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Nazi Era Keeps Prejudice Alive in the Hearts and
Minds of Hitler's Heirs: 'No Boundaries to Hatred'
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SIOMOVitZ
Hatreds in the Hearts of Men Keep Hitlerism Alive
Is there any hope at all for progress along humanitarian international lines to
eliminate rancor and to establish decency in society we wish to consider civilized?
After the Nazi Holocaust, dare we look to a day without danger of genocide?
Why can't Arabs live in amity with Jews, Russians with Chinese, blacks with
whites?
Why a condition that leads 28 per cent of the American people—as revealed
in a poll made known by CBS Commentator Mike Wallace—believe that the Arabs
really wish to destroy Israel, and how is it possible, in a modern age like ours,
for Arab intentions to be to destroy a neighboring state? Don't they recognize another
nation's right to live, and aren't they satisfied with 19 states—mostly kingdoms—of
their own?
Perhaps the article in The New York Times by Janet Barkas, reprinted from
the London Jewish Chronicle, tells the tale and provides the shocking answer: "No
Boundaries to Hatred" was the title to that article, and it told the tale.
Miss Barkas was culminating a year's research on Hitler and, traveling on a
Lufthansa plane, setting out to speak to Albert Speer, the general who was only
recently released from the prison to which he was sent as a war criminal; Gerda
Christian, Hitler's 1933-45 secretary, and Winifred Wagner, the daughter-in-law
of Richard Wagner, the arch-anti-Semite musician who was Hitler's idol. And these
are the results of her mission:
Heidelberg was my first stop, to see Albert Speer. The students at the
bar the first evening of my arrival were not interested in my background. Their
hostility was directed at my Berlitz German and the fact that I was American.
I met a young blond-haired man who claimed agreement with the philosophical
basis of National Socialism. "If only Hitler had not campaigned against the
Jews," he said, "everything else he wanted for Germany was positive."
In a student cafeteria at Heidelberg I met a young married couple. We
walked to a nearby restaurant and there talked for hours, sipping draughts of
beer. Then they asked the question: "Are you Jewish?" "Yes." The young wife
drew back, seeming confused by my admission. "But you don't look Jewish and
your name isn't Jewish." I explained that it was a Greek name. The conversa-
tion petered out. The next morning, Albert Speer. His attractive, bronzed wife,
casually dressed in brown pants and matching knit top, provided freshly squeezed
orange juice. Speer discussed my research on Hitler. It was a pleasant chat,
though he seemed to be recapitulating sections of his book on the Third Reich.
During the long train ride up the Rhine to Dusseldorf, I vowed to put
to Mrs. Christian those questions I had not asked of Sneer. Her flat was furnished
and in the style of her most important period, the thirties. "Did you dislike the
Jews?" I asked.
"You don't know what it was like," she said. "A Jewish girl of twenty
was like a German girl of sixteen. My mother was afraid to let me associate
with them. They wore lipstick and were 'fast.' " There was no hesitancy in her
voice. She continued eagerly. "It was terrible. All the doctors and lawyers were
Jews. The Germans were out of work, too, and couldn't get a job because the
Jews had them all." She did not disagree that "Hitler was the best boss" she
had ever had.
Back down the Rhine. Dachau. Everything clean and new. The original
barracks had been torn down. Only replicas stood there. In front of one of the
gas chambers was a young family, the father taking pictures of his son. Is this
what Dachau will be—a tourist attraction immortalized in a scrapbook?
From Dachau, the long train ride to Bayreuth, the national center for
Wagnerian opera and the home of Winifred Wagner, Richard Wagner's daughter-
in-law and associate of Adolf Hitler. We talked for over two hours.
"Did you know I provided Hitler with the paper and pencil he used to
write Mein Kampf?" she asked proudly in perfect English, since she was born
and attended school in England.
I asked: "How do you feel about anti-Semitism?"
"Oh, it's not the same today," she said coldly. "It's hard to tell who is
a Jew now. The differences are not as great."
"But I can always tell a Jew when I see one," she observed sta
directly at me.
Time had not brought Mrs. Wagner to reconsider her attitudes' any more
than it had mellowed Mrs. Christian.
Back in New York, I met a handsome 40-year-old. He had never dated
a Jewish girl before and felt compelled to tell me why he hated Jews. "There
are only 14,000,000 Jews in the world. Any people which gets into so much
trouble over so many years must deserve it. They're an ugly race and the Jews
in New York are the worst. They are so obnoxious."
Appended to this article is this comment, in two sentences, by Miss Barkas:
"So hatred was not just in the heart of the country, any particular coun-
try. It was something in the heart of a person."
For many decades, during the progressive (sic!) era when Socialism advocated
internationalization as solution to anti-Semitism and other hatreds, when social scien-
tists were deluded into believing that we were reaching a panacea and an end to
hatreds, there was hope of the coming of a better day for all mankind. It is late
in coming. It is doubtful whether any one today will ever see it, or whether even
our children will experience it.
If it can be repeated, after many centuries of persecutions, as had been heard
in recent months, that all Jews must be guilty of something or other if so many
are anti-Semitic, then we are still all-too-far away from global decency and man's
emergence above beasts. If the mere charge is made, with so many fables created
to arouse hatred of the Jews, it is possible for us to reiterate in answer to the
haters: "Yes, it is possible for the Jews to be right and the entire world to be
wrong."
There have been and there are the exceptions: the saintly in Christendom,
some, we hope, also in the Islamic ranks. They must suffer the same agonies that
afflict us when we face the truth: that there is too much hatred in the hearts of men!
