Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 62, No. 17, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 24, 2008 Page: 4 of 31
thirty one pages : ill.View a full description of this newspaper.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
4 I April 24,2008
TEXAS JEWISH POST $ SINCE 1947
Remembering the Holocaust
'We Are the Shoes'
This year's Holocaust Remem-
brance Day ceremony — on Yom
HaShoah — will focus on the
Nazis' twisted practice of valuing
possessions over people. It will be
held at Congregation Tiferet Israel,
10909 Hillcrest Road, Dallas, on
Sunday, May 4 at 2 p.m.
Nazi crimes did not stop with
the killing of millions of innocent
people. On top of genocidal mur-
der, they plundered and robbed
on an unprecedented scale. And
whereas looting has always been
a part of warfare, the Nazis pur-
sued it more systematically and
methodically. They stole without
embarrassment, guilt or remorse,
and it was through this methodi-
cally cold and calculated theft that
the perpetrators expressed their
deepest-cherished values.
At war's end, SS guards in the
Auschwitz-Birkenau Death Camp
set fire to 29 storerooms that were
full to the bursting point with the
possessions of murdered victims.
The six buildings that remained
untouched held 836,255 wom-
en's dresses, 348,000 men's suits,
38,000 pairs of shoes, 14,000 car-
pets, mounds of eyeglasses, piles of
false limbs, 60 pounds of gold ex-
tracted from teeth, and over 7 tons
of women's hair — all ready to be
shipped to Germany.
The Yiddish poet Moshe Szulsz-
tein captured this perverse inver-
sion of values in his poem called
"We Are the Shoes."
We are the shoes, we are the last
witnesses.
We are shoes from grandchildren
and grandfathers
From Prague, Paris and
Amsterdam,
And because we are only made of
fabric and leather
And not blood and flesh,
Each one of us avoided the
hell fire.
Shoes were but a small part of
the total plunder of furniture, bed-
ding, children's toys, cooking pots,
shaving brushes, toothbrushes,
canes and false teeth that were
confiscated from victims. It was
all redistributed to complicitous
collaborators who accepted them
willingly, either feigning ignorance
about their source or simply not
caring. Looting in the Third Reich
was not just an ideological impera-
tive: It was both profitable as well as
useful in providing tangible bene-
fits to bystanders who were thereby
given a direct stake in the crimes.
Brimming with discriminatory
pride and sadistic pleasure, the Na-
zis burned books, desecrated To-
rah scrolls and plundered priceless
works of art that were in the posses-
sion of so-called "untermenschen'
— i.e. inferior beings who had no
right to have them and no ability
to appreciate them. "I intend to
plunder and to do it thoroughly,"
Reichsmarshal Hermann Goering
loudly proclaimed at a conference
of Nazi occupation commissioners
on Aug. 6, 1942.
Obsessed with obliterating all
vestiges of their victims, the Nazis
tried to reshape the past, present
and future to wipe out our very ex-
istence.
Yet, in the end, they failed. Am
Yisrael chai! The lewish people
lives!
This murderous ideology has
retreated for now but it still threat-
ens a possible return. So we gather
each year to remember the mar-
tyred dead, to honor the survivors
and to rededicate our efforts to
strive toward a better future.
A different world cannot be
built by indifferent people.
Claims Conference unveils
new effort to gather Holocaust
testimonials
By Ben Harris
NEW YORK (JTA) — lust two
weeks ago, historian Saul Fried-
lander was awarded the Pulitzer
Prize for his use of Holocaust-era
diaries and memoirs. Now he's
joining with the Claims Conference
to herald a new initiative to collect
firsthand testimonials before the
last survivors have passed on.
Claims Conference officials and
Friedlander announced the initia-
tive April 15 at a news briefing in
Personal Shopping • Run Errands • Mobile Notary
Limousine Service • Await Home Service/Deliveries
Home & Business Services • Event Planning
• Occasion Baskets/Flowers and More!
Call Karen
. and consider it done!
(214) 537-8892
karen@justcallkaren.com
www.justcallkaren. com
New York.
The Claims Con-
ference is urging
survivors to submit
previously unpub-
lished materials,
as well as to com-
mit their unwritten
memories to paper,
and submit them to
the database. Out-
reach efforts will
span 75 countries,
according to confer-
ence officials, and
submissions will be accepted in
any language.
"We have this opportunity, now
or never, to record and memorial-
ize forever and ever the amazing
story of the people who survived,"
lulius Berman, the conference's
chairman, told ITA. "It's relatively
economical and it behooves us to
do that."
The collected material will be
available initially only to scholars
and organizations dedicated to
Holocaust research. Discussions
are under way about how to make
the information accessible to the
public, but the conference says the
priority is to make sure the mem-
oirs are gathered before the survi-
vors pass away.
Friedlander received the 2008
Pulitzer Prize in the general non-
fiction category for his book "The
Years of Extermination: Nazi Ger-
many and the lews, 1939-1945,"
a history of the Holocaust based
largely on firsthand written ac-
counts from the period.
