Ella Rubin Art Gallery - The Holocaust Mood

About Ella Rubin:

Ella Rubin (Erna Bendit) (1927-2014) was born in Czernowitz, Romania (now Chernivtsi, Ukraine) to a Jewish family. There she was grown up in a pre WWII Austro-Hungarian environment (her mother tongue was German).

In 1941, during the Holocaust period, Ella and her family were deported to a few ghettos in Transnistria (Mogilev, Shargorod, Slidy) and returned to Czernowitz in 1944.

In 1946 Ella and her family moved to Galati, Romania on their way to Israel. In 1948 Ella married there Israel Rubin and there their only son, Tzvi, was born.

In 1962 the Rubin family immigrated to Israel and since then they live in Dimona, Israel.

About Ella Rubin's Art:

Ella Rubin has never studied art in a formal way but nevertheless she has been always interested in it deeply. Her artistic interests range from photography, fimo sculpting and writing but she is mostly attracted to painting.

She prefers oil painting, her style is realistic mostly pastoral Romanian landscapes and people, flowers, Gypsy women, clowns and nudes.

Although she has a Holocaust background she has never painted holocaust themes directly but nevertheless all her works are composed of dark hues and colors which reflect a mild sadness and her portraits are to some degree lifeless and lost in thought and even her clowns never smile (Ella's son's evaluation).

More about Ella Rubin and her art:
http://www.art-3000.com/artist/ella_rubin/
http://www.sciencegumshoes.com/family_history/chernivtsi_ukraine.html
http://www.ernarubin.org

The following are a few links about short Holocaust stories from Czernowitz which Erna Rubin wrote in Romanian and her son translated into Hebrew and English:

http://www.ernarubin.org/family_history/secret_language_en.html
http://www.ernarubin.org/family_history/herman_en.html
http://www.ernarubin.org/family_history/mom_en.html
http://www.ernarubin.org/family_history/fundraising_en.html

The Jews of Chernivtsi (Czernowitz; Cernăuţi) in the Holocaust

When Austria-Hungary dissolved in 1918, the city and its surrounding area became a part of the Kingdom of Romania. In 1930, the city reached a population of 112,400 among them 26.8% Jews, the largest demographic group.

In 1940, the Red Army occupied the area and Chernivtsi was allotted to the Ukrainian SSR by the Soviet Union. This prompted Romania to switch from an ally of France and Britain to one of the Nazi Germany; in July 1941, Romanian Army re-took the city as part of the Axis attack on the Soviet Union during World War II.

In August 1941, Romanian military dictator Ion Antonescu ordered the creation of a ghetto in the lowland part of the city, where 50,000 Bukovina Jews were crammed; two thirds of which would be deported to Transnistria (WWII) in October 1941 and partly in early 1942, where the majority perished.

Chernivtsi once had a Jewish community of over 50,000, less than a third of whom survived World War II.

Romanian lawyer and reserve officer Theodor Criveanu, as well as the then city mayor Traian Popovici, supported by General Vasile Ionescu saved 19,689 Jewish people. Initially, Governor of Bukovina Calotescu allowed only 190 Jewish people to stay, but Traian Popovici, after an incredible effort, obtained from the then dictator of Romania Marshall Ion Antonescu an allowance of 20,000.

After World War II, the city was a key node in the Berihah net (Hebrew: Escape), which helped Jews to emigrate to the then Palestine from the difficult conditions after the War. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the majority of the remaining Jewish population emigrated to Israel and the United States.

Traian Popovici and Theodor Criveanu were honored by Israel's Yad Vashem memorial as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, an honour given to non-Jews who behaved with heroism in trying to save Jewish persons from the genocide of the Holocaust.

Source: Wikipedia (All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.)

What is Antisemitism?

Yellow badge Star of David called "Judenstern". Part of the exhibition in the Jewish Museum Westphalia, Dorsten, Germany. The wording is the German word for Jew (Jude), written in mock-Hebrew script.

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Antisemitism is prejudice against or hostility towards Jews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background, culture, and/or religion. In its extreme form, it attributes to the Jews an exceptional position among all other civilizations, defames them as an inferior group and denies their being part of the nations in which they reside. A person who practices antisemitism is called an antisemite.

Antisemitism may be manifested in many ways, ranging from individual expressions of hatred and discrimination against individual Jews to organized violent attacks by mobs or even state police or military attacks on entire Jewish communities. Extreme instances of persecution include the:

- first Crusade of 1096,

- the expulsion from England in 1290,

- the Spanish Inquisition,

- the expulsion from Spain in 1492,

- the expulsion from Portugal in 1497,

- various pogroms,

- the Dreyfus Affair, and perhaps the most infamous,

- the Holocaust under Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany.

While the term's etymology might suggest that antisemitism is directed against all Semitic peoples, the term was coined in the late 19th century in Germany as a more scientific-sounding term for Judenhass ("Jew-hatred"), and that has been its normal use since then.

Source: Wikipedia (All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.)

