Holocaust History

[Sixties Fan]

German parliament officially commemorates LGBTQ victims of Nazi regime for first time | CNN

The German parliament for the first time on Friday focused its annual Holocaust memorial commemorations on people persecuted and killed over their sexual or gender identity during World War II.

www.cnn.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

What happens when a Holocaust denier moves into your cellar?

French psychological thriller is based on the true story of a Parisian Jewish couple who unknowingly sold basement space to a neo-Nazi antisemite, and fought for years to evict him

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Shlomo Perel, who hid in German army ranks to survive Holocaust, passes away at 98

German-born survivor disguised Jewish identity, became Wehrmacht translator, moved to Israel after war; story inspired acclaimed film 'Europa Europa'

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

The 'Anne Frank' road trip that transformed America

In 1958, 'The Diary of Anne Frank' bus and truck tour traveled through 100 cities in America where Jewish stories were new and rare.

forward.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Irmgard Kroymann (1921-2005) was renowned as a heroine who was arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned in the Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Lower Silesia. Following the Second World War, she became a trade union leader known as a vigorous defender of women’s rights and a fighter against antisemitism.

For her bravery, Germany decorated Kroymann with its highest honors including the Grand Cross of Merit, the Order of Merit of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

But according to historian Anne Prior, Kroymann’s account of her life during the war was a pack of lies. Prior revealed her findings last month in her essay published in German journalist and Holocaust historian Götz Aly’s “Our National Socialism” anthology.

“Unlike West Germany, documents in East Germany were archived meticulously and when the regime collapsed in 1989 an entire wealth of information was suddenly made available,” Prior told the Jewish Chronicle.

The archive included Kroymann’s work files and her job application to work at the Nazi camp. At the same time, Kroymann revealed to journalists in West Germany that she had applied for financial compensation while claiming she was a victim of the Third Reich.

“Kroymann lied to herself and the public about her true role during the Nazi years,” said Christoph Heubner of the International Auschwitz Committee, who shared Prior’s shock upon learning of the findings.

Nazi-Era ‘Resistance Fighter’ Exposed as Concentration Camp Guard

Yellow Star of David Jews were forced to wear in Nazi Germany. Photo: Kjetil Ree/Wikimedia Commons. JNS.org – Irmgard Kroymann …

www.algemeiner.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

New Limited Series About Dutch Woman Who Hid Anne Frank’s Family Gets Release Date on Her Birthday

The Frank, van Pels and Gies families observing Chanukkah while in hiding during World War II in a scene from …

www.algemeiner.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

Heroes Amid the Holocaust

"Righteous Among the Nations" is an official title awarded by Yad Vashem—the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel—on behalf of the State of Israel and the Jewish people, given to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

freebeacon.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

 

[Sixties Fan]

Thessaloniki’s documentary movie event to recall once-thriving large community sent to Auschwitz with several screenings about Holocaust, panel discussions​

(full article online)

80 years on, Greek film festival will pay tribute to deported Jews

Thessaloniki’s documentary movie event to recall once-thriving large community sent to Auschwitz with several screenings about Holocaust, panel discussions

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Ringo]

In 2015, Ruta Vanagaite, lithuanian theatre critic, asked the archives for the file of her "innocently repressed grandfather."

She found out that Stalin's government was generous: her grandfather was given 4.5 years for 10 murders.
But he did not kill with his own hands. He, during the nazi occupation, led the nazis on the jews.
For this he was given slaves from among the soviet prisoners of war.
After that, Ruta uncovered many more such "grandfathers.
Then, her family abandoned her and the nazis hunted her down. She requested more court cases from the archives and wrote a book based on them, "Our Own. A Journey with the Enemy."
She is now in hiding in Israel. Such is the "tolerance" of liberals.

 

[Sixties Fan]

In 2015, Ruta Vanagaite, lithuanian theatre critic, asked the archives for the file of her "innocently repressed grandfather."

