Wednesday 31 October 2007
Véronique De Keyser: "One must wring the neck of the European and German culpability on the Shoah"
In April, Belgian MEP Véronique De Keyser (French-speaking Socialist Party), Pasionaria of the Palestinian cause and harsh critic of Israel, in a most dramatic outpouring informed a group of MEPs that: "If the Israeli ambassador comes in the future to speak of Israel’s security, I feel like I want to strangle him." De Keyser then praised the "moderation and maturity" of the Palestinians.
The EJP reported: "De Keyser also used the opportunity to call on the German EU presidency "to make a difference in its positions between the Holocaust against the Jews and the current policy of the State of Israel" and spoke out against what she called the "European and German culpability" on the Holocaust. While stressing the horror of the Holocaust, she said: "One must wring the neck of the European and German culpability on the Shoah.""
In 2004, De Keyser visited Israel and declared on Belgian national TV that the security wall was in fact an "apartheid wall" which called up the image of a "concentration camp". This month, at the European Parliament, the indefatigable Véronique De Keyser once again called Gaza a "ghetto" where "people are dying little by little with cameras trained on them."
The EU Monitoring Centre definition of anti-Semitism includes: "Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis". Why is it that when Ms De Keyser uses words with unmistakable Nazi connotations such as "ghetto", "apartheid", "concentration camp", there is no reaction from either the European Parliament or the European Commission?
Sunday 28 October 2007
"Ich Nicht", a memoir by Joachim Fest
Saturday 27 October 2007
Neo-Nazi cartoon acceptable to "progressive" website
It is getting ever more difficult to tell who is "progressive" and who is "regressive", as both draw their inspiration from the same sources.
Judeosphere makes the point:
"A few months back I blogged about how a reader of the "progressive" news site Media With Conscience (MWC) complained about the publication of cartoons by Ben Heine (who took part in the infamous 2006 Tehran Holocaust cartoon contest). Predictably, these complaints were dismissed by the site's editors for the usual reasons (suppressing creative expression, confusing anti-zionism with anti-semitism).
Well, now an article at MWC attacking "Jewish hate groups" features this cartoon, depicting an ADL boot kicking over a Church. I was curious about the origins of the cartoon, and discovered that it orginally appeared on the neo-Nazi site, rense.com. It's an illustration accompanying articles denouncing hate crime legislation that will allegedly lead to the "creation of a vast Orwellian anti-hate bureaucracy and police state with the ADL lurking behind the scenes to seize and silence the politically incorrect anywhere in America. From a supreme position of power over all federal and local law enforcement, the ADL will be able to enforce its twisted definition that 'hate' means bias against federally protected groups, particularly Jews and homosexuals. All Bible-believing Christians will become 'haters.'"
Yep, Media With Conscience...Can you feel the love?"
Tuesday 23 October 2007
Robert Fisk on the "sinister goings-on in Lebanon"
Blogger SnoopyTheGoon at Simply Jews points out that the "venerable master of bent mirrors", Robert Fisk, has not mentioned in his latest article on Lebanon the "I" country which for him is virtually the root cause of all evil. Could the "controversy" provoked by his conspirationist article on 9/11 explain Fisk's silence for now (Even I question the 'truth' about 9/11) ? "Fisk: it is all downhill from now on... It is with deep worry that I notice that in the latest article on sinister goings-on in Lebanon, this venerable master of bent mirrors forgot to mention a certain neighboring country. The name starting with I. I am worried about his mental state. Confused, too. Oops..." |
Friday 19 October 2007
Three European 2007 Nobel prize-winners also recipients of Israeli Wolf Prize
Three European 2007 Nobel prize-winners have also been awarded – and accepted, in other words did not boycott - the prestigious Israeli Wolf Prize. To date, a total of 241 scientists and artists from 21 countries have been awarded the Wolf Prize (created "to promote science for the benefit of mankind"). Laureates receive their awards from the President of the State of Israel at a ceremony at the Knesset (Parliament) in Jerusalem. Gerhard Ertl of Germany was awarded the Wolf Prize in chemistry (shared with Gabor A. Somorjai) in 1989 "for their outstanding contributions to the field of the surface science in general and for their elucidation of fundamental mechanisms of heterogeneous catalytic reactions at single crystal surface in particular." Albert Fert of France and Peter Grünberg of Germany share the Nobel Prize in physics, and were also jointly awarded the Wolf Prize in physics in 2006 "for their independent discovery of the giant magnetoresistance phenomenon (GMR), thereby launching a new field of research and applications known as spintronics, which utilizes the spin of the electron to store and transport information." The Wolf Prizes in physics and chemistry are often considered the most prestigious awards in those fields after the Nobel Prize. In medicine, the prize is probably the third most prestigious, after the Nobel Prize and the Lasker Award. In mathematics, for which there is no Nobel prize, the Wolf Prize is particularly prestigious, second to only the Fields medal. |
Thursday 18 October 2007
Nazism: Saul Friedländer describes the ostracisation of Max Liebermann
"Saul Friedländer gave a voice to the grievances and cries of those human beings who were turned to dust. He gave them memory and a name. The acknowledgment of human dignity forms the basis for peace among mankind, and Saul Friedlander returned to the murdered millions the dignity of which they had been robbed."
