Ampipe-
Frida , November 10 1918 19

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

Kristallnacht . . . and 40 Years Later

had looked for a long time
for an excuse to move
It was a low point in 20th against German Jews to fi-
Century- civilization, but it nally squeeze them out of
still was not the lowest. Far German life. They found
worse happenings were in this excuse in the beginning
store for millions of Jews of November when a young
and the splintering glass of Jewish man by the name of
the windows of Jewish Grynspan killed a German
stores and houses and attache in Paris. This young
synagogues that gave that man was desperate when he
night its ominous name learned of the fate of his pa-
(Kristallnacht) was only a rents who, with other Polish
symbol of the beginning of Jews, were expelled from
the end of German and Germany but not admitted
European Jewry.
to Poland; they spent their
The-Nazi High Command days in misery in the no-

By ARNO HERZBERG

(Copyright 1978, JTA, Inc.)

man's-land between the two
countries.

The shots that killed Nazi
Von Rath were fired by
German Jewry, the Nazis
said. They had to bear re-
sponsibility and had to be
punished for them. Orders
went out to burn all
synagogues in Germany, to
destroy Jewish stores and
houses and to arrest Jews.
An enormous fine was
levied against property of
Jews, and all property of
Jewish communities and

...‘efusenik Silnitsky. Given Visa

NEW YORK (JTA) —
Former Prisoner of Con-
science Alexander Silnitsky
has been granted an exit
visa and told to leave the
Soviet Union by the end of
the month, according to in-
formation received by the
National Conference on
Soviet Jewry.
Silnitsky was released
from prison a year ago, hav-
ing completed a three-year
sentence for refusing induc-
tion into the Soviet army.
The entire Silnitsky fam-
ily, Alexander's father,
mother and brother, applied
for an exit permit in August
1974 and were refused that
November. At that time
they were told by local
emigration authorities that
they "could not leave with a
youth of military age," the
conference reported. Sil-
nit,sky was a student at the
Technological Institute in
Krasnodar where his father
was an economics professor.

When the family
applied for emigration,
Alexander was expelled
and his father was fired.
After being expelled the
authorities began their
attempts to draft him,

which resulted in his re-
fusal and subsequent
three-year prison term.
Prisoner of Conscience
Anatoly Shcharansky has
been transferred further
away from his family to a
criminal prison in the Tatar
Republic, according to the
NCSJ.
Shcharansky was sen-
tenced last July to 13 years
in prison for "treason, es-
pionage and anti-Soviet
agitation" and had been
sent to the infamous Vla-
dimir prison, about 100
miles east of Moscow. He
has now been transferred to
a criminal prison in Chis-
topol, about 500 miles east
of Moscow. Vladimir had
housed both criminal and
political prisoners.
In a related development,
Efrath Naor, of Jerusalem,
currently living in Milan,
appealed to the third Euro-
pean conference of the Brith
Ivrith Olamith .(World
Association for Hebrew
Studies) and other Jewish

,0004;1

s*, 4siOf %

Liberal Leader
Urges Jewry
`Stay in Quebec'

MONTREAL (JTA) —
Claude Ryan, leader of the
Liberal Party in Quebec,
has urged Montreal's Jews
to stay in Quebec and fight
for their cultural lives
rather than join other
English-speaking residents
in leaving the predomin-
antly French province.
Speaking at a one-day
seminar of the Hadassah-
WIZO organization, Ryan,
the former editor of the
French-language daily, Le
Devoir, noted that many po-
tential newcomers had been
to Montreal since the
rti Quebecois, which ad-
vocates separation from
Canada, had taken power in
the Province of Quebec two
years ago.
"All those who have
known insurmountable rea-
sons to go should stay here
and fight to preserve the
character of this city, while
acquiring a knowledge of
French," Ryan stressed. He
said the departure of
English-speaking residents
from Quebec is resulting in
"cultural impoverishment."

organizations abroad to act
on behalf of the Soviet
Jewish Hebraist Iosif Be-
gun, who is serving a long
prison sentence in Siberia.
She urged that an action
committee be established to
secure his release and per-
mission for him to emigrate
to Israel to join his wife And
children.
Leon Yudkin, of Man-
chester, spoke at the
Amsterdam conference
about the knowledge of
and interest in Hebrew
among Jews in
i the USSR
where he visited last
summer. He said that
outside of Moscow
knowledge of Hebrew is
very sparse and there is
little opportunity to
study it.
He said he was asked by
Soviet Jews to request Jews
abroad to urge the Soviet
authorities to recognize He-
brew as a language just as
the languages of other
minorities in the Soviet
Union are recognized.

organizations was exprop-
riated.
It was the ninth of
November, 1938. It was a
day that never should be
forgotten. It cannot be blot-
ted out of German history.
Forty years later, we
marvel at a world that
looked on while
thousands of innocent
men were carted to con-
centration camps. In
many, many towns their
good German neighbors
lined the streets and
cheered and clapped
when the Jews were
rounded up. My father
was among them. He
froze to death at the
Oranienburg camp.
Forty years later we ask
whether we, as Jews, are
better prepared to see the
world the way it is. We ask
whether we are still influ-
enced by a naive belief that
it cannot happen again and
whether we have the ability
to interpret events of the
day from our point of view.
Forty years later we know
that the world is only too
ready to abandon those that
confront it with an embar-
rassing reminder of princi-
ples long forgotten. Why
does the Christian world
look on while its own people
in Ireland and Lebanon are
being mowed down in a re-
ligious war?
They never grasped the
irony that Israel had to
come to the aid of Christians
in Lebanon to prevent their
being slaughtered. If the
Christian world does not
take care of their own, they
certainly will not care if
Jews are threatened with
extinction.

*HARVEY M.
BLOOM

Says: "WE DON'T MEET THE

COMPETITION, WE ARE THE
COMPETITION."

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Guest Speaker

DR. MELVIN I. UROFSKY

will speak on

The History of
the People of History

Guest Speaker
Dr. Melvin I. Urofsky

WED NESOAY
NOVEMBER 15
'AT8:00 p.m.

Distinguished scholar and historian.
Eloquent speaker Professor of History and-
Chairman Department of History Virginia
Commonwealth University, Richmond.
Author — We Are One, American Jewry
and Israel; American Zionism from Herz I
- to the Holocaust; A Mind of One Piece,
Brandeis and American Reform; etc.

At the Jewish
Community Center
6600 W. Maple
W. Bloomfield

Public Invited

No Admission Charge

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