Hoetti's Expose
of
Eichmann's
Crimes
E
Ben-Gurion's
Anti-Zionist
Prejudices
Editorials
Page 4
Tragic Account
of Post-War
Status of
Surviving Jews
DETROIT
A Weekly Review
in Germany
of Jewish Events
Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspaper—Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle
Vol. XXXIX No. 11
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Need Not Wait for Top Powers
Golder Meir Says Israel
Is Ready to Demilitarize
(Direct JTA Teletype Wire to The Jewish News)
STOCKHOLM—Mrs. Golda Meir, Israel's Foreign
Minister, told a press conference here Monday night
that Israel is prepared to participate in a demilitariza-
tion of the Middle East area without waiting for the
major powers to act for general demilitarization.
Mrs. Meir, who is in Sweden on an official visit,
also said that Israel is engaged only in research into
the peaceful uses of atomic energy and not in weapons
research. She said that Israel is opposed in principle
to all weapons and added that Israel is prepared to
enter a peace agreement or even long term nonaggres-
sion agreements with the Arab countries.
She said Israel hopes that Algeria will emerge •
as an independent state with respect for the rights of
others, but added that Israel fears an independent
Algeria would follow the paths of "a certain other
neighbor"—presumably a reference to Morocco.
Mrs. Meir was honored with a government dinner
at which Foreign Minister Osten Unden declared that
Israel's restoration was the answer to the attempts of
the Nazis to obliterate the Jewish people from the earth.
The Swedish official said that it is "tragic" that
it had been impossible to "smooth out the conflicting
interests between Israel and the neighboring coun-
tries."
The Swedish diplomat added that it had been
possible in the past to solve still more difficult inter-
national problems and that Sweden hopes sincerely
for peace in the future between Israel and its Arab,
neighbors.
Tale of Annihilation
Reconstructed for
Eichmaituut Tribunal
(Direct JTA Teletype - Wire to The Jewish News)
JERUSALEM — A report on the Nazi destruction of the Dutch Jewish
community spelled out Wednesday for the court trying Adolf Eichmann the by-
now-familiar tale of the methodical sadism of the Nazis in • the assembly and
murder of their helpless victims in Holland. •
- The witness was Dr. Joseph Melkman, former director of the Yad Vashem,
the Israeli center for the documentation of the Nazi holocaust, who had done
research on the Dutch catastrophe.
A former teacher and former chairman of the Dutch Jewish youth move-
ment, he described two roundups of Amsterdam Jewish youth.
He testified that of 700 youth sent to the Mauthausen Camp in Austria,
only one survived. • He said the Nazis themselves spread word that no one left
Mauthausen alive, to frighten Jews into compliance with their regulations —
the ultimate aim of which was to kill as many of them as possible.
Before calling Melkman to the witness stand, Deputy Attorney • General
Gavriel Bach introduced documents dealing with the Holland debacle. One of
them was a letter from the German Foreign Ministry to Gestapo Chief Heinrich
Mueller which described the intervention of Sweden concerning 500 Dutch Jews
who were sent to Germany and 400 of whom were slaughtered in one day.
The Swedish minister asked permission to visit the German camp, kit his
request was rejected. The Foreign Ministry letter suggested that Dutch Jews
should not be sent to Germany so that Sweden — which was then protecting
Dutch interests in Germany—would have no authority to intervene.
Melkman told of a Jew named Edelstein who was sent by the Germans
from Prague to advise Dutch JeWs on how to organize a Jewish community and
how to cooperate with the German overlords. The witness said that Edelstein
(Continued on Page 32)
Germany...a land committed against
Nazism but unable to uproot Nazis
,
By PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
COLOGNE, Germany—From the moment the trial of AdOl f
Eichmann commenced in Jerusalem, armed guards were posted o n
24-hour duty at the Roonstrasse Synagogue which was rebuilt an d
re-dedicated here in 1959, in the presence of Chancellor Konrad
Adenauer of the Federal Republic of Germany, who delivered the
principal address at that ceremony.
