Yad VaJerusalemhem QUARTERLY MAGAZINE, VOL. 73, April 2014 'Martyrs' and Heroesיום הזיכרון Holocaust Day 2014 לשואה ולגבורה Remembranceתשע"ד Jews “On the Edge” 1944: Between Annihilation and Liberation Yad VaJerusalemhem QUARTERLY MAGAZINE, VOL. 73, Nisan 5774, April 2014 Published by: Jews “On the Edge” Yad Vashem Contents The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority “Jews on the Edge” ■ 2-3 ■ 1944: Between Annihilation and Liberation Prof. Dina Porat Chairman of the Council: Rabbi Israel Meir Lau The Central Theme for Holocaust Martyrs’ and Vice Chairmen of the Council: Heroes’ Remembrance Day 2014 Dr. Yitzhak Arad ■ 4-6 Dr. Moshe Kantor Torchlighters 2014 ■ Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Prof. Elie Wiesel Treasures from Our Collections ■ 7 Day 5774 (2014) is marked by the situation of Chairman of the Directorate: Avner Shalev Locket of Love: Transnistria, 1944 the Jews in 1944 – exactly 70 years ago. The Director General: Dorit Novak expression “on the edge," taken from Nathan Education ■ 8-11 Head of the International Institute for Holocaust Alterman's poem “Joy of the Poor," very aptly Research and Incumbent, John Najmann Chair New “Video Toolbox” Offers for Holocaust Studies: Prof. Dan Michman expresses the feeling which prevailed that year Range of Lessons on the Holocaust ■ 8 Chief Historian: Prof. Dina Porat among the Jews of Europe, who were in the throes of a double race on which their very lives Academic Advisor: New Holocaust Program for Prof. Yehuda Bauer Israeli Educational System ■ 8 depended. On the one hand, cities from east to west, such as Vilna and Minsk, Warsaw and Members of the Yad Vashem Directorate: Lily Safra Chair of Holocaust Education Yossi Ahimeir, Edna Ben-Horin, Michal Cohen, Riga, Belgrade and Sofia, Paris and Rome, were Matityahu Drobles, Abraham Duvdevani, Promotes Outreach and Initiatives Prof. Boleslaw (Bolek) Goldman, Worldwide ■ 9 Vera H. Golovensky, Moshe Ha-Elion, Adv. Shlomit Kasirer, Yehiel Leket, New at the Virtual School ■ 9 It was a year in which Effi Shtensler, Baruch Shub, Dalit Stauber, Visit by French Minister and Leaders in Dr. Zehava Tanne, Adv. Shoshana Weinshall, everything depended Dudi Zilbershlag Holocaust Education ■ 9 on the scales of time, Graduate Spotlight: ■ 10 THE MAGAZINE Barbara Simoncelli, Italy and the Jews remaining Editor-in-Chief: Iris Rosenberg Increased Cooperation with in Europe were asking Managing Editor: Leah Goldstein Italian Ministry of Education ■ 10 Editorial Board: themselves: will the Yifat Bachrach-Ron Educational Activities for 27 January ■ 11 Deborah Berman Red Army from the east Richard Mann First-Ever Seminar for Susan Weisberg South Korean Educators ■ 11 and the Allies from the Cynthia Wroclawski Estee Yaari Gandel Seminar for Australian Educators ■ 11 west arrive before the Editorial Coordinator: Lilach Tamir-Itach Conscripted Slaves ■ 12-13 Germans come to murder Language Editor: Leah Goldstein Hungarian Jewish Forced Laborers Proofreader: Ezra Olman on the Eastern Front whoever is still alive? Translated by: KPoint New Online: www.yadvashem.org ■ 14 Assisted by: Alexander Avram, Rachel Barkai, Shaya Ben Yehuda, Ayala Peretz, Dana Porath, Remembrance Day Subsite being liberated from the yoke of Nazi Germany; Rebecca Schwartz, Amanda Smulowitz Features the Fate of Jewish Families in 1944 the Red Army was advancing, and the western Photography: Yossi Ben-David, Israel Hadari, Detective Work Completed ■ 15 Allies continued to bombard Germany, their Isaac Harari, Eitan Heyman, Jorge Novominsky Families of British POWs Receive Righteous Medal landing in Normandy tipping the scales still Production: Ahva Printing Press Company Ltd. further. On the other hand, in the same year, A Source of Living Memory ■ 16 Design: Stephanie & Ruti Design the Jews of Hungary were sent to Auschwitz, Names Database Inspires Global Commemoration This magazine was published with the the Lodz and Kovno ghettos were liquidated, assistance of The Azrieli Group. 27 January 2014 ■ 17 the last of their former inmates were deported ISSN 0793-7199 Worldwide Activities Mark International and murdered, and death marches were initiated Holocaust Remembrance Day from the liberated territories to the heart of what ©Articles appearing in this issue may be reprinted with proper acknowledgement. News ■ 18-21 remained of the “Third Reich.” It was a year in which everything depended on the scales of Yad Vashem’s activities are supported by Friends Worldwide ■ 22-27 time, and the Jews remaining in Europe were the Ministry of Education Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ asking themselves: will the Red Army from the Remembrance Day 2014 ■ 28 east and the Allies from the west arrive before and the Claims Conference Program of Events at Yad Vashem the Germans come to murder whoever is still alive? Or, as Alterman wrote, which ending will come first? Events were occurring fast, one after