A memorial showcase and plaque to the victims of the Holocaust

On April 1998, on the first anniversary of the unveiling of the Memorial Mural to the Victims of the Holocaust inside the Metropolitan Cathedral of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio paid tribute to the millions of people murdered by the Nazis. It was inaugurated by Cardinal Antonio Quarracino on 14 April 1997, following an idea of Baruch Tenembaum, founder of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation.

In a letter addressed to Tenembaum, dated 26 December 1997, only two months before his passing, Cardinal Quarracino wrote the following:

“It will soon be the first anniversary of the unveiling of this worthy monument within the Cathedral, before which I have invited all Jews to cover their heads if they wish to do so. The permanent site of emplacement of this Mural is to be close to the final resting place which I am hoping for inside the Cathedral, so that I may continue preaching for brotherhood as I have done all my life.”

“I have no doubt that once the time comes to succeed me, Archbishop Monsignor Jorge Bergoglio will continue the same road of reconciliation and fraternity with our elder brothers.”

The Mural, an impressive work of fine silversmith, is an unprecedented artistic monument in the history of the Jewish-Christian relations. Its dimensions are 1,80 mts. long by 1,20 mts. wide. It is composed of two glass panels between which are placed sheets of books of prayers rescued from the ruins of the Treblinka and Auschwitz concentration camps as well as the Warsaw ghetto. The work also pays tribute to those killed in the attacks on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires (1992) and the AMIA Jewish Community Center building (1994). The Mural was unveiled by Nobel Peace Prize, Lech Walesa.

The visitor will probably be amazed when appreciating the Hebrew alphabet letters in Argentina’s main Catholic temple. Among the texts, those which illustrate a Hagadah of Pesach (ritual prayer book of the Jewish Easter), rescued from a concentration camp in the Toulouse area (France) in 1942, donated by Mrs. Myriam Kesler, daughter of one of the victims, can be appreciated. Those are the same characters which illustrate the only stamp with Hebrew letters ever issued in Argentina, launched in 1998 by the Correo Argentino postal service.

The tree of life, a Menorah (candelabrum), the Tables of the Law and the Star of David can be seen engraved in the four corners of the silver-wrought frame.

Following his wish, after the passing of Cardinal Quarracino the Mural was moved to the Virgen de Luján Chapel, where Quarracino is buried.

In 2004 a replica was inaugurated at the Vaterunser Kirche, Berlin.

A furious debate has broken out in Italy after the decision of Israel’s Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem, to change the captions under the museum’s display on the wartime pope, Pius XII.

On October 16, 1943, over 1,000 members of Rome’s Jewish community were taken to death camps, without a word of condemnation from the pope, who lived in the Vatican, only streets away from the Jewish ghetto. Pius XII’s wartime role has been the subject of considerable criticism, made more complex because of the continued refusal of the Vatican to open its archives so that scholars can establish definitively what the pope did or did not do.

But now Yad Vashem has altered the captions on its wartime Vatican display to reflect the latest academic thinking — and has strongly rebutted suggestions that it did so due to Vatican pressure.

Its spokesman said: “Recently, following the recommendation of the Yad Vashem International Institute for Holocaust Research, the panel regarding the wartime activities of the Vatican and Pope Pius XII has been updated. This is to reflect research that has been done in recent years, and presents a more complex picture than previously presented”. It added pointedly: “Yad Vashem looks forward to the day when the Vatican archives will be open to researchers so that a clearer understanding of the events can be arrived at.”

But Riccardo Di Segni, chief rabbi of Rome, expressed his indignation. He said: “It is hard to believe that the new wording is not the result of pressure from the Vatican. It is not acceptable that bureaucrats, diplomats, and maybe even politicians, deem the Vatican’s demands more important than our painful memories”.

Supporting the Yad Vashem scholars, the distinguished Jewish Italian historian Anna Foa said: “I do not think that the new panel has softened its account of Pius XII’s role. In my view, the update acknowledges the fact that we are still in the middle of an open debate.”

