NAHOS



NAHOS

JUNE 18, 2009

26 SIVAN 5769

Volume 13, No: 2

FROM YOUR EDITOR

Dear Members & Friends:

GERMAN GHETTO PENSIONS – NEWS ALERT, June 3rd, 2009

In a case involving two Holocaust Survivors who had appealed their rejections, a German Court has ruled that Survivors who worked in ghettos are entitled to German Social Security benefits even if they cannot prove that they worked for ‘remuneration’. Furthermore, the German Federal Social Appeals Court in Kassel has ruled that:

a) Food or other benefits ought to be recognized as remuneration; and:

b) that the remuneration could have been paid to the Judenrat, instead of directly to the workers;

c) that there is no age limit: the only criterion is the work of the applicant regardless of age.

These are reversals of previous decisions.

90% of the 70,000 claimants who had applied for these monthly pensions had been rejected because of lack of proof. Now there is new hope! Those that will now be ruled eligible may receive up to $214 per month plus back payments to the date they first applied. All applicants who had been rejected because of any of above criteria (a,b,or c) will be able to apply for a re-examination of their claims

“under consideration of the decisions of the 13th Senat of the BSG dated June 2nd 2009 and of the 5th Senat of the BSG dated June 3rd 2009.”

“In addition, all widows/widowers of rejected applicants who have since passed away can apply for re-examination. Applicants should contact the Social Security authority that issued the claim denial.

The re-examination of cases is not expected to commence until the new court rulings are officially published some months from now.”

Some newspapers erroneously reported that ‘forced’ workers are now included.

1) Please note: These revised rules apply only to former ghetto residents who worked for ‘remuneration’ (something in return). They do not apply to ‘forced’ workers, nor to ‘Slave laborers’ who had no possibility to accept or to reject; and

2) A number of claimants that were rejected received subsequently a lump sum payment of 2,000 Euros. At this point in time, it appears that this ‘humanitarian’ payment ought not to prevent them for applying for a re-examination of their claim for monthly pensions.

In coming months we will keep our readers informed of all developments.

Shalom U’Bracha; L.R.

THE PRAGUE CONFERENCE June 26-30

In our previous issue we reported on our efforts to have bona fide Survivors included in the delegation to Prague which will discuss restitution issues that have not been

(continued on page 2)

OUR NEXT MEETING

Where: Park East Synagogue

164 East 68 Street, NYC

When: Sunday June 28th, 2009

1PM – 2PM: Social Hour

2PM - 4PM Presentation

Speaker: Goldy Hess

Topic: “The Four Of Us.” A Holocaust Memoir; Book & Story.

Four Jewish sisters barely escape a massacre in their hometown during the Nazi conquest of Europe. Their parents are compelled to leave them, for their own safety, in a small Italian town. The girls survive a series of near-captures, hidden by a succession of brave Italian farmers until even these protectors can no longer shelter them. They are sent to an Ursuline cloister where the nuns take on the terrible risk of keeping them hidden.

As the Allies draw closer, the cloister itself is bombed, and the Gestapo begins a series of increasingly frequent raids that forces the girls to attempt to flee across the Alps in the hope of joining their parents in Switzerland. Fired upon by the Germans as they cross the last fields toward the Swiss border, they manage to reach safety --- nearly to be turned back by the first of a series of brutal Swiss camp commanders, and months go by before they are finally reunited with their parents.

Members: $5.oo

Non-members: $8.oo

Refreshments will be served

All are welcome!

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Following Meeting: Sunday, July 26

Topic: “Shush! Growing up Jewish under Stalin.”

Subsequent meetings: August 23rd and September 6th.

Please mark your calendars ! We will not always be able to send newsletters before the meeting dates.

resolved. According to a statement by a spokesman for the State Department, the Conference will focus on “immovable (real) property, Nazi looted art, Holocaust education and remembrance, and the recovery of Judaica (Editor: issues that the Claims Conference is interested in) In addition, there will be a session on the social welfare needs of survivors of Nazi persecution.”

Our national Survivors’ alliance HSF-USA had petitioned ardently for that addition of an examination of the social welfare needs of survivors.

At the time of this writing, no actual Survivor had been accepted to be in the delegation. The U.S. delegation will be headed by Stuart Eizenstat who – in previous negotiations – was instrumental in the creation of “The International Commission on Holocaust-era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC)”. As our readers will recall, ICHEIC’s creation resulted in an eventual payout of about 3% by the insurance companies of the sums actually due to former Jewish policy holders (as per evaluation of leading demographers). Eizenstat is also officially a chief negotiator for the Claims Conference. The Israeli delegation is headed by Reuven Merhav, another official of the Claims Conference. If no actual survivors will be added, then the actual Nazi-victims will be without representation. According to an ‘Haaretz’ article of May 25th, by Cnaan Liphshiz,

“…the nomination of Reuven Merhav from the Claims Conference to represent Israel at the Prague meeting constitutes a “conflict of interest” and will mean heirs will remain “voiceless.” and

“As a representative of the Claims Conference, there has to be a conflict of interest in Merhav’s nomination to represent Israel in Prague”, said Martin Stern who initiated the compensation process for Holocaust era insurances in 1996. A representative of Holocaust survivors from Holland, Eldad Kisch, voiced similar concerns.”

