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As European nations celebrate their past, a US Holocaust envoy reminds them of its darker corners
WASHINGTON (JTA) — At a time when some European nations are seeking to revise their Holocaust histories to emphasize victimhood, a senior Biden administration official says the United States should keep reminding them of the dark corners of their past.
Ellen Germain, the State Department’s special envoy on Holocaust issues, said she has spent a lot of time recently engaging with leaders of countries who are seeking to venerate heroes who resisted Soviet oppression. The problem is that many of those figures also worked with the Nazis to persecute Jews.
Speaking to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency this week, Germain framed her job as ensuring that countries take the totality of that history into account. She has repeatedly made the case for removing or at least modifying plaques, statues and other memorials to people who collaborated with the Nazis.
“I understand why they’re being glorified as national heroes after World War II, but you can’t just erase what they did during the war,” Germain told JTA.
Germain’s office was established in 1999, and she has served in the role since August 2021. The envoy’s role is to persuade countries to give financial restitution to families of Jews who were murdered and exiled during the Holocaust. In the late 1990s, many countries were still coming to terms with their long-overlooked obligations toward Jewish communities that had been persecuted and wiped out. Stuart Eizenstat, the U.S. deputy treasury secretary at the time, pressed the Clinton administration to create the position to show U.S. commitment to seeking restitution.
Since 2017, the office has written reports on how countries are implementing the Terezin Declaration, a 2009 agreement between 47 countries to pay restitution to survivors. The office also works closely with the World Jewish Restitution Organization to push countries to pass laws facilitating restitution. And it works with the State Department’s antisemitism monitor to track antisemitism and campaign against it, to promote education about the Holocaust, to preserve Holocaust-era archives and to organize Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorations.
Germain, a career diplomat who has served in multiple posts in Europe, the Middle East and the United Nations, said most countries now have advanced restitution mechanisms, lessening the need for U.S. pressure. She added that some countries, including Poland and Croatia, still need to pass legislation to that effect.
Her focus more recently has been on pressing countries to more openly and honestly confront their roles in the Holocaust, a job complicated by states’ natural tendency to create heroic national myths. She would like to see monuments to perpetrators of atrocities removed, or at least modified.
More broadly, a resurgence of the far right has worried Jewish groups and the Biden administration. Poland has passed laws criminalizing accusations that some Poles collaborated with the Nazis, and others restricting restitution. Hungary’s approach to its role in the Holocaust has long been a matter of debate between the government and Jewish community. Far-right parties have made gains in recent elections in Austria, Germany and France, among other countries. Neo-Nazi marches also still make headlines across the continent.
“You get a certain amount of what we call revisionism or rehabilitation, like rehabilitation or glorification of people who are considered national heroes because they fought the communists,” she said. “They fought the Soviets after World War II, but they also participated in acts of Nazi genocide. During World War Two, they collaborated — sometimes they were directly involved in deportations or mass killings. There are figures like that in Lithuania, Ukraine, in Croatia, you’ve got street names named after some of them.”
Germain named Juozas Krikštaponis and Jonas Noreika in Lithuania; Roman Shukhevych in Ukraine; and Miklos Horthy in Hungary as examples of people memorialized for their anti-Soviet campaigns who also collaborated with the Nazis.
Germain has been having conversations about the resurgence of such memorialization in her travels. How receptive her interlocutors are, she said, depends on the country. Late last year, she traveled to Lithuania and Hungary, and in Germany she addressed a course on the Holocaust for diplomatic and security professionals from across Europe. In January, she accompanied Douglas Emhoff, the Jewish second gentleman, on his heritage tour of Poland and Germany.
Lithuanian officials were receptive to her efforts to get them to grapple with their Holocaust history, she said.
“I was really, really pleasantly surprised and impressed by how open everyone was in Lithuania to the discussion of this,” she said. “Everyone from the government to academics to journalists. “I did a panel event there that live-streamed and had 20,000 viewers, and the questions and comments just from the people in the audience about this — they were just much more open to saying, ‘Yeah, you know, we realized this is a problem and we need to figure out how to deal with it.’”
The Hungarians, by contrast, appeared wary. Hungarian officials have sought to equate the Holocaust with Soviet-era repression and revive the reputations of figures like Horthy. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has unsettled many in the West with his hard-right turn and rhetoric that, at times, appears to cross over into racism and antisemitism.
“Hungary is a more difficult question,” she said. ”I didn’t find the same level of openness. But I did find a willingness to at least talk to me about it.”
She did not mention the opposite democratic trajectories of both countries: Lithuania, along with Estonia and Latvia, have eagerly turned toward Europe and the United States in recent years, particularly as the Russian threat looms directly across the border. Hungary, by contrast, has become more insular and hyper-nationalist.
Germain said she takes a nuanced approach to making the case for confronting the past. Some of the people she wants to see made accountable for their crimes were genuinely at the forefront of their countries’ struggles against the Soviets.
“They don’t have to be written out of history, and in fact, they shouldn’t be because people need to know what they did, both good and bad,” she said. “But the point is, make the history more nuanced and teach the citizens of these countries what the full story is, and if there are statues and memorials to some of these guys… either take it down or add some context to it.”
She cited “a plaque to Jonas Noreika on the National Library in Vilnius, in Lithuania, that just says that he was a great man.” Noreika was a high-ranking police officer who is believed to have personally overseen the murder of Jews. He is venerated in Lithuania as a hero for fighting the Soviet Union alongside the Germans.
Germain said understands the impulse to seek heroes to forge a national identity after the Soviets sought to negate the histories of the countries they dominated — and especially in the face of a resurgent imperialist Russia that has invaded Ukraine.
“I think it took a while for them to start sorting out their history,” she said. “And so, sometimes, there’s only in the last five or 10 years been real attention paid to the fact that some of these figures might not be as 100% heroic as they were initially thought to be.”
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Australia PM Albanese ‘Profoundly Sorry’ for Failing to Prevent Bondi Beach Attack
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks at the Sydney Opera House during a National Day of Mourning for the victims of the Dec. 14, 2025, mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, Jan. 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jeremy Piper
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday he was “profoundly sorry” for his failure to prevent the Bondi Beach mass shooting, as the country observed a day of mourning for the victims of the attack.
Police say a father and son opened fire at an event celebrating the Jewish festival of Hanukkah on Dec. 14, killing 15 people in Australia‘s worst mass shooting in decades.
They say the two men were inspired by Islamic State to carry out the attack, which the government has called an act of terrorism against Jewish people.
Flags were flown at half-mast across the country ahead of a memorial event at Sydney’s iconic Opera House, where Albanese apologized to the relatives of the victims in the audience.
“You came to celebrate a festival of light and freedom and you left with the violence of hatred. I am deeply and profoundly sorry that we could not protect your loved ones from this evil,” Albanese said to sustained applause in his speech at the event.
Last month, the prime minister said he was “sorry for what the Jewish community and our nation as a whole has experienced” – an apology that some relatives said was insufficient.
A minute’s silence, including on the country’s main television channels, was held across the nation just after 7 pm in Sydney (0800 GMT) as the memorial event began.
Event attendees lit candles and heard speeches from other lawmakers, as well as Jewish prayers and video tributes.
Buildings across the country, including cricket stadiums in Melbourne and Perth, were also illuminated, while play was paused during the Australian Open tennis tournament to observe the minute’s silence.
The Bondi attack shocked the nation and led to calls for tougher action on antisemitism and gun control, with critics of Albanese saying he had not done enough to crack down on a spate of attacks on the Jewish community in recent years.
The government disputes this, and has already passed legislation tightening background checks for gun licenses, as well as separate legislation that would lower the threshold for prosecuting hate speech offenses.
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US Pitches ‘New Gaza’ Development Plan
A drone view shows Palestinians walking past the rubble, following Israeli forces’ withdrawal from the area, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, in Gaza City, Oct. 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
The United States on Thursday announced plans for a “New Gaza” rebuilt from scratch to include residential towers, data centers, and seaside resorts, part of President Donald Trump’s push to advance an Israel-Hamas ceasefire shaken by repeated violations.
Trump has parlayed the ceasefire into a broader “Board of Peace” initiative aimed at resolving conflicts globally.
After hosting a signing ceremony for the board in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Trump invited his son-in-law Jared Kushner to present development plans for Gaza, its densely populated cities and towns now in ruins from two years of war.
“In the beginning, we were toying with [building] a free zone, and then [having] a Hamas zone,” Kushner told an audience in Davos of Trump’s early plans to rebuild Gaza, where nearly the entire 2 million population is internally displaced.
“And then we said, you know what? Let’s just plan for catastrophic success.”
‘MASTER PLAN‘
Kushner presented the audience with a slideshow depicting a “master plan” for what he termed a “New Gaza,” displayed on a color-coded map with areas reserved for residential development, data centers, and industrial parks.
The slides included an image of a Mediterranean coastline packed with glittering towers akin to those in Dubai or Singapore. They suggested redevelopment would begin in Rafah in the south, an area under complete Israeli military control.
But they did not address key issues such as property rights or compensation for Palestinians who lost their homes, businesses, and livelihoods during the war. Nor did they address where displaced Palestinians might live during the rebuilding.
Kushner did not say who would fund the redevelopment, which would first require clearing an estimated 68 million tons of rubble and war debris.
