Survivors promised $7.7 million in 2007, but records show they received only half that amount. Government offices vow they transferred full amount to Finance Ministry, which says survivors were only slated to receive $3.8 million

Yael Branovsky

The Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel welcomed the government’s pledge in 2006 to allocate an additional $7.7 million for Holocaust victims the following year. Two separate bodies were to contribute the much-needed funds, with the Prime Minister’s Office and Yisrael Beitenu party each slated to give half the final amount.
But Ynet has learned that throughout the course of 2007 – only one payment of $3.8 million was received.
The funds were used mainly to cover medical expenses for thousands of needy Holocaust survivors living in Israel, said officials at the foundation, adding that with the full amount some 5,000 more requests for aid could have been authorized.

But both the PMO and Yisrael Beitenu claim they transferred the entire amount they had pledged to the Finance Ministry during 2007.

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Court orders Holocaust art returned

Published: 12/30/2007

A U.S. district court ordered a German baroness to turn a painting over to the estate of a Holocaust survivor.

U.S. District Judge Mary Lisi said in her ruling that Max Stern did not voluntarily sell the painting “Girl from the Sabiner Mountains,” by 19th-century artist Franz Xaver Winterhalter, in 1937.

Rather, Stern was forced by the Nazis to auction off hundreds of works of art from his family’s Dusseldorf art gallery because he was Jewish. Soon after the auction Stern fled Germany, eventually finding his way to Canada, where he became a well-known art dealer.

Maria-Luise Bissonnette, now a resident of Rhode Island, was ordered to turn over the painting, which she inherited from her parents. Bissonnette’s stepfather, Karl Wilharm, a member of the Nazi party, bought the painting at Stern’s auction. The painting was recently appraised at about $94,000.

Stern’s estate found the painting in 2005 when Bissonnette tried to sell it at auction. Stern, who died in 1987, left his estate to McGill and Concordia universities in Montreal and Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The schools have continued to try to find about 400 of Stern’s missing paintings.

An Israeli auction house drew censure for selling off Holocaust memorabilia.

Among hundreds of items sold Sunday by the Ben-Ami Andres auction house in Tel Aviv were two yellow Star of David badges which Jews were forced to wear under the Nazis. They were sold for $240 and $160.

The buyers were not identified, but auction organizers said there had been interest in the items from children of Holocaust survivors who voiced desire to commemorate their parents’ suffering.

Yet other Holocaust survivors were far from sanguine about the sale, describing it as profiteering.

“I think it’s despicable,” said Yosef Lapid, a former Israeli justice minister who is now chairman of Yad Vashem’s board of governors. Speaking on Israel Radio, he added sarcastically: “When I was a child in the Budapest ghetto, I had no idea that the badges I was forced to wear could prove so valuable.”

December 28, 2007 – New York – The American Jewish Committee praised Macedonia for concluding an agreement with the country’s Jewish community that resolves all outstanding claims for Holocaust-era communal and heirless private property.

“This historic agreement closes an extraordinarily painful chapter for the remnant Jewish community of Macedonia,” said Rabbi Andrew Baker, AJC’s director of international Jewish affairs. He has visited Skopje regularly and played a pivotal role in the negotiations.

Under the agreement, Macedonia will allocate 17 million Euros (about 25 million U.S. dollars) for the completion and initial operational expenses of the Memorial Center now under construction in the capital city of Skopje. The center, which is located on restituted former Jewish property, will serve as a memorial and museum that recounts the story of the Holocaust in Macedonia, and also will provide facilities for cultural and communal programs.

AJC has maintained a long and close relationship with the small, but vibrant, Jewish community in Skopje. The restitution issue has frequently been addressed in meetings between AJC officials and Macedonia’s leaders, most recently with Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski in October and with Foreign Minister Antonio Milososki earlier this month.

In 2002, the Macedonian government resolved outstanding Jewish communal property claims. With this new agreement, Macedonia is one of only a few countries that has settled claims against heirless Jewish properties.

More than 7,000 Macedonian Jews, representing nearly 95 percent of the community, were murdered during the Holocaust.

Researchers at the USHMM are asking for your help identifying and providing contact information for eyewitnesses – those who were in Rivesaltes and would agree to be interviewed/filmed for oral histories that will be used in connection with the exhibit that is being planned.

The Rivesaltes memorial site team will come to the U.S. for these interviews, so at this point all Rivesaltes eyewitnesses/survivors who agree to be interviewed will be considered without regard to where they are located. Please contact him directly if you know of survivors who fit this description and might be willing to participate in this memorial/educational project. His name is MARC MASUROVSKY and his e-mail address is mmasurovsky@ushmm.org. Phone is 202-488-0497.

The project is being led by the French regional government and is also supported by groups like the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah in Paris, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. In June the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research urged its member countries to preserve the ”physical locations where Holocaust-related events occurred.”

For more information on Rivesaltes and this project, please see the following website for an article entitled “Paying Tribute to the Persecuted” by Sarah Wildman, published in the New York Times on October 14, 2007″: http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/travel/14heads.html.

Thanks so much for your assistance – and to all, a happy, healthy, and fulfilling 2008, with lots of opportunities for advancing our shared commitment to Holocaust memory and education, moving from “memory to action” to use the lessons of the past to help current and future generations build a more just and peaceful world.

Ellen Blalock

Director, Survivor Affairs / Speakers Bureau

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
eblalock@ushmm.org