Shorts: World

Book: Schindler had little to do with lists

berlin (jta) | Oskar Schindler had little involvement in drawing up the lists of Jews that he eventually saved, a new book says.

At the time many of the lists were drawn up, Schindler was in jail for bribing SS commander Amon Goth, says David Crowe, author of the recently published "Oskar Schindler: The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities and the True Story Behind the List."

Crowe also writes that Schindler was not made a "Righteous Gentile" by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial until 1993, while Steven Spielberg's acclaimed film on Schindler said he was given the award in 1958, The New York Times reported.




Mengele's diary surfaces

sao paulo (jta) | Pages from the diary of the notorious Nazi doctor Josef Mengele allegedly surfaced in the possession of Brazilian police.

In the papers, Mengele reveals he had a nervous habit of chewing on his own beard and swallowing his own hair, which resulted in a life-threatening blockage of his intestines. Mengele defends his view of racial superiority and applauds apartheid, according to media reports. He also writes of financial difficulties and of the challenge of bringing his wife, Ruth, to Beirut for medical treatment.

The 13 pages, rediscovered in October, were among 85 documents to be published in the newspaper Folha de Sao Paolo.

The papers originally were taken in 1985 from the home of a friend of Mengele, who died in Brazil.

After the war, Mengele fled to Argentina in 1948. Ten years later, he went to Paraguay and finally to Brazil. He died in 1979 at the age of about 67, in a swimming accident in Sao Paolo.




French police guard Jewish event

paris (jta) | Riot police armed with water cannons were on hand to prevent hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators from storming a Jewish event in Paris.

Around 400 pro-Palestinian demonstrators protested a gala evening on Nov. 29 organized by the French section of the Jewish National Fund to raise money to build picnic areas near Israeli army bases.

One of the groups, the Joint Appeal for a Just Peace in the Middle East, had earlier appealed to a Paris court to ban the event, which took place at a well-known Paris theater.

The court ruled against the group and ordered them to pay around $1,200 in costs to the JNF. The event went ahead as planned in the presence of Israel's ambassador to France, Nissim Zvilli.




Students encode anti-Semitism in yearbook

montreal (jta) | A prep school in Canada canceled its yearbooks after students placed coded messages calling for the deaths of all Jews.

Montreal's exclusive Lower Canada College recently canceled the 2003-2004 yearbooks after the messages, in what media reports called a "jumble of acronym-like e-mail shorthand," were found.

Canadian Jewish leaders said they were convinced the messages were a joke, and are pleased with the way the school handled the matter.




Prague audit finds lapses

prague (jta) | An audit of the Prague Jewish community found that poor property management may have cost the community millions of dollars over the years.

The audit by Ernst & Young was ordered by the community's leader, Tomas Jelinek, who began his second term in spring 2004. He promised greater economic transparency and an improvement of the community's overall financial practices.

The audit is accompanied by a statement approved by Ernst & Young claiming that in the past two years there were 16 instances in which community rules were violated by its own leaders or representatives at its real estate management firm in the areas of tenders, gift recording and the circulation of official documents. Jelinek said that his intention in publicizing the audit was not to point fingers but to move forward and institute reliable and responsible financial behavior.

Members of Prague's Jewish community voted Jelinek out early in November, but he rejected the vote.




Wartime 'siblings' reunite

warsaw (jta) | A Holocaust survivor was reunited with a Polish woman who saved him during World War II.

Andre Nowacki, now 68, was reunited in New York on Nov. 24 with Hanna Morawiecka, 74, one of three Polish sisters whose family hid him and his mother in Warsaw during the war.

Morawiecka, the only sister still alive, was flown to New York to meet Nowacki by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, which honors non-Jews who risked their lives to hide Jews during the Holocaust and financially aids some of them. The two shared a Thanksgiving meal.

Nowacki told journalists, "She tells me I haven't changed since I was 9 years old."