THEJEWISH NEWS (USPS27552°)
Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle commencing with the issue of July 20. 1951
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PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Editor and Publisher
ALAN HITSKY
News Editor
CARMI M. SLOMOVITZ
Business Manager
HEIDI PRESS
Assistant News Editor
DREW LIEBERWITZ
Advertising Manager
Sabbath Scriptural Selections
This Sabbath, the 20th day of Shevat, 5739, the following scriptural selections will be read in our synagogues:
Pentateuchal portion, Exodus 18:1-20:23. Prophetical portion, Isaiah 6:1-7:6; 9:5-6.
Candle lighting, Friday, Feb. 16, 5:48 p.m.
VOL. LXXIV, No. 24
Page Four
Friday, February 16, 1979
Nazism: The Past Is Inerasable
Historians and students of human reactions
to events that have left an immoral stamp on
mankind have much to learn from two matters
that presently concern the people of Germany
and all who have become newly alerted to the
lessons of the Holocaust.
Analyses of reactions to the showing of the
Holocaust film on German television show a
sharp division of opinions. Many reacted with
guilt. All-too-many, no matter how few their
numbers, resented the reminders of the past or
gave voice to acclaims for Hitler and Nazism.
It would be hiding heads in the sands to ig-
nore the negatives in a situation that has
aroused widest interest in many lands, cer-
tainly in Germany, equally impressively in the
United States, Canada, England and France. It
becomes immaterial whether fictionalizing the
Holocaust story on television was harmful to
the theme. Regardless of the approach, those
who are conscious of the guilt are applauding
the methods of keeping the crime as an open
factor on the agenda of historic experiences,
while those who lend their ears to neo-Nazism
once again become instruments for hatred and
for a revival of Nazism.
The indifferent to truth are giving evidence of
a hatred that has not been expunged. The bit-
terness that has marked the attitudes of the
objectors-to the showing of the Holocaust films,
those who have painted Nazi slogans on public
places, the arrogance of some of the surviving
SS men who are again heiling Hitler, combine
to show that not all is well with a segment of the
society that fails to be horrified or have a sense
of guilt over the curse that ruled Germany in
the 1930s and 1940s.
It is heartening, of course, to judge events by
the speculative figures that a majority of the
German people were affected by the Holocaust
television-programs and that they express their
abhorrence over what had happened. They
share in a sense of guilt that their earlier gener-
ation should have been transformed into beasts
and those who did not actively participate in the
Nazi crimes should have failed to mobilize a
strong enough opposition to prevent it.
.
It is _good to know that some Germans took
exception to the resort to fiction in the Ameri-
can presentation of the Holocaust story which
now serves as a subject for serious disputes in
Germany. Horrors such as have marred decency
for a generation did not need melodrama to be
an effective instrument for truth and for con-
demnation of an entire nation's crime with
punishments that measure up to the perpet-
rated indecencies. Now the reactions can be
judged only by the theme that has been made
available. But it is good to know that there are
many Germans who are appalled by fiction
when documentaries in all their brutalities are
, the necessities in judging the crime and provid-
ing punishment for it.
Punishment, especially in the instance of the
inhumanities that stemmed froth Hitlerism, is
not a matter of vengeance. In the instance of the
German guilt it is both a hope for atonement as
well as keeping the memory intact, to prevent
repetition of what had occurred under the most
tragic of circumstances.
This is where the matter of the Statute of
Limitations enters into the obligations to treat
the memory of the Holocaust as a responsibility
for all humans.
Some have been punished. Many are not only
roaming many areas of the world but could well
emerge as another menace for mankind. _
The demand for extension of the Statute of
Limitations to assure that the guilty will not go
free has the support of responsible German
leaders. It has gained the support of Christians
in this country and in many other lands who
insist that a free road for repetitive Nazi actions
should be barred for those who do not atone and
for the many who have gained freedoms which
they consider an endorsement of the criminal
acts and therefore the right to repeat them.
The effort to end the time limitations for the
prosecution of Nazis must go on in full force.
