Latest news with #HolocaustRemembrance
Time of India
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
‘Arms Freeze Could Spell Disaster': Israeli FM's ‘Holocaust, Existential Threat' Warning Amid EU Move
/ May 28, 2025, 12:14PM IST Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar has warned that international arms embargoes on Israel could lead to the country's destruction and even 'another Holocaust.' Speaking at a Holocaust Remembrance event, Sa'ar criticized growing global calls—especially from European and Arab nations—to restrict military support to Israel over the Gaza conflict. He emphasized that Hamas and Iran openly seek Israel's annihilation and claimed an arms freeze would leave the Jewish state defenseless, as it was during World War II. Sa'ar argued that denying weapons today endangers Israel's existence and equated such actions with ignoring historical lessons of Jewish persecution.#israel #gideonsaar #armsembargo #gazawar #gazastrip #netanyahu
New York Times
10-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Margot Friedländer, Holocaust Survivor Who Found Her Voice, Dies at 103
Margot Friedländer, a Holocaust survivor who spent more than 60 years in exile (as she saw it) in New York City before returning to Germany in 2010 and finding her voice as a champion of Holocaust remembrance — work that made her a celebrity to young Germans and landed her on the cover of German Vogue last year — died on Friday in Berlin. She was 103. Her death, in a hospital, was announced by the Margot Friedländer Foundation, an organization promoting tolerance and democracy. 'It helps me to talk about what happened,' she told the members of a UNICEF Club in 2023. 'You young people help me because you listen. I don't bottle it up anymore. I share my story for all of you.' Ms. Friedländer and her husband, Adolf — known in America as Eddie, for obvious reasons — arrived in New York in the summer of 1946. They settled into a small apartment in Kew Gardens, Queens. He found work as comptroller of the 92nd Street Y, the cultural center on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and she became a travel agent. The couple had married at the camp where they were both interned; once in America, they never spoke of their shared experience. Mr. Friedländer was adamant about never returning to the country that had murdered their families. But when he died in 1997, Ms. Friedländer began to wonder what had been left behind. She had found a community at the Y, and, at the urging of Jo Frances Brown, who was then the program director there, she signed up for a memoir-writing class. It was weeks before she participated, however. The other students, all American-born, were writing about their families, their children, their pets. One night, unable to sleep, she began to write, and the first stories she told were her earliest childhood memories. The stories became a memoir, ''Try to Make Your Life': A Jewish Girl Hiding in Nazi Berlin,' written with Malin Schwerdtfeger and published in Germany in 2008. (An English-language edition came out in 2014.) But she had already found her mission. Thomas Halaczinsky, a documentary filmmaker, had heard that Ms. Friedländer was working on a memoir, and in 2003 he persuaded her to return to Berlin and tell her story as she revisited the city where she had grown up. Mr. Halaczinsky's film, 'Don't Call It Heimweh' — the word translates loosely as 'nostalgia' — came out the next year. The experience of returning to Berlin galvanized her. She felt welcomed by the city that had once shunned her. She began speaking to young people in schools around the country, startled that so many had no understanding of the Holocaust. Ms. Friedländer was 21 when the Gestapo came for her family. She was on her way home from her job on the night shift in an armaments factory, and her younger brother, Ralph, had been alone in their apartment. She arrived to find their front door sealed and guarded. Hiding the yellow star on her coat that proclaimed her identity as a Jew, Ms. Friedländer slipped away to a neighbor's house. There, she learned that her mother had turned herself in to the police so she could be with her 16-year-old son, a shy and bookish child. She had left her daughter her handbag with a talisman, a necklace of amber beads, an address book and a brief message, delivered by the neighbor: 'Try to make your life.' She walked for hours that first night, and in the morning she ducked into a hair salon and had her dark hair dyed Titian red. She spent the next 15 months in hiding, often stopping for just a night or two, relying on scribbled addresses passed from hand to hand, following the Berlin version of the Underground Railroad. There was the rank, filth-encrusted apartment where she stayed inside for months, with a dog for company. The couple that expected sex as rent (Ms. Friedländer declined). The billet infested with bedbugs. The gambling den. The man who gave her a cross to wear and took her to a plastic surgeon who straightened her nose for free, so she could pass as a gentile and venture out in public. The kindly couple with a thriving black-market business in food. None of her hosts were Jewish. But it was Jews who turned her in: two men who were so-called Jewish catchers, working for the Gestapo to save themselves from deportation. After her capture, Ms. Friedländer was sent to Theresienstadt, a town in Bohemia that the Germans had converted to a hybrid ghetto-camp and way station. It was June 1944. Many detainees were shipped away to be exterminated, but some 33,000 people died at Theresienstadt, where disease was rampant and food was scarce. There, Ms. Friedländer met up with Adolf Friedländer, whom she had known in Berlin at a Jewish cultural center where he was the administrative director and she worked as a seamstress in the costume department. She hadn't thought much of him at the time. He was 12 years older, bespectacled and taciturn. She found him arrogant. But at Theresienstadt, they became friends and confidants, poring over their vanished life in Berlin. When he asked her to marry him, she said yes. It was the waning days of the war, and their guards had begun to flee as the Russian Army approached. They were married by a rabbi in June 1945, with a prayer mantle held over their heads as a huppah. They found an old porcelain cup to smash, as tradition required. Ms. Friedländer saved a piece. A year later, they sailed into New York