Poland's Deplorable Part in the Holocaust

Nadene Goldfoot                                           

Poland just passed a "Polish Holocaust Law" in their attempt to cover up the historic truth of their deplorable behavior during the Holocaust from the late 30's to probably past 1945 when the war was over.  "The bill would outlaw blaming the Polish state or nation for crimes of the Holocaust committed in Poland."  

 Do they plan on outlawing history books?  How about the movie, The Pianist?  In this adaptation of the autobiography "The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945," Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody), a Polish Jewish radio station pianist, sees Warsaw change gradually as World War II begins. Szpilman is forced into the Warsaw Ghetto. 

Each country in Eastern Europe, particularly those in Catherine the Great's "Pale of Settlement," where she caused the Jews to be confined so as they couldn't live in "Russia proper,"to live, suffered in the hands of that country's government.  In my reading, I believe Ukraine was one of the worst.  Poland wasn't much better.
                                                                         

Warsaw Ghetto, roundup of Jews

From what I see, the citizens of Poland who were not Jews aided and abetted the Nazis in not only their hatred of Jews but their own survival, which is understandable.  They did it too well, though.  They were doing so much of the vileness going on in the killing of Jews.  They made it easier for these Nazis. Any who were not have been remembered in Israel as The Righteous Gentiles.  "Those recognized by Israel as Righteous Among the Nations are honored in a section of Yad Vashem known as the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations."
                                                                         

                                        Pogrom attack in a home in Poland-Fiddler on Roof scene                       

Scene of pogrom results  in Fiddler on the Roof
leaving for the USA or Palestine-to be Israel in 1948

  Jews were under strict laws and the Russian Gentiles would take out their cruelty on them with occasional Pogroms, one of which broke the legs of my teen-aged grandmother.  Americans might remember such things in "Fiddler on the Roof."  Though many Jews did immigrate from Poland during the late 1800's and early 1900's, many remained and were caught in the Holocaust.  Luckily for me, my grandmother and her sisters and brothers were one of the immigrants.  Her town of Lazdijai in Suwalki  had once been part of Lithuania, but in the fighting before the Holocaust era, it had fallen into Poland's hands as it was close to their border.  She and her family had previously gone through famines and that was topped with a great amount of anti-Semitism.

Before Poland passed this law, they had promised to meet with Israeli officials with a discussion, but broke that promise, so Israel is considering the recall of their ambassador.  The bill would outlaw blaming the Polish state or nation for crimes of the Holocaust committed in Poland." Do they think they can whitewash history that is filled with all sorts of documentation of their citizen's acts?  I hold one of the books that tells all about it.  It's The Holocaust" a history of the Jews of Europe during the 2nd World War by Martin Gilbert.  

Poland at the end of WWI was established as independent from Russia or anyone else and the economic position of Jews there deteriorated as a Polish middle-class pushed them out of trade, handicrafts and industry through anti-Semitism.  In 1938, the eve of the Holocaust, 300,000 Jewish men were unemployed and were emigrating on a large scale.  395,223 Jews left Poland from 1921 to 1937.  By 1939, Poland had over 3 million Jews.
                                                                   

Jews Rounded up and taken to Auschwitz

Nazi occupation took over and immediately set up ghettos in Warsaw, Lodz, Bialystok and other places but were a prelude to being turned into Concentration Camps and gas chambers.  Jews were brought to Poland from other parts of Europe for the gas chambers of death or the killing fields.

No one can forget the horrors that happened in Warsaw, Poland. In the beginning in 1941,  Jews were rounded up in a ghetto, and Jews suffered from starvation during a cold winter.  Children were freezing literally to death.  They stood in the streets with bare feet, knees and in torn clothing suffering.  A witness to this was Mr. Ringelblum who wrote that 70 children were found frozen to death on the steps of ruined houses.(p. 232).
                                                                         

Slaughter of Jews in fields, taking too long. Concentration camps were to become murder camps

For the Nazis had put the word out that they wanted to "eliminate a source of moral and physical pestilence (the Jews of Europe).  They were out do a "total cleansing," so in 1942 on July 21, the Germans seized 60 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto including 3 Jewish Council members while other Jews were shot outright in the streets or even in their homes.  The next day, the Polish railwayman, Franciszek Zabecki remembered about the train service from Warsaw to Treblinka with Jews they called "settlers."  The Poles swallowed the lie of them being "settlers."  They were of course going to their deaths.(p. 388).
                                                                         

Humiliation of Polish Jews by a Pole
as other Poles look on to enjoy the moment

Eight Jews who managed to leave the ghetto without permission on November 17th were given the death sentence.  They were caught in their search for food in the Aryan part of Warsaw.  Another witness, Kaplan, told how it was the Jewish police who were ordered to tie their hands and cover their eyes.  Two of those caught refused the eye covers.  The execution squad were Polish policemen who "wept bitterly" after shooting these 8.  SS officers attended the shooting.  So did Jakub Lejkin, a Jewish policeman who had dragged them from their cells.  We evidently had a few Jews involved who were totally crazy to have complied in such a dastardly act; not much of a Jew at all.

At the same time, Jews of Vilna, Lithuania were being deported by the thousands and tens of thousands and were being killed; children and women.  The Warsaw Ghetto incident was so shocking that those outside of it had sent word to Vilna to be warned.  It was too late.
                                                                       

Site of mass grave in Poland,
Anti-Jewish violence here after liberation!
It was Jews who was buried after mass killings in fields!

"40 miles NE of Warsaw in the gravel pits, the Germans set up a labour camp near the tiny rural station of Treblinka."  Those Jews of my era have all heard of Treblinka.  By 1942, it was a death camp.  So was Auschwitz.  The Nazis were in a rush to kill Jews and Treblinka along with other death camps were the centers to wipe ot  many hundreds of Jewish communities.  Chelmno was one of the smaller death camps in which 360,000 Jews were killed within a year.  A 5th camp was set up called Birkenau near Auschwitz  where Polish prisoners suffered cruel torments.
                                                                         

Auschwitz Concentration Camp

Poland itself was home to the following 4 main  Concentration Camps:

• Auschwitz-Birkenau, Poland. The most famous and largest of all Nazi camps because of its size and the large number of lives lost within the walls of this death camp.
• Belzec, Poland. ...
• Chelmno, Poland. ...
• Gross-Rosen, Poland.

                                                                     

   
Jews had lived in Poland since the 9th century, in the 800's.  We don't know for sure if they had immigrated there from Germany or Bohemia or from the kingdom of Kiev and the Byzantine Empire, but they were apparently  also coming in from Khazaria as well.  They were traders who in the Dark Ages had helped to open up the area to civilization.  They received their first charter in 905.  Jews, in order to live, were of a different religion, so they needed a charter.  The land suffered from Tartar invasions in 1240's that utterly devastated Poland.  To restore their economy, Polish kings had encouraged merchants from Germany to settle, and they were followed by the Jews.  This brought in Jews who settled to White Russia and Little Poland and to Lithuania in 1388/89.
                                                                             

A wedding in Poland 1893-painting of shtetl by Isaac Ashkenaziy

In a very Catholic country, Jews were prospering in economics, especially in Warsaw and Lodz and held key positions in foreign trade, timber, grain and metal trades.  By the end of the 19th century, Polish anti- Semites supported their clergy, and then the press launched a campaign against Jews.  The great majority of political groups joined them and by 1881 there was a large pogrom in Warsaw.

