Poland obtains archive of diplomats' efforts to rescue Jews

Poland has obtained a World War II-era archive that documents the efforts of Polish diplomats in Switzerland to get Jews out of Europe by issuing phony passports from Latin American countries.

 

The Culture Ministry and the Auschwitz-Birkenau state museum announced Monday that Poland had obtained the archive after more than a year of negotiations with a private owner in Israel.

Archive photo

The ministry and the museum said 330 people were known to have survived the Holocaust as a result of having one of the faked passports and another 387 were killed despite having the false documents. The fate of 430 others has not been determined. The rescue effort was led by the Polish ambassador to Switzerland, Aleksander Lados, and included three other Polish diplomats and two representatives of Jewish organizations. The archive is named for one of the Jewish representatives, Rabbi Chaim Eiss, who died of a heart attack in late 1943. Poland's purchase of the archive comes as the Polish government is working to emphasize the help some Poles provided Jews during Nazi Germany's occupation of the country. The archive provides "irrefutable proof that Poles, the Polish state, its representatives, systemically and institutionally, were involved in saving Jews during World War II," Culture Minister Piotr Glinski said. The collection includes eight Paraguayan passports forged by the Polish diplomats; photos of Jews seeking to obtain the documents; and letters between the Polish diplomats and Jewish organizations. The documents will go on display for several months in Bern, Switzerland, before becoming part of the collection at the Auschwitz museum, which is also a memorial to the victims of the Nazi death camp where some 1.1 million people, most of them Jews, were killed.

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Amazon removes Nazi-themed items after complaints

Amazon has removed items with Nazi or white supremacist symbols from its website after criticism from advocacy groups, the retail giant said Sunday.

  An Amazon executive said the company blocked the accounts of some retailers and might suspend them. Democratic US Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota complained to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos last month. The company's vice president of public policy, Brian Huseman, responded to Ellison, telling him that Amazon prohibits listing products that promote or glorify hatred, violence or intolerance.

A spokeswoman for Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. declined to comment further on Sunday.

In early July, the Partnership for Working Families and the Action Center on Race and the Economy highlighted Amazon listings including swastika pendants, baby onesies with burning cross logos and a costume that makes the wearer look like he has been lynched—the model appears to be a black man.

The groups said that Amazon's "weak and inadequately enforced" policies allowed racist, anti-Muslim and anti-Semitic groups to generate money and spread their ideas.

Ellison, who is deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, asked Bezos how much money Amazon made from selling material including books published by hate groups since 2015, and whether it would destroy such merchandise at its warehouses.

  

Huseman said Amazon "makes a significant investment" in enforcing seller policies, including automated tools to scan listings and automatically removing those that violate its policies. The executive said Amazon was preventing the sale of the items in question and was in the process of removing them from fulfillment centers.

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Romania probes anti-Semitic graffiti on Elie Wiesel's house

Romanian police have launched an investigation Saturday after anti-Semitic graffiti appeared on the house of late Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel in northwest Romania.

Comments were scrawled overnight Friday on Wiesel's small house—a protected historical monument used as a museum—in the town of Sighetu Marmatiei.

One of the comments called Wiesel a "Jew Nazi" who was "in hell with Hitler," another dubbed the house as "Public toilets of an anti-Semitic pedophile," and a third said Wiesel was "f***ing Merkel, Trump and Putin."  

The Romanian group for Monitoring and Fighting Anti-Semitism called it an act of vandalism against the "memory of Elie Wiesel, the memory of the Holocaust victims and the souls of the Holocaust survivors." Along with 14,000 Jews, Wiesel and his family were deported in May 1944 to Auschwitz from the town.

His mother and younger sister died there while he and his two older sisters survived. Wiesel died in 2016 at the age of 87.

Atilla Somfalvi contributed to this report.

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Jewish teens enlisted to fight anti-Semitism in Germany

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For years, the Jewish community in Germany relied on Holocaust survivors to be its ambassadors but lately young Jews are being encouraged to put a modern take on Jewish life in the country; Sophie Steiert and her friend Laura Schulmann, two girls from Berlin who want to change perceptions and challenge stereotypes as their community's 21st century ambassadors. Jewish teens enlisted to fight anti-Semitism in Germany : https://ift.tt/2AGg8Cs

UK Jewish leader urges apology over Labour anti-Semitism

LONDON - The president of one of the UK's main Jewish groups called Thursday on the leader of the Labour Party to make an "abject apology" to British Jews for allowing anti-Semitism to fester in the left-of-center opposition party.

Allegations of anti-Jewish prejudice within Labour have grown since veteran socialist Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader in 2015. Some in the party allege that Corbyn, a longtime critic of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, has allowed anti-Semitic abuse to go unchecked.

Corbyn apologized this week for the "concerns and anxiety" caused before he became Labour's leader when, as a pro-Palestinian activist, he shared platforms with people "whose views I completely reject."

