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Holocaust gravesites identified in Latvia and Netherlands using contemporary technology
(JTA) — A mass grave of Jews killed by the Nazis has been identified in Latvia following decades of searching.
Separately, the body of a World War II Jewish resistance fighter buried in a mass grave has been identified in the Netherlands.
The grave in Latvia was located using technology created by American researchers, LTV News Service reported Wednesday. It holds the bodies of dozens of Jews murdered by the Nazis in July 1941 in the western Latvian city of Liepāja. The massacre, one of a series of Nazi mass murders of thousands of Jews in the area over the course of that year, was filmed by German soldier Reinhard Wiener, and the footage survived the war.
Wiener’s film includes shots of the trenches where the Jews were murdered, as well as the city’s historic lighthouse. For decades, researchers had tried to use the lighthouse as a landmark in order to identify the exact location of the mass graves, but those efforts were unsuccessful.
This summer, a team of students and researchers led by Harry Jol and Martin Goettl from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, and Philip Reeder from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, were invited to Liepāja to search for the grave. Using soil sampling and georadar analysis, they were able to locate the mass burial site from 82 years ago.
“There are historical maps that we can compare with our data and see changes in the soil layers,” Jol told Latvian Public Media. “We can use the dendrological method, determined by the age of trees. There is also a relatively new technique for soils — optically stimulated luminescence dating.”
According to Latvian press reports, the researchers are certain that the grave they located is the one filmed by Wiener, and are looking for documents and testimony to buttress that finding.
The area of the mass grave is currently being leased by a Lithuanian fish processing company, Ilana Ivanova, a representative of the Jewish community in Liepāja, told LTV News Service.
Ilya Lensky, director of the Museum of Jews in Latvia, told LTV News Service that he believes the site should be marked as a memorial to honor the Jews who died there. Gunārs Ansiņš, the mayor of Liepāja, said that discussions are ongoing in the municipal council to address what to do with the site.
In the Netherlands, the body of Jewish resistance hero Bernard Luza was also identified in a mass grave, according to a statement from the Dutch Defense Ministry published on Tuesday. Luza was executed by firing squad in 1943, when he was 39, after he and hundreds of Jews were arrested following a raid on a factory in Amsterdam the previous year. Luza was a member of the Dutch Communist Party and People’s Militia, and joined the resistance after the Nazi takeover of the Netherlands in May 1940. He was accused of distributing an illegal newspaper and encouraging acts of sabotage.
“Now, through the use of DNA technology employed in a relationship study, his remains were finally identified,” said Geert Jonker, head of the ministry’s forensic unit specializing in identifying human remains, according to Agence France-Presse. According to the ministry statement, the ministry ascertained Luza’s identity after a cousin of his was identified in Australia.
In 1945, Luza’s body was discovered buried along with four others. Two of those bodies were identified soon after as those of Theodorus Cramer and Carel Abraham, and a third was identified a decade ago as Nicolaas van der Horst, but Luza’s remained a mystery until this year.
Just two months after they received a farewell letter from Luza before his execution, his wife Clara and daughter Eva were murdered at the Nazi Sobibor extermination camp. Luza’s father Solomon and five of his siblings were also murdered at Auschwitz and Sobibor.
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The post Holocaust gravesites identified in Latvia and Netherlands using contemporary technology appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says
Atomic symbol and USA and Iranian flags are seen in this illustration taken, September 8, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
Iran and the United States agreed on Saturday to task experts to start drawing up a framework for a potential nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister said, after a second round of talks following President Donald Trump’s threat of military action.
At their second indirect meeting in a week, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi negotiated for almost four hours in Rome with Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, through an Omani official who shuttled messages between them.
Trump, who abandoned a 2015 nuclear pact between Tehran and world powers during his first term in 2018, has threatened to attack Iran unless it reaches a new deal swiftly that would prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, says it is willing to discuss limited curbs to its atomic work in return for lifting international sanctions.
Speaking on state TV after the talks, Araqchi described them as useful and conducted in a constructive atmosphere.
“We were able to make some progress on a number of principles and goals, and ultimately reached a better understanding,” he said.
“It was agreed that negotiations will continue and move into the next phase, in which expert-level meetings will begin on Wednesday in Oman. The experts will have the opportunity to start designing a framework for an agreement.”
The top negotiators would meet again in Oman next Saturday to “review the experts’ work and assess how closely it aligns with the principles of a potential agreement,” he added.
Echoing cautious comments last week from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, he added: “We cannot say for certain that we are optimistic. We are acting very cautiously. There is no reason either to be overly pessimistic.”
There was no immediate comment from the US side following the talks. Trump told reporters on Friday: “I’m for stopping Iran, very simply, from having a nuclear weapon. They can’t have a nuclear weapon. I want Iran to be great and prosperous and terrific.”
