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MUNICH, Germany (WJC)—A court has sentenced the 90-year-old former German army commander Josef Scheungraber to life in prison for ordering a massacre of Italian civilians in 1944 in which 14 people were killed. As a Wehrmacht lieutenant, Scheungraber had ordered his soldiers to shoot three Italian men and a 74-year-old woman in the street. He ordered another eleven civilians to be herded into a barn that was blown up as punishment for an attack by Italian partisans which killed two German soldiers, the court ruled. In 2006 Scheungraber was convicted of the same crimes by an Italian military court and sentenced in absentia to life in prison, but has served no time.
During the trial, Scheungraber denied the charges. He maintained he had not been in Falzano di Cortona when the killings happened, but was in charge of overseeing reconstruction of a nearby bridge. The only survivor of the incident, Gino Massetti, who was 15 at the time, was the sole eyewitness to give evidence during the trial. He described being rounded up by German troops and herded into the barn before it was blown up. "I heard a scream, and that was it then," he said. "They were all dead."
Ukrainian police seize, destroy Nazi uniform offered for sale
KIEV, Ukraine (WJC) —Police have seized and destroyed an SS uniform being offered for sale in a Ukrainian market, according to police. They identified and arrested the sellers, who openly distributed Nazi uniforms and other paraphernalia. Police seized the uniform at the request of the Jewish Forum of Ukraine, which addressed a letter to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Kiev city authorities several months ago demanding a stop to the open selling of anti-Semitic literature and other items.
Hungary denies neo-Nazi march permit to mark Hess death
BUDAPEST (WJC)—Hungarian police have rejected applications by neo-Nazi groups for permission to march in Budapest on Saturday to commemorate the 22nd anniversary of the death Rudolf Heß, deputy leader of Hitler’s Nazi party.
The Budapest police headquarters told nine applicants that it "prohibits the holding of the event." According to Hungarian law, plans for demonstrations and marches have to be submitted to police for approval three days before they take place.
The decision came after Prime Minister Gordon Bajnai had urged police to block the march and President Laszlo Solyom expressed his indignation over the intent by local and foreign neo-Nazi groups to plan such an event in Hungary. The march, followed by a concert, was being organized by a local neo-Nazi group, the National Socialist Front, and were expected to draw a large number of participants from abroad as well.
Heß was sentenced at the Nuremberg war crimes trials in 1946 to life in jail and died in August 1987 in a Berlin prison. He is revered among neo-Nazis, who regularly hold marches and rallies in Germany on his birthday in April.
Meso-American pictographs
were key to society's memories
HAIFA, Israel (Press Release)—
Stone monuments, oral traditions, pictorial manuscripts and alphabetic texts are intriguing sources that have provided a wealth of material for Dr. Amos Megged's new book, Social Memory in Ancient and Colonial Mesoamerica. This scholarly work examines a most central subject matter in the study of colonial Mesoamerica: indigenous social memory. This region of Southern North America was occupied during the pre-Columbian era by a variety of peoples with common cultural elements. Megged provides monumental insight of the indigenous social memory of these peoples.
Dr. Megged, of the Department of General History at the University of Haifa, based his research on the sources that were produced before and after the Spanish conquest of the early sixteenth century. A notable point that he makes is that the indigenous social memory of the peoples of Mesoamerica has been maintained and retrievable thanks to the writing systems that it developed. However, with the transition from pictorial to alphabetic writing systems during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this social memory has been severely undermined.
The unique social memory that the peoples of Mesoamerica developed is described based on two forms of remembrance, which Megged refers to as "subtext" and "supratext". The subtext in indigenous social memory is the social-collective remembrance that is formed by means of the tie between sacred sites and the rituals that were associated with them. This part of his discussion provides a riveting study of the society's activities relating to water sources, ritual offerings, commemoration of the dead, penitence, boundary marking, and more. The supratext is that part of the Mesoamerican society's memory that defines ethnic and political fragmentation in its rich social history.
Dr. Amos Megged provides a new and bold approach to the topic of indigenous social memory, which is currently a hot topic for researchers in Europe and the Americas studying in various relevant disciplines – history, art history, anthropology, religion, and more.
In Memoriam
Yiddish writer Josef Burg, 97
CHERNIVSTI, Ukraine (WJC)—The well-known Yiddish author Josef Burg has died at 97 in the Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi. Being known before World War I as Czernowitz in German and Yiddish the city was a focal point of Yiddish language and literature. Born in 1912 in the nearby town of Vishnits, Burg lost his entire family in the Holocaust. He survived by fleeing to the Soviet Union. He published his first story in 1934 in the Yiddish newspaper Chernovitser Bleter.
Romanian authorities banned the newspaper in 1938, but Burg revived it as a monthly in 1990. He continued writing and publishing well into his 90s, receiving several awards such as Israel's Segal Prize for Yiddish writing.
