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, Mich. 48235.
VE 8-9364. Subscription $6 a year. Foreign $7.
Second Class Postage Paid at Detroit, Michigan •
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ . CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
SIDNEY SHMARAK
Business Manager
Advertising Manager
CHARLOTTE HYAMS
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the twentieth day of Av, 5726, the following scriptural selections will
be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Deut. 7:12-11:25; Prophetical portion, Isaiah 49:14-51:3.
Licht Benshen, Friday, Aug. 5. 7:28 p.m.
VOL.
XLIX—No. 24
Page 4
August 5, 1966
Anti-Semites Play the Nazi Game
It is one of the tragedies of our time that
as an aftermath of the holocaust, so soon after
the terrible tragedies that were inflicted upon
Jewry and upon mankind by German mad-
men, there are attempts to whitewash the
criminals and to denigrate the tragedy into a
farce.
Once again, without interruption, there is
an organized campaign to deny that the Six
Million were martyred by Hitler. There seems
to be a centrally-functioning movement from
which stem ridicule of Jews who have sur-
vived the Nazi crimes and accusations that
Jews are spreading a lie about six million
dead. Would that the figures really were
exaggerated, but the mere fact that it is
necessary to prove that Jews were the vic-
tims of a German onslaught is a mark of
horror for our time!
The charge that the Six Million represent
a lie has been injected in all forms of propa-
ganda. Columnists who were caught off guard
fell for the anti-Semitic libels and have pub-
lished accusations leveled at all Jews in
relation to millions of victims under Nazism.
There isn't a history of the last war,
there is hardly a newspaper article or a
magazine feature, in any language, including
the German, that doesn't confirm the tragic
figure of Six Million. The Nuremberg Trial
confirms it.
What needs to be reiterated, however, in
view of the spread of renewed anti-Semitic
libels, is the truth of the horrors that were
found by responsible observers, in the death
camps, after the last war.
In April of 1945, towards the end of the
war, General Dwight D. Eisenhower invited
18 prominent American editors, including
one Detroiter, to tour the German prison
camps. These editors and publishers issued
a statement urging the United States to
adopt a strong policy on war criminals and
to empower the War Crimes Commission
"speedily" to put their proposals into effect.
On May 5, 1945, while this group of news-
paper and magazine editors and publishers
still was in Europe, the War Department
stated in Washington that their investigation
convinced them that the Nazis pursued a
master plan of "calculated and organized
brutality" and made public their statement,
the text of which read:
This delegation of newspaper and
magazine editors was brought to Europe at
the suggestion of General Eisenhower to
investigate reports of German atrocities.
We have visited and spent considerable
time investigating the prison camps at
Buchenwald and Dachau. We have inter-
viewed recently freed political prisoners,
slave laborers and civilians of many na-
tionalities. We have studied a great mass of
documents covering the German occupation
of France which contained photographic
evidence and testimony taken in many
places and painstakingly authenticated
with the sworn statements of witnesses and
victims. •
The conclusion is inescapable that the
Nazis had a master plan for their political
prison camps. That plan was based upon a
policy of calculated and organized brutal-
ity. The evidence we have seen is not a
mere assembling of local or unassociated
incidents. It is convincing proof that bru-
tality was the basic Nazi system and
method. This brutality took different forms
in different places and with different
groups. The basic pattern varied little.
Actual Nazi methods ran the gamut
from deliberate starvation and routine beat-
ings to sadistic tortures too horrible and
too perverted to be publicly described.
Murder was a commonplace.
Prisoners whose only crime was that
they disagreed or were suspected of dis-
agreeing with the Nazi philosophy were
treated with uniform cruelty. When death
came, as to multiplied thousands of them
it did, it must have been a relief from
worse than death.
By these tortures most of the Jews in
prison camps had already been destroyed.
After the Jews, the most cruelly treated
victims were the Russians and the Poles.
To the basic policy of brutality toward
political prisoners there were, however, no
significant exceptions.
This, we believe, is the inexorable con-
sequence of the whole Nazi-German philo-
sophy. By this philosophy and the cunning
and persistence with which it was propa-
gated the German mind became .contami-
nated and diseased. -
For these crimes the German people
cannot be allowed to escape their share of
the responsibility. Just punishment must
be meted out to the outstanding party lead-
ers and the German General Staff, to party
officeholders, to all members of the Ges-
tapo, all members of the ,SS (Elite Guard).
Simple justice and the future peace of the
world require that all these, by virtue of
their position, be indicted as war criminals.
In punishing these crimes the historic
principle of individual and personal re-
sponsibility must be preserved and all those
responsible for these atrocities must be
punished in accord with the accepted laws
of civilized nations.
We strongly urge that United Nations
policy in regard to war criminals be speed-
ily agreed to and the War Crimes Corn-
mission speedily empowered to put those
policies into action.
As we witness the collapse of the Nazis'
experiment in ruthlessness and totalitarian-
ism, we are more than ever convinced that
there can be no peace on earth until the
right of the earth's peoples to life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness is recognized
and protected under law.
