Jan. 20


NETHERLANDS:

Anne Frank's Amsterdam apartment to house persecuted writers


The Amsterdam apartment where Anne Frank lived before she and her family
went into hiding from the Nazis will become a residence for persecuted
writers.

A local housing association joined hands with the Anne Frank Museum to
make the little-known apartment into a guest residence. The Franks lived a
happy life there from 1933 to 1942 and it was there she began her famous
diary.

"It is fitting that Anne's former home should become a refuge for writers
who are threatened with persecution or censorship," said Maarten Asscher,
chairman of the Amsterdam City of Asylum Foundation in announcing the
project.

While living in the apartment Anne celebrated her 13th birthday and
received as a gift the diary in which she later described her life as a
young Jewish girl in hiding from the Nazi occupiers of The Netherlands.

Patricia Bosboom, a spokesman for the Anne Frank Museum, said the diary
and other sources describe the Frank family's life in the apartment as
"very happy."

(source: United Press International)





UNITED NATIONS:

U.N. to Hold Holocaust Commemoration


The U.N. commemoration of the liberation of Nazi concentration camps 60
years ago is a reminder that the evil that killed six million Jews still
threatens the world today and must never be repeated, Secretary-General
Kofi Annan said.

He said Monday's planned special session of the General Assembly should
also be seen as an expression of the United Nations' commitment to
ensuring that it can respond quickly to future genocide and other human
rights violations.

Annan and General Assembly President Jean Ping were joined at a news
conference by the ambassadors of the countries that sponsored the
resolution calling for the special
session -- Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, Russia, the United
States and Luxembourg representing the European Union.

``I want to stress that this is the first time the General Assembly is
holding a commemorative special session,'' Ping, the foreign minister of
Gabon who heads the
191-member world body, said on Wednesday. ``It is our duty to remember and
to say loudly never again.''

Annan stressed that the United Nations was founded in response to the Nazi
Holocaust in World War II, and that the U.N. Charter and the world
``untold sorrow'' were
written as the world was learning the full horror of the death camps.

The secretary-general has called on all countries to give the session
their full support and so far 138 have responded positively, including
Arab nations.

``It's an important date for all of us,'' said Algeria's U.N. Ambassador
Abdallah Baali, ``and as an Arab group we have no problem whatsoever with
the commemoration of this event.''

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman -- saying he represented not only
Israel and the Jewish people but the six million Jews and many others who
were slaughtered in
the Holocaust -- called the commemoration ``a momentous historic event.''

``Hopefully this universal initiative ... will do at least two things,''
he said. ``It will make sure that people remember and never forget, and it
will make sure that those horrible atrocities never, ever, happen again
anywhere in the world.''

Gillerman said Israel has often accused the General Assembly of being
anti-Israeli and operating with an ``immoral majority,'' but he said ``we
do feel there is a change.''

``We do feel what we have seen in this process, which will culminate in
the meeting on Monday, is the formation of a moral majority which proves
that when you do the right thing, you can unite and mobilize the member
states of the United Nations,'' he said. ``We feel that on Monday the
U.N. will ... also probably open a new page and a new chapter in closer
and even better relations between Israel and the United Nations.''

Annan backed Gillerman's hope that the election of a new Palestinian
leader will re-energize the Mideast peace process. ``I think what is going
to happen on Monday is a little step toward that direction,'' the
secretary-general said.

In a letter to Annan on Dec. 9, U.S. Ambassador John Danforth requested a
commemorative session on Jan. 24, three days before a similar event in the
former Auschwitz death camp in Poland to mark its liberation by Soviet
troops on Jan. 27, 1945.

Between 1 million and 1.5 million prisoners -- most of them Jews --
perished in gas chambers or died of starvation and disease at Auschwitz.
Overall, 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

U.S. deputy ambassador Anne Patterson said the United States will be
represented at the commemoration by a high-level delegation from
Washington.

