My Life and Times

this day in history On December 13

1913
The Sunday New York World printed a puzzle called a "word-cross." The puzzle was a success and became a weekly feature. The name eventually evolved into "crossword."
1913
Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" was found. It had been stolen on August 22, 1911.
1961
Anna Mary Robertson Moses, "Grandma Moses," passed away at the age of 101.
1978
The Philadelphia Mint began stamping the Susan B. Anthony U.S. dollar. The coin began circulation the following July.
1987
U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz told reporters in Copenhagen, Denmark, that the Reagan administration would begin making funding requests for the proposed Star Wars defense system.
1991
Five Central Asian republics of the Soviet Union agreed to join the new Commonwealth of Independent States.
1993
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that people must receive a hearing before property linked to illegal drug sales can be seized.
1994
An American Eagle commuter plane carrying 20 people crashed short of Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina, killing 15 people.
2000
The U.S. Supreme Court found that the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court in the 2000 U.S. Presidential election was unconstitutional. U.S. Vice President Al Gore conceded the election to Texas Gov. George W. Bush the next day.
2000
Seven convicts, the "Texas 7," escaped from Connally Unit in Kenedy, TX, southeast of San Antonio, by overpowering civilian workers and prison employees. They fled with stolen clothing, pickup truck and 16 guns and ammunition.
2001
U.S. President George W. Bush served formal notice to Russia that the United States was withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
2001
Gunmen stormed the Indian Parliament and killed seven people and injured 18. Security forces killed the attackers during a 90-minute gun battle.
2001
NBC-TV announced that it would begin running hard liquor commercials. NBC issued a 19-point policy that outlined the conditions for accepting liquor ads.
2001
Michael Frank Goodwin was arrested and booked on two counts of murder, one count of conspiracy and three special circumstances (lying in wait, murder for financial gain and multiple murder) in connection to the death of Mickey Thompson. Thompson and his wife Trudy were shot to death in their driveway on March 16, 1988. Thompson, known as the "Speed King," set nearly 500 auto speed endurance records including being the first person to travel more than 400 mph on land.

December 13, 2004
Self-confessed cannibal Yoo Young-Chul, convicted of killing 20 people, mostly prostitutes, is sentenced to death in Seoul, South Korea. (Xinhua) (http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-12/13/content_2329625.htm)
France's highest administrative court, the Conseil d'État, bans Hizbullah's al-Manar TV station on the grounds that it incites racial hatred and antisemitism. (BBC) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4093579.stm)
The jury in the Scott Peterson trial recommends that he be sentenced to death for the murder of his wife and unborn son. (CNN) (http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/12/13/peterson.case/index.html)
Augusto Pinochet is charged by Chilean prosecutors for alleged involvement in murder and "disappearances" in Chile in the 1970s, and is placed under house arrest. (BBC) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4093067.stm)
2004 U.S. presidential election controversy:
As required by the United States Constitution, Members of the United States Electoral College meet in all 50 state capitols and the District of Columbia to cast their electoral votes, including an unexpected single vote for John Edwards by an elector in Minnesota. (Minneapolis Star Tribune) (http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/5134791.html)
All members of the Ohio delegation of the Electoral College cast their ballots for George W. Bush while a legal recount is still ongoing, after a written request by 11 Democratic congressmen (pdf) (http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohgovdelayelectorsltr121304.pdf) to suspend voting. (ABC) (http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=326111) (ABC) (http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=325730)
United States Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael O. Leavitt is nominated by President George W. Bush to succeed outgoing Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson in the Cabinet-level post. (Bloomberg) (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=ae18qB98c_jc&refer=top_world_news)
Conflict in Iraq:
At least 13 people die following a car bomb attack on a U.S. checkpoint near the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq. (The Guardian) (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1372624,00.html)
The U.S. launches another air raid on the Iraqi city of Fallujah after eight US Marines were killed by insurgents over the weekend. (ABC {aus}) (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200412/s1264430.htm)
Foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration: Human Rights Watch, a New York based NGO claims that another three prisoners have died while in U.S. detention in Afghanistan. (BBC) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4092073.stm)
Hundreds of protesters have gathered in Cairo outside Egypt's Supreme Judiciary buildings, defying a ban on public protests, to call for an end to Hosni Mubarak's 23-year presidency of Egypt. (BBC) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4091983.stm)
Romanian presidential election, 2004: Prime Minister Adrian N?stase concedes defeat to opposition candidate Traian B?sescu after a close contest. With 99% of the vote counted, B?sescu took 51.23% of the vote to N?stase's 48.77%. (BBC) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4091809.stm)
Oracle Corporation announces a merger deal to acquire PeopleSoft for approximately US$10.3 billion. (Oracle Press Release) (http://www.oracle.com/peoplesoft/index.html)

December 13, 2004
Philbin to Sub for Clark on New Year's EveBy THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:51 a.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- Regis Philbin will fill in as host of ABC's ``New Year's Rockin' Eve 2005'' for Dick Clark, who suffered a mild stroke last week, the network announced Monday.
Philbin, co-host of the syndicated ``Regis & Kelly,'' has made subbing for ailing entertainers something of a specialty, coming to David Letterman's aid when Letterman underwent heart bypass surgery in 2000 and recovered from an eye infection in 2003.
Clark remains hospitalized following his stroke, spokesman Paul Shefrin said, but is ``getting better every day.''
In a statement, Clark said his doctors advised against the New Year's Eve duties, saying it was too soon.
The 75-year-old Clark has been host of a New Year's Eve special for 32 years.
Philbin will be joined by singer Ashlee Simpson, who's hosting the West Coast part of the show. Besides Simpson, performers include Big & Rich, Ciara, Earth, Wind & Fire, Good Charlotte and Billy Idol.
``It's the greatest `temp job' in the world,'' Philbin said.
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December 13, 2004VIOLENCE
7 Marines and a G.I. Are Killed in Separate Attacks in IraqBy ROBERT F. WORTH
AGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 12 - Separate attacks over the weekend left seven marines dead in the volatile province of Anbar, and militants killed an American soldier and ambushed an Iraqi National Guard patrol in Baghdad on Sunday, military officials said.
The marines were killed Saturday and Sunday while conducting security operations in Anbar, west of Baghdad, Marine officials said, without providing details. The province contains the cities of Falluja, where American forces continue to face resistance after the offensive there last month, and Ramadi, another rebel stronghold farther to the west.
In Baghdad, the soldier was struck when a roadside bomb exploded near his patrol at about 10 a.m. Sunday in a northern district, military officials said, and he died shortly afterward at a military hospital. Three other soldiers were wounded, but later returned to duty.
Also in Baghdad, insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades and mortar rounds at an Iraqi National Guard patrol on Sunday, but none of the guardsmen were wounded, military officials said. The guardsmen returned fire, and shortly afterward American troops discovered rifles and two large mortar rounds outside a nearby mosque. The guardsmen then entered the mosque to investigate, officials said.
The attacks came a day after four police officers were killed in two attacks in central and northern Iraq, and underscored the insurgents' continuing efforts to terrorize anyone who cooperates with the Americans here. Many recent attacks have been in Baghdad, where rebels maintain the power to strike at will. Both the British and American Embassies have forbidden employees to use the road that runs from the heart of the city to the airport, after a series of deadly strikes on convoys there.
