ZETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and the Legal Chronicle

Detroit Jewish Chronicle

and THE LEGAL CHRONICLE

Published Weekly by Jewish Chronicle Publishing Co., Inc
JACOB H. SCHAKNE
President
Entered as Second-class matter March 3, 1916, at the Post-
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Adar 10, 5702

February 27, 1942

Purim

No doubt when Haman harangued the
Persian people in the days of King Aha-
suerus he assured them that the ideology
of his party would dominate the world
for the next thousand years. History told
a different tale, and the verdict of history
cannot be appealed to a higher court.
In our own sad day Goebbels and Hitler
have raucously assured their people that
National Socialist ideology will dominate
the world for the next thousand years.
How long will we have to wait for the
verdict of history? Probably not very
long. And why?
The Hitler ideology is based upon vio-
lence, race hatred, militarism. It extols
the physical and deprecates the mental.
It stigmatizes women as inferior or as
unfit for higher education and the learned
professions. It sanctifies the racial supe-
riority dogma.
The leadership principle is its corner-
stone. Its ethics, morals, laws are arro-
gant, arbitrary and ruthless. It demands
blind, unquestioning obedience. This ide-
ology has become the cultural pattern of
a whole generation of Germans.
Can a people find sustenance in such an
ideology in times of stress, failure and
defeat? And in our world, stress, failure
and defeat are experiences that none can
escape.
In times of stress, failure and defeat,
individuals and peoples must fall back on
their inner resources. They must be sus-
tained by their culture, ethics and values.
What culture, ethics and values has this
generation of National Socialists that can
tide them over? Ignorance, arrogance and
ruthlessness are poor supports when you
are alone in a hostile world.
Our people do not now nor have they
ever announced to the world that their
ideology would dominate the world for a
thousand years or for any years. They
have not sought to dominate. Their cul-
ture, ethics and values have been based
upon learning, equality, decency and
peace. Many have not followed these
basic ideas but a sufficient number have
been so indoctrinated that during the re-
curring stresses, failures and defeats of
our people over the centuries, individu-
ally and collectively we have had the in-
ner resources to meet any situation, no
matter how calamitous.
We are faced again with a crisis, a
failure, a defeat, on a vaster scale than
ever before in our history, but on this
Purim we shall rejoice as much as we can
in the thought that the Hamans and
Hitlers will disappear and we shall sur-
vive because we possess these inner re-
sources which they have not.

•

Beware

If you are asked to join a Friends of
Germany Society, make sure, before you
lend your name or give your money, that
the promoters are not disgruntled Nazis
like the Strassers. If you have any doubts
at all about the genuineness of the or-
ganization, ask those who solicit you
whether any former Nazis are connected
with it in any way.
There are many friends of German
people in this country who are deeply
concerned about their welfare. These
friends will work for just and humane
treatment for the enslaved, bedeviled and
exhausted German people when the grim
business of war is over.

Stefan Zweig

With the philosophic calm character-
istic of a man who spent his life in the
world of the spirit, Stefan Zweig took his
own life at the age of 60. His beloved
wife Elizabeth was in his arms when they
were found.
In a note to Claudoi de Souza, presi-
dent of the P. E. N. Club of Brazil, he
explained why he and his wife had de-
cided to die. He wrote :

"Before I depart from the world
by own free will, I want to do my
last duty, which is to thank this
marvelous country — Brazil — which
so hospitably received me. Each day
I spent here I loved this country
more and in no other could I have
had such hopes of reconstructing my
life.
"After I saw the country of my
own language fall, and my spiritual
land—Europe—destroying itself, and
I have reached the age of 60, it would
require immense strength to recon-
struct my life, and my energy ex-
hausted by long years of peregrina-
tion as one without a country.
"Therefore, I believe it is a time
to end a life that was dedicated only
to spiritual work, considering human
liberty and my own as the greatest
wealth in the world.
"I leave an affectionate goodbye
to all my friends."

A war-torn and hatred-drenched world
were too much for this sensitive artist.
We have concentrated so many of our
thoughts and so much of our efforts on
planes, guns, tanks and munitions that
we have almost forgotten that there is
an artistic, intellectual and spiritual
world and that there are men and women
who have spent their whole lives in this
world.
The death of this creative genius and
lover of liberty leaves us all so much
poorer and we feel it all the more poign-
antly because he passed on before his
time.
This is another count in the indictment
against National Socialism whose crimes
are already so numerous that it would
take a life-time to but read them.
•

The Riom Trial

Gamelin remained mute. Blum chal-
lenged constitutionality of court, and Da-
ladier declared that Germany needed the
trial for her propaganda and needed an
avowal of "French" war guilt.
The attitudes of these three men must
dispel the current belief that all French-
men and Jews are degenerates or pol-
troons. In fact, the defiant and courag-
eous position taken by Blum and Daladier
is evidence that the spirit of freedom, so
long enjoyed in France, is still far from
dead. It is refreshing and stimulating to
note that men of heroic stature still live
after the spectacles of abasement and
confession in the Russian trials of some
years back. Many of us thought heroism
had disappeared in Europe.
And why are these men being tried in
Riom just at this time? Does Goebbels,
Hitler and company need an avowal of
French "war guilt"? One must never con-
sider anything done by the Nazis as idle.
We must always attach significance to
their actions and statements.
Is it not possible that the Nazis no
longer feel certain that they will win the
war? The four week Russian adventure is
now in its ninth month, and the prospects
for Germany become gloomier every day.
Should they lose the war they could hope
to escape punishment by showing their
people the avowal of "war guilt" by the
rulers of France.
Blum and Daladier are not playing the
Nazi game, however, Rather, they are ex-
pressing the ideas and feelings of the in-
articulate, persecuted, oppressed French
people.
•
The safe arrival in New York of 550
refugees reminds us all that never in the
history of civilization have so many men,
women and children been expelled from
their homes. There have been mass mi-
grations in the past, but most of these
have been caused by droughts, floods,
famines or some other calamity over
which man had no control.

