Holocaust survivors, seeking return of property

PRAGUE — Holocaust survivors, Jewish groups and experts gathered in Prague on Friday to assess efforts to return property and possessions stolen by the Nazis to their rightful owners or heirs.

The five-day conference, which brings together delegates from 49 countries, is a follow-up to a 1998 meeting in Washington that led to agreements on recovering art looted by the Nazis.

Stuart Eizenstat, the leaders of the American delegation, called it the most ambitious international meeting ever on the recovery of such stolen possessions or compensation for their loss.

One goal is to produce international guidelines on this, but they would not be compulsory for the governments involved.

"There’s no political will to have a binding treaty,” Eizenstat acknowledged.

The Czech Republic, host of this week’s meeting, and other countries, have come under fire for legal hurdles and a lack of political will that critics claim make property restitution impossible.


by the associated press

Israel's tribute to Holocaust victims

JERUSALEM — Hanita Leshem’s parents handed her over to a Christian family in Ukraine in 1941, when she was just a year old, to save her from the Nazi troops murdering the Jews there.

Leshem, now a 69-year-old grandmother living in Jerusalem, never saw her mother and father again.

On Tuesday, she stood among other child survivors as Israel marked its annual Holocaust Remembrance Day honoring the 6 million Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis — including her parents.

She recited her parents’ names Tuesday at the main state ceremony of the day at Israel’s Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem.

"I feel like we have won. I am the evidence that we have overcome, despite everything,” she said. "We beat Hitler, and we will beat that Ahmadinejad, too,” she said. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has suggested the Holocaust never occurred and has called for Israel’s annihilation.

At a high-profile U.N. conference on racism in Switzerland on Monday, Ahmadinejad accused Israel of being the "most cruel and repressive racist regime” and the West of using the Holocaust as a "pretext” for aggression against Palestinians.


Sirens mark tribute
Frenetic Israel came to a standstill for two minutes on Tuesday morning as air-raid sirens sounded across the country in mournful tribute to the Holocaust dead. Cars came to a halt and people froze in their tracks, many with heads bowed.
Television stations broadcast historical documentaries and movies, and radio stations played somber music and interviewed survivors. Schools held memorial services, places of entertainment were shut down and the Israeli flag was flown at half-staff.

This year’s memorial event honored the 1.5 million children who died in the Holocaust. Many of the tens of thousands who survived, like Leshem, were taken in by Christians who risked their lives.

An official wreath-laying ceremony at Yad Vashem followed with Israeli leaders and Holocaust survivors in attendance.

by the associated press