Community Views
Opinion
Lessons Of The Holocaust
Still Not Learned
Holocaust Museum:
Dream And Nightmare
RONSEIGEL SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
KIMBERLY LIFTON STAFF WRITER
I
n the 30s, writer Herman
Rauschning issued warn-
ings that Hitler aimed at
destroying the influence of
the Ten Commandments. Mr.
Rauschning noted later that
some who considered them-
selves "progressive" claimed
that in doing this he was
making propaganda for
Hitler. They apparently as-
sociated religion with cruelty
and identified destruction of
religious ideas with compas-
sion and humanity.
Actually, Nazi hostility
against the Ten Com-
mandments was not
primarily an attack on
our concept of God,
but an attack on
what Elie Wiesel
calls a "certain idea"
of man, the idea that
each person had dig-
nity, that each per-
son was important.
The Nazis wished to
impose on the world
the view that some
people were inferior
and had no right to
exist.
Dr. Leo Alexander,
a psychiatrist who re-
searched Nazi records
for the United Sates
during the War Crimes
Trials, declared that the
Nazis first introduced
this concept by destroying
individuals with handicaps.
He suggested once it became
respectable to kill individuals
because of a defect, it became
easier to accept and imple-
ment such policies of de-
struction against races Nazi
ideology labeled as natural-
ly defective. Once it became
established that some people
could be destroyed for biolog-
ical characteristics, some, like
the Jews, could be destroyed
for characteristics that were
purely imaginary.
Many observers, including
Dr. Alexander, warned about
similar attitudes in Western
democracies, views that cer-
tain human lives are "inferi-
or" and could rightfully be
estroyed.
In 1983, the U.S. Civil
eights Commission reported
that those with handicaps
faced discrimination in re-
ceiving medical care. In the
1979 edition of the medical
Zeitschrift Fur
journal
Kinderchirgie Und Grenzge-
biete, three federally funded
researchers — Susan L.
Feetham, Heather Tweed and
Ron Seigel is corresponding sec-
retary of the Handicapper Cau-
cus of the Michigan Democratic
Party and a free-lance writer
from Highland Park.
Jane S. Perrin — stated that
medical centers in the Unit-
ed States, Canada and Great
Britain had "selection" poli-
cies authorizing the with-
holding of all operations from
infants with certain forms of
spina bifida in the hope they
would die.
Doctors in the University
of Oklahoma Health Science
Center wrote an article for
the October 1983 issue of Pe-
diatrics, the official publica-
tion of the American Academy
of Pediatrics, which openly
admitted to and defended
such practices. The article
urged replacing the principle
of sanctity of human life with
a new ethic based on the
"quality of life."
Some prominent Ameri-
cans who consider themselves
"liberal" are as oblivious to
these warning signs as some
of their counterparts in the
'30s were to Mr. Rauschning's
warnings about Hitler.
On May 24, 1985, Charles
Hansen, associate director of
the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) wrote an as-
tonishing memo about the
University of Oklahoma poli-
cies "selecting" babies for ne-
glect and death. Mr. Hansen
admitted the treatment being
denied the children was not
extraordinary, but "relative-
ly simple," yet his memo em-
phasized the ACLU was not
objecting to the fact children
were being allowed to die, but
only to which ones it was hap-
pening and who ran the
process.
Mr. Hansen said a special
ACLU committee had been
formed in September 1984 to
study whether infants, chil-
dren and adults who were not
"competent" should be al-
lowed to die because of hand-
icap if their families wanted
them dead. Nine years
passed and the ACLU still
had not adopted a permanent
policy on the issue. ACLU's
failure to totally condemn
these procedures indicates a
failure within the organi-
zation to recognize
those with handicaps
as full human beings
with full right to life.
The Michigan
branch of ACLU is
conducting a suit that
could help believers
in the "quality of life"
ethic to realize their
dream of immunity
from the law. The
suit could actually
force the law to look
the other way, not
only in cases of pa-
tient neglect, but in
active killing itself.
The suit maintains
that under the Consti-
tution people can "as-
sist" a competent adult in
committing suicide. The
suit does not require any
proof that the person wish-
es to die.
While ACLU gives lip ser-
vice to the idea of establish-
ing standards of proof
through legislation, there is
nothing in the suit that indi-
cates the states are legally re-
quired to have such
standards.
