The Pitfalls of Politics
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AJ R Info rma tio n Volume LVNo. 7 fuly 2000 £3 (to non-members) Don't miss ... The race card The pitfalls of politics Richard Grunberger p3 long with Shakespeare, Parliament has been third of all Londoners cast their ballots, despite the Artists and I this country's greatest contribution to brouhaha surrounding 'Red Ken'. aryanisers civilisation. If government is a necessary evil - What lies behind this apathy? Could it be that the Nicholas Gotch A P4 a truism only anarchists will dissent from - then all man or woman in the street views politicians as Imaginary reasonable people must surely agree that democracy careerists only out for number one? It is certainly true victimhood constitutes the 'least bad' form of government. that for years now sleaze has hardly ever been out of Emma Klein pl4 There are however alternative models of democ the political news - but the same could be said of racy. Britain's mid-nineteenth century Chartists wanted sport which is followed by millions. annual parliaments, and in contemporary Switzerland Nor are politicians as a breed demonstrably corrupt. contentious issues are resolved by referendum rather The more one reads about such cultural icons as than the votes of elected representatives. More impor Graham Greene, Benjamin Britten and Picasso (or the Rees-Mogg is tantly, election to the House of Commons is by the rivalry between Olivier and Gielgud) the more one first-past-the-post method whereas many other legisla appreciates the sterling character of the last Tory and wrong! tures - from the Weimar Reichstag to the Knesset and the present Labour incumbent at Number 10 Downing heEU the Italian Parliament - represent(ed) a mirror image Street. boycott of of the electorate's political diversity. (The Knesset's Another simplification that must be resisted is the TAustria for unwieldiness stems from the continental provenance view that politicians like Tony Blair and William taking Haider's of Zionism, and the Weimar Constitution - dubbed Hague engage in bouts of shadow boxing while pow minions into 'the most democratic in the world' in 1919 - had been erful media machines, owned by the likes of Rupert government still devised by the Jew Hugo Preuss). Murdoch, influence 'hearts and minds'. draws flak from The If first-past-the-post discriminates against, and inhib In fact media - or any other - tycoons tend to Times Ex-editor its the growth of, smaller parties, proportional follow where politicians have led, and not the other Rees-Mogg argues representation allows them to proliferate. Such a pro way round. Murdoch has just appointed a pro-Labour that if Communists liferation necessitates the cobbling together of - editor to the Neivs of the World because he senses can hold ministerial inevitably unstable - government coalitions; it also that the Tories will lose the next election. (By the office in Paris, gives strategically placed groups, such as the Ortho same token Krupp started financing the Nazis in 1930 Hider admirers dox in the Knesset, a leverage disproportionate to when they showed themselves capable of garnering should do so in their strength in the country. millions of votes.) D Vienna. This A country which exhibits the argument is disadvantages of proportional fallacious because representation in even more it leaves Austria's acute form is Italy: the Italian re historic guilt as public has had fifty-eight(!) Hitler's cradle - governments since the war. Last and pace-setter of month some forward-looking poli antisemitism - out ticians tried to reform this system ^ of account. which makes the conduct of ^Given all this, it is government business resemble also disappointing driving a car with the handbrake that Lord on. Although a majority of Italians ^eidenfeld was who took part in the referendum one of the few voted for reform, nothing UK personalities changed because over half the prepared to meet population couldn't be bothered the Austrian Foreign to turn out to vote. ^tinister on her The Queen discussing the realities of life under Nazi oppression with Auschwitz recent London Voter apathy is one of the bug survivors Esther Brunstein, left, and Tauba Biber when opening the Holocaust Exhibition in London's Imperial IVar Museum. She is accompanied by IWM Visit) D bears of democracy. At the recent London mayoral election a mere chairman. Prof Robert O'Neill. (See report page 16). phoiorwM AJR INFORMATION JULY 2000 AJR Information Personnel Richard Grunberger Editor-in-Chief Ronald Channing Executive Editor Marion Koebner Reporter Andrea Goodmaker Departmental Secretary & Advertising Co-ordinator GloriaTessler Arts Correspondent Dr Anthony Grenville Historical Researcher Katia Gould Editorial Adviser Gerta Regensburger & Lionel Simmonds Erwin Brecher Proof Readers again, to