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1. Obama Confirms: Bin Laden is Dead
by Elad Benari
U.S. President Barack Obama has confirmed in a speech to the nation that Osama bin Laden, leader of the Al-Qaeda terror group who has been sought by the U.S. for nearly a decade due to his group’s involvement in the September 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center, is dead.
"Justice has been done", he said, addressing his words in particular to the families of those killed in 9/11, in the war against the Taliban and also thanking those servicemen and women who took part in the search for the terrorist leader.
In his speech, Obama confirmed the reports that bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan during a firefight in a compound outside Islamabad. He noted that the information about bin Laden's whereabouts had been given to him last August and that he authorized the operation last week.
"He was a mass murderer of Muslims," said Obama, warning that vigilance must continue in case of reprisals. Cheering crowds with hastily made signs gathered outside the White House shortly after the news broke.
Major news agencies reported prior to Obama's speech that bin Laden was killed in a mansion between Islamabad and Peshawar in Pakistan. The CNN network noted that he was killed by American forces. It was also reported that a DNA test had proven that it was indeed bin Laden who had been killed.
A Pakistani intelligence official confirmed that bin Laden had indeed been killed in Pakistan, AP said.
In his speech, Obama said that bin Laden's killing is proof that the U.S. can do what it sets out to do, because it is a land "under God, with liberty and justice for all."
After positive identification of his remains, Bin Laden was buried at an undisclosed location at sea.
Comment on this story
by Elad Benari
U.S. President Barack Obama has confirmed in a speech to the nation that Osama bin Laden, leader of the Al-Qaeda terror group who has been sought by the U.S. for nearly a decade due to his group’s involvement in the September 11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center, is dead.
"Justice has been done", he said, addressing his words in particular to the families of those killed in 9/11, in the war against the Taliban and also thanking those servicemen and women who took part in the search for the terrorist leader.
In his speech, Obama confirmed the reports that bin Laden had been killed in Pakistan during a firefight in a compound outside Islamabad. He noted that the information about bin Laden's whereabouts had been given to him last August and that he authorized the operation last week.
"He was a mass murderer of Muslims," said Obama, warning that vigilance must continue in case of reprisals. Cheering crowds with hastily made signs gathered outside the White House shortly after the news broke.
Major news agencies reported prior to Obama's speech that bin Laden was killed in a mansion between Islamabad and Peshawar in Pakistan. The CNN network noted that he was killed by American forces. It was also reported that a DNA test had proven that it was indeed bin Laden who had been killed.
A Pakistani intelligence official confirmed that bin Laden had indeed been killed in Pakistan, AP said.
In his speech, Obama said that bin Laden's killing is proof that the U.S. can do what it sets out to do, because it is a land "under God, with liberty and justice for all."
After positive identification of his remains, Bin Laden was buried at an undisclosed location at sea.
Comment on this story
2. Bin Laden Showed Up Classic Lie that ‘Poverty Breeds Terrorism’
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was born in 1957 into a rich Saudi family, inherited $300 million at the age of 11, and was killed in his mansion, belying the myth that poverty breeds terrorists.
He was killed on the same day that it was announced that Hitler had committed suicide, one day earlier in 1945, and on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day.
His father was a contractor who adhered to fundamentalist Islam. Bin Laden grew up surrounded by material wealth – crystal chandeliers, gold statues and Italian tapestries, McClatchy newspapers reported.
At the age of 11, he inherited a fortune estimated to be worth $300 million after his father died in a helicopter crash. His exposure to radical Islam began after he shunned Western universities and studied at a university in Saudi Arabia, where he learned from Muslim preachers that following strict Islam was a defense against corruption and Western decadence.
At the age of 18, he married a 14-year-old girl, the first of four wives. In 1988, he founded Al-Qaeda, an Arabic word that literally means “the base."
American authorities labeled him a co-conspirator in the 1993 bomb attack at the World Trade Center, when six people were killed and hundreds were wounded. It turned out to be a prelude to the devastating 9/11 suicide plane attacks in 2001 that brought down the Twin Towers, where approximately 2,700 people were murdered.
He survived several assassination attempts, one of which narrowly missed him by a time difference of less than one hour.
The more he succeeded in killing, the more radical he became. Bin Laden began issuing “fatwas,” Muslim religious decrees, including one in 1996 that declared a holy war against the U.S. Army. A year later, he told an interviewer that the United States is "unjust, criminal and tyrannical… [and] wants to occupy our countries, steal our resources, impose on us agents to rule us, and then wants us to agree to all this. If we refuse to do so, it says we are terrorists."
Two years later, he endorsed a fatwa that that Muslims should kill Americans – including civilians – anywhere in the world.
After terrorist bombings outside U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed 224 people, he was indicted in absentia on 224 counts of murder and appeared on the FBI’s listed of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. After the 9/11 attacks, a $25 million bounty was placed over his head.
While preaching the radical Muslim philosophy against Western opulence and corruption, his Al-Qaeda terrorist network continues to raise hundreds of millions of dollars through drug smuggling, extortion and money funneled from Muslim ”charities,”
He died in the same opulent environment in which he grew up. American SEAL teams killed him in his huge mansion in Pakistan, ending the life of the man who was once described by terrorism expert Yosef Bodansky as “the man who declared war on America.”
