-
-
Holocaust Denier found guilty of 2007 attack on Nobel Laureate
Guilty Verdict for Wiesel Attacker Sends a Message to Holocaust Deniers
New York, NY, July 22, 2008 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) called the guilty verdict for the Holocaust denier who attacked Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel a just one, saying it "sends a resounding message to violent Holocaust deniers and other anti-Semites that when they act out their hatred they will pay a price."
Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director and a Holocaust survivor, issued the following statement:
The conviction of Eric Hunt of multiple charges for his bias-motivated attack on Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel in February 2007 is just and sends a resounding message to violent Holocaust deniers and other anti-Semites that when they act out their hatred they will pay a price.
The people of San Francisco and its law enforcement and judicial institutions have made it clear that violence motivated by hate is unacceptable in civil society and that there will be consequences for those who act out their bigotry.
After two weeks of testimony, during which the jury heard details about Hunt's advocacy of Holocaust denial, they found him guilty of felony false imprisonment charges with a hate-crime enhancement based on the fact that Wiesel is Jewish. Hunt, 24, of New Jersey, was also convicted misdemeanor battery and elder abuse charges. Hunt is scheduled to be sentenced August 18. He faces up to three years in prison.
Guilty Verdict for Wiesel Attacker Sends a Message to Holocaust Deniers ... more -
Obama Tours Israel, Meets Barak
The Democratic nominee-in-waiting is on a tour of the Mideast and Europe, a journey financed by his campaign and designed to reassure skeptical voters back home of his ability to serve as commander in chief. The Democratic nominee-in-waiting is on a tour of the Mideast and Europe, a journey financed by his campaign and designed to reassure ... more
-
Man convicted of hate crime against Holocaust survivor
A New Jersey man who once claimed insanity was convicted Monday of a hate crime for accosting Nazi death camp survivor and scholar Elie Wiesel in a hotel elevator.
A New Jersey man who once claimed insanity was convicted Monday of a hate crime for accosting Nazi death camp survivor and scholar Eli... more -
American Jews honour Polish Holocaust rescuers
Poles who risked their lives a half century ago by taking in fugitive Jews during the Nazi Holocaust were honored in Warsaw on Sunday, in what may be one of their final gatherings.
They recalled how they tucked Jews into odd hiding places when German soldiers were on the prowl, risking the death penalty for themselves and their family. "At various times we had up to nine people living in our flat. They had free run of the house, but when they heard a knock at the door, they would all run down to a special hiding place next to the coal bin," said Waclaw Nowinski, 83.
He was one of about 60 ageing Poles invited to the event by the U.S.-based Jewish Foundation for the Righteous (JFR), all of them medal-holders of the Yad Vashem Institute's Righteous among the Nations decoration. Since its inception in 1986, the JFR has spent millions of dollars supporting needy Gentile rescuers like Nowinska and Irena Senderska-Rzonca, who was only 13 in 1943 when her family provided a safe haven for a Jewish doctor's family in the eastern Polish town of Boryslaw, now in Ukraine.
Like many Yad Vashem medal-holders, Senderska-Rzonca has stayed in touch with her beneficiaries. "Miron Bander was just a little boy back then. He is now a successful physics professor in California," she said.
During World War Two, Poland was the only country in German-occupied Europe where anyone aiding Jews risked death. In was also the only occupied country whose government-in-exile set up an underground organization for the express purpose of aiding and saving Jews. According to estimates, up to 120,000 Jews who could not have survived the Holocaust without help were rescued, and over 6,000 Poles were subsequently awarded the Righteous Among Nations medal, more than any other country.
There was a bittersweet note to the Warsaw ceremony. "Due to the rising age of the rescuers, it will likely be the last," said one of the organizers.
