Category: Holocaust

Australia: B'nai B'rith Aids Stamp of approval for Raoul Wallenberg

9/16/2015

The B’nai B’rith Raoul Wallenberg Unit in Melbourne is commemorating its 30th anniversary in 2015 with a stamp that honors its namesake, available through the lodge and at post offices across the country.

Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat to Budapest during World War II, saved tens of thousands of Jewish lives by providing shelter and issuing papers that protected Jews from deportation to concentration camps.

He disappeared while in Soviet custody in 1945, but his legacy has lived on in the Jewish community.

In April 2013, he was named Australia's first (and so far only) honorary citizen, after prolonged advocacy from members of the B'nai B'rith lodge. Advocacy efforts also produced several rounds of limited edition stamp sales, but the one set to be released in October is the first mass-distributed Wallenberg stamp in Australia.

Read more about his life and enduring legacy courtesy of The Australian Jewish News:

The 70c Wallenberg stamp will be available as a first-day cover and card, and will come in various groupings.

It is due to be issued on October 5. Israel, Argentina, Canada, Hungary, Sweden and the United States have already issued Wallenberg stamps.

[...]

A MASS-circulation Australian postage stamp honouring Raoul Wallenberg...is set to be issued next month, after a long personal campaign by Judi Schiff of Melbourne.

[...]

In 2010, Wallenberg appeared on a limited-edition stamp sheet issued in conjunction with Melbourne philately company Max Stern & Co, marking the 25th anniversary of B’nai B’rith’s Raoul Wallenberg Unit.

But Schiff campaigned for Wallenberg to be recognised on a standard Australian stamp, using online petitions platform Change.org, where she gathered more than 520 signatures. Her involvement with the B’nai B’rith Raoul Wallenberg Unit inspired her tireless drive for a Wallenberg stamp.

“I’m over the moon that this has finally happened after repeated submissions and requests over decades,” Schiff told The AJN, saying that for years she had been told it was Australia Post policy to only use Australians on stamps, with the exception of the Queen.

B'nai B'rith Holocaust Commemoration Draws Global Coverage

4/16/2015

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UPDATED: 04/22/2015, 4:58 p.m.

Today in Jerusalem, B'nai B'rith International and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (KKL-JNF) are memorializing Rabbi Moshe Shimon Pessach (1869-1955), and the “Jewish Rescuers Citation” will be posthumously conferred.

Pessach was an outstanding rabbinic and communal figure who served for 63 years as rabbi, including later in life as chief rabbi of Greece. During the Nazi occupation of Greece, he shepherded the Volos Jewish community of approximately 1,000 people through tumultuous times.

Read highlights from dozens of global media outlets, including articles in the Huffington Post, Times of Israel, Jerusalem Post, Arutz Sheva, Algemeiner and Haaretz, below:

Huffington Post:

The organizers behind the Jewish Rescuers Citation award ceremony view believe it is especially important to expose Jewish youth to the phenomena of Jewish rescue during the Holocaust as a model for Jewish solidarity and courage.

“We believe that the topic of Jewish rescue during the Holocaust for the past 70 years hasn’t received the attention it rightly deserves,” said B’nai B’rith World Director Alan Schneider to Tazpit. “There were thousands of Jewish rescuers who saved countless Jewish lives, who many people don’t know about.”

At the ceremony on Thursday, members of the underground Zionist youth movement in Hungary during WWII will also be recognized for their rescue efforts as will Yaacov (Jacko) Razon, a Greek-Jewish boxer who helped other Jews survive at Nazi concentration camps.

Since the creation of the Jewish Rescuers Citation in 2011, around 100 awards have been presented to Jewish rescuers who operated in Germany, France, Hungary, and Holland.

Huffington Post

Reprinted in The Jewish Link

Reprinted In Baltimore Jewish Life

Reprinted In 5 Towns Jewish Times

Reprinted In San Diego Jewish World

Reprinted in Intermountain Jewish News

Arutz Sheva (Recap):

Holocaust Remembrance Day - known as Yom HaShoah in Hebrew - began Wednesday evening, at the start of the Hebrew calendar day, with a powerful ceremony at the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem.

