#Auschwitz Museum

[eretzyisrael]

by Mark Birbeck

The problem we face runs far deeper than a lack of respect for one important institution. For over 75 years, the Western world recognised the singular evil of the Holocaust and the Nazi’s genocide of the Jews. But in recent years, these historic crimes have been routinely relativised. Indeed, you can see this clearly in the angry responses to the Auschwitz Museum. The museum was bombarded with tweets insisting that Israel’s war with Hamas is actually a ‘genocide’, that Israelis are the new Nazis and that the deaths of civilians in Gaza are somehow comparable to the Shoah.

This Holocaust relativism isn’t just confined to academics, activists or social-media influencers. World leaders are in on the act, too. President Erdoğan of Turkey received warm applause last week for a speech in which he compared Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Hitler, and claimed that Israel treats Gazans like the Nazis treated Jews. This week, the South African government lodged an accusation of genocide against Israel in the International Court of Justice (which Israel will challenge).The memory of the Holocaust is not only being downplayed here. It is also being weaponised to attack and delegitimise the world’s only Jewish state.

Encouragingly, after revealing the loss of 7,000 followers, the Auschwitz Museum announced that it had gained 53,000 new followers in a single day. Clearly, there are many decent-minded people out there who still recognise the unique significance of the Holocaust. But there is still a concerning minority who are determined to relativise it, to downplay it and to use ‘Never Again’ as a weapon against Israel. We cannot afford to let this bigotry fester and grow.

[mylionheart2]

Nothing to see here just national security threat and all-around ahole, Elon Musk forcing the Auschwitz Memorial to wear his fascist Twitter blue checkmark badge against their will. 

[rassilon-imprimatur]

I saw The Zone of Interest today and all the talk about it, from the creators and audiences alike, are so focused on its depiction of paradoxical humanity and normality within the monsters behind the atrocity that I was actually a little surprised at the extent to which Sandra Hüller is one of the most unsubtle and abhorrent cinematic Nazis I have ever fucking seen.

[johnsgrandtour]

Auschwitz, Oswiecim, Poland

We're breaking up chronology here. I have more stuff from Warsaw and Krakow to post but I'd rather get this post up first.

First off, it was a very rainy day and still very busy so a lot of my pictures are bad. There's just a mess of people with umbrellas so I'll be pretty selective with my pictures.

Here's the wall from inside the compound. There's a lot of barbed wire fences inside the compound too. Dividing up the buildings into their zones.

Moving inside the buildings now. Inside the buildings they'll have every photo the Nazi's took of the prisoners and have them on walls lining the halls with their name and number. It's as horrific as you can imagine.

And here's the gas chamber and crematorium. You could feel the dread that hung in the air as you walked through it.

It's worth it to visit it at least once, but I never want to go back. I'm headed to Katowice tomorrow so I'll try and get the rest of Warsaw up soon!

[totallyhussein-blog]

Fighting for survival, the story of Harry Haft

Harry Haft was a Polish-Jewish boxer and survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp. He was briefly a professional boxer in post-war Germany, and boxed as a light heavyweight in the United States.

After the war, Harry Haft emigrated to the USA with the help of an uncle in New Jersey. Haft's final fight was against future champion Rocky Marciano, on 18 July 1949 in Rhode Island Auditorium.

In April 2007, Harry Haft was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. A movie on Haft’s life was released in 2022. Called The Survivor and based on the book by Alan Haft, it aired on HBO.

Holocaust Memorial Day takes place on 27th January. You can learn more about the Holocaust at the Auschwitz Museum and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. You can also develop your understanding at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre.

[hsundholm]

The Birkenau Guardhouse by Henrik Sundholm Via Flickr: I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau during my week in Poland. This place is too difficult to write about in a short caption. Go there if you get the chance. To me, visiting the center of the Holocaust felt almost like a duty.

[loudlylovingreview]

Holocaust Memorial Museum: How Many People Did the Nazis Murder?

Nazi Germany committed mass murder on an unprecedented scale. Before and especially during World War II, the Nazi German regime perpetrated the Holocaust and other mass atrocities. In the aftermath of these crimes, calculating the number of victims became important for legal, historical, ethical, and educational reasons.  The statistics below were calculated using a number of different sources.…

[sefarad-haami]

Crédito Fotográfico - Museo Memorial del Holocausto de los Estados Unidos, cortesía de Miru Alcana

Miru Alcana nació el 24 de mayo de 1915 en la isla de Rodas, en el Mar Egeo. Sus padres eran Yohovet (nacido en 1884) y Abraham Alcana (nacido en 1874), y provenía de una familia de raíces judeoespañolas. Miru tenía cuatro hermanos mayores: un hermano llamado Yosef, que nació en 1912, y una hermana llamada Miriam, nacida en 1907. Miriam estaba casada con Celebi Hasson y tenía tres hijos. La familia Alcana formaba parte de una gran familia extendida, muchos de cuyos miembros vivían cerca.

Rodas estaba bajo control italiano desde 1912, por lo que Miru aprendió italiano, francés y hebreo en la escuela, mientras que en casa la familia hablaba ladino y también conocían griego y turco. Miru asistió a una escuela judía y, después de completar la educación secundaria, estudió obstetricia. También participaba en las reuniones de la organización sionista Menorah.