"Friedländer is one of the last historiographers to have witnessed and experienced the Holocaust — a genocide that was announced early on, planned openly and carried out with machinelike precision. Friedlander rejects the distanced approach often associated with the writing of history: He creates a space for incomprehensibility — the only possible reaction to such an unfathomable crime."
Monday 15 October 2007
K. Plevris: "I am a Nazi and a fascist, I am racist, anti-democratic and I am an anti-Semite"
At long last, one anti-Semite was found in Europe and he is going to be taken to court ! Do you really need to declare "I am a Nazi and a fascist, I am racist, anti-democratic and I am an anti-Semite", deny the Holocaust, and ask that Europe be ridden of Jews to be considered an anti-Semite and taken to court ?
This posting in the ECJ speaks volumes:
"In a letter to Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis, EJC President Moshe Kantor commended the Greek authorities for taking to court a notorious Greek author for his 400-page book entitled "The Jews - the Whole Truth."
The text of the lettter :
Dear Mr. Karamanlis,
On September 11th 2007, the anti-Semitic author K. Plevris will stand on trial in the Greek Court for his 1,400-page book entitled "The Jews - the Whole Truth". In his book Mr Plevris declares, "I am a Nazi and a fascist, I am racist, anti-democratic and I am an anti-Semite".
He openly calls the Holocaust into question while justifying Nazism, given that in his opinion, "ridding Europe of the Jews is necessary because Judaism poses a threat to the freedom of Nations" (page 432). To this he adds, "I constantly blame the German Nazis for not ridding our Europe of Jewish Zionism when it was in their power to do so," (page 1,221).
We must commend the law enforcement authorities in Greece, in particular the General Prosecutor, for having taken Mr. Plevris to court.
However, along with the Neo-Nazi rally, which was supposed to take place in Greece exactly two years ago, this has become a worrying chain of events in which anti-Semitism has reared its ugly head too many times in Greece during the last few years.
The Greek people and the Jewish people share the common honour of being the founders of European Civilization. Sixty years after the Holocaust, the resurgence of a threat to the Jewish people is also a threat to European culture as a whole.
We will be following this trial closely. We hope Greece will go along with other European states in the common struggle against racism and anti-Semitism."
Sunday 14 October 2007
Amos Oz's book on fanaticism added to Swedish school curriculum
“The Swedish educational system has decided to distribute a book by Israeli author Amos Oz to 115,000 eleventh graders throughout the country. The purpose is to instil tolerance, to stamp out radicalism and to introduce Swedish youth to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a different angle.
The booklet, How to cure a fanatic (which was not published in Hebrew, but publicized within the framework of Oz's articles) was translated into Swedish by the Bonnier publishing house, the largest publisher in Scandinavia and the publisher of Amos Oz's books in Swedish.
…
The Swedish government has contacted the European Union and proposed distributing the booklet throughout EU member states as well.
Amos Oz told Yedioth Ahronoth on Tuesday evening that the project came as a surprise, "because no one discussed it with me in advance, I think it is important that young kids at high schools read about fanaticism. It will help them better understand our conflict."”
Amos Oz was awarded the 2007 Prince of Asturias Award for Literature.
