April 15


re: POLAND------book review

The theft of Jewish property as an instrument of genocide

On the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, some excerpts from
Itamar Levin's new book, "Walls Around - The Theft of Jewish Property in
the Warsaw Ghetto".

Itamar Levin 15 Apr 03 16:37

"Theres nothing new in the fact that entire families are dying. As early
as a year or a year and a half ago, 2 and 3 room apartments began emptying
out, as all the tenants had died. Thats something any house manager in the
Ghetto can tell you. And yet sometimes, we are shocked by the decimation
of certain families, even though we have become inured to pain, our hearts
hardened by human tears and blood. What I want to do here is tell the
story of how two families were destroyed.
Abraham Levin wrote these words in his diary on May 31, 1942. Levin, born
in 1893 in Warsaw, was a fervent Zionist from an early age and had visited
the Land of Israel twice. He taught at the "Yehudiya" Jewish gymnasium in
Polands capital city, home to the largest Jewish community in Europe. When
World War II broke out and Warsaw was conquered by the Germans, Levin
began writing a diary in flawless Hebrew. Later on, he was a member of an
underground archival team code-named Oneg Shabbat ("Sabbath gathering")
which documented the Warsaw Ghettos history.

The story of the Warsaw Ghetto was widely recorded in diaries,
testimonies, research, literature and poetry. Survivors, historians,
authors and jurists all have contributed their share. It seems as if every
aspect of Ghetto life, and the lives of its residents, has already been
described. How then, does this book hope to enlighten the reader?

On the level of historiography, this book will describe the mass theft of
property from Warsaws Jews, and the fate of that property in the present
day. On a broader level, in terms of Holocaust research this book will
present a new thesis: that the theft of Jewish property was not only a
by-product of genocide, nor just one of its motivations, but was a key
instrument in carrying out that genocide.

Since the mid-1990s, the question of the fate of property belonging to
Holocaust victims has a prominent place on the Jewish and international
agenda. Widespread interest in this matter began after the Swiss bank
deposits affair was revealed by, among others, the author of these lines
and published by Israeli financial daily paper Globes. With unbelievable
speed, the Swiss bank affair gave rise to investigations as to the fate of
Jewish property in a long list of European countries. Dozens of
investigative committees were set up on both sides of the Atlantic,
politicians involved, laws passed, claims filed, documents revealed; the
press was outraged, as was world public opinion. The result was a series
of agreements between the worlds major Jewish organizations, chiefly the
World Jewish Congress, and the governments and financial institutions who
returned billions of dollars to Holocaust survivors, their heirs, and the
Jewish people.

This wave also gave rise to deeper investigations into the material
aspects of the Holocaust. Naturally, this does not detract in any way from
the primary aspect of the Holocaust: the barbaric genocide of six million
individuals whose only crime was that they were born Jewish. But
researching property theft complements the pattern of Anti-Semitism,
racism, capture, torture and destruction that together created the entire
incomprehensible scene that was the Holocaust. Sometimes, the only thing
that remains of a person who was shot, hanged or strangled, is nothing
more than a single shoe, a ratty suitcase or a faded prayer-shawl. The
victims bodies were burned and their ashes dumped into the rivers, spread
on fields as fertilizer or buried in pits; their belongings were left
behind as silent witnesses as their murderers assumed they could be put to
good use.

There is manifold importance in investigating this crime of theft. First
of all, as mentioned above, it is part of the pattern of genocide and, as
such, should be investigated fully. Secondly, it is sometimes easier to
grasp the extent of the Holocaust through things as mundane as bank
accounts, insurance policies or the art collection of a single family. The
six million figure is incomprehensible, because no one of us ever has, or
ever will, see six million people all in one place at one time. It is far
easier to understand the story of a girl whose doll is taken, a boy
stripped of his coat, their mother having her head shaven, and their
father losing his business to expropriators. Researching the fate of
stolen property belies its reputation by actually transforming the
Holocaust from statistics into individual, identifiable acts of murder.

