COMMENT

RABBI EMANUEL RACIVIAN

DAVID ADAMANY

Chancellor
Bar-Ilan University

President, Wayne State University
honorary Chairman

PROFESSOR GERSHON WINER

DOREEN HERMELIN
BERNARD It 5TOLLMAN

Incumbent
Rena Costa Chair of Yiddish Language and Literature
Bar-Ilan University

General Chairmen
Detroit Friends, Bar-Ilan University

50 Years Ago,
War Broke Out

ARNO HERZBERG

Special to The Jewish News

I

BAR-ILAN UNIVERSITY

You are cordially invited to a reception

honoring

EMMA 5C11AVER

for her outstanding lifetime of work

for the enrichment of Yiddish language and literature

on

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1989, 7:30 P.M.

CONGREGATION 511AAREY ZEDEh

Guest Performer: JUDITH LECIIMR

No Admission Charge
No Solicitation

R.S.V.P. 423-4550

A HEALTHY & HAPPY
NEW YEAR

TO OUR CUSTOMERS & FRIENDS
FROM ALL OF US AT

e
el'

You're never too
old to quit
blowing smoke.

No matter how long or how much
you've smoked, it's not too
late to stop. Because the sooner
you put down your last cigarette,
the sooner your body will begin
to return to its normal, healthy
state.

ace

APPLEGATE SQUARE

MARCIA BLUME-AMHOWITZ
PHYLLIS COHEN
SYLVIA FORREST
NATALIE HOFFMAN
EVELYN KEIL
JACKIE LIPSHAW

160

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 1989

356-6468

ELAINE MORTON
MARGO ROSENTHAL
ESTHER ROSENTHAL
CHARLOTTE PASMANTER
MARLENE SLUTZKY

American Heart
Association

WERE FIGHTING FOR
YOUR LIFE

I

t is difficult to remember
what happened 50 years
ago. The problems of the
world, the imminent concerns
of people, have changed. A
new generation has come up
with a different approach to
the demands of the day, with
a different outlook, different
interests and a new agenda.
The outbreak of World War II,
50 years ago, has been
relegated to the history
books.
But those who lived
through it remember vividly
and clearly the years of ten-
sion that preceeded the first
of September 1939, the cons-
tant changing, insolent
demands of Adolf Hitler.
They remember the weak
and meek response of politi-
cians in the Western
democracies, the illusion that
America could keep out of the
turmoil ini Europe, the con-
cerns we had as Jews to
preserve our people and to
continue living in an uncer-
tain, if not hostile world.
Sept. 1, 1939, was the
logical result of years of ap-
peasement and pretense. The
Western democracies never
grasped the danger Hitler
posed to their values and to
their world. They let him
grab Austria and Czechoslo-
vakia. They would still cling
to "Peace in our time," a docu-
ment which that naive
Englishman Neville
Chamberlain brought home
from days of negotiations, pro-
udly showing Hitler's
signature, not realizing that
it was worth less than the
paper it was written on.
For us Jews, Sept. 1, 1939,
is a day that confirmed the
old adage that Jews will be
victims of upheaval and war,
that they are expandable,
that their fate is of no concern
to the great makers and
shakers of this world.
This day was significant not
only because it showed how
little the Western
democracies were prepared to
cope militarily with the
power, tactics and methods of
Nazi Germany: for us Jews, it
was the end of all efforts to
save our people from the clut-
ches of the most vicious
criminals in history.
Emigration out of Germany
slowed to a trickle on that
day, and the physical exter-

Arno Herzberg was JTA
bureau chief in Berlin in the
1930s.

mination of Jews was brought
a decisive stop closer.
I had always feared that the
Germans would resort to
measures beyond the im-
agination of a normal person
if war ever broke out; that
they would want to get rid of
Jews so that they did not have
to feed them.
When war did break out,
the Germans were no longer
concerned how the world
would react to their behavior.
The so-called civilized nations
saw the cruelties the Nazis
dealt out in Austria and
Czechoslovakia, as in Vienna,
where the Jews had to scrub
the sidewalks with their bare

It bothers me to
this day that the
Gestapo might
have used my
writings to compile
a dosiser of
Jewish leaders in
certain European
countries.

hands. The Allies had signal-
ed to them long ago, in the
Conference of Evian and
eslewhere, that they could to
with the Jews as they
pleased.
In this war, fate of the Jews
was bound up with the ad-
vance of the German armies.
First came the conquest of
Poland, with its millions of
Jews; then France, Belgium,
Holland, Denmark, Norway;
then Hungary, Yugoslavia
and Greece, and finally, the
Soviet Union.
All of these conquests
brought more and more Jews
under the rule of the Ger-
mans and invited even more
stringent measures, culmin-
ating in extermination in the
notorious death camps.
The round up of Jews and
their shipment to the death
factories was organized and
executed by the SS. But the
rest of the German army was
not averse to taking part in
shootings and humiliation of
Jews.
It was almost standard pro-
cedure. Right after the vic-
torious German armies came
the Gestapo with their files.
In those files were the names
of Jewish leaders and promi-
nent persons who the gestapo
would round up to ship to
Auschwitz.
It bothers me to this day
that the Gestapo might have
used my writings to compile
a dossier of Jewish leaders in
certain European countries.