The posting of guards was not 'done at the request of the
synagogue, but at the insistence of the Federal authorities, who are
determined to prevent any repercussions emanating from dormant
Nazi sources, as a result of the Eichmann trial.
This act in some degree demonstrates West Germany's post-wa r
attitude on the question of. Nazism in•its relation to the small number •
of remaining Jews in Germany and the country's friendly relation s
with. Israel.
But it has an even deeper relation to Germany's concern over
worldwide reactions against Germany and Germans • during the
Eichmann trial.
At the Beth Ha-Am in Jerusalem, the able German correspond
ents- virtually squirmed, upon hearing the accounts of the Nazi
atrocities. Gradually they fitted into the scheme of things in the press
room attached to the Jerusalem court room—realizing that fingers of
guilt were not directed at them, and that they were part of a serious
reportorial staff.
But there was squirming also in West Germany. Only in East
Germany was the trial being utilized as .an attack on Nazism and
Fascism, and as part of the East German campaign to continue to .
link the Adenauer government with the Nazis.
As the trial progressed, West German leaders adopted'ari
tude of realism.
"We want the truth to be known and we want questions asked," - •
a high government official told this correspondent. "We want ques-
tions asked. We are anxious that children should ask their parents
what really had happened. It should help our 'campaign of educa-
tion among the youth—to present the facts to them, to instruct
them against the policies of the Third . Reich, to atone for the crime
in which we share the guilt.
More than one prominent government official made much of
the fact that the televising of the Eichmann court scenes, that the
,reporting of evidence and the exposing of the bestialities must cause
a new sense of revulsion against the Nazis.
Yet, there is another side to the story. A prominent German-
Jewish journalist, Wilhelm Unger, member of the editorial staff of
the Kolner Staatsanzeiger, an organizer of Germania _Judaica—Der
Kolner Bibliothek .zur Beschichte der Deutschen Judentums (the
Cologne Library for the spread of knowledge about the history of
German Jewry)—related sad experiences. He told of having been at
a resort where he, together with others, watched an Eichmann TV
program. He reports that there were several derogatory comments,
that some said the charges at the trial were untrue, and others sneered
and ridiculed.
The most saddening part of Unger's report was that all of the
viewers of the Eichmann TV program walked out and he was left
alone to watch • the finish of it.
It is such an experience that causes one to wonder whether the
West - German government is meeting with any sort of success in
its genuinely sincere attempts to denazify the land.
Zvi Brosh, head of the information bureau of the Israel Mission
in Cologne, stated that, on the eve of the commencement of the
Eichmann trial, there was serious apprehension over the possible
effects of the trial upon Germans and the reactions also in Israel. He
said there was a sense of relief over "the respect for law" that
emerged. He said there was fear.over an emergence of dangers within
Israel in regard to the country's relations with Germany, and he
evinced satisfaction over the healthy attitude that is being displayed.
"The Germany of 25 years ago is not the Germany of today,"
Brosh declared. "This is especially reflected in the press, where
there is honest reporting of developments in Israel and of the
Eichmann trial."
Brosh hastened to declare that "children are not to blame for
.What happened under Hitler," that "children are trying hard to get
over;;*:_sa,d huidle _created by Nazism." He expressed confidence in
the PraZtit.areffoists of educators and churchmen to explain the guilt
inherent in the Nazi crime and to atone for it.
"German youth groups are trying to understand the historical
events, but there are small groups of Nazis who can not evade respon-
sibility for adverse actions,'.' Brosh said.
But there are many who adopt a less optimistic attitude, and
not a single German official has tried to deny that there still are
Nazis in Germany.
It becomes clear that there is no official Nazism in Germany.
Anything akin to it has become a punishable crime. But there are
Nazis, and many former Nazi gauleoter are as free as the members
of the government who are committed to a policy of uprooting
every vestige of Nazism, wherever and whenever it may raise its
ugly head.