First-ever desecration of Lisbon's Jewish cemetery
“This is an act inspired by a demon who lies in the heart of Europe”, said Father Peter Stilwell, who represented the Lisbon Patriarchate at the Taharat Kevurot ceremony held at the cemetery on 30 September.
One of the perpetrators had attacked an immigrant and kept images of black children marked “don’t feed the animals”.
Friday 12 October 2007
Pope Benedict XVI criticises Iranian leader
“The Pope hit out at Iran as he pledged to help world Jewish leaders in their fight against anti-Semitism.
Pope Benedict XVI told leaders of the World Jewish Congress that Iran was “an issue of big concern” to him.
At a meeting at the Vatican, the Pope spoke of his concern about rising anti-Semitism and described how he wanted to use educational tools to counter the hatred of the Iranian leadership towards the Jewish people and Israel.
Maram Stern, secretary general of the World Jewish Congress, said after the audience: “We thanked the Holy Father for everything he did for the Jewish people, and more importantly what he will do.”
Speaking to journalists in Rome, he said the Pope had “recognised the question of Iran as an issue of big concern for him.”
Members of the congress discussed the critical problem of “resurgent anti-Semitism” in Europe. Britain itself has seen a marked rise in anti-Semitism, linked to increasing anti-Zionism and to events in the Middle East.
In a statement after the audience, the congress said members of the delegation “called on the Pontiff to take action against those in the Church who wanted to do damage to the close and positive relationship between Christians and Jews”."
This trend is also confirmed by Gérard Israël, who heads the Commission for Catholic-Jewish relations in France. In an interview, he stated: “I have no hesitation in saying that today the Catholic Church is Israel’s best friend, and almost an ally.”
Wednesday 10 October 2007
"J’accuse...!", by Émile Zola (1898)
"We have before us the ignoble spectacle of men who are sunken in debts and crimes being hailed as innocent, whereas the honour of a man whose life is spotless is being vilely attacked: A society that sinks to that level has fallen into decay."
"We are horrified by the terrible light the Dreyfus affair has cast upon it all, this human sacrifice of an unfortunate man, a 'dirty Jew'. Ah, what a cesspool of folly and foolishness, what preposterous fantasies, what corrupt police tactics, what inquisitorial, tyrannical practices! What petty whims of a few higher-ups trampling the nation under their boots, ramming back down their throats the people's cries for truth and justice, with the travesty of state security as a pretext!"
"As for the people I am accusing, I do not know them, I have never seen them, and I bear them neither ill will nor hatred. To me they are mere entities, agents of harm to society. The action I am taking is no more than a radical measure to hasten the explosion of truth and justice."
"I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul. Let them dare, then, to bring me before a court of law and let the enquiry take place in broad daylight! I am waiting."
"J’accuse...!", by Émile Zola, in L’Aurore (Jan. 13, 1898)
Monday 8 October 2007
Otto Weidt, Righteous Among the Nations
Saturday 6 October 2007
"Holocust" "under constraction", Iranian scholarship
"Holocust" cartoon exhibition – Teheran Aug. 14-Sept. 13, 2006
Spanish newspaper ABC, had an article Contest of Horrors (El concurso de los horrores):
"We are holding the Holocaust contest because we believe in freedom of speech. It is not our intention to insult anyone. This is a contest for caricatures in good taste, amusing and intelligent. I want to find out whether they are going to be published in the West”, said Mohammed Reza Zaherí, the ideologue behind the contest."
In Iran, there was widespread opposition to the infamous contest. "Major Iranian cartoonists did not participate and will not even visit the exhibition. "I am not interested in the least. Furthermore, if I went my visit could be interpreted, among artists, as an endorsement of this campaign. For that reason. I do not even wish to talk about the theme. To counter to something terrible with something even more terrible is pure folly. From what I have heard, most drawings are vulgar and insulting", indicated Hadi Heidari, a cartoonist who works for the reformist daily Etemad-e-Mel-li (National Confidence) and of the artists in the Islamic Republic who has been awarded most prizes."
Friday 5 October 2007
Operation Solomon - from Ethiopia to Israel, 1991
Moments later, the doors opened to reveal the precious shipment: hundreds of shy, bewildered and bedraggled Ethiopian Jews. A boy waved effusively. Old men in white robes shuffled down the steps clinging to the rail. A blind woman was led down by a child. Many were barefoot. It was a scene drawn from the biblical Exodus, except that these Jews did not walk through the Red Sea but were carried aloft over it, a feat that for many of the immigrants was almost as miraculous.
