Isreal Steals Artwork from Ukraine
West Allis
Israel as a refuge they could run to when they got caught breaking laws in
other countries. We've seen a lot criminals run for refuge in Israel since
it
became independent, and only recently has Israel agreed to turn these
"refugee" criminals over for trial to the country in which they committed
their crimes, but only if the plaintiff country will allow them to serve
their
prison sentences in Israel.
Now things are being carried to a new dimension, and the Israeli government
itself is committing crimes in foreign countries.
Israelis seem to look upon themselves as a chosen people who rule the world
and have the right to do anything they want to anybody else. The United
States
Congress -- YOUR government -- supports them in doing this.
June 20, 2001
Israeli Memorial Smuggles Murals
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:13 p.m. ET
DROHOBYCH, Ukraine (AP) -- In a secret operation, Jerusalem's Yad Vashem
Holocaust memorial has smuggled out of Ukraine fragments of murals by
Polish-Jewish artist Bruno Schulz, sparking an international controversy.
Yad Vashem maintains it was merely exercising its right to preserve the
works
of a prominent Jewish writer, artist and Holocaust victim, but Ukrainian and
Polish officials say their removal was a crime.
Drohobych, a Polish town that became part of Ukraine after World War II,
shows
few outward signs of the tempers flaring around its most famous son, who was
slain by the Nazis in 1942.
On Shevchenko Street, where Schulz was shot to death by an SS officer,
children play and housewives walk, carrying shopping bags. There is no
monument to the shy art teacher who immortalized their town in eloquent,
mystical prose.
Alfred Schreyer, a former Schulz pupil, recalls how he and German filmmaker
Benjamin Geissler discovered the murals in a tiny pantry of a three-story
house that once belonged to the town's chief Gestapo officer, Felix Landau.
On the dirty walls, under layers of beige paint, they detected traces of the
wall paintings, illustrations of Grimm fairy tales that Schulz created to
decorate the nursery of Landau's young son.
``I was stunned. To see them... `` Schreyer said, his voice filled with
emotion. ``There was a princess, a king on high heels, a clown, a jester and
on the other wall a coach driver, illustrating Grimm fairy tales.''
``This is his last work. This man was painting while people were being
killed
and dying outside and maybe he wanted to make his last message,'' said
Geissler, who is preparing a documentary on Schulz.
Schulz was known to have painted several murals at Nazi orders. Some were
destroyed and attempts to find those at the Landau villa had proved futile
--
until last winter.
In mid-February, a group of Ukrainian and Polish art experts came to the
villa
-- which today houses five families -- and pronounced the murals Schulz
originals.
``The experts were not even needed. There could be no mistake,'' said
Schreyer. ``Always, everywhere, Schulz put in his (own) triangular face. The
coach driver had the face of Schulz.''
What happened next resembles a spy novel.
Yad Vashem official Mark Shraberman arrived in Drohobych in March, telling
authorities he was there to research Holocaust history in the town where
nearly 15,000 Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis.
``They spoke of research involving World War II victims. I could not suspect
anything,'' said Drohobych Mayor Oleksiy Radzievskyi, who denies Yad Vashem
suggestions he cooperated with Shraberman.
On May 25, Ukrainian authorities learned fragments of the murals had
disappeared.
Working in secret, Shraberman and his assistants had removed segments of the
mural from the pantry wall, located in an apartment now occupied by a former
communist bureaucrat, Mykola Kalyuzhnyi, and his wife.
Gluing cloth to the outer layer of paint, they cut the fragments off, along
with the entire paint coating down to the brick walls, then mounted it on
plywood sheets, Drohobych officials said.
Shraberman had a certificate from the Kalyuzhnyi family giving him
permission
to remove the fragments, but Ukrainian officials say it has no judicial
power.
Ukrainian law bars any pre-1945 cultural objects, art works or antiquities
to
be removed from the country without a special permit.
No one knows how and where Shraberman smuggled the fragments -- the largest
measured 1,262 square inches -- across the Ukrainian border.
A Ukrainian-Polish commission appointed to assess the damage said more than
70
percent of the murals were removed.
In Poland, the removal sparked a public outcry. The government issued
official
protests and intellectuals voiced dismay.
For Geissler, it amounts to ``new violence against Schulz.''
``It could never even cross my mind that the generally respected Yad Vashem
institution could be capable of such a criminal act,'' said Jerzy Ficowski,
a
Polish poet and the country's leading expert on Schulz.
``This is an unprecedented, scandalous violation of all moral grounds.
Imagine
that I would come to Jerusalem and cut off a piece of the Wailing Wall,''
said
culture department official Roman Lubkivskyi.
There are plans to remove the remaining murals and store them in a museum
until Yad Vashem returns the rest -- which Yad Vashem says it has no
intention
of doing.
Yad Vashem spokeswoman Iris Rosenberg says Drohobych authorities agreed the
house owners could donate the murals, which she said were ``in a most
neglected condition.''
``The correct and most suitable place to commemorate the memory of the
Jewish
artist, Bruno Schulz -- killed by an SS officer purely because he was a Jew
--
and the place to house the drawings he sketched during the Holocaust is Yad
Vashem,'' Rosenberg said in a statement.
Shreyer, the Schulz pupil and one of a handful of Drohobych-born Jews still
living in the town, says the murals must come back.
``An outrage has occurred. First of all, I blame Yad Vashem,'' he said.
``The
only place for them is Drohobych.''
------
EDITOR'S NOTE: Monika Scislowska in Warsaw contributed to this report.
Learn the truth and be free:
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Andrew E. Mathis, Ph.D.
>In his book, Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler wrote that Zionists wanted to create
>Israel as a refuge they could run to when they got caught breaking laws in
>other countries. We've seen a lot criminals run for refuge in Israel since
>it
>became independent, and only recently has Israel agreed to turn these
>"refugee" criminals over for trial to the country in which they committed
>their crimes, but only if the plaintiff country will allow them to serve
>their
>prison sentences in Israel.
[remainder snipped]
First of all, if you're citing Hitler as an authority on Jews, you need your
fucking head examined.
Second, here's what Hitler wrote: "The Jew's domination in the state seems
so
assured that now not only can he call himself a Jew again, but he ruthlessly
admits his ultimate national and political designs. A section of his race
openly owns itself to be a foreign people, yet even here they lie. For while
the Zionists try to make the rest of the world believe that the national
consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a
Palestinian state, the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn't even
enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of
living there; all they want is a central organization for their
international
world swindle, endowed with its own sovereign rights and removed from the
intervention of other states: a haven for convicted scoundrels and a
university for budding crooks."
It's the old "world conspiracy" bullshit theory recycled. In fact, in the
same
chapter, der Führer actually cites the *Protocols*.
Third, Meyer Lansky was returned to the U.S. thirty years ago, and he stood
trial and served his time *here*.
Get your facts straight, knuckle-dragger.
a.m.
------------------------------------------------------------
"Exuberance is beauty"
--William Blake (1757-1827)
West Allis
recall the state correctly), and then ran off to Israel, where it was
determined that because of his parentage, he was entitled to Israeli
citizenship. There was a big diplomatic flap, because Israel refused to
return
him to the United States for trial. Both Israeli and American newspapers
were
full of the story at the time. (Quite possibly it was never seen by readers
of
the Milwaukee Zionist Sentinel -- I don't recall.) After this, the Knesset
changed Israeli law to allow extradition, provided that if found guilty, the
accused is allowed to serve his/her sentence in an Israeli prison.
>===== Original Message From "Andrew E. Mathis, Ph.D."
<andrew...@MailAndNews.com> =====
Learn the truth and be free: