THE JEWISH NEWS
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with issue of July 20. 1951
Member American Associaton of Englsh-Jewish Newspapers. Michigan Press Association, National Editorial Association
Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865, Southfield. Mich. 48075. !
Phone 356-8400
Subscription $7 a year. Foreign $8.
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher.
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
CHARLOTTE DUBIN
City Editor
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the third day of /yar, 5730, the following scriptural selections
will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Levit. 19:1-20:27. Prophetical portion, Amos 9:7-15.
Candle lighting, Friday, May 8, 7:20 p.m.
VOL. LVII. No. 8
Page Four
May 8, 1970
More Phantoms Urgent for Israel
Russian threats to Israel have not been
in the secretive status for some time. The
danger has grown in proportion, and the
menacing situation has become more acute
by the general acceptance of several factors:
the Arabs' determination to postpone any
hope that may have existed for peace nego-
tiations, the -repudiation by all of Israel's
enemies of the cease-fire agreements of 1967
and The assignment by Russia of her trained
pilots to fly Egyptian planes in attacks on
Israel. -
These developments justify renewed de-
mands for more planes for Israel, and the
appeal by Israel Prime Minister Golda Meir,
which has received the backing of knowledge-
able statesmen, for a review of the American
position so that the embattled state may be
assured of more Phantoms, should inspire an-
other countrywide effort in behalf of Israel.
Israel not only pleads for more military
aid but at the same time proposes ways of
ending the conflict in the Middle East. One of
the ways is restoration of a workable cease
fire. Another is the proposal made by Mrs.
Meir for an accord akin to that which gov-
erned USSR-Japanese relations after World
War II which prevented animosities "until
a final peace treaty is signed."
The Mid East tragedy relates to many
diplomatic failures. Inability to stem the
Russian invasion of the area contributes
largely towards the terror that is implicit in
the position of Israel's enemies. Adding to
the confusion and to the failure of statesmen
to come to terms with a situation in which 14
states are ganging up on Israel is the bank-
ruptcy of the United Nations' administration
under U Thant. Either the UN secretary
general is an avowed enemy of Israel who is
laboring with those who seek Israel's de-
struction, or he is inadeqvate to the condi-
tions of our time when it becomes necessary
to seek peace with courage if a world con-
flict is to be averted.
Russia's role, the UN inadequacy, the
hesitancy of the U. S. State Department to
recognize the immediate need to protect a
nation that is in danger of utter destruction
combine to create a situation that is growing
graver as a result of blindness to realities.
That is why it is more urgent than ever now
to let our President and the State Depart-
ment know our concern and to ask for imme-
diate supplies of additional defensive arms
for Israel. Since this country remains the
only adequate supplier of planes to Israel,
there must be no delay in providing such
help at once to a nation that is threatened
with destruction.
Quest for Truth...Even Among Quakers
How does one arrive at truth in an atmos- porter permit a charge of theft or criminality
against an entire people without asking for
phere of hate and misrepresentation?
Is it possible to acquire a rational ap- the facts? Why can't a reporter be informed
proach to issues in which the fate of a nation about the subject under discussion to realize
that the lies one newspaper gave space to a
is at stake?
Why can't human beings relate to one few day ago did not necessarily have to come
another with a view to permitting each other from one who has just returned from
to retain the right to life, liberty and the Amman: they can be gotten from so-called
Near East relief groups operating in Wash-
pursuit of happiness?
When a religious group like the American ington, the propaganda factories at the
Friends who, as Quakers, had gained a repu- United Nations missions of the Arab states,
tation as lovers of peace, can yield to propa- in the brochure financed by the oil mag-
ganda that arouses suspicion of Israel on a nates.
We plead and hope for a better deal, and
scale that adds to the hatred already engen-
dered against Israel, there is cause for even quandary: how can it ever be attained when
greater concern than the propaganda that em- there is a lack of desire for it even among the
anates from the mills that are grinding out church groups and in the ranks of those who
speak of peace yet contribute towards aims
distortions about the Jewish state.
It is one thing for a returnee from Am- at destruction?
We plead and hope for a better deal and
man to bring with her libelous reports about
the Israeli administrators of the territories we are distressed at the lack of concern and
occupied by Israel since June of 1967. After at the failure to send the proper teams of
all, the fables about cruelties are manufac- truth searchers into Israel. We are so cer-
tured there. It is another matter when a tain, especially in behalf of those who have
responsible group of religious leaders swal- seen Israel in action, that Israel's record
would emerge cleansed! Yet it is so difficult
lows the lies hook, line and sinker.
Enemies of Israel are finding it a cinch to to get a hearing in some quarters! Neverthe-
resort to the Thousand and One Nights visions less we retain the hope that truth must
in which Israel is depicted as a villain. But emerge ! If we did not have that confidence
rational people owe it to themselves and to we would have to lose faith in humanity.
whatever human spirit motivates any of their
actions to check on the facts and to strive
for truth. Instead we have been subjected
The Stunned Age
to many misrepresentations, to abuse of
We are in a stunned state, in an age of
truth, to the spread of propaganda that often senselessness,
bordering on stupefaction .. .
emerges as the vilest sort of abuse.