The outgoing Israeli ambassador to the Vatican, Mordechai Lewy, during his last press conference before returning to Israel, denied his involvement in the Yad Vashem decision.

But these explanations have not persuaded Rome’s chief rabbi. He told Yad Vashem: “If you have documents, let other academics and other people know them. Please try to understand the impact of your decision on our community. They are not historians, they suffered because of history. They can change their opinion, but they need facts and documents”.

* Rossella Tercatin is a reporter for Pagine Ebraiche, the magazine of Italian Jewry

But their most important contribution to history was their work in the U.S. Armed Forces and Secret Services, filming the realities of war and the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. Their documentation provides an essential visual record of WWII. Filming the Camps presents rare footage of the liberation of Dachau with detailed directors’ notes, narratives describing burials at Falkenau, and the documentary produced as evidence at the Nuremberg trials, among other historic material.

Now, for the first time in the U.S., this material is being made available to a general audience.

The exhibition, curated by historian and film director Christian Delage, was designed, created, and circulated by the Mémorial de la Shoah (Paris, France).

The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation attended this important event performed last week in the Museum of the Jewish Heritage.

On 1 November she visited the Shoah Memorial Mural installed inside the Evangelische Vaterunser Kirche in Berlin. Her hostess was Pastor Annemarie Werner, head of the congregation.

Mrs. Klarsfeld is the daughter of a Christian, German-born, regular Wehrmacht soldier. She lived in Germany during the Second World War. At the age of 21 she traveled to Paris to study and work. In 1963 she met Serge Klarsfeld whom through she joined the French intellectual milieu and became interested in the fate of the Jews during the Holocaust.

Serge Klarsfeld was born in Bucharest, Romania. He is a writer, historian and lawyer. His family moved to France at the beginning of the Second World War. In 1943, his father was arrested by the SS in a massive raid in the city of Nice, being deported to Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was murdered. Serge, with his mother and sister survived the war. He obtained a degree in advanced studies in history at the Sorbonne and in political science at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris.

The Mural, that was unveiled in 2004 in a moving interconfessional ceremony, is a replica of the one inaugurated in 1997 inside the Buenos Aires’ Cathedral.

Rohatyn remembered some wonderful anecdotes during a meeting with the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation (IRWF) intended to videotape his testimony. He recalled the time when a German officer failed to take a good look at their papers because he was lighting a cigarette and when he used to hide gold coins inside the toothpaste tubes. Still, how his step-father got the visas that would allow the family to escape from France, as well as the identity of the diplomat who provided them with the papers, has been a mystery to him until recently.

Among the many documents from the Brazilian State Department (Itamaraty) and the Brazilian National Archives that historian Fabio Koifman uncovered when researching the life and deeds of diplomat Luiz Martinz de Souza Dantas for his book ”Quixote nas Trevas,” a list of the people who benefit from Dantas’ visas was discovered. Felix Rohatyn was one of them.

When the Wallenberg Foundation approached Rohatyn with the information a few years ago, he was astounded, ”I waited 50 years of my life to know how I got my Visa and now I know.” ”We were terribly grateful. I know that he took personal danger because Vargas was not a great fan of the Jews. These people were taking risks and Souza Dantas suffered a lot,” said Rohatyn after learning about Souza Dantas role in his survival.

Dantas granted diplomatic visas to enter Brazil to hundreds of people who, from the point of view of the Brazilian immigration policy, were considered undesirable. An investigation opened by the administrative department of the public service headed by Vargas accused Dantas of granting irregular visas. In an Itamaraty telegram, the diplomat affirmed in his defense that he did not grant ”even a visa” after the prohibition. It was a lie. Dantas’ lack of fear was proven by evidence of visas issued in January 1941 -a month after the prohibition- but with false information. With his actions, Dantas saved about 800 people from extermination.

