Lauder: Auschwitz guard ‘got the sentence he deserved’
(WJC) Ronald S. Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), on Friday welcomed the Detmold court’s verdict in the trial of former Auschwitz camp guard Reinhold Hanning.
Hanning was sentenced to five years in prison for complicity in the murder of at least 170,000 people at the German death camp during World War II. Lauder said Hanning was part of a “merciless killing machine,” adding: “He got the sentence he deserved.”
Pronouncing the verdict, Judge Anke Grudda told Hanning: “You were at Auschwitz for nearly two and a half years, and you thus abetted mass murder.
Ronald S. Lauder said on the verdict: “This trial came decades late, but we welcome the fact that it took place, and we are glad that the court allowed for many Auschwitz survivors to be heard. Mr. Hanning got a fair trial, and today’s verdict is very clear: He was complicit in mass murder. He was part of a merciless killing machine. Without the active participation of people like him, Auschwitz would not have been possible.
“Yet for seven decades, he and many of his SS comrades were allowed to lead peaceful lives. Most never had to answer for their crimes.
“It is important that people who took part in genocide and crimes against humanity are being tried in a court of law, irrespective of their age. The Jewish people expects that no stone is left unturned when it comes to dealing properly with the crimes committed during the Holocaust.
“There can be no impunity for genocide, mass murder or crimes against humanity, and old age is not a mitigating factor.
“Germany should continue to address the darkest chapter of its history, and Germans should be vigilant vis-à-vis all expressions of racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia,” said the WJC president.
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New app revives Jewish history of Crete
(JNS.org) The Canadian and Israeli embassies in Greece this week launched a new mobile phone application teaching users about the Jewish history of Crete, including the remnants of the Etz Hayyim Synagogue.
“This free tourist application constitutes an important tool, allowing users immediate access to the rich history of the Jewish community of Chania and Crete,”said Julie Creteau the Charge d’Affaires of the Embassy of Canada in Greece, Haaretz reported.
The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre of Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, developed the app.
The app was launched on the same day the embassies commemorated the destruction of the 2,300 year-old Jewish community of Crete during the Holocaust.
In June 1944, the Nazis boarded the 265 Jews living on the Greek island, along with hundreds of Greek and Italian prisoners of war, on the Tanais ship heading to Auschwitz. But the ship was sunk by a British submarine and all aboard were killed.
By the end of the war, all five synagogues in Crete were destroyed, but Etz Hayyim’s ruins went through renovations beginning in 1996. The synagogue was rededicated in 1999.
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Dutch lawmakers pass motion against BDS
(JNS.org) A non-binding motion to defund organizations involved in the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement was passed in the Dutch parliament’s lower house on Thursday.
“Parliament requests the government to end as soon as possible direct or indirect funding for organizations which, according to their mission statements or activities, work to achieve or promote a boycott of Israel, and especially for those organizations that play a leading role” in the BDS movement, stated the motion written by Kees van der Staaij of the Reformed Political Party, a Protestant Christian party, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Three Dutch lawmakers signed the motion, including van der Staaij, Joel Voordewind of the Christian Union party, and Han Ten Broeke, spokesman for the parliament’s Commission on Foreign Affairs and chair of its Defense Committee.
Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders of the Dutch Labor party has said that pro-BDS advertising is protected under freedom of expression, but the Dutch government is officially opposed to boycotting Israel.
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