Yad Vashem: International book prize estabished

Yad Vashem has established an annual international book prize of $8,000 to encourage Holocaust research.

Here's the press release:

(March 10, 2011 - Jerusalem) The International Institute for Holocaust at Yad Vashem announces the establishment of the Yad Vashem Book Prize for Holocaust Research, in recognition of high scholarly research and writing on the Holocaust and invites submissions for consideration.  The prize is presented thanks to the generous donation of Sabina Schwarzbaum, in memory of her father, Holocaust survivor Abraham Meir Schwarzbaum, and his family who was murdered in the Holocaust, and is aimed at encouraging excellent and new research about the Holocaust or its antecedents and aftermath.

The prize, $8,000, will be awarded annually to books containing new research on the Holocaust, or its antecedents and aftermath.  Research accuracy, scholarship, methodology, originality, importance of the research topic, and literary merit are important factors in judging the submissions.  The winning book will be chosen by a panel of judges made up of Holocaust historians and researchers. 

For more information on the prize, click here.

 For more information on Yad Vashem, click here.

JGSLA 2010: Conference makes NBC news!!!

JGSLA 2010 made NBC News Los Angeles' around town event page.

Read all about it here - as if Tracing the Tribe's readers didn't already know that more than 1,000 researchers and experts from around the world will be meeting from Sunday, July 11-Friday, July 16, at the JW Marriott at L.A. Live, in downtown Los Angeles.

The NBC conference story covers the event's attraction for local Jewish families to research their backgrounds and emphasizes that Sunday is targeted to those just beginning the quest for family with how-to sessions, workshops, a Market Square, Klezmer concerts and much more.

The Market Square Fair on Sunday will include craft displays and demonstrations, a daylong film festival and more.

For all conference information and to see the program online, click here.

An opening day (Sunday) pass is $105, and $85 daily for the balance of the conference. Tickets are available online.

See you at the conference!

Yad Vashem: Reconnecting a family

My annual summer trips provide many opportunities to interact with genealogists and family historians, while meeting with old friends and new.

On Sunday, I attended a board meeting of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society. Held at the home of my hosts and good friends, Rosanne and Dan Leeson, it was great to see so many old friends.

One new person was Israeli businessman Avner Yonai, who has been Yad Vashem's area volunteer coordinator for the Shoah Victims' Names Recovery Project Pages of Testimony. Avner also attended the group's brick wall session on Tuesday night (see separate blog post on this event).

The new Yad Vashem blog has detailed the story of Avner's successful discovery and reconnection to a living descendant of his aunt Bluma, murdered in the Holocaust.

The reunion was faciitated through Avner's research in the Pages of Testimony and the Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names database.

In a tale spanning across Poland, Belarus, Israel and the US, Avner Yonai (38) a native Israeli businessman living in California, recently connected with a lost relative after discovering Pages of Testimony submitted by his grandfather in memory of family members who were murdered in the Shoah.

His maternal grandfather, David Rybak, was born in Gora Kalwaria (Ger), Poland, and Avner recently found David's travel and aliyah documents.

David had emigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1935, before the Nazi invasion of Poland. A brother, Beryl, stayed in Poland and was murdered in 1942 with his wife Bluma (Goldhecht) in Treblinka. Her brother Yaacov survived, moved to Israel and submitted a Page of Testimony (PoT) for her in Israel in the 1950's.

Avner discovered that David had also submitted a PoT for Bluma.

Yaacov and David were both from Ger, and were members of the town's Mandolin Orchestra (photo above), conducted by David's brother, Beryl. The group performed during the 1920s-1930s; most were killed in the Holocaust.

The group is remembered in the Gora Kalwaria Yizkor Book, where Yaacov wrote:

“A unique orchestra directed by Beryl Ryback …who knows? Under different circumstances Beryl could well have gone on to become a world-renowned conductor."

This all exists only in the memories of the survivors of Ger, in all the countries of the world where they have been scattered…from time to time they feel a longing for this beautiful romantic past, that belongs to a past that is dead and buried… The Jews of Ger died the deaths of martyrs by the hands of the vile Nazi murders!”

Avner used the PoT contact information given by Yaakov to trace his family and found Yaakov's grandson Giora. The two branches were reunited at the Goldhechts' home in Israel.

Neither Avner's mother nor his uncle knew their father had submitted the PoTs.

Avner has recently launched a Facebook page dedicated to The Mandolin Orchestra of Ger, as well as efforts to stage a reviva concert of the group.

For more, and to see photos, click the link above.

Tracing the Tribe always advises searching the Pages of Testimony at the link above. Remember that additional pages are added all the time, so even if you've checked in the past and found nothing, there may now be new pages of interest.

New York: Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of Ghettos, May 13

Following six years of research, the new groundbreaking Yad Vashem Encyclopedia of the Ghettos During the Holocaust will be launched May 13, in New York.

