July 17


UKRAINE:

Holocaust siblings meet after 66 years


A frail Irene Famulak clutched her brother on the airport tarmac, her arm
wrapped around him in a tight embrace, tears streaming down their faces.
It was the first time since 1942 they had seen each other, when she was 17
and he was just 7.

That was the night the invading Nazis came to take her away from her
Ukrainian home.

"I remember it well because I kissed him good-bye, and he pushed me away,"
she said of her brother. "I asked, 'Why did you do that?' And he said that
he doesn't like kisses."

"The Nazis told my mother that I was being taken to work in a German labor
camp for six months. But it was, of course, much longer. I was there for
years."

Both siblings survived the Holocaust and grew up on different sides of the
Iron Curtain, not knowing the fate of the other.

But after 66 years apart, Famulak, 83, was reunited with her long lost
73-year-old brother, Wssewolod Galezkij. They held each other close this
time, cherishing the moment. Watch siblings hug for first time in seven
decades

"I don't believe anyone has ever known such happiness. Now, I truly
believe I can die satisfied," Galezkij said.

Famulak made the long journey to Donetsk in eastern Ukraine from
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, after being contacted by the American Red
Cross. The organization told her they had located her only surviving
sibling.

Famulak said she spent World War II in a labor camp in Munich, Germany,
working in the kitchens. She had been taken to the camp with her older
sister. When it was liberated in 1945, Famulak stayed in Germany for
several years, eventually emigrating to the United States in 1956.

She never saw her parents again after that day in 1942 when Nazis separated
her from her family. She and her brother still have no idea what happened
to their mother and father. Some of their siblings lived through the war,
but later died; others, they never heard from again after being separated.

But her younger brother never gave up hope of tracking his sister down.
He, too, was sent to a German labor camp, but after the war, he moved back
to Ukraine, then a republic of the Soviet Union. See photos of the
"needle in haystack" reunion

Under Soviet leader Josef Stalin, information on lost relatives was kept
sealed, and Galezkij said it wasn't until reforms in the late 1980s,
followed by the Soviet collapse, that he started making progress in
finding his sister.

Even then, it took him more than 17 years to locate her in the United
States. He broke down in tears as he spoke of his overwhelming happiness
at finding her.

"When the Red Cross told me they had found her in America, it was such a
joy," he said, sobbing.

In fact, he had to be taken to the hospital because he was so overcome
when he first learned she was alive. At this week's reunion, there was a
doctor on hand at the airport as a precaution.

Back in the United States, there were tears, too.

Linda Klein, the director of the American Red Cross Holocaust and War
Victims Tracing Center, said the volunteer who helped the siblings find
each other got caught up in the emotion herself.

"When I showed her the picture, she stood there and wept," Klein said.
"She was beside herself."

Klein's group has reunited 1,500 families since it began work in 1990. She
said the former Soviet Union released records in 1989 of concentration
camps it liberated, greatly helping organizers find information on
Holocaust victims.

The organization has 100 volunteers -- a third of them Holocaust
survivors, Klein said. The group also helps families find information
about their loved ones who died during the Holocaust. They have brought
together more than 50 families this year. All of their work is free. She
says it's often like "looking for a needle in a haystack."

"We're playing beat the clock right now," she said, adding, "It's about
families that one day they were together and then they were apart."

"When a connection is made, there are just smiles all around."

That was the case for this family in Ukraine. Years of trauma, of
separation, of not knowing what happened to loved ones, have been replaced
by celebration.

In a picturesque orchard overlooking rolling fields, Galezkij, his wife
and their neighbors laid out a feast for his American sister. As the vodka
flowed, he told her how he had survived for a lifetime without her.

"He says he always thought he'd see me someday. He dreamt lots about me,"
Famulak said, as she sat next to her brother.

"And he wrote a song for me. When he went to sleep, he sang every night
and cried."

With that, Galezkij, weakened by illness and age, burst into song. But
this time, he sang the words with pure joy.

(source: CNN)





ARGENTINA:

Nazi hunter: Closing in on 'Dr. Death'

Former SS doctor Aribert Heim believed to be hiding in Chile or Argentina

Heim tops Simon Wiesenthal Center's most-wanted list

Search for Heim is part of "Operation: Last Chance" by Simon Wiesenthal
Center


The world's top Nazi-hunter said Thursday he's made progress in finding
94-year-old "Doctor Death," a former concentration camp physician accused
of torturing Jewish prisoners as they died and who may have been living
for decades in Argentina or Chile.

