The diary of the notorious Josef Mengele is set to be auctioned off in the United States.
Nazi memorabilia collectors vying for the artifact belonging to the Nazi doctor known at Auschwitz as the “Angel of Death” are expected to pay about $64,000, according to the Daily Mail.
The owner of the diary acquired the volume in Brazil after Mengele died there in 1979, the newspaper said. The historical artifacts house Alexander Autographs in Connecticut told the newspaper that the owner is a source close to the Mengele family.
The diary begins in May 1960, when Mengele was 49.
At Auschwitz, Mengele determined who would live and die, and he conducted horrific, quasi-medical experiments, including on twins.
News of the auction has prompted anger and revulsion among Holocaust survivors and their families, according to a statement released Monday by The American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants.
“This is a cynical act of exploitation aimed at profiting from the writings of one of the most heinous Nazi criminals,” the statement said. “If the auction house will not halt the sale, we are calling on Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal to determine if he has the means to do so.”
By Editor on Nov 28, 2009 in Armenia
WASHINGTON — The personal library of US Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, renowned for his extraordinary efforts to bring American and international attention to the Turkish government’s deportation and massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, has been donated to the Armenian Genocide Museum of America (AGMA).
“We are extremely grateful to the Morgenthau family for entrusting this invaluable collection of books to the museum, which provides a window into the breadth and depth of the Ambassador’s intellectual acumen and his humanitarian outlook,” said Van Z. Krikorian, museum trustee and chairman of the project’s Building and Operations Committee. “In the pantheon of heroes who have fought against genocide, the Morgenthau name is legendary. This collection is priceless and wonderful Thanksgiving news,” added Krikorian.
The gift of Ambassador Morgenthau’s personal library, which has been privately held by his family since his death in 1946, comes to AGMA from Henry Morgenthau III, the son of Henry Morgenthau Jr., and the grandson of the Ambassador. In making the gift to AGMA, Henry Morgenthau III said “I am only putting Ambassador Morgenthau’s effects where they belong.”
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Posted on November 9, 2009 in:
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The books by Louis Begley and Francine Prose manage to make their subjects relevant to a wide, non-Jewish audience, without losing sight of the specificity of each case
by Eric Herschthal
Staff Writer
In 1894, a Jewish artillery officer in the French army was convicted of selling military secrets to Germans. Though the evidence against him was forged and his military tribunal held in secret, the officer spent five years in a remote island shackled in chains, holed up in a cramped, stifling cell, and forbidden to speak to anyone. It took 12 years for the French government to ultimately exonerate him of any wrongdoing, even going so far as to award him the Legion of Honor after reinstating him into the army.
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Posted on November 9, 2009 in:
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NY Times by PATRICIA COHEN
For decades the German philosopher Martin Heidegger has
been the subject of passionate debate. His critique of Western thought and technology has penetrated deeply into architecture, psychology and literary theory and inspired some of the most influential intellectual movements of the 20th century. Yet he was also a fervent Nazi.
Now a soon-to-be published book in English has revived the debate about whether the man can be separated from his philosophy.
Drawing on new evidence, the author, Emmanuel Faye, argues fascist and racist ideas are so woven into the fabric of Heidegger’s theories that they no longer deserve to be called philosophy.
As a result, Faye declares, Heidegger’s works and the many fields built on them need to be reexamined lest they spread sinister ideas as dangerous to modern thought as “the Nazi movement was to the physical existence of the exterminated peoples.”
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By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Natacha Yazbeck
Agence France Presse
BEIRUT: Anne Frank’s diary has been censored out of a school textbook in Lebanon following a campaign by Hizbullah claiming the classic work promotes Zionism. The row erupted after Hizbullah learned excerpts of “The Diary of Anne Frank” were included in the textbook used by a private English-language school in western Beirut. Hizbullah’s Al-Manar television channel ran a report slamming the book for focusing on the persecution of Jews.
“What is even more dangerous is the dramatic, theatrical way in which the diary is emotionally recounted,” said the report aired last week and also published on the station’s website. It questioned how long Lebanon would “remain an open arena for the Zionist invasion of education.”