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THE JEWISH

Page Two

Purely
Commentary

By PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

THE PALESTINE EXECUTIONS
Anyone who has read Mr. Winston
Churchill's address on the Palestine
situation in the House of Commons, on
Jan. 31 last, and, has made a study of the
Parliamentary debtes on the issue,
could have' predicted that Dov Bela
Gruner and his three comrades would
hang.
Two days before the sudden British
order to take these men to the gallows,
your Commentator expressed this view,
as his foregone conclusion, to Mr. Bartley
C. Crum, the eminent Christian friend of
Zionism who preferred to cling to the
hope that the better judgment of British
officialdom might prevent anact that was
certain to inflame the entire Yishuv.
In his address of Jan. 31, Mr. Churchill
stated in the House of Commons that
"a procedure was vamped up" in the ap-
peals in behalf of Gruner, and he con-
demned the delays in his execution as a
result of kidnapings with this statement:

'Let us suppose that there was a murder
gang at work in England and that one mem-
ber was caught and was going to be execu-
ted after due process of law. If it were -then
said by his associates that if sentence were
carried out they would kill the Home Secre-
tary, does anybody imagine that a British
Minister would not go forward with the pro-
cess of law? As F. E. Smith said many years
ago, be would make his will and do his duty.
Does anybody imagine that the - path of jus-
tice would be turned aside by a hair's breath
because of a threat of that nature? It may be
replied that here there were hostages, which
made it a harder case, but let me again put
It in terms we can all understand. Suppose
the friends of this criminal, members of a
gang. decide that they will catch some mem-
ber of this house, some minister, or the son
or the relative of a minister, and say, 'We have
him in hiding; you hang so-and-so, and we
will kill him.' Is there a member of this house
who would tolerate the slightest movement
of the course of justice from its path, what-
ever happens, even if it was his won flesh and
blood affected? I think not."

Mr. Churchill, acting as the prosecutor
in an address that incited to capital
punishment, did more to speed the exe-
cution of the Irgunists than any Other
person involved in the Palestinian issue.
His speech may be responsible for a
series of additional sentences, the Irgun-
ists, in their passion, being no less de-
termined to follow a path of retribution
and vengeance than Mr. Churchill.

• •

Friday, April 25, 1947

NEWS

United Jewish Appeal

One Way to Help Di's

An Editorial in The Saturday Evening Post

The liquidation of UNRRA forces upon the individual consciences of all of
us the plight of millions of "displaced persons," a term which tends to gloss over
a grim and pitiful picture. These homeless and broken men, women and childen.
now huddled hopelessly in DP camps while their plight becomes. the football of
power politics, represent the backwash of war. They provide heart-rending
evidence of man's inhumanity to man.
A large number of these neglected people are Jews, the first victims of Hit-
ler's hatred and in the best of times the objects of persecution in many parts of
the world. For their relief, the United Jewish Appeal has been organized under the
chairmanship of Henry Morgenthau, Jr., who asks his fellow countrymen of all
faiths and races to contribute to a fund of $170,000,000 for this purpose. We are
sure that a large body of Americans who feel deeply the plight of the Jews in
this frenzied period will welcome the opportunity to assist in bringing aid to those
suffering people, relieving by that much the congestion of misery and distress which
we have inherited from the war. In the long run, of course,; the problem is one
of emigration to more favorable environments, but in the present emergency -pal-
liatives are urgently needed.
Surely America, comparatively unscarred by war and far away from the
brutalities of the enemy, cannot afford to ignore a call like this one to prove in a
concrete fashion our concern with the relief of human suffering.

Between
You and Me

By BORIS SMOLAR

Heard in
The Lobbies

By ARNOLD LEVIN

(Copyright, 1947, Jewish Telegraphic
Agency, Inc.)

(Copyright, 1947, Independent Jewish
Press Service. inc.)

