PURELY COMMENTARY
Carl Von Ossietzky
Continued from Page 2
cal rabble-rousers and intel-
lectual agitators that you are
not caught, for your tongues
will then be silenced."
Just one section of the
concentration camp rules and
regulations which give an idea
of the mood of the day.
The concentration camps
were the end of the road for
numerous prominent intellec-
tuals and politicians of the
Weimar Republic, for example,
mineworkers' leader Fritz
Husemann and Altona's chief
of police Otto Eggerstedt.
Both were "shot while at-
tempting to escape."
It was impossible for the
Nazis to simply murder Os-
sietzky, since the whole world
was interested in the where-
abouts of the man recom-
mended for the Nobel peace
prize.
One SS camp guard is re-
puted to have told Ossietzky
that he would prefer to kill
him, but "you are a talked-
about man."
Ossietzky's friends abroad
did everything they could to
make sure that his name
stayed in the headlines.
"Take the Nobel peace
prize into the concentration
camp!," they cried.
However, under the
foreign policy pressure of the
Nazi regime the Nobel Prize
Committee did not dare com-
ply with this demand.
Yet it was too late to
choose another candidate and
no Nobel peace prize was
awarded in 1935.
The Gestapo tried to bom-
bard the international press
with "information" about Os-
sietzky's allegedly traitorous
activities.
Furthermore, it claimed
that Ossietzky was in good
health, well-fed, and that his
body showed a "reasonably
powerful musculature and
layer of subcutaneous fat."
The Swiss journalist and
representative of the Interna-
tional Red Cross, Carl Jacob of
Burckhardt, however, de-
scribed a different picture of
the prisoner he visited in the
Esterwegen concentration
camp in October 1935.
In Burkhardt's report,
which was read throughout
the world, he referred to "a
trembling and deathly pale
person who seemed to be
apathetic, one eye swollen,
dragging a broken and poorly
healed leg."
Together with the reports
by former concentration camp
prisoners of the atrocities
committed there this report
enabled the Nobel peace prize
campaign for Carl von Os-
sietzky to reach its peak.
This was a clear embar-
rassment for the Nazi leaders,
who were trying to consolidate
worldwide recognition in the
year of the Olympic Games.
They ordered that a medi-
cal examination be carried out,
this time a proper one.
Its findings sounded more
objective: general weakness,
coughing to the point of vomit-
ing, feelings of anxiety, lack of
appetite, poor bowel move-
ment, pale complexion, rattl-
ing noises above and below the
left-hand tip of the lungs ...
otherwise no findings."
According to this exam-
ination the "sudden death" of
the person examined was
probable.
The Gestapo found itself in
a dilemma: if Ossietzky died
while imprisoned this would
corroborate the "horror
stories" about German con-
centration camps; if, on the
other hand, Ossietzky were re-
leased he could be used as
"chief witness" against the
Nazi regime.
In May 1936, after three
years in a concentration camp,
the famous prisoner was trans-
ferred to a police hospital in
Berlin.
The chief physician there
diagnosed an incurable case of
tuberculosis of the lungs at an
advanced stage.
The conscience of the
world responded to the chal-
lenge.
By 1 November, 1936, al-
most one thousand persons
entitled to make recommenda-
tion to the Nobel Prize Com-
mittee, including 125 Swiss
parliamentarians, 86 members
of the British House of Com-
mons and 127 French deputies,
had recommended Ossietzky.
In Norway a young emigre
by the name of Willy Brandt
was able to secure the backing
of 69 members of the Storting.
This prompted Norway's
foreign minister to resign from
the Nobel Prize Committee to
make it possible for the Ger-
man candidate to receive the
prize.
Up until that time the
Norwegian foreign minister
had objected to Ossietzky's
nomination by citing his coun-
try's foreign policy interests.
Up until the very last mo-
ment the Nazi regime tried to
pressurize the Norwegian gov-
ernment into preventing the
awarding of the prize to Os-
sietzky.
However, even the threat
of sanctions failed to prevent
Carl von Ossietzky from being
awarded the 1935 Nobel peace
prize.
"Ossietzky," Heinrich
Mann wrote, "who was no
longer able to write or talk,
encountered in his chains the
extreme stroke of luck that for
an instance the world's con-
science arose and the name it
uttered was his."
