Ready for. Summer Camp

THE JEWISH NEWS

Incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue-of July 20, 1951

Member American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Association. National
Editorial Association
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co.. 17100 West Seven Mile Road. Detroit 35.
Mich.. VE 8-9364. Subscription $5 a year. Foreign $6.
Entered as second class matter Aug. 6. 1942 at Post Wile._ Detroit. Mich under act of Congress of March
J. 187:

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Edit' r and

SIDNEY SHMARAK CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ

Publisher

Advertising Manager

Circulation Manager

7-4

FRANK SIMONS

City Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the fifth cloy of Tammuz, 5719. the following Scriptural selections will be
read in our .synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion. Korah. Num. 16:1-18:32. Prophetical portion, I Samuel 11:14-12:22.

Licht Benshen. Friday. July 10. 7:50 p.m.

VOL. XXXV. No. 19

Page Four

July 10, 1959

'Forgotten Hitler' and German Youth Problem

Dr. Joachim Prinz, president of the
American Jewish Congress, who had him-
self suffered under the Nazis and who is
keenly aware of the dangers that stem
from the resurgence of Nazi ideas among
the youth, has issued a timely warning
that Germany's youngest generation is
growing up with a shocking ignorance of
the evils that were wrought by Nazism
and that all it knows about the Hitlerian
era is that "Hitler built the autobahn and
did away with unemployment."
This "dangerous" internal situation in
Germany is viewed by Dr. Prinz as repre-
senting a serious menace to be viewed
with alarm. The problem was analyzed in
World Jewry, the monthly review of the
World Jewish Congress, from whose en-
lightening editorial, "Forgotten Hitler,"
wet quote:

Something is very wrong indeed with the
West German educational system. When the
television cameras of Radio Hesse in Frank-
furt went into the classrooms of a number
of German schools recently to shoot a TV
film "A Look at Our Youth" the results
came as a profound shock not only to Ger-
man viewers but to the Laender and Federal
authorities. Nine out of ten of •the teenagers
quizzed by the intervieweks displayed their
total ignorance of Hitler and his regime.
Their replies may well alarm those Germans
who claim a complete regeneration of West
Gerinan youth and an educational system
designed to turn out young democrats. "Hit-
ler revived Germany," one boy said. "He did
away with unemployment and built the auto-
bahnen." Said another: "After the war, people
. said everything he did was bad . . . but now
people come again and say it was not so bad
after all." And this from yet another young
German democrat: "I judge Hitler positively
because we are free again, or at least half of
us are." The highest estimate of Jews killed
by the Nazis was 30,000 and many high school
students professed total ignorance of the sub-
ject.
Seeking the reasons for this crass and
frightening ignorance of German recent, all
too recent, history, the TV producer inter-
viewed a group of teachers most of whom
pleaded that the crammed curriculum pro-
vided "no time" for the study of Germany's
recent past. If this is true, it is even more
alarming than the •_fact that hundreds of
thousands of German boys and girls between
the ages of 15 and 17 belkve that Hitler was
the man who "punished taxi-murderers, took
the youth off the streets, and organized sea
voyages for the workers . . ." For it shows
that the men and women responsible for and
in charge of the education of young West
Germans think that one- can turn over a new
leaf in the history of a country like Germany
by simply keeping the new generation in total
ignorance of the most shameful chapter of
their history. It is a frightening thought that
among the young people who laid bare their
ignorance and confusion before the TV cam-
eras will be the leaders of the Germany of
tomorrow.
It must be said in all fairness that the

Governor Rockefeller's Tribute to Israel

Addressing a gathering of Israel
Bond leaders in Hampstead, N. Y., Gov-
ernor Nelson Rockefeller of New York
displayed a deep interest in Israel's status
and indicated anew that there is a strong
friendship in this country for the young
Stat. The Governor said, in the course of
his ,remarks:
"Your Bond drive, it seems to me,
combines some of the best features
of the several methods of help—for it
builds a two-way bridge of interest and
responsibility between the United
States and Israel which is the essence
of brotherhood.

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7; 7'

