Ten thousand refugees from Germany and Austria settled in the greater Los Angeles area between 1933 and 1941. A significant proportion of the newcomers were Jewish writers, composers, artists, actors and film and theater directors. Among them were Salomea Sara Steuermann, an actress, and her husband, Berthold Viertel, a screenwriter. They were Nazi Germany’s gift […]
Klezmer, a Polish film set in Nazi-occupied Poland, exposes viewers to a harsh Darwinian world where life is nasty and brutish. Streamed by Chaiflicks, an online provider of Jewish-themed and Israeli films, Piotr Chrzan’s dark and pessimistic movie unfolds in a forest near Bialystok in the summer of 1942 or 1943. Polish Jews who have escaped […]
Philippe Sands befriended Horst Wachter by chance, but their improbable relationship would be illuminating for both men. Sands, a professor of international law at University College London, met Wachter, the son of Nazi war criminal Otto Wachter, through Niklas Frank, whose father, Hans Frank, had been the governor-general of German-occupied Poland. Otto Wachter, one of […]
Israel and its chief ally, the United States, are squabbling over a variety of contentious issues. Their strategic relationship is being buffeted by disagreements concerning the Iran nuclear agreement, the expansion of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, the planned construction of Israeli neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and Israel’s decision to brand several Palestinian civic […]
The Senate in Romania passed a law recently requiring high schools and vocational schools to teach a course on the Holocaust and the Jewish people. Due to be introduced in 2023, its contents will be fleshed out by the Ministry of Education in consultation with the Elie Wiesel Institute for the Study of the Holocaust […]
Republican Party politicians across the United States are playing a dangerous game. Dishearteningly enough, they’re comparing coronavirus protocols and vaccine passports and mandates to the restrictions and cruelties of Nazi Germany and the unprecedented horrors of the Holocaust. They are flinging these twisted and irresponsible comparisons into the public realm at a fraught moment. Vaccinations […]
Eric Zemmour, a journalist who belongs to no political party and has never held public office, is running as an outsider for the presidency of France. Zemmour, 63, is a highly unusual candidate — a Jew who has embraced the politics of the far-right. A defender of Christian civilization who compares himself to Donald Trump, […]
Until a few days ago, I respected Lara Logan as a thoughtful broadcast journalist. Her reports for the American news magazine show, 60 Minutes, were informed and incisive. Logan came across as a fine investigative reporter. As she told The Washington Post recently, “I believe that the truth matters.” This is a cardinal and indispensable […]
Eirik Svensson’s spare, hard-hitting feature film, Betrayed, boldly exposes Norway’s heartless and callous betrayal of its Jewish community during the Holocaust. Norway was occupied by Germany in April 1940, seven months after the outbreak of World War II. Norwegian collaborators, headed by Vidkun Quisling, cooperated with the invaders, even as underground fighters fought Germany’s occupation. […]
Much to Israel’s consternation, international talks to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement resumed in Vienna on November 29 after a five-month hiatus. The accord, hailed by U.S. President Barack Obama as a landmark achievement but greeted by Israel with apprehension, disappointment and scorn, granted Iran relief from crippling economic sanctions. In exchange for this […]