IN THIS ISSUEAmerican Society for Yad Vashem Annual Spring Luncheon.............1, 8-9

Love letters of the Shoah................................................................................2Yad Vashem exhibit showcases Holocaust art.............................................3

Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust..................................................................4

A survivor’s story in living color....................................................................5

The last Seder in the Warsaw ghetto..............................................................6

The hidden history of Holocaust money......................................................10

Documentary charts the persecution of Italian Jews.................................11

Risking torture and death to save Jews during the Holocaust.................12

Saved by the neighbors................................................................................14

Vol. 45-No. 5 ISSN 0892-1571 May/June 2019-Iyyar/Sivan 5779

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR YAD VASHEMAMERICAN SOCIETY FOR YAD VASHEM

BY JILL GOLTZER

The American Society for YadVashem Annual Spring

Luncheon took place on Thursday,May 30, at the Pierre Hotel in NewYork City. We are extremely gratefulfor our wonderful co-chairs (MicheleLee Fine, Goldie Hertz, MireilleManocherian, Mary Peldman, ShirleyPodolsky, Sarita Rausnitz, LiliStawski, Elissa Tauber and BarbaraWeichselbaum), honorary co-chairs (Danielle Karten, AbbyKaufthal, Jaci Paradis andMichelle Taragin) and esteemedhonorees (Gabriela Shnay andher daughters Deborah, Vanessaand Rachel). Over 350 peoplewere in attendance, includingsurvivors, their children, grand-children and friends.

Luncheon attendees exploredthe Yad Vashem exhibit “StarsWithout a Heaven: Children in theHolocaust” before gathering in theballroom for a meaningful pro-gram. The exhibit presents a col-lection of anecdotes, narrativesand memories of Jewish childrencaught up in the crucible of theHolocaust. Despite their appallingsituations and living conditions,children still engaged in imagina-tive play, sketching and writing,expressing their hopes, dreamsand fears. In this exhibition, aselection of drawings, poems, lettersand toys offers a moving and fascinat-ing window into the lives of Jewish chil-dren during the Holocaust.

The program began with rousingrenditions of “The Star SpangledBanner” and “Hatikvah” performed byYLA member Lizzy Savetsky andboard member Abbi Halpern.Luncheon honoree Deborah Shnay

Rifkin welcomed our guests and intro-duced ASYV Chairman Leonard Wilf,who discussed the challenges weface in “an era where, paradoxically,both Holocaust denial and interest inthe lessons and legacy of theHolocaust are at an all-time high.” It isbecause of individuals who are sodeeply committed to Yad Vashem, likethe members of the Shnay family, thatwe can be confident in the future ofHolocaust remembrance. Our dedi-cated members recognize the unique

power of Yad Vashem. Recountingher experience on the 2018 YadVashem Mission, luncheon co-chairMichele Fine stated that we “cametogether to explore the darkest hourfor the Jewish people, interwoven andredeemed with lessons of humanityand hope — through a lens that onlyYad Vashem could provide.”

Following a video with greetings

from Avner Shalev, chairman of theYad Vashem Directorate, Ron Meiershared some heartfelt thoughts withthe room. He expressed how privi-leged he feels to have worked withpassionate individuals, such as theShnay women, this year’s honorees.

Luncheon co-chair Elissa Tauberintroduced our beloved honorees,who are Elissa’s cousins and dearfriends. She was continuouslyinspired by the way Gabriela and Jackraised their daughters “in a home

filled with love, warmth, andYiddishkeit and Zionism.” Attendeeswere able to learn more about theShnay and Horowitz families in amoving video produced by YeeshaiGross. Gabriela and Jack, both chil-dren of Holocaust survivors, madesure their daughters were educatedabout the Holocaust and raised themto be proud of their Jewish heritage.

In the video, Gabriela lovingly talksabout her father, Symcha Horowitz,who attended the luncheon with hisfamily. Gabriela says her father is “atrue survivor in every sense of theword. A fighter.” Born in Lodz, Poland,Symcha survived Auschwitz andjoined the Haganah following the war.He was a founder of the first elitesquadron of airplanes in the Israeli AirForce and was later honored by theState of Israel with the DistinguishedService Award. Symcha clearlypassed on his leadership, Jewish val-

ues and love for Israel to his daugh-ters and grandchildren.

Rachel Shnay, luncheon honoreeand YLA co-chair, gave a pow-

erful and impactful speech that lefteveryone in the room energized andrecommitted to the cause ofHolocaust remembrance and educa-tion. Looking out into the crowd,Rachel asked that we not allow histo-ry to be rewritten: that we give ourchildren a voice and the tools to fightanti-Semitism. Reflecting on today’s

society, Rachel strongly stated,“We have the wave of hate risingup so high against us. Don’t waitfor it to smack you down for you towake up.” She encouraged every-one to visit Yad Vashem, even ifthey have been before. You learnsomething new every time youvisit.

Luncheon co-chairs Lili Stawskiand Barbara Weichselbaum intro-duced our keynote speaker, Mr.William Bernheim, a Holocaust sur-vivor, author and artist. Mr.Bernheim was born in Lodz,Poland, in 1922, but considers April11, 1945 — the day he was liberat-ed from Buchenwald — to be hissecond birthday. Speaking aboutthat very day, Mr. Bernheimexplained how he pinched himselfand realized he was still alive. Itwas then that the words of his par-ents came to him — that “a person

can be as weak as a fly, yet strongerthan steel.” These words kept himgoing. After the war, he met his belovedwife Lucille, also a survivor, and togeth-er they have two children and fourgrandchildren. All four grandchildrenattended the luncheon and proudlystood by their grandparents’ side.

In her closing remarks, luncheon co-chair Shirley Podolsky shared witheveryone the vest her mother, PaulaReinfeld, z”l, was forced to wear inthe camps. On it you can see theupside-down red triangle, her moth-er’s prisoner number and the fadedyellow star that was meant to be wornas a badge of shame. It is personalstories and artifacts such as thesethat Yad Vashem works so hard tosafeguard for future generations. Asluncheon honoree Rachel Shnay sobeautifully expressed, “it is becauseof Yad Vashem that their neshamasremain alive.”

KEEPING VOICES OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS ALIVE

Honorees Gabriela Shnay, Rachel Shnay and Deborah Shnay Rifkin with ASYV Chairman Leonard Wilf (left) and

executive director of ASYV Ron Meier.

Page 2 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2019 - Iyyar/Sivan 5779

BY DEBORAH FINEBLUM, JNS

Jews have long been known asthe people of the book, but fresh

evidence has emerged that they’realso the people of the letter.

Of the millions of Jews who weretaken to their deaths during theHolocaust on cattle cars, we willnever know how many of them scrib-bled last words to loved ones,addressed them and tossed them outthe train window, hoping against hopethat someone would find them andsend them on.

It’s safe to assume that very few ofthese desperate attempts to commu-nicate were ever found, and evenfewer of them made it to their intend-ed recipients. The miracle is the onesthat were discovered alongside thetrain tracks and, against all odds,reached their destination.

“Last Letters from the Holocaust:1944,” an online exhibit from YadVashem, has arrived on its website justin time for Yom Hashoah on May 2.

With fewer survivors remaining whocan testify to what they witnessed,this makes these final letters all themore precious. So says Orit Noiman,a project director at Yad Vashem.

“This is why it’s so important for usto collect every bit of evidence fromthe Holocaust; it’s the only testimonywe have of someone who cannot bewith us.”

That’s the main reason ShaulVentura decided to donate his motherAnna’s last communication, scribbledin the hours before she arrived inAuschwitz in February of 1944.

“It’s a very emotional thing for us,”says Ventura, who was 14 when hismother was killed. “But, as preciousas they are to our family (the postcardis one of 14 letters by their motherthat the family donated to Yad

Vashem), I know now they’ll be pre-served now, and people who seethem in the future will know what thistechnically advanced modern civiliza-tion did to destroy an entire people.”

Another motivation for Ventura, 89,was to demonstrate the suffer-ing of Italian Jews, somethingmany people are still unawareof.

The last time Ventura sawhis mother was in

December of 1943, when sheventured from the safety of theirhiding place to procure medi-cine for her ailing mother. Aftershe was captured, she wassent to Fossoli, an Italian workcamp. Two months later, shewas among the hundredsloaded onto a train bound forAuschwitz, where she waskilled. (The horrors of thatdoomed journey were memori-alized by fellow Italian inmateand chemist Primo Levi in hisdual-story book If This Is a Manand The Truce.) As Venturawrote on the train:

“To my very dear ones,“My morale is very high. We will see

each other soon. Lots of kisses toeveryone. All my thoughts are of you.”

“Anna wrote on the front of the post-card: ‘To the person who finds this,please send it to this address,’ and itwas almost like she was pleading withan unknown stranger to help her,”says Noiman. “We will never knowwho discovered the postcard anddecided to mail it.”

“By throwing the letters — and mostof them were from the Jews ofBelgium, France and Italy — theywere hoping that someone would behuman enough to send them on totheir family,” says Naama Galil, a YadVashem project manager who’sresearching the written material.“Most Western Europeans assumed

they were being transported to work,but they weren’t sure and wantedtheir loved ones to hear from them.There were also those who clearlydidn’t expect to survive this and want-ed to collect evidence to tell their

experience to generations to come.”“The hope that my mother included

in each letter kept our hopes high thatshe was alive,” says Ventura. Indeed,the family clung to those hopes even

after moving to pre-state Israelin the spring of 1945, only lateraccepting that she had beenmurdered in Auschwitz. Allmade it out alive except theirfather, Luigi, and the youngestof the four children: 6-year-oldEmanuel, who died of diphthe-ria at war’s end.

What’s amazing is that morethan 75 years later, theseimportant bits of evidence arestill coming in, says HaimGertner, director of the YadVashem Archives. The world’slargest Holocaust collection,the archives hold more than200 million documents andartifacts, with another 250,000projected to arrive in the nextfew years.

“By donating these, the fami-lies know that they are helping

preserve the memory of theHolocaust for the Jewish people andthe world,” says Gertner. “In today’sdigital era, we can tell the full storyand connect in ways we never couldbefore.”

Gertner sees the collection as a“real continuation of the efforts of theJews themselves during the Shoah.Even if they didn’t know exactly wherethey were going, they knew it was nopicnic, and they wanted their storytold.” Next up for Yad Vashem is astate-of-the-art underground reposito-ry for all this history: the ShoahHeritage Collection Center, projectedto open in 2021.

But letters were not the onlythings thrown from trains. Often,

people threw themselves. And thoughit’s believed that most of those whoflung themselves out of moving trainswere either killed on impact or by

sharpshooter Nazi guards, some livedto tell the tale.

Esther Rivka Willig was one of them.The Polish teen, the daughter of therabbi of Buczacz, noticed that the cat-tle car had a small window coveredwith barbed wire and wooden slats,says her daughter, Malky Weisberg,who’s a tour guide at Yad Vashem.

“My mother asked for her mother’sblessing, saying it was the only wayshe would attempt to escape.” Threehours of arguing later, after her moth-er reluctantly gave that blessing,young Willig stood on a barrel,yanked off the slats and, prying off thebarbed wire with one of them,squeezed herself out for the jump.

“My grandmother must have under-stood that if her daughter was goingto have a chance of surviving, thiswas it,” says Weisberg. “She was verylucky to fall into a cornfield, where thehigh corn hid her. Many others whotried were shot.”

The train’s destination turned out tobe Belzec, where more than 600,000Galician Jews, including Willig’s ownmother, were destined to be murdered.The young girl, reunited with her firstlove Yisroel Wagner, married andmoved to Beach Haven in Brooklyn,N.Y., where he would serve as com-munity rabbi for nearly a half-century.

“My parents looked at the glass ashalf-full and were grateful for all theyhad,” says Weisberg. “I always feltthey were saved for a reason.”

Her mother died three years ago atage 92. A few years earlier, whenprepping for hip surgery, she waswarned by her doctor of the discom-fort she could expect. “She said to thesurgeon, ‘I jumped off a train. I think Ican handle this.’ ”

LOVE LETTERS OF THE SHOAH:

MESSAGES THROWN FROM CATTLE CARS CONVEY FINAL

WISHES, PRAYERS, BLESSINGS

A photograph of Anna Ventura with her four children that she sent to her husband, Luigi, when he was in Paris

in 1940.

