Thursday 28 November 2013

Head of Austria's Muslim Community Promises to Promote Holocaust Education

FSWC Reports:

From Reuters: 

New York Rabbi Marc Schneier won a small but significant victory on a recent visit to Vienna – a promise from the head of Austria’s Islamic community to promote Holocaust education among the country’s half a million Muslims.

Invited to an interfaith lunch along with his years-long partner in Jewish-Muslim outreach, Imam Shamsi Ali, Schneier found himself having a “very, very frank exchange” of views with Muslim leader Fuat Sanac, whom the Austrian Jewish community was hosting for the first time.

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Tuesday 26 November 2013

Hunt for Remaining Nazi War Criminals Expanded

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is expanding its poster and reward campaign in Germany in its push to track down Nazi war criminals before it is too late, following a strong response to its initial launch.

The center's top Nazi-hunter, Efraim Zuroff, said Monday that Operation Last Chance II, launched in July, resulted in tips on 111 possible suspects from 19 countries.
 
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Tuesday 19 November 2013

Retirement Community a Refuge for Holocaust Survivors

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

Listen to the many harrowing stories of war, suffering and survival, all under one roof:

On the third floor, there's Margie. A prisoner of Nazi labor camps, she hauled backbreaking cement bags and was beaten with clubs. Sometimes, she had only a piece of bread to eat every other day. She weighed 56 pounds (25.4 kilograms) when she was freed.

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Monday 18 November 2013

Hungary Casts Doubt on Recent Poll Measuring Antisemitism

FSWC Reports:

From jn1.tv via ynetnews.com:

Hungarian officials have questioned the methodology behind a survey that showed a greater fear of anti-Semitism among Jews in Hungary than in any other European country.

The head of the Hungarian delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance doubted whether the survey was representative in nature because it did not have a randomly selected sample. 

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Sunday 17 November 2013

U.N. Secretary-General to Visit Auschwitz

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

Ban Ki-moon will make history on Monday, being the first United Nations secretary-general to visit the Auschwitz death camp in Poland since the international organization's establishment. 

UN spokesman Martin Nesirky says Ban will visit the camp "to pay tribute to the victims of the Holocaust and to stress the importance of the UN's work for genocide prevention, tolerance and peace." 

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Man Who Concealed Paintings Looted by Nazis Will Fight to Keep Them

FSWC Reports:

From AFP via ynetnews.com:

Cornelius Gurlitt, a German recluse who hid hundreds of paintings believed looted by the Nazis in his Munich flat, says he will not give up the works without a fight, quashing hopes of a quick settlement.

Describing the priceless works as the love of his life, Gurlitt, 80, told Der Spiegel news weekly in an interview that his father, a powerful Nazi-era art dealer, had acquired the paintings legally and that he as his heir sees himself as their rightful owner.

 
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Thursday 14 November 2013

Intersection in Washington, DC Renamed After Bulgarian Lawmaker Who Helped Save Jews During Holocaust

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

A street intersection outside the Bulgarian Embassy in Washington was renamed Tuesday in honor of a lawmaker from that country who is credited with helping spare the lives of tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.

The intersection in the city's Dupont Circle neighborhood will now be known as Dimitar Peshev Plaza, a recognition approved by the DC Council following a campaign by Peshev's supporters.
 
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Norway to Introduce Anti-circumcision Law

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

European countries are continuing to promote legislation against circumcision: Norway will advance a law to "regulate ritual circumcision," the Scandinavian country's Health Minister Bent Hoie said following a call by Norway Children’s Ombudswoman Anne Lindboe to ban non-medical circumcision of minors, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reports.

The country's Jewish community is outraged by the announcement, and the European Jewish Association's general director sought the help of the Israeli government on Wednesday.

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Tuesday 12 November 2013

Jewish Community in Italy Outraged Over "Hitler Prize"

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

A trade union in Italy has provoked outrage among the country’s Jewish community after deciding to hold a contest which awards the "Hitler Prize." Within the Feder Fauna union whose members include farmers and animal growers, management called on employees to name those who were frequently hounded by animal activists as potential recipients.

The award is ironically named after Adolf Hitler, who ordered human trials and simultaneously passed a law for the protection of animals. Massimiliano Filippi, general secretary of the association said: “The Hitler Prize represents a condemnation of those who trample on human rights in the name of the ideology of ‘animal rights’!”

 
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Jews in Hungary Consider Emigrating as Antisemitism in the Country Grows

FSWC Reports:

From AFP via ynetnews.com:

Hungary's Jewish community, one of the biggest in Europe, is struggling with a rise in anti-Semitism, according to recent surveys, even as Europe marked the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht.

A report by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) on Friday showed that anti-Semitism has got worse across Europe over the past five years, facilitated by social media and file-sharing websites.
 
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Germany Begins Publishing List of Recently Found Artworks Looted by Nazis

FSWC Reports:

From Reuters:

Germany was to start publishing an online list on Tuesday of works that were discovered in a huge art stash found in a Munich flat last year and believed for the most part to have been stolen or extorted by the Nazis.

A statement from the national and Bavarian regional governments said 25 of the works would initially be displayed on an existing website created to help establish the provenance of works seized by the Nazis, mostly from Jews during the persecution of the Holocaust.

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Sunday 10 November 2013

New Poll by Rights Group Shows European Antisemitism on the Rise

FSWC Reports:

From AFP via ynetnews.com:

Anti-Semitism has worsened in Europe in the past few years with abuse increasingly widespread on the Internet, a survey by the European Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) showed Friday.

The study – released ahead of the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, which saw Nazi thugs smash up Jewish businesses and synagogues – found that 66% of European Jews considered anti-Semitism "a fairly big or very big" problem in their country.
 
