Jan. 19



CZECH REPUBLIC:

Czechs remember Holocaust victims despite Nazi rally

In Plzen, several hundred Czechs attended a commemorative event on the
occasion of the anniversary of the first deportation of local Jews to the
concentration camps where most of them died.

There were hundreds of police ready to prevent a clash with the neo-Nazis
who had planned a rally for the day.

However, a mere 13 of them gathered at the Emila Skody square from where
the banned neo-Nazi march was to set out.

As none of them managed to get outside the synagogue, there were no
conflicts.

About 100 riot police, 30 police vans and a water canon were prepared
against the neo-Nazis' march.

The police vans barricaded the street leading to the synagogue.

Traffic in the Sadech Petatricatniku street was discontinued for about an
hour.

Speeches were delivered by chairman of the Federation of Jewish
Communities Jiri Danicek, Czech Chief Rabbi Karel Sidon, Catholic Bishop
Frantisek Radkovsky and deputy chairwoman of the Chamber of Deputies
Miroslava Nemcova (the Civic Democratic Party, ODS).

They said the neo-Nazis were the people who had no respect for democracy
and only abused it.

"Using a false pretext of freedom of the speech, they wanted to march
through Plzen," Nemcova said.

Names of some deported Jews were read at the act of commemoration.
Assisted by hundreds of police, the crowd then moved to the Saint
Bartholomew Cathedral where candles were symbolically lit.

The neo-Nazi march that was to go past Plzen's Great Synagogue was
scheduled for January 19, one day after the 65th anniversary of the first
deportation of Jews from Plzen to the concentration camps.

Plzen Mayor Pavel Roedl banned the neo-Nazi march on Thursday.

(source: Czech Happenings)




USA:

Holocaust records to be opened for first time

Survivors of concentration camps and the descendants of Holocaust victims
now have a new way of finding out information about loved ones who died at
the hands of the Nazis.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., yesterday
announced it would begin providing information from the International
Tracing Service archive to survivors and families previously stymied in
their search for answers. Many of them had been frustrated because a
German archive remained closed more than 60 years after the end of World
War II.

"It's so exciting, because of the possibilities of maybe some people
getting some information where they didn't before," said Beth Lilach,
director of education at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of
Nassau County in Glen Cove.

Many Holocaust survivors, and relatives of death-camp victims, want to
know about aunts, uncles and other ancestors who were killed in Nazi
Germany, Lilach said. Records at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in
Washington and Jerusalem's Yad Vashem are useful but limited, she said.

But the Washington museum now has 50 million digital images from the
tracing service's Central Name Index, part of a vast collection of 100
million images at the archive's headquarters in Bad Arolsen, Germany. The
records describe the fates of 17 1/2 million people, including Jews and
non-Jews.

The archives were off-limits to researchers for many years, until the
service's governing board last year agreed to open the collection to the
public.

"This moment is a wonderful victory for survivors, although long overdue,"
said Sara Bloomfield, director of the Washington museum.

Researchers will search for records at no charge, the museum said. The
museum said it is receiving records in installments from Germany; the last
installment is due in 2010.

Lilach said she has received queries about the archive in recent months,
and she is hoping more people show an interest in using it.

"I don't think people know much about it," she said. "This one is unlike
the others in that it has 50 million documents, and it's worth a try."

Requests for information are accepted by e-mail, regular mail or fax. More
information can be found on the Washington museum's Web site,
www.ushmm.org.

(source: Newsday)


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


Museum Provides Detail From Nazi Archive


The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is offering to help survivors and
their families navigate a vast Nazi archive that promises to
document their persecution and provide clues to the fate of loved ones.

After months of work on more than 100 million digital images from the
International Tracing Service archive in Bad Arolsen, Germany, the museum
announced that it would begin answering requests from survivors and their
families.

"This moment is a wonderful victory for survivors, although long overdue,"
museum director Sara J. Bloomfield said Thursday in a statement. "But the
significance of ITS extends far beyond the survivor generation. With an
increase in Holocaust denial and minimization, the evidence in this
massive archive will serve as an authentic witness to the scope of the
crimes of the Holocaust for many generations to come."

In August, the ITS began transferring the documents to the Washington
museum and two others Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial in
Jerusalem's outskirts, and the Institute of National Remembrance in
Warsaw, Poland. The International Committee of the Red Cross administers
the ITS archive.

