German students: Holocaust present in our schools

The Holocaust is a mandatory part of German's education curriculum. But the quality and scope of the lessons are left up to the states, each of which have jurisdiction over their education curriculum. Ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Ynet spoke with four German high school students about Holocaust commemoration and confronting the past in their country's educational system.

 

The students admitted that unfortunately they never met a Holocaust survivor, but during their studies, they visited German concentration camps with their school.

"The first time we spoke about the Holocaust was in eighth grade," says Anneke Frommen, a high school student in Dusseldorf. "we discussed it in history class as well as in bilingual lessons." She said that they learnt all about the Second World War but didn’t focus ion any particular event.

Anneke Frommen

"No Holocaust survivor ever visited our school, but we visited concentration camps where we held workshops. I am quite satisfied with how the subject of the Holocaust is handled in German schools because I believe that it is a matter that is constantly present and is very important." Anna Laura, also from Dusseldorf said that her class read Anne Frank's Diary and focused on the atrocities committed during the war. "We discussed the subject all year long," she said. "I think that the school is doing good work by teaching the youth about the matter and by not ignoring the horrors (that were committed)."

Anna Laura

Fynn Bothe, a high school student in Hanover, noted that he was exposed to the subject in ninth or tenth grade and that they learnt about the war and Auschwitz. "I am satisfied with how the school teaches the subject because we learn what the Nazis committed. They were responsible for one for the most horrific crimes in the history of Germany."

Fynn Bothe

Aaron Täger, a student in Barsinghausen (Lower Saxony), also said that Holocaust studies were taught in grade nine or ten and that he is ambivalent regarding the way it was taught. "It is good that we are familiar with the subject matter, but it is unfortunate that we could not meet with a Holocaust survivor." He said that it would have given the students a better understanding of what occurred and of the Jews' suffering.

Aaron Täger

A 2017 survey of German students found that 40% of students aged 17 and older had never heard of the Auschwitz death camp. Recently, Yad Vashem signed an agreement with the 16 German states in order to improve the state of Holocaust studies in the country and train teachers.

"Some teachers prepare lessons for younger students, but most study the subject in depth in high school," said Rachel Kaplan, director of the European Division at Yad Vashem's International School of Holocaust Studies. "In the last two decades, Germany has a lot of diversity among students, many were not born in Germany, or their parents weren’t born in Germany. "Some teachers, as with any subject, want to focus on the facts and we try to help them to teach through the prism of who used to live here, not just in Europe but in all of Europe; or to focus on who were these people, because most students never met a Jew," she continued. "We want to encourage the teachers to recognize the heritage and history of the Jews in Germany. For that reason, oftentimes the curriculum begins from 1933 and examines the Jewish contribution to German society."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel at Dachau

She said that she feels that German schools do a good job of dealing with the past, albeit regarding German civilian cooperation with the Nazis, less so. "Sometimes they fail to understand that the story isn’t only about Hitler the murderer, but also about the collaboration of Germans during the Holocaust. Educated people who were involved in the plan and its implementation. Police, who were supposed to protect people but transformed into killers. "Hitler did not shoot six million people by himself and we see a lot of ignorance in this matter," she continued. "The expulsions by train did not occur at 3am outside of the city. Many people witnessed these events and the street where it happened still stands today. Therefore, local initiatives to commemorate this are very important. It is also important to connect the students with the places where they live. Sometimes they live in neighborhoods that in the past were populated by other people who didn’t simply disappear." She noted the local initiatives, such as cleaning Jewish cemeteries by German students, in locations where there are no longer any Jewish communities. Holocaust researcher and teacher at the Kibbutz Seminar Dr. Nili Keren said: "All of the large concentration camps have become centers of study and education. The subject is taught but it depends on the curriculum and the state and there are all sorts of disagreements regarding how much to teach." Students are taught that in addition to Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, Slavs and Poles were killed and this sometimes raises the ire of the Jewish community. But the Germans owe it to the other victims as well. "The past is recognized, but there is also a feeling that the younger generation should not have to bear responsibility for the sins of previous generations." Germany's absorption of immigrant refugees has raised the issue of xenophobia with regards to the past in the education system says Dr. Keren. Some focus more on that on the Holocaust she says. "I believe that the second generation to the Holocaust, those of the 1960's, identified more with the guilt and today, it is taken for granted that the Holocaust is part of German history."

Let's block ads! (Why?)

German students: Holocaust present in our schools : http://bit.ly/2VHfL3M

New lists shed light on Kastner train passengers

Besides the day her father was pressed into the forced labor squads, the clandestine missions under the nose of the Nazis, the traumatic separation from her mother, the overcrowding on the train, the bombings, hunger, uncertainty and fear, after the dysentery at Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp —after all of the above, Daisy Hefner reached Auschwitz. It was supposed to be a sweet moment. After all, her life was spared. But Hefner, 90, primarily remembers the cold.

