MS-763: Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman Collection, 1930-2004. Series H: United Jewish Appeal, 1945-1995. Subseries 2: Correspondence, 1947-1982.

Box Folder 27 9

Yad Vashem. 1971-1972.

For more information on this collection, please see the finding aid on the American Jewish Archives website.

3101 Clifton Ave, Cincinnati, Ohio 45220 513.487.3000 AmericanJewishArchives.org 13 March 1972

Yad Vashem Jerusa lem Gentlemen: I happened to see in the 'Yad Vashem News (#3) on page 32 pictures of t wo buttons worn by students. No mention is made of t he f act that t hese buttons were produced and distributed by the UJA. Actually they were created by the Student Coordinating Committee for t he I srael Emergency Fund, and they were distributed very widely. i f my memory serves me, we produced almost 250,000. It is the ,educational and the ideological approach of t he UJA to begin with the Holocaust, as we attempt to teach contemporary Jewish history to each new generation of students and young leaders. To understand how I srael came to be born , it is necessary to under­ stand the physical and metaphysical meaning of t he Holocaust. Hence, it was quit e natural for t he UJA to produce and distribute buttons of this sort. I hope our Student Committee will eome up with a new and striking design each year. Sincerely yours,

HAF:SS Herbert A. Friedman Executive Vice- Chairman be to IB SHA

YAO VA~HEtvl .. MA"TYRS AND Hl!ftOl!S REMl!MBRANCI! AUTHORITY Sir/Madam,

In the course of your recent visit to Yad Vashem you had the opportunity to see only part of its many activities.

As you are doubtless aware, it is one of the basic functions of Yad Vashem to assemble and study all material relating to the Holocaustin ord•er that the martyrs and heroes of that period should not be forgotten and in order ithat future generations should learn the lessonts of that time.

This difficult and VE!ry responsible task can be properly fulfilled only if Yad Vasbem is given the required means.

We would appreciate any help that will enable us to further anid enlarge the scope of our research and co:mmemoration activities.

Your1s sincerely, B. Armon Information and Commemoration De]partment YAO VA~HEM ~ MA"TVRS AND HB"Ol!I ~ "EMl!Mll"ANC. AUTHO"IT-J•

Even before World War II end1ed, It had been felt necessary to set up an Institution to commemorate the Martyrs and Heroes. It was a concept that could fincj appropriate expression only In the sovereign Scte of Israel. On August 19, 1953 the Kn seth passed the Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Law - Yad Vashem, 5713- 1953, under which the Yad Vashem Reme11J1brance Authority was set up In Jerusalem. The Authority's fun~ions Include: - commemoration of the '1olocaust's victims, their com· munlties, or1anlutions and Institutions, and of the rebels and fighters who rose up ,~galnst the enemy In defence of the people's honour; - study and publication of the history of Holoaust and Resistance; - Introduction of general o servance of the Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day, the 27th of Nissan. The Yad Vashem compound was built on the Mount of Remembrance, near Mount ~ erzl In the western part of Jerusalem. There have been er'1] ed a Piiiar of Heroism In honour of the resistance fighters, a Hall f.f Remembrance, a museum and a syna1ogue, an exhibition and I r•ll of Names, and also a separate building to house the archives, e library and the admlnistralon offices.

COMMEMORATIVE TIVITIES

The Hall of Remembrance Is a rectangular building, Its walls of hewn basalt boulders. The celling looms above a sombre gray mosaic floor on which are Inscribed the names of the 21 largest concentration and death camps. Near the Eternal light, in shape resembllng a broken bronze cup. Is a vault In which martyrs' ashes have been placed. The Hall stands on an open expanse paved with concrete blocks. Here the Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day Assembly takes place every year on the 27th day of Nissan. Here also stands the Hall of Names, the exhlbltllon building, the mu~eum and the synagogue. Commemoration ceremonies ue held in the Hall of Remembrance almost dally. Survivors of destrioyed communities, schoolchildren and visitors from Israel and abr1~d participate. Personalltles from all over the world visiting Yad Vashem, are officially received lnthe Hall.

SYNAGOGU~!

The Synagogue was built to commemorate all those houses of worship and study that were destroyed during the Holocaust period In Europe. It is a model't building without decoration or adornment. Its hall Is long, with one wall built of rectangular hewn stone blocks, somewhat reminiscent of the Western Wall. The eastern wall ls plain, consvucted In grey concrete layers, In the centre of which stands the Holy Ark. The curtain on the Ark and the cloth covering the Jli1e, salvaged from synagogues In Europe are mute witnesses of the destruction. The typical house of worship and study of the small Jewish town is also com· memorated In this building. mbolized by the table and the benches, both common In East rn Europe.

EXHIBI ION

The permanent exhibition " ltness and Warning" provides a documentary record of the ~ olocaust period. One section Is devoted to Nazi anti-Semitism Its propaganda, and the methods by which the "final solution'' was carried out. The section, "Heroism and Resistance" relines the various forms of Jewish struggle, participation in the Allied forces, the resistance and rescue operations organized from Palestine by the Hagana (Jewish Defence Organization). Exhibitions of art from the Holocaust period or devoted to themes of Holocaust and Resistance ar1~ held In the Museum. The Memorial Wall, by Naph \~a ll Bezem, an expression of the Holocaust of the Jewish People1, Its struggle and Its revival In an lndependant state, concludes the exhibition. PILLAR OF HEROISM

A memorial pillar, simple and severe in form rises above the Mount of Remembrance seventy feet high; it can be clearly seen from the distance. Inscriptions recalling deeds of valour are carved Into the stones bordering th•1 path leading to the pillar.

THE HALL OF NAMES

One of the responsibilities with which Yad Vashem has been charged by law is the perpetuation In Israel of the memory of the Jews who died during the HolJ?caust or who fell in the Resls(Jnce. A form of questlonrialre with ~llographlcal details to make posslble the registration of the names of the Martyrs and Heroes has been prepared for completlor by surviving relatives or friends. Some 2.000.000 such "Pages of Testimony" have so far been recorded, and they are flied In the hall of Names (which Is a temporary structure). VisltoJrs to Yad Vaahem may fill in such "Pages of Testimony".

RIGHTEOUS ENTILES

The law has also charged Yad Vashem with the perpetuation of the memory of those non-Jewi1. who risked their lives in order to save Jews. The Commluee fo,r the recognition of these gentiles consists of public personali'tles and representatives of the survivors organizations. The Committee follows strict judicial procedure. hears testimony and examines documents. More than eight hundred men and womien from all parts of Europe have so far been accorded recognition as "Righteous Gentiles". When visiting Israel they are honoured by the planting of a tree in the "Garden of the Righteous" whlcth leads to the memorial buildings Others are presented with an iappropriate certificate and a Yad Vashem medal at ceremonies in the Israel Embassies in their countries of residence.

ADOPT'ION OF THE DESTRC>YED COMMUNITIES

Yad Vashem has encouraged schools to adopt communities destroyed In the Holocaust. Thie pupils study the history, way of life and the values of the community chosen. This method of perpetuation, which Includes the collection of material from survivors of the communities, c1,ncributes much towards creating a consciousness of the unity of Israel and the Diaspora and to the reallzation of the continuity of Jewish history.