At the briefing, he cautioned that
it was "very dangerous" to rely on
the historical veracity of memoirs
composed decades after the fact.
Friedlander in his own work avoid-
ed that difficulty by researching
documents written during the war.
Nevertheless, he said the new
initiative was "absolutely neces-
sary" and the material should be
considered true unless proven oth-
erwise.
"There has to be a serious schol-
arly work on the materials before it
goes public," Friedlander said.
Mound of shoes in a Nazi camp
Kevin Pierce
Loan Officer
PrimeLending
PlainsCapital Company,
Cell: 214.882.5316 Office: 214.224.6038
kpierce@primelending.com
Call today for more information!
We have the right mortgage option for you!
*After closing your loan, receive a $100 Tzedakah to the
charity of your choice!
Equal Housing Lender r=
5401 N, Central Expressway • Ste 310 • Dallas, TX 75205
TEXAS JEWISH POST $ SINCE 1947
The Claims Conference is hard-
ly the first organization to under-
take the recording of memories of
Holocaust survivors. Arguably the
best known among them, Steven
Spielberg's Shoab Foundation In-
stitute, has amassed an archive of
52,000 videotaped testimonies. A
Google search revealed at least a
half-dozen other projects aimed at
collecting or archiving the remem-
brances of survivors.
Even so, conference officials
insist another effort is necessary,
not only to collect testimonies that
have not been recorded, but be-
cause certain aspects of the Holo-
caust remain unknown and live on
only in the memories of survivors.
Gideon Taylor, the conference's
executive director, described how
a restitution program for victims
of Nazi medical experiments had
yielded valuable information about
experimentation in the camps that
had been unknown to scholars.
Taylor declined to say how much
the new initiative would cost, but
said "pretty much all of it" will be
administered in-house.
Berman said that memorializ-
ing each individual story was a way
to counter the dehumanization
that the Nazis practiced as their
stock in trade.
"When you deal with human
beings, it's not six of one, half doz-
en of the other," he told ITA. "Each
one is unique."
More info
See p. 28-29,
Manchester Dance Ensemble
JIMMY WISCH
PUBLISHER & EDITOR
1947-2002
Editor & Publisher
Rene Wisch
Executive Editor
Sharon Wisch-Ray sharonw@texasjewishpost.com
VP Sales & Marketing
Amy Doty amyd@texasjewishpost.com
Contributing Writers
Harriet P. Gross harrietg@texasjewishpost.com
Steve Israel s teve i@texa sj ewishpost.com
Laurie James, Deb Silverthorn,
Steve Wisch
Assistant Editor
Phyllis LaVietes phyllisl@texasjewishpost.com
Ad Representatives
Sheri Finkelstein sherif@texasjewishpost .com
Nancy Sadicarios nancys@texasjewishpost.com
Elaine Steinfeld elaines@texasjewishpost.com
Judy Wisch, Linda Wisch Davidsohn
Art Director
Delia Jalomo
Copy Editor/Designer
Michelle Weinberg michellew@texa sjewish post.com
Ad Design
Katie Clifford
Distribution
Jerry Poglitsch
Views and opinions of columnists and contributors are
their own and not necessarily those of this newspaper. All
rights reserved. Photocopying,reproduction or quotation
strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher.
Composition responsibility: This newspaper will not be
liable for errors appearing in advertisements beyond the
cost of the space occupied by the error. Advertisers assume
responsibility for errors in telephone orders. We are not
responsible for the Kashruth of any product or establish-
ment advertised in the Texas Jewish Post. Advertisers are
responsible for authenticity ofany claims or statements
made in their advertisements and are not endorsements
by the Texas Jewish Post.
DALLAS
7920 Belt Line Rd.,Suite 680
Dallas,TX 75254
972-458-7283 | 972-458-7299 FAX
FORT WORTH
P.O. Box 12087, Fort Worth, TX 76110
817-927-2831
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Subscription Rates:Texas: $35 per year, Other States in U.S.:$45
per year. Foreign: $70 peryear.Subscrip-
tions a re payable in advance. Unless
notified otherwise,it is understood that all
subscriptions are renewed automatically
upon expiration.Please allow four weeks
from date received by the Texas Jewish
Post for add ress cha nges to take effect.
The Texas Jewish Post(ISSN 0040-439X) is
pu b I ish ed wee kly,withanadditionalissueinthefirstquarter.
The Texas Jewish Post is published at 3120 South Freeway,Fort
Worth,Texas 76110-4334. Periodicals Postage Paid at Fort
Worth, Texas. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the
Texas Jewish Post, P.O. Box 12087, Fort Worth, Texas 76110.
i ^
•aj/a*
1
TJP V62-17, 04-24-08-1.indd 4
4/22/08 6:53:17 PM
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 62, No. 17, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 24, 2008, newspaper, April 24, 2008; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth188186/m1/4/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .