family’s roots. remained alive, and that she had Nazi opened fire at a Jewish com- he was murdered on March 9, 1945. Sigalit thought that perhaps her been afraid her entire life that the munity building in Kansas City, Details of the rest of the family have daughter’s school project included Germans would return and take her killing three people. The motive for not yet been found. something about the Holocaust, and too. the murder was anti-Semitic, but the The Hassid brothers were finally rushed off to look for it. Shoshana, it To obtain conclusive evidence dead were passersby and learning their mother’s history. And turned out, did not tell her children about her family, MyHeritage staff Christians. in a Skype call from the US, an emo- anything, but could not refuse her explored every possible avenue, Two of the dead, 14-year-old Reat tional Corporon told them for the first granddaughter. including the testimony by Underwood and his grandfather, Dr. time the story of the family’s rescue “The Germans came to the island Shoshana, who had been just nine William Corporon, were Yvette’s rel- on the island of Ereikousa. of Corfu, where my grandmother when the Germans caught her fami- atives. “In one moment, at the height “Suddenly we realized where it all lived,” wrote Inbar. “They gathered ly. of the investigation, I became a vic- up all the Jews in Corfu, “My brother Gabriel Belleli, 15, tim of anti-Semitism myself,” she including my grandmoth- was killed in Auschwitz,” she wrote tells Ynet. “My fate is now tied to the er’s family, her parents in her testimony at Yad Vashem. But fate of Savas’ family.” and her brothers, and international searches turned up an Savas’ daughters, Nina and Julia, killed them all. My grand- exciting fact: Gabriel Belleli, born in were married but neither had chil- mother and three aunts Corfu in 1930, is on the list of sur- dren. Julia remained in Greece, and were saved because vivors of the Bergen-Belsen concen- was married and died in Athens, they were hidden from tration camp. The last recorded date where she is buried in a Jewish the Germans by good on which Belleli appears is cemetery. Nina died in Israel, as did gentiles who agreed to September 1945, six months after Spera. help.” the war ended. Could it be All the information that Shoshana’s older broth- finally fell into place. The er survived? Ereikousa story was The information converges true. with the examination of doc- uments at the City Hall in A BROTHER WHO Corfu, and chances of this SURVIVED being the right person drasti- yHeritage cally increase. Gabriel Mresearchers Belleli, born in 1930, is the began to map out all the son of Peretz — the same information known to name as Shoshana’s father. them, collecting all the In 1955, Gabriel Belleli is documents in Greek left removed from the population by Shoshana, all the pic- registry in Corfu, and is now tures and all the con- listed as “Not in Existence.” tacts, and began looking “Now the task is to track for relevant documents down Gabriel Belleli,” say from around the world. the MyHeritage staff. “If he Shoshana at her wedding to Yaakov Hassid. After many conversa- managed to survive, it is began,” says Peretz. “We were tions with Auschwitz survivors from possible he never knew his never allowed to ask our mother Corfu, it emerged that Savas had sister Rosa survived the about the war. Occasionally we another son, Solomoninio, who was Holocaust and immigrated to would hear her talking to our aunts more than likely killed by partisans Israel.” in Greek, but we were not allowed to who suspected him of collaborating COMMON FATE interrupt. It is very moving to think with the Germans. that an entire island was involved in In the documents Shoshana sub- or Avraham and Peretz, the rescue and that we are here mitted to Yad Vashem in 1999, she Fthis is startling informa- thanks to the people there.” listed the names of just two of her tion. Until recently, they Shoshana Hassid, it turns out, was six siblings — Menachem and knew nothing about their married in the 1950s to Yaakov, an Gabriel. MyHeritage staff contacted mother’s history, and sud- Solomoninio Peretz. immigrant from Turkey. In 1964, just government officials in Greece and denly the family that they Now, the investigation is focused a few years after she rebuilt her life, Israel, and they agreed to help. knew was no longer the same. They on trying to locate Gabriel Belleli her husband was killed in a work A document in Greek found in look at the picture of the three young and finding the burial place of accident. Shoshana’s apartment, with a birth children, and wonder whether one of Savas, who apparently died after the “At that moment, her life was over certificate signed by a notary, led to them is Gabriel, and whether he sur- war and was reportedly buried by his for the second time. She had seven the discovery of a file from the vived. daughters with their own hands. The years of relative happiness, that’s 1990s containing Shoshana’s “Seventy years after the trauma experienced by Savas’ all. After that she only wore black request for compensation, at the Holocaust, suddenly everything is daughters during the Holocaust and knew no happiness,” says archives of the Ministry of Finance. up in the air,” says Avraham. “It went with them to the grave. Avraham. The file also contains a testimony by pains me that my mother is no Avraham and Peretz, the last sur- “The world was cruel to Shoshana, in her own handwriting. longer alive and I cannot talk to her viving biological members of the Shoshana,” says her friend Rina “In ‘43, the Germans came to about what happened there, as I family, will go to Ereikousa in June Mizan, herself an Auschwitz survivor Corfu and immediately began to now know what happened to her.” for a ceremony, during which Savas’ from Corfu. “She did not have a round up all the Jews, but the As the investigation continues, the old sewing machine will be placed in moment’s relief in life. She would Germans could not catch those who story reached the organization of the parsonage where the family was occasionally come to my house, and fled. I ran into the mountains and vil- Jewish communities in Greece, who hidden during the war. we would be silent together.” lages with the help of other people. decided to hold a special ceremony Corporon is now working on a doc- The most dramatic moment of the After the Germans occupied the city, to honor the residents of Ereikousa umentary of the full story. American & International Societies for Yad Vashem NON-PROFIT ORG. MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE U.S. POST 500 FIFTH AVENUE, 42nd FLOOR PAID NEW YORK, N.Y. NEW YORK, N.Y. 10110-4299 PERMIT NO. 9313