The two-volume work (US$150 via the Yad Vashem site) covers all ghettos - more than 1,100 - established by the Nazis in Europe during the Holocaust. It includes 250 photos, 62 maps, essays and a DVD of realtime ghetto war footage.

According to Yad Vashem chair Avner Shalev, the work is the result of pioneering research, and contains information on conditions, administration, leadership and coping methodologies, gathered together in one major work.

The book will be launched at New York University's Juan Carlos Center, 53 Washington Square South, at 6pm on Thursday, May 13, The symposium is organized by the American Society for Yad Vashem, and the Encyclopedia’s distributor, NYU Press, featuring Professor Omer Bartov and Prof. Dan Michman.

Bartov - the Birkelund Distringuished Professor of European History at Brown University - has spoken at several international Jewish genealogy conferences and is well-known to Jewish genealogists.

“This encyclopedia presents scholars and laymen for the first time with a comprehensive view of the ghetto phenomenon which was so central to Jewish life during the Holocaust,” commented BartovUniversity.

According to Yad Vashem's chief historian Prof. Dan Michman, also a contributor to the work: “More than a technical inventory covering over 1,100 ghettos that existed under the Nazis and their allies, it reflects an historiographic understanding that ghettos were implemented only for Jews, and, as such, the phenomenon is conceptually separate from the concentration camps.

A series of introductions explain the historical origins and the emergence of the ghettos, their characteristics and regional differences, as well as the sources and nature of the photographic material left behind. Each entry, written by experts in the field, includes the city’s present location, wartime name and geographical coordinates; and, where applicable, sections on life prior to World War II; the Soviet occupation; German -Nazi occupation; the ghetto setup; ghetto institutions and communal life; murder, terror and killing operations; underground and resistance; and number of survivors at liberation.

For more information, see Yad Vashem's website.

WDYTYA: Back to Belarus with Lisa

From Suzanne Russo Adams at Ancestry.com, comes a detailed report on March 19's episode on Lisa Kudrow and her search for information in Belarus and Poland:

Kudrow's episode was one of the most riveting of the series, says Suzanne. In it, Lisa visits the small shtetl of Ilya, Belarus, where her great-grandmother was murdered during the Holocaust.

Lisa’s father, Dr. Lee Kudrow, always wondered what happened to Yuri, a cousin who had escaped to Poland and who told about Lisa’s great-grandmother’s death. Yuri was never heard from again.

On a visit to Gdynia, Poland, to discover Yuri’s true fate, Lisa is shocked to learn that Yuri was still alive! Despite the tragic history, there is a beautiful reunion between two families separated by the Holocaust.

If you missed the episode, watch it here. (CAVEAT: Unfortunately, the link only works in the US, and not in Hong Kong or Australia, where I most recently attempted to watch it via online links.)

Suzanne provides tips (additional comments by Tracing the Tribe are included) for those curious about how the team of genealogists for this episode found out more about Lisa's Jewish family.

Here are resources to help newcomers better understand Jewish family history research.

Go-to resources: U.S. passenger lists, Yad Vashem, Ancestry.com, JewishGen.org

How they helped: Lisa Kudrow’s US family heard about her great-grandmother's death from a cousin named Yuri who visited Lisa’s dad and grandmother in the late 1940s. Lisa's research goal is to discover where her great-grandmother was buried and learn more about Yuri. Her visit to Belarus and online resources help her achieve that goal.

Resource #1: List of Jews murdered in Ilya massacre
Lisa’s family knew her great-grandmother was killed, but through a list of victims in Ilya, she sees the proof. Written next to her name are the words “killed and burned.”

Resource #2: Yizkor book: "A Tale of Struggling, Toil, and Tears," by David Rubin
While visiting Ilya, Lisa reviews a translated Yizkor (memorial) book about the massacre of 900 Jews in March 1942. The town’s Jewish population came to an end that day. Lisa walks the same path her great-grandmother was forced to walk 68 years ago. At the gravesite is a memorial to the murdered Jews.

Resource #3: Passenger list
Looking for some positive news on her trip, Lisa turns her search toward the one relative she knows survived – Yuri - who visited her father in the late 1940s. An Ancestry passenger list shows a man with the same surname but the given name Boleslaw. Are Yuri and Boleslaw the same person?

Resource #4: Registry card
In Gdynia , Poland, Lisa sees Boleslaw’s city registry card. Yuri changed his name to a Polish name for assimilation. His wife and son are registered.

Resource #5: Phone directory
The phone director lists Boleslaw, who is still alive.

Weren’t Eastern European records all destroyed?
The records from Eastern Europe that Lisa’s family found aren’t uncommon. Although millions of Jews were murdered in the Holocaust, records did survive.

Are you following US Jewish lines? Follow step -by-step through the US, including census records, passenger lists, citizenship records, vital records and more at various sites such as Ancestry and Footnote.com. Once you've found all the US records, then jump to European records.

Learn about your family's towns and villages, immigration data and clues to other relatives.

