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THE CANADIAN JEWISH REVIEW
JULY 15, 196*
WORLD JEWISH CONGRESS ASSEMBLY TO INCLUDE DISCUSSION OF GERMAN-JEWISH
RELATIONS
The decision of the World Jewish Congress to include a special symposium on "Germans And Jews" at its forthcoming plenary assembly in Brussels, is based upon the belief that open and frank discission of this difficult and delicate problem is necessary. Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Jewish Congress, declared in a statement reviewing the major issues the world Jewish body faces today.
Between 400 and 500 Jewish leaders from all parts of the world will gather in Brussels for the 10-day meeting which begins on the evening of July 31. Dr. Goldmann stated that there was a reasonable chance that representatives of Eastern European Jewries will participate as observers, after many years of absence from.'meetings of the World Jewish Congress. 'Hie WJC president said that delegations from most of the countries would be larger than on previous occasions.
lie welcomed the fact that the Conference of Major Jewish Organizations in America, representing the overwhelming majority of the Jewish community, in the United States, will be represented by an important delegation, participating as observers but with the right to take part in the debates and commissions. This added to the representative character of the Assembly.
; There will, be a number of symposia on the central questions'.'of Jewish life of today, such as "Jewish Values And Challenges"; "Human Rights"; "Peace And Disarmament";... with competent speakers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, in each of these discussions.
Of the symposium on "Germans And Jews," the --World Jewish Congress leader stated: "It has caused some doubts and many misunderstandings. The leadership of the. World Jewish Congress regards the open and frank discussion of this difficult and delicate problem as necessary, just because the problem is far from
being solved, despite the indemnification payments and the normalization of relations between Israel and the German Federal Republic.
"After what happened in the Hitler i>criod, it is obvious that it will take quite some time until German-Jewish relations will be psychologically and spiritually normalized, and recent symptoms of a new anti-Seiuitically colored nationalism in Germany have given cause to worries and fears. On the other hand, to ignore this problem and not to take note of Germany's growing importance is a most unrealistic attitude, based on pure emotionalism.
"The-purpose of the discussion in Brussels,' in which prominent German and Jewish leaders will participate, is to analyze the complexity and the difficulties of the problem, and to make the German people aware that merely .material restitution cannot solve/Thc question, and that they must continue to-'nuikc. serious efforts to avoid any resurgence of neo-Nazi or anti-Semitic tendencies and to eradicate old traditions of racial discrimination and anti-Jewish prejudices.
"The frank discussion of the problem by eminent Jewish and German personalities-will indicate the importance of this question which" will, for quite some time, remain on the agenda of the Jewish and'-the German peoples and may contribute to its clarification and to a gradual constructive solution."
Participants in the German symposium' will- be: Dr. Eugen Gcrstcnmaicr, president of the Parliament of the German Federal Republic; Professor Golo Mann, of Kilchberg-Zunch; Prof. Salo Baron, of New York; and Prof. GcTshon Sholcni, of Jerusalem.
Dr. Goldmann expressed the view that the Brussels Conference promised "to become the most important _pne in the history of the WJC, both by its composition and by its agenda."
The Spiritual Father Of The Jewish Welfare Board, His Living Memorial
ALLIED WAR CRIMES COMMISSION IS AUTHORITY FOR ESTIMATE OF MURDERS COMMITTED BY NAZIS
By Peter Lust, of Beaconsfield, Quebec
The-following appeared as a letter to the Montreal Star:
Your corespondent Jack Auct questions the correctness of the number of Nazi victims and feels that anyone who is able to prove the number of six million killed should come forward and substantiate the figure. The number of Nazi victims has been substantiated by a great amount of evidence; the most thorough research was made by the War Crimes Commission, on whose findings the prosecution of the Nmcnilxrrg trials was based.
This information gives evidence of the following number of Nazi victims: For the major camps (Auschwitz, Sobibor. Bclzec. Trcblinka. Majdanek. Chelmno, Stutthof, and Natzweilcr): 5,-126.800 victims; murdered by tin-satztruppen and special Wehrmacht and Waffcn-SS units in Poland and the USSR.: 1.110.600 victims. Total number of \ictims: 6.$37,400; the figure of six million is therefore somewhat lower than the actual number of murder victims.