Yom HaShoah

Sirens blare at 10 AM as motorists exit their cars and stand in silence front of the Prime Minister's House in Jerusalem and throughout Israel on Yom HaShoah

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Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laGvura, known colloquially in Israel and abroad as Yom HaShoah and in English as Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Holocaust Day, is observed as Israel's day of commemoration for the approximately six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, as a result of the actions carried out by Nazi Germany and its accessories, and for the Jewish resistance in that period. In Israel, it is a national memorial day and public holiday. It is held on the 27 Nisan (April/May). In other countries there are different commemorative days.

Yom HaShoah was inaugurated in 1951, anchored in a law signed by the Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion and the President of Israel Yitzhak Ben-Zvi.

The original proposal was to hold Yom HaShoah on the 14th of Nisan, the anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising (April 19, 1943), but this was problematic because the 14th of Nisan is the day immediately before Pesach (Passover). The date was moved to the 27th of Nisan, which is eight days before Yom Ha'atzma'ut, or Israeli Independence Day.

While there are Orthodox Jews who commemorate the Holocaust on Yom HaShoah, others in the Orthodox community—especially Haredim, including Hasidim—remember the victims of the Holocaust on days of mourning declared by the rabbis before the Holocaust, such as Tisha b'Av in the summer, and the Tenth of Tevet, in the winter. Ismar Schorsch, former Chancellor of Conservative Judaism's Jewish Theological Seminary of America held that Holocaust commemoration should take place on Tisha b'Av.

Most Jewish communities hold a solemn ceremony on this day, but there is no institutionalized ritual accepted by all Jews. Lighting memorial candles and reciting the Kaddish—the prayer for the departed—are common. The Masorti (Conservative Judaism) movement in Israel has created Megillat HaShoah, a scroll and liturgical reading for Yom HaShoah, a joint project of Jewish leaders in Israel, the United States and Canada. The booklet was subsequently converted into a kosher scroll by sofer Marc Michaels for reading in the community and then into a tikkun—copyist guide for scribes—'Tikkun megillat hashoah'. In 1984, Conservative Rabbi David Golinkin wrote an article in Conservative Judaism journal suggesting a program of observance for the holiday, including fasting.

Yom HaShoah opens in Israel at sundown in a state ceremony held at the Warsaw Ghetto Plaza at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes Authority, in Jerusalem. During the ceremony the national flag is lowered to half staff, the President and the Prime Minister deliver speeches, Holocaust survivors light six torches symbolizing the approximately six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust and the Chief Rabbis recite prayers.

At 10:00 am on Yom HaShoah, sirens are sounded throughout Israel for two minutes. During this time, people cease from action and stand at attention; cars stop, even on the highways; and the whole country comes to a standstill as people pay silent tribute to the dead.

On Yom HaShoah ceremonies and services are held at schools, military bases and in other public and community organizations.

On the eve of Yom HaShoah and the day itself, places of public entertainment are closed by law. Israeli television airs Holocaust documentaries and Holocaust-related talk shows, and low-key songs are played on the radio. Flags on public buildings are flown at half mast.

Observance of the day is moved back to the Thursday before, if 27 Nisan falls on a Friday (as in 2008), or forward a day, if 27 Nisan falls on a Sunday (to avoid adjacency with the Jewish Sabbath). The fixed Jewish calendar insures 27 Nisan does not fall on Saturday.

Those Jews in the Diaspora who observe Yom HaShoah may observe it within the synagogue, as well as in the broader Jewish community. Commemorations range from synagogue services to communal vigils and educational programs. Many Yom HaShoah programs feature a talk by a Holocaust survivor or a direct descendant, recitation of appropriate psalms, songs and readings, or viewing of a Holocaust-themed film. Some communities choose to emphasize the depth of loss that Jews experienced in the Holocaust by reading the names of Holocaust victims one after another—dramatizing the unfathomable notion of six million deaths. Many Jewish schools also hold Holocaust-related educational programs on, or around, Yom HaShoah.

Also during this day, tens of thousands of Israeli high-school students, and thousands of Jews and non-Jews from around the world, hold a memorial service in Auschwitz, in what has become known as "The March of the Living," in defiance of the Holocaust Death Marches. This event is endorsed and subsidized by the Israeli Ministry of Education and the Holocaust Claims Conference, and is considered an important part of the school curriculum – a culmination of several months of studies on World War II and the Holocaust.

Source: Wikipedia (All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.)

German Reichstag passes Enabling Act giving Hitler dictatorial powers - March 23, 1933

Hitler's Reichstag speech promoting the Enabling Act bill

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The Reichstag Fire Decree is the common name of the Order of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State issued by German President Paul von Hindenburg on February 28 1933 in direct response to the Reichstag fire of 27 February 1933. The decree nullified many of the key civil liberties of German citizens. With Nazis in powerful positions in the German government, the decree was used as the legal basis of imprisonment of anyone considered to be opponents of the Nazis, and to suppress publications not considered "friendly" to the Nazi cause. The decree is considered by historians to be one of the key steps in the establishment of a one-party Nazi state in Germany.

