August 19




HUNGARY:


Hungarian woman honored for Holocaust heroism


Oskar Schindler had his list. Clara Ambrus-Baer and her family had their
home in Budapest, and a nearby vacant textile factory.

The Baers, like the German industrialist, provided a safe haven for Jews
during the Holocaust - saving some 50 people targeted by the Germans,
including the future chief rabbi of Vienna. On Friday, the Israeli
government honored Clara Ambrus-Baer for her life-saving efforts more than
six decades ago.

"I never expected this," said Ambrus-Baer, now 81 and living in Buffalo.
"I didn't want to get praised for what I did. I took it for normal that
somebody saves people's lives."

Ambrus-Baer received a "Righteous Among the Nations" award, presented to
people who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. It is the
highest honor bestowed on non-Jews by the state of Israel, with 21,310
recipients as of January 2006.

Ambrus-Baer was 19 when the Germans invaded Budapest in 1944. Her family
turned its home into a safe haven for Jews hiding from the Nazis, and also
provided elaborate hideouts in a vacant textile factory that her parents
once managed.

She recalled the times when the Germans came and banged on the front door
of her home, when the discovery of the hidden Jews would have led to the
death of her own family.

"We had a couple of dogs," Ambrus-Baer said. "And whenever anybody came to
the door, then I always told them the dogs were very vicious - which
wasn't true - and I had to put them away.

"It gave everybody some time to hide."

Ayre Mekel, Israeli consul general in New York, said the heroism of
Ambrus-Baer and her family was verified by the Yad Vashem Holocaust
Memorial in Jerusalem.

"The Jewish state has a long memory," said Mekel. "We remember our
enemies. We don't easily forgive. But we remember our friends, too,
particularly those who saved Jews during the Holocaust."

Julian Ambrus, Clara's husband of 60 years, said his wife also bribed
German guards to free imprisoned Jews and provided the ex-prisoners with a
hideaway. "She saved several hundred," he said.

After the war, Clara and Julius moved to Switzerland _ where they became
friendly with Oskar Schindler's brother. Schindler was renowned for saving
more than 1,000 Jews by insisting their work was essential to keeping his
factory in Poland open.

"We became very close friends," Julius Ambrus said. "We had dinner every
week."

(source: Associated Press)





SWITZERLAND:

Swiss reject IBM-Holocaust lawsuit


Switzerland's supreme court has turned down a lawsuit accusing IBM of
aiding the Nazi Holocaust because too much time has elapsed, the Gypsy
organization that filed the case said Friday.

Gypsy International Recognition and Compensation Action said it had been
given notice of the decision by the Federal Tribunal in Lausanne that the
statute of limitations applied to the case.

It said the court's explanation would be made public only when the ruling
is released in "some weeks."

"This decision puts an end to the legal case GIRCA v. IBM initiated in
Geneva, Switzerland, before any study of the merits of the case," the
organization said. "However, it will certainly not silence the voices of
those victims of criminals against humanity who have decided to sue the
companies which provided logistical support for their crimes."

IBM spokesman Joe Hanley said in a statement to The Associated Press, "As
we have consistently maintained, the case should not go forward. We are
gratified that the Swiss federal tribunal agrees."

The gypsy organization filed the lawsuit after a 2001 book claimed the
IBM's punch-card machines enabled the Nazis to make their killing
operations more efficient.

The Gypsy group said IBM's Geneva office was the company's hub for trade
with the Nazis - something the company has rejected.

The New York-based firm also has consistently denied it was in any way
responsible for the way its machines were used in the Holocaust.
The Gypsies' lawyer Henri-Philippe Sambuc said in a phone interview that
he wants to read the Swiss court's decision before recommending how to
proceed.

"I think, Gypsy organizations will try to adapt their strategy to this
decision. A new action in Geneva could be possible - not based on Swiss
law, but on foreign law, like Polish law or Romanian law. But that kind of
strategy means a thorough investigation and legal homework," he said.

The Gypsies' lawyers maintain that the company's Geneva office continued
to coordinate Europe-wide trade with the Nazis, acting on clear
instructions from IBM's world headquarters in New York.

