NEIGHBORS AUTHOR JAN T. GROSS DISCUSSES HIS NEW BOOK
FEAR: ANTI-SEMITISM IN POLAND AFTER AUSCHWITZ
at the Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust

NEW YORK, NY – Join author Jan T. Gross in conversation with Antony Polonsky, a professor at Brandeis University, about Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz (Random House, June 2006) at the Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust on Wednesday, November 15 at 7 p.m.

The estimated 10 percent of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust returned to a hostile and dangerous Poland. They encountered anti-Semitism in everyday relations, experienced difficulties rebuilding their lives, and were victims of outright violence, including murder. In his recently published book, Fear, Jan T. Gross recounts many post-war anti-Semitic acts that caused most Polish Jews to flee Poland, never to return.

Jan T. Gross was a 2001 National Book Award nominee for his widely acclaimed Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland. He teaches history at Princeton University, where he is a Norman B. Tomlinson ’16 and ’48 Professor of War and Society.

Antony Polonsky is the Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University. He has won the National Jewish Book Award in Eastern European Studies and been awarded the Knight’s Cross, order of merit, Republic of Poland for outstanding services to studies in Polish Jewry.

Tickets to this event are $10 for adults, $7 seniors, $5 students; free for members. Tickets may be purchased online at www.mjhnyc.org or by calling 646-437-4202.

WHAT: Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz

WHERE: Edmond J. Safra Hall
at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust
36 Battery Place, New York, NY 10280

WHEN: Wednesday, November 15 at 7 p.m.

COST: $10 adults, $7 seniors, $5 students, free for members

The Museum’s three-floor Core Exhibition educates people of all ages and backgrounds about the rich tapestry of Jewish life over the past century–before, during, and after the Holocaust. Current special exhibitions include: Ours To Fight For: American Jews in the Second World War, which explores the lives of Jewish men and women who served during WWII; and A Blessing to One Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People. The Museum offers visitors a vibrant public program schedule in its Edmond J. Safra Hall. It is also home to Andy Goldsworthy’s memorial Garden of Stones, as well as James Carpenter’s Reflection Passage, Gift of The Gruss Lipper Foundation. The Museum receives general operating support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and is a founding member of the Museums of Lower Manhattan.

for Edmond J. Safra Hall
at the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust

New York, NY – In addition to engaging dialogue about current events and historical discussions, the November and December public programming schedule will feature an array of world-class musicians performing live in Edmond J. Safra Hall. Highlights of the season will include Ivri Lider: Up Close and Personal on November 1. The popular Israeli singer will perform a special acoustic concert followed by a discussion and wine reception with the artists. Guy Mannheim and Shirit-Lee Weiss, classical singers from Israel, will perform music by Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and others in Jewish Composers: Jerusalem to Broadway on November 12. On December 3 the musical ensemble Brave Old World will perform rare folk- and street-music from the 1940s in Brave Old World—Song of the Lodz Ghetto, a unique musical theatre performance piece. On December 20, the Museum will host Basya Schechter, Jewlia Eisenberg, and Ayelet Rose Gottlieb, for a performance of Sephardic music with a modern twist in Women of Tzadik Celebrate Hanukkah. And on December 25, the Museum will welcome back Joshua Nelson and His Kosher Gospel Choir, for Challah-lujah, a unique blend of Hebrew tunes and soulful music performed by “the Prince of Gospel Music.�

Programs coming up in November and December at the Museum include:

• 20th Century Papal Relationships with the Jews – Leading Catholic and Jewish theologians will reflect on the historical relationship of the papacy to the Jewish people (November 8)
• Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz – Author Jan T. Gross and Brandeis University professor Antony Polonsky will discuss the difficulties Polish Jews faced rebuilding their lives after World War II (November 15)
• Runway – following the screening of this moving German documentary about the survivors and residents of Walldorf, Germany, the filmmakers will join Holocaust survivors in a discussion of the film (November 19)
• From Baghdad to Brooklyn – Author Jack Marshall will talk about his childhood as an Arabic-speaking Sephardic Jew (November 29)
• The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s – Author Steven Lee Beeber and a panel of musicians will discuss the Jewish influences on the Punk movement (December 6)

Detailed descriptions of all the programs listed above are included with this release.

The Museum’s three-floor Core Exhibition educates people of all ages and backgrounds about the rich tapestry of Jewish life over the past century–before, during, and after the Holocaust. Current special exhibitions include: Ours To Fight For: American Jews in the Second World War, which explores the lives of Jewish men and women who served during WWII; and A Blessing to One Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People. The Museum offers visitors a vibrant public program schedule in its Edmond J. Safra Hall. It is also home to Andy Goldsworthy’s memorial Garden of Stones, as well as James Carpenter’s Reflection Passage, Gift of The Gruss Lipper Foundation. The Museum receives general operating support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, and is a founding member of the Museums of Lower Manhattan.

Public Programs

Wednesday, November 1, 7 P.M.
Ivri Lider: Up Close and Personal
Special acoustic concert

One of the most successful Israeli rock artists performing today, Ivri Lider’s lyrics and unique voice express the thoughts of a new generation. Lider, a gay activist, composed the original soundtracks for Eytan Fox’s
award-winning films Walk on Water and Yossi and Jagger, and the recently released Bubble.

Join Ivri Lider and his special guests for an intimate evening of acoustic music followed by a discussion and wine reception with the artists.

Reserved seating: $35, $25. Members and students with valid ID receive a $5 discount.