During the year of the
Olympic Games in Berlin the
"other Germany" had
achieved a major moral vic-
tory over Nazi Germany.
The Nobel peace prize
campaign for Carl von Os-
sietzky had become an inter-
national campaign against
Nazi terror. He was not
allowed to leave Germany to
receive his award.
The Gestapo justified its
decision by claiming that he
was "incorrigible" and still
unwilling after three years im-
prisonment to renounce his
pacifist beliefs.
Pacifism, the Nazis main-
tained, was an open declara-
tion of criticism of Nazi
policies, criticism which they
feared he might reiterate
abroad.
The Nobel peace prize
ceremony took place in the ab-
sence of the prize-winner on 10
December 1936.
On this day Ossietzky him-
self was lying unnoticed in a
hospital and only his wife was
with him.
A few days later he was at
long last transferred to a spe-
cial tuberculosis department,
much to the dismay of the Ges-
tapo which complained that it
was more difficult to keep
guard.
For the first time in his life
Ossietzky had plenty of money,
since the Nobel peace prize
carried a prize of just under
100,000 Reichsmarks. But how
could he get the money trans-
ferred to Germany?
Ossietzky turned to a
lawyer, who embezzled almost
the lot. After German emigres
claimed that the Gestapo had
stolen the money the Nazis
seized the opportunity to stage
a show trial against the lawyer.
The Nazis wanted to show
the world that Ossietzky was
"in good health" and that he
had been treated "fairly."
For the last time in his life
Ossietzky appeared in court.
He stood in the witness box, a
broken man with deep-set
eyes, a walking skeleton.
He didn't regard the
money as his property, he said,
and wanted to donate it to a
charity and keep only a small
amount for the treatment of his
illness.
The judges sentenced the
lawyer to two years imprison-
ment, but Ossietzky received
no compensation.
This put an end to his
hopes of treatment in a special
lung sanatorium.
Guarded by police and cut
off from the outside world Os-
sietzky wasted away for a
further one-and-a-half years.
Up until the very last day he
unyieldingly fought against
death.
A piece of cardboard with
the words: "Hope shines
through all our defeats as an
eternal star," hung over his
bed.
What an indomitable spirit! Such
courage is unmatched. In the history
of resistance to oppression, terror,
humiliation, there is nothing compar-
able to the dignity and honor of a noble
humanitarian!
That is why reprinting such a re-
vealing story of heroism is a compul-
sion!
Let the name Carl von Ossietzky
serve as a symbolic emphasis on jus-
tice. His is a name that will surely
never be forgotten.
Resistance
Continued from Page 2
spiritual resistance of sufferers who held
fast to faith and observance while being
tortured.
Moshe Prager, prominent Israeli
author and historian of the Holocaust,
went to the scenes of suffering to gather
tales of the resistance and he has incorpo-
rated it in Sparks of Glory. It was trans-
lated from the Hebrew by Mordecai
Schreiber. The tales of heroism related
here add immensely to the records of
Heroism enacted under the most brutally
adverse conditions.
Charm For Youth
The expanding children's library is
greatly enhanced by the Art Scrolls
Youth Series. Informative, entertaining,
enlightening — many more adjectives
can be attached toHurry, Friday's a Short
Day, in which the youth is led toward the
Sabbath Day. In this story, Yeshara Gold
leads the way on the eve of Shabbat to the
Old City of Jerusalem.
The charmingly illustrative photos
and color illustrations by Yaacov Harlap
trace the arising in the morning, the
early classes, the shortening of the day to
prepare for the Shabbat, then the services
at the Kotel, the Western Wall.
The youth also gives Tzedakah, al-
ways remembering the poor before Shab-
bat. Then there are the services, the home
observances, the Kiddush and the Shab-
bat Zemirot.
The family involvement is
strong here, from child to grandfather.
There is a totality of joy in preparation for
the Sabbath. It is truly an art and in-
formative work.
Definitive in the story is the par-
ticipating youngster's exclamation to his
grandfather: "Hurry, Friday's a short
day. I am glad Shabbat isn't. I am glad
that Shabbat is a long, long day."
Remarkably Admirable
Dr. Franklin H. Littell:
Justice-Pursuing Liberal
Dr. Franklin Littel
On June 11, an important function
will draw attention to an important
movement that is of much wider signifi-