The Gypsy group sued IBM for "moral reparation" and US$20,000 (16,650)
each in damages on behalf of four Gypsies, or Roma, from Germany and
France and one Polish-born Swedish Gypsy. All five plaintiffs were
orphaned in the Holocaust.

The lawsuit was filed after US author Edwin Black - in his book "IBM and
the Holocaust" said the punch-card machines were used to codify
information about people sent to concentration camps.

IBM's German division has paid into Germany's government-industry
initiative to compensate people forced to work for the Nazis during the
war.

In April 2001, a class-action lawsuit against IBM in New York was dropped
after lawyers said they feared it would slow down payments from the German
Holocaust fund. German companies had sought freedom from legal actions
before committing to the fund.

(source: Associated Press)

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

IBM off the hook in Gypsy lawsuit


The Swiss supreme court says the statute of limitations prevents it from
hearing the case.


Switzerland's supreme court has dismissed a lawsuit accusing IBM
Corp. of aiding the Nazi Holocaust because too much time has elapsed, the
organization that filed the case said yesterday.

Gypsy International Recognition and Compensation Action said it had been
given notice of the decision by the Federal Tribunal in Lausanne that the
statute of limitations applied to the case. It said the court's
explanation will be released in several weeks.

The organization said the ruling ends the legal case before any study of
the merits of the case.

"However, it will certainly not silence the voices of those victims of
criminals against humanity who have decided to sue the companies which
provided logistical support for their crimes," the group said.

IBM's reaction to the decision wasn't available.

The lawsuit was filed after U.S. author Edwin Black -- in his 2001 book
IBM and the Holocaust -- said IBM's punch-card machines were used to
codify information about Jews and other persecuted groups sent to
concentration camps.

The Gypsy group said IBM's Geneva office was the company's hub for trade
with the Nazis, an allegation the company has rejected.

IBM, one of the world's largest information-technology services providers,
also has consistently denied it was in any way responsible for the way its
machines were used in the Holocaust.

The Gypsies' lawyers maintain the company's Geneva office continued to
co-ordinate Europewide trade with the Nazis, acting on clear instructions
from IBM's world headquarters in Armonk, N.Y.

The Gypsy group sued IBM for "moral reparation" and $20,000 US each in
damages on behalf of four Gypsies, or Roma, from Germany and France and
one Polish-born Swedish Gypsy. All five plaintiffs were orphaned in the
Holocaust.

In addition to six million Jews, the Nazis are believed to have killed
around 600,000 Gypsies, although Roma groups say the number could have
been 1.5 million.

(source: London Free Press)






GERMANY:

Town fights to stop neo-Nazis buying hotel

A neo-Nazi organization was poised to purchase a hotel in a town in
Germany and turn it into a eugenics indoctrination centre after local
residents failed to come up with enough money to stop the sale.

In a race against the clock that made headlines around the world, people
in Delmenhorst near Bremen held bake sales and staged fund- raising
barbecues to try to scrape together money to thwart a rich neo-Nazi
lawyer's organization from buying property in their town.

They succeeded in raising less than a million dollars, no where near the
3.4 million euros (4.2 million dollars) that the hotel owner demanded for
the property. Owner Guenter

Mergel said he must finalize the sale this week.

Now state and federal officials say there is nothing to prevent the sale
from going through, turning the now empty Hotel am Stadtpark into a
workshop for neo-Nazi racial purity ideology.

"The seller is within his rights to sell the property and there is nothing
legally that we can do to prevent it," Lower Saxony State Premier
Christian Wulff said.

Hotel owner Mergel said he saw no alternative to accepting the lucrative
offer for the property, which has been on the market for a long time.

It will fall into the possession of the right-wing extremist organization
Wilhelm Tietjen Stiftung fuer Fertilisation Ltd (Foundation for
Fertilization Research).

The group, and its lawyer Juergen Rieger, reportedly plan to transform the
hotel into a centre for neo-Nazi conferences and events.

The attempt to buy the Delmenhorst hotel is not the first time the Wilhelm
Tietjen Foundation has made headlines with its real estate interests. The
organization is named for a rich Nazi from Bremen who died childless in
2002.

