Vol. 35-No.3 ISSN 0892-1571 January/February 2009-Shevat/Adar- I 5769 UN MARKS THE HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY ver six decades after 6 million the fourth since the General Assembly insti- intolerance and for relationships that Holocaust, not because of the numbers, OJews, nearly a third of the total, and tuted the annual commemoration. replace “us and them” with “we and ours.” the gas chambers but because of the sys- countless other minorities were butchered “But we can and must do more if we are Also about unlearned lessons of the tematic quest to liquidate a nation. First in the Nazi German Holocaust, it is more to make that hope a reality,” he stressed. Holocaust was the speech of Rabbi Israel Hitler declared it in his work “Mein Kampf.” vital than ever to learn from the tragedy to “We must uphold the standards and laws Meir Lau, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Years later came Nuremberg Laws that prevent further atrocities, United Nations that the United Nations has put in place to Council. Here are some excerpts from his declared that Jews have no rights to pos- Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned protect people and fight impunity for geno- very moving speech delivered at the UN sessions, to freedom, not to life. Years in his speech on January 27. cide, war crimes and crimes against headquarters in New York. later came the Kristallnacht, when 1500 humanity. Our world continues n April 11, 1995 50 years to the synagogues were burned and 30,000 to be plagued by ruthless vio- “Oday of liberation of the concentra- Jews sent to the concentration camps. lence, utter disregard for tion camp of Buchenwald I was invited to What was the reaction of the free world? human rights, and the target- Buchenwald. This was my second visit. What did they see? What did they say? ing of people solely for who The first time I arrived there, together with Now we know – almost nothing. they are.” my older brother Naftalie, in January of Three years later was Baby Yar. Thirty As well as the ceremony, 1945. I was seven-and-a-half-years old. three thousand, seven hundred seventy- chaired by Under-Secretary- We’ve got two prisoner numbers, one one victims: children, babies, women. General for Communications after another, and at that moment, I lost What was the reaction? Almost none. and Public Information Kiyo my identity. I was nobody. I was a number. Three months later the Wannsee Akasaka, the UN marked the On my second visit in 1995 I was a citizen Conference took place near Berlin: How occasion with panel discus- of the independent state, the state of to liquidate the Jewish people. They sions and other events, includ- Israel, and I was a Chief Rabbi of the state called it the “Final Solution.” The final ing an initiative by the UN of Israel. Not nobody, but somebody, and solution to solve the world’s problems Department of Public not a number any more. would be to get rid of the Jews, because Information called the You will agree that many things have we are the international poisoner. “Footprints of Hope,” which changed during these 50 years. May be et me tell you several things about brings the global network of you will say it is time to open a new chap- Lanti-Semitism. I believe that UN by the UN Information Centers ter. Let’s forget. Let’s forgive. I came to tell declaring January 27 the International together with local schools to you: We cannot forget. It is impossible to Day of Commemoration in Memory of the further youngsters’ under- forget and we are not authorized to for- Victims of the Holocaust is looking not to standing of the Holocaust and their respect for human rights Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Yad Vashem Council Chairman, through documentary and film addresses Holocaust Memorial Ceremony. resources. “We must continue to examine why the A new exhibit has also opened in the world failed to prevent the Holocaust and Visitors’ Lobby about the Nazi regime other atrocities since. That way, we will be called “Deadly Medicine: Creating the better armed to defeat anti-Semitism and Master Race.” other forms of intolerance,” he said in a eneral Assembly President Miguel message marking the International Day of Gd’Escoto echoed Mr. Ban’s call to Commemoration in memory of the victims the world to learn the lesson of the of the Holocaust. Holocaust. “We need to move beyond our “We must continue to teach our children statements of grief and memory, however the lessons of history’s darkest chapters. powerfully felt, and work to develop new That will help them do a better job than ways of thinking about the Holocaust, their elders in building a world of peaceful about genocide, about the apparently bot- coexistence. We must combat Holocaust tomless capacity for peoples’ cruelty to denial, and speak out in the face of bigotry each other,” he said in a message. and hatred,” he added in the message, “That capacity is shared by all of us. At read at a ceremony at UN Headquarters