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History > 20th century > WW2 > Germany, Europe > Antisemitism > Holocaust > Survivors, Refugees

 

How a Holocaust Survivor Became 'Death Metal Grandma'        NYT        20 July 2018

 

 

 

 

How a Holocaust Survivor Became 'Death Metal Grandma'        Video        NYT        Op-Docs        20 July 2018

 

Many of us hope to remain active as we age

— and in Inge Ginsberg we’ve found a new role model.

 

A 96-year-old poet,

songwriter and Holocaust survivor,

Ginsberg started singing death metal late in life,

a story told in this week’s Op-Doc,

Leah Galant’s “Death Metal Grandma.”

 

Ginsberg’s performances are a striking sight

(it’s not every day you see an elderly woman,

backed by guitar-wielding skeletons, screaming into a mike)

but she also wants us to think about how to appreciate life

in the face of aging and death.

 

“Beyond the spectacle,” Galant writes,

“Ms. Ginsberg’s story is really that of a woman

who is finding new ways to be heard.”

 

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=V67ULQVmcZ8

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

displaced persons > 'the last million'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Allied troops

entered Germany

at the end of World War II,

they were astounded to learn

that more than six million people

had been stranded

in the fallen Reich after the war.

 

"The number

of homeless, shelterless,

starving civilians [in Germany]

was overwhelming,"

historian David Nasaw says.

 

Among the displaced persons

were allied prisoners of war,

Jewish survivors

of concentration camps

and forced laborers

from conquered lands

who had been brought in

by the Nazis

to fuel the German war effort.

 

With a few months,

most of these were able

to return to their homelands,

but about a million people

refused to go home

— or had no home to return to.

 

(...)

 

"From 1947 on,

the nations of the world

began to accept

for resettlement

displaced persons

— Latvians, Estonians,

Poles, Yugoslavs —

but they would not

welcome the Jews,"

he says.

 

"Until America opened its doors

to Jewish displaced persons,

no nation on Earth was willing

to do so."

 

But U.S. acceptance

of displaced persons

— and especially Jews —

was severely restricted.

 

And Nasaw says

that the post-War

resettlement effort

set a pattern

for the 21st century

refugee crisis.

 

(...)

 

It took three years

for Congress to accept

any displaced persons

into the United States.

 

In June of 1948,

Congress passes

its first displaced persons law,

but the law is written

in such a way

as to restrict visas

or to prohibit visas

for 90 percent

of the quarter million Jews.

 

The law is written

that if you're not

in Germany on VE Day,

you can't get a visa.

 

And a large number of the Jews

were not there on VE Day,

because they were

in the Soviet Union

or in Poland or in hiding.

 

The law was passed

and the law was written

in large part by

Midwestern Republicans

and Southern Democrats

who held the power in Congress

in 1948

after a Republican victory

in 1946.

 

They did not want the Jews

to enter the United States

and they said it was not

simple anti-Semitism.

 

It was a Cold War stratagem.

 

The opponents

of Jewish migration said

we can't trust the Jews.

 

Why?

Because they're Polish

or they had spent time

in the Soviet Union

and large numbers of them

are probably

communist sympathizers

or communist operatives,

and we can't let them

into this country.

 

The law that was passed

that made it almost impossible

for the Jews to come in because

they were [alleged] communists,

had no such safeguards

against Nazi war criminals

and Nazi collaborators

— many of whom did enter the country

under the provisions

of the Displaced Persons Act.

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/10/
911111217/author-traces-what-happened-to-wwiis-last-million-displaced-people

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/
books/review/the-last-million-david-nasaw.html

 

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/10/
911111217/author-traces-what-happened-to-wwiis-last-million-displaced-people

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Simon Gronowski

 

 

 

Photographs of Mr. Gronowski with his sister, Ita, left,

and his mother, right.

 

Credit: Ksenia Kuleshova for The New York Times

 

A Holocaust Survivor Lifts Neighbors in Dark Times

Simon Gronowski escaped the Nazis as a child

and went on to write and speak widely about his experiences.

In April, he began brightening lives

by playing jazz tunes from his apartment window.

NYT

Nov. 20, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/20/
world/europe/holocaust-piano-brussels-coronavirus.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On April 19, 1943,

when he was 11,

Mr. Gronowsk

 jumped out of a speeding train.

