30 Friday, September 21, 1979
LENNY
LIEBERMAN
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
'Britain and the Jews o Europe' Documents Complicity
Orchestra
A thorough account of provided in "Britain and the
Jewish
trials and tribula- Jews of Europe 1939-1945"
559-0844
tions in the years preceding by Bernard Wasserstein
Quality Music
Jewish statehood, the (Oxford University Press).
Disco Dance Instruction
struggles to assure a haven
Wasserstein makes refer-
Floor Show
for the victims of Nazism ence to the rescue work con-
(audience participation)
during World War II and ducted by the Swedish
ALL IN ONE
the British obstructions are representative in Hungary,
Raoul Wallenberg, who be-
came a Russian prisoner
after the war and whose re-
lease now is demanded by
the many who insist he is
still alive in a USSR mental
institution.
An account also is given
of the rescue work that was
conducted by a representa-
tive of the War Refugee
Board, Ira Hirschmann.
The book reveals a la-
mentable sotry of British
Bureaucratic compla-
cency, inhumanity and
blindness to the reality of
the Jewish catastrophe
in Europe.
6668 ORCHARD LAKE ROAD
In their most desperate
and dependent hour, the
WEST BLOOMFIELD
626-2652 Jews
of Europe looked par-
Are You Overpaying for
Home Owners Insurance?
Joe Slatkin's
DEXTER CHEVROLET
45 Years Of
Dependable Sales & Service
For The Best Deals
On New and Used Cars
Stop In At
Joe Slatkin's
DEXTER CHEVROLET
20811 W. 8 Mile between Southfield & Telegraph Rd.
Adjoining the city of Southfield
534-1400
WINSTON CHURCHILL
ticularly to Britain for aid,
not only because it was the
nearest of the Great Powers,
but also because it was re-
sponsible for the govern-
ment of Palestine where
Jewish refugees from the
Nazis hoped to find a haven.
But as the documents show,
between 1939 and 1941,
when the Nazis still allowed
emigration of Jews and
were not yet committed to a
policy of wholesale exter-
mination, it was the British
government which was
mainly responsible for seal-
ing the exits from Europe.
From the outbreak of the
war, refugee immigration to
Britain and to the Empire
(including Palestine) was
almost totally barred.
In 1940, a Foreign Office
memorandum revealed that
in regard to escapato Pales-
tine, The Foreign Office
has asked countries of
transit to refuse transit
visas; . . . it has asked the
nations where the owners of
such (illegal immigrant)
ships reside to take action
against them; it has asked
the nations whose ports are
used by such ships to put
administrative difficulties
in the way of their sailing
. . . Representations have
been made to 12 European
and Mediterranean gov-
ernments and to several
American governments."
On another occasion,
an official of the Foreign
Office summed up the
department's attitude in
these words: "In my opin-
ion a disproportionate
amount of the time of this
office is wasted in dealing
with these wailing Jews."
WHEN SELLING OR BUYING REAL ESTATE
in Brighton or Livingston County
We speak your language. And; we're
experts on BRIGHTON &
LIVINGSTON COUNTY. As a
member of Gallery of Homes our
professionals are well trained to
serve all your real estate needs.
Come see our beautiful Livingston
Gallery of Homes office and how we
can help you.
We're full service realtors.
LIVINGSTON
GALLERY OF HOMES
9853 EAST GRAND RIVER
BRIGHTON, MICHIGAN 48116
Call toll free Farmington
474-5470
313-227-2400
An international network of independent Brokers
Bob Rosenberg, Broker
I 1
:
REALTOR'
Dr. Wasserstein also re-
veals how much was known
by the British government
about the policy of the "Fi-
nal Solution." It emerges
that from 1941 on, grue-
some reports reached the
Foreign Offije from a
variety of sources. There
was some understandable
scepticism, references to
"wild stories," "no actual
proof," to the need for treat-
ing some news "with the
greatest reserve," but there
was also the fear that reve-
aling the facts "may pro-
voke embarrassing reper-
cussions."
As late as January 1945,
an official of the Refugee
Department of the Foreign
Office wrote that accounts
coming from Jewish sources
"are only sometimes reli-
able and not seldom highly
coloured."
