THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
56 Friday, May 16, 1975
Salo W. Baron: Scholars' Tributes on His 80th Birthday
Salo Baron Jubilee Vol-
umes, honoring the distin-
guished scholar's 80th birth-
day, emerge as a collection
of great essays, on a wide
variety of philosophical and
historical subjects, and as a
tribute to the honoree. It is
so encyclopedic in scope, so
immense in the eminence of
the authors and their spe-
cialized writings, that the
three volumes may well be
viewed as a Who's Who in
Jewish scholarship.
Some of the authors of es-
says in these volumes had
studied under Dr. Baron at
Columbia University and
have risen to distinction.
Others include Dr. Baron's
contemporaries and col-
leagues in the scholarly
ranks in which the honoree
is the great leader.
Published by the Ameri-
can Academy for Jewish Re-
search, distributed by Col-
umbia University Press,
these three volumes add
immeasurably to the trea-
sures of Judaica and He-
braica.
Of the three volumes, two
form the English section,
and the third is the Hebrew
volume.
The fact that Prof. Saul
Lieberman, who is among
the most eminent world
Jewish scholars, is the edi-
tor of these collected
works (with Arthur Hy-
man as associate editor)
adds immensely both to
the significance of the
gathered essays and their
authors and the tribute
deservedly given Dr.
Baron.
SALO W. BARON
Commenting on the deci-
sion of the American Aca-
demy for Jewish Research
to publish the tribute vol-
Anti-Nazi League Fights Hate
BY DAVID FRIEDMAN
(Copyright 1975, JTA, Inc.)
NEW YORK — Shortly
after Hitler became Chan-
cellor of Germany in 1933,
Samuel Untermyer, a prom-
inent New York lawyer and
a leader in Jewish and com-
munal affairs, organized the
non-sectarian Anti-Nazi
League to champion human
rights.
The League, whose organ-
izers included the former
American Ambassador to
Germany James W. Gerard,
and the then Mayor of New
York Fiorello H. LaGuar-
_ dia, set out to expose Nazi
propaganda and to encour-
age an international boycott
of German goods.
The League soon ex-
panded its activities into
investigations of the Ger-
man-American Bund, the
America First Committee,
the Ku Klux Klan, and the
hundreds of pro-Axis and
hate groups that existed
before World War II. After
the war it continued its ac-
tivities against similar.
groups.
ter," the Bund's newspa-
per; transcripts of about
6,000 Nazi, Fascist and
Japanese radio broadcasts
directed at the U.S. in the
pre-war and war period;
theological hate publica-
tions; Ku Klux Klan publi-
cations and undercover
minutes and other reports
of Klan meetings; rightist
and leftist periodicals
ranging from Oswald
Mosley's British Fascists,
the National Renaissance
During the last several Party and the John Birch
months, Dr. Sheldon was Society to "Challenge" the
busy reassembling the organ of the American
League's massive files to be pro-Maoists; and tran-
transferred to Columbia scripts of Father Charles
and preparing to move the Coughlin's broadcasts.
tion of the United States in
New York. A long-time
supporter of humanitarian
and liberal causes, Dr.
Sheldon was president of
the UN Association's New
York chapter, chairman of
supporters of Israel and
Soviet Jewry. He joined
the League in 1939 replac-
ing Meyer W. Weisgal,
,presently the Chancellor of
the Weizmann Institute of
Science in Rehovot, Is-
rael.)
The League was one of
the first to expose hate-
agitation directed against
the state of Israel and has
exposed both right-wing
and left-wing propagand-
ists.
During its 42 years of
existence the League has
collected a massive file of
one million separate publi-
cations on files that take up
eight rooms in the League's
headquarters off Times
Square in New York.
This collection is now
being arranged so that it
can be turned over to Col-
umbia University's library.
"We believe that a basic
solution of the problem of
anti-Semitism depends on
giving the next generation
the knowledge to combat it
— and knowledge of the ev-
ils for which it has been re-
sponsible," Prof. James
Sheldon, who has been the
League's administrative
chairman since Unter-
rnyer's death in 1941, said.
The League's organiza-
League into a smaller'office
down the hall from its pre- tional files give a complete
sent eight-room headquart- picture of the way in which
extremist movements here
ers.