Co- sponsored by Israel at Heart

Wednesday, November 8, 7:30 P.M.
20th Century Papal Relationships with the Jews
Moderated by Sister Mary Boys, Union Theological Seminary; with Dr. Frank Coppa, St. John’s University; Rabbi James Rudin, American Jewish Committee; Dr. Susan Zuccotti, Columbia University

Even as we celebrate Pope John Paul II’s relationship with the Jewish people, we take this opportunity to put him in an historical and theological context by reflecting on the words and deeds of his twentieth-century papal predecessors —their teachings about Judaism and their attitudes toward the Jewish people. Among the topics under discussion will be papal policies toward conversion, receptivity to Zionism, how Jews are referred to in the church’s liturgical life, the papacy during the Holocaust, and papal posture toward modernity. The panel will also offer perspectives on the papacy of Benedict XVI, successor to John Paul II.

Panelists:

Sister Mary Boys is a professor of practical theology at Union Theological Seminary and an adjunct faculty member at the Jewish Theological Seminary. She is the author of four books including the award-winning Has God Only One Blessing? Judaism as a Source of Christian Self-Understanding and Jewish Christian Dialogue: One Woman’s Experience. She has been a member since 1965 of the Sisters of the Holy Names, a congregation of Roman Catholic women.

Dr. Frank J. Coppa is professor of history, director of the doctoral program in modern world history, and director of the Vatican Studies symposium at St. John’s University, New York. Dr. Coppa is the author of a series of biographies, including Pope Pius â…¨: Crusader in a Secular Age (1979) and Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli and Papal Politics in European Affairs (1990).

Rabbi James Rudin is Senior Interreligious Advisor and on the Board of Governors of the American Jewish Committee. He participated in meetings with Pope John Paul II at the Vatican, in World Council of Churches conferences in Geneva, and is founder of the National Interreligious Task Force on Black-Jewish relations. His latest publication is The Baptizing of America: Politics, Piety, and the Coming Theocracy.

Dr. Susan Zuccotti has written three books about the roles of the Italians, French, and Catholics during the Holocaust. Her first book, The Italians and the Holocaust: Persecution, Rescue, and Survival, received the National Jewish Book Award for Holocaust Studies in the United States, and her book Under His Very Windows: The Vatican and the Holocaust in Italy was given the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish-Christian Relations and the Sybil Halpern Milton Prize of the German Studies Association.

$5 all tickets, free for members

Sunday, November 12, 1:30 P.M.
Jewish Composers: Jerusalem to Broadway
With featured artists Guy Mannheim, tenor, and Shirit-Lee Weiss, soprano

Join Israeli soprano Shirit-Lee Weiss and Israeli tenor Guy Mannheim, a soloist with the New Israeli Opera, for an exciting musical journey from the streets of Jerusalem, through the shtetls of Eastern Europe and the cities of Western Europe after WWII, to the sparkling lights of Broadway. In a true celebration of the Jewish spirit, the program will include the music and lyrics of world-renowned artists such as Bernstein, Sondheim, and Weill, along with Israeli music by Naomi Shemer, Zohar Argov, and others.

Tenor Guy Mannheim has performed with the New Israeli Opera, the New York Chamber Opera, and in concerts and recitals in Israel, Germany, and New York.

Soprano Shirit-Lee Weiss appears regularly in the contemporary music group Musica Nova in addition to performing in works by young composers, and in musical and children’s theater productions.

$15 adults, $12 seniors, $10 students/members

Wednesday, November 15 , 7 P.M.
Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz (Random House, June 2006)
Antony Polonsky, professor at Brandeis University, in conversation with author Jan T. Gross

The estimated 10 percent of Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust returned to a hostile and dangerous Poland. They encountered anti-Semitism in everyday relations, experienced difficulties rebuilding their lives, and were victims of outright violence, including murder. In his recently published book, Fear, Jan Gross recounts many post-war
anti-Semitic acts that caused most Polish Jews to flee Poland, never to return.

Antony Polonsky is the Albert Abramson Professor of Holocaust Studies at Brandeis University. He has won the National Jewish Book Award in Eastern European Studies and been awarded the Knight’s Cross, order of merit, Republic of Poland for outstanding services to studies in Polish Jewry.

Jan T. Gross was a 2001 National Book Award nominee for his widely acclaimed Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland. He teaches history at Princeton University, where he is a Norman B. Tomlinson ’16 and ’48 Professor of War and Society.

$10 adults, $7 seniors, $5 students; free for members

Sunday, November 19, 2:30 P.M.
Runway
With filmmakers Malte Rauch and Eva Voosen

Nearly 2,000 Hungarian women were transported in cattle cars from the Auschwitz concentration camp to the town of Walldorf, Germany in 1944. The women were put to work for several months of grueling, often fatal conditions. In November 2000, nineteen of the survivors returned to Walldorf. Arriving by plane, they touched down on the very runway they helped to build more than half-a-century earlier. They learned of their role in the runway’s construction — and why its assembly had been kept so secret.

This film is a story of how a town came to terms with its regretful history, and how faith in humanity is restored in the minds of a handful of women who thought it lost forever.

Walldorf survivors and the director of the Walldorf Museum will be present for the post-screening discussion with the filmmakers.

$10 adults, $7 seniors, $5 students/members

Co-sponsored by Facing History and Ourselves

Wednesday, November 29, 7 P.M.
From Baghdad to Brooklyn (Coffee House Press, October 2005)
In conversation with author Jack Marshall

Inspired by the discovery of his late father’s letters, Jack Marshall’s memoir is a coming-of-age story about his childhood spent in Brooklyn’s Arabic-speaking Jewish community.

