Posted Wednesday, November 11, 1998

Commemorations

Museum under attack   (AP) Jerusalem -- Israel's national Holocaust museum is under attack from some death camp survivors for charging a fee for individual memorials to those who perished. For between $500 and $1,500, the Yad Vashem museum will inscribe memorial stones with the names of victims of the Nazi genocide. The amount depends on the size of the stone. "This is enraging," said Daniel Chanoch, 63, who survived the Auschwitz and Dachau death camps. "Those who have no money will not be memorialized. It is just like in the ghettos: Those who had no money were the first ones sent to the gas chambers."

November 11, 1998 National Alliance protests Holocaust documentary By KEITH MORELLI of The Tampa Tribune "The Long Way Home," an award-winning documentary about the Jewish migration to Israel between 1945 and 1948 drew 800 viewers to Tampa Theatre on Tuesday night, some of whom were survivors of the Holocaust who cheered at the film's end. It also drew a handful of protesters outside who said the message in the film was one of hate. "We are standing up against the Jews," said Vincent Breeding, with the Tampa Unit of the National Alliance. He held a poster that said, "Keep Your Hate Out Of Tampa." "We consider this a hate movie. And we don't appreciate them showing this film in our historic Tampa Theatre," he said, as many of the film viewers filed past him after the showing, curiously reading his placard.

The Long Way Home" documents the struggles of the Jewish people of Europe after World War II and their efforts to establish a homeland in Palestine. It won an Academy Award in 1997 for best documentary film. Rabbi Marvin Hier, the film's producer, was surprised to see the protesters. "I've been to many screenings of this film, and this is the first time I have ever seen people demonstrating outside the theater," he said. While Breeding handed out literature that questioned the existence of the Holocaust, some survivors of that period in European history took exception. Sam Gross, 72, of Tampa, a survivor of two Nazi concentration camps, didn't pay much attention to the protesters. There was a time Gross may have confronted them. But no more, said the man who was recruited to liberate Palestine for the Jewish state before Israel was formed in 1948. "We all grow up," he said, saying he chooses to ignore the confrontations nowadays. "They know what they are," he said, "and I know what I am."

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