#Simon Wiesenthal

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Simon Wiesenthal

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Simon Wiesenthal (1908–2005) was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who spent four and a half years in the German concentration camps such as Janowska, Plaszow, and Mauthausen. After the war, he became famous for his work as a Nazi hunter. Wiesenthal dedicated most of his life to tracking down and gathering information on fugitive Nazis so that they could be brought to justice.

In 1999, at a conference of European Rabbis in Bratislava, Wiesenthal, at 91, shared a profound encounter with Rabbi Eliezer Silver after his liberation from Mauthausen. Rabbi Silver, a towering figure in American Jewry who had saved countless lives during and after the war, came to Mauthausen to comfort the survivors and organized a prayer service.

Rabbi Eliezer Silver (1882–1968) was among American Jewry’s foremost religious leaders, and most noted for spearheading efforts in rescuing as many Jews as possible from Europe. He raised funds, requested exemptions on immigration quotas, offered to ransom concentration camp prisoners for cash and tractors — talks that freed hundreds from Bergen-Belsen and other death camps — and organized rallies in Washington. After the war, he traveled to Europe and worked tirelessly on the ground to assist his brethren.

It was in Mauthausen after liberation that Simon Wiesenthal was visited by Rabbi Silver when he had come to help and comfort the survivors. Rabbi Silver had organized a special prayer service and he invited Wiesenthal to join the other survivors in praying. Mr. Wiesenthal declined and explained his position.

“When I was in camp, I saw many different types of people do things. There was one religious man of whom I was in awe. This man had managed to smuggle a Siddur (Jewish prayer book) into the camp. I was amazed that he took the risk of his life in order to bring the Siddur in.

“The next day, to my horror, I realized that this was not a religious man. He was renting the Siddur in exchange for people giving him their last piece of bread. I was so angry with this Jew, how could he take a Siddur and use it to take a person’s last piece of bread away? So I am not going to pray, if this is how religious Jews behave.”

As Wiesenthal turned to walk away, Rabbi Silver tapped him on the shoulder and gently said in Yiddish, “Oy naar, naar.” Wiesenthal was intrigued why had the Rabbi called him childish. The answer wasn’t long in coming.

Rabbi Silver continued, “Why do you look at the manipulative Jew who rented out his Siddur to take away people’s last meals? Why do you look at that less-than-noble person? Why don’t you focus on the dozens of Jews who gave up their last piece of bread in order to be able to use a Siddur? To be able to talk to G-d? Why don’t you look at those awesome people who in spite of all their suffering still felt they can connect to their Creator?

“The Germans deprived them of everything! They had nothing left. The last thing they owned, their courage, hope, faith — that the Germans could not take away from them. Is this inspiring or what?!” Asked Rabbi Silver.

Wiesenthal joined the service that day and shared the story some sixty years later.

(Pictured above: Rabbi Eliezer Silver with Unidentified Rabbi and Surrounded by Students in Europe in 1946 on his Visit to Displaced Persons Camps 1946 | From the Collection of Moshe Gumbo)

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Source: Yerachmiel Tilles for shemayisrael.co.il, Talk given by Rabbi YY Jacobson, Yosef Ben-Shlomo HaKohein for Chabad.org, Rabbi Elazar Muskin JewishJournal.com. Story accuracy confirmed by the Simon Weisenthal Center.

Rabbi Yisroel Bernath

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Simon Wiesenthal, born December 31, 1908. “One day Simon called and said that he would like to celebrate his 90th birthday with a few friends in Vienna. I asked him where he would like to celebrate.

He said, ‘I have one unfulfilled wish, to have a party at the Imperial Hotel.’ He told me that it was Hitler’s favorite hotel and that both Hitler and Himmler had permanent suites there. They built enormous bunkers beneath the hotel, which still exist today, because Hitler thought that this would serve as an ideal headquarters from where he could conduct the Second World War.

During the Third Reich, it would have been unthinkable, Simon said, for a Jew to be seen at the Imperial Hotel. ‘And I want to make sure,’ he said, ‘that all the taboos of the Third Reich are broken and that the record of this hotel would affirm that Simon Wiesenthal celebrated his 90th birthday here with a Kosher dinner.’

On the night of the dinner, when the band played a favorite Yiddish song, ‘Belz, Mein Shtele Belz’ (Belz, My Little Shtetl Belz), he looked up at the ceiling, turned to me, and said: ‘You see even the chandeliers are shaking because this is the first time they have ever heard such music here.

Let the record read,’ he said, ‘that Hitler is no longer here, but even in the Imperial Hotel, Jews are still alive and still singing.’”

- Rabbi Marvin Hier reflecting on Simon Wiesenthal’s birthday.

