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THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
PURELY COMMENTARY
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Charles R Allen Continues Revealing The Nazi Presence
the Ryan report was also an un-
usual step for any national gov-
ernment to take.
, The report confirmed in tel-
• ling detail virtually the entireof
the already published media find-
ings concerning Barbie. The use
of what the CIC called "Rat
Lines" to get Barbie out of
Europe in 1951 via a "monastery
route" originating in Bavaria,
leading thence to Austria, drop-
ping down south to Italy where
Barbie was provided safe haven
in Rome was revealed. Barbie
exited Genoa by ship -to Buenos
Aires, Argentina on March 23,
1951.
There are shortcomings in American
judicial action which need knowing.
Allen calls it unfinished business and
points out:
Civic protective organizations re-
main on the alert watching over de-
velopments in the neo-Nazi ranks and
their unending vicious roles. The
presence in this country of the surviving
elements of destruction are always under
watchful eyes and listening ears.
Individuals who are concerned over
the menacing presence of the hate-
promulgating groups share the concerns
and are anxious to be of help in ferrret-
ing out those who never stop spreading
their vile purposes.
Therefore, when a valuable guide for
the vigilant becomes available, it serves
a most compelling purpose in defense of
human decencies. •
Organized efforts to be on guard to
prevent the spreadink Nazi menace
needs proper guidance. Charles R. Allen
Jr., who already has a record of leader-
ship in exposing the Nazi cells in this
country, provides such a manual in Nazi
War Criminals in America: Facts . ; . Ac-
tion . . . Basic- Handbook (Highgate
House).
While the Barbie and Mengele cases,
and similar major developments, attract
most attention, Allen's collective revela-
tions contain the massive guilt of the
scores of cases involving the Nazis who
have found refuge in this country.
Who are they? It is by tracing the
backgrounds, by listing the participants
in the mass murders, that Allen provides
the guidelines for the vigilance so vitally
needed to keep exposing the guilty. That
is how the horrors are remembered and
the guilty hopefully punished, all as a
warning of non-repetition of the crimes. •
The activities of the OSI, the Office
of Special Investigations of the U.S. Jus-
tice Department, in the continuing pros-
ecution of the guilty whose -records are
now a matter of public knowledge, is
especially important.
Allan A. Ryan, Jr., who conducted
the prosecution of Michigan's Valerian
Trifa, is quoted about the OSI and the
continual interest in pursuing the expo-
sures of the Nazi criminals. There is an
oppressive note in a statement quoting
Ryan in which he said that "if we file an
airtight case against a naturalized
American citizen tomorrow and there are
no judicial delays, it will still take eight
years."
- Of special current interest in Allen's
revelations is the manner in which the
Barbie file is being assembled for the
prosecution and the American role in it,
involving Ryan. According to Charles Al-
len:
Against the background of a
global media-upheaval, the U.S.
Justice Department — after first
dismissing Barbie as "only some-
thing of historical interest" (re-
ported by Charles R. Allen, Jr.,
JTA, February 18, 1983) -- re-
versed itself by directing OSI
chief, Allan A. Ryan, to investi-
gate possible American invol-
vemnt in the Klaus Barbie mat-
Nearly six months later
(August 16, 1983), Mr. Ryan re-
leased two volumes of history
and analysis as well as more than
800 pages of declassified Ameri-
can intelligence and State De-
partment documents called Klaus
Barbie and the U.S. Government.
While critics were to fault
some of the Ryan report, it
nonetheless was the first de-
tailed, documented admission by
the US. government of utilization
of a-Nazt war criminal. Moreover,
the clainied wholesale release of
all intelligence documents used in
-
At mid-1985, the following
matters have_in. no_way_ been
conclusively followed through by
various agencies of the U.S. gov-
ernment
• The GAO's (General Ac-
counting Office) report on U.S.
intelligence utilization of Nazi
war criminals and charges •of
cover-ups, of such usage. Under-
way since 1982.
• The Subcommittee on Im-
migration of the Judiciary Com-
mittee of the U.S. House of
Representatives has not held
hearings on the charges assigned
to the GAO for impartial investi-
gation since 1978.
• Notwithstanding the OSI
and U.S. Attorney General's 1983
assurances that the case of
Robert Jan (Jean) Verbelen
would be fully investigated and
reported by the OSI, this has not
been done.
• The OSI report on the Josef
Mengele matter will remain unre-
solved until its full release to the
public (much in the format of the
1983 report on Klaus Barbie).
• Six Nazi war criminals have
been deported to date, according
to the OSI; a dozen deportations
may become final by end of 1985.
Not a single Nazi war criminal
has ever been deported back to the
,
'
soil on which his crimes were Com-
mitted.
• According to the claims of
OSI director, Neal Sher, there are
"over 300 cases" which can be
developed for friability of identi-
fiable Nazi war criminals yet liv-
i ng in the United States. How
many, what percentage of this
OSI-estimated number will be pro-
secuted?
It would be most shocking if it were
not a matter of record that the right
wing elements in the United States Con-
tribute toward a continuing neo-Nazi
presence which befuddles and prejudices
uninformed but violently biased ele-
ments. The crackpots are exposed in sets
of facts introduced by Allen. It is impor-
tant that this statement in Allen's Nazi
War Criminals in America be published:
Since its inception, both the
Ultra Right and the Respectable
Right have attacked the OSI with
the strategic purpose of eliminat-
ing the unit.
