Hurban Literature Warns: Remember Nazi Crimes
Jews. But people are not buttons.
The newspaperman Ernest Lan-
(Continued from Page 2)
tacks on Poland, the evacuations of
I speak boldly, but I am not
back into German ranks, tortured, the Jewish communities, the flight, 1 dau spoke bluntly, echoing the re-
really brave. Down deep, there
'
grets
of
those
who
still
are
in
burned people alive, hounded inno- the despair stemming from the
is fear. A part of me is still be-
cent people. Only a couple of refer- cruelties, the eventual concentra- Germany, while explaining the
hind
the barbed wire, for Ger-
ences are to Jews: the story is lion of the hounded Jews in Buch- multitude of reasons that caused
many is still a camp for the
some to return, some to remain,
about Christians who suffered at enwald.
Jews. The difference is that the
This story proves there was some to stay on temporarily. In-
the hands of an invading army that
cruel guards have had their or-
resistance. The Partisans play variably, those who spoke bitterly
knew no decency or honor.
ders changed. Today, they are
Major in the tragedy of the their role here and the Germans and guiltily about their being in
would
told to be kind . . ."
said
their
children
French community was the mass did not have a free hand all the Germany
Another of the three rich. Emil
go on—mostly to Israel, some to
time.
murder of citizens on June 10,
Janiczek, spoke up regarding his
Exploitations, robberies, rape, the United States.
1944, when people were burned
being
in Germany:
Out of the bitter story there
alive in a church. The author murder—the Jews under the Nazis
emerges the protest and resent- "I suppose I have corrupted my-
had gone several times to Ora- underwent many experiences of
ment over the Germans' insist. self by staying here . . . But it is
.. dour, he interviewed survivors horror in the story recapitulated
ence upon "forgetting" and upon not too late, not yet. If I do not
and witnesses, and his descrip- by Sarnelson. The most depressing
erasing
the pages of history on leave Germany, I will make cer-
the
tions are actual details of what account is of the attempt by
which are recorded the guilt. tain that my son does. I tell you
had happened, of the responsible Germans to compel the Jews who
criminals, of the resistance and had fled to Piotrkov to turn over
For example, the drama critic, this, I will not allow him to live
of the indifference to human the young women for prostitution,
Wilhelm Unger, said there were in Germany. If Germany gets a
hopeful signs in Germany but he new fuehrer, he will not have
want on the part of an army and when that was flatly refused
"had to look for them instead of young Jews with which to stoke
that was as later claimed "under the synagogue was burned down in
wholesale
massacre
on
Yom
Kip-
a
seeing them everywhere" and his fires."
orders."
It is worse, much worse, in East
pur.
he
continued: "The students and
It is this business again of being
m
rmatny
a a. , v6 re
The author's own poetic expres-
under orders that came in good
stead for the accused because of sions, delineating the reminiscen-
a French law that prevented full ces of the brutal acts, are inter-
mingled with appropriate selec-
punishment when a soldier is ord-
tions from the Prophets to indicate
ered to act and does.
both
the sense of shame, degrada-
While the book itself is most re-
and oppression, while draw-
vealing, it is the trial that emerges tion
faith of the Jew for
of special interest. There were de- ing upon the
regarding the coming
lays, failure to extract from the inspiration
of
a
better
day
and the day of
prisoners admissions of guilt, in
spite of the witnesses who appear- vengeance.
