IN THIS ISSUEAmerican & International Societies for Yad Vashem Tribute Dinner...........1, 8-9, 11Personalizing the perpetrators......................................................................................4Holocaust kin last link to past.......................................................................................5Profile in courage...........................................................................................................5The highest honor of the best country in the world...................................................6Distorting Jewish history...............................................................................................7Serbian Holocaust..........................................................................................................7Kin reunited sixty-five years after Holocaust............................................................10An unexpected haven...................................................................................................11DNA key to finding victims of Holocaust...................................................................12Auschwitz artifacts highlight ethical dilemma for museums..................................14

Vol. 33-No.2 ISSN 0892-1571 November/December 2006-Cheshvan/Kislev 5767

The American & International Societies for Yad Vashem held our 25thAnniversary Tribute Dinner on November 19, 2006 at the Sheraton New York

Hotel and Towers. The over 1,200 guests, heads of major Jewish Organizationsand Dignitaries who attended were inspired by the moving remarks delivered byRabbi Israel Meir Lau, former Chief Rabbi of Israel and the current Chief Rabbi ofTel Aviv. Ambassador Arye Mekel, Consul General of Israel to New York and thechild of survivors, also brought greetings from the State of Israel.

The program was presided over by Dinner Co-Chairs Ira Mitzner and MarilynRubenstein. This year’s dual theme of Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of theAmerican & International Societies for Yad Vashem and Yad Vashem as the GlobalGuardian of Holocaust Remembrance helped us to focus on the outstanding peo-ple who were honored at the dinner.

Dr. Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson were presented with the Yad VashemRemembrance award for their outstanding contributions to the cause ofRemembrance. Most recently, the Adelsons donated the Museum of Holocaust Artat Yad Vashem, which exhibits art created by individuals in the darkest momentsof their lives. These works of art help give us a glimpse into the inhumanity of whatthey saw, as well as their souls, which could not be broken.

Eli Zborowski, was presented with a Lifetime Achievement for his contributionsto the cause of Holocaust Remembrance. We were reminded of all that he has doneboth as an individual and as the Chairman of the American & InternationalSocieties for Yad Vashem, to make sure that the world does not forget. In addition,we were able to see first-hand the contributions made to Yad Vashem by Mr.Zborowski and the Societies, which will help Yad Vashem continue to be at theforefront of Holocaust Remembrance.

ELI ZBOROWSKI, Chairman, American &International Society for Yad Vashem andRecipient of the 2006 Yad VashemLifetime Achievement Award

Honored Guests, Dear Friends:

This is a time for me to express grati-tude and give thanks. “Shechianu,

v’kimanu, etc.To all of you who

have gathered here thisevening, I say, “Thankyou and a hearty“Yasher Koach!” foryour dedication, yourhard work and for a jobwell done!

During the past quar-ter century, under theumbrella of the Society,we have garnered sup-port from individualsfrom all walks of life,those that survived in concentrationcamps, in hiding, as partisans, and asghetto fighters. We have also been joinedby families who were not personallytouched by the Shoah, but view remem-brance as a collective Jewish responsibil-ity. This is an evening dedicated to the cel-ebration of our joint accomplishments.We, all of us, jointly did it, we made it.

Thank you, to all of you, for your continu-ous support in the past 25 years.

The video we have just watched tells astory none of us would have dared pre-dict. How your generosity has enabledYad Vashem to become the premierHolocaust institution in the world. How ithas preserved the memory of the Shoahand its victims for future generations.Where did the spirit that drove this effort

come from? Fromeach other, from ourcommon goals andour commitment toRemembrance.

Iam privileged toshare this tribute

program with a distin-guished couple, Dr.Miriam and SheldonAdelson. Miri andSheldon have lent theirenergy and passion tonumerous philanthropic

causes, both in this country and in Israel.I commend them for all that they do andtonight congratulate them for their stead-fast devotion to perpetuating the legacy ofthe Shoah. The Adelsons’ recent gener-ous gift for education programs at YadVashem is historic not only in the amount,but as an example that calls to others to

(Continued on page 11)

“MAY YOU GO M’CHAYIL L’CHAYIL –FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH.”

GREETINGS FROM AROUND THE WORLDOffices of the American & International Societies for Yad Vashem have received

many letters from heads of state and dignitaries from around the world, congratu-lating them on the 25th anniversary and praising the outstanding work of theSocities as Global Guardian of Holocaust Remembrance. Below, read the quotesfrom some of the letters.

President Bush, in his letter to the American & InternationalSocieties for Yad Vashem, wrote “I send greetings to those

gathered for the Annual Tribute Dinner of the American andInternational Societies for Yad Vashem. Congratulations as you cele-brate your 25th anniversary.

“...I appreciate the American and International Societies for YadVashem for your efforts to honor the innocent lives lost and commem-orate the victory of liberty over oppression. Your good work reminds

others that great suffering can awaken even greater love and that we must never takefreedom for granted.”

Moshe Katsav, president of the state of Israel, in his message, noted“...Yad Vashem, the Jewish people's international center for com-

memorating the Holocaust, fulfils a national, historic and universal role intransmitting the awareness of the Holocaust and its values, in Israel andthroughout the world, especially among the young generation.”

“...Yad Vashem is the Jewish memorial voice and the commemorationsite of the courage of those interned in the ghettoes and camps, whobravely fought against the Nazi oppressor, and also gives expression tothe appreciation of the Jewish people to the Righteous Among theNations.”

Polish president Lech Kaczynski, in his congratulato-ry letter to the American & International Societies for

Yad Vashem, asserted that “by working together with theYad Vashem in Jerusalem for 25 years you have built animposing research and educational institution inJerusalem...By cultivating the Jewish memory and pass-ing it on to the next generation, the Society has con-tributed to the creation of treasure trove of knowledge,

one that has the power of not only educating but also inspiring mankind.”

Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2006 - Cheshvan/Kislev 5767

The presidents of Israel and Ukraineled ceremonies on September 27 for

the 65th anniversary of a devastating butoften overlooked episode in the Holocaust– the killing of 34,000 Jews by Nazi forcesin Ukraine over two days in 1941.

Israeli PresidentMoshe Katsav launchedthe commemorations ofthe Babi Yar (Woman’sRavine) massacre bylaying flowers at a mon-ument that takes theform of a menorah.

“The mute voices ofthousands of victimsring out from thisground,” Mr Katsav saidduring the ceremony, inwhich prayers were saidand chants were sungby a Moscow syna-gogue choir.

“We declare that wewill never forgive andthat this will never be repeated. We willnever forget,” Mr Katsav said.

A second ceremony then took place at aSoviet-era memorial that does not men-tion the Babi Yar victims’ mainly Jewishethnicity, for which Mr Katsav was joined

by Ukrainian President ViktorYushchenko, Croatian President StipeMesic and MontenegrinPresident Filip Vujanovic.

“Humanity should read againand again about the tragedy of

Babi Yar,” said MrYushchenko, whosefather was impris-oned at theAuschwitz concen-tration camp duringWorld War II.

“Time can heal ourwounds, but oneshould not erasethese pages in ourmemory,” he said.

Later, a forum onanti-Semitism

and xenophobia began in Kiev,entitled Let My People Go,organized by Ukrainian authori-ties, the World Holocaust Forumand the Yad Vashem Holocaust

Memorial. Nearly 34,000 Jews, many of them eld-

erly, women and children, were driven atgunpoint to Babi Yar by German troopswho told them they were to be resettled,just days after the Nazi invasion.

They were shot along the ravine’s edgeover two days, in what was the first sys-

tematic extermination ofUkrainian Jews.

The ravine continued to beused for executions and upto 60,000 more people –Jews, Roma, resistancefighters and Soviet prisonersof war – were killed thereuntil 1943.

Before retreating from theadvancing Red Army in1943, Nazi troops exhumedand burned the corpses atBabi Yar in a bid to hide theatrocities.

But the secrets of Babi Yarbecame part of the accusa-tions against senior Nazi

officials at the Nuremberg trials, and amonument was erected in Soviet times tothe memory of the victims.

However Soviet authorities tried to playdown the sensitive Jewish component ofBabi Yar. Anniversary gatherings werebanned at the site, and there was anattempt to build a stadium there in the1960s.

In all, some 800,000 Ukrainian Jewswere killed in the war.

UKRAINE COMMEMORATES NAZI MASSACRE

Israeli President MosheKatsav, left, and Ukraine’sPresident Viktor Yushchenko,during commemorative eventsat Babi Yar ravine in Kiev,Sept. 27, 2006

A Jewish man wipes tearsduring commemorative eventsat Babi Yar ravine in Kiev.

The skeletons of 20 children and fiveadults believed to be victims of the

Nazi euthanasia program have beenfound in a mass grave in westernGermany.

The bones of 20 children were discov-ered during excavation work at a ceme-tery in the German town of Menden, closeto where a World War II hospital run byHitler’s personal physician, Karl Brandt ,waslocated.

The children, aged from one to sevenyears, were found alongside the bodies offive adults.

Investigations of two of the children’sskulls indicated the victims mighthave been handicapped.

The prosecutor’s office in the nearbycity of Dortmund said there wereindications the deaths might be related toeuthanasia, which was secretlypracticed by the Nazis from 1939 to 1941.Some 70,000 people with physical orintellectual disabilities perished inthe euthanasia program, which the Nazisbelieved was necessary to cleansethe German people of racially unsoundelements.

Those who were deemed “unworthy tolive” by showing symptoms of mentalretardation or physical handicap weresent to the so-called killingfacilities, where they were murdered bylethal injections or exposure tocarbon monoxide gas.

The Nazi euthanasia program, whichbecame an open secret in the ThirdReich, was officially terminated in 1941 inthe wake of protests frommembers of the German clergy. The prac-tice, however, clandestinely continueduntil the end of World WarII with an ever-wider range of victims,which included geriatric patients,bombing victims and forced laborers.Karl Brandt, who was in charge of the pro-gram, was executed for war crimesin 1948.

WWII EUTHANASIA VICTIMSFOUND IN MASS GRAVE

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting(FAIR), an American media watch

group, claims that the mainstream pressin the US has not only failed to cover“increasing anti-Semitism and anti-Jewishsentiment in many places around theglobe,” but has also been complacent inallowing “anti-Jewish outbursts” frommany of its commentators.

The FAIR report cites various anti-Semitic comments from nationally-syndi-cated radio and television commentatorsand their guests. These included DonImus of MSNBC, who called the bookpublishers Simon & Schuster “thievingJews” on his popular radio show; BillO’Reilly of Fox News, who told a Jewishcaller to his radio show to “go to Israel” ifhe was upset about “Christmas going intothe schools;” and Bill Donohue, CatholicLeague president and guest on MSNBC’sScarborough Country, who claimed that“Hollywood is controlled by secular Jewswho hate Christianity in general andCatholicism in particular.”

The recent resurgence in anti-Semiticcomments by mainstream commentatorsand guests is attributed to “an aggressiveform of religious nationalism” that hasgained momentum since the re-election ofGeorge Bush last November. This reli-gious nationalist movement, according toFAIR, is seeking out a scapegoat to servea powerful conservative mandate.

RESURGENCE OF ANTI-SEMITISM

IN AMERICAN MEDIA

More than a quarter of Swedes har-bor anti-Semitic views, a survey

found. According to the poll issued by the

Crime Prevention Agency and LivingHistory Forum, a Holocaust-awarenessgroup, 26 percent of Swedes believe that“Jews have major influence on the globaleconomy” and 15 percent believe that“Jews have too much influence on theworld.”

Around a third of the 3,000 respondentswere described as having “ambivalent”attitudes on anti-Semitism, while 59 per-cent said they rejected prejudice againstJews. Jewish groups in Sweden said thestudy shows that local anti-Semitism is aserious phenomenon that has been down-played.

ANTI-SEMITISM WIDESPREAD IN SWEDEN

An 83-year-old woman who admit-ted to serving as a guard at a Nazi-

operated concentration camp from Juneof 1944 to April of 1945 was deported toGermany. The woman, Elfriede Rinkel,said she was not a member of the Naziparty, just did its bidding, according tothe Los Angeles Times.

Rinkel was told she must leave theUnited States on or before September 30and that she could never come backagain. She left on September 1.

Her late husband, Fred Rinkel, washimself a German Jew who left Germanybecause of the Holocaust. Rinkel’s rela-tives said neither they nor her husbandknew of her past.

Rinkel said she worked with an SS-trained attack dog but said she neverused the dog as a weapon against theprisoners and never forced them intomorning marches to work or die.

Of a 100 completed cases of Nazi per-secutors who lied so they could live inthe United States, Rinkel is the onlywoman who was caught and deported.

FEMALE NAZI GUARDMARRIED TO A JEW

DEPORTED FROM U.S.

Amansion used by the NorwegianNazi collaborator Vidkun Quisling

has been turned into a Holocaustresearch center in the capital Oslo.

After World War II“Quisling” became syn-onymous with “traitor”.

The center’s work willfocus on the Nazigenocide of millions ofJews, but will alsoexamine the persecu-tion of other minorities.

More than 750 ofNorway’s Jews, whonumbered about 1,800before the war, died in the Holocaust.

“There is a huge symbolism here”, saidthe center’s director Odd-Bjorn Fure.

He believes the centre will shed newlight on Norwegian complicity in deport-ing many of the country’s Jews during

the war. Mr. Fure says the Quisling puppet gov-

ernment was planning to deport the coun-try’s Romany people, as well. Researchers

at the center will look intothis issue.

When German troopsinvaded Norway in 1940,Quisling proclaimed him-self “Minister President,”and moved into VillaGrande with his wife in1941. He was executedin 1945.

The idea of turning themansion into a

Holocaust center came from Bjoern Egge,who was a Norwegian soldier during theNazi invasion, and spent some time withdeported Jews during his three years as aprisoner of war in Sachsenhausen,Germany.

OSLO OPENS HOLOCAUST STUDY CENTER

Villa Grande: Quisling's house is a sym-bol of the occupation.

Shmuel Tzuk and Josef Shvyatovichmet as teenagers in Poland’s

Shanyov concentration camp in 1943. Within months, they were shipped to

Auschwitz and separated, each assum-ing the other had died. As it happened,both immigrated to Israel.

The two were recently reunited inIsrael when Tzuk’s wife, Hannah, met

Shvyatovich and noticed that theAuschwitz tattoo on his arm was numer-ically close to her husband’s.

A tearful meeting followed. “I am a little excited after so many

years,” Shvyatovich, now 83, toldMa’ariv. “We were between life anddeath, and our meeting now is more thanfamily.”

TATTOOS REUNITE HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS

In September, borough officials gath-ered at Queensborough Community

College for the unveiling of a Holocaustexhibit honoring an unsung hero of WorldWar II: the Dominican Republic.

The Harriet and Kenneth KupferbergHolocaust Resource Center at the collegeofficially opened its new exhibit, “Sosua,Refuge from the Holocaust in the Tropics,”which pays tribute to the compassion andgenerosity showed by the Caribbeannation during the war.

Dominican Republic was one of the fewcountries to offer a safe haven forrefugees fleeing persecution in Germany

and Austria. Given the fierce fighting in Europe, it

was difficult for refugees to reach theisland, and only about 700 were able tomake it to the Dominican Republic, wherethey thrived in the coastal community ofSosua.

Queensborough Community CollegePresident Eduardo Marti said that thestory of Sosua is an important one andshould never be forgotten.

