Friday, October 14, 1983 -
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
FABULOUS FINISHING
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Jews, Poles Moving Closer
Through Work of Task Force
between Jews and Poles,
Lauren Bruss
Faye Krut
created in Poland and
Hostility and suspicion transplanted to the United
557-5679
851-1368
States, has been succeeded
by a growing spirit of
friendship between the two
communities in this coun-
try.
George Szabad, a former
vice president of the AJ-
Committee, is currently co-
chairman of the Polish -
American - Jewish - Ameri-
can Task Force. Speaking at
221 North Main St., Royal Oak, Michigan 48067
a symposium on "Poles and
Jews in the New World,"
541-8830
held at Columbia Univer-
sity, he delineated the his-
tory of "this unique rela-
tionship," which he said was
at present "breaking
through massive walls of
hostility and suspicion
erected on Polish soil" and
which was "counteracting a
half-century of animosity
transplanted from one side
of the Atlantic to the other."
Szabad said the task
force had its origin in a
meeting in September
1979 at St. Mary's Col-
lege, a Polish Catholic
school in Orchard Lake,
when representatives of
the AJCommittee met to
discuss for the first time
mutual concerns with
representatives of Polish
American national, cul-
tural, academic and re-
ligious organizations.
Szabad said their com-
mon agenda included
"combatting defamation,
generating a balanced
view of the history of
Polish-Christian and
Jewish relations, and
demonstrating concern
for global human rights.
Szabad stressed that both
Poles and Jews have been
the targets of hostile carica-
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rights as Jews were in the
Soviet Union.
By BEN GALLOB
(Copyright 1983, JTA, Inc.)
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Editor-in-Chief
Emeritus, JTA
(Copyright 1983, JTA, Inc.)
COURAGE AND ACTION: A considerable number
of books have been written on the Holocaust. Some relate
how non-Jews had, at the risk of their own lives, helped
individual Jews to escape being captured by the Nazis.
Outstanding in this mass rescue effort was the non-Jewish
population of Denmark. In a spontaneously organized way
they managed to smuggle out almost all the 8,000 Jews
from the country in the dark of night during the Jewish
High Holy Days — in October 1943 — after the prime
minister of Nazi-occupied Denmark received a tip from a
sympathetic official of the German Consulate in Copenha-
gen that a secret order had come from Hitler to round up all
the Jews in Denmark during Rosh Hashana and deport
them to death camps.
So certain was the Nazi ruler of occupied Denmark,
Werner Best, that he would carry out this order success-
fully, that he ru hed to send a telegram to Hitler stating
"Denmark is Judenrein" even before the round-up of Jews
began. The chief rabbi of Denmark, Dr. Marcus Melchior,
informed the Jews in the synagogue that he had just
learned of the Nazi plans to raid every Jewish home the
following day and to round up all of them for deportation on
German ships that were waiting in the Copenhagen har-
bor.
In less than 24 hours after the rabbi's horrifying mes-
sage, all elements of the non-Jewish population mobilized
themselves to shelter Jews in their homes, find boats to
transport them at night in secrecy to Sweden, bring them to
these boats in covered ambulances, trucks, taxis and other
vehicles under the very noses of the Germans. A slogan
conveyed by mouth from one Dane to another was, "The
Jews must be saved." Help came from every side.
AMERICAN JEWISH APPRECIATION: The 40th
anniversary of the rescue of the Jews of Denmark will be
commemorated in New York next Thursday with a dinner
in the Pierre Hotel and in a preview exhibition in the
Jewish Museum showing the history of the Jews in De-
nmark from 1622 till the present time. The prime minister
of Denmark, Poul Schluter, will open the exhibition.
The 40th anniversary of the rescue — which came to be
known among the Danes as "Little Dunkirk" — coincides
with the 20th anniversary of "Thanks to Scandinavia"
founded in the U.S. to express appreciation of American
Jewry for the singular act of humanity and bravery shown
by Denmark as well as the people of Sweden, Norway and
Finland --1-to actively participated in saving Jews from
falling into the hands of the Nazis. The appreciation ex-
presses itself in raising funds to provide educational scho-
larships to young Scandinavians to enable them to study in
the United States. The scholarships cover a wide spectrum
of studies in technical and cultural subject areas not avail-
able in Scandinavia.
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NEW YORK (JTA) —
The American Zionist
Youth Foundation (AZYF)
has announced the opening
of the 1984 Salute to Israel
Parade Poster Project, and
is inviting all students in
the United States, grades
four-12, to participate.
The winning artist will be
awarded a trip to Israel and
the second place winner will
receive a partial scholar-
ship for a trip to Israel, the
AZYF said.
Designs should be sub-
mitted to the Salute to Is-
rael Parade office, by Dec. 5,
515 Park Ave., New York,
N.Y. 10022. The parade will
take place June 3.
Shakespeare's character
of Shylock is believed to be
based on the 16th Century
fictional story of Paolo Sec-
chi, a Christian merchant
and creditor of the Roman
Jew Samson Cesena. When
the Jew could not pay his
debt, Secchi cut a pound of
flesh from his body.
Shakespeare, however, as-
signed the role of the merci-
less creditor to the Jew.
O