Florida Holocaust survivors reject “tainted money” from SNCF

You can read the latest news on SNCF and the Holocaust survivors in Floria here. This quote is from the Sun Sentinel:

The state of Florida has canceled a controversial Holocaust education program for teachers.

The cancellation by Florida Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson was seen as a victory by Holocaust survivors who were angered by the department and it’s Task Force on Holocaust Education’s acceptance of a three-year teacher training program created by the Shoah Memorial in Paris and funded by an $80,000 grant from SNCF America, the U.S. subsidiary of the French National Railroad.

The [French] railroad transported more than 76,000 Jews to the German border where they were taken to death camps.

Note that the news article explains that SNCF America is a subsidiary of the French railroad which transported 76,000 Jews to Nazi concentration camps during World War II. SNCF apologized to the Jews last year for its connection to the French railroad; the company tried to make amends by making a $80,000 donation to the Jews in order to get in on the $2.6 billion high-speed rail plan in Florida, but the plan was canceled. SNCF honored the $80,000 donation anyway.

I previously blogged about the role of the French railway in the Holocaust here.

Holocaust survivors in Florida were upset with the deal between Florida and SNCF to fund a Holocaust education program because they regarded a $80,000 donation from SNDF as “tainted money.”   As reported by the South Florida Sun Sentinel on September 9, 2011,  the donation had been given by SNCF to develop a school curriculum focusing on the role of France in the Holocaust.  This quote is from the South Florida Sun Sentinel article in September 2011:

“We don’t need SNCF to whitewash its image here,” Rita G. Hofrichter, 84, a Florida woman who lost her parents and other relatives in the Holocaust, told the newspaper. “It’s really shameful that they think they can buy us with their blood money.”   

Daniel Libeskind building at 601 Capitol Mall in Sacramento, CA….when you get there, it’s not there

In 2005, famous architect Daniel Liebeskind designed a 38-story condo building called Aura, which was to be built at 601 Capitol Mall in Sacramento, CA.  The plan fell through when the developers of the project defaulted on a loan.  The photo below shows Libeskind’s design for the building, which was never built.

Architectural design by Daniel Libeskind for Sacramento

Why should anyone care if this building was built or not?  I’ll tell you why. When this project was first announced in the Sacramento Bee newspaper in 2005, I was horrified.  I had seen one of Daniel Libeskind’s buildings in Berlin, and I did not think that one of his designs would be suitable for Sacramento.  His architectural style has been called “deconstruction.”

the role of the French railway in the Holocaust

Yesterday, I blogged about the Holocaust exhibit called “The Courage to Remember” which I went to see on the campus of California State University Sacramento.  The money for this exhibit came from a grant from the French Railway company known as SNCF, the Societe Nationale des Chemins de fer Francais, which Holocaust survivors hold responsible for reparations to the Jews because the French railway transported 76,000 Jews to the Nazi death camps.

Words on a poster at the start of the exhibit

Notice the line in the second paragraph which says “There was a time when SNCF sought to bid on the proposed high speed rail project in California.”  Sacramento is one of the cities that will have a station on the high speed rail system if and when the second phase of it is ever built. 

If you can’t get to a Holocaust Museum, the Museum will come to you…

Sacramento is one of the few large cities in the world that does not have its own Holocaust Museum, but not to worry: a traveling exhibit called “The Courage to Remember” will be at California State University Sacramento until November 4, 2011.  It is one of three identical exhibits, based on the exhibit with the same name in the Museum of Tolerance at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. These three exhibits will be traveling around California for a year, courtesy of the Foundation of California which received a grant from SNCF (French railway company). The exhibit, which has its own website, consists of 200 photos arranged on 42 panels.  The traveling exhibition was first made available to schools and libraries in California in 1991.

I went to see the exhibit at CSUS today.  Just as I expected, there were a few controversial photos in the exhibit.  

Sacramento Empty Shoe memorial for 9/11

There were 100 cities across America which had their own local memorial ceremony for the 10th anniversary of 9/11 on Sunday, September 11, 2011.  The 9/11 Memorial day in Sacramento, CA featured a field of Empty Shoes precisely arranged on the grounds of the State Fair Grounds. The empty shoes were in honor of the 2,977 people who died ten years ago on 9/11, including 2,349 civilians.  The field of empty shoes consisted of  new shoes, of all kinds, which were donated by people in the Sacramento area. The shoes were given to the Salvation Army when the Memorial was taken down.

Empty Shoe memorial at Cal Expo in Sacramento, CA

Young girl walks through the field of shoes in Sacramento

“the Gemlich letter” …. it sounds better in the original German

This morning I was astounded to read this news headline here:

The Seeds of Hitler’s Hatred: Infamous 1919 Genocide Letter Unveiled to the Public

This quote from the article contains the most important part of the story:

Few have questioned the importance of the Gemlich letter in understanding Hitler and the Holocaust. It not only provides a look into his beliefs, but reveals early ideas of how he would attempt the systematic extermination of the Jews. “Anti-Semitism — born of purely emotional grounds — will find an expression in the form of pogroms,” Hitler wrote, according to a translation provided by the (Simon) Wiesenthal Center. “The final goal must be the removal of the Jews. To accomplish these goals, only a government of national power is capable and never a government of national weakness.”

According to this article, “the Gemlich letter,” which has recently been acquired by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in California, is the first and only time that Hitler wrote something which clearly indicated his plans to “attempt the systematic extermination of the Jews.”  

How does Mark Zuckerberg kill a chicken?

I’ve been reading here about Mark Zuckerberg’s new challenge, which is not to eat any meat, except the meat from animals that he has personally killed.  His first kill was a lobster, which he plunged into a pot of boiling water.  Now he’s killing chickens, but there is no mention in the news about how he kills his chickens.  First of all, where does he get live chickens?  Does he raise chickens in his back yard?

When I was a child, my family had a “hen house” and a “chicken pen” in the back yard.  Now most cities have laws against raising chickens in a residential neighborhood.

When my mother ran out of pullets, and didn’t want to kill and eat the laying hens, she would go uptown to a store that sold live chickens.  (A pullet is a young female chicken.) Then she would bring the chicken home and keep it in our chicken pen until Sunday morning when it was time to kill it for our Sunday dinner.   

Rancho Seco nuclear power plant is now nothing but two empty towers

Empty towers at former Rancho Seco nuclear power plant

Update, May 10, 2011:  Japan has announced that they are not going to build any more nuclear power plants; you can read it here.

With all the news about the nuclear power plants in Japan being damaged by an earthquake, I am very glad that the Rancho Seco power plant in Herald, California is now nothing but two empty towers; the power plant was closed on June 7, 1989.  The Rancho Seco power plant was in operation between April 1975 and June 1989.  The Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979 caused protests in California about Rancho Seco, which finally resulted in it’s closure.  

For sale: house designed by Julia Morgan

The only house in Sacramento designed by Julia Morgan

If you’ve got 2 million dollars, you can buy this historic house in Sacramento, designed by famous architect Julia Morgan in the 1920s.  The house was donated to California State University, Sacramento by Charles M. Goethe in his will; CSUS can no longer afford the $40,000 per year upkeep on the house, so it is on the market.  You can read all about it here.    Click on the photo above for a larger size.

A house with big old shade trees — one of the things I never had

A song recorded by Kay Star back in 1956 has been on my mind lately. The lyrics had the lines “a house with big old shade trees” and “the things I never had.”

Governor's mansion in Sacramento, CA