UN SCENE
With the Palestine issue coming before
the United Nations next week, it can be
revealed that Zionist leaders have no il-
lusions regarding British intentions there
. . . Nevertheless, they consider that the
very fact that the issue has been made
the subject of a special UN session offers
a challenge and an opportunity . . . Even
if Britain means to ignore UN recommen-
dations which she may find annoying. this
does not free the members of the United
Nations from their responsiblity to offer
what ever recommendations are warrant-
ed by the facts.
It stands to reason that the individual
governments of which the United Na-
tions is composed will not make them-
selves accomplices to the present British
policy in Palestine, which was declared
illegal by the Mandates Commission of
the League of Nations .. . And it is on
this fact that Jewish Agency leaders
count most . . . They especially hope that
the __governments composing the United
Nations will guard themselves carefully
against being drawn into an expression
of approval or appreciation of the record
of the British administration in Pales-
tine, however vague the wording.
The Je,wish Agency would prefer that
the United Nations check into the Pales-
tine regime's action in line with existing
international agreements . . . Zionist
leaders would also not mind if the United
Nations refers the question of the legality
of the present Palestine regime to the
International Court of Justice set up by
the UN . . . They believe that this pro-
cedure would be more time-consuming
but equally proper . . . Of course, before
agreeing to take any action on Palestine
in connection with the British request,
it would be highly proper for the UN As-
sembly to request and obtain assurances
from British authorities that its findings
will be observed by them.

Our client, The Detroit Jewish News,
has transmitted to us a protest by a read-
er who takes indignant exception to the
following sentence in our column of
April 11: "It is former President Hoover's
duty to publicly confirm or deny the re=
port that he has extended ally status to
yesterday's and today's enemies of civili-
zation—the Huns, the Baumgartners, the
Schumachers, the Hoegners, etc." The
reader, a Jew, maintains that the three
men are anti-Nazis and former concen-
tration camp inmates and hence we owe
them an apology and retraction.
Nob all who were in concentration
camps under Hitler are necessarily free
of the virus of anti-Semitism and German
aggressiveness. German anti-Semitism
and aggressiveness were not the monopoly
of the Nazi Party.
Mr. Baumgartner, to whose defense the
misinformed and misguided reader has
rushed, has been quoted by a decidedly
unbiased correspondent, Delbert Clark, a
non-Jew, of the New York Times, as hav-
ing told a German meeting:

