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Purely Commentary

A German Humanitarian Who Aided
in Danish Jewry Rescue Work

So much has been said and written about King Chris-
tian of Denmark who wore the Yellow Badge as a mark
of sympathy for and association with his Jewish citizens
during the Nazi era, that it is a source of regret that the
name of a valiant German who aided in the rescue ac-
tivities has not been mentioned often.

The death of Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz, the German
career diplomat who was with the Nazis in Denmark dur-
ing those tragic years, brings
to light the services of a true
humanitarian who ignored his
superiors in 1943, informed
the Danes of the Nazi plan to
deport Jews to death camps,
and as a result the movement
began, on the Rosh Hashana
of 1943, for Jews to leave on
fishing boats for Sweden.
Some 6,000 Jews were res-
cued, thanks to the tipoff by
Duckwitz. Of the 472 Jews
who did not escape and who
were sent to the Czechoslova-
kian Theresienstadt concentra-
tion camp, 52 were murdered
and the rest survived.
Duckwitz served with Gen.
John J. McCloy and George
Thomsen of Britain, in 1967,
on a plan to offset the coat of
maintaining British and Amer-
ican troops in Germany. He
worked closely with Willy Brandt, in 1970, on a Polish
accord scheme.
Duckwitz stemmed from a Bremen merchant family,
was familiar with Danish mercantile projects and was
assigned to Denmark as a shipping specialist by the
German government.
The Duckwitz story is yet to be written, and it de-
serves to be perpetuated as part of the story of resistance
to Nazism
Contrary to the humane qualities of George Duckwitz,
we have the record of pro-Nazism in the obituary just
written of Dr. Hans Globke. He was on the staff of Chan-
cellor Konrad Adenauer who defended him and named
him state secretary of the Chancellery. But it was an
established fact that he had framed the anti-Jewish Nuh-
renbuerg Laws.
The anti-Semitic laws were drafted by him as early
as 1932, and he was charged with having authored a secret
document, including a directive about "Jewish names" in
which he stipulated that "the endeavors of Jewish persons
to camouflage their Jewish descent by giving up or chang-
ing their Jewish names ought not to be tolerated."
Just as we must honor the Georg Duckwitzes, so,
also, must the crimes of the Hans Globkes not be for-
gotten.

Aid Sought for USSR Victim

The Iraqi Terror and the Silence of the International Community

Escapees from the Iraqi terror report that half of the
remaining few hundreds Jews in that land of medieval-
ism and oppression are ready to leave as soon as they can
obtain exit visas. The remaining 300, or 350, apparently
have lost all hope of changing habitats, or are so rooted
in the land of their birth and their ancestors—Jews have
lived in Iraq for 2,000 years—that they refuse to abandon
their homes, their possessions.
This is what had happened to a community that num-
bered some 200,000 about 25 years ago. Those who still
reside there are tortured. Ten are reported to have been
murdered in an Iraqi prison.
The Committee of Concern ("a nonsectarian group of
Americans from various walks of life, who are united in
their humanitarian concern to alleviate the plight of mi-
norities in Arab countries"), of which Gen. Lucius D.
Clay (U. S. Army Ret.) is chairman, expressing anxiety
over the fate of Iraqi Jews and calling for international
consideration of the issue and for action to end the terror,
pointed out that the oppressed Jews have had notices
posted on their domes accusing them of being "fugitives
from justice," thus providing an excuse for the confisca-
tion of their property and thus denying responsibility for
any knowledge of the whereabouts of the victims.
The Committee of Concern maintains that strong
confirmation of fears that nine of the imprisoned Jews
have already died or were secretly executed in prison
is provided by people who have left Iraq. (Israel Foreign
Minster Abba Eban spoke in the Knesset of 10 Iraqi Jews
who are believed to have been murdered in prison). There-
upon the Committee of Concern analyzed the existing con-
ditions in this statement:

had been arrested and were no longer in prison because
they had died. Moreover, in the past, Iraqi authorities had
sometimes maintained that imprisoned Jews were being
held for alleged currency violations or other 'economic
crimes.'
"We call upon the Iraqi authorities to let the truth
be known. What is the fate of the imprisoned Jews? If
they are charged with any crime then they are entitled
to a fair and open trial. If they are still incarcerated with-
out charges then let them be set free. If they are dead,
then let their grieving families claim their bodies.
"The denial of basic human rights and the arbitrary
actions to which Iraqi Jews have been subjected are in

direct contradiction to recent statements by Iraqi officials
asserting that its Jewish citizens enjoy full rights and free-
dom. We once again call upon the Iraqi authorities to live
up to the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, to which their own government has subscribed."

