UJA National Conference Adopts
Max M. Fisher's Proposed Goal
Of $75,600,000 for Coming Year
2 Detroiters
as National
UJA Leaders:
Community's
Fund-Raising
Standards
Editorial
Page 4
Detroiters Max M. Fisher and Mrs. Harry
L. Jones
assume national United Jewish Appeal leadership . . .
Noteworthy increases in generosity mark initial fund-
raising effort . . . Urgency of needs told at New York
sessions of UJA.
Detailed Story Commences on This Page
HE JEWISH NEWS
1"-1 I
A Weekly Review
=1■
d4
j of Jewish Events
Michigan's Only English-Jewish Newspaper — Incorporating The Detroit Jewish Chronicle
Vol. L, No. 17
17100 W 7 Mile Rd.—VE 8-9364—Detroit 48235—Dec. 16, 1966
The Vatican
and the
Anti-Jewish
Ritual
Murder Libel
Commentary
Page 2
affeio$6.00 Per Year; This Issue 20c
PLO Obtains Communist Arms
Without Charge; UN Backs UNEF
A Jewish News Exclusive
Nazi Terrors in Russia Recalled
in Ehrenburg's Newest Memoirs;
Diaries Gathered for 'Black Book'
Facts relating to the Nazi terror in Russia and the horrors that
were especially imposed upon the Jewish population when the USSR
was invaded by the German armies, are told in a chapter from the
last volume of the memoirs of Ilya Ehrenburg, "Men, Years, Life,"
which has just been published in Russia. A translation of this revealing
chapter in Book Five by the famous Russian-Jewish writer has been
prepared by Novosti Press Agency—(APN)—and has been released ex-
clusively to The Detroit Jewish News by the Russian Embassy in
Washington. The revealing accounts of the survived victims of Nazi-
ism, the story of the witnesses who described the wholesale 'massacre
of Jews in Nazi-occupied territories to Ehrenburg, follow:
By ILYA EHRENBURG
At the end of 1943, I began, with V. S. Grossman, to compile a
book of documents which we conditionally called the "Black Book."
We decided to collect diaries, private letters and stories of victims
who had survived by chance or witnesses
of the wholesale annihilation of Jews
carried out by the Hitlerites on occupied
territory. We drew writers Vsevolod Ivanov,
Antokolsky, Kaverin, Seifullina, Per et s
Markish, Aliger and some others into our
work. I received data from reporters of
army and divisional newspapers, such_ as
Captain Petrovsky (Konnogvardeyets), V.
Sobolev (Vperyod na Vraga), T. Startsev
(Znamya Rodiny), A. Levada (Sovetsky
Voin), S. Ulanovsky (Stalinsky Voin), Cap-
tain Sergeyev (Vperyod); Krasnaya Zvezda
correspondents Korzinkin and Gekhtman;
Col. Melnichenko and Senior Lieutenant
Pavlov of the Military Justice, and hun-
dreds of frontliners.
Ehrenburg
I put quite a bit of time, energy and
heart into my work on the "Black Book." At times, as I read a diary
or listened to a witness' story, it seemed to me that I was in the ghetto,
that it was "Extermination Day," and I was being driven to a ravine
or a ditch.
I have kept some of- the letters, diaries and notes. On rereading
them now, 20 years later, I still experience the horror and agony.
I cannot understand how we could have lived through it all, where
we took the energy to live. I am not speaking of death, or even of
the mass murders, but of the realization that a thing like that could
have been committed by men in the mid-twentieth century, by resi-
dents of a civilized country.
One of the prisoners of the Riga ghetto wrote in his notes that
the well known historian, S. M. Dubnow, then 71 years of age,
had lived in his barrack. Among the ghetto's commandants was
Johann Siebert, who had studied at Heidelberg University. Before
the war Dubnov had delivered lectures in Heidelberg on the history
of the Ancient East. When Siebert learned that his former teacher
was in the ghetto, he went to see him and laughed long and mer-
rily: "In my youth I was foolish enough to attend your lectures. The
tripe you told us! You wanted us to soften up and believe in the
triumph of humanism. Preposterous!" Johann Siebert would not
refuse the pleasure of attending Dubnov's execution. That is the
ghastliest thing of all. It means that universal literacy, university
auditoriums and highly-developed technique are not sufficient to
keep men from going wild.
I dreamed of publishing the "Black Book," and will now cite
a few pages from It not for the purpose of tormenting myself and
my readers, but because we must remember what happened: therein
lies a pledge that men will not allow its repetition.
The evacuation in the western regions proceeded in disorder and
under difficult conditions. The stronger men were far away. Fighting,
At the very outset of the war the Germans captured Byelorussia, the
Ukraine, Lithuania, and Latvia—countries where many Jews had
lived from time immemorial. In some cities like Vilnius, •Riga and
Minsk, the Hitlerites killed the Jews gradually, within two or 'three
(Continued on Page 40)
U.S. Firms Do Not
Fear Arab Boycott
(Direct JTA Teletype Wire
to The Jewish News)
LONDON—The Jordanian government
has issued instructions to merchants and
import- officials to prevent importation
of products of the Coca Cola corporation
and Ford Motor Company for trading
with Israel, it was reported here Tues-
day from Amman.
