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THE CANADIAN JEWISH R E V I E IW
JULY 4th, 1941
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Jewish Heroines Of Our Tune
By Alfred Werner
During the persecution under s Eptghtnea the suf-
fering of the women of Israel must have been to fearful that their constancy �ad fidelity were powerful proof of the perfect adaptation of the few of the Eternal to their temporal and spiritual wants . . . "
Grace Aguilar: The Women of Israel.
The first book of Samuel rates how Michal, Saul's daughter, rescued bet husband when he to be murdered by the henchof his father-in-law and how cleverty the deceived them. Both thia atory And the other, told In tike second book of Macoabees, of Hannah the martyr mother, who bravely faced the death of her �even sons and then waa herself murderwj by the Syrian tyrant, fill only two chapters of the huge volume which portray* the passionate heroism of the Jewish
llany chapters have been added to the paat eight yean of Nazi domination, which haa thrown mil-Uona of Jews Into hopeless despair. I am going to tell something of what I saw or heard myself, regarding the intrepidity of Jew-lab women in my native town of Vienna, In the fateful years 1938 and 1939. Similar stories, hundreds of them, could be told about Jewish women of Brussels as well as of Lodz or of Prague. Similar atrocities have been taking place all over Natifkd Europe, with little difference, but with the same features of cruelty and malice on one hand, of defiance and passion on the other. Deprived of their properties, deploring the loss of so many beloved people, as European Jews now are, there are yet some assets left to them, and the most precious of them undoubtedly are the grand qualities of our consorts, proved in the most fierce battle of our history.
This, however, is the age of brutal man, bearing such fruit as war and revolution-and dictator* ship, making the dive bomber and the bludgeon the symbols of our days. It Is high time, therefore, to sing the chant of the Jewish woman, the only power left to oppose hatred and vengefulnesa, capable of perplexing and outwit-
ting the haughty �Victors." King David would have dedicated another psalm to the Jewish woman, had he dreamt to what extent the female of our people is capable of bravery generally ascribed only to man.
It was the evening of Yom Kip-pur, 5699, but few Jews dared to attend the service at the.synagogues, for fear of being insulted by the riff-raff in the street when entering or leaving the house of God. This actually happened in many cases. Therefore thta Day of Atonement, generally observed even by the non-religious Jew, was spent at home by most of us Viennese Jews. So much bitterness had com* in the past year to another quarter million of Jews; we thought. If we have sinned, oh Lord, then let us know how we can make good, and how perhaps reconcile our enemies!
But the Austrian Nazis, not content with having prevented the Jews from worshiping in their synagogues, planned a Special "action" for that Yom Klppur night. In most Jewish' homes at midnight ghastly scenes took place, often with fatal result
At a quarter to twelve there was a harsh knock at the door of a Jewish flat In the "Leopoldstadt,'* the ghetto section of Vienna. The occupants were the eighty-year-old sick grandmother, her daughter, and her granddaughter, who was a physician. They dressed quickly and rushed to the door, for they guessed that it was no friend who paid them a visit at. such a late hour. Two twenty-year-old boys entered, with faces Hke mastiffs, wearing the brown party uniform.. ......
"We must search your flat!" they shouted at the three women. After a few minutes the neatly kept apartment was turned topsyturvy. All chests were opened, clothes were thrown on the floor, vases were broken, mirrors were smashed, milk and flour were split in the kitchen. To their disappointment, however, they found no precious things. So they turned to the bookshelves. Fortunately all books which could have involved danger to the family had been destroyed or hidden at the
Best Student In Ten Yean, No Less
BOBN DT FAUJRINE
Samuel S. Manaon of 961 Gate* Avenue, BtooWyJt, ha* won a $1,000 scholarship awarded by the Trustees of Cooper Union lor attaining the highest average record of any student In the last ten years at Cooper Union. ,' � .�
Mr. Manson has Just. completed the four-year course in the Institute of Technology. He will do graduate research in aeronautics at the University of Michigan. Born in Palestine, n� came to the UJS. with his parents fifteen years ago.
homes of friends. Only one author roused their suspicion, "The works of Leasing �he was a damned Jew, wasn't net" (Apparently they confused the great Protestant preacher of humanity and poet-friend of Moses Mendelssohn,.with the Jewish Professor Theodor Leasing, murdered by Nazis in Prague a few years ago.)
