Alan Dershowitz wows an overflow audience on opening night of the 48th annual Jewish Book Fair.
`Just Revenge
DIANA LIEBERMAN
StaffWriter
injustice that came almost as close
newly renovated Marion and David
was what happened to the perpetra-
Handleman Hall and Auditorium at
tors after the war.
the D. Dan & Betty Kahn Building
The examples he listed were chilling:
of the Jewish Community Center in
• Adolf Hitler told the German
West Bloomfield. Many of those not
people
if they killed the Jews, they
lucky enough to find a seat were able
would be a richer and more powerful
to view the talk on closed-circuit tele-
country. "They did, and they were,"
vision.
Dershowitz said, citing
When Dershowitz
the economic assis-
finished speaking, the
Professor Alan Dershowitz,
tance by Western
crowd rose to its feet in
left, joins D. Dan and
nations after World
a spontaneous standing
Betty Kahn in honoring the
War
II.
ovation.
Jewish Book Fair volunteers.
Countries and
•
"I thought his talk
leaders
throughout
was wonderful and
the western world turned their faces
stimulating," said Leslie Bash, JCC
away from the Jewish refugees
associate executive director. "He pre-
sented information that was important before, during and after the war. The
United States accepted only 5,000
for the Jewish community to hear. We
Jewish
immigrants a year; Canada
were very proud to have him with us."
accepted
none.
Dershowitz said the injustice per-
The
Catholic
Church today is
•
petrated on the Jews during World
considering canonization for Pope
War II was unthinkable. "But an
"
A
lan Dershowitz confronts
the Holocaust and its after-
math with anger and frus-
tration in his new novel,
Just Revenge.
As a law professor, defense attorney
and champion of individual rights,
Dershowitz, 61, has built his reputa-
tion on the judicious application of
reason. Due process and equality
under the law are his hallmarks.
But, he said, when he went to
Europe and researched the Holocaust,
"I felt building up in me a desire for
revenge." On Nov. 6, Dershowitz
shared those emotions with an audi-
ence estimated at more than 1,000
on opening night of the 48th annual
Jewish Book Fair. His talk galvanized
the crowd, which overflowed the
24$
a‘N
11/12
1999
10
Pius XII, who, during the Holocaust,
refused to tell German soldiers it
would be a sin to kill babies because it
would "create a crisis of conscience."
• After 59 years, the first
Holocaust-related trial is about to take
place in Germany. The two defen-
dants, now 76 and 78 years old, are
not Nazi storm troopers or SS mem-
bers; instead, they are Holocaust sur-
vivors who tried to poison Nazi pris-
oners immediately following the war.
Dershowitz said he has offered to
defend them free of charge. "If they
wanted me to put the German govern-
ment on trial, I would do it," he said.
There has been no such trial, and
there likely never will be. But, in his
new novel, Dershowitz takes vicari-
ous revenge on the villains of the
Nazi era, who, in real life, have gone
unpunished.
Just Revenge concerns a Holocaust