THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating the Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20, 1951
Member American Association of English—Jewish Newspapers, Michigan Press Associations, National
,Editorial Association
Published every Friday by The Jewish Nees Publishing Co., 17100 West Seven Mile Road, Detroit 35,
Mich., VE 8-9364. Subscription $6 a year. Foreign $7.
Second Class Postage Paid At Detroit, Michigan
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
SIDNEY SHMARAK CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ HARVEY ZUCKERBERG
Business Manager
Advertising Manager
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the fourth day of Kislev, the following Scriptural selections will be read in our
synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Toledot, Gen. 25:19-28:9. Prophetical portion, Malachi 1:1-2:7.
Licht Benshen, Friday, Nov. 30, 4:44 p.m.
Vol. XLII No. 14
Page Four
November 30, 1962
Is it Too Late to Punish Nazis?
Since Nuremberg, the most important
trials of Nazi criminals has its setting in
Coblencz, West Germany. Notorious Nazi
murderers were placed on trial, charged
with wholesale murders of Jews, gypsies,
East Europeans and others during the
Nazi invasion of Russia in the last war.
While there have been some new con-
victions in the newest mass trial, it is
becoming evident that former Nazis are
escaping punishment and that there are
newly - developing situations which are
leading towards forgetfulness and Ger-
man forgiveness, towards a new attitude
of it being too late to gather data against
the arch-criminals.
In a report from Bonn, the Christian
Science Monitor correspondent, J. Emlyn
Williams, offered the following expose of
the newly-emerging German sentiments:
man also added that he had no doubt public
opinion would be disturbed by the liberation
of a man guilty of so many crimes.
The fact that the Coblencz trial is
being held at all is a clear indication that
there are West German officials who are
anxious to bring the criminals to justice.
But that does not obviate the fact that
there is a tendency towards* leniency, that
there is a desire to forget.
Again, we must turn to Williams' re-
port to the Christian Science Monitor for
an explanation of the reasons for the de-
lay in meting out justice:
"The accused deserved the heaviest pun-
ishment, but unfortunately . . ."
To judge from recent verdicts, this is
likely to be the outcome of the spate of
trials of former Nazis, now pending in this
country. More and more people called as
Witnesses will be tempted to declare that
they cannot recall accurately what the ac-
cused actually did on particular occasions
during World War II, especially on the
Soviet front.
In two recent cases, the verdict produced
much consternation from the Germans them-
selves. One was the trial of Prof. Kurt Leib-
brand, a well-known traffic expert, and at
present professor at the Technical High
School in Zurich. He was charged with hav-
ing given orders in 1944 for the shooting
of 22 Italian workers attached to the rail-
road regiment of which he was then a young
first lieutenant, and stationed at Avignon
in the South of France.
This case lasted four weeks. Eighty wit-
nesses from home and abroad appeared be-
fore the Stuttgart court. In the end, the
chairman declared that Professor Leibbrand
must be found innocent of the particular
charge brought against him, although there
remained a number of suspicious incidents
which had not been cleared up.
The chairman also mentioned the diffi-
culty of reconstructing events and situations
which had taken place 18 years ago, and
that this shooting had happened during the
chaos when the Gilman Army was with-
drawing before the oncoming Allies.
The other case concerned Willi Dusen-
schoen, former conunandant of the Hamburg-
Fuhlspiettel concentration camp. He was
accused of having persecuted one Jewish
inmate to such an extent that the latter
committed suicide.
As in the previous case, the public prose-
cutor had demanded a sentence of life im-
prisonment. The victim of this alleged torture
was Dr. Fritz Solmitz, assistant editor of an
anti-Nazi newspaper published in Liebeck.
The many witnesses called by the defense
included a former conunandant of the Fuhls-
buettel camp and a number of SS (Black
Shirt) guards.
The chairman of the Hamburg court
stated that the accused had to be set free
because of a lack of concrete evidence though
there was no doubt about Herr Dusenschoen's
complicity in the maltreatment of the in-
mates of the concentration camp. The chair-
What has surprised many Germans, even
though they knew of the abnormal conditions
existing after 1945, has been the fact that
so many former high Nazi officials could
have entered responsible positions in post-
war German business and politics without
fuller inquiry as to their past.
Much responsibility for the present situ-
ation, according to some critics, should be
placed upon the Ministers of Justice of the
Laender (states) who took until December,
1958, to organize the Ludwigsburg center
for the investigation of Nazi crimes. It has
also been maintained that the Allies them-
selves could have done much more to help
in this matter by earlier presentation of
documentary evidence.
This applies particularly to the East Ger-
man authorities who secured so much of the
evidence in the archives, either in their own
cities or in Berlin, which were taken away
by the Soviets before the Western armies
had entered the former capital.
• In this connection, it is noted that the
East German Conununist authorities only
supply copies of documents to the West,
and only when for political reasons they
wish to implicate certain prominent poli-
tical persons here in West Germany.
A full and open presentation of the doc-
uments in Communist hands would not only
help to clear un cases on this side of the
Iron Curtain but would also provide proofs
of complicity in Nazi crimes of many per-
sons still holding high positions in East
Germany.