(Excerpts / Rob Strybel, Reuters)
Poles who risked their lives a half century ago by taking in fugitive Jews during the Nazi Holocaust were honored in Warsaw on Sunday,... more -
Nazi Jews: A Historical Paradox
Would it surprise anyone to learn that there were upwards of 150, 000 soldiers of partial Jewish descent serving in the Nazi army during World War II? Would it surprise anyone to learn that there were upwards of 150, 000 soldiers of partial Jewish descent serving in the Nazi army duri... more
-
Holocaust siblings united after 66 years apart
"A frail Irene Famulak clutched her brother on the airport tarmac, her arm wrapped around him in a tight embrace, tears streaming down their faces. It was the first time since 1942 they had seen each other, when she was 17 and he was just 7.
Siblings Wssewolod Galezkij and Irene Famulak were separated in 1942 when Nazis took her to a labor camp. That was the night the invading Nazis came to take her away from her Ukrainian home.
Both siblings survived the Holocaust and grew up on different sides of the Iron Curtain, not knowing the fate of the other.
But after 66 years apart, Famulak, 83, was reunited with her long lost 73-year-old brother, Wssewolod Galezkij. They held each other close this time, cherishing the moment. "I don't believe anyone has ever known such happiness. Now, I truly believe I can die satisfied," Galezkij said.
Famulak made the long journey to Donetsk in eastern Ukraine from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after being contacted by the American Red Cross. The organization told her they had located her only surviving sibling ..." "A frail Irene Famulak clutched her brother on the airport tarmac, her arm wrapped around him in a tight embrace, tears streaming down... more -
Can Palestinians understand the Holocaust? Yes.
Ever since I went to Yad Vashim in Jerusalem I have understood the Israeli Occupation of the Palestinian territory as a direct product of fear on a pathological level that was created by not only the Jewish experience in the Holocaust but by the world's indifference. I toured the Holocaust museum with my then 8 year daughter and was moved to tears - not because of the crimes shown, but because many of the photographs I saw are available today - the Warsaw Ghetto, the children with Jewish stars facing Gestapo soldiers with guns pointed at them. All you have to do is replace Palestinians for the Jews.
Now don't go and get all Anti-Semitic on me. Of course it's not the same. The magnitud and extent quite simply arent there - and never will be I dare to say. However, the Occupation is a violation of international law, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (written in part by a French Jew working to prevent the Halocaus from repetlition) are violated by Israel over and over.
What the Israeli government does in the name of security should be renamed as what they do in the name of fear. I think this lawyer is on to something. I would like to see something similar taht would include pictures of the Occupation - not just the Nakbah. Ever since I went to Yad Vashim in Jerusalem I have understood the Israeli Occupation of the Palestinian territory as a direct product... more -
Holocaust siblings meet after 66 years
A frail Irene Famulak clutched her brother on the airport tarmac, her arm wrapped around him in a tight embrace, tears streaming down their faces. It was the first time since 1942 they had seen each other, when she was 17 and he was just 7. That was the night the invading Nazis came to take her away from her Ukrainian home. A frail Irene Famulak clutched her brother on the airport tarmac, her arm wrapped around him in a tight embrace, tears streaming down ... more
-
Nazi hunters one step closer to finding 'Dr Death'
PUERTO MONTT, Chile (AFP) - Nazi hunters said Thursday they were closer to tracking down Aribert Heim, the infamous sadistic "Doctor Death," after finding one of his daughters and what they called "credible" information.
"We have hard facts, which are credible, but have to be checked," Sergio Widder, Latin America director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told AFP. "Those who spoke to us did so in good faith, without trying to twist the information."
An Austrian doctor, Heim is wanted for killing hundreds of concentration camp victims with his horrific medical experiments, including performing operations without anesthesia and injecting gasoline directly into their hearts.
Widder said dozens of people had come forward with information on Heim, which led the Center's investigators to this town, some 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) south of the Chilean capital of Santiago.
All those who offered details on Heim, who would now be 94, were interviewed by Efraim Zuroff, a historian considered the best "Nazi hunter" in the world. Zuroff also is the director of the Israel office of the Wiesenthal Center.