Cnaan Lipshshiz further reports that Knesset member Kleiner told Haaretz that:

“The Claims Conference…is withholding inheritance money from heirs of people who had been murdered in the Holocaust, spending money on other Jewish causes instead,” and:

“Last month, the Movement for Quality Government in Israel complained to the Foreign Ministry that Merhav’s nomination constituted a conflict of interest and demanded Merhav…be replaced.”

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A Voice of Concern:

Congressman Robert Wexler sent the following letter to the Czech First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Tomas Pojar, on June 1st, 2009:

“Dear Tomas,

It was good to see you during our recent meeting in Washington. I want to reiterate my strong support for your efforts and that of your government to ensure that the Prague Conference on Holocaust Era Assets is successful. To that end I want to raise an important matter with you regarding the participation of American Holocaust survivors and Holocaust Survivor organizations at the Prague Conference and, more specifically, the participation of representatives of the Holocaust Survivors Foundation (HSF). Ensuring survivor participation at the Prague Conference is a high priority for me. It is an issue we discussed during our meeting in April, and also an issue I discussed with Deputy Prime Minister Vondra.

As you may be aware, several members of HSF, an umbrella group of more than 50 survivor groups around the country, tried to register for the Prague Conference. Unfortunately, they were not granted speaker or observer status for the Conference. It is my hope that you will work with the leadership of HSF, including several of my constituents in Florida, to ensure that representatives of this critically important survivor organization are able to participate in the upcoming Prague Conference. It is essential for the success of this critically important conference and for advancing its stated goals and objectives, that the organizers ensure the highest level of inclusion and participation by survivors and their heirs, and it is incumbent on your government, Forum 2000 and the Friends of the Chair Group to ensure this inclusion.

Having recently spoke with the leadership of HSF, I can tell you that they are deeply interested in a successful conference that addresses the needs of survivors in the U.S. and internationally. Given [that] this conference may be the last international gathering to focus on the plight of Holocaust survivors, I respectfully request that you grant either speaker or observer status to the following individuals listed on the attached document.

Deputy Minister Pojar, I look forward to working with you and the Czech government to ensure that the Prague Conference on Holocaust Era Assets is successful. I also look forward to receiving your response to my request regarding participation of HSF representatives at the conference.

With warm regards, Robert Wexler Member of Congress, Chairman House Subcommittee on Europe.

STATE DEPT. & HSF

On March 31st, 2009, HSF-USA Executive Board member and treasurer, David Mermelstein, sent a request for documents to the offices of Information Programs and Services of the State Department and to the Department of Justice, under the ‘Freedom Of Information Act’. In brief, he requested the following copies:

1) Any and all internal or external State Department correspondence relating to all kinds of insurance policies sold to or purchased by European Jews prior to May 11th, 1945, including correspondence to members of ICHEIC.

2) & 3) Correspondence pertaining to the Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets to take place in Prague.

4) All correspondence from Stuart Eizenstat to Secretary of State Clinton or to any other State Dept. Official, pertaining to the Prague Conference.

5) All correspondence between State Department and any non-US governmental person or entity, pertaining to the issue of poverty and other social and economic problems among Holocaust Survivors in the U.S.A.

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Not having received a reply from the State Department by June 1st, 2009, the letter below (abridged) was sent by HSF President David Schaecter and signed by HSF-USA Executive Committee members to:

Honorable Eric Holder

Attorney General, Department of Justice; and to:

Honorable Janet Napolitano

Secretary of Homeland Security:

“Dear Mr. Attorney General and Madam Secretary,

We are survivors of the Holocaust [and members of] the leadership of the Holocaust Survivors Foundation-USA. We formed this non-profit group of elected survivor leaders from across the United States to plead the case to assist in alleviating the dire conditions of abject poverty among over 25 percent of the 177,000 survivors currently alive in our great country.

We have sought the cooperation of the Department of Justice in regard to the many cases we have been part of in regard to insurance policies, Swiss bank accounts and related matters, slave labor, stolen assets of all sorts including real estate.

We filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act two months ago with the Attorney General, as well as the State Department. As of today we have not received the benefit of any response from the State Department. From the Department of Justice, Mr. Mermelstein received a letter on May 29th, stating that we asked for so much information that it will take a long time to comply.

We could not help noticing that this letter arrived the same week President Obama appointed you both to ensure that this Administration places the highest priority on efficient and transparent access to public records. We are asking you to expedite both the State and the Justice Department’s full compliance with those requests. Our request is seeking basic information about our government’s handling of life and death issues about the dwindling population of Holocaust survivors.

Both the Department of Justice and the Department of State have been deeply involved in critical ways in these matters both nationally and internationally and in fact are once again a central part of a conference to take place in Prague in late June. Much will be presumably discussed in Prague at this decennial conference of possible material import to our rights and interests, as this effort bills itself as a milestone and calls on all nations to respond. On the other hand, since elected Holocaust survivor leaders from the United States have been excluded from the Conference, we wonder whether this effort is really serious, or more pageantry substituting for action.