 

He and his mother were packed

with dozens of others in a cattle wagon

on the deadly route from Mechelen,

a town where Belgian Jews

were rounded up,

to Auschwitz.

 

Of all the trains to doom,

Mr. Gronowski’s

became especially etched

in Holocaust history.

 

Known as “Convoy 20,”

it was disrupted

by three resistance fighters

soon after departing Mechelen.

 

In the commotion,

dozens got a chance to escape

into the farmlands of Flanders.

 

Soon after the train

started accelerating again,

Mr. Gronowski’s mother,

perhaps emboldened by the incident

and the glimmer of hope,

urged him to jump off.

 

“I jumped because

I listened to my mother’s orders,”

Mr. Gronowski said.

 

He leapt for his life.

 

“If I had known

she was not going to jump,

I would have stayed on the train,”

he said, resting his cheek in his palm

as if his head was suddenly too heavy.

 

For the next 17 months

the boy was hidden

in the attics of some Catholic families.

 

After Brussels was liberated

in September 1944,

he reunited with his ailing father,

who had been in and out

of the hospital for years,

and eventually succumbed

— to a broken heart,

Mr. Gronowski believes —

leaving the boy an orphan

the following year.

 

Mr. Gronowski drew on

the memories

of prolonged confinement,

the fear and desperate sadness

of the 1940s,

in a newspaper column

he wrote as encouragement

for fellow Belgians in late March

as they struggled

to settle into lockdown.

 

“Currently reduced

to forced idleness,

conducive to reflection,

my thinking wanders

and rejoins the confinements

that I suffered 75 years ago,

from 1942 to 1944,

when I was 10-12 years old,”

he wrote.

 

“Today,

we can stay with our family

or be helped by it,

keep in touch,

we can do our shopping,

stock up on provisions,

read the newspapers,

watch television,

but then we lived in terror,

we lacked everything,

we were cold, hungry

and our families

were separated, dislocated,”

he added.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/20/
world/europe/holocaust-piano-brussels-coronavirus.html

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/20/
world/europe/holocaust-piano-brussels-coronavirus.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicholas George Wertheim    UK    1909-2015

 

Briton who said nothing

for a half-century

about his role

in organizing the escape

of 669 mostly Jewish children

from Czechoslovakia

on the eve of World War II,

a righteous deed like those

of Oskar Schindler

and Raoul Wallenberg

 

(...)

 

Mr. Winton

— Sir Nicholas

in England since 2003

when he was knighted

by Queen Elizabeth II —

was a London stockbroker

in December 1938

when, on an impulse,

he canceled

a Swiss skiing vacation

and flew to Prague

at the behest of a friend

who was aiding refugees

in the Sudetenland,

the western region

of Czechoslovakia

that had just been

annexed by Germany.

 

(...)

 

Mr. Winton found

vast camps of refugees

living in appalling

conditions.

 

The pogroms

of Kristallnacht,

the “Night of Broken Glass,”

had recently struck

Jewish shops,

homes and synagogues

in Germany and Austria.

 

War looked inevitable,

and escape,

especially for children,

seemed hopeless,

given the restrictions

against Jewish immigration

in the West.

 

Britain, however,

was an exception.

 

In late 1938,

it began a program,

called Kindertransport,

to admit unaccompanied

Jewish children up to age 17

if they had a host family,

with the offer

of a £50 warranty

for an eventual

return ticket.

 

The Refugee Children’s

Movement in Britain

sent representatives

to Germany and Austria,

and 10,000 Jewish

children were saved

before the war began.

 

But there was

no comparable

mass-rescue effort

in Czechoslovakia.

 

Mr. Winton created one.

 

It involved dangers,

bribes, forgery,

secret contacts

with the Gestapo,

nine railroad trains,

an avalanche

of paperwork

and a lot of money.

 

Nazi agents

started following him.

 

In his Prague

hotel room,

he met

terrified parents

desperate to get

their children

to safety,

although it meant

surrendering

them to strangers

in a foreign land.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/02/
world/europe/nicholas-winton-is-dead-at-106-saved-children-from-the-holocaust.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/02/world/europe/
nicholas-winton-is-dead-at-106-saved-children-from-the-holocaust.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1938-1939

 

UK

 

Nicholas Winton,

the 'British Schindler',

honoured by Czechs

 

 

Top award

for 105-year-old

who saved hundreds

of Jewish children

from the Nazis

before the second

world war
 

 

Nicholas Winton

enabled 669 children

– mostly Jewish –

to escape

from the German-

occupied country,

then part

of Czechoslovakia,

and come to Britain

over the course

of nine months

before war broke out

in September 1939.

