2 Friday, September 8, 1918

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Purely Commentary

Dynamic Marta Feichtwanger Is Giving New Status
to Husband's Legacies . . . UN's Anti-Zionist Ranks
Severely Rebuked in Rejections of Bias-Spreading

By Philip
Slomovitz

Giant Literary Legacy of the 1920s Is Perpetuated;
Marta Feuchtwanger Recreates Husband's Works

By PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

(Copyright 1978, JTA, Inc.)

Lion Feuchtwanger,
whose novels dealing with
historic Jewish themes
were the sensations of the
1920s, comes to life again in
a remarkable series of re-
cordings and films.
Marta Feuchtwanger, his
widow, who shared with
him the role of an activist in
the colony of emigres from
Nazi Germany in Southern

LION
FEUCHTWANGER

California, is the medium of
this unusual venture.
Herself now 87, a resident
of Pacific Palisades, Calif.,
she has a record of immense
energy in the perpetuation
of her husband's labors.
It is thanks to her labors
that the notable novel, "Jew
Suess," ("Jud Suess"), the
story about the 18th Cen-
tury Court Jew Joseph
Suess Oppenheimer, was
published. A series of tele-
vision programs on this
theme is scheduled in
England, to be presented
also to American audiences.
Because the Feuchtwan-
gers were emigres from
Germany, excapees from
Nazism, it is to be noted as
an item of special interest in
Mrs. Feuchtwanger's role of
retaining eminence for her
husband's name that a tele-
vision series is planned for
the latter part of this year in
Germany to honor the name
of the eminent author.
On the occasion of the
20th anniversary of Lion
Feuchtwanger's death,
towards the end of this year,
.the television program

Rejection of Anti-Zionist Bias:
World Public Opinion Aroused

Israel's enemies, the anti-Zionist functionaries domi-
nated by the Third World with the encouragement of the
Soviet Union, should have learned the lesson that hatred
has its limitations. The White House was not alone in its
repudiation of the indecencies perpetrated at the Geneva
UN conference on racism in the attempts once again to
brand Zionism as racism. The world's democratic forces
spoke out with unanimity against such tactics.
An editorial in the Aug. 30 Wall Street Journal, "UN
Walkol4t," serves as an effective addendum to the Ameri-
can rebuke to the bigots who are-laboring under UN au-
spices to spread lies and to inflame hatreds under the gdise
of anti-racism. The Wall Street Journal editorial states:
Things are definitely looking up a bit for the
Western nations in the world's international
forums. There was a long time during which it
seemed that the United Nations could sling just
about any charge it wanted at the industrial
democracies and have us respond with ingratiat-
ing smiles and a continued flow of dollars. This
encouraged, needless to say, a certain lack of cau-
tion in the developing world.
But just the other day in Geneva, when the UN's
World Conference on Racism and Racial Dis-
crimination delivered yet another insult to the
West, an unusual thing happened: The Western
countries got up and walked out.
This is how public opinion at last is being aroused in
repudiation of the bigotries that have led so many of the
Third World and Communist countries to become parties to
hate mongering. The truth does emerge in the long run and
justice will not take a back seat in spite of the political
bigotries of a diplomatic lunatic fringe.

Differing Views on American
'Policies in the Middle East;
Earlier Experiences Recalled

When Mark Segal resigned from President Carter's advi-
sory staff there was much ado. When Allard Lowenthal quit
his post as a member of the U.S. delegation to the United
Nations, very little was said about it. As a matter of fact, it
is still virtually unknown.
Therefore, it is worth turning to an authority for an
analysis of this new case of dissent in serious matters af-
fecting Israel. I.L. Kenen wrote a column about the Low-
enstein case. He recalled the experiences of the era of
President Dwight D. Eisenhower. He wrote in the Near
East Report:
Allard Lowenstein resigned last month as an
ambassador in the U.S. delegation to the United
Nations, where he served as a human rights spe-

"Witnesses of the Century"
will be presented not only in
Germany but also in Au-
stria and Switzerland. It
will serve as sort of a repen-
tance by the generation fol-
lowing Hitler.
Mrs. Feuchtwanger was
interviewed for six days in
her home in preparation for
this television show.
Similar programs are
planned for "Power," as the
1927 title of the novel was
popularized in the British
film. It was used as anti-
Semitic propaganda by the
Nazis and a revival will
serve as history, and surely
as an exoneration of the
author.
Especially notable pre-
sently in the labors of Marta
Feuchtwanger is a "Project
History," which has just
been undertaken and is
about to be concluded by the
University of Southern
California.
Lawrence Weschler con-
ducted a series of interviews
with Mrs. Feuchtwanger.
They were done over four
months and there were 48
hours of interviewing, re-

sulting in 32 tapes.
In this thoroughly de-
tailed memoir of a German
emigre, her life and her
husband's and that of the
emigre community of which
they became members in
1941, is described.
Sponsorship of this Oral
History Program was
agreed upon by Bernard
Galam, director of the pro-
gram, and Dr. Harold Von
Hoff, dean of the USC
graduate division.
Generating in this pro-
gram are five milieus:
Munich, the birthplace of
both Lion and Marta
Feuchtwanger, through the
1923 Hitler Putsch; Berlin,
from the Putsch through
1933; Sanary-Surmer, the
French Riviera emigre col-
ony; 1933 through the Nazi
invasion of France; and
Southern California after
1941.
_ Recorded by Marta
Feuchtwanger are recollec-
tions of emihent per-
sonalities, the Mann
brothers, Berthold Brecht
and others. Mrs.

