'Friday, May 24, 1985
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
PURELY COMMENTARY
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Tiascoed' Reconciliation: More Poison Spreading From Anti-Semitism'
"Fiasco" is the term now generally
applied to President Reagan's German
tour. Bitburg is no longer merely a cemet-
ery town. Now it has become a symbol re-
vealing the inner feelings of many Ger-
mans, as well as the blunders of diplomats,
especially Presidential advisers.
Most disturbing among the scores of
articles about the President's ill-fated
German tour is a May 14 New York Times
Op-Ed Page article by Marvin Kalb, an
NBC News correspondent, entitled " 'New'
SS Wreaths, Old Anti-Semitism."
Since it deals with the President, his
German counterpart and the purpose of
that mission, Kalb should be quoted at the
outset on his opinion of the purpose of the
event that led to Bitburg. He states in his
article: "The pursuit of reconciliation by
the way of Bitburg has been a failure.
What should have been obvious from the
beginning is that reconciliation is a long
process •— not a single photo opportunity,
an event, a moment frozen in time. Bit-
burg, exposing clumsiness and poor politi-
cal judgment in Bonn and Washington, in
the process lifted the scab on dark corners
of recent German history. There is a time
to know when to leave well enough alone.
As I entered the cemetery, I noticed a sign:
`Please do not disturb the peace and rest of
the dead.' Too late."
This was the well-known news corre-
spondent's comment on the diplomatic re-
lations between the United States and
Germany, resulting from his visit to Bit-
burg. It is what he learned in the process
that emerges as a lesson and a warning, an
admonition not to abandon vigilance while
comforting our national leaders in the
hours of their diplomatic errors. Kalb as-
sumed that the Bitburg controversy is re-
ceding because-it is "no longer a front-page
embarrassment." But he called attention
to the "echo from the past" in his descrip-
tion of his visit to the cemetery on the
morning after President Reagan and
Chancellor Helmut Kohl placed wreaths of
reconciliation in front of the cemetery's
chapel. He described how "a religious air
seemed to saturate the scene" as many
Germans placed wreaths on the cemetery
graves, and he proceeded in that distres-
sing report to state:
But look and listen: all around
there were the sights and sounds of
the new Germany — and old. Six
feet to the left of the President's
wreath stood an equally impres-
sive one. Across its banner: "To the
Waffen SS who fell at Leningrad."
No more than a foot to the right of
the Chancellor's was another
wreath: "For the fallen comrades
of the Waffen SS."
These two wreaths had been
placed in the chapel, out of sight,
hours before the President ar-
rivedThey were restored to their
original places of honor only hours
after he left. In the ensuing tran-
quillity, the Waffen SS could again
be honored in the springtime sun.
A middle-aged visitor from
Nuremberg said the Waffen SS
were simply soldiers — young con-
scripts doing their duty. "Let them
rest in peace. For us, a dead soldier
is a dead soldier, not a hero."
A native of Bitburg, who
looked to be in his 20s, expressed a
view I was to hear with disturbing
regularity. "We Germans and
nericans had been cooperating
y well" — he lowered his voice
— "until the Jews began to make
trouble."
Another Bitburger zeroed in
on Elie Wiesel. "Imagine the nerve
of a Jew lecturing President Rea-
gan. I saw him on television, mak-
ing trouble the way they all do."
An old woman complained
that Mr. Reagan had spent only
eight minutes at the cemetery.
"You know why the visit had to be
cut back? Because of Jews." She
stalked away to join a group of
friends nodding in agreement.
A man with a cane stopped and
said: "If they don't like it here, the
Jews, let them go away. We were
better off without them in Ger-
many." There are only 28,000 left,
he was reminded. "Too many," he
replied.
The people of Bitburg are
pleased that Mr. Reagan came to
visit, that he didn't yield to pres-
sure. But it's clear they resent their
new notoriety — and equally clear
whom they consider responsible
for the unwelcome change: the
Jews and the media. The Jews are
seen as a group separate from
Germans and Americans — an in-
digestible lump, a foreign body.
The media are seen as intrusive
and irresponsible and, somehow,
controlled by the Jews.
So it went. A few days later, a
Munich newspaper editor .ex-
plained that anti-Semitism is an
"anthropological phenomenon" in
Germany. The controversy seems
only to have uncorked the venom
once again. There is a sad irony.
Bitburgers consider themselves
remarkably enlightened. In 1933,
when Hitler won a critical election,
this conservative Catholic town
voted overwhelmingly against
him.
Is Bitburg an aberration? It is
impossible to judge and dangerous
to generalize. But a number of
leading West German politicians
and professors — several close to
Mr. Kohl — think anti-Semitism
was on the rise even before Bit-
burg. "The Jews were getting too
impertinent," one politician said,
citing, among other things, their
opposition to West German tank
sales to Saudi Arabia. "We've lis- -
tened to them too long. It's
enough."
It is all merely "anthropological?" Is
the "Jewish pressure" referred to an aber-
ration? Does it have echoes in what was
heard in the White House where one
Presidential adviser scribbled about- "suc-
cumbing to the Jewish pressures," with a
whitewash by two Jewish leaders?
The Twelve Million:
The Human Degradation
For those who advocate "forgive and
forget" and accuse the accusers of bran-
dishing hatreds, there is an admonition:
now there is the revival of warnings that
what has happened could happen again in
forgetfulness; and much more: that, as an-
other reminder, this is not a Jewish ques-
tion, it is a human challenge.
It is also a reminder that the victims
were not Six Million, they were Twelve
Million.
