Admissions against interest

Speakers give BG students insight into Holocaust

Nov 21, 2004

www.nashuatelegraph.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041121/YOUTH/111210035

[…]

The Bishop Guertin High School seniors who had the opportunity to listen to and speak with Rena Finder and Drs. Rita and Alexandre Blumstein certainly thought so. These close friends of the BG community willingly came in to talk to students about their experiences in surviving the Holocaust.

[…]

Alexandre Blumstein and his family survived the Holocaust by hiding in a rural farm in Poland. […]

Rita Blumstein’s family fled deep into Russia, far from the Nazis’ reach, when she was only 3 years old.

[…]

© 2003, Telegraph Publishing Company, Nashua, New Hampshire

Holocaust survivor in Charlotte dies at 82

By HILDEGARD SCHEIBNER

Nov 20, 2004

www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041120/NEWS/411200428/1006/SPORTS

DEEP CREEK — Margaret B. Baker, who survived four years of slave labor in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, died of heart disease on Nov. 18, 2004. She was 82.

“In 1939, when she was 18, the Germans invaded Poland, and everyone in her village of Szamocin age 18 to 35 was sent into forced labor,” said Ivan, her husband of 68 years. “She worked six months on a farm and then was sent to Auschwitz to load coal cars.”

[…]

“She told me that she lived in a barracks with 80 women, and 90 percent of them gave up and died,” her husband said, “but she was determined to stay alive no matter how horrible it was.”

When the Russians invaded Poland and defeated the Germans, she fled on foot to Berlin, where she knew a Polish family.

[…]

Holocaust man’s claims queried

A WA author who wrote a book allegedly based on his harrowing life as a Holocaust survivor is at the centre of a row over his credibility.

UWA Press has pulled copies of Stolen Soul from bookshops after a private investigator was called in to probe the author’s background.

The book, written by Secret Harbour man Bernard Holstein — whose real name is Bernard Brougham — claims to be “the amazing true story of survival and mateship in Auschwitz”.

The publisher describes the book as “an epic read full of stories of how Bernard underwent experiments, assisted the Underground and even escaped, only to be recaptured and subjected to even greater torture”.

But this week a UWA Press spokeswoman admitted the publishing house removed the book because of doubts about the author’s credibility.

Initially, it was convinced of the authenticity of the memoirs of Brougham, who sports a tattoo of the number 111404 on the inside of his left arm, similar to those given to Jews by the Nazis.

Brougham, 69, a mining camp cook, says his story is true — but concedes he may never be able to prove it.

“It is true, it did happen,” he said, acknowledging he had little to support his claims and might never convince his detractors that his death camp experiences were real.

He has no immigration papers, no German birth certificate and no living witnesses who could verify his arrival in Sydney from a post-war holding camp in Cyprus.

“All I have is what is in my memory,” he said. “But I have got nothing to hide. This book is an account of what happened in my life.

“I am not a liar, what I have written is true. People might ask how a boy who was only nine at the time can remember what happened in so much detail but I can tell you, once you step through the gates into the barracks at Auschwitz, you instantly grow up. I remember everything. I still have nightmares about it.”

On the strength of the book Brougham was invited to talk to schoolchildren at the Holocaust Institute in Yokine.

His story was questioned when his NSW foster family called UWA Press claiming that not only was he not born in Holstein, Germany, as he said, but he was not Jewish.

By this stage the book had sold out its first print run and Brougham was already at work on a sequel, revealing how he fled to Australia after Auschwitz was liberated.

A private investigator employed by UWA Press claims that Brougham was born in country NSW, baptised a Roman Catholic in 1942, made his Confirmation in 1952 and even spent time in a seminary training to become a priest.

Brougham says he was raised as a Catholic in Australia and his step-parents never discussed his Jewish heritage.

He said he would take a DNA test to prove he was not related to his five step-siblings in a bid to authenticate his story and convince UWA Press that it was true.

