Hello Friends,

Here's some more information on the latest fiasco in the G 5+1's negotiations with the lunatic Iranian regime. There is no doubt that the Iranians came out ahead but the western leaders think they accomplished something and they are right - more time for the Iranians to enrich uranium. So far it's 1-0 to the Iranians (and to the B Hussein election campaign).

The below article is well worth reading and understanding just how easily the west is again falling for nonexistingl "accomplishments".

Shalom,

Peter

World Powers to Iran: Keep Building Nukes

Posted by P. David Hornik

On Saturday the P5+1 countries (the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, and China plus Germany) met with Iran in Istanbul for what is being called a “first round” of nuclear talks. By all accounts, it was a “round” with little or no substance—except one major result: the parties agreed to reconvene for another “round” in Baghdad in another five weeks, on May 23.

No one seriously concerned about Iran’s ongoing enrichment of uranium, its ongoing transfer of centrifuges to its deep-underground Fordo site, its ongoing work on nuclear-weapons development, could be pleased with this result. As Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu put it bluntly: “My initial impression is that Iran has been given a freebie. It’s got five weeks to continue enrichment without any limitation, any inhibition.”

Some, though, were indeed happy with the meeting’s outcome.

One was EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton—who not long ago made waves when she reacted to the Toulouse terror by equating the Israeli army with mass murderers. Ashton called Saturday’s talks “constructive and useful” and rhapsodized: “We expect that subsequent meetings will lead to concrete steps toward a comprehensive negotiated solution which restores international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program.”

And another party that reacted with great satisfaction was the Iranians themselves. Their chief negotiator Saeed Jalili exulted that the talks were a “positive sign” compared with “the language of threats and pressure that do not work on the Iranian people.”

And AFP reported on Sunday that “Iran’s media, including outlets close to the leadership…hailed renewed talks with world powers as positive[.]” The government-run, English-language Iran Daily trumpeted on its front page: “EU Reaffirms Tehran’s Nuclear Rights.” The newspaper Jomhuri Eslami said the key to progress “is that America give up its political games and surrender to the realities”—that is, of Iran’s ongoing march toward the bomb.

Ominously, various Western reports say that the P5+1, while probably aiming to demand that Iran remove its stockpile of 20-percent-enriched uranium from the country, is now prepared—unlike in the past—to allow it to keep its 3-percent-enriched stockpile. Ephraim Kam, deputy head of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, notes that the latter stockpile already has enough uranium for three to four nuclear bombs. And if removing that stockpile as well

is not insisted upon, it will not stop Iran from striving toward a nuclear weapon…. [Such] a deal would provide legitimacy to Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. Even if it is recognized as civilian in nature and is placed under more stringent supervision, it will not be possible to sufficiently oversee Iran’s nuclear-related activity.

The upshot is that the winner of the first “round” is Iran. Even if the reports—and there are many of them—on leniency toward its 3-percent stockpile turn out to be wrong, Iran gains time. May 23 is only a little more than five weeks from July—when the EU’s intensified sanctions on Iranian oil are supposed to start. It is all too easy to picture Iran introducing “proposals” on May 23 that Ashton and others will delightedly find “constructive”—while agreeing to schedule another convocation for, say, about July 1, and also agreeing to put off the ramped-up sanctions while such exciting “progress” is being made.

Meanwhile, of course, Iran could keep its centrifuges spinning while remaining immune—unless Israel were to go very much against the “consensus”—from any military attack.

Where’s the Obama administration in all this? Reports that quote Ashton’s and Jalili’s upbeat assessments of Saturday’s meeting also quote more guarded reactions by U.S. officials. One such official, for instance, told the New York Times that “dialogue is not sufficient for any sanction relief…. There must be an urgent effort and concrete steps…. We believe there is a conducive atmosphere, but we need to test it…the window for diplomacy is closing.”

The problem here is that if Washington is really skeptical and serious as those words seem to imply, it’s hard to square with teaming up with the Europeans, Russians, and Chinese. If such an invincible faith in multilateral diplomacy could, on a kind reading, be ascribed to an invincible naiveté, it could also be ascribed to a tacit collusion with Iran on stalling tactics—stalling tactics aimed at what is still perceived as the real “danger,” Israeli military action, while the world strides blindly down another deadly path of appeasement.

Hello Friends,

Tomorrow is Yom Hashoa - Holocaust Memorial Day in honor of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis. Tonight after sundown it starts and there will be a candle lighting ceremony at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

The stories of six survivors will be told at the ceremony and in the article below you can read about them.