It is therefore vital that an urgent and serious response be given to our request we filed two months ago under the Freedom of Information Act. Of our request it can be truly said that there are lives at stake.

We are very much pleased that you both have been appointed by the President to expedite such requests for information under the FOIA and our request would appear to be a good example of the kind of help you could render right now.

Thank you for your serious attention to our request, We hope to hear from you very soon.

David Schaecter, President

HSF PRESS RELEASE

(on June 3rd, 2009)

Holocaust Survivors Urge Obama to Address Needs of Living Survivors.

As the President prepares to visit Buchenwald, survivor welfare must not be forgotten. (abridged)

The Executive Committee of the Holocaust Survivors’ Foundation-USA, a national coalition of elected survivor leaders from throughout the United States, issued the following statement on the occasion of President’s Obama’s visit to the Buchenwald Memorial in Germany:

“We are moved and gratified that President Obama has chosen to visit Buchenwald and personally bear witness to the cruelty and barbarism of the Holocaust. We join him in honoring the memories of the victims of Nazism and in fighting against all forms of hatred, racism and anti-Semitism. In his speech at the Days of Remembrance ceremony under the Capital Rotunda on April 23rd, the President honored survivors and acknowledged some of the struggles they experienced in the aftermath of the Holocaust. We completely agree that the lessons of the Holocaust have many vital applications in today’s world.

We are very concerned about the realities faced by aging survivors today, and we ask President Obama to pay greater heed to the plight of so many thousand of survivors in our communities who cannot afford adequate nutrition, shelter, health care, dental care, emergency services, eyeglasses, in-home care, and other essentials. When America says “Never Again”, we must not forget those living among us who survived Hitler’s death machine. Tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors throughout the world – including the United States – are living in poverty, stripped once again of the basic dignity that should be the right of all human beings. Meanwhile, corporations and governments that profited from the Holocaust have not been held accountable for their conduct.

The advanced age of living survivors, the unique health and emotional problems faced by so many, and the imperatives of justice call for immediate and comprehensive redress. Well intended efforts of past years have not delivered sufficient material restitution or moral closure for Holocaust victims.

All nations should be charged with the responsibility to rectify this accountability gap in the survivors’ lifetimes. Whether it is returning or paying compensation for homes and businesses stripped from families by the Nazis, or honoring insurance policies, or requiring profiteers to disgorge unjust gains to provide for survivors in need, we must act without further delay. Such a standard will also set a marker for the future as well. By doing justice today, even 64 years after the Holocaust, a rule of accountability will protect human life in the future. We should not allow the passage of time, nor the impulse to suppress the ugly truths of the past, nor moral fatigue, to insulate those in government, business, or even private individuals who collaborate with the perpetrators of future atrocities.

With an international conference taking place in Prague at the end of June on the subject of Holocaust restitution, we urge President Obama to take the lead in insisting that the international community address the needs of living survivors as a moral imperative and reach a binding resolution to ensure dignity and adequate services for Holocaust survivors without further delay.

EULOGY

We report with great sadness the passing of an exceptional human being, a man of compassion and action

Si Frumkin

who died at age 78 from cancer at the Providence Medical Center in Los Angeles. Si Frumkin, a survivor of Dachau, founded the Southern California Council for Soviet Jews in 1968 and for over two decades fought tirelessly to obtain free emigration for Soviet Jews. He tried to engage the local Jewish Federation Council to take an activist role on behalf of Soviet Jewry, but got only a lukewarm response. He was told not to rock the boat as the U.S. was trying to achieve a level of rapprochement with the Soviet Union.

But Si would not leave the issue alone. When Soviet President Brezhnev visited President Nixon at the Western White House in San Clemente, Frumkin released 5,000 balloons with the message “Let My People Go”. He hired a helicopter to fly over the Super Bowl with a banner “Save Soviet Jews.”

During the past ten years, I corresponded with Si Frumkin; he sent me his newsletters “Graffiti For the Intellectuals” and expressed appreciation for the ‘NAHOS’ newsletters we sent in return.

He joined the Holocaust Survivors Foundation , HSF-USA and actively participated in our struggle for insurance legislation that would restore Holocaust survivors’ rights and ability to collect on insurance policies paid for by our martyred relatives. In our March 2009 issue we published a letter Si had written on this insurance topic to Howard Berman, congressman and committee chairman.

Si is survived by his wife Ella, son Michael and two grandchildren. To all his relatives and friends we extend our most heartfelt condolences.

In some of our past issues, we had published some of Si Frumkin’s articles. In his honor and memory we will publish additional articles in our upcoming issues.

Below please find excerpts from a moving eulogy delivered by L.A. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky:

“The world has lost a towering fighter for human rights. Los Angeles and its Jewish community have lost one of its most important leaders of the last half century. And, I have lost my closest and oldest friend and comrade. He was one of a kind. He was larger than life. If one believes that there is a reason for everything, then Si survived for a reason: To be our conscience, insuring that our people, no matter where, no matter how, would never again be threatened without a fight.