This is especially necessary as an emphasis
that the crime is' inerasable. The Holocaust
story must not be reduced to a myth or to the
recitation of a melodrama. Those who forget
merely open a road for repetition of the crime of
the ages;
Second Camp David in Offing
If a second Camp David truly is in the offing,
if the Israeli and Egyptian leaders will brought
together again in the hopes for an accord, will
the peace between the countries become a
reality?
The critical situation in Iran may add to the
complications in Middle East involvements.
There is the possibility that the occurrences in
Iran may stimulate a desire on the part of Mus-
lim leaders elsewhere to prevent recurrences
that lead to violence and civil strife. As Iran
proves, there is much to be learned and some
firmness to be enacted when dealing with
events that often stem from tragic hatred.
The first Camp David sessions were suc-
cessful because rumors were scotched and false
reports ,therefore prevented, because the it
sessions were held in camera. That gave the
negotiators an opportunity to deal with
realities.
A second such negotiating session may have
different aspects. Rumors may abound again.
But the man on the spot will be President
Jimmy Carter. He has been quoted too often
with too many conflicting statements which
were often interpreted as contradictory in the
treatments of Israel as related to the much-
acclaimed Egyptian ruler. A more practical and
a former approach is a necessity. The President
must assert himself in a demand that what had
been agreed upon must be confirmed with the
necessary signatures. This is where the
President must be firm.
The new Camp David session will be a real
test of American leadership, the hopes of all
,being that the, aspired accord: will become .4..
reality.
;
Bantam Books Collection
The Yellow Star' Documents
Wartime Anti-Jewish Horrors
Gerhard Schoenberner has compiled so thorough a record of the
Nazi crimes, that his collection of photographs, accompanied by an
authoritative text, in "The Yellow_Star" (Bantam Books) becomes one
of the most valuable documentaries in condemnation of the Nazi
crimes.
Translated from the German by Susan Sweet, this volume con-
tains-the record of the persecution of Jews in Europe from 1933 to
1945. It is the entire European continent that is under survey here,
and the era-under review commences with the facts of Hitler's rise to
power, to the very end of the Nazi rule.
"The Yellow Star" was the badge that was imposed on Jews under
the domination of Nazi Germany. It was intended to identify Jews,
who were marked for persecution, and to humiliate them. Neverthe-
less, there also is the evidence compiled by the author of this volume of
the pride with which Jews wore the star, of a resistance that defied
insults, of evidence of courage that led to confrontations between the
oppressed Jews and their oppressors.
Photographically, the collection is so deeply moving that the
evidence of the extent of Nazi brutalities is devastating. It is the text
as well, providing a running account of the history of the bestialities,
that makes "The Yellow Star" one of the devastating indictments of
the most shocking crime in history.
Concerned with the overall tragedy and the entire European
experience, Schoenberner understandably devotes considerable at-
tention to the mass murder of Jews in Poland. The Warsaw Ghetto
Revolt is notably accounted for and the heroism of the resisting
handful of Jews here indicates the faith with which the bestialities
were confronted,
There is a paragraph in the author's introductory comments
which has great bearing in the theme of his book and on the subject of
the Nazi crimes. Schoenberner writes:
"In the summer of 1935, on the instructions of the Nazi party,
notices were displayed throughout Germany warning Jews against
entering restaurants, public baths and whole localities. In this way
the impression was given to the general public that it was the Germa
people that was forcing the legislators to intervene. On 15th S
tember, the Reichstag passed the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws, t
Reich Citizenship Law, which reduced Jews to the status of second-
class citizens, and the medieval Law for the Protection of German
Blood, which forbade marriage between Jews and non-Jews. They
laid the basis for a whole flood of decrees and new laws which robbed
the Jews of their last remaining rights.
"In 1938 the persecution mounted to an open pogrom.
Synagogues were set on fire, the people hounded and maltreated,
their homes and shops destroyed or plundered. The government or-
ganized a great racket out of the Aryanization' of Jewish property
and the imposition of a 'Reich fugitive' tax on all emigrants."
Thus the crime is exposed and the punishment is necessary and
urgent. The Schoenberner volume is especially timely as an added
argument for the abandonment of the (7,-erman Statute of Limitations
for the punishment of the criminals.
As a history of the Nazi crimes, "The Yellow Star" gains a place '
among the rith§f: ihipdr-tariV ithtlidtmentg- df Hitlerisrn.
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