Text description provided by the architects. Fostering Innovation: A Look Inside Hilti's New People-Centric Design Hub - The recently opened Hilti Innovation Center in Kaufering, Germany, exemplifies a new wave of architectural design that prioritizes people and their needs. This forward-thinking project by Carpus+Partner AG breaks away from traditional workspaces to foster collaboration, and knowledge sharing, and inspire creativity. Human-Centered Design at its Core - The vision behind the Hilti Innovation Center was to bring together various departments under one roof, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and communication. The key to achieving this? Extensive user involvement throughout the design process. By incorporating the specific needs of employees, the architects crafted a space that is both technically adept and inspiring. Courtesy of Carpus+Partner AGBIM: Building a Vision, Virtually - Building Information Modeling (BIM) played a crucial role in the project's success. This digital modeling technique facilitated seamless collaboration between internal and external specialists. By working on a central digital twin, the team ensured all aspects of the design, from complex technical areas to light-filled office spaces, functioned cohesively. Courtesy of Carpus+Partner AGA Space Designed to Connect - The building itself embodies the philosophy of connection. A central "head building" serves as the heart of the complex, with laboratories, test fields, and offices arranged around light-filled atriums. Open floor plans and strategically placed terraced courtyards blur the lines between work areas, encouraging interaction and knowledge exchange. Courtesy of Carpus+Partner AGA Model for the Future of Work - The Hilti Innovation Center exemplifies the power of design in shaping a new era of work By prioritizing user needs and embracing collaboration this project sets a high bar for future workplaces where innovation thrives and people feel empowered to do their best work You'll now receive updates based on what you follow Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors If you have done all of this and still can't find the email An official website of the United States government VA|News Veteran of the Day J.D. Salinger was born and raised in the hustle of New York City. Born in January 1919, he grew up going to many schools, including the Valley Forge Military Academy with ambitions originally in drama and theatre he pursued higher education and sought different tracks in writing He dreamed of having his writing published in “The New Yorker.” However his writing career was forever changed when drafted into the Army in spring 1942 which would later be attached to his most famous work “The Catcher in the Rye.” Salinger served in a total of five campaigns Salinger was hospitalized for a few weeks before leaving the military due to “combat stress reaction” or “battle fatigue,” which can be compared to PTSD he signed up for a six-month campaign in Germany to continue serving with the Counterintelligence Corps before finally being honorably discharged and sent home in April 1946 to separate himself from his newfound fame and attention in the public eye Salinger continued to write until his death but his last piece was formally included in “The New Yorker” in 1965 again wanting his work to not increase his growing fame Salinger died in January 2010 at the age of 91 at his home in New Hampshire Do you want to light up the face of a special Veteran Have you been wondering how to tell your Veteran they are special to you VA’s “Honoring Veterans” social media spotlight is an opportunity to highlight your Veteran and his/her service It’s easy to nominate a Veteran. Visit our blog post about nominating to learn how to create the best submission #VeteranOfTheDayArmyauthorWWII The comments section is for opinions and feedback on this particular article; this is not a customer support channel. If you are looking for assistance, please visit Ask VA or call 1-800-698-2411 never put personally identifiable information (SSAN etc.) or protected health information into the form — it will be deleted for your protection Honoring Veterans: Army Veteran Cruz Roque-VicensThis week’s Honoring Veterans Spotlight honors the service of Army Veteran Cruz Roque-Vicens Roque-Vicens went on to have a successful career as a sports journalist this week's #HonoringVeterans spotlight honors the service of Army Veteran and NPS employee Charles Barr This week’s Honoring Veterans Spotlight honors the service of Army Veteran Albert Tristan Get more resources at VeteransCrisisLine.net An official website of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Looking for U.S. government information and services?  Visit USA.gov In one episode of the TV show Band of Brothers the liberation of a concentration camp is intensely portrayed The camp in question was situated just outside the town of Landsberg am Lech were built to house slave laborers — mostly Jews from all of Europe — who were forced to build several underground bunkers for airplane factories Living conditions were considered among the worst of all slave labor camps with one survivor claiming that it was worse than Auschwitz (he had spent time there This gives us a glimpse into the hell that it was I went to visit what was left of the 11 Kaufering concentration camps along with the equally numerous mass graves containing camp victims lots of time was often needed in order to find these sites there are often no indications at all that it was part of the worst crime in history family villas have been built — with a McDonald’s conveniently nearby Having food grown on the place of a concentration camp seems a hunting tower resembling a camp guard tower has been built overlooking both the mass grave and the camp site Hunting tower overlooking the grounds of former concentration camp Kaufering IV Entering the nearby town of Landsberg am Lech it looks like a postcard of an old Bavarian small town One would say very traditional; the town has a plaque centrally placed telling us to remember missing German soldiers and the ones taken prisoner during World War II Thouogh the people there do know what happened in and around this town its history and its surrounding camps seem like air; you know it is there what should be done with these camp grounds Using the grounds for more pragmatic purposes is clearly an option to many city planners actually — argue that it is time to get over the war and think of more practical things in life Even though they get fewer and fewer as time passes on studies have shown that the children of these survivors are also often victims and scarred for life by their parents’ trauma lest we want to risk this again in the future for the Jews who did not experience the Holocaust the very knowledge that their brethren were left alone with little place to escape in a