Nov. 2



ISRAEL:

Restitution negotiator tells Leumi: Pay back the money


Israeli banks should return money belonging to Holocaust victims or their
heirs immediately, Dr. Israel Singer, chief negotiator of the World Jewish
Restitution Organization said on Monday. Dr. Singer successfully dealt
with the problem with the Swiss banks.

"The Israeli banks incidentally got hold of the money, and they should
give it back. There is no excuse for holding back the money," Singer said
Monday. "People are old and dying. We estimate that they are dying at the
rate of two per day. My opinion is that it should be done now; it should
have been done last week, it should have been done last year, and 55 years
later is too late," Singer said.

Singer is on a visit to Israel before publication of a special report on
the Israeli banks and Holocaust funds carried out by the Knesset committee
for locating Holocaust victims' assets in Israel, headed by Labor MK
Colette Avital.

The committee has held back its report for more than a year because of the
ongoing campaign against it by the five big banks in Israel. The battle is
being led by Bank Leumi, which has vehemently rejected demands that the
money be returned to victims traced by the committee.

According to unconfirmed media reports, the five banks combined hold some
5,000 such accounts
with total assets of some NIS 1 billion in real terms. At least half of
the sum was deposited in Bank Leumi.

Singer led the struggle against the Swiss banks with a media campaign in
1996-7, publishing historical documents that angered the Swiss government
and banks but eventually led them to grant restitution to the victims.
Asked what made the Swiss banks pay, Singer says: "Pressure and the
justice of our cause."

He does not want to use the same tactics with the Israeli banks, for two
reasons. The Swiss banks were thieves, he said, but the Israeli banks got
hold of the money incidentally. But if Bank Leumi has an account that
belongs to a Jewish person and that person has a nephew or son, I say
'give it back to him,' because that is the way you should deal with people
in general."

The second reason, he says, is that Israeli politicians, notably Justice
Minister Yosef Lapid (himself a Holocaust victim) and Avital, have taken
upon themselves the task of having the money returned, and sit on the
committee. "The Holocaust victims in Israel have the right to vote," he
notes. But, he adds, the handling of the subject by the politicians is
"not as good as it should be ... after three years, they should have
published a report and the money should have been returned."

The Israeli banks are well aware of the precedent set by the Swiss banks.
In meetings with the committee and the Knesset speaker, Bank Leumi chair
Eitan Raff, and the bank's legal representative, Ram Caspi, "warned" that
if the report implies the banks benefited from the Holocaust victims'
money, this will be used against Israel by the international media. "The
Wall Street Journal will say the Israeli banks also hide money, not just
the Swiss," Caspi said.

Singer retorted: "This is no consideration at all. If you have something
that belongs to somebody else, you must return it."

(source: Haaretz)




ROMANIA:

Holocaust Deniers Speak on Romanian State TV

Two weeks after the first commemoration of the Holocaust Day in Romania,
Prof. Ion Coja of Bucharest University denied Romanian participation in
the Holocaust, according to the Center for Monitoring and Combating
Anti-Semitism in Romania.

In a talk show on national TV on October 25, Coja, who also heads the
Foundation for Combating the anti-Romanian movement, was given a full hour
to present his thesis: The Holocaust of the Romanian Jewry is something
that never happened. He also accused Romania's Jews of undermining the
state by serving the Soviet secret service and communist interests during
World War II.

He condemned as "scoundrels" those who have acknowledged the Romanian role
in the Holocaust. On October 12, President Ion Iliescu told parliament
that Romania must take the blame for the Holocaust that took place on its
territory.

(source: IsraelNationalNews)





UNITED KINGDOM/GERMANY:

Queen's visit stirs Anglo-German past


The queen, hoping to further reconciliation between Britain and Germany,
has urged the two former World War Two foes to learn from history but not
be obsessed by the past and to reject national stereotypes.

The queen's fourth state visit to the country aims to focus on Britain's
current ties with Germany, but has been dogged by memories and talk of
World War Two.