Check out sites such as JewishGen for a town's Yizkor book or its Special Interest Groups (SIGs), Yad Vashem for other Holocaust-related documents, Ancestry's holdings, Footnote.com's Holocaust collection (and other records), the Ancestry.com Jewish Family History Collection, and, of course, Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy Blog.

Never give up, and keep searching.

Necrology Database: 12,000 new entries

The JewishGen Yizkor Book Necrology Database has added more than 12,000 new entries from 27 Yizkor Books:

Belarus:
Byten (190 entries)
Lakhva (432)
Naliboki (190)

Lithuania:
Skuodas (288)

Moldova:
Marculesti (272)

Poland:
Baranow Sandomierski (161)
Bielsko-Biala (61)
Brzeziny (868)
Chorzele (248)
Czyzew-Osada (62)
Golub-Dobrzyn (43)
Kutno (510)
Lomazy (979)
Lubartow (75)
Sierpc (747)
Strzegowo (34)
Tyszowce (614)
Wieleczka (327)
Wielun (1,897)

Romania:
Tasnad (32)

Ukraine:
Berestechko (474)
Dobromil (65)
Kamyanets-Podilskyy (57)
Komarno (151)
Ozerna (392)
Tovste (702)]
Vladimirets (1,124)

Search the Necrology Database here. It indexes names of Holocaust martyrs listed in the necrologies in Yizkor books at the Yizkor Book Project. It is only a name index, and directs readers back to the Yizkor book in question, where more details may be found.

The database now has more than 215,000 entries from 241 different Yizkor Books.

Warren Blatt, JewishGen managing director, thanks such dedicated individuals as Michael Tobias, Max Heffler, Lance Ackerfeld as well as donors and translators. Yad Vashem gets special mention for contributing the necrologies to the website. Additional volunteers are sought to continue the project. Contact Warren for more information.

Israel: 'Auschwitz-Birkenau Blueprints' opens Jan. 25

Sculptor Bernie Fink's Memorial to the Jewish Soldiers (1985) at Yad Vashem.

Bernie is a FINK cousin from Suchostaw and Skalat

(Austro-Hungary, Galicia->Poland->Ukraine).

His father went to South Africa from Galicia. (See below for more)

"Architecture of Murder: The Auschwitz-Birkenau Blueprints" is a new Yad Vashem exhibit opening on Monday, January 25, as part of a diplomatic symposium.

On display will be original architectural blueprints of Auschwitz-Birkenau, given to Yad Vashem for safekeeping last summer by the German newspaper Bild, published by Axel-Springer.

“The original plans detailing the construction of Auschwitz, constitute graphic illustration of the Germans’ systematic effort to carry out the ‘Final Solution’,” said Avner Shalev, Chairman of Yad Vashem. “We have chosen to display them to the public to illustrate how seemingly conventional activities of ordinary people brought about the construction of the largest murder site of European Jewry.”

Marking the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, the opening will take place as part of a special symposium in the presence of dozens of members of the diplomatic corps - representing some 80 countries - and Auschwitz survivors, and with the participation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Among the speakers will be the Prime Minister, Minister of Education Gideon Saar, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, Holocaust survivor Ruth Bondy, Prof. Shlomo Avineri, Prof. Moshe Halbertal, Bild Editor Kai Diekmann, Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum Director Dr. Piotr Cywinski, Historical Advisor to the exhibition Dr. Daniel Uziel, Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council Rabbi Israel Meir Lau and Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate Avner Shalev will address the participants.

Also displayed for the first time will be the photo album of Auschwitz's construction. Other items include an aerial photo of Auschwitz from the RAF, the Vrba-Wetzler Report (authored by two Jewish Auschwitz escapees in 1944), quotes from SS men and Jewish prisoners describing the site and its murderous purposes, and a copy of the poem “Death Fugue” by Paul Celan.

The exhibit was curated by Museums Division director Yehudit Inbar. A traveling version of the exhibit will open at the United Nations in New York on Tuesday, January 26. Attending that opening will be Minister of Diaspora Affairs and Public Diplomacy Yuli-Yoel Edelstein, US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev, American Society for Yad Vashem chairman Eli Zbrowoski, and the exhibit curator Yehudit Inbar.

*The Memorial

Bernie's work is dedicated to the 1.5 million Jewish soldiers, ghetto fighters, partisans and soldiers of the Allied forces who fought against Nazi Germany.

Six oblong, hexagonal blocks of granite are arranged in two groups of three. A Star of David - Magen David - is created between the hexagons, sliced down the middle by a stainless steel sword. The blocks represent the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis, the Star of David symbolizes the Jewish People, and the sword, the fight against the Nazis.

The Star of David and a sword is usually associated with the Israeli Defense Forces; the symbolism connects Allied Jewish soldiers and today's Israeli soldiers.

An annual ceremony is held on May 9 at the memorial, marking the victory of the Allied forces over Nazi Germany.