Armed with Dantas’ visas, Rohatyn and his family crossed the Atlantic en route to Brazil. Yet the country was against Jewish immigration and Rohatyn’s family decided it would be better to move to the US. After the war, Rohatyn’s family went back to France, but he decided to attend college in the US. After spending some time in the army and the Korean War, Rohatyn graduated from school and started to look for a job, ”my stepfather knew Andrew Meyer who was a senior partner of Lazard Frères and said, ‘Listen I have a step son and he’s not very bright, but could you give him a job for a year or something?’”

The rest of the story is well known. Rohatyn went to work at Lazard in New York and worked there for forty years. Still, he is aware that none of his would have been possible without the Brazilian visas issued by Dantas, ”If I haven’t got those Visas I would have seen the gas chamber in Auschwitz,” he concludes.

The beautiful and democratic Norway has taken itself into an unnecessary problem due to a decision made by the Royal family (or by King Harald V and his wife, Queen Sonia’s, advisers): celebrating a Nazi writer. The excuse given is based on the need of differentiating the quality of a literary work and the vileness of a personal conduct. A criminal can also be a good artist and the examples are numerous. Knut Hamsun was a Norwegian novelist who won the Nobel Prize in 1920. His fame however was acquired much earlier, due to his works Hunger (1890) and Pan (1894).

As in every human issue, the subject is not as simple as black and white. Therefore it is necessary to reflect upon its nuances. This year would be Hamsun’s 150th birthday, a round number that could as well inspire one celebration or two. But is it sufficient to put up an exclusive museum, organize several activity programs on his homage and dedicate the entire year to his memory? In Hamaroy, north of the Polar Circle and where the writer lived for a certain period of his life, the Hamsun Center will be inaugurated, with a spectacular tower designed by Holl. The city of Grimstad, north of Norway, will also honor him with a square and a monument. What is intriguing is that since March 2009, Norway chairs a task force comprised of twenty-seven nations dedicated to the international cooperation on educating and preserving the memory of the Holocaust.

Knut Hamsun wasn’t just any average Nazi sympathizer. He vigorously supported national-socialism, stood up for the German invasion of Norway in 1940, supported the government of Quisling (which name is now a synonym of traitor in Norway) and contributed for the deportation of Jews to death camps. In order that no doubts would still be raised about his ideology, Hamsun personally gave his Nobel Prize award to Joseph Goebbels in 1943. Still not satisfied, after the war was over and its atrocities revealed to the world, he wrote an obituary for Hitler, describing him as a ”fighter for humanity and for the rights of all nations”. Until his death in 1952, he never regretted his actions.

Vidkun Quisling was judged as a national traitor and sentenced to death by a firing squad. Hamsun almost had the same fate: he was also judged as a national traitor, but eventually escaped from death penalty. What is curious is that these judgments took place in the courts of Grismtad, the same city that now looks at a monument being built in its square.

The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation’s president wrote a harsh protest letter to Queen Sonia, who has been supporting these honors, and princess Mette-Marit, proclaimed as ”patron” of the festivities. ”There were many Nazi geniuses, but I do not know about anyone who has been honored by Heads of States”, he claimed, among other statements.

The Norwegian people have been reacting with perplexity and indignation to such celebrations. One of the protests made was the ”decoration” of one of Hamsun’s monuments with flags caring the swastika symbol. They want to make clear that they have not lost their memory, as it seems to be happening to those in power.

One can argue that Norway should not forget to honor it’s Nobel Prize laureate. But the country has two more: the poet Bjomstjeme Bjornson, in 1903, and the extraordinaire chronicler and historian Sigfrid Undset, who won it in 1928.

Sigfrid Undset was the brilliant counterbalance of Hamsun. Although born in Denmark, Undset acquired the Norwegian nationality while she was still young. In 1924, she converted to Catholicism and started working as a secular teacher. Her public aversion to Nazism led her to flee to the US in 1940, when the Germans invaded her country. As soon as the war was over, she returned to Norway. Her most well-known work is a splendorous trilogy about medieval Scandinavia, entitled Kristin Lavansdatter, comprised of three volumes published between 1920 and 1922; all of them incredible original. The trilogy is a touching portrait of a woman, from her birth to her death. Later on Undset published other novels, characterized by modernist boldness, such as a flow of conscience and other techniques. Having been translated to several languages and studied by critics from all over the world, Sigfrid Undset is a paradigm of moral integrity combined with a brilliant writing talent.

