Adi Daliot was in his 60s when he found out that his father, Hubert Pollack, helped save over 10,000 Jews in Nazi Germany during the years leading up to the Holocaust.

Sworn to secrecy by his co-conspirator, Jewish Anglo-German philanthropist Wilfrid Israel, Pollack kept his story quiet — even from his family. It was only after Daliot (the family adopted a Hebrew surname after moving to Israel) came across a written account by Pollack in 2002, nearly 35 years after his death, that Pollack’s heroic role became known.

Pollack is to posthumously receive the Jewish Rescuers Citation along with 12 other Holocaust-era heroes on Thursday, which marks Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, at the Forest of the Martyrs in the Jerusalem hills. Six million trees have been planted there in commemoration of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust.

​Read more in the Times of Israel.

The descendants of a German Jewish woman will be given restitution for silverware forcibly taken from her by the Nazis in Munich, after intervention by the magazine of B’nai B’rith International, the Jewish organization said on Thursday.

Hermine Bernheimer —who was born and raised in Göppingen, Germany, and later moved to Munich — was adhering to a 1939 Nazi order that Jews must turn over precious metal objects to their local pawn shops when she reliquished a silver cup she owned, according to B’nai B’rith Magazine. She was later deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and murdered.

​Her great-niece Naomi Karp first learned about the silver cup in January 2020 from Dr. Matthias Weniger, head of provenance research at the Bavarian National Museum in Munich, which had the item held in storage for decades. Karp proved her relationship to Bernheimer, but she and her extended family had been waiting since April 2021 for the Bavarian Ministry of Science and the Arts to sign paperwork releasing the item to Bernheimer’s family.

After B’nai B’rith Magazine’s Dina Gold reached out to the ministry, asking why the objects were still being held by the national museum, the ministry signed the paperwork last month. Bernheimer’s family has decided to give the cup to the Jewish Museum in Goppingen.

​“I’m thrilled that the logjam has been broken and grateful for Dina’s help,” Karp said.

Weniger commented, “There can never be a truly happy ending after all that’s happened. But I look forward to handing the cup, at Naomi and her family’s request, to the Jewish Museum in Göppingen, to be a permanent memory of Hermine’s terrible fate and that of so many others.”

B’nai B’rith said more details about Bernheimer’s silver cup and its history will be featured in magazine’s winter edition.

When I began my career nearly 50 years ago, Holocaust remembrance events were few and far between. One of my first assignments out of graduate school, working in the Boston Jewish community, was to organize an annual remembrance event, held on the campus of Brandeis University, where a sculpture of Job by renowned sculptor Nathan Rapoport stands outside the Jewish chapel.

The attendees at those events were largely survivors and their families. One, whom I recall quite well, was a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, whose face was etched with sorrow in a way that told me almost everything I needed to know about the ordeal he endured. The Holocaust survivor with whom I worked to arrange that program just passed away some months ago, at the age of 96.

Last year, it is estimated that some 15,000 survivors passed away. Even child survivors are approaching 80 or are even older. One of the major challenges to remembrance is the reality that witnesses to, and victims of, Nazi barbarity will, at some point, not be here to testify to the worst crimes known to humankind.

Now that we’ve just come through the annual observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day — January 27, the date in 1945 when Auschwitz was liberated — this may be a good time to take stock of how we go about the immense task of remembering.

​For the commemoration this year, B’nai B’rith hosted a program reflecting the international scope of the challenge before us. New German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and US Secretary for Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas — himself the son of a Holocaust refugee — were keynote speakers, and were joined by a host of experts on Holocaust remembrance and the battle against Jew-hatred, including Fernando Lottenberg, the newly-appointed Commissioner for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism at the Organization of American States.

As the program unfolded, I thought back to the small gathering of survivors on the Brandeis University campus decades ago, and what it is we need to do to ensure that remembrance does not fall victim to insufficient attention, distortion, or denial.

We are fighting the passage of time, as well as the passing of survivors. But it is not only that.

We are seeing the uneven results of Holocaust education — some states and local school boards require courses, but many do not. Modern definitions of the word “genocide” are often applied to situations and events that do not meet the intent of the man who coined the word — Rafael Lemkin — and this has lessened the uniqueness of the Holocaust. We’ve seen a proliferation of Holocaust denial and minimization from the far-right, the far-left, Islamists, the Palestinian leadership and its media and allies, and Iran. Now we are also seeing trivialization of the Holocaust by militant anti-vaccination activists. There are a growing number of examples of the latter — Robert Kennedy, Jr., being only the latest, when he suggested that, at least during the Holocaust, victims could escape over the Swiss Alps or hide in attics, like Anne Frank. Talk about the need for Holocaust education.

Further aggravating all of this is the internet and social media — which provide platforms for negationists and conspiracists — trumpeting all manner of Holocaust denial theories. What used to be shared in books sent in plain brown wrappers or in occasional newsletters by antisemites to antisemites, is now out there for all to see, in real time on your tablet, phone, or watch.

The dangerous spike in global antisemitism has added a multiplier effect to the toxic environment in which hatred thrives. So, how do we best combat a virus that has become, for us, a challenge of pandemic proportions?

Fortunately, we have a growing number of allies in this fight. Government representatives and agencies connected to the European Union are working closely with Jewish organizations to place Holocaust remembrance, denial, and trivialization high on the agenda. Many who have joined in these efforts see this within a framework of safeguarding democracy. Katharina Von Schnurbein, the European Commission Coordinator on Combating Anti-Semitism and Fostering Jewish Life, and a veteran of these discussions, says that political will and leadership are essential to rolling back the tide of hatred.

Legislation criminalizing Holocaust denial exists in some countries, but often needs the back-up of better training, resources, and proactive jurisprudence to bring the deniers to account. Most of the big social media platforms, a few of which profess to understand our concerns, have still been slow in actually addressing the proliferation of websites, messages, comments, and blogs that traffic in distortion and denial.

The importance of Holocaust education is essential. Recent surveys show that Millennials and members of Gen Z have little knowledge of what transpired in Europe between 1933 and 1945. Most think the number of Jewish victims was much lower, and have never heard of concentration camps, or can’t name one; some even believe that it was the Jews themselves who brought on the Holocaust. New approaches, technologies, and methodologies need to be employed to address this knowledge deficit before it is too late.

Addressing the current generation, Kathrin Meyer, the Secretary General of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), says messaging should include the idea that “it is cool to fight antisemitism; it is cool to fight distortion.” A joint campaign in the online space by four organizations, called “Protect the Facts,” — IHRA, the European Commission, the United Nations, and UNESCO — is aimed at raising awareness; more international organizations and NGOs should emulate this important new project.

And within that context, where Europe has seen widespread antisemitism, marked by disgraceful Holocaust references amongst soccer fans, it is gratifying to know that major clubs like Borussia Dortmund in Germany, and Chelsea, in the United Kingdom are proactively engaged in fighting this proliferation of Jew hatred. To make this a truly European effort, additional clubs should launch similar initiatives.

Holocaust denial as a political tool has its proponents, as well. Just a couple of weeks ago, the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for an Israeli-introduced, and German co-sponsored, resolution on distortion and Holocaust denial. Iran was the only country to speak against the measure. Said its foreign minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, “the fake Zionist regime has constantly tried to use the victims of World War II and the Jews as a justification for its shameless and aggressive actions.” This, from a country that has sponsored, among other activity, cartoon contests that mock the memory of the Holocaust, and whose leaders make genocidal calls for Israel’s elimination on a daily basis.

Lessons learned? We need to redouble our efforts at cooperation, and bringing governments, intergovernmental bodies, the education community, and civil society closer together if we are to fully teach future generations about what befell the Jewish people at the hands of the Nazis, and what lessons there are to be learned from it.

As the IHRA’s Kathrin Meyer perceptively said, “We must outnumber the haters.”

In advance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27, B'nai B'rith International hosted a global program focused on collective responsibility to remember and educate about the Shoah.

We were joined by distinguished guests, including new German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, European Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Canadian Special Envoy Irwin Cotler and Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan. Read more about the event and rewatch our commemoration.