Efraim Zuroff, head of the Israeli branch of the Simon Wiesenthal
Center, told a news conference that his mission to the southern reaches of
the Americas led him to at least four people who claim to have seen
Aribert Heim in the past 45 days.

"We're better off than before we came," Zuroff said. "That doesn't
guarantee Heim's capture, but I'm hopeful."

Zuroff launched the investigation last week in the southern Chilean
fishing town of Puerto Montt, where Heim's daughter lives, although she
was reportedly overseas at the time.

Zuroff said during the past three years Heim's daughter has traveled
several times to the Patagonian town of San Carlos de Bariloche in
Argentina, which he visited this week. The Nazi hunter believes Heim is
hiding out somewhere between the two towns, separated by the Andes
mountain range.

"There is increasing pressure on Heim and on his family," Zuroff said
Thursday. "People under pressure make mistakes," he added.

Zuroff told The Associated Press that the Puerto Montt trip was a "turning
point" because he was able to speak face-to-face for the first time with
acquaintances of Heim's daughter and raise awareness among locals.

Nazi hunters search Chile for 'Dr. Death'

"These are people who brought us specific details that gives us something
concrete to latch onto," said Sergio Widder, the center's Latin American
representative. He declined to elaborate.

Heim was indicted in Germany after World War II on charges he murdered
hundreds of inmates at the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1941. The
Wiesenthal center says he injected the corrosive poison phenol directly
into the hearts of many and used "other torturous killing methods."

Zuroff says Heim's children have made no claim to a bank account with
euro1.2 million (US$1.6 million) and other investments in Heim's name. To
do that, they would have to produce proof that "Doctor Death" is dead.

He said he's been tracking recent requests by Heim's lawyers for legal
documents related to his estate that "would have no value if he is dead."
He would not give details.

A reward of euro315,000 (US$495,000) is being offered jointly by the
center, the German and Austrian governments and a private donor for
information leading to his capture. Heim tops the Wiesenthal Center's list
of most-wanted Nazi war criminals.

Zuroff met Thursday morning with Argentine Justice Minister Anibal
Fernandez, who said the government will facilitate Heim's arrest and
extradition if Heim is found in the country.

Although World War II ended more than 60 years ago, the center continues
to take on new cases as Nazi sightings surface. Between March 2007 and
2008, the Wiesenthal Center opened 202 new investigations, Zuroff said.

The South American probe is part of the Jewish human rights organization's
"Operation: Last Chance" -- an effort to bring aging war criminals to
justice before they die. If alive, Heim would be 94.

Answering critics who say Heim's age undermines the validity of the hunt,
Zuroff said to "keep in mind what he did when was a very young person."

"If we put a limit on age, in a practical sense that means we're saying
you can get away with genocide, which is morally outrageous," he added.

After World War II, Heim was held for two and a half years by the United
States military but was released without being tried.

He disappeared in 1962 after he was tipped off that German authorities
were about to indict him, Zuroff said.

(source: Associated Press)





UKRAINE:

Ukrainian Holocaust monument vandalized

A Holocaust monument was vandalized in central Ukraine.

The Holocaust memorial and Mourn mother memorial in the Ukrainian city of
Poltava were smeared with paint, Ukrainian national symbols and
anti-Semitic graffiti.

Local authorities are investigating the incident, which took place Monday
night.

Some Poltava Jews believe that Ukrainian nationalists committed the
vandalism, but others believe it was organized by anti-democratic forces.

The monuments memorialize more than 3,000 Poltava Jews killed there on
Nov. 23, 1941 and more than 5,000 Red Army prisoners of war and resistance
fighters who were murdered there during World War II.

(source: JTA)


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

Poltava Holocaust Memorial Vandalized

Someone vandalized a memorial to thousands of victims of the Nazis,
including 3,000 Jews, in Poltava, Ukraine, according to a July 14, 2008
report by the "Versiya" newspaper. The article, written in somewhat
euphemistic language, reported that "a Ukrainian national symbol and
insulting words directed against several ethnic groups" were painted on
the monument, established on the site of the mass murder of 3,000 Jews on
November 23, 1941 and 5,000 other victims over the course of the Nazi
occupation of Ukraine. Police are investigating the incident.

(source: Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union)