Purely Commentary
Treblinka: An Author and His Self-Hatred
So much is being written about "Treblinka" by Jean-Francois
Steiner, which Simon and Schuster has issued in a translation from
the French by Helen Weaver, that it becomes necessary to view
the volume as critically as possible in the interest of truth. The
author's research is being challenged, his approach is questioned,
he is being accused of self-hatred. Ile is only partly Jewish, his
attitude is under scrutiny and if reality and actuality are to be
confirmed it becomes necessary to present the views of critics in
order that no one should be misled by what Steiner 'offers as facts.
A review of his "Treblinka" that must be considered as most
vital in the discussion is the one that was written for Saturday
Review by Alexander Donat, a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto who
is now an eminent American scientist. Dr. Donat is highly qualified
to judge Steiner's book. Let us quote some of his comments:
There is an old Yiddish joke that goes: "Have you heard
that Ilabinovich made 100,000 rubles in furs?" "Yes, I have,
but the story has a few minor inaccuracies: first of all, it was
not Rabinovich at all but Levin; second, it was not 100,000 rubles
but only 20,000; third, the transaction was in timber, not in furs;
and lastly, the money was not made but lost." This perhaps
typical unfunny joke is all too applicable to Jean-Francois
Steiner's "Treblinka," both in its factual accuracy and in its
interpretive bias.
Jean-Francois Steiner, born near Paris in 1938, is the son
of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. His father, Kadmi
Cohen, was deported during the war and died in a concentration
camp. After the war Jean-Francois's mother married a Jewish
physician, Ozias Steiner, who adopted the boy and raised him
as a Jew. Like many other youngsters who knew little of the
true history of the Holocaust, the boy was haunted into manhood
by the question "Why did Jews let themselves be killed without
resistance? Why did they go like sheep to slaughter?" Steiner
turned to the literature of the Holocaust, interviewed survivors
in France and in Israel (where he spent some time on a kibutz),
and in the process "discovered" Treblinka. There, 75 miles
northeast of Warsaw, 700,000—perhaps 800,000—Jews were gassed
and cremated.
Treblinka was also the scene of one of the most heroic acts
of resistance against the Nazis. On August 2, 1943, the terrorized
inmates rose in an armed revolt, set the death camp aflame, and
escaped to the nearby forests. Of the thousand participating
prisoners, only 600 managed to escape; a mere forty of those
survived the war. One was Yankel Wiernik, a carpenter by
trade, whose eyewitness testimony was printed by the under-
ground during the war under the title "A Year in Treblinka."
It is a classic account of Jewish martyrdom and heroism.
Steiner chose Treblinka as a symbol, and his book is intended
as "reportage," a biographical romance of a revolt in a death
camp. Ile pieced together the scanty documentation, interviewed
some of the few survivors, and wrote his account, For this, and
in deserving if belated recognition of the heroes of the Jewish
resistance, "Treblinka" was awarded the French literary Prix
de la Resistance.
But Steiner was trapped in the concentration camp of his
own traumatic obsession: In bondage to his self-hatred and
feeling of inferiority, he turned his book into a caricature of the
reality that was Treblinka. In trying to prove a thesis he was
entirely unprepared to cope with, and to explain the events at
Treblinka in terms of a mystical interpretation of the Jewish
personality and its historical context as if they were separate
from general human traits or history at large, Steiner went
far out of his depth. Alien to the world of the East European
Jew, only superficially informed of the facts of Jewish life,
Steiner reshaped events and personages to fit his thesis and
his obsession. As one French-Jewish professor wrote: "The book
no longer describes historical persons. It becomes a sort of
theater of shadows where we see the reflection in the mind
of a young Jew of 1966 of events which took place more than
twenty years before, events he did not witness and which he
interprets in terms of his own individual problems. This is less
a document about concentration camps than a documentation of
its author's psychology."
(Many misrepresentations are exposed at this point and Dr.
Donat then continues with his descreditation:)
On page 373 Steiner makes one of the prisoners declare:
"Some complain a little, but they are forgetting that every people
must think first of itself. What Germans are doing is in the
interest of Germany. Who can say that another people, our own
even, placed in similar circumstances, would not have done the
same?"
Steiner is a classic example of double-think and double-
standard mentality. He is not ashamed of the murderers who
slaughtered six million Jews and six million non-Jews in extermi-
nation camps that are the visible proof of the ultimate bank-
ruptcy of our Western ethical values—the very bottom of human-
ity's fall. But he is ashamed of the victims. Their helplessness he
calls passivity; their succumbing to Nazi terror under unbeliev-
able duress is "collaboration in self-destruction." Yet Steiner
should know that such responses are neither specifically Jewish
nor confined to Jews. Soviet prisoners-of-war, militant card-
carrying Communists, the victims of Lidice, Oradour, or Malmedy,
all went to their deaths "like sheep to the slaughter." And
perhaps this is only homo sapiens's natural way of meeting death
by terror and extermination.
