Rare ‘Jewish War Heroes’ comic from 1944 found in box of donated used books

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: National Post | Canada
First Reported by: Sarah B. Hood | National Post
Images: comicbookplus.com | National Post




Sylvia Lovegren knew she’d found something unusual while going through a box of used books, but she had no idea how rare it would turn out to be. A volunteer with the Friends of the Kelly Library at St. Michael’s College, Ms. Lovegren helps sort the 70,000 to 100,000 books donated to its fundraising sale every year.

She made the discovery while examining a collection of books relating to the Second World War in case some should be priced above the normal top price of $5. “I opened one up and I thought ‘what is this little piece of paper thing in here?

“It was just tucked inside the pages, and it looked like a comic book, and it had a very graphic design on it.”

Titled Jewish War Heroes and dated 1944, “it was in very good condition, so I thought it was something that had been issued much later,” she says. “But when I looked it up, I found that it had actually been issued during the war — and it was rather scarce. You can get a digital copy of it, but actual copies of it are very hard to come by.”

As Ms. Lovegren discovered, the comic book was the first of three issues published by the Canadian Jewish Congress to highlight the courage and dedication of Jewish soldiers at a time when some Canadians were claiming that Jews weren’t doing enough for the war effort.

In her 2012 book Nazi Germany, Canadian Responses : Confronting Antisemitism in the Shadow of War, Ruth Klein reveals that the comic books were among numerous strategies of the CJC’s War Efforts Committee “to counteract the myth about Jewish ‘shirking.’”

Ms. Klein writes that the committee opened recruiting centres in Toronto and Montreal and kept careful track of enlistment figures, which were then circulated to media. They also held rallies across the country, circulated a monthly journal called Jews in Uniform and provided practical support to soldiers in the form of “comfort boxes” sent overseas and servicemen’s centres in Canada.

The first issue of Canadian War Heroes documents the career of Hamilton native Bert “Yank” Levy, who wrote a well-known book on guerilla warfare techniques, and even made the cover of Life magazine in 1942, as well as two recipients of the Distinguished Flying Cross (Brigadier Frederick Hermann Kisch and Alfred Brenner); General Morrice Abraham Cohen, an aide-de-camp to Sun Yat-sen, and Soviet submarine captain Israel Fisanovitch.

Ms. Lovegren has only located a few other copies of the comic book. “There are two library-bound copies in Toronto; this one was still pristine, without anybody fiddling with the binding,” Ms. Lovegren says. “Other than that, there is a copy in the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC and one in the National Library of Israel. It’s a very important little artifact. It was very thrilling to find it and to realize what it was.”
It would be tricky to fix a price on such a find, says Peter Birkemoe, owner of Toronto comic book shop The Beguiling. “With any Canadian wartime comics, it is more difficult than most comics, because there aren’t published records of sales figures like there are for things that trade hands more often; particularly for older comic books where the number of existing copies is fewer than 100.”

At auction, he says, if there was competition between bidders interested in Canadian or Jewish items, or collectors attracted by its rarity, “your low end would be in the $1,000 range; your high end would be close to five figures.”

This isn’t the first treasure that’s turned up among the donations, says Caroline Di Giovanni, President of the Friends of the Kelly Library. Past highlights include valuable nature prints, books relating to Marshall McLuhan and unique music memorabilia from Father Owen Lee, a regular panelist on the Texaco Opera Quiz. This year, notable donations include music scores, books on heraldry and Gaelic language and “a complete collection of 19^th-century Trollope books,” says Ms. Di Giovanni.

Saturday is the final day of this year’s sale. Jewish War Heroes will be on display but not for sale; the library will likely keep it.

French, German leaders visit Nazi massacre site in central France

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: France 24 | France
First Reported by: News Writes | AFP

French President Francois Hollande and German counterpart Joachim Gauck on Wednesday pay a landmark visit to the ghost village of Oradour-sur-Glane where 642 people were massacred by Nazi troops during World War II. 

