MetaFilter posts tagged with jews and Nazis

Poetry in Hell

zarq — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 18:37:01 -0800

Poetry in Hell contains a complete collection of poems recovered from the Warsaw Ghetto's Ringelblum Archives. The project, which took ten years to complete, gives English translations of poems that are shown in their original Yiddish. Background on the Ringelblum Oneg Shabbat Archives During the Holocaust, dozens of Jewish men and women trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto chose a special form of resistance: they chronicled their path to doom for future generations. Led by Dr. Emanuel Ringelblum, an historian, 35,000 paper documents were collected that showed how the Nazis had deprived Warsaw's Jews of their rights, then tormented and finally killed them in the death camps. On Aug. 2, 1942, while German soldiers combed the streets outside, two young men buried 10 metal boxes and several metal milk cans containing this extraordinary archive in the basement of an elementary school inside the ghetto. They were recovered from the rubble in 1946 and 1950. Approximately 25,000 of the documents survived and are now housed in the Jewish Historical Institute of Poland and the United States Holocaust Museum. "The Archives comprise government documents, materials concerning the ghetto resistance, testimonies of the fate of Jewish communities during the Holocaust, literature, works of art and private correspondence collected by victims of the Holocaust in order to pass on information about the Holocaust to future generations. This collection is absolutely unique, both in terms of its origin and its historic value. It mainly concerns the largest ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe (approximately 500,000 inhabitants), but in fact it covers the whole of occupied Poland, documenting the Shoah, the fate of its Jewish community of 3.500,000 people. Nearly all the creators of the Ringelblum Archives perished, either in the ghetto or in the extermination camps."
The archive recovery and restoration efforts were documented in a 2007 book by American historian Samuel Kassow: "Who Will Write Our History?: Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto". Some of it is available to view online at Google books, here. Book reviews and background on the recovery project: * Video: C-Span Book TV with Samuel Kassow * Los Angeles Times * Spiegel International * The Guardian * New Jersey Jewish News Background on the Poetry in Hell Project * Preface * Forward * Author's Note * Interview with Dr. Sarah Traister Moskovitz on J-Wire: "Warsaw Ghetto Poetry Now Online"

Hero of WWI. Traitor of WWII. Honored in Milltown, NJ.

zarq — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 22:55:17 -0800

A Local Street and a Lesson in History Background: Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain was a revered and honored hero of WWI in France, but after the War, "the glorious savior of Verdun (pdf)" rose to head the Vichy state, which collaborated closely with the Nazis. After WWI, a Milltown, NJ street's name was changed to Pétain, in honor of his military leadership. (See: "What's a Name.") But a recent campaign by a local teenager asking that the name of the street be changed gave borough officials something to consider: should Pétain's subsequent actions as head of the Vichy government outweigh his prior heroism?

"Arbeit Macht Frei" Sign Stolen

zarq — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:14:21 -0800

Poland has declared a state of emergency, after the infamous bronze sign reading "Arbeit Macht Frei" at former Konzentrationslager (concentration camp) Ausch witz was stolen yesterday. In Brussels, European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek, a former Polish prime minister, appealed to the thieves to return the sign: "Give it back out of respect for the suffering of over a million victims, murdered in this Nazi camp, the biggest cemetery of humankind," Buzek said.
According to the Auschwitz Memorial / Muzeum Auschwitz Facebook page, "the Director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum with approval of Minister of Culture and National Heritage Bogdan Zdrojewski has promised a reward of 100,000 zlotys (around $34,000)" for information about the theft leading to the sign's safe return. The Jerusalem Post reports that the Museum has replaced the original with a temporary duplicate.

Meet the Nazi Cowboy

huskerdont — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 15:18:50 -0800

Billy Jenkins was "The Nazi Cowboy." One of the most popular German western stars of the 1930s, Jenkins (real name Erich Rudolf Otto Rosenthal) was a card-carrying member of the Nazi party. Pre-war Germany was crazy for cowboys, with Jenkins starring in pulp fiction books with titles like "Texasfieber" and "Aufruhr in Laredo" that were influenced by the works of Karl May. The only problem? Under Nazi Germany's racial laws, Jenkins was considered half-Jewish.

Uncle Leo and the Nazis

sotonohito — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 18:52:13 -0800

This Sunday will be Yom HaShoah "Holocaust Martyrs' Remembrance Day" in Israel. A month ago Eric Muller, a law professor at UNC, went to Germany to find what he could about his great uncle Leopold Müller. Today he got something unexpected in the mail. (via)

They Saved Hitler's Self-Hating Jewish Sea Monkeys

jonp72 — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 09:57:04 -0800

Hitler and the Sea Monkeys. When Harold von Braunhut "discovered" a new species of brine shrimp, artemia nyos, he made millions marketing them as Sea Monkeys. Using profits from that and his other inventions (such as X-Ray Specs), von Braunhut funded anti-Semitic groups, including the Aryan Nations, despite being Jewish himself.