Nazis Re-Indicted in Story of Martyred Girl
House of Dolls' Has Powerful Moral Mandate'
•
Another great document is be-
ing published today as a re-
minder of the Nazi horrors and
as a warning against their repe-
tition.
"The House of Dolls." original-
ly published in Israel, is making
its appearance today. in a trans-
lation from the Hebrew by
Moshe M. Kohn, from the press
of Simon and Schuster (630
5th. NY20).
Its author is "Ka-tzetnik
135633." The publishers explain
that the author's true identity
is not known, but that "it is a
matter of record that he was
in a Nazi concentration camp
where his number was 135633.
All the people confined in con-
centration camps were known.
as `Ka-tzetnik number . . . '
The prisoners called each
other `Katzets,' which is the
slang equivalent of 'jailbird' or
`con'."
"The House of Dolls" created
so strong an impression that
the president of Simon and
Schuster, M. Lincoln Schuster,
has sent us the following mem-
orandum from the publisher's
Inner Sanctum: •
The circumstances which led
to the publication of this novel
are so extraordinary that a
word of explanation is in order:
Although the book is pre-
sented in fiction form, it is
based on the authentic diary
of a fourteen-year old Jewish
girl who left her home in Po-
land one day in 1939 on a
school trip with her classmates
and never returned. It thus
becomes the story of one of
the millions whose lives were
crushed by Hitler's storm
troopers, a story of life in the
ghetto, in . labor camps, And,
finally, in the "House of Dolls,
one of the brothels set up by
the Nazi for their armed forces.
Every editorial report on
this tragic and soul-shaking
human document compared it
with "The Dairy of Ann
Frank" and "The Wall." One
editor •said: "If you want to
sleep at night, don't read it."
Another added: "If God can
permit such things to happen,
we must publish it. This is no
time to think of audience ap-
peal or market, but only a
moral mandate."
A word about the author:
Although "House of Dolls" be-
came a spectacular best seller
when it was first published in
Israel, and although a previous
book, "Salamander" made him
a lengendary figure, and won
great critical acclaini, he pre-
fers to identify himself only
as "Ka-tzetnik 135633"his
own concentration camp num-
ber—"a saved cinder from the
crematorium." "Not I," he
says, "but the book got the
prize,'r he says about the lit-
erary acclaim he has received
in Israel. All we are told about
him is that he was born in
Poland in 1917, and that under
his hard-won pseudonym he
insists on being "mysterious,
silent, secret."
The "moral mandate" becomes
evident from the very moment
;he reader opens this book. From
' irst to the last, he is gripped
ay emotions that must move
every huMan being to pity for
the sufferers. to indignation
against the perpetrators" of suf-
ferings. The "moral mandate"
must move future generations to
action to prevent the recurrence
of Nazism and it horrors.
"The House of Dolls" is the
moving story of Daniella Pre-
leshnik, who, at the age of 14,
left her home in Poland in 1939
on a school picnic with her play-
mates. They never -returned.
They became the captives of the
Nazis. Daniella was taken to the
prostitution doll house— to ful-
fill the German idea of labor
via joy, the inscription "feld-
hure" seared into each inno c ent
body.
Based on an authentic diary,
this is the story of Daniella's
three years under the Nazi, the
tortures in the labor camp, the
experiments performed by the
Nazi doctors on the girls, the
brutalities of sex - p e r v e r t e d
woman overseers.
Each episode in this book is a
tragedy. The craving for a tear,
("please, will some one help him
shed a tear" . . .), to relieve in-
nermost feelings; the hugging
of a show. as a reminder of
something dear to the afflicted
soul; the urge to carry on in the
hope of the coming of the day
of redemption, as incorporated
in a three-word unexplained re-
port that "Roosevelt has spoken"
—these and many more narra-
tives stir the reader to his very
soul.
"The House of Dolls" is a story
not only about Daniella but also
about her brother Harry and
about other characters. Harry
carries on, hopefully, like his
sister, but both perish. But
Daniella's dairy becomes a cause
for living for Fella—the inter-
esting girl who at first sacrificed
her honor to secure small favors
from. the Nazis for herself and
bread for her fellow-sufferers;
who later also was taken to the
doll house; whose courage is a
shining example of human de-
termination to conquer indig-
nities and to acquire freedom.
Then there- is the incident
about Itche-Meyer, the father
of Pini, who at first refused
to recite the kaddish for his
son because: "You don't say
Kaddish for Prophet Elijah
Pini is alive,. Pini has gone
right to heaven . . . "
"The House of Dolls" indicts
the Poles. The corpses of many
Jews were found on the road
with "notes nailed to their naked
bodies: "SHOT, BUT NOT BY
GERMANS — POLISH PARTI-
SANS." And as the martyred
Jewish 'girls were marched to
their doom in the doll houses:
"Among the marching girls
many are daughters of families
who had Jived on the streets
through which they are now be-
ing led. Dumbly they lift their
eyes to the windows behind
which they had lived, to the
railings of the balconies on
which they had sat. From there,
grinning faces of Polish girls
look back at them. The eyes of
the herded girls rove shamefully
over the house walls. This is
their last good-bye. These are
the houses they were born in.
