Anne Frank in a video

STARZ Channel to Air Simon Wiesenthal Center Documentaries in Honor of Holocaust Remembrance

STARZ Channel to Air Simon Wiesenthal Center Documentaries in Honor of Holocaust Remembrance

All Five Films to Air October 1st on IndiePlex to Honor the Anniversary of the Mass Execution of Over 1,000 Remaining Jewish Inhabitants in Luboml, Poland in 1942

All films are slated to air on Starz’s IndiePlex channel on October 1, 2009 beginning at 4:00 p.m. (et/pt). The October 1st premiere date marks the anniversary of the mass, open execution of more than 1,000 of the remaining Jewish inhabitants of the German-controlled town of Luboml, Poland in 1942. The documentaries are scheduled to air again in April 2010 alongside an array of feature films on Starz Cinema and Encore Drama, in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Month.

“Starz acquired the documentaries at the suggestion of Brian Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast Corporation, who has long been associated with The Simon Wiesenthal Center,” said Robert B. Clasen, Chairman and CEO, Starz, LLC. “As a company, Starz applauds the efforts of the center and is honored to air programming that supports the legacy of Mr. Wiesenthal and the organization’s commendable mission.”

Please note that all times are ET/PT and dates/months listed below are subject to change.

Genocide (Thursday, October 1 at 4:00 p.m. on IndiePlex) won an Academy Award® for Best Documentary, Features (1982) and is narrated by Elizabeth Taylor and Orson Welles. Others in the documentary include Simon Wiesenthal and archived footage of Winston Churchill, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Adolf Hitler, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Josef Goebbels and Charles de Gaulle. Genocide is also set to run on Encore Drama on October 6 at 5:45 a.m. and on October 22 at 7:35 a.m.

I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life and Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal, (Thursday, October 1 at 5:30 p.m. on IndiePlex), narrated by Academy Award®-winning actress Nicole Kidman, is a comprehensive look at the life and legacy of humanitarian Simon Wiesenthal. It features previously unseen archival film and photos, as well as interviews with Wiesenthal’s longtime associates, government leaders from around the world, friends and family members. Those appearing in the documentary include Simon Wiesenthal, Frederick Forsyth, Marvin Hier, and Ben Kingsley (2007 original release date). I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life and Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal is also set to run on Starz Cinema on October 19 at 12:35 p.m. and on October 28 at 2:30 p.m.

Liberation (Thursday, October 1 at 7:20 p.m. on IndiePlex) is narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, Jean Boht, Sir Ben Kingsley, Miriam Margolyes and Patrick Stewart (1994 original release date). Liberation is also set to run on Encore Drama on October 15 at 5:45 a.m. and on October 19 at 2:05 p.m.

The Long Way Home (Thursday, October 1 at 9:00 p.m. on IndiePlex) won an Academy Award® for Best Documentary, Features (1998) and is narrated by actor Morgan Freeman. The Long Way Home chronicles the experiences of Jewish Holocaust survivors who were moved into Displaced Persons' camps after World War II, and eventually permitted to begin new lives in Israel and the U.S. Those in the documentary include Edward Asner, Martin Landau, Miriam Margolyes, David Paymer, Nina Siemaszko, and Michael York.

Unlikely Heroes, (Thursday, October 1 at 11:00 p.m. on IndiePlex) narrated by Sir Ben Kingsley, highlights seven previously unknown stories of men and women involved in the Jewish resistance of the Holocaust, who exemplified extraordinary resistance, courage and human dignity during the most desperate days of the Holocaust (2003 original release date). Unlikely Heroes is also set to run on Starz Cinema on October 26 at 3:50 a.m.

Accused Nazi Guard John Demjanjuk Deported to Germany

Accused Nazi Guard John Demjanjuk Deported to Germany

Monday , May 11, 2009

AP
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CLEVELAND —
Federal agents carrying John Demjanjuk in a wheelchair put him on a small jet Monday to be deported to Germany, where the retired autoworker is accused of being a Nazi death camp guard in World War II.

Demjanjuk, 89, arrived in an ambulance at Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport after spending several hours with U.S. immigration officials at a downtown federal building. Airport commissioner Khalid Bahhur confirmed Demjanjuk was on the plane and that its destination is Germany.

The deportation came four days after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider Demjanjuk's request to block deportation and about 3 1/2 years after he was last ordered deported.

The Ukrainian-born Demjanjuk is wanted on a Munich arrest warrant that accuses him of 29,000 counts of accessory to murder as a guard at the Sobibor death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. The legal case spans three decades.

