The occasion was Project Legacy’s annual Jewish American Heritage Month luncheon, an event that civic engagement leader Ezra Friedlander has, over the years, turned into one of May’s most substantive gatherings in Washington
Jewish American Heritage month wrapped up this year with something worth holding onto: a room full of senators, foreign ambassadors and Jewish community leaders inside the Kennedy Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building, gathered to honor three individuals doing the kind of work the moment demands.
The occasion was Project Legacy’s annual Jewish American Heritage Month luncheon, an event that civic engagement leader Ezra Friedlander has, over the years, turned into one of May’s most substantive gatherings in Washington
“This year’s honorees reflect a deep commitment to public service, innovation, philanthropy, and the fight against hatred and intolerance,“ Friedlander said.
Malcolm Hoenlein, CEO Emeritus of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, co-chaired alongside Eric J. Gertler, executive chairman of U.S. News & World Report. Hoenlein helped establish Jewish Heritage Week with Ronald Reagan and Elie Wiesel in the early 1980s, which ultimately became the program now observed in May.
“As we witness the rise [of antisemitism]across the country,” he said, “this event is an answer to these outrageous actions.“
Senators and representatives from both parties filled the room.
It was Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) who set the tone of the room. “It’s just never been a harder time in my lifetime to be a Jew in America,“ she said. “As a Democrat, it’s my responsibility to call out antisemitism in my own party, just as I hope that Sen. Lankford calls out antisemitism in his party.“ Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) was seated in the audience along with Senators Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), and Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), along with Reps. Randy Fine (R-Fla) and Ken Calvert (R-Calif.). Remarks came from Rabbi Pini Dunner of Young Israel of Beverly Hills, Rabbi Mordechai Suchard of The Gateways Organization, and Rabbi Levi Shemtov of American Friends of Lubavitch.
Elissa Slotkin, Ezra Friedlander, Elliott Broidy
The three honorees – a Nobel laureate, a Beverly Hills rabbi and an LA philanthropist – each received awards.
Dr. Harvey J. Alter received the David Nassy Award, named for the first Jewish physician in Philadelphia, who challenged medical convention during the 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic. A senior scholar in Transfusion Medicine at the NIH Clinical Center, Dr. Alter shared the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the Hepatitis C virus, a finding that transformed blood screening and reduced transfusion-transmitted hepatitis to near-zero worldwide. Elliott Broidy presented the award and called him “a gift from God to the field of medicine and the world at large.“ Dr. Alter offered his own theory on Jewish scientific achievement. “After years of intensive research, I’ve understood now why there’s such a preponderance of Jewish scientists,“ he said. “It’s because they all had Jewish mothers.“
Rabbi David Baron, founder of Temple of the Arts in Beverly Hills, received the Creativity in the Jewish Community Award for an early-childhood curriculum in altruism and empathy that started as a local community program and has since grown into a national and global educational initiative. The premise behind it is hard to argue: if you want to stop prejudice, you have to get to children before their frameworks harden. Adult education, legislation, enforcement – none of it reaches people at the moment when their understanding of the world is actually being formed. Rabbi Baron’s program does.
“Our great country was founded on the biblical principles that have kept the Jewish people for millennia and form the foundation of Western civilization,“ he told the room.
What brought Rabbi Baron’s curriculum to a global stage was a purchase made by the third honoree, one of the more striking acts of Jewish philanthropy the community has seen recently.
Elliott Broidy grew up in Los Angeles with his father, a World War II veteran and a Purple Heart recipient, and his mother who was a nurse. Broidy shared how his humble beginnings informed his philanthropic work. By his mid-30s he was already giving seriously to hospitals, synagogues and educational institutions across the U.S. and Israel. After Sept. 11, he spent three years on the Homeland Security Advisory Council, six on the LA Fire and Police Pension Fund, and six on the board of the Simon Wiesenthal Center–Museum of Tolerance.
Oct. 7, 2023 pushed him further and harder. Broidy now co-chairs, alongside philanthropist Dr. Thomas Kaplan, the Fund to End Antisemitism, Extremism and Hate – the organization behind ARCHER at House 88, the Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism, and Radicalization. ARCHER was built in collaboration with the Counter Extremism Project, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, and UNESCO, and operates inside the former private villa of Commandant Rudolf Höss in Oświęcim, Poland. The house is now a global center for research and public education on extremism.
The connection between Broidy and Rabbi Baron runs deeper than a shared ceremony. Broidy previously acquired at auction one of only two existing original architectural whiteprints of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria, paying $1.5 million – a figure chosen deliberately to match the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered in the Holocaust. The document, authenticated by Auschwitz historian Robert Jan van Pelt, is the technical blueprint for Crematoria II and III, the main gas chambers of Birkenau. The auction proceeds went to Rabbi Baron’s early-childhood curriculum. A blueprint designed to end children’s lives was redirected toward building them.
Broidy received the Visionary Award and directed his proceeds the same way. In his acceptance speech, he returned to the values his parents had instilled in him.