 

She was a girl of 15, experienced in hardship and tribulations, who escaped Nazi-occupied Hungary. None of that changed the fact that it was mid-December and it was freezing. Snow covered the city of Caux, 1,000 meters high in the Swiss Alps, and all Hefner received to protect herself from the cold was a blanket.

Israel Kastner

"Our toes were black from frostbite," she says with a Hungarian accent. The fact that she had survived the difficult phase of her journey mattered less to her than the need to find warmth. Hefner probably does not recall how, amidst the chaos during the disembarking process, how her personal information was jotted down in blue ink as: Yehudit Tauzski, 10.11.1930, Budapest; student. She made up the birthdate and name as it was the name on the slip of paper she received that allowed her to board the Kastner train. But Hefner's life story is more than real.

Daisy Hefner

75 years after being rescued from the claws of the Nazis, the name of the retired teacher from Kibbutz Givat Brenner and great-grandmother of four, appears on two newly discovered lists of survivors, passengers on the Kastner train that brought them to safe haven in Switzerland. Unlike other, previously publicized lists of the train's passengers, these two lists describe the end of the harrowing journey outside of Nazi-occupied Europe. The lists were located in the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People at the National Library and will be made available for public viewing, online, this week in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day. The lists were delivered to the archives 30 years ago by Rabbi David Moshe Rosen, the chief rabbi of Romania during the Communist period. Although the items received underwent preliminary cataloging, the historical worth of the documents escaped the eyes of the archivists and their actual value was only recently discovered due to a research project utilizing the archives.

The list of people on the "Kastner train," which ferried 1,670 Hungarian Jews to safety, has been published before, but it was drawn up when the train left Hungary, or during its stop at Bergen Belsen.

Kastner train list

The uniqueness of these new lists is that they were compiled at the end of the rescue operation. For example, the lists reveal that when the train arrived in Switzerland in December of 1944, there were 20 less people aboard then previously assumed. For some reason or another, those 20 individuals failed to make the journey from Bergen Belsen to safety.

Two of the new lists consist of 1,672 names, fewer than the commonly assumed sum. However, several of those who remained in Bergen Belsen and did not continue on to Switzerland did manage to nevertheless survive the war.

The lists provide a new perspective in understanding one of the biggest, most complicated and controversial rescue operations that took place in Nazi occupied Europe and in Jewish history in general.

Daisy Hefner was born in 1929 in Budapest. She was an only child to artistic parents. Her father had a dance and acrobatic studio and her mother had a clothing store that also supplied costumes for the theatre. They were Jews, but most importantly they were Hungarians —her father fought in the First world War, she studied at a Protestant school and the family was indifferent to Zionism and rarely celebrated Jewish holidays.

"I recall that on Rosh Hashana we would go visit my grandparents and once we celebrated Passover, that is all," says Daisy. "We knew we were Jews, but religion did not play a role in our lives. I never encountered anti-Semitism."

But once the Second World War broke out and the destruction of European Jewry began, rumors regarding the Nazis actions reached Hungary (then still free). "We did not have a radio or newspapers, but we felt from the atmosphere in the house that something big was happening," she said. As the war progressed and began influencing events in Hungary, that felling grew. Jewish refugees from Germany and Poland began trickling in to Hungary and the Hefner family even hosted a few of them. "My father was inducted into forced labor squads and I don’t know how my mother obtained food, but we managed."

Following in the footsteps of her cousin, she joined the Zionist youth movement Habonim Dror and would carry out secret missions to provide food and supplies to Jewish refugees in Hungary. "I was not a hero, rather a curious girl who suddenly felt very important," she says modestly. "At times it was very scary, travelling by train to the mountains to bring food in a backpack to Polish Jews. Apparently, I was a very brazen and curious girl." Her boldness and curiosity would soon help her survive.

Kastner train

The German occupation of Hungary in March 1944 brought with it decrees targeting the Jews who were subject to curfews and had to wear a yellow tag. A fellow member of Habonim provided her with a "ticket" to safety.

Several hundred Hungarian Jews received such a "ticket" that allowed them passage on the "Kastner train" which left Budapest in June 1944.

Hefner met other Jews, many frightened and confused, at the predetermined meeting place at the outskirts of the city. There was a rumor that they would travel to the Land of Israel via Spain; others spoke of Auschwitz, a notorious location they had heard stories of.

Dr Israel Kastner was raised in an affluent Jewish family and he was a prominent Zionist activist in Hungary. He was among the founders of the Aid and Rescue Committee in Budapest which assisted Jewish refugees. Following the Nazi occupation, the committee, headed by Kastner, began negotiations with the Nazi commander charged with Jewish affairs Adolf Eichmann to transport Jews to countries outside of the Nazi occupation zone in exchange for money and goods.