Israel Counteracts Galgenhumor With Wit Rooted in Faith
(Continued from Page 1)
One of the best stories
was related by Begin. He
was invited to the reception
for Secretary of State Henry
A. Kissinger held at the
home of Minister of Defense
Moshe Dayan. Begin spoke
to Kissinger of their first
meeting, in Washington, some
13 years ago as Kissinger
was an adviser to President
John F. Kennedy.
"You have become famous
while I remain notorious,"
begin said to Kissinger at
that reception.
"But you gave me hell in
the Knesset," Kissinger re-
torted.
"No, I wish a place in para-
dise for you," Begin an-
swered.
Relating this incident, Be-
gin commented that Kissin-
ger reads everything relating
to him and his work, that the
was referring to Begin's
speech in the Knesset in
which he said there have
been Jews who have risen
to great diplomatic heights
but have bent backwards un-
der challenge because they
did not want to be accused
of acting like Jews favoring
Jews.
Joseph Almogi, newly-elect-
ed mayor of Haifa, former
Israel minister of labor,
couldn't resist newsmen in
making this reference to Kis-
singer: "I don't know your
Kissinger and how he gets
kisses in Washington, but in
the Arabic world he gets
kisses only from men, and
he is a Jew, of course, not
only U.S. secretary of state."
(In his speech, Feb. 6, at
a luncheon in Washington to
the combined Harvard, Yale
and Princeton Clubs — when
2—Friday, Feb. 15, 1974
he criticized Arab blackmail
in the energy crisis—Kissin-
ger alluded to the Arab
men's embracing custom and
drew laughter with is com-
ment "after traveling two
months through the Middle
East I kiss every man in
sight.")
Almogi mentioned a mili-
tary fact as "a joke" when
he said: "Basically, pro-
foundly, this time (in the
Yom Kippur War) the Arab
defeat was much greater
than in 1967. This was not
an openly dramatic, obvious
defeat. It was based in such
a way that having had all
their cards in their hands,
preparing a war for six
years and, as we sometimes
joke, the Syrians had so
many tanks that their every
soldier had his own private
tank — and the same with
Egyptians having so many
missiles that every Egyptian
soldier had his own private
missile. It is a joke, but it is
not far from the truth."
But the very next day after
he had made this comment,
the International Her a 1 d
Tribune published the article,
"Two Tanks in Every Tent,"
in which James Reston
wrote:
"Before long we may see
an easing of the oil embargo,
but after it's over, as one ob-
server put it, the Middle East
is likely to be bristling with
modern weapons: "Two tanks
in every tent.' "
Was Almogi's "joke" a
form of self-deception?
Which justifies relating
this anecdote heard in Israel
about three diplomats who
came to Heaven and con-
fronted the Highest Power.
The conversation in this sa-
tirical "joke" runs as fol-
lows:
BREZHNEV: Oh, Lord, tell
me, will we succeed in estab-
lishing Communism in the en-
tire world:
ALMIGHTY: Yes, but not
in your lifetime.
KISSINGER: Dear God, do
you foresee success for my
plan for detente with Russia:
ALMIGHTY: Yes, but not
in your liftime.
GOLDA MEIR: My Lord, 0
,
favorite hotel, suddenly
rushed out and asked to be
taken back to the airport.
He explained that he had
been welcomed with so much
courtesy that he thought he
was in the wrong country.
This, too, is galgenhumor
—the bitter fact about a land
that had been so busy that
hotelmen had not the time to
be civil. Now the lessened
business has inspired more
courtesy.
For proof of a sustaining
sense of humor one must go
to the army. The boys in uni-
form. are not giving up any-
thing. That is why the term
shmate army has been sobri-
queted for the Egyptian
force. (See story from Bir
Gafgafa).
All of which goes to prove
that Israel, victim of satire,
suffering from galgenhumor,
subjected to bad jokes, may
traditionally be more fitted
for wit than for any other
form of laughter.
'
Representatives of 21 newspapers gathered at the ambulance donated to Magen David Adom by Detroiters, at
Kibutz El Rom in the Golan Heights. At the right, leaning on the ambulance, is Yohanan Beiser, spokesman for the
kibutz.
The Surprise for Detroiters on Golan Heights
(Continued from Page 1)
Yohanan said. "It is a hard
life, but we will stay here.
The Golan settlements were
organized against abandon-
ment."
He made a plea. He echoed
the views of many Israelis
that people are more impor-
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS tant than money, that more
:
God, will there be peace be-
tween us and the Arabs?
ALMIGHTY: Yes, but not
in MY lifetime.
This is neither satire, nor
humor, it is galgenhumor,
humor on and of the gallows.
Because all type of stories
are permitted, it is not out of
line to relate another of the
latest so-called humorous
tales current in Israel—about
a newspaperman, who had
been to Israel on many vis-
its, after registering in his
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1.
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settlers will create the great-
er security.
"We must have the Jewish
youth," Yohanan pleaded.
"Come to us, come for a
year, but come and join us
in building the state."
It was at Kibutz El Rom,
one of 16 paramilitary Nahal
settlements already function-
ing in the Golan Heights,
I
A' - ' •••t
that the surprise element de-
veloped. An ambulance had
been donated to the Magen
David Adom, Israel's equiv-
alent of the Red Cross, by
this correspondent and his
wife, some three years ago.
It could have been in Eilat
or in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv
or Nazareth or Safad. But
the guide, Reuven, happened
1‘
to select El Rom from all the
new Golan Heights settle-
ments for the visit, and there
one of the editors suddenly
spotted the ambulance do-
nated by the Detroiters. Such
coincidences do not occur
very often.
Kibutz El Rom thus gains
justification as a dateline
from Israel.