AJR nformation Volume LIV No. 6 June 1999 £-3 (to non-members)
The Jewish Reflections on Hitler's legacy of 'inevitable racial strife' grandmother ime was when Hundred-and-ten - and Tpossession of a Jewish grandmother was a still going strong guilty secret; its divulgence ended n what would have been Hitler's 110th But, in the words of the old adage 'there is no the career of, for birthday two crazed teenage American Neo- gain without pain'. The very Kosovo Albanians instance, the ONazis acteci out an apocalyptic fantasy and NATO is trying to protect from the racist Serbs are, Stahlhelm leader massacred over a dozen of their school mates. by seeking admission to Western countries of Diisterberg. Around the same time nailbombs went off in two refuge, helping homegrown hate-mongers to fan the Nowadays mixed race areas of London, and ethnic cleansing flames of racial conflict. The Balkans currently resem possessing one proceeded on a huge scale iri Kosovo. ble a hospital patient who after a necessary (or two) Jewish As the twentieth century draws to a close it seems operation feels worse than before, while actually - grandparent(s) that Hitler's belief in racial struggle as a cast iron and imperceptibly - setting out on the road to re bestows a certain law of (human) nature has triumphed both over covery. cachet. This Marx's view of class conflict as the motor of histoiy The notion of the inevitability of racial conflict applies to and over the liberal vision of technological progress reduces men to the level of instinct-driven creatures politicians both leading to ever more harmonious co-existence. obeying the laws of the jungle. Paradoxically, post liere (Jack Straw, However, we must guard against succumbing to 1945 Yugoslavia itself pointed in the opposite direc Peter Mandelson) fin-de-siecle pessimism. It is true that the collapse of tion: though the Serbs formed the majority, the and in the States the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War failed country was led by the part-Croat, part-Slovene (Madeleine to usher in the conflict-free golden age conjured up Marshal Tito. Tito's dominance, admittedly, resulted Albright, Defence in the phrase 'the end of history'. Even so, one from an extraordinary concatenation of wartime Secretary William doesn't have to be Dr Pangloss to see our current circumstances. However, in recent years both Cohen.) Better travails as the painful birth pangs of a new world Argentina and Peru have freely elected foreigners known still are order. hailing from other continents as their heads of state. such showbiz The notion of an overarching law of humanity (The Lebanese Carlos Menem is President of Argen legends as Jackie enforceable across the boundaries of sovereign tina, and the Japanese Dr Fujimoro of Peru.) Collins, the late states - a notion that underpins NATO action in If South Americans can break free of xenophobia Peter Sellers Kosovo - could well become a cornerstone of inter the same ought eventually be possible in Europe, (descended from the bare-knuckle state relations in the Third Millennium. even in the Balkans! D fighter Mendoza) and Gwyneth Paltrow who hails ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING from Russian of the rabbinical stock. Now a four-star ASSOCIATION OF JEWISH REFUGEES general has joined will be held at the Paul Balint AJR Day Centre, 15 Cleve Road, NW6 3RL at 3pm on the club: Nato commander SUNDAY 20th JUNE 1999 Wesley Clark, too, AGENDA: has discovered a Annual Report for 1998 • Hon.Treasurer's Report • Discussion • Election of Committee of Management Russian-Jewish grandmother. One Guest Speaker: Hella Pick, distinguished journalist and author, speaks on Wonders if this 'Austria -Time for the Truth?' •will impress the Enquiries: I Hampstead Gate, I a Frognal, London NW3 6AL Tel: 0171-431 6161 Serbs n AJR INFORMATION JUNE 1999
Profilees NEY/TONS Leading Hampstead Solicitors 22 Fitzjohns Avenue, London NW3 SNB ^ All English legal work undertaken and German, Swiss & Austrian claims 'k German spoken * Home visits arranged ^^^^^^^^^PB^^^^^p^^V^^^^^Ko.^H^MM^^^v^^^^L jt «H ^^Bv^^^^^^^^^^l ^ Associated offices in Hamburg, V Los Angeles.Tel Aviv, Sydney, r Zurich Tel: 0171 435 5351 Fax: 0171 435 8881 ^Li^niH ^>i«i;. >^ PARTNER ^lt»..^k^^ 'jSfc^^iSt^/--;*^.^ ••••••^^^^^^KN•V^«'>^'^^•^•''J.~~''•'-^ -' <^v- ~' • • • .•••TM3B'-*-V^jKBM in long established English Solicitors (bi-lingual German) would be happy to assist clients with English, German The Bradford Boys-60'^Anniversary of the Kindertransports and Austrian problems. Contact Henry Ebner his month over a thousand former An even more impressive manifestation Myers Ebner & Deaner Kindertransportees will gather in of a lifelong sense of kinship was their 103 Shepherds Bush Road London to commemorate the six 'half century' reunion in March 1989, ac T London W6 7LP tieth anniversary of their arrival in Britain. companied by the production of an To coincide with this memorable group anniversary brochure. Included in the Telephone 0171 602 4631 celebration, we are making one sub brochure are the post-Bradford life sto ALL LEGAL WORK group of Kinder - rather than the ries of seventeen former hostel residents. UNDERTAKEN customary individual - the subject of the These make fascinating reading. What June profile. they also reveal is an amazing diversity of Our profilees are the Bradford Boys, occupations, ranging from textile manu i.e. the residents of the Bradford Jewish facturer to kibbutz secretary, and from Refugee Hostel. This institution owed its food importer to lollipop-man. AUSTRIAN and GERMAN inception - within three months(!) of That was ten years ago. In the interim Kristallnacht - to the admirable initiative some ex-Bradfordians have kept meeting PENSIONS and generosity of the Bradford Jewish intermittently. A most popular participant community, who leased a building and at their get-togethers has been the daugh PROPERTY RESTITUTION engaged a refugee couple to act as war ter of the above-mentioned hostel den and cook. The hostel accommodated warden and cook, who, a lifetime ago, CLAIMS over two dozen boys who on leaving acted in loco parentis to two dozen lads EAST GERMANY- BERLIN school went into local employment - tex without parents. D RG tiles, engineering - but not for very long; On instructions our office will on reaching 18 most joined up. (One re assist to deal with your ceived the Distinguished Flying Medal, applications and pursue the one died on RAF duty and one served in Jewish renewal in Hungary matter with the authorities. Burma, etc.) Last year Rabbi Baruch Oberlander of the For further information and After the war their paths diverged Lubavich Jewish Educational Centre widely. Some went abroad - to Israel, the inaugurated a religious seminary, called appointment please USA, Italy and Ireland - and of those the Pest Yeshiva. This year he initiated contact: who stayed in the UK only a handful re the publication of a Pesach Haggadah in ICS CLAIMS mained in Yorkshire. But although they Hebrew and Hungarian, the first to 146-154 Kilburn High Road were widely scattered, they retained a appear in 60 years. London NW6 4JD feeling of almost family identity. This Jewish communal life has been rebuilt came out very clearly in a documentary in Budapest but in countless towns and Tel: 0171-328 7251 (Ext. 107) Yorkshire TV made about them several villages of provincial Hungary there will Fax:0171-624 5002 years ago. never be another synagogue service D AJR INFORMATION JUNE 1999
simple formula 'Croat equals Ustashe, much better than the Serbs treat Albani Ethical cleansers Bosnian equals Mttjahediin and Albanian ans. There is considerable substance in rom the moment NATO went into equals Shiptar.' (The Ustashe were the that charge - but even an ethical foreign action against Serbia the British murderous Croat Nazis in power during policy must take account of hard facts. F media resounded with opposition the war, when a significant number of In the hypothetical situation where the Voices. John Pilger instantly gave vent to Croats fought under their compatriot Tito. West could force Turkey to grant its his conditioned anti-American reflex. The Mujahediin are Islamicist fanatics, Kurds independence, it would trigger a '^dependent's Robert Fisk switched from whereas most Bosnian Muslims are secu regional 'earthquake' - with the Kurds in ^cute empathy with Muslim suffering lar-minded - and Shiptar is the Iraq, Iran and Syria all seceding from Under Israeli occupation to rhetorical Serbo-Croat equivalent of kaffir or wog). these countries. Empathy with Muslim suffering in Other critics of action against Serbia Finally, while Belgrade wants to rid it Kosovo. He practically - and perversely - have charged NATO with selective' hu- self of the Albanians by a mixture of equated the accidental NATO attack on a manitarianism. "Why had the Alliance, massacre and expulsion Ankara wants to refugee convoy with Serb atrocities they ask, not intervened in East Timor, 'Turkify' the Kurds. (The Kurdish-born Against Albanians. He furthermore wrote Rwanda or Kurdistan? This is tantamount Turgu Ozal was actually Prime Minister of ^bout the NATO bombing of Radio to saying if you don't stop all crimes you Turkey several years ago). Depriving a Belgrade: When you bomb people must not, for the sake of consistency, minority of its identity is, of course, re •because you don't like what they say you stop any! (Actually the very term North pellent, but not as repellent as slaughter change the rules of war.' Atlantic Treaty limits the organisation's and wholesale expulsion. It is the differ Now, what Radio Belgrade had been range to North America and Europe). ence, in Jewish terms, between 1492 and saying about Serbia's neighbours for the An additional criticism of NATO is that 1942. 'ast ten years can be boiled down to the it includes Turkey, which treats Kurds not D Richard Grunberger
