Sept. 15

USA//NEW YORK:

2nd Circuit Approves Holocaust Settlement Allocation Formula


An Eastern District of New York judge's allocation of settlement funds to
the most needy, elderly victims in the Holocaust Victims Assets litigation
has been upheld by a federal appeals court.

In a decision issued Friday written by Judge Jose Cabranes, the 2nd U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the formula used by Judge Edward Korman
that placed special emphasis on compensating Holocaust victims who live in
the former Soviet Union.

The principal issues in the appeals were settled by the circuit in In Re
Holocaust Victim Assets Litigation cases 04-1898-cv and 04-1899-cv. The
appeals challenged Korman's geography-based allocation of a $1.25 billion
settlement with Swiss banks and other organizations designed to aid
victims of the Holocaust.

The proceeds of the settlement are to be divided among five classes -- the
Deposited Assets Class (those whose assets were stolen from Swiss banks);
the Looted Assets Class (those whose possessions were stolen by the Nazis
and then disposed of through Swiss banks), two classes of those forced
into slave labor by the Nazis, and a fifth Refugee Class.

Special Master Judah Gribetz, of counsel at Bingham McCutchen, concluded
that the Settlement Agreement gave priority to members of the Deposited
Assets Class -- which should receive roughly $800 million based on
evidence that as many as 54,000 Swiss bank accounts are "probably" or
"possibly" related to Holocaust victims.

The remainder, he suggested, should be allocated to the other classes,
including the Looted Assets Class. Gribetz recommended that, at least
during the first stages, distributions should be focused on surviving
Holocaust victims among the Looted Class members "who are in greatest
financial need."

Of the $90 million to go to programs for the neediest survivors, Gribetz
proposed earmarking 75 percent for destitute Jewish victims of Nazi
persecution in the former Soviet Union.

While the total amount of funds was later increased for the Looted Assets
Class, the proportions of the allocation remained the same when Korman
adopted Gribetz's supplemental recommendations in 2002 and 2003.

In 2004, Korman turned aside an objection to the allocation formula by The
Holocaust Survivors Foundation-U.S.A. Inc. and others who argued that
survivors in the United States had received a disproportionately small
allocation.

Korman endorsed the formula partly because of the wildly disproportionate
distribution of restitution funds to survivors since the end of World War
II. But he also favored the formula given the harsh conditions survivors
endured both during Communism and after its collapse.

Korman noted that "the financial situation of individual survivors in the
Former Soviet Union ... is woeful in comparison to that of survivors in
the United States."

Judges Thomas Meskill and Jon Newman joined in the appeal.

JUDGE WITHIN HIS DISCRETION

Cabranes said appellants were not challenging the District Court's
discretion to distribute settlement proceeds to the neediest members, only
"whether the District Court exceeded the bounds of that general principle
in this case by allocating funds partly on the basis of geographic
disparities in the provision of basic needs."

The conclusion, Cabranes said, was that Korman was "well within his
discretion."

"We recognize that, in a traditional class action brought to remedy an
injury that had occurred shortly before the initiation of suit, the
amounts allocated among claimants would normally vary primarily by the
effect of the injury upon different claimants, rather than by the current
financial needs of the claimants," Cabranes said. "But in the
circumstances presented by this case, we think the equitable principles of
the cy pres doctrine permit the geographic variation that the District
Court adopted."

The circuit gave considerable weight to Korman's focus on prior
restitution.

"As that Court pointed out, survivors residing in the Former Soviet Union
had been cut off by the prior Soviet regime from the ten prior major
efforts at Holocaust reparations, and of the $53 billion that has been
provided to Holocaust victims through these prior efforts, $14.8 billion
or 28 percent has gone to survivors in the United States and only $444
million or 0.8 percent has gone to survivors in the Former Soviet Union,"
Cabranes said.

In the end, Korman's decision to allocate 75 percent of Looted Assets
Class funds to needy Jewish survivors in the former Soviet Union "was
rendered after the District Court carefully weighed all relevant
considerations and made numerous factual findings," he said.

Korman "acted well within his discretion, and we find no support in the
record of this case for appellants' suggestion that the Court acted in a
'totally subjective' manner," he said.

Despite a series of challenges to his rulings in this and other appeals,
Cabranes said, Korman has approached every step of the litigation with
"thoughtful analysis and scrupulous fairness."

Edward Labaton of Goodkind Labaton Rudoff & Sucharow was lead attorney for
appellants in cases 04-1898-cv and 04-1899-cv. Burt Neuborne was the lead
settlement counsel.