She found out that Stalin's government was generous: her grandfather was given 4.5 years for 10 murders.
But he did not kill with his own hands. He, during the nazi occupation, led the nazis on the jews.
For this he was given slaves from among the soviet prisoners of war.
After that, Ruta uncovered many more such "grandfathers.
Then, her family abandoned her and the nazis hunted her down. She requested more court cases from the archives and wrote a book based on them, "Our Own. A Journey with the Enemy."
She is now in hiding in Israel. Such is the "tolerance" of liberals.

Please, provide link to article.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Albania has historically had a Jewish population including Saranda, Berat and Vlora, with the latter two having Jewish quarters. During World War II, Jews flocked from neighbouring countries and were welcomed by Muslim and Christian Albanians. They were sheltered and hidden, given ‘Albanian’ names, and not handed over to Nazi or invading fascist Italian forces.

It was the only country in Europe to have more Jews living in it at the end of the war than at the start.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said: “It is another very important moment in Tirana’s history, urban development, and architecture, and I believe that we will finally be able to breathe a sigh of relief from a long-standing burden of obligation in relation to our children and visitors to our country, which is related to perhaps the most glorious page of Albanian history, the rescue of Jews during WWII.”

The museum will be located in a historic building, currently empty and once belonging to the Toptani Family. It embodies typical 19th-century Albanian architecture and has been designated a Cultural Heritage and Cultural Monument. Rama announced the establishment of the new museum at a gala event honouring Albanian “Righteous Among the Nations” during his recent visit to Jerusalem.

Albania’s Culture Ministry announced an open design competition for architecture design proposals, funded by Israeli philanthropist Alexander Machkevitch, with the goal of finding the best design solution for the museum’s construction.

“I am humbled to be a part of this important project that will memorialise the bravery of Albanians who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust… This project is a testament to the power of solidarity and compassion in the face of darkness, and I hope it will inspire future generations to continue this legacy of kindness,” Machkevitch said.

According to the Albanian government, the “Besa” Museum will pave the way for the creation of a destination of the glorious history of the salvation of Jews during the Second World War, as well as of Jewish history, tradition, culture, and art. It will include a museum, dialogue centre, and educational facilities and will also act as a tourist attraction.

Other Jewish sites of interest in the country include the Jewish Quarter in Vlora and the Solomon Museum in Berat. There is also a memorial to victims of the Holocaust in Tirana’s lake park.

(full article online)

Albania to open Holocaust museum after Israeli call for Europe to step up antisemitism fight

www.euractiv.com

 

[Ringo]

Please, provide link to article.

This, for example

How a Single Remark Stole a Lithuanian Writer’s Livelihood

Rūta Vanagaitė was a best-selling author. Then she contradicted the story her country tells about itself.

www.newyorker.com

Or this

https://www.thejc.com/news/world/lithuanian-author-ruta-vanagaite-holocaust-conference-of-european-rabbis-our-people-1.464735

 

[Sixties Fan]

When Anne Frank began to rewrite her diary while in hiding, she was one of thousands of people responding to the Dutch government-in-exile’s wartime request for members of the public to record — and eventually share — their experiences under Nazi rule.

While Frank’s diary was written within the confines of an Amsterdam hiding place, hundreds of other diaries came from people who witnessed other aspects of Germany’s half-decade occupation of the Netherlands, during which 102,000 Jews were deported and murdered.

According to journalist Nina Siegal, in fact the world’s most famous diarist, Anne Frank, “is not really telling the whole story, or the right story, in some ways.”

Siegal, the author of “The Diary Keepers: World War II in the Netherlands as Written by the People Who Lived Through It,” told The Times of Israel that the narrow scope of Frank’s account was a function of her age and situation.

“She could not tell the whole story; Anne was a child, and cut off from the world,” said Siegal. A prolific cultural writer for The New York Times, Siegal lives in Amsterdam and is an ongoing researcher into the wartime fate of Dutch Jews.


(full article online)

Holocaust-era Dutch ‘diary keepers’ depict horrors outside of Anne Frank’s hideaway

For her sprawling book, journalist Nina Siegal read through hundreds of wartime diaries to portray difficult day-to-day lives of Dutch during Nazi Germany's five-year occupation

www.timesofisrael.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

The building at 12 Jozefa Street in Krakow as it appears on ‘Schindler's List.’