"Songs of the Ghetto" are in-
ed to prove such guilt. While the
corporated in the text in English
trial was in the process of being
translations and they appear as
conducted, the French Deputies
an index in the Yiddish trans-
adopted an amnesty law by a vote
litreations. There is a splendid
of 319 to 211 with 88 abstentions,
glossary of foreign terms which
and the French upper house fol-
includes the names for Nazi
lowed suit approving the amnesty
groups as well as the Hebrew
176 to 79. There was resentment,
and Yiddish terminologies.
and:
Samelson's "All Lie in Wait"
"The mayor of Oradour re-
moved the Croix de guerre from serves as a valuable addendum to
the
Holocaust literature. It is an-
Its place of honor in the town
hall and handed it back to the other chapter in the tragedy of the
representative, of the state—the Jew under Hitler and of the cruel-
prefect. The president of the or- ties that stemmed from the Ger-
ganization of family survivors man brutalities.
s •
did the same with the Legion
d'honneur that had been placed POST MORTEM — THE JEWS
IN GERMANY TODAY
In the cemetery over the graves
How much is left of German
with the ashes of the dead.
"And the monument that the Jewry? What future is in store for
state had built in Oradour for the those who remain? How do Jews
victims remained empty. The react to the post-Nazi conditions
survivors would not move the and what are the attitudes of non-
bodies to it. Outside the entrance Jews?
to the ruined town two monu-
These rhetorical questions find
ments of infamy were erected. serious echoes in a most signific-
On one of them were the names ant analysis based on actual state-
and addresses of the Alsatian ments by Jews and non-Jews, by
had voted for the amnesty law." survivors from the crematoria and
But the accused escaped punish- returnees to Germany, in a volume
ment, most of the Germans were that must be regarded as one of
released because their long con- the most effective elaborations on
finement exceeded the terms to the aftermath of the Holocaust. In
which they were sentenced, two "Post-Mortem—The Jews in Ger-
who were given death sentences many Today," Leo Katcher covers
were not executed, their sentences a vast field, having interviewed
were changed to life imprisonment survivors, returnees, politicals, Is-
and they have since been released. raelis, officials, rabbis, artists, in-
"The signs outside the town tellectuals, the handful of rich,
bearing the names of the disgrac- churchmen, West and East Ger-
ed deputies were removed in 1966. mans.
Among the names were those of a Published by Delavorte Press
couple of candidates for whom (750 3rd, NYI7), this volume has
people wished to vote. At the same the value of non-anonymity, of
time the signs of the names of the frank declarations, of Jews and
Alsatians disappeared. It looks bet- Germans speaking their minds and
ter there now."
placing blame where it belongs
The town that was described is and unfailingly noting suspicions,
being rebuilt. Apparently time fears, resentments, accusations, in-
either heals or leads to forgetting. dictments. There is no forgetting!
That's what happened in Oradour.
Katcher went to the sources.
But the story related by Jens
Krouse perpetuates the memory of
a great tragedy and a horrible
crime.
* •
ALL LIE IN WAIT
William Samelson, who heads
the department of foreign lan-
guages at San Antonio (Tex.) Col-
lege, wrote from personal experi-
ences when he described the tra-
gedies of the Polish Jewish com-
munity that was destroyed by the
Nazis, the degradations suffered
by the Jews who were in forced
labor and the survival of the nar-
rator of the tale who lived to see
the arrival of the Russians and the
advance of the American forces.
In "All Lie in Wait" published
by Prentice Ha 11 (Englewood
Cliffs, N.J.), Samelson has incor-
porated the tragic developments
that started with the German at-
41 Friday, May 9, 1969
—
For nine months he traveled
from area to area, from one
group of Germans and refugees,
survivors and their inheritors, to
get opinions on the current con-
ditions. In its entirety his book
is a bleak portrayal of what is
happenings, of reactions of con-
ditions as they emanate from
memories of the Holocaust of
which Germans are constantly
reminded but which they wish
to forget.
Many are the authorities. The
rabbis spoke bluntly. The head of
the Berlin Jewish Center (Heinz
Galinski) was more skeptical than
the man who directs the activities
for all of remaining German
Jewry (Hendrik George van Dam).
But is is from the grass roots as
well as prominent professional men
and women that the actual story
was secured. -
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
or the producers of the under-
ground papers.
