Today is Shoah day in Israel and also the 65th anniversary of the liberation by Canadian troops of Westerbork, the Nazi transit camp in the east of the Netherlands. As Radio Netherlands reports, one of the survivors of the death camps has finally been recognised by the Dutch government,

As part of the commemorations, Selma Engel-Wijnberg was made a Knight in the Order of Orange-Nassau. Presenting the royal award, Dutch Health Minister Ab Klink praised her continuing determination to tell her story for the benefit of future generations. He also offered a formal apology on behalf of the Dutch government for the way she was treated after the war.

Now 87, Selma Engel-Wijnberg was one of the few Dutch survivors of Sobibor extermination camp in Poland and the only one still alive. On her return to the Netherlands, she had problems with the Dutch authorities. Because she had married a Polish man, Chaim Engel, they no longer regarded her as a Dutch citizen and attempted to deport her. The couple later emigrated to Israel and then to the United States.

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Not if you listened on Thursday to NPR's All Things Considered's disgusting and disrespectful "remembrance" of Howard Zinn, who had died the day before.

Fairness & Accuracy in Media & Reporting (FAIR) has issued an important Action Alert asking people to contact the NPR ombud to ask why "All Things Considered" brought on David Horowitz to trash Howard Zinn saying, "There is absolutely nothing in Howard Zinn's intellectual output that is worthy of any kind of respect." ... Details for how to contact NPR are here.

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Miep looks like a pack mule. She goes out nearly everyday in search of vegetables, and then cycles back with her purchases in large shopping bags. She’s also the one who brings five library books with her every Saturday. -- Anne Frank July 11, 1943

Last week we read about the death of Freya Gräfin von Moltke. Last night it was reported that Miep Gies, another symbol of resistance, has died.

From the Anne Frank Foundation

Miep Gies, the last surviving and best known helper of Anne Frank and the people who shared her hiding place in an Amsterdam canalside house, has died in Hoorn on 11 January at the age of 100. Right until the end Miep remained deeply involved with the remembrance of Anne Frank and spreading the message of her story. Every day she received letters from all over the world with questions about her relationship with Anne Frank and her role as a helper. “I’m not a hero’, she once said, “It wasn’t something I planned in advance, I simply did what I could to help.” Miep Gies leaves a son, a daughter in law and three grandchildren behind.

In her own words,

'I stand at the end of the long, long line of good Dutch people who did what I did or more - much more - during those dark and terrible times years ago, but always like yesterday in the hearts of those of us who bear witness. Never a day goes by that I do not think of what happened then.' -- Miep Gies on her website

For the BBC report, click here.
Photo copyright Anne Frank Stichting.
Cross posted at Blazing Indiscretions and The Peace Tree.

R.I.P. Freya von Moltke

BURLINGTON FREE PRESS/ASSOCIATED PRESS:

NORWICH -- Freya von Moltke, a prominent member of the Nazi resistance in World War II, has died at the age of 98, her son said.

Von Moltke, who was born in Germany but had lived in Vermont since 1960, died Friday after suffering a viral infection, her son Helmuth von Moltke told the Lebanon Valley News.

In her writings after the war, von Moltke described her life in the resistance with her husband, Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, who co-founded the anti-Nazi Kreisau Circle and was executed for his activities.

[...]

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Apart from the news that corporate warmonger/murderer General Dynamics - 4th on POGO's Federal Contractor Misconduct Database - is moving its Burlington offices to suburban Williston (not far enough!), the recent political bombshells about the city administrations in Burlington and Montpelier have been the talk around the water coolers and in coffee-bars since last week. Shay Totten's Fair Game column in today's Seven Days newspaper brings us up to date on the City Hall shenanigans around the state:

The financial scandals embroiling Montpelier and Burlington have some striking similarities. No, it’s not just that the administrations of both cities are liberal — if not downright progressive.

Rather, key administrators opted to keep their money troubles — and the strategy to get out of those fiscal pickles — a secret from citizens.

In Montpelier, Mayor Mary Hooper and City Manager William Fraser, in collusion with city councilors, kept hidden from the public an overpayment to a contractor that will cost taxpayers $400,000 to remedy. It may have already caused water rates to rise. They kept the information to themselves for three years.

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Adapted from posts at Blazing Indiscretions and The Peace Tree.

Today is World Animal Day and Animal Welfare Sunday.

Some liturgical churches also celebrate October 4th as the Feast of St Francis of Assisi with blessings of animals. Writing in the Church Times from the UK, Revd Professor Andrew Linzey, Director of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics:

The Church of England has spent decades in liturgical renewal, but does not offer even one prayer for animal welfare. We pray as if God were uninterested in the millions of other species. There is, of course, plenty of sensitivity for the misnamed “our environment”, but when it comes to confronting our responsibilities to individual crea­tures, official publications fall silent.

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Cross posted at Blazing Indiscretions and The Poetry Tree.

I am not sure which is wackier, the disaster politics of the H1N1 vaccine or ethics standards at Erasmus University Medical Center, a teaching hospital in Rotterdam. Ab Osterhaus, chief virologist at Erasmus, has advised the the Dutch government and international agencies (WHO, for one) on approaches to fighting the flu pandemic and has even recommended that the government purchase flu vaccines. DutchNews.nl reports he works part time for—and has a 10 percent share in—the university-owned ViroClinics which is researching a flu vaccine.

Anton Westerlaken, chairman of Erasmus MC, told the Telegraaf professors have to become a shareholder in any company set up under university auspices to exploit a patent. Any profits are divided 80% to the university and 20% to the professors involved, he said.

Osterhaus told the paper he had done nothing wrong. 'I have always said I am involved in that company and shares are all in the game,' he said.

Earlier this year the Professor denied having shares in the companies making vaccines.

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A mitzvah this ain't. From Politico -

A White House official told Jewish leaders on a conference call today that the U.S. will use its veto in the U.N. Security Council, if necessary, to block the international body from acting on a report accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza, according to two people on the call.

[Jay V edit: it's the 575-page Goldstone report by a fact-finding mission organised by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council.]

The National Security Council's Dan Shapiro said President Obama assured the Israeli Prime Minister yesterday of the U.S stand on the Goldstone Report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, which has been a source of major concern for the Israelis. Shapiro said the U.S. agrees with the Israeli view that the report is one-sided, and would block a referral to the International Criminal Court.

The U.S. pledge comes as the Israeli side was already declaring victory in avoiding a total freeze on settlements, and it's likely to further alienate Palestinian leaders whom the U.S. is simultaneously trying to lure to the negotiating table.

The JTA, which broke the news, has more background on the subject.

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