Benjamin Murmelstein was the first person Claude Lanzmann interviewed on his epic journey that led to what eventually became his definitive film, “Shoah.”
Lanzmann sat for a full week with the only living former Alteste Der Judenrat (a term used to describe the head of a ghetto Judenrat) and penetrated deep in to the moral labyrinth of Murmelstein's world.
The Cold War began its thaw 25 years ago, then apparently melted sufficiently for us to get on with our lives without fear. Surprisingly, the slow thaw is still in progress.
Executive director Stephen Smith highlights just a few of USC Shoah Foundation's 2013 achievements.
Ingeborg Kantor worked at a German ammunition factory in Berlin under forced labor. She remembers a forelady who would sneak her and the other female workers pieces of food. Ingeborg states that she was the only one out of that group of woman to survive the Holocaust and after the war she connected with the forelady.
Izchak Goldblatt remembers the food rations at the Wolfsberg concentration camp, which was a sub-camp of Gross Rosen. He reflects that as the months went on the conditions at the camp worsen including less food portions and the spread of diseases.
While deployed in France, US armed forces liberator Jules Barrash remembers asking a French farm couple to cook him and a group of about 15 soldiers a dinner for Christmas in exchange for sea rations and food from the army.
Harold Alexander fled Nazi controlled Germany to the United States and then joined the United States Army. He returned to Germany towards the end of WWII as an American soldier and met a Jewish woman who was still in hiding. He remembers helping the woman and her family by bringing them a truck full of food and connecting them to family in the United States.
Recalling his time held in different concentration camps where he met several inhabitants who were not Jewish, Simon Wiesenthal addresses the need to provide a united front in fighting against another recurrence.
Hear Ferdinand Tyroler tell the story of how he and Edith Weiss, two teenagers who met in the Auschwitz III-Monowitz slave labor camp, fell in love under unimaginable circumstances. Ferdinand recalls how, in spite of fear and constant threat of death, he and Edith managed to find hope in each other, dreaming of their future together.
Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat helped thousands of Jews flee to Japan by issuing them Japanese transit visas. Abraham Brumberg and his family were saved because of Sugihara’s brave efforts. Brumberg remembers the journey from Europe to Japan and recalls his first impression of the islands of Japan.