Daniela Ozacky Stern
Daniela Ozacky-Stern is a Post-doctoral researcher in the Institute of Holocaust Research, Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and a lecturer at the Holocaust Studies Program, Western Galilee College in Akko, Israel.
She earned her Ph.D. in Jewish History at The University of Haifa, Israel, studying the Jewish partisans in the forests of Lithuania and West Belarus during The Second World War and the Holocaust. In her research she examines the history of the Jewish partisans by using over 300 testimonies, as well as other archival material. She earned a Master's degree in General History from The School of History in Tel Aviv University and her thesis dealt with Nazi propaganda led by Joseph Goebbels during the last year of The Second World War. This Thesis was published as a book (in Hebrew) entitled: "Twilight of the Gods: Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda, and the Destruction of the Jews during the last year of The Second World War".
She was the director of the Holocaust Archives of Moreshet, in Givat Haviva, Israel, and participated in numerous academic conferences, workshops and seminars in Israel and abroad presenting her researches.
She earned her Ph.D. in Jewish History at The University of Haifa, Israel, studying the Jewish partisans in the forests of Lithuania and West Belarus during The Second World War and the Holocaust. In her research she examines the history of the Jewish partisans by using over 300 testimonies, as well as other archival material. She earned a Master's degree in General History from The School of History in Tel Aviv University and her thesis dealt with Nazi propaganda led by Joseph Goebbels during the last year of The Second World War. This Thesis was published as a book (in Hebrew) entitled: "Twilight of the Gods: Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda, and the Destruction of the Jews during the last year of The Second World War".
She was the director of the Holocaust Archives of Moreshet, in Givat Haviva, Israel, and participated in numerous academic conferences, workshops and seminars in Israel and abroad presenting her researches.
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underground members who were imprisoned in detention
camps in Eritrea, Sudan, and Kenya during the British
Mandate rule over Palestine from October 1944 to July 1948.
These 459 detainees endured harsh conditions and isolation,
after being exiled without trial and denied the ability to
appeal to a court. Their primary means of communication
with the outside world was by correspondence. An
extensive collection of letters penned by these detainees to
their loved ones and to national and international
institutions is housed in Israeli archives, particularly within
the Jabotinsky Institute. Additionally, original newspapers
and a comprehensive book compiled during their time in
the camp are among the preserved materials. Remarkably,
these ego documents have seen limited use in academic
research. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive
depiction of the isolated microcosm of culture, education,
struggle, and resilience cultivated by these young Jewish
men despite their uncertain condition and lack of control
over their fate. This analysis relies on letters composed in
real-time, subject to military censorship as well as self-restraint, to avoid causing distress to their families. These
letters constitute a valuable historical resource that sheds
light on a lesser-known case study.
percent of them children and youth, were detained by the British in
various camps in Cyprus, in order to prevent their entrance to Eretz
Israel (Mandatory Palestine). Relief organizations and emissaries
from Eretz Israel were engaged in providing basic needs,
occupation, and education to the detainees. Among other
initiatives, art classes were organized for the young and adults
alike, and occasional exhibitions were held to display their works.
This paper tells the story of these exhibitions from different
perspectives – therapeutic, educational, artistic, practical, and
political. It exposes the politics behind the exhibits, as well as the
competition surrounding them between the different political
movements operating in the camps at the time. By analyzing the
works of the young students in particular, and based on
memories and research, the author shows how art was often
used as an ideological tool as well. The youngsters had been
directed to express their dreams of a wishful future in Eretz Israel,
rather than their traumatic memories and losses in the Holocaust.
Sculptures of Zionist leaders, models of kibbutzim, and displays
of agricultural tools, among others, were common, while horrors
of the war were hardly expressed in these exhibitions. One
exhibition, displayed by the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement,
serves as a case study in this paper. This unique project, called
‘To-No’ (Hebrew initials for ‘Youth Production’) is presented here
through its numerous artifacts preserved to this day in archives in
Israel, and through later exhibitions of them in Cyprus (2014) and
in Israel (2017), accompanied by catalogs and articles of scholarly
interpretation. They carry a universal message on the power and
influence of artwork and artifacts as a means of resilience and
rehabilitation, and as a model of spiritual and cultural resistance.
ושבבלארוס במלחמת העולם השנייה. תחילה הוא מתאר את הרקע
לפעילותם וללוחמת הגרילה. הפרטיזנים שהחלו לפעול במבצע
''ברברוסה'' עד לשחרור ליטא ביולי ,1944 הפכו למרכיב חשוב בהתנגדותם
לכובש הנאצי.
