A Film Unfinished....Continues Today

NOTICE: This article I submitted won in the semi-finals of the Pro-Israel blog-off competition.

During Yom Hashoah this year I managed to watch the latest documentary on the Nazis titled "A Film Unfinished", it inspired me to write this article. It is about a 60 minute reel of raw footage that was discovered in an East German archive labeled "Das Ghetto" and which portrays the life of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto of 1942. The film not only shows the life of Jews within the ghetto, but it deliberately intends to show the extreme differences between rich and poor Jews. The differences, however, had all been staged to service the needs of the Nazi propaganda machine.

To quote parts from the documentary trailer: "In 1942, one of the only known films of the Warsaw Ghetto was shot. Scenes of Jewish life were documented. For decades after World War II, this footage was presented as truth. Until 40 years later, when a missing reel was discovered..."

"This is the story of a film that was never completed. A film designed to service propaganda for the third Reich, that empire that knew so well to document its own evil."

"Let the world see what a paradise the Jews lived in."



In short, the documentary exposes the methods in which the Nazis intended to show the general German population and the world how "well" Jews were living in the Ghettos, even though the scenes were staged, and then to show how the Jews that were living "well" did "not care" about the poor, starving or already dead Jews at all... Other staged scenes included leaving dead bodies out in the streets and then having "rich" Jews walk past the bodies and not even budge an eyelid or show any concern, as though Jews do not care that the dead lay in their streets... Next they would show scenes of the "rich" having a proper Jewish burial as opposed to the poor who were just dumped into mass graves one on top of the other, to "show" that Jews do not value the lives of the poor...

It then moves to another level whereby they intended to show the world the "barbaric" rituals of Jews with regards to circumcision, keeping in mind that the Germans of the time and most non-Jews did not circumcise their babies, so seeing this could easily disgust people and lead them to believe that Jews are inhumane, primitive and barbaric in our practices...Furthermore, they showed staged scenes of poor religious men in a Mikve, naked, with "rich" women who were also naked, in an attempt to portray our religious practices as though they involve orgies of some sort, of course men and women do not go into a Mikve at the same time or place and there is no such religious practice that involves orgies of any sort...

Once the Nazis had convinced the general German population that the Jews were living "well" in the ghettos, this would ease the minds of the Germans to not ask any further questions, moreover once they convinced the Germans that Jews were "inhumane and barbaric", this would be a reason for them to exterminate the Jews and therefore have the support of the country to do so...

(I urge you all to watch this documentary!)

Now let's fast forward to current times.

Here are some short examples of the continued use of anti-Semitic propaganda, I say short because I could literally write a thesis with the full amount of propaganda that is currently out there...

Pallywood & The Paparazzi

The use of visual propaganda rose up again with the invention of "Pallywood" and other forms of visual propaganda which I will go into in a moment...

Pallywood is a coinage used to describe alleged cases of "media manipulation, distortion and outright fraud by the Palestinians and other Arabs ... designed to win the public relations war against Israel." It was publicized by Richard Landes who produced a documentary titled "Pallywood: According to Palestinian Sources"...

The documentary exposes the staged scenes which the Palestinians were setting up with the intention of misleading the media and the world into believing that a situation was far worse than it actually was and/or also staging violent situations that were entirely made up and acted from beginning till end... All "media" coverage was done by freelance photographers and cameramen not official news sources...

Examples of this included the "Muhammad al-Durrah incident" where a staged scene was set to make as though the IDF had deliberately fired upon and killed Jamal al-Durrah and his 12 year old son Muhammad al-Durrah... This was filmed by a France 2 freelance cameraman but France 2 deliberately left out a very important part of the video which was discovered and debunked by "The 2nd Draft" in this video... The part that was left out was at a point where the boy was supposedly already dead yet he quickly peeks to see what he needs to do next...

The articles went viral about this incident all around the world, BBC reported "Boy becomes Palestinian martyr", The Guardian reported "Making of a martyr", the list goes on yet even after the multitude of evidence provided including that of C.A.M.E.R.A.'s investigations, there are still media centers and blogs recalling the incident as an act of the "evil Zionist regime" to this day... Youtube is infested with the original edited and unanalyzed version of the video and pictures, with titles such as "The cold blooded murder of 12-year old Mohamed Al-Durrah" and "The murder of 12-year old Mohamed Al-Durrah that shook the world", Facebook too is overwhelmed with tribute pages and remembrance pages on this incident and while this incident has already been debunked and hopefully laid to rest it is still and I quote "Israel's greatest PR failure" because no matter whether the IDF was involved in this or not, the damage is done!

This well executed (no pun intended) plan made Israel look bad just as much as Nazi Germany was fated to be successful, and even if the intention was later discovered to be fake, false or misdirected, the initial image always sticks in peoples’ minds especially one of disgust… and no matter how much proof we can later offer that debunks the incident, it will never convince people who have already been convinced enough by seeing the first video…. anything else becomes a conspiracy theory or a cover-up to them…

This one incident became an icon of hatred towards Israel, all the Muslim countries had postage stamps honoring al-Durrah, Daniel Pearl was killed to avenge his "death", Osama Bin Laden used the incident to incite before 9/11 and streets, squares & academies have been named after him... Al-Durrah was even referred to as "a tiny sleeping Jesus" - [Al-Quds, May 25, 2001] - He became a poster child for the Intifada...

Pallywood strikes again and again...

"Jesus was Palestinian", "the Palestinians are Jesus"

Palestinians have gone as far as claiming that Jesus & Moses were Muslim Palestinians and that Abraham was the first Muslim Palestinian, the use of self-propaganda became a powerful influence on the people to justify their own existence, history and heritage and in turn to make Jews look bad once again for supposedly "killing Jesus their Messiah" as well as making the claim that we are all "fake Jews" except for the "Hebrews or Israelites"...

