THE JEWISH NEWS Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue of July 20. 1951 Member American Association of English-Jewish Newspapers. Michigan Press Association. National Editorial Association. Published every Friday by The Jewish News Publishing Co., 17515 W. Nine Mile, Suite 865. Southfield, Mich. 48075 Second-Class Postage Paid at Southfield. Michigan and Additional Mailing Offices. Subscription $12 a year. CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ Business Manager DREW LIEBERWITZ HEIDI PRESS Advertising Manager Assistant News Editor PHILIP SLOMOVITZ Editor and Publisher ALAN HITSKY News Editor Sabbath Scriptural Selections This Sabbath, the 26th day of Sivan, 5738, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues: Pentateuchal portion, Numbers 13:1-15:41. Prophetical portion, Joshua 2:1-24. Wednesday and Thursday, Rosh Hodesh Tammuz. Numbers 28:1-15 Candle lighting, Friday, June 30, 8:54 p.m. VOL. LXXIII, No. 17 Page Four Friday, June 30, 1978 New Schocken Library Imperishable Holocaust Literature Donat, the chairman's son, Hadassah Rosen- saft, Leon W. Wells and Elie Wiesel. All are deeply involved in the families of survivors and the groups concerned with and active in keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive. It is significant that in addition to Donat's book the Schocken Holocaust Library includes one of the most moving stories related to the heroism of the victims of Nazism, Janusz Korczak. His "Ghetto Diary" is presented here as memorandum on the courage of a man who could have saved himself but went to the death camp with 200 orphans he called his children and from whom he would not be separated. Then there are Leon Wells' ",The Death Brigade," Philip Friedman's "Their Brothers' Keepers: The Christian Heroes and Heroines Who Helped the Oppressed Escape the Nazi Terror," and Gideon Hausner's "Justice in Jerusalem," the recorded story of the Eichmann trial by the Israeli prosecuting attorney in that historic case of the captured Nazi who was punished by Israel. It is not often that a publishing venture Let it be noted that an important advisory merits editorial comment. The Schocken board guided the publication of the Schocken Holocaust Library merits all the appreciation Holocaust Library. It is headed by Alexander that can be expressed for the availability of a Donat, now a New York printer, who had writ- valued and merited series of books that will ten "The Holocaust Kingdom," in which he de- fulfill the need of keeping the record of Jewish scribed his and his family's sufferings under suffering, and of the resistance, as well as the Nazism in Poland and their survival. On that courage of Christians who would not submit to board with him are Sam E. Bloch, William H. the Nazis, as an inerasable chapter in history. Recapitulation of the Holocaust story will be incomplete without the perpetuation of the memoirs of the sufferers, the documentations by survivors, the accumulating literature on the subject without which historical facts will be lacking and knowledgeability about the issue reduced to a minimum. The NBC television programs revived an in- terest in the horrors of the 1930s and 1940s. The facts recorded in important published works demand even greater attention. Schocken Books, the publishing house in this country that bears the name of or. e of the most noted Jewish publishers in the world, whose beginnings were in Germany and continued in Israel, a firm with a reputation for the most important list of classics of Jewish and general nature, has just made available five volumes of great significance. They must assume a de- manding role upon all who are concerned that an important era in history should not be erased, that they should be read as a warning for all generations to come never again to per- mit the crime of Hitlerism to be repeated, any A Lesson in Po pulation Figures Israel's population figures made public after a census conducted on the eve of the nation's 30th anniversary shows that there are presently in Israel 3,677,000 people, including 581,000 non-Jews. In 1948, there were 650,000 people in the reborn state of Israel — 156,000 of them were non-Jews. Of the 2,445,000 Jewish increase during the 30 years of Israel's statehood, 1,112,000 repre- sent a natural increase and 1,333,000 were newcomers to the land. At Israel's rebirth only 36 percent were native-born while the present figure 'shows 53 percent to be native-born sabras. These figures do not include the pre-Israel Arab population. Excluded also are the 1,100,000 Arabs who reside in Israel's adminis- tered territory that was acquired on the West Bank. Taking into consideration the basic fact that more than 3.1 million residents of Israel are Jews, making Israel the second largest Jewish community in the world, next to the United States, a serious obligation devolves upon world Jewry to assure