August 4



SLOVAKIA:

Slovakia unveils first memorial to Romanies murdered during WW2


The first ever memorial to the Slovak Romanies who were murdered during
World War Two was unveiled in the Museum of the Slovak National Uprising
in Banska Bystrica today. The memorial plaque was unveiled exactly 61
years after the Nazis murdered 2878 European Romanies in Auschwitz
(Oswiecim). "It is not yet known how many Slovak Romanies died in
Auschwitz then and during the whole war in various concentration camps or
in mass executions," ethnologist Zuzana Kumanova said at the ceremony
today.

The biggest known number of Romanies, 111, died in Nazi purges in Ilja
near Banska Stiavnica, central Slovakia. Most anti-Romany repressions took
place at the end of 1944 and in early 1945, after the Slovak National
Uprising against the Nazis was suppressed.

The Slovak Romany Holocaust is also reminded in an exhibition in the
museum.

"Though the term Holocaust is not unknown, few connect it wiht the Romany
population," Kumanova said. She said the Romany persecutions during the
war were belittled after the war.

Many crimes have never been investigated and the perpetrators have never
been punished, she said.

This however should be remedied within the project Ma bisteren! (We will
not forget!) which the Slovak Culture Ministry has launched.

It counts among others with the gradual unveiling of seven commemorative
plaques at places directly connected with the persecution of Romanies.

(source: Romea)






ITALY:

Rome to build Holocaust museum at Mussolini's villa

Rome's city council said yesterday it had acquired a plot of land next to
the former residence of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini to house a
museum dedicated to Holocaust victims.

Once the council approves the $7.4 million project in September,
construction will begin on the 3,000-square-meter area, the municipality
said in a statement.

Architects Luca Zevi and Giorgio Tamburrini will design the museum, which
will feature documentaries and other audiovisual material with witness
accounts describing the deportation of Jews.

"A new, fundamental place of remembrance will be added to those that
recall the darkest years in the history of Rome and of the whole country,"
Mayor Walter Veltroni said in the statement.

The gardens surrounding Villa Torlonia, a 19th century neoclassical villa
near Rome's city center, have been a public park since the late 1970s.
Mussolini lived in the villa for much of his rule, from 1925 to 1943.

Widespread persecution of Italian Jews began in 1938, when Mussolini's
regime issued racial laws. In 1943, German troops occupied northern and
central Italy, and almost 7,000 Jews were deported, 5,910 of whom were
killed.

(source: Associated Press)




(in) HUNGARY----new Holocaust film

Maia Morgenstern to star in a new Holocaust film.
By VIiva Sarha


Filming is set to begin this month in Budapest on a new Holocaust film.

Love is a Survivor, the magical love story of Herman Rosenblat, is to star
Maia Morgenstern, the Jewish actress who recently made waves with her role
as Mary in The Passion of the Christ, Hollywood legend Tony Curtis (Some
Like It Hot), Nicholas Hoult (About a Boy) and Sky McCole Bartusiak (The
Patriot).

The film, by Atlantic Alliance Pictures (New York/London) in association
with Heritage Pictures (Warsaw), tells the story of Rosenblat, and how he
and his three brothers stayed together throughout the Holocaust. It also
tells of Rosenblat's loss of hope and faith, which is restored by the love
of a young woman.

British director Phillip Saville directs the screenplay by Harris Salomon
and Matt Salzberg. Cinematographer Blasco Guirato (Cinema Paradiso) is
responsible for camerawork, and recording artist Tim Janis will compose
the score.

The film is set for release in January 2005.

(source: Jewish Theatre)




USA//ILLINOIS:

'For us it was just like hell'----Holocaust survivor testifies in case of
accused Nazi helper


In a calm and clear voice, William Weiss described Wednesday how his
entire family was killed at the hands of Ukrainian Auxiliary Police
officers and Nazis during World War II.

Weiss, 81, took the stand in the ongoing trial of Osyp Firishchak, a
retired North Side carpenter accused of being a member of the police force
that persecuted Weiss' family, murdered his pregnant sister and shipped
him, his mother and father and another sister to death camps.

Firishchak, 86, is accused in the civil case of lying to U.S. immigration
officials about his role in the war and stands to lose his U.S.
citizenship and be deported if found guilty. He did not appear in U.S.
District Court Wednesday because he felt ill, said his attorney, James
Maher.

Weiss, of West Bloomfield, Mich., began his story with his life before the
war and the German occupation of his hometown, Lviv, then part of
southeastern Poland and now part of western Ukraine.

"Our life was very nice. We lived very comfortably," he said.

His father owned a clothing store, and the family lived in a home with a
kitchen, a salon and three bedrooms.

"Before the war that was considered a very nice place," he said.

The Soviet Army arrived first, in 1939, and harassed Weiss' father as
being a merchant and a member of the bourgeoisie. Their cruelties would
pale, however, compared to what was to come at the hands of the Nazis and
the local Ukrainians who joined the police force, he testified.

"The first months [of the German occupation in 1941] for us it was just
like hell," he said. "The Ukrainian population, they began to beat up Jews
and round them up."

All Jews were soon forced into a ghetto patrolled by the Ukrainian
Auxiliary Police who reported to the Nazi occupiers.

Firishchak is accused of belonging to that organization, which numbered in
the hundreds. Weiss testified he did not know Firishchak during the war
and only became aware of him through the case.

Munich historian Dieter Pohl testified earlier Wednesday that, on the
basis of historical documents of the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police,
Firishchak was a member of the organization.

Maher has argued that the 60-year-old documents are unreliable,
circumstantial and filled with hearsay.

Prosecutors Jeffrey Menkin and Gregory Gross, of the Department of
Justice's special Nazi-hunting unit, are seeking to prove that Firishchak
was a member of the auxiliary police and that his unit was involved in
Holocaust atrocities.

Weiss testified to countless horrors he and other Jews endured at the
hands of Ukrainian Auxiliary Police.

After they were forced into the ghetto, his pregnant sister was murdered,
he said.

"She was walking to our place, and she was shot to death in the middle of
the street by a Ukrainian policeman," he said.

During what became known as the "Great Operation" or "Great Action" of
August 1942 to liquidate the ghetto, Weiss witnessed Ukrainian officers
take infants and toddlers from their mothers' arms and throw them off
three-story landings onto asphalt pavement.

"You would see the babies there laying down. Some were dead. Some were
saying, `Mother, it hurts me,'" he said.

Weiss' father somehow escaped into hiding in Lviv and tried to prepare a
place for his family. But during the Great Operation the auxiliary police
made a final selection of Jews to be sent to death and labor camps before
the family could get away.

Weiss, his mother and sister were selected to go to a death camp, but his
mother persuaded him to sneak into the group of men who were to be forced
into a labor camp in Lviv.

"I never saw them [again]," he said.

He was later able to escape and find his father, but they were recaptured
and sent to a series of prisons and camps as the German Army fled the
advancing Soviets.

Weiss' father died during a forced march from Auschwitz in 1945.

Weiss was finally liberated by the American Army on April 29, 1945, and
sent to a hospital in Germany, where he met his wife. He immigrated in
1949 to Detroit, where he worked as a tailor and raised three sons.

Closing arguments are expected in the trial Thursday. Firishchak's
attorney said he has not yet decided whether to put his client on the
stand.

(source: Chicago Tribune)