MURDER INCITES TO MURDER
"We shall never be able to do without the
Having established clearly that he is
" Jewish business men in the United States and
the rest of the world; we need them for the
opposed to violence and to terrorism;
re-establishment of our old trade relations.
that his endorsement of Resistance as
As far as those many Jews from the East here
formulated by Haganah is based on the
in Bavaria are concerned (presumably the
DPs), however, I am of a different opinion.
conviction that Jews are justified to go
Gentlemen, to my great regret I had to attend
to extremes in defense of their lives and
the Jewish (victims of Nazism—A. L.) Con-
gress at Ban Beichenhan; the only pleasant
properties in Palestine and in making
thing during this Congress was the unanimous
it possible for Jews to enter Palestine,
resolution•to leave Germany."
If this is not a combination of German
but that the line should be drawn against
opportunist and rabid anti-Semitism,
hold-ups and murders—this Commenta-
what is? Note Mr. Baumgartner's readi-
tor condemns the executions that took
ness to use foreign Jewish capital to re-
place last week as strongly as he op-
establish German trade, coupled with his
posed the Irgun program of extremism.
apology for having attended, in his of-
The British authorities, having ignored
ficial capacity, a Congress of Jewish DPs.
the fact that another appeal in behalf
We quoted liberally from Mr. Clark's re-
of Gruner still was pending before the
port in the column to which our "indig-
Privy Council in London, refused to take
into consideration the major motivating
nant reader" takes exception. Has our
reader failed- to grasp the obvious and
force in the present conflict in Palestine:
only connotation of Mr. Baumgartner's
the political nature of the battle that is
statement?
raging between the British military forces
and the Palestine extremists.
Regarding Mr. Schumacher: This
The heartlessness of having taken the
"great" social democrat told British audi-
condemned men to the gallows without be dealt with sternly and that abolition ences some months ago that anti-Semit-
letting them see their families for the of the death penalty will encourage ism has vanished in Germany, and even
last time, and without final solace from criminals and, in the instance of Pales- invited the Jews to return. It is the
Rabbis, will go down in history as cow- tine, the terrorists.
unanimous opinion of all competent ob-
servers, including Erika Mann, daughter
ardly, cruel and unworthy even of the
We disagree.
worst precedents of British Colonial rule.
It is our belief that men who kill must of the German Nobel Prize winner for
Contrary to the implications in Mr.
be treated like patients who are suffer- Literature, American correspondents, and
Churchill's speech, the Jewish extremists ing from serious illnesses. The terrorists, American military who have conducted
are not a "murder gang." They are pa- too, will, in the course of time, learn the polls on German sentiment, that the
triotic zealots whose actions are a source error of their ways and will recognize country still is rabidly anti-Semitic, that
of irritation to Jewish leadership. But that humility as a Jewish trait may for anti-Semitism has as a fact increased in
they are not criminals in the ordinary - all time prove more powerful than arro- the past few months as compared with
sense of the term.
gance; ,that creative effort, defying the the period immediately after liberation
Instead of soothing the angry feelings inhumanity of Colonial officialdom, will when the German put on a great show
of a population oppressed by rules of a
lay the foundations for a structure which of penitence. Had any Jews taken seri-
police state, the British have made it pos.- - neither Britain nor any one else will be ously Mr. Schumacher's invitation, based
sible for murder to beget murder. By able to destroy.
on wilful deceit, they soon would find
ordering the executions of the four young
themselves in another mess. Mr. Schu-
But
.
extremism,
terrorism,
murder
in-
Jews, Great Britain emerged with as
macher's invitation was an effort to fur-
terfere
with
serious
constructive
efforts.
black a stain on her already dark record
ther the legend that the German people
in Palestine as the acts of terrorism which And executions do not help. Murder is are innocent and that only the Nazis
murder,
no
matter
whether
it
is
corn-
inspired the anger of the Empire. But
were guilty. He is well-prepared to gam-.
while it is understandable that patriots mitted by an Irgunist or by a British ble with Jewish safety (had the Jews ac-
official,
and
the
acts
of
the
terrorists
who seek freedom for their kinsmen in
cepted his invitation) in order to further
bondage will go to extremes, it is incon- and the British hangmen must ' be the "pity the German" campaign. Shall
ceivable that a "great empire" should branded as equally inhuman.
we shed tears then, for Mr. Schumacher's
Two great Rabbis—Tarphon and,Akiba martyrdom under the Nazis?
have literally lost its head by making
—are quoted in rabbinical literature as
vengeance against dissenters its motto.
Hoegner belongs to the same political
This is exactly what has happened. By having said: "if we had been members set-up in - Bavaria as Baumgartner does,
denying condemned Jews the right to of a Beth Din there would never have or has not our reader read of the incon-
appeal and by investing the High Corn- been a death sentence."
sistency of Mr. Hoegner's lachrymose
ner with dictatorial military pow-
We commend this as a basic principle statements regarding the Jews and the
ers. Great Britain has taken over the in the worldwide fight against the im- actual behairior of the German adininis-
role of a hangman nation.
position of death sentences and in. the trative machine in Bavaria?
a
a
a
fight, in our own state of Michigan,
We should like to call the attention of
'CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
against the revival of capital punish- the indignant reader to an article in Lib-
Perhaps the issues that arose in Pales- ment. And we quote it as an admonition erty a fortnight ago by Alfred Toombs,
tine as a result of the Gruner and similar
to the British that "lex talionis" is un- who was Chief of Intelligence, Informa-
cases would have been averted if the workable and that ideal humanity will tion Control Division, Office of Military
world at large were to abolish completely reject both the cruelties of a police state Government (U. S.) in Berlin in direct
all semblances of capital punishment.
and the crimes of the executions of politi- charge of a study conducted by American
It will be argued that murders must cal dissenters.
psychitrists, psychologists and ahthro-

.

rt

Strictly
Confidential

By PHINEAS J. BIRON

(Copyright. 1947. Seven Arts
Feature Syndicate, Inc.)

