9 November 1938

"There was a lot of glass on the streets. We lived in the West End, surrounded by shops, many of them Jewish. This was late at night and it was dark; but we had no trouble in picking out the Jewish shops. They had been looted, the windows had been smashed, and there were ashes, rubble and debris outside some of the shops. We had not seen how our fellow Jews had been treated: beaten, taken to prison, some of them never to return. But in our hiding place, listening to our friends, we heard more and more of the story of Kristallnacht."

Albert Friedlander

photograph by John Offenbach (series "Jew") via

The Dearborn Independent

Henry Ford purchased The Dearborn Independent and published it from 1919 to 1927. The weekly, widely distributed paper (circulation reached at least 900,000 by 1926) covered business and economic news as well as world events. It also became a source of antisemitism. The front page read "The International Jew: The World's Problems", each week, the paper published antisemitic articles. It also republished The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. While The Dearborn Independent did condemn violence, it also blamed Jews for provoking the violence. 

Ford's antisemitism provoked protests and a boycott of his automobiles in the 1920s. The Anti Defamation League launched a campaign to oppose Ford. In 1927, a lawsuit was brought against Ford. As a consequence, the paper shut down, Ford apologised, his apology was received with skepticism. In 1931, Hitler gave an interview saying "I regard Henry Ford as my inspiration" (via and via and via).

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photograph (Ford Levacar, 1959) via

Borrowed Time. Photographs by Dennis Darling.

In 2012, Dennis Darling started photographing the ageing population of Holocaust survivors of Terezin, once a holiday resort for the nobility, then turned into a ghetto, then concentration camp. Officially, Terezin had not been an extermination camp. However, about 33,000 people died there due to malnutrition, disease and other reasons. From there, about 88,000 were deported to Auschwitz and other extermination camps. 

Above: Andula Lorencova née Weinsteinova, b. 1927, Prague, 2012

When the war ended, there were only 17,247 survivors. Dennis Darling made more than 150 portraits of survivors in seven countries. Many of the survivors are photographed within personal spaces (via).

In late 1943 an inspection of Terezin was demanded by Christian X, king of Denmark, to determine the condition of 466 Danish Jews sent there in October of that year. The review panel was to include two Swiss delegates from the International Red Cross and two representatives of the government of Denmark. The Nazis permitted these representatives to visit Terezin in order to dispel rumors about the extermination camps.

The Germans immediately engaged in an infamous beautification program – “Operation Embellishment,” a ruse intended to mollify the king’s concerns. Weeks of preparation preceded the visit. The area was cleaned up, and the Nazis deported many Jews to Auschwitz to minimize the appearance of overcrowding in Terezin. Also deported in these actions were most of the Czechoslovak workers assigned to "Operation Embellishment". The Nazis directed the building of fake shops and cafés to imply that the Jews lived in relative comfort.

 

The inspection was held on June 23, 1944 (...).

The Danish Jews whom the Red Cross visited lived in freshly painted rooms, not more than three in a room. (...)

As part of the charade the Nazis compelled Schächter to give a performance of the Requiem. According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Red Cross issued “a bland report about the visit, indicating that the representatives were taken in by the elaborate fiction.” Eichmann was later quoted as having said, “Those crazy Jews—singing their own requiem.” Rafael Schächter was deported to Auschwitz on October 16, 1944, and died the following day in the gas chamber.

Following the successful use of Terezin as a supposed model internment camp during the Red Cross visit, the Nazis decided to make a propaganda film there. It was directed by Jewish prisoner Kurt Gerron, an experienced director and actor. Shooting took eleven days, starting September 1, 1944. After the film was completed, most of the cast and the director were deported to Auschwitz. Gerron was murdered by gas chamber on October 28, 1944. (via)

Above: Otto Greenfield, North Yorkshire, England

Above:Raja Zadnikova, Prague

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photographs by Dennis Darling via and via and via

Which Statements Are Antisemitic And Islamophobic? On Differences in Sensitivity.

Hargreaves and Staetsky (2019) analysed differences between British Jewish and Muslim respondents in terms of sensitivity towards antisemitism and Islamophobia. Statements designed to reflect antisemitic attitudes were shown to ca. 1,500 Jewish people living in the U.K., and statements designed to be Islamophobic were shown to 1,000 Muslims (via and via).

a) Attitudes towards Jews

Israelis behave "like Nazis" towards the Palestinians
Does not consider Jews living in the UK to be British
Jews are not capable of integrating into British society
The interests of Jews in the UK are very different from the interests of the rest of the population
Jews have too much power in British economy, politics, media
The Holocaust is a myth or has been exaggerated

b) Attitudes towards Muslims

Most Muslims sympathise with terrorists
British Muslims do not share western values
British Muslims have no interest in integrating into British society
The interests of Muslims in Britain are very different from the interests of the rest of the population
Muslims have too much influence in Britain
Muslims often overreact to criticism of their religion

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Within the Jewish group, there was more certainty about what constituted antisemitism. Only 1% to 3% of Jewish respondents chose "don't know" for the antisemitic statements while 15% to 22% of Muslim respondents answered "don't know" when the Islamophobic statements were presented.

The groups also differed in their sensitivity. The most offensive anti-Jewish statement was the one about the Holocaust being a myth or exaggerated (96% of Jews agreed it was antisemitic). Large absolute majorities (82% to 94% of the Jewish respondents) perceived other statements as antisemitic, The smallest absolute majority (73%) was observed when presenting the description of Isrealis being Nazi-like towards Palestinians. "In stark contrast, none of the statements about attitudes towards Muslims were seen as Islamophobic by a majority of Muslim respondents."

In addition, age was a factor in the Jewish group whereas it was of no significance in the Muslim group. Jewish respondents aged over 40 were 80% to 90% more likely to be sensitive to antisemitism than those aged between 18 and 39. The authors explain the findings with the role of memory around the Holocaust and events in the 1940s and 1960s, and pivotal events shaping Islamophobia taking place in the 1990s and more recently. "When it comes to British Muslims and Islamophobia, perhaps the present matters more than the past."