though an Arab-Israeli candidate for nities were expected to act as uncritical Israel at the crossroads Prime Minister was seen by Prof Newman paymasters had passed. n analysis of the concept of Post- as significant. Other sections of society Though much would depend on how Zionism' and its implications for which also did not identify with Zionism Israel's diverse citizen population would A the changed Israel of today - not included the Ultra-Orthodox, who re view the state over the next 10-15 years, •^^t of 40 years ago - was put by jected the secular state, and immigrants it remained unthinkable that Israel would '^'"ofessor David Newman of Ben-Gurion from Russia who, though loyal citizens, not continue to commemorate the Holo riiversity in a lecture given to Jewish had not grown up with Zionism. A mi caust in perpetuity. Policy Research. grant worker population of anything n Ronald Channing The Jewish State's first half-century, between 250-400,000, from countries as °niinated by wars of sur\'ival and nego- diverse as the Philippines, Korea, Yugo lations for peace and security, had slavia and Romania, represented a new ^^rginalised other issues. Yet Israeli soci- phenomenon in Israel - small ethnic BETH SHALOM y Was now markedly different from that communities who were neither Zionists its formative years. Today's younger nor Jews! An aggregate estimate of these HOLCXAUST generation, for example, were far less in- groups' numbers suggested that Zionism '^'ar, travelling abroad, using mobile was irrelevant to some 35% of the popu MEMORIAL t'riones, computers and the Internet and lation. etching global television. The demo- Israel's single overwhelming unifying Rtwiews starving and penniless people? Mean thinking that today's Austrians need to be Brushed under the while the BBC suppressed news of the told. genocide for its home listeners, but not In the publisher's blurb we learn that carpet in its Overseas Service. This may have while the diary is invented, every inci Richard Breitman, OFFICIAL SECRETS, prompted some Jews to hide and thus es dent in it is true. The Penguin Press, £20.00. cape deportation. Belatedly, in 1944 This reviewer reads these recollections his book is subtitled "What the President Roosevelt and the Pope both with guilty embarrassment, as he remem bers how he and his family were largely Nazis planned and what the British protested to the German authorities and exempt from these trials and tribulations, and Americans knew". the deportation of Hungarian Jews was T stopped. and how undeservedly lucky he has been. What, then, did the rest of the world know? Once the war started, official com Much of the material the author The ultimate tragedy of assimilated munication between Britain and Germany presents, such as the evidence of Karski Austrian Jewry emerges from the picture on the front cover. An old lady holds a was cut off, but through the breaking of and 'Vrba, is already well-known. Never boy of about 8 in her lap, presumably a the secret Enigma codes British Intelli theless, it is here presented clearly and grandson. And in that picture of exem gence intercepted radio messages from sequentially so as to give a good over plary Jewish family life, the little boy is the German Order Police who were car view of the subject. Breitman implies that wearing Lederhosen. rying out mass shootings of Jews in something could have been done if more Eastern Europe. These dealt in euphe information had been allowed to get out. D Francis Steiner misms like "special duties". In a rare D Mardya Blend admission of intention when someone asked SS Leader Prutzmann where the Retain ists across Jews were to be "resettled", he replied: A child's martyrdom "In the next world." Nevertheless, there the pond were sufficient clues for the British Intel Peter Schubert, DAS KURZE LEBEN DES JAKOB ligence Services to become aware that DEUTSCH, KlosterneuburglWien, 1998, Mayer Es^er Delisle, MYTHS, MEMORY AND UES:The atrocities were being committed, certainly & Co., pp.60 'Discrete Charm'of the Fascist Dream in by September 1941. his little book has been written at Quebec, Robert Davies Pub. Churchill responded to these reports by the request of Dr Eisenberg, Chief he motto of the Province of condemning German atrocities, but with TRabbi of Vienna. (The surname of Quebec is Je me souviens" - "I out specifically mentioning the Jews. In the author may well be more than Tremember". In her book, Dr Esther October 1941 Gerhard: Riegner, a Ger coincidence; Professor Kurt Schubert, Delisle shows that Quebec's official man Jewish lawyer who had escaped to who during the war rescued the Hebrew memories are highly selective. Switzerland, sent a report to the World treasures and other Judaica of Vienna She focuses on the re-writing of Que Jewish Congress about killings in Eastern University, is the leading Austrian scholar bec's history of the 1940s and 1950s- Europe and this reached the Foreign Of in matters Jewish and principal authority Nationalist leaders were openly pro- fice in February 1942. on Jewish-Christian relations). Vichy, to the extent that the American The Americans who still had repre The booklet is the fictional diary of a Consul in Quebec City sent reports to sentatives in Berlin till December 1941 boy at school in Floridsdorf, a suburb of Washington expressing his concerns of a were in an even better position to obtain Vienna, written between the evening of pro-fascist base developing in the heart information. Aware of the false atrocity 11.03.38 when the German invasion of of North America. After the war, Que stories that had circulated in World War 1, Austria was announced over the radio, bec's nationalist elite tried to help Vichy it dismissed Riegner's report as "wild ru and the 25.09.39 when this Jewish boy collaborators settle in Quebec. Yet many mour". When the American Rabbi Wise decides he can no longer carry on writ years later, former members of a key na tried to pass on information from ing, and hands the diary to a Gentile tionalist group were surveyed on their Riegner, Undersecretary Sumner Welles school friend for safekeeping. Jakob is 12 "memories" of those days. The majority stated that he "needed further confirma when the story begins, he dies at 14. could not remember that their organisa tion". To anyone who can remember the time tion had been antisemitic or pro-Petain - As specific details of the Final Solution and place, every incident is gloomily fa still more proof of Dr Delisle's thesis. reached the Allies through a Polish Un miliar; from the shock of that Friday Not all French-Canadian leaders were derground leader, Jan Karski, and an evening, to the continually worsening fooled. Dr Delisle quotes a letter from escaped Auschwitz prisoner, Rudolf Vrba, conditions of every-day life, from forced Louis St Laurent, then Federal Minister of there could be no more doubts about removal from house and home, the hu Justice and later (1948 - 57) Prime Minis German genocide. miliations in public and at work (even ter of Canada. To one would-be Vichy The Allies were busy waging a desper where such opportunity still remained), "refugee" who asked only to be granted ate war and regarded anything else as a from the restrictions on employment and "British freedoms" in Canada, M. S' distraction; nor did they want to be consequent financial misery, there is Laurent replied caustically that the indi thought of as fighting to save Jews. And nothing new here. But the Chief Rabbi vidual had not been too concerned about anyway, who was to take in thousands of and Dr Schubert are certainly right in British freedoms during his time oi AJR INFORMATION JUNE 1999 influence in Vichy. civic rights only since the last quarter of if he wants to deny Jewish descent? Oh Most French-Canadians were also not the last century. They now constitute a yes, this supports the grandeur of the fooled by their "betters". The Regiment vibrant community, but antisemitic inci author's stunning title, but it does little de la Chaudiere landed in Normandy on dents have not been totally eliminated else for the novel. It makes one uneasy D-day. The Regiment de Maisonneuve and aliyah and intermarriage tend to re with the otherwise quite ingenious sub took heavy losses at Dieppe, while the duce the community's size. plots. 