See how media outlets covered the ceremony:

BILD (in German)
Baerbock Speech on Holocaust Remembrance Day

German Federal Foreign Office
Speech by Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock at the virtual event “International Holocaust Remembrance Day: Responsibilities for All of Society” hosted by B’nai B’rith International

The Independent
​Watch live as German foreign minister speaks at Holocaust memorial event

JNS.org
​Anti-Semitism is toxic to democracies’: B’nai B’rith Holocaust event draws world leaders to hear crucial message

Jüdische Allgemeine (in German)
Israel's security is and remains a matter of state

Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger/KSTA (in German)
Day of Remembrance: Baerbock "ashamed" of increase in anti-Semitism in Germany

National Post
​Political and General News Events from Jan. 21-24

Radio Constanta (in Romanian)
Calendar – January 24

Rador - Altfel (in Romanian)
Forecasts for the week of January 24-30, 2022

RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland/RND (in German)
This is unbearable”: Baerbock “ashamed” of increasing anti-Semitism in Germany

Reuters
​United Nations Holocaust memorial ceremony (Live Stream of B'nai B'rith Event)

WELT (in German)
"People wearing yellow stars that say 'unvaccinated' - unbearable"

When historian and Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer spoke before the Bundestag in 1998, he declared that it was important to add three additional commandments to the original ten. Before the room of German politicians, he said:

• “You, your children and your children’s children shall never become perpetrators.”
• “You, your children and your children’s children shall never never allow yourselves to become victims.”
• and “You, your children and your children’s children shall never, but never, be passive onlookers to mass murder, genocide, or (let us hope it may never be repeated) to a Holocaust-like tragedy.”

That was over 20 years ago, and despite the protestations, it is clear that there remain many atrocities and massacres still being perpetrated around the world.

The questions we have to ask ourselves is how we ensure that these types of events are not repeated and ensure that future generations neither perpetrate nor passively stand by while others are involved in such egregious horrors.

Like every generation, today’s youth look to musicians, actors and athletes as their heroes in an ever-encompassing social media-driven world. These ‘heroes’ do not provide the next generations with the ability to distinguish between good and bad, or the moral fiber to face the ethical global challenges of the day.

​Instead, social media influencers could be utilizing their power, impact and the ability to inspire younger generations for good. They could celebrate and disseminate the great stories of heroism of those who, during the greatest mass slaughter in modern history, chose to stand up to evil.

That is why the Combat Antisemitism Movement, on this International Holocaust Remembrance Day, with our partners, B’nai B’rith International, the National Hellenic Society, European March of The Living and the Hellenic American Women’s Council, will be celebrating the remarkable heroism of Loukas Karrer and Dimitrios Chrysostomos.

Before the Second World War, 275 Jews lived on the island of Zakynthos off the coast of mainland Greece. Nazi forces arrived in Zakynthos on September 9th, 1943 and demanded a complete list of the island’s Jews from mayor Loukas Karrer.

Unsure of how to proceed, Karrer turned to the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church on the island, Metropolitan Dimitrios Chrysostomos, for assistance. Chrysostomos assured Karrer that he would negotiate with the Nazis and ensure the protection of the Jewish community of Zakynthos.

​After hesitating for months, the Nazis confronted Karrer at gunpoint to give up the names and locations of Zakynthos’s Jews. At this point, Chrysostomos handed the island’s Nazi leadership a list of the island’s Jews with two names on it: Loukas Karrer and Dimitrios Chrysostomos.
​
The two leaders then mobilized the island’s citizens to hide all of the town’s Jewish people in rural villages, allowing them to escape deportation. While more than 80% of Greek Jews were killed during the Holocaust, the entire Jewish community of Zakynthos was saved. Loukas Karrer and Dimitrios Chrysostomos were honored in 1977 with the title of Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for saving their island’s Jewish community.

THIS IS AN extraordinary episode which amply highlights the ability of individuals to make a difference and save lives. There are now generations of people who are alive just because of the actions of these two courageous leaders, one political and one religious.

They understood that their leadership positions did not just give them authority, but also responsibility. When confronted with a choice between endangering themselves and saving many people, most of whom it is doubtful they knew intimately, they placed the welfare of others above their own.

This story of heroism, and many others like it, should be widely known and recognized. They should be honored for their actions and their strong moral and ethical stands.

Especially in Greece, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) –  which brings together governments and experts to strengthen, advance and promote Holocaust education, research and remembrance – it is important to show how fellow nationals nobly acted during a time when so many did not.

However, the lessons go far beyond space and time and are as applicable today as they were in 1943. The way we ensure ‘Never Again’ is to make sure the lessons of the past are clearly understood.

Of course, we must raise the alarm when we hear hate speech gaining ground, the scapegoating of populations and the call to harm people because of their race, religion or background. But we must also teach about the meaning of heroism so there will be good people who can stand up when the moment necessitates action.

Those like Karrer and Chrysostomos should not just be honored but celebrated, and their rousing stories should be spread much further than the latest YouTube sensation.

On this International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we should be thinking of how to celebrate heroism, specifically those of the Righteous Among the Nations. They are a vital part of Holocaust and education, but they are an even greater antidote to the possibility of the next mass murder or genocide.

Social media can become a source of positive impact, and those who wield extraordinary influence on its platforms can use their following to ensure the heroes of the Holocaust – those who stood against ultimate and industrial-scale evil – become the standard-bearers for today’s global challenges against hate and intolerance.

Then, we can truly say we are fulfilling Bauer’s three extra commandments.

A Jewish Rescuers Citation was presented in memory of Teddy Kollek (1911-2007), former mayor of Jerusalem, at a ceremony held in Hebrew at the Jerusalem Cinematheque on Sunday, Jan. 23, 2022. The citation, a joint project of the B’nai B’rith World Center and the Committee to Recognize the Heroism of Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust, was conferred in recognition of Kollek’s heroic efforts to rescue fellow Jews in Czechoslovakia, Germany and Austria. Read more about the event.

The B’nai B’rith World Center-Jerusalem and the Committee to Recognize the Heroism of Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust (JRJ) created the Jewish Rescuer Citation in 2011 to honor and pay respect Jews who rescued fellow Jews during the Holocaust. Since then, nearly 600 heroes have been honored for rescue activities in Germany, Holland, France, Slovakia, Greece, Russia, Ukraine, Austria, Belarus, Italy, Poland, Morocco, Algiers, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Belgium.

See how media outlets covered the ceremony:

Israel National News - Arutz Sheva
"The sign of the Jewish savior" – To the late Teddy Kollek

Jerusalem Post
Grapevine January 21, 2022: Herzog weighs in on Meron tragedy
​Legendary Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek will be memorialized yet again through a Jewish Rescuers’ Citation to be presented in his memory by the B’nai B’rith World Center and the Committee to Recognize the Heroism of Jewish Rescuers during the Holocaust. BBWC has for several years now, honored Jews who saved Jews. The citation will be presented this coming Sunday, January 23 at 6.30 p.m. at the Jerusalem Cinematheque in recognition of Kollek’s heroic efforts to rescue fellow Jews in Czechoslovakia, Germany and Austria.

In the spring of 1939, Kollek left England for German-occupied Czechoslovakia to undertake a complex and dangerous mission to allow Jews to transfer assets to Great Britain. From Czechoslovakia, Kollek, carrying a great many certificates for Austrian Jews, continued to Vienna for a meeting with Adolf Eichmann, who at the time was head of Jewish Affairs at the Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst – SD). The meeting took place in April 1939 at SD headquarter in Villa Rothschild, which had been nationalized by the Nazis. Taking considerable personal risk at so dangerous a time, Kollek succeeded in convincing Eichmann to apply to Austrian Jews the same regulations that allowed Jews to still leave Germany with entry permits from foreign countries. In doing so, he saved many lives.

The citation will be presented in conjunction with the premiere screening of the film Recognition, directed by Shoshi Ben Hamo and produced and initiated by Avraham Huli. The film tells the exceptional story of rescue of Jews by fellow Jews who endangered their lives to do so during the Holocaust. The rescuers operated in cities, villages, ghettos, and camps and employed resourcefulness, tenacity and courage, risking their lives to save others. Some paid with their lives and those of their families. The film was shot in Israel, France, Poland, Greece, Holland and Hungary, beginning in 2016.

Speakers at the event will be Osnat Kollek, the daughter of Teddy and Tamar Kollek; Arie Barnea, chairman of the Committee to Recognize the Heroism of Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust; BBWC Director Alan Schneider; Huli and the film’s historical adviser Prof. Gideon Greif.

Jerusalem Post
​Grapevine: Talking Teddy Kollek

YNetNews.com
No signs, no recognition: the Jews who saved Jews in the Holocaust (in Hebrew)

The Holocaust is once again being trivialized in the name of the politics. On Wednesday, Ohio Congressman Warren Davidson compared COVID restrictions to the Nazis' treatment of Jews. "This has been done before. #DoNotComply," he tweeted.

The Congressman joins a long list of those reaching for the Holocaust for such cheap political points. In June, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene compared wearing a mask to wearing a yellow star and had to apologize. In November, Lara Logan compared Dr. Anthony Fauci to Joseph Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor who did cruel experiments on Jews in concentration camps.

