Jewish leader: Over 40 percent of young Germans don’t know what Auschwitz is

More than 40 percent of young Germans have no idea what Auschwitz is and 20 percent of Hungarians hold anti-Semitic views, Jewish leaders said this week during the annual National Community Directors' Forum of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) held in Israel.

According to the Jewish leaders, anti-Semitism is on the rise in many parts of Europe not because of the governments’ policy, but because of feelings spreading among different parts of the public.

Robert Ejnes, the executive director of CRIF, an umbrella organization of French Jewish organizations, mentioned the French government’s strong support of the Jewish community.

Desecration of mass graves and Holocaust monuments in Ukraine

“Is France an anti-Semitic country? The answer is no,” he said. “Is there anti-Semitism in France? The answer is yes. President (Emmanuel) Macron has declared that anti-Zionism is a new form of anti-Semitism. Former Presidents Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy made strong statements on the matter too.

“We have the strongest legal system to fight anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial,” Ejnes added. “Are the laws always implemented efficiently? That’s a good question. In the past 20 years, 12 people have been murdered in France for being Jews. Anti-Semitic attacks make up 50 percent of hate crimes in the country.

“We have an undemocratic community which keeps growing and voting for extremists. We aren’t attacked merely because we are Jews, but also because of the values we represent. We are very concerned about the forces fighting democracy.”

Daniel Botmann, managing director of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, pointed at the rise of the far right and Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement as the main source of anti-Semitism. That fact, he said, along with the public’s surprising ignorance on Holocaust issues, has prompted the government to take significant steps to curb anti-Semitism.

“More than 40 percent of young Germans don’t know what Auschwitz is. That’s a thought-provoking situation. Good relation with the government are not enough. We have to work from the bottom, in schools, with young people, by holding a dialogue between Jews and non-Jews. We need stable relations with the civil society, because anti-Semitism is not just a Jewish problem. Anti-Semitism is anti-democratic and threatens the entire society, not just Jews.”

BDS protest in France (Photo: AP)

Péter Kunos the executive director of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary, noted that recent surveys showed “20 percent of the population in Hungary—in other words, 2 million people—shares strong anti-Semitic sentiments, but the government is making efforts to guarantee that the country’s Jewish population will be able to live securely.”

The comments were made by members of a WJC delegation, which includes some 60 Jewish community directors from 50 countries around the world, as part of the organization’s annual National Community Directors' Forum.

This is the fifth time the forum convenes at the initiative of WJC CEO Robert Singer, and the first time it convenes in Israel, in honor of the state’s 70th anniversary.

The delegation members are the most senior professional representatives of Jewish communities around the world and they consider this conference the best stage for exchanging knowledge and experience on the representation of their communities in international forums.

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American Jews turn on Trump's senior advisor

A senior advisor to US President Donald Trump recently encountered a barrage of abusive remarks at a Mexican restaurant he was dining in. Other restaurant customers called Miller, who appeared unfaced by the abuse, a “fascist” and a “racist” among other things.

 

The incident comes at a time when the images of children being separated from their parents are filling up the screens and causing outrage among the general public in the US.

The policy of separating immigrant families was the advisor’s flagship program, and currently he’s living the dream. The same dream he’s had since he was a teenager in California: to preserve the superiority of the white population in the US and minimize the legal immigration to the country.

(Photo: Reuters)

Jane Eisner, editor-in-chief of liberal Jewish magazine Forward, wrote about Miller in an article “Jews should disown Stephen Miller over Trump’s family separation disgrace."

In the article she emphasized that the Jewish community in America must distance itself from Miller because his worldview "is nasty and unforgiving, devoid of hope, optimism and generosity, and so at odds with Jewish values and experiences that it’s hard to fathom this guy really had a bar mitzvah."