North of the capital in Samarra, another insurgent stronghold where attacks have become routine, a rocket-propelled grenade exploded near an Iraqi Army post on Sunday, and attackers later fired on the post with assault rifles, military officials said. Two passing civilians were wounded, the officials said.
Near Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's ancestral hometown, suicide bombers detonated a car laden with explosives as they approached an American M1 tank, said Master Sgt. Robert Powell, a spokesman for the First Infantry Division. The two attackers in the car were killed, but no one else was harmed, Sergeant Powell said. A dozen heavy artillery rounds, still undetonated, were in the burned car.
Near Baquba, northeast of the capital, American troops working with Iraqi police and national guard units detained more than 50 suspected insurgents in a series of raids on Saturday, military official said. The raids, which also recovered several weapons, were aimed at capturing leaders of the insurgent bands who have staged frequent attacks on American and Iraqi forces in Baquba and the surrounding towns in recent weeks, Sergeant Powell said.
In the northern city of Erbil, a car bomb exploded Sunday in the heart of the usually peaceful Kurdish territories. No one was harmed, according to Kurdish media, although Agence France-Presse said two people had been wounded.
The bombing took place near a hospital. Witnesses said the bomb had been packed into a Volkswagen.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections RSS Help Back to Top

December 13, 2004HEARTS AND MINDS
Pentagon Weighs Use of Deception in a Broad ArenaBy THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT
ASHINGTON, Dec. 12 - The Pentagon is engaged in bitter, high-level debate over how far it can and should go in managing or manipulating information to influence opinion abroad, senior Defense Department civilians and military officers say.
Such missions, if approved, could take the deceptive techniques endorsed for use on the battlefield to confuse an adversary and adopt them for covert propaganda campaigns aimed at neutral and even allied nations.
Critics of the proposals say such deceptive missions could shatter the Pentagon's credibility, leaving the American public and a world audience skeptical of anything the Defense Department and military say - a repeat of the credibility gap that roiled America during the Vietnam War.
The efforts under consideration risk blurring the traditional lines between public affairs programs in the Pentagon and military branches - whose charters call for giving truthful information to the media and the public - and the world of combat information campaigns or psychological operations.
The question is whether the Pentagon and military should undertake an official program that uses disinformation to shape perceptions abroad. But in a modern world wired by satellite television and the Internet, any misleading information and falsehoods could easily be repeated by American news outlets.
The military has faced these tough issues before. Nearly three years ago, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, under intense criticism, closed the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence, a short-lived operation to provide news items, possibly including false ones, to foreign journalists in an effort to influence overseas opinion.
Now, critics say, some of the proposals of that discredited office are quietly being resurrected elsewhere in the military and in the Pentagon.
Pentagon and military officials directly involved in the debate say that such a secret propaganda program, for example, could include planting news stories in the foreign press or creating false documents and Web sites translated into Arabic as an effort to discredit and undermine the influence of mosques and religious schools that preach anti-American principles.
Some of those are in the Middle Eastern and South Asian countries like Pakistan, still considered a haven for operatives of Al Qaeda. But such a campaign could reach even to allied countries like Germany, for example, where some mosques have become crucibles for Islamic militancy and anti-Americanism.
Before the invasion of Iraq, the military's vast electronic-warfare arsenal was used to single out certain members of Saddam Hussein's inner circle with e-mail messages and cellphone calls in an effort to sway them to the American cause. Arguments have been made for similar efforts to be mounted at leadership circles in other nations where the United States is not at war.
During the cold war, American intelligence agencies had journalists on their payrolls or operatives posing as journalists, particularly in Western Europe, with the aim of producing pro-American articles to influence the populations of those countries. But officials say that no one is considering using such tactics now.
Suspicions about disinformation programs also arose in the 1980's when the White House was accused of using such a campaign to destabilize Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya.
In the current debate, it is unclear how far along the other programs are or to what extent they are being carried out because of their largely classified nature.
Within the Pentagon, some of the military's most powerful figures have expressed concerns at some of the steps taken that risk blurring the traditional lines between public affairs and the world of combat information operations.
These tensions were cast into stark relief this summer in Iraq when Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq, approved the combining of the command's day-to-day public affairs operations with combat psychological and information operations into a single "strategic communications office."
In a rare expression of senior-level questions about such decisions, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued a memorandum warning the military's regional combat commanders about the risks of mingling the military public affairs too closely with information operations.
"While organizations may be inclined to create physically integrated P.A./I.O. offices, such organizational constructs have the potential to compromise the commander's credibility with the media and the public," it said.
But General Myers's memorandum is not being followed, according to officers in Iraq, largely because commanders there believe they are safely separating the two operations and say they need all the flexibility possible to combat the insurgency.
Indeed, senior military officials in Washington say public affairs officers in war zones might, by choice or under pressure, issue statements to world news media that, while having elements of truth, are clearly devised primarily to provoke a response from the enemy.
Administration officials say they are increasingly troubled that a nation that can so successfully market its cars and colas around the world, even to foreigners hostile to American policies, is failing to sell its democratic ideals, even as the insurgents they are battling are spreading falsehoods over mass media outlets like the Arab news satellite channel Al Jazeera.
"In the battle of perception management, where the enemy is clearly using the media to help manage perceptions of the general public, our job is not perception management but to counter the enemy's perception management," said the chief Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita.
The battle lines in this debate have been drawn in a flurry of classified studies, secret operational guidance statements and internal requests from Mr. Rumsfeld. Some go to the concepts of information warfare, and some complain about how the government's communications are organized.
The fervent debate today is focused most directly on a secret order signed by Mr. Rumsfeld late last year and called "Information Operations Roadmap." The 74-page directive, which remains classified but was described by officials who had read it, accelerated "a plan to advance the goal of information operations as a core military competency."
Noting the complexities and risks, Mr. Rumsfeld ordered studies to clarify the appropriate relationship between Pentagon and military public affairs - whose job is to educate and inform the public with accurate and timely information - and the practitioners of secret psychological operations and information campaigns to influence, deter or confuse adversaries.
In response, one far-reaching study conducted at the request of the strategic plans and policy branch of the military's Joint Staff recently produced a proposal to create a "director of central information." The director would have responsibility for budgeting and "authoritative control of messages" - whether public or covert - across all the government operations that deal with national security and foreign policy.
The study, conducted by the National Defense University, was presented Oct. 20 to a panel of senior Pentagon officials and military officers, including Douglas J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, whose organization set up the original Office of Strategic Influence.
No senior officer today better represents the debate over a changing world of military information than Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, an operational commander chosen to be the military's senior spokesman in Iraq after major combat operations shifted to counterinsurgency operations in the spring of 2003.
His role rankled many in the military's public affairs community who contend that the job should have gone to someone trained in the doctrine of Army communications and public affairs, rather than to an officer who had spent his career in combat arms.
"This is tough business," said General Kimmitt, who now serves as deputy director of plans for the American military command in the Middle East. "Are we trying to inform? Yes. Do we offer perspective? Yes. Do we offer military judgment? Yes. Must we tell the truth to stay credible? Yes. Is there a battlefield value in deceiving the enemy? Yes. Do we intentionally deceive the American people? No."
The rub, General Kimmitt said, is operating among those sometimes conflicting principles.
