A seemingly innocuous move to honor a Bulgarian politician who helped save Jews during the Holocaust has triggered an unexpectedly fierce debate about the less than heroic role played by the Balkan nation during World War II. At issue is a nondescript small green sign bearing three words: “Dimitar Peshev Plaza.” A former Washington city…
A non-Jewish woman from Cork who risked her life to save Jewish children from the Nazis has become Ireland’s first Righteous among the Nations. Mary Elms, who died in 2002, helped “a large number of Jewish children” escape the Rivesaltes detention camp in France in August-September of 1942, according to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial…
A fight over memory overshadows Poland’s commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The controversy surfaced as the April 19 commemoration neared, with information from prominent Jewish activists that the government intended to use the occasion to announce plans for a monument to Righteous Gentiles on the grounds of the former ghetto,…
Even though 67 years had passed since they last saw each other, Wladyslawa Dudziak and Rozia Beiman reunited as if they hadn’t missed a moment. Dudziak, 85, was flown to New York last week from Poland to meet with Beiman, whom she had saved from the Nazis more than a half-century before. Dudziak lived in…
Cardinal Elia Angelo Dalla Costa, the World War II-era Archbishop of Florence, has been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations. In an announcement issued Monday, Yad Vashem in Jerusalem said Dalla Costa was recognized as a righteous gentile earlier this year “for spearheading the rescue of hundreds of Jews in Florence during the Holocaust.” Dalla…
A fisherman who took part in the dramatic rescue of about 30 Jews during World War II died this week. Agostino Piazzesi, 87, was the last survivor of 15 fishermen who during the night of June 19-20, 1944 rescued the Jews, who were held by the Germans in a castle on Isola Maggiore in the…
The government of the Netherlands and Yad Vashem have agreed to digitally archive documents connected to Dutch rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust. The documents will be scanned by Yad Vashem – Israel’s Holocaust commemoration authority – over the coming two years, Yad Vashem deputy spokesperson Yifat Bachrach-Ron told JTA. Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev…
Exodus 6:2–9:35 Not long ago my niece Shira sent me some comments on the weekly portion in which Moses was saved by Pharaoh’s daughter. She compared the historical events with the life stories of her two grandmothers, who had died at the end of a long, full life after first experiencing a childhood of terror…
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