12
Friday, March 15, 1985
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
PURELY COMMENTARY
Frank Murphy
Continued from Page 2
upon the right of every individual to jus-
tice, religious and personal freedom, Nazi
propaganda is breeding the germs of
hatred against the Jews. No bacteriologi-
cal warfare could be more insidious and
more destructive to fundamental .goodwill
and ideals of religious and racial tolerance
which have built a great America.
"American citizens of Jewish descent
representing every major Jewish organiza-
tion and community in the United States
and speaking through the American
Jewish conference, have voiced not only
their own faith in American institutions of
justice and freedom, but that of every true
American citizen and of millions of op-
pressed peoples everywhere, in asking that
the democracies institute sustained and
vigorous action to rescue all who may yet
be saved and combat the virus of hatred
wherever it appears.
"Last week the President of the United
States responded to the appeal of the
Jewish citizens 'to seize every opportunity
to send supplies, provide the means for
Jewish self-defense and co-ordinate and
expand the work of rescue, by creating
through an executive order the War Refu-
gee Board composed of men of goodwill; our
action in respect to the Jews may well be
three department heads of the Federal
Government.
"The struggle in the world today is one
against men of ill will and considered a
measure of our civilization and a test of our
institutions of government. To reaffirm
and implement our faith in American prin-
ciples we are creating The National Com-
mittee Against Nazi Persecution and Ex-
termination of the Jews' ... "
It's a pity that a once-projected biog-
raphy of Frank Murphy never came into
being. Josephine Gomon, the "atheist" sec-
retary to Mayor Murphy, commenced such
a task. It was interrupted by Murphy's
death and this commentator's personal file
about Murphy was lost through some un-
fortunate neglect. This commentator was
actually commissioned by Murphy to write
a biography of him. That, too, vanished
with his death.
Nevertheless, the record about Frank
Murphy, enriches American and Jewish
history.
In view of the shockingly-bigoted at-
tempts by the crackpots, minimal as their
numbers may be, to attempt a denial of the
existence of the Holocaust, the Murphy
and similar roles must be kept on the re-
cord. The trial that concluded last week
with the conviction of a bigot who
engineered the Holocaust denial in an ad-
mitted anti-Jewish program unfortunately
demands a concern in the matter of prej-
udice reviving.
Outrage In Toronto
The trial of the West German pro-Nazi
residing in Toronto, who was convicted for
publishing and distributing lies claiming
to disprove the horror of the Holocaust,
caused great concern. The conviction of
Ernst Zundel aroused a debate. Many, in-
cluding prominent Canadian Jews, ques-
tioned whether the platform should thus
have been provided for the Nazi prop-
agator. The question of freedom of expres-
sion was raised. The Toronto Globe and
Mail, under the heading "The Fate of False
News," questioned the wisdom of "an of-
fensive law for publishing offensive state-
ments."
The Globe and Mail editorialized:
"This law should not exist; no one
should have to face it in a country which
believes in freedom of speech. If the Char-
ter of Rights and Freedoms means any-
thing, it encompasses the right to publish
false statements in the absence of demon-
strable injury. Yet this law uses 'injury'
Frank Murphy:
Fought against the Holocaust.
interchangeably with 'mischief,' and re-
quires no victim; it asks the court to read a
man's mind, to guess whether he believes
what he publishes, and it is loose enough to
be used against a wicked parody or satire.
It is as malleable as a prosecutor's defini-
tion of 'mischief and 'public interest.'
"We hold no brief for Ernst Zundel's
repellent views. We are keenly aware of
the considerable mental anguish visited on
survivors of the Holocaust, and on rela-
tives of its victims, by the publication of
those views — given wide dissemination,
ironically, by the trial itself. But punishing
the man who publishes those views only
drives them underground, to fester and
spread without public exposure and de-
bate; it opens the door to prosecution in
cases where the facts are more arguable,
where the truth is less obvious; it paints
the society as one with no better defense
against lies than to punish those who ex-
press them.
"Freedom of speech is not absolute.
Canada has laws to deal with those who
advocate genocide, who incite violence,
who defame individuals. But this law at-
tempts to define truth, to define a man's
beliefs and to punish people for mischiev-
ous statements, in the name of the public
interest."
Meanwhile, the hate-mongering con-
tinues, the lie is spreading, and as time
marches on there will be fewer and fewer of
the evidence-producers with the Nazi
numerals branded on their arms to testify
about the horror that should make the
Holocaust unforgettable.
Therefore, the painful necessity to
keep reminding the present generation,
with the intention of carrying the message
to the generations to come, about a horror
that cost the lives of a third of the Jewish
people during the Nazi era.
The outcry reminding of the horrors
keeps sounding louder and louder.
Exemplary is a story that might be
treated as irrelevant, yet it echoes the
shock over the horrors. A most interesting
personality sketch about U.S. Senator
Daniel K. Inouye of Hawaii by Martin Tol-
chin in the New York Times told of the
legislator's interest in Judaism and strong
support for Israel. The account contains
this brief paragraph:
"His interest in Judaism was espe-
cially stirred in World War II while he was
recuperating from his amputation in an
Army hospital. A roommate told of having
helped liberate a concentration camp. 'He
told me what he saw,' the Senator recalled,
`bodies piled up like cordwood, hollow eyes,
an unbelievable stench.' "
Much of the condemnation currently
heard in the reminders of the Auschwitz
terror relates to the search for the criminal
Dr. Josef Mengele. The New York Times
last week reprinted the evidence that was
given by Ernest W. Michel, an Auschwitz
survivor who described the Nazi terror in
testimony before Congress. The numerals
on his arm — Number 104905 — spoke
loudly in condemnation of the guilty, add-
ing to the evidence he provided.