the other, raising serious questions in their wake. 2 Jews “On the Edge” 1944: Between Annihilation and Liberation The Central Theme for Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day 2014 ■ Selection on the ramp, Birkenau, Poland, 27 May 1944 ■ The crowds greet the liberating armies, Paris, France, 25 August 1944 In March 1944, the Germans invaded Hungary the first time. The industrialization of murder, and immediately commenced preparations for Nazi ideology, which the technology that acted in the service of Nazi the swiftest and most organized deportation was centered around ideology, the ability to commit crimes of such any Jewish community had ever witnessed: enormity in secret and over such a long period from the middle of May, over 430,000 Jews the burning desire to of time – all of them still deeply disturbing – from Hungary were sent almost exclusively kill every single Jewish were finally exposed. Following these events, to Auschwitz, where the vast majority was the Jewish jurist Raphael Lemkin coined the murdered in the space of two months. A ray of individual, dictated such phrase “genocide” in 1944, and participated in light that year was the beginning of the return efforts even in the final the drafting of a UN resolution for its prevention, of the remnant of those exiled to Transnistria, approved in 1948. a region in southern Ukraine where conditions year of the war, when the In October, an uprising in Auschwitz was were among the most horrific. At around the Germans needed every staged by the Sonderkommando, the group of same time, Zionist youth, other Jewish activists Jewish prisoners tasked with the unspeakable and neutral diplomats stepped up their rescue means at their disposal job of handling the bodies of the murdered activities in Budapest, ultimately contributing victims. They blew up one of the gas chambers to the survival of over 100,000 Hungarian to fight at the front with the help of explosives smuggled in to Jews. However, in June, Jews from the Greek them by a group of young Jewish women. island of Corfu were rounded up and deported, The question we must ask ourselves is, from and in July, the Kovno ghetto in Lithuania was where did these men and women, imprisoned liquidated. Nazi ideology, which was centered In June, the “Auschwitz Protocols” were in this indescribable place, draw the strength around the burning desire to kill every single disseminated around the world. This detailed to organize, band together, choose the right Jewish individual, dictated such efforts even account, written by Rudolf Vrba and Alfred moment, and actually hope to succeed? in the final year of the war, when the Germans Wetzler, two young Jews who managed to These events are at the heart of the tension needed every means at their disposal to fight at escape from the infamous concentration and between annihilation and liberation, a tension the front, including the urgent requirement for death camp, exposed for the first time the that was literally a question of life and death trains to bring them equipment and arms, and central role of the camp in the extermination for the Jews at that time, who were living on for every pair of hands that could still work to system. Shortly afterwards, with the liberation of the very edge. produce weapons that would turn the tide of Majdanek, the hard labor and death camp near the war in their favor. Lublin, actual gas chambers were revealed for The author is Yad Vashem’s Chief Historian. www.yadvashem.org for all related resources for Holocaust Remembrance Day 3 Torchlighters 2014 Compiled by Ehud Amir Zvi Michaeli ■ Zvi Michaeli was born in Thessaloniki Page of Testimony in his for nine days to Dora-Mittelbau. Zvi had managed (Salonika) in 1917, as Simantov (Saby) Mahel. memory. At Auschwitz, to preserve some 20 photographs of his family His father Shimshon was a trader and building Zvi was separated from and friends, but in March 1945, when he was contractor, his mother Esther a homemaker. the rest of his family; his imprisoned at the Ellrich camp in Germany, the Zvi had three older sisters as well as a younger parents and two older photographs were discovered and confiscated. brother, Tsadiko. Zvi attended a French school; sisters, Myriam and On 8 April 1945, Zvi arrived in Bergen- his knowledge of French would eventually Eleonora, were murdered Belsen in a state of severe malnutrition. On 15 save his life. that day. His sister Julie April, the camp was liberated by the British On 11 July 1942, a fateful day later known was killed some four army: “I had no strength to cheer. I was too as “Black Sabbath,” all Jewish men aged 19-45 months later. Zvi was transferred to the Buna weak to rejoice and too tired to be excited.” were ordered to appear at Freedom Square in Monowitz camp (Auschwitz III) and put to Zvi was hospitalized in Celle, and then taken downtown Salonika. Zvi was among the 9,000 various kinds of backbreaking labor.