Page Two
JEWISH  WESTERN BULLETIN
Friday, August 1, 196
A
nniversary of freedom
FOR A VANCOUVER COUPLE this week marks a special anniversary, but it is one they will observe with mixed feelings because it concerns memories of a moment of great joy coupled with the deepest, painful sorrow.
It is exactly 25 years now, since the Lithuanian town of Siauliai (pronounced Sha-ulai) was liberated from the Nazis by the Russian army. Among the sparsely few Jews who were all that remained to be set free out of a once thriving Jewish community, were Myer and Gita Kron.
Like most survivors of the Nazi holocaust, they immediately set out after the war patching up the porcelain-like pieces of their shattered lives, resolving to try not to think about what had happened. How could anyone want to remember those tragic years when they and their fellow Jews were suffering from hunger, cold, disease and all of the other diabolically contrived de^adations invented by the Nazis as their "final solution" to the Jewish problem ?
Then something happened which made Myer and Gita begin to take a very cold and objective look at the past. An emissary of the West German government, representing the department of justice which was investigating one of the many cases of war crimes, came to them about eight years ago. He asked them to try to remember all the details concerning certain events in their town, especially as they related to -two German men named Gewecke and Bube.
MOMENTARILY, Myer and Gita broke their resolution about not remembering. They carefully related to the investigator all that he wanted to know. Then they resumed their normal lives, Myer contributing his knowledge as a chemical engineer to the , Vancouver fur processing plant of which he is a partner, and Gita teaching little children in the Hebrew Day School.
That was the last they heard of the matter until early this year when they received an official summons from a court in Lubeck to appear as witnesses in the trial of the two men accused of murder.
This summer, accordingly, Myer and Gita journeyed back thousands of miles in distance and more than a quarter-century in time.
In a courtroom in the city of Lubeck, located near Hamburg, a drama v/as unfolding of events that had occurred in a Lithuanian town. All performers in this "play" . had met each other before many years ago. Witnesses looked at the two accused and tried hard to remember what they had looked like in their fancy military uniforms.
GEWECKE HAD BEEN appointed ge-bitscommissar (district military governor) of more than half of Lithuania soon after the German army had occupied the country. As such, he had been directly involved in the Nazi program of mass murder of the Jews, a fact which had been brought out after the war at the Nuremberg Trials.
Unfortunately, as sometimeis happens in legal matters, the evidence submitted about him at the earlier trial helped to provide Gewecke with his alibi. For in a document signed by him, he reported to his superior, Nazi reichscommissar Heinrich Lohse, that when he first came to Lithuania, many of the communities under his control had been densely populated with Jews.
"But now I can report to you today that all of them are Judenfrei," he wrote proudly.
All of them, that is, except for Siauliai. The extermination of its 4,000 Jews the Nazis had decided to postpone since most of them were involved in the manufacture of leather in the largest tannery in all the Baltic states.
"We do not think that we can operate the factory without the Jews who are in the key positions," he explained, "and therefore we have made an exception for them and their families for the time being."
However, he pointed out that this' postponement would only be temporary since ^for every Jew who held a responsible position, the Nazis had appointed one non-Jew to be taught. "And we hope in the near future to be able to replace the remaining Jews so we will be able to liquidate them too."
Thus Gewecke could claim before the court that since he had forwarded this report to Lohse, there could be little doubt that he had no choice except to follow orders from the reichcommissar.
BUT THERE WERE other less important events which G^ewecke did not bother reporting, such as the rounding up of all of the residents of the Jewish home for the aged and sending them out of town where each of them was quickly despatched from old age with a bullet. Or the ordering of all the Jews from their homes into a crowded ghetto and the gradual siphoning off of the weaker, sicker or younger ones whose lives seemed expendable insofar as the running of the leather factory was concerned.
Finally, of the original population of 4,000, only about 2,000 were left.
The year was 1943. The Jews of the ghetto of Siauliai toiled^ on, virtual slaves in the tannery, working without pay and given a less than adequate supply of food and clothing. . T^hey were caught in a closing death-trap;-if thiey were found trying to hide an extra precious morsel of food gained by trading an .article of clothing or valuable, the verdict was an immediate sentence to a jail from which the prisoner never returned. And without supplementary nourishment Death stepped a little closer.
At this time Gewecke, the Nazi leader, felt that controls against the smuggling of food were not strict enough, so he and his men began to stop and search the work columns as they moved to and from the ghetto.
When they s1x)pped one xjolumn on May 30, they found a package of cigarettes and a piece of sausage which they decided belonged to Bezalel Mazawetsky, a 28-year-old baker whom the Nazis immediately arrested and who was ordered by Gewecke to be hanged in public as a lesson to the others.