Being born in the U.K. had an impact in both groups. Jewish respondents born in the U.K. were 40% less likely to be sensitive to the linking of Israelis and Nazis than those born in other European countries. UK-born Muslims respondents, however, were more or less twice as likely as those born in Asia to be sensitive to all Islamophobic statements. The authors speculate that the present conditions in the U.K. might be more likely to shape sensitivity towards Islamophobia than antisemitism. The study was carried out before the Hamas attack on Israel on 7th of  October, findings might differ now.

Education played an important role for both groups, but seemed to push sensitivity in opposite directions. Muslim respondents with degrees were 63% more likely to find all statements offensive. They were 70% more likely to be sensitive about Muslims not sharing western values. By contrast, Jewish respondents with degrees were 35% less likely than those without to be sensitive towards the linking of Israelis and Nazis. Jewish respondents in education were 66% less likely than those in employment to be sensitive to all the statements. They were 56% less likely to be sensitive to the linking of Israelis and Nazis.

The main conclusion of the study:

The study shows that assuming all Jews and all Muslims react to antisemitism and Islamophobia in the same way is likely to be inaccurate.

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- Hargreaves, J. & Staetsky, L. D. (2019). Antisemitism and Islamophobia: Measuring everyday sensitivity in the UK. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 43(12).
- photograph (UK, 1970s) via

... a state of latency waiting for the right circumstances

"There is a large research literature showing how antisemitism exists in many locations and how it spreads like a virus, or rather, how it never disappears but simply goes into a state of latency waiting for the right circumstances to become manifest." (Brekke, 2021)

- Brekke, T. (2021). Islamophobia and Antisemitism are Different in Their Potential for Globalization. Journal of Religion and Violence, doi: 10.5840/jrv202142689 

- photograph by Robert Frank (Detroit, 1955) via

Imagining Contact, Reducing Prejudice

Abstract: Recent research has demonstrated that imagining intergroup contact can be sufficient to reduce explicit prejudice directed towards out-groups. In this research, we examined the impact of contact-related mental imagery on implicit prejudice as measured by the implicit association test. We found that, relative to a control condition, young participants who imagined talking to an elderly stranger subsequently showed more positive implicit attitudes towards elderly people in general. 

In a second study, we demonstrated that, relative to a control condition, non-Muslim participants who imagined talking to a Muslim stranger subsequently showed more positive implicit attitudes towards Muslims in general. We discuss the implications of these findings for furthering the application of indirect contact strategies aimed at improving intergroup relations. (Turner & Crisp, 2010)

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- Tunrer, R. N. & Crisp, R. J. (2010). Imagining intergroup contact reduces implicit prejudice. The British Journal of Social Psychology, 49(1), 129-142.
- photograph by Bernard herrman (1977) via

Niklas Frank. The Unforgiving Son of the "Butcher of Poland"

"I am against the death penalty, but not in the case of my father."

Niklas Frank

On 19 December 1918, Hans Michael Frank (1900-1946) wrote: "Lord God, send us now the man who will bring us order ... I wish for our nation men who can once again restore it to universally acknowledged prominence (...)" Soon after, he heard Hitler and was impressed by his anger, aggression, self-confidence and passion, by Hitler expressing Frank's own fears and desires. Everything Hitler said seemed "absolute, uncommpromising, irrevocable, undeviating, final"; he was the Chosen One with the divine mission. Hans Frank joined the German Workers' Party (DAP) which in 1920 beame the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). There is an early photograph showing Frank in his Storm Division (SA) uniform, looking proud (O'Connor, 2013). Frank joined the Nazi Party, participated in a failed coup, became Hitler's personal attorney, ascended to the Minister of Justice in Bavaria, became the head of the National Socialist Jurists Association and President of the Academy of German Law, obtained the position of Reich Minister without Portfolio, of the Chief of Administration to von Rundsted (a military official overseeing the Nazis' rule in occupied Poland), was soon promoted to Governor-General of the newly "acquired" Polish territories. Hans Frank was ambitious and powerful. In the Nazi system, he made one career move after the other (via) and sort of became Hitler's vice-king (via).

R.C. Lukas agrees Poland was ‘a laboratory’ in which National Socialism tested its methods of administration and exploitation with a view to applying the results elsewhere in its Lebensraum empire. Analysis of the events at stake here cannot be carried out in terms of economic utility and institutional functioning alone. A vibrant variable underwrote the unity and trajectory of the system. A racism burned at the top of the Third Reich which was so thorough and uninhibited that it implicated the subordinate institutional hierarchies deeply. It was like a flame running along a system of fuses towards explosives. Poland experienced the ‘purest expression’ of National Socialism and mass murder grew up there as deliberate policy. It became ‘a trial ground for the extermination and enslavement policy’ planned for the Soviet Union. (via)

Hans Frank was the one responsible for tearing Jewish people from their homes and sending them into death camps. He oversaw six death camps in Poland (in Belzec, Treblinka, Majdanek, Sobibór). Frank, the accomplice to genocide known as the "Butcher of Poland", later testified at the Nuremberg trials that he had had no idea what was had been going on in the death camps and had only heard of rumours (see: testimony from 18 April 1946). 

Frank was indicted for his war crimes and stood trial in Nuremberg in 1945 where he was one of only two Nazi officials to show guilt and remorse. After eleven months, the trial came to an end on 1 October 1946. He was declared guilty and sentenced to death. On 16 October, Hans Frank was executed by hanging (via).