In December 1942, the
British government, to-
gether with the other Allied
governments, finally issued -
a declaration condemning
the "bestial policy of cold-
blooded extermination" and
affirming that "these
crimes shall not escape re-
tribution."
No real results fol-
lowed, however, and
when Jewish and other
bodies urged during 1943
and 1944 that further dec-
larations of the same
kind shoud be issued, An-
thony Eden refused on
the grounds that the main
effect of the 1942 state-
ment had been to stimu-
late complaints about the
government's rescue ef-
forts.
In the light of present
suggestions for an interna-
tional conference to deal
'with the plight of the Viet-
namese boat people and
their admission to various
countries, it is particularly
interesting to read Dr. Was-
serstein's reflections on the
Evian Conference of 1938
and his account of the Ber-
muda Conference of 1943. •
Both aimed at interna-
tional co-operation in settle-
ing the Jewish refugee prob-
lem and both proved to be
completely disappointing.
"The final decisions at
Bermuda appeared to offer
some hope of small-scale ac-
tion on behalf of Jewish ref-
ugees; but even these were,
in practice, whittled down
to insignificance," Wassers-
tein concludes.
Equally disappointing
are the accounts of the
hesitant British reaction to
a variety of rescue schemes,
like the exchange of some
Jews from Nazi 7occupied
territories for German citi-
zens in Allied hands; the
admission of Jewish chil-
dren to Sweden on the
understanding that after
the war they would be set-
tled in Palestine; and the
Romanian willingness to let
70,000 Jews emigrate on
condition that they all paid
departure tax.
The best-known resuce
scheme was the German
offer brough from Hun-
gary by a Jewish emis-
sary, Joel Brand, in 1944,
which envisaged the say-
ing of Hungarian Jews in
return for 10,000 trucks
and certain foodstuffs.
The British government
regarded these schemes as
traps, balckmail attempts,
or monstrous bargains, but
internal memoranda admit-
ted frankly that "the
Foreign Office is concerned
with the difficulties of dis-
posing of any considerable
number of Jews should they
be rescued from enemy-
occupied territory."
Dr. Wasserstein qu,
from an official instruction
issued by Churchill in the
summer of 1944 calling for
the bombardment of the
Nazi mass murder camp at
Auschwitz. At that time
12,000 Jews a day were
being forcibly transported
to Auschwitz where nearly
all met their deaths.
In spite of the clear in-
struction issued by Chur-
chill, the bombing of Au-
schwitz was never carried
out. Nor were the railway
lines leading to the camp
bombed, as had been urged
by Chaim Weizermann of
the Jewish Agency.
Quoting from official
British documents, Dr.
Wasserstein shows that
the scheme was blocked
because senior officials
in the Foreign Office and
the Air Ministry decided
to ignore the Prime
Minister's instruction.
The author tried to
analyze the reasons for the
British policy towards the
European Jews and finds
the explanations complex.
One reason was "a clash of
priorities. For the Jews of
Europe, the essential goal
was survival, for which vic-
tory over the common
enemy was, an indispensa-
ble, but not a sufficient,
condition. For the British
government the first prior-
ity and chief preoccupation .
was, of necessity, victory in
the war."
There was also the politi-
cal element involved in
Britain's "retreat from the
Balfour Declaration policy"
through the pre-war White
Paper, which restricted
Jewish emigration to Pales-
tine to 75,000 in five years.
Other factors were in the
nature of British official-
dom: "the blunting of ordi-
nary human feelings when
institutionalized in the
straitjacket of bureaucratic
procedure" and "an imag-
inative failure to grasp the
full meaning of co-'
quences of decisions, w
those consequences were
distant."
Dr. Wasserstein deals
with all these factors with
scholarly objectivity and
gives full credit to the posit-
ive attitude towards the
Jewish problem adopted by
the British press, church
leaders, several members of
both Houses of Parliament,
and in particular by Prime
Minister Winston Chur-
chill, who, however, ap-
pears in the book as a lonely
figure in the midst of oppo-
sition by members of his
government and the civil as
well as military adminis-
tration.