CHAI LUNCHEON

Date - March 1, 2009  
Time - 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Place - Crowne Plaza Hotel - Belvedere Rd., West Palm Beach (near the WPB airport)
Menu - three course luncheon, three choices of entree, plus many happy surprises.
Price - $25
Speaker - Paul Shapiro
Topic - "Opening the Archives of the International Tracing Service"

Committee report from Co-Chairs Natalie Hamburg and Dennis Rice

The committee is hard at work making this Chai Luncheon (celebrating our 18th year) a most outstanding event.  Our Guest Speaker, Paul Shapiro of the United States Holocaut Memorial Museum, is a dynamic personality and a captivating speaker.

Shapiro is the leader of the group that went to negotiate the release of the International Tracing Service Holocaust records stored at Bad  Arolsen in Germany.  Through the efforts of his committee, these records are being digitized and many are now available on line. Shapiro will not only demonstrate how to search these records, but will also show how to use other research information available at the Holocaust Museum.

The International Tracing Service Holocaust Archive in Bad Arolsen, Germany contains the fullest records of Nazi persecutions in existence.The archives contain 50 million pages, housed in thousands of filing cabinets in 6 buildings. Overall, there are 16 miles of shelves holding information about the victims of the Nazis.

The documents - scraps of paper, transport lists, registration books, labor documents, medical records, and finally death registers – record the arrest, transportation and extermination of the victims. In some case, even the amount and size of the lice found on the prisoners’ heads were recorded.

The immensity of information in the archives will provide Holocaust researchers with work for generations. Holocaust scholars have already started to revise their estimates of the number of camps run by the Nazis according to new information being found. And the archives present a formidable obstacle to Holocaust deniers.

---

JGSPBCI MEETINGS
SAVE THESE DATES

October 29 (date change for High Holidays)
November 12 | November 19 Miniconference
December 10 | January 14 | February 11
March 1 Luncheon
April 22 (date change for Passover) | May 13