For Int'l Holocaust Remembrance Week - the 75th anniversary of liberation of Auschwitz

"Netanyahu: Allies could have saved 4 million Jews if they’d bombed death camps in 1942" The Times of Israel, 4/24/17
 

Israeli P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu condemned int'l complacency
to earlier intel of Nazi's mass murdering of Jewish people 
at Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance ceremony 

"In bitter Holocaust Remembrance Day speech citing new UN documents, Israel's PM castigates global indifference 75 years ago, says it persists today.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday launched a blistering assault on Allied policy during World War II, saying world powers’ failure to bomb the Nazi concentration camps from 1942 cost the lives of four million Jews and millions of others.

Citing recently released UN documents that show the Allies were aware of the scale of the Holocaust in 1942, some two years earlier than previously assumed, Netanyahu said in a speech marking Holocaust Remembrance Day that this new research assumed “a terrible significance.”

Film stills from "What the Allies Knew" by Virginie Linhart,
produced by Fabienne Servan-Schreiber and Cinétévé

“If the powers in 1942 had acted against the death camps — and all that was needed was repeated bombing of the camps — had they acted then, they could have saved 4 million Jews and millions of other people,” he said at the official state ceremony marking the start of the memorial day.

Allies declined bombinb railways leading to genocide camps 

“The powers knew, and they did not act,” he told the audience at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. “When terrible crimes were being committed against the Jews, when our brothers and sisters were being sent to the furnaces,” he went on, “the powers knew and did not act.”

In a bleak and bitter address, the Israeli prime minister said that the Holocaust was enabled by three factors: the vast hatred of the Jews, global indifference to the horrors, and “the terrible weakness of our people in the Diaspora.”

Iran's "World without Zionism" (photo: BlazingCatFur)

Anti-Semitism had not disappeared, and “it would be naive to think” that it would do so in the foreseeable future, he said. It was being exacerbated by “hatred from the East,” led by Iran and the Islamic State, he added.

"Bombing Auschwitz" 75th Anniversary Preview: The Great Moral Dilemma of the 20th Century
In May 1944, Rabbi Michael Weissmandl sent the Auschwitz Protocol, along with a plea for help and a demand for Allied air forces to bomb Auschwitz, to Roswell McClelland at the War Refugee Board in Switzerland.

Should the Allies have risked killing Auschwitz prisoners and bombed the camp to stop future atrocities? Join historians, survivors and experts as they consider one of the great moral dilemmas of the 20th century.
 
Watch Secrets of the Dead on PBS SoCal Tue, Jan 21 @ 9:00 PM, Wed, Jan 22 @ 2:00 AM, Thu, Jan 30 @ 11:00 PM. Check your local PBS listings.

D-Day to V-E Day: World War II continued for almost 11 months after the successful Normandy landings in France on June 6, 1944, commonly known as D-Day.

American troops liberating Dachau Concentration Camp

At "The Liberators" documentary screening by the Zachor Foundation, Holocaust survivors, Ben Lesser and Joshua Kaufman discuss their reunions with the Yankee soldiers who liberated them from Dachau Concentration Camp.

   

Roumanian Holocaust survivor, Amram Deutsch, recounts his experiences in Nazi camps.
 

Czech Republic's Consul General Pavel Sepelak and Prof. Abraham Sion of Ariel University in Samaria discuss the Allies' mistake of sacrificing Czechoslovakia to delay war with Nazi Germany.

PBS airing Ken Burns' docu on Righteous-Gentile, Holocaust rescuers; US Holocaust Museum Lecture tour details

Documentary Tells Untold Story of American Husband and Wife Who Spent Nearly Two Years on Life-Threatening Missions in Europe to Save Refugees and Dissidents from Nazi Occupation

DEFYING THE NAZIS: THE SHARPS’ WAR, a new documentary co-directed by Ken Burns and Artemis Joukowsky about a little-known but important mission by an American minister and his wife to rescue refugees and dissidents in Europe before and after the start of World War II, will air on September 20 at 9 pm (check local listings) on PBS. Join the conversation with #SharpsWarPBS. 

Artemis Joukowski and Ken Burns promote Defying the Nazis

The 90-minute film tells the story of Waitstill and Martha Sharp, a Unitarian minister and his wife from Wellesley, Massachusetts, who left their children behind in the care of their parish and boldly committed to multiple life-threatening missions in Europe. The couple provided relief to embattled groups, raised money for refugee aid and smuggled Nazi targets, including children, out of the country. They are two of the five Americans who have been inducted by Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum, as Righteous Among the Nations. 