sea of perpetrators supported by a silent mass causes an unseen and vague mix of anger and fear even today the number of people who will not forget are plenty and Germany shall probably have to live with this situation for generations to come Even though Germany is today considered as one of Israel’s best friends two ministers in the present Israeli government refuse to visit Germany for historical reasons It should also be mentioned that Holocaust education is part of the curriculum in German schools and more so than in most other countries (save for Israel) Germans travelling in Israel may notice that locals — especially older Israelis — look at them strangely when they hear German spoken but to many people Germany will remain associated with its darkest of periods for a long time to come I wonder if the “discretion” of its past helps life in Landsberg am Lech move on or if it simply angers outsiders who already have a problem forgiving Germans our rational conscience tells most of us that children of perpetrators should not be held accountable for their parents’ individual deeds it took quite a culture to perpetrate the Holocaust — and culture is not easily changed from one generation to the next Victims and their descendants will go on asking how much this culture has changed today no matter what Germans themselves will claim as well as its surrounding Kaufering concentration camps I am highly ambivalent to what I have experienced Whereas some locals work hard to keep history alive there is still a permeating feeling in Landsberg am Lech that life should move on and that history belongs to and barbecue on concentration camp grounds — thus somehow mixing peaceful beauty with murder Entrance to graves for victims of Kaufering IV And what about the bunkers built for the Luftwaffe airplane factories and for which the Kaufering concentration camps inmates slave-labored until death one of them continues to be used by the Luftwaffe (as the German air force is still called) for repairing planes Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" Our weekly email is chockful of interesting and relevant insights into Jewish history was liberated by American forces from Dachau “Second Passover,” or Pesach Sheini was liberated by American forces from Kaufering part of the concentration camp complex known as Dachau was a day on which Jews who were unable for various reasons to bring the paschal sacrifice on Passover had another opportunity to do so and to eat its meat along with matzah (unleavened bread) it became a symbol of his own “second chance” — at life His happy one as a child in the Polish city of Lodz had been rudely interrupted by the Nazis on September 8 Cohen became a teenage inmate of several concentration camps there had been rumors that the camp’s commanders had been ordered to murder all the prisoners to deprive the advancing Allied armies of living witnesses to their work born of the sound of explosions in the distance that “the thunderous explosions would go on forever.” The pair “eventually fell asleep to the beautiful sound of the bombs.” The only moving things in the camp were shuffling emaciated “walking skeletons” who had been rendered senseless by starvation and trauma emaciated “musselmen,” the “walking skeletons” who had been rendered senseless by starvation and trauma the camp guards had abandoned the premises bringing along prisoners from other parts of the camp complex the two inmates managed to climb down from where they had been cast and found new refuge in a nearby latrine and the two young men crept back into their cellblock the newly resurrected pair saw German soldiers watching a barracks burn There were piles of true corpses all around and the two quickly threw themselves on the nearest one that wasn’t aflame My future father-in-law thought it was the end and wanted to recite the “final confession” that Jewish liturgy suggests for one who is dying But his friend reminded him of an aphorism the Talmud ascribes to King David that “Even with a sharp sword against his neck one should never despair of Divine mercy.” but each blast shot shrapnel of hope into their hearts The Germans now really seemed gone for good the pair ran to the only building still intact There they found a few others who had also successfully hidden from the Nazi mop-up operation My father-in-law knew it was Pesach Sheini had kept careful note of the passing of time on the Jewish calendar The door flew open and another inmate rushed in breathlessly finally shouting: “The Americans are here!” with tears streaming down their faces at the sight of the piles of blackened “Along with the American soldiers,” he wrote And then he recited the Jewish blessing of gratitude to God for “having kept us alive and able to reach this day.” where he cared for and taught Jewish war orphans; and then to Switzerland where he met and married my dear mother-in-law The couple emigrated to Toronto and raised five children he and others who had been liberated from Kaufering that day would arrange a special meal of thanksgiving in Toronto or New York during which they shared memories and gratitude to God fewer and fewer of the survivors were in attendance along with scores of grandchildren and great-grandchildren every Pesach Sheini to recall his ordeals and his liberation the “second life” we are so grateful he was granted by God as well as other people in places like Sudan Despair is a natural reaction to witnessing such evil who spent the war years in a Soviet labor camp in Siberia — persevered and created new post-trauma lives show that pasts needn’t cripple futures Avi Shafran blogs at rabbiavishafran.com and serves as Agudath Israel of America’s director of public affairs Thank you for signing up for the aish.com free newsletter By submitting the above I agree to the privacy policy and terms of use of JTA.org Reports on the celebration were immediately tempered by the realization of the losses In celebration of its 2017 centennial, JTA is highlighting stories from its archive (JTA) — On May 8 celebrations erupted around the world with news that Nazi Germany had officially surrendered to the Allies the previous afternoon is marked every year on May 8 to recall the end of the six-year-long war in Europe (Japan wouldn’t surrender until that August.) JTA’s report of VE Day is poignant for its tone of celebration immediately tempered by the realization of the losses — and a tally of the Jewish dead that reflects how the full extent of Nazi atrocities was still not known. According to the JTA Daily New Bulletin of Tuesday, May 8, 1945: Jews throughout the world today joined their Fellow-citizens in all democratic countries in hailing the end of the war in Europe and the final destruction of Nazism which took the lives of more than 5,000,000 [sic] Jews where almost every Jewish family has suffered directly from the German extermination of large sections