RESEARCH AND DO ~UMEN TAT ION

One of the most important tasl s of Yad Vashem Is historical and scientific research Into the peri d of the Holocaust and Resistance and study of Its history, so t hat the lessons of this most terrible of human experiences may be lilarned. The research is conducted in various departments of Yad Vashem.

ARCHIVES

The Central Archives of the ~iolocaust and Jewish Resistance developed out of the underground archives, the flies of rescue activit ies of Jewish individual!( and organizations in the free countries, and the work of the Jewish Historical Committees thu were set up Immediately lfollowlng the llberatlon. The activities of the Archives are threefold: a) Systematic acquisi· tion from archives and instltui:es in both hemispheres. Where original documents cannot be acquired microfilm copies are obtained; b) Providing scientific information to research workers, Institutes, 'Landsmannschaften' 1 restitution and legal authorities In Israel and abroad; c) Catalogu Ing of the archive collections. The Archives also organize exhibitions where documents are accompanied by photographs, pictures, drawings and $lmllar objects Illustrating the Holocaust and the Resistance.

LIBRARY

The library contains more than 45·,000 volumes and large numbers of periodicals on the subjects of anti-Semitism, the general historical background of World War II, the Holocaust and the Resistance. Among the volumes are the most Important official German publications of the years 1933-45:, a large part of Nazi literature, collections of official Allied For·ces documents, records of the Nuremberg and other war criminal trials etc. The library maintains contact wl1th similar Institutions here and abroad, scientific Institutions a1nd universities. Schoolchildren, students, and researchers studying the Holocaust use the li brary's facilities.

T EACHING HOLOCAUST HISTORY

At the Initiative of Yad Vashem, the Ministry of Education and Culture has laid down basic priMlples for teachers and educators on the teaching of the period o·f the Holocaust. Schoolchildren and students take part in the c~1remony of kindling the Eternal light in the Hall of Remembranc·e. In cooperation with the Peda­ gogical Centre mobile exhibitions in various parts of the country are held. Seminars are held for teachers in cooperation with the Central Committee for Teachers Training. Yad Vashem personnel extend every aid to pupils preparing papers on the subject of the Holocaust. v RECORDINCi OF TESTIMONY

This department coll ects and records testimony by eye-witnesses of Nazi crimes and data on the C•lmmunal activities and the life of the Jewish people In all the count:rle.s of the Holocaust. Thousands of flies of testimony have been1 completed, containing tens of thousands of pages and thousands of photographs and documents. The material comes from wltne!>ses from twenty different coun­ tries, speaking flfteen different languages. Special attention is paid to testimony concerning the1fate of children. The department provides material for reparation claims by Institutions and Individuals. assists the Committee on "Righteous Gentiles" and aids students and publishers of memorial volumes.

INVESTIGA'TION OF NAZI CRIMES

This department has dealt with hundreds of cases of groups or Individuals who perpetrated crimes against the Jewish people In concentration and extermination camps and In the ghettoes of occupied Europe. It Is in continuous contact with the European courts of law trying Nazi criminals .

PUBLICA'TIONS

The• Department of Publlcatiom; has issued fou r classes of books: source books and research studi1es, diaries and memoirs, memorial volumes for communltlesi and anthologies for use on Remembrance Day. Almost silxty volumes have so far been published. The department also Issues a Yearbook of Studies on the Holocaust In both HebreVI• and English editions. The department's scientific staff Is engaged In the preparation of an Encyclopedia of Communities, describing 6,500 Jewish communities In Europe which ~vere destroyed. This monumental task ls being carried out un~ler the direction and with the financial assistance of the M•emorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, New York.

Yad Vashem, Har Hazlkaron {Mt)Unt of Remembrance), P.O .B. 8'4 Jerusalem.

Transport: Bus Nos. 12, 18, 2CI 27 to Mount Herzl. From there 800 metres on foot. A special bus reaching Yad Vashem Itself leaves at 9:00 a.m. and 10: I 5 a.1m. from the bus stop of line 12 on Yaffo Road near corner of Strauss Street. The Administration Building, the Archives, the Library and the Hall of Names are open from 8:00 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. (in summer from 8:00 a.m. to 2.:JO p.m.). On Fr idays and eve of holidays from 8:00 a.m. to I :0 10 p.m. The Exhibition and the Ha ll 1of Remembrance are open from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. On Fridays and eve of holidays from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. The ceremony of rekindling tthe Eternal Light In the Hall of Remembrance generally takes 1place at 11:00 a.m. YAO VASHEM NEWS CiW'

3 MARTYRS' AND HEROES' REMEMBRANCE (YADV ASHEM) LAW, 5713-1953 *

Memorial 1. There is hereby established in Jerusalem a Memorial Authority, Yad V ashem1, Authority Yad Vashem to commemorate ( 1) the six million memhets of the Jewish people who died a martyrs' death at tile hands of the Nazis and their collaborators ; ( 2) the Jewish families which were wiped out by the oppres.5ors ; (3) the communities, synagogues, movements and organizations, and the public, cultural, educational, religious and benevolent institutions, which were destroyed in a heinous attempt to erase the name and culture of Israel; ( 4) the fortitude of Jews who gave their lives for their people; (5) the heroism of Jewish servicemen, and of underground fighters in towns, villages and forests, who staked their lives in the battle against the Nazi oppressors and their collaborators ; ( 6) the heroic stand of the besieged and fighters of the ghettoes, who rose and lciru:Hed the flame of revolt to save me honour of their people ; (7) the sublime, persistent struggle of the masses of the House of Israel, on the threshold of destruction, for their hwnan dignity and Jewish culture; ( 8) the unceasing efforts of die besieged to reach Eretz Israel in spite of all obstacles, and the devotion and heroism Of their brothers who went fordi to rescue and IJiberate the survivors; (9) the high-minded Gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews. FunctiOn and The task of ad V ashem is to gather in to the homeland material regarding all powers of 2. Y Yad Vashem those members of the Jewish people who laid down their lives, who fought and rebelled against the Nazi enemy and his collaborators, and to perpetuate their memory and that of the communities, organiza.tions and institutions which were destroyed because they were Jewish; for this purpose, Yad Vashem shall be competent- (1) to establish memorial projects on its own initiative a.rid under its direction; ( 2) to collect, examine and. publish testimony of the disaster and the heroism it cailecl forth, and rto bring home its lesson to the people ; (3) firmly to establish in Israel and among the whole people the day appointed by the Knesset as the memorial day for the disaster and its heroism, and to promote a rustom of joint remembrance of the heroes and victims ; ( 4) to confer upon the members of the Jewish people who perished in the days c;f the Disaster and the Resistance rthe conunemorative citizenship of the State of Israel, as a token of their having been gathered to their people; (5) to approve and give guidance to projects concerned with perpetuating the memory of the victims and heroes of the Disaster, or to co-operate with such projects;

