A Native of a DP Camp Admonishes Our Generation
Never to Forget Holocaust and Not to Defile Its
Seriousness . . . Irony of Despair by USSR Defectors

Purely Commentary

Sensationalism of a Dissatisfied Minority of Russian Settlers in Israel

If the position of Russian Jewry weren't so tragic the
issue raised by a group of defectors from Israel would pro-
vide a comic note in the Soviet attitude on emigration. Tens
of thousands of Russian Jews have settled in Israel, some
of the most distinguished Jewish academics in the Soviet
Union are demonstrating fearlessly for exit right, but a few
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A Plea by a Native of Bergen-Belsen
That Holocaust Memory Be Respected

When Josef Rosensaft survived the horrors of con-
centration camps and was freed finally from Bergen-
Belsen in 1948,- he brought the most stirring messages to
American Jewry. His moving addresses contributed im-
mensely to the great successes of the United Jewish
Appeal.
He became financially successful. When his son was
Bar Mitzva, he took his friends to Israel to celebrate the
significant event of the confirmation of Menahem Z. Ro-
sensaft, who was born in Bergen-Belsen.
Now Menahem is pursuing
the dedicated work of his fa-
ther. Having earned his BA
and MA degrees at Johns
Hopkins University, Baltimore,
Menahem now is adjunct lec-
turer in the department of
Jewish studies of City College
of New York. He is the author
of two books and he is con-
cerned about the memories of
the Holocaust, and is deter-
mined that they should not be
forgotten.
Menahem Rosensaft h a s
written a number of letters to
important newspapers and his
statements include the follow-
Menahem Rosensaft
lowing:
"In 1951, the Knesset proclaimed Nisan 27 as
Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Day), the official day of
commemoration for the six million Jews annihilated
by the German murderers and their accomplices dur-
ing the Second World War. This year, the correspond-
ing date on the Gregorian calendar was April 29, and
thousands of Jews, most of them either survivors of
the Holocaust or children of survivors, gathered that
day in New York City's largest synagogue, Temple
Emanu-El, to mourn the destruction of European Jew-
ry and to mark the 30th anniversary of the War-
saw Ghetto Uprising.
"Meanwhile, a mile or so away from where the
kadish was being reccited for the victims of Auschwitz,
Treblinka, Maidanek, Bergen-Belsen and all the other
death centers, three young, well-known Israeli per-
formers—Daniel Barenboim, Itzhak Perlman and Pin-
chas Zukerman—gave a rare joint concert at Philhar-
monic Hall. On the program were works by Mozart,
Haydn and Elgar.
"It is a sad commentary on the callous indiffer-
ence and utter insensitivity of the world—including
the Jewish world—to the fate of the Six Million that
even one day a year appears to be too much to de-
vote to their memory.
"Could no other date, no other time have been
found for this concert by the three talented Jewish
musicians than the afternoon of Holocaust Day? Was
it essential for them to play the joyous melodies of
Mozart and Haydn while the echoes of the El Mole
Rachamim still hovered over the city?
"Specifically, this tastelessly-timed event should
never have been scheduled for this particular day.
And if the unfortunate scheduling was due to an over-
sight, the concert should have been postponed or can-
celled.
"How many Daniel Barenboims, Itzhak Perlmans
and Pinchas Zukermans were among the children
who perished in the gas chambers of Auschwitz 30
years ago? Could laughter and pleasure not be sus-
pended for twenty-four hours in order to remember
them in dignified silence?
"Even such prominent and highly-paid performers
as these three should be aware of their moral obliga-
tions to their people. Yom Hashoah should be ob-
served as a sacred day: for once, the golden calf
must give way to a feeling of piety and respect. It
is not too great a sacrifice."
It is part of the Rosensaft legacy; that the tragedy
should not be ignored, as an assurance that there is
never again to be a Dachau or an Auschwitz or a Bergen-
Belsen.
Does he ask too much of our generation?
It is not because he is himself a survivor that his
appeal to Jewry is always to remember. Even the pauses
for joyous events must not force the tragedies of the
1930s and 1940s into oblivion.
The Rosensaft message is valid. Let it sink deep into
the consciousness of our people everywhere. Never again
is the warning to. those who perpetrated the crimes! And
with that signal message to mankind goes the admonition
to Jewry: Remember! Never forget! The memory of the
victims cries out to all of us always to keep in view the
era that spelled destruction, so that the generation in
freedom may serve as the protection for generations to
come.

.

