Mills-Vanik Backers RegisterVictory; Anticipate House Vote
By JOSEPH 'POLAKOFF
JTA Washington Bureau
and others challenging the
Soviet government for free-
WASHINGTON (JTA) — dom to emigrate and for hu-
Capitol Hill observers had man rights. The companion
bill in the Senate is the Jack-
long expected that the vote son Amendment.
in the ways and means com-
What finally emerged from
mittee on the Mills-Vanik the committee was not the
Amendment to the United amendment sponsored by 18
States-Soviet trade legislation' • of the panel's 25 members.
A major section, which
would be very close and would have given Congress
change from day to day.
control over credits and cred-
When the climax finally it guarantees, was deleted
came on Rosh Hashana eve, when a remarkable 12-12 tie
vote on a jurisdictional issue
it was indeed tight and illum- failed to overturn the dele-
inated the strenuous struggle tion offered by the commit-
between the Nixon adminis- tees ranking Republican
tration's opposition to laws member Rep. Herman T.
restricting Soviet-American Schneebeli of Pennsylvania, a
trade and those who regard foe of the amendment as a
the amendment as the rally- whole.
ing symbol for Soviet Jews
What remains is that most
favored nation treatment sta-
tus is denied to the Soviet
Union and other governments
that refuse their citizens the
right to emigrate or impose
more than a minimal tax on
those emigrating. This is
hailed nonetheless by amend-
ment supporters as a legisla-
tive landmark and a great
victory.
In its present diluted form
the amendment does not bar
the President from giving
the Soviet Union credits,
which he already has done
through the U. S. Export-
Import Bank to the tune of
about $400,000,000. But the
Soviet government cannot
have the recognition it wishes
to be a normal U. S. trading
partner, nor can it obtain the
lower tariff rates that MFN
Cardinal Mindszenty No Hero to Jews,
Insists Ex-Rabbi of Budapest Ghetto
from the Nuremberg files re-
lates that the Bishop of Vesz-
prem authorized the celebra-
tion of a thanksgiving mass
in 1944 on the occasion of the
deportation of the Jews.
Mindszenty was bishop of
Veszprem in 1944.
The document referred to
was an official report by Ger-
man Ambassador Edmund
Veesenmayer from Budapest
to Berlin. Dated July 20, 1944,
the report described the anti-
Semitic mood of the Hungar-
ian population. The document
is cited in Leon Poliakov's
"Harvest of Hate" (Syracuse
U. Press, 1954).
Dr. Belton stresses that the
roundup of Jews for deporta-
tion and their torture was
perpetrated by Hungarians.
"The Gestapo just supervised
the dirty work and took over
the shipments after the Hun-
garians already locked them
Dr A. B. Belton, the source in the sealed box cars, tighter
of this article, is shown in than sardines, a hundred per
1944, when he was chief rab- wagon.
bi of the Budapest ghetto, in
"Those gendarmes, police
his Nazi prison garb wearing and civil servants — without
the Yellow Star of David.
*
*
*
Dr. Albert B. Belton, a Hol-
ocaust survivor, who was
chief rabbi of the Budapest
ghetto during the Nazi era,
denies that Joszef Cardinal
Mindszenty, now hailed as a
hero, had rescued Jews.
Rabbi Belton, a naturalized
U. S. citizen whose name in
Hungary was Dr. Bela Ber-
end, said that Cardinal Mind-
szenty is being represented by
his spokesmen as having
been arrested by the Gestapo
for defending Jews in Hun-
gary in 1944.
a whole, can easily forget."
Rabbi Belton, who spent
two years in a Communist
prison at the close of the war,
said he pleaded with Hungar-
ian Communists as recently
as two years ago for the total
rehabilitation of Mindszenty
and his return to his home-
land.
Denmark Visa
Awaits Trepper
COPENHAGEN (JTA) —
Foreign Minister Knut B.
Andersen said here that a
Danish visa is awaiting Leo-
pold Trepper at the Danish
Embassy in Warsaw should
Polish authorities grant the
former Soviet master spy
permission to leave Poland.
Andersen said that Den-
mark regards the Trepper
case as a matter of "human
rights.'
"In accordance with nor-
mal Danish rules for bring-
ing families together, the
Danish Embassy in Warsaw
has been authorized to issue
an entry visa for Denmark,"
Andersen said.
Trepper, who headed the
"Red Orchestra," the Soviet
espionage organization i n
Western Europe during
World War II, has been re-
peatedly refused an exit visa
by Polish authorities on
grounds that he might divulge
state secrets.
In a letter released in
Paris, Trepper threatened
suicide should the Polish au-
thorities not permit him to
leave shortly.
