Book: Mengele created ‘twin town
In a new book, Argentine historian Jorge Camarasa claims that Nazi doctor Josef Mengele was responsible for the unusually high number of twins in the small Brazilian town of Cândido Godói, the British daily Telegraph reported Jan. 21.
In his book “Mengele: The Angel of Death in South America,” Camarasa claims that Mengele found refuge in the German enclave of Colonias Unidas, Paraguay, and in 1963 began to make regular trips to the farming community of Cândido Godói, another predominantly German community just over the border in Brazil.
Scientists failed to discover why as many as 20 percent of all pregnancies in the small Brazilian town resulted in twins, most of them blond haired and blue eyed, but residents of Candido Godoi reportedly told Camarasa that Mengele visited the town in the early 1960s. Mengele was fascinated by twins and did experiments on them during World War II.
According to the book, the doctor posed at first as a veterinarian but later offered medical treatment to the town’s women. Soon after 1963 the birthrate of twins in the town began to rapidly increase. — jpost.co
Gadhafi calls for two-state solutio
Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi made his case for a one-state solution in a New York Times op-ed.
Gadhafi, a longtime supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said in a column published Jan. 22 that since both Israelis and Palestinians have long histories with the land, they should inhabit it together.
Gadhafi said a two-state solution would be an “unacceptable security risk” for Israel and that areas set aside for a Palestinian state would not accommodate all of the displaced Palestinians that want to return.
At a lecture via videoconference to Georgetown University students Jan. 21, Gadhafi called for the establishment of a democratic state called Isratine. He added that to preserve the Jews as an ethnic group, “Take them to Alaska or Honolulu or the Hawaiian islands or the Pacific islands and they can live peacefully in an isolated setting.” — jta
Russia told to save Chabad book
A federal judge ordered Russia to preserve historic documents sought by members of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth said Jan. 22 he will order Russia to preserve the documents and return any that already may have been removed from state archives, the Associated Press reported.
Chabad is suing Russia to recover thousands of books and documents that belonged to the late Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn, the father-in-law of the last Chabad leader, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994.
The judge also warned Russia that it could face a default ruling in the case if does not bring in new lawyers. Russia’s current firm asked to withdraw from the case, saying that the government has failed to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills. — jta
Germany to restore Auschwit
Germany will help pay for urgently needed conservation work at the Auschwitz concentration camp memorial in Poland.
The amount of Germany’s future contribution has not been revealed. Germany provided about $19 million for conservation work in the 1990s, and reportedly Poland had pledged to carry ongoing costs.
Historian Volkhard Knigge, the director of the memorial at the Buchenwald concentration camp in Weimar, Germany, said that the Auschwitz site is badly in need of conservation rather than restoration. Every restoration destroys some trace of the past, he said, warning against any measures that might soften the brutal effect of Auschwitz’s structures and landscape.
Auschwitz memorial director Piotr Cywinski had requested international help last year to keep Auschwitz open. A total of $66 million is needed. Poland provides about $3.2 million annually, and the same amount is brought in from book sales at the site’s shop. — jta