Just days after it was reported that an Italian developed iPhone application, iMussolini, was gaining up to a 1,000 downloads today it was revealed that the service has been withdrawn. Allowing downloaders to access video, audio and text of 100 Benito Mussolini speeches, the application had previously come under large criticism from the Jewish community and Holocaust survivors.

Mussolini, who came to power in 1922 and quickly aligned himself with Nazi Germany, became a fascist dictator and changed the country’s history forever. Developing the application, Luigi Marino expressed that he in no way endorsed the historic moves, but simply aimed to bring Italian history out of the libraries and onto phones. However, widespread criticism from a number of groups was quick to rise after it was reported that the software had become the quickest downloaded iPhone application in the country, even surpassing Avatar’s mobile phone game.

Explaining that he had received a number of legal threats, Mr Marino said that he had been forced to remove the application. Of particular concern was the source of the photos used for the program, which the film institute raised issue with. While Apple declined to make a comment on the matter, the film institute expressed that the application was an aberration and that the clips of Mussolini were in no way providing any educational purpose. Meanwhile Mr Marino said that he hoped to reintroduce the application when the current legal threat was cleared up.

A Holocaust survivors group has asked the state attorney general to investigate the authenticity of a recently sold journal that a Stamford auction house owner says was written by Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele.

“The claim of this sale and the circumstances surrounding it should be investigated,” Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants, wrote in an e-mail. “Where is this so-called diary? Who has even seen it and what sort of ‘expert’ authenticated it? Who is the mystery buyer who allegedly purchased it?”

Bill Panagopulos of Alexander Autographs said he sold the journal Tuesday for an undisclosed sum to the grandson of a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp, where Mengele conducted lethal experiments on inmates. The unidentified buyer planned to donate the journal to a Holocaust museum, Panagopulos said.

The Holocaust survivors group, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal wrote in an e-mail, is “understandably repulsed and shocked by the supposed sale — and profit — of a diary by Mengele, the infamous ‘Angel of Death’ of the Auschwitz death camp.

“I sympathize with their revulsion regarding the apparent profit from this journal — reportedly containing disturbing writings by a Nazi war criminal,” Blumenthal wrote. “While I share their concerns, I must review their request to determine whether there is evidence of a violation of state law.”

Panagopulos repeated Wednesday that the journal, written in 1960 when Mengele was in South America, is authentic and that he and the buyer value the history behind it, not Mengele’s racist philosophy.

Other Jewish organizations also have complained about the sale. Panagopulos wrote in an e-mail Wednesday that he was “sorry that a few organizations would prefer that such material remain hidden and ignored — not all history is necessarily ‘good.’”

BRITISH diplomats feared wartime Pope Pius XII was not doing enough to speak out against the Holocaust, according to secret documents unearthed by historians. Pius has been a controversial figure in recent weeks after the Vatican announced it had put him on the road to sainthood, despite strong objections from Jewish leaders.
Italian historians unearthed significant documents during research at Britain’s public record office in Kew. In November 1944, the British ambassador to the Holy See, D’Arcy Osborne, wrote a letter to the Foreign Office in London after having a meeting with Pius at the Vatican.

He described how they had discussed the recent massacre of 400,000 Jews in Hungary by the Nazis and he had suggested that perhaps the Pope should “speak out about the mistreatment of Hungarian Jews”. However, the Pope said to him he was “more concerned about the treatment and violence towards the peoples of the Baltic states and Poland at the hands of the Russians.”

On January 27th, 1943, 91 B-17 and B-24 bombers from 8th Air Force launched from England to conduct America’s first World War II strike against the Nazi fatherland.

During this historic attack, 58 bombers reached their targets and dropped 137.5 tons of munitions on the port of Wilhelmshaven to destroy strategic naval construction facilities. The bold mission was also credited with downing 22 German planes (official post-war tally- seven planes). Amazingly, despite the disadvantage of conducting a daytime bombing mission against a counter-air force of 50 to 75 fighter aircraft, only three bombers were lost to Nazi attack.

