POLISH CAMPAIGN WILL INTERVIEW WITNESSES OF HOLOCAUST RESCUE ATTEMPTS

JTA

The “Silent Heroes” campaign will distribute country-wide posters in a search for witnesses of rescues.

A man sits on the railway tracks in the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau as thousands of people, mostly youth from all over the world, gather for the annual March of the Living t. (photo credit:REUTERS)

Holocaust-commemoration activists in Poland with British government funding launched a last-ditch effort to interview witnesses to attempts to rescue Jews from the genocide.

The campaign, titled “Silent Heroes,” was announced Thursday at a news conference in Warsaw that was organized by the From the Depths organization and attended by the United Kingdom’s Special Envoy for Post-Holocaust Issues, Eric Pickles, and the head of Poland’s largest Jewish organization, TSKZ President Artur Hoffman.

One witness who was interviewed last month, Natalia Jakoniuk, suffered a debilitating stroke the following week, demonstrating how “time is of the essence and not on our side,” From the Depths founder, Jonny Daniels, said.

Under the new campaign, in which journalists and researchers conduct filmed interviews with witnesses, posters asking witnesses to step forward will be placed in government offices with nationwide distribution.

In her testimony, Jakoniuk, who was a child younger than 10 during World War II, said she recalls people living in the attic of her home in the village of Przeradz Maly outside Warsaw. “They didn’t tell us, the children,” she said of her parents. But they did instruct her to be “on the lookout, to see if the German gendarmerie who invaded Poland were coming.”

One time, when she was six years old, she was told to run to neighboring village to warn the residents that the Germans were coming, she said. “That was my job,” she recalled in the interview. That year, a German soldier inspected their house and complimented her mother on how tidy it was, not knowing there were Jews hiding in the attic.

“If he had taken a ladder and climbed up to the attic, we would have all been killed,” she said.

From the Depths attempts to substantiate the testimonies it is collecting with Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance and other archives, Daniels said.

Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem-based Holocaust museum, is the authority entrusted by Israel’s government to confer the title of Righteous Among the Nations on non-Jewish people who risked their lives to save Jews. The rigorous vetting process requires testimonies by several people who witnessed the attempt. The cases documented by From the Depths may not pass this vetting “simply because not all rescue cases had witnesses,” Daniels said, adding: “This is about documentation, not titles.”

Hoffman said his motivation for making TSKZ a partner in the project is that: “The world needs to see what good people can do in bad times, what being a true hero is.”

Poland under President Andrzej Duda of the right-wing Law and Justice Party has highlighted the actions of Poles who saved Jews, including by opening a museum for them.

Critics of Poland’s government, including the country’s main federation of Jewish organizations, allege that its nationalist agenda is emboldening anti-Semites and that its emphasis on rescuers must not come at the expense of efforts to research and expose collaboration by Poles and atrocities by locals against Jews.
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Scarlett Johansson learns of family Holocaust tragedy from genealogy show

TOI STAFF

In forthcoming episode of ‘Finding Your Roots,’ US Jewish actress tearfully finds out her great uncle and his family perished in the Warsaw Ghetto

In the forthcoming episode of the PBS series “Finding Your Roots,” American Jewish actress Scarlett Johansson discovers the tragic fate of her relatives who died in the Holocaust.

Johansson is overcome by emotion when she learns for the first time that her great uncle died in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Nazi occupation of Poland.

“I mean, you really couldn’t imagine the horror. It’s just so crazy to imagine,” she says tearfully in a trailer for the episode obtained by People magazine.

Johansson’s grandfather left Poland for the United States, where he worked as a grocer in New York.

The PBS show used documentation from Yad Vashem to determine that his brother and family died in the ghetto.

“Wow, that’s sad,” she says, visibly overcome with emotion. “And I promised myself I wouldn’t cry. But it’s hard not to.”

“It’s crazy to imagine that Saul would be on the other side selling bananas on Ludlow Street. And how different it would be being in America at that time,” the 32-year-old actress says. “The fate of one brother versus the other.”

Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto are led by German soldiers to an assembly point for deportation to death camps, 1943. (Public domain)

Johansson says the experience has led her to feel more connected to her roots.

“It makes me feel more deeply connected to that side of myself, that side of my family. I didn’t expect that,” she says.

Johansson’s episode is to air on Tuesday, October 31, on PBS.

Iran to execute ‘Mossad agent’ for killing Iranian scientists

By: Ebin Sandler, World Israel News

Condemned Iranian researcher Ahmadreza Djalali. (Facebook)

The Islamic Republic branded a disaster medicine researcher as a “Mossad agent,” giving him just 20 days to appeal the death sentence an Iranian judge handed down.

While Iranian officials attempted to maintain secrecy with regard to a scientist who was recently doomed to be put to death, international organizations are releasing the man’s identity, naming him as Ahmadreza Djalali. While Djalali is affiliated with prestigious institutions in Italy, Belgium and Sweden, he was arrested in April 2016 in Tehran during an academic visit.

While visiting the Islamic Repbublic, Djalali was accused of “collaboration with a hostile government,” as prosecutors attempted to pin on him the deaths of several Iranian scientists associated with the nation’s nuclear weapons program. Among the Iranian government’s accusations were claims that Djalali received remuneration, academic positions and research initiatives as compensation for espionage activity on behalf of Israel.

In reality, Djalali “works on improving hospitals’ emergency responses to armed terrorism and radiological, chemical and biological threats,” according to Nature, one of the top peer-reviewed publications in the world.

Not long before the death sentence was revealed, “A close contact of Djalali’s (who would prefer to remain anonymous) circulated a document that claims to be a literal transcription of a handwritten text produced by Djalali inside Evin prison, where he is being held. The document states that Djalali believes he was arrested for refusing to spy for the Iranian intelligence service,” Nature reported.

