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Naomi Ragen's columns

Solly Ganor's Remembrance

Capturing the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai at Mt.Meron in 1948, during the War of Independence            NEW
By Solly ganor

Today we celebrate Lag Ba'omer at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai at Mt. Meron. Yet very few know that a unit of the Mahal volunteers, mostly from English speaking countries, captured the tomb during the War of Independence in 1948. I was one of the soldiers who participated in the battle. Some of us died there so that 250,000 people can come to celebrate Lag Ba'omer at the tomb. Click here to read this story

The coming Armageddon
Conversation on the Beach 3
By Solly Ganor

Five years ago I sent you a letter which I called “Conversation on the Beach”. In my letter I described my conversation with a young Palestinian student who in short precise terms explained how Islam will defeat the West. The conversation opened my eyes to a much larger picture in which Israel plays only a minor role in the Islamic game of conquest. Since then I tried to speak to some Arabs who come to pray at the Mosque, but they were not as outspoken as the student.
Last week I had another conversation with an Israeli Arab construction boss by the unlikely name of Francis who was in charge of building a villa near our house in Herzelia. He told me that his family was Christian and his name was given to him in honor of the Franciscan monks. Our conversation was as interesting as the first conversation I had with the Arab student five years ago and I would like to share it with you. Click here to read more

President Jimmy Carter is personally responsible for the Iranian crisis
(See Carter’s Arab connections bellow)            

By Holocaust survivor,
Solly Ganor

There are many outraged articles and letters against Carter’s book, calling Israel an Apartheid state. Professor Allen Dershowitz is especially lucid in his explanation of what makes Carter’s book a pack of half-truths and outright lies.
Yet among all the protest there is no one who touches on the point of Jimmy Carter’s disastrous political ineptness on the Iranian crisis of 1979. Our memories are simply short. Click here to read more

THE IRANIAN THREAT TO WIPE ISRAEL OFF THE MAP
BY HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR Solly Ganor

I have been discussing the Iranian threat with my Holocaust survivor friends and the article bellow was inspired by our discussion. I think that not too many people realize how we really feel about it...

Sadam Hussein who threatened to burn down Israel was hanged yesterday without fulfilling his wish. Among his last words was ‘Long live Palestine.’
The main reason why he hated Israel was the fact in 1979 we thwarted his plans... Click here to read more

The Big Action
By Solly Ganor

This evening we gathered once more at the ‘Bet Hachyal’ in Tel Aviv, to commemorate the murder of 10,000 men, women and children of the Kovno Ghetto 65 years ago. We called it the ‘Big Action’. There were a few hundred of us, Lithuanian Jewish survivors gathered to commemorate our nearest and dearest who were murdered by the Nazis and their Lithuanian collaborators on that fateful day. Just a few hundred to cry for the 10,000 of the ‘Big Action’ and the 250,000 Lithuanian Jews who perished during the Holocaust. I couldn’t help thinking of the number of our soldiers who died since the War of Independence in 1948 and the other five or six major wars we fought against the Arabs. We cry for every one of them, the brothers, sisters, children and now the grand children. We cry for the 24,000 who died in our wars against the Arabs. But there was no one to cry for the 10,000 murdered in the ‘Big Action’ in the Kovno ghetto because those who died were whole families and there was no one left to cry for them. No fathers, or mothers, sisters, or brothers, children or grand children; they couldn’t cry for their nearest and dearest because they were all shot and buried together in a mass grave on the killing grounds of the 9th Fort near Kovno. They tell me that I shouldn’t make such comparisons, but I can’t help myself. Click here to read more

Lebanon Two, the second earthquake, in the eyes of a Holocaust
survivor
By Solly Ganor

The emotional turmoil we are all going through in Israel may lead to a new concept of how we are going to defend ourselves in a hostile world surrounding us.
Almost all Israelis are deeply convinced that ‘we have no other country than Israel’ and are ready todefend it no matter what.
As a Holocaust survivors Israel means much more to us than people realize. Israel not only gave us back a country after two thousand years of ‘Galut’, but it restored our dignity as human beings and Jews. Click here to read more

The internet is turning into ‘Kafka’ land and the search engines Google and Yahoo refuse to take responsibility.
By Jonathan Tilove

