Argentina shuts down a publisher that sold books praising the Nazis. One person has been arrested
Argentinaโs Federal Police have shut down a publisher that sold books that praised Nazi ideology, seized hundreds of texts and arrested one person as part of what authorities characterized as a โhistoric seizureโ of Nazi propaganda.
Auschwitz museum criticizes use of death camp in politics after ruling party uses it in political ad
The Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial museum has denounced a political spot by Polandโs ruling party that uses the theme of the Nazi German extermination camp to discourage participation in an upcoming anti-government march.
Germany drops probe of former Nazi guard deported from US
FILE - In this Monday, Jan. 27, 2020 file photo people walk behind the writing 'Holocaust' during the international Holocaust remembrance day in the former the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald near Weimar, Germany. Friedrich Karl Berger, a 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard, was deported to his native Germany on orders from a Tennessee court. (AP Photo/Jens Meyer, file)BERLIN โ German prosecutors said Wednesday that they have dropped an investigation of a 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard after he declined to be questioned following his deportation from the United States. Friedrich Karl Berger arrived in his native Germany in February after being ordered deported by a court in Memphis last year. The Memphis court found, however, that Berger had helped guard prisoners during a forced evacuation that took nearly two weeks and claimed the lives of 70 people.
Germany: Nazi guard deported from US agrees to be questioned
Authorities say the 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard deported from Tennessee has agreed to be questioned by German prosecutors as they re-examine whether there is enough evidence against him to bring charges. Berger arrived Saturday, Feb. 20, 2021, in Frankfurt on a special flight from the U.S. after being ordered deported to his native Germany by a court in Memphis last year. (U.S. Department of Justice via AP)BERLIN โ A 95-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard deported from Tennessee has agreed to be questioned by German prosecutors as they re-examine whether there is enough evidence against him to bring charges, authorities said Monday. A U.S. immigration judge ordered Berger deported a year ago after finding that his โwilling service as an armed guard of prisoners at a concentration camp where persecution took placeโ constituted assistance in Nazi-sponsored persecution. The Memphis court found, however, that Berger had helped guard prisoners during a forced evacuation that took nearly two weeks and claimed the lives of 70 people.
Putin signs extension of last Russia-US nuclear arms treaty
Russia and the United States exchanged documents Tuesday Jan. 26, 2021, to extend the New START nuclear treaty, their last remaining arms control pact, the Kremlin said. The Kremlin readout of a phone call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin said they voiced satisfaction with the move. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a bill extending the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty between Russia and the United States a week before the pact was due to expire. Both houses of the Russian parliament voted unanimously Wednesday to extend the New START treaty for five years. After both Moscow and Washington withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, New START is the only remaining nuclear arms control deal between the two countries.
Russian parliament OKs New START nuclear treaty extension
Russia and the United States exchanged documents Tuesday Jan. 26, 2021, to extend the New START nuclear treaty, their last remaining arms control pact, the Kremlin said. The Kremlin readout of a phone call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin said they voiced satisfaction with the move. Both houses of parliament voted unanimously to extend the New START treaty for five years, a day after a phone call between U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Biden indicated during the campaign that he favored the preservation of the New START treaty, which was negotiated during his tenure as U.S. vice president. Ryabkov said that Russia will count its Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle along with other Russian nuclear weapons under the treaty limits.
'We owe this to them': Shoah survivors in vaccine spotlight
โWe owe this to them,โ said Erika Jakubovits, who organized the capital vaccination drive for the Jewish Community of Vienna. In a similar project to that in Vienna, the Jewish community of Bratislava in Slovakia also vaccinated Holocaust survivors on Wednesday. Because Israel's vaccination campaign has moved so quickly, officials said there was no need to single out Holocaust survivors. Still, about 900 Holocaust survivors died of COVID-19 in Israel last year before vaccines were available and about 5,300 survivors were infected, according to Israel's national statistics office. With World War II having ended more than three-quarters of a century ago, the worldโs approximately 240,000 Holocaust survivors are all elderly.
Auschwitz survivors mark anniversary online amid pandemic
Roses with a note saying "#weremember", are placed on the Holocaust Memorial on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2021. In Israel, some 900 Holocaust survivors died from COVID-19 out of 5,300 who were infected last year. Israel, which counts 197,000 Holocaust survivors, officially marks its Holocaust remembrance day in the spring. Meanwhile, Luxembourg signed a deal agreeing to pay reparations and to restitute dormant bank accounts, insurance policies and looted art to Holocaust survivors. In 2005, the United Nations designated the anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Holocaust survivors honored with online event amid pandemic
An annual event bringing together Holocaust survivors from around the world to mark the start of Hanukkah was held online for the first time Sunday Dec. 13, 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)BERLIN โ An annual event bringing together Holocaust survivors from around the world to mark the start of Hanukkah was held online for the first time Sunday due to the coronavirus pandemic. The event organized by the Jewish Claims Conference also paid tribute to those killed by the Nazis and raised awareness of anti-Semitism. Among the survivors who spoke was Walter Breindel, who fled Austria at the age of four with his mother and brother. โHopefully next year it will not be a memory but we shall be together in reality,โ he said.
