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111.01.1111.111117--7111111.1,111W - -
Dreams as Documentary Evidence of Nazi Terror
Compiled by Mrs. Beradt, Analyzed by Bettelheim
Dreams as documentary evi-
dence of the Nazi persecutions are
presented, and interpreted, in a
deeply moving book based on a
vast accumulation of data in "The
Third Reich of Dreams" by Char-
lotte Beradt, who left Germany
in 1940 and after some years in
England settled in New York.
A Blood Donor at Eighty
Eighty-year-old Samuel Epstein, oldest contributor to the Bnai
Brith Blood Bank in St. Petersburg, Fla., donates a pint under the
watchful eye of Morris S. Lerner, the organization's community
blood drive chairman. In the 15 years Lerner has directed the Bnai
Brith campaign, more than 1,300 pints of blood have been contributed
and 800 of them given without charge to indigent accident victims and
hospital patients.
■ IP.0 ∎0 ■ 10.0.1 ■ IN• o we.0401111• 0
Boris Smolar's
'Between You
. and Me'
(Copyright 1968, JTA Inc.)
THE NEGRO-JEWISH ISSUE: It is impossible to measure to what
extent anti-Semitism is growing among Negroes. However, moderate
Negro leaders, who admit the existence of anti-Jewish feelings in the
Negro community, estimate that about 2 per cent of the Negroes in
this country engage in anti-Semitism. Considering that there are about
20,000,000 Negroes in the United States, this estimate would indicate
that about 400,000 have feelings of animosity against Jews.
The proportion of Negroes who engage in Jew-hatred, is, naturally
larger in the big cities than in small communities or even in the
South where there are many Negroes but no Jews. In cities like
New York, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Los Angeles and Newark, this
proportion is very much higher than the average 2 per cent given
for the Negro community of the entire country. Incited constantly by
extremist leaders, the number of Negroes biased against Jews may
reach well over a million in the larger cities alone.
Jewish organizations, known for their strong backing of the
Negro cause long before the Negro militancy of today, find that expres-
sions of hostility toward Jews can now be noted not only among the
poor and the most exploited Negroes in the big city ghettoes, but als6
among people of almost every level in the Negro community—intel-
lectuals, professionals, businessmen and young people. Moderate Negro
leaders like Bayard Bustin declare that Negro anti-Semitism is
"dangerous" and "must be rooted out."
At the same time these Negro moderates advise Jews not to fall
into a trap to withdraw their financial and moral support for the Negro
struggle for equal rights. They request the understanding, the coopera-
tion and the aid of the Jews. They emphasize that they do so knowing
that there is Negro anti-Semitism and knowing how Jews must feel
when they hear some Negro extremists talk.
*
*
*
FEDERATION PROJECTS: Jewish leadership, while deploring
Negro anti-Semitism, is nevertheless determined not only to actively
support the Negro demands for massive governmental action but also
initiate special Jewish programs of aid to Negroes.
Jewish communty leaders from 40 cities met in New York on
this subject. The conference was held under the auspices of the Council
of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds which sets the guidelines
for Jewish communal work. Every aspect of Negro-Jewish relations
was discussed at the parley and specfic projects of Jewish aid to the
Negro population were reported as being already in operation in
numerous cities.
The Jewish Community Federation of Cleveland has provided
hundreds of jobs for unemployed Negroes and is stimulating Jewish
business firms to assist in finding employment for hundreds of others.
The Detroit Jewish Welfare Federation is providing 25 four-year
scholarships for Negro students otherwise not qualified for such aid.
A number of federations are providing tutoring for high school
and college students.
The involvement of Jewish federations, their agencies and leaders
in programs to aid Negroes is expanding each and every month in all
fields of endeavor. It is perhaps worth noting that the Jewish Com-
munity Federation in Cleveland has received national attention for
its pilot project to serve a poverty area in depth. The project involves
a varety of Jewish and communal services to Negroes with the partici-
pation of more than a dozen Jewish organizations, in close cooperation
with Negro residents in the area.
*
JEWISH ACTION: Not only do the federations. as organized Jewish
communities throughout the country, develop special projects in their
attempts to come to the aid of the Negro population, but so do the major
national Jewish organizations.
