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Friday, March 15, 1985
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
PURELY COMMENTARY
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PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Frank Murphy: American Who Understood, Protested Nazi Terror
Prof. David Wyman has earned a wide
audience not only in the reviews of his The
Abandonment of the Jews: America and the
Holocaust, 1941 to 1945 (Pantheon Books),
but also with his personal appearances on
radio and television and at public functions
like the lecture he delivered at the
Holocaust Memorial Center.
Dr. Wyman's revelations were pre-
ceded in,, other works, especially in While
Six Million Died by Arthur D. Morse, sub-
titled "A Chronicle of American Apathy."
The Morse book was published by Random
House, and preceded Wyman's by 17 years.
Revelations of Canada's shocking in-
difference to the horrors in None Is Too
Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe,
1933 to 1948, by Irving Abella and Harold
Troper (Random House), added to the ex-
posing of the failure to act humanely dur-
ing the tragic years.
In fact, providing some treatment to
the latter, there is one revelation that is
especially shocking. William MacKenzie
King, as Prime Minister of Canada, is
quoted as having said to Hitler in 1938 that
he "will rank some day with Joan of Arc
among the deliverers of his people and if he
is only careful may yet be the deliverer of
Europe."
It sounds unbelievable, but facts of
history cannot be erased.
The very title of the book, None is Too
Many, originated from a statement by a
senior civil servant in Canada when he was
asked how many Jewish immigrants
would be admitted to Canada.
Indictments by Wyman and Morse
were massive. They named names — of
government officials and others who
shared in indifference. And there were the
compassionate who spoke and wrote in
condemnation of the horrors.
The review of Wyman's Abandon-
ment, on this page in the issue of Dec. 21,
mentioned the Michigan personalities who
joined in appeals for justice. Chiefly out-
spoken were Reinhold Niebuhr, Senator
Homer Ferguson and Frank Murphy. Too
little has been said about the latter. He
merited recognition and appreciation, and
his record should be accounted for.
The shocking experience in the To-
ronto court where an anti-Semite was
found guilty by a jury of ten men and two
women, after an eight-week trial, of print-
ing and publishing tracts denying the
reality and truth of the Holocaust bar-
barities, demand recollecting both the
failures to act humanely and the honorable
deeds by distinguished personalities like
Frank Murphy.
Commendably consistent, Frank
Murphy earns an inerasable place in liber-
tarian history for his outspoken declara-
tions in support of just rights for Jews dur-
ing eras of oppression — devotions which
were equally applicable to the battle for
fairness to blacks and other minorities —
and in support of Jewish aspirations for
national redemption which emanated in
the rebirth of the State of Israel. The latter
identification is evidenced in the revived
pictorial story on this page about Murphy
as mayor of Detroit welcoming Menachem
Ussishkin, the world-famous head of the
Keren Kayemet — Jewish National Fund
— and the committee of Detroit leaders
during the Ussishkin visit in this country.
As judge of the Detroit Recorders
Court in the late 1920s, as mayor of De-
troit, as governor of Michigan, as justice of
the U.S. Supreme Court, in every capacity,
Frank Murphy spoke bluntly, wrote spe-
cial articles for newspapers and magazines
condemning prejudice, treating anti-
Semitism with contempt, calling for action
in defense of justice for all, regardless of
religious or nationality and racial origins
and/or affiliations. The Catholic Frank
Murphy was the defender of just rights for
all.
Therefore, his role as the accuser of the
brutal forces under Adolf Hitler in the
tragic years of the Holocaust must not be
hidden or forgotten. Because a number of
this nation's noted personalities were asso-
ciated with him in these efforts, an article
from PM, the magazine that fearlessly
conducted a battle for justice during its
brief existence, needs reviving and the
facts retained. It is a long piece and that
should not deter retaining knowledge of its
contents as well as the text of the Murphy
statement in behalf of the group of liberta-
rians.
James A. Wechler, who gained fame as
an investigating and research-skilled
editor of PM, wrote that report under the
heading "Group Formed to Help Save
Jews, Fight Anti-Semitism: Justice Mur-
phy Heads Committee of 12, Including
Wallace, Wilkie."
PM Article
Washington — A committee of 12 out-
standing Americans, led by Supreme
Court Justice Frank Murphy and includ-
ing Vice President Henry A. Wallace and
Wendell Willkie, has been organized to
help rescue European Jews from Nazi "ex-
termination" and to combat anti-Semitism
in the U.S.A.