Gauck is the first German leader to visit the site in west-central France, where ruins from the war have been preserved as a memorial to the dead.

At a joint press conference Tuesday ahead of the visit, Hollande praised Gauck's visit as a symbol of Franco-German reconciliation.

"You have made the choice (to visit the site), it honours you, and at the same time it forces us, once the past has been acknowledged, to go boldly into preparing the future," Hollande said.

Gauck said he had accepted the invitation to visit the site with "a mixture of gratitude and humility".

He said he would not shy away from pointing out to others during the visit that "the Germany that I have the honour of representing is a different Germany from the one that haunts their memories".

The ruins they will visit include a church where women and children were locked in, before toxic gas was released and the building set on fire.

Some 205 children aged under 15 were among victims of the June 10, 1944 atrocity which left deep scars in France.

After the war, French General Charles de Gaulle, who later became president, decided that the village should not be rebuilt but remain a memorial to the barbarity of Nazi occupation. A new village was built nearby.

In 1999, French president Jacques Chirac dedicated a memorial museum which includes items recovered from what became known as the 'Village of Martyrs'.

They include watches stopped at the time the owners were burnt alive, glasses melted from intense heat and other personal items.

The highly symbolic visit follows a 1984 commemoration when then French president Francois Mitterrand and former German chancellor Helmut Kohl joined hands while attending a memorial service for fallen soldiers at Verdun.

The Battle of Verdun (February-December 1916) claimed the lives of more than 700,000 soldiers and came to symbolise the horror of war for both the Germans and the French. 

Hollande and Gauck will make speeches and visit the village square, where the residents were rounded up by German troops ostensibly to have their identity papers checked. The women and children were then locked up in the church while the men were taken to a barn where machine guns awaited.

They will be accompanied by two of the three living survivors, including Robert Hebras, 88.

Hebras, who was 19 at the time of the massacre, survived as he was buried under the corpses of others who were machine-gunned.

"I was consumed by hatred and vengeance for a long time," he said, adding that Gauck's visit came at an opportune time.

"Any earlier would have been too soon," he said, adding: "We must reconcile with the Germans."

Germany in 2010 reopened a war crimes case into the attack when a historian discovered documents implicating six suspects in their 80s.

The suspects, aged 18 and 19 at the time, allegedly ordered the inhabitants to assemble in the village square.

Prosecutors eventually identified 12 members of the regiment who were still alive after trawling through files of the Stasi secret police in the former communist East that came to light after German reunification in 1990.

A case has been opened against seven of them. The other five have already served sentences in France.

Gauck, a former East German human rights activist, has already paid two visits to the sites of Nazi mass killings in Europe; the Czech village of Lidice near Prague in 2012 and the Italian hamlet of Sant'Anna di Stazzema in March this year.

Body found floating in Lake Ontario, reportedly wrapped in garbage bag

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Canadian Post | Canada
First Reported by: Kim Brown | National Post

The Toronto Police Marine Unit recovered a body from Lake Ontario Wednesday afternoon.
Police have identified the person as female.

Officers were on routine patrol when they found the body shortly after midday. Reports say the body was wrapped in a garbage bag.

The woman was floating about 30 metres south of the sea wall at Yonge Street and Queens Quay.
The homicide squad is handling the investigation.
 

78 Year Old Man Commits Suicide in Protest to Gay Marriage

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: France24 | France
First Reported by: Jean Luc Sanna | France


A writer known for his far-right views committed suicide in the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in central Paris on Tuesday, prompting authorities to evacuate the building.

Dominique Venner, the author of many history essays that often decried immigration in France and the decline of European civilizations, was 78 years old.

Police sources say he shot himself in front of the altar of the famous church in the early afternoon, pulling out a pistol and putting it in his mouth, before pulling the trigger.

Venner’s last post on his website, published earlier in the day, appeared to indicate that his dramatic suicide was a way to protest against a recent law legalizing gay marriage in France.

