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Comments (0)The grandson of a Holocaust survivor reportedly bought the diary of the notorious Josef Mengele.
The 180-page journal was sold for an undisclosed sum Tuesday “to an East Coast Jewish philanthropist who wishes to remain anonymous,” The Hartford Courant reported Wednesday, citing an e-mail from Bill Panagopulos of Alexander Autographs historical artifacts house.
“He is the grandson of an Auschwitz survivor who personally encountered Mengele at Auschwitz,” Panagopulos wrote. “He intends to donate the manuscript to a museum devoted to the Holocaust.”
“I am overjoyed,” Panagopulos told the newspaper, “that the manuscript is going where it belongs, where it will be available to historians and scholars.”
On Monday, it was reported that Alexander Autographs intended to auction off the journal.
Nazi memorabilia collectors vying for the artifact belonging to the Nazi doctor known at Auschwitz as the “Angel of Death” were expected to push the price up to about $64,000.
The owner of the diary, reported to be a source close to the Mengele family, acquired the volume in Brazil after Mengele died there in 1979, the Daily Mail reported.
The diary begins in May 1960, when Mengele was 49.
At Auschwitz, Mengele determined who would live and die, and he conducted horrific, quasi-medical experiments, including on twins.
News of the auction prompted anger and revulsion among Holocaust survivors and their families. In a statement released Monday, The American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and Their Descendants called the proposed sale of the journal “a cynical act of exploitation aimed at profiting from the writings of one of the most heinous Nazi criminals.”
CUFI Objects to Ad by Group It Funds
Christians United for Israel objected to an advertisement run by a group it funds that depicted the president of the New Israel Fund wearing a horn.
“Although we are often demonized by our critics, CUFI never demonizes those with whom we disagree, and we object when anyone does,” CUFIspokesman Ari Morgenstern told JTA.
The ad, run by Im Tirtzu, an Israeli right-wing grass-roots group, attempts to link the New Israel Fund to the Goldstone report, the U.N. Human Rights Council investigation last year that charged Israel with war crimes in the Gaza Strip during its military operation last winter.
“Without the New Israel Fund, there could be no Goldstone Report and Israel would not be facing international accusations of war crimes,” says the ad, illustrated by a cartoon of Naomi Chazan, NIF’s president, sporting a horn and a predatory grin.
Im Tirtzu has singled out 16 groups from among the hundreds NIF funds as having contributed to Goldstone’s inquiry; NIF has denied funding one of the groups.
The army has acknowledged using data provided by some of the others in conducting its own inquiries into the Gaza war.
John Hagee Ministries, founded by the pastor who founded CUFI, donated a total of $200,000 to Im Tirtzu in 2008 and 2009, citing its pledge toward “public advocacy on behalf of the State of Israel and of Zionism on campuses,” Morgenstern said.
Hagee Ministries did not have advance knowledge of the campaign, he said. A number of liberal pro-Israel groups have decried the ad and other attacks on NIF and human rights groups in Israel.
One of them, J Street, made an issue of CUFI’s funding of Im Tirtzu—the same guilt-by-association tactic that Im Tirtzu had used against NIF.
“This is a pro-settler group, with $100,000 of funding from Christians United for Israel, a conservative Christian Zionist organization run by Pastor John Hagee, who once stated that God sent Hitler to drive Jews to Israel,” the statement said, citing an eschatological analysis from the late 1990s.
Hagee has since expressed “regret” for any pain he caused his Jewish friends and pledged “to express my faith in a way that is sensitive to and respectful of others, including the Jewish community.”
Morgenstern said the tactic was outrageous.
“This link is part of a pattern of blatant mischaracterizations of CUFI by J Street that I think is indicative of their effort to shut divergent opinions out of the pro-Israel dialogue,” Morgenstern said.
Asked whether Hagee Ministries would continue to fund Im Tirtzu, he would say only that “all activities of organizations have an impact on” the process of deciding which groups to fund.
Huckabee Calls U.S. Pressure on Israel ‘Disturbing’
Mike Huckabee said Washington’s policy of pressuring Israel but not the Palestinians to return to peace negotiations is “one-sided.”
The former U.S. presidential candidate and current FOX News host called the policy of pressuring Israel “disturbing” in an interview with The Jerusalem Post published Wednesday.
“What possible incentive do the Palestinians have to come to the table and make concessions, because the only direct policy from the administration has been to order Israel to freeze not some but all the settlements?” Huckabee told The Jerusalem Post. “That seems a little one sided.”
Huckabee, the ex-governor of Arkansas, arrived Sunday in Israel to lead a seven-day Christian tour along with entertainer and Israel supporter Pat Boone.
He was scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon during his visit. Huckabee has not said if he will seek the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.