In fact, said Dr. Belton,
Heinemann Denies
Mindszenty was arrested by
Report He Asked His
the fascist Hungarian Arrow
Cross for refusing to hand CARDINAL MINDSZENTY
Firm to Defend Nazi
over the winter clothing he
BONN (JTA) — The office
had collected for the poor of whose zealous assistance the
his diocese of Veszprem.
Nazis would have never been of West Germany's president
While Dr. Belton gives
Mindszenty the benefit of the
doubt as a Hungarian patriot
or martyr of the church, he
insists that the cardinal
should not be described as a
rescuer of the Jews of Hun-
gary.
Mindszenty was not elevat-
ed to the position of cardinal
until after the close of World
War II. The prince-primate of
Hungary in 1944 was Justin-
ian Cardinal Seredi, who did
plead with the Hungarian
government for the rescue of
Jews—but mainly for those
already converted to Chris-
tianity, said Dr. Belton.
He added that a document
48 Friday, October 12, 1973
—
categorically denied a Czech
newspaper report that Presi-
dent Gustav Heinemann had
asked his law firm to under-
take the defense of Ernst
Gerke, former Gestapo head
in Prague, who is under in-
vestigation in West Germany
for possible war crimes.
T h e newspaper, Vecerni
Praha, named the law firm of
Heinemann and Posser in
Essen, which is owned jointly
by Heinemann and Nor t li
Rhine-Westphalia Justice
Minister Diether Posser.
A statement issued by
Heinemann's office said that
since 1969, when he was
elected, the president has had
nothing to do with his legal
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS practice.
able to deport 600,000 Jews in
three months—were no visi-
tors from outer space, they
were Hungarian nationals,
compatriots, coreligionists
and parishioners of Minds-
zenty's Roman Catholic
church.
"They and their predeces-
sors (the Ebredo Magyarok
and the Hirig Shimon hooli-
gans) in the quarter of a cen-
tury between the two world
wars demonstrated their
brand of 'Christian love'
with such catastrophic effect-
iveness that neither the sur-
vivors of the Holocaust, nor
world Jewry, nor, for that
matter, civilized humanity as
status provides on what it
may be able to sell in the
United States.
"The war is not over," a
congressional aide intimate
with the legislation cautioned.
"It has gone well so far even
if not entirely in our favor.
There is much hard fighting
ahead before it is won."
What he meant was that the
legislative process has only
just begun. The amendment
is now before the House Rules
Committee. It is understood
the House as a whole will
probably vote on it Thursday.
Only after the House finish-
es its action will the Senate
begin consideration, with the
likelihood it will not receive
the measures from its finance
committee before early in
1974.
Only four days before the
committee was scheduled to
vote, a member asked Laza-
rus, the deputy assistant sec-
retary of commerce for East-
West trade, whether Israel
granted the Soviet Union
MFN treatment. Lazarus re-
portedly replied yes and
thereupon gave to the com-
Rep. Charles A. Vanik (D., mittee a report on Soviet-
Ohio), one of the amend- Israel commerce.
MFN; it treats all nations
alike in trade. Since 1956,
there has been no Israeli-So-
viet trade except for transfer
of land in Jerusalem from the
Russian Orthodox Church to
Israel, for which Israel paid
in citrus fruit and bananas.
These figures and the im-
plications, which Lazarus la-
ter conceded had been incor-
rect, and similar errors in
Nixon's international eco-
nomic message last March,
could have destroyed the
Mills-Vanik bill if they had
not been exposed quickly as
untrue.
The errors in Nixon's mes-
sage were spotted by Jack-
son's staff and were brought
to the attention of the White
House, which issued an apol-
ogy.
ment's three authors, has al-
ready announced to its 287
House co-sponsors that he
will seek to restore the cred-
it restrictions at that time.
"It took researchers two
days to correct these out-
right falsehoods" the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency was in-
formed. Israel does not have
Belgian Prof Freed
by Chilean Junta
Catholic Defines Inquisition,
Enumerates Its Crimes, Acclaims
High Role of Pope John. XXIII
BRUSSELS (JTA) — Dr.
Jacques Zylberberg, a Bel-
gian Jewish professor who
was arrested by the military
junta in Chile, returned to
Belgium Tuesday after three
weeks' imprisonment.
Dr. Zylberberg, who taught
sociology at the University of
Concepcion under the Allen-
de administration, said the
junta reproached him for be-
ing "Jewish and an intellec-
tual."
He said that having been
imprisoned at the Kuri-Kuina
Naval Base off the Chilean
coast of Talcahuana, he was
relatively privileged as com-
pared to the 20,000 other pol-
itical prisoners held else-
where in Chile. He said he
did not have many complaints
about the conditions of his
detention.
USSR Underground
Literature Reprinted
NEW YORK — A collection
of Russian underground lit-
erature prepared by some of
the leading figures in the
Soviet Jewish intelligentsia
has been assembled in a new
publication and will be dis-
tributed free by the Israel
International Information
Council.
For a copy of "Am Yisroel
Chai — Israel Lives," enclose
a stamped, self-addressed en-
velope, addressed to Rabbi
Rubin Dobin at the council,
POB 11, Lawrence, New York
11559.
A C at h oli c's definitive
work on "The Inquisition"
exposes the crimes that were
committed by inquisitors, but
at the same time he defines
the "facts that form the key
to understanding much of the
thought and action of medie-
val Christendom."
In his book, "The Inquisi-
tion," published by MacMil-
lan, John A. O'Brien, author-
in-residence at the University
of Notre Dame, deals exten-
sively with the horrors that
were perpetrated, and lists
many of the Inquisition
crimes.
Hair-raising instances of
cruelties are recorded in his
book. His five "Basic Facts"
regarding the Inquisition are:
The Church is a society,
basic and sovereign; faith
was considered by the people
of the Middle Ages (and of to-
day as well) as a gift of God;
"there existed a moral, spir-
itual and juridical unity of
medieval society w h e r e in
Church and State constituted
a closely knit polity"; the
severity of the penal code in
those days permitted use of
torture and the stake; the
modern concept of a secular
state "would have shocked
the medieval mind."
But why does this Catholic
author define the inquisitors
as "flesh and blood men,
children of their day, doing
what we in all probability
would have done if we were
their next - door - neighbors?"
There were even then men of
courage and a sense of jus-
tice who resisted Inquisition.
Why not credit them with re-
bellion against the horrors
portrayed in the O'Brien
book? When even Galileo
and Savonarola were de-
clared heretics?
O'Brien does pay high hon-
or to Pope John XXIII and to
Vatican Council It. Hailing
Ecumenism he even goes so
far as to declare: "If the
injunctions of the Vatican
Council II concerning the re-
lations of Christians and Jews
were put into practice, the
Anti-Defamation League of
Bnai Brith could close up
shop."
O'Brien offers a view well
worth knowing. There have
been Catholic writers who
defended Inquisition and did
not totally expose its shock-
ing crimes. O'Brien explains,
and his recorded facts also
condemn. As a commentary
on the era under review his
work is most valuable.
B-G Returns Home
TEL AVIV (JTA) — David
Ben-Gurion, who was hospi-
talized for a week suffering
from a cold and a tempera-
ture developed later, was re-
leased and returned to his
home. Physicians said he was
well again and recovered
from his cold.
Sukkot Puzzled Early Greeks and Romans
In the 1st Century non-
Jews of Alxandria and Rome
alleged that Jews practiced
the cult of Dionysus, the
Greek god of wine and fer-
tility.
The reason for their mis-
conception as explained in
Encyclopedia Judaica is
simple. The Greek biogra-
pher Plutarch (c. 46-120 CE)
gave Sukkot (Oct. 11-19 this
year) a Bacchanalian inter-
pretation when he wrote,
"After the festival called 'the
fast' (the Day of Atone-
ment), during the vintage,
the Jews place tables laden
with different fruits in booths
of thickets woven from vines
and ivy. Their first festival
is called by them Sukka. A
few days later, the Jews
celebrate another festival
which one may simply call
a Bacchanalian festival. For
this is a festival on which
the Jews carry fig branches
anti sticks adorned with
ivy and carry them into the
temple. One does not know,"
adds Plutarch "what they do
in the Temple. It seems rea-
sonable to suppose that they
practice rites in honor -of
Bacchus. For they blow small
horns as the people of Argos
do during the festival of Di-
onysus, and call upon their
god."
The Talmud gives detailed
instructions on how the sukka
(booth) should be construct-
ed saying that it must be re-
garded as one's principal
abode for seven days and
nights of the festival. The
eighth day is called Shemini
Atzeret. The last day. Sim-
hat Torah ("Rejoicing of the
Law") coincides in Israel
with Shemini Atzeret. On
Sim hat Torah the annual
reading of the Torah from
the scroll of the synagogue is
concluded. The person called
to the reading of the last and
the first portions of the
Torah are known as Hatan
Torah ("Bridegroom of the
•
Torah") and Hatan Bereshit
("Bridegroom of the Begin-
ning") respectively. Fellow
congregants are then invited
to a party with songs and
dance in honor of the day.
In contrast to the Greek
and Roman festival celebra-
tions, the Encyclopedi
-u-
daica goes on to shov.
Hellenistic Jewish writers
stressed the uniqueness of
Jewish festivals. Philo main-
tained that ignorance of the
nature of true happiness
leads to the assumption that
on festivals joy is to be
achieved through physical in'.
dulgences. The true signifi-
cance of the festival rather
is to find pleasure and enjoy-
ment through meditation
about the world and the har-
mony existing in it.
According to Philo, were
man's virtue constantly to
rule his desires, his whole
life, from birth to death,
would be one long festival.