Rabbanit Esther Rivka Wagner with her daughter, Malky.

May/June 2019 - Iyyar/Sivan 5779 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 3

BY YAAKOV SCHWARTZ, THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

Ninety-one-year-old MordechaiAllouche smiles broadly as he

stands next to four colorful, hand-painted postcards of British andGerman soldiers absorbed in 1940sdaily life in his Nazi-occupied home-town of Sfax, Tunisia.

The illustrations, which hang along-side a photo and biography ofAllouche, are part of the “New onDisplay” exhibit, a collection of 46pieces by 13 artists unveiled at YadVashem’s Museum of Holocaust Art.

Between 1942 and 1943, thosepostcards were a key source ofincome for Allouche. Then just 15, theboy was the sole supporter of his fam-

ily after his father, a Jewish anti-Nazidissident, was arrested and sent to aforced labor camp immediately follow-ing Germany’s invasion of Tunisia inNovember 1942. Between workingodd jobs and peddling the postcards,Allouche was able to scrape upenough for the family to live on.

Though the artist was a victim ofsome of the soldiers he painted, hedidn’t make them out to be villains.The figures Allouche portrayed arehandsome and strapping, capturedenjoying wonderfully humanmoments. This was to his benefit —these same soldiers were Allouche’sbest customers.

“We did what we could in order toeat,” the energetic Allouche tells TheTimes of Israel, gesturing to the post-cards, which he donated to YadVashem two years ago. He is the onlysurviving artist to make it to the exhib-it’s opening.

It is exactly this sort of firsthand,personal testimony that makes theexhibit special, says the museum’scurator, and director of Yad Vashem’sart department, Eliad Moreh-Rosenberg.

“Over the last few years, we’vemade tremendous efforts to enrichour collection with new artworks, due

to the awareness that these are thelast moments when we can still findworks from the time of the Holocaustwhen there are still the last survivorsamong us,” Moreh-Rosenberg tellsThe Times of Israel. She adds thatproperly preserving the art is also atop priority.

“We decided not just to wait. In thepast we were receiving wonderful art-works, but people would come to uswith them. Here, we decided to beactive, and we took the initiative, andwe contacted people, and wereceived sometimes whole collec-tions,” she says. “People are not nec-essarily aware of what they have,because for them it might be a veryprecious, sentimental piece, but theydon’t understand the impact it can

have as a national treasure.”This underestimation of the value of

his art was once true for Allouche.“I’ve got lots of these things,”

Allouche beams. “Different poses, dif-ferent locations. I never thought thatthis stuff would ever interest anybody.But when they came to me to collect

these materials, I was more thanhappy to contribute.”

Not all of the artists whose worksare on display were forged during the

Holocaust. The exhibit includes art-works created prior to, during andafter World War II, including one

extensively restored 1934 cityscapeby the artist Carol Deutsch.

“When I saw this painting the firsttime, it came to Yad Vashem in suchbad condition. And the restorationprocess here was just phenomenal —seeing it this way takes my breathaway,” says Debbie Deutsch-Berman,the artist’s great-niece, who alsoworks in Yad Vashem’s marketingdivision.

Moreh-Rosenberg says that YadVashem received the painting fromthe cousin of Deutsch’s wife, who nowlives in Herzliya. The work is typical ofprewar Deutsch, Moreh-Rosenbergsays, “before he came back throughhis art to his Jewish roots.”

The painting is not dissimilar frommany European works from that era,and uses muted tones to illustrate adreary landscape of the Belgian city

of Ostend, whereDeutsch lived at thetime.

“You’d never guessthat he was Jewishjust by looking at it,”says Moreh-Rosenberg.

Vivian Uria, thedirector of Yad

Vashem’s museumdivision, says thatIsrael’s nationalHolocaust museum isunique in the depth ofresearch it is able toconduct into the histo-ry of its artifacts.

“As opposed to theartifacts they have atAuschwitz, wherethey are so numerous

and impossible to identify with anyone person, here we are able to tell aspecific story with each piece,” Uriasays.

Deutsch’s inevitably tragic story isfurther told in a series of 99 biblicalillustrations, on permanent display at

the museum along with the ornatewooden box they were originallystored in.

He created the pieces as a gift to histhree-year-old daughter Ingrid whilethe family was in hiding after theNazis implemented the Final Solutionin Belgium.

“Obviously it’s not a standard three-year-old’s birthday gift,” saysDeutsch-Berman. “He’s basically say-ing through these paintings, ‘This ismy legacy, this is what I want to leaveyou with.’ And I think the fact that thisis what he’s doing, that this is his finaltestament, he’s saying, ‘I may not sur-vive this, but the lessons, the imagesthat illustrate the roots that we comefrom, will survive the Holocaust.’”

Deutsch and his wife were eventual-ly informed upon by a neighbor andsent to Auschwitz. Deutsch was senton a forced death march in December1944 to Buchenwald, where he diedon arrival. His wife, Fela, was sent toBirkenau’s medical experimentationblock, after which her fate isunknown.

Ingrid and her grandmother sur-vived the war in hiding with a Catholicfamily, and found the box containingthe paintings intact when theyreturned home after the war’s conclu-sion.

“The Nazis tried to dehumanize theirvictims — to erase their humanity inevery way they could. In Auschwitz,they even went so far as to strip peo-ple of their names, and branded themwith numbers,” says Uria.

“These works are evidence that intimes of suffering, the artists went togreat lengths, often even endanger-ing their lives, in order to expressthemselves. And this shows thestrength of the human spirit, how it’simpossible to completely extinguishsomeone’s humanity,” says Uria.

YAD VASHEM EXHIBIT SHOWCASES HOLOCAUST ART

AND STORIES FROM LIVING SURVIVORS

Mordechai Allouche, a Holocaust survivor whose art is exhibited at “New on Display,” at the Yad

Vashem Museum of Holocaust Art.

Biblical illustrations along with a wooden box crafted by artist Carol Deutsch, who was killed at

Buchenwald. The paintings and box were created by Deutsch as a gift for his three-year-old daugh-

ter while the family was in hiding from the Nazis in Belgium.

Vivian Uria, the director of Yad Vashem’s museum division, speaks at

the opening of “New on Display.”

Page 4 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2019 - Iyyar/Sivan 5779

Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust:Language, Rhetoric and theTraditions of Hatred.

By Beth A. Griech-Polelle.Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint ofBloomsbury Publishing Plc.: NewYork, N.Y., 2017. 284 pp. $88.00hardcover.

REVIEWED BY DR. DIANE CYPKIN

“The threatening imagery of the Jew. . . was built up over the course ofcenturies. Destructive legends,myths, and stereotypes all con-tributed to a type of acceptable lan-guage about Jews which enabledHitler to play upon well-establishedtropes.”

The above is the argument theauthor, Beth A. Griech-Polelle,

poses in her book, entitiled Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust:Language, Rhetoric and theTraditions of Hatred. Does it provevalid? Unfortunately, yes. In herclose, conscientious and absorbingexamination of Jewish life from thetime of Jesus onward, Griech-Polellemakes it easy for us to see this devel-opment. Over the years, “languageand rhetoric influenced the construc-tion of ‘the Jew’ as eternal enemy”...and Hitler utilized this “given,” buildingon it and encouraging “the violenceand annihilation of European Jewry inthe Holocaust.”

For example, we learn that thedeadliest epithet ever directed atJews, “long-lasting” and fundamental

to religiously based anti-Semitism,dates from the crucifixion. From thenon, all Jews were seen as sharing inthe guilt of Jesus’s death and wouldfrequently be referred to as “Christ-killers.” Interestingly, St. Augustine,bishop of Hippo in the fourth century,would say that Jews shouldn’t bekilled — but “that good Christianscould humiliate, debase, and perse-cute [them] . . . in orderto reaffirm the triumphof Christianity overJudaism.” Indeed, this“became the officialpositon of the RomanCatholic Church forhundreds of years” —till the Crusades in1096. At that point,Christians, “whipped”up by the Pope intotraveling to the far-offHoly Land to kill Muslim“infidels” who had takencontrol of it, suddenlyrealized that they had “infidels” right intheir midst, “infidels” that also,according to them, deserved death —the Jews, “Christ-killers” all! Thus,many Jewish communities, especially“along the Rhine River were attackedmercilessly” by the Crusader hordes.

We read how the medieval worldintroduced what would become “pop-ular anti-Semitic myths and legends.”Jews were rumored to be poisoningwells, causing all kinds of natural dis-asters, murdering Christian children

in order to use their blood for rituals(blood libel), and “desecrating thesacred Host.” And when Jews turnedto money-lending because of being“locked out of the medieval Christianeconomic structure,” they werelabeled “shysters.” Moreover, if rumorwasn’t enough, the written literatureof the day helped spread this calum-ny, “churning out stories of Jewish

perfidy.” The finalresults included “Jewsbeing required to wearspecial clothing andmarkers” identifyingthem as Jews, attackson them, expulsions,and, in the midst of allthis, the first Jewishghetto, created in 1516.

Meanwhile, though,expulsions from variousWestern European coun-tries saw an increasingnumber of Jews movingto Poland. In fact, they

were invited by King Kasimir to build upthe country economically through“leasing land, taxation farming, [build-ing up] trade, and manufacture.”Ironically, however, it appears they didit too well. In 1648 the UkrainianCossack leader Bogdan Chmielnickiand his followers felt “the Jews hadacquired too much power in Poland” —hence the murderous attacks on themremembered to this day.

In the nineteenth century, however,things got much more dangerous.

For that was when “German thinkers”began to “legitimize” anti-Semitism,identifying it as more than just a reli-gious issue. In short, Charles Darwin,through no fault of his own, wouldsoon have his theories of the “survivalof the fittest” hijacked to prove thatanti-Semitism had scientific reason-ing behind it! The result: HoustonStewart Chamberlain (1855–1927), “aleading racial theorist,” using the “lan-guage of science,” would “pronounceGermans as the truly superior Aryanrace,” while Jews were “like the Devil”and “associated with all things evil.”And he wasn’t alone . . .

When Hitler finally appeared onthe scene in Germany, the

language, the rhetoric, the hatred ofthe Jew were already a part of the cul-ture. For that matter, one might easilysay that Hitler simply “organized” and“industrialized” its results!Persecution of the Jew in Germanywould no longer be haphazard, butbacked by law. Murder would besanctioned, premeditated and excep-tionally orderly!

In sum, Anti-Semitism and theHolocaust deserves a place in anyHolocaust student’s library, since itmakes crystal clear just how and whythe Holocaust happened. This volumewould also make a marvelous text-book for any course on anti-Semitismor Jewish history.

Dr. Diane Cypkin is a Professor ofMedia, Communication, and VisualArts at Pace University.

ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE HOLOCAUST:

LANGUAGE, RHETORIC AND THE TRADITIONS OF HATRED

On May 2, during Israel'sHolocaust Remembrance Day,

Yad Vashem broke ground for its newShoah Heritage Campus. The emo-tional ceremony was attended by for-mer head of the Jewish Agency NatanSharansky, The ambassadors ofGermany and Austria to Israel,donors, representatives of YadVashem Societies worldwide andHolocaust survivors.

The new campus, to be built at YadVashem on Jerusalem's Mount ofRemembrance, will include the JosephWilf Curatorial Center; the HeritageGallery for display of artifacts from itscollections; and an auditorium, includ-ing a main hall and a Family andChildren’s Exhibition Gallery.

The central component of the newCampus is the Shoah HeritageCollections Center, with state-of-the-art intake, conservation and storagefacilities for Yad Vashem's unrivaledcollections of Holocaust-era artworks,artifacts and archival materials.Situated in a strategically prominent,highly visible location — opposite theHall of Remembrance, one of themost frequently visited sites of YadVashem — the Shoah HeritageCollections Center will comprise foursubterranean levels covering a total

area of 5,880 square meters (63,300square feet).