This guilt he showed at the trials was, according to his son Niklas Frank, all lies. Niklas Frank was born in 1939 as the youngest of five children. In 1987, he published an accusatory book about his father; more books followed. Chronicling his father's crimes was not appreciated by his siblings and a great many others in Germany. Within his family, the reception to his father's book was, in fact, negative. Some of his siblings sent letters to newspapers saying: "This is not a proper son". One day, his older brother told him: "I hated your books, but I am grateful that you wrote them." (via). Not only in his books does Niklas Frank attack his father. The reactions are not always positive since there seems to be a disturbing element in this son despising everything about his father:

Reactions to what was said that evening varied but one strong theme did emerge. Widespread sympathy for Niklas’s attacks on his father was tempered by discomfort at the sheer level of vitriol and apparent absence of filial warmth. His father was a “big coward”, Niklas said, a man who “knew everything about the Holocaust” yet “went on and on and on”; a man who refused to take responsibility for the crimes he had committed. (via)

Niklas Frank's book "The Father: A Revenge" is irritating, from the very beginning (see excerpts below). According to Dahlke (2007), Frank forces the reader to take a voyeuristic position. Frank imagines a dialogue with his father, addresses him; the dialogue is doomed to fail since his dead father can neither respond nor listen. Dahlke asks the question whether Frank forces his readers to take over the dead father's role. With his hatred, the author tries to distance himself from his father but fails to do so. His emotions, in fact, are not under his control. The father is defeated but still has an enormous impact on the son who is turned into a stuttering, self-hating adolescent without self-reflection, an attempt to judge his father becomes a failed attempt to save himself, so Dahlke. 

You told me once I should make peace with my father. I have peace with my father because I acknowledged his crimes, and so I could lead a really good life, and also a happy one.
Niklas Frank

> This is how the book starts:

Top Nazi sperm enters a top Nazi egg.

She had no orgasm when you came - when I came.

She had no lofty sensations when you were lying on top of her, fat as you were - not even at the time you were siring me. You never knew that. I got it from Aunt Margot. "Can't imagine what men find in all that," Mother would say in astonishment - and then she would have one pregnancy after another. (Were you always the father?) Yet she bore me for you, the Minister of the Reich without Portfolio, the President of the Academy of German Justice, the Governor General of Poland and today a bloody footnote to the history of our times - executed, thank God, cremated and scattered in the Konwentz Brook at Solln near Munich, your ashes mixed with those of Göring, of Streicher and Ribbentrop, of Jodl and Kaltenbrunner, of Frick, Keitel, Seyss-Inquart, of Sauckel and Rosenberg - a nauseating water-soluble Nazi mess.

Your final photograph is on the table in front of me. There you are, still fresh in your death, at rest on your blanket, with your neck broken, your eyes closed, your mouth half open, your full lips maybe just a touch too pale - did you bite your lips under your black hood at the moment of your plunge?

> Some more excerpts:

(...) The suit in which you dangled out your life is really quite becoming. Or did they dress you in it after the fact? Was this when they also wiped the blood from your lips? As you were falling through the trapdoor, did you strike your chin on its wooden edge on the way down? Was that the reason for the blood? How unfair it would have been if the blow had knocked you out. You deserved to enjoy, in full awareness, every last millietre of rope, right up to the final shock. (...)

As a child I made your death my own.

The nights just before 16 October became sacred for me. I took pleasure in your death. (...) Maybe you have one more thing to tell me? Here is your opportunity. For even in your case the executioners insist on honouring that foolish tradiiton and letting you - you dreadful chatterbox - say a few final words. Well, get on with it, then: give me your final greeting. maybe now is the time for that word of advice about paper clips; or maybe very loudly you could shout, "My God, how you have all pissed on me!"; or "Hello, Herr Hoegner - my wife will never forgive you for being here!"; or: "What a life that was and what a death!" But no; you had to remain a smarmy bastard to the very end, for the present and for the hereafter. And so you say: "My thanks for the kind treatment shown to me during my imprisonment. I beg the Lord to accept me mercifully."

That sentence is only gramatically in order, Father.

(...) Were those words your ticket to Paradise?

The rope took your breath away even before the fall - the very second before, when you were standing up there, high above the others, your head in the black hood, your heart a high-pressure pump, your body stiff with the frenzy of fear. Yes, Father, it is a goddamned shitty shame to die completely awake and fully conscious, fit a as a fiddle, having been tested and declared by the officials at Nuremberg to belong to the top third of Nazi criminals, well-fed while all of Europe is starving - and then for you to give in and in a loud whisper say, "Jesus, have mercy"!

"I heard him say it very clearly. Before the snapping sound. That, you see, was the terrible thing about your father's death, that sound of his neck cracking. You could hear it all over the gymnasium." I weep, Father, I weep. Why do I weep? What was the snapping like? Like a cork being pulled from a bottle? Like the sound of a willow walking stick breaking? Like the splitting  of a log? Like the clicking of your tongue against the roof of your mouth?

It was the last sound you made; the only thing that followed it was your death fart. You are hanging. You are left there hanging. You are swaying gently back and forth. (...)

The end of a criminal, a big shot gets hanged, a thoroughly cultivated German, someone who had known the truth of poetry and music and who sold out for a Horch, a Mercedes and a luxury private railway carriage with mahogany and decadence on all sides.

(...) Well, Father, I've got to congratulate you on the creation of a post-war Germany, a new country in your spirit. (...) a raped land (...).

Once again, a choking, suffocatig, putrid mantle of political self-glorification has settled down over Germany. The arrogance of power is on the march just as you were then. They have your same shameless, sordid manner; they manipulate the law, they disdain the average citizen. No, your ties were not swept away with your ashes in the waters of the Konwentz at Solln. Your goddamned sahses fertilised far too many plants along the edge of that brook; they germinated again. Because of people like you, your Eternal Germany is threatened more from within than from without and its conscience is like yours - which is to say, it does not exist. One fateful initiative, one evil impulse, coming from almost anywhere and you can take over the reins once more, you and a thousand others like you. (...)

I have wicked fantasies lodged in my brain, one of them an image of millions of gallows erected along the autobahns right after the war; of the American Hangman Woods driving slowly past them in your confiscated Maybach and releasing the trapdoors one after the other. What a wholesome chorus of cracking necks would have resounded over Germany, the snapping neck bones of all those judges, lawyers, industrialists, guards, wardens and informers. (...)

Imagine a second that you survived, you the prototype of the German criminal (...). After a bit of de-Nazification, your metamorphosis from Nazi to good Christian Democrat would have taken place without a hitch. (...) your inspiring voice would reflect your ardour for the new democracy and your condemnation of the brownshirt dictatorship, to which, alas, you had falle a helpless victim (...).