The Washington museum will be the first of the three museums to begin
answering large numbers of requests that researchers hope will help
survivors and their families get long-sought answers to bitter questions.
They believe even small details could prove invaluable to aging survivors.

"The reason that we got into this in the first place is that we heard from
so many survivors and families that it was important for them
psychologically," said Paul Shapiro, director of the museum's Center for
Advanced Holocaust Studies. "Having a copy of a real document in your
hand, perhaps seeing the signature of someone who you lost that may be
the only connection to a moment when that person was alive that you have
got."

The museum has been accepting requests for information from survivors and
their families since last month. It also has provided information to a
small number of people as part of its efforts to learn how to search the
immense archive and to train its researchers. Now it will begin responding
on a larger scale.

Survivors and their families can make requests online on the museum's Web
site. The museum also will provide request forms by mail or through a
toll-free number, 866-912-4385.

The museum is warning that while the documents transportation lists,
Gestapo orders, camp registers, slave labor booklets, death books refer
to about 17.5 million people, they are not a comprehensive documentation
of the fates of the millions of victims and survivors.

Most of the documents in the archive are written by hand, sometimes in old
German script. They also contain variations in the spelling of names, many
of which are recorded phonetically. That makes it impossible, for now, to
convert large numbers of files to a digitally searchable form.

Shapiro says survivors who hope the files will contain important
information on lost life insurance policies also may be frustrated, as
researchers have not found evidence that the files contain that
information.

Those hopes have been reflected in legal action by survivors. In a
multimillion-dollar settlement between victims and the Italian insurance
company Assicurazioni Generali, a federal judge ruled last year that a
deadline for victims to file claims, now expired, could be extended until
August if the Arolsen files turned up relevant information.

Despite the archive's limitations, historians believe the files' data on
the 17.5 million individuals will add texture to the narrative of misery
in the camps, where millions of people were worked to death or were simply
exterminated with industrial efficiency. Six million Jews died in the
Holocaust, one of every three Jews on Earth at the time.

Allied forces began collecting the documents even before the end of World
War II and eventually entrusted them to the Red Cross. The archive has
been governed since 1955 by a commission of 11 nations that ratified an
accord in November that unsealed the archive.

The ITS has completed digitizing some 50 million index cards from shelves
that would stretch 16 miles and fill a half-dozen buildings in Bad
Arolsen. The remainder of the collection, relating to slave labor and
displaced persons camps, will be transferred to the museums in
installments between 2008 and 2010.

On the Net:
International Tracing Service: http://www.its-arolsen.org/
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum: http://www.ushmm.org/
Yad Vashem: http://www.yadvashem.org/
Institute of National Remembrance: http://www.ipn.gov.pl/wai/en/10/5/

(source: Associated Press)

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

Holocaust Torah to be dedicated in Utah


A Torah scroll that survived the Holocaust and was discovered by a Mormon
antique dealer will be dedicated.

Brent Ashworth found the Torah in a store in Provo, Utah, according to an
article on the Chabad.org Web site. A section had been cut out and placed
in a frame upside down.

Rabbi Benny Zippel, co-director of the Chabad House in Salt Lake City,
also discovered that all of Genesis and Deuteronomy and parts of Exodus
and Numbers were missing. The rabbi purchased the Torah and sent it to a
Torah scribe for restoration.

The scribe, Rabbi Moshe Klein of Crown Heights, N.Y., determined that the
scroll survived the Holocaust based on markings on its back. It took nine
months to repair and complete the new sections.

The scroll will be dedicated in Salt Lake City on Thursday, when its final
letters will be completed.

(source: JTA)



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


Holocaust boxcar on display in Naples (Florida)


A rare glimpse of history rolled down US-41 through Naples - an actual
boxcar used in the Holocaust. Officials were taking it to its temporary
home in Naples.

The artifact is at the Naples Train Depot now, but will soon be used as an
educational tool for all of Southwest Florida.

Finding the Holocaust boxcar took first generation Holocaust survivor Jack
Nortman four years to find.

There's barbed wire, they wanted to protect themselves - the Nazis, so no
one would escape and you can just imagine peoples faces looking out just
to get fresh air, said Nortman.

And for Nortman, the find couldn't hit closer to home.

