Holocaust – Page 39

Learning from the Holocaust

The following remarks have been slightly modified from the original address given at the closing session of the interdisciplinary conference Global Connections: Critical Holocaust Education in a Time of Transition, which took place at the University of Victoria Sept. 1-3. Participants “had the opportunity to discuss how decades of research on the Holocaust can be used to help understand and educate about other human rights issues and, in turn, how local histories can shed light on the way the Holocaust is represented and taught.”

I would like to thank the organizers for imagining and then managing a complex, well-structured, well-organized and thought-provoking conference that allowed us to think and talk about one of the most disturbing dimensions of human and political history.

In the last three days, the scholars and community members who gathered for our Global Connections conference have traveled great distances in time and space. We have moved from the meeting rooms of Versailles to the war rooms of Berlin, from Jewish homes to death camps throughout Europe, all the way to 1990s Rwanda, and then to present-day Turtle Island and the borders of Hungary and Macedonia.

We have learned about the pedagogical challenges facing Holocaust educators in North America and Europe. We have heard heartbreaking stories from survivors, from the children of survivors, from the grandchildren of survivors, from the children and loved ones of heroes, and from people deeply affected by the dehumanization of colonialism.

We have talked and we have listened. We have heard poetry and music and watched films. And now it falls to me to do that impossible thing – to offer some final words. It is impossible, of course, not just because I am surrounded by scholars who have spent their whole careers studying genocide, but also because I am surrounded by individuals and also by family members and by communities scarred and burned and torn apart by suffering that precludes closure.

In the face of such suffering, sometimes the right thing to say is nothing – sometimes that is the most fitting way to honor the missing parents, the lost siblings, the worlds that were not created because of these violent ruptures. But, in Europe, Rwanda, North America, Armenia, Cambodia, or the many other places torn asunder by inhumanity, silence colludes with geography and distraction, and prevents us from seeing, feeling and knowing things we must see, must feel, must know.

So, speaking is inadequate, but necessary. And so, like a good yeshiva student, I will respond to what I have been taught by posing questions. I would like, in particular, to leave you this afternoon with four questions or issues to consider. There are others one might pose, of course, but these four seem to capture many of the general themes we explored in the last three days.

First, what does it mean to talk about the Holocaust or any other genocide here, in Victoria, on what I only half-jokingly call Fantasy Island? One of the conference speakers reflected upon her students at Smith College, whose approach to the Holocaust often surprises and disappoints her. Many of us here on Vancouver Island who teach about the Holocaust experience similar things. After all, many of our students feel they have won a kind of political lottery by being born, or at least now living, in one of the most peaceful societies on earth. How might we reach such students, make them uncomfortable with their privilege, make them aware of the blood on the ground, the dark clouds hovering over the world for centuries – and still?

Second, the past has been made present in this room – but so, too, has the present seemed to haunt our discussions of the past. Every day, almost every hour, someone drew attention to the current refugee crisis that is stirring up so many anxieties not just in Europe but, as Wassilis Kassis (professor of educational sciences, University of Osnabrück, Germany) insisted, in the world. Of course, there are so many differences between the Europe of the Shoah and the Europe of today’s refugee crisis, but perhaps it is at this moment that we will see some of what we have learned from the Holocaust. If we fail this test, then we will have more people beside us when, in the coming decades, we ask ourselves why we did so little.

Third, we have mostly avoided talking about the ways people come to take possession of great catastrophes even when the individuals are only remotely connected to them. What kind of social capital and political momentum are generated by such attachments? To put it another way: what should we make of people who feed upon the misery of others in this way? The flipside of this question, of course, is what we should make of – and how we should respond to – the will to forget, the drive, the public demand, just to move on, to turn the page. The answer is not obvious, but the question needs to be asked.

Fourth and finally, we have been looking at mutilated bodies and mangled politics and sadistic ideologies, but where can one finally locate the pathologies that led to this pain? Is the origin economic inequality? Religion? Ignorance? Capitalism? Colonialism? Patriarchy? Fascism? Stalinism? Xenophobia? Racism? Yes. No. Partly.

I have heard many tidy post facto explanations of why such and such an act of colossal cruelty happened in place X, or why it didn’t happen in place Y. They are all good and interesting explanations, and we need more of them. We need to continue to improve the ways we explain both singular convulsions of violence, as well as systematic campaigns of extermination. Nonetheless, no matter how well we build our explanations for why an event occurred in a particular place, with particular actors in a particular historical period, some mystery always remains. I must confess that I worry that these accounts give us a false sense of the predictability of human behavior and the preventability of future genocides.

Perhaps this underlines the value of simply sometimes standing at the edge of the abyss and confessing ignorance. This is not to suggest we ought to throw up our hands, but rather that we must sometimes invite deeper, more humble, more sustained investigations of the dark corners of the human heart.

I thank you all for taking part in these investigations, for helping us see better how the heart can break and how the heart, nonetheless, continues to beat. Thank you for joining us in these conversations.

Paul Bramadat is director of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, Department of History and the Religious Studies Program, University of Victoria.

From Israel to Poland

Dor Brown wrapped in the Israeli flag as he approaches Treblinka death camp. (photo from Dor Brown)

Israel’s Journey to Poland – the equivalent of the Diaspora’s March of the Living, but without the Israel portion – is organized by the Israel Education Ministry and funded mainly by the parents.

Sept. 4, 2015

Every year in Israel, senior classes from high schools across the country have the option to travel to Poland on an organized tour of those terrible, yet important, Holocaust death camps. I chose to join my class and am now writing this from the bus on my way back from the Majdanek death camp. It’s probably been one of the most difficult and emotional days of my life.

We were in Majdanek for a grisly four hours. Going into the “showers.” The barracks. The room where the Nazis burned the dead bodies. At the end of the tour, we held a very touching ceremony near the mountain of the ashes. Yes, a literal mountain.

With my hand on my heart, this trip is a must for every Jew worldwide. Until you go to Poland and see firsthand these horrific sights, you really cannot fully understand the depth of the horrors and misery and death.

A snapshot. One hundred fifty students from my school crying their hearts out while looking at those terrible sights. Weeping while holding the Israeli flag. While crying out loud, we were all shouting together in our hearts and minds and with great pride: “Am Yisrael chai!”

photo - Left to right: Dor Brown, Alex Katz and Oren Bizuener — Left to right: Dor Brown, Alex Katz and Oren Bizuener. *(photo from Dor Brown)*

Sept. 7, 2015

Today, we were in Auschwitz I, the labor camp and concentration camp that is now a museum. It was very difficult and very moving. Piles of hair. Piles of discarded shoes. Piles of glasses. It was unbelievably difficult to look at. An experience we should all have, however tough, to really understand how low civilization stooped.

After Auschwitz, we boarded our buses to the Plaszow labor camp. What remains is basically a beautiful memorial site. Amon Goeth was the cruel, barbaric and sadistic commander of this camp. He was the one who famously shot Jews for fun and practice. And tortured them in terrible ways.