22"= Regiment Royale fought in Italy. The book is excellently written and Alfred rises ever upwards. He teaches In today's Quebec, World War II is presented. Its publication is to be warmly in public schools and eventually becomes Spoken of in ambivalent tones. Quebec welcomed because it strengthens our Headmaster of a top Church of England nationalists still describe Worid War II in hope that, in future, "antisemitism, racism boarding establishment, always playing terms of the grudge they hold against the and xenophobia will be recognised in the Christian card to outward near-per Canadian government for imposing con their very early stages and therefore over fection. But he makes enemies, especially scription on Quebec. Dr Delisle has come". one history master, Richard Eccles, who shown how past fascist sympathies have n David Maier craves the headship. But since this is not "een swept under the carpet by national enough to mirror the French Dreyfus ist separatists and even by their more case Rubens invents a sinister cabal of Pan-Canadian political opponents. Neo-Nazis. A pupil, George Tilbury, is n Joseph Aspler, Quebec Tried and found murdered, and Sir Alfred's enemies suc ceed in making him prime suspect. wanting The trial that follows is a travesty of Bernice Rubens, I, DREYFUS, Little Brown, 1999, justice; judge and jury allow a whole Herzl's launch pad £16.99. coterie of liars and perjurers to mislead hen you read this book, re them. Sir Alfred gets life and his knight ^e/ko Haumann,JUDEN IN BASEL UND member that what you have hood is withdrawn. "^GEBUNG, Zur Geschichte einer Minderheit, W before you is fiction with a While in jail he is persuaded by a ^c/iwobe Verlag, Basel. 1999, DM 24. capital F. There is practically no reality Jewish literary agent to write a true ver s the city which hosted not only behind it; without suspending disbelief sion of the case. Though the prospective the first Zionist Congress but also you won't enjoy it. And enjoy it you may, English publisher is a closet antisemite, Athe last before the establishment for the narrative is good and there is a nevertheless he smells a bestseller. This ^'' the State of Israel, Basel can justly lay happy ending after much unhappiness. work, aided by a prison governor who 'aim to a special relationship with the Everybody knows about the French- secretly believes in Alfred's innocence, Jewish people and its national Jewish staff captain who was falsely somewhat mitigates the horrors of incar ^spirations. But Switzerland's second city accused of spying for the Germans be ceration. In addition a Jewish woman ^s also been the scene of some of the fore World War One. He was disgraced, barrister splendidly nails the entire Nazi °rst antisemitic excesses perpetrated cruelly imprisoned on Devil's Island, and conspiracy. during the Middle Ages and in later finally rehabilitated. However, it is not fair to give away all "ears, as well as having shown a some- When you have done with spotting the twists and turns of the end game. /, hat ambivalent attitude to refugees from these similarities, you leave reality be Dreyfus is a page-turner despite the cave ''21 oppression desperately seeking hind. For Rubens' grand theme is that the ats previously mentioned. !,^fety and shelter in the 1930s and 40s. antisemitism which activated the lying DjohnRossall ^^se contrasting aspects of the city's charges against the French Jew is alive in nlennial history are now recalled and England - only it is hypocritically con Corded in exemplary fashion in a book cealed behind mannerly politeness. 50 YEARS AGO PiJblished by the Cantonal authorities in In order to make this main theme stand Co-,operatio n with the History Department up, Rubens contorts all possibility of real cfth e city's university. ism. The narration is clear enough: Alfred INTHE COMITY OF NATIONS •^tended primarily as a textbook for Dreyfus' family were deported to The admission of the State of Israel into the United ^ools, but clearlv of interest to readers Auschwitz, but he was saved. Eventually Nations has opened a new chapter in Jewish history of all ages and religious and national af- fostered in the English countryside, he and has, no doubt, enhanced the prestige of UNO. fil For it is the idea of justice and understanding once 'ations, this slim volume traces the was brought up as a Christian by a kindly "hi: born in Jerusalem, and for which Jews have been story of a minority" - the Jews of Basel village schoolmaster. fighting ever since, that is also the basis of that great ^ the surrounding region - from its be- Alfred gets to Oxford, making splendid international organisation. ginn: scholarly progress by having practically ing in the 13th century' to the present By admitting Israel into its fold, it has redressed ^y- Murdered in the 14th century, no idea of his Jewish descent, and by some of the iniquities inflicted on Jewry for the fined from residence within the city suppressing the vague unease which past centuries and acted in a spirit of fairness and alls for 400 years, returning at the be- sometimes enters his soul. humanity. Smning of the 19th cennjr>% the Jews of This is where we part with reality. Who D AjR Information, June 1949 ^' have found relative peace and full on earth would stick to the name Dreyfus AJR INFORMATION JUNE 1999 DOUBLE HEADED EAGLE Sir - Not all returnees to Austria were 'de-Judaised' Jews. The prominent writer Friedrich Torberg never denied his Jewish origins. He had a lifelong affinity with Judaism and stressed the cultural contribution made by the Jews WRONGABOUT ROMMEL career, but they did. His denunciations throughout Austrian history in such Sir - Your April editorial refers to 'Zyklon were despicable. works as Die Tante Jolesch und Ihre B canisters carried in the baggage of the I am not rushing into judgment on the Erben and Siiszkind von Trimberg. Afrika Korps'. If this statement is meant article because I rarely disagree with its By acting as German translator for to imply that Rommel was implicated in author, but in this case, I do. Of course, Ephraim Kishon, the Israeli satirist, Tor Nazi extermination policy against the it may have been a tongue-in-cheek berg showed his sympathy for the Jewish Jews then it is entirely out of place. essay. State. In his exchanges with Martin Buber, Regrettably the editorial does not print London Wl 2 Eric Sanders Torberg also displayed chassidic under the German document on the basis of standing in depth. which the allegation has been made. We The Vienna Jewish community may be' must remember that a very large quantity SHADES OF 1933? numerically small, but they seem to be of Zyklon B produced during the war Sir - I gather the recent discussion in moving in the right direction. Under the was used for fumigation purposes. Germany about Goldhagen's book has leadership of their dynamic new Presi generated something of an antisemitic As for Rommel, we do have evidence dent, Dr Ariel Muzicant, they not merely backlash. Is it coincidence, therefore, that that he disregarded a direct Hitler show solidarity, but full identity, with two separate groups of German friends order (Geheime Kommandosache, of the Israel. Muzicant's achievements include have recently dropped us without a word 9-6.1942) that captured "German political the reorganisation of the Maimonides Old after having on several occasions over refugees fighting with Free French units" Peoples' Home and the demolition of the the past 20 or 30 years stayed with us were to be shot without further ado Jewish renegade Peter Sichrovsky's frau and having eaten at our table? Shades of (printed in Hitler and the Final Solution'). dulent attempt to obtain the blessing of what happened to our parents back in I had a protracted correspondence with three leading Israeli rabbis for Jorg Haider. 1933? Rommel's Chief of Staff, Gen. Westphal, Chigwell, Essex FW Rosner who stated that this order was "burned Gt Bookham Robert Miller Friedrich Torberg was, alas, not as white as he is and disregarded". My enquiries at the his Leatherhead painted. He pursued a McCarthy-style vendetta torical section of the French Ministry of against his fellow-returnee Hilde Spiel because Defence, did not result in any evidence THE OFFICERS' PLOT AND she argued, on democratic grounds, that Brecht s of this Hitler order having been imple plays (with their Communist message) should be mented by the Afrika Korps. THE SHOAH performed in Austria. Ed. London NWl I Gerald Fleming Sir - Mr Meyer (May issue) fails to add Emeritus Reader, anything new to the speculations about a University of Sussex successful outcome of the plot. GREAT DANE The Shoah remains the fact. Sir - I enjoyed the review of Shakespeare By July 20th 1944 the Normandy front in Love - especially the suggested SPLENDOUR OFTHE GRASS had cracked. It was too late for those alternative title. Sir - Richard Grunberger (April issue) plotters who favoured coming to terms My gripe concerns the April editorial advises us to resist a rush of judgment with the West. They were in any case which refers to '...self-deluded Kifi§ concerning Elia Kazan. We are asked to holding on to their 1941 borders for a Canutes'. I am surprised that you have consider which is worse: "Five-pointed Greater Germany. The cause for the Rus allowed this, albeit not uncommon, Star or Crescent?" with reference to sian orientated faction became even more journalistic canard maligning an excellent Afghanistan, "European colonialism or hopeless after the