The gentiles who hid Anne Frank - remembered on the 90th anniversary of her birthday and diary publishing

Anne Frank with her father Otto Frank in movie poster

Of all the personalities associated with Anne Frank, the most important figure, without whom Anne Frank would never have been able to write her diary, is perhaps the least known.

He is Victor Kugler, the Mr. Kraler of her diary. As the principal business partner of Otto Frank, Victor Kugler assumed managerial control of the Franks’ Amsterdam spice-importing business when Nazi persecution forced the Frank family into hiding. It was Victor Kugler who kept the business going and obtained food rations under what was the harshest German wartime occupation in all of Western Europe. Without Victor Kugler, Anne Frank and her family would have starved to death a month after going into hiding.

Victor Kugler visits Anne Frank statue in
Utrecht, Netherlands, 1975 Fair use, Link

For this heroism, Victor Kugler himself was arrested and sent to a series of German labor camps in Holland where he survived by his wits and finally escaped a few weeks before the end of the war. 

Several years after the end of the war, when the Dutch spice business collapsed following the Indonesian revolution that nationalized Dutch holdings, Victor Kugler emigrated to Toronto, Canada. There, he led a quiet life where nobody knew who he was and what he had done during the war. Only twenty years later he began to reveal his story. 


The modern-day saga of this Righteous Gentile, who was honored as such at Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority, is told here in semi-documentary style, largely in his own words as told to Torontonian, Eda Shapiro, herself of Eastern European Jewish background; and by many others who knew him, as compiled by well-known Toronto writer-journalist Rick Kardonne.

Interview (video) with Rick Kardonne, November 2014 at L.A. Museum of Tolerance: 

Q: Why is Victor Kugler the missing link in the Anne Frank saga? 

Rick Kardonne, writer, "The Man Who Hid Anne Frank"

A: Because, as the business manager for Otto Frank when he and his family and two other Jewish associates had to go into hiding (under what was the harshest Nazi German rule in Western Europe) he did the business management, he got the food, and he provided and with all kinds of entertainment magazines. 

Without Victor Kugler, the Franks and everyone else would have starved for a month. 

Q:  After a month?

A:  After a month - for lack of food and lack of business.

Grandchild blesses grandparents names inscribed as "Righteous
Among the Nations" at Yad vaShem Museum in Israel

Q:  How long was he able to sustain them?

A:  From June 1942 to August '44.

Q:  How did you come across this story?

A:  I wrote for the Canadian and Jewish publications for over 15 or 20 years. And one of those who read me who who led the Likud organization in Toronto, met Irving Naftolin, who was a World War Two vet.  Irving Naftolin was married to the late Edith Shapiro (not my Edith) but late Edith Shapiro - who was a teacher and journalist. She had all of the memoirs of Victor Kugler - who had lived in Toronto since 1955. Edith Shapiro took them in and after she died he brought them to me because of my journalistic activities for the Jewish press in Toronto. 

And I got the memoirs in a brown paper bag. My job was to take all of these notes out of the brown paper bag and organize them into a book and this is the result.

Q:  Is the lesson of Anne Frank and the righteous Gentiles who stood up for their Jewish neighbors- getting lost, do you feel, in this generation?

A:  In some quarters, yes, but in others, no.  We have an excellent publication in Toronto called the National Post that constantly brings up the righteous Gentiles. So among some media outlets yes, but not all of them.

Q:  Looking back at at the Holocaust and and it's lesson for today - if - and and we see this in France - we see the the society turning against their Jewish community their Jewish citizens  and it's spreading throughout Europe . . .

A: Yes?

Q:  Are there Gentiles who will stand up again to protect the Jews, and in fact, even those who express support for Israel which is ...

A:  I think there are good people, righteous Gentiles in every country. I think so.  


Q:  What were the risks that Victor undertook?

A:  Being caught by the Gestapo.  Which he was eventually and he was sent to a slave labor camp because he wasn't Jewish.  But the Franks and the Van Pels's were Jewish so they were sent to Auschwitz. Only the Red Army liberated them - they were sent to Bergen-Belsen where they died of disease. 