A critically acclaimed poet, Jack Marshall has received a PEN Center USA West Award, two Bay Area Book Reviewers’ Awards, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

$5 all tickets, free for members

This program is part of the Museum’s book club, Looking Back, Facing Forward, co-sponsored by the Forward and moderated by its features editor, Gabriel Sanders.

Sunday, December 3, 2:30 P.M.
Brave Old World — Song of the Lodz Ghetto
With Alan Bern, Michael Alpert, Kurt Bjorling, and Stuart Brotman

“..nothing less than brilliant, a recreation that is not merely respectful but stunningly inventive.�
Jewish Week

The world-renowned music ensemble Brave Old World will perform Song of the Lodz Ghetto, a unique musical theatrical work featuring rare Jewish street and folk music created between 1940 and 1944 in the Nazi ghetto of Lodz, Poland. Combining the soulfulness of Yiddish tradition, the finesse of classical music, and the vitality of jazz, the music of Brave Old World is unique and unforgettable.

Brave Old World has been creating, performing, and teaching klezmer and New Jewish Music throughout the world since 1989. They have performed and recorded with such notable performers as Itzhak Perlman and at venues as prestigious as Lincoln Center and Radio City Music Hall.

$20 adults, $18 seniors, $15 students/members

Co-sponsored by the National Yiddish Book Center

Wednesday, December 6, 7 P.M.
The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s (Chicago Review Press, 2006)
With author Steven Lee Beeber, Danny Fields, Lenny Kaye, Mary Lucia, and other special guests

Join us for a look at the fascinating New York Jewish origins of Punk. Our panel of famous figures from the music scene will address Punk’s ironic humor, leftist political engagement, and concern with the common man, among other topics. The Heebie-Jeebies of the title is more than just a joke then— it is an expression of the nervous “shpilke� ridden nature of Punk.
Steven Lee Beeber is a freelance journalist and writer. His articles and stories have appeared in The Paris Review, the New York Times, Spin, and elsewhere. He is the editor of Awake: A Reader for the Sleepless, an anthology featuring work by writers such as Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oates.
Danny Fields is the former manager of The Ramones, The MC5, and Iggy Pop, and is a well known Punk personality.

Lenny Kaye, creator of the extremely influential garage rock anthology “Nuggets,� is also a founding member of the Patti Smith Group.

Mary Lucia is a music host on Minnesota Public Radio’s show The Current.

$10 adults, $7 seniors, $5 students/members

Wednesday, December 20, 7 P.M.
Women of Tzadik Celebrate Hanukkah
Basya Schechter, Jewlia Eisenberg, and Ayelet Rose Gottlieb

An eclectic line-up of innovative, female performers will highlight the diversity of the Sephardic community and its musical traditions. In addition to sharing a home at the Tzadik record label, these artists share a vision for presenting rich Jewish music in a way that embraces and revives traditional styles while creating a new, modern sound.

Basya Schechter leads the popular ensemble Pharaoh’s Daughter which combines Hasidic chants, Mizrachi and Sephardi folk-rock, and spiritual stylings filtered through percussion, flute, strings, and electronica. Pharaoh’s Daughter has toured extensively throughout America, Europe, Greece, and the U.K.

Jewlia Eisenberg is the founder, bandleader, and performer behind Charming Hostess a “klezmer-funk/girly-punk� ensemble. Their music incorporates doo-wop, Balkan harmony, and Andalusian melody.

Jerusalem native Ayelet Rose Gottlieb performs music that combines free improvisation with elaborate composition, spicy Middle Eastern scales, and adventurous texts. Gottlieb’s newest album, Mayim Rabim, is a reinterpretation of biblical love poetry from the Song of Songs.

Presented with Sephardic Music Festival, Modular Moods, and Barzilai

$20 adults, $18 seniors, $15 student/members

Monday, December 25
Challah-lujah
Starring Joshua Nelson & His Kosher Gospel Choir
Performances at 1 P.M. & 3:30 P.M.

“I have never heard a voice like (Joshua Nelson’s). He literally brings the house down.�
Oprah Winfrey

If you missed last year’s sold-out performance, Joshua Nelson is back again this year with two shows. Melding Hebrew tunes with Joshua Nelson’s unique spirit, the Kosher Gospel Choir has sparked a revolution in Jewish Music.

Joshua Nelson, an African-American Jew known as the Prince of Gospel Music, has been hailed by critics across the world for his unique voice, which bears a strong resemblance to the legendary singer Mahalia Jackson’s passionate vocal stylings. He has performed at major venues across the United States and internationally, and was the subject of the documentary Keep on Walking.

$35 adults, $25 seniors, $20 students/members

Exhibitions

A Blessing to One Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People
September 6, 2006 – February 23, 2007

This exhibition traces the life of Karol Wojtyla from his childhood in Poland through World War II and beyond. The exhibition examines Pope John Paul II’s enduring friendship with Jews, and how these relationships informed his ministry and papacy, shaping significantly the relationship between the Church and the Jewish people.

