THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
M Friday, February 21, 1981
`Voices From the Holocaust' Warns Against
Becoming Accomplices of the Executioner
Holocaust reminiscences
have appeared in hundreds
of volumes. Essays on the
subject are in the
thousands, perhaps tens of
thousands. They are mount-
ing. Few have the impact of
a deeply-moving work
scheduled for publication on
April 21 by New American
Library — Times Mirror.
Entitled "Voices From
the Holocaust," the editor of
this volume selected the
views — the voices — of 38
Holocaust survivors from
250 tapes stored by the
William E. Winer Oral His-
tory Project of the American
Jewish Committee.
The emotional voices ex-
press the views of the men
and women, detailing ex-
periences during the war,
expressing their reactions
after the war.
"Why was I spared?" is
the central theme of this
collective - experience
unmatched in human
reactions to an era of
tragedy.
There is a remarkable
testimony in these voices of
an ability by people of great
courage to resist the horrors
and to survive.
This volume is already a
book alternate of the Book
of the Month Club.
It is important to note
that the publication of the
book will precede Holocaust
Remembrance Day, to be
observed on May 1. and at
the world gathering of sur-
vivors in Jerusalem June
15-18.
Thus, this volume as-
sumes historic signifi-
cance. It was edited by a
distinguished writer,
Sylvia Rothschild, whose
recognized books and
special articles on his-
toric Jewish themes lend
authoritative importance
to the volume.
A foreword to this
noteworthy book adds spe-
cial emphasis to the theme.
It is by the noted author,
Elie Wiesel, himself a sur-
vivor of the Holocaust.
Wiesel recognizes the
voices, elaborates on them,
provides realism to the
heroism which marked the
escape of the selectees for
this collected effort, many of
them having retained the
will to live while in the un-
derground, in the death
camps, in many instances
being the sole survivors of
families destroyed in the
years of the Hitler terror.
Calling into action a
common experience heard
in the voices of those who
had assimilated and re-
jected Zionism, as well as
Hasidim and emancipated
Jews, their lives were re-
constructed with dignity
and with a new devotion to
their faith and their Jewish
heritage.
Wiesel recalls his per-
sonal experience and he
applies it to the immense
theme and its voices:
"In our town, too, we
should have taken steps.
Rumors had reached us: the
enemy was ruthless. We
could have gone into hiding.
We didn't. As elsewhere, the
Jews in my town refused to
believe that men — even
Germans, even Nazis —
could commit crimes so odi-
ous, so monstrous.
"The consequence: we too
were in the streets that
spring of 1944 to see the
Germans on their motorcy-
cles. We too found them
rather polite.
"The trap, everywhere
the same, was closing in on
our illusions and smother-
ing them.
"Nevertheless, here
* * *
Hitler's Occupation of Europe
Germany Nazis seized power, 1933
Austria Anschluss with Germany, March 12, 1938
Czechpslouakia Invaded March 13, 1939
Poland Invaded September 1, 1939 by Germany; Sep-
tember 17, 1939 by Russia
Denmark Invaded April 9, 1940
The Netherlands Invaded May 10, 1940
Belgium Invaded May 10, 1940
France Invaded May 17, 1940
France Invaded May 17, 1940
Italy Became a partner in Germany's war, September 27,
1940
Romania Invaded in September 1940; joined the Axis in
November
Yugoslavia Invaded April 6, 1941
Greece Invaded May, 1941
Soviet Union Invaded June 22, 1941, bringing Russian-
occupied Poland under German rule
Hungary Invaded March 19, 1944; joined Germany in dis-
memberment of Czechoslovakia, November 1938, and in
its invasion of Russia, June 22, 1941
ELIE WIESEL
and there, a few good
people had warned us not
to trust in appearances
. . . Elizabeth Mermels-
tein (one of the voices) of
Viskovo recounts that in
1944 two German soldiers
told her to flee because
the concentration camps
did indeed exist and Jews
were being killed there.
And we thought,' says
Elizabeth Mermelstein,
it was not true. That
couldn't be.'
"I myself remember a lit-
tle shamos (beadle) who had
returned from Galicia in
1942, alone, without his
family. He told stories that
made us shudder: he had
seen Jews forced by Ger-
mans to dig their own
graves; he had witnessed
mass executions, massacres
. . . We thought: It's not
true. Such things can't be.'
"And I also remember a
police inspector who just be-
fore we moved into the
ghetto had promised my
father: 'If something hap-
pens, I'll warn you in time.'
One night we heard a
knocking at the window. By
the time iwe opened it, no-
body was there. The liq-
uidation of the ghetto began
the next day.
"It would therefore be
wrong to generalize. In the
other camp, that of the Gen-
tiles, not all the people were
good, and not all of them
were bad. In Italy, in Bel-
gium, in France, even in Po-
land and even in Germany,
a man here and a woman
there were determined to
demonstrate human sol-
idarity with the Jewish vic-
tims. Unfortunately — why
not say so? — these were ex-
ceptions. In general, the
Jews knew that they were
alone. And abandoned.