of European Jewry spontaneous demonstrations were organized in the streets of the larger cities and marchers paraded carrying the banners of the United Nations Throngs filled the synagogues reciting special thanksgiving prayers issued by the Chief Rabbinate demonstrations marked V-E day in Jewish communities which were only recently liberated from the Germans and in the large Jewish centers in the United States and other democratic countries Other stories in that day’s bulletin suggest the work still to be done in the wake of the devastating conflict. A dispatch datelined “Allach, Germany” — the location of the largest sub-camp of the Dachau concentration camp  — reports on the liberation of more than 3,000 Jewish survivors by American troops: To the meagre [sic] list of survivors of the millions of European Jews can be added the names of 3,064 men and women who were found at this workcamp Foremost in the mind of every victim here is the thought of finding their families an interior decorator from Vienna and son of a music professor there was reunited at Allach with his wife Willi whom he had not seen for five years He was brought here from Dachau where be had been confined temporarily after arriving there following an eight-day march from a camp at Kaufering Another arrival from Kaufering is Joseph Frock of Kovno he and six other Jews were awakened at 3 a.m to bury 170 American war prisoners who had been killed by the guards The report also lists some of the notable names among the survivors “the Hungarian middle-weight wrestling champion,” who is described as “shrunken and enfeebled from a fifteen-hour daily wind at the local concrete works,” and Oscar Mohr the Amsterdam correspondent of the London Times and the New York Times was arrested by the Nazis while serving in the resistance in Holland his mother’s native country; after the war he would serve the Netherlands as a diplomat in Indonesia The Bulletin includes this testimony from a survivor: such as that of Bronya Tchaikovitch of Czentochowa “who was standing besides me heard that those who were able to work would be allowed to live I can work,’ but he shot her before my eyes.” The day also included — inevitably — Jewish politics A dispatch from San Francisco reported on the United Nations Conference on International Organization where delegates of nearly 50 nations were gathering to create the charter for the world body Jewish leaders there urged a “speedy rebuilding of Jewish life in devastated Europe” and efforts “to enable immigration to Palestine of those surviving Jews who may wish to go there.” But even at this pivotal moment in world and Jewish history the Jewish Agency for Palestine and the Synagogue Council of America couldn’t agree to form a “united front” to push for what the AJC called “the final solution of the Palestine problem.”  AJC had long been reluctant to endorse a “Jewish commonwealth” in Palestine (a position that would fade with Israel’s establishment three years later) Other reports in the dispatch reflect preoccupations specific to the era and themes that would echo for decades to come servicemen decorated for valor since the outbreak of the war (8,209); news that Chaim Weizmann was recuperating from eye surgery; and an attempt by the former Mufti of Jerusalem — the pro-Nazi cleric who organized the 1936-1939 revolt in Palestine — to find safe haven in Switzerland “Authorities immediately ordered the plane back across the frontier,” JTA reported JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent I accept the Privacy Policy. Your Ads Privacy ChoicesIMDb A concentration camp survivor recalls the ingenuity behind a memorable Chanukah observance One of the items I smuggled out of Auschwitz when the Nazis moved me into "Camp Number Eight" – a quarantine camp for those suspected of carrying typhus – was my spoon but it was mine – and it would come to play an important role in my Jewish life and in those of some of the 500 or so other prisoners there There were no labor details in this new camp but we inmates were ordered to help in its construction Having had some experience in the Lodz ghetto as a mechanic I helped the electrical technician install the camp's lighting I brought my spoon to work and filed down its handle Now I could use it both to eat my soup and to cut my bread This was useful because we would often receive one chunk of bread to divide among two or three people and without a knife it was difficult to apportion the bread fairly Now I was regularly called upon to use my spoon-knife to help avoid disputes and maintain relative peace among the prisoners my spoon became involved in an additional mitzvah we had been transferred to "Camp Number Four" in Kaufering a camp more similar to Auschwitz in its daily ordeals Despite the horrendous hardships we suffered daily we tried whenever possible to remember to do a mitzvah and to maintain a self-image as God-fearing Jews Having always kept mental track of the calendar a group of inmates and I began to reminisce about how our fathers would light their menorahs with such fervor and joy We remembered how we could never seem to get our fill of watching the flames sparkling like stars how they seemed to imbue us with a special sanctity And then we got to thinking about the origins of Chanukah about the war of the Hasmoneans against their Greek tormentors who were intent on erasing Judaism from Jewish hearts We recalled the great heroism of the Jews at the time who risked their lives in order to keep the Sabbath And we remembered how God helped them resist and rout their enemy enabling Jews to freely observe the Torah and mitzvot once again in a camp where our lives were constantly in danger where we were considered sub-human and where it was virtually impossible to observe the most basic practices of Judaism by the same resolution: We simply must discover a way of doing the seasonal mitzvah One fellow offered a small bit of margarine he had saved from his daily ration We began to unravel threads from our uniforms.. we were lighting the Chanukah "candle," reciting the blessings and Chanukah gelt we’d received as children Our unusual Chanukah menorah kindled in us a glimmer of hope As we recited the blessing about the miracles God had performed for our forefathers "in those days" – but also "at this time" – we well understood that the only thing that could save us would be a miracle A great miracle like the one hinted at on the dreidel's acrostic asserted in his book "Man's Search for a Meaning" that to survive the concentration camps a person had to have something larger to live for Those with goals had a better chance to remain alive Many Jews in the camps were good examples of that phenomenon our Jewish holidays and our daily recognition that there is an Almighty whether or not we could ever fathom His ways And I often felt that our convictions helped us cling to life when others