April 15



USA:

Midwest's Oldest and Largest Holocaust Memorial Service to Be Held in
Skokie on Sunday, April 17

FROM: Sheerit Hapleitah of Metropolitan Chicago, P.O. Box 59006,
Chicago, IL 60659

WHAT: 60th Annual Collective Holocaust Memorial Observance

WHEN: 1:30 p.m., Sunday, April 17, 2005

WHERE: Skokie Valley Agudath Jacob Synagogue, 8825 East Prairie Avenue,
Skokie, IL. Note: East Prairie Avenue is a north/south street
between Crawford and McCormick. The synagogue is located one-half
block north of Dempster.


This is the oldest and largest Holocaust memorial service in the Midwest
and one of the largest in the United States. It is sponsored by Sheerit
Hapleitah of Metropolitan Chicago, the umbrella organization of the area's
Holocaust survivor groups.

Speakers at the 2005 service will include Moshe Ram, Israeli Consul
General, Mayor George Van Dusen of Skokie, Rabbi Jack Engel, spiritual
leader of the synagogue, Charles Lipshitz and Larry Schwartz. Officials of
the Jewish War Veterans, Skokie Post 328, will also participate. As part
of the ceremony, a grandchild of survivors will pay tribute to the
enormous contribution of the Holocaust Survivors to the Chicago community
in passing their legacy of courage to future generations.

A high point of the service is the candle lighting ceremony honoring the
six million victims, including 1.2 million innocent children, who perished
in the Holocaust. The ceremony will be conducted by Sherry Rubinstein
Warso of Dor Ledor, the Young Leadership Division of Sheerit Hapleitah,
and past vice president Barbara Pryor, with the participation by children
and grandchildren of local-area Holocaust survivors. Proclamations by
Governor Rod Blagojevich and Mayor Richard M. Daley of Chicago will be
read by committee members.

(source: Sheerit Hapleitah of Metropolitan Chicago)


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



Jews, Mormons tackle 'proxy baptism'


Jewish and Mormon leaders avoided a potential crisis in relations after a
meeting this week over the practice of proxy baptisms for deceased Jews.
Although the meeting produced little in the way of practical results,
participants from both sides told The Jerusalem Post that the meeting was
deeply emotional and ultimately fruitful, with both sides coming away with
a deeper understanding of the other.

Representatives of Holocaust survivor groups and Jewish genealogical
societies have been at odds with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints (LDS), the official name of the Mormon church, ever since the
discovery over a decade ago of hundreds of thousands of Holocaust victims'
names in the church's baptism database.

In the proxy baptisms, church members stand in for the deceased
non-Mormons, a ritual the church says is required for the dead to reach
heaven. Even beyond the grave, the church believes, individuals have the
ability to choose their religion.

The Mormons call the ritual "a gift of love." But not everyone sees it
that way.

Rabbi Ernest Michel, an Auschwitz survivor and the chairman of the World
Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, has been the most outspoken
critic of the practice and a leading member of delegations to the church.

In 1995, Michel and other Jewish leaders signed an agreement with the
Mormon leadership which called for an immediate halt to unwanted proxy
baptisms. After evidence was found in the church's massive International
Genealogical Index that the baptisms for many Jews including Anne Frank,
David Ben-Gurion and Albert Einstein continued, the agreement was
reaffirmed in 2002.

However, recent evidence that thousands of Holocaust victims were still in
the baptism lists reignited the controversy, bringing Michel and others to
the church's headquarters in Salt Lake City for another meeting this week.

As a result of that meeting, the church has reaffirmed its commitment to
the 1995 agreement, and vowed to enforce church president Gordon B.
Hinckley's directive to members to limit their submissions for proxy
baptisms to people in their own family lines. Also, the sides agreed to
establish a joint oversight committee to be convened in roughly 60-90 days
to explore reasons why the names keep popping up on the IGI list.

