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Muslim imams pray at Auschwitz for Holocaust dead

Agence France-PresseMay 22, 2013 15:00
Muslim leaders from across the globe knelt in prayer for the Holocaust dead at the Auschwitz's notorious Wall of Death on Wednesday, in an emotional visit to the Nazi German death camp in southern Poland. Imams from Bosnia, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States offered traditional Muslim "salat" prayers facing south towards their holy city of Mecca, shoes removed, during a Holocaust awareness visit to the site.

Hungary rights campaigner victim of 'anti-Semitic assault'

Agence France-PresseApril 29, 2013 11:01
The head of a Hungarian minority rights group named after a Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews in World War II said Monday that he was assaulted by anti-Semitic football fans. Ferenc Orosz, chairman of the Raoul Wallenberg Association, told MTI news agency that while attending a match in Budapest on Sunday he had asked fans to refrain from chants such as "Sieg Heil". He was physically threatened, called a "Jewish communist" and on leaving the stadium his exit was blocked by two assailants. One said "Sieg Heil" while the other broke his nose, Orosz said.

Britain urged to stop recruiting minors to armed forces

Agence France-PresseApril 23, 2013 06:02
Two campaign groups on Tuesday called for Britain to stop recruiting 16 and 17-year-olds to its armed forces, a practice that has been abandoned by most countries. Child Soldiers International and ForcesWatch said Britain's Ministry of Defence (MoD) wasted up to £94 million ($143 million, 110 million euros) a year by recruiting minors, who it said were twice as expensive to train as 18-year-olds. But the MoD said the report ignored the benefits that a military career offered young people, and said it had no plans to change its policy.

Record turnout at Budapest Holocaust march amid rising racism

Agence France-PresseApril 21, 2013 13:16
A record 10,000 Hungarians took part here Sunday in an annual march to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, amid rising racism and anti-Semitism in the country in recent months. Over 10,000 people, more than double the usual turnout, participated in the "March for Life", according to an AFP count, alongside government and opposition members, and the ambassadors of Israel and the United States. "It's important that future generations also learn the lessons from the Holocaust," organiser Laszlo Bandi told the crowd at the start of the event in downtown Budapest.

Amsterdam made Jews pay rent while in WWII camps

Agence France-PresseApril 21, 2013 00:30
Amsterdam council has vowed to probe revelations that it forced Jews returning from World War II concentration camps to pay rent arrears, even if their homes had been destroyed or occupied by Nazis. The scandal, involving an unknown number of Jews and non-Jews living in city-owned properties, was uncovered by a young art history student in Amsterdam's archives. Less than a quarter of Amsterdam's Jewish population survived the war, with the Netherlands occupied by the Nazis from 1940 to 1945.

Polish Jews museum to open on Warsaw ghetto anniversary

April 15, 2013 23:45
A museum dedicated to Polish Jews opens here Friday, on the 70th anniversary of the doomed Warsaw ghetto uprising against Nazi Germany in World War II. The Museum of the History of Polish Jews aims to reclaim the rich 1,000-year heritage which has been overshadowed by the Holocaust. The striking glass building stands on the site of the former ghetto, where 200 poorly-armed Jews rose up in Europe's first urban anti-Nazi revolt.

Ghetto prayer case unveiled at Polish Jews museum

April 14, 2013 15:15
Poland's chief rabbi on Sunday unveiled a special prayer case at a new Polish Jews museum, days before its opening on the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. "With the Mezuzah here, it really means we're at home," Rabbi Michael Schudrich said of the case, containing a scroll inscribed with a Hebrew prayer to protect the hearth. The Mezuzah, affixed to the right of the entrance as tradition calls, was made from a brick taken from building foundations at the site of the wartime Jewish ghetto.

Poland drops probe of artist's use of Holocaust ashes

April 10, 2013 14:45
Polish prosecutors have dismissed their probe into a Swedish artist's claims he used ashes of Holocaust victims, their spokeswoman said Wednesday. Carl Michael von Hausswolff claims he stole ashes from a crematorium at Nazi Germany's Majdanek concentration camp in Poland in 1989, diluted them in water and used them in a watercolour painting. Prosecutors decided not to charge him with stealing human remains or graves because the statute of limitations had expired, Beata Syk-Jankowska of the prosecutor's office in the eastern city of Lublin told AFP.

Israel's military chief to visit Auschwitz

April 9, 2013 10:31
The Israeli military says its chief of staff will head a delegation to a Holocaust memorial at the site of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, the son of Holocaust survivors, left for Poland Sunday as Israel prepared for its Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day commemorations. Six million Jews were systematically murdered by German Nazis and their collaborators in the Holocaust of World War II, wiping out a third of world Jewry. The Israeli military said Gantz will be welcomed in a military ceremony.

Israel falls silent to recall Holocaust victims

April 8, 2013 04:45
Sirens wailed across Israel on Monday, bringing millions of people to a halt for two minutes as they remembered the six million Jews who were killed during the Nazi Holocaust. The annual ritual, which takes place at 10:00 am (0700 GMT), is a central part of Holocaust Memorial Day which began at sundown on Sunday. All the country's radio and television stations also fell silent, interrupting a string of broadcasts and documentaries about the Nazi genocide and interviews with those who managed to survive it.
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