Across the globe, things are even worse; outright Holocaust denial is spreading like a virus. Earlier this week, outside a church in central Rome, a funeral concluded with a coffin draped in a Nazi flag, surrounded by participants giving Nazi salutes. In Iran, the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, often tweets things like "why is it a crime to raise doubts about the Holocaust?" and "#Holocaust is an event whose reality is uncertain." In 2019, right before attempting a mass-carnage attack on a synagogue in Halle, Germany, on Yom Kippur, a gunman livestreamed a video in which he said, "I think the Holocaust never happened."

​The Holocaust—the most documented and systematic genocide in history—took the lives of two-thirds of European Jews. Among our own family members, in Poland and Lithuania, most were wiped out: innocent men, women and children.

Of the Jews who managed to survive, all are now at least 77 years old, and thousands are dying each year. That trend has likely been accelerated by the ongoing pandemic. And if Holocaust-denial can persist even as first-hand witnesses to the atrocities are among us, we can only imagine how malignant these pathologies will become once the survivors pass on.

The correlation between denial of past atrocities and indifference to new atrocities is clear. Whether it comes from the extreme right or radical Islamists, antisemites uniquely belittle or justify the Holocaust while also belittling or justifying current and prospective violence against Jews.

​Of course, distortion or instrumentalization of the Holocaust is not new. Among white supremacists, denial of the Nazi gas chambers' existence has been an article of faith. Even in America, certain local legislators or educators were recently found to have urged "neutrality" in teaching about Nazism. In parts of the Baltics, the whitewashing and lionizing of Nazi collaborators has been commonplace. And through much of the Middle East, the Holocaust has long been tarred as a "Zionist myth" alongside a false narrative that Palestinians paid the price for Germans' misdeeds with the invention of a "colonial" Israel by foreigners.

And whether at the United Nations or street demonstrations, bigots wholly rejecting the history and legitimacy of a Jewish minority presence in the Middle East have sought to add insult to injury by weaponizing the Holocaust, saying Hitler hadn't gone far enough or that Israel is guilty of Nazi-like practices.

At a 2001 U.N. conference against racism in Durban, South Africa, activists asserted both. A decade later, Iran's president hosted Holocaust-denial conferences and cartoon competitions, attracting such luminaries as former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke, a newfound champion of Palestinian nationalism.

A few years later, Malaysia's then-prime minister—a self-identified antisemite who had called Jews "hook-nosed" and said they "rule the world by proxy"—questioned the number of Holocaust victims. And during outbreaks of Hamas or Hezbollah hostilities with Israel, social media platforms have facilitated an unprecedented spread of hateful lies concerning Israelis, Jews and the Holocaust, with negligible intervention by those profiting from them.

Next week, the U.N. will have an opportunity to help more seriously address the scourge of historical revisionism. 15 years after the U.N. began marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day, a resolution on Holocaust-denial and distortion will come up for a vote. We hope member states will join in adopting an important working definition of Holocaust-denial, as well as, ultimately, an equally vital working definition of antisemitism.

​While combating trivialization of the Holocaust is only one element of strengthening basic societal norms, it is a critical one. Let it be said once more: those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

A special ceremony was held in Oporto, Portugal on Friday honoring the victims of the Nazi genocide of the Jews, according to the International Observatory of Human Rights (IOHR), which initiated the event.

The ceremony took place at the Oporto Holocaust Museum—managed by members of the city’s Jewish community whose relatives were murdered by the Nazis—and was attended by 200 teenagers from the city’s schools.

​“The event is part of a world cordon of solidarity for universal peace and for a better world for all humanity,” said IOHR president Luis Andrade, adding, “This appalling mass assassination took the lives of millions of Jews, as well as an untold number of other human beings.”

As part of the ceremony, Andrade presented a certificate of tribute to Oporto Holocaust Museum director Michael Rothwell.

​“It is a privilege to receive such a tribute, meant for all Holocaust victims, such as my grandparents, Jewish people who were targeted for scientific and industrial annihilation, the likes of which had never before happened in the history of humanity,” said Rothwell upon receiving the certificate.

OIHR said in a statement that “to ensure that the memory of the horrendous massacre remains alive, the Jewish Community of Oporto will make sure that all Holocaust Museums around the world, the Anti-Defamation League and B’nai B’rith International, the oldest Jewish organization in defense of human rights, receive a copy of this certificate.”

Inaugurated early this year by the Jewish Community of Oporto (CIP/CJP), in partnership with the Holocaust Museums of Moscow, Hong Kong, the United States and Europe, the Oporto Holocaust Museum contains a replica of the barracks at Auschwitz, a room of names, photo galleries and more.

The idea of presenting “opposing views” with the Holocaust would be mortifying if the concept behind it weren’t so mind-boggling. The thought of such a ridiculous notion leaves me shocked, numb.

That a top educator in a School District in the Dallas-Fort Worth area would use the Holocaust as an example of desired balance in presenting history-relating racism reveals vast deficiencies in understanding, much less education.

What began as a debate over legislation addressing “critical race theory” ended with a bizarre comparison delivered before a stunned school board audience, prompting a swift and immediate apology from the superintendent of the Carroll Independent School District.

One of many teaching moments in this chapter of history is that revisionism is clearly becoming the embarrassing subplot to the torment that’s ripping apart the country. Are school districts across the most advanced country in the world really going to allow what should have been an Age of Re-enlightenment to become the Age of Reimagining Everything? Are generations of history, literature — not to mention our sanity — about to be gone with the wind?

“Opposing views” of the Holocaust are nothing but Holocaust denial. Such behavior is nothing new in today’s world of hate. In fact, this event only gains credence when Holocaust museums, commissions, and education diminish their importance by allowing the unvarnished history to be portrayed as just another genocide or just another violation of human rights. Now, anyone who can’t understand the reality of the Holocaust either believes people should still hail Hitler or that the earth is still flat. Two decades into the 21st century, is this the new direction of education?

Educators wishing to teach racism need to realize that too many people believe anti-Semitism began with Hitler and in Nazi Germany. In truth — the unequivocal variety — the history of anti-Semitism goes back thousands of years with Jews as slaves, inhabitants in ghettos, or scapegoats by empires over more than 100 generations. And despite such oppression, the Jewish people have not only survived but made a positive impact in many societies. In the face of great achievements, the Jewish people also understand that our values oblige us to dedicate ourselves to the freedom of others.

Today, Holocaust denial has a new partner — the denial of Israel as the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people. The history of Israel dates back thousands of years. The legal boundaries of Israel are more in evidence than in dispute, and any disputed territory is subject to negotiation. To that end, “Palestine” will exist when the Palestinians accept history, own up to the consequences of their own actions, and develop compromises within their ranks.

In truth, we have Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and an immense evil cast who not only participated in hatching, planning, and implementing the Final Solution, but meticulously and proudly documented the heinous crimes for the world to see. The irrefutable evidence is substantiated by voluminous eyewitness accounts of prosecuted war criminals, rescuers, physical evidence from labor and death camps; cans of Cyklon B, hair, bones, ashes, testimonies from survivors, miles of film, books.

And yet, the Holocaust deniers demand telling of their side of the story, their truth, the imagined “opposing views,” which basically is a collection of demonizing libels that don’t deserve repeating. Poland, which succumbed to the Nazis and was complicit in many ways to the brutality at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where 300,000 Poles also were victims, wants to criminalize tying Poland to its history of death to millions of Jews and others.

There’s no running away from history, particularly the evil of this human experience. Diminishing the truth is shameful. Back in Texas, with apologies rendered and, of course, the “opposing views” argument ascribed to either confusion or misapplication of a law that aims to keep people from spinning history, the incident undoubtedly will evaporate into the “wokesphere.”

Meanwhile, Jews continue to be targeted as scapegoats for the blood libels of the past or for no other reason beyond their religious identity. Make no mistake, there are many good people who respect the diverse culture and practices of the Jewish people. And for those who prefer not to do so, well, they will continue trying to reinvent the wheel, which remains, by all accounts, the same shape as the earth.

Several prominent Jewish community leaders, rabbis, organizations and Congressman Steve Cohen have responded to a Facebook post by an administrator in the Germantown Municipal School District comparing vaccine papers to yellow stars.

​Within days, Memphis-area news outlets aired and published information concerning the comments by the administrator, Janna Matykiewicz, at Houston High School. The post, which has since been taken off Facebook, read “What’s the difference between vaccine papers and a yellow star? 82 years.”

​Rabbi Jeremy Simons of Temple Is- rael commented to NBC Action News 5 that “to know this came from an ed- ucator... it was shocking and deeply distressing.”

​Rabbi Sarit Horwitz of Beth Sholom spoke with ABC Local 24 saying “vac- cines are about giving life and uphold- ing life for everyone, for ourselves, for our families, for our larger community whereas the mass genocide of the Jew- ish people was about killing people.”