The collection is a verita- and abroad developed and
ble gold mine of hate litera- the danger which they pre-
ture. Dr. Sheldon proudly sented, according to Shel-
displayed probably the only don.
copy existing of the first
The Anti-Nazi League re-
"Who's Who" published by ceived a great deal of public-
the Nazi Party in Germany. ity from the 1930's through
The publication came the period shortly after
shortly after Roehm and World War II. It made head-
other leaders of the brown- lines in 1946 when it ex-
shirted S.A. were assassi- posed the Columbiana, an
nated and there were blanks Atlanta-based group that
where the S.A. members' bi- wanted to seize power in the
United States and set up a
ographies had been.
The League also has the Nazi form of government.
only unpublished, uncen-
Although the League has
sored report on the Dies
been
off the front pages for
Committee dealing with
years, its continued study of
Axis collaborators.
Among other items are hate propaganda has been a
the complete files of the service to this country and
"Weckruf and Beobach- all humanity.
Ford to Name Jewish Historian
tory last year for his book,
NEW YORK — Pulitzer
"The Americans: the
Prize-winning historian
Democratic Experience."
Daniel J. Boorstin will be
nominated by President
Ford to be the nation's 12th
Librarian of Congress.
Boorstin resigned the di-
rectorship of the National
Museum of History and
Technology of the Smith-
sonian Institution in 1973 to
become the museum's sen-
ior historian.
If confirmed by the Sen-
ate, Boorstin will succeed L.
(Shortly after he was Quincy Mumford, an ap-
interviewed, Dr. Sheldon, pointee of President Eisen-
67, died of a heart attack hower who retired last year.
while addressing the
United Nations Associa-
Boorstin was awarded
the Pulitzer Prize in his-
DANIEL BOORSTIN
umes on the occasion of Dr.
Baron's 80th birthday, Dr.
Lieberman referred to it as
"a token of love and admira-
tion for one of the foremost
scholars of our generation,
the historian par excellence
of the Jewish people . . ."
The world's most distin-
guished scholars are partici-
pants in this resultant great
task. Noteworthy is the fact
that the bibliography of
Prof. Baron's writings was
prepared by his wife, Jean-
nette Meisel Baron, and it
appears in both the English
and Hebrew sections.
Contributors to the He-
brew section include such
eminent scholars as She-
lomo Goitein, Gershom
Scholem, Harry Wolfson
and many other distin-
guished university profes-
sors, historians and lingu-
ists. In the list of the
Hebrew writers in honor of
Dr. Baron are Isaac Barzi-
lay, Meir Ben-Horin, Joseph
Blau, Abraham Duker, Eli
Ginzberg, Judah Goldin,
Solomon Grayzel, Curt Lev-
iant, Ralph Mahler, Leon
Nemoy, Yosef Yerushalmi
and a score more of scholars
of eminence.
The contributors to the
Hebrew section also ap-
pear as participants in the
English volumes, and the
bilingualism of the trib-
utes is among the factors
emphasizing the immens-
ity of the task of giving
honor to one of the great
historians, teachers and
authors of the century.
The compilation of re-
searched material in-
cluded in the essays honor-
ing Dr. Baron are in their
totality a great gift to Jew-
ish learning.
In the English sections
appear such other noted
scholars as Bernard D.
Weinreb, Eric Werner, Is-
rael Efros, Moshe Davis, Ar-
yeh Tartakower, Jacob
Dienstag, Lloyd Gartner
and a score of others.
The subjects covered by
the eminent authors are in
themselves encyclopedic.
They are representat* ,-
the role played in
life and in his academiC po-
sition at Columbia Univer-
sity by Dr. Salo Wittmayer
Baron, whose great achieve-
ments earned the distinct
honors accorded him by the
publication of the three
Baron Jubilee Volumes by
so many of the leaders in
the fields of Jewish scholar-
—P•S•
ship.
Warsaw Ghetto Revolt Recalled:
A Spearhead of Jewish Resistance
Ber Mark was among the
best known historians of the
Holocaust and the records
he compiled of the Warsaw
Ghetto Uprising are among
the most impressive factual
reviews of the dramatic
events of the Passover of
1943. Interrupting his law
studies at Warsaw Univer-
sity, he lived in the Soviet
Union during the Nazi ons-
laught and as director of the
Jewish Historical Institute
in Warsaw, having been
named to the post in 1949,
he commenced the gather-
ing of data regarding the
Warsaw Ghetto revolt and
the heroic Jewish resistance
to Nazism.
