COMMUNITY

A Nazi Death Camp Teaches
Black Soldier About Prejudice

Staff Writer

L

More than $6.3 million in Israel Bonds were subscribed at a
Congregation Shaarey Zedek reception in November. Shown at the
event are host David Hermelin, speaker Lea Rabin, William Davidson,
Rabbi Irwin Groner and synagogue president Irving Laker.

Federation Shabbat
To Help Campaign

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Federation/Campaign Sab-
bath kicks off tonight at
metropolitan area
synagogues and temples in
support of the work of the
Jewish Welfare Federation,
its local social service agen-
cies and worldwide programs
funded by the Allied Jewish
Campaign.
The event is a prelude to
the Campaign's Super Sun-
day phonathon Dec. 10 and
Campaign opening Dec. 13,
when thousand of Detroiters
will be asked to join in the
partnership of tzedakah.
Campaign Chairman Paul
Borman will speak tonight at
Temple Emanu-El. Former
Federation President Dr. Con-
rad L. Giles will address Tem-
ple Kol Ami.
Giles also will speak at
Cong. B'nai Moshe Dec. 9.
Others speaking Dec. 9 in-
clude Campaign Chairman
Joseph H. Orley at Cong.
Shaarey Zedek; past Federa-
tion President Joel D. Tauber
at Adat Shalom Synagogue;
Federation Women's Division
President Doreen Hermelin
at Beth Abraham Hillel
Moses; and Lawrence M. Zif-
fer, Federation's director of
planning and agency rela-
tions, at Young Israel of
Greenfield.
Speaking the following
week, Dec. 15, are Robert P.
Aronson, Federation's ex-
ecutive vice president, at
Temple Beth El, and Jane
Sherman, Federation vice
president, at Temple Israel.
Rabbis participating in
Federation/Campaign Sab-
bath include Dov Loketch,
Cong. Beth Jacob-Mogain

Abraham; Leizer Levin,
Cong. 'Beth Tefilo Emaunel
Tikvah; Chaskel Grubner,
Cong. Dovid Ben Nuchim;
Eliezer Cohen, Young Israel
of Oak Woods; Morton Yolkut,
Cong. B'nai David; Martin
Berman, Cong. Beth Achim;
David Nelson, Cong. Beth
Shalom; Avraham Jacobovitz,
Machon Mbrah; and Sherwin
T. Wine, Birmingham Thmple.

Machon L'Torah
Hosts Lecture

Machon L'Torah, The
Jewish Learning Network of
Michigan will hold a special
learning program for newly
arrived young Jewish Rus-
sian couples at noon Dec. 10
at the Machon Center.
The program will include a
brunch followed by a lecture
"Shabbos: Some Creative
Throughts Behind the Wine
and Candles" by Rabbi
Avraham Jacobovitz, director
of Machon L'Torah, and
translated by Mrs. Lena
Grinman.
Reservations are required.
Call Machon L'Torah,
967-0888.

Sephardim Make
Chanukah Plans

The Sephardic Community
of Greater Detroit will hold
their annual pre-Chanukah
party at 2 p.m. Dec. 10, at the
Zionist Cultural Center. Co-
chairmen Pam David and
Jacob David are organizing a
talent show of Sephardic
children. A limbo contest is
planned. Sephardic refresh-
ments will be served.