sank to the depths of despair I am overwhelmed at times with gratitude to God for my personal miracle – my survival – especially when I am surrounded by the children and grandchildren He has granted me all of whom are committed to Torah study and observance And the gratitude comes rushing in as well every winter a Polish-born survivor of three concentration camps where he is writing a book about his wartime experiences I.I. Cohen, a Polish-born survivor of three concentration camps, lives in Toronto. The above is adapted from his book "Destined to Survive" (ArtScroll-Mesorah) One inscription identifies the shoe as belonging to Amos Steinberg WARSAW (JTA) — Employees of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum discovered handwritten inscriptions in shoes belonging to children who were sent to the Nazi death camp in Poland The discoveries were made in the course of efforts to preserve the shoes on display at the museum One inscription identified a shoe as belonging to Amos Steinberg who was born in Prague in 1938 and imprisoned with his parents in the Theresienstadt ghetto in 1942 “We can guess that it was most likely his mother who made sure that her child’s shoe was signed,” Hanna Kubik of the museum’s collections department said in a statement Tuesday announcing the findings “The father was deported in another transport he was transferred from Auschwitz to the Dachau camp He was liberated in the Kaufering sub-camp.” employees found documents in Hungarian with several names: Ackermann “These people were probably deported to Auschwitz in the spring or summer of 1944 during the extermination of Hungarian Jews,” Kubik said “I hope that more detailed research will reveal details about each individual.” Vast quantities of children’s shoes are on display at Auschwitz and the museum has been engaged in an ongoing effort to preserve them Many historical artifacts have been found in this process some of which were used as lining or padding About 230,000 children are estimated to have been imprisoned in Auschwitz I accept the Privacy Policy whose World War II service as a member of the Army's famed Easy Company was recounted in the book and TV miniseries "Band of Brothers," has died Heffron died Sunday at Kennedy Hospital in Stratford Heffron and the rest of his "Band of Brothers" fought through some of World War II's fiercest European battles between 1941 and 1945 Heffron took part in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium and helped liberate the Kaufering concentration camp in Landsberg He received a Bronze Star and Purple Heart the Philadelphia native returned home and found work at a whiskey distillery He later checked cargo on the Delaware River waterfront He was featured prominently in historian Stephen Ambrose's 1992 book "Band of Brothers," upon which the HBO miniseries that began airing in September 2001 was based The miniseries followed Easy Company from its training in Georgia all the way to the war's end in May 1945 Its producers included actor Tom Hanks and Steve Spielberg Heffron was portrayed by Scottish actor Robin Laing Heffron wrote a 2007 memoir called "Brothers in Battle Zavrel said funeral arrangements are private Locally owned and independent since 1950; Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service best news website in the nation & DuPont Award for broadcast journalism “Almost all of them understood the message apologized and decided to remove their selfies from their personal Facebook and Instagram profiles," Shahak Shapira wrote (JTA) — The creator of a website that shamed selfie-takers at Germany’s national Holocaust memorial took down the site after he said it had reached all the people whose photographs were posted which referenced the acronym for “you only live once,” had featured a dozen selfies taken at the Berlin memorial and shared on social media platforms As visitors ran their cursors over the photos the background images changed to graphic photographs of Nazi atrocities Shapira wrote in a statement on the site that the project had reached all 12 selfie-takers and had been visited by over 2.5 million people apologized and decided to remove their selfies from their personal Facebook and Instagram profiles,” he wrote also shared an email he received from one of the selfie-takers who apologized and said he “didn’t mean to offend anyone.” He gave selfie subjects an option to have their photo taken down through contacting him through an email address that made his view of them obvious: undouche.me@yolocaust.de a gleeful girl balanced atop the memorial is suddenly teetering among corpses at the Kaufering slave labor camp in Bavaria as the local population stands staring forced by liberating American troops to view the scene in April 1945 two fellows who posted themselves as “Jumping on dead Jews” are suddenly seen leaping smilingly over contorted corpses Shapira said he received praise from Holocaust researchers family members who lost family in the Holocaust and teachers In 2015, Shapira was badly beaten by several men in Berlin after he asked them to stop singing anti-Semitic songs would have earned a place in Jewish history even if he’d helped to liberate the Kaufering concentration camp at the close of World War II as he did when he was better known as US Army infantryman Anthony Dominick Benedetto But throughout his eight-decade post-war career as a singer Bennett regularly employed his melodic gifts and mellifluous phrasing in service of songs composed by many of the 20th century’s great Jewish songwriters quite a few of the Jewish-penned numbers in Bennett’s discography were particularly significant for him — not just as chart hits but as key career turning points and cornerstones of his lasting musical legacy here are 10 songs by Jewish songwriters that played an important role in Tony Bennett’s career After making some unsuccessful late-1940s recordings under the name Joe Bari for the tiny Leslie label the newly-rechristened Tony Bennett landed a contract with Columbia Records in 1950 based largely on his demo recording of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” Columbia A&R director Mitch Miller had Bennett re-record the song with conductor Marty Manning for release as a single; though his fine version of the song failed to chart “Boulevard” — originally recorded in 1933 by Deane Janis with Hal Kemp’s Orchestra featuring the lyrics of Jewish songwriter Al Dubin — served notice that Columbia had acquired a new and noteworthy talent Bennett achieved his first major hit with this dreamy Percy Faith-conducted rendition of “Because of You,” which spent 10 weeks atop the Billboard charts in the late summer and early fall of 1951 originally recorded over a decade earlier by Larry Clinton and His Orchestra son of composer and theatrical impresario Oscar Hammerstein I Bennett scored his third chart-topping hit with this ebullient romantic