During the ceremony, Yad VashemChairman Avner Shalev called theitems in Yad Vashem's collections —including 210 million pages of docu-mentation, 34,000 personal artifactsand close to 12,000 original artworks

— "the building blocks of truthfulShoah remembrance and the humanmemories that allow us to pass on thestories of their creators and ownersfor future generations."

Former Jewish Agency Chairman

and "refusenik" Natan Sharanskycited Viktor Frankl's seminal workMan's Search for Meaning, and theimportance of giving significance toone's life even as one faces certaindeath. The experiences of peopleunder such regimes as Nazi Europeand the Communist Soviet Union, as

he himself recalled, are vital not onlyfor those living their lives at the time,but also for those living in the future,in order to learn how best to advancehumanity. "The State of Israel, YadVashem and Yad Vashem's friends

guarantee that the memory of theShoah will live on for generations tocome," he said.

Speaking on behalf of the Wilffamily and other donors of the

Shoah Heritage Campus, Jane Wilfsaid "Yad Vashem is the epicenter forHolocaust remembrance, for theJewish people, Israel and all ofhumanity. The Shoah HeritageCampus and all of its components,including the Joseph Wilf CuratorialCenter, the renovated Auditorium andthe Family and Children’s ExhibitionGallery, constitute an integral threadin the fabric of Yad Vashem’s vitalwork. Through these very compo-nents, we are faced with the profoundchallenge of ensuring the preserva-tion of Yad Vashem’s collections forposterity, their accessibility to thepublic, and the transmission of thememory of the victims and survivorsof the Shoah to future generations."

Following the moving ceremony —which included a performance by theEthiopian children's choir Sheba —stakeholders signed two copies of aScroll of Dedication. One was present-ed to Chairman Shalev by donors, andanother was then buried in the groundunder the spot where the ShoahHeritage Campus will be built.

GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY AT YAD VASHEM

Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev being presented with the Shoah Heritage Campus Scroll of

Dedication by donors.

May/June 2019 - Iyyar/Sivan 5779 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 5

BY LUKE TRESS, THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

At 93, artist Eva DeutschCostabel still has one friend

from her hometown, Zagreb. TheItalian military imprisoned them in thesame concentration camp in WorldWar II. They survived, parted ways,and found each other seven yearsago in New York City, where they bothlive today.

Her friend, also named Eva, wasseven years old when she arrived atthe camp, and remembers 17-year-old Costabel being famous among thechildren confined in the camp on thepicturesque island of Rab in theAdriatic Sea. The children wouldgather to watch Costabel at work, herfriend said.

“You couldn’t buy anything, so Ibecame very popular because Idesigned all the greeting cards foreverybody,” Costabel said.“Everybody knew me in the camp,because when they needed a card forthe holiday, they came to me.

“People from the camp, the Jews,they always said, ‘I’ll never forget yourgreeting cards,’” Costabel said.

Today, Costabel’s Manhattan apart-ment is crammed with colorfulabstract paintings, self-portraitsdepicting her struggle with PTSD,children’s books she wrote and illus-trated, and textiles she patterned dur-ing her design career in New York.

Her art skills helped her survive inmountain villages controlled byYugoslav partisans and as a youngimmigrant alone in the US. She stud-ied in the classical art world of Romeand with abstract expressionists inManhattan. Today, the nonagenarianstill paints and hopes to find a homefor her work before she passes on.

Costabel grew up in Zagreb, thenpart of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia,now the capital of Croatia. Her fatherworked in the chemical industry andher mother ran a fashion boutique.Her mother groomed her to designchildren’s clothes, she said, which ishow she began to draw.

The Nazis invaded Yugoslavia andoccupied Zagreb in April 1941. Muchof the population welcomed the

Germans as liberators. The Nazis setup a puppet state, called theIndependent State of Croatia, run bythe Ustaše, a Fascist, racist and vio-lent Croatian nationalist group.

Yugoslavia was ethnically diverse,largely split between the Croatian andSerbian ethnic groups, but alsoincluding Albanians, Macedonians,Slovenes, Muslims and Jews. TheSerbs and Croatians harbored long-standing animosity towards eachother, and when the Croatian Ustašecame to power, they began persecut-ing Serbs, Jews and Roma, in anattempt to create an ethnically pureCroatian state. The Nazis and theircollaborators controlled the region’sroads and urban centers, but resist-ance groups sprang up in moreremote mountain areas.

Saboteurs blew up a Nazi train inCostabel’s area, and her father wasaccused of involvement because ofhis ties to the chemical industry.

“I never saw him again. I was 16years old. He was murdered in theTreblinka gas chamber. The Ustaše,they were never punished for it,”Costabel said.

The notoriously violent Ustašeslaughtered Jews, Serbs and otherminorities throughout the war.

It is estimated that the Ustaše killedbetween 77,000 and 99,000 people,including up to 20,000 Jews, atJasenovac, a death camp the groupran itself. The camp was brutal evenby the standards of the time, withguards killing prisoners by slittingtheir throats, smashing their skullswith sledgehammers and hangingthem from trees, often throwing bod-ies into a nearby river. Croatianauthorities helped ship thousandsmore Jews to Nazi death camps inEastern Europe.

Yad Vashem estimates that 66,000Yugoslav Jews died in the war, out ofa prewar population of 80,000.

Ustaše militants forced 16-year-oldCostabel, her mother and her sisterfrom their apartment at gunpoint.

Costabel’s parents were born inVienna, and retained their Austriancitizenship and Germanic last name(she took the name Costabel from herformer husband). Their Austrian pass-ports allowed the family to get into ter-ritory occupied by the Italian militaryon the Adriatic Sea. The Italians wereNazi allies, but more lenient towardsJews.

“If you were Jewish, you were dead.It didn’t matter, you were dead. TheCroatian Ustaše would have killed us,or the Nazis,” Costabel said. “Theonly place we could go was to theYugoslav Adriatic coast, because itwas occupied by the Italian militaryduring the war. A few of our friendswho went there, they said, ‘TheItalians don’t kill Jews.’ That’s why I’malive.”

The Italians did, however, imprisonCostabel and her family in a concen-tration camp on the island of Rab, offthe coast of present-day Croatia.

For the rest of the war, Costabel andYugoslavia’s surviving Jews werecaught between the Italians, Nazis,Croatians, partisans and Allies in thepower struggle for control of theBalkans.

ITALIAN DETAINMENT CAMPS:

FOR REPRESSION,

OR PROTECTION?

The Italian military set up campsduring the war both for repres-

sion and for protection, according tohistorian James Walston. The repres-sive camps were intended to quellpartisan resistance to Italian rule byremoving potentially dangerous civil-ians and their supporters from thepopulation. The inmates could also beused as hostages and executed inretaliation for partisan attacks.

In addition to the repressive camps,

the Italians set up “protective” campsfor Jews inside Italy and in areasoccupied by their military. In Italian-occupied parts of Croatia, the campsincluded Rab, also known by itsItalian name, Arbe, which kept theJews out of the hands of the Nazisand Croatians. The military knewwhat was happening to Jews inEastern Europe, and wanted to keepYugoslav Jews alive for both politicaland humanitarian reasons, Walstonwrote.

Historian Davide Rodogno, authorof a book on the Italian occupation ofthe Mediterranean in the war, told TheTimes of Israel that the military’smotives were purely political, howev-er. The Italians in Yugoslavia, whowere staunch believers in Fascist ide-ology, were struggling for power withtheir German and Croatian allies inthe region.

The Jews were a small, peacefulgroup, and the Italians did not want towaste resources going after them.The Ustaše, whom the Italians saw as“maniacs and idiots,” Rodogno said,were disrupting law and order in thearea by hunting Jews and ignoringlegitimate threats, so the Italianswanted to remove them from theUstaše’s sights.

Keeping the Jews from the Naziswas an act of defiance against theGermans, meant to show Italy wasnot a satellite state of the Germans,

Rodogno said.“The military doesn’t operate and

set up safe havens. If they decided tohave concentration camps, it was tomaintain law and order and makesure these people were under theircontrol,” Rodogno said.

The Italians saw the Jews as a com-modity that belonged to them, “andnobody, not even the Nazis, had anyright to decide what to do with them.That was the point they were trying tomake. This has nothing to do withhumanity. The unintended conse-quence was a rescue,” Rodogno said.

Regardless of the Italian military’smotives, Costabel is grateful to herItalian captors to this day.

“Everybody was starving, nobodyhad anything to eat. We couldn’t getout, of course, it was a concentrationcamp,” Costabel said. “But theItalians gave us our own administra-tion. There were a few Jewish lead-ers. It made it a livable place.Everybody gave their books, and wehad a library. We had very intelligentpeople in this group, and singers andmusicians, and they made it bear-able,” she said.

As Allied forces routed the Germansand Italians in North Africa in late1942, the Italians thought the Jews inYugoslavia could be used as leveragein a peace agreement, Rodogno said,so they kept them alive and undertheir control until the end of the war.

MASTERS OF THEIR OWN FATES

Italy capitulated on September 8,1943.

“It was utter chaos. Everyone wason his own. Italian soldiers wanted tojust go back home,” Rodogno said.“They just didn’t care” what happenedto the Jews, he said.

Liberation meant danger for theJews in the Rab camp. When Italy fell,Yugoslavia was divided between theGermans and Croatians, who bothwanted to kill the Jews there.

“For the Jewish internees in theArbe [Rab] camp, the day of liberationwas one of great danger. It was, how-ever, the day on which, for the firsttime since the beginning of the war,they were given an opportunity tocease being powerless and persecut-ed refugees and to become the mas-ters of their own fate. For the firsttime, they were free to organize, tomake their way to the areas whichhad already been liberated by the par-tisans, and to participate in the strug-gle,” Walston wrote.

When Italy capitulated, of the 2,661Jews in Rab, 204 decided to remainin the camp, mostly elderly or infirm.They were captured by the Germansand deported to Auschwitz, wherenone survived. Of the “liberated” Jewswho joined the partisans, 277 werekilled in the war, Walston wrote.

Some of the Jews in Rab had con-nections to Yugoslavia’s Communistparty before their confinement, andformed a small cell in the camp, wrote

(Continued on page 7)

A SURVIVOR’S STORY IN LIVING COLOR

Eva Deutsch Costabel.

”Jewish Tragedy 1949,” a self-portrait.

Page 6 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2019 - Iyyar/Sivan 5779

BY ADAM ROSS, AISH.COM

Survivors testify about an epicSeder held in underground bunkersas the Nazis sought to liquidate thelast Jews of the Warsaw ghetto.

In April 1943, at the height of theFinal Solution, with the sounds of

tank rounds and gunfire around them,the last remaining Jews of Warsawhuddled together in bunkers undertheir besieged ghetto to live their finalhours as proud Jews, reading thePassover Haggadah. In the hours thatfollowed, they would rise up in one ofhistory’s most iconic feats of resist-ance.

The handful of Jews who survivedthe Nazis’ final onslaught on Warsaw,once a major center of Jewish life,have this Seder night more than anyother etched in their memories as atestament to Passover’s powerfulcalling to connect to family, history,tradition and hope.

THE JEWISH CAPITAL OF

EUROPE

Every Passover during the Nazioccupation of Warsaw, which

began in October 1939, the Jewishcommunity did its best to celebratethe holiday. Even after being forcedinto a ghetto measuring just 2.5% ofthe city, subject to terrible starvationand disease, the Jews smuggledadditional nonleavened foods into theghetto in the weeks before Passover.Several matzah factories were set up,ensuring that the community, at itsheight numbering almost half a mil-lion, could eat the bread of freedomon Seder night. Despite the hunger,typhus and dysentery, Jewish life inthe ghetto continued.

Passover in April 1943 would be thelast for the Jews of the Warsaw ghet-to, although by then the communitywas already unrecognizable. Almost ayear earlier Adam Czierniakow, thehead of the Judenrat, the Jewishcouncil appointed by the Nazis, hadcommitted suicide after hearing of theNazis’ plans, leaving a note to his wifethat he “would not be the hangman ofIsrael’s children.” The Nazis hadsince begun a terrifying program of“liquidation,” deporting between 5,000

and 6,000 Jews daily to the Treblinkadeath camp, where they were mur-dered within an hour of their arrival.