the security and progressive status of the Jewish state redeemed after 1,900 years of exile. While the third largest commun- ity, Russian Jewry, suffers from the dispute over the USSR government population figure of 2.5 million as opposed to some Jewish claims that there are more than three million Jews in Russia, their tertiary status is generally con- ceded. The status of Russian Jewry also is a matter of concern to the Jews of the world and Jews in free communities, especially the United States, Great Britain and Canada, will continue to strive for amelioration of the discriminations practiced against Jews there. Meanwhile, there is the major task of assur- ing a secure position for Israel's Jews. Those who would destroy the state, the Arafat-led PLO, have linked their threats of brutality with a plank in their platform for the expulsion of all Jews who have not lived in Israel prior to 1947, the year of the United Nations decision for the partition of Palestine. The figures made known in the census point to the inhumanism of threats of another Genocide intended for Is- rael's Jews. The 3 million established there are the nation-builders who have lived in Israel and rebuilt the desert, causing the Jewish state lit- erally to blossom like a rose. Any threat to de- stroy an entire people is in itself self-indictment to savagery. Israel lives and population-wise is a symbol of the people's determination to assure indestructibility. Anything other than this would mean another Holocaust and there is reason to believe that even the most extreme Arabs, excepting the-PLO, would not tolerate that. Drama of Janusz Korczak: His Diary and Commentary "Ghetto Diary" by Janusz Korczak is a dramatic story. It is the narrative about one of the most moving tragedies of the last war. Its inclusion in the Schocken Holocaust Library contributes in some measure in preserving one of the most important episodes of heroism under Nazism. Translated from the Polish by Jerzy Bachrach and Barbara Krzywicka (Bedder), the diary contains Korczak's entries from January 1940 through Aug. 4, 1942, the day before he died. How was this possible? He had given the diary to Igor Newerly who preserved it . Newerly was himself sent to a death camp but he survived. He wrote so moving a preface to the diary that it, too, emerges as a notable contribution to the Holocaust Library. Korczak was a pediatrician. He was a distinguished writer of stories for children. He abandoned medicine to become the director of the Chil- dren's Home in Warsaw, housed at 16 Sienna St. and 9 Liska St. It had been moved therefrom Krochmalna St. which was outside the ghetto walls. Wherein lies significance of the Korczak story? He could have saved himself but he would not abandon the children. He called them his 200 children. When they were ordered to the death camp he marched with them, two infants in his arms, to the Umschlagplatz near the Gdabsja St. Railroad Station on the way to Treb- linka. He led one group and was followed JANUSZ KORCZAK - by another group of his children led by Stefania Wilczynska, his loyal nurse and co-worker. They went to their deaths heroically, refusing to abandon the children. The drama as recorded by Korczak commences with the words: "Reminiscences make a sad, depressing literature." It is a summary of an experience that will go down in history as one of the most heart- rending and at the same time as a definition of loyalty and courage to an ideal. The manner of Korczak's devotions, how he battled against Nazi threats to secure bits of food for the children, how he provided for their health and dignity are recorded. He conducted the home as if it were in an atmosphere of freedom, teaching the youths, assuring a cultural environment for them amidst music, reading, conversationalism, the humanism they would otherwise have been denied. Aaron Zeitlin (1889-1973), the eminent Yiddish poet who also had lived in Poland, wrote the introduction which is a tribute to a noble life. Zeitlin refers to Korczak as "a healer of the sick who built up his dream . . . who planned to establish the world's first children's re- public." Zeitlin's is an account of Janusz Korczak.who was born Hirsh Zvi Goldsznyt. His essay was translated from the Yiddish by Hadassah Rosenzaft and Gertrude Hurschler. The Korczak diary is the recorded story of a man who loved nature and would not abandon the beauties of life. The very last entry, after recording the agonies he had undergone, himself having been seri- ously ill, is a defiance of the brutal, contained in the assertion: "I am watering the flowers." That's how he made his life consistent with -hopes of the good that defies evil. He died for his ideal. His memory lives on and his diary lends significance to the memory of a giant for whom even the Poland that has been guilty of indecencies towards Jews has issued a postage stamp commemorating him.