But their attention was diverted by a small parcel hidden in a corner.:
"What the devil is thlsr one of the heroes harshly Inquired. /
"Well, Just a few poems," the mother, who never lost her presence of mind, replied. She spoke the truth, but --
With the thoroughness typical of Nazi zealots the brownshlrts examined the manuscripts, one after another, slouching at the table. It took them quite a while. It may have been the first time in their lives that they had dealt with poems, and they tore each into pieces after exercising their censorship. The women prayed that the fellows become bored with their unusual activity and give up their job--but the Nazis wanted to find some compromising "results" of their search, and they did. "Who's the swine who wrote thlsr' one of them shouted, holding up a manuscript. It was a poem on the death of Thomas G. Masaryk. the venerable first president of the Czechoslovak republic, fighter against anti-Semitism and all other atavisms of our time. The Nazis hated him like the devil.
"Oh, Just a young boy," the
IN CANADA It's
The Canadian Jewish Review
THHERE is no greater influence for constructive Jewish community * progress than the Jewish weekly newspaper printed in English and Intended for the home. :
The English-Jewish weekly enters.the home with faithful regularity, bringing news from abroad and from larger centres of Jewish population, as well as from the Immediate community. The youngsters see it from their earliest years and come to regard it as an institution in the same sound class as synagogue and school.
The Jewish community weekly newspaper printed in their language records their births and confirmations; their scholastic triumphs, their engagements and their marriages and those of their friends. When they go away to school or to make their homes elsewhere, their parents send them the English-Jewish newspaper so that they will have news from home even when they don't receive letters.
For, what happens abroad or in the States, important as it is in the targe view, takes second place to what happens within the family, the community or within some circle in it. News of the reader, his folks and friends, people he knew "when" and their children suddenly growing up over night, these are the real things that take first place in human interest.
So no medium is as well reod all over as the up-to-date, modem, welt-printed and conscientiously-edited English newspaper for the Jewish home. Its pass-along circulation is amazing for there must be on average of at least five readers to every copy of paid circulation, ft is in effect a small town paper in the heart of a big city.
This goes on week in, week out, year after year as the paper serves the individual and the cornrnunity and the community at large. For the English-Jewish weekly helps to integrate the Jews in the life of the country through the language of the land they live in and help to build up in loyalty and strength.
In Canada the paper that does this is the Canadian Jewish Review, the paper thof s at home in the Jewish homes of Toronto and Montreal.
CANADIAN JEWISH REVIEW
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British Wir Relief To Get Lodge Donation
The Independent Order of Brith Abraham voted to contribute a total �f 160,090 to the Jewish sec-Uon of the British War Relief Society, the United Jewish Appeal and the United Service Organization*. rf-
The avion waJ taken at the f if ty-fourm. annual convention at Atlantic City. More than 800 delegates from -twenty-seven State*, representing a membership of 70,-000 families, are attending the conclave. Grand Master Herman Hoffman of New York made a special appeal to the convention for the fund*.
Tribute was paid by delegates to Representative M. Michael Edel-stein of New York, who died suddenly in Washington recently,
"Congressman Edelstein gave his life for the cause of Jewry and America," Mr. Hoffman said. "We Jews have been unjustly accused by Nazi agent* and propagandists seeking to undermine the unity of our. country. However, the true Americans who really have this country at heart will not be fooled by subversive groups and Individuals as millions of others have been fooled by Hitlerism."
Resolutions were adopted urging labor and industry to submit their differences tP mediation and avert strikes; supporting President Roosevelt, and urging purchase of defense bonds and support for Britain.
An additional $5,000 checks was received by Dr. Israel Goldstein, president of the Jewish National Fund, toward land purchased - in the Holy Land.
mother answered. "He has left f pi-Palestine already." '
"German justice will punish him even in the Jews' land!" the other gangster boasted;1 and he took the manuscript with him when, after an hour, they left the scene of destruction.