“Stephen really enjoyed seeing the images coming from the border. He’s from the Waffen SS,” said a source familiar with Miller on a personal level. Miller is one of the few Trump advisors who’s been there from the start—the other two being Ivanka and Jared Kushner. He’s always in Trump’s ear and he almost always gets his way. A smear campaign happening against Miller isn’t surprising since most of American Jews living in the US are liberal. They are not overly impressed by his gestures towards Israel or by Ivanka’s visit to the Western Wall. The Jewish community especially dislikes Trump’s use of expressions, which are associated with the Nazis, such as “infest”—a word which usually refers to either rats or cockroaches and was popular with Nazis. For now, the ire of the Jewish community is directed towards Miller, the man who they believe is behind all of this.

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Last opportunity for heirs of Polish Jews to claim restitution

Large law firms in Poland might have found a way for the descendants of the Jews who lived in the country during World War II to receive restitutions for nationalized property. The move comes in light of the legislation that would exclude all non-first-line-heirs from seeking potential inheritance, which is expected to pass soon. All potential heirs must prepare paperwork proving their ancestors in Poland had property which had been nationalized, which would allow them to receive a percentage of the property’s value.

Polish Holocaust museum (Photo: Reuters)

Attorneys in Poland say that this is the last opportunity for the descendants to claim restitutions since the law on the issue is frozen and not being promoted due to the political climate in the country.

The procedure could also be made possible by adopting Polish citizenship. A Polish EU passport could be issued when a birth certificate or a military or civil document proving the ancestors’ Polish citizenship is provided. The lawyers claim that the general public in Israel might not be fully aware of their rights when it comes to the issue. Poland’s biggest privatization law has been heavily criticized not only in Israel but in Poland as well. On the surface, it appears the law is intended to ease the process, for private owners or their families, of either retrieving the property or receiving financial compensation for property which had been nationalized.

However, behind the rhetoric lies an attempt to minimize the number of potential heirs. For instance, the law does not include compensation to legal heirs of most landowners before the war, among them hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews who left Poland for either Israel or the US because of the war, lost their Polish citizenship in the Holocaust and left behind a lot of valuable property.

The draft legislation would only make it possible to claim restitutions for current Polish citizens whose property had been confiscated by the Communist government. This prevents most survivors from filing claims since they left the country before or during the Holocaust. The law does say the descendants would also be able to file claims however only the first and second generation. Following the publication of the draft legislation nearly 10 months ago, the World Jewish Restitution Organization (WJRO) expressed its "profound disappointment" and called on the Polish government to ensure that fair and just legislation would be implemented. Patrick Ryzbakiski, an attorney from JGBS BIERNAT & PARTNERS—a Polish law firm that specializes in Warsaw real estate, explains “We need the Israeli plaintiffs to provide us the documents which show that their family members were Polish citizens, then we’ll be able to speed up the process.”

JGBS BIERNAT & PARTNERS

He added that “the main part is collecting the relevant documents to prove the ownership of the property.” In addition, those who are eligible to file a claim as part of different post-war treaties signed between Poland and other countries, would not be able to do so under the bill proposal. The bill also says that the survivors would not be able to file a claim if the property they owned was through company shares. From the moment the law passes, a claim must be filed within a year before the government takes control of the Finance Ministry.

“We’re putting in place different, relevant procedures in order to approve Polish citizenships, including institutions documenting talks with the family members and presenting them in front of relevant Polish authorities until the citizenship is granted," Ryzbakiski added.  

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Sweden sentences 3 to prison for synagogue arson attack

A Swedish court has found three men guilty of attempted arson against the Jewish synagogue in Sweden's second-largest city of Gothenburg last year, causing minor damage.

Two men got two years in jail and the third was sentenced to 15 months.

Swedish police at the scene of the arson attack

The Gothenburg District Court says Monday the case involved two Palestinians and a Syrian.

The 22-year-old Palestinian had his asylum application turned down following the December 9 attack and will be deported after serving his sentence. The others, aged 19 and 24, have Swedish residency permits.