“The courage demonstrated by the peo-ple of the Dominican Republic during thisdifficult period of time should be applaud-ed and recognized,” he said.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC HONORED AS UNSUNG HERODURING HOLOCAUST

November/December 2006 - Cheshvan/Kislev 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 3

Sigmund Strochlitz, a Holocaust sur-vivor and internationally recog-

nized peace advocate, died October 16,2006, at the age of 89 in New London,Conn. He was one of the three foundersof the American Society for Yad Vashem,serving as one of its found-ing Vice Chairman. He wascurrently serving as theSociety’s National ViceChairman of Connecticut,and has always been astrong supporter of YadVashem and of Holocausteducation. He was a recip-ient of the Elie WeiselRemembrance award, andhas spoken extensivelyabout the Holocaust on alleducational levels.

Sigmund Strochlitz wasborn in Bendzin, Poland, in1917. Until the outbreak ofWorld War II, he attended theJagiellonian University in Cracow. Hisparents, sisters and wife were killed inBirkenau. He himself survived imprison-ment in several concentration camps,including the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and in April 1945, he was liber-ated, along with his future wife, RoseGrinberg, in the concentration camp atBergen-Belsen in Germany.

Sigmund and Rose married shortlyafter the war. They adopted Rose’s

orphaned niece, Halina, and their daugh-ter, Romana, was born in July 1946 inthe displaced persons camp at Bergen-Belsen. The family came to the United

States in 1951 and initiallylived in New York City beforemoving to New London,Connecticut, where in 1957,Sigmund founded WhalingCity Ford. The Strochlitz fam-ily also includes two adoptedsons, Jaime Strochlitz-Wurzel of Newton, Mass,and Rafael Strochlitz-Wurzelof New Britain, Connecticut.

A committed Zionist, Mr.Strochlitz was a supporter ofnumerous institutions inIsrael. In the early 1980’s,Sigmund took a leading rolein organizing official

Holocaust observances in every state ofthe union. His mandate for this missioncame from the United States HolocaustMemorial Council, to which he was firstappointed by President Jimmy Carterand to which he was later reappointed byPresident Ronald Reagan. He hasreceived numerous awards for his com-munity and national service, includinghonorary doctorates from four universities.

In 1992, President George H.W. Bushappointed Strochlitz to the PresidentialCommission on the Preservation ofAmericans’ Heritage Abroad, and in1993, French President FrancoisMitterand appointed him a Chevalier ofthe Order of Arts and Lettersof the French Republic. Healso was a past recipient ofthe National HolocaustRemembrance Tribute andthe Ellis Island Medal ofHonor.

Strochlitz’s lifelong pas-sion was his Holocaust

remembrance work. He wasa leading member of numer-ous national Holocaustremembrance organizations.He served as vice presidentof the Rose and SigmundStrochlitz Holocaust Resource Center ofthe Jewish Federation of EasternConnecticut, was co-chairman of theNational Campaign to Remember andchairman of the National CommitteeResponsible for Annual HolocaustCommemoration Ceremonies at theWhite House. Connecticut College andBar-Ilan University both awardedStrochlitz honorary doctorates.

His daughter Romana StrochlitzPrimus, serves as a Board member,

Executive Committee Member , and isChair of the Education Committee of theAmerican Society for Yad Vashem. Shehonors the heroic life of her dear parentsz’l, and has also devoted much of her lifeto Holocaust remembrance and educa-

tion. Romana and her husband Charleshave four adult children and four grand-children.

Sigmund Strochlitz was deeply com-mitted to Holocaust remembrance

and education and perpetuating thememory of the Six Million. He was astrong supporter of Zionist and otherJewish causes. His wife Rose died in2001. He is survived by four children, 14grandchildren and 23 great-grandchil-dren in the United States and Israel.

A LIFE DEDICATED TO HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE AND EDUCATION

Sigmund Strochlitz

Elie Wiesel gives a eulogy for Sigmund Strochlitz atCongregation Beth El in New London.

Austria has launched an online data-base to find the owners of art items

that may have been looted under Naziregime and are in some of the country’smuseums.

The National Fund of the Republic ofAustria for Victims of National Socialism,set up by the Austrian government in1995, compiled a databank of looted arton the internet that is now accessible atwww.kunstrestitution.at.

It contains several thousand objects ofart that are in the possession of state-runmuseums, galleries and other official insti-tutions but which are considered to havebeen expropriated between 1938 and1945, when Austria became a part of NaziGermany.

A virtual catalogue, organized in sec-tions such as prints, painting or furniture,facilitates the search for stolen objectsthat are described in great detail, oftenwith photos. The location of the object andthe institution in charge of it are also list-ed.

The National Fund was tasked withinvestigating the origin of art of uncertainorigin owned by the state or official institu-tions, clarifying questions of ownership

and examining possible restitution to theowner of their heirs.

The origins of some of the items arestill in question and it remains to bedetermined if they were looted.

According to Austrian law, art lootedby the Nazis shall be returned to

the original owners or to their legal suc-cessors. However, the law doesn’t auto-matically establish a claim and onlyopens the possibility for the governmentto return the object, Juergen Schremser,spokesman for the Fund, said.

The database is only available inGerman. An English version is expectedto be online in 2007.

While Austria had been initially veryreluctant to tackle the restitution of loot-ed art, the issue gained momentum withthe case of Maria Altmann, who foughtmany years for the return of severalpaintings by Art Nouveau painter GustavKlimt.

Altman, who currently lives in LosAngeles, has been deemed the rightfulheir of five Klimt paintings, among thema world-famous portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, Altmann’s aunt, that were on dis-play at the Austrian Gallery in Vienna.

AUSTRIA LAUNCHES INTERNET DATABASE FOR ARTWORK LOOTED DURING NAZI ERA

Holocaust survivor groups here havejoined the recommendation of the

Polish president, Lech Kaczynski, toaward the Nobel Peace Prize to 96-year-old Irena Sandler.

Sandler, who was a member of thePolish underground group Zegota thatwas dedicated to saving Jews, was recog-nized by the Yad Vashem Martyrs andHeroes Remembrance Authority in 1965for smuggling numerous Jewish childrenout of the Warsaw Ghetto.

The children received false papers andwere either adopted by Christian familiesor sent to convents. Sandler, however,recorded the real names of 2,500 childrenon lists that were placed in glass jars and

buried, with the hope that the youngsterswould eventually be returned to their fam-ilies. The Gestapo arrested Sandler inOctober 1943. Despite being tortured, sherefused to reveal the children’s identity,and was sentenced to death by a Nazicourt. The underground group freed her,and she lived in hiding under an assumedidentity until the end of the war.

If Sandler, who still lives in Poland, ischosen for the Nobel award, it would bethe first time the honor would be bestowedto a righteous Gentile.

Joining the campaign on behalf ofSandler are the Israel-Poland FriendshipAssociation and the Lublin and Polish sur-vivors’ organizations.

POLISH RIGHTEOUS GENTILE WOMAN RECOMMENDED FOR NOBEL PRIZE

The Holocaust Resource Center andArchives at Queensborough

Community College has told the story ofthe Holocaust, for more 23 years, throughthe survivors.

Survivors had handed over hundreds oftheir photos, letters and family heirloomsall with a unique narrative, adding to thebigger story. Those distinct narratives willnow have an even louder voice in thestory with help from Queens resident,Harriet Kupferberg, and a generous dona-tion of $1 million in the name of Harrietand her late husband, KennethKupferberg.

In September, the current center wasrenamed the Harriet and KennethKupferberg Holocaust Resource Centerand Archives, and was dedicated to thephilanthropist Queens couple.

“Over the last 100 years, from theArmenian genocide in 1915 to the eventsin Darfur today, genocide has been a partof the world we live in,” said Dr. EduardoJ. Martí, President of QueensboroughCommunity College. “Nothing like theHolocaust has occurred in human history.The Kupferberg Center demonstrates our

commitment to learning the lessons ofthe Holocaust.”

The renamed Kupferberg Center, theonly educational center of its kind inNew York City, will house an exclusivebody of materials, programs, exhibitsand historical information on theHolocaust and other instances of geno-cide.

Besides telling the story of theHolocaust through unique exhibitsdeveloped by scholars, it also providesextensive teaching and learning materi-als for use in schools around the nation.

The renamed center will be housedin a new, 7,000-square-foot per-

manent home and is scheduled to openin the spring of 2008, reflecting thetheme, “Let There Be Light.” Marti saidthe new building will be a “unique archi-tectural statement,” featuring dramaticuse of glass to symbolize awareness,hope and the lasting memory of thosewho were victims of the Holocaust.

The Queensborough CommunityCollege Fund is in the midst of a $5 mil-lion fundraising drive to secure theongoing operation of the Center.

HOLOCAUST CENTER GETS A DONATION AND A NEW NAME

Sara Salkahazi, a Hungarian nun whosaved the lives of dozens of Jews

during the last year of World War Two,was beatified in Budapest.

A journalist, writer and cultural activistby profession, Salkahazi joined theSisters of Social Service, a charity organ-isation and religious order helping thepoor, in 1929. The Sisters of SocialService saved over 1,000 Jews, includingmany women and children, in the final andhardest months of the Second World War.Of them, around one hundred were aidedby Salkahazi herself.

After her mission was reported to theauthorities, the henchmen of the rulingArrow Cross, the Hungarian allies of theNazis, drove her along with people shesheltered to the Danube and shot them

into the river on December 27, 1944. The beatification ceremony was the first inHungary since1083, when thecountry’s firstking, St. Stephen,his son, St. Imre,as well as St.Gellert, a bishopwho played a keyrole in convertingMagyars toChristianity, werebeatified andcanonised.

The HungarianHolocaust claimed the lives of 550,000 to600,000 Jews and tens of thousands ofRoma.

HUNGARIAN NUN SAVING JEWS BEATIFIED

Sara Salkahazi

Page 4 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2006 - Cheshvan/Kislev 5767

B O O K R E V I E W SB O O K R E V I E W SPoland, A Green Country. By Aharon

Appelfeld. Keter, Jerusalem, 2005. 217 pp.

REVIEWED BY RABBI ISRAEL ZOBERMAN

Aharon Appelfeld, Israel’s mostrenowned and prolific Holocaust

author, who himself is a survivor, offersus in his most recent book the bestfruits yet of his remarkable talent inrecapturing the themes of the complexand convoluted Holocaust tragedy,masterfully utilizing both fact and fic-tion.

This time, Appelfeld focuses on aJacob Fine, Israeli son of survivors ,whofeels compelled to return to his par-ents’ hometown in a small Polish vil-lage to better understand his familyand reconnectto his roots.Fine, a busi-nessman andan ex-officer inthe Israeli Armyencounters arural Polishsetting that hasnot changedmuch since thewar and beforeit. He experi-ences a quasi-mystic sense of belonging to a placewhere his family had lived for cen-turies, with the aid of an embracingpeasant woman of simple, though pro-found, religiosity who knew his family,and in whose home he lodges, fallingin love with her during his eventful visit.

Fine soon encounters the suspicionof the villagers, leery of the strangerwho may be after Jewish property leftbehind, as well as looted following themurder of the Jews by the Germans ,andthe refusal of the Poles to help the des-perate Jews who had done much forthe collective welfare for so long. Anti-Semitism still remains a powerfulforce, even in the absence of Jews, asFine’s Jewish identity, separate fromhis Israeli one, grows in response tothe deep-seated and irrational hostilityborn of the theological rejection andenvy of Jewish accomplishments.

Fine’s transformative return to hisancestral heritage from which he wasparadoxically alienated in Israel, isepitomized in his futile attempt to pur-chase and bring to Israel the brokenJewish tombstones used by the Polesas pavement. He even dreams of hispast Israeli soldiers under his com-mand protecting him from the threaten-ing Poles who endangered his life. Ahigh price is required by the village’scouncil for what it ironically claims is atreasured possession reflecting a sig-nificant bond with its past honoredJews.

Fine’s following observation is ahaunting one: “Poland is a cemeterythat was ploughed. It is hard to pray insuch a cemetery. The fertile green ismaddening. I truly tried, but it wasbeyond my strength.”

Rabbi Israel Zoberman, spiritual leaderof Congregation Beth Chaverim inVirginia Beach, is son of PolishHolocaust survivors.

POLAND, A GREEN COUNTRY

Nazi Chic? Fashioning Women in theThird Reich. By Irene Guenther. Berg, NewYork, 2004. 499 pp. $28.95. Softcover

REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN

Theoretically, the Nazi system wasmeant to impact every aspect of

German life: political, economic, social,and cultural. Indeed, countless bookshave examined the political, economic,and social tenets and manifestations ofNazism in Germany. Far fewer, though,have examined cultural issues, exception-ally revealing and thought-provoking intheir own right, affected by and affectingthe aforementioned. Thus, IreneGuenther’s volume entitled, Nazi Chic?Fashioning Women in the Third Reich, isa particularly unique, fascinating, andimportant contribution.

Put simply, in Guenther’s work, we learnabout Nazi Germany’s propagandistattempts to create a “German fashion” forits women and hence, concomitantly andinterestingly, fashion their role in Nazisociety. One style especially favored wasthe dirndl “Tracht traditional folk costume”worn by Nazism’s “female ideal”: theGerman farmer’s wife. Referred to as“`Mother Germany’” and considered “the‘life spring’ of the national community, theVolk,” it was felt that the German farmer’swife instinctively knew that a woman’shighest calling was that of wife and moth-er. She knew that “Kinder, Küche, andKirche (children, kitchen, and church)”

were most important. She paid no atten-tion to the foolish antics of the “NewWoman” interested in Paris styles, make-up, and so much more “dangerous” to thestability and exis-tence of the fami-ly and the“ F a t h e r l a n d . ”Yes, she fit per-fectly into Nazism’sworldview, andmost particularlyhow they saw theprimary role ofwomen: child-bearing.

A kind of “urbana l t e r n a t i v e ”“fashioning proposal” offered the Germanwoman was “the German female in uni-form.” Here, Nazism’s obsessive love of“organization and militarization,”its“demand for unity, uniformity, commonali-ty, and community” was “visiblyexpressed.” And the opportunities toappear in uniform were many, beginningin childhood. First, girls were members ofthe “Bund deutschen Mädel (BdM), or theLeague of German Girls,” graduatingthrough its various age specific subdivi-sions. Then, they moved on to member-ship in the “`Labor Service for FemaleYouth (RADwJ)” organization. Still, ulti-mately, everything they learned in boththese organizations was to make thembetter wives and, especially, mothers,

their primary role vis-à-vis Nazi society.Interestingly, while uniformed women

would come to be in the German armedservices, that was never a Nazi goal.Rather, it was the result of need: as thewar progressed, there just weren’t enoughGerman servicemen.

So, why should all this interest readersof M&R?

The following excerpt, originally partof an article on women’s fashion

from the SS newspaper Das SchwarzeKorps (1939), alludes to the fascinatingreason—itself in a strange way reminis-cent of Hitler’s wild ravings as regardsJews and the German woman in his bookMein Kampf:

“The female beauty ideal is no longerdetermined by the beauty of the motherand the comrade of the man, but rather,more or less hidden, by the whore... This whole development was one of themasterstrokes of the Jewish infection thatstill plagues us today. The entire Aryanworld has been captured and infected bythis Jewish spirit.”

In sum, many Nazis held that the Jews,most specifically in the women’s fashionindustry in Germany, were responsible forwhat they viewed as the calculated,malicious “degeneration” and “degrada-tion” of the German woman, body andsoul. According to them, it was the Jewswho were responsible for the “trashy”appearance and continuing popularity of the

(Continued on page 15)

FASHIONING WOMEN IN THE THIRD REICH

The Dachau Defendants: Life Storiesfrom Testimony and Documents of theWar Crimes Prosecutions. By FernOverbey Hilton. McFarland and Company,2004. 201pp. $35.00. Paperback.

REVIEWED BY CAROLINE SHARPLES

The oft-repeated cry when reflectingupon the Holocaust is one of just

how was this possible? What could possi-bly induce human beings to participate inthe genocide of millions? What sort ofpeople were behind the crimes of theThird Reich?