My folks and my family were carted in the boxcars during the Second World
War. Some of them went to concentration camps, some went to Siberia. My
folks were in a boxcar for six full weeks, said Nortman.

It's hard to imagine some 130 men, women and children crammed into a
boxcar. A window was their only form of air conditioning or heat depending
on how hot or cold it was outside and the door is very heavy. Basically,
there was no escape for the prisoners.

The boxcar is sitting at the Naples Depot but soon will be mobile and will
educate students along the way.

We have panels that are going to go inside with audio visual equipment so
people - the kids in particular - will really be able to see a living
example of the horrors of the Holocaust, said Robert Cahners, President of
the Southwest Florida Holocaust Museum.

"I've been told that at least 50 percent of the people when they got to
their destination were dead on arrival and the bodies were inside. Nobody
cared, said Nortman.

For Nortman, it's a dream finally realized and more importantly - a
vehicle that can be used to educate and help to dispel any former belief
that the Holocaust never even happened.

When you listen to it you can't believe it. There aren't even movies that
depict what happened. You can't explain it - it's indescribable, it's
torture. Animals don't even get treated like these people got treated,
said Nortman.

You'll be able to see the boxcar at the Naples Depot January 27th. There
will be a formal dedication at 4 p.m. that afternoon.

Once the artifact tours Southwest Florida middle and high schools, it'll
be on display at the Holocaust Museum of Southwest Florida.

(source: NBC News)






ENGLAND:

Towns remember Holocaust victims


A REFLECTIVE and revealing exhibition is being held in two towns in
Uttlesford later this month to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on Sunday
January 27.

The Kindertransport exhibition will focus on the story of the
unaccompanied children who fled from Nazi-occupied Europe during the
Second World War.

The name Kindertransport refers to the rescue mission carried out by the
British, which saw almost 10,000 children, mostly Jews, given refuge in
the United Kingdom.

Named "The Last Goodbye" and created by the Jewish Museum in London, the
exhibition will focus on the plight of these children: not just the
youngsters', but also that of the parents who were forced to kiss their
children goodbye to give them the best possible chance of survival.

Their stories will be told within 23 vertical display boards, measuring
60cm by 84cm, featuring photographs and documents from the time.

The theme for this year's Holocaust Memorial Day is "Imagine... Remember,
Reflect React": remember the past, reflect on the present and react to
create a better future.

In keeping with the exhibition's focus on schoolchildren, "The Last
Goodbye" will begin at the Helena Romane's School in Dunmow, where it
will be on display from Wednesday January 23 to Tuesday January 29.

Any schools that wish to visit the exhibition while it is Dunmow should
contact Brian Williams or his secretary on 01371 872560 ext 226.

The school will also welcome a Holocaust survivor to speak on the evening
of Friday January 25.

Joanna Millen, a Holocaust Educational Trust representative, will talk at
a public meeting from 7pm to 9pm. Admission is free, but seating must be
reserved by e-mailing TFranklin@...

From Wednesday January 30 to Wednesday February 6 the exhibition will be
on at the Friends' Meeting House on Saffron Walden High Street. School
parties wanting to attend should call Helen Gibbs on 01799 521832.

On Thursday January 31 the head of activism at Amnesty International UK
will speak about genocide, at a meeting organised by the Saffron Walden
Amnesty International Group.

The free talk is taking place in the St Mary's Church Parish Rooms, at
7.30pm. For more information call group secretary Pam Gadsby on 01799
524471 or e-mail pam.gadsby@...

Uttlesford District Council Chairman Cllr Catherine Dean, who organised
the programme said: "I've written to schools in the area inviting them to
come to the exhibition and I very much hope it will be attended by a large
number of people.

"It is the first time that anything has been organised like this in the
district for Holocaust Memorial Day, and seems a fitting way of
commemorating what happened.

(source: The Dunmow Broadcast)





SCOTLAND:

Remember, remember

Kirstin Innes discovers why Holocaust Memorial Day is so important to
contemporary Scotland


For most of Scotland, the end of January means Burns Night. Whisky,
tradition and rousing renditions of A Mans A Man For A That; a time for
national nostalgia and a noisy assertion, however fleeting, of equality.
Perhaps its fitting then that a smaller, if no less vocal group of
activists, are using the same time to contemplate past events in very
different ways.