The signers of the statement were the
following prominent leaders in American
journalism:
Julius Ochs Adler, The New York Times.
Malcolm Bingay, Detroit Free Press.
Amon Carter, Fort Worth Stai"-Telegram.
Norman Chandler, Los Angeles Times.
William L. Chenery, Collier's.
E. Z. Dimitman, Chicago Sun.
John Randolph Hearst, Hearst Newspapers.
Ben
• Hibbs, Saturday Evening Post.
Stanley High, Reader's Digest.
Ben McKelway, Washington Star.
William I. Nichols, This Week Magazine.
L. K. Nicholson, New Orleans Times-Picayune.
Joseph Pulitzer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Gideon Seymour, Minneapolis Star-Journal.
Duke Shoop, Kansas City Star.
Beverly W. Smith, American Magazine.
Walker Stone, Scripps•Howard Newspaper
Alliance.
M. E. Walter, Houston Chronicle.
Now, at this late date, it becomes neces-
sary to call attention again to the basic facts
of history, to inform the public anew that a
great crime was committed not only against
Jewry but against all mankind.
Yes, anti-Semitic propagandists manage
to return, again and again, to the falsehoods
that can only serve the purpose of reviving
another Nazi movement, again to threaten the
security of the world. What a pity that the
story of the crimes should have to be recited
time and time again, in order that the world
should not forget the crimes, so that the
criminals should not have a free hand again
in world affairs!
The pity of it is that it has become neces-
sary to refer back to these tragic facts, that
the world is forgetting, that many Jews are
among the unknowing who are in danger of
falling into the trap of being misled by false
propaganda. It's a pity indeed that hatred
is being built around misrepresentations
woven into venomous hatreds.
New Paperback Volume
Buber's 'Hasidism and Modern
Man' Explains Mystic Movement
Hasidism, as a transforming force among East European Jews,
as a factor that has influenced Jewish ranks since the movement's
emergence in the 18th century, has become even more fascinating to
students of mysticism as a result of the writings of Martin Buber.
Buber's "Hasidism and Modern Man," first published in 1958,
remains one of the basic guides to students of Hasidism. Edited and
translated by Prof. Maurice Friedman, one of the most noted authorities
on Buber's works, this volume has just been reissued as a Harper and
Row Torchbook paperback. The work contains the basic definitions of
the Hasidic movement. It explains that Hasidism, as Buber portrayed it,
"is a mysticism which hallows community and everyday life rather than
withdraws from it, 'for man cannot love God in truth without loving the
world.' "
The basic theme of "Hasidism and the Modern Man," which
shows how Hasidism "has its word to speak in the crisis of Western
man," is supplemented by a series of essays that explain the term
Hasid, evaluate Hitlahavut as "envelopment in God beyond
time and space," define good and evil, pride and humility in the
Hasidic scheme of things.
There is historic merit to the impressive Work by Prof. Buber in
which the Hasid, the pious man, - generated a movement that brought
the eminent scholar closer to Judaism. In the essay in which he explains
his "way to Hasidism" Buber traces his first interest in Judaism to
Zionism. But he had neglected his Hebrew until he turned to the book
"Zevaat Ribesh" by Rabbi Israel Baal-Shem, the founder of Hasidism.
He began to study and soon he began . to realize his "binding with
Hasidic truth."
The numerous brief essays that are part of his book, the "parable
of prayer," the "might of words," explanation of -the controversy
between religion and ethics and a score of other themes related to
Hasidic influences and teachings are studied throughout this authori-
tative book which remains a classic in Hasidic interpretative literature.
A Guide for Tourists
'Israel' — Revised Random Guide
Random House has issued a revised edition of "A Holiday Maga-
zine Guide to Israel," with new data and up-to-the-present information
about developments offered as a valuable fact-finder for tourists visiting
the Jewish State.
Prepared by the editors of Holiday, this guide deicribes the prog-
ress made in Israel's activities and the attainments from the time
when Mark Twain spoke of the Holy Land's "forbidding desolation."
That was 100 years ago. Now Israel is a flourishing country and the
introductory chapters show the gains made in Israel's 18-year existence.
After an historical analysis, this guide leads the reader and guides
the tourist through the major areas in the land, tells how to secure
a passport, the type of facilities available, the sites to be seen, their
historic significance.
Israel's hotels, restaurants, the type of fOod served, the shops that
serve the visitors and a score of other valuable and inforinative facts
are offered here.
A special chapter is devoted to Jerusalem—to the Hebrew Uni-
versity, Hadassah, the city's surroundings.
Then there are the areas around Tel Aviv, Haifa, the Negev,
and the up-to-date developments are indicated in the description
of the Massada findings. -
The history of the last stand that was taken against the Romans
from 30 to 3'7 BCE is graphically described. It leads up to the story of
En Gedi and the Essene settlements. It is part of history that is being
reconstructed, and the fascinating archaeological discoveries are under
review.
. .
Especially valuable in this guide is the chapter "Hebrew," contain-
ing a list of basic Hebrew words—the original and their translations
presented phonetically to assure their proper application.
Maps, interesting photographs and .a useful index supplement this.
commendable guide,