Now the question must be addressed to the United
Nations, to the international community, whether a state
of horror that has marked the destruction of a vast com-
munity, one of the oldest in the world in a single land,
and whether a new form of genocide will be silenced. Is it
possible that there are so few voices of protest against
the new holocaust, that the ears of the world's statesmen
are closed to the agonized cries of a suffering community
that has been reduced to a mere handful compared to its
past glories? Perhaps Gen. Clay and his associates will get
a hearing from the voices that have been deafened by the
reactions that dominate the world organization. Perhaps
the cry of shame even from a handful of humanitarians

will awaken the sleepy in the United Nations.
•
•
"Signs saying 'has taken mole have been posted on
•
the homes of the imprisoned Jews; their property has been
Judicial Temperaments . . . Swainson's Role
frozen; and in some cases all their assets have already
As Governor of Michigan John B. Swainson already
been put on sale by the authorities. These actions have
won the hearts of his fellow citizens with his good judg-
caused alarm among the Jewish community, because in
ments,
his calmness and sense of fair play. Applying it as
result
of
torture
as
a
the past when Jews died in prison
Deputy Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court,
rather than official execution, similar signs were placed
late last week, he set at rest what might have emerged
on their homes, rewards were posted for their 'discovery'
into a rather ugly incident. He spoke to a fellow-jurist in
and the Iraqi authorities displayed their pictures together
terms of the required judicial temper and he gave a
with warnings not to aid these 'fugitives from justice.'
lesson in temperament to many on the judicial benches,
Their property was then also confiscated,
Justice Swainson may not be "A Daniel come to judg-
three Jews arrested at the end of December
"Wb
ment," but he certainly gave credence to the definition
have since been released, no word has been received
in the Zohar. "A judge sins if he looks not for merits in
about the fate of those arrested in September and Novem-
the accused." He must have found merits both in an
ber. They have been held incommunicado and neither
their families nor their lawyers have been able to see them. accused and an accuser to have obviated a matter that
"Inquiries by relatives to officials of the Ministry of assumed a communal proportion.
Talking about judges: Maimonides (he was both a
Interior and the various other police and internal security
agencies in Baghdad have met with the response that great physician and a superb legalist) defined it as: "A
either they have no record of the prisoner In question or judge must have these seven qualifications: wisdom,
that he has 'fled the country.' On Feb. 1, 1973, Mr. Walad humility, fear of God, disdain of gain, love of truth, love
Abbas, the Iraqi press attache In Paris, declared that no of his fellow men, and a good reputation." Swainson
Iraqi Jew was now being held in prison 'for political or qualifies: that's why he retained our respect. Now he has
earned our appreciation for having closed the ledger on
religious reasons' and that his government was prepared
to furnish all assurances on this subject. This statement an occurrence that approached unnecessary embarrass-
is far from adequate. It evades the issue of whether Jews ments.

Former U.S. Hippies Help Revive a Galilee Village

•

By MOSHE RON
Special Jewish News
Israel Correspondent

TEL AVIV — The small
village of Pekiin in Upper
Galilee, has again become
famous through a group of
American youngsters, who
have wandered all over the
world with their guitars, and

finally settled in Pekiin. In
that old village they met a
group of former hippies, who
studied at the Tfuzat Israel
Yeshiva on Mount Zion and
were so impressed by their
religious zeal that they de-
cided to found a new yesh-
iva, together with the Jeru-
salem yeshiva scholars.
These yeshiva scholars,
having rejected the New Left
theories of their former
leader, Prof. Marcuse, are
now studying Jewish law.
They have long beards, side-
locks and fringes.