What happened?  At this point, Zionism took hold of the Jews who were praying 3 times a day anyway for the return to Zion (Jerusalem).  This was something they had been doing since 70 CE when their capital had been burned down by the Romans and their ancestors were taken as slaves or if luckier, had to flee from Roman soldiers.  This was also a period of vast immigration of Polish Jews to the USA.  WWI's end in 1917 had caused talks with Jewish leaders and European leaders through  the League of Nations in the creation of a Jewish Homeland out of the Ottoman Empire's 400 year old hold on "Palestine, a name given to land by the Romans in 132 in their anger at a Jewish uprising by General (Aluf) Bar Kokhba in which Bar Kokhba reheld Jerusalem for 3 years, giving the Romans a fight they hadn't had for some time.
                                                                     

City where so many Jews met a horrible death
From July 22 until September 12, 1942, German SS and police units, assisted by auxiliaries, carried out mass deportations from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center. During this period, the Germans deported about 265,000 Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka; they killed approximately 35,000 Jews inside the ghetto during the operation after so many had starved to death.

In response to this outrageous Polish Law, Israel is taking steps. 
"61 Knesset members from the coalition and opposition, outlined new legislation that would make denying the Holocaust or diminishing the role of Nazi collaborators a criminal offense under Israeli law."  

“The Polish attempts to rewrite history and to shut Holocaust survivors’ mouths is audacious, shocking and despicable. We will not allow the collaborators to hide behind the Nazis and deny their historic responsibility,” the Jerusalem Post quoted Knesset member Itzik Shmuly of the Zionist Union, one of the co-sponsors of the new law, as saying."

Even after the Holocaust, Poles kept on killing Jews.  No Nazi was there prodding them on.  The climax of pot-war killings came on July 4, 1946.  Three days earlier, an 8 year old Polish boy fromKielce, disappeared from him home but 2 days later he returned, claiming that he had been kept in a cellar by 2 Jews who wanted to kill him.  The truth was that he had stayed in a friend's home in a nearby village.  The friend told him what excuse to give. to his parents.  42 Jews were killed in one day as a result of that lie.  Almost all the Jews who were in one building were shot, stoned to death or killed with axes and blunt instruments.  In Kielce itself, Jews were murdered in their homes or dragged into streets and killed by the mob.  2 were little children.  4 were teenagers on their way to Palestine.  3 were officers in the Polish army.  7 were unnamed, unable to be identified, one was known to be a survivor of Birkenau because of his tattoo on his arm; B2969.
                                                                   

After this final pogrom, half of the Jews who had survived left Poland for Palestine, Western Europe, Britain, USA, Latin America and Australia.  I'm just amazed that there were Polish Jews who had survived the Holocaust.  Imagine doing that, living through such a horror only to come home and be slaughtered in another Pogrom of your ancestors.


Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia :  Poland
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2013/05/ukraines-massacre-of-jews-worse-than.html
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2017/04/escaping-romans-but-coming-to-pale-of.html  on Poland
 https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/161567c5f4870fa1
https://www.timesofisrael.com/lawmaker-proposes-israeli-legislation-to-counter-polish-holocaust-bill/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=e9820e7b59-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_02_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-e9820e7b59-55452413
THE HOLOCAUST, by Martin Gilbert, copyright 1985, 959 pages.
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/righteous-gentiles-and-holocaust-rescuers/
https://worldisraelnews.com/israeli-lawmakers-blast-polands-holocaust-denial-law/?utm_source=browser&utm_medium=push_notification&utm_campaign=PushCrew_notification_1517571229&pushcrew_powered=1
https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005069
Movies about Warsaw alone: The Pianist,   https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=wqZ0WpaBHInHjwSeuZPACw&q=movie+about+Warsaw+ghetto&oq=movie+about+Warsaw+ghetto&gs_l=psy-ab.3..0j0i22i30k1.7270.19030.0.21768.30.21.2.6.6.0.194.2815.0j20.20.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..2.28.2898.0..35i39k1j0i131k1j0i131i67k1j0i67k1j0i20i264k1j0i10k1j0i20i263i264k1j0i20i263k1.0.7HDW0X9t-4Q
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jews-in-poland/ picture

The Law of Return to Israel: Who and When Jews Returned

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

Jews suffered greatly when Jerusalem was taken by the Romans in 70 CE.  They were taken to Rome or other places as slaves.  Some managed to remain in Judah while others scattered to other parts of the Middle East.  It wasn't till May 14, 1948 that Israel was again re-created out of what the Ottoman Empire had taken of what was renamed as "Palestine."  This was because of the WWI when the Ottomans had lost the war-being they were on Germany's side

                    Israel is for the Ingathering of the Exiles

The Law of Return of 1950 gave legal sanction to all immigrant Jews. Israel was created as a haven for Jews who had suffered for 2,000 years from anti-Semitism in other countries for being what they were;  Jewish.  Judah  had been occupied by the Romans.  Jews had been blamed for killing Christ by causing him to be crucified, which was something that the Romans had done to thousands of Jews in Judah,  but Jews were blamed anyway being he had been Jewish even though they had denied causing this.   Jews had been the object of attacks by the Crusaders, the Spanish Inquisition, and then the Holocaust and actually were expulsed from countries or forcibly converted to Christianity.  Some communities had been annihilated even before the Holocaust.  They had not had the rights of citizens in these 2,000 years until after WWI.  In the Middle East they were treated as Dhimmis, which were not 1st class citizens.  There they were penalized in many ways for being Jewish.  The one country of safety was the USA, which had its share of anti-Semitism.
                                                                         

               Rome, parade of displaying Jewish artifacts stolen from Jerusalem

Now, what is a Jew?  There is no legal definition.  There are halachic concepts (rabinical law) and sociological ones.  By halacha, a Jew is a person born of a Jewish mother.  They can also be Jewish by conversion to Judaism.  Under 1970's amendment, the Law of Return grants Israeli nationality also to the spouse of any immigrant Jew and his descendants for 2 generations and to their spouses equally whether they were Jewish by halacha or not.
                                                                           

The population of Israel in May 1948 was 650,000.  By May 1972 it was 3,164,000.  This shows that 1,400,000 were immigrants (olim).  Immigrants entered in 4 large waves of immigration.  They have continued to arrive throughout all these years according to their own needs as well.

1.  May 1948-end of 1951:  754,800 came from :
     a. Holocaust in Europe mainly from Poland, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia.
     b. Iraq (121,000 out of 130,000); Yemen (44,000 out of 45,000); Libya (30,500 out of 35,000).