“Success is not something you achieve for yourself,“ he said, “but something you achieve so that you can give back to your family, your community and your country.“Jewish American Heritage Month exists to recognize exactly this, the accumulated work of Jewish Americans who didn’t wait for conditions to improve before deciding to act. Three of them stood in the Kennedy Caucus Room and made a fairly strong case for what that actually looks like.
Entrepreneur and philanthropist Elliott Broidy, Nobel laureate Dr. Harvey J. Alter, and Rabbi David Baron were honored on Capitol Hill on May 19 during the annual Jewish American Heritage Month celebration, a gathering of members of Congress, foreign ambassadors and trade ministers, and Jewish communal leaders recognizing the significant role Jewish Americans have played in the safety, security, health, cultural and civic life, and well-being of the United States.
The event was held in the historic Kennedy Caucus Room of the Russell Senate Office Building, where congressional leaders and other participants recognized the contributions Jewish Americans have made to society, especially acknowledging this year’s distinguished honorees for their achievements in philanthropy, national security, medicine, Holocaust remembrance, and Jewish communal life.
Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.), as well as Reps. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) and Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), participated in the event.
Elliott Broidy was honored with the Visionary Award for his leadership in philanthropy, national security, Holocaust remembrance, Jewish communal life, and efforts to combat antisemitism and extremism.
Broidy is Chairman and CEO of the private equity firm Broidy Capital Holdings, which invests in a range of national security and public safety technology companies.
Broidy donated funds to help the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) purchase the former home of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss, located adjacent to the concentration camp, allowing CEP to transform it into the Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism and Radicalization (ARCHER) at House 88. The center is dedicated to confronting antisemitism and extremism using advanced technologies, including efforts to disrupt the financial networks that fund terrorism. ARCHER also hosts cultural programming and exhibits, including its current exhibition, The Birdman of Auschwitz: Science and the Failure of Conscience.
Elliott Broidy also recently acquired an original architectural drawing of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria. The $1.5 million acquisition symbolically honored the approximately 1.5 million Jewish children murdered during the Holocaust, with proceeds supporting educational initiatives focused on empathy, moral courage, and character formation. The artifact will be exhibited at institutions dedicated to Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism before eventually finding a permanent institutional home.
“I am deeply honored to receive this recognition during Jewish American Heritage Month alongside individuals whose work reflects the very best of Jewish American achievement and public service,” said Elliott Broidy. “Jewish American Heritage Month is an opportunity not only to celebrate the extraordinary contributions Jewish Americans have made to our country, but also to recommit ourselves to confronting antisemitism, preserving the memory of the Holocaust, and defending the democratic values that make our society strong.”
“At a time when antisemitism and extremism are rising around the world, we cannot afford complacency,” Broidy added. “We have a responsibility to educate future generations, support institutions dedicated to truth and remembrance, and ensure that hatred is confronted wherever it appears.”
The annual celebration was organized by Project Legacy under the leadership of Ezra Friedlander and chaired by Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman Emeritus of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and Eric J. Gertler, Executive Chairman and CEO of U.S. News & World Report.
Virologist and medical researcher Dr. Harvey J. Alter was honored with the Dr. David Nassy Award for his groundbreaking work leading to the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus, and Rabbi David Baron of Temple of the Arts with the Creativity in the Jewish Community Award for his contributions to Jewish cultural and religious life, Holocaust education, and philanthropy.
Dr. Alter received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for research that transformed blood screening protocols and helped save millions of lives worldwide. Rabbi Baron was recognized for decades of leadership in Jewish cultural and religious life, Holocaust remembrance, and public service through media, philanthropy, and international remembrance initiatives.
Jewish American Heritage Month traces its roots to the early 1980s, when Jewish Heritage Week was established following discussions among Malcolm Hoenlein, President Ronald Reagan, and author and humanitarian Elie Wiesel. It later evolved into the month-long national observance recognized each May.
This essay, written by author, artist, and filmmaker Inna Rogatchi, is the second of two parts and was originally published in The Times of Israel. Part I can be found here.
Thought-provoking and unusual exhibition The Birdman of Auschwitz: Science and Faltered Conscience has been opened at House 88 in Oswenziem, Poland, in a direct proximity to Auschwitz camp. The exhibition which evokes fundamental questions that has become acutely relevant today again, is located at the house in which Rudolf Höss’ family was happily thriving during his years as the Auschwitz Commandant, and even during his absence there. Since 2025, the house has become a site-specific awareness and education point of ARCHER Project that fights antisemitism and terrorism.
The Birdman of Auschwitz exhibition at ARCHER in House 88, Oswienciem, Poland. April 2026. Photo: Michael Bojara. (C) CEP?ARCHER. With kind permission.
The Story of Moral Creeps, Their Actions & Traces
The Birdman of Auschwitz exhibition presents in documents, photos, and artifacts the story that if it would be first laid out as a script , it might not get far as the Hollywood script-gatekeepers would think that the imagination of the script writer was too wild. Once again, history itself has proved to be the most surprising author. In this case, it happened through a very able and thorough British historian Nicholas Milton on whose book The Birdman of Auschwitz ( 2025) the current exhibition at ARCHER at House 88 is based.