* Passed by the Knesset on the 8th Elul. 5713 (19th August. 1953) and publis.hed in Sef~ Ha-Chuk/cim No. 132 of the 17th Elul (28th August, 1953). p. 144; the Bill was publisiled in Hatza'ot Chok No. 161 of the 9th Nissan, 5713 (25th March, 1953). p. 170. 2 Yad Vashem = lasting memorial (h"terally; "a monument and a name"; see Isaiah LVI, 5) (Tr.). ( 6) to represent Israel on international projects aimed at perpetuating the memory of the victims ot the Nazis and of those who fell in the war against them ; (7) to do any other act required for carrying out its functions. Yad Vashem 3. Y ad V ashem is a c01p0rate body, entitled to enter into contracts, to ac.quire, a corporate body hold and dispose of property and to be a party to any legat ot" other proceeding. Gowming 4. The governing bodies of Y ad V ashem shall be a Comi.cii and an Executive. bodies of Yad Vash#:m Ru:dget af 5. The contribution of tbe Treasury towards the est:ab1is:bment and maintenance of Yad Vashem Y ad V ashem shall be fixed in the State Budget ; Y ad V ashem shall operate under its .owin budget, the revenue for which shall be derived from die said contribution an& from contributions by national and public institutioos and organizatioos, from its own projects and services, from payments by meni>ers, subscribers and supporters, from •legacies, aliocatioos and donations, and from such moneys and other resources as it may raise with the approvai of the Government. Statutes of 6. 'The member of the Government empowered by it to implement this; Law Ysd Vash#:m (hereinafter "the Minister") shall, with the approval of th.e Government, enact the statutes of Y ad Vashem, which shall come into force on the day of their publication in Ruhumot. Provisions of 7. The statutes shaU fay down- .statutes ( 1) die composition, mode of establishment and powers of tbe Council and. the procedure foe convooing it; (2} the composition, mode of establishment, powers and working methods of the Executive; (3} die methods and procedure for the swnmoning of conferences and con­ ventions; ( 4) <:QOditions for the receipt Qf commemorative citizenship, and the pcocedure for the grant thereof; (5) the means of commemorating the participation of Jewish soldiers and underground fighttts and. residents of the besieged ghettoes in the battles against the Nazi oppressor and' bis colhtborators; ( 6) the procedure of die preparation and approval of the budget, and pro­ visions for equipment and the administration of moneys; (7) sudi other provisions as the Minister may decide to be neassary foe the maintenam:e of Y ad V ashem as a memorial authority. RegulatiOns 8. The Minister may make regulations on any matter relating to the implementa­ tion of dii.s Law.

MOSHE SHARETI, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Acting Prime Ministc

BEN-ZION DINUR, Minister of Education and Culture

YITZCHAK BEN-ZVI, President of the State This issue of "Yad Vashem News" (No. 3) surveys the main activities of the Memorial Authority for the period June l970~June 1971.

"Message to the survivors" by Mr. Yigal Allon. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education and Culture, on ~YAO Lhe eve of Remembrance Day 1971, is. reproduced in Eng­ lish (translated by Dafna Allon) on p. 2, 3, 29, 30 • Dr. Jacob Robinson, foremost specialist on international law and the history of the Holocaust. surveys Problems in study and research of the Holocaust on p. 3, 4, 30, 31, 3~ VAS HEM • "Twenty-five years after the Nuremberg Trials" was the subject discussed at the Fifth Session of Yad Vashem Council (p. 5, 6, 7) • Reports on Remembrance Day Assemblies to be found on p. 8, 9, 10, 19 • A detailed NEWS report on Y ad V ashem Archives is given on p. 11 12. 13, 14, 15, 16 • Information on Research at Yad Vashem -on p. 17, 18 • Yad Vashem Library p. 18 • Public relations, activities in the Diaspora on p. 19, 20, 33, 34 • School children perpetuate the memory of Jewish communities (p. 21, 22) • Recent publications on the Holocaust are reviewed on p. 23, 24, 25, 26 • A visit to the Hall of Names, as described by Hans Habe in his recently published book "Like unto David in An­ cient Times" on p. 27, 28, 29 (translated from the German by Ari Avner) • The Righteous among the Nations, the story of Wladyslaw Kowalski p. 34, 35, 36 •

On the cover: a reproduction of the Memorial Wall of Holocaust and Heroism recently unveiled at Yad Vashem. A description of the bas-relief and its symbols is given on Yad Vashem, Jerusalem 1971 the back of the cover. MESSAGE TO THE SURVIVORS

Mr. Yigal Allon, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education and Culture, sent this letter of Greetings to the Organizations of Former Camp Inmates and Jewish Anti-Nazi Fighters, on the occasion of Remembrance Day, the 27th of Nissan, 5731.

Only a few days ago we celebrated the the past here and now, in our time We heard from the world no word Feast of Passover, our Feast of Free­ and for all time, means constantly and of wrath ... dom, only a few days ago we read in repeatedly cxan1ining those moral res­ When the axe cut us down the Haggada, "In every generation a traints for Jack of which the human day by day, night by night, man must see himself as if he had race could tomorrow slip and fall And the Christian Holy Father come forth out of Egypt." again into a new abyss of inhumanity. in the Holy Roman City And just as we are commanded to And more than that: the pyramids Went not out from his palace relate the story of the Exodus from of Auschwitz and Maidanek are evi­ with images of the Redeemer Egypt, so we are in duty bound to dence not only of the murderous deeds to spend one day amid the pogrom recall the Egypt of Europe and to see of the master race, the race of mur­ to spend one day, a single solitary ourselves as if we were in that Red derers, and of their accomplices among day, Sea sodden with our blood. other peoples, but also evidence of the in that place where year on year The pyramids of ashes and shoes, shameful silence of those who were lamb-like there stood Auschwitz-style, Maidanek-style, are a silent. Frightful though it may be, we a small, modern resurrection, a thousand times have to remember the truth: most of an unknown, more appalling and more terrible, of the world, the world that fought the a Jewish the pyramids of Pitom and Rameses. Nazis as well, stood by while our child. they are the shameful evidence of what blood was shed, stood aside- and And the poet ends his poem by calling a modern, developed civilization is was silent. And in this connection I on the God of our Fathers. who chose capable of, a civilization not based on have found no words that hit the our child from among all the children a foundation of moral and cultural va· mark more exactly than those of Na­ in the world to be killed before His lues, on humanism; evidence of what than Alterman, when he wrote: Throne of Glory: happens when men break the Tables When our children were weeping In Thy nostrils his smell is as the of the Law and disregard the supreme in the shadow of the gallows, smell of flowers. Commandment engraved thereon, Thou shalt not kill! Our tribute to the memory of the victims of the Holocaust is not only the dutiful need we owe to the mur­ dered and the fallen. the duty to keep at Jeast their undying remembrance alive in our memory. It is no less a debt we owe ourselves and the image that we make for ourselves for the fu. lure. No one who still cares for the idea of humanism dares forget what men did to their fellow-men. Those who call on us in the name of forgive­ ness to forgel what happened so short a while ago prepare men's hearts - wittingly or unwittingly - for a pos­ sible re-appearance of the Nazi plague in the not so distant future. From this point of view, all that happened in the brown Europe of the days of World Mr. Yigal Allon, accompanied by Mr. Gideon Hausner and Mr. Katriel Katz in Yad War Two is not just a chapter that is Vashem, looks at the Minutes of the secret Wannsee Conference, which gave official already part of history; remembering sanction for the total extermination of the Je~s of Europe.

