Sept. 8




AUSTRIA:

Pope visits Holocaust memorial


Benedict begins his trip to Austria with a visit to a monument to slain
Jews. He later emphasizes his view that Christianity is essential to
Europe.


Pope Benedict XVI stood silently Friday before a large stone monument to
Austrian Jews slaughtered in the Holocaust, offering a gesture of what he
described as "sadness" and "repentance."

The visit was a significant start to a three-day pilgrimage to Austria to
lend succor to a Roman Catholic Church still troubled by sexual abuse
scandals, plummeting membership and sapped influence.

"An Austria without a vibrant Christian faith would no longer be Austria,"
the pope said at an evening gathering of diplomats and international
officials at Vienna's majestic Hofburg palace.

The visit to Austria allows the pope to emphasize some of his favorite
themes, including what he sees as Europe's essential Christian identity,
particularly as it is undermined by secularism and growing Muslim
populations. One demographer last week predicted that at current dropout
and birth rates, Catholics may represent only 50% of Austria's population
by 2051 (down from 74% in 2001), while Muslims could come to constitute
30% of the population.

"Europe cannot and must not deny her Christian roots," Benedict said.
"Christianity has profoundly shaped this continent."

But as he did last year in Poland and his native Germany, the pope, who
grew up during World War II and served briefly in Hitler's army, has had
to confront the legacy of the Holocaust and the often problematic
relations between the Roman Catholic Church and Judaism.

Shortly after arriving, Benedict stopped at the memorial in Judenplatz, or
Jews' Square. The appearance was brief and drenched in rain. The pontiff
meditated alongside Austria's chief rabbi, Chaim Eisenberg, then listened
to him pray. Benedict bowed twice before shaking hands with representatives
of the Jewish community.

Speaking earlier to reporters accompanying him on the flight from Rome,
Benedict said he wanted to show "our sadness, our repentance" for the
Holocaust and "our friendship with our Jewish brothers." The pope's use of
the word "repentance" was especially important because it recognizes guilt
and responsibility, which Jewish leaders have been seeking.

"There is no dearth of acknowledgment of what happened, but rarely do we
get a clearly pronounced acknowledgment of guilt of the clergy," Robert
Liska, a prominent member of the Viennese Jewish community, said before
the pope's visit. "It is a question of how much he talks about
responsibility and real individual guilt of church leaders. Are church
leaders prepared to make amends or just try to smooth over the edges?"

Before the war, Vienna's Jews were among Europe's most prosperous and
successful. They numbered 200,000; after Hitler annexed Austria in 1938,
most fled and at least 65,000 were killed in Nazi death camps.

Austrians were slower than most other Europeans to recognize their
complicity with the Nazis. Austrian President Heinz Fischer, in greeting
the pope Friday, acknowledged "dark hours" in Austria's history.

Today, the Jewish community here is tiny but thriving. There are three
Jewish schools and numerous kosher restaurants and food stores. Within a
few yards of where the pope was standing Friday are the ruins of Vienna's
first synagogue, built in the 12th century. Also nearby is a Jewish
museum, and the site where hundreds of Jews were burned alive in 1421 for
refusing to convert to Christianity, the latter still bearing a medieval
plaque celebrating the killing of the "Hebrew dogs."

The rectangular Holocaust monument, designed by British artist Rachel
White- read, was unveiled in 2000.

In his address to welcome the pope, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the
archbishop of Vienna, noted that Christianity's roots are in Judaism.
Jesus, Mary and St. Peter were all Jews, he said.

"It is part of the tragedy of this city," Schoenborn said, "that precisely
here these roots were forgotten, even denied to the point where godless
will destroyed the people to whom God gave his first love."

Although Jewish-Catholic ties have improved in recent decades, there have
been setbacks. Most recently, Benedict was criticized by top Jewish groups
after reinstating a Latin Mass that contains a prayer for the conversion
of Jews, and after being photographed in a private meeting with a Polish
priest known for anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Turning to Catholics and the primary purpose of his pilgrimage, the pope
offered gratitude to believers who stuck with the church during a string
of scandals.

"I hope that I still can help in the healing of these wounds," Benedict
told reporters aboard his flight, adding his appreciation for those who
"in a church of sinners nonetheless recognized the faith of Christ."