On January 18, 1943, the Nazisattempted to take another 8,000 Jewsbut this time members of a newlyformed Jewish resistance fired shotsat the SS guards, and the Nazisrethought their plans. They bolsteredtheir military presence, delaying thefinal liquidation of the ghetto toPassover, which would fall in threemonths’ time.

“THAT’S WHAT WE FELT

IN OUR HEARTS”

On the 18th of April 1943, whennews arrived that the Germans

had stationed an army in Warsawready to empty the ghetto, members ofthe underground resistance move-ments went into high alert. While therooftops were sta-tioned with Jewskeeping track of theenemy’s every move,below the ghetto,Jews were busyembracing the storyof the exodus fromEgypt as a symbol oftheir own fight for dig-nity, pride and hope.

Roma Frey was 24that Passover. Sherecalls how she andher family tried theirbest to make thebasement as nice aspossible for the holi-day, “We tried to put the candles onthe table, and a white tablecloth.” Sheadds, “The table was made of awooden board resting on a few thingsunderneath.”

She survived the Holocaust andmoved to Melbourne, Australia, afterthe war. She adds, “We acknowledgedto ourselves and to God and to our-selves that we want to keep the tradi-tions. That’s what we felt in our hearts,we remembered our grandfathers, thehard times, slavery and our slavery,and here we have hardly a hope tosurvive even just one day or night.”

SEDER NIGHT

WITH RABBI MEISEL

With families decimated by thedeportations, the remnant

Jews came together, relying on thosewho knew the Haggadah by heart tolead them. Many flocked to the homeof the 60-year-old venerated RabbiEliezer Yitzchak Meisel, who had lefthis hometown of Lodz along with hisfollowers years earlier when the Nazisinvaded. In Warsaw he had becomeimmediately involved in maintainingreligious life amid the hardships; itwas in his basement that many of theJews active in the resistance joinedfor the Passover Seder.

Tuvia Borzykowski was 29 at thetime. “No one slept that night,” herecalled. “The moon was full and thenight was unusually bright.” Alongwith the other fighters, he joinedRabbi Meisel for the Seder.

“Amidst this destruction, the table inthe center of the room looked incon-gruous, with glasses filled with wine,with the family seated around, therabbi reading the Haggadah.”Throughout the night, despite theincreasing sounds of enemy fire,Tuvia and the other fighters held fast,engrossed in the retelling of theJewish people’s redemption fromEgypt. He recalled, “The rabbi’s read-ing was punctuated by explosionsand the rattling of machine guns; thefaces of the family around the tablewere lit by the red light from the burn-ing buildings nearby.”

“Now is a good time to die,” RabbiMeisel said, buoyed by the feeling ofpride, courage and faith, as heblessed one of the fighters who cameto deliver a report. He died later that

night in the flames of the ghetto. TuviaBorzykowski survived the war andhelped establish the Kibbutz of theGhetto Fighters near Akko. He is oneof several fighters who testified aboutthe Passover Seder they took part inas the uprising began.

“I HAD NEVER MISSED A SEDER”

Born in Warsaw, ItzchakMilchberg was the leader of a

group of Jewish boys posing as non-Jews outside the ghetto walls, sellingcigarettes on the black market to sur-vive. On the eve of Passover in 1943,he was just 12 years old but wisebeyond his years. He had seen hisfather shot before his eyes, his moth-er and two sisters had already beendeported, and the only family he had

left was an uncle named Feivel whowas still in the ghetto.

When rumors spread that the Naziswere planning their final deportations,he returned to the ghetto to be with

his uncle for Passover. “I had nevermissed a Seder,” he said. “It was inmy blood.”

With the sound of shooting aroundhim, he entered his uncle’s candlelitbunker, where 60 people were crowd-ed. “The building was shaking,” hesaid, “People were crying.” His uncleFeivel embraced him in Yiddish, “Irvet firn di seder mit mir — You’ll per-form the Seder with me.” However,some were too distressed to thinkabout running a Seder. He recallspeople crying, “God led us out ofEgypt. Nobody killed us. Here, theyare murdering us.”

Pulling him close, whispering intohis ear, Feivel told his nephew, “Youmay die, but if you die, you’ll die as aJew. If we live, we live as Jews.” Headded, “If you live, you’ll tell your chil-dren and grandchildren about this.”

The Seder began. Feivel Milchberghad managed to organize matzah. “Idon’t know how he got it,” Itzchakrecalls, although he remembers therewere no bitter herbs. “There was plen-ty of bitterness already,” he says.

Together with his uncle, he read theHaggadah from memory, and soonmost of the bunker joined in. “We didmost of the prayers by heart,” hesays. “The Seder went very, verylate.”

He left the ghetto in the early hoursof the morning through the sewersystem, risking his life as he haddone to be there in the first place. Inthe days that followed he worked asa runner, smuggling arms throughthe sewers to the Jewish fightersuntil he was caught on the sixth dayof the uprising. He would later jumpfrom a train taking him to Treblinkaand survive the Holocaust thanks toa Catholic family in Warsaw. After thewar, he moved to Canada, raised afamily of his own and made good onhis promise to his uncle to tell hischildren and grandchildren aboutthat Seder night he had led with hisuncle in 1943.

THE LAST SEDER IN THE WARSAW GHETTO

Matzah being distributed in the Warsaw ghetto.

A hidden matzah factory.

Tuvia Borzykowski.

May/June 2019 - Iyyar/Sivan 5779 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 7

(Continued from page 5)Emil Kerenji, a historian from theUnited States Holocaust MemorialMuseum. They had some contact withCommunists outside the camp,including in the town of Rab itself.

Prior to Italy’s capitulation, theJewish Communists in the camp hadprepared to join the partisans, andsmuggled a report to the mainlandlate in the summer of 1943, Kerenjiwrote. When Italy yielded to theNazis, this cell, along with Slovenianprisoners in the camp, disarmed theItalian guards and took weapons fromthe camp’s caches.

Partisan representatives arrivedfrom the mainland and invited theJews to join their ranks. They beganorganizing their evacuation to remoteareas in the forests and mountains ofYugoslavia under partisan control.The complex rescue operation includ-ed ferrying the former inmates to themainland on boats, sometimes underGerman aerial bombardment, trans-porting the sick and elderly in trucks,and providing supplies to the hun-dreds joining their ranks.

EQUALS AMONG VICTIMS

Th e i d e o l o g i c a l l y d r i v e nCommunist partisans, led by

Josip Broz Tito, were a multi-ethnicforce that included Jews, Serbs andMuslims. Their Socialist, inclusiveethos proved to be an advantage inthe struggle against the Germans, asthey attracted fighters from differentsegments of the population.

Tito proclaimed the group’s goals as“brotherhood and unity of the peoples

in Yugoslavia” in the “struggle fornational liberation.” The rescue of theJews in Rab fit into this framework.

The region was rife with sectarianviolence perpetrated againstSerbians, Croats and Muslims, andJews were considered another, equalvictim by the partisans, who providedrefuge for the other minority groupsas well. Tito himself ordered his fight-ers to assist Jews escaping from theGermans, according to Yad Vashem.The rescue of the Jews of Rab wastherefore motivated by a politicalvision, not ethical or humanitarianconcerns, like most well-knownHolocaust rescues in Europe, accord-ing to Kerenji.

“Although joining the partisans thusde facto also meant saving one’s life

(at least for the time being), theCommunists preferred to emphasizethe formal act of joining the resistancemovement and then endow it with ide-ological meaning: the brotherly peo-ples of Yugoslavia joining, of theirown free will, the struggle for nationalliberation led by Tito and the parti-sans,” Kerenji wrote.

The liberation of Rab’s Jews wasone of the largest single rescue oper-ations of the Holocaust. For context,Oskar Schindler is credited with sav-ing 1,200 Jews, while the partisanssaved over 2,000 from Rab alone.

Most of the Jews who left the campwho could not fight with the partisansfound refuge with civilians, includingmost of the 500 liberated children.Some made their way to internmentcamps on the Italian mainland. Mostof the rest, including Costabel, whohad been in the camp for 18 months,joined the partisan ranks.

“We had no place to go, so the par-tisans, the resistance of Yugoslavia,they waited for us. There were sol-diers, and they walked hundreds ofmiles to an area in Croatia which wasoccupied by the partisans, and Ijoined the army,” Costabel said.

THE PARTISAN PROPAGANDA

UNIT

The partisans stationed Costabelin a small mountain village pop-

ulated by Serbian peasants. Shebegan working as a nurse.

“There were all these peasant hous-es. We used to sleep 30 people onthe floor. They were all very primitive,”Costabel said. “We never took off our

clothes, never, because of the Nazis:you had to always run.”

She began sketching the peoplearound her in the village — childrenorphaned by war and typhoid, herlandlord and his wife, a Jewish armyofficer named Baruch — on whateverpieces of paper she could find, usingpencils, ink and watercolors.

“It was during the war, so I had todraw on the back of some old letters.There was no paper, and I always car-ried a knapsack, that was my wholepossession, but I always had paintand ink or whatever I needed,” shesaid. “I’m very proud of them becauseI didn’t study art at all. I couldn’t go toschool for years.”

Partisan leaders noticed her skillsand assigned her to their propaganda

unit.“They called it the propaganda

office. When they saw that I coulddraw, they put me there. I was doingthe lettering and drawing. They had alittle press,” she said.

The partisans remained committedto their multi-ethnic ideology through-out the war, and continued to wel-come Jewish fighters and protectJewish civilians in their territory. There

were some tensions between theJews and the local rural population,however. The Jews mostly came fromurban areas, and were in better phys-ical shape than the locals, who hadsuffered during a recent Nazi offen-sive, leading to some distrustbetween the groups. There weresome incidents of anti-Semitism, orthat were perceived as anti-Semiticby the Jews, according to Kerenji.

Costabel noticed this, and resistedformally joining the Communist party,she said.

“I didn’t want to join the Communistparty. You’re 19, you’re an idealist, butI said I don’t like what they’re doing. Imean, they’re fighting the Nazis, butotherwise they’re very anti-Semitic,so I didn’t want to join. So my friendsaid, ‘You better join, they’ll kill you,’”Costabel said.

ON THE ROAD, AGAIN

Costabel fled for the coast. Shemet a group of Austrian and

Hungarian Jews who had made con-tact with Winston Churchill’s son,Randolph, who was in the Adriatic aspart of the British military’s effort toassist the partisans with medical sup-plies and military equipment. Thegroup appealed to Churchill, as for-eign citizens, for his help in fleeingwar-torn Yugoslavia.

“We are the reminders of the perse-cuted foreign Jewish refugees. Theother fell in Hands of the enemy and itis sure that they are not more alive,”the group wrote, in broken English, intheir appeal to Churchill in a letterdated September 1, 1944. “Thereforewe beg to realise our demand assoon as possible and to transfer us toItaly,” the refugees wrote.

Again, Costabel’s Austrian passportallowed her to leave as a foreign citi-zen. A British warship ferried the

refugees across the Adriatic Sea toBari, in southern Italy, which was con-trolled by the Allies. Costabel spentthe remainder of the war in a refugeecamp in Bari.

After the war ended, Costabelmoved to Rome with her mother andsister. She wanted to pursue her inter-est in art, but had lost five years ofeducation because of the war. Romewas a city in disarray, without accu-

rate phone books, so Costabel wan-dered the streets looking for an artschool that would take her. Someonepointed her in the direction of theAcademy of Fine Arts, an imposingclassical arts school dating back tothe 16th century. She explained hersituation to an employee dressed inoveralls she met outside the schoolwhom she took to be a porter.

“I told him my whole story and itturned out that he wasn’t a porter, hewas the director of the school, and hesaid, ‘I’ll get you in this school.’ Youneeded eight years of high school ortwo years of college. I had four yearsof high school. They took me any-way,” Costabel said.

“I didn’t have a cent to my name,nothing, and I went free to this.Everything I know today is from twoyears of this academy,” she said.