Source: Simon Wiesenthal Center

Humans of Judaism

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Simon Wiesenthal

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[mental-mona]

Our first reaction to Hitler was Jewish jokes. By the time we woke up to the threat, it was too late. When someone — anyone — declares they mean you harm, or worse, take them at their word.

Simon Wiesenthal

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My interview with Racheli Kreisberg-Granddaughter of Simon Wiesenthal.

My interview with Racheli Kreisberg-Granddaughter of Simon Wiesenthal.

On December 18, I had the privilege to interview Racheli Kreisberg, the Granddaughter of Simon Wiesenthal. Anyone who has an interest in history and specifically Holocaust history will know who Simon Wiesenthal is, but in case there are a few people who don’t know. Simon Wiesenthal was born on the 31st of December 31 1908, in Buczacz (nowadays in the Ukraine). He graduated from the gymnasium in…

[garadinervi]

Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (Wien, July 4, 1898 – KZ Auschwitz-Birkenau, October 9, 1944)

♥

Bibl.: Elena Makarova, Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. Vienna 1898 – Auschwitz 1944, Tallfellow Pr / Every Picture Press / Simon Wiesenthal Center / Museum of Tolerance, Los Angeles, CA, 2001

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A group of 180 organizations have called on Twitter owner Elon Musk to combat anti-Semitism on the social media platform.

"To maximize the probability that the future is good, the world needs an online platform where everyone can participate," states the Wednesday letter. "Unfortunately, this is not the case, as Jewish users are subject to unrelenting harassment on Twitter."

The non-governmental organizations and civil rights groups called on Musk, who purchased Twitter last month for $44 billion, to have Twitter adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism that has been adopted by dozens of countries, including the United States.

The IHRA definition is: “Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities."

The letter cited that "between 2020-201, anti-Semitic incidents surged by 78% in the United Kingdom and 75% in France, while the United States saw an all-time high with 2,717 recorded anti-Semitic incidents, a 34% increase from the prior year."

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associated dean and director of global social action at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, named for the late Nazi hunter, noted that there's been a drastic increase in content spreading anti-Semitism and Holocaust denialism.

"There is a direct correlation between social media posts and the continuing spike of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial in 2022," he said in a statement. "We need Elon Musk's leadership to serve as a key component of the solution to degrading online hate and anti-Semitism."

Musk has yet to publicly address anti-Semitism on Twitter.

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[monsters do exist]

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Le lobby sioniste au Canada, Trudeau, le sionisme chrétien d'avant le sionisme juif

Je ne connaissais pas Yves Sengler, un journaliste indépendant canadien qui a écrit pour de grands journaux de son pays comme le Globe and Mail et est également très connu au Canada pour ses essais tel son livre noir de la politique étrangère canadienne qui avait fortement attiré l’attention en 2009. Engler est un militant actif qui s’est mobilisé notamment contre la guerre en Irak et contre le…

[telerealrd]

El Orador de la Cámara de los Comunes de Canadá Renuncia en Medio de la Controversia por Honrar a una Figura de la Segunda Guerra Mundial

El Orador de la Cámara de los Comunes de Canadá, Anthony Rota, anunció su renuncia el martes luego de un incidente polémico que tuvo lugar durante el discurso del presidente ucraniano, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, en el Parlamento el pasado viernes. Rota se encontró en apuros después de invitar y reconocer a Yaroslav Hunka, de 98 años, a quien presentó como un héroe de guerra de la Primera División…

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Wiesenthal Center veröffentlicht Top Ten-Liste des Antisemitismus für 2022

Wiesenthal Center veröffentlicht Top Ten-Liste des Antisemitismus für 2022

Benjamin Weinthal, JNS.org, 29. Dezember 2022 Nr. 3 auf der SWC-Liste: PA-Führer Mahmud Abbas (links) sagt bei einer Pressekonferenz in Berlin neben Bundeskanzler Scholz stehend, Israel habe „50 Holocausts“ begangen; 16. Aug. 2022 (Quelle: YouTube) Das Simon Wiesenthal Center veröffentlichte am Donnerstag in Jerusalem seine jährliche Weltliste der 10 antisemitischsten Vorfälle. Die Liste des…

[thejewishlink]

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar honored for combating anti-Semitism

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar honored for combating anti-Semitism

Calls out delayed response to Ye. The basketball legend said, “Look what happened in the time it took for all the people who ended up condemning Kanye, look how long it took for them to get around to saying what they had to say. In the meantime, Jewish kids were intimidated and bullied and had to deal with a whole lot of violence or violent thoughts directed at them because someone like Kanye…

[mental-mona]

We cannot defeat antisemitism on our own. The Holocaust exposed how alone we Jews were in time of dire threats. One lesson we must take from the Shoah is that we need new allies and new friends to fight Jew-hatred.

