U.S. Jew produces $100,000 YouTube clip on the HolocaustVIDEO / The five-minute clip, ‘Rainbow in the Night’, aims to combat Holocaust denial and increase awareness of the atrocity among American teenagers

Rainbow in the Night, a short YouTube clip, is a brief but exceptionally powerful video created specifically for today's fast paced generation. Using stunning cinematography, a haunting score, hard hitting lyrics and vocals that will touch the deepest recesses of the soul, this historical work offers a glimpse into World War II Krakow as seen through the eyes of a survivor. Beginning with footage of a 1939 original oil painting of a synagogue being ravaged by the Nazis, shown at a private event in the survivor's home, Rainbow in the Night is an exquisitely emotional journey, as the survivor recalls first the warmth of his childhood home, then the shock and disbelief as people are forced to leave their homes for the Krakow ghetto, taken to an extermination camp and after enduring unspeakable cruelty, finally liberated. Set against a backdrop of utter despair and hopelessness, the survivor relives the inexplicable power that enabled him to persevere, the rainbow in the figurative night that promised better days to come. Culminating triumphantly with our hope for the future, the faces of hundreds of modern day Jewish children, Rainbow in the Night is both a euphoric tribute to the indomitable human spirit that enabled the Jewish people to survive against all odds and also a call to arms, to rekindle the spark of Jewish pride and unity among Jews worldwide, as we continue to rebuild the generations that were destroyed by the
Nazis.

To download the song, please visit:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/rainbow-in-night-feat.-yanky/id498260454
http://www.mostlymusic.com/rainbow-in-the-night.html

“That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.”
— Justice Robert Jackson, Chief U.S. Counsel to the International Military Tribunal, Nuremberg, Germany, November 21, 1945

Congress established the Days of Remembrance as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust and created the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a permanent living memorial to the victims. This year's Holocaust remembrance week is May 1–8, 2011. The theme designated by the Museum for the 2011 observance is Justice and Accountability in the Face of Genocide: What Have We Learned?

In the immediate aftermath of the massive death and destruction of World War II, revenge might have satisfied the shock and anger of the moment. But many believed that justice under the rule of law rather than vengeance would better serve humanity. In support of this principle, the Museum is marking the 65th anniversary of the verdicts at the first Nuremberg trial, a watershed moment in international justice, and the 50th anniversary of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the most high-profile postwar recountings of the Nazi genocide and a landmark in public awareness of the Holocaust.

The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1945 held 22 top Nazi leaders accountable for atrocities they commanded and perpetrated. Subsequent proceedings between 1946 and 1949 prosecuted another 183 persons. This total represented only a tiny fraction of those responsible for the Holocaust, but established important precedents. Who was prosecuted was more telling than how many stood trial. No one, regardless of official position, was above the law. The argument that someone had just been following orders was no longer considered a valid defense. Not only were the shooters at mass executions and the guards at gas chambers tried, but physicians and business leaders, government officials and civil servants also were required to take responsibility for their actions—for as noted historian Raul Hilberg wrote, “The annihilation of Jewry required the implementation of systematic administrative measures in successive steps.”

After Nuremberg, a new understanding of international responsibility for human rights emerged, as the world began to fully understand the events we now call the Holocaust, spurring on a process to create a new legal vehicle that criminalized attempts to destroy any entire group of people—the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Fifteen years after the first Nuremberg convictions, a single individual would come to personify these crimes—Adolf Eichmann. A midlevel SS officer central to the planning and implementation of the “Final Solution,” Eichmann was captured by Israeli agents while hiding in Argentina in 1960 and brought to Israel for what would become known then as the “trial of the century.”

In an event televised around the world, the Eichmann trial refocused attention on the murder of the Jews of Europe. Unlike the Nuremberg trials, which relied heavily on documentary evidence, the Eichmann trial featured eyewitness testimony by Holocaust survivors, speaking out in a way they never had before, enabling the world to put a face not only on the perpetrators, such as Eichmann, but on the millions of victims and survivors.

The Nuremberg and Eichmann trials strove for justice, but what can justice really mean in the face of a crime like genocide? While the trials were an act of public accountability owed to the victims, justice to a great extent was aspirational.

These anniversaries come at a time when some of the last living Nazis are on trial and perpetrators of recent genocides and crimes against humanity are being prosecuted. Precedents set in trials against Holocaust perpetrators have guided a new understanding of justice as a tool for seeking accountability, providing affirmation to victims, warning perpetrators, and reflecting society’s highest ideals about truth and justice. These trials are also a harsh reminder that while accountability is necessary in the aftermath of genocide, early intervention is vital to saving lives. Whether it is prevention, response, or accountability, the Holocaust teaches us that inaction can be deadly; actions, even small ones, can make all the difference for those whose lives are at risk, now and in the future.

