Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the Holocaust (also called the Shoah), the genocide of Europe’s Jews committed by the Nazis during World War II.
Holocaust
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Yiddish World My father, the shoemaker
Read this article in Yiddish My father, Ben Perkal (Berche, in Yiddish) was a kind person and a devoted family man, but he may have been the worst shoemaker in Poland. OK, that may be a slight exaggeration. But he was surely the worst shoemaker in Ostralenka, the shtetl in northeastern Poland that he grew…
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News David Mermelstein, Holocaust survivor who fought Nazi-era insurance companies, dies at 92
David Mermelstein, a survivor of Auschwitz who devoted much of his life to helping fellow survivors and educating children about the Holocaust, died July 6 in Miami at the age of 92. Mermelstein regularly spoke to elementary, middle and high school students in Miami-Dade County. In addition, he participated in special mentor programs at Miami-Dade…
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Fast Forward GOP Washington state lawmaker apologizes for wearing Yellow Star of David
A Washington state lawmaker has apologized for wearing a yellow Star of David, a universal symbol of the Holocaust, during a recent speech decrying the state government’s coronavirus vaccination campaign as well as restrictions that have been in place since the pandemic began. “It’s an echo from history,” Jim Walsh, a Republican member of the…
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Opinion Reparations helped Germany atone for its past. They can help America, too
When I visited Berlin a number of years ago, I was surprised by the number of plaques embedded in the city’s streets that contain the name of Jews sent to their death by the Nazi regime. I was equally impressed by the myriad neighborhood memorials that many visitors might easily miss: a wall at a…
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News How to celebrate the first Holocaust Survivors Day
The first Holocaust Survivor Day will be celebrated on Thursday to honor the world’s remaining 350,000 Holocaust survivors. Though there are three separate days each year to remember those who perished in the Holocaust, there had been none set aside for an annual recognition of survivors. Spearheaded by a group of Jewish community leaders and…
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Opinion I’m glad Marjorie Taylor Greene apologized for her Holocaust comparisons. What she does next matters more
It’s not easy to apologize. It’s even harder to transform an apology into meaningful change. On June 14, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene held a press conference in front of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and apologized for her statements equating the Holocaust to mask mandates. After her tour, she said, “There are words that I…
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News My father’s last words
“When my father was nearly on his deathbed, a last effort at surgery was attempted, and a dutiful surgeon, asking him routine questions, inquired of the cause of his parents’ death. “Gas,” my father replied. The puzzled surgeon asked him to explain himself. “Gas chamber,” my father said. ”They died of gas chamber.” My brother…
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News Herbert Karliner, outspoken survivor of the SS St. Louis, dies at 94
Herbert Karliner, one of the last survivors of the ill-fated SS St. Louis, which was forced to return to Europe in 1939 after being turned away from the United States, Cuba and Canada with more than 900 Jewish refugees trying to flee Nazi Germany, died Tuesday in Aventura, Florida. He was 94. “We were so…
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Film & TV Bonhoeffer biopic tells of a pastor turned would-be Hitler assassin — but is the story true?
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News Texas schools want to add Queen Esther to the curriculum. Here’s why Jews (and many Christians) are opposed.
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News What Mike Huckabee’s ‘Kids Guide to Israel’ says about his views
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Culture At 95, Shaindel Schreiber is still dispensing babka and advice on the Lower East Side
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