I have always had a special interest in World War II and the Holocaust, and have made a point of educating myself about this significant time period. For this reason I traveled to Poland in April 2000 and visited the former Nazi death camps. As a journalist, I feel a special responsibility to counter anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial by speaking to survivors and bringing their stories to light before it is too late. Here is a selection of some of the many Holocaust-themed stories and features I have written over the years.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Simcha Rotem, an Israeli Holocaust survivor who was among the last known Jewish fighters from the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Nazis, has died. He was 94. Rotem, who went by the underground nickname “Kazik,” took…
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli politicians accused Poland’s prime minister of anti-Semitism Saturday for equating the Polish perpetrators in the Holocaust to its supposed “Jewish perpetrators,” setting off a new chapter in an angry dispute over Poland’s new bill criminalizing the…
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli leaders angrily criticized pending legislation in Poland that would outlaw blaming Poles for the crimes of the Holocaust, with some accusing the Polish government of outright denial Saturday as the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day….
JERUSALEM (AP) — Staring at grainy video footage of Jewish children marching to their freedom though the barbed-wire fences of the Auschwitz death camp, 79-year-old Vera Kriegel Grossman excitedly points a finger at the screen upon identifying a dark-haired girl…
KFAR SABA, Israel (AP) — Eliahu Pietruszka shuffled his 102-year-old body through the lobby of his retirement home toward a stranger he had never met and collapsed into him in a teary embrace. Then he kissed both cheeks of his…
JERUSALEM (AP) — President Donald Trump paid a short visit to Israel’s national Holocaust memorial on Tuesday, calling the Nazi extermination of 6 million Jews “the most savage crime against God and his children” during the most sensitive stop on…
LATRUN, Israel (AP) — Two years after Israel’s prime minister vowed to complete the establishment of a museum honoring Jewish World War II veterans, funds have dried up and an abandoned construction site is all that remains of the grand…
JERUSALEM (AP) — Against an empty white wall in a nondescript Jerusalem law office hangs an impressionist work of art that encapsulates 80 years of tragedy, conflict, mystery and redemption. Max Liebermann’s “Basket Weavers” is set to return to the…
JERUSALEM (AP) — A prominent Polish historian presented evidence Wednesday about Polish villagers’ widespread killing of Jews fleeing Nazis during World War II, touching a raw nerve in a country still grappling with its role during the Holocaust. The research…
RAMAT HASHARON, Israel (AP) — Surrounded by more than 100 fellow Holocaust survivors and young volunteers, a blind Ernest Weiner sat in his wheelchair with a puffy crown on his head as the crowd sang happy birthday and showered him…
JERUSALEM (AP) — For the first time in Yad Vashem’s 63-year history, live music echoed through the halls of Israel’s national Holocaust memorial in a somber tribute to the works of musicians who created a vibrant cultural life in the…
JERUSALEM (AP) — While the European refugee crisis has captured the world’s attention, Sol Messinger is one of the few who can personally relate to the harrowing images of desperate families fleeing to safety by sea. The 84-year-old retired pathologist…
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Seventy years after the most daring attempt of Jewish Holocaust survivors to seek revenge against their former tormentors, the leader of the plot has only one simple regret — that to his knowledge he didn’t…