Many of the comments by Prosecutor
Peter Griffiths in the Zundel case bear em-
phasis. He identified Zundel as belonging
to the "band of crazies, misfits and frus-
trated men." Griffiths commented that
"absolute freedom is another way of talk-
ing about absolute tyranny. If I have abso-
lute freedom to do anything I please, then I
can shoot you, rob you or cheat you. That's
not how to run a society. My freedom is
your slavery."
Does this reply to the Globe and Mail
editorial?
An important phrase in the Griffiths'
argument was the charge that actions like
Zundel's "spit on the memories" of the sur-
vivors and robs them of the "dignity of
their grief." Doesn't this speak volumes in
the demand that the sick minds who would
deny such dignity be condemned and
punished?
If proof and condemnation still are
needed, they are contained in an article
entitled "Former Auschwitz Prisoner Asks
Why Plea for Bombing Raid Was Ignored,"
by Hermann Langbein, which appeared in
the German-language
Deutches
Allgemeines Sonntagsblatt, published in
Hamburg. It was reprinted in an English
translation in the German Tribune, also of
Hamburg. In the criticism of the failure to
bomb the death camps, Langbein re-
minisces and accuses:
"Auschwitz became the most drastic
example of the power ideology can wield, of
how a radical theory can divide mankind
into members of a master race and subhu-
mans, creating a class of people denied the
very right to live and compared only with
insects.
"The members of the SS responsible
for pouring the poison gas into the gas
chambers were officially called `disinfec-
tors.'
"This is perhaps one reason why the
subject of Auschwitz was carefully ignored
for many years after the Nazi regime had
been defeated.
"Many of those who had accepted this
theory were not willing to accept the hor-
rifying truths of its implementation.
"The topic was only officially broached
after post-war generations were no longer -
willing to by-pass the problem
"And ever since, those who would like
to acquit the Nazi regime of the historical
guilt which clearly distinguishes it from
all other fascist and totalitarian systems
(in no other system have millions of people
been murdered purely on account of their
descent), have been questioning the exist-
ence of gas chambers in Auschwitz.
"Such doubts, however, are futile in
view of the overwhelming evidence.
"The National Socialists had greater
inhibitions when it came to destroying re-
cords than with regard to exterminating
human beings.
"There is therefore plenty of exact
documentation of the crimes committed in
Auschwitz and in other concentrations
camps . . .
"However, few people are aware of the
fact that there was an active resistance
group among the prisoners in Auschwitz,
that human feelisga and solidarity sur-
vived even in the dark shadow of the cre-
matories and gas chambers.
"Furthermore, its fight against the
systematic murdering of the Nazi regime
was rewarded by a number of successes.
"The Nazi concentration camp system,
which was developed in the first concentra-
tion camp in Dachau and then applied in
all the others, set out to rob the prisoners of
their sense of personal worth, to break ,
their will power and turn them into tools
ready to obey any command .. .
"The fact that a resistance group was
formed even in this camp (Auschwitz) and
was able to claim a certain degree of suc-
cess is astounding and highly commenda-
ble.
"For it shows that even in extreme
situations human feelings cannot be eradi-
cated altogether.
"What is more, the group was able to
overcome the conflicts between different
nationalities, which were deliberately
stirred up by the camp supervisors .. .
"These (anti-Semitic) tendencies were
also fanned by the Nazis and were particu-
larly strong among the Poles, often at the
expense of their fellow Jewish prisoners
"One of the Auschwitz combat group's
major objectives was to inform the rest of
the world of the cold-blooded mass murders
committed each day in the camp.
The struggle in the world
today is one against men of
ill will and considered a
measure of our civilization
• • •
"Although . the existence of the gas
chambers were veiled in secrecy, atrocities
of this magnitude could not go unnoticed,
for long.
"Too many official departments and
military sections were involved: five
ministries co-ordinated the organization of
the mass murders; the state railway
changed its timetables to transport the
prisoners; the gold fillings taken from the
prisoners' corpses was delivered to the -
Reichsbank month after month.
"Apart from this, the stench of burnt
human flesh could often be smelled miles
away.
"The families of senior members of the
SS lived in the vicinity of the camps.
"Finally, more and more people came
into contact with prisoners during the
course of the war. A growing number of
sub-camps and arms factories employing
prisoners were set up near concentration
camps, including Auschwitz.
"It is therefore blatant self-deception
to maintain that no-one could have im-
agined what was happening behind the y
electrically-charged barbed wire at Au-
schwitz.
"The 'combat group Auschwitz' never
ceased trying to inform the rest of the
world about the true extent of atrocities.
The 'combat group' not only informed the
world of this planned atrocity, but called
upon the military to bomb both the railway,
lines leading from Hungary to Auschwitz
and the crematories in Birkenau so as to at
least hinder the move . . ."
The Langbein essay should be given
widest circulation. The horrors it recalls
condemn the entire set of international
liars who deny the Holocaust.
Langbein's description of Combat(
Group Auschwitz has great significance.
Need anything else be said on so painful a
subject?
The exposing statements, the con-
demnations of the neo-Nazis, are of neces-
sity lengthy. The dedication to the reten-
tion of the facts are obvious.