56 Friday, hoist 11, 1978 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS New York's Leo Baeck Institute Preserves German-Jewish Past NEW YORK — The Jews of Germany, Austria and other German-speaking areas had a long and illus- trious history that came to a fiery end with the Third Reich. It is at the Leo Baeck Institute, a research center in New York, that much of the work of collecting, re- cording and preserving all that pertains to that history is carried out. The Jewish Welfare Fed- eration of Metropolitan De- troit helps aid the Leo Baeck Institute through contributions it makes to the Joint Cultural Appeal, the umbrella organization which channels the support of organized Jewish com- munities in America to the cultural efforts of its nine members, which include the LBI. Founded in 1955, the in- stitute is manifold: a re- search and study center utilized by students and _scholars from throughout the world, a library and archives and a museum. While sister institutes exist in London and Jerusalem, only the New York LBI houses a library, number- ing 50,000 volumes; and a comprehensive archives which is considered the out- standing documentation center of its kind in the Western Hemisphere. More than 3,000 library volumes tell the story of almost every Jewish community in Germany. Others present the gen- eral history of German Jewry or deal with theol- ogy, philosophy and lit- erature. The library also includes Jewish National Fund JERUSALEM — Griz- zled, weatherbeaten and burnt brown to the texture of old leather by the sun and the wind, you will find them in the hills beyond the farthest roads; digging here and planting there, another sapling in the snow, another tree in the desert, another orchard in the wilderness. A JNF Forester They are the prototype of the old foresters — the men that make Israel green. It has been rightfully said that almost every tree in Is- rael was planted by hand, and that each tree of every grove and forest covering the once desolate hills of a generation ago, has its own identity. But what of the men who planted them? Few know their identity. Not long ago, in the South Africa Forest of Lower Galilee, we caught a glimpse of the men who have unobtrusively af- Among other rarities are pamphlets by Luther about the Jews, nearly all the first editions of works by the philosopher Moses Men- delssohn and the poet Hein- rich Heine, and many of the early classics of Zionism. The LBI sponsors re- search projects, hosts a monthly faculty seminar, has published more than 100 books in English, Ger- man and Hebrew, and con- tinually utilizes its re- sources to present aspects of German-Jewish history to the interested layman. In addition to lectures, the past is brought to life through changing mini- exhibits of material from the institute's collections. Displays of personal cor- respondence, documents and other original mate- rial have provided vis- itors with glimpses into the lives of such luminaries as Albert Einstein and Heinrich Heine, as well as the life of German Jewry both during the 18th Century and the dark days of the Nazi era. By supplementing its own collections with loans, the LBI has been able to present major exhibits on Franz Kafka, Nobel Laureate Nelly Sachs and the pain- ters Max Liebermann and Lesser Ury. The stories of how new material reaches the insti- tute is often as fascinating as the material itself. Last year, for example, a friend of the LBI visited the insti- tute. Before leaving, he handed the director several envelopes. "You might be interested in having these," he said. In the familiar and easily rec- ognizable handwriting of Franz Kafka, the envelopes were addressed to Felice Bauer, Kafka's first fiancee. "You may not know it," the visitor remarked, "but I am Felice's son." A review of Leonard Baker's "Days of Sor- row and Pain — Leo Baeck and the Berlin Jews," by Dr. Leon Frain appears on page 12 of this issue. Governments Welcome, Public Banned Unmarked Berlin Archives Hold Tons of Nazi Files BERLIN — The U.S. State Department is still sitting on tons of Nazi re- cords of mill ions of Germans stored behind barbed wire in an unmarked archive in a West Berlin suburb, accord- ing to an Associated Press Making Israel Green By JUDAH RAVIV family histories, business reports about enterprises owned by Jews, and a rare collection of more than 700 periodicals from the 19th and 20th Centuries — many of them very rare. forested this country from the sands of the northern Negev to the cold hills of the Golan. Many of them are long past retirement age, early immigrants from North Af- rica and Yemen who came to Israel a generation ago. Upon their arrival in the late '40's and early '50's, they were unskilled labor- ers seeking work. Given employment by the Jewish National Fund, they have stayed with the JNF ever since. Day in and day out, in sun, rain, snow and sleet, they begin at 6:30 a.m. Trucks collect them from their homes and take them to their work in the sur- rounding regions. They clear and prepare the ground, digging holes for the saplings in summer and planting them in winter. A single team of eight men can plant 1,500 trees, or an acre of forest, each day. Multiply this by do- zens of similar teams, working throughout the country, and one grasps how the blank spaces of Israel's desolate places have been turned into magnificent forests; de- lightful to the visitor, a boon to the public, an im- provement of the ecology and the quality of life. The prototype of the "young" old forester, going on 70 strong as an ox, and healthier than a city dwel- ler half his age, has made its place in the emerging folklore of