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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/14625/full/14625/file-holocaust-era-claims-read-memoirs-on-the-web/ <br /><br /> <b>File Holocaust-era claims, read memoirs on the Web</b> <br /> Friday, December 8, 2000 | by <p>James Besser </p> <br /><br /><p>Too often, we think of the World Wide Web solely as a medium designed for entertainment, and something a lot of people regard as entertainment—shopping.<br /><br /> But the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims makes good use of the Web for much more serious purposes.<br /><br /> The object of the site: to help individuals who may have outstanding claims based on Holocaust-era insurance policies get the information they need, and if possible, file claims to recover at least some of the money owed them.<br /><br /> On the home page, click on a language—English, for most of us, but Hebrew, Yiddish and 20 others are available—to get to general information about the commission and about procedures for filing insurance claims.<br /><br /> For information about claims uncovered by the commission—created two years ago by insurance organizations and companies, Jewish groups and the government of Israel—go to the search box.<br /><br /> You'll need to enter the person's last name; any additional information you can provide, including information about the person's last-known residence and where the policy was purchased, can help narrow the search down.<br /><br /> If you have reason to believe you have a legitimate claim, you can download a complete claims packet—including the forms you need to file and instructions.<br /><br /> A "links" page points visitors to other Web resources for those seeking Holocaust-era restitution, or searching for lost family members.<br /><br /> The site is all business—lean, direct, easy to use. Altogether, a valuable resource for anybody with a possible unclaimed policy in their past.<br /><br /> Check it out at <a href="http://www.icheic.org">http://www.icheic.org</a>.<br /><br /> On a more personal level, ordinary people often have extraordinary stories to tell. And the Web—which lets everybody be a publisher—offers them a unique medium for telling their tales.<br /><br /> Case in point: the home page of Meyer Levin, a retired door-to-door salesman whose odyssey from czarist Russia to Philadelphia could serve as an archetype for the American Jewish experience.<br /><br /> For 20 years, Levin has been writing his memoirs, and the results are neatly and attractively packaged on this Web site.<br /><br /> Levin, who is 87 and now living in Phoenix, Ariz., sets the tone for the site with a brief letter to his grandchildren explaining the purposes of the memoir.<br /><br /> "I wish that my grandparents would have left me a word-picture of their younger years," he writes.<br /><br /> The presentation is straightforward. A brief section introduces visitors to Meyer and the outlines of his story. Then, there are a handful of choices.<br /><br /> Click on "The Stories" to read Levin's reminisces—plainly but nicely written accounts of his experiences over the decades.<br /><br /> There's a touching tribute to his mother, and a poignant description of his family's decision to leave their home in Ukraine.<br /><br /> You can also read about his World War II experiences as a soldier in the U.S. Army.<br /><br /> A cute feature: Levin offers to translate modern English words into Yiddish. How do you say "Web site" in Yiddish? This site will give you the answer.<br /><br /> A small collection of Jewish jokes is fairly lame. There's also a Levin family genealogy and a very nice assortment of pictures from the family's scrapbook.<br /><br /> The Meyer Levin site is attractive and well designed—marred only slightly by the annoying background music that beeps away at you on the home page.<br /><br /> More than anything else, it demonstrates how relatively simple Web programming allows salesmen from Philadelphia, as well as big-name machers, to tell their stories to the world. And sometimes, the salesmen's stories are every bit as interesting.<br /><br /> Check it out at <a href="http://www.geocities.com/meyerdotcom">http://www.geocities.com/meyerdotcom</a>.<br /><br /> James D. Besser is a Washington-based correspondent who has been writing about Jewish Web sites since the early 1990s. His columns alternate with those of Mark Mietkiewicz. Besser can be reached at <a href="mailto:jbesser@his.com">jbesser@his.com</a></p> <p> </p>

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