"There is a gray area," he said. "Tactical and operational deception are proper and legal on the battlefield." But "in a worldwide media environment," he asked, "how do you prevent that deception from spilling out from the battlefield and inadvertently deceiving the American people?"
Mr. Di Rita said the scope of the issue had changed in recent years. "We have a unique challenge in this department," he said, "because four-star military officers are the face of the United States abroad in ways that are almost unprecedented since the end of World War II."
He added, "Communication is becoming a capability that combatant commanders have to factor in to the kinds of operations they are doing."
Much of the Pentagon's work in this new area falls under a relatively unknown field called Defense Support for Public Diplomacy. This new phrase is used to describe the Pentagon's work in governmentwide efforts to communicate with foreign audiences but that is separate from support for generals in the field.
At the Pentagon, that effort is managed by Ryan Henry, Mr. Feith's principal deputy for policy.
"With the pace of technology and such, and with the nature of the global war on terrorism, information has become much more a part of strategic victory, and to a certain extent tactical victory, than it ever was in the past," Mr. Henry said.
However, a senior military officer said that without clear guidance from the Pentagon, the military's psychological operations, information operations and public affairs programs are "coming together on the battlefield like never before, and as such, the lines are blurred." This has led to a situation where "proponents of these elements jockey for position to lead the overall communication effort," the officer said.
Debate also continues over proposed amendments to a classified Defense Department directive, titled "3600.1: Information Operations," which would lay down Pentagon policy in coming years. Previous versions of the directive allow aggressive information campaigns to affect enemy leaders, but not those of allies or even neutral states. The current debate is over proposed revisions that would widen the target audience for such missions.
Mr. Di Rita, the Pentagon spokesman, says that even though the government is wrestling with these issues, the standard is still to tell to the truth.
"Our job is to put out information to the public that is accurate," he said, "and to put it out as quickly as we can."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections RSS Help Back to Top

After a weekend break, the jury deciding whether Scott Peterson should be executed or spend life in prison for killing his pregnant wife has reached a verdict. The judge read the jury's verdict at 1: PT. The jury has fixed the penalty at death. The jury deliberated about 12 hours over three days. The six men and six women considered testimony from 39 defense witnesses including Peterson's mother who broke down on the stand. Attorney Mark Geragos begged jurors to spare Peterson's life and end the cycle of violence. But the prosecution called Peterson quote, "The worst kind of monster" who deserved to die.

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McCain Has 'No Confidence' in Rumsfeld
1 minute ago
By BETH DeFALCO, Associated Press Writer
PHOENIX - U.S. Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record) said Monday that he has "no confidence" in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, citing Rumsfeld's handling of the war in Iraq (news - web sites) and the failure to send more troops.
AP Photo
AP Photo
Slideshow: Sen. John McCain

McCain, speaking to The Associated Press in an hourlong interview, said his comments were not a call for Rumsfeld's resignation, explaining that President Bush (news - web sites) "can have the team that he wants around him."
Asked about his confidence in the secretary's leadership, McCain recalled fielding a similar question a couple weeks ago.
"I said no. My answer is still no. No confidence," McCain said.
He estimated an additional 80,000 Army personnel and 20,000 to 30,000 more Marines would be needed to secure Iraq.
"I have strenuously argued for larger troop numbers in Iraq, including the right kind of troops — linguists, special forces, civil affairs, etc.," said McCain, R-Ariz. "There are very strong differences of opinion between myself and Secretary Rumsfeld on that issue."
When asked if Rumsfeld was a liability to the Bush administration, McCain responded: "The president can decide that, not me."
McCain, a decorated Navy veteran and former Vietnam prisoner of war, is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites), which has oversight of military operations and considerable influence over the Pentagon (news - web sites) budget.
Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said McCain "has frequently expressed his views regarding troop levels in Iraq, and he is an important member" of the committee.
Rumsfeld has "relied upon the judgment of the military commanders to determine what force levels are appropriate for the situation at hand," Di Rita said.
Despite the troop levels, McCain believes military morale remains high, but he acknowledged that involuntary extensions of tours of duty were frustrating to soldiers.
He said Iraq must have a functioning independent government before U.S. troops leave.
"I believe we'll be in Iraq militarily for many years, which would not be a problem to the American people," he said. "I think what is not acceptable to the American people is an increasing flow of dead and wounded."
___
On the Net:
McCain's office: http://mccain.senate.gov/
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today's papersDiss-informationBy Eric UmanskyPosted Monday, Dec. 13, 2004, at 12:46 AM PT
USA Today leads with its own analysis showing that Army National Guard troops in Iraq are one-third more likely to be killed than their active-duty counterparts. Despite the SecDef's comments to the contrary, reports from the field suggest that National Guard often do have worse equipment and training than active duty troops. The Washington Post leads with Republicans "preparing for a showdown" to stop Democrats from using the filibuster to kill judicial nominations. If the Republicans actually go ahead, they could confirm judicial nominees with 51 votes rather than the 60 normally required. The Los Angeles Times' lead says turnover of top FBI officials and intel specialists is causing "disorder" within the bureau and undercutting its counter-terrorism efforts. Five people have held the FBI's top counter-terrorism job since Sept. 11. The New York Times leads with a "bitter, high-level debate" inside the Pentagon about whether to launch what the paper characterizes as "an official program that uses disinformation to shape perceptions abroad." The Times might want to have a high-level debate about crediting other newspapers: The LAT had a similar story two week ago. Both papers note that the "information warfare" effort seems to be coming from the office of Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith. And both say the known details are at a minimum since the programs are either not off the ground, classified, or both.
In the kind of forward-leaning (but factual) contextualization you don't see too often, the Post's lead goes right up high with the GOP's stated reasoning for their potential filibuster move (emphasis on "stated"): "Republicans claim that Democrats have abused the filibuster by blocking 10 of the president's 229 judicial nominees in his first term—although confirmation of Bush nominees exceeds in most cases the first-term experience of presidents dating to Ronald Reagan."
According to early morning wires, about 10 Iraqis were killed and a dozen wounded in a suicide bombing at an entrance to the Green Zone.
The Wall Street Journal, alone among the papers, goes high with seven Marines killed Sunday in at least two separate attacks in the Anbar province. (The Marines made the announcement early Monday.) A GI was also killed near Baghdad. Anbar includes Fallujah, where the Associated Press said there were "running gun battles" and U.S. airstrikes. But it's unclear whether the deaths were in the city. The Marines' policy on announcing KIAs is to skip most details, including the location. (How many Marines have been killed in Fallujah since the main offensive ended? Are the Marines releasing those stats?)
The Post has a Page One dispatch on the Army's 29-square-mile repair depot in Texas that patches up equipment from Iraq. The piece details how much workers are hustling and the increased workload brought by the Army's continued restructuring. But it leaves what seems like a key point until the kicker—that is, the end the 32-paragraph story: The "real bottleneck may lie in Washington." A few hundred damaged Humvees are sitting around waiting to be repaired. "The reality is, there isn't the funding," said one of the depot's managers.
Everybody mentions that jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti is again pulling out of the coming elections. That means Mahmoud Abbas, a critic of the intifada, has no serious challengers. The NYT says Fatah "stepped up pressure" on Barghouti to quit the race.
In Gaza, five Israeli soldiers were killed by a bomb buried beneath their outpost; the worst Palestinian attack in months. There had been a semi-calm after Arafat's death, but the NYT says "tensions have been rising in recent days, particularly in Gaza."
