Showing posts with label shoah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shoah. Show all posts

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Pleas to Rescue Jews in the Holocaust Ignored by Zionist Leaders

For the record, I am a Christian Zionist who believes the Jewish Homeland of Israel, however imperfect, is God's Will according to His Word and so strongly disagree with those Jews who reject Zionism and prefer to remain in their self-imposed exile rather than follow Judaism to Israel.

Regardless, truth is truth and the following presents uncomfortable facts about Jewish failure to help Jews during the Shoah. Rabbi Meir Kahane also used to take the Jews to task more than the non-Jews on this troubling issue.

http://www.jewsnotzionists.org/pleasignored.html

The following message about bombing concentration camps and railways, was an exhibit in the Kasztner libel case in Israel during the 1950's. It was sent by Rabbi Michael B. Weissmandel, an organizer for rescue activities operating in the quisling Nazi state of Slovakia. It provides shocking and disturbing evidence of how the Zionist leadership ignored the growing evidence of mass murder and crimes against humanity being perpetrated against Europe's Jews

Here is the original letter from Rabbi Weissmandel:

May 15th, 1944 - In a cave near Lublin, Poland.

"Peace and Greetings.

"We send you this special message to inform you that yesterday the Germans began the deportation of Jews from Hungary. It is the beginning of deportation of all the Hungarian Jews.

"Every day, twelve thousand souls are being taken off. Four deportations of forty-five such train-loads move daily out of Hungary. Within twenty six days all that area will have been deported.

"The deported ones go to Auschwitz to be put to death by cyanide gas. A great number are dead on arrival. The Germans allow a few of the strongest to stay alive. Those who are allowed to live are branded with a number burned into their arm and the Star of David burned into their chest.

"Most of these privileged ones die within a month. Others take their place.

"Those who go directly from the train to the gas chambers to be suffocated are not branded. They are completely consumed in the ovens and leave no evidence behind. These are 95% of each transport.

"The dead bodies are burned in specially made ovens. Each oven burns 12 bodies an hour. In February there were 36 ovens burning. We have learned that more have been built.

"Information supplied us by a few eyewitnesses reveals that in February there were four disposal buildings. We have learned that more have been built since then.

"Formerly, the Germans killed and burned the Jews in the Forest of Birkenwald, near Auschwitz. Now the killing and burning take place in the buildings shown on the enclosed map.

"In December, the Germans built special trains to transport the Jews of Hungary to their extermination. This is the schedule of Auschwitz, from yesterday to the end; twelve thousand Jews - men, women and children, old men, infants, healthy and sick ones - are to be suffocated daily and their bones and ashes are to be used to fertilize the German fields.

"And you - our brothers in Palestine, in all the countries of freedom, and you, ministers of all the kingdom - how do you keep silent in the face of this great murder? Silent while thousand on thousands, reaching now to six million Jews, were murdered. And silent now while tens of thousands are still being murdered and waiting to be murdered? Their destroyed hearts cry to you for help as they bewail your cruelty. Brutal you are and murderers too you are, because of the cold-bloodedness of the silence in which you watch.

"Because you sit with folded arms and you do nothing, though you could stop or delay the murder of Jews at this very hour.

"In the name of the blood of the thousands on thousands who have been murdered we beg, we plead, we cry out and demand that you take action, that you do deeds now - at once!

"That the Ministers of Kingdoms and all the Lands raise a loud and piercing outcry that must enter the ears of the world, the ears of the German people, the ears of the Hungarian people. Let them cry out a warning to the German murderers. Let them proclaim that they know all that has been done in the past, and that which is still being done. And the Pope, himself, should join in this cry of outrage against the German murderers.

"Let this outcry be heard over all the radios and read in all the newspapers of the world, that unless they stop at once the deportations of Hungary's Jews - then will Germany be forever exiled from civilization.

"We ask that the crematoria in Auschwitz be bombed from the air. They are sharply visible, as shown on the enclosed map.

"Such bombing will delay the work of the German murderers.

