Writer Jean-Moise Braitberg has written a letter to Israeli president Shimon Peres demanding that his grandfather's name be removed from Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. The letter is reported to have been printed first in Le Monde, 10 days ago. Here's a text online:
Mr. President of the State of Israel,
I am writing to ask you to intervene on my behalf to whom ever it may concern, to withdraw from the Yad Vashem Memorial dedicated to the memory of Jewish victims of Nazism, the name of my grandfather Moshe Bratberg, gassed in Treblinka in 1943, as well as the other members of my family who perished in different Nazi concentration camps during the second world war.
I am writing to ask you to intervene on my behalf to whom ever it may concern, to withdraw from the Yad Vashem Memorial dedicated to the memory of Jewish victims of Nazism, the name of my grandfather Moshe Bratberg, gassed in Treblinka in 1943, as well as the other members of my family who perished in different Nazi concentration camps during the second world war.
I ask of you Mr. President, to accede to my demand, because
what happened in Gaza recently, and in a wider perspective,
the fate imposed on the Palestinian people over the past
sixty years, disqualifies totally, in my view, Israel as the
center on Remembrance of the Evil done to the Jews and
therefore to all of Humanity.
Let me explain; since Infancy I have been surrounded by survivors of the Death Camps. I have seen the tattooed numbers on peoples' arms. I heard horrible stories of tortures. I felt their impossible mourning and shared their nightmares.
I was taught that these crimes should never be allowed to be repeated; that a Human being, proud to be a member of an Ethnic or Religious group, should not be allowed to despise another Human being or trample all over his most elementary human Rights that should translate in a dignified and secure life with total absence of obstacles or hindrances but with a light, of a serene and prospering future, at the end of a tunnel whatever the length of it may be.
However, Mr. President, I note that in spite of tens of resolutions taken by the International Community, in spite of the obvious evidence of the injustice done to the Palestinian People since 1948 and despite the flickers of Hope that were lit at Oslo and despite the recognition of the Right for the Jewish Israelis to live in peace and security, reasserted many a time and regularly by the Palestinian Authority, the only responses, given by your country's successive governments, have been Violence, Blood spills, Internments, continuous Check Points, Colonization, and Spoliations.
You may say, Mr. President, that it is within your country's legitimate right to defend itself against those who fire rockets on Israel or the Kamikazes who take with them numerous innocent Israeli lives. To which I would answer, that my human sensitivity does not vary according to victims' citizenship.
On the other hand, Mr. President, you are leading a country that claims to represent, not only, all Jews as a nation but also the memory of those who were the victims of the Nazi. This is exactly what concerns me and disturbs me immensely: Retaining the names of my family at the Yad Vashem Memorial in the heart of the Jewish State, your country is holding, my cherished family's memory hostage, behind Zionist barbed wire, of a so-called Moral Authority that commits on a daily basis the Abomination of the denial of Justice.
So please, Mr. President, withdraw the name of my Grand Father from the sanctuary dedicated to the cruelty committed against Jews so that it does not justify the cruelty committed against Palestinians.
Best respectful regards,
Jean-Moïse Braitberg, Author, writer
Let me explain; since Infancy I have been surrounded by survivors of the Death Camps. I have seen the tattooed numbers on peoples' arms. I heard horrible stories of tortures. I felt their impossible mourning and shared their nightmares.
I was taught that these crimes should never be allowed to be repeated; that a Human being, proud to be a member of an Ethnic or Religious group, should not be allowed to despise another Human being or trample all over his most elementary human Rights that should translate in a dignified and secure life with total absence of obstacles or hindrances but with a light, of a serene and prospering future, at the end of a tunnel whatever the length of it may be.
However, Mr. President, I note that in spite of tens of resolutions taken by the International Community, in spite of the obvious evidence of the injustice done to the Palestinian People since 1948 and despite the flickers of Hope that were lit at Oslo and despite the recognition of the Right for the Jewish Israelis to live in peace and security, reasserted many a time and regularly by the Palestinian Authority, the only responses, given by your country's successive governments, have been Violence, Blood spills, Internments, continuous Check Points, Colonization, and Spoliations.