declaration which was penned by the Jewish songwriting team of Richard Adler and Jerry Ross Though best known today for its use in the opening sequence of 1990’s Goodfellas TV viewers of a certain age will also recall it as the theme song of supporting character Carmine “The Big Ragu” Ragusa from the ‘70s sitcom Laverne & Shirley Tony Bennett began gravitating away from pop songs and embracing jazzier material his 1959 collaboration with the Count Basie Orchestra showcased Bennett’s ability to handle more complex songs and arrangements with this sublimely swinging rendition of “Chicago” — penned in 1922 by German-born Jewish songwriter Fred Fisher — serving as one of the album’s standout tracks Though it’s generally associated with Frank Sinatra (who has the title etched upon his tombstone) “The Best Is Yet To Come” was originally written for Bennett by the Jewish songwriting team of Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh Bennett’s endearing version was later included on his million-selling 1962 album I Left My Heart in San Francisco Bennett became the first male pop performer to headline New York’s Carnegie Hall the 2-LP live set Tony Bennett at Carnegie Hall further demonstrated Bennett’s masterful way with everything from pop to jazz to the Great American Songbook the latter of which was exemplified by his delightful performance of George and Ira Gershwin’s “Our Love Is Here to Stay.” The British Invasion and other changes on the 1960s music scene increasingly crowded crooners like Tony Bennett off the pop charts His 1965 recording of “If I Ruled the World,” originally from the 1963 West End musical Pickwick — whose music was written by British (and Jewish) conductor Cyril Ornadel — reached #34 on Billboard’s Hot 100 1968’s Snowfall: The Tony Bennett Christmas Album was recorded at a relative lull in Bennett’s career and didn’t even manage to make the Billboard 200 upon its initial release The album has since become rightly recognized as a holiday classic — with sales of over a million copies — thanks in part to the inclusion of this sigh-inducing recording of Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.” After spending much of the 1970s struggling with drug addiction the IRS and declining interest from the music business Bennett cleaned up his act and launched a slow-building comeback in the 1980s garnered widespread critical acclaim for Bennett’s revitalized singing the gorgeous orchestral arrangements of Jorge Calandrelli sympathetic backing of the Ralph Sharon Trio The album includes compositions by numerous Jewish songwriters Cy Coleman and the team of Alan and Marilyn Bergman the latter of whom co-wrote the contemplative “So Many Stars” with Sérgio Mendes This enchanting duet between Tony Bennett and Amy Winehouse was recorded on March 23 exactly four months before Winehouse’s tragic death at the age of 27 this rendition of the jazz standard (which was written in 1930 with music by Jewish composer Johnny Green and words by Jewish lyricist Edward Heyman in collaboration with Robert Sour and Frank Eyton) reached #87 on Billboard’s Hot 100 making Bennett — who was 85 at the time — the oldest living artist to make the chart Dan Epstein is the Forward’s contributing music critic His books include ‘Now You’re One of Us: The Incredible Story of Redd Kross’ and ‘Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of ’76.’ I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward American Jews need independent news they can trust At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S rising antisemitism and polarized discourse This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up Copyright © 2025 The Forward Association The third building in Hilti's big headquarters modernisation project has now been completed 200 employees moved into the new Middle Office Building at Corporate HQ in Schaan there are generous open areas and what the firm said are "modest visual boundaries" which encourage communication and quiet space for focused work and concentration Employees will work to the "flex desk" principle so they can select their individual work station according to requirements and needs There's also a newly designed park space outside the building too [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tyQcrAc65E&feature=emb_logo[/embed] Next up in the modernisation project at Hilti Liechtenstein HQ is the North Office Building which is scheduled for completion at the end of the year sitting next to the company's parking garage will be knocked down to make room for the final phase - creating a large park area with substantial green space as well as common areas both open to the elements and sheltered [gallery columns="2" ids="16598,16599,16600,16601"] It's not just the Hilti Liechtenstein HQ that has been renovated - the fixings firm unveiled a brand new Academy building at its Kaufering “It’s important for us to promote the creativity and inventiveness of our employees with a correspondingly modern working environment,” said Hilti Group Executive Board Member Jahangir Doongaji “A flexible working environment provides employees the opportunity to develop We place a great deal of stock in the many diverse possibilities for cooperation as every innovation represents a team effort A more modern corporate headquarters also allows us to better position Hilti on the international jobs market and to enthuse talent from around the world to come and work in Liechtenstein.” www.hilti.com Media Information Privacy and Security Terms and Conditions Stag Publications Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales with Company Number 03530248 Israeli-German satirist Shahak Shapira sought to highlight the trend of taking selfies at Berlin's Holocaust memorial (JTA) — Pass by Germany’s vast national memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe and you will see young visitors hopping from stone to stone Israeli-German writer and satirist Shahak Shapira had enough of it Shapira, 28, copied a dozen selfies posted online that were taken at the 12-year-old memorial and imposed them over actual photos documenting Nazi crimes. He put the resulting montages on line last week on a website he dubbed Yolocaust — tacking on the acronym for “you only live once” for an extra jolt If you run your cursor over the original photo leaping tourists suddenly appear against a much different background (Shapira does not identify the historical images And there’s the guy juggling pink balls in a photo he titled “what an incredible place.” Presto he’s performing his act inside a pit filled with freshly shot victims Released the week before International Holocaust Remembrance Day which commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz by Red Army troops on Jan Shapira’s satire has triggered a public debate At issue is just how far one can go in using images of suffering to make your point Among