collapse of Army king as a foolish blockhead who thought African independence?" with reference to Group Centre. What was on the table he could stem the tide. the Congo. Then, on the analogy of these was unconditional surrender - that was The Historia Anglorum of 1879 state* questions we are invited, it seems, not to another fact. (pl89) King Canute won a competition judge Elia Kazan harshly for having Mr Meyer comes closest to my view (I because a cunning artificer provided him informed on his colleagues to the think) implying that neither philo with a floating chair composed of waxed McCarthy tribunal in the 1950s. semitism as an inspiration to plot, nor wings, since he alone was able to hold Kazan justified his action by claiming antisemitism were barriers to be a plotter his ground against the incoming tide, that he perceived US Communists as and that both these were unimportant. before which his rivals had to flee.' Soviet agents and that he acted in the But what could have happened had the Welwyn Garden City Andy Mikkelset^ national interest. Charlie Chaplin and plot succeeded is pure speculation and as Sam Wanamaker Soviet agents? Kazan such is tangential to this discussion which may or may not have acted from patriotic was focused on the question "Did the THANKYOU BRITAIN FUND motives, although his saying so does not Shoah induce the officers to become Sir - I quite agree with Prof Gombrich mean it is true. His actions may or may plotters?" who said in 1963 (pace Victor Ross' letter not have been aimed to benefit his London N6 Hugh Fisher in the April issue) that the Fund was AJR INFORMATION JUNE 1999 •misconceived and that the refugees had P.S. I love AJR Information and read it already done quite enough to repay this from cover to cover on arrival - carry CMI SEARCH NOTICES countr>-. the good work! Klinger/Kiwi families. Any relations of In addition, I haven't forgotten being Poole KJ Land Julius Klinger, Czech national who lived classified as an enemy alien' and my in Dorset ternment on the Isle of Man. in Leipzig at the turn of the century, mar London SWl 5 Anne Pisker ried Auguste Kiwi, had two daughters, RICH MAN, POOR MAN Karolina (also known as Lini) and Sir - Mr Channing (see Viewpoint, May Irmgard (since deceased). Both sisters SORCERER AND APPRENTICE issue) seems to live in cloud-cuckoo came to London. Irmgard married a Ger Sir - Aggression by Nazi Germany against land. Redistribution of Wealth is not the man, name of Smurka, and spent the 'nter-war Austria is not a myth, allied answer to people's poverty. whole of the war in Berlin during which manufactured or otherwise. Irrespective Jesus said, "The poor you will always time their only child Gabrielle died and of what happened after the first few have with you." Some people would be they were divorced. Karolina came to hours of the Anschluss, the aggression "poor" even on £10,000 a week. These London and married in the 1950s. and persecution before then is are the shiftless, thriftless of low intelli Also any information about any rela Undeniable. gence who squander money on drink, tives of Auguste Kiwi, apart from the A nation of 66 million subverts and har- smoke and betting. I lived in the Bor families of Rudolph and Simon Kiwi. It is •^sses a 6-million neighbour continuously ough of Lewisham for over 36 years and believed there might be issue of Johanna tor over five years. During that time it I know how the "working class" lives: Levi and Ida Leiner. Auguste Kiwi was one 'oments armed rebellion, murders the spend, spend, spend and to hell with to of about 10 children of Salomon and Prime minister, kills off its tourist trade morrow! Rebecca Kiwi. (lOOO-.Vfark Speire), and. in March 1938, Some people have saved, scrimped and Please contact Newtons Solicitors, 22 threatens aerial bombardment in case of gone without, to have an old age free of Fitzjohns Avenue, London NW3 SNB.Tel: resistance. What would qualify as aggres money worries, and now they have to 0171 435 5351 Fax: 0171 435 8881. sion if these instances do not? subsidise the shiftless and thriftless. I re We were on holiday in Styria in July sent that. Liane Warren, nee Ehrlich, born 4 "34 when there was fierce fighting with London NW4 Annette Saville April 1929, Vienna, arrived England by ^^zi paramilitaries. The latter lured a Kindertransport 22 February 1939. Infor ^tisload of unarmed local volunteers into mation and whereabouts are being ^n ambush, killing over twenty of them. MANWITH A MISSION urgently sought by her niece Liane Seeing the shell of the coach riddled with Sir - In reply to Otto Deutsch (Letters, Frohlich, Kurhausstr. 9, 4283 Bad Zell, ullet holes and seeing on the inside April issue), I contend that anybody with Austria. Tel: 0043 7263 7566 Fax: 0043 'oodstains and (allegedly) spattered something to say should have the 7263 6365. ••ains, was not an experience a twelve opportunity. I feel that I have a mission. I y^ar old would forget. am the only sui'vivor of my Jewish school Ruth Alice Rosenfeld, born Frankfurt The curious thing is that if the plebi- in Prague: I have been through the mill, 1920 to Caecilia and Max Moses Rosen ^^'te stopped by Hitler had taken place, the great satanic mill of ghetto, Auschwitz feld. Arrived England August 1939 with e Austrian government wotild probably and slave labour (unrecompensed) and older sister and worked as domestics in have won it. my theme is that the murderers are still London where an RoK member may have ^ddington Francis Steiner among us, and doing well. met her 1939-41. Information required ^> AJ R Ueports Irene White steps down after 15 years special service beds. With such good company to keep their spirits high, both soon made a full recovery. It was quite a coincidence. UAC If you were at all inspired by this heart-warming story, you too may consider joining our band of AJR volunteers. Please call AJR's Volunteers Coordinator Amanda Clark on 0171 431 6161 for further information. NEWS FROM THE GROUPS East Midlands AJR n inaugural meeting held by former Jewish refugees from Nazi AEurope now living in Nottingham, Derby, Leicester and other East Midlands towns unanimously confirmed the for mation of a local branch of the AJR. In view of the large area covered by the group, it was decided to hold meetings some three or four times a year, possibly in different cities. Bob Norton, who has been the prime Irene White, centre, accepting a presentalioti from AJR Chief Kxeciitivc Michael Radbil. left, and \'oliintcers mover in tracking down the participants, Co-ordinator Amanda Clark, in recognition of IS years voluntary work producing AJR Injhrmalion on cassette tape for partially sighted members in all parts of the ivorld. was pleased to explain the advantages such a group brought. Indeed, though several present warmly greeted old or 15 years the organiser and mov friends, many new acquaintances were ing spirit behind the provision of a made. monthly edition of AJR Information A coincidence too far! F Myrna Glass from AJR's head office re on cassette tape for members who are JR member Mrs A. Gedye, who ported on the successes achieved by partially sighted, the indefatigable and came from Vienna and now lives similar 'outreach' groups already well es tireless Irene White has decided to place in the beautiful Georgian spa A tablished in other parts of the country. " the responsibility onto a younger pair of town of Bath, was introduced to one of the splendid tea laid on by my wife shoulders. our volunteer visitors, Nina Trott, in 1996. Gerry is anything to go by, understand At a tea party given at the Paul Balint From their very first regular weekly ably we are all looking forward to the AJR Day Centre, specially arranged for meeting they got on together like a group's next meeting. Irene's customers, she recalled that with house on fire, enjoying each other's D Bob Norton her excellent team of readers they contin company and stimulating conversation. ued to serve members all the way from Nina even introduced her own mother Pinner AJR Australia to Bournemouth, many becom who always goes for a long chat to Mrs At a recent tea and chat' meeting Ken ing real friends who included their own Gedye's whenever she is in Bath. Burns read us his Bavarian great- messages on the returned tapes. Last summer Nina injured her hand and • grandfather's account of a perilous boat AJR Chief Executive Michael Radbil ap ended up in the local hospital's accident journey from mosquito-infested Panama plauded Irene for her wonderful work as and emergency department. Imagine her to gold-rushed California in 1848. In May, one of the AJR's irreplaceable volunteers surprise when, while she was sitting on a Neemah Serota shared with us her and presented Irene with a silver photo bed waiting for treatment, she heard a memories of being a Land Army girl. She graph frame as a token of appreciation. nurse call out, "you can bring Mrs Gedye took on everything from milking cows to Rita Rcsenbaum has agreed to oversee for her examination now!". Nina could keeping pigs, all of which called fof the production and distribution of AJR In not believe her ears - she found Mrs sheer hard physical labour. At the same formation on tape, with Irene's help and Gedye sitting in a