The American Jewish Committee has undertaken an intensive
program designed to help mobilize an effective Jewish contribution
toward the solution of the Negro problem. In recent weeks, the
AJCommittee has convoked regional meetings of its key leaders who
are active in business, industry, real estate, the legal profession,
the mass media, as well as Jewish religious leaders from various parts
of the country. These groups met in Dallas, Philadelphia, Chicago
and Los Angeles to plan impressive meetings to dramatize the urgent
need for immediate action to improve the situation of the Negro com-
munity.
While insisting that there can be no soft-pedaling or compromising
with Negro anti-Semitism when it appears, the major national Jewish
organizations hold the view that the attacks of Negro destructionists
must not deter Jewish groups from their drive to overcome the de-
gradation, poverty and discrimination that are the root causes of
violence. They emphasize that Jews have been part of the civil rights
campaign, and will continue to be part of that fight, because justice
demands such involvement.
dreams that his hand is para-
lyzed after a visiting dignitary
gives him the Nazi salute.
A woman dreams of her hate
for her Jewish mother.
A journalist flies over Nurem-
berg, fishes Hitler out of a
party of people with a lasso and
drowns him in the sea between
Germany and England.
A housewife cuts the Swastika
out of a Nazi flag, but it keeps
reappearing.
Dr. Bettelheim, in his conclud-
ing essay, explores the meaning
of "The Third Reich of Dreams"
and calls it "a shocking experience
. . . To understand ourselves,
and the possibility of Nazi terror,
we must study the dreams it
evoked so that we shall truly
know 'the stuff we are made of'."
The essay by Dr. Bettelheim has
special significance. He declares:
"It is the imbalance between
dreams and helplessness and
grandeur—which are the normal
exaggerations of extremes as
they characterize the workings
of the unconscious—which illus-
trates the success of the Nazi
regime. Destroyed here is the
healthy balance between sub-
mission and self-assertion. The
Third Reich invades and con-
trols even the deepest, the most
private recesses of our mind,
until finally, even in the uncon-
scious, only submission re-
mains."
Dr. Bettelheim makes this im-
portant assertion in expressing
his opinion differing with Mrs.
Beradt's views:
"I differ with the author who
feels that these dreams do not
deal with internal conflicts but
only with political realities of the
moment and the dreamer's con-
flicts with society.' I believe in-
stead that they have their roots
in the inner conflicts evoked by
social realities within the person
who dreams them. That is, if in
the factory owner's (referring to
one of the quoted dreams) dream,
his inner security had not rested
so largely on his society position,
had he been less concerned with
how he looked to his employes
once he was no longer absolute
master in his factory, his dream
might have taken an entirely dif-
ferent form—and probably also
his life. Instead, he dreams of
being forced to obey an over-
whelming power which even de-
spises the obedience he so pain-
fully forces on himself; this has
its roots in early childhood experi-
In a translation from the Ger-
man by Adriane Gottwald. this
volume, published by Quadrangle
Books (12 E.•Delaware, Chicago),
is further enhanced as a challeng-
ing work by a supplementary essay
in which the eminent author-psy-
chiatrist, Dr. Bruno Bettelheim,
resorts to further exploration that
adds to the exciting subject expos-
ing the Nazi crimes.
The dreams quoted as evi-
dence of the terror pursue a
subject which received emphasis
in the works of Franz Kafka
and George Orwell. Hannah
Arendt is quote d, and as a
basis for developing the theme
the author refers to this state-
ment by Robert Ley, organiza-
tion leader of the Nazi Party,
1932-1945: "In Germany there
are no private matters any
more. If you sleep, that's your
private matter, but the moment
you wake up and come into
contact with another person,
you must remember that you
are a soldier of Adolf Hitler."
Dreams interspersed with com-
mentaries by Mrs. Beradt throw
light on the past and explain the
attitudes which affect the per-
secuted. Introducing some of the
dreams, the author comments:
"Regardless of how, in their
`slumbering upon the bed', these
dreamers follow the thread they
have seen winding through the
labyrinth of political reality and
which threatens to strangle them,
their power of imagination ranges
far. The Nazi official who main-
tained that people could lead a
private life only in their sleep
certainly underestimated the power
of the Third Reich. Our dream
authors, the soon to be totally
subjected whose dreams are rec-
orded here, saw it all with greater
clarity, 'in a dream, a vision of
the night',"
"I dream bureaucratic fairy
tales (G-reuelmaerc.hen)," one of
the dreamers recalled.