The first UK-wide Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) was 27 January 2001, the
date chosen to mark the anniversary of the liberation of Nazi
concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. While no-one could seriously doubt
the value of the occasion itself, it may seem odd to some people why are
we now marking something that happened over sixty years ago?

I spoke to Louise Hector, who is responsible for co-ordinating regional
events throughout the UK. HMD is important not just as a way of
commemorating the people who lost their lives in the Holocaust and later
genocides but also as a recognition that today there are people who are
still discriminated against due to their race, religion, disabilities and
sexuality, she explained. HMD commemorations show the consequences of
extreme exclusion and, hopefully, prompt individuals to challenge
discrimination where it happens.

Commemorations will be taking place around Scotland and the UK, but rather
than the brief static silence of Remembrance Sunday, theyre designed to
make people interact and respond to the issues raised. For 2008,
organisers have been encouraged to theme their events around the
statement, Imagine . . . remember, reflect, react.

This years theme is about the creativity and culture lost during the
Holocaust, Hector says. The discrimination against Jews in particular
started with the banning of Jewish composers and the burning of Jewish
books. The developing gay scene in Berlin was attacked too clubs were
shut down. As with all genocide, it wasnt just an attempt to kill a
people. Its an attack on their culture too.

An increasingly large number of venues are taking part in HMD, from
schools to arts venues like the Scottish Storytelling Centre in Edinburgh.
The biggest event in Scotland is happening at Glasgows Peoples Palace on
HMD itself. To tie into their current exhibition about Glasgow merchant
John Glassford and his involvement in the slave trade the Peoples Palace
is programming a day of reflection about human rights abuses, with music,
poetry and interactive art. Rabbi Nancy Morris of the Glasgow Reform
Synagogue will lead a discussion, and visitors are encouraged to express
their responses to the issues raised with words and drawing, eventually
creating a new, collaborative piece of art.

Its important to use the lessons of the past to create more cohesive
communities today, Hector says. Remember, reflect, react is sort of a pass
for people to take remembering the past, reflecting on whats going on
around us all today, reacting and acting together to create a better
future.

Holocaust Memorial Day is on Sun 27 Jan. See listings for information
about specific events or visit www.hmd.org.uk

(source: The List)



SOUTH AMERICA:

OPERATION LAST CHANCE -- Nazi Hunters More Than Double Reward to $25,000


Operation Last Chance, a campaign by the Simon Wiesenthal Center to hunt
down Nazi war criminals, has increased its reward for information from
$10,000 to $25,000 weeks after extending its campaign from Europe to South
America.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has more than doubled its reward for
information leading to the capture of Nazi war criminals from $10,000 to
$25,000 under its "Operation Last Chance" campaign to bring the
perpetrators to justice before they die of old age.

Efraim Zuroff, the director of the center, told SPIEGEL ONLINE that a
Jewish donor from the US had provided the funding in the last two weeks to
boost the standard reward offer.

"We've been able to increase the prize now for the regular cases from
$10,000 to $25,000," Zuroff said. "The cash offer has proven very
successful because without it we wouldn't have got one-hundredth of the
attention that we got and it's the media attention that ultimately yields
the information."

He said that since Operation Last Chance was set up in 2002, the best
information had come from people who didn't want the money. The Center had
only ever paid the reward on one occasion, and then only half of it,
$5,000.

The increase in the reward comes weeks after the Wiesenthal
Center extended its campaign to South America to hunt the criminals and
collaborators who escaped there after World War II.

Zuroff said there were "at least dozens" of Nazi war criminals still alive
today in South America, mostly in Argentina but also in Brazil, Chile,
Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay.

New Leads in South America

"We're very encouraged by the response in South America, both on the
government level and the popular level in terms of the response of people
to our appeal for information," said Zuroff. "We've gotten hundreds of
e-mails, phone calls, messages and faxes."

War criminals who may be in South America include one of the Wiesenthal
Center's 10 Most Wanted, Austrian SS medic Aribert Heim, also known as
Doctor Death, who would now be 93.

Heim served as a medical doctor in the concentration camps of
Sachsenhausen, Buchenwald and Mauthausen, and camp survivors say he
murdered hundreds of inmates by administering lethal injections of phenol
to their hearts and by other torturous killing methods.

The Wiesenthal Center said last September that there was strong evidence
he was still alive. His location is unknown and he could be in Spain too.