Israel Kastner

Kastner ultimately managed to convince the Germans to allow several hundred Jews to escape Hungary. In June 1944, a train left Budapest with 1,684 Jews onboard. The train made a stop at the Bergen Belsen concentration camp in Germany where its passengers waited as negotiations continued. In December the train finally left for safety in neutral Switzerland.

Hefner describes the experience as a chaotic and confusing one. The passengers were crammed into the crowded train cars and were uncertain of their fate as they slowly made their way West, through territory under allied bombardment as well Nazi bureaucracy.

Hefner contracted dysentery and was barely conscious during the first few weeks in Bergen Belsen. Even after reaching safety in Switzerland she describes the ordeal as a nightmare: they were put up in an abandoned hotel without heating, high up in the Alps and she mainly remembers the cold they were subject to.

In 1949 Hefner immigrated to the young State of Israel and settled in Kibbutz Givat Brenner. Her mother also survived and made her way to Israel as well. Her father on the other hand, perished during the war.

In 1952, a journalist by the name of Malkiel Greenwald accused Dr Kastner of preparing the ground for the destruction of Hungarian Jewry by the Nazis and of plundering their property. He described the Kastner train as carrying "well connected" individuals, including Kastner's own family.

Kastner sued Greenwald for libel leading to the famous "Kastner trial" which opened a pandora's box that has yet to fully settle. The trail shook the foundations of Israeli society and in his verdict, judge Binyamin Halevy wrote that "Kastner had sold his soul to the devil."

The narrative that emerged following the trial was that Kastner personally chose which Jews would be saved from the Nazis and did so at the expense of the rest of Hungarian Jewry, for personal gain while cooperating with the Nazis. In 1957, while the verdict was under appeal, Kastner was murdered outside of his home in Tel Aviv; it was Israel's first political murder.

Shortly before his death, Kastner penned his thoughts on the matter citing the complexity surrounding the question of which Jews ought to be saved and who would be left behind. He wrote that at least children, especially non-orphans, and those Jews who devoted their lives to public service ought to be saved, along with their wives.

Many of those recued by Kastner remain in contact with each other and stubbornly defend him, arguing that he had the brazenness and courage to approach Eichmann and take action.

"He did not choose me to be on the train, he did not know me," says Hefner, "he gave the "tickets" to the youth movement and religious leaders (like the Rebbe of Satmar), as well as many intellectuals and wealthy individuals whose money went to the rescue effort."

"I was never ashamed of being a 'Kastner survivor,'" says Prof. Victor Hernik. "Kastner saved me, I was lucky. I had no special right to board that train, but nor did I have any less right than other children."

Prof. Hernik

Hernik, who is now professor emeritus of mathematics at Haifa University, was five when he boarded the Kastner train with his parents. His father was a Zionist activist, which gained him the "ticket" to escape with his family from the Kluj Ghetto while most of its inhabitants perished in Auschwitz.

"I am here today because of Kastner," he says. "Some people criticize him saying he should have acted differently. But if such a person had lived in Budapest at that time and had to make the decisions that Kastner made, they would understand the significance and responsibility. I don’t think Kastner could have acted differently."

Every year, around the time of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Kastner train survivors gather outside Kastner's home in Tel Aviv and light a candle in his memory. They feel that they have an obligation to cleanse his name of the accusations he faced.

In the words of Dr. Yohai Ben-Gedalia, director of the Central Archive for the History of the Jewish People at the National Library, "Much of the talk surrounding Kastner is regarding the controversy of his character and the train. The lists we have discovered do not shed new light on this matter, but rather on the survivors themselves."

When researchers looked into the addresses where the train passengers stayed in Switzerland, they discovered that they were all institutions of the Swiss Jewish community, testifying to the effort by Jewish organizations to help their brethren.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

New lists shed light on Kastner train passengers : http://bit.ly/2Y2VSBS

Holocaust survey exposes gaps in Austrians' knowledge

A new survey has found that many Austrians lack basic knowledge of the Nazi genocide - even though the notorious Mauthausen concentration camp was just outside of the city of Linz, and some of the key perpetrators of the Holocaust were Austrian.

The study released Thursday by the New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which negotiates compensation for victims, showed that 56% of Austrian respondents did not know 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Some 36% believed 2 million or fewer were killed - a belief that rose to 42% among younger people aged 18-34.

Claims Conference CEO Greg Schneider said the numbers were in line with the first two surveys done on knowledge in the United States and Canada, but were more surprising coming from Austria.

In this file photo from May 2, 2013, a visitor looks at a poster of the former Nazi concentration camp of Mauthausen

"The trends are the same, which indicate a really disturbing lack of knowledge about the Holocaust, but one of the things different about this survey is that it's done in a place where the Holocaust occurred," he said in a phone interview from New York. The results come amid ongoing concerns over Austria's far-right Freedom Party, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's junior governing coalition partner, which was led by former Nazis in the postwar period. Though it's officially distanced itself from that past, rhetoric from party members continues to evoke the Nazi era. Just last week, the deputy mayor of Braunau am Inn - Adolf Hitler's hometown - left the party after writing a poem comparing migrants to rats, similar to the way the Nazis characterized Jews. And on the weekend, party leader Heinz-Christian Strache, also the country's vice chancellor, created an uproar saying his party was fighting against a "replacement of the native population" or Bevoelkerungsaustausch - a term used by European far-right groups that is also reminiscent of the Nazi terminology. "The greatest fear is that something like the Holocaust could happen again, so I think it's too narrow to limit the concerns to Austria," Schneider said. "Yes, there are troubling signs like the mayor (of Braunau am Inn), but since just last month there's been a shooting in a mosque in New Zealand, bombings in churches in Sri Lanka, and now shootings again at a synagogue in the United States - one of the key takeaways from the Holocaust is that it started with words, which quickly lead to deeds."

A memorial held in honor of victims murdered in synagogue shooting (Photo: AP)

Austrians were asked about the Freedom Party in the survey and were equally split, with 43% seeing it favorably and 43% unfavorably. Thirty-six percent said they considered parties like the Freedom Party patriotic, while 42% said such parties were nationalist and xenophobic. Last year, a prominent Freedom Party member stepped down after it was revealed he was in an Austrian student fraternity that promoted neo-Nazi ideals, including singing songs with anti-Semitic lyrics. Asked about such fraternities, 16% said they should be able to keep singing their traditional songs even if they were anti-Semitic, while 70% said they should not be able to practice anti-Semitic traditions. Efraim Zuroff, head of the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center's Jerusalem office, said a striking result in the survey was that only 13% said Austria was a Holocaust perpetrator, while 68% said it was both perpetrator and victim, and 12% said it was a victim. "Given the fact that approximately a third of the most culpable Holocaust criminals were Austrians, that says a lot about the Holocaust distortion in Austria and the reluctance to take any responsibility," said Zuroff, who was not involved in the study, in a telephone interview from Jerusalem. Indeed, while 79% of respondents knew Hitler was an Austrian, only 14% knew Adolf Eichmann, who played a major role in the Holocaust, was German-Austrian. Schneider noted that 42% also said they weren't familiar with Mauthausen, even though the concentration camp was located in Austria. "It's as if you had a person in Texas who had never heard of the Alamo, it's just shocking... it's in their back yard," he said. In a positive sign, however, Schneider said 82% of respondents said the Holocaust should be taught in schools. The survey of 1,000 adults, which was released to coincide with Israel's observation of Holocaust Remembrance Day, was conducted between February 22 and March 1 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Holocaust survey exposes gaps in Austrians' knowledge : http://bit.ly/2JaPrZl

Anti-Semitism, people are no longer ashamed to show it

In a week's time, at the state ceremony marking the start of Israel's Independence-day celebration, Rabbi Jeff Finkelstein, president of the Pittsburgh Jewish community, will light a celebratory torch in the name of Jews of the Diaspora.

For Finkelstein it will be the end of a tough six months, Probably the toughest the Jewish community in Pittsburgh has known

It was a Saturday morning in October, when a racist, Robert Bowers, entered the Tree of Live synagogue, opened fire and murdered 11 worshippers. This is now known as the worst atrocity in Jewish American history.

The Tree of Life Synagogue after deadly shooting (Photo: AFP)

Last Saturday, exactly six months later, in Poway, California, another murderer opened fire, killing Lori kaye and wounding four other worshippers.

It is now 80 years since the beginning of the Second World War and the extermination of European Jewry by the Nazis, and anti-Semitic incidents are at a record-breaking high.

2018 has not been good to Jews around the world. Ynet reporters are going back to some places impacted by the most despicable anti-Semitic crimes, to check in.

"I am proud to represent the diaspora in the torch lighting ceremony" says Rabbi Jeff Finkelstein who has lead the Tree of Life congregation for over a 15 years, "though I would gladly give up the honor this tragedy never to have happened and fore these 11 people to have been with us today.

Flowers in memory of victims of Tree of Life shooting (Photo: AFP)

Since that horrible day, he has been helping the families of the victims. He also started a program to support victims of terror from the mosques in New Zealand.

Rabbi Finkelstein told Ynet, this week, that his community is recovering slowly. "our community came together after the attack" He said. "we are more united. We've given psychological help where it was needed. This week, following the shooting in Poway, we brought psychologists to the synagogue, to encouraged people who wanted to talk".

Rabbi Jeff Finkelstein (Photo: courtesey of the Jewish federation, PA)

Security is tighter there now. "We've looked at our security arrangements. We're checking what security our members can provide. I think we are all more alert since we were attacked".