He called on people to join a protest on May 26 against the controversial law.

"It is here and now that our destiny is at stake. This second is as important as the rest of a life. That is why it is important to be yourself until the last moment,” he wrote.

Notre Dame, which this year is celebrating its 850th anniversary, is one of the biggest destinations for tourists visiting the French capital.

The cathedral contained around 1,500 visitors at the time of the suicide, all of whom were then evacuated without incident, said France’s Interior Minister Manuel Valls, who visited Notre Dame following the incident.

“I can only imagine the shock for these people, both faithful and tourists,” he said.

“Notre Dame … is one of the biggest symbols of the capital and the country and we can only imagine the impact that this [act] will have.”

It was the second dramatic suicide in less than a week in Paris, after a 50-year-old man with a history of family problems shot himself dead Thursday in a primary school near the Eiffel Tower, in front of about a dozen stunned children.

Venner’s suicide was later hailed as a political gesture by National Front leader Marine Le Pen.

"All respect to Dominique Venner whose final, eminently political act was to try to wake up the people of France," Le Pen said on Twitter, though she added later that "it is in life and hope that France will renew and save itself".

Bruno Gollnisch, a senior National Front figure and member of the European Parliament also paid tribute to Venner, referring to him as an “extremely brilliant intellectual”.

"I think his dramatic gesture is a protest against the decadence of our society," Gollnisch told BFM TV.

In a final essay on his website, Venner railed against France's adoption of a "vile law" legalizing gay marriage and adoption.

The gay marriage bill has sparked numerous protests in France, with many on the right bitterly opposed to the act. The bill was finally signed into law by President François Hollande on Sunday.

Venner also denounced immigration from North Africa which, he said, was the real "peril", calling on activists to take measures to protect "French and European identities".

In what appeared to be a reference to his suicide, Venner wrote: "There will certainly need to be new, spectacular, symbolic gestures to shake off the sleepiness... and re-awaken the memories of our origins."

"We are reaching a time when words must be backed up with acts," he added.

Venner fought for France in the 1954-62 Algerian War of Independence and was a member of the OAS (Secret Armed Organization), a short-lived paramilitary group that opposed Algeria's independence from France.

He went on to have a long career publishing right-wing essays, military histories and books on weaponry and hunting.

Father Admits to Killing His Children

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: France24 | France
First Reported by: News Writes | UK - France


A 48-year-old British national admitted to French police on Sunday that he slit the throats of his two children, aged 5 and 10. The children's bodies were discovered Saturday at his apartment in Saint-Priest, a suburb of Lyon.  

A 48-year-old divorced Briton locked in a bitter custody battle confessed on Sunday that he had killed his two young children by slitting their throats near the eastern French city of Lyon.

The bodies of a five-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy were discovered on Saturday afternoon in the man's apartment in Saint-Priest, a southeastern suburb of Lyon.

The unemployed father confessed to the gruesome crime "but did not go into details of the motive", prosecutors said.

The tragedy was "linked to a bitter separation" and "the state of his visitation rights which he considered insufficient", another judicial source told AFP.

"In 2010, there was an incident of violence with his spouse which led to restrictions on his visitation rights," the source said.

He was arrested on Saturday evening in Lyon and placed in custody. A judicial official said a knife which is thought to have been the murder weapon had been found.

The man had visitation rights but only in the presence of another person, the official said, adding that this was the first time he had brought the children home to his apartment on the second floor of a four-storey building without a third party being present.

He remained in custody late Sunday and was to be presented to a prosecutor on Monday when he was expected to be charged.

Police were also questioning his ex-wife, notably to learn more about "the legal framework of the children's visits to their father".

"We understand that a British national has been arrested in France," a Foreign Office spokesman told AFP. "We are in contact with the French authorities and we await the outcome of their investigation."

Several witnesses said the man fled on roller skates after his former wife encountered him on the stairwell of the building and saw him with bloodstained clothes. She immediately alerted the police.

