2—THE BULLETIN--FridQy, March 17, 1972
Lesson in Decency
mm
BY HENffV LEONARD
The Commandant of a German prison told the boys, 'We have some good news and some bad news. First the good news You will be all going to Paris to mix with all the finest people in the best hotels. Now the bad news: You will be going as soap."
THE ABOVE IS one example of the sick anti-Semitic "humor" that appeared in a UBC students' newsletter recently and that resulted last week in ten professors taking a stand and refusing to teach mathematics to the student faculty involved. One of them, Dr. George Bluman, was the first and only person on campus to speak out last February 9 and to protest the contents of the first newsletter.
To our knowledge, eight of the professors were not of the Jewish faith. It seems they acted out of sympathy for the hurt feelings of their Jewish colleagues in particular and the Jewish people and other minorities in general. By their actions, these professors gave the entire campus community — including students, faculty and administration alike — an important lesson in Decency.
FOR WHEN PEOPLE are willing to take risks and make personal sacrifices because their conscience and their moral principles tell them so, regardless of the consequences to themselves, then these are truly decent people. And those ten
THEIR EDUCATION, even though they are third and fourth-year college undergraduates,, seems especially lacking with respect to the history of the Third Reich and the Nazi "separate" war against the Jewish people. If they were familiar with' what happened during that war, they would never publish such "jokes."
It is a matter of historic record, for example, that neither .the commandants of German death camps nor their helpers ever informed their victims of what they intended doing with them. On the contrary, they disguised their intentions all along the way, first telling them that they were being shipped to the East to labor camps. Those who survived the trip were taken from the cattle cars to a camp that did not have a sign on the outside that said "Extermination Centre," but a sign that said that work brings freedom. And as they lined up for the "selection" amid green lawns and flowers being carefully tended   by camp  inmates  and with an orchestra gently playing in the background, the fate of Six Million men, women and, children was being determined by the Nazi doctors: one hand meant a reprieve at hard labor, the other meant immediate despatch to the gas chambers. It was only at the last moment that the majority of the victims realized that the "showers" they had entered had dummy shower heads and that the soap they had been handed was made of stone. But by that time the huge steel doors of the "shower" room had been slammed. shut and the Cyclon
'So I'll come down q few c^nts on my salami, Sarah, and then watch *em run for covtrl"
Copr.
Oaytnw Prodiictioni
STUDENTS APOLOGY
(Continued from Page 1)
math professors* knew that when they failed   B ga^ cannisters emptied onto the people to meet their classes last Friday, they  froin above, themselves would be in jeopardy. Their
spokesman, in fact, Prof. Colin Clark, said as much when he revealed that the ten were told "unofficially" that they would be suspended if they carried out their planned boycott.
Now as it turned out, the professors had little reason for concern, for a number of highly responsible university officials, upon learning of the latest student newsletter and the professors* intentions, immediately deplored the anti-Semitic slurs. President Walter Gage himself said he was "dismayed and ashamed. . . to see that the students had deliberately inflamed feelings with the latest racial and religious attacks."
So far, the individual students directly responsible for inserting the anti-Semitic "jokes" in the newsletter, as well as many other racist and profane "jokes," have not been identified and perhaps that is for the best. For there is every reason to believe that the students concerned are more mischievous than malicious, more callous than corrupt, more ignorant than iniquitous.
Today if a student happens to be touring Europe and he visits one of those former extermination camps, he can still see deep marks in the cement walls where some of the men and women and boys and girls clawed in their last desperate agony before they died.
If the travelling student happens to visit one of the many museums in Europe or the Yad V'Shem memorial in Israel, he can still see the empty Cyclon B cannisters. He can also see other things like a bar of soap made from human flesh, lampshades made from human skin and cloth woven from human hair.
I for one, am ready to accept the apology submitted by the students as genuine and sincere. I would hope that they would try to convince me of their sincerity not only by never again printing such material, but by requesting educational and programmatic films and materials in lessening their own ignorance— a non-credit course on the Holocaust.
m mm wisnRN aiimiH
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Lipson said he deplored the sensational treatment of the matter in the daily newspapers.
