Mr. Lauder, heir to the Estée Lauder Empire of women’s merchandise, is estimated to have net worth of $3.0 billion. Besides controlling much of the world’s cosmetics market, Lauder manages investments in real estate and media, such as Central European Media Enterprises, and Israeli TV.

“As the son of Auschwitz survivors, it is my sacred duty to hold America’s space program accountable for neglecting the Holocaust,” Lauder said. “Colonel Ramon died in a ball of flame, just like six million of his innocent countrymen.”

Ilan Ramon, a colonel in the Israeli Air force, was decorated for valor during Israel’s Yom Kippur War, and for taking part in Israel’s spectacular 1981 bombing of the Osirak Reactor in Iraq ("Operation Opera”). In 1982 was decorated again during Israel’s defensive operations in Lebanon (“Operation Peace In Galilee”).

Ramon called himself a “secular Jew,” but during his heroic space mission aboard the U.S. Shuttle Columbia (STS-107, January 2003) he demanded kosher food, and broadcast a message to earth, saying, “I represent all Jews and all Israelis.” He also carried the pencil sketch Moon Landscape drawn by 14-year-old Petr Ginz, who was one six million innocent Jews that Europeans murdered at Auschwitz. In addition, Ramon carried a microfiche copy of the Torah (from the Holocaust) given to him by Israeli president Moshe Katsav.

Before the mission, Ramon requested a Holocaust symbol from the 1939 Club, a Holocaust survivor organization in Los Angeles, and was given a barbed wire Mezuzah by San Francisco Artist Aimee Golant. The symbol was then placed about the multi-billion dollar spacecraft during a solemn ceremony.

On February 1, 2003, weeks before the U.S. invasion that brought democracy to Iraq, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated in space, killing Colonel Ramon. The entire world mourned, and proceeded to honor Col. Ramon in numerous ways. An asteroid was named after him, as was a formation on Mars, plus college dormitories in Florida, theme parks in Israel, a street in Vaughan, Ontario, and a mountain in Uganda. Meanwhile the Bush Administration posthumously awarded Col. Ramon the NASA Space Flight Medal, NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, Congressional Medal of Honor, and the Chief Of Staff Medal of Appreciation.

Nonetheless, Ronald Lauder says this was all a, “Cheap way for the United States to avoid its guilt.”

Lauder’s concerns arose when the U.S. Geological Survey’s Board of Geographic Names declined to rename a mountain in Col. Ramon’s honor. The USGS named a Colorado mountain “Challenger Point” to commemorate the Challenger disaster, and in 2003 named a nearby summit “Columbia Point.” When the World Jewish Congress demanded that the latter mountain be renamed “Mount Ramon,” the USGS declined, claiming that other astronauts were also lost during the Columbia mission.

“The Geological Survey’s anti-Semitism might have been forgivable if the other Columbia astronauts had been children of Holocaust survivors like colonel Ramon,” Mr. Lauder said, “but they were just ordinary Americans. A few components on the space shuttle were even made in Germany.”

Mr. Lauder was dismayed when he learned that the collected debris of the Columbia shuttle was entombed in two Minuteman missile silos at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

“The Jewish people have honorable traditions regarding burial,” Mr. Lauder said. “Colonel Ramon’s remains should have been separated from those of the other astronauts and buried accordingly, but he was dumped into a hole in the ground. This is Auschwitz all over again.”

Asked what he will do with the $20 billion if he wins his lawsuit against NASA, Mr. Lauder said he would invest part of it in a new line of apparel for women holocaust survivors. “This is not about money,” the makeup magnate said. “It’s about remembering the six million innocents who died at Auschwitz.”

The World Jewish Congress has offices in many countries, but is headquartered in New York City. www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/4595