A Blessing to One Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People was created and produced by Xavier University (Cincinnati), Hillel Jewish Student Center (Cincinnati), and The Shtetl Foundation. The New York exhibition is presented by the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust thanks to the generosity of Peter S. Kalikow, The Russell Berrie Foundation, The Fritz and Adelaide Kauffmann Foundation; the Ollendorff Center for Religious and Human Understanding, the Oster Family Foundation, and the Theodore and Renee Weiler Foundation. The Museum also thanks the Pave the Way Foundation and the Center for Interreligious Understanding. The lead financial sponsors of A Blessing To One Another are the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati and Xavier University. Media sponsorship provided by the New York Post.

Ours To Fight For: American Jews in the Second World War
Through December 31, 2006

This award-winning exhibition explores the roles of Jewish men and women who were part of the American war effort in Europe, the Pacific, and at home. Ours To Fight For honors WWII veterans who tell their stories through video testimony, artifacts, letters, and photographs. An interactive gallery presents the experiences of other ethnic groups who contributed to the Allies’ fight to preserve democracy.

Visitors are invited to bring photos of themselves or their loved ones in uniform during World War II to be scanned and eventually displayed in the exhibition.

Major funding for this exhibition has been generously provided by Jack and Susan Rudin and Family in memory of Lewis Rudin; by Irving Schneider in memory of his friend Lewis Rudin; and by Irving and June Paler in memory of June’s father Duncan Robertson, who fought for justice in both World Wars. Additional support provided by Verizon Foundation and EveryoneSmile.com.

Reflection Passage
On permanent display

MacArthur Fellow and architectural artist James Carpenter’s site-specific installation captures New York Harbor’s ephemeral qualities of light and water and re-presents them inside a main passageway of the waterfront Museum, creating a shimmering and ever-changing reflection.

The external events of the harbor displayed within the Museum environment are seen as a “mirroring of reality,� capturing the daily seasonal light and weather cycles. Andy Goldsworthy’s Garden of Stones sits one level below the Carpenter installation, and like the garden, Reflection Passage relies upon changes in the natural world to complete the artistic process.

Reflection Passage is the Gift of The Gruss Lipper Foundation.

Garden of Stones
On permanent display

Andy Goldsworthy’s only permanent commission in New York City, Garden of Stones is a contemplative space dedicated to the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust and honoring those who survived. There is no charge to visit the garden, which is open during regular Museum hours.

Each of the 18 boulders in the Garden of Stones holds a tiny sapling evoking not only the adversity and struggle endured by those who experienced the Holocaust, but also the tenacity and fragility of life. Survivors and their families helped the artist plant the garden in September 2003.

General Information

TICKETS
To purchase tickets to public programs call (646) 437-4202, or visit our website at www.mjhnyc.org, or visit the Museum in Lower Manhattan.

MUSEUM HOURS
Sunday through Tuesday, Thursday 10 a.m. to 5:45 p.m.
Wednesday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. through October 29.
Friday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. October 30-March 11.
The Museum is closed on Saturday and major Jewish holidays

MUSEUM ADMISSION
General Museum admission is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors, and $5 for students. Members and children 12 and younger are admitted free.

Museum admission is free on Wednesday evenings between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Note: Tickets to public programs do not include Museum admission. Public programs may require a separate fee.

Directions – Use of Mass Transit is Encouraged

By Subway:
4/5 to Bowling Green Station
Go west on Battery Place toward the Hudson River, along the northern perimeter of Battery Park, past Robert Wagner Park. The Museum will be on your left, along the waterfront, overlooking New York Harbor.

J/M/Z to Broad Street
Walk one block west to Broadway, and then south to the corner of Battery Place at Bowling Green. Go west on Battery Place toward the Hudson River, along the northern perimeter of Battery Park, past Robert Wagner Park. The Museum will be on your left, along the waterfront, overlooking New York Harbor.

W/R to Whitehall Street
Go north on Whitehall Street, then west on Battery Place toward the Hudson River, along the northern perimeter of Battery Park, past Robert Wagner Park. The Museum will be on your left, along the waterfront, overlooking New York Harbor.

1 to South Ferry
Walk two blocks north to the corner of Battery Place at Bowling Green. Go west on Battery Place toward the Hudson River, along the northern perimeter of Battery Park, past Robert Wagner Park. The Museum will be on your left, along the waterfront, overlooking New York Harbor.

By Bus:
M1, M6, M15 to State Street
Walk north on State Street to Battery Place. Go west on Battery Place toward the Hudson River, along the northern perimeter of Battery Park, past Robert Wagner Park. The Museum will be on your left, along the waterfront, overlooking New York Harbor.

M9, M20 to Battery Park City
These buses stop directly across the street from the Museum.

By Car:
From the FDR Drive, take the Battery Park City exit and follow signs to Battery Park. When you reach the intersection of Battery Park Plaza and Broadway, turn left onto Battery Place. There is a parking garage located at the corner of Battery Place and Second Place in a residential building just north of the Museum.

# # #

By SCHELLY TALALAY DARDASHTI

Arriving for another quiet visit to her daughter in Israel, Esther Mudrick of Providence, Rhode Island, was in for a major surprise. A few weeks ago, 58 years after they had last seen each other in Lodz, Poland, first cousins Mudrick, 89, and Helena Sokolow Bjostek, 91, of Petah Tikva, were reunited. Their mothers were sisters Chaya and Rosa Platner of Wolomin.

The reunion was made possible by researcher Patricia Wilson of Ra’anana.

“This is truly the land of miracles,” she says, stressing that Holocaust survivors should never give up hope of finding family. “Someone may be just around the corner.”

