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DETROIT JEWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle

Stook Review

By LEON SAUNDERS

The Grand European Stefan Zweig

In life Stefan Zweig died There have since appeared two small

..oems about him by two different writers, two individualistic inter-
preters of the world, of life and of Zweig. One is that perennial re-
order of our tunes, the celebrated Jules Romains. author of "Men of
Good Will." The book is in French and is entitled, "Stefan Zweig,
Grand European " The other one is by Paul Zech, written in German,
Roman- is' effort is a discourse he presented in Nice. in 1939. The
It implies that Romains regards Zweig as a man belonging to the
eole of Europe, a cosmopolitan, according to his tastes us a writer,
man whose writings belong to all nations and all countries. He
mnpares Zweig with the "Grand Europeans" of the middle ages who
ei ere at home everywhere, whether in their everyday life o• in their
mritual activities." Then Romains delves into remiroscenses. his
_sin: with Zweig, his meetings with him in London and Paris and
their conversations. He reminds us that Zweig, in 1910, declared that
the world had reached a millenium. a neu• renaissance. Then he coun-
t, racts this "poor prophecy" on the part of Zweig by urging us to
reread his "Erasmus," where Zweig indicated the reaction which set
in after the Middle Ages renaissance. Zweig told Romains of his meet-
ings with Unumuno and Madame Curie in a small Spanish town.
Zweig told of meeting Bergson who said he "never was optimistic
about human nature," and added, "this will surely help me to quit it
without much bitterness." Zweig deplored the fact that men like
Einstein, Thomas Mann, Ivan Bunin, Ferrero, Freud, Emil Ludwig
and himself were refugees and had been chased out of their country.
Zweig, says Itornuins, liked everything Italian. Like Emil Ludwig he
even forced himself to preserve some illusion about II Duce's liberal-
ism. Zweig, says Romains, was not made for battle with evil forces.
He was accustomed to think and to write in and with liberty. to write
with eloquence and force. He never claimed to be a hero, but could
call himself a sage.
"Yes," concludes Romains, "Stefan Zweig is one of the seven
sages of the present Europe, I leave it to you to choose the rest."

Paul Zech's essay is not a critical review of Zweig as a writer, but
rather a nostalgic description of a friend and outstanding personality.
The author reminisces about meeting Zweig as a refugee, and as one
who, "suffered more during these years than during his 58 years of
his life." Like Werfel, he could not acclimatize himself to the foreign
atmosphere of South America.
Mr. Zech was the recipient of Zweig's last letter in which he
wrote of his having ended his life story, ending with, "And tomorrow
is another day..." The booklet ends with Zweig's last writing, a poem
written in Rio de Janeiro on Feb. 4, 1942.
Death, says Zech, never had for Zweig any meaning of finality.
He saw in it a door leading to a place where the "tired" are the
recipients of the "Iportant," which is the "immortality of the spirit."
Zweig is known for his biographies and historical miniatures. His
Marie Antoinette, Erasmus of Rotterdam and Joseph Fouche are
classics in their fields. Several hooks he wrote arc in the so-called
"tryptich" form, biographies of three persons related in their creative
Interests.
Stefan Zweig was an Idealist and a romantic. Less than others
could he get acclimatized to a foreign soil. He felt his creativenes.4
lacking in force and imagination and retreated, one more victim of
man's inhumanity to man. To the living world his works still speak
as though he were alive.