their core, all genocides, all holocausts, in New York by Deputy Secretary-General start with the alienation, demonization and Asha-Rose Migiro. the marginalization of the “Other” – those Holocaust Memorial Ceremony attendees at the UN observe Moment of Silence. Mr. Ban noted that new initiatives in citizens of another religion, another race, Holocaust remembrance and education ethnicity, another set of political ideas, or give. Even if I am a man of forgiveness just condemn anti-Semitism, but to defeat have given an authentic basis for hope, another sexual orientation than our own,” and kindness, I have no right to forgive on it, if it’s possible. Anti-Semitism is a spiri- which is the theme of this year’s observance, he added, calling for a struggle against behalf of my father, who was murdered in tual thesis, which has nothing to do with Treblinka at the age of fifty, of my 13-year logic. Why were we the target of the liqui- old brother Schmulik. I have no mandate dation? Did we threaten any nation in the from my mother, who died from torture, world? Did we have an army? IN THIS ISSUE and starvation, and diseases in concen- What did we do? Why did you hate us? tration camp of Ravensbruk, and my forty- Why did you kill us? UN marks the Holocaust Remembrance Day.............................................1 two cousins. I cannot forgive. In Poland, were I was born, it was said Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorated around the globe..............3 Sixty years later the UN was clever and that the society rejects us, Jews, because Rethinking Poles and Jews.......................................................................4 kind enough to declare January 27, the we are different. We wear beards, black The unholy legacy of Pius XII...................................................................5 day of liberation of Auschwitz by Red hats, we look strange. If we were like The “no-parent” Kindertransport..............................................................6 Army, the International Day of everyone else the society would embrace As Nazis age, leads still alive...................................................................7 Commemoration in Memory of the Victims us. Next to Poland, in Germany, many Rabbi Lau visits office of The American Society for Yad Vashem.........8-9 of the Holocaust. Sixty years after the hor- Jews were like everybody else. They con- New Yad Vashem books teach Holocaust to haredim..............................10 ror, but better later than never. tributed to arts, literature, politics, Three brothers defied terror....................................................................11 I want to share with you some of my finances, they were doctors, lawyers, A helping hand for Nazi victims..............................................................12 thoughts. Nothing can be compared to (Continued on page 2) The Holocaust, viewed not from then but from the here and now...........16 Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE January/February 2009 - Shevat/Adar I 5769 BLUEPRINTS FOR AUSCHWITZ CAMP FOUND IN GERMANY JEWISH ANGER AS POPE REINSTATES HOLOCAUST-DENIER he original construction plans Hans-Dieter Kreikamp, head of the feder- srael’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memo- The pope cancelled the excommunica- Tbelieved used for a major expansion al archives office in Berlin, as saying the Irial and the Simon Wiesenthal Centre tion of Williamson and three other bishops of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in blueprints offered “authentic evidence of slammed a Holocaust-denying English in a bid to heal a 20-year schism with tra- 1941 have been found in a Berlin flat, the systematically planned genocide of bishop whose excommunication has been ditionalists led by rebel French archbishop Germany’s Bild newspaper reported. European Jews.” cancelled by Pope Benedict XVI. Marcel Lefebvre. The daily printed three architect’s draw- There were mass killings of about one “It is scandalous that someone of this The Roman Catholic Church published an ings on yellowing paper from the batch of million Jews before the Nazi’s “Final stature in the Church denies the Holocaust,” edict lifting the 1998 sanction on Lefebvre’s 28 pages of blueprints it obtained. One Solution” was formulated in late 1941. The the institution said in a statement referring to successor, Bernard Fellay, and three other decision to kill Europe’s 11 million Bishop Richard Williamson, who has publicly bishops in his breakaway conservative Jews was made at the Wannsee denied the murder of six million Jews during movement, including Williamson. Conference in January 1942. World War II. He is on record as denying the exis- A copy of the minutes, known as “Denial of the Holocaust not only insults tence of the gas chambers. the “Wannsee Protocol,” is one of the survivors, memory of the victims and “I believe there were no gas cham- the most important documents the righteous among the nations who bers...