Resistance was not the rule in the Nazi reality for either Jew
or Gentile; it was the rare exception, and the Jewish share in
that exception was more than adequate. Steiner need not have
been ashamed. As a Frenchman, was he ashamed to be part
of a nation that after the liberation killed more than 100,000
Nazi collaborators? Is he ashamed of the 800 martyrs of
Oradour-sur-Glan, burned alive in a church like "sheep?" And
was he ashamed when the perpetrators of that crime got away
with murder because so many of them turned out to be Alsatians
(i.e., Frenchmen) mobilized into the Wehrmacht and shooting
and burning their fellow Frenchmen "under duress"?
The American edition of "Treblinka" underwent a thorough
face-lifting operation. Full pages of drastic and irresponsible com-
ment were deleted and many factual errors corrected; but
numerous errors remain. To mention only a few: in the original
"a convoy arrived from Mezritch near Smolensk." This was
corrected in the American edition to "Mezritch near Bialystok."
2—Friday, iv.' 2, 1967
Author of 'Treblinka'
Exposed as Self-Hating
By Philip
Slomovitz
Shalom Sailing to Israel
Canceled; Liner Headed
to Canada's Exp7o Instead
Mezritch was a town, famous for its Jewish bristle workers
and brushmakers, in the Lublin district. Such a correction
amounts to changing "Yonkers near Chicago" to "Yonkers near
Washington, D.C."
Steiner writes: "At the beginning of the Warsaw ghetto
. . . Meir had seen Ukrainian soldiers . . ." There were no
Ukrainian soldiers in the Warsaw Ghetto until the big resettle-
ment in July 1942. The author states that "eighty thousand Jews
were left in the Warsaw ghetto" after the resettlement; but
every student of the Holocaust knows the number to have been
NEW YORK — The Zim Lines
announced the cancellation of the
SS Shalom's May 31 sailing from
New York to Haifa, an_d stated that
the vessel will make two addition-
the words attributed to Christ on the cross.
Part of the surgery performed on the American version has
changed the names of all living survivors. Thus, Dr. Marc
Dvorjetsky, author of the well-known Vilna volume "Jerusalem
of Lithuania," has been renamed Dr. David Ginsberg; the Vilna
resistance leader, Abba Kovner, has become Dan Azriel; Abraham
Lindwasser is now Sholek Blumenthal. Ruszcka Korzack, a noted
resistance member and author of "Flames in Ash," lost both
name and sex, and turned into David Rosen. This panicky mass-
baptism has simple and pedestrian causes: the survivors Steiner
interviewed were so outraged by his use of their stories for
a work which so falsified the meaning of their experiences that
they started a lawsuit against him.
"Treblinka" has stirred a lively controversy in France. The
book's critics are led by David Rausset, himself an old concentra-
tion-camp inmate, whose "Les Tours de notre mort" and - "l'Univers
concentrationnaire" are landmarks of the literature. Of Steiner,
Rousset wrote briefly and devastatingly in "Candide": "He un-
derstood nothing of what the concentration-camp society was
really like. He doesn't know the depth of the camps, And of
the horror he knows only the theatrical side." The Gentile Rousset
further accuses Steiner of being "either an anti-Semite or a
Jewish racist."
And there is ample evidence in the book for Rousset's
contentions, There is no room in Steiner's imaginary world for
decent, brave Jews. If one of them does impress him, as the
character called Djielo does, Steiner denies his Jewishness: "He
(Djielo) was only waiting for the death of the last anti-Semite
to stop being a Jew?' Even those Jews who did revolt at Treblinka
are neither forgiven nor rehabilitated by Steiner. "They are
heroes beyond compare whom circumstances snatched from anony-
mity, but there is no essential difference between them and
the mass of prisoners. Like the rest they allowed themselves
to be led to the slaughter, like the rest they became accomplices
of extermination."
Steiner describes the feelings of Adolf, a member of the
resistance, on the eve of the revolt: "He, the little despicable
Jew, the little ghetto Jew, the vermin, the subhuman was on
his way to undermine the beautiful edifice of the tall officer,
blond and handsome and black who considered himself God."
(page 283 of the French original, also deleted from the American
edition.)
This, then, is "Treblinka," by Jean-Francois Steiner—but
this is not the way Treblinka was. For at heart of the book is
the canker of Steiner's self-hatred and inexperience, turning his
literary looking glass into a distorting mirror.
There must be no distortions of history, especially when one
attempts to interpret a tragedy as farce and to misinterpret ideas
and ideals. Jews have suffered enough from it without being subjected
to the popularized ideas of a self-hating man. That is why Dr. Donat's
views are so important, that is why we must share them with our
readers so that facts should not be turned into fiction and a tragedy
contorted into a game for selfish purposes.
days' duration and will begin in
New York June 8 and June 19.
They will include three-day stop-
overs at Montreal where the
Shalom will serve as hotel for her
passengers.
Completely sold out or almost
sold out are the liner's July 28,
Aug. 8 and Aug. 18 cruises to Expo.
Some space remains on the Expo
cruises scheduled to sail from New
al cruises to Montreal and Expo
'67 instead.
