March 30




GERMANY:

Saving the Auschwitz Oven Factory


For years, the factory which manufactured the Auschwitz ovens has been
sinking into disrepair. Now, though, a movement is afoot to save the site.
It's a battle against time, vandalism and entropy.

The factory, just 15 minutes by foot from the city center of Erfurt in
former East Germany, used to belong to the company Topf & Shne. but for
almost 10 years now, it has been left to the skaters, to the sprayers, and
to the elements. Walls have collapsed, roofs have caved in, intact windows
are scarce and snowmelt runs down those walls that have yet to succumb.
But a movement is afoot to repair parts of the industrial ruin. The Topf &
Shne factory, after all, is where the ovens of Auschwitz were manufactured
along with the ventilation systems for the gas chambers.

For years, officialdom has avoided making a decision on what to do about
the industrial and historical scar on the edge of Erfurt. There was little
money available and no clear plan on what to do with the site. The excuses
were myriad. Many assumed the city simply did not want to draw anymore
Holocaust-related attention to the city than the nearby concentration camp
memorial at Buchenwald already generates.

Squatting at the oven factory

But the factory ruin became impossible to ignore. An informal support
network made up of local historians and others who didn't want to see the
site disappear pressured both the city of Erfurt and the state of
Thuringia to act. A group of squatters, who have transformed one of the
empty factory buildings into a well-known punk concert venue, have
likewise called attention to the site's history. Known as "Topf Squat,"
they have produced a virtual tour of the factory, hung information signs
on site, and even produced a documentary video -- all on their own dime.
Recently, though, the state of Thuringia's State Development Association
elected not to participate, and the city of Erfurt finally made the
decision to act.

"We are currently negotiating with the site custodians to buy a part of
the property," says Wolfgang Zweigler from the Erfurt mayor's office. "We
are definitely prepared to do something. Some kind of project will result
and the planning has already gotten underway."

The major hurdle to creating a memorial -- which would be the first such
monument to industrial involvement in the Holocaust in Germany -- is
likely to be money. The city is hoping to buy the site, or at least part
of it, for a symbolic price from Erfurter Bank, which now owns the site
after Erfurter Mlzerei- und Speicherbau (EMS) -- the name under which Topf
& Shne continued operations in East Germany -- went bankrupt in 1994. The
support network is hoping the city will fund the renovation of at least
one building on the site to house a Topf & Shne exhibition created by the
Buchenwald Memorial. Indeed, the exhibit, which was shown in Berlin's
Jewish Museum over the winter and is now traveling through Germany before
heading abroad, helped get the current project off the ground in the first
place.

"The exhibit really sped up the process," agrees Friedemann Rincke, a
historian at the Buchenwald Memorial. "The support network has been
working for a long time, but the exhibit reached many more people than
they were able to. The current process is very connected with the
exhibit."

The flammability of human fat

J.A. Topf & Shne began life in 1878 as a company specializing in the
production of industrial ovens, brewery equipment, and chimneys. In the
1920s and 30s, the factory began manufacturing crematoriums, which were
delivered throughout Germany and exported abroad, although such ovens
never became a major part of the company's bottom line. During World War
II, however, the Nazi SS suddenly needed an efficient method for the
disposal of the thousands of corpses piling up day after day as the
Holocaust mass murder accelerated. Soon, Topf & Shne engineers were busy
calculating the most efficient way to burn thousands of dead bodies --
some company employees even visited camps -- Auschwitz, Buchenwald and
Dachau among others -- to assist in the installation of the ovens and the
newly designed gas-chamber ventilation systems that were created to pump
out the poison gas that had collected in the rooms.

It is this history which the support network would like to document: the
rooms in the administration building where top engineers calculated just
how much fuel it would take to burn mass quantities of human bodies --
carefully taking into account the flammability of body fat; the shipping
and receiving building next door where the ovens started on their journey
to Auschwitz, and from which clerks wrote payment reminders to the
chronically tardy SS; the large factory where the ovens were manufactured;
and the smaller workshop where the iron doors and hinges were cast.