For more information, view the Yad Vashem site.

Miami: Reunion story, Nov. 1

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Miami has a heartwarming reunion story to share at its Sunday, November 1 meeting. Success is always great, and it inspires others to never give up!

It all begins at 10am, Sunday, November 1, at the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, 4200 Biscayne Boulevard. NOTE: There is now extra security for the free parking (see below). Bring ID with you.

The speakers are Aaron Bernstein, the American Society for Yad Vashem's Southern Region director, and JGSMiami member Toby Leven. Bernstein helped Leven locate a missing cousin in Israel.

Toby Leven says:

For years, my brothers and I tried to find out what happened to my father's family in Europe during the Holocaust. We joined the JGS and they helped identify the town they came from. That was the first and most important step. We tried many websites for years, but in September I went to the Yad Vashem website and typed in the name of my father and the town. Thankfully, a page of testimony had been submitted by the only survivor of the family. I now had the name and address of my cousin in Israel. I learned there was a local Yad Vashem office in Aventura and Aaron Bernstein made the first contact. When I spoke to my cousin, Shalom Rosenblatt, I told him my brothers and I were coming to Israel to meet him. We had a marvelous reunion October 1, 2009.

In May 2009, Bernstein - a Florida native raised in Israel who served in the Israel Air Force - joined the American Society for Yad Vashem as director of the new Southern Region (Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama and as far as Texas).

An active speaker - as an Israel Hasbara team member - on Israeli culture, business, and politics, he is past chair of the Atlanta-Ra'anana Sister City Committee and is involved in numerous civic causes.

Join the meeting on Sunday to hear the full story. Arrive early and join the Early Bird shmooze session at 9.30am. Guests are always welcome, according to JGS president Joan Parker.

Security Note: The gate is now permanently closed and there is a yellow security box on the left side. Press #001 for Security. Announce you are there for the JGS meeting, the gate will slide open and close after you have gone through.

Yad Vashem: New film screened

Yad Vashem's blog today noted that a multi-media presentation, "The World that Was,"
was screened October 15 in the Valley of the Communities.

It depicts 2,000 years of Jewish life and culture before the Holocaust. The blog can be read here.

The 2.5-acre Valley of the Communities is a memorial to more than 5,000 Jewish communities decimated or destroyed. More than 100 stone walls are engraved with the names of these communities.

The British Friends for Yad Vashem were recognized at the screening for their fundraising project which endowed the film. Thousands of educators, soldiers and school children will view the film each year.

Read more at the link above, and see the photos.

Auschwitz: Yad Vashem receives original plans

Yad Vashem (Jerusalem) will receive the original plans for Auschwitz in Berlin on Thursday.

The German newspaper, Bild, acquired the architectural plans and decided to donate them to Yad Vashem.

The blueprints were discovered in 2008, and Bild editor-in-chief Kai Diekmann decided that Yad Vashem was the most appropriate place to safeguard them. In January 2010, the plans will be displayed, marking 65 years since the camp's liberation.

There are 29 documents in the collection. The plans show details for expanding the camp, including the addition of a crematorium and a gas chamber.

They are dated between 1941 and 1943, and have been authenticated by experts from Germany's Federal Archives. Discovered last year in Berlin, and acquired by the German newspaper Bild, the sketches include plans for a purification building, with a gas chamber, dated 8 November 1941 (the building was never built); Crematorium II + III from November 1941; a plan for a building to contain corpses; a two-dimensional sketch of the now-iconic entry way to the Birkenau death camp; a sketch from 30 April 1942 for plans to expand Auschwitz I (plans which were partially completed); an initial plan for Birkenau from October 1941; and a plan for a huge headquarters building (dated 17 December 1941), that was never carried out. Some of the documents bear notes in the margins, or signatures by senior Nazis, including Himmler. Copies of some of these documents exist in other archives, and were previously known, but as a whole these are significant historical records.

Yad Vashem's archives currently hold more than 125 million pages of Holocaust documentation.

Yad Vashem: Auschwitz items donated

Holocaust survivor Meyer Hack of Boston recently donated to Yad Vashem personal items he found as a slave laborer in Auschwitz.

The Yad Vashem press release only called them personal items, but an AP story revealed that Hack, 95, donated eight pieces of gold, silver and diamond-studded jewelry to Israel's Holocaust memorial as a tribute to the original owners, who perished. Working in the "clothing chamber" he found exquisite rings, wristwatches, bracelets and pendents. He safeguarded the jewelry, hiding the items in a hole he dug in the ground. He was forced on two "death marches" and many pieces were lost or stolen along the way, according to the story.

Forced to work as a slave laborer in Auschwitz, in the “clothing chamber" (“Bekleidungskammer”) that received the tattered clothing after its initial sorting in the “Kanada” storerooms, Meyer had to mark the clothes with a red X, and redistribute them as prisoner clothing. On occasion, he found belongings that the deportees had hidden in the linings of the clothing, prior to their arrival in the camp. Hack managed to keep some items with him through liberation, and for more than 60 years, kept his story quiet. Now, he will present the items for eternal safekeeping to Yad Vashem’s artifacts collection.