En septiembre de 1943, los nazis ocuparon Rodas y, el 20 de julio de 1944, arrestaron a la familia Alcana junto con todos los demás judíos de la isla. Tres días después, fueron transportados por barcaza de carbón a Atenas, donde fueron detenidos antes de ser deportados a Auschwitz. La familia Alcana llegó a Auschwitz a mediados de agosto. Trágicamente, Miru fue la única sobreviviente de 57 miembros de su familia y una de solo 151 judíos de Rodas que sobrevivieron al Holocausto.

En 1950, Miru emigró a Estados Unidos en busca de una nueva vida después de los horrores que soportó.

[springflwer]

I didn’t know this book was getting adapted into a tv series. I absolutely hated it, I read it with such high expectations but it was a total let down but I’ll probably watch this series just out of curiosity.

[suetravelblog]

Chopin Piano Recital Chopin Concert Hall Kraków Poland

Frédéric Chopin Polish Composer and Pianist – pianobook.io Saturday evening I enjoyed a Chopin piano recital at Chopin Concert Hall. The modest hall is located in a part of Kraków new to me, but near Main Market Square. It was easily accessible via tram, and I’ll return to explore the interesting area during daylight. It’s rich in cafés, theaters, and music venues, and home of the Krakow…

[ukdamo]

Today's Flickr photo with the most hits: this memorial plaque in the Holocaust Museum (synagogue), Budapest. The glass chairs represent the absence of Jewish congregants - murdered by the Nazis.

[eretzyisrael]

By Chris Vallance

X, formerly called Twitter, has removed a post denying the Holocaust after criticism from the Auschwitz Museum. The social media platform had initially said the post did not break its rules.

The offensive post was a reply to one from the museum about a three-year-old Jewish girl murdered in the concentration camp's gas chambers.

The post called her death a "fairy tale" and used anti-Semitic tropes.

X's policies state that Holocaust denial is prohibited.

At least 1.1 million people were murdered in the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp in German-occupied Poland. Almost one million were Jews. The museum notes more than 200,000 were children and young people.

They were gassed, starved, worked to death and killed in medical experiments.

According to a post on X by the Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau, it had reported the offensive reply but received a response saying that after viewing the "available information" the platform had decided no rules had been broken.

That initial response to the museum's complaint, according to X, was down to a mistake during the first review - it was escalated and removed in a second review.

"Violent event denial" is banned under X's policies on abusive behaviour. The platform says it prohibits content denying that mass murder took place which "includes, but is not limited to, events like the Holocaust, school shootings, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters".

The X account which made the offensive post on Sunday has 20 followers.

While X says it has removed the post, the account was still accessible as of Monday 17:00 GMT. Its other content includes statements and language many would find offensive.

The company says it is reviewing whether the account should be permanently suspended.

[eruditetyro]

here is todesfuge if you want to read it, with the german if you scroll down the page.

here is night by elie wiesel.

here is one of the short stories in this way for the gas, ladies and gentlemen by tadeusz borowski.

[moxchild]

[Ronald Reagan Museum - Holocaust exhibition]

[totallyhussein-blog]

Join The Wolf of Baghdad on a journey into Iraqi-Jewish history

In the 1940’s, a third of Baghdad’s population was Jewish. Within a decade nearly all of Iraq’s 150,000 Jews had fled. The Wolf of Baghdad is a graphic memoir of a lost homeland and a wordless narrative for a home never visited, with its own original soundtrack of Judeo-Arabic and Iraqi music recorded by the ground-breaking band 3yin.

The Wolf of Baghdad is a unique audio-visual journey through a Jewish family’s memories of their lost Iraqi homeland and speaks to audiences about the little-known story of Iraqi Jews and the NAZI inspired pogrom known as The Farhud. This music based and visual narrative is illuminated by the words and portraits of Carol Isaacs own family, whose stories provide a fascinating insight into the experiences of Baghdadi Jews.

The Wolf of Baghdad film is based on Carol Isaacs book of the same title, which was published by Myriad Editions. The Wolf of Baghdad was included in the Guardian's best graphic novels of 2020. Sandi Toksvig also described it as a book "where you actually fall inside the story. It's wonderful.' Pictured is Carol signing copies at the Manchester Jewish Museum.

The Wolf of Baghdad film had its world premiere in New York in 2020 and it's first screening in Manchester, England, on the 4th Nov 2021. Visitors at the Manchester Jewish Museum were transported from Carol Isaacs current home in London, to her ancestral home in the old Jewish quarter of Baghdad. Audiences encountered ghost-like inhabitants and got to explore Baghdad through their memories.

The Manchester Jewish Museum provided the ideal setting for The Wolf of Baghdad film, especially with the former synagogue having such strong ties with Manchester's Iraqi community. Opening its doors in 1874, as the first Sephardi synagogue in Manchester, Iraqi's who worshipped there included the family of the famous World War One poet Siegfried Sassoon, who came to Britain from Basra in 1858.

The Wolf of Baghdad book and film are available to buy from the Manchester Jewish Museum, 190 Cheetham Hill Rd, Cheetham Hill, Manchester M8 8LW. Both can be purchased online and you can also rent The Wolf of Baghdad film, and have it streamed to your home through Carol Isaacs TSM Cartoons website.

Holocaust Memorial Day takes place on 27th January. You can learn more about the Holocaust at the Auschwitz Museum. You can also develop your understanding of The Farhud at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and learn more about the Jewish experience in North Africa at Yad Vashem.