15 Mar
Anti-Semitism Monitor, Deep Dives

Bulgarian Nazis: Now and Then

This February the Bulgarian government banned the annual neo-Nazi Lukov March, which was set for February 25 in the capital city Sofia. The cancellation was due to pressure from foreign embassies, international Jewish organizations and several of Bulgaria’s own political ministries and parties.  The parade dates from 2003, when neo-Nazis from around the world began marching in a torchlit parade honoring Hristo Lukov, the former leader of the pro-Nazi Union of Bulgarian National Legions (UBNL) during World War II. Prior to leading the UBNL, Lukov served as a lieutenant-general during World War I and Minister of War from 1935–1938. In these capacities he fostered close ties with senior Nazi officials in Germany. The parade’s organizers, the Bulgarian National Union-New Democracy Party (BNU-ND), insisted that Lukov was neither an antisemite nor a neo-fascist but a war hero...

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austrian far right
06 Sep
Uncategorized

Anti-Semitism Watch | The Waltz of the Austrian Far Right

In January, Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) hosted its annual Academics Ball, where women in gowns and men in tuxedos and three-piece suits dance and socialize in Vienna’s splendorous imperial palace. Attendees also proudly dress in the colors and regalia of their Burschenschaften—student fraternities founded during the 19th century, some of which espouse pan-Germanism.

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The Ambiguity of Virtue by Bernard Wasserstein
11 Aug
2014 July/August, Arts & Culture

Book Review // The Ambiguity of Virtue: Gertrude van Tijn and the Fate of the Dutch Jews

At the very beginning of his probing, disturbing account of the Nazis’ destruction of Dutch Jewry, Bernard Wasserstein asks what is no doubt the most terrible question that can be posed about Jewish behavior during the Holocaust: “Confronting the absolute evil of Nazism, was there any middle road between outright resistance and abject submission?”

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19 Nov
Uncategorized

It's 1979, do you know where your Nazis are?

By Symi Rom-Rymer By 1948, World War II had been over for three years, yet hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced persons remained scattered throughout the wrecked and scarred European landscape.   The United States Congress responded with one of its most far reaching immigration laws, the Displaced Persons and the Refugee Relief Acts, which brought over 600,000 of those refugees onto its shores.  But among the Nazi victims and self-defined anti-Communists who sought shelter in the US, were perpetrators of war crimes who were also eager to start a new life in a new country.  Slipping by the overworked and overwhelmed US consular officers, they gained entry to the US where they lived peacefully until their past lives caught up with them.  This week, the New York Times released the complete 617 page report from...

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23 Apr
History, Latest, topics

This Week's Links

By Michelle Albert Four car bombs exploded in front of Shiite mosques in Baghdad this morning, killing 39 people and wounding 54. The Rabbinical Council of America is meeting this Sunday to discuss the possibility of female leadership in Orthodox synagogues. This comes a few months after a woman was almost ordained as a rabbi by one of the RCA's members. The XX Factor reviews Sarah Silverman's new book, The Bedwetter. England's Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, answers questions about dealing with anti-Semitism on university campuses, Israeli use of British passports in Dubai and how he feels about being the first British Prime Minister to address the Knesset. Berlin's Free University has launched an Internet database documenting more than 20,000 works of art deemed "degenerate" by the Nazis and removed from German museums in 1937. In honor of Israel's 62nd birthday, the...

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02 Mar
Arts & Culture, Culture, Latest

Inglourious Basterds Trailer is out; Tarantino Still Insane

By Benjamin Schuman-Stoler Here's the trailer for Quentin Tarantino's newest bloody assortment of moving pictures. This one's called Inglourious Basterds and includes Brad Pitt and a whole bunch of dead Nazis. Oh, and it's a remake of a 1978 movie by the same name (but spelled correctly). We're not really sure what to say about it past that (we're still reeling from the trailer) so we'll just put it up and let you ITM readers have it out.

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10 Dec
History, Latest

Impresario for the Lost Voices of Theresienstadt

By Mandy Katz Perhaps an apt follow-up to my post Monday about a journey from the Holocaust to the Ivy League? Yesterday's Washington Post carries an inspiring obituary for 82-year-old violinist Joza Karas, one of the Christian righteous. If not already officially recognized at Yad Vashem, he should be, for dedicating much of his life to preserving the music of Theresienstadt. Many musicians and composers were among the 140,000 Jews interned at the the Nazi camp in Czech territory, where prisoners defied the machinery of death by forming orchestras and choirs, and staging plays and concerts and art exhibitions. Most of them eventually died, though: 33,000 on site, from starvation and illness, and another 90,000 after being deported to Auschwitz and elsewhere. Karas was born in Warsaw, the son of a Czech official who fought with the resistance...

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