Forward investigation finds 1,455 Nazi monuments across the globe

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Black Jewish woman is leading contender to be next Supreme Court justice, synagogue teacher says she was fired for being anti-Zionist, and if you love Wordle, try the Yiddish version.

INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

Special report: A year-long investigation by the Forward found four times as many monuments to Nazis around the world as previously thought

A year ago, for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Forward published the first-ever list documenting monuments to Nazi collaborators and Holocaust perpetrators. It spanned 16 countries on three continents and found 320 monuments and street names. We spent the past several months scouring the globe – and found at least a thousand more.

Surprise finding: Most of our original reporting focussed on Eastern Europe, where Holocaust denial and revisionism is most blatant. But this year’s list found that Germany, long seen as an international model for appropriately reckoning with its Holocaust history, nonetheless currently has at least 162 streets and schools named for Nazis and their collaborators.

The latest count: These public honorings of people who committed atrocities during World War II are among some 1,135 new instances we have documented over the last year in 21 countries, including five in Western Europe. We also found 11 additional Nazi monuments in seven U.S. states – Alabama, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin – bringing the total in our own country to 26, and the overall total on our list to 1,455.

Impact of our investigation: In response to our reporting, local officials in one Belgian town, Zedelgem, have voted to remove its memorial to Latvian collaborators amid international pressure. Our article also prompted discussions of the issue in places as distinct from each other as Wisconsin and Azerbaijan. And just this week, days after inquiries from the Forward, the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution, removed a bust of Wernher von Braun, the lead engineer in developing the Third Reich’s rocket technology who, after the war, worked for NASA.

Still standing: Von Braun’s name still adorns a research hall in the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where he helped develop the Apollo program sending astronauts to the moon, as well as an entertainment complex owned by the city.

Read our special report and see photos of the monuments ➤

Video: The author of both of our reports, investigative journalist Lev Golinkin, spoke with Rob Eshman, our national editor, about the process of tracking down these monuments. “They are portraying the perpetrators as victims or heroes,” Golinkin said. “They are rewriting Holocaust history.” Watch now ➤

The next generation: Today marks the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Once a hell on earth, now hundreds of young people are lining up to be volunteers to perform research at the site. Our friends at Haaretz joined them for a day in their life ➤

And more for International Holocaust Remembrance Day…

ALSO FROM THE FORWARD

Could this Black Jewish woman be the next Supreme Court justice?Leondra Kruger, whose late father is the son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, is one of the leading contenders to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer. Breyer, who announced Wednesday he was stepping down, was one of a handful of Jews on the court. President Joe Biden has said he is committed to appointing the court’s first Black female justice. Kruger has credited her parents with teaching her the “example of reaching out to people from all walks of life” and “that what unites us is far more important than anything that might divide us.” Read the story ➤

Teacher suing prominent synagogue says she was fired for anti-Zionism:Jessie Sander was hired to teach Hebrew at the religious school at Westchester Reform Temple in the New York suburbs, and was fired three weeks later after administrators discovered a blog post she wrote during last year’s Israel-Gaza conflict. In the post, Sander outlined her objection to what she described as the “colonization of Palestinian land, with the accompanying displacement of the indigenous population.” More than 40 Jewish leaders have signed an open letter to the synagogue criticizing her firing. Read the story ➤

But wait, there’s more…

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

📚 A Tennessee school board voted unanimously to remove “Maus,” the iconic graphic novel about the Holocaust, from its curriculum. Board members had raised objections about curse words, nude drawings and “not wise or healthy” content within the book by Art Spiegelman, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. “It shows them killing kids,” one board member said. (JTA)

🇮🇱 Israel is planning a campaign to discredit a United Nations commission formed to investigate the violence in Gaza last May. According to an Israeli Foreign Ministry cable obtained by Axios, officials are highly concerned that the commission’s report will refer to Israel as an “apartheid state,” further damaging the country’s reputation. (Axios)

🚓 Federal agents have arrested a man they say sold a gun to Malik Faisal Akram, who held a rabbi and three congregants hostage inside their Texas synagogue earlier this month. Officials said the man, Henry Dwight Williams, was previously convicted of a felony and was not allowed to own a firearm. (JTA)

🏠 A group of Trump supporters, some identifying themselves as “Christian veterans,” gathered outside the Ohio home of Rep. Casey Weinstein, a Democrat who accused them of antisemitism. They held signs that read “Stand for the flag, kneel for the cross.” They were “trying to intimidate me,” Weinstein said. The ADL is investigating the matter. (Columbus Jewish News)

🕍 Too many American houses of worship are financial black holes, argues Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, a former Forward writer and editor and the wife of a rabbi fired last year after raising financial questions. Noting the scandal at the Chabad of Poway, California, she cites one estimate that 95% of fraud in religious communities goes unreported. “The future of organized U.S. religion may depend on our ability to build institutions of transparency and public oversight,” Chizhik-Goldschmidt writes. (The New Republic)

🎬 Bradley Cooper confirmed he will be portraying the Broadway composer Leonard Bernstein in an upcoming biopic. Cooper, who has been researching the subject for more than four years, also revealed that Steven Spielberg was initially attached to the project, but that Cooper decided to direct it himself. (Variety)

🧩 Does Wordle have you ‘farblundget’? There is now a Yiddish version. Of course it’s by Jamie Conway, who created the Forward’s interactive Yiddish crossword puzzle and designed the typesetting for the Yiddish translation of the Harry Potter books. “Many Yiddishists have the same thought throughout their day: ‘If I can have this in English, why can’t I have it in Yiddish too?’” he said. “I was enjoying Wordle in English, and I thought: ‘Why not in Yiddish?’” (JTA)

What else we’re reading ➤ Faith-based adoption agencies in Michigan can now legally discriminate against same-sex couples … Has Godwin’s Law, also known as the rule of Nazi comparisons, been disproven? … It snowed overnight at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. This is what it looked like.

ON THE CALENDAR

(Photo: Getty Images/Illustration: Kurt Hoffman)

On this day in history: J.D. Salinger – war vet, author, recluse – died on Jan. 27, 2010. He was of Lithuanian origin and the grandson of a rabbi of the Adath Jeshurun Congregation in Louisville, Kentucky. Salinger was later described in biographies as the son of a New York businessman who imported, quizzically, kosher cheese and ham. After his “The Catcher in the Rye” was published, comedian Jerry Lewis wanted to star in a movie version, calling himself the “Jewish Holden Caulfield,” but Salinger refused to sell him the rights.

Last year on this day, in honor of Mozart’s birthday, we remembered his Jewish collaborator, a librettist named Lorenzo da Ponte.

One week from today: Join us for a special conversation about a digital project that brings to life Lower East Side tenements for 21st century audiences. This event is in partnership with the Washington Post and the Tenement Museum. Register now ➤

PHOTO OF THE DAY

In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day: On May 8, 1945, readers of the Forward rushed to Essex and Delancey Streets, near the paper’s building on East Broadway, to grab fresh-pressed copies of the edition announcing the end of World War II. The headline blares in bold letters: War Ends In Europe!

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Thanks to Rob Eshman and Chana Pollack for contributing to today’s newsletter.

You can reach the “Forwarding” team at editorial@forward.com.

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