IN GrAlio

(Continued from page 4)
with me and she died just like me. every Sabbath eve."
There were 6 million witnesses.
We died together."
They packed the coroner's court
"Where was your father?"
They took him away long be- and their numbers bulged into the
fore and we never saw him again street and far into the city and
and I don't know where he in out in the fields beyond the city
and on the remote hills. As far as
any more?"
I could see there were witnesses.
Were you Jewish?"
The coroner called them to the
"We used to have nice times
being Jewish. We had gifts on last one and each one told how he
Chanuka and a lot of fun at our had died, whether by gas or by
beating or by starvation or by
Seders."
The coroner called the next wit- suffocation in the cattle cars and
n e ss: A ragged man who stood each one said, "I was a Jew."
with an air of high pride, on his
The pages of the court stenog-
hare feet,
rapher's record piled upon one on
"You are dead?"
another until they made a tower
"I died for being a Jew, It was that ascended to the sky and
not in vain dying that way for stabbed through the clouds, like a
being a Jew. I was a faithful man witness unto heaven.
in my communion In Frankfurt."
When the last one had given his
He said he had died at Oswie- testimony, the coroner rapped for
cim. He had died In agony, hang- order, cleared his throat . . . "We
ing on one of the meat hooks in can not doubt that Adolph Hitler
the basement at Oswiecim.
died on account of Jews. It is in
"It was a long travail of dying the moral order that he should
and with my last breath I cried perish by the evil he wrought.
out 'Hear, 0 Israel!' It was very Whoever sets a fire against his
loud: It was my last breath."
neighbor's house will see his own
The coroner called the next wit- house destroyed by it. The power
ness, a woman who said death was which this evil-doer built on the
the better part of the living she murder of his neighbors fell into
had lived in the terrible years. She the dust, even with the disintegra-
had died at Buchenwald,
tion of the 6 million bodies on
Death was good to her after she which he had built it.
had seen her children killed . . .
"How exquisitely fate has ac-
"They shattered the little ono •omplished retribution. The hand
against a wall. They shot Fried- that had been raised in murder
el), my older one. I maw them against 6 million in the end is
turned against the murderer, and
They had let her live because he kills himself, My verdict is that
she was strong. They let her live Hitler killed himself, in accor-
to help carry the, dead that were dance with the moral law, on ac-
piled up in the edmp.
count of the 6 million Jews. nit-
"I was dead long before they ler, In his testament, was right 'it
killed me. I was the breathing dead last."
I applauded the verdict and the
who suffered and yet was dead."
One day she was too weak any coroner rapped sharply at this dis-
longer to carry the other dead to order in the court room. I awoke
the charnel pile. They took her to and poured myself a drink which
the gas chamber.
I drank with a toast to the per-
fect art of fate when it overtakes
"You were Jewish?"
"I used to light the candles the evil-doer with retribution.

CA.I)IT.L
LETTER

(Continued from Page 4)

said that he has in the. past made
speeches and issued statements,
along these lines. During the hear-
ings. which he conducted fairly,
with dignity and good humor, he
confessed to being worried by the
emphasis on a "Jewish state." In
questioning certain of the Arab
spokesmen, he attempted to find
a halfway point at which they
would meet the Zionists. The at-
tempt was not successful. In fact,
in summing up the seven days of
hearings, he concluded that pos-
sibly the "core of the question is
so tough and of such uncompro-
mising material," that solution will
be possible only by "judgment"
and not by "conciliation."
The highlight of the entire week
was Professor Albert Einstein's
appearance before the committee.
His entrance into the conference
room during an Arab witness' tes-
timony was greeted by a burst of
applause, quickly hushed by Judge
Hutcheson. When it finally came
Einstein's turn, the Judge, with
his dry Texan twang, said that his
halting the applause did not in
any way mean that Dr. Einstein
was not deserving of it. It was
merely that a witness was in the
chair. Now he wished to release
the suppressed emotions of the
spectators, who thereupon supplied
both applause and appreciative
laughter.
An interchange between Einstein
and Hutcheson caused a really hi-
larious few moments.
Einstein, in his low, gentle voice,
carefully picking his words-Land
equally carefully listened to by the
committee—with his benign face
draped in a halo of long, white
hair, had assailed British imperial-
ism, in alliance with Arab land-
owners, as responsible for the diffi-
culties in Palestine. And he
minced no words. Hutcheson com-
mented that Einstein sounded like
an Irishman. Einstein, not under-
standing the comparison, raised
his hands on high, looked shocked,
and exclaimed, "What, me an
Irishman?" August committee
members, spectators and press
shouted their friendly laughter.
Hutcheson finally calmed things
down, and explained what he had
meant. Such a look of ineffable
relief as passed over the good pro-
fessor's face!
He himself has no mean wit.
James McDonald asked him jok-
ingly, if things might not go more
smoothly in Palestine if both Arab
and Jewish politicians were elim-
inated. Einstein, in similar vein,
came right back. "Oh, that will do
no good," and he gestured, "where
one is removed, ten more will
grow."
One barb which Einstein shot
brought immediate reaction. He
said, quite firmly, that he doubted
the efficacy of the committee, or
that its recommendations would
carry any weight. Bartley Crum
vigorously denied that the com-
mittee was smokescreen and
equally emphatically declared that
he and his colleagues were de•
termined to come up with some-
thing productive. And Judge Hut-
cheson, with firmness, said that he
was an American and a Texan,
and that they, the committee,
were going to do something, the
implication being- or else,
By the end of April the commit-
tee's report to President Truman
is to be ready. In the interval they
will hold further hearings in Lon-
don, look into conditions on the
Continent and in Palestine, with a
possible brief stop-over In Cairo.
More power to them. They will
need lt.