The Djalali episode is only the latest chapter in Iran’s atrocious record of human rights violations and horrific atrocities committed against its own citizens and foreign nationals. In 1988, for instance, the Iranian regime hung literally tens of thousands of political prisoners and supporters of opposition movements, burying the victims in mass graves, based on a decree issued by Iranian regime founder Ayatollah Khomeini.

Iran is also widely believed to have been behind bombings in the 1990s targeting Jews in Argentina that claimed the lives of over 100 victims and injured hundreds of others. Politically motivated executions and the persecution of various minority groups are currently widespread practices in Iran.

Iran praises Hamas for sticking to struggle against Israel

TOI STAFF and DOV LIEBER

In Tehran, Gaza-based terror group’s deputy chief rejects Israeli and American demands and vows to eliminate the ‘Zionist entity’

Ali Akbar Velayati , senior aide to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (YouTube screenshot)

A top aide to Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei praised Hamas for not abandoning its armed struggle against Israel, during a meeting Saturday with the terror group’s visiting delegation in Tehran.

“We congratulate you for declaring that you will not set your weapons aside and for describing it as your red line,” said international affairs adviser Ali Akbar Velayati, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

In a separate meeting Saturday, Admiral Ali Shamkhani, Iran’s secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, sent a similar message to the terror group, expressing hope that Hamas would continue to be a “central pioneer of the Palestinian resistance,” according to Iran’s Press TV.

During the meeting, Shamkhani condemned ostensible American and Israeli attempts to remove the Palestinian issue from the international agenda, the report said.

Iranian Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, right, shakes hands with the head of the UN’s atomic watchdog Yukiya Amano during a meeting in Tehran on July 02, 2015. (AFP/ATTA KENARE)

“The US and the Zionist regime feel threatened by any balance shift in the Middle East in favor of regional people and governments engaged in the fight against terrorism,” Shamkhani said. “They seek to obstruct the path of anti-terrorism fight by bringing up unfounded pretexts such as blocking Iran’s regional sway.”

Hamas deputy chief Salah al-Arouri, who is leading the delegation, thanked Iran for its patronage and noted that senior officials in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip were interested in expanding ties with Tehran.

The high-ranking Hamas delegation began its visit to Iran on Friday to inform its backers in Tehran about reconciliation efforts with rival Palestinian faction Fatah, an official from the terror group told AFP.

The two Palestinians factions have agreed on a landmark deal to end a decade-long split and are seeking to form a unity government along with other parties.

Arouri rejected Israel’s three preconditions for dealing with any Palestinian government in which Hamas sits — that Hamas disarm, recognize Israel and cut all relations with Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (center right) meets with senior Hamas officials in Tehran on August 7, 2017. (screen capture)

read more: Iran praises Hamas for sticking to struggle against Israel

It’s everyone’s Torah…

Laura Ben-David

foto: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/torah1.jpg

Ayear ago, I wrote an article about very real challenges in religious progress, in particular relating to women who wish to dance with a Torah scroll on Simchat Torah – the holiday whose very purpose is to celebrate the Torah.

The story I’d written about was based on an incident in my synagogue in which I hadn’t actually participated. In fact, I wasn’t even present when it occurred. More so, though I was and am fully supportive of women’s right and privilege to hold and dance with a Torah scroll, it was never something I felt lacking in not having ever done. That was last year.

This year, circumstances found me, my 14-year-old son and my 7-year-old daughter alone for Simchat Torah. We decided to take advantage and branch out of our little village and head for the big city. That is why we ended up in Jerusalem.

We had the holiday evening all planned out. An out-of-the-ordinary early dinner before synagogue so we didn’t feel rushed; and a carefully (hand drawn! Forgot to print it…) mapped route to take us to the most exciting, inspiring, inviting synagogues.

Even with our carefully drawn out plans, I couldn’t have prepared for the exciting, inspiring event that was to occur.

We entered one of the synagogues on our route; a small, unassuming synagogue in a hidden courtyard in the neighborhood of Nachlaot. We were strangers there; we knew no one.

My son went off to the men’s side and my daughter and I entered the women’s section. Immediately, we saw that the women were dancing with a Torah. I watched from a distance, getting my bearings, somewhat amazed and delighted.

Suddenly, the woman holding the Torah came straight over to me and asked if I’d like to hold the Torah. Time stood still for me as an entire conversation took place in my mind. [Me? That’s not my thing. I’ve never done this. I never wanted to do it. But right now, suddenly, there is nothing I want to do as badly as hold that beautiful Torah scroll and dance with it!]

Almost shaking, I nodded to the woman as she gently handed it to me, explaining exactly where and how I should hold it.

And then, there I was; holding a Torah scroll as one would hold a precious baby. Standing in the middle of a circle of women in a synagogue I’d entered for the first time only moments before.

I was holding the star of the celebration — the Torah on Simchat Torah. And everyone was dancing around me. Around “us.” I was overwhelmed. My eyes were brimming with tears.

I realized my little girl was part of the dancing circle. I gestured for her to join me in the center. She did so without hesitation. I sacrificed one finger from the solid grip I had on my precious cargo to take hold of a finger of hers. This most precious of moments was one I was desperate to share with her. If only my son, alone on the other side of the partition, had realized and could have witnessed this as well.

It was the most confusing, exultant, emotional experience I can ever recall. In that moment, it occurred to me that not dancing around the Torah on Simchat Torah was like not dancing around the bride at a wedding. Dancing with the Torah felt natural. It was normal. But more than that; it was everything.