Anne Frank's Tree Falls As Holocaust Denial Rises

By Bonnie Erbe
Posted: August 23, 2010

How sad and odd, that the so-called Anne Frank tree in Amsterdam should fall at a time when Holocaust denial is growing, especially in the Arab world, according to one White House official.

Hannah Rosenthal, U.S. special envoy to combat anti-Semitism, told the Jerusalem Post that the Obama administration is working hard to combat anti-Semitism but despite that, Holocaust denial is on the rise, especially in the Arab world.


Rosenthal recently led a trip of eight influential imams. After visiting the Auschwitz concentration camp with Ms. Rosenthal, the imams signed on to a declaration regarding the Holocaust. According to the Post,
"We bear witness to the absolute horror and tragedy of the Holocaust where over 12 million human souls perished, including 6 million Jews." It continues, "We condemn any attempts to deny this historical reality and declare such denials or any justification of this tragedy as against the Islamic code of ethics. We condemn anti-Semitism in any form. No creation of Almighty God should face discrimination based on his or her faith or religious conviction."
I applaud the Obama administration and the imams for doing this, even at a time when many American Jews are sorely disappointed with the president's stand on Israel. Many are hopeful that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's bid to reopen peace talks will produce something of value. But they do not believe the Obama administration to be as Israel-friendly as prior administrations have been.
All of this comes as I return home from a reunion of some 35 descendants of Russian-Polish Jews from the tiny town of Dokshitzy (which is located in what is now Belarus). My grandmother was born in that town and my grandfather in another town or "shtetl" some eight miles away. My grandmother was one of 11 children. She emigrated to the United States but the large family she left behind did not and they perished.
There was a poor but thriving Jewish community in Dokshitzy prior to World War II. Jews comprised half the town's population of 6,000 people before the war. Most of them never made it to the Nazi concentration camps. The Nazis came through Dokshitzy in the early 1940s, forced most of the men into hard labor and cordoned off a Jewish ghetto for the families. After the Nazis had ransacked the town, they lined up residents in front of pits, shot them down, and filled in the pits with dirt. They burned all the houses and desecrated the graveyards, as if to erase the memory of what they had done. At least in the latter part, they did not succeed.
Which brings me back to Anne Frank's tree. The world-famous diarist created the most widely-read account of the Holocaust while she and her family hid from Nazis in Amsterdam for more than two years. The teenager and her family were discovered by the Nazis and arrested in 1944. Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in March 1945.
Dutch officials have gone out of their way to preserve the 150-year-old Chestnut tree outside of the house in which she was hiding. The tree gave her hope during her two year residence in an attic as it was just about the only thing she could see from the attic's window. Now it is gone, as Holocaust denial increases, just when we need it most.

US envoy slams central bank over 'antisemitic' Romanian coin

(AFP) - 5 hours ago

BUCHAREST -- The US ambassador in Romania on Friday slammed a central bank decision to go on selling a coin depicting an inter-war leader with anti-Semitic views despite criticism from the Holocaust Museum in Washington. "I am very disappointed by the decision on the part of the National Bank of Romania to issue the coin commemorating Patriarch Miron Cristea", Mark Gitenstein said in a statement.

"Cristea's actions as Prime Minister - specifically his role in the revocation of citizenship for over 225,000 Romanian Jews - cannot be ignored," he added.

Cristea headed the Romanian government in 1938-39.

As prime minister he amended the citizenship law, thereby stripping 37 percent of the country's total Jewish population of their Romanian citizenship.
To mark 125 years since the setting up of the Romanian Orthodox Church, the central bank had minted five silver coins carrying the effigies of its patriarchs since 1925.
The first of the five was Miron Cristea, who led the Church between 1925 and 1939.
At the start of August the central bank received letters of protest from the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of Holocaust in Romania.
The bank set up an internal commission to look into the issue.
On Thursday, after the panel released its conclusions, the bank said it would not suspend issuing of the coin, which can be bought since July.
In a statement it said its selection was "in no way and by no means intended to hurt the feelings of any community, to prejudice the interests of specific groups or to convey xenophobic, racist or anti-Semitic messages".
Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.

Volunteers Needed to Assist Holocaust Survivors with Oral History

A group of local Holocaust survivors meet every month at the Jewish Community Center in St. Paul. The meetings are recorded to preserve the stories, experiences and the conversations that take place at the gathering. The group is looking for volunteers to type up transcripts of the recordings for historical posterity.

To volunteer,send an email to amram001@umn.edu. Please type "holocaust" in the subject line.

For more information about the group please click here to be linked to their page on the CHGS website.

Bruno Chaouat to speak on Anti-Semitism, Israel, and Ideological Change in France

HAVE FRENCH JEWS TURNED RIGHT?
Anti-Semitism, Israel, and Ideological Change in France

Since 9/11 and the second intifada, the Left has often charged Jews with becoming increasingly right-wing. This charge is based on the support of Jews for Israel and the United States, both deemed reactionary countries by many on the Left in France and Europe. Bruno Chaouat will analyze whether French Jews have turned to the Right by examining debates among those on the Left and by exploring the reactions of the French Jewish community to recent waves of anti-Semitic violence in relation to the Middle East conflict.


