Tag Archives: World War II

Jewish Woman Gets Doctorate Denied By Nazis

102-year-old Ingeborg Syllm-Rapoport is now a doctor.

Eight decades after she should have earned that honor.

In 1938, she was denied the change to defend her doctoral thesis by the Nazis.  Her crime?  She was part-Jewish.  Now, the University of Hamburg has given the neonatologist a doctorate after she passed an oral exam.

“After almost 80 years, it was possible to restore some extent of justice,” Burkhard Goeke, the medical director of the university’s hospital, said in his speech. “We cannot undo injustices that have been committed, but our insights into the past shape our perspective for the future.”

Syllm-Rapaport said that she did it for more than herself, but for all those who suffered injustice at the hands of the Nazis.

“For me personally, the degree didn’t mean anything, but to support the great goal of coming to terms with history — I wanted to be part of that,” Syllm-Rapoport told German public television station NDR.

Uwe Koch-Gromus, the university’s dean of the medical faculty, was asked about her oral exam on the subject of diptheria, the subject of her original doctoral thesis.

“She was brilliant, and not only for her age,” he said.   “We were impressed with her intellectual alertness, and left speechless by her expertise — also with regard to modern medicine.”

Taking her grades into account, she was graduated magna cum laude.

Rialto School District Lies About Holocaust Denying Project

A California school district has been caught lying about a project that told students to see if the Holocaust was an actual historical event or “a propaganda tool.”

Rialto United School District came under fire in May when it was revealed that around 2,000 8th grade students were given the project that the school termed an “exercise in critical thinking.”  The school tried to appease community members by stating that none of the students actually argued the Holocaust did not occur.

The Los Angeles Daily News did an investigation that showed the school lied to parents and the public.

“At least 50 essays (that) denied or doubted the Holocaust occurred,” the LADN reported.  “Even many students who agreed the Holocaust occurred said there were good reasons to believe it had not or that elements of the historical record were actually hoaxes.”

Some of the student deniers wrote:

The Holocaust is “a profitable hoax made by the Jews to obtain land, money and power.”

“With the evidence that was given to me, it clearly was obvious” that the Holocaust never occurred “and I wouldn’t know why anyone would think otherwise.”

If the Nazis “would have even experimented these so called gas chambers the Nazis would have died also, so I do not believe in gas chambers.”

Even more disturbing than the comments of the students was praise from some teachers to the students who denied the Holocaust.  One paper obtained by the Daily News had a comment to a denying student “You did well using the evidence to support your claim.”

Even with the school district being exposed as having deceived parents and the public, they are still not revealing who created the assignment or the educators who gave out the lesson.  They also won’t say if any discipline has been taken against the teachers in question.

Jews In Eastern Ukraine Told To Register

In an action that reminded many of the actions of Nazis in Germany, a militant Russian group in eastern Ukraine has told Jewish residents they need to register or they will be stripped of citizenship and their possessions taken from them.

The Ukraine government has been fighting separatists in the region who have been supported and guided by Russian Special Forces.

“Someone tried to use the Jewish community as an instrument of this conflict,” Chief Rabbi Pinchas Vyshedski told reporters.  Rabbi Vyshedski has called for the government to provide additional security to Jewish synagogues and facilities in the region.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed that leaflets containing the demand for registration were dropped in Jewish areas.  He attributed the fliers to Denis Pushilin of the Donetsk People’s Republic group.  Kerry called the anti-Semitism “intolerable” and “grotesque.”

The documents were also reportedly handed to Jews as they approached synagogues for Passover events.  The men reportedly were wearing camouflage gear and face coverings.