February 27, 1942

.'.Heard in the Lobbies:.

By DAVID J DuE sU
t T oC H

ECHOES OF WAR

The man who most takes to
heart the recent criticism of
Jessie Jones on the "rubber
stock-pile" issue is Sam Taub
of Houston, often regarded as
the right-hand man of the Secre-
tary of Commerce . . . $1,000,-
000 worth of knitting machines
are being scrapped by G. A.
Efroymson, head of the Indian-
apolis Real Silk Hosiery Mills,
so that sleeves can be made for
parachute bombs instead of hos-
iery for milady's gams . . . Ac-
cording to Harold Guinzburg, it's
unnecessary for a firm to have
a president. Even though Guinz-
berg is working as an assistant
to Robert Sherwood in the For-
eign Information Service Divi-
sion of the Co-ordinator of In-
formation, Viking Press, of which
he is president, expects 1942 to
be one of the best years in its
history . . .Send a message to
Uncle Sam's Army for Edward
M. M. Warburg, who insisted on
being inducted as a private al-
though he could have had a com-
mission . . . Those "refugee"
paintings the Kansas City art
museums have been showing are
from the New York collection of
Robert Lehman, of the banking
firm—part of the transfer of
works of art to the interior . . .
Wonder what made the civic-
defense agencies in the pre-war
days give a "kosher" label to
Agfa films and cameras? Our
own Government didn't think so,
because the Treasury Department
has seized General Aniline and
Film Corp. of Delaware, parent
Agfa firm, on the ground that
the basic owners are Germans.

CHONA OUT OF THE NEWS
It ain't right that Chona, fam-
ous throughout the world as
"der Bewusster" (the well
known), should in his most
glorious hour be "der Unbewus-
ster". It seems that this great
Frankenstein of a man was the
real hero of the Dorothy Thomp-
son fracas at Cafe Royale, New
York East Side rendezvous. The
fact that the famous column "On
the Record" appears without a
break is due to Chona's heroism.
If you don't know Chona, he
can't be described. He has the
body of a Caliban, the wit of a
Hershfield and the acid tongue
of a Jesuit. When Dorothy
Thompson got tired of the tea
and potato pancakes at the Cafe
Royale, to which she had taxied
after seing Same Jaffe in "Cafe
Crown," she towered out toward
the door. Chona, who always
smells out important events be-
fore they occur, naturally es-
corted her. For neither God nor
man can overawe Chona. When
the drunken blonde reached for
Miss Thompson's hand and bit it
and then tried to kick her, Chona
intervened his powerful body
and shoved the woman away.

look at his hand and the
fear of death is on you. More-
over, like a Biblical figure, Chona
raised Dorothy's arm high so
that the bleeding of her finger
would stop. And tall as Miss
Thompson is, she was dwarfed
by this strange figure of a man.
And there is the Cafe Royale
in a nutshell: fantastic Chona
upholding dynamic Dorothy!

PICTURE BUSINESS
Louis B. Mayer's nephew, Jack
Cummings, is one of the principal
backers of the new M-G-M en-
terprise, a record business which
hopes to cash in on the enor-
mous boom in platters . . . Well,
well, neither Hollywood nor the
prize ring gets discouraged. Max
Baer has been signed for his
second film, "Brooklyn Orchid".
. . . Before flying back to the
Coast to be by his sick wife's
bedside, Melvyn Douglas gave an-
other demonstration of his ace-
high character. Talking at a
luncheon of the National Press
Club at Washington, the great
actor said he would have pre-
ferred to have been introduced
as "Melvyn Hesselberg Douglas,"
for he was not ashamed of his
family background—and certainly
not of his father, "one of the
greatest pianists to come out of
Russia". . . . Having had his
enthusiasm cooled off by the
New York critics, Ben Hecht is
back in the picture city as pro-
ducer-director-writer for 20th
Century-Fox. Wonder if he will
try to make a picture on the
Jewish Army in Palestine, in
which he is so keenly interested
and for which he reputedly wrote
those striking New York Times
ads . . . Guess Jews are also
entitled to their numerus clausus.
Of the type, for example, of
Joseph Scheinman, owner of the
Casino film house in New York's
Yorkville, which continues to
show German pictures.

FOR THE RECORD
In case you're not confused
already by the variations among
Jewish groups, note that Abra-
ham Sterin, the terrorist who was
recently shot down by Tel Aviv
police, was a member of the
band calling itself "Irgun Zvi
Leumi b'Israel". It was a "splin-
ter" from the Irgun Zvi Leumi
b'Eretz Israel," which, in turn,
has nothing whatever to do with
the regularly established "Ha-
gana". Don't know how he fig-
ures it, but the London Times'
Jerusalem correspondent says the
Stern gang is suspected of being
in contact with the Italians and
Germans "with a view to fifth-
column activities".

SHAVINGS
It'll be hard to think of bands
without Benny Goodman, but the
tall musician already has taken
his physical examination. He'll
probably do just as well with a
machine gun

CIVILIZATION'S SCOURGE

By BRESSLER