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Ayalon says Israel wants direct talks with Syria, not via Turkey
JERUSALEM (WJC)—Israel's deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has said Israel would not resume Turkish-mediated peace talks with Syria, insisting that any new negotiations be direct. In an interview with the news agency 'Reuters' Ayalon said: "We have enormous respect and great appreciation for the Turkish efforts. But they have not succeeded – not because of the Turks. It's because of Syrian intransigence."
Netanyahu's predecessor predecessor Ehud Olmert engaged Damascus through Ankara last year, with all sides reporting some progress. Since the Gaza war in January and the Israeli elections, the talks have been suspended. Ayalon said: "If they [Syria) are really serious on peace, and not just a peace process which may serve them to extricate them from international isolation, if they are really serious, they will come and sit with us."
Ibim Student Village to help absorb immigrant families
By Soni Singer, Director
IBIM STUDENT VILLAGE, Israel (Press Release)—We eagerly await the opening of our new Family Project, which will bring young couples with children to Ibim. This is a first for Ibim, which has traditionally been a venue for the absorption of students and young single adults.
This project entails working closely with our Shaar HaNegev Regional Council partners. Their excellent regional schools will welcome and nurture the immigrant children this coming September.
The entire Ibim staff, as well as our volunteers, are geared up to welcome and assist the 32 families who will be arriving from mid-August to mid-September. I would like to note that the leadership of the United Jewish Federation of San Diego, as well as the joint Ibim – San Diego steering committee were full partners in the project's conception and inception.
During the month of July, we hosted both professional and youth delegations from San Diego. They arrived with the returning Israeli emissary (shaliach) to San Diego, Eyal Dagan. I would like to take this opportunity to wish Eyal and his family a successful return to Israel, as well as best wishes to the outgoing emissary, Shoshi Shebakra. I know she brings to the Federation a wealth of experience and an affection for the longtime Ibim-San Diego relationship.
El Al kvells over airlift of olim from Sao Paulo, Brazil
TEL AVIV (Press Release)– EL AL, Israel’s national airline, recently designated a special nonstop flight from San Paulo, Brazil to carry the largest ever group of South American immigrants (olim) to Israel. The spirit on this momentous flight was emotional and festive. One of the olim expressed gratitude upon disembarking and stated, “Our dream of immigrating to Israel began to come true as soon as we boarded the EL AL plane.”
This special flight was another milestone in the long and proud history of EL AL as the airline continues with its tradition of fulfilling a dream and assisting anyone making Aliyah (immigration to Israel). Since 2002, in partnership with Nefesh B’Nefesh, EL AL has carried more than 20,000 olim from North America to their new home in Israel. Nefesh B’Nefesh is an organization dedicated to revitalizing immigration to Israel.
Some of the more momentous immigration movements in the history of EL AL are Operation Ali Baba which brought 113,000 Jewish people from Iraq in 1950, just two years after the inception of EL AL. During the same time period, Operation Magic Carpet saved the entire Jewish population in Yemen totaling more than 47,000 olim. Other large and historical movements in which EL AL played a significant role have included hundreds of thousands of Soviet immigrants moving to Israel as part of Operation Exodus in the early 1990s as well as Operation Solomon, the secret airlift of almost 15,000 Ethiopians to freedom in Israel.
NEW YORK, N.Y. (Press Release)– Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, State Senator Tom Duane, Assemblymember Richard N. Gottfried, and Councilmember Gale A. Brewer held a press conference on Monday demanding that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulate New York City's airspace – particularly for helicopters – in order to prevent future accidents and relieve congestion.
Following Saturday's tragic accident over the Hudson River, involving the collision of a small aircraft and a site-seeing helicopter, and killing all nine people aboard the two crafts, the elected officials declared that the commercial air industry's efforts to oversee itself have been far from sufficient. It has become clear that much tougher FAA restrictions on New York’s overly congested air corridor are critical in order to protect public safety and quality of life.
“Saturday's terrible crash is a tragic and powerful reminder of what we have known for some time – that New York's airspace is far too congested to be unregulated by the FAA,” said Rep. Nadler. “It is unconscionable that the FAA permits unregulated flights in a crowded airspace in a major metropolitan area. We demand that the FAA stop avoiding its responsibility and hiding behind non-existent legal restrictions. The Hudson River flight corridor must not continue to be the Wild West.”
“’See and avoid’ is the rule in our airspace, but the aircraft involved in Saturday’s tragedy apparently could do neither – and nine people lost their lives as a result,” said Rep. Maloney. “Unregulated, low-flying planes and helicopters do not mix. The FAA must begin regulating helicopter and non-commercial aircraft flights in New York’s airspace immediately to assure the safety of people in the air, on the ground, and in buildings. I thank my good friend and colleague Jerry Nadler for his work on this issue. This is an extraordinary tragedy. My heart goes out to the families of those who lost their lives on Saturday.”
Cyber-Referral
Hillel Mazansky of San Diego found online this moving power point presentation by Guy Shachar on how Berlin presents its Nazi past.
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