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A nonprofit, independent news source to inform, inspire, educate and connect the St. Louis Jewish community.

St. Louis Jewish Light

A nonprofit, independent news source to inform, inspire, educate and connect the St. Louis Jewish community.

St. Louis Jewish Light

A nonprofit, independent news source to inform, inspire, educate and connect the St. Louis Jewish community.

St. Louis Jewish Light

The Holocaust

Ken Burns’ new doc series asks tough questions about the U.S. and the Holocaust

ERIC MINKPublished September 11, 2022
Ken Burns’ PBS series asks hard questions about how Americans treated Jews and immigrants during wartime
This Holocaust survivor and Brazilian swimming champion is still competing at 98

This Holocaust survivor and Brazilian swimming champion is still competing at 98

Published September 7, 2022

RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — Last month, at the Pan American Games in Medellin, Colombia, spectators, journalists and the event’s organizers lined up with anticipation along the side of a pool to watch a 400-meter medley. They were there to see Nora Tausz...

Jewish deportees march through the German town of Würzburg to the railroad station on April 25, 1942.
US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration

Unknown Holocaust photos – found in attics and archives – are helping researchers recover lost stories and providing a tool against denial

Wolf Gruner, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesPublished August 31, 2022

The summer of 2022 marked the 80th anniversary of the first Nazi deportation of Jewish families from Germany to Auschwitz. Although the Nazis deported hundreds of thousands of Jewish men and women, for many places where those tragic events happened,...

Zuzanna Surowy as Sara, in “My Name Is Sara.”  Photo courtesy of Strand Releasing.

‘My Name Is Sara’ tells true story of Jewish girl concealing her identity in Nazi-occupied Ukraine

Cate Marquis, Special to the Jewish LightPublished August 18, 2022

“My Name Is Sara” is a searing drama based on the true story of a 13-year-old Jewish girl who survived in Nazi-occupied Ukraine by posing as Ukrainian Orthodox Christian while living with a family of farmers who were unaware of her true identity....

Texas school district pulls the Bible and a version of Anne Frank’s diary from shelves

Texas school district pulls the Bible and a version of Anne Frank’s diary from shelves

ANDREW LAPIN, JTAPublished August 16, 2022

(JTA) – A school district in suburban Fort Worth, Texas, has ordered its librarians to remove an illustrated adaptation of “The Diary of Anne Frank” from their shelves and digital libraries, along with the Bible and dozens of other books that were...

Mahmoud Abbas accuses Israel of ‘Holocausts’ and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz takes heat for not responding

Mahmoud Abbas accuses Israel of ‘Holocausts’ and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz takes heat for not responding

RON KAMPEAS, JTAPublished August 16, 2022

(JTA) — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of committing “Holocausts” at a press conference after meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, and Scholz’s muted initial response is spurring criticism. Abbas...

How every Holocaust story, memory or artifact in our new Holocaust Museum will be sharable

How every Holocaust story, memory or artifact in our new Holocaust Museum will be sharable

Jordan Palmer, Chief Digital Content OfficerPublished August 16, 2022

"Memory is what shapes us. Memory is what teaches us. We must understand that’s where our redemption is," said Holocaust survivor Estelle Laughlin. Preserving memories of Holocaust survivors, liberators and others is the everyday function at the...

Trump wanted his advisors to be like ‘German generals in WWII,’ according to a new book

ANDREW LAPIN, JTAPublished August 8, 2022

(JTA) – Former President Donald Trump wanted his military advisors to be more like “the German generals in World War II,” according to a new book about the Trump presidency that quotes from his administration’s top personnel. Trump reportedly...

How watchmaking skills saved 3 Jewish brothers from the Nazi death machine

How watchmaking skills saved 3 Jewish brothers from the Nazi death machine

BY ROBERT A. COHN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF EMERITUSPublished June 22, 2022

Every Holocaust survivor story is both a miracle and a curse. The miracle for any Jew in Nazi-occupied Europe between 1939 and 1945 is the fact that they managed to escape the merciless, ruthless and efficient Germans at all. The curse is survivors’...

St. Louis Holocaust Museum announces reopening date

St. Louis Holocaust Museum announces reopening date

Ellen Futterman and Bill MotchanPublished June 20, 2022

The St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum will reopen on Nov. 2. The new 36,000 square foot structure will be four times larger than the previous facility, which was located on the lower level of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis building. It...

‘Stranger Things’ fans deny their tattoos evoke the Holocaust — it’s a growing trend.

‘Stranger Things’ fans deny their tattoos evoke the Holocaust — it’s a growing trend.

By Mira Fox, The ForwardPublished June 10, 2022

When you think of numbers tattooed on wrists, you probably think of Auschwitz and Holocaust survivors with numbers inked on their forearms. But for some fans of “Stranger Things,” Netflix’s cult favorite horror show, they think of Hawkins, Indiana,...

Critics accuse Pope Pius XII of having turned a blind eye to Jewish suffering during World War II. ( Wikimedia Commons) 

A new book explains Pope Pius XII’s silence during the Shoah — but does not excuse it

PJ Grisar, The ForwardPublished June 8, 2022

One day in late October 1941, Pope Pius XII received chilling news. A bishop in Slovakia wrote to say that the country’s Jews “are simply being shot … systematically murdered, without distinction of sex or age.” We can get a sense of how Pius...

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