The circuit also upheld Korman's refusal to allocate funds to a trust that
would have provided grants to "disability oriented, non-profit,
non-governmental organizations," and his rejection of a second proposal to
make allocations in support of "scholarly, educational and outreach
programs" related to the Nazi persecution of homosexuals.

The circuit's accompanying decisions upholding Korman's discretion of
those issues came in cases 04-2466-cv and 04-2511-cv, respectively.

(source: New York Law Journal)


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


USA//TENNESSEE:

Art exhibit honors Holocaust survivors


Photographic portraits of Holocaust survivors and the soldiers who
liberated them are now on display until Sept. 22 in the Cress Gallery of
the UTC Fine Arts Center.

Living On: Portraits of Tennessee Survivors and Liberators is an
exhibition which features 62 photographs of men and women who survived the
Holocaust and World War II, and who now live in the state of Tennessee.

Each photograph is accompanied by its own individual text panel which
contains biographical information, quotes and a short summary of the
retelling of their personal experiences during the Holocaust.

The photographs were taken by Roger Heller, an associate professor for the
college of communication and information at the University of Tennessee at
Knoxville. University of Tennessee journalist Susan Weiss Smith conducted
and recorded the interviews.

According to the Living On discussion guide, the men and women showcased
in this project are put into five different categories: survivor, refugee,
hidden child, liberator or U.S. Army witness, depending upon their exact
involvement during this time period.

Survivors are victims who managed to stay alive during the Nazi
persecution despite the Nazi's monstrous efforts to destroy the Jewish
population in Europe. People who fled Europe before 1939 to other
countries such as Israel, South Africa, the United States and Canada in
order to escape the Nazi rule are referred to as refugees.

Individuals whose parents sent them to orphanages or foster families with
a false identity in hopes of saving their life are called hidden children.
Liberators were the soldiers of the Allied Armies of World War II who
invaded Germany in 1944 and stumbled upon the concentration camps, where
they found tens of thousands of men, women and children being held in the
poorest conditions and suffering from abuse, starvation and disease.

U.S. Army witnesses were members of the armed forces who stayed in Europe
following the end of World War II in order to asses the damage caused
under the Nazi regime or to take part in the effort of bringing the "Nazi
perpetrators to justice."

(source: Univ. Tenn.-Chattanooga Echo)






GERMANY:

Study: German Football Federation cooperated with Nazis


The German Football Federation (DFB) supported the Nazi regime in its
early years, according to a recently released study.

The study, commissioned by the DFB in 2001 and carried out by historians
Nils Havemann and Klaus Hildebrand, said that "most DFB members
contributed to the stability of Nazi power, most of the time through lack
of thought, ignorance, opportunism or professional ambition."

The federation cooperated closely with the Nazi regime in the first years
of its rule, it said.

"Behind this initial enthusiasm for the Nazi regime was hidden no defined
ideology for most of the time," said Havemann.

Enthusiasm was increasingly dampened after 1935, with the Nazi regime
mixing itself more and more in DFB affairs until its break-up.

Some DFB members who were Jewish were kicked out of the federation and
later murdered, the study said.

"I'm happy that an independent study has been carried out on the history
of our federation without embellishing it or condemning it en bloc," DFB
president Theo Zwanziger said.

The aim of the 473-page study was not to draw a line under the past,
Zwanziger said, adding that it would enlighten foreigners visiting Germany
for next year's World Cup should they want a lesson on German football's
past.

Zwanziger also announced the creation of the 20,000-euro Julius Hirsch
prize for freedom, tolerance and humanity and against racism, violence and
discrimination. The prize, whose winner will be revealed on December 9,
is named after a former German Jewish international murdered in Auschwitz.

(source: Agence France Presse)

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

Book probes Nazi past of German federation


It has taken 60 years for Germany's soccer federation to face up to a
dark period in its history when it collaborated with the Nazis.

A new book, "Fussball underm Hakenkreuz" ("Soccer under the Swastika") is
a first, if belated, attempt by the federation (DFB) to look at the dirt
swept under the carpet immediately after the collapse of the Nazi regime
it once wholeheartedly backed.

The book illuminates how closely the DFB cooperated with the Nazis from
the moment they took power in 1933 and systematically forced out thousands
of German Jews from all levels of soccer, from players to club owners and
sponsors.

Many Jews, including former leading national team player Julius Hirsch,
went on to die in Nazi death camps.

