70 years ago last week (July 16-17, 1942), one of the darkest chapters in the history of France was being written. Without any warning and in the middle of the night, over 13,000 Jews (of an expected 22,000) were gathered by French police and taken to the Vel d’Hiv (velodrome d’hiver or winter cycle track) in Paris’ 15th district.
The Vel d’Hiv roundup or Rafle du Vel d’Hiv was organized by German Nazi officials but methodically executed by French police and civil servants serving Marshall Philippe Pétain’s war interim government in Vichy, France. In the meantime, the exiled French government under General Charles de Gaulle had relocated to London. Very little was done to prevent the damages. There were only about 100,000 French members of the Résistance and only a limited number of them was able to make a difference.
A roundup of that magnitude would have been impossible before 1940 because no religious census had taken place since 1874 in France. But in 1940, Jews were required to register their names and origins at the sous-prefecture (sub-prefecture) of the district where they lived. By the end of September 1940, things started to change radically for foreign Jews residing in France. A dossier of Jewish names quickly grew to over 150,000 names for the greater Paris area. Eventually, all Jews of France “citizens” or “foreigners” were at risk. 78,000 of them perished in the Holocaust.
Two days after the official rafle more Jews were gathered and sent to temporary French internment camps in Drancy, Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande to be added to the Vel d’Hiv internees. Final destination: Auschwitz!
My maternal grandfather Maurice Weinzveig was one of them as he was picked-up by the Gestapo on the morning of July 19, 1942 after having been exposed by a French neighbor who worked for the Paris Police Department. Maurice perished in the smokestacks of Auschwitz.
For over 50 years, the Vel d’Hiv Roundup , as if exonerated by self-righteous and pseudo-bien pensant French political leaders, had become a taboo subject in France. Excuses abounded!
“The Vichy government was not the official French government!”
“Pétain had no choice but to co-operate otherwise Germans would have done the job themselves”
“The events happened while the French republic was dismantled, thus France is not responsible “
…and on, and on, and on!!!
It is very shameful to realize that most of the French police and civil servants who were perpetrators in the Vel d’Hiv tragedy were still in office after the war, some for years to come like the infamous René Bousquet (Secretary-general of the National Police) who helped finance François Mitterrand 1986 presidential campaign. Incidentally, Mitterrand would never apologize and/or take ownership of the Vel d’Hiv massacre by French police.
It is not until 1995 (53 years later) that then French President Jacques Chirac spoke these words on July 16 at a Vel d’Hiv memorial:
These black hours will stain our history for ever and are an injury to our past and our traditions. Yes, the criminal madness of the occupant was assisted by the French, by the French state. Fifty-three years ago, on 16 July 1942, 450 policemen and gendarmes, French, under the authority of their leaders, obeyed the demands of the Nazis. That day, in the capital and the Paris region, nearly 10,000 Jewish men, women and children were arrested at home, in the early hours of the morning, and assembled at police stations… France, home of the Enlightenment and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, land of welcome and asylum, France committed that day the irreparable. Breaking its word, it delivered those it protected to their executioners.”
A few days ago, his message of ownership of the past mistakes and French responsibility was echoed in the words of new French President François Hollande who declared that: the crime was committed in France by France.
All this comes in the aftermath of the Toulouse massacre and an unavoidable resurgence of antisemitic acts all over France and much of Europe. Mr. Hollande really doesn’t have much of a choice in that matter. He must display an iron fist against any kind of anti-Semitism. But this might soon prove to be more of a challenge for the man who was most likely put in office by the Muslim voting block in France.
Words are cheap, especially if they refer to the past. Unfortunately, the present offers ample opportunities to combat anti-Semitism in France (and much of the world for that matter).
Mr. Hollande, while you cannot change the past, thank you for taking ownership of the Vel d’Hiv massacre on behalf of France. Now, using the momentum acquired by your unequivocal speech of last Sunday, it is time to combat the present situation in order to alleviate the gloomy future of French Jewry.
I certainly hope you have it in you to do so, but I am afraid that France might end-up not being your strongest ally in keeping the Jewish people safe in France.
Is the German Circumcision Ban Casting Shadows of the Third Reich?
On June 26, a court ruling in Cologne Germany has made ritual circumcision illegal, declaring that it is an assault on the rights of the child since it is performed without its consent. It immediately affects the future of the children of four million Muslims and about 120,000 Jews. It came as the result of a possible malpractice on a 4-year old Muslim boy. It currently appears irreversible, but Chancellor Angela Merkel has vowed to come up with a legal solution to allow both Jews and Muslims the practice of the ritual according to their respective religions.
Is Postmodern Anti-Semitism the Fate of 21st Century Jews?
