THE INSTITUTE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE HOLOCAUST AT TOURO COLLEGE TO PRESENT “GENOCIDE, REFUGEES AND THE 60th ANNIVERSARY OF THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: MESSAGES FOR THE 21st CENTURY” ON NOVEMBER 24

New York, N.Y., October 28, 2008 – The Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust at Touro College will present “Genocide, Refugees and the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Messages for the 21st Century” on Monday, November 24, 2008, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues in Manhattan. Admission is free.

Distinguished speakers will include the Special Adviser of the UN Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, Francis Deng; Assistant Secretary of State Brian Hook, Bureau of International Organization Affairs, U.S. Department of State; Sally Frishberg, Holocaust survivor, gallery educator at the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust; and the Associate Director of the International Refugee Rights Initiative, Olivia Bueno.

The Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust aims to understand, explore and evaluate contemporary mechanisms for protecting human rights and the rule of law in view of the lessons of the Holocaust and its aftermath. The Institute is under the auspices of Touro’s Division of Graduate Studies.

Please RSVP to Rebecca Tobin at rebecca.tobin@touro.edu

Touro College has experienced phenomenal growth since its founding in 1971, and is currently educating approximately 17,500 students at locations in New York, California, Florida, Nevada, Jerusalem, Moscow, Berlin and Paris. Touro College continues to have a profound impact on the lives of its students and on the Jewish and general communities. For further information on Touro College, please go to http://www.touro.edu/media/.

Touro College

27 West 23rd Street

New York, N.Y. 10010

www.touro.edu

I am looking for anyone who may have been in the barrack in Bergen-Belsen in the Star Camp, and may have witnessed or took part in a secret Bar Mitzvah ceremony with Joachim Joseph (Yoya), conducted by Rabbi Simon Dasberg in April, 1944.

(A couple of details that might help someone remember)
The ceremony happened pre-dawn, with blankets on the windows. At one point the ceremony was interrupted with a knock on the door. It was the young boy’s mother who was smuggled to the barrack by the Rabbi to witness the ceremony. But others in the barrack would not allow her in, so she had to watch from out side. The ceremony lasted about 10 minutes.

Thank you.

Dr. Alex Grobman

PRIME MINISTER
Commission pour l’indemnisation des victimes de spoliations intervenues du fait des législations antisémites
en vigueur pendant l’Occupation
Paris, October 14, 2008

Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliations
Resulting from the Anti-Semitic Legislation in Force During the Occupation

The Commission for the Compensation of Victims of Spoliation Resulting from the Anti-Semitic Legislation in Force during the Occupation (CIVS) in France will convene in New York from November 17 to 21, 2008.

For the fourth time of its existence, the CIVS, the Commission for the compensation of victims of confiscation pursuant to the anti-Semitic legislation in force during the Occupation, will come to New York.

From the 17th to the 21st of November, a French delegation will examine 66 files from Americans who were living in France during the Second World War and were victims of spoliations. Sessions will be held at the French Consulate General and the claimants will have the possibility to attend them or to be represented.

This mission, like the previous missions in New York, is an opportunity for the French Government to demonstrate to the American Authorities its determination to give equal rights to the claimants whether they are French or American, to allow them to express themselves freely and find in common a fair and appropriate response.

The purpose of the CIVS, established by a decree of September 10, 1999, is to enlighten victims and their families about what happened to the assets that were taken from them, to make research on their behalf and offer reparation, return or compensation measures appropriate to each case. Any victim or heir of a victim of material and financial damage is justified in seeking compensation via this Commission.

This mission is also an opportunity for the official members to meet important persons of the Jewish community as well as representatives of major American Jewish organizations and associations.

On Thursday the 20th of November, from 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm, the CIVS will also present its main actions and purpose during a symposium held at
The Museum of Jewish Heritage
Edmond J. Safra Plaza,
36 Battery Place -
New York, NY 10280,
Tel : 646 437 4200.