"Julius Hirsch had been a national hero but from one day to the next (he)
was treated like an insect," said Theo Zwanziger, the present DFB
co-president. "We want to come to terms with our past and not just brush
over all this."

"It took far too long for this book to be written," Otto Schily, Germany's
minister for sport, told a news conference on Tuesday. "But it also took a
long time for Germany as a nation to be able to look clearly at what
happened in the Nazi era."

Schily said the DFB deserved a share of the blame for the decades-long
cover-up of its collaboration with the Nazis.

WASTED CHANCE

The book, written by historian Nils Havemann, comes 20 years after most
Germans began looking critically at their Nazi past in the wake of a
landmark 1985 speech by former President Richard von Weizsaecker who
called Adolf Hitler's defeat a day of liberation for Germans.

"One should be self-critical enough to say the DFB itself was one of the
reasons (for the delay), there's no reason to beat about the bush about
that," said Schily, flanked by leaders from the DFB.

"But just because it took so long doesn't at all mean we shouldn't bother
now. Just because our predecessors wasted the chance doesn't mean we
should.

"The DFB was anything but heroic during the Nazi era; on the contrary,
there were terrible characters and horrible behaviour. The facts are
painful and sad but we have to face them."

Schily and DFB officials said the book, the result of a three-year
examination by Havemann which the federation sponsored, threw a spotlight
on the organisation's unsavoury cooperation with Hitler's regime.

Its release comes less than a year before the World Cup finals Germany is
hosting and helps to end decades of stifled speculation about whether
German soccer was a victim, as some have claimed, or a tool of the Nazis.

"Because the topic has been neglected for so long a lot of myths have
emerged," said Havemann, a history lecturer at the University of Mainz.

"Some said the DFB was militaristic and closely aligned with Nazi doctrine
while others said the DFB tried to stay neutral and protect soccer from
the Nazis. Those and other legends should be corrected now."

IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTION

Schily said he hoped the book, which includes a striking cover picture of
Germany players lined up giving the stiff-armed Hitler salute on the pitch
before a match against Sweden in Stockholm in 1941, would initiate a broad
discussion in soccer circles.

"This will help us next year with the World Cup," said Schily. "I can
imagine a lot of visitors from abroad will be here and asking what
happened between 1933 and 1945. A lot of that will come up. I think this
will make an important contribution to those discussions."

Although few in the DFB were Nazi party members or especially vocal
advocates of the regime's racist doctrines, most were willing tools or
opportunists who let themselves be used out of ignorance or professional
ambition, Havemann writes.

"Most of the DFB members played a contributing role to the stability of
the Nazi rulers and thus deserve a share of the guilt for the suppression,
persecution, war and annihilation," he said. The DFB and clubs let
themselves be "seduced" by favoured treatment by the Nazis.

The book probes the Nazi-era career of Sepp Herberger, who joined the Nazi
party in 1933 and was appointed national trainer in 1937.

"He did everything in his power to keep that job and was to a very high
degree willing to conform, at least externally, to the will of the regime
of terror," wrote Havemann. "Because he bowed to their will, Herberger
made the greatest leap forward of anyone in the DFB during the 12 years of
the Nazis."

Herberger's role in the Nazi era has always remained shadowy, largely
because he was quickly rehabilitated after World War Two ended in 1945 and
became one of the country's first post-war heroes by coaching West Germany
to the World Cup title in 1954.

"Unfortunately a shadow is falling over Sepp Herberger," said Schily. "It
shouldn't be overlooked that he let his national team take part in a Nazi
propaganda film in 1941. He let himself become part of the Nazi
propaganda."

(source: Reuters)







SPAIN:

Spanish police looking for ex-Nazi believed to be hiding near coastline


A Spanish police unit is searching for one of the most-wanted Nazi war
criminals.

A National Police spokesman said new evidence points to the possibility
that Aribert Heim, 91, may be living undercover somewhere near the
Mediterranean coastal city of Alicante.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center ranks Heim as the No. 2 most wanted Nazi war
criminal, after Alois Brunner, an aide to Adolf Eichmann, the chief
organizer of the Final Solution.

During World War II, Heim murdered hundreds of people, largely via lethal
injection, at the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.

Known as the "Butcher of Mauthausen," Heim also performed medical
experiments in which he amputated body parts without painkillers to see
how long prisoners would live.

"He is a sadist, a murderer, a horrendous example of the perversion of
medicine in the service of the Nazis," said Efraim Zuroff of the
Wiesenthal Centers Jerusalem office.

"He's a little Mengele," Zuroff added, referring to the Auschwitz doctor
known as the Angel of Death.