The author of ‘Light One Candle’ and Holocaust survivor Solly Ganor, whose book has been translated to several languages, and taught in high schools on the subject of the Holocaust, has been subjected to vicious defamation and slander by a person known as K.K. Brattman. On his website i.survived Holocaust Survivors Network he wrote a thirty page of so called study accusing Solly Ganor of being a Holocaust impostor. The Association of Survivors of Dachau, where Solly Ganor is a member of its board of directors, wrote a sharp letter to Brattman demanding an apology. The director of the Dachau Museum and archives Dr. Barbara Distel, accused Brattman of deliberate lying about Solly Ganor, and threatened to take Brattman to a German court, where Holocaust denying is a crime. And additional person who came to Solly Ganor’s defense exposing Brattman as a fake and convicted criminal was Jonathan Tilove, a well known journalist, of the Newhouse news that has many branches in North America and on the internet. Click here to read more

Conversation on the Beach (Two)
By Solly Ganor

A Texan tells of his twenty years of service in the oil fields of the Arab states, his view of the Middle East and his remarkable view of Israel and the Jewish people in general. Perhaps we are being too hard on ourselves and we need an outsider to tell us that ‘Am Israel Hai’ and will continue to do so long after our enemies will be buried. Click here to read more

The Gospel of Judas
by Solly Ganor  

I read with amazement an articleInside NYTimes.com

by Barry Meier and John Noble Wilford 'How the Gospel of Judas Emerged'. Two pages full of speculations of how the document was found, the various dealers that had a hand in shady deals of trying to make profit from the find, of how it wandered from country to country, each dealer trying to make a profit from the document.... Not a word about the terrible injustice done to the Jewish people throughout the centuries who were identified with Judas and to Judas himself.
Click here to read more

Conversation in London            
by Solly Ganor  

Last year I visited London and met with two retired merchant marine captains who were my class mates in 1962 at the Sir John Cass College for captains and mates. At the end of 2003 we had a reunion in London. Following our meeting I wrote an article which I called ‘Conversation in London’. I am not sure if I sent it to you.
After the terrorist attack on London that conversation takes on a new aspect, especially when one of the captains, John Collins, who openly sided with the Palestinians, sent me the following e-mail.

Perhaps I should call it Conversation in London number II .Click here to read

A Pesach Story
By Zrubawel Rosenzweig

Translated from the Hebrew by Solly Ganor

Exactly Sixty years ago, on Chol-Hamoed Pesach, a man by the name of Zrubavel Rosenzweig, an engineer from Kovno, Lithuania, wrote a remarkable letter. It was found among his papers after he passed away on February 18, 2000.
The letter was written on Chol-Hamoed Pesach on April 3, 1945, a month before we were liberated by the US forces from the concentration camp of Dachau complex.. Click here to read

The  Miracle of  Hanukah, December 1939
by Solly Ganor

For me Hanukah always had a special significance.
It was on Hanukah in 1939 that I met a person who had the greatest moral influence on me for the rest of my life. His name was Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul to Lithuania. Click here to read

The Death of Arafat in the eyes of a Holocaust Survivor            
by Solly Ganor

With the death of Arafat there were all kinds of articles written about him in the media, the press and by private poeple. Some time ago before his death, I was in Germany and was asked what I thought of Arafat from the point of view of a Holocaust survivor. I thought that my answer would interest you. Click here to read

View from Israel: The Intergeneration Project              
By Edna Aphek

I thought that your readership might find the attached article, interesting. It describes an on going educational project which I intiated 6 years ago, and implemented in more than 400 schools in Israel. Best wishes Prof. Edna Aphek Click here to read

Israel's Peculiar Position
by Eric Hoffer

In 1968 the LA times ran this article, written by Eric Hoffer, a former longshoreman and non-Jewish American social philosopher. Born in 1902, Hoffer died in 1983, after writing nine books and winning the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Although written 34 years ago, the following is as timely and applicable today as then. Click here to read

Visiting the 9th Fort
Introduction to part 5 of my journal  
by Solly Ganor  

In a few days we will commemorate the ‘Big Action’ of the Kovno Ghetto. I would like to share with you part of my childhood diary that describes the ‘Big Action’ and the impressions of my visit last year to the 9th Fort. Click here to read