The question is: How can the structures be saved? In addition to entropy
and vandalism, recent fires have done serious damage to the shipping and
receiving building and other structures.

"The buildings are falling apart very quickly," says Eckhart Schrle, a
historian with the support network who also gives periodic, informal tours
through the site. "There is a worry that they could collapse entirely if
nothing is done quickly to save them."

A center for learning

Given the daunting task of saving the entire factory site, the support
network, and the city of Erfurt, has chosen to focus its initial
attentions on the factory's administration building with hopes of
acquiring additional buildings later. Indeed, in October of last year,
Erfurt hired a historian to begin developing a workable concept for the
planned information center. Annegret Schle, who also designed the
traveling museum exhibition and is writing a book on the history of Topf &
Shne, has been given until autumn 2007 to develop a workable project. Far
from merely being a static museum or monument, she has been charged with
creating an education center -- a place where young Germans, members of
the fourth post-war generation, can go to learn about the Holocaust and
the important role German industry played in the genocide.

And the squatters? They too have been encouraged to present a plan for
what they would like to do on the site. For the moment though, they will
continue organizing punk concerts and other events in their corner of the
site.

"The squatters have been there for years," says Schle. "At the moment we
are only concentrating on one side of the property and the squatters have
their spot on the other end. For now, the squatters seem content to
continue just doing their thing."

The traveling exhibition, " The Engineers of the 'Final Solution'," is on
display at the Ruhrlandmuseum in Essen, Germany, through June 25, 2006.

(source: Der Spiegel)


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Nigerian footballer cleared after Hitler salute


In Leipzig, prosecutors investigating a case against a Nigerian
footballer for giving a Nazi salute after a German fourth division game
decided on Tuesday not to prosecute Adebowale Ogungbure.

The Sachsen Leipzig player was provoked and attacked after a draw between
Leipzig and Hallescher SC on the weekend. He reacted by giving a Nazi
salute - which in terms of German laws could be a criminal offence.

A spokesman for the prosecutors office in Halle is quoted in the Leipziger
Volkszeitung as saying that they had decided not to proceed as the
Nigerian was provoked and did not identify with the aims of a organisation
that acted outside the constitution.

However, the regional football association is to take incidents during
and after the game further by going to a sports court and is also
investigating the possibility of enforcing stadium bans more easily.

Leipzig's president Rolf Heller has criticised the Halle police who, he
says, looked away when their opponents' fans were making right-wing
statements. "It is very worrying that the police looked away."

He said that politicians needed to make a contribution towards solving the
problem. "The clubs alone are not in a position to solve the problem.

"It is particularly important in the light of Germany hosting the World
Cup. We can't say that the world is going to be our guest if things like
these happen. That is a huge problem for our image.

"We need to rectify the picture people could have of Leipzig as a result.
A situation has arisen that could reflect poorly on the region and the
whole of Germany," Heller said.

(source: Expatica)






HUNGARY/SWITZERLAND:

Lutz honoured for Holocaust rescues


A memorial plaque to honour Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz who rescued more
than 60,000 Jews during the Second World War has been unveiled in
Budapest.

The third monument to Lutz in the Hungarian capital, the plaque is mounted
on the Glass House, which the diplomat helped set up to handle Jews
emigrating to Palestine.

Lutz, who was the consul in charge of foreign interests and visas at the
Swiss Embassy between 1942 and 1945, issued tens of thousands of
protective letters for Hungarian Jews, which were reluctantly recognised
by the Nazis.

He also established 76 Swiss safe houses throughout Budapest and, with the
help of his wife Gertrud, liberated Jews from deportation centres and
death marches.

The issue of protective letters was subsequently adopted by
representatives of other neutral governments in Budapest such as Raoul
Wallenberg of Sweden.

"I am very proud of my father and wish he was here today," said Lutz'
stepdaughter, Agnes Hirschi, who attended Wednesday's ceremony.

"He always wanted to come back to Hungary because the Glass House had been
the centre of his work," she said.