The visitors of the exhibition and the readers of the book will learn the story of a very well-known and highly esteemed scientist in the pre- and post- WWII Germany and Austria, Gunter Niethammer, who was the head of the Department of Ornithology at the Museum of Natural History in Vienna just on the brink on WWII.
At the same time, the man was a devoted Nazi. Like many of his scientific colleagues, Niethammer did rush to prove his loyalty to the Nazism and join the party early, to guarantee the smoothness of his career. At the same time, he actually belonged to the Nazi elite, via his family circle.
Niethammer was the nephew of an ultra-nationalist writer Hans Grimm, the one who invented and created a concept of Volk onhe Raum, A People Without Space, at the early moment of the formation of the Nazi ideology, in 1926, next year after publication of Mein Kampf.
nuFiD-vYSZviVYUb_rj3ij__anPXDTzYgA.woff2The cover of two volumes of the Nazi expansionist ideology, the novel by Hans Grimm. First edition, 1926. Credit: Creative Commons.
Not only that line, Volk onhe Raum, has become the title of Grimm’s very well-known novel, but because of that, the novel was probably the most-read book in Germany and Austria all the years from its release throughout the war, until 1945, at least. There is statistical data with this regard. Grimm’s 1345-page novelized ideology has become the backbone of the explanation of the necessity of expansionist global war. And its author has been very well-known in the top-layer of the Reich. So his nephew Gunter, who has been quite close to his writer uncle, had a very solid and far-stretching backing in his career and life in general, too.
Niethammer joined the Nazi party in 1937, when he was 25. Two years later, he joined the SS. Immediately after, he joined the Secret Field Police. He knew exactly what he was doing, why and what for. He was turned away from the Luftwaffe, mostly likely due to his age (he was over 30 at the time), and also due to the fact that he had no military background. He ended up as a guard in Auschwitz, staying there on duties at the main entrance. The most inviting point for bird-watching, naturally for the Nazis.
In a half of a year, he started to use his family and academic connections to get transferred from under that huge Arbeit Macht Frei sign over his head while on duty. At the same time, he tried hard to be useful for Rudolf Höss, who did not mind having a freshly-hunted game for his family dinners. There is an existing statistic, for example, that only during one month between September and October 1942, Niethammer provided over 100 wild ducks for Höss household for an upscale nutrition.
In demonstrating his patronage, Höss assigned Niethammer to ‘special ornithological duties’ in Auschwitz. It is thanks to the Nazis’ punctuality in maintaining their documentation that we have the documents about it. Otherwise, it would be too kitschy to believe in such sick fantasies of these humanoids.
As a proof of his usefulness and existence of those ‘special ornithological duties’, methodical Nazi Niethammer cared for publishing a scientific paper on his effort in Auschwitz. It also exists, and the copy of it is one of the stunning exhibits at House 88. There is the photo of the scientific ornithological paper from Auschwitz in 1942, with a proud SS stamp in the headline.
The copy of the Niethammer’s scientific paper published in 1942, exhibited at The Birdman of Auschwitz. (C) CEP/ARCHER. With kind permission.
The degree of perversion of those supposed-to-be humans was, in fact, far higher than it has been known publicly for decades after WWII. Importantly, it was a focused, deliberate effort by far too many people after the war to diffuse the scale of crimes against humanity committed by all those ‘white-color Nazis’, such as architects, scientists, engineers, and anyone else who did make the Shoah happen in the industrial scale or was such a willing Nazi fellow traveller. This is the shameful and screaming fact of history which has to be addressed in full detail, today and tomorrow. There is no statute of limitation for covering up the crimes against humanity.
Nicholas Milton, the author of The Birdman of Auschwitz book ( 2025) which has provided the material for the ongoing exhibition at ARCHER House 88 in Oswenciem, has shared with me one of his surprises while researching for his very thorough book: “Can you imagine that when the Red Army has liberated Auschwitz and went through the premises, including the Höss house, what did they find in his safe? The copy of that scientific publication of Niethammer, with his hand-written dedication and gratitude to Höss. The point is that Höss actually kept it in his safe, it was something important and meaningful for him”, – emphasized Nicholas.
If there would be any ornithologist who hunted delicacies for the Auschwitz commandant and his family, Höss most likely would not give a damn to whatever paper his private hunter might publish. But in the case of Niethammer, his family was well-known politically, and his uncle was literally an ideologist-at-large for the very core of the Nazi Germany’s expansionist zealotry. Höss’ guard on his special ornithological duties in Auschwitz belonged to the Reich elite. No wonder that his hand-written gratitude was regarded as something of value and perhaps something potentially useful by one of the Reich most notorious criminals.
While Niethammer was thoroughly enjoying his scientific activities in Auschwitz and elsewhere, his happy family, an exact version of Höss idyllic monsters, frau and four sons, were living all the time from 1940 through May 1945 in Vienna, in a large house of a Jewish family, whose owners were kicked off from their property unceremoniously, and later on, the owner of the villa and her mother were sent to their death in the concentration camps. The 83-year old mother of the owner, Sofia Grunspann was murdered in Treblinka in 1942. And the owner of a lovely villa Rudolfina Liatcheff has vanished without trace, somewhere in the one of the camps that the bastard whose family has seized and occupied her house, was so busy with his scientific ornithological observations. The murky irony did stop there: nowadays once forcibly seized by the Nazis Jewish villa in Vienna houses the Embassy of Libya.