HORS D'OEUVRES

No order too large or too small
Made for house parties or
receptions . . .

MRS. ROTH
TYler 5.7661

Dr. Salo Baron

Page Thirteen

Michigan's First Jews

By IRVING I. KATZ

Executive Secretary, Temple Beth El, Detroit

Starting this week, there will be a new series of articles in
the CHRONICLE on "The History of Jews in Michigan." The
series, which will run weekly, will be written by Irving I. Katz,
historian and executive secretary of Temple Beth El, and will
cover the history of Jews in this state from 1763 to the present
day. The articles will be amply illustrated with pictures. Most
of the material published will appear in print for the first time
in this country and is the result of extensive research.

ARTICLE I OF SERIES
In the first U. S. Census of 1130 the number of "Hebrews" in the
United States is given as 1243. In 1818, Major Mordecai Manual Noah
estimated their number to be 3000. But as far back as 1763, 27 years
before the first U. S. Census and 12 years before the American Revolu-
tion, we find a Jewish trader in Michigan.

Ezekiel Solomon

Ezekiel Solomon is the first Jew on record to have settled in Michi-
gan. He lived in Fort Michilimackinac, the Mackinac of today, from
1763 to 1816, and was one of the proprietors in a general store. He was
an eye-witness of the massacre of the British garrison by the Indians
at Mackinac on June 2, 1763, and was one of the few whites to escape
alive. This appears from his own affidavit, taken at Montreal for use
before the Military Court of Inquiry. The oath to this affidavit is Im-
portant because it shows that Solomon was a consistent Jew. While
the testimony of all other witnesses appears under the heading, "Sworn
before me on the Holy Evangelist," that of Solomon's simply says,
"Sworn, etc.," omitting the words Holy Evangelist. When the French
Catholics Mackinac addressed two petitions to the Governor of Can-
ada asking that a Roman Catholic missionary be sent to the post,
Solomon's name does not appear on the petitions, but on a later list
of persons, who volunteered to contribute to the support of the mis-
sionary, his name appears for a contribution of 50 livres. After the
English ceded Mackinac to the Americans In 1812, Solomon went with
the English to the New English settlement at Drummond's Island
wherq in 1816 he was granted two lots. His descendants still live or
St. Joseph's Island, near Drummond's Island.

Levy Solomons of Montreal is me%tioned in 1775 as being engaged
in very extensive trade operations at Mackinac. He was married to
a daughter of one of the famous Montreal Franks and was president
of the Montreal Synagogue in 1788. Jacob Franks, Jr., mentioned be-
low, was Ills son-in-law.

William Solomons appears in the records of Mackinac as official
interpreter of the English officials as late as 1816.