Although Bin Laden is dead, he leaves a large inheritance—the thriving Al-Qaeda terrorist network. His Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, is likely to take his place. Psychologically Al-Qaeda has suffered a serious blow and possibly even the beginning of its demise in the long term.
However, an American official told The New York Times Monday, “Al Qaeda operatives and sympathizers may try to respond violently to avenge Bin Laden’s death, and other terrorist leaders may try to accelerate their efforts to strike the United States.”
Comment on this story
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden was born in 1957 into a rich Saudi family, inherited $300 million at the age of 11, and was killed in his mansion, belying the myth that poverty breeds terrorists.
He was killed on the same day that it was announced that Hitler had committed suicide, one day earlier in 1945, and on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day.
His father was a contractor who adhered to fundamentalist Islam. Bin Laden grew up surrounded by material wealth – crystal chandeliers, gold statues and Italian tapestries, McClatchy newspapers reported.
At the age of 11, he inherited a fortune estimated to be worth $300 million after his father died in a helicopter crash. His exposure to radical Islam began after he shunned Western universities and studied at a university in Saudi Arabia, where he learned from Muslim preachers that following strict Islam was a defense against corruption and Western decadence.
At the age of 18, he married a 14-year-old girl, the first of four wives. In 1988, he founded Al-Qaeda, an Arabic word that literally means “the base."
American authorities labeled him a co-conspirator in the 1993 bomb attack at the World Trade Center, when six people were killed and hundreds were wounded. It turned out to be a prelude to the devastating 9/11 suicide plane attacks in 2001 that brought down the Twin Towers, where approximately 2,700 people were murdered.
He survived several assassination attempts, one of which narrowly missed him by a time difference of less than one hour.
The more he succeeded in killing, the more radical he became. Bin Laden began issuing “fatwas,” Muslim religious decrees, including one in 1996 that declared a holy war against the U.S. Army. A year later, he told an interviewer that the United States is "unjust, criminal and tyrannical… [and] wants to occupy our countries, steal our resources, impose on us agents to rule us, and then wants us to agree to all this. If we refuse to do so, it says we are terrorists."
Two years later, he endorsed a fatwa that that Muslims should kill Americans – including civilians – anywhere in the world.
After terrorist bombings outside U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 that killed 224 people, he was indicted in absentia on 224 counts of murder and appeared on the FBI’s listed of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. After the 9/11 attacks, a $25 million bounty was placed over his head.
While preaching the radical Muslim philosophy against Western opulence and corruption, his Al-Qaeda terrorist network continues to raise hundreds of millions of dollars through drug smuggling, extortion and money funneled from Muslim ”charities,”
He died in the same opulent environment in which he grew up. American SEAL teams killed him in his huge mansion in Pakistan, ending the life of the man who was once described by terrorism expert Yosef Bodansky as “the man who declared war on America.”
Although Bin Laden is dead, he leaves a large inheritance—the thriving Al-Qaeda terrorist network. His Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, is likely to take his place. Psychologically Al-Qaeda has suffered a serious blow and possibly even the beginning of its demise in the long term.
However, an American official told The New York Times Monday, “Al Qaeda operatives and sympathizers may try to respond violently to avenge Bin Laden’s death, and other terrorist leaders may try to accelerate their efforts to strike the United States.”
Comment on this story
3. Root of Bin Laden’s Terrorism: Hatred of Jews
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Hatred of Jews and claims that the US “attacked” Muslims by “helping Jews occupy Palestine” were one of the reasons for Bin Laden’s anti-American terror. Hatred of the West and what it stands for played a much larger part, but Bin Laden, in true anti-Semitic tradition, tried to whip up anti- Jewish feeling by claiming that the Jews are one of the reasons for his terrorist acts. INN has researched the anti-Semitic angle.
The leader of the Al Qaeda terrorist network was responsible for the murder of hundreds of American soldiers and nearly 3,000 civilians who were killed in the 9/11 attacks in the United States. He hated America and the liberty and justice it represents.
Howver, Jews in Israel bore the brunt of incitement he whipped up over the years. His intense hatred of any non-Muslims touching what he considered to be Muslim property enraged him.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the end of 1979 also drove him to lead terrorists to fight the “infidels.” His obsessive revulsion of a Jewish presence in Israel did the same.
In his “Letter to America” in 2002, after the 9/11 attacks, Bin Laden wrote, "Some American writers have published articles under the title 'On what basis are we fighting?'... Because you attacked us and continue to attack us. You attacked us in Palestine, which has sunk under military occupation for more than 80 years. The British handed over Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and devastation. The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals.”
Bin Laden denied any Jewish connection to Israel: ”The people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites. It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses (peace be upon him) and the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed... If the followers of Moses have been promised a right to Palestine in the Torah, then the Muslims are the most worthy nation of this.”
His contorted logic allowed him to claim, contrary to reason and fact, as more and more Palestinian Authority clerics now argue as well, that Muslims actually lived in Israel long before the Muslim religion was founded. “When the Muslims conquered Palestine and drove out the Romans, Palestine and Jerusalem returned to Islam,” according to Bin Laden. In actual fact, the Romans had conquered Jerusalem from the Jews in the year 70 C.E., six centuries before Mohammed's founding of Islam.