Wrapping up the tour, our guide shared a story about a certain Jewish prisoner.

One morning, a Nazi guard came to this prisoner and told him he must run to his bunk. The prisoner did as he was told. When he arrived, he was greeted by Goeth. His meagre belongings were strewn across his thin cot.

Goeth was hunkering over his stuff with a picture in his hands. The picture was of Binyamin Ze’ev Herzl. “Who is this!” Goeth barked.

“Theodor Herzl,” replied the prisoner.

Goeth mocked, “The crazy Jew from Vienna who thinks there will be a Jewish country?!”

The prisoner was shaking with fear. He thought his death was near.

Goeth laughed and spat out, “The chances that it will happen are as slim as you becoming a cabinet member in that country’s government, or an ambassador.” With that, Goeth struck the man so hard that the poor prisoner blacked out.

Forty years later, that prisoner – Zvi Zimmerman – fulfilled Goeth’s prophecy. During his life, he not only was ambassador to New Zealand and a Knesset member in four Israeli governments but was also a deputy speaker of the Israeli parliament.

Upon finishing his story, the guide – with tears in his eyes – shouted, “Am Yisrael chai!”

For the rest of the day, we were all Zvi Zimmerman.

photo - The whole group at Auschwitz concentration camp under the infamous sign, “Arbeit Macht Frei,” “Work Makes You Free.” — The whole group at Auschwitz concentration camp under the infamous sign, “Arbeit Macht Frei,” “Work Makes You Free.” *(photo from Dor Brown)*

Sept. 9, 2015

Our last day in Poland. We woke up at 6:30 a.m. and headed to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the death camps. The largest death camp the world has ever seen. And, hopefully, the last death camp the world will ever know.

We saw lots of difficult places and sights over the past week but this was the toughest. I can’t describe the chills of dread going through my body as we entered the gate. The images of death running through my mind as I walked through the camp, the death place of my ancestors.

“Work Makes You Free.” Indeed.

The camp is huge. And beautiful. The surrounding trees are tall and green. To think that those trees were the last sight that almost one million of our people ever saw. How dare the camp be so beautiful today.

At the end of the tour, we had a ceremony where we each had to read out loud the names of persons who died in the Holocaust. It was a sad and exhausting roll call.

As the ceremony wrapped up, with tears pouring down our cheeks like rain, with hearts and souls broken, we all shouted together our rallying cry of the week: “Am Yisrael chai!”

As Yigal Alon said: a country that doesn’t know its past will have an uncertain present and future.

Dor Brown is the son of Bruce Brown, who immigrated to Israel more than 20 years ago from Canada. Dor and his family live in Rehovot. Dor is finishing high school this year, and will enter the Israel Defence Forces in October 2016.

What kind of Jew are you?

Imagine finding a play so funny and thought-provoking that you just had to mount a production of it in your hometown – and you actually had the talent and wherewithal to do it.

Famous Artists Limited’s Bill Allman saw Joshua Harmon’s Bad Jews in London. He’s bringing it to Rothstein Theatre Nov. 10-21, directed by Jay Brazeau and starring two other members of the Jewish community, Amitai Marmorstein and Goldie Hoffman. Rounding out the cast are Alex Rose and Kayla Dunbar.

Bill Allman (photo from Famous Artists Limited)

“It’s really difficult to pick one or two moments of hilarity or emotion from a play that kept me laughing and thinking for its entire duration,” said Allman, “but I loved the raucous interaction between [cousins] Liam and Daphna and, in particular, watching Melody (that’s Liam’s shiksa girlfriend) react to them. The loudness and the verbal vitriol looks completely insane to her and yet the three cousins are sort of saying, ‘What? This is how people talk!’

“As for deep thought, much of the script gives the audience a chance to think about where faith and culture intersect and how these values affect daily life and interaction with others. The great thing about the play is that the characters are drawn in such a way as to illustrate a wide range of human experience and it doesn’t matter where you fall on the spectrum – there will be something in one or more of the characters that makes you say, ‘I’m like that.’ And you may laugh or you may wince but, inevitably, you’ll laugh because 10 seconds later, it’s somebody else’s turn to wince!”

Secular Liam, his “Jew-ish” brother Jonah and their staunch Zionist and Orthodox cousin Daphna fight over the right to their grandfather’s chai necklace after he dies; he had managed to get it (and himself) through the Holocaust, and they each attribute a different importance and symbolism to it. Witnessing the mayhem, as Allman noted, is Liam’s non-Jewish girlfriend, Melody.

“Which one of them is the ‘best’ Jew?” reads the promotional material. “Is it the religious and cultural zealot Daphna, who changed her name from Diana? What about her privileged cousin Liam, who missed Poppy’s funeral to go skiing with his non-Jewish girlfriend Melody? Or perhaps Liam’s brother, Jonah, the quiet one who would prefer not to get involved in the fight?”

photo - Amitai Marmorstein — Amitai Marmorstein *(photo from Famous Artists Limited)*

Marmorstein, who plays Jonah, was emailed by Brazeau with a request to read the script. “I’ve known Jay for awhile and have always been a very big fan of his,” Marmorstein told the Independent. “He arranged for Goldie and I to come in and read and talk about the play. He kept saying it wasn’t an audition even though it sort of was. I think he just didn’t want us to get nervous or anything. But the ‘non-audition’ went well, I guess, and Goldie and I were both offered roles.”

Director, writer, actor and producer Ben Ratner recommended Hoffman (who plays Daphna) to Brazeau. “Ben runs and teaches at Haven Studio, and I’ve trained with him a lot, working on many intense plays and scripts in multiple genres. So, it’s really thanks to Ben that I got this part,” she said, “both because of his recommendation and also thanks to his training.”

Hoffman was asked by Brazeau and Allman to read with Marmorstein, and she also recalled being told, “‘Don’t think of this as an audition, Goldie …’ they said and, as I jokingly thought to myself, the unsaid continuation of that line was, ‘… but this read will likely affect whether or not you get the part.’

Fortunately, I got the part, and I’m thrilled and truly honored to be playing such a fun role and being part of this ensemble.”

Characters that are a “type” can come off as superficial. When asked in what ways they infuse their characters with humanity and depth, Marmorstein said, “The best way to never be a stereotype is to work with great writing. Joshua Harmon has written such honest, original, devastating characters that our job becomes much, much easier. I think creating real, non-stereotypical characters is precisely what the art of acting is, so we just try to be creative and honest and hope people connect to it.”

Goldie Hoffman (photo from Famous Artists Limited)

Hoffman went into more detail. “I think it’s important not to judge your character as good or bad, right or wrong,” she said. “Humans are complex individuals and it’s important to remember that when you portray any character. In fact, generally in real life, we don’t set out to be wrong or behave badly. Most of us try to go through life making good choices, and when we make bad ones or hurt people, we often don’t intend to or don’t even realize the impact of our words and actions. When playing a character, I try to portray their point of view, as best as I can understand it. In fact, after first reading the play, I was actually offended when first seeing Daphna described as a ‘zealot’ in online play reviews and synopses, because I see that term as quite negative, and I didn’t see (or want to see) her that way.