Other authors have taken intermediate paths. The lists of Nazi, anti-Nazi and neutral authors are extensive, endless. Many were assassinated, other committed suicide; a few were able to survive. Names as Stefan Zweig, Walter Benjamin, Ana Frank, Emil Ludwig, Lion Feutschwanger, Imre Kertész, Primo Levi, Bertold Brecht, Iréne Némirovsky, Elías Canetti, Hermann Broch, Alfred Döblin, Thomas y Heinrich Mann, Nelly Sachs, Jorge Semprún, Gershom Scholem, Robert Musil, Joseph Roth stand out; they were all anti-Nazis who suffered the consequences of resisting.

In order to illustrate the nuances of the subject – as I proposed in the beginning of this article – let’s talk about another powerful and emblematic artist: Ernst Jünger. He wasn’t Scandinavian as Hamsun, but German, which makes it even more interesting. He was born in a mythical center of culture: Heidelberg. Ever since he was young, he was fanatically attracted to nature associated with nationalism, a rare combination that could anticipate adventures life that was ahead of him. Turning 18 years he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion and fought in Africa. After that, he had an active role in the World War I, for which he was later condecorated. By the time he was 25 years old, he published Storms of Steel, where he describes his personal experiences during the time of war. This work brought him fame and recognition.

While Hitler advanced on his unstoppable quest for absolute power, Jünger took part on a complex political-cultural movement called Conservative Revolution, comprised of authors such as Karl Smitt and Oswald Spengler that were against liberalism and democracy. Jünger then published other books that increased his prestige: War as an interior experience, General mobilization and The Worker.

Nonetheless, Jünger’s refusal to embrace anti-Semitism was incomprehensible and started to get him in trouble. For this very reason he bravely turned down the invitation to take part in the German Poetry Academy, which had been purged by the Gestapo a few weeks before. He didn’t flee Germany nor the Nazis dared to touch him. And that went on until 1934, when he insolently requested the government to stop manipulating his writings, refused to take a seat in the Reichstag and published a provocative work criticizing racism. He was a headache that couldn’t be easily healed.

He was forced to participate in the World War II, when he was sent to Paris during the city’s occupation. Over there, Jünger started to go to literary salons and general places where he could smoke opium. He started socializing with military who plotted to kill Hitler and he secretly saved many Jews from the Holocaust. Around this time he wrote in his journal ”the uniform, the military honors and the shine from the guns that once I loved so much now disgust me”. In 1942, Jünger was sent to the Russian front and in 1944, after the plot of murdering Hitler had failed – plot in which Jünger secretly participated – he quit the Army after almost being executed.

During the post-war, many contradicting stories about his past began to come up and consequently Jünger was prohibited of publishing his works until 1949. Despite that, he managed to publish Der Friede ( The Peace , 1946), Atlantische Fahrt (Atlantic Journey, 1947) y Aus der Goldenen Muschel (From the Golden Shell, 1948) in Amsterdam.

In the 1950`s he became friends with Albert Hofmann, the creator of LSD, and many of Jünger books, directly or indirectly, began to reflect his personal psychedelic experiences. His publications coincided with the ones written by Aldous Huxley.

Jünger coined the term ”psiconauts” and exposed in many of his works his experiences of different kinds of substances. He received the Goethe Award in 1982, the same award given before to Sigmund Freud. One of his last works was Die Schere (The Scissors), published in 1989 when he was 95 years old. Of great historical and literary value, his journals written during World War II, Radiations, are now considered the biggest contribution to German literature in the twentieth century. He died in February 17, 1998, two weeks before his 103rd birthday and a few months after he had been converted to Catholicism.