Born in 1914 in Ciechanow, Poland, Hack was deported in 1942 with his mother, brother and two sisters, to Auschwitz-Birkenau. His mother and sisters were murdered on arrival and his brother was murdered later. Hack was sent to forced labor hauling carts of personal effects and clothing between Birkenau and Auschwitz before their eventual transfer to Germany.

In 1944, he found and safeguarded the jewelry by hiding it in a hole that he dug behind his barrack. He retrieved them in January 1945, before he was forced on a “death march” to Dachau, and kept them during a second “death march” in May 1945 towards Munich. He escaped to the forests until liberation.

In Boston, he placed the items in a metal box in his attic and left it there for 60 years.

Sixty years later, he has donated them to Yad Vashem's Artifacts Collection as a memorial to their murdered original owners.

Read the complete AP story here.

Yad Vashem: $4mill for Russian Holocaust education

Yad Vashem has launched a comprehensive new program to raise awareness and knowledge of the Holocaust among Russian speakers.

The program is funded by a four-year, $4 million grant from the Genesis Philanthropy Group (GPG), a foundation dedicated to promoting Jewish identity for Russian-speaking Jews around the world.

The program includes inter-disciplinary projects in formal and informal education, research and publications, archival documentation, Internet outreach, exhibitions organization, and Righteous Among the Nations from the areas of the FSU.

“The efforts to encourage meaningful education and commemoration of the Holocaust among Russian speakers are crucial, since the Holocaust is an important building block of Jewish identity, and a historical event that continues to reverberate among young people today,” said Avner Shalev, Chairman of Yad Vashem. “Unfortunately due to the historical circumstances, the study of the Holocaust in the areas of the Former Soviet Union has been underdeveloped over the years. The grant from Genesis will allow us to focus more intensively on this critical aspect of Holocaust education.”

Stan Polovets, CEO/co-founder of GPG, said “This tragedy with all the attached sorrow gives a deeper insight into Jewish history, teaches us about the wider perspective of Judaism, helping to strengthen Jewish identity among the Russian-speaking Jews and the sense of belonging to the Jewish people”.

About GPG:

The mission of Genesis Philanthropy Group is to develop and enhance Jewish identity among Russian-speaking Jews worldwide, with a particular emphasis on the former Soviet Union, North America, and Israel. GPG is committed to supporting and launching projects, programming, and institutions that are focused on ensuring that Jewish culture, heritage, and values are preserved in Russian-speaking Jewish communities across the globe. The foundation was established in the summer of 2007 by Mikhail Fridman, German Khan, Pyotr Aven, Alex Knaster, and Stan Polovets. In the past two years, GPG has made over 30 grants, which included gifts to organizations such as Birthright Israel, Moscow State University, the IDF Education Department, Limmud, Maccabi, and the New York Jewish Museum. Its most recent grants include $4.4 million to The Foundation for Jewish Camp and $10.9 million to Brandeis University.

Each year, Yad Vashem’s International School for Holocaust Studies will focus on two Israeli cities with large Russian-speaking populations. Through seminars for educators and students, activities in community centers, and working with Holocaust survivors and World War II veterans, Holocaust education will be intensified.

There will also be more development and maintenance of the Russian-language online interactive portal, including documents, images, educational units and the interactive program “Children in the Ghetto”.

A special chair, within the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, will dedicated to advancing research of the Holocaust in the Former Soviet Union.

New York: Crossing the river, May 17

The Jewish Genealogical Society of New York is the mother of all Jewish genealogical societies. Literally. It was the very first such society.

Tracing the Tribe's readers living in New York know about the JGSNY and may already be members. Readers living elsewhere and who travel to the city, may want to time their visits to coincide with the group's monthly meetings at the Center for Jewish History (CJH), 15 W. 16th Street.

The next meeting is set for 2pm Sunday, May 17. The speaker is author Dr. Shalom Eilati, whose story begins in the Kovno Ghetto and continues through his arrival in Palestine. He will discuss his book -"Crossing the River" - which is both a personal memoir and valuable historical resource.

Set against backdrop of Lithuania 's occupation - first by the Red Army, next by the Germans, and then again by the Russians - it is a story reflected through the prism of a sharp-eyed young child, Shalom Eilati.

His story starts in the occupied Kovno Ghetto and ends with his flight across the Soviet border, through Poland and Germany and finally, his arrival in Palestine .

The adult survivor, while recalling the terrorized child that he was and how he then perceived the adult world, also takes stock of his present life.

Throughout the memoir, Eilati attempts to reconcile his present life as a husband, father, scientist, and writer, with the images, feelings, and thoughts from the past that have left an indelible mark on his life and that continue to haunt him.