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Remembrance

Holocaust 1942 Key Dates

January 7
SS authorities established the civilian prisoner camp Stutthof, near Danzig (Gdansk) on September 2, 1939. On January 7, 1942, the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps redesignates Stutthof as a concentration camp.

January 16
German authorities begin the deportation of Jews and Roma (Gypsies) from the Lodz ghetto to Chelmno. Between January 1942 and March 1943, the SS Special Detachment Lange kills at least 145,000 Jews and a few thousand Roma (Gypsies) at Chelmno. German authorities will deport approximately half of the victims from the ghetto in Lodz.

January 20
Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) chief Reinhard Heydrich convenes the Wannsee Conference in a villa outside Berlin. There he presents plans to coordinate a European-wide “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” to key officials from the German State and the Nazi Party.

March 1
The Inspectorate of Concentration Camps opens a second camp at Auschwitz, called Auschwitz-Birkenau or Auschwitz II. The first prisoners are 945 Soviet prisoners of war and a few Polish prisoners from Auschwitz I. Auschwitz-Birkenau was originally designated for the incarceration of large numbers of Soviet prisoners of war. Although it continues to serve as a concentration camp, it also functions as a killing center from March 1942 until November 1944.

March 9
Slovak authorities require all Jews to wear the yellow Star of David on their outer clothing.

March 17
German SS and police authorities begin the first deportations of Jews, from the ghettos in Lublin and Lvov, to the Belzec killing center. These are the first major deportations within the framework of Operation Reinhard. The SS Special Detachment stationed at Belzec kills at least 434,508 Jews in gas chambers with carbon monoxide gas between March 17 and December 31, 1942. The SS also kills an undetermined number of Roma (Gypsies) at Belzec.

March 26
Slovak authorities begin systematic deportations of Jews from Slovakia. Between March and October 1942, Slovak authorities deport nearly 58,000 Slovak Jews into German custody. The Germans ultimately deport nearly 19,000 of them to Auschwitz and 39,000 to Lublin District, selecting 9,000 as forced laborers in the Lublin/Majdanek concentration camp and deporting at least 24,378 on to the Sobibor killing center.

March 27
German authorities begin systematic deportations of Jews from France. The first train contains approximately 1,000 Jews from the Compiègne and Drancy detention camps; German authorities send it to Auschwitz-Birkenau. By the end of August 1944, the Germans will deport more than 75,000 Jews from France to camps in the east, mostly to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. Fewer than 3,000 survive.

April 27
In the Netherlands, the German Higher SS and Police Leader issues a decree requiring all Jews to wear the yellow Star of David on their outer clothing.

May
SS officials perform the first selection of victims for gassing at the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center. An SS medical officer selects weak, sick, and “unfit” prisoners from the isolation ward. These prisoners are put onto a truck and taken to a bunker, where they are killed with Zyklon B (prussic acid) gas. Between May 1940 and January 1945, camp authorities kill more than one million people at the Auschwitz camp complex. SS authorities do not register 865,000 arriving prisoners, mostly Jews, whom they most likely selected for gassing immediately upon arrival.

May 7
After trial gassings in April, the SS Special Detachment Sobibor begins gassing operations at the Sobibor killing center. By November 1943, the special detachment has killed at least 167,000 Jews and an undetermined number of Poles, Roma, and Soviet prisoners of war at Sobibor by means of carbon monoxide gas or by shooting.

May 27
In occupied Belgium, German authorities issue a decree requiring all Jews to wear the yellow star.

May 29
German authorities require all Jews residing in France to wear the yellow Star of David on their outer clothing, effective June 7.

June 1
The German Security Police and SD take control of the Westerbork camp in the Netherlands, initially established by the Dutch government to intern Jewish refugees who had entered the Netherlands illegally, and transform it into a transit camp.

June 1-June 6
German authorities begin deportations of Jews from the Krakow ghetto. By June 8, the Germans deport 6,000 Jews from the ghetto to the Belzec killing center.

June 7
On May 29, 1942, German authorities require all Jews residing in France to wear the yellow Star of David on their outer clothing, effective June 7.

June 11
Auschwitz concentration camp authorities establish a camp at the site of the I.G. Farben plant near Monowitz and redesignate the Buna Labor Detachment as the Buna (or Monowitz) subcamp of Auschwitz.

July 4
German authorities begin systematically gassing Jews at the Auschwitz killing center.