Villa, confiscated property of Liatcheff family, in Vienna, at Blaasstrasse, 33. (C) Creative Commons.
Entertainment, Auschwitz Style
To add to all this mounting macabre, the exhibition at House 88 tells about ornithological museum, or show-room, in the extermination camp, that has been set there by Niethammer with backing by the special order by the camp’s commandant Höss, in one of the barracks, for the entertainment of the Auschwitz officers and personnel. It is not black humor.
As it is known, Auschwitz has become the place of the worst of moral perversity, additionally to its monstrous mass extermination. The Nazis set up three orchestras there, two male ones and one female one, of which my great-aunt Alma Rose after her arrest and deportation to Auschwitz from the Drancy in July 1943 was forced to lead. They also have a cinema for the officers and personnel, as it is known. And as it transpires from the exhibition at ARCHER at House 88 and Nicholas Milton’s book, they also cared enough to set up an ornithological museum in the extermination camp. According to Milton, during his inspectional visit to Auschwitz on July 17-18, 1942, Himmler visited the museum as well. The Zone of Interest, indeed.
There is one telling episode of the kind of ornithology that Niethammer exercised in Auschwitz. Nicholas Milton has told me about it specifically, and since that, the episode pierces my mind. “Among the species of the Niethammer’s hunted and stuffed birds that are on display at the current exhibition, there is sadly not the Black redstart, which does exist and belongs to the Niethammer Auschwitz trophies at the Vienna Natural History Museum collection. It is a nice bird that looks like a robin. In Niethammer’s papers, there is a specific description regarding the Black redstart, in his own handwrite”.
The Nazi ornithologist’s observation was the following: “June 25, 1941. The nest is found in a brickyard at the camp where amongst the bricks piled up by the prisoners the female (Black redstart bird) had built a loose cup of grass lined with hair, wool and feathers’, the hair and wool once belonging to the prisoners, the wool coming from the prisoners clothes and uniforms”. This kind of ornithology. This kind of science. This kind of conscious behavior of a humanoid in the midst of the engineered genocide.
Authentic prisoner robe from Auschwitz exhibited at The Birdman of Auschwitz at ARCHER in House 88 exhibition. Photo: Michal Bojara. (C) CEP/ARCHER, with kind permission.
That humanoid, after a brief, due to the intervention of his international scientific colleagues, just three years imprisonment in Poland after the war, has lived thirty more years, flourishing in his career and being recognized at many levels, both in Germany and internationally. He was elected as President of German Ornithological Society, the Chairman of German Zoological Society, Director of museums, professor of universities. There are as many as nine bird and other species officially named after him, still today. Of course, he was such an expert on the bird’s nests made with ‘formerly human hairs’. Shame is not enough for all those people and institutions who have blurred and covered up the Niethammer’s complicity in the crimes against humanity both in Germany and anywhere else for good three decades. This is actually co-complicity from all those individuals and institutions, and it has to be understood and known this way, for the sake of normality of this and next generations.
Expanding the Painful Lessons
Probably, with this in mind, the people who are leading the Ornithology Department of the Vienna Natural History Museum nowadays, have become alerted with regard to their Niethammer collection of more than 90 species hunted by him in Auschwitz during WWII. Based on ongoing dialogue with them, Ambassador Mark Wallace has told me about them re-visiting the collection, and their plans to expand the Museum’s loan to ARCHER project with more species to be shown publicly, and also possibly in the expanded tour of this stunning exhibition.
That would be sobering and highly important.“Can you imagine, all these birds who were hunted and stuffed by that beast Niethammer personally, and which all bears his own nitty hand-written labels with the SS stamps of each of them, during past 85 years had been never shown to anyone, not for once, none of them. Now they, the material witnesses of the Nazi evil, will be shown internationally, and hopefully, will evoke people’s attention to the evil that has ruled that darkness that was the Shoah, and by seeing it as it is, and learning the story behind it, people will become more vigilant to the same-creed of evil which has been awakened so ugly today. This is one of the ways to show the wide public one of the dark faces of hate and crime, and to make people think about it, in general as well This is what we are aiming for at CEP and ARCHER Projects, fighting the hate of today by evoking the understanding and compassion by the authentic means of history for which we are looking tirelessly”.
It is quite uneasy and demanding emotionally and mentally, but an absolutely necessary thing to do today. Because tomorrow it might be too late.
From the left: historian Nicholas Milton, Ambassador Mark Wallace, director of ARCHER in House 88 Jacek Purski at the preview event of The Birdman of Auschwitz exhibition in Oswienciem, Poland. April 2026. Photo: Michal Bojara. (C) CEP/ARCHER. With kind permission.