A neighbour said the mother was soon joined by relatives, including her brother-in-law and the children's grandparents, and was lucid although in shock.

A psychiatrist from the emergency services was immediately dispatched to give her counselling.

"They were devastated but relatively composed," the neighbour said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"She said: 'He has killed them'. I tried to comfort her saying we didn't know as yet although I knew at the bottom of my heart that they were dead."

Ahmed Benguedda, another neighbour, told AFP the couple had divorced "two or three years ago" and that the man had drinking problems and was a wife beater.

After the divorce the wife, who worked as an assistant accountant, moved out of the apartment they had jointly bought and was living in the Isere region of eastern France.

But the children were "well-balanced", said Benguedda, whose seven-year-old daughter often played with them.
"All the people in this building are in a state of shock," Benguedda said.

More neighbors were being questioned by the police on Sunday.
 

Alleged Auschwitz Guard Arrested in Germany on Monday

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Der Spiegel | Germany
First Reported by: Efraim Zuroff | Simon Wiesenthal Center
Image Credit: Yad Vashem Archives | Date: May 27, 1944

Hans Lipschis, a 93-year-old thought to have been a guard at Auschwitz, was arrested in Germany on Monday. The Lithuanian-born man, who was added to the Simon Wiesenthal Center's most wanted list last month, says he was only a cook. But prosecutors believe he supported the killing in his role as a guard. 

A man thought to have been a guard at the Auschwitz death camp has been arrested in Germany on suspicion of having assisted in the mass murder carried out there, the Stuttgart public prosecutor's office said on Monday.

A doctor had examined 93-year-old Hans Lipschis and found him to be fit for detention and a judge remanded him in custody. "We will try to ascertain what he did in Auschwitz," a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office said.

Lipschis is believed to have been in Auschwitz from autumn 1941 until it was liberated in early 1945. He was added to the Most Wanted Nazi War Criminals list kept by the Wiesenthal Center in Jerusalem in April. The Wiesenthal Center welcomed the arrest. 

"This is a very positive step, we welcome the arrest, I hope this will only be the first of many arrests, trials and convictions of death camp guards," the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Efraim Zuroff told AFP news agency.

Lipschis told Welt am Sonntag newspaper in April that he had only been a cook in Auschwitz. But investigators said he was "under strong suspicion of having supported the murders in the concentration camp," the office said in a statement. 

More than 1.1 million people, most of them Jews, were murdered in Auschwitz. 

The prosecutors office has been investigating him since November 2012. He was arrested because authorities believed he might leave the country. He has a daughter in the US, German media reported.

According to information obtained by the German news agency DPA, Lipschis was a member of the SS "Death's Head" unit that ran the camp. He later worked as a cook for the SS adminstration.

Born in Lithuania, Lipschis emigrated to the US in 1956 and settled in Chicago. He was deported in 1982 because he hadn't told US authorities about his past in the SS. He moved to Germany in 1983 and has lived in Aalen, in south-western Germany, since then. 

"Charges against him are being prepared," said the prosecutor's office. 

Late Push on War Crimes

The arrest followed news last month that Germany's central office for investigating Nazi war crimes had launched a major push to bring Nazi death camp guards to justice and had obtained a list of 50 former Auschwitz guards still living in Germany.

The Central Office of the Judicial Authorities for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes said it had received the list of names of Auschwitz guards from the museum at the memorial site. The office is now checking which of the men, most of whom were likely to have been members of the SS, could stand trial.

Schrimm's office is exploiting a recent re-interpretation of German criminal law in order to bring to justice people who were small cogs in the Holocaust machine -- men and women who had hitherto been spared prosecution because they couldn't be proven to have committed specific crimes, and could hide behind the argument that they were following orders.

Prosecutions have been made easier by the precedent set by the trial of Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk, found guilty by a Munich court in May 2011 and sentenced to five years in jail for being an accessory to the murder of 28,060 Jews while he was a guard at Sobibor in occupied Poland. 

