Hence, we are humbled and grateful that, today, once again some 200,000 Jews are a part of German society. The ceremony at the US Capitol, featuring a candle-lighting and names Another torture refugee told of a device they called "the German chair", so named, apparently, because it was devised by the Stasi. One day, Tal Kalakh will doubtless appear on the revolutionary roll of honour. Co-chair … "And there were old men in their 80s. When they had failed to find one man on their wanted list, he claimed, they had taken his son, beheaded him and hung his head above the door of the family home. The thought spoils the view. In the negotiations with the Claims Conference, the German government agreed to expand the categories of survivors receiving direct compensation. Over the course of those nine days, I interviewed three government ministers, an army general and the mayor of a rebellious city. In flickering candle-light, he told me in gruesome detail of beatings he'd received with batons and electric cables on the soles of his feet (a technique called "falaka"). On 21 January 2020, a new exhibition entitled "Survivors: Faces of Life after the Holocaust" opened in the Ruhr Museum in Essen, Germany, in the presence of German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He related this account in a faltering manner as though struggling to find the words, and as he did so, tears rolled down his face. As I looked round, he caught my eye and simply uttered the word "Bashar" as he drew his index finger across his throat, before melting into the loyalist crowd. When he wasn't being tortured, he had been crammed into cells with up to 80 people, without room to sit or sleep, he claimed. Max Arpels, Holocaust survivor from the Netherlands who survived in hiding; Chair of the World Union of Jewish Child Survivors. But Some Women Are Still Longing for Help Hanan on the sofa in her living room in Germany. And each has sub-branches: general security has three – including the feared Palestine branch – and military intelligence has several, among them the notorious Branch 235. And the records of those uploading video have been examined for consistency and reliability. We never found out why this particular location was so sensitive. $139.91 $ 139. A growing number of these videos show soldiers actually committing acts of torture, openly filming each other. Having finished in one place, he'd been transferred to yet another branch of the Mukhabarat and his nightmare would start all over again. Most of the people taken there alive are discharged dead.". He had been hung by his knees, immobilised inside a twisting rubber tyre, itself suspended from the ceiling. Mr Houry says he has evidence that tens of thousands of Syrians have been arbitrarily detained over the months. I met other survivors in other safe houses and each account corroborated the other. The government blames "armed gangs" and "terrorists" and invokes the spectre of Islamist insurgents, just as Gaddafi's henchmen did. Those who dare oppose al-Assad do not think their leader crazy. His experience of torture was every bit as bad as that of the tractor driver. Exiled former members of the Syrian security forces have checked vehicles, uniforms and military insignia. He lit another cigarette, then said: "Although we are suffering from torture, we are not afraid any more. It was my first encounter with a former member of the Syrian security forces. This, he told me, was what had prompted his defection. "We do not have Guantánamo or Abu Ghraib. Buchenwald's first commandant was SS- Obersturmbannführer Karl-Otto Koch, who ran the camp from 1 August 1937 to July 1941. For now, this town of 80,000 people doesn't even merit a mention in my guidebook. After four decades of al-Assad rule, one man is held accountable for this bloody-thirsty repression: the army's commander-in-chief and the head of Syrian Intelligence – the president of the republic himself. It's 3am and the town of Tal Kalakh, less than two miles to the north – just inside the Syrian Arab Republic – is under sustained attack, its residents reportedly refusing to hand over a small band of defectors who have holed up there, trying to bolt for Lebanon to join the insurgents. She was noticed by a childless Polish couple, Lucyna and Wacław Bialowarczuk, who risked their lives to take in Maria and shelter her until the end of the war. ambassador and a Holocaust survivor, is happening now. In it, a detainee is … reading, is happening now. The sheer volume of such material – upwards of 30,000 videos have now been posted on the internet by Syrian opposition activists – spurred Channel 4 to commission a documentary investigation. He looked at me in disbelief. But for civilians who have risen up against al-Assad, it has been the torture – and death in custody – of children that has caused particular revulsion. June 19, 1941, Bialystok, Poland, Guidelines for Teaching About the Holocaust, View Maria's family papers and photographs, Listen to Maria share her Holocaust experiences at a First Person program. ", Syria's Torture Machine, 19 December, 11.10pm, Channel 4. A short drive from the frontier, along hair-pinned mountain roads, past Lebanese checkpoints where friendly soldiers shiver, is a Syrian safe-house. And as the beatings went on day in, day out, his legs and the soles of his feet became raw and infected. The 16-year-old boy, beaten, electrocuted to the point he thought he would die, then threatened with execution. He had been shot nine times and had somehow survived, but he was in terrible pain. That was when they forced him to "walk on rocks of salt". The next morning, he was well enough to talk briefly. He manoeuvres