Holocaust

70th Anniversary Commemoration of the Liberation of Auschwitz

Dear Friends,

I have just arrived in Israel from Krakow where we commemorated the 70th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz.

As I am sure many of you will have seen this historic event was extremely symbolic and significant and it received unprecedented media coverage worldwide. The eyes of the world, this week, were on Auschwitz.

WJC, in partnership with the USC Shoah Foundation, brought 101 survivors of Auschwitz, from 21 countries, together with members of their families, to participate in this auspicious event. Their presence — surely the last time such a large number will be able to gather there — made this commemoration particularly meaningful.

2015-01-30

Litvak Victim Marks 70 Year Anniversary of Liberation of Auschwitz by Red Army and of Dachau by American Army

Meyshe Preis, prisoner of three concentration camps

Lithuanian Jewish Community member Meyshe Preis (or Moisiejus Preisas, as his Lithuanian passport calls him) was imprisoned at three concentration camps: sent from the Kovna ghetto to Stuffhof, then to Auschwitz, then to Dachau. He’s alive and living in Sventsyan (Švenčionys), Lithuania, and still speaks about the horrors he survived in the ghetto and at the concentration and death camps. His apartment, where he now lives alone since the death of his beloved wife, has a wall dedicated to memorabilia from hell, including photographs and a small bowl he took with him to all the camps until his liberation by American troops from a forced march of prisoners from Dachau into the neighboring mountains in May of 1945. His wall museum, collected over many years, includes newspaper articles and written memoirs as well as photos. Currently the LJC Social Center is helping Meyshe Preis out around the house and with the simple chores of life.

2015-01-29

A blueprint to combat anti-Semitism in Europe

On January 27th the world will come together to observe International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking 70 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Yet 70 years since end of the most horrific chapter in Europe’s history, anti-Semitism has once again surged to levels unprecedented since the end of the Holocaust, with virtually no part of Europe free from this oldest and most enduring form of hatred.

Whether it is the kosher supermarket attack in Paris this January, the shooting in the Brussels Jewish Museum last year, or frequent assaults against Jews and vandalism of synagogues and Jewish stores, there is an increasingly palpable sense of fear and insecurity among many Jewish communities in Europe.

2015-01-28

New Monument Unveiled to Commemorate Rescuer of Jews Polina Tarasewicz

A new commemorative stone erected in honor of Righteous Gentile Polina Tarasewicz (born 1905, murdered 1943) was consecrated at the cemetery in Parudaminis village in the Marijampolis aldermanship in the Vilnius region on October 30, 2014. Anatoliy Kasinski, formerly Kazriel Bernan, provided testimony on how Polina Tarasewicz took in and hid him, his brother and his mother at Predtechenka village (now known as Biržiškės) in the Vilnius region. A local turned Tarasewicz in and Nazis and local collaborators set up an ambush at night.

Tarasewicz had time to tell Anatoliy to run to the forest, which is the reason he survived. The murderers took Tarasewicz and the survivor’s mother and brother to a wooded area and shot them, then they burned down her house and farm. The next day Tarasewicz’s relatives secretly dug up her body and reburied her next to her mother’s grave at the Parudaminis cemetery. At an awards ceremony at the Lithuanian Government House on April 28 of 2014, Polina Tarasewicz along with 20 other people who saved Jews during World War II at risk to their lives and those of their families were honored.

2014-10-31