In the morning at six o'clock, arriving with the earliest streetcar, the young doctor paid a stir-prise visit to her fiance, the actual writer of the poems. It was not �easy to persuade him to sacrifice the greatest part of his literary output in order to avoid a possible tragedy, for he regarded what he had written as part of himself. Eventually he gave way to her apprehensions, and they burned hich Might be ue*4 A poefs^and wa�
the witter himsetf was thrown into a concentration camp, a few weeks later.)
The great trial of the Jewish woman started all over Germany on November 10, Id38, the "pogrom day." It has been repeatedly toW how thousands of Jewish men of all ages were arrested in the streets, in their flats, or in the few offices and stores left to them: how they, were beaten furiously by the S. A. and S. S., and how moat of them were sent to concentration camps in crammed cattle-cars; how synagogues and Jewish property went into flames and Stretcher and his gang had their final triumph. But the heroic part the Jewish woman acted in this tragedy of Israel had never yet been
Although, as a rule, no women were arrested, most of them were driven out of their homes, even if they had children or were sick themselves. They had to take refuge with a friend 'or a neighbor, for hours, if not for days. In the meantime the mob had not been lazy. When the owners returned to their homes, they found most of their furniture destroyed, the glass broken, and all precious things and money stolen. In vari-
the nearest S. A. barracks And. under grave threats, ordered to reveal whether they had hidden any valuables at the homes of gentile friends; these they were told to deliver at Nazi quarters.
But above all the Jewish women of Vienna were deprived of their husbands, brothers, or sons� and those women were lucky indeed, who. after five or six weeks of ut-
their men. annrni~**g>g that they felt "perfectly weir in a prison or concentration camp. For months thousands of women stiH thronged the police stations and prisons of Vienna to fmd out whether their men were being kept were harshly driven away by impudent Nazi youth, or at told by some elderly . that he was very sorry but really could not help them. The -Spital der IsraettUschen Kultustememde" (Jewish Hospital) was filled wtth men who had been beaten almost to death�and the number of them who could never be heated was Jepresring Some women, after weeks of uncertainty, of hope and despair, received registered letters from some conceatrmdoa ****** ordering them to pay three Refcha-mark (one dollar) in advance, whereupon they would be aewt the remains of their husbands�an urn of ashes and a sack of dothea.
Even after March 1938, the Anschluss of Austria, one could see groups of pale, exhausted
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women thronging the large Gestapo building'on Morzlnplatz, formerly the Jewish-owned luxury hotel "Metropol." Here ex-chancellor Dr. Schuschnigg is said to be kept prisoner still. At one entrance were standing the "Aryan" supplicants, pleading for the release of their husbands, brothers, and so on charged with Communism, Monarchism, Freemasonry, or what not, or for their Jewish husbands; they purposely wore Swastika badges and gave 'the Hitler salute. These were allowed to enter the building before their Jewish fellow-sufferers.
This latter group waa much bigger, often numbering hundreds, and with their dark clothes giving the place the sad appearance of a funeral parlor. (Unfortunately It often was a funeral of .destroyed hopes, of ruined lives.) Already at five in the morning the place was crowded with women, especially after the mass-arrests in May and they wanted to be
stroked alone the Ing streets for hours in the earfy morning, to rush to the gates when the Palace of Evil opened.
The majority of the Gestapo officers were hard brutes who purposely added to the pain of their female victims. They heaped curses and threats upon the supplicants, called them liars and 1m-poeters, and sneered at them or rebuked them harshly if they lost their self-control and began to weep, in face of the hopelessness of their situation. They were sent away by those sadists often with* out the shadow of a reason; but the tormentors could not get rid of their victims-4he women returned and stubbornly fought for the release of their beloved ones until the end. It happened, however, that one or another of those heroines was also imprisoned, too. when she dared top much for the sake of the captive.
(Continued Next Week)
Aliens are prevented from participating in 14 professions and occupation* in a measure adopted by the Illinois State Senate and sent to GOT. Dwifht Green for signature. The house had previously liasurt the bill which prevents even refugee professionals who have applied for first cttteoa' papers m the United States from being eligible to receive Hnnasi for tice. Vigorously opposing the ore. Senator A, L. warned the Senate *the democratic system in LteoohVs state is endangered because that's the way they started m Germany. LegisUt-
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