Germany bans far-right, pro-Nazi group; Police raid homes
BERLIN โ More than 180 police officers raided homes in three German states early Tuesday after the German government banned a far-right group, the interior ministry said. The homes of 11 members of the far-right group Wolfsbrigade 44 were searched in Hesse, Mecklenburg West-Pomerania and North Rhine-Westphalia to confiscate the group's funds and far-right propaganda material, the German news agency dpa reported. Oskar Dirlewanger was a known Nazi war criminal and commander of a Nazi SS special unit. The far-right group, founded in 2016, is also known for its anti-Semitic and racist ideology as well as its violent and aggressive appearances in public and on social media. Earlier this year, the German government banned other far-right groups including the Combat 18 and the Nordadler, dpa reported.
Facebook bans Holocaust denial, distortion posts
The decision comes amid a push by Holocaust survivors around the world who lent their voices to a campaign targeting Zuckerberg beginning this summer, urging him to take action to remove Holocaust denial posts from the social media site. The group tracked more anti-Semitic incidents in the U.S. last year than at an any time over the past four decades, and has said it continues to find Holocaust denial groups on Facebook, some hidden and most private. Facebook said Monday it would immediately begin removing Holocaust denial posts from Facebook and Instagram, which it owns, but it could take some time to train the company's technical systems and human moderators to enforce it on a global scale. Several other groups that had pushed for Facebook to take a stricter line on Holocaust denial said Monday's move was an important step. โFacebook is showing that it recognizes Holocaust denial for what it truly is โ a form of antisemitism and therefore hate speech,โ Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, said in a prepared statement.
IOC apologizes, deletes tweet about 1936 Berlin Olympics
GENEVA The IOC apologized on Friday and deleted a Twitter message which some saw as celebrating Nazi Germanys hosting of the 1936 Olympics. We apologize to those who feel offended by the film of the Olympic Games Berlin 1936, the IOC wrote on Friday. The official museum at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp added its reply to the IOC in the message thread on Friday. Owens taught a resounding lesson to the Nazi regime, shattering its despicable fascist claims of racial superiority, the IOC wrote on Friday. Brundage, the IOC president for 20 years until 1972, has long been criticized for racist views and being a Nazi sympathizer at the Berlin Olympics where he led the United States team.
Supreme Court agrees to hear Nazi art case
WASHINGTON The Supreme Court agreed Thursday to hear a case involving the descendants of a group of Jewish art dealers from Germany who say their ancestors were forced to sell a collection of religious art to the Nazi government in 1935. A lower court allowed the case to go forward, but Germany asked the Supreme Court to weigh in. The justices also took a case involving Hungarian nationals suing Hungary over property taken from them during World War II. In the case involving Germany, the group of people who sued are descendants of art dealers who in 1929 together bought a collection of religious artworks from the 11th to 15th centuries known as the Guelph Treasure. An appeals court in Washington allowed the case to go forward in 2018.
Putin hails Nazi defeat in virus-delayed Red Square parade
Russian sailors march toward Red Square during the Victory Day military parade marking the 75th anniversary of the Nazi defeat in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, June 24, 2020. The Victory Day parade normally is held on May 9, the nation's most important secular holiday, but this year it was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. (Mikhail Voskresenskiy, Host Photo Agency via AP)
Veterans Affairs to remove Nazi headstones in Texas, Utah
SAN ANTONIO (AP) The process to remove grave headstones of German prisoners of war that display swastikas and markings related to the Nazi regime at cemeteries in Texas and Utah will begin later this month, Veterans Affairs announced. The VA said Monday in a statement that it has decided to replace the headstones on gravesites of three German POWs. Two are located at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio, Texas, and one is at Fort Douglas Post Cemetery in Salt Lake City, Utah. One of the headstones shows that a prisoner was awarded the Iron Cross, a German military decoration for valor. The VA plans to preserve the headstones in its National Cemetery Administration History Collection after theyre replaced.
US House Speaker Pelosi visits Auschwitz before anniversary
(US Consulate General in Krakow via AP)WARSAW โ U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a congressional delegation Tuesday to the Auschwitz memorial site in Poland ahead of the 75th anniversary of the day Soviet troops liberated the sprawling World War II German Nazi death and concentration camp complex where an estimated 1.1 million people died. At the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial, Pelosi laid a wreath at the reconstructed wall where several thousand prisoners were executed, most of them members of the Polish resistance. Elzbieta Witek, the speaker of the lower house of Poland's parliament, or Sejm, and Senate Speaker Tomasz Grodzki, accompanied their American peer. From Poland, Pelosi and the six-member bipartisan delegation plan to go to Israel to attend a conference marking the anniversary of the death camp's liberation. The Red Army liberated the camp on Jan. 27, 1945, an event now observed annually as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.