2. 1955-1957:  165,000 came from:
     a. Morocco and Tunisia
     b. Poland and other countries such as Romania

3. 1961-1964:  215,000 came from:
    a. Eastern Europe
    b. North Africa

4. 1967-to end 1972; 200,000 on came from:
   a. North and South America
   b. Western Europe
  c. Soviet Union
                                                                     

1981:  Here I am in my Sachnoot apartment in Safed sitting on my bed-with pillows to look like a sofa in front of my barred window.  That's because we are on the ground floor.  We just moved in after living in Haifa for 10 months attending the ulpan (school).

5.  1980-2013 My husband and I made aliyah in 1980  and were in a large group of teachers of English from the Soviet Union.  We were one of the few actual professional teachers from the West and went through a 10 month program to earn our certification to teach English in Israel first.  There were over 40 in our class that was later divided into Hebrew language groups to bring us up to a level of higher ability.

19,135 olim arrived in 2011
18,691 olim arrives in 2012
Of them 2,432 were from Ethiopia.  Western Europe olim were 3,243 in 2012.  Soviet Union olim were 7,755 and France olim were 1,907.  North America had 3,512 olim in 2011 and 3,389 in 2012.  The UK had 560 in 2011 and 698 in 2012.

 The census now shows that there are 6 million Jews and 1.7 million Arabs living in Israel.  As conditions have become worse towards Jews in France and Sweden with much anti-Semitism, they have been forced to move to Israel. About 3 years after we arrived, Ethiopians were coming to Safed.
                                                                       

                                                               Ethiopian immigrant
   
6.  The Lost 10 Tribes of Israel:-taken by Assyria 721 BCE and Babylon 597-586 BCE
     a. Returning from Ethiopia
     b. Africa-Masai
    c. Asia-Myanmar(Burma), Bnei Israel from Bombay, India, Bnei Menashe of India
    d. Middle East, Mashadi of Mashad, Iran

In integrating Jews from 2 separate cultures from the East (Sephardis, Mizrachim) and from the West (Ashkenazis) ,  we find that the  half of the immigrants that came from Muslim countries in North Africa and Asia had to live in poverty and  the basic values were those of a traditional and authoritarian society similar to the Muslim country they had left.  Most had very large families.

The other half came from European and American countries where the basic values were of a modern democratic and technological society.   This caused a cultural gap which gave immigrants from the developed countries an advantage over the Jews from the Muslim countries so the administration had to be devoted to narrowing this gap.

Education has been the means to do this.  Only 13% of children in 1956 from Asia and Africa attended high school  but by 1969-1970 there were 44% attending.  At the same time, children from Europe and America had 41% attending in 1956 and this went up to 77% by 1969-1970.   By 1970, 18.5% of marriages taking place were of mixed cultural origins.  In other words, the means to even out the disparity was through marriage.  It has increased since then.  Another means is through serving in the IDF.  It has erased differences in sex and in origins.  A Jew is just a Jew today in Israel, back to the way we were before 70 CE.  No differences.

The big population centers in Israel were in the coastal regions between Tel Aviv and Haifa.  New towns and development centers have been built.  This is where many of the immigrants have settled.  They have gone to Eilat, Dimona and Arad in the Negev; Kiryat Gat, Ashkelon and Beit Shemesh in the center;  and Karmiel which is almost all American and Kiryat Sh'mona in the Galilee.  I settled in Safed which is also in the Galilee simply because it reminded me of Oregon with all the fir trees and because it was higher up.  We went where jobs were available.  Being a teacher, I found that Jerusalem, which is a highly desirous city to live in, was already full of teachers and a more expensive place to live.  Teachers were wanted in development towns.  Israel managed to send Russians to the desert and Ethiopians to Safed where it was very cold, but they had to consider where available housing was at that time of immigration.  It gave us lots to laugh about.  Russians preferred to be in Tel Aviv where culture was at the height with music and theater.  We all had our preferences.

It is important to Israel to reclaim Jews who have been found to be still practicing Jewish  beliefs after all these years of separation.  They have been studied by rabbis and even have taken dna tests for their proof.  Through one or both of these tests, they have been accepted as one of our Lost brothers' descendants.  This has been prophesied in the Torah to happen at the end of days.  It's very exciting to us to find that many are still living and claiming their proud connection to the rest of us.  To me, they have gone through much pain to continue their heritage.

Resource: Facts About Israel, Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem
http://www.jewishvoice.org/messianic-education/messianic-vision/lost-tribes-of-israel.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/11/india-burmas-lost-menashe-tribe-of.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/12/lost-tribe-of-israel-living-in-india.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/04/10-lost-tribes-and-what-happened-to.html
http://www.jta.org/2013/01/21/news-opinion/world/israel-sees-slight-drop-in-jewish-immigration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return

Part I: Remembering Germany in the Holocaust and the British Kindertransport

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                  

                                                           Berlin in 1930's  
April 8th is designated as Yom Ha-Sho'ah or Holocaust Day, a time set aside to remember what had happened to us in WWII.  It will be most likely commemorated on the 7th which is a Sunday.

 In January 1933 Hitler and his National Socialist German Workers Party came to power in Germany.  Little did people know that this meant the near end of the Jews who lived in the world, for he set about to exterminate all.

Jews had lived in the German lands since Roman times when Jerusalem fell to the Romans in 70 CE.  By the 19th century German Jewry finally gained full civic-equality in a united Germany in 1870.  Though there were strong feelings of anti-Jewish prejudice, the political anti-Semitic groups met with failure.  A major part of the German people valued their Jewish citizens and most at least tolerated them.  WWI started in August 1914 and German Jews enlisted to serve the country they loved.  They lost the war, and this outcome changed Germany.

At this time there were 600,000 Jews living in Germany which was 1% of their population.  1/3 lived in the capital, Berlin,  making up 4% of the population there.  70% lived in large cities with 100,000+ population.  The rest lived in small towns and villages.  My uncle was born in Westerburg, Hildsheim Niedersachsen, then lived in Boppard.  Nearly 1 out of 5 Jews lived in small towns by 1933.

3/4 of the Jews had jobs in trade, commerce, the financial sector and the professions.  My uncle's parents were sausage-makers and did things like walk a cow to market, something he at age 18 was arrested for.  Jews were 3 times better off than the general population in having a salary coming in.  Jewish firms were outstanding in the department store business and owned 25% of smaller retail outlets and 30% clothing stores.  Non-Jews got the impression that Jews were "everywhere."  In Berlin Jews were the face of commerce, medicine and law but in reality were only 11% of all doctors and 16% of all lawyers in Germany.   In actuality, today Jews make up only 0.02% of the entire world population since the Holocaust slaughtered 6 million of them.

Rural areas had their above average Jews as well.  Jews handled 1/4 of all wholesale agricultural trade and in some districts cattle dealing and grain marketing was largely in Jewish hands.  These Jews were usually better off than the farmers and artisans around them and they often imported modern things and ideas into the countryside.  Several great publishing houses were Jewish-owned.  Jews were above the normal % among writers and journalists, in the theater and in the film industry.  (These areas found Jews in them because for so long Jews have not been allowed to own land, and their talents developed in these fields.) Jews were found to be in the middle class and rather conservative, but in politics they supported the liberal and democratic center parties or the moderate socialist party.

