Light Up The Church

June 2024: Kristallnacht News Update

Thank you again for signing the Kristallnacht declaration. Every month we send a few stories about Kristallnacht and the Holocaust that made the news in the previous month. Towards November 2024 we will share information about Light Up The Church 2024.

Below is the update from the stories of June 2024.

  • This article is more than 1 month old ‘Every piece of evidence is vital’: Holocaust survivor calls for victims’ shoes to be salvaged

    Manfred Goldberg, a 94-year-old survivor of the Stutthof Nazi concentration camp, has urged authorities to preserve fragments of tens of thousands of shoes belonging to Holocaust victims, recently found in a forest at the camp's site. Goldberg, who was imprisoned at Stutthof as a teenager, expressed his shock and dismay upon learning of the discovery. He recalled seeing mountains of shoes at the camp and noted that Jews were forced to remove their shoes before being gassed and cremated. Goldberg was deported to Stutthof with other Jews, including his mother and brother, from Kassel, Germany.

  • He saw Dachau’s horrors — now, this vet warns against Holocaust denial

    Hilbert Margol, who served in the Army's Battery B, 392nd Field Artillery Battalion, 42nd Infantry Division, was part of the unit that liberated the Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945. Margol, along with his twin brother Howard, who has since passed away, played a role in the Allies' victory over Germany. On that day, as their division advanced towards Munich, their convoy was halted, and the Margol brothers were allowed by their sergeant to investigate a foul smell coming from the woods. They discovered boxcars after a brief walk.

  • My world changed overnight': 87-year-old Edith Jucker shares her Holocaust survival story

    Edith Jucker was only 2 years old when the Nazis invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. Her 26-year-old mother decided to flee with Edith and two uncles' families while her father was drafted into the Polish Army. They escaped through forests, with Edith's mother carrying her. At a river, they got separated from the rest of their family and boarded different boats. Russian soldiers, thinking they were German spies, captured them and sent them to a labor camp in Siberia. They endured three years in harsh conditions, with little food, no electricity, and extreme cold, reaching -94 degrees in winter.

  • ‘It’s Personal’: Continuing the Legacies of Holocaust Survivors as a Third-generation Survivor

    Sarah Lefkowitz remembers her Bubbe's tattooed numbers and seeing her Zayde cry when recalling how the Nazis took his baby brother. In school, she would hand in notes explaining she might need to leave class due to being the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. Though her grandparents have passed and her school days are over, the memories remain deeply personal.

  • Jürgen Moltmann, theologian who reckoned with Holocaust, dies at 98

    Jürgen Moltmann, a German theologian who found his faith amid the devastation of World War II and became a leading Protestant philosopher in the 1960s, died on June 3 at his home in Tübingen, Germany, at the age of 98. His family confirmed his death but did not specify the cause. Moltmann, who grew up in a secular household, was conscripted as a teenager into the German military and served in an antiaircraft battery in Hamburg before his theological journey began.

  • Holocaust survivor, 98, brought to tears as he gets long-overdue high school diploma

    Oskar Knoblauch, a 98-year-old Holocaust survivor, recently received an honorary high school diploma from Chandler High School in Arizona on May 20, a milestone he missed due to the Holocaust. Reflecting on the moment, he described it as heartwarming, refreshing, and emotional, expressing his gratitude and feeling of acceptance as he cried during the ceremony.

  • AI could spread false and misleading information on Holocaust, UNESCO report warns

    The United Nations agency UNESCO has warned that advancements in artificial intelligence could lead to a rise in Holocaust denial. According to a report published Tuesday, AI might spread false and misleading claims about the Holocaust online due to program flaws or intentional misuse by hate groups and Holocaust deniers. A major concern is the creation of deepfakes—realistic images or videos suggesting the Holocaust didn't happen or was exaggerated. This could increase antisemitism and undermine understanding of this crucial historical event.

  • Centropa archive documents Holocaust survivors’ entire lives – not just the Nazi years

    Between 1984 and 1999, Edward Serotta documented Jewish life in central and eastern Europe, aiming to capture the entire 20th-century experience of the region's oldest Jews. Unlike traditional interviews that focus on the Holocaust, Serotta wanted his subjects to share their stories about their entire lives, covering the full breadth of their experiences throughout the century.