cialist, because he disagreed with the Carter ad-
ministration's Middle East policy.
"If you can't do more about the problems you
care about by being in office than you could if you
were out, don't cling," he said in explaining his
resignation. "Since I have not been able to influ-
ence policy much from inside the administration,
I think it's time to try to influence policy from
outside."
In his resignation letter, Lowenstein stressed
his opposition to the sale of F-15 warplanes to
Saudi Arabia: "Arrangements that give lethal
weapons to hostile autocrats in unstable nearby
countries remind Jews everywhere of Jews who
are no longer anywhere because they lived in a
world that sent the St. Louis back to Europe and
let the Struma blow up and sink in the Bosporus."
Recalling that Israel was promised F-16s in re-
turn for a withdrawal in Sinai, Lowenstein wrote:
"Whoever re-attached these previously promised
planes to a 'package' that included planes for
Saudi Arabia ignored history and flunked psy-
chology." And, he continued, "Everything this
Administration does in the Middle East now bears
the additional freight of fertilized mistrust. White
House receptions for rabbis and airborne pil-
grimages with the vice president can't explain
why a Saudi Arabia that will not even publicly
acknowledge Israel's right to exist is to get ad-
vanced American weapons, or what will happen
to those weapons if Saudi Arabia should go the
way of Afghanistan and South Yemen."
Lowenin—b—dieves that President Carter
"means it when he insists that the U.S. commit-
ment to Israel is unequivocal. But Israel was born
of a thousand years of experiences that override
unenforceable promises."
Lowenstein first won national attention in 1968
when, as a Democratic congressman from Long
Island, he stimulated political action against
America's involvement in Vietnam. His work
culminated in the presidential candidacy of
Eugene McCarthy.
Out of Congress for eight years, Lowenstein is
running this year in a New York City congres-
sional district.
The reference to "unenforceable promises" re-
vives memories of the shattered pledges of the
Eisenhower-Dulles regime in 1957. Arab spokes-
men and some American columnists have written
that Carter should emulate the Eisenhower-
Dulles policies. On the contrary, the Carter ad-
ministration should profit by recognizing that the
Eisenhower administration blundered when it
joined the Soviet Union in pressuring Israel to

Feuchtwanger touched
upon political persecutions
and Jewish assimilation.
Her personal reminis-
cences, including her
travels, are related, as ex-
periences since 1958.
Mrs.
Feuchtwanger
emerges as a most fascinat-
ing lady of 87. with the
energy of a tireless protec-
tor of the works of her emi-
nent husband. She has had
many unusual personal ex-
periences and she relates
one of them in this charm-
ing manner:
"A funny thing happened.
I was invited to the Ameri-
can Film Institute for a spe-
cial performance, and
somebody asked me -if I
would like to play a nun. I
took it for a joke and an-
swered: 'Why not?' After
some time I got a call - the
robe is ready, and a Catholic
chapel, and I had forgotten
all of it.
"Not to disappoint those
people, I played, and what
do you know — the short
film 'In the Region of Ice' re-
ceived an Oscar. In big let-
ters: 'Supporting actress -

Marta Feuchtwanger.' I re-
ceived many calls, people
told me they had seen a film
with 'a nun who looked
exactly like you.' Small
wonder."
In films, on television, in
the recorded memoirs, an
important chapter
Jewish and world history _
kept intact. It is in largest
measure the achievement of
Marta Feuchtwanger, the
bearer of the legacy of Lion
Feuchtwanger.

MARTA
FEUCHTWANGER

withdraw completely and unconditionally with-
out peace.
Floor Leaders William Knowland and Lyndon
Johnson were joined by many colleagues in pro-
testing against an administration threat to impose
sanctions. And when Israel finally did withdraw,
it was only after the administration had led her to
believe that Nasser's forces would not return to
Gaza and that the blockade of the Suez Canal
would be terminated.
To Israel's dismay, Egypt swiftly reoccupied
Gaza, and two years later it resumed the canal
blockade. The administration failed to act.
The prevalent amnesia was reflected in an
August 6 Boston Globe editorial which observed
that "the moral position favors the Arabs in West-
ern eyes." Was it moral for the Arab states to
begin the war for Israel's destruction in defiance
of the UN partition resolution in 1948? And to
wage terrorist campaigns against Arabs and Is-
raelis for more than two decades?

Some commentators have turned to fiction.
Henry J. Taylor recently wrote, among other in-
accuracies, that Israel seized East Jerusalem in
1948 when, in fact, it was Jordan which seized the
Old City, evicting the Jews who had been a major-
ity in Jerusalem for a century.
This item is an important chapter describing events dat-
ing back to the Sinai Campaign. President Eisenhower had
threatened sanctions. Senators Johnson and Knowland
warned against such action and President Eisenhower's
threat was abandoned. This commentator had spoken to
Senator Knowland about it and was informed of the action
the Californian had planned together with the Senat(
from Texas who was to become President when Preside
Kennedy was assassinated.
It was under President Johnson that Arthur Goldberg,
who gave up the coveted U.S. Supreme Court judgeship to
take the UN assignment, spoke for the State Department in
the advocacy of the U.S. views which resulted in the adop-
tion of the UN Resolution 242 which is now a source of
much debate and speculation. Recently, Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat attacked Goldberg by name as if he
were just a Zionist dictating American policy.
It has all been thrashed out and the blunder of Sadat and
the truth about American approaches to the issue have
been established.
This is part of history tested at Camp David this week.
Whatever the result, they will never obliterate the prophe-
tic and the historic which affirm the right of an ancient
people to its ancient homeland. Lowenstein has called a
spade a spade and Kenen has drawn the incident into a
continuing historic drama for an affirmation of the prophe-
tic that "Zion shall be redeemed with justice."