The snapping of your neck spared me from having a totally screwed-up life. You certainly would have poisened  my brain with all your drivel, the fate of the silent majority of my generation who did not have the good fortune of having their fathers hanged.

That's why I'm happy to be your son, How poor by comparison are all the millions of other children whose fathers spouted the same rubbish filled with deceit and cowardice, with bloodthirstiness and inhumanity, but who were not so prominent as you. Their tirades were not worth recording, their journals not worth preserving. I have it good. (...)

There is no doubt about it: you will also lose the second Nuremnberg trial, this mini trial with your son as prosecutor, judge and hangman in one. (...) Almost every person who has ever spoken with me about you has had a remarkable urge to defend you to me (...). They told me this was utterly appalling and kept insisting on the virtue of filial piety - a virtue that evidently is meant never to be consumed, not even by the flames of the ovens that were packed with Jews. (...)

(...) you were a real arsehole of a human being. (...) And only after I die will I let my inner swine loose; will I let loose of you, you swine. (...)

When was your death? The first time you heard Hitler speak? (...)

(...) Your mother had run off to Prague by this time, a fabulous woman. Did she perhaps have an inkling that she had given birth to Rosemary's Baby?

(...) and I sit there in the Philharmonic Hall like an evil little sprite on your rounded shoulders (you already had that greasy look that came upon you with the years, already fat and paunchy) - I sit like a sprite on your shoulders with not a thought in the world for Meister Furtwängler; and I whisper in your ear:

Father, you have only nine more years to live. This neck of yours that I'm holding tight between my little legs... in exactly 3,567 days the sound of its snapping will reverberate through the gymnasium at Nuremberg. (...)

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- Dahlke, B. (2007). Familienpornographie. Niklas Franks Abrechnung mit dem Täter-Vater. In. I. Stephan & A. Tacke (Hg.) Geschichte(n) erzählen. Nach-Bilder des Holocaust (53-65). Böhlau Verlag; link

-  Frank, N. (German original published in 1987). The Father.: A Revenge. A Son's Judgement on His Nazi War Criminal Father. Biteback Publishing.

- O' Connor, G. (2013). The Butcher of Poland. Hitler's Lawyer Hans Frank. History Pr.

- photographs of Niklas Frank via and via and via and via

Anti-Defamation League Global 100: An Index of Antisemitism

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is an anti-hate organisation that was founded in 1913 as a reaction to antisemitism. Today, its "ultimate goal is a world in which no group or individual suffers from bias, discrimination or hate". In 1964, ADL started a series of public opinion surveys in the U.S. to monitor levels of antisemitism and measure the general acceptance of negative Jewish stereotypes. For this purpose, an index comprising eleven statements (see below) was developed. In 2013 and 2014, interviews were conducted in 101 countries to research attitudes and opinions toward Jews using the eleven statements mentioned before, a study - based on 53.100 total interviews - that is known as "ADL Global 100: An Index of Antisemitism". Respondents who agree with at least six out of eleven statements are considered to harbour antisemitic attitudes (via).

Some highly interesting results (via):

Generally speaking, Muslims are more likely to hold antisemitic views than members of other religions. However, geography has an impact since Muslims in the so-called "Middle East" and North Africa (75% Index Score) show a much higher tendency to harbour antisemitic attitudes than Muslims in Asia (37% Index Score), in Western Europe (29% Index Score), in Eastern Europe (20% Index Score), and Sub-Saharan Africa (18% Index Score). In addition, Muslims living in predominantly Muslim countries who get their information about Jews from the internet (score 73%) are more likely to have antisemitic attitudes than those getting their information from other sources.

Interestingly ... the so-called "Middle Eastern" country with the lowest antisemitism Index Score (56%) is Iran. For comparison: Iraq's score is 92%,  Kuweit's score is 82%, Jordan's score is 81%. For more countries see this map.

Outside the "Middle East" and North Africa, the three countries with the highest scores are Greece (69%), Malaysia (61%), and Armenia (58%); the three countries with the lowest scores are Laos (0.2%), the Philippines (3%), and Sweden (4%).

People in countries with larger Jewish populations are less likely to hold antisemitic views (score 22%) than people living in countries with smaller Jewish populations (score 28%).

Male respondents (score 29%) show a higher tendency to harbour antisemitic views than female respondents (score 24%).

Less than half of the people surveyed under the age of 35 have ever heard of the Holocaust.

Two out of three people have either never heard of the Holocaust or do not want to believe the historical accounts to be accurate.

More than a quarter (26%) harbour antisemitic attitudes - an estimated 1.09 billion adults around the world. At the same time ... 

... 74% of these respondents have never met a Jewish person.

18% believe that the worldwide Jewish population exceed 700 million people while the number is around 13,700,000. Those overestimating the number are more likely to express antisemitic views (score 38%).

The eleven statements (via):

1 Jews are more loyal to Israel than to [this country/the countries they live in] 

2 Jews have too much power in international financial markets 

3 Jews have too much control over global affairs 

4 Jews think they are better than other people 

5 Jews have too much control over the global media 

6 Jews are responsible for most of the world's wars 

7 Jews have too much power in the business world 

8 Jews don't care what happens to anyone but their own kind 

9 People hate Jews because of the way Jews behave 

10 Jews have too much control over the United States government 

11 Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust

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photograph (by Abbas/Magnum Photos, "Iran Diary: 1971-2002", Teheran 1977, "Jaleh (left) who runs one of the most fashionable beauty saloons of the capital, welcomes a client with a kiss under the gaze of Askar, employe for menial jobs") via 

Vues de l'esprit. By Fabrice Monteiro.

Fabrice Monteiro is an Agouda, a descendant of Brazilian slaves with Portuguese names. He was born in Belgium, grew up in Benin and now lives in Senegal. Before becoming a photographer, Monteiro worked as a model. In his series "Vues De L'Esprit", he revisits iconographical religious images and questions how they have a damaging effect (via and via).

Growing up in Benin, I was always fascinated by the sight of hundreds of black men, women, and children bowing down to a pink Jesus. What could be the effect of such an act on our self-concept?