These are the streets they play-
ed in as children. Through these
gates they skipped off to school
every morning. Here stood their
fairy-tale dreams. Every brick
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here is alive with memories.
Every tree—a trove of budding
girlhood. On more than one tree
is carved a heart,, pierced with
a lover's arrow, beside the ini-
tials of a classroom sweetheart.
Under this sky they had grown
and they felt toward it what
children the world over feel to-
ward their kindred sky. Now
they march over these familiar
pavements. surrounded by stran-
gers with leveled machine guns
in their hands, whose face they
had never seen: whose honor
they had never touched . " .
"Once, only -Jews lived in these
streets. The Jews had built these
houses and lived in them. Now,
Poles lived here--:the same Poles
who, before the war, had waved
their patriotism on high and
never let up chanting: 'The
Jews are selling_ our Motherland
to the enemy!' But no sooner
did the Germans come in than
these selfsame rabid patriots
turn overnight into Volks-
deutsche. Most of them now
sport the Nazi party emblems
with pride on their lapels, and
in turn each of them was given
a Jewish apartment or Jewish
business."
There is a powerful line in
this book, serving as an in-
dictment of all who worship a
Jew yet murder Jews: "Above
the watchtower hangs the
Moon sphere, like the halo
around the head of the tor-
mented Jew of Nazareth in
the images placed in the Pol-
ish windows to indicate that
here lives a non-Jew."
"The House of Dolls" is a
powerful indictment of Nazis
and their Polish collaborators. It
is as strong as "The Wall" and
as "Anna Frank's Diary." May
its lesson sink into human
hearts to prevent the recur-
rence of the great shame that
was humanity's: for having per-
mitted Nazism to humiliate and
disgrace human beings!
-
1
Commentary on Biblical
Book of Kings Published
Yiddish as Central Language
Stressed at Bond Parley
Laymen can now secure a bet-
ter understanding of the First
Book of Kings in the Bible,
thanks to a book by Dr. Leo °L.
Honor published
by the Union of
American H e -
brew Congrega-
tions.
Designed f o r
popular use, the
book, called
",`Book of Kings
I: A Comen-
tary," is part of
a series intend-
ed to make
ScriptiireS more
comprehensib 1 e
to the general
The Dr. Honor
public
project, begun some years ago
by the Union's Commission on
Jewish Education, has received
financial support from the will
of the late Benjamin Blumauer,
a leader of Temple Beth Israel,
Portland, Oregon.
n s i s t-
MONTREAL, (JTA
ence on the centrality of the
Yiddish language in the con-
tinuity of Jewish culture was
the theme of speakers here at a
cultural session of the weed-
long third world conference of
the Bund.
Delegates and guests at the
parley included representatives
from the United States, Canada,
Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico,
Australia and France.
Pinchos Schwartz, director of
the Yiddish Scientific Institute
(YIVO), called for a broad
united front of all Jewish or-
ganizations for the advancement
of Yiddish and Hebrew language
and literature and for strength-
ening Jewish culture through-
out the world.
22 — DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, April- 22., 1955
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Jewish Birth Rate
Declining ; -Predict
Static Population
WASHINGTON, D.C. Ameri-
can Jewry probably will not be
numerically larger in 1970 than
it is today despite the general
p o p u 1 a ti o n increase in the
United States during the last
decade, according to Ben B.
Seligman, former director of the
Office of Jewish Population Re-
search.
The noted demographer made
his prediction in an article in
the National Jewish Monthly,
published by Bnai Brith. He
points out that about 75 percent
of the total American Jewish
population lives in 13 large com-
munities where the average
family size and birth rate are
smaller than in rural areas.
According to Mr. Seligman,
other factors on which his pre-
diction is based show that the
average size for Jewish families
is 3.1 or less, in contrast to the
U.S. average of about 3.7 per-
sons per family; that American
Jews are generally older than
I their neighbors, and have fewer
I children. Mr. Seligman quotes
Nathan Goldberg, another Jew-
ish demographer, as asserting
that the Jewish birth rate itself
as declining. He sa ys
al-
though an average of 2.2 chil-
dren per family is required for
the general population to renew
itself, the average number of
children per Jewish family is
"much fewer," and would have
to be even larger than 2.2.
Losses from intermarriage and
assimilation generally are also
proportionately large.
Mr. Seligman sees "some glim-
mer of hope" in the fact that
economic condition of Jews
continues to improve, contribut-
ing to the trend away from the
big cities to suburban commun-
ity life, which is more favorable
to a higher birth rate_
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