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Friday, December 21, 1984 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

1- ,71 YES, Doctors

PURELY COMMENTARY

MAKE HOUSE CALLS

DR. LEE HOFFMAN

`Abandonment of Jews'

PODIATRIST-FOOT SPECIALIST

Continued from Page 2

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cil of America, he spoke out in pro-
test against the inadequacies of
the rescue efforts. His efforts are
identified by Dr. Wyman:
While the conference. was
still in session, Rabbi Israel
Goldstein publicly exposed the
strategem: "The job of the
Bermuda Conference appar-
ently was not to rescue victims
of Nazi terror, but to rescue
our State Department and the
British Foreign Office." Golds-
tein was no hothead, and his
organization, the Synagogue
Council of America, was a
model of respectability. He
stood on firm ground when he
charged that the "victims are
not being rescued because the
democracies do not want
them."
The Bermuda Conference
was executed according to
plan. Thereafter, when the
State Department received
appeals for action to save
Jews, it issued this stock an-
swer• .
"I assure you that the plight
of the unfortunate victims of
Axis tyranny is a matter which
has been, and is, receiving the
careful and sympathetic atten-
tion of this government. In
addition the conference at
Bermuda has examined in de-
tail every possibility for the re-
lief of the sufferings of the per-
secuted people of occupied
Europe. Steps are now being
taken to put into effect the
recommendations made by the
conference."
This ruse undoubtedly les-
sened public pressure to some
extent. But another result of
the Bermuda Conference, one
not planned by the diplomats,
hurt the rescue cause much
more severely. In late June,
Breckinridge Long observed
that "the refugee question has
calmed down" and "the pres-
sure groups have temporarily
withdrawn from the assertion
of pressure." He concluded
that the conference's pretense
at careful consideration of all
possibilities for action had
quieted the clamor for rescue.
But he was wrong. Proponents
of rescue were not deceived by
that trick. What had subdued
them was the Anglo-American
demonstration of utter call-
ousness. It had smashed hope
and made continued efforts
seem futile. The calm was that
of despair.
Reinhold Niebuhr and other
Christian leaders warned
President Roosevelt of the
"deep pessimism" that had
taken hold among "wise and
well informed" Jewish lead-
ers. Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver,
national chairman of the
United Palestine Appeal and a
foremost Zionist, observed
that "our fortunes were never
so low."
This long quotation is a neces-
sity in exposing the Bermuda
Conference as a diplomatic fake.
It also accounts to a degree for the
prejudicial acts of Breckenbridge
Long who was among the guiltiest
in denying available visas for the
victims of Nazism.
As an emphasis on Detroiters'

Vs, .•

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and former Detroiters' participa-
tion in rescue work, it is worth
noting that-Dr. Wyman's record of
leaders who participated in pro-
tests against the persecutions in-
cluded Morris D. Waldman, in be-
half of the American Jewish
Committee. Waldman was the
first • executive director of the
Jewish Welfare Federation of De-
troit when it was organized in
1925.
The important role of the
Bergson Group needs special at-
tention. It was in its behalf that
the historic full-page advertise-
ments in leading newspapers
were written by the noted author
Ben Hecht. There is an interest-
ing note about the Bergson Group
- in the Wyman book:
At the group's core were
Hillel Kook and Samuel Mer-
lin. Merlin, a journalist, had
earlier served as Jabotinsky's
personal secretary. Kook was
descended from a noted rab-
binical line. In the United
States, he adopted the name
Peter H. Bergson in order to
keep his political activities
from reflecting on the name of
his late uncle, the former chief

The mass media
treated the systematic
murder of millions of
Jews as though it
were minor news.

rabbi of Palestine, Abraham
Isaac Kook. Quick and intense,
Bergson was a dynamic
speaker and the group's
leader. Consequently, the
Palestinians and the move-
ments they initiated were re-
ferred to as the Bergsonites.
Most distressing in what should
be labeled as failure to be fully
human during that tragic era was
the indifference of church and
churchmen, liberals, intellectu-
als, the press. It is with sorrow
that the following revealing dec-
laration by Prof. Wyman must be
emphasized:
At the heart of Christianity is
the commitment to help the
helpless. Yet, for the most part,
America's Christian churches
looked away while the Euro-
pean Jews perished. So did
another part of the public that
might have been expected to
cry out for action, American
liberals. The Nation and the
New Republic did speak,
throughout the war, warning
of what was happening and
pressing for rescue. From time
to time, some prominent indi-
vidual liberals also urged ac-
tion. But rescue never became
an important objective for
New Dealers or other Ameri-
can liberals. Even as
thoroughly libergal an institu-
tion as the New York news-
paper PM, though it did call for
rescue, did not make it a major
issue.
Most American intellectuals
were indifferent to the struggle
for rescue. Dorothy Thompson

Continued on Page 22

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