War of Independence 1948
Crossing the Line                
by Solly Ganor  

Yesterday, we commemorated the fallen Mahal volunteers. The ceremony took place at the Mahal monument near Shar Hagai. They all came from around the globe to fight for the newly founded State of Israel, and paid with their lives so we may have a Jewish state after two thousand years of wandering. Click here to read

Thoughts and Reflections of a survivor on Yom Hashoha, The Holocaust Day
by Solly Ganor  

I was in the garden feeding our cat called ginger when the sirens went off, officially announcing the day of the Shoa. The shrill, piercing sound made ginger jump in the air and arch its back. Then she came scuttling down to hide between my legs, while I stood at attention. Click here to read

Murder at the 7th Fort by Solly Ganor  

This evening as I watched the basketball game between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Zalgiris Kovna, I felt nauseus. It brought me back to the horrors of my childhood and the murder of my brother.
After the Nazi invasion of Lithuania, in  July 1941, a German army team played basketball against a Lithuanian team. The Lithuanians had no difficulty in defeating the Germans as before world war two they were champions of Europe.
As a ‘reward’ the Lithuanian basketball players were allowed to shoot a dozen Jews at the 7th Fort. Among the Jews who were shot there was my brother, Zwi-Hermann.  If he was shot by a basketball player or some other Lithuanian murderer we will never know.
 Ironically, anyone who watched the game saw that Maccabi Tel Aviv, as if by a miracle, won the game against Zalgiris, Kovno.
Perhaps, if the German army team had won the game in July 1941, the Lithuanian basketball players wouldn’t  have been rewarded with shooting Jews and my brother would have been alive today. Click here to read

The Historical Seder in Munich. April 15-16, 1946 by Solly Ganor
The first Passover seder after the collapse of the Nazi empire

My Canadian step-mother, Ethel, had a pleasant surprise for us today. We are being invited by the US army to attend  the  first Pesach Seder after  the war. Rabbi Abraham Klausner is going to conduct the Seder. Rabbi Klausner is a US army chaplain, whom I had met once before through Ethel. A group of Jewish survivors were invited to attend as well.

The Seder is going to take place in the Deutsches Theatre restaurant on Schwanthaler Strasse, right in the centre of Munich. It is one of the few restaurants that is relatively undamaged by the bombings during the war. It is a large place, elegantly furnished and served the Nazi bigwigs during the war. Click here to read

‘VISAS FOR LIFE’ by Solly Ganor  
An exibition created by the historian Eric Saul of Los Angeles

‘Hakarat Tova’ is part of Judaism’s tradition, and we certainly owe an enormous gratitude to the consuls and ambassadors who saved more than 300.000 Jews during the Nazi period in Europe. This is what the exhibition, which is currently displayed at Binyanei Hauma in Jerusalem, all about.
Click here to read

Scapegoating the "settlers" By Shalom Freedman
Originally published by Israel National News.

I am a Jew An Anonymous Author
Very important review of Anti-Semitizm in General and France.

Conversation in Europe by Solly Ganor

I have been recently invited to Frankfurt for a lecture on the Holocaust.I had a very interesting and illuminating
conversation with a couple of young Germans. Once again I realized how sorely we are lacking in counteracting
the Arab propaganda against the State of Israel.
During my conversations with Europeans I found out that many are willing to listen to our side.
Unfortunately, there are too few of us who are doing the explaining.  I don't think we can afford to lose the
propaganda war in Europe. Israel and its friends must do much more than it is presently doing.

With best regards,

Solly Ganor Click here to read

A Chanukah Miracle Story by Solly Ganor

In these difficult days it is important that we should remember those who saved thousands of Jewish people,
during World War Two, when we had nowhere else to turn.
This week we are celebrating Chanukah, the festival of lights again. Ever since my liberation from Dachau,
I have been lighting an extra candle for the person who performed the miracle of Hanukah, the Japanese
consul Chiune Sugihara.
The following is the story of the Miracle of Hanukah, 1939, and how thousands of Jewish people were saved
by the most unlikely person to do so, considering that Japan was allied with Nazi Germany.