That was  three weeks before the British invaded and liberated them.

Q: What was special about Victor?

A:  He was a religious Lutheran - and he had friends - and he said "I had to do this for my friends."  He had grown up you know in unfavorable social circumstances - nothing to be about being Jewish because he wasn't Jewish.  But this left an imprint on him which he did for the rest of his life.

Q:  Was he typical of the Dutch public's attitude towards their Jewish neighbors?

A:  First of all he was born in Austria.  So he could have been but the Dutch were not a hundred percent sympathetic to the Jews like the Danes were. 

Q: So the Austrians weren't, the Dutch weren't, and yet because of his friendship ...

A: Yeah, with Otto Frank.  And the Swedes did receive all of the Danish Jewish refugees and  they were in Sweden for the rest of the war.

Q:  Is protecting Jews now a matter of history or would you consider it a potential for the future?

A: Both, both.

Q: Do you see anti-semitism as a potential resurgence?

A:  I do but I think that a lot of these so-called liberal media types are more responsible.  Actually in Canada, the very conservatives, if anything, are friendlier to Jews now

Q: But the CBC - would you consider them liberal press?


A: Liberal press -  and not very . . . occasionally they run a good piece but . . . not reliable.

Rabbis Hier and Cooper: Anne Frank at 90 – Six points she might have added to her diary today: 

Rabbis Abe Cooper and Marvin Hier of Simon Wiesenthal
Center in L.A. and Jerusalem (photo:Phil McCarten /Reuters)

Wednesday, June 12 would have been Anne Frank’s 90th birthday. Through her iconic diary, she has become the global symbol of 1.5 million other virtually forgotten innocent Jewish children murdered by Nazi Germany and its willing European collaborators during the Holocaust.

So how would she have updated her diary today? Here are six possibilities, according to Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center: 

1. Joy at the miraculous rebirth and flourishing of her shattered people in a Jewish democratic state of Israel.
2. Anger that the hatred of Jews is surging in her native Europe and beyond and is being deployed by leading left-wing politicians in England and right-wing politicians in Poland.
3. Shock that Synagogues and Jewish schools must be protected by armed guards throughout the world. Despair that decades after she and her family were forced into hiding, so many Jews in the 21st Century have to hide their identities in public; not just anywhere but in the streets of European capitals including, Berlin, Paris, and yes, her hometown of Amsterdam. Can history be repeating itself?
4. Solidarity with Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Prize winner ever, who risked her life to give hope to young girls everywhere to have the right to an education and a future. Sadness that Malala has to live today in England because her life would be in danger again the moment she stepped on the soil of her native Pakistan.
5. Disgust that the world, led by the United Nations does so little to protect children from being brainwashed to hate and become martyrs for religious fanatics, from becoming tools for tyrants and human shields for terrorists.
6. Cautious optimism and lurking pessimism about the power of the written and spoken word to bring about change through the amazing tool of social media. Anne wrote her original diary in the Secret Annex, having no idea if anyone else would ever read of her innermost thoughts, fears and hopes. Today, social media virally transmits all the good, bad, and ugly, that the human imagination can produce.

Read more:

75th anniv of D-Day & WWII tributes at L.A. National Cemetery

There is a concern is that this 75th anniversary of D-Day will be the last milestone (until 2024) for most of the living survivors. 

Chief Warrant Officer II Jeff Smith lead the 300th Army Band in each service-branch's anthem

Memorial Day benediction at L.A. National Cemetery ceremony delivered by Rabbi David Wolpe - introduced by Chaplain Dov Cohen

Rep. Ted Lieu's address to Memorial Day ceremony at L.A. National Cemetery

View from a ship on D-Day off the coast of France on June 6, 1944. 
(War footage from George Stevens Collection at the Library of Congress via AP)

What is the Kingdom of Belgium's interest in the U.S. Memorial Day and D-Day commemorations? Belgian Consulate Gen., Henri Vantieghem in interview.