Finkelstein says the Neo-Nazi's are a relatively small group in the United States but he still takes the FBI statistics, that show a rise in anti-Semitic incidents, seriously. "Anti-Semitism is the oldest form of hate in any society so though it is increasing now, it is our job to push it back down and make sure it stays down".

Sara Malka Cohavi looks at her door and smiles, it is clean and to the right of it is a Mezuzah. "It's nice to have one on the door worrying it will be ripped off".

She's been in Israel for 5 months but only six months ago her home in Las Vegas was targeted by anti-Semites, twice.

One November morning, Sara left home early, to run errands in preparing for her "Aliya", move to Israel, with her Israeli husband and their three children. A move they've been planning for three years. When she got back, she saw someone had sprayed a swastika's and 'Heil Hitler' on her door.

swastika on the door of a Jewish family in Los Vegas

 

She told Ynet at the time, that she did not know who was behind this act of vandalism, but it was time to leave.

Originally the plan was to move to Israel within a year, but that evening, Sara and her husband booked their flights for the following month. Preparations were taking a while because Sara was not born Jewish, she was adopted by a Jewish family. But everything was put on a fast track.

As a sign they were right to move, two weeks before they were due to leave, while lighting the 5th Hanukah candle, someone egged their door. "It just shows you if someone dislikes the fact that you are Jewish, they will let you know. Shockingly they don't try to hide it anymore"

The trauma is still fresh. "I was scared to walk out with my kids, I didn't want them to see the door. We ended up covering it with a cloth. We later found-out that more houses had the same thing done to them"

Sara Kochavi

 

Sara is happy with her decision to move to Israel. "living here is amazing. the kids love it here and so do we. I'm only sorry the Nevada police will stop looking for the person who attacked my home. He was never caught and will probably do it again to some other Jewish family"

Sara believes these acts are motivated by the same old ani-Semitic hate along with an ani-Israeli sentiment: "People think Israel is an apartheid country" she says.

Sarah and her husband have told the kids about Holocaust Memorial Day, they've prepared them for the sirens, since this will be the first time, they will experience them. They also showed them clips on YouTube.

14 thousand Jews live in Cape Town, in South Africa and the community is still reeling from the vandalism of last December when 39 out of the 50 tombstones were vandalized in the small cemetery in Wellington, a 45 min. drive away.

The community has started repairs but they are expensive and there is no budget. The local mayor was asked to help. Stuart Diamond, leader of the Jewish community, says there are not many anti-Semitic incidents in the Cape area, but the numbers are rising.

"There is a lot of hate" he told Ynet," we have adopted the attitude of dealing with it. We expect community leaders to condemn it".

Holocaust Memorial Day is important for us" he said, "it's a reminder that hate should be dealt with before it grows, and Holocaust Memorial Day is a good platform from which to spread that idea.

Jews must realize that 80 years ago in Poland this hate existed and it still does today, and it is up to us to make sure history does not repeat itself".

Anti Israel demonstration, Cape Town (Photo: EPA)

Stuart is worried most about the rhetoric of political leaders. "They are quick to give titles. We are monitoring things and call for interfaith dialogue. I spoke in a mosque not long ago. We are building bridges.

"There are 750 thousand Muslims in the area. BDS is strong here. The Jewish community considers itself ultimately responsible to protect Israel against the BDS but that has its risks.

"Jews are well assimilated in these parts. They want to be part of building its history" Stewart says, but the BDS movement is becoming stronger and the government has lowered the level of diplomatic relations with Israel and recalled its ambassador.

Still the Wellington incident is an aberration.

"Our lesson is that anti-Semitism and hate cannot be ignored and must be talked about.

"After events in Pittsburgh and Poway, we must take things seriously. We have had protection around our Jewish institutions for the past 20 years. There are armed police outside our synagogues. We must be vigilant and have taken steps to make sure Jews are safe.

For 5 or 6 years, a blatantly anti-Semitic mural hung at The Vortex art complex in central Los Angeles, until a Jewish woman who came by for a local festival, saw it and decided to put an end to it.

She contacted Tal Segal, who worked for the World Zionist Organization, and he, along with friends, posted a picture on social media and got a huge response. There were expressions of shock, outcries and even activism. Someone showed up at the wall with white spray paint and wrote: "there is no place for hate".

Anti Semitic mural in LA (Photo: Tal Segal)

But the owner of the wall, refused to erase the disgusting image that shows the angel of death dropping a baby, clad in a blue cloth with stars of David, surrounded by snakes and missiles and of course the obligatory bowl of cash.

