BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

Exactly 70 years after the 1938 Nazi pogrom widely seen as the precursor to the Holocaust, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Germans not to be indifferent to anti-Semitism. "Indifference is the first step towards endangering essential values," Merkel said during Germany's national memorial ceremony for Kristallnacht - "the Night of Broken Glass" - at the old synagogue in Berlin's Rykestrasse. "Germany needs a climate that encourages moral courage," Merkel said. "Xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism must never be given an opportunity in Europe again." Advertisement "It is a mistake to think it doesn't affect you when your neighbors are affected," Merkel added. "This mistake just leads us further and further into evil." On November 9, 1938, massive riots began across Germany and Austria. More than 91 Jews were killed, more than 1,000 synagogues were damaged and 7,500 Jewish businesses were ransacked and loot...

Holocaust survivors' children sue Germany for therapy fees When I read this article below - I was filled with mixed emotions. I sympathize that the children of Holocaust survivors suffer deep psychic scars and understand this lawsuit. On the other hand, I have to think about the many hearings I have sat in for moral support of abuse victims when they ask for child support in divorce or separation. The abusers will say yes and then disappear or never bother to pay for therapy for their own children - figuring "let the law find me" or "let her spend more money trying to force me to pay." Deadbeat parent organizations spend years chasing this stuff down. Sometimes, as in my own case, the other parent just plays games to be punitive. Another thing I thought of - is the compensatory claims made by African Americans for slavery here in the U.S. Perhaps this doesn't compare but it will be interesting to see how this shakes out. Is it a reasonable or unreasona...

The New German Nazism I'm not Jewish. No one in my family died in the Holocaust. For me, anti-Semitism has always been one of those phenomena that doesn't really register on my radar, like tribal genocide in Rwanda, a horrible thing that happens to someone else. But I live in a small town outside of Munich on a street that until May of 1945 was named Adolf Hitler Strasse. I work in Munich, a pleasant metropolitan city of a little over a million inhabitants whose Bavarian charm tends to obscure the fact that this city was the birthplace and capital of the Nazi movement. Every day when I go to work I pass by the sites of apartments Hitler lived in, extant buildings in which decisions were made to murder millions of innocent people, and plazas in which book burnings took place, SS troops paraded and people were executed. The proximity to evil has a way of concentrating one's attention, of putting a physical reality to the textbook narratives of the horrors perpetrated ...

Free himself from the burden of the past? by ERASING it? Sorry that never works. This is a horrible story!! See my earlier post on Anne Frank ) HISTORY DOES REPEAT ITSELF Neo-Nazis are on trial in Germany for burning a copy of Anne Frank's diary at a far-right mid-summer festival. Their lawyer claims one defendant did it to "free" himself of Germany's past. Lars K. (r) is one of the seven defendants in the case. He claims he wanted to free himself from the burden of the past. The burden of Germany's recent history weighs heavily on the shoulders of many Germans. However the claim of one alleged neo-Nazi that he wanted to "free" himself of the burden of the past by burning Anne Frank's diary has enraged observers. Seven men are on trial in Magdeburg, Germany for incitement to hatred after they burned a copy of Anne Frank's book on June 24, 2006 during a summer solstice festival in the east German town of Pretzien. The men, whose ages range from ...