The group, which has its formal seat in London, bought a 19th-century
manor house from the German army in 2004 with the apparent intention of
transforming it into a centre of reproductive and fertilization research.

Rieger is also the head of the Germanic Faith Community for Life Creation
- which is allegedly interested in promoting Aryan eugenics racial
ideology - and was also chairman of the Society for Biological
Anthropology, Eugenics and Behavioural Research.

The looming prospect of a haven for neo-Nazis in their town has appalled
many residents of the small city of 80,000 on the coastal plains of
northern Germany.

"We were hoping against hope that we could come up with the money to avert
this tragedy," said Mayor Carsten Schwettmann. "The good people of our
community did their very best. But I fear it was not enough."

The hotel is prominently situated across from the town hall in the centre
of town.

The prospective new owner has defended a number of neo-Nazis including
Holocaust denier Ernst Zuendel and is known for speaking at neo-Nazi
rallies honouring Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess.

Rieger owns property in Hamburg, Thuringia, a former German military
building in Doerverden near Bremen as well as in Sweden.

The impending hotel sale has rocked this small city which has seen an
outpouring of opposition to the neo-Nazi group's plans.

The hotel owner has come under pressure from locals, but has insisted he
had no alternative but to shed the loss-making property.

Mergel, who told Focus magazine that the empty 100-room hotel is bleeding
him dry financially, said he has no choice: "I am up to my neck in hot
water."

Opponents held rallies and circulated petitions and set up an internet
website to funnel donations. More than 3,000 people from the town and
around Germany joined the effort.

"We were desperate to stop this thing," said town resident Guenter Feith,
a 58-year-old architect and founder of the initiative. "We have to."

Feith said townspeople intend to fight the sale all the way to the highest
court in Germany.

"We have a good chance of succeeding," he said. "Besides, I don't want to
think about what happens if we don't."

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


Expellee group says it cannot afford inquiry into ex-Nazis links


The German refugee group that angered Poland's leaders this week with a
Berlin exhibition about ethnic purges has said it cannot afford to
investigate any failings in its own past.

Erika Steinbach, president of the Federation of Expellees, an organization
representing Germans expelled from eastern Europe after World War II, told
the German news magazine Der Spiegel, 'That would cost money that we don't
have.'

The expellees, who sought for decades to recover their lost property, were
regularly accused by communist governments of 'revanchism,' or trying to
reverse the German territorial losses of World War 11.

Steinbach was asked by Der Spiegel- which appears on newsstands on Monday
- for comment on research that suggests more than one third of nearly 200
senior expellee federation figures before 1982, including three national
secretaries, had formerly been Nazi party members or had other Nazi links.

She replied that the federation had been beyond reproach in excluding
ex-Nazis, but distinguished between former passive members of the Nazi
party and those who 'filled roles that are not acceptable.'

The Federation of Expellees, whose insistence that the War's outcome is
unfair enrages many eastern Europeans, is campaigning for the
dispossession of the Germans to be condemned like other 20th century
'ethnic purges.' It opened an exhibition on that theme this week in a
Berlin museum.

(source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur)


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



A Belated Coming to Terms


Germany and Japan have served six decades on global probation. It is time
for their neighbors, their citizens and the international community to
acknowledge the thorough transformation of the former Axis powers into
fully democratic and morally responsible nations.

Comes now Guenter Grass, Germany's most accomplished novelist, to remind
us of this need, albeit inadvertently. As does Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi of Japan, much more deliberately. They have touched off
controversies that bring into focus questions of war guilt, selective
historical amnesia and, for Grass, the role of the artist in
consumer-dominated societies.

Grass is simultaneously a Nobel laureate in literature, a deeply flawed
political thinker and a willing human lightning rod for national angst. He
has based his career on castigating Germans -- more specifically, West
Germans during the Cold War -- for refusing to face up to the broad
support they gave Hitler's crimes. So jaws dropped last week when Grass,
now 78, disclosed his secret past as a 17-year-old Nazi assault trooper at
the end of World War II.