Though the mayor of L.A. condemns the mural, he cannot force the private owner to remove it. But Segal says they've raised awareness and that too is important. People need to recognize when something is anti-Semitic and hateful.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Anti-Semitism, people are no longer ashamed to show it : http://bit.ly/2GXLwxr

Israel preserves Holocaust survivors' memorabilia for future

Under a fluorescent light, an archivist from Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial snaps photos and scans into her mobile database the last remnant that a pair of elderly siblings have of their long-lost father -- a 1943 postcard Samuel Akerman tossed in desperation out of the deportation train hurtling him toward his demise in the Majdanek death camp.

 

"It's what we have left from him," said Rachel Zeiger, his now 91-year-old daughter. "But this is not for the family. It is for the next generations."

 

Holocaust survivors Rachel Zeiger 91, center, and her brother Moshe Akerman 84, left, speak with Orit Noiman, head of Yad Vashem's collection and registration center

With the world's community of aging Holocaust survivors rapidly shrinking, and their live testimonies soon to be a thing of the past, efforts such as these have become the forefront of preparing for a world without them. Through its "Gathering the Fragments" program, Yad Vashem has collected some 250,000 items from survivors and their families in recent years to be stored for posterity and displayed online in hopes of preserving the memory of the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis, even after the last of the survivors has passed away.

Yad Vashem officials Orit Noima, left, and Simmy Allen, watch archivist Lena Shternberg reproduce holocaust era photographs and documents

Copious video testimonies have been filmed and even holograms have been produced to try to recreate the powerful impact of a survivor's recollection, which has been the staple of Holocaust commemoration for decades. This year, an Instagram account was created based on the real-life journal of a teenage Jewish victim to make her story more accessible to a younger generation. With the passing of time, any physical links to the Holocaust and its victims have become valuable means of remembrance and evidence against the growing tide of denial and minimization of the genocide around the world.

Visitors stand near an exhibit at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem

As Israel starts marking its annual Holocaust Remembrance Day at sundown Wednesday, Yad Vashem will be laying the cornerstone of its new campus for the Shoah Heritage Collections Center -- the future permanent home for its 210 million documents, 500,000 photographs, 131,000 survivor testimonies, 32,400 artifacts and 11,500 works of art related to the Holocaust. On Thursday, it will offer the public a rare behind-the-scenes look of its preservation work, with tours of its collection, archive and digitizing labs.

Architect's rendering of the artwork storage facilities in the Shoah Heritage Collections Center

"The German Nazis were determined not only to annihilate the Jewish people, but also to obliterate their identity, memory, culture and heritage," said Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev. "By preserving these precious items ... and revealing them to the public they will act as the voice of the victims and the survivors and serve as an everlasting memory." Samuel Akerman's jarring letter to his family will soon join the collected assortment.

Zeiger and Akerman

"My heart is bitter. I unfortunately have to inform you that I, together with 950 other people, am headed toward an unknown destination," he scribbled in shaky handwriting to his two children on Feb. 27, 1943, from inside the packed transport. "I may not be able to write you again ... pray to God that we will joyfully see each other again. Don't give up hope and I am sure God will help us." Akerman, a diamond merchant who dreamed of moving to pre-state Israel, was never heard from again. A bystander likely found the discarded postcard on the ground and mailed it to Zeiger and her younger brother, Moshe, in occupied France, where they had fled from their home in Belgium after the Nazis invaded. After the father was deported, the rest -- mother, grandmother and the two children -- survived by assuming false, Christian identities.

Akerman's postcard

Zeiger recalls several close encounters when their cover was nearly lost. Once, the Gestapo arrived in the early morning hours to seize a Jewish family hiding in the ground floor of their building. When the Nazis knocked on their third-floor door, a teenage Zeiger presented their fake papers in her fluent French to convince them they had nothing to look for there. "I've never felt that way in my life," she recalled from her quaint house in Ramat Gan, just outside Tel Aviv. "I had to vomit after they left. My whole body clenched."

Zeiger, her brother Moshe Akerman and Orit Noima, head of Yad Vashem's collection and registration center, watch archivist Lena Shternberg reproduce holocaust era photographs and documents at their home

After the war, they returned to Antwerp to find their home ravaged. They waited there several years, in the faint hope that their father would somehow return, before giving up and moving to Israel. The postcard remained stashed away as a vestige of their painful past for more than 75 years, until Moshe Akerman heard of the Yad Vashem campaign seeking personal effects of aging survivors. "My kids are glad I did it so that this testimony will exist, because otherwise you don't talk about it," said Akerman, 84. "It's a small testimony to what happened, another drop in this sea of testimony. It doesn't uncover anything new. The facts are known. What happened happened, and this is another small proof of it."