Attempts to fabricate their own history to convince people that they are descendants of "Jesus the Palestinian" have gone as far as calling Jesus "the first Palestinian Shahid – Martyr for Allah," [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, January 17, 2005]... Now whether Jesus was technically called a Palestinian or not, because this area was known as Palestine, the fact is that they are rewriting their own history as a direct connection to the Jewish Jesus which is of course impossible... Palestine was only named Palestine 136 years after Jesus' death as part of Rome's plan to cut the Jews' ties to their Land of Israel... Palestine was made up of Palestinian Jews, Muslims and Christians. Palestinian is not a culture, religion or race of people, at least not the same as the Palestinians that we know of today...

Quotes such as the following are drummed into the minds of the Palestinians:

• "We must not forget that (Jesus) Messiah, may peace be upon him, is Palestinian, the son of Mary the Palestinian, who is sanctified by hundreds of millions of believers in this world." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, November 18, 2005]
• "It was quite natural that the Palestinians rose to save their sanctuaries [in Nazareth] without anyone thinking there is a difference between a Christian and a Muslim… since in the Palestinian situation, the lord Messiah [Jesus] and his mother [Mary] are both Galileans and Palestinians …"[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 9, 2006]
• "The Palestinian Galilee village of Kfar Kana takes pride in the fact that in [the village] the Palestinian Messiah succeeded to turn water into wine." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, December 14, 2004]
• "…And a child from the De’haisha refugeecamp will shout: "Yes, we have won, just as the prophets and [Jesus’] Apostles won," and the shahids will cry, ‘We shook the palm trees alongside Lady Earth and the lady of the people, the Virgin Mary, and with her son the first Palestinian Shahid." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, January 17, 2005]
• Artist: "Our struggle today against the other side is an eternal one. It can be said that it started 2,000 years ago and continues until today. I demonstrate this through the figure of Jesus… The Israeli soldiers are wearing army uniforms while Jesus has nothing except for the truth. When they searched him at the entrance of Jerusalem, they found a stone, a piece of bread and fish and he was cuffed. This is the Palestinian from the beginning of the struggle until the end." [PA TV, July 21, 2000]

The mere belief that these people are of a heritage and descent that they are not, becomes a major problem when they have convinced the rest of the world, who actually believes them, that everything they say is true because they believe it with such conviction... This then reassures the Pro-Palestinian mob that "Palestinians" definitely have ancestral rights to this land and possibly others, dating back to the times of Abraham, Moses and Jesus... this fuels the support for the Palestinians "struggle" to get "their" land back...

The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion

"The Protocols of the Elders of Ziyon is a fabricated document; its content is demonstrably fictional in its entirety. It was originally produced in Russia between 1897 and 1903, possibly by Pyotr Ivanovich Rachkovsky, head of the Paris office of the Russian Secret Police, and unknown others. It is a fraudulent, anti-Semitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan for achieving global domination."

This famous piece of propaganda was used continuously to demonize the Jews and is still in use today, the so called protocols have even been published online by many anti-Semitic websites such as JewWatch.com and BibleBelievers.org.au...

Youtube has its fair share of propaganda videos "exposing the truth" about Jews by using the Protocols as a tool to convince people of the Jewish and Zionist "conspiracies" such as world domination, mass media control, control of the banking systems and more... Facebook is no different... It is sadly amusing what these people come up with... So far only a few have put in the effort to debunk this hoax...

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum stated the following: "In 1921, the London Times presented conclusive proof that the Protocols were a "clumsy plagiarism." The Times confirmed that the Protocols had been copied in large part from a French political satire that never mentioned Jews -- Maurice Joly's Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu (1864). Other investigations revealed that one chapter of a Prussian novel, Hermann Goedsche's Biarritz (1868), also "inspired" the Protocols."

Here is a list of some of the times this book has been used for propaganda purposes:

• 1920: The Protocols were published in Poland, France, England, and the United States. These editions blame the Russian Revolution on Jewish conspirators and warn of Bolshevism spreading to the West.
• 1920: Automaker Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent published The International Jew, an Americanized version of the Protocols to which he later apologized for doing so. It is available online to read.
• 1933: Adolf Hitler made "good" use of it, he published 23 editions of it before World War II began.
• 1935: A Swiss court fined two Nazi leaders for circulating a German-language edition of the Protocols in Berne, Switzerland.
• 1938: "Radio priest" Father Charles E. Coughlin serialized the Protocols in his newspaper, Social Justice.
• 1960: The Protocols were featured in an article published by Salah Dasuqi, military governor of Cairo, in "al-Majallaaa", the official cultural journal.
• 1974: The Protocols were published in India under the title "International Conspiracy Against Indians".
• 1974: Idi Amin, the President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979, cited the book as evidence of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world, and as justification for his self-proclaimed plans to destroy Israel. He reveals this in an interview during the documentary "Idi Amin Dada".
• 1985: An English-language edition of Protocols was published by the Islamic Propagation Organization and issued in Iran.
• 1997: The Protocols become a best-seller in Syria, it was exhibited and sold at the Damascus International Book Fair. It was then reprinted in 2004 and 2005.
• 1999: It's been made available on Amazon to purchase since 1999.
• 2002: Egyptian satellite television broadcasts a 41-part miniseries "Horseman Without a Horse", which is based largely on the Protocols.
• 2003: A 30-part television miniseries called "Al Shatat (The Diaspora)", produced in Syria, was broadcasted on Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV. The series depicts a “global Jewish government,” as described in the Protocols.
• 2003: An exhibition of holy books of monotheistic religions at the Alexandria Library in Egypt includes a copy of the Protocols next to the Torah. UNESCO issues a public denunciation of the Alexandria Library exhibition.
• 2004: The Protocols are published in Okinawa, Japan.
• 2005: "Al Shatat (The Diaspora)" airs in Jordan during the festival of Ramadan.
• 2005: A Spanish-language edition of the Protocols, published in Mexico City, says that whether or not the Protocols are authentic, history shows that Zionists intend to dominate the world.
• 2005: An edition of the Protocols was authorized by the Syrian Ministry of Information, claims that the Elders of Zion coordinated the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
• 2006: Saudi Arabian schoolbooks contain explicit summaries of the Protocols as factual.
• 2008: Hamas Libel: Protocols of the Elders of Zion - Jews Planned The Holocaust.
• 2011: The Charter of Hamas explicitly refers to the Protocols, accepting them as factual and makes several references to Freemasons as one of the "secret societies" controlled by "Zionists".
• 2011: It's also available online to read.

