Posted on 08/29/2004 8:09:37 AM PDT by lizol
Commemoration of Lodz Ghetto Sunday By JPOST.COM STAFF AND ASSOCIATED PRESS
Science and Technology Minister Ilan Shalgi will attend a ceremony commemorating the destruction of the Lodz ghetto Sunday.
Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka and Lodz Mayor Jerzy Kropiwnicki will also attend the ceremony, which will be followed by a march from the Lodz cemetery to the train station from which Jews were sent to concentration camps during World War II.
The Lodz Ghetto was established on February 8, 1940 to house the city's 230,000 Jews. On June 10, 1944 SS leader Heinrich Himmler ordered the liquidation of the ghetto. Transports to the death camps began on June 23, and by July 15, 1944 all remaining Jews had left. The ghetto was destroyed in August 1944.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people, including veterans and the country's top officials, gathered in the city of Banska Bystrica Sunday to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the start of the 1944 Slovak National Uprising, a revolt against the Nazi rule.
The uprising was crushed by the Germans at the end of October 1944, but guerrilla fighting continued in the mountains until the next spring. With the revolt, Slovakia joined the worldwide coalition against Nazis in World War II.
Over 60,000 soldiers and thousands of partisans and civilians from Slovakia and 32 other nations joined forces and turned against the Slovak government and German troops who had just embarked on their occupation of this central European country.
During World War II, Slovakia was headed by a Nazi puppet government run by President Jozef Tiso, a Roman Catholic priest. During his tenure, over 70,000 Jews were sent to concentration camps where most of them perished.
Tiso publicly expressed thanks to Adolf Hitler for his help in foiling the uprising and decorated some of the German soldiers.
In the central Slovak city of Banska Bystrica, a string of commemorative events to mark the uprising was to peak with an official ceremony attended by Slovak President Ivan Gasparovic, Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda, his Czech counterpart Stanislav Gross and officials from other counties.
US President George W. Bush sent his greetings to those commemorating the anniversary.
Ping!
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