Page Four

THE JEWISH NEWS

Friday, April 12, 1946

As the Editor
Views the News -

The Challenge of Passover

As we prepare to usher in the Passover of 5706 at our
Seder tables on Monday evening, our thoughts must turn
to the pitiful remnant in Israel whose lot is tragic, whose
future remains uncertain, whose only hope is centered in
American Jewry's liberality.
Passover is humanity's great Festival of Freedom. The
Exodus from Egypt was marked by the historic declarations
that the moral law must insist upon the elimination of
slavery and the enforcement of the liberties of human be-
ings. These declarations antedated the Magna Charta and
the Declaration of Independence of the United States.
*
For a time, under Nazi rule, these human demands for
justice were trampled ill- the dust.. With the achievement
of victory on the battlefields, as a result of the heroism and
the sacrifices of the men of all democratic nations, including
the 1,500,000 Jews who fought in the ranks of the United
Nations, we had dreamed that decency would prevail and
that a death blow had , been dealt to. tyranny.
We were wrong! The evil forces appear to have re-
tained their influences among the masses of deluded people
in Europe. The ideals of democracy are being treated

skeptically and it is apparent that the bayonet and the armed
tank can not enforce them.
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*

If proof is desired of the recurrences of the pre-war
tragedies in Europe, all that need be offered in substantia-
tion of the charge that bigotry is regaining its foothold is
to point to the horrors which continue to be visited upon
the Jewish people.
Not only - has there been no end to anti-Semitism in
Nazi-poisoned Europe, but there has been a revival of the
vilest attacks upon Jews and a resurrection of the most
dastardly libels against our people.

The result, clearly, is that the great responsibility
of rescuing our people once again devolves solely upon
the Jews of America.

If WE do not come to the rescue of our unfortunate
kinsmen, no one else will. Even the American forces of
occupation in. Europe are demonstrating unfriendliness to
Jews. If American Jews should fail to provide the means
with which to rescue the surviving remnant in Europe, all
hope will be lost.
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The major means of support for the causes which pro-
vide relief and rehabilitation for the unfortunates in Europe
and the chief source of income for. the speedy upbuilding
of Palestine MUST come from this country.
That is why „Passover's challenge in this tragic year is

centered in the great need for assurance that there will be no
, let-down in efforts .for relief and Palestine's reconstruction,
that the $100,000,000 United Jewish Appeal will be over-
subscribed, that it will gerierally be recognized that the
national $100,000,000 • drive and Detroit's $2,000,000 quota
must be considered as MINIMAL demands upon our
liberality.

We can not conceive of any one of us going to the Seder
table with a sense of indifference to the needs of the surviv-
ing Jews in Europe. No one has .a right to enjoy his own
American good fortune to the fullest unless he is prepared
to share his material means with the oppressed and dis-
possessed.
If we recognize this basic principle, we shall be
responding nobly to the challenge of the Passover of 5706.

`No Memories Except of Terror . . .

Upon his return from Germany, where he served for
five months as Jewish advisor to the American military
government, Judge Simon H. Rifkind presented a report to
the American Jewish Conference, describing how the dis-
placed Jews live, their needs and a suggested solution to
their problem.
His report contains one paragraph which vividly de-
scribes the tragedy of the survivors. To quote Judge Rifkind:

It seemed to me that I was surfeited with horror; my mind
could not envisage any more; my heart could not endure any
more; but I did not experience the poignancy of the tragedy
which had befallen our people until I passed from the dead
to the living. A little boy of seven or eight brought it home
to me. It was on a visit to a displaced persons center. I met
my little friend sitting on a doorstep; beady blue eyes, blond
hair which badly needed brushing, an intelligent face. I was
looking for someone to direct me to the UNRRA office and quite
innocently I asked, "Where is your father?" My question cut
him like a whip. Then and there I learned never again to ask
that question. Through his tear-tained eyes I saw how the
world looked to an eight-year-old who has neither father nor
mother; neither brother nor sister; no uncle or aunt; no kins-
men; no one. Through his voluble Yiddish, I read the contents
of a mind that had no memories except of terror, privation
and pain.

What stronger appeal in support of the great effort now
being made to bring relief to the unfortunate survivors in
Europe?
Judge Rifkind reports that "the problem of these Jews
of Europe is insoluble without Palestine . . . To say that
the overwhelming majority of the displaced Jews of Europe
want to go to Palestine is an under-statement. They yearn
for it with a passion beyond my capacity to describe."
We present these facts as an added appeal to our people
to guarantee the success of the Emergency Detroit $2,000,000
Allied Jewish Campaign which will provide' funds for relief
of the needy and for the settlement of Jews in Palestine.
I

—Copyright, 1946, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Inc.

The Crime Against the .DPs The Campaign Chairman

An official of the United Nations Re-
lief and Rehabilitation A dminis tration
(UNRRA), writing for the newspaper PM,
makes the charge that "the blood of Samuel
Danziger, 35-year-old Polish Jew who sur-
vived four years of Nazi concentration camps
only to be shot down by hopelessly Nazi-
minded German police in a Stuttgart dis-
placed persons camp, is on the U. S. Army."