Shalom,

Peter

Stories of Six Survivors who will Represent Six Million

By Maayana Miskin

Six Holocaust survivors will each light a flame on Wednesday night, Yom HaShoa (Holocaust Memorial Day), in memory of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their allies.

The main Yom HaShoa ceremony will begin at 8 p.m. at Yad VaShem in Jerusalemand will be attended by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, and Rabbi Meir Yisrael Lau, a Holocaust survivor and former chief rabbi. This year’s events will focus on the theme “The individual and the collective – Jewish solidarity during the Holocaust.”

The stories of the six candle-lighters are as follows:

Hasya Vardi:
Hasya Vardi, 80, of Poland, was her parents’ only child. Her father Yaakov was sent to a labor camp in 1942 and later murdered in a death camp. In the same year, as Jews of her town were being sent to their deaths, Hasya and several relatives managed to hide in a bunker. Hasya later fled to the woods with a group of women and children, and there learned to knit.

After several months, the group of survivors was discovered by the Nazis. The women and children were lined up and shot, but Hasya miraculously survived and made her way to acquaintances she knew through her knitting. She later joined a group of Jews hiding in a bunker in the forest.

After the war Hasya was cared for in foster homes and orphanages until she made aliyah to Israel in 1946. Each year she accompanies Israeli students to Poland and tells them her story.

Eliezer Lev-Tzion:
Eliezer Lev-Zion, 85, of Germany, lost his father early on when the Nazis came to power. His father, a journalist, was arrested and “disappeared.”

Eliezer, his mother the doctor, and his baby brother fled to France. In winter 1939 they were sent to a prison camp. After four months Eliezer was released and joined the Jewish underground; his mother and brother were eventually sent to Auschwitz, where both were murdered.

Eliezer worked with the priest Alexander Glassberg, who was later recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, to save dozens of Jewish children. Eliezer hid the children and rode them to safety on his bicycle. He took on a fake identity and for a time served as a translator for a Nazi SS unit, passing along the information he obtained there to the French underground.

After the war he worked with the Joint Committee, training Jewish orphans to prepare them for aliyah to Israel. He came to Israel in 1946 and fought in the War of Independence, then built a farm. He now is an activist for the protection of nature, and for people with mental illness and other disabilities.

Antoli Rubin:
Antoli Rubin, 84, was born in Belarus as the youngest of four children in a traditionally observant Jewish home. In June 1941 while he was away at summer camp the Nazi army invaded. He returned to find his home burnt, his father dead, and the rest of the family in the Minsk ghetto.

In November 1941 Antoli and his family were taken to be murdered, but Antoli and his sister Tamar managed to escape. Tamar was later turned over to the Germans and murdered. Antoli returned to the ghetto, where he did forced labor and survived on German scraps. He was taken to be killed again, escaped a second time, and survived using fake identification papers.

After the war Antoli learned electronics. Soon afterward he was arrested by Soviet police and sentenced to years in prison for “Zionist activity.” In 1969 he made aliyah to Israel.

Artemis Meiron:
Artemis Meiron, 84, was born in Greece. In the summer of 1943 the German army invaded her town and SS soldiers broke into the family home, robbed the family and took Artemis’s father, who was murdered two weeks later.

In 1944 Artemis, her mother and her brother were put on a train, where they were in cramped conditions and without food for eight days. The train brought them to Auschwitz, where Artemis managed to pass the selection thanks to her mother’s fur coat, which made her look older than her age. Her mother and brother were sent to their deaths immediately. In 1945 Artemis survived a death march to Germany.

In 1946 she made aliyah to Israel and worked as a teacher. Today she volunteers for Yad Vashem, translating documents from Greek to Hebrew and writing memorial pages for thousands of Greek Jews.

Yehuda Vidbesky:
Yehuda, 93, was born in Poland as the second of four brothers in a traditional, Zionist family. The family was sent to the Lodz ghetto in 1939 and managed to survive until 1944 running a kitchen for residents of the ghetto. In 1944 the ghetto was liquidated and the family sent to Auschwitz, where father Avraham, mother Leah, and son Gavriel were murdered in the gas chambers.

Yehuda and his younger brother Yehosha survived the war. In 1945 they returned to Lodz and found their home had been taken over by a Polish family and only one uncle had survived the war. After the war Yehuda opened a textile factory and helped the Etzel resistance group in Israel by sending weapons from Poland. In 1950 he made aliyah to Israel and became a businessman. He also works to restore Jewish graves in Poland, and has restored 7,000 graves to date.