​Letters were also sent to Dr. Jason Manuel, superintendent Germantown Municipal School District concerning her remarks. A student started a petition to fire the administrator at change.org, which at the time of this article had re- ceived 2,417 signatures.

Read more in the Hebrew Watchman.

***

​Charles O. Kaufman, president B’nai B’rith International and local B’nai B’rith member Harold I. Steinberg sent the following letters to Dr. Manuel.

Letter from B'nai B'rith International President Charles O. Kaufman to Dr. Jason Manuel, superintendent Germantown Municipal School District:

​Dear Dr. Manuel,

There is no confusion surrounding the message behind Janna Matykiewicz’s Facebook post: “What’s the difference between vaccine papers and a yellow star? 82 years.”

​By invoking the yellow star used by Nazis to segregate and identify Jews as a population to be demonized, your colleague has entered something more than simply a poor use of a metaphor from history. Imagine the message that already is filtering through the Germantown school community, not just Houston High School.

​This is an administrator who has a problem relating events in history to the management of today’s Covid-19 pan- demic, which has exploded into a most serious health concern with the current wave of variants. It is a matter of ignorance, pure and simple, a lack of sen- sitivity and perhaps latent hatred. This was no slip of the tongue or an example taken out of context.

​A severe reprimand, a suspension or dismissal is certainly in order. In the meantime, it is important for Ms. Matykiewicz, faculty and students to understand why such parallels are so abhor- rent, and I trust you will wisely guide your colleagues to make this circumstance a teaching opportunity.

​Frankly, Jews around the world have enough problems with anti-Semites casually accusing Jews and Israel of acting like “Nazis” or practicing “Apartheid.” And now the unmistakable 82-year time frame of wearing yellow stars. These are false narratives, if not blood libels, of modern times.

​Today’s education system has many successes, to be sure, but this incident is proof that education is sliding into a very deep hole of learning deficits.

​B’nai B’rith has worked in the Memphis area and around the world to serve the good of the community and stamp out anti-Semitism and we stand ready to assist you in solving this problem.

​Sincerely,
Charles Kaufman
President, B’nai B’rith International

***

Letter from Memphis-area B’nai B’rith leader Harold I. Steinberg to Dr. Jason Manuel, superintendent Germantown Municipal School District:

Dear Dr. Manuel,

​As a member of the Sam Schloss Lodge of B’nai B’rith, founded in Memphis in 1854 (yes, in 1854), I am proud of its long record of service. As an example, following the assassination of President Lincoln, the entire lodge marched in a local memorial procession. In addition, B’nai B’rith has an unmatched record of support to the United States and members of the military service. President Truman sent a letter to B’nai B’rith thanking the organization for its “amazing amount of national service.” There are many other examples I could cite.

​I am also a member of the Germantown Financial Advisory Commission. I have long been proud of the commission’s steadfast support for quality education in our city and the Germantown Municipal School District. But the recent news report about Janna Matykiewicz’s post on Facebook tells me that there is more work to do.

​Simply stated, Ms. Matykiewicz must be disciplined, suspended or terminated. GMSD cannot allow such remarks to go unanswered.

​Students at Houston High School should benefit from administrators who clearly understand that America is stronger for its diversity. I ask that you ensure this message is received by students, faculty and staff, not only at Houston High School, but throughout the entire GMSD.

​I stand ready to assist you in any way.

Sincerely,
Harold I. Steinberg

B'nai B'rith International has received coverage for a Rescuers Citation given to Jewish resistance fighter Henriëtte Pimentel, who saved 600 children in Amsterdam from Nazi death camps. She was honored at the Verzets Resistance Museum 78 years after her death.

The B’nai B’rith World Center-Jerusalem and the Committee to Recognize the Heroism of Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust (JRJ) created the Jewish Rescuer Citation in 2011 to honor and pay respect Jews who rescued fellow Jews during the Holocaust.

See how media outlets covered the presentation:

An interpretive memorial sculpture, like none that has ever existed in Jewish history or anywhere in the world, has been placed in Safed. It is titled the “Hands of Choice.”

Conceived and funded by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, in cooperation with the City of Safed and Ascent of Safed, the “Hands” is the artistic creation of noted Jerusalem sculptor Sam Philipe.

The design is simple, two hands cradling a Star of David. On each faceted side of the Star are Jerusalem stone plates carved with ~ four hundred names in Hebrew and English of Jews who saved Jews.

The representative names are drawn from the 3,500 years of Jewish historical experience. There are thousands upon thousands more, most of whom sleep in the dark, dark forgotten mist of Jewish memory. They are not the names of those who risked their lives as honorably expected in the front lines of battle or in the fight for health and societal order.  They are the names of those who chose to do what they did not have to.

Contrary to popular thought, Jews are not required to risk their lives to save their fellow Jews. Yet, there were Jews, frequently at risk to their own lives, their family’s lives, their reputations, their fortunes, who took the step into the terrifying moral abyss of their times to save Jewish lives.

Even during the most seemingly impotent time of recent Jewish history, the Holocaust, when Jewish life was worth less than a dog’s whimper, Jews risked all to save Jews.

Yad Vashem, lightly and without depth, does recognize Jews saved Jews during the Holocaust.  They argue Jews are obligated to save Jews.

Halacha does not obligate Jews to risk their lives to save other Jews.

​There is no permanent memorial or recognition program, similar to the incredible and very just, Righteous Among the Nations programs for Jews at Yad Vashem. There is no grove of trees, no walkway, no permanent mandate to recognize and honor the memory of Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust at Yad Vashem.  It was never part of their original mandate.  It is not part of their mandate today.

Famed Holocaust historian Nechama Tec self-reflectively said, “Why had I overlooked the rescue of Jews by Jews? Did I think that self-preservation, as a basic drive, would take precedence over everything else? Historically, Jews have been viewed as victims, and not as rescuers, not as heroes. Had I unconsciously assimilated these perceptions? Had I assumed that victim and rescuer were incompatible roles?”

More than twenty years ago, a small group of survivors, who were saved by Jews, who were themselves within the Lion’s mouth of Nazi death, organized and approached Yad Vashem. They asked Yad Vashem to include Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust in their Memorialization efforts.

Though tenaciously led by Haim Roet, himself a child survivor saved by Jews, the committees’ efforts were rebuffed.

​Refusing to deny honored memory to Jews who saved Jews, they linked together with B’nai Brith. Annually, they have a commemorative ceremony at the Scroll of Fire in the Martyrs Forest outside of Jerusalem. They remember and honor newly discovered and carefully vetted Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust.  It is an extraordinary ceremony of dignity and long overdue Kavod.

Today, the recognition of their heroism is frequently given in lieu to the children and more frequently to the grandchildren or even distant family as the heroes have passed into the night.

The Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation has also interacted with Yad Vashem’s, at times Byzantine, process to garner recognition for a candidate for the Righteous Among the Nations Program.  The candidate proffered by JASHP, recognized by the Anne Frank International Human Rights Memorial in Idaho, the GAIWO International Garden of the Righteous in Milan, and a number of smaller Holocaust sites, could not make headway with Yad Vashem.

The philosophic basis of Israel’s being is founded on the principle of Jews saving and helping their fellow Jews. Jews would no longer wait for others to save them.  Jews would act to save themselves.

Where is the Memorial to Jonas Eckstein from Bratislava, who saved nearly 2,000 Jews during the Holocaust, or to Dr. Gisella Perl who saved hundreds of Jewish women from inside Auschwitz? Where is the Memorial to the Jews who died at the fiery stake for the crime of sheltering their fellow Jews from the Inquisition? Where is the Memorial to the Jews who faced the religious fanatics of Medieval pogroms to save Jews? Where is the Memorial to the Jews from Ethiopia who risked their lives helping their fellow Jews escape, or the Jews from India, or the Jews from the Sephardi/Mizrahi world? Where is the Memorial to the Jews of Alexandria nearly 2,000 years ago who voluntarily sacrificed themselves to save their fellow Jews?

There is no memorial to them.

JASHP recognized the need, the City and Community of Safed, of mystical and human memory agreed, and the first-ever Memorial was created and placed.

The Hands of Choice Memorial is not a one-off effort. It is not a memorial designed to be done and walked away from as a curious artifact. The Hands of Choice is the initial proposed effort of annual commemoration and addition… if it can be organized. There are far too many names and stories that are unknown, should be known, must be known.

​Shaping the future is by remembering the past. Teaching the children about what was, will make what will be.  Perhaps it is time for Jewish guilt education to reduce its focus on saving the world and increase its focus on saving Jews.

The night before he died, Hans Herzl, Theodor Herzl’s son, wrote, “In the end, a Jew is a Jew, is a Jew.”