They had no possessions except for some who clutched plastic bags. Israeli soldiers rushed up the steps to help the frail. Many still had stickers on their foreheads, placed there by Israeli officials trying to identify family groups to be airlifted out of Addis Ababa. The reception committee lost all dignity and swamped the new arrivals. In the crush of people, I felt something touch my hand. It was a little Ethiopian boy grasping my fingers and grinning. “Shalom”, he said.
The scene was played out just a few months after Israel had been powerless as Irak rained Scud missiles on its cities during the Gulf War. Here, finally, was something to cheer about. It was a moment of wonder for all Israeli Jews; Zionism was proving its role as a refuge. For the first time in history, declared the Prime Minister, Yitzhak Shamir, black people were being transported not to slavery, but to freedom.
… Israel ransomed the Ethiopian Jews at the cost of about $2,000 each.
Some two dozen aircraft - El Al airliners, military transporters and even an Ethiopian Airlines plane - ferried about 15,000 Beta Israel in a continuous air bridge lasting just over a day under the code-name of ‘Operation Solomon’. Addis Ababa’s airport was turned for that time into an extension of sovereign Israel. No visas were required to leave; all you needed was approval from Israeli officials on the ground who had the power to decide who was a Jew and who was not. The logistics experts calculated that by stripping the aircraft t the bare minimum (some planes had only a carpet of mattresses to accommodate the passengers) and by estimating that the average underfed Ethiopian weighed much less than Israelis, they would be able to carry an unprecedented number of passengers. The jumbo I saw carried 1,068 passengers, a record for the aviation books."
"Israel rescued 14,325 Jews whose lives were endangered by rebel fighters in Ethiopia. To fit as many people as possible, Israel removed the airplanes’ seats. The new Israeli citizens joined the 2 million Israeli Jews indigenous to the Middle East and Africa. The majority of Israeli Jews do not come from Europe."
Wednesday 3 October 2007
The West and the Rest, by Roger Scruton
… the argument for a Palestinian state is surely overwhelming. However it is doubtful that a Palestinian state, if founded, would easily develop the kind of corporate personality that I have attributed to the United States. For this would require, if my argument is right, the emergence of territorial loyalties that transcend the bonds of religion and asabiya and express themselves through some participatory form of citizenship. It would require, in other words, the same kind of radical break with local history that we see in Israel.
Israel, meanwhile, suffers all the agonies of a personal state at war. It takes collective responsibility for its aggressive gestures, and its politicians rise and fall in response to the constant internal dialogue over principles and policies. Its leaders are subjected to criticism both at home and abroad, and, in its efforts to maintain the freedoms and rights that are the hallmark of personal government, Israel exposes itself to a constant stream of atrocities. The world supposes that Israel is at war with the Palestinians: but the Palestinians do not exist as a genuine agent in this war, and besides it is only in Israel that any Palestinian Arab can cast his vote in an election and expect to have some influence on what is done. To say this is not to approve of Israel's current policy towards the West Bank. Nor is it a reason to deny the plight of the Palestinians. It is simply to indicate the structural difficulty of the problem, and the near impossibility of making peace when there is no accountable agent with whom to negotiate.
In The West and the Rest: Globalization and the Terrorist Threat, by Roger Scruton (Continuum Compact), pp. 139-142.
Roger Scruton is a philosopher who was formerly a professor at Birkbeck College in London and at Boston University. He is now a freelance writer whose articles on political, cultural, and rural themes appear frequently in the British and American media.
Monday 1 October 2007
Jesus, Ben Heine, Mary Sparrowdancer and Jeff Rense
Through her articles Ben Heine surreptitiously and cleverly directs the reader to Jeff Rense’s revisionist/negationist site. Here is a sample of what is on offer: Ilya Ehrenberg - The Man Who Invented The 'Six Million'; The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (18 articles); Zundel – Prisoner of Zionism; Jewish Dominance of US/World Pornography Industry; The Twenty Victories of Revisionism, by Robert Faurisson, etc.
