Paee 2
JEWISH WESTERN BULLETIN
Friday, March 15, 1
$, JCaptlm
Lesson iit genocide
An Editorial Review of The Destruction of the iEuro ean Jews by
Chicag-O, $17.50, 788 piig-eis.)
Raul Hilberg-. (Quadrangfle Books,
*'The Destruction of the European Jews" hy Raul Hilberg is a book that should be made compulsory reading for every major and minor official of every major and minor government. Its contents should also be made known to the officials of non-government institutions such as . churches, educational bodies and labour unions, . which, from time to time, exert an influence upon the actions of governments. And lastly, this book has a message for the masses- who, in the long run, stand to benefit the most if its lessons are heeded, and to lose the most if they are not.
In writing this documented narrative, author Hilberg s approach to yie subject has been a scientuic one; almost every page gives the source of the most minute detail. The work, which requiied lea yeaia oi researcn to complete, presents not the story of the Jews who were the victims of the destruction process, but rather of the perpetrators, the Germans and their collaborators.
unindexed collection of Nuremberg documents, and data from German periodicals.)
The machinery which the Germans employed in the destruction of the Jev/s consisted primarily of four distinct bureaucracies: The government, the army, industry and the party Each of the former three had indulged in hatred and discrimination against the Jewish people long before the advent of Hitler. The Nazi Feuhrer's rise to power merely enabled them to shift the destruction machinery into a higher gear. (For decades German theologians and philosophers had given their sanction to such hatred but never before had a government made it a part of its official policies.)
Identification of the victim was the first major problem, for if laws are to be passed to destroy him, you must be able to. define him in legal terminology. Thus long before Ben-Gurion the German minds set to work to define, "who is a Jew". Previous generations of anti-Semites in Germany and. other countries had failed to
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The Germans required a vast administrative^ "solve" their Jewish problems for want of a
apparatus and modern scientific knowledge in order to carry out swiftly the annihilation of 5,000,000 (sic) Jews. The countless participating agencies corresponded with one another: the governmental and military offices kept detailed records of tneir activities; newspapers and periodicals published the directives, wrote about tiie ^_vt.•il^o dim repoi tea me speeches of the leading participants.
Millions of documents survived the holocaust as a result of the speed with which Allied armies overran the occupied territories. Thus only a work of massive proportions and one : approached in a scientific, methodical manner by an analytical writer, could begin to cope successfully with so huge an adversary. If one recalls, for example, the tens of thousands of ; documents and the millions of words used by
workable definition of the Jew. What aggravated the problem in Germany was the high rate of intermarriage between Jew and Gentile together with the fact that many Jews were professed converts or atheists. However the German intellect.proved its superiority and, for the first time in history, the experts soon came upon a workable definition:
A Jew was a person who had a Jewish parent or grandparent. The parent or grandparent was presumed to be Jewish if he (or she) belonged to the Jewish religion.
From the
Rabbi Bert A. Woylhaler
Congregation Beth Israel
But what of the cases where a person had only one or two or three Jewish grandparents — Jewish according to the new definition, that is? The Germans had an answer ^for the assimilated Jew as well! They created 'a new "half-race" called "mischling" who were persons with one Adolf Eichmann in his "paper defence", and if or two Jewish grandparents. The mischlin.g^.soon one considers that Eichmann was in charge of lost some of their rights along with the Jews,
only one office of the gigantic bureaucratic machine used by the Germans to destroy the Jews, the achievement of the author is realized more readily. (A vast bibliography is included. Source material included in addition to thousands of captured German documents, a vast
but their Aryan blopd put them in a different category. In the years to follow, the difference loomed larger, for whether or not one had the word "mischling" on one's identification card came to mean the difference between life and death.
Legalized murder
After the definition, followed the laws, written and passed by an efficient, hard-working judiciary. Like the governmental administrators whose only weapons of murder were paper decrees and pens used to affix their signatures, the legal experts began the gradual process of limiting the freedom and rights of the Jews. Hilberg points out that they themselves were often unaware of just how far the deathly momentum of their work would carry the "machine". Soon they came to legislate the milk out of the mouths of young children; to be followed by an intricate maze of railway schedules; and the promulgation of decrees to " ensure presence at railway assembly points prior to the delivery of millions to extermination centj'es such as Auschwitz.
But Drecedini; it all was the matter of all Jews being identified and their property plundered. Alter identification, crime the order that all Jews must register their property, a procedure wiiich would make expropriation easier. Theie I'ollowed a .series of laws to "Aryanize" Jewish-owned businesses, to block Jewish bank accounts, and to force them to sell their holdings. German business firms not only participated in the swallowing up of Jewish-owned induslries. taut they methodically dismissed Jewish employees, and large corporations removed them irom important po.«:itions.