The list goes on and will continue to go on as a powerful propaganda tool against Jews, Israel and Zionists!

Israeli "Apartheid"

Since the term "Israeli Apartheid" was invented, vast amounts of anti-Israel campaigns increased in numbers with intent to directly compare the real South African Apartheid regime to the current Israeli regime... It was in fact stated back in 2004 by UN agent John Dugard that the Israeli "Apartheid regime in territories is worse than in South Africa"....

"In a 2007 report, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine John Dugard stated that 'elements of the Israeli occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law' and suggested that the 'legal consequences of a prolonged occupation with features of colonialism and apartheid' be put to the International Court of Justice. South Africa's statutory research agency the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) stated in a 2009 report that 'the State of Israel exercises control in the [Occupied Palestinian Territories] with the purpose of maintaining a system of domination by Jews over Palestinians and that this system constitutes a breach of the prohibition of apartheid.' In 2010 United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestine Richard A. Falk reported that criminal apartheid features of the Israeli occupation had been entrenched in the three years since the report of his predecessor, John Dugard." (source)

The so-called "Israeli Apartheid" libel has spawned campaigns such as:

• The "Israeli Apartheid Week" which was started in 2005 and still continues today.
• The "Boycott Israeli Apartheid Campaign" that was formed in 2007 and still continues today.
• The "Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid" formed in 2006 and still continues today.
• The "Campaign To End Israeli Apartheid - Southern California" formed in 2007 and still continues today.
• "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" which I am not sure when or why it was formed as homosexuality is a complete no-no in Gaza and the West Bank territories anyway.
• The "Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign", otherwise known as "Stop The Wall", was founded in 2002 and yes it still continues today.

Once again the list goes on a mile long... Prominent Palestinians, Jewish anti-Zionists, South Africans, Americans and Europeans have been at the forefront of these campaigns. 

In 2010 "Over 200 concerned Israelis, many of them of South African origin, attended a panel on 'Combating Israel’s Delegitimization: Debunking the Apartheid Myth'" - Many others have put in the efforts to debunk this myth, people such as Dr. Mitchell Bard and David Horowitz who has been at the forefront of campaigning against the "Israeli Apartheid" libel and also an Israeli Arab woman and man decided to speak out against this myth...

Yet no matter how many of us attempt to debunk this myth, the damage is already done... The usual suspects, Youtube and Facebook, are of course overwhelmed with propaganda footage and campaigns of how Israel is supposedly an Apartheid regime, even Enrique Iglesias agrees...

This has become the "latest and greatest" tactic to use in the fight to delegitimize Israel by demonizing Jews who support Israel, Zionists, Israelis and well truthfully any Jews in general too but many will argue that they "love" Jews but hate Israelis or Zionists, which is true for some, but many who are actually anti-Semitic, hide behind the "political correctness" of being anti-Zionist rather than anti-Semitic...

Illogical arguments in support of Israel being an Apartheid state usually go something like "Jews are against Israel's occupation and against Israeli Apartheid"- this to them translates into meaning that because some Jews are against Israel and do believe that Israel is an Apartheid regime that therefore the majority of Jews and Israelis MUST be wrong... Many a time I have seen this line used and it holds no weight when it is analyzed properly, it is a meaningless argument like saying "some Americans hate America because of the Iraq War therefore America is wrong and should be put on trial"- As absurd as this sounds, people use these as arguments all the time in defense of their belief that "Israel is evil"... This is a direct result of the "Israeli Apartheid" propaganda that is out there...

I used to live in Apartheid South Africa, I grew up there and witnessed many incidents of real Apartheid on a daily basis. I now live in Israel for many years and I can assure you that there is no Israeli Apartheid, there never has been and never will be! During the Apartheid we, as Jews, were not allowed to go to certain places such as country clubs where they had signs stating "No Blacks, No Dogs, No Jews", you will never see a sign in Israel preventing an Arab whether Muslim or Christian from entering, not even at the Western Wall (Kotel). Perhaps I am hallucinating when I go to the shopping mall and see well dressed happy Arabs in the same shopping malls that I go to or when I visit the Tel Aviv University and see many Arab students & professors walking around the campus without being hassled by anyone... Yet people will then argue that it is the Palestinians who are suffering from the "Apartheid" due to the wall but this too makes no logical sense because Palestinians are not a part of Israel AT ALL, they have their own governing body, laws, rules and regulations to follow that have nothing to do with Israel in the least... they are no different to Jordanians or Egyptians in that they are not a part of Israel so therefore have to pass through border control points anyway if they wish to enter & exit Israel, what is the difference? Every border has a fence, this particular one has a wall, where is the difference besides cosmetically? Even Egypt has a wall on the border of Gaza but that is "apparently" acceptable...

All of this propaganda sparked off the "Boycott Israel Campaigns"

"The Satanic Talmud & The Synagogue Of Satan & The Zionist Illuminati"

Another new, or maybe not so new, form of anti-Semitic propaganda is the comparison between the Talmud, Kaballah and Satanism / Devil Worship as well as a continued belief (Protocols) that the Jews are actually the Illuminati who hide behind the world and seek to control it or who have been controlling it for thousands of years like puppet masters... It has gone viral!