"What is more important - to bomb persistently all the roads leading from Eastern Hungary to Poland and to bomb persistently the bridges in the neighborhood of Karpatarus. Drop all other business to get this done. Remember that one day of your idleness kills twelve thousand souls.

"You, our brothers, sons of Israel, are you insane? Don't you know the Hell around us? For whom are you saving your money?

"How is it that all our pleadings affect you less than the whimpering of a beggar standing in your doorway? Murderers! Madmen! Who is it that gives charity? You who toss a few pennies from your safe homes? Or we who give our blood in the depths of Hell?

"There is only one thing that may be said in your exoneration - that you do not know the truth. This is possible. The villain does his job so shrewdly that only a few guess the truth. We have told you the truth several times. Is it possible that you believe our murderers more than you believe us? May God open your eyes and give you heart to rescue in these last hours the remainder.

"Most important is that which I write about the bombing of the Auschwitz Crematoria and the bridges leading to them.

"Such bombing can vitally delay the evil work of our slaughterers. And G-d who keeps alive the last remnant of Israel will show His mercy for which I pray. I pray as I write out of the sea of tears of the people of Israel. We await G-d's help.

"One from the Market who witnesses the woes of his people"

Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandel, Exhibit of the Defence, no. 36, State Attorney v. M. Grunwald, District Court, Jerusalem, CC124/53)

After the war, Rabbi Weissmandel expressed his frustration in "The Holocaust Victims Accuse", a book by Rabbi Moshe Shonfeld (Neturei Karta, USA, New York, 1977):

"Why didn't they try, from their place of freedom, to break through to us and send us a secret messenger? This question becomes greater when we see that the governments of Czechoslovakia and Poland, which were in free lands, sent secret messengers daily to their loyal people in the occupied countries. And therefore our amazement grows. Why don't the great organizers of Jewry use these messengers if they have no other way? And during all of the years since we developed this method, those in the free countries did not once attempt to send messengers to us - rather, WE had to send them and to pay for them. How many did we send them only for the to return empty-handed - because those over there did not have time to answer why?"

In answer to this, Rabbi Shonfeld quotes the Zionist leader Yitzhak Greenbaum, who, after the war, stated:

"When they asked me, couldn't you give money out of the United Jewish Appeal funds for the rescue of Jews in Europe, I said, 'NO!' and I say again 'NO!' . . . one should resist this wave which pushes the Zionist activities to secondary importance."

During the Kasztner case, Menachem Bader of the Jewish Agency was asked "Did you receive this letter from Rabbi Weissmandel?" He answered: "Letters like this came to us every day".

This is no ordinary letter - it is from a Rabbi who was a first-hand witness of the holocaust. Note how Rabbi Weissmandel asks that the crematoria in Auschwitz be bombed from the air. How it is "sharply visible" - he clearly gave information that he hoped would be passed on to help Allied air crews bomb the murder camps. Rabbi Weissmandl also enclosed a map of the camps. Rabbi Weissmandel knew the bombing would delay the work of the Nazis, which is why he specifically asked for the Allies to bomb "persistently" all the roads leading from Eastern Hungary to Poland and the bridges in the neighborhood of Karpatarus. He advised the the Zionist leadership to "Drop all other business to get this done . . . Remember that one day of your idleness kills twelve thousand souls". Did they do this? The overwhelming evidence suggests that the Zionists ignored this - and other pleas - to save the majority of Jews in Europe from the Holocaust, instead they pursued the policy of building the dream of Zionism - the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.

May Hashem our G-d avenge the blood of all those who perished in the Holocaust.

May we merit to see them once again with the coming of Moshiach speedily in our days.

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Miriam Weiss: Holocaust Survivor and Kibbutz Mother

Miriam Weiss: Holocaust Survivor and Kibbutz Mother

Miriam Weiss: June 29, 1915 - January 4, 1997

On that precious list of "Righteous Gentiles" (rare individuals who assisted Jews during the Holocaust) is the great name of Jan Bulski who risked his life and family in Poland to save my "kibbutz mother" -- Miriam Weiss -- who I met and was "adopted" by at Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan near Haifa in Northern Israel while a volunteer there from October 1982 to February 1983.