The Thunderbolt, official pub-
lication (15,000 circulation) of the
National States Right Party'
whose origins are largely Ku
Klux Klan in Georgia, screamed
'
in its November 1982 issue that
"radical Jews founded the OSI"
In order to send "elderly Anti-
Communist Patriotic East Euro-
peans" back to face rigged Soviet
courts and "certain execution"
for "fighting' Communists during
World War II ... JUST AS ALL
AMERICANS SHOULD HAVE
AT THAT-TIME!"
Other elements of the Klan
and various Nazi Party offshoots'
— 'most •with small membership,
all advocatesipractioners of vio-
lence against Blacks, Jews, liber-
als and communists — have
raised defense funds for charged
war criminals (John Demjanjuk,
for example,) and have mounted
anti-Semitic demonstrations at
OSI trials in Chicago, Cleveland,
Boston, Los Angeles and
Florida ...
Spearheading this effort —
which goes far beyond the reach
of the Ultras of "gutter fascism"
— has been the 325,000 paid cir-
culation of Spotlight, issued by
what some experts believe is the
country's largest anti-Semitic
group, the Liberty Lobby in
Washington, D.C. which enjoys
numerous and often influential
Congressional contacts who are
not well disposed toward OSI, for
example Sen. Jesse Helms (R.
NC).
Spotlight has carried large
features defending such
genocidists as Debijanjuk, Lin-
nas, Fedorenko and Laipenieks.
More ominous clouds on the
horizon of OSI's immediate fu-
ture may be seen in certain East-
ern ✓uropean and Soviet emigre
organizations that exercise con-
siderable voting power in the
ethnic urban centers of the coun-
try. Already a so-called Free Bal-
tic Committee 'successfully per-
suaded ranking U.S. Senators to
intervene in behalf of the war
criminal Linnas, scheduled for
deportation possibly to' Soviet Es-
tonia. Leaders of some of • these
emigre groaps have been linked
to the Assembly of Captive Euro-
pean Nations (ACEN), known to
have been originally financed by
the CIA since 1949.
Charles Allen's researched factual
expose of the Nazi terror that continues
with the presence of the escaped ciimi-
nals in this country and in. Latin
America has , been widely published, in-
cluding in The Jewish News. His current
guide book is the compelling manual as-
sisting organizations and individuals in
their vigilant tasks against the spread of
the Hitler, nizi-inspired brutalities. His
newest work
gains recognition and
.
appreciation.
Sholem Aleichem
As Dramatist Affirmed
In Revived 'Nightingale'
Sholem Aleichem is a dominant
name in humor and the lighter-vein lit-
erature. It is as a humorist that he is
constantly judged. That's how- he was
portrayed when he met with Mark
Twain in 1911 or 1912, when he was re-
ferred to as the Jewish Mark Twain and
the great American humorist made the
correction: "No, no, I am the American
Sholem Aleichem."
Yet there is much in Shelem
Aleichem to portray him as a dramatic
,
writer with 'great skill to describe the
anguish of his people, to expose the suf-
ferings in the shtetl when they affected
the miseries of the impoverished.
The dramatic becomes especially
evident in one of the revived Sholem
Aleichem stories now. made available for
the first time in an English translation.
Under the title The Nightingale,
which in Yiddish was the .
Aleichem novel Yosele the Nightingale
(Putnam), it marks a continuity in the
(Putnam),
exciting venture of bringing to English
readers • the available works that were
hitherto restricted to the' Yiddish
readers.
This remarkable Sholem Aleichem
novel — it was his second, written in
- 1886 when he was 27 — has many un-
usual features. It is a social study of the
ghetto, of the shtetl, with its many con-
flicting residents, the very poor and
those somewhat affluent.
The story is about Yosele Solovey.
The title of the book actually. is The
'Nightingale, or the Saga of Yosele Sol-
my_ the Cantor. Bothiii -the text itself
Sholem Aleichem
and in the introduction by the , trans
lator, Aliza Shevrin, the cantorial art is
emphasized and the result is a definition
of Hazanut.
Mrs, Shevrin, the Ann Arborite
whose translation of Sholem Aleichem's
In the Storm and Marienbad already
gained praise, adds immensely to the
evaluation of the new novel. It is Sholem
Aleichem himself who appears in .a ',re-
markable role as a judge of the cantorial
art. His description of Yosele's enchant-
ing voice presents the eminent author as
a music critic. There is such skill in the
lengthy comments on the young cantor's
voice which gained for him- the title "The
Nightingale" that added acclaim is thus
permissible for Sholem Aleichem:
The story about. Yosele, son of a poor
cantor, Shmulik, revolves around many
experiences. As a youngster he becomes
devoted to the synagogue Chants. His
voice leads him to great fame. He gains
wide recognition.•But he is ensnared into
a marriage with an elder but rich
woman who just became widowed. It
marks the end of his, cantorial career.
His wife engenders hate. It leads to
Yosele's becoming deranged.
There is another aspect to the story,
the lovely character of the neighbor
Zlate's daughter Esther. Without label-
ing it as a love affair, this is what it ac-
tually was for Esther.
For Esther, too there is tragedy. Her
mother's poverty, her *aging" — which is
Continued on Page 20