"Many of the survivors
evoke their feeling of iso-
lation during that time.
Consulates were refusing
to issue visas; doors were
closing. How many Jews
might not have been
saved with the help of a
document, a rubber
stamp, a scrap of paper!
"Some — very few — were
saved; others suffered
through Sachsenhausen,
Auschwitz, Buchenwald. In
recalling this, the survivors
employ the same tone —
sober, restrained, almost
curt in its precision. Some-
times a sentence stands out
because of its passion (Hilda
Branch: 'I hate the French
more than the Germans.') or
because of its restraint
(Jack Goldman: 'My father
was shot in 1942').
Sometimes a word con-
tains such anger, such an-
guish, that it explodes. The
first doubts about the hu-
manity of men, about divine
justice; the lure of death,
and the determination to
survive in order to bear wit-
ness. To set it all down for
history that was our corn-
mon obsession. To tell all, to
relate everything. To fight
against forgetting, because
to forget is to make oneself
an accomplice of the
executioner.
"Only it wasn't easy. How
could we speak of the un-
speakable? How could we
express the ineffable? The
hunger of the old people, the
death of children — that
can't be recounted. And
then there was also the fear
of not being able to make
oneself understood; what's
the use of talking if it does
no good?
"These inhibitions pre-
vented the survivors
from unburdening them-
selves. Some felt guilty
because they remained
silent; others because
they did not.
"But in this book — ad-
mirably edited, condensed
and introduced by Sylvia
Rothchild — they bear wit- preventative of repetitive
ness. Each in his and her crimes.
This great document
own way contributes to
keeping alive the tragedy of exposes the crime, tells of
the Jewish people in the heroism in survival,
points an accusing finger
30s and 40s.
"Thanks to them we learn at the guilty.
Noteworthy, therefore, is
that the blindness of the
Jews was equaled only by this admonition by Wiesel:
"It was not until the war
the indifference of the Al-
lied leaders to their plight. was over that the survive
Because yes: on an indi- recognized their error: t.
vidual level surely, on a col- world had known and had
lective level perhaps, the remained silent. How was
tragedy could have been one to re-enter that world?
avoided, or at least limited. How was one to trust a hu-
"If only Washington had manity that was simultane-
been more understanding, if ously betrayed and betray-
Switzerland had been more ing?
The pages that describe
welcoming and London less
hostile toward illegal refu- the after are as overwhelm-
gees. . . . And yet, with ing as the others. How can
money, with a little luck, it we not admire all those or-
was possible to cross into phans, those lonely women,
Switzerland, to hide in an those outcasts, those strays,
Italian village, or to obtain who were able to overcome
false papers . . . If only one despair and hate and assert
had known! But we didn't their right to life and even
know.
to happiness?
If the leaders of the 4" "Let us listen to them.
Free World had taken the What they have to say
trouble to warn Hunga- about their past consti-
rian Jews, to inform tutes the basis of our fu-
them, to advise them not ture: fanaticism leads to
to obey the evacuation racism, racism to hate,
orders, to flee the trans- hate to murder, murder
ports — how many might to the death of the spe-
have managed to save cies.
"The danger lies in
themselves?
"But we didn't know. forgetting. Forgetting,
Perhaps we didn't want to however, will not affect only
know. It was easier that the dead. Should it triumph,
the ashes of yesterday will
way . . ."
cover our hopes for tomor-
This is how a survivor row.
associates with the expo-
"The voices in this book
sures of his fellow sufferers must be listened to. They
who live to tell the tale, to are the embodiment of a
join in indicting those who powerful and anguished call
were silent, to admonish an to life, to faith, to salva-
indifferent world never to tion."
"Voices From the
forget.
Therefore Wiesel, who Holocaust" is a significant
has experienced the document and it gains
tragedy, invites a listening added importance in the two
world to learn the truth, to appended charts reproduced
remember the horrors as a here.
* * *
Jewish Population Before
and After the Holocaust
Austria
Czechoslovakia
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Italy
The Netherlands
Poland
Romania
pre-1940
185,000
118,000
350,000
(150,000 native-
born; 200,000 from
-Eastern Europe in
the 1920s and
1930s, and refu-
gees from Hitler)
500,000
76,000
650,000
(includes northern
Transylvania and
Ruthenia)
57,000
(10,000 refugees)
140,000
3,300,000
757,000
1945; 1946
3,000
10,000
260,000
25,000
16,000
200,0n0
49,000
35,000
50,000-
70,000
300,000
Quotes from 'The Voices',
The preface to "Voices From the Holocaust," by Milton
Bikrents, chairman of the William E. Winer Oral History
Library of the American Jewish Committee, commences
with quotations from "The Voices," including the following:
To our sons . . . May they never know the heartaches
and agonies their parents suffered during those years except
by reading this transcript or listening to the tapes . . ."