WIKIPEDIA: “Jeff Rense is an American conspiracy theorist and radio talk-show host of the Jeff Rense Program… Rense's radio program and website, Rense.com cover subjects such as UFO reporting, paranormal phenomena, conspiracy theories, tracking of new diseases & possible resultant pandemics, environmental concerns … A recurring subject ... is a general mistrust of the establishment, and the theory that the attacks on the New York World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 were orchestrated by Zionist Neoconservative elements within the US Government, the CIA and the Israeli Mossad.”
Mary Sparrowdancer: “Mary is a writer of science, health, philosophy and the politics coloring all of it. She has extensive training in clinical laboratory sciences, including bacteriology, microscopic evaluation, pathology studies, hematology, and electroencephalography - and in veterinary and wildlife sciences, including ornithology. She has personally provided humane care for over 20,000 wild birds and wild animals. Her studies, research and writing have been ongoing for more than 30 years. Mary's focus is now primarily upon the health, safety and wellbeing of humanity, as well as an instrument drafted to help ensure human wellbeing: The Constitution.”
“Mary Sparrowdancer was ordained to speak about the compassionate, human rights teachings of Jesus in 1988. She was then asked to begin speaking in 1989.” “She is a follower of the teachings of Jesus, i.e., human rights and civil liberties, and she was ordained in 1988. She is not a “Christian,” because Christianity is based upon the teachings of Paul, the only self-declared apostle who was never selected as a disciple by Jesus. (Hence, beware of Paul's teachings in Romans 13, suggesting we “submit to authority.”)”
“Mary Sparrowdancer is the author of The Love Song, about the Messiah who is now walking among us. He is an interesting fellow who showed up exactly as predicted, 40 years after the creation of the state of Israel. He announces nothing about himself, he is not affiliated with any religion on earth, and he only becomes a Messiah if one accepts his terms of peace. He is not a “failed messiah.” We failed by not accepting his terms the last time.”
Articles by Mary Sparrowdancer on the websites of Jeff Rense and Ben Heine (illustrated by Heine):
The Invisible Holocaust
G Is For Genocide W Is For War
Can You Spare A Used Tent? - “The Holy Land was never meant to be desecrated with apartheid walls, electric fences, barbed wire, and hundreds of miserable checkpoints.”
Palestine: Zionist Starvation Plan
Give Palestine back to the Palestinian Semites. Free Palestine
Israel Conducts Military Training Exercises On Palestinians - “Palestinians represent the oppressed all over the world. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
The Koffán Károly Group - Hungarian Righteous Gentiles
Budapest, 1944. Precise information from an informer led an officer of the Arrow Cross militia to search for a Jewish man who had slipped away from the ghetto at the studio of painter Lajos Szentivanyi. There was no time to arrange a proper hiding place, and the Jew simply concealed himself behind a screen in a room that was bad for hiding in, his yellow shoes peeking out beneath it. Fortunately, in the room was a spectacular nude painting that Szentivanyi was working on and from which the officer could not look away. Whether or not he saw the shoes, he stopped searching, spoke a few words to Szentivanyi and left.
The incident is one of the war stories of a small group of teachers and students from the Open School of Art in Hungary, founded by Karoly Koffan, which saved hundreds of Jews and other victims of the Nazis. There is something naive, almost comical, in their stories about forging documents and impersonating soldiers in order to enter the ghetto and take out Jews who pretended to be art students. They did not belong to any organized underground and had neither diplomatic immunity nor access to the resources available to a large organization. They did not have a plan to follow and did not keep orderly records of their activities. They helped people on the basis of personal acquaintanceship, motivated by humanitarian feelings and a sense of adventure. And just as their work had begun in an unstructured manner, after liberation and the end of the war they went on with their lives, without memorializing their deeds or asking for credit.
The story of the bohemian underground that was active during the year of the German occupation of Hungary's capital, from March 1944 to February 1945, is coming to light now, over 60 years later, thanks to a young German, Lauren Krupa, who had heard about it in his childhood. Now, together with some friends, he is trying to make a documentary about the Koffan group and to have its members recognized as Righteous Gentiles by Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority.
It is difficult to imagine anyone less suited than Karoly Koffan to be cast as the leader of a clandestine rescue group. On the eve of the war Koffan was a 30-year-old painter living in Paris. In addition to painting, he also worked in sculpture and graphics, built a puppet theater and made furniture. He was not a political person but like many people in his milieu, he was a member of the Communist Party, and when the Germans occupied Paris in 1940 he fled back to his homeland, Hungary. In Budapest Koffan established the Open School of Art, where he tried to reproduce the cosmopolitan atmosphere he had known during his five years in Paris.