Born in 1933 in Kovno (Kauna), Lithuania, Eilati's parents were Israel Kaplan (teacher, historian and author) and Leah Greenstein ( a nurse and poet).

In 1941, he and his family were imprisoned in theGerman-created ghetto. At his mother's initiative, he escaped from the ghetto alone in 1944 and reached Palestine in 1946. His father also survived. With a PhD in citrus cultivation, he taught at Hebrew University was among the founders of Israel 's Environmental Protection Service, and coordinating editor of the quarterly journal Cathedra, on the history and settlement of Israel. He lives in Jerusalem, and is married with three children and five grandchildren.

Read about his return trip to Kovno - "Back to the River" - here. There will also be a booksigning following his presentation.

Judy Steiglitz of the American Red Cross in Greater in New York will be available before and after the meeting to answer questions about Yad Vashem's Names Recovery Project. Do you or someone else need help filling out Pages of Testimony for loved ones or for those who perished? Bring your questions.

For more details, go to the JGSNY website. CJH's Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute will be open from 12:30-1:45pm for networking with other researchers, access to research materials and computers.

Yad Vashem: Database updates

Holocaust Remembrance Day - Yom haShoah (Hebrew) - is April 21.

For those readers who may not be aware of the Hebrew phrase, shoah refers to the Holocaust, and is frequently used in conjunction with Holocaust-related events and research, such as that detailed below.

According to Yad Vashem, during 2008, its databases have been updated.

The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names has been enlarged and now includes nearly 3.6 million names of Holocaust victims, all accessible online.


The Names Database now contains more than 2.15 million Pages of Testimony, about two-thirds of the total number of names in the Database. Tens of thousands of Pages of Testimony were gathered as a result of intensive activity of the Names Recovery campaign in the Russian-speaking sector.

Additionally, more than 600,000 name occurrences of victims and survivors from archival lists and other documentation were digitized, among them archival documents gathered in Hungary, the former Soviet Union and other areas.

It is always worth searching Yad Vashem's resources online. Individuals around the world are continually adding new Pages of Testimony, new records are being located. The databases have been responsible for solving many family mysteries.

"Unto Every Person There is a Name" is a worldwide Holocaust memorial project in its 20th year. The goal is to perpetuate the memory of Shoah victims through public recitation of their names on Yom Hashoah. For more information, click here.

Here is a video interview with Boris Maftsir, who manages the Shoah Victims' Names Recovery Project in the Nazi-occupied territories of the former Soviet Union. He describes intensive efforts to recover Ukrainian Shoah victims' names to restore the personal identities of each victim.

Yad Vashem also launched its Spanish language site here. The comprehensive new website offers extensive Holocaust resources, a multimedia exhibit of The Auschwitz Album and material on Righteous Among the Nations, and educational materials in Spanish including lesson plans, ideas for working with testimonies and two online courses: "Ghettos" and "The Final Solution."

Luxembourg: Yad Vashem receives Holocaust archive

Yad Vashem has received an archival collection from Luxembourg, detailing the Holocaust’s affect on that country’s Jewish population.

The microfilms were presented Monday evening in Jerusalem by Center for Documentation on World War II director Prof. Paul Dostert, of Luxembourg, to Yad Vashem chair Avner Shalev.

The collection includes some 31,000 pages, covering daily life under German occupation, confiscations, restrictions, lists and orders of deportations to ghettos and concentration camps, as well as information on looted Jewish property, emigration to the US, declaration of Jewish assets, life in the Funfrunnen home for seniors, and information on some 60 mixed-marriage couples who managed to rescue their Jewish spouses

Yad Vashem Archives director Dr. Haim Gertner said more than half of Luxembourg's Jewish population was killed; all suffered persecution. This important collection is an important source for what that community experienced.

Researchers and the public may access the collection onsite at Yad Vashem

Code of Honor: Muslim Albanians rescued Jews during Holocaust

"BESA: A Code of Honor - Muslim Albanians who rescued Jews during the Holocaust," opened January 27 in Ramle, Israel.

Before World War II, only 200 Jews lived in Albania, but after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, hundreds of Jews crossed into Albania from Yugoslavia, Germany, Greece, Austria and Serbia. When the Nazis occupied the country in 1943, the local population refused to comply with orders to turn over lists of Jews living there. There were more Jews in Albania after the war than before.

This assistance was grounded in Besa, a code of honor, meaning literally “to keep the promise.” One who acts according to Besa is someone who keeps his word, someone to whom one can trust one’s life and the lives of one’s family. There were more Jews in Albania after the war than before.

“Why did my father save a stranger at the risk of his life and the entire village? My father was a devout Muslim. He believed that to save one life is to enter paradise.” - Enver Alia Sheqer, son of Righteous Among the Nations Ali Sheqer Pashkaj, featured in the BESA exhibition.