In 1995, the archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer, was forced
to step down amid allegations he molested young men in the 1970s. In 2004,
about 40,000 pornographic images surfaced on seminary computers; they
included pictures of seminarians in sexual poses.

Disgust over those episodes inflamed tensions between conservative
Catholics and liberal secular Austrians, and led to a steady exodus from
the church that has begun to slow only recently. Some Austrians resent the
status of the church in governmental affairs: Austria is one of the last
European countries to make citizens pay a hefty tax to the Catholic Church
and to forbid most stores from opening on Sundays.

The backlash gave rise to an influential church-reform organization, We
Are Church, born in Austria in the 1990s and today claiming millions of
adherents in Europe and elsewhere. The group advocates relaxing celibacy
rules for priests, allowing the ordination of women and offering communion
to divorced Catholics, among other changes the Vatican considers verboten.

In anticipation of the pope's visit, We Are Church printed thousands of
postcards for Austrians to fill out with questions for the pope, said Hans
Peter Hurka, the group's chairman. Among the questions they've received
(which are unlikely to reach the pope): "Is the church there for the
people or are the people there for the church?"

Surveys published before the pope's arrival painted a dire picture. In one
published by the respected magazine Profil, 82% of respondents said the
pope's visit was of little importance to them; in another, the pope came
in behind Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Dalai Lama in terms of popularity.

Die Presse newspaper reported that tens of thousands of Catholics had
formally left the church every year for more than a decade. "Catholic
Austria?" the paper said in a headline. "Farewell to a myth."

Protests were fairly low-key, at least as of Friday. A few hundred people
turned out for one demonstration called by the Socialist Youth movement.

"All who do not support the Vatican's sexism, conservative views,
homophobia and racism should abstain from the 'pope-watching,' " organizer
Sandra Breiteneder said.

"Papa Don't Preach," read a sign carried by one protester.

The pope on Saturday will visit the Basilica Mariazell, a shrine to the
Virgin Mary, south of Vienna, and Sunday will officiate at a morning Mass
in St. Stephen's Cathedral, followed by a prayer in Stephansplatz, both in
Vienna, before returning to Rome.

(source: Los Angeles Times)



USA:

USC Shoah Foundation Institute Invites Applications for Corrie ten Boom
Research Award Program


The University of Southern California Shoah Foundation Institute for
Visual History and Education announces the availability of the Corrie
ten Boom Research Award. Named for the Dutch rescuer of Jews during the
Holocaust and funded by the Ahmanson Community Trust, these research
awards are designed to facilitate research in the video archive of the
USC Shoah Foundation Institute.

The USC Shoah Foundation Institute's mission is to overcome prejudice,
intolerance, and bigotry - and the suffering they cause - through the
educational use of the Institute's visual history testimonies. With a
collection of nearly 52,000 video testimonies in 32 languages and from
56 countries, the USC Shoah Foundation Institute's archive is the
largest visual history archive in the world. The Institute interviewed
Jewish survivors, homosexual survivors, Jehovah's Witness survivors,
liberators and liberation witnesses, political prisoners, rescuers and
aid providers, Roma and Sinti survivors (Gypsy), survivors of Eugenics
policies, and war crimes trials participants.

Applicants for the Corrie ten Boom Research Award should either be
post-doctoral scholars or dissertation writers whose research focuses on
rescue and survival, broadly defined. The term of this Award will vary
from one month to six months, depending on the research program of the
applicant. Research Awards will cover the cost of round-trip economy
class travel to Los Angeles and a stipend that will vary depending upon
the seniority of the applicant. Research at the Institute must be
completed by December 31, 2008.

Awarded researchers will have access to the entire visual history
archive, training in the use of the Institute's digital library
software, work space in the Institute, and access to funds and
facilities that will facilitate the copying of testimonies for
educational and/or research use at a later time.

Applicants should submit a 1,500 word description of their proposed
research, a curriculum vitae, and a letter proposing the terms and dates
for their research to TenBoomFellows@.... All materials
should be sent in Microsoft Word format or as PDF files.

Applicants are strongly urged to consult the Institute's website at
www.usc.edu/vhi for information about the Institute, its holdings,
and programs.

The application deadline is Friday, November 2, 2007.