eon Bass is not a Jew.
But he has seen how
Jews suffered, and
believes he must speak out
about the horrors he
witnessed when Buchenwald
was liberated in April, 1945.
A former teacher and high
school principal in
Philadelphia, Bass travels
the United States and
Canada sharing his experi-
ences and educating people
about hatred in the hopes
that the Holocaust will
never be repeated. He spoke
Tuesday night to about 65
people as part of the
Holocaust Memorial Center
1989-90 lecture series.
As a black youngster grow-
ing up in Philadelphia where
the standard "separate but
equal" was enforced, Bass
discovered how painful it was
to be constantly told "you are
not good enough."
In the local theater the
usher told him to find a seat
on the balcony "because I
was not good enough to sit
on the main floor," he said.
Years later, when Bass
was in college, he went to a
similar theater. This time
when the usher pointed to
the balcony, Bass walked
past him and sat on the main
floor even though he knew
he could be arrested for such
an act. In that theater, he
never again sat in the
balcony, he said.
"It may seem like a small
thing, but it meant a lot to
me."
When he joined the Army
in 1943, Bass discovered in-
stitutionalized, racism. He
traveled to Georgia, LOui-
siana, Mississippi and Texas
and saw what pain hatred
can cause. He once stood up
for 100 miles on a bus filled
with empty seats because as
a black man he was not
allowed to use those seats.
By the time he got to
Europe and began fighting
the Battle of the Bulge with
the 183rd Engineers Combat
Battalion of the Third Army,
Bass admits he was an angry
man. But his anger took a
different direction in April,
1945 when he saw what had
happened outside one Ger-
man town. His superiors told
his group they were going to
a concentration camp.
"I didn't know what he
was talking about," Bass
said. "Going to walk

through the gate of Buchen-
wald...I was unprepared for
that experience."
He described the "walking
dead" with their skeletal
frames, deep-set eyes. Many
were to weak to stand.
Upon seeing them, Bass
backed away. He asked a
survivor who the people
were. He discovered they
were those the Nazis had de-
termined "were not good
enough."
As he walked around the
camp he saw the jars filled
with pieces of human
anatomy, the room where
prisoners were tortured, the
gas chambers and the re-
mains of a human body in
one of the six crematorium
ovens. He saw no children,
only piles of their clothing.
He walked into one of the
barracks but the odors of
human waste overcame him
and he walked out.
"I had seen enough. I
walked out there," Bass
said. "But something had
happened to me there. I
came to realize that the pain
I suffered, that pain others
had also suffered. I saw I had
to take off my blinders."
Bass saw that racism not
only affected his family, but
others too.
For years, Bass never
spoke about his experience

Leon Bass

at Buchenwald. He was too
busy getting a teaching
degree, becoming a principal
and dealing with the same
hatred he faced in the
United States before the
war.
His silence broke 20 years
later when he was a high
school principal and walked
into a classroom where an
Auschwitz survivor was try-
ing to explain to a group of
teen agers what had
happened. He told them to
listen because what she was
saying was true. He had
seen it.

Revisionists are rewriting
history and saying the
Holocaust never happened,
Bass said. Only by education
can that be stopped.
"We cannot let it happen
again."
But informing people
about the Holocaust is not
enough if one does not get
rid of the root cause - pre-
judice, he said.
People must stamp out all
forms of racial prejudice,
Bass said. Whether someone
at the office tells an offen-
sive joke or friends make
comments about the
neighborhood going
downhill because of ethnic
groupS, people should say
those remarks are not
welcomed.
Racism must be confronted
no matter if friends get upset
and walk out of the house or
the boss yanks the promo-
tion, Bass said.
"Is the price too high? I
think not." ❑

XCMMIM

SUSAN GRANT

Teens To Travel
To Poland, Israel

About 3,000 Jewish
teenagers from Jewish com-
munities around the world
are expected to converge upon
Poland and Israel during
April 1990, in a two week pro-
gram focusing on the Shoah
and the rebirth of the State of
Israel.
They will learn about the
Holocaust via visits to
Treblinka and Mydanek and
by participating in a two mile
"MARCH OF THE LIVING"
on Yom Hashoa from
Auschwitz to Birkenau, along
the same railroad tracks on
which trains carried millions
of Jewish victims to their
deaths.
Participants will also visit
the once thriving Jewish com-
munities of Warsaw, Carcow,
and Lublin. Then they will
travel to Israel to celebrate
the country's 42nd anniver-
sary. In Israel they will par-.
ticipate in a week long series
of special programs and
events.
The MARCH, for Jewish
teens, between the ages of 16
to 20, will take place from
April 18 to May 4, 1990.
A recruitment meeting will
take place at the United
Hebrew Schools Building at
7:30 p.m. Dec. 14.
Contact the Agency for
Jewish Education at
354-1050 or 352-7117 for
information.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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