2 ln Thy mantle Thou dost cnwrap him; New Problems in Study and Research Thou wilt claim him at the of the Holocaust hands of Lhc killers Statement by Dr. Jacob Robinson at the Meeting of !he Board of Trustees of !he Memorial and also at the hands of those Foundation for Jewish Culture (Geneva, July 8, 1971) who said no word. More than a quarter of a century has torians of W. W.11 to this problem. I Originally the Mediterranean Sea passed since the end of World War 11 shall confine myself to one example: was called the Last Sea. Our Land and of the Holocaust. In view of Lhe A study of comparative holocaustology lies on the shore of the Last Sea. No conliibution of the Claims Conference may throw light on the general "war wonder that we cleave to our Land as and later of the Memorial Foundation aims" of the Nazis. Thus, e.g. a com­ we do in the face of those who seek to sludy, research, and publications in parison of the alllti-Jewish policies in to uproot us, for we know full well this area, a survey of the present sta­ Belgium and in The Netherlands - that if our enemies were to succeed jn tus of these activities may be in order. the latter particularly radical both in carrying out their evil designs against Only Jillie by litlle are we able to the economic sphere and in the num­ us, then indeed this sea would be turn­ comprehend the magnitude of the Ho­ ber of deportees - may provide fur­ ed into the Last Sea, where the his­ locaust and formulate the problems in­ ther evidence for Nazi plans for total tory of the Jews would finally founder. volved in its study. The Holocaust is incorporation of The Netherlands into Our entire life in trus Land is deci­ a five-dimensional phenomenon. It is the Greater Gennan Reich (while no sive witness to the fact that we have an element- and an important one such plan was contemplated for Bel­ forgotten nothing and learnt a great - in the global, the European, and gium). de-al. We have learnt that we can de­ the national histories of the countries I shall return later to even more dis­ pend only on ourselves. We have learnt affected by Nazi domination. As an quieting signs of the phenomenon of that we must be strong, strong as well autonomous object of research four silence on the part of the international as m the right, in order that the world further dimensions are to be consider­ community of historians. should no longer pity us. We have ed: the Holocaust as a totality, the There is no dearth in attempts at learnt, all of us, what Ofer Feniger of Holocaust in each of the 39 specific cornprehensive histories of the Holo­ blessed memory learned : Feniger was regions of persecution and extermina­ caust on one hand and in accounts of born in Kibbutz Givat-Haim and he. tion, the Holocaust on the local level, personal experiences on the other. Not died fighting with the parachutists who the Holocaust on the individual level. so the regional and local histories. liberated Jerusalem. Here is part of Where does study and research mall Here I would like to mention - as a the letter he wrote while stil I under these dimensions stand now? The glo­ beginning - the monumental series the impression of a visit to the Mu­ bal and European relevance of the of Pinkos Hakehilot (Annals of the seum at the Kibbutz Lohamei Ha­ Holocaust history has hardly been ap­ Jewish Communities) in course of pub­ getaot (Kibbutz of the Ghetto Fighters) preciated, except for such journalistic lication by Yad Vashem. We have now - named in honour of Yitzhak Katz~ cliches as "the only real lasting pheno­ reports on the Holocaust in the region nelson, that great bard mourning for mena of W.W.II are Auschwitz and of the Regat, SoUJthern Transylvania, the murdered Jewish people: Hiroshima" or books on mass murder and Transnistria and of 286 Jewish "Amid all the horror and helpless­ or mass mania in history, whose pur­ settlements or camps in those areas. ness, I feel a tremendous force welling pose is to submerge the unique and Reports on Bavaria, Hungary, The up inside of me, the force to be strong; unprecedented nature of the Holocaust Netherlands and the Lodz District are strong enough for tears; strong and in a long catalogue of "mass murders" in the process of being prepared. sharp as a knife; silent and terrible; in recorded history. The European The descent from the comprehensive that's how I want to be! I want to and American historiography of the national, and regional history to the know that never agam will fathomless Nazi period of W.W.Il - with some local level is also a much needed trans­ eyes look at me from behind electric notable exceptions - failed miserably ition from abstractions to concrete sit­ fences! They won't have that look in this respect. A first, as yet incom­ uations. The nature of the Holocaust only if I'm strong. If we're all strong. plete, screening of the abundant multi­ prior to deportation to the death Strong, proud Jews! Never. never lingual literature indicates either com­ camps or destruction on the spot as a again to be Jed to the slaughter." plete Totschweigen or casual mention history of unheard of and continuous Anyone who wants to understand of some aspects of the Holocaust, as Jewish suffering comes to light in the aright the secret of our stand in this e.g., the destruction camps. local history and even more so m the country, the strength of this stand of At a mid-June Conference in Wash­ individual fates of victims to be. (Continued on page 29) ington, I called the attention of his- The institutions subsidized by the

