The Holocaust: A Political Asset?

THE HOLOCAUST:

• Amira Hass argues that Israel has turned the Holocaust “into a political assetâ€? that “serves Israel primarily in its fight against the Palestinians…the dispossession of the Palestinian people from their homeland in 1948 is minimized and blurredâ€? and it “is what allows Israel to systematically discriminate against its Arab citizens.â€? (Haaretz)
• New information is coming out on efforts of Monsignor Roncalli, who became Pope John XXIII, during the Holocaust. (The Jewish Week)
• An interview with Saul Friedländer, who has been doing Holocaust history for over 40 years, on how the field has changed over the decades. (Forward)
• The Holocaust scholar Yehuda Bauer examines the writings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Schneerson on whether the Holocaust was a good thing and concludes that the Rebbe “did not deny the Holocaust. He justified it.â€? (Haaretz)

YOUTH TRIPS TO POLAND:

• The Polish press is airing increasing reports of unruly Israeli youth on these visits, including vandalism. (Ynet)

HOLOCAUST MUSEUMS AND EXHIBITS:

• Is it true that “the work of an artist who was a victim of the Holocaust belongs to Israel, because the Holocaust is “ours.”â€?? This question is behind an embarassing conflict between Yad Vashem and Ukraine concerning the spiriting of frescoes from Ukraine to Israel. (Haaretz)
• But Israel Gutman, an academic adviser to Yad Vashem, argues that this criticism arises not from an understanding of how Yad Vashem works but from one who is “motivated by an ideology that finds fault with any activity that he sees as connected to an Israeli factor.â€? (Haaretz)
• Millions of Holocaust-era documents have been released to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, but holocaust survivor groups in America are complaining about when and how this information will be made accessible. (Forward)

HOLOCAUST LITERATURE:

• America’s richest prize in the humanities, worth $1.5 million, has been awarded for a three-year project on the impact of the Holocaust on American literature. Eric J. Sundquist argues that English-language books – original, in translation or as film scripts – are largely responsible for “Americanizing” and universalizing the Holocaust in the world’s consciousness. (The Jerusalem Post)
• A vivid holocaust diary of Polish 14-year old has surfaced after 60 years, describing her crumbling world in the Bedzin ghetto. (Haaretz)
• Aharon Appelfeld talks about his novels, which are “set in the years immediately before and after, rather than during, the Holocaustâ€?, and about the one event he is unsure he will ever write about, because he would “need another language.” (The Jerusalem Post)