Cynics in Germany noted that the revelation came at a strategic marketing
moment for Grass's new memoir, which was promptly rushed into stores. The
author himself suggested another motivation in a revealing interview in
the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: At his age, there is no hiding place
left in the soul.

Grass's complexity as a literary and historical figure makes this much
more than a personal tale of an intellectual preaching one thing while
doing another. Had he disclosed it, his conscription into the Waffen SS
could have made his testimony about the evil of the Nazi era even more
compelling. His transformation was a story worth telling long before now.

In any event, what he has written and said about that era over the past
half-century stands on its own -- as do the restitution and reconciliation
efforts of successive German governments over the same period. People --
and nations -- can, and do, change as a result of their experiences. They
must be judged on the entirety of the record, with particular weight being
given to the consistency of their behavior in the more recent past.

That is a right that Grass was unwilling to grant to his fellow citizens
in West Germany, which he saw as a "petty bourgeois" political entity so
corrupt and stained by the past that he opposed German reunification at
the end of the Cold War. Having naively excused or whitewashed the
shortcomings of the communist system in East Germany for so long, he could
not bear to see it disappear.

But the lasting artistry of "The Tin Drum" and other Grass novels towers
over such misguided, unsustainable political judgments. Calls for the
Nobel Prize awarded to Grass in 1999 to be rescinded because of his Waffen
SS role -- and I suspect because of his contemporary political views --
are misplaced. His works and the recognition they have received are in
fact important indicators of Germany's having come to terms with the past
more successfully than have other world powers, particularly Russia and
China.

Koizumi gave China an opening to rake up Japan's militaristic past last
week by visiting the Yasukuni war shrine, which honors 2.5 million
Japanese war dead, including 14 persons convicted as Class A war criminals
by a 1948 tribunal. But China and other Asian nations are engaged in the
pursuit of tactical advantage, not historical truth, in pretending they
possess moral superiority over an unreconstructed Japan.

It is the unfinished transformation of China, not of Japan, that is the
urgent moral and political question today in Asia. It is China's military
buildup -- not Japan's increased willingness to take on the burdens of
global security -- that is the destabilizing force in Asia. Americans and
Europeans should not be taken in by Beijing's flimflammery on the Yasukuni
visit.

Such protests and the discrimination against Germany and Japan written
into the United Nations Charter are now obsolete. Japanese membership on
the Security Council is a necessary first step toward serious reform of
the world body. Tokyo should help clear the way for that step by removing
the inscriptions that honor war criminals at Yasukuni.

Germany's case for Security Council membership is complicated by the fact
that Europe already has seats held by France and Britain. Chancellor
Angela Merkel has prudently deferred the once-insistent push by Germany
for its own seat. But Germany and Japan both deserve to be heard and
treated as the responsible international partners they have become across
six decades.

(source: Column, Jim Hoagland, Washington Post)

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

THEATRE IN THE GERMAN CONCENTRATION CAMPS


THERE are so many contradictions in the organization of the Third Reich
that it is only surprising at first thought to learn that theatres, both
permitted and illicit, exist in the German Concentration Camps. The nature
and extent of this theatre varies in direct relation to the conditions
prevailing in a particular camp. Thus in Dachau, with its prison
population of almost 10,000, where orderliness is the quintessence and
Grndlichkeit is king, any licensed theatricals are out of the question.
Here the discipline is so Spartan that it would reduce a military camp to
kindergarten proportions. On the other hand, the larger camp of
Buchenwald, with 25,000 prisoners, is quite different, or was, at least,
during the writer's period of 'protective custody' when it contained both
licensed and illicit theatrical activity.

The difference in the main was due to two factors. First, Dachau was in
the nature of a show camp, often visited by distinguished foreigners. It
was not intended by the Nazi "humanitarians" that these guests should
leave with the impression that the "dangerous" prisoners were being
pampered with entertainment. Second, the atmosphere of the Concentration
Camps always reflected the personality of the S.S. officer in command.
Dachau always had a disciplinarian who would make the generally conceived
version of a Prussian officer look like a weak sister. Buchenwald was the
reverse. There was plently of discipline but it flew around in loose,
uncoordinated pieces. There was a succession of drunken and eccentric S.S.
camp commanders. In the writer's time anything could and did happen. Thus
an illicit theatre thrived continuously, and, for a short time, at the
order of a drunken camp commander, the prisoners were obliged to produce a
show which ran from two to four performances a day. About this, more
later.

