Although the Israel Border Police have been very busy in Jerusalem amid the terrorist attacks that have engulfed the city in the recent month, a group of border policemen took the time between shifts to celebrate a very important birthday to Leah Genzel, 79, a Holocaust survivor living in Jerusalem. Her husband, Yitzchak, turned 89 last week and the border policemen delivered a special birthday cake to celebrate with the elderly couple.

As part of a joint Yad Vashem project called Father and Sons, Israeli border police stationed in Jerusalem ‘adopt’ Holocaust survivors living in neighborhoods across the capital. Since 2007, the Israeli border guards have made a point to celebrate birthdays with Holocaust survivors, as well as calling them before holidays and making monthly visits to their homes. The Israeli border police also assist survivors in their own homes when their help is needed.

“We believe that we must know our past; our unit’s fighters must know in whose merit we stand here today in our democratic Jewish state of Israel,” said Zohar Araidy, unit commander and superintendent of the Border Police unit whose members organized the birthday celebration, in an interview with Tazpit News Agency.

“People like Leah, and her husband, Yitzhak – a decorated soldier who fought in many of Israel’s wars – are heroes and role models for us,” Araidy told Tazpit.

“We decided to surprise the couple and celebrate Yitzhak’s birthday. Seeing the surprised and happy expressions on both their faces when we sang happy birthday and brought out the cake was a very good feeling,” he added.

“Leah and Yitzhak’s lifetime experiences inspire our border policemen in their everyday work as they secure the streets of Jerusalem. This couple’s stories brings honor to our green uniforms.”

Araidy commands a unit within the Israeli Border Police that is comprised of Bedouin, Druze, Christian and Jewish policemen who come from all over Israel.

Police fighters from the unit visit Leah, who is an Auschwitz survivor, at least once a month and invite her and her husband to attend ceremonies and events that take place at their Jerusalem police base. More recently, the fighters got to know Yitzhak, who in his younger years served in the IDF and shared stories about his wartime experiences with the visitors.

“This project and forming these connections with Holocaust survivors does more than just warm our hearts,” said Araidy. “Leah and Yitzhak’s past leaves an imprint that goes deep into our hearts. We must always remember the difficult path that others walked before us and give some goodness back to them.”

Roger Cukierman, president of France’s largest Jewish group, was indicted for supposedly defaming the comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala a “professional anti-Semite.”

Cukierman, who heads the CRIF umbrella of French Jewish communities and organizations, announced the indictment on Monday in a video that appeared on the CRIF website.

“So I am being indicted for having stated on Europe 1 that Dieudonne is a professional anti-Semite. Isn’t that funny? For once, Dieudonne is actually comical,” Cukierman said.

Dieudonne has 10 convictions for inciting racial hatred against Jews, according to CRIF. He also invented the quenelle salute, which French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said was an inverted Nazi gesture of anti-Semitic hate, and the term “shoananas,” a mashup of the Hebrew word for the Holocaust and the French word for pineapple, which is used to suggest the genocide never happened without explicitly violating France’s laws against doing so.

Earlier this year, Valls, then interior minister, advised mayors to ban Dieudonne’s shows, leading to the show’s cancellation and replacement with another routine which featured less anti-Semitic material.

Indictments are “quasi-automatic” in France when police receive complaints of defamation, according to the L’Express news website.

Responding to the indictment, the National Bureau for Vigilance against Vigilance, or BNVCA, extended its support for Cukierman.

“No one in France knows anti-Semitism better than Roger Cukierman, who survived the Holocaust at the age of nine because nuns hid him while his family was deported to Auschwitz and gassed there,” the Drancy-based watchdog wrote in a statement Tuesday.

Dieudonne and the far-right Holocaust denier Alain Soral recently decided to form a political party, the news site Mediapart.fe reported Tuesday.

Last week, Dieudonne was indicted for fraud, money laundering and abuse of public funds, Le Monde reported. Researchers believe Dieudonne, who declared he had no money to pay fines he received for his hate speech, transferred more than $500,000 to Cameroon while he declared himself to be insolvent.

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Yishai presents a special one-hour heart wrenching and inspiring in-depth look into the Holocaust survival experience of Hungarian Jewish wife, mother, and businesswoman Kate Bernath (grandmother of Malkah).

Yishai Fleisher on Twitter: @YishaiFleisher
Yishai on Facebook

(((CLICK BELOW TO HEAR AUDIO)))

Yishai presents a one-hour heart wrenching and inspiring in-depth look into the Holocaust survival experience of Hungarian Jewish wife, mother, and businesswoman Kate Bernath (grandmother of Malkah).