Germany has offered a $170,000 reward for Heim's arrest in the framework
of Operation Last Chance the Wiesenthal Center's new initiative to
capture the last Nazi war criminals believed to be alive.

The Spanish police spokesman declined to elaborate on the new evidence
regarding the whereabouts of Heim, whose family had claimed that he died
years ago in Argentina.

However, the German magazine Der Spiegel reported that German police
discovered money wires starting several years ago to a bank on Spain's
coast that were picked up by a contact.

The Spanish magazine Intervu said hundreds of wires were sent over the
course of three years starting in 2000, totaling $220,000.

The magazine said Heim could be living on the coast as just one more
German retiree.

Because of its temperate climate, Spain's Mediterranean coast has become
home to large populations of elderly Germans and other northern Europeans
living in retirement communities.

Zuroff said there is still an account in Heim's name at a Berlin bank with
$1 million, which his children could claim if they provided definitive
proof of his death. "We feel very certain he is alive," he said.

Zuroff called on Spanish authorities to put an end to their "horrendous
record" of impunity for Nazi war criminals, which he says continued even
after Spain's transition from dictatorship to democracy in the 1970s.

(source: Jewish Telegraphic Agency)




TURKEY:

Turkey bans reprints of Hitler's Mein Kampf


The Turkish government has refused permission for future printing of
Adolf Hitler's autobiography Mein Kampf following a surprise leap of
the pre-Second World War book into the Turkish bestsellers list earlier
this year, it was reported Tuesday.

Radikal newspaper said that the Culture and Tourism Ministry had refused
permission to two publishing houses seeking to reprint the book.

While no reason for the reprint ban was given, Radikal speculated that it
may be due to pressure from the German state of Bavaria, which holds the
copyright for the all editions of the book except for those in English and
Dutch.

Copies of Mein Kampf, or "My Struggle" in bookshops at the moment have
not been ordered off the shelves.

Mein Kampf hit the bestseller lists in Turkey earlier in the year with
analysts saying the book's shock rise in popularity could be due to an
increase in nationalism and anti-U.S. feelings since the invasion of Iraq.

(source: Expatica)




AUSTRIA:

Vienna council lifts immunity for politician over Nazi comments


Vienna city council on Thursday lifted the parliamentary immunity of a
politician who suggested that concentration camp victims looked better
than himself.

It was the second time the council had stripped John Gudenus' immunity for
Nazi-related comments. At issue were comments he made during a May visit
to the Mauthausen concentration camp memorial site, when he claimed that
concentration camp victims on a photo looked better than himself.

The city council's move means that Gudenus could be charged for the
comments under an Austrian law that bans attempts to diminish, deny or
justify the Holocaust.

The Mauthausen comments were not included in a June vote that lifted
Gudenus' immunity in relation to some other Nazi-related comments because
they were not known about at the time. That vote paved the way for charges
to be filed for his suggestions that Nazi gas chambers were found in
Poland, but not anywhere else in the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler.

Gudenus is a legislator in Austria's upper house of parliament, a largely
powerless body comprising members nominated by the councils in Austria's
nine provinces.

The rightist Freedom Party ousted Gudenus following the controversy
sparked by the comments.

(source: Associated Press)



ROMANIA:

New Holocaust museum aims at Romanian youth


The first fully functional Holocaust museum in northern Transilvania, was
officially launched this week in the former synagogue building of the
small Romanian town of Simleu Silvaniei.

Transilvania is located in the centre of Romania.

More than 400 people attended the opening of the Northern Transylvania
Holocaust Museum on 11 September.

Those present included Romanian government officials, leaders of Romanian
Jewry, and representatives of the US, Israel and Hungary embassies,
together with dozens of survivors from Romania and abroad.

Supporters of the project included the Romanian and Israeli governments,
the Federation of Jewish Communities from Romania and prominent Holocaust
survivors Elie Wiesel and Oliver Lustig,

Important steps

At the event Lisa M Heilbronn, Officer-in-Charge for the U.S. Embassy
Information Office in the city of Cluj, spoke about the crucial importance
of teaching future generations about the Holocaust.

Romania has made impressive progress toward transparency in terms of
remembering the Holocaust in recent years, in particular, with the
creation of the International Wiesel commission, the handing of its report
and the commitment of the government to carry out his recommendations,
Heilbronn said.

Dr. Jose Blum, cultural adviser to the Federation of Jewish Communities in
Romania (FEDROM), said the museum was a fitting tribute to those Romanians
killed in the Shoah.