(source: Associated Press)





NORTHERN IRELAND:

Tribute to gay war dead


Northern Ireland's leading gay rights group has been invited to speak at a
Holocaust memorial in Londonderry.

Sean Morrin, director of the Rainbow Project, today confirmed that he will
be speaking alongside others at the Holocaust Memorial Service.

The service, being held in Derry for the first time, will be staged at the
Waterside Museum at 3pm this Sunday.

Mr Morrin said the event will remember all people who suffered and died at
the hands of the Nazis.

He added: "It is a privilege and honour to be asked to speak at such an
event.

"This is also an opportunity to remember among the millions murdered, that
tens of thousands of gay men and women were experimented on and murdered
by the Nazis, but above all, it is a day to let the world know we can not
forget the Holocaust and all who died and suffered."

The Office of the First and Deputy First Minister and Derry City Council
said that a series of events will be held to mark the commemoration of
Holocaust Memorial Day.

The main commemoration event in Derry will revolve around the theme of
'Survivors, Liberation and Rebuilding Lives'.

The event will also be used to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the
liberation of Auschwitz and of the ending of World War II.

A spokesman for OFMDFM said: "The theme is reflected throughout the series
of events.

"These include a workshop and talk in the Belfast Synagogue, which focuses
on how Jewish refugees rebuilt their lives and established businesses in
Northern Ireland, after the Holocaust."

A number of free cinema screenings and workshops will also take place in
the Nerve Centre in Derry, to relate the experiences endured in the
Holocaust.

"The focus on survivors this year, provides us all with the opportunity to
learn and reflect on their experiences and also to remember the importance
and significance of this anniversary," the spokesman said.

The first Holocaust Memorial Day was held in 2001, on the anniversary of
the liberation of the former Nazi extermination camp at
Auschwitz-Birkenau, with the National Commemoration in London. Northern
Ireland has since held regional events in Belfast in 2002 and Armagh in
2003.

(source: Belfast Telegraph)





ENGLAND:

Brum to remember Holocaust victims


Birmingham will be remembering the millions of people who died in the Nazi
death camps at a special ceremony for next weeks national Holocaust
Memorial Day.

The theme of Birminghams event this year will be Survivors and Liberators
and will involve a sombre commemoration to those who suffered or died as a
result of the Holocaust.

The ceremony will be held at the International Convention Centre on
Sunday, January 30 and will include a one minute-silence, readings and the
lighting of candles.

The reading of the Statement of Commitment, which honours the survivors
and remembers the dead, will be led by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham, Coun
Mike Nangle.

City council leader Coun Mike Whitby (Con Har-borne) will invite three
guests, as yet unnamed, to light three symbolic candles.

There will be a short film and readings about Survivors and Liberators,
plus memorial prayers led by Rabbi Leonard Tann. January 27 marks 60 years
since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the former Nazi extermination
camp.

The ceremony will be held at the Symphony Hall Foyer from 1.30pm to 3pm on
Sunday January 30. Anyone is welcome to attend the event.

For more information about the events visit www.birmingham.gov.uk

(source: Birmingham.co.uk)


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



Swastika was symbol of good until Nazis defiled it


When Englands Prince Harry wore a German uniform with a Nazi swastika on
its sleeve to a costume party earlier this month, it unleashed a ferocious
outcry from those for whom the "twisted cross" is a symbol of racial
hatred that represents the deaths of millions of people in concentration
camps. Among the most outraged were those who lived through the horrors of
World War II.

The swastikas full history, though, is just opposite. It is a symbol of
blessing and peace; its roots go back thousands of years.

German dictator Adolf Hitler adapted the swastika, one of the worlds most
universal sacred symbols, and changed modern civilizations perception of
that symbol, perhaps forever.

The original swastika was revered as a good luck symbol in many cultures
and was also known in Europe, America, Japan, in American Indian culture
and in India. Many scholars believe it was a sun symbol; its existence can
be traced to Indias Indus River valley civilization of around 2600 B. C.