PLEAS ON HIS BEHALF by the leaders of the Judenrat and the baker's wife fell on deaf ears. Then on June 6, 1943, the entire populace of the ghetto was ordered into the square where the execution was to take place. The uncle of the doomed man fell on his knees in front of Bube, Gewecke's assistant, with a paper begging him to spare the baker's life. Bube's reply was to kick the uncle swiftly with his jackboots.
Myer and Gita Kron, he a chemical engineer and she a graduate lawyer and Hebrew teachei', are refined people whose na^ ture it is to abhor violence.
Tliis summer they made a courageous effort to remember that which they have both tried to forget. They did it for the sake of a dead young baker and six million other men, women and children who were the victims of such crimes and cannot speak.
Mmo
BY HENRY LEONARD
TEMPLE CRISES: The time wheri no one could open the Ark . . .
TRUDEAU
(Continued from Page 1)
Touhy's . report to the ; U-S;. stated there are still 1,000 to 1,200 Jews remaining in Egypt out of 80,000 who lived there 20 years ago.
The JTA interview with Prime Minister Trudeau also touched upon the plight of Soviet Jewry. Mr. Trudeau told the correspondent that the Soviet Union was "sensitive to public criticism about its treatment of Soviet Jewry, and Canada does not hesitate to make its views known." He declared that the Soviiet gov--ernment "is aware that this ques tion is a complicating factor in Soviet-Canadian relations."
The Canadian leader stressed that the sufferings of Jews in Europe under the Nazis "have given us a sense of special moral responsibility to oppose anti-^ Semitism wherever it may occur."
Sun Francisco sends mobile library
SAN FRANCISCO—A travelling library has been shipped to Jerusalem to promote peaceful relationships between Jews and Arabs. The bookmobile was purchased by a public subscription in San Francisco under the sponsorship of Book Bank USA at the request of Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek. The library will be used by Jerusalem's Society of Arts and Humanities- to serve primarily East Jerusalem's large Arab population. The bookmobile was dedicated by San Francisco Mayor Joseph L. Alioto. The 1,500 volume library is inscribed in English, Hebrew and Arabic, and will carry books in all three languages.
Endorsations Gfanted
Pioneer Men's Chai
Campaign ...Aug. 15-Sept. 15 Medical Aid Luncheon
—^Hadassah..........._...Aug. 14
Hadassah Day ............Sept. 3
Schara Tzedeck
Fall Brunch..............Sept. 9
L. Freiman Hadassah
Yiskor Tea ________________Sept. 17
Gordonia Yiskor Tea... Sept. 23 Talmud Torah P.T.A.
Fall Brunch ......________Sept. 30
Noting that all alleged cases of Nazi war crimnals taking refuge in Canada on false naturalization declarations have been investigated, he said no evidence-has been found that :citizenships w&e obtained on such false statements.
Another question reported to have been asked by the JTA correspondent dealt with the measure to ban hate literature which Justice Minister John Turner had indicated was not on the government's priority list. The Prime Minister replied that summer recess would make it impossible to deal with the bill until the House reconvenes in October, according to the JTA interview.
Reiterating his government's position that peace in the Middle East required agreement and consent between both Israel and the Arab states, .Mr. Trudeau stressed that it cannot be imposed.
The Canadian leader also expressed continuing Canadian (Support for such UN missions a^ that of Dr. Gunnar V. Jarriiig, in particular. His government is "at all times prepared to consider means by which it may usefully act to help achieve this end," Mr. Trudeau added.
Chapel window depicts Apollo Moon, Eartii views
ST. LOUIS — A stained glass window for a new memorial chapel built under auspices of the four Reform synagogues of St. Louis, which was designed by artist Sol Nodel of New York, contains views of the earth and of the moon as seen and photographed by Apollo astronauts. The memorial chapel for the new Mount Sinai Cemetery Association will be dedicated on Sept. 7.
The stained glass window, entitled "the Window of Truth", is 22 feet wide and 17 feet high and is ^composed of 30 panels, con-tMning about 4,000 individual ^pieces of glass. The Jewish artist said the window has an infinity section on which he painted the Apollo views of earth and moon, believed to be the first representations in stained glass.
(LUACH) Candle Lighting JEWISH CALENDAR AUGUST 1, 8:32 1969
Rosh Hashona___________Sept. 13
Yom Kippur.............Sept. 22
Succot_______________________Sept. 27
Simchat Torah___________Oct. 5
Chanuka ________________.-Dec. 5
All holidays begin the preceding eve at sundown.
THE jmiSH WESTERH Buiurm
Officioi Organ of the Jewish Community .of British Columbia
Friday, August 1, 1969
Published weekly every Friday ot 3285 Heather Street, Vancouver 9, British Columbia.
' SAM KAPLAN Editor ond Publisher
RON FREEBMAN Advertising Manager
DEADLINE: Local News: Monday at 4:30 p.m.
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