THE CANADIAN JEW I"SH REVIEW
DECEMBER 11 til, .1942
CANADIAN
''mm Impartial Medium for the Dissemination of Jewish News snd Views Published Weekly by the Canadian Jewish Review_
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VOL. XXV, No. 10
every friday
The First To Suffer
DECEMBER 11, 1942
Commentaries
Hy Dr. Harry J.
Ws Bow Our HwfMb In firktf
On Wednesday, December second, Jews, where free to obforve, mourned the loss of fellow-Jew* through Axis cruelty. It was a day of universal mourning because of the horrible things that have befallen European Jewry m particular under Nazi domination. The purpose of the day was for prayer that this terrible evil may cease and ejao that the Jewish cry of anguish may be heard by civilised humanity. Hitler's butchery of Jews dwarfs every previous outrage of fee Nazis. Here are figures of Jews, sJain or enslaved, based on authentic data: 600,000 Polish Jews, 60,000 Austrian Jews, 160,000 German Jews, 66,000 Bohemian Jews, 120,000 Netherlands Jews, 96,000 Yugoslavian Jews, 85,000 French Jews, 680,000. Roumanian Jews, 8,500 Bulgarian Jews, 70,000 Sovakian Jews* 25,000 Latvian Jews.
According to Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Hitter has ordered all Jews in Nazi-ruled Europe killed by the end of this year. Dr. Wise also states that Hitler is paying $20 each for Jewish corpses to be processed into soap fats and fertilizer. How savage this all sounds and testifies to the fact that the Nazis have now descended to the animal level.
With the Psalmist of yore we cry: How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? How long, O Lord, wilt Thou forget me forever?
This day of mourning and the days of mourning yet to come should rededkate us to the cause of the United Nations. It should arouse us to give aid to the stricken, the living that might yet be kept alive and rescued from the martyrdom and the satanic forces which hold sway over Europe.
Let us now, we who Hve in free lands, give all that the lives of thousands of our brethren may be saved from annihilation and extermination.
WffaW U�lsMB�n'�
That was a roost imfr** fnttwss which Mr. Walter
At the beginning of the present campaign for $60,000 with which to build a new Neighbourhood House in Montreal, this column journeyed over to Laval Avenue to see whether the old shack was any worse than it was in July, 1940, when the writer, caring more about children than any other race of people, urged the community to meet its obligations in this regard more fittingly. Yes, it was worse and as black a mark against the honor of the Jewish community as you could find in a week's snooping, It was worse than it had been two years before, not because the place had changed but because the times have changed. For, the present has brought with it an opportunity for service which the Neighbourhood House is not able to grasp as it would have been had philanthropy wrenched its head up out of the sand and looked forward to the period when Jhe only adequate settlement house would be one which could tie up its program with the war effort at every turn.
Within walking distance of Neighbourhood House there are 8,216 Jewish children between the ages of five and fourteen years attending schools in the district. About one-fourth of this number attend the center for recreation, friendship, guidance, and personality development. What do the remaining three-quarters do in their spare time? What happens to those over fourteen?
Neighbourhood House is of the familiar type of outdated private residence in which a family of six could live comfortably, and yet as many as two hundred children are crowded into it at one time, and are served by two toilets. There are no drinking faucets so that there must be constant crowding at the water taps with drinking cups.
The playroom is a miserable basement commonly known to those interested in building a new Neighbourhood House as The Black Hole Of Calcutta, and With reason. An ancient three-burner gas stove which only a junk collector would take away is the domestic science department in the playroom which, as soon as it is aired, is used for ping-pong to compete with pool rooms* The squalor, the cold, the cheerless-ness despite the most valiant efforts, are incredible in their proximity to the wealth and prosperity of the Montreal Jewish community. This condition constitutes an appaUing rebuke to all those who talk frequently and fluently about winning the war for democracy while failing to make a practical application of the benefits of democracy where they are needed most.
One of the most serious defects of Neighbourhood House is the lack of a gymnasium or of any sort of auditorium which could be used for mass meetings, rallies, dancing, and parties. Thus, just when youngsters are at an age to be trained into icmderg they must be turned out into the streets
__the rrfsaes; of is* mightiest _
____fat tike knMflcy of n^addnd. This union there-
fore reanrttng from tragedy must be held sacred and lasting whan Victory comes in order to build a sense of ordered security in the word. The guarantee for this union must rest in the faith of good partnership.
