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WARSAW (Reuters) - Irena Sendler, a Polish woman who saved thousands of Jewish children during World War Two by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, died in the Polish capital on Monday after a long illness, local media said. Israel's Holocaust remembrance authority, Yad Vashem, said in a statement that it mourned her death. The web portal of Poland's leading daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, said Sendler, 98, died in Plocka Street hospital early on Monday. The hospital declined to comment on the report. Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev said: "Irena Sendler's courageous activities rescuing Jews during the Holocaust serve as...

Bad manners at Warsaw Ghetto Israeli youths in Poland ceremony score failing grade with disrespectful behavior Attila Somfalvi Published: 04.24.08, 10:36 / Israel Opinion It’s been a while since I felt both so proud and so embarrassed to be Israeli at the same time, as I felt during my visit to Poland. On the one hand, I was overwhelmed by powerful patriotic feelings, nationalistic even, when I stood under the blue-and-white flags proudly carried by Israeli students in the cold winds of Auschwitz and Majdanek. On the other hand, I was red with shame in the face of the behavior...

Poland's Jewish leaders envision modern skyscraper in historic Warsaw Ghetto By Vanessa Gera ASSOCIATED PRESS 7:55 a.m. November 1, 2007 WARSAW, Poland – Poland's Jewish leaders have unveiled plans for a glass skyscraper in a neighborhood that was the heart of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. The building – projected to rise 680 feet high – would tower over the elegant Nozyk synagogue, Warsaw's only remaining synagogue, dramatically altering the look of the historic neighborhood. The skyscraper would include a new house of prayer, a kosher restaurant and vast commercial space, giving Warsaw's growing Jewish community a place...

Poland honours woman who saved Jewish childrenDeclared national heroine Harry De Quetteville, National Post Published: Thursday, March 15, 2007 POZNAN, Poland - For most Jewish children imprisoned behind the walls of the Warsaw ghetto, the only exit led to concentration camps and the gas chambers. However, thousands did find salvation in the form of Irena Sendler, who smuggled them out in workmen's bags or through the sewers, before taking them to safety and hiding them with friendly families around the city. Yesterday Ms. Sendler, now 97, was honoured as a national heroine by the Polish parliament for saving 2,500...

Pope offends Poland's Jews Correspondents in Warsaw May 27, 2006 THE Pope has upset the Jewish community in Poland by not stopping to pay tribute to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis. The heavily guarded Popemobile sped from Warsaw airport towards the Old Town district and the former ghetto area but barely slowed when it passed the memorial to the Jewish fighters. Chief Rabbi of Warsaw Michael Schudrich, the Israeli ambassador and a handful of Jewish dignitaries were left standing as Benedict XVI flashed past with a wave. Church officials said there had been no space...

Polish Jewish Museum A Tough Sell Here Some philanthropists dismissive of historical institution on site of Warsaw Ghetto. Steve Lipman - Staff Writer Victor Markowicz, a Siberian-born philanthropist who grew up in Poland and later moved to the United States, spends much of his time these days asking fellow Jewish philanthropists in the U.S. to contribute to a Jewish museum to be built in Warsaw in the next few years. Markowicz’s friends, in turn, ask him something: “Why in Warsaw? Why in Poland?” Many American Jews — born here or in the Old Country — support the idea of a...

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 Remembering the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 19 April 1943 63 years ago today was the eve of Passover and the 50,000 - 60,000 (out of more than half a million who had been forced into the narrow streets of this confined space) suriving Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto were slated to be finally and completely annihilated. When the SS troops entered the ghetto to renew the deportations to the death camps, however, they met with unexpected resistance. Fewer than 500 young fighters, girls and boys --the youngest aged 12 but most in their late teens and...