Blaming American for supporting “atrocities” and “aggression” in Chechnya, Kashmir and Lebanon, Bin Laden also pointed the finger at Jews. “These governments have surrendered to the Jews, and handed them most of Palestine, acknowledging the existence of their state over the dismembered limbs of their own people,” he wrote.
He then reasoned that since Americans vote for their government freely, they “have chosen, consented to, and affirmed their support for the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, the occupation and usurpation of their land, and its continuous killing, torture, punishment and expulsion of the Palestinians... The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine... So the American people are the ones who fund the attacks against us…"
The United States would not have gained his approval had it abandoned Israel. According to Bin Laden, he would have stopped fighting if Americans were to accept Islam as their religion and then “stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.”
Comment on this story
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
Hatred of Jews and claims that the US “attacked” Muslims by “helping Jews occupy Palestine” were one of the reasons for Bin Laden’s anti-American terror. Hatred of the West and what it stands for played a much larger part, but Bin Laden, in true anti-Semitic tradition, tried to whip up anti- Jewish feeling by claiming that the Jews are one of the reasons for his terrorist acts. INN has researched the anti-Semitic angle.
The leader of the Al Qaeda terrorist network was responsible for the murder of hundreds of American soldiers and nearly 3,000 civilians who were killed in the 9/11 attacks in the United States. He hated America and the liberty and justice it represents.
Howver, Jews in Israel bore the brunt of incitement he whipped up over the years. His intense hatred of any non-Muslims touching what he considered to be Muslim property enraged him.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the end of 1979 also drove him to lead terrorists to fight the “infidels.” His obsessive revulsion of a Jewish presence in Israel did the same.
In his “Letter to America” in 2002, after the 9/11 attacks, Bin Laden wrote, "Some American writers have published articles under the title 'On what basis are we fighting?'... Because you attacked us and continue to attack us. You attacked us in Palestine, which has sunk under military occupation for more than 80 years. The British handed over Palestine, with your help and your support, to the Jews, who have occupied it for more than 50 years; years overflowing with oppression, tyranny, crimes, killing, expulsion, destruction and devastation. The creation and continuation of Israel is one of the greatest crimes, and you are the leaders of its criminals.”
Bin Laden denied any Jewish connection to Israel: ”The people of Palestine are pure Arabs and original Semites. It is the Muslims who are the inheritors of Moses (peace be upon him) and the inheritors of the real Torah that has not been changed... If the followers of Moses have been promised a right to Palestine in the Torah, then the Muslims are the most worthy nation of this.”
His contorted logic allowed him to claim, contrary to reason and fact, as more and more Palestinian Authority clerics now argue as well, that Muslims actually lived in Israel long before the Muslim religion was founded. “When the Muslims conquered Palestine and drove out the Romans, Palestine and Jerusalem returned to Islam,” according to Bin Laden. In actual fact, the Romans had conquered Jerusalem from the Jews in the year 70 C.E., six centuries before Mohammed's founding of Islam.
Blaming American for supporting “atrocities” and “aggression” in Chechnya, Kashmir and Lebanon, Bin Laden also pointed the finger at Jews. “These governments have surrendered to the Jews, and handed them most of Palestine, acknowledging the existence of their state over the dismembered limbs of their own people,” he wrote.
He then reasoned that since Americans vote for their government freely, they “have chosen, consented to, and affirmed their support for the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, the occupation and usurpation of their land, and its continuous killing, torture, punishment and expulsion of the Palestinians... The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine... So the American people are the ones who fund the attacks against us…"
The United States would not have gained his approval had it abandoned Israel. According to Bin Laden, he would have stopped fighting if Americans were to accept Islam as their religion and then “stop your oppression, lies, immorality and debauchery that has spread among you.”
Comment on this story
4. IDF Recognizes 17,000 Holocaust Survivors
by Elad Benari
IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz was one of many IDF commanders and soldiers who took part on Sunday in a special project entitled “Flower to the Survivor.”
As part of the project, Gantz, along with the Chairman of the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel, Elazar Stern, visited the home of Judge David Frankel, where he met Motti Yehuda Bok. Both men are Holocaust survivors, and during the meeting Gantz gave them a certificate and a flower, in recognition of their contribution to the establishment of Israel. The meeting, which took part on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah), was also attended by Tanya Eliav, widow of long-time politician and educator Aryeh ‘Lova’ Eliav, who passed away last year and had served as captain of the ship on which Gantz’s parents came to Israel.
“Being able to take with you the memory of the Holocaust and decide to hold a personal life, a family life, the life of a country and the life of a nation is impressive and appreciated,” Gantz told the two survivors during the meeting.
As part of the “Flower to the Survivor” project, commanders and soldiers from all the different divisions in the IDF will meet in the coming month with 17,000 Holocaust survivors in their homes or in nursing homes. During the visits, the soldiers will be exposed to the personal testimony of the survivors and give them on behalf of the IDF and the State of Israel a flower and a certificate as a token of the bond between the IDF and Holocaust survivors.
The IDF’s Bamachane newspaper reported that the project is taking place for the fourth consecutive year and that three years ago, 9,000 survivors participated. According to the report, 10,000 officers and soldiers, including about 32 senior officers with the rank of Brigadier-General or higher, will participate in the project this year.