The NYT fronts a detailed report on impediments to the search for Bin Laden. Topping the list, say U.S. intel officials, is the Pakistani government. The CIA set up some secret bases about a year ago in Pakistan's border area, but the agents have government minders wherever they go, making it "virtually impossible for the Americans to gather intelligence effectively." (Times) The paper also quotes anon-officials saying that contrary to talk otherwise, Bin Laden does have a cell of terrorists working directly for him. Nor does Osama appear to be otherwise isolated. "Bin Laden is getting his logistical support from the tribes," said one intel official. "He still has operational communications with the outside."
The Journal notices inside that six months after the White House disavowed a Justice Department memo that essentially justified torture, the administration has not gotten around to giving intel agencies and the military a new set of legal guidelines for interrogations. Apparently, some in the administration don't think it's worth the potential trouble. "The question is," said one official, "Why do people have to write opinions about how far you can go?" Eric Umansky writes "Today's Papers" for Slate. He can be reached at todayspapers@hotmail.com.Article URL: http://slate.msn.com/id/2110974/

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Jury Agrees on Sentence for Scott Peterson
10 minutes ago
By BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press Writer
REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - The jurors deciding whether Scott Peterson (news - web sites) should be executed or spend life in prison for killing his pregnant wife reached a verdict in the trial's sentencing phase Monday, a court official said.
AP Photo
AP Photo
Slideshow: Laci Peterson Case

The decision came on the third day of deliberations and after the jury requested autopsy photos and other evidence that had been presented during the guilt phase of the trial.
After the jury broke for lunch, a court administrator told The Associated Press to "tell everyone we're having a verdict at 1:30."
Earlier Monday, jurors had asked to review 13 pieces of evidence, about half of which remain under seal. They asked to see aerial photographs of San Francisco Bay and the widely publicized picture of Laci Peterson (news - web sites) wearing a red maternity pantsuit with her hands folded across her lap.
It was not immediately clear what the rest of the evidence was, although 12 of the items requested were presented by the prosecution at trial.
The autopsy photos were shown to the jury during trial but remain out of public view. The aerial photographs and the candid picture of Laci Peterson, taken during a Christmas party shortly before she disappeared, are public.
Jurors debated about three hours Monday after taking the weekend off following 8 1/2 hours of deliberations last week. The judge will formally sentence Peterson on Feb. 25.
The same jury of six men and six women found Peterson guilty Nov. 12.
Defense attorneys called 39 witnesses over seven days in the penalty phase of Peterson's double-murder trial. Prosecutors called just four of Laci's family members, all on the first day, Nov. 30
The 32-year-old former fertilizer salesman was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of his wife and second-degree murder for killing her fetus. Prosecutors say he strangled or smothered Laci Peterson on or around Christmas Eve 2002 and dumped the body in San Francisco Bay.
The remains of Laci Peterson and the fetus washed ashore about four months later, just a few miles from where Peterson claims to have gone fishing alone the day his wife was reported missing.
If jurors are unable to agree on a sentence, prosecutors must decide whether to retry just the penalty phase or to accept a default sentence of life in prison.
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THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING
Recently discovered Warsaw ghetto diary describes last days of 1943 Jewish uprising
By Laurie Copans, Associated Press, 12/7/2004 13:10
JERUSALEM (AP) As flames engulfed the Warsaw ghetto in its last days in 1943, a young Jewish woman hiding from Nazi soldiers kept a journal about her fight to survive in a cramped basement.
The six-page diary, apparently the only account written during the uprising that survived the battle, has surfaced at a Holocaust museum in Israel.
The monthlong uprising by a few dozen desperate, starving Jews holding their own against the Nazis is one of the best known tales of Jewish heroism from the ashes of the Holocaust.
The author, who didn't give her name and whose fate is unknown, described a nine-day period during the uprising. She lived on a bowl of soup and a cup of coffee a day. Outside, the Germans were burning down houses.
''The ghetto is burning for the fourth day,'' she wrote. ''You see only chimneys standing and the skeletons of burnt houses. At the first moment, the visions arouse a horrible chill.''
She wrote in neat Polish handwriting on graph paper. She never mentioned her name, disclosing only that she was a member of a Jewish youth group, indicating that she was in her late teens or early 20s.
The pages are part of a large collection of letters, notes and pages collected after the war by Adolf-Abraham Berman, a survivor of the ghetto and leader of the Jewish Underground who moved to Israel after the war.
Berman donated the artifacts in the 1970s to the Ghetto Fighters House at Kibbutz Lochamei Haghettaot, a communal village in northern Israel. Experts at the museum realized the importance of the pages only recently, while organizing the Berman archive for release to the public.
''The uniqueness of this diary is that it is the only one found in the world, that we know of, that was written right at the time of the fighting,'' said Yossi Shavit, director of the museum's archives. ''The other diaries were written afterward.''
The Warsaw ghetto was established in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1940. Jews from surrounding areas were forced to crowd into the cramped neighborhood. At its peak in the spring of 1941, about 450,000 Jews lived on its 740 acres. Most died of starvation or were killed in gas chambers part of the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis during World War II.
When the Germans moved to liquidate the walled ghetto entirely in 1943, 60,000 Jews still lived there. Hundreds of them fought back with few weapons, little ammunition and limited food and water.
Against all odds, they held out for 27 days, until the Nazis burned down the ghetto. Some Jews survived, escaping through sewers into neighboring areas.
The woman's account begins on day six of the uprising April 24, 1943. She lives with several others in the basement of a house, hidden from the Nazis. The Germans set the house on fire several times and smoke seeps into the hiding place, making breathing difficult.
The Jews at first try to put out the blaze but later give up, apparently deciding the fire is a means to help cover up their hiding place.
At one point, a neighboring hideout is burned and the occupants flee to the basement where the author is hiding. The newcomers have no food and are noisy, increasing the danger the hideout will be discovered.
Because of the overcrowding, the author must sleep with a child who tosses and turns constantly, making rest impossible. Sometimes, she writes, she must guard the hideout.
Shavit, the director of the archives, said since the author's identity is not known, it is unclear what became of her.
''We are not sure she was killed,'' Shavit said. ''She could be lying in a nursing home in the United States.''
The last entry, on May 2, is the longest, as if the writer understands her opportunity to describe the destruction is drawing to an end.
''The only thing we are left with is our hiding place,'' she writes. ''Of course this will not be a safe place for very long.''
The last words seem to indicate death is near.
''We live this day, this hour, this moment.''
On the Net:
Ghetto Fighters House: www.gfh.org.il

THE LIFE OF THE GHETTO: PEOPLE AND ORGANIZATIONSby Margo Gutstein
Source: SWC Archives #91-507 ALINKAAlinka was the daughter of Lilka Cukierman. Her grandfather was highly involved in the community. The family lived in an affluent area. Alinka loved to play with her dolls and stuffed animals. Part of a large, loving, highly-educated family, Alinka had a comfortable early childhood.
Alinka was five years old when the Germans occupied Warsaw in September 1939. In October 1940, Alinka and her family, along with all the other Jewish residents of Warsaw, were forced to leave their home and live in the Ghetto. Nothing is known about Alinka or her family after they were forced into the Ghetto and cut off from the world. No trace has ever been found.
