August 19


GERMANY:

Pope prays for Holocaust victims in synagogue visit


Pope Benedict XVI on Friday became the second pope to visit a synagogue,
stopping to pray and remember Holocaust victims with Cologne's Jewish
community.

Benedict stood quietly with his hands clasped during a Hebrew prayer
before a memorial to the six million Jews killed by Nazi Germany, and
strode into the main hall as the choir sang, "Shalom alechem," or "peace
be with you."

A shofar, or ram's horn, sounded as Benedict sat at the front. He then
listened intently to the cantor's singing in the blue-domed Roonstrasse
Synagogue, home to the oldest Jewish community in Germany.

Benedict made the visit to underline his commitment to continue the path
followed by his predecessor John Paul II, who made the first historic
visit to the Rome synagogue in 1986. The German-born pope has been praised
by Jewish leaders for laying much of the theological groundwork for John
Paul's outreach while he was a Vatican doctrinal official.

The visit had a special significance, taking place in the country that
produced the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler's attempt to wipe out Europe's Jews
during World War II.

Benedict, who was enrolled in the Hitler Youth and later deserted the
German army at the end of World War II, will deliver an address after
being greeted by Rabbi Netanel Teitelbaum.

A spat with Israel over Benedict's failure to mention the country in a
list of places hit by terrorism this summer has raised the stakes for the
visit. Israel sharply criticized Benedict last month after he deplored the
recent terrorist attacks but did not mention a suicide bombing in Israel
that killed five Israelis.

The Israeli government summoned the Vatican envoy and charged that the
pope "deliberately failed" to condemn terrorist attacks against Israel.
Tensions worsened with a harshly worded Vatican statement telling Israel
to stop trying to give the pope lessons on what to say.

Benedict's membership in the Hitler Youth as a teenager produced some
unflattering headlines after he was elected April 19. In his memoirs, the
pope says he was enrolled by local officials a common occurrence at the
time and got a sympathetic teacher to help him skip the organization's
functions.

He recounts own disgust for the Nazis several times, including an incident
in which a shouting SS officer tried to browbeat him into volunteering for
dictator Adolf Hitler's fanatical elite troops, and then heaped scorn on
him when told he was studying for the priesthood.

He was drafted at 18 and underwent basic training, then risked execution
by deserting and returning home a few days before the war ended. U.S.
occupation forces took him prisoner when they discovered he had been a
soldier and released him after several weeks.

He has said he saw providential design in the fact that a Polish pope who
lived under Nazi occupation was succeeded by a German one.

"Both popes in their youth both on different sides and in different
situations were forced to experience the barbarity of the Second World
War," Benedict said in May.

(source: Associated Press)


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

Jewish Leader Asks Pope to Open Vatican Archives



A German Jewish leader touched a sore spot in relations with Catholics on
Friday when he urged Pope Benedict to open up all the Vatican's archives
dealing with World War Two and the Holocaust.

Welcoming him on a historic visit to a synagogue in Cologne, Abraham
Lehrer told the German-born pontiff he had a special responsibility to
open files that critics say would show how much Pope Pius XII knew about
the Nazi slaughter of Jews.

Jewish groups accuse Pius of turning a deaf ear to the Holocaust. The
Vatican says he worked behind the scenes to save them and refrained from
condemning the Nazis openly for fear of sparking reprisals across Europe.

The Vatican has opened its diplomatic archives up until 1939, the year
that Pius was elected, but does not plan to unseal its wartime records
until at least 2009.

``For us, a complete opening of the Vatican archives covering the period
of World War Two, sixty years after the end of the Shoah (Holocaust),
would be a further sign of historical conscience and would also satisfy
critics,'' Lehrer said.

``You grew up in Germany during a terrible time,'' he told Benedict during
the first papal visit to a synagogue in Germany. ``We not only see in you
the head of the Catholic Church but also a German who is aware of his
historical responsibility.''

Benedict did not answer Lehrer's plea, but his pre-written address
included a reference to the need to reach ``a mutually accepted
interpretation of still disputed historical issues.''

The synagogue the Pope visited was destroyed in the Nazis' anti-Jewish
Kristallnacht riots in 1938 and rebuilt in 1959.

EARLIER EFFORTS COLLAPSED

The wartime role of Pius, branded ``Hitler's Pope'' by his critics, has
been one of the thorniest issues facing Catholics and Jews since they
began a process of reconciliation in 1965.

The Vatican and Jewish groups set up a mixed Catholic-Jewish historians'
commission in 1999 to study the Vatican archives in the hope of settling
the dispute. It collapsed the following year because the Vatican would not
allow full access to files.

Lerner noted that Benedict, while he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger,
opened up the archives of his Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
(CDF) in 1998.

These files uncovered a wealth of information about the Inquisition, which
was the CDF's original name and purpose, and the Church's centuries-long
Index on Prohibited Books.

Historians say the Church archives opened so far show the Vatican was
receiving detailed accounts of Nazi anti-Semitic acts only weeks after
Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933.

But only letters to the Vatican and cables from Vatican embassies in
Berlin and Munich were released. Holocaust information from other sources,
such as cables from Vatican diplomats in France or Poland, have not been
released.

Hoping to prove Pius was not anti-Semitic or pro-German, the Vatican
opened its Germany archive for 1922-1939 two years ago. But the 640 files
provided fuel for both critics and supporters.

One of the most evocative documents was a plea for a papal intervention
against the Nazis in 1933 by Edith Stein, a Jewish convert to Catholicism
who later died in a concentration camp.

Stein wrote to Pius XI, Pius XII's predecessor, that the Vatican could not
keep silent about Nazi anti-Semitism:

``All of us, who see the actual situation in Germany...fear the worst for
the image of the Church worldwide if this silence is prolonged further.''