•
reaction not only of an important section of
• r T.. -
• "
the German press but also of the authorities
was swift: the president of the Permanent
Conference of West German Cultural Min-
isters announced that the organization would
examine the problem revealed by this "Look
4r.
1
at Our Youth" at its next meeting. But short
of a radical overhaul of the whole school
curriculum it is hard to see what can be
achieved by purely administrative measures.
By pure accident the initiative of a television
producer disclosed a dangerous flaw in
the West German democratic structure. It is
in no gloating spirit of We Told You So that
we recall here a demand of the World Jewish
Congress put forward by its Executive eight
years ago when it urged ,Germany to "utilize
all her national and partitularly her religious
A stirring Hebrew novel. written in the latter part of the
and educational institutio'hs to bring home
to the German people the iniquities per- i last century by a young author who died in his 25th year, is
petrated against the Jews- . . . and to incul- now available in an excellent English translation.
"Whither?" by Mordecai Zeev Feierberg was published by
cate, especially among the youth of Germ-
any, the principles of humanity, justice and Abelard-Schuman (404 4th, N.Y. 16). Its translator is Rabbi
Ira Eisenstein. Appended to this novel is an enlightening fore-
equality among mankind."
word about the young author by the late Dr. Solomon Goldman.
But what is to be done about it now?
Actually. this book, in addition -to containing a noteworthy
What can the democratic world do at this novel, may also be considered a fine biography of Feierberg.
stage of the game to stem the tide of a The novel is said to be autobiographical, and the foreword by
resurgence of Nazism or neo-Nazism, or Dr. Goldman is a great tribute to a writer whose early death
even the mildest forms of reactionary cut short a promising career.
The hero of "Whither?" is Nachman, who rebels against the
feelings among the youth of Germany?
The West is much more concerned with conditions in the ghetto in Russia, who seeks an escape into the
freedom of the West, who finds comfort in his conviction that
the attempts of the East to penetrate into Zion's
restoration will bring relief, to his people from the
West Germany than it is with the politi- oppressive
air of a fenced-in life and will bring restoration to
cal and humanitarian views of German him.
youth. Complacency has- contributed to-
Dr. Eisenstein points out in a preface to the novel he has
wards the rebirth of Nazism.
translated into English:
"141rt Feierberg might have become if he had lived is
The democratic world can do as little
about stemming any tide of bigotry in a matter for speculation. But his slender volume of collected
Germany, now that the German people works (published by Ahiasaf), running to a mere 146 pages
the Hebrew, was apparently enough to insure him a
are on the road to full recovery from the in
place in modern Hebrew letters. He deserves to
shocks of defeat in two world wars, as it permanent
be known by mid-twentieth-century readers of English, and
can about the emergence of anti-Western especially by those who, like the translator,
find in Nachman's
hatred in the Orient or the rising tide of spiritual itinerary glimpses of the momentous challenge which
prejudice in the Near East.
faces the Jews of our time. They too are asking 'Whither?' "
All we can do is continue to warn
It was Rabbi Goldman who brought forth "Whither?"--in
against the menacing evidences of the his textbook edition under its Hebrew name "L'An?"—more than
30
years
ago. His biographical sketch of Feierberg which appears
re-emergence of conditions that prevailed
before the last world war. Perhaps the in the English translation of the novel is reprinted from the
thinking elements in the world, hearing Hebrew edition of "L'An?" published at that time.
Feierberg's life and his struggles are described in Dr.
our admonitions and anxious to avert Goldman's
essay. The Hebrew novelist was born in Volhynia in
another world conflict, will join with the 1874. His father
made up in piety for his poverty. In his story
liberals in the world in presenting the "Ba-Erev" Feierberg described the dingy atmosphere of the
case properly to German authorities — heder in which he studied as a child. In Rabbi Goldman's
and to leaders in other threatened lands translation of portions of the story is revealed the gloom of
— in striving to secure their cooperation those days, the depressing atmosphere and the repelling method
so to present the democratic viewpoint of teaching.
Later, Feierberg went to the Bet Hamidrash. Then he
that the revival of Hitlerism will become
became interested in the modern Hebrew literature. and he was
an impossibility.
beaten
and persecuted for it. His father sought to "save him
The present leadership in Germany
marriage." But his intended father-in-law discovered
has a basic responsibility: to prove to the through
that Feierberg had tuberculosis and the engagement was broken.
world that Nazism can not rear its ugly His beautiful and understanding bride-to-be loved him.
but her
head again. The resentment in Israel father's wish prevailed.
against arms sales to Germany proves the
In his several stories, Feierberg described life as he
reaction to German atrocities. Those who experienced it. His stories are autobiographical. Dr. Goldman
are in control of the present West German thus analyzed his works:
"Feierberg draws his characters skillfully. They never
Government have it in their power to up-
root bigotry. and to prove to the world become abstractions. In spite of symbolizing the nation, they
that Hitlerian principles can not be re- remain individuals in the flesh and blood. In this he advanced
beyond the writers of the Haskalah period. Their characters
introduced in Germany.
were so many automata either reproducing the author's pet
ideologies or representing types and tendencies. Feierberg's
hero, too,- is absorbed in the solution of a problem, but he is so
full of the author's life-blood :that he becomes as real as the
Nachman is undoubtedly the prototype of the agonized
"All our people and the people of author.
intellectual Jew, but he always remains Nachman; that is, he
the free world take pride in Israel's ac- is the persecuted, suffering, dreaming Feierberg.
complishments. In all important seg-
"He wrote 'Whither?' writhing in the agony of excruciating
ments of her national economy this pain. With bent back, eyes dim and tired, and his face as white
new state has made amazing advances." as lime, he sat for many long hours, working most diligently
This is more than an expression of and joyfully.' In the winter of 1899, he began another long story
good will for the builders of - a democratic with Israel Baal Shem as a central figure. To a friend he wrote:
commonwealth in an hitherto-forsaken `This ideal is so great and holy in my eyes that I am pained to _
area. It also proves that the friendly al- think that I may not live to realize it.' .Alas, he prophesied only
liance between the United States and too well. At the age of 25, and after three years of feverish
activity, death put an end to his sufferings and dreams."
Israel is very real and that Christians join literary
Thus, the tribute of a great scholar..to a brilliant story-teller
Jews in upholding the builders of Israel. whose
short but great novel actually represented his personal
Such friendly endorsements should sufferings. Dr. Eisenstein has translated the work with note-
serve to encourage economic investments worthy ability and Dr. Goldman has added to it a proper tribute
in Israel and support for the Israel Bond which. at the same time, is a fine critical evaluation of Feierberg
and his literary creations.
drives.

" •

Translation of Hebrew Novel:
/
M. Z. Feierberg s NW hither ?'