A big section of the German Jewish population was poor.  The depression hit the Jewish community as well. In 1932 over 31.5% of Jewish employees in Berlin were out of work.  1/4 of the Jews were on charity. Of these, most were recent immigrants from Poland and Russia that came between 1880 and the 1920's.  In 1933 these immigrants made up 1/5th of all German Jews.  They were small merchants, itinerant traders, shopkeepers, tailors, artisans and industrial workers.  Most were religiously orthodox.  Most of  the long established  Jews of Germany had belonged to the Jewish Reform movement or the Liberal movements.  German Jews had become less and less religiously observant as they had become integrated into German society.

By the postwar years, 25% of Jewish men and 16% of the Jewish women were marrying outside their faith.  That they had become acculturated and assimilated made the Jews shocked with disbelief by the strength of the anti-Semitism that came along with  Hitler.  We all know the story that 6 million Jews were rounded up and forced into ovens.  People my age grew up with nothing in the newspapers but the progress of American troops fighting in Europe.  Few of us heard about how Britain saved more than 10,000 Jewish children, most being Jewish.  .

Norbert Wolheim and Nicholas Winton were heroic rescuers of children from the Holocaust.  They brought out children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia.   Only 25 years old, Wolheim  began organizing the Kindertransport in Berlin.  He acted as an escort on several occasions and returned each time to Germany to continue his work, putting himself in harm's way.  He ended up in Auschwitz with his wife and 3 year old son, and he alone survived.  29 year old Winton was a London stockbroker who visited Prague in December 1938.  He was " horrified at what he saw in the refugee camps, so struggled to bring 664 Czech children to England by flouting British government rules and bureaucratic red tape."  After the war most of the children found out that their parents had been   murdered in the concentration camps.

Lory Cahn nee Lory Gruenberger was born in Breslau when it was still part of Germany.  At age 14 she was slated to leave for England on the Kindertransport but at the last moment her father couldn't bring himself to part with her and at the end of 1941 she and her parents were deported to Theresienstadt where she was confined for 1/12 years before being separated from her parents.  Then she was sent to Auschwitz.  For the rest of the war she was transferred from one concentration camp to another until she was liberated at Bergen-Belsen weighing 58 lbs.  She married and and moved to  the USA.

After living in Germany what seemed to be forever, Germany turned on the Jews.  German Jews could not get out easily.  It took tons of money at a time when marks were worthless and other countries would not take them in because they were Jewish.  Even the USA had a quota with the demand that they be backed up by someone who took the responsibility of their financial situation.  "Most foreign countries, including the United States, Canada, Britain, and France, were unwilling to admit very large numbers of refugees."South American countries only took people with baptism papers.  And so, even in "Palestine," a ship was turned back that was full of Jews by the British!  At a time when we needed a country of our own, we couldn't get into the one designated by the League of Nations to be our Jewish Homeland.  G-d forbid it might upset the Arabs!

It seems to me that the Nazis killed off many of the employers of their country, making their economic situation even worse.  "The Nazis identified Jews as a race and defined this race as "inferior." They also spewed hate-mongering propaganda that unfairly blamed Jews for Germany's economic depression and the country's defeat in World War I (1914-1918)."

What surprises me is that Jews have returned to live in Germany.   However, after this horrific experience, Germany is dead set against its recurrence.  They teach about the holocaust in their schools.  Nazi worship is against the law.  Anything to do with Nazis is illegal today.  Even so, Neo- Nazis are on the rise in Germany.

Resource: Book and Film: Into the Arms of Strangers, stories of the Kindertransport by Mark Jonathan Harris and Deborah Oppenheimer
http://www.amazon.com/Into-Arms-Strangers-Stories-Kindertransport/dp/B00005MEPJ/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1365104774&sr=1-2&keywords=Into+the+Arms+of+Strangers starring Judi Dench, Alexander Gordon, Lory Cahn and Kurt Fuchel
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history/Modern_History/1914-1948/The_Holocaust/Early_Stages_of_Prosecution.shtml
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=134617
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17514394
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/02/are-jews-trying-to-take-over-world.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2007/10/antisemitism-abounds.html

Ahmadinejad and Khamenei Plot to Destroy Israel

Nadene Goldfoot
Yesterday Muslims met in Tehran at their 26th International Conference on Islamic Unity. Both Shi'a and Sunni attended from 102 countries.   Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was there as a speaker.  Was it a coincidence that they met on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day?  While Pope Benedict XVI spoke saying that humanity must always be on guard against a repeat of murderous racism, Iran's leaders were saying the opposite.

Ahmadinejad said that their goal should be "terminating the issue of Zionism:"  in other words, to uproot Zionism.  To uproot something is to take the root out.  He advocates the removal of Israel.  He called Israel words like corrupt, uncultured, murderous, occupiers and killing oppressed people and he didn't want to sit idly by or have others be idle about it.

Is he the leader of this goal?  He bows to Mohammad to get the Muslim world united, so he is looking for such a leadership.  Evidently he's depending on Islam which would bring in the Mahdi, a savior who will appear before the appearance of Jesus. The Mahdi is a man.   He is the Islamic redeemer who will rule before the end of times, a messianic deliverer who will fill the Earth with justice and equity, restore true religion (Islam) , and usher in a short golden age lasting seven, eight, or nine years before the end of the world. This is a major part of the Shi'a Islamists which Iran follows.

The United States did not get by without his criticism, either.  Global economy is led by the USA, according to him.  The USA aims to transfer the money of the world nations into the pockets of certain governments.  Well, that has been going on for some time with Empires who have done that, including Muslim countries run by Kings and such..  The USA is not an empire.  He calls the USA the enemy of humanity.  So he wants a call for liberation of all world nations from the reign of Zionists.  He got back to his theme of Israel controlling the whole wide world again.

All this comes from the Holocaust denier who claims that the Holocaust was just a fictitious story.  .  Last year he told a German TV that the Holocaust was a colonialist plan that resulted from a lie that Israel uses to put down Palestinian Authority Arabs  He tells everyone that Jews never were rulers of this land.

Ahmadinejad is guilty of believing his own lies.  He told people that "Israel was the axis of unity of the world hegemonic powers" and now he believes it himself.  The lies are almost funny but I cry when I hear them.  Another is that 400 years ago the Zionists were ruling the major world affairs and behind the scenes of major power circles in political, media, monetary and banking organizations in the world and have been the decision makers.

The Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic also states to all that Israel would be wiped off the map.  He's saying this today, not back in 1947.  Only last summer he confidently stated that the "Palestinians" will eventually retake control of their motherland. He also stated that the superfluous and fake Zionist regime will disappear from the landscape of geography.   Both men completely disregard historic facts when tossing about these lies.  They try to rewrite history.