Flight, terror, screams, one
dream that "reads like the tran-
script of a trial between Con-
science and Knowledge," are in
this deeply moving record.
Wish dreams, dreams of youth,
an entire chapter devoted to
"Dreams of Jews" (subtitled "I
make room for trash if need be")
are among the stories retold. The
chapter on the 'Jews recalls the
statement by Dr. Hans Frank, the 17 411
terrorizer of the Jews of Poland
and the Warsaw Ghetto: "It is, of
course, impossible to drive out all
lice and all Jews in a single year—
that will have to come about in
the course of time."
Mrs. Beradt began her collec-
tion of political dreams in March,
1933. She jotted down her own
dreams, those of relatives, friends
and casual acquaintances; she 1
hid the notes in the spines of
books. and sent them to friends
abroad.
In the search for traces of
Hitler's policies in the dream
world of Germans, Mrs. Beradt
asked, between 1933 and 1939,
"every person accessible to me
. . . always without divulging
the purpose, for I wanted un-
tainted answers." Her purpose,
as the racially-persecuted wife 1
of Berlin lawyer and novelist
Martin Beradt, was the hope
that these dreams "might be
part of the evidence, if the
regime were ever brought to
trial, as a phenomenon of the
time."
A non-Jewish factory owner
(not sympathetic to the Nazis)
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
40—Friday, August 9, 1968
ence and is now replayed so that
the childish defeat assumes a
macabre reality. Other dreams
reported in this book show the
forms of defying authority.
"Every dream, according to
Freud, contains a wish fulfillment.
In this sense the dream of the fac-
tory owner contains the wish ful-
fillment that he could so act-
spine-breaking as it was—that he
would not lose his factory, as in-
deed happens in his dream, be-
cause Goebbels disappears without
having dispossessed him."
Mrs. Beradt's services in having
provided the dream theme is ac-
knowledged by Dr. Bettelheim in
a tribute in which he points to
the "limitation here that no dreams
of ardent Nazis are included, nor
of that other large group of dream-
ers—those who delighted in the
Nazi regime because it enabled
them to take revenge on others
they looked upon as enemies. Ob-
viously the author was in no posi-
tion to hear such dreams told, and
probably not sympathetic enough
to do them justice."
Thus, an anti-Nazi's compilation
and an eminent psychiatrist's com-
ments combine to turn "The Third
Reich of Dreams" into a valuable
addition to the available litera-
ture on the Nazi era.
Hebrew Corner
The Magic Carpet
The Imam Icheye was murdered in
Yemen during the month of Adar 5708,
and in the riots that broke out after his
death, the Jewish ghetto quarter was
pillaged. Since then peace was not re-
, stored in the Jewish ghetto. The estab-
lishment of • the State of Israel and the
invasion of the Arab armies, caused the
hatred toward. Israel to grow in strength.
Tilhen the victories of Israel's Defense
Army in the War of Liberation became
known, it seemed that the situation of
the Yemenite Jews would become still
worse. However, surprisingly, the I'M am
accepted these victories as a sign of
G-d and in the return to Zion he saw
the will of G-d. He permitted all those
who wanted to go to Israel to leave,
with the exception of a few score crafts-
men whom he held back until they
could teach their craft to Moslems.
Thousands of Yemenite Jews left
their property and moved into the Brit-
ish Protectorate of Aden. The British,
who were stunned at the sight of the
wave of immigration, closed the bound-
ary, while in Yemen itself, most of the
Jews were on their way to Israel. At
this point commenced "Operation Magic
Carpet".
In this operation the entire Yemen
was brought to Israel. For two consec-
utive years, the Jews of Yemen were
flown directly to Israel from Aden.
1,17 hen the planes landed in Israel, about
every other day, the immigrants kissed
the earth with tears of joy and gave-
blessing for being redeemed.
Translation of Hebrew columns
(Published by Brith Tvrith Olamith)
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