“I feel I really understand where Daphna is coming from, even if I don’t share all her views. In fact, I’d go as far as to say, this is a character that is closest to me of all the roles I’ve ever portrayed – to the point where it’s scary and even embarrassing. As for playing a certain ‘type,’ it’s true there is a certain stereotype and similarity many Jewish girls and women share and, yes, a lot of it does apply to me: brunette, outspoken, loud, animated and, yes, also stubborn and annoying – but also spunky, fun, caring, intelligent and funny (and clearly modest). Hey, let’s face it, get a bunch of Jewish girls in the room, and I challenge you to tell me many don’t look and sound like sisters. Daphna shares these qualities, too, but, at the same time, we’re of course all individuals, and so our views and outlooks on life can be extremely different.

“As far as her being real,” Hoffman continued, “to me, Daphna already is a real person, and I can completely see and hear her, so I only hope I can translate that successfully to the audience. Aside from the parts of her that I relate to, I even know several ‘Daphnas,’ especially being raised Jewish in both N.Y. and Montreal and now being in L.A. a lot, all big ‘Jew-towns.’ There is a unique experience that Jewish girls and women have, which I relate to. For example, facing certain sexist traditions and customs (especially if raised Orthodox), family dynamics, rivalries, pressures and high expectations and, of course, last but not least, we are aware of our brethren’s love of ‘shiksappeal,’ which my character’s cousin Liam has. Though, on that subject, having dated several non-Jewish guys, I say, ‘It’s all good, boys, ’cause it goes both ways.’”

Speaking of which, where would Hoffman put herself on the spectrum of the “bad Jews” depicted in the play?

“In many ways, I think the play is actually poking fun at that very notion of being a ‘bad Jew,’ as there’s really no such thing – or, if there is, well then, we’re all ‘bad Jews’ in one way or another. There is no right way to be Jewish, either religiously or culturally, and, as Jews, we grapple with what that identity means to us and how much we want it to affect our lives and sense of self,” she said.

That being said, Hoffman compared herself to aspects of both Daphna and Liam. “My experience and views about my ‘Jewishness’ continue to change and evolve, so I’ve been all over the map. For instance, as a kid, I was raised Chassidic, and then, as a teen, I became non-observant, but was still a believer. Then, I identified as ‘spiritually Jewish.’ Now, I no longer believe in Judaism, and I’m a secular humanist, but culturally or ethnically, I am definitely Jewish (whether I like it or not). I think this is something a lot of non-Jews have trouble understanding, because the term Jew can apply to both the religion Judaism, but also the Jewish culture, ethnicity, nation and community, as we are such an old people that we predate these modern terms.

“As for Israel, as you know, that’s such a sensitive and ambivalent issue for the Jewish community and something we all have different views on. For my character Daphna, Israel is extremely important and she plans to make her life there. I used to share her fervent Zionism as a teen, and even considered going to Israel as well, either to a kibbutz or to do one of their volunteer programs with Magen David Adom (their national emergency medical disaster, ambulance and blood-bank services as well as national aid society).

“I am still a supporter of Israel, though not without my criticism, just like with other countries; but, unlike Daphna, I don’t support Israel from a religious standpoint and don’t believe in the existence of holy lands. I can speak, read and write Hebrew (also some Arabic), and tend to really like and get along with Israelis and have a few friends and acquaintances in Tel Aviv who are in the arts scene. I think Israeli Jews are such a unique, interesting and strong people, and they’re very different from North American Jews. If I’m fully honest, I think they’re our cooler cousins, because they’re people who just ‘happen’ to be Jewish, versus we here who are taught our Jewish identity and worry about how it squares up with our national one, and who are, by and large, much more sheltered and privileged than they are. I also think Israelis are better looking than we are, but I know that’s up for debate. But c’mon, all those people mixing from all those different countries and backgrounds? You can’t compete with that!”

Turning more serious, Hoffman said she struggles “with the paradoxical dilemma of how to continue the survival of the Jewish people and Israel, while still supporting humanism, secularism, democracy and the belief that mixing is a great thing for humanity. I think this is a major theme the play deals with and questions, and something most Jews can relate to, as well as many non-Jews with strong cultural and ethnic identities and communities.”

Allman is an example of the latter. “I was baptized Presbyterian, but fall very squarely into the religiously lapsed category – I have 50 years of Christmas trees that far outnumber my appearances in an actual church,” he admitted. “The themes in Bad Jews are universal – they’re struggles with personal identity, with philosophy and with both the intimacy and disconnect that everyone struggles with in regards to the religion and culture of their ancestors.”

He added, “[T]here is a very intellectual aspect to Judaism that I find extremely compelling – and that aspect doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it’s tied to practical living. It is certainly behind our initiative to have Rabbi [Jonathan] Infeld come in on Nov. 19 for a talkback with the audience and cast after the show. We’re going to go after the issues behind the story! I love the deeply thoughtful traditions that can give birth to a work like Bad Jews – a work like this comes from inner turmoil and passion. Now that’s living!”

For tickets, click here or visit famousartists.ca. For the full interview with Goldie Hoffman, click here.

Mispoken history

Exploiting the memory of the Holocaust and its victims is a far too commonplace event. Israel’s detractors accuse it of perpetrating a holocaust on Palestinians. Politicians and others frequently make inappropriate comparisons to the Holocaust. But when the prime minister of Israel – the man who refers to himself as the leader of the Jewish people – exploits the Holocaust, it is especially egregious.

Last week, at the meeting of the World Zionist Congress, Binyamin Netanyahu told a story that historians contend was cut largely from whole cloth. This much is true: in November 1941, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, met with Adolf Hitler in Berlin. Al-Husseini opposed Jewish migration to the Holy Land and rejected the idea of a Jewish state there. Increased Jewish migration to Palestine strengthened Zionism and the grand mufti had been a vocal opponent of it – to the extent that Arab rioting he incited helped form British policy on the matter, closing the doors to Jews escaping Nazi Europe. The mufti and Hitler had mutual interests, but al-Husseini was concerned that Nazi antisemitism could drive more Jews to Palestine (although, by late 1941, this was largely a moot point).

In Netanyahu’s curriculum, though, it was the mufti who put the seed in Hitler’s brain to enact the “Final Solution.” (Perhaps the prime minister had recently read the book Nazis, Islamists and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Barry Rubin and Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, which is reviewed in this issue, but not any of its critiques.)

“Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time,” Netanyahu told the congress. “He wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said: ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here [to Palestine],’ … ’So what should I do with them?’ [Hitler] asked. [Al-Husseini] said, ‘Burn them.’”

There is no evidence that any such discussion took place. In fact, the Nazis’ exterminationist intent was already well formed before al-Husseini came to Berlin. The Wannsee Conference, which set out the plan for the “Final Solution,” was mere weeks away and its agenda was set before the mufti had tea with Hitler.