Mudrick arrived on her annual visit to her daughter and son-in-law, Chaya and Shimon Bouganim, their three children and their families in Rishon Lezion. Their daughter Shlomit recently married Patricia and Nigel Wilson’s son Doron. Former Londoners, the Wilsons made aliya in 1993.

Chaya Bouganim knew that Wilson’s passion is genealogy and said, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, during my mother’s visit, we could find relatives who might have survived?”

more.

Holocaust Survivor Tells His Story

Dinah A. Spritzer
JTA News Wire

OCTOBER 23, 2006
Prague

Until recently, it was thought that a particular truckload of Jews selected for death by the Nazis in Czestochowa were all lined up, shot and killed.

But as Sigmund Rolat, who survived the Holocaust in the Polish town, tells the audience about a day he thought he knew so well in the former Jewish ghetto, he has a surprise.

“I have just learned that this man,” he says, pointing to Joseph Koenig, “was on that truck. He fell under the dead bodies and later managed to escape.”

A collection of Poles, Israelis, Canadians, Australians and Americans clap. Koenig, now living in Chicago, begins talking about his experience, which includes hiding in Gestapo headquarters. His daughter Suzanne stands by his side in tears as she stands looking into the Communist-era buildings built atop the ghetto’s perimeter.

“He didn’t want to come back here,” she said of her father’s first trip to his birthplace since he left after World War II. “But then I heard about this gathering,” she said, referring to the five-day reunion of Czestochowa Jews and their descendants held here earlier this month. “I felt this was my chance to see where he had come from,and with him, it means so much more,” she said.

The revelation of Koenig’s escape a deeper understanding of the Holocaust and fresh discoveries even within families are some of the many ways Rolat has touched the lives of thousands of Jews and non-Jews with ties to Czestochowa.

Rolat, founder and president of the World Society of Czestochowa Jews and Their Descendants, has so far bankrolled two reunions in his birthplace. Each attracted some 300 participants from around the world, including dozens of Holocaust survivors, their children and grandchildren.

The reunions are an outgrowth of “The Jews of Czestowhowa,” a 2004 photography exhibit funded by Rolat that continues to be shown in museums around the United States. The exhibition has drawn together a mini-Diaspora of Jews seeking to know more about their family history.

The World Society Web site, created last year, has attracted 33,000 visitors, according to Rolat.

The volume of interest is remarkable considering that 2,000 of Czestochowa’s 30,000 Jews survived the war, although Rolat points out that thousands more left Poland before the war began.

Many of city’s Jewish survivors were like Rolat, who was a slave laborer at one of the Hasag munitions factories in the town, halfway between Krakow and Warsaw.

There is little visible evidence in the city of what befell its Jewish residents. But Rolat has purchased the land from which the Jews, including his father, were deported to Treblinka, and plans to build a memorial there.

This follows his funding of the cleanup of Czestochowa’s Jewish cemetery where his brother, an anti-Nazi fighter, is buried. Rolat provides generous support for the local Jewish community of about 40 people and is helping it to build a new hall for social functions.

Politicians from Polish President Lech Kaczynski to Czestochowa’s mayor court Rolat, knowing that his financial backing can realize many of their own aims. He donated $1 million to a favorite cause of Kaczynski, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Rolat is the museum’s North American treasurer. Rolat also helps fund the annual Krakow Jewish Festival and is a key donor for Dialogue Among Nations, a Warsaw-based nonprofit group dedicated to Jewish-Polish understanding.

But Rolat says he really hit the big time when he presented the book “The Jews of Czestochowa” to Pope Benedict XVI during the pontiff’s recent visit to Auschwitz.

Rolat, who lives in New York, accumulated his wealth running international finance firms like Skyline Shipping Corporation and Oxford International Corporation. He is a partner in the tallest building in Warsaw, the Oxford Tower.

At the conference, a concert open to the public at a hall that was once the town’s largest synagogue features a performance by an American violinist, the grandson of a Czestochowa Jew.

But among the reunion set, there is agreement that most North American Jews are suspicious of Polish attitudes toward Jews. They could not fathom spending Sukkot in Poland.

Rolat could easily latch onto such bitterness. He left Poland as a reaction to the 1946 Kielce pogrom, which saw police and townspeople murder 39 Holocaust survivors. “I could tell stories about how I was treated after the war, but why bother?” he said.

Last year, Rolat created a prize fund for Jewish culture, which enabled students at a Czestochowa school to use the town’s Jewish past as the subjects for their creations. Thanks to Rolat, the contest is now part of the curriculum of the country’s 46 art high schools and has become a nationwide competition.

Not all survivors or their children share Rolat’s enthusiasm for fostering Polish-Jewish relations. Koenig, for instance, says most Poles he came in contact with before World War II loathed Jews. Asked how he felt about Poles now, he gave a wry smile: “The same way I felt when I left.”

But Rolat is thinking about the future.

During the reunion festivities, Rolat made sure that Polish youngsters were involved from start to finish, from building a Sukkah to playing music at a memorial service in the Jewish cemetery.

“Children of anti-Semites are not necessarily anti-Semites, they are children,” Rolat said. “They used to know next to nothing about Jewish life, culture and the Holocaust. But look at them now, look at them now.”

French L’Est Republican refuses to publish memorial notice of a French Jew, a Holocaust survivor of Auschwitz death camp

Sefi Hendler Published: 10.24.06, 11:34

Paris - It appears that there are still some people who refuse to recognize that the dark era of cooperation between the French and the Nazis is over.