chair with a badly time as being received by high society ^t encouragment of course. Any requests for swollen hand. the ancestral home, she lived with the more information should be directed to Both patients had to spend a few days farm workers in primitive cottage^ Amanda Clark at head office. in hospital but, with similar injuries, were without gas, electricity or running water. URDC able to share the same ward and adjacent n Walter Weg 8 AJR INFORMATION JUNE 1999 Second Succe FAMILY AJR INrORMATION Optician TORRINGTON HOMES ANNOUNCEMENTS Mrs. Pringshejm, S.R.N. is available on tape Dr Howard Solomons BSc FBCO MATRON Births For Elderly, Retired and Convalescent If anyone would like to take (Licensed by Borough ot Barnel) Lazarus. We are all delighted to Dental Surgeon advantage of this service • Single and Double Rooms. annouce the birth of Oliver Dr H Alan Shields • H/C Basins and CH in all rooms. James Arney, on 17 April 1999 please contact & • Gardens, TV and reading rooms. to Robert and Maria, a grandson Annanda Clark • Nurse on duty 24 hours. Chiropodist • Long and short term, including for Helga and George, and a atAJROI7l-43l-6l6l Trevor Goldman SRC trial period if required. great-grand.son for the late Nelly Mon-Thur 9.30am - Spm From £300 per week Lazarus and the late Wera and by appointment at 0181-445 1171 Office hours Arnold Singer, who would have The Paul Balint AjR Day Centre 0181 -455 1335 other times so much loved to have been 15 Cleve Rood, West Hampstead, NW6 NORTH FINCHLEY able to see him. Please make appointments with Private collector wants Sylvia Matus.Tel: 0171 328 0208 Engagement paintings, drawings, prints by BELSIZE SQUARE Preston/Finestone. Both fami ERICH KAHN APARTIVIENTS lies are delighted to announce (Stuttgart 1904 - London 1980) LINK Psychotherapy Centre 24 BELSIZE SQUARE, NWS the engagement of Amanda, - a service for the ]ewisl^ Community Tel: 0171-794 4307 or Replies to youngest daughter of Barbara The Centre offers groups for the 2nd 0171-435 2557 Box Number 1251 and 3rd generation and psychotherapy, and the late Phillip Preston to counselling and consultation for indi MODERN SELF-CATERING HOLIDAY viduals, families and organisations. Fees Tony, youngest son of Ruth and ROOMS, RESIDENT HOUSEKEEPER Eric Finestone. Mazeltov to are negotiable. MODERATETERMS grandparents Sylvia Meleson LEO BAECK HOUSE Enquiries to 0181 349 0111 NEAR SWISS COTTAGE STATION and Frank Henderson. The Bishop's Avenue, London N2 OBQ Typewriters, etc. Deaths Residential Home Quality repairs & Clara Nehab House Austin. Luisa Lili (Josepha) ANNUAL OPEN servicing (Leo Baeck Housing Associaton Ltd.) Austin, formerly Bock, born DAY Sr BAZAAR 13-19 Leeside Crescent NWII Ticho in Policka, Czecho Carried out by All rooms with Shower W.C. and slovakia, and whose two Sunday 20 June 3-5pm experienced engineer H/C Basins en-suite Spacious Garden - Lounge & brothers, Rudi and Pepi died in Entry £3 incl. tea & cakes Collections arranged Free quotations & details from: Dining Room - Lift Auschwitz, passed away peace (Children free) Near Shops and PublicTransport fully at home aged 88. Survived Gordon Spencer, Tel: 0181 445 1839 24 Hour Care - Physiotherapy by her husband who lives in Long & short Term - Respite Care • London, and son, Peter Gideon Trial Periods Bock, born in Jerusalem, but Please join us Enquiries: Josephine Woolf SWITCH ON ELECTRICS Otto Schiff Housing Association now living in Oregon, USA. The Bishops Avenue N2 OBG Rewires and all household Phone:0181-209 0022 Landau. Siegbert (^Siggi) Landau, electrical work. born in Berlin, died on 24 PHONE PAUL: 0181-200 3518 March after a long illness. Sadly at AJR MEALS ON WHEELS missed by his brothers Manfred Balint House A wide variety of high quality kosher and Benno, si.stens-in-law Hanne, The Bishop's Avenue frozen food is available, ready made and ALTERATIONS delivered to your door via the AJR meals Sabine and Ester and nephews London N2 on wheels service. The food is cooked if* and nieces in England and OF ANY KIND TO LADIES' FASHIONS our own kitchens in Cleve Road, NW6, by Sunday I I July our experienced staff. Israel. I also design and make 3pm to Spm If you live in North or North West London Wilson. Lillian Wilson, nee Lola children's clothes and wish to take advantage of this service, Herzberg, died in Surrey after a Entrance £3 including tea West Hampstead area phone Susie Kaufman on 0171-328 0208 brief illness on 2 April 1999 0171-328 6571 for details and an assessment interview. aged 89 years. Deeply mourned by her daughter-in-law Rena, ADVERTISEMENT RATES sister Leah and family in America Societies i^JR GROUP CONTACTS and friends. Ex-Breslauers. Please contact Leeds HSFA: Heifiz Skyte FAMILY EVENTS Vera Bass 0181 349 3394. 0113 268 5739 First 15 words free of chiarge, £2.00 per 5 words thereafter. Beacon Reunion June 17. For West Midlands: Edgar Glaser CLASSIFIED (Birmingham) 0121 777 6537 CLASSIFIED, SEARCH information contact Erica Prean, NOTICES - £2.00 per five words. North: Werner Lachs Miscellaneous Services 12 Marlborough Road, Ryde, BOX NUMBERS - £3.00 extra. Manicure & Pedicure in the (Manchester) 0161 773 4091 Isle of Wight P033 lAA. 01983 DISPLAY ADVERTS comfort of your own home. 562747. East Midlands Bob Norton (Nottingham) 01159 212 494 per single column inch Telephone 0181 343 0976. Association of Jewish Ex- 65 mm (3 column page) £12.00 Pinner: Vera Gellman 48mm (4 column page) £10.00 Berliners. Please contact Peter (HA Postal District) 0181 866 4833 Day Centre Sinclair 0181 882 1638 for COPYDATE 5 weel 10 AJR INFORMATION JUNE 1999 Giller. In 1968 she took the role of Buhlschaft in a Salzburg Festival produc tion oi Jedermann. Another septuagenarian is Lotte Rysanek; though less known than her late sister Leonie, she has a loyal follow ne of the most exciting periods ing at the Vienna Volksoper, where she in modern art is brought into sang many Verdi and Puccini parts. O focus in an outstanding exhi Obituary. Boleslaw Barlog, the Berlin bition New Art for a New Era at the theatre director, has died, aged 93. A Barbican Art Gallen,'. In the years before much respected administrator he guided fhe First World War and in the following the Schiller and Schlosspark theatres dur 'Jecade there emerged in Russia a group ing the postwar period, assembling a •^f highly innovative artists whose galaxy of stars. His term of office ex 'nfluence was widespread. In 1919, tended over 27 years D following the Revolution, a new Museum of Artistic Culture was established in St ' etersburg to display their work. The Annely Juda Fine Art Present exhibition is the first showing 23 Dering Street (off New Bond Street) Outside Russia of work chosen from the Tel: 0171 -629 7578 Fax: 0171 -491 2139 former museum's collection, and includes Marc Chagall, The Red Jeu: 1915, at the Barbican CONTEMPORARY PAINTING "4 key paintings and 48 works on paper Art Galleiy AND SCULPTURE "^y the most important figures of the "Ussian avant-garde, notably Malevich, paintings by Graham Sutherland is at T^atlin, Kandinsky. Altman and Rod- the Crane Kalman Gallery, Brompton ^'henko. Among the works by Chagall are Road, SW3, until June 5. The Red Jew" and a portrait of his GERMAN and D Barry Fealdman father. A small display of icons and folk E]\GLISH BOOKS ^'^ is also included in the exhibition, as ^^11 as posters and ceramics to illustrate BOUGHT •^^ anists' invohement in the applied arts Antiquarian, secondhand and ^fter the Revolution. Until June 27. SB's Column modern books of quality Degas' Bronzes, the first exhibition of always wanted. ^"•onzes by Edgar Degas to be held in ritish and continental operetta We're long-standing advertisers ^ndon since 1976, is on view until June have co-existed throughout this here and leading buyers of books ^5 at Browse and Darby. 19 Cork Street, Bcentury, but in separate spheres. from AJR members. 