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Ceremonies Held to Mark 75th Anniversary of Kristallnacht

FSWC Reports:

From Reuters via ynetnews.com:

Lilly Drukker was 11 years old when two uniformed Nazis barged into her family's Vienna apartment in November 1938 to take her father away to the Dachau concentration camp.

It was the day after Kristallnacht, a state-sponsored spree of looting and destruction of Jewish property across Germany and Austria that marked a turning point in Nazi policy as Adolf Hitler unleashed the general population against the Jews. 
 
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Friday 8 November 2013

New Book Offers Fresh Look at Kristallnacht

FSWC Reports:

From AFP via ynetnews.com:

As Germany prepares to mark the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht this weekend, a new book calls into question the event long cited as triggering the pogrom.

The attacks of November 9 and 10, 1938, saw Nazi thugs plunder Jewish businesses throughout Germany, torch synagogues and round up about 30,000 Jewish men for deportation to concentration camps.
 
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Thursday 7 November 2013

Pig's Head Placed at Synagogue Being Built in Ukraine

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

A pig's head was placed on the threshold of a construction site slated for a three-story Chabad synagogue in Sevastopol, Ukraine. Members of the local Jewish community said that many residents have opposed construction of the neighborhood synagogue, claiming that the site was situated on remnants of a mass grave of non-Jewish Ukrainians who died in World War II.

On Wednesday, the Zarusskiy.org news website reported that the head of the pig had been discovered by members of the Jewish community on Monday. The three floor building on which construction began in 2012 will be able to accommodate 400 worshipers. It is scheduled to open in 2014. 
 
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Wednesday 6 November 2013

Antisemitic Souvenirs Widely Sold in Poland

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

A survey commissioned recently by the leadership of the Jewish community in Warsaw revealed that 54% of Poles believe Jews have "too much influence on the global economy."

Amid this troubling finding, representatives of the World Zionist Organization (WZO) who visited former Nazi concentration camps in Poland were amazed to discover anti-Semitic souvenirs sold on the street in almost every tourist site in the country, including paintings and amulets of Jews waving dollars – for people to hang in their homes as a charm for protecting their money. 

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Berlusconi Compares Treatment of His Children to Persecution of Jews by Hitler

FSWC Reports:

From Reuters:

Silvio Berlusconi caused outrage in Italy's Jewish community on Wednesday after the former prime minister said he and his children felt persecuted like Jews in Nazi Germany because of hounding by leftist magistrates.

The comments came from an advance excerpt released on Wednesday of an interview by television journalist Bruno Vespa for his latest book. They were later posted on Berlusconi's Forza Italia party website.

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German Spa Withdraws "Romantic Kristallnacht" Ads Following Outrage on Social Media

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

A hotel-spa in Germany apologized Wednesday for offering a "romantic Kristallnacht" just days before the 75th anniversary of the Nazi pogrom of the same name, where hundreds of Jewish businesses were ruined and thousands of Jews were sent to concentration camps in 1938.

Ads promoting a "long, romantic Kristallnacht" at the hotel sparked outrage and protest in social media. The spa apologized Wednesday on its facebook page and pulled the ad. 
 
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Tuesday 5 November 2013

Jewish Group Accuses Germany of Hiding Stolen Art Find

FSWC Reports:

From Reuters:

A Jewish group accused Germany on Monday of moral complicity in concealment of stolen paintings after it emerged authorities failed for two years to report discovery of a trove of art seized by the Nazis, including works by Picasso and Matisse.

Customs officials' chance discovery of 1,500 artworks in a Munich flat owned by the reclusive elderly son of a war-time art dealer, was revealed in a report by news magazine Focus over the weekend.
 
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Sunday 3 November 2013

Poll Finds Antisemitic Attitudes in U.S. Down Slightly

FSWC Reports:

From ynetnews.com:

On the occasion of its centennial, the latest Anti-Defamation League (ADL) survey of the American people found that 12% of Americans harbor deeply entrenched anti-Semitic attitudes. This marks a 3% decline since the League’s previous poll on anti-Semitic attitudes in 2011.

The 2013 Survey of American Attitudes Toward Jews in America, a national telephone survey of 1,200 adults, was conducted October 12-22 by Marttila Strategies of Washington, DC and Boston. The margin of error is +/- 2.8%.
 
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United Nations to Give War Crimes Archive to Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C.

FSWC Reports:

From the Associated Press via ynetnews.com:

US Ambassador Samantha Power announced Thursday that the United Nations has agreed to give the US Holocaust Museum a full copy of the archive documenting thousands of cases against accused World War II criminals in Europe and Asia.

She told the Anti-Defamation League's National Commission Centennial Meeting on Thursday that the archive of the United Nations War Crimes Commission will benefit scholars "at a time when Holocaust denial is embraced by many who prefer diversionary fantasies to inconvenient facts."
 
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eBay Apologizes After Holocaust Memorabilia Found on Site

FSWC Reports:

From Reuters:

EBay has removed from its listings around 30 items of memorabilia from the Nazi Holocaust, including clothes worn by concentration camp victims, after a newspaper investigation discovered they were on sale on the e-commerce website, Britain's Mail on Sunday said.

The newspaper said its reporters found a range of items on the site over the past week, including what was presented by the vendor as a complete Auschwitz uniform worn by a Polish baker who perished in the Nazi death camp.
 
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Nearly 1500 Masterpiece Paintings Looted by Nazis Found in German Apartment

FSWC Reports:

From AFP via ynetnews.com:

Nearly 1,500 paintings including works by Picasso and Matisse that were stolen by the Nazis have been discovered in a German flat, a newspaper reported Sunday, putting their total value at around a billion euros.

German weekly Focus said the paintings were found in an apartment belonging to the octogenarian son of an art collector who had bought them during the 1930s and 1940s. 
 
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