For a period of nearly ten years, Leib Spizman, a nationally
prominent labor Zionist, has been working on a history of the
Halutz movement and on material related to halutziut in Eastern
Europe.
With the aid of the Conference on Jewish Material Claims
Against Germany, and a grant from its Cultural and Educational
Reconstruction Fund, Spizman has published a series of books
entitled "Halutzim - in Poil — An Anthology of the Hehalutz
Movement." The third volume in this series has just made its
appearance and in it Spizman continues his research and in-
corporates the collected material on the Polish halutzim.
The great value of the new volume lies in the material
pointing to the heroes of the resistance against Nazism, and
to the heroic deeds of the members of the Jewish Brigade
in the last war, the aid that was brought to the anti-Nazi
forces by Jewish parachutists and the extent of the refugees'
flight out of areas of despair on the road towards Zion.
Many historic incidents are recorded here in the form of
documents that have been found and translated for insertion in
Spizman anthology.
Students of the problems that arose during the last war,
those who seek explanations for the minimal resistance, will
find many answers in this volume. Lack of ammunition, inability
to live in the forests with the antagonistic peasants, the horrors
imposed upon the Jews who might have resisted by anti-Semites,
the lack of communication with various ghetto groups, indif-
ference towards the plight of the Jews on the part of non-JeWish
partisans—these and many other causes are ascribable to the
reactions against the Nazis.
Nevertheless, there was resistance, and many of the heroes,
While the Communist-oriented East a number of the heroic communities, the events that led to
German officials constantly charge West actions resulting from despair, are recorded here.
Germans with harboring former Nazis,
Spizman makes an interesting point of the fact that non-
they, too, not only are guilty of such a Jews who had excellent opportunities to resist the Nazis
shocking practice in enlisting f or m e r yielded to so-called "pacification action." There was no col-
Nazis as their officials, but they have lective action, and the example to the Jews was a tragic one.
been uncooperative in providing evidence Enslavement was accepted only too readily. Yet, authoritative
sources state, Jews did resist and often went to their death
needed in West German courts.
fighting empty-handed.
That is how the holocaust of only 17
In Lida, Nowogrodek, Zholudek and other communities, Jews
years ago is being shrouded in mystery. fought
courageously. Jews in Lodz, Lublin, Baranowici and other
Is it any wonder that Israel was so communities
went to the fo -rests, there to fight against the
determined to try Eichmann, knowing, invading murderous
forces. Actual incidents are recorded, names
as the Israelis did, how difficult it would of heroes and heroines are listed, and the honor of Jews who
have been to bring Hitler's most cruel were doomed to death by the Nazis is in great measure redeemed
henchmen to justice in any other land? by the accounts collected for the Spizman volume.
Short stories, poems, a variety of reports are among the
Perhaps the revelations that come
from Coblencz, at the hands of able Amer- accumulated documents in this book.
While this volume is, in a sense, a sort of lamentation,. it
ican correspondents, will serve to elimi-
nate the spreading attempts to hush up is also a paean of glory.
The fight for a free Israel, the work of the halutzim in
the past and to absolve many of the Nazi
criminals of the crimes for which they Israel, the activities of the Jewish Brigade in aiding the refugees
should, for the sake of warnings to future —these and many more records create a valuable historical
for the study not only of the halutz movement and its
generations, receive the • severe punish- background
activities but also of the heroism in a new era of Jewish self-
ments that are due them.
respect that led to . the ennoblement of Jewish dignity.
The pity is that this record appears in Yiddish, at a time
when the facts must also be made known for English readers.
During the Eichmann trial the question of the extent of Jewish
was raised. The facts in Spizman's volume, while
Christian students' lack of knowledge resistance
might not have lent themselves as evidence in the Jerusa-
about Jews but the Jewish students' lack they
lem trial, must become part of a permanent record made
of knowledge about themselves. The available for future generations.
Christian cannot be expected to know
The lists of cities and individualS who figure in the resistance,
anything about Jews unless he learns it listed
in this volume, will serve as a guide for many stemming
from his Jewish friend and neighbor. from the affected communities. Some will be guided towards
First, that Jewish friend and neighbor the activities of relatives and friends.
must be knowledgable of his people.
Leib Spizman, who can be reached at 200 Brighton 15th St.,
That's the problem. Let's study the Brooklyn 35, N.Y., and the publishers of the volume, the Research
roots of it. Any other survey becomes Institute of the Labor Zionist Movement, 515 Park Ave., New
useless without an understanding of the York, can be contacted for copies of the latest 485-page volume
"Halutzim in Poil."
internal shortcomings.
Ignorance of Judaism—Christian and Jewish
. A social science professor, addressing
the convention of the National Federa-
tion of Jewish Brotherhoods, in Balti-
more, presented figures he had gathered
in a survey conducted among college stu-
dents to show that Christian students
are ignorant of Judaism.
His concern is interesting and under-
standable. It is deplorable when a large
section of the population is uninformed
about any other group in its midst.
But the cause for concern is not the
Jewish Resistance Activities
Revealed in Spizman Volume