This volume, published by Cen-
tral Guide Publishers (507
NY17), is much more than the
story of the illegal press. It con-
tains details of the sufferings in
the Vilna Ghetto, the frequent acts
of resistance and, of course, the
description of the Nazi inhuman
acts.
Reproduced documents pub-
lished by the underground force
called the inmates of the ghetto
to revolt. And the sabotage, the
destruction of German troop
trains, the means that were used
when possible to Interfere with
the Nazi terror reveal the
limited resistance but one that
served to Introduce distress in
Nazi ranks. It was in the forests
that the resisters lived and func-
tioned from there. They were
stymied as much by natives who
intellectuals still talked about Ge
there
is
silence
were ready, for rewards, to ex-
but the great mass do
e sshuippprr ul
esessioinroon f-
pose escapes from the ghetto
of the people were too busy mak- handed theadnidctathtor
—and
and to turn them back to the
ing money, buying Volkswagens,
urgency
all
rights
there
is
revealed
in
all
Nazis for a price. But there were
gaining affluence. The
many Christians who worked
that drives people was not the its brutal reality.
Most shocking is the attitude of
closely with the fighters against
creation of a new Germany but
Germans
who
question
whether
Nazism. It is the revelation about
a fatter bank account. But what'
there ever was an Auschwitz or the extent of an even limited re-
was more shocking was that the
a maidanek, and one German, sistance and about the coopera-
Germans had happily let the
horrors of Nazism be forgotten. defiantly defending the NPD live Christian forces that makes
went so far as to say to the this work stand out in value as a
The terrors were no longer talk-
author of this revealing book:
document showing a role that is
ed about. The Jewish persecu-
" Not a single Jew was gassed on
so little understood and appre-
Lion no longer moved them. If
German
soil.
You
Americans
dation
in relation to resistance
the Jews were mentioned, it was
built those gas chambers after
during the last war.
to remind one that a restitution
the
war
to
blacken
Germany."
Kowalski himself emerges as an
law had been passed and they
The tragedy is also of the hand- interesting personality whose cour-
were receiving a lot of money.
That was enough for the Ger- ful who feel the guilt, but over- age contributed towards an impor-
mans; it balanced the books. The whelmingly the Germans oppose taut chapter in World War II his-
whole history of the Nazi years restitution, will not aid efforts to tory. lie was associated with the
was being turned into a footnote educate the youth properly, keeps Zionist Revisionists, cooperated
in the German history books. the guilt as a footnote, and one with other Jewish party groups,
And the story of the Jews, a line teacher who wished to instruct inspired many to assist in barns-
in that footnote. It was an out- properly was summarily dismissed. sing German invaders and when
rage, an attack on human de. This is the tragic story as told possible helped in lifesaving.
cency. Suddenly, I was more by Katcher, whose volume con- In more than one sense, because
Jew than German. I registered thins the figure of Jews who were he took into account the oecurences
as a member of the Jewish coal. and those who are in Germany, of that time and the events that
munity. I had to identity myself, the comparative numbers of those transpired to affect the Immediate
I had to say, `You cannot deny who labored for Germany and environs at the Vilna Ghetto and
my existence or that of the those who are there now under in the entire war-affected Euro-
other Jews in Cologne and Ger- Protest.
pean areas, the Kowalski story is
many, in Dachau and Belsen and It is no wonder that the sum- a chapter of merit in the entire
all the other charnel houses.' " mation includes Katcher to assert history of the Nazi terror.