Before Operation Last Chance set up its South American operation in
November 2007, it had already yielded the names of 488 suspects from 20
different countries, 99 of which have been submitted to local prosecutors,
says the Center.

The information has led to three arrest warrants and two extradition
requests as well as dozens of investigations.

The perpetrators who were in senior positions during the Holocaust and who
managed to escape prosecution are already dead, so Zuroff's campaign is
targeting the surviving helpers, lower level officials, guards and
soldiers who took part in the genocide.

Hundreds or Thousands of Holocaust Helpers Still Alive

"The number is quite large, at least hundreds if not thousands. If you
examine the manner in which the final solution was implemented you see
very clearly that the number of people involved was enormous and it wasn't
only Germans and Austrians," said Zuroff.

"In every single country they had many local helpers, in countries in
Eastern Europe many of these helpers actually participated in murder. Some
of these people were relatively young at the time. With the advances of
modern medicine people live longer, and consequently many of them are
alive and healthy enough to be put on trial."

Zuroff criticized justice authorities in Germany, which last year failed
to obtain any convictions or file any indictments of war criminals. It was
the first "failing grade" the Wiesenthal Center has given Germany since
2001 when it first published status reports on investigations into Nazi
war criminals worldwide.

"In Germany they are treating these cases as if they have all the time in
the world to reach a verdict and that's simply not the case," said Zuroff.

He called Austria a "paradise for Nazi war criminals."

"Austria has the worst record. If you compare the number of people
involved, the potential for prosecution and what's been done, Austria is
just a total embarrassment."

Never Too Late

He said the argument that Nazi war criminals are now too old to stand
trial isn't acceptable.

"The passage of time in no way diminishes the guilt of the perpetrator.
If we were to set a chronological limit on prosecution we would be saying
that you could get away with genocide, which is morally outrageous," said
Zuroff.

"We owe it to the victims to hold the perpetrators accountable. If someone
murdered your grandmother and the murderer is only found 50 years later,
it wouldn't very much concern you if this person was now elderly.

"You'd want him or her punished for the obvious reason that they murdered
your grandmother. Every one of those victims was someone's grandmother or
grandfather, son or daughter, and that's the bottom line."

(source: Der Spiegel)






AUSTRIA:

UNIS to remember Holocaust victims


The UN Information Service (UNIS) office in Vienna will hold a
commemorative service in honour of victims of the Holocaust or Shoah on
January 25 at the Vienna International Center (VIC).

The service will be linked to the "International Day of Remembrance of the
Victims of the Holocaust" on January 27.

UNIS is calling for mobilisation of civil society to raise public
consciousness about the Holocaust and to prevent a re-occurrence of the
crime of genocide.

The VIC event will feature several special exhibits and music by several
groups as well as speeches by UNIS Director Nasra Hasan, Austrian Jewish
Community General Secretary Raimund Fastenbauer and others.

(source: Weiner Zeitung)




GERMANY:

Government Grant for Holocaust Show at Odds With German Rail -- Deutsche
Bahn is billing the group for using tracks which will once more lead to
Auschwitz


The German Transport Ministry has attempted to save Deutsche Bahn from
being publicly shamed by awarding a grant to a Holocaust exhibition
foundation charged by the railway concern for the use of its tracks.

The foundation that organizes a touring Holocaust exhibition involving a
vintage steam locomotive and two carriages containing pictures of child
victims has been awarded a government grant to pay for fees charged by
German railway concern Deutsche Bahn for the use of its tracks.

The Train of Commemoration Foundation had recently complained that,
despite Deutsche Bahn's historic involvement in the transportation of
prisoners to Nazi death camps, the company had invoiced the foundation for
rail-track use.

The foundation argued that the Bahn had to accept its historic
responsibility as the transport provider to the Nazis and that included
supporting the exhibition. It said the tens of thousands of euros of tolls
charged to the rolling exhibit were "in effect a boycott of this public
commemoration."

After the foundation threatened to publicly shame the company, Deutsche
Bahn admitted that it was charging the group the same toll for track use
as it charged other private train operators. A Bahn spokesman said the
company had to treat all customers equally and that no one could use the
tracks for free.

Government grant lets DB off the hook

But instead of Deutsche Bahn waving the fee, the Germany's Transport
Ministry has intervened. It offered a grant of 15,000 euros ($22,000) to
the foundation and called for corporate sponsorship for the project.


