-
16 Friday, May 13, 1983
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Goldberg Says U.S. Jews Could Not Have Deterred Hitler
By JAMES RICE
CHICAGO (JTA) — Ar-
thur Goldberg, chairman of
the American Jewish
Commission on the
Holocaust, recently re-
vealed his personal experi-
ences and emotions during
the Hitler era to a
standing-room only audi-
ence at Chicago's Kent Col-
lege of Law.
Goldberg dealt directly
with the sensitive issues of
what the American Jewish
community knew 40 years
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ago about the Holocaust,
and what they could have
done. The "verdict is beyond
challenge that nothing the
American Jews could do
would have deterred Hit-
ler," he said.
Goldberg revealed that in
1943 he was stationed in
London as a member of the
U.S. Office of Strategic
Services, when he was ap-
proached by Shmuel
Ziegelman, a member of the
Polish government-in-exile.
Ziegelman showed him
photographs and affidavits
from Auschwitz, smuggled
out of Poland by a brave
non-Jewish Pole, disguised
as an Estonian policeman.
Ziegelman begged Goldberg
to convince the Allies to
bomb the rail-line to Au-
schwitz.
After William Dono-
van, head of the OSS, had
seen the evidence, he told,
Goldberg that American
planes could not be "di-
verted" — although the
planes were bombing a
German war plant only
five miles away. The day
after Goldberg gave
Ziegelman news of the re-
fusal, Ziegelman commit-
ted suicide.
Goldberg said European
Jews had not realized the
danger until too late be-
cause they were "be-
nAkmbed." And so were
Anierican Jews who might
have done more, he added.
In his view, only the Ameri-
can Orthodox Jews were
sufficiently vigorous in
their protests, which were
ineffective to the general
public because they con-
-
ARTHUR GOLDBERG
ducted their meetings in
Yiddish.
The American Jewish
community, which then did
not have the political influ-
ence it has today, was in-
tensely loyal to President
Roosevelt, who "couldn't
stand up to the pressure, in-
cluding from labor and the
isolationist public," who
were all against relaxing
immigration restrictions,
Goldberg said.
For Goldberg, the "lesson
is broader than the
Holocaust": unbridled vio-
lation of human rights
should never be counte-
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nanced and so-called "quiet
diplomacy is singularly in-
effective."
After the meeting,
Goldberg was asked by
this reporter to comment
on the rescue efforts of
the American Jewish
Joint Distribution Com-
mittee during the
Holocaust. He replied
that he was aware of their
work, but JDC was able
to function only from
1933-1939.
It was pointed out to him
that JDC did, in fact, work
throughout the entire Hit-
ler period, as for example,
JDC's financing of Raoul
Wallenberg's rescue of
100,000 Hungarian Jews.
Goldberg .replied that he
knew JDC had provided the
necessary funds, but only
2,000 not 100,000 had been
saved by Wallenberg.
This statement was sur-
prising, since it is generally
accepted that over 100,000
Jews were rescued by Wal-
lenberg. In fact, Prof.
Yehuda Bauer of Hebrew
University, a leading
authority on the Holocaust,
has stated in his book
"American Jewry and the
Holocaust — The American
Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee 1939-1945,"
that through its Swiss
representative, Saly Mayer,
JDC provided the bulk of
the funds which enabled
119,000 Hungarian Jews to
survive.
The ambassador stressed
"that Bolivia was one of the
few countries in the world
that accepted the Jewish
persons persecuted by Hit-
ler, in the years just prior to
World War II."
Bolivia Admits
Aiding Barbie
NEW YORK (JTA) —
The government of Bolivia
has disclosed that Klaus
Barbie, "the butcher of
Lyon," was delivered to
French authorities last
February because of "his
crimes against humanity"
and that his years in Bolivia
were made possible by the
complicity of former high of-
ficials in the government
and in the armed forces, the
World Jewish Congress re-
ported today.
The disclosure was made
in a letter from Bolivia's
Ambassador to the United
States, Mariano Baptista
Gumucio, to Dr. Gerhart
Riegner, Secretary-General
of the World Jewish Con-
gress.
Merit Award
TEL AVIV — Christian
Science Monitor and
Springer newspaper (W.
Germany) correspondent
Dr. Francis Ofner has been
awarded the German Fed-
eral Republic's Cross of
Merit. The award was given
in recognition of Ofner's
many years of promoting
German-Israeli under-
standing.
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