The question of perpetrator mentalityhas already prompted much historicalresearch. In his 1996 work, Those WereThe Days (the title of which stemmed froma caption inscribed in Kurt Franz’s photo-graph album from his time asCommandant of the Treblinka extermina-tion camp), Ernst Klee offered insightsinto this mindset through a compilation ofletters, diaries and reports from perpetra-tors and bystanders. The material wasnotable for its frequently cool anddetached depiction of atrocities. Morerecently, Robert Gellately published a col-lection of interviews with the Nurembergdefendants carried out at the time by theAmerican psychiatrist Leon Goldensohn.These interviews focus on the personallives of some of the biggest names of theNazi regime, examining their initial attrac-tion to National Socialism, as well as theirresponses to the Holocaust. Goldensohnhimself, it seems, deliberately set out toexplore whether any peculiar characterdefects or unusual experiences mighthave rendered these figures more dis-posed to participating in such activities.

He questioned them intensely about theirchildhood development, family relation-ships, sexual proclivities and whether theyhad known any sadistic types among theirNazi colleagues. The mid-1990s werecharacterized by the Browning-Goldhagen debate as towhether the criminals of theThird Reich should be viewedas “ordinary men” or “ordinaryGermans.” Both scholarsexamined the actions ofPolice Battalion 101—a unitlargely made up of educated,middle-class and middle-agedmen. In the debate, much wasmade of man’s ability to com-mit crimes against his fellowman; discussion focused onthe erosion of moral bound-aries under Nazism andwhether opportunities existed to defyorders within a dictatorship at war.

Against this background comes FernOverbey-Hilton’s latest work.

Between 1945 and 1947, theAmericans staged a total of 489 war

crimes trials at the former administrationbuilding of Dachau concentration camp.1,700 individuals were prosecuted underthese proceedings, which encompassed arange of atrocities committed in what wasnow the American occupation zone of thenewly-divided Germany. These includedcrimes perpetrated in the concentrationcamps or during the death marches, aswell as the mistreatment and murder ofdowned American airmen.

Overbey-Hilton does not attempt tofocus on the legal side of these events. Nodetailed discussion is made here of the tri-

als themselves or the wider denazificationprocess, and, indeed, many accounts ofthe war crimes trials conducted during thisperiod are already available. Instead,Overbey-Hilton focuses on the nature ofthe people who came before the court, the

sort of lives they lived prior tothe rise of NationalSocialism, and how theycame to be in a position toengage in criminal activityduring the Second WorldWar.

The accused themselvescertainly came from all walksof life, ranging from majorideologica l ly-commit tedNazis, to well-educated pro-fessional types (teachers,doctors, engineers) or even“ordinary” villagers. There is,

of course, no room in a slim paperback forthe author to tackle all 489 trials. In select-ing which cases to include, Overbey-Hilton claims to have opted for thosewhich “lend themselves to an understand-ing of the trials” and those which “havesomething to teach us about World War II-era Germany and the tragedy that grewout of the German culture of that time.”

The book itself is divided into seven-teen chapters, the last of which aims

to provide some form of concluding analy-sis under the rhetorical heading, “Will weever learn?” and spans just over threepages.

Indeed, the book as a whole is fairlyconcise. The majority of chapters focus onjust one or two defendants at a time and,on average, run the course of nine pages.

(Continued on page 15)

PERSONALIZING THE PERPETRATORS

November/December 2006 - Cheshvan/Kislev 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 5

BY JORDAN LITE

Growing up, Dan Brooks neverattached the weight of the word

“legacy” to the stories his grandparentstold him about their escape from theNazis.

But as Holocaust survivors live out theirlast days, attention is increasingly focusedon their grandchildren, who will be the lastliving link to their stories.

Dubbed the “third generation,” some ofthese young Jews are shaking off the sur-vivor identity they were once assumed tohave inherited. But they continue toabsorb its emotional pull.

“I’ve been introduced as a third-genera-tion survivor and I’ll cringe,” said Brooks,28. ‘Legacy’ is a very loaded word.”

Though early research suggested sur-vivors’ descendants also experiencedHolocaust trauma, psychologists havemoved away from characterizing grand-kids the way they did their parents.

Paul Lantos once mimicked his parents’approach to the Holocaust: He shunnedbooks and movies about the subject,believing they would be too painful toabsorb. He hated hearing German spokenand wouldn’t consider buying aVolkswagen.

But by the time he got to college, hesensed he was removed enough from hisgrandparents’ horrors to no longer feel likea victim himself.

“I took a lot of ownership of the pain I

saw in my grandparents. My perspectivehas changed a little bit. I know full well Iam not a survivor,” said Lantos, 31.

Agroup Brooks founded last year,3GNY, grew out of his own feeling of

alienation from the second gen-eration, who he said werefocused on working throughtheir relationships with their sur-vivor parents. Brooks and the400 members of his group wantto preserve their families’ sto-ries, educate children who mightnot know survivors, and in somecases, connect to a history thatmay feel unfamiliar, despitebeing a Holocaust descendant.

Still, consciously or not, theymourn their grandparents’ suf-fering, and “one way they findmeaning is to connect” to theHolocaust, said New York psy-chologist Eva Fogelman.

A protest against the genocidein Sudan turned out a strong contingent ofHolocaust survivors’ grandchildren, whofelt a visceral pull toward the tragedy.

They also are twice as likely to entermedical and social service professions asAmerican Jews whose grandparents didnot experience the Holocaust, Fogelmansaid.

Lantos, who conducts medical researchin poor countries, said he is motivated bythe tales his grandfather told him duringchildhood walks, when the older manwould recall being tortured in slave-labor

camps and stealing potatoes to survive. “I feel like my obligation is to be human-

itarian,” said Lantos, who lives inBrookline, Mass.

That the third generation sees theirgrandparents not as victimsbut as heroes to emulatesometimes leads to clasheswith their own parents, saidJulia Chaitin, who has stud-ied three generations ofsurvivor families.

Caroline Weinberg, 23,doesn’t remember

exactly when she was toldher grandmother, SalaGarncarz, survived a seriesof Nazi labor camps. YetWeinberg read Holocaustliterature obsessively as agirl and sobbed through adiary Garncarz kept in thecamps, imagining herself inher grandmother’s shoes.

The depth of their connection crystal-lized when Weinberg’s mother, AnnKirschner, told her that letters Garncarzhad hidden during her years in the campswould be exhibited at the New York PublicLibrary last spring.

For Kirschner, who had been starvedmost of her life for details of Garncarz’simprisonment, the letters were “historical,”Weinberg said. But she saw them as “per-sonal documents” and felt protectiveabout sharing them. “It really became afamily to-do,” she said, adding that she

and her mother eventually agreed theletters should be donated.

The third generation’s bond withtheir grandparents is ultimately the

completion of a long healing and under-standing process for families.

When Werner Greenbaum, now 84,and his wife were raising their children,the memory of the Holocaust was fresh.

“You didn’t like to talk about it,” saidGreenbaum of Fresh Meadows,Queens, who fled Germany after theGestapo burned down a Frankfurt syna-gogue and secret police forced him toclean up their destruction of theRothschild Museum on Kristallnacht.

Like many survivors, Greenbaum hadfelt comfortable only speaking English tohis children. Yet he was delighted whenhis grandchildren, Arielle, 23, andDavid, 27, both learned German.

It also was at Arielle and David’s urg-ing that all three generations traveled tothe survivors’ birthplace in Germany.

“I never understood what they experi-enced until my children nudged them,”said Greenbaum’s daughter, JudyCahill.

In their storytelling, it was as if hergrandparents were exhaling, Ariellesaid.

“That was a defining moment for me. Ifelt like, wow, almost like I’ve come fullcircle,” she said. “They were helpingdocument what happened to them. Theywere passing it on.”

First published in the Daily News

HOLOCAUST KIN LAST LINK TO PAST

Werner Greenbaum’s searingmemories of the Holocaustlive on in his granddaughterAriel.

February 1943, Bulgaria agreed toGermany’s request that it hand over

20,000 Jews. In March, Bulgarian author-ities arrested more than 11,000 Jews liv-ing in its newly annexed territories, andGerman army units deported them toTreblinka. Because the Bulgarian govern-ment had not met the quota of 20,000, itdecided to deport Jews of Bulgarian citi-zenship, namely the 8,000 living in thetown of Kyustendil near the Macedonianborder. Word of the plan spread andangered many of the non-Jewish resi-dents. A delegation of Bulgarians boardeda train for Sophia to protest the deporta-tion. They were hoping to enlist the sup-port of Dimitar Peshev, the deputy speak-er of the Bulgarian parliament.

Although he had supported Bulgaria’santi-Jewish laws, Peshev had done sobecause he knew it would strengthen hiscountry’s alliance with Germany. He neversupported the deportation of Bulgaria’sJews. He, too, wanted to stop it. OnMarch 9, 1943, he brought the Kyustendil

d e l e g a t i o n ,along withseveral parlia-ment members,to meet with theMinister of theInterior, PeturG a b r o v s k i .G a b r o v s k idenied know-ing about theplan, but theyknew he wasl y i n g a n dd e m a n d e dthat he cancel the deportation. After alengthy argument, Gabrovski agreed to doso. Peshev knew, however, that the Jewswere not out of danger.

On March 17, 1943, Peshev wrote aletter to Prime Minister Bogdan

Filov in which he opposed any futuredeportations of Bulgarian Jews. He con-vinced 42 of his colleagues in parliamentto sign the petition and presented it to the

prime minister. Filov was furious thatPeshev organized such a public protest.The parliament voted to remove Peshevfrom his position as deputy speaker. Soonthereafter, Alexander Belev, the Bulgarianofficial in charge of the government’sJewish policy, launched a plan to deportall of the nearly 50,000 Bulgarian Jews toPoland.

Although Peshev felt defeated, hisactions caused others to intensify

their protests. Leaders of the Bulgarianchurch sent letters to the prime ministerand to King Boris III. Prominent writersand intellectuals spoke out, as did groupsof lawyers, physicians, and communists.This collective pressure led King Boris IIIto alter his policy. Despite competingpressure from the Germans, he preventedthe deportations by having manyBulgarian Jews assigned to forced laborunits in Bulgaria. As a result, no Jews ofBulgarian citizenship were sent to theirdeaths in Poland.

Dimitar Peshev passed away in 1973.

PROFILE IN COURAGE

Hundreds of Jewish skeletons wereuncovered in a mass grave in a

Ukraine forest next to the city of Lvov. In September, a secret mission called

“Kaddish for Ukraine’s Jews” began look-ing for the mass graves of Ukrainian Jewswho were massacred during the SecondWorld War.

In an operation initiated by the JewishCongress and the Holocaust Museum inParis and Washington, the delegationuncovered an enormous mass grave in aforest in Ukraine containing remains ofhundreds of Jews murdered in the time ofthe Holocaust. The remains were uncov-ered in one of the 500 sites the delegationmembers are planning on excavating.

The operation initiators contacted

priests and elderly residents in Ukraineand asked for assistance in locatingpotential sites where thousands of Jewsmay have been murdered and buried inmass graves.

The delegation members beganexamining areas around Lvov locat-

ed in western Ukraine. Before the SecondWorld War, about 110,000 Jews lived inLvov, and with Germany’s invasion of theSoviet Union in June of 1941, this city andthe surrounding area was one of the firstones that were invaded.

Among the members of the delegationwere a pathologist, several archeologists,local rabbis and eight Zaka Rescue andRecovery members, including organiza-tion Chairman Yehuda Meshi Zahav and

his son, Shimon. “One of the sites that the elderly told us

about was in a small village next to Lvov,where there is a forest next to a Jewishcemetery,” said the members of Zaka.“We used metal detectors to locate theexact area by detecting the bullets.”

“The metal detectors went off exactly inthat area. They began digging, and twometers down, the remains began to sur-face. Hundreds of skulls and bare skele-tons were counted in the grave site. Theyears in which the bullets were manufac-tured were engraved on the bullets recov-ered from the remains – 1941, 1939 – aswell as the country in which they weremanufactured – Germany.

Meshi Zahav said that most of the skele-

tons were children. “We know that asopposed to Gypsies, the Nazis also killedthe Jewish families along with their chil-dren,” he said.

The delegation members estimatedthat in this mass grave alone some

1,800 Jews were buried. They said thatafter the grave was uncovered, Ukrainianauthorities agreed to recognize the areaas a Jewish burial site, and a religiousburial ceremony was organized with theparticipation of a rabbi from Lvov.

The delegation members are planningon returning to the area and erect a mon-ument in memory of the victims. The del-egation will return to Ukraine in order touncover other burial sites of Jews killed bythe Nazis.

JEWISH REMAINS FOUND IN UKRAINE MASS GRAVE

AJapanese peace group has erect-ed a monument at the former

Theresienstadt transit camp, JTAreports. A giant peace pole with theinscription “May Peace Prevail on Earth”in Czech, Japanese, German andEnglish was dedicated at the camp, nowa museum in the Czech Republic, bymembers of the Japanese branch of theWorld Peace Prayer Society.

The Japanese said they had chosenTerezin, as the camp is called in Czech,because it is a symbol of wartime suffer-ing. The Nazis set up a ghetto in Terezinin 1941 and brought there some 155,000Jews from all over Europe, most ofwhom were deported to death camps,particularly Auschwitz. Some 35,000Jews died in the ghetto from disease andhunger due to the horrible conditions.There are more than 200,000 peacepoles in 190 countries.

JAPANESE HONOR VICTIMSOF THERESIENSTADT

NAZI DEATH CAMP

Dimitar Peshev is featuredin Poster Set on Rescue.

Page 6 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2006 - Cheshvan/Kislev 5767

S U R V I V O R S ’ C O R N E RS U R V I V O R S ’ C O R N E RWhen the White House called

Corporal Tibor “Ted” Rubin to tellhim he was to receive the CongressionalMedal of Honor, he thought it was one ofhis friends playing a joke. President Bushhas called the 76-year-old Korean Warveteran “one of the greatest Jewish sol-diers America has ever known.” But Ted ischaracteristically modest. “I was just acountry boy,” he told me, “but next weekI’ll be honored with the country’s highestaward. This is unbelievable.”

Being awarded the Medal of Honor isanother of a series of adventures in TedRubin’s remarkable life. He was born inHungary in 1929, and at age 15 was sentto Mauthausen concentration camp inAustria. His first day there an SS captaintold the assembled, “None of you will getout of here alive.” Ted turned to the mannext to him and said, “Nice fellow.” Tedsurvived the next 14 brutal months of cap-tivity, but most of his family perished. Hisfather died in Buchenwald. His ten-year-old sister Elonja was sent to the gaschambers at Auschwitz, and his motherRosa, who was slated for forced labor,chose instead to face death with herdaughter. Mauthausen was liberated bythe U.S. 11th Armored Division on May 5,1945. With nothing left for him in HungaryTed emigrated to the United States. Hepromised himself that he would show his

appreciation to the country that gave himhis freedom, and saved his life.

Ted joined the Army in February1950, and five months later landed

in Korea with the 3rd battalion, 8thCavalry Regiment, one of the firstAmerican units sent to help repel NorthKorean invasion forces. Ted was sooninvolved in the fighting withdrawal to thePusan perimeter. Inone engagementnear Chirye, Ted’scompany was rede-ploying from one hillto another, and hevolunteered to staybehind to keep theenemy guessinguntil the movementwas completed. AsCorporal LeonardHamm relates, “the North Koreans, think-ing the hill was still occupied by a wholecompany, made an all out offensive withall their available troops. PFC Tibor Rubinhad stocked each foxhole with grenades,and during the attack the following morn-ing made his way running from foxhole tofoxhole, lobbing, one after the other,grenades down upon the enemy, hebecame almost hysterical in his actionsbut he held the hill.”