Other massive fcjnns of ""legar' expropriation included a lliglil ta:< lor Jews wanting 1o leave the country. Uncontrolled looting, such as occurred in the Krystalnaclit riots when the Na.vi i:)ariv burned sviiagogues and damaged Jcwi-ii stores, was loekcd upon with scorn hy the bureaucracies, who pointed out that n-os. of the damaged p?-o].!eriy was insured and would have to be repaid by German insuranre panics.
The legal experts could achieve their goals much more efficiently by arbitrary expropriations, such as the "atonement payment" imposed on Jews after the assassination of a Nazi official in Paris. The finance ministry, estimated that between April 26 and November 12, 1938i about two billion feichsmark had been collected as the Jewish "atonement." v
(In this process of legalized thievery, j.n-cidentlj'-, there was often considerable competition between the hierarchies, with the banks and business firms vying against the government ministries for the lion's share.)
Next in the assemblyline destruction process came food rationing laws. Food was costly and as little as possible was to be wasted on sub-humans. The German judiciary accordingly wrote the laws which limited even the allotment of milk to a maximum of one-half litre of skimmed mJlk daily for Jewish children up to the age of six. Other children received no milk whatever. Supplementary food rations for pregnant Jewish women, nursing mothers or sick persons were strictij^ forbidden.
Thus, with a few strokes of the pen, a once- i prosperous community, with accumulated know- I how and far-flung investments, had been ; leduced to "a band of starving forced laborers '
i
The third stage in tlie destruction process ! was concehtraiion. which forced the Jews to crowd into the larger ciiies. In order to separate Ihem from the rest of the population, ghettoes were established and anti-niixing laws v/ere passed. Jewish chnldren were expelled from all German schools and travel on subways, trains, slrooicars aiid buses was i-esiric; .^d. The
The art of living consists in recognizing life's blessings amidst its hardships and, sorrows.
This is a difficult thing for us to do. We resemble a little bit the woman who was on her way to a department store to complain about a certain merchandise she had purchased. It was her good luck to be the five millionth customer who entered the store, and to be honored as such. As she came through the door, she was greeted by the store president. She was given free tickets to every show in town. She received a transistor radio and a television set. In addition, every department in the store gave her some gift. But. what do you think she did, after this bountiful surprise? She proceeded to her original destination, the complaint department.
We are also constantly on the way to the complaint department. This, despite the fact that with all our troubles, and burdens we also pick up many bounties on the way. Despitp its perplexities, life also offers many blessings. There are luxuries surrounding us. Dear ones loving us.' Moments of joy brightening up the clouds of troubles and worries.
Whenever I sit at the Sede^ table and sing the famous "Da-yenu", I am profoundly touched by its enviable content: |
"If Thou, O God, had brought us forth from Egypt, it would have been enough for us,, but Thou, O God, didst more and more."
"If Thou had given us the To-rah, it would have been enough, but Thou still didst more for us."
And the song keeps on listing all the mercies that God has shown us in the_ past. It enumerates all the blessings God has heaped upon us, and the beauty of it all is that the "Da-yenu" is not the expression of wishful optimism. As you know, it follows in the Hagadah the description of Egyptian sla-
I vei-y and persecutions. The ha i ships and troubles are not f gotten, but the blessings a also remembered.
This is the .^.ecret of bliss living. There is- not only we i ing and wafling, but the 'Daye is also sung — and the joy cx.periehces of life are al cherished and appreciated.
The true art of living c .«!ists in taking the pains wi the joys, the good with the b ?ind making the best'^of its co bination. ■ .
When Jasha ..^[eif^tz, ihQ-v' Tinist, once gave a'"cohcert Paris, his "A" string snapp and he found himself in am unpiJ.eai^nt predicament; without interruption, we a told, he transposed the compo tion and finished it on thr strings.
That is lifeior all of us. Li is never perfect, never co plete. We always have to pi-it on three strings, with so thing missing that should there but is not there. The m lure mind learns to play it ev on three strings, and to get e joyment out of it, even if t fourth string is missing. The i telligent mind recognizes el ments of beauty even when su rounded by ugliness, and expe ences moments of exhilaratio even if life's setting is cloude
Thought for the wee,
A sage is jealous. of anoth sage, but not of; one unlearn, in his subject.
—Abodah Zarah, The Talm
JEWISH CALENDAR (LUACH)
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1963 5723 Passover April, Shavuoth May 2
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Yom Kippur Sep 2
Succoth Oct All holidays begin on th preceding evening.
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The Jewish Western Bulletin
Official Organ of the Vancouver Jewish Community Council
Friday, March 15, 1963
Pi;blished v/eekfy every Friday at yfO V.'est 41st Ave., Vancouver 13, British Columbia.
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See EDITOR'S VIEW (Coniinued on Paao 5)
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