Harbor. When the Statue of Liberty emerged from the fog, Ms. Friedländer was ambivalent. Here was the vaunted symbol of liberty, but, as she wrote in her memoir, America had not welcomed her family when they needed it most. She was stateless, and she would feel that way for the next six decades. Anni Margot Bendheim was born on Nov. 5, 1921, in Berlin. Her mother, Auguste (Gross) Bendheim, came from a prosperous family but was independent-minded and had started her own button-making business that she turned over, reluctantly, to Margot's father, Arthur Bendheim, when they married. The marriage was unhappy, and the couple divorced when Margot was a teenager. Margot loved fashion, and she went to trade school to study drawing for fashion and advertising. Early in 1937, she began apprenticing at a dress salon. The Nuremberg Laws had been in effect for two years, stripping Jews of their rights and businesses. Margot's mother was desperate to emigrate, but her father, who had two disabled siblings, refused. Not only were there quotas restricting the number of Jewish émigrés to America and other host countries, but disability and illness were disqualifiers. After the divorce, Auguste worked desperately to find a way out. Many hoped-for leads evaporated, like the papers promised by a man who took their money and vanished. Margot and Ralph were conscripted to work in a factory that made armaments for the German military. During this period, their father emigrated to Belgium, heedless of the circumstances of his former wife and children. He would later die at Auschwitz. It took years for Ms. Friedländer to learn her mother and brother's fate. Their deaths were confirmed in 1959, but it would be another four decades before she learned the details, from the deportation lists at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York City, an archive of German Jewish history. They had also been sent to Auschwitz. Her mother had been sent to the gas chamber upon arrival; her brother, a month later. Ms. Friedländer moved back to Berlin in 2010. Since then, she had made it her mission to tell her story, especially to young people. In 2023, she was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, the German government's highest honor. 'She always said she had four lives,' Mr. Halaczinsky, the filmmaker, said in an interview. 'Without the film, I don't know if she would have gone back to Berlin. But she did, and she found a new life. She was a powerful woman; it must have been a tremendous effort.' Last summer, Ms. Friedländer appeared on the cover of German Vogue, beaming in a bright red coat. There was only one cover line: the word 'love' — the theme of the issue — rendered in Ms. Friedländer's shaky cursive, with her signature below it. She told the magazine she was 'appalled' at the rise of antisemitism and far-right nationalism. But she cautioned: 'Look not toward what separates us. Look toward what brings us together. Be people. Be sensible.'
Yahoo
27-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Holocaust Survivors share their somber memories eighty plus years later
The mood was somber and the emotions were deep as 8 survivors of the Holocaust joined U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff and a host of Jewish groups gathered Sunday morning at Atlanta's Holocaust Memorial at Greenwood Cemetery. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] The event was Atlanta's 60th 'Yom HaShoah' or Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 8 survivors spoke about their thoughts on why Holocaust Remembrance is so important in today's society and the reasons why they feel the need to share their stories. TRENDING STORIES: 1 person critically injured after being hit, dragged by reckless driver in Marietta Cobb County man caught with Fentanyl, Cocaine during traffic stop The FBI mistakenly raided their Atlanta home. Now the Supreme Court will hear their lawsuit Even today, the survivors still can remember in great detail their family members being taken, never seen again. The loss is something they all said is impossible to forget. The event has been held at the 'Memorial to the six-million' every year since 1965. And while the Holocaust took place many years before that, it's Atlanta's way of saying 'Never forget'. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] In honor of the day, The Bremen Museum in Midtown Atlanta provided free admissions for visitors to their exhibit titled 'Absence of Humanity: The Holocaust Years, 1933-1945
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Pentagon removes web pages about Holocaust remembrance, 9/11 to comply with Trump DEI order
The Defense Department has taken down or plans to delete thousands of websites to comply with Donald Trump's order eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work from the federal government, including removing pages dedicated to topics like remembering the Holocaust and the September 11 terrorist attacks. Pages already taken down include an article about the experience of Holocaust survivor Kitty Saks, who later immigrated to the U.S., and an Air Force Academy cadet majoring in history describing his experience taking scholarly visits to concentration camps in Europe, according to a CNN analysis. Another page, from an Air Force sergeant, mentions the concept of 'diversity' explicitly, but in an article for Holocaust Remembrance Week about the importance of protecting religious diversity and stopping discrimination. 'Let us strive to be honest about what things we need to change to ensure that we are not silent bystanders, and therefore, participants in the evil deeds that lead to such devastating crimes against humanity,' the article reads. Despite the Defense Department deleting pages about religious tolerance and Holocaust remembrance, the Trump administration has made fighting antisemitism a major priority in its opening months. The White House has threatened to permanently sever financial support to Columbia University unless the school submits to a series of sweeping changes, including by adopting a definition of antisemitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Trump has also spoken in recent months about the importance of Holocaust Remembrance. 'Between 1940 and 1945, more than one million Jews, religious leaders, disabled persons, and other innocent victims were viciously and mercilessly executed in Auschwitz at the hands of the evil Nazi regime — culminating in one of the darkest chapters in human history,' the White House wrote in a statement in January, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. 