History suggests that al-Husseini was supportive of the Nazis’ plans, but he certainly was not their architect, as Netanyahu implied.

The prime minister’s speech raised outrage globally. Academics and experts in the Holocaust decried his rewriting of history. Critics claimed his remarks were meant to incite hatred against Palestinians at a time when Israel is condemning Palestinian incitement against Jews. Netanyahu was diminishing Hitler’s guilt for the fate of European Jewry, said others. Even Germany’s leader Angela Merkel reiterated her country’s responsibility for the Holocaust.

It is clear what Netanyahu was trying to do. He wanted to demonstrate that Palestinian antisemitism and incitement against Jews and Israelis go back a long way, and he is correct. But to do so, he apparently made stuff up and, far, far worse, exploited the history of the Holocaust and the memory of its victims to score political points. It was shameful, unbecoming his office, and certainly undermines any claim he has to call himself the leader of the Jewish people.

Elaborating on real history

The Middle East is awash in virulent antisemitism, from the battlefield to the classroom. An Anti-Defamation League global survey of anti-Jewish sentiment last year pinpointed the West Bank, Gaza and Iraq as the world’s most antisemitic lands in the world. More than 90% of those who took the survey in those areas expressed anti-Jewish views.

Some Middle East observers link the blind hatred of Jews in the Middle East to the work of Islamic preachers and Arab leaders who perpetuate the ideology of Nazi Germany. They say that antisemitism is the driving force behind the endless cycle of wars and that nothing that Israel does matters. They maintain that Israel’s enemies will fight until the Jewish state is wiped out and all Jews in the Middle East have been killed.

Barry Rubin and Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, in Nazis, Islamists and the Making of the Modern Middle East (Yale University Press), provide ammunition for those who argue that peace is impossible with antisemitic Palestinian and Arab leaders. Rubin, who died before the book was published, was a prolific writer and leading Middle East scholar at the Global Research in International Affairs Centre in Israel. Schwanitz, an accomplished German-American Middle East historian, was a visiting professor at GRIAC at the time of the book’s publication.

In their richly researched book, Rubin and Schwanitz document the ancestry of antisemitism in the Middle East over the past century, connecting some of the contemporary Arab and Palestinian leaders to the vitriolic antisemitism of the Nazi collaborator, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini.

Backed up by new archival material and previously published research, Rubin and Schwanitz maintain that profound doctrinal hatred for Jews remains the core reason for the Arab-Israel conflict’s enduring and irresolvable nature.

Take a look at Israel’s partners for peace. Heads of state who were once Nazi sympathizers ran regimes that lasted 40 years in Iraq, 50 years in Syria and 60 years in Egypt. An echo of the antisemitism of the 1930s reverberated through speeches of Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, Iraqi’s Saddam Hussein, Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi and Saudi Arabia’s Osama bin Laden. A Nazi sympathizer educated Yasser Arafat.

However, Rubin and Schwanitz in this book undermine their own credibility by mixing well-documented historical accounts with sweeping pronouncements that seem to be driven by a narrow ideological bias. At times, they sound more like polemicists than historians. They focus on an extreme interpretation of Islam, painting 1.2 billion Muslims with one brush. They ignore history that does not fit easily into their portrait. And their perspective does little to shed light on the contemporary Middle East, where Muslims fight Muslims.

The most provocative assertion in the book is that the grand mufti was responsible for the Nazi gas chambers and crematoria.

Rubin and Schwanitz portray al-Husseini as the most powerful leader of the Arabs and Muslims around the world in mid-century. At the height of his power, he promised Adolf Hitler that the entire Arab people would rally around the Nazi flag and wage a war of terror against Britain and France if Germany would stop all Jewish immigration to Palestine and guarantee independence to countries in the Middle East.

Rubin and Schwanitz maintain that Hitler decided to kill all the Jews only after al-Husseini insisted that they not be deported to Palestine. None of the European countries would accept Jewish refugees. If Palestine would not accept them, the reasoning goes, Hitler had no choice but to build gas chambers.

But their theory has a few holes in it. Historians have never discovered any Nazi plans to transport all the Jews of Eastern Europe and Russia to Palestine. Britain was already restricting immigration. Hitler’s support for al-Husseini’s demand to stop deportations to Palestine was an empty gesture.

Most historians regard al-Husseini as a minor historical figure. Al-Husseini was part of the Nazi war effort and played a role in the death of thousands of Jews. But he was not as powerful or influential in the

Middle East as he is portrayed here. As Rubin and Schwanitz point out, al-Husseini had no plan for actually staging insurrections in support of Nazi Germany. He recruited only 1,000 soldiers outside of Iraq, although he promised 100,000 for the Nazi cause. It is hard to imagine that the Holocaust would not have happened without al-Husseini’s intervention.

Regardless, Rubin and Schwanitz do a good job of placing al-Husseini in the context of the Middle East’s historic ties to Germany. They begin the tale with Max von Oppenheim, an advisor to Kaiser Wilhelm II in the early 1890s, who urged the German ruler to use Islam to inspire a Muslim revolt in the colonies of Germany’s enemies. At that time, Britain, France and Russia controlled the Middle East, India and North Africa. Zionism was not relevant.

The kaiser made a formal pact in 1898 with the Ottoman Empire’s sultan, Abdul Hamid II. Germany anticipated the alliance would lead to an Islamic jihad throughout Muslim lands, but the righteous call to jihad had little impact. Muslims, Turks and Arabs saw themselves as divided by religion, ethnicity, regional interest and self-interest. They paid little attention in their daily lives to the sultan’s belligerent proclamations.

During the First World War, von Oppenheim ran Germany’s covert war in the Middle East, reinvigorating the policy of Islamic jihad. Germany pushed Sultan Mehmed V to trigger a pan-Islamic revolt, as well as attack Russia’s Black Sea ports, and established activist groups in Arab communities dedicated to spread jihad in Russia-ruled Caucasus and in Arab-populated lands. However, once again, the pan-Islamic revolts never materialized. Tribal leaders took the money from Germany and did nothing.

By the late 1930s, the dynamics had reversed. Al-Husseini sought out the support of Nazi Germany. Hitler was initially cool to an alliance, believing the dark-skinned people of the Middle East were inferior to his blond-haired, blue-eyed Aryan nation, but he soon realized the Nazis and Muslims confronted common enemies – Britain, France and the Jews.

A strident antisemite who had been fighting Zionism since 1914, al-Husseini claimed the mantle of leader of transnational Islamism after Turkey, in 1924, abolished the Islamic Caliphate. He solidified his position within the Arab and Muslim communities through violence and murder.

Under his leadership, militancy became mainstream and moderation was regarded as treason. He turned Palestine into the defining issue of the Middle East. Anyone who did not support him or his views was a Zionist and imperial stooge. In the 1930s, he attracted attention for making passionate nationalist speeches in Jerusalem while crowds chanted “Death to Zionism,” rioted and killed Jews. His work clearly set the stage for Arab and Muslim leaders who followed his lead.

