Friday uly 19, 1946 DETROIT SWISH CHRONICLE and The Legal Chronicle Page Two a Personal Problems By DR. W. A. GOLDBERG Your questions on personal problems will be answered by mall as far as possible. Send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to I/r. W. A. Goldberg, 1314 Eaton Tower, Detroit 26, Michigan, or to the Editor of this paper. "A Handicapped Child is a Misfortune" In more than one case, but fortunately ' not in many, parents of normal faculties have a child who is abnormal. This may be deficient intelligence, absence of hear- ing, speech or both, deforming birthmarks, epilepsy, glandular deficiencies etc. This happens to parents whose other children, born both before and since the hiindi- capped child, are normal in all respects. Parents of children so handicapped have a burden to bear. The physical care of the child is more than doubled. Its re- sponses are delayed. They have an ad. ditional burden because emotional involve. ments are commonly attached to these cases. - The outside world is medieval In its thinking. It assumes without any ques- tion that a handicapped child inevitably means a defective heredity. This may be true in some cases but it does not neces- sarily go along. Parents too feel guilty and become either ashamed or frustrated. One very bright youngster had a hairy growth on the side of his face, neck and shoulders. He had to wear a cap, even in school. With the biting aim of children, his school mates viciously nick-named him "The Hairy Ape." So he became an ag- gressive youngster in self-defense and was ready to fight without provocation, pick- ing arguments all the time. Fortunately, a series of skin grafts removed the growth from his face and made him more pre- -- sentable. f tr- 4-- Another couple spent their last dollar for treatments of a child of very low in- telligence. Special care, special treatments and the mother tied to its care most of the twenty-four hours. To their relief, the child died in his second year. These parents knew . . . from their professional ex- perience . . . the deficiency of their child. They knew too that it was hopeless to ex- pect any Improvement. But neither of these two exceptional parents could bring them- selves to the necessary decision regarding the child. Their subsequent children are normal, healthy and quite usual young- sters. HEART BREAKING DECISIONS It is easy for me to advise such parents. It is easy because I do not have to live with the decision twenty-four hours a day. But decisions are called for, in fairness • to the parents and the other members of the family. There are other life situation .t in which we must confess ignorance of how to proceed. In these cases, we simply cut ourselves off from the burden. In cases of handicaps such as have been mentioned, sending the child to an insti- tution is often the only answer. The insti- tutions for the feebleminded, epileptic, deaf, mute, and deaf-mutes have the staff, the equipment and the experience required.• The staff knows its problems and can readily find the child's level of ability. They too can do this much more easily than the parents because they are not emotionally tied to the child. If competent examination finds that a child is of low intelligence, and preferably where confirmed by observation during the first several years, a load is lifted when parents send the child away. They may use a public or a private institution. They may visit or not. They may shed tears when they do visit. But they and the rest of the family are better off with the child out of the home. I have had some parents and brothers and sisters tell me they were relieved to know where a son or brother was. They were at ease, for Instance, in knowing that this child would remain in prison for a specified number of years. When he was in the community, they had only grief . . . calls from the police, thefts to pay off, lawyers to hire, unfavorable publicity. They had done everything expected and then some more. But to no avail. No one they knew or could hire was able to change the conduct pattern of this son. So they cut themselves off from this canker in their midst. They said: "We have had enough." In all cases of handicaps, the family has a heart-rendering decision to make. Some handicaps can be relieved, some ameliorated. The more serious situations call for drastic action . . . sending the child away. There is relief also because the handicap is not eternally staring the family in the face, to remind them of their burden. Following competent professional examination, a decision is indicated. There are limits to human endurance. There are limits to parental care and love. There comes a time when human knowledge is unavailing. Peace of mind is acquired by removing the burden from a family's care, from its physical sight. Strictly Confidential By PHINEAS K. BIRON What of Tomorrow FLASH . . The White House is seriously consider- ing sending an American Expeditionary Force to Palestine as a move to force Britain to open the gates of Palestine to the 100,000 refugees .. . There is a possi. bility that the U. S. War Dept. may permit the recruiting of a Jewish military con- tingent instead of detailing men from the regular forces . . . The impending visit of Premier Attlee to America is directly con- nected with Palestine problems . . . IT PAYS TO FIGHT .. . In the editions of February 7th and May 7th, "Germany Today"—a weekly publish- ed newsletter reported that A. Frowein had been made a member of the Rheinish Provincial Assembly and later Minister of Economics of