PREDICTION
Some Zionists have been predicting for
some time that Moscow will be giving
moral aid to the Arabs . . . We go on
record predicting that at the UN session
the U. S. spokesmen will double cross the
Zionists and do everything, to keep Ibn
Saud in good humor so as to safeguard
American oil interests . . . The Soviet
Union will clamor for an indepedent Pal-
estine, and support a bi-national state.
a
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PERSONALIA
Kurt Weill, noted composer. has booked
passage - for Palestine to visit his parents.
Hank Greenberg due for a guest spot
on- the Bing Crosby show in a couple of
weeks . . . Charlie Chaplin returns to
California soon "to see our babies."
Stella Adler is exhibiting the paintings
of Norman Raben at her home . . . He's
the son of the immortal Sholom Aleichem.
What is ex-Governor Lehman planning
to do with the suite of offices he's opened
in New York's Squibb Building?
Joseph Curtis, whose father is Colum-
bia film executive Jack Cohen, will quit
the movies for an advertising career.
Is Judge Samuel Leibowitz eyeing the
D. A. office in Brooklyn?
• *
NOTE DEFENSE ORGANIZATIONS
Why the strange silence on the part of
Jewish defense organizations about the
Buckley bill (H. It 2848) . . . This bill
demands the outlawing of anti-Semitism
and definitely says so . Which reminds
us that Jewish organizations should pro-
test en masse if Sinatra is to be molested
and embarrassed by the Thomas-Rankin
Committee . . . Frank has never stinted
his support on behalf bf anti-discrimina-
tion activities and it is up to us to show
that we have not forgotten.
•
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POT POURRI
Even if you don't like Walter
his April 15 column on the former
Mufti of Jerusalem is worth reading . . .
Seems as if the notorious Nazi collabora-
tor is planning to return to Palestine from
his.Egyptian "exile." -
Watch your bookstore for Sinclair Lew-
is' new book—"King's Blood Royal"—due
May 22 . .. The most savage indictment
of race prejudice in the U. S. that has
ever been published. „
Orchids: to Charlie Chaplin . . . His
quiet and d;iified replies to smear-
slanted questions of Hearst "reporters"
at a press conference last week won the
respect of a majority of the newsmen
attending.
•
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•
BEHIND THE SMOKESCREEN
This week we journey to Argentina for
a look behind the smokescreen of anti-
communist hysteria . . . Several months
ago Juan Peron discharged more than
5,000 school teachers . . . The reason
given was that these scholars were "reds"
—opposed to the Peron dictatorship .. .
A high percentage of those dismissed were
of Jewish origin.

pologists who conducted a long and thor-
ough study of the. German mentality. They
have come to the conclusion that sadism
and aggressiveness were a basic charac-
teristic of the Germgn nature for the past
century, and not restricted to the Nazi
party. In one case a woman, who had ac-
tually belonged to two minor Nazi organi-
zations, was found after a thorough psy-
chological probing, less Nazi and authori-
tarian-minded than a veteran German
Socialist civil servant who, on the basis
of his concentration camp -internment,
was scheduled to receive an important
appointment which was stopped by psY-
chiatrists, who advised his rejection, after
a thorough probing of the man's mind.
Pastor Niemoller also was a concen- -
tration camp inmate for many years, yet
his record shows that he is basically a
racist and militarist and had fallen out
with Hitler only on the issue of state
domination of his church. •
We do not retract. We do not apologize.
We frankly regret that diplomatic expe-
diency precludes the quarantining of the
German people, irrespective of party af-
filiations, for as can be seen above anti•
Semitism was not and is not restricted to
the men who wore a swastika in their
lapels.
Incidentally, a German-Socialist week-
ly in this country edited by a Jewish ref-
ugee *aft-...ong the first to launch the
pity for Germans campaign, at the time
the Oswiecim atrocity reports first broke
on the world. The same paper devoted
hardly any space to the reports. Loyalty
often takes .on perverse, and masochistic
forms.

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