Holocaust

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• 1/22/2023
  

  The Pope at War: Pius XII and the Vatican's Secret Archives

  by James Thornton Harris

  David Kertzer's book argues that defenders of Pope Pius XII's actions during the Holocaust mistake his defense of the prerogatives of the Catholic Church for a defense of the victims of Nazi persecution and genocide. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  1/9/2023
  

  Adolfo Kaminsky, 97: Forger of Identity Documents Saved Thousands of Jews

  Experience as a stain-remover in laundry work helped the teenaged Kaminsky to remove supposedly indelible ink from French ID cards, enabling Jews to escape deportation. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  12/19/2022
  

  Reissued 1933 Novel in Translation Captures Fascism's Rise Around You

  Lion Feuchtwanger's "The Oppermans" captures the complexity of a dilemma faced by German Jews in 1933: whether a society has become sufficiently hostile to a minority group to force its members to leave. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/5/2022
  

  A Stranger's Gift: Family Photos from Before the Holocaust

  Software engineer Daniel Patt has developed an artificial intelligence program that can expedite the searching of photos from repositories like Yad Vashem and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and has provided strangers with the gift of a connection to their relatives. 

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• SOURCE: San Diego Union-Tribune
  11/27/2022
  

  Historian Sarah Federman Tracks French National Railway's Role in Holocaust Transport

  "Last Train to Auschwitz" looks at the railways as a means of escape for some, but also a tool of collaborators. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  11/14/2022
  

  Monuments to the Unthinkable

  by Clint Smith

  German and European memorials to the Holocaust contrast starkly with an American memorial culture where the Confederate dead are revered, former slave plantations are tourist attractions, and state legislatures are seeking to ban the teaching of the nation's history in full. 

• 
• 11/6/2022
  

  The Schlesinger Diaries—A Gift to Historians that Keeps Giving

  by Rafael Medoff

  The late historian's diaries highlight discrepancies between Schlesinger's public defenses of Franklin Roosevelt and his private knowledge of FDR's attitudes toward Jews and positions on the Holocaust. 

• 
• SOURCE: Jewish Telegraphic Agency
  10/31/2022
  

  Texas GOP Candidate for Congress Wrote Anne Frank Sequel Wherein Jewish Teen Finds Jesus in Auschwitz

  In Johnny Teague's narrative, Anne Frank asks whether Jews have failed to recognize the Messiah. He insists that his story does not claim Frank ever converted to Christianity. 

• 
• SOURCE: New Statesman
  10/26/2022
  

  The Moral Corruption of Holocaust Fiction

  A popular book for young readers strips the Holocaust of its horror, and its victims of their Jewishness in favor of banal lessons about empathy and kindness. 

• 
• 10/30/2022
  

  The US Response to the Holocaust Was Part of a Longer Pattern of Appeasing Fascism

  by Roger Peace

  The Roosevelt administration's refusal to accept large numbers of Jewish refugees was of a piece with a pattern of diplomatic and economic solicitousness toward Nazi Germany. 

• 
• SOURCE: Substack
  10/5/2022
  

  Fascists' PR Plan? Distance from Associations with Jewish Genocide

  by Ruth Ben-Ghiat

  Despite the efforts of denialists, the Holocaust remains a significant obstable to public acceptance of fascism. Contemporary far-right politicians have adopted the position that genocide was a step too far beyond an otherwise good ideology. 

• 
• 10/9/202
  

  The Holocaust Documentary Disappointingly Skirts Big Questions of FDR's Responsibility

  by Martin Ostrow

  In another documentarian's view, the series unduly frames Roosevelt as a captive to global politics and antisemitism, not a leader with the power to change them.

• 
• 10/2/2022
  

  A Holocaust Mystery: Ken Burns Gets Lost in a Bermuda Triangle

  by Rafael Medoff and Monty N. Penkower

  At the 1943 Bermuda Conference, British and American diplomats offered a symbolic show of concern for Jewish refugees, but made no substantial commitment to help. Ken Burns's recent holocaust documentary passes over this event. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  9/24/2022
  

  An Email From a Stranger Sent Me on a Quest for Family and Self

  For a Canadian-raised child of Hungarian Jewish refugees, an email sparked a research project that unlocked mysteries about his family. 

• 
• 9/25/2022
  

  Anne Frank's Next Diary Entries

  by Bernice Lerner

  When I was a teenager, I imagined that Anne Frank was at my mother’s 15th birthday party. After all, they were the same age and they were both in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. How did I arrive at such a phantastic conflation?

• 
• 9/18/2022
  

  Another Documentarian's Perspective on "The U.S. and the Holocaust"

  by Martin Ostrow

  Like many other Americans, I will be watching closely to see if The U.S. and the Holocaust honestly portrays the responsibility of American leaders, or fails to confront the difficult truths that need to be faced.

• 
• 8/28/2022
  

  How I Helped a Private Man Share His Story of Escaping the Nazis

  by David Tabatsky

  For me, the son of a cantor and WWII veteran, who grew up seeing numbers tattooed on numerous arms, sharing Salomon Kool's story has reminded me of a collective mission to always remember.

• 
• SOURCE: Jewish Telegraphic Agency
  8/16/2022
  

  Texas District Removes Graphic Version of Diary of Anne Frank

  “It’s disgusting. It’s devastating. It’s legitimate book banning, there’s no way around it,” Laney Hawes, a parent of four children in the Keller district, told JTA about the order. “I feel bad for the teachers and the librarians.”

• 
• SOURCE: Tablet
  6/28/2022
  

  A Legend of Innocence

  by Daniel Solomon

  Both the French left and right are impeding the teaching of how 75,000 French Jews were turned over to the Nazis. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  5/31/2022
  

  The Back Channel Between Pius XII and Hitler

  by David I. Kertzer

  The Vatican has only just now released documents about secret and sensitive negotiations between the Nazi leader and the Holy See, in which the Vatican agreed to temper criticisms of Nazism's pagan elements in exchange for ceasing investigation of sex crimes by priests.