Formation of the committee was an-
nounced by Justice Murphy in a statement
released on the 11th anniversary of Adolf
Hitler's seizure of power in Germany.
Declaring that "our action in respect
to the Jews may well be considered a
measure of our civilization and a test of our
institutions of government," Justice Mur-
phy, who will serve as chairman of the
committee, recited four key objectives of
the newly created agency:
"To rally the full force of the public
conscience in America against the persecu-
tion and extermination of Jewish men,
women and children in Nazi-occupied
Europe, and in support of vigorous and sus-
tained action by our government and the
United Nations to rescue those who may be
saved.
"To recognize and combat hateful
propaganda against American citizens of
Jewish descent as a powerful secret Nazi
weapon — powerful because it has been
deliberately spread to this continent where
no invading force has been able to set foot,
and secret because victims so inoculated
are often unconscious of the source from
which it comes.
"To bring the power of public opinion
to bear in cases where responsible officials
condone, commit, or fail to oppose the per-
secution of Jews, old and young.
Dr. David Wyman:
Recalling the Holocaust.
"To co-operate with like-minded
groups in other countries such as the `Na-
tional Committee for Rescue from the Nazi
Terror' of which the Archbishop of Canter-
bury is a member, in mobilizing the
peoples of the United Nations in behalf of
such a program for rescue and in warning
Hitler and his agent . in Axis and satellite -=
countries that they will be punished for
their crimes against mankind."
Justice Murphy said "there is no more
shocking violation of the human con-
science than the persecution and
threatened extermination of the Jews."
Pointing out that 3,000,000 have already
been killed and that "for 4,000,000 the
death march has just begun," he added: rl
"Here at home, in a country founded ;
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."
Gov. Leverett Saltonstall of Massa- c
chusetts, where anti-Semitic outbreaks
stirred wide attention several months ago,
is among the sponsors of the committee.
Willkie is to serve as vice chairman. Other
sponsors are:
Norman M. Littell, assistant U.S. At-c
torney General, secretary; Walter S. Good-
land, Governor of Wisconsin; Herbert B.
Maw, Governor of Utah; Gifford Pinchot,
former Governor of Pennsylvania; Henry
St. George Tucker, presiding Bishop of the
Protestant Episcopal Church and
L _
president of the Federal Council of)
Churches of Christ in America; Bernard J. ;
Sheil, Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago; Henry ,j
Sloane Coffin, president of Union Theolog-
ical Seminary; and Eric A. Johnson,
president of the United Chamber of Com-
merce.
Murphy's Statement
Frank Murphy, libertarian, defender of just rights for all,
regardless of race or creed, also was a staunch advocate of Ameri-
can support for the Zionist cause. In 1939, at the Shubert-Lafayette
Theater, he was among the leading Americans who protested
British restrictions on Jewish aspirations in the Palestine that
preceded Israel. When the eminent Zionist leader Menachem Us-
sishkin — the world head of Keren Kayemet (Jewisn National
Fund) — visited Detroit during an important mission in behalf of
the Zionist cause, Mayor Frank Murphy arranged a reception for
him at City Hall on Monday, Jan. 31, 1931.Governor Wilbur M.
Brucker was co-host at that gathering and he designated Philip
Slomovitz to be his representative. On that occasion, Mayor Mur-
phy expressed his deep convictions in support of the Zionist cause
and Aaron Kurland, president of the JNF Council of Detroit,
headed the reception committee representing Detroit's 100 Jewish
organizations.
In this historic photo, their titles and communal roles apply-
ing to the year of the reception, are from left: I.W. Lawton, JNF
activist who conducted a private Hebrew school; Slomovitz, Kur-
land, Menachem Ussishkin, Bernard Isaacs, the founding superin-
tendent of the United Hebrew Schools; Mayor Murphy and Fred M.
Butzel.
"Today marks one of the blackest an-
niversaries in human history. Eleven
years ago Hitler rose to power, to begin the
deliberate wrecking of institutions and
concepts of justice evolved through cen-
turies of human progress.
"While many peoples in many lands
have suffered, there is no more shocking
violation of the human conscience than the ,
persecution and threatened extermination
of the Jews. More than 3,000,000 have
been killed. For them, the death march is
over. For 4,000,000 more the death march
has just begun.
"Here at home, in a country founded
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