Source: SWC Archives #88-288 MORDECAI ANIELEWICZ, 1919-1943
"The last wish of my life has been fulfilled. Jewish selfdefense has become a fact. Jewish resistance and revenge have become actualities. I am happy to have been one of the first Jewish fighters in the Ghetto."
A native of Warsaw, Mordecai Anielewicz was a leader of the Zionist ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir movement. By January 1940, he was a full-time underground activist. After June 1941, when word began to spread about the mass killings being carried out by the Nazis, Anielewicz concentrated on the creation of a self-defense organization in the Ghetto. After the mass deportations of 1942, Anielewicz took over and reorganized the ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization), and in November 1942 he was appointed the commander.
During the first days of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Anielewicz, twenty-three years old, was in command. When the street fighting ended, he and his staff and a large force of fighters retreated to a bunker at 18 Mila Street. The bunker fell on May 8, 1943, and Anielewicz was killed.
Source: Yad Vashem Archives ADAM CZERNIAKOW, 1880-1942
July 19, 1942 - "Incredible panic in the city .... I do not know whetber I managed to calm the population, but I did my best. I try to hearten the delegations which come to see me. What it costs me they do not see."Adam Czerniakow, an engineer by profession, served in various positions in Jewish communal and Polish political life prior to World War II. On October 4, 1939, he was appointed by the Nazis as Chairman of the judenrat (the Jewish Council established by the Nazis). When the Warsaw Ghetto was established one year later (October 1940) Czerniakow and the Judenrat became responsible for the daily organization and structure of the Jewish community. This included food, work, health, housing, sanitation, education and relief efforts. Although he had some early opportunities to escape, Czerniakow refused to abandon what he considered his responsibility to his community. He attempted to convince the Nazis to ease the situation in the Ghetto, and to limit their direct intervention, while trying to keep the Jewish community organized and functioning. While he was criticized by some in the underground as being aloof and uninvolved with the fate of the community, the prevailing opinion saw Czerniakow as a man of great personal decency and good intentions.
Adam Czerniakow committed suicide on July 23, 1942 when he was pressured to hand over Jewish children to be deported to their deaths. It is reported that he left a note: "They are demanding that I kill the children of my people with my own hands. There is nothing for me to do but die."
Source: Yad Vashem Archives MAREK EDELMAN, 1921 -
"God is trying to blow out the candle and I'm quickly trying to shield tbe flame, taking advantage of His brief inattention. To keep the flame flickering, even if only for a little while longer than He would wish."Marek Edelman was a member of the Bund (Jewish Socialist) youth movement at the outbreak of the war. In November 1942, he joined the ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization) and became the Bund's representative in the ZOB Command.
At the time of the revolt, Edelman was in charge of one of the Ghetto areas, and was one of the last fighters in the ZOB headquarters at 18 Mila Street. Escaping through the sewers, he reached the "Aryan" side of Warsaw. There he took part in the Polish revolt of 1944.
After the war Edelman remained in Poland, becoming a renowned cardiologist. In the 1980s he was active in the Solidarity movement and has become, for many in Poland, a living symbol of the fight for both Jewish survival and human rights.
Source: SWC Archives #91-390 SORELA GOLDSOBELSorela was the daughter of Basia and Leon Goldsobel. Mr. Goldsobel worked as a business representative.
Sorela was almost five years old when the Germans occupied Warsaw in September 1939. In October 1940, Sorela, her older sister Liliana and her parents, along with all the other Jewish residents of the city, were forced to leave their home and live in the Ghetto. In July 1942, the Germans began rounding up and deporting Ghetto residents in massive raids. Sorela and her parents were caught in a raid in September 1942. They were sent to Treblinka and murdered in the gas chambers. Sorela had not yet turned eight.
Source: Kidush Hashem: Ketavim Mi-yeme ha-Shoah. (Tel Aviv, Israel: "Zakhor," 1969), frontispiece. SHIMON HUBERBAND(Simon Huberband), 1909-1942
"Recently, the high price of paper and of waste has led many people, under the duress of poverty, to take their holy books out onto the streets and sell them as paper... For this reason, one sees lately many paper bags made out of paper from Bibles, Talmuds, and other holy books. No holy books are printed anymore... Only tiny, flawed Hebrew calendars were secretly printed for the current year, 5702 (1941-42)."Shimon Huberband was born into a rabbinic family and ordained by his grandfather. A versatile scholar, he published widely on theological and historical topics. At the outbreak of the war, he and his family left their home in Piotrkow to seek safety in outlying areas; however, his wife and child were killed when German planes demolished the town of Sulejow, where they had taken refuge. In early 1940, Huberband went to Warsaw, where he remarried.
In Warsaw, Huberband worked for the Jewish Social Self-Help Organization, and was director of the organization's religious section. He became Emanuel Ringelblum's most valued collaborator in the Oneg Shabbat archive. His unique work in Yiddish, later published in Hebrew and English under the title Kiddush Hashem, carefully documents the response of religious Jews of Poland and especially Warsaw to the Holocaust. On August 18, 1942, Huberband and his wife were deported to Treblinka, where they perished.
CHAIM AARON KAPLAN, 1880-1942
October 26, 1939 - 'In our scroll of agony, not one small detail can be omitted. Even though we are now undergoing terrible tribulations and the sun has grown dark for us at noon, we have not lost our hope that the era of light will surely come ... Therefore, every entry is more precious than gold so long as it is written down as it happens, without exaggerations and distortions."Chaim Kaplan was born in Belorussia. Around 1900, he settled in Warsaw, where he wrote prolifically on pedagogic subjects and founded a pioneering elementary school, which he ran until World War II. Kaplan started keeping a diary in 1933, written in Hebrew. At first, his diary was personal, but with the outbreak of war on September 1, 1939, Kaplan's diary became concerned with public events as well. His record of the Warsaw Ghetto gives us an invaluable look at the Jews of Warsaw, the Nazis and the Poles during this period. Kaplan not only wrote what he observed, but he also attempted to speculate on causes and effects. He had the diary smuggled out of the ghetto in August 1942, a day or two before he was deported to Treblinka, where he was murdered. His final entry reads: "if my life ends-what will become of my diary?" The diary was discovered in a kerosene can on a farm outside of Warsaw after the war, and was published in English in 1966.
Source: Block, Gay and Malka Drucker. Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust. (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1992), p. JAN KARSKI, 1914-
"..never in the history of mankind, never anywhere in the realm of human relations did anything occur to compare with what was inflicted on tbe Jewisb population of Poland..The images of what I saw in the death camp are, I am afraid, my permanent possessions. I would like nothing better than to purge my mind of these memories."Jan Karski, a non-Jewish Polish diplomat, joined the Polish underground upon the occupation of Poland in
September 1939, and was a courier for the Polish Government-in-Exile. He lived underground in Warsaw in 1941-1942. In 1942, Karski was sent on a mission to London to transmit a report on the situation in occupied Poland, and in particular on the situation of the Jewish population there. To enable himself to report accurately, he smuggled himself into the Ghetto twice before leaving Warsaw, meeting with leaders of the Jewish underground there. in London, he met with statesmen and public figures, such as Winston Churchill and Anthony Eden, and with journalists and Jewish leaders. Karski then went to the United States to meet with leaders there (including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Felix Frankfurter) in a further attempt to arouse public opinion against the massacres being carried out by the Germans. He failed in this task because the leaders whom he met with refused to believe his reports because of prejudice, politics or basic incredulity. After the war, Karski remained in the United States. In 1982 he was awarded the title of "Righteous Among the Nations" by the State of Israel for his attempts to save the Jews of Poland.
