Recognition of nun who saved Jews during the Holocaust reflects progress in Catholic-Jewish relations
Though the victims were mostly Jews, the Holocaust has affected all humanity. Not only were non-Jews, notably the Roma, also murdered by the Nazis, but the fact that the crimes were committed in civilized Europe has shaken the very foundations of western culture. Continue reading
“It gives me hope” – The remarkable story of Irena Sendler
During the Holocaust, this Catholic social worker saved 2,500 Jewish children from certain death by convincing their parents, who were trapped in the Warsaw ghetto, to let her smuggle their kids to gentile families on the outside. Continue reading
Auschwitz survivor in Poland dies on anniversary of liberation
Kazimierz Smolen, a 91-year-old Auschwitz survivor who became director of the memorial site after World War II, died yesterday on the 67th anniversary of its liberation. Continue reading
POLISH GOV’T LAUNCHES AUSCHWITZ PROBE
The capture and prosecution of Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk in the U.S.earlier this year has prompted the Polish government to launch another hunt for any remaining staff members from Auschwitz who could still be at large. Some 500 Auschwitz survivors will be interviewed to aid in the search. Continue reading
Poland reopens investigations into Auschwitz crimes
Investigators plan to interview some of the estimated 500 camp survivors still alive in search of fresh information on how Nazi Germany’s most infamous death camp was operated and by whom. Continue reading
Pole who spirited Jewish woman from Auschwitz dies
The young Catholic man spirited his Jewish girlfriend out of Auschwitz in 1944, saving her life. Yet it took 39 years for them to see each other again.
Jerzy Bielecki, a German-speaking Polish inmate at the same Nazi death camp, lived to age 90 and died peacefully in his sleep Thursday at his home in Nowy Targ in southern Poland, his daughter, Alicja Januchowski said Saturday. Continue reading
Nazi death camp inmate art exhibited at Auschwitz museum, travels next to US
Photos of 20 drawings and other artifacts clandestinely made by inmates at Nazi death camps during World War II are on show at the Auschwitz museum and are to travel next to the United States, an official said Tuesday. Continue reading
Notorious Auschwitz sign repaired after 2009 theft
The notorious sign spanning Auschwitz’s main gate, which was stolen and cut into pieces in a 2009 heist, has been welded back together and restored almost to its previous condition, officials said Wednesday.
Conservation workers at the site of the former Nazi death camp said they have worked for nearly a year and a half photographing, analyzing and finally welding back together the pieces of the badly damaged sign bearing the cynical Nazi slogan “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Work Sets You Free). Continue reading
New culture built on sad remembrance
The camp gate is still there, with its cruelly ironic inscription, Arbeit macht frei — work makes you free.
And so is much of the rest of World War II’s deadliest Nazi death camp: the barbed wire, the crematoria, the vats of discarded shoes and spectacles, the walls of victims’ photographs. Continue reading
Meet The Man Who Sneaked Into Auschwitz
This weekend marks the 70th anniversary of a World War II milestone few people have heard before. It’s the story of a Polish army captain named Witold Pilecki.
In September 1940, Pilecki didn’t know exactly what was going on in Auschwitz, but he knew someone had to find out. He would spend two and a half years in the prison camp, smuggling out word of the methods of execution and interrogation. He would eventually escape and author the first intelligence report on the camp. Continue reading
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