(photo: AP)

The court said they were part of a masked group who threw burning objects at the synagogue, which the prosecution said was a reaction to the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

All three pleaded innocent. They were the only people charged.

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Jews, Muslims in Berlin team up on bike rides against hatred

Some 25 Jews and Muslims teamed up on tandem bicycle rides through the German capital on Sunday in a protest against growing anti-Semitism and attacks on Muslims in the country.

Some were rabbis and imams, others included women in headscarves and Jewish community members donning skullcaps from Berlin and beyond who shared the bikes on a tour through the city.

Rabbi Elias Dray, one of the organizers of the ride that started at Berlin's Holocaust memorial, said the interfaith tour was intended to boost contacts between Jews and Muslims and other Germans.

A Muslim and a Jewish man ride a tandem together during a bicycle tandem tour of Jews and Muslems against anti-Semitism and hatred of Muslims in Berlin (Photo: AP)

"There's often prejudice in places where there's little contact," said Dray, who works as a community rabbi in the Bavarian town of Amberg. "Anywhere it's a big gain to get to know Judaism and Islam." He rode a tandem together with Berlin Imam Ender Cetin. They and others wore white vests with the words: "Jews and Muslims for respect and tolerance." In addition to the 25 interfaith-bikers, dozens of people joined the bicycle tour through Berlin's downtown in a show of solidarity. Anti-Semitism has been on the rise in Germany lately and while attacks on Muslims have increased. The rising tensions come as Germany grapples with an influx of more than 1 million mostly Muslim migrants, along with the rise of a nationalist party, the Alternative for Germany, which was elected to Parliament last year for the first time. Its leaders are known for their openly anti-Muslim stance, while anti-Semitism has also featured in their statements, but less often. To further complicate things, some of the newly arrived Muslim migrants have added a new strain of anti-Semitism by holding Jews responsible for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Reports of bullying of Jewish children by Muslim immigrant kids in schools across the country have scared many Jews, while Muslim women among others often report slurs and discrimination against them for wearing headscarves. Despite these tensions, Imam Cetin said, "the majority of Muslims and Jews want to live peacefully together."

"It must become a natural thing that we live together in this city and, that we can be able to express our religion openly," Cetin added.

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Retracting the journey to freedom from the Nazis on a bicycle

Paul Alexander was just a toddler when his mother handed him to a volunteer nurse on a train leaving Nazi Germany in 1939.

  Now 81, the former refugee child on Sunday began retracing that journey to freedom—but this time by bicycle as part of a commemorative ride to pay tribute to the Kindertransport scheme that saved him and thousands of Jewish children eight decades ago.

"I did this journey 79 years ago when I came out from the hatred of Nazi Germany to the safety in England. I'm going to do that ride," he told AFP.

Paul Alexander in Berlin (Photo: AP)

 "The thought that came to my head is that this is my answer to Hitler, to sort of prove to myself, to show the world and to express my thanks for succeeding in life and being a happy married man with a family." Alexander will be doing the 600-mile (1,000 km) bike journey with his 34-year-old son and 15-year-old grandson. Besides the trio, 39 other cyclists will be on the six-day journey taking them from Friedrichstrasse in Berlin to Liverpool Street in London, via the Netherlands then aboard an overnight ferry to Harwich in England. Some are descendants of children rescued 80 years ago, while others are cycling in memory of the escapees in the fund-raising ride initiated by the World Jewish Relief, an aid organization that grew out of the agency that carried out the rescue effort. "We have organized this ride as a tribute to the amazing life-saving work of our predecessors," said Rafi Cooper, director of communications for the charity, which maintains historical records from the period. "Tens of thousands of people would not be alive today were it not for their heroism back then."

After the Night of Broken Glass (Kristallnacht) pogroms on November 9, 1938, a group of Protestant, Jewish and Quaker leaders appealed to then British prime minister Neville Chamberlain to allow in unaccompanied Jewish children.