Max Friedman managed to track down his mother’s address in Krakow, Poland, as part of research he was conducting in preparation for a book about his family’s history before the Holocaust. He arrived at his mother’s home only to discover it had been turned into a tourist attraction.

When Max arrived at 12 Jozefa Street in Krakow, he found that the house, and especially its beautiful courtyard, had been used as a set for director Steven Spielberg’s film “Schindler’s List.”



(full article online)

Jewish Man Discovers his Mom’s Home in Krakow Starred on ‘Schindler’s List’

The courtyard of the house at 12 Jozefa was called, "the most beautiful courtyard in Kazimierz."

www.jewishpress.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

Movie About Jewish Woman Betrayed to Nazis by Catholic Future Father-In-Law Gets Acquired by North American Distributor - Algemeiner.com Movie About Jewish Woman Betrayed to Nazis by Catholic Future Father-In-Law Gets Acquires by North American Distr

Menemsha Films has bought the North American rights to a movie based on the true story of a Jewish woman in France who was reported to the Gestapo by her fiancé’s father and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust, the distribution company announced on Tuesday. The Story of...

www.algemeiner.com

 

[Sixties Fan]

The film re-examines the making of an unfinished 1942 German propaganda film (titled Das Ghetto, "The Ghetto") depicting the Warsaw Ghetto two months before the mass extermination of its inhabitants in the German operation known as the Grossaktion Warsaw. The documentary features interviews with surviving ghetto residents and a re-enactment of testimony from Willy Wist, one of the camera operators who filmed scenes for Das Ghetto.

 

[Mindful]

The Death March to Volary - Female Testimony of the Shoah

A young woman weeps during the deportation of the Romaniote Jews of loannina, Greece on 25 March 1944. Once part of thriving communities in several Greek cities, approximately 59,000 Greek Jews were victims of the Holocaust, at least 83 percent of the total number living in Greece at the time of World War II and the German Occupation. Two thirds of all murdered were from the city of Thessaloniki, where 90% of all the Jews in the city were massacred. The vast majority of the Greeks killed were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

~ World Historical Events.

 

[Sixties Fan]

Bulgaria’s president was on hand on March 10 for a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the country’s dramatic decision to save its 48,000 Jews from the Nazis.

So were representatives of the Bulgarian Orthodox church whose predecessors instigated the rescue, as well as a prominent Bulgarian-born Israeli historian and politician, Michael Bar Zohar, who published an early history of the episode, which was barely known until after the fall of communism.

Together they marched from Bulgaria’s national library — where an exhibition about Bulgaria’s World War II-era king, Tsar Boris III, is being held — to Sofia’s oldest church, where they lay flowers on a memorial to Boris and his wife, Tsarina Joanna.

But conspicuously absent from the ceremony with President Rumen Radev were any representatives of Bulgaria’s contemporary Jewish community,

Community leaders were invited only at the last possible minute, on Thursday afternoon, according to Alexander Oscar, president of Shalom The Organization of Bulgarian Jews. His group had already planned its own observance of March 10, known by Bulgarian Jews as the “Day of Salvation.”

But Oscar said he would not have attended even if he’d been invited earlier — and he thought no one else from the local Jewish community would have either.

“Nobody from the community would have taken part in an event honoring the imaginary role of King Boris in rescuing the Bulgarian Jews and presenting a distorted history of the Holocaust,” Oscar told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.


Oscar’s comments point to a longstanding and increasingly potent dispute over how Tsar Boris III should factor into Bulgaria’s Holocaust memory. Though Boris did sign off on the order to halt the deportation of the country’s Jews, he was also the leader of a fascist government that allied with Nazi Germany, imposed oppressive racial laws on its Jews and facilitated the murder of more than 11,000 Jews in territory it occupied. Boris died under mysterious circumstances shortly after returning from Germany where he met with Hitler in 1943.


(full article online)

Why Bulgarian Jews skipped an official ceremony marking their rescue from the Nazis

Officials marked 80 years since Tsar Boris III stopped the deportation of the country's 48,000 Jews; they didn't mention the 11,000 whose murder by Nazis his government facilitated

www.timesofisrael.com