'On this solemn day, America joins the Jewish community, the people of Poland, and the entire world in mourning the lives lost, the souls battered, the heroes forgotten, and the countless men and women who gave their lives for the cause of freedom.' Other Defense Department takedown targets bear little obvious connection to DEI, including pages about 9/11, veterans suicide prevention, and stopping sexual assault. Many of the up to 24,000 pages that could be purged were not submitted by individual units but rather identified using automated scripts, according to an email obtained by CNN. The erased websites have been a continued source of controversy for the Pentagon, including an outcry over eliminating information about Jackie Robinson, who served in the Army in WWII before his boundary-breaking career as a professional baseball player and civil rights activist integrating the major leagues during the era of Jim Crow racial segregation. (The military has since said the page on Robinson was mistakenly taken down.) Others have taken issue with takedowns like the removal of pages about the Native American code talkers, units that used indigenous languages to pass high-value military communications across the battlefields of WWI and WWII. 'Who could possibly be pleased by an effort to erase the history of a group of native men who were vital to the success of every major Marine Corps operation in the Pacific Theater of World War II, particularly America's victory at Iwo Jima,' EJ Montini, a columnist in Arizona, a state with a large Navajo population, wrote in the Arizona Republic. The Defense Department has defended the changes 'As Secretary Hegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department. Discriminatory Equity Ideology is a form of Woke cultural Marxism that has no place in our military,' Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot told The Independent. 'It Divides the force, Erodes unit cohesion and Interferes with the services' core warfighting mission. We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms.'
The Independent
20-03-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Pentagon removes web pages about Holocaust remembrance, 9/11 to comply with Trump DEI order
The Defense Department has taken down or plans to delete thousands of websites to comply with Donald Trump 's order eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work from the federal government, including removing pages dedicated to topics like remembering the Holocaust and the September 11 terrorist attacks. Pages already taken down include an article about the experience of Holocaust survivor Kitty Saks, who later immigrated to the U.S., and an Air Force Academy cadet majoring in history describing his experience taking scholarly visits to concentration camps in Europe, according to a CNN analysis. Another page, from an Air Force sergeant, mentions the concept of 'diversity' explicitly, but in an article for Holocaust Remembrance Week about the importance of protecting religious diversity and stopping discrimination. 'Let us strive to be honest about what things we need to change to ensure that we are not silent bystanders, and therefore, participants in the evil deeds that lead to such devastating crimes against humanity,' the article reads. Despite the Defense Department deleting pages about religious tolerance and Holocaust remembrance, the Trump administration has made fighting antisemitism a major priority in its opening months. The White House has threatened to permanently sever financial support to Columbia University unless the school submits to a series of sweeping changes, including by adopting a definition of antisemitism used by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Trump has also spoken in recent months about the importance of Holocaust Remembrance. 'Between 1940 and 1945, more than one million Jews, religious leaders, disabled persons, and other innocent victims were viciously and mercilessly executed in Auschwitz at the hands of the evil Nazi regime — culminating in one of the darkest chapters in human history,' the White House wrote in a statement in January, commemorating the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. 'On this solemn day, America joins the Jewish community, the people of Poland, and the entire world in mourning the lives lost, the souls battered, the heroes forgotten, and the countless men and women who gave their lives for the cause of freedom.' Other Defense Department takedown targets bear little obvious connection to DEI, including pages about 9/11, veterans suicide prevention, and stopping sexual assault. Many of the up to 24,000 pages that could be purged were not submitted by individual units but rather identified using automated scripts, according to an email obtained by CNN. The erased websites have been a continued source of controversy for the Pentagon, including an outcry over eliminating information about Jackie Robinson, who served in the Army in WWII before his boundary-breaking career as a professional baseball player and civil rights activist integrating the major leagues during the era of Jim Crow racial segregation. (The military has since said the page on Robinson was mistakenly taken down.) Others have taken issue with takedowns like the removal of pages about the Native American code talkers, units that used indigenous languages to pass high-value military communications across the battlefields of WWI and WWII. 'Who could possibly be pleased by an effort to erase the history of a group of native men who were vital to the success of every major Marine Corps operation in the Pacific Theater of World War II, particularly America's victory at Iwo Jima,' EJ Montini, a columnist in Arizona, a state with a large Navajo population, wrote in the Arizona Republic. The Defense Department has defended the changes 'As Secretary Hegseth has said, DEI is dead at the Defense Department. Discriminatory Equity Ideology is a form of Woke cultural Marxism that has no place in our military,' Pentagon press secretary John Ullyot told The Independent. 'It Divides the force, Erodes unit cohesion and Interferes with the services' core warfighting mission. We are pleased by the rapid compliance across the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms.'