himself on to a pile of pillows and lights a cigarette. There is no fear. His second wife, Ilse Koch, became notorious as Die Hexe von Buchenwald ("the witch of Buchenwald") for her cruelty and brutality. The result is a grotesque compendium of verified video material which we believe to present irrefutable prima facie evidence of crimes against humanity. Survivor has thrilled audiences ever since its first season back in 2000, and it continues to do so, year after year. I think that lesson is "you need to fear us". On the day of the invasion, Maria and Wacław hid in the forest until the shooting stopped, then approached the Soviet soldiers, who asked how a Jewish girl had survived. "On each and every unjust person, Bashar and his aides, my God, may You take revenge on him.". He had recently been smuggled into Lebanon from Tal Kalakh. "I don't know the answer to that," he said. "The Survivors" is the second episode of Season 3 of Dark. They were all Allawites, he said – members of the prominent Syrian Shia sect to which the president belongs. She had been imprisoned in Ravensbrück and spent a year recuperating in Sweden after liberation. And like them, they see western-backed conspiracies. In 1968, during a period of political unrest in Poland, Maria’s family was once again threatened by antisemitic rhetoric and violence. Maria was present during the roundup, but was separated from her mother and left alone on the street in Tykocin. After her arrival in the United States, Maria became a professor of physics and chair of the physics and astronomy departments at George Mason University. Photo by Miriam Krule. Izak was killed on June 23, 1941, during the first bombing of Bialystok. This is Syria's torture machine. Syria is party to the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture. But today they see straight through him. Enough enthusiasts could always be found to stage e… The place is crammed with refugees; there are children sleeping everywhere. Of all the stories of survival from Auschwitz concentration camp, Gena Turgel's is one of the most astonishing. Accents have been carefully listened to. Maria did not recognize her mother at first, so Bela stayed with the Bialowarczuk family for a couple of months to rebuild her relationship with Maria. Today, Maria serves as a volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The Bialowarczuks, offered to hide Maria and her parents. Maria attended university in Poland, earning degrees in physics. Auschwitz Survivor Gena Turgel Walked Out of Gas Chamber Alive. A pharmacist, abducted by militia from a hospital to which he'd been taken after being shot. They stood hungry, naked and frightened in darkness, in their filth, unfed, unwashed. Another torture refugee told of a device they called "the German chair", so named, apparently, because it was devised by the Stasi. One man touched my arm as I stood in the midst of a mass rally in downtown Damascus, completely surrounded by the ranting and raging regime-faithful. He recalled the stench and listening to the screams of others echoing through their sordid dungeon. She continued to live with the Bialowarczuks for the next two years. Absolutely unacceptable." We know of at least 105 cases of people who were returned from the custody of security services in body bags to their loved ones … and those are only the ones that we know of." When Maria was two and a half, Bela was arrested in a street roundup targeting Polish partisans. While in Syria, we lived in a bubble, seeing nothing of the extreme brutality and killing for which the Syrian regime is so notorious. Another torture refugee told of a device they called "the German chair", so named, apparently, because it was devised by the Stasi. The 140 empty chairs—14 neat rows of 10. The Museum's commemoration ceremony, including remarks by the German To watch the programme and for more information visit: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/syrias-torture-machine, Channel 4's foreign affairs correspondent reports from Syria on the mounting body of evidence that the state is engaging in widespread acts of brutality against its own citizens, Demonstrators protesting against al-Assad in Kafranbel earlier this month Photograph: Handout/REUTERS. "May Allah take revenge against all tyrants," the woman wails. (Part two) - In occupied Yugoslavia, Franz Neuhausen, a known pre-war corrupt business swindler, was officiating as the "authorized representative for the production of metal ore in Southeast Europe." Unable to run, he had been rounded up, thrashed and driven down the road to nearby Homs with many other detainees, being beaten all the way. In 1944, the Soviet army invaded Tykocin. No one seems to know what the number means. She survived a two-mile fall and found herself alone in the jungle, just 17. So far he's had only basic medical treatment. Between bursts of machine-gun fire and the crump of explosions – unmuffled in crisp mountain air – the starry sky above the Syrian frontier offers ethereal distraction. We sent a Survivor … The premise of everyday people living on an island together, competing in exciting challenges, forming alliances with each other, and fighting the elements of mother nature day after day has kept the world on the edge of their seats, season after season. He told me, speaking clearly, slowly: "When you are bleeding and the salt comes into your flesh, it hurts a lot more than the beating. "I saw at least 200 children – some as young as 10," he said. "Let's go.". Another man, placed in what he called "the electric coffin" – in which a detainee is forced to lie inside a wooden box, across two metal plates through which they pass a current.