This noted author was of the opinion that the present hour must not be wasted in formulating plans. We are in the struggle for victory and we are not prophets to be able to foresee the forces and problems that will yet arise beyond the days of victory. This historic hour must find us in faith as partners to do all first and last to free the world from the threatened Axis slavery. Hence the United States, the British Commonwealth, China and Russia as good partners, must now realize the mission which history has placed upon them. Upon that belief in the United Natrons' mission hinges the salvation of humanity. � .
Prophetic and stirring were the words of Mr. Lippmann when he summoned his listeners to realize that they live in a moat historical hour of testing. Centuries gone and centuries yet unborn, so Mr. Lippmann passionately believes, will look back and look up to this age in which we live and struggle if we stand up and account ourselves as men in the establishment of universal righteousness and justice in the world.
As Mr. Lippmann so 'eloquently set forth his thesis of good partnership and as he so fervently pleaded for faith and confidence among the United Nations we heard in his words and voice re-echoed the yearnings of the prophetic titans of Israel, the people to which Mr. Lippmann belongs which people we hope he wishes to be closely
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A life of spirit comes to the thinking among us as we of Governor Lehman's appointinent by the President to the great job of foreign MUef rehabilitation. The President tfcns s^impsea into the post-war future and sets a task for in hunnuiitarian service on a immense scale and program. The fact that a Jewish gentleman in of Governor I^ehman has been chosen to direct work of international relief and international brother-isatlflts with what resolve President Roosevelt is de-to exorcise the devils of race-hatred which the Nazi barbarians have set knee over the world.
The promise that heroic efforts will be made by the TJawtod States to rehabilitate Europe is based on the historic genmarveement of relief after the last war under the direction ef sawrbert Hoover which the United States tackled so boldly, of people wiO have to be fed and clothed the moment is eatabiiwhed- America and Canada ought to join United States of Ajnerican in the resolution that no will he spared to bring back Europe to a decent of Bring in order to make the peace lasting. National lata de Denounce demands that nations care for brother-flris is brother hood in the deepest religious sense. Lehman is a notable executive and administrator. Tot fiat ofTaC* of director of foreign relief he brings a heritage
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to tags* and girls when they are beginning to be interested m each other, near their homes. Recreational and educational opportunities should never stop but should continue to be offered under trained leadership. In the present stoppage of these services due to cramped quarters, both the individual and the community suffer a loss from the gap between what the individual was on the way to becoming and what he usually grows to be, for he is left adrift when he should have been tided over for his own and the communal betterment
If you are a youngster living in the neighborhood, you can not drop in at Neighbourhood House. You have to squeeze in and only at specified times. The service is superficial due to large groups being handled in such small space. Each girl is allowed to come in only twice weekly and each boy only once weekly, believe it or not instead of being able to stop in and see who's there and what's what as should be expected of a social center which is intended to supplement home, church, and school in supplying some need or other to the growing person. Boys are not admitted in the afternoon at all because of lack of room, and are admitted only three nights a week, each boy attending just once.
There is no father's club at this center and although every mother should attend a group to be stimulated in the appreciation of citizenship and the application of its requirements, there is only room for about sixty mothers* The value of group associations and activities for parents and children under the same beneficent roof is so enormous aa to defy description. For the time that is now, Neighbourhood House should have been prepared to demonstrate the fundamental attitude of the Jewish community toward the worth of the individual, the thing which the war itself is challenging. Through this center individual needs should be filled, but also through it the individual in wartime should be realizing his own worth to the national effort through the unit which the neighbourhood represents in the make-up of the city and the country. Participation in various kinds of work has its natural place in the adequate center. Here all the mothers should be learning together new things about nutrition and the feeding of families in wartime, about Red Cross, first aid, and the like. Of course there should be a day nursery, but when the Government suggested child care for the school-age children of working naOthers, Neighbourhood House was hopelessly unready in a district where such a service is called for obviously.
Neighbourhood House has no kitchen other than the one belonging to the housekeeper. A center needs a yard. It has no private office, no room even for staff and leaders to hang up their coats and hats in, no storage rooms, and no
The New York Times says:
In every country where Hitler's edicts run, every day is a day of mourning for Jews. December 2 was set aside, by action of the chief Rabbinate of Palestine, supported by the leading Jewish organizations of the United States, as a day of mourning, prayer and fasting among the Jews throughout the free countries of the world. So prayers go up on both sides of the Nazi line �- from helpless victims in the shadow of death and from those who appeal on their behalf to the good-will of humanity and the divine justice.