Are either of these men listening to Obama who is not too happy about joining Israel in defense against Iran's seemingly realistic plot to destroy Israel?  Are these Iranians alleviating Israel's worry about being hit with an A bomb? Quite the contrary.  They're saying things to really worry Israel and feel that soon they will become a target.  Let's face it.  Israel is a lot closer to Iran than the USA is.

What I see is a large nation of Iran extremely jealous of Israel's ability to return home once again and their accomplishments.  Israel is showing up all the Muslim nations in technology.  This is not a good show to people following Islam.  Here they're being shown up by a teeny nation that is now 7 million against Iran's 76,923,300 plus population.  How is it that these Israelis can do so much?  There are only 6 million Jews in Israel.  As for world population, Jews make up only 0.03% of the world.

What I also see is a religious group being stirred up by extremists in their midst that intend to destroy Israel and have been trying ever since Israel's existence for the past 64 years with Israel coming out on top.  The things that they said about Jews and Israel were lies they use to pardon their own inadequacies.  What their leaders threaten to do should be taken as seriously as Israel takes it.  Like the rattlesnake, many people warn first before they strike.  It builds up their courage.

Update-1/28/13:  9:28pm Israeli Acting Defense Minister Avi Dichter stating that, “Any explosion in Iran that doesn’t hurt people but hurts its assets is welcome.”

Israel’s biggest daily, Yediot Ahronot, led its Sunday paper with a headline: “The most significant incidence of sabotage in the Iranian nuclear program to date.”

Resource: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/wap/Item.aspx?type=0&item=164631
http://www.truthnet.org/islam/Islam-Bible/4Islambeliefs/index.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahdi
http://abna.ir/data.asp?lang=3&id=385270  on Islamic conference
Update: 3:24pm http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/kissinger-iran-nuclear-crisis/2013/01/27/id/487585?s=al&promo_code=12346-1

Palestinian Thinking: Holocaust a Myth

Nadene Goldfoot
How nice to think of a state next to Israel that teaches their children that the Holocaust was just a myth that Jews tell.  Something sure should change before this happens.  It goes along with the Palestinians not recognizing Israel. This follows the Muslim Brotherhood Charter of which Egypt is ruled.  John  Kerry is sure going to have his hands full as Secretary of State.  You can lead a horse to water, Kerry, but you can't make him drink. However, Thomas Friedman is dictating  from his desk that you should "blow the charade wide open  by trying to publicly show Iranian, Israelis and Palestinians that they really do have options that their leaders don't want them to see."  See?  It's going to be easy.  Does Friedman really have such chutzpa to think that all Israelis don't want peace?

I remember when a Prime Minister of Israel offered the Palestinians so much land that it had all of Israel gasping in shock and awe, and yet they refused the offer.  The problem is much deeper than Thomas Friedman understands.

Right now the Palestinian Human Rights Foundation's Dr. Mustafa Ahmed Abul Khair is saying that the Holocaust was just a myth.  He wants Israel to pay Egypt $500 million dollars for damages.  His reasoning is because Israel has been paid by Germany a financial compensation.  He is an Egyptian professor of international law.  Now, if he believes that the Holocaust was a myth, he must have some pretty wild opinions of international law.

What damages is Khair referring to?  1973's war when Egypt attacked Israel along with every Arab they could pull into the fight on Yom Kippur when all Jews were praying in synagogues?   It must have been our 400 year stay in Egypt when my ancestors slaved for the Pharaoh that we learned the term, Chutzpah, for I say that Khair has chutzpah to think the way he does.  .

Resource: http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/01/23/palestinian-human-rights-foundation-calls-holocaust-a-myth/
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2013/01/palestinian-human-rights-foundation.html
Oregonian newspaper 1/24/13  page B13 Commentary:  Break all the rules-Crating change in the real world
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/History/Modern+History/Israel+wars/

Alfred de Zayas: UN Human Rights Blunder

Nadene Goldfoot
The UN must stay up nights trying to think up ways to gang up on Israel.  Yesterday they adopted a resolution ratifying 22 resolutions against Israel and only 4 against others in the world. they have also  appointed in March another special Rapporteur, Alfred de Zayas as the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, which is an anti-West mandate written by Cuba's Communist regime.  Of course he's Cuban-born. This makes him eligible to be on a UN committee of Human Rights, comprising such countries  as" Congo, China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia, and has as its Vice President a country, Mauritania, that is considered the world’s worst enabler of modern slavery."

Zayas, born May 31, 1947 in Havana, Cuba and a Roman Catholic, came to America with his family after the Cuban Revolution and grew up in Chicago,  and graduated from Harvard Law School.  He also has  a doctorate of philosophy in modern history from a Georg-August University of Gottingen, Germany.  He attended other schools in Germany, such as in Heidelberg, Braunschweig and Tubingen, Baden-Wurttemberg.  He was an American corporate lawyer with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett from 1970 to 1974, and a retired member of the Florida Bar, writer, historian and leading expert in human rights and international law as well as a retired high-ranking UN official from 1981-2003 in Human Rights..  This explains their stand against Israel which has become the rule rather than the exception.  He now lives in Geneva, Switzerland, teaching there at the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations.

How does he feel about Jews and Israel and America?  He said that "Israel emerged out of terrorism against the indigenous population " and its representatives should be denied UN accreditation.  America bears "responsibility for the destabilization of...countries in the Middle East."  George W. Bush and Tony Blair are Pharisees."  Thoughts on the Bible and WWII are also shocking.  "He expounded that "The Old Testament is characterized by "cruelty" and "profound unreligiousity," its patriarchs equipped with divine legitimacy and justification to take our promised Lebensraum by force."  "Moses had such a rough time bringing the Jewish people across the Red Sea because half of them were busy picking up pretty shells." World War II shows what side he has been on with, "Churchill and Roosevelt connived at "a form of genocide" against the Germans.  World War II Allies who fought Nazi Germany should have been prosecuted for "barbarous" and "gruesome" crimes;  the Nuremberg court that judged Nazi war criminals had "hardly any legitimacy."  "Nurembuerg was an exercise in hypocrisy.  A continuation of hate and war...a corruption of legal norms and procedures, a pollution of philosophy, a truly Pharisee tribunal."   Doesn't he fit the seat at the Human Rights table, though, to judge others.

A German historian, Dr. Bernward Dorner who specializes in anti-Semitism said that Zayas ignores decades of research in his quest to absolve the Germans of having known about the Holocaust, and his evidence and reasoning are faulty.  Professor Frank M. Brucher said in the 1993 issue of German Studies Review article that Zayas "makes no attempt to integrate his work with that of existing historiography on WWII, Nazi Germany or war crimes in general."  Another article of September 17, 2011 by Willi Van Ooyen, "Main-Taunus-Kurier, said that "Controversial international law expert Alfred de Zayas operates in the discourse of the extreme right."  German historian Wolfgang Wipperman accused him of historical revisionism in the Frankfurter Rundschau, "Revanchismus an Schulen: Vertriebenen-Thesen fur Abendgymnasien."