For this and other actions, Ted’s imme-

diate superiors recommended him for theMedal of Honor. However, before thepaperwork could be processed, these offi-cers were killed, and a sergeant whomight have sent the papers up refused todo so because Ted was Jewish. “Not onmy watch,” he said. After the Inchon inva-sion, the 8th Cavalry Regiment movednorth towards the Chinese border, and

was at the forwardedge of the U.N.offensive when theChinese Red Armyentered the conflict.Ted’s battalion wasdestroyed at theBattle of Unsan inearly November1950, while fightinga delaying actionagainst Chinese

forces swarming south from the Yalu.Hundreds of Americans were captured,among them Ted, who had manned amachine gun to hold off the enemy as therest of the unit attempted to withdraw.

Ted found himself in the Pukchin POWcamp, also known as “Death Valley,” andlater at Pyoktong, along with hundreds ofAmericans, Turks, and others. The campswere at first run by the North Koreans,then by the Chinese, whom Ted said treat-ed them slightly better. Nevertheless, life

was nightmarish for the prisoners. Theywere cold and hungry, and disease wasrampant. “Healthy men became likebabies, helpless,” Ted said. “Everythingwas stink, death, it was terrible, terrible.”30-40 a day were dying. “It was hardeston the Americans, who were not used tothis,” Ted said. “But I had a heck of a basictraining from the Germans.”

Ted used all the experience he hadgained as a Holocaust survivor in

helping to keep himself and other prison-ers alive. “I did it because I was anAmerican,” Ted told me, “and because itwas a mitzvah. Regardless of color ornationality, they were my brothers.” Foodwas vital for survival, so he began to stealrations from the enemy, who had littleenough themselves. Fellow POWSergeant Carl McClendon stated, “everyday, when it got dark, and we went tosleep, Rubin was on his way, crawling onhis stomach, jumping over fences, break-ing in supply houses, while the guns werelooking down on him. He tied the bottomof his fatigue pants and filled up anythinghe could get a hold of. He crawled backand distributed the food that he had stolenand risked his life.”

Ted also did what he could to treat thesick and injured. But many were beyondsaving, and diseases such as dysentery

(Continued on page 13)

“THE HIGHEST HONOR OF THE BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD”

BY RENE BRUEMMER

When they were 11 years old, child-hood friends Esther Grauer and

Tova Weiszner survived a six-monthdeath march.

They then spent three years togetherduring the Second World War in a prisonin the occupied Ukraine, then part of theSoviet Union, begging foodfrom villagers to survive.

They lost touch after thewar but trod similar paths,settling in Canada and rais-ing families.

About 20 years ago, a sup-port organization forHolocaust survivors put themin touch, but they hadn’t seeneach other in person sincenot long after they left prison.

Sixty-two years, five chil-dren, seven grandchildrenand two great-grandchildrenlater, the survivors werereunited at Trudeau airport.

“Do you have a Valium? Ican’t believe I forgot my Valium,” Grauer,77, exclaimed moments before thereunion, to no avail.

“I don’t want to make a scene.”But there was no scene. Only glistening

eyes, throats choked with emotion and thesilent embrace of friends who have expe-rienced too much and haven’t seen eachother since 1944.

“I have no words,” said Weiszner, 76.“There are no words. I am speechless.”

Friends since Grade 2 at their Hebrewelementary school in Lipcani, Romania(now a part of Moldova), Grauer andWeiszner and their families were among

more than 1,000 Jews forced from theirhomes in 1941 by Germany’s Nazis andthe Romanian army, marching for sixmonths until they reached the prison bar-racks in the occupied Ukraine in whichthey would live for three years. Those whocouldn’t walk any longer or disobeyedwere shot.

Grauer arrived with her mother and

younger sister, Weiszner with her father,pregnant mother and brother.

“It wasn’t a four-star hotel,” Weisznersaid. “We slept on the cement floor; therewere no beds or even mattresses. Andthere was no food.”

They would sneak under the barbedwire before dawn (“If the soldiers saw us,they would shoot us.”) and beg from vil-lagers who risked their lives to help them.

Grauer remembers melting snow forwater in prison. For food, she rinsed pota-to skins discarded by the German andRomanian guards.

Bodies of the dead were carried outdaily. Weiszner’s parents and her new-born sibling would be among them, ulti-mately succumbing to typhus and malnu-trition. Disease and lice were rampantbecause prisoners were not allowed tobathe.

“Imagine not having a shower for threeyears,” Weiszner said.

Weiszner’s and Grauer’s parents heardof a new law protecting young prisonerswith no parents, and they made the chil-dren pose as orphans, so they would besent to orphanages back in Romania.Grauer eventually reunited with her moth-er and sister; Weiszner never saw herparents again.

The friends last saw each other inBucharest in 1944. Separately, both

travelled to Israel in the late ‘40s, marriedand had children.

“I’ve been lucky,” said the diminutiveWeiszner, who has a comedian’s deliveryand credits her vitality to “keeping busy –I don’t just sit on the couch.”

“I’ve had a good life, I have good chil-dren – they’re healthy, they’re not inprison.”

Her one regret, however, is that she andGrauer took so long to see each other.Yes, Winnipeg is far, but it’s not like theyhad to walk, Weiszner said.

Grauer feels the same way.Friends fortunate enough to have sur-

vived the Holocaust and who live in thesame country have an obligation to seeeach other, Grauer noted.

“We were happy to survive, but younever forget. ... When you’re that young, itleaves an imprint forever.”

First published in The Gazette

HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS MEET AFTER SIXTY-TWO YEARS

Second World War survivors Tova Weiszner (left) and EstherGrauer are reunited at Pierre Elliott Trudeau airport.

An Italian insurance giant will paytens of millions of additional dollars

to the heirs of Holocaust victims who onceheld policies with the company, accordingto settlement papers filed in three classactions against Assicurazioni Generali inU.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The settlement calls on the company topay the claims currently pending before aLondon-based commission set up to dealwith Holocaust-era insurance claims. The$100 million Generali gave to the commis-sion, called ICHEIC, in 2000 has alreadybeen exhausted and additional claimsremain, according to the settlementagreement.

The settlement will also allow victimsand their heirs to submit new claimsdirectly to the company through February2007.

Although the settlement agreementdoes not say how much money Generaliwill have to pay to settle the new andexisting claims, two sources close to thecase said more than $25 million will likelybe needed to cover them. The agreementalso allows for the lawyers involved toinspect Generali’s old records, a sourcesaid.

Generali still faces more than 20Holocaust-related lawsuits brought byindividual plaintiffs and one class-actionlawsuit that has not yet been certified, asource close to the case said. The 25-page settlement agreement stipulates thatif more than 300 claimants decide to optout of the settlement, Generali can backout as well.

According to the agreement, Generaliwill also pay up to $3.25 million in attorneyfees and extra fees to several of plaintiffs.

HOLOCAUST VICTIMS TO GET MILLIONS MORE

FROM INSURER

November/December 2006 - Cheshvan/Kislev 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 7

BY CARL SAVICH

Following the Axis bombardment ofBelgrade on April 6, 1941, the Nazi

occupation of Serbia began, which imme-diately targeted the Jewish population.The Gestapo introduced anti-Jewishmeasures only days after enteringBelgrade, with the objective “of settlingthe Jewish issue.” Belgrade Jews wereconscripted by German occupation forcesto remove and to clear the debris and rub-ble following the Axis bombing of the city.Concentration camps were set up forSerbs, Jews, and Roma in German-occu-pied Yugoslavia. Serbia and Banat wereunder direct German military occupation.SS Gruppenfuehrer Harald Turner wasthe head of the German MilitaryOccupation Administration in Serbia.

The German occupation forces beganthe immediate imple-mentation of anti-Jewish measures. SSGruppenfuehrer Turner,described as “a fanati-cal National-Socialistand anti-Semite,” wasdetermined to imple-ment what wouldbecome the “FinalSolution.”

The destruction of theJews of Serbiaoccurred in four stages.In the first stage, fromApril to August, 1941,the German occupation forces compiledlists of Jewish residents of Belgrade. Jewswere forced to wear yellow badges or rib-bons. Mass arrests of Jews ensued. Jewswere dismissed from public offices and

the service sector. The German occupa-tion forces put on street cars: “For JewsForbidden (Fur Juden verboten)” alongwith a “V for victory” sign.

On July 28, 1941,the German

occupation forcesannounced a curfewagainst Jews in adecree or order of thecommand in Belgrade,Kommandanturbefehl,Naredba KomandeBeograda, in bothGerman and Serbian:“Since the currenturbanization plan isbeing endangered bycriminal activity, it isnecessary to establish a curfew for Jewsin the city.” The curfew began at 8 pm onMonday through Friday, and at 7 pm on

Saturday and Sunday.Jewish-owned business-es had to be closed atthe time of the curfew. Ifthe Belgrade Jews didnot comply, furtherrestrictions would beestablished.

Many Jews were con-scripted for enforcedlabor. Other Jews werekilled as hostages.Groups of Jews wereexecuted as reprisals forthe activities of theresistance groups in

Belgrade. Other Jews were shot as indi-viduals.

The concentration camp of TopovskeSupe, a former weapons depot, wasestablished in August, 1941 to serve as a

transit camp. The Topovske Supe campwas set up by German occupation forcesas a temporary assembly point for theJews of Banat, a region of Serbia, then

under directGerman militaryoccupation anda d m i n i s t r a t i o n .From here, Jewsand Roma weresent to the deathcamps at Sajmisteand Banjica.

In the secondstage, from Augustto October, 1941, allJewish males overthe age of fourteenwere interned.

In the third stage, from October toDecember, 1941, almost all Jewishmales were killed.

On December 12, 1941, Jewishwomen and children were interned

in the Sajmiste camp. The commander ofthe Sajmiste camp was the Austrian SS-Untersturmfuehrer Herbert Andorfer whoused mobile gas vans to kill approximate-ly 7,500 Jewish prisoners, mostlywomen. The murders continued untilMay, 1942. Andorfer was tried in WestGermany and sentenced in January,1962 to two-and-a-half year’s imprison-ment.

In the fourth stage, from January toMay, 1942, all Jewish men who remainedand all the interned women and childrenwere killed. Belgrade had a pre-warJewish population of 11,870, 10,500 ofwhom were killed during the Germanoccupation.

First appeared on serbianna.com

SERBIAN HOLOCAUST

The Belgrade Synagogue which theGerman occupation forces desecratedby removing the Star of David andusing as a brothel.

A trolley car in Belgrade with a Nazi "V forvictory" sign and the Nazi occupation warn-ing "Forbidden for Jews (Fuer JudenVerboten)."

BY SHARON LAPKIN

Sixty years ago, Nazism massacredsix million Jews in Europe. But anti-

Semitism didn’t begin with Adolf Hitler.Judeophobia has been an affliction ofWestern civilization since the Roman his-torian Tacitus maligned the Israelites inthe first century of the Common Era.

In 1267 in Vienna, The Catholic Councildecreed that all Jews had to wear pileumcornutum or horned hats, so the publiccould identify them as offspring of thedevil. And half a century earlier theCouncil of Paris forbade Christian mid-wives to attend Jewish women, who theyproclaimed, were bringing the brood of theDevil into the world.

The Archbishop of Canterbury closedevery synagogue in his diocese in 1282,and eight years later, King Edward Iexpelled the remaining 17, 000 Jews fromEngland and stole their property. Theyfled to Europe, but most were thrown intothe sea by order of the ships’ captains.

In Russia in the mid-nineteenth andearly twentieth century, Jews were rou-tinely tortured and put on trial for allegedblood-drinking. Later, they were burnedalive in pogroms, as the public werewarned to hide their children from thevampire Jews who sought to kidnap themand drink their blood at Passover.

Throughout history, Jews have beenreferred to as dogs. When Martin Lutherdesigned his eight-point plan to rid theworld of Jews in 1543, he demanded,“They must be driven from our country”and “we must drive them out like maddogs.”

In the mid-nineteenth century, leadingFrench writer, Leon Bloy wrote, “It is

impossible to earn the esteem of a dog ifone does not feel an instinctive disgust forthe synagogue.” And in 1871, Pope PiusX1 said in reference to Jews, “of thesedogs, there are too many of them at pres-ent in Rome, and we hear them howling inthe streets, and they are disturbing us inall places.”

Almost five hundred years after MartinLuther published his pamphlet, On theJews and their Lies, a three-year-oldPalestinian toddler articulated agelessJew hatred in a new context in 2005,when she explained to a large Arab televi-sion audience on the Iqra network thatJews were “dogs” and “villains.”

As the world acknowledged the first“International Day of Commemoration ofthe Victims of the Holocaust” on 27January, the Iranian mission to the UNreleased an official response to the “day,”and the Israeli newspaper Haaretzobtained a copy.

This document called for “scientificscrutiny and rigor” to determine the“veracity of the Nazi genocide againstEuropean Jewry.” It accused Israel of“massacres” and “acts of state terrorism”and stated that “The basic principle ofdemocracy ... should pave the way forexploring different aspects of historicalevents without any arbitrary restriction.”And it ended with a warning that, “geno-cide and immense suffering should not bemanipulated for political purposes.”

A few days earlier, Iran announced itwas organizing a conference to examinethe “scientific evidence for the Holocaust.”

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recent-ly called the slaughter of six million Jewsin the Holocaust a “myth” and declaredIsrael should be “wiped off the map.”

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, DanGillerman, warned the world body, that theIranian President’s hostility and Holocaustdenial was a “real threat of future geno-cide.” The Iranian President, he said, rep-resents an “evil regime” that “denies theHolocaust while preparing for the nextone.”

Gillerman went on to state he “terriblyregretted that the State of Israel did notexist in 1938 or 1943”, because if it had,the Holocaust “would never have hap-pened...And I warn you,” he said,” therewill forever be an Israel, so this horror willnever be witnessed again.”

But Hitler was not the first to massacrelarge numbers of Jews, nor was he themost recent. He merely pioneered thekilling machine that processed the hatredof fourteen hundred years of anti-Semitism before him. As new threatsemerge and demand the destruction ofIsrael, it is vitally important that Jewishhistory not be defined by isolated eventssuch as the Holocaust and the conflictwith the Palestinians.

Western teaching trends in highschools and universities now

include teaching history through interpre-tive methods, such as computer simula-tion. One such teaching activity wasrecently introduced into seven Australianschools and a university, where studentswere required to role-play thePalestinian/Israeli conflict, to enable themto “gain an insight into all sides of the

argument.” After several Jewish studentscomplained, the NSW Department ofEducation investigated and revealed thatthe simulation was “heavily biased againstIsrael.” The schools have dropped theprogramme, but Macquarie University –which developed the activity – hasrefused to stop.

As history teaching morphs intoindoctrination through role-play and

computer simulation – which simultane-ously de-emphasize historical facts anddates – it is essential that Jewish historybe remembered in its entirety. And that itnot be reduced to computer graphicswhere students are required to pretend tobe an “Invader Jew” in order to pass a his-tory exam. The motto, so oft repeated“Never Again,” can only be properlyunderstood if it retains its context.

Dr. Dagobert Runes, revered peer ofAlbert Einstein and renowned Jewishscholar, said in 1968, that “the wearing ofthe yellow spot, the burning of Jewishbooks, and finally the burning of the peo-ple...” was learned and practiced wellbefore Hitler. Prior to Nazism, he claimed,Jews were burned alive. At least, he said,Hitler gassed his victims before he burnedthem.