Simon Wiesenthal

[matan4il]

My grandparents were all Holocaust survivors. A large part of my family was murdered in that genocide. I chose to deal with the family trauma by becoming an educator on this subject. I give tours, lectures and workshops on the Holocaust, on antisemitism and on Jewish history.

Intellectually, I'm perfectly aware of how the massacre that Hamas perpetrated is NOT like what the Nazis did. More Jews were murdered over the course of just two days in Babi Yar (33,771 men, women and children), which is just one Nazi shooting pit out of almost two thousand, than during the entire Israeli-Arab conflict. Even after the carnage brought on by Hamas, this is still true. The Nazis were far more systematic (which eventually made them turn industrial) in carrying out the genocide of the Jews than Hamas has been. There's no comparison in terms of scale and industrialization.

And yet emotionally, I can't help but be hit by the similarities in terms of the immediate brutality of the murderers and the experiences of the Jewish victims. Because I am listening to the testimonies and some are so eerily similar to my research, I simply can't process how these are from recent days, not 80 years ago.

Jewish kids hiding from their would be murderers, scared to make a sound for fear of being discovered and killed.

Jewish families completely wiped out.

Jews asking themselves how did they survive and the person next to them did not.

Jewish people executed in droves, their bodies piled up.

Jews begging to be spared, to no avail.

Jewish women raped, most of them then killed.

Jewish babies executed in barbaric ways.

Jews being burned, some after being murdered, some while alive.

Jewish communities devastated. Take kibbutz Be'eri for example. It was founded before the State of Israel. Despite many terrorist attacks, it has continued to thrive in Israel's south. A small, close knit agricultural community. Over 100 people (at least) have been slaughtered there. Homes were destroyed. Everything the kibbutz's economy was based on was laid to waste, too. Be'eri has become synonymous with the worst of the carnage. IDK how they'll build their lives again after the war is over. IDK if they can. A community of almost 80 years, quite likely gone.

Foreign reporters who had been to kibbutz Kfar Azza all talked about the eerie silence and the stench of death rising from the bodies. Eerie silence is exactly how visitors to the sites of the shooting pits describe those places, while the allied soldiers who liberated the Nazi camps talked about the stench of death there.

Some of the reactions to this massacre also remind me of the Holocaust. Even though the Nazis, the murderers themselves, documented their extermination of Jews, there are those who deny the Holocaust happened, painting the Jews as liars. Similarly, even though Hamas documented themselves, and released the footage themselves, there are people going around denying the atrocities, painting the Jews as liars.

Then there's the justification of the mass murder of Jews by insinuating they brought it on themselves... Back in 1943, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, aware of the plight of Jews under the Nazis, told government officials in Allied-liberated North Africa that the number of local Jews in various professions “should be definitely limited” so as to “eliminate the specific and understandable complaints which the Germans bore towards the Jews in Germany.” Understandable complaints. Understandable complaints of Germans against Jews. Roosevelt, the liberal president, said that while Jews were being exterminated by the Germans. In the same manner, we're seeing people justifying the murder of Jews at the hands of Hamas, even though it's a known antisemitic terrorist organization which has repeatedly called for the murder of all Jews in the world. According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a reportedly Hamas affiliated Imam declared, "If the Zionist state were to move to the other end of the Mediterranean, our war would not be over, for the enemy is the Jew.

And while I stand by my statement that the scale is nothing alike, the carnage that took place in Israel IS the biggest massacre of Jews since the end of the Holocaust. Not even during Israel's Independence War and some of the massacres of Jews that happened during it (like the Kfar Etzion massacre) were this many Jews murdered during a single day.

Just like so many were silent back then as Jews were being both killed for being Jewish AND blamed for their own murder, many are silent now as well. Don't get me wrong, there are A LOT of amazing people who reached out to their Jewish friends, who showed they care, who took to the streets, who held vigils for the massacre's victims! Many heads of state also condemned this vicious attack. But I'm looking at Tumblr specifically, and it is FULL of posts justifying Hamas' slaughter of Jews. They're being reblogged everywhere, spread in every fandom. People who claim to stand for social justice feel absolutely no shame sharing such de-humanizing posts on their blogs. And what do we do? Are we calling them out? Do we make it clear that it is morally unacceptable to blame Jews for their own murder? Do we unfollow these bloggers, so that at least the dropping numbers send out the message that it is unacceptable to justify the massacre of innocent people?

TLDR:

This massacre is not like the Holocaust, but the cruel antisemitism that motivated it is the same. Let's not let antisemitism thrive here. Please do what you can (whatever that is) to stand for what's right.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)