those chiming in is the memorial’s designer that’s a little much if you ask me,” Eisenman told the BBC “[T]here are no dead people under my memorial My idea was to allow as many people of different generations to deal or not to deal with being in that place But the director of the nearby Topography of Terror documentation center at the site of the former Gestapo headquarters thinks Shapira “puts his finger on a crucial point.” “I pass by there very often,” Andreas Nachama who is also the former head of Berlin’s Jewish community “And whenever I walk by I see something which doesn’t make me happy It’s not the first time critics have pointed out that visitors are using the memorial as well as authentic sites of Holocaust history “Instagram seems to work like a Polaroid filter for some people’s brains turning off the #commonsense function,” blogger Hektor Brehl wrote in the German edition of Vice magazine in 2013 Shapira noted that “About 10,000 people visit the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe every day skate or bike on the 2,711 concrete slabs” of the structure He offers to remove a photo if its author contacts him at an email address provided he told the Tagesschau TV news program on Saturday your grandfather – or you – lost your entire family in the Holocaust “And then you go to Berlin to this memorial and then you see how someone hops around here on their bicycle It kind of suggests that people are not dealing with the real purpose of this memorial.” This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page '#' : location.hash;window._cf_chl_opt.cOgUQuery = location.search === '' && location.href.slice(0 location.href.length - window._cf_chl_opt.cOgUHash.length).indexOf('?') !== -1 '?' : location.search;if (window.history && window.history.replaceState) {var ogU = location.pathname + window._cf_chl_opt.cOgUQuery + window._cf_chl_opt.cOgUHash;history.replaceState(null "\/j-d-salinger-and-the-nazis\/?__cf_chl_rt_tk=1npsTJANV_eEzo_7cTkY8cnPt9KBIJs4ZhaCqB17Mvs-1746507282-1.0.1.1-1UC5h.HFEabaYkWb0_a._LSKGFp4yjIW2l3loDYuqwc" + window._cf_chl_opt.cOgUHash);cpo.onload = function() {history.replaceState(null ogU);}}document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(cpo);}()); This article was published more than 7 years ago Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp survivor William Glied at his home in Toronto on Jan More than seven decades after his father's death in a Nazi concentration camp William Glied flew from Toronto to the old German city of Detmold in 2016 and took the stand at one of the last Holocaust trials Testifying against the former SS guard Reinhold Hanning Glied recalled how his mother and sister were taken away and never seen again after they arrived in Auschwitz how he and his father became slave labour and how he was his family's lone survivor after the war "Why did I come to bear witness as a co-plaintiff Not because of hate – I don't know Herr Hanning," he told the court who spent his last two decades giving personal testimonies about what he endured as a teenage Nazi camp prisoner died Saturday morning at the Toronto General Hospital from what appeared to be a heart attack In a 2015 interview with The Globe and Mail he said he wanted to honour the memory of his father who He was the eldest of the two children of Alexander and Maria Glied Their prosperous life changed abruptly in 1941 when Germany invaded the Balkans Subotica was annexed by one of Germany's allies Hungary had anti-Semitic laws and Jewish students such as Mr "People I considered my friends all of a sudden became enemies People who were my parents' friends and associates they were spared from the Nazi camps until the spring of 1944 when German troops then took over and the SS began a mass deportation of the Hungarian Jews Glied and his family were among more than 400,000 people rounded up by Hungarian gendarmes all these people outside looking at us walking to our death," Mr They were piled into cattle cars with no water or sanitary facilities "All the while the SS meandered among this swirling crowd viciously swinging their canes." He and his father were kept as forced labour "I never saw my mom and sister – never again he and his father were sent to Kaufering III joining thousands conscripted to dig a hillside underground plant which infected his eyes because of the dust But that was better than being the men who had to haul the bags dozens of dead prisoners were piled at the front He saw a guard shoot an inmate in head when their crew was unable to lift a rail His father was growing weaker and by April so they were taken together to another camp the Germans evacuated the Kaufering camps ahead of the allied troops While they were taken by train to the Dachau concentration camp Glied heard babies cry and thought he was delirious his father died days before American troops reached the camp Glied emigrated to Canada and eventually started a lumber company he mentioned the crying babies he heard on the train to Dachau She quizzed him for details about the incident he's somewhat grey but you can meet him here in Toronto." She had been a prisoner at another Kaufering camp where she and six other pregnant prisoners had been allowed to give birth that spring She was on the same train that had been strafed by allied planes Glied said that the babies' survival made him believe that human decency endures amid the cruelty of genocide "I feel that human beings are by nature good there is not much sense in human existence," he said eight grandchildren – "and a great-grandchild on the way," Michelle said Report an editorial error Report a technical issue Editorial code of conduct Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following Before moving to Toronto, he spent 12 years as a correspondent for The Globe in Montreal, reporting on Quebec politics, organized crime, space flights, natural disasters He also covered politics as a reporter in The Globe's Parliamentary Bureau and as a legislature reporter in Quebec City for Montreal's The Gazette 'As a former refugee I am lucky that my parents had the fortitude and resourcefulness to escape from a war and start a new life in a new land.' Holocaust survivor Max Eisen arrives for a trial against a SS guard at the Auschwitz death camp on February 18 western Germany.The 94-year-old former SS guard at the Auschwitz death camp stands is charged with at least 170,000 counts of accessory to murder in a train transferring concentration camp prisoners to Dachau for how could newborns be in such wretched conditions seven babies were born that spring because the Germans spared seven pregnant inmates Most survivors think such clemency came because the war was ending and the guards tried to cast themselves in a better light Glied wants to believe it happened because there was a glimmer of decency in the heart of a Nazi “I feel that human beings are by nature good