Performances in Dachau were, in the nature of things, extremely
undercover, being carried out by the prisoners at great personal risk.
There were no specific camp orders forbidding this form of entertainment
but its discovery would have so infuriated the S.S. camp guards that
torture and death would have followed automatically.

The only day in the week when there could be anything in the way of
entertainment was Sunday. On this day there was none of the hard work
characteristic of the week days, although the morning was spent in
cleaning up the camp huts and in roll call. In the afternoon and evening
the prisoners were permitted to write brief letters home or to read the
newspapers (In Dachau, unlike the other camps, it was permitted to read
any newspaper printed in Germany). As far as the S.S. guards were
concerned, the dead hour for the camp was around 4 P.M. Under ordinary
circumstances there would be no S.S. men nearer than the watch-towers
surrounding the camp. The prisoners took this opportunity to create their
own organized entertainment.

In Dachau there were two main types of entertainment, singing and
dramatic. These again were divided according to whether the performers
were political or non-political prisoners (in addition to the political
prisoners, there were five other categories). In the huts mainly occupied
by politicals the chief divertissement was the singing of Volkslieder and
the songs common to the international revolutionary movement. In addition
many new songs were composed, generally around the themes of the camp and
liberty. The S.S. men (who were invariably short of cash and who would
take a bribe as easily as they would shoot a man down) permitted the
prisoners to have a violin, guitar, accordian and harmonica. Another form
of entertainment favored by the politicals was the small satirical cabaret
so common in pre-Hitler Europe. This was characterized by the recital of
poems criticizing the regime and making fun of the camp personnel,
humorous political monologues lashing the Nazis, and anti-fascist patter
for one, two or three actors.

There was a big change in the camp entertainment, both political and
non-political, on the arrival in May 1938 at Dachau of some thousands of
Viennese, first victims of the Anschluss. Especially was there an increase
in the number and quality of cabaret entertainments. There was quite an
influx of talented and well-known actors of cabaret, stage and screen. One
of the best known was Paul Morgan, famous throughout Central Europe as
actor and playwright, whose musical comedy Axel vor der Himmels Tor
rocketed the Scandinavian Sarah Leander into prominence. The reason given
by the Gestapo for Morgan's arrest was that a letter from Stresemann was
found among his possessions, a simple letter of thanks for a charity
performance given years before. Morgan was later transferred to Buchenwald
where he died from inflammation of the lungs contracted during one of the
coldest winters in Europe.

The non-political entertainment at Dachau was performed mostly by the
professional actors among the prisoners. With the exception of some of the
cabaret acts the material was "foreign" to the camp. It was the Vienna or
Berlin stage, transferred in miniature to the ill-lit huts of Dachau.
Among the writer's fellow prisoners were many well-known in the world of
European theatre, actors, singers, composers and artists -- the drawing
cards of Vienna's leading cabarets.

The performances generally took place inside a hut, with some hundreds of
prisoners grouped in a circle around the artists. Sentries were posted at
the ends of the huts to make certain that there were no S.S. men in the
locality. At times there might be three shows running simultaneously in
three huts. The "stars" ran from one hut to another for their turns.

Sometimes the excellence of a performance brought forth a spontaneous
burst of applause. If the S.S. men on the watch-towers came down to
investigate, the scene would be reminiscent of a raid on a Brooklyn
speakeasy during Prohibition days, with prisoners jumping out of doors and
windows in every direction.

One of the best songs composed in the camp, the Dachau song, was specially
composed for the illicit theatre. The circumstances relating to its
creation are grim but interesting. During 1937, the London News Chronicle
and the Manchester Guardian published some exposures of conditions in the
Nazi Concentration Camps. As a Gestapo reprisal, action was taken against
all Jewish prisoners in Dachau Camp. For two months they were locked in
their darkened huts in complete isolation from the rest of the camp. The
political prisoners among them took the initiative to organize some form
of entertainment that would keep up the spirit and morale of the other
prisoners. During those terrible sixty days the Dachau Song was born. The
words were so bitter and yet at the same time expressed such hope for the
future that the S.S. guards made it a verboten song. This, however, did
not prevent the prisoners from singing it.