Fabrice Monteiro

above: Hodegetria, 2012

As a child, Monteiro was “intrigued by the religious images and the huge pink Jesus in the forecourt of many churches in Benin—when everybody around me was Black. If Jesus, the image of ultimate perfection, is white with straight hair in a world of Blacks, how does this affect how Africans perceive themselves?” (via)

"The term “view” is often used in West Africa to refer to a photograph. A view of the mind is a fictitious image, an intellectual concept and it differs according to as many criteria as culture, education, religion, "race"... 

This work proposes to revisit religious Epinal images that we take for granted and that do not pass through the filter of our reason, images that are part of our unconscious cultural baggage and influence our perception of things. 

These portraits are inspired by Christian religious iconography but contain elements specific to other beliefs and other cultures. 

By diverting these "cliches", I wonder about the withdrawal of identity in all its forms in an attempt to achieve a utopian universality."

Fabrice Monteiro

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photographs by Fabrice Monteiro via

Raphael Lemkin and the Concept of Genocide

"Murder had a name. Why was it named crime for one person to kill another, but not for a government to kill millions of people? Shouldn't states be held accountable for trying to destroy entire peoples - their lives, cultures and histories?"
Raphael Lemkin

Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) was a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent. When he learned about the massacres of Armenians he developed a general interest in religious and ethnic persecution (via). Lemkin also cited "Quo Vadis", written by Polish author Henryk Sienkiewicz, as a source of inspiration to protect minorities (via).

Here was a group of people collectively senteced to death for the only reason that they believed in Christ. And nobody could help them. I became so fascinated with the story that I looked up all the similar instances in  history. Raphael Lemkin

Lemkin was convinced that there was an international law needed that protected groups. In the 1930s, he tried to introduce legal safeguards at international forums but did not succeed (via). Presenting a paper at the Leagute of Nations legal committee in Madrid lost him his job (via). In the corridors of the United Nations, he was considered "unpleasant company", socially he was often ignored. Upon learning about the executions in Poland, in 1942, he wrote Roosevelt a letter asking him to take action and received the disappointing reply to be patient (via).

He became obsessed with a crime that, at that point, had no name: the mass murder of groups, simply because of their identity. He was aware of the Turkish massacre of Armenians and of the Assyrians murdered in Iraq – unpunished crimes that would allow Hitler to believe his final solution could be achieved without international intervention. Lemkin identified the stages that led to mass murder: the demonisation of a group, the destruction of its culture, restriction of its freedoms and rights, the small rehearsals of extermination. (via)

In his book "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe", published in 1944, Lemkin introduced the term "genocide", consisting of the Greek prefix genos ("race", tribe) and the Latin suffix cide (killing) (via), a new word for an old practice.

By ‘genocide’ we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group. This new word, coined by the author to denote an old practice in its modern development, is made from the ancient Greek word genos (race, tribe) and the Latin cide (killing)…. Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group. (via)

When Germany invaded Poland, Lemkin fled from Europe and sought asylum in Sweden, then in the United States. The parting words of his mother were:

You realize, Raphael, that it is you, not we, who needs protection now … of all of us only you do not live the life of love. You are the lonely and the loveless one. Still, you have been carrying the burden of your idea, which is based on love … We know you will continue your work, for the protection of peoples. Unfortunately, it is needed now more than ever before. (via)

Lemkin started teaching at Duke University. He joined the War Department in Washington, DC, as an analyst documenting Nazi atrocities. Later, he was part of the legal team preparing the Nuremberg Trials where he made sure the word "genocide" - although not yet a legal crime - was at least included in the indictment against the Nazi leaders. In Nuremberg he also learned about the death of 49 family members including his parents, who had been killed in death camps, the Warsaw ghetto and death marches or starved to death (via). The fact that genocide was not legally considered to be crime made Lemkin believe that the Nuremberg Trial did not serve complete justice (via)

His efforts and campaigns to see "genocide" added to the international law continued and finally, in December 1948, the United Nations approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (via).

Genocide "embodies the social ontology of ‘groupism’, because genocide is about the destruction of groups per se, not individuals per se. Lemkin thought that the Nazi policies were radically new, but only in the context of modern civilization. Wars of extermination have marked human society from antiquity until the religious conflagrations of early modern Europe, after which the doctrine that dominated was that war should be conducted against states rather than populations. Given that forty-nine members of his family died in the Holocaust, Lemkin's ecumenical approach to human suffering is at once astonishing and exemplary." (Moses, 2012)

He spent his last years in poverty in a New York flat, his funeral was attended by only a few people (via). Despite the key role he played in the creation of international laws, despite changing "the world with one word" (via)  and the numerous awards he received and having been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twice, he is "virtually unknown" (via), and a "prophet without honors" (via), 

The United States, Lemkin's adopted country, did not ratify the Genocide Convention during his lifetime. He believed that his efforts to prevent genocide had failed. "The fact is that the rain of my work fell on a fallow plain," he wrote, "only this rain was a mixture of the blood and tears of eight million innocent people throughout the world. Included also were the tears of my parents and my friends." (via)

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- Moses, A. D. (2012). Raphael Lemkin, and the Concept of Genocide.
- photograph (UN photo) of Raphael Lemkin via

Shtetl by the Sea

The first time David Godlis went to Miami Beach was to visit his grandparents. That was in the 1950s, he was a child and his grandparents had retired in South Beach, a sort of heaven for older generations and Jewish immigrants mostly originally coming from Eastern European countries. Later, he said these trips  were "like visiting Jewish Disneyland". When Godlis went to visit with his grandmother in 1974,  part of "that magic kingdom" had already disappeared. He was 22, took his his camera out on to Ocean Drive, shot sixty rolls of film in ten days capturing what was left of the magic (via) witnessing the end of an era. 

The environment had once been a thriving one attracting many people, offering - among other things - Yiddish-language vaudeville shows in art deco theatres (Yiddish would be abandoned by the second-generation immigrants in favour of English). 

