THE JEWISH NEWS

Father Time the Recorder

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

Member American Association of English—Jewish Newspaper, Michigan Press Association, National Edi-
torial 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 Office, Detroit, Mich. under act of Congress of March
8, 1879.

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Editor and Publisher

SIDNEY SHMARAK CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ HARVEY ZUCKERBERG

Advertising Manager

Business Manager

City Editor

Sabbath Scriptural Selections

This Sabbath, the twenty-seventh clay of Iyar, 5721, the following Scriptural selections will
be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal partisan, Behar-Behukotai, Lev. 25:1-27:34. Prophetical portion, Jeremiah
16:19-17:14.

Licht Benshen, Friday, May 12, 7:24 p.m.

VOL. XXXIX. No. 11

Page Four

May 12, 1961

Hoettrs Expose of Eichmann's Crimes

The offer that was made last week,
in Vienna, by the former SS Major Wil-
helm Hoettl "to tell the truth about
Eichmann" draws attention to important
testimony already given by Hoettl against
Eichmann at the Nuremberg trial.
Hoettl, who was in charge of Nazi
espionage in Hungary, is now a high
school administrator in Alt Aussee, in
the province of Styria. In his offer to
appear as a witness in the Eichmann
case, he said he was ready to testify
before an Austrian court or go to Jeru-
salem, if granted safe conduct by Israel,
that he would not be talking for prosecu-
tion or defense.
It was on. Nov. 26, 1945, that Hoettl
offered testimony about Eichmann. His
statement, as recorded in Volume XXXI
of the _Nuremberg records, reads:
"At the end of August 1944 I had a
conversation with SS. Lt. Col. Adolf
Eichmann whom I had known since
1938. The conversation took place in
my apartment in Budapest. To my
knowledge Eichmann was at that time
chief of a department in B 4 (Gestapo)
of the Reich Security main office; and,
in addition, commissioned by Himmler
to collect the Jews in all countries and
transport them to Germany. He ex-
pressed his conviction that the war was
now already lost by Germany and, as
far as he was concerned, he had no
further chance. He knew that the
United Nations would consider him a
principal war criminal because he had
millions of Jewish lives upon his con-
science. I asked him how many there
were and he replied that the figure was
a national secret but that he would re-
veal it to me since, as an historian, I
would be interested and he in all like-
lihood would not return from his mis-
sion to Romania. He said that a short
time earlier he had prepared a report
for Himmler who wanted to know the
exact number of Jews killed. (Eich-
mann had to come to the following

conclusion: Some four million Jews had
been killed in the various extermina-
tion camps, and an additional two mil-
lion Jews died in different ways, the
majority of them being slaughtered by
the Special Details (Einsatz Kom-
mandos) of the Security Police during
the campaign against Russia.)
"Himmler had not been satisfied
with that report. In his opinion the
number of Jews killed was larger than
six million. Himmler declared that he
would send a man from his statistical
office to Eichmann in order to prepare
a new report on the basis of Eichmann's
material to determine the exact num-
ber.
"I assume that Eichmann's informa-
tion was correct since he, of all people,
probably had the best overview of the
number of murdered Jews. First, he
`delivered' the Jews — through his
Special Kommandos — to the extermin-
ation institutions and, therefore, knew
the ,exact figure. Second, as depart-
ment chief of Bureau IV of the Reich
Security main office where he was in
charge of 'Jewish affairs', he best knew
the number of Jews who died in other
ways. At the time we spoke,
was in such a state that 'he had no
intention of telling me anything but the
truth.
"I recall the details of this conver-
sation exactly because it understand-
ingly disturbed me. I had made de-
tailed statements about it, even before
the defeat of Germany, to an American
agency in a neutral country with which
I had been in touch at that time.
"I swear that I have made the fore-
going statements voluntarily and with-
out coercion and that to the best of my
knowledge and conscience they are
true . . ."
The record is full proof of Eichmann's
guilt. It is the presenting of it for com-
plete public knowledge and for the total
indictment of anti-Semitism that the trial
itself retains its significance.

Ben-Gurion s Stubborn Anti-Zionist Prejudices

David Ben-Gurion, who again is fight-
ing for Israel's government control at the
approaching election in his country, was
among the most distinguished world Zion-
ist leaders and was the head of his own
party, the Labor Zionists. As such, he
propagated the Zionist cause. But for
unfortunate reasons he has become the
antagonist of the Zionists. He wants the
very name of the movement abandoned
and he speaks about the Zionist Organi-
zation "living with a lie."
Disagreeing with Ben-Gurion's advo-
cacy of the adoption of the name "Jewish
Organization" by the Zionist movement,
the new chairman of the Jewish Agency
executive, former Israeli Prime Minister

Moshe Sharett, echoed a sentiment that
must be in the hearts of all Zionists and
most Jews when he expressed surprise
that Ben-Gurion, "a man of such creative
powers, is wasting his time and strength
on such a barren word battle."
One can go much . farther. Ben-Gurion's
prejudices are harmful to Jewish unity
and to an appreciation of the great values
of Zionism which has so much to do to
inspire the youth and to creat amity
between Jewry and Israel. Ben-Gurion's
regrettable utterances confuse and hinder
rather than help and inspire, and one
must hope that the great leader will soon
recognize the error of his ways and will
devote . himself to constructive efforts
rather than to pilulistic word battles.