Birdsong from Silence, Light from Darkness
In their determination to fight the evil of yesterday and today, Ambassador Wallace, his colleagues, principle co-funders of the ARCHER projects, such as Robin and Elliott Broidy, Dr. Thomas S. Kaplan and Dafne Recanati Kaplan, the CEP and ARCHER team, are going further than exhibiting artifacts. They are determined to fight the evil at its very housing. It can be done in different ways, what matters here is the principle and the intention.
In the case of the theme of birds over Auschwitz, the ARCHER team has placed four bird-houses in the garden made in part from wood from the Höss fence. As the exhibition’s curator Nicholas Milton has told me, “We plan to use the bird boxes to bring back birdsong to Auschwitz in memory of the victims.”
Nicholas also mentioned that in mid-April this year, the birds already sang at the premises, quite vividly so. It looks like the famed architect Daniel Libeskind who in early 2025 was telling his friend Ambassador Mark Wallace that the birds will sing there again, was right.
The birds that in Jewish tradition symbolizes Jewish souls and are connected to it directly, in their behavior also always feel human warmth, and the character of human activities, in a primary meaning, good or bad it is, roughly. This is a scientific fact, too.
In this first major awareness and educational, historic exhibition at ARCHER in House 88, we can see embodiment of the idea that Mark Wallace was graceful to share with me in one of our conversations: “Birdsong from silence, Light from Darkness”. Simple and clear, as moral clarity and determination to act for its sake should be, to be efficient and worthy.
Permit me to introduce myself as I am unknown in Spain, a country whose Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, fills me, thousands of American Jews like me, and millions of American Christians, with great dread.
I am an entrepreneur based in Florida and dedicate much of my time to philanthropic causes. Most recently, I have supported the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), a, non-profit international policy organization working to combat the growing threat posed by extremist ideologies. I helped CEP purchase the house at Auschwitz just outside the perimeter of the death camp. It was the house in which the camp’s commandant Rudolf Höss had lived with his family. Many readers here will be familiar with the house from having seen “The Zone of Interest” (2023), a film about the comfortable banality of Höss’s idyllic domestic life while he planned and oversaw the murder of a million Jews.
That house, in which a monster once lived, has now become a center for research and investigation on organizations that are behind the rise of antisemitism around the world.
For those of us who dedicate our lives to the fight against antisemitism, and to a vigorous defense of a Jewish State in Israel, the attitude of Mr. Sánchez has been greatly troubling. Ever since the murderous attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, Sánchez has not wasted an opportunity to treat Israel a pariah. He gives loud and frequent voice to the international leftist libels that describe Israel as an “apartheid” state and characterize its war of self-defense in Gaza as a “genocide.”
Sánchez has been at the forefront of European political efforts to recognize a Palestinian state and conferred such recognition on the Palestinians on behalf of Spain without even the most minimal concession by the Palestinians of Israel’s right to exist. He inveighs against Israel and its elected prime minister at every opportunity, and has now added to his anti-Israel zealotry a loud and gaudy opposition to the American-Israeli war against Iran. We understand, of course, that his motives are cynical: What better way can there be for him to distract attention from the corruption of his Socialist government than to posture as an international progressive poster-boy against the war.
The damage that Sánchez has done to Spain’s standing in Washington is incalculable and should be of concern to all right-thinking Spaniards. President Trump has, not surprisingly, threatened to cut all trade with Spain as a result of Mr. Sánchez’s hostility. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal suggested, also, that Spain should face punitive economic consequences under the Ribicoff Amendment to the Tax Reform Act of 1976 for boycotting Israel as a matter of national government policy.
More broadly, I write this piece so that Spanish readers are informed that their government is heaping shame on Spain’s good name among many in the United States and around the world. Not only do many American Jews regard him as a misinformed, uneducated, rabid antisemite, but millions of Christians do as well. I am widely involved in communities in Florida, California, and New York, and I have lost count of the number of people, both Christian and Jewish, who have expressed pain, and even disgust, at the hostility that Sánchez has displayed toward the only Jewish State.
There are 2.3 billion Christians in the world, and they are the majority in 120 countries. There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world in 52 Muslim countries. In 30 of those countries, over 90% of the population is Muslim. There are only 15 million Jews in the world. Israel is the only country in the world where Jews are the majority. Of the 10 million people living in Israel, approximately 7 million are Jews and 2.1 million are Arabs. There is no apartheid in Israel. Arab Israelis go to public schools with Jewish Israelis, they are members of parliament, they work together in businesses and hospitals, and they serve as justices of the Supreme court of Israel.
Sánchez’s hostility shares horrific overtones with the Spanish Inquisition, a period when hundreds of thousands of Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism, thousands were tortured to determine if they had really converted, and at least 2,000 were killed. Estimates indicate that between 40,000 and 100,000 were exiled.
It’s a period that lives in infamy and it is being recalled now in the minds of Jews and Christians alike. Whereas the previous conservative government did the right thing by creating a law in 2015, that granted dual citizenship to Jews who could link their heritage to Spain, the next progressive government and the one that followed led by Sánchez did not. Before the law expired in 2019 and was not renewed, over 4,300 Jews were granted such citizenship. Now, no care is taken to disguise the hate and animosity of the Jewish people by the Spanish government. The Spanish people must wake up to the damage that Prime Minister Sánchez is doing, and the bridges he is burning.