Outside of Dr. Bluman and Dr. Nathan Divinsky, all of the other math professors who cancelled classes to protest the racial jokes, were not Jewish. Dr. Bluman praised the sincerity of their stand and particularly commended the head df the math department, Dr. Ralph James. All the professors acted as individuals, he stressed.
Dr. Bluman was born and educated in Vancouver but his parents escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto and came to Canada via Russia and Japan in 1941. He emphasized that he was disappointed in the engineering students for their lack of genuine respect for others and other people's feelings.
"I am not interested in any kind, of inter-departmental politics. I feel that above all else human relations are the most important thing,"^Bluman said.
SAM VESELY, third year metallurgical engineering student, believes that the students responsible should not be suspended if it cannot be proven that they did it with malicious intentions. "I don *t think they were aware of what they were doing and I don't think it was a calculated racial action," he said.
Similar comments were made by Owen Hertzman and Rami Aragamany, also third year engineering students. Aragamany pointed out that there was an unwritten tradition of undisciplined behavior among engineering students that seems to be passed on from year to year.
Dr. Bluman regarded the racisim in the newsletters as a separate issue from the matter of student behavior among engineers. However, he did point out that he and all other professors teaching engineering students expected a proper standard of working conditions and freedom from intimidation by students.
Rabbi Marvin Hier, director of Hillel at UBC, described the newsletters as dangerous and lauded the math professors for their stand. He said that if in 1939 there had been ten professors like this in Germany, perhaps no' one would have gone to the crematoria.
The Rabbi described one example of the kind of jokes which were being protested: "Question: What's the difference between apple pies and Jews? Answer: Apple pies don't scream when you put them in the^pven."
As The Bulletin went to press Wednesday it was learned that about 400 engineers held a short meeting which passed unanimously the following apology which was released to all media:
"We the members of the Engineering Undergraduate Society sincerely apologize for the actions of some of our fellow members which deeply hurt many menibers of our community. We hope that the measures we have taken will ensure that this action will never occur again."
The meeting also determined that future newsletters will be printed hy the EUS Council an will have to be approved by the Council. In the past the print! was done by individual clubs. .
Endorsed Appeals
Moess Chittlm
Campaign . Feb. 1 - Mar. 29 UJA Women's
Campaign ... Mar. 1 -30 U.J.A. Men's
Campaign Apr. 7-June 15
Social Calendctt'
FZOC AUya Speaker
E. KroII ---------------Mar. 20
NCJW Tlirift Sale Mar. 2021 NCST Elat Duo
Concert -----------------Mar. 21
Ayiva Hadassah "Hatful
of Fun"..................Mar. 22
B.I. Cavalcade
Dr. Eliat Dorf........Mar« 22
Peretz School Yiddish
Film ................„.......Mar. 26
Ladies Aux. Home for
Aged Passover Tea Apr. 3 Warsaw Ghetto
Memorial Eve.........Apr. 9
Ziona Hadassah Children's
Special —.....:. Apr. 9
Home for Aged
Annual Meeting .....Apr. 10 Independence Day
Celebration .........Apr. 15
FZOC Film Festival Apr«16
Endorsitient are published as a Bulletin community Mivice. Errors or omissions can be corrected only by Jewish Community Fund & Coun> dl. Ph. 261-B101.~THE PUBLISHER.
jtemem&er Th Sahbah
Light Candles, >
Friday, Mar. 17, 6:01 Sedre Vayikra, Leviticus Havdala 7:10
Friday, Mar. 24, 6:12 Havdala 7:20
All holidays begin the preceding eve at sundown.
JEWISH CALENDAR (LUACH) 1972
Passover -.-:„......•:........Mar.30
Israel Independence
Day .-------------------------Apr. 19
Shavuot............................May 19
Tisha B'Ab ....^ ....... J^^