You may say, Mr. President, that it is within your country's legitimate right to defend itself against those who fire rockets on Israel or the Kamikazes who take with them numerous innocent Israeli lives. To which I would answer, that my human sensitivity does not vary according to victims' citizenship.
On the other hand, Mr. President, you are leading a country that claims to represent, not only, all Jews as a nation but also the memory of those who were the victims of the Nazi. This is exactly what concerns me and disturbs me immensely: Retaining the names of my family at the Yad Vashem Memorial in the heart of the Jewish State, your country is holding, my cherished family's memory hostage, behind Zionist barbed wire, of a so-called Moral Authority that commits on a daily basis the Abomination of the denial of Justice.
So please, Mr. President, withdraw the name of my Grand Father from the sanctuary dedicated to the cruelty committed against Jews so that it does not justify the cruelty committed against Palestinians.
Best respectful regards,
Jean-Moïse Braitberg, Author, writer
(Thanks to Nabil)
Related posts:
- One American’s awakening: ‘I was 7 when they punched my grandfather in the face, and none of the men in my family dared say anything’
- Second Jewish family asks that Yad Vashem remove ancestor’s name
- Gosh, how to justify stealing someone’s land? (blame, despise, & degrade them)
- US-Israel identity crisis
- Under increasing pressure, Israel tries to deny and justify Gaza war crimes
{ 11 comments }
Very strange. Perhaps Braitburg feels that his grandfather died for the right of all people to kill Jews with impunity. Perhaps Braitburg thought Yad Vashem should be a lesson to all that the Jews are the easiest victims on earth.
Seems Braitburg was wrong. If there is a heaven, and Braitburg's grandfather is there, and even cares what Braitburg is doing, would he just tell him to piss off?
In a just world, he would.
Evidently Chris Berel is concerned that irrational and undeserved prejudice is skewing the current debate about Israeli/Jewish activity, with many accusations that frantic Israeli/Jewish self-interest is being seriously detrimental to the larger community.
Chris Berel's solution to this problem is to dominate the discussion threads at Mondoweiss with venomous scorn and dishonest argument.
Some of us are beginning to wonder if we have more to fear from Israeli/Jewish incompetence than Israeli/Jewish control conspiracies.
For those who are new to Mondoweiss, Thom, Suzanne, Chris Berel, and Eurosabra are our resident trolls.
Chris Berel is just a bigot. He justifies his bigotry, like many bigots do, by continuously claiming that his group is being seriously threatened by those whom he is bigoted against.
He reminds me of a fellow who dropped in on a public discussion in LA with a human rights attorney from Israel. The discussion was held by a local group which counted both Arab-Americans(including Palestinian-Americans) and American Jews in its membership, as well as including some ex-pat Israelis Most of these people had been friends and associates for over a decade.
But this fellow, who lived part-time in the US and part-time in a settlement in the West Bank, felt safe enough in this group to declare that he thought all Arabs should die, supposedly because he thought that all Arabs wanted him dead. But his insistance that all Arabs wanted him dead made no sense, and was really only a sad and idiotic justification for his own bigotry. To him, it was OK that he hated because he could rationalize that he only hated those who hated him, even though that group that supposedly hated him included millions of people he never knew and who had no animus towards him at all. In his mind every Arab was the same, and anyone who criticized his viewpoint must also want him dead. I surmise that he would have found it harder to live with his own callousness and hatred if he couldn't pretend that his hatred was not of his own making.
Chris Berel is very similar to that man. He feels that he can spew all sorts of racist bile because he's only "returning" hatred, because, in his mind, so many people hate Jews "because they are Jews". If you follow his comments you will see that he is constantly asserting without foundation that anyone who disagrees with him wants to kill Jews. His insistence that there is a mainstream genocidal anti-semitism is simply a part and parcel of his bigotry. Its a fascinating study in the psychology of racism and its "justifications".
As for Braitburg, I say he's someone who understands that the Holocaust should not be used as a justification for the mistreatment of any ethnic group. "Never again" should be a universal cry. Injustice is injustice no matter who is the perpetrator.