While no one is really sure who first came up with this preposterous idea that Jews are Satanic or members of the so called Illuminati, but the conspiracy theorists out there have really got the hang of this one and have managed to "convert" many an ignorant person into believing this total nonsense....

An example of one such person is "Brother Nathanael" who is an Orthodox Christian street evangelist that warns people of the dangers of the Jews being in control of the world... He started the "Brother Nathanael Foundation" and also runs the notorious "Real Zionist News" blog and interestingly enough was supposedly born a Jew but converted to Christianity to escape from the "evil claws" of Judaism... His Youtube videos, of which he has many, show him explaining why he left Judaism and how to break the Zionist power... His followers have been led to believe that all Jews, except ones that convert to Christianity, are evil Satan worshipers and must be stopped... As candid as he looks, speaks and acts is as dangerous as this man actually is...

Our next person who took a stab at convincing people that Jews are Satanic is "Andrew Carrington Hitchcock" who is the author of "The Synagogue Of Satan" and who has also managed to have his book published and made available for sale on Amazon...

I won't go too much into these 2 deranged people but I will say that they have both influenced the minds of ignorant people in many ways... For one Texe Marrs, the author, was inspired by Andrew Carrington's Synagogue of Satan as well as Youtube, once again, is full of "proof" that "Jews are evil Satan worshippers"...

These 2 people have opened the door to many Christian fundamentalists who believe that the Jews killed Jesus as well as white supremists, to enhance their belief that Jews are, yes I said it again "evil Satan worshipers"... I cannot begin to tell you how many arguments I have had with these people online to try get them to see the ridiculousness of this belief of us being what they claim we are...

I need not go into detail on the claims of Jews being "The Secret Covenant of the Jewish Secret Society Known As the Order of the Illuminati", there is just way too much out there on this topic as well...

I am sure you get the point of all of this by now but I did feel the need to go into as much detail as I did above so that the people out there who may not be aware of all of these things, as much as I am aware, can at least get a taste of the very real "Unfinished and continued" use of anti-Semitic propaganda that the world has to offer on a daily basis, at the click of a mouse and also for entertainment...

All of the above examples are propaganda tricks and fabrications of the truth that are used only to re-assure people’s anti-Semitic approach or to convince "new recruits" in the same way that the Nazis used false films and other methods to convince their own people that killing the Jews was the right solution... Today it is no different, whether it means killing the Jews or destroying Israel, there is no difference whatsoever... Israel is a Jewish homeland, always was and always will be and the need that these people have to destroy Israel is directly connected to the reality that Israel is Jewish, no other reason whatsoever can excuse the need for all of the above, even Yunis al Astal, a member of the Palestinian Authority parliament agrees...

The film unfinished continues today....

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(BLOG) Iran's Involvement In A Nazi Website

"Is Iran’s government sponsoring an Internet site that extols the German Nazis, their history and achievements, including the antisemitism that the current Iranian regime also supports? Or is it merely permitting one to operate in its highly censored communications' system?

Here are the facts. There is a discussion group site entitled IranNazi that has an Iranian internet URL. It is written in Persian and seems to have begun on August 24. All the material on the site is pro-Nazi and features pictures of Adolph Hitler, the swastika, and goose-stepping German soldiers. There is an English-language part as well.

This site pretends to be an association for the research of Nazism and to be 'completely historical and scientific.'"

(NEWS) Holocaust-Denying Bishop Threatened With Expulsion

"Bishop Richard Williamson hired a lawyer linked to neo-Nazis, claimed Jews were not gassed during World War II.

A Catholic bishop who denied the Holocaust is facing expulsion from his traditionalist order for hiring a lawyer linked to the neo-Nazi movement.

The Society of St. Pius X said it ordered Bishop Richard Williamson to fire the lawyer, who was to represent him in an appeal next week of a German incitement conviction for saying in a TV interview that he didn't believe Jews were gassed during World War II."





Related Article:

• Holocaust-Denying Bishop Hires Neo-Nazi Lawyer Ahead Of Germany Trial

(NEWS) Third Most-Wanted Nazi Suspect Dies Before Trial

"It's 'incredibly frustrating' that Samuel Kunz died before trial, says Wiesenthal Center's Efraim Zuroff.

A court in Germany says the world's third most-wanted Nazi suspect has died before he could be brought to trial.

Bonn's state court said in a statement Monday that 89-year-old Samuel Kunz died November 18."

(NEWS) In The Name Of The Mother: Ashes Go To Treblinka Holocaust Camp

"It was Lucy Werber's final wish: To have her ashes taken to Poland and sprinkled at the death camp that killed her family.

Alex Werber calmly strode toward a patch of black stones, pulled up his sleeves and opened a plastic bag to dump out its contents.

'Goodbye, mom,' he said, scattering her ashes at the former site of the Treblinka death camp in Poland, where the Nazis murdered 875,000 Jews during World War II."

(NEWS) From Church To Anarchy To Neo-Nazism To Yeshivah

"A young man's fascinating journey from attending Church to anarchism then on to neo-Nazism and finally to Yeshivas Tiferes Menachem of Segate.

Recently Rabbi Shmuel Reich of the Chabad Jewish Enrichment Center of Clearwater FL provided a 'Hatafas Dam Bris' for a Jew whose mother converted to Christianity before he was born, and arranged for him to go study in Yeshivah in Seagate for 3 months.