"The Commission was also criticized for bias against Israel. In 2002 Anne Bayefsky, a professor of international law at York University in Toronto, wrote that "commission members seek to avoid directly criticizing states with human rights problems, frequently by focusing on Israel, a state that, according to analysis of summary records, has for over 30 years occupied 15 percent of commission time and has been the subject of a third of country-specific resolutions." On April 15, 2002, the Commission approved a resolution affirming the "legitimate right of the Palestinian people to resist the Israeli occupation in order to free its land and be able to exercise its right of self-determination.  In so doing, the Palestinian people was declared "fulfilling its mission, one of the goals and purposes of the United Nations".

Of the 53-member commission, 40 countries voted yes, five voted no, and seven abstained. Although widely reported that the resolution condoned resistance to Israel by "all available means, including armed struggle," the resolution itself does not contain those words.Alfred Moses, a former United States ambassador to the commission and now chairman of the monitoring group UN Watch, said that "A vote in favour of this resolution is a vote for Palestinian terrorism"In a letter to the UNHRC on November 15, 2002, following an attack by Palestinians on Israelis in the town of Hebron, Nabil Ramlawi, the permanent observer for Palestine at the U.N., appealed to the resolution as justification for the attack.

When Zayas, considered a Holocaust deniers' hero,  was confronted about his attitude, he expounded that he had only received positive comments from professors hitherto.Indeed, British Ambassador Peter Booderham was supposed to represent the interests and values of Western democracies, but failed to do so.  Britain, France, Germany and the USA are now in peril if they worry about this Human Rights committee. Israel already is the main scapegoat.

This appointment reflects the values of Human Rights of the UN's morality.

Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred-Maurice_de_Zayas
UN watch  briefing@unwatch.org
http://blog.standforisrael.org/articles/u-n-again-bashes-israel-while-ignoring-the-rest-of-the-world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Commission_on_Human_Rights

ANTI-SEMITIC RESULTS AFTER FALL OF JERUSALEM : A Walk Through History

Nadene Goldfoot
This is a partial  chronology of persecution, massacres and expulsion of the Jewish experience.  One would think we would have given up the resolve of continuing our Judaism, but we can not. It is the impetus to rebuild our state once again, though, after 2,000 years of waiting and praying: "NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM".

70 CE  Fall of Jerusalem-many Jews taken as slaves
115 CE Expulsion of the Jews from Cyprus
135 CE Bar Kokhba's Rebellion, lost hope to regain Judah

640, 721, 873 Jews in Byzantine Empire forcibly converted to Christianity
1096 German Crusade massacres Jews in European towns
1099 Jerusalem Jews massacred by the Crusaders
1146-1391 Jews of Spain forcibly converted to Christianity
1290 Expulsion of Jews from England
1306 Expulsion of Jews from France
1355 12,000 Jews massacred in Toledo, Spain by mob
1349-1360 Jews expelled from Hungary
1420 Jewish community of Toulouse, France all killed
1421 Expulsion of Jews from Hungary
1492 Expulsion of 180,000 Jews from Spain
1492, 50,000 Jews converted to Christianity remain in Spain (Morranos)
1495 Jews expelled from Lithuania
1497 Expulsion of Jews from Portugal, Sicily and Sardinia
1502 All Jews of Rhodes forcibly converted, expelled or taken into slavery
1541 Jews expelled from Kingdom of Naples (Italy)
1648-1656, 100,000 Jews murdered in Chmielnicki massacres in  Poland
1727, 1747 Jews expelled from Russia
1838  Entire Jewish community of Meshed, Persia forcibly converted to Islam
1871-1921 Anti-Semitic pogroms in towns of Russia
1882-1890, 750,000 Jews in Russia forced to re-settle in Pale of Settlement
1891 Jews expelled from Moscow and St. Petersburg
1917 to present: Jews in Soviet Union denied right of national identity
1939-1945 The Holocaust murder of 6 million Jews by German Nazis and European collaborators
1941 Anti-Semitic pogrom in Jewish community in Baghdad, 180 killed
1948-1967: Persecution of Jewish communities in Arab countries, mass expulsions

Resource: Facts About Israel, Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 1973, page 32

Just Because We Were Jewish, We Couldn't Live There

Nadene Goldfoot
Jews may be slightly paranoid for good reason.  We've been kicked out of so many countries in the past 2,000 years that we just wait around for the other shoe to fall.  Look at the history we've had being the unpopular guy. Even in the wonderful United States Jews suffered from anti-Semitism, especially from 1920-1951.  There was a limit as to how many Jews could enter the country-even just before the Holocaust, how many could attend medical school, and certainly weren't welcomed in country clubs.  We were reminded who we were in others' eyes and words. Our children have been very lucky to not have had to experience such facts.   Losing our country caused us to wander throughout the world.

     70 CE Thrown out of Jerusalem, taken as captives or killed by Romans, fall of Jerusalem
  115 CE  Thrown out of  Cyprus
 640, 721, 873 Forcibly converted to Christianity in Byzantine Empire-the cue to leave
1096 German Crusade, massacred in European towns-if alive, better to get out of town
1099 Jerusalem Jews massacred by Crusaders
1146 Converted to Christianity by force in Spain
1290 Thrown out of England
1306 Thrown out of France
1355 12,000 Jews massacred by mob in Toledo, Spain
1349-60 Thrown out of Hungary
1391 Converted to Christianity by force in Spain-those that were found again
1420 Toulouse, France Jewish community all killed
1421  Thrown out of Austria
1492  180,000 Jews thrown out of Spain, 50,000 forced to convert to Christianity if remaining (Marranos) Spanish Inquisition
1495 Thrown out of Lithuania
1497 Thrown out of Sicily and Sardinia and Portugal
1502 Converted to Christianity by force in Rhodes or expelled or taken into slavery
1541 Thrown out from Kingdom of Naples
1648-56  100,000   massacred in Chmielnicki, Poland
1727-1747  Thrown out of Russia
1795-1835-Moved from Russian towns to Pale of Settlement (Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Ukraine, Belorussia) 
1838  Converted by force in Meshed, Persia, entire Jewish community
1871-1921  Attacked, many killed  in Pogroms in towns of Russia/Pale of Settlement (Musical-Fiddler on the Roof) (Golda Meier story) (Immigration to USA and "Palestine") 
1882-1890    750,000 thrown out of Russia and into Pale of Settlement  4 million living in Pale; 4% of Imperial Russia
1891  Thrown out of Moscow and St. Petersburg 
1917-2012 Denied right of national identity in Soviet Union/Russia
1939-45  Holocaust-killing of 6 million by Nazis and European collaborators
1941-2012  Attacked, 180 killed in Baghdad by mobs (part of Axis on Germany's side in WWII) 
1948-Dminni status (3rd class)- persecuted in Arab countries, kicked out en mass


Now we have our own state again on our original soil.  We are not wandering again unless we are tourists!  