Meanwhile, in Germany between the wars, militant Islamists, backed by the disciples of von Oppenheim, solidified their control over mosques in Berlin and elsewhere, espousing an ideology that Rubin and Schwanitz say can be heard today from the pulpits. They cultivated relations with the leadership of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, Iraq’s Ba’ath Party and radical factions in Syria and Palestine. By the time the Nazis looked to the Middle East, they found a ready-made network of radical antisemitic Islamists from Morocco to India, led by al-Husseini, with similar ideology, worldviews and interests. But the Islamic jihad failed once again to materialize.

Nazi ideology collapsed in 1945. However, a radical Arab nationalism, accompanied by a form of al-Husseini Islamism steeped in hatred of the Jews, flourished after the war. Little has changed despite the passage of decades, events and generations. Rubin and Schwanitz say al-Husseini’s legacy can been seen in the words and actions of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda. For them, as for the Nazis and al-Husseini, Jews are the villains of all history, the eternal enemy without whose extinction a proper world would be impossible.

Rubin and Schwanitz say the Arabic-speaking world’s historical connection with Nazi Germany was not solely responsible for the terrorism, conflict with Israel and anti-Jewish hatreds. However, they say, the historical relationships, along with the ideas and motives prompting it, help explain what has happened over the past 70 years. The forces that forged the partnership between al-Husseini and Hitler returned to help shape the course of Middle East history ever since. And it was not just the Nazi doctrine. In many cases, the individuals responsible for the Middle East’s post-1945 course had direct links to the Nazi era, they say.

“Comprehending this fact is the starting point for understanding modern Middle East history, its turbulence, tragedies and its many differences from other parts of the world,” Rubin and Schwanitz say.

Yes, they make a fascinating case for a starting point in trying to make sense of relations between Germany and the Middle East. But in this book they do not examine the record of contemporary Arab and Muslim leaders in much detail. They leave out other influences and other leading players that contributed to the making of the Middle East. Also, Rubin and Schwanitz seem to ignore that the antisemitism of the radical Islamists preceded their embrace of Nazism.

Rubin and Schwanitz have illuminated one diabolical aspect of a complex state of affairs – but much more remains to be said for a full understanding of the modern Middle East.

Robert Matas, a Vancouver-based writer, is a former journalist with the Globe and Mail. This review was originally published on the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library website and is reprinted here with permission. To reserve this book or any other, call 604-257-5181 or email library@jccgv.bc.ca. To view the catalogue, visit jccgv.com and click on Isaac Waldman library.

Filmmaker as subject

Henrik Gawkowski, as seen in Shoah, directed by Claude Lanzmann. (photo from Les Films Aleph/Why Not Productions)

The French intellectual who created what many view as the definitive documentary of the Holocaust is himself the subject of a documentary, called Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah.

Commentators in the film are unanimous that Shoah, Lanzmann’s nine-and-a-half-hour study of the Holocaust, is a masterpiece. They also agree that Lanzmann is himself a piece of work.

A former friend calls him a megalomaniac. Another commentator says he is “a very challenging individual.” Through interviews with Lanzmann, the viewer gets a sense of what they are talking about.

Over a 12-year odyssey of interviewing and filmmaking, what Lanzmann set out to create was a film, in his words, “not about the Shoah, but a film that would be the Shoah.”

His first challenge was how he would approach a topic so enormous and distressing.

“What is my theme?” he asks during interviews for the documentary. “The heart of the Shoah, what is it?”

On this he concludes: “Shoah is not a film about survival. And, as it is not a movie about survivors … the survivors are not in Shoah, Shoah is a film about death.”

He recounts an incident that left him hospitalized for a month after a former SS officer’s wife discovered a hidden camera in his bag and Lanzmann and his female assistant were chased, beaten and bloodied by thugs associated with the war criminal. In another instance, Lanzmann relates how he almost drowned while swimming off the coast of Israel. He recalls that he had no gratitude to the individual who saved him and speculates that perhaps he had intended suicide because he knew he could not finish the film in the two years he had been given, with the instruction to keep it under two hours.

As Lanzmann goes on at length about his artistic struggles and the terrible toll the project took on his spirit, a viewer’s empathy may fade. Considering the subject matter of Shoah, lamentations on the difficulties of making a film – however monumental – come across as startlingly self-absorbed. Given the advance billing of Lanzmann’s character with which the documentary begins, the film comes full circle, providing a character sketch of a difficult individual who has done a remarkable thing.

Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah double bills with What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy at the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival (vjff.org) on Nov. 11, 3:30 p.m.

Shuls, past to present

Left to right: Nico Slobinsky of Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, Pacific Region; His Excellency Balint Odor; Ezra Shanken of Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver; and Andre Molnar, Hungarian honorary consul. (photo from Beth Israel)

On Oct. 15, Congregation Beth Israel hosted an exhibition of Eastern European synagogues, sponsored by the Hungarian government. In his welcoming address at the opening, His Excellency Balint Odor, Hungarian ambassador, explained that Hungary is currently heading up the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).

“IHRA is very relevant today in fighting spiraling antisemitism across Europe and around the world,” he said. “The mandate of IHRA is to combat all forms of racism, hate incitement and antisemitism, as well as promoting Holocaust education. This year, IHRA has focused a great deal of effort on illustrating the depth of Jewish culture in the region, in particular the synagogue.”

photo - The synagogue in Baja, Hungary — The synagogue in Baja, Hungary. *(photo from exhibit catalogue by Rudolf Klein)*

The traveling exhibit showcases renovated synagogues throughout East-Central Europe, from 1782-1944, some of which are still in use. Unlike in Germany and Austria, where the majority of synagogues were destroyed, many survived in Eastern Europe. From the 1970s onward, local municipalities restored and renovated synagogues. This work escalated following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the influx of foreign financial support.

The panels show a variety of different styles, ranging from cottage shuls to “palatial” synagogues. The richness and diversity of these places of worship are reminders of how vibrant Jewish life was in Europe prior to the Shoah.

The role of the presidency of IHRA offers Hungary the opportunity to confront its history and look back at the role the Hungarian state played in the genocide. Close to half a million Hungarian Jews perished during the Holocaust. Most of these people died in 1944 following the occupation of Hungary. At that time, every third victim in Auschwitz was a Hungarian Jew. Today, the Hungarian Jewish community is the largest in East-Central Europe. Most Hungarian Jews live in the capital, Budapest, which has some 20 working synagogues.

As Rabbi David Bluman said in his welcome of the ambassador: “The synagogues we see in this exhibit are not just the past, they are also the present for those who worship in them, and will be the future for European Jewry. This is very relevant for us here in our beautiful new synagogue – our present, our future.“

The exhibit was at Beth Israel from Oct. 15-20.