Except Israel is not using the holocaust as justification of the mistreatment, if any, of the typical palestinian.
Israel uses the holocaust to justify the quite legal law of return for all Jews.
Never again will there be no refuge for the Jews when a holocaust threatens.
If Braitburg wishes to commit suicide so that he no longer need worry, that's up to him.
Weiss' comment regarding those that oppose his bigotry are trolls will just have to be unanswered. Dealing with Philip regarding his racism is like dealing with Rowan and Martin.
This was probably the original link:
http://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/2009/01/28/effacez-le-nom-de-mon-grand-pere-a-yad-vashem_1147635_%200.html
Disappeared from the Net like so many other articles
http://business.theage.com.au/business/israelis-are-living-high-on-us-expense-account-20090116-7j82.html
Le Monde link is now:
http://www.lemonde.fr/opinions/article/2009/01/28/effacez-le-nom-de-mon-grand-pere-a-yad-vashem_1147635_3232.html?xtref
Hi folks,
Sorry for my poor english and thank you for the interest given to my letter.
To un derstand my pint, you must know
1- That my mother is a french protestant who saved jew during WWII. So I'm not jewish on a religious way.
2- I'm personnaly an atheist and a materialist. I d'ont believe in a life after death, and I don't even think that ruoi give light to the souls if you whishper their names.
3 -My grand dad's memory is not my property. He died in a gaz chamber and this was a crime not only against the jews but against humanity.
4 – Since 1948 Iszraël cinstantly claimed upon the holocaust to justifie the right to build a jewish state ti put the jews in safe. The problem is taht nowaday, no jews are theratend anywhere in the world except in Israël. Zionim faild, this is obvious. But integration won.
5 Only one qurter of the jews live in Israël. 75 % of the jews in teh world live in the so called Galout -diaspora-. Thousands of jews live israël every year to settle in the US, in France, Canada, Australia, and so. But this topic is a kind of tabu.
6 I'm not comprehensive at all with the Hamas and others extremists moslims. My only aim is that one day the arabs in the territory of Palestine will have the same rights as the jews in the US or in France.
Frindly yours
Jean-Moïse Braitberg (and not Braitburg).
@Braitberg
Things weren't so bad in the world for Jews in 1928. Ten years later…
There have always been periods and places where Jews were not persecuted. The problem is that when these periods end and Jews need to flee, there has to be a place to run.
Many Jews were exterminated in WWII because they were returned to the Nazis when they tried to flee to England, to the U.S., to the Middle East. It did them no good that a few years before the persecution was lower. It did them no good that the U.S. didn't persecute Jews (not counting things like institutions banning them from joining). What counted was that they weren't being let in when they needed to be. What counted was they were murdered because they had no place that would take in Jews.
BTW, many of the Jews murdered in WWII were assimilated. They were integrated into German society and considered themselves German. That didn't stop the Jew haters from murdering them for being Jewish.
"Never again" doesn't just mean never will there be another holocaust. It means that there will never be a world in which Jews can be exterminated without anyplace to run.
The Arab citizens in Israel have the same rights as the Jewish citizens of Israel (though fewer obligations, the Jews are required to serve in the military or alternate service, the Arabs can volunteer, but are not required to serve).
The Arabs in Palestine (if the country is ever founded) will not have the same rights as anyone in the U.S. or France because the Palestinians will not allow it. Try being a gay Palestinian and see how many rights you have.
Israel bombed concentration camp Gaza to kill and injure inmates, however, as shown on Air Photo Evidence, American and British planes didn't bomb Auschwitz during WW2 because bombs would kill and injure inmates, and their own study showed inmates were being well treated.
I think the letter is beautiful. The Jewish culture has produced some wonderful people, and Jean-Moise Braitberg seems to be one of them.
The world needs to recognize (and terminate) the holocaust going on in Palestine since 1948. It continues the long tradition of mass murder and theft of land that goes back centuries at least as far as the the reign of terror led by Joshua at Jericho.
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