Mr. Mark, who died in
1966 at the age of 58, was
able to complete and twice
revise his "Uprising in the
Warsaw Ghetto" before the
outbreak of violent anti-
Semitism in Poland under
the guise of Communist op-
position to Israel during the
Six-Day War. The discovery
of new Emmanuel Ringel-
blum memoirs in 1950 ena-
bled him to add immensely
to his accumulated facts
which make his recording of
the Warsaw Ghetto battle
against the Germans so val-
uable on the library shelves
dealing with the Holocaust.
Mark's "Uprising in the
Warsaw Ghetto," pub-
lished by Schocken Books
in a translation from the
Yiddish by Gershon Freid-
lin, is based on numerous
interviews with survivors
of the Polish Jewish resist-
ance .
The harrowing tales of
those who lived in hiding for
many months after the Ger-
mans finally destroyed the
last vestages of the Warsaw
Ghetto have been retained
by Mark in the records he
accumulated for the ar-
chives and for his factual ac-
count in the battle by the
few against the powerful
army of Germans.
Eyewitness accounts of
battles from house to house,
from the bunkers and the
agitation and ferment
sewers, from the rooftops
and the alleys, perpetuate, carried on a wave of par-
tisan struggle and sabo-
in the data gathered for this
book, by an historian who tage; the Warsaw Ghetto
has gained wide recognition Uprising occurred at a
for the devotion with which time when armed, organ-
he assured retention of the ized revolt was still only a
archives he helped build in dream, and when partisan
forces could be relied upon
Warsaw.
Fortunately, in spite of for only the most minimal
the new trends of anti- aid.
Semitism, the present rec-
"Morally, the Ghetto
ord has been retained in revolt had both immediate
the Yiddish volume, and and long-range repercus-
now in the English tran- ' sions. The example of a
slation.
people fighting valiantly
Day by day events as they — though against over-
occurred in the great strug- whelming opposition —
gle are described here from fired the spirits of the rem-
the personal accounts that nants of Jewish communi-
were secured by the histo- ties across Poland and far
rian. The documentaries beyond its borders. We
that supplement this work may justifiably say that all
add significantly in provid- incidents of Jewish resist-
ing the historical data re- ance and armed struggle
garding the courage of Jews that followed April 1943
who were determined not to were inspired in some way
yield to the beasts who had by the Warsaw Ghetto
already created conditions Uprising: the revolt in the
of enslavement in the Nazi- Chestochowa Ghetto on
made ghettos.
June 25; armed resistance
In a prefatory note, Mark in the Bedzin Ghetto on
expressed reverence for the August 1 and 2; the sabo-
heroic men and women who tage and riot in the Tre-
were engaged in the strug- blinka death camp on Au-
gle against the Nazi hordes, gust 2; the uprising in the
and emphasized the need to Bialystok Ghetto, which
know and understand them lasted from August 16 to
contrasting the modern-day about the end of the
confrontation of the Nazi month; the revolt in the
`Goliath' and the Ghetto Sobibor death camp on
`David" and the battle be- August 14; and other
tween the small group of of resistance carried
Jews and the most powerful the forests and country-
war machine ever known, side — by the partisan
Mark stated that he views brigade operating in the
these two perspectives as forest of Wyszkow that
significant in the Warsaw took the name of the War-
Ghetto Uprising:
saw Ghetto hero Mordek-
"Historically, it was the hai Anielewicz."
first instance of urban re-
In an age of struggle
sistance to the Nazi occu-
pation. All other urban up- against tyranny, the War-
risings followed in its saw Ghetto story has a les-
wake in 1944 and 1945, son for all lovers of liberty
when the German armies and all who are determined
had suffered crippling set- to resist oppression. For the
backs and the liberating Jew it is an inspiration in
Allied armies were al- the knowledge that a new
ready storming the gates day dawned with the revolt
of the occupied cities of in Warsaw — the day of
eastern Europe. And the "never again" as a warning
later revolts broke out in to those who might attempt
an atmosphere of popular another Holocaust.