Jewish & World News

The Simon Wiesenthal Center ranks Germany, Italy and the U.S. as the most successful at investigating and prosecuting Nazi war crimes over the past year. In its annual report covering April 1, 2011 to March 31, 2012, released Thursday, the center said there was a fivefold increase in convictions from its previous report, from two to 10. Nine of those convictions were in Italy and one was in Germany.

A rare, historically significant book stamped "Secret!" from Nazi Germany has found its way to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. after it was left at La Grange Park Public Library. The book, "1938-1941: Vier Jahre, Hermann-Göring-Werke," was placed in the library's drop box bin, and may have ended up in the trash had it not landed on the desk of librarian Ursula Stanek, who grew up in Germany, according to the library. She recognized the stamp which read, "Geheim!" -- German for "Secret!"-- and the letterhead of Nazi commander Hermann Göring.

Germans have leapt to the defence of Walther Tröger, an honorary member of the International Olympic Committee, after it was suggested he gave a ‘Nazi’ salute at the London 2012 opening ceremony. As his team paraded around the stadium Mr Tröger was caught on video repeatedly extending his left arm back and forth prompting a few awkward stares from members of the crowd.

Searchers in Seymour, Indiana, look underground for some of the secrets of World War II -- Nazi secrets, to be precise. The Allies shipped Nazi planes to Freeman Field so pilots and engineers could fly them, take them apart, and put them back together again. What they learned was important, because American planes weren't as advanced. What happened to those planes after the war is still a mystery.

Heinrich Himmler, the infamous Nazi leader of the SS, was enthralled with eastern mysticism and always carried an ancient text on yoga wherever he went, a new book has claimed. Although the Nazi leader was not known to practice the physical exercises associated with yoga, he was fascinated with the Bhagavad Gita, the 700-verse Hindu scripture that outlines the principles of yoga and karma, and had a German translation of the Sanskrit original always at his side.

Around 1,600 neo-Nazis participated in a torch-lit march in the eastern German city of Dresden on Monday, on the anniversary of the city's World War II bombardment by Allied forces. But their march was cut short by more than 13,000 people who surrounded the city centre and formed a 3.6-kilometre human chain to prevent them from reaching the city core. On February 13 and 14, 1945, months before the end of the war, British and US bombers launched a huge assault on Dresden, killing an estimated 25,000 and flattening large parts of the city. For years, right-wing groups have used the day to rally and deny Germany's responsibility for the atrocities of the war. The police sent 5,800 officers to the city on Monday, in anticipation of possible clashes between right and left-wing activists. Last year, 100 police officers were injured in the protests. Throughout the day Monday, religious and commemorative sermons were held in honour of the many millions who suffered at the hands of...

In 1938, as the Nazis laid plans to annihilate European Jewry, a few desperate Jews dreamed of escaping to the other side of the world: Alaska. Joachim Hein, from Breslau, Germany, was one of many who wrote to the American Department of Interior for permission to immigrate to the vast northern territory with his wife, Anna, and daughter, Henny. “We shall in no way [be] a burden for the country,” he wrote in a letter now in the National Archives, “because we take our electric machines from here and furnish a manufacture in aprons and linen, like we have had here. But if this business is not agreeable to your Excellency, we are prepared to [do] every work.”

In Greece, old stereotypes about Germany are coming back with a vengeance. A Greek newspaper upset over Angela Merkel’s handling of Greece’s debt crisis Thursday ran a Photoshopped image on its front page showing the chancellor in Nazi attire standing before a swastika. Dimokratia newspaper also ran the word “Dachau” with the photo, referencing a Nazi concentration camp, reported Joe.ie, an Irish Web site that first spotted the image. The photo appeared just after the Greek government agreed to new austerity measures. The decision sparked protests and clashes with police in Athens as well as a 48-hour general strike. At the protests, Nazi flags were held high, German flags burned and swastikas displayed. The intense anti-German sentiment was clear. Last week, associations representing doctors, lawyers and structural engineers met in Athens and decided on a boycott of products from Germany. The financial crisis in Greece has pitted the small country against Germany. Germany refuse...

A German court has rejected the claim of two Jewish women for extra pension payments for work they did under the Nazis in ghettos. The Federal Social Affairs Court in Kassel ruling Tuesday could affect some 20,000 people who worked for meager wages in the ghettos.

A painting seized from a Florida museum must be returned to the heirs of its former Jewish owner, a U.S. court ruled. "Christ Carrying the Cross Dragged by a Rogue," a 16th-century work by Girolamo de' Romani, was ordered to be sent back to the heirs of Federico Gentili di Giuseppe on Monday by Judge Robert Hinkle of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, the Associated Press reported.

The U.N.'s highest court confirmed Friday that Germany has legal immunity from being sued in foreign courts by victims of World War II Nazi atrocities. The International Court of Justice said that Italy's Supreme Court violated Germany's sovereignty in 2008 by judging that an Italian civilian, Luigi Ferrini, was entitled to reparations for his deportation to Germany in 1944 to work as a slave laborer in the armaments industry.

Three letters by Albert Einstein to a group that campaigned against the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s will go on the auction block in Los Angeles next week. In one of the letters, the father of relativity praises the Friends of Truth, a Cincinnati-based German-American group, for not allowing Jews to join it because it would weaken their anti-Nazi message.

A Manual detailing the workings of one of Adolf Hitler’s last working Nazi tanks has been revealed as a surprise Christmas bestseller. The fully-illustrated Haynes Manual, compiled by historian David Fletcher, Bovington Tank Museum curator David Willey and museum workshop manager Mike Hayton, details the workings of the Tiger 131 tank.

Each year before Chanukah, the Mansbach family drops by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum to pick up the family Chanukiyah (Chanukah Menorah) – an item rich with history, symbolism, and sentimental value. Because, family member Yehuda Mansbach told Israel National News in an interview, “this Chanukiyah is the only remaining memory of the congregation my Grandfather, Rabbi Dr. Akiva Baruch Pozner, led before escaping Germany.”

A parade to commemorate the day Nazi troops marched into Latvia during World War II is set to proceed on Thursday after a court on Tuesday overturned an earlier ban on the event.

Oklahoma City - An unusual item is stolen, and now a widow desperately wants it returned. Albert Preston, Jr. was a U.S. soldier who was taken prisoner by the Nazis during World War II. He survived several dangerous situations and he was even able to confiscate one of the Nazi flags during his capture.

Thousands of French people who collaborated with the Nazis during World War II are set to be unmasked as official reports from the era are finally made public.

The organization behind a Colorado town's museums said a recently donated swastika-covered quilt was made around 1900, long before Nazi rule in Germany.

Turkish supporters for flotillas aimed at breaking Israel’s maritime embargo on Hamas-controlled Gaza recently raised the Nazi flag with an expression of gratitude. The Turkish language slogan on the flag is a common expression of gratitude, according to the [Islam] Religion for Peace.com website.

White Plains - A display of Nazi paraphernalia at this weekend's Westchester County Center gun show drew swift condemnation, as the county, in response, said it would review its policies.