Currently Browsing: Holocaust 27 articles
The Jewish Jaffanator
Nathan Abrams considers the Jewishness of a new flavour of Maryland Cookies. I have just discovered Burton’s chocolate orange range of its Maryland Cookies brand. Named the ‘Jaffanator’, their tagline is, ‘I’ll be snack’. To be fair, as I have written previously, despite the name, there is nothing Jewish about Jaffa oranges that take their […]
The Real-Life Inglourious Basterds
Nathan Abrams reviews a new book about the true history of those Jewish commandos who fought against the Nazis and helped to win World War II. The idea that Jews went like sheep to the slaughter during the Holocaust is a common one. But a spate of recent books is challenging that idea. One of […]
Bearing Witness to Genocide
Nathan Abrams reviews The Auschwitz Escape (AKA The Auschwitz Report). Slovakia’s Oscar submission for the best international film tells the true story of two Jewish prisoners Freddy (Noel Czuczor) and Valér Peter (Ondrejicka) who escaped Auschwitz to provide a rare first-hand account of the shocking genocide at the camp. It stars John Hannah (Four Weddings […]
Art in the Shadow of Death
Caroline Slifkin describes her work teaching Holocaust Arts to Ashton Sixth Form College (Stamford Park Trust). I first started working with Ashton Sixth Form College (Stamford Park Trust) in 2006. It was one of the 10 schools and colleges for my Imperial War Museum London Fellowship in Holocaust Education, Holocaust Arts project, ’Art in the […]
Teaching Holocaust Art
Caroline Slifkin discusses her role teaching about the Holocaust through Holocaust Arts. The Holocaust is a defining event in human history and the study of it can help students to think critically about the world around them. Teaching the Holocaust in History is essential but it can be taught with a cross-curricular approach. A study […]
The Jewish Actor Accused of Being a Nazi Spy
To mark the publication of his new biography, James Downs explores the life of Anton Walbrook. It must be fairly unusual for someone who was referred to as a ‘Jewish actor’ and was admired for his generous support of Jewish refugees during World War II, to have also been boycotted by Jewish groups due to […]
An Uncanny Prophecy of Our Time
Donald Weber reviews Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz’s The Passenger. The publication of Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz’s harrowing novel, The Passenger, with a new translation from the original German by Philip Boehm, is a major literary event. Written in the weeks following Kristallnacht, in early November 1938, when Boschwitz was just 23, The Passenger offers an intimate portrait […]
Bone Woman
On Yom HaShoah, Gloria Tessler dedicates this poem to her grandmother Irma Kien, who was murdered in Riga. Bone woman, I am woman of bone. lone-woman, my eyes are stone. I break easily, small fissures have marbled me like cracked china. Do not expect me to sing for Old Zion under the sad willow The […]
Silent Witness: The Resonance of Artefacts
Robert Katz reflects on the powerful history of artefacts. During the year of America’s bicentennial celebrations, I lived in a small, pale green house on the plains of southeastern Montana, about 60 miles south of the Yellowstone River. Just down the road from my house was the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservations. On the […]
Flirting and philosophising – the survivors I remember
On Holocaust Memorial Day, Gloria Tessler remembers the survivors in the North London of her youth.