The Hands of Choice Memorial is located on Jerusalem Street in Safed. The open hands cupping the Star of David with the hundreds of forgotten names of Jews who saved Jews faces Mt. Meron.

The Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt will be nominated as the Biden administration’s antisemitism envoy, the White House said Friday, in a choice praised by American Jewish groups.

A professor of Jewish history at Emory University in Atlanta, Lipstadt was the founding director of its Institute for Jewish Studies, and has penned works on the American press during the Holocaust, the trial of Adolf Eichmann, and her own successful court battle against British Holocaust denier David Irving.

​For the first time, the State Department role of Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism will hold the rank of ambassador, thus requiring Senate confirmation, thanks to bipartisan legislation passed in January.

“Having spent her career fighting antisemitism and Holocaust denial, Deborah Lipstadt will ensure the US remains a leader in combating antisemitism globally,” commented US Senator Jacky Rosen (D-NV). “Her nomination has my full support, and I look forward to working alongside her in our shared mission of protecting Jewish communities and combating antisemitism across the globe.”

​Leading US Jewish organizations also applauded the pick, with B’nai B’rith International President Charles O. Kaufman and CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin calling her “eminently qualified” for the job.

“B’nai B’rith looks forward to working with Lipstadt as antisemitism has spiked exponentially in the United States and around the world, manifesting itself in many forms and variants, oftentimes fueled by social media,” they said in a statement. “It is vitally important that the US government, through the person of the special envoy, continue to assume a leadership position in the battle against this alarmingly growing challenge.”

Nathan Diament, the Orthodox Union’s Executive Director for Public Policy, noted that the announcement “comes at a time we are witnessing a terrible surge in attacks and threats committed against the global Jewish community,” including violent assaults on individuals.

“While it’s unfortunate we need to have such a position at the State Department, Prof. Lipstadt is certainly the best person to fill this job,” he said.

American Jewish Committee (AJC) head David Harris called Liptstadt “one of this country’s, indeed the world’s, foremost experts on modern antisemitism, its constant morphing and multiple sources, and the current challenges to confronting it.”

Lipstadt would succeed former Los Angeles prosecutor Elan Carr, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019.

She serves on the boards of the Jewish Forward Advisory Committee and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, and has previously held several roles at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She is also a former member of the US Department of State’s Advisory Committee on Religious Persecution Abroad and was a Board Member of Hillel International.

The White House also announced on Friday its intended nominations for three other religious affairs roles, including Rashad Hussain as Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, a choice praised by AJC for his “extensive engagement with the Muslim world” and his efforts to strengthen Muslim-Jewish relations.
Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum will be tapped as Commissioner of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Khizr Khan — a religious freedom advocate and Gold Star parent of US Army Captain Humayun Khan, who was killed while serving in Iraq — will be appointed Commissioner of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Leading Jewish groups applauded the Netherlands’ decision’ to join a growing number of countries — including the UK, the US and Australia -- in boycotting the upcoming Durban IV conference, citing an “unacceptable … risk of repetition of abuse of this platform for antisemitic expressions.”

The UN is scheduled to hold a Sept. 22 event marking the 20th anniversary of the World Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa, from which the US and Israel previously withdrew over objections of anti-Zionism. Israel was singled out from the original Durban conference declaration and was depicted as committing “crimes against humanity,” “ethnic cleansing,” “apartheid” and “genocide” against the Palestinians.

​“The Netherlands does not intend to participate in the Durban IV conference, given the historical burden of the Durban process, the risk of repeated abuse of this platform for antisemitic expressions and the disproportionate and one-sided attention to Israel as reflected in the original Durban declaration,” Dutch Foreign Minister Sigrid Kaag said on Wednesday. “This is unacceptable. The Netherlands remains committed to the fight against antisemitism.”

Leading Jewish groups welcomed Netherland’s decision to join the UK, US, Australia, Canada, Hungary and Israel in not attending the anniversary event. The European Jewish Congress praised the Dutch government for deciding to boycott the upcoming “antisemitic” Durban conference.

​“We thank the Netherlands for announcing that it, like other key democracies, won’t participate in the UN’s commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Durban conference tarnished by antisemitism,” B’nai B’rith International commented. “The UN and the fight against racism must never be used as cover for hate.”

Commenting on the Dutch pullout from the conference, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) said that “no country should attend an event tainted by a legacy of Jew-hatred.”

Kaag also pledged that the Netherlands would remain committed to combating bigotry, in the UN and beyond.

“This month, for example, the Netherlands will make a national declaration against all forms of racism and discrimination at the Human Rights Council meeting. Also at the forthcoming United Nations General Assembly, the Netherlands will focus in particular on combating racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and Islamophobia,” Kaag said.

Our fascinating B’nai B’rith Magazine cover story won two prestigious Rockower Awards for journalism last night!  Our story by Beryl Lieff Benderly, Secret Shabbes: How the ‘Sabbath Delight’ hid an astonishing archive” details how a brave and dedicated group of Jews chronicled the atrocities in the Warsaw Ghetto.

The judges noted: “This is a sad, moving, and graceful story that pays homage to true visionaries and their heroic acts.”

Thank you to the American Jewish Press Association for recognizing the story in TWO categories: an Honorable Mention Award for Excellence in Feature Writing AND a 2nd place Award for Excellence in Writing About Jewish Heritage and Jewish Peoplehood in Europe.

Read the compelling story here: www.bnaibrith.org/2020-winter-bnai-brith-magazine.html

We also interviewed Benderly on our Conversations series with our CEO Dan Mariaschin: Check it out! https://youtu.be/hzjXjXNndfc

(April 11, 2021 / JNS) The new Oporto Holocaust Museum, the only one in the Iberian Peninsula, has already been referred to by Timeout magazine as the best museum in the city. Oporto is one of Europe’s oldest and most popular tourist destinations, and before the COVID-19 pandemic, it received hundreds of thousands of European tourists every year.

As a daughter of the rabbi who led the Jewish community of Lisbon for 50 years, born in a country where Jews were expelled five centuries ago—and living in a Europe where more and more people hate Jews, Judaism and Israel—I am infused with a sense of security from the  museum. It is a reminder that the phrase “Never again”—about the savage murder of six million Jews in a genocide designed down to the last millimeter—cannot and must not be reduced to an epigraph.

I have read the works of Elie Wiesel, Samuel Pisar, Primo Levy and Anne Frank. I was privileged to be friends with someone who breached the Warsaw Ghetto wall. I have interviewed survivors. I met Imre Kertész.

I have visited the Nazi extermination camps, where the air smells of corpses and remnants of dead Jews were on display: stacks of suitcases, shoes, artificial limbs, glasses, crutches, human hair used for fabrics. I have been to Yad Vashem and Kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta’ot in Israel, and many other Holocaust museums elsewhere in the world, viewing photos of so many tattooed arms with deadly numbers. I have pored over archives and scoured libraries, examining blood-stained documents.

To be remembered, the Shoah needs to be known and deeply understood. Understanding is perhaps the only way not to allow the crime to be repeated. “Never again” translates into solidifying the truth with justice, with the strength that does not come from weapons, but from actions such as the building of the Holocaust museum, run by Oporto’s Jewish community, whose parents, grandparents and other family members were direct victims of that tragedy: enslaved, gassed, shot, buried in mass graves, forced to play the violin in Theresienstadt, subject to Mengele’s experiments, escaping Treblinka in the middle of the night.

Built by complementary teams of experts in areas as diverse as history, design, architecture, civil construction and carpentry, under the direction of the board and local rabbinate, the Oporto Holocaust Museum was erected in just two months. In cooperation with B’nai B’rith International and Holocaust museums around the world, it portrays Jewish life before the Holocaust; Nazism and Nazi expansion in Europe; the ghettos, refugees, concentration, labor and extermination camps; liberation; the Jewish population in the post-war period; the foundation of the State of Israel; and the Righteous Among the Nations.

Visitors will have the opportunity to see a reproduction of the Auschwitz dormitories, a room of names, a memorial flame, a study center and, in the image of the Washington Holocaust Museum, photographs and video footage of the period before, during and after the tragedy.

The museum also contains archives relating to refugees who passed through the city of Oporto, including official documents, testimonies, letters and hundreds of individual files. Two Torah scrolls offered to the synagogue in Oporto by refugees who had arrived in the city after the war are also on display.

The new museum is part of a strategy of the local Jewish community to combat anti-Semitism—a strategy that also includes school visits to the Kadoorie Mekor Haim Synagogue; four films about the history of Jews in Portugal (as part of an interfaith project with the Diocese of Oporto); pedagogical training programs for secondary-school teachers and other civil servants on themes related to Judaism, the history of the Jews and the Holocaust; and visits to the city’s Jewish Museum to observe the historic and cultural importance of the Jews in Portugal and of Portuguese Jews worldwide, with particular emphasis on the Jewish community in Oporto, which is older than the foundation of Portugal.