Among the dozens of commemorative events taking place today was a unique ceremony at the Martyr's Forest on the outskirts of the capital, held jointly by the B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (KKL-JNF).

The event - held now for the 13th consecutive year - is the only one dedicated exclusively to commemorating the heroism of Jews who rescued fellow Jews during the years of torment in Europe. Some 200 Border Patrol Cadets – who will provide an honor guard - and 200 high school students are participating in the ceremony together with Jewish rescuers and survivors.

Arutz Sheva

Jspace News:

During the war, Rabbi Pessach also established a unit of partisans that rescued allied soldiers and fought the Germans. The Greek King Paul and the commander of the Allied forces in the Mediterranean decorated Rabbi Pessach for his actions.

“My grandfather was respected by Jews and Greeks alike and he always gave help and advice to all before and after the war,” said Eskanazi. “He was one of them, my grandfather, and the Jews were accepted by the Greek community.”

Rabbi Pessach’s good friend bishop Alexopoulos was recognized posthumously by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Gentiles in 1977 following the request of the Jewish community of Volos.

Jspace News

Times of Israel:

But the most significant outcome of Roet’s activism is an annual Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony awarding the “Jewish Rescuers Citation,” held by B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem and Keren Kayemeth Le’Israel (KKL-JNF) at a plaza among the six million trees planted in the Martyrs’ Forest near Jerusalem.

While the ceremony is in its thirteenth year, the citation has been awarded only since 2011. Making up for lost time perhaps, over 100 Jewish rescuers who operated in France, Germany, Holland and Hungary have since received the honor.

“When we leave out the Jews, we’re leaving out an important part of the picture,” director of B’nai B’rith World Center Alan Schneider told The Times of Israel just after Wednesday’s Yad Vashem state ceremony.

Schneider applauded Yad Vashem’s increased efforts in the area of Jewish rescue, including a recent Hebrew-language book and several symposiums and seminars.

“But there’s a lot more to be done. This is something that we feel has not gotten the attention over the years, whereas there has been a lot of attention on how Jews were murdered, rounded up, the war, restitution efforts,” said Schneider.

Stories of Jewish rescue of Jews convey important principles to today’s youth, said Schneider.

“Jews should take these examples of Jewish solidarity and use them as educational tools,” he said.

Times of Israel

Jerusalem Post:

The memory of an elderly rabbi who led partisans against the Nazis in occupied Greece during the Second World War will be honored during a ceremony at Jerusalem’s Martyr’s Forest on Holocaust Remembrance Day on Thursday.

The B’nai B’rith World Center in Jerusalem and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund will co-sponsor the event, which for the past 12 years has been dedicated to honoring the memory of Jews who rescued their coreligionists during the Holocaust.

J-Post Article 1

J-Post Article 2

Algemeiner:

In the Jerusalem Hills, there stands the single largest memorial to the Holocaust in the world, known as Martyrs’ Forest. The forest is comprised of six million trees planted in memory of the six million Jews who perished.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day in the capital, a unique ceremony takes place to commemorate the heroism of Jews who rescued fellow Jews during the Holocaust.

Algemeiner

Arutz Sheva (Preview):

Fiercely loyal to his country and to his community, Rabbi Pessach initiated and orchestrated the rescue of his community during the German occupation with the assistance of the Bishop of Volos Joachim Alexopoulos and other non-Jews - efforts that led to the survival of 74% of the Volos Jews.

This was an extraordinary achievement in a country where 85% of the Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.

In addition to these efforts, Rabbi Pessach also led a partisan unit against the German Nazis.

On Rosh Hashana 5703, 30 September 1943, Rabbi Pessach was summoned to the headquarters of the German military governor Kurt Rikert, who demanded that he submit within 24 hours a list of all the Jews in the city and their assets, purportedly for the innocent purpose of determining the amount of food rations needed to sustain them.