“I remember that three doctors who were members of the Underground (resistance fighters) told me that `one or two or three of you boys are going to get out of this hell hole and you must tell the world what happened here’,” he said.

In the book he claims that a tearful exchange with a German tourist several years ago convinced him to write his memoirs, which cost him about $70,000 to have ghost-written and published.

The book has been selling on the Angus & Robertson website for $26.95 and Brougham has made several book-signing appearances.

Publicity for the book said Bernard Holstein “endured two years of hell” at Auschwitz. Despite his ordeal, “Bernard survived and has now fulfilled his promise to tell the story the world needs to know. Stolen Soul is Bernard’s story. His memories, his tears, his belief in the human spirit are all contained within its pages.”

Source: CATHERINE MADDEN and JIM KELLY

October 31, 2004

www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,11235884%255E2761,00.html

Webmaster note: See more here.

Is Fox News not playing fair with ‘Fair & Balanced’ slogan?

Posted on Mon, Jul. 26, 2004

By Frazier Moore

The Associated Press

[…]

In a recent column for the Los Angeles Times, social historian Neal Gabler observed that “if by ‘fair’ one means objective and unbiased, then more often than not ‘fair’ and ‘balanced’ may be mutually exclusive.” That is, a “fair” discussion of the Holocaust wouldn’t call for the “balance” of a Holocaust denier.

[…]

© 2004 Centre Daily Times and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.

www.centredaily.com

‘Why we must not forget the Holocaust’

• A Holocaust survivor tells BBC News Online how he believes the event should be remembered, following the announcement that London will host next year’s fifth National Holocaust Memorial Day.

When Freddie Knoller walked free from the Belsen-Bergen concentration camp on 15 April 1945 he swore he would tell the world about what he saw.

[…]

Prostitutes

Mr Knoller had ended up at Auschwitz via Paris’ red light district and “thanks” to a girlfriend who handed him over to the Gestapo.

Deported from Vienna to France, he found work in Paris as a young man securing prostitutes for the German soldiers.

It was dangerous work, even though he had false papers.

If ever he was asked about his accent, he would tell them he was from Alsace-Lorraine, near the German border.

“I would tell them: ‘I am happy to have you here in my country’. It was all fairy tales.”

He eventually won their confidence but it backfired: the Germans asked him to work for them as an interpreter.

He fled Paris to join the French resistance.

“I met a young girl who I thought I was in love with but we fought. I told her I wanted her to have nothing to do with me.

“She then handed me over. She knew where in the hills I was staying.”

[…]

Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/3913991.stm

Published: 2004/07/21 17:04:15 GMT

© BBC MMIV

Preserving Auschwitz: Forensic evidence of the Holocaust is the best answer to the deniers.

www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110005318

from the Wall Street Journal editorial page

LEISURE & ARTS

BY TIMOTHY RYBACK Wednesday, July 7, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

Last month, Jarek Mensfelt, spokesman for the Auschwitz memorial site, announced plans to preserve the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria in the notorious death camp at Birkenau near the Polish town of Oswiecim. […]

In the coming weeks, as the Auschwitz preservationists begin their work, they should be guided by the knowledge that these heaps of dynamited concrete and twisted steel are not only historic artifacts but among the few remnants of untainted, forensic evidence of the Holocaust.

Of course, the historical and circumstantial evidence of a premeditated Nazi plan to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe is overwhelming. There are the watch-tower-girded enclosures of Nazi concentration camps and the extensive testimonials of Holocaust survivors, as well as the court protocols of Nazi war criminals, but there is little forensic evidence proving homicidal intent. The Nazis were scrupulous when it came to obscuring the “Final Solution” in bureaucratic euphemism and also dismantling or obliterating their machinery of death. The dearth of hard evidence has fueled a growth industry in Holocaust-denial.

[…]

Mr. Ryback is author of “The Last Survivor: Legacies of Dachau.”

‘Do not have children if they won’t be healthy!’