The International Red Cross is well aware of the figures; it has in some instances helped to compile them, particularly relating to the camps of Natzweiler, Stutthof, and Ncucn-gamme.
Mr. Aucr then questions the war guilt of Hitler for the outbreak of the Second World War.
The transcript of the meetings of the German General Staff of June 14 and June 16. 19}�. shows the carefully prepared blueprint of ajgressinn both against the West and against the East. During the latter meeting Hitler stated: "I alone will bear the full responsibilitv for this war. and for the final victor.'" Fortunately, history changed this desired victory into total defeat.
J he Neo-Nazis of Germany (and they have recently won almost ten per cent of all votes in several vital elections) have constantly tried to play down the number of murder.victims. "It is not true that we have killed six and a half, million � Jews. .� We. killed . only two million," was the statement recently printed in the neo-Nazi newspaper, "Deutsche National � und Soldatenzcitung", of Munich. Actually, the Nazis killed some six and a half million Jews, and some fifteen million non-Jews, and I believe that wc should also remember the non-Jewish victims of Naziism. The largest part of these murders occurred in the Soviet' Union, Poland, and the other occupied Eastern countries.
1 will concur with one single statement of Mr. Aucr:
While the war guilt of the Nazi government is overwhelming, the Western allies also share some of the guilt for the outbreak of the Second World War: Their guilt is one of omission:
\\~hen the Hitler government occupied the Rhineland in 1936 in clear violation of the provisions of the Versailles treaty, the allied powers should at once ha\e entered Germany, arrested the Nazi leaders, put them on trial and hanged them after conviction.
At that time the Na?is were still weak, and the thirty million people killed in the second world war (to the twentv million murder victims must he added ten million soldiers who lost their lives') would still be alive.
Eventually the Nazi criminals had to be tried and hanged anyway � ten >cars later. It if had been done ten years sooner, the world would have been much better off.
BY BERNARD POSTAL
It was on the third day of Passover, April 9, 1917, just three days after the United States entered World War I, that American Jewry created a new national organization at the request of the United States Government. Its name was the. National Jewish Welfare Board, which this year begins the observance of its fiftieth anniversary.
It is not known who first conceived the idea of establishing a representative coordinated body to serve as the united agency of the Jewish community in meeting the religious, welfare, and morale needs of Jewish military personnel during World War I. JWB, as the organization became known almost from its inception fifty years ago, was the product of many minds and hearts. But there is plenty of evidence that its "spiritual father" was Jacob II. Schiff.
Schiff's deep concern with educating Jewish youth . to an awareness of and appreciation for the cultural traditions of the Jewish people brought him into the orbit of JWB services to youth, in and out of uniform. No American Jew did more for Jewish education and scholarship in this country than Jacob H. Schiff. The roster of the educational projects and institutions that owe their establishment on a sound and lasting footing to his generosity is virtually a roll-call of many of the great landmarks of Jewish learning.
His personal reverence for Jewish traditions and his keen and life-long interest in the welfare of young people made him one of the earliest supporters of the YMHA movement. Schiff had been in the United States barely more than a decade when he interested himself in the New York YMHA. In 1876 he became a member of its board because he saw in the program of this oldest existing Jewish Community Center the promise of a Jewish education awakening among the youth of the city.
During its first two decades, the New York YMHA had difficulty winning community support but when Schiff came to its support in 1898 it soon achieved a significant place in the life of New York Jewry. Until that time the Y had occupied shabby rented quarters. After Schiff gave the Y its first building, the Y's program expanded. So impressed was Schiff with the Y's growth and with its sen ice to Jewish youth, that before the year was out he announced a gift of a much larger building at Lexington Avenue and 92nd Street. Opening in 1900, this building became a landmark in the history of the Center movement. When the present building was erected on the same site in 1929,Mrs. Jacob II. Schiff laid the cornerstone.
Schiff was one of the first to recognize the great future of the Center movement. In 1884 he provoked a heated debate at the convention of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations by his vigorous insistence that the Union's constitution be amended to admit the growing number of YMHAs to "membership on a proper basis." To the objection that the Union was a body of synagogues and that the inclusion of YMHAs would permit them to outnumber synagogues, Schiff retorted, "The' YMHAs are better missionaries than nine tenths of the congregations."
