Holocaust survivors strut at pageant

HAIFA: To the strains of Madonna’s Vogue, the 13 women with a combined age of about 1,050 strutted down the runway cautiously, hindered only slightly by walking sticks and the odd dodgy hip. The third annual Holocaust survivors’ beauty pageant, honouring women who lived through the concentration camps and death marches of Nazi Germany, was held in the city of Haifa this week with hundreds of relatives turning out in support. “They were either in ghettos or concentration camps. So this night is giving them something back which they could never experience when they were young,” said Jurgen Buhler, the German director of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, a sponsor.