This piece was originally published on JNS on February 18, 2026.
When I first saw the faded whiteprint, an architectural drawing of the earliest design concept for what became Crematoria II and III at Auschwitz-Birkenau, I felt the crushing weight of evil. This piece of paper with its neat geometric lines—so professional, so precise—was proof of the intent to incinerate the corpses of hundreds of thousands of Jewish men, women and children who would be murdered on an industrial scale.
I have dedicated much of my philanthropic work to support Jewish organizations and to combat antisemitism. I knew immediately that this artifact had to be brought to light, especially in our era of surging Holocaust denial and resurgent antisemitism.
That’s why I acquired the whiteprint for $1.5 million, a sum chosen to honor the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
The document, drawn by SS architect Walter Dejaco in October 1941, has been authenticated by Robert Jan van Pelt, one of the world’s leading experts on Auschwitz. Van Pelt has called it “quite literally irreplaceable.”
The whiteprint represents crucial architectural evidence of Nazi extermination infrastructure. It is a tangible link to the systematic planning behind the Holocaust and an irrefutable record of genocidal intent. Physical artifacts such as this provide enduring evidence of the Nazi pursuit of the “Final Solution.”
Yet preservation by itself isn’t enough. The whiteprint must be seen, studied and understood.
For that reason, I intend to exhibit it at various Holocaust museums and institutions dedicated to fighting antisemitism before permanently donating it to one such institution. Each viewing will be an opportunity to educate, to remember and to inoculate future generations against denial and distortion.
The proceeds from the acquisition will support an early-childhood curriculum designed to combat extremism and hate before they take root. By emphasizing altruism and empathy in young children, we can build immunity against the dehumanization that makes hatred and ultimately violence possible.
‘A particular responsibility’
The whiteprint acquisition is part of a broader commitment.
Working with the Counter Extremism Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, I helped fund the purchase of the former home of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss. At 88 Legionów Street in Oświęcim, Poland, the house sits directly adjacent to the camp where he oversaw mass murder on a scale that will forever be incomprehensible.
CEP has transformed the house into the Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism and Radicalization (ARCHER) at House 88, which uses the very latest technology to disrupt the shadowy financial networks that extremists use to foment antisemitism, extremism and terrorism. What was once the home of a principal architect of genocide now houses scholars, researchers and activists working to fight against the mainstreaming of the evil Höss embodied. I serve as co-chair of the Fund to End Antisemitism, Extremism and Hate, which helps enable ARCHER’s vital work.
We are living in a time of acute danger. Antisemitic incidents have reached levels not seen in generations. Holocaust denial proliferates online, often cloaked in the dishonest guise of “just asking questions,” as it edges ever closer to the mainstream—a harrowing development. The survivors who bore witness to history’s greatest crime will not be alive much longer. And when they are gone, artifacts like the whiteprint, Holocaust museums and organizations like ARCHER will become our primary vehicles for transmitting memory and combating lies.
The Jewish philanthropic community carries a particular responsibility. We cannot shirk it. We must support education that cultivates moral responsibility and seriousness; fund research that exposes and disrupts contemporary forms of antisemitism; preserve and display evidence of the Holocaust (in addition to the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the most devastating massacre since the Holocaust); and build communal institutions that will outlast our lifetimes.
We must confront the most dangerous form of contemporary antisemitism: the systematic delegitimization of the State of Israel.
We must push back against those who accuse Israel of committing genocide, a modern-day blood libel that was once confined to the fringes of radical academia, but has escaped containment into the broader discourse around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
We must proudly support Israel and champion a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. We can differ in our views of particular Israeli policies, but we must never lose sight of what is at stake: the survival and security of the world’s only Jewish state, home to nearly half the Jews on the planet.
For a small people—there are only about 16 million Jews in the world today, fewer than on the eve of World War II—this work is not optional.
Elie Wiesel moved beyond vowing “Never Again” in his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, insisting instead: “Sometimes, we must interfere.”
Fighting antisemitism must be a sustained commitment expressed through action, scholarship and memory.
I have acquired an original architectural drawing – a “whiteprint” – of the very first design of the crematoria built in Birkenau as an expansion of Auschwitz by Austrian architect Walter Dejaco.
This piece was originally published in The Jerusalem Poston January 14, 2026.By Elliott BroidyThe massacre on Bondi Beach brought home to every Jew, everywhere, that no Jew is safe, anywhere.
As an American Jew, I watched the images of the antisemitic attack in Australia with horror – images that, like those of October 7 in Israel, brought back into our present-day lives the antisemitic violence of the past. Alongside this horror was a determination to fight back, using every means at our disposal to ensure that history is not forgotten.
As part of that fight, I have acquired an original architectural drawing – a “whiteprint” – of the very first design of the crematoria built in Birkenau as an expansion of Auschwitz.