We formed our own organizations dedicated to raising the public profile of the plight of the Soviet Union’s 3-1/2 million Jews. We pressured President Nixon and Congress to use its leverage on behalf of Soviet Jewry. We traveled to the USSR, once, in 1974, at considerable peril. We even went to jail together for this cause.

Si bore witness to what he saw during the War. He lectured to post-War generations about the Holocaust, and about his own experiences. His purpose, however, was not to dwell on the past, but to prevent its recurrence in the future. Nothing was more abhorrent to Si than free people sitting on their hands while others suffered in need of their help.

When we proposed to organize the Candlelight Walk on Hanukah in downtown, we were told it would be counterproductive. Si did not buy it, and 10,000 people marched on a cold and windy night on behalf of Soviet Jews, and news of the demonstration reached Jewish activists behind the Iron Curtain before the night was out.

Si Frumkin did not trust authority or authority figures. He especially didn’t trust bureaucrats. He believed to his core that the Holocaust could not have been executed without mindless bureaucrats, civil servants and functionaries doing what they did best – heartlessly following orders and dutifully complying with regulations. Shaming the free world, especially our government and our community, into doing the right thing was Si’s cause.

And, when the battle for Soviet Jewry was won, he turned his attention to the tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants who had come to Los Angeles. They came with few resources, and some had great difficulty in adjusting. Some lived in abject poverty and they needed an advocate in the halls of government and a shoulder they could lean on. Si assumed that role.

Si’s obsession with justice also motivated him to fight European insurance companies who had refused to allow Holocaust survivors to redeem the life insurance policies of Jews who were murdered by the Nazis. Si was working on this very issue when he fell ill a few months ago. Si extended himself, not for himself but for others; most often for others he didn’t even know.

Si was a force of nature; a one man rapid response force for Jews in trouble. When Nazis marched in Skokie, Illinois, the community turned to Si. When world Jewry mobilized to save Ethiopian Jewry, Si was there. When Standard Oil urged its shareholders to lobby Congress against Israel, Si asked its customers to mail their credit cards to him so that that they could be burned in front of their headquarters. We had a big bonfire, and Standard Oil backed down.

The world is a far better place because of Si Frumkin. To his family, we thank you for sharing Si with us all these years. If I am certain of anything, it is this: Si is now in the place where the most righteous among us go. I will be eternally grateful that I had the privilege of knowing him and having him as a close, loyal and trusted friend. May his memory be a blessing.” Zev Yaroslavsky

KOL HAKAVOD

To Inge Auerbacher who had an interesting article published in the ‘Forward’ of June 12th, under the caption: “Fighting Tuberculosis from Terezin to Today.” Inge, who is a NAHOS member and author of several books, points out in her article that tuberculosis is a preventable and curable disease, yet deplorably neglected and under-funded. Reportedly, one third of the world’s population carries the bacterium which causes TB and it is estimated that nearly 2 million die from it each year.

HONOR & MEMORY

In Memoriam:

In loving memory of her father

Wilhelm Brune Weit

by Elise Roth-Heller, $100

In Honor of:

June Meyer’s birthday

from the Arams Family,

Great Neck $ 50

BEST WISHES &

CONGRATULATIONS

Birthdays:

Gruener, Ruth August 1

Bass, Sally August 2

Diamond, Erica August 2

Springer, Judith August 4

Dr. Krell, Robert August 5

Kleinberg, Morris August 7

Alter, Francoise August 8

Jourdan, Michael August 8

Weinstock, Isaac August 8

Kraushar-Finger, Dorothy Aug. 8

Grosman, Renee August 8

Dr. Weiss, Charles August 8

Shulman, Rochelle August 11

Fink, Alice August 12 Dr. Sommerstein, Adam August 12

Weisbord, Ann August 12

Rottenberg, Phyllis August 12

Saltzman, Leo August 14

Freund, Mathilde August 15

Dr. Sonnenfeld, Kurt August 15

Mann, Gad August 15

Segalowitz, Ivar August 17

Nider, Felicia August 18 Faerber, Joseph August 18

Friedman, Reva August 18

Beigelman, Jack August 19

Behar, Lynn August 22

Adler, Lena August 24

Ratner, Edith August 25

Palumbo Edward August 27

Rosay, Jacqueline August 29

Sroka, Richard August 29

Dortort-Glantz, Suzanne August 30

Goldberg, Dianne August 30

Schwalb. Willy August 31

TO QUASH A DENIER

The following letter was drafted by Menachem Rosensaft, General Counsel of WJC, to the president of MSNBC (TV) at Rockefeller Plaza:

Phil Griffin

President NSNBC

Dear Mr. Griffin,

As a survivor of the Holocaust, I am outraged that you allow a man who enables Holocaust deniers and defends Nazi war criminals to appear unchallenged on MSNBC’s programs. On May 12, 2009, Menachem Rosensaft disclosed in a New York Daily News article that Patrick Buchanan’s website had been featuring a Holocaust denial forum called “Disinformation, Deception and Other Tricks: Discussion about the Holocaust” (with The Holocaust in quotes). This forum contained ugly anti-Semitic comments like “We have known for some time that the Auschwitz myth is of an exclusively Jewish origin,” and “ The same blinded people that believe that the Germans intentionally killed Jews - also believe the myth of the Anne Frank diary.” Since then, Buchanan has continued to appear regularly on Morning Joe, Hardball with Chris Matthews, and Andrea Mitchell Reports, but no one has asked him a single question about his association with Holocaust deniers.