His grandparents, like other immigrants in the community, were snowbirds who retired to South Florida after back-breaking work in the hustle-and-bustle atmosphere of New York City. A far cry from New York's harsh winters, these retirees were savoring the respite from the frost of the Northeast. 'Goodbye snow, hello coconuts,' Godlis writes in his book. (via)

When Florida repealed the discriminatory law barring Jewish Americans from owning real estate in 1949, Miami Beach became a magnet for the community. It was called "Little Jerusalem" or "Shtetl by the Sea" (via). In the 1970s, around 80% of the population of Miami Beach was Jewish,, with a peak in the 1980s (via). While in 1982, there were an estimated 60.000 Jewish households, more recent surveys put the number at a maximum of 16.000. Today, the legendary nightclub and theatre are no more, the demographics have changed. (via). But, as Godlis says, not all is lost.

In 2017, when I last returned to Miami Beach, I stayed in the little Century Hotel, looking pretty close to how it looked in 1974 when I first came upon it. I walked around to see where most of these pictures had been taken. To dream the dream I had photographed 40 years earlier. And I could still see it all. Even my cover girl in her cool Oliver Goldsmith sunglasses. The ocean and palm trees have a way of making those dreams come true. If only for a 1/125th of a second. David Godlis

In 1985, 10 years after I shot these photographs, I returned to Miami Beach with my wife, Eileen. I took her down to Ocean Drive to show her where they were taken and was astonished to find that most everyone was gone. I don’t think even in my early 30s I understood how fast time flies. Of course, many of the retired people I shot pictures of were dead 10 years later. But also many of them had been driven out by the Mariel boatlift of 1980. You can see what became of Ocean Drive in the bathroom shootout scene with Al Pacino in Brian DePalma’s Scarface. So Eileen and I stayed a little further up Collins Avenue the year. And I had to be very careful taking photographs on Ocean Drive that my camera wasn’t stolen.
David Godlis

photographs by David Godlis via   

Becoming "The" Ernst Haas

Ernst Haas was born in Vienna in 1921. As a child, he decided to become a painter, however, he was drafted into the military for two years after the Anschluss of Austria to the German Reich in 1938. When returning to Vienna after his service, he entered medical school which he was forced to leave after one year of study because of his Jewish ancestry (via).

His father was an amateur photographer. After his death in 1940, Haas started printing his father's negatives teaching himself technical aspects of photography and developing an interest in the creative ones. In photography, he saw the chance to combine his two goals, i.e. becoming an explorer and a painter (via). Haas, in fact, became an early master of colour photography, a member of Magnum, the man behind the iconic photograph of the Marlboro Man, and much more (via).

photographs by Ernst Haas via and via and via

"They are not demographics, they are people."

Keith Kahn-Harris, a sociologist teaching Jewish studies, noticed the lack of diversity when it comes to representing British Jews. In fact, a great many articles were illustrated with the same Getty Images photograph, i.e., haredi Orthodox men seen from behind. Kahn-Harris tracked down the photographer - Robert Stothard - to learn about its background. The image, that had become the so-called go-to photograph for all sorts of stories about the Jewish community, or communities, had originally been taken to illustrate an article on police presence in London's Jewish neighbourhoods. In 2019, Kahn-Harris and Stothard started working on a new series of photographs of British Jews, a series that would no longer misrepresent their diversity. The photobook "What does a Jew Look Like" was published in 2022, including narratives written by the persons themselves (via).

Above: "There were few reminders of our heritage in our day-to-day lives bar the Chanukah cards we opened alongside our Christmas ones. Adolescence changed that, though. Keen for us to learn our history, our mother took us, at 12 and 13, to Auschwitz during the school holidays... I lit a menorah at home for the first time this year, despite still being irreligious, and was moved significantly by the experience. After all, a lack of faith made no difference to the Gestapo or the KGB​." Rio, Leeds (via)

Getty Images commissioned me to do a set of images depicting increased police presence on the streets in the wake of the 2015 Islamist terrorist attacks in Paris. There were fears of copycat attacks in Britain,” explains Stothard. “So when I took the photos they were news pics. But since then, one image in particular has been clumsily repurposed, become a decontextualised and ubiquitous stock image. It has even been used to illustrate a story about campus antisemitism. It made me very uncomfortable. Robert Stothard

Above: Anonymous.

There are only about 300,000 Jews in Britain so it’s quite easy to live here and never meet a real, live one. The way we are portrayed in the media, in public, is important, it’s how impressions are formed. So the aim of the book is simple – we want non-Jews, and even some Jews, to understand that there is no such thing as the generic Jew. Keith Kahn-Harris

Above: "When the Prodigy’s sound system broke down mid-set at Glastonbury back in 1997, I was asked to go on stage and keep the frustrated crowd at bay while they tried to fix it. I didn’t have any jokes and was getting bottles thrown at me, so I decided to sing Hava Nagila to 90,000 people and thankfully it worked a treat. That song really saved my arse that night​." Paul, north London (via)

Above: "am a practicing artist – concentrating on drawing and installation, my work explores themes of identity, memory, sexual violence, and the body. Largely autobiographical, I use biological materials such as broken eggshells and living matter – plants, insects, fungus – as media, either drawing directly onto them or using them to transform objects and spaces. I was brought up with a very strong religious and cultural identity, but in a non-traditional household. Our family was part of the radical feminist movement; I was conceived through donor insemination and the household was very much part of that ‘80s leftist Stoke Newington scene. There was always a degree of balancing political and personal ideology with religious practice. To make keeping kosher dietary laws easier, we were vegetarian. I went to a Jewish primary school. We’d go on Friday to Ridley Road market to buy challah, and we lit candles and had traditional Friday night dinner to welcome in Shabbat, when I wasn’t allowed to turn on the TV or touch anything electric. As I got older and my mum left the more radical circles, we became more traditionally observant and moved to a more Jewish area of London. I studied in seminary for two years pre-university and got married whilst a student to my long-term boyfriend. As an adult, I have moved back to East London and now live with my husband in Bow. I have a studio in Woolwich where I work and can plan projects. I lived in Edgware for many years but felt stifled and constrained by the atmosphere there – the main thing I miss about it is the excellent foraging in the local woodlands! Living away from the North West London Jewish bubble allows me more freedom to be religious and observant but also to lead a more unconventional life without the scrutiny or pressure of a curious and conservative community. I do not currently want children so many of the tropes of religious married life do not fit my own. I can cover my hair, keep kosher, go to shul, go to the mikvah and fulfil mitzvot without having to live in a row of houses all of which have mezuzot." Tilla, east London (via)