"All the information we have points to Heim living in this area. Somewhere between Puerto Montt and Bariloche" in Argentina, Zuroff told reporters Thursday.
"We think there must be someone here who may have the key to finding Heim. There is a 500,000 (315,000 euro) dollar reward for that person, provided by Heim's victims," he said.
Zuroff said no matter how old Heim was, he had to be held accountable for his crimes.
"He castrated people, he used parts of their body to decorate his office. I'm not giving out these details to emotionalize the issue, but for people to understand how important it is to catch this criminal," Zuroff said.
The Wiesenthal delegation said they had found Heim's daughter Waltraut Boser in Puerto Montt, but had not contacted her. Now aged 60, Boser is believed to be married to a local businessman and to have lived in Chile some 30 years.
During that time, she has traveled to Europe roughly 50 times, and in the last two years visited the Bariloche area in neighboring Argentina about a dozen times. Several Nazi criminals have found refuge in Argentina.
Heim disappeared from public view some 43 years ago. PUERTO MONTT, Chile (AFP) - Nazi hunters said Thursday they were closer to tracking down Aribert Heim, the infamous sadistic "Doctor D... more -
AMERICA THE NOT SO GREAT
America is a great nation but that doesn't mean that it is a perfect nation. We have experienced disasters, terrorism, and death but America has also been one of the greatest purveyors of violence in history.
Patriotism is not to be judged by one's blind loyalty to their nation but is judged by one's committment to make their nation great and stay true to the pillars of its inception. America is a great nation but that doesn't mean that it is a perfect nation. We have experienced disasters, terrorism, and death but A... more -
Scholars make finds in Nazi archive
From prison brothels to slave labor camps, 15 scholars concluded a two-week probe Thursday of an untapped repository of millions of Nazi records, and hailed it as a rich vein of raw material that will deepen the study of the Holocaust.
It was the first concentrated academic sweep of the long-private archive administered by the International Tracing Service since it opened its doors last November to Holocaust survivors, victims’ relatives and historical researchers.
German historian Christel Trouve said the nameless millions of forced laborers began to take shape as individual people as she studied small labor camps - which existed in astonishing numbers.
Among the striking revelations was the identification of the man who rescued an 8-year-old boy in Buchenwald, Israel Meir Lau, who later became Israel's chief rabbi.
Lau said his rescuer was a person called Fyodor from Rostow. Kenneth Waltzer of Michigan State University found it was Fyodor Michajlitschenko, 18, arrested by the Gestapo in 1943, who gave the small boy ear warmers and treated him like a father in Block 8 until the camp's liberation.
Jessica Anderson Hughes of Rutgers University discovered that prostitutes servicing other prisoners in concentration camp brothels often came from ordinary backgrounds - exploding the myth that most had been prostitutes before their arrest.
Hughes said the lists in Bad Arolsen allowed her to attach names to the prisoner-prostitutes at Buchenwald, one of the largest concentration camps which had one of eight known brothels for prisoners.
With the names she could look up incarceration records and she found some women were married, some single, some were mothers. The records said many were arrested for petty theft or other minor crime.
"We always portrayed them as volunteers, but I wanted to know why they volunteered," she said. She believed the prostitutes faced "a choiceless choice."
The opening of the files to scholars followed pressure from survivors and from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The importance of the archive was highlighted in a series of stories by AP, which was the first news organization to be granted extensive access to the long-restricted papers.
The research project was organized jointly by the tracing service and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, which brought scholars from six countries to begin assessing the significance of the archive, the largest collection of Nazi documents.
The 50 million pages stored in this central German spa town since the mid-1950s previously had been used by Red Cross staff to respond to inquiries about missing persons or the fate of family members, and later to document compensation claims.
With the population of survivors quickly shrinking, the 11 countries that govern the archive agreed in 2006 to widen access to the files. It took another 18 months for all 11 to ratify the required treaty amendments before the archive could open.