This is an excerpt from my "Life is a Trek" blog article "Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan, Restal Hotel, Tiberias, "Israel -- a letter I wrote an American friend (without touching it up for spelling), July 27, 1989 from Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan, Israel:

"Miriam & I cried yesterday when she received a letter stating the man in Poland who hid her & saved her from the Gestapo & Holocaust, died. She opened up last week & told me what I hadn't known & how wealthy she was raised, how wealthy she married w/jewellery & furs & extensive rich contacts & travel in Europe & how happy she was, and had a cook for her & her husband & a maid also, & how after Hitler invaded Poland her husband immediately joined the underground buying weapons & insisting she move in w/friends for safety sake & how he was later captured by the Gestapo & murdered in Matthausen, Austria concentration camp & how sick w/grief & pain she was, she so loved him. And how one of the women who risked their lives to help save her later was caught attempting to save others & was murdered herself after being shipped to Ravensbruck concentration camp & how her mother was in the Warsaw Ghetto & sent to the gas chambers in Treblinka concentration camp. She cried when she spoke of how much pain can one take after her husband's death. Miriam just turned 74 about a month ago. I don't know how they handle such hell... She's been ill for the last 2 months & I feel helpless to help her..."

While writing this article to honor Miriam's memory and share history, I've practically gone mad looking for the fuchshia-colored paper I knew I had with her maiden name and the name of her Catholic Polish husband, a Gentile, one of four brothers who each owned the largest industrial banks in Poland, a paper I typed up in her home the day after she gave me detailed information about her life. I can't find it and wonder if I threw it out figuring Yad Vashem already has the information or what, but I can't imagine doing that as I would want to add my personal touch and memories to it. Perhaps it's all symbolic of the fears and frustrations of looking for lost family members, Holocaust survivors, and it's out of your control and so overwhelming.

Miriam said when Heydrich (Himmler?) thought things were going too slowly in Poland, he decided to round up a lot of people on "Black Saturday." That's when they took her husband away since he was involved in the Polish Underground. Miriam said she was in the Warsaw Ghetto with her mother (Miriam's parents were Zwi and Hana Hampel) but got out and was hid by a woman who was later sent to Ravensbruck herself for helping to rescue Jews. One night some drunk Poles came and banged on the door and told the woman they knew she was hiding "schwein, Jewish schwein," pretending to be Gestapo, and only left when they got a fur out of it. That's when the lady told Miriam she would have to go back into the Warsaw Ghetto until some other place could be found for her.

Miriam said that she had dyed her hair blond to look as Aryan as could be and wore a widow's veil and that the Nazi guards at the Warsaw Ghetto made a comment about how young she was to already be a widow. Later when another place was found for Miriam, she said her mother was so happy for her to get out but it was the last time she saw her and Miriam attributes her survival to her mother's prayers. Miriam said her mother was sent to Treblinka where she died, but a letter from Henia Seidman [Miriam's best Israeli-Polish friend] to me says she died in the Warsaw Ghetto. Miriam also said, if I remember correctly, that she was hid in a hole in the ground at Jan Bulski's place, and that the only thing to comfort her was a small vial of perfume she kept. I always gave her a gift of perfume for Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles). Henia wrote Miriam was hidden in their kitchen. One thing for sure is Miriam said after the war everybody talked about where they were during the war and how hardly anybody could believe where she was hidden, as Jews weren't welcome there before the war! Miriam felt the Poles were more anti-Semitic than the Germans.

Miriam told me that she later arranged, after the Russians came, to make it to Berlin but you could never know for sure if the one you paid to help you get there would show up or come through and her help did, but she ended up in the Russian section of Berlin on Christmas Eve and was in a small room with no windows and mattresses on the floor with about 50 other people crammed in there. She said everybody hoped to get into the American quarter. She also said after the war there was so much food, almost too much food.

Miriam married someone I think she met that Christmas night in Berlin or knew him in Poland, Hanoch Eisenberg, and wandered with him in Europe and as Henia wrote, "the Joint brought her and her husband...to Italy. From Italy they went by ships to Israel, but in the time of English Mandate their ship was kidnapped and brought to Cyprus camps. In Cyprus they were perhaps a year and in 1949 they came to Ramat Jochanan."