Boy Scout Christopher Valdivia, 17, took a moment to read the name on a gravestone at
Los Angeles National Cemetery during the annual flag placing event in 2018 in preparation for Memorial Day.  (File photo by John McCoy/Los Angeles Daily News)

Why Girl Scout, Lisa Lu, an L.A. Memorial Day Ceremony leader, is heading to West Point.

Mr. Greg Lee, Chairman of California State Commander Veterans Council and Calif. Commander of Jewish War Veterans sat on the stage as representative of California Veterans Associations. 

American cemetery in Normandy

In this exclusive interview, he reveals how did Jewish military casualties graves become able to be marked with Star of David tombstones.

Appreciative, Latin-American citizen thanks veterans, military, legal immigration on Memorial Day

Professional El Salvadoran pianist, Caleb Zelaya, expresses gratitude to America, stresses need for bold military to defeat tyrannies, restore freedom. Endorses Pres. Donald Trump's immigration policies - encouraging legal routes to citizenship.

Republican Jewish Coalition rolls out White House, Congressional champions of independence and security

Pres. Donald Trump addresses the Republican Jewish Coalition confab in Las Vegas: 'Preserve Republican leadership to save America against Red/Green revolutionaries!' 

The US president delivered these remarks to GOP Jews welcomed on eve of Israel's election, in advance of putting-forward his administration's Middle-East peace-plan. Based on the Obama administration's first term performance regarding Islamism and Judaism, Mr. Trump asks the audience rhetorically, "How the hell did Jewish people ever support Obama?

Pres. Trump reassured audience at Republican Jewish Coalition of his commitment to the stability of Israel, America's partner in support of freedom and democracy in the Middle East.  

Amidst chants of "four more years," Pres. Donald Trump addresses fixing Democrats and globalists' exploitations of America via Mexico, Iran, fomenting anti-Semitism, and yellow-journalism. 

Members of Jewish-Leftist, IfNotNow group (funded by democracy-destabilizer George Soros), interrupted the president's address and were summarily over-shouted by the audience and ejected by security guards. 

In Part 2, Pres. Trump addresses Democrat abuses through media, border, and reverse-racism.


 
Vice President Mike Pence leads a salute to Sheldon and Dr. Miriam Adelson for their leadership in patriotism for America and Israel.  V.P. Pence explains why the Trump Administration are Jewish people's best-friends in the White House - and what they promised to do and have accomplished in their first two years.

Sen. Lindsey Graham addressing Republican Jewish Coalition's Spring Meet in Las Vegas - goes out on a limb to guarantee Israel's safety as White House puts risky, Arab-sought, regional plan to them.

1. Also in this playlist (advance using button on upper-right), you may watch the remarks by Sen. Norm Coleman, RJC Nat'l Chairman;
2. Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman;
3. Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX);
4. Israeli U.N. Amb. Danny Danon;
5. Gov Kristi Noem (R-SD);
6. Elan Carr, US' Antisemitism Envoy;
7. Sen David Perdue (R-GA);
8. Former Democrat voters who have evolved to vote  Republican;
9. Heroes who saved lives at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life Synagogue Massacre and against Muslim terror in Jerusalem; and
10. A talk with Sen Kevin Cramer (ND) and Rep Denver Riggleman (VA). 

In view of Islamist and Russian threats surrounding Israel, Sen. Lindsey Graham proposes that Congress assures Israel's  security through a mutual-defense compact.  

Ken Abramowitz, political analyst with "Save the West," interprets and elaborates on Pres. Trump's remarks in the context of the Islamo-Leftist campaign to discredit and replace Republican leadership.

Ken Abramowitz, chairman of "Citizens for National Security," interprets Pres. Trump's points at R.J.C. Vegas speech in the context of what he considers a cultural war from the Reds and Greens movement.

Parkland High School massacre: What does massacre victim, Meadow Pollack's father, Andrew, blame for our unsafe society?

Parkland High School massacre victim Meadow Pollack's father, Andrew Pollack, encourages support for Pres. Donald Trump's administration against the hyper-liberal Democrat policies imperiling civilized societies.