The homicidal mania of the Nazis has reached its peak, according to evidence in the hands of the State Department, in an order of Adolf Hitler demanding the extermination of all Jews in all territory controlled by Germany. The fact that the Nazis are desperate for manpower may delay this pro1 jected massacre. What has already happened proves that no other consideration will delay it
Of Germany's 200,000 Jews in 1939 all but 40,000 have been deported or have perished; of Austria's 75,000 all but 15,000, at most; of the 80,000 in Bohemia and Moravia all but 15,000. In Poland more than 600,000 have died. In the Netherlands 60,000 remain out oM80,000; in Yugoslavia 96,-000 out of 100,000 are dead, deported or imprisoned; hi Greece all between the ages of 18 and 45 have been enslaved and an unknown number are dead; in France 85.000 out of 300,000 have been deported; of Rumania's 900,000 all hut 270,000 are imprisoned, enslaved, deported or dead; Bulgaria has enslaved 8,500 out of 50,000; Slovakia has deported 70,000 out of 90,000; of Latvia's 100,000 one-fourth are reported massacred, the others enslaved or starving in ghettos.
To sum up this horrible story, it is believed that 2,000,000 European Jews have perished and that 5,000,000 are in danger of extermination. This is the work of Adolf Hitter and his New Order.
Why has this unrealizable crime been committed? The Jew was a tiny minority in Germany, a small minority in every European country. The key to his nMrtyrdom lies in this word minority. Nazism needed a scapegoat It found one in the least numerous, the most widely dispersed, the most nearly helpless group. The attack upon the Jew was the first employment of the Nazi strategy � which is always the bully's strategy � of bringing overwhelming power against the weakest of its chosen enemies.
Nazism, as we know, never planned to stop at that point The persecution of the Jew was the beginning of an insane attempt to reduce all mankind to servitude and to exterminate all who resisted. The Jew was the first number on a list which has since included people of other faiths and of many races � Czechs, Poles, Norwegians, Netherlander*, Belgians, French � and which, should Hitler win, would take in our own "mongrel" nation.
� tJazi anti5eniitinin� ia ahortr xuiminatea i � enr'thfig'SaVtfe" hut" the Gexnsnnev If
N.nri victory Japan and the Japanese might be the hmt_
on the list of subject peoples, but, Axis or no Axis^they would be there �cold comfort to the other peoples first enaUved.
The horror of the r^rsecution of the Jews, vieired m to perspective, covers all free humanity. What the Jew has suffered is a prediction of the suffering that would be legeim! for all who dare to stand against Hitlerism, or dare to be different from Hitler's Herrenvolk.
It is the Herrenvolk themselves who today are on the defensive. The day of justice draws perceptibly nearer. It is fitting for the United Nations to say that they know neither Jew nor Gentile, but that they mean to strike down the Nazi tyranny wherever it has blasted any human life; and that these Jewish lives, taken by our enemies, shall be accounted for at the time.of reckoning.
ventilation. When children have to sit on window sills, ventilation is a matter best left unattempted. But worst of all. Neighbourhood House, afi wood and having few exits, is a fire-trap, and would be one if occupied only by a small fam%. A tragedy could happen there which the Jewish community, with its proud claims that it takes care of its own, would require a long time to live down. People would weep who had not known what conditions were like. But it would not be entirely their fault Rather would it be the fault of an easy general tendency to smooth things over so that communal pride too often rests on a hollow basis. As a result sometimes a community beaa�e-nt the mention of sontt*Mmr it should squirm over.
But now, due to the unceasing efforts of a few eager people, a new Neighbourhood House begins to be a reality hi keeping witii requirements and befitting a community Uke Montreal. All those who avail themselves of a share in tbh fine project wiH be helping to right an old wrong of long standing, to enlarge the stature of the Jewish group here, to add to social progress by helping iiidividuals who wiB be future leaders, and thus to deinonatrate in a practical way on the side of democratic faith. fJtjt.
NORWEGIANS ~
DENOUNCE HATRED AS MANY JEWS ARE IMPRISONED
of unbounded sympathy for human suffering since bis own people has been so much schooled in suffering. The of Europe will find in him an angel of mercy and hope, and even the people of Hitler's Third Reich wfll learn to admire this outstanding American Jew who win gladly help the needy of all races and creeds as taught by the sacred lore of Judaism, the faith of his fathers.
We pray that Governor Lehman be prospered in the gigantic humanitarian work that has now with such honour fallen upon his shoulders.
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