Holocaust Museum may lose key Poland artifacts on loan
Little known outside the Holocaust Museum is that many of the objects borrowed from Poland almost a quarter-century ago were on 20-year loans, and over the past few years, those loans have expired. In some cases, the museum has returned objects, renegotiated loans or exchanged existing materials, such as shoes, suitcases and prayer shawls, for equivalent pieces. Continue reading
Proposal calls for Righteous Gentile day in Poland
Jewish and historical groups in Poland have called for a day to be devoted to Poles who helped Jews during the Holocaust. Continue reading
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
The Ruins Were My Playground: Agneiszka Holland on In Darkness
With her latest film In Darkness, Holland returns to World War II (when her movies Angry Harvestand Europa Europa are set) and still manages to cover well-worn territory with fresh and even shocking perspectives. It’s based on the dark, curious but inspiring story of sewer inspector Leopold Socha (Robert Wieckiewicz), who sheltered a handful of Jews in the sewers of Lvov, Poland until the Nazis fell. 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
Memorial to Jedwabne pogrom vandalized in Poland
Vandals have defaced the monument in the eastern Polish town of Jedwabne that commemorates the hundreds of Jews burned alive in a barn there by their Polish neighbors in July 1941. 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
Poland and anti-Semitism: Only one Holocaust
Few would quibble with Mr Cohen’s outrage about events such as the massacre at Kielce, in which 42 Jews were killed by their fellow-Poles in July 1946. And he is right to highlight the horrible approach of America’s General George S Patton, whom he terms a “contemptible bigot”. Patton wrote in his diary that the Jews were “lower than animals” and wanted them kept in camps under armed guard, for fear that they would “swarm like locusts”. Continue reading
