Opinion

A MIX OF IDEAS

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Dry Bones SINAI TORAH

My German Hero

Editor's Note: The 25th anniver-
sary of the Holocaust Memorial
Center, founded in West
Bloomfield and now located
in Farmington Hills, will be
celebrated at a dinner gala on
Oct. 18.

I

n 1943, I

escaped from
German-occupied Poland
to Hungary. In March 1944,
Nazi Germany occupied Hungary
and the genocidal program
caught up with me. In June 1944,
a group of us attempted to escape
to Romania, but were apprehended and con-
fined to the Topolya concentration camp in
occupied Yugoslavia.
My short imprisonment made me aware
of the range of human behavior among the
Germans. One day, six of us were taken to
the railroad station in the town of Topolya to
clean up slag. The steam locomotives used
coal as fuel. The coal did not burn complete-
ly, leaving more cinder than ashes. Piles of
slag were dumped next to the railroad tracks
at the railroad station. It was our job to load
the slag onto a truck. The young SS man
guarding us was an ethnic German from
Croatia. He was known for his cruelty and
imposed an exhausting speed of work.
When the fully loaded truck pulled away,

we stood around the heap of
slag resting on our shovels. This
sight provoked our SS guard. He
ordered us to do pushups on top
of the cinders. Whoever stopped
was hit with the butt of his sub-
machine gun or kicked. When he
was busy tormenting a prisoner
away from me, I lay motionless;
when he was close, I resumed
the pushups. He caught on to my
ploy. Screaming, he ran to me, put
his boot on my neck and began
to hit me with the butt of his gun.
Suddenly, a burst of gunfire
caught everyone's attention. It
came from the freight train loaded with the
German Desert Troops (Afrika Corps). They
wore the typical beige uniforms. An officer
standing in the open door of a freight car
yelled to our guard, "Du Schweinehund!
(You pig dog!); we are fighting a war and you
are playing games. Stop or I will shoot you."
The SS man ordered us to stand up. The
soldiers surrounding the officer cheered and
laughed. A few minutes later, the train with
my unknown German hero pulled away.
What motivated this German officer to come
to my rescue? Compassion for an unknown
prisoner or was he offended by the cruelty?
Whatever it was, he has my admiration and
gratitude.
We expected to be punished with yen-

geance by the humili-
ated SS man. The
opposite happened.
He stood at a distance
watching us load the
slag onto the truck
without demanding
unreasonable speed.
At the end of the day,
a truck came from the
camp to take us back.
The pushup ordeal
made our muscles sore
and exhausted. We had
great difficulty climb-
ing on to the truck. We
helped each other with-
out any objection from
the SS man, which was
not his style. To this
day, I have scars on my
neck to remind me of
this episode.
In the late 1970s, I was stretched out on
the foredeck of my 35-foot sailboat Caprice.
My friend Jack Chambers was on the tiller. It
was a glorious summer day on Lake St. Clair.
My wife, Sandy, was on my left and my 6-
year-old son was between us. David noticed
scars on my neck and asked,"Daddy, why do
you have mosquito bites on your neck?"
I could not answer this simple question
because I become tearful when I recall the

DryBonesBlog.com

German officer who did not tolerate the tor-
ture of a Jew. ❑

Dr. Emanuel Tanay is a clinical professor of

psychiatry (ret.) at Wayne State University in

Detroit. This item is an edited excerpt from

"Passport to Life-Reflections of a Holocaust

Survivor" by Emanuel Tanay (available on

Amazon.com).

A Precarious Moment

New York/JTA

mer of 2007, and have some in
the Jewish community seriously
merica's Catholic bish-
reassessing the conditions for
ops recently approved
continuing the dialogue.
two new documents
How did we get to this point?
that strike at the very heart of
The transformation of the
a trusting relationship between
Catholic-Jewish relationship
Catholics and Jews.
began with Nostra Aetate (Latin
The first paper reintroduces
for "In Our Time"), adopted
the idea that Catholics can use
in 1965 at the Second Vatican
interfaith dialogue as a means to
Abraham H.
CounciL This historic text laid
invite Jews to Christian baptism.
Foxman
the foundation for a new positive
The second removes a cat-
Special
relationship and declared that
echism teaching that God's
Commentary
the Jewish relationship with God
Covenant with Moses and the
endured.
Jewish people is eternally valid.
The Vatican followed up with
This profound change, affirmed by the
guidelines, issued in 1974, stating that
Vatican, raises for many Jews the specter of
Christians "must strive to learn by what
a possible return to such odious concepts as
essential traits Jews define themselves in the
supersessionism and the teaching of con-
light of their own religious experience," and
tempt, which have caused Jews irreparable
urging dialogue with a view toward "mutual
harm over the centuries.
understanding and respect."
These new developments are the lat-
In November 1980, Pope John Paul H,
est in a series of troubling reversals in the
speaking in Mainz, Germany, affirmed that
Catholic-Jewish relationship since the sum-
Jews are the people "of the Old Covenant,

never revoked by God." He called Jews "the
present-day people of the covenant conclud-
ed with Moses." In 2000, the pontiff stood on
Mount Sinai and took note of the moment,
stating,"But now on the heights of Sinai, this
same God seals His love by making the cov-
enant that He will never renounce:'

Turning Point
The pope's powerful statements helped the
nascent Jewish-Catholic dialogue develop a
sense of trust and honesty.
Additional church documents and state-
ments deepened the relationship. In 2001,
the Pontifical Biblical Commission issued the
report"The Jewish People and Their Sacred
Scriptures in the Christian Bible,' which talks
of the permanent election of the Jewish peo-
ple and suggests that its "Jewish messianic
expectation is not in vain." Cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, played an
important role in producing this work.
Also in 2001, Cardinal Walter Kasper,
president of the Vatican Commission on
Religious Relations with the Jews, affirmed

the validity of the Sinai Covenant, calling
God's covenant with the Jewish people "a liv-
ing heritage, a living reality"
But something has changed over the past
three years. The Vatican ship has shifted
course; and the dialogue is backsliding in a
slow, subtle process that threatens the trust
and honesty we have worked so hard to
achieve.
In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI revived the
Latin Good Friday "Prayer for the Conversion
of the Jews," a clear break from the 1970 ver-
sion that avoided any mention of conversion.
And this year, Pope Benedict opened the
door to the potential return to the Church of
a traditionalist schismatic group, the Society
of St. Pius X, which rejects Vatican II reforms
and whose leadership includes a Holocaust-
denying bishop.
In June, the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops, without consultation or warning
to their Jewish partners, issued "A Note on
Ambiguities Contained in Reflections on

A Precarious Moment from page 34

514

October 8 • 2009

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