Arutz Sheva

Haaretz:

On the Jewish New Year in 1943, Rabbi Moshe Pessah, the chief rabbi of the central Greek city of Volos, was summoned to the German military governor of the city, Kurt Rikert.

Rikert ordered the rabbi to provide a list of all the city’s Jews and their property within 24 hours, claiming that the list was needed in order to arrange food supplies to the residents during the occupation.

Haaretz English

Haaretz Hebrew

Hebrew Coverage:

ערוץ

לישראל היום

NRG

Greek Coverage:

ΣΚΑΪ

Phile News

in.gr

ΚΙΣ

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Argentina: Former B'nai B'rith Honoree Takes Over AMIA Case

2/6/2015

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http://www.derecho.uba.ar/

Following the tragic and mysterious death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman in January, just hours before he was scheduled to deliver his findings on the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires, a new name has been introduced to the case.

Daniel Rafecas, a respected human rights and Holocaust expert and former B'nai B'rith Argentina honoree, has assigned the next step of the investigation, according to articles by Arutz Sheva (English), Agence France-Presse (Spanish) and Agence France-Presse (Portuguese).

Separate investigation continues into the circumstances of Nisman's death, details of which are included in the full coverage below:

Arutz Sheva (English):

A respected Holocaust expert was named Wednesday to take over as judge in the politically explosive case of a 1994 Jewish center bombing that has shaken Argentina since the lead prosecutor's mysterious death, AFP reports.

[...]

Rafecas, a human rights expert, has authored studies on the Holocaust that earned him awards from three Argentine Jewish groups: B'nai B'rith Argentina, the Argentine Hebrew Society and the Buenos Aires Holocaust Museum Foundation.

He is also known for trying military officers for abuses committed during the South American country's 1976-1983 dictatorship.

This Story Reprinted On:

Agence France-Presse (Spanish):

El juez Daniel Rafecas, experto en derechos humanos y en el Holocausto, tomará la causa del supuesto encubrimiento de la presidenta Cristina Kirchner a exgobernantes iraníes por un atentado antijudío en 1994, denuncia elevada por el fiscal Alberto Nisman, quien apareció muerto misteriosamente el 18 de enero.

[...]

El caso dividió al país entre quienes piensan que Nisman fue una víctima del gobierno y los que denuncian un complot internacional para desacreditar a Kirchner impulsado por poderosos exagentes de los servicios de inteligencia echados de sus puestos el 17 de diciembre pasado.

Rafecas juzgó a militares de la dictadura (1976-83) por delitos de lesa humanidad y por sus estudios sobre la Shoá que perpetraron los nazis recibió los premios Derechos Humanos de la Fundación B'nai B'rith, Moisés 2011 de la Sociedad Hebraica Argentina y Gilbert Lewi de la Fundación Museo del Holocausto de Buenos Aires.

This Story Reprinted On:

Los Tiempos (Spanish):

http://www.unoentrerios.com.ar/

Por otra parte, el juez Daniel Rafecas, experto en derechos humanos y en el Holocausto, tomará la causa del supuesto encubrimiento de la presidenta Fernández a exgobernantes iraníes.

[...]

Rafecas juzgó a militares de la dictadura (1976-83) por delitos de lesa humanidad y por sus estudios sobre la Shoá que perpetraron los nazis recibió los premios Derechos Humanos de la Fundación B’nai B’rith, Moisés 2011 de la Sociedad Hebraica Argentina y Gilbert Lewi de la Fundación Museo del Holocausto de Buenos Aires.

Full Article

Agence France-Presse (Portuguese):

http://www.180.com.uy/

O juiz Daniel Rafecas, especialista em direitos humanos e sobre o Holocausto, acolherá a denúncia de suspeita de acobertamento contra a presidente Cristina Kirchner a favor de ex-governantes iranianos, supostamente envolvidos em um atentado antissemita em 1994, em Buenos Aires.