It was over 12 years ago that I started to realize that the “oldest hatred” had morphed into a new beast that could potentially be much more damaging than the old. The antisemitism of yesterday, based on the faulty Nazi assumption that Jews are a sub-human race destined to total annihilation, was no longer worth promoting. A new breed of anti-Semites started to appear–as committed to the complete destruction of the Jewish people as the old one–yet with a different message.
Democratic Fascism! Who’s fooling Who?
It’s official, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood was elected president of Egypt (51.7%). Out is Mubarak the secular military dictator and in is Morsi the “freely” elected Islamist president. Over the next few days, Morsi will move in into Mubarak’s palace and start organizing his new government to rule the largest arab country in the middle east. As it stands, the military still retains control and greatly limits what decisions Morsi can make. This is the result of the decision by Egypt’s SCAF (Supreme Council of the Armed Forces) to strip the presidents of many of most of his power. We don’t know how long this will last.
President Obama didn’t waste any time to congratulate Morsi and the White House declared that: Morsi’s victory is a milestone in Egypt’s transition to democracy after decades of authoritarian rule under Mubarak. Even Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement after Morsi election to power to congratulate Egypt for a move towards democracy saying that he respected the results.
Morsi might have been freely elected, although the term freedom remains to be determined as it pertains to Egypt’s recent elections. Especially when looking at the case of the Egyptian man who beat his wife to death for not voting for Morsi.
So, Egyptian Christians, Israelis and the rest of the free world shouldn’t worry because all news reports seem to agree that Morsi was “freely” elected and is introducing a new era, a “New Egypt”…Democracy is finally here and we should feel very safe as we all look forward to a new stability in the middle east. Democracy can be defined as A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives. Is this what we are seeing here?
It is time to take a closer look at the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and decide if they are the promoters of democracy or the enforcers of fascism. I have made my mind long ago and I will let YOU decide for yourself, but please consider a few facts.
Founded in 1928 by Hassan-Al-Banna as a secret brotherhood of seven people, the MB is now present in more than 75 countries in the world, basically just about wherever there is a Muslim community. They are unashamedly pro-shariah and promote a Muslim caliphate (central global Muslim government under the supreme authority of a caliph). To that extreme, they will do just about anything to “sharianize” the free world and lately, they have made great strides towards shariah because of the comatose state of liberal and post-modern secularists.
Consider the MB motto as found on their website and other materials:
Allah is our objective.
The Prophet is our leader
Qur’an is our law
Jihad is our way
Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.
If you see democracy anywhere in that statement, you might need to have your eyes checked!
Fundamentalism? YES! Extremism? YES! Terrorism? YES!
Democracy? Absolutely not!
The MB boldly declares that the West is corrupt (especially but not only, the USA), and while I might agree on the fact that western civilization has indeed become corrupt to some extent, I certainly do not preconize the need to kill those we deem corrupt.
The MB current leader known as the “Supreme Guide” is Muhammed Badi who claimed in 2010 that jihad against Israel and the West is a commandment from Allah and cannot be ignored.
When asked about democracy, a previous Supreme leader Mustapha Mashur, their Supreme Leader in 1981 was quoted saying:“Democracy contradicts and wages war on Islam. Whoever calls for democracy means they are raising banners contradicting God’s plan and fighting Islam.”
Democracy? Absolutely not!
Most Muslim organizations worldwide are connected one way or another to the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas, Hizbullah, Al Qaeda are all connected with the MB at some level. They have the same goal and they revere death as much as we value life.
Lesser known to the general public, the MB is also involved with CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) and all American universities’ Muslim Student Associations.
Visible or invisible, they are the backbone of most Muslim organizations worldwide. But one connection that most definitely sends chills down my spine is the the one that the MB had with now defunct Nazi Germany. The Third Reich seriously influenced the Muslim Brotherhood in the 30s and 40s. They were in bed together on multiple occasions and the MB continues its propaganda and acts of antisemitism around the world.
In his book The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism, Chuck Morse writes that:
There is a long and interesting intermingling between the faith and ideology of the Brotherhood and that of the Nazis and later the Communists. One visible result of the intermingling is a merge between the traditional victimization mythologies which holds that religious Muslims are somehow under siege by the outside world with the Nazi victimology mythology which held that Germans were somehow victimized by the existence of the Jews.1
Additionally, in a 2007 article in the Weekly Standard, Matthias Küntzel documented the MB desire to eliminate the “Zionists” and “all Jews”, when in 1945, they committed one of the worst anti-Jewish pogroms in Egypt’s history, thus continuing the Third Reich legacy of Jew hatred.
Democracy? Absolutely not!