Blum said: "We believe that this is a moment of great importance. The
opening of the Northern Transylvania Holocaust Museum is an example of the
ongoing emphasis on the memory of the Holocaust in Romania."

The Museum is be a documentation centre for young people all over Romania,
and will included image archives, testimonies and documents.

It was not a coincidence to choose 9/11 as the day of the opening.

The organizers wanted to emphasize the two tragedies, bringing a tribute
for the victims, especially for a woman who died in the American tragedy
and whos parents where deported from Simleul Silvaniei decades ago.

Tiny community

Inside the new museum

The old synagogue of Simleu Silvaniei, now transformed into the museum,
was built in 1876. It served the surrounding community until May-June
1944, when the Jewish population was forcedly evicted from their homes.

After a short but very cruel experience in the ghetto, they were put in
cattle cars and transported to Auschwitz Birkenau.

Only approximately 10 per cent of North Transilvania Jewry, part of
Hungary at that time, survived the Holocaust. Today only 20 Jews live in
Simleu Silvaniei.

However, the local non-Jewish population have been fully supportive of the
museum project which gained the backing of the City and County
Administration, while children from the schools of Simleu Silvaniei will
volunteer in the Museum.

(source: European Jewish Press)



CANADA:

CJC National Archives launches Holocaust studies web resource


Canadian Jewish Congress National Archives (CJCNA) has launched a unique
online resource to help historians as well as Holocaust survivors
and their families carry out research or make compensation claims related
to the Holocaust.

The site, called The Interpretive Guide to the United Restitution
Organization Claims Files, is a joint initiative of CJCNA and the
Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany. The site can be
found at http://www.cjc.ca/archives/uro/.

The site was developed by CJCNA in order to help people understand
Holocaust restitution claims documents such as those found in the files of
the United Restitution Organization (URO). The URO was founded in 1948 to
provide legal aid to Holocaust survivors seeking compensation from the
German government after World War II. Site features include:


A historical overview of the restitution and compensation process;

Explanations of the many types of restitution claims and their changes
over time, with links to English translations of the German documents;

An extensive glossary of the German terms and abbreviations used in the
various claims forms, with English translations;

An annotated collection of links and references to allow for further study
and to help people find assistance to make personal claims; and

Information about where to find URO documents in North American archives.

"The compensation process is very complex," said CJCNA Archives Director
Janice Rosen. "For Holocaust survivors and their families, it can be
extremely daunting. We wanted to create a resource to make it easier for
people to understand their familys claim- related documents and use them
to find their way through the system."

"We also expect that this site will be an asset for educators teaching
about the Holocaust and its aftermath," added CJCNA Chair Dr. Norma
Joseph.


For more information contact:

Janice Rosen
Archives Director
Canadian Jewish Congress
514-931-7531 x. 271
janicer@...

Stephen Adler
CJC Ontario Director of Public Policy;
CJC Staff Representative,
Jewish Holocaust Survivors of Canada
416-635-2883 x. 175
sadler@...

(source: Canadian Jewish Congress)




UKRAINE:

Eastern Ukraine Inaugurates New Holocaust Memorial


This week in eastern Ukraine, a memorial to victims of Nazism was
unveiled in the Donetsk Region, making this the third memorial
to be opened at the initiative of 'Ukraine-Israel' Society. This one was
erected in Krasnoarmeisk, a town whose history dates back 130 years.
Originally called Grishino, Jews had contributed greatly to the
development of the locality, having comprised one-third of all local
residents prior to World War Two.

When the Nazi army occupied the region in 1942, it was not long before 500
of the town's peaceful residents were shot and buried in a mass grave,
which many have come to call the Baby Yar of Krasnoarmeisk. The only
thing that remains of them today is a sorrowful list of those who died at
the hands of the Fascist invaders.

David Yusimov, the Head of the 'Chevra Kadisha' Burial Society operating
by the Donetsk Jewish community, recited a memorial prayer and read out
this long list of Holocaust victims, as well as recited the Holy Writings.

Apart from being attended by members of the Donetsk and Krasnoarmeisk
Jewish communities and members of the public, the event also involved
numerous officials. Svetlana Kuznetsova, the Head of the Donetsk Regional
Department on Nationalities and Migration Affairs also spoke at the end.
"Memory that maintains the past is the present," she said, commending
those who organized the establishment of this memorial.

The commemorative event also involved Nina Ivanilova, an eye-witness to
the horrible events that took place here in Krasnoarmeisk.

(source: The Federation of the Jewish Communities of the CIS)