Showcasing life’s complexity

In The Singing Abortionist, Dr. Henry Morgentaler comes across as an enigmatic figure. (photo from Vancouver Jewish Film Festival)

This year’s Vancouver Jewish Film Festival will entertain, inform and challenge viewers, from its opening event – YidLife Crisis, a film all in Yiddish (with English subtitles), and its Yiddish-speaking stars/writers Jamie Elman and Eli Batalion as guests – to its final screening, the French film Once in a Lifetime, based on the true story of an inner-city high school in Paris. This week, the Jewish Independent gives you a glimpse into the festival, which runs Nov. 5-12 at Fifth Avenue Cinemas.

A difficult national hero

There are few surnames in Canada that can evoke such visceral and opposite reactions as Morgentaler. Henry Morgentaler is the name most associated with abortion – with providing abortion services to women, with fighting abortion laws, and for eventually leading a case to the Supreme Court of Canada that resulted in the permanent overturning of Canada’s abortion statute.

To allies, he is a hero. To enemies, he is “Hitler,” as countless people scream at him in footage in the documentary The Singing Abortionist. (He was known to hum or sing a few lines while performing abortions, including one he performed on CTV’s W5 program, which ran the procedure in its five-minute entirety.) Yet even to allies – including his children – he is, as one biographer described him, a “difficult hero.”

In interviews before his death in 2013, Morgentaler acknowledged that everything he did in life was with the aim of earning the love of women. This guided him in becoming the foremost advocate in the country for women’s reproductive choice, but it also led to his reputation as a “womanizer.”

Morgentaler was a relatively unknown doctor when he felt morally bound to begin offering abortions, a crime that carried a potential life sentence for the doctor and two years in prison for the patient. Across 20 years of legal battles, including a stint in prison, Morgentaler led the legal and PR battle for choice, which culminated in his case before the Supreme Court of Canada that, in 1985, struck down Canada’s abortion law.

In this one-hour film, Morgentaler comes across as an enigmatic figure. He admits to megalomania, albeit with a guffaw. His children speak about their own conflicted relationships with him. His lawyer says Morgentaler was an easy target for anti-abortion forces to caricature as a “strange-looking, hook-nosed Jew.” Morgentaler is both introspective about his motivations but clearly suppresses, according to those around him, his experiences as a Holocaust survivor.

But Morgentaler’s career – particularly his lifelong devotion to the fight for abortion rights – is a direct result of his suffering under Nazism. He was a forced laborer in the Lodz Ghetto before it was liquidated and its residents sent to Auschwitz. The film follows Morgentaler on his only return to the place where he lost his mother, and where he and his brother survived. The experience, he tells the filmmaker, taught him that, “Just the fact that something is law does not necessarily mean it is good or justified or it’s rational.”

– PJ

Monumental reconstruction

Before the Holocaust, Poland had about 200 wooden synagogues, a richness of liturgical architecture that one expert said “rivals the greatest wooden architecture anytime in history, anywhere in the world.” All were lost.

That American expert, Rick Brown, began a project to painstakingly reconstruct from photographic and other records a prime example of that lost history. Working, first, with his students at the Massachusetts College of Art, the project eventually expanded to include more than 300 people, mostly students, from 46 universities and 11 countries.

photo - Raising the Roof tells the story of how a team of hundreds recreated the painted roof and ceiling of Gwozdziec Synagogue in Poland — Raising the Roof tells the story of how a team of hundreds recreated the painted roof and ceiling of Gwozdziec Synagogue in Poland. *(photo from VJFF)*

The undertaking was monumental. Using only the tools that were available at the time, and working on site over successive summers in Poland and Ukraine, the team recreated the intricately constructed and painted roof and ceiling of Gwozdziec Synagogue. (Gwozdziec is actually in Ukraine, but was part of the greater Polish territory during the heyday of synagogue architecture and its synagogue is both one of the most dramatic and one with the most information available to aid the team in recreating it.)

Brown and his group didn’t know what they would do with the to-scale project when it was completed, but fate intervened. The POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews had been designed to accommodate exactly such a replica. After years of tree-felling, lathing, metalworking, complex joinery and scrupulous research on building techniques and paint colors, the roof and ceiling were raised into place at the Warsaw museum.

Raising the Roof, the film that tells the story of the project, is fascinating on multiple fronts. It involves many people with divergent motivations, including Jews, non-Jews, Americans, Poles, artists and even volunteers with no particular skill beyond enthusiasm. There are poignant reflections on the meaning of the original architecture, its loss and regeneration. Underpinning the entire project is the memory of the lost civilization of Polish Jewry, from which 70% of today’s Jews have ancestry, and whose architecture and culture can be reclaimed, but whose existence cannot.

– PJ

Being high and low in Haifa

If you can hand yourself over to filmmaker Elad Keidan and immerse yourself in the sights of Yaron Scharf and especially the sounds created by Aviv Aldema, Afterthought is a worthwhile journey.

photo - Uri Klauzner as Moshe, left, in Afterthought, Elad Keidan’s first feature — Uri Klauzner as Moshe, left, in Afterthought, Elad Keidan’s first feature. *(photo from VJFF)*

The Israeli film’s Hebrew title, Hayored Lema’ala, “down up,” basically sums up what happens on the outward level. Moshe, whose name and story we don’t find out till almost the very end, goes off in search of his wife’s lost earring, which leads to other discoveries about his wife and their relationship. As he starts his exploration up the stairs to the top of Mount Carmel in Haifa, Uri begins his descent to the port, where, we eventually find out, he is planning on catching a freighter abroad, both to finish writing a book and to avoid army reserve duty, as well as to run away from mistakes he has made. The two men pass the same sights, sounds and people at different points in the day, and they encounter each other, stopping for a brief chat – Moshe was Uri’s third-grade teacher, it turns out.

The English title for the film comes from a conversation Moshe overhears in a coffee shop. A man tells his friend about how he wishes that, after a talk with his mother, for example, he could call his mom and leave a message with everything that he actually wanted to say, or meant to say.

Afterthought is Keidan’s first feature, and it is a solid debut despite the slow pace. Viewers are ultimately rewarded by the internal ups and downs of the main characters, the men’s reflections on life, friends and family, and the people they meet along the way. Aldema’s radio snippets, machine and human noises, music selections and other sound effects are a character in and of themselves, and are worth the price of admission alone. These, together with Scharf’s cinematography – which is not flashy, but subtly effective – and the acting of Itay Tiran as Uri and Uri Klauzner as Moshe make for a movie that will not only have you thinking of it afterwards, but of your own life, the choices you have made, and the people you hold dear.

– CR

For the film schedule, tickets and information on all the festival’s offerings, visit vjff.org.

Korczak’s legacy now

Left to right, keynote speaker Irwin Elman and panelists Rachel Malek, James Copping and Jess Boon. (photo by Cynthia Ramsay)

“Children are not the people of tomorrow but are people of today. They have a right to be taken seriously, and to be treated with tenderness and respect. They should be allowed to grow into whoever they are meant to be.”

Polish doctor, educator, writer and orphanage director Janusz Korczak’s philosophy and writing laid the foundation for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). Murdered in 1942 at Treblinka with the almost 200 children in his care, Korczak’s work and life remain relevant to this day.

