World Report

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LONDON (JTA) — British planes mistakenly fired on concentration camp inmates during the final hours of World War II, according to a new documentary.

"The Typhoon's Last Storm" includes testimony from victims of the attacks on Nazi floating prisons in the Baltic on May 3, 1945.

The British pilots thought their targets were Nazi SS troops.

Gangs in Chechnya free Israeli hostage

MOSCOW (JTA) — An Israeli citizen held hostage by Chechen gangs since April 1998 was freed Sunday night by Russian troops fighting separatists in the Chechen mountains.

Oleg Yemelyantsev, 43, weak and suffering from temporary paralysis, is expected to return to Israel in the coming days.

French to honor Righteous Gentiles

PARIS (JTA) — French legislators have passed a law calling for a national day of tribute to citizens who helped Jews escape arrest during the Nazi occupation.

Some 1,900 French people have been recognized as Righteous Among Nations by the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem. They will be honored on the nation's already designated day of Holocaust remembrance, held annually on July 16.

Meanwhile, French complicity in the Holocaust will become part of that country's secondary school curriculum this fall.

The new teaching program will deal with the wartime deportations from the Drancy concentration camp near Paris, as well as the detention of thousands of Jews at the city's former bicycle stadium in 1942 before they were transported to Auschwitz.

Costa Rica to deport alleged war criminal

NEW YORK (JTA) — Costa Rica has ordered an alleged Nazi war criminal to leave the country.

Jewish groups have long criticized the nation for harboring Bodhan Koziy, who has been accused of killing Jewish children and their parents in Ukraine during World War II.

Under Costa Rican law, Koziy has several days to appeal the decision