These heroic 8th Air Force Airmen serving in England were the real-life inspiration behind the classic novel and 1949 film “12 O’Clock High.” Under the leadership of legendary leaders such as Col. Frank Armstrong Jr. and Maj. Gen. Ira Eaker, 8th Air Force bombers and Airmen took the fight to the German homeland with the goal of striking at the heart of the Nazi war machine with daytime bombing raids that posed a great risk to the bombers and their crew.

So what does this bold mission from nearly 70 years ago have to do with today’s Airmen serving in Afghanistan and Iraq in the battle against terrorism?

At first glance, there seems to be little in common between the warfare experienced by the Airmen of World War II and the Airmen of today due to drastic differences in battlefield geography, the type of enemy targets targeted and the technology employed. However, there is a commonality in the valor and dedication of our Airmen who volunteer to serve our nation, their great skill and competency in accomplishing the mission and the Air Force values that empower them to succeed in the face of great odds.

There is also commonality in the basic aspects of life as an Air Force warrior. Just as the 8th Air Force Airmen of World War II who deployed to the front lines of war in Europe, Airmen today are forward deployed to the front lines of Afghanistan and Iraq. Then, as now, our Airmen sacrifice their families and personal lives and routinely go into enemy territory risking deadly attack. And whether it is a downed aircraft or an improvised explosive device, our Airmen are injured, killed and lose comrades-in-arms just like they did in 1943.

So, as much as things have changed in regards to the threats we face and the technology employed against them, such as the use of remotely piloted aircraft to attack insurgents hidden in the remote areas of Afghanistan, many aspects of life as an Airman during wartime are timeless.

“Eighth Air Force has a proud legacy that continues to this very day,” said Maj. Gen. Floyd Carpenter, 8th Air Force Commander. “The great professionalism, dedication and valor shown by our Airmen today are the same qualities that carried our nation to victory in World War II. So although the threats we face today are somewhat different than generations past, our greatest assets and strengths continue to be our Airmen and our Air Force values.”

FOUR survivors of the Holocaust living in Ireland last night led a commemoration service remembering the six million Jews who perished under the Nazis.

The four, who managed to defy the odds and survive life in the concentration camps and ghettoes while most of those around them died in unimaginable horror, went on to start a new life in Ireland.

Last night the survivors were joined by Taoiseach Brian Cowen at Dublin’s Mansion House for the eighth annual National Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration.

The names of 157 victims, whose descendants came to live here, were read from the Holocaust Scroll of Names.

Victim

The youngest victim was Devora Smaiovitch who was born in Czechoslovakia and died just nine months later in a Nazi death camp. The eldest was 76-year-old Rosalia Scheimovitz who met her death in Bergen-Belsen in 1945.

Their descendants began a new life in Ireland, but the memory of their loved ones was never forgotten.

Zoltan Zinn-Collins thinks he was aged just four or five when he was found in Bergen-Belsen, no one knows his exact date of birth. He was later brought to Ireland along with his sister, Edit.

Describing himself as “a final witness of the Holocaust”, he told of the devastation at losing almost all of his family.

“As I reared by own children and grandchildren, I realised there was a void in my family. There were no grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins while I was growing up — they all perished in the Holocaust — and my children and grandchildren are missing them, too.”

Also there was Suzi Diamond who, with her mother and brother, was on the last transport to leave Hungary destined for Auschwitz. The train instead brought them to Bergen-Belsen and it was there that Suzi’s mother died just after liberation 65 years ago. She and her brother Terry were the only members of their family to survive.

Of Tomi Reichental’s family, 35 members perished in the concentration camps, a harsh environment for a nine-year-old boy. “I could not play like a normal child, we didn’t laugh and we didn’t cry. If you stepped out of line at all you could be beaten to death. I saw it with my own eyes,” he said.

The final survivor, Polish-born Jan Kaminski, was seven when he managed to escape a round-up of the Jews and fled. “My name is Jan and I am the last witness of the Holocaust,” he told those gathered last night.