NEW LIFE IN THE NEW WORLD

She received a US visa while atthe academy, and moved to

New York City in 1949. She did notspeak English and had no connec-tions or job training beyond her twoyears of art education. After a fewdays in the city, she found a job paint-ing roses on compacts for powderedmakeup for one cent apiece, whichput her below the poverty line, eventhen. A chance meeting led to a job instore window displays, which wereelaborate advertisements at the time.She painted papier-mâché sculpturesfor stores in Manhattan, then begandesigning commercial packaging.Package design would provide herwith steady income for most of hercareer.

Her first job was on 57th Street inManhattan. She struggled to accli-mate to the new city, but found refugein art galleries and museums. At the

(Continued on page 11)

A SURVIVOR’S STORY IN LIVING COLOR

The Rab concentration camp.

Right, Captain Baruch, a Jewish officer in the partisans. Left, a peasant woman combing hemp.

Page 8 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2019 - Iyyar/Sivan 5779

PHOTO HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE AMERICAN SOCIET

Ron Meier, executive director of ASYV; Jack Shnay; Rachel Shnay; and ASYV Chairman Leonard

Wilf.

Judi Burnstein, Dara Rubenstein, Merry Cohen, Leslie Adler, Marilyn Rubenstein, Helene Dorfman,

Rebecca Altman and Judy Bloom.

Tova Friedman and Felice Z. Stokes, longtime friends and survivors. Susan Lerner, Rose Koren, Sally Pomeranc and Deborah Pomeranc.

Honorees Deborah Shnay Rifkin, Rachel Shnay and Gabriela Shnay and luncheon co-chair Sarita

Rausnitz with family patriarch Symcha Horowitz.

Standing: Barry Levine and Abbi Halpern, board members; Sharon Halpern; Jaci Paradis, honorary

co-chair; seated: Gladys Halpern.

May/June 2019 - Iyyar/Sivan 5779 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 9

TY FOR YAD VASHEM ANNUAL SPRING LUNCHEON

David Bernheim, Taylor Bernheim, William Bernheim (guest speaker), Lucille Bernheim, Harrison

Abramow and Jeremy Bernheim.

Barbara Sobel, Carol Buchwald, Stephanie Abramow, Eillene Leistner, Ruth Katz, Hillary Katz, Rori

Denholtz and Marsha Fiske.

Susie Peyser, Deborah Shnay Rifkin and Leah Rifkin.

Shevi Peters, Marina Hirsch, Shara Levy and Goldie Hertz, luncheon co-chair.

Adina Burian, Lili Stawski, Rachel Shnay and Mark Moskowitz. Anne Addison, survivor; Eillene Leistner; Geri Roper; and Sephora Stein, survivor.

Page 10 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2019 - Iyyar/Sivan 5779

BY SANTI ELIJAH HOLLEY, TOPIC

In September of 1942, an AustrianJewish doctor named Viktor Frankl

was deported, along with his wife andparents, to the Nazi-controlledTheresienstadt ghetto in what is nowthe Czech Republic. Two years later,after he and his wife were processedat Auschwitz, Frankl was sent aloneto the notoriously deadly Kauferingconcentration camp in southernGermany, part of the larger Dachaucomplex. In his 1946 memoir, Man’sSearch for Meaning, Frankl reflectson a particular pecuniary feature of

the camp, where he and others weresubjected to forced physical labor,including the digging of trenches andtunnels:

“At one time, my job was to dig atunnel, without help, for a water mainunder a road,” he writes. “This feat didnot go unrewarded; just beforeChristmas 1944, I was presented witha gift of so-called ‘premium coupons.’These were issued by the construc-tion firm to which we were practicallysold as slaves: the firm paid the campauthorities a fixed price per day, perprisoner. The coupons cost the firmfifty pfennigs each and could beexchanged for six cigarettes, oftenweeks later, although they sometimeslost their validity.”

In his 1947 memoir, Survival inAuschwitz, Italian Jewish chemistPrimo Levi makes a similar referenceto what he calls “prize-coupons,”which he and other prisoners wouldexchange for cheap tobacco or bread.Levi describes how the coupons, dis-tributed by Nazi camp officials, “circu-late on the market in the form ofmoney, and their value changes instrict obedience to the laws of classi-cal economics.” Levi goes on to relatehow the value of these couponswould fluctuate at random, and howsome days “the prize-coupon wasworth one ration of bread, then oneand a quarter, even one and a third;one day it was quoted at one and ahalf ration.”

The very existence of Holocaustcurrencies — from the notes printedby Nazi authorities and distributed inJewish ghettos to the “coupons” or“camp money” used by prisoners inconcentration camps — has seldom

been investigated in studies of theera. It is a history blotted out of thepublic conversation. In fact, for someseventy years after the defeat of theThird Reich, the specifics ofHolocaust currency were knownmostly to a small community of collec-tors, scholars, survivors, and curatorsat Holocaust museums such as thosein Houston and Washington, DC, andat Yad Vashem in Israel. Then, in thespring of 2015, a collection of billsand coins found their way to theStrassler Center for Holocaust andGenocide Studies at Clark Universityin Worcester, Massachusetts, havingbeen donated by Robert Messing, a

Clark alumnus and an amateurnumismatist — one who studies coinsand currencies. By making this mate-rial available to students, Messingand the Strassler Center have helpedto ensure that future generations cancontinue to analyze this largely over-looked piece of world history.

In his 1925 autobiography, MeinKampf, as well as during his rise to

power in the early 1930s, Adolf Hitlerendorsed the ancient stereotype ofthe miserly Jew, exploiting the grow-ing conviction among Germans thatJews had obtained their wealth bystealing from Aryans. With the pas-sage of the Nuremberg Race Laws inSeptember of 1935, the regime for-mally stripped German Jews of theirrights, disenfranchising them, denyingthem citizenship in the Reich, andcriminalizing marriage or sexual rela-tions between Jews and non-JewishGermans. On April 26, 1938, theDecree for Reporting of Jewish-Owned Property required all Germanand Austrian Jews to disclose andsurrender assets valued at more than5,000 reichsmarks.

The Third Reich’s confiscation ofproperty and seizure of assets andother goods not only served to helpfund the Nazi war effort but createdeconomic marginalization, leavingJewish communities increasingly iso-lated and vulnerable and thus moreeasily controlled. When the large-scale deportation of Jews fromGerman-occupied territories to Nazighettos commenced at the beginningof the 1940s, Jewish families oftenarrived empty-handed, with nothingbut the clothes on their backs.

When Jews entered the ghettos —walled or otherwise confined areas

separating them from the larger localpopulation — Nazi commanderswould often issue coupons, or tokens,which were a fraction of the value oftheir country’s currency and onlyredeemable within the ghettos inwhich they were issued, precludingthe Jewish population from participat-ing in the German economy. Jewscould be assigned various jobs insidethe ghetto, but wages were pitiableand workers were compensatedalmost exclusively in ghetto coupons,which could be traded for food, cloth-ing, cigarettes and other goods,marked up at exorbitant rates.

By stripping only certain citizens of acountry of their national currency andreplacing it with a virtually worthlessone, the Nazis gripped the reins ofcontrol tighter and tighter, until anentire population was both destabi-lized and dependent — exiles in theirown country. Money — what Jewswere for hundreds of years accusedof manipulating and controlling —was now being used as a means tomanipulate and control them.

Lodz, in occupied Poland, was thefirst ghetto where Nazis designed,printed and distributed money to beused exclusively by the occupants.The pfennig notes that circulatedamong Lodz’s 160,000 predominantlyJewish residents between 1940 andthe shuttering of the ghetto in 1944depicted a seven-branchmenorah atop a chain ofStars of David, linked soas to resemble barbedwire.

The Third Reich wassoon printing and distrib-uting unique currenciesthroughout most of theghettos in its occupiedterritories. These coinsand coupons includedthe name of the ghetto, amonetary value and,usually, the Star ofDavid. The Nazis whocontrolled each ghettowere responsible forchoosing an artist —often this was an occu-pant of the ghetto — andapproving the final design.

The Theresienstadt getto kronen(ghetto crowns) were designed

by an artist, playwright and ghettooccupant named Peter Kien, original-ly from the Czech border town ofVarnsdorf but educated in Brno and atthe Academy of Fine Arts in Prague,as well as the graphic-design schoolOfficina Pragensis. Ordered byReinhard Heydrich, the high-rankingNazi official Hitler had placed incharge of the ghettos, to include anillustration of Moses and the TenCommandments in his design, Kienhad his original effort rejected;Heydrich felt that Moses was tooAryan in appearance. UnderHeydrich’s command, Kienredesigned the notes, giving Mosesstereotypically exaggerated Semitic

features like a hooked nose, curlyhair, and excessively long and slen-der fingers. (Heydrich also orderedthat Moses’s fingers be positioned onthe tablets so as to obscure thephrase “Thou shalt not kill.”) Thedesign was approved, and the noteswere distributed throughoutTheresienstadt.

Heydrich had established theTheresienstadt ghetto in November1941 in a walled fortress town thirtymiles north of Prague. With a peakpopulation of 150,000 Jews, of thirty-five different nationalities, includinglocals from Bohemia and Moravia, itwas the largest Jewish ghetto outsideof Poland and functioned both as aholding area for elderly and “promi-nent” Jews and as a transit camp, orway station, for those who would laterbe sent to extermination camps.

Theresienstadt also served as adeceptive display of life in the ghettos,hosting Jewish cultural events likeconcerts and plays. By March 1943,Nazi officers in Theresienstadt hadalready begun circulating the ghetto’sown currency, to aid in presenting anillusion of normalcy to both Jews andoutside observers. (On June 23,1944, drawn by concerns about sus-pected genocide and humanitarianoffenses against European Jews, twodelegates from the InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross and one

delegate from the Danish Red Crossvisited Theresienstadt, accompaniedby SS officials. After a brief tour — theghetto had begun a “beautification”campaign ahead of the visit, and, toalleviate overcrowded conditions,seven transports, carrying over 7,500Jews, had been sent to Auschwitz —the Red Cross, satisfied, departed.)

As historian and numismatist ZviStahl writes in his 1990 study ofHolocaust currency, Jewish Ghettos’and Concentration Camps’ Money:

“Theresienstadt’s monetary systemwas a grand facade, geared towardsimpressing the Red Cross and otherforeign visitors frequenting the ghetto.The existence of Jewish theater andconcerts, sport events and an orderedmonetary system were all part of an

(Continued on page 13)

THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF HOLOCAUST MONEY

A 100 kronen note, the currency of the Theresienstadt ghetto.

Warsaw ghetto money.

May/June 2019 - Iyyar/Sivan 5779 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 11

(Continued from page 7)time, many of New York’s gallerieswere located in midtown, so Costabelwould explore during her lunchbreaks.

“I didn’t speak English. I had nofriends. I just bought a book and I sawevery museum in New York the firstyear, and I still do that. I love NewYork,” Costabel said. “I don’t like to bebored, and you cannot be bored inNew York.”

It was a hard time for her, though.Most survivors she met preferred

spending time with other survivorsfrom their own country, she said, andshe did not know many Jews fromYugoslavia. She was also grapplingwith PTSD from the war, which sheeventually recovered from, throughart and therapy.

“Every survivor should have gone toa psychiatrist. You cannot live withthis. This is something you cannotdeal with if you don’t get it out of yoursystem,” she said.

Costabel began studying painting at

the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn underthe renowned abstract expressionistFranz Kline. The post–World War IImovement, based in New York and

made famous by Jackson Pollock,William de Kooning and Mark Rothko,focused on action, emotion and spon-taneous creation. It would helpCostabel deal with the turmoil in herlife.

“What helps me tremendously is

that I’m an artist. People think mypaintings are very cheerful, but actu-ally what I did is I put all my emotion,all my frustration in my paintings, so

even though they lookhappy, they came fromunhappiness, from pain.”

