F QB VII Message
By JACK SIEGEL
(Copyright 1974, JTA, Inc.)
In the wake of the recent
occasions memorializing the
uprising of the Jews in the
Warsaw Ghetto, an appar-
ently coincidental TV timing
of an adaptation of QB VII,
a novel by Leon Uris, took
place. The basic story of the
book centers on a trial in
London uncovering a Polish
doctor war criminal who col-
laborated with the Germans
in a concentration camp.
President Nixon's talk to
the country on Watergate
cut into the number of peo-
ple viewing this movie, which
place over two evenings
_. six hours. In New York,
the film averaged 47 per cent
of the televised audience; in
Los Angeles, the film aver-
aged 54 per cent, from 9 to
midnight. Apart from the
stellar performers and the
huge promotional build-up,
what attracted such a mas-
sive audience nation-wide?
Was it the trial sequences,
which always excite audi-
ences, regardless of the na-
ture of the case? Or was it
an interest, whether natural
or neurotic, in the recital of
the medical experiments per_
formed (mainly on Jewish
inmates in one concentration
camp)?
The subject is not new, nor
has it been ignored in the
past. In this instance, there
was no visual dramatization
of the tortures but only re-
citals, and one big scene
invoking the sounds of Holo-
caust as the Jewish writer-
hero, and a friendly Polish
Communist official, escort a
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111• ■ • IN= • 111 • II • IN • II.
Jewish People 'Shall Not Fail
Pole, concealing his Jewish
identity, through the old
camp in an effort to break
down his refusal to testify at
the libel trial instituted by
the Polish doctor identified
in the writer's book as a war
criminal.
The novel was even-handed
politically as was the tele-
play; it was also given to
broad rhetoric about its
never happening again, not
only to Jews but to people
everywhere, without saying
how, except for the hero's
reference to "as long as evil
men are organized . ." But
the drama's essence was the
submission of the inmates.
Once inside a concentration
camp, there was little choice.
The Nazis parlayed terror
upon innocence and had their
way. But outside it was a
different matter.
In Warsaw, for instance,
the ghetto archivist Emanuel
Ringelblum, in a letter to
the Yiddish Scientific Insti-
tute, outlined the activities
of what he called "self-help."
It was organized on many
levels: economically with the
aid of the Joint Distribution
Committee; culturally with
local artists, singers and
painters; and in communal
welfare and health. The
rallying cry was not only for
self-help but for struggle,
conducted by the ZOB, the
Jewish Fighters Organiza-
tion. Ringelblum noted in his
diary in 1942: "We will at-
tack them with whatever
weapons are available, with
knives, with clubs, with acid
—to prevent blockades and
round-ups, now that we are
certain that the so-called
labor camps are actually
death camps. Now we must
resist, we must arm our-
selves against the foe."
Once the innocence was
g o n e, resistance replaced
submission. In a broadcast
to the people of the world,
the ZOB fighters said: "We
shall avenge the crimes com-
mitted in Auschwitz, Tre-
blinka, Belsen and Mai-
danek!" They also pro-
claimed: "This is a struggle
for our common freedom, for
common human and social
dignity and honor."
Even in a proscribed area,
cut off from the rest of the
world, the resisting Jews of
Poland understood the strug_
gle was total. Ringelblum
writes of the "superb epic
of the Jewish armed struggle
in Poland . . . the heroic de-
fense of the Warsaw Ghetto,
the magnificent struggle in
Bailystok, the destruction
of the annihilation centers in
Treblinka and Sobibor, the
battles in Tarnow, Bedzin,
Czestochowa and other
points. The Jews showed they
could fight with arms, that
they knew how to die with
honor in the struggle with the
arch-enemy of the Jewish
people and of all humanity."
The Holocaust was specific
and genocidal: Jewish. In
retrospect, one wonders how
it could have happened. Ob-
viously, the Jews were deci-
mated because they were
isolated, as Israel today is
isolated, although its capac-
ity and will to struggle has
not been diminished. Nor has
the will of the Jewish people
gni
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
elsewhere to enlist in and
support that struggle been
lessened. On the contrary.
We do not know what les-
sons the Americans who saw
QB VII drew from the tele-
play. Statistics unfortunately
deal with the commercial as-
pects of the numbers who
saw it and the. in-between
commercials. But if we are
not to forget the courage of
the ghetto fighters, if we are
to remember the lesson of
their battle, it cannot be
limited to a recall once each
year. Martin Buber is quoted
by Ringelblum: "The true
history of man is not com-
posed of sterile victories but
of fruitful defeats. A hopeless
minority fighting an anti-
human oppressor does not
experience what we are used
to call `success'; it 'fails,'
but succumbing, it may an-
nounce and prepare a great
turn. One of the seed decom-
posing in the soil the new
stem invisibly sprouts."
Perhaps that new stem was
Israel.
One must not forget, how-
Friday, May 24, 1974-15
ever, the basic lesson of the
Holocaust: Never Again. But
there is a corollary today, in
a world made much smaller
by the march of time and
events and technology: The
Jews of the world must not
isolate themselves from the
rest of the world. Above all,
they must never again allow
themselves to be isolated.
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