"I'm alive"

Also on hand was a 75-year-old woman saved by Lutz. "I have mixed feelings
about being here today," Zsofia Zoltan said, adding she had one good
memory to hold on to, "and that's that I'm alive."

A rabbi said during the ceremony that the plaque was not only to remember
Lutz, who died in 1975, but also "to remember that we have to take action
and speak out."

About 550,000 of Hungary's 800,000 Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

Lutz' heroic efforts have been recognised by the Swiss government and he
has been honoured by Israel, where he was given the title, "Righteous
Among the Nations" at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial.

A street has been named after him in the Israeli town of Haifa, and in his
Swiss home town of Walzenhausen.

Since 1991, there has been a Lutz memorial at the entrance to the old
Budapest ghetto. Another sculpture dedicated to the diplomat stands close
to the synagogue in the same area.

(source: Swiss Info)





USA:

Holocaust novel published in English


A World War II novel hidden from the Nazis is being published in English.

After her mother, Irene Nemirovsky, was arrested in 1942 and taken to a
concentration camp, Denise Epstein, then 13, carried her mothers novel in
a suitcase as she hid from the Germans in basements and schools, Reuters
reported.

Nemirovsky died in a concentration camp, and Suite Francaise remained
untouched until it was published in France in 2004 to great acclaim. Le
Monde called the book, which tells the story of families escaping Paris, a
masterpiece ripped from oblivion.

In Nemirovskys last letters to her editor, Epstein said, she wrote, I am
so tired. I am working so hard and yet I know that my works will be
posthumous.

Knopf will publish the book next month in the United States.

(source: Jewish News Weekly of Northern California)



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


Woman continues making dolls that helped her survive the Holocaust


In Miami, when Magda Watts is making her "little people," her ankles
swell, her bones stiffen. Still, she continues working, transfixed, for
hours.

From oven-baked clay and Styrofoam, she's recreating her past: rabbis,
gossipy ladies, peddlers, jewelers, tailors, old couples and fish vendors
from her small village in central Hungary. Nearly all perished during the
Holocaust. Most were sent to the gas chambers in 1944 when Nazis overran
her country, including some in Watts' family.

But for Watts, 77, the exterminated villagers come alive when she makes
her foot-high dolls.

"If I didn't have this work, I would go crazy," she says.

Her lifelike creations have been displayed - and sold - around the world.
More than 40 went on display Sunday at the Dave and Mary Alper Jewish
Community Center in Miami-Dade.

"I don't know what I am doing when I am making them," Watts says. "My
hands just start working, but my brain isn't."

Her creations emerge from the back of her memory. She remembers a gentler
Hungary, where Jewish communities thrived before the Nazis came.

On one doll's baked clay face, she paints the knotted frown of a rabbi
concentrating on a Torah passage. Another doll grows into a man hawking
fish. Women play cards. A stern schoolmaster presides over a class.

The dolls saved Watts as a girl and later as an older woman despondent
over the Holocaust.

She was the youngest of six children living in a small village - "I was
the spoiled one" - when the Germans invaded Hungary in 1944. She was only
15.

The Germans promptly rounded up the country's Jews, including Watts, her
mother, father, two brothers, three sisters and toddler niece.

One of her sisters was lucky: She was immediately singled out for slave
labor.

The rest ended up in cattle cars. Watts' mother, sister and her sister's
tiny daughter were immediately sent to the gas chamber.

Watts and her older sister, Shari, were sent first to Auschwitz, then to a
forced labor camp to make bombs.

They kept each other alive: Watts stole food for the two and Shari
bolstered her spirits.

"She kept my soul and I kept her body," Watts likes to say.

To survive, Watts began making dolls from rags. A girl in charge of the
rations gave her double portions for making her one. Germans also began
"buying" the dolls. They gave Watts extra food in exchange for making her
dolls from the cloth they brought.

"I made beautiful dolls," Watts says.

Today, she doesn't know what happened to those creations.

Even with the extra food, she became skeletal. She weighed barely 70
pounds when the Allies finally freed her and her sister in 1945.