Batsheva Dagan:
Batsheva Dagan, 87, was born in Lodz. She had five brothers and three sisters. When war broke out, four of her brothers and one sister fled to the Soviet Union, while the rest of the family was sent to the ghetto. Batsheva managed to continue learning as part of an underground study group. She also worked with the Jewish underground, using a fake Aryan ID to move between ghettos and carry information.

In 1942 Batsheva’s parents and one older sister were sent to Treblinka, where they were murdered. Batsheva received fake documents from a Polish acquaintance and worked as a housekeeper, but was discovered and sent to Auschwitz in 1943. She endured forced labor and survived a death march.

After the war Batsheva went to Belgium, where she met her future husband. The couple made aliyah to Israel, where Batsheva served in several positions related to teaching. She has shared her story of survival with all ages, writing children’s books about the Holocaust as well as stories for youth and adults.

Hello Friends,

Yesterday evening the main ceremony of Yom Hashoah took place at Yad Vashem at 8 PM (Israel time). It was a beautiful and sad ceremony with holocaust survivors from all over the world participating along with their families. During the ceremony President Peres and Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke and I found Bibi's speech to be very significant and it's message very important.

You'll find the translation of the speech below and reading it is definitely a must in my opinion.

Shalom,

Peter

PM Netanyahu’s Speech at Holocaust Remembrance Day

Yesterday morning, I visited an old-age home for Holocaust survivors. There, I met Idit Yapo, an amazing woman of 104, clear and lucid. Idit fled Germany shortly after Hitler gained power, in 1934.

I met 89-year-old Esther Nadiv, one of Mendele’s twins. She was reading a book, Golda Meir’s biography, and she told me, with a glint in her eye, she said: “I am so proud, so very proud to be a part of the State of Israel which is in constant development.”

I met Hanoch Mandelbaum, an 89-year-old survivor of Bergen-Belsen. Shortly after he came to Israel, as a young carpenter, he helped construct the desk upon which Ben Gurion signed the Declaration of Independence. That is MiSho’a liTkuma – from holocaust to resurrection.

And I met Elisheva Lehman, an 88 year-old Holocaust survivor from Holland, who was a music teacher.

I asked Elisheva if she would play something for us and she did. She enthusiastically played “Am Yisrael Chai” and we all sung together. It was quite emotional.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Am Yisrael Chai [The nation of Israel lives]

Our enemies tried to bury the Jewish future, but it was reborn in the land of our forefathers. Here, we built a foundation for a new beginning of freedom, hope, and creation. Year after year, decade after decade, we built the foundations of our country, and we will continue to yearly strengthen the pillars of our national life.

On this day, when our entire nation gathers together to remember the horrors of the Holocaust and the six million Jews who were murdered, we must fulfill our most sacred obligation.

This obligation is not merely an obligation to remember the past. It is an obligation to learn its lessons, and, most importantly, to apply them to the present in order to secure the future of our people. We must remember the past and secure the future by applying the lessons of the past.

This is especially true for this generation – a generation that once again is faced with calls to annihilate the Jewish State.