Referring to the 92nd Street Y, lie described it as "a pattern association*' of which "there are many throughout the country . . . Why should they not have a voice when congregations of smaller number are represented in the Union?" When Schiff made this proposal the Union had 130 synagogues affiliated with it, but there were alrcadv ncarlv as manv YMHAs.
In 1905, when New York's Jewish community was considering the formation of a federation of Jew-ish charities, Schiff lent the full weight of his prestige and support to those who felt that Jewish youth organizations, and particularly YMHAs, merited full community
support. "There is absolutely no reason why," he said, "larger provision should be made for the orphan than for the religious education and moral welfare of the juvenile."
Two years later he again focused public attention on the developing Jewish Community Center when he suggested the creation of a national association of YMHAs. There had been two short-lived federations of Ys in the 1880s and 1890s. In a letter to Percival Menken, president of the 92nd Street YMHA, Schiff wrote: "It has occurred to me that there should be formed a national league of Young Men's Hebrew Associations. There is now, I believe, in almost every large town in the United States, a YMHA, and I believe if these associations could be gotten in close touch with each other, much could be done to promote Jewish life among the younger generation of American Israelites."
Schiff's idea was most opportune. Between 1907 and 1910 five regional associations of YMHAs came into being and the membership of all YMHAs was nearly 25,-000. In 1912, Schiff's son-in-law, Felix M. Warburg, who was then president of the 92nd Street YMHA, called a national conference of 75 prominent Jewish leaders to create what Schiff had suggested five years earlier. On November 2, 1913, delegates from 65 YM and YWHAs, meeting in New York City, established the National Council of Young Men's Hebrew and Kindred Associations. Schiff was named one of the three trustees of this first permanent national association of Jewish Community Centers, an office he retained until his death in 1920.
It was the Army and Navy Committee of this National Council of Young Men's Hebrew and Kindred Associations, brought into being through the foresight of Schiff, that convened the first meeting that led to the founding of JWB in 1917. Not until the end of World War I did Schiff actually hold any office in JWB but he, together with Louis Marshall, Judge Irving Lehman, and Dr. Cyrus Adler were the principal factors in planning and programming the new organization. Schiff's son, Mortimer H. Schiff, became one of the most active figures in JWB in his own right but he also represented and reflected the views of his distinguished father.
Once JWB was firmly established and had received official recognition from the United States Government, the elder Schiff saw to it that the organization had no financial problems.
As chairman of the New York City Committee of the American Jewish Relief Committee, he suggested that some of the funds raised by this committee be earmarked for JWB. This brought in $1,000,000. Later he sent a telegram to 200 Jewish communities asking their support for JWB. This yielded another million.
The same outlook that motivated his interest in the Jewish Community Centers moved him to do everything possible to provide for the religious needs of young people in uniform.
Before the first Jewish military-chaplains were appointed, Schiff took a personal hand, together with Dr. Adler, in completing the arrangements for sending a JWB mission to France to promote religious activities for Jews on active duty there. In the closing months of the war Schiff became one of the leaders of the national inter-faith campaign to raise funds for JWT3, the Knights of Columbus, the YMCA, and the Salvation Army, all of which were engaged in morale service to the military.
Two weeks after the end of World War I hostilities, Schiff came before the annual meeting of JWB and made one of his rare speeches. With the same kind of vision that enabled him to suggest the establishment of JWB's predecessor in the field of service to (Continued on Pag* Seven)
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JULY 15, 1966
Publication Office
VOL. XLV1II, No. 42
G�rdenv�)e, Quebec
Nazi Victims: Surely Justice And Humanity Demand A Fresh Approach
The following appeared as a letter to the London, England, Times from Sir John Foster, Q.C., M.P. for Norwich, and others:
Many who recall the inhuman treatment meted out to victims of Nazi persecution, particularly to those from eastern Europe, will feel profound disquiet at'the terms of the Final Law on Indemnification passed last year by the Federal German Parliament followed by the Budgetary Security Act (Hau-shaltssicherungsgesctz).
