my, July 21, 1979
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
,‘ Lesson of the Hitler Terror
eactions to Holocaust Under Scrutiny: The Church,
he Nazi Terror and the Toll Exacted by eludenrat
By DR. JOSEPH
GUTMANN
Professor of Art
and Art History,
Wayne State- University
published, the authors, Dr.
Joseph Billig and Prof.
George Wellers, present the
behind-the-scenes de-
velopments of the policy
leading up to the "Final
Solution' — the extermina-
tion of Jews — and present
eyewitness SS accounts of
the gas chambers in opera-
tion.
One such source is a
report drawn up by the
SS Inspector of Statistics,
who establishes with
great precision the
number of Jewish losses.
These essential reports
and letters are appended in
the original German.
Beate and Serge
Klarsfeld, well-known Nazi
_ fighters, deserve our
heartfelt thanks for pub-
lishing this basic book,
which should serve as ready
ammunition against those
seeking to destroy Jewry
and democratic institu-
tions.
The Holocaust was one of
those historical events
whose significance is not
easily obliterated by the
-passage of time. Its images
remain fresh in our minds.
Yet, despite its omnipre-
sence in our lives, often its
meaning does not serve to
remind us of its possible re-
currence.
DR. JOSEPH GUTMANN
It is a story that demands
repetition, to be told and re-
the official attitude of the
told, as there are un-
churches to the Jews was
scrupulous propagandists
lamentable. In general,
at work in many countries
they approved openly or
seeking to rehabilitate
secretly the Nazi policy
Nazism and make it re-
vis-a-vis the Jews.
spectable. In order to ac-
This in spite of the fact
complish their goals they
that in 1941 Reichsleiter
are attempting to discredit
Bormann made the Nazi
the Holocaust.
position clear when he
Essentially, they deny
stated, "Nationalist
the existence of the gas
Socialist and Christian
chambers and declare the
concepts cannot be
number of Jewish victims
reconciled."
-that were exterminated a , The German Churches
When in that same year a
Under Hitler:
myth. Like the "Protocols of
Nazi law made it compul-
the Elders of Zion," these
Background, .
sory for all Jews, including
poisonous myths serve ” Struggle and Epilogue Jewish Christians, to wear
power-hungry individuals
This Wayne State Uni- the Star of David, the
and institutions who will versity Press volume, a Church did not rise to even
stop at nothing to attain and work of 606 pages, will protect its "own" — Jewish
maintain leadership.
probably become a defini- converts to Christianity. In-
The Holocaust and
tive work on how various stead, we find that the fol-
Neo-Nazi Mythomania church institutions in Ger- lowing declaration was is-
This book edited by Serge many reacted to the Nazi sued: ,
"From the crucifixion of
Klarsfeld (Beate Klarsfeld regime.
The resistance to Hitler's Christ to the present day,
Foundation) should be a
:finite addition to all li- ideology and policies, the the Jews have fought Chris-
divisions and conflicts of the tianity or misused and fal-
„wary collections.
In a series of well- religious bodies are care- sified it in order to reach
documented essays taken fully - considered and their own selfish goals. By
Christian baptism nothing
from irrefutable German evaluated.
The book confirms that is altered in regard to a
sources, some never before
.
Jerusalem Street Signs
By LAURIE DROSSIN
The Municipality
of Jerusalem
JERUSALEM — This
may be the only city Any-
where that has a law requir-
ing all street signs to be in
three languages — Hebrew,
Arabic and English.
Moreover, the man in
charge of the city's street
sign and house numbering
-department is probably the
only municipal employee in
the world to have served
three different countries —
Great Britain, Jordan and
Israel — in the administra-
tion of the same city.
From 1917, when General
Allenby captured
Jerusalem, through 1948
when the Mandate ended
Great Britain ruled Pales-
tine. The municipal ad-
ministration of the city was
carried out by a joint Arab-
Jewish city council ap-
pointed by the British;
when the council failed, a
municipal commission
composed of British officials
took over.
Salah Eldin Jarallah's
roots in Jerusalem go back
to 1187 when his ancestors
came here with Saladin. In
1938, fresh out of St
George's High School and
already fluent in English,
Jarallah joined the munici-
pality as an Arabic-English
translator and general
clerk. Working his way up,
he eventually became assis-
tant to the city manager,
secretary to the city council
and its subcommittees, and-
their translator.
Shortly after the di-
vision of the city in 1948,
the Jordanian govern-
ment asked Jarallah to
be the city manager of
East Jerusalem. "In the
beginning, most of my
enough food, space or se-
curity in the over-
crowded ghetto.
Czerniakow diligently re-
cords his daily tribulations
both with his Jewish council
and the Nazi hordes. He
notes that Jewish profiteers
lived a relative life of luxury
while the masses starved
and the Judenrat mainly
represented the well-th-
Frequently the Jud,
Warsaw Ghetto:
- backed their own clasS
Prelude to Doom
when thQ Nazis demanded
This most revealing book selections for the forced
on the Holocaust is pub- labor camps. The taxes de-
lished by Stein and Day. It manded by the Nazis were
is the English translation of imposed on the poor, while
the Polish diary of 1009 the wealthy generally were
pages of Adam Czerniakow, freed of taxation. Czer-
chairman of the Judenrat of niakow's efforts to thwart
Hitler vs Roosevelt: the
Warsaw Ghetto from such favoritism were not too
The Undeclared
September 1939 to July successful.