Above: "The photo was taken in Norfolk Heritage Park, Sheffield. That’s the place I usually walk on Shabbat. I’ve had a relationship with trees since I was a child. I’ve lived in Sheffield for over four years now, after moving from London, where I was born and raised. I came to Sheffield to get away from the London anxiety! I’m a member of the Seven Hills Synagogue. It’s small, maybe 100 people, so it’s a very tight-knit and friendly community. We don’t have our own building, so we meet in a community centre every other week. I’m part of a sub-group here where we build up diversity and inclusivity within the Jewish community, trying to engage with our members to talk about the presence of Disabled Jews, Black Jews, Jews of Colour and Queer Jews. It’s a way to help them adapt within those spaces through social activities and promote an accepting diversity of Jews everywhere. My parents are Nigerian Igbos. They moved to the UK in the 80s but divorced in the early 2000s. Though my Mum is Christian, some reputable anthropologists believe in the theory that Igbos have Hebrew Israelite origins. Ironically, I first heard about Judaism through my childhood learning difficulties when I was seven years old. I went to a secular school in the Jewish Haredi neighbourhood of Stamford Hill. I had a teaching assistant who was a secular Jew, and I asked her questions whenever we went to the library nearby. For example, once I asked, ‘Why are these people dressed like that?’ She told me there are strictly practising Jews and explained the different movements of Judaism. I embraced Judaism in the early 2010s as I love the idea of tikkun olam, being spiritually conscious, doing tzedakah, and celebrating my ancestors contribution to the Torah. I want to build consciousness of overseas Afro-Caribbean Jewish communities in the UK to advocate for their recognition within Jewish Education. There are other Black Jews with Afro-Caribbean heritage in cities like London, Birmingham and Manchester. The problematic issue in Jewish spaces is explaining the connections between African ethnic groups and the biblical tribe of Israel; people get confused, and I constantly have to explain. Not only ethnic groups such as the Igbo, the Akan, the Lemba, and the Abayudaya — but other African Jewish communities make the same claim." Kenneth, Sheffield (via)

Above: "‘Are there any Jews?’ This was the first question my wife asked me nearly 15 years ago when I was offered a teaching post in Scotland. I conducted online research and it appeared that Edinburgh was the new Jerusalem!" Joe, Edinburgh (via)

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photographs via and via and via and via and via and via

What Muslims and Atheists Have in Common

For a study on discrimination based on religious affiliations, researchers sent emails to 45.000 school principals in 33 states in America. What all emails shared was that they pretended being written by a family new to the community. What they differed in was the belief system which was communicated through a faith-oriented quote in the signature: Catholic, Protestant, Muslim or atheist. The basic version asked for a meeting to learn more about the school, a second version looked for a school right for their beliefs, a third one asked about accommodation of religious needs at school, and there was a control email with no religious expression at all.

No response was explicitly negative. However, the lack of responses indicated a clear pattern. About half of emails got a response, those signalling affiliation with Islam or atheism (which was indicated by a quote attributed to the prophet Muhammad or to the atheist Richard Dawkins), however, were ca. 5 percentage points less likely to receive a response compared to the control mails.

Religious bias in response to a routine inquiry from a public school official, amounting to a 5 to 13 percent lower chance of response, reflects substantial evidence of bias.
Steve Pfaff

Mails suggesting that their schools might have to accommodate religious requests from parents led to the following reactions: The probability of a response declined by 13 percentage points for atheists, 9 percentage points for Mulism, 7.8 percentage points for Catholics and 5.5 percentage points for Protestants.

The findings were evidents nationwide, whether an urban or rural, a diverse or homogeneous community, no matter what geography or political ideology (via).

Abstract: Although public administration scholars have long studied discrimination on the basis of race/ethnicity, class, and gender, little to no research exists on whether street-level bureaucrats provide differential services based on the religious identity of their constituents. This article reports the results from a large-scale correspondence study of street-level bureaucrats in the American public school system. The authors emailed the principals of a large sample of public schools and asked for a meeting, randomly assigning the religious (non)affiliation of the family. To get at potential causal mechanisms, religious belief intensity was also randomly assigned. The findings show evidence of substantial discrimination against Muslims and atheists on a par with, and sometimes larger than, the racial discrimination found in previous studies. These individuals are substantially less likely to receive a response, with discrimination growing when they signal that their beliefs are more intense. Protestants and Catholics face no discrimination unless they signal that their religious beliefs are intense. (Pfaff et al., 2020, literally)

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- Pfaff, S., Crabtree, C., Kern, H. L. & Holbein, J. B. (2020). Do Street-Level Bureaucrats Discriminate Based on Religion? A Large-Scale Corespondence Experiment among American Public School Principals. Wiley Online Library.
- photograph "God Inc." by Carl De Keyzer (Daytona Beach, 1990, Magnum Photos) via

Portraits of Moral Courage

In 1986, Gay Block told Malka Drucker that her rabbi, Harold Schulweis, had wanted someone to write a book about rescuers for 25 years. So Drucker and Block started the project "Rescuers. Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust.", i.e., on non-Jewish Europeans who had risked death to save Jewish people during the Holocaust. From 1986 to 1988, they photographed and interviewed them (via).

"I'm not a hero. I believe that people are like a pianos (sic): in every person lives the whole scale from very bad to very good. It's the circumstances that bring out the tone. I was just lucky that during the war I could play my high notes."
Semmy Rickerk

photographs by Gay Block via/more

Prayers to Myself. By Samira Saidi.