Actually, Miriam had some friend or relative visiting Ramat Yohanan from Kibbutz Yagur who was reading a letter from her, as Miriam told me, and she started crying and Henia Seidman, being the soft-hearted woman she's known to be, asked her why and she told her how Miriam was so depressed in Cyprus and Henia said for her to tell her to plan to come to Ramat Yohanan. When Miriam first came to the kibbutz from Cyprus after Israeli independence, they called for Henia who was working in what was then the kitchen (not the big beautiful cheder ochel -- dining room -- they have today, she pointed out), practically a wooden shack, and although she had soot or something on her face her beautiful blue eyes shone through (and Henia had such beautiful blue eyes) and Henia and her mother hugged and welcomed Miriam as family. Henia's family left Poland before the Holocaust.

Miriam divorced Eisenberg who didn't want to stay on the kibbutz and moved to Tel Aviv. She later married - for one day - David Weiss from the kibbutz. I used to say hello to him and often saw him working at the kibbutz factory, Palram. A very short man, older, with white hair. I once ate with David and mentioned the Queen of England continued King David's dynasty, and was surprised he was familiar with the belief but appeared to dismiss it as "a nice story."

Miriam and Henia were both short Polish Jews. We would always sit together in the dining room and eat and they would carry on in Polish and some Hebrew and English. If you didn't know them you would think they were always arguing, but that's just how they talked, as I chuckle remembering them. The mail boxes were in the dining room too, and since it was easier for me to walk with my "long legs" and get Miriam's mail, I would. That's how I brought the letter to her that day when we found out Jan Bulski had died. I had only written him about once and sent him maybe $20 or more through some grateful Polish organization in Toledo, Ohio that would make sure he received it. They said it would be exchanged on the black market for more zlotys. He was a diabetic and did receive something monthly from Yad Vashem after Miriam and Henia saw to it. A tree was also planted in his honor on the "Avenue of the Righteous Gentiles" at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Miriam cried and said he didn't have to risk his life and the life of his family to save her but that he did and that he was such a good man. Henia and I just kept quiet and wept with her.

Miriam told me her family had their money from the tea industry. They bought and sold the famous Lyon tea from England and then repackaged it or whatever they did to make a profit. She loved the European concerts and later travelled with her husband all over Europe and North Africa. She said her love of music came from her mother.

Miriam had another kibbutz "son" like me, also an American, whose name is Joe from New Hampshire. She was going to leave him her photo-album. Joe travelled with her to Switzerland to visit a mutual friend whom Miriam tried to play matchmaker between him and her, but they remained friends and nothing more. Miriam used to ask why Moses couldn't have led the Children of Israel to Switzerland! People would speak of Miriam's sons as "Joe and Hoover." (I was born with the family name of Hoover but legally changed my name to David Ben-Ariel for religious reasons). Miriam used to exclaim, "Do you know how many people would love to have your passport? To be an American?" I would tell her that although I dearly love the United States I want to live in Israel and she would mellow and say something like, "Well, if that makes you happy, if that's what you want." She also worried that I would get killed like Meir Kahane for being so outspoken.

One of my many fond and funny memories is Miriam and I arriving somewhat late to a Sukkot celebration around the swimming pool at Ramat Yohanan, and there were plenty of people standing around and we looked for a place to stand and then she found a bale of straw to sit on near the front and then there appeared to be some confusion as the lady who was to lead the children's singing was frantically looking about and then discovered that Miriam was sitting on the folded banner that had the words to their song!

Miriam used to rest in bed after we ate in the afternoon and listen to her classical music (I gave her Grandma Vivian Hoover's classical albums) and read The Jerusalem Post and then sigh how she hated politics, comment that she was weary of world news, but she would continue to read the newspapers and listen every hour on the hour to the news on the radio as I read a book or wrote in her living room (where she displayed the Austrian crystal glass castle I once gave her for a gift, which I called "the Kingdom of Messiah" -- because of its brilliance -- and Joe's paintings adorned her walls...Miriam had an artist and an author for her sons).