July 15
German authorities begin deportation of Dutch Jews from the Westerbork, Amersfoort, and Vught camps in the Netherlands to killing centers and concentration camps in Germany and German-occupied Poland. By September 3, 1944, around 100 trains have carried more than 100,000 people to Auschwitz, Sobibor, Theresienstadt, and Bergen-Belsen, including about 60,000 Jews to Auschwitz and about 34,000 Jews to Sobibor.

July 19
Reichsführer-SS (SS chief) Heinrich Himmler issues a general order to the Higher SS and Police Leader in the Generalgouvernement that, by December 31, 1942, SS and police authorities “resettle” all Jews residing in the Generalgouvernement, either to the killing centers or in closed camps located in the major cities.

July 22
Between July 22 and September 12, German SS and police authorities, assisted by auxiliaries, deport approximately 265,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center. German forces kill approximately 35,000 Jews in the ghetto during the deportation operation.

July 23
SS Special Detachment Treblinka begins gassing operations at the Treblinka killing center. Between July 1942 and November 1943, the SS special detachment at Treblinka murders an estimated 925,000 Jews and an unknown number of Poles, Roma, and Soviet prisoners of war in Treblinka 2.

July 28-31
German SS and police officials and their auxiliaries kill approximately 9,000 Jews from the Minsk ghetto in mass shootings.

August 1-29
German SS and police officials and their auxiliaries deport more than 76,000 Jews from District Galicia in the Generalgouvernement, including 40,000 from the Lvov (Lwow; L'viv) ghetto, to the Belzec killing center, where the SS Special Detachment kills them.

August 5-17
German SS and police officials and their auxiliaries liquidate the Radom ghetto in German-occupied Poland, deporting about 30,000 Jews, most of them to the Treblinka killing center.

August 13
Croat authorities begin deporting Jews in Croatia into German custody. The German authorities send the Croat Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

August 15-August 28
Gerhart Riegner, representative of the World Jewish Congress (WJC) in Switzerland, sends a cable through the British Embassy to Rabbi Stephen Wise, the President of the WJC. Riegner explicitly informs Wise of the German implementation of their plan to physically annihilate the Jews of Europe.

September 12
Between July 22 and September 12, 1942, German SS and police authorities, assisted by auxiliaries, deport approximately 265,000 Jews from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center. German forces kill approximately 35,000 Jews in the ghetto during the deportation operation.

September 22-November 5
Between September 22 and November 5, 1942, German SS and police officials and their auxiliaries deport 39,000 Jews from Czestochowa, in Radom District of the Generalgouvernement, and another nearly 267,000 Jews who resided in the smaller cities and countryside of Radom District, to the Treblinka killing center.

October 26
With the assistance of collaborationist Norwegian officials, the Germans begin rounding up Jews in Norway. The Germans eventually deport approximately 770 Norwegian Jews to killing centers and concentration camps.

October 28
The first transport of Jews (mostly Austrian) from the Greater German Reich arrives in Auschwitz from Vienna. Between July 17, 1942, and October 28, 1944, German authorities have deported more than 70,000 German, Austrian, and Czech Jews from the Greater German Reich to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

November 5
Between September 22 and November 5, 1942, German SS and police officials and their auxiliaries deport 39,000 Jews from Czestochowa, in Radom District of the Generalgouvernement, and another nearly 267,000 Jews who resided in the smaller cities and countryside of Radom District, to the Treblinka killing center.

November 24
After receiving confirmation of the report on the German plan to annihilate the Jews of Europe from the U.S. Department of State, Rabbi Stephen Wise, President of the World Jewish Congress, publicizes the contents of the Riegner telegram, exposing German implementation of the “Final Solution.”

December 16
SS chief Heinrich Himmler issues a decree for the deportation of all Roma living in the Greater German Reich to a special family compound in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Under this decree, the German police authorities will deport nearly 18,000 Roma to Auschwitz in February 1943.

December 17
The Allied nations, including the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States, issue a press release stating explicitly that the German authorities were engaging in mass murder of the European Jews, and that those responsible for this “bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination” would “not escape retribution.”

December 31
On July 19, 1942, SS chief Heinrich Himmler issued a general order to the Higher SS and Police Leader in the Generalgouvernement that, by December 31, 1942, SS and police authorities “resettle” all Jews residing in the Generalgouvernement, either to killing centers or in closed camps located in major cities.

