Judea Declares War on Czech Republic

New York, NY – Rabbi Isiah Silverstein, Chairman of the International Congress of Jewish Deputies, has called for a “Holy War” and economic boycott of the Czech Republic. Rabbi Silverstein says the new theme nightclub, the Deathcamp Disco, is deeply offensive to survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants. “This unspeakable insult to the memory of the dead cannot go unchallenged” he said.

According to a press release from the management of the Discotheque, the new nightspot is a “stimulating insight into life at Theresienstadt, using the latest sound and light effects technology.” The Disco is privately run but was obliged to obtain licences for the sale of alcohol and particularly, its location in what was formerly the Theresienstadt (Terezin) concentration camp, now owned by the Czech government.

Between 1941 and 1945 several hundred thousand elderly Jews were sent to Theresienstadt. Many died there.

Above the entrance to the Deathcamp Disco, sited in a former “Kanada” or storage facility in the grounds of the notorious camp, is a flashing neon sign which reads “Fun Will Make You Free.” The nearest conurbation is the sleepy Czech town of Bohusovice but the attraction has drawn revellers not only from Prague but from all over Europe. The Disco opened a little over two months ago.

Once inside, revellers must hitch a ride in a working model German WWII train to obtain drinks. Packed into the miniature railway trucks they are transported through a replica of the notorious killing camp before arriving at the bar. Along the way the train passes through the “Zany Zyklon-B Room,” the “Crematory Pizza Parlour” and various musical torture rooms, reminding revellers of the excruciating classical music concerts the inmates of Theresienstadt were forced to attend. In the main dance area, advanced 3-D graphics rendering engines project life-like animations of the theatrical and social events to which the prisoners were subjected before being sent to the crematory ovens.

Numerous nooks and crannies in the main disco area conceal hidden doors from which life-size models of SS soldiers leap out at random times, controlled by a computerised control centre deep in the bowels of the building. Then superimposed on the pounding disco music – but synchronized using a new, proprietary technology which is highly secret – a Germanic voice exclaims “Juden!” and the rat-a-tat-tat of a submachine gun is heard.

At the climax of a typical evening at the Deathcamp Disco, roof hatches open above the crowded dance floor and “Zyklon-B pellets” are dropped into the chamber, but these in reality are merely harmless soap flakes which turn into bubbles as they enter the hot air above the dancers. Then the dancers are treated to an extra thrill when the DJ pretends that the hall is filling up with deadly poison gas. Stroboscopes flash and clouds of dry ice are pumped onto the floor to add realism to the illusion.

In his press conference, Rabbi Silverstein condemned the Czech government for allowing the venue to operate, saying, “This is an absolute outrage. Over 6,000,000 human beings were murdered in the greatest genocide in history. To mock the Holocaust in such a manner is unforgivable. The Jewish wholesaler will forsake his firm, the banker his stock exchange, the merchant his commerce, and the pauper his pitiful shed to join together in a holy war until the Czechs stop dancing on the dead and trampling on history.”

A Czech government spokesman contacted today would only comment that the theme discotheque was “educational.” The furore over the Deathcamp Disco has led the Disney Corporation to postpone its plans for a new Disneyland theme ride based on their recent film release “101 Damnations: The Technicolor Talmud.”

“Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate – healthy, virile hate – for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German.” Elie Wiesel, Legends in Our Time, pp. 177-178

Fragments: Memories of a Wartime Childhood by Binjamin Wilkomirski

“This stunning and austerely written work is so profoundly moving, so morally important and so free from literary artifice of any kind at all that I wondered if I even had the right to try to offer praise.... Fragments will very likely be compared to Elie Wiesel’s Night, an equally understated memoir recollected in a similarly pure and simple style. But Wiesel was 15 years old when he arrived at Auschwitz.... We read Fragments in a different way, participating in the chaos of a child’s desperate incomprehension.... The book ends with no salutary message.... Only by writing this extraordinary book, by speaking as a witness to the death of faith, does Wilkomirski win a kind of victory at last and voice a final, although fragile, affirmation.... The man survives somehow... and leaves this gift of nearly perfect pain and beauty to a world still willing to destroy the innocent.”

