EXTENSION FOR SENDING IN COMPLETED APPLICATIONS !!!!
TO ALL HUNGARIAN SURVIVORS AND VICTIMS WHO LOST THEIR PARENTS AND /OR SIBLINGS.
The Hungarian Government has EXTENDED the compensation program (ACT XLVII of 2006).
A filled out application and declarations can now be postmarked by December 31, 2006.
from alex moscovitz in florida
BY TOM WALSH
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
July 30, 2006
Powerful new tools — including software created by Gene Codes Corp. of Ann Arbor to help identify remains of 9/11 terrorist attack victims — are being applied to solve mysteries that remain from the Holocaust of World War II.
The DNA Shoah project, announced last month by Gene Codes founder Howard Cash at the Human Genome Organization meeting in Finland, could be the most extensive DNA detective undertaking ever, if organizers succeed in collecting DNA samples from even a fraction of the 300,000 Holocaust survivors around the world.
By creating a giant genetic database of people who lost relatives during the Holocaust when 6 million Jews were killed, the aim is to:
· Reunite families scattered by the Holocaust. As many as 10,000 so-called Holocaust orphans may have been separated and never reunited with parents and siblings.
· Identify remains that occasionally still turn up in Eastern Europe.
· Use modern forensic science tools to teach future generations about the Holocaust.
Rene Lichtman, 68, of West Bloomfield, a child survivor of the Holocaust, sees potential benefit in the project.
“Even today we hear stories of child survivors from Poland who were hidden and raised by Christians, who finally learn they are Jewish in deathbed conversations with their adoptive parents,” he said.
These people, who have strong identity issues, could be reunited with blood relatives, said Lichtman, a member of the executive committee of the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the Holocaust.
Mandelbaum is a geneticist and philanthropist who used DNA tests on strands of hair in 1994 to disprove the claim that Anna Anderson Manahan was the long-lost grand duchess Anastasia of Russia. Mandelbaum also is the founder and CEO of Rock and Wrap it Up, an antipoverty organization that gathers food left over from rock concerts and other shows for distribution to the hungry.
To launch the Holocaust project, Mandelbaum linked up with Michael Hammer, a geneticist at the University of Arizona, and with Cash, whose Ann Arbor firm has won global acclaim for its M-FISys (Mass Fatality Identification System) software used to identify victims from the 2001 World Trade Center attack and the 2004 Asian tsunami.
“It’s really picking up speed,” Mandelbaum told me recently. “We’re having an important event Aug. 13 — a mass collection of DNA swabs in the San Jose area.”
The data collection and analysis will work as follows:
· DNA sampling kits will be sent to families around the world.
· Participants rub swabs along their inner cheeks to collect cells, then place swabs in tubes and mail them to Hammer’s lab in Arizona for DNA fingerprinting.
· Data will be analyzed using Gene Codes’ M-FISys software to determine whether the DNA from the swabs matches DNA from the remains of known Holocaust victims or from living relatives of Holocaust victims.
Cash, who employs 45 people at the Ann Arbor firm he founded in 1988 to help scientists then working on the Human Genome Project, said the M-FISys software works with all currently available methods of DNA identification. The ability to use mitochondrial DNA makes M-FISys a good fit for the Shoah project, he said, because mitochondrial DNA is the type that is most resilient and therefore most easily recovered from older or highly degraded remains.
“There is a concern that expectations may get too high,” Cash said of the DNA Shoah project. “We can apply the very newest and most sensitive identification technology, but there is no guarantee that remains will be identified or previously unknown living relatives discovered. But this is something that should be tried, as one last measure of respect to people who had so much taken from them.”
The University of Arizona will absorb most of the lab costs, and Mandelbaum is looking for benefactors to help pay for sampling kits and other costs.
In addition to the upcoming event in California, Mandelbaum also is contacting Jewish groups around the country, looking for opportunities to spread the word about DNA Shoah. He already has been in touch with people involved in a Detroit-area conference in late August of child survivors of the Holocaust and their families.
Lichtman of West Bloomfield said organizers of that conference are reluctant to publicize details about the specific time and place of the event, due to privacy concerns and the deeply personal and sensitive nature of the discussions.
Those same issues could also lead to some initial caution about the DNA Shoah project.