[...]

Rafecas julgou militares da ditadura (1976-83) por crimes contra a humanidade e foi agraciado por seus estudos sobre a Shoá praticada pelos nazistas com os prêmios de Direitos Humanos da Fundação B'nai B'rith, Moisés 2011 da Sociedade Hebraica Argentina e Gilbert Lewi, da Fundação Museu do Holocausto de Buenos Aires.

Full Article

More on Nisman's Death Below

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Retrospective: B'nai B'rith Urges U.S. To Fund Auschwitz Memorial

1/28/2015

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Five years ago, B'nai B'rith International commemorated the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, in part, by urging the United States government to help support the Auschwitz Memorial that had fallen critically short of funding.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum serves as a tribute to the lives lost at the most notorious of Nazi concentration camps, and also serves as a crucial reminder of the danger of hatred and intolerance to future generations.

B'nai B'rith asked President Barack Obama and the Senate Appropriations Committee to consider a $5 million budget item that could be designated to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation Perpetual Fund to help restore and maintain the memorial facilities.

Highlights of the statement can be read below:

B'nai B'rith Urges President to Include Budget
Funds to Help Restore Auschwitz Memorial

Jan. 25, 2010

Auschwitz must be restored to bear witness to Nazi tyranny and genocide. The memorial has proven a vital education site for millions of visitors.

The camp was constructed to be a housing and execution facility. Because of the lack of foundations and winter-proofing in many of the buildings, more than half of them are closed because they are unsafe for public entry.

According to estimates by the museum, none of the buildings will be open for public visits within the next 10 or 20 years if plans for preservation are not implemented.

Current conservation and preservation needs are estimated to be in excess of $87 million. Under the plan of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation Perpetual Fund, that sum will be collected from private and national donors and will be invested through a transparent process.

Given the estimated annual accruement from that investment, the museum intends to use the interest gained to pay for regular conservation and maintenance efforts rather than requesting foreign aid regularly.

Instead of repeatedly raising funds, under this system the museum will have the necessary revenue to maintain the facilities. More than 17 nations have agreed so far to contribute to the restoration. The United States must join this effort.

The 2010 budget, released that July, reflected that the United States government was listening.

Rather than the $5 million B'nai B'rith International requested, the United States devoted $15 million to the fund:

At a special conference in Cracow, Clinton informed about the decision of the U.S. president Barack Obama. “The United States strongly encourages other nations who have not already done so to follow suit and to contribute to the Auschwitz-Birkenau fund. In 2009 alone, more than 1.3 million people from around the world visited the museum and memorial. The preservation and continuation of Auschwitz Memorial is essential so that future generations can see for themselves why the world must never again allow a place of such hatred to scar the soul of humankind."

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Holocaust Rescuer: 'What I did Is What Everybody Should Do'

11/10/2014

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Last week, in a ceremony in New York City, B'nai B'rith International recognized Berta Davidovitz Rubinsztejn for her heroic actions halfway around the globe and a lifetime ago, honoring her with the Jewish Rescuers Citation.

During the time of Nazi occupation in Budapest, Rubinsztejn, only in her early 20's at the time, became a hero and mother for Jewish children that would have otherwise perished in the Holocaust.

Rubinsztejn believes her selfless actions were common sense. Meir Brand, one of the children she rescued, attended the ceremony and had a much different perspective.

“I am standing here only because of you, Berta,” Brand told Rubinsztejn and the gathered attendees.

Read more about the event, as covered in articles in New York Daily News, Bronx News 12 and VIN News:

NY Daily News:

“I was the only survivor of my whole family,” [Meir] added.

[...]

Rubinsztejn — now a great-grandmother who has called the Bronx home for 55 years — was given the Jewish Rescuers Citation by B'Nai B'Rith at Thursday’s event.

“What I did is what everybody should do,” Rubinsztejn said of her courageous work.

