Ehrenburg's 'Post-War Years': Courage Despite
Communist Influence, His Attitude Toward Israel

Ilya Ehrenburg's final work, his
memoirs entitled "Post-War Years
1945-54," published by World, con-
tains more revealing facts about
the eminent Soviet Jewish writer
who died on Sept
1 1967, than any
of his previous
works.
The new vol-
ume provides ma-
terial for study
of the attitudes
of the man who
had been accused
of betraying other
Jewish writers
gnrennurg
in Russia and who denied such
"calumny." Yet, he was among
the few—Pasternak was another—
who survived the Stalin terror. He
was an apologist for Stalin, yet his
latest works were published in
Khrushchev's days, and he dared
speak up about Stalin and his
methods of suppression (as has al-
ready been indicated in the earlier
reference to Ehrenburg's "Post-
War Years" in. Purely Commentary, 1
Jewish News, Jan. 5, 1968—the col-
umn dealing with the Litvinovs).

There had been suspicions
about Ehrenburg's Jewish atti-
tudes, puzzlement that he was
among those who survived the
purges. He himself related that
instead of being exiled he was
permitted to go to Paris as a
correspondent for Soviet news-
papers. He affirmed his own cos-
mopolitanism in spite of Stalin's
primary hate of the very term
and of the Russian dictator's as-
serted reason for his dislike of
Jews because be considered
them cosmopolitans. Yet Ehren-
burg displayed a Jewish con-
sciousness, shows concern over
developments that affected Jews,
devoted a long chapter in "Post-
War Years" to the Jews and
even commented on Zionism and
Israel.

The many events described by
Ebrenburg, in the last volume,
which has been translated from the
Russian by Ttiana Shebunina, in
collaboration with Yvonne Papp,
become valuable commentaries on
the history of the last war and its
aftermath. In his account of the
Nuremberg trial, which he covered
as a correspondent for Russian
newspapers, Ehrenburg told how
Goering, having recognized him,
suddenly looked at him, and whis-
pered to his neighbors. Ehrenburg
then related the following as an
occurrence at the trial:

"The only unexpected episode
occurred in connection with the
man whom the Nazis had called
'the conscience of the party,'
Hess. At the beginning of the
trial he had claimed he could
remember nothing. His coun-
sel insisted that the defendant
was suffering from amnesia; a
whole session was taken up by
evidence from the psychiatrists.
Then one day Hess asked per-
mission to speak and declared
he had feigned amnesia for tac-
tical reasons. It was a farcical
situation. However, all the ses-
sions remain in my memory as
one long nightmare.

"When the film of the death
camps was being shown, Schacht
turned his back to the screen—
he did not want to look; the
others watched, but Frank wept
and wiped his face with his hand-
kerchief. It may sound incredi-
ble, but I saw it with my own
eyes: Frank, Hans Frank who
had written that when he arrived
in Poland there had been 3,500,-
000 Jews and now there were
only 100,000 left, this Frank
sobbed when be saw on the
screen what he had witnessed in
real life over and over again. Or
was he weeping for himself, rea-
lizing what was in store for
him?"

Ehrenburg mentioned the Jew-
ish theater in Russia, wrote about
Mikhoels and others who had
made great contributions to art in
his country. How much more he

could have said! But while his
"Post-War Years" reveals courage
in speaking out against suppres-
sion—as he did in relation to Lit-
vinov and others—much remained
insaid.
Describing his American visit
and ;peaking of his stay in New
fork he managed to pick up ma-
aria could well have served
s p opaganda data to charge that
his country is more prejudiced
han the Soviet Union. For in-
,tance, about his New York visit,
le sa.d:

"I n the Jewish quarter they so ld
pickled cucumbers, halva and vod-
ka: there were shop-signs in both
Russian and Polish; an old man
like a character out of Babel was
drinking tea in the street and
holding forth: "Sulzberger says he
loves God, if not the Jewish God
then at any rate the American one,
but evidently this God was so in-
tent on reading the New York
Times that he didn't notice the
Warsaw ghetto being burnt down."
And in his description of the ele-
ments that make up America his
view was that at the top of the lad-
der were the English, Scottish,
Scandinavian and Dutch families,
the Germans and French being
next, Slays, Italians and Irish much
lower, and on the bottom the Jews,
Chinese and Puerto Ricans, with
"Negroes nowhere at all." This was
in 1945, and he added about his
evaluation:

the meaning of injustice, will find
a way of making peace with the
Arabs. It is clear to everyone that
the millions of Jews living in the
various countries of Europe and
America cannot find room in Israel
and, besides, they are too closely
associated with the peoples among
whom they live to want to emi-
grate. The Negroes of Alabama
and Mississippi do not dream of
migrating to one of the sovereign
states of black Africa, they only
demand equal rights and fight ra-
cial prejudice."