“People don’t want to be manipulated or used. A lot of people have given up hope of finding lost relatives,” he said, “so there might be mixed feelings about the idea of opening up old wounds.”
Hammer and Mandelbaum have vowed that the DNA Shoah project will keep all genetic information confidential and protect anonymity by cataloging DNA samples with bar codes instead of names.
Contact TOM WALSH at 313-223-4430 or twalsh {at} freepress(.)com.     Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.
Holocaust survivor discovers long-lost family
Updated Sat. Jul. 29 2006 8:25 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
A Holocaust survivor who settled in Canada after World War II didn’t hesitate to act when she discovered she had relatives in Argentina: Ethel Kerzner flew her new-found family to visit her in Ottawa.
“What is it all about, if not family?” Kerzner told CTV Ottawa on Saturday.
Kerzner was just 11 years old when Nazis opened fire on her village in Poland.
New Jersey Jewish News
Greater Middlesex County Feature
Survivors’ group seeks to raise money for veterans
by Debra Rubin
NJJN Staff Writer
In the almost five years since Monroe Township Holocaust Survivors took up the cause of disabled Israeli war veterans, the group has raised $70,000 for Beit Halochem (House of the Soldier) rehabilitation centers in Israel.
“We sent along about $25,000 last year and about $25,000 the year before,� said Jack Chevlin, president of the survivors’ group. “We hope to raise the same amount this year.�
That will hinge on the success of the group’s biggest annual fund-raiser, to be held Sunday, Aug. 6, at 7 p.m. at the Marasco Performing Arts Center at Monroe Township High School. The show features comedian Mal Z. Lawrence, cabaret singer Judy Kolba, and singer Gary Willner, who has been recognized as a leading artist carrying on the Frank Sinatra sound.
For the last two years, money raised through three annual events has been hand-delivered by seniors going on the annual Solidarity and Tzedakah Mission of the Jewish Congregation of Concordia. The third such mission is scheduled to be in Israel this year from Oct. 23 to Nov. 6.
A June 6 “Salute to Israel� program featuring dinner and entertainment also brought in contributions; an annual dinner-dance held in October also raises funds.
“We decided this was a very important cause because without soldiers there would be no country,� said Chevlin, who also serves as ritual chair of the Concordia congregation. “Just look what’s going on now. It’s been going on since 1948, and it’s still going on in 2006. There are young people 18 or 19 years old who have lost their sight or legs. The only thing we can do is try and raise some money to make their lives a little more livable. Not that other causes are not important — but we thought this was very important.�
Chevlin is a survivor from what is now Belarus. A retired instrumental music teacher, he spent the last 28 years of his career in the Roselle Park school system.
The Friends of Israel Disabled Veterans is the American fund-raising arm of the Zahal Disabled Veterans Organization, which runs Beit Halochem centers in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, and Nahariya. It is building a new $12.5 million center in Beersheva, expected to open next year, to serve the approximately 3,200 disabled veterans in that area.
The centers allow the vets to participate in sports and related activities suited to their disabilities and provide them and their families with emotional and physical rehabilitation. In addition to Florida and New York, there is another American branch in Los Angeles.
To attend the Aug. 6 fund-raiser, send a check for $33 per person for regular seats or $38 for special seating near the stage to the Monroe Township Holocaust Survivors, PO Box 6015, Monroe, NJ 08831. Greenbriar-Whittingham residents may use lockbox no. 16. For information, call Doris at 609-655-0622 or Carl at 609-409-0808
BY BEN LESSER, SPECIAL TO TOGETHER
My name is Ben Lesser and my wife’s name is Jean Lesser.
On June 17, 2006 our grandson Adam Gerber graduated from U.C. Davis. The whole West Coast family attended the graduation. Afterwards we celebrated a couple of days in Davis. Adam had made arrangements to tour Europe for a month after graduation and before he settles down to his new job in San Diego California with Hillel, at U. C. San Diego.
At the same time my oldest grand daughter, Robyn Kramer made arrangements to tour Italy, so Adam and Robyn decided to rendezvous in Krakow Poland on Tuesday July 11th. They were to meet at a certain restaurant at a specified time.
A few days later I received a call from Robyn asking me about certain places and addresses in Krakow, the place of my birth and where I grew up in my previous lifetime. While conversing with Robyn she happened to mention how nice it would be if I could also be there with them to show them around the area.