“Give children your love and the world grows up a better place.”

VINNews.com:

Brand lived on the streets of Budapest alone for almost a year before Rubinsztejn found him and took him in.

One month later, Rubinsztejn and Brand were on a train headed for Spain in a deal made with the Nazis by journalist Rudolf Kasztner to provide safety to Jews leaving Hungary in exchange for trucks.

After spending months at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, the pair were sent to Switzerland, then Israel.

Brand made his home in Israel, while Rubinsztejn has lived in the Bronx for 55 years.

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The Indelible Bond Between A Holocaust Victim And His Rescuer

10/30/2014

Via JID: Meir with Berta on the occasion of her 90th birthday.

On Nov. 6, B'nai B'rith International will host a ceremony in New York City, bestowing the Jewish Rescuers Citation on Berta Davidovitz Rubinsztejn for her heroic efforts saving orphans of the Holocaust from certain death.

Part of the reason that date was selected was to accommodate the arrival of Meir Brand from Israel, one of the then children that Rubinsztejn saved.

Although both were living under Gentile indentities in Budapest when they met in 1944, they would become family, bonded by their circumstances and liberation. They call themselves mother and son.

Read the highlights of their story in an article on Jewish Ideas Daily:

In 1941, when Berta was 18, her family of five fled Poland and crossed the Carpathian Mountains into still-unoccupied Hungary, where Jews were being persecuted but not yet hunted down. One night the family was hiding, crowded together, in a sheep stall, when Berta’s father, fearing his children would be killed, cried, “For what did I bring you into the world?” From her father’s desperation Berta took the conviction that sustained her for the next five years: “Better to be killed than to hide!”

Berta made her way to Budapest in 1942, where she began working for the Zionist underground through the youth movement Dror Habonim. She assumed a Gentile identity and the name Bigota Ilona and wore a crucifix around her neck.

[...]

In May, 1944, Rudolf Kasztner made a daring deal to provide trucks to Adolf Eichmann in exchange for the safe passage of Jews out of Hungary by train, to the neutral country of Spain and ultimately to Palestine. The goal of Dror Habonim became getting Jewish children onto Kasztner’s train.

Meir Brand was one of those children. He was born in 1936 in Bochnia, Poland, and his family was forced into the Jewish ghetto there in 1942. After the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Meir remembered, “everyone knew the whole ghetto”—in Bochnia—“was going to Auschwitz.” Soon afterward, “the whole family,” three sets of parents, “convened to decide what to do.” They determined that one child of each set of parents would escape.

[...]

Meir, homeless like hundreds of other Budapest refugees, took shelter under the city’s bridges.

Berta found him there after seven months—alone, frozen, and covered in blisters. “Jude?” she asked. “I am Dudac Josef!” he answered.

"I didn’t trust anybody,” Meir remembered, “because I was under such strict instructions not to connect with anyone.” Still, “I trusted Berta. Why, I don’t know.” When Meir said he was Dudac Josef, Berta thought, “That means, ‘I am a Jew.’ Somehow I knew he was a Jew. And I said, ‘I am Bigota Ilona.’” About that moment, Berta later told Meir, “I looked you in the eye and said to myself, that’s it, you’re mine.”

[...]

The train carrying Berta and Meir, with 1,684 passengers in all, was diverted to Bergen-Belsen. There, Berta recalled, “I was with the halutzim,” while Meir was in a barracks with the other children. Still very weak, he couldn’t clean himself or eat properly. Berta devoted herself to his care, and nursed him back to health.

Read Full Story

WFB: Nazi War Criminals Still Receiving Social Security Checks

10/29/2014

After news broke that the United States government has continued to pay Social Security benefits to Nazi war criminals who left the country willingly before deportation, B'nai B'rith International called for a close in the loophole.

Since moving abroad, these former Nazis have often collected entitlements from the governments of the countries in which they reside. B’nai B’rith urges these governments to cease providing benefits to such individuals and force them to stand trial.