“If we do not acknowledge the older generation, the younger generations will not forgive us,” said Stern of the project. “This year we had a record number of survivors participating. This is proof of our society’s readiness to contribute. Today, more than ever, we must ensure that the survivors live the rest of their lives with the respect that they deserve, being the country’s founders and heroes.”
Comment on this story
by Elad Benari
IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz was one of many IDF commanders and soldiers who took part on Sunday in a special project entitled “Flower to the Survivor.”
As part of the project, Gantz, along with the Chairman of the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel, Elazar Stern, visited the home of Judge David Frankel, where he met Motti Yehuda Bok. Both men are Holocaust survivors, and during the meeting Gantz gave them a certificate and a flower, in recognition of their contribution to the establishment of Israel. The meeting, which took part on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom Hashoah), was also attended by Tanya Eliav, widow of long-time politician and educator Aryeh ‘Lova’ Eliav, who passed away last year and had served as captain of the ship on which Gantz’s parents came to Israel.
“Being able to take with you the memory of the Holocaust and decide to hold a personal life, a family life, the life of a country and the life of a nation is impressive and appreciated,” Gantz told the two survivors during the meeting.
As part of the “Flower to the Survivor” project, commanders and soldiers from all the different divisions in the IDF will meet in the coming month with 17,000 Holocaust survivors in their homes or in nursing homes. During the visits, the soldiers will be exposed to the personal testimony of the survivors and give them on behalf of the IDF and the State of Israel a flower and a certificate as a token of the bond between the IDF and Holocaust survivors.
The IDF’s Bamachane newspaper reported that the project is taking place for the fourth consecutive year and that three years ago, 9,000 survivors participated. According to the report, 10,000 officers and soldiers, including about 32 senior officers with the rank of Brigadier-General or higher, will participate in the project this year.
“If we do not acknowledge the older generation, the younger generations will not forgive us,” said Stern of the project. “This year we had a record number of survivors participating. This is proof of our society’s readiness to contribute. Today, more than ever, we must ensure that the survivors live the rest of their lives with the respect that they deserve, being the country’s founders and heroes.”
Comment on this story
5. Holocaust Survivor Testimony: Torch Lighter Yona (Janek) Fuchs
by INN Staff
Yona (Janek) Fuchs is one of the six torch lighters who participated in the official openeing ceremony of this year's Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day. Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority presents his story.
Yona was born in Lwow (today Ukraine) in 1925 to Tzila and Aharon. He studied at the local Jewish school, and he and his older brother Moshe (Mundek) learned Hebrew and received a Zionist education at home.
In June 1941, the Germans entered Lwow and murdered thousands of Jews. In November, the survivors were ordered into a ghetto. Because of his “Aryan” features, his parents encouraged Yona to escape from the ghetto. His father obtained for him a forged birth certificate and sent him to stay with a non-Jewish friend in a nearby village. While Yona was living there, all of its Jewish residents were shot to death.
Longing for his family, Yona returned to Lwow a few weeks later. When he alighted from the train, he saw Germans carrying out a manhunt for Jews. He picked up a Christmas tree and returned without incident to his family in the ghetto.
In the summer of 1942, most of the ghetto residents were sent to the Belzec extermination camp. During the aktions, Yona, Aharon and Moshe (Tzila had died earlier) hid in an attic, but were later taken to the Lwow-Janowska concentration camp. On Christmas, Yona and his friend Marian Pretzel took advantage of the guard’s drunkenness, dug underneath the fence and escaped. Wearing clothing they had taken from the camp, they pretended to be Polish tradesmen and traveled to Kiev. There they found work in a German company, where, due to his fluency in German, Yona was appointed the company’s interpreter, and sent to Lwow to recruit more workers. He was able to bring 20 Jews from Lwow to Kiev, among them his father and brother. They were all saved, except for Aharon and Moshe, who were murdered in Kiev by the Gestapo.
During his trip to Lwow, Yona found documents belonging to German soldier in the train’s restroom. The documents helped Yona obtain German army uniforms, and with Marian expertly forging the stamp, the two of them posed as German soldiers.
Narrowly escaping the Gestapo, they arrived in Bucharest, where Yona purchased a weapon under his assumed name and used it to train youngsters of the Gordonia youth movement. They later moved to Budapest, endangering their lives to smuggle a Jewish girl to her family in Romania.
In November 1944, Yona and Marian emigrated to Israel, where Yona fought in Israel’s wars and established his home in Haifa. He regularly gives testimony about his wartime experiences. Following the death of his first wife Hannah, Yona married Dr Inna Fuchs. Yona has three children and fourteen grandchildren.
Comment on this story
by INN Staff
Yona (Janek) Fuchs is one of the six torch lighters who participated in the official openeing ceremony of this year's Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day. Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority presents his story.
Yona was born in Lwow (today Ukraine) in 1925 to Tzila and Aharon. He studied at the local Jewish school, and he and his older brother Moshe (Mundek) learned Hebrew and received a Zionist education at home.
In June 1941, the Germans entered Lwow and murdered thousands of Jews. In November, the survivors were ordered into a ghetto. Because of his “Aryan” features, his parents encouraged Yona to escape from the ghetto. His father obtained for him a forged birth certificate and sent him to stay with a non-Jewish friend in a nearby village. While Yona was living there, all of its Jewish residents were shot to death.
Longing for his family, Yona returned to Lwow a few weeks later. When he alighted from the train, he saw Germans carrying out a manhunt for Jews. He picked up a Christmas tree and returned without incident to his family in the ghetto.