Do you endorse Holocaust denial? Do you believe that someone who appears on MSNBC should make it possible for Holocaust deniers to spread their poison? Why hasn’t Joe Scarborough, or Mikr Brzenski, or Chris Matthews, or Andrea Mitchell asked Buchanan to explain why his website featured a Holocaust denial forum? Why isn’t Buchanan identified as a supporter of Holocaust deniers and a defender of Nazi war criminals?

Truly yours, Menachem Rosensaft

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Anyone who wishes to join the protest against supporters of the Holocaust deniers, the address of MSNBC is:

Phil Griffin, President MSNBC,

30 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, N.Y. 10112

Fax number: 212-664-4426

THE GOODWILL(?) FUND

After the expiration of the German National Restitution Laws in 1992, the Claims Conference became the legal owner of all unclaimed properties. Until March 31st, 2004, former owners and heirs of former East German properties – who had failed to apply under the German Restitution Laws – could apply to the ‘Goodwill Fund’ of the Claims Conference for compensation (less service and other fees).

The Claims Conference has recently announced that they are amenable to review applications that were made after the March 31st, 2004 deadline, on a case by case basis, provided any of the following conditions are met:

a) The claim was submitted by an original owner of the property, or by the spouse of the original owner, or:

b) The claim was submitted by a child, grandchild or great-grandchild of the original owner who can prove, through medical documentation, that they were unable for medical reasons to file an application in the period immediately before the deadline of March 31st, 2004.

Written inquiries should be sent to the “ Claims Conference – Goodwill Fund” 1359 Broadway, Room 2000, New York, N.Y. 10018-7841

TIDINGS & TIDBITS

I) We all can agree with some of the following passages in President Obama’s Cairo speech (regardless of political persuasions):

“ Around the world ,the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction – or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews – is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.”

During his visit at Buchenwald, in the company of German Chancellor Angela Merkek and Elie Wiesel, he repeated:

“ To this day, there are those who insist that the Holocaust never happened, Such statements are ignorant, baseless and hateful.”

In an interview at Buchenwald with NBC about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President Obama observed:

“ He should make his own visit; I have no patience for people who would deny history. And the history of the Holocaust is not something speculative.”

II) In a notebook that law enforcement officers found in the 2002 red Hyundai belonging to the racist James Wenneker Von Brunn who killed a security guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., he had written:

“The Holocaust is a Lie” and Obama was created by Jews. Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do. Jews captured America’s money. Jews control the mass media.” The FBI revealed that Von Brunn had established a web-site that expressed hatred of Jews and of African Americans.

Editor: It is ironic that anyone, especially a retired Naval Reserve Officer, would deny the Holocaust while facing an institution filled with a mountain of evidence: German documents; photographs, testimonies by US Army Generals, etc… That evidence was examined, analyzed and accepted by historians and academicians, by Presidents and Prime Ministers, by religious leaders of various faiths, from all over the world, including from Germany. Does Von Brunn and all other deniers assume that all of those analysts were incompetent, mindless nincompoops ?

Michael Gerson wrote in the Washington Post:

“The durability of anti-Semitism is a horrifying marvel of history. Sara Bloomfield, the director of the Holocaust Museum, observes: “Anti-Semitism has existed with and without Christianity. With and without the right wing. With and without the left wing. With and without democracy. With and without economic problems. With and without globalization. With and without a Jewish homeland.” And: “But we do know that anti-Semitism has always been a kind of test – a reliable measure of a nation’s moral and social health. When the rights of Jews are violated, all human rights are insecure. When Jews and Jewish institutions are targeted, all minorities have reason for fear.”

III) In 2006 and in 2007 we reported in our newsletters – and we helped to expose – the scandal surrounding the ‘March of the Living’s financial dealings. The Claims Conference, which for years had provided funds to the ‘March of the Living’, subsequently suspended these subsidies, pending results of an audit which still has not yet been completed.

Now we received word from Israel that Abraham Hirchson, one of the founders of the ‘March of the Living’, has been convicted of fraud and of stealing $625,000 from the ‘National Workers Organization’ which he headed. Several of his accomplices have pleaded guilty of stealing similar amounts between 2005 and 2008.

IV) The ceremonial post of President of the European Parliament is usually assigned, on a rotating basis, to the oldest European Parliamentarian. This summer the honor was to go to the French racist Jean-Marie Le Pen.