Swastikas can be seen on Navajo rugs, Cherokee art, the Hindu religious
art of India, and the Buddhist art of Japan and Tibet. "Hitler reversed
the symbol," says James Rush, chairman of philosophy and religion at
Philander Smith College in Little Rock. "He wanted to tap into the energy
of renewal and change. His goal was to literally change the complexion of
Germany, reverse it to a time when he believed Aryans were the people
chosen by the gods."

The word swastika is from Sanskrit, the classical Indian literary
language. "Swasti means anything auspicious; it evokes prosperity, health,
long life," says Jeffrey D. Long, assistant professor of religious studies
at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pa., "Ka is a suffix meaning
that which is characterized by whatever precedes it... it carries,
embodies those characteristics. Some Hindu prayers wish for all people to
have swasti. In Buddhism, the swastika is a symbol of liberation, of
nirvana, of going to a higher plane of consciousness."

Long says Hitler believed the ancestors of the ancient Indians (Aryans)
were European invaders. "He incorporated Hindu elements into the symbolism
of his movement, including, most prominently, the swastika. He believed
the occult powers of this symbol would lead his armies to victory.

" As many Hindus point out, however, the Nazi swastika is inverted, and so
carries the opposite of its normal meaning, representing death, disease,
poverty, etc. "

If the swastika appears to turn counterclockwise, it brings order and
stability. Clockwise, chaos.

" If you connect the lines of the original swastika, you get a circle and
plus sign in the center. As I understand it... the two together [were]
balance and harmony, "Rush says.

But the symbols peaceful and beneficent meaning has been tainted.

" I dont think the swastika can be freed from what the Nazis did unless we
have a kind of collective amnesia, "says Thomas Kaiser, professor of
history at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

" The horror was so great, widespread; the genocide that was associated
with it so deep, I dont think you can ever recover this symbol. Words
become victims of history; symbols, too. I dont think it can ever be
washed clean. "

Long agrees.

" I think its tainted irrevocably in the Western mind. For people who
become knowledgeable in Indian and Asian culture, maybe its possible to
redeem it. But when you see a black swastika at that angle, the first
thing that comes to mind is Nazism. "

In India, brightly-colored swastikas are closely associated with the
goddess Laxshmi, who is associated with prosperity and abundance.

" It is not uncommon for people to place swastikas on their doors to ward
off evil and bad luck and to welcome Laxshmi into their homes, "Long says.

But, as the reaction to Prince Harrys stunt has shown, the Western
perception of the swastika is symbolic of great evil.

" I think its ignorance of history and not thinking, "Rush says of the
princes action." But we should also remember hes been in Africa, working
with people with AIDS. "

Kaiser says youthful rebellion is often attracted to symbols, and the more
shocking the symbol the more attractive it is in a certain way.

" I doubt that it was a political statement, but that doesnt excuse what
he did or make it less painful, "Kaiser says." A lot of people in England
still remember the Blitz. They lost a lot of people in World War II. What
he did was not an innocent thing. "

The challenge, Kaiser says, is to impress upon people the need to study
history.

" As time goes on, there are fewer people living who remember, "he says."
Every day, theres more history to study. I think its a matter of having to
learn about times in which you did not live. And were not doing a good
enough job, collectively, at sensitizing people to that. "

Kaiser, who teaches a course on the Holocaust at UALR, says" we need
continual reminders" about the Holocaust.

Prince Harry, who has apologized for his actions, and his brother, Prince
William, may be getting just such a reminder.

They may soon be visiting one of the most notorious of the Nazi death
camps Auschwitz.

But, at this moment at least, not during the 60 th anniversary of the
liberation of the camp.

On that Jan. 27 commemoration, Queen Elizabeth, the princes grandmother,
will host a reception at St. James Palace for Holocaust survivors and
British World War II veterans.

(source: Arkansas Democrat Gazette)