In a statement issued in Haifa,
the Zim Lines' management de-
clared that the decision to cancel
the May 31 sailing was made in
closer to fifty thousand.
view of many cancellations of
which
shows
not
only
Steiner's
curiously
Another item,
sympathetic attitude toward the Germans but also his profound bookings by U. S. citizens following
ignorance of Jewish life and tradition, is most revealing. In the U. S. State Department's advice
the French version he writes: "There was another folk song, to Americans not to visit Middle
which they liked very much, It was a long complaint to the Eastern countries, including Israel,
prophet Elie who forsook his people. The song asked: 'Elie, Elie, during the present crisis.
The scheduling of two additional
why hast thou forsaken us?' The nostalgic SS officers listened
with emotion . . long into the night . . moved almost to cruises to Canada's World's Fair
was
in response to heavy public de-
compassion...." How ill-informed an author and how inauthentic
a Jew must a man be who doesn't even know the Eli, Eli, mand for space on the Shalom's
who doesn't even know that it means "My God! My God! Why six cruises to Expo that were an-
hast Thou forsaken us?" and who also, and equally grievous and nounced earlier this year. The two
perhaps additionally revealing, does not know that those are additional cruises will be of 11
York Aug. 28 and Sept. 8.
CORE Called Biased
in Teacher Dispute
NEW YORK (JTA)—A New York
lodge of Bnai Brith accused a Negro
civil rights organizations of "anti-
Semitic prejudice" in their denun-
ciations of Jewish teachers and
supervisors in Brooklyn and Queens
elementary and junior high schools.
A CORE spokesman denied the
charge.
The Schoolmen's Lodge declared,
in a letter to Board of Education
President Giardano and Superin-
tendent of Schools Bernard Dono-
van, that they should act to "halt
the growing instance of attacks
against Jewish teachers and super-
visors."
CORE and other organizations
are trying to have principals and
teachers in four schools in the two
boroughs transferred.
Louis Samet, lodge president,
said in the letter: "We have docu-
mented evidence which indicates
that the charges made against the
teachers and supervisors of those
schools are without foundation and
are based on anti-white and anti-
Semitic prejudice."
The letter said that the civil
rights groups were making "un-
founded charges of incompetence,
followed by picketing, boycotts,
anti-Semitic statements and threats
of violence against teachers, prin-
cipals and district superintend-
ents."
Anti-Defamation League Study Reveals Negroes Prefer
Jews Over Non-Jewish Whites, Including Landlords
NEW YORK (JTA) — A study
sponsored by the Anti-Defamation
League of Bnai Brith has found
that to the degree that American
Negroes distinguish between Jew-
ish and non-Jewish whites, they
prefer Jews and are less anti-
Semitic than whites.
The study was part of a five-year
research project on prejudice con-
ducted by the University of Cali-
fornia Survey Research Center
with an ADL grant.
Interviews for the study were
made in 1964 with 1,119 Negro
adults in four major urban cen-
ters—Chicago, New York, Atlanta
and Birmingham—as well as in
other metropolitan areas outside
the south and from a representa-
tive cross section of the adult na-
tional population. Interviewing and
sampling were done by the Na-
tional Opinion Research Center at
the University of -Chicago.
The study found that nationally,
24 per cent of Negroes queried said
Jewish landlords were better than
other white landlords and 7
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS per cent said they were worse. In
New York City, 17 per cent thought
Jewish landlords were better and
9 per cent worse. In Chicago
the percentages were 20 and 6; in
Atlanta, 31 and 4; and in Birm-
ingham, 19 and 4.
Nationally, 29 per cent said
Jewish store owners were better
than other white store owners
and 7 per cent said worse.
In Atlanta the percentages were
32 and 4 and in Birmingham,
28 and 5.
The study found that 34 per cent
of the total sample said Jews were
better to work for and 19 per cent
said Jews were worse than other
whites; 70 per cent said Jews were
better than other whites on hiring
Negroes and 45 per cent believed
that Jews were more in favor of
civil rights than other whites,
while 3 per cent felt that Jews
were less in favor.
More than 80 per cent of the total
sample said they had never been
treated unfairly by Jewish mer-
chants, 62 per cent said it was
easier to get credit in a Jewish-
owned store and 9 per cent said
it was not easier.
Forty-nine per cent said Jews
were easier on Negroes who fell
behind in payments and 16 per
cent said Jews were harder. The
remaining respondents saw no dif-
ference or said they did not know
which was better.
The study found that where Jews
do not predominate in the Negro
ghettoes, "the particular ethnic
group that does is likely to be the
recipient of economically-inspired
hostility," specifically the Chinese
in some west coast communities
and Italians in New Orleans.
Israeli Expo '67 Pavilion
Reopens After Threats
MONTREAL (JTA) — The Is-
raeli pavilion reopened after
being closed last week because
of "threats" believed to have
come from Arabs or others be-
cause of the crisis in the Near
East. It was not clear whether
the threats involved a possible
danger of bombing, burning, sr
otherwise attacking the pavilion.