Auschwitz Album remembered

There are no words in our language to describe the moment and realization of the darkest form of humanity.  The ultimate extermination, both of the mind and the soul.

http://www1.yadvashem.org/exhibitions/album_Auschwitz/mutimedia/index.HTML

Vatican rebukes Bishop Williamson apology.

Las Vegas, NV —  My book Artist’s Proof has a central theme of the stolen art of the Holocaust. I researched Pope Pius XII and the Vatican’s involvement in the Holocaust, the stories of the RAT LINE and many rumors of still missing paintings and artifacts thought to be hidden in Russia, South America and even in the tombs of Vatican City, Rome, Italy.

I am constantly reminded of how important the lessons of the Holocaust are, when almost daily I find yet another piece to the puzzle.

Today the Wall Street Journal reported the deported Bishop Richard Williamson, upon arriving in his native England from Argentina, was formally re-reprimanded by the Vatican while German authorities considered an arrest warrant on charges of  hate crimes based on his speeches and interviews with Swedish television.  Williamson has made repeated statements and written articles claiming the Jewish victims of the Holocaust were never gassed and that “only” 200,000-300,000 people were murdered, not 6 million.  

The response from the Vatican has been swift and unyielding. Excommunicated by the church, if Williamson is to have his excommunication lifted he first must admit his statements were wrong, and disavow himself of these Holocaust denier beliefs, according to Vatican representative Rev. Federico Lombardi.

The twisting tales surfacing around aspects of the Holocaust, memoirs written by Nazi guards and fake accounts by alleged survivors, continue to define the legacy of the artists, musicians, writers, dancers, singers and actors lost during World War II. Their stories are symbolized in the book: Artist’s Proof.

France admits Holocaust role.

2/17/09

Marc Chagall

 

France finally makes its role in the HOLOCAUST official. 70 years after the fact, the French government has accepted a ruling by the “Council of State” recognizing their role in the genocide of almost one hundred thousand adults and children deported to Nazi death camps.  The announcement recognizes the French government at the time as co-conspirators, facilitating the deportation and persecution of citizens believed to be Jewish.  

 

Artist Marc Chagall was one of the most famous Jewish occupants of Franceduring the German invasion. Arian Fry and the American Rescue Committee were responsible for the rescue of Chagall and many of Europe’s creative intellectuals, changing the international arts community for the next half-century.

 

Recently the Council of State was asked by a Paris court for an opinion in the request for reparations from the French state by the daughter of a deportee who died at Auschwitz. She also was asking for material and moral damages for her own personal suffering during and after the occupation. The council left the decision up to the Paris court but did add comment to the case by stating; {this council} “considers that because the acts and actions by the state led to the deportation of people considered Jews by the Vichy regime, (they) constituted errors and became its responsibility.” As reported by the associated Press in the Wall Street Journal 2/17/09, further stating, “The council used the opportunity of the ruling to make a “solemn recognition of the collective prejudice suffered (by the deportees), of the role played by the state in their deportation as well as the memory that should remain forever … of their suffering and that of their families.”*

Estee Yaari, spokeswoman for Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial authority responded to the announcement, “This is an important and courageous decision that unambiguously confronts French actions during the Holocaust,” adding, “This has moral significance that will hopefully serve to deepen awareness about the Holocaust in French society, something that is important both for grappling with the events of the past, and their repercussions today,” she said.*

France’s former President Jacques Chirac initiated France’s acceptance of responsibility for their involvement back in 1995. Over $600 million has been paid out to Holocaust victims and their families since 2000.

In 2008, over 500,000 Jews were living in France, the largest resident population of Jews in western Europe.

For more information on Holocaust-era artists go to www.readartistsproof.com

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Author S. Lander Marks writes and speaks on Holocaust art/artists/art restitution/collecting.

Her presentation “Teaching the Holocaust through Marilyn Manson.” presents the words and images of the Holocaust artists and their role in changing our appreciation of modern contemporary art.”  For information on this program contact the author at: landermarks@readartistsproof.com

12,000 BLOND CHildren stolen by the Nazi’s.