In Buchenwald the whole atmosphere was different. Everything was as
disordered as the mind of the drunken S.S. camp commander. Whims came from
his befuddled head like demons from a Bosch "Last Judgment". One day it
would be extra rations and the next, a lashing for every fifth man. And so
it came about that at Silvester (New Year) he commanded a week of humor
from the prisoners.

A prisoner was found who had been Compre in a large Berlin Music Hall. He
was made responsible for finding talent among the prisoners and producing
it on a given date. After making a survey of the camp talent (of which
there was plenty both professional and amateur) he selected about fifteen
turns. Other prisoners were made responsible for constructing a theatre.
The partitions of a long hut were pulled down and a stage with proscenium
constructed along the middle of one of the hut's long sides. Overhead
lights were set up and a few crudely painted pieces of scenery
representing a sylvan glade (sic) were built.

At the performance, which ran for a week before, through and after
Silvester, the audience generally amounting to 500, were grouped in a flat
crescent, some sitting and the majority standing. While the performances
were extremely good in the vaudeville class, the atmosphere was always
strained by the presence of a number of S.S. men. The succession of
jugglers, acrobats, dancers, conjurers, monologists, songsters and
instrumentalists was held together by the extremely daring Compre. With
all the Schmalz of the experienced cabareteer he introduced the show as
follows:

"My friends, you are lucky to be here this afternoon. Here, in Buchenwald,
we have the best art and the best artists in the whole of Germany. Here
you can actually laugh out loud at our jokes. Here is the freest theatre
in the Reich. In the theatres outside, the actors and the audience are
frightened because they fear that they may end up in a Concentration Camp.
That's something we don't have to worry about."

His comments and continuity patter, in the presence of heavily armed S.S.
men, who valued human life at less than a cigarette, kept the
prisoner-audience breathless. This is a typical example:

"You know, times don't really change. I remember that when we had the
Kaiser, we always had swine pushing us around. Later when we had the
Republic, was it any different? No, we still had swine pushing us around.
And what of today? He waited for an answer. The air was electric as the
prisoners watched the S.S. men out of the corners of their eyes. No
answer. He answered the question himself. Why, today is Monday."

No one really enjoyed the official Buchenwald theatre. The presence of so
many S.S. men threw a damper over everything. But it gave the prisoners an
idea and from that time until the writer left the camp there was a
flourishing underground theatre, both political and non-political. The
non-political shows were after the style of those held in Dachau -- small
cabarets with the performances mostly by professional actors.

The political cabarets were the most interesting for, although the
performers were generally non-professional, their acts were original.
There were several groups of about five men each, who made the rounds of
the political huts between 6 P.M. and "lights out" on weekdays. The
audience was invariably of a high intellectual level, consisting of former
members of the Reichstag, leaders of the pre-Third Reich political
parties, writers, artists, publicists, etc.

In the five-man cabaret in which the writer played, the performance was in
the manner of the Viennese Kleinkunstbhne, the audience being grouped in a
small circle round the performers. Jura Soyfer, the young Austrian poet
and dramatist whose tragedy it was to die of typhoid fever in the camp the
day after word came of his release, wrote the greater part of the show.
The actual creation of the show was an intellectual feat. For obvious
reasons nothing could be written down, so the script -- lasting one hour
-- had to be transmitted to the actors by word of mouth. The program of
this small group was repeated on many occasions in the various huts
inhabited by the political prisoners. The players took the precaution of
tearing off the identification numbers sewn on the right thigh of each
prisoner's pants, in case some S.S. stool pigeon should want to make
trouble.