 Since the Demjanjuk trial, prosecutors no longer need to establish culpability in specific murders to secure a conviction. Having been a guard is now seen as proof enough of having assisted in murder. 

The crucial piece of evidence against Demjanjuk was his SS identity card from Sobibor. He died in a nursing home in the southern Bavarian town of Bad Feilnbach in March 2012, after being released pending his appeal.

Shark Attack: French honeymooner killed in attack in Reunion

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Le Local | France
First Reported by: Rémi Vert & Jean Roidiller | France

A French honeymooner was attacked and killed by a shark on Wednesday while he was surfing not far from the beach on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion, authorities said.

The 36-year-old was in the sea off the popular beach of Brisants de Saint-Gilles when a shark charged at him twice, prompting a nearby swimmer to raise the alert when he saw blood on the water, the local prefecture said.

Lifeguards jumped in the water to fetch the victim, who had lost a lot of blood and was in cardiac and respiratory arrest. They brought him back to the beach but were unable to revive him.

The shark had bitten the surfer on the arm and on the thigh. His wife was on the beach when the attack happened, and is being treated for shock, authorities said.

The deadly shark attack was the first this year on the island, where three people were killed by sharks in the past two years.

Last summer, another surfer in the Reunion island was attacked by a shark that tore off his arm and leg, although he survived.

Sharks are not man-eaters, but sometimes mistake humans for their natural prey, like seals or tortoises, and at other times hurt surfers as they "mouth" them out of curiosity, experts say.

Last year, 78 shark attacks were reported around the world, of which eight were fatal.

The series of shark attacks in the Reunion island has seen a number of measures implemented. Local authorities have initiated several scientific studies to try and better understand the way of life of the animals.

People have also been deployed near beaches on boats or in the water to keep an eye on swimmers and surfers and spot sharks before they attack.
 

Five feared dead in Malta boat accident

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Le Local | France
First Reported by: Audry Bourésaud - AFT | France

Five French tourists were feared dead on Wednesday after their boat apparently capsized in stormy seas in Malta, where rescuers have recovered three unidentified bodies.

US Navy and Italian coast guard aircraft joined in the increasingly desperate search for five French tourists off Gozo, one of three islands that make up the Maltese archipelago.

The five had been on their way back by boat on Sunday to their yacht, El Pirata, after dinner on shore during a Mediterranean cruise, witnesses said.

Rescuers said they had recovered the bodies of two women wearing life jackets on Tuesday and the body of a man on Wednesday and that they believe they are three of the five people missing.

The man's body was plucked from the water by a Maltese army helicopter in the area, where strong winds made the search more difficult.

The capsized boat has also been found.

"We are still in the process of identifying but we have no other reports of missing people," said a spokesman for Maltese military, which is in charge of coast guard operations in the island nation.

Maltese officials named the five as Marie Grimaud, 38, Philippe Grimaud, 41, Sandrine Gaudet, 36, Elias Chonouni, 49 and his 14-year-old son Eli.

The news website Malta Today reported that Malta is in contact with French authorities.

The yacht was moored off the picturesque village of Dwejra in Gozo. The alarm was raised on Monday by the yacht's skipper, a Spaniard, who had remained on board the vessel.

 

8-year-old promises to lead English League One side to elite in 3 years

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Russia Today| Russia
First Reported by: Elana K. | RT.com






Mac Wilson, an 8-year old lad, could get his first job at English League One club Doncaster after he wrote a letter describing his vision for the team’s development, which reached the table of club chair John Ryan.

Ryan was so impressed with young Mac’s application for the vacancy left by Dean Saunders’ departure that he invited him in for an interview.

“My daughter Claire was with me at the time that I got Mac’s letter and my first thought was to give him a ring,” the Doncaster Free Press quoted him as saying. 