 

Most

of the children's families

ended up being interred

and died in Nazi

concentration camps

during the war.

 

(...)

 

It is estimated

that there are

around 6,000 people

in the world today

who owe Winton

their lives.

 

It was late

in December 1938

when he cancelled

a holiday

to go to Prague

to see what

was happening

to refugees there.

 

He spent only

three weeks

in the city

– the most leave

he could get

from his job at home –

but it was enough time

for him to recognise

the impending threat

facing the refugees

who had arrived

following

the Nazi invasion

of the Czech Sudetenland

in October 1938.

 

He immediately

set about organising

eight evacuations

of the children

on the Kindertransport train,

a rescue mission

organised from Britain.

 

He advertised

in newspapers

for foster homes,

got the necessary permits

from the immigration office

in the UK,

and persuaded

the Germans

to let the children

leave the country.

 

When Winton

returned to his job

in London

on 21 January 1939

he continued

the rescue mission,

working in the evenings

until the last train

was cancelled

when war broke out

in September 1939.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/21/nicholas-winton-british-schindler-czechs

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/19/
if-its-not-possible-life-sir-nicholas-winton-barbara-winton-review

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/21/
nicholas-winton-british-schindler-czechs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holocaust survivors

 

 

 

Soviet Red Army soldiers with liberated prisoners

of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Oswiecim, Poland, in 1945.

 

Photograph:

Sovfoto/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images

 

BEYOND THE WORLD WAR II WE KNOW

For Some Holocaust Survivors, Even Liberation Was Dehumanizing

“If their eyes were mirrors, it seems I’m not far from dead.”

After being freed by Allied troops,

some former prisoners continued to be mistreated.

NYT

Published April 28, 2020

Updated May 11, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/
magazine/for-some-holocaust-survivors-even-liberation-was-dehumanizing.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Children and other prisoners liberated by the U.S. Army

march from Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany,

to an American hospital to receive treatment in April 1945.

 

Photograph:

Byron H. Rollins/Associated Press

 

BEYOND THE WORLD WAR II WE KNOW

For Some Holocaust Survivors, Even Liberation Was Dehumanizing

“If their eyes were mirrors, it seems I’m not far from dead.”

After being freed by Allied troops,

some former prisoners continued to be mistreated.

NYT

Published April 28, 2020

Updated May 11, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/
magazine/for-some-holocaust-survivors-even-liberation-was-dehumanizing.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/28/
magazine/for-some-holocaust-survivors-even-liberation-was-dehumanizing.html

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/
magazine/survived-holocaust-phobia-cats.html

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/
magazine/holocaust-remembrance-grandmother.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even after the victorious

American and Allied forces

took control of the camps,

the survivors

— mainly Jews,

but also small

numbers of gays,

Roma, Communists,

Jehovah’s Witnesses

and others —

remained for months

behind barbed wire

and under armed guard

in what became known

euphemistically

as displaced persons,

or D.P., camps.

 

Many Jews

were left wearing

the same notorious

striped pajamas

that the Nazis

first gave them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/sunday-review/surviving-the-nazis-only-to-be-jailed-by-america.html

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/
sunday-review/surviving-the-nazis-only-to-be-jailed-by-america.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Memories of the Holocaust

 

Holocaust survivors' stories

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/20/
world/europe/holocaust-piano-brussels-coronavirus.html

 

 

 

 

https://www.npr.org/2019/05/03/
719520136/we-were-lucky-kids-of-holocaust-survivors-learned-their-parents-life-philosophy

 

 

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/05/
obituaries/claude-lanzmann-dead.html

 

 

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/27/
holocaust-memorial-day-memories 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/27/holocaust-memorial-day-zigi-shipper

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/27/holocaust-memorial-day-harry-spiro

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/27/holocaust-memorial-day-survivors-stories

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/27/holocaust-memorial-day-ben-helfgott

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/27/holocaust-memorial-day-martin-stern

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/27/
holocaust-memorial-day-kitty-hart-moxon 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Submerged:

the Jewish woman

who hid from Nazis

in Berlin

 

 

Marie Jalowicz Simon

was one of 1,700 'U-boats',

German Jews

who survived the war

submerged

below the surface

of daily life.