Jerry Nussbaum, president of the Janusz Korczak Association of Canada (JKAC), was one of the many speakers on Sept. 29 to remind the approximately 70 people in attendance of this fact. “We hold this lecture series in his honor,” said Nussbaum, “because we seek to follow his example of respecting children and honoring the whole child.”

“How to Love a Child”: The Janusz Korczak Lecture Series is co-organized by the JKAC and the faculty of education at the University of British Columbia, with contributions from other faculties, universities, activists and advocates. The first of six lectures was called Keeping our Promise to Children: The Relevance of Korczak’s Legacy for Children Today. It featured as keynote speaker Irwin Elman, provincial advocate for children and youth of Ontario, and president of the Canadian Council of Child and Youth Advocates.

Other speakers included moderator Dr. Charles Ungerleider, director of research and managing partner of Directions Evidence and Policy Research Group, LLP; Marni Point, who welcomed attendees to the traditional and unceded Musqueam territory; Dr. Krzysztof Olendhi, ambassador titulaire, consul general of the Republic of Poland in Vancouver; and. Dr. Blye Frank, dean and professor, UBC faculty of education. The most poignant tribute came from child survivor Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, board member of JKAC, author and UBC instructor.

“Korczak has been my hero all my life,” she said. Both she and Korczak were among those held in the Warsaw Ghetto. She spoke of going to school secretly until one day two Nazis came in and pushed the teachers around (they were sent to prison) – “we children sat there frozen in fear for quite some time, then the teachers sent us home. The next day, the school was boarded up. And that is what I remember, clutching my father’s hand ever so tightly while looking into the cellar through a little window at the now-empty grey room, where once there was life, color and learning. I had lost my right to education.”

Her father took her to Korczak’s orphanage. Even though the doctor was not in, they were welcomed, and she saw the children reading and doing artwork, seemingly happy “inside this space, as if the horror of the ghetto and the threat of the always-impending danger didn’t exist. This was Dr. Korczak’s world…. I had the impression that the doctor also tried to raise the children’s spirits during the terrible times in which they lived.”

She described the deportations; she, her mother and little sister narrowly missing the transport cars to Treblinka when a commotion distracted the guards and her father managed to save them out of the line. “We were lucky, not so Dr. Korczak and his children, who were destined to walk along the same route.”

On Aug. 5, 1942, the Nazis came for the children of the orphanage. While he was offered a reprieve, “Korczak refused, saying I hate desertion and besides, my children need me.

“Father often spoke of that day and how Korczak’s 200 orphans were ordered out of the building and made to march through the Warsaw Ghetto with Korczak at the helm, holding a small child in his arms and one little one by the hand. They were carrying the green banner of King Matthew, the character in his [Korczak’s] popular book for children about a child king who fought for children’s rights…. No survivor who was there at that time can forget the long procession. Many wrote about it.”

Boraks-Nemetz said her father often spoke about Korczak and taught her his principles, principles she followed in raising her own children. She concluded her remarks with the poem “And Still They March” by Yala Korwin, before presenting the first JKAC scholarship award to UBC PhD student Matthew Lee for his work on children’s social and emotional development.

When Elman began his keynote address, he admitted that he only learned about Korczak about 15 years ago, on a trip to Japan, where he was invited to “help them learn about children’s rights and to help teach them to elevate the voice of children.” When visiting a children’s home – an institution that can have as many as 200 children living in it – a staff member mentioned Korczak and was amazed when Elman, a Jewish educator who had worked with children for 20 years at that point, did not know the name.

Elman has since learned enough to know that Korczak’s work and life are relevant. “In Canada today, there are approximately 350,000 children connected to care in one way or another…. Some say that there are as many as two million former Crown wards … in this country.”

Speaking of his home province, he said there were 23,000 kids in Ontario living in some form of care, 8,000-10,000 permanently (ie. Crown wards, which, in British Columbia, are called continued custody orders) – and they are not doing well. Of those, more than 18% are aboriginal; in British Columbia, it’s 60-65%; in other provinces even higher. “It’s not hard to understand and listen to and hear the echoes of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report, and the need to address this over-representation of First Nations children across the country in our systems of care.”

In Ontario, he said, children can only come into care if a social worker (or somebody in such a capacity) has deemed the child in need of protection – from abuse or neglect – and a court has agreed. The children have not done anything wrong.

When the state takes children into care, said Elman, “You’re making a promise to them. The first thing, obviously, is, you’re protected now. The second thing is … if you’re permanently in our care, we’re going to take care of you … we’re going to ensure that you’re going to live to your full potential. And, when that child is brought into care, what do they hear? Maybe we don’t say it, but they hear, we’re going to love you, it’s OK now.”

But, he said, only 40% of children in care in Ontario graduate from high school, and that percentage doesn’t vary much between provinces; 43% of the homeless population of Canada have had an in-care experience. Young people connected to care are over-represented in the justice and mental health systems.

Elman shared many stories of his work as the province’s advocate. When somebody steps up for a child, he said – whether it be a community, foster parents, a group home, adoptive parents, anyone – “the government needs to say thank you, we’ve got your back, what do you need? We’ll do whatever is necessary, because we owe our children a home in which they are nurtured and loved…. That takes a whole different way of thinking about child welfare.”

He has been told, “We can’t legislate love.” His response is, “I don’t think you can legislate love, but I do think you can create conditions in which love can flourish. The government should be all over that… And, to do that, they need to ask young people and they need to ask children and they need to ask their caregivers in whatever form that is…. We owe that to children.”

If we took that approach, he said, if children in care were listened to, they would feel in charge of their own lives. If they knew what was in their files and had a say in what was written there, they would contribute to making policy, they would have a say in where they lived. Social and child-care workers would be trained differently, including respecting all the different cultures from which children in care come. “Many practical, revolutionary things … would happen in the way in which the system is run if children felt listened to.”

Panelists Rachel Malek, Jess Boon and James Copping – all members of the Federation of B.C. Youth in Care Networks – joined Elman on stage for a 35-minute Q&A. Questioners wanted to know more about the criteria for a child going into care, how to create a sense of belonging for a child and ensure their safety, how to reduce the number of children in care, the impact of poverty, and which programs in Canada reflect Korczak’s philosophy.

As the final question, the consul general asked the young panelists, all of whom had experienced the care system, “What does it mean to you to love a child?” Boon spoke of commitment, being there for the serious and fun times but also investing in your own education to give back to the community. Copping mentioned consistency in home, support for school, having someone on whom to rely through thick and thin. For Malek, it is to be vulnerable – to open your heart, to recognize that it’s a two-way street, to be willing to go the extra mile for a child.

The next lecture in the Korczak series takes place Oct. 29, 7 p.m., at UBC Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre. Registration is required via jklectures.educ.ubc.ca.