According to Lime Balla, whose photograph appears in the exhibit (see the BESA link below):

All of us villagers were Muslims. We were sheltering God’s children under our Besa.

I was born in 1910. In 1943, at the time of Ramadan, seventeen people from Tirana came to our village of Shengjergji. They were all escaping from the Germans. At first I didn’t know they were Jews. We divided them amongst the villagers. We took in three brothers by the name of Lazar.

We were poor - we didn’t even have a dining table - but we never allowed them to pay for the food or shelter. I went into the forest to chop wood and haul water. We grew vegetables in our garden so we all had plenty to eat. The Jews were sheltered in our village for fifteen months. We dressed them all as farmers, like us. Even the local police knew that the villagers were sheltering Jews. I remember they spoke many different languages.

In December of 1944 the Jews left for Priština, where a nephew of ours, who was a partisan, helped them. After that we lost all contact with the Lazar brothers. It was not until 1990, forty-five years later, that Sollomon and Mordehaj Lazar made contact with us from Israel.

American photographer Norman Gershman spent four years photographing Muslim Righteous Among the Nations and their families in Albania. The exhibit features 17 of the portraits with explanatory texts. Of the 22,000 people so far recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, 63 are from Albania.

The Hebrew/Arabic exhibit opened at the Ramle (Israel) Museum with the participation of Yad Vashem chair Avner Shalev, Ramle Mayor Yoel Lavie with city Arab-Israeli high school students.

For the next three months, groups of the city's Arab and Jewish students will visit in special programs run by Vad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies, in cooperation with Ramle, with the support of the Ministry of Science, Culture and Sport.

Said Shalev:

“It is our hope that this important exhibition will further understanding of the Holocaust, offering a glimpse into the difficult choices that people faced. We are committed to providing accurate and comprehensive information about the Holocaust to as wide an audience as possible. Over the past year, we have launched a website and YouTube channel in Arabic, providing those who wish to know, with the tools and information they need to combat ignorance and denial.”

In 2008, an English/Hebrew version of the exhibit was presented at Yad Vashem and at UN Headquarters in New York.

For more information on BESA, to read some of the stories and see some of the photographs, click here.

For more information about the Righteous Among the Nation program, click here.

US: Nazi war criminal files to be made public

The US Justice Department will make public 30 years of US court decisions against Nazi war criminals, according to Yad Vashem, as reported in the December 16 Jerusalem Post.

Other stories covering additional aspects can be seen in other publications, such as Cincinnati Enquirer here, which provided additional information on the case of Aleksandras Lileikis.

The paper had yellowed, its edges frayed. But it clearly bore the signature of Lithuanian policeman Aleksandras Lileikis, ordering a Jewish woman and her 6-year-old daughter to be shot in a Nazi death pit in 1941

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The paper was enough proof to have him deported from the US.

The official press release from the Attorney General can be seen at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum site here.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – United States Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey announced that the U.S. Department of Justice is donating copies of trial transcripts and decisions created in connection with the Office of Special Investigations (OSI) of the Justice Department to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. These records were created over the past three decades in connection with OSI’s litigation against United States citizens or residents who were alleged to have participated in acts of persecution in collaboration with the Nazis or their allies.

“While justice for a crime as heinous as the Holocaust can never be truly served, we must work to hold perpetrators of genocide accountable,” says Museum Director Sara J. Bloomfield. “They must know that the simple passage of time will not exculpate them of their crimes. This archive stands as a testament to our government’s continued determination not to let genocide go unpunished. We are pleased that the Museum was able to help in several of these cases and that it will be a repository for this important collection.”

This collection is the largest English primary source material on the subject available anywhere, except for records created immediately following WWII.

USHMM assisted OSI with access to documentation microfilmed in archives located in Germany, Eastern Europe, and the FSU. It has provided expert witness testimony and helped in other ways.

The collection includes some 50,000 pages of transcripts covering more than 40 World War II-related cases that OSI litigated to trial as well as the transcripts of hearings in three contested extradition matters in which the OSI participated. The Justice Department is also donating copies of published and unpublished decisions for OSI cases of denaturalization, removal and extradition. The multi-volume set was donated by Thomson Reuters/West Publishing.

Since 1979, the Office of Special Investigations [OSI] has been investigating and prosecuting cases against alleged perpetrators of World War II Nazi crimes of persecution who immigrated to the U.S. It is widely regarded as the most successful law enforcement unit of its kind in the world.

According to the Jerusalem Post, only three copies of the nearly 100 cases will be made and presented to Yad Vashem, USHMM with the third copy retained by the US Department of Justice. The OSI has previously received assistance from both Yad Vashem and the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC.

Yad Vashem Archives director Dr. Haim Gertner said some low-profile cases have never been published officially.

Read the three sources at the links above to learn why scholars, historians and the public should be interested in this release.

Yad Vashem: List of Jews in Germany (1933-1945)

On Thursday, October 23, Yad Vashem will receive a digital copy of the "List of Jewish Residents in the German Reich (1933-1945)" prepared over four years by the German government.

