Shorts: World

Hitler's nurse reveals details of his final months

berlin (jta) | A nurse who lived in Hitler's Berlin bunker didn't like Joseph Goebbels or Hitler's mistress, but did like Goebbels' wife.

Erna Flegal, now 93, gave her opinions about Hitler's coterie in a recent interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper.

Flegal had talked to American interrogators in 1945 about the months she spent as Hitler's nurse in the bunker, and about his death, but the report was classified until four years ago. This week, she spoke to British reporters.

The death of Hitler's wolfhound, Blondi, "affected us more" than Eva Braun's death, Flegal said. She also said that as the war ended Hitler aged visibly. "He shook a great deal, walking was difficult for him," she said. Just before he shot himself, "He came out of a side room, shook everyone's hand and said a few friendly words. And that was that."




Neo-Nazi jailed for synagogue plot

berlin (jta) | A neo-Nazi was given jailtime for planning to bomb a Jewish center in Germany.

A court in Munich sentenced Martin Weise, leader of the far-right group Southern Comrades, to seven years in prison this week for the foiled plot against the city's Jewish center.

Weise was convicted of planning to bomb the center during a foundation-laying ceremony on Nov. 9, 2003, the 65th anniversary of Kristallnacht. At a separate trial that ended last month, five other members of the group were given suspended prison sentences.




Canadian students expelled for Nazi imagery

toronto (ap) | Three students have been expelled from an elite private school for posting pictures of Nazi rallies and Jews being tortured on a Web site and then using anti-Semitic slurs to lash out at a student who objected.

The boys, one of whom is Jewish, were thrown out of Royal St. George's College after posting "heinous" images of the Holocaust on a chat board used by several private schools, headmaster Hal Hannaford told The Associated Press this week.

Four other students were suspended from the all-boys school for knowing about the postings and not trying to prevent them. "While none of the student activity took place at school, as educators we felt morally and ethically bound to act," Hannaford said.




Soccer match swastika stirs Argentine Jews

buenos aires (ap) | Jewish leaders urged Argentine soccer authorities last week to investigate an incident involving a group of fans who waved flags emblazoned with a swastika.

Television images showed fans of the second-division club Talleres waving the flags ahead of the team's match against rival Gimnasia de Jujuy in the central city of Cordoba.

The match was played as scheduled. Police reportedly entered the section to arrest the flag-waving fans. However, the offenders melted away into the crowd as the officers approached. No arrests were made, police said.

The flag waving "was a clear provocation and racist," said Jorge Kirszenbaum, the president of DAIA, a leading Jewish organization.

He said several prominent Jewish groups were appealing to the Argentine Football Association to sanction the club.




Swiss diplomat memorialized for saving Jews

budapest (ap) | Holocaust survivors, diplomats and government officials this week attended the inauguration of a memorial room dedicated to Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz, who saved the lives of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.

Lutz, a Swiss consul in Budapest in 1942-45, is credited with saving some 60,000 Jews from Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland by setting up dozens of "protective houses" around the city where they found refuge, and issuing thousands of letters of safe passage.

"Carl Lutz not only saved thousands of lives while risking his own, he also saved the honor of Hungarians," said Minister Peter Kiss, head of the Prime Minister's Office.

Lutz helped set up an office dealing with the immigration of Jews to pre-state Israel. The office — enjoying diplomatic immunity — was located in a downtown Budapest building known as the "Glass House," which became a safe haven for thousands of Jews near the end of World War II.

"The Glass House was like a tiny island in a stormy sea," Agnes Hirschi, Lutz's foster daughter, said at the ceremony. "It was the center of Hungarian Jewish resistance and it was the center of my foster father's life of which he never ceased talking about."

Lutz's office obtained permission to issue 8,000 safe passes for Jews, rescuing them from deportation and allowing them to travel to British-controlled Palestine. But by interpreting that figure as applying to families instead of individuals, Lutz was able to greatly increase their number.