Yishai Fleisher on Twitter: @YishaiFleisher
Yishai on Facebook

Ze’ev Tibi Ram is one of two Holocaust survivors who fought in every Israeli war.

He perfectly symbolizes “Shoah ve Tkuma”- Holocaust and rebirth. As a Holocaust survivor, Tibi understands better than anyone the importance of protecting the Jewish state.

He lost his whole family in the Holocaust but survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen.

After being separated from his mother and eventually finding her at the end of the war, she disappeared and Tibi never saw her again. His brother survived until the end of the war, but died shortly after.

Now, Tibi gives lectures to soldiers about the Holocaust and his extensive military experience. He is also the proud grandfather of an IDF soldier

He says life has been good – except for that one insane year of Nazi persecution.

He perfectly symbolizes “Shoah ve Tkuma”- Holocaust and rebirth. As a holocaust survivor, and one of only two people who participated in all of Israel’s wars, Ze’ev Tibi Ram understands better than anyone the importance of protecting the Jewish state.

During the Holocaust Tibi lost his whole family. He survived Auschwitz, a labour camp, and Bergen-Belsen. After being separated from his mother and eventually finding her at the end of the war, she disappeared and Tibi never saw her again. His brother survived until the end of the war, but died shortly after.

Now, Tibi gives lectures to soldiers about the holocaust and his extensive military experience. He is also the proud grandfather of an IDF soldier.

The following article was first published on the IDF’s blog site. Eva Levi, 75, is the youngest person alive who lived through the horror of the Holocaust thanks to the famous Oscar Schindler. Today, a few days before Holocaust Memorial day, she tells her story.

Hello, my name is Eva Levi. I was born in Krakow, Poland and when I was two-years-old, WWII broke out. When the war was over, I was eight years old.

During the war, I was deported from a ghetto to Auschwitz and then to Czechoslovakia. I am alive today and can tell you my story thanks to two people: Oscar Schindler and my mother. Today I am married and live in Israel. I have two children and three grandchildren…. My first granddaughter, Anne, is currently in the Israeli army. Because of this, I am telling my story to the IDF.

When the war started, I was such a little girl that I didn’t understand what was happening. I didn’t have a childhood at all; I didn’t have grandfathers or grandmothers, nor did I go to kindergarten or school.

However, though this was a terrible time in my life, I had two great fortuitous things: I was lucky to have my name inscribed on Oscar Schindler’s list, of which I was the youngest person, and I was able to stay by my mother’s side.

We were first sent to the Krakow Ghetto. From this ghetto, they took us to labor camps near Krakow and this is how I got put on Schindler’s List. They then wanted to take us to Czechoslovakia but after an accident, we were transferred to Auschwitz. We stayed in the death camp for three weeks, and lived in horrendous conditions. The fear of dying was always present and renewed every time we went near the crematoria.

A particular moment stands out specifically during my time living in this hell. One day, while all the women were together in a dark building, a female Nazi officer approached my mother and told her that I was to be taken away. My mother began to cry and scream. She wouldn’t let me go. But in Auschwitz it was impossible to refuse. My mother asked her where I was being taken and the officer promised I would be going to a good place. My mother did not understand. A good place? At Auschwitz? How could that be possible? But the officer again swore to my mother that I would be taken to a good place. And indeed, they took me to a very different place inside Auschwitz.

Nobody could believe it. The place was modern and clean, a rarity at Auschwitz where everything was dirty and black. At this new place there were only well-dressed children who almost looked good. I did not understand at all where I was. I felt that I may be in paradise. There were drawings on the walls, toys, clothes. The children were obviously sad because they were alone and without parents. It was 1944 and hunger was widespread, but in this place no one starved.

One day, the Nazis called us to come to dinner. The previous days we hardly ate. A slice of bread here, a potato there. That evening, they served us dinner and we ate so much. The next morning, once again, we had a real breakfast! The Nazis were so attentive that we thought that perhaps the war was over. For lunch, we were surprised as a table was prepared and we were dressed up.

We sat as three or four smiling kind men in civilian clothes entered. Each of the men sat alongside a child. I can still remember the smell of the potatoes they served for lunch. But we ate so much the day before that I could barely stomach anything. I was not hungry at all and I began to weep. The civilian who sat next to me asked, “What is the matter dear? Are you not hungry?” And I responded that no, I was not hungry. These men were actually from the Red Cross. All of the clothes, the food, the entire place was a false display of what was happening at Auschwitz. Crematoria? They weren’t seen. Lovely, well-dressed children who felt well and weren’t hungry, that is what the Red Cross Inspectors saw.