ACLU officials dismiss
criticism of their suit as the
reaction of religious leaders
who oppose the legislation of
assisted suicide because of re-
ligious teachings against sui-
cide. However, while ranting
about the dangers of a mono-
lithic conspiracy of sinister
opponents on the "religious
right," ACLU blissfully ig-
nores the far greater danger
of individuals who might use
their suit to further personal
doctrines on the elimination
of undesirables and ethnic
cleansing.
These people are not rec-
ognized as a serious threat be-
cause, for the most part, they
do not express any religious
views whatsoever.
Perhaps, as Mr. Rauschn-
ing might have said, one of
the most important things we
can learn from history is that
many people never learn from
history. ❑
T
he early morning phone
call was not completely un-
expected.
It was 8:30 a.m., and I
was getting ready to leave for
The Jewish News office when the
phone rang. The call came a day
after I traveled with a group of
115 Detroiters on an Akiva He-
brew Day School-sponsored trip
to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Museum in Washington, D.C. I
interviewed several of 20 sur-
vivors who were visiting the mu-
seum for the first time.
I immediately recognized the
voice on the other end of the line.
For 45 minutes during the flight
home, I listened to this kind, el-
derly man talk about life in Nazi-
run death camps during World
War II.
He said he couldn't sleep at all
after touring the museum. It
brought to life all of these horri-
ble memories. He couldn't bear
to see his name in the newspa-
per.
I said okay. I would quote the
others. I didn't want to make his
agony worse.
"Some nights I can't sleep," he
told me on the airplane. "I think
about the beatings. I wake up in
a sweat."
I thought about this man on
the drive home from the airport.
I thought about the others. The
day was powerful, much more so
than I had expected.
There were so many names.
So many stories. All different.
All painful. All equally horrible.
I left the museum with the same
question I've always had. Why?
I still don't understand how it
could have been allowed to hap-
pen.
After this trip, I wondered if I
would have survived Hitler's
brutal massacre. Maybe. But
maybe not.
"Life was unbearable," the
man told me. "It is just hard to
describe. It was so miserable.
Today, at the museum, you just
saw a small part of it."
I asked a passenger in my car
if she could have lived through
the war. Helen, a grandmother
who had been in the United
States during those years, an-
swered with a definitive "no."
She couldn't have withstood it.
Lillian Wohl survived. But she
was marked for the gas cham-
ber. Her mother switched places
with her in line at the camp so
her daughter could live.
After years of keeping silent,
she wanted to talk about it. She
guided a photographer and me
through the museum, telling sto-
ries, speaking passionately, cry-
ing.
She saw a photo taken at
Auschwitz-Birkenau.
"To them," she said, pointing
to the visitors, "this is just a pic-
ture. I've seen all of these things.
I was 14 years old.
"Ask me what I did yesterday,
and I don't know," she said. "But
this — it feels like it is happen-
ing today." She placed her hand
on her heart. "That's where I
was. That's where I was. Who
should live and who should die?
That's where I was. That's where
I was." She continued, again
pointing to the photo.
I asked her why she came on
the tour.
"It's like a murderer who goes
back to the scene of the crime. I
don't know why I am here."
Eva Mames survived. But she
didn't want to talk about it.
Alex Ungar survived. He is
starting to talk more openly
about his experiences.
The list goes on and on. Her-
mina Hirsch survived. So did
Alex Greenberger. So did Dr.
Harry Jubas. And so did the late
Isaac Engel.
The museum is
carefully crafted
to provide an
atmosphere of sorrow.
Isaac Engel, whose daughters
Toby Schlussel and Cillia
Kleiman toured the memorial
with the Michigan group, es-
caped the Nazis several times
before he was captured. But he
survived.
Before his death a year ago,
Isaac Engel told his children
many stories. Toby recites them
in vivid detail. She believes it is
important to remember, to pass
the stories along so it never hap-
pens again.
During the final week of the
war, Isaac Engel was sent to
Bergen-Belsen. He was emaci-
ated. He had been at a labor
camp, where he made ammuni-
tion.
He was the family's only
Holocaust survivor. Mr. Engel
later explained to his family: "In
1939, there were no more mir-
acles."
The museum is dreary, care-
fully crafted to provide an at-
mosphere of sorrow. There are
countless photos. Innocent faces.
Piles of shoes worn by victims.
Hair. Brushes. Combs. Clothes.
Stars of David. Nazi parapher-
nalia. Newspaper clippings.
For a few moments, I managed
to get away from the survivors,
the children of the survivors, the
teens on the trip. I needed a
break.
The first thing I noticed was
a wall with photos. Photos were
lined up like police mug shots.
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