Auschwitz concentration camp, operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during the Holocaust. (credit: WALLPAPER FLARE)
The term ‘genocide’
The term “genocide” was first used in a legal context at the Nuremberg Trials, which began on November 20, 1945, almost exactly 80 years ago. It was intended to describe Nazi Germany’s systematic project to annihilate, with intent, an ethnic, racial, or religious group: the Jewss.Today, however, the concept of genocide has become debased and misused, most flagrantly in accusations leveled against Israel that it has committed genocide in Gaza. Holocaust deniers, of whom there are still too many for comfort, have been joined by a large and vocal crowd – including the United Nations and governments in Europe – who abuse the term genocide by applying it to Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Prior to acquiring the whiteprint, in 2024, I helped the Counter Extremism Project, a nonprofit organization, purchase a house next door to Auschwitz. Commandant Rudolf Hoss lived there from May 1940 to December 1943, and again in early 1944, with his wife and five children. His chillingly dispassionate approach to the horror he oversaw at Auschwitz was portrayed in the Academy Award-winning film The Zone of Interest.
I obtained the whiteprint from a rabbi in the Los Angeles area, who had been given the document a decade earlier by a collector of Nazi memorabilia known to one of his congregants. The donor had come across it at an auction in Germany without knowing its true historical value.
Whiteprint ‘literally irreplaceable’
In exchange for the whiteprint, I committed to fund $1.5 million for an educational project that the rabbi is currently developing. It is an early-education curriculum on altruistic behavior – a “catch them while they are young” approach to safeguarding children from extremism. The sum is intended to honor the memory of the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered in the Holocaust.
The whiteprint is of immense historical significance. A member of my research team consulted Robert Jan van Pelt, a professor of architecture at the University of Waterloo in Canada and a leading authority on Nazi concentration camp architecture. He authenticated the whiteprint, describing it as “quite literally irreplaceable.”
Van Pelt explained that Dejaco created the design while visiting Auschwitz, where he would have been a guest of Hoss. The crematorium was initially planned to be located next to the Hoss family home, where he lived with his wife and young children. In 1942, the Nazis instead chose to build four crematoria in the nearby camp of Birkenau. These were later blown up by the Nazis as the Soviet Army advanced.
The four crematoria had an incineration capacity of nearly 4,400 corpses per day. Given their central role in the genocide of the Jews, van Pelt noted that Hoss “would have followed this project very intensely. It was a major capital outlay at a time of general rationing of resources like building materials and steel.”
Gassing and burning, starvation and disease
Although historians now estimate that approximately 1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau, roughly one million of them Jews, Hoss testified at Nuremberg that he believed the number was far higher. He stated that “at least 2,500,000 victims were executed and exterminated [at Auschwitz] by gassing and burning, and at least another half million succumbed to starvation and disease, making a total of about 3,000,000 dead.” This figure represents about 70% or 80% of all persons sent to Auschwitz as prisoners.”
Today, the two largest crematoria exist only in ruins.
Given the extraordinary rise in antisemitism across the globe and the threat it poses not only to Jews, but to Western civilization itself, we must make it impossible for anyone to deny that the Holocaust occurred. The whiteprint, in effect, makes denial untenable even for the most committed revisionists.
I acquired one of only two surviving copies of the original drawings of the Auschwitz-Birkenau crematoria – a truly evil document. I hope to exhibit it at institutions dedicated to fighting antisemitism and ultimately to donate it to one of them. At a time of surging antisemitism and Holocaust denial, this irrefutable proof of Nazi genocidal intent is more
I wrote about my acquisition for The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page:
I am a patriotic American and a proud Jew. I consider it my civic duty to fight antisemitism and help preserve the memory of the Holocaust. That’s why I acquired one of only two surviving architectural drawings of the first design of the crematoria at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.
This original drawing—or whiteprint—was made by Austrian architect Walter Dejaco. The only other known copy of this genocidal schematic is in Moscow’s State Military Archive, which is inaccessible to Westerners.
In 2024 I helped the nonprofit Counter Extremism Project buy the house next door to Auschwitz, where camp commandant Rudolf Höss lived with his family. The house has been turned into a research center to combat antisemitism and other forms of extremism.
I acquired the whiteprint earlier this year from the Temple of the Arts Synagogue in Beverly Hills, into whose possession it had come by way of a friend of a congregant. The latter had bought it at a Nazi memorabilia auction in Germany, with both buyer and seller unaware of its historical significance. Rabbi David Baron of Temple of the Arts wishes to create a global curriculum on “altruistic behavior”—his way of inoculating the young against extremism—in honor of the 1.5 million Jewish children murdered by the Nazis. The sum I paid for the whiteprint is the same number in dollars as the number of children killed. The money will be used for the curriculum project.
I couldn’t agree more with the Counter Extremism Project’s CEO, Ambassador Mark D. Wallace, on the hostage/ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which was reached due to the vision, determination, and leadership of President Trump. Below, I have included the statement in full.
“We welcome with profound relief the successful implementation of the first phase of this hostage deal, which sees the return of the remaining 20 living hostages after their abduction on October 7, 2023. We wish the survivors a swift recovery from their torment, pray for the return of the remains of 28 others killed while in captivity, and mourn with the families of all the fallen.