Bildunterschrift: Groansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift:
Deutsche Bahn is accused of obstructing the exhibition
While the grant and any corporate sponsorship that follows may help to
alleviate the financial costs for the foundation, the organizers of the
exhibit feel Deutsche Bahn is getting off the hook, courtesy of its
federal paymasters.

They see the row over rail-track fees as just another example of Deutsche
Bahn's indifference to the project since its conception.

The group came up with the notion of creating an exhibit that would
symbolically travel through the country on the very railways that were
used in the deportations after hearing of a 2003 French exhibition
organized by French Nazi hunters and activists Beate and Serge Klarsfeld.

The Klarsfeld exhibit, which focused on the deportation of 11,000 Jewish
children via rail from France to Nazi death camps, was shown in French
train stations. When it attempted to widen its travels into Germany,
following the route the French victims of the Holocaust would have taken,
Deutsche Bahn denied it authorization.

Latest installment of dispute

The Train of Commemoration Foundation was then conceived by a group of
journalists, artists, lawyers and academics who took up the torch of the
Klarsfeld exhibit and created their own rolling exhibition, detailing how
Jewish children were caught up in the Nazi machinery of death and taken to
the gas chambers in cattle wagons.

But both Deutsche Bahn and the German Transport Ministry, which issued the
transport orders under the Nazi regime, failed to show interest in the
project.

The Train of Commemoration has been touring Germany since early November
and is to reach the Auschwitz death camp in Poland on May 8. So far 40,000
people have seen the exhibition, which is set to visit a total of 40
German cities before reaching Auschwitz.


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

Readers Disagree With Sentencing of Holocaust Denier

Lawyer Sylvia Stolz was sentenced to three and a half years in prison on
charges of inciting hatred for claiming the Holocaust was a lie. Some
readers felt the sentence went against her right to freedom of expression.

Holocaust denial is against the law in Germany.

The following comments reflect the views of DW-WORLD.DE readers. Not all
reader comments have been published. DW-WORLD.DE reserves the right to
edit for length and appropriateness of content.

It is entirely appropriate for both the lawyer and Zndel to be charged,
convicted and sentenced for such behavior. The law about hate crimes is
important for the prevention of the adoption of attitudes which might
encourage racist attacks. There are limits to free speech and this is a
good limit. Just like other free-speech limits, like not calling out
"fire" when there is not a fire, this one is appropriate. -- W.J. Arnold,
Canada


Whatever happened to freedom of speech, and the freedom to think? Is this
the so-called democracy promoted by the EU? If so, one can understand when
people turn to alternative forms of government. -- Arden Knapp, United
States

How is it "hate" to suggest there is evidence that millions of people
were
not murdered? That would be good news, not hate. Hate is accusing Germans
of being homicidal murderers and denying them a chance to examine the
evidence and offer a defence against the charges. If revisionist arguments
are wrong they should be subjected to peer review in a public forum, not
jail. -- Kurt Bechle, United States


The earth is flat and the moon is made of green cheese...no doubt about
it. Am I subject to arrest, prosecution and imprisonment under German law?
-- Dexter P. Huntington, United States


I am shocked that in what I always thought to be "liberal" and
"open-minded" Europe, anyone could be convicted for voicing an opinion
regarding history. Everything else historical is fair game for honest
examination, why should this be an exception? Was Gallileo right or wrong
to question the official teaching regarding the orbits of the earth and
the sun? In the celebrated "Scopes Monkey trial," here in the US, I've
always seen John Scopes portrayed as a hero who dared to question the
official line. Should he have been tried and imprisoned for doing so? How
is this different? People should be either allowed to question everything,
or else they should be prohibited from questioning anything. If honest
questioning verifies the accepted beliefs, then they'll stand on their own
legs. If not, then let them crumble. -- Dominique Amarante, United States

(source for both: Deutsche Welle)


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

Holocaust Denier's Lawyer Gets Prison


A former lawyer for a well-known Holocaust denier was convicted of
incitement in Germany on Monday for denying the genocide herself and
sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison.

Sylvia Stolz, who represented Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel at his trial,
also was banned from practicing law for five years.

