Matt Lebovic

January 27, 2023, 5:29 am

Dutch Holocaust survivor, memorial founder Jacques Grishaver to address UN

Founder of acclaimed ‘Namenmonument’ in Amsterdam will deliver remarks for International Holocaust Remembrance Day in New York on January 27

By Matt Lebovic

Dutch Jewish Council in Nazi-occupied Netherlands (public domain)

January 26, 2023, 6:05 am

Nazi-appointed Jewish Councils largely exonerated in transnational comparative study

In her new book, Dutch historian Laurien Vastenhout disproves long-held, often damaging assumptions about Holocaust-era ‘Judenräte’ in France, Belgium and the Netherlands

By Matt Lebovic

Negatives of photos taken by Polish firefighter Z. L. Grzywaczewski in 1943 (Maciek Jazwiecki/Polin Museum)

January 17, 2023, 9:51 am

21 never-published photos of Warsaw Ghetto Revolt’s aftermath found in Poland attic

Uncovered in dusty boxes, pictures were taken clandestinely by a Polish firefighter in 1943 as he protected Aryan Warsaw from flames engulfing the ghetto

By Matt Lebovic

Filmmaker David Wilkinson at Auschwitz-Birkenau. (Courtesy)

January 7, 2023, 1:16 pm

‘The great unpunishment’: How, why so many Holocaust perpetrators got away with it

Fewer than 600 of those who enacted the Holocaust received heavy sentences after WWII. David Wilkinson’s docu explores how the mass of Nazi criminals, collaborators escaped justice

By Matt Lebovic

Mural in Patras, Greece, by KLE, showing the rescue of Jews during the Holocaust (courtesy)

December 9, 2022, 10:30 pm

Street mural project honors unknown ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ in their homelands

With first installations completed in Greece and Portugal, an international initiative celebrates Holocaust rescuers and educates on antisemitism

By Matt Lebovic

A Polish-French Jew, David Olère, painted Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp scenes after surviving the horrors there, including this self-portrait (Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum)

November 27, 2022, 11:31 am

Myths about Auschwitz Jewish ‘Sonderkommando,’ failed rebellion busted in new study

Book from Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is Polish historian Igor Bartosik’s ‘promise kept’ to survivor Henryk Mandelbaum, who was forced to work in gas chambers and crematoria

By Matt Lebovic

TikTok influencer Montana Tucker (right) with her mother at the former German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland (courtesy)

November 7, 2022, 1:14 am

TikTok influencer Montana Tucker makes Holocaust docu-series for Gen Z

After losing thousands of followers for posting about her family’s Holocaust story, social media star Montana Tucker pushes back against haters with ‘How to: Never Forget’ series

By Matt Lebovic

Kristallnacht in Germany and a synagogue in Malmo, Sweden, participating in 'Light from the Synagogue' (public domain and Dalia Yohanan)

November 4, 2022, 2:40 pm

Israeli initiative asks synagogues to honor Kristallnacht by keeping their lights on

‘Light from the Synagogue’ organizers expect hundreds of synagogues and churches outside Israel to commemorate ‘Night of Broken Glass’ this year

By Matt Lebovic

Jewish police detaining a former kapo who was recognized by former concentration camp inmates in the Zeilsheim Displaced Persons camp, Germany, ca. 1945. (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Alice Lev)

October 29, 2022, 2:06 pm

Post-Holocaust Jewish ‘honor courts’ channeled some survivors’ desire for revenge

Online event describes how after WWII, Jewish communities put hundreds of survivors on trial for alleged ‘moral transgressions’ during the genocide to stave off vigilante justice

By Matt Lebovic

Twin sisters Miriam and Eva Mozes Kor in 1949 (courtesy)

October 26, 2022, 4:55 am

Gap in children’s Holocaust literature filled by memoir of former ‘Mengele twin’

Before her death, survivor Eva Mozes Kor partnered with author Danica Davidson on book, ‘I Will Protect You,’ aiming to contextualize antisemitism – and forgiveness – for kids

By Matt Lebovic

Artist Jenny Kagan's immersive exhibition 'Out of Darkness' in Kaunas, Lithuania, July 2022 (photo: Grazvydas Jovaisa)

October 1, 2022, 6:34 am

In Kaunas, a British artist shines light on Holocaust massacre forgotten by locals

Near the site of one of the genocide’s most heavily photographed atrocities, lighting designer Jenny Kagan brings the city’s wartime past ‘Out of Darkness’

By Matt Lebovic

President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets with the National Jewish Welfare Board (left to right) Walter Rothschild, Chaplain Aryeh Lev, Barnett Brickner and Louis Kraft, at the White House on Nov. 8, 1943 (AP photo)

September 18, 2022, 10:11 pm

PBS Holocaust documentary perpetuates well-worn myths to glorify FDR, says historian

Streaming this week, historian Rafael Medoff says ‘The U.S. and the Holocaust’ misrepresents President Roosevelt’s actions leading up to and during the genocide

By Matt Lebovic

Journalists take images of the renovated Anne Frank House Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)

September 3, 2022, 4:27 am

In novel ‘Cyclorama,’ production of ‘Diary of Anne Frank’ conceals a cycle of abuse

In Forward journalist Adam Langer’s new book, a slippery high school drama teacher plays elaborate cat-and-mouse games with his unsuspecting young actors

By Matt Lebovic

Ponary, Lithuania, Jews digging a trench in which they were later buried after being shot (Yad Vashem)

July 29, 2022, 9:08 am

As the Holocaust raged, US newspapers buried reports on Hitler’s Final Solution

In a new book, scholar Rafael Medoff shows how outlets downplayed news of the genocide until late 1943, as FDR’s government and even Jewish leaders felt little pressure to act

By Matt Lebovic

Hitler receives a Volkswagen for his 50th birthday. (Public domain)

June 25, 2022, 1:20 pm

Nazi past of top German business families is ‘hiding in plain sight,’ says author

In ‘Nazi Billionaires,’ journalist David de Jong investigates six uber-wealthy German families that colluded with National Socialism and ‘went free with their fortunes intact’

By Matt Lebovic