"Prayers To Myself is a visual story depicting a gentle and different angle towards religion, especially Islam. Redirecting the focus towards the simple understanding of religion as a connective experience between body and nature. Despite all the negative and charged conversations against Islam and its impacts on the worlds. should this story function as an enabler and reminder of different discussions and understandings. Shifting stigma and prejudice towards Muslims in our society and open up a world with different realities, that allows Muslims to exists as individuals with their own thoughts and ideas rather than an unity supporting extreme measures that we are exposed to on the news."
Samira Saidi

"Samira Saidi is an Afro-European, woman of colour, whose practice has the aim to inspect and shift the sociological structures of race (sic), belonging, and explores the duality of intersectional identities through the body." (via)

photographs by Samira Saidi via and via and via

Iran, the Not-So-Islamic Republic

According to a survey among 40.000 Iranians living in Iran, Iranian society shows a clear tendency to secularisation. While Iran's official census claims that almost the whole population (99.5%) is Muslim, the survey carried out by the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN) in 2020, only 40% identify as Muslim (of which 32% identify as Shia, 5% as Sunni Muslim and 3% as Sufi Muslim). 9% say they are atheists, 7% call themselves rather spiritual than religious, 8% are Zoroastrians, 1.5% are Christian. 47% report losing their religion in their lifetime, 6% say they have changed from one religion to another. In other words, "the trend towards faiths other than Islam is unmistakable". Also, in the past decades, fewer religiously associated forenames were chosen for children.

A third occasionally drink alcohol, over 60% do not perform theoretically obligatory Muslim daily prayers, 68% agree that religious prescriptions should not be part of the legislation, 72% oppose the law mandating women wear hijab. Younger people report higher levels of irreligiosity and conversion to Christianity. Apparently, the state made more and more people move away from their religion (via and via and via and via) 

Music selection (YouTube):

::: Kourosh Yaghmaei, Havar Havar: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Pari Zangeneh, Do Beh Do: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Pari Zangeneh, Baroun Barouneh: LISTEN
::: Pari Zangeneh, Mastoom: WATCH/LISTEN
::: Kourosh Yaghmaei, The Heartbroken Town Girl: WATCH/LISTEN

photographs (Teheran, 1976) by Bruno Barbey (Magnum) via and via and via

J'accuse. By Emile Zola.

French novelist and journalist Émile Zola (1840-1902) reacted to the Dreyfus affair (Zola called it "the most preposterous of soap operas") by publishing an open letter to the president entitled "J'accuse".  In the letter, which ran on the front page of the newspaper "L'aurore", he accused the army of conspiring to convict Dreyfus using the public's anti-Semitism. 200.000 copies of the newspaper were sold in Paris alone, Zola was convicted for libel (via).       

 

Letter to Mr. Félix Faure,
President of the Republic 

Mister President,
Allow me, in my gratitude for the kind welcome you once gave me, to be concerned about your just glory and to tell you that your star, so happy so far, is threatened with the most shameful, the most indelible stain? You came out safe and sound from slander, you won hearts. You appear radiant in the apotheosis of this patriotic celebration that the Russian alliance has been for France, and you are preparing to preside over the solemn triumph of our Universal Exhibition, which will crown our great century of work, truth and freedom. But what a patch of mud on your name - I was going to say on your reign - that this abominable Dreyfus affair! A council of war has just, by order, dared to acquit an Esterhazy, the supreme bellows of all truth, of all justice. And it's over, France has this stain on its cheek, history will write that it was under your presidency that such a social crime could have been committed. Since they dared, I will also dare. The truth, I will say it, because I promised to say it, if justice, regularly seized, did not do it, full and whole. My duty is to speak, I don't want to be an accomplice. My nights would be haunted by the specter of the innocent who atones over there, in the most dreadful of tortures, a crime he did not commit. And it is to you, Mr. President, that I will shout it, this truth, with all the strength of my revolt as an honest man. For your honor, I’m sure you don’t know. And to whom will I denounce the harmful peat of the real culprits, if it is not you, the first magistrate of the country?

(...) O justice, what frightful despair sinks the heart! We go so far as to say that he was the forger, that he fabricated the telegram card to lose Esterhazy. But, great God! Why? What purpose? Give a reason. Is that one also paid for by the Jews? The beauty of the story is that he was justly anti-Semitic. Yes! We are witnessing this infamous spectacle, men lost in debts and crimes whose innocence is proclaimed, while the very honor is struck, a man with a spotless life! When a society is there, it decays. So there you have it, Mr. Speaker, the Esterhazy case: a culprit that was to be found innocent. (...)

And what a nest of low intrigue, gossip and squandering, has become this sacred asylum, where the fate of the fatherland is decided! We are horrified by the terrible day that the Dreyfus affair has just thrown into it, this human sacrifice of an unfortunate, a "dirty Jew"! Ah! all that has been agitated there about insanity and foolishness, crazy imaginations, practices of low police, mores of inquisition and tyranny, the good pleasure of some braided men putting their boots on the nation, entering it in the throat his cry of truth and justice, under the pretext liar and sacrilege of reason of State! And it is still a crime to have relied on the filthy press, to have allowed oneself to be defended by all the scoundrel of Paris, so that this is the scoundrel who triumphs insolently, in the defeat of law and simple probity. It is a crime to have accused of disturbing France those who want it generous, at the head of free and just nations, when one plots the impudent conspiracy to impose error, before the whole world . It is a crime to mislead public opinion, to use this opinion which has been perverted to the point of delirium for a death task. It is a crime to poison the small and the humble, to exasperate the passions of reaction and intolerance, by sheltering behind the odious anti-Semitism, of which the great liberal France of human rights will die, if she is not cured of it. It is a crime to exploit patriotism for works of hate, and it is a crime, finally, to make the saber the modern god, when all human science is at work for the next work of truth and justice. (...) I have said it elsewhere, and I repeat it here: when we shut up the truth underground, it accumulates there, it takes on such a force of explosion that, the day it bursts, it blows everything up with she. we’ll see if we don’t just prepare for the most resounding disasters for later. (...)

I have only one passion, that of light, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and which has the right to happiness. My fiery protest is only the cry of my soul. So dare you put me on trial and let the investigation take place! I wait. Please accept, Mr. President, the assurance of my deep respect. 

::: link to complete letter: LINK

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photograph via