One day, I hope that the State of Israel will enjoy peace with all the countries and all the peoples in our region. One day, I hope that we will read about these calls to destroy the Jews only in history books and not in daily newspapers. But that day has not yet come. Today, the regime in Iran openly calls and determinedly works for our destruction. And it is feverishly working to develop atomic weapons to achieve that goal. I know that there are those who do not like when I speak such uncomfortable truths. They prefer that we not speak of a nuclear Iran as an existential threat. They say that such language, even if true, only sows fear and panic. I ask, have these people lost all faith in the people of Israel? Do they think that this nation, which has overcome every danger, lacks the strength to confront this new threat? Did the State of Israel not triumph over existential threats when it was far less powerful than it is today? Did its leaders have any qualms about saying the truth? David Ben Gurion told the people of Israel the truth about the existential dangers they faced in 1948 when five Arab armies tried to snuff Israel out in its cradle. Levi Eshkol told the people of Israel the truth in 1967 when a noose was being placed around Israel’s neck and we stood alone to face our fate. And when they heard these truths, did the people of Israel panic or did they unite to thwart the dangers? Were we paralyzed with fear or did we do what was necessary to protect ourselves. I believe in the people of Israel – and this belief is based on our experiences. I believe that the people of Israel can handle the truth. And I believe that they we have the capability to defeat those who seek to harm us. Those who dismiss Iran’s threats as exaggerated or as mere idle posturing have learned nothing from the Holocaust. But we should not be surprised. There have always been those among us who prefer to mock those who tell uncomfortable truths than squarely face the truth themselves. That is how Zev Jabotinsky was received when he warned the Jews of Poland of the looming Holocaust. This is what he said in 1938, in Warsaw: “It is already THREE years that I am calling upon you, Polish Jewry, who are the crown of World Jewry. I continue to warn you incessantly that a catastrophe is coming closer. I became grey and old in these years, my heart bleeds, that you, dear brother and sisters, do not see the volcano which will soon begin to spit its all-consuming lava… I see that you are not seeing this because you are immersed and sunk in your daily worries… Listen to me in this twelfth hour: In the name of G-d! Let anyone of you save himself, as long as there is still time, and time there is very little.” But the leading Jewish intellectuals of the day ridiculed Jabotinsky, and rather than heed his warning, they attacked him. This is what Sholem Asch, one of our nation’s greatest writers, said about him: “What Jabotinsky is now doing in Poland is going too far. His statement is detrimental to Zionism and to the vital interests of our people… It is disgraceful that these are leaders of a nation.” I know there are also those who believe that the unique evil of the Holocaust should never be invoked in discussing other threats facing the Jewish people. To do so, they argue, is to belittle the Holocaust and to offend its victims. I totally disagree. On the contrary. To cower from speaking the uncomfortable truth – that today like then, there are those who want to destroy millions of Jewish people – that is to belittle the Holocaust, that is to offend its victims and that is to ignore the lessons. Not only does the Prime Minister of Israel have the right, when speaking of these existential dangers, to invoke the memory of a third of our nation which was annihilated. It is his duty. There is a memorable scene in Claude Lanzmann’s documentary Shoah that explains this obligation more than anything. In the harsh existence in the Warsaw Ghetto, Leon Feiner of the Bund and Menachem Kirschenbaum of the General Zionists met with Jan Karski from the Polish World War II Resistance Movement. Jan Karski was a decent, sensitive man, and they begged him to appeal to the conscience of the world against the Nazi crimes. They described what was happening, they showed him, but to no avail. They said: “Help us. We have no country of our own, we have no government, and we even have no voice among the nations” They were right. Seventy years ago the Jewish people did not have the national capacity to summon the nations, nor the military might to defend itself. But today things are different. Today we have an army. We have the ability, the duty and the determination to defend ourselves. As Prime Minister of Israel, I will never shy from speaking the truth before the world, no matter how uncomfortable it may seem to some. I speak the truth at the United Nations; I speak the truth in Washington DC, the capital of our great friend, the United States, and in other important capitals; And I speak the truth here in Jerusalem, on the grounds of Yad VaShem which are saturated with remembrance. I will continue to speak the truth to the world, but first and foremost I must speak it to my own people. I know that my people is strong enough to hear the truth. The truth is that a nuclear-armed Iran is an existential threat of the State of Israel. The truth is that a nuclear-armed Iran is an political threat to other countries throughout the region and a grave threat to the world peace. The truth is that Iran must be stopped from obtaining nuclear weapons. It is the duty of the whole world, but above and beyond, it is OUR duty. The memory of the Holocaust goes beyond holding memorial services; it is not merely a historical recollection. The memory of the Holocaust obligates us to apply the lessons of the past to ensure the basis of our future. We will never bury our heads in the sand. Am Yisrael Chai, veNetzach Yisrael Lo Yeshaker [The Nation of Israel Lives, and the Eternal one of Israel does not Lie.

Hello Friends,

I just read the below article and watched the video. It's titled "The Auschwitz Album".

There is no need for further comments cos the article and video says it all. I never knew such an album existed and over the years I've read and researched the holocaust from every possible direction. For all the holocaust deniers here's visual proof but have no fear they'll continue to deny and minimize the massive documented proof.

As the son of a holocaust survivor I know it happened and my mother lost not only my father but the majority of her family and extended family the same happened to my father's family. Very few survived.

Never Again and We Will Not Forget. Am Yisrael Chai - The Nation/People of Israel Lives.

Shalom,

Peter

WATCH: 'The Auschwitz Album' – visual evidence of mass murder



http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gG2QaN_LUao

Visit the online exhibition: http://bit.ly/2Fi0aO

"The Auschwitz Album" is the only surviving visual evidence of the process of mass murder at Auschwitz-Birkenau, with the exception of the killing itself.

The 193 photos in the 56-page book were taken in May or June 1944, either by Ernst Hofmann or by Bernhard Walter, two SS men whose task was to take ID photos and fingerprints of the inmates (not of the Jews who were sent to the gas chambers).

According to Yad Vashem, the purpose of the album is unclear. It was not intended for propaganda and is assumed to have been prepared as an official reference for a higher authority, as were photo albums from other concentration camps.