This is an amazing story and it goes like this: Aryeh Yehudah Jacobs was born and raised in Clearwater FL, and he is related to one of the wealthiest Jewish families in the Tampa Bay area which built many thousands of homes in the area. However, the Tampa Bay area also happens to be the worst area of assimilation in America, particularly Clearwater. (Martin Grossman grew up in Clearwater.) His mother`s family was a normal Jewish family which only went to the reform Temple once a year. When they grew up, her sister was looking for religion and she ended up converting to Christianity, then she convinced her sister – Aryeh Yehuda`s mother – to do the same.

Aryeh Yehudah was born after his mother converted, his father isn't Jewish. His mother would take him regularly to a church led by none other than a 'Pastor Nuessbaum' – go figure, and he always subconsciously rebelled against it. Through this rebelliousness against Christianity he got involved with anarchist, death metal, and neo-Nazi groups which eventually led him to prison. In prison he discovered that he is Jewish through another prisoner who told him 'if your mother was born Jewish than you are absolutely Jewish', and that’s what really got him interested in learning more about Judaism. Through Rabbi Mendy Katz of 'Aleph', and Rabbi Shmuel Spritzer of 'Reaching out', he received Jewish material while in prison, as well as Rabbi Yossi Eber of Chabad of West Pasco who helped him out upon his release.

Recently he came back home to Clearwater where Bhashgacha Pratis he met Rabbi Reich, who – as mentioned above - provided him with a 'Hatafas Dam Bris' whereupon he received his Hebrew name 'Aryeh Yehudah', and soon after he arranged for him to study for 3 months in yeshivah 'Tiferes Menachem' of Segate. Aryeh Yehudah wants to live his life as a good Jew. He also wants to visit Israel, and grow in Yidishkeit one day at a time!" (source)

(BLOG) Holocaust - ‘Let The Jewish People Know We Fought’

"Most Israelis are ignorant of the fact that 1.5 million Jews fought Hitler and Nazism during World War II.

Red Army veteran Shalom Scopas defies his 85 years as he dashes about the mini-museum of World War II memorabilia he has created in the basement of his Holon home. His bright blue eyes sparking with pride, he points out rows of medals, sepia snapshots of himself as a dashing young man in his smart Soviet uniform, and letters of gratitude from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and former president Vladimir Putin.

Scopas is one of half a million Soviet Jews who joined the Red Army to fight against the Nazis. Forty percent of these Jewish recruits died in battle, the highest percentage of all the USSR’s ethnic groups.



Soviet Jews were not the only ones to join the fight against the Nazis. One and a half million Jews from all over the world fought in World War II, including 150,000 women. A quarter million of these Jewish fighters fell in battle.

'Yet most Israelis, especially young people, don’t know that so many Jews stood up and fought Hitler and Nazism,' says Scopas. 'It’s very sad.'

Scopas was born in 1925 in Panevezys, one of the largest centers of Jewish life in Lithuania. The Baltic state was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940 and a year later by the Nazis.

As the German forces approached Panevezys in June 1941, panic gripped the town. Scopas’s mother told him to flee to Russia with his older brother, Hillel.

The 16-year-old managed to hitch a ride out of Panevezys on a Red Army truck, but Hillel didn’t make it.

It was the last time Scopas was to see his family. Four days later, the Nazis entered Panevezys. Lithuanian Nazi collaborators murdered Rochel Leah and sons Hillel, Shimon and Avraham on August 28, 1941.

By 1943, Panevezys’s Jewish community had been obliterated. Scopas reached Russia and in 1942 joined the Red Army.

'I was Jewish. I wanted to fight the Nazis,' he says, switching from Hebrew to Russian as his memories take him back in time. Scopas was assigned to the razvedchiki, specially trained troops who went behind enemy lines to capture what the Russians dubbed yazyki ('tongues') – German soldiers who were pumped for information about enemy plans.

'We were sent out on undercover missions,' Scopas relates. 'One day we went to bring back ‘tongues’ from a German military hospital in the forest. We captured several Germans. One of the captive officers lit a cigarette.

I said in Yiddish: ‘Put it out, the smoke will give away our position. He refused... I killed him on the spot.

'I had to. I still have nightmares. It was terrible. War is awful, a terrible thing.'

On January 12, 1945, Scopas went behind enemy lines for what would be his last retrieval mission.

'When we went out, I carried a medal, ‘For Courage’, in my breast pocket. We attacked a line of Nazis in the forest. In the fighting, we lost three comrades. Then the enemy lobbed a grenade at me from close range. I woke up days later in hospital covered in wounds. The doctor said if it hadn’t been for that medal over my heart, I’d have been a goner for sure.

'A piece of the medal was missing where shrapnel hit it! It saved my life.'

The Red Army’s Jewish soldiers knew nothing about the death camps until the end of the war. 'When we found out, it was terrible. We were in shock. Horrified. We wept and wept,' Scopas remembers.

Scopas made aliya in 1959, fleeing rampant anti- Semitism in the USSR. Despite his many decorations and the honor he has received in Russia and Israel for his wartime bravery, the traumas of war have not left him.

'I am disabled. I still feel trauma, sometimes depression,' he admits. 'War is cruel and terrible.'

Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Zvi Kan-Tor, who over the past decade has pushed forward plans for a dedicated museum to commemorate Jewish fighters like Scopas, describes the extent of the global Jewish contribution to the war as 'enormous.' Jews fought in the ranks of the Allied Forces, in underground movements, as partisans and in the ghettos themselves, in every single battle in Europe, North Africa and the Far East, on land, air and sea.

'THE BIGGEST army that fought against the Nazis was the Jews. No other nation on earth provided so many soldiers,' explains Kan-Tor. Yet the fact that so many Jewish soldiers enlisted to fight against Nazism, or fought as partisans has thus far been overlooked in Israeli and Jewish history.

'In Israel people are not aware of the extent of Jewish heroism in World War II,' stresses Kan-Tor. 'It’s a historical injustice.'

