Michael Elkins (22 January 1917, in New York , United States – 10 March 2001, in Jerusalem ) was an American broadcaster and journalist who worked for the American network, CBS , for the magazine Newsweek and then for 17 years with the BBC . He was the first to report Israel's destruction of Arab air forces on the opening day of the Six-Day War in 1967. CBS did not trust his report and he left.
17-1214: Laak can refer to: People [ edit ] Laak [ edit ] Aleksander Laak (1907–1960), lieutenant and the commander of the Jägala concentration camp during the German occupation Dan Laak , American head dive coach Phil Laak (born 1972), Irish-American poker player Ter Laak [ edit ] Everard Ter Laak (1868-1931), Dutch Roman Catholic missionary and bishop in China Ine ter Laak-Spijk (1931–2002), Dutch short and middle-distance runner Jens ter Laak , German figure skater Van de Laak [ edit ] Koen van de Laak (born 1982), Dutch footballer Van Laak [ edit ] Claudia van Laak (born 1963), German radio journalist Places [ edit ] Laak, Davao de Oro , Philippines Laak, The Hague , Netherland Laak River , Rotselaar , Belgium Laak (Königsberg) formerly Germany, presently part of Kaliningrad, Russia See also [ edit ] LAK (disambiguation) / Lak Topics referred to by
34-499: A Jew and a Zionist to report the Arab-Israeli conflict . Elkins replied: "My reports are a matter of public record. If anyone can find a pattern of bias, let him say so." The BBC supported him until his retirement in 1983. The Elkins family was traditional but not deeply religious. Elkins said in a BBC talk, A Jew at Christmas , that he lost his Jewish faith when Santa Claus refused a present at Macy's department store when he
51-639: A conversation with Elkins about his direct involvement in extrajudicial killings of alleged nazi war criminals, within the secret organization DIN/Nakam. Elkins wrote Forged in Fury in 1971, about the Jewish hunt for Nazi war criminals . He was not a natural author and he returned a publisher's advance after being commissioned to write an autobiography. He joined the Jerusalem Report magazine as ombudsman and letters editor in 1990 and worked for another 10 years. He
68-625: A dated, epic, 1940s American radio style. His obituary in The Independent in Britain described him as "a master story-teller, a reporter with attitude. Even in private conversation, he spoke in vivid, well-crafted sentences. His writings translated less well to the printed page. Without the voice, they appeared a touch contrived." Arab lobbyists in the Middle East protested that the BBC should not employ
85-436: A mass murderer, he apparently committed suicide by hanging himself in the garage of his home at the age of 53, on 6 September 1960. Prior to his death, Laak admitted to being a collaborator, but said he had nothing to do with Jägala. It has been speculated that Laak was killed by vigilantes. Israeli journalist Michael Elkins claimed that Laak was in fact confronted one day after his wife had left their house to go to
102-409: A one-liner: "You alone with Israeli victory. You'd better be right." Elkins visited New York in the autumn and called on CBS. He was congratulated for his scoop. "Get lost," he said. "I resign." He said he didn't want the job if they didn't trust him. The journalist David Sells said: Elkins never modified his New York accent and growl, making him unusual among the BBC's correspondents. He spoke in
119-617: A year later to Jerusalem. Elkins began broadcasting with CBS in the US in September 1956. He became the network's correspondent in Israel. The previous correspondent said he was returning to the United States because "nothing ever happens in Israel". A month later Britain and France invaded Suez as Israeli tanks moved into Sinai . Elkins was the first to report Israel's destruction of Arab air forces on
136-521: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Aleksander Laak Aleksander (Alexander) Laak (24 August 1907 – 6 September 1960) was a lieutenant and the commander of the Jägala concentration camp during the German occupation of Estonia . The estimates for the number of killed at Jägala concentration camp vary widely. The Soviet investigators reached
153-665: The Office of Strategic Services , the forerunner of the CIA during the second world war. In 1947 Elkins met Teddy Kollek in New York. Kollek was later mayor of Jerusalem . In 1947 he was organising illegal shipments of arms to the Jewish Haganah in Palestine. Elkins joined in. The FBI discovered his involvement and he and his wife, Martha, fled to Israel. They lived on a kibbutz , then moved
170-509: The conclusion that 2,000–3,000 were killed in Jägala and Kalevi-Liiva taken together, but the number 5,000 (as determined by the Extraordinary State Commission in 1944) was written into the verdict. In modern sources, the number 10,000 occurs. Some commentators have also given figures ranging from 100,000 ( Michael Elkins , Jonathan Freedland ) to 125,000 to 300,000 ( Warren Kinsella ), however, such figures contradict
187-550: The findings of the Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity and also the estimates of scholars who place the number of total Jewish victims for the Estonia of 1941–1944 at 8,500. Aleksander Laak was also known to have arranged drunken orgies with female inmates, who were forced to participate and then murdered. He emigrated to Canada after World War II, in 1948. In 1960, he
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#1732848650724204-485: The first day of the Six Day War. He telephoned CBS but it hesitated to broadcast his story. The BBC ran it. Elkins had come across a politician he knew. The politician directed him to the war-room. Elkins wrote the story but Israeli military censors delayed it. Elkins proposed a deal. He would hold back the story if the censors gave him permission to be the first to broadcast when it was cleared. They agreed. CBS sent him
221-504: The movies, by a Jewish Avenger squad that clandestinely murdered Nazis. He was, according to Elkins, confronted with his crimes, and their intended punishment, and he accepted their offer of being allowed to commit suicide rather than be killed. An investigation of the death was reopened in 1991. Laak's friends said he killed himself to protect relatives in Canada and back in Estonia from potential reprisals. Michael Elkins Elkins
238-459: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Laak . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Laak&oldid=1187379265 " Categories : Disambiguation pages Disambiguation pages with surname-holder lists Hidden categories: Short description
255-500: Was eight, saying: "This ain't for you, Jewboy." He regained his faith, he said in the same broadcast, when he was at the liberation of Dachau in April 1945 as an American serviceman. He said he told a prisoner there that he didn't understand Yiddish; the man retorted: "Don't you speak the mother tongue? Aren't you a Jew?" "Elkins found that he did and he was," said The Independent' s obituary. John Le Carré, in “The Pigeon tunnel”, mentions
272-689: Was implicated in the Holocaust trials in Soviet Estonia , and exposed as living as a naturalized Canadian citizen under the name of Alex Laak in suburban Winnipeg, Manitoba , Canada by the Soviet news agency TASS and Canadian journalists. Thereafter, after reading of the arrests of Jaan Viik and Ralf Gerrets (both of whom were later convicted of war crimes, sentenced to death, and executed in 1961) for mass killings of mostly Jewish East Europeans while under Nazi occupation, and being himself identified as
289-709: Was the youngest of three sons of East European Jewish immigrants who made clothes in the sweatshops of the Lower East Side. He was embarrassed that his parents spoke Yiddish and that his father walked ahead of his mother in the street. He excelled at school and educated himself in libraries. He fell in with hoodlums in New York, then moved to the American West Coast as a union organiser before joining his brother Saul to write scripts in Hollywood. He worked in Europe in
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