A scandal broke in France in recent days when a newspaper in the east of the country refused to publish a notice in memory of a French Jew, a Holocaust survivor of the Auschwitz death camps.

Fred Wolfson died in 1966, at 43 years of age. On the 40th anniversary of his death his family asked to publish a notice in his memory stating that “He passing was due to complications caused by the barbaric Nazis.”

The important newspaper, L’Est Republican refused to publish the notice stating that they refrain from publishing notices that entail “political or ideological content.” Instead of the original text, the newspaper suggested writing “the trauma of the death camps.”

The family contacted several Jewish organizations and human rights institutions who granted assistance. The institutions stated that “Nazi barbarism is a reality recognized by the International Court for Nazi war crimes in Nuremburg.”

The so called “politically oriented” notice has not been published thus far.

http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/nwh_gfx_en/ART41239.html

Bournemouth, MA

Yehudit Inbar, the director of the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum, Jerusalem, was in Bournemouth, MA on October 24 2006 to deliver a passionate and moving keynote speech on interpretation of the Holocaust for day two of the Museums Association conference.

When issues of identity and diversity are being widely debated in UK society at large, Inbar’s conference speech was both poignant and timely, and offered a reminder that at the heart of all of our collections are people - their stories and what she described as their “cultural right to be remembered as individuals�.

She also underlined the fact that museums have an integral and central role to play in those debates by looking at the changing way we are remembering victims.

The Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, which took 10 years to complete and opened in March 2005, contains exhibits including remnants of Warsaw’s Jewish ghetto, but focuses on the individual tragedies of the Holocaust, with collections of personal stories woven into the displays.

Inbar took us on a tour of the Holocaust Memorial Museum project, from the early days when the victims were treated by curators in much the same way that they had been treated by their murderers, as faceless statistics, to her groundbreaking present day interpretation, which focuses on personal narratives.

The museum features the names and photographs of many of the victims recorded in a 3million-page collection of testimonies, which are displayed surrounded by an expanse of water, in the museum’s Hall of Names.

Double fence at Auschwitz. Picture supplied by the Wiener Library
a black and white photograph of a barbed wire fence

Widely accepted as a successful interpretation of the subject, Inbar explained that memories were still very raw when they were collating material and how the story of the Holocaust was to some extent told through Nazi eyes – using Nazi photographs and material gathered through the course of the process by its instigators.

However, over the last 10 years, following a protracted period of research, debate and engagement with survivors much has changed.

Asked how she began this process of ‘humanising’ the story of the holocaust she later explained to the 24 Hour Museum how the very first exhibition she developed was actually for children.

“It’s too hard for them [the under-10s], they develop a reaction against the subject. Often survivors who were children at the time of the Holocaust didn’t see themselves as Holocaust survivors – they were in conflict and without a sense of identity. Once they started talking they couldn’t stop.�

The exhibition she created 10 years ago as a three-month temporary exhibition is still on show at the Holocaust Museum and takes games and activities as its focus. Although there initial scepticism from other professionals, survivors were eager to contribute.

A fundamental step for her was to follow the designer’s instinct to use the colour of the toys that children had played with and to break free of the black and white exhibits that predominated in exhibitions about the Holocaust.

“Children are children are children - no matter where they are, they still play,� she explained. “The Holocaust also happened in colour. At Auschwitz the sky was blue and when it wasn’t snowing the grass was green. To take the colours away is to distance ourselves from the experience, to pretend it didn’t happen.�
a screen shot of website

UK museums are preparing to commemorate the abolition of slavery in 2007 and in 2006 a government-funded website exploring the history of the slave trade was launched.

Dealing with the Holocaust naturally comes with its own problems and sensitivities – something that UK museums are beginning to grapple with as we approach the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade in 2007.

“The slavery issue has a lot of associations with the Holocaust,â€? said Inbar. “It’s very similar in many respects.â€?

Like the Holocaust, which is dominated by material from the Nazis, the history of slavery suffers from being a little one-sided – there is sometimes little material to work with and what there is tends to be the story from the point of view of the slave masters and traders.

“You just have to be creative and find ways to tell the story. Often there is writing - you can use writing in all sorts of creative ways in museums. You only need very few things, things that are icons, that represent the story.�

The abolition of slavery commemorations in 2007 offer their own set of challenges, but the idea that interpretations and exhibits should provide an emotional bond between the visitor and the person whose story is exhibited is hopefully something that museum professionals here will have already taken on board.

Germany’s transport minister wants to mount an exhibition on how the national railway deported 11,000 Jewish children to their deaths in concentration camps. But the CEO of Deutsche Bahn is refusing to comply, saying his stations are the wrong venue.

The identity card of a young Jewish girl shown as part of the exhibition in Rennes, France.
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AFP

The identity card of a young Jewish girl shown as part of the exhibition in Rennes, France.
The German government and the state-owned national railway are currently locked in a bitter dispute over a proposed exhibition on the role of its predecessor, the Reichsbahn, in the Holocaust. Federal Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee wants to see the exhibition shown in the country’s train stations, but the head of Deutsche Bahn, Hartmut Mehdorn, is vehemently opposed to the idea. There seems to be little prospect of a compromise in sight.

The dispute centers on plans to develop an exhibition which focuses on the role of the Reichsbahn in the deportation of Jewish children to Nazi concentration camps during World War II. The project, which was originally conceived by the well-known anti-Nazi campaigner Beate Klarsfeld, is entitled “11,000 Jewish children. With the Reichsbahn to death,” and has already been shown in 18 French train stations.

