Shimon Peres describes how his grandfather was murdered by the Nazis
At Yad Vashem on Sunday night, Shimon Peres related how his grandfather HY"D (May God Avenge his blood) was
murdered by the Nazis - may their names be obliterated.
The President of the State of Israel, Shimon Peres, spoke at
the official commemoration ceremony for the Holocaust Martyrs' and
Heroes' Remembrance Day at Yad Vashem.
President Peres spoke about the
horrors of the massacre of Hungarian Jewry which took place 70 years ago
today and of the destruction of the community in his home town of
Vishneva.
President Peres also took the opportunity to address the
dangers of the rise of extremism and the need to be vigilant against
anti-Semitism across the world.
The following is a translated version of his speech:
“My brothers and sisters, at this very moment I see before my eyes a
heartbreaking image. Tens of thousands of people; young and old, male
and female, all concentrated on the banks of the Danube River. They are
all under orders to face the river, each one tied to the next. Behind
them stand Nazi storm troopers, Germans and locals, who cut them down
with bullets in the back. To save bullets they tied weights and stones
to them so that the dead will drag the living down with them. Children
were tied to their mothers, the young to the elderly.
"The bodies of the victims are pushed into the chilling, foaming
waters of the Danube. Their cries rise to the heavens and are left
without an echo. The perpetrators stand with smiles on their faces, as
if they carried out an act of heroism and won a brave battle. The blue
Danube is painted red, in a single moment it became a floating grave,
innocent victims, innocent people. Itamar Yaoz-Kest, a Jewish poet born
in Hungary and sent to Bergen-Belsen, screams in one of his poems, 'What
is there to drink? They tell me people. Water with blood?'
It happened in Hungary.
“But then another image comes to my mind. A photo of the town where I
was born and spent the first decade of my life. Vishneva. In Vishneva
the Nazis used a different technique. They didn't shoot the Jews. They
burnt them alive. The Nazis, Germans and locals, gathered up all the
Jews left in Vishneva, (half had already emigrated to Israel) and forced
them to march to the synagogue which was made of wood.
"My grandfather, wrapped in a Jewish prayer shawl, stood at the head
of the march, Rabbi Zvi Meltzer may peace be upon his soul. The same
prayer shawl that I huddled under every Yom Kippur to listen to him
recite the Kol Nidre prayer in his beautiful voice. They locked the
doors of the synagogue and set it on fire with all the Jews still
inside. No-one survived. Nothing was left of the synagogue. I can still
hear the Kol Nidre prayer, which my grandfather would recite, in my
heart.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: Belarus, Holocaust, Hungary, Shimon Peres
Iran's new chapter: Belarus to sell uranium?
With any two other countries
this would probably sound like an ordinary trade agreement (Hat Tip:
MFS - The Other News).
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in December 2009 that Tehran and Minsk were laying the foundations for broader ties and intended to promote relations to the highest level possible.
Also, Belarusian Prime Minister Sergey Sidorskiy in a meeting with Iran's Central Bank Governor Mahmoud Bahmani in November 2009 urged the Iranian side to increase the volume of trade cooperation with Minsk.
Noting that the current volume of economic cooperation between Tehran and Minsk stands at about $100mln, Sidorskiy reiterated that the opening of the second Iranian Bank in Belarus should help boost the volume to $1bln.
The National Bank of Belarus registered two Iranian banks, namely the 'Onerbank' and 'Trading Capital Bank (TC Bank)', respectively in October 2009 and December 2008.
The Belarusian official also expressed satisfaction over his country's joint investment with Iran in the car industry as well as oil, petrochemical and development projects.
Iran is supposed to be under international sanctions - which obviously Belarus is violating - but that's the least of the issues here. In August of last year, Belarus suspended a package that would have seen it give up a supply of
highly enriched uranium.
Belarus is the only country from the former Soviet Union outside of Russia to possess large stocks of highly enriched uranium, and the agreement, which was signed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Belarus foreign minister, Sergei Martynov, was hailed at the time as a major foreign policy success.
After the Soviet collapse 20 years ago, the United States moved quickly to secure the nuclear stockpiles left largely unguarded in the newly independent countries, which were reeling under political and social upheaval. But Belarus, a highly authoritarian and extremely poor former Soviet republic, had long resisted giving up its nuclear fuel. Its stockpile is one of its few bargaining chips in negotiations with the United States and regional power brokers for the loans and handouts it needs to sustain its Soviet-style command economy.
The Foreign Ministry said on Friday that it would continue to abide by international regulations in securing its stockpile. American officials say Belarus possesses about 485 pounds of highly enriched uranium, though outside experts give varying numbers and it is unclear how much of the material has been enriched to weapons grade.
Matthew Bunn, an associate professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard who specializes in research of nuclear theft and terrorism, said he saw little or no risk that the material, which is housed in a secure site, could fall into the wrong hands. Still, Mr. Bunn said, the issue needs to be addressed because “it’s one of only a few stocks that are enough for a crude terrorist nuclear bomb.”
Belarus said it would restart the transfer program only when the United States removed the sanctions.
By the way, those are sanctions on Belarus, not on Iran.
Read the whole thing.
Could Iran have that uranium in mind? (Belarus does not have any currently functioning uranium mines - I checked).
What could go wrong?
Labels: Belarus, Iran sanctions regime