Source: SWC Archives #88-287 JANUSZ KORCZAK, 1878 or 9-1942
"If our bodies live forever, they can do so only through our children .... I would only like to be conscious when I die. I want to be able to tell the children 'Good-bye' and wish tbem freedom to choose their own way."Janusz Korczak, physician, educator and author, was a native of Warsaw. Born Henryk Goldszmit, he became well- known by his pen name of Janusz Korczak. He wrote on a wide variety of educational and philosophical subjects, and also wrote a number of children's books; King Matt the First is one of the best known. Korczak was the director of two orphanages in Warsaw, one Jewish and one non-Jewish. At these orphanages he applied his progressive ideas regarding childrearing, which encouraged respect, independence, selfesteem and love, while rejecting fear and punishment. He was aided in his work by his partner, Stefania Wilczynska.
Due to rising antisemitism in the 1930s, Korczak was forced to resign from the nonJewish orphanage and to cease his popular series of radio broadcasts. After the Germans invaded Poland, he devoted himself to the welfare of his Jewish orphans. Despite conditions in the Ghetto, the orphanage was kept clean, children and teachers kept order, there were literary evenings, and the children even gave performances. Korczak had the opportunity to escape several times, but refused to abandon his charges. On August 5, 1942, Korczak, his staff and some 200 children marched to the Umschlagplatz, where they were all transported to Treblinka and their deaths. An observer (Emanuel Ringelblum) wrote of this march: "This was not a march to the railway cars, this was an organized wordless protest against murder!"
Source: Bet Lohamei ha-Getta'ot ZIVIA LUBETKIN, 1914-1976
"We worked frantically and with impatience, our hearts filled with prayer. We longed for the hour of revenge, that it might come soon. And behold, the day came!"Zivia Lubetkin, active in Zionist youth movements before the war, was one of the founders of the ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization). At the outbreak of World War II, she was in eastern Poland, but she returned to Warsaw to participate in the underground activities there. She was an organizer of the earliest resistance movements in the Ghetto, and also fought in the first attempt at armed resistance in the Ghetto in January 1943, as well as the final revolt of April-May 1943. Several days before the fall of the Ghetto, Lubetkin and a group of surviving fighters escaped to the "Aryan" side of Warsaw through the sewer system. Lubetkin stayed in hiding in the Warsaw underground through the end of the war, and fought in the Polish revolt of 1944. After the war, Lubetkin and her husband, Yitzhak Zuckerman, settled in Palestine, where she was among the founders of Kibbutz Lohamei ha-Getta'ot and Bet Lohamei ha- Getta'ot (Ghetto Fighters Kibbutz and Memorial). Lubetkin appeared as a compelling witness in the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961.
Source: Yad Vashem Archives EMANUEL RINGELBLUM, 1900-1944
"I don't know who of the group will survive-wbo will be favored by fortune to work on the collected material. But one thing is clear to us all. our toil and effort, our devotion and constant fear, were not in vain. We dealt the enemy a blow. It matters little whether the revelation of the unbelievable slaughter of Jews will have the necessary effect-whether the further staying of entire Jewish communities will be stopped. One thing we know-we have fulfilled our obligation."Emanuel Ringelblum was the founder and director of the Oneg Shabbat (Sabbath Delight) archive. A historian by profession, he specialized in the history of the Jews of Warsaw. In the Ghetto, he began by recording events himself, and later recruited a staff of dozens. in addition, Ringelblum worked with the political underground and self-help organizations in the Ghetto, ran a network of soup kitchens, and also managed to keep his own chronicle up to date.
In March 1943, Ringelblum and his family went into hiding outside the Ghetto. In early April, he returned to the Ghetto to participate in the uprising and was captured. in July 1943, he was found in the Trawniki labor camp. The underground rescued him and took him back to Warsaw, where he hid with his family and 30 other Jews in an underground refuge. On March 7, 1944, the hiding place was discovered, and all were arrested. A few days later, all were shot.
Oneg Shabbat reports were smuggled to the West in 1942 and 1943 detailing the deportations from Warsaw. included as well was an eyewitness account of the Chelmno extermination camp. As the destruction of the Ghetto neared, the archives were stored in metal containers and milk jugs and hidden. Two of the three sections of the archive have been recovered; the third is still missing. The importance of the archive lies in its eyewitness accounts and documentation of the life and destruction in the Warsaw Ghetto. It is the most important source we have for the history of Polish Jewry during this period.
Source: Lewin, Isaac, editor. Eleh Ezkerah. (New York: Research Institute of Religious Jewry, 1963), Vol. 5. KALUNIMUS KALMISH SHAPIRO(Kalonymus Shapiro or Shapira), 1889-1943
"It is bard to raise one's self up, time and again, from the tribulations, but when one is determined, stretching his mind to connect to the Torah and Divine service, then be enters the Inner Chambers where the Blessed Holy One is to be found, be weeps and waits together with Him, as it were, and even finds the strength to study Torah and serve Him."Kalunimus Kalmish Shapiro, born into a Hasidic dynasty, became the rabbi of Piaseczno, near Warsaw, in 1913. After World War I, he moved to Warsaw, founding a yeshiva there in 1923. He wrote important works on Jewish education and on the phenomenology of traditional religious practice. During the German occupation his home doubled as synagogue and soup kitchen for his followers in the Ghetto. There Shapiro delivered sermons developing a theology linking human suffering with the Divine. He died in a death camp near Lublin.
Source: Starkopf, after p. 150. JASIA STARKOPFJasia, the daughter of Adam and Pela (Miller) Starkopf, was born in the Warsaw Ghetto. Her parents were childhood sweethearts. Before the war, her father was the office manager and chief accountant of a leather goods factory. Mr. and Mrs. Starkopf lived with Jasia's grandparents in a spacious Warsaw apartment. After the German invasion, Mr. Starkopf went into business selling toys and novelties. When the Germans occupied Warsaw, they enacted harsh anti- Jewish measures causing great hardship. The Germans looted Mr. Starkopf's store, leaving the family with no regular source of income. In order to survive, the family began selling off their household goods.
Jasia was born on January 14, 1941, delivered by a midwife on the dining room table. She was swaddled in a pillowcase that was tied with a belt. Her grandparents sold what little they still possessed, mostly clothes, just to buy her milk.
By the summer of 1941, starvation was a major problem in the Ghetto. People were collapsing and dying in the street. in order to obtain food for Jasia and her mother, Mr. Starkopf began making trips outside the Ghetto to the non-Jewish area of the city. After a close escape during the first massive roundup of Jews for deportation to death camps, he determined that the only way his family might survive would be to escape from the Ghetto.
Jasia's father was able to obtain false documents for his family, giving them new identities as non- Jews. Unable to trust Jasia, only eighteen months old, to keep quiet while being smuggled out of the Ghetto, Mr. Starkopf gave Jasia medication that put her to sleep. Her parents placed her in a coffin and arranged that she be taken to the Jewish cemetery for burial. Her mother bribed guards so that she could follow the hearse to the cemetery. From there, they slipped into the adjacent Catholic cemetery and the non-Jewish sector of the city.