Resource:  Facts About Israel 1973-Division of Information, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/pale.html

Norwegians, Swedes and Why Their Attitudes Have Worsened Toward Jews

Nadene Goldfoot
My maternal grandmother, Augusta Johansson-Gustafson, was born in Sweden in 1870 and came to the states when she was 18 years old in 1888.  She always said, "Oh, those Norwegians!".    I never knew why she didn't respect them.  Now our family has members from both countries.  We follow our father's religion, Judaism,  and it's discouraging to see the change in attitude in these two countries from the time of World War II.
Norway
Before the 19th Century, Jews couldn't even enter Norway without a "Letter of Protection," because the Danish limited the amount of Jews entering the country.  In 1840 this changed when a poet, Henrik Wergelang, argued for Jews to be allowed to enter and got the Parliament to agree.  650 Jews were admitted by 1891 when emancipation took place.  They lived in Oslo and Trondheim.  By 1920 there was a whopping 1,456 Jews in Norway.  In 1940 Norway was invaded by Germany and found 1,800 Jews living there with all but 200 being Norwegian citizens.

Norway's army surrendered and they had a collaborationist government led by Vidkun Quisling.  The Nazis demanded anti-Jewish laws which were implemented quickly so that by 1942, 770 Jews were sent to Nazi concentration camps.  760 were killed in death camps, but the underground had smuggling out 930 Jews across to the Swedish border. After the war, 800 Jews had survived and they, with displaced persons, were invited back by the Norwegian government. By 1996 Norway thought about restitution of Jewish property that had been confiscated by the Quisling regime.

Today there is one rabbi in all of Norway who is at the synagogue in Oslo.  Norway doesn't allow the koshering of meat, so it is imported from Denmark.  There is a 2nd synagogue in Trondheim and is the most northern synagogue in the world.  I have met online a Norwegian Jewish girl whose family didn't know they were Jewish.  She wound up going to Israel to find out about her religion more.  It was a result of the family escaping from the Holocaust and winding up in Norway.

Today there is a lot of anti-Semitism going on in Norway.  Their Center Party just proposed a law against male circumcision, a Jewish practice for baby boys at the age of 8 days.  If this law passes, they will be the first country to do so.  Just such a proposal was made in San Francisco, California recently  and was not passed.  In 1814 Norway had "The Jewish Clause" in their constitution which excluded Jews from the country.  This had gone on till it was repealed in 1851.


 The country has also taken in many Muslims, and wherever both groups reside causes lots of sparking hatred. Most of the anti-Semitic acts going on are committed by Muslims.  Muslim children are taught this hatred and it's showing up in the schools.  In 2009, 39 % of primary-school students in Oslo came from  immigrant families.   The latest event is about bullying a Jewish boy in school for the past several years which has resulted in his tormentors burning him on the neck with a burning-hot coin at an Oslo secondary school barbeque.  Why?  The boy's father is an Israeli, and this ticked off the students in their hatred for our tiny country.

 Though the country declares that they have a zero tolerance for bullying, nothing was done about this incident. Other Jewish students have been assaulted in their schools and teachers are known to just look the other way.  Their media plays a major role in reinforcing anti-Semitism.  For example only one media in Norway reported the burned student, and that was a Christian, Israel-friendly daily newspaper.  The political left shows a hatred for Jews.
Sweden
Jews living in Sweden are descendants of World War II refugees and Holocaust survivors who came after the war.  They also have Jewish refugees who fled Hungary in 1956 and others who left Poland in 1968.  Recently, Jews went there from the former Soviet Union instead of immigrating to Israel.  Stockholm has 3 synagogues and 2 rabbis.  One synagogue was built in 1870.  Gothenburg and Malmo also have a synagogue.  Here also, kosher meat must be imported from Denmark which is bought in Stockholm and Malmo.

Malmo has recently had an influx of Muslims, and the city has become a hotbed of attacks on Jews. There are only 760 Jews but 45,000 Muslims of Palestinian, Iraqi, Somali and even Yugoslavian heritage in this city of 293,900.   It has become so bad that many of these  Jews have had to move out of the city as they feared for their life.  Marcus Eilenberg, 32 year old attorney is taking his family and moving to Israel now.  The mayor is siding with the new population and has done nothing to stop the situation.  It really is a disgrace.  I even attempted to write some comments in an English newspaper online and was horrified by what people were saying and believing.

Both countries have their cultural elite whose attitude towards the Muslim influx seems to be that when their leaders rant against Israel and the Jews, their response is to join them in their rantings, calling this "solidarity."

Resource: http://www.jonathan5742.com/Right_Wing_Zionist_Homepage_Scandinavia
http://frontpagemag.com   Jew-Hatred in Norway by Bruce Bawer
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/2012/05/viciousanti-semitism-in-malmo-sweden.html
http://jewishfactsfromportland.blogspot.com/search?q=Malmo%2CSweden
http://forward.com/articles/129233/for-jews-swedish-city-is-a-place-to-move-away-f/

What Happened to Lithuanian Jews?

Nadene Goldfoot
 In 1939 there were 17 million Jews in the world. By 1945 there were only 11 million. We lost 6 million Jews in the Holocaust. The world population in 1939 was at 2.3 billion. That’s like wiping out all of the following countries: take your pick. Each held about 6 million.
1. Bulgaria
 2. Austria
3. Nepal
4. Sweden

 Before the 2nd world war started, there were 160,000 Lithuanian Jews, or 7% of the total population It was a large and influential Jewish community. There were over 110 synagogues and 10 yeshivas in Vilnius alone. It had become the very center of Jewish learning in Eastern Europe and was where the Vilna Gaon and his family lived who was an outstanding Rabbi.

20,000 Jews claim descendancy from him. Our tradition now includes having some sort of family connection to him as well. I think it must be through the wife of one of his found descendants, as we’re not listed in Chaim Freedman’s famous book, “Eliyahu’s Branches.”

 My paternal grandfather, Nathan Goldfoot, was born in 1871, and came from Telsiai, Lithuania. I actually found “Poland” written on the 1910 census for my grandmother’s country, but she had said with pride that she was a Litvak.

Lithuania Jews, or Litvaks, were Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which for us today would be the areas of Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine and the NE Suwalki region of Poland, which is where my grandmother actually came from. She had told the census taker she was from Suwalki! By 2005 there were 4,000 Jews in Lithuania.

There are Jewish communities of the descendants of Jewish Lithuanians today in Israel, the USA, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Brazil and Australia. Many had left in the early 1900's like those going to the USA and England. Poland had had an independant army before the German invasion and had conscripted Jews from Lithuania. Between 60,000 to 80,000 had been in this army. They got killed, anyway.

Today’s world population is at 7 billion people. Jews are less than 1%, or 0.19%.

 Resource: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_Jews
Book: Eliyahu's Branches by Chaim Freedman

BDS Movement with Apartheid Activists Trying to Destroy Israel

Nadene Goldfoot
 Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions are being used against Israel, the only Jewish state in the world.. This is to cut off all economic, political and cultural ties with Israel. The list of people organizing and pushing this is long, with a lot of Middle Eastern surnames of people in the USA.