the British Zone by the British occupation authorities . . "Germany Today" revealed that Frowein, one of the officials of the Bemberg rayon concern and vice-president of the Inter• national Chamber of Commerce, had used government ordinances against the Jews in 1938 to take possession of those depart- ment stores of the Tietz concern that were in Jewish hands . . . The disclosure by "Germany Today" was reprinted in the American and European press . . . a few weeks ago the British authorities an- nounced that the German Economic Coun. eil is to be reorganized and that Frow- ein is to be eliminated . . . "Germany Today" kept up the fight against Frowein and finally won . . . If our big press would fight on the right side, fascism could be swept out from the British and %American Zones of occupation. MAN SUNNING HIMSELF . . . On the lawn of Chester Zunbarg (Sun Hill) near Woodbourne, N. Y. . . . Young. sters—to a man of fifty everything under forty Is young—browning themselves In the sun .. . Trying to forget their problems of tomorrow . . . It's nice to forget to- morrow but its not easy . . . That young- ster over there, teasing a girl's neck with a grass blade does not look much differ- ent from the Irgunist who walked to his execution with a song on his lips . . They're one—no—a thousand worlds apart . All this talk and Ink about ONE World is so silly . . . If newspaper headlines wouldn't haunt one ,. . . But they do- Palestine—India — Bilbo—OPA — France — one endless reel of current events leading into a tomorrow that insists on ignoring yesterday . . . It's a hot sun that lulls you to sleep . . . Why worry . . . Tomorrow is not tomorrow . . . It may be a few years away . . . Meanwhile enjoy your freedom in the sun . . . Did the Jewish expectant mother sunning herself in a resort near Warsaw in the summer of 1939 brush away the thoughts about tomorrow as we do on Chester's lawn today? VACATION HOTEL . . . Interesting woman that Ann Chester, owner of Zunbarg . . . A tiny, wiry littlo woman . . . Greying hair, but a young, smiling face . . . Her late husband, Her. man built Zunbarg as a retreat for hard- working men and women . . . Gave it the atmosphere of a Soviet Cultural Recrea- tional Center in a set of English country. estate buildings . . . Now Ann carries on maintaining the same atmosphere . . The waiters are college students back from the war . . . One wears a Mazuzah around his neck, a good luck piece from his Mama . . . And that modest dark- haired youngster with a Mogen David on his chest is Bernie Kleinman, war hero six times battle starred, who shrugs off his exploits with an cmbarassed smile . . Yesterday after supper, a well-known radio commentator appealed for help for Span- ish refugees . . . A bashful girl who the night before jitterbugged herself to a frenzy contributed ten dollars . . . "I'll work two weeks overtime" she whispered to her surprised escort. . . It was dark outside and the easy going guests were aware of tomorrow. Plain Talk By ALFRED SEGAL Thanks, Mrs. Epstein! they would have been to the invidious eyes of congregations. One day recently, your Mr. Segal for once wasn't being obsessed by the idea that he hadn't a friend in the world. Yes, here was a friend! Here was a letter about him in one of the Jewish press and it was friendly and would have been flattering If Mr. Segal weren't a person without any vanity at all. (Though it may be argued that the way he protests modesty shows that he is vain enough.) The way rabbis, and other ministers, endure congregations to the end of their days is a prodigy of long-suffering. It was a letter from Mrs. Evelyn Ep• stein of 828 Washington Street, S.W., At. lanta, Ga. Mrs. Epstein was completely agreeing with Mr. Segal on a piece he had written entitled "If I Were a Rabbi." He had said that if he were a rabbi ho wouldn't aspire to be a statesman (a vice of a lot of the rabbis) but would concern himself much more with the lives in his congregation and in his neighborhood. He would preach a Judaism that had to do with what this existance was all about and how a Jew, as heir of Torah and Prophets, can make the best of it. "It seems he (Segal) would make a good one, if he were a rabbi," Mrs. Ep- stein had written. "His idea is excellent, I firmly believe, as to sound preaching in the synagogue." Thanks, Mrs. Epstein, in Segal's behalf, but he is satisfied enough to have grown up to be a columnist Instead of a rabbi. Sometimes his wife sighs, "Now if you were a rabbi . . ." She has in mind a vital statistic that had to do with the fact that in his remote youth he was on he way to- ward being a rabbi. He had been in the Hebrew Union College two years and had six more years to go when he fell and could go no farther, as often happens to a weak youth on a steep, difficult road. "Rabbi," the spokesman said, "you should be more careful what you say. Last Friday's sermon, for example." "What did I say that you didn't like?" Well, the committee thought It was in- discreet for him to say anything at all about the strike in the coffin factory. (Tho Podunk Casket Corporation.) Rabbi Segal himself would have tried to take it all in the spirit of a prophet who knew how it always had gone with prophets. There was that time at Podunk when a _committee of the congregation called on him about the sermon he had given the Friday evening before. "Oh, all I said was that the manage- ment goes to a great deal of effort to make the dead comfortable In their cas- kets. Soft white silk to lie on, all that! Impervious steel to give the dead