Outside of her designcareer, she has taughtworkshops on abstractart to those sufferingfrom chronic diseases,and written and illustrat-ed children’s books onJewish and Americanhistory, including TheJews of NewAmsterdam, on the firstJews to move to theDutch colony which

would become New York City.She refuses to return to Croatia,

despite invitations. Streets in herhometown are named after war crimi-nals, she said, and the country nevertruly reckoned with the crimes of theUstaše and other Nazi collaborators.

T oday, Costabel lives alone inmidtown Manhattan. Dressed

in a wardrobe that matches herbright, bold paintings, she keepsbusy with social engagements, doc-tor visits and trips to museums. Hermarriage was unhappy and shenever had children. Now she is tryingto find a home for her paintings inNew York or Israel, but has so farbeen unsuccessful.

In her small apartment, her shelvesoverflow with books on art, Israel andJewish history and her walls are linedwith decades of artwork. A photo-graph of her father stands on a book-case next to her bed, and at her win-dow overlooking 8th Avenue are hereasel, brushes and tubes of paint.

“I have a very good life, consider-ing everything. I’m not a greedy per-son. People make themselvesunhappy because they want a car,they want this, they want that, andI’m not that way,” said Costabel. “I’mnot greedy, so I’m satisfied with whatI have. That’s all.”

“Stars over Jerusalem.”

A SURVIVOR’S STORY IN LIVING COLOR

BY SHELDON KIRSHNER, THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

Giorgio Treves’ sobering docu-mentary, 1938 — Different, which

was screened at the Toronto JewishFilm Festival in May, lays bare thedevastating impact of Fascism on theJewish community in Italy.

In 1938, Benito Mussolini’s Fascistregime enacted anti-Semitic laws thatrendered 45,000 Italian Jews second-class citizens. The German invasionof Italy, four years into World War IIbrought a new and far more terribledimension of anti-Semitism into themix. On Germany’s initiative, thou-

sands of Italian Jews were deportedto Nazi extermination camps inPoland.

As Treves’ film opens, the ItalianJewish actor Roberto Herlitzka, a sur-vivor of the Holocaust, muses, “I hada world, a family, a companion and acity that were taken away by the vileFascist and greedy German.”

Herlitzka’s bitter comment is indica-tive of the shock and disappointment

that still linger in the hearts of ItalianJews who went through the trauma ofbeing demonized, marginalized andpersecuted by a nation that hademancipated its Jewish population acentury before.

Herlitzka is just one of the inter-viewees who appears in Treves’

movie. He talks to historians andJewish survivors, and they have plen-ty to say. In the main, they discuss theevents that culminated with the pas-sage of the anti-Jewish laws.

Mussolini sought to create a “newItalian” on the basis of race. Thisobjective loomed large in the 1930sbecause he was obsessed by the“purity” of the Italian race. Italy

passed its firstracial law in 1936,aimed at mixed-race Italians of par-tial Africandescent. It wouldbe only a matter oftime beforeMussolini’s ethno-centric regime tar-geted Jews.

During medievaltimes, Italian Jewswere subjected toa myriad of restric-tions. Free to leave

the ghettos after their emancipation inthe 19th century, they integratedthemselves into society at large, gain-ing widespread acceptance.

Mussolini did not start off as an anti-Semite. Two hundred Jewish mem-bers of the Fascist party participatedin the iconic 1922 March on Rome,and the so-called Jewish questionwas not a factor in Italian politics until

Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler wasappointed Germany’s chancellor in1933.

A round 1936, Mussolini beganto toy with the idea of remov-

ing Jews from their positions in cul-ture and politics. Mussolini, por-trayed by an actor, clearlydisliked Jews. Reading fromhis diary, he says, “These dis-gusting Jews. I must destroythem.”

In the following year, helaunched a media campaignagainst Jews and instructedGuido Landra, a scientist, toproduce a manifesto provingthat Jews did not belong tothe Italian Aryan race andshould be excluded from it.

Calling for “strict racial con-sciousness,” Mussoliniannounced in 1938 that anti-Semitic legislation was immi-nent. In November of thatfateful year, the first anti-Jewish laws were passed by a com-pliant parliament. The edicts weresigned by King Victor Emmanuel III,a descendant of King Carlo Alberto,who had rescinded anti-Semiticrestrictions 90 years earlier.

Interestingly enough, the Vaticancondemned the racially based laws.

In short order, Jews were summar-ily expelled from the Fascist party,the army and the civil service.Jewish students were thrown out ofschools and universities.

“They despised us,” says a Jewishwoman, looking back with disgust atthat horrible era. “We were deeplydisheartened.”

Italian Jews were shocked and

appalled by the new order. One dis-traught Jewish man committed sui-cide, jumping from the leaning towerin Pisa.

It would appear that ItalianChristians were generally indifferentto the plight of Jews. Some took

advantage of the situation by buyingAryanized Jewish property cheaply.

Jews who had the means emigrat-ed. Those who could not afford toleave suffered the consequences fol-lowing Italy’s entry into the war in thesummer of 1940 and Germany’sinvasion of Italy a few years later.Jews were ghettoized, physicallyassaulted, declared enemies of thestate and sent to forced labor camps.

Deportations, resulting in the mur-der of almost 8,000 Jews, followed.

In documenting the concertedassault on Jews by Mussolini andGermany, Treves cites facts and fig-ures to make his case against thetyranny of Fascism in Italy.

DOCUMENTARY CHARTS THE PERSECUTION

OF ITALIAN JEWS

The Italian Jewish actor and Holocaust survivor Roberto Herlitzka in

1938 — Different.

Giorgio Treves.

Page 12 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2019 - Iyyar/Sivan 5779

BY JONATHAN BLAUSTEIN, THE NEW YORK TIMES

In 1986, Rabbi Harold Schulweisrecruited Malka Drucker, a chil-

dren’s book author, and Gay Block, afine art portrait photographer, toembark on a project documenting res-cuers, non-Jewish Europeans whorisked torture and death to save Jewsduring the Holocaust. There were cer-emonies for these brave souls at YadVashem, the Holocaust memorial inJerusalem, where they were honoredand trees were planted.

But their accomplishments were lit-tle known.

The writer and photographer beganinterviewing some of the rescuerswho had relocated to southernCalifornia, but they eventually trav-eled to Canada and Europe for 100interviews. They worked on the proj-ect from 1986 to 1988, and in 1992Ms. Block had a solo exhibition at theMuseum of Modern Art in New York. Aseparate traveling show was pro-duced by Curatorial Assistance, andtraveled to 50 venues over 11 years.

Ms. Drucker wrote the original text,Ms. Block made the portraits and edit-ed the interviews, and Cynthia Ozickcontributed an introduction to theresulting book, Rescuers: Portraits ofMoral Courage in the Holocaust.

***

Maria, Countess von Maltzan,was a veterinarian living in

East Berlin at the time of her inter-view. She told of being raised on an18,000-acre estate in the Silesiaregion of Germany, to fabulouswealth, a doting father and a crueland unforgiving mother.

Familial rebelliousness first droveher to become a member of theunderground in Berlin during the war.“It was easy for me to resist Naziauthority because I had always resis-ted my mother’s authority,” she said.

The countess hid Jews in a secretcompartment in her sofa (amongother places) and once dared an SSofficer to shoot at it while her futurehusband, Hans, was still inside. (Hefailed to call her bluff, thankfully.)

“I was a queen on the black market

all during the war,” she recalled, “but Ihad to be good at it because I had somany extra people to feed. I alwayssaid, no matter what came along, ‘Iprefer to be in a tough situation thanto go to bed with a bad conscience.’”

***

Gustav Mikulai was raised in aSocial Democrat family in

Budapest and grew up with Jewishfriends and neighbors. As a buddingmusician, he was impressed by theJewish students he encountered inschool.

“The Jews were capable and every-one was envious,” he said. “I under-stood that from the beginning. I could-n’t be anti-Semitic, first because Ithought it would be immoral, and sec-ond because I thought well enough ofmyself that I didn’t need to be enviousof them.”

Mr. Mikulai eventually married aJewish musician and then hid her andher parents when the Germans invad-ed in March 1944. From that point on,he dedicated himself to saving asmany Jews as possible.

Being a resistance fighter requiredhuge sacrifice, because, as he said, “Ifound during this time of theHolocaust that I could kill anyone whowas suspicious of me. It was a terribletime for humanity.”

Mr. Mikulai was able to look back,knowing that he was no bystander,watching while the world was sub-sumed by chaos. Reflecting from hisperch in Bonn, Germany, he knew hehad made a difference.

“I think in all I was able to save atleast 50 people, and maybe 80 or ahundred,” he said. “I’m happy aboutthe times I was able to rescue chil-dren who are now married and withchildren of their own, who’ll not havehad such a life without my help.”

***

Jan Karski was a Polish spy whoeventually became a professor at

Georgetown University inWashington. Like a real-life JamesBond, he once skied across Slovakiainto Hungary on a mission, and hewas eventually caught by theGermans before being rescued by thePolish resistance.

Shortly thereafter, he was recruitedby the Jewish underground to takenews of the Warsaw ghetto, and the

annihilation of the Jews, directly toWinston Churchill and Franklin D.Roosevelt. But first, he had to visit theghetto to see for himself.

“The ghetto was macabre,” he saidin his interview. “It was not a world. Itwas not a part of humanity. I did notbelong there. I vomited blood thatnight. I saw horrible, horrible things Iwill never forget. So I agreed to dowhat they asked of me.”

Mr. Karski managed to meet withboth leaders, but was disappointed tohear they were unwilling to putresources directly to stopping theHolocaust, as their focus was on thewar. (“Helping Jews was no advan-tage to the Allied war strategy,” hesaid.)

When he asked the president whatmessage he should take back toPoland, Roosevelt replied: “‘You willtell them we shall win the war and theenemy will be punished for theircrimes. Justice will prevail. Tell yournation that they have a friend in thishouse. This is what you will tell them.’”

***

Zofia Baniecka, from Warsaw,was visiting her friend Ruth in

Staten Island when she was inter-viewed for the “Rescuers” project.She and her mother had been integralto the Polish resistance after herfather was killed by a Russian bombin 1941.

Unlike some other rescuers, sheand her mother evaded detection theentire time they fought the Nazis. “Iwas never interrogated or nearlycaught, though I don’t know why,” shesaid. “I was just lucky. Luck, it wasonly luck, because I kept people andguns in my house from the winter of1941 until the Polish uprising inAugust 1944.”

She was consistent with many ofher fellow rescuers, however, in stat-ing her desire that these stories beshared well into the future.

“There are many people who havesaved my belief in humanity, and thatis why it is important for people to

know about this time, of Poland dur-ing the war, and that there were thoseof us who did try to save Jews,” shesaid. “It is necessary for the childrento know that there were such people.”

***

Aart and Johtje Vos lived in anartist colony called Laren, near

Amsterdam, and their home becamea reliable stop on the underground.(So much so that they once had 36people hiding there.)

“More and more people came tohide in our house,” Johtje said. “Wehad mattresses all over the floor, andthey had to be camouflaged in casethe Germans came.”

The couple’s bravery ruffled feath-ers within the home, with one of theirown children questioning the risksthey were taking. It was never a ques-tion for them, though, as they couldn’tstand idly by while the Germanspicked off their fellow countrymen.

“Holland was like a family and partof that family was in danger,” Aartsaid. “In this case, the Jewish part.The Germans were threatening ourfamily. We weren’t thinking, ‘Whatshall we do?’ We just did.”

***

Helene Jacobs, who was born inBerlin, worked with a group

called Confessing Church to providefalse papers and identification toGerman Jews. Eventually, her coun-terfeit ring was tracked down by theGestapo, and she was arrested in1943.

(Continued on page 15)

RISKING TORTURE AND DEATH

TO SAVE JEWS DURING THE HOLOCAUST

Maria, Countess von Maltzan. “It was easy for

me to resist Nazi authority because I had always

resisted my mother’s authority,” she said.

Gustav Mikulai.

Zofia Baniecka.

Johtje and Aart Vos.

Jan Karski.

May/June 2019 - Iyyar/Sivan 5779 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 13

(Continued from page 10)effort to woo world opinion by display-ing a civilized daily routine in theJewish ghettos.”