Gary Mokotoff, the past president of the International Association of
Jewish Genealogical Societies who will head the Jewish side of the joint
commission, said that individual church members had managed to circumvent
the current monitoring process by misspelling names.

"There's guaranteed to be a trickle going through the screen," he said,
"but it's been very embarrassing for the Mormons."

Mike Otterson, director of media relations for the church, told the Post
that the church was working on creating a mechanism to prevent
"overzealous members" from violating the agreement.

Elder D. Todd Christofferson a member of the church's Presidency of the
Seventy added that the church could not practice any sort of "unbaptism
rite" to undo unwanted proxy baptisms, but he said that the church would
"remove from public view any reminder that that was ever done in the
past."

Throughout the past decade, Mormons have been wary of Jewish criticism
because of their history of persecution at the hands of other Christian
groups and American officials over their religious beliefs. Likewise, the
Jewish groups that have complained about the posthumous baptisms have been
extremely sensitive about the memory of their forefathers and their own
history of religious persecution.

"Everyone walked into the meeting with such anxiety, with a feeling of
being victimized by the other," said David Elcott, US director of
interreligious affairs for the American Jewish Committee, who served as a
mediator for the meeting. "The Jews felt that the 1995 agreement was being
ignored, and the Mormon church felt that it was being attacked and
impugned for its beliefs."

The Mormons were also deeply concerned, Elcott said, "about the way the
Jewish community politicizes issues, using political power to try to get
our way."

Mormons are generally very supportive of Jews and Israel, a fact that
Jewish leaders have recognized in their dealings with the church.

Mokotoff said he had gone to Salt Lake City to convey how important the
issue was to Jews, and to make the point that "we won't allow it to simply
go away." But he was impressed, he said, at the sincerity shown by the
high-level Mormon delegates.

"Most Christians dismiss Mormons as heretics," said Elcott. "So what I
tried to explain to them was that we had come there because we take them
seriously. And because of that, this issue means something for us."

After the church leaders heard that, Elcott said, "then they took us
seriously."

"Part of our meeting was to define understanding," said Christofferson,
"not just to define consensus, but to understand.

"The fact that we're both minorities and that we both have experienced
persecution... makes us more open to each other," added Otterson. "There's
work to do yet, and we'll be continuing our talks. But I feel [our
relationship] is on a sound footing."

"The whole reason we're in this," concluded Christofferson, "is because of
the sensitivity we have for Jews."

(source: Jerusalem Post)


CANADA:

Canadian's family wins Holocaust restitution----Swiss bank betrayed
forestry executive's grandparents


The family of Peter Bentley, a leading Canadian forestry executive, will
share in one of the largest Holocaust-era restitution claims after a
federal judge in New York awarded his family US$21.8-million this week.

Several members of the immediate and extended family of Mr. Bentley,
president and chief executive of Canfor Corporation in Vancouver, are
named as beneficiaries of a settlement that seeks to compensate them for
the theft of the family's sugar refinery, which was "aryanized" by the
Nazis in collusion with an unnamed Swiss bank after the Nazi annexation of
Austria in 1938.

The award, which names Maria V. Altmann, Mr. Bentley's Los Angeles-based
aunt, as the main petitioner, is the largest in a claims process that is
distributing US$1.25-billion set aside by Swiss banks seven years ago to
settle a large class action by the heirs of Holocaust-era depositors who
never received their assets after the war.

"I can say that the family is happy with the decision, but they want to
safeguard their privacy," said Randol Schoenberg, the Los Angeles lawyer
who acted for Mrs. Altmann and Mr. Bentley.

Mr. Bentley's grandparents, who were from two prominent Viennese Jewish
families -- the Bloch-Bauers and the Picks -- jointly owned the sugar
company, Osterreichische Zuckerindustrie. Days before the Nazis moved to
annex Austria, the families set up a trust at a Swiss bank to protect
their ownership.

But a few months later the bank, seeking to curry favour with the Nazis,
violated the agreement and allowed the factory to be sold to a Nazi
sympathizer for a fraction of its value.