Mr. Andrew Pollack, father of Parkland H.S. massacre victim, Meadow Pollack, calls for Democrats (particularly, fellow Jewish Democrats in Florida) to #walkaway from what he has experienced as a corrupted, now-socialistic, anti-Semitic-pulled, Democratic Party.

TurningPoint USA group presents Robert Spencer on UCLA campus - under heavy security

Robert Spencer addressing UCLA's TurningPoint USA club

Robert Spencer, a critical scholar of political Islam, founded and runs Jihad Watch. He addressed a public audience at UCLA's Royce Hall on Monday, March 4, 2019 organized by Charlie Kirk's TurningPoint USA (this by the college clubs of Southern California) which was attended by club members and members of the public. 

While the audience was very supportive, the security was very tight. A few older students (who appeared to be Muslim) arrived late and after listening for awhile, departed early. 

Transcript: [Applause]

Robert Spencer: "A few years ago, Barack Obama went to Cairo and he spoke at al-Azhar, which is the foremost institution in Sunni Islam and he made an outreach speech to the Islamic world that was very famous at the time. You may have heard about it. And he chose a lot hard to speak because of its prestige and its centrality and influence among Muslims of oh hello the among sunni muslims worldwide and so i thought that it would be appropriate to start off with a couple of quotes from this guide I brought here which is called Reliance of the Traveler. It is certified by al-Azhar as it conforms to the practice and faith of the Orthodox Sunni community and that is the certification of the general Department for research writing and translation at al-Azhar,so if you want to know what Islam is all about they're saying this is it conforms to the practice and faith of the Orthodox learning community and in this book you can read that the Muslim community has the responsibility it's

here section o nine-point eight if you've got it with you it makes war upon Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians in order to, excuse me, until they become Muslim or else pay the non-muslim poll tax. The Calif and of course there is no Calif right now get to that but the Kayla fights all other people's until they become Muslim or are permitted to live under the protection of the Islamic state if they either become Muslim or agree to pay the poll tax. Now when we are speaking about

societies that protect human rights and make sure that equal protection of the law is afforded to all people and the people of different perspectives can live together in mutual respect and harmony. 

Then we are talking about something that is very different from this that is enjoining warfare against people simply because they hold to another faith. Now this is a matter of

serious concern because there are people who believe in this and consider it their responsibility before God to wage war in accordance with these directives and others that I could show you. 

As socialists inject anti-Zionism to dominate progressive parties, how many Democrats will follow British Jews rightward towards Republican candidates?

Dems’ AIPAC boycott is another sign of their turn to extremism -N.Y. Post March 22, 2019

... This year, however, at least eight Democratic hopefuls deliberately snub the AIPAC conference, with its 18,000 delegates, heeding a demand from MoveOn.org that they boycott the event.

That includes Bernie Sanders, who in 2016 said he “would very much have enjoyed speaking at the AIPAC conference” but now accuses the group of providing “a platform” for “leaders who have expressed bigotry.”

Make no mistake: This is yet another deeply troubling sign of the rapidly shifting winds within the Democratic Party when it comes to supporting Israel.

True, the party’s top members of Congress — Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer — will all speak. Mayor Bill de Blasio, to his credit, will also show.

But the fact that major Democratic contenders for the nation’s highest office — including Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand as well as ex-Rep. Beto O’Rourke — are now pointedly turning their backs means that the hard lefties, not Schumer and Co., are the ones calling the shots.

And don’t the bad guys know it. Radical activist (and Louis Farrakhan ally) Linda Sarsour gloated on Twitter that “the tide is turning” on Israel and “the status quo is no more.” Worse, it’s further vindication of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s anti-Semitic attacks on AIPAC and all supporters of Israel.

Now, Democrats aren’t just refusing to hold Omar accountable for her vicious bigotry — they’ve adopted her talking points.

"UK Labour's predictable descent into anti-Semitism" in The Commentator, 5/1/16

The British Labour Party's descent into totalitarian, anti-Semitic bigotry has been driven by the false belief that hatred of the Jewish state of Israel -- itself a vile form of bigotry -- can truly be divorced from hatred of the great mass of Jews.