3 Foundation concentrate large.ly on pro­ tbe Encyclopedia Judaica as a nucleus; are disturbing signs of a reversal of jects with a view to the next generation 2) A digest of documents (incl. those the accuser-defendant relationship be­ of researchers. The facts are that so far of Jewish origin too long neglected) tween us and the rest of the world dir­ the majority of the authors and re­ which came to light after Nuremberg; ectly affecting historical research and searchers were either persons who ex­ 3) A new edition of Guide to Jewish with implications of a general nature perienced (selbsterlebt) or witnessed History Under Nazi Impact (first edi­ for us and the world. it from close and far (miter/ebt). We tion l 960 sold out); This phenomenon is clearly discer­ have to reckon now with a new gen­ 4) Continuation of the monumental nible in that part of the world where eration born not earlier than, say, projects: the Pinkas Hakehilot, the practically all Jewish victims perished. 1935. This generation in the most popu­ Bibliographical Series with special ur­ This is also the area that supplied lous Jewish community is monolingual. gency for Polish, Russian. Czech, and some 75 percent of all the victims. I Hence the need for sources and biblio­ Italian literature and the published and have in mind the U.S.S.R. and Poland. graphy in English. Such a bibliography unpublished stories of personal expe­ For reasons never explained, the of 6,700 items is now in print. The riences in custody of various institutes Soviet Union took the view that the digest of some 4,200 Nuremberg docu­ and individuals. Jewish victims of the the Nazis were ments, still tJ1e most important source Let me now return to the disquieting ..Soviet citizens," not Jews. The logic of the history of the Holocaust, with phenomenon I mentioned earlier. of identifying a Jiving Jew as Jew in a chronological table and a compre­ Jewish historiography in the Dias­ his identity card (always to be carried) hensive index is now in the last stages pora was in no position to avoid - and the denial of this identity to a Jew of preparation. We took particular when unjustifiably attacked - apolo­ murdered qua J cw by the enemies of pain to indicate available English getics. Faced with a hostile environ­ the U.S.S.R. eludes Marxist explana­ translations of documents. The situa­ ment and with anti-Jewish moods and tion. Here is a striking illustration of tion in this respect is much better in writings. the Jewish historian could this policy. In the Auschwitz Museum Israel where in addition to knowledge not but engage in polemics with the dedicated to the memory of the vic­ of Hebrew (one of the four leading accusers. Let me say at the very start, tims of that camp there are some twen­ languages for the history of the Holo­ that apologetic historiography is as le­ ty pavilions of countries during the caust along with Yiddish. German, and gitimate as accusatory, provided that war occupied or dominated by the Polish) a working knowledge of Eng­ in both cases U1e facts stated are true Nazis, whose citizens perished there. lish i1; required in the Universities. In and judgments arc based on considera­ In fact, however, some 90 to 95 per­ Israel, the universities of Jerusalem tion of all facts, and not on a selec­ cent of the victims were Jews, the rest and Tel Aviv and the Bar-Ilan Univer­ tion in support of a pre-conceived were mostly Soviet prisoners of war, sity give regular courses on the Holo­ thesis, or in the negation, distortion, Gypsies, and Poles. Still, there are caust. It is in these institutions of or Totschweigen of the facts. pavilions for Czechoslovakia, Yugo­ higher learning where the monographic After the end of W.W.11 our his­ slavia, France, Belgium, The Nether­ treatment of areas and problems is on toriography of the Holocaust (and not lands, and so on. Presenting the vic­ the increase. Not so in the U.S.A. only ours) was based on the known tims who perished for their Jewishness where so far only Brandeis University, facts that produced - without any in this way is the greatest forgery in the State College of San Francisco and, serious opposition- the following gen­ modern history committed at a time more recently, the Yeshiva University eral picture: the Jews under Nazi when many survivors and Nazi docu­ in New York give courses on the domination were the victims and the ments could attest to the falsehood of Holocaust. Jews in the Free World were the help­ this trick. In due course some better With the assistance of the Founda­ less witnesses. As for the non-Jewish councils apparently prevailed and the tion a series entitled "Guide to Un­ world, the Nazis and their helpers Poles decided by way of compromise published Materials of the Holocaust were the murderers; the neighbors of to erect a Jewish pavilion with a statis­ Period" listing relevant Jewish collec­ the Jews were mostly indifferent, tical table of the numbers of Jewish tions of documents is being published though some were hostile and some victims from various countries. This by the Institute of Contemporary Jewry were helpful to the Jews; the Allies in table belied all the twenty pavilJions. of the Hebrew University. the anti-Nazi coalition were sympathe­ In the case of Babi-Yar (one of the It is my considerate opinion that tic to the victims but passive; the neu­ countless places of Jewish mass mur­ the following publications are to be trals' attitudes were largely dependent der in the U.S.S.R.), the symbol of the given special prioriy with a vew to the on the fortunes of the war - all more Catastrophe of Soviet Jewry, the grad­ next generation of researchers: or less in a defensive posture. ual reversal of roles in the accuser-de- 1) A short Encyclopedia of the Ho­ Now, twenty-six years after Ger­ locaust, possibly using the material in many's unconditional surrender there (Continued on page 30)

4 Twenty-Five Years after the Nuremberg Trials

In an Israel preoccupied with security mischief and wreak evil than an iso­ tacked and hijacked by terrorist problems, there was no public reaction lated individual. It was also established groups and there are people, especially to the twenty-fifth anniversary of the them that war criminals, murderers. young people, who have come forward opening of the Nuremberg internation­ those that trample on men's lives and to preach violence for its own sake. al trials of the leaders of the Third dignity, are judged not only in the his­ They are possessed by a demon of des­ Reich for the destruction into which tory books: an earthly court of law truction, ruination and violence. They they plunged humanity in the Second also has sat in judgement to try evil­ are sometimes guided and inspired by World War. Only Yad Vashem de­ doers like these. ideologists and governments. It would voted its Fifth Council meeting to the Many and glowing were the hopes seem that the Nuremberg doctrine has Nuremberg trials, where for the first that were raised at that time. Wounded been cast aside, that what was gained time in history political and military humanity, torn by the horrors of war, by international solidarity bas been leaders were brought to trial for crimes Nazi Germany's war, beJjeved that it lost, and that the sunrise of interna­ against humanity and for the extermi­ had found a new means of defence tional justice was but a false dawn. nation of peoples. The great Nurem­ with which to defend itself and secure Justice has been replaced by mutual berg trial created a precedent of im­ ils life - trial and judgement; that fear, born of the knowledge of bow mense importance in international law. the scales of justice would take a lead­ great is Lhe destructive force bidden The chairman of the Yad Vashem ing place beside the sword in the de­ in the storehouses of war, how great Council, Mr. Gideon Hausner, M.K.• fence of man, perhaps - that was our is man's capacity to harm his fellows gave the opening address: hope - in place of the sword. and himseJf. I gravely doubt whether the anniver­ Since then many tragic events have But it is for this very reason that on sary of the Nuremberg trials will be taken place that have deceived many the occasion of this twenty-fifth anni­ recalled in many places in the world. of our hopes. Wars have not ceased versary we should again re-affirm for There are many today who are in­ from olI the earth. Persecution and ourselves the fundamental principles, terested in forgetting it, blurring it, and denial of human rights have again be­ know them and make them knowlll, for pushing it out of sight. In the mean­ come common in different parts of the human memory is short and burdened time new events have piled up in the world, and lately there bas even been with what is happening here and now. world, and what is past and gone has a troubled tide of appalling violence. It soon forgets the past. So now there been pushed aside by so much new. People are kidnapped and murdered is already a desire to forget the horrors But it is Israel's duty to recall this by clandestine groups with the aid of of the terrible war in which mass mur­ occasion, for three reasons: foreign governments; aircraft arc al- der was committed on the conveyor Firstly, because the Jewish people was the main victim of the criminals who were brought to trial there; sec­ ondly, because the ideal of internation­ al justice and the enforcement of inter­ national law is an ancient Jewish con­ cept which we bequeathed to the world; and thirdly, because Israel is a State that believes in the supreme principles that were proclaimed twenty-five years ago. It was then that for the first time an attempt was made to establish cer­ tain minimum moral values as neces­ sary for the continued existence of human society; it was then established that what the private individual in any State is forbidden to do is also forbid­ Mr. Brand, bead o{ the Documentary Section for war Criminals at Yad Vashem, reporting den for the group of people who take on the triaJs of Nat.i war criminals that followed the Nuremberg trials. Presiding at the power in the State, because such a Conference ... from the left: Supreme Court Justice Moshe Landau, Mr. Katriel Katz, group of people has more power to do Mr. Gideon Hausner, Dr. Mark Dworzecki.

