General Interest News

Headstones smashed at Jewish cemeteries in Ukraine and Romania

Posted on June 8, 2021

(JTA) — In two separate incidents, a Jewish cemetery was vandalized in Romania and Ukraine. The Center for Monitoring and Combating Antisemitism in Romania-MCA reported Sunday about the incident in the town of Ploesti, located about 50 miles north of Bucharest. Multiple headstones, some as recent as 2009, were knocked over. Several were smashed.

Retropolis To liberate Auschwitz, David Dushman drove a Soviet tank through its barbed wire. Horrors awaited inside.

Posted on June 8, 2021

David Dushman had no idea of the horrors he was about to discover. He was a 21-year-old major in the Red Army in January 1945, when his tank rolled past Krakow, Poland, heading west, pushing the Nazis. At 3 p.m. on Jan. 27, they approached a fence to a camp. It was Auschwitz.   Dushman didn’t Continue Reading »

In significant verdict, French court sentences Holocaust denier to 5 years for making death threats

Posted on June 5, 2021

(JTA) — A blogger who posted videos of himself calling for the murder of prominent French Jews was sentenced to five years in prison by a court in France. The sentence, for promoting terrorism and making death threats, is among the harshest in recent years in France over such offenses.

Why do we keep turning Holocaust survivor stories into self-help books? (OPINION PIECE)

Posted on June 2, 2021

On a recent segment of “The Today Show,” a cadre of well-coiffed hosts discussed the life of Eddie Jaku, a 100-year-old Holocaust survivor and the author of “The Happiest Man on Earth,” a memoir about his imprisonment in Auschwitz. Grainy photos of concentration camp prisoners alternated with clips from an interview with Jaku and videos of him Continue Reading »

In Ukraine, bullet holes are found in a synagogue and a mass grave of Holocaust victims is desecrated

Posted on June 1, 2021

JTA) — In two separate disturbing incidents in Ukraine, bullet holes were found in a synagogue and grave robbers allegedly raided a Holocaust-era mass grave , exposing and scattering human remains.

‘Lost’ film predicting rise of Nazism returns to screen

Posted on May 19, 2021

A silent film from 1924 predicting the rise of Nazism was found in a Paris flea market in 2015 after being lost for decades. Thanks to a huge fundraising campaign, it has now been restored and returned to cinemas, reports the BBC’s Bethany Bell in Vienna. An Orthodox Jew is set upon by three taunting Continue Reading »

Children of the Holocaust Who Are Anonymous No More

Posted on May 18, 2021

Researchers using enhanced, rare footage of a transport to a Nazi death camp have been able to identify some passengers, including children who survived. AMSTERDAM — They appear for less than three seconds in the film footage, faces distorted through the window glass. Small cherubs, staring out confusedly at a chaotic scene on the railway Continue Reading »

Associated Press Changes Spelling of ‘Anti-Semitism’ to ‘Antisemitism,’ Joining Leading Experts

Posted on April 28, 2021

The Associated Press has changed its spelling of the word “antisemitism,” now writing it without a hyphen — joining the leading experts of hatred against Jews who have long advocated that usage. The Twitter account of the AP Stylebook — the leading reference for news publications — posted on Friday, “We now write antisemitism (n.), antisemitic Continue Reading »

Jewish music in Germany after the Holocaust

Posted on April 28, 2021

Tina Frühauf Transcending Dystopia: Music, Mobility, and the Jewish Community in Germany, 1945-1989 Oxford University Press, 2021, 644 pp. Immediately after World War II, the German rabbi Leo Baeck, who had survived the war in the concentration camp Terezin, declared: “The history of German Jews has ended once and for all.” These words stand at Continue Reading »

Elie Wiesel’s bust will feature in the National Cathedral. He may (or may not) be the first Jew to get the honor.

Posted on April 28, 2021

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Washington’s National Cathedral, known for its role during presidential inaugurations and other days of national import, is honoring Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Laureate and Holocaust memoirist with a bust, making him the first Jew to be so honored. Or maybe not the first, depending on where you sit.

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