Jews Europe

Just three days before the dedication of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, a survey released Monday revealed that one in three Americans is open to the possibility that the Holocaust never occurred at all. The survey by the Roper Organization, done for the American Jewish Committee, also found that more than one-third of American adults and half of all high school students do not know that the term "Holocaust" refers to Nazi Germany's extermination of 6 million Jews.

Responding to Rafael Medoff's Op-Ed article Sunday detailing FDR's reaction to Jews facing persecution in Nazi Germany, reader Robert Ouriel wrote in a letter published Friday that "as an American and a Jew, I found [Medoff's] criticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt for his private comments about Jews most unfair. " He continued: "In singling out FDR, Medoff also ignores the squeamishness of America's modern presidents in dealing with genocide. Jimmy Carter, a human rights crusader, did nothing to prevent Pol Pot from exterminating as much as 20% of Cambodia's population.

If true, if the half-century of futility and injustice Alan and Lisa Stern describe is accurate, the gall of the Italian insurance company Assicurazioni Generali SpA boggles the mind. For 54 years the descendants of Mor and Regina Stern have been trying to collect on insurance policies purchased from the international insurance giant in the years before Mor, Regina and other relatives, including an 11-month-old grandson, perished in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

We were on our way to see the Brandenburg Gate when they came unexpectedly into view across the street — rows of muted gray concrete slabs of varying heights, their rise and fall taking up an entire city block. The sight stopped us in our tracks. "That must be the Holocaust Memorial," I said. "It can't possibly be anything else," said Jon, my husband. As a Jew, I always have mixed feelings when visiting such places. I am repelled by the horror they represent yet drawn to them for the recognition they offer.

During his tour of Nazi death camps in Poland, Aharon Renaan found things much as he expected. He had read about the cramped bunkhouses for Jewish prisoners, the stark horror of the gas chambers and the cruel efficiency of the crematories. Everyone in Israel is educated about these things. Not a few know about them from experience. So what Renaan, a high school principal, saw was nothing new.

It was the worst of wars. Launched by a satanic, Austrian-born psychopath onto an ill-prepared world, World War II claimed 53 million lives, decimated great centers of civilization and fueled the assembly-line mass murder of European Jewry before finally ending six years later in the first atomic mushroom clouds. It exposed a frightening new darkness to the human soul, yet it remains the last great triumph of good over evil.

A former security guard, hailed as an international hero last year for his role in exposing how Swiss banks were holding onto Jewish assets from the Holocaust, will spend the next four years studying under a full scholarship at Chapman University in Orange. "He will be a wonderful role model for our students," Chapman president James Doti said of Christoph Meili. "I've been struck by the deep conviction and courage he showed in doing what he did."

In a cold rain that fell from leaden skies, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was dedicated Thursday at a ceremony where the chants of neo-Nazi protesters served as a reminder that the present is not yet purged of all the hatreds of the past.

Controversies about Holocaust remembrance are alive abroad as well as in Israel. Most involve Jewish sensitivities that the Holocaust might be forgotten or de-emphasized. In Washington, the construction of a Holocaust museum on the Mall, among some of most revered American public icons, has sparked debate. Why is the suffering of one group at the hands of the Nazis receiving special attention when there are plenty of other groups that have suffered--even at American hands, critics ask?

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.

A Jewish family has settled the first individual lawsuit filed against a European insurer stemming from failure to pay a claim based on a policy issued during the Holocaust era. On Monday night, William Shernoff, a Claremont attorney who represents the heirs of a wealthy Czech winemaker, sent a letter to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge S. James Otero informing him that the Stern family's suit against Assicurazioni Generali of Trieste, Italy, had been resolved.

Two Holocaust researchers, who have traveled the world to uncover the fate of 937 Jews who tried to flee the Nazis in 1939 aboard an ocean liner that was later turned away by Cuba and the United States, will bring their project to the West Coast this month for the first time. They are still trying to track down 11 passengers who remain unaccounted for.

It was May 1939, and the luxury liner St. Louis set sail from Hamburg, Germany, with 937 passengers, almost all of them Jews fleeing the Nazis. The ship reached Havana on May 27, but Cuba, already awash in Jewish immigrants from Europe, denied the passengers entry. The ship then headed for the Florida coast--and with the lights of Miami twinkling in the distance--the passengers sent pleas for admission to the United States.

More than most people, Roman Rakover is aware of the hole, torn by the Nazis, in the fabric of every European Jewish family. A dozen years ago, the Calabasas man sat down to compile a genealogy of the Rakover family and to write its history. It took five years and resulted in a book that traces 13 generations of the family from Rakover's great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather and two of his brothers, down to 81-year-old Rakover, his many cousins and their children.

If true, if the half-century of futility and injustice Alan and Lisa Stern describe is accurate, the gall of the Italian insurance company Assicurazioni Generali SpA boggles the mind. For 54 years the descendants of Mor and Regina Stern have been trying to collect on insurance policies purchased from the international insurance giant in the years before Mor, Regina and other relatives, including an 11-month-old grandson, perished in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.

A former security guard, hailed as an international hero last year for his role in exposing how Swiss banks were holding onto Jewish assets from the Holocaust, will spend the next four years studying under a full scholarship at Chapman University in Orange. "He will be a wonderful role model for our students," Chapman president James Doti said of Christoph Meili. "I've been struck by the deep conviction and courage he showed in doing what he did."

Nearly 82, he walks slower these days, his back stoops and the skin sags around his pale blue eyes. It's time to sum up his life, he says, time to make a final reckoning of his work for the past 45 years. But if anyone thinks Simon Wiesenthal has given up his personal crusade to bring Nazi war criminals to justice, they are badly mistaken. "Maybe it's my craziness, because I will never stop," he says, the barest trace of a smile on his ghost-white face.

This country took a major step Monday toward lifting its renowned bank secrecy rules to allow a thorough investigation into the fate of Nazi loot and Jewish riches deposited before and during World War II. Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti said the need for a thorough historical accounting was shown by a recent bout of speculation that Switzerland could still be hoarding tons of Nazi gold.

Historians tracing the origin of gold bars traded by Deutsche Bank during the Nazi era confirmed Friday that the bank profited from gold plundered from Holocaust victims. The historians were unable to determine with certainty whether bank executives knew that some of the gold purchased from the Reichsbank, the Nazi central bank, came directly from Jews sent to concentration camps.

This country took a major step Monday toward lifting its renowned bank secrecy rules to allow a thorough investigation into the fate of Nazi loot and Jewish riches deposited before and during World War II. Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti said the need for a thorough historical accounting was shown by a recent bout of speculation that Switzerland could still be hoarding tons of Nazi gold.