In the summer of 1942, most of the ghetto residents were sent to the Belzec extermination camp. During the aktions, Yona, Aharon and Moshe (Tzila had died earlier) hid in an attic, but were later taken to the Lwow-Janowska concentration camp. On Christmas, Yona and his friend Marian Pretzel took advantage of the guard’s drunkenness, dug underneath the fence and escaped. Wearing clothing they had taken from the camp, they pretended to be Polish tradesmen and traveled to Kiev. There they found work in a German company, where, due to his fluency in German, Yona was appointed the company’s interpreter, and sent to Lwow to recruit more workers. He was able to bring 20 Jews from Lwow to Kiev, among them his father and brother. They were all saved, except for Aharon and Moshe, who were murdered in Kiev by the Gestapo.
During his trip to Lwow, Yona found documents belonging to German soldier in the train’s restroom. The documents helped Yona obtain German army uniforms, and with Marian expertly forging the stamp, the two of them posed as German soldiers.
Narrowly escaping the Gestapo, they arrived in Bucharest, where Yona purchased a weapon under his assumed name and used it to train youngsters of the Gordonia youth movement. They later moved to Budapest, endangering their lives to smuggle a Jewish girl to her family in Romania.
In November 1944, Yona and Marian emigrated to Israel, where Yona fought in Israel’s wars and established his home in Haifa. He regularly gives testimony about his wartime experiences. Following the death of his first wife Hannah, Yona married Dr Inna Fuchs. Yona has three children and fourteen grandchildren.
Comment on this story
6. Holocaust Survivor Testimony: Torch Lighter Chava Pressburger
by INN Staff
Chava Pressburger is one of the six torchlighters who participated in the official openeing ceremony of this year's Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day. Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority presents her story.
Chava was born in 1930 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, to Otto and Marie Ginz, who met through the Esperanto movement. Chava and her older brother, Petr, grew up in a liberal, Zionist Jewish home.
When Bohemia and Moravia were annexed by Germany in March 1939, Chava and Petr were defined as first degree mixed race individuals (Marie was not born Jewish), and all laws and limitations pertaining to the Jews also affected them. Otto was forced out of his managerial job, and took menial work at Jewish community institutions.
In 1942, Petr was deported to the ghetto in Terezin; Chava followed in May 1944. She was placed in an orphanage for girls and put to work harvesting vegetables and sorting scrap metal. She met up with Petr, who taught her English, read to her, and checked up on her studies. A multi-talented youth with a rich imagination, Petr continued to draw and paint. He also wrote and illustrated short stories and articles, some of them inspired by his favorite author, Jules Verne, and edited the underground ghetto youth newspaper, Vedem. In September 1944, Petr was deported to Auschwitz and murdered. Chava managed to get Petr a slice of bread before the train departed.
During her time at Terezin, Chava kept a journal, in which she described her life in the ghetto. Most of the journal was later published in Salvaged Pages (Yale University Press, 2002), an anthology of young writers during the Holocaust.
In February 1945, Otto arrived at Terezin. In May 1945, the Red Army liberated the ghetto, and Chava and her father returned to their home in Prague. They and Marie waited in vain for Petr’s return. After liberation, a young Terezin survivor who had hidden Petr’s artworks gave them to Otto.
Chava studied art in Prague, and in 1948 moved first to Vienna and then to Paris with Abraham Pressburger, later her husband, whom she had met in the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement. In September 1949, the couple immigrated to Israel, where they eventually settled in Be'ersheva. There Chava continued to create and teach art: in 1993, she received the prestigious Sussman Prize for her Holocaustrelated artwork.
With Yad Vashem’s help, Petr’s journal was published in 13 languages. The late Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon took a facsimile of one of Petr Ginz’s pencil drawings, “Moon Landscape,” with him into space; it depicts Earth from the perspective of someone standing on the moon, as imagined by Petr in the ghetto.
Chava and Abraham have two children and three grandchildren.
Comment on this story
by INN Staff
Chava Pressburger is one of the six torchlighters who participated in the official openeing ceremony of this year's Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day. Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority presents her story.
Chava was born in 1930 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, to Otto and Marie Ginz, who met through the Esperanto movement. Chava and her older brother, Petr, grew up in a liberal, Zionist Jewish home.
When Bohemia and Moravia were annexed by Germany in March 1939, Chava and Petr were defined as first degree mixed race individuals (Marie was not born Jewish), and all laws and limitations pertaining to the Jews also affected them. Otto was forced out of his managerial job, and took menial work at Jewish community institutions.
In 1942, Petr was deported to the ghetto in Terezin; Chava followed in May 1944. She was placed in an orphanage for girls and put to work harvesting vegetables and sorting scrap metal. She met up with Petr, who taught her English, read to her, and checked up on her studies. A multi-talented youth with a rich imagination, Petr continued to draw and paint. He also wrote and illustrated short stories and articles, some of them inspired by his favorite author, Jules Verne, and edited the underground ghetto youth newspaper, Vedem. In September 1944, Petr was deported to Auschwitz and murdered. Chava managed to get Petr a slice of bread before the train departed.
During her time at Terezin, Chava kept a journal, in which she described her life in the ghetto. Most of the journal was later published in Salvaged Pages (Yale University Press, 2002), an anthology of young writers during the Holocaust.
