News from the SWC During Kristallnacht Commemoration Week

November 12, 2008

News from the SWC During Kristallnacht Commemoration Week

The Center’s Nazi hunter, Israel Director Dr. Efraim Zuroff is in Lithuania to press for the jailing of a Nazi war criminal and to meet with the Special Prosecutor to demand the end of the intimidation of Jewish partisan heroines by the Lithuanian government ... Click here to join the thousands who have joined the Center’s protest to Lithuania’s President

SWC Backs Holocaust Survivors Call for Mormons to End Proxy Baptisms Protests by the SWC stopped the posthumous baptism of Simon Wiesenthal, but other Holocaust victims including Anne Frank were posthumously baptized... Click here to learn of the Kristallnacht Day protest led by Holocaust Survivor Ernest Michel 


Holocaust Survivors Lead SWC Museum of Tolerance Kristallnacht Memorial
"My father holds up the Iron Cross, his medal from World War I, and shouts at the Nazis in our living room, "Is this the thanks I get for having served the fatherland?"… click here to read Rolf Gompertz’s memories of Kristallnacht at the SWC’s 70th anniversary Kristallnacht memorial


Sainthood on Hold…The Wartime Record of Pope Pius XII
"Normally, it’s not the business of Jews whom the Catholic Church and the pope designate worthy of consideration to be a saint…But this was a seminal moment in world history. The genocide of all genocides occurred on [Pius’s] watch, and the pope did not respond adequately. All he had to do was say, ‘I am informed there are mass murders being committed against the Jews, and I condemn it.’ He never said it. The Vatican doesn’t have to listen to us, but a saint would never have done that."
- Rabbi Marvin Hier told US News and World Report… read full article


There's no comparing Gaza to Nazi Germany, though some try
SWC Op/Ed in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Before time robs us of the last victims of history's greatest crime, Holocaust survivors are marking the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, Nazi Germany's pogrom that signaled the doom of European Jewry… read full op-ed

In response to Ahamadinejad’s Holocaust Denial and anti-Semitic UN address, SWC posts introduction of new Persian translation of Elie Wiesel’s Night online and calls on Iran’s educators and academics to read and distribute. The Center hosted the launching of a Farsi-language translation of Night, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s autobiographical account of the horrors of the Nazi Genocide in an effort to help counter Tehran’s Holocaust denial.… read more

Funding of Palestinian publications inciting hate and terrorism denounced by SWC at meeting at European Parliament SWC International Relations Director Dr. Shimon Samuels delivered the keynote address at the European Coalition for Israel Annual Meeting at the European Parliament where he publicly challenged the European Commission's Near East Unit for funding Palestinian publications that incite hate and terror… read more

In Berlin on Kristallnacht, SWC Urges German Parliamentarians: "Strong words against anti-Semitism must be matched by strong stance against Tehran." Senior German politicians were urged to help halt the high level of trade with Iran that helps prop up the regime. Germany has been Iran's largest trade partner in the West, and has even shipped material to aid Iran's energy program… read more

Hear from eyewitnesses of Kristallnacht and learn more about the events of the Holocaust from the Center’s powerful Academy Award™-winning documentary Genocide narrated by Elizabeth Taylor and Orson Welles This universally acclaimed film uses unique multi-image format combining historical narrative with actual stories of ordinary people caught up in the Nazi reign of terror. Genocide has been seen by tens of millions of people across North America, Europe, Russia, and China… click here to add this documentary to your film library.

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