Ghetto currency, also known asscrip, not only provided a false senseof security — or, at least, normality —to occupants of and visitors to Jewishghettos; it served as a deterrent forthose wishing to escape. “It kept peo-ple in their place,” says Carol Manley,chief curator at the HolocaustMuseum Houston, which has about500 pieces of currency from Jewishghettos and concentration camps inits permanent collection. “It madethem think, ‘Even if we escape, wehave no money, we have no property.’They knew that this scrip was notgood anywhere else except the campor ghetto they were in. It was a way todiscourage resistance and keep theminterned.”

Theresienstadt was one of theReich’s larger and more elaboratefacades when it came to managingforeign expectations of ghetto life,

and its currency is more common tofind among collectors today than thatfrom concentration camps, becausethousands more of these notes wereprinted and distributed. Steve Feller, aprofessor of physics at Coe College inCedar Rapids, Iowa, is a longtimeamateur numismatist and co-authorof the 2007 book Silent Witnesses:Civilian Camp Money of World War II.

In general, Nazi-issued moneywas, in Feller’s words, “farcical” —

it provided little of actual worth to itsholder. Indeed, some forms appear tohave been used far less often, in par-ticular currencies from concentrationcamps like Auschwitz, since prisonerswere commonly sent there only as alast stop before they were executed.Such notes were so scarce that Fellersays he’s spoken with many survivorswho were unaware of their existence.

At least twenty concentration campsacross Europe, including Auschwitz,Dachau, Westerbork andBuchenwald, were responsible forcreating their own monetary systems.

As it did in the ghettos, currency hereserved to create an illusion of normal-cy. When prisoners arrived, they oftenhad no remaining goods, assets orpossessions, and the promise ofearning any money at all, even if illu-sory, could provide the prisonersenough incentive to work.

While tens of thousands of youngGermans were off fighting, the Reichbecame increasingly dependent onforced labor to support its war effort.Concentration camp commandantswould contract out their prisoners tostate-owned corporations and com-pensate them with meaningless scrip,which they could trade inside thecamp for clothes, food or cigarettes.

Of the 144,000 Jews held inTheresienstadt between 1941

and 1945, 88,000 were eventuallydeported to extermination camps,while 33,000 died inside the ghetto,typically of famine or disease.Between the first arrival of prisonersto Auschwitz in 1940 and the end ofthe war in 1945, the Nazis sent at

least 1.3 million people to the camp.It’s estimated that over 1.1 milliondied or were killed there, the over-whelming majority of whom wereJews. What remains of the currencyfrom ghettos and concentrationcamps serves as material proof thatthese people had once lived, and hadmaintained their daily routines even inthe face of madness. And even whenthe last survivor has passed on, thesenotes will remain.

During a speech at an event in theGreat Synagogue of Turin on May 31,1967, Primo Levi offered his supportand endorsement for the still-youngstate of Israel, peopled by fellow sur-vivors of the Holocaust, but hewarned against confusing land forfreedom, or mistaking wealth for com-passion. “With money alone one cando any number of things,” Levi toldthe crowd. “One can corrupt, one canbuild cannons, one can waste riversof it, as is the case elsewhere, butone cannot build anything good ifgoodwill is missing.”

THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF HOLOCAUST MONEY

“The urge to deny the horrific reality— or alternatively to adapt to it andconcentrate on the here and now andcling to a seemingly ordinary life — wascharacteristic of life in the ghettos.”

BY LEA PRAIS, THE JERUSALEM POST

“We — the youth — meet upalmost every evening to

enjoy ourselves just like kids. For us,the ghetto is not a ghetto: we don’tfeel it amongst ourselves; we don’twant to feel like we are living behindbarbed wire, isolated from the rest ofthe world and the rest of humanity.”

18-year-old Ilya Gerber wrote thesewords in his 1942 diary describing lifein the Kovno ghetto. His writings anddrawings portray the image of ayoung, vibrant, intelligent and sensi-tive young man attempting to sustaina sense of normalcy within a complexreality in which the future was shroud-ed in ambiguity. In July 1944, theKovno ghetto was liquidated and Ilyawas deported to Dachau. On April 28,1945, on the verge of liberation,Gerber was shot and killed whilemarching forcibly from Dachau toWolfsratshausen, Germany. He wasnot yet 21 years old.

Since its liquidation, various materi-als have been gathered from the ruinsof the Kovno ghetto in an effort to dis-cover what took place there, and toremember the people who lived —and died — within its walls. Theremains of Gerber’s diary were takenfrom place to place, finally ending upin the archives of the Jewish Museumin Vilna. The precise date Gerberbegan to keep his diary is unknown,but his passion and talent for bothwriting and illustration is evident, and

clearly held an important place in hislife. From the diary entries, it appearsthis diary was the third notebook: itstarts with an entry of August 26,1942, and ends on January 23, 1943.

In his diaries, the young Gerberdeals with a variety of topics: from

the culture of rumor-mongering andfears of being abducted into forcedlabor to songs written in the ghetto.He was clearly an aficionado of poet-

ry and music. Thanks to his commandof the German language, he alsoincorporated into his diary Germanpress bulletins, mainly regardingevents at the front. A review of thediary indicates that Gerber was a crit-ical reader who realized the truemeaning of the rhetoric of variousGerman leaders. His analysis shows,for example, that despite Hitler’s con-voluted speeches, his words embod-ied his racist and murderous ideologyaimed at the total annihilation of theJewish people.

The pages of Gerber’s diary also

illuminate the more subversive andlesser-known aspects of life in theKovno ghetto, as well as the feelingsand reactions of its residents. Thediary introduces its readers to theday-to-day atmosphere of the ghettoand presents its Jewish leadershipfrom a contemporary perspective. Asa young man, Gerber did not suc-cumb to the fear of death in the ghet-to. He maintained social ties and met

with his friends on a daily basis.Despite the enormity of the catastro-phe in the ghetto, they sang, dancedand rejoiced at every opportunity,especially during celebrations of theirbirthdays, although the fear that theycould be next always lingered.

“Each one of them mourns histragedy and is not interested in thedisaster of others. As long as the trou-ble does not know me, and I do notknow him [the victim]… and if I identi-fy with him, what does it help him…Would it make it easier — no, theopposite — it could also hurt me... I

do not mourn anyone else, and do notwant anyone to mourn me. Just leaveme alone.”

The urge to deny the horrific real-ity — or alternatively to adapt to

it and concentrate on the here andnow and cling to a seemingly ordinarylife — was characteristic of life in theghettos. This was especially trueamong the youth. Gerber portrays inhis diary a faithful reflection of theworld of 16- to 21-year-olds, whoendeavored to live a normal life inabnormal circumstances — a life offriendships, love and entertainment.

“That evening I wanted to be happy, Ihad to be happy, because I wanted toforget.... The red light and the simplegaiety affected me.... I was dancingwith everyone.... The night was beauti-ful and full of stars.... I rememberedHenny again — she should have beenthere today. But on the other hand, infact, I do not want her to come in to thegroup. Why? I do not know (maybebecause she, too, does not want to)?”Henny Spitz (who survived the war)was Gerber’s great love for a period,and the diary accompanies the shortand unfulfilled love affair from its incep-tion to its demise.

In his diary, Gerber also refers tosongs that he collected in the ghetto.He brought examples and even triedto characterize them.

“The ghetto creates many songs,but unfortunately, there are very fewmelodies – in fact, almost none, eventhough my father is a musician of thebest kind and he once composedmany melodies… now, the song ofthe ghetto usually begins with thepain and sorrow of the Jewish peopleand ends with hope for a better, easi-er and more welcoming future.”

A HOLOCAUST VICTIM’S DIARY

DEPICTING LIFE IN THE KOVNO GHETTO

A barbed-wire fence along Panrow Street, separating the two parts of the Kovno ghetto in

Lithuania.

Page 14 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2019 - Iyyar/Sivan 5779

BY SUZANNE HIRT, DAILY COMMERCIAL

For her birthday, her fatherbrought her a sewing basket.

Inside, he scratched a note in theirnative French: “To my daughter,Claire, for her sixth birthday, May 22,1941. Your father, Nathan.”

Her mother, Sara Mytnowiecka,filled the basket with family photos —happy memories they made togetherbefore Germany’s occupation ofBelgium forced Jews into hiding.

Claire spent her childhood frolickingwith her aunt in the seaside sand atBlankenberge on Belgium’s northerncoast, playing in the wooded Bois dela Cambre park on the outskirts ofBrussels, rambling with cousinsaround a goldfish-filled lake at thelush Jardin Botanique near the RoyalPalace and toying with buttons on herfather’s tailor shop floor.

Less than a year after Nazis invad-ed in 1940, that came to an end.

Claire was sent to live with an elder-ly Catholic couple who could pass heroff as their granddaughter, and herclose-knit relatives split up amongseveral non-Jewish households.

“By dividing themselves, they feltthey gave the children a betterchance to survive,” said Claire, 83, ofPalm Coast, Florida, whose surnameis now Soria.

They visited her in secret at first. Butone by one, the loved ones in herphotos disappeared, snatched up bythe Gestapo and shipped toAuschwitz. All she had left was hersewing basket.

Claire watched the Nazi troops andtanks parading through the streets ofBrussels a few days after her fifthbirthday.

Soldiers removed Belgian flags andhoisted the red, white and black Nazibanner in their place. Signs decryingJews appeared soon after.

“We could never imagine (back)then what was on the horizon,” saidClaire. “From one day to the next,everything changed.”

Her parents had to stop going towork, were forbidden from some pub-lic places and could only shop duringcertain hours. Though her youthshielded her from much of the dis-crimination adults experienced, shesensed a shift.

Her kindergarten friends were afraidto be seen playing with a girl wearinga yellow star, but Claire didn’t under-stand the correlation.

“I even sewed one on my clothingand didn’t see anything wrong withthat,” she said — until her parentsrealized the stars made it easier forpeople to report any Jews they knewto the authorities.

“I don’t think in the beginning peoplehad any idea of what was going on,”Claire said. But her parents, fearingarrest, asked their Catholic neighborsto shelter her.

Lambert and Lea Sabaux (pro-

nounced Sa-bow) agreed to take herin and acted as if she were a visitinggranddaughter. They loved her likeone, too.

Claire’s parents, aunt and cousinNina visited when they could. Theysent her letters and postcards. Shestowed them all in her sewing basket.

“That basket has always been para-mount to my story,” Claire said. “It’sthe one thing I’ve saved my wholelife.”

When school was back in session infall 1941, Jewish children were forbid-den to attend.

Grandma and Grandpa, as Clairecalled her caretakers, thought she’dbe safer with a French name. Shechose Yvette in honor of one of herlost friends.

The Sabauxes took “Yvette” to a dif-ferent school to enroll in first grade.

“If this child happens to be Jewish,the Gestapo will come and pick herup,” Claire recalled the principal’swarning. “So we left, and by noon (theSabauxes) called the school andgave a phony excuse (for me drop-ping out).”

They found a tutor who would cometo their home, but that, too, soon fellthrough. A teacher visiting each daycould attract unwanted Gestapoattention.

Amusic education was the onlyoption. Lea Sabaux, a former

concert pianist, trained Claire to play,and Lambert Sabaux took her alongwhen he played drums at a cornercafe on their street.

Claire was a homebody by nature,so she didn’t mind staying inside. Shelearned solitaire and spent hoursplaying card games to pass the time.

Her family’s visits became fewerand eventually stopped altogether.

In March 1943, the Gestapo bargedinto the home where her mother, auntand uncle were hiding. The three ofthem were among 1,638 Jews deport-ed on the 20th transport train fromMalines, Belgium, to Auschwitz.

Her father was arrested on a street-car, and shipped out on the 21st trainfrom Malines. Her beloved cousinNina, then 17, was turned in by aneighbor. She, too, was sent toAuschwitz.

“I could not stop crying,” Claire said.“(I wondered), ‘Who’s next? Howmuch more can I take?’”

Word of an imminent Gestapo raid

typically traveled through the Belgianunderground resistance network intime for the Sabauxes to whisk Claireto safety in the countryside.

One time the Nazis caught them bysurprise.