there is not much sense in human existence,” the 84-year-old said from his Toronto home Tuesday is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the largest Nazi death camp where more than a million victims died in occupied Poland many have dedicated their later years to bearing witness to the tragedy Glied wants to honour the memory of his father who gave him his rations and struggled to find him easier tasks Auschwitz is where his mother and his eight-year-old sister were murdered in 1944 It is also where Sally Wasserman lost her parents and brother Wasserman is devoted to sharing her story because she wants to talk about the courage of ordinary people in the face of evil – the courage of her mother and the courage of a Polish couple who hid Ms It is a duty and obligation for me to make sure that people learn about this,” she says Auschwitz-Birkenau was made up of three main camps and became the Nazi regime’s largest extermination complex Prisoners who were not killed on arrival were used for forced labour and medical experiments 30 German criminals and 728 Polish prisoners It is estimated that about 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945: About 1.1 million were Jews an estimated 1.1 million people were killed.\n \n Auschwitz-Birkenau was one of the centres the Nazis set up in occupied Poland for large-scale they accounted for the murder of more than 2.8 million people.\n \n the Germans evacuated the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex forcing inmates on long marches and rail journeys that killed thousands more the 60th Army of the First Ukrainian Front liberated the remaining 7,000 prisoners.\n \n holocaust-history.org\n \n Wasserman is the elder child of Izak and Tola Goldblum who owned a butcher shop in the Polish town of Katowice She was four when the Germans invaded in 1939 They annexed Katowice and expelled its Jews The Goldblums moved in with relatives in Dabrowa her father smuggled in a cow to feed the family 728 Polish prisoners became the first inmates of a new concentration camp Wasserman learned that her father died of typhus in Auschwitz Glied’s family ran a flour mill in Subotica He was 11 when the Germans invaded in April which had anti-Jewish laws modelled on Nazi legislation “People I considered my friend all of a sudden became enemies People who were my parents’ friends and associates The Nazis had experimented with gas chambers to murder mentally ill patients with 850 Soviet PoWs and Polish inmates killed her mother and her brother were doing their best to survive the Jews of Dabrowa had been forced into a rundown Wasserman was eight and looked after her six-year-old brother while their mother toiled 10-hour shifts at a shop sewing German uniforms Then she met Mikolai (sometimes spelled Mikolaj) Turkin a Christian city worker who could enter the ghetto because he was a meter reader classified him as a Category II ethnic German He suspected the ghetto would eventually be liquidated and said he and his wife could shelter her and yet she found the courage to give [something that she had of value] to a Polish Christian.” The Nazis emptied the Dabrowa ghetto in July Wasserman’s mother gave her a letter to a sister in Toronto “We are expecting death any minute,” the letter said It added that “the end is bitter and tragic and I do not have nice enough words to describe him and his wife.” he hid the package in a tin box and buried it under a pile of coals She spent the rest of the war hiding with Mr where her mother and her brother were murdered that summer a complex of four large gas chambers and crematoria functioned in Auschwitz as the waves of deportations struck Greek and Italian Jews Hungary had not engaged in mass murders of its Jews after Hungary tried to enter into talks with the Allies more than 400,000 Hungarian Jews were shipped to Auschwitz all these people outside looking at us walking to our death,” Mr ‘I’ll help you,’ even though this is a farming community and any one of them could have hidden us.” in overcrowded cattle cars with no toilets Glied remembers the blinding sunlight when they arrived at Birkenau the sprawling sub-camp where they were off-loaded He and his father spent two to three weeks in Birkenau Then they marched to Kaufering and would be ordered to sing His father gave him his rations and tried to find an easier job for him “You’re insensitive at that age to what sacrifices he made in order for you to stay alive.” and the sicker ones were taken to another camp I started crying and the camp commander called me out and asked me why I was crying They let him go with his father to Kaufering IV Wasserman spent the last two years of the war inside the apartment of the Turkins living in fear she would be spotted or they would be denounced she had to crawl in the hallways so she would not be seen through the windows chatting with her neighbours and wondering about the terrible things rumoured to be happening in neighbouring Auschwitz They had two temporary hiding places in case someone dropped by There was also a more permanent hideout behind a false wall in a closet with just enough space for a bucket and a stool Turkin’s daughter from a previous marriage and her family would visit she moved to Canada and never saw the Turkins again were recognized in 2012 as Righteous among Nations the honour bestowed on Gentiles who risked their lives to help Jews during the Holocaust “There were years when I didn’t want to be defined by the Holocaust per se There’s much more to me than just surviving the Holocaust Because I am who I am because of it,” she says “Because I will never know what other lives I could have had Many survivors do not speak about their experience Glied has accompanied students on educational marches to Auschwitz seven times so that “something will rise out of the ashes of this terrible place,” he said “I don’t know how long I’ll be able to do it Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s comment community. 