Waitstill and Martha Sharp on grandson's bookcover

Over two dangerous years they helped to save hundreds of imperiled political dissidents and Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazi occupation across Europe. “The story of Waitstill and Martha Sharp is one of the most incredible tales of compassion, sacrifice and heroism that I have ever heard, and I was completely unaware of it until five years ago when Artemis Joukowsky first shared it with me,” said Ken Burns. “Nearly three years before America as a nation became involved in the Second World War, these two unassuming, so-called ‘ordinary’ Americans gave up everything they knew and loved and risked their lives to become involved in a war 4,000 miles away because they knew there were people in grave danger who needed help.” 


On Oct. 7, 2015 the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum presented “Two Who Defied the Nazis” as the 7th annual, Linda and Tony Rubin Lecture.  The program, a timely reminder of what refugees endure, was held at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles. The Sharps' remarkable actions are documented in a collection of personal papers that have been donated to the Museum. 

The Museum’s Western Regional Director, Steve Klappholz and the Defying's director and filmmaker (and Sharp grandson) Artemis Joukowsky appeared.  Mr. Klappholz (in a prepared statement) wrote,  “We are fortunate to have such a high-caliber film produced by Ken Burns to learn about the heroics of these two individuals and to better understand their challenges and struggles during what was the beginning of such a bleak time in Europe.” JewTube.Info spoke with him at the event.

Artemis Joukowsky- grandson of Sharp heroes

Artemis Joukowsky, a film producer and co-founder of No Limits Media, is the grandson of Waitstill and Martha Sharp and has spent decades researching their story. He is the author of a companion book to the film, featuring a foreword by Ken Burns, published by Beacon Press.
“Beyond the cloak-and-dagger suspense of my grandparents’ experience, it is a story of what America meant to refugees fleeing war-torn countries to build new lives. And it underscores what Waitstill would call ‘a collaborative effort’ of how a small but effective underground network of rescue workers saved as many lives as they could, and how important that lesson is for what is happening today,” said Mr. Joukowsky.

How Buzz Aldrin reacted to documentary on Ilan Ramon and his earth-orbiting torah which miraculously survived both Holocaust and Columbia disaster, 13-years ago

Israeli Astronaut Ilan Ramon's shoah Torah survived destruction

In the spirit of Holocaust Remembrance Day last week and the 13th anniversary of the event, PBS re-webcast, "Space Shuttle Columbia: Mission of Hope" (formerly titled "An Article of Hope").  It is the untold story of Colonel Ilan Ramon, a fighter pilot and son of Holocaust survivors who became the first and only astronaut from Israel, embarking on a mission with the most diverse shuttle crew ever to explore space. 

Space Shuttle Columbia crew
(Ilan Ramon rightmost in red)

Ramon realized the significance of “being the first” and his journey of self-discovery turned into a mission to tell the world a powerful story about the resilience of the human spirit. Although the seven astronauts of the Columbia perished on February 1, 2003, a remarkable story of hope, friendship across cultures, and an enduring faith emerged. 

The film premiered in conjunction with the 10th anniversary of the disaster and NASA’s annual Day of Remembrance. 

“Moving tributes like this film remind us all that spaceflight always carries great risk,” NASA Administrator and four-time space shuttle astronaut Charles Bolden said. “But fallen heroes like Ilan were willing to risk the ultimate sacrifice to make important science discoveries and push the envelope of human achievement.”



Space Shuttle Columbia: Mission of Hope goes behind the scenes to explore the “mission within the mission” for Ramon, who carried into space a miniature Torah scroll that had survived the horrors of the Holocaust, given to a boy in a secret bar mitzvah observed in the pre-dawn hours in the notorious Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen. The bar mitzvah boy grew up to become Israel’s lead scientist for the mission, Joachim “Yoya” Joseph. 

Photo credit:FrumLife
http://goo.gl/bKOOFc

The film follows the scroll’s path into Ramon’s hands, and the dramatic moment when he tells its story live to the world from the flight deck of Columbia. From the depths of hell to the heights of space, his simple gesture would serve to honor the hope of a nation and to fulfill a promise made to generations past and future.

Moon-walking astronaut Buzz Aldrin pays homage to Israel Air Force astronaut Ilan Ramon chronicle of Holocaust survivors' ascent into the heavens