The Late Dr . Granados

The death of Dr. Jorge Garcia Grana-
dos, Guatemalan statesman, revives mem-
ories of gratitude about a distinguished
diplomat who was one of Israel's staunch-
est supporters at the United Nations.
As his government's delegate at the
UN, he firmly supported the Palestine
partition plan. He was among the handful
of most consistent advocates of Jewish
Statehood, and it was in large measure
due to his efforts that the opponents of
the partition plan failed to stymie the

UN plan. He was undeterred by Arab
propaganda and his idealism inspired
others to be firm in their support of Pales-
tine's partition into Jewish and Arab
states. Only Arab intransigence, against
which Dr. Granados pleaded throughout
his career, stood in the way of amity, as
it does to this day.
Dr. Granados died in Chile while on
a diplomatic mission for his government.
Guatemala loses a distinguished leader
and Israel and Jewry mourn the passing
of a loyal friend.

A Story With 'So Much Fun'

Gertrude Berg's 'Molly and Me'

Gertrude Berg, in her memoirs, "Molly and Me," published
by McGraw Hill Book Co., Inc. (330 W. 42nd, N. Y. 36), appro-
priately begins her life's story with her father's father, Morde-
cai Edelstein.
"I start with Grandpa for two reasons: because he would
have liked it and because he was the first one of us all to come
to America," Mrs. Berg (Molly), explains.
Thereby, she is able to begin with the
East Side, with a landsman who went to work
for Ford in Detroit, with the life of immi-
grants two generations ago.
Then comes the story of Jake, her father,
Mordecai's son who "was more than just a
chip—he was the whole block."
Possessing the ability to select the wheat
from the chaff, the humorous from the droll,
Mrs. Berg has made this a most human docu-
ment. She tells about parents and grandpar-
ents, about the holidays ("Passover meant
new clothes"), about the observance of the
Sabbath in her childhood days, the Sedorim
and other experiences.
Mrs. Berg
Everything that is relevant to human reactions is part of
these memoirs—whether it is the dumbwaiter and the laundress
or restaurants, vacations, the summer resorts, etc.
Of course, she also talks about food, and she describes her
father's attitude towards restaurants. Thus: -
"My father's theory was that it didn't make . any differ-
ence what you cooked, it was what you called it that mattered.
- Corned beef could be served with cabbage and that made it
a traditional dish for the Irish. With gravy it was sauerbraten
for the Germans. Without cabbage and between two pieces of
rye bread it could be, Jewish or a plain American sandwich.
Consomme is just chicken soup, but with noodles, my father
would say, it was a Jewish lunch. Without noodles it was
fancy and for supper."
And so the reader is taken to "The Country," to Fleisch-
manns, to summer hotel life, the- bellboys, the waiters and the
cooks. The food and the guests play their roles—but mostly the
food. Philosophy, too, has its place.
Of course, there is a tale about an occasional romance, about
boy-girl affairs.
All of which leads up to "the gentleman caller"—to Lewis
Berg who becomes Molly Edelstein's htisband.
Now the reader is taken to The Studio, to the life of
the Bergs, and here he is given an account of the birth of
The Goldbergs. Molly wanted to do something in the way of
writing and acting. Lew always told her it was wonderful.
Her father was satisfied with her' lovely family and said she
was "looking for bubbles and rainbows and trouble." But
she "went looking."
Here she reproduces the texts of the first scripts prepared
for The Goldbergs. She went to see Mr. Schwartz at radio
station WMCA. He liked her script.
Times have changed from the day she wrote an Effie and
Laura dialogue for WMCA. In the course of a short time "The
Rise of the Goldbergs" became a great hit, a show about
"ordinary people." Mrs. Berg reports: .
"Letters came from all over the country, and, contrary
to everyone's belief, the majority of the mail didn't come
from the Jewish population. 'The Goldbergs' cut across re-
ligious divisions."
Then came Broadway, and among her successes "A Major-
ity of One," to which she devotes a chapter, describing its
triumph.
- - "From 'Majority of One'," she writes, I am going to a tele-
vision series called 'The Freshman,' about a widowed grand-
mother who goes to college and studies under a kindly middle-
aged professor with . impeccable manners. You guessed it—Sir
Cedric Hardwicke. I wanted to call the series 'Hello, Mr. Chips,'
but no one would listen to .me. After that? Your guess is as
good as mine. It could be off Broadway in somebody's experi-
ment—it could be on Broadway in somebody's sure thing.
Vaudeville might even come back. Who knows? I don't. That's
what makes it so much fun."
That's the story of "Molly and Me"—of Gertrude Berg"—
and it is, indeed, full of fun.

