Dec. 30


USA:

Judge Orders Accused Nazi Guard Deported


CLEVELAND -- For nearly 30 years, a retired auto worker accused of being a
Nazi concentration camp guard has been fighting to stay in the United
States.

But a judge's order that John Demjanjuk be deported to his native Ukraine
means the man once suspected of being the notoriously brutal guard known
as Ivan the Terrible may be running out of legal options.

Chief U.S. Immigration Judge Michael Creppy ruled Wednesday that there was
no evidence to substantiate Demjanjuk's claim that he would be tortured if
deported to his homeland. He said Demjanjuk should be deported to Germany
or Poland if Ukraine does not accept him.

Demjanjuk has 30 days to appeal the ruling to the Board of Immigration
Appeals.

An official with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based Jewish
group dedicated to preserving the memory of the Holocaust, said the ruling
was important to resolving the case.

"Justice in this case is long delayed," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper,
associate dean of the center. "No one should confuse anything happening to
John Demjanjuk as anything but justice. It's not vengeance."

Demjanjuk lost his U.S. citizenship after a judge ruled in 2002 that
documents from World War II prove he was a Nazi guard at various death or
forced labor camps.

His attorney had argued at a hearing last month that sending Demjanjuk
back to Ukraine would be like throwing him "into a shark tank."

John Broadley, Demjanjuk's lawyer, said the ruling is the judge's final
order in the case. It was required before a June ruling authorizing the
government to deport Demjanjuk could be appealed.

Broadley said Demjanjuk would appeal Creppy's earlier decision and
possibly the latest ruling, too.

Authorities first tried to deport Demjanjuk in 1977, accusing him of being
Ivan the Terrible at the Treblinka concentration camp. Demjanjuk was
extradited to Israel, convicted and sentenced to hang, but the Israeli
Supreme Court found that someone else apparently was Ivan.

Demjanjuk returned to the United States and his U.S. citizenship was
restored before being lifted again.

The current case is based on evidence uncovered by the Justice Department
alleging he was a different guard. Demjanjuk has denied the allegations.

Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said the judge's decision
"brings the government one step closer" to removing Demjanjuk from the
United States.

(source: Associated Press)



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Holocaust-era rail car evokes painful memories
Artifact that will go on display at museum here is unveiled at ceremony


Al Marks could barely contain his emotions as he lighted a candle at the
base of the World War II-era rail car that had just arrived from Germany
for display at the Holocaust Museum Houston.

The authentic round-top rail car, built in 1942, brought back troubling
memories. Marks was just a boy in Hungary when he and his parents were
herded by Nazi soldiers into a similar-looking rail car and taken to
Auschwitz. He never saw his parents again.

"For us who were in it, it's very touching," said Marks, 74. "It brings
out emotions that we maybe hadn't felt for many years. The car represents
so much, for me especially."

The refurbished rail car, which goes on permanent display at the museum on
March 5, was unveiled at a special ceremony Wednesday.

Peter Berkowitz, chairman of the board at Holocaust Museum Houston, said
the rail car will be used as an educational tool to teach future
generations about the evil consequences of hate.

About 3 million Jewish people were transported by train to death camps,
Berkowitz said. A rail car that measured 10 feet by 25 feet would be
crammed with as many 200 people, he said, and it wasn't unusual for 30
percent to die en route.

"This rail car is an artifact," he said. "It is a fact of the Holocaust."

Officials with the Houston museum had started searching for such an
artifact soon after the facility opened in 1996. With corporate
assistance, museum officials located the rail car in Blankenburg, Germany.
It was being used as storage for spare railway parts.

Although there are no records to verify it was used to transport victims
to concentration camps, officials say it has been authenticated as a
German rail car built during that era.

Also, certain features about the rail car lead officials to believe that
it likely carried Holocaust victims. For one thing, officials say, its
rounded roof resembles the photographic images of rail cars used to
transport people to Treblinka and Auschwitz. After the war, the round-top
car was commonly called the Treblinka Car.