"Sadly, the bank did not live up to the expectations of the shareholders
or to its legal and fiduciary commitments," wrote Edward R. Korman, a
federal judge in Brooklyn who on Wednesday approved the award to the
surviving members of the Bloch-Bauer and Pick families, most of whom now
live in Canada and the United States. In his report, Judge Korman called
it the largest single award under the compensation fund.

Judge Korman also called the unnamed bank's treatment of the family "a
striking example of the widespread betrayal of Jewish clients by Swiss
banks."

The initial claim was made by Ms. Altmann, 89, who is also seeking the
return of some of her family's art, which was looted by the Nazis, in a
separate legal challenge against the government of Austria.

Mr. Bentley, who has five children who are named in the settlement, is the
only son of Leopold Bloch-Bauer and Antoinette Ruth Pick. The family left
Vienna in 1938 and settled in British Columbia when Peter was eight years
old.

His father, who later changed his name to Leopold Bentley, founded a
lumber company that later became known as Canfor Corp., with his
brother-in-law, John Prentice (ne Pick). Today, the company is one of the
world's largest lumber firms.

Mr. Bentley's father fled Austria after he was arrested by the Gestapo and
forced to give up his stock in the company.

According to Judge Korman's decision, Swiss bank officials wrote letters
to family members (many of whom had already fled Austria) outlining an
offer for the company made by a Nazi sympathizer in 1938.

"If we have not received information to the contrary by 15 January 1939,
we shall assume your approval [of the sale]," the bank said.

(source: National Post)




GERMANY:

Holocaust Survivors Remember Belsen Liberation


Holocaust survivors were joined by the Chief Rabbi and the Chief of the
General Staff today at an event to mark the 60th anniversary of the
liberation of the Bergen-Belsen Nazi death camp.

Dr Jonathan Sacks and General Sir Mike Jackson were among those at the
Hyde Park Holocaust Memorial in central London for the event, organised by
the Holocaust Educational Trust.


During the commemoration, Lord Janner, chairman of the trust, will give a
welcome and camp survivor Rudi Oppenheimer, who was taken there when he
was 12, will also speak.

Sir Mike is to give an address, as will Dr Sacks, who will also recite a
memorial prayer for survivors, El Malei Rachamim.

Jewish ex-servicemen are also to carry the National Standard flag to
represent Anglo-Jewry.

As many as 70,000 people, including diarist Anne Frank, died at the camp,
which was liberated by the British in 1945.

On Sunday, an official UK delegation will attend a commemoration at the
camp near Hanover.

(source: The Scotsman)


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

Germany Removes Ambassador in Nazi Diplomat Row


Germany's ambassador to Switzerland, who publicly criticized Foreign
Minister Joschka Fischer for his handling of a row over ex-Nazi diplomats,
has been removed from office, the foreign ministry said on Thursday.

German President Horst Koehler agreed ambassador Frank Elbe should retire
with immediate effect, a foreign ministry spokesman said. He declined to
give a reason for the decision.

Fischer introduced a ban on obituaries in a foreign ministry magazine to
avoid any recognition being given to diplomats who were pre-war members of
the Nazi party, but its sweeping nature angered many acting and former
diplomats.

Bild newspaper last month published a letter Elbe wrote criticising the
way the affair was being handled, arguing it risked creating the
impression that diplomats who opposed the ban were Nazi sympathisers.

The dispute over obituaries was originally sparked by a 2003 tribute to
Franz Nuesslein, a diplomat convicted of war crimes in Czechoslovakia
during World War II, who later served in the post-war German
administration.

Elbe, 63, had been Germany's ambassador to Switzerland since July 1, 2003.
He had also served as ambassador to Poland, Japan and India.

Between 1987 and 1992, during negotiations on the EU's Maastricht treaty
and the fall of the Berlin Wall, he was chief of staff to then-foreign
minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher.

(source: Reuters)