Tagged Nazis

In Tucson talk, author details how modern Germans helped, hindered quest for lost legacy

Author Dina Gold, left, with J. Edward Wright, director of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies, at the Tucson Jewish Community Center on March 6 (Korene Charnofsky Cohen)

In December 1990, Dina Gold marched into a government building at Krausenstrasse 17/18 in the formerly Soviet-controlled East Berlin, and announced that she had come to claim her family’s property. She was bluffing. At that point in her quest for justice, she had no evidence. Gold showed an official,… Read more »

On restitution, a rundown of where they stand in Eastern Europe

PRAGUE (JTA) — The following is a rundown of some Eastern European countries and where they stand on restitution: Poland: Has not enacted any form of private restitution or compensation for an estimated $30.5 billion worth of property confiscated by the Nazis, then the communists. The Jewish share of… Read more »

German plans for ‘Mein Kampf’ excerpts in schools seen as a way to demystify Hitler tome

Students from the St. Ursula-Schule, a Catholic high school in Germany, view facsimiles of ads for Hitler's "Mein Kampf" at the House of the Wannsee Conference in Potsdam, site of the planning of the Final Solution. (Toby Axelrod)

BERLIN (JTA) –- Does “Mein Kampf” belong in German high schools? With Adolf Hitler’s book due to come out of wraps here in 2015, freed after decades under copyright protection that prevented its publication in Germany, it’s a question that is being debated in classrooms and on German TV… Read more »

From the beginning, it was clear Kristallnacht was different

A destroyed Jewish clothing store in Magdeburg, Germany, after Kristallnacht, Nov. 11, 1938. (H. Frederick, Hanover)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Before it was called Kristallnacht, it was known simply as “the pogrom.” Designated “the night of broken glass,” the 14-hour wave of Nazi violence on Nov. 9-10, 1938 left hundreds of Jewish storefronts and synagogues across Germany and parts of Austria in shards and splinters,… Read more »

Op-Ed: Christians mostly failed to act in response to Kristallnacht

Rafael Medoff

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Most American Christian leaders strongly condemned the Kristallnacht pogrom that the Nazis carried out against Germany’s Jews 73 years ago next week, when hundreds of synagogues were torched, the windows of thousands of Jewish businesses were smashed, 100 Jews were murdered and 30,000 more were dragged… Read more »

Seeking Kin: After 80 years, wondering about American cousins

JTA is introducing a new column, “Seeking Kin,” that aims to help reunite readers with long-lost friends and relatives. BALTIMORE (JTA) — Eliyahu Finkelstein grew up in the only Jewish family in the village of Zavizov in northwestern Ukraine, escaped from the Nazis after losing his parents and sister,… Read more »

At Maccabi Games in Vienna, symbolism — and girls

VIENNA, Austria (JTA) — The symbolism was unmistakable. Four thousand Jews stood just a few hundred yards away from the spot where a quarter-million Austrians cheered Adolf Hitler in March 1938 as he announced Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria. This time, however, the Jews had come to celebrate, as… Read more »