Thirdly, investigating the crime of theft has immense practical
importance. The return and compensation of stolen property, as seen over
the past few years, teaches us the value of documenting lost property so
as to ensure compensation if not to the victims, then to their heirs, or
the Jewish people in cases where no heirs remain. Demanding the return of
property is a moral as well as a material act. The moral aspect is
effective in the face of those nations of the world that stood silent, or
worse yet, cooperated with the murderers. The material aspect is anchored
in evidence that forces governments, museums, banks, insurance companies,
and other keepers of stolen property to return it to its rightful owners.

The other purpose of this book, as mentioned above, is presenting the
thesis that theft was an instrument in the mass murder of European Jewry.
At its height, Warsaw Ghetto community numbered 450,000, of which 100,000
died between the German invasion of September 1939, and the mass
deportation to Treblinka which began in July 1942. Only a few of the
100,000 were murdered outright by Germans shot from turrets on the Ghetto
walls, at the infamous Pawiak prison, or in the street. The overwhelming
majority died of exposure to the cold, infectious disease and starvation.

There is a famous Jewish story about the rabbi of a small town who, upon
hearing that a certain man starved to death, said: How could that be?
After all, he was rich! His sexton replied: "He lost all his property".
The rabbi continued astonished: "How could a Jew die of starvation?! This
is unheard of! We have, thank God, charitable institutions, donors, and I
myself collect alms for the poor". The sexton replied: He was ashamed to
tell anyone or ask for charity. The rabbi answered: In that case, he didnt
die of starvation, it was pride that killed him.

More to the point of this book is the rabbis astonished cry, "How could a
Jew die of starvation?!" Even the poorest Jewish communities in Europe
provided the indigent with a roof, food and clothes. For thousands of
years, Jews performed the mitzva, or good deed, of charity. Starvation
simply didnt happen.

Yet 100,000 Jews died of starvation, cold and infectious disease, not in
an out-of-the-way village but in Europes biggest Jewish community. And it
was not the Middle Ages, but the mid-20th century; it was not the result
of a one-time calamity, but a daily, weekly and monthly occurrence for
almost three years. How could it be?

The answer is simple: the Jews of Warsaw lost their property due to an
organized campaign of theft planned by the Nazis. A person without money
cannot buy food, clothes or medicine. And when an entire community
comprises people without money, they cannot help one another. They are all
poor.

The campaign of theft left no one untouched: rich men and beggars, rabbis
and intellectuals, tailors and cobblers. The campaign of theft was
all-encompassing: from bank accounts to pocket change, fur coats to thin
blankets, pianos to footstools, from a chunk of meat out of a cooking-pot
to a lollipop out of a childs fist. Thieves came from every side: S.S.
officers and Wermacht soldiers, Polish policemen and Ordnungsdienst (the
Warsaw Ghetto Jewish Police Force), Christian collaborators and even
Jewish informers from inside the Ghetto itself.

The research in this book is unique in its emphasis on the material
aspects of Warsaws Jewish genocide, and the consolidation of related
sources on this subject. Through this, the author hopes to realize two
stated goals: document the crime of theft in Warsaw; and explain how the
Germans murdered 100,000 Jews without firing a single bullet, but simply
by depriving them of the sources of income needed to survive. In doing so,
they transformed theft into an instrument of destruction.

(source: Globes Online)






ITALY:

Champion cyclist helped Jews flee Nazis


An Italian cycling champion helped to save "at least 800 Jews" from the
Nazis, by pedalling around Italy delivering secret papers to nuns,
priests, bishops and friars who formed part of a wartime escape network,
new research shows.

When the Tuscan cyclist Gino Bartali died in May 2000, aged 86, he had
already been a national legend for decades. During a spectacular career,
he won 186 of the 836 races he contended, including the Tour de France
twice, in 1938 and 1948, and the Giro d'Italia on three occasions, in
1936, 1937 and 1946.

But yesterday the champion from Florence was being hailed in Italy's press
as Tuscany's "cycling Oskar Schindler". Commentators in Israel said
Bartali was an unknown who deserved Israel's thanks. "We are indebted to
you, Bartali. You are one of the true 'Just among Nations'."

According to research by Tuscany's regional government, in 1943-44 Bartali
worked as a messenger for a secret network run by Giorgio Nissim, a Jewish
accountant from Pisa, credited with saving 800 Jews from Nazi persecution.
Bartali delivered documents that helped create false identity papers.