;.--Fridoy, July 13, 1973

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

dozen—granted that the number is not 40 or 50 as claimed
by Israel but as many as 80—have left Israel and are
degrading the haven they originally sought as an escape
from communist oppressions.
There is nothing new in an expression of dissatisfac-
tion with a new environment when people abandon their
native lands to settle elsewhere.
Millions of Jews have settled in the United States, and
in the early years even those who had escaped from Czar-
ism included a few who were lonesome for their old
environs.
Jews who left Egypt included a few who craved for
the fleshpots of the Pharaohs.
There were no fleshpots in the USSR, but for some
there was a nostalgia for an old way of life.
Israel doesn't need defense. What needs to be under-
stood is that an alteration of environment and culture can,
as it does, create dissatisfaction among a few who aren't
strong enough to assimilate into a vastly different environ-
ment.
The defectors make good copy, but they don't make
good sense. Their role is too simple to justify exaggerations.
The tens of thousands of Russian Jews who have settled
in Israel defenitely refute the sensationalism of a dis-
satisfied minority.

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4:

Hate-Inspired Insanities

A circular distributed in the Detroit downtown area
introduces a puzzling platform advocated by the National-
ist Socialist Black Man's Party.
It's an anti-Semitic pamphlet in which old cliches are
resorted to, long-abandoned hate-provoking slogans are
utilized to revive some sort of bigotry, and the falsehoods
are aimed at "establishing a new order of things based
on national socialism and social justice."
Because it stems from black sources, it is necessary
to ask whether many Negroes will fall for the sort of
delusion with which the spreaders of this hate sheet ap-
parently seek to infest their community.
The sheet talks about "world Jewish tyranny," of
the enslavement of the African race, about "crooked
kikes" and they reveal their characteristics when they
assert:
For too long our People have been used by the
Jews and their renegade • Capitalist, Marx, and
"Liberal" cohorts whose sole "interest" in the Black
Race is to milk us of all our little money and votes
for their own degenerate and selfish ends. They do
not want us to separate from the white man because
it will mean an end to their biggest source of cheap
slave labor, agitation, and black votes. It will spell
DISASTER for their satanic plans! These devils will
use any means of deceit, corruption, degeneracy, and
lies in order to keep us here to be exploited even
more. If these crooked kikes succeed the entire World
will be enslaved under a corrupt JEWISH TYRANNY
and the African Man will vanish down the sewer of
miscegenation.
It's clear from such insanities that you can't even be
nice to the deluded.

By Philip
Slomovitz

At once, the machinery of the distorted mind be-
comes understandable. It's a group that seeks isolation
and it needs a scapegoat. It finds it in a definition like
this, culled from the hate circular: "We must reject the
repulsive Jew-devils and their treacherous Communist,
capitalist and 'Liberal' cohorts. We must reject their
diabolical, anti-Black racemixing schemes."
That's how anti-Semitism has worked: by branding
Jews as being both Communist and capitalist as well as
liberal. It embraces us completely. Therefore, one would
expect that the sensible Blacks would do the laughing at
such delusions. But there are too many who fall prey to
nonsense. Wasn't the Hitler and Protocols propaganda of
the same ilk? That's why a circular shared with unknow-
ing could become a menace. We are not frightened by it:
we are puzzled anew that people in the guise of humans
compose, print and distribute such stupidities; and we ask
again: is there an audience for such tripe?

Tragic Wall of Divisiveness

In anticipation of the World Energy Conference sched-
uled to be held in Detroit in September Police Department
Division Commander James Bannon was quoted express-
ing concern over the security problem. He especially
phasized the matter of security when Arabs and Is
are involved. At the same time, the executive diree‘or
of the conference, Dick E. Hart, also spoke of the an-
vieties caused by security problems created when such a
conference takes place. He called it a mini-UN and on
the question of Arabs attending the same sessions as
Israelis and the accommodations being made for them,
he said "we simply wouldn't accommodate Israelis in the
same hotel as Arabs."
This, of ccurse, merely aggravates an already sad
situation. There have been numerous instances when Arabs,
meeting with Israelis in debates, set up partitions to create
a separation. But they have already stayed in the same
hotels, and when they conferred on the Island of Rhodes
during the armistice conference in 1948 they were on
separate floors for the purposes of conducting their own
caucus sessions.
A rather tragic factor in the situation was reported
by N. Y. Times' UN correspondent Robert Alden on June
15, during the debates on the Middle East situation. Alden
reported:
"The Foreign Minister of Algeria, in a rare diSplay of
open hostility in the Council chamber, refused to take the
seat prepared for him next to the Israeli representative.
He insisted that the Jordanian representative move so that
he could be seated some 20 feet from the Israeli repre-
sentative."
These things have happened on many occasions, and
they have always been the acts of Arab antagonists. Israelis
remain ever ready to confer with Arabs and to meet them
on equal ground.
This is the first time, however, that planners of world
conferences have indicated that Jews and Arabs have
been separated from 'accommodations in the same hotels.
Abba Eban and King Hussein have been knewn to be in the
same hotels in London and New York. UN delegates of
all nations have been guests in the same hostelries. There
is no reason for aggravating cancer-ridden diplomacy.