Jean and I had been in Krakow approximately 10 years ago and both of us decided never to return to this accursed land where the soil is soaked with innocent Jewish blood. In 1996 our last and only visit after the Holocaust was a most traumatic experience, which at that time I felt that I had to endure in order to have closure. However, I felt that if my grandchildren went out of their way to go to Krakow in order to find their roots, how could I possibly refuse that kind of an overture or request. That was the time when I decided to invite the whole family if they would like to join us on this rather impromptu trip to Poland AKA PILGRIMAGE. Robyn and I agreed to keep it as a surprise to Adam. I also invited my only sister, Lola. However, because of timing, health and circumstances not everyone could oblige me by accepting my invitation.
A pioneering program to educate Poland’s teachers about the Shoah took place July 2-14, 2006 at Jagiellonian University, Institute of European Studies in Krakow and at the Institute of Oriental Studies at Warsaw University. This historic project was sponsored by the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, Jageillonian University in Krakow and Warsaw University. Our three-way partnership was joined by the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow, the International Center for Education at Auschwitz-Birkenau and The Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, whose scholars participated in our program, making their venues and facilities available for our sessions.
The Founding Director of the Teachers’ Summer Institute, Tess Wise, Chairwoman of the Board of the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida, is a nationally recognized Holocaust educator and a Polish Shoah survivor. Her involvement in Holocaust education in America spans decades. Speaking of the response to the Summer Institute, Mrs. Wise commented, “The response was overwhelming. When word of the Summer Institute got out, we even had technical school faculty and a group of construction workers who wanted to attend the Summer Institute on the Holocaust. The third generation in Poland want to know what really happened.�
More than four hundred Polish teachers applied for admission to the International Teachers’ Summer Institute on Teaching the Holocaust. A number of factors limit participation in the program to one hundred and twenty participants, middle and high school teachers having priority.
In 1999, the Polish Ministry of Education mandated the teaching of the Holocaust to all gymnasium/middle school and lyceum/high school pupils in Poland. An important goal of the International Teachers’ Summer Institute was to create a foundation upon which Polish teachers could build their classroom lessons and curricula. The Institute’s goal is the integration of Holocaust Studies into Polish schools. The teachers who attended the Institute were clearly committed to expanding and improving their knowledge and information about the Holocaust in order to properly instruct their pupils. Their challenge is to teach their students about the principles of democracy and the responsibilities required of citizens living in a tolerant and free society, one in which prejudice, discrimination and anti-Semitism are condemned and eliminated.
In intensive daylong sessions of lectures and presentations, with question and answer periods followed by workshops, the participating Polish teachers were provided with historical background and the most up-to-date information and research on the Holocaust. Presentations and discussions were conducted in Polish, or English with simultaneous translations available. The international nature of the Teachers’ Summer Institute is reflected in the teaching faculty, which included teams from the United States, Israel and Poland, all of whom are recognized academics and scholars.
The faculty from the United States included: Dr. Michael Berenbaum, the University of Judaism in Los Angeles; Dr. Marcia Sachs Littell, the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey; Mitchell Bloomer and Tess Wise of the Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida. The Israeli team consisted of Dr. Gideon Greif and Dr. Havi Ben Sasson of the International School for Holocaust Studies of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. The Polish team included, Professor. Zdzislaw Mach, Dr. Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs and Anna Motyczka of the Institute of European Studies at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Professor Feliks Tych, of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, Dr. Roman Marcinkowski of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the University of Warsaw, Dr. Jolanta Zyndul, the Institute of History at the University of Warsaw, Dr. Franciszek Piper, Dr. Henryk Swiebocki, and Dr. Igor Bartosik, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial Museum, Dr. Piotr Trojanski Teachers’ College in Krakow, Krystyna Oleksy and Alicja Bialecka, The International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust, Wieslawa Mlynarczyk, the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw, Robert Szuchta, LXIV High School in Warsaw, Tomasz Kuncewicz of the Jewish Center in Oswiecim, and Dr. Hanna Wegrzyneks, historian with expertise on the Jews of Poland.
In addition to presenting the latest research, establishing a dialogue concerning the impact of the Holocaust on past, present and future historical perspectives, was an integral part of the program. The intention was to provide a common ground for the teachers to share ideas and strategies with colleagues, university professors and researchers.
