I remember the icy snow crunching beneath our every step, the subzero wind biting at our bare faces, the quiet utter stillness. As we walked the vast landscape of Auschwitz, I had the honor of being on these once cursed, now sacred, grounds with Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Being in his presence, exposed to his wisdom, has been one of the great blessings of my life. He is my hero not only for what he has endured, but for what ...

A 90-year-old Holocaust survivor was found strangled Thursday in his Upper East Side apartment, a spokeswoman for the New York City medical examiner said Friday. Felix Brinkmann, a native of Latvia, escaped death for a year while he was in the Nazis' Mauthausen, Ebensee and Auschwitz concentration camps. Five times he had been slated for the gas chambers, but each time he used his fluency in German to talk his way out. After the war ended, he was stunned ...

Pope Benedict XVI will not visit Israel's Holocaust museum when he makes his first trip to the region as pope in May, though he will visit an adjacent memorial, his ambassador to Israel said Tuesday. The museum includes controversial wording that reflects a long-running dispute over the role of Pope Pius XII during World War II. The pope will visit the memorial section of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, but will not step inside the museum part, the envoy, papal nuncio ...

Germany's Nazi past continues to unsettle its present. Privileged clans and mighty industries alike have subjected themselves to public scrutiny and painful mea culpas over activities and associations before and during World War II. But the latest controversy links the poisoned mementos of Auschwitz to the ongoing global financial crisis in a still unraveling tale of leveraged buyouts, corporate hubris and financial humiliation. At the center of the drama is Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler, 67, the grande dame of one of ...