It all stems from the aim to destroy on bewilderment.
Suffering
from
a horrible war, we have
Israel. And because groups like the Quakers
surely would not condone such a crime— been dragged into another area of conflict,
even the Soviet Union wishes it to be known and our one hope is that out of the terror
that it does not seek Israel's extermination!— there will emerge safety for our fellow Amer-
their responsibility is all the greater not to icans who are battling to preserve the demo-
submit themselves to views which we claim cratic ideals, and with an eventual approach
to be untruths and the verity of which can to peace in earnest.
But accompanying it is the destructive
easily be checked when there is a desire to
be fair and just. When, therefore, a volume factor that dominates our universities, the
of 20,000 words is announced with advance riots that invited the opprobrium of "bums"
notice of its anti-Israel bias, we are shocked from our President and others.
into a state of amazement that an honorable It is such a state of affairs that needs cor-
group should be so careless in its treatment rection. We hope for a speedy peace that will
of a serious world issue. end the unrest and the outrageous and sense-
Even reporters who interview returnees less violence that is destroying the dignity
from Amman owe a responsibility to ask the and the honor of our youth. Until that time
proper queStions. How can an honest re- we are doomed to a stunned age.
ark
Dr. Maass Describes Dutch
Resistance to Nazi Terror
Nazi terrorism in the Netherlands, the Dutch collaborators, the
spreaders of the horror and the mass murderers are exposed by
Viennese-born Walter B. Maass, who fled to Holland and lived there
during the war years as an active participant in the resistance.
In his "The Netherlands at War: 1940-1945," published by Abelard-
Schuman, Dr. Maass, who earned his PhD in chemistry before the
Nazis occupied Austria, tells of the cruelty and heartlessness of the
Hitlerites whose role in Holland he describes in detail. As an indica-
tion of the horror that was perpetrated, he states, for example:
"The Nazi terror did not profit Germany as a belligerent. In
the last analysis, its consequences for the Reich were disastrous, as
it triggered partisan warfare and tied down large numbers of occu-
pation troops in various parts of Europe. As to the deportation of
Jews, a German officer remarked sarcastically that 'tying up so
many freight trains was the greatest blow the Jews dealt to Ger-
many. "
Dr. Maass provides an extensive account of the position of the
Jews in Holland, of the Nazi persecutions which drew the support
of prejudiced elements among the Dutch, of the resistance that fought
the terror and worked with Jews for defense and survival. The tragedy
of Dutch Jewry, which was reduced to a fraction by the German
extermination schemes finds new and powerful indictment of Hitler
Germany in this valuable historical record.
There were 140,000 Jews in Holland before the outbreak of the
war and only a few thousand survived. Dr. Maass gives a list of the
deportations and of the mass murders in the camps to which Jews
were transported, and he points out: "The final figure of 100,500 fatali-
ties does not include Jews who were killed in the Netherlands or com-
mitted suicide."
Of special significant in Dr. Maass' work is the record he traces
of the pro-Nazi forces in the Netherlands. There is a thorough account
of the treachery of the National Socialist Bund and how it came
under the influence of the Nazis, and the leaders of the pro Hitler
groups are revealed in all their bias and cruelty. The author also
relates the manner in which their activities were resisted, the labors
of the underground forces that strove in every way to counteract
Nazism and to sabotage Germans in their occupied country.
-
By exposing the brutalities of Arthur S'eyss-Inquart, Dr. Erich
Rajakowitsch and other Nazi leaders, Dr. Maass adds important data
to the accumulated record of Nazi terrorism.
Out of this story emerges the proof of the insanity of the German
forces that invaded Holland and even a more moderate man like Gen-
eral of the Air Force Friedrich Christian Christiansen is described
as having lacked strength of character to overcome the Nazi criminals
and to act according to his conscience.
In spite of the activities of the pro-German NSB there was mount-
ing resentment in Holland, and when it was reported that the Ger-
mans planned to export foodstuffs and cattle to Germany and to deport
dock workers from Amsterdam, anger grew and the resistance forces
began to exert themselves.
Thus, there was the W. A., the Weer Afdeling group. The Order
Dienst (0.D.) was formed as an effective anti-Nazi force. The over-
all resistance force came to be known as K. P.—Knokloegen.
These activities became necessary while Dutch Nazis were col-
laborating with the enemy and were actively engaged in the war
against the Allies.
The post-war experience finds deep reactions in the Maass story.
He tells about the return of those who were deported and who escaped
the death camps, of the efforts to reunite families, of the sad plight
of the children under Nazism.
In his account of Netherlands survival—"sober, unspectacular,
human, democratic"—the author gives emphasis to the courage and
determination of a strong resistance force that prevented Nazism
from gaining full control.
Today, Maass writes, Holland "hardly shows any scars of the
war. If it were not for the various monuments, a casual visitor might
not even realize that this was
one of the most
devastated countries
in 1945. Fortunately, the forces of recuperation overcame all defeats
and frustrations. We may rightly wonder at the invincible strength
of the human spirit."