(source: Reuters)





BELARUS:

Minsk Holocaust Memorial Desecrated


Advocates on behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States &
Eurasia today condemned the desecration of the Holocaust memorial in
Minsk, Belarus and called on the Belarusian authorities to bring the
perpetrators to justice.

The memorial "Yama" or "The Pit", erected in 1946 in memory of the more
than 800,000 Jewish victims of the Nazis during World War II, was covered
with the burnt fragments of wreaths and human waste.

Leonid Levin, President of the Association of Belarus Jewish Organizations
and Communities, said, "We consider this act of vandalism a manifestation
of rampant anti-Semitism, and an instigation of inter-ethnic hatred. We
have sent a request to the General Prosecutor of Belarus to take
appropriate measures to prevent the growth of anti-Semitism, and to find
the perpetrators and bring them to justice."

"This is not the first time this memorial has been vandalized," NCSJ
noted. It is yet another example of the unchecked anti-Semitism that is
being ignored in Belarus."

NCSJ is in ongoing contact with the Jewish leadership in Belarus about
this issue and other issues of concern to the Jewish community.

------

NCSJ: Advocates on behalf of Jews in Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic States &
Eurasia, is the mandated central coordinating agency of the organized
Jewish community for policy and activities on behalf of the estimated 1.5
million Jews in the former Soviet Union, including the 75,000 Jews in
Belarus.

(source: US Newswire)





GLOBAL:

$16 million to 11,000 Holocaust victims and their heirs

Former Secretary of State and Chairman of the International Commission on
Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC), Lawrence S. Eagleburger,announces
that ICHEIC has offered approximately $16 million to 11,000 Holocaust
victims and their heirs. The new offers fall into two categories: (1) $5.5
million for life insurance policies held with companies that were
liquidated or nationalized after World War II and for which there are no
present day successor companies; and (2) $10.5 million for claims
containing only anecdotal information referencing a Holocaust-era
insurance policy and for which no supporting documentation could be found.

These humanitarian claims payments are a critical component of ICHEICs
overall mission: to pay previously uncompensated Holocaust-era insurance
claims, said Chairman Eagleburger. I am particularly gratified that ICHEIC
staff were able to research and evaluate these claims where companies
could not be identified or no longer existed. These payments are going to
individuals that otherwise would have been without recourse to any form of
compensation for their Holocaust-era insurance claims.

"While no amount of compensation in any form can make up for what Holocaust
victims suffered," he added, "these payments are an important step in
addressing one particular aspect of the many wrongs of that time."

These awards are being made from ICHEICs humanitarian funds. This is the
second round of such payments in both categories. In November 2004, ICHEIC
offered $2.3 million in payments to Holocaust victims and their heirs,
from ICHEIC humanitarian funds, for previously uncompensated European
insurance policies of companies that were either nationalized or
liquidated after World War II, and have no present day successors. ICHEIC
anticipates making additional awards on claims in this category in the
final months of 2005.

The nationalized, liquidated, or without successor policies claimed were
written in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and
Yugoslavia. Documentation supporting many of the claims reviewed was
located by ICHEIC through its research in European archives and/or
provided by claimants.

In March 2004, ICHEIC made approximately $16 million in offers on the
second category of claims, those containing only anecdotal evidence
referencing a Holocaust-era insurance policy. The awards sent this week
mark ICHEICs second large set of payments on claims in this category.
Humanitarian payments of $1,000 were made on a per claimant basis as
symbolic acknowledgement of the fact that many insurance policy proceeds
were never paid to victims of the Holocaust.

This latest announcement brings the total amount of offers ensured by the
ICHEIC process to over $143 million on approximately 33,000 claims.

The Holocaust Claims Processing Office, a division of the New York State
Banking Department, as well as the Conference on Jewish Material Claims
Against Germany (Claims Conference) provided technical assistance to
ICHEIC in the claims process and will help facilitate payments in the
months ahead.

The International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC)
was established in 1998 by the National Association of Insurance
Commissioners (NAIC), in conjunction with several European insurance
companies, European regulators, representatives of several Jewish
organizations, and the State of Israel. ICHEIC is charged with
establishing a just process that will expeditiously address the issue of
unpaid insurance policies issued to victims of the Holocaust. For more
information about ICHEIC, including the latest statistical report on the
claims process, please visit www.icheic.org.

(source: Press release, World Jewish Congress)




CZECH REPUBLIC:

Czech Roma Remember Victims of the Holocaust 19. 8. 2005

On Sunday, August 21 Roma in the Czech Republic will remember their
antecedents interred during WW2 in the concentration camp of Hodonin u
Kunstatu, near Blansko. During the commemorative service, organized by the
Museum of Roma Culture at the Chapel of Hodonin, there will be a pious
mass celebrated by a Roma parson and a performance by Roma musicians. The
event should remind people of the last transport of Romany people sent to
the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau just 62 years ago.

The former internment camp of Hodonin u Kunstatu is a place of Romany war
misery that now lacks any respectable pious atmosphere. It is now a
holiday centre complex with a swimming pool that uses one of the camps
barracks as a restaurant.

Since 1997 the sad history of the Roma Holocaust has been remembered by a
modest memorial composed of a cross, a heart and a carts wheel created by
Romany sculptor Eduard Olah, and which is located in Hodonin u Kunstatu.
It is just a small reminder of the 1,400 Roma interred in the camp between
1942 1943, who then either died or were transported to
Auschwitz-Birkenau, notorious for its especially brutal treatment of Roma
detainees. About 200 Roma that died before the transport are burried at a
nearby cemetery in Cernovice. In addition, three unmarked mass graves lie
in the woods adjacent to the holiday center.

(source: Dzeno Association)