EXTENSION FOR SENDING IN COMPLETED APPLICATIONS !!!!
TO ALL HUNGARIAN SURVIVORS AND VICTIMS WHO LOST THEIR PARENTS AND /OR SIBLINGS.
The Hungarian Government has EXTENDED the compensation program (ACT XLVII of 2006).
A filled out application and declarations can now be postmarked by December 31, 2006.
from alex moscovitz in florida
BY TOM WALSH
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
July 30, 2006
Powerful new tools — including software created by Gene Codes Corp. of Ann Arbor to help identify remains of 9/11 terrorist attack victims — are being applied to solve mysteries that remain from the Holocaust of World War II.
The DNA Shoah project, announced last month by Gene Codes founder Howard Cash at the Human Genome Organization meeting in Finland, could be the most extensive DNA detective undertaking ever, if organizers succeed in collecting DNA samples from even a fraction of the 300,000 Holocaust survivors around the world.
By creating a giant genetic database of people who lost relatives during the Holocaust when 6 million Jews were killed, the aim is to:
· Reunite families scattered by the Holocaust. As many as 10,000 so-called Holocaust orphans may have been separated and never reunited with parents and siblings.
· Identify remains that occasionally still turn up in Eastern Europe.
· Use modern forensic science tools to teach future generations about the Holocaust.
Rene Lichtman, 68, of West Bloomfield, a child survivor of the Holocaust, sees potential benefit in the project.
“Even today we hear stories of child survivors from Poland who were hidden and raised by Christians, who finally learn they are Jewish in deathbed conversations with their adoptive parents,” he said.
These people, who have strong identity issues, could be reunited with blood relatives, said Lichtman, a member of the executive committee of the World Federation of Jewish Child Survivors of the Holocaust.
Mandelbaum is a geneticist and philanthropist who used DNA tests on strands of hair in 1994 to disprove the claim that Anna Anderson Manahan was the long-lost grand duchess Anastasia of Russia. Mandelbaum also is the founder and CEO of Rock and Wrap it Up, an antipoverty organization that gathers food left over from rock concerts and other shows for distribution to the hungry.
To launch the Holocaust project, Mandelbaum linked up with Michael Hammer, a geneticist at the University of Arizona, and with Cash, whose Ann Arbor firm has won global acclaim for its M-FISys (Mass Fatality Identification System) software used to identify victims from the 2001 World Trade Center attack and the 2004 Asian tsunami.
“It’s really picking up speed,” Mandelbaum told me recently. “We’re having an important event Aug. 13 — a mass collection of DNA swabs in the San Jose area.”
The data collection and analysis will work as follows:
· DNA sampling kits will be sent to families around the world.
· Participants rub swabs along their inner cheeks to collect cells, then place swabs in tubes and mail them to Hammer’s lab in Arizona for DNA fingerprinting.
· Data will be analyzed using Gene Codes’ M-FISys software to determine whether the DNA from the swabs matches DNA from the remains of known Holocaust victims or from living relatives of Holocaust victims.
Cash, who employs 45 people at the Ann Arbor firm he founded in 1988 to help scientists then working on the Human Genome Project, said the M-FISys software works with all currently available methods of DNA identification. The ability to use mitochondrial DNA makes M-FISys a good fit for the Shoah project, he said, because mitochondrial DNA is the type that is most resilient and therefore most easily recovered from older or highly degraded remains.
“There is a concern that expectations may get too high,” Cash said of the DNA Shoah project. “We can apply the very newest and most sensitive identification technology, but there is no guarantee that remains will be identified or previously unknown living relatives discovered. But this is something that should be tried, as one last measure of respect to people who had so much taken from them.”
The University of Arizona will absorb most of the lab costs, and Mandelbaum is looking for benefactors to help pay for sampling kits and other costs.
In addition to the upcoming event in California, Mandelbaum also is contacting Jewish groups around the country, looking for opportunities to spread the word about DNA Shoah. He already has been in touch with people involved in a Detroit-area conference in late August of child survivors of the Holocaust and their families.
Lichtman of West Bloomfield said organizers of that conference are reluctant to publicize details about the specific time and place of the event, due to privacy concerns and the deeply personal and sensitive nature of the discussions.
Those same issues could also lead to some initial caution about the DNA Shoah project.
“People don’t want to be manipulated or used. A lot of people have given up hope of finding lost relatives,” he said, “so there might be mixed feelings about the idea of opening up old wounds.”
Hammer and Mandelbaum have vowed that the DNA Shoah project will keep all genetic information confidential and protect anonymity by cataloging DNA samples with bar codes instead of names.
Contact TOM WALSH at 313-223-4430 or twalsh@freepress.com. Copyright © 2006 Detroit Free Press Inc.