a modern Israel. report. "There's nothing clas- sified here, though a lot of it is sensitive, and contrary to what a lot of people think, we aren't protecting Nazis," says Dan Simon, the retired U.S. Army major in charge of the Berlin Document Center. The center is closed to the general public. Simon says access is restricted to "friendly Western govern- ments" and scholars with credentials from a univer- sity or a sponsoring profes- sor. "We don't answer private inquiries, and we try to keep the press out of here," he says. The Americans have copied files they wanted and once set a date to transfer the center to the West German govern- ment. But the Germans backed off, although they have free access to it and pay its expenses. Karl-Heinz Hansen, a So- cial Democratic member of parliament, says he sus- pects the West German gov- ernment does not want to take the center over because it "wants to cover up for per- sonalities of public life who are former Nazis." In the center's files, cap- tured by Allied forces as the Third Reich collapsed, are Nazi Party membership re- cords and correspondence, records of the SS special police and the brown- shirted storm troopers of the SA, documents on Germans from abroad who resettled in Germany during the Nazi years and records of Nazi courts and cultural officials. A shelf with bound lists of SS men and women who staffed the concentration camps is usually the first stop for Israeli officials. "These people kept re- cords of just incredible things," says Simon, thumbing through old Nazi court records. "They would send people to camps, obviously to be liquidated, and put down their names, when they arrived, and what the quota was for that day." One file contains a wit- ness's written statement approving the plans of SS man Karl Koch and his fiancee, Ilse, to marry. Later they ran the concent- ration camp at Buchenwald, and she had lampshades made of human skin. Wooden filing cabinets hold records of 10.7 million Germans who joined the Nazi Party, all but a few hundred thousands in the party's last years. They were captured at a pulp mill near Munich, waiting to be destroyed. Also captured were loyalty files on teachers, doctors, policemen and others in special clas- sifications. There are records of some 600,000 SS officers, enlisted men and women. Some are singed from at- tempts at burning. Nearby are files of 250,000 SS members who had to prove there were no Jews in their lineage so they could marry and have children. Another room holds 1.5 million files of correspon- dence among party officials, some of it on red-trimmed Nazi stationery. Records of the Reich Cul- ture Chamber include 500,000 files on writers, musicians, filmmakers and other artists. A. force of 300 used to work at sorting the files. The job is still not finished, says Simon, but the staff is down to 34 and he is the only American. The center handles 3,000 to 4,000 information re- quests a month. Simon says 70 percent come from West German officials. The State Department took over the center from the Army in 1952, after the files had been used for Allied war crimes trials and de-Naxification proceedings. Fenced and guarded, it stands alongside a park and pond at the end of a quiet street named Water Bee- tie Path, in a wooded sec- tion of suburban Zehlen- dorf. Beneath the buildings are tunnels and underground chambers from which the SS once tapped Berliners' telephone lines. The only sign visible out- side is one telling visitors to show their passes at a guar- dhouse near the sidewalk. Regional Center in Desert By JUDAH RAVIV cost of $2.6 million, the new plant was designed to proc- ess and pack 100 tons of vegetables a day. The veg- etables — green peppers from the surrounding set- tlements — are sorted ac- cording to size and quality, weighed, cleaned and boxed Sea. by computerized control By July and August of which regulates practically next year, Mercaz Sapir, everything in the plant being built primarily as a from the moment the yield service center for the four is brought in to the moment Arava settlements of it is packed, stacked and Hazeva, Ein Yahav, Tsofar ready to be trucked out. and Paran, will have an The plant is staffed by 120 elementary school, a police people, mostly unskilled station, medical clinic, laborers from Dimona. The supermarket, theater and technical staff will live at pool. Mercaz Sapir. Also operat- Shops will line its main ing is a plant for processing street, and 200 spacious grain food for livestock. apartments — 50 of which In the near future an- are in the final stages of other packing plant de- construction — are being signed exclusively for ex- built by the Housing Minis- port flowers is to be set up. try for the first 100 families, The preparation of the expected to move in within a land infrastructure for the matter of months. new regional center was The pride ofMercaz Sapir carried out by JNF which is its ultra-modern com- has reclaimed 125 acres at puterized packing plant the site and will undertake built on land cleared by the the landscape gardening of Jewish National Fund. An the center at a later stage of impressive building of some its development through 53,500 square feet, built at a the planting of shade trees. • • Jewish National Fund JERUSALEM—The new center of the regional coun- cil at Mercaz Sapir in the central Arava will soon be the area's first semi-urban community to be built be- tween Eilat and the Dead JDC Appointee JERUSALEM (JTA) — Henry Rosenbaum was ap- pointed recently as project implementor of the Joint Distribution Committee in Israel. A new computerized packing plant at Mercaz Sapir in the Arava.