Le Pen had been convicted of Holocaust denial – both, in Germany and in France – yet he defiantly continues to publish messages of bigotry, intolerance and historical lies. In early May, his fellow Parliamentarians changed the parliamentary rules to deny him the post and the opportunity of attracting more followers.

V) On the brighter side: In a speech – which regrettably did not receive sufficient coverage in the press – Morocco’s king Mohammed VI called the Holocaust : “One of the blots, one of the most tragic chapters in modern history,” and: “The duty of remembrance induced by the Holocaust… imposes ethical, moral and political standards.”

His comments offer a stark contrast to the utterances in most parts of the Muslim world where denial and distortion of the Holocaust have become commonplace. There are some additional rays of hope: “Last year, the predominantly Muslim European nation of Albania commemorated its first Holocaust Remembrance Day.” (JTA)

Warren L. Miller, Chairman of the U.S. Commission For The Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, commented in the ‘Philadelphia Inquirer’ of May 29th:

“Governments and people that deny the Holocaust condemn themselves to a path of perpetual mediocrity – a path on which no lessons are learned, no progress is made, and no promising future is possible. Such places will always remain dark and stunted. Everywhere history is denied, the future is denied as well.

By honoring historical truth, the king of Morocco has chosen progress and hope for his nation, and dignity for his people. Leaders of other Muslim nations should follow his example.”

VI) ‘Yad Vashem’ Memoranda:

a) During her visit to Yad Vashem on March 3rd, 2009, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton participated in a memorial ceremony in the Hall of Remembrance. In the guest book, Secretary Clinton wrote:

“Yad Vashem is a testament to the power of truth in the face of denial, the resilience of the human spirit in the face of despair, the triumph of the Jewish people over murder and destruction and a reminder to all people that the lesson of the Holocaust must never be forgotten. God bless Israel and its future.”

b) The ‘Auschwitz Album’ , the only surviving visual evidence of the process of mass murder in Auschwitz-Birkenau, is now available online in multimedia format (slideshow and narration) in four languages: English, Hebrew, Arabic and Spanish. The multimedia presentations are part of the Auschwitz Album online exhibition that includes explanatory texts, photos from the Album and aerial photos taken of Auschwitz in 1944.

REVIEW OF ‘AGAINST THE TIDE’ by Eva Maiden

“Against The Tide”, the new film put out by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, is both fascinating and difficult to watch. It tells the story of Peter Bergson, an activist from what was then Palestine, who was sent by the ‘Irgun’ to the United States in 1939 with a few compatriots. Their mission: to organize a Jewish army against Hitler’s forces and to raise money for the rescue of European Jews. When my late husband, history professor Martin Primack lectured various survivor groups in the San Francisco region, he would say: “I’m writing a book about campaigns to rescue Jews and bring them to the United States.” The response usually was: That’s going to be a very short book.”

The movie, which begins in 1941, details the strategies of the Bergson group to break through the denial and inaction of Americans toward the evolving genocide. A huge advertising campaign was launched by Peter Bergson’s committees, and they produced a dramatic pageant in a number of major cities. They were able to enlist public figures from New York to Hollywood and eventually in Congress to raise public awareness. The only direct confrontation of Roosevelt and his cabinet occurred during this period – a march on Washington by a group of Orthodox rabbis. Roosevelt, advised by Anti-Bergson Jewish followers, avoided meeting the marchers.

A major result of the growing pressure produced by the innovative campaign of the Bergson group was the formation of the ‘War Refugee Board’ in 1943 and subsequent rescue of about 200,000 of the Jews of Hungary in 1844.

The best part of the film consists of clips of an interview with Peter Bergson, which conveyed his passion for humanitarian action. It is deeply distressing to hear him describe how Americans and especially Jewish leaders were so reluctant to act, during the horrendous and fast moving tragedies of the Holocaust.

Along with its highly charged agenda, the film also attempts to provide a history of the war in Europe. This might have been better presented as a companion film. Today’s youth might benefit from less scenes of horrific carnage and greater description of how the Nazis rose to power. More effective, in my opinion was the occasional cut-over to the family of Anne Frank and what happened to each of them at different stages when Americans were waking up, ever so slowly, to the fate of European Jewry.

Eva W. Maiden

NOTICES:

1) “The Failure to Bomb Auschwitz History, Politics, Controversy” will be the theme of the seventh national conference of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, which will be held at Fordham University Law School, 140 West 62nd Street, NYC, on Sunday, September 13th, 2009 from 10AM to 4PM. This will be the first ever conference to focus on the history and implications of the Allies’ refusal to bomb Auschwitz or the railway lines leading to it. Featured speakers will include: Prof. David Wyman and Dr. Rafael Medoff, revealing new evidence, Prof. Thane Rosenbaum and other scholars and public figures on the use of military force to stop genocide today, and a video interview with Elie Wiesel on the bombing issue.

Registration $25; $15 for NAHOS members and students. The registration fee includes a kosher buffet lunch. More information at 202-434-8994 or

2) Two extraordinary concerts with the violin virtuoso Joshua Bell will be performed on October 20th in Czestochowa, Poland at the Philharmonic Concert Hall, once the site of the beautiful ‘New Synagogue’ which was burned by the Nazis on December 25th, 1939; and on October 21st in Warsaw at the ‘National Opera Theater’.