 

Now

she has told all

in a book

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/16/submerged-jewish-woman-hid-nazis-berlin

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/16/
submerged-jewish-woman-hid-nazis-berlin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1939-1943

 

“Tehran Children”

 

 

The “Tehran Children”

is the name used

to refer to a group

of Polish

Jewish children,

mainly orphans,

who escaped

the Nazi German

occupation of Poland.

 

This group of children

found temporary refuge

in orphanages

and shelters

in the Soviet Union,

and was later

evacuated

with several

hundred adults

to Tehran, Iran,

before finally reaching

Palestine in 1943.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/
article/tehran-children

 

 

 

escape

of 1,000 Jewish children

from wartime Poland

to Iran

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/01/
tehran-children-holocaust-refugee-odyssey-mikhal-dekel-review

 

 

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/tehran-children

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/dec/01/
tehran-children-holocaust-refugee-odyssey-mikhal-dekel-review

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1940        Lithuania

 

 

 

Jewish refugees queuing for transit visas

at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas,

July 1940.

 

Photograph: Nobuki Sugihara

 

My father, the quiet hero:

how Japan’s Schindler saved 6,000 Jews

Chiune Sugihara’s son tells

how he learned of his father’s rescue mission in Lithuania,

which commemorates his achievements this year

G

Sat 4 Jan 2020    21.04 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/04/
chiune-sugihara-my-father-japanese-schindler-saved-6000-jews-lithuania

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chiune Sugihara, his wife Yukiko (right),

his sister-in law Setsuko Kikuchi (left)

with their two eldest sons, Hiroki and Chiaki.

 

Photograph: Nobuki Sugihara

 

My father, the quiet hero:

how Japan’s Schindler saved 6,000 Jews

Chiune Sugihara’s son tells

how he learned of his father’s rescue mission in Lithuania,

which commemorates his achievements this year

G

Sat 4 Jan 2020    21.04 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/04/
chiune-sugihara-my-father-japanese-schindler-saved-6000-jews-lithuania

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chiune Sugihara,

was a trader who lived

in a small coastal town

about 34 miles

south of Tokyo.

 

(...)

 

(he) saved 6,000 Jews

during the second world war.

 

Over six weeks

in the summer of 1940,

while serving

as a diplomat

in Lithuania,

Chiune Sugihara

defied orders

from his bosses

in Tokyo,

and issued

several thousand visas

for Jewish refugees

to travel to Japan.

 

(...)

 

Lithuania would suffer

a double occupation

by Soviet Union

and Nazi Germany.

 

But for nearly 10 months

at the start

of the second world war,

Kaunas was the free capital

of independent Lithuania,

“a Casablanca of the north”,

a hotbed of spies,

as well as a short-lived haven

for refugees fleeing

Soviet and Nazi occupiers.

 

(...)

 

Sent to Lithuania

to gather intelligence,

Sugihara had probably

not bargained

for the scores of refugees

who arrived at his gates

in 1940.

 

After the Soviet Union

invaded Lithuania

on 15 June,

refugees flocked

to the modest two-storey

Japanese consulate

that was also home

to Sugihara,

his wife Yukiko,

their two toddlers

and a newborn.

 

 

Many were Polish Jews,

who had arrived

only months earlier

after the Soviet invasion

of Poland.

 

Now they were looking

for a second escape.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/04/
chiune-sugihara-my-father-japanese-schindler-saved-6000-jews-lithuania

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/04/
chiune-sugihara-my-father-japanese-schindler-saved-6000-jews-lithuania

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On May 13, 1939,

the German transatlantic

liner St. Louis sailed

from Hamburg, Germany,

for Havana, Cuba.

 

On the voyage

were 937 passengers.

 

Almost all were Jews

fleeing from the Third Reich.

 

Most were

German citizens,

some were

from eastern Europe,

and a few were officially

"stateless."

 

The majority

of the Jewish passengers

had applied for US visas,

and had planned

to stay in Cuba

only until they could enter

the United States.

