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August 21, 1959 - Image 4

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1959-08-21

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Let's Stop It In Time

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 Offic,, Detroit, Mich. under act of Congress of March
b. 187:

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editk r and Publisher

SIDNEY SHMARAK

CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ

Advertising Manager

Circulation Manager

FRANK SIMONS

City Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the eighteenth day of Ab, 5719, the fot/lowing Scriptural selections will be
read. in our synagogues:
Pentateuch.al portion. Eken, Deut. 7:12-11:25. Prophetical portion, Is. 49:14-51:3.

Licht Benshen, Friday, Aug. 21, 7:07 p.m.

VOL. XXXV. No. 25

Page Four

August 21, 1959

`Most Heinous of Race Haters Propaganda

Arnold Forster, national executive
director of the Bnai Brith Anti-Defama-
tion League, makes the point, in an
analysis of "the most heinous" of all ap-
proaches in the current propaganda line
of the race haters, the organized effort to
condemn the memory of the six million
Jewish martyrs who lost their lives as
victims of Nazism.
The new pro-Nazi approach of the
American bigots is to belittle the facts
about the mass Hitler murders and to
claim that only a handful of Jews were
exterminated. Forster exposes the Nazi
lie of American bigots by pointing to the
following facts:

—The Nazis themselves generally kept good
records. Adolf Eichmann, one of those in charge
of the Nazi program of exterminating Jews,
was quoted as saying, on the basis of all his
knowledge and statistics, that four million
Jews had been -killed in concentration camps.
another two million killed by Einsatz, Nazi task
force units.
—Allied demographers and other popula-
tion experts independently came to the six
million figure as a result of study of statistics.
—Historian Arnold Toynbee reviewed Nazi
records and concluded: "By the time that the
Allied armies had gained control of the whole
of Europe, approximately six million Jews had
perished."
—And through the years, all authoritative
studies and documentation produced the same
figure six million Jewish dead.
The figure is so huge that it eludes the
imagination and, in its enormity, loses meaning.
In the Kishinev Massacre of 1903, 4'7 Jews
were killed. You can think of 47 people as
individual men, women and children. You can
read the words of just one of the six million
killed by the Nazis—an Anne Frank or Eman-
uel Ringelblum—and fathom the depths of indi-
vidual tragedy. Or you can think of family or
friends who died under Hitler. But the figure
—six million—is a nameless, faceless abstrac-
tion. It is so large that it appears incredible.
It is this fact that the bigots are trying to
exploit in making their insanely cruel charge—
the denial that the six million ever existed.
How, in the face of all historical fact, can
the bigots use this as a persistent propaganda
slogan? Look at the reasoning of professional
anti-Semite James Madole, writing in his "Na-
tional Renaissance Bulletin":
"Although the World Almanac attests to
the fact that fewer than 600,000 Jews ever lived
in Germany, the Jews persisted in their mon-
strous lie that Nazi Germany had cremated
six million of their co-racials . . . Many Jews
allegedly roasted by Hitler are now turning
their talents to butchering Arab women and
children in the Gaza strip."
Madole has the facts right about the Jewish
population of Germany. But the overwhelming
number of Jews killed under the Nazis were
not German Jews. Madole completely overlooks



the fact that, under the Nazis, 2,800,000 or
85% of Poland's 3,300,000 Jews were killed;
that 1,500,000 or 71% of the 2,100,000 Jews in
occupied portions of Russia were killed; that
425,000 or 50% of Rumania's 850,000 Jews were
killed; that 260,000 or 82.5% of Czechoslovakia's
315,000 Jews were killed. To say nothing of
Jews killed in Hungary, Lithuania, Holland,
France, Latvia, and Germany itself. These fig-
ures, too, are available in various editions of
the World Almanac.

But the historic facts play a small or
very insignificant role in the minds of
the haters. They have not learned the les-
sons of history, that bigotry is unprofit-
able, aside from being immoral, and they
pursue the Hitler game even after the
defeat of Hitlerism.
Forster sums up his analysis by indi-
cating the following attempts to under-
mine the truth and to make the surviving
Jews the victims of a new lie by advancing
the claim that only a handful of Jews lost
their lives under Hitler:

It's a long time since 1945, when the facts
about the six million were first exposed to the
world, when Allied leaders first visited the
Nazi camps and saw the evidence of mass death
at first hand. The horror has worn off, to be
replaced with wonder—in some cases disbelief
—that it ever realty happened. And people
forget.
Austin J. App, a pro-Nazi apologist who
once demanded that President Eisenhower be
hanged as a war criminal, writes a letter from
Philadelphia, to the Catholic "Brooklyn Tablet"
offering specious "proof" that the figure of
six million is "a bloated libel."
The editor of a Detroit newspaper receives
a batch of hate literature, including a mimeo-
graphed piece from the Boniface Press, App's
Philadelphia outlet, which also talks about "the
libel of six million."
In a Southern city, another newspaper edi-
tor gets a batch of mail from Einar Aberg, a
source of embarrassment to the government of
Sweden and frequent visitor to its jails.
A letter to the editor appears in the June
14, 1959 issue of the big-circulation Catholic
weekly, "Our Sunday Visitor." It comments on
a column in a previous issue which had criti-
cized V. S. Pritchett for mentioning, in Holiday
Magazine, that six million Jews had been killed
by the Nazis. The column said that "the rehash-
ing of such bitter memories would hardly help
an American enjoy his holiday in Germany."
The letter writer apparently endorses this view.
It is becoming increasingly clear