And even though the car was originally built to haul cattle and grain,
officials say it had fixed steps that allowed faster loading and unloading
of human cargo.

"It started out as a simple rail car, and it was transporting people to
their final destination," said Berkowitz. "Now it will become an
educational tool ... so that children will understand the consequence of
hatred, bigotry and intolerance."

Berkowitz said companies and individuals from around the world contributed
in efforts to relocate the rail car to Houston. It will be placed in
storage while the exhibit site in the museum's sculpture garden is
prepared.

More than two dozen Holocaust survivors, including Marks, attended
Wednesday's ceremony, which included ecumenical prayers.

Marks was 12 when the Nazis invaded Hungary in 1944 and sent him and his
parents to Auschwitz in Poland. The family traveled two to three days in
the crowded rail car, he said, and people died along the way.

When the train reached its destination, he said, those aboard were met by
the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele, known for his horrific experiments on
Jewish prisoners.

"We had no idea where we were at. We had no idea what he represented,"
Marks said. "I didn't even have a chance to kiss my parents goodbye."

Marks was separated from his parents and learned later that they were
killed. After a few days at Auschwitz, he was sent to Mauthausen, and then
to another camp called Melk, where he was forced to do labor for the
German war effort.

At the labor camp, he said he and the other prisoners were taken by rail
car every day to build tunnels for the Germans. And after he was
liberated, he said he returned to Hungary in a rail car.

He immigrated to the United States in 1947 and settled in Houston,
attended the Houston Conservatory of Music and became an orchestra leader.

For many years, Marks said, he wanted to forget the past. But on
Wednesday, he and two other survivors lighted candles near the rail car
that represented a stark reminder of that past.

"It's a very emotional feeling to see that thing," he said. "When I lit
the candle, I almost busted up."

(source: Houston Chronicle)




AUSTRIA:

Holocaust Survivors to Begin Getting Payments


About 3,000 people have been cleared to receive the first payments from an
Austrian fund to compensate Holocaust survivors, and an additional 3,000
should be approved shortly, the fund's chief overseer said.

Hannah Lessing, general secretary of the General Settlement Fund, said
fund officials hope to have processed all 19,300 survivors' claims by the
end of 2006.

Austria created the $210-million fund in 2001 to compensate people
stripped of businesses, property, bank accounts and insurance policies
under the Third Reich.

(source: Los Angeles Times)




ISRAEL:

40,000 Holocaust Survivors Living in Poverty


Some 40,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel are living under the poverty
line.

The alarming statistic was released this week, with representatives of
organizations assisting the survivors calling on Bituah Leumi (National
Insurance) and other national government agencies to step in and permit
the survivors to complete their life in dignity.

While many receive a monthly Bituah Leumi salary, representatives of the
survivors report the NIS 1,800 ($390) is not enough to pay basic utility
bills and provide food, not to mention the purchase of pharmaceuticals or
heating to survive the winter.

Many of the survivors live along officials add, and they do not have any
additional source of income to permit them to exist with dignity.

(source: Israel National News)






BULGARIA:

Bulgaria pressed on Holocaust compensation


U.S. congressional representatives pressed Bulgaria on a World War II-era
compensation issue.

The letter urged Bulgarias president and prime minister to see that the
countrys Jews receive their rightful share of the value of a hotel built
in Sofia on the site of a prewar Jewish school. Bulgarias Jewish community
is appealing a Bulgarian court decision from July that rejected Jewish
claims to nearly half the property now occupied by the Rila Hotel.

The property was confiscated in 1943, and an administrative court ruled in
1992 that the Jewish community was entitled to just under 50 percent of
it.

The letter, sent last week, was signed by two co-chairmen of the
Congressional Bulgaria Caucus, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and Rep. Ellen
Tauscher (D-S.C.), as well as by Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), the ranking
Democratic member of the House of Representatives International Relations
Committee.

(source: JTA News)