Jonathan Kozol – The Nation

Is the “Holocaust” really the worst tragedy in history? No!! Consider the white death camps of Stalin’s Siberian slave labor camps. Estimates run as high as 20 million, some of my ancestors died in the Gulags. Consider the killing fields of Cambodia (1975). One million killed by the Pol Pot regime in one week. More facts from history could be found. Why is this “Holocaust” getting all the limelight? Simple, look at the generous reparations paid out. Communist Russia and Pol Pot were bankrupt from the start.

Don’t make fun of the holocaust. My grandfather died at Auschwitz. He got drunk and fell out of a guardtower!

Soap for sale by Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM – Israelis reacted with revulsion on Tuesday to news that memorabilia of the Nazi Holocaust were on sale in the Jewish state.

The furore erupted after Israeli media reported that a Tel Aviv shop was planning to auction a bar of soap which its owner said was made from the bodies of Jews killed in a death camp during World War Two.

The Zodiac Stamp shop, which originally dealt in philately, planned to offer the soap and other items such as yellow Stars of David the Nazis forced Jews to wear, on April 25 – a day before Israel’s annual memorial day for the six million dead.

“It is simply revolting that some people are making money from items, clothing and badges of the victims,” said Professor Yehuda Bauer, a historian specialising in Holocaust studies. “It is absolutely disgusting.”

Shop owner Menashe Meridack said he was cancelling the entire auction because of the public outrage and the bar of soap was back with its owner, the son of a survivor of Buchenwald death camp.

“I care a great deal about public sensibilities. Our auction house is a very honourable one and I will not allow these kind of things to harm our good name,” Meridack told Israel Radio.

Meridack said there was a worldwide trade in Holocaust memorabilia and most of his inventory came from Eastern Europe.

Israeli experts said it had become clear that the Nazis never made soap out of Jewish corpses, but had threatened to do so as part of a psychological warfare campaign.

Bauer told Israel Radio the bar of soap which had been up for auction and pictured on the front pages of Israeli newspapers contained no human remains.

“It is poor-quality soap issued to German troops,” he said. “There were many instances in which the Nazis told their victims ‘We will turn you into soap’ until the Jews began to believe it. But it is a myth.”

The word “soap” still evokes strong emotions among many of the 300,000 Israelis who lived through the Holocaust, said Yehuda Landsberger, director of Amcha, a support group for survivors and their families.

Native-born Israelis used the word to mock Jewish refugees who came to the Jewish state after World War Two. Even today, “sabon” or soap in Hebrew is slang for “meek.”

Conscious of survivors’ sensitivities, Israel Television changed the name of the 1970s American comedy show “Soap” to “Bubbles.”

“We have received a number of calls from survivors today. They were shocked, as was the entire nation,” Landsberger said. “One man told us: ‘How can it be that there is no law stopping people from commercialising the Holocaust?’”

Holocaust survivor Dov Shilansky, now a legislator, said he would raise the issue in parliament.

Officials at Amcha said that despite the horrors of the war, many survivors keep Holocaust memorabilia at home as a constant reminder of the loved ones they lost.

“I still keep a yellow star in a secret place which my family doesn’t even know about,” said Haim Dasberg, a psychiatrist and clinical adviser to Amcha.

Reuters, 4 April 1995

Question: I was in Auschwitz for eight months. As I was aged ten at the time, am I eligible to apply to the current Slave Labour Fund? BH, Dover Heights

Restitution Officer, Michele Silver replies: This particular fund has not imposed any restrictions regarding either the age of the applicant at the time or the length of time that they spent in the camp. Anyone who spent time in a camp, ghetto or similar conditions of confinement and was forced to work is eligible to apply to the Slave Labour Fund.

Any person currently receiving a pension related to the Shoah (either BEG restitution or an Article 2 pension), will not need to file an application. Those persons who do not currently receive a BEG or Article 2 Fund pension and have registered their details with JewishCare or directly with the Claims Conference in New York, will be sent an application form as soon as they become available. The application form will be simple and should not require the assistance of a solicitor or paid person to complete. If you do require assistance you can contact me at JewishCare on Monday, Tuesday or Friday, between 9:00am and 2:00pm on 9369 1400.

Australian Jewish News, 24 November 2000

How did they invent copper wire?

They threw down a penny between two Jews.

A Jewish MP, Louise Ellman, who represents Liverpool Riverside, England, was unhappy about ‘racist chants’ at football grounds, so she persuaded the local club, Everton, to let her write an article about the Holocaust in the club’s programme printed for its cup tie against Tranmere Rovers, played on Holocaust Memorial Day.