THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
64 Friday, February 6, 1981
Dry Bones
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Babi Yar Novel Exposes
Nazi Crime, Soviet Silence
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OKA., AVE .OF rrE AtAtizicm, itirto 342..
New Israeli Institute to Focus on Nation's Mental Health
NEW YORK — Devastat-
ing mental health problems
confront the people of Israel
on a daily basis: unrelent-
ing dread of terrorist at-
tacks, insecurity stemming
from astronomical infla-
tion, scars of the Holocaust.
These make the Jerusalem
Mental Health Center, a
Hebrew University-
Hadassah Medical School
affiliate, an ideal setting for
a mental health institution
of national prominence.
The Nathan S. Kline In-
stitute for Psychiatric Re-
search, the new research di-
vision of the Jerusalem
Mental Health Center in Is-
rael, bears the name of
pioneer and world leader in
the field of psychophar-
macology.
The institute will be dedi-
cated at the Congress of In-
ternational Psychophar-
macologists in Jerusalem in
August 1982.
Dr. Kline, winner of two
Albert Lasker Clinical Re-
search Awards, is responsi-
ble, in great part, for the
revolution in the treatment
of the mentally ill during
the past 20 years. His in-
novative work introduced a
new class of tranquilizers
and pinpointed the value of
anti-depressant drugs.
Babi Yar will be recorded miraculously survives Babi
in historic records as one of Yar. Gradually, he pieces
the most shameful episodes. the nightmarish fragments
It is a name registered in of his experience together,
and side by side with men,
infamy.
It is the area where women and children who,
100,000 perished at the by varied twists of fate, es-
hands-of the Nazis and caped Hitler's "final solu-
where the Russians in that tion," he joins in beginning
spot of horror in the Uk- a guerilla war against the
raine are hiding the truth Germans.
His band strikes out
and are aiming to per-
petuate the mass murder as again and again against
-Hitler's occupying forces
a secret.
The crime of Babi Yar with the courage and con-
was exposed by Anatoly viction that each blow
Vasilevich Kuznetsov counted, no matter how
about 15 years ago when he small, no matter
related his experiences as a dangerous. They had no
survivor of the horror dur- lies. Anti-Semitism was
ing which 90,000 Jews and rampant among the people
10,000 Ukrainian and Rus- of the Ukraine, and even the
sian dissidents were sent to Vatican closed its eyes and
their death in a mass action ears.
The survivor of the
that since its expose has
outraged those who have Babi Yar novel poses an
begun to learn about the important question,
"Why Me?," and the story
tragic secret.
It was in relation to the applies to the hordes of
Babi Yar outrage and the sufferers who ask "Why
Russian official disre- Us?" Therefore the
gard of the Jewish vic- epilogue to this novel
tims that Yevgeny Yev- merits attention. It reads:
tushenko wrote his
The place, Babi Yar, is
famous poem condemn- real. The atrocities he-
ing anti-Semitism. Later, rein described were real.
he again followed the of- They took place, not only
ficial Soviet line of col= at Babi Yar, but through-
laboration with the
out Europe and western
authorities of his gov- Russia, wherever the
ernment and has not paths of Jews and Nazis
spoken or written again crossed.
about the anti-Semitic
"The people about whom
occurrences or Babi Yar.
this book is written are, or
Now the horror again is were, real, but their char-
being brought to interna- acters in the story are com-
tional attention in a reveal- posites, for there were mil-
ing novel, "The Survivor of lions of them, and each had
Babi Yar," published as an a story that deserves tel-
introductory volume by a ling. The atrocities that oc-
new publishing house, curred to those people hap-
Stonehenge Books, Parker pened over and over and-
Plaza, Denver.
over, again and again and
The author is Othniel J. again . . . 14 million times.
Seiden who relates the ex-
periences of the fictional
"And out of the Holocaust
Solomon Shalensky, who emerged two • categories of
was 18 when he escaped the Jews: those few who sur-
hoiTor of being murdered vived and the millions who
and buried alive, as were _perished. And regardless of
the 100,000 victims of the which group any specific
Jew fell into, that Jew at
Nazis at Babi Yar.
The author of this deeply some point was left with a
moving story is himself an perplexing question, 'Why
escapee from the Holocaust.
Me?' It was surely the ques-
He was born in Austria and tion that flashed across the
his family was active in minds of those who suffered
smuggling Jews out of and died; more often than
Eastern and Western not, it was also the question
for those who survived.
Europe.
.The Babi Yar survivor
"They could not help
spent perilous years in wondering why they
the Ukrainian forests and were saved, when so
was in the anti-Nazi un- many others — women,
derground until he was children, the elderly —
liberated by the Russian were murdered.
army. He was imprisoned
" 'Why Me?' It is a ques-
in the British camp on
tion
that demands answer-
Cyprus when he at-
ing. I think that I have
tempted to enter pre-
found my answer through
Israel Palestine.
this book. It is simplistic
"The Survivor of Babi perhaps too simplistic,
Yar" is a novel, but is histor- it answers the question
ically important because it me — possibly because I
deals with all aspects of the need desperately to have it
resistance to Nazism as well answered. For only if I find
as the anguish caused by an answer can I continue to
the Hitler terror. This vol- believe that God is benevo-
ume has been adopted by lent, merciful and just."
the President's Commission
The new publishing
on the Holocaust.
"The Survivor of Babi house, Stonehenge Books,
Yar" recreates the horror under whose imprint the
and the heroism of those Babi Yar novel was pub-
years. Seiden takes the lished, merits attention. It
reader into the dark forest has ambitious plans for
of the Ukraine in the 1940s more books of Jewish and
where Solomon Shalensky general interest.