Mehdorn has refused to agree to allow the exhibition to be shown in Germany’s train stations, citing financial, organizational and technical reasons. Tiefensee had already written to the rail boss back in the spring requesting that he give the green light to the project. However, no one from Deutsche Bahn even turned up to the briefing meetings in July and September. The minister then summoned Mehdorn to a meeting which is reported to have ended in a furious argument. When Mehdorn refused to budge, Tiefensee is said to have stood up and left the room.

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Now the fight is being played out in the open. This weekend Mehdorn said he would be happy to have an exhibition in a museum or another chosen location, but not in train stations. “The subject is far too serious for people to engage with it while chewing on a sandwich and rushing to catch a train,” he said. Tiefensee immediately retaliated. In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, he said “National Socialism was a dictatorship that was played out in everyday life and that was drawn from everyday life.” That is why, according to the minister, an exhibition on the deportation of Jewish children by train belongs “in those same places, in the train stations”. He warned that Mehdorn should not give the impression that Deutsche Bahn is trying to keep the subject away from broader public attention.

Tiefensee has said he wants the German version of the project to be developed by Jan Philipp Reemtsma, who was responsible for a previous controversial exhibition on the role played by the German army, the Wehrmacht, in the Holocaust. Reemtsma has already said he will only work on the project on condition that it is shown in the train stations.

In Beate Klarsfeld’s exhibition in France, 180 pictures showed the fate of Jewish children who were deported by the Reichsbahn to concentration camps. It is thought that around 11,000 children were led to their deaths in this way. The German exhibition is slated to open on Jan. 27, 2008 to mark the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945.

While the plan is to show the exhibition in a number of different German cities, the current very public dispute means it is still unclear whether this will be in those cities’ train stations or in other venues.

smd/dpa/spiegel

By GARY STERN
THE JOURNAL NEWS

(Original publication: October 25, 2006)

TARRYTOWN - The Holocaust and Human Rights Education Center last night honored Sheldon Grebstein, its retiring co-director of education, whom colleagues described as “a gentleman and a scholar.”

Grebstein, 78, joined the new center, then known as the Westchester Holocaust Commission, in 1994, after serving as president of Purchase College, SUNY, from 1981 to 1993.

During his second career, he primarily worked with teachers on how to use lessons of the Holocaust and other genocides in their classrooms. About 1,000 teachers received training from the center during his tenure.

“He supported and encouraged teachers to expand their thinking and understanding of human rights and the impact of the Holocaust on contemporary events and did so with skill, dedication and extraordinary diplomacy,” said Judy Schwartz, former director of the Scarsdale Teachers Institute and a member of a teachers advisory committee at the education center.

Hundreds came to the center’s annual dinner at Tappan Hill, and many traded stories about working with Grebstein, a literary critic who specializes in 20th-century American fiction.

Beforehand, Grebstein said that he most enjoyed working with teachers to design new programs that would resonate with students.

“It’s been depressing in that the world is no better than it was 60 years ago,” he said. “On the other hand, current events demonstrate that the work we do is essential. Whether or not we can change the world, we want our students to feel they can.”

The center also honored Ruth Messinger, president of American Jewish World Services and a leading advocate for demanding that world leaders stop the genocide in Darfur.

She talked about the 400,000 dead and 2.5 million displaced. About 80 children under age 5 die each day, she said.

“This is our moral test,” she said. “We will be asked by our children and grandchildren what we did to stop the first genocide of the 21st century.”

November 9 – 11, 2006

(Nashua, NH) — Daniel Webster College will be presenting Surviving Evil: The Holocaust through the eyes of Stephan H. Lewy, a multi-media production of the Manchester Community Theatre Players, November 9 – 11, 2006. Directed by Alan D. Kaplan, Surviving Evil debuted at Manchester’s Palace Theatre in May 2005, as a staged reading and has since been seen by thousands of high school and middle school students across the Granite State courtesy of grants from the Siddore and Gruber Foundations.

Surviving Evil, written by award-winning playwright, political scientist, and Daniel Webster College Professor Tom Anastasi, also includes original music written by (town)’s Peter J. Bridges. “It was an honor to write the play,� said Anastasi. “It shows just how societies allowed the Holocaust to happen through Stephan Lewy’s eyes and his life growing up as a Jew in Berlin.� “Lewy’s experience,� added Anastasi, “is often completely unfathomable by Americans today — and that’s why it’s important to share his story.� .Before seeing the play, many students thought the Nazis were just bad people, but following the presentation, they had an understanding of just how evil they truly were.�

“One of Surviving Evil’s central scene takes place in Berlin during,� added Anastasi, “which is why we decided to run it this particular weekend’ noted Anastasi. Kristallnacht, or “Night of Broken Glass� was a pogrom against Jews throughout Germany and parts of Austria that occurred November 9 – 10, 1938. Jewish homes and stores were ransacked in a thousand German cities, towns and villages, as ordinary citizens and storm troopers destroyed buildings with sledgehammers, leaving the streets covered in smashed windows — the origin of the name “Night of Broken Glass.� Jews were beaten to death; 30,000 Jewish men were taken to concentration camps and 1,668 synagogues were ransacked or set on fire.