5 belt system, when the smoke of the all the same it lost. For those who establish anything that is just by sacri­ fires of the gas-chambers covered an wage war in order to oppress the world ficing another people. One must rise entire continent. And alongside this, and mankind cannot win no matter up against the perpetrators of evil as there is a continual process of falsi­ how strong they are. This is an ever­ soon as they appear on the stage of fying history, a process carried out on lasting decree. But-we ask - must history and put a stop to their doings. a wholesale scale at different places humanity really go through all the hor­ Otherwise- there is no end to their at one and the same time, with the rors of war in order to re-discover capacity to wreak evil, whether in the purpose of minimizing the number of this simple truth, which the Jewish general world arena or in the local those responsible for the darkest hor­ people proclaimed so many centuries arena. Evidence brought at Nurem­ rors, of whitewashing the guilty. ago; "When the wicked spring up as berg proved how weak the Nazis were It is necessary to focus the picture the grass, and when all the workers of when they took power, how easy it accordingly and to present Nuremberg iniquity do flourish; it is that they may would have been to block them at the anew in its right perspective, be destroyed for ever." Wickedness beginning when they set out, and how Faithful to the basic principles guid­ cannot last. It is destroyed for ever, hard it was to do so afterwards. ing the great event that took place at even as Nazism was thrown on the In every generation violence appears Nuremberg, let us recall what came to scrap-heap of history. in new forms that have to be fought light there and the gains secured there.. Nuremberg revealed how great is against. Today we are mobilized on Even though we are immersed at home the responsibility of every individual more than one such front and we are in the fight for our existence against person in organized society. It is his waging a struggle against "minor vio­ enemies that have risen against us to duly to go back over, examine, think lence" expressed in kidnapping people destroy us with the aid of a very Great and weigh up for himself what he is and means of transport and holding Power, a Power which was a party to being led into by his government. Be­ them hostages. This epidemic has the declaration of the Nuremberg prin­ cause in the last analysis, every indivi­ spread through l.atin America, Can­ ciples and has since repudiated them­ dual contributes something to the re­ ada, Europe and the Near East. An­ precisely in this situation that we are gime by virtue of his being able to or­ other struggle of ours is against vio­ in. we the people that was sacrificed­ ganize together with other individuals lence and aggression and threats of our perception has been heightened and slop the government from degen­ renewed war in o:rder to solve political and our faith deepened, we have not erating. conflicts. On this anniversary let us sec strnyed from these basic principles. Above all Nuremberg made it clear things as they arc and Jct us demand And if someone were to ask the how easy it would have been to stop some new and dramatic way of acting question: what have we learnt from the first mischievous, lawless moves to defend ourscl ves against violence all this, what does Nuremberg mean to of the government. and how high a and terror. Let us demand that a new the younger generation, has it be­ price the world paid for its delays, international committee be called to­ queathed us anything substantial? I hesitations and compromises with evil. gether like the one called in London in should answer that the main thing was States that stood aside when Hitler 1945 to declare the kidnapping of per­ that Nuremberg happened, that Nu­ began using terror, that kept up ucor­ sons and planes criminal acts in inter­ remberg was once made possible, that rect'' relations with him, that tried to national law, to proclaim that persons organized humanity once did reach come to terms with him and even to committing these crimes wm be ex­ a peak like this in enforcing interna­ ally themselves with him - they were tradicted to the countries against which tional Jaw. If it was made possible the victims that suffered most. Poland they acted to be judged with the full once, it can be made possible again tried to act this way in 1934; she was severity of the Jaw, that piracy will not and remain with us for good. It is a one of the first to hold out her band be tole.rated nor will countries be tol­ peak achievement that one can point to Germany and conclude a non-ag­ erated that give cover to the modern to and aspire towards and that can be gression pact with her. England and pirates who endanger organized man­ brought back in an improved form. France concluded the Munich Agree­ kind. There will be no international re­ That is the important thing. That ment in 1938, and the Soviet Union lations for such countries, there will will not be erased from the book of the pact of 1939. All of them tried to be no commerce with them and they history. Once there was Nuremberg. secure themselves against the evil that will receive no aid of any kind. What was revealed to the naked eye was loose, even if only for a short The world must return to the road at Nuremberg was the whole fact that spaee of time, each at someone else's lhat humanity began to take twenty­ the German Army not only fought expense. In the end all those hopes five years ago, it must sincerely look well and not only was great and pow­ were disappointed and all those States for the way to international coopera­ erful, but also that it did not shrink were submerged in rivers of blood. It tion. The American Prosecutor at Nu­ from using even satanic means - and was proved once more that one cannot remberg, Jackson, pointed to the ac-

6 177 accused were tried. Twelve of them were condemned to death, 15 to life imprisonment, and the rest to various periotis of imprisonment. The occupy­ ing authorities in the American Zone of Occupation also tried another 1,941 criminals. 1,517 of whom were found guilty, 324 were condemned to death. Only 278 death sentences were carried out. In the British Zone of Occupation, 1,085 criminals were tried, including guards from Belsen-Bergen, of whom 240 were condemned to death. In the French Zone of Occupation 2,107 cri­ minals were tried, !04 of whom were condemned to death. In the years 1945 to 1949, in all three western zones of Occupation in Germany, a total of 5.025 criminals were put on trial, of Young people at an Assembly held at Yad Vashem on November 10, 1970. The date set whom 806 were condemned to death, for the Assembly of young people held every year in the Synagogue at Yad Vashem is but only 486 were actually executed. of the "Crystal Night" (November 10, 1938), when for the first time organized allacks on Jews and burning of synagogues took place throughout Nazi Germany. Mr. Brand explained that there are no official or even semi-official figures regarding trials of Nazi criminals in cused and said, "The dark forces that ed a paper on "Trials of war criminals the Soviet Zone of Occupation, but it these people set in motion wm go on and Nazi criminals since the second is known that lens of thousands of poisoning the world's atmosphere wodd war," dwelt on the differences of Germans were brought to trial and many years after their bodies are turn­ opinion between the Soviet Union and that part of them were banished to the ed to dust." His penetrating prophecy the Allied Powers regarding the sev­ Soviet Union to serve their imprison­ has been fulfilled, and the world is erity of sentences imposed etc. At the ment terms. In 1955, after the renewal still saturated wilh a poison that ap­ trial of Lhe leading Nazis at Nurem­ of relations between Western Germany pears in different forms. But this time berg, 12 were condemned to death, and the Soviet Unjon, 8,877 criminals we know that a remedy exists within three to life imprisonment, four to were freed and 749 were extradicted to humanity's reach, if it wants it. The various periods of imprisonment, and Western Germany for further judicial hope of humanity lies in purifying the three were acquitted. Mr. Brand stated proceedings. atmosphere by showing grasp, initia­ tbat in the twelve trials staged by the During the time it functioned, the tive, energy and revived strength in Americans at Nuremberg (besides the War Crimes Commission of the U.N. fighting for men to be able to live in trial of the leaders) between 1946 and drew up a list of 36,529 war criminals, dignity and security. 1949, judgement was passed on Naii including Japanese. The authorities in Though the Jewish people has not doctors, Field-Marshal Milch, second­ the United States, Britain, France, yet recovered from the appalling Nazi in-command to Goering, Nazi jurists, Greece, HolJand, Norway, Poland and plague, it will contribute its full share the chiefs o( the S.S. Head Office for Yugoslavia held 969 trials, at which towards fulfilling this hope of hu­ Economy and Administration, indus­ 3.470 German criminals were tried. Of manity. The institution whose roof shel­ trialists of the Flick Company, indus­ these 952 were condemned to death, ters us this evening, "Yad Vasbem," trialists of the LG. Farben Company, 613 were acquitted, and the rest were which has the appointed task of pre­ Generals List and accomplices, heads given various terms of imprisonment. serving the memory of the Holocaust of the Institute for Racial Affairs and In al these trials, the Jews on their and the lesson to be learnt from it, Re-settlement, S.S. men of the Einsatz­ side appeared only as one of the par­ is the right quarter to come to re­ gruppen (Special Operations Units), in­ ties wronged. The only trial that dealt member and to remind. dustrialists of the Krupp concerns, min­ entirely with the extermination of the Mr. Emanuel Brand, bead of the isters, Nazi admfaistrative and diplo­ Jews in the period of Nazi rule.in Eu­ Documentary Section for War Crim­ matic chiefs, officers of the Wehrmacht rope was the tria 1 of Adolf Eichmann inals at Yad Vashem, who has prepar- High Command. In these twelve trials in Jerusalem.