A rescue effort mobilized swiftly, and the first Kindertransport arrived at Harwich on December 2, 1938, carrying 196 children from a Berlin Jewish orphanage which had been torched by the Nazis on Kristallnacht.

Over 18 months, 10,000 children fleeing persecution in Germany, Austria, Poland and what was then Czechoslovakia, were brought to safety in Britain.

(Photo: AP)

Younger children were placed with families while those above 16 were given help to obtain training and employment. The last transport left from the Dutch port of Ymuiden on May 14, 1940—a day before the Netherlands surrendered. For many parents, leaving their children with strangers not knowing if they would see each other again was not an easy decision.

 Alexander's mother, who suffered two stillbirths previously, had agonized over what to do with her only child.

"Sending a child of one year and eight months away, you'll appreciate, is heartrending," said Alexander. What they did not know is that both his parents would soon join him in safety. His father arrived in England 13 days after him and his mother on September 1, 1939, the day the Nazis invaded Poland and launched World War II. The family was finally reunited for good three years later, having all escaped the Holocaust in which six million Jews were exterminated. Alexander himself later trained as a lawyer and married an Israeli living in London. They have three children and nine grandchildren and now live in Israel. The sprightly 81 year old retired from the bank where he worked as its legal counsel in 2002, but still works today as a notary. For him, Sunday's journey is "a symbolic victory ride". "It is a very meaningful and poignant way of celebrating my life. I thought it was poignant to do it with my child and grandson."

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US teacher honored for highlighting Polish Holocaust hero

An American teacher who together with his students shed light on the story of a Polish woman who saved hundreds of Jewish children during the Holocaust has been honored with the award that bears her name.

Irena Sendler and her story were largely unknown until Norman Conard and his high school students in rural Kansas began producing a play about her, “Life in a Jar,” in 1999 as part of a history project on unsung heroes.

The play has since been performed 375 times around the world, movies have been made, schools in Poland and Germany have been named after her and she was nominated for the Nobel Peace prize.

Holocaust survivor Irena Sendler (Photo: AP)

 

Poland’s Culture Ministry and the San Francisco-based Taube Philanthropies presented Conard with the 2018 Irena Sendler Memorial Award in Warsaw’s Royal Castle. Poland has designated 2018 the Year of Irena Sendler, to mark the 10th anniversary of her death at the age of 98.

Culture Minister Piotr Glinski described Sendler as a symbol of the many other brave Poles who risked their lives for others during World War II, many of whose names will never be known.

A social worker, Sendler directed an underground network that saved Jewish children by placing them in orphanages, convents and with Christian families. In many cases, the network’s volunteers smuggled children out of Warsaw’s ghetto after convincing parents it was the children’s only chance of survival.

Sendler and her collaborators buried the names of the children in jars, hoping to later reunite them with their parents. In most cases the parents were murdered in Treblinka.

Though recognized by Yad Vashem in 1965, Sendler was largely unknown before Conard became involved.

Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, said Sendler credited Conard and his students with the recognition she obtained late in life and often referred to the American students as her children.

In a chilling coincidence, the Kansas students began researching Sendler on the same day—Sept. 23, 1999—that Sendler’s beloved son Adam died of heart failure, Conard said. In letters to the students, Sendler used to address them as “my dear and beloved girls, very close to my heart.”

Conard described Sendler as a woman of courage and humility who always sought to deflect attention from herself.

“She would want all of her network to be recognized. And she also said that the real heroes were the Jewish parents and grandparents, who were making decisions that no one should have to make,” Conard told The Associated Press before the ceremony.

“Some of the parents refused to give their children up, and when she went back to talk to them again, the children and parents had been taken away on the trains,” he said.

“This is her award, and it’s to recognize her,” said Conard, now the director of the Lowell Milken Center for Unsung Heroes in Fort Scott, Kansas.

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