 Bill Ayers is one from Chicago with a lot of influence on the list. This is how the Holocaust started in Germany, with sanctions against stores owned by Jews. These leaders are still screaming that Israel is an Apartheid state, and the truth is just the opposite. No matter how many times I or others have proved this to be false, they are still accusing Israel of this. Why? They figure no one even knows what the term means let alone read anything to prove them liars.

 They accuse Israel of Occupation. Hamas has taken over Gaza and is in charge there. Israel moved out, lock, stock and barrel between August to September 12, 2005. They had 21 civilian communities that they left in order to bring about peace.

 Judea and Samaria, ancient parts of Judah, have Jewish communities there. Israel protects these communities from attacks. Otherwise, the Arab communities are under the control of Fatah, who police them. The Arabs want to create their own state called Palestine out of all of Judea and Samaria (West Bank)-named by Jordan who had occupied it illegally from 1948 to 1967 as well as Jerusalem and Gaza. 

Their idea of a state is to have it Judenrein (no Jews allowed). Whereas Israel has 1.4 million Arab citizens living among the Jewish population. They are full citizens and they are even serving in the Knesset as well as in Miss Israel contests. Arab Israelis have a much better and safer life than others in Arab states.

 In the 7th Knesset there were 6 Arab (one being a Deputy Speaker and one Deputy Minister) and one Druze-the Deputy Minister.

 Territories were occupied during the 6 Day War and are administered but not occupied. Until a peace settlement comes about, Israel is trying to keep the security for all alike and allow the population to live normal lives without losing contact with Arab in other countries. They try to help Arabs to obtain rapid economic development and to encourage co-existence and cooperation between the Arabs and Israelis. 

This last part has been interfered with by their constant attacking Israel. Right now Arab children are hearing a child recite a poem on PA TV “Israel is “Satan with a tail.” This is not something that will bring about cooperation and peace, which they as a culture are against doing. The whole idea of these movements is to bring down Israel so that there can be a Palestine, the 49th Muslim state in the world.

 The leaders of Fatah and Hamas refuse to have peace talks with Israel and are continually getting away with attacking Israel from Gaza with rockets, missiles and mortars.while the UN is silent. Here we have many Americans foolishly siding against Israel, the only Democracy in the Middle East. They’ve become a new type of ammunition to use against Israel.

 Resource: http://www.horowitzfreedomcenter.org/bds-supporters/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycotts_of_Israel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel's_unilateral_disengagement_plan http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=6776

One Portland, Oregon Holocaust Story

Nadene Goldfoot
Since Ahmadinejad is such a holocaust denier, I am compelled to tell my uncle's story to set him and others like him, straight. 

An early  survivor of the Holocaust came to Portland, so we know his family's story first hand.  He married one of my father's sisters.  His father was a veteran of the First World War in Germany.  Never did his father picture extermination happening to his family.  Ferdinand, his father, was a butcher and lived on Kirchenstrasse Street in Boppard.  Boppard is a small but beautiful  town on the banks of the Rhine River.  It is a popular stop on the river with the many boats that go by.

My Uncle Werner was born in Westerburg, Hildesheim, Niedersachsen, Germany in 1916.  The family moved to Boppard, Hamburg, Germany afterwards.  His father owned his own little butcher shop there where they made sausage, a favorite in Germany.  One day about in 1936 as he was walking a cow back home, he was arrested by the police for "beating the cow with a stick."  He did walk with a stick used to keep the cow on the path.  That's how everyone did it.  But, Werner was Jewish.  It happened  in 1933 that persecution of Jews had become active in the Nazi policy in Germany. 

The next thing he knew he was in jail.  The atrocities he faced were horrible for him.  He was beaten.  Then he was forced to eat raw pork.  Eating pork of any type for a Jew was a sin, so this was even worse for him.  Whatever pains he went through he was afraid to speak about afterwards.  Finally he was allowed to go home.  Werner's parents only had a son and a daughter.  They worked diligently to get the whole family out of the country but managed to get one passport only, and that went to Werner.  He was to get the rest out after reaching the USA.  It became an impossibility, as Werner got out in May 1939, which turned out to be the end of a period when people could leave.  It was also the exact time of the White Paper of 1939 issued by Great Britain in stopping any immigration to "Palestine" by Jews.  The door was shut tight after he left both to get out of Germany or to get into Palestine.  He suffered greatly for he couldn't get his 16 year old red-headed sister out.  214,000 Jews were trapped in Germany unable to leave, destined to be slaughtered.. 

Even at that, Werner could not get into the United States without someone vouching for him in that economically he would be covered.  The B'nai B'rith were major sponsors.  That was something my Great Uncle Max Turn volunteered to do.  .  He became his benefactor and got him a job with my father, who was just starting his own meat market business.   Other countries were impossible to get into as so many demanded baptismal papers.  They wouldn't accept Jews at all. 

His father, Ferdinand,  was forced to clean the streets with a mop, and so wore his soldier's uniform, a brave act.  I wonder if anyone was moved by seeing a veteran who had fought for his country treated in such a demeaning way. 

They were likely taken to a smaller concentration camp near Frankfurt. Dachau is outside of Munich, which is several hours away by car/train from Boppard. 

I checked Yad Vashem and found Rosa  from Boppard, Koblenz, Rhine, Germany b: 1891.
Both Ferdinand and Werner's  mother, Rosa, died in a camp in Poland. Rosa was young; age 50 years 8 months 7 days when she died in the camp..

Somehow, Werner's grandmother   Sibylla Jonas, born in 1871 and  prior to WWII  lived in Alken, Germany. Sibylla perished in Minsk, Belorussia (USSR). This information is based on a List of victims from Germany found in the Gedenkbuch -

The Nazi controlled German government established seven extermination camps (Vernichtungslager) in Poland.  These camps were as follows:
 1.  Auschwitz-Birkenau (Oswiecim, near Kraków)
  2. Belzec (near the current Ukrainian border north-west of L'viv)
  3. Kulmhof (Chelmno, between Warsaw and Poznan)
  4. Majdanek (near Lublin)
  5. Sobibór (south of Brest-Litovsk)
  5. Treblinka (north-east of Warsaw)
  7. Warschau (in Warsaw)

The Germans were ruthless perfectionists when it came to keeping records.  President Ahmadinejad only needs to look into some of them and he will see for himself that the Holocaust truly happened.  Ask the survivors and their families.  It's all a horrible truth of what man is capable of doing to his fellow man.  We can only work towards the time when such things will never happen again. 

What is frightening the world today is that Ahmadinejad is saying that he will finish what the Germans started.  That Arabs of the Ottoman Empire were on the Axis side in WWII is worrisome.  They have picked up Mein Kampf for their source of hatred along with the Nazi goals.  This is why the rantings of Ahmadinejad cannot be dismissed.  The world has not yet reached a state of Nirvana and perfection.  Even a step in the right direction, the UN, has become terribly flawed. 

Resource: Family history
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005469
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Germany