Bruno Chaouat is associate professor of French and Jewish studies and director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota. His publications include a book on Chateaubriand and autobiography, many articles on 19th-century French literature, edited volumes on shame and terror, and essays on anti-Semitism and Holocaust testimony in France. He is now completing a book project titled "Jewish Envy: France After Anti-Semitism."
February 10, 2011 7:30 p.m., Temple of Aaron Synagogue, 616 S. Mississippi River Boulevard. St. Paul 651-698-8874
For more information please contact Center for Jewish Studies, e-mail: jwst@umn.edu
or phone: 612-624-4914.
Co-sponsors: U of M Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, Department of French & Italian; U of M Hillel; Temple of Aaron; St. Paul Jewish Community Center; United Jewish Fund and Council

American Muslim leaders visit concentration camps

August 17, 2010

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Eight Muslim American leaders who visited concentration camps and met with Holocaust survivors signed a statement condemning Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism.

The trip earlier this month, intended to teach the participants about the Holocaust, featured visits to Dachau and Auschwitz.

"We stand united as Muslim American faith and community leaders and recognize that we have a shared responsibility to continue to work together with leaders of all faiths and their communities to fight the dehumanization of all peoples based on their religion, race or ethnicity," the statement read. "With the disturbing rise of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other forms of hatred, rhetoric and bigotry, now more than ever, people of faith must stand together for truth."
Marshall Breger, an Orthodox Jew who served in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, and Rabbi Jack Bemporad, a Reform clergyman, launched the trip to educate those who may not have had the opportunity to learn the history of the Holocaust. Breger said this would help combat Holocaust denial among Muslims.
The leaders on the trip were imams Muzammil Siddiqi of Orange County, Calif.; Muhamad Maged of Virginia; Suhaib Webb of Santa Clara, Calif.; Abdullah Antepli of Duke University in North Carolina; and Syed Naqvi of Washington, D.C., along with Dr. Sayyid Syeed of Washington; Sheik Yasir Qadhi of New Haven, Conn.; and Laila Muhammad of Chicago. Muhammad is the daughter of American Muslim leader W.D. Muhammad and granddaughter of Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam. U.S. government officials, the State Department's special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, and the U.S. ambassador to the Organization of the Islamic Conference also participated.
In 2001, Yasir Qadhi, one of the imams on the trip, called the Holocaust a hoax, but he later said his comment had been a mistake. After the trip earlier this month, Qadhi told the N.J. Star-Ledger, "It was a very moving experience for all of us imams, in particular myself. I had never seen anything like this. I was just overwhelmed throughout the entire trip. I was just overwhelmed at the sheer inhumanity of it. I could not comprehend how such evil could be unleashed."
The Aug. 7-11 trip was co-sponsored by a German think tank, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, and a New Jersey-based interfaith group called the Center for Interreligious Understanding.

Germany charges ex-Rwandan mayor with genocide

(AP) - 4 hours ago

BERLIN -- German prosecutors say they have filed charges against a former Rwandan mayor for his alleged involvement in the African country's 1994 genocide.
Federal prosecutors said Wednesday that they charged the 53-year-old ethnic Hutu -- identified only as Onesphore R. -- with genocide and murder as well as incitement to those crimes. They said he was a mayor of an unspecified district in northern Rwanda at the time of the killings.

They say the man called for a pogrom against the Tutsi ethnic minority on three occasions in early April 1994 and forced a local official to throw out Tutsis who had taken refuge in his house.
Prosecutors say the man ordered and coordinated three massacres between April 11 and 15, 1994, in which at least 3,730 Tutsis were killed.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Schools can exclude materials disputing Armenian genocide Court ruled on 1999 case

Schools can exclude materials disputing Armenian genocide Court ruled on 1999 case

By Peter Schworm
Globe Staff / August 12, 2010

In a closely watched case, a federal appeals court yesterday ruled that statewide public school guidelines on teaching human rights history can exclude materials disputing that the mass slaying of Armenians in the First World War era constituted genocide.

The decision, written by retired Supreme Court justice David Souter, who occasionally hears cases with the First Circuit Court of Appeals, found that state education officials did not violate public school students' free speech rights in 1999, when they excluded all "contra-genocide'' sources calling the Armenian genocide into question.
Van Z. Krikorian, a professor at Pace University Law School who filed a brief defending the state's move, said he was thrilled by the ruling, equating those who dispute the genocide designation to Holocaust deniers.
"It would have put human rights education in reverse,'' he said. "It's a major defeat for genocide denial.''
Upholding a lower-court decision, the court ruled that although state guidelines were advisory, and "not meant to declare other positions out of bounds in study and discussion,'' they were part of the official curriculum and therefore under the discretion of state authorities.
Requiring that officials include references to dissenting viewpoints, Souter wrote, "might actually have the effect of foreclosing future opportunities for open enquiry in the classroom.''
Harvey Silverglate, a Boston civil rights lawyer representing the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, had argued that removing the references amounted to government censorship and prevented students from hearing both sides.
"It always is a sad day when a court constricts First Amendment rights rather than expand them,'' he said. "I think they made a mistake.'' Silverglate said his clients will consider whether to appeal.
The Turkish-American group disputes that the Muslim Turkish Ottoman Empire committed genocide against its Christian Armenian minority population. Over 1.5 million Armenians died at the hands of Turkish forces, but Turkish activists maintain it was not the result of a policy.
In 1998, the Legislature ordered the state Board of Education to prepare an advisory curriculum guide for teaching about genocide and human rights, and a draft of the guide initially included a section on the "Armenian Genocide.'' Under pressure from Turkish advocacy groups, the commissioner of education, David P. Driscoll, revised the draft to include references to opposing views, said the ruling.
When officials filed the guide with legislators in March 1999, the state's Armenian community protested the inclusion of "contra-genocide'' viewpoints, and the education commissioner removed the references.
Peter Schworm can be reached at schworm@globe.com.
© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.