security against the intrusion of worms, I asked why doesn't the management care as much about the welfare of its living workers. The •hard life they have! The dead are beyond all knowing but these living work- ers suffer when the worms of poverty devour ' security. That's all true, isn't it?" "Sure, it's true, rabbi, but you don't have to say it. Jews can't afford to say that sort of thing. Jews' should keep quiet." "Gentlemen, as your rabbi I intend to keep on speaking the truth as I see it. As Jews we are guilty of cowardly be. trayal of our self-respect when, for the sake of being safe, we fall to speak up courageously against any injustice in the community. It's easy enough for a rabbi His wife, woman-like, regretfully con- to pontificate against some far-off evil, templates the last pleasure of seeing her But, gentlemen, our lives are being lived in husband in a high pulpit, thundering down. this community." He replies: "But think of all the congre_ This was the end of Rabbi Segal in Po- gations we would have had to suffer! dunk. He had tried to be a prophet in "The congregation at Podunk, for ex- his home-town, to assert his Judaism fol . ample. The women of that congregation the good of life in the neighborhood, in would have felt quite inadequate in the accordance with Torah and Prophets, to presence of your own slender beauty and express his real rabbinical function as couldn't have tolerated that. They would guide and critic in the community. Tho have felt a rabbi's wife should be plain committee said: "Well, in that case, rabbi, and what did Rabbi Segal mean by flaunt- you'd better resign." ing such a dazzling figure as yours in the That would have been the sorry life of faces of people who forever were trying Rabbi Segal. As he lay on his death-bed to reduce. A rabbi shouldn't put on any he would have praised God for bringing show." him at last to the happy time when he Yes, Mrs. Epstein, it would have been could be translated to the Congregation practically impossible for the Segals to on High, as it is called. In the Congrega- be a happy rabbinical couple, exposed as tion on High there should be peace. Capital Letter By CHARI ES BENSON Thread of Broken Lives Picking up the thread of broken lives has been UNRRA's task since its incep- tion. Within the last year UNRRA has sought to pick up another thread for the displaced persons of Europe. Two "UNRRA universities," conceived, organized and ad- ministered by UNRRA, are providing temporary means for large numbers of qualified DP's to pick up their education where they left off when the war forced them to put aside books and microscopes for less constructive tools. In addition to the two schools which have been opened for the DP's, UNRRA has also placed students in leading Ger- man universities. UNRRA continues to care for them while they study. A total of 964 DP's were enrolled at the universi- ties of Darmstadt, Heidelberg, Erlangen, Frankfurt, Harburg, Wurzburg, Karlsruhe, and Stuttgart for the spring term. burg has been conducting classes since March for its 800 students but delayed the formal opening until June when repairs on its building, the bombed-out Museum of Hamburg History, were completed. Twenty-eight full-sized classrooms are now open, and chemistry and physics labora- tories are stocked with equipment requis- itioned from German laboratories. There are eight seminar rooms and twelve offices for the professors and they boast that "complete university environment has been attained." More than 80 professors and 40 associ- ate professors and instructors were select- ed for the Hamburg Center from UNRRA's displaced persons centers in the British zone. They receive no remuneration and live on the normal DP ration, about 1,800 calories a day. Facing shortages of everything from building materials to pencils and since precious UNRRA shipping space was al- ready limited, directors of these schools proved their Ingenuity by equiping their institutions almost entirely with locally available materials. Some help has been given by various American relief organiza- tions such as the Joint Distribution Com- mittee which distributed books and aca- demic supplies to Jewish students. In Munich, the Deutsches Museum, a war-scarred building without sanitation, electric light or telephones, has been re. built to become the comfortable home of the UNRRA University, "the first and only all-DP university In Germany." It was opened to DP's on February 16 with al- most 3,000 students enrolled for courses in mechanical and civil engineering, natu- ral sciences, economics, medicine, law, husbandry, and philosophy. The school has nine faculties, employs 179 professors. Medical students among the DP's whose Both faculty members and students are studies were halted by the Nazis are go- carefully screened by an UNRRA board ing back to school at Heidelberg, Mar- before they can become associated with burg and Erlangen. Under a military gov- the university. ernment directive of last winter, 10 per; cent of the medical students enrolled at According to UNRRA, the opening of these universities were to be DP's. A total the University was made possible largely of 284 DP's are now studying medicine by "the overwhelming desire of the ex- at these universities. UNRRA pays their students and ex-professors among the tuition and purchases, textbooks and in- DP's to equip themselves mentally for the struments for them. Here again an inten- future." sive screening process ensures that only The UNRRA DP Study Center in Ham- bonafide DP's are accepted.