Primarily, the set-up is the
That's how the explanatory state. in his epilogue:
"From all my journeying, all Jewish United Partisan Orgaai-
ments proceed, from men who had
my inquiring, one fact emerged zation in Vilna emerges in the
been estranged from Jews and
more clearly, more ineentrovert- thorough description of that
Judaism and suddenly identified
ibly, day by day, interview by movement. The regulations are
themselves anew in protest against
interview. It mocked my purpose. outlined, and in a second call
the German spirit. And in Ger-
For what does It matter to be a to action the author quotes: "Re-
many there now emerges a new
Jew in Germany today? History member: until the last breath —
menace, the NPD (National Demo-
will list one final victory for our first proclamation read.
cratic Party that is accused of
Adolf Hitler. In a short time — That was 'many long days ago.
neo-Nazism); and the new chan-
and no one, neither Jews nor Two years of bloody conflict. We
cellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, and
Germans, can halt it — Ger- shall continue until the last
many of his associates are former
Nazis.
many will be Juenrein." breath! And perhaps — until
It is this basic fact that emerges
light.
Furthermore, the textbooks
But we did not fight
for the sake of life alone, but
merely have the brief footnote from the book: no one has faith
in order to give meaning to life
about the Nazi era, and the guilt i that Jews can survive in Germany
towards Jews is glossed over. Only or can continue to live there. Only
that has lost its meaning. And
those who shall remain alive,
the few preach and remember— the relationship with Israel seems
whether they know it or not,
and some are punished for remem- strong and effective.
Katcher's "Post-Mortem" is a
bering.
their lives shall be sanctified by
this death. An outcry such as
Katcher tells the story of three volume that will retain greatest
rich Jews — two are named and significance in the entire library
has never been heard before,
one is unnamed. The latter, "Call on the Holocaust because it went
comes to us from this soil: Con.
tinue!"
me Itzhak," he said, told of the to the root of a problem and
Kowalski's work, first issued in
success he had attained and of secured the direct and incontro-
the memories he retains, of the vertible views of those directly in- Yiddish, now in an English trans-
lation, is not a literary creation
indifference and bitterness of the volved and affected.
• • •
but it is an expose of conditions
Germans who remain admirers of
A SECRET PRESS
in the tragic era, a collection of
Hitler and of the charges against
reflections, reminiscences, re-
IN NAZI EUROPE
Jews, and with regard to accusa-
tions that Jews established and
With proof constantly being asked prints of calls to action against the
own bars he said:
to refute the charge that Jews did Nazis and the story both or resis-
"Tell me, is owning a bar not resist, a volume of impressive tance and of life in the Nazi-made
worse than selling steel from a reality provides details to indicate ghetto.
The manner in which the author
foundry where Jews were used that there were many who fought
as fuel? ... Or is it simply that back, who resorted to every avail- got himself employed in a printing
owning a bar if you are a Jew able means to impede the Nazi plant whence he stole type and lat-
er parts that enabled him to as-
from Galicia is disreputable? It hordes.
is not the bar; it is the Jew .. .
"A Secret Press in Nazi Europe semble a printing press is an excit-
ing
story of ingenuity, of fearless-
I came out of the camp in rags. — The Story of a Jewish United
Today I have my snits made for Partisan Organization" is the rec- ness, of acts that endangered his
me. I once sold single cigarettes ord of such efforts presented by life. And while the press operated
and today I deal in hundreds the man who directed much of the the Nazis were foiled and were un-
of thousands of marks. It seems efforts of the secret periodicals. Is- able to discover whence the con-
that things have gone well with aac Kowalski, who survived the demning circulars that called for
me, eh? That Germany is a good Holocaust to tell the story of that resistance bad conic from.
country for a Jew? It is true; unusual process of spreading
Life in the ghetto is described
knowledgeably. Kowalski tells of
it is better than a ghetto. But printed material exposing the op-
some suicides, resulting from
we are in Germany and none of pressors, relates many facts re-
despair, but he explains them as
us is part of Germany. How can garding a long operation which
the last resort out of despair and
we trust them? It has all been baffled the Nazis and caused them
that they "were much less in
too easy. Press a button, and the to offer an award of 100,000 Reichs-
number than normally occurred
Germans hate the Jews. Press mark for his head. They were un-
(Concluded on Page 12)
another button, and they love the able to locate the printing plant
'