The board of directors of the Jewish community of Oporto has it right when it says, “Jews are off the political agenda in many countries, as they are seen as plutocrats of an obscurantist religion and culture with their own state in Israel. Jews don’t count, and the Holocaust itself has been instrumentalized mainly to combat discrimination in general, although nine out of 10 victims were Jewish. Nazism also persecuted other minorities, but it just feared the Jewish culture that was 3,000 years old and present on all continents. The Jews were considered as the greatest threat to the ‘Master Race.’ Hatred of Jews extended far beyond the territories occupied by Germany. The Holocaust aimed to exterminate the Jewish people!”

Rebecca Rose, Associate Director of Development & Special Projects at B'nai B'rith International, and Josh Sushan, board member for B'nai B'rith Connect joined Wake Up with Cheddar (on Cheddar TV) to discuss our virtual "Unto Every Person There Is A Name" event on Clubhouse commemorating Yom HaShoah and the six million Jewish people murdered in the Holocaust.

The Holocaust Museum of Oporto (Porto) opened its doors to the public on April 5th, the first day after Portugal eased lockdown measures and allowed cultural institutions to reopen, all the while adhering to coronavirus restrictions.

Within two days, 500 visitors made it to the museum, among them young people, senior citizens, Jews, and members of other religions. This is the first time a museum dedicated to the Holocaust is inaugurated in Portugal.

The museum portrays Jewish life spanning decades, from before the Holocaust, during the Nazi era, including life in ghettos, labor and concentration camps, the Final Solution, the death marches, and the liberation, all the way to the establishment of the State of Israel.

The museum has reproductions of Auschwitz barracks, a name room, a flame memorial, a study center, and photographs and screens showing actual footage of before, during, and after the genocide.

It also exhibits archives relating to refugees who passed through Oporto, including official documents, testimonies, letters, and hundreds of individual files.

Moreover, the museum has signed a cooperation protocol with Oporto's Jewish Museum to combat antisemitism in Europe.

"These museums in Oporto should serve as a beacon of light to the rest of Europe, a land darkened today by resurgent antisemitism," President of B'nai B'rith International Charles Kaufman said.

"For the growing Jewish community of Portugal, we urge you to teach future generations the glory of our past and the Holocaust as they repel attempts to disparage us in the future," he said.

Thursday, April 8th, marks the confluence of two significant events – the observance of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day throughout the Jewish world, and the dedication of a symbolic synagogue at the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center near Kyiv, where 33,771 Jews were murdered in a two-day period in late September 1941.

The inauguration of the symbolic synagogue and prayer space at Babyn Yar will be part of the special broadcast on the Jerusalem Post website and Facebook page and the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center Facebook page on Thursday, Yom HaShoah.

On Yom HaShoah, April 8th (7 PM EST), Natan Sharansky, former Prisoner of Zion and Chair of the supervisory board at the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, will participate in a panel discussion with Mark B. Levin, Executive Vice Chairman and CEO of the National Coalition Supporting Euro-Asian Jewry, and Dan S. Mariaschin, chief executive officer of B’nai B’rith International. The three leaders will discuss the significance of the synagogue dedication, the Ukrainian government’s support for the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, and the dangers of resurgent antisemitism eighty years after Babyn Yar.

Sharansky, who was born in 1948, recalled that as a boy, he and his friends were aware that something tragic had occurred in Ukraine but were never informed as to what had happened. “I was born in Ukraine a few years after the Holocaust,” he said. “Most of my Jewish friends had no grandfathers and grandmothers. We had very few uncles and aunts. It was clear that some awful tragedy had happened only a few years before we were born. We knew practically nothing.” The awful crimes of the Nazis, he said, were followed by those of the Communist regime, who attempted to erase the memory of what had occurred from the Jewish identity of the Jews of the Soviet Union. “For me,” Sharansky related, “the Babyn Yar Memorial is like the closing of a huge circle – of bringing back the memory of the world of our people and making it part of our history and our future.”

The importance of the support given to the project by President Zelensky and the Ukrainian government, he says, cannot be overestimated – not only for the Jewish people but for anyone who values the desire to live in a free world.

Mark B. Levin, Executive Vice Chairman and CEO of the National Coalition Supporting Euro-Asian Jewry, echoed Sharansky’s words and stated that the dedication of the synagogue and the museum itself is a significant point not just in Jewish history but in the history of Ukraine and for the continent of Europe as a whole.

Chiune Sugihara, known affectionately as the "Japanese Schindler," was honored today at a digital ceremony on Monday ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The reception, sponsored by the Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) and B'nai B'rith International, focused on the efforts of Sugihara, who defied his own government’s orders by issuing travel visas to more than 6,000 Lithuanian Jews to escape the horrors of the Holocaust.

​“At great risk to himself and his family, Sugihara dared to do what was right to save lives. He stood up when the world was largely silent," said CEO of B'nai B'rith International Dan Mariaschin. Like all rescuers her never saw his actions as remarkable. As Sugihara’s actions teach, one person’s actions can make a difference.

”Sugihara was stationed as a diplomat in Lithuania up until all foreign diplomats were requested to leave in the summer of 1940. In the haste to return to Japan, and the impending Holocaust, Sugihara issued visas to the Jewish refugees and it is thought that tens of thousands of Jews are alive today because of his quick action.

“It is estimated that 40,000 people are living today because of Sugihara. I am also a survivor. Another kind of survivor. I am alive today because my grandparents were saved during the Holocaust and I am alive today because of people who stood up to the darkness," said  Executive Director of CAM Sacha Roytman Dratwa. "What we learned today is that it is possible to stand up. The heroes of the past must teach us how to be better people.”

The Jewish refugees were then transported to a Dutch colony Curacao, under the permissions of Sugihara who defied Japanese government orders to ensure the safety of thousands.

One of the survivors, Nathan Lewin, who was saved by Sugihara as a child, recalled his family's story at the reception.

Sugihara “opened the door for thousands of refugees to be able to find a free haven in countries across the world.” Lewin said. “It is both an honor and a blessing for me to be here today to share my admiration and thanks for an individual who embodied the role that our rabbis specified, saying you should not do a good deed with the expectation that you will be rewarded, but for the good deed itself. That is what Chiune Sugihara did.”

His daughter Alyza Lewin added "There are many people like me, descendants of the lucky ones, who experienced Sugihara’s humanity.

"Thanks to his moral compass, we deeply appreciate that living life is a blessing," she continued. “Today, Jews are being targeted on the basis of our ethnicity. The Jewish homeland, the Jewish nation state of Israel is the only nation state today targeted as illegitimate. This is today’s contemporary form of antisemitism and we must unite to combat it.”

The Japanese Ambassador to the United Nations, who gave the keynote address laid down call to remember those who perished in the Holocaust and the heroic actions of few who saved many.

​“By the grace of Sugihara’s pen, thousands of lives were saved," said ambassador Kimihiro Ishikane. “We must remember the Holocaust to honor those who perished and to achieve a better society. We know that no country is immune from the forces of racism and fascism. So, we have to do the right thing when necessary. Chiune Sugihara is one of those who did the right thing in the most difficult hour.”

(January 26, 2021 / JNS) Ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27, a virtual event on Monday honored a hero often referred to as the “Japanese Schindler” for helping to save thousands of Jews from the Holocaust.

Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania, defied his own government’s orders by issuing handwritten transit visas in 1940 to more than 6,000 Lithuanian Jews, enabling them to escape Nazi-occupied Europe. He continued to do so for over a month until the Japanese consulate was closed. More than 40,000 descendants of those Jews are believed to be alive today because of his courageous actions.

Sugihara died in 1986 at the age of 86.

The online event highlighted Sugihara’s heroic deeds and the lessons we can learn from him in battling contemporary anti-Semitism. The reception was hosted by the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement and B’nai B’rith International.

Sacha Roytman Dratwa, executive director of the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement, told JNS, “While Sugihara has gotten more attention in recent decades, particularly after Yad Vashem gave him the ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ title in the 1980s, most people, including Jews, are still unaware of his heroic deeds. So, it is important that we honor those, such as Sugihara, who came to the aid of the Jewish people in the darkest hour of their history.”

“With fewer and fewer survivors of the Holocaust alive to tell their stories, it is vital that its lessons continue to be shared,” he continued. “The Sugihara lesson is about what one person can do in the face of evil—which, with anti-Semitism on the rise around the world, is as relevant as ever.”