7 from the War of Liberation down to REMEMBRANCE DAY this day and hour. The ghetto fighters ASSEMBLY AT YAO VASHEl\1 bequeathed to the Israeli Anny their strength of will and Jove of their The Closing State Ceremony of the Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day on the 27th people. This was the message sent by of Nissan, 5731, was held in tho presence of President Shazar, the Prime Minister the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto, on Mrs. Golda Meir, Members of the Government, and of a large gathering. the eve of the revolt, to their comrades The Chairman of the Yad Vashem constant, live accompaniment of our who were about to leave for Palestine Council, Mr. Gideon Hausner, M.K., lives, all the more so since the threat through the underground and the gave the opening address, in which he to the existence of the Jewish people "briha" (the organization for illegal stressed the connection between the has not yet disappeared from the world. immigration): "When the bad news three struggles that the people of Is­ We have faced three struggles in the reaches you there that people here rael have lived through in the last gen­ last generation. The three are connec­ are dead and gone, tell our comrades eration - the revolt in the ghettoes, ted with each other and each has in· in the Land that the last words of the war for the establishment of the ftuenced the others. The fust was the those who fell were, Motherland, Free­ State, and the struggle of the Jews in revolt in the ghettoes, when those who dom, Struggle. And if we fall one after Russia for their national identity. were imprisoned behind barbed wire another and there remains only a tiny We have oome together, as we do fences and walls of hate, thrust away, remnant. let the Land raise up what each year on this day, to bow our isolated, without arms, deprived of was cut off in Exile." heads before the victims of the Holo­ training, with no experience of fighting, This is how the chain of courage caust and to honour the fighters of the rose up to redeem the nation's honour. has grown link by link this far. The ghettoes. For us the Holocaust is not In their rage and despair they pinned spirit of the ghetto fighters has grown merely an event in history, destined down enemy forces and held out among wings for the fighters of Israel. to vanish from today's horizon and the ruins of the houses they had lived These two struggles, the war for the spill over into the chronicle of times in for longer than powerful nations nation's honour and the war for the past. This great calamity has had dir­ had held out on the war fronts. Even survival of the State, have given rise ect repercussions on the tenor of our more miraculous, the rebels in the in our day to the third struggle, won­ lives. The memory of the Holocaust ghettoes also succeeded in upsetting derful and awesome in its glory, the stays alive within us day by day and the enemy's plans and in getting a few struggle of our brothers in the Soviet not only one day in the year. We know of the fighters out alive and safe. They, Union for their Jewish identity and that in our day, in this twentieth cen­ the rebels, taught their people to take for their right to Jive among their own tury, it was possible to decree the ex­ their destiny into their own hands. people. termination of a whole people and it At a turning-point of history they de· This is the complex, intertwined web could be carried out before the eyes clared in favour of fighting. At that of the whole world. The Holocaust time when we called on the rulers of and everything that went with it is the the free world for help, they asked us to Jet them do first their own big reck­ oning and then, they assured us, our affair would also be attendled to. And indeed the global reckoning was final­ ly settled, after a bloody war of endless battles, but the Jewish people no longer had any part in the general salvation. for there were practically no Jews left in conquered Europe. The rebels, by fighting and falling. were, in the words of the poetess-heroine Hanna Szenesh, "the match that consumed in kindling a flame." They raised a flag which since then has been passed on from hand to band. The flag soon passed to another On Memorial Day, 27th of Nissan, every Tourists lay flowers at tho foot of the child visiting Yad Vashem lays a flower front, to Israel's struggle for existence Pillar of Heroism on Memorial Day, 27th at the foot of the Pillar of Heroism. wherever the battle lines were drawn. of Nissan.

8 and woof of our present existence: destruction, struggle and redemption. Amid these things we made the dream of centuries come true - the State, which has made the survival of the remnant worthwhile.

Mr. Pesach Burstein, Chairman of the Israel organization of former Nazi prisoners, spoke on the difference be­ tween tho b~roic revolt against the Nazis and the fight for the .;urvival of the State of Israel: I want to touch on two different mani­ festations of courage, the memory of which will remain engraved in the hearts of our people for ever. One of these is a personal story. August 1943. The morrow of the armed uprising in the Bialystok Ghetto. The ghetto completely destroyed. A Guard of Honour in the Memorial Shrine great open space on the outskirts of the town. In this place tens of thou­ run back to us. And he walked away. knew that at the close of the war most sands of Jews are crowded together, This picture is always before my eyes. of them would come back, that their heavily guarded by Lithuanians, Uk­ For a whole year they kept the home - our home - awaited them, rainians and Germans in S.S. uniform. children in Theresienstadt Ghetto. Af­ their country - our country, their Transports for the trains are being ter that they took them to Auschwitz freedom and independence - theirs, torn from this crowded mass. and burnt them. mine, yours. When the fathers went to With us was our son aged eight. Tell me, gentlemen, have such fight, they knew that their children Trucks arrived from the burning things ever been heard of in human would be waiting for their return. ghetto, and S.S. officers announced history - Lhat children of eight should What awaited the rebels in the ghet­ through loudspeakers that the Jews have to choose and decide between life toes, the fighters in the forests, those must band over their children to them and death? Do you realize the spiritual who revolted in the shadow of the fur­ to be transported back to the ghetto. strength that a child of this age had naces of Auschwitz? Victory belonged "No harm willl come to them," they to summon up in order to face his to the realm of the impossible. The promised. "After the war, you'll get destiny alone? enemy ruled over a score of peoples them back." The other manifestation of courage and States. Any hope of remaining We covered our son with our coats is the indescribable heroism which we alive after the battle was a delusion. to hide hin1. Suddenly he put his head have witnessed ever since the State of The skies were ashen and alien to you. out of the coats and shouted, crying: Israel was established, and which The neighbours that you and your "Mummy, daddy, I want to go with reached its supreme expression during forefathers had lived with together for the children." At that moment who the Six-Day War. This heroism is the centuries were for the most part pleas­ could know what was the better thing same as that of the young Jewish men ed that someone had appeared to solve to do, what the worse? Who could and women in the ghettoes of Warsaw, the Jewish question for good. Your decide what was right? We gave him Bialystok and other places and in the house was destroyed and your child a last kiss, and he walked away. death camps: those who made a stand in the crematoria. Nothing, nothing at The open space was endless! On against beast of prey with their bare all awaited the few who returned from one side, the crowded mass of people, fists alone, those who sallied out to the battle. on tho other tho German trucks, and fight tanks with petrol bottles, shoe They fought for the sake of the in the middle an eight-year-old Jewish polish tins of explosives and some the Jewish people, for its honour. child, trembling with tears, walked arms - how few and futile! The fighters for Israel's existence away without turning his head to look In 1967, war was waged on us draw inspiration from the bravery of back at us, as if he felt that once be again. Our sons went to fight. With the young Jews who raised the flag of looked back he would be forced to them our faith and our hopes. They revolt - the first revolt in the annals