Poland marks 63rd anniversary of WWII Warsaw ghetto uprising Canadian Press Radek Sikorski and religious leaders of Poland's Jewish community, flanked by Jewish Second World War veterans, laid flowers and prayed Tuesday to mark the 63rd anniversary of the doomed Warsaw ghetto uprising. Several dozen officials and local residents also lit candles and said the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, at the monument to the heroes of the ghetto struggle during observances held on the eve of the anniversary. On April 19, 1943, hundreds of young Jewish fighters took up arms in the first major act of armed...

Jewish history museum rises from old Warsaw Ghetto By Haggain Hitron, Haaretz Correspondent It will be the most important Jewish history museum in Europe, and it will be located in the most sensitive spot: The museum for the history of Polish Jewry will be built where the Warsaw Ghetto used to stand. Three weeks ago, the project director, Jerzy Halbersztadt, sent the master plan for the museum to a group of historians. The recipients undertook, in writing, not to share it with anyone. On Thursday, they all gathered at Tel Aviv University: Halbersztadt and his aides from Warsaw, the museum's...

Jewish death squad recalls revenge on Nazis Friday, December 23, 2005 Posted at 8:25 PM EST Associated Press Jerusalem — A group of elderly Jews came forward Friday with accounts of a death squad they formed after the Second World War to take revenge on Nazis, recounting a brazen operation in which they poisoned hundreds of SS officers. In a broadcast on Israel Channel Two TV, the survivors — some of whom fought in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising — recounted hunting down former SS officers at night. Disguised as British or U.S. officers, they dragged the men out of their...

Back To The Future Posted 12/21/2005 By Steven Plaut Archeologists in Poland have just discovered an amazing document, uncovered from beneath rubble left over in what was once the Warsaw Ghetto: A Letter and Call to Sanity for the Warsaw Ghetto zealots, from the Peace Now chapter of Warsaw, April 23, 1943. Dear Deluded Brethren, A few days ago some zealots from certain messianic settler organizations operating in Warsaw launched a series of acts of unprovoked violence against the legitimate German peace partners directing peace-seeking activities here in Warsaw. A number of German soldiers and officers have been viciously murdered,...

An 89-year-old Sutton man who worked in a Nazi training camp faces deportation after a federal judge ruled yesterday he had lied about killing Jews so he wouldn't be barred from entering the United States more than 50 years ago. Born in Lithuania and once a sergeant in the Soviet army, Vladas Zajanckauskas claimed he was merely a prisoner of war forced into Nazi service as a barkeep at the Trawniki camp to survive. But in an 18-page ruling after a bench trial earlier this month, Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton revoked Zajanckauskas' citizenship and found the retired factory worker's testimony...

Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day begins tonight, one week before Independence Day, in memory of the more than six million Jews murdered in Europe by the Nazi regime between 1941-1945. The theme for this year's commemorations is, "Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust - Sixty Years Since the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising." The official opening ceremony will take place tonight at 8 PM at the Warsaw Ghetto Square, in the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, with the participation of President Moshe Katzav and Prime Minister Sharon. Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, will kindle the Holocaust Memorial Torch,...

THE CHANGING FACE OF MEMORY: They did not die aloneBy ELIE WIESEL Sixty years later, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising remains Like everyone else, when I think of this unprecedented event, filled with tragedy and glory, I am overcome by melancholy and pride. Undeniably, 60 years ago next week, history was made within the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto. A few hundred Jews, the last of a community numbering 500,000, rose against what were then the mightiest legions in Europe. Without tangible help from anyone, without training, without any real military experience, they waged a war that will be remembered by...

In the most famous of the revolts against their tormentors, the ill-equiped, starved Jews of the ghetto fought back against the German war machine. The Warsaw Ghetto originally contained almost 450,000 people. By January of 1943,it was down to roughly 37,000 people. The rest had already been taken away to slave labor or death camps. Word got out that the Germans were going to finish off the ghetto, clean it out. Those half-starved, disease-weakened ghetto inhabitants decided to fight. They had actually been preparing for this, and had convinced the Germans to let them build 631 air-raid shelters. Bombing was...