“I got his dad on the phone and asked if I could speak to Mac with regards to the vacancy at Rovers,” Ryan said. “He came on the phone and I asked him whether he would like to come down for an interview. I invited them both down on Saturday for a look round, meet the players and to give him an interview.”

In his letter, Mac promised to get the team in the Premier League in three years. “I thought that was a very positive statement,” Ryan said.

Mac’s dad Adi said the boy was convinced his older brother was playing a trick on him. “We sent off the email for a bit of fun really. All credit to John for responding. Mac has been absolutely full of it since he got in touch and so excited,” the same source quoted Adi as saying.

Rovers season-ticket holder Mac was officially invited to the Keepmoat Stadium to watch the Rovers, lead by a caretaker boss Brian Flynn, play Leyton Orient on Saturday. 

The young man’s future with the club will be announced shortly but one thing is certain: He has hit the ground running. One of the best young coaches in the sport, Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas, wrote his famous letter to Sir Bobby Robson when he was 17, so Mac has some time as handicap.

Gold rush: ­Man finds massive 5.5 kg gold nugget in Australia

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: Russia Today| Russia
First Reported by: Elana K. | RT.com

Searching for gold may not be such a hopeless thing to do, if you know where to look. Apparently a local prospector in Ballarat, Australia knew where to look, as he has found a gold nugget weighing 5.5 kilograms, worth up to half a million dollars. 

The name of the lucky man, who discovered the precious nugget, is being kept secret, the Courier newspaper reports.

Experts at the Ballarat Mining Exchange Gold Shop, who took the gold nugget for evaluation, say it was found about 60 centimeters below the surface of the earth. Gold nuggets of such enormous size are extremely rare. 

The amateur gold-hunter reportedly used a cutting edge $6000 detector that helped him make the find of his life.

According to the gold shop owner Cordell Kent, if the nugget was sold just on the basis of gold content it’s market value would be around $300,000. However its size and natural shape make it worth more than that.
"If you are silly enough to melt it down, it would be worth just under $300,000 on market value but as a nugget at this size and shape, it's worth significantly more than that," he said. "A finding like this gives people hope. It's my dream to find something like that, and I've been prospecting for more than two decades," he added.

It is expected the nugget will be sold to a collector or possibly a museum within Australia

Scammers use worthless rubles to pocket cash

Reported by: Joel Noe

Source: The Local| Switzerland
First Reported by: Malcolm Curtis | TL - Switzerland

Scammers are using foreign coins to defraud public transport companies of money from ticket vending machines in the cantons of Vaud and Geneva, according to a report.

The technique is simple enough.

Fraudsters insert coins that are similar to Swiss ones, such as the five-franc piece, into the vending machine.

They then punch in a request for the cheapest possible ticket and pocket the returned change.

Two citizens from Eastern European countries were caught last fall after they trousered 1,400 francs from Lausanne public transport (TL) vending machines, 20 Minutes reported online.

The used old Russian rubles no longer in circulation, which the vending machines identified as five-franc pieces, the newspaper said.

Valérie Maire, a spokeswoman for TL, said the transit authority now has means to detect such fraudulent schemes.

“The introduction of improper coins triggers an alarm,” Maire told 20 Minutes.

“TL staff can intervene rapidly and blow the whistle on the fraudster,” she said.

Since such scammers often stay a long time in front of vending machines to make as much money as possible they also attract attention, she said.

New vending machines that are more sensitive to foreign currency will solve the problem and they are reportedly being introduced progressively in Lausanne and Geneva.

In Geneva, the problem reflects its status as an international city.

The Geneva transport authority (TPG) reported that 15,000 foreign coins were inserted in its vending machines last year, 20 Minutes said.

TPG is not disclosing what its losses were.

The Geneva transport system has a total of 872 ticket vending machines, including 522 older models that do not give change, according to information on its website.

The new machines, 350 in all, give change and accept euros in addition to francs and a variety of credit and debit cards.