Nor did the massacre of Jews ceasewith the defeat of Nazism in the SecondWorld War. The Kielce Pogrom in Poland,in 1946, saw Jewish Holocaust survivorsbeing lured out of their homes by neigh-bors who spent five hours publicly mur-dering them in cold blood as the local gov-ernment and church stood silently by.This event – almost two years after the

(Continued on page 14)

DISTORTING JEWISH HISTORY

Hundreds of people gathered in thesouthern Polish city of Kielce July 4

to remember the victims of Poland’s worstpost-WWII pogrom, and were urged tostop any resurgence of anti-Semitism.

The wail of a siren cutting through thewarm summer air signaled the start of asolemn ceremony in front of a white andgrey stone monument to more than 40Jews, who were mercilessly slaughteredhere 60 years ago.

Kielce erupted in a frenzy of hatred aftera rumour was spread that a Jewish familyhad held a Christian boy in a cellarovernight. The rumor soon turned intoanti-Semitic hysteria, with tales that Jewsneeded to have blood transfusions fromChristian children to survive or usedChristian blood to make matzos.The Kielce pogrom happened a year afterthe end of WWII, in which six million Jewsdied in the Holocaust, more than half ofthem from the country’s once-vibrantJewish community.

In the months following the massacre,up to the end of 1946, almost 150,000Jews left Poland. Many of them went toPalestine to take part in building their newhomeland. They knew that only a sover-eign Jewish state can guarantee theirsafety,” Israeli ambassador to PolandDavid Peleg said.

Polish President Lech Kaczynski calledthe Kielce pogrom an unjustifiable andshameful crime.

“This was a huge dishonor for Poles anda tragedy for the few Jews who survivedthe Nazi Holocaust,” he said in a messageread out at the ceremony in his absence. “Nothing can justify this crime. In a free,democratic Poland that upholds the law,there is no place for racism and anti-Semitism, which are met with justifiedrepulsion,” he said.

OFFICIALS WARN OF RISING ANTI-SEMITISM

Page 8 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2006 - Cheshvan/Kislev 5767

Eli Zborowski, Chairman, American & International Societies for Yad Vashem and Recipient of the2006 Yad Vashem Lifetime Achievement Award, Sheldon G. Adelson, Recipient of the Yad VashemRemembrance Award, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Guest Speaker.

Eli Zborowski, Chairman, American & International Societies for Yad Vashem andRecipient of the 2006 Yad Vashem Lifetime Achievement Award with Dr. MiriamAdelson, Recipient of the Yad Vashem Achievement Award.

Eli Zborowski, Vashem Lifetim

Marvin Zborowski, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau, Guest Speaker and Eli Zborowski, Chairman,American & International Societies for Yad Vashem and Recipient of the 2006 Yad VashemLifetime Achievement Award.

Barry Rubenstein, Marilyn Rubenstein Dinner Co-Chair, and Eli Zborowski, Chairman,American & International Societies for Yad Vashem and Recipient of the 2006 Yad VashemLifetime Achievement Award.

Ariel Zborowski, Eli Zborowski, Chairman, American & International Societies for Yad Vashem andRecipient of the 2006 Yad Vashem Lifetime Achievement Award, Sheldon G. Adelson, Recipient of theYad Vashem Remembrance Award, Dr. Miriam Adelson, Recipient of the Yad Vashem AchievementAward, Elizabeth Zborowski and Murry Zborowski.

Picture of some of the more than 1200 people who attended the American & InternationalSocieties for Yad Vashem 25th Anniversary Tribute Dinner.

Marvin ZGuest SpeRecipient Gottesfeld

ShelAwaSoci

November/December 2006 - Cheshvan/Kislev 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 9

Chairman, American & International Societies for Yad Vashem and Recipient of the 2006 Yadme Achievement Award, Elizabeth Zborowski, and Elizabeth and Joseph Wilf.

Sam and Stella Skura, Elizabeth Zborowski and Eli Zborowski, Chairman, American & InternationalSocieties for Yad Vashem and Recipient of the 2006 Yad Vashem Lifetime Achievement Award.

Zborowski, H.E. Krzysztof Kasprzyk, Consul General of Poland, Rabbi Israel Meir Lau,eaker and Eli Zborowski Chairman, American & International Societies for Yad Vashem and

of the 2006 Yad Vashem Lifetime Achievement Award, Elizabeth Zborowski and Fanyad Heller.

ldon G. Adelson and Dr. Miriam Adelson, Recipients of the Yad Vashem Remembranceard, Marvin and Celina Zborowski and Eli Zborowski Chairman, American & Internationalieties for Yad Vashem and Recipient of the 2006 Yad Vashem Lifetime Achievement Award.

Lawrence and Adina Burian and Caroline Massel, Co-President of the American Society for Yad Vashem YoungLeadership Associates and Morris Massel.

Mindy Mitzner and Ira Mitzner, Dinner Co-Chair.

Page 10 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2006 - Cheshvan/Kislev 5767

REPORT FROM REPORT FROM YAD VASHEMYAD VASHEM

BY ARON HELLER, AP

Hilda Shlick thought she lost nearlyall her family in the Holocaust —

until her Internet-savvy grandsons locatedher 81-year-old brother in Canada.

After 65 years, I have found the sisterwho I love,” SimonGlasberg said in heav-ily accented English,his eyes filling withtears. “I can’t stopkissing her.”

Using the databaseof Holocaust victims atYad Vashem, Israel’sHolocaust memorial,two of Shlick’s grand-children, Benny andDavid, began unearthinga mystery spanning sixdecades and three con-tinents.

While improved tech-nology in recent yearshas made the task oftracking Holocaust survivors easier, fewerand fewer survivors remain as each yearpasses.

Scanning the database, the grandsons,both in their 20s, discovered an entry erro-neously stating their grandmother hadperished half a century earlier. That entryled them to other surviving relatives, whoeventually brought about the siblings’emotional reunion.

When Glasberg, who lives near Ottawa,Canada, saw his gray-haired little sisterfor the first time, he recognized her imme-diately, he said.

“I felt I couldn’t talk. I just cried,” he said.“You don’t understand, 65 years ...” Hisvoice trailed off.

Shlick, 75, said she too was over-whelmed by the discovery.

“For 65 years, I lived thinking I had nofamily besides one sister,” she said.

Since reunion, the family bond hasclearly been re-established, with the twoelderly siblings playfully joking and remi-niscing in a hearty mixture of Russian andYiddish. Their large families have quicklybecome close.

The last time the two saw each otherwas in 1941, when the Glasberg family ofChernowitz, Romania, was separatedafter the Nazis invaded.

Hilda, then 10, escaped to Uzbekistanwith her older sister Bertha. The rest ofthe family — parents Henia and Benzion,and brothers Simon, Mark, Karol and

Eddie — stayed in Romania, findingrefuge in a basement. The fate of onesister, Pepi, remains unknown. She dis-appeared and is presumed to have beenkilled by the Nazis.

Glasberg, his brothersand parents emigratedto Canada after the warended. Shlick and hersister moved to Estonia,where Bertha died in1970.

In 1998, Shlick immi-grated to Israel.

During a family conver-sation this summer, hergrandsons learned hermaiden name wasGlasberg, and theybegan to investigate herpast.

They logged onto theYad Vashem Web siteand found a page of tes-timony submitted in1999 by her brotherKarol, of Montreal, who wrote about hissister Hilda, who “perished in theShoah.”

Karol died that same year, but furthersearches through the Web site of theMontreal Burial Society and onlineforums of survivors of Chernowitz,Shlick’s grandsons were able to trackdown his son, who filled in the picture ofwhat happened to the divided family.

Shlick’s parents died in the 1980s inMontreal, living well into their 90s, as didher brother Eddie, who died in 2004.

Mark Glasberg lives in Ottawa, but was

too ill to travel to Israel to meet his sister.His son Irving, however, lives in Israel,just half an hour away from his missingrelatives.

Shlick said she plans totravel to Canada soon tosee her other relatives andvisit the graves of the par-ents she lost as a child.

Yad Vashem directorAvner Shalev said

the story should encourageJews from around theworld to check the data-base for their relatives’names and to submitpages of testimony forthose who have been lost.

The database containssome 3 million names ofHolocaust victims and hasbeen visited by 10 millionpeople since it went onlinein 2004.

Yad Vashem spokes-woman Estee Yaari said

this was only the second known case ofliving siblings discovering each otherthrough the database. Last June, twosisters who had survived the Holocaustand moved separately to Israel werereunited after 61 years.

Glasberg, though thrilled to find his sis-ter, said the reunion was bittersweetbecause of all the years the family wasdivided.

“My poor parents, they always said,‘We wish we would find all our kids’” hesaid. “It is such a tragedy, but now I amso happy.”

KIN REUNITED SIXTY- FIVE YEARS AFTER HOLOCAUST

Simon Glasberg, 81, of Ottawa, Canada, left, hugs his sister HildaShlick, 75, from Ashdod, Israel, during their meeting at the YadVashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.

Chairman of the Yad VashemDirectorate Avner Shalev givesHilda and Simon Glasberg a tourof the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem

The Institute of National Remembrancein Warsaw (IPN) has had a general

cooperation agreement with the YadVashem in Jerusalem since 2004. Now,the Israeli institute studying crimes of theHolocaust has promised to officially assistit in gathering archive documents aboutPoles who lost their life, or sufferedrepression for helping Jews during theSecond World War.

The latest visit by representatives of thePolish institution to Jerusalem has set thescene for official bilateral cooperation inscientific research and the exchange ofarchive documents relating to the periodof World War Two. Mateusz Szpytna, oneof the members of the delegation, sayscooperation to date between IPN and YadVashem was based on archive researchconducted by individual historians study-ing aspects of Polish-Jewish relations.The present agreement opens an entirelynew chapter in relations with Yad Vashem,he says.

“ We want this process to be more insti-tutionalized and better organized. We arestarting research on help extended toJews by Poles during World War Two.There will be two parallel programs. Thefirst one is to complete a register of Polesrepressed by the Nazis for their assis-tance to Jews. This is where we arestrongly counting on cooperation with YadVashem. The second will aim at an inven-

(Continued on page 13)

POLAND WORKS WITH YAD VASHEM TO IDENTIFY

“RIGHTEOUS” POLES BY ETGAR LEFKOVITS

For four decades, Ben Hulata, 81,had lost contact with the Dutch fam-

ily that saved him and his younger brotherduring World War II.

Then last year, the octogenarian wassuddenly struck with pangs ofconscience and remorse for “notdoing enough” to thank theChristian Dutch family for theirheroism.

Determined to set the recordstraight and see them rightfullyrecognized, he set out to find thefamily that had saved his ownlife, and that of his youngerbrother more than 60 years ago.

In the summer of 1943,Hulata, born Ben Monnikendam,was 18 when he decided to fleeAmsterdam together with his 16-year-old brother Yitzhak afterbeing put in touch, via a femaleclassmate, with a member of theDutch underground namedLuke.

Just two years earlier, theirolder brother had been deportedto the Mauthausen concentra-tion camp where he was mur-dered by the Nazis.

As the persecution of the Jews intensifiedin the Dutch capital, the two brothersescaped, and hid on a farm in easternHolland, where they paid rent to the farmers.

In the meantime, their parents, whohad chosen to remain in Amsterdam,

were caught and sent to their deaths inAuschwitz in October 1943.

Soon enough, the brothers’ money ranout, but their contact in the Dutchunderground transferred them to a fam-ily farm in Varsseveld, a small Dutch vil-

lage near the German border. The farm belonged to the

Colenbrander family. The head of thehousehold, Bernard Colenbrander, whowas active in the Dutch resistance, lived

on the farm with his wife, Hendrika,their 11 children, and a grandfather.

The two Jewish brothers were offeredshelter at the farm even though BernardColenbrander had been imprisoned inthe Vught camp in the south of Hollandfor resisting the regime and on suspi-cion of hiding Jews.

Colenbrander’s son, Elbert, then 21,was in charge of finding alternate hidingplaces for the Jewish siblings on thefamily farm both before and after hisfather’s detention.

Despite the already-heightened riskto the family, the two brothers

were given Dutch names and hidden ina small room above the pigsty of thefarm, along with two British pilots, withall their needs looked after by the fami-ly during their one-year stay.

Over the course of that year, ElbertColenbrander would bring two addition-al Jews to the farm, and take care ofthem as well.

Near the end of the war, a group ofGerman soldiers arrived on the familyfarm, taking over part of it for their ownuse.

Despite the heightened risk to theirlives, the Colenbranders continued tosequester the Jews, and provide themwith food when the German soldierswere out.

Ben and Yitzhak Hulata remained atthe farm until they were liberated in1945.

(Continued on page 15)

A RIGHTEOUS FAMILY IS HONORED AFTER SIXTY YEARS

In the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations: stand-ing on the left Elbert Colenbrander; fourth from right,Johan Colenbrander; center, standing, Yitzhak Hulata;third from right, Ben Hulata.

November/December 2006 - Cheshvan/Kislev 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 11

At recent ceremonies in memory ofthe Jews who were interned in a

camp in Calabria during World War II, thetown of Tarsia named a street after RabbiRiccardo Pacifici, who was part of thecamp’s history.

Yellow signs on the motorways in Italysignal places of special interest - this onereads “Ferramonti di Tarsia.” It is nochurch or villa or castle but somethingmuch rarer in Italy: it is the site of a WorldWar II concentration camp for Jews.Ferramonti is almost unique in anothersense, not only in Italy but in the whole ofcontinental Europe. It was a camp whichactually became a haven for theinternees, a place where they could avoidthe horrors of the German concentrationcamps.

In September 1943, units of the FifthBritish Infantry Division and the EleventhCanadian Tank Regiment of the EighthArmy liberated Ferramonti as theyadvanced northward through Calabria.This was the first Axis internment camp tobe liberated by the Allies, and the biggestItalian one. There were 2,000 inmates,most of them Jews from Germany andcentral Europe. But it could hardly havebeen more different from the ones whichwere to follow.

Mussolini had passed anti-Jewish lawsin 1938 and began interning foreign Jewsas soon as war broke out. The first“Ferramontini” were Germans, Austriansand Czechs, most of whom had left theirown countries after discriminatory lawshad been passed there. The camp wasbuilt on low-lying ground near the riverCrati, 30 miles north of Cosenza inCalabria, deep in Italy’s toe. From the

Italians’ point of view of security it was aperfect setting - miles away from any-where, no military installations, no impor-tant roads or railways, and imperviousmountains all around. But iso-lation and malaria apart, con-ditions were far from harsh.From the beginning theItalians allowed internees toregulate the life of the camp.

Very soon there was asynagogue and school,

an infirmary and a kosherbutcher. Contacts with thelocals flourished. DomenicoZazzaro, who was thirteen in1940, still lives within spittingdistance of the camp. Heremembers, “There was aCzech who came every dayto buy milk. He used to takemanure as well from the cow-sheds for their vegetableplots.” But the contacts werenot just practical and down-to-earth. Culture too wasexchanged.

Viennese painter MichelFingsten continued his workin what became known as the“studio-hut,” and one of hiscanvases, a large Martyrdom of SaintBartholomew, is today the altarpiece in anearby church. This was not the only ecu-menical touch. Obviously, there was noJewish cemetery in Tarsia, as the Jewswere expelled from southern Italy in the16th century. So inmates who died in thecamp, and there were not many, wereburied in the Christian graveyard a coupleof miles from the camp. It is strange to see

tombs with Hebrew inscriptions amongthe cypresses, with very non-Calabriannames and birthplaces: “Rosa Freidmann,born in Dobropole, 24 October 1879,”

“Max Mannheim, born inMosciski, 23 September 1897.”That is, apart from one: “LeoWellesz, born 2 January 1943 atFerramonti, died 4 April 1943.”Little Leo was an exception,though. Other babies born in thecamp survived, and the first onewas even given the name“Benito” in honor of Mussolini.Professor Benito Erlich is now aconsultant in an Israeli hospital.

