THE JEWISH NEWS

Page Six

Friday; July 13, 1945

Where Can These
Displaced Jews Go?

.

By MEYER LEVIN
(Jewish Telegraphic Agency War Correspondent)

and the people know they hay e
a destination. and a welcom e;
PILSEN, Czechoslovakia—The lid-hinge h a d shaken. somewhere there is home.
loose on the spirit of Alpena, in which I've been touring
In Prague, there was a youn g
Germany, and Czechoslovakia, so I stopped at the 293rd woman
named Adler who ha
ordnance depot here,where a GI obligingly fitted in a new rod. come from the concentratio n
Seeing I was a correspondent he asked if I could help him on camp at Theresienstadt. H e r
a little problem.. "I've got three girls stowed away in the home was in a small town i n
attic in the house where I live,"%
Slovakia. Her father had been a
he said. "Nc, it isn't what you
physician there for 20 years; the n
with
the
Poles,
with
Italians,
think. They're D.P.'s and I can
he had been taken up as a Jew
even
with
Germans.
They
want
tell you I haven't done a thing
then released because physician
I'd be ashamed to tell my moth- to be treated as Jews. Is this so
were needed, but when he ha d
strange, among nations?
er." By now he was blushing.
returned to the town where h e
Alerted for Repatriation
"They're Hungarians and they
had saved hundreds of people
don't know what happens to
In Leipzig, about 50 surviving lives, they refused to have hi s'
them next." •
Jews were placed in a hotel with again. They didn't want Jew m
Three Cantors who recently participated in the
"They're Jewish girls?" I knew Poles. One day the Poles were any more.
project by which rare liturgical Hebrew songs
alerted
for
repatriation.
The
Jews
the story. I'd met it, over and
from a famous collection at the Hebrew Union
She herself, with a newbor n
were told they could go along.
College were put on records. Left to right, EMIL
over.
child,
went
into
hiding.
But
i
n
ROSEN, Cincinnati; ABRAHAM SHAPIRO,
"Yeh," he said. His name was They were almost all Hungarian a few weeks, someone sold ou t
Newark,
N. J.; FREDERICK LECHNER, New
and
Polish
girls—a
few
wraiths
Lawrence Richterman, a T-3 from
her hiding place to the police
York; VOJMIR ATTL, harpist.
of
men
remained,
too.
They
pack-
Camden, N. J.; he was afraid my
and they came, and packed he r
using his name might get him ed their small belongings. But at off to Theresienstadt. Her hus
the
last
moment
one
woman
who
into trouble but I can't see any-
band was already taken; she doe s
thing he's done that's wrong. Just still had some energy, some force not know whether he is alive.
of leadership, declared, "no, we
CINCINNATI—Dr. Eric Werner had reached dowry into the
"This dress I am wearing is al 1
can't go. We cannot go to Poland,
dust of ages and brought up a Hebrew song from the 13th century
where they hate us worse than I had, these 15 months. I too k (the time of the Crusades, and had made it live and sing again.
the Germans hate us." So they with me only things for my baby
He had succeeded in transcribing it on a phonograph record
stayed, though every moment I carried 50 pounds of bab 3'
and shortly it will be heard again. Dr. Werner had brought to life
inside Germany is a mental things, even his bath. I arrive a
lot of other old Jewish melodies in the same way out of yellow,
agony to them.
in Theresienstadt pushing hi 5, brittle mans\cripts in the great library of the Hebrew Union College,
`I can't bring myself to go out carriage, but then it had -onl Y Reform rabbinical seminary.
in the streets," one of the girls three wheels," she still manage
It's all on account of Eduard • Birnbaum who was a cantor in
said to me. She is 21, and attrac-
Germany and died in 1921. He gathered old manuscripts of Hebrew
a
smile.
"No
matter,
I
was
•
con
tive, a Hungarian girl named Ella
liturgical music for his library. He kept at this 45 years.
Auslander. "Outside the air is tent, because I still had m Y
Some 20 years ago Birnbaum's library was acquired by the
warm, everything is alive, but I baby, to link me to my othe r Hebrew Union College. Dr. Werner got the idea of making the
stay in this broken little room, life. I kept him so beautifully *Birnbaum library sing again on records and selected 12 pieces.
because I can't bear to see the
There was the one out of ' the 13th century. It was an Elegy to
German people. I can't bear to Always in white. All Theresien- Moses and had been written in music characters called neumes. Dr.
stadt
loved
him.
I
washed
and
Werner
transliterated them into modern music notation. (The do,
see .a German child. When I see
a German child, I think of all washed, to keep him so beauti- re, me that we know.)
The old songs were sung by Cantors Emil Rosen of Cincinnati,
our children whom they gassed. fully."
Frederick Lechner of New York and Abraham -Shapiro of Newark,
Oh, take us out of Germany.
A Beautiful Child
N. J.; by Miss Pearl Besuner of the Metropolitan Opera and Mrs.
Why can't I go to Palestine!"
She is a doctor of law, red- Roberta Segal. There was accompaniment by the harpsichord, with
Mrs.
Hilda• Jonas and by the harp with Vojmir Attl of the Cincin-
MEYER LEVIN
Too Maly 4o Feed
haired, attractive as she is nati Symphony and organ with Parvin Titus.
A
few
more
men
arrived
in
a good Jewish GI who picked up
intelligent, with a sensitive, mo-
Udder the title "Israel Sings" the records will, by fall, be ready
these girls who had nowhere to that same barracks that day. One bile face, ''' and great charm. for distribution by the UAHC.
•
go and found them a place to of them still had the energy to
`Even
the
SS-men
had
to
say
be
furious.
"Six
years
they
had
live and maybe some food.
"What's supposed to happen to us. Six years, and of the six how fine he was. They would Jews on Sidewalks of Berlin
thousand men who started with say to me, how floes an ugly
them" he asked.