(source: Telegraph)







(in) ENGLAND:

Painting looted by Nazis up for auction in London


A masterpiece of 20th century art that was looted from its Jewish owners
by the Nazis is expected to fetch up $12.5 million at an auction in June.

Sotheby's auction house said Friday that the landscape by Austrian artist
Egon Schiele is being sold by the heirs of its original owners. It was
returned to them recently after spending half a century hanging in the
Neue Galerie in Linz, Austria.

Painted in 1916, "Krumauer Landschaft (Stadt und Fluss)" or "View of
Krumau," is a vibrant depiction of the small town on the banks of the
Moldau River that was the home of Schiele's mother.

It is considered a rarity because its cheerful nature is at odds with the
gloomy landscapes or skeletal human figures usually produced by Schiele.

The painting was seized by the Gestapo from the Viennese home of Wilhelm
and Daisy Hellmann when the couple fled in 1938. In 1942, it was sold by a
Viennese auction house to a collector from Berlin, Wolfgang Gurlitt. He
sold his collection to the city of Linz in 1953.

The museum, which purchased the painting without knowing it had been
seized by the Nazis, was not legally bound to give the painting to the
Hellmann's heirs. But Linz city officials who announced its restitution in
December said it was important to do so.

Erika Jakubovits, executive director of the Presidency of the Jewish
Community in Vienna, said on Friday: "Sixty years on, it is important to
recognize the enduring rights of victims and their heirs."

Austria was annexed to Adolf Hitler's Germany in 1938. During the Third
Reich, the Nazis confiscated and destroyed nearly all synagogues and other
Jewish community property in Austria.

Prices for the work of Schiele, who died during a flu epidemic in 1918 at
age 28, have been steadily growing over the past decade.

One of his landscapes fetched more than $9 million at a sale in New York
10 years ago and Sotheby's London sold an early portrait for about $10.8
million two years ago.

Sotheby's said the Krumau painting is expected to fetch between $9-12.5
million at auction in London on June 23.

(source: Associated Press)








USA/AUSTRIA:

L.A. judge boots Holocaust claims against Austria


A federal judge in Los Angeles has dismissed a lawsuit brought against
the Austrian government by Holocaust survivors, but their attorney said
on Tuesday he will appeal the case to try to recover $10 billion in assets
that was seized and auctioned off during World War Two.

U.S. District Judge Florence Marie Cooper ruled on Monday that the
proposed class action involving 250 named plaintiffs could not proceed
because it posed a separation of powers dilemma. The case challenged an
agreement reached over Holocaust reparations by then-President Bill
Clinton and the Austrian government in 2000 and 2001.

Cooper, the first U.S. judge to rule in 1999 that Holocaust victims could
sue foreign governments, determined that she had jurisdiction over the
parties to the lawsuit but couldn't preempt the foreign policy authority
of the executive branch.

The judge instead granted a dismissal motion by attorneys for Austria, who
argued that the courts cannot intervene in the U.S. government's foreign
policy decisions, namely, the powers to declare war, end war and resolve
claims arising from war.

"Courts are reluctant to pass judgment on the decisions of the political
branches," attorney Konrad Cailteux, who represented the Austrian
government, told Reuters.

Cailteux also argued that the Holocaust settlement provided for special
proceedings for victims and their heirs who felt they were not properly
compensated.

Attorney Herbert Fenster of Denver, Colorado, who represented the
Holocaust victims and their heirs, said he plans to appeal the ruling to
the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld Cooper's 1999
Holocaust case ruling.

"The defendants say that you can't litigate these Holocaust cases before
the courts because the President has resolved the them by negotiating with
the Austrian government," Fenster said. "We are challenging that
settlement as being illegal and inadequate. We claim the president did not
have the right to settle those claims out from under us."

Fenster said that under a 1955 treaty reestablishing Austria's autonomy
after 10 years of Allied occupation, the Federal Republic of Austria
agreed to make reparations to Holocaust victims, but Austria failed to
follow through.

The lawsuit also names several insurers as defendants, as well as The
Dorotheum, an auction house formerly owned by the Austrian government that
liquidated the property of many of the country's 200,000 Jews.

"They took property stolen from Jews and sold it all over the world,"
Fenster said.