Naval War
1942.
He was also vexed by
This book by Thomas
Penetrating introductory Jewish extortionists and in-
Bailey and Paul Ryan (Free essays by Raul Hilberg, formers and poured out his
Press) contributes nothing Stanislaw Staron and Josef wrath against them.
new to our knowledge of the Kermisz add to the value of
During the first year,
Holocaust. This work is es- this pitiful story.
he tells us, Jews were
sentially a well-known re-
The diaries contain im- kept alive by Jewish in-
counting of the deteriora- portant information not genuity, as they de-
tion of German-American found in other known veloped large-scale
relations from 1933 on, and sources. As Czerniakow had production facilities in
may be of interest to stu- daily contact with German the ghetto and smuggled
dents of naval history, as it- - and Polish officials, he lit- the goods out to Aryans.
details the encounters of erally held the bare threads
Unwilling to sign the de-
German submarines with of Jewish life in his hands. portation orders for concen-
American destroyers and
He compares himself to tration camps demanded by
supply ships.
a captain of a sinking the Nazis in 1942, Czer-
The attempts of the ship who requests the niakow preferred death at
authors to document the band to play in order to his own hands.
"bitter personal feud" be- raise the morale of - the
His diary is a moving
tween Hitler and Roosevelt passengers. Trapped in document of a man in hell
is not convincing. Clever the net of Nazi brutality who refused to the end to
propaganda tied in with and deceit, he was pain- surrender his own sense of
state actions is here con- fully aware that his human dignity in a time
fused with personal animos- achievements were small when most everybody had
and "phantom victories," abandoned any thread of in-
ity.
Roosevelt's and Hitler's as there was never tegrity.
Jew's racial separateness,
his national being, and his
biological nature.
"A German. Evangelical
church has to care for and
further the religious life of
German fellow countrymen;
racial Jewish Christians
have no place or rights in
it."
The epilogue to this vol-
uminous book points out
that some German chur-
chmen, like Martin Niemol-
ler, have sought forgiveness
for the Christian attitude
toward Jews and have
openly recognized the gap
that existed between Chris-
tian ideals and official ac-
tions in Nazi Germany.
policies with regard to the
Jews was not discussed ex-
cept for the incident where
Hitler accused "the
President of being under the
influence of wealthy Jews."
Hitler's propaganda
machine, it must be added,
accused anyone who failed
to agree with its policy as
being under the influence of
Jews.
.
and a Dedicated Public Servant
time was devoted to writ-
ing the new municipal
ordinances and by-laws
relating to every function
and department of the
municipality. Later on, as
the city recovered from
the efforts of the 1948
fighting, I oversaw all the
municipal departments."
Jarallah admits that ad-
ministering East Jerusalem
was no easy task due to con-
stant . friction with
authorities in Amman who
wanted to deemphasize
Jerusalem in favor of Jor-
dan's capital.
Like most of his col-
leagues, he maintained a
low profile in the days im-
mediately after the June
1967 war. "We had heard
terrible propoganda that
the Israelis would massacre
all of us. It was quite a sur-
prise when they invited me
•
to meet with their munici-
pal officials."
Along with all the other
East Jerusalem municipal
employees, Jarallah was
invited to resume working
for the West Jerusalem
municipality, now respon-
sible for the entire city, and
not just the western half.
For a man from a very re-
spected and established
Arab family, this could not
have been a simple decision.
Jarallah's attitude, how-
ever, has won him much re-
spect from all sides.
"I don't work for an
Israeli or Jewish munici-
pality. I serve a city in
which my family has
lived for centuries. My
job is to render services
to all the inhabitants of
Jerusalem. I -am simply a
public servant who al-
ways keeps in mind that
without the tax-paying
public, I wouldn't have a
salary."
Today, the Jerusalem
municipality employs 6,034
men and women, of whom
1,030 are Muslim and
Christian Arabs.
Much to his surprise,
when Jarallah returned to
the Jerusalem Town Hall,
he found that he had been
given the very same office
he had occupied until 1948,
surrounded by many of the
same people with whom he
had worked until then.
Mayor Kollek promptly as-
signed him to head the
municipality's street sign
and house numbering de-
partment, and to oversee
maintenance of all
Jerusalem signs and their
proper-lighting from dusk to
dawn, as required by law. It
was quite fitting that Jaral
lah received a job that re-
quired complete fluen,..y-
three languages, and a
thorough knowledge of the
city and its history.
The signs within the Old
City walls are painted on
colorful Armenian pottery,
specially hand-made by a
third generation Armenian
family famous for its beauti-
ful work. Street signs in the
rest of Jerusalem are made
of navy blue enamel plates
produced by a Tel Aviv fac-
tory which won a municipal
contract.
A public' committee of
17 Jerusalem residents
determines the names of
Jerusalem's byways.
This group meets every
two weeks to name or re-
name boulevards,
streets, lanes and alleys.
Jarallah's other tasks are
perhaps his most interest-
ing. Not surprisingly
has become the unoil
address at the municiliality
for Jerusalem Arabs.
ads
A Jerusalem street sign in Hebrew, Arabic and
English.