fulfil his wish to fly. However by AJR Information, I Hampstead Gate, Third career at 79 this time he had met his Berlin-bom wife I a Frognal, London NW3 6AL orn in Budapest in 1914, Erwin to be, Ellen, who gave him a clear choice: Tel: 020 7431 6161 Brecher moved with his family to flying or marrying her. He wisely chose the Fax: 020 7431 8454 Vienna in 1919 where his father latter. e-mail: [email protected] B worked as an art dealer. His second Until the early 1960s, Erwin tried W* language - German - saw him through hand at import/export, in one case arrang' university education in Vienna, Prague and ing a deal with the Turkish Goverrune'^' Brno where he variously studied engi which led to the repayment to Britain by Jewish community neering, mathematics and physics. Being of Turkey of a huge debt which had remained Czech nationality, he was drafted into the unpaid since before World War I. For the Ombudsman Czech army in 1937 but left for Switzerland next twenty years or so, he earned his li^^ t is probably a little known fact that an in 1938 when Hider's troops marched into lihood in the financial world and was ^ Ombudsman is available to hear the Sudetenland. Not permitted to work in Lloyds underwriter until retiring in \9^^' I complaints arising from dealings with Switzerland, Erwin made his way to Although he continued with some financi^* any Jewish community services. The England in early 1939 and - assisted by the consultancy work, Erwin began to find ^ service is independent and can be used CBF - found refuge with a non-Jewish life of bridge, chess and holidaying "borin? free of charge. family and employment as a draughtsman. and at the age of 79, he began a new e3' Once a complaint is made, the Ombuds He was able to help his parents and two reer writing books on puzzles and scientii' man will attempt to arbitrate between the brothers, who had left Vierma for Paris after subjects, the first being published in \99^- person making the complaint and the the Anschluss, to come to England. He also He now has twenty-seven titles to h' community service complained about. He undertook further studies in London. credit (fifteen of which have been p^" will decide whether the complaint is His Czech passport had enabled Erwin to lished) including a stage play and a scfp justified and, if so, what the remedy should leave German-occupied Czechoslovakia being considered by a film producti" be, and can also recommend changes in and enter Britain (as a friendly alien) with company. On the stocks is a docu-draf^ the prcx:edure to avoid similar situations in relative ease; it was this fact which also telling the story of Nazi Germany's nuclei the future. Anyone using the services of saved his immediate family although his research programme, the fear of US scie^^ the Jewish Community Ombudsman is distant family were not so fortunate. tists that the Nazis would win the race expected to agree to be bound by his When war broke out, Erwin volunteered develop the atomic bomb and two r^ recommendations. for the RAF but, because of his technical events which changed the course of h* The official can be contacted by writing qualifications, was required to work in a tory. He undertakes his research at tP to: The Ombudsman, c/o The Board of 'reserved occupation' and joined De British Library, in government archives ^ Deputies of British Jews, Commonwealth Havilland to work on the Beaufighter air from the voluminous material on his he3^ House, 1-19 New Oxford Street, London craft design. He acquired a British passport oak bookshelves. WCIA INF. Tel: 020 7543 0105 U in 1943. After the war, he sought, once D Marion Koeb"^ (S(«afcs*»sfiiA™,KJt^,a*«^ £.- * AJR INFORMATION JULV 2000 —••"'-'^'•-" •-"^"•iri-^'"- f of ethnically biased quotas for immigration. The race card Racism finally reached its murderous apo ace came into prominence in the gee in Nazi Germany. After 1945, though NEWTONS mid-nineteenth century as a undermined by the Reich's collapse, it did Leading Hampstead Solicitors R pseudo-scientific - but hugely not disappear with it. emotion-charged - concept. Contrary to While antisemitism had little to feed on 22 Fitzjohn's Avenue, Popular belief, it had not always been in a p2iX\\y judenrein postwar Europe, anti- London NW3 SNB Uppermost in people's minds. In England Black racism persisted in the American an admittedly small number of Blacks had Deep South, and, most notoriously, in colo ^ All English legal work been integrated without any friction in Dr nial (or settier-dominated) Southern Africa. undertaken and German, Johnson's day. Things got worse in the However, from the 1960s onwards Africa Swiss & Austrian claims 1800s when, in response to the shook off both colonial and white settier •k German spoken abolitionists' campaign, slave trading ship rule. owners wliipped up anti-Black feelings.