1/12/09 Las Vegas, NV

This story adds yet another blood-curdling element to the horrors of the Holocaust. Imagine finding out your family isn’t your family and your life is a lie.

Such are the realities for many children of German descent, chosen for their blue eyes, blond hair and Aryan looks. Read more here: at The Daily News.  Credit Andrew Malone for a wonderful article. Photos credit Merkus.

little boy lost

As the anniversary of “The Night of the Broken Glass” approaches, please let us never forget the horrors of the Holocaust.

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“ANGEL at the FENCE” Fraud!

Holocaust survivors Herman and Rosa Rosenblat’s memior, ” Angel at the Fence”, set to release February 2009, has been pulled by it’s publisher. Experts have exposed the specific key to the tale, a young “jewish” girl, posing as a Christian, meeting Rosenblat at the fence to pass him food on a nightly basis, to be impossible. The Schlieben Labor Camp in Germany, where the alleged incidents took place would have been within cloxe proximity to the SS barracks making the encounters highly visable.

The Rosenblat’s say the story is “from memory”. Embarrassment reigns at the publishing house and within Oprah circles, where O has herald their story as one of the most endearing she’s ever heard.  Albeit, the story of these two meeting and then re-uniting on a “blind date” years later, is one of great fiction, but using the genre of  “memior” seems to be a guarantee of blockbuster success to tempting for these folks to ignore. The publishers are relying on the clerks and agents to vet the manuscript, which is testimony to greed taking precedence over common sense. Haven’t we seen this before?

This is an unfortunate blight on the literary community and once again draws to the publics’ attention, the very question, can we trust anyone to tell the truth about anything, anymore?  

This is a sad day for all the HONEST writer’s toiling for the love of the written word, hoping their story will be deemed worthy of attention. 

For Holocaust victims and Jews in general, this adds one MORE “I told you so”  for the Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites around the world.  This, we don’t need.

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Sarah Lander Marks is the author of Artist’s Proof, a mystery of art, the holocaust  and restitution.  She writes on Jewish themes, cars, gourmet food and travel. www.readartistsproof.com

Sedona Jewish Book Month

Flagstaff, Az,  Nov. 14th, 2008

Last night I had the pleasure of speaking to a small, but intimate group of Sedona’s Jewish community.  How wonderful to have such a caring and open synagogue, amidst the energy of the red rocks. A shout out to my new friends; Rabbi Alica, Issac, Harry, Gail, Eric and sthe folks passing through from San Diego to Phoenix. Thanks to Eric M. for putting this together and sharing the history of the Sedona Jewish idenity with me. and Amy, the fabulous librarian who epitomizes the Sedona style of friendliness and hospitality.

As I told the crazy, often soulful tale of writing the book; Artist’s Proof, we enjoyed an interesting discussion on the imagery and history of Hungarian Jewish artist Bela Kadar. The title unknown, the date speculated to be 1940, I discussed Kadar’s spirit channeling the book Artist’s Proof (how appropriate for Sedona) and the history of Chagall, Entartete Kunst and the Abstract Expressionist, Romantic, Cubist and German Expressionist movements surrounding WWII.

From “a dancing woman” to a face covered with tallit”, I find this work as paradoxical as the life of Kadar. He painted in many styles including the ‘Blue Rider”, Cubism, and Futurism.  At times his style appeared influenced by Chagall and the life of the villagers in his native Hungary.  Yet this piece demonstrates a transition from the fantasy imagery of the Romantic to the Cubist edge of Picasso, a key influence of the time.  There are few pieces of Kadar’s around.  I find the history of his life and work to be my inspiration to continue telling the story of the Holocaust, through the eyes and ears of the creative intellectuals that experienced the war on so many levels.  If you are an educator interested in more information on my presentations, geared to HS and college students, feel free to contact me at sarahlee@mycarlady.com.

Take a look for yourself, and feel free to comment on what you see in the piece.