Every time I visited Israel, I would head straight for Miriam's. The last time I saw her was in 1995 when her friends told me she had Alzheimer's. She had been moved from her apartment to the nursing home. They told me if she would remember anybody, it would be me. I went in and she was strapped in a wheelchair, wanting out, and wanting me to get her out and speaking German to me. (Miriam knew German, English, Polish and Hebrew). She held on to my arm so tightly, looking frightened, and I said, "Miriam, it's David. I'm American. Speak Hebrew or English. I don't know German." She was crying and I was crying. Another Miriam, originally from Berlin, was very angry about Miriam's deteriorating situation and said the Germans who doubted the Holocaust should hear Miriam reliving it and crying out for her mother, as if once wasn't enough! Henia wrote me that Miriam was born in Poland June 29, 1915 and died January 4, 1997 at Ramat Yohanan and was buried there and "got a very fine monument at our cemetery."

For greater insight into my beloved Miriam, I'll close with portions of a March 18, 1988 letter of commendation she wrote on my behalf to Joseph Tkach, Jr. of the Worldwide Church of God:

...my kibbutz son David Hoover...first came to our kibbutz seven years ago...he posted [actually somebody else did in the communal dining room] an article he had written about his struggle to free himself from drugs for all the members to read. A very brave thing to do since drug addiction is here considered a terrible social and personal crime. I invited him to visit me and we subsequently got to know each other well. David stayed on our kibbutz six months the first time. He worked hard and thus earned the respect of many members here. There was never any trouble. Quite the contrary. And David shared with us his Christian beliefs that had given him such strength to overcome his addiction...When I say he shared his beliefs I mean that he offered but did not force them upon us. As might be well known to you we are sensitive to any aggressive presentations of Christianity that denigrate our Jewish heritage. But David has a deep and affectionate respect for it. I myself am not religious and must admit that I am sometimes bewildered by his impressive knowledge of the Bible and Jewish customs but if it give his life fulfillment I am very happy for him...Over the past seven years David has come to Ramat Yohanan to celebrate Sukkot. He has stayed with me and is a very well behaved guest. He also corresponds with me regularly and started my subscription to Plain Truth which I do read with interest. Recently I continued the subscription. I might add that several other members of our kibbutz now read it too...I think confidence can be placed in him to represent your church here in the Middle East...

Sincerely,
Shalom,
Miriam Weiss

I yearn to return to Zion and visit Miriam's gravesite, but Ramat Yohanan just wouldn't be the same without her. And the dining room without Miriam or Henia...

Other articles that mention Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan:

Israel Work History (Worldwide Church of God)

Herbert W Armstrong and Worldwide Church of God Mentioned in Israeli Newspaper

Joseph Isn't Jewish!

David Ben-Ariel is a Christian-Zionist writer and author of Beyond Babylon: Europe's Rise and Fall. With a focus on the Middle East and Jerusalem, his analytical articles help others improve their understanding of that troubled region. Check out the Beyond Babylon blog.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Vatican delegate to shun Holocaust remembrance service

Vatican delegate to shun Holocaust remembrance

Lilach Shoval
Published: 04.12.07, 02:11 / Israel News

Vatican ambassador to Israel Monsignor Antonio Franco has refused to participate in annual Holocaust Day memorial services at the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem.

Franco is shunning the service due a photograph displayed at the Holocaust museum depicting then-Pope Pius XII. The caption beside the photo comments on the pope's dubious reaction to the murder of Jews during the Holocaust...

******

If the Jewish Homeland of Israel were a self-respecting country, they would bar the Vatican delegate from attending any Holocaust remembrance service since its hypocrisy would stink to high Heaven.

Let the bloody Vatican return the Temple treasures they hold hostage; release the Jewish manuscripts and artifacts they've refused to let go; acknowledge their role in the infamous ratlines; stop aiding and abetting the Nazi-Muslim demand for an accursed "Palestine" carved out of the Promised Land of Israel; cease and desist immediately from undermining Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem and a host of other evils they're accomplice to.