By Ron Jontof-Hutter I grew up in South Africa during the apartheid years, born to parents who had survived the Nazis. Thus, I heard firsthand what they experienced, which shaped my sensitivity to social justice and support for civil disobedience against that regime. In 1948, the South African government, under Prime Minister Daniel Francois “D.F.” Malan, […]
(JTA) — The family of the late Polish-Jewish man whose story inspired the Academy Award-winning 2002 film “The Pianist” has won on appeal a defamation suit over claims that he was a Nazi collaborator. According to Agence France Press, the widow and son of Wladyslaw Szpilman said Monday they have won their suit against the […]
Anne Frank made her last entry into “Kitty,” her diary, on this date in 1944, after two years in hiding. “I’m what a romantic film is to a profound thinker,” she complained, “— a mere diversion, a comic interlude, something that is soon forgotten: not bad, but not particularly good either… “My lighter, more superficial […]
(JNS.org) The International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem and Israel’s Foreign Ministry held a seminar on the 1994 Rwanda genocide, whose anniversary took place earlier this week. Several Rwandan genocide survivors were part of delegations attending the seminar. In 1994 members of Rwanda’s majority ethnic Hutu government killed an estimated 500,000–1,000,000 ethnic Tutsi Rwandans […]
By Eldad Beck Despite heavy international pressure to change its existing legal stance, which refuses to consider property claims made after 1988, the Polish law remains in place. ‘We are very disappointed in the court’s decision to uphold a law denying the rights of the many claimants,’ said Center Organizations of Holocaust Survivors in Israel’s Gideon […]
BERLIN (JTA) — A Dutch textile magnate who initiated a probe into his family’s exploitation of Jewish competitors and laborers during the Holocaust said his predecessors “behaved in a heartless manner.” Maurice Brenninkmeijer, a scion of one of Europe’s richest families, told the Zeit newspaper in an interview published July 13 that he was particularly shocked by […]
Australian-Polish doctor, Ann Drillich, talks to Peter Kohn about her epic struggle with Poland’s authorities to reclaim an extensive family estate stolen in the Holocaust and now in others’ hands. Dr ANN Drillich is likely to be the only Jew – possibly the only individual – in the world who owns an operational Catholic church. […]
By Zahava Englard A few friends messaged me about a current article making its rounds via online news sources about a Lithuanian WWII concentration camp where several thousand Jews were starved and murdered, and is now being used as a wedding venue and entertainment site. And I feel nothing. They obviously assumed I didn’t see […]
A U.S. officer who helped liberate 2,500 Jews during the Holocaust has died at the age of 99. (JNS.org) On April 7, 1945, Lt. Frank Winchester Towers, who was the division liaison officer of Regiment 743 of the 30th Infantry Division of the U.S. Army during World War II, approached (with his regiment’s tanks) a stopped train in […]
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The City of Amsterdam approved an $11 million payment to Jewish causes as compensation for money it wrongfully collected from individual Holocaust survivors. Four of the five factions represented at city hall last week voted in favor of transferring the funds to a nonprofit that would distribute the money among various […]