1- Although Degas' paintings, pastels Gilbert and Sullivan have hardly ever Immediate response to your letter ^^id prints were widely exhibited and ad- graced the German stage, nor has Ivor or phone call. I f^d cluring his lifetime, little was Novello ever gained a foothold across the We pay good prices and lown about his sculptures until his Channel. Vice versa, Lortzing's charming come to collect. ^ath in 1917, when some 150 wax light operas are largely unknown here; Please contact: ^'J'ptures were found in his studio, 74 of last month Austrian TV screened film Robert Hornung MA(Oxon) hich were later cast in bronze. The ex- versions of Der Waffenscbmied, Der 2 Mount View, Ealing, 'bition comprises 25 bronzes, including Wildschiitz and Zar und Zimmermann London W5 IPR ^'^'^s, dancers and horses, revealing featuring prominent singers of the past. Telephone 0181-998 0546 De:8as ' sensitiveness and his rare ability Award. International opera star Birgit (Spm to 9pm is best) capture movement. Nilsson was made honorary member by "The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms, at the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra. Dur "^ Victoria and Albert Museum until July ing her outstanding career she notched ' illustrates the cultural heritage of the up over rwo hundred appearances at the ' "^hs in a spectacular exhibition of paint- State Opera. JACKMAN• 8s, jewels, textiles, metalwork. armour, Birthdays. German actress and inter f^riotographs and manuscripts. Stephen national film star Nadja Tiller, a SILVERMAN ^nroy's recent paintings, etchings and representative of the postwar generation, litl COMMERCIAL PROPERTY CONSULTANTS ^ographs, depicting the male figure, at celebrated her 70th birthday. During the th ^ Marlborough Gallery until June 4, fifties and sixties she was cast as the "lak,^ a striking impact. London's newest femme fatale opposite Jean Gabin, Jean ^ fair, art LONDON, brings together in- Marais and Pierre Brasseur. One of her Tiational art dealers in 20th century and few German films to reach Britain at the ^^filemporary art. June 16-20 at the Duke time was Rosen fiir den Staatsantvalt 26 Conduit Street, London WIR 9TA "i^ork's barracks, King's Road, SW3. Fi- wherein she co-starred with Martin Held, Telephone: 0171 409 0771 Fax: 0171 493 8017 ^y. a retrospective exhibition of 50 Paul Hartmann and her husband Walter II BBBIH AJR INFORMATION JUNE 1999 HOMECARE SERVICE HOUSE DOCTOR This new service is specifically for members needing care at home Blood Pressure but requiring some financial assistance. Applications will be assessed by the ne of the most frequent tests debilitating heart attacks or stroke in the Social Services team and a financial carried out by a patient's doctor future. contribution is expected from Ois a blood pressure check, For most patients diagnosed as suffer each recipient. though the reasons for this are often ing from hypertension the answer to For further information please apply to misunderstood. Few people with raised their problem will be in the form of the Social Services team on blood pressure experience any daily medication. It is important to 0171 431 6161 or by letter to symptoms at all. Only rarely will understand that no form of medication AJR Social Services, I Hampstead Gate, patients feel headache, weak or tired cures hypertension; it only controls the la Frognal,London NW3 6AL even if their blood pressure reaches a raised blood pressure whilst the tablets very high level. are being taken. As soon as they are stopped blood pressure will rise to its Though the medical term for high /r ^ blood pressure is hypertension' it has former level, so it is important to ensure Companions very little to do with feeling tense or that once the medication has begun it being under tension. Indeed, the most must be continued until a doctor ad of London tense and anxious person can have a vises its cessation. Although tablets for Incorporating Hattipstead Hotne Care normal blood pressure while the most hypertension do have some side effects \ these are less than they used to be and placid individual may have a blood pres A long established company there are many alternatives which can sure high enough to require treatment. providing care in your home be tried. Blood pressure is an extremely impor * Assistance with personal care tant health indicator as a high level is a Reducing your blood pressure, to •k General household duties significant factor in determining the risk gether with stopping smoking, are * Respite care of suffering from heart attack, angina, or among the few measures which increase * Medical appointment service stroke. Substantially lowering the blood your longevity. So, if you have not had pressure may return a patient's risk of your blood pressure checked within the OUR CARE IS YOUR CARE' severe cardiovascular disease to near last few years, you should make an ap 0171 483 0212/0213 normal. Thus, treatment of hypertension pointment to see your doctor or practice is not to make the patient feel any bet nurse at the surgery. ter, but to save them from developing D Dr Max Bayer SPRING Regretfully, the Doctor cannot enter into personal correspondence GROVE 214 Finchley Road London NW3 WELFARE BENEFITS London's Most Luxurious RETIREMENT HOME Questions & Answers on Council Tax * Entertainment-Activities * Stress Free Living My Council Tax bill is rising this A The rebates are handled by your * 24 Hour Staffing year. What help can I get? local council. Many councils * Excellent Cuisine You do not have to pay the full handle Council Tax rebates and * Full En-Suite Facilities bill. You may be entitled to a Housing Benefit together. Call for more information rebate known as Council Tax or a personal tour Q How do I get more information? Benefit (CTB), which is means A Contact your local council about a 0181-446 2117 tested, and if you live on your rebate when you receive your or 0171-794 4455 own you will get a 25% discount 1999 bill. They will send you a which is not means tested. form to complete. You can ask for Q Who can get a rebate (CTB)? help to complete the form from A Almost everyone who receives AJR, your local Citizens Advice Simon P. Rhodes M.Ch.S. Income Support can get a 100% Bureau or similar organisations. STATE REGISTERED CHIROPODIST rebate from their local council. If Surgeries at: Please note that if you are granted you are not on Income Support, 67 Kilburn High Road, NW6 (opp M&S) CTB you will have to complete a re Telephone 0171-624 1576 you can apply for partial rebate as newal form every year. You will have 3 Queens Close (off Green Lane) long as your income is low and to supply proof of all your income and Edgware, Middx HAS 7PU your savings are not over ii.16,000. savings when filling in the form. Telephone 0181-905 3264 Q How do I apply for rebate CCTB)? D Agi Alexander Visiting chiropody service available 12 AJR INFORMATION JUNE 1999 Pagliacci - is the flip side of the tragic will be a tank, comes magnificently true The life that dare not coin. Laughter is as present as sadness. for the wide-eyed child when his Allied But Life is Beautiful is not the only ex rescuers indeed arrive in a massive tank. speak its name ample of the cartooning of dreadful Satire and irony blended with poignancy had not been to Auschwitz before events. Art Spiegelman's Maus, subtitled do not make us believe that such things seeing Roberto Benigni's film Life is A Survivor's Tale, won the 1992 Pulitzer happened or, indeed, could ever happen I Beautiful. I had. howe\'er, visited both Prize and has been acclaimed as a "quiet in a place like Auschwitz. To condemn Dachau, and Terezin. the Nazi showcase triumph and a brutally moving work of the film for this reason is surely to miss transit camp, where art, music and drama art". It is the story of Vladek Spiegelman, the point. The innocence of the father, ^ere used to mask its hidden agenda. who survived Nazism, and his son, a car blindly bent on pretence, and the wide- In Auschwitz there is neither art nor toonist who tries to come to terms both eyed gullibility of the child, speak to us '••ony, only irredeemable anguish: no with his father and history itself. To tell of human purity, of spontaneous play, of "^ype, only hopelessness; no satire, only the parent's natural desire to protect his Sadism. Visitors to its museum pass child at the risk of his own life. So Squash-court sized rooms fronted with Benigni's theatrical language contrasts Slass and filled with human hair, greyed even more sharply with the subhuman "y an entirely unnatural ageing process, brutality of the Nazis. And ultimately the *hich some e\'il Rumpelstiltskin has wo- film gives us what we all desperately ^en into cloth. Standing out is the fodorn need from the Auschwitz experience: "axen plait, redolent of a Grimms fairy some sense of winning. tale, which I can still see gracing the This is not to deny that both Life is •^sad of a beautiful young Jewish girl, Beautiful and, perhaps to a lesser extent, ^ther windows show the victims' shoes, Maus, could offend some survivors. Their iiany of them childrens'; now equally memories of humiliation, loss and pain Sf^y. But like the plait, there is always remain so intense that they must be re One which you stare at, an unfaded, still- spected. Therefore anyone dealing with "^^d, strappy sandal - a hint of glamour, a the Holocaust risks being accused of be ^niff of capriciousness - or a child's having with bad taste. P'imsoU with bright laces. It is the same Personally I do not believe you can *'th the suitcases. They bear names we consider Life is Beautiful as anything ''^cognise. And the hairbrushes, the shav- other than an exercise in romantic surre "^8 brushes, the toothbrushes. alism. In a similar way, Leonard I^ut it is not just the blonde plait - that Bernstein's Voltaire-based musical, ^•yan colour on a Jewish head - which Candide, also charts the gruesome jour "^akes you pause. When you see ney of an "innocent" through the bloody "•Oachloads of visitors, schoolchildren, the almost untellable, Spiegelman mini Europe filled with every brutality known •'^Wish pilgrims even picnicking in the mises events by the act of transferral. 