To shed light on this neglected chapter of Jewish history, Kan-Tor and a team of other World War II experts and veterans have revealed plans for a museum dedicated to the subject, The Museum of the Jewish Soldier in World War II.

Why is this museum being created only now, 62 years after the State of Israel was founded? 'There is a deficit in our education,' believes Kan-Tor.

'In the first years of the State of Israel, the country faced tremendous difficulties. The trauma of World War II, then the War of Independence, financial troubles, international pressures. Huge waves of aliya brought Jews from all over the world. At the same time, Israel needed to build a new nation, a new country.'

To do this, Israel needed Israeli heroes, says Kan-Tor.

'We grew up on our own heroes, from the Lehi, the Hagana and the Irgun Zva’i Leumi. It’s painful to say it, but those from poor, old broken Europe were not heroes then,' he continues sadly. 'At that time, even Shoah survivors were not heroes.' This sounds unthinkable to contemporary Israeli ears.

But the young Jewish state was determined to build a strong national identity that would enable it to rise from the ashes of World War II – and fight its own wars.

As the years passed, Israeli Jews were forced to come to terms with the enormity of the Shoah.

'In 1961 came a watershed: the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Everyone heard what happened in that trial, and suddenly, people started to talk,' says Kan-Tor. 'We realized, we understood that Shoah survivors had so much to tell us.'

In 1953, Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, was established by government decree. In the 1960s, a permanent museum to honor and remember the six million who perished was created in Jerusalem.

With the 1980s came another turning point: the fall of the Iron Curtain opened up Eastern Europe to outside visitors.

'Now we could visit Poland,' says Kan-Tor. 'We saw the camps. We knew those who we thought victims were really heroes.'

THE DISINTEGRATION of the USSR in 1989 opened the gates for hundreds of thousands of Jews from former Soviet countries to make aliya. Now Israelis saw another side to the events of World War II.

'We saw Russian olim wearing medals,' remembers Kan-Tor. 'They brought with them new customs like Veterans’ Days. We heard Russians talking about the Great Patriotic War. Here were Jews who fought against the Nazis.'

The Jewish soldiers had a unique role in the war, says Dr. Tamar Ketko, a World War II expert and curator of the new museum. 'They had a double identity. They were recruited as Soviet, American or British soldiers but they also fought as Jews.'

As more became known about the extent of the Jewish contribution in World War II, ideas started to germinate about commemorating the Jewish fighters. Like all ideas, it started out small – a single room at the Armored Corps Memorial in Latrun.

To properly commemorate the incredible history of Jewish heroism in World War II, a 2,000-square-meter site has been earmarked for a dedicated museum at the Armored Corps Memorial.

Led by Kan-Tor, the museum project is supported by Dr. Tamar Ketko, architects Zalman Enav and Haim Dotan, and museum designers from the Orpan Group.

Separate wings are planned for each of the armies in which Jews fought, plus the partisans and ghetto fighters.

Through maps, movies, photos, displays of uniforms and medals, and most importantly via the personal stories of individual fighters, Kan-Tor hopes visitors will be able to glimpse the amazing courage of the one and a half million Jews who helped defeat Nazism.



Kan-Tor says the Museum of the Jewish Soldier in World War II has received government backing.

Ariel Sharon’s government initially agreed to the museum in 2002. More recently, the cause has been championed by Avigdor Lieberman, chairman of Israel Beiteinu and now foreign minister, who insisted on funding for the museum being a condition of the coalition agreement he signed with former prime minister Ehud Olmert in 2006.

However, while the government has agreed to provide up to $16 million in matched funds, it has still to issue a building permit to construct the museum at Latrun, Kan-Tor says. The delay is because the land earmarked for the museum is on the border of Judea and Samaria, disputed West Bank territory. The building permit is being coordinated via the Ministry of Defense Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) and the Israeli Civil Administration, the governing body operating in Judea and Samaria.

'The Armored Corps Memorial is currently in the process of regulating the contracts required to build the museum in conjunction with the Israeli Civil Administration,' said a COGAT spokesperson in a statement in response to a query by Metro.

'Upon completion of the contractual agreement, the conditions for issuing building permits will be negotiated in accordance with the criteria established by the Israeli Civil Administration’s planning office.'

REGARDLESS OF this delay, the museum has received widespread support from Jewish World War II veterans in Israel. Among those championing it is Dr. Yitzhak Arad, the former director-general of Yad Vashem and an internationally renowned World War II historian.

A teenager during the war, Arad joined the fight against the Nazis as a partisan in the forests of Lithuania.

Born Yitzhak Rudnicki on November 11, 1926, in Swieciany, Lithuania, Arad moved to Warsaw as a child with his family. The Rudnickis were ardent Zionists.

When World War II broke out in 1939, Arad was just 13.

'I celebrated my bar mitzva under German occupation,' he remembers. 'In December 1939, my 15-yearold sister Rachel and I returned to Swieciany. Our parents did not make it. They were both killed.'

Swieciany’s 3,000 Jews comprised just over half the town’s population. During 1940, Lithuania’s Jewish population swelled to 250,000 as refugees fled Nazioccupied Poland. But the Baltic country was not the safe haven many hoped to find. In June 1941, Nazi forces occupied Lithuania and the mass murder of Jews began.

'At the end of September 1941, the Nazis rounded up Jews and forced them into a remote military barracks,' relates Arad.

The night before, continues Arad, he and a small group of Jewish teens – including his sister Rachel – escaped to Belarus. That decision saved their lives. On October 9, 1941, a total of 3,726 Jews – 1,169 men, 1,840 women, and 717 children – were murdered in the Poligon barracks near Swieciany. With shocking coldness, these numbers are precisely recorded in an official Nazi document.

'If I hadn’t escaped, that list would have read 1,170 men,' adds Arad.