The well-known attorney Nathan Lewin, 84, recalled his family’s personal story of how they were saved by Sugihara. He was born in Lodz, Poland, and in September 1939, when Adolf Hitler invaded, he and his family, including his maternal grandmother and uncle, smuggled across the border and made their way to Vilnius, Lithuania. Lewin was 3 years old at the time.

They hoped to travel even farther away from Hitler’s grasps but were unable to get travel documents. Lewin’s mother then went to Sugihara at the Japanese consulate and received the first handwritten “Sugihara visa” given to Jews. Sugihara’s transit visa allowed Lewin’s entire family to travel to Curaçao and Suriname via Japan.
However, Lewin and his family did not go to Suriname or Curacao but traveled to Japan and came to the United States as refugees when he was 5.

He said at the event, “It is both an honor and a blessing for me to be here today to share my admiration and thanks for an individual who embodied the role that our rabbis specified, saying you should not do a good deed with the expectation that you will be rewarded, but for the good deed itself. That is what Chiune Sugihara did.”

Lewin told JNS, “It’s necessary and important to honor those people who took personal efforts and really jeopardized their own professional status to help people who were fleeing from the Holocaust. And Mr. Sugihara did just that.”

‘He gave them hope and life’

Lewin’s daughter, Alyza Lewin, also an attorney, discussed the relevance of Sugihara’s story to combating modern-day anti-Semitism.

President of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, she told JNS: “The lesson we learn from Chiune Sugihara is that we must recognize that even if we come from different backgrounds, different faiths, different cultures, different races, different genders, different ethnicities, we are all human beings deserving of respect and fairness, entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

She further praised Sugihara, saying “at a time when Jews were being stigmatized and marginalized, he treated them as human beings. He gave them hope and life when others sought to rob them of their dignity.”

She added that Jews are again being stigmatized and marginalized today, but this time because of their ethnicity.

“Jews who take pride in our sense of Jewish peoplehood and in the Jews’ deep, religious, ethnic, cultural, and ancestral connection to the Land of Israel, are being pressured to shed that ethnic pride,” she said. “The Jewish homeland, the Jewish nation-state of Israel—where all races, religions, ethnicities and genders are equal under the law—is the only nation-state today that is targeted as illegitimate. It is the only country that some say has no right to exist. This is today’s contemporary form of anti-Semitism, and we must unite to combat it. Because anti-Semitism is not just a Jewish problem. It is a cancer that rots away at and ultimately destroys societies that fail to curb it.”

Another Holocaust survivor, Ada Winsten, whose family also obtained transit visas from Sugihara, paid tribute to the man she called “the Japanese Schindler,” saying “if not for him, I would not be here. I would not have my children [or] my grandchildren. If not for Sugihara, we would not even have this story to tell.”

The event’s keynote speaker was Ambassador Kanji Yamanouchi, Consul General of Japan in New York, who said that “by the grace of Sugihara’s pen, thousands of lives were saved.”

He added, “We must remember the Holocaust to honor those who perished and to achieve a better society. We know that no country is immune from the forces of racism and fascism. So, we have to do the right thing when necessary. Chiune Sugihara is one of those who did the right thing in the most difficult hour.”

If there are any Hollywood moguls out there looking for a real-life character to serve as the central character in a superhero-type blockbuster, they could do a lot worse than to read up on Joseph Bau.

There is no need to engage in hyperbole or florid epithets when sketching a profile of Bau, who died in 2002 at the age of 81. In fact, he was fortunate to make it past his mid-20s, surviving several ghettos, a concentration camp and all manner of other horrific tests of his mettle along the way.

Some of that is today commemorated, nay, celebrated, at Joseph Bau House Museum, an independent boutique museum in downtown Tel Aviv that tells the extraordinary life story of an extraordinary person. The repository – which is run by Bau’s daughters Hadassah and Clilah Bau – has somehow managed to survive over the years on a shoestring budget, but is now running out of funds and may be forced to close down. The Baus have instigated a Headstart drive (headstart.co.il/project/60369) that is aiming to raise NIS 100,000 to keep the museum afloat, and to continue to enlighten the public about their father’s incredible journey on terra firma.

Bau was born in Krakow, Poland, in 1920 and died in Tel Aviv in 2002. Between those two temporal goalposts, he managed to wriggle his way out of numerous life-threatening situations, and even found love en route.

I first encountered Bau’s name, and learned of some of his amazing achievements, 20 years ago when I met his daughters at his studio on Berdichevsky Street off Rothschild Boulevard. It felt like stepping into an Aladdin’s cave. The cozily proportioned premises were stuffed to the rafters with specimens of Bau’s wide-ranging graphic work, including posters he crafted for early Israeli movies, such as the iconic 1964 dark comedy about aliyah and absorption Sallah Shabati, starring Haim Topol. There were also examples of his animation work, paintings, caricatures, graphics, copies of the nine books he has put out over the years, and evidence of his immersive research into the Hebrew language.

For Bau the latter was a labor of love, which helped him bond with the country and culture he had dreamed about almost all his life.

“Reaching Israel was the fulfillment of an ambition he had since the age of 13,” says Clilah. “He talks about that in his book Shnot Tarzach.” Typically, the title of the book is a play on words. By slightly altering the punctuation you get tirzach, which translates as “you shall murder,” while as an abbreviation, the four letters in Hebrew spell out the year 5698, which equates to 1938-39 in the Gregorian calendar and possibly references the outbreak of World War Two. The tome contains Bau’s recollections of the Holocaust and his life in Israel, and is liberally seasoned with comical word play, and dark and sometimes raucous humor. It has been translated into seven languages, including English, Arabic and Chinese.

I met Bau in his apartment after visiting the studio with his daughters. He was a slight, gentle-looking, well-groomed character, with a full head of snow-white hair, but he had lost his power of speech following the death of his wife, Rivka (née Tennenbaum), three years earlier. Rivka was the love of his life who, in fact, saved his life by giving him her place at Oskar Schindler’s factory in Krakow, which employed hundreds of Jews, and saved around 1,200. Happily, Rivka subsequently survived Auschwitz and was reunited with her husband in Krakow, where they lived until they made aliyah in 1950.

They met in Plaszów concentration camp near Krakow. It was love at first sight and, incredibly, the couple contrived to get married there, after Bau snuck into the women’s quarters, with the other female inmates standing guard. The nuptials were immortalized in Steven Spielberg’s Oscar Award-winning epic Schindler’s List, which Joseph and Rivka went to see, notwithstanding their daughters’ remonstrations.

“WE DIDN’T want our parents to see the movie, but they said it was their duty, toward all those who were murdered,” Hadassah recalls. “We were very concerned and sat on either side of them [in the cinema]. During the movie, when they showed something terrible, we asked dad, ‘Was it like that?’ and he replied, ‘It was 10 times worse!’ Dad also said that the movie was a work of genius, and that if Spielberg had shown all the horrors, no one would have gone to see it.”

One of the more remarkable aspects of Bau’s unimaginable life odyssey is the fact that he not only got by in Hebrew, he mastered it to such an extent that he was able to sculpt it, and mine its nuances and vagaries to a level achieved by few born into the language. That comes across succinctly in, for example, his 1987 book, Brit Mila, again a play of words that can reference the Jewish circumcision ceremony for male babies or translate as Covenant of a Word.

As a trained graphic artist who studied German Gothic lettering before the Holocaust – a skill that also helped him to survive by providing that service to German officers in Krakow Ghetto and later at Plaszów – he was also, naturally, drawn to its aesthetics. He also used his graphic skills to save the lives of many Jews by forging papers for them. Those heroic efforts were recently recognized by the B’nai Brith World Center in Jerusalem when it posthumously awarded Bau its Jewish Rescuers Citation.

He created a number of Hebrew fonts that found their way into the country’s earliest animation works and commercials. As he was there at the very inception of the field in the young State of Israel, he had to start from scratch. That included crafting the lighting, cameras and other requisite equipment out of old X-ray apparatus and refitting all kinds of machinery to get the job done.

Although Hadassah and Clilah say their parents were not coy about their Holocaust experiences, Bau kept one aspect of his work to himself. It was only several years after his death that the Bau daughters learned of their father’s espionage work for the Mossad.

“His work included forging papers for spies,” says Clilah. “That included documents for [Israeli spy in Syria] Eli Cohen and the whole team that went [to Argentina] to capture [Adolf] Eichmann.

”Bau might have had an easier life in the States, but opted to stay here.

“Our father’s dream was to make animated films, but there was no awareness of cartoons in Israel then, so he worked in graphics and creating fonts for movies,” Hadassah explains. “His brother wanted him to come to New York to work as an animator, but he didn’t want to leave Israel, which was everything to him.”