The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry has appealed
for help for noted Russian Jewish ophthalmologist Dr. Isaac
Poltinnlkov (above) who, with his wife Irma (lower right)
and daughter Victoria (lower left), have been repeatedly
refused exit to Israel. Dr. Poltinnikov is now falsely ac-
cused of blinding human "guinea pigs" in medical experi-
ments.

By Philip
Slomovitz

Horror in Iraq . . . Need for International Action
to Facilitate Rescue Work . . . Tribute to German
Swainson Solves a Problem
Who Resisted Nazis .

Pekiin was the only Jewish
village in Eretz Israel in
which Jews remained after
the destruction of the Second
Temple, nearly 2,000 years
ago. During the Arab po-
grom in 1939, when dozens
of Jewish families in Pekiin
were in danger of being
killed, all, with one excep-
tion, were transferred to
Haifa. One Jew, Josef Zinati,
emphatically declined to
leave his village, and after

The yeshiva scholars main-
tain that they came to Pekiin
to guard historic Jewish
lived there 100 years ago places such as the cave in
and afterwards left for Shaf- which Rabbi Shimon Bar
ram and Hama. At home she Johai hid from the Romans
had beard talk of Pekiin and for 13 years. Legend relates
had decided to return. She that a miracle took place
lived in the house of the near this cave. The legend Is
that a tree with fruit and a
Zinati family.
water-pit were found nearby
The Druze and Arab popu-
and Rabbi Shimon Bar Johai
lation of Pekiin unfortunate-
and his son, Eleazar, were
ly did not have such good
thus sustaining themselves.
relations with the Jews, and

only a few days he returned.
Nearly 30 years later, his-
tory repeated itself, when he
was forced to leave again in
1967 but returned immedi-
ately after the Six-Day War.
Zinati said there had always
been Jews in Pekiin and he
would have to guard the old
synagogue and cemetery. He
stayed, with his daughter
Margalit, as the only Jews
in Pekiin. The other Jewish
inhabitants of Pekiin did not
wish to return but from time
to time they visited their old
village.

from Kiryat Blank, who was

The late President Itzhak

Druze and Arabs wished to
pave a road through the
Jewish cemetery. The local

Ben-Zvi, who was an avid

explorer of old places in

Eretz Israel, provided the
material needs of the Zinati

family, who cared for the

ancient synagogue and wel-
comed the many Jewish
visitors who came to see the
historical Jewish places.
After Ben-Zvi's death, his
widow, Mrs. Rachel Janait
(Ben-Zvi) became the Zinati
family's patron.

Recently, 15 yeshiva
scholars from America
settled in Pekiin. The Arab
inhabitants refused to rent
rooms and they settled in
the synagogue, where stoves
were installed so the scholars
could study Torah and Tal-
mud.
A young girl, Olga Levy,

born in Pekiin, joined the
group. Her grandfather had

often caused trouble. Mar-
galit Zinati often had to turn
to the police for help. The

council turned down an ap-
peal from the yeshiva
scholars to allow them to
install a water pipeline to
the synagogue. The spiritual
leader of the Druze popula-
tion in Israel, Sheikh Amin
Tarif, tried for harmony be-
tween the local population
and the 15 yeshiva scholars.
Members of the local council
declared they were not
against the return of Jews to
Pekiin, but they objected to
American newcomers. They
said that the former Jewish
inhabitants of Pekiin knew
the language and customs of
the local Arab and Druze
population, and they re-
spected them.

2—Fridoy, Feb. 23, 1973

In this cave, they wrote the
mystic Kabala "Zohar." In
Peklin, there is also an
ancient synagogue which was
built from stones brought
from the Holy Temple in

Jerusalem.

The yeshiva scholars
pledged themselves to learn
the customs of the village in-
habitants and the Arabic
language. Peace was con-
cluded, and members of the
local council promised to
help the newcomers in their
settlement. Until now, Mar-
galit Zinati attended to the
cleaning of the synagogue

historic Jewish
the
and
places. Near old Pekiin, a
new Jewish moshav was
founded in 1955, which bears
the name of the "The New
Pekiin." But Jews are re-
turning in large numbers to
the old Pekiin and it seems
that they will never leave it.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