המאמר סוקר את פעילותם של הפרטיזנים הסובייטים בתקופה זו,
ומביא את תגובתם של הנאצים על כך. זהותם הכפולה של היהודים
כקורבנות נרדפים וכלוחמים עוברת כחוט השני במאמר, ובו מציג את
הקשיים ואת הדילמות שעימם התמודדו לוחמים אלה. מקום מיוחד
מוקדש לתיאור היחס הקשה שקיבלו היהודים מעמיתיהם הפרטיזנים,
והוא התבטא אף בהוצאות להורג כעונש על הפרת חוקים ובהתעמרות
כלפיהם מצד מפקדיהם.
Not long afterwards Shmuel lost his father and his two legs. He spent the last year of the war in hospitals and when he could walk again on the prosthesis, he immigrated to Israel in 1946 to join the Palmah, a Jewish underground organization, and in 1948 fought in the war of independence. All this time he tried to hide his disability from his friends and commanders and functioned as a regular soldier.
Ramati gave two testimonies about his life in Slovakia and this article is based on the both of them.
Holocaust. She gained a prominent position in the Oszmiana ghetto’s Judenrat, a rare place for a woman. She was involved in the Judenrat’s decision-makings and had access to invaluable knowledge of what was going on in the ghetto in real-time.
Deul left behind her personal diary written in Polish, one of the most important Ego-documents of that time. Her writing reveals participation of the Jewish leadership in the decision-making process. It throws light on the nature of the “Gray Zone,” as Primo Levi called the blurred space between “right and wrong”, “good and evil” in that place he calls “inferno”. The article brings to light the unique voice of a woman who was an eyewitness and chronicler documenter of the horrors in Oszmiana. The role of women in the Holocaust and documentation of events has been neglected in the research and historiography of the Holocaust until recently. Through writing her diary, she had constructed the memory of Oszmiana. By doing so, she shifted from being yet another “undistinguished woman” to playing a central role in commemorating and comprehending the history of that time and space. This transition to a narrator can be also found in her recall summaries of an unusual incident in Oszmiana’s ghetto – the October 1942 Aktion in the ghetto carried out by the Jewish police of the Vilna ghetto. The local Judenrat of Oszmiana, including Deul, knew about the plan and assisted in executing the Germans’ orders and sending 406 Jews to their deaths. The horrors of this unforgettable incident have encouraged reflections and deliberations over the years.
Also, the diary offers, the writer’s justifications for the Jewish involvement in this single massacre of Jewish people as the lesser of two evils.
Academic Autobiography as part of the project:
Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz and Shmuel Refael (eds.), Researchers Remember: Research as an Arena of Memory Among Descendants of Holocaust Survivors, a Collected Volume of Academic Autobiographies (Bern: Peter Lang, 2021), 379-390.
What it was like growing up in a kibbutz that was founded by Holocaust survivors? How I ended up researching my own family history?
And so much more.
In this context, the paper examines the actions of Joseph Goebbels, one of Hitler's closest aids, who influence on Nazi policy. His personal diaries, public speeches, journalistic and literary writings contribute to analyze his personality and his critical role during this last year. This article attempts to find the connection between two allegedly contradictory processes: the defeat in the war and the continuation of the Final Solution. It argues that on a background of despair, complete devastation, the physical and mental deterioration of the Führer and disloyalties within the Nazi elite – the motive of Der Untergang (decline), took hold. In this critical time Antisemitism and extermination played a major role.
underground members who were imprisoned in detention
camps in Eritrea, Sudan, and Kenya during the British
Mandate rule over Palestine from October 1944 to July 1948.
These 459 detainees endured harsh conditions and isolation,
after being exiled without trial and denied the ability to
appeal to a court. Their primary means of communication
with the outside world was by correspondence. An
extensive collection of letters penned by these detainees to
their loved ones and to national and international
institutions is housed in Israeli archives, particularly within
the Jabotinsky Institute. Additionally, original newspapers
and a comprehensive book compiled during their time in
the camp are among the preserved materials. Remarkably,
these ego documents have seen limited use in academic
research. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive
depiction of the isolated microcosm of culture, education,
struggle, and resilience cultivated by these young Jewish
men despite their uncertain condition and lack of control
over their fate. This analysis relies on letters composed in
real-time, subject to military censorship as well as self-restraint, to avoid causing distress to their families. These
letters constitute a valuable historical resource that sheds
light on a lesser-known case study.
percent of them children and youth, were detained by the British in
various camps in Cyprus, in order to prevent their entrance to Eretz
Israel (Mandatory Palestine). Relief organizations and emissaries
from Eretz Israel were engaged in providing basic needs,
occupation, and education to the detainees. Among other
initiatives, art classes were organized for the young and adults
alike, and occasional exhibitions were held to display their works.
This paper tells the story of these exhibitions from different
perspectives – therapeutic, educational, artistic, practical, and
political. It exposes the politics behind the exhibits, as well as the
competition surrounding them between the different political
movements operating in the camps at the time. By analyzing the
works of the young students in particular, and based on
memories and research, the author shows how art was often
used as an ideological tool as well. The youngsters had been
directed to express their dreams of a wishful future in Eretz Israel,
rather than their traumatic memories and losses in the Holocaust.
