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Friday, February 22, 1985
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
OP-ED
THE JEWISH NEWS
Serving Detroit's Metropolitan Jewish Community
with distinction for four decades.
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Fanaticism And Fear Vs.
Freedom And Friendship
BY DON MCEVOY
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1985 by The Detroit Jewish News (US PS 275-520)
Second Class postage paid at Southfield, Michigan and additional mailing offices. Subscription $18 a year.
CANDLELIGHTING AT 5:55 P.M.
VOL. LXXXVI, NO. 26
Angel of Apathy
With all of the, publicity that the renewed search for Josef Mengele has
been receiving lately, we had the sense that Auschwitz's hideous "Angel of
Death" was about to be nabbed, if not by the Mossad, then by the U.S.
Department of Justice. Not so.
If the testimony in Senator Arlen Specter's Judiciary subcommittee this
week was any indication, the forces of good are nowhere nearer Mengele than
they were back in 1982, when the awful "doctor" Was spotted in Paraguay.
Under questioning by Senator Specter, Army Lt. Gen. William E. Odom,
assistant chief of stafffor intelligence, couldn't even come up with the name of
the CIC unit commander who may have held Mengele's fate in his hands in
1947.
As former Office of Special Investigations director Allan A. Ryan, Jr.
pointed out in his prepared testimony, we have still to discover (1) whether
Mengele ever had any connection with the U.S. government, like Klaus
Barbie, the "Butcher of Lyon," (2) whether the United States had Mengele in
custody after World War II and if so, how did he get away? and (3) where is he
now?
Ryan's point, that Presidential, Congressional, press and public apathy
had allowed not only the Holocaust to happen, but some 10,000 Nazi war
criminals to emigrate to the U.S. after the war, was well taken. Despite the
current hoopla about Mengele, the same kind of indifference may continue to
contribute to Mengele's freedom unless we keep up the pressure to bring him
to justice.
Special to The Jewish News
"We are so happy," the young Nazi
told writer I.A.R. Wylie. "We are so
happy because we are free from free-
. ddm."
Free from freedom! No longer
bound by the disciplines of individual
responsibility and choice. No longer
required to make personal decisions on
the basis of conscience or integrity. All
such demands of freedom transcended
by a loyalty to a corporate cause.
That is the essence of all collective
movements, of all totalitarian
societies. They demand that indi-
vidualism be denied and subjected to a
"will" outside oneself.
What is perceived to be the com-
mon good, as defined by the ideological
leaders of the "cause," must take pre-
cedence over any personal relation-
ships and over any individual sense of
right or wrong. That is what mass
movements are all about.
The unity that appears to prevail
in mass movements does not result
from comradeship or brotherly or sis-
terly love. Rather, it emerges from
fear. Fear of being found out; fear of
being revealed; fear of being exiled
from the whole. It is the antithesis of
freedom.
The loyalty of the True Believer is
always to the whole, never to the indi-
viduals who comprise the whole. Not
even the fellow True Believer is unex-
pendable.
Genuine loyalty between persons
can only exist in a relatively free
environment. The "cause" of the fana-
tic; whether political, social, or reli-
gious, is always ready to sacrifice the
person to preserve the purity of the
group.
That is why young Nazis were
willing to become "informers" against
Don McEvoy writes a column for the National
Conference of Christians and Jews.
Against The Tide
Congressman George Crocket, (D-Detroit) got himself home-based
notoriety with a proposal for platforming a PLO spokesman at the U.S. House
of Representatives.
It would be greatly disappointing — and shocking! — if even a minimum
of -support were given to a legislator's attempt to grant credibility to a
genocide-inciting group in the name of free speech and human assembly.
Apparently not too many can be misled even by the best intentions.,
Granted that the Michigan Congressman is motivated, as he often
personifies, by a desire to lead in efforts for high-rank civil liberties. But
granting a platform to spokesmen for terror-creating elements would destroy
every vestige of decency in striving for justice for all peoples.
If Rep. Crockett has any misconceptions about the nature of the PLO, he
should only have to look at their 20-year record of terrorism to have his doubts
erased. Perhaps Jeremy Levin could brief the Detroit Congressmen after
spending 11 months in involuntary study of the new "moderates" of the
Middle East.
From all areas in civilized society, there is the constant condemnation of
the roots of PLOism. Hopefully, the Michigan legislator will not pursue the
generally-condemned approach to granting any sort of recognition of
whatever stems of terrorism. He can be helpful in encouraging peace without
granting a platform for terrorists.
parents and close relatives. It is prob-
ably why others who were not mem-
bers of the Party? who perhaps were
horrified by Hitler's excesses, could
remain silent when the Storm Troop-
ers came to arrest and deport their
neighbors. Whether they saw these to
be "enemies of the Reich," as they had
The unity that appears to
prevail in mass movements
does not result from
comradeship or brotherly
or sisterly love. Rather,
it emerges from fear. Fear
of being found out,- fear
of being revealed; fear
of being exiled from
the whole. It is the
antithesis of freedom.
been designated, the pressures to con-
form, to appear loyal and patriotic
were simply too great to withstand.
The recent 40th anniversary of
the liberation of Auschwitz, that quin-
tessential expression of Nazi bestial-
ity, compels me to face anew the ques-
tion of how and why it could have hap-
pened, and what I would have done if I
had been there, and had had to make a
choice.
I can't identify the quote, and this
is only a paraphrase; but "if ever con-
fronted by the choice of being disloyal
to a friend or disloyal to my country, I
pray I will have the courage to be dis-
loyal to my country."
(
,L\