Degenerate artist Bela Kadar wwII

Holocaust Art Author to speak in N. Arizona

October 31, 2008 Las Vegas, NV —

Bela Kadar - Found painting

Author Sarah Lander Marks, writing as Lander Marks, will speak to the Jewish community of Sedona at the Sedona Public Library on November 13th, 2008 at 7pm. The subject of her talk will be Holocaust Art restitution and collecting  as told through her new book: Artist’s Proof. Marks travels and displays a painting by Hungarian artist Bela Kadar, a Nazi-proclaimed Degenerate Artist from the WWII era.  The presentation will conclude with Q&A, and a book signing. Books will be available for sale. The public is welcome.

Artist

Lander Marks will then travel to Northern Arizona University to speak to students, faculty and interested community members, at the Martin-Sperling Institute (Room 309 in the Riles Building, building 15 on the NAU map) at 1:00 p.m. on Friday, November 14. 

The Actor’s Studio-type interactive discussion will address issues of tolerance and creative expression in the arts, as a result of the mass exodus of cultural genius from Europe during WWII.  Marks will show images from the restitution and contemporary art market, including Bela Kadar, Klimt, Picasso, Chagall and Ernst.

Lander Marks has spent the past decade developing her sharp, sassy and quick-witted characters with an earnest desire to deliver unbiased information from which the reader will take away a new perspective. Recalling the circuitous tale of Artist’s Proof, Sarah offers her exclusive insights into where the missing artworks are hidden. Marks will display a painting by Bela Kadar, recently discovered to be from the Nazi-era of ‘degenerate’ contemporary art. 

The presentation will be followed by a book signing. The public is welcome.

Daily Remembrance

Now that Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day has passed, it appears that the nation’s eyes are taken up with world tragedy’s including tornado’s, cyclones and a HUGE 7.9 earthquake in China. An entire community lost. Military junta of Myanmar is refusing to allow medical assistance to those devastated by the cyclones, reports the WFP in todays MSN and NYT. “At this moment the most important objective is to get the humanitarian aid inside the country. There are many people that are suffering and therefore to help them … we have to use all the means to help those people,” EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told reporters ahead of special EU talks meant to coordinate aid efforts for Myanmar.”

At home, Americans trying to put the pieces back together in their local town square.

The message here is compassion. Giving a few minutes, dollars or time, to help someone, anyone, close or a far, make it through another day. Can we teach our children charity? Gratitude? Compassion? Only by demonstrating such efforts. If only to say, there by the grace of GOD go I, and in so doing explaining what it all means to our lives and their future.

Remembrance is not for one day a year. It’s for every day.

What is China thinking?

In a global society you can’t hide. In an electronic age, you can’t silence, blind or forge information. The long history of demonstration and oppression is not new to China, however, never before has it been so exposed. The media offers real time streaming and blogs like this, could tell the true story, if the goverment didn’t shut-down the websites and jail the free speakers.  As the growth of a global economy has turned China into the third largest economy in the world, is not time to demand respectable behavior?

Do you do business with a thief because his goods are cheap?  

Embargos, financial asset freezing, less rhetoric and more substative action is necessary before the actions taken against the Monks, Sudan and Tibet encourage more Nazi-like behavior. Consider all nations behaving in such a manner) co-horts in a campaign against freedom. Are China’s fingerprints the only ones on the proliferation of terrorism? 

I applaud the call to all Jews, world-wide, to boycott the Olympic games this summer. I agreed with the statement presented by 185 rabbi’s and Jewish leaders, that “The China Olymics are not Kosher,” published in the Wall Street Journal yesterday; the Day of Holocaust Remembrance around the world. China’s record on human rights, cozy relationship as a supplier of weapons to Iran and Syria  and acknowledgement of Hamas, are not activities Americans, Jews or not, should find acceptable.

Now before you cry out that this will hurt the athletes, I am not going there.  The competition will go on, be broadcast and medals awarded, however, what I am suggesting is that we all avoid the mass surge of consumerism that masks as national unity during this international competition, and feeds the China cash cow. Think before you spend. Go to Europe or Israel before you book The Great Wall walking tour.    

Is this convenient timing to call-out CHINA, while we have the world’s attention on the Olympics?  Perhaps we should also look at India, Japan and Russia, as Antoine Halff and Shalon Salomon Wald states in their article “Enough Misguided Maligning of China“, the Forward; “Under a veneer of political correctness, such efforts are threatening to become a major moral failure on our part. For all the obvious differences between China and the Jewish people, it is hard not to notice the similarities between today’s anti-Chinese feeling and the antisemitism that first emerged in the late 19th century, when Western Jews threatened Christian domination by moving into positions of power.