It would have been interesting
to know how Ehrenburg reacted to
the most recent Soviet attacks on
Israel and the Jews: he had not
spoken out against the many cur-
rent prejudices and the revival of
ancient lies in the Russian press.
He may already have been too ill
to speak out against the Kosygin-
Fedorenko lies and appeals to ha-
tred against Jewry and Israel at
the time of his death. But the
threats from Russia continue to
hound the Israel for whom Ehren-
burg envisioned peace with the
Arabs.

In relation to East Berlin, Eh-
renburg mentioned the supporters
of the Communist regime, and he
singled out the late Arnold Zweig,
whom he described as "half-Zion-
ist, 'half-mystic, with one eye on
Israel and the other on the West,"
and who, he stated, could not have
been dragged from Palestine to
Berlin, and he linked in the pro-
East Berlin group Anna Seghers,
who "could not be an anti-Semite
since she was herself a Jewess and
her own mother had been killed by
the Nazis in Auschwitz."

Boris Smolar's

'Between You
... and Me

(Copyright 1968, JTA Inc.)

COMMUNAL NOTES: The General Assembly of the Council of Jew-
ish Federations and Welfare Funds, which recently took place in
Atlanta, distinguished itself in many respects. What attracted my atten-
tion most was the composition of its 1,500 delegates.
The largest part of the delegates—who represented Jewish com-
munal institutions in more than 800 communities—were newcomers to
the assembly. These faces, which I never saw before at any of the
CJFWF national gatherings, represented probably more than 60 per
cent of all the delegates. This to me was the best proof available that
interest in Jewish activities is constantly increasing in spite of the cry
of growing assimilation.
There were also more younger people at the Atlanta five-day meet-
ing than at previous assemblies. This fact too, was encouraging. It
proved that the CJFWF program of developing young leadership is
progressing very well throughout the country.

4:

4.

4'

JDC PICTURE: A stirring report on the mass exodus of Jews from
Poland and the flight of Jews from Czechoslovakia—and on the aid
given by the Joint Distribution Committee to these victims—was pre-
sented at a special session by Samuel Haber, JDC executive vice presi-
dent.
Haber's report made a tremendous impact upon the delegates.
They saw that the JDC must be given all possible financial assistance,
through the United Jewish Appeal, in a period of possible emergency
with which the agency may be faced through the entire year of 1969.
At the same time they also felt depressed over the reported fact that
Jews in Romania—the only Communist country where the JDC is
now permitted to operate through the local Jewish communities—are
not getting the full relief they need, only because the JDC is short of
funds.
I
The JDC has had to cope with one emergency situation after an-
other since last year. More than 25,000 Jews fled to France from
Morocco and .Tunisia where the situation for them had become danger-
ous since the Six-Day War. More than 3,500 Jews fled from Libya to
Italy. The JDC had to come to their aid. Then came the virulent anti-
' Semitic policy of the Polish government which seeks to make the
country "Judenrein;" coupled with a great influx of Jewish refugees
from Czechoslovakia. In all these situations the JDC was on the alert.
It is still on the alert. It will remain so as long as emergency situations
prevail.
*
*
*
UJA REQUIREMENTS: The full picture of JDC's urgent needs will
emerge, as can be expected, at the annual national meeting of that
organization, which will take place in New York Wednesday. The meet-
ing will precede the UJA annual national convention of the United
Jewish Appeal which opens in New York on Dec. 13, with hundreds of
Jewish leaders from all over the country participating.
To meet its minimum global programs in 1969, the JDC will ask for
about $25,000,000. Should the present dimensions of the refugee wave
increase in 1969, the JDC requirements will naturally increase. Ameri-
can Jewry may then be asked to give additional funds above and
beyond the 1969 budget. The money would be given through the UJA of
which the JDC is a major partner.
All this, plus the increased needs in Israel, will make the annual
gathering of the UJA next weekend one of the most important Jewish
gatherings on which the fate of Jews in various lands will hinge.