The school, many of whose students were Jewish, had no regular course of study. Students could go into any class, move from one teacher to another and even pay for a single class. Tuition fees were often waived for promising but poor students, who were like family at the school at Erzsebet Square, the top floor of which was the home of Koffan, his wife Keska and their two young children.
Hungary was a German ally. Although tens of thousands of immigrant Jews were deported from the country and murdered, Jewish citizens of Hungary were not touched. Koffan's school enjoyed relative freedom for three years, until 1944, when Germany decided to take over the country. One of the Germans' first actions after entering Budapest on March 19, 1944, was to arrest opponents of the Fascist regime. Among those who were arrested was Lajos Szentivanyi's father, who was sent to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.
Perhaps that is why the people at the school, in contrast to a large part of the population, including the many Jews who had flocked to Budapest, understood immediately what was about to happen. The Nazi takeover of Budapest, the arrest of the Jews and their deportation to Auschwitz were swift and not as orderly as in other countries in the Third Reich. Thus, hundreds of thousands of Jews were sent to their deaths, but there were also many opportunities for rescue. Koffan and Szentivanyi ran the group's rescue activities, while three students, carried out the missions. The students - Andre Meszaros, Laszlo Ridovics and Sandor Kovacs - were dispatched to bring Jews forged documents as well as to rescue people from the ghetto and the death marches and bring them to a hiding place.
"Suddenly, many people I knew had to wear a yellow patch and this bothered me very much," Ridovics says in the film Krupa is making about the group. "We were ashamed." At first the group helped anyone who was in danger from the Nazis and their Fascist partners. "It made no difference whether someone was a political refugee, a Jew or a leftist," Ridovics said. Eventually, however, the Jews became the main target for their assistance. "We were a group of people who were determined to stop this slaughter," Meszaros explains simply in the film.
...
In October 1944, the Germans gained full control over Hungary and appointed Ferenc Zalasi, the head of the Fascist Arrow Cross party, head of state. Mandatory military conscription was imposed, but Koffan's students quickly defected and returned to their rescue activity. Their army coats helped them to go into the ghetto, the walls of which were incomplete.
"We didn't know names but there were people who said, 'Hide us,'" Meszaros related. "In a situation like that you don't say, 'Go away, I don't know you.' You have to hide him. I would simply leave the ghetto with someone. If you walked down the street with a Jew, people knew. I wouldn't say anything, I'd wear an army coat and lead a young man out. I'd speak to him as if he were a slave, ordering him: 'Move. Walk in front of me.'" Sometimes they even used the army uniforms in order to hitch a ride back in a German truck.
Danger was a constant companion, as Ridovics related. "I was in the ghetto and a soldier came up to me: 'What are you doing here? You aren't a Jew.' He searched my pockets and there was a Schutzpass in one of them. He stood me up against a wall and he had a pistol and then he said: 'Run over there and I'll fire in the other direction, but if you don't run fast, I'll shoot you in the ass.'"
Later on, the students even began going into the transit camps where Jews were sent before being transported to Auschwitz. They tried to rescue them physically as well as by using documents. Edith Weinberger, a Jewish student at the Open School, who was rescued, along with her brother, with the help of the group, relates in the film how Ridovics carried on his back a Jewish man who collapsed during a deportation march. At the time, the school served as a temporary hiding place for Jews and others who were trying to flee to safety. Early in the morning, before classes, students would bring the people to other, nearby hiding places. Sometimes as many as 20 people stayed at the school overnight.
Koffan and Szentivanyi continued with their art even during the war. That is how the unfinished nude came to save the Jewish man hiding behind the screen in Szentivanyi's studio. "So many Jews and Communists hid at Szentivanyi's place that you could hardly open the door," Meszaros related. "Jews escaped from the marches and ran to Koffan's home and cried out to be hidden. At first they would hide behind the curtains but Mrs. Koffan said to take them out and took them into the living room. She said that either we would be saved together or we would die together. When the soldiers came in, she gave each one an art book." Amazingly, the ruse worked; the soldiers thought they were students in a class.