His expertise in that field was also put to good use by the Israeli security forces.

“We discovered he made classified animated films for the IDF and Mossad, but they are not willing to show us the movies.

”Our chat is interspersed by lots of laughing, and the daughters say there was plenty of merriment at home.

“He taught me to write songs, all with humor, and he taught Clilah to tell jokes,” Hadassah notes with yet another peal of laughter.

Now the Baus just want to keep the memory of their parents’ amazing life, and their father’s invaluable work, alive. Prior to the pandemic, tours of the studio included theatrical enactments of some of Bau’s experiences.

“Dad said we should turn the studio into a theater. Today it is a museum/theater where we perform and tell the story of the place and the wonderful life story of our parents, illustrated by his paintings and drawings of the Hebrew language.

”The idea is also to convey some much-needed positive vibes, particularly in these trying times.

“Our father always wanted to make people happy,” says Clilah. “He always said, ‘If we were happy in the darkest of times, everyone can learn the meaning of happiness and love from us.’ That’s what we do.”

Kristallnacht - what a creation of a word. Broken windows become sparkling stones that glitter in the night. Reichskristallnacht. What a masterpiece of propaganda. In the collective memory of the National Socialists, the night of November 9, 1938, was to be associated with something beautiful, something to be celebrated.

My father was a witness

In fact, many people were in an exuberant mood at the time. When my father walked alone through the streets of Berlin on the morning of November 10, 1938, he saw not only the destruction of the previous night, but also how the SA soldiers (from the Nazi paramilitary wing), women and men, young people and children continued to rage happily. No one intervened.

My father was 16 years old when he understood that being a Jew meant that he had to leave Germany as soon as possible. Because the broken glass scattered everywhere could only be a harbinger of much worse things to come.

​How right he was – that night was the first step on the path to the Final Solution. What he had seen with his own eyes in Berlin had happened all over Germany. Everywhere the SA had destroyed and looted Jewish shops, burned down synagogues, abused Jews, murdered hundreds and deported thousands to concentration camps.

The last witnesses of the Shoah

My father, Walter Strauss, used to tell me, my siblings and his grandchildren, even at a very old age, again and again about that night, this orchestrated outbreak of violence. But he would also talk about the period that preceded it, when the Jews had been increasingly marginalised.

Even the Iron Cross, which his father had been awarded during the First World War, was of no help to the family. Jewish families were integrated in society but found themselves outside of it within a very short time.

Back then my father was still a pupil in Heilbronn but he was not allowed to study for the only reason that he was a Jew. And so he came alone to Berlin to do an apprenticeship with a tailor. Here, he witnessed the night of November 9, 1938 – alone, hidden behind a cupboard, filled with fear and horror. From here he fled alone via detours to Switzerland. Only because of this he escaped the Shoah.

After the Second World War, many believed that the Holocaust – the murder of six million Jews – would mean the end of anti-Semitism. My father was much more pessimistic. He did not believe that people had really learned from this break in civilization.

In his old age he witnessed anti-Semitism flaring up again. That is how he, my beloved father, Walter Strauss, died – warning us, the next generation. And that is also how the remaining witnesses of the Holocaust will die.

Memory against forgetting

Reichskristallnacht – the crystals stand for the cynical cold and the frosty ice in which the faces of all those who have participated or remained silent are reflected.

Reichskristallnacht – Reichspogromnacht, the Night of the Pogrom. What we ultimately call this night is irrelevant, as long as we understand what happened that night: that the broken glass was only the prelude to extermination. Today we know it and we can fight it, as long as we keep the memory of November 9 alive. It is about the importance of never forgetting, never remaining silent, and never being indifferent.

In dieser Nacht vom 9. auf den 10. November 1938 brennen in Deutschland die Synagogen, von Berlin bis Hamburg werden jüdische Geschäfte zerstört und geplündert, die Friedhöfe geschändet und die Juden zu Tausenden verschleppt – mindestens 400 Juden werden ermordet oder sterben an den Haftfolgen. Es ist keine «Kristallnacht», wie die Nationalsozialisten die Ereignisse fortan beschönigend nennen, sondern eine Pogromnacht.

«Stürmischer Beifall. Alles saust gleich an die Telefone. Nun wird das Volk handeln.» Diese Sätze, niedergeschrieben von Joseph Goebbels, belegen die organisierte Gewalt, die bei Polizei und Partei ihren Anfang nahm und die Bevölkerung mit einschloss. Es zeigte sich hier der sich anbahnende Zivilisationsbruch: Die Pogromnacht markiert den Übergang von der Diskriminierung der Juden zu ihrer systematischen Vernichtung. Der 9. November 1938 hat darum zu Recht eine besondere Bedeutung im kollektiven Gedächtnis: So wird in Deutschland und anderswo in jedem Jahr an diese Schreckensnacht erinnert. Zeitzeuginnen und Zeitzeugen bündeln noch einmal ihre Kräfte, treten an Veranstaltungen oder in Schulen auf, um nochmals Zeugnis abzulegen. Um den jungen Menschen zu berichten, wozu Menschen fähig sind, wenn die Saat von Intoleranz und Hass aufgeht.

Wo die Zeitzeugen verstummen

2020 ist alles anders. Es ist nicht allein die Corona-Pandemie, welche die Begegnung zwischen den betagten Opfern und der nächsten Generation verunmöglicht. Die Zeit lässt die Stimmen allmählich verstummen. Es werden immer weniger, die über die Reichspogromnacht und den Holocaust erzählen können.

Mit Walter Strauss ist einer dieser Zeitzeugen im letzten Jahr verstorben. «Wir wurden gedemütigt und gepeinigt: In Berlin wurde die antisemitische Hetze immer penetranter», hat sich Strauss wenige Monate vor seinem Tod in einem Gespräch mit der NZZ erinnert. Geboren wurde der Sohn eines Arztes 1922 im deutschen Heilbronn. Der Vater war im Ersten Weltkrieg mit dem Eisernen Kreuz ausgezeichnet worden, seine Mutter stammte aus dem aargauischen Baden, verlor aber bei der Heirat ihre Schweizer Staatsbürgerschaft. Nach Hitlers Machtergreifung im Jahre 1933 verschlechterten sich die Lebensumstände der jüdischen Familie rasch: Die Eltern flohen nach Liechtenstein, und Walter begann in Berlin eine Lehre als Schneider, weil ihm eine akademische Ausbildung verboten war.

Walter Strauss fuhr am Morgen des 10. Novembers allein als 16-jähriger Junge mit der Strassenbahn durch Berlin und beobachtete fassungslos das Ausmass der Zerstörung. An seinem Arbeitsplatz in der Nähe des Alexanderplatzes stand der Betrieb still. Fast alle Angestellten der jüdischen Textilfabrik waren geflohen oder von den Nazis verschleppt worden. «Während ein jüdisches Porzellangeschäft kurz und klein geschlagen wurde, herrschte eine geradezu ausgelassene und fröhliche Stimmung im Volk. Die Polizisten standen zwar herum, machten aber keine Anstalten einzuschreiten», erinnerte sich Strauss. In diesem Moment wurde es dem Jungen klar, dass er so rasch wie möglich das Land verlassen musste. Ihm gelang die Flucht in die Schweiz, und er konnte sich trotz bürokratischen Hürden dank seiner Familie in Baden niederlassen, wo er bis zu seinem Tod lebte.

Wohin Intoleranz führt

Europa erlebte nach dem Krieg eine Zeit der Sicherheit, aber sicher ist nichts, davon war Walter Strauss überzeugt. Kurz vor seinem Tod sagte er im Interview: «Ich glaube nicht, dass die Menschen aus der Geschichte lernen und gescheiter werden. Ich bin Realist. Der Weg von der Zivilisation zur Barbarei ist kurz.»

Wie gehen wir mit dieser Vergangenheit um? Die Schrecken der Pogromnacht sind dank den Berichten von Zeitzeugen dokumentiert. Aber damit ist es nicht getan. Ohne die direkte Begegnung mit den Menschen, die den Holocaust überlebt haben, braucht es neue Formen des Erzählens und Lehrens, um die Erinnerung an den Holocaust auch bei der nächsten Generation wachzuhalten. Wir müssen aufzeigen, wohin Intoleranz, Fremdenfeindlichkeit und Antisemitismus führen. Wir müssen aufzeigen, was Menschlichkeit bedeutet. Wir müssen beweisen, dass wir dem Hass etwas entgegenstellen können. Dies ist unsere Aufgabe, dies ist unsere Verpflichtung gegenüber den letzten Zeitzeugen. Dies muss unser Versprechen sein. Denn, wie Walter Strauss sich ausdrückte: «Wir müssen wachsam bleiben. So etwas darf nie mehr geschehen.»