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Commentator Analyzes Status of German Jewry
(Continued from Page 2)
CrimesWithout Punishment
MUNICH—Limbs are still numb, knees shake,
eyes are moist, the mind is unconceiving as to how'
it was possible! We just walked on the ashes of tens
of thousands! At Dachau we witnessed the entrances
to the gas chambers, the furnaces where human
beings were cremated.
The sign on the wall at Dachau read Krema-
torium!
It was not so long ago that a Catholic priest,
Father Roth, fought bitterly to have the memory of
Dachau perpetuated, to prevent its demolition, to
make certain that the recollections of the crema-
toria at this, one of the accursed spots in Germany,
are not completely wiped out. He won his battle,
but he was removed from Dachau and sent back to
Italy. It was sort of an.exile for this saintly man.
He died in Italy, and the rumor was that he was
murdered.
When the news of his death reached Dachau
there was a sign painted \-
Pater Roth
Ist Tot!
Some interpreted it as having been written in
jest. But the survivors, and the international com-
mittee that has been set up in Brussels to perpetuate
Dachau's memory will never forget him.
Dachau is next to the city of Dachau, many of
whose citizens insist they did not know what was
happening there. "They lie," is the 'accusation against
them. One of the Dachau survivors showed us- - the
long, three-mile road over which Dachau inmates
were compelled to March, from forced enslavement
in the underground munitions plant back to their
barracks, which at times housed the victims of
Hitlerism. How could 'any -one say he did not know
what was, going on behind the electrified barbed
wires when these hordes were daily marching either
to their doom or from slave labor factories, daily,
with SS guards accompanying them on their motor-
cycles? Often they carried the bodies of dead fellow-
men who were to be cremated before their ashes
were to be buried in the mass graves?
Now the memorials that have been erected
were built either by the Italians or the French or
Belgians, under the guidance of the American troops
which presently occupy the former SS quarters on
the outskirts of the Dachau camp.
One of the internationtal monuments contains
the emblems of the nations whose - nationals were
among the victims of Nazism in Dachau. Among
them is the emblem of the State of Israel. World
Jewry has reason to be grateful that there is an
Israel to share in this memorial, else only the
Magen David over the Jewish section of the mass
graves might have been the unnamed symbol of
Jewish suffering in the holocaust.
Dachau is one of the haunting symptoms of
the tragedy. It is unforgettable.,
The elders in the city of Dachau are silent.
They wish that period in history could be forgotten.
We- were told that many of the children point
accusing fingers at their elders: hoW could they
tolerate what had happened! But if that is so, then
it most probably is the' sentiment of a minority,
because their thinking depends upon the instruc-
tions they get in their schools—and the teachers who
are able properly to teach the youngsters about the
crimes of their parents still are too few!
- With the reciting. of the kaddish at Dachau
goes the hope that; as one of the signs in the
museum where the evidences of the crimes 'are
accumulated reads, what has happened may never
happen again.
The story of. Munich would be incomplete
.
without an account of its Jewish population. Only
3,000 Jews remain here, only a few hundred of
them children. It's like • the rest of German
Jewry—spiritually impoverished, the Jews them-
selves mainly concerned with seeking economic
advancement, the, parents mainly aiming at send-
ing 'their children either to Israel or to England
. for higher studies, the- youth themselves hoping
to leave the land. Else, there would not have been
the objection to serving in the Bundeswehr. They
still fear and suspect the military uniform!
A distinguished scholar, Prof. Baruch Graubart,
an expert in higher JeWish post-Biblical studies,.
who recently gaye up his professorial post at Mar-
burg University, opened his heart to this corre-
spondent:
He had hoped to help build up a Jewish life
here and he helped establish a Jewish gymnasium
for higher Jewish learning. For lack of pupils, the
Jewish college had to close its doors.
-
The German government, in its sincere desire
to help advance Jewish cultural activities, offered
all the financial help needed to establish a college.
But there is no one for whom it could function.
0
"There is no aim and no purpose in Jewish life
in Germany," Prof.. Graubart said, "and I now feel
I have wasted my 15 years here." He had survived
several concentration camps and he had hoped that
Germany might once again be a center far Jewish
culture. He feels he has lost his battle.
He believed at one time that Germany would
be, a haven of refuge for tens of thousands who
would escape -from behind the Iron Curtain and
build a new life here. But East Germany has cut
off that escape. Now the avenue of transit is
Austria and the roads for the refugees from Com-
munism—should a crack open in the Iron Curtain
—lead towards. Israel or the Western countries.
,
Prof. Graubart pointed out that the land of
hope even for Zionists was the United States. "The
hope for a new Jewish life in Germany is gone."