The orders were in line with a decis-
ion of the 24th Arab League. conference
in Kuwait on Nov. 20 to impose the anti-
Israel boycott on imports of the two
American firms for their refusal to stop
operations in Israel. The soft drink
firm has franchised a bottling opera-
tion in Israel. The motor firm is nego-
tiating for assembly of Ford vehicles by
an Israeli firm.
Officials of the Coca Cola and Ford
enterprises in Jordan reportedly indi-
cated little concern over the boycott
orders. They said their plants in Jordan
had enough spare parts to last for the
next two years.
TEL AVIV (JTA)—Premier Levi Esh-
kol declared that Israel faced "not an
economic crisis" but a "testing time of
efficiency in all branches of - industry,
agriculture and science.'
He expressed that view of Israel's cur-
rent economic squeeze at a ceremony in
Nazareth where the first locally as-
sembled Chrysler-Dodge trucks- were
presented. The vehicles are being as-
sembled for Irael's defense ministry. The
premier said that "whatever we have
permitted ourselves during the past 18
years, we can no longer afford in the
future."
"More efficiency, cheaper labor and
better products are needed," he added.
"This is our test." The Nazareth as-
sembly plant is producing the vehicles
from parts received from the U.S.
BONN, (JTA) — The Palestine Liberation
Army has received light weapons from Communist
China and heavy armaments from the Soviet
Union, all without cost, Ahmed Shukairy, chair-
man of the Palestine Liberation Organization,
under whom that anti-Israeli military force oper-
ates,told a German interviewer in Cairo.
The interview, published in the Bonner
Rundschau, quoted Shukairy as saying that some
PLO soldiers trained in Communist China have
already joined his forces in the Middle East.
UNITED NATIONS, N.Y. (JTA) — The
General Assembly's. administrative and budgetary
committee voted a 1967 budget for the United
Nations Emergency Force, totaling $14,000,000.
The sum had been recommended by the commit-
tee's advisory committee and was $304,000 less
than the amount requested for UNEF's opera-
tions by Secretary-General U Thant.
In another resolution, the committee in-
creased UNEF's 1966 budget by $1,146,000 above
the allocation already made for this purpose, bring-
ing UNEF's total budget for 1966 to $16,146,000.
UNEF is the international peace-keeping force
that stands on guard between Egyptian and Israeli
borders on the 'Egyptian-controlled side of the
Gaza Strip and at Sharm el-Sheikh, in the Sinai
Desert, overlooking Israel's Gulf of Akaba route
to the Red Sea.
(In Amman, capital of Jordan, a government
spokesman said that Jordan has made it a condi-
tion before the Arab Defense Council last weekend
to have the United Nations Emergency Force with-
drawn from the Egyptian-Israeli border, if Jordan
is to admit Iraqi and Saudi Arabian troops into its
territory for "protection" against Israel. The Jor-
danian stipulation appeared to check the plans of
other Arab countries to extend their troops fur-
ther along the Israeli frontier, since it was unlikely
that the United Nations would remove its forces
sainodnsr.)isk a further increase in Middle East ten-
(Related stories, Page 5)
Detroiters Play Major Roles in Setting Higher
Standards for UJA Support; Appeal by Fisher
Secures Vast increases Inaugurating '67 Drive
By PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
NEW YORK — American Jewry's increased interest in Israel's security and in assuring the ab-
sorption by Israel of large numbers • of additional settlers, as well as the integration of the tens of thou-
sands of recent arrivals, became evident at the United Jewish Appeal conference held here during the
last week. The deep concern in the major American Jewish philanthropic effort was especially expressed
at the pre-conference dinner held Dec. 8, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, at which a sum of $6,900,000 was
pledged, the total representing an increase of more than 10 per cent over last year's giving.
Included in this sum are gifts by a small group of Detroiters totalling $724,000. Since these con-
tributions total more than 10 per cent of the entire amount subscribed that night—every gift having been
marked by a substantial increase over last year—the demonstration of loyalty to a great humanitarian
cause was most heartening to the Detroit representatives.
Max M. Fisher, who was re-elected national general chairman of the UJA for a third year, as the
presiding officer at the sessions; and the Detroiters Who are at the initial dinner that inaugurated the
1967 campaign — Alfred Deutsch, the next Allied Jewish Campaign chairman; Maxwell Jospey, Irwin
Green, Paul Borman, Walter L. Field, Alan Schwartz, Paul Zuckerman, Irving Rose, David Randleman —
Were enthusiastic over the first gifts and expressed confidence that they augur well for the coming drive
in Detroit.
The unprecented response, in the form of gifts ranging from $10,000 to $200,000 from representa-
tives from more than a score of communities, came in response to an appeal by Fisher who indicated the
urgency of the present needs and called upon his associates in the UJA to uphold Israel in that nation's
current crisis.
The UJA sessions were held at the New York Hilton Hotel. The Dee. 8 dinner, however, had to
be transferred on short notice to the Waldorf Astoria because reservations swelled from 400 to more
than
600.
(Continued on Page 14)
MARCH 27, 1992
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