The decree was not accompanied by any written guidelines from the Reich government; this omission gave wide latitude in interpreting the decree to Nazis like Göring, who as Prussian interior minister was in authority over the police forces in Germany's largest province.

Just over three weeks after the passage of the Reichstag Fire Decree, Hitler's National Socialists further tightened their grasp on Germany by the passage of the Enabling Act. This act gave Hitler's cabinet the legal power to decree laws without being passed by the Reichstag - effectively making Hitler a dictator.

The Enabling Act was passed by Germany's Reichstag and signed by President Paul von Hindenburg on March 23, 1933. It was the second major step, after the Reichstag Fire Decree, through which Chancellor Adolf Hitler legally obtained plenary powers and established his dictatorship. It received its name from its legal status as an enabling act granting the Cabinet the authority to enact laws without the participation of the Reichstag for four years.

Under the Act, the government had acquired the authority to pass laws without either parliamentary consent or control. Unprecedentedly, these laws could even deviate from the Constitution. The Act effectively eliminated the Reichstag as active players in German politics, though the existence of the body, alongside that of the Reichsrat and of the office of President were protected under the Act. Together with the Reichstag Fire Decree, it transformed Hitler's government into a legal dictatorship.

Source: Wikipedia (All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License)

Josef Schmidt, Jewish Tenor and Actor, Was born

Josef Schmidt on a German stamp from 2004

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Josef Schmidt (1904 - 1942) was a Jewish tenor and actor. He was born in Davideny, a small town in the Bukovina province of Austria-Hungary, later Romania and now part of Ukraine.

As a child of musical parents, young Josef was influenced by many cultures. In addition to his native Yiddish, he learned Hebrew and became fluent in Romanian, German, French and English. His first vocal training was as an alto boy in the Czernowitz Synagogue. His talents were quickly recognised and by 1924 he was featured in his first solo recital in Czernowitz singing traditional Jewish songs and arias by Verdi, Puccini, Rossini and Bizet. Soon he moved to Berlin and took piano and singing lessons from Professor Hermann Weissenborn. He returned to Romania for his military service and became cantor of the Czernowitz synagogue.

In 1929 he went back to Berlin, where Cornelis Bronsgeest, a famous Dutch baritone, engaged him for a radio broadcast as Vasco da Gama in Meyerbeer's L'Africaine. This was the beginning of a successful international career. Owing to his diminutive stature (he was just over 1.5 m) a stage career was impossible, however his voice was extremely well suited for radio. He made many records, first for Ultraphone, then for Odeon/Parlophone, was featured in many radio broadcasts and acted in several movies in both German and English.

Ironically, Josef Schmidt enjoyed his greatest successes during the rise of the German Nazis, who subsequently prohibited Jewish artists and writers from working. In 1937, he toured the United States and performed in the Carnegie Hall together with other prominent singers such as Grace Moore. The Nazis banned him from performing in Germany and Austria, but he was still very much welcome in The Netherlands and Belgium, where he was immensely popular.

In 1939, he visited his mother in Czernowitz for the last time. When the war broke out that year he was caught in France by the German invasion. He attempted to escape to the United States but, unfortunately, this failed. Making a dash for the Swiss border, he was interned in a Swiss refugee camp in Gyrenbad near Zurich in October 1942. He had been already in frail health. Harsh camp life and lack of medical care brought about a fatal heart attack on November 16, 1942. He was only 38 years old.

He had a sweet lyric tenor voice with an easy high register, sailing up even to a high D. His warm timbre was perfectly suited for the melodies of Schubert and Lehár. His popular song recordings were the best-sellers of that age.

Source: Wikipedia (All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.)

Waffen-SS

Men and Horses of the SS Cavalry Brigade September 1941

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The Waffen-SS (German for "Armed SS") was the combat arm of the Schutzstaffel ("Protective Squadron") or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside the Wehrmacht Heer regular army, but was never formally part of it. It was Adolf Hitler's will that the Waffen-SS never be integrated into the army, it was to remain the armed wing of the Party and to become an elite police force once the war was over. Operational control of units on the front line was given to the Army's High Command, but in all other respects it remained under the control of Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler's SS organization, through the SS Führungshauptamt (SS operational command office).

At first membership was open to "Aryans" only in accordance with the racial policies of the Nazi state, but in 1940 Hitler authorized the formation of units composed largely or solely of foreign volunteers and conscripts, and by the end of the war ethnic non-Germans made up approximately 60% of the Waffen-SS.

After the war at the Nuremberg Trials, the Waffen-SS was condemned as a criminal organization due to its essential connection to the Nazi Party and its involvement in war crimes. Waffen-SS veterans were denied many of the rights afforded to veterans who had served in the Heer (army), Luftwaffe (air force) or Kriegsmarine (navy). The exception made was for Waffen-SS conscripts sworn in after 1943, who were exempted due to their involuntary servitude. In the 1950s and 1960s, Waffen-SS veteran groups successfully fought numerous legal battles in West Germany to overturn the Nuremberg ruling and win pension rights for their members.

Source: Wikipedia (All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License)