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For more information on our commenting policies and how our community-based moderation works, please read our Community Guidelines and our Terms and Conditions In 2001, HBO released the celebrated World War II miniseries Band of Brothers The 10-episode show followed the men of Easy Company an American Army unit that found itself at the center of some of the war’s most dramatic moments But Band of Brothers was much more than a mere TV show The show was based on the book Band of Brothers: E Company 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest by historian Stephen E who had written his tome based on interviews with the surviving members of the real-life Easy Company valiantly withstood a Nazi attack in the Battle of the Bulge and gleefully looted Adolf Hitler’s “Eagle’s Nest” in the Alps as the war came to a close Wikimedia CommonsThe surviving men of Easy Company in September 1945 the 140 men and seven officers who formed the first iteration of Easy Company — or E Company 2nd Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division — gathered for training at Camp Toccoa in Georgia The soldiers had a few attributes in common “They were young, born since the Great War,” Ambrose wrote in his 1992 book 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest the men all faced the same challenges of training at Camp Toccoa “Officers would come and go,” Winters recalled, according to The New York Times “You would take one look at them and know they wouldn’t make it Some of these guys were just a bowl of butter.” Many also chafed under Sobel’s leadership The “devil in jump boots,” as one of his men called him trained his soldiers hard and subjected them to embarrassing punishments like digging a six-foot-by-six-foot hole in the ground — and then filling it back in Winters even called Sobel “just plain mean,” though he also admitted that Sobel helped whip the men in shape the men of Easy Company swiftly became an elite unit They were sent to England in September 1943 where they prepared for their first combat mission — which would be D-Day Air Force/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesAmerican paratroopers preparing to descend on the beaches of Normandy For the men of Easy Company, they entered World War II in earnest on June 6, 1944. Then, they parachuted alongside thousands of other Allied soldiers onto the beaches of Normandy during Operation Overlord or D-Day “Got on a plane, traveled over the Channel,” Easy Company member Edward Shames later recalled in an interview all hell occurred… when we hit the coast The unit sadly lost 65 men in Normandy. But they also proved their mettle. During Operation Overlord, Winters was commanded to attack a battery of four German guns at Brécourt Manor. As reported by History Net a captain told him: “There’s fire along that hedgerow there “That was it,” Winters later said “There was no elaborate plan or briefing I didn’t even know what was on the other side of the hedgerow and I had to quickly develop a plan from there We were able to take out those four German guns with the loss of only one man who was killed just in front of me.” Easy Company saw some of the most harrowing moments of the war They participated in the Allied attempt to retake Holland they later relocated to Belgium to fight in the historic Battle of the Bulge in December And in April 1945, the men of Easy Company encountered some of the war’s most horrific scenes when they arrived at the Kaufering complex of the Dachau concentration camp. At the Kaufering IV camp alone, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum most of whom they’d already forced onto death marches “I witnessed something that no other human being should witness,” Shames who was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants “The stench and horror will be with me as long as I live.” shortly after Adolf Hitler died by suicide Easy Company was ordered to capture Berchtesgaden the Bavarian town that was home to the Führer’s “Eagle’s Nest” in the Alps “We were the first ones there,” Shames said “We naturally did what any godfearing soldier would do We looted the whole place.” Though it remains debatable which unit seized the Eagle’s Nest first there’s no question that the Easy Company men carried out the biggest raid of the building Shames took a couple of bottles of cognac labeled “for the Führer’s use only,” which he later used to toast his son’s bar mitzvah The men also uncovered Hitler’s private wine collection Easy Company officially disbanded later that year the unit had suffered 150 percent casualties as new men had constantly arrived to replace the fallen soldiers “at the peak of [Easy Company’s] effectiveness,” Ambrose wrote “it was as good a rifle company as there was in the world.” ArmySome of the members of Easy Company at Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest in the Alps the men of Easy Company went their separate ways Nixon went to work for his family’s company Shames took a job at the National Security Agency and Winters started his own business selling feed for livestock to farmers that’s what inspired Stephen Ambrose to write about Easy Company in the first place After he attended an Easy Company reunion in 1988 Ambrose was struck by how close the veterans seemed “It was something that all armies everywhere throughout history strive to create but seldom do,” Ambrose remembered “The only way to satisfy my curiosity was to research and write the company history.” Not only did he interview surviving members of Easy Company but Ambrose also shared the drafts of his manuscripts so that anyone could offer corrections and suggestions as needed Not everyone was happy with the final result “They also started this thing about me yelling at the men and the other officers,” Shames who had an argument with Ambrose over his portrayal in the book This is why I brought more men home than most of the officers in the 506th.” Ambrose’s 1992 book stunned readers with its depictions of the men and their harrowing experiences of fighting in World War II HBO produced the miniseries based on the book introducing Easy Company’s story to an even wider audience No one from Easy Company survives today — Shames was the last of the “Band of Brothers” men to pass away in December 2021 — but their legacy continues to inspire Theirs was “a closeness unknown to all outsiders Their relationship is different from that of lovers After reading about Easy Company, discover the story of the Niland brothers who inspired the movie Saving Private Ryan. Then, take a look through these stunning photos that bring World War II to life Anthony Benedetto, more famously known by his stage name, Tony Bennett captivated audiences for over 70 years with his smooth sultry crooning and jazzy musical stylings Although Bennett began singing at a young age his musical career was put on hold with the outbreak of World War II the war was finally starting to come to a close bringing the war on the European front to an end "He said he signed up to do a job and he was paid to do that job and that's what he did." Martin often spoke candidly about his time as a paratrooper paratroopers went in the night before D-Day and we knew we were told the likelihood of most of us not coming back we still went and I'm glad I did." Military states that the 101st was set to return to the United States before deploying to Japan Japan surrendered before this could happen a Bronze Star medal for heroism (We Are the Mighty says "several Bronze Star medals") and the European African Middle Eastern Service Medal (via the Dayton Daily News) "We have lost a great American and friend with the passing of Jim Martin." Dayton 24/7 Now reports that Martin will be buried next to his late wife at Dayton National Cemetery.