Excerpts from the article in the Washington Free Beacon are below:

Nazi war criminals are still receiving Social Security benefits from the U.S. government despite their past crimes against Jewish people, prompting outrage from numerous Jewish organizations.

“Nazi war criminals who once lived in the United States and faced investigation by the Justice Department continue to collect Social Security payments through a legal loophole, despite having left the country and renounced their U.S. citizenship,” B’nai B’rith International (BBI) wrote in a recent press release calling on Congress to change the law.

“Since moving abroad, these former Nazis have lived undisturbed lives, collecting additional entitlements from the governments of the countries in which they reside,” the group wrote. “B’nai B’rith urges these governments to cease providing benefits to such individuals and force them to stand trial.”

B'nai B'rith World Center To Honor Pair Of Holocaust Rescuers

10/8/2014

The recognition may be decades overdue, but the appreciation and honor will be no less significant when the B'nai B'rith World Center confers the Jewish Rescuers Citation on Berta Davidovitz Rubinsztejn and Gyorgy (Yitzhak) Gyuri, Holocaust heroes who operated in Nazi-occupied Hungary.

The announcement was covered in an article in the Jerusalem Post, a notice on ElderOfZiyon.com, and in articles on Spanish speaking sites RadioJAI.com.

Read highlights from the stories, below:

Jerusalem Post:

The Jewish Rescuers Citation was established in 2011 by the Committee to Recognize the Heroism of Jews who Rescued Fellow Jews During the Holocaust and B’nai B’rith World Center to set right the historic record – that thousands of Jews were active in rescue efforts throughout Europe, putting their own lives at risk in order to save other Jews from deportation, hunger and death at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators.

To date, nearly 100 citations have been presented to rescuers who operated in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Greece and Hungary.

“We are proud to honor these two Jewish heroes and gratified that through our decade-long efforts there is growing acknowledgment that their recognition as models for Jewish and human solidarity is long overdue,” said Alan Schneider, director of the B’nai B’rith World Center and a founding member of the JRJ Committee.

Jerusalem Post

CCIU.org.uy:

Gyuri, 90 años, nació en Budapest y se crió en el noreste de Hungría.

Se unió al movimiento Hashomer Hatzair mientras vivía en Nyíregyháza, y eventualmente se mudó a Budapest en 1942 a publicar cuentos y artículos en el periódico de Hashomer Hatzair.

Participó en actividades clandestinas y en el verano de 1944 fue enviado por el movimiento con tres compañeros al sur de Transilvania con el fin de abrir una nueva ruta para el "tiyul," operación clandestina sionista para trasladar a judíos de Polonia y Eslovaquia a Hungría y luego a Rumania.

Sin embargo, pronto fueron descubiertos, capturados y deportados a Auschwitz. Gyuri sobrevivió y regresó a Budapest después de la liberación.

CCIU.org

Radio JAI (Spanish):

La B'nai B'rith en Jerusalem destacó el heroísmo de Berta Davidovitz Rubinsztejn y Gyorgy (Yitzhak) Gyuridos, dos judíos húngaros, que salvaron vidas en la Hungría ocupada por los nazis durante el Holocausto.

Rubinsztejn, de 92 años, nació en Polonia y huyó con su familia a través de las montañas de los Cárpatos. En 1942, Rubinsztejn se dirigió a Budapest, donde se unió al movimiento juvenil sionista Habonim Dror, como voluntario para participar en sus actividades de rescate.

Ella y otros miembros de Habonim Dror asumieron una identidad gentil, y se reunieron para planificar las operaciones y el contrabando de armas.

Radio JAI

Elder of Ziyon:

Rubinsztejn, 92, was born in Poland and fled with her family across the Carpathian Mountains into still-unoccupied Hungary.

In 1942, Rubinsztejn made her way to Budapest, where she joined the Zionist youth movement Habonim Dror, volunteering to participate in its underground rescue activities.