The details of the program were simple. The first item was always the
singing of the Buchenwald Song by the group. This is an excellent song of
the Volklied type, in no way inferior to the better known and already
recorded Moorsoldaten. Next came a humorous monologue of an imaginary
conversation between the drunken camp leader and the equally drunken
leader of the German Labor Front, Dr. Robert Ley. This was performed by a
famous Central European comedian whose name cannot be mentioned because he
is unfortunately still in a Concentration Camp, although no longer in
Buchenwald. This would be followed by more political songs. The most
important item would be a short play for three players, lasting some
twenty minutes, a mix of true comedy and satire attacking the
administration of the camp and the blood-soaked system which maintained
it.

The whole underlying idea of the theatrical activity of the Concentration
Camps was obviously temporary release from the terrible reality of that
life. In the case of the political prisoners, whose influence was great,
there was the added factor of maintaining morale. The healthiest release
was in the form of satire, making fun of certain parts of camp life. The
amazing abundance of humor, however, must not be misunderstood. There was,
and is, nothing funny about life when death can sneak up in a score of
painful ways which seem to have no connection with the laws which govern
the outside world.

When at some future but unknowable date not too far distant the ghastly
system of Hitler and his several hundred thousand hangmen has been
destroyed, the great art of the Concentration Camps will come out into
full daylight and be recorded as one of man's great achievements in
adversity.

(source: Theatre Arts New York 1941)








CANADA:

Canadian gallery returns painting looted by Nazis


In Toronto, a 20th-century French oil painting by Edouard Vuillard,
looted by the Nazis during World War Two, will be returned to the family
of its original owner, the National Gallery of Canada said on Friday.

This is the first time a work stolen by the Nazis has been identified and
returned to its rightful owners by the Ottawa gallery.

"We are proud of the fact that we brought it up first and that the right
result has been achieved," said Chief Curator David Franklin.

The National Gallery first tried to return the painting in 1997 to the
family of Alfred Lindon, a French businessman of Jewish descent who died
in 1948, after a curator discovered it had been stolen by the Nazis in
France.

At the time, the family had no record of having owned the 1904 oil
painting and refused its return.

In 2003, the gallery received definitive proof of its ownership and Denis
Lindon, another family member, began proceedings to reclaim the work on
behalf of a group of heirs.

The 1904 post-impressionist painting, reworked by the artist in 1934,
depicts a domestic interior.

"Vuillard is regarded as a leading French artist," Franklin said. "He's
one of the giants of French art."

The painting was purchased by the National Gallery in 1956 from an art
dealer in Paris.

The heirs plan to auction the painting, Franklin said. Earlier this year a
Vuillard painting sold at a Sotheby's auction in London for $315,000, he
said.

The gallery maintains a Web site with images of about 100 works from its
permanent collection that have gaps in their proof of ownership between
1933 and 1945, the period before and during World War Two.

(source: Reuters)


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

Citizenship in jeopardy for Canadians found to be Nazi guards


Two elderly men accused of working as Nazi guards during the Second World
War have lost their case in Federal Court.

Citizenship and Immigration had accused the men Josef Furman, 87 of
Edmonton, and Jura Skomatchuk, 85, of St. Catharines, Ont. of being Nazi
guards and falsely representing their pasts when they arrived in Canada
and when they applied to be Canadian citizens. In rulings released Friday,
Justice Judith Snider agreed with the government after weeks of testimony.

The judge's decision means both men were not lawfully admitted to Canada
and obtained citizenship by false representation.

It does not automatically revoke the their citizenship, but provides a
basis for the government to proceed with that action. It was not
immediately clear what the government's next steps would be.

A spokesperson in the office of Citizenship and Immigration Minister Monte
Solberg said the department is "pleased" with the courts findings but
could not elaborate on where the case is going next.

"Any case dealing with an individuals citizenship is taken very
seriously," said Lesley Harmer.

The Crown argued Furman concealed relevant information about his
activities during the Second World War when he arrived in Canada in 1949
and when he was granted Canadian citizenship in 1957. Furman denied the
allegation that he worked as an SS guardsman, claiming he was a captured
Russian soldier who was a forced farm worker in Germany between 1942 and
1945.

Snider was not persuaded by that version of events and sided with the
Crown, determining that Furman attended the Trawniki training camp as an
SS guard and was posted at the Warsaw and Bialystok ghettos and at another
concentration camp in Germany in 1943 and 1944.