Jeremy Corbyn (file photo) (Photo: AP)

But Board of Deputies of British Jews President Marie van der Zyl tweeted that Corbyn was "hiding behind a half-hearted 'apology' no doubt crafted by his spin-doctors." "Jeremy Corbyn needs to stop hiding & make an abject apology to UK Jews in his own voice," she wrote. The long-simmering dispute inside Labour recently boiled over after the party proposed adopting a definition of anti-Semitism that differed from the one approved by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The alliance says it is anti-Semitic to accuse Jewish people of being more loyal to Israel than to their home countries, an example omitted from Labour's definition. The alliance also says it is anti-Semitic to compare contemporary Israeli policies to the policies of the Nazis, a view Labour did not endorse. Corbyn also has received personal criticism for his past appearances alongside alleged anti-Semites and for some of his statements, including a 2010 speech in which he compared Israel's blockade of Gaza to Nazi Germany's sieges of Leningrad and Stalingrad during World War II. Labour's leadership is facing pressure to expel Peter Willsman, a party official who accused Jewish "Trump fanatics" of stirring up controversy around anti-Semitism.

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Corbyn ally says rabbis 'make up duff information' on anti-Semitism

Peter Willsman, a close ally of British Labour Party chairman Jeremy Corbyn, has accused rabbis of "making up duff information without any evidence at all" about anti-Semitism in the party, further escalating the crisis between Labour and the Jewish community in the UK. A recording surfaced on Tuesday on comments Willsman made at a meeting of the Labour's national executive committee (NEC) last month, in which he is also heard accusing Jewish "Trump fanatics" of making up allegations of anti-Semitism in the party. Leaders of the Jewish community expressed outrage over the remarks which were made during a meeting which concluded with participants deciding not to fully adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism.

Jeremy Corbyn (Photo: Reuters)

Willsman appeared nonchalant about anti-Semitism and was taped saying he would “not be lectured” on it, despite the heightened concerns which have permeated the UK Jewish community over Corbyn’s staunch opposition to Israel and apparent propensity in the past to share platforms with known rabid anti-Semites. The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews said Willsman should be expelled from his party Labour and insisted that Corbyn, who was present for at least some of the meeting, should have intervened,” according to a report in the Guardian. “Now Peter Willsman’s disgusting rant against the Jewish community and rabbis has been made public … he should be summarily expelled, “Marie van der Zyl said. “Was Jennie Formby (the Labour party general secretary) there to hear what was said? If yes, why did she let Willsman off so lightly? “Was Jeremy Corbyn there to hear Willsman? If so, what form did his professed ‘militant opposition’ to anti-Semitism take when he heard it? Why has it been so easy to clear Willsman after his slurs against the Jewish community, but anti-racist MPs Margaret Hodge and Ian Austin are still being put through the ringer?”

Peter Willsman

 

Since Corbyn took control of the party in 2015, Jews in the country have grown increasingly worried over what many have slammed as a reluctance to stamp out anti-Semitism in Labour or a lethargic attitude in addressing clear manifestations of anti-Semitism.

One UK Jewish activist told Ynet on Tuesday that a “stampede” of British Jews would immigrate to Israel if Corbyn was elected prime minister. 

Earlier this week, three British Jewish newspapers said that there would be an “existential threat to Jewish life in this country” if Corbyn won power from the ruling Conservative Party.

The Jewish Chronicle, Jewish News and Jewish Telegraph said in a joint editorial titled “United We Stand” that the Labour Party had shown a tolerance of anti-Semitism since Corbyn was elected leader of the party.

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House Speaker Paul Ryan uncovers Jewish roots

BEVERLY HILLS - House Speaker Paul Ryan was surprised and proud to find out he has Jewish roots.

The Wisconsin Republican discovered his family history while filming a segment for the upcoming season of the PBS series "Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr."

Gates said Tuesday at a TV critics meeting that he traced Ryan's heritage back to his 10th great-grandfather born in 1531 in Germany. The research showed Ryan is 3 percent Ashkenazi Jewish.

Paul Ryan (Photo: AP)

"You could have knocked him over with a feather and then he was very proud of it," Gates said of Ryan's reaction. "We don't know who that Jewish person was, but we know it was on his mother's German line, which makes sense. So somebody who was a Christian German slept with a Jewish German person and that's where that came from." Also featured on the show's fifth season debuting in January is Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii. Gates said he chose Ryan because he was fascinated by him and not his politics. He picked Rubio because he wanted to include a Cuban and Gabbard because of her Pacific ancestry.

   

Gates said his purpose in doing the show is to deconstruct race and show how racism manifests itself in the current anti-immigrant feeling in the United States. "We're all immigrants. We're all mixed up," he said. "When the lights came down, everybody was sleeping with everyone else."

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