In time, two other synagogueswere added to cope with reli-gious differences; there werethree levels of schooling (withforeign languages taught fromthe elementary level, a piece ofprogress which only reachedother Calabrian schools in the1990s), and a library with thou-sands of volumes. There weredebates and plays, footballmatches, chess tournamentsand literary competitions. OneGerman Jew told Lord Rennel ofthe Allied Control Commission

immediately after liberation, “The Italianscould not be cruel, because even if theytried they would be so inefficient that wecould get round it.”

Right from the beginning, regulationswere relaxed; there were supposed to bethree roll calls a day. Very soon they werereduced to two, then one and then nor-mally every two days - the unpronounce-able foreign names were more than the

Carabinieri could cope with.

In March 1942, the camp commandantwas explicit in his policy when he told

a visitor, “The internees can do what theywant as long as appearances are kept upand I don’t get into trouble with theMinistry.” In practice, Ferramonti turnedout to be the salvation of the Jewsinterned there. They spent up to threeyears there (while sharing the sufferingsof the general population, especially cold,malaria and insufficient food). But theywere saved from deportation to Germany.It was, given the circumstances in the restof Europe, in some respects an idyll.Many Ferramontini stayed in Italy after thewar. One even remained in Cosenza,where he founded the town’s only publish-ing house. Others stayed in Italy in Romeor Milan.

The Ferramonti Foundation was startedin the 1980s by Calabrian pediatricianSpartaco Capogreco. Twenty years ago orso, Capogreco, who is neither Jewish noreven from Cosenza, “discovered”Ferramonti and was shocked that it wasnot part of the local memory. Since thenhe has written a book about Ferramonti,started the foundation and worked inde-fatigably to put Ferramonti on the map, aspart of Italy’s history and as an importantpositive episode in the Shoah. One of hissuccesses was to persuade the Ministryof Transport to put Ferramonti literally onthe map by giving it a yellow motorwaysign. Last year he finally succeeded inhaving the site legally protected by theMinistry of Culture, though it was too lateto prevent the destruction of one of thelast remaining huts. First published in Jerusalem Post

AN UNEXPECTED HAVEN

(Continued from page 1)follow in that sacred work ofRemembrance. The staff of the American Society hasworked tirelessly for months to makethis event a success. To them I offermy sincere and heartfelt gratitude. Mywife Elizabeth, a child survivor, lenther commitment, talent and inspira-tion to the production of my video andto the creation of the 25th anniversaryexhibition, which is displayed in thereception area. Elizabeth, thank youfor your diligence and for embracingour mission.

The Torah teaches us, “v’higadetahl’vincha” – and you shall tell your chil-dren. My children grew up with theburden of the Holocaust. They grewup with stories of hardship, of cruelty,of loss and devastation, but they alsolearned about kindness and sacrifice,because both my late wife Diana andI were saved by Christians who riskedtheir lives to shelter us during the war.It has, perhaps, been a difficult bur-den for our children to shoulder, butthey have done so with understandingand compassion. To my children andgrandchildren, I say, “Thank you foryour caring, your concern, your com-mitment to Yiddishkeit and the perpet-uation of Jewish memory.

For almost six decades, until herdeath in 2004, Diana was my sound-ing board, my advisor and my partnerin all my communal endeavors. Shewas beloved and respected by allthose whose lives she touched. It is

our hope that the Diana ZborowskiShoah Aftermath Research andEducation Center at Yad Vashem willrecord the phenomenal rebirth in thisperiod, and that it will teach futuregenerations to confront and overcomeadversity.

“V’al achron, achron choviv” – Andlast but not least, I profoundly thankYad Vashem for the privilege of pro-viding us, the survivors, and ourfriends outside of Israel an opportuni-ty to partner with you in creating andexpanding an institution which hasbecome the Global Guardian ofHolocaust Remembrance.

The Society has been blessed withmany active members among the sec-ond and third generation, who nowhold key leadership positions in ourorganization. They are the future,they already carry and they will con-tinue to carry the torch ofRemembrance and the commitment toYad Vashem into the next genera-tions. Their activities, which demon-strate their devotion to our mission,are extensively recorded in this year’sJournal. I am sure you will find thismaterial interesting and heartwarm-ing.

As the light is slowly fading in ourtent, I am confident that it will bebrightly rekindled anew in our chil-dren’s and grandchildren’s genera-tion. To the incoming leadership, Isay: “May you go m’chayil l’chayil –from strength to strength.”

Thank you.

“MAY YOU GO M’CHAYIL L’CHAYIL –FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH.”

THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR YAD VASHEMYOUNG LEADERSHIP ASSOCIATES

CORDIALLY INVITE YOU TO A

Dinner Buffet Reception

In celebration of our 10 years and still Moving Forward!

February 1, 2007 7 pm - 11 pm

West Side Loft336 West 37th Street

New York City

For more information, please contact 212.220.4304Email: info@yadvashemusa.org

Dietary Restrictions Observed Couvert: $54.00 per person in advance;

$75 per person at the door.

Page 12 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2006 - Cheshvan/Kislev 5767

BY ENID WEISS

Marina Lowi Zinn has never forgottenthe small Italian town or the people

there who sheltered her and her familyfrom the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Her South Plainfield home is decoratedwith photographs and paintings ofGandino, the town where the Lowi familyhid, along with posters from modern-dayHolocaust commemoration ceremoniesheld in Gandino. The town, nestled in thecountryside near Milan, now has a popu-lation of about 5,000.

Zinn and her husband, Ralph, havespent years collecting newspaper clip-pings, letters, and other documents —both old and new — and sending them onto Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority inIsrael. In 2005, six residents of Gandinodirectly involved in hiding her family —Vincenzo Rudelli, Bortolo and BattistinaOngaro, Francesco and Maria Nodari,and Giovanni Servalli — were honored asRighteous Among the Nations.

Zinn also spearheaded an effort in coor-dination with the National Italian AmericanFoundation in 1995 to plant trees in Israelin memory of those six RighteousGentiles. But, said Zinn, all those effortswere not enough; she wants the entiretown recognized.

“They deserve it — everybody knew[Jews] were hiding, but nobody gave usaway,” Zinn said in an interview. She wasin Gandino in 2000 when the Yad Vashemhonor was conferred; the event was in thenewspapers there, she said, and hasbeen “every year since then, even thoughthere are no Jews in Gandino.”

“Gandino remembers its Jews; whycan’t Jews remember Gandino?” saidZinn.

Zinn said she’s been told by YadVashem officials that there isn’t enoughdocumentation to honor the entire town’spopulation as Righteous Gentiles. She’sfrustrated because nearly everyone in thesmall town knew there were Jews hidingthere, and most even knew her family, yetno one sold them out.

***

Anti-Semitism wasn’t originally part ofItalian dictator Benito Mussolini’s

political platform; some Jews even joinedhis Fascist Party. Italy allieditself with Germany and Japanin 1937, and the Italian dictatoradopted Nazi racial laws in1938 and stepped up anti-Semitic measures in 1940when it entered World War II.

In 1942, Lowi, her parents,and brother were living in Milanwhen her father arranged tosmuggle his two children out ofItaly to Belgium in a florist’struck. But the children got themeasles and couldn’t go. Theywere in hiding with their mother when herfather was deported to Auschwitz, wherehe was killed.

They made their way north, out of Milan,to a small house in the countryside nearGandino in the foothills of the Alps.

Giovanni Servalli provided six-year-oldZinn and her brother with false papers.The siblings masqueraded as Christianchildren under the name Carnazzi.

“My mother met lots of nice people,”Zinn said.

She continued, “I was having a goodtime in the mountains — the fresh air. Butwinter was coming, and we heard thatGerman Nazis and Italian fascists hadbegun conducting raids of homes in thearea. They were looking for Jews.”

Fearful that they would be discovered,the family left their hiding place in

the countryside and moved in with a fam-ily in Gandino. That house was partiallyhidden by a large rock and lacked heatand running water.

It was so cold in the winter, said Zinn,that her mother went to a nearby conventand the siblings were moved to a Catholic

boarding school. “I still have the

yellow and whitefabric with myschool number.My mother cameto visit us duringthe off-hours, butshe always cameduring my pianolessons. One daythe piano teacherbecame suspi-cious and asked,

‘Are you Jewish?’”Lowi said that at the time she didn’t

know it, but found out after the war thatthere were other Jewish children beingsheltered at the school.

The Lowi children hid at the school lessthan a full school year before they had tomove again. The mother superior at theschool was the only one who could betrusted with their identity, and she discov-ered that German officials were investi-gating area convents and schools, lookingfor Jewish children.

In 1943, Italy made peace with theAllies, and the Allies occupied parts of

the country, while Germany took control ofother parts. The Nazis then hunted downItalian Jews, eventually deporting morethan 7,000 to concentration camps.

The Lowi and the Ongaro familiesbecame close and the children playedtogether, she recalled. To this day, Zinnand one of the Ongaro children keep intouch — writing letters and talking on thetelephone. The Lowis lived quietly, posingas Christians until, one day, the Nazisarrived.

“We were small but we knew we could-n’t tell them we were Jewish,” said Zinn,who still remembers the day vividly. Sheand her brother also had to make surethey did not let on that they understoodGerman. “The Nazis went through thehouse and storage room. They kicked theluggage looking for ammunition.”

Luckily the suitcases didn’t openbecause that’s where the family storedtheir Hebrew books, she said. The Nazisalso uncovered a small sewing box hermother had purchased as a birthday pres-ent for her.

Zinn said, “She gave it to me then, say-ing, ‘Who knows how long we’ll be alive.’”

By the time the war ended, 26 familieshad helped hide the Lowis and otherJewish families. And every time the Naziscame looking for Jews, no one from thetown helped them, she said.

Zinn said, “Not one Jew was arrestedfrom that town.”

After the war, the Lowi family returned toMilan.

First published in New Jersey JewishNews

SURVIVOR CAMPAIGNS TO HONOR TOWN THAT HID HER FAMILY FROM NAZIS

Marina Lowi Zinn in her home in NewJersey

BY KENDRA MARR

Forensic tools used to identify victimsof the Sept. 11 attacks and the

December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunamicould help reunite families of an oldertragedy — the Holocaust.

DNA Shoah is the brainchild of SydMandelbaum, a retired geneticist and thechild of two Holocaust survivors. Part sci-ence, part community service, part detec-tive work, its goal is to create a geneticdatabase of people who lost family duringthe Holocaust, identify the remains ofHolocaust victims and bring together liv-ing relatives.

“It’s never too late for healing to happen,even if it is a few generations down theline,’’ said Mandelbaum’s daughter Bari, a31-year-old Santa Clara nutritionist whowill be leading a grass-roots campaign tobuild the database.

She hopes to reach out to synagogues,Jewish student centers and Jewish agen-cies throughout the West Coast. But theproject is not confined to the Jewish com-munity; it’s also open to others who lostrelatives in the genocide that killed anestimated 9 million to 11 million people,including Poles, Gypsies, gays, tradeunionists and the disabled.

DNA Shoah plans to collect DNA sam-ples from survivors and their families, aswell as from Holocaust-era remains asthey continue to surface in Poland,Germany and other parts of Europe.

They need to act quickly, said MichaelHammer, a geneticist at the University of

Arizona and co-director of the project.There are 300,000 concentration campsurvivors left, with an average age of 68,as well as roughly 10,000 Holocaustorphans who were sent to safety in theUnited States, Canada and England dur-ing World War II; many of them lost touchwith their families.

“It didn’t take much convincing for me towant to participate,’’ Hammer said.“There’s a window of opportunity to dothis. We have the technology, and gener-ations of survivors are aging. If we don’tdo it now, it can’t ever be done.’’

Pnina Levermore, executive directorof the Climate of Trust Council, an

organization that works with JewishRussian immigrants living in the Bay Area,said it’s a compelling idea.

“People would be thrilled at the possibil-ity of finding long-lost relatives they didn’tknow they have,’’ she said. But she addedthat sending samples of DNA to a data-base raises privacy issues that will needto be addressed.

Hammer said DNA Shoah will keepgenetic information confidential andensure anonymity by identifying DNAsamples with bar codes, rather thannames.

Each person has a unique “genetic fin-gerprint’’ distinguished by a pattern ofDNA markers. Since children get half theirmarkers from each parent, the moregenetic material that is available, the bet-ter chance of finding a match to distantrelatives.

This type of analysis has improved as a

result of lessons learned from recentmass casualties.

When fires in the World TradeCenter degraded the remains of

victims to the point that standard DNA “fin-gerprinting’’ methods were useless,examiners turned to another method. Itexamines mitochondrial DNA, found in theenergy-producing parts of cells, which ismuch more resilient and abundant thanthe nuclear DNA involved in inheritance.

DNA Shoah faces a similar problem.After 60 years underground, the DNA inHolocaust remains — especially brokenbones — almost certainly has degraded.

In the Indian Ocean tsunami, waveswashed away items such as toothbrushesthat could have provided clues to uniden-tified bodies. Software developed byGene Codes, a “bioinformatics’’ firmbased in Michigan, provided ways ofmatching victims with distant relatives.

Gene Codes has donated its software tohandle DNA Shoah’s anticipated hun-dreds of thousands of genetic samples.

It was the discovery of an unidentifiedmass grave that inspired Mandelbaum, a56-year-old New Yorker, to create DNAShoah in November.

Mandelbaum said he read an articleabout remains in Germany that werebelieved to be connected to theHolocaust. He contacted Israeli police andIsrael’s Holocaust museum to confirm thesuspicion, but no one was able to identifythe remains, and the bodies werereburied.

“It bothered me,’’ he said. “I have amissing grandfather. If someone ever

found his remains, I would love to havethe option to give him a decent burialand put him in a place where we couldhonor his memory.’’

Mandelbaum is perhaps best known asthe founder of Rock and Wrap it Up!, aninternational non-profit organization thatgathers food left over from rock concertsand other performances and distributesit to the hungry.

In 1994 Mandelbaum was involved inDNA tests to determine whether

Anna Anderson was the long-lost GrandDuchess Anastasia of Russia. The tests,on strands of hair, refuted her claim.

Now, Mandelbaum is back to doingDNA detective work.

The plan is simple. DNA sampling kitswill be sent to families around the worldwho want to participate. Participants rubswabs along their inner cheeks to collectcells. Each swab is placed in a tube andmailed off to Hammer’s lab in Arizona forDNA fingerprinting.

The university will absorb most of thelab costs, and Mandelbaum is starting toraise money for sampling kits and otheressentials. The costs of DNA fingerprint-ing have gone down, he said, makingsuch a large-scale project possible.

A lot of Holocaust work is “vitallyimportant, but also brutal,” BariMandelbaum said. “This project not onlylets us remember the past, but it lets usmove toward the future. We’re bringingtogether families and laying bodies torest.’’

First published in Mercury News

DNA KEY TO FINDING VICTIMS OF HOLOCAUST

November/December 2006 - Cheshvan/Kislev 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 13

(Continued from page 6)could strike anyone. “No one knew whenhe would die,” Ted noted, “It was all ran-dom.” When prisoners passed away, Tedwould bury them, and recite the Kaddish.“I buried my friends, my comrades,American soldiers,” Ted said, “and askedthe Good Lord to let them rest in peace.”

When the Chinese learned that Ted wasoriginally from Hungary, they offered to lethim return to his home country, which atthe time was a Soviet satellite. Theypromised him a job, good clothes, all thefood he could want. But Ted refused to bea pawn for Chinese propaganda andturned them down. “I stood by my oath,”he said. Ted stayed in the camp until theend of the war, when he was released.The Army credits him with saving over 40lives during his two and a half years ofimprisonment.