Sculptures of Zionist leaders, models of kibbutzim, and displays
of agricultural tools, among others, were common, while horrors
of the war were hardly expressed in these exhibitions. One
exhibition, displayed by the Hashomer Hatzair youth movement,
serves as a case study in this paper. This unique project, called
‘To-No’ (Hebrew initials for ‘Youth Production’) is presented here
through its numerous artifacts preserved to this day in archives in
Israel, and through later exhibitions of them in Cyprus (2014) and
in Israel (2017), accompanied by catalogs and articles of scholarly
interpretation. They carry a universal message on the power and
influence of artwork and artifacts as a means of resilience and
rehabilitation, and as a model of spiritual and cultural resistance.
ושבבלארוס במלחמת העולם השנייה. תחילה הוא מתאר את הרקע
לפעילותם וללוחמת הגרילה. הפרטיזנים שהחלו לפעול במבצע
''ברברוסה'' עד לשחרור ליטא ביולי ,1944 הפכו למרכיב חשוב בהתנגדותם
לכובש הנאצי.
המאמר סוקר את פעילותם של הפרטיזנים הסובייטים בתקופה זו,
ומביא את תגובתם של הנאצים על כך. זהותם הכפולה של היהודים
כקורבנות נרדפים וכלוחמים עוברת כחוט השני במאמר, ובו מציג את
הקשיים ואת הדילמות שעימם התמודדו לוחמים אלה. מקום מיוחד
מוקדש לתיאור היחס הקשה שקיבלו היהודים מעמיתיהם הפרטיזנים,
והוא התבטא אף בהוצאות להורג כעונש על הפרת חוקים ובהתעמרות
כלפיהם מצד מפקדיהם.
Not long afterwards Shmuel lost his father and his two legs. He spent the last year of the war in hospitals and when he could walk again on the prosthesis, he immigrated to Israel in 1946 to join the Palmah, a Jewish underground organization, and in 1948 fought in the war of independence. All this time he tried to hide his disability from his friends and commanders and functioned as a regular soldier.
Ramati gave two testimonies about his life in Slovakia and this article is based on the both of them.
Holocaust. She gained a prominent position in the Oszmiana ghetto’s Judenrat, a rare place for a woman. She was involved in the Judenrat’s decision-makings and had access to invaluable knowledge of what was going on in the ghetto in real-time.
Deul left behind her personal diary written in Polish, one of the most important Ego-documents of that time. Her writing reveals participation of the Jewish leadership in the decision-making process. It throws light on the nature of the “Gray Zone,” as Primo Levi called the blurred space between “right and wrong”, “good and evil” in that place he calls “inferno”. The article brings to light the unique voice of a woman who was an eyewitness and chronicler documenter of the horrors in Oszmiana. The role of women in the Holocaust and documentation of events has been neglected in the research and historiography of the Holocaust until recently. Through writing her diary, she had constructed the memory of Oszmiana. By doing so, she shifted from being yet another “undistinguished woman” to playing a central role in commemorating and comprehending the history of that time and space. This transition to a narrator can be also found in her recall summaries of an unusual incident in Oszmiana’s ghetto – the October 1942 Aktion in the ghetto carried out by the Jewish police of the Vilna ghetto. The local Judenrat of Oszmiana, including Deul, knew about the plan and assisted in executing the Germans’ orders and sending 406 Jews to their deaths. The horrors of this unforgettable incident have encouraged reflections and deliberations over the years.
Also, the diary offers, the writer’s justifications for the Jewish involvement in this single massacre of Jewish people as the lesser of two evils.
Academic Autobiography as part of the project:
Judith Tydor Baumel-Schwartz and Shmuel Refael (eds.), Researchers Remember: Research as an Arena of Memory Among Descendants of Holocaust Survivors, a Collected Volume of Academic Autobiographies (Bern: Peter Lang, 2021), 379-390.
What it was like growing up in a kibbutz that was founded by Holocaust survivors? How I ended up researching my own family history?
And so much more.
In this context, the paper examines the actions of Joseph Goebbels, one of Hitler's closest aids, who influence on Nazi policy. His personal diaries, public speeches, journalistic and literary writings contribute to analyze his personality and his critical role during this last year. This article attempts to find the connection between two allegedly contradictory processes: the defeat in the war and the continuation of the Final Solution. It argues that on a background of despair, complete devastation, the physical and mental deterioration of the Führer and disloyalties within the Nazi elite – the motive of Der Untergang (decline), took hold. In this critical time Antisemitism and extermination played a major role.