A conference will be held in Washington in the coming weeks “where we’ll announce a lot of the contributions that will be made … from the private sector,” Kushner said, without elaborating.
The slides shown by Kushner were nearly identical to slides leaked to the Wall Street Journal in December. The newspaper reported then that the US had offered to “anchor” 20% of the redevelopment project, without going into detail.
Trump has floated the idea of transforming Gaza, ruled for years by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” an idea that has drawn criticism from Palestinians.
RAFAH CROSSING
Kushner’s presentation in Davos followed remarks by Ali Shaath, the Palestinian technocrat leader backed by Washington to administer the enclave under Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza.
A key unfulfilled element of the ceasefire has been the reopening of Gaza’s key Rafah border crossing with Egypt for the entry and exit of Palestinians. Shaath, speaking by video link, announced the Rafah crossing would open next week.
“Opening Rafah signals that Gaza is no longer closed to the future and to the war,” Shaath said.
Israel, which controls the Gaza side of the crossing, has rejected reopening it until Hamas fulfills its ceasefire obligation of returning the remains of the last hostage held in the territory.
After Shaath’s announcement, an Israeli political source said a special effort was being made to return Ran Gvili’s remains and that Israel would discuss reopening the crossing starting next week.
The next phase of Trump’s Gaza plan would see Hamas disarm and international peacekeepers deploy in the crowded, coastal enclave as Israeli troops withdraw further. The first phase left Israel in control of well over half of Gaza, with Hamas holding a sliver of territory along the coast.
Israel has continued to carry out air and artillery strikes in Gaza, often accusing Hamas terrorists of preparing attacks on its troops or encroaching into areas it controls.
Israel launched its air and ground war in Gaza after a Hamas-led cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed 1,200 people. Palestinian terrorists also kidnapped 251 hostages during the massacre.
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Israel Selects Noam Bettan to Compete in 2026 Eurovision Song Contest
Noam Bettan, Israel’s representative for the Eurovision Song Contest 2026, poses in this undated handout photo. Photo: Courtesy of Kan, Timor Elmalach/Handout via REUTERS
Noam Bettan will represent Israel in the 70th Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, Austria, in May, after winning the Israeli singing competition “Hakochav Haba” (“The Next Star”) this week.
This year will mark the first time since 2022 that Israel will be sending a male contestant to the Eurovision contest. For the last few years, Israel has been represented in the Eurovision competition by women: Yuval Raphael in 2025, Eden Golan in 2024, and Noa Kirel in 2023.
Bettan will participate in the first semifinal of the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna on May 12. There will be a second semifinal on May 14 and based on the results of the audience and jury vote, the top 10 countries from both semifinals will advance to compete in the grand final on May 16.
Bettan, 27, was raised in Ra’anana, Israel, to French parents who immigrated to Israel with their two older sons. Bettan, who was also born in Israel, is fluent in French. He released his debut album in 2023, “Above the Water,” and a number of his songs have become hit singles in Israel including “Madame,” which he used as his audition song for “Next Star” this year. He has performed across Israel with his band. In 2018, he competed on the Israeli singing talent show “Aviv or Eyal,” where he finished in third place.
The finale of this year’s “Rising Star” aired on Israeli television on Tuesday night and the four finalists included Bettan, Gal De Paz, Shira Zloof, and Alona Erez. In the final they performed covers of songs, with Bettan performing a Hebrew track, before the top three advanced to the superfinal, where Bettan performed a rendition of the French song “Dernière danse.” The song that Bettan will sing in the 2026 Eurovision will be selected internally by a committee convened by Israel’s public broadcaster Kan, which organizes Israel’s participation in the Eurovision. The song is expected to be announced in March.
Bettan previously auditioned for “Next Star” as a teenager, but failed to make it on to the show. After being crowned the winner on Tuesday night, he thanked the Israeli public for selecting him to represent his country in the Eurovision.
“I will give it my all, I’ll do everything I can to represent our country. It’s such a huge f–king privilege,” he said.
Israel has participated in the Eurovision 46 times and won the contest four times, most recently in 2018 with Netta Barzilai and her song “Toy,” which gave Israel the opportunity to host the contest in Tel Aviv in 2019.
In December, members of the European Broadcasting Union, which organizes the Eurovision, voted that Israel will be allowed to compete in the contest this year despite demands from several countries to ban the Jewish state because of its military actions in the Gaza Strip during the Israel-Hamas war. Following the EBU’s announcement, Spain, Ireland, Iceland, the Netherlands, and Slovenia announced their decision to pull out of this year’s Eurovision in protest. Other countries are facing increasing pressure to withdraw from the song contest because of Israel’s involvement, and two past Eurovision winners have returned their trophies to the EBU in protest of Israel’s participation this year.