Refuge in Belarus was short-lived; when the Nazis started killing Jews there too, Arad returned to Swieciany and lived in the ghetto.

'I and around 10 others were rounded up and taken out of the ghetto,' says Arad. 'I thought we were going to be shot because we didn’t have [ghetto] registration papers, but they took us to a weapons store. They made us clean the weapons.

'When the German officer showing us round went outside to smoke, I shoved a rifle down my sweater. I’d had an idea of creating a partisan group and freeing the Jews. I had to work all day with that gun – I didn’t know if I would be searched and caught. But when they took us back to the ghetto that night, I managed to get through without being detected.'

The boys’ daring theft of weapons from under the noses of the Nazis continued.

'We stole many weapons,' says Arad with pride. 'In 1943, we escaped from the ghetto to the forest. We were 22 boys and three or four girls.' Arad’s teenage sister Rachel also became a partisan fighter.

Partisan life in the forest was harsh. 'The partisans could not have survived without the help of the local people,' Arad acknowledges. 'To live, we had to take food from local villages. It was very tough. This was a war of life and death, of our survival or theirs. We eventually met up with some Soviet partisans. They weren’t Jewish, but we joined with them.'

Arad, nicknamed 'Tolka' by his fellow partisans, carried out daring resistance activities from their forest hideout.

'The Germans were building a railway to reach Leningrad. We put explosives on the line to blow it up. We worked in winter when it was terribly cold. I myself blew up 16 Nazi echelons,' describes Arad.

'In the summer of 1944, we met up with troops from the Red Army and I fought with them until the end of the war.'

When the war ended, Arad decided there was only one place for him to go.

'All my life I wanted to go to Israel,' he says. 'At the end of the war, I escaped and went to Poland. From there, via the Bricha [illegal Jewish immigrant movement] I reached Bratislava, then Austria and Italy. I arrived in Israel on the small boat Hanna Szenes on Christmas night, 1945. I immediately joined the Palmah against the British and fought in the War of Independence.'

Arad’s career in the IDF was stratospheric. He reached the rank of brigadier-general, and was appointed chief education officer. In 1972, he retired from the army, but his working life and contribution to the Jewish people were far from over.

'I became director-general of Yad Vashem in 1972 because I felt an obligation to dedicate the second half of my life to those murdered in the Shoah,' he says.

Since his retirement from Yad Vashem, Arad has concentrated on his academic career and published widely on the Shoah and World War II. His 2009 book The Holocaust in the Soviet Union, won the National Jewish Book Award. His latest tome, Under the Shadow of the Red Banner, is a history of the half-million Soviet Jews who fought in the Red Army.

Arad stresses the importance of the Museum of the Jewish Soldier in commemorating and teaching about the Jewish people’s role in defeating Nazism.

'When we talk about the Shoah, there has been an emphasis on the six million victims,' he explains. 'I feel it is very important to teach children that the Jewish people also have a share in the victory against Nazism.'

Although it has yet to receive a government permit to build at Latrun, the association has launched a campaign to raise funds for the museum.

According to Alan Gold, who is leading fund-raising efforts on behalf of the association, the campaign’s goal is the $16 million required to construct the museum.

A fund-raising and PR expert originally from the UK, Gold is concentrating initial fund-raising and awareness- raising efforts in English-speaking countries and among Israel’s Anglo community.

'I believe people will want to donate to a museum commemorating the 1.5 million Jews who fought against Nazism,' says Gold.

'Also, we are appealing for people to give testimonies about family members and friends who fought in the war.'

The museum is not for Israel alone, adds Gold. 'It’s about the unity of the Jewish people,' he believes.

At home in Holon, Shalom Scopas has created a memorial for his beloved mother Rochel Leah and three brothers murdered in the Shoah. On this warm October morning, sunlight floods through the window, illuminating a photograph of this beautiful Jewish woman and devoted mother.

'I live with them here. Every day,' says Scopas quietly.

'And now I’m giving my story [to the museum] so that generations to come will know the Jewish people stood up and fought the Nazis.'

To find out more about how you can help with fund-raising for the Museum of the Jewish Soldier in World War II, contact Alan Gold at +972-8-922-4764 or at veteran@jwmww2.com If you, a relative or friend fought against Nazism in World War II, please visit www.jwmww2.org and enter the details on the museum’s database." (source)

(NEWS) Holocaust-Denying Bishop Hires Neo-Nazi Lawyer Ahead Of Germany Trial

"Richard Williamson, planned to stand trial over questioning the scope of the Holocaust, hires member of far-right NPD part after previous lawyer pulled out the case.

British Bishop Richard Williamson has appointed a radical right-wing lawyer to defend him in a German trial over his denial of scope of the Holocaust, Spiegel news magazine reported Saturday.

The lawyer, Wolfram Nahrath, is a member of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), the magazine wrote. He also led the Viking Youth, a neo-Nazi organization modeled on the Hitler Youth, until it was banned in 1994."





Related Article:

• Holocaust-denying bishop threatened with expulsion

(NEWS) Swastikas Sprayed On Kindergarten Walls In Kfar Saba

"Local residents alert police after also discovering offensive symbol on a number of homes in area; municipality team arrives to remove graffiti.

A number of swastikas were sprayed on the surrounding wall of a kindergarten in Kfar Saba overnight Friday.

Local residents also found swastikas sprayed on a number of buildings in the area and alerted police and the local municipality."

(NEWS) French Rail Co. Apologizes For Collaborating With Nazis

"'SNCF was part of Nazi plan – it carried the trains of deportees to the French border with Germany,' chairman tells Jewish community leaders in US.

The head of state-owned French railway company SNCF made an unprecedented show of regret on Sunday for the company’s responsibility in sending some 76,000 Jews in France to Nazi death camps.