Comrades Betrayed: Jewish World War I Veterans Under Hitler (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020). International Journal of Military History and Historiography. VOLUME 42 (2022).
Katarzyna Person, Warsaw Ghetto Police: The Jewish Order Service During the Nazi Occupation (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2021), 232 pages
Lukasz Krzyzanowski, "Ghost Citizens: Jewish Return to a Postwar City", Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020
Register here:
https://bit.ly/3kS4bie
In the program:
16:00 Opening Remarks: Dr. Daniela Ozacky Stern, Western Galilee College
Greetings: Prof. Nissim Ben David, President of the Western Galilee College
Major General (Ret.) Yaakov Amidror, former National Security advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister and head of the National security Council. Senior Fellow at Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS) and at JINSA Strategic center in Washington DC
16:15 The Killers
Chair: Dr. Yvonne Kozlovsky-Golan, Haifa University
Prof. Edward B. Westermann, Texas A&M University-San Antonio, Incremental Annihilation in Latvia: Einsatzkommando 2 and the Ritual of Mass Murder
Captain Noam Korb, IDF Tactical Command College, Haifa & Tel Aviv Univerities, The Theory of Auftragstaktik and the early stages of the final solution
Dr. Leonid Rein, Yad Vashem, "The death we were giving to them was quick and beautiful": The Mass Murder of Soviet Jews in Letters by German Servicemen
Dr. Foris Akos, Eötvös Loránd University, The First "Partisan Hunt" of the Hungarian Occupation Forces: Mass Murder in Buki in November 1941
18:00 Break
18:20 The Killings
Chair: Dr. Miriam Offer, western Galilee College
Dr. William Katin, California State University, Anti-Semitic Consequences of Operation Barbarossa from a Jewish Perspective
Daria Cherkaska, Staffordshire University, An archaeological approach for Holocaust studies in Ukraine: case studies in Boryspil
Jan Burzlaff, Harvard university, Between Big Data and Individual Agency: Jewish Responses to Babi Yar, June 1941-early 1942
Dr. Kiril Feferman, Ariel university, Shadow Partner? Turkey in Germany's Barbarossa Operation
19:50 Break
20:00 Keynote by Prof. Richard Overy, University of Exeter
November 1941: Typhoon, Babi Yar and Hitler's War
Chair: Dr. Yaron Pasher, Western Galilee College
Concluding Remarks: Dr. Boaz Cohen, Western Galilee College
Here is the link for registration:
https://bit.ly/3kS4bie
Looking forward to seeing all of you,
Dr. Yaron Pasher, Dr. Daniela Ozacky Stern and Dr. Boaz Cohen
Scholars still debate over who started the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and why the Jewish undergrounds were unable to unite. This book follows the footsteps of Holocaust survivors Chaim and Chaya Lazar—who were the first to realize the creation of a distorted narrative—then devoted their lives to correcting historical misrepresentations.
In the Lazars’ journey, one of their greatest achievements was exposing the key part the Jewish Military Union, ŻZW, related to the right-wing Betar movement, played in the Uprising. Due to political rivalries, this forgotten organization and its heroes were disregarded for many years by historical accounts. The Lazars relentlessly collected testimonies and evidence—then published their findings. Their discoveries shed immense light on the brave battle which helped ignite the resistance in Warsaw and gave names to its forgotten leaders.
This book, written by their daughter and granddaughter, is based on diaries, letters, oral accounts, and historical research. It is dedicated to Chaim and Chaya Lazar's determination, fervor, courage… and their blessed memory.
What does it take to control the minds of millions of people—and influence their thoughts and actions into complete devastation? After years of historical research, Dr. Daniela Ozacky Stern—a third generation survivor—reveals her discoveries in Goebbels: Nazi Master of Illusion.
During the fateful final year of World War II, Nazi Germany suffered severe military defeats and massive bombings by the Allies on the home front—turning cities into ruins. Relations among Nazi leadership deteriorated, and rifts appeared within the inner circle of Adolf Hitler.
Although the situation was catastrophic for Germany, the mass extermination of the Jews—Hitler’s "Final Solution”— never halted. In fact, it heavily accelerated, breaking into new territories.
One of the people closest to Hitler—who directly influenced the events—was Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda. He preached to Germans over and over to continue fighting—in a struggle already lost.
What was Goebbels’ tactic in controlling the Germans’ minds and influencing The Führer Hitler? How did the propaganda machine—he created—control millions of people and alter their fates?
Dr. Ozacky Stern answers those questions plus examines the connection between the nearing German defeat and the Third Reich’s push to continue the mass extermination of Jews.
“The book is fascinating and innovative…I read it eagerly in one breath.”
— Yitzchak Herzog, President of Israel
“In-depth research—describing the power of the most fanatical, monstrous, and massive antisemitic propaganda the world has ever known. A must read.”
— Maya Gorodecky, Refusenik