Amy Walter
Manager of Archival Access and Special Projects
Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education
University of Southern California
Leavey Library
650 W. 35th Street, Suite 114
Los Angeles, CA 90089-2571
Phone: 213.740.6047
Fax: 213.740.6044
Email: AmyW@...
Website: www.usc.edu/vhi




CANADA:

Holocaust casts shadow on Toronto film festival opener


The 32nd Toronto International Film Festival opened Thursday with a
cautionary tale about the lasting impact of deeds, good or bad, through
the eyes of a boy suffering from Holocaust survivor guilt.

On the red carpet, moviegoers screamed for Canadian filmmaker Jeremy
Podeswa, the son of a Holocaust survivor himself, whose gala presentation
"Fugitive Pieces" is based on Anne Michaels' 1997 award-winning novel.

"In many ways the book is like a sort of caution to humanity," said
Podeswa, whose father survived a Nazi ghetto in Poland and a concentration
camp subsequently, in an earlier interview with the Toronto Star.

"If you do good things or bad things, those things have a memory. People
have a memory, the Earth has a memory ... everything has a memory. So you
have to be very careful what you put out into the universe."

"Fugitive Pieces" is the 10th film produced by Robert Lantos to open the
festival.

Its Holocaust survivor theme is also echoed in Paolo Barzman's "Emotional
Arithmetic," which will close the festival on September 15.

In the film, Athos (Rade Sherbedgia) meets a seven-year-old boy (Robbie
Kay) during an archeological dig in Poland who is hiding from the Nazis
after witnessing the massacre of his family.

He and his sister Bella (Nina Dobrev) survived, but her fate is unknown
and would haunt him eternally.

Athos smuggles young Jakob back to his native Greece and hides him, hoping
to mend the shattered boy, but as Jakob grows into a man (Stephen
Dillane), he is still haunted by his family tragedy and the mystery of
what became of his beloved Bella.

The story travels seamlessly back and forth from World War II Poland and
Greece to present-day Canada, where Jakob eventually settles and marries
Alex (Rosamund Pike), a blast of sunlight in his somber life.

The film is "curiously drained of drama," commented the Toronto Star. "The
message is uncertain. Jakob remains too much of a cipher, perhaps locked
within the poetry of a novel that has made a difficult transition to the
screen."

But "the performances are beyond reproach, especially Robbie Kay as young
Jakob," the daily added. "His sad eyes gaze upon a world he is too young
to grasp and a fate too cruel to believe."

The Globe and Mail gave it three stars out of five.

It is only Podeswa's third feature film in his 24-year career, and his
first in nearly a decade.

He has directed episodes of the hit television show "Queer as Folk" and
HBO's blockbuster series "Six Feet Under," whose creator Alan Ball is also
premiering a film, "Nothing is Private," at the festival.

And Podeswa was recently hired by admirer Stephen Spielberg to direct an
episode of the upcoming World War II drama "The Pacific," co-produced by
Tom Hanks and to be shot in Australia.

Elsewhere in Toronto, US actress Jodie Foster entertained guests for the
world premiere of "The Brave One" by Irish director Neil Jordan, who won a
best original screenplay Academy Award for "The Crying Game" (1992).

In the film, Foster plays a gentle radio-host who seeks vengeance after
she is molested and her fiance is killed during an evening stroll in the
park.

Billionaire heiress Paris Hilton has been spotted shopping downtown.

Brad Pitt is expected to drop by to promote his latest role as America's
most notorious outlaw in Andrew Dominik's "The Assassination of Jesse
James," produced by Ridley Scott.

So too are George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Charlize Theron, Woody Allen,
Paul Haggis, Michael Moore, David Cronenberg, Colin Farrell and Sean Penn,
who was chastised for contravening a Toronto smoking ban at a press
conference last year. Authorities have publicly warned him to butt out
cigarettes this year.

Former US president Jimmy Carter is even slated to show, taking part in
the festival's first geo-political roundtable for filmmakers.

He is the subject of a new documentary, "Man From Plains" by Jonathan
Demme, the Oscar-winning director of "The Silence of the Lambs."

Unlike Cannes, Venice and Berlin, the Toronto film festival does not award
a prize, but offers filmmakers a last chance to generate buzz ahead of a
fall theatrical release and the next Academy Awards in February.

It is also the biggest in North America, with annual admissions of 340,000
people, and 349 films from 55 countries to be screened in the coming week.

(source: Agence France Presse)