They found out after the war that their older brother and father had
almost made it. But their father died a day before and their brother a day
after liberation.

Only their younger brother survived.

Watts eventually reunited with him in Israel. She continues to live there
today with Benny, her husband of 44 years, as well as a grown son, Angelo,
and daughter, Hannah.

She went back to Hungary to visit in the early 1980s. The trip brought
back the terrible memories of the war and plunged her into despair.

That's when she began making dolls again, nearly 40 years after she had
quit when the war ended. The doll-making "took me out depression," she
says.

She hasn't stopped.

Filmmaker Jennifer Resnick of Pinecrest, Fla., became fascinated with her
story and helped produce a documentary about Watts, "Liberation of the
Spirit: The Journey of Magda Watts."

It chronicles Watts' doll-making as well as another trip in the 1990s back
to her hometown and to Auschwitz.

This time, though, Watts felt rejuvenated from the visit.

She spotted a deer "sleeping at my place" at the concentration camp. She
watched it wake up and run away. "The deer flew over the fence," Watts
remembers. She felt freed.

Her nightmares ended. "I became a happy person," Watts says.

Now, continuing to make her "little people" only adds to her contentment.
They help re-create a loving world for Watts.

"They love to love," she says.

(source: Knight Ridder Newspapers)


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


Councilman Raises Controversy With Nazi-Style Salute


In Lawrence, Indiana, a city councilman stirred controversy with a
Nazi-style salute in protest of the end of a meeting Wednesday night.

Councilman R. Douglas Reeser, upset at the end of a special council
meeting, expressed his displeasure after he and two other Republicans were
outvoted on some measures that would have essentially done away with a
lawsuit that Lawrence Mayor Deborah Cantwell has against the council.

Reeser and other opponents of the measure were upset because they felt
they didn't get a chance to speak to their point of view.

Cantwell said the Nazi-style salute was a very inappropriate way to
protest.

"This just signifies hatred. So it certainly was a disappointment -- just
shows what kind of character unfortunately the person has," Cantwell said.

Reeser, also a Lawrence teacher, spoke with 6News briefly via phone
Wednesday night. Reeser said his intent was simply to express displeasure
at not being able to speak at the meeting.

Councilman Kyle Walker said he and other Republicans were muzzled.

"It was very unfortunate we couldn't speak because the president of the
council would not allow us to make any public comment whatsoever," Walker
said.

(source: The IndyChannel)





CANADA:

Montreal synagogues defaced with Nazi graffiti


Members of a Montreal synagogue are furious over the second act of
vandalism -- including swastikas and other Nazi symbols painted on the
outside walls of the building -- in the area in the past week.

Congregation members at the Chai Centre are not only upset about the
defacement; police reaction also frustrates them.

After discovering the vandalism, one of the members called 911 to report
the incident.

The police, however, told them that they were too busy to react immediately.

"They'll try their best but then they said they're too busy, they'll come
the next day," Rabbi Yossi Kessler from the Chai Centre told CTV Montreal.

The police defended the delay by saying that this type of call is a
priority three -- "nobody is injured and no life is in danger, so we're
going to go there after the other emergency calls."

While the Jewish groups understand this rationale, they were surprised
with police reaction because they usually have excellent relations with
the Montreal police.

"Generally speaking they work with us, they want to help us, they assist
us in any way possible and we want them to do same thing in this case
because this is a very, very serious crime. This is a serious thing that
has happened," said Tuvia Atkin, a congregant.

Kessler explained that these are more than just symbols.

"Our parents are Holocaust survivors so when we se the signs, it turns the
kistke around -- I don't know if you know what that means -- the guts, it
turns the guts around," he said.

Earlier in the week the Zikron Kedoshim synagogue, just up the street, was
also vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti.

The acts have shocked community members.

"In the 31 years I have been in and around this area, I have not seen
anything like this in this area before," Atkin said.

Members of the community hope this will be the last of the graffiti.

They also hope to work together with police, to set up a neighbourhood
watch.

(source: CTV)