Click here to see photos.

Chronology of the John Demjanjuk Case

A German Justice Ministry spokesman, Ulrich Staudigl, said the retired autoworker was expected to be in Germany by Tuesday.

Demjanjuk denies Germany's accusations, saying he was held by the Germans as a Soviet prisoner of war and was never a camp guard. Demjanjuk's family fought deportation, arguing he is in poor health and might not survive the trans-Atlantic journey.

Rabbi Marvin Hier, a founder of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, said Demjanjuk deserves to be punished and that this will probably be the last trial of someone accused of Nazi war crimes.

"His work at the Sobibor death camp was to push men, women and children into the gas chamber," Hier said in a statement. "He had no mercy, no pity and no remorse for the families whose lives he was destroying."

The center was established to locate and help bring to justice Nazi war criminals.

The deportation capped a day in which Demjanjuk said goodbye to his family and was visited by two priests at his home in Seven Hills, a Cleveland suburb.

He then slipped quietly into an ambulance parked in his driveway, his family members standing at the edge of the garage and holding up a floral-patterned bedsheet to block the view of reporters and photographers across the street.

Earlier Monday, his son, John Demjanjuk Jr., said an appeal in a U.S. court would go ahead even if his father isn't in the country.

"Given the history of this case and not a shred of evidence that he ever hurt one person let alone murdered anyone anywhere, this is inhuman even if the courts have said it is lawful," Demjanjuk Jr. said.

Also Monday, a Berlin court rejected an appeal aimed at preventing deportation.

Once in Germany, Demjanjuk will be brought before a judge and formally charged. He will also be given the opportunity to make a statement to the court, in keeping with standard procedure, Staudigl said.

Demjanjuk is expected to be held in the medical unit of a Munich prison. The government has said preparations have been made at the facility to ensure he will receive appropriate care.

The case dates to 1977 when the Justice Department moved to revoke Demjanjuk's U.S. citizenship, alleging he hid his past as a Nazi death camp guard.

Demjanjuk had been tried in Israel after accusations surfaced that he was the notorious "Ivan the Terrible" at the Treblinka death camp in Poland. He was found guilty in 1988 of war crimes and crimes against humanity, a conviction overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court.

A U.S. judge revoked his citizenship in 2002 based on U.S. Justice Department evidence showing he concealed his service at Sobibor and other Nazi-run death and forced-labor camps.

An immigration judge ruled in 2005 he could be deported to Germany, Poland or Ukraine. Munich prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for him in March.

http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,519863,00.html

The United States Holocaust Museum Collections

http://www.ushmm.org/research/collections/overview/

The Collections Division
The Collections Division of the United States Holocaust Memorial Musuem consists of eight branches: Archives, Art and Artifacts, Film and Video, Music, Oral History, Photo Archives, Collections Management, and Conservation. Together these branches are responsible for the acquisition, registration, preservation, storage, cataloging, reference, and reproduction of the thousands of collections housed in the Museum and displayed in its exhibitions, publications, and on its Web site.

The Collections Division identifies, collects, and preserves the documentary, photographic, and artifactual record of the Holocaust and makes it available for research and display. It seeks to enhance the accessibility of this material through user-friendly databases, online catalogs, web presentations, and extensive reference service.

International Archival Programs Division
The archival evidence of the Holocaust, consisting of millions of pages of documents, is scattered to virtually every country and clearly shows the enormity of the crime and its implications. This massive documentary record is endangered, however, and the dispersal of materials hinders expedient and productive use by researchers and survivors alike. The International Archival Programs Division of the Museum works to collect, preserve, and make available evidence of the Holocaust to scholars, survivors, and the general public.

The discovery of over 500,000 pages of Holocaust-era Jewish community records in Vienna a few years ago illustrates why it is so important to reproduce and preserve Holocaust documentation.

The Museum Collection
The Museum has one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of Holocaust-related materials in the world. Included in its holdings are works of art, artifacts, photographs, archival documents, manuscripts, historical footage, music and sound recordings, and oral testimonies.

