14
Frlday , Maj, 4, 1484-
THE
btl-liefT JEWIgH NEWS
o
HOLOCAUST
How. DO You- Cope:- .
With The Decisive Trauma
Of The 20th Century?
Continued from Page 1
Photo courtesy of JWV-USA National Memorial Archives
On March 23 , 1933 , the Jewish War Veterans of the United States ofAmerica
led this New York parade to initiate a campaign to protest Hitler's persecution
of the Jews. The campaign centered around a boycott of German goods.
chairman, former Supreme Court
Justice Arthur J. Goldberg, the out-
cry continues. Apparently there is no
end to the wrangling that has dogged
American Jewry's 2 1/2-year probe
into its own reactions during the
1930s and '40s to the slaughter of
Jews under Hitler, and two rabbis
are deeply involved in the con-
troversy.
Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum and
Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg both
on the 34-member investiga
group that represented the United
States' leading Jewish organizations.
Both rabbis, interviewed exclu-
sively for The Jewish News, hold
strong views about the commission's
final report, issued early last month,
and each represents to some degree
the wide range of opinions surround-
ing the- purposes and findings of the
group.
Tanenbaum, for example, feels
that the commission's approach was
wrong, and Hertzberg finds its con-
clusions of little consequence. They
are probably amongJhe majority who
find fault with the entire endeavor.
Not only is there objection to the
fact that victims of the Nazi at-
rocities undertook their own post-
mortem while the rest of the world
tried to forget the death, but there is
considerable body of opinion to the
effect that little can be learned from
all the self-examination.
Basically, the controversy re-
volves about the report's contention
that Jews in the United States dur-
ing and just before World War II did
little to help their fellows under the
Nazi boot in Germany.
Those who feel that the study
should have been undertaken are
being accused of masochism; those
who argue that the study should not
have been done are being charged
with trying to whitewash the be-
havior of American Jews in the face
of an event that marked a major
breakdown of Western civilization.
Rabbi Tanenbaum now direCts
the International Relations Depart-
ment of the American Jewish Com-
mittee. He feels that the commission-
went about its investigations from
the standpoint of assessing praise or
blame, whereas it should have
undertaken the study in order to
extract guidelines for the future; les-
sons for the enlightenment of coming
generations.
"Even in its present form," he
said, "I think there are certain criti-
cal issues that emerge which are ex-
tremely important for the Jewish
leadership and community to d e al
with. The first is the importan f
the need for a healthy skepticism in
any relationship with governmental
and other agencies.
"One of the sad, almost pathetic
things that happened (at the time of
the Holocaust) was that some Jewish
leaders allowed themselves to be
charmed — even deceived is not too
hard a word — into certain illusions
about what the American or British
government or the Red Cross were
going to do to help save Jews."
Another lesson to be learned, ac-