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(SRN NEWS) –

(SRN NEWS) – A U.S.-based organization is transforming the house of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss into a research center devoted to fighting anti-Semitism.  The house lies next to the site of the former death camp, now the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. The Counter Extremism Project is setting up the Auschwitz Center on Hate, Extremism and Radicalization in an effort to combat anti-Semitism as well as other forms of extremist activity.  As commandant from 1940 to 1944, Höss orchestrated the industrial-scale slaughter of Jews at the camp. 

A full-scale replica of the secret annex where Anne Frank penned her famous Holocaust diary has opened in New York City.  The exhibit at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan was unveiled Monday as the world marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day.  This is the first time the annex has been completely recreated outside of Amsterdam, where a similar display is a centerpiece of the Anne Frank House Museum. The Frank family hid for two years in an attic in Amsterdam during World War Two before they were discovered and sent to concentration camps. 

President Trump’s new Justice Department leadership is eliminating Biden administration policies that led to aggressive prosecution of pro-life protesters.  The Justice Department says prosecutions and civil actions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act will now be permitted only in extraordinary circumstances or in cases presenting “significant aggravating factors”.  The president has also ordered the immediate dismissal of three FACE Act cases related to 2021 demonstrations at abortion clinics in Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Ohio. 

President Trump has signed several executive orders focused on the military.  One directs Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to revise the Pentagon’s policy on transgender troops, likely setting in motion a future ban on their military service.  A transgender ban had been widely expected, and lawyers for service members who are living as the opposite sex say they will take the issue to court.  It will be up to Secretary Hegseth to decide exactly how the ban will be established and enforced, and whether it will cover current troops or only those who join in the future.