Web site: www.yadvashemusa.org Society Editor (212) 220-4304 Editor-in-Chief for Yad Vashem, Inc. Vashem, Yad for New York, NY 10110 NY York, New Ron B. Meier, Ph.D., Ron B. Meier, EDITORIAL BOARD EDITORIAL *Published Bimonthly by the American by the Yefim Krasnyanskiy, M.A., Krasnyanskiy, Yefim 500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor Avenue, 500 Fifth Martyrdom & Resistance May/June 2015 - Iyyar/Sivan 5775 - Iyyar/Sivan 2015 May/June *1974-85, as Newsletter for the American *1974-85, as Newsletter for the Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp Inmates, and Nazi Victims **deceased Eli Zborowski** Marvin Zborowski Mark Palmer Sam Skura** Israel Krakowski** Mandell William Sam Halpern** Isidore Karten** Norman Belfer Joseph Bukiet** director , who “Eichmann for me was a symbol of cold a “steady, The Nazi maintained Fruchtman said: “Eichmann tried to He insisted he had been following But Prosecutor Gideon Hausner In court, the accused, 56, said he He was found guilty of war crimes Anthony The film also stars He said: “Before the trial people who He said: “Before the Martin Freeman said: “Maybe it was He said those responsible for such all this cruelty, an architect for people all this cruelty, waiting for their deaths.” gaze” through the trial, said Fruchtman, and prompted reporter to coin the term “the Arendt Hannah banality of evil” about him. communicate an attitude of intellectu- al powers, referring to philosophers like Kant. He attempted to convey what he considered to be intellectual Some of his testimony superiority. was ludicrous.” orders. produced evidence Eichmann had in 1945: “I will leap into my stated grave laughing because the feeling I have five million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction.” meant enemies such as the Soviets. and crimes against humanity and was hanged on June 1, 1962. His ashes were scattered on international waters just hours later. LaPaglia as to put on the frozen paths.” to put on — say ‘shut up’ heard my story would the reality of a they couldn’t believe I did. Only after- child seeing what have any sense of wards did people suffered. how much we had was blacklisted during the McCarthy period. of the first time the scale and breadth what happened had had a human face put on it — the face of the sur- vivors.” atrocities are not monsters with two heads but looked and sounded like us: “Which is the scariest thing of all.” Bearing witness: Yehuda Bacon. Yehuda Bearing witness: horrific to be true, MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE One cameraman who had Polish man gave testimo- A He said: “He caught the “From behind the fence “The Nazi grabbed the mitted pictures of cold gaze Eichmann’s behind bulletproof glass to 37 countries. lost his family in the out hear- Holocaust passed ing the story of a woman on top of a mass grave being repeatedly shot at. ny of a Nazi chasing a woman carrying a baby. woman, pointed his pistol at The her and the baby. woman pleaded for mercy — that she be shot first and leave the baby alive. Polish people raised their hands, ready to catch the hand She was about to baby. the baby over the fence. baby from her arms, shot the woman twice and took the he world watched as mid-to- lower-level officials from the lower-level officials victims, whose stories had been T Yehuda One such was Jewish artist cre- He had worked at the camp’s “The voice said: ‘You must stop ‘You “The voice said: letters He received weekly Eichmann had gone on the run The harrowing case over 57 dad day, All the while, day after death camps were brought to justice death camps and dismissed as too were believed. Bacon, 85, who was imprisoned in Auschwitz when just 14 and lost all his family in the Holocaust. matorium and recalled that: “Sometimes we took the ashes of human beings from the crematorium said: “A gruff voice, with a heavy voice, with a gruff said: “A Are you ‘Hello. German accent, said: of the trial.’ the head of the recording I said ‘Yes.’ action, and it will we will take or now, The voice was cut not be pleasant.’ off.” action” if his warning of “severe team continued. in the war but was captured after Buenos Aires, Argentina, by to Israeli intelligence and taken trial. stand days showed the reality of Nazi death camps. of two Fruchtman and his team trans- baby in his hands. He tore the baby as one would tear a rag.” star , star- THE HOLOCAUST HERO TV PRODUCER TV PRODUCER HERO HOLOCAUST THE The Hobbit grenades and a and The Eichmann Show

WHO EXPOSED THE NAZIS’ TRUE EVIL TO THE WORLD TO EVIL TRUE THE NAZIS’ EXPOSED WHO or Adolf Eichmann, architect of or Hitler’s it was to , Sherlock

Fruchtman, who lives in New York, Fruchtman, who lives in New Two days into the trial, a phone call Two The program shows how Martin, 43, has said: “This is where Now the remarkable story is told in a American Fruchtman cajoled Israel Eichmann, it showed, organized the Eichmann, it showed, F TV a U.S. For Milton Fruchtman, tried to warn him off. Fruchtman, now 88, had a man armed with three during the his office revolver outside shoot. the Holocaust really became the Holocaust.” Martin Freeman as the filmmaker. ring Martin Freeman stars as Milton (center) in The Eichmann stars as Milton (center) in Martin Freeman Anthony LaPaglia. Show with co-stars Dylan Edwards and BBC film, into letting him broadcast the trial, had to use cameras hidden by chicken wire and then endured death threats for doing the job. systematic genocide of six million War. Jews during the Second World He had them hunted out, scheduled then and their trains to the camps organized the killing. producer, the Nazi henchman’s 1961 the Nazi henchman’s producer, was the chance to trial in Jerusalem Third first time the hold up for the full evil. Reich’s be the final reckoning. BY LAURA CONNOR, MIRROR LAURA BY Page 16 Page