Yad Vashem

Besides rounding up Jews and shipping them to death camps, the Nazis and their collaborators confiscated their possessions and stole their valuables, leaving little behind. Those who survived often had just a small item or two they managed to keep. Many have clung to the sentimental objects ever since. But with the next generation often showing little interest in maintaining the items, and their means of properly preserving them limited, Yad Vashem launched "Gathering the Fragments" in 2011 to collect as many artifacts as possible before the survivors -- and their stories -- were gone forever. Rather than exhibit them in its flagship museum, Yad Vashem stores most of the items in a specialized facility and uploads replicas online for a far wider global reach. "These items complement other material we have and help us complete the puzzle of the victims' stories," explained Orit Noiman, head of Yad Vashem's collection and registration center. "The personal item becomes part of the collective national memory. With the clock ticking and the survivors leaving us, this is what we can make accessible to the public."

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Israel preserves Holocaust survivors' memorabilia for future : http://bit.ly/2ISVBOj

Anti-Semitic attacks spike worldwide, killing most Jews in decades

Israeli researchers reported Wednesday that violent attacks against Jews spiked significantly last year, with the largest reported number of Jews killed in anti-Semitic acts in decades, leading to an "increasing sense of emergency" among Jewish communities worldwide.

Capped by the deadly shooting that killed 11 worshippers at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue on October 27, assaults targeting Jews rose 13% in 2018, according to Tel Aviv University researchers. They recorded nearly 400 cases worldwide, with more than a quarter of the major violent cases taking place in the United States.

But the spike was most dramatic in western Europe, where Jews have faced even greater danger and threats. In Germany, for instance, there was a 70% increase in anti-Semitic violence.

Last year saw the largest reported number of Jews killed

"There is an increasing sense of emergency among Jews in many countries around the world," said Moshe Kantor, president of the European Jewish Congress, an umbrella group representing Jewish communities across the continent. "It is now clear that anti-Semitism is no longer limited to the far-left, far-right and radical Islamist's triangle - it has become mainstream and often accepted by civil society," he said. Tel Aviv University's Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry releases its report every year on the eve of Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, which begins Wednesday at sundown. This year, the report comes just days after another fatal shooting attack Saturday against a synagogue in southern California. The attack on the Chabad of Poway synagogue on the last day of Passover killed one woman and wounded three other people, including the rabbi. In addition to the shooting attacks, assaults and vandalism, Kantor also noted the increased anti-Semitic vitriol online and in newspapers, including a recent anti-Semitic cartoon that appeared in The New York Times' international edition. It depicted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog wearing a Star of David collar and leading a blind and skullcap-wearing President Donald Trump.

Anti-Semitic cartoon published by the New York Times

The Times has since apologized, calling the image "offensive," and vowing to refrain from publishing such bigoted cartoons again. Still, it sparked outrage among dozens of American Jewish groups that subsequently sent a letter calling on the newspaper to "become far more sensitive to anti-Semitism in the future." "Anti-Semitism has recently progressed to the point of calling into question the very continuation of Jewish life in many parts of the world. As we saw with the second mass shooting of a synagogue in the US, many parts of the world that were previously thought of as safe no longer are," Kantor added. "Anti-Semitism has entered gradually into the public discourse," he said. "Threats, harassments and insults have become more violent, inciting to even more physical violence against Jews. It feels like almost every taboo relating to Jews, Judaism and Jewish life has been broken." The ascendancy of British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has also contributed to a growing sense of fear among Britain's Jewish community. Critics say Corbyn, a longtime critic of Israel, has long allowed anti-Jewish prejudice to go unchecked. Corbyn's supporters have been accused of sharing Holocaust denial and international Jewish banking conspiracies on social media. Several members of the party have quit it in protest.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn accused of letting anti-Semitism run amok within his party (Photo: Reuters)

Similarly, the inclusion of anti-Semitic activists in the Yellow Vests protests in France have raised greater concerns in a country in which anti-Semitic acts already account for half of all its documented hate crimes. Kantor added that there has been an improvement in cooperation between Jewish communities and law enforcement agencies in Europe, and several European governments have taken strong steps as well, including fully adopting the working definition of anti-Semitism as outlined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The report says there has been a growing awareness of the threat among government agencies responsible for the well-being and security of their Jewish citizens. Israel has also taken steps, hosting a global forum to combat anti-Semitism, and the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial has reported wide participation in its online course on the origins of anti-Semitism. Netanyahu said following the attack in southern California he would be convening a special meeting over the rising anti-Semitic attacks worldwide.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Anti-Semitic attacks spike worldwide, killing most Jews in decades : http://bit.ly/2Lfy3W0

LA judge rules Holocaust survivor isn't rightful owner of Nazi-looted painting

A federal judge in Los Angeles ruled Tuesday that a Spanish museum that acquired a priceless, Nazi-looted painting in 1992 is the work's rightful owner, and not the survivors of the Jewish woman who surrendered it 80 years ago to escape the Holocaust.  Although US District Judge John F. Walter criticized Baron Hans-Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza, the German industrialist whose name now graces the Madrid museum where the painting by Camille Pissarro hangs, for not doing all of the due diligence he could have when he acquired it in 1976, he found no evidence the museum knew it was looted art when it took possession in 1993.