The gray metal shelves and cabinets contain 16 miles (25 kilometers) of transport lists, camp registries, medical records, forced labor files and death certificates of some 17.5 million people subjected to Nazi persecutions.
Taken together with written and oral testimonies and the transcripts of war crimes trials, the dry data at Bad Arolsen add texture to the known picture of the Holocaust, from the first concentration camps created within weeks of Hitler's rise to power in January 1933 to the defeat of Nazism in May 1945.
"I've been working on concentration camps for 15 years. We know there was forced laborers in Germany — millions of them," she said. "But then you go through these lists. You see the farmer employing so many people. You see the factory employing hundreds of people. Everything was blurred, but suddenly you have a clear image." From prison brothels to slave labor camps, 15 scholars concluded a two-week probe Thursday of an untapped repository of millions of Na... more -
Nazi Prison Camps
As a medic in World War II, Judson Hemperley saved the lives of many people and was one of the soldiers that liberated prisoners from Nazi concentration camps in Germany (Dachua). As a medic in World War II, Judson Hemperley saved the lives of many people and was one of the soldiers that liberated prisoners from ... more
-
Proof that FEMA is an extermination agency
Very eerie video that makes you wonder!
Also check out this video showing one of the 600 'FEMA Camps' that are already built all around the US! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=277826260716604... Very eerie video that makes you wonder! ... more -
Germany honors Nazis' gay victims
The Nazis convicted nearly 50,000 gay and lesbians as criminals. Approximately 15,000 were sent to concentration camps. Few survived. On Tuesday, Berlin's mayor Klaus Wowereit inaugurated a memorial to these victims, whose stories were seldom told.
"This memorial is important from two points of view -- to commemorate the victims, but also to make clear that even today, after we have achieved so much in terms of equal treatment, discrimination still exists daily," Wowereit said.
The pink triangle which symbolizes pride today, was used by the Nazis to identify homosexuals. A pink triangle patch was placed on their uniform. Homosexuals were considered the worst form of humanity by the Nazis and were treated that way.
The Nazis convicted nearly 50,000 gay and lesbians as criminals. Approximately 15,000 were sent to concentration camps. Few survived... more -
Muslim opens Holocaust museum in Israel
In a world where Muslim's are stereotyped to be "Holocaust deniers" a Muslim Arab created the first Holocaust Museum in Arabic in what is said to be Jesus's (pbuh) hometown of Nazerath in 2005.
''Jewish people everywhere, not just in Israel, have a feeling of persecution" because of centuries of anti-Semitism that culminated in the Holocaust, said the museum's founder, Khaled Kasab Mahameed. ''This feeling of persecution shapes their consciousness. . . . Every aspect of life is affected by this feeling of persecution, which is very deep in the Jewish soul."
''If Arabs really understand this, they should understand that they must act with all their force to protect Israel and defend Jews against Nazis and other killers," he said. ''And when the Jewish people see that the Arabs understand, they will be able to give the Arabs their rights."
Majali a resident of Nazerath said:
''We were not part of this Holocaust as Arabs, but as Arabs now involved in conflict with Jews, we have some kind of responsibility to say 'Jews, we are with you.' " ''They want security. . . . We want an independent Palestinian state, but aside from this, we have to do something so that Jews feel security."
However the Musuem also has its critics both Arabs and Israeli's, but this Musuem is a step in the right direction towards building understanding. In a world where Muslim's are stereotyped to be "Holocaust deniers" a Muslim Arab created the first Holocaust Museum in Arabic in what... more -
A woman who saved 2,500 children in the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII (Holocaust hero ...
WARSAW, Poland - Irena Sendler — credited with saving some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazi Holocaust by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, some of them in baskets — died Monday, her family said. She was 98. Sendler, among the first to be honored by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial as a Righteous Among Nations for her wartime heroism, died at a Warsaw hospital, daughter Janina Zgrzembska told The Associated Press.