1. Events

- January 27: Jewish Life Behind the Walls: Illuminating Emanuel Ringelblum's Oyneg Shabes Archive
- February 4: Irène Némirovsky and the “Jewish Question” in Interwar France
- March 1: Reading the Signs of the Times: Jewish Responses to Persecution, 1933-1938
- March 18: “Jewish Revenge”? Soviet Jewish Officers' Encounters with Germany, 1945

2. New Publications

- Eichmann’s Men by Hans Safrian published by Cambridge University Press in association with the Museum
- After Representation? The Holocaust, Literature, and Culture edited by R. Clifton Spargo and Robert M. Ehrenreich
- Jewish Responses to Persecution, 1933–1938 edited by Jürgen Matthäus and Mark Roseman
- The Warsaw Ghetto Oyneg Shabes–Ringelblum Archive Catalog and Guide edited by Robert Moses Shapiro and Tadeusz Epsztein introduction by Samuel D. Kassow

Jewish Life behind the Walls: Illuminating Emanuel Ringelblum’s Oyneg Shabes Archive

Helena Rubinstein Auditorium, Lower Level

SAMUEL D. KASSOW, Charles H. Northam Professor of History at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, will discuss the significance of the Oyneg Shabes– Ringelblum Archive and the recent publication of the catalog and guide to this important collection. Retrieved after World War II from metal boxes and milk cans buried beneath the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto, the archive provides a documentary record of the wartime fate of Polish Jewry. One of the milk cans is on view in the Museum’s Permanent Exhibition.

The publication of the Warsaw Ghetto Oyneg Shabes–Ringelblum Archive Catalog and Guide was made possible by a gift from Esther Cohen of Encino, California, in dedication to her grandchildren, and in the cause of remembrance.

For reservations, go to www.ushmm.org/events/ringelblum

2010 J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Annual Lecture

Irène Némirovsky and the “Jewish Question” in Interwar France

Helena Rubinstein Auditorium, Lower Level

SUSAN RUBIN SULEIMAN is the C. Douglas Dillon Professor of the Civilization of France and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. The author of numerous works, she recently published Crises of Memory and the Second World War (2006), which examines the effects of World War II on writers who lived through it. In her lecture she will discuss the life and work of French writer Irène Némirovsky in relation to questions of Jewish identity in France before, during, and after the Holocaust.

THE J.B. AND MAURICE C. SHAPIRO SENIOR SCHOLAR-IN-RESIDENCE FELLOWSHIP, endowed by the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Charitable Trust, enables the Center to bring a distinguished scholar to the Museum each year to conduct innovative research and writing about the Holocaust and to disseminate this work to the American public. This lecture has been made possible through the generosity of the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Charitable Trust, with additional support provided by the Helena Rubinstein Foundation.

A reception follows the lecture. For reservations, go to www.ushmm.org/events/shapirolecture2010

Reading the Signs of the Time: Jewish Responses to Persecution, 1933–38

Helena Rubinstein Auditorium, Lower Level

The Museum’s groundbreaking book series Jewish Responses to Persecution, 1933–1946, illuminates the Jewish perspective on the Holocaust through the voices of those who endured it. Editors Jürgen Matthäus and Mark Roseman and Museum survivor volunteers will present a reading and discussion of the diaries, letters, and other materials gathered in the first volume.

Volume I was made possible by major support from the Blum Family Foundation and the William S. and Ina Levine Foundation, with additional support from the Dorot Foundation.

For reservations, go to www.ushmm.org/events/jewishresponses

2010 Ina Levine Annual Lecture

“Jewish Revenge”? Soviet Jewish Officers’ Encounters with Germany, 1945

Helena Rubinstein Auditorium, Lower Level

OLEG BUDNITSKII is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, Academic Director of the International Center for Russian and Eastern European Jewish Studies in Moscow, and Professor of History in the Department of Jewish Studies at the Institute of Asian and African Studies at Moscow State University.

The author of numerous works, he most recently published Den’gi russkoi emigratsii: Kolchakovskoe zoloto, 1918–1957 (Money of the Russian Emigration: Kolchak’s Gold, 1918– 1957) in 2008 and Rossiiskie evrei mezhdy krasnymi i belymi, 1917–1920 (Russian Jews between the Reds and the Whites, 1917–1920) in 2005, an English translation of which is being published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. In his lecture, Professor Budnitskii will present his work on Soviet Jewish identity through the lens of the Soviet Jewish military experience of World War II.

THE INA LEVINE INVITATIONAL SCHOLAR AWARD , endowed by the William S. and Ina Levine Foundation of Phoenix, Arizona, enables the Center to bring a distinguished scholar to the Museum each year to conduct innovative research on the Holocaust and to disseminate this work to the American public. This lecture has been made possible through the generosity of the William S. and Ina Levine Foundation, with additional support provided by the Helena Rubinstein Foundation.

A reception follows the lecture. For reservations, go to www.ushmm.org/events/levinelecture2010