He is a vice president of the Landesverband
der Israelitischen Kulturgemeinden in Bayern, with
offices at Giselastrasse 12 in Munich. He is even
abandoning this post, he inforrried us. His daughter
teaches Slavic languages in a California university,
he may go to the U.S. or to Israel. He is the only
East European Jew who is a member of the Zentral-
rat. He now is a man who has abandoned hope in -
a lost cause.
they'll become bars." Not a very bright outlook!
As in many other communities, the leader-
" ship of Frankfurt includes many who have inter-
married. The children of . the president of the
community are obserVant Catholics. Other members
of the community's central committee are either
non-observant Jews or are intermarried.
This happens to be a situation that exists in
many European communities, including the freest
of them all,' in the Scandinavian countries. -
But Frankfurt was the most orthodox Jewish
city in 'the world' for many years. The extreme
rightist Agudath Israel was founded there. Frank-
furt Jewry, which traces its history to the 13th
century, once the glory of European Jewry, the
city where the House of Rothschild was founded,
now is virtually a shambles. Yet even here there
are many who have hopes for a better Jewish life
and for a continuing Jewish existence. It isn't in
the cards, but hope always springs eternally in
Jewish hearts—and if this hope 1 should materialize
it will benefit the very land whose cruel rulers of
the 1930s and 1940s all but destroyed them.
Ernest Landau, a distinguished journalist, who
settled in Munich after his liberation from Dachau
by the U.S. forces, also believes that the "fear of
the uniform" haunts. German Jews. He sees in the
elder generation of Germans people who admired
Hitler because he built the Autobahnen and
solved the problems of seven million unemployed.
The best that many of the elders say, Landau
believes, is that "Hitler unfortunately started a
war against the Jews," and therefore he lost his
battle against the world.
The bars and the brothels that are operated
by a small number of Jews on Goethestrasse in
Munich help revive a modicu'm of anti-Semitism,
Landau believes, but he shows that the turn to such
methods of earning a livelihood was in itself a
result of the struggle for existence by. the surviving
victims of Nazism.
This, too, is part of the tragedy that was im-
posed upon Jewry by Hitlerism.
Earlier this year, another Detroit reporter re-
turned from Germany with a report that the Jews,
while their numbers had declined, have "found
peace" in Germany. Landau ridiculed the idea,
commenting, "there is peace, if you mean peace with
the grave."
And so, Landau be,lieves it'll take' 300 years to
forget the tragedy: a high German official set the
time for forgetfulness at a thousand years, para-
phrasing Hitler's claim of a 1,000-year-rule.
Christians Who Resisted the Nazis
BADEN-BADEN. — During the visit here with
Karl Marx, editor of Ailgemeine Wochenblatt der
Deutschen - Juden, it was this correspondent's good
fortune to meet a distinguished Christian who came
to the aid of Jewish survivors from Nazism and who
related incidents about the resistance to Hitlerism.
Dr. Friedrich Basserman served in the German
air force during the war, but upon the defeat of the
Hitler armies -he was assigned to Bergen-Belsen,
where he was physician in the women's section of
the tens of thousands of surviving JeWs.
Dr. Basserman related how he devoted himself
to the needs of the survivors for six years. He had
last seen a Jew in 1935, and didn't see another until
be got to Belsen.
He spoke with pride of having been the first to
save a sufferer from meningitis in Germany. It was
a young Jewish child in Belsen who is about to become
Bar Mitzvah in his present home in the United States.
The Munich Jewish communal leaders are
making a serious effort to introduce cultural
activities. They are publishing a local weekly
newspaper, Munchener Judische Nachrichten.
They seek a religious response. -
Dr. Basserman also told about his meetings
with Joseph (Yossele) Rosenzaft, who was one of
the first leaders of the liberated Jews, himself
having escaped the death from several concentration
• camps. Dr. Basserman, on one of his meetings with
Rosenzaft, noticed a wound on his forehead, the
result of a Nazi rifle shot. He ordered him at once
to the clinic where an emergency operation was
performed and Rosenzaft's life was saved: the
wound had developed into skin cancer.
There is a home for the aged: that's a necessity
in every one of the 95 Jewish communities in Ger-
many. The totality of effort for the establishment
of a wholesame Jewish life is greater than the
totality of response. •
JTA Correspondent Serves Us Well
FRANKFURT-AM-MAIN, Germany. — The Jew-
ish Telegraphic Agency serves us well through one
of its ablest correspondents, Dr. Leonore Sterling.
A Columbia University graduate, Dr. Sterling was
studying in the *U. S. when her parents and the rest
of the family perished at the hands of the Nazis. Only
a brother, who is in England, and an aunt survive.
She returned to study under the eminent JeWish
philosopher, Prof: Max Horkheimer, who also re-
turned to Germany in the hope of re-establishing a
stronger Jewish life here. Apparently both are a bit
disillusioned.