President Lech Kaczynski expressed "great regret" over Sendler's death, calling her "extremely brave" and "an exceptional person." In recent years, Kaczynski had spearheaded a campaign to put Sendler's name forward as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.
Sendler was a 29-year-old social worker with the city's welfare department when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, launching World War II. Warsaw's Jews were forced into a walled-off ghetto.
For more information follow this link.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080512/ap_on_re_eu/obit_se... WARSAW, Poland - Irena Sendler — credited with saving some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazi Holocaust by smuggling them out of the ... more -
Third Reich: Overview - Loss of Civil Rights and Liberties Gradual under Police St...
"The Nazi rise to power brought an end to the Weimar Republic, a parliamentary democracy established in Germany after World War I. Following the appointment of Adolf Hitler as chancellor on January 30, 1933, the Nazi state (also referred to as the Third Reich) quickly became a regime in which Germans enjoyed no guaranteed basic rights. After a suspicious fire in the Reichstag (the German Parliament), on February 28, 1933, the government issued a decree which suspended constitutional civil rights and created a state of emergency in which official decrees could be enacted without parliamentary confirmation.
In the first months of Hitler's chancellorship, the Nazis instituted a policy of "coordination"--the alignment of individuals and institutions with Nazi goals. Culture, the economy, education, and law all came under Nazi control. The Nazi regime also attempted to "coordinate" the German churches and, although not entirely successful, won support from a majority of Catholic and Protestant clergymen."
and
"Open criticism of the regime was suppressed by the Gestapo (secret state police) and the Security Service (SD) of the Nazi party, but Hitler's government was popular with most Germans...."
Read more at U.S.Holocaust Museum website at link.
_____________________________
from TouchArt.net and OneEarthBlog.blogspot.com
where a trip to the U.S. Capitol and a walk through the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum last fall, made my 17-year-old daughter and I shudder to see how the people in pre-Nazi Germany lost their freedoms and civil rights gradually, and ceded more power to the executive branch of their government, until they were enslaved in a police state. "The Nazi rise to power brought an end to the Weimar Republic, a parliamentary democracy established in Germany after World War I. Fol... more -
Jews sheltered by Muslims during WW 2 honoured
Albanian Muslims from Waterbury's Albanian-American community were guests of honour at a Jewish Holocaust rememberance program (Yom HaShoah). This event told the stories from the rescuers and the rescued.
Dr. Anna Kohen, representing the rescued, was born in Albania (a Muslim majority country)and after Hitler invaded Albania, her parents fled to hide in a Muslim village.
"Everyone in the village knew we were Jews," she said, "but no one betrayed us. What I remember is what my parents told me: They were very nice to us, they fed us, they saved us.
Sazan Hoxha, representing one of the rescuers, told about her father who sheltered 4 Jewish families.
"Our parents were devout Muslims and believed, as we do, that 'every knock on the door is a blessing from God,'" said her brothers Hamid and Xhema Veseli. "We never took any money from our Jewish guests. All persons are from God. Besa exists in every Albanian soul."
"Our home is first God's house, second our guest's house, and third our family's house," explained Drita Veseli. "The Koran teaches us that all people, Jews, Christians, Muslims, are under one God."
Its stories like these which give us reason for hope... peace is possible. Albanian Muslims from Waterbury's Albanian-American community were guests of honour at a Jewish Holocaust rememberance program (Yom Ha... more -
Holocaust memorial in Israel
Israelis are paying tribute to the six million Jews killed by the Nazis on Holocaust Memorial Day.
-
How IBM helped the Nazis IBM and the Holocaust
I had always heard this rumor and decided to finally look it up for myself. It did not take much searching until I found a number of articles. Even in the 1930s, corporate america was profiting off of the suffering, senseless and inhumane plight of these people. I had always heard this rumor and decided to finally look it up for myself. It did not take much searching until I found a number of ... more
-
related topics
Holocaust
Contributors (195)
Holocaust