As if to punctuate the need for open discussion and dialogue on the Holocaust in Poland, the Polish teachers and professors participating in the Institute expressed concern about Poland’s current shift towards right wing, nationalist politics. They are especially alarmed by the appointment of the new Education Minister, Roman Giertych, whom they describe as a neo-fascist of the League of Polish Families (LPR). He is a strong supporter and active member of the right-wing All-Polish Youth (Mlodziez Wszechpolska), which is characterized by extreme nationalist and anti-Semitic activities.
The Education Ministers’ appointment has been denounced by Poland’s teachers, professors and workers. It has been called “a slap in the face for all Polish teachers.� Student demonstrations immediately occurred in most large cities after Giertych’s appointment, with more than 10,000 marching nationwide demanding his resignation. The Polish Teachers’ Association (PTA) also has requested his dismissal. More than 2,500 teachers protested his appointment in Warsaw on June 9, 2006 and an online petition calling his removal received 60,000 signatures within 40 hours. A group of students, teachers and education experts then gathered 140,000 additional signatures demanding Giertych’s resignation a month later.
While this appointment is certainly alarming, it is also positive to see schoolteachers, professors and workers openly protesting and demanding the removal of this public official. This differs drastically from another time and place when in Germany, 1925-1933, the Professors of the Weimar Republic felt they were “above politics� and absolved of any political responsibility. German schoolteachers and workers of that time, also quickly caved in without protest.
The teachers understand that the broader purpose of education is to develop students with more than pure intellectual capacity. They understand they are not training “technically competent barbarians.â€? Learning to live in a multicultural world and to respect the dignity and integrity of the human person — to build a more humane world is the true purpose and responsibility of education.
The interest, enthusiasm and demands for continuation of this pioneering project, will now result in an annual event at Universities in Poland, with an important purpose and meaning – to teach about the Holocaust and its lessons for contemporary society.
Funds To Help Holocaust Survivors With Home Health Care
Written by Westchester.com
Friday, 21 July 2006
White Plains, NY - With funding from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, Inc., Westchester Jewish Community Services is offering Holocaust survivors a subsidy for home health care.
Services can include personal care, light housekeeping, shopping and cooking. In order to qualify, an individual must meet all of the following criteria:
- Be a Holocaust survivor living in Westchester County.
- Have an income that does not exceed 150% of the 2006 Federal Poverty Income guidelines.
- Obtain a recommendation from a doctor or nurse for home health services.
For more information, contact Joyce Ruiz, Jewish Outreach Coordinator, at 949-7699 ext. 304.
Founded in 1943, Westchester Jewish Community Services provides comprehensive mental health, developmental disabilities, social services, home health care and community- and school-based programs on a non-sectarian basis to people across the life span, and cultural and economic boundaries. A state-licensed, non-profit WJCS serves 14,000 yearly with programs funded through government grants, UJA-Federation, United Way, foundations, corporations and individuals. For more information, go to www.wjcs.com.
My name is Renee Balaban and my parents are survivors: My mother is Suzanne Katz Balaban who lives with me. My father, Maximillian Balaban is deceased, Both were born in Vienna, Austria. My grandparents both deceased were: My grandmother, Johanna Diamant Katz born in Kravsco, Czechoslovakia married my grandfather Paul Katz born in Poland and lived in Vienna, Austria before moving to America in 1938. My mother has a sister, Ruth Katz Ellinger who married Maron Ellinger and they live in Florida.
We lost approx. 95% of our family in the Holocaust. They lived in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Austria. My sisters and I are the first generation born in America.
I would like to tell you a story. Approx.17 years ago when my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, my sisters, neice and I took them back to Vienna, Austria. We arrived in Zurich and travelled around until we reached Vienna. I asked to see a concentration camp and we visited Mauthausen. My mother carried with her an old telephone number of my grandmother’s cousin who married someone not Jewish in order to save herself. Without going into a long story, it took a few days until someone picked up the telephone to tell us that my grandmother’s cousin lived in another apartment and gave us her telephone number. We were able to make contact with her and found a new part of our family who are not Jewish. Over the last 17 years we have become close to them and my sister and their son decided that we should try to find family descendants of my grandmother’s grandmother whose last name was “Sofer” and have a family reunion.