The sole producer of the concerts, Sigmund A. Rolat, is the Chairman of the North American Council of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. He is a patron of the arts and a philanthropist and committed to the preservation of Jewish culture and History in Poland.

Joshuah Bell will be performing on his famed Huberman Stradivarius. This storied violin was given by Count Zamoyski to ‘Wunderkind’ prodigy Huberman, born in Czestochowa. Huberman brought Johannes Brahms to tears in Vienna playing his violin concert. “Never have I dreamed my music would sound so gloriously” sobbed Brahms. For more information about the concerts and the Museum of the History of the Polish Jews, visit: or call 212-226-2900.

3) There is an urgent search for children saved by Abbe Froidure (Brussels, Belgium). He is about to be entered at ‘Yad Vashem’ and more witnesses are needed. Anyone able to supply information, please contact Anne Griffin at 917-902-9138.

4) New record: ‘The Cutting Edge’ (Political and Economic News) by Edwin Black, hit a new one-day record on April 20th, 2009 with 183,000 hits in a single day:



GLOBAL NEWS

(items you may have overlooked)

United States & Canada:

** In 1997, a quiet, half-acre patch of land at the easternmost end of Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn, N.Y. had been dedicated by the City of New York to create a Holocaust Memorial. Names of Jewish victims were (& are being) carved on Memorial Stones. A Holocaust Memorial Committee had been put in charge. With the approval of the City’s Park Department, several advocacy groups and City Officials have now proposed that gays, lesbians, Romas (Gypsies) and other Nazi victims be also commemorated in the Memorial Park. The proposal is being opposed by the Holocaust Memorial Committee and by Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who stated: “These people are not in the same category as the Jewish people with regards to the Holocaust. You cannot compare political prisoners with Jewish victims. It just isn’t fair, it diminishes and really dilutes what the Holocaust is.”

Opposing Hikind’s views are City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Mayor Michael Bloomberg who opined: “It wasn’t only Jews that were massacred.” Hikind retorted: That is it exactly… making equivalency. Victims are victims, but the systematic annihilation, the ‘Final Solution’ was directed against the Jewish people and no one else.”

** In the 1990’s, The Shoah Visual History Foundation – sponsored by Steven Spielberg – interviewed nearly 52,000 Holocaust Survivors about their experiences and life-stories. The testimonies were recorded on videotape, a substance whose quality deteriorates over time. In order to save the recordings for future generations, the USC Shoah Foundation has launched a $10 million project to digitize the 105,000 hours of videotape. They plan to digitize 12,000 testimonies a year. Currently. The videotapes are stored in a vast former limestone mine in Western Pennsylvania, known as ‘Iron Mountain’. Trucks will haul 15,000 tapes at a time to the Shoah Foundation’s offices in California where they will be duplicated into Motion JPEG 2000 files and other formats.

Survivors who were interviewed might consider having their video-copies digitized, because their quality might begin to deteriorate in the next five to ten years.

** 54 percent of Canadians mistakenly believe that Canada, during WWII, admitted Jews trying to escape the Holocaust. The government of Canada has announced that – in partnership with B’nai Brith Canada- it will invest close to $1 million, over three years., in a newly formed task force to study and educate Canadians about the Holocaust. The program will develop and publish educational resources, including teachers’ manuals, a textbook for secondary school students and a DVD documentary.

Germany & Austria:

** A new German magazine, the ‘Zeitungszeugen’ issued by British historian and publisher Peter McGee intends to reprint newspaper articles from the ‘Third Reich’ period 1933-1945. It has already published a column by Joseph Goebbels and a story about the 1933 Reichstag fire. The Bavarian Finance Ministry announced that it will file a complaint against the magazine and will launch civil proceedings to stop it from further reprints. The magazine is reprinting newspapers from all parts of the political spectrum, including communist and Social Democrats papers.

** (Spiegel International) The upcoming trial of Demjanjuk will, for the first time, put a foreign perpetrator in the spotlight. Foreign nationals: Ukrainian gendarmes, Romanian soldiers, Hungarian railway workers, Latvian auxiliary police, Polish farmers, Dutch land registry officials, French mayors, Norwegian ministers and others – they all took part in Germany’s Holocaust. Michael Wild, Hamburg-based historian, observed that: “the Germans on their own wouldn’t have been able to carry out the murder of millions of European Jews.” In Germany, with its well-functioning bureaucracy, there were comprehensive registers of the Jewish population, “ but in the conquered territories the Nazis needed assistance of the type supplied by the Dutch Registry Offices, whose staff went to a lot of trouble to compile registers of Jews. Perpetrators made up a small percentage of their respective populations but the Germans relied on this minority.” “In the killing fields of Eastern Europe, there were up to 10 local helpers for every German policeman.