Claire was asleep upstairs, and hercousins, two sisters ages 7 and 9,had just turned up on the Sabauxes’doorstep seeking shelter.

Knowing they couldn’t care for threechildren, the Sabauxes took them inanyway. That’s when the Gestapocame knocking.

Lea Sabaux made a show of fum-bling with her keys. She knew thecost of collaborating with Jews —they risked being shot or shipped toAuschwitz to join the rest of Claire’sfamily.

“I can’t open the door,” she called.The officers moved on to the next

house with a warning: “We’ll be back.”They never returned, and the

Sabauxes found Claire’s cousins anew safe house. Both girls survivedthe war.

Some of the Sabauxes’ neighborswere not so lucky.

“There were times I actually did seethe Gestapo going from house tohouse and pulling people out of theirhomes and forcing them into trucks,”Claire said. “And if they did not do as

they were told, theywere shot. I remem-ber that vividly.”

Claire’s storyshares notable simi-larities with that ofAnne Frank, with onedistinct difference —Claire survived. Butas the war went on,the odds of doing soseemed to diminish.

The Sabauxes livednear a railroad bridgefrequently targeted inGerman air strikes

early in the war and by the Allies nearthe end of it.

And then there were the“Vengeance” missiles — the low-fly-ing V-1 and the longer-range, deadlierV-2 — that Germany launched towardsites in England and Belgium.

Neither weapon was very accurate,and air raid sirens alerted civilians ofincoming missiles that fell short oftheir targets. Claire learned to distin-guish the difference by their sounds.

“Are they going to hit our area ornot? You never knew for sure,” Clairesaid. They huddled in the basementuntil a second siren signaled it wassafe.

Food was rationed, and there wasn’tmuch.

One night at dinner, Claire’s placeat the table was the only one set

with food. She realized her caretakershad given her the last of their store,and she refused to eat alone.

“They said, ‘OK, go to bed, you’llhave it in the morning.’ And I did,” shesaid. “They were so caring. They justwanted what was best for me.”

The Allies eradicated Nazi forcesfrom Belgium in early 1945, butBelgian towns continued to be a tar-get for Vengeance missiles.

Claire doesn’t have a specific mem-ory associated with the war’s end, butshe recalled the trickle of Jews return-ing to town. “It always gave me hopethat next would be my mom and dad,”she said.

But when her cousin Nina wasreleased from Auschwitz, she broughtbad news. Claire’s father had beentortured to death and her mother, auntand uncle all were killed in the camp.

“I remember the day that Nina satdown with me and not only told methat my mom and dad were not com-ing back, but explained to me the factthat I am Jewish,” Claire said. “Thatwas the beginning of the change inmy life.”

Claire spent more than four yearswith the Sabauxes — and by thenwas much closer to them than to hersurviving family — but the law gavecustody of war orphans to adult rela-tives. Claire had to move in with anaunt.

“I was so upset,” she said.”(Grandma and Grandpa) were sonice to me. They risked their lives tosave mine.”

She was permitted to visit them atfirst, but she would always comehome crying. Her aunt stopped lettingher see them.

“She did not realize that (my tearswere) love,” Claire said.

Her aunt sent her away to summercamp to spend time with children herage, and then, at age 13, to the U.S.She didn’t speak English and wasseveral years behind in school. Thosewere some of her darkest days, shesaid.

Claire eventually married andhad three children. She has six

grandkids and two great-grandchil-dren.

Grandma’s piano lessons paid off.Claire followed in her footsteps andbecame a piano teacher. She still has14 students.

A year after Claire arrived in theU.S., she received correspondencefrom Lambert Sabaux.

“My dearest Yvette, these few linesare to let you know that it’s been terri-ble for us since you left. It’s sad to saybut Grandma has suddenly gottenvery ill,” the letter begins.

Lea Sabaux, hospitalized a fewmonths after Claire’s departure, didnot live much longer. Lambert Sabauxpassed away soon after that.

“I could almost swear that it’s from abroken heart,” Claire said. She stillcries every time she reads the letter.

It continues: “You wrote in your let-ter that you missed us very much. Iknow it. But that’s life. The only thingI wish for you now is for you to behappy,” Lambert Sabaux wrote. “Imust end my letter because I can’tstop crying.”

Claire saved the letter in her sewingbasket.

SAVED BY THE NEIGHBORS

Claire Soria with the sewing basket given to her by her father for

Claire’s sixth birthday.

May/June 2019 - Iyyar/Sivan 5779 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE Page 15

(Continued from page 12)In her interview, she said: “From

childhood I believed that each of uswho is given the gift of life is respon-sible for our own life and for what andwhom we decide to surround our-selves. This is why I fought Nazism.”

Ms. Jacobs spent 20 months inprison for her “crimes,” and when shewas released, discovered that herhome had been burned. As a Germanwho battled the Nazis, she felt it washer duty to fight.

“I always knew how dangerous itwas, but I did it for humanity, andbecause I was a patriot,” she said. “Iwas ashamed of what the Germanpeople were doing.”

***

Agnieszka Budna-Widerschalwas interviewed in Israel,

where she lived with her secondJewish husband, Shimon. She shel-tered her first Jewish husband, Motl,in Poland during the war and alsosaved his brothers.

She described her brazen plan tosneak her brothers-in-law through theghetto to safety: “I pretended to bedrunk while the two brothers walkedon either side of me, each of themholding me under my arm. Therewere Nazis all over the street. I knew

we would surely run into one of them,and when we did he just took one lookat me and said with disgust, ‘Ach,that’s just like a Pole!’ And he walkedhis way and we went ours!”

Though her family came throughWorld War II intact, Motl died soonafter from diabetes. Worse yet, in1954, during a period of rising anti-Semitism, Agnieszka’s daughter Bellawas murdered by a gang of Polishteenagers.

Agnieszka and Shimon moved toIsrael a few years later.

***

Semmy Riekerk worked with herhusband, Joop Woortman, to

save Jews for the Dutch resistance.“My sister helped, too, but I didn’tknow it at the time,” she said in herinterview. “You never told anyoneanything they didn’t have to know. Myhusband used anyone he could trust.”

Beginning in 1942, they organizedefforts to steal and forge papers tohelp Jews escape, but later focused

their energies on saving children.(Ms. Riekerk adopted a refugee dur-ing the war.)

When Joop Woortman was cap-tured, and later killed in Bergen-Belsen in 1944, Ms. Riekerk took uphis mantle and did the work herself.

“I had to carry on his work until theend of the war,” she said. “They gaveme the book that listed 300 namesand said: ‘These are the people whoare hiding children. You have to takethem ration cards and money everymonth.’ The banks provided moneyfrom the Dutch government-in-exile,and our organization provided theration cards.”

***

Johannes de Vries, a coal miner,and his wife, Janke, took two

Jewish children — a brother and sis-ter named Salomon and EvaHaringman — into their home insouthern Holland in 1942. Theyraised them alongside their own twochildren, and were also foster parentsfor other refugees, short term, as a

part of an underground railroad.Eventually, the Jewish children were

reunited with their mother inAmsterdam after the war and then

moved to Israel when she died in1947.

By the time Gay Block and MalkaDrucker interviewed Mr. de Vries, hewas living in Ontario and going by thenickname Joe.

Recalling Mrs. Haringman’s originalpredicament, he said, “What it musthave been like for that mother to giveup her children to someone she didn’tknow.”

***

Stefania Podgorska Burzminski,born in a small village in Poland,

was interviewed above her husbandJoe’s dentist office in Massachusetts.She had saved him, and two of hisbrothers, by hiding a cohort of 13Jews in a cottage she procured duringthe war.

Joe’s parents and two of his otherbrothers had been taken by the Nazis,but he escaped by jumping from a

train and soon showed up atStefania’s house.

“Poor Joe, he was filthy and hisclothes were rags,” she recounted. “Igave him my nightgown to wear. Joecried all night, and my sister laughed

at him in my nightgown. I explained tomy sister who Joe was, that he was aJew, that Germans wanted to kill him,and that we had to help him.”

Ultimately, they survived the war,and Joe converted to Catholicism inorder to marry Stefania. It was verydifficult for her to discuss the past,and Ms. Block returned a year laterfor a second interview to better under-stand the story.

“I work hard all day now, helping Joein his dentist’s practice,” she told her.“Every time I have to do an interviewlike this, it brings back all the memo-ries and I can’t sleep for some nights.”

***

A lex and Mela Roslan were livingin Clearwater, Florida, when

Rescuers was shot. They were origi-nally from Poland and lived nearBialystok during the war.

Alex had a textile business andnoticed his Jewish clientele were dis-appearing, so he put on a star andentered the ghetto. “I saw so manychildren, hungry and starving,” hesaid. “They were so skinny. The par-

ents had been taken to ‘farms,’ but weknew what that meant. I came homeand told Mela we had to do some-thing. We decided to go to Warsaw.”

The young couple took an apart-ment and eventually hid three young,wealthy brothers: Jacob, Sholom andDavid Gutgelt. Though they werenever discovered, tragedy struckregardless, as Sholom died of illness,and the Roslans’ son Yurek was killedby a Nazi sniper.

But Jacob and David survived thewar and were eventually reunited withtheir father in Israel. Alex and Melamoved to America, and they all lostcontact for years.

In 1980, though, David moved toAmerica to study at the UC Berkeley,and was reunited with the family thatsaved his life. “At first, I didn’t recog-nize him,” Alex said. “I hadn’t seenhim in so long, and he had a beard.But then he threw his arms aroundme. David is a mathematician, andJacob is a nuclear scientist.”

RISKING TORTURE AND DEATH

TO SAVE JEWS DURING THE HOLOCAUST

Agnieszka Budna-Widerschal.

Semmy Riekerk.

Johannes de Vries.

Helene Jacobs.

Stefania Podgorska Burzminski and her hus-

band, Joe.

Alex and Mela Roslan.

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Martyrdom & Resistance

Ron B. Meier, Ph.D.,

Editor-in-Chief

Yefim Krasnyanskiy, M.A.,

Editor

*Published Bimonthly by the American Society

for Yad Vashem, Inc.500 Fifth Avenue, 42nd Floor

New York, NY 10110(212) 220-4304

EDITORIAL BOARD

Eli Zborowski**

Marvin Zborowski

Mark Palmer

Sam Skura**

Israel Krakowski**

William Mandell

Sam Halpern**

Isidore Karten**

Norman Belfer**

Joseph Bukiet**

*1974-85, as Newsletter for the AmericanFederation of Jewish Fighters, CampInmates, and Nazi Victims**deceased

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The American Society for Yad

Vashem was founded in 1981 by a

group of Holocaust survivors and led

by Eli Zborowski, z”l, for more than

thirty years. Recently approved by the

Board of Directors of the American

Society for Yad Vashem, our Legacy

Circle is being named in memory of Eli

Zborowski, z”l, who was greatly

respected for his work and accom-

plishments on behalf of Yad Vashem

and is missed by all who knew him.

The Eli Zborowski Legacy Circle is

open to and will recognize anyone who includes Yad Vashem

in their estate plans. This can include a bequest by will, fund-

ing a Charitable Remainder Trust or Charitable Gift Annuity,

donating a paid-up life insurance policy or contributing an

interest in an IRA or retirement plan, or making ASYV the ben-

eficiary of a Charitable Lead Trust. Individuals can make gifts

of any size, through a broad range of programs and invest-

ment vehicles that can accommodate those of modest means,

as well as those with substantial wealth.

By including Yad Vashem in your estate plans, you assure a

future in which Holocaust remembrance and education will

serve as a powerful antidote to denial, hate and indifference.

“I did not find the world desolate when I entered it. As myfathers planted for me before I was born, so do I plant for thosewho will come after me.”The Talmud

For further information about the Eli Zborowski Legacy Circle,

please contact

Robert Christopher Morton,

Director of Planned Giving at ASYV, who can be reached at:

212-220-4304; cmorton@YadVashemUSA.org

ELI ZBOROWSKI LEGACY CIRCLE

Page 16 MARTYRDOM & RESISTANCE May/June 2019 - Iyyar/Sivan 5779