Bookworm Room

With regard to Iran, Israel is currently facing two options.  It can launch a preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, which will allow Israel to survive intact while inflicting minimal loss of life or property against Iran.  Alternatively, it can allow Iran to take a preemptive strike against Israel (which would be a nuclear strike), [...]

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From today’s news:
Irena Sendler, a Polish woman who saved thousands of Jewish children during World War Two by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, died in the Polish capital on Monday after a long illness, local media said.
[snip]
Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev said: “Irena Sendler’s courageous activities rescuing Jews during the Holocaust serve as [...]

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Today’s news about yesterday:
In honor of Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Day, marked in Israel on Thursday, Yad Vashem expanded its Internet presence this week by opening an online database containing nearly two-thirds of the 200,000 photos in its archives.
[snip]
Earlier this week, Yad Vashem launched two YouTube sites. The English version includes sound bites from [...]

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A few days ago, I posted about the rise in antisemitism around the world. One of my readers, who I know is a good and kind woman, decried this trend, but then said something interesting: “And now many Jews insist that we hate Muslims to support them. [snip.] [E]very anti-Islamic [...]

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Here you will find amazing film clips from almost one hundred years of 20th Century Jewish history, including images and testimony from Eichmann’s trial. It is a reminder that, while the Jews wanted Israel as an escape from bloodshed and tyranny, the Palestinians joyfully imagine their lands awash in a sea of blood.
Hat tip: [...]

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Note: I originally posted this bit of family history in August 2006. I’m reposting it now, inspired by two things: Ken Burns’ excellent “The War” (I swear the man’s a conservative) and Ahmadinejad’s pretending that the Holocaust’s historical reality is open for some sort of debate. I think both — the [...]

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I blogged earlier about the new album of photographs at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the ones showing Auschwitz guards frolicking during their off hours. I’ve got a couple of things to add. The first is a link to the entire album, here. And the second is Roger Cohen’s article, at [...]

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The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received an unusual donation last Christmas:  a photo album taken during the last year of Auschwitz.  But unlike all our other images of Auschwitz, which show the horrors visited on the camps’ victims, this one shows the perpetrators at play.  It’s mind-bending to see images of brutal killers (amongst [...]

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My friend Patrick, who blogs at The Paragraph Farmer, tackles a very difficult question in today’s American Spectator:  Why, in a world that daily reminds us of man’s inhumanity to man, does the Holocaust still stands as the ne plus ultra of the human ability to kill?  It’s a thoughtful article, and one I urge [...]

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As I’ve noted before, my mother spent the war years interned in a Japanese concentration camp in Java.  These camps were not Nazi death camps, but they were no picnic either, with a horrible attrition rate from disease, starvation, overwork and abuse.  (See here for more information about one of the camps my Mom was [...]

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After reading my post about Huckabee, my friend the Soccer Dad directed me to an Israel Matzav post about Huckabee’s visits to Israel and to Yad Vashem. Reading that post, I can only conclude that (a) Huckabee recognizes Israel as a nation amongst nations and (b) that Huckabee has correctly understood that one of [...]

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Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.  The war ended 62 years ago, and the vast majority of the survivors and perpetrators are dead.  Why do we still care?
Is it, as the Muslims want the world to believe, a Zionist ploy to garner the sympathy vote in world politics?  Aside from the fact that such a ploy, [...]

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The best WWII stories aren’t just about those who killed lots of Nazis.  They’re about those who killed lots of Nazis and who managed to maintain their humanity despite the horrors around them, who went on to live successful lives, and who had children and grandchildren to offset the millions who died at Nazi hands.  Today, [...]

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[I haven't had the chance to think this busy weekend, let alone blog.  For some reason, though, I can't get out of my head the WWII stories of a few people I met, long after the war, when they were old and gray.  I'm therefore resurrecting this post because I think it tells a story [...]

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To my shame, I only sort of paid attention to the story of Irena Sendlerowa, the Polish Catholic nurse who saved 2,500 Jewish children, was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo, and escaped death by minutes through a well-placed bribe.  Fortunately, the Webloggin editor was on the case, and he’s written a lovely tribute to [...]

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In a brilliant essay at The Weekly Standard, Matthias Küntzel explains the deeper significance behind Iran’s recent Holocaust denial conference:
The Tehran deniers’ conference marks a turning point not only because of its state sponsorship, but also because of its purpose. Up until now, Holocaust deniers have wanted to revise the past. Today, they want to [...]

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Holocaust denial about the Nazi death camps is gaining traction in part because witnesses are dying. After all, the camps were liberated more than 60 years ago, and both the camps’ victims and their liberators are an increasingly shrinking breed. There’s not much left of the world that bore witness to the staggering [...]

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Despite the fact that more than 60 years have past since the end of the Nazi’s deranged regime, stories about survival and decency still crop up.  Here’s one that came through my email:
Here is an unknown story that I believe will be of interest and that you might like to pass on.  Carry your Leica [...]

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The Captain says that the earth itself just reminded us of yet another horrible Nazi practice:  euthanizing those Aryans whom the Nazis deemed physically or mentally unfit to live.  In a Western Germany town, relying on sixty years of rumors, authorities dug up a mass grave that included skeletons of children as young as one.  [...]

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As part of a much longer article about the Democrat’s foolish faith in the NIE leak, J. Peter Mulhern, writing at American Thinker, offers this nicely phrased analysis about the willing fighters and the potential victims in our society:
When you go to war your enemy will enlist people to fight you. You can’t assess progress [...]

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I blogged yesterday about the former concentration camp guard who married a Jewish man, spent a lot of time working for Jewish charities, and never mentioned a word about her past. There was an interesting debate in the comments section about her motives and whether she was acting out of contrition or as a [...]

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Here is one truly amazing story:
Those who knew San Francisco’s Elfriede Rinkel never found it remarkable that the German immigrant would marry a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, or attend synagogue with him, or plan to be buried next to him at a cemetery run by a Chevra Kadisha, a Jewish burial [...]

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We have had sitting around for months a DVD called The Long Way Home. It’s a documentary about the Jewish survivor’s plight in the three years after World War II. I really didn’t want to watch it, because I knew it would upset me — hence, it’s long sojourn on our coffee table. [...]

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