Hamsun, Undset and Jünger comprise a curious group of authors surrounded by the poison of Nazism. They lead a procession of writers who have taken the similar paths as theirs. Nonetheless, in Hamsun’s line there are authors such as Martin Heidegger, Ferdinand Céline and many other geniuses whose brains got poisoned by alienation.

The Queen of Norway assured – after having received so many international critics – that the celebrations of the Nazi Knut Hamsun will also comprise of an extensive teaching against totalitarianism and discrimination, teaching that this fascist criminal and traitor lacked, whose only merit for so many honors is only the fact that he was born a hundred and fifty years ago.

Knut Hamsun won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920, but met Hitler during the German occupation of Norway in 1943 and later wrote an positive obituary for him. He also encouraged Germany to ‘bring England to its knees’ in a wartime newspaper article. After the war, he was put on trial, but he was declared mentally incompetent and was fined rather than imprisoned.

Baruch Tenembaum, who runs the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, named after the Swedish diplomat who rescued Jews from the Holocaust, objected to the stamp, saying: ‘Celebrating the life of a Nazi, regardless of his literary merits, is despicable. Doing so through a stamp is even more obscene.

‘A stamp carries a picture, a name and a price tag. It does not come with any background information about who the man was. Millions of Norwegians will get expose to Hamsun’s stamp and the lesson they will learn is that Hamsun was a man to be worshipped. One would expect that only rol models appear on stamps. Not bigots.’

Tenembaum wrote to Norway’s government saying he was ‘astonished and concerned’. replied that the stamp ‘in no way condones Hamsun’s support for the Nazi regime. His pro-Nazi activities must continue to be condemned.’

Norway Post said: ‘There was much internal discussion before we decided to honour Hamsun’s literature with a stamp, in connection with the 150th anniversary of his birth. He is the only Norwegian writer who has won the Nobel Price for Literature and had not yet been depicted on a stamp.’

The Chief Executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Jon Benjamin, said: ‘One would have hoped that the decision to include Hamsun in this issue would have been taken after discussion with all Norwegians, including Jewish ones and veterans of the fight against Nazi occupation. We are not aware of that being the case. To rehabilitate an active Nazi sympathiser, whatever his literary attributes, seems to set a dangerous precedent.’

Back on August 4th., the world celebrated the 97th birthday of a Swedish hero, Raoul Wallenberg.

At the same time, the Norwegian Royal Family and Government are throwing a one-year celebration in tribute to their writer Knut Hamsun, a Nobel laureate who betrayed his own people during WWII. While his fellow countrymen fought against the Nazis, Hamsun supported them. He even went as far as to give Goebbels his Nobel prize.

And now the Swedes. It is true that there`s is freedom of expression there, but the Swedish government would not impair such a freedom if it stated that the blood libel published in one of the nation`s tabloids, is repugnant. Let alone, it should not reprimand its Ambassador in Israel, who was brave enough to condemn this libel.

Sweden and Norway should learn a lot from Raoul Wallenberg.

Miriam Abitbol
Tel Aviv, Israel

A few weeks ago, we learned that Norway’s Royal House and Government have launched a one-year long celebration to commemorate the 150th birthday of their national writer and Nobel laureate, Knut Hamsun. Understandable if it weren’t for the fact that Hamsun was a rabious Nazi supporter, a traitor of his own corageous countrymen who fought and shed their blood against Nazism. The celebrations include a special issue of 1.5 million stamps bearing the semblance of this bigot, who gave his Nobel medal to Joseph Goebbels and even wrote an obituary after Hitler’s suicide. A big outcry came from many decent individuals and organizations, most notably from The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, an NGO which devotes itself to researching the stories of the Righteous Rescuers and creating educational programs to instill their legacies to the young generations. And now it is Sweden’s turn to be ashemed. True: Freedom of expression is a sacred value in Sweden, but the heinous blood libel fabricated by the Aftonbladet, should have least be condemned by the Swedish Government. It is a shame that both Sweden and Norway are distancing themselves from the noble tradition set by Raoul Wallenberg.

Eliahu Shamir
Tel Aviv
Israel