OTHER, VIEWS

Germany Is No Ally

II

aving recently returned from
a two-month trip though var-
ious parts of Europe, I would
like to offer the following thoughts
under the heading of "Let's Talk About
Germany."
Recently, a German acquaintance
explained to me that Germany is a
strongly pacifist, anti-war nation. I
replied that this is quite understand-
able in view of Germany's history of
starting two world wars and losing
them both at a horrendous cost to all.
The Socialist-Green Party govern-
ment now demands to be included in
the world security policies and have a
seat at the U.N. Security Council. In
view of the facts, this is total nonsense.
• Germany has a malfunctioning
Socialist welfare system. Sixty percent
of the GNP has to be gainfully export-

Henry H Gleisner is an Oxford resident
and a Holocaust survivor.-

ed for its economy to function at all.
• Germany cannot and does not
spend the necessary money on defense
and security
• The United States protected
Germany's very existence for 40 years;
the Marshall Plan lifted the country
out of its self-produced chaos. Despite
their outspoken antipathy against
President Reagan, German leaders
profited much from his policies,
including by our major help in defeat-
ing. the Soviets and destroying the
Berlin Wall, which gave them back
their territorial entity
• Consider Germany's total inaction
during the mass slaughter in Yugoslavia
(Bosnia) on its doorstep when the
United States had to come in again and
help out. And coupled with France,
Germany accused the Americans
unjustly of unilateralism in Iraq in spite
of numerous U.N. resolutions ignored
with impunity by Saddam Hussein.

The Fight Against Hatred

I

New

n April, hundreds of Holocaust
survivors from the United States,
Israel, Canada, France and else-
where gathered on the site of the
German concentration camp of Bergen-
Belsen.
They had come together with their
children and grandchildren to observe
the 60th anniversary of the camp's liber-
ation. I was privileged to participate in
the commemoration beside the Jewish
monument my father had inaugurated
in the midst of mass graves in April
1946. Because my parents are no longer
alive, I spoke in their stead, on their
behalf, hearing their voices in my mind.
It is from Bergen-Belsen that the hor-
rors of the Holocaust first permeated
the consciousness of humankind. Long
before Auschwitz became the defining
term of the Shoah, the films and photo-
graphs taken by British soldiers and
journalists in April 1945 of both the
dead and the survivors of Bergen-Belsen
— shown in newsreels throughout the
world — awakened the international
community to the genocide that had
been committed against the Jews of
Europe.

Menachem Z Rosensaft, a lawyer, is the
founding chairman of the International
Network of Children of:Jewish Holocaust
Survivors and president of Park Avenue
Synagogue in Manhattan.

5/5

2005

36

In her memoirs, Yesterday: My Story
which she finished writing just before
her death, my mother, Dr. Hadassah
Bimko Rosensaft, described April 15,
1945:
"It was Sunday, a very hot day. It was
strange; there was nobody to be seen
outside the barracks. The camp seemed
to have been abandoned, almost like a
cemetery ... Suddenly, we felt the earth
tremble; something was moving.
"We were convinced that the
Germans were about to blow up the
camp . . . We all believed that these
were the last moments of our lives. It
was 3 p.m. We heard a loud voice
repeating the same words in English and
in German. 'Hello, hello. You are free.
We are British soldiers and have come
to liberate you ...
"We ran out of the barracks and saw a
British army vehicle with a loudspeaker
on top, driving slowly through the
camp." -
But almost immediately, my mother
recalled, a new reality set in. "There was
joy, yes," she recalled. "We were free, the
gates were open — but where were we
to go? The liberation had come too late,
not only for the dead, but for us, the
living, as well. We had lost our families,
our friends, our homes.
"We had no place to go, and nobody
was waiting for us anywhere. We were
alive, yes. We were liberated from death,
from the fear of death, but the fear of

-

When, finally, the United States
Gerhard Schroeder (who
agreed to leave the ethnic
based his last political cam-
cleansing in Darfur, Sudan, to
paign entirely on blatant anti-
the solution of the United
Americanism) and his carica-
Nations, what happened?
ture of a foreign minister and
Nothing! The people were and
Green Party head Joschka
are left to be slaughtered.
Fischer (now involved in a
• Germany was the foremost,
visa scandal allowing thou-
diligent and precise producer
sands of Ukrainians, many
HEN RY H.
in the world. No more! The
exploited
by mafias running
GLE ISNER
new generation brought up by
human
trafficking
rackets, to
Corn munity
Socialist administrations is
enter
Germany)
—
the U.S.
Per pective
interested in "vacations" only.
policy toward Germany
The quality of German prod-
should be one of studious
ucts is miserable.
neglect. We should say, "We don't
• The United States pours vast
need you! You need us! You have
amounts of money into Germany by
thrown away the most precious pos-
maintaining U.S. Army and Air Force
session you have had in your history:
posts as well as NATO there.
the Transatlantic Alliance and friend-
It is time for the United States to
ship -- and this was thrown away for
become more realistic. Until such
cheap internal political advantage."
time as the German people decide to
A people that elects a chancellor in a
change their government — now led
purely hate-America campaign is not
by an arrogant socialist chancellor
worth having as an ally. ❑

life started."
ing to humanity.
At Belsen, the British found
Sixty years after the libera-
themselves in Ezekiel's valley of
tion of Belsen, anti-Semitism
dry bones. More than 10,000
remains a threat, not just to
bodies lay scattered about the
the Jewish people, but also to
camp, and the 58,000 surviving
civilization as a whole, and
inmates — the overwhelming
Holocaust deniers are still
majority of whom were Jews
allowed to spread their poi-
— suffered from a combina-
son. In France, Great Britain
MENACHEM Z .
don of typhus, tuberculosis,
and the United States, anti-
ROSENSAFT
dysentery, extreme malnutri-
Semitic incidents have
Special
tion and other virulent dis-
increased.
Commentary
eases.
Sixty years after the crema-
Confronted with the emaci-
toria of Auschwitz-Birkenau
ated, tormented survivors moving, walk-
stopped burning our families, innocent
ing, speaking in the midst of corpses,
men, women and children are murdered
the liberators must have asked them-
in a horrific genocide in Darfur. Sixty
selves not "Can these bones live?" but
years after the surviving remnant of
"How can these bones live?"'
European Jewry emerged from the
My father, Josef "Yossel" Rosensaft,
inferno of the 20th century, govern-
was also liberated there. For more than
ment-sponsored terrorists continue to
five years following the liberation, he
seek the destruction of the State of Israel
headed both the Jewish Committee of
that arose out of the ashes of the Shoah.
the Bergen-Belsen Displaced Persons
Thus, we do not have the right to
camp and the Central Jewish
focus only on the agony and suffering of
Committee in the British Zone of
the past. While the Germans were able
Germany. I am one of more than 2,000
to torture, to murder, to destroy, they
children who were born in Bergen-
did not succeed in dehumanizing their
Belsen between 1946 and 1950.
victims. The ultimate victory of
We, the children and grandchildren of European Jews over the Nazis and their
the survivors, were proud to be at
multinational accomplices was firmly
Belsen last month alongside our parents
rooted in their human, ethical values.
and grandparents. We know that we
The critical lesson we have learned
were given life and placed on Earth with
from our parents' and grandparents'
a solemn obligation. Our parents and
tragic experiences is that indifference to
grandparents survived to bear witness.
the suffering of others is in itself
We, in turn, must ensure that their
a crime. Our place must be at the fore-
memories, which we have absorbed into
front of the struggle against every form
ours, will remain as a permanent warn-
of racial, religious or ethnic hatred. ❑