Free Republic

William Herskovic, who helped fuel the Belgian resistance during World War II after escaping from the Auschwitz concentration camp, has died. He was 91. Herskovic died Friday at his Encino home after a lengthy battle with cancer, said his daughter, Patricia Herskovic. He was the longtime operator of Bel Air Camera in Westwood, which he opened soon after moving to Los Angeles in 1957. Three months after arriving at Auschwitz, Herskovic fled the camp on the first night of Hanukkah in 1942, cutting through a chain-link fence to freedom with two other prisoners using a pair of wire cutters he...

NEW YORK, March 3, 2006 (AFP) - Holocaust survivors and victims' families have filed a lawsuit in New York seeking compensation from France for property taken from 75,000 Jews who were deported to Nazi death camps in World War II. As well as the French government, the lawsuit names the state-run SNCF railway and the pension manager for French civil servants, CDC, as defendants who "committed, conspired to commit and aided and abetted others who committed crimes against humanity." France's culpability, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday, stemmed from its operation of holding camps...

The government of Iran is seeking permission from the Polish government to conduct on-site inspections of the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau as part of its so-called investigation into whether the Holocaust actually took place. The Jewish Forward reports this week: "With an international showdown fast approaching, Iran once again upset Jewish organizations and raised Western ire by questioning the Holocaust. This time, Iran proposed sending a team of investigators to conduct on-site inspections of Nazi concentration camps, in advance of a Tehran-sponsored conference to debate the 'real scale of the Holocaust.'" The plan was quickly rejected by...

Right-wing British historian David Irving pleaded guilty Monday to denying the Holocaust and was sentenced to three years in prison, even after conceding he wrongly said there were no Nazi gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Irving, handcuffed and wearing a navy blue suit, arrived in court carrying a copy of one of his most controversial books — "Hitler's War," which challenges the extent of the Holocaust. "I made a mistake when I said there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz," Irving told the court before his sentencing, at which he faced up to 10 years in prison. He...

APPEAL AGAINST "POLISH DEATH" CAMPS Polish conservative daily 'Rzeczpospolita' is running an campaign against the 'Polish death camps' expression. Appeal of Mr. Grzegorz Gauden - editor-in-chief of the "Rzeczpospolita" daily - addressed to worldwide mass media Warsaw, 26th January 2004 Dear Sir, Dear Colleague, Acting as the Editor-in-Chief of the "Rzeczpospolita" daily, the most renowned opinion-forming Polish daily newspaper that has always focused on truth and the compliance with the ethical principles also in the sphere of journalism I have noticed with pain and grief that in many renowned newspapers all over the world a term "Polish concentration camps" appears...

Survivors mourn at Auschwitz, ponder Pope visit Fri Jan 27, 2006 11:26 AM ET By Wojciech Zurawski OSWIECIM, Poland (Reuters) - Survivors of the most infamous Nazi death camp, Auschwitz, on Friday marked the 61th anniversary of its liberation and looked to a May visit there by German-born Pope Benedict as a sign of healing. "No one can pass indifferently by the tragedy of the Shoah. This crime has stained all humankind, for all time," said Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, using the Hebrew word for the Nazi attempt to exterminate the Jews. More than 1.5 million people died at...

Have you heard the news? The "old covenant" between G-d and the Jews is no longer in effect. Sinai has been superceded. But not to worry; the Jews still have an important place in this "new testament," even though their role has changed radically. Yes, once upon a time the Creator of the Universe chose the progeny of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to teach the world about G-d. They were given the Holy Torah and the Land of Israel. They built a beautiful Temple in Jerusalem and on behalf of mankind conducted the sacrificial service G-d gave them. But that's...

The notebooks are now yellow with age and illegible in some sections. Filled with heart-wrenching short stories and poems that depict a horror beyond human imagination, they serve as the last will and testament of a young Jewish boy incarcerated in the Lodz Ghetto during World War II. The stories were written in Polish by an ill and malnourished Avraham Cytryn over a four-year period (1940-1944) - from the time he was 13 until he was 17, when he was transported to Auschwitz and gassedto death. After the war, the notebooks were found scattered on the floor of the family's...

CHICAGO — A well-known revisionist and holocaust denier, wanted in Germany for inciting racial hatred by denying that thousands of Jews were gassed to death at Auschwitz, was deported last night by the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “ICE is focused on protecting America and promoting public safety by ensuring that fugitive aliens are removed from the United States as expeditiously as possible,” said Deborah Achim, field officer director for Chicago’s detention and removal program. “We are restoring integrity to the immigration system by finding and removing individuals ordered deported by federal immigration judges.”...

Europe Died in Auschwitz By Sebastian Villar Rodriguez September 23, 2005 I was walking along Raval (in Barcelona) when all of a sudden I understood that Europe died with Auschwitz. We assassinated 6 million Jews in order to end up bringing in 20 million Muslims! We burnt in Auschwitz the culture, intelligence and power to create. We burnt the people of the world, the one who is proclaimed the chosen people of God. Because it is the people who gave to humanity the epic figures who were capable of changing history (Christ, Marx, Einstein, Freud...) and who represent the origin...

Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan and six other Roman Catholic bishops from the United States will spend a day at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps later this month during a Jewish-Catholic study trip to Poland and Rome with three East Coast rabbis. I see (Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan) as a future cardinal and a very important leader of the Catholic community. - Rabbi Joseph Ehrenkranz,executive director of the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding at Sacred Heart University This is not the first time U.S. bishops have visited the Auschwitz-area camps, the largest of the Nazi-run camps during World War II. Some 1.5...

Auschwitz Rave Video Causes Outrage Auschwitz's infamous railroad -- Not a laughing matter... Zoom AP Auschwitz's infamous railroad -- Not a laughing matter... A video circulated on the Internet depicting a fictitious rave party at the Auschwitz concentration camp has provoked a furious reaction from Jewish groups. The Polish government has also officially requested that "Housewitz" be removed from the Internet, but one Dutch website has refused. Dicky Thijssen, a 22-year old Dutch student has confessed to having produced the clip claiming it was a "very bad joke". "I should never have done it, " he said, "I'm very, very...

The scandal of Housewitz Free showers in gas chambers, skinny-Jew dress code, dancing to the music played by DJs dressed as Nazi soldiers - are just some of the features of an internet advertisement conceived by a 22-year-old Dutch student. The image of the non-existent site of Housewitz welcomes you with a huge sign Tanzen macht frei, dance will set you free, in the place where the Germans put out the slogan Arbeit macht frei, work will set you free, on the premises of the Auschwtiz camp. If that was not enough, the dance party was advertised for... the national...

PARIS - An Internet film clip that depicts the Auschwitz death camp as a rave party drew sharp criticism from a leading Jewish rights group Wednesday, which urged authorities to order the film to be removed from several European Web sites. ADVERTISEMENT The 3-minute video depicts SS soldiers as DJs and flashes offensive messages over images of concentration camp victims. The video alternates black-and-white photos of Holocaust atrocities with color images of youths partying at an open-air rave. The Simon Wiesenthal Center's European office in Paris denounced the film as "outrageous," saying in a statement that it goes "beyond the...

BERLIN (Reuters) - Hartmut Topf has spent a lifetime trying to comprehend why family firm Topf & Soehne agreed 64 years ago to build crematoria for Auschwitz and enable industrialized mass murder. He knows there can be no satisfactory answer. A new Berlin exhibition sheds light on Topf, one of countless largely forgotten small firms to provide the technical know-how for the Holocaust. It tries to trace why this eastern German furnace maker became entangled with the Nazis, despite sensing what the ovens were being used for. Fresh archive evidence shows the brothers who ran Topf, cousins of Hartmut's father,...

In Israel, Father Emile Shoufani is probably best known for having organized an extraordinary four-day Arab-Jewish pilgrimage to Auschwitz in 2003. Abroad, where he is known as "Le Cure' de Nazareth" (The Parish Priest of Nazareth)... Shoufani is director of one of the most prestigious schools in the country, St. Joseph's Seminary and High School in Nazareth. Muslim and Druse pupils make up 40% of the student body; the rest are Christians. "This is a Catholic school, but not in the sense of the Jewish religious schools," he explains. "It's a place for students of all backgrounds to be together."...

65th anniversary of first transport to Auschwitz Nazi death camp 13.06.2005 Commemorations of the 65th anniversary of the first transport of prisoners to the Auschwitz concentration camp have began in the southern city of Tarnow. It was from there that the Nazis had gathered 728 young Poles, mostly soldiers who hadn’t escaped after the German onslaught in 1939, to be sent to Auschwitz. They arrived at the death camp on June 14th, 1940, which is considered to be the official date of the establishment of what was to become the biggest graveyard in World War Two and the site of...

Sharon to visit Auschwitz for Holocaust march 2005-05-04 18:57 JERUSALEM, May 4 (Reuters) Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will take part in a commemorative march for Holocaust victims in Poland on Thursday, a trip his aides say will symbolise steadfastness in the face of rising anti-Semitism. He will join Polish leaders and an estimated 20,000 people from around the world in the annual walk between the former Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps, honouring the 6 million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust during World War Two. The event, expected to be the largest ever March of the Living along the...

20,000 to join March of the Living in Auschwitz 30.04.2005 More than 20,000 people are expected to take part in this year’s March of the Living at the site of the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, southern Poland. The march, commemorating victims of the Holocaust, will be the largest in the 18 year history of the event. Delegations from almost 50 countries are expected to arrive in Auschwitz on May 5. Alongside thousands of young people and the camp survivors, there will be prime ministers of Poland and Israel Marek Belka and Ariel Sharon. The idea of the March...

An anti-Semite? Not Father Kolbe By Patricia Treece There is much that is good about "John Paul II: The Millennial Pope," a PBS "Frontline" presentation from 2002 that has re-aired in recent weeks. Unfortunately, the program also accuses John Paul of canonizing an anti-Semite --- Polish Franciscan and WWII martyr of charity, St. Maximilian Kolbe. As one who was asked by Father Kolbe's religious order, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, to write his biography ("A Man for Others," Harper San Francisco, 1982), I should like to respond to that charge. I told of Father Kolbe's extraordinary life through the testimonies...