YAD VASHEM NEWSLETTER- 25-05-2021

For years, the story of Regina Jonas was lost to the world. During the 1990s, scholars began to discover this woman of extraordinary talent and ambition. In this episode of “On The Holocaust” we focus on the fate of the Jewish community in Germany through the remarkable story of Regina Jonas, the first female rabbi, whose life was taken in Auschwitz, but whose place in Jewish history is no longer forgotten. Join our featured guest, Guy Miron, of Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research and Professor of History and Vice President for Academic Affairs at the Open University of Israel. Click here to listen.

On the eve of the Holocaust, Munkács (Mukačevo) was the largest and most important Jewish community in Subcarpathian Rus’, Czechoslovakia. It was an Eastern European thriving community, known for its religious fervor, as well as substantial Zionist activities. In the final population census before the German invasion, conducted in January 1941, Munkács was noted to have 13,488 Jewish residents, some 42.7% of the total population of the town. In March 1944, the German army invaded Hungary and occupied Munkács. On 23 May 1944, the final deportation train left Munkács, carrying 3,080 people. These were the last Jews of the Munkács community on their way to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Click here to learn more about the story of the Community of Munkács.

Elisheva (Elka) Rubinstein

Silent Voices: Short Documents from the Holocaust is a series of texts that were written during the Holocaust, some of which had been stowed on the archive shelves, known only to scholars. Seeking to give voice to many of the unheard victims of the Holocaust, we present their texts in an annotated English edition. So That You Know discloses Elisheva (Elka) Rubinstein’s account of the suffering and systematic eradication of the Jews in Lwów during the Holocaust, written in the form of letters to relatives so that they know and remember. Click here to purchase.