Addressing dignitaries including German President Horst Koehler, the
78-year-old queen referred briefly to the wartime pain of German and
British people, but emphasised the success of their modern-day
partnerships in NATO and the European Union.

"In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise
how precious is the peace we have built in Europe since 1945," she told a
state banquet on Tuesday.

"We owe it to those who built the partnership to continue the process into
the 21st century: to learn from history and not be obsessed by it, to look
beyond simplistic stereotypes to realise how often we share the same
outlook."

Suggestions the queen should use the visit to apologise for the
devastating British bombing of Dresden, in which at least 35,000 people
were killed just three months before the war's end, sparked a war of words
among populist newspapers.

The queen will host a benefit concert for Dresden's restored Frauenkirche
Cathedral on Wednesday night.

MEDIA POUNCE ON VENUE CHOICE

The media pounced on the venue for Tuesday's state banquet with some
questioning the wisdom of using a Berlin palace once used by Adolf Hitler
and his Nazi generals.

"Whose idea was this?" asked Germany's top-selling Bild daily after
learning the dinner would be held in the Zeughaus, a 17th century palace
where Hitler honoured Nazi war heroes.

German-British relations came under strain when London supported the 2003
U.S.-led war in Iraq. Germany has long complained that its Nazi past still
blights British perceptions of the country.

German papers have delivered head-shaking analyses of why Britain remains
so obsessed by images of Nazis and the war and so uninterested in the
realities of modern Germany which is planning lavish coverage of the
queen's visit.

Koehler told the queen that Germans respected and valued her because she
had personally worked for reconciliation between their two countries.

(source: Reuters)




USA/FLORIDA:

Furor over Fuhrer costume at school Halloween


A Miami Beach schoolboy caused a stir when he showed up for his school's
Halloween parade dressed up as Adolf Hitler, The Miami Herald reported
Saturday.

"Wildly inappropriate," said lawyer David Edelstein, who reportedly
alerted the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) after seeing the youngster
wearing a uniform, swastika patches, a moustache and a name tag that said
"A. Hitler."

The ADL's southern area director, Art Teitelbaum, told the daily it was
"grossly insensitive on the part of any adult who was involved in
selecting this costume for an innocent child. Nothing justifies the
trivialisation of the memories of the Holocaust and the evil of Adolf
Hitler".

The school said the fourth grader was eventually removed from the parade
"for safety reasons".

(source: Agence France Presse)



(in Australia)-- THE CZECH REBPULIC:

Singing in front of the machine-guns


The opera Brundibar is unlikely to have ever saved anyone's life. But
there is no doubt that it revived the spirits of those who took part in
the 55 performances of the work in the Terezin concentration camp during
World War II.

A Holocaust survivor, Ela Stein Weissburger, who now lives in New York,
says that performing in the children's opera allowed people to forget
hunger and the stark conditions in which they were living.

Of the 15,000 children who passed through wartime Terezin, about 60
kilometres from Prague, only about 100 survived.

Now Opera Australia's educational and touring arm, OzOpera, is staging
Brundibar in association with the Jewish Museum and 40 Melbourne school
children.

The director, Kate Cherry, says the work shows the power of art. "Its
history shows how fundamental the arts are in offering comfort and solace
at the bleakest of times," she says.

The production, which is designed by Victorian College of the Arts
students, is set in the Terezin camp (known as Thereseinstadt in German)
where the wartime performances took place.

"But it's as if everything has been designed by the children performers,"
Cherry says. "The tatty old clothes have all been painted in brilliant
colours."

The tale of good versus evil, written in Czech, tells the story of two
children on a mission to buy milk for their sick mother. As they sing to
raise money for the milk, their earnings are stolen by the evil old
organ-grinder, Brundibar, who was displeased by the competition. With the
help of a sparrow, a cat, and a dog - also played by children - the
brother and sister are able to outwit Brundibar and finally bring milk
home to their mother.