8''ounds, you do begin to wonder True characters become small animals; "lether some irony is not indeed present the Nazis are cats and their victim-Jews, "^ this Valley of the Shadow. Auschwitz, mice. The two densely packed volumes -^99, has become for many a horror My Father Bleeds History and And Here S'impsed at through a glass darkly. My Troubles Began, are particularly '^nd into this walks Roberto Benigni, in graphic because of their miniscule poign ^^ true tradition of the Italian buffo. This ancy. ^rbose, hyperactive hero cannot stop To paraphrase Abraham Heschel, nei 'king, cannot stop moving, cannot give ther the ineffable nor the unspeakable you tj^g silence you need to take in the can be approached face on. There has to Jl^^ssive tapestry of hell - the be a screen. Artists often use the personi ^'eronymous Bosch of 20th Century Eu- fication of innocence as this screen. In °Pe. And yet - in all this vastness of Benigni's case, both the child-like quali ^'' it is the smallness of Benigni that is ties of the father as well as the boy, So overwhelming. More than a human demonstrate the truth with terrible effect. \'ict 'm, Benigni is like a hamster on its And so Benigni, making fools of the Na to man, while he lives out his teacher's ^adwheel; round and round he goes, zis at Auschwitz, rushing to the philosophy that, however dreadful the ^•^able to stop. loudspeaker to declare his love to his experience, the result is always the best And thus he enthralls and enraptures Principessa, has everyone enthralled and of all possible worlds. ^ young son. He cannot stop making captivated, even though everyone knows And so, like Benigni and his son, like t^ laugh. Benignis buffo tradition goes none of these events could ever have oc Candide and his teacher, Pangloss, it is "^k to the Middle Ages when court curred. the innocent, optimistic, who will always owning was de rigueur in Europe. In The use of magical irony, for example shine through in the end. At least this is y- especially, the buffone - particularly his promise that the whole of Auschwitz the affirmation of our best artists. Oodied in operas like Rigoletto and is a game and the prize at the end of it n Gloria Tessler 13 AJR INFORMATION JUNE 1999 FORTHCOMING EVENTS -.fUNE 1999 Second generation's network Tue 1 Walter Benjamin's Johns Wood Liberal Sceptical Prayers: Dr Synagogue, London NW8, n the United Kingdom we somewhat Margarete Kohlenbach 7.30pm. Reservations with lagged behind our peers in other parts (Sussex), Sussex University, Diana Franklin, Sussex I of the world, especially in the United 5.15pm University Tel: 01273 678 States and Israel, in gathering together Sun 6 David Berglas - World of 771 or 1081 381 4721 and claiming a distinct identity for the Magic: Jewish Museum, Thur 24 Jewish Artists in Paris 'second generation' - the sons and daugh Camden Town, 2.30pm, £5 1900-1934: Julia Werner, JC ters of those who were persecuted in Sun 6 Zemel Choir: West London Art Critic. Sternberg Centre, Nazi Europe and who empathise with Synagogue, 7.30pm in aid of Spm, £3.50 their parents' experiences. In 1994 and JAM! Tel: 0181 458 2223 Sun 27 Nazi Looted Art: 1995 the Link Psychotherapy Centre org Tue 8 Franz Kafka: Prof Eduard Documentary film & anised two conferences at which, for the Goldstiicker (Prague & lectures. Birkbeck College, first time in the UK, issues were publicly Sussex), Sussex University, London, 1.30-5.30pm. aired of interest and concern to members 5.15pm Booking Wiener Library of the second generation. One outcome Mon 7 Chagall & the School of Mon 28 Britain & the Coming of was the foundation of the magazine Paris: Sternberg Centre, War 1914: Dr T Otte. Club Voices, first published in 1996, advertising ongoing until 7 October (tel 43, Spm in which elicited support for a national to confirm opening times) Wed 30 Freud, Antisemitism & the organisation and led to the establishment Wed 9 Arab-Israeli Divide: Judith Birth of Psychoanalysis: of the Second Generation Network. Elkan, psychotherapist. Estelle Rolth. Sternberg The Network set out to increase aware Sternberg Centre, 8pm, £5. Centre, Spm, £5. Leo Baeck ness of individuals who, though well Leo Baeck College Tel: 0181 College Tel: 0181 349 4525 integrated into their respective communi 349 4525 July ties, had nevertheless been affected by Fri 11-13 Festival of Reform Thur 1 Lunchtime Recital: Anna their parents' experiences. Affected Judaism. Sternberg Centre Safonova, violin, & Alvin should not be read as 'damaged' as many Mon 14 The Euro, a Swiss Mosey, piano, play Grieg, Perspective: Prof Dr Ralph Szymanowski & Bloch. felt that they had gained in terms of com Anderegg (Cologne Sternberg Centre, 1.15pm, passion, understanding or creativity as a University). Club 43, 8pm £2 result of their rich heritage. Tue 15-17 RoK Reunion 1939-1999: Mon 5 'GemiitUches Network's members are predominantly University of London, WCl. Beisanunensein' with descendants of Jewish refugees and sur Information from Bertha music & refreshment: vivors, with a number of other interested Leverton or Bea Green Tel: Club 43, Spm parties. Voices, which has become the 0171 431 1821 Tue 6 Jewish Magic & Kabbalah: Network's newsletter while maintaining Tue 15 German-Jewish Studies: Judith Weill, Jewish its complete editorial independence, dis Prof Julius Carlebach Museum, Camden Town, seminates information and ideas and (Heidelberg &. Sussex), Spm, £4 provides a forum for discussion of educa Sussex University, 5.15pm tional, historical, psychological and Thur 17 Lunchtime Recital: Rachel ORGANISATION CONTACTS cultural issues. Turner, cello, Rachel Norton, Wiener Library, 4 Devonshire Street, Members receive reduced-price admis clarinet, & Michiela London Wl. 0171 636 7247 sion to organised events and can Connolly, piano, play Club '43, at Belsize Square participate in an informal monthly Brahms. Sternberg Centre, Synagogije . Hans Seelig 01442 254 360 Schmooze group in London free oi 1.15pm, ±2 RoK (Re union of Kindertransport) charge. In the last two years we have Sun 20 From Conflict to 1 Hampstead Gate, Frognal, London twice visited Beth Shalom Holocaust Me Conciliation: Link NW3 6AL. Tel: 0171 431 1821 morial Centre in Nottinghamshire and Psychotherapy Centre Jewish Museum, Camden Town, organised several theatre outings. Him Seminar 9am-5.30pm at 129/131 Albert Street, NWl 7NB. Tel: evenings and workshops. Though activi Yakar, 2 Egerton Gardens, 0171 284 1997, and at Sternberg Centre ties are still largely London-based, tn*^ NW4. Admission ±40 incl Sternberg Centre for Judaism/ Network's introduction of people in the kosher.veg lunch, tea etc. Jewish Museum, Finchley, 80 East provinces to one another hopefully w" from Phillippa Marx, 88 End Road, N3 2SY. Tel: 0181 346 2288/ lead to the formation of regional groups Olive Road NW2 6UP. Tel: 349 1143 and a truly national organisation. 0181 349 0111 Leo Baeck College, Sternberg Centre Anyone wishing to know mo*"^ Mon 21 Growing up in Nazi for Judaism, 80 East End Road, London about the Second Generation Netwofl' Berlin: Eugen Levine. Club N3 2SY. Tel: 0181 349 4525 please contact answerphone 0171 ^31 43, 8pm University of Sussex Centre for Tue 22 Lucas Memorial Lecture: German -Jewish Studies. Dav id 4106 or write to PO Box 14205, ^^' Henry Soussan (Sussex). St Groiser Tel/Fax: 01273 877 169 don NW3 6WZ. D Caroline Blank, Secretary 14 AJR INFORMATION JUNE 1999 Relating Jewish liistory present day. In most cases a description Obituary or a copy of the object or document will in Germany suffice, while in others the museum may arlier this year the Daniel Libeskind- wish to have it on loan. Harold Mayer designed building which will house Not everything in which the museum arold Mayer who died at the age E the new Jewish Museum in Berlin has an interest was made or written by of 84, had left Karlsruhe before (see March issue) was inaugurated to Jews. Of course it can be an album of Hthe war to come to London. In international acclaim. In October 2000 wedding or bar-mitzvah photographs, a 1948 he joined Griffin & George, a firm the museum plans to open with an mezzuzah or a painting, but it can also of instrument manufacturers, as exhibition on Jewish-German relations be a letter written in 1750 or 1941, a •tccountant. He became their managing 1848-1919 which will form the first part postcard, a newspaper clipping or the 'lirector some years later. Harold took an of its permanent displays. photograph of a conductor or politician, Active part in the development and Jews who left Germany after the Nazis' in short, anything showing the lives, both Concentration of Britain's Scientific rise to power are being invited to play a difficult and pleasant, of Jews among 'nstrument Industry and was largely key role in building the museum's col Germans. •"^sponsible for the establishment of the lection with their memorabilia - such as If there remains any doubt as to Prisons Group's Scientific Equipment photographs, documentary records, birth whether what is in your possession may division. certificates, deeds, religious objects, or may not be of importance to the mu As a member of the AJR's executive for even furniture and household furnish seum, please do not hesitate to ask them. many years he took an active interest in ings. The museum is also interested in They can be reached at: Jewish Museum ^he Old Age Homes, which were then ad- any object or document which illustrates Berlin, attn. Franziska Bark, Lindenstr. 