The apology came as part of a bid to assuage American and Jewish community reticence about working with a company that notoriously collaborated with Nazi
occupiers."

(NEWS) Swastikas Drawn On Jewish Youth Center In Chile

"Incidents reported to Santiago police after Nazi symbols found; local Jewish community experiences a number of anti-Semitic acts of late.

Three swastikas were drawn on the walls of a building of the Zionist Jewish youth group Hashomer Hatzair in the Chilean capital of Santiago over the weekend. At the conclusion of a charity activity, about a hundred members of the group exited the building and discovered the graffiti.

The group has lodged a complaint with the Santiago police over the incident. The youth set out to repaint the wall in order to remove the offensive symbols as soon as possible, according to Dario Teitelbaum, Hashomer Hatzair organizer in Latin America."

(NEWS) Jewish Surgeon Walks Out On Nazi Patient

"A Jewish doctor walked out of an operating room in Germany last week after seeing a Nazi tattoo on his patient’s arm.

'I will not operate on your husband,' he told the patient’s wife. 'I am Jewish.' The patient, a 36-year-old man, bore a tattoo of the Reichsadler, the Imperial Eagle, perched on a swastika.

The 46-year-old surgeon had another doctor finish the procedure, according to the daily Bild, which published an article Friday about the incident in the North Rhine-Westphalian city of Paderborn."

(NEWS) CIA Created 'Safe Haven' For Nazis After War, Report Says

"Justice Department document reveals history of US gov't Nazi-hunting operation, level of US complicity and deception, 'New York Times' claims.

American intelligence officials created a 'safe haven' in the US for Nazis after World War II for intelligence gathering purposes, according to a New York Times report published Sunday which cited a 600-page report revealing a secret history of the US government's Nazi-hunting operation.

The document, which the US Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, details decades of clashes with other nations over crimes in the US and abroad."

(NEWS) Austrian Intel Agency Engulfed In Neo-Nazi Scandal

"Verfassungsschutz agent reportedly has close ties to neo-Nazi website; Jewish editor questions country’s ability to combat radical ideologies.

Austria’s domestic intelligence agency, Verfassungsschutz, which is responsible for combating terrorism and neo-Nazi extremism, was plagued by disclosures last week in an APA news report of one of its agents having close ties to the leading neo-Nazi website alpen-donau.info and the Austrian far-right extremist movement.

Rudolf Gollia, a spokesman for Austria’s Interior Ministry, told The Jerusalem Post during a telephone conversation on Friday that intelligence agent Josef Fertschai is continuing to work for the ministry and there is no reason 'to sever ties' with him because his son, Benjamin Fertschai, is active on the 'right-wing nationalist' scene."

(NEWS) Nazi War Criminal Seifert Dead In Italy

"Former SS prison guard known as 'Beast of Bolzano' dies at Italian hospital at age 86.

Michael Seifert, a former Nazi SS prison guard known as 'the beast of Bolzano' for his cruelty, died Saturday in an Italian hospital at age 86, officials said.

The Ukrainian-born Seifert was serving a life sentence at the Santa Maria Capua Vetere prison in southern Italy. He died in the nearby Caserta hospital, according to officials at the hospital and at the prison."

(NEWS) German Officials Arrest 21 In Neo-Nazi Radio Raids

"Police op including 270 officers raids 22 apartments across 10 states; radio station site broadcasting extremist music had 135,000 hits.

German officials say they have arrested 21 people, aged between 20 and 37, suspected of running an Internet radio station broadcasting neo-Nazi, far-right extremist music and views.

Joerg Ziercke, head of Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office, said Wednesday Klobenz prosecutors are investigating the group accused of being behind 'Resistance Radio' on suspicion of forming a criminal organization, incitement, and other charges. It is illegal in Germany to display or promote Nazi symbols or ideologies."

(NEWS) German Nazi Suspect Samuel Kunz 'May Be Tried As Minor'

"An 88-year-old man charged with taking part in the killing of 430,000 Jews at a Nazi death camp may be tried as a minor, officials say.

Samuel Kunz is also charged with personally shooting dead 10 Jews at Belzec in occupied Poland in 1942-43.



The retired civil servant was 20 when he is alleged to have started working as a guard at the camp.

He has confirmed being at Belzec, but denied being involved in any killings, officials say.

Prosecutors brought charges against Mr Kunz at the adolescent chamber of Bonn's regional court earlier this month.

A panel of five judges are currently deciding whether there is enough evidence to proceed with the case, a court official told the BBC.

'The prosecution decided to file the charges with the chamber because at the beginning of the period the accused was an adolescent,' court spokesman Matthias Nordmeyer told the BBC.

Under German law, suspects aged between 18 and 21 can be charged as minors or adults; the maximum sentence adolescent courts can impose is life in prison.

Red Army
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Nazi-hunting organisation, puts Mr Kunz as number three on its most-wanted list.



He had been questioned several times by German investigators, but not charged.

However, his name emerged recently during the trial of another Nazi war crimes suspect, John Demjanjuk.

Prosecutors say both men were born in what became the Soviet Union and became camp guards after being captured by the Germans while serving in the Red Army.

Mr Kunz has already been called as a witness in the trial of 90-year-old Mr Demjanjuk, who was deported to Munich from the US last May.

Mr Demjanjuk is charged with participating in the murder of 27,900 people at the Sobibor death camp. He denies the charges.

Both men allegedly trained at the same SS camp, at Trawniki in Poland.

Mr Kunz gave evidence about that camp during a 1960s trial, but was never indicted himself, said Klaus Hillenbrand, an expert on the Nazi period.

'During the 1960s, prosecutors were not interested in charging low-ranking guards,' said Mr Hillenbrand.

'That changed in the past 10 years when a new generation of prosecutors took over and there is a new way of thinking among them.'" (source)