JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust museum has kicked off its annual remembrance ceremonies with a special screening of the Oscar-winning film “Son of Saul,” acknowledging the unique role movies play in maintaining the memory of the Holocaust. The Hungarian film, which tells the story of a Jewish Nazi death camp inmate who obsessively seeks a proper burial for … Read More
MOSHAV UDIM, Israel (AP) — The death of 93-year-old Samuel Willenberg marks the passing of the last known survivor of the daring revolt at Treblinka, the notorious death camp in occupied Poland that is perhaps the most vivid example of Nazi Germany’s attempt to destroy European Jewry. But the death of Willenberg, who was buried Monday, also symbolizes a looming … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — Throughout the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam, and while incarcerated in two prison camps, Mirjam Bolle wrote letters to her fiance that she never sent but hoped to share with him after the war. Yet when the two ultimately reunited she decided to leave the past behind and stashed them away. Now, decades later, she has published them … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Nazi soldiers made their orders very clear: Jewish American prisoners of war were to be separated from their fellow brothers in arms and sent to an uncertain fate. But Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds would have none of that. As the highest-ranking noncommissioned officer held in the German POW camp, he ordered more than 1,000 Americans captives … Read More
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — With World War II underway and the Nazis closing in, 16-year-old Itzchak Belfer decided to flee his native Poland and head east to Soviet Russia. The man who had raised the Jewish boy like a son tearfully gave him his blessing, slipped the teen some money and said, “the chicks are leaving the nest.” It … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked an uproar in Israel on Wednesday for suggesting that a World War II-era Palestinian leader persuaded the Nazis to adopt their Final Solution to exterminate 6 million Jews. Holocaust experts and survivors slammed Netanyahu’s comments as historically inaccurate and serving the interests of Holocaust deniers by lessening the responsibility of Adolf Hitler … Read More
RAANANA, Israel (AP) — In 1933, the promising young Jewish-German violinist Ernest Drucker left the stage midway through a Brahms concerto in Cologne at the behest of Nazi officials, in one of the first anti-Semitic acts of the new regime. Now, more than 80 years later, his son, Grammy Award-winning American violinist Eugene Drucker, has completed his father’s interrupted work. … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — As a proud patriot, Brooklyn-born Dan Nadel enlisted in the U.S. army right after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But there was another force driving him to battle — his Jewish faith. “What Hitler was doing to the Jews, I knew he had to be killed and stopped,” the 95-year-old decorated veteran said from his home … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Nazi genocide of European Jews is widely commemorated in Israel and etched deeply into the psyche of a country founded in the Holocaust’s aftermath. But when it comes to the 1915 Armenian genocide, Israel has largely stayed silent. Fearing repercussions from its former ally Turkey and wary of breaking ranks with American policy, Israel has refrained … Read More
KFAR HAROEH, Israel (AP) — When David Hershkoviz was a child, he used to wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of his mother screaming in her sleep, knowing that she was reliving the horrors of the Holocaust. In time, he learned of the traumatic wartime experience that haunted her most — being torn away from … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — When Jennifer Teege stumbled upon a book in a Hamburg library seven years ago, the biracial German woman who was given up for adoption as a child was stunned to discover a deep family secret that shook her to the core. Her maternal grandfather was the brutal SS Commander Amon Goeth, who ran a concentration camp in … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — Marta Wise was ill and emaciated when she heard the distant sound of soldiers marching toward Auschwitz. The 10-year-old Slovakian Jew assumed it was German troops coming to get her but once she saw the red stars on their uniforms she realized they were Russian. Her nightmare was over. She was liberated. More than a million Jews … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — With survivors dying in growing numbers and their live testimonies soon to be a thing of the past, Holocaust commemoration efforts are increasingly focused around preserving the belongings that contain their stories. This week Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial held a first of its kind workshop devoted to the physical and digital preservation of documents. Over three … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — In an annual ritual, Israel will come to a standstill Monday morning for the country’s official Holocaust remembrance day. Air raid sirens will wail across the country as pedestrians stop in their tracks and drivers exit their vehicles and bow their heads to honor the six million victims of the Nazi genocide of World War II that … Read More
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s cultural and financial capital unveiled a memorial Friday honoring gays and lesbians persecuted by the Nazis, the first specific recognition in Israel for non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Tucked away in a Tel Aviv park, a concrete, triangle-shaped plaque details the plight of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people under Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. … Read More