It contains the personal details of some 600,000 Jewish residents in Germany (1933-1945), according to the 1937 borders, who suffered anti-Jewish discrimination and persecution.

Data includes the names and addresses of Jewish residents, details of emigration, detention and deportation, and where and when many died. Information was gathered from registration documents - primarily in medium-sized and larger towns and cities - deportations lists, archives, museums, memorial sites and the Toten-Gedenkbuch (memorial book of the dead) compiled by the federal archives.

Some 2.5 million data records were collected from over 1,000 different sources. The list\ was produced by the Bundesarchiv (German federal archives), with assistance from Yad Vashem’s Archives and Hall of Names experts, on behalf of the “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future” Foundation.

The list will be presented on by Bernd Neumann, the German Minister of State to the Federal Chancellor and Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

“This list adds to our understanding of what happened to the Jews in Germany,” said Avner Shalev, Chairman of Yad Vashem. “Every new piece of information allows us to piece together the story of individuals and communities during the Holocaust. This list, in conjunction with other material in our Archives, helps fill in gaps in our knowledge of what occurred.”

Yad Vashem: Volunteer Appreciation

Yad Vashem held its Volunteer Appreciation Day recently in Jerusalem.

Among the 300 volunteers honored, wrote JFRA Israel president Ingrid Rockberger, were a core group of Jewish Family Research Association Israel (JFRA Israel) members who visit Holocaust survivors in private residences and in senior homes as part of Yad Vashem teams.

JFRA members have assisted for some 18 months in the Names Recovery Project, which helps to create Pages of Testimony during interviews with survivors to ensure that every victim is memorialized in Yad Vashem's Hall of Names.

The audience of volunteers - many of them Holocaust survivors - heard moving speeches and watched emotional films in the packed auditorium.

Yad Vashem's director Avner Shalev emphasized that "without the volunteers we could not do our work the way we do. You are an integral part of our work and part of the Yad Vashem family."

Adds Rockberger, "So far, only about half the 6 million who perished have an individual Page of Testimony; it is now a race against time as even child survivors are reaching old age."

Details can be found on Yad Vashem; Pages of Testimony can be downloaded and/or filled in on-line.

Irena Sendler dies; saved 2,500 Jewish children

AP broke the news of the death of Polish Holocaust hero, Irena Sendler, 98, who died Monday morning, May 12. The Fox News link to the story by AP writer Monika Scislowska is here.

WARSAW, Poland — Irena Sendler, a Polish social worker who organized the rescue of some 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazis and was later honored by Israel's Yad Vashem memorial, has died.
Sendler's daughter, Janina Zgrzembska, told The Associated Press her mother died at a Warsaw hospital Monday morning. She was 98.

Sendler had lived at a Warsaw nursing home run by the Catholic Brothers of St. John of God since 2003, but had been in the hospital since last month with pneumonia.

Sendler was born Irena Krzyzanowska in Warsaw on Feb. 15, 1910. As a social worker with Warsaw's welfare department, Sendler masterminded risky rescue operations of Jewish children from the Warsaw Ghetto during Nazi Germany's brutal World War II occupation.

Records show Sendler's team of some 20 people saved almost 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto between October 1940 and April 1943, when the Nazis burned the ghetto, shooting the residents or sending them to death camps.

Under the pretext of inspecting the ghetto's sanitary conditions during a typhoid outbreak, Sendler and her assistants entered in search of children who could be smuggled out and be given a chance to survive by living as Catholics.

Babies and small children were smuggled out in ambulances and in trams, sometimes wrapped up as packages. Teenagers escaped by joining teams of workers forced to labor outside the ghetto. They were placed in families, orphanages, hospitals or convents.

In hopes of one day uniting the children with their families — most of whom perished in the Nazis' death camps — Sendler wrote the children's real names on slips of paper that she kept at home.

When German police came to arrest her in 1943, an assistant managed to hide the slips — which Sendler later buried in a jar under an apple tree in an associate's yard. Some 2,500 names were recorded.

"It took a true miracle to save a Jewish child," Elzbieta Ficowska, who was saved by Sendler's team as a baby in 1942, recalled in an interview with The Associated Press in 2007. "Mrs. Sendler saved not only us, but also our children and grandchildren and the generations to come."

After World War II, Sendler worked as a social welfare official and director of vocational schools, continuing to assist some of the children she rescued.

In 1965, Sendler became one of the first so-called Righteous Gentiles that the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem honored for wartime heroics. Poland's communist leaders at that time would not allow her to travel to Israel, and she collected the award only in 1983.

Despite the Yad Vashem honor, Sendler largely remained forgotten in her homeland. Only in her final years, confined to a nursing home, did she finally become one of Poland's most respected figures, with President Lech Kaczynski and other politicians backing a campaign that put her name forward for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Sendler is survived by her daughter and a granddaughter.