"Now, Labour has a leader who is essentially anti-Western, and that manifests itself in a multiplicity of ways from opposition to domestic free market economics to a systematic rationalization of the anti-freedom agendas of groups such as Hamas and international leaders such as Vladimir Putin."  . . .

As the center-Left(ish) columnist Nick Cohen put it in an article in the Guardian on Saturday:

"When Jeremy Corbyn defended the Islamist likes of Raed Salah, who say that Jews dine on the blood of Christian children, he was continuing a tradition of communist accommodation with antisemitism that goes back to Stalin’s purges of Soviet Jews in the late 1940s.

"It is astonishing that you have to, but you must learn the worst of leftwing history now. For Labour is not just led by dirty men but by dirty old men, with roots in the contaminated soil of Marxist totalitarianism."

And so it is. But it is also important to underline the very specific reasons why, among all the other possible outcrops of totalitarianism, it is anti-Semitism that has taken center stage.

At the top layer, the reason is an obsessive hatred of the Jewish state of Israel that has been building for decades, but which went into overdrive after the second Palestinian intifada and the failure (due to Palestinian rejectionism) of the Clinton-brokered peace talks of 2000.

A generation of Labour youth has now reached political maturity believing that Israel represents some kind of demonic evil. Quite ordinary party members therefore think nothing (indeed they are proud) of turning up on anti-Israel demonstrations alongside supporters of murderous anti-Semitic terror groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

It is often argued that anti-Zionist fanaticism started out in anti-colonialist, rather than traditionally anti-Semitic, Leftist traditions positing the Palestinians as a kind of pet, Third World liberation movement. But by now, what's the difference? Traditionally anti-Semitic and modern anti-Zionist tropes are largely interchangeable.

In both incarnations, real-world Jews are (and were) targeted for delegitimization, boycotts, and, ultimately, destruction. 
(Read more)

Rabbi Lionel Rosenfeld, Senior Rabbi and Cantor of the Western Marble Arch Synagogue in Central London offered his perspectives on the situation during his fourth visit to the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington D.C. in this exclusive video interview during the last day of the Conference at the end of March.



Question: We've had a year of the Labour Party getting closer to office and what's the condition of Zionism and Zionists in the political zeitgeist in Britain today in the UK today?

Answer: Well, I don't know if you heard the Labour MP Joan Ryan on Sunday evening - Labour Friends of Israel. She's not even Jewish she was almost crying because what's happened to the Labour Party is really is what's happened to Zionism in the country. It's just tragic. We're on a downhill slope from last year when I spoke to you we have a Conservative government that is sleep-walking towards Brexit with no real discernible leadership. Everyone agrees on that and we, on the other hand, we have a Labour possible government who haven't really increased in the polls normally with them they would be miles ahead but they're not because of this man Corbyn. Because his refusal to eject anti-Semites on his party and because of the general fear by so many Jews in Britain that anti-semitism is taking a real hold on what was a great supporter of the State of Israel, the Labour Party.

Question: Hasn't the the Jewish community in the UK traditionally been a liberal-minded politically?

Answer: Very much so - very much like the Jews of United States of America great Democratic supporters so who I mean I happen to know that many of our great rabbis have been quietly Labour supporters but not anymore. How can they be? Labour does not have any of the values that we espouse - particularly with regard to the Middle East and the growth of the spread of anti-Semitism in Europe particularly with that and also because they condemn the United States and Israel as two colonialist powers and that's how they see the world. It's becoming a Left/Marxist party that no one wants to touch with a bargepole!

Question: When you say Marxist - meaning that the beginnings of socialism leading to communism?

Answer: The people who are now running the Labour Party want to reject all previous Labour members of parliament who had an idea that Tony Blair was the correct leader. The New Labour- as it used to be which was so successful in popular they want them all out they want to start again.

Question: What was the the the psychological adjustment that it took for liberal British Jews to say that this this party which I've voted reflexively for so long- to be able to say are you going to vote against them now?