Washington’s ally Israel, which opposed the 2015 agreement with Iran that Trump abandoned in 2018, has not ruled out an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming months, according to an Israeli official and two other people familiar with the matter.
Since 2019, Iran has breached and far surpassed the 2015 deal’s limits on its uranium enrichment, producing stocks far above what the West says is necessary for a civilian energy program.
A senior Iranian official, who described Iran’s negotiating position on condition of anonymity on Friday, listed its red lines as never agreeing to dismantle its uranium enriching centrifuges, halt enrichment altogether or reduce its enriched uranium stockpile below levels agreed in the 2015 deal.
The post Iran, US Task Experts to Design Framework for a Nuclear Deal, Tehran Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hamas Says Fate of US-Israeli Hostage Unknown After Guard Killed in Israel Strike
Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Edan Alexander, 19, an Israeli army volunteer kidnapped by Hamas, attends a special Kabbalat Shabbat ceremony with families of other hostages, in Herzliya, Israel October 27, 2023 REUTERS/Kuba Stezycki
Hamas said on Saturday the fate of an Israeli dual national soldier believed to be the last US citizen held alive in Gaza was unknown, after the body of one of the guards who had been holding him was found killed by an Israeli strike.
A month after Israel abandoned the ceasefire with the resumption of intensive strikes across the breadth of Gaza, Israel was intensifying its attacks.
President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said in March that freeing Edan Alexander, a 21-year-old New Jersey native who was serving in the Israeli army when he was captured during the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks that precipitated the war, was a “top priority.” His release was at the center of talks held between Hamas leaders and US negotiator Adam Boehler last month.
Hamas had said on Tuesday that it had lost contact with the militants holding Alexander after their location was hit in an Israeli attack. On Saturday it said the body of one of the guards had been recovered.
“The fate of the prisoner and the rest of the captors remains unknown,” said Hamas armed wing Al-Qassam Brigades’ spokesperson Abu Ubaida.
“We are trying to protect all the hostages and preserve their lives … but their lives are in danger because of the criminal bombings by the enemy’s army,” Abu Ubaida said.
The Israeli military did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Hamas released 38 hostages under the ceasefire that began on January 19. Fifty-nine are still believed to be held in Gaza, fewer than half of them still alive.
Israel put Gaza under a total blockade in March and restarted its assault on March 18 after talks failed to extend the ceasefire. Hamas says it will free remaining hostages only under an agreement that permanently ends the war; Israel says it will agree only to a temporary pause.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it hit about 40 targets across the enclave over the past day. The military on Saturday announced that a 35-year-old soldier had died in combat in Gaza.
NETANYAHU STATEMENT
Late on Thursday Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ Gaza chief, said the movement was willing to swap all remaining 59 hostages for Palestinians jailed in Israel in return for an end to the war and reconstruction of Gaza.
He dismissed an Israeli offer, which includes a demand that Hamas lay down its arms, as imposing “impossible conditions.”
Israel has not responded formally to Al-Hayya’s comments, but ministers have said repeatedly that Hamas must be disarmed completely and can play no role in the future governance of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to give a statement later on Saturday.
Hamas on Saturday also released an undated and edited video of Israeli hostage Elkana Bohbot. Hamas has released several videos over the course of the war of hostages begging to be released. Israeli officials have dismissed past videos as propaganda.
After the video was released, Bohbot’s family said in a statement that they were “deeply shocked and devastated,” and expressed concern for his mental and physical condition.
“How much longer will he be expected to wait and ‘stay strong’?” the family asked, urging for all of the 59 hostages who are still held in Gaza to be brought home.
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Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks
FILE PHOTO: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said gives a speech after being sworn in before the royal family council in Muscat, Oman January 11, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Sultan Al Hasani/File Photo
Oman’s Sultan Haitham bin Tariq al-Said is set to visit Moscow on Monday, days after the start of a round of Muscat-mediated nuclear talks between the US and Iran.
The sultan will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Iran and the US started a new round of nuclear talks in Rome on Saturday to resolve their decades-long standoff over Tehran’s atomic aims, under the shadow of President Donald Trump’s threat to unleash military action if diplomacy fails.
Ahead of Saturday’s talks, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Following the meeting, Lavrov said Russia was “ready to assist, mediate and play any role that will be beneficial to Iran and the USA.”
Moscow has played a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations in the past as a veto-wielding U.N. Security Council member and signatory to an earlier deal that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
The sultan’s meetings in Moscow visit will focus on cooperation on regional and global issues, the Omani state news agency and the Kremlin said, without providing further detail.
The two leaders are also expected to discuss trade and economic ties, the Kremlin added.
The post Oman’s Sultan to Meet Putin in Moscow After Iran-US Talks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.