“We recognize and applaud the extraordinary efforts of President Trump and his diplomatic team, whose tireless work and determination was instrumental in making this historic agreement possible. The President truly delivered on his promise to bring them home.
“Let us once again make clear that Hamas bears full responsibility for initiating this conflict and for the shocking maltreatment of those in captivity. Their actions have brought untold suffering. Full accountability for Hamas must remain central to any path forward.
“Nonetheless, this deal has the potential to be transformational and offers a rare opening. The task of reconstruction in Gaza will be one of the greatest global efforts since the rebuilding of Kuwait after the Gulf War—perhaps even the Second World War. This should be an effort supported by all of us, especially including those who have spent the past 24 months accusing Israel of monstrous charges that this deal has proven definitively false.
“In such a context, we must ask what sustainable and peaceful governance looks like for Gaza. Only with legitimate, accountable, and inclusive leadership can there be lasting peace and a future free of violence.”
On Wednesday, September 17, 2025, the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) will host a webinar “Transnational Connections Between Antisemitic Extremist and Terrorist Actors”.
This is the first webinar of a three-part series focused on highlighting various aspects of the role of antisemitism in the mobilization to violence by extremist and terrorist actors, which is supported by the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.
The webinar will explore how antisemitic actors from different ideological backgrounds—right-wing, left-wing, Islamist, and foreign ideology movements—interact across borders and ideological lines to amplify antisemitic narratives and actions. Attendees will gain insight into the mechanisms and platforms facilitating these transnational linkages, including coordinated protests, shared symbols and slogans, and digital propaganda networks. Drawing from cross-country findings, the webinar will highlight how seemingly distinct extremist milieus converge around antisemitism as a unifying narrative and tactical framework.
The webinar will be conducted in English via Zoom.
Date: Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Time:
U.S.: 9:00 am to 10:30 am ET
Europe: 15:00 to 16:30 CET
EVENT PROGRAM:
Introductory Remarks:
Ms. Gabriele Scheel, Head of Division “International Cooperation against Terrorism, Drug Trafficking, Organized Crime and Corruption,” Federal Foreign Office of Germany
Presentations:
Mr. Alexander Ritzmann: Transnational Right-Wing Extremism and Terrorism / Antisemitism, Senior Advisor, Counter Extremism Project (CEP)
Ms. Patricia Teitelbaum: Transnational (Pro-)Palestinian Extremism and Terrorism / Antisemitism, President, International Movement for Peace & Coexistence (IMPAC)
Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler: Transnational Islamist Extremism and Terrorism / Antisemitism, Senior Director, Counter Extremism Project (CEP)
The presentations will be followed by a Q&A-session open to all participants.
Please register up to one hour before the webinar start so that your registration can be approved in time.
Please feel free to forward this invitation to colleagues with an interest in the subject.
To read our latest CEP report “The Role of Antisemitism in the Mobilization to Violence by Extremist and Terrorist Actors”, click here.
To learn more about CEP’s new Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism and Radicalization (ARCHER) at House 88, the former home of the commandant of the concentration camp, Rudolf Höss, and how to support this new effort, please check here.
This press release was originally published on the Counter Extremism Project’s website:
(New York, NY) – The Counter Extremism Project and the Auschwitz Research Center on Hate, Extremism, and Radicalization (ARCHER) at House 88, fully condemn and denounce the vandalization of two Jewish sites in Dukla, Poland that took place over the weekend.
CEP CEO Ambassador Mark D. Wallace issued the following statement:
These vile acts occurred next to sites where Jewish life once thrived in Poland, and where Jewish lives were later annihilated. These are not random crimes but deliberate assaults on Jewish memory, dignity, and history.
Such incidents have multiplied in the wake of October 7, as global antisemitism has proliferated, often parading itself as “antizionist” or merely concerned with human rights. But when “Palestine” and a swastika together are smeared across a Holocaust memorial at a Jewish cemetery, there can be no pretence. This is Jew-hatred, plain and simple.
ARCHER director Jacek Purski said:
This desecration follows closely on the heels of inflammatory remarks by Polish Member of European Parliament (MEP) Grzegorz Braun, whose grotesque rhetoric continues to incite antisemitism. Braun’s recent inflammatory actions such as denying the existence of gas chambers at Auschwitz and disrupting a Hanukkah ceremony in parliament that took place in 2023 have absolutely no place in Polish society.
This is not just about provocative statements or acts of mere vandalism and defacement. This is an assault on the memory of those who were murdered, and on the living who honor them.
ARCHER at House 88 has been created to shatter the normalization of antisemitism and extremism. The Auschwitz Research Centre on Hate, Extremism, and Radicalization is sited at the former residence of Rudolf Höss, Commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp from 1940-1944. House number 88 sits a few meters from the camp wall and across from Auschwitz’s original gas chamber and crematorium. The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) has acquired House 88 to repurpose it from the epicenter of the “Final Solution” into a unique global bulwark against antisemitism, hate, extremism, radicalization, and terrorism.