In the history of compensation, Poles, Yugoslavs, and others persecuted on grounds of nationality have consistently been treated as second-class citizens and, compared with Nazi victims persecuted on grounds of race, religion and ideology, have suffered severe discrimination.
The Final Law has done little or nothing to redress the balance. "National Persecutecs" still suffer harsh discrimiuation in regard to disablement and heritability of claims. They receive nothing for loss of property, loss of freedom, loss of economic or professional status, and no relief from the hardship fund winch is available to other victims. In addition, the Budgetary Security Law recently passed will defer in many cases the full discharge of claims until 1968 � a crushing blow to victims who have already waited twenty years;
A serious omission in the Indemnification Law is the absence
of any recognition of the rights of those resistance workers (whose offences were limited to listening to foreign broadcasts or distributing leaflets) to present claims, thereby nullifying a statement of the Deputy Chancellor in 1949 admitting that their right to present claims had been contractually undertaken by the Federal Republic in agreement .with the Three Allied Powers.
" Where the law does make a concession in extending the period within which those refugees previously excluded by the dateline of October, 1953, can claim refugee status, it is foreseen that the following rates of compensation will be paid:�
Permanent Damage to Health
25-49 per cent DM3,000
(�267 approx.)
50-69 per cent DM.4,500
(�301 approx.)
70 per cent upwards     DM.6,000
(�535 approx.)
If Germany claims to have regained her status as a Rechtstaat, can these figures support the claim?
Surely justice and humanity demand a fresh approach to this question.
Yours faithfully, John Foster. D. Dodds-Parker. John Nott. Gilbert Longden. House of Commons.
A GONG FOR BENNY STARK
By Scott Young, in the Toronto Globe and Mail
About 10.30 a.m. last December 15 Benny Stark was sitting in the old pailor of the converted house he uses for an office at the frbnt of his scrapyard on Maria Street. It has been expropriated but he is "still around. Business had been going full bore since before 8 a.m. but Benny had been late, leaving his foreman with the bankroll to pay the yard's loyal clients for their old batteries and bathtubs and copper wire.
Now the foreman tossed the money onto a desk and Benny was counting it. I think if a ruggedly handsome character actor came here from the concentration camps of Europe and fought his way up in the junk business from day laborer to successful owner (his daughter drives a Mustang), he'd wind up looking like Benny. His thick wavy hair is brushed straight back. He has a good laugh and a heavily accented voice that on clear days can be heard all the way to City Hall.
He was counting the money when he heard a car approaching at high speed. Zip! � it was by, eastbound on the narrow old street. Close behind sped a policeman on a three-wheeled motorcycle. Almost instantly came a terrtbhr crash.
Benny threw the money from him. It scattered on the desk and floor. He ran to the window and looked east. He could see w heels spinning in the air. a man caught underneath. Maria Street jogs sharply to the right about 100 feet past Benny's scrapyard and the wreck was there. His front door is always locked $o he ran
out the side. Five or six men were in the back of the cavernous scrapyard shed. He shouted, "Go to the cellar and get my big jack that will lift cars and follow me! Man hurt!"
'Hie men were on the iun as Benny turned and sprinted east on Maria, lie saw now that the motorcycle had crashed. The car being chased had escaped. The motorcycle engine was running, ignition on, gasoline running over everything, an ideal setup for an explosion. The policeman was pinned on the ground, screaming with pain.
Benny reached over first and turned off the ignition. Then he picked up the police radio microphone. This was a citizen calling, he said. He gave the policeman's number (he leaned over to read this) and said the officer was badly hurt. The police radio blared from the silent motorcycle into the Maria Street morning to tell Benny that help was on the way.
Citizen Stark once took the first-aid course given by the St. John Ambulance Association. He did what he could now and tried to keep the officer talking. Who had he been chasing? The policeman was in his earl? twenties, burly, nearly 200 pounds. One leg was badly broken but there was nothing the matter with his mind. He told Benny he'd been chasing a boy in a stolen car. He gave the boy's name, the nuke of car, and the license number. Benny picked up the police radio and relayed this information, including the direction possibilities.
Then suddenly Maria Street w*s swarming with help. The police took
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