Jasia and her parents spent the rest of the war posing as Christians in the Polish countryside. They constantly feared discovery. They returned to Warsaw in January 1945, after it was liberated. Jasia was four years old.
Source: Stroop, Jürgen. Es Gibt Keinen Jüdischen Wohnbezirk in Warschau Mehr.(See also: Milton) JURGEN STROOP, 1895-1951
May 16, 1943 - "180 Jews, bandits, and subhumans were destroyed. Tbe Jewisb quarter of Warsaw is no more!"Jürgen Stroop, a veteran of World War I, joined the Nazi party and the SS in 1932, rising rapidly through the ranks. By 1939, he was commander of a police unit. In June 1941 Stroop was sent to the eastern front where he was wounded; he was then transferred to police functions in the occupied Soviet territories. On April 17, 1943, he was summoned to Warsaw to assume command of the liquidation of the Ghetto. Stroop crushed the revolt by physically destroying the Ghetto and killing the inhabitants.
Stroop was condemned to death in 1947 by a United States military tribunal for atrocities committed in Greece and the murder of U.S. prisoners of war in Rheinland-Westmark, where he served after the liquidation of the Ghetto. He was then extradited to Poland, where he was sentenced to death and hanged for war crimes committed in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Source: SWC Archives #91-507 HELENA WEISSBLATTHelena was the daughter of Rena and Mark Weissblatt. Helena's father was one of the few Jews permitted to work for the Polish government. Her family lived in an exclusive area of Warsaw. Helena's mother gave private Hebrew lessons, and her grandfather was highly involved in the Jewish community. Part of a large, loving and highly educated family, Helena had a comfortable and secure early childhood.
Helena was an eleven-year-old schoolgirl when the Germans occupied Warsaw in September 1939. In October 1940, Helena and her family, along with all the other Jewish residents of the city, were forced to leave their home and to move into the Ghetto. Nothing is known of the fate of Helena and her family after they were forced into the Ghetto and cut off from the rest of the world.
Source: SWC Archives #91-507 NATUS WEISSBLATTNatus was the son of Rena and Mark Weissblatt. His father was one of the few Jews who was permitted to work for the Polish government. Natus' mother gave private Hebrew lessons, and his grandfather was highly involved in the Jewish community. They lived in an affluent area of Warsaw. Natus was an outstanding student. Part of a large, loving and highly- educated family, Natus had a comfortable, secure early childhood.
Natus was a thirteen-year-old schoolboy when the Germans occupied Warsaw in September 1939. In October 1940, Natus and his family, along with all the other Jewish residents of the city, were forced to leave their home and to live in the Ghetto. Nothing is known of the fate of Natus and his family after they were forced into the Ghetto and cut off from the world.
ZEGOTAZegota was the code name of Rada Pomocy Zydom (Council for Aid to Jews). Established in December 1942, Zegota functioned until the liberation of Poland in January 1945. It was originally organized by Zofia Kossak Szcaucka and other liberal Catholics, but spread to include representatives of the Socialists and other Polish organizations, as well as representatives of two Jewish organizations, the Jewish National Committee, and the Bund (Jewish Socialists).
Zegota provided financial aid and, most importantly, false documents (baptismal, marriage and death certificates, identity and employment cards) to thousands of Jews. it also attempted to find hiding places for Jews as well. Jewish children were put under foster care (2,500 Jewish children in Warsaw alone) and medical care was provided to hidden Jews. All of these activities were carried out under the threat of death if discovered by the Nazis.
In the last few months of the Ghetto about 20,000 Jews left the Ghetto to try to hide on the "Aryan" side. Many of these were assisted by Zegota. Although the majority did not survive, and, indeed, many were turned in by antisemitic or greedy Poles, Zegota was responsible for the saving of a number of Jewish lives (the exact numbers are unknown).
In 1963 Zegota was honored by the State of Israel as "Righteous Among the Nations" for its attempts to aid the Jews of Poland. As the only underground organization dedicated to providing aid to Jews on such a large scale, Zegota provides one of the only positive models to come out of that period.
Source: Lewin, vol. 2. MENAHEM ZEMBA (Menachem Ziemba), 1883-1943
April 19, 1943 - "On this, the first day of national liberation, rise ye up as the remnant in the Warsaw Ghetto against the adversary for the sanctification of the Divine Name. Do not permit yourselves to be divided from within. Let not brother turn against brother. In the end, united action will bring comprehensive redemption to Israel throughout the world."Menahem Zemba was born into a poor Hasidic family. Distinguished as a rabbinical scholar even as a young man, Zemba served as the secretary of the Mo'etset Gedole ha-Torah before the war, and in 1935 he agreed to become a member of the Warsaw Rabbinical Council. Zemba's rabbinic works are considered masterpieces, and he conducted extensive correspondence with major Jewish legal experts worldwide. Hundreds of Jews sat for a moment in his sukkah, a hutlike structure with an impermanent roof meant to remind one of God's providence during the Fall holiday of Sukkot (Tabernacles). Zemba wrote a monograph on martyrdom which he completed on the day his wife was murdered in the Ghetto. He dedicated it to her.
Zemba was one of the last rabbis to remain in the Ghetto after the mass deportations of 1942. At a meeting of the leaders on January 14, 1943, he gave rabbinic approval for the Uprising. Refusing two separate opportunities to escape from the Ghetto, Zemba was shot by the Germans a few days after the revolt began.
ZOB (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa - Jewish Fighting Organization)In March 1942, discussions began in the Warsaw Ghetto among various Jewish political groups about the possibility of armed resistance to the Nazis. These discussions were spurred by reports that reached the Ghetto regarding activities of the Einsaugruppen (the Nazis' mobile killing units) in late 1941, by the formation of a resistance organization in Vilna, and by an eyewitness account of the Chelmno extermination camp.
While these Jewish groups had initial difficulty coming together because of various political, ideological and personal factors, the deportations of July-September 1942 (when almost 300,000 Jews were deported, 265,000 of whom went directly to the Treblinka extermination camp) solidified the resolve of many for resistance. In October 1942, an organized ZOB emerged.
Contact was made with the Polish underground (Armia Krajowa), the Home Army, and the Polish Communist Peoples Army (Armia Ludowa), but the arms received were negligible, although the Home Army did help to train ZOB members in the use of explosives. ZOB activities began with retaliations against Jewish collaborators, and in January 1943 the first armed resistance began. This resistance limited the Nazi deportation to 10% of the remaining Ghetto population and thus was seen by Jews and Poles as a Nazi defeat. Buoyed by its success, the ZOB spent the next few months in preparation for the final Nazi offensive. Bunkers were built and supplies, such as were available, were stored. The ZOB's active units consisted of approximately 330 fighters, and another 165 in smaller independent units.
The final liquidation of the Ghetto began on Monday, April 19, 1943, the eve of Passover, the Jewish festival of liberation. The Nazis were initially forced to retreat, and finally had to burn the Ghetto, using poison gas and tear gas, to achieve their victory. The Jewish command staff largely either fell in the fighting or died in the ZOB headquarters bunker at 18 Mila Street on May 8. Only a handful survived, including Marek Edelman, Yitzhak Zuckerman, and Zivia Lubetkin.
