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January 16 Jan 27, 2009 - International Holocaust Remembrance Day In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly
designated January 27 as an annual international day of commemoration
to honor the victims of the Nazi era. This date marks the anniversary
of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp. Although I could not find any local Holocaust-related events, radio or television programs, there are several related movies released in the US, and they may be showing on the Palouse at this time. (1) "Defiance" is based on the true story of the three Jewish Bielski brothers who escaped from Nazi-occupied Poland into the Belarussian forest, where they join Russian resistance fighters, built a village and protected over 1200 people -- the largest armed rescue operation of Jews by Jews in World War II. It stars Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber. It is currently showing in Lewiston. (2) "The Reader" is about a woman (Kate Winslet) on trial for Nazi War Crimes years after World War II. It a story about truth and reconciliation; and about how one generation comes to terms with the crimes of another. It also stars Ralph Fiennes. (3) "Adam Resurrected" is an adaptation of the novel by Israeli Yoram Kaniuk. In 1961, Adam Stein, a charismatic patient at a mental institution for Holocaust survivors in Israel, confounds his doctors and amazes his fellow patients by reading minds. Before the war, Adam was a popular entertainer in Berlin. Sent to a concentration camp, Adam survives by becoming the Commandant's "dog." Years later, a boy who thinks he is a dog arrives at Adam's mental institution. And Adam and the boy begin a journey together. It stars Jeff Goldblum, Willem Dafoe, and Derek Jacobi. RELATED BOOKS available through the public libraries: (1) "Adam Resurrected," by Yoram Kaniuk; translated from the Hebrew by Seymour Simckes (through Moscow Library). (2) "Defiance: The Bielski Partisans," by Nechama Tec (in the UI library). (3) "The Bielski Brothers" by Peter Duffy. (4) "Escape to the Forest," by Ruth Yaffe Radin; illustrated by Janet Hamlin (a juvenile book about a young Jewish girl living with her family in Lida who suffers the horrors of first the Russians then the Nazis, but later flees to join the Bielski partisans). Also note that YOM HASHOAH in the US and Israel falls on Tuesday, April 21, 2009 (which corresponds with the 27th of Nisan, 5769). |
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