9- t'^inistered in close collaboration with the the experiences of Jews in Germany 14, 10969 Beriin, Germany. AJR. He became chairman of the House from the earliest periods until the n Inka Bertz and Franziska Bark Committee of the home at Kew and a tew years later he joined the manage- "lent committee of the CBF Residential ^are and Housing Association, where he Served as Hon. Treasurer. Both AJR and the organisation of the Homes were for Holocaust centre Kindertransport tunate to have in Harold Mayer a person ^hose wide managerial experience and marks Yom Ha'Shoah first day cover ^ise council commanded respect and he Post Office is to mark the 60th hereby made a considerable contribution ommemoration Day for the Anniversary of the Kindertransport ^o the welfare of the residents. victims of the Holocaust was ob on May 4th with a special stamp Like his wife Anne, who predeceased served at Beth Shalom Holocaust T C issue accompanying a series of millen h'tn , he had a keen interest in music and Memorial Centre in Nottinghamshire nium first day covers devoted to workers ^ss proud of his grandchildren's musical hosted by its Director, Stephen Smith, in traditional British industries. Pi'ogress. and the Smith family for 200 invitees From Kristallnacht in November 1938 n Ludwig Spiro from all parts of the country. until the outbreak of war, nearly 10,000 Prof Karl Schleunes of the University of unaccompanied Jewish children from North Carolina-Greensboro, spoke on the Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia subject In the Shadow of Auschwitz, Con were allowed entry to Britain. Put on blue's notes troversies and Problems in Explaining the trains by their parents after heartrending adio raconteur and master of the Holocaust. farewells, in most cases never to see homily. Rabbi Lionel Blue, held a A uniquely distinguished panel of six them again, they arrived at Liverpool packed audience at the Harrow European academics and memorial cura K Street Station in London to be dispersed ^'sure Centre in the palm of his hands. tors demonstrated by their participation to reception centres. Or two hours non-stop this learned man the prestige in which Beth Shalom is now Those over l6 with German citizenship '^plained his philosophy of life, and the held. Each in turn indicated the nature of were classified as enemy aliens after the ontribution made by religion, illustrated their work and those it aimed to benefit. outbreak of war and many were either 'th the telling of a careful selection of - Among them were Dr Tom interned or deported to Australia on the ostly - Jewish jokes with a sprinkling of Freudenheim of Berlin's new Jewish infamous troopship, the Dunera. The ories from clergymen of other Museum and Annegret Ehmann of the children received vocational training and ^^nominations. Memorial House of the Wannsee Confer subsequently made very successful ca **abbi Blue covered a wide subject ence. reers both in Britain and in many other 'liter, from Nazi persecution and the The presentation of a sculpture was parts of the world, including Israel as Olocaust, to coping with success and made by the artist Mark Pope, and an ex founder-members of Kibbutz Lavi. tire, sickness and bereavement, inclu- hibition of vivid paintings depicting 8 a discussion of the tragic e\ents in wartime experiences by the late Stanislaw n Stanley Kacher sovo. His humanity and concern for Brunstein was placed on display by his The 60th Anniversary Reunion of the Kindertransport is ^rs shone through: this man's a real wife Esther. taking place in London from /5t/i June 1999. Fuller details "^""^sch. D Paul Samet n Ronald Channing are available fmm the RoK office, Tel: 0171 431 1821. 15 AJR INFORMATION JUNE 1999 ately bring this cornerstone of modern NEWSROUND Religious artifacts and Jewish histoiy into life. Works by Chagall Israel's election landslide Matisse and Utrillo impress. Frank Capra's Israel's Likud prime Minister Benyamin selective history in Paris powerful photographs of immigrants Netanyahu was swept from office by an he imposing and magnificently res arriving in Haifa in 1947 capture the anti cnerwhelming victory- for his Labour 'One tored Hotel de Saint-Aignan at 71 cipated uphill struggle in their adopted Israel' opponent Ehud Barak, a former TRue du Temple, close by the country. and much-decorated Chief of Staff. traditional Jewish quarter of the Marais, A number of Holocaust-related muse Netanyahu conceded defeat and resigned provides a splendid home for Paris' new ums have been established in Europe in from the leadership of his party within Museum of Art and History of Judaism. the last few years: Amsterdam's Anne half an hour of the polls' closure. President Chirac inaugurated the Museum Frank House (1986), Frankfurt (1988), Vi last December as the first French head of In absentia trial for Brunner enna (1994), London's Jewish Museum at state to acknowledge the role of Vichy in Alois Brunner, aide to Adolf Eichmann Finchley (1995), Beth Shalom, Notting persecuting and deporting France's during WWII, responsible for the depor hamshire (1996) and now Berlin's. Jewish population. While Mayor of Paris tation of Jews from Austria, Belgium, Separate Holocaust memorials or insti Greece and Slovakia and believed by tutes are planned for Berlin, Vienna, Nazi-hunter Serge Klarsfeld at the age of London (in the Imperial War Museum) 87 still to be living in Syria, is to be tried and in Manchester. Should the Holocaust in absentia in France for abducting chil be commemorated as part of an inte dren from Jewish orphanages. In 1943-44 grated history of the Jews, or should its he ran Drancy transit camp near Paris very magnitude and personal sense or from where Jews were .sent to Auschwitz. loss demand separate memorialisation? In Paris the Memorial to the Unknown Last war crimes trial? Jewish Martyr was inaugurated in 19^" In what could prove to be Germany's last at the Centre of Contemporary Jewish Nazi war crimes trial, 79-year-old Alfons Documentation. A Memorial to the Gotzfrid was charged with participating Deportation, a dramatic .sculpture stands in operation 'harvest festival' at Majdanek on the Pont de la Tournelle across the extermination camp in 1943 during which Seine from the He de St Louis - though some 50,000 Jews were murdered. Gotz from the bridge it appears virtually im' frid is a Ukrainian of German descent possible to identify. Even the monument who served in the Gestapo and was im Paris's neir \lii.\i'inii n/ ilw .1)7 tiiiil //i.sinry of on the He de la Cite to the memory oi prisoned for 11 years in a Soviet labour Judaism in the .Marai.s district near the Rue des 200,000 Deportees to the Camps makes Rosiers and the old Jewish quarter. camp. no mention of the Jews. 'Blitz' mennorial he supported the project to which the D Ronald ChanninS The Queen Mother, in her 99th year, city and the government each contributed unveiled a memorial in London's St Paul's half the ±20 million cost and will share its churchyard to the city's 30,000 civilian upkeep. victims of Germany's World War 11 Presenting an overview of Jewish bombing campaign. As the consort of history since the Middle Ages, and recog King George 'VI she experienced a direct nising that the majority of France's Jewish hit on Buckingham Palace in 1940. community are now of North African origin, the museum places equal weight BELSIZE SQUARE Latvian SS legion's march on both the Ashkenazi and Sephardi Five hundred wartime veterans of Latvia's SYNAGOGUE traditions with displays of exquisite silver Waffen SS marched through its capital rimonim, breast-plates and pointers, of 51 BELSIZE SQUARE, NW3 Riga to both support and opposition and centuries-old manuscripts and Penta- protests from Jewish groups representing teuchs, Hannukiot and Torah scrolls in We offer a traditional style of Holocaust survivors. Towards the war's fine cases. Disappointingly, it is neither a religious service with Cantor, end the Latvian Waffen SS legion parti history of the Jews in France, nor a Holo Choir and organ cipated in the mass murder of Russians caust museum memorialising the fate of and Latvia's remaining 70.000 Jews. 78,000 Jews who were deported during Further tJetaits can be obtained Possible insurance breakthrough Wodd War II, of whom only 2,000 from our synagogue secretary Negotiations in London between the survived to return. Their fate goes un World Jewish Congress and five of remarked here save for the names of Telephone 0171-794 3949 Europe's major insurance groups - those living in this chateau during the oc Generali of Italy, Allianz of Germany, cupation from May 1940 to August 1944, Minister: Rabbi Rodney J. Mariner Cantor: Rev Lawrence H. Fine AXA of France, and Zurich and Winter- prior to their own deportation. thur of Switzerland - produced an Original documents from the Dreyfus Regular services: Friday evenings at 6.45 pm. Saturday mornings at 10 am agreement that compensation for unpaid Affair - including the order banishing Religion school: Sundays at 10 am to 1 pm policies would be made at current values. him to Devil's Island and epoch-making Space donated by Patra Limited DRDC reportage by Theodore Herzl - immedi Published by the Association of Jewish Refugees in Great Britain. I Hampstead Gate. IA Frognal. London NW3 6AL Tel: 0171-431 6161 Fax:0171-431 8454 Printed in Great Britain by Freedman Brothers (Printers) Ltd. London NW I I 7QB. Tel: 0181 -458 3220 Fax: 0181 -455 6860