The ZOB was an organization of young men and women without any military experience. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the first mass urban revolt against the Nazis, succeeded in holding out nearly as long as the French Army did in 1940, and has become the symbol of Jewish resistance and self-determination.
Source: Bet Lohamei ha-Gettaot YITZHAK ZUCKERMAN(Itzhak Cukierman), 1915-1981
"These were our thoughts; this was our life. Revolt! Everything and everyone was prepared for it. We knew that Israel would continue to live and tbat for the sake of all Jews everywhere and for Jewisb existence and dignity-even for future generations-only one thing would do: Revolt!"Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman was active in Zionist youth organizations before the war. When the Nazis invaded and conquered Poland, he dedicated himself to underground activities in Soviet occupied territory, returning to Nazi occupied territory in April 1940. At first his activities included setting up the underground press and high school, organizing conferences and seminars, and secretly visiting and coordinating underground activities in other towns and with other movements. However, when reports of the Einsatzgruppen reached Warsaw in the fall of 1941, Zuckerman turned to armed resistance, and became a member of the staff of the ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization) in July 1942.
During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Zuckerman was sent out of the Ghetto to the Polish side as the ZOB's liaison with other underground groups. He attempted to supply the Uprising with arms, but received only minimal support. Later, Zuckerman fought in the Polish uprising of 1944.
After the war, Zuckerman and his wife, Zivia Lubetkin, went to Palestine. He was one of the founders of Kibbutz Lohamei ha-Getta'ot and Bet Lohamei ha-Getta'ot (Ghetto Fighters Kibbutz and Memorial). He appeared as a prosecution witness in the Eichmann trial in 1961.
Source: Yad Vashem Archives SAMUEL ARTUR ZYGELBOJM (Shmuel Zygielbojm or Zygielbaum), 1895-1943
June 2, 1942 - "It will be a disgrace to go on living, to belong to the human race, unless immediate steps are taken to put a stop to this crime, the greatest that history has known."Samuel Zygelbojm, Polish Bundist (Jewish Socialist) leader, was, after a career of union activism, one of the twelve public figures the Germans took as hostages when they occupied Warsaw. After his release he represented the Bund on the first Warsaw Judenrat (Jewish Council established by the Nazis). In December 1939, in danger of being arrested, Zygelbojm was sent out of the country by the Bund to report on conditions in German-occupied Poland. He went first to Belgium in 1940, then to the United States in 1940-1942, and finally to Great Britain, where he was the Bund representative on the Polish National Council from 1942-1943. Zygelbojm attempted to alert authorities to take rescue and retaliatory action on behalf of Polish Jewry. For example, in a BBC broadcast in December 1942, Zygelbojm said, "if Polish Jewry's call for help goes unheeded, Hitler will have achieved one of his war aims-to destroy the Jews of Europe irrespective of the military outcome of the war." Zygelbojm's efforts failed, and he began to despair about the fate of Polish Jews; when word came of the final liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, he committed suicide on May 12, 1943.
Copyright © 1998, The Simon Wiesenthal Center9760 West Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90035

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Blast Kills 13 Year After Saddam Capture
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By PAUL GARWOOD, Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq - An al-Qaida-linked suicide bomber blew up his vehicle Monday near cars waiting to enter the Green Zone, home to the U.S. Embassy and Iraq (news - web sites)'s interim government, killing 13 Iraqis on the anniversary of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s capture.
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As insurgents continued to step up attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces ahead of next month's elections, the country's interim president said Washington was wrong for dismantling Iraq's security forces, including its 350,000-strong army, after last year's invasion.
"Definitely dissolving the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Interior was a big mistake," Ghazi al-Yawer told British Broadcasting Corp. radio, saying it would have been more effective to screen out former regime loyalists than to rebuild from scratch.
He added: "As soon as we have efficient security forces that we can depend on we can see the beginning of the withdrawal of forces from our friends and partners and I think it doesn't take years, it will take months."
U.S. military commanders, however, say American forces will be in Iraq for several years and that troop numbers will rise from 138,000 to 150,000 before the Jan. 30 national elections, which many Iraqis fear could be targeted by militants opposed to the occupation and bent on derailing the political process.
American and Iraqi leaders had hoped the ouster of Saddam — who was captured one year ago Monday on a farm near his hometown of Tikrit — and the detention or death of most of his top aides would deal the insurgency a knockout blow.
But the uprising has escalated and the number of attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces risen steadily. About 550 U.S. soldiers died in the first year after the invasion was launched; almost 750 troops have died in the nine months that followed.
Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al-Qaida in Iraq group claimed credit for Monday's deadly attack in central Baghdad, where a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives-packed car near a checkpoint leading into the heavily fortified Green Zone, killing 13 Iraqis and wounding 15. No U.S. troops were injured.
A U.S. soldier with the 1st Corps Support Command was killed and another wounded Monday in a vehicle accident near a military base in Balad, 50 miles north of the capital. It was unclear what caused the accident.
Seven Marines died in action Sunday in the volatile Anbar province west of Baghdad, the deadliest day for the Marines since eight of their service members were killed by a car bomb Oct. 30 outside Fallujah.
The deaths brought to nearly 1,300 the number of American troops killed in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003.
It was unclear where in Anbar the Marines were killed, but the province includes the turbulent cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.
Fallujah witnessed a bloody weeklong offensive last month to uproot extremist Islamic militants. Fifty-four Americans were among the hundreds who died in the battle, in which U.S. and Iraqi forces retook the city from insurgents and radical Islamic clerics who had ruled it since Marines lifted a three-week siege in April.
After last month's campaign, U.S. commanders claimed they had broken the insurgency's back in the mainly Sunni Muslim areas of western Iraq, and that they would start phasing in Iraqi security forces to take over. But fighting has persisted.
On Sunday, American jets dropped 10 precision-guided missiles on insurgent positions in Fallujah after insurgents fought running battles with coalition forces.
"We are still running into some of these die-hard insurgents that have either come back into the city or have been laying low," spokesman Lt. Lyle Gilbert said. "As we are bringing in contractors to help with the reconstruction of Fallujah, this (fighting) slows the process down."
Farther west in Ramadi, 10 explosions were heard early Monday. No details were immediately available on what caused them or if there were casualties. The blasts came a day after insurgents and Marines traded artillery fire that killed one woman.
In the northern city of Mosul, a car bomb blast struck a U.S. Stryker brigade patrol Monday, wounding two American soldiers. U.S. troops and gunmen fought gun battles after the blast.
In Tarmiyah, on Baghdad's northern outskirts, three more U.S. troops were wounded in a car bombing that wrecked two Humvees, pieces of which were raised into the air by jubilant Iraqi men who danced around their charred hulks and a large crater blown into the road.
Eight of Saddam's 11 detained top lieutenants went on hunger strikes over the weekend to demand jail visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross, but were eating again by Monday, a U.S. military spokesman said. The former dictator never joined the protest, the U.S. military said.
"They don't acknowledge the legality of their trials or their detention," said lawyer, Badee Izzat Aref, an Iraqi appointed by the family of former Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz.
It was impossible to say if the protest was timed to the anniversary of Saddam's capture a year ago. The detainees have been held for months in an undisclosed location, believed to be near the Baghdad International Airport, west of the capital.
In Rome, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari assured Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II that Saddam and other former regime members would be treated fairly and brought to trial as soon as possible after the January elections. "The same justice they denied us we are going to give it to them," he said.
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