Holocaust Victims

JERUSALEM -- President Obama paid tribute to the victims of the Holocaust in a solemn visit Friday to the national Yad Vashem memorial, drawing lessons for today from that dark period in history. Standing beside a memorial to the children who perished, Obama said the lives memorialized at Yad Vashem should inspire people to resist racism, bigotry and hatred wherever they encounter it. "Here we learn that we are never powerless,” Obama told a small gathering on a mount overlooking Jerusalem.

JERUSALEM -- President Obama paid tribute to the victims of the Holocaust in a solemn visit Friday to the national Yad Vashem memorial, drawing lessons for today from that dark period in history. Standing beside a memorial to the children who perished, Obama said the lives memorialized at Yad Vashem should inspire people to resist racism, bigotry and hatred wherever they encounter it. "Here we learn that we are never powerless,” Obama told a small gathering on a mount overlooking Jerusalem.

In Europe, as the Nazis rose to power, many Jews tried to protect themselves and their families financially by purchasing life insurance policies, annuities, even dowry policies. For decades after World War II, getting payment on those policies - particularly difficult when survivors and heirs had been stripped of all their possessions, including family records - became part of the larger challenge of how to compensate those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Two bills in Congress would help families recover money long denied them.

In Europe, as the Nazis rose to power, many Jews tried to protect themselves and their families financially by purchasing life insurance policies, annuities, even dowry policies. For decades after World War II, getting payment on those policies - particularly difficult when survivors and heirs had been stripped of all their possessions, including family records - became part of the larger challenge of how to compensate those who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Two bills in Congress would help families recover money long denied them.

Holocaust survivors from around the world pressed Poland's government to compensate them for property confiscated after World War II. Attempts to resolve the issue have failed, mostly because of concern over the cost. Poland had Europe's biggest Jewish community until World War II, when the Nazis killed nearly 90% of the country's 3.3 million Jews. Postwar communist rulers seized their property.

The article about Long Beach Opera's outreach program in the March 22 edition of the Southeast section of the Times contains a commonly made mistake: I am described as having been in a Nazi concentration camp as a Jewish teen-ager. The understandable emphasis on the destruction of Jews has obliterated the memory of those of us who were prisoners but not Jewish. I was known to be anti-German (the word "Nazi" was not used much in those days) and that was enough to be taken as a hostage.

This is the full English text of a tribute by Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel to Holocaust victims that was read Tuesday at a ceremony at the site in Berlin where Nazi leaders planned the "Final Solution." Wannsee--a warning. Wannsee--the end--the final solution. The target: Jews, all Jews, everywhere. Only Jews. What does a Jew today feel in this place, marked by evil and malediction? Fear and trembling, anger--incommensurate anger, helplessness and grief--infinite grief. Cry?

A federal judge on Friday temporarily blocked the state from forcing insurance companies to hand over lists of policies sold in Europe before World War II to assist Holocaust victims seeking compensation. In a 34-page opinion, U.S. District Court Judge William B. Shubb in Sacramento said insurance companies had presented a compelling case that the state Holocaust insurance law, enacted in 1999, "interferes with the federal government's control over foreign affairs."

Sirens wailed for two minutes throughout Israel as traffic and other daily activity briefly came to a standstill at 10 a.m. in remembrance of the 6 million Jews slain in the Nazi Holocaust. Hundreds of Israelis also marked Holocaust Remembrance Day by participating in ceremonies across the country at which the names of victims were read by relatives and friends. According to recent statistics, 302,404 Holocaust survivors live in this nation of 4.

Leading Swiss banks announced Tuesday that they have discovered $34 million in dormant accounts that may belong to Holocaust victims and said they will help Jewish survivors and their heirs track down lost assets. Lifting the veil of secrecy on one of the most controversial legacies of the war, the Swiss Bankers' Assn.

This post has been corrected. Please see note at bottom for details. In yet another public relations embarrassment for the Mormon Church, a Utah researcher has discovered that slain Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl was posthumously baptized last year in a serious breach of church protocol. According to records, Pearl, who is Jewish, was baptized "by proxy" last summer in a Twin Falls, Idaho, temple -- much to the surprise of his parents, who learned of the event this week.

Fifty years ago this month, Israel seemed to grind to a halt as people huddled around radios, listening to testimony in the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Captured by Israeli secret service agents in Argentina in 1960, Eichmann was tried, and eventually executed, as a chief architect of the Holocaust, in which 6 million European Jews were killed. The trial became a social and political turning point for the young nation. Even Eichmann's iconic glass witness booth has been preserved in an Israeli museum.

Dov Shilansky He began recitations of Holocaust victims' names Dov Shilansky, 86, a former Israeli Parliament speaker and advocate for memorializing victims of the Holocaust, died Thursday at a Tel Aviv hospital. The cause was not given. Shilansky served as speaker of the Parliament from 1988 to 1992. But possibly his longest-lasting legacy is a ceremony that has become part of Israel's observance of an annual memorial day for the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust.

Zak Kolar hails from a fortunate Jewish family of four whose ancestors never confronted the horrors of the Holocaust. But the teenager from Naperville, Ill., also is among the last generation to encounter World War II's witnesses as neighbors rather than statistics. Seeking to ensure that the Jewish people don't forget the 6 million individual lives lost, Zak, 14, has launched a website and database dedicated to those who perished during the Holocaust. He hopes the online roster of names and death dates will enable members of the Jewish community to select and pray for a martyr on the anniversary of his or her death, as prescribed by Jewish tradition for families in regard to their forebears.

SERIES Dangerous Drives: Take a ride in one of the Army's heavy equipment transport trucks in this new installment (5 and 9 p.m. Speed). Modern Family: Edward Norton and Elizabeth Banks guest star in this repeat episode (8 p.m. ABC). American Idol: The top 12 male semifinalists perform on a new episode of the talent competition (8 p.m. Fox). Faces of America With Henry Louis Gates Jr.: The Harvard professor explores the family histories of actresses Meryl Streep and Eva Longoria Parker and cellist Yo-Yo Ma in this new installment (8 p.m. KCET)

Edward Sanders, an attorney and leader in the Jewish community who served President Carter as a special advisor on Mideast policy, died Monday at his Los Angeles home. He was 87. The cause was cancer, according to his son-in-law, Stanley Witkow. Sanders gained prominence during the 1973 energy crisis when, as president of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles, he challenged a letter from Standard Oil Co. to 300,000 stockholders that appeared to support a pro-Arab Mideast policy.

Pope Benedict XVI, trying to quell Jewish anger over a Holocaust-denying bishop, bowed in silence Monday at Israel's memorial to Jews exterminated during World War II and declared that their suffering must "never be denied, belittled or forgotten." "They lost their lives, but they will never lose their names," the Roman Catholic leader said in a quivering voice before clasping the hands of six Holocaust survivors at a haunting ceremony in the Hall of Remembrance.

The Austrian city of Linz has acted to return a masterpiece by Gustav Klimt to the heirs of a Jewish woman killed by Nazis in the Holocaust. Mayor Franz Dobusch has recommended the painting of a woman, believed to be worth about $19 million, be transferred from Lentos art gallery to the descendants of Aranka Munk, the city said. The city cited the findings of an independent expert, Sophie Lillie, who confirmed the painting had been seized from Munk by the Nazis after she was deported to a concentration camp where she died in 1941.