Lilly Jacob-Zelmanovic Meier, who was in possession of the book, donated it to Yad Vashem in 1980.

Hello Friends,

With the close of Yom Hashoah - The Holocaust Remembrance Day I thought it fitting to end with the below article by Jeff Dunitz from The Lid.

The truth of the matter is that I was planning to search for the video he included but with the many different articles and shows I watched and read it slipped my mind.

In the previous post the "Auschwitz Album" the main point is the system used by the Nazis with incoming Jewish prisoners. They were still reasonably healthy and fit but the majority of each incoming train was dead by days end. In the below article and video you'll read and hear witness of American soldiers who liberated many concentration camps (the Russians also liberated many). The camp in the video is Ohrdruf Concentration Camp and amongst the people you'll see in the video aside from the dead and emaciated Jewish prisoners are Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gen. George Patton and Gen Omar Bradley. This was how the majority of the survivors looked when liberated and it is not a pretty sight. The three Generals were horrified to say the least and their personal feelings are expressed in the below article.

Ohrdruf was a relatively small concentration camp yet the horrors were no less then in the bigger and better known camps. Eisenhower forced all the civilian population surrounding the camp to march through and see what their fellow Germans did. In addition he had all the American soldiers not at the front go through the liberated camps to see what the Nazis did to fellow human beings.

Shalom,

Peter

Holocaust Remembrance Day Visions Of Horror-Eisenhower, Bradley and Patton at Ohrdruf Concentration Camp

Tonight at sunset begins a very solemn day on the Jewish Calendar, Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance day. It is observed on the 27th day of the month of Nisan, which marks the day when Allied troops liberated the first Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald, Germany, in 1945. The full name of the day is Yom Hashoah Ve-Hagevurah, which means the "Day of (remembrance of) the Holocaust and the Heroism."

On the morning of April 12th, 1945 General Eisenhower met Generals Bradley and Patton at Ohrdruf Concentration Camp. Afterwards Eisenhower also ordered every American soldier in the area who was not on the front lines to visit Ohrdruf and Buchenwald. He wanted them to see for themselves what they were fighting against. On this Yom HaShoah their words are much more moving then anything I could say :

During the camp inspections with his top commanders Eisenhower said that the atrocities were “beyond the American mind to comprehend.” He ordered that every citizen of the town of Gotha personally tour the camp and, after having done so, the mayor and his wife went home and hanged themselves. Later on Ike wrote to Mamie, “I never dreamed that such cruelty, bestiality, and savagery could really exist in this world.” He cabled General Marshall to suggest that he come to Germany and see these camps for himself. He encouraged Marshall to bring Congressmen and journalists with him. It would be many months before the world would know the full scope of the Holocaust — many months before they knew that the Nazi murder apparatus that was being discovered at Buchenwald and dozens of other death camps had slaughtered millions of innocent people.

General Eisenhower understood that many people would be unable to comprehend the full scope of this horror. He also understood that any human deeds that were so utterly evil might eventually be challenged or even denied as being literally unbelievable. For these reasons he ordered that all the civilian news media and military combat camera units be required to visit the camps and record their observations in print, pictures and film. As he explained to General Marshall, “I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to ‘propaganda.’”

His prediction proved correct. When some groups, even today, attempt to deny that the Holocaust ever happened they are must confront the massive official record, including both written evidence and thousands of pictures, that Eisenhower ordered to be assembled when he saw what the Nazis had done. Source

General Patton wrote the following in his diary after he toured the Camp:

It was the most appalling sight imaginable. In a shed . . . was a pile of about 40 completely naked human bodies in the last stages of emaciation. These bodies were lightly sprinkled with lime, not for the purposes of destroying them, but for the purpose of removing the stench.

When the shed was full--I presume its capacity to be about 200, the bodies were taken to a pit a mile from the camp where they were buried. The inmates claimed that 3,000 men, who had been either shot in the head or who had died of starvation, had been so buried since the 1st of January (Source

General Omar Bradley said of the atrocities at Ohrdruf:

"The smell of death overwhelmed us even before we passed through the stockade. More than 3200 naked, emaciated bodies had been flung into shallow graves. Others lay in the streets where they had fallen. Lice crawled over the yellowed skin of their sharp, bony frames."

May the Memories of those who suffered through the Shoah always be for a blessing. And may we never forget what evil men can do when they are appeased by the rest of the world.

Below is a clip of the news video taken of that day. It is graphic, but it should be watched nevertheless. (If you cannot see video: click here)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUbWQmgVlfI&feature=player_embedded