"Rue St.-Honore, Apres-Midi, Effet de Pluie" painted in 1897 by Camille Pissarro, on display in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid

Under Spanish law, he ruled, the painting is legally the museum's, although he also criticized Spain, calling its decision to keep it "inconsistent" with international agreements that it and other countries have signed "based upon the moral principle that art and cultural property confiscated by the Nazis from Holocaust (Shoah) victims should be returned to them or their heirs." The museum's US attorney, Thaddeus Stauber, said he believes the decision finally puts an end to a bitter legal fight that has pitted the family of Lilly Cassirer against the museum for 20 years. "I think it puts an end to it because the court conducted, and we conducted, what the appellate court asked us to, which was a full trial on the merits," he told The Associated Press. "As a lawyer who has been involved in this case for 14 years, I'm pleased that the court did conduct a full trial. We now have a decision on the lawful owner and that should put an end to it." Walter, who has seen the case returned to court twice by appeals and conducted the trial Stauber mentioned last December, indicated in his 34-page ruling that another appeal still could be possible. A lawyer for Lilly Cassirer's great-grandson, David Cassirer of San Diego, didn't say whether the family plans to appeal. "We respectfully disagree that the court cannot force the Kingdom of Spain to comply with its moral commitments," attorney Steve Zack said.

Claude Cassirer, survivor of the Jewish woman who surrendered, with his wife

The painting at issue, Pissarro's "Rue St.-Honore, Apres-Midi, Effet de Pluie," is a stunning oil-on-canvas work depicting a rainy Paris street scene the artist observed from his window in 1897. It was purchased directly from Pissarro's art dealer in 1900 by the father-in-law of Lilly Cassirer, who eventually inherited it and displayed it in her home for years. When she and her family fled the Holocaust in 1939 she traded it for passage out of the country. For years the family thought it was lost, and the German government paid her $13,000 in reparations in 1958. Then in 1999 a friend of her grandson, Claude, who had seen photos of the painting, discovered it was in the Thyssen-Bornemisza. It had been hanging there since shortly after a nonprofit foundation funded by Spain bought the baron's entire collection for $350 million and named the museum for him. The painting had been sold and resold after Cassirer and her family fled Germany. The baron, a German industrialist who settled later in Spain, bought it from a US dealer for $300,000 in 1976. The baron never hid the painting, putting it on exhibition often. "The court finds that there were sufficient suspicious circumstances or 'red flags' which should have prompted the baron to conduct additional inquires as to the seller's title," the judge said. Still, despite missing and torn provenance labels, the judge concluded that the baron and the museum foundation did not know the work was looted, and under Spanish law that allows the museum to keep it.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

LA judge rules Holocaust survivor isn't rightful owner of Nazi-looted painting : http://bit.ly/2vxp8o5

Near historic levels of anti-Semitism in the US reported by Jewish group

As Israel marks Holocaust Memorial Day, the Anti-Defamation League issued its annual audit of anti-Semitic incidents for 2018. According to this report, US Jewish communities experienced near-historic levels of anti-Semitism, including a doubling of anti-Semitic assaults and the single deadliest attack against the Jewish community in American history.

The report recorded a total of 1,879 attacks against Jews and Jewish institutions across the country in 2018, the third-highest year on record since ADL started tracking such data in the 1970s.

Unprecedented rise in anti-Semitic incidents in the US (Photo: Tal Segal, AP)

 

In a year marked by the white supremacist shooting spree at a Pittsburgh synagogue, which claimed 11 lives, and punctuated by a dramatic surge in white supremacist propaganda activity nationwide, ADL’s Audit identified 59 people who were victims of anti-Semitic assaults in 2018, up from 21 in 2017. While the overall number of incidents represents a 5 percent decline from 1,986 incidents reported in 2017, the number of incidents last year remained at near-historic levels – 48 percent higher than the total for 2016 and 99 percent higher than in 2015.

ADL

“We’ve worked hard to push back against anti-Semitism, and succeeded in improving hate crime laws, and yet we continue to experience an alarmingly high number of anti-Semitic acts,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO and National Director. “We unfortunately saw this trend continue into 2019 with the tragic shooting at the Chabad synagogue in Poway. It’s clear we must remain vigilant in working to counter the threat of violent anti-Semitism and denounce it in all forms, wherever the source and regardless of the political affiliation of its proponents.”

Memorial honoring victims of Pittsburgh synagogue shooting attack (Photo: AFP)

The ADL calls on Congress to hold additional hearings on the increase in hate crimes, the rise of extremist groups and proliferation of their propaganda, and support legislation, including the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, that calls on the federal government to improve coordinated responses and collect data on domestic terrorism.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

Near historic levels of anti-Semitism in the US reported by Jewish group : http://bit.ly/2PFjgT5