Ideological Jewish Problems
Reviewed in 400-Page Forum

A complete record of the papers presented at the historic
Ideological Conference, which was convened at the Hebrew
University in Jerusalem in August of 1957, by the World Zionist
Organization Executive, has been incorporated in an impressive
400-page volume, "Forum for the Problems of Zionism, Jewry
and the State of Israel," published by the World Zionist Organi-
zation. It is available from the Jewish Agency, 16 E. 66th St.,
New York 21.
Leading world scholars participated in discussions of Israel
in relation to the Diaspora, "Judaism and Jewry in the Clash of
World Forces," Diaspora's struggle for survival and the obliga-
tions of individual Jews.
There were no limitations in the discussions. Language
and religious problems . received as much attention as political
issues. Dangers that stem from assimilation and the charges
of dual loyalty were reviewed by the participants.
This forum therefore assumes great significance, especially
in view of the more recent debates over the question of who
is a Jew and the conflicts involved in establishing Jewish rela-
tionships.
Participants included Israel's principal leaders—Prime Min-
ister David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, former Premier Moshe
Sharett, Zalman Shazar and many others.
Dr. Nahum Goldmann, Prof. Abraham J. Heschel, Dr. Mor-
decai M. Kaplan, Jacob Pat, Dr. Robert Gordis, Dr. Israel Gold-
stein, and Prof. Martin Buber are among the more than three
score prominent leaders whose addresses are part of this
Forum.
The struggles between East and West are among the
topics that were discussed. The status of Zionism and Israel's
Mission were debated issues.
Every sphere of. Jewish thought was represented. The par-
ticipants debated whether Jews were a people or a faith, and
attention was given to the status of Jews throughout the world.
This impressive Forum is the most thorough contribution
available to the discussions now in progress relative to Jewry's
position in the world, on issues affecting Zionism and matters
involving Israel.

that the battle against Nazism goes on,
that the struggle to preserve the truth
persists and that much remains to be
done to keep alive the memory of the
six million martyrs.
What a tragic commentary this is on
A hearty vote of thanks is due from American Jewry to
the evils which still poison the minds the United
Synagogue Commission on Jewish Education for its
of men even in the twentieth century. splendid series
of holiday books for very young children.

Series of Holiday Stories
Enhances Child's Bookshelf

Nasser s Boasts—for Home Consumption

For home consumption, Gamal Abdel
Nasser, president of the United Arab Re-
public, continues endlessly to boast, to
claim victories and to threaten. When-
ever there is a national Egyptian gather-
ing, he resorts to attacks on Israel and
threatens its destruction.
The Israelis pay little, if any, attention
to him. They know that his mouthings
are intended to lull his own people into
a deep sleep, in which they won't be
thinking about their manifold domestic
problems and their immediate needs.
If there are thinking people in Egypt
who see through the bragging of Nasser—
in his claims that he had defeated Israel,
France and England in 1956—they are un-
doubtedly wondering how a "statesman"
can possibly speak in terms of "extermi-
nating Israel." Both Egypt and Israel are
full-fledged members of the United Na-

tions, yet the spokesman for one of them
avers that he desires to destroy the other.
That is hardly complimentary to the UN.
Also, Nasser maintains that "all the
Arabs want a decisive battle." Even Soviet
Russia, in its war on the West, doesn't
dare say that. Yet, the Arab leader, defy-
ing all decency inherent in the UN prin-
ciples, speaks of warfare as if it were a
human aspiration.
How is this possible within the frame-
work of a free world? The answer is that
warmongers, while acquiring a seat among
the nations of the world, have managed
to live with disrespect of the high ideals of
their fellow members in the international
arena; and the desire to lull their own
people into a sleep of false security has
enabled them to utilize any kind of propa-
ganda, regardless of its double standards,
for home consumption.

In attractive format, 5 1/2 inches wide by 9 1/2 inches deep,
beautifully illustrated, this series will provide the material
that is so urgently sought by parents in homes and teachers in
classes for youngsters who are to be taught the meaning and
the joy of our festivals.
Written by Norma Simon, illustrated by Ayala Gordon,
these stories are told in simple language, and contain the basie
facts about the festivals.
"Rosh Hashanah," "Yom Kippur," "Our First Sukkah,*
"Happy Purim Night" and "The Purim Party" are the first
books in the series.
Their value is in the splendidly written verses, in the pic-
holidays,
tures which show the ceremonies and symbols of the
in the narrations which make each holiday story a full running
account of a celebration of the festival or the fast day.
The blowing of the Shofar, the lighting of the candles, the
synagogue activities, the tallis, the building of the sukkah and
the celebration within it, the Purim observance in the home,
the masquerade on Purim, the party that makes Purim a joyous
out
event these and many other factors make the stories stand
of the
as noteworthy contributions towards the preparation
Jewish child for Jewish observances.
This highly commendable set of books—which undoubtedly
will be implemented with works about the other Jewish fes-
tivals is a real contribution to the Jewish children's bookshelf
and to study books for our youngsters.





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