Jorge Garcia Granados—Israel Builder

By EDNA AIZENBERG
JTA Correspondent in
Caracas, Venezuela

Almost 25 years to the day
which marked the implemen-
tation of (at least part of)
(Copyright 1973, JTA, Inc.)
UNSCOP's recommendations
Guatemala is probably for the establishment of Is-
known to those Americans rael, your JTA correspond-
who know it at all as 'a little ent had the opportunity to
Central American republic learn more about the "back
full of coffee and bananas; door" and the places it led
similarly the name of Jorge to from Jorge Garcia Grana-
Garcia Granados is likely to dos' younger son, who ap-
conjure up a blank look of parently not only carries his
unfamiliarity, or a stereo- late father's name, but also
typed el exigente, smiling as his concern for human rights,
the campesinos bring him having come to Caracas for
their produce for inspection. a symposium on the situa-
But in the recent history tion of Jews in Arab lands.
of the Jewish people, both
Jorge Garcia Granados'
Guatemala and Jorge Garcia
Granados occupy a place of initial involvement in the
honor as a country and a Jewish cause began after
man who gave the cause of lunch in May 1947, when, as
Jewish Palestine vital sup- his country's ambassador to
port in the critical days of the United States and repre-
sentative to the United Na-
1947-48.
How did Guatemala a n d tions, he was told by a fellow
Garcia Granados get in- diplomat: "You should be on
volved in a problem seem- this committee. We need a
ingly so far removed from fighter." When power politics
their geographic and cultural began to play in the forma-
tion of UNSCOP, Guat e-
milieu?
"Through the back door," mala's name was added to
as Garcia G r a n a d o s ex- the original list of seven, at
plained in "The Birth of Is- the suggestion of other Latin
rael," the book he authored American delegates.
after his experiences as a
While in UNSCOP, the fa-
member of UNSCOP (United ther became an active sup-
Nations Special Committee porter of the Jews' right to
on Palestine) which in 1947 have a homeland. His book
recommended the partition of vividly describes his dismay
that sorely contested land at the police-state tactics
into two independent states, used by the British to keep
one Arab, one Jewish.
law and order in Palestine,

and his admiration for the
vishuv's determination to
build a modern, progressive
state.
Both reactions were
grounded in his own experi-
ences and 'background, "My
father's grandfather w a s
Guatemala's first liberal pres-
ident," Garcia Granados said.
"At the turn of the century
he overthrew the conserva-
tive regime and gave my
country its initial impulse to-
wards modernization."
When UNSCOP's work was
done and partition was ap-
proved, Garcia Granados
once again swung into action,
becoming the man to an-
nounce his country's recogni-
tion of Israel — right after
Truman's surprising move.
"Father played a crucial
role in this regard," recalled
Garcia Granados. "He said
he would recognize Israel,
with or without Guatemala."
In fact, Guatemala, and its
president Juan Jose Arevalo,
were solidly behind their del-
egate, and in 1955 named him
the country's first ambassa-
dor to the nation he had
helped create.
"Again my father displayed
his fighting spirit. He insist-
ed on going to Jerusalem—
or not at all. And this was in
the days when embassies
were established in Tel-Aviv.

,
JORGE GARCIA GRANDOS

But he had his way, in spite
of strong Western pressures
to the contrary."
Garcia Granados also took
along a hand picked first sec-
retary—Jorge Garcia Grana-
dos Jr.—who stayed on as
charge d'affaires for three
years after his father was
assigned elsewhere. A bache-
lor, the sontmet_and married
an Israeli girl who has made
him the father of four daugh-
ters.
Thanks to this "back door"
relationship which began 26
years ago, a "tradition of
support for Israel," as Gar-
cia Granadas put it, has since
existed in Guatemala.