Our insistence on holding China to higher standards than other countries reflects our concerns about how its rise is reshaping our world and challenging Western supremacy. Outrage at Chinese policies is in style and uncontroversial because it gives those anxieties — about losing jobs, about Chinese takeovers of Western companies, about China’s competition with the West for scarce energy resources — a respectable cover.”     

So today, as you shop for a vacation, toys or other products of mass consumption, look at the label and vote with your wallet.

If you don’t like this idea, consider the alternative… who’s next?

SLM

 

Books for Holocaust Remembrance Day- Yom Hashoah

Books for Holocaust Remembrance Day.

 

While I firmly believe that every day should begin with a prayer of thanks and gratitude for the blessings we enjoy, and a moment of contemplation for those in the world still suffering, I recognize that not everyone welcomes such thoughts. Therefore, we embrace holidays and earmark specific anniversary’s to jolt our collective conscience; such is the case of the May 2^nd, Holocaust Remembrance Day.

 

To note the significance of Holocaust remebrance Day-Yom Hashoah, the Sunday edition of the WALL STREET JOURNAL Leisure and Arts section– Books, listed five books that reviewer Robert Rozett, Director of the Yad Vashem Library in Jerusalem, considered the “Five Best” tomes to keep the Holocaust ion our mind during this weekend.  His selections were: “Nazi Germany and the Jews” by Saul Friedlander, “Ordinary Men” by Christopher R. Browning, “The Jews of Warsaw, 1939-1943” by Yisrael Gutman, “If This Is Man” by Primo Levi and “The Lost” by Daniel Mendelsohn. All great books.

 

However, I would like to offer my selections for books that keep the Holocaust in mind and perhaps jot the reaader with new information or a different perspective on the Holocaust.

 

Dan Zurzman’s “The Special Mission, Hitler’s Secret Plot to Sieze the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius XII” is a little known story, which provides the interesting background behind the questions of the relationship between Vatican City, the Jews of Rome and Hitler’s compulsion to control both. Many people have questioned Pope Pius XII’s actions during the war, this book explains without excusing the church. The stroy reads like a mystery at times but delivers a well researched and thoughtfully executed tale of one element of the Holocaust not many know much about. However, we still don’t know what’s in ‘The Archives”.

 “Rescuing DaVinci” by Robert M. Edsel is a gorgeous historical reference guide that looks like it belongs on the coffee table. The images tell the tale of Hitler, Himmler and Goring’s systematic plan for stealing all of Europe’s most famous masterpieces to create the ultimate art museum.  The story highlights the cat and mouse game between the curators and collectors trying to protect their art and the job of the U.S. soldiers, known as the Monuments Men dedicated to finding, restoring and restituting the looted art back to it’s owners.  Edsel was also a co-producer in the film The Rape of Europa based on the book by Lynn Nichols. Edsel created the Monuments Men Foundation and was recently recognized by the National Humanities Medal.

 

“The Holocaust Project, From Darkness into Light” by Artist Judy Chicago and Photographer Donald Woodman.  This book is the story of Judy and Donald’s mission to understand and interpret the Holocaust while in the process of making art that documents, memorializes and defines the history of this horrific act. Along the way Chicago and Woodman find their own Jewish identity and a desire to create an ongoing educational legacy.  While the actual artwork of the Holocaust Project has traveled around the world over the past fifteen years, and rests in storage waiting for it’s next venue, readers will find the book (with available teaching guide) a true life account as riveting as a survivor’s story.

Hear a short outtake from my interview with Judy about the making of the Holocaust Project:

Holocaust Remembrancel Day is not only about a moment of silence for the six million who perished, but to allow us all an opportunity to rethink our lives and open our minds to learning more about the history, and appreciating the need to continue to revisit the messages with our young people in as many ways as possible. The more story tellers, the better chance we all have of avoiding another HOLOCAUST.

 

slm