In February 1945, Otto arrived at Terezin. In May 1945, the Red Army liberated the ghetto, and Chava and her father returned to their home in Prague. They and Marie waited in vain for Petr’s return. After liberation, a young Terezin survivor who had hidden Petr’s artworks gave them to Otto.
Chava studied art in Prague, and in 1948 moved first to Vienna and then to Paris with Abraham Pressburger, later her husband, whom she had met in the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement. In September 1949, the couple immigrated to Israel, where they eventually settled in Be'ersheva. There Chava continued to create and teach art: in 1993, she received the prestigious Sussman Prize for her Holocaustrelated artwork.
With Yad Vashem’s help, Petr’s journal was published in 13 languages. The late Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon took a facsimile of one of Petr Ginz’s pencil drawings, “Moon Landscape,” with him into space; it depicts Earth from the perspective of someone standing on the moon, as imagined by Petr in the ghetto.
Chava and Abraham have two children and three grandchildren.
Comment on this story
7. How Youth Villages Saved Kids from the Nazis
by David Lev
One of the lesser-known stories about the Holocaust is the role played by Israel's “youth villages” (kfar no'ar, in singular), the dormitory schools that became a place of refuge for children who were able to get out of Europe – legally or otherwise. Originally a “home away from home” for children whose families were unable to leave Europe themselves, the villages became their only home for many children whose families were destroyed by the Nazis, and their fellow students and teaching staff became their new families.
One of the young refugees who was able to leave Germany was Avraham Bar-Ezer, a graduate of the Kfar Hassidim Religious Youth Village in northern Israel. The school, like many other youth villages, was established as a place of refuge for young German and European Jews whose parents were either unwilling or unable to leave their home countries. Observant Jews in Germany were already Zionistically-oriented, so the idea of sending their children to the Land of Israel (then Mandatory Palestine) became accepted as a sort of insurance policy to keep the next generation safe.
As Hitler coalesced his power base throughout the 1930s, more and more families began to be convinced that Nazi control of Germany – and eventually, much of the rest of Europe – was not a passing phenomenon. But as more people expressed interest in leaving Germany, countries in Western Europe and North America toughened their immigration requirements. Britain, too, had a strict cap on the number of German immigrants (i.e., Jews) who would be allowed into Palestine, and by the time many German families decided they had no future in the land of their birth, it was too late.
Among the requirements Britain set for immigrants to qualify for an immigration certificate was ownership of a minimum of 1,000 pounds sterling – an almost impossible tenet to fulfill by the late 1930s, as the Germans had already seized most of the Jews' assets – or the possession of a “necessary profession” that would contribute to the development of Mandatory Palestine. On that basis, organizations in Germany established agricultural schools for German Jewish youth, and allied themselves with youth villages in Palestine, which were beginning to be established during the period.
Kfar Hassidim's youth village was established in 1937, and shortly afterwards, Bar-Ezer and some three dozen other youths arrived, after having received immigrant certificates enabling them to leave Germany.
“It was difficult to leave home, but I was very excited to go to Israel,” Bar-Ezer told Arutz-7 in an interview. He had lost his father some years before and was very close to his mother, but still, at the tender age of 10 he set out to start a new life in the Land of Israel.
Bar-Ezer studied the usual math and languages, and received training in agricultural arts (Bar-Ezer today grows chickens in Kfar Hassidim, along with his son and grandson). He kept in frequent contact with his mother – until 1941, when he suddenly lost contact with her. “I wasn't the only one – many of the other kids from Germany lost contact with their families around that time, although a small number of the parents were able to get out of Europe and make it to Israel,” he said. Although it was always at the back of his mind, the young Bar-Ezer – not even yet a Bar-Mitzvah – did not think of his mother as having been murdered, at least not right away. “It took a few years for me to consider the possibility, and then later, towards the end of the war, we received confirmation of the fate of our parents,” he said grimly.
Still in his teens, in a new land with no relatives, it would have been understandable if Bar-Ezer had submitted to the forces of depression and despair. But he refused. “I had lost my family, but I found a new one, at the youth village,” he said. “The experiences we all shared, from the beginning and throughout the war years, turned us immigrants into a true family, with the other students our brothers and sisters, and the staff our parents.” When asked if there was a particular figure who had a special influence on him, Bar-Ezer said that “there were so many, both students and adults. Let's just say that the whole institution, the people and the program, had a major impact on me – so much so that I am still associated with Kfar Hassidim and am a member of the youth village's directorate.”
Bar-Ezer is a true compendium of Jewish history in Europe and in the Land of Israel. When still in his teens, he, along with fellow students – now brothers-in-arms – fought the fellahin in Gaza to set up the original incarnation of Kfar Darom in 1946. Kfar Darom was one of 11 kibbutzim established by the Jewish Agency in an effort to ensure that the Negev remained a part of the Jewish state, after a United Nations report recommended that the Negev be included in the Arab part of the brewing partition plan. Known as the “Eleven Point Plan,” the kibbutzim are all still around today – except for Kfar Darom, which was abandoned during the War of Liberation because of attacks by Arabs.