Survivors living in squalor

Survivor Mitzvah Project’s Zane Buzby, centre, in 2012 with Abramas and Malka Dikhtyar, the last two Jews in Bazaliya, Ukraine, the birthplace of Buzby’s grandfather. (photo from Survivor Mitzvah Project)

It is officially autumn and British Columbians are nesting, settling in for the cozier, slower season to come. For impoverished Holocaust survivors living in shocking squalor in eastern Europe, the impending winter is a time of danger and scarcity.

Like most people, Zane Buzby initially had no idea that there were thousands of destitute, aged survivors of the Holocaust living in subhuman conditions across the former Soviet Union. After she first encountered some of the poorest of the poor, she returned to her California home and searched for organizations that help them.

“I thought a lot of them must be doing this, even the big organizations that have Holocaust survivor programs,” she recalled recently. “I called every single one of them, [asking] specifically what are you doing? It’s nothing. They’re not helping people financially. No one was doing with this.”

The Claims Conference, which was created by the German government to aid survivors of the Holocaust, has proven useless to most of these individuals.

photo - Survivors Isak and Galina in hospital — Survivors Isak and Galina in hospital. *(photo from Survivor Mitzvah Project)*

“If you were in a concentration camp – and the Germans kept really good records – if you survived Auschwitz, they have your name … [even so], most people have to hire an attorney,” Buzby said. The survivors she helps don’t have records, partly because the Holocaust in the east was typified by on-the-spot mass murder by Einsatzgruppen killing squads rather than concentration camps. And the few survivors in eastern Europe today do not have the resources to apply.

“They don’t have computers, they don’t have people advocating for them, there’s no lawyers out there,” said Buzby.

photo - Survivors Isak and Galina in their younger days — Survivors Isak and Galina in their younger days. *(photo from Survivor Mitzvah Project)*

In many cases, they also don’t have the money to pay for heating fuel, let alone medications or doctors. Some may have a pension of $10 a month, others have no income whatsoever. Food can be very scarce and many of the survivors are the last, or among the last, Jews in their villages, making their final years bleak and lonely.

Buzby took it upon herself to help. She formed the Survivor Mitzvah Project in 2001 and has helped thousands of the most desperate, destitute survivors. (See also jewishindependent.ca/oldsite/archives/may08/archives08may02-01.html.)

“This is the last generation of Holocaust survivors and we are the last generation who can say that we helped,” she said. “Everyone turned their back in 1939 but today we can do something to help them and we should.”

The Survivor Mitzvah Project (SMP) doesn’t try to create the infrastructure of social services or initiate major projects. The goal is simple. Get some money into the hands of the most destitute Holocaust survivors as quickly as possible.

“We try to give them between $100 and $150 a month to get food, heat and medication, so it comes out between $1,800 and $2,000 a year per survivor,” she said. “Of course, we don’t have the money, we don’t bring in enough money, we don’t have enough donors to help everyone every month and that’s the sad part. That’s why this is really a call to action. There is no tomorrow for these people. They need money now.”

Buzby, an actor and TV director before she became obsessed with helping destitute survivors, finds recipients through word of mouth, traveling to villages and asking around for Jews or looking for signs of Jewish life. Often, she said, survivors lead her to others. She recalled a particular example.

photo - Some survivors are living in huts – “no running water, no heat, broken windows.” — Some survivors are living in huts – “no running water, no heat, broken windows.” *(photo from Survivor Mitzvah Project)*

“When I went there, to this little village, it was in such poverty, it was unimaginable, unbelievable poverty. No bathroom, no running water, no heat, broken windows,” she said. “A lot of these people made the huts they live in themselves out of mud and straw bricks after the war. It needs to be refurbished every year but now in their old age they can’t do it, so ceilings fall in. I gave [a woman] $800 and, on the way out, she pulls on my jacket and says to me through a translator, ‘Can I split this was someone?’ And I said, ‘Who are you going to split it with?’ ‘There is a woman down the road who is much worse off than I am.’ And I thought, how could anybody be worse off than you are, so I said come with us and take us to this woman. So we went to see the second woman and she was very bad off, so she was put on the list, and that’s how it goes.”

The Jews in these villages are often surrounded by non-Jews who are also destitute, said Buzby.

“There’s always poor people to help, God knows,” she said. “But for the Jewish people who survived the Holocaust, not only were their families decimated and murdered, their communities were obliterated, especially if they were in the east, they were burned to the ground. There’s no community, there is no rabbi, there’s no Jewish community, there is no shul, there’s no sister, brother and uncle, there is no support system. So, these [non-Jewish] villagers, even though they are also poor, they have large families, they have maybe a church, they have community. These [survivors] have no community. There is absolutely nothing supporting them.”

photo - Basya Kreyn with her prewar photo, Belarus — Basya Kreyn with her prewar photo, Belarus. *(photo from Survivor Mitzvah Project)*

Holocaust survivors in eastern Europe have one thing in abundance, Buzby clarified. Antisemitism.

“Rampant. Terrible,” she said. “There’s more antisemitism now than there’s ever been.”

In places, neo-Nazis march openly on the streets. Fascistic parties are gaining strength across eastern Europe. In Vilnius, Lithuania, kids dress up as “Jews” in masks with exaggerated features that are perceived as Jewish and trick-or-treat, demanding money. War-era Nazi collaborators are being rehabilitated as national heroes, she said.

The relationships between the few surviving Jews and their neighbors is additionally fraught because of the high levels of collaboration between the Nazi invaders and the native populations in the east. The almost complete destruction of the Jewish communities of Lithuania – an estimated 95% of the Jews there were killed – is credited to the assistance of Lithuanians. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has said that Ukraine, for example, has never initiated any investigation into collaboration or prosecuted a perpetrator.

The Survivor Mitzvah Project gets almost no institutional help. Buzby said she routinely contacts major foundations but they demur, saying they support various organizations that assist survivors. But the survivors Buzby has tracked down have fallen through the cracks of whatever institutionalized assistance might be available.

What they do get is support from some of Buzby’s show biz colleagues. Buzby’s acting career includes turns in some of the classic comedies of the 1970s and ’80s, including Up in Smoke, National Lampoon’s Class Reunion and This is Spinal Tap. As a director, she worked on sitcoms including The Dick Van Dyke Show, Golden Girls, Newhart and Blossom. She has brought entertainment figures together for emotional events in which luminaries including Valerie Harper, Ed Asner, Frances Fisher, Elliott Gould, Lainie Kazan and Chris Noth read letters from survivors SMP has helped, who speak about their hardships and the difference the assistance has made in their lives. A powerful video of one of the events is online at survivormitzvah.org.

SMP has hit the $1 million a year mark, but Buzby estimates she needs $2.5 million to meet demand.

“This is an opportunity for people to change the course of history for the survivors,” she said. “Everybody has monuments and raises money for and builds museums for remembrance of those that perished, which is absolutely as it should be. But what about those that survived?”

The coming of the cold winter adds urgency to Buzby’s work. So does the obvious march of time, she said, as the remaining survivors near the end of their lives.

“It’s a time that’s never going to come again,” she said.

For more information or to donate, visit survivormitzvah.org or canadahelps.org.