It has already been recognized that
half-a-million gypsies were murdered in
the Holocaust. In the same issue of the
NYTimes which carried the deeply-
moving essay by Marvin Kalb, reporting
on Bitburg, there was a letter from a
spokesman for Jehovah's Witnesses. Mar-
tin Poetzinger of Brooklyn, introduced as a
survivor, made an appeal for rationaliza-
tion that there were Germans who suffered
at the hands of the Nazis, decrying the
Indomitable Nemeth
-
Abraham Nemeth — retiring?
It's inconceivable!
This man of courage, born blind yet
filled with vision; without seeing eyes,
yet aware of everything happening
around him; dependent on a cane, yet
firm in stature.
People may have taken it for
granted that the man walking from his
home on Fairfield onto the University of
Detroit campus, daily, many times
nightly, with just a cane for guidance,
was an ordinary walker. Yet he carried
with him the vast knowledge he shared
with graduate classes — in math-
ematics, of all subjects!
He was never an
apparition: he was
always among this
community's most
impressive symbols,
always defying diffi-
culties, always smil-
ing, frequently
laughing, even if
they were over his
own narrated jokes;
and even if he kept
repeating his
stories. There was
the joy of sharing
them with him because they kept reve-
aling a memory that was in the spiritual•
as well as the mathematical.
The personality of Prof. Abraham
Nemeth served 30 years of professor-
ship at the University of Detroit. It is
not really retirement: it is a mere reduc-
tion of daily chores with students. In his
moral height he keeps growing in sta-
ture and will not permit anyone to say
ignoring of Jehovah's Witnesses among
the forgotten conscientious objectors
among the resisters of Nazism. The facts
revealed in that letter merit its full use.
Poetzinger wrote:
My wife and I, both Germans,
between us spent a total of 17 years
in Nazi concentration camps, I was
in Dachau and Mauthausen, and
my wife, Gertrud, was in
Ravensbruck. We were among the
thousands of non-Jewish Germans
who suffered because we did what
the Nazi criminals failed to do —
we were conscientious objectors to
Hitler's obligatory idolatry and
militarism. While thousands of us
survived the camps, many did not.
Your recent letters telling of
ordinary Germans who suffered
under Hitler's Nazi regime pro-
voke me to mention one minority
group, usually ignored, that was
persecuted ferociously by the Ges-
tapo. They were known as the Ern-
ste Bibelforscher (Earnest Bible
Students) or Jehovas Zeugen
(Jehovah's Witnesses).
As soon as Hitler came to
power in 1933, he commenced a
systematic persecution of
Jehovah's Witnesses because of
their stand of neutrality in politics
and war. As a result, thousands of
German Witnesses, many of whom
were friends of mine, became not
only victims of the Holocaust but
also martyrs. Why the subtle dif-
ference? Because we could have
left the concentration camps at any
time if we had been willing to sign a
paper renouncing our religious be-
liefs.
Two brief examples will show
that he is beset by obstacles. He merely
has challenges — and he meets them.
There must have been something
very remarkable about his home, his
parents, his family, that provided him
with a background of mastering Braille
and keeping up with, if not exceeding,
his classmates: in universities, includ-
ing Columbia, in languages, including
Hebrew and Yiddish, in psychology and
eventually in math.
Here is what he accomplished, after
getting his doctorate from Wayne State
University: He compiled the Nemeth
Dictionary of Braille Musical Symbols,
invented a Braille slide rule, his Braille
Code for Mathematics and Scientific
Notations was adopted by the American
Association of Instructors for the Blind.
He thus assisted the blind in their study
of math.
Remarkable? He also loves music
and plays the piano. Mention has also
been made of his love for good stories
and he should be acclaimed as a racon-
teur.
He is a master of Hebrew as well as
Yiddish; he conducts religious services
with cantorial skill; he masters over all
in conducting a Passover Seder.
He is at ease with all that has been
enumerated.
Therefore, the recognition accorded
him at age 67. He earns every compli-
ment listed. More power to him in what-
ever extra free time he now acquires as
he is relieved of his duties by the Uni-
versity of Detroit. U of D merits many
cheers for the opportunities it provided
him as Professor of Mathematics.
the kind of spirit that burned in the
breasts of some Germans who did
resist Hitlerism. Wilhelm Kus-
serow, age 25, from Bad
Lippspringe, was shot on April 27,
1940, because he refused to serve in
Hitler's armies.
Two years later, Wilhelm's
brother, Wolfgang, was beheaded
in the Brandenburg prison for the
same reason. Shooting was by then
too dignified for conscientious ob-
jectors in Hitler's estimation.
Wolfgang was 20 years old.
I could tell of hundreds of
German men and women who suf-
fered similar fates because, in the
name of God, they dared to stand
out against tyranny. Why there
were not millions of principled
Germans to stand and be counted,
instead of just thousands, is per-
haps a question for others to an-
swer.
Let it be noted, therefore, that another
important group, Jehovah's Witnesses,
was among the afflicted.
It should not be misunderstood, how-
ever, that the functions of the anti-Nazi
Germans were never denied. What re-
mains deplorable is that there were so few
among the conscientious objectors, among
the resisters. The collective guilt is unde-
niable and inerasable.
That is why, in view of the accumu-
lated guilt, it had become necessary to
criticize a well-meaning President who
was misled into grave errors. That is why,
when the President quoted a bat mitzvah
as approving of Bitburg the error must not
be shelved into insignificance.
Anthony Lewis, in a critical essay, re-
ferred to that blunder. The Associated
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