me, a hundred and fifty are
Jewess come to have so beauti-
Tells Them to "Wait"
alive. Now I am free. I arrive.
ful a child!"
I couldn't answer. I've been "What! A Jew! They stare at
She nursed the child for 13
asked and asked, on the roads, me. A Jew, and alive! Truly a
curiosity. What shall they do months, because the food in camp
in the towns, in the displaced with me? Clothes? There are no
• persons camps, and all I can tell clothes for Jews. They hadn't was so bad. Then Frau Dr. Adler
By ARTHUR R. DAVIES
fell sick of malnutrition, and dur-
them is all I've been able to find thought there would be any need.
(Special to the Independant Jewish Press Service)
I can wait in the Red Cross, stand ing her illness the child sicken
out. "Wait."
MOSCOW (JPS)—This is almost impossible to believe,
, fri line for an hour, and I get a ed, and died.
They've been freed, these few plate, but don't come back to-
`They kept me under narco- but in Berlin today there are more than 6,000 Jews who have
last remnants of the eight mil- morrow, they tell me, better find
succeeded in surviving the fires of Hitlerite hell. This figure
tics for three days. When I
lion Jews of Europe. There somewhere • else, there are too
was given in Berlin, where I spent nearly a week with other
awoke, I could think of it, and correspondents. The information
seems to be no one to speak for many people to feed here. A place
even talk of it."
to sleep—"
was given to us by Dr. Arthur
In Charlottenburg, off Kur-
them, and no place for them to
So now she, too, is free. With- Werner, Oberburgomeister. He fuerstendam. I spoke to Inge-
Didn't
Want
Jews
go. They can't go back to Poland,
said
that
the
Berlin
city
council
berg Grunnert, born Schenheit,
Of course, he is over-excited. out her husband, without her had established
to Hungary, to the lands where
a special cleri- whose husband is a baker
Of course he will get food and child, and shall she return to the
and
cal subcommission pr es e n t l y
they know anti-Semitism is more lodging in a displaced persons
town in Slovakia where even her headed by Fr. Buchholtz,. a Cath- German. The Grimnerts told me
deeply rooted than ever before, camp. But then? Where to? The
of what they had gone through.
father was unwanted?
olic, and soon to be supplement- Today their little bakery makes
to the places whose only associa- French move out the French, and
ed
by
two
'assistants,
a
protestant
A
new life, somewhere, any-
bread for their German neigh-
tion for them is the death of the Belgians move the Belgians,
where, outside, away from the pastor and a rabbi.
bors. Today, thanks to the Red.
their families. In D.. P. camps and the Russians go, and the
Back on German Streets
Army, they feel free and confi-
Czechs; liaison officers of every past.
they are shunted in as nationals nation swarm through the camps,
And so Jews have come back dent. Their neighbors seek their
Where can these people go?
into Germany. I saw them in favor.
the street. I talked to them
Wife in Philadelphia
along the Frankfurter Allee,
Here was Sophie Oiborius, born
Kurfuerstedamm in Charlotten- Hauser, whose mother was Jew-
burg. I met them near Alex- ish. Here. was Elvira Espach
anderplatz. Tired and worn, they whose father was the famous
nevertheless looked proud and Hungarian composer, Erwin
secure, for had they not won in Lindwei, killed in a concentration
the unequal struggle against camp. A young lad on a bicycle
Hitlerism? It is Hitler who may approached me, introducing him-
be dead while it is they who live. self as Hans Rosenthal from
On Frankfurteralle, I saw a Lichtenberg. Rosenthal's broth-
group of refugees wending their er was killed in a concentration
way homeward. Among them camp, as was his uncle, George
was a typical Jewish girl. We Maschke. I saw the Gestapo
called her over. She was 22 notification of his death, dated
years old Bella Nimintz, from September 27, 1942. Maschke's
Vienna. Four years ago she had wife and child are in Philadel-
been driven from her home into phia. Hans survived when he
slavery. She spent two years in was befriended as a child by a
Stuthof camp, and then in Riga. German woman who protected
With her was Jacob Golden- him.
berg of Cologne, who had been
On Kuerferstedamm, in a
taken from the Oswiecim death small antique shop, I found
camp before the Red Army ad- something I thought might nev-
vanced.
er be sold in Berlin. It was a
Many Survivors Half-Jews
brass menorah (candelabra). It
Who are most of the Jews • in was probably stolen from some
Berlin? They are survivors of Jewish family that had been ex-
concentration. camps: Buchen- terminated or, perhaps, from
With the aid of the United Jewish Appeal, these hardy youngsters are paving the
wald, Oranienburg, Oswiecim. some synagogue. In buying it I
way for the development of vast areas of uncultivated land in Palestine, thereby in-
They are people who had one remarked: "It was probably not
creasing the capacity of the Jewish National Home to absorb large numbers of immi- non-Jewish parent, who had a on sale before the Russians
German husband or wife, who came."
grants from wartorn Europe. Above left, a young women carries a box of tomatoes from
had the iron will. to survive, or
"Nein, Nein Herr," the shop-
a truck farm at Beth Ha'arava, on the edge of the Dead Sea. On the right a young
man is shown hauling part of irrigation pipeline. He is one of the founders of the set- who had loyal and trusted friends keeper attested.
who endangered their own lives
tlement of Beth Eshel, located in the Negev,once a wasteland.

(Copyright, 1945, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Inc.)

Ancient Songs Made to Sing Again

They're Tired But Proud,
For They Outlived Hitler

Young Builders in Jewish National Home

to save them.

(copyright 1945 by Independent

Jewish Press Service, Inc.)