In the "Detroit Gazette" of June 17, 1820, the name of J. Solomon
appears among the passengers on a steamer en route to Mackinac.

Jacob Franks

Jacob Franks, an English-Canadian Jew, was a resident of Mack-
inac during the War of 1812. He was a member of the Franks Family
of Montreal and is also said to be related to the famous Franks
Family of Philadelphia. He arrived in Green Bay, Wisc., in 1794, the
first Jew to settle there, where he engaged in the fur trade. In 1797
he brought his nephew, John Lawe, from Canada, and took him into
the business. In 1806 he is reported to have sent to Mackinac 10,000
pounds of deer tallow. He built the first saw mill and the first grist
111111 in Wisconsin in 1809 and was a person of prominence during his
sojourn in that State. His name appears in Mackinac among thirteen
signers to a petition to the Governor of Canada, commending Capt.
Robert Livingston who was wounded in the War of 1812. In 1814, he
and three others were appointed to inventory two schooners captured
from the United States and brought to Mackinac. When the English
surrendered Mackinac, after the war, his house was among several
pillaged. He was allotted a building plot In Drummond's Island in
1816 but nothing further appears in records about him. His son, Jacob
Franks, Jr., was a noted Hudson's Bay Trader and one of the first
to explore the remotest parts of the Canadian Northwest.

John Lawe became a leading citizen of Wisconsin and, among
other services of note, was an Associate Judge of the first court in
Brown County, which was then a part of the Michigan Territory
under Governor Cass. In 1814, he served as a Lieutenant with the
British forces that defended Mackinac against the Americans.

Detroit Jews

In Major Roberts' "Diary of the Siege of Detroit" reference is
made to four Jewish traders captured by the Indians during Pontlac'n
siege of Detroit in 1763. One of these, Nathan Chapman, was released
and settled in Detroit where his name appears as late as 1796. The fate
of the others, one Levy and two unnamed Jews, is not known.
A Mr. Jacobs, a trader, is mentioned in 1763 as being attacked
and killed by the Indians while on his way from Detroit to Saginaw.
Solomon ben Isaac Halevi, mentioned as a witness in a matri-
monial case before the Beth Din (Jewish Court) of London, lived in
Detroit in 1783.

Under date of November 5, 1798, the name of Isaac Moses appears
in the records of Detroit's first Masonic Lodge (Zion Lodge No. 1) as
having filed an application for membership which was accepted a
month later. He was a New York Tory whose property was con-
fiscated 1:t 1785.

Louis Benjamin is mentioned in the Dec. 19, 1808 records of the
Governor and Judges of Michigan Territory as having been awarded
a new lot to indemnify him for his loss in Detroit's fire of 1805.

Chiropodist and Foot Specialist

TUES., FEB. 5 • 8:30 p.m.

Recently Returned from Active Overseas Service
RESUMING DETROIT PRACTICE
Until Further Notice Is Accepting House Calls.

Under Auspices of
MEN'S CLUB

Alex. Cohen was on a payroll for grading a street in 1835.
Frederick E. Cohen, an English Jew, was in Detroit in 1837, during
the Patriot War, when he was enlisted in the Canadian Militia. He
soon settled in Detroit and became a prominent portrait painter, being
the teacher of Lewis F. Ives and Henry Hopkin, famous Michigan
artists. Cohen was a very odd fellow, ready for any adventure and
dressed like a fop. The Detroit Institute of Arts possesses a portrait of
him by himself.

for Appointment Anytime,

Admission $1.00
Tickets at Congregation Office

(Article II of this eerie*, appearing nest week, tells of the coming
of the German Jewish pioneers and the founding of the Ypsilanti-Ann
Arbor eommunit).)

DR. GERALD FINKEL

Phone TOwniend 8-3470 between 5 p.m. • 8 p.m.

Will Speak at Bnai Moshe

Dexter and Lawrence

Ii!

