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Newsletter : 2fax0110.txt
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>JN Jan. 10, 2002, Vol. 10, No. 7
Israel Retaliates for Deadly Raid by Hamas
By Meredith Buell (VOA-Jerusalem)
Israeli bulldozers destroyed a Palestinian security post in the southern Gaza Strip in retaliation for a pre-dawn raid inside Israel that killed four Israeli soldiers and the two Islamic attackers. The tanks pushed into a Palestinian area near Rafah, close to the site of Wednesday morning's attack.
Israel also took over three Palestinian naval police stations in part of the Gaza Strip under Israeli security control. Soldiers disarmed the Palestinian officers and drove them out.
Shortly before daylight Wednesday, two Palestinian militants cut through a fence along the Israeli-Gaza border and stormed an army outpost guarding the Israeli village of Kerem Shalom.
The Israeli army said troops shot and killed the Palestinian gunmen who threw grenades and fired automatic weapons during the attack. The military said the gunmen were wearing Palestinian police uniforms when they launched the assault. The four dead Israeli soldiers were members of a Bedouin Arab military unit. The two attackers were also killed.
The radical Islamic group Hamas claimed responsibility, but Israel blamed Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, saying he is still not doing enough to capture terrorists. The Palestinian Authority condemned the raid and said it fears Israel will use it as an excuse to continue military action against the Palestinian people.
Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner said the attack was proof the Palestinians will not honor a truce. "This murderous attack is of great concern to us because it proves that the Palestinian Authority is not serious about maintaining a ceasefire."
Congress Aiding Holocaust Survivor Recover Paintings
By Tom Jagninski (VOA-New York)
Congress has asked President Bush to use his influence to have the Auschwitz museum in Poland return a set of paintings to the 78-year-old woman who painted them. The artist, a Holocaust survivor, who now lives in California, has been seeking restitution, without success, for 28 years.
Dina Babbitt was an art student in Brno, Czechoslovakia, when the Nazis took over the government and sent her and several thousand other Czech Jews to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Those prisoners not killed on arrival tried to live as normal a life as possible celebrating holidays in secret, establishing an inmates' symphony and theater company, holding classes for the children in the camp.
Using paint smuggled in somehow, Dina Babbitt painted a mural in a children's barrack. Her work caught the attention of Dr. Joseph Mengele, the so-called Angel of Death who performed horrific experiments on prisoners. He commissioned the 21-year-old artist to paint portraits of his victims. In this manner, while so many other Czech Jews perished, Babbitt survived, and immigrated to the United States after the war.
In 1973, she was living in California when the Auschwitz museum notified her that her paintings had been found. "Joyfully I went off to Poland, and I told my children, I'm going to bring the painting and show you why we are alive today, and I came back with nothing."
Babbitt was furious to learn that the museum simply wanted the paintings identified, and had no intention of giving them up. "All my rights, all my human rights, all my power has been taken away from me, exactly like when I was still an inmate in the camp."
But museum Director Jerzy Wroblewski insisted that the paintings must stay where they are. "Everything which was created in Auschwitz ought forever to remain in this place. Nowhere else will these works have the same impact on visitors as when they are seen on the grounds of the former camp. It is here that they shout loudest," he said.
Babbitt refused to take no for an answer and last week, her perseverance finally paid off when she gained an important ally Nevada Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, who introduced a congressional resolution calling for U.S. government intervention in the case.
Berkley said there are precedents for returning artwork to victims of the Holocaust. "Why would we be returning art that was confiscated from Jews, but not returning art that was created by Jews? I hope what I am not hearing is that if you were a wealthy Jew and had art treasures then you are entitled to get them back. But if you were a poor Jew in a concentration camp and you created art, that you are not entitled to it."
Berkley's resolution has prompted museum director Jerzy Wroblewski to appeal to everyone involved to abandon their campaign, saying it could lead to the dismantling of the museum. "The museum collection contains a very large quantity of documents, works of art and handicraft whose creators were prisoners of the camp," he said "One dare not think what would happen with this collection if they or their descendants demanded the return of the objects created by them."
However, observers consider it unlikely that Congress will be swayed by Wroblewski's appeal. Already adopted by the House of Representatives, the resolution is before the Senate, and is expected to pass easily and be sent to the president. Dina Babbitt said she hopes that the moral weight of such an august body as Congress, with perhaps some help from the president, will convince the Auschwitz museum of the justness of her cause.