Surviving Evil looks at the Holocaust through the eyes of Manchester resident Stephan H. Lewy who lived in Berlin in the mid-30’s and chronicles his life in Germany, his escape to France, and the several close calls he had along the way. The play concludes with his becoming an American soldier and citizen, and returning to Germany as a member of Patton’s Third Army, liberating the concentration camp at Buchenwald.

Parents should know the play would be rated PG-13 for brief, graphic images of the liberation of Buchenwald. “We debated having these images for a long time,� said Anastasi. “Director Alan D. Kaplan and I decided this is history than cannot be forgotten or minimized. The audience will see what Stephan saw.�

The play is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. at Daniel Webster College, 20 University Drive, Nashua, NH, on November 9, 10, and 11. Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for students (including college students). Group rates and seating are available. For information and reservations call 620-8553 or e-mail: anastasi {at} dwc(.)edu. For directions to Daniel Webster, visit www.dwc.edu/about/directions.shtml

The Associated Press

Published: October 24, 2006
VIENNA, Austria Holocaust survivors and their heirs now have a powerful new tool to look for art and other belongings looted by the Nazis in Austria.

It’s an online database of thousands of objects — such as paintings, books, medals, photographs, furniture, jewelry, sculptures — that may have been expropriated between 1938 and 1945, when the Alpine country was a part of Nazi Germany.

The items are now in museums and collections owned by the federal government or the city of Vienna. The origin of most are still in question and it remains to be determined if they were in fact looted.

The database — launched this month and accessible at www.kunstrestitution.at — was put together by the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism in cooperation with museums and special commissions that have been tasked with tracing the origins of artwork obtained during the Nazi era.

The fund is required by law to auction off items for which no owners or heirs are found and distribute the proceeds to Nazi victims. No deadline has yet been set for processing claims.

Descriptions of about 7,500 objects have been entered into the database so far and by year’s end it will probably balloon to about 10,000, with more to be added as research results come in, project leader Michael R. Seidinger said.

Specifics about each item are accompanied by a digital photograph. But to date only some 500 pictures have been uploaded, Seidinger said.

“It’s definitely a work in progress,” he added.

Such initiatives are not new. Germany launched www.lostart.de in 2000 to help Holocaust survivors track down stolen art. In Britain, auction houses, art trade associations, insurance companies and art researchers collaborated in 1991 to establish www.artloss.com to register and recover stolen art, the majority from the Holocaust. And the London-based Central Registry operates www.lootedart.com. The Czech Republic also displays museum objects formerly owned by Czech Jews online at www.restitution-art.cz and has extended the deadline for claims until the end of the year.

However, Hannah Lessing, the Fund’s secretary-general, claims Austria is the first to have developed an online database of “such complexity.”

Seidinger said users could get access to preliminary research results that would be updated regularly, adding the database was created after extensive negotiations between representatives of the Fund, museums, commissions and Vienna’s Jewish community.

Earlier this year, Austria handed over five painting by Gustav Klimt to Maria Altmann of Los Angeles and other family members following a seven-year legal battle. An arbitration court had ruled that they were improperly seized when the Nazis took over the country.

Austria’s decision to give up those artworks, which had been displayed for decades, represents the costliest concession since it began returning art looted by the Nazis.

It’s unlikely that anything so valuable is included in the database, but there are undoubtedly items of considerable interest listed in the database.

One such piece is 17th Century Italian artist Luca Giordano’s “Man Eating Fish,” currently on display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. Franz Pichorner, who is part of the museum’s management and serves as its main database contact, said it was insured for US$350,000 (euro279,000) the last time it was exhibited abroad in 2001. It was bought at a gallery in Munich, Germany, in 1942.

Pichorner said the museum wanted to be sure it came clean — even if that meant losing prominent pieces. “We don’t want any looted art,” he said.

There might also be other items of value: A search for Klimt and Egon Schiele got three hits, for example. But Michael Wladika, a researcher at Wien Museum, said the works in the database hadn’t been appraised. He said his museum had checked some 24,300 objects and listed about 2,460 for inclusion in the database.

Lessing said the goal was to make sure nothing was sold unnecessarily.

“We want to do all we can to find owners and heirs so that we don’t auction off anything that potentially still belongs to someone,” said Lessing, who also oversees Austria’s General Settlement Fund.

“We hope that people will look through this databank and say, ‘I remember seeing this as a child,’” she said.

But Lessing acknowledged that confirming claims could be tricky. “It could potentially be very difficult, but we just have to try,” she said.

Ingo Zechner, who heads the Holocaust Victims’ Information and Support Center of the Jewish Community Vienna, said his group would help get word out about the database.

“For the Jewish community in Vienna, it’s most important that the artworks be returned to their rightful owners. We want the auction to be a last resort,” he said.

Zechner stressed the need for a central contact point and said more manpower was needed to ensure requests and questions were dealt with promptly.

“There has to be professional follow-up and assistance,” he said. At the moment, people are asked to contact museums directly if they recognize anything.

Gideon Taylor, executive vice president of the New York-based Claims Conference, said information was critical to the restitution process.

“As more information becomes accessible, hopefully more families can regain their rightful, valued family possessions that have been kept away from them for more than 60 years,” he said in a statement.

In July, the group released a survey that showed many American art museums missed a deadline to report whether their collections contain works that might have been stolen during the Holocaust.

The American Association of Museums operates and maintains www.nepip.org that contains a searchable registry of objects in U.S. museums that changed hands in Europe between 1933 and 1945.

Currently, the Austrian database is only available in German. An English version is expected to be online by next spring.

____

On the Net:

www.kunstrestitution.at