8 Friday, May 21, 1983
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Dr. Goldstein Reconstructs Jewry's Actions Exposing the Holocaust
(Continued from Page 64)
lished the Joint Emergency
Committee on European Af-
fairs for the purpose of un-
dertaking rescue opera-
tions. It comprised spokes-
men of the leading national
'Jewish organizations,
among whom I represented
the Synagogue Council of
America. We were spurred
on by the knowledge that
time was slipping through
our fingers and that we
must respond immediately
to the awesome challenge.
The Synagogue Council
set up its own committee for
emergency intercession,
which organized and chan-
neled Jewish protests
against the apathetic reac-
tion of the Allied powers to
the Holocaust in Europe.
We continued to main-
tain our pressure on the
U.S. Administration
throughout the war. On
March 1, 1943, the Ameri-
can Jewish Congress
staged a huge demon-
stration at Madison
Square Garden: 22,000
people were packed into
the hall and 15,000 more
stood outside. ,
With "Stop Hitler Now!"
as its slogan, this rally was
held jointly with the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor, the
Congress of Industrial
Organizations and the
Church Peace Union. Ad-
dresses were deliverd by Dr.
Chaim Weizmann, Rabbi
Stephen Wise, Governor
Thomas E. Dewey of New
York, Mayor Fiorello
LaGuardia, Senator Robert
F. Wagner, William Green,
and other leaders.
Soon after the demonstra-
tion came the announce-
ment of an Anglo-American
Conference on Refugees, to
be held in Bermuda. This
remote British island in the
Atlantic had presumably
been chosen with care as a
place where discussions
might take place behind
closed doors and without the
irritating presence of
Jewish delegations and lob-
byists.
Like
President
Roosevelt's international
meeting at Evian in 1938,
the Bermuda Conference of
April 1943, which (by a
grim irony) coincided with
the outbreak of the Warsaw
Ghetto Uprising, proved a
fiasco and "a facade for inac-
tion."
The man appointed by
the State Department as
secretary to the U.S.
delegation was Robert B.
Reams, an anti-Semite
"expert" on Jewish prob-
lems who had been doing
his best to sabotage and
obstruct American ef-
forts to save Jewish lives.
It was our feeling that the
purpose of the Bermuda
Conference was not so much
to rescue Jews facing death
in Europe as to rescue the
State Department and the
British Foreign Office from
possible embarrassment
and public censure.
By Mid-1943, however,
the "conspiracy of silence"
had been broken to some ex-
tent. In September of that
year, the U.S. Office of War
Information decided to allo-
cate time, in its overseas
broadcasts, to information
about the Holocaust and to
warnings that the Nazi war
criminals would be brought
to justice. At long last, it
seemed, the policy of inertia
- was being abandoned.
otherwise afford su ch Jews from the gas cham-
obstructionism nullified 0
victims all possible re lief bers.
proposals of ours that had
and assistance consiste nt
In Nazi-occupied Hun-
with the successful pr os- gary, great heroism was received the green light
from Washington.
ecution of the war."
displayed by a young
The British displayed a
John Pehlr, Jr., Assist ant Swedish diplomat, Raoul
Secretary of the U.S. Tre as- Wallenberg, who went to split personality in the face
ury, became the director of extraordinary lengths to of the Holocaust. On the one
the board. It signaled a wel- pluck.Jews from the trains hand, men like Anthony
come departure from the and death marches bound Eden seemed genuinely
horror-stricken by the mass
previous attitude of indif- for Auschwitz.
ference to the fate of Euro-
President Roosevelt's dec- destruction of Jewish lives;
pean Jewry. Pehle and his laration on Nazi criminality on the other hand, they
colleagues ended the prac- was disseminated by the would not countenance any
tice of suppressing unwel- British, but now by the organized rescue campaign
come and unpleasant in- Soviets. The latter, obsti- that might prejudice
fromation about the nately pursuing their own "higher national interests."
Holocaust.
ideological aims, argued
With callous consistency,
* * *
Positive aid programs, in- that "all Russians, not only
Eden denied the requisite
spired
by
some
of
the
World
The U.S. Finally
the Jews," faced extermina- documents for French and
Begins to Take Action Jewish Congress recom- tion.
Romanian Jewish refugees.
mendations, were under-
Yet when Eichmann's As Arthur D. Morse has
Three of Henry Morgen- taken and forceful dip-
"trucks for Jews" proposal concluded (in "While Six
than's non-Jewish aides,
lomatic action was in- was under review in June
Million Died"), "the possi-
Randolph S. Paul, Josiah E.
itiated.
1944, Andrei Vishinsky, bility of mass rescue
DuBois, Jr., and John W.