During Zundel's trial, Stolz repeatedly disputed the Nazis' mass murder of
Jews, called for hatred of the Jewish population and ended a legal
document with the words "Heil Hitler."

Zundel's first trial collapsed after Stolz was banned from the proceedings
on the grounds she was trying to sabotage them.

Zundel's second trial at Mannheim state court ended in February 2007 with
his conviction for incitement for denying the Holocaust a crime in
Germany.

The 67-year-old Zundel, who was deported from Canada in 2005 and also once
lived in Tennessee, was sentenced to the maximum five years in prison.

In sentencing Stolz, Judge Rolf Glenz said she used Zundel's trial in
order to deny the Holocaust and to spread revisionist ideas.

"Stolz has a basic reflex to make far-right statements," he said.

Stolz, who called the Holocaust "the biggest lie in world history," also
was convicted of disparaging the country and its symbols and insulting the
court.

(source: Associated Press)





CANADA:

Extradition process underway for B.C. man facing Nazi war crimes
conviction

The Department of Justice says deportation arrangements are being made
for a British Columbia man convicted of Nazi war crimes by an Italian
military court after the Supreme Court of Canada on Thursday rejected his
application to have his extradition rescinded.

Michael Seifert, 83, a former ethnic German from Ukraine who is now a
Canadian citizen, has been fighting extradition to Italy, where he faces a
life sentence for crimes committed during the Second World War.

As is its practice, Canada's top court did not provide a reason for
dismissing Seifert's appeal.

Mr. Seifert has been afforded due process under our extradition laws and
the way is clear for his surrender now," said Alain Charette from the
Department of Justice.

"From our perspective, this is the last stage," said Charette.

Charette could not discuss Seifert's extradition plans, saying the time
frame for his removal is handled by authorities.

"Extradition matters are always very touchy. For obvious reasons we won't
discuss details publicly."

Seifert, currently in custody in Port Coquitlam, B.C., was convicted in
absentia seven years ago in an Italian military court of killing nine
prisoners while he was a guard at a Nazi prison camp in Bolzano, Italy,
from 1944 to 1945.

Bernie Farber, head of the Canadian Jewish Congress, applauded the Supreme
Court decision.

"It was a pretty clear-cut case of an individual with blood on his hands,"
he said. "The case has been running through the Canadian judicial system
now for years and the sands of time have run out on Nazi-era defendants
like Mr. Seifert."

Farber says he hopes Seifert is deported without delay.

"There's nothing left for him but to face judgment in Italy,"_he said.
"This will begin to show that Canada is determined in the final moments of
these cases to move forward and doesn't remain with a dark mark on its
record."

Dubbed the "Beast of Bolzano," Seifert was accused torturing and killing
15 prisoners at the police transit camp that imprisoned Jews, Italian
residence fighters and others, some of whom ended up being taken to Nazi
concentration camps.

Witnesses at Seifert's Italian trial identified him as the guard who beat
prisoners before shooting them, starving a 15-year-old prisoner to death
and gouging out the eyes of another.

The three judges who presided over the trial said that he was not just a
"mere watchdog of the Nazi war machine" but a "ruthless (and) efficient
dispenser of death."

While working as a guard, Seifert was responsible for supervising prisoner
work and performing prisoner roll calls. He also took prisoners to trains
destined for Nazi death camps. He got the job after he left Ukraine at the
start of the war.

In his defence, Seifert, who has been living in B.C. since moving to
Canada in 1951, has said he was only at the camp because he was serving a
sentence there for a sexual assault involving another Ukrainian guard.
He's always denied involvement in the atrocities and killings.

In battling his extradition to Italy, Seifert argued that he had been
victimized by an unfair judicial system in Italy. The B.C. Supreme Court,
however, ruled against him in 2003.

The B.C. Court of Appeal upheld that ruling last August. The courts
concluded that since Seifert lied about his birthplace and his former
occupation when he was applying for Canadian citizenship, his Canadian
citizenship can be revoked.

Seifert argued that he only lied to Canadian immigration authorities
because he would be killed if it came out that he was trying to leave
Ukraine, which was then still part of the former Soviet Union.

Seifert's Victoria-based lawyer, Doug Christie, could not immediately be
reached for comment.

The Canadian Jewish Congress estimates that 1,000 to 3,000 suspected Nazi
war criminals entered the country between 1945 to 1960.

(source: Edmonton Journal)