She and other Habonim Dror members assumed a Gentile identity, and met in a park to plan operations and weapons smuggling.

As Rudolf Kastner – a leader of the Jewish Aid and Rescue Committee – negotiated the departure of a train-load of Jews from German-occupied Hungary to neutral Switzerland in 1944 with SS officer Adolf Eichmann, the goal of the organization became to put as many orphaned children onto the train after identifying them in the streets of Budapest.

One of these children was eight-year-old Meir Brand.

Elder of Ziyon

B'nai B'rith Present For Elie Wiesel's German Order of Merit Honor

10/8/2014

President Allan J. Jacobs represented B'nai B'rith International at the presentation of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Knight Commander’s Cross) to Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elie Wiesel by Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

The ceremony took place at the Fifth Avenue residence of Germany’s newly appointed Consul General Brita Wagener and was covered in The Jewish Daily Forward.

Excerpts from the article can be found, below:

Marion and Elie Wiesel // Photo by Masha Leon

The arrival of Elie and Marion Wiesel was greeted with explosive applause by the German consular staff. Wiesel was led to the podium next to a window overlooking a breathtaking sunlit view of Manhattan with St. Patrick’s Cathedral nearby.

Touting the presentation of the medal as “a humble gesture of my country showing gratitude for your lifetime achievements and relentless efforts to keep the memory alive of the worst crime in all of history—the Shoah– against the Jewish people,” minister Steinmeier declared: “With this order of Merit we want to honor the writer, the philanthropist, historian, professor, the outstanding Mentsch that you are!” During the presentation Marion Wiesel never took her eyes off Elie.

[...]

“Thank you for your words of kindness,” responded a contemplative Wiesel. “To receive a medal of recognition from Germany is not a normal thing in my life,” he said softly.

“The past is here. The past is not absent from the present. We remember things that happened two thousand years ago as if they happened yesterday. Every day in our prayers we remember the good, we remember the bad. The choice, is always ours — ultimately.”

B'nai B'rith Counsels German Govt. On Anti-Semitism Education

9/17/2014

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The German government has announced a new initiative to allocate funds toward anti-Semitism education in the country's Muslim population.

In order to prepare for this initiative, the government's Jewish outreach official consulted with B'nai B'rith International leadership during a recent trip to Washington, D.C.

The visit and initiative were covered by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and German paper News02elf.

Excerpts from the article can be found below in English and German:

JTA (English)

[...]

Felix Klein, Germany’s special representative for relations with Jewish organizations, is in Washington this week to meet with Jewish groups and Obama administration officials over American concerns about a spike in anti-Semitism in Germany during the recent Israel-Hamas conflict in the Gaza Strip.

Many of the offenders were Muslims, and many of those were members of Germany’s substantial Turkish minority.

[...]

He said the money for such an initiative would come from Germany’s Interior Ministry and its Ministry for Families, Youth and the Elderly, as well as from regional governments.

Klein met State Department officials who deal with anti-Semitism and Holocaust issues as well as with officials of the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League and B’nai B’rith International.

News02elf.net (German)

[...]

Felix Klein, der Sonderbeauftragte für die Beziehungen zu jüdischen Organisationen in Deutschland, ist in dieser Woche in Washington um sich mit jüdischen Gruppen und der Obama-Regierung zu treffen. In Gesprächen soll über die amerikanische Besorgnis über das Aufflammen des Antisemitismus in Deutschland, während des letzten Israel-Hamas-Konflikt diskutiert werden.

Die Haupttäter bei den antisemitischen Ausschreitungen während der anti-Israel-Demonstrationen in Deutschland, kamen aus den Reihen der stark wachsenden muslimischen Bevölkerung.

[...]

Klein traf sich auch mit Beamten des US-Außenministerium, sowie mit Beamten des American Jewish Committee, der Anti-Defamation League und B’nai B’rith International um mit ihnen die Frage zu diskutieren, wie man mit dem aufkeimenden Antisemitismus in Deutschland umgehen könne.

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