Tag Archives: Auschwitz

Jew of the Week: Diane von Fürstenberg

Diane von Fürstenberg    (Credit: Ed Kavishe)

Diane Simone Michelle Halfin (b. 1946) was born in Belgium, the daughter of a Moldavian-Jewish immigrant father and a Greek-Jewish mother who survived the Holocaust. She was born just 18 months after her mother was liberated from Auschwitz. Halfin studied economics at Madrid University and the University of Geneva. During this time, she met Prince Egon of the German aristocratic house of Fürstenberg. The couple soon married and had two children: Prince Alexander and Princess Tatiana. The now-Princess Diane did not want to be a trophy wife, and “decided to have a career. I wanted to be someone of my own, and not just a plain little girl who got married beyond her desserts.” She followed her passion into fashion design and apprenticed at a textile factory in Italy. It was here that she first came up with her idea of the “jersey dress”. Unfortunately, the Prince and Princess separated (a major reason being the disapproval of the Prince’s family of a Jewish bride), and Diane became a full-time fashion designer in New York. She started her business with a $30,000 loan from her father. In 1974, she finally introduced her jersey “wrap dress”. It took the world by storm, and over 5 million dresses were sold in just one year. Von Fürstenberg expanded into cosmetics and fragrances, and was soon among New York’s most successful fashion designers and businesspeople. After moving to Paris in 1985 to open a publishing house and a European cosmetics line, she returned to New York in 1997 to re-launch her American business. The jersey dress returned to immense popularity. In 2004, von Fürstenberg launched new collections of jewellery and beachwear. A couple of years later, she was made President of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, a position she still holds. She is one of the most popular designers among celebrities, and her dresses have been worn by the likes of Kate Middleton, Michelle Obama, Madonna, and Jennifer Lopez. Von Fürstenberg is also a noted philanthropist (together with her current husband Barry Diller), having donated millions to a wide array of causes including public housing, education, human rights, health, and the environment. Every year, she presents a $50,000 “DVF Award” at the United Nations building to each of five women “who display leadership, strength, and courage”. She is on the board of Vital Voices, an organization that assists women around the world, particularly in the area of economic empowerment. In 2014, she gave $12 million to help restore the crumbling historic Jewish ghetto of Venice (the oldest in the world). Von Fürstenberg also had her own reality TV show (House of DVF) that ran for two seasons, and has written two popular books. She still presides over 111 DVF stores around the world. She was recently ranked by Forbes among the world’s most powerful women, and in the TIME 100 list of iconic figures.

Words of the Week

One feels the beauty of the world only according to the measure of beauty that is in the inner core of one’s soul.
– Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook

Jew of the Week: Israel Kristal

Israel Kristal, World's Oldest Living Man (Credit: Guinness World Records)

Israel Kristal, World’s Oldest Living Man (Credit: Guinness World Records)

Izrael Icek Krysztal (b. 1903) was born near Zarnow, Poland to an Orthodox Jewish family. At the young age of three he started his studies at a religious school, and by six was already well-versed in Biblical and Talmudic knowledge. He survived the First World War as a teenager, despite the fact that his father had been drafted into the army, and his mother had passed away. After the war, he and his father reunited, and settled in Lodz where they opened up a candy shop. Kristal married and had two children. It wasn’t long before another World War broke out, and Kristal’s family was sooned moved to the Lodz ghetto, where both of his children died. Some time later, he and his wife were sent to Auschwitz, then transferred to several other labour camps. When the camps were liberated, Kristal weighed just 37 kilograms. Tragically, his wife didn’t make it, and neither did anyone else in his extended family. Starting anew once more, Kristal remarried, and made aliyah to Israel in 1950, where he has lived ever since. He continued working in his profession as a confectioner, first at a candy factory, and then from his own home. Last week, Guinness World Records confirmed Kristal as the world’s oldest living man (in addition to his previous recognition of being the oldest living Holocaust survivor). He is now nearing his 113th birthday. Still devoutly observant, Kristal says he hasn’t missed a day of laying tefillin for over 70 years, since the end of the Holocaust. He has nine grandchildren, and many more great-grandchildren. When asked what one should eat for a long life, he said: “There wasn’t always food in the camps. I ate what I was given. I eat to live, and I don’t live to eat. I don’t need too much. Anything that’s too much is no good.”

UPDATE: Sadly, Israel Kristal passed away in August of 2017.

Words of the Week

I don’t know the secret for long life. I believe that everything is determined from above and we shall never know the reasons why…
– Israel Kristal

Jew of the Week: Anne Frank

A Diary that Changed the World

Anne Frank

Anne Frank

Annelies Marie Frank (1929-1945) was born in Frankfurt, Germany. Her family fled to Amsterdam shortly after the Nazis took over, and there her father started a new business selling herbs, spices, and fruit extracts. On her thirteenth birthday, Anne received an autograph book that she began to use as a diary, which she addressed as “Kitty”, her best friend. By then, the Nazis had already occupied the Netherlands, and a month later Anne’s family was ordered to report to labour camps. Instead, they hid in a space above her father’s company offices. Some of the employees were aware of this, and provided the Franks with food. During this time, Anne wrote in her diary of her experiences, struggles, and relationships, as well as deeper insights into human nature. In the summer of 1944, the Franks’ hiding place was discovered and the family was arrested. They were sent through various detention centres and labour camps, ending up in Auschwitz. There, her father was taken away and presumed dead, while Anne, her sister, and mother were forced into back-breaking labour. By the time that the two sisters were relocated to Bergen-Belsen, their mother had already succumbed to starvation. Not long before the camp was liberated, a typhus outbreak spread that killed thousands. Anne and her sister were likely among those victims. The only member of the family to survive was Anne’s father, Otto. He went on to publish Anne’s original diary in 1947. By 1952 it was published in the US as Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, and would go on to be translated into 67 languages. In 1955, the first dramatization of the diary premiered as a Pulitzer prize-winning play. A movie version followed in 1959. The diary is still among the top-selling books of all time, and included in La Monde‘s list of the 100 greatest books of the century. It is praised for its beautiful writing, and is powerful not only for capturing some of the horrors of the Holocaust, but also for its honest portrayal of a girl’s transformation into a young adult. Nelson Mandela read the diary while imprisoned and said how Anne Frank’s story inspired his struggle. Others who derived inspiration from Anne Frank include President Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Hillary Clinton. TIME Magazine named Frank as one of its 100 most important people of the century. The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam still stands, and is one of the city’s most visited places.

Words of the Week

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.”

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”

– From the diary of Anne Frank