She agreed Furman had to have misrepresented his wartime activities to
immigration officials in order to gain entry to Canada in 1949 and
therefore violated the immigration act in place at the time.

A similar case was presented against Skomatchuk who arrived in Canada in
1952. He also claimed he was conscripted to perform forced labour for the
Nazi regime while the Crown alleged he was a concentration camp guard.
Again, the judge did not believe Skomatchuk's version of events and found
he was a concentration camp guard, a fact that would have made him
inadmissible to Canada, the Crown argued.

During the court hearings, which began in early June, a former
concentration camp prisoner described the violence and inhuman conditions
of living in captivity, including details from some of the places where
the two accused allegedly worked.

A historian, Johannes Tuchel, told court Skomatchuk's name appeared on
transfer lists several times, suggesting he was trained as an armed guard
at the Nazi Trawniki camp before being transferred to serve at a number of
concentration camps. No evidence connects Skomatchuk to any specific war
crimes said Tuchel, but he noted the guards where known for "brutality you
cant possibly describe."

The Crown did not allege that Furman or Skomatchuk carried out any
particular acts of violence.

(source: National Post)


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

City man was guard in Nazi death camp----Judge rules that 87-year-old
Josef Furman was member of a notorious SS Death's Head unit


An elderly Edmonton man who claims he was a German farm labourer during
the Second World War was actually a concentration camp guard, a judge
ruled Friday.

Federal Court Justice Judith Snider concluded 87-year-old Josef Furman is
the same man as SS guardsman Josef Furmantschuk, a Soviet prisoner of war
who worked at the concentration camp in Flossenburg, Germany, for at least
six months in 1943-44.

Integrated into the SS Death's Head guard units, he was also deployed to
help clear the Jewish ghettos in Warsaw and Bialystok, the judge decided.

She said the Ukrainian-born Furman likely fabricated a story for Canadian
immigration officials that he performed forced farm labour as a German
prisoner in 1942-45 and obtained citizenship in 1957 by false
representation or fraud.

Furman's lawyer denounced Snider's findings, saying she based her verdict
on photocopies of Russian documents and other unreliable evidence.

"It's disgusting, it really is," said Eric Hafemann of Waterloo, Ont. "But
this has happened before in other cases and she just followed the line."

Two historians testified, but there were no witnesses to identify
Furmantschuk as Furman. He suffers from Alzheimer's disease and is unable
to take part.

Another man represented by Hafemann, Jura Skomatchuk of St. Catharines,
Ont., had a hearing at the same time as Furman over accusations he also
hid his work with the German SS when he moved to Canada.

Snider found the 85-year-old retired mining worker had been a guard at
German concentration camps and at a Nazi labour camp in his birth country
of Poland.

While David Matas, legal counsel for B'nai Brith Canada, welcomed the
decisions, he called on the federal government to move faster to strip
these people of their citizenship and deport them.

Four people in similar cases have been waiting as much as seven years for
this next step, and another eight have died during the proceedings against
them, he said from Winnipeg.

"To get a judgment that they lied on entry, and then do nothing about it,
it's pointless," he said.

"It's maybe a lack of political priorities. It's maybe that (each one) has
his member of Parliament, and there are some people who will just lobby on
behalf of them."

Immigration Minister Monte Solberg must now decide whether to recommend
that cabinet revoke the citizenship of both men.

A spokeswoman for Solberg couldn't be reached for comment. Hafemann said
further action would be "purely political."

Furman lives in a long-term care facility, while Skomatchuk can't walk and
is nearly deaf, he said.

"Any minister who has any backbone in terms of fairness would look at this
and say, 'Wait a minute, (these guys) got railroaded.' "

He expects that, more than 60 years since the end of the Second World War,
they will be among the last Canadians to face such a hearing.

Marco Levytsky, a member of the National Justice Committee of the
Ukrainian Canadian Congress, described the verdicts as "a travesty of
justice."

Although federal policy only allows the government to try to revoke
citizenship in such cases for people who were complicit in war crimes,
there's no evidence like that against either man, he said.

(source: Edmonton Journal)