Scope
The Collections of the Museum cover a broad range of subject areas pertaining to the history of the Holocaust. These include:

* Jewish life in Europe before the Holocaust
* The rise to power of the Nazi movement in Germany and Austria
* The flight of European refugees from Nazi Germany and refugee communities around the world
* Nazi racial science and the propaganda campaign against Jews, Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), and the mentally and physically handicapped
* Nazi anti-Jewish policy in the 1930s, from the boycott through Kristallnacht
* Nazi persecution of Roma and Sinti (Gypsies), homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, political dissidents, Poles, and Soviet prisoners of war
* The invasion and occupation of eastern and western Europe
* The roundup, deportation, and resettlement of European Jewry
* The mass shootings conducted by mobile killing squads
* Ghettos, concentration camps, and killing centers
* Nazi collaborators and satellite states
* Resistance, rescue, and life in hiding during the Holocaust
* The liberation of Europe and the disclosure of Nazi concentration camps
* The war crimes trials
* The displaced persons camps
* Legal and illegal immigration to Palestine
* Postwar immigration to the Americas
* Holocaust assets and restitution
* Holocaust memorials and commemoration

Types of Materials
The Museum’s holdings include:

* Art: period drawings, prints, sculpture, posters, and other creative works
* Books and pamphlets
* Broadsides, advertisements, and maps
* Film and video historical footage, audio and video oral testimonies; music and sound recordings
* Furnishings, architectural fragments, models, machinery, and tools
* Microfilm and microfiche of government documents and other official records
* Personal effects, ritual objects, jewelry, musical instruments, and numismatics (currency)
* Personal papers: documents, correspondence, memoirs, and scrapbooks
* Photographs and photo albums
* Textiles: uniforms, costumes, clothing, badges, armbands, flags, and banners

Donations
The Archives Branch seeks to augment its collection of personal papers, oral history, music and sound recordings, films, and original photographs related to the Holocaust. If you have such materials and are willing to donate them to the Museum, please contact the Archives at (202) 488-6113.

Georg Duckwitz

It is one of the great untold stories of World War II: In 1943, in the German occupied Denmark, the Danes find out - thanks to Georg F. Duckwitz, a courageous German maritime attaché - that all 7,500 Danish Jews are about to be rounded up and deported to the Nazi death camps. The Danish people make their own decision: it's not going to happen ..

In August, 1943, a state of emergency was declared in Denmark, and the Nazis decided that they could now move against the Jews. In September Hitler approved the deportation of the Danish Jews and Werner Best of the SS, Hitler's chief in Denmark, received the final order. Now the Nazis were prepared to deport the 7,500 Jews, starting at 10 PM. on 1 October 1943.

Two German passenger ships, docked in Copenhagen’s port, were ready to ship approximately 5,000 Jews to Germany on their way to the kz camp Theresienstadt. Buses were to take the remaining 2,500.

Sir Martin Gilbert tells in his excellent book The Righteous how Georg Duckwitz, posted to Denmark before the war, learned of the deportation plans on 11 September 1943. At great danger to himself he flew to Berlin two days later to try to have the plan set aside, but in vain. Two weeks later he flew to the Swedish capital, Stockholm, to discuss with Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson the possibility of the Danish Jews being smuggled across Oresund, the narrow belt of water to Sweden.

Finally Georg Duckwitz risked everything and leaked out the deportation order to a leading Danish Social Democrat, Hans Hedtoft. Hedtoft later recalled:

"I was sitting in a meeting when Duckwitz asked to see me. 'The disaster is going to take place', he said. 'All details are planned. Your poor fellow citizens are going to be deported to an unknown destination'. Duckwitz's face was white from indignation and shame .."

According to Duckwitz, 1 October was set as the zero hour and Hans Hedtoft immediately warned C.B. Henriques, the head the Jewish Community, and Dr. Marcus Melchior, the acting chief Rabbi of the Krystalgade Synagogue. They took immediate action ..

The word was passed and the Danes responded quickly, organizing a nationwide effort to smuggle the Jews by sea to neutral Sweden. Risking their own lives, the Danes dropped everything to help family members, neighbors, or friends and offered their support, conveying warnings and finding places for the Jews to hide. The Danes felt that persecution of minorities was a breach of Danish culture and they were not prepared to stand for it.

From all strata of Danish society and in all parts of the country, clergymen, civil servants, doctors, store owners, farmers, fishermen and teachers protected the Jews. A taxi driver was reported to have telephoned every person with a Jewish name he could find in the telephone directory.

The rescue of the Danish Jews is an inspiring story from a terrible time in human history. In most other Nazi-occupied countries, the Germans found it easy to deport the Jews. No one defended them the way the Danes did. Denmark was also different and special in another way. Almost everywhere else in Europe, returning Jews found their homes had been broken into, and everything of value stolen. When the Danish Jews returned, they discovered that their homes, pets, gardens and personal belongings were cared for by their neighbors.

