Latest news with #Holocaust.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Letters to the Editor: One family's journey to the U.S. shows the horrors the country cannot repeat
To the editor: Thank you, guest contributor Karen Musalo, for this article ('The U.S. failed refugees during the Holocaust. Trump's Libya plan would too,' May 19). Yes, we have to be reminded that what President Trump is planning is a repeat of the horrors of the Nazi era and that there are legal procedures today to prevent this. My late husband was on the St. Louis at the age of 7 with his 3-year-old brother, grandmother, mother and father. They were Jewish refugees from Berlin. The father's store burned down during Kristallnacht. My mother-in-law, through friends, found out about getting into Cuba via this voyage when they were refused entrance into the U.S. at that time. Germany convinced Cuba to reject them, after which the ship turned back toward Europe and its concentration camps. Fortunately, there were interventions plotted by the captain, the Jewish Refugee Organization and passengers on the trip to avoid going back. The Vendig family ended up in Belgium, then Vichy France and were finally rescued with help from Switzerland. The family finally got to the U.S. in 1946. They were lucky. Stephanie Vendig, Los Angeles This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Letters to the Editor: One family's journey to the U.S. shows the horrors the country cannot repeat
To the editor: Thank you, guest contributor Karen Musalo, for this article ('The U.S. failed refugees during the Holocaust. Trump's Libya plan would too,' May 19). Yes, we have to be reminded that what President Trump is planning is a repeat of the horrors of the Nazi era and that there are legal procedures today to prevent this. My late husband was on the St. Louis at the age of 7 with his 3-year-old brother, grandmother, mother and father. They were Jewish refugees from Berlin. The father's store burned down during Kristallnacht. My mother-in-law, through friends, found out about getting into Cuba via this voyage when they were refused entrance into the U.S. at that time. Germany convinced Cuba to reject them, after which the ship turned back toward Europe and its concentration camps. Fortunately, there were interventions plotted by the captain, the Jewish Refugee Organization and passengers on the trip to avoid going back. The Vendig family ended up in Belgium, then Vichy France and were finally rescued with help from Switzerland. The family finally got to the U.S. in 1946. They were lucky. Stephanie Vendig, Los Angeles
BBC News
14-04-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Libel claim against Matt Hancock can go to trial
A libel case against former Health Secretary Matt Hancock can go to trial, after a High Court judge refused the ex-MP's attempt to have the claim thrown Hancock, who was the MP for West Suffolk from 2010 to 2024, was accused of making a "malicious" comment about former Tory MP Andrew Bridgen a hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice, Mrs Justice Collins Rice said she believed there were "compelling reasons for further investigation at trial". "Mr Bridgen's case as pleaded and evidenced so far does not have an obvious quality of unreality," she said. Mr Hancock previously called the case "absurd". The post Mr Hancock is being sued over was published on Twitter - now X - in January High Court previously heard that Mr Bridgen shared a link to an article that "concerned data about deaths and other adverse reactions linked to Covid vaccines".Mr Bridgen wrote: "As one consultant cardiologist said to me, this is the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust."Hours later, Mr Hancock shared a video, captioned: "The disgusting and dangerous antisemitic, anti-vax, anti-scientific conspiracy theories spouted by a sitting MP this morning are unacceptable and have absolutely no place in our society." Mr Hancock attempted to get the case thrown out, with his lawyers saying the claim did not have "a realistic prospect of success" and was not "properly articulated".He previously said the case was "absurd" and labelled Mr Bridgen's claims "ridiculous".But Mr Bridgen said he believed the comments intended to cause "grievous harm" to his reputation and were "seriously defamatory and untrue".In a ruling last year, Mrs Justice Collins Rice found Mr Hancock's post was not "definitively condemning the MP as an individual" and that the majority of the publication was an "expression of opinion".She added that she was "satisfied the ordinary reasonable reader would not have understood this tweet in the terms Mr Bridgen most fears".But, in a judgment on Monday, she said "all relevant evidence" to determine whether or not Mr Hancock "genuinely espoused the opinion he expressed" in the post was not therefore, decided to send the case to trial."Whether Mr Bridgen will ultimately succeed on his pleaded case in establishing the fact he alleges is likely to depend on a full examination of the evidence both ways, including how Mr Hancock explains his opinion in due course, if he chooses to do so, or the inferences to be drawn if he does not," she said."I am not in a position to conclude at this stage that Mr Bridgen's prospects of success on either matter are such as to be determinable now to be 'unreal'."