"As for the Jews, their position
was well explained to me by a
talkative American: 'One lunches,
but one doesn't dine with them,' for
lunch is a business meeting in a
restaurant without wives; one can
Ehrenburg made references to
do business with Jews but not mix
Stalin that revealed his cruelty,
with them socially. I was shown
yet he had this to say in "Post-
hotels where Jews are not permit-
War Years": "It would be too
ted; these are usually at summer
much to say that I liked Stalin,
resorts, by the sea or on a lake."
but for a long time I believed in
him and I feared him. When I
What a pity that Ehrenburg's
talked about him I, like every-
memoirs can not include another
one else, called him "The Boss,"
visit, further study, realization
in
the same way Jews in the
that there have been changes, that
past pronounced the name of
it is no longer true that Negroes
God. They could not really have
are "nowhere at all." Yet the ques-
loved Jehovah: he was not only
tion remains regarding Jews: is the
omnipotent but pitiless and un-
5 o'clock anti-Semitism still in
just . . ." And describing the
force?
thoughts that arose upon the
Regarding the race issue, when
passing of Stalin he broached the
told by a Mulatto girl that for pro-
subject of whether "ends justify
tection she said she was a Jewess
means," calling it an abstraction,
because of her black hair, Ehren-
and refering to those who "blas-
burg commented that for the first
phemously set Stalin's name with
time he was ashamed of being a
Lenin."
Jew and wished he was a black
Perhaps one can find regrets,
Jew. He could have taken into ac-!
count the traditional Jewish ad-1 bordering on confessions, in the
herence to justice which made concluding paragraph of "Post-War
them the leaders in the battle Years" in which he states:
against race hatred.
"Many passages in these mem-
An especially interesting chap-; oirs have been dictated by love. I
love
life; I do not repent, I do not
ter is devoted in Ehrenburg's
book to Albert Einstein. He had regret what I have lived through
and
what
I have experienced; what
been taken to Princeton to meet
with the great scientist by Jo- I regret is that there is so much
seph Brainin, a former Jewish that I have not done, not written;
News columnist. He admired that I have not grieved and not
enough. But that is how life
Einstein, quoted from his say- loved
goes . .. And what will be tomor-
ings which he recorded as soon
row?
Another
play, a different set
as he returned to New York, told
of characters."
about the scientist's support of
Indeed, the feeling is that there
Spanish rebels against dictator-
-
An endowment fund for the Weizmann Institute of Science was
ship, his interest in the Hebrew is much more he could have said,
that
much of what he had written proposed by Lord Rothschild of London, making his first public ap-
University, the attacks upon him
by a bigot (John E. Rankin) in and spoken were under compul- pearance in the United States at the Weizmann Institute dinner in
the U.S. Congress, the manner sion: he was part of the Communist New York, under auspices of its American committee. Shown here at
in which the Nazi terror infuri- Establishment. He was a genius, reception before the opening of the dinner, are (from left) Meyer W.
ated him, his contempt for race and even in what exception can be Weisgal, the Institute's president; Dewey D. Stone, chairman of its
taken there is imbedded the ability board of governors; William S. Paley, chairman of the board of the
hatred.
of one of the greatest writers of Columbia Broadcasting System who introduced Lord Rothschild at the
Ehrenburg's analysis of the Jew- our time. P.S. dinner, and Lord Rothschild.
ish problem is extensive, embrac-
ing Czarist pogroms and persecu-
tions, recalling the Dreyfus affair, Hussen's Promises Charged as Lacking Meaningful Action
commenting on the Nazi era. Of
JERUSALEM (JTA)—An inter- over Kol Israel radio and was fea- flees of Dr. Gunnar V. Tarring.
interest is his comment on Zionism: view in which King Hussein of Jor- tured-prominently in Israeli news-
Observers here noted that Hus-
"The Zionist theories based on dan disavowed Jordanian responsi- papers.
sein had used the same words a
King Hussein said the time had few months ago published in the
ancient history have never had bility for the Nov. 22 explosion in
any appeal for me. The State of the Mahane - Yehudah vegetable come to pursue peace but claimed New York Times Sunday Maga-
Israel, however, exists. In the days market in Jerusalem and spoke of that Israel "has not made its own zine. Jordan never followed
when Arab culture flourished, the the need to embark on a "new contribution to peace." He said through with action designed to
Jews did not know persecutions phase" of peace in the Middle East Jordan could not forego its rights achieve peace and has concluded
like those of the Inquisition, and was discounted in political circles in Jerusalem nor was his govern- an agreement with Arab guerrilla
in the various Muslim kingdoms of as another example of talk not ment Willing to hold face-to-face organizations giving them a free
Andalusia such men lived and backed up by action. The king was talkS with Israelis. He did not rule hand for sabotage incursions into
worked as the philosopher Maimon- interviewed in Amman by Solomon out the possibility that the Securi- Israel, they said.
ides and Judah ha-Levi. I like to Steckoll, resident correspondent in ty Council's Middle East resolu
believe that the Jews of Israel, who Israel for the Toronto Star. The tion of Nov. 22; 1967, could be "im-
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
know from personal experiences taped interview was- r - bioadcast- -Plemented!'. through. the good: of- 56—Friday, December 6, 1968

Lord Rothschild at Weizmann Dinner

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