“Some of my classmates settled in the kibbutzim of the Eleven Point Plan, working in agriculture, and some are in other places like Bnei Darom (where many of those who left Kfar Darom resettled), and some are in other kibbuzim and moshavim,” says Bar-Ezer, emphasizing that most of his friends are still working in agriculture and contributing to the state. Interestingly, some of them even participated in the reestablishment of Kfar Darom after the Yom Kippur War – only to see this second iteration of the kibbutz dismantled not by Arab terrorists, but by the government of Ariel Sharon, determined to banish Jews from the Gaza Strip in the name of his disengagement plan.
Bar-Ezer's adventures could fill a book – actually, three books and counting, as Bar-Ezer has already written a book dedicated to his wife and two volumes of memoirs. He often speaks to the kids in the youth village today, telling them of his experiences way back when. “They are fascinated to hear history coming alive,” he says. “The young generation is a good one. With kids like these, I'm not worried about the future.”
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by David Lev
One of the lesser-known stories about the Holocaust is the role played by Israel's “youth villages” (kfar no'ar, in singular), the dormitory schools that became a place of refuge for children who were able to get out of Europe – legally or otherwise. Originally a “home away from home” for children whose families were unable to leave Europe themselves, the villages became their only home for many children whose families were destroyed by the Nazis, and their fellow students and teaching staff became their new families.
One of the young refugees who was able to leave Germany was Avraham Bar-Ezer, a graduate of the Kfar Hassidim Religious Youth Village in northern Israel. The school, like many other youth villages, was established as a place of refuge for young German and European Jews whose parents were either unwilling or unable to leave their home countries. Observant Jews in Germany were already Zionistically-oriented, so the idea of sending their children to the Land of Israel (then Mandatory Palestine) became accepted as a sort of insurance policy to keep the next generation safe.
As Hitler coalesced his power base throughout the 1930s, more and more families began to be convinced that Nazi control of Germany – and eventually, much of the rest of Europe – was not a passing phenomenon. But as more people expressed interest in leaving Germany, countries in Western Europe and North America toughened their immigration requirements. Britain, too, had a strict cap on the number of German immigrants (i.e., Jews) who would be allowed into Palestine, and by the time many German families decided they had no future in the land of their birth, it was too late.
Among the requirements Britain set for immigrants to qualify for an immigration certificate was ownership of a minimum of 1,000 pounds sterling – an almost impossible tenet to fulfill by the late 1930s, as the Germans had already seized most of the Jews' assets – or the possession of a “necessary profession” that would contribute to the development of Mandatory Palestine. On that basis, organizations in Germany established agricultural schools for German Jewish youth, and allied themselves with youth villages in Palestine, which were beginning to be established during the period.
Kfar Hassidim's youth village was established in 1937, and shortly afterwards, Bar-Ezer and some three dozen other youths arrived, after having received immigrant certificates enabling them to leave Germany.
“It was difficult to leave home, but I was very excited to go to Israel,” Bar-Ezer told Arutz-7 in an interview. He had lost his father some years before and was very close to his mother, but still, at the tender age of 10 he set out to start a new life in the Land of Israel.
Bar-Ezer studied the usual math and languages, and received training in agricultural arts (Bar-Ezer today grows chickens in Kfar Hassidim, along with his son and grandson). He kept in frequent contact with his mother – until 1941, when he suddenly lost contact with her. “I wasn't the only one – many of the other kids from Germany lost contact with their families around that time, although a small number of the parents were able to get out of Europe and make it to Israel,” he said. Although it was always at the back of his mind, the young Bar-Ezer – not even yet a Bar-Mitzvah – did not think of his mother as having been murdered, at least not right away. “It took a few years for me to consider the possibility, and then later, towards the end of the war, we received confirmation of the fate of our parents,” he said grimly.
Still in his teens, in a new land with no relatives, it would have been understandable if Bar-Ezer had submitted to the forces of depression and despair. But he refused. “I had lost my family, but I found a new one, at the youth village,” he said. “The experiences we all shared, from the beginning and throughout the war years, turned us immigrants into a true family, with the other students our brothers and sisters, and the staff our parents.” When asked if there was a particular figure who had a special influence on him, Bar-Ezer said that “there were so many, both students and adults. Let's just say that the whole institution, the people and the program, had a major impact on me – so much so that I am still associated with Kfar Hassidim and am a member of the youth village's directorate.”
Bar-Ezer is a true compendium of Jewish history in Europe and in the Land of Israel. When still in his teens, he, along with fellow students – now brothers-in-arms – fought the fellahin in Gaza to set up the original incarnation of Kfar Darom in 1946. Kfar Darom was one of 11 kibbutzim established by the Jewish Agency in an effort to ensure that the Negev remained a part of the Jewish state, after a United Nations report recommended that the Negev be included in the Arab part of the brewing partition plan. Known as the “Eleven Point Plan,” the kibbutzim are all still around today – except for Kfar Darom, which was abandoned during the War of Liberation because of attacks by Arabs.
“Some of my classmates settled in the kibbutzim of the Eleven Point Plan, working in agriculture, and some are in other places like Bnei Darom (where many of those who left Kfar Darom resettled), and some are in other kibbuzim and moshavim,” says Bar-Ezer, emphasizing that most of his friends are still working in agriculture and contributing to the state. Interestingly, some of them even participated in the reestablishment of Kfar Darom after the Yom Kippur War – only to see this second iteration of the kibbutz dismantled not by Arab terrorists, but by the government of Ariel Sharon, determined to banish Jews from the Gaza Strip in the name of his disengagement plan.