Answer: Because of the way they treated first of all the Jewish MPs who are in the Labour party. They and of all the tweets and the terrible anti-semitic slurs against them that they and they realized now that we are in a very toxic atmosphere politically and they don't know what to do. No one really wants to leave and go on aliyah. They have no intention of leaving Britain this idea that Jews are going to be leaving Britain I don't think it's going to happen we just have to fight to make sure that the Conservative Party comes to its senses and can win the next general election or

Question: The Jewish population of Britain are they supporting the Conservatives now against Labour?

Answer: I would think there's very few Jews that I know that would vote Labour in the next general election. How can they when they are controlled by a small clique of left-wing previous Marxists and Communists?

British Parliamentarian, Joan Ryan's remarks to AIPAC Policy Conference 24 March '19:  

British Parliamentarian Joan Ryan addressing AIPAC in D.C. 24 March

"As a member of the British Parliament, I am proud to be with you all today. I am proud to be a Zionist, I'm proud to be a staunch supporter of the world's only Jewish state and I am proud to be chair of Labour Friends of Israel, a group in the Parliament that promotes support for a strong relationship between Israel and Britain. 

Over the past four years, Britain's Labour Party, of which I've been a member for 40 years, has been transformed. Once, a close friend to Israel and an unwavering ally of British Jews, it has been taken over by the far left. It is now, despite the best efforts of some decent members, riddled with anti-Semitism. It now seeks to demonize and delegitimize Israel. It is now led by a man who proudly declares Hamas and Hezbollah to be his friends. I would never have believed just three years ago, that the party which backed a Jewish homeland even before the Balfour Declaration, would have sunk so low so fast. 

And so along with eight other members of Parliament, we made a choice. We decided that words were simply not enough. We walked away from the Labour Party.

Why did I, a non-Jewish friend of Israel, travel to your conference to tell you this? I did so to remind you that things can change quickly; to remind you that we must stay on our guard and to remind you that we must stand our ground. We must condemn anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism unequivocally wherever we find it, whenever we find it. We must always call out politicians from whatever side of the aisle who question Israel's right to exist and engage in vile anti-Semitic tropes about the loyalties of British or American Jews to their countries. 

I served as a minister under Tony Blair and I saw that sticking to your convictions is not always popular. But it is always right. When I announced my decision to leave the Labour Party, I received an unprecedented torrent of abuse and hate mail. So too have many of my Jewish friends and colleagues. But those threats only strengthen my resolve. Threats will not stop me doing my job. Threats will not stop me standing by British Jews against the far left and the far right. 

Liberal at Labour rally: "Jeremy Corbyn made me a Tory"
(photo: AFP via The Financial Times 7/16/18 )

And let me tell you, threats will not stop me standing up for Israel. Why? Because I never forget that Israel is not just a Jewish state but a democratic state, in a neighborhood where democracies are few and far between. Because it is a state with the rule of law in a region not blessed with an abundance of independent courts. And because it is a country where Christians, Muslims and Jews are free to practice their faith in an area where many nations still practice religious intolerance. 

We should support Israel not just because it is Jewish but because the values which underpin it are worthy of our support. I'm a former teacher. I always told my students never give in to a bully. And I can tell you, I never will. 

That is why I made the stand, spoke out and I took action. And that's what I'm going to keep doing. 

So to you, the members of AIPAC who serve on the front lines to ensure that Israel remains our cherished friend and ally, I deliver this message from your friends in Britain. 

Thank you for your support for Israel. Let us stand together, proud of each other and proud of Israel in the battles that lie ahead. Thank you. " 

International institutions' assault on Israel examined by ambassadors at AIPAC Policy Conference

Ambassadors Danny Ayalon, Kristen Silverberg, Keith Harper and moderator

"Regional Outlook: The Middle East in 2018 and The Assault on Israel in International Organizations" - panel at AIPAC.

The dialogue and debate between pre-eminent experts on Middle East affairs. Danny Ayalon, (former Israeli Amb. to the U.S.); Kristen Silverberg (former US Amb to E.U.);  Amb. Keith Harper (US permanent representative to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva). Presented on Monday, March 5th, 2018

Part 2:  International institutions' assault on Israel: Audience' questions and panelists' answer session (with panelists including former Israeli Amb. Danny Ayalon) continues: