General Interest News

The True Story of The Holocaust Train Rescued From The Heart of Darkness – Friday, April 13th, 1945

Posted on December 19, 2020

‘I cannot believe, today, that the world almost ignored those people and what was happening. How could we have all stood by and have let that happen? They do not owe us anything. We owe them, for what we allowed to happen to them.’ – Carrol Walsh, Liberator. Near the end of the war, Jewish Continue Reading »

Edelweiss Pirates: The Anti-Hitler Youth

Posted on December 16, 2020

Barthel Schink was a German teenager who led a resistance movement of Hitler Youth dropouts who fought Nazi tyranny. Born to a postal worker and a homemaker in Cologne in 1927, Barthel was one of five children. Like millions of other young Germans he was conscripted into the Hitler Youth, the only legally permitted youth Continue Reading »

Polish Holocaust survivor’s family wins lawsuit for land illegally sold to church by rescuer’s son

Posted on December 16, 2020

(JTA) — The Supreme Court of Poland upheld a 6-year-old ruling in favor of the descendants of a Holocaust survivor who had sued to reclaim from a Krakow-area church ownership of land stolen from her. Monday’s decision by the court’s Chamber of Extraordinary Control and Public Rights ends a protracted legal battle by the family Continue Reading »

Rio inaugurates long-awaited Holocaust memorial with 72-foot-tall tower

Posted on December 16, 2020

RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — Rio de Janeiro inaugurated a Holocaust memorial that includes a 72-foot-tall tower and overlooks the Sugarloaf Mountain, one of South America’s most famous landmarks. Several government officials and Jewish communal representatives attended an inauguration event in Brazil’s second largest city on Sunday. Brazil’s Secretary of Communications Fabio Wajngarten, who is Continue Reading »

Polish diplomat in Istanbul rescued hundreds of Jews from the Holocaust, report says

Posted on December 12, 2020

(JTA) – A Polish diplomat serving in Turkey during World War II helped save hundreds of Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis by issuing them false certificates that identified them as Christians, an Israeli newspaper revealed in an expose published Friday. Wojciech Rychlewicz, then a consul in Istanbul, provided the documents to the European refugees at no pay. Continue Reading »

Halle synagogue shooter denies the Holocaust in closing statement of his trial

Posted on December 10, 2020

(JTA) — The perpetrator of a terrorist attack on a synagogue in Halle, Germany denied the Holocaust during his closing statement in court. Stephan Balliet, a far-right extremist, has confessed to killing two people outside the synagogue last year on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. Earlier in the day, he had tried and Continue Reading »

Farmers desecrate Jewish cemetery in Ukraine

Posted on December 9, 2020

(JTA) — Part of a Jewish cemetery in Ukraine was desecrated by farmers who added it to their adjacent fields, a local television station reported. The desecration happened three years ago in Hulyaipole, a town situated about 300 miles southeast of Kyiv, according to the TCN report Tuesday. About half an acre from the Jewish cemetery of Continue Reading »

Dutch government criticizes country’s own Holocaust restitution policy that has blocked families from return of stolen art

Posted on December 9, 2020

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — In the Netherlands, proving that the Nazis stole artwork from your family isn’t always enough to claim it back. Departing from norms across Europe, the kingdom’s policy is to weigh the interest of established heirs of looted art against those of the museums that hold them. In some cases the government has ruled in Continue Reading »

Trump administration wants Holocaust restitution cases heard outside US. The Supreme Court seems skeptical.

Posted on December 8, 2020

(JTA) — The Trump administration’s claim that Holocaust restitution cases should be heard in the countries where the crimes occurred, and not in the United States, met with skepticism on Monday in the Supreme Court — from conservative and liberal justices. In the two cases, Holocaust survivors and the heirs of victims of the Holocaust are Continue Reading »

Historical novel on Holland’s largest Holocaust rescue operation slammed for ‘awful’ errors

Posted on December 6, 2020

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — It was meant as an ode to one of the most courageous yet little-known rescue efforts of Jews during the Holocaust. But a week after its publication, a Dutch-language historical novel is at the heart of a controversy over whether the author twisted the historical record in ways that risk distorting public understanding of Continue Reading »

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