Bar-Ezer's adventures could fill a book – actually, three books and counting, as Bar-Ezer has already written a book dedicated to his wife and two volumes of memoirs. He often speaks to the kids in the youth village today, telling them of his experiences way back when. “They are fascinated to hear history coming alive,” he says. “The young generation is a good one. With kids like these, I'm not worried about the future.”
Comment on this story
8. Media Highlights 46% Anti-Semitism Drop, Forgets 2009 Doubling
by Hillel Fendel
Many media reports highlight the 46% drop in Anti-Semitic incidents around the world last year - downplaying the tremendous rise the year before.
A headline in Globes, for instance, states, “Violent anti-Semitic incidents down 46% in 2010” – and in smaller print notes that 2010 saw the 3rd-highest amount of anti-Semitic incidents in at least 21 years.
A study presented at Tel Aviv University in honor of today’s Holocaust Remembrance Day shows that there were 614 violent anti-Semitic incidents worldwide in 2010, 46% fewer than in 2009, which saw 1,129 - a world record. Therefore, the large drop of 2010 means merely that the frequency of anti-Semitic attacks around the world is still more than in 2008, when there were “only” 558.
The university's Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism, together with Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, publishes the annual report.
The United Kingdom, France, and Canada together accounted for 60% of all anti-Semitic incidents worldwide this past year. The attacks in these countries were also notably violent, including many street assaults on people perceived to be Jewish. Attacks on Jewish institutions increased in Latin America, especially in Chile, which has the world's fourth largest Palestinian Arab community.
The report notes that radical Muslims and leftists are behind unrestrained anti-Israel propaganda, and that street violence against Jews, especially in Western Europe, is generally perpetrated by young Muslims and members of neo-Nazi and other extremist groups.
EJC: Don't Be Fooled
Reacting to the report, European Jewish Congress (EJC) President Dr. Moshe Kantor said that it essentially showed “many similarities in terms of numbers and types of anti-Semitic attacks as previous years - thus, sadly demonstrating that anti-Semitism has not decreased in a noticeable fashion across the European continent. On the contrary, the reduction is minimal compared to the massive rise that has taken place over the previous two decades.”
Kantor said that one of the worrying trends over the last year was increasing anti-Semitic comments by prominent European officials. “This form of anti-Semitism is made by prominent and respectable officials,” he said, “whose words are heard by millions on TV screens and the radio, in newspapers and books and on the Internet.”
Kantor provided a chronology of examples of “respectable anti-Semitism” from 2010, including German Bundesbank board member Thilo Sarrazin in his book on immigration issues; Karel De Gucht, European Commissioner for Trade, in an interview to a local radio station; Monsignor Cyril Salim Bustros, Greek Melkite Archbishop at a Vatican press conference; and Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus, a Greek Orthodox Church leader, on Greek television.
Comment on this story
by Hillel Fendel
Many media reports highlight the 46% drop in Anti-Semitic incidents around the world last year - downplaying the tremendous rise the year before.
A headline in Globes, for instance, states, “Violent anti-Semitic incidents down 46% in 2010” – and in smaller print notes that 2010 saw the 3rd-highest amount of anti-Semitic incidents in at least 21 years.
A study presented at Tel Aviv University in honor of today’s Holocaust Remembrance Day shows that there were 614 violent anti-Semitic incidents worldwide in 2010, 46% fewer than in 2009, which saw 1,129 - a world record. Therefore, the large drop of 2010 means merely that the frequency of anti-Semitic attacks around the world is still more than in 2008, when there were “only” 558.
The university's Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism, together with Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, publishes the annual report.
The United Kingdom, France, and Canada together accounted for 60% of all anti-Semitic incidents worldwide this past year. The attacks in these countries were also notably violent, including many street assaults on people perceived to be Jewish. Attacks on Jewish institutions increased in Latin America, especially in Chile, which has the world's fourth largest Palestinian Arab community.
The report notes that radical Muslims and leftists are behind unrestrained anti-Israel propaganda, and that street violence against Jews, especially in Western Europe, is generally perpetrated by young Muslims and members of neo-Nazi and other extremist groups.
EJC: Don't Be Fooled
Reacting to the report, European Jewish Congress (EJC) President Dr. Moshe Kantor said that it essentially showed “many similarities in terms of numbers and types of anti-Semitic attacks as previous years - thus, sadly demonstrating that anti-Semitism has not decreased in a noticeable fashion across the European continent. On the contrary, the reduction is minimal compared to the massive rise that has taken place over the previous two decades.”
Kantor said that one of the worrying trends over the last year was increasing anti-Semitic comments by prominent European officials. “This form of anti-Semitism is made by prominent and respectable officials,” he said, “whose words are heard by millions on TV screens and the radio, in newspapers and books and on the Internet.”
Kantor provided a chronology of examples of “respectable anti-Semitism” from 2010, including German Bundesbank board member Thilo Sarrazin in his book on immigration issues; Karel De Gucht, European Commissioner for Trade, in an interview to a local radio station; Monsignor Cyril Salim Bustros, Greek Melkite Archbishop at a Vatican press conference; and Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus, a Greek Orthodox Church leader, on Greek television.
Comment on this story
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