 

But by the time

the St. Louis sailed,

there were signs

that political conditions

in Cuba might keep

the passengers

from landing there.

 

The US State Department

in Washington,

the US consulate in Havana,

some Jewish organizations,

and refugee agencies

were all aware

of the situation.

 

The passengers

themselves

were not informed;

most were compelled

to return to Europe.

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005267 

 

 

 

The Nazis had allowed

the ship to sail

with the expectation

that the Jews

would never be allowed

to disembark

— thus, the Nazis claimed,

proving Hitler’s point

that Jews were unwanted

and justifying

his persecution of them.

 

Indeed,

Cuba spurned them.

 

So did the United States

and Canada.

 

The ship

was forced back to Europe,

where roughly

a quarter of the passengers

would die

in Hitler’s death camps.

 

A lucky few

(...)

made it safely to England.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/
us/politics/ruth-mandel-dead.html

 

 

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005267

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/11/
us/politics/ruth-mandel-dead.html

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/31/
nyregion/fleshing-stories-ship-denied-refuge-hitler-holocaust-museum-sleuths-seek-trace.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 1939        UK        Kitchener Camp rescue

 

 

 

Some of the rescued German Jewish men

at Kitchener Camp in 1939.

 

Photograph:

Courtesy of the family of Herbert Weiss

 

The forgotten haven:

Kent camp that saved 4,000 German Jews

G

Sat 24 Aug 2019    14.00 BST

Last modified on Wed 28 Aug 2019    15.40 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/24/
kitchener-camp-sandwich-kent-german-jews-haven

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is a near-forgotten

chapter

in 20th-century history:

the rescue of thousands

of Jewish men

from the Nazis,

brought to a camp

on the outskirts

of the medieval town

of Sandwich in Kent

as darkness fell

across Europe.

 

The Kitchener Camp rescue

began in February 1939,

and by the time

war broke out

seven months later

about 4,000 men

– mainly German

and Austrian Jews –

had arrived

by train and boat.

 

Although the story

of the 10,000 Jewish children

brought to the UK

on the Kindertransport

is well known,

the Kitchener Camp

has received

much less attention.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/24/
kitchener-camp-sandwich-kent-german-jews-haven

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/24/
kitchener-camp-sandwich-kent-german-jews-haven

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Refugees        The Caribbean

 

how the Caribbean

became a haven

for Jews fleeing

Nazi tyranny

 

Thousands

of refugees

rebuilt their lives

on Trinidad

and other islands.

 

(...)

 

Several thousand

Jewish refugees

went by boat

to Caribbean islands,

including

Barbados

and Jamaica,

in the run-up to

and during

the second world war.

 

(...)

 

Most wanted to reach

the US or Canada,

but could not get

entry visas.

 

In their panic to escape

the march of fascism,

they were forced

to take what

they could get.

 

“It was a last-chance

destination.

 

The majority

who ended up

in the Caribbean

lost members

of their families

who stayed

in the Holocaust,”

said Joanna Newman,

author of

Nearly the New World:

The British West Indies

and the Flight from Nazism

1933-1945.

 

At the 1938

Evian conference,

32 countries discussed

the growing refugee crisis,

but few opened

their doors.

 

As refugees

crammed on

to ships leaving

European ports

with no clear destination,

Jewish organisations

engaged

in frantic negotiations

to find places willing

to take refugees.

 

“Some boats went

from port to port,”

said Newman.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/07/
trinidad-cemetery-jewish-refugees-holocaust-forgotten-story

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/07/
trinidad-cemetery-jewish-refugees-holocaust-forgotten-story

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About 120,000 Jewish refugees

fled persecution

after the Nazis took power in Austria

in March 1938.

 

The second most common destination

after the US was the UK,

with up to 20,000 refugees

registered in 1945.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/30/
austria-offers-citizenship-to-the-descendants-of-jews-who-fled-the-nazis

 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/30/
austria-offers-citizenship-to-the-descendants-of-jews-who-fled-the-nazis

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related > Anglonautes > History > 20th century > WW2

 

USA > Fort Ontario Refugee Camp - Oswego, New York    1944-1946

 

 

WW2 > Germany, Europe

Antisemitism, Adolf Hitler, Nazi era, Holocaust

 

 

UK, British Empire > Kindertransport    1938-1940

 

 

 

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