Dr. Sterling, during her - studies with Prof. Hork-
heimer, at the Frankfurt University — where she now
also is instructor in several courses — wrote a widely
acclaimed book on anti-Semitism and its historical
and social aspects.
Her aunt, Rosita 'Oppenheimer, lives at Landhaus
Str. 21r Heidelberg, and is in charge, on a volunteer
basis, of an old folks home that is operated in former
SS headquarters. Dr. Sterling speaks affectionately
about her aunt, the manner in which she was rescued
from'the NaziS and how she herself saved others. She
also speaks with pride of being a descendant of the
famous "Jud Suss" Count Oppenheimer family. Dr.
Sterling's maiden name is Oppenheimer.
Formerly a community of more than 30,000 Jews,
Frankfurt now has a Jewish population of 1,500. Dr.
Sterling stated that a recent poll taken among Jewish
youth showed effects of resentments against the Nazis,
distrust of Germans, a desire to emigrate to Israel or
some other 'democratic country. She felt that there are
too many apologies for former Nazis and, she referred
to the defense of Globke as an "alibi."
While there still is a deep interest in the Eich-
mann case, Dr. Sterling , feels that there • remains
a fear of the possible incrimination of many former
Nazis who are now at large.
,The Jewish children, she believes. are "dis-
turbed", and while she is convinced that serious
efforts are being made in the schools to educate the
youth about the atrocities of the past, the process is
a slow one and depends .entirely upon the' teachers,
some of whom still retain the Nazi-indoctrinated 'at-
titudes-.
In the city of Dachau there -is a Jewish family
-- the Nikolaus Lehners — who survived concentra-
tion camps and settled near the site where they were
liberated. They are in the lumber -business, have an
infant daughter and a son of 11 who is studying at
Pardess Hanah in Israel. They felt it necessary to
send him to Israel to acquire JeWish knowledge and
get Jewishly orientated.
There is one other Jew in Dachau — also a
survivor who is married to a Christian and who' is
under suspicion that he may have been a collaborator
with the Nazis. He is not counted in the community.
This is part of the story of Munich and nearby
Dachau. As Prof. Graubart said, "If we are lucky our
synagogues will become museums, if we are unlucky
Dr. Basserman told the story of a Dr. Kurtz (he
could not recall his first name), who was an SS doctor
and who now is practicing medicine in Hanover. He
said that" Dr. Kurtz was ordered to serve poisoned
bread to 20,000 Jews in Bergen-Belsen, as a mean's' of
exterminating them, but refused to obey the order.
He risked his life and would have been executed', but
the British had just then occupied the area. Seeing
him in an SS uniform, they arrested him, and then the
Jews in the camp came to his aid and secured his
release.
(This story was corroborated in Berlin by Heinz
Galinski, chairman of the Berlin Jewish community).
Dr. Basserman also told of having assisted in
giving medical assistance to Jews from concentration
camps • who participated in Operation Exodus. There
were 4,500 Jews on the four ships who were turned
back from Palestine's shores in 1947 and who were
detained by the British by force at Luebeck, after 'the
Jewish escapees had refused to be returned to Ger-.
many. Dr. Basserman said that he had never seen a
concentration camp until Belsen, but in LuebeCk
the crowded condition of Jews who were forced into
a British-made camp in Luebeck was equally tragic.
Asked how he explained that more Germans did
not resist the Nazi orders, Dr. Basserman said that the
indoctrination of the youth, the fact that for every
army general who opposed Hitler there was a Gestapo
man who was ready to ,shoot the general who resisted,
and other factors made it impossible for Germans to
oppose their "leader." He expressed confidence that
the training of youth in Germany along democratic
lines will serve' to offset the Nazi dangers, and he
said he hoped that Christians will learn to know Jews
in the new Germany, so that there will always be
harmony among them.
--
.
To editor Marx we are indebted for another
interesting story about an eminent German. It is the
. story of Axel Springer, Germany's wealthiest pub-
lisher, who issues several papers include Die Welt,
who undertook to impress his son about the horrors,
of Nazisin. •
Springer, who, at the age of 21, during the Nazi
regime ; clandestinely published Stefan Zweig's works,
took his young son to Belsen on April 13, 1959, two
days before the 'official observance of Belse,n's libera-
tion, gave him a spade and asked him to dig — ex-
plaining that he will give his reasons afterward. When
his son had dug 30 centimeters, he asked him to -put
his hand into the hole he had dug, and when the boy
turned pale, having touched a human skull, his father
told' him: •
"I want you to remember. Years later, if anyone
should deny to you that there ever were Nazi atroci-
ties, I want you to be able to testify about your present
experience, and to proclaim to the world your protest
against Hitler crimes."
These are exceptional cases — but they exist.
Many of the survivors have come to the aid of Ger-
mans who had resisted.