• A shocking new study reveals how key figures in the pre-state Zionist establishment proposed castrating the mentally ill, sterilizing the poor and doing everything possible to ensure reproduction only among the ‘best of people.’

By Tamara Traubmann

www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/437879.html

Last update – 02:11 11/06/2004

Castrating the mentally ill, encouraging reproduction among families “numbered among the intelligentsia” and limiting the size of “families of Eastern origin” and “preventing … lives that are lacking in purpose” — these proposals are not from some program of the Third Reich but rather were brought up by key figures in the Zionist establishment of the Land of Israel during the period of the British Mandate. It turns out there was a great deal of enthusiasm here for the improvement of the hereditary characteristics of a particular race (eugenics). This support, which has been kept under wraps for many years, is revealed in a study that examines the ideological and intellectual roots at the basis of the establishment of the health system in Israel.

In the Yishuv (pre-state Jewish community) in the 1930s there were “consultation stations” operating on a Viennese model of advice centers for couples that wished to marry and become parents. In Austria, with the Nazis’ rise to power, they served for forced treatment. Here the stations were aimed at “giving advice on matters of sex and marriage, especially in the matter of preventing pregnancy in certain cases.” They distributed birth-control devices for free to the penniless and at reduced prices to those of limited means. In Tel Aviv the advice stations were opened in centers of immigrant populations: Ajami in Jaffa, the Hatikvah Quarter and Neveh Sha’anan.

These are some of the findings of a doctoral thesis written by Sachlav Stoler-Liss about the history of the health services in the 1950s, under the supervision of Prof. Shifra Shvarts, head of the department of health system management at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. They were presented at the annual conference of the Israel Anthropological Association at Ben-Gurion College.

[…]

Settler Rabbi: Killing innocent people in war is allowed if saves lives

Rabbi Dov Lior, chairman of the settler’s rabbinical council ruled that killing civilians during warfare is permitted if it will save lives.

Uri Glickman

www.maarivintl.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=7626

(2004-05-19 21:52:27.0)

The IDF are allowed to hurt so called innocent civilians during warfare, Chairman of the Yesha rabbinical council (Judea, Samaria and Gaza Strip), Rabbi Dov Lior, said in a Halachic (Jewish law) ruling made public Wednesday.

“The law of our Torah is to have mercy on our soldiers and to save them. This is the real moral behind Israel’s Torah and we must not feel guilty due to foreign morals,” Lior said.

Sources close to the Rabbi explained that Lior made the remarks Tuesday night and they had nothing to do with Wednesday’s events in Gaza. The IDF is allowed to use all means at its disposal to defeat terrorism “even if it means ‘innocent’ people are killed”, the sources said.

The religious community did not publicly condemn Rabbi Lior’s ruling but warned against its implications. “It is a dangerous step that could test all religious IDF commanders taking part in the current fighting”, sources in the Yesha community told Maariv.

Webmaster note: I wonder if this rabbinical sanction extends to German treatment of enemy aliens such as Jews during the Second World War?

Holocaust survivor shares memories

Holocaust survivor Nesse Godin holds photograph of her family taken before the war.

by Ann Duble

Standard Editor

May 13, 2004

www.dcmilitary.com/army/standard/9_10/local_news/28993-1.html

Mounds of bodies. One hole for a toilet and another for graves. Every body cavity searched for gems. These are some of Nesse Godin’s memories as a survivor of the World War II Holocaust.

The 75-year-old Godin talked about her experiences surviving a concentration camp, ghetto, four labor camps and a death march at the Days of Remembrance program April 4 at the Post Chapel.

[…]

Godin was only 16 years old in 1944, when she and others were put on a cattle car to an unknown destination. They ended up at Stutthof Concentration Camp where they were told to strip and take a shower. It really was a water shower and not poison gas. “We were lucky,” she noted sadly. The women and girls stood naked for hours, then were searched in every cavity of their bodies for “gems.”