Holocaust survivor discovers long-lost family
Updated Sat. Jul. 29 2006 8:25 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
A Holocaust survivor who settled in Canada after World War II didn’t hesitate to act when she discovered she had relatives in Argentina: Ethel Kerzner flew her new-found family to visit her in Ottawa.
“What is it all about, if not family?” Kerzner told CTV Ottawa on Saturday.
Kerzner was just 11 years old when Nazis opened fire on her village in Poland.
New Jersey Jewish News
Greater Middlesex County Feature
Survivorsâ group seeks to raise money for veterans
by Debra Rubin
NJJN Staff Writer
In the almost five years since Monroe Township Holocaust Survivors took up the cause of disabled Israeli war veterans, the group has raised $70,000 for Beit Halochem (House of the Soldier) rehabilitation centers in Israel.
âWe sent along about $25,000 last year and about $25,000 the year before,â? said Jack Chevlin, president of the survivorsâ group. âWe hope to raise the same amount this year.â?
That will hinge on the success of the groupâs biggest annual fund-raiser, to be held Sunday, Aug. 6, at 7 p.m. at the Marasco Performing Arts Center at Monroe Township High School. The show features comedian Mal Z. Lawrence, cabaret singer Judy Kolba, and singer Gary Willner, who has been recognized as a leading artist carrying on the Frank Sinatra sound.
For the last two years, money raised through three annual events has been hand-delivered by seniors going on the annual Solidarity and Tzedakah Mission of the Jewish Congregation of Concordia. The third such mission is scheduled to be in Israel this year from Oct. 23 to Nov. 6.
A June 6 âSalute to Israelâ? program featuring dinner and entertainment also brought in contributions; an annual dinner-dance held in October also raises funds.
âWe decided this was a very important cause because without soldiers there would be no country,â? said Chevlin, who also serves as ritual chair of the Concordia congregation. âJust look whatâs going on now. Itâs been going on since 1948, and itâs still going on in 2006. There are young people 18 or 19 years old who have lost their sight or legs. The only thing we can do is try and raise some money to make their lives a little more livable. Not that other causes are not important â but we thought this was very important.â?
Chevlin is a survivor from what is now Belarus. A retired instrumental music teacher, he spent the last 28 years of his career in the Roselle Park school system.
The Friends of Israel Disabled Veterans is the American fund-raising arm of the Zahal Disabled Veterans Organization, which runs Beit Halochem centers in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, and Nahariya. It is building a new $12.5 million center in Beersheva, expected to open next year, to serve the approximately 3,200 disabled veterans in that area.
The centers allow the vets to participate in sports and related activities suited to their disabilities and provide them and their families with emotional and physical rehabilitation. In addition to Florida and New York, there is another American branch in Los Angeles.
To attend the Aug. 6 fund-raiser, send a check for $33 per person for regular seats or $38 for special seating near the stage to the Monroe Township Holocaust Survivors, PO Box 6015, Monroe, NJ 08831. Greenbriar-Whittingham residents may use lockbox no. 16. For information, call Doris at 609-655-0622 or Carl at 609-409-0808
BY BEN LESSER, SPECIAL TO TOGETHER
My name is Ben Lesser and my wife’s name is Jean Lesser.
On June 17, 2006 our grandson Adam Gerber graduated from U.C. Davis. The whole West Coast family attended the graduation. Afterwards we celebrated a couple of days in Davis. Adam had made arrangements to tour Europe for a month after graduation and before he settles down to his new job in San Diego California with Hillel, at U. C. San Diego.
At the same time my oldest grand daughter, Robyn Kramer made arrangements to tour Italy, so Adam and Robyn decided to rendezvous in Krakow Poland on Tuesday July 11th. They were to meet at a certain restaurant at a specified time.
A few days later I received a call from Robyn asking me about certain places and addresses in Krakow, the place of my birth and where I grew up in my previous lifetime. While conversing with Robyn she happened to mention how nice it would be if I could also be there with them to show them around the area.
Jean and I had been in Krakow approximately 10 years ago and both of us decided never to return to this accursed land where the soil is soaked with innocent Jewish blood. In 1996 our last and only visit after the Holocaust was a most traumatic experience, which at that time I felt that I had to endure in order to have closure. However, I felt that if my grandchildren went out of their way to go to Krakow in order to find their roots, how could I possibly refuse that kind of an overture or request. That was the time when I decided to invite the whole family if they would like to join us on this rather impromptu trip to Poland AKA PILGRIMAGE. Robyn and I agreed to keep it as a surprise to Adam. I also invited my only sister, Lola. However, because of timing, health and circumstances not everyone could oblige me by accepting my invitation.