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Detroit's Emergency $2,000,000 Allied
Jewish Campaign has been making rapid
progress, and the increases in contributions
reported at several campaign rallies point
to an assured triumph for the drive.
The most decisive move towards an as-
sured success for the campaign, however,
was the appointment of the campaign per-
sonnel.
. The selection of Nate S. Shapero as
chairman gives our great relief and recon-
struction effort a high status and a stronger
impetus in fund-raising.
Mr. Shapero is one of the community's
outstanding industrial and civic leaders. Pos-
sessing the vigor of youth, he assumes charge
of this great drive backed by a wealth of
experience. His record of public service,
enumerated elsewhere in, this issue, is an in-
dication of great ability which has carried
him to the top of the ladder in everything
he has undertaken.
His acceptance of the chairmanship of
the $2,000,000 Allied Jewish Campaign
brought cheer to his fellow workers. With
Nate .Shapero at the helm, we should feel
confident that our community will rise to
new heights in its current mercy campaign.
An entire community will go forth to
its great task, in support of Mr. Shapero and
his campaign associates, with courage 'and
with dignity befitting a great obligation. •

Judge Simon H. Rifkind, advisor on Jew-
ish affairs to the. American Military Gov-
ernment, revealed this week in a letter to
Dr. Stephen S. Wise, president of the World
Jewish Congress, that he had advised Am-
erican authorities in Germany to "recruit
and train replaced Jews to act as a police
force supplementary to the military in Jew-
ish centers."
When this common sense recommenda-
tion was ignored, those who had survived the
horrors of Nazism found themselves policed
by Germans!
And the UNRRA official, in his article
in PM, comments: "What did the American
military expect when German police entered
the DP camp at Stuttgart? Did they expect
the Jews to embrace the Germans and greet
them like long-lost friends? Certainly the
Jews were abusive. Certainly, they jeered.
2114 Penobscot Bldg., Detroit 26, MiCh.
If they could have killed the Germans,
Member of Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Independent
they would have. They had the right on Jewish Press Service, Seven Arts Feature Syndicate,
Religious News Service, Palcor News Agency, Wide World
moral, if not legal, grounds."
Photo Service, Acme Newsphoto Service, King Features
Syndicate, Central Press Service.
*
*
Member American Association of English-Jewish . News-
papers and Michigan Press Association.
PM's staff correspondent in Nuremberg, Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publish-
ing Co., 2114 Penobscot Bldg., Detroit 26, Mich. Telephone
Victor H. Bernstein, in a revealing article RAndolph
7956. Subscription rate $3 a year; foreign
points out that while the U. S. Army in $4 a year. Club subscription of one issue a month,
published every fourth Friday of the month, to all
Germany is not anti-Semitic, it has reacted subscribers to Allied Jewish Campaign of the Jeivish
Welfare Federation of Detroit at 40 cents .a club sub-
with "a kind of classic stupidity to the situa- scription
per year.
Entered as second-class matter August 6, 1942 at the
tion which it never was equipped to handle
Post Office at Detroit, lyfichigan, under the Act of
in the first place."
March 3, 1879. •
The result of the intolerable situation,
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
MAURICE ARONSSON
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
as_ revealed by eye-witnesses and as sub-
FRED M. BUTZEL
ISIDORE SOBELOFF
THEODORE LEVIN
ABRAHAM SRERE
stantiated in nearly all the reports that
MAURICE H. SCHWARTZ HENRY WINEMAN
come from Germany, is that the UNRRA
PIITLIP SLOMOVITZ, Editor
officials are frightened, that they dare not
A. R. BRASCH, Advertising Counsel
act for fear they may antagonize our army
VOL. 9—No, 4
APRIL 12, 1946
and that failure of the UN to lay down a
This Week's Scriptural Selections
policy for action has brought untold misery.
This Sabbath, the twelfth day of Nisan, 5706;
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the following Scriptural selections will be . read
in
our
synagogues:
Thus, our own government is a party
Pentateuchal portion—Lev. 14:1-15:33.
to an intolerable crime which has already
Prophetical portion—Mal. 3:4-24 or II Kings
resulted in one death and in injury to many
7:3-20.
more Jews.
On Tuesday morning, the first day of Pass-
The removal of the German police has over, the following Scriptural selections will be
read:
come too late. •
Pentateuchal portion—Ex. 12:21-51; NUM,
And we must not forget that on previous 28:16-25.
Prophetical portion—Josh. 2:5-7; 5:2 - . 6; 1:27.
occasions anti-Semitic Poles had policed the
On Wednesday morning, the second 'day' of
DP camps, adding insults to injuries suffered
Passover, the following Scriptural selections will
by. Jews.
be read:
Pentateuchal portions—Lev. 22:26-23; 23:4.4;
Correction must come from United
Num. 28:16-25.
. .
Nations ranks.
ProphetiCal portion—II Kings 23:1 (or 4)-9,,
Unless an end to the disgraceful situa- 21-25.
On Thursday; first day of Chol Hamoed Pesach,
tion is assured, the entire democratic world
will stand condemned before the bar of Ex. 13:1-16-and Num. 28:19-25 will be •read; on
Friday, the .. Scriptural .Selections will be Ex.
humanity.
22:24-23:19 and Num. 28:19-25.

THE JEWISH NEWS