Almost the entire Jewish population of Denmark was rescued and survived the war years, mostly in neutral Sweden and a few hundred in Theresienstadt under the distant but constantly protective concern of the Danes.

After the war Georg Duckwitz served as Germany's Ambassador to Denmark. He has been recognized by numerous Jewish organizations. In 1971, he was honored at Yad Vashem for his efforts to assist the Danish Jews in escaping to Sweden.

Duckwitz died in 1973.


http://www.shoah.dk/Courage/Duckwitz.htm

Ban calls on world to fight Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism and bigotry

Ban calls on world to fight Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism and bigotry

27 January 2009 – Over six decades after 6 million Jews, nearly a third of the total, and countless other minorities were butchered in the Nazi German Holocaust, it is more vital than ever to learn from the tragedy to prevent further atrocities, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned today.

“We must continue to examine why the world failed to prevent the Holocaust and other atrocities since. That way, we will be better armed to defeat anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance,” he said in a message marking the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

“We must continue to teach our children the lessons of history's darkest chapters. That will help them do a better job than their elders in building a world of peaceful coexistence. We must combat Holocaust denial, and speak out in the face of bigotry and hatred,” he added in the message, read at a ceremony at UN Headquarters in New York by Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro.

Mr. Ban noted that new initiatives in Holocaust remembrance and education have given an authentic basis for hope, which is the theme of this year’s observance, the fourth since the General Assembly instituted the annual commemoration.

“But we can and must do more if we are to make that hope a reality,” he stressed. “We must uphold the standards and laws that the United Nations has put in place to protect people and fight impunity for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Our world continues to be plagued by ruthless violence, utter disregard for human rights, and the targeting of people solely for who they are.”

As well as the ceremony, chaired by Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information Kiyo Akasaka, the UN marked the occasion with panel discussions and other events, including an initiative by the UN Department of Public Information (DPI) called the “Footprints of Hope,” which brings the global network of the UN Information Centres together with local schools to further youngsters’ understanding of the Holocaust and their respect for human rights through documentary and film resources.

A new exhibit has also opened in the Visitors’ Lobby about the Nazi regime called “Deadly Medicine: Creating the Master Race.”

General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto echoed Mr. Ban’s call to the world to learn the lesson of the Holocaust. “We need to move beyond our statements of grief and memory, however powerfully felt, and work to develop new ways of thinking about the Holocaust, about genocide, about the apparently bottomless capacity for peoples’ cruelty to each other,” he said in a message.

“That capacity is shared by all of us. At their core, all genocides, all holocausts, start with the alienation, demonization and the marginalization of the “Other” – those citizens of another religion, another race, ethnicity, another set of political ideas, or another sexual orientation than our own,” he added, calling for a struggle against intolerance and for relationships that replace “us and them” with “we and ours.”

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29679&Cr=holocaust&Cr1=

David Tennenbaum

David Tennenbaum was born on March 11, 1931, the son of Jozef and Fanny Tennenbaum. The family led a happy life in Lvov, Poland, where his father owned a fruit import/export business.

The Tennenbaum family's feelings of security collapsed, however, following the Nazi occupation of Lvov in the summer of 1941. In August 1942 the family was herded into the Kleparow ghetto on the outskirts of Lvov. A few months later eleven-year-old David and his mother escaped from the ghetto.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum tells how a Ukrainian professor - a family friend - assisted in their escape and found them a temporary hiding place at the home of an ethnic German in Lvov. Ironically, the son of the professor was a member of the Ukrainian SS then serving on the eastern front. The professor secured false papers for David and his mother and found them a long term hiding place in December 1942 in the village of Zimna Woda.

http://www.shoah.dk/Courage/david.htm

They were taken in by an elderly, retired, schoolteacher named Mrs. Sokolinska. The timing of their move to Zimna Woda was very fortunate - shortly after they left their first hiding place it was raided and those living there were arrested.

Fanny hid under name of Franciszka Maria Wieczorkowska, while David, who had grown his hair long, passed as her daughter, Teresa Marja Wieczorkowska. He also pretended to be retarded so as to avoid having to take the required physical examination to attend school. David passed his time playing by himself and reading among the many books in the house.

In September 1944 David and his mother were liberated by the Soviet army. His father had disappeared - presumably he was deported to the Janowska KZ camp and murdered.