When Ted returned to the United States,he finally received his U.S. citizenship. “Iwas the happiest man in the world,” hesaid. He left the Army and worked at hisbrother Emery’s store. Ted married, andhe and his wife Yvonne had two children.By this time, there was no talk of medals;

the country was moving on, and anyway,many men in Ted’s original unit thought hewas dead. He created a wonder at a 1980Korean War veterans’ reunion simply byshowing up.

Ted’s case was brought to the Army’sattention in 1985, but he was ineligible toreceive the award until statutory languagewas amended in 1996. His is one of manycases being reviewed under section 552of the 2002 National DefenseAuthorization Act, which requires the mili-tary to “review the records of certainJewish-American and Hispanic-Americanwar veterans to determine if any of theseveterans should be awarded the Medal ofHonor.”

Most such awards will unfortunately beposthumous. But on September 23,President Bush gave Corporal Ted Rubinlong overdue recognition for his manyacts of valor in the Korean conflict. Tedreceived, in his own words, “the highesthonor of the best country in the world.”How does he feel about it? “It still hasn’tsunk in,” he said. “I’m just a country boy.It’s a dream come true.”First appeared on National Review Online

(Continued from page 10)tory of all places on Polish territory wherewartime crimes had been committed onPolish Jews and those brought to sufferfrom other countries of occupied Europe.” Professor Shevach Weiss from the institutein Jerusalem and former Israeli ambassa-dor to Poland is convinced the cooperationwith IPN already is, and will continue to beimportant and valuable.

Besides strictly historical gains from theIPN-Yad Vashem cooperation, can one ofits effects be overcoming the many nega-tive stereotypes which have accumulatedin Polish-Jewish relations? MateuszSzpytna from IPN is confident the resultswill be visible.

Professor Weiss adds the cooperationYad Vashem has been pursuing with theInstitute of National Remembranceextends beyond the subject of Nazi crimesduring the war. A sensitive issue is docu-mented Polish participation in some ofthese atrocities, like the mass murder ofJews in Jedwabne in 1941.

“We talked about Jedwabne after a veryintensive, long and systematic work of IPN,with professors Kieres and Kulesza. It was

one of the cases where cooperationbetween Yad Vashem and IPN was verypositive. Unfortunately, we have manythings to do in the future. The RighteousAmong nations, the next generation andthe third generation after them and manyother issues.’

Indeed the Righteous Among Nations area special category of people who helpedsave Jewish lives during the Holocaust. InNazi-occupied Poland this was punishableby death, yet Poles constitute by far thelargest part of that group of many nations.

Polish-Jewish relations are a rich area forstudy, but they also contain many tragicelements with anti-Semitic roots. An exam-ple is the pogrom in Kielce in 1945.Professor Shevach Weiss says this makesthe events even more tragic.

The latest cooperation agreementbetween the Polish Institute of NationalRemembrance and the Israeli Yad Vashemwill surely contribute to resolving some ofthe grim mysteries governing the darkmechanisms of racial hatred and oppres-sion. It will also shed light on the heroicacts of individuals who did not hesitate torisk their lives to save others.

“THE HIGHEST HONOR OF THE BEST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD”

BY DINAH A. SPRITZER

Marysia Ambrozy has participated ina lot of events honoring those who

helped Jews during the Holocaust, but arecent ceremony in Wroclaw, Poland,made her cry for all the wrong reasons.

In May, two elderly sisters were recog-nized by Yad Vashem for helping theirimpoverished parents feed, house andhide nine Jews during the Holocaust.

At the awards ceremony, Ambrozy, acultural assistant at the Israeli Embassy inWarsaw, overheard a newspaper inter-view with the sisters, who were in theirearly teens at the time of their parents’ actof valor.

“They said that they don’t need a medaland they don’t care about it,” she said,adding that the sisters said that “what theyneed is money. The journalist was askingthem, ‘Don’t you think that you did a greatthing?’ And they answered — ‘Our stupidmother was helping and never got any-thing for this.’ ”

The sisters’ bitterness is perhaps a rarephenomenon, she noted, but it illustratessome of the problems Righteous Gentiles,as they’re called, and their heirs have inPoland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe.They tend to be from poorer areas, sinceit was easier to hide Jews in rural villagesduring the war than in cities.

Ambrozy explained that after World WarII ended, the sisters’ mother was physical-ly attacked by neighbors for helping Jews.The sisters’ father died of cancer after thefamily was too poor to pay for his medicaltreatment.

The sisters sought financial aid for theirfamily from Jewish organizations, butwere unsuccessful, according to Ambrozy,who added that they were now desperatefor money to pay for their own medicine.

“Ninety percent of the righteous beingawarded today in Poland have no moneyfor basic medications or even for a ticketto come to their own ceremonies,” shelamented.

Ceremonies for the righteous are heldalmost every month in Poland as aging

survivors sometimes wait until late in lifeto let their families and Yad Vashem knowabout their protectors and their wartimesuffering.

Ambrozy’s boss, cultural attacheYa’akov Finkelstein, points to what hesays is an equally disturbing stumblingblock for the Righteous Gentiles.

“I get letters each month from peoplewho tell us they don’t want the ceremonywhere they live, they don’t want people toknow about the award, which reallyshocked me when I came here,”Finkelstein said.

Some medal recipients worry their fel-low villagers will be jealous, Finkelsteinsaid.

“They’re concerned that their neighborsthink they’re getting money from theJews,” he explained.“Others were wor-ried that they mightbe robbed if themedia put the wordout that they gotsome kind of award,and then there aresome who say theirneighbors will con-demn them for beingsupported by Jews.It seems the furthereast in the countryyou go, the morecommon that attitude is,” Finkelstein esti-mated.

Saving Jews from the gas chambersin Poland was a remarkable feat of

bravery in the country that had the largestnumber of Jews perish.

The Nazi punishment for Poles whohelped Jews was death, often the death ofone’s entire family. Some who merelygave food to Jews were murdered on thespot, while others were tortured beforebeing killed and many were sent to con-centration camps.

Yet more people in Poland helped Jewsthan in any other nation, according to YadVashem, which has recognized nearly6,000 Righteous Among the Nations inPoland.

There is a very active association ofthose who saved Jews that touts itsmembers’ achievements with pride, butwhether their deeds are admired or evenappreciated by most Poles remainsunclear.

“It’s ridiculous that there were Poleswho were not afraid of the Nazis, but areafraid of their neighbors,” Finkelsteinsaid.

An extensive report last spring inPoland’s leading daily, GazetaWyborcza, chronicled the fear somerecipients of the Yad Vashem medal feel.

Estee Ya’ari, spokeswoman for YadVashem, said via e-mail that most

people who receive the recognition areproud, but added, “we have heard of afew cases in Poland where righteous

prefer that theirnames not be madepublic, and this isindeed an unfortu-nate comment onthe environment inwhich they live. Asfor other countries,we are not familiarwith similar cases.”

To strengthen theofficial endorse-ment of RighteousGentiles’ position inPolish life, more

Polish politicians, including the currentnational president and the heads of bothhouses of Parliament, have been turningup at the Israeli Embassy’s award cere-monies.

The righteous also are frequentlyreferred to in politicians’ speeches asone of the country’s deepest sources ofpride. In Lodz, a city recently known forits numerous initiatives memorializingJews, a park dedicated to the righteoushas been opened.

In Krakow, one of the country’s firstexhibitions devoted to the righteousopened earlier this year at the GaliciaJewish Museum.

However, the righteous face the samefinancial difficulties as all other aging

people in Eastern Europe. Their tinypensions — most live on $150 to $300 amonth — have not kept pace with infla-tion, and many struggle to survive.

Poland, for instance, has some of thehighest prices for medicine per incomein the European Union; in Ukraine, gasand electricity prices have been particu-larly difficult for the elderly to bear.

Yad Vashem’s medal award ismeant as a symbolic endorsement

of moral courage, since a financialaward might suggest that one shouldhelp others for personal economic gain,those familiar with the recognition pro-gram explain.

Cash-strapped local governments saythey would love to provide greater suste-nance to the righteous, but insist theyalready face many other social problemsthat affect all of their elderly.

The Jewish Foundation for theRighteous, founded in 1986, is the onlyorganization that provides financial sup-port to those who have received the YadVashem recognition.

The New York-based ClaimsConference, which has a budget of $1.4million, provides stipends to 1,450 menand women in 28 countries, includingabout 700 in Poland.

The monthly support in Poland wasraised from $75 to $100 in May — and ispaid out quarterly.

“It definitely helps me survive; it meansI can get medicine” said RighteousGentile Maria Florek, whose pension is$200 a month.

Stanlee Joyce Stahl, the foundation’sexecutive vice president, hinted thatdescendants of Holocaust survivorsshould be interested in the well-being ofthe descendants of the righteous.

“If the survivors went on and had chil-dren and grandchildren, the question is,where is the family?” she asked “Mostpeople during the Holocaust werebystanders. There were a precious fewrescuers. There is not enough theJewish community could ever do forthem.”

First published in JTA

SHOAH RESCUERS HAVE MORAL HONOR, BUT IN POLAND THEY LACK BASIC NEEDS

Polish Righteous Gentile Maria Florek.

POLAND WORKS WITH YAD VASHEM TO IDENTIFY “RIGHTEOUS” POLES

Page 14 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE November/December 2006 - Cheshvan/Kislev 5767

(Continued from page 7)Holocaust – resulted in tens of thousandsof Jews fleeing Poland.

After World War II, Jew-hunting con-tinued when Lena Küchler-

Silberman set up an orphanage in Polandto care for Jewish children who had losttheir parents in the Holocaust. However,Polish villagers attacked the orphanageand attempted to murder the children, sowith all 100 of them, she fled and under-took a treacherous and dangerous jour-ney to safety in Israel.

In 1952 – seven years after theHolocaust ended – on what is now knownas the “Night of the Murdered Poets,”Joseph Stalin ordered that thirteen of themost prominent Yiddish writers in theSoviet Union be executed.

State-sponsored anti Semitism also did-n’t end with the defeat of Hitler. In 2003,Malaysian Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir

Mohammed, drew a standing ovation atan Islamic Conference when heannounced, “...But today, the Jews rulethis world by proxy. They get others tofight and die for them...They inventedsocialism, communism, human rights anddemocracy, so that persecuting themwould appear wrong...”

Last year, in 2005, fifteen members ofthe State Duma of the Russian

Federation demanded that Jewish organi-zations be banned from the country. Andin June, 500 prominent Russiansdemanded that the state prosecutorexamine ancient Jewish texts, claimingthey were “anti-Russian.”

As the newly elected Palestinian terror-ist organization Hamas joins Iran’sPresident in calling for the destruction ofIsrael, it becomes essential that the cre-ation of Israel be understood to be theresult of two thousand years of Jewish

persecution, including the Holocaust.While the most horrific expression of Jewhatred was indeed the slaughter of mil-lions of Jews at the hands of the Nazis. Itmust be remembered that this macabreevent represents an intrinsic element of alarger mosaic of pain, tragedy, sufferingand intolerance that has scarred thehuman race since the beginning of record-ed time.

Dagobert Runes, in 1968, stated thatJews have been persecuted through vam-pire trials and Black Death accusations,through the Count Rindfleisch campaign(146 Jewish communities were extermi-nated in six months), the Hussite wars(almost the entire Jewish population ofPrague perished) and the Chmielnickibloodbath (a brutal Cossack who massa-cred Jews) the Russian pogroms,Rumanian barbarism and the NaziHolocaust.

Since the creation of the Jewishhomeland, Jews in the Diaspora are

no longer destined to religious, ethnic orcultural persecution without the option ofescape. But now, Israel has become thenew target. And as fresh alliances areformed between Arab states and anti-Zionist Westerners with the common goalof destroying Jewish nationhood, it isimportant to remember the entire bloodiedmosaic of immense suffering that led tothe creation of Israel in the first place.

The history of the Jewish people is notproperly defined by presenting theHolocaust as an isolated event, and it istotally misrepresented by computer simu-lations that require students to role-playoppressed Palestinians and InvaderJews. To avoid distortion and misrepre-sentation, Jewish history must be keptintact and in context.

First appeared on FrontPageMagazine.com

DISTORTING JEWISH HISTORY

BY DINAH A. SPRITZER

Museums chronicling Jewish life anddeath — including the Holocaust —

safeguard the memory of millions who canno longer speak.

These institutions often rely on artifacts— items bequeathed by those who wantto share their family’s historywith the world for posterity, totell their stories.

But at former Nazi concen-tration camps that are nowmuseums, the artifacts werelargely items that werealready on site, so they wereobtained without the consentof former owners or theirheirs.

So who has the right toclaim them?

It is perhaps the ultimateethical nightmare for a Jewishmuseum.

That nightmare is embodiedin the case of DinaGottliebova Babbitt, who hasa claim against the AuschwitzMuseum in Poland.

The 83-year-old Jewishartist, Czech-born and nowliving in California, was forcedby the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele inAuschwitz to paint watercolors of gypsies— also known as Roma — as part of hiseffort to document their genetic inferiority.

Babbitt has unsuccessfully been tryingfor years to get seven of her paintingsback from the Auschwitz Museum. Themuseum argues that the artworks’ role ascrucial evidence in one of the 20th centu-ry’s greatest crime against humanitysupersedes her ownership rights and heremotional attachment to the works thatsaved her and her mother’s life.

Museum spokesman Jaroslaw Mensfeltsuggests that acknowledging owners’rights to thousands of Auschwitz artifactswould undermine the museum’s ability toeducate the public at a time whenHolocaust denial has reached new levels.He explains the museum’s position, whichit is also taking with a French man whotook legal action earlier this year in anattempt to reclaim his father’s suitcase.

“A good example is the Arbeit Mach Freigate. We know the author of this sign.

Within the Babbitt way of thinking, whyshouldn’t the author claim the gate andhang it on his wall?”

Despite Mensfelt’s reasoning,Babbitt’s case has elicited outrage

among artists and museum directors thata concentration camp survivor should bethwarted by a museum devoted to depict-ing Jewish suffering. But experts in cura-

torial ethics and historians are by nomeans united about the museum’s posi-tion.

The chairman of the council’s legal com-mittee, Patrick Boylan, accused theAuschwitz Museum in an e-mail of behav-ing like a institution wanting to keep Nazi-looted art from Jewish heirs.

To those focused on Holocaust educa-tion, the need for the public to be aware ofwhat Babbitt’s paintings represent is para-mount. The works are part of an exhibitionon the Nazi’s attempted extermination ofthe Roma. Estimates of gypsy victimsrange from 250,000 to half a million, butwhat is agreed upon is that they lost agreater percentage of their ethnic group,about 50 percent, than any other groupbesides Jews.

Yehuda Bauer, a renowned Holocaustscholar and adviser to Yad Vashem, alsosaid the Babbitt paintings were essentialto the museum.

“Do you think that if Rembrandt wasalive, he should have the right to reclaim

his paintings, whether paid for or not, ashis private property, six decades after hehad painted them?” Bauer wrote in an e-mail.

He added that it was “a scandal” forBabbitt “to demand that pictures of Gypsyvictims that testify to genocide shouldbecome her private property, to be sold onthe market or hung in her private apart-

ment.” Babbitt has expressed a

desire to move the paintingsto an American museum.

Kalman Sultanik of theAuschwitz InternationalCouncil said that although hethinks that this move would bewrong, the AuschwitzMuseum needs to reach somesort of compromise withBabbitt that would honor herrole as the painting’s creator.

The Holocaust Museumin Washington would not

weigh in on the Babbitt case,although in a written state-ment the museum expressedunderstanding for both sidesin the conflict.

A Yad Vashem spokes-woman noted that the muse-um had dealt with a handful ofvictim claims, some conclud-

ing with the return of property. Michaela Hajkova, a curator for the

Jewish Museum in Prague, explains thatshe had dealt with a small number of situ-ations in which heirs sought to recover art-works.