For more information about the CIVS : http://www.civs.gouv.fr

Contacts

in the USA : in France :
Mrs Marie-Laure CHARRIER Mr Glen ROPARS
Consulate General of France in New York CIVS
Press Officer Information Officer
marie-laure.charrier@diplomatie.gouv.fr gropars@civs.gouv.fr
Tel : 212 606 36 25 Tel : 00 33 1 56 52 85 03

Program
of the symposium at the Museum of Jewish Heritage
Thursday 20th of November from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm

Looted assets of Jewish people living in France during the Occupation.
A French commission of compensation :
The Commission for the compensation of victims of spoliations resulting from the anti-semitic legislation in force during the Occupation (CIVS)

Presentation of the CIVS : framework, functioning and doctrine :
Mr Gérard Gélineau-Larrivet, President of the CIVS and honorary president of Chamber at the Court of Cassation,
Mr Jean-Pierre Le Ridant, Director of the CIVS,
Mr Pierre Kauffmann, Member of the decision-making at the CIVS, honorary secretary general of the Mémorial du Martyr Juif Inconnu and of the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine,
Mr David Ruzié, Member of the decision-making at the CIVS, honorary dean and professor emeritus of the universities.

Claims investigations made by the rapporteurs : a compensation proposal resulting from the memories of the Archives and the memories of the claimants :
Mr Jean Géronimi, principal Rapporteur at the CIVS, honorary advocate general at the Court of Cassation,
Mr Jean-Michel Augustin, Rapporteur at the CIVS, magistrate of the regular court system,
Mr Brice Charles, Rapporteur at the CIVS, magistrate of the administrative court system.

The specific question of the art related files, between restitution and compensation :
Mr Jean-Pierre Bady, Member of the decision-making at the CIVS, honorary master of the Cour des Comptes.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008 1 pm

New York City College of Technology (CUNY)
300 Jay Street -Atrium Auditorium
Downtown Brooklyn -near Tillary Street

The World in a City
Joseph Berger – New York Times columnist and editor

Tribute to Olga Lipschitz and Martin Greenfield
Prominent Holocaust Survivors – 70th Anniversary of Kristallnacht.

Berger shows that “New York is an endlessly fascinating crossroads. Naturally, tears exist in this colorful social fabric: the controversy over Korean-language shop signs in tiny Douglaston, Queens” and “the uneasy proximity of traditional cottages and new McMansions built by recently arrived Russian residents of Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn. Yet in spite of the tensions among neighbors, what Berger has found most miraculous about New York is how the city and its more than eight million denizens can adapt to – and even embrace – change like no other place on earth.”

Free Admission

contact: Albert Sherman, 718 260 5837; asherman@citytech.cuny.edu

ACCLAIMED AUTHOR JAN GROSS TO SPEAK ABOUT THE POST-WORLD WAR II KIELCE POGROM BEFORE AN AUDIENCE OF JEWS FROM KIELCE

CONTACT: Manny Bekier
Phone: (718) 270-7551
FAX: (718) 270-7549
Email: mbekier@Downstate.edu

Internationally renowned scholar and author Jan Gross, Professor of History at Princeton University, will address and meet with some of the very few remaining Jewish Holocaust survivors from Kielce, Poland along with descendants of that destroyed community. This lecture and book-signing will be especially significant for this audience, as Professor Gross’ research provides insight into the murder of their friends and families in the Kielce Pogrom — the bloodiest peacetime pogrom — which took place one and a half years after the liberation of the death camps began.

On July 4, 1946, some 46 Jews in Kielce were murdered by a mob joined by local police, after the medieval rumor was spread that Jews were killing Christian children for their blood in the basement of the town’s Jewish community center.

Professor Gross will address the phenomenon of anti-Semitism flourishing in Poland after the nearly total annihilation of its Jewish population.

Professor Gross is the author of the controversial books, FEAR: Anti-Semitism In Poland after Auschwitz (Random House, 2006), and NEIGHBORS (Princeton University Press, 2001). According to Thane Rosenbaum, writing in The Los Angeles Times Book Review, “FEAR takes on an entire nation, forever depriving Poland of any false claims to the smug, easy virtue of an innocent bystander to Nazi atrocities”.

This lecture, open to the public and free of charge, will take place Sunday, November 23, 2008 at 2:00 PM at The Garden Jewish Center at 2420 Parsons Blvd., Queens. N.Y. (Parsons Blvd & 24th Ave.) Copies of FEAR will be available for purchase at the event