The War Refugee Board
Pehle, Jr., had succeeded in was mainly financed by the deputy Foreign Minister of threatened England's
uncovering irrefutable evi- American Jewish Joint Dis- the Soviet Union, dis- Palestine policies; the
dence of State Department tribution Committee, whose patched a secret note to U.S. vision of Jews streaming to
machinations against our European staff, headed Ambassador Averell Har- Palestine seemed to upset
rescue campaign. They from 1942 by Dr. Joseph J. riman, insisting that all Whitehall more than the
urged that the "Jewish is- Schwartz, displayed excep- negotiations be halted. This vision of Jews walking to
sue" be taken out of the tional courage and initia- put an end to the desperate their death in the gas
mission of Joel Brand and chambers."
hands of Breckenridge Long
tive in conducting rescue sealed the fate of Hunga-
and his subordinates, and and relief work during rian
Today, some 40 years
Jewry.
that a special government World War II.
after those dire events,
There is also reason to
commission be empowered
Many of these heroic suspect that Soviet objec- there is a move to re-
to implement effective re-
JDC officials, while striv- tions may, in part, have examine Jewish re-
scue measures.
ing to obstruct the Nazi been responsible for the sponses to the Holocaust,
murder apparatus, were Allied refusal to destroy particularly as far as the
On Jan. 22, 1944, the
themselves swept away Auschwitz and Birkenau American Jewish com-
War Refugee Board was
in the avalanche. The in the precision bombing munity is concerned.
established "to rescue
JDC operated undei se- attack. Despite talk of the
victims of enemy oppres-
With the wisdom of
sion who are in imminent vere limitations, yet "great technical difficul- hindsight, of course, it is
managed to scrape to- ties involved," opera- easy to point an accusing
danger of death, and
gether nearly $80 million tions of this kind had finger at guilty parties in
for various rescue been conducted suc- the U.S. and British war-
schemes — smuggling cessfully in Western time administration, but
funds to the Warsaw Europe.
the question still remains:
Ghetto, negotiating the
In one instance, Allied Did Jewish and Zionist
ransom of two trainloads bombers had attacked a leaders in the Free World do
dry cleaning"
of Hungarian Jews, and
German prison in France enough to make a burning
endeavoring to prevent
and wiped out the guards issue of the rescue of Hit-
further deportations.
while the detainees escaped ler's principal victims? -
Such measures had fhe unharmed. Where doomed
I have an uneasy feeling
ultimage effect of saving Jews were concerned, how- that many occupying
perhaps as many as 100,000 ever, a sudden paralysis of Jewish leadership positions
Jewish lives, even if it was a the will affected the deci- at the time were misled by
case of "too, little and too sion makers.
hollow assurances "from on
late."
high" and were lulled into
Throughout this time,
complacency by eminent
Henry Morgenthau, Jr. was World Jewish Congress Jewish colleagues who in-
the one member of
Tried to Save Lives
nocently, but mistakenly,
President Roosevelt's
believed that they had
From its head office in found sympathetic ears in
cabinet who consistently
pressed for a more vigilant Geneva, and with the coop- Roosevelt's administration.
and effective rescue pro- eration of its London and
Everyone —including
gram. He and Pehle man- New York bureaus, the
aged to induce FDR to issue World Jewish Congress con- this writer — who held a
a declaration on March 24, tinued to explore ways of position of Jewish leader-
1944, stating categorically saving Jews in Nazi- ship, major or minor, during
that those implicated in the occupied Europe. Time and that tragic period of our his-
Holocaust would pay for again, the WJC was frus- tory should feel, in retros-
their
crimes.
trated by a reluctance on pect, a sense of his own in-
1
Valid until June 30, 1983
the part of the Allies to di- adequacy and of contribu-
not valid with other
Unfortunately, this dec- vert attention, even tion in the light of what
I
laration came too late to momentarily, from "pursuit transpired.
leather and suede coupons
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Thus, in the end, six
ter. Efforts to enlist the
Thus, early in 1943, Dr.
support of Pope Pius XII Gerhart Riegner learned million Jews perished
proved unavailing. Here that about 70,000 Roma- while the United States
and there, individual nian Jews deported to dithered and temporized,
Catholic prelates, notably Transnistria could be while the British
Monsignor Angelo Roncalli, ransomed from Ion An- doggedly sealed off ports
the Apostolic Delegate to tonescu's pro-Nazi re- of embarkation, and
Turkey (who was to become gime if an advance on the while we Jews in the Free
Pope John XXIII), inter- $35 million demanded World naively heeded as-
ceded vigorously to halt the would be placed in es- surances that "every-
Nazi "resettlement" depor- crow with the Berne lega- thing possible would be
done" to save lives.
tations from various coun- tion of the U.S.
Our protests and pro-
tries.
President Roosevelt, posals were listened to po-
In the International Henry 'Morgenthau and
litely, but were ignored.
Red Cross, despite the Cordell Hull gave their ap- That the Jewish leadership
Men's Business Shirts Only
general policy of proc- proval, but the rescue plan
of the United States failed
rastination and reluc- was sabotaged by State De- to do more, when more
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tance to "endanger its partment bureaucrats, might have been done to re-
I
valid with any incoming
status," a few determined aided and abetted by British scue the survivors in 1942
Dry-Cleaning Order
administrators worked Foreign Office officials. and 1943, is our self-
resourcefully to save More than once, such indictment.
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