** Wilm Hosendorf, the German officer made famous in the 2002 movie ‘The Pianist’, has been posthumously recognized as ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ by Yad Vashem. Hosenfeld reportedly provided shelter to two Jews. Leon Wurms was employed by Hosenfeld at a sports center after he escaped from a train to Treblinka and Wladyslaw testified that Hosenfeld helped him find a shelter and provide him with food and blankets in November 1944. Personal diaries and letters to his wife also revealed his opposition to the Nazis’ policy of oppression and persecution.

** A documentary about the robbery of Jewish properties in Germany “Menschliches Versagen” won top prize in the German documentaries’ category at the 15th annual Berlin Jewish Film Festival. The film exposed how the average citizens across Germany benefited materially when their Jewish neighbors were deported. The film is scheduled to be shown in the U.S. in the near future.

** The ‘Tiroler Tageszeitung’ reported that the ‘Haus Sonnendorf’ Apartment-Hotel in Serfaus turned away a Viennese Jewish family as hotel guests, citing bad experiences with Jewish guests in the past. The incident shocked the local tourist industry and was declared ‘unacceptable’ by local officials.

Europe:

** Legislation is being drafted by Hungary’s Socialist minority administration to make illegal Holocaust denials and incitement to racial hatred. The amendments would bypass the Constitutional Court that had blocked previous legislative attempts. The need for such legislation was made evident by a provocative neo-Nazi demonstration staged to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day.

** A British man, Sir Nicholas Winton, who worked in 1939 in Czechoslovakia as a British Stock exchange clerk, had helped over 600 Jewish children escape from Nazi-occupied territory. He organized transportation to Britain and arranged that British families would accept the children. An orchard was dedicated in Winton’s honor on Petrin Hill in Prague, on the occasion of his 100th birthday this past May. The orchard will take four years to complete and will contain a number of fruit trees equal to the number of children he saved.

Latin America:

** During the 61st Public anniversary celebration of Israel’s Independence Day in Buenos Aires, a group of about 20 neo-Nazis came out of a subway station with anti-Semitic banners and attacked the celebrants. A French newspaper reported that several Jews were beaten and required medical attention. Allegedly, five police officers at the scene were slow to react. Most aggressors ran away but five were caught by the police and the public.

** Following a series of neo-Nazis incidents, the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies created a commission to investigate the occurrences. The Commission will be headed by Marcelo Itagiba, a Jewish congressman who authored a bill that would make Holocaust denial a crime of racism. The Southern Brazilian States are known to have a large concentration of Brazilians of German and Arab descent.

** Brazilian police seized Nazi-material consisting of more than 300 objects, including clothes bearing swastikas, knives, DVD’s and three homemade bombs. Reportedly, the neo-Nazi groups, in five cities, had planned to attack synagogues and gay-rights demonstrations.

Eastern Europe:

** Nemurire, a non-profit run by a local historian named Iurie, has installed a number of stone monuments across the Northern Moldovan countryside to commemorate the path of death marches and sites of Jewish mass-graves. The monuments are installed to memorialize the ill-remembered slaughter of Romanian Jews. The sixth Moldovan monument, recently erected in Frasin, not far from Brichevo, “commemorated a death march that stopped there one day in 1941. Romanian soldiers decided to kill 300 of the Jewish prisoners they were marching from the town of Edinet. They forced the prisoners to undress and started pulling gold-filled teeth from their jaws with pliers while they were still alive”, according to a non-Jewish witness Alexander Bantush. A 2004 report by the Romanian government estimates the number of deported and death between 280,000 and 380,000.

** The Kiev-based Center for Jewish Education and the Odessa Jewish University led teams of Ukrainan youths in a survey of 48 Jewish burial grounds in 29 locations. The survey found that most of the country’s Jewish cemeteries and mass graves lacked proper demarcations, identification and regular maintenance and are not properly recognized as burial grounds. It is estimated that there are over 2,000 Jewish cemeteries an WWII-era mass graves in Ukraine.

** The Serbian city of Novi Sad has awarded honorary citizenship to Dr. Ephraim Zuroff, of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, for his role in exposing former Hungarian Gendarmerie officer Sandor Kepiro. Kepiro had been an organizer and participant in the massacre of more than 1,000 Jews, Serbs and Gypsies in Novi Sad on January 23rd, 1942. Kepiro, who has been living in Budapest, has not been brought to trial because of lack of political will on the part of Hungarian authorities.

** Nineteen gravestones in the Jewish section of the Marina Roshcha cemetery in Nizhny Novgorod were vandalized and damaged. The cemetery has been targeted several times in recent years.

** The walls of Hesed Yahva, a Jewish charity center in the Crimean city of Feodosia, were vandalized with swastikas and anti-Jewish slurs.

NAHOS INC.

The National Association of Jewish Child Holocaust Survivors, Inc.

P.O.Box 670125, Station C

Main Street, Flushing, N.Y. 11367

Fax: (718) 820-0859 or e-mail:

estherhamalka@,

or: leotonirech@

President & Editor:

Leo Rechter

Executive V.P. Public Relations:

Esther Widman

Treasurer:

Gilberte Hunkins

Auditor:

Sol Lipper

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