The composer, Hans Krasa, who was sent to Terezin in 1942, re-orchestrated
the work from a piano score for children to perform in the camp. He was
there for two years and sent to the gas chambers of Auschwitz in October
1944.

Terezin became a camp in 1941 when the Nazis realised its design as a
fortress made it easily isolated. About 7000 soldiers and civilians were
evacuated to make way for up to 60,000 Jews. Of the estimated 140,000
people sent there, more than 33,500 died and another 88,000 were sent to
the death camps.

It was administered by the SS and guarded by Czech gendarmes. But internal
administration was the responsibility of the Jewish inmates under the
council of elders. They organised cultural activities and a covert
schooling system for the children.

Brundibar is a new phase in Cherry's career: she is leaving the Melbourne
Theatre Company after five years as associate director. Although she is
directing the MTC play Boy Gets Girl next year, she is delving into
television with a directing secondment on Blue Heelers. She will also work
at drama schools in Brisbane and Perth and potentially in the US and
Canada.

OzOpera's director and conductor of the Brundibar performances, Richard
Gill, says the production is part of OzOpera's expanded activities in
Melbourne, which closely follows its Melbourne Festival premiere of
Midnite . He points out that the new touring production of Carmen next
year has nine Victorian singers in the cast of 12, while the musicians
come from Orchestra Victoria. Although OzOpera already has connections
with the VCA and Melbourne University, he says this will soon expand to
include Monash University and the Malthouse Theatre.

(source: The Age)




POLAND:

Poland's Role In the Death Camps


While the ambassador of Poland is correct that German Nazis built the
concentration camps in Poland, his Sept. 22 letter, "Germany's Camp, Not
Poland's," nevertheless reflects a historical inaccuracy in suggesting
that Poland bore no responsibility for what transpired on Polish
territory.

A large percentage of people who worked in the death camps and assisted
the Germans in their murderous plans were Poles -- without whose
assistance the Germans would never have been able to kill as many people
as they did in such a short time.

There are many things Poles can do to build a better country where the sad
events of the past won't be repeated. Rewriting history is not one of
them.

ANDREW M. CAPLAN -- Arlington

(source: Letter to the Editor, Washington Post, Sept. 29)

***********************


Sinn Fein Chiefs to Visit Wartime Death Camp


Sinn Fein leaders Martin McGuinness and Gerry Kelly are to remember
victims of the Holocaust during a visit to Auschwitz, it was confirmed
today.

The Mid Ulster MP confirmed that he and Mr Kelly were travelling to Poland
tomorrow following an invitation from Northern Irelands Jewish community
to politicians from the province.

Mr McGuinness said: "Last year some local members of the Jewish community
who had been involved in the organisation of the Holocaust Memorial Day
invited a number of local politicians to participate in a trip to the site
of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

"Both Gerry Kelly and myself have accepted the invitation and will travel
to Auschwitz tomorrow morning for a day-long series of events in
Auschwitz, Birkenau and Krakow."

Six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis during Adolf Hitlers reign of
terror in Germany and Europe in the Second World War.

The Nazis sent Jews to concentration camps as part of what they called
"the final solution."

Millions of Slavs were also butchered and around 200,000 Gypsies were
murdered.

Thousands of other people were also sterilised, including Germans of
African descent.

Auschwitz was originally a camp for Polish prisoners but was expanded in
1941 with the addition of Birkenau as the Nazis carried out their
programme of genocide.

The concentration camp held Jews, Polish PoWs, Russians, Slavs and other
prisoners.

Many died of starvation but it was the addition of gas chambers at
Birkenau in 1942 which led to the mass transportation of Jews from other
parts of Europe.

Crematoriums were also built, handling as many as 2,000 Jewish people each
day.

It is estimated that around 900,000 Jews, who were unregistered as
prisoners, were gassed at Birkenau.

The total death toll in the Auschwitz complex was estimated at 1.1
million, with one million of the victims Jewish.

(source: The Scotsman)