In July, 2005 we had a family reunion in the Austrian Alps. Those who gathered came from Israel, Austria, The Czech Republic, and America. We found relatives in Chile but they were not able to attend. The ironic thing is that the Americans are Jewish, as are the Israelis. The older generation from the Czech Republic are still Jewish, the next generation are Christians, and the third generation are mixed Jewish & Christian. The Chilean older generation is Jewish and everyone else Christian. The Austrians are all Christian. From having only a few family members, we now have become a larger family.
The 2005 Family Reunion was an opportunity to listen to the older generation telling us their stories as a young person through the holocaust and up to today. The next generation was able to learn about each other and their families. Not many of the third generation joined us at the family reunion but those who did left ready to tell the others that they need to be part of the next one. We had planned the next Family Reunion in May 2007 but many people asked to have it cancelled because of the situation now. Some of us will travel to Israel anyway in May to see family and travel around the country showing our supportl. My mother, sisters and I have been to Israel numerous times and loved it.
Renee Balaban
rbalaban485 {at} comcast(.)net.
HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL RESOURCE AND EDUCATION
CENTER OF FLORIDA
851 North Maitland Avenue, Maitland, Florida 32751
407-628-0555 Fax: 407-628-1079
DAISY BRAND’S CERAMIC IMAGES OF A FRIGHTENING PAST
The Holocaust Memorial Resource and Education Center of Florida, 851 North Maitland Avenue, Maitland, is pleased to announce the opening on November 4 of the exhibition Ceramic Images of a Frightening Past by Daisy Brand. The exhibition will remain until January 8, 2007
Daisy Brand, a survivor of the Holocaust, was born 1929 in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. In 1944 she was deported to Auschwitz and from there was transported to Riga for slave labor. Other camps followed until liberation. She now lives in the Boston area, having immigrated to the USA in 1966. She was educated at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Boston University. She has exhibited her ceramic work frequently in New England , Canada and Europe, including France, Italy and England. In 1955, Brand was part of a large exhibition curated by Monice Bohn-Duchen in London titled “After Auschwitz�
Brand is an artist who challenges Theodore Adorno’s notion to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.
Brand, trained as a ceramic artist and potter, translates her memories into art.
In looking at her work, one is struck by the fact that she is working in clay. Her works contain images and symbols of the shattered Jewish life of her family and her people: scrolls of clay that look like paper, surrealistic painted images that appear as almost empty spaces of streets and rooms without human forma, recalling the “voids� of Daniel Libeskind’s architectonic spaces at the Berlin Jewish Museum. A storyteller, her ceramics help the viewer understand Brand’s own process of healing.
The artist has stated, �The material I work with, namely porcelain, as well as other clays, undergoes a dramatic metamorphosis from soft, smooth, almost sensual, to hard and resilient. To bring about this metamorphosis, the clay has to go through intense heat, radiating an orange glow from the cracks of the kiln, not unlike the crematoria in the night sky of Auschwitz. In my uses of colours I allude to this analogy. The process of clay work is as old as civilization itself. Somehow the fascination for me is that fire in this case creates, rather than destroys, which I hope to apply to my life as well�.
Dr. Stephen Feinstein, Director, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota states, “Brand’s work provides us with some important confirmations. First, clay as a medium can be used to express pure aesthetic and can also be used in storytelling. Secondly, the storytelling, in Brand’s case, in not linear narrative and one piece of ceramic sculpture does not depend on the one that preceded it or the one that follows. They are fragments of memory in themselves, reflective of a shattered world, the memory of which has now been put back together in a way by the potter’s hand�.
Exhibit revisits dark corner of Olympic past
By ERIC ADLER
The Kansas City Star
DAVID PULLIAM | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
“I remember the stadium was decked in flags. … The swastikas. They flew all over the place,� said Gustave Eisemann, who has a propaganda book recounting the 1936 Olympics.
Seventy years later, Gustave Eisemann remembers.
The countless Nazi banners and swastikas dangling above the streets. The fortress walls of Berlin’s Olympic stadium, built as a neoclassical symbol of Adolf Hitler’s “master race.�
He hears his mother’s warning to her then-10-year-old Jewish son.
“My mother was concerned,� Eisemann, now 80 and a retired Mission Hills physician, recalled. “My mother said, ‘Be sure, if you have to salute, to make the Heil Hitler salute.’ She was scared.