We must not miss the handwriting on the wall as Perry Trotter (founder of Shadows of Shoah) writes in his sobering article about the days we live in:
Too easily it is forgotten that 1942 did not happen apart from 1932; that the events of the 1940s happened only in continuity with the events of the 1930s. It is my conviction that what we see beginning to unfold today is in continuity with the eschatological horror revealed in the Scriptures – a biblical scenario that for many remains merely technical, faceless and impersonal.
At the end of the day, anyone believing that the Muslim Brotherhood is good news for mankind in general of even Muslim in particular must be in denial. The assassination of Egyptian President Anwar el Sadat in 1981 proves that they won’t hesitate to eliminate one of their own if they become an obstacle to Muslim hegemony.
The global Islamist army is marching on and for the most part they are going through the path of least resistance by having doors opened to them by tolerant westerners infected by the virus of political correctness.
Democratic Fascism is an oxymoron. There is nothing democratic about a totalitarian regime that worships death over life and wants to convert the world to Islam or kill all the infidels. We are indeed in the 30s and we remember what took place in the 40s, so there is no excuse to look the other way!
Muslims are the first victims of Islam and only the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob can take the blinders off their eyes and show them what Yeshua did for them.
If death is to be revered, it should only be the death of Yeshua the Messiah for the sins of the world, because with His death we receive eternal life (John 10:27-28; 1 John 5:13; Romans 5:8).
1. Morse, Chuck: The Nazi Connection To Islamic Terrorism, Adolph Hitler and Haj Amin al – Husseini ( iUniverse, Inc., New York, NY, 2003) pages 40-41.
Cut the Jewish Roots, Kill the Christian Tree!
Back in October 2011, Mahmoud Abbas savored a victory that required no loss of life or property. The Palestinian Authority was officially admitted as the newest member of the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Many were concerned by the fact that Abbas was using an educational and cultural venue to push a political agenda, and the fear was that it would only be a matter of time before the UNESCO platform would be used again to further delegitimize Israel and validate the Palestinians return to “their land”.
When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference,the following resolution was adopted:
In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Com- mission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine:“There is no such country as Palestine! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible.Our country was for centuries part of Syria.” The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations echoed this view in a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947, which said Palestine was part of the Province of Syria and the Arabs of Palestine did not comprise a separate political entity. A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council:“It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria.”
Palestinian Arab nationalism is largely a post-World War I phenom- enon that did not become a significant political movement until after the 1967 Six-Day War.
It was not until the 1960s under the leadership of the late Yasir Arafat that the “Palestinian cause” came to the forefront of the world political scene.
Before that, it was pretty much an unanimous understanding amongst Arab nations that there were no such people as Palestinians, but simply Arabs.
In the last 50 years, a phenomenon has been taking place. Banking on a combination of ignorance, tolerance and political correctness from the West, the Palestinian authority has slowly developed an identity, usurped from the Jewish people and the Jewish roots of the Bible.
Today, less than 8 months after being recognized by UNESCO, the Palestinian authority is pushing the envelope. Mahmoud Abbas is attempting to make the “Bethlehem Church of the Nativity” into a Palestinian sacred site.
The likelihood of that happening is uncertain at best. Yet, on their own site, UNESCO did list the Church of the Nativity as being in Palestine:
…the Church of the Nativity and pilgrimage route, Bethlehem (Palestine) will be processed on an emergency basis and the documents that concern them are not yet available. Chad, Congo, Palau, Palestine and Qatar stand to enter
the World Heritage List with their first inscriptions.
Although the fact that Abbas didn’t follow protocol and submitted his claim as an “emergency” might cost him the vote or might even force him to properly resubmit it for a 2014 vote, the very fact that it is currently listed as being part of Palestine clearly proves the progress that Mahmoud Abbas and his cohorts are making. Some might claim that this is purely semantics but I think it goes deeper in establishing an undeserved legitimacy.
If you cannot claim historical facts, simply make them up or better yet, steal them from those to whom they rightfully belong to. Mahmoud Abbas can try all he wants to claim the Church as a Palestinian holy site, Yeshua (Jesus) remains a Jew not a Palestinian.
If the world remains silent while the Palestinian authority and their supporters keep denying, rewriting and even stealing biblically founded Jewish history, eventually the Jewish roots will no longer be able to hold and feed the tree where Christianity comes from.
Many evangelicals are supporting this move by the Palestinians, yet they don’t seem to realize that by rewriting history to exclude Jewish heritage they will eradicate the very foundation of Christianity.
While Yeshua (Jesus) was born a Jew and possibly not even at the disputed site, He remains the Son of God, the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the World (Isaiah 52:13-53:12, John 3:16). No boundaries, political agenda or rewriting of history can ever change that because history is HIStory!
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