The most significant case for the Praguemuseum’s collections involved 174expressionistic portraits of life at theTheresienstadt camp painted by artistBedrich Fritta before he was murdered atAuschwitz. The hidden paintings weregiven to the museum by Fritta’s friendafter World War II, and it was only in themid-1990s that Fritta’s son Tomas claimedthem.

“We knew he didn’t have the facilities tostore these or a clue of how to take careof them. We knew the paintings wereessential as documents from evidence.We were worried they might bedestroyed,” said Hajkova.

But even with that knowledge, “We justgave them back,” said Hajkova. “We rec-ognized his moral right.”

CASE INVOLVING AUSCHWITZ ARTIFACTS HIGHLIGHTS ETHICAL DILEMMA FOR MUSEUMS

Dina Gottliebova Babbitt is suing the Auschwitz Museum in Poland for thereturn of the watercolors she drew as a prisoner of the death camp.

Romania commemorated its nationalHolocaust day with ceremonies

marking 65 years since the beginning ofdeportations of hundreds of thousands ofJews to death camps in the occupiedSoviet Union.

President Traian Basescu laid the firststone of a national monument being builtto commemorate Holocaust victims incentral Bucharest. He reminded partici-pants that Romania only recently began toconfront its role in the Holocaust afterdecades of denial.

During communist times, the country’sofficial history taught that Germans werethe sole perpetrators of the Holocaust,ignoring the involvement of Romania’swartime leaders.

In 2004 after a dispute with Israel overcomments about the Holocaust, then-President Ion Iliescu assembled an inter-national panel, led by Nobel-prize winnerElie Wiesel, to investigate the Holocaustin Romania.

The panel concluded that the pro-Nazigovernment of Marshal Ion Antonescuwas responsible for the deaths of280,000-380,000 Jews and more than11,000 Gypsies, or Roma.

“This was a country where theHolocaust was a taboo subject,” PaulShapiro, Director of the Center forAdvanced Studies at the United StatesHolocaust Memorial Museum inWashington told The Associated Press.

Shapiro said Romania was now follow-ing the panel’s recommendations by cre-ating an institution to study the Holocaustand a national monument to commemo-rate the victims.

Dozens of elderly Jewish and Romasurvivors of the deportations were presentat the ceremonies, and hailed the decisionto build the monument.

“The fact that, despite the delay, theRomanian government has acknowl-edged the responsibility of state authori-ties of the time for what happened ... isencouraging for us survivors,” said authorOliver Lustig.

Lustig, now 79, was deported toAuschwitz-Birkenau at the age of 17 withhis parents and six siblings by Hungarianauthorities who controlled northernRomania at the time.

Roma survivor Dumitru Tranca, 71, alsoinsisted that new generations “must knowwhat happened, what we suffered.”Tranca was deported with his family ofcoppersmiths to camps in an area in theoccupied Soviet Union, where his parentsand two sisters died.

ROMANIA COMMEMORATESHOLOCAUST VICTIMS

November/December 2006 - Cheshvan/Kislev 5767 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 15

(Continued from page 4)modern “New Woman,” independent andwanton a la Marlene Dietrich (in pantsyet!) and Greta Garbo. Thus, according tothem, it was the Jews who were destroy-ing true German womanhood and, hence,undermining the “Fatherland.”

And then there were those many moreNazis who simply seethed with anger andjealousy when they viewed the amazingsuccess of Jews in the German fashionindustry. Not surprisingly, many of themwould soon become eager members of “Adefa,” the organization charged with the“aryanization” of these businesses andthe “cleans[ing of] Jews from all areas ofthe fashion industry.”

Interestingly, in the end, as Guenther

conscientiously tells it, neither the dirndlnor the uniformed look pushed by theNazis met with much acceptance byGerman women. But 100% of Germany’sJews were thrown out of the fashionindustry . . . ironically, for many, to contin-ue their work now as slave laborers for theNazis, making the same so-called “trashy”gowns and dresses the SS wives andeven the “First Lady of the Reich,” FrauGoebbels, stubbornly never stoppedwearing. Indeed, it appears that if thedirndl or uniformed look was meant foranyone, it was a prescription for the mass-es . . . not the elite . . .

Dr. Diane Cypkin is a Professor of Mediaand Communication Arts at Pace University

(Continued from page 4)Here, then, we get the account WilhelmGrill, who worked in the post office build-ing of Mauthausen concentration campwhile still in his early twenties; PaulWolfram, who managed the infamousMauthausen quarry; Dr. Erika Flocken,chief physician at Muehldorf, who select-ed the prisoners destined for Auschwitz;and Christian Mohr, a guard atFlossenburg accused of beating prisonersand taking an active role in their execution— going so far as to put the noose aroundvictims’ necks.

Two chapters highlight the cases ofHeinrich Buuck, Julius Straub and PeterGoldmann, who all killed prisoners ondeath marches during the final phases ofthe war; another two sections trace thebehavior of a Czech and a Spanishnational who served as Capos during thewar and were consequently prosecutedfor the mistreatment of other concentra-tion camp inmates. A significant propor-tion of this book, meanwhile, pays atten-tion to crimes committed againstAmericans during the war.

Two successive chapters deal withGerman civilians who attacked downedUS pilots; another focuses on the fate ofAmerican prisoners of war in Berga campin Thuringia, and a fourth follows the storyof Dr. Max Schmid, who removed thehead from an American corpse, allegedlyfor scientific research.

On occasion, however, The DachauDefendants moves away from a study ofspecific characters and provides instead amore generalized account of a set of crim-inal events. One chapter utilizes the testi-mony of a Buchenwald stretcher bearer,Marian Zgoda, to describe a special detailknown as “Commando 99” – organized toexecute the murder of prisoners whocame to the camp’s “clinic” for supposedmedical examinations. This section of thebook seems much more concerned withhow this deception was played out thanwith offering a personal history of the chiefperpetrators, and thus fails to give anyreal insight into the psychological makeupof those involved. Another chapter, mean-while, stands out for focusing more on the

victim’s family and his legal wrangles withthe War Crimes Commission at Dachauthan with the actual men accused of mur-dering American airman Daniel P. Loyd.The author bases her study exclusively onprimary source material “with the excep-tion of background information availablein any textbook on modern European his-tory.” She thus draws upon letters, peti-tions, military records, psychiatric reports,trial documents and other material whichhas found its way into the case files pre-served in the American National Archivesand Records Administration in Maryland.Testimonies from both survivors and for-mer Nazis are reproduced at length,recalling in horrific detail the abuse andmurder of countless concentration campvictims and ensuring the reality of thecrimes is not lost amid defendants’ postur-ing.

Overall, the book does a good job ofindividualizing and re-humanizing some ofthe criminal figures of the Third Reich andin explaining the factors that could compelsomeone to participate in such actions.

PERSONALIZING THE PERPETRATORS

FASHIONING WOMEN IN THE THIRD REICH(Continued from page 10)

The Hulatas immigrated to Israel in1946. Ben Hulata had gone back to seethe Dutch family in 1965 when he wentto study agriculture in Holland, and hadthen lost touch with them, although hisbrother had visited the family in 1992.

Last year, Ben Hulata tracked downElbert Colenbrander, 79, in Holland,and worked tirelessly to have the familyrecognized as “Righteous Among theNations” by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

Colenbrander was very surprisedwhen Ben Hulata contacted him with theidea, feeling it was “a big honor he didnot deserve,” Colenbrander’s daughterWilma, 46, recalled, as her father, andher late grandparents received Yad

Vashem’s highest honor in the Gardenof the Righteous.

Colenbrander, who broke out in tearsat the emotion-fraught ceremony, nevertalked much about the war with his chil-dren, and only discussed it when asked,his daughter said.

Over the years, he always said that hewas taught that as a Christian, you dothese things for other people, hisdaughter said.

At the simple ceremony, the memoriesof the war, and his family’s actions,flooded the now-elderly man, and, for amoment, the decades of oft-hiddenemotions were overpowering.

First published in The Jerusalem Post

A RIGHTEOUS FAMILY IS HONORED...

BY CHRISTOPHER LEE

Sixty-six years ago, Hiram BinghamIV, a blue-blood American diplomat

in France, defied U.S. policy by helpingJews escape the Nazis in the early yearsof World War II.

Bingham’s actions cost him his ForeignService career but won him the undyinggratitude of the more than 2,000 refugeeshe helped save by issuing them travelvisas and false passports, and even attimes sheltering them in his home.

Only in recent years has his heroismbeen officially recognized by his owncountry.

Bingham, the Yale-educated son of aformer U.S. senator, died in 1988 at 84.

His own children did not learn the extentof his wartime deeds until 1996, when ason found a cache of old journals and cor-respondence stashed in a hidden closet inthe family’s Connecticut home.

Soon Bingham’s face — and, support-ers hope, his story — will be well knownacross the United States, as the U.S.Postal Service issued a stamp in hishonor.

More than a dozen family members,joined by several members of Congressand a few Jewish survivors whomBingham helped, gathered at the RayburnHouse Office Building for an unveiling ofthe stamp.

Bingham, known to friends and familyas “Harry,” hailed from a prominent NewEngland family.

His father, Hiram Bingham III, was an

archaeologist who rediscovered the ruinsof the Inca city of Machu Picchu in Peru in1911 and later served briefly asConnecticut governor and as aRepublican U.S. senator from that state.

After graduating from Yale, HarryBingham entered the Foreign

Service and eventually became U.S. viceconsul in Marseille, France, in 1936.

Within a few years Hitler’s armies beganmarching over Europe, occupying Francein 1940 andworking withthe VichyFrench gov-ernment. TheUnited Stateshad not yetentered thewar, andP r e s i d e n tFranklin D.Roosevelt’s State Department told con-sular officials to keep the number of U.S.-bound immigrants and refugees as low aspossible.

As thousands of Jews fled the Nazis tosouthern France, Americans concernedabout their plight organized theEmergency Rescue Committee.

They persuaded Roosevelt to authorizea few hundred “emergency visas” forartists and intellectuals, and they enlistedjournalist and scholar Varian Fry to helpJews in France get to the United States.

But Bingham, in defiance of U.S. policy,went much further, helping thousands ofJews escape. He provided Fry with a visa

and other travel documents, some fraudu-lent, and let rescue activists use his homefor planning meetings.

After German and French officials gotwind of the rescue activity and com-

plained to the U.S. government, the StateDepartment revoked Fry’s passport inearly 1941 and transferred Bingham toPortugal, and later to the embassy inArgentina.

Bingham called attention to reports thatNazi assets and warcriminals were beinggiven safe harbor inArgentina, but the StateDepartment quashed hisefforts to investigate.

Bingham resigned inprotest in 1946 andreturned to Connecticut,ending his career fouryears shy of his pension.

It would be nearly six decades beforeSecretary of State Colin Powell honoredBingham posthumously with a special“constructive dissent” award in 2002.

“He’s the only U.S. diplomat ... that weknow of who risked his career, indeedsacrificed his career, in order to saveJews from the Holocaust,” said RafaelMedoff, director of the David S. WymanInstitute for Holocaust Studies.

“We want young people to hear aboutthis courageous voice, because Harry is agreat example of how at a time of crisis itis possible to stand up and to do the rightthing, despite the risks.”

First published in the Washington Post

STAMP HONORS HOLOCAUST HERO

Adirector of the Simon WiesenthalCenter urged Serbian authorities to

seek the extradition of two Croatia-bornmen and try them for alleged World War IIatrocities against Jews, Serbs andGypsies.

Efraim Zuroff, the Los Angeles-basedcenter’s chief Nazi hunter, met inBelgrade with President Boris Tadic andJustice Ministry officials, advising them tojoin efforts to bring to justice Ivo Rojnicaand Milivoj Asner.

The men served in Croatia’s World WarII Nazi puppet regime and allegedly tookpart in the prosecution and death campdeportations of hundreds of Jews, Serbsand Gypsies, Zuroff said.

Although the men are not Serbian citi-zens and their alleged crimes were com-mitted in the territory of present-dayCroatia, the ethnicity of some of the vic-tims “entitles Serbia to seek extradition” ofRojnica and Asner, living in Argentina andAustria, respectively, Zuroff said.

Last year, Croatia indicted Asner forcrimes against humanity and war crimes,but Austrian authorities failed to arrest the92-year-old man. Croatia has sinceshown little resolve to press for the han-dover of Asner, or to seek extradition ofRojnica, 90, who is believed to be living inBuenos Aires, Zuroff said.

“When it comes to the Second WorldWar cases, in our attempts to see justicedone it has always been important to con-sider the victim’s origins and identity,” hesaid.

Rojnica is allegedly responsible forcrimes committed against hundreds ofSerbs, Jews and Gypsies in the southerncity of Dubrovnik. Asner allegedly sent vic-tims from the town of Slavonska Poega toa Croat-run death camp, where most ofthem later died.

“The passing of time does not diminishwhat those men did. If someone commit-ted a war crime in 1941 or 1942 and if 60years have passed and they were notbrought to justice, it does not mean thatperson’s responsibility is not the sametoday as it was then,” said Zuroff, whospearheads “Operation: Last Chance,” aneffort to get Nazi suspects arrested andtried before they die.

Tens of thousands of Jews, Serbs andGypsies perished during the so-calledIndependent State of Croatia, which theNazis set up when they invaded the for-mer Yugoslavia in 1941 and encouragedethnic violence among the country’sdiverse population.

SERBIA URGED TOEXTRADITE

NAZI SUSPECTS

Martyrdom & ResistanceEli Zborowski, Editor-in-Chief

Yefim Krasnyanskiy, M.A., Editor*Published Bimonthly by the

International Society for Yad Vashem, Inc.500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor New York, NY 10110

(212) 220-4304EDITORIAL BOARD

Eli Zborowski Marvin ZborowskiMark Palmer Sam SkuraIsrael Krakowski William MandellSam Halpern Isidore Karten**Norman Belfer Joseph Bukiet**

*1974-85, as Newsletter for the American Federation of JewishFighters, Camp Inmates, and Nazi Victims**deceased

International Society for Yad VashemMARTYRDOM AND RESISTANCE500 FIFTH AVENUE, 42nd FLOOR, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10110-4299

NON-PROFIT ORG.U.S. POST

PA I DNEW YORK, N.Y.PERMIT NO. 10

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THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR YAD VASHEM &

THE ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS OF SOCIAL STUDIES OF THE UNITED FEDERATION OF TEACHERS (ATSS/UFT)

Invite all Superintendents, Principals and Educators of History, Judaic Studies, English, Humanities and Global Studies (history, social studies) to the

9th Annual Professional Development Conference

ECHOES AND REFLECTIONS:A Multi-media Curriculum on the Holocaust

This curriculum was created by the Anti-Defamation League, USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, and Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority

DATE: Sunday, March 11th, 2007

TIME: 8:30 AM - 3:00 PM8:30 AM - Breakfast9:00 AM Program Commences

PLACE: Marymount School/Pratt Mansion1027 Fifth Avenue(between 83rd and 84th Streets)New York, NY 10028

Featuring the Most Recent Educational Units on.Perpetrators Collaborators and Bystanders during the Holocaust . Ghettos .

.Survivors and Liberators . Jewish Resistance Rescuers and Non-Jewish Resistance ..The Children.

All registered participants will receive a FREE copy of this newly developed curriculum upon completion of the program. Additional copies available at $100 each. Curriculum includes lesson

plans and multi-media resources for implementing educational materials.

To register for this conference, please contact:Education Department

American Society for Yad Vashem500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor, New York, NY 10110-4299

RSVP Tel: 212.220.4304 / Fax: 212.220.4308 info@yadvashemusa.org