9 in a world that finds it easy ancil con· venieat to forget. And one of the things that bothers this world is that the Jewish people exists and has a long memory. It remembers what has been in order to make certain that to­ morrow will be different and that yes­ terday will not come back again. The world would fee~ more comfortable if we were to forget, if only just a little, because it is on account of our memory that we have forced others as well not to forget everything. Is there a single one of us who has forgotten those dark days when the news began to reach us of things that the mind refused to grasp. horrors that the heart shuddered at? Can anyone forget the day when the news of the ghetto risings reached us and we alJ asked each other. Where do they get the courage from? Dr. Vigo Kampman, former Premier of Denmark, visiting lhe Memorial Shrine in October 1970. We know that those few who re­ mained in the ghetto did not rise up in revolt with the hope of saving their of the Second World War. With iron cessary to remember the past. It is own lives. No-one there had any such detennination they declare: Never necessary to remember the past for the delusions. We who were waging our again another Auschwitz! sake of the future. We are still living own struggle here at that time knew Peoples forget and forgive. We shall that they revolted not for their own not forget Friends of yesterday, allies IN YAD VASHEM ONE CAN SEE sakes, not for their own lives, but for in the war against the Nazis, have WHY ISRAEL WANTS SECURE honour, to save the honour of us all. FRONTIERS turned into enemies of ours, and brand It was as if they said to us: This is "When one comes here and stands us with the stamp of Nazism. They in front of the memorial to the six what we in the ghettoes are doing, pervert the memory of the rebels and million Jews, victims of the Nazis, and you will carry it on. And we car­ heroes of the ghettoes, they distort one can see why the Jewish people ried it on. We carried on the struggle, and even deny the part the Jews play­ demands secure frontiers for its and our sons and daughters have car­ State," declared Mr. I.O. Eyckcn­ ed in the struggle against tihe Nazis. ried on after us till this very day. We hout, head of a group o( 30 dele­ We believe that history will yet stig­ gates of the Israel-Holland Friend­ had our struggle; our children were matize those who today pervert and ship League who visited Yad Va­ summoned to the War of Liberation; distort the story of the past. We shall shem in Jerusalem. our grandchildren fought the Six-Day remember, together with the whole The members of the group, who War. And still there is no peace. We took part in a memorial service for world we shall cherish in our hearts are told: "You are not getting any the martyrs in the Memorial Shrine the great heritage bequeathed us by the on the Mount of Remembrance, did further because you remember too sons of our tortured people. not hide their deep emotion. Many much." Indeed we do remember, and o( them said that this solemn cere­ that is why we are not getting any Tiie mai11 address was delivered by the monial had been one of the most further towards that very same danger­ moving moments in their lives. Premier, Mrs. Golda Meir. spot. We are immersed in the struggle Scores of young people, including Every year we come together here members of the Youth Training for our security, for the security of the to reca!J, together, what we recall all Centres of Kibbutz Ain-Hanatziv State. In alJ the countries of exile, year long. Remembering is also a and Kibbutz Lavi, also attended the throughout the Diaspora, the whole commandment laid upon the Jewish 1ervice. The head of the Dutch dele­ people has understood the meaning of gation lit the memorial candle while people - the people in the Diaspora the existence of the State to each and the memorial prayer was sung in and the people in the State of Israel. Hebrew and translated into Dutch. every individual. and the people has Not only can we not forget- we must From "Haareti." never been so united around the State not forget. Not only because it is ne- as it is now.

10 Y AD V ASHEM ARCHIVES

Contacts with Institutions abroad camps such as Gleiwitz, Neuengamme. search work done in the recent past A. Germany Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen and others. or being done now on the fate of the After prolonged negotiations, the fnformation on bringing Nazi war cri­ Jewish inhabitants of small towns in German government has agreed to minals to Lrial was exchanged during the period of the Holocaust. have photographed for Yad Vashem the visits to tbe Yad Vashem Archives the documentation needed to com­ of prosecutors and other legal autho­ B. Austria plete the files in the Archives of Nazi rities from Germany and Austria. The Central Committee for perpe­ Germany's Ministry of Foreign Af­ Among the very first collections of tuating the memory of the Jews of fairs. The first part, which was photo­ documents that Yad Vashem Archives Theresienstadt is systematically send­ graphed in 1956, served among other received when it was set up, a special ing Yad Vashem Archives lists of Jews things as basic material for the pros­ place was reserved for the archives of expelled from Austria, and recent;y ecution in the Eichmann trial. The lists the Central Historical Commission in from Germany and the Protectorate as of the material requested, which have Munich, comprising Nazi documenta­ well. been drawn up by the Archives in tion, including original files of the Bonn, deal with some 140,000 pages Munich City Council, of local govern­ C. Italy of documents. Yad Vasbem Archives ment and party offices. of other muni­ The Centre for Documentation of have already received the first batches, cipalities in Bavaria, as well as of the Contemporary Jewry in Milan has sent comprising half the material. Jewish Community in Munich. This Yad Vashcm Archives microfilms of documentation provided material for documents of ..The Representative From the Federal Archives in Kob­ the volume of "Pinkas Hakehillot" Council for Aid to Emigrants", photo­ lenz, Yad Vashem Archives have re­ (Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communi­ graphed in the archives of the Jewish ceived a microfilm of the index to the community of Rome. This material l 9 volumes of the Guide to German ties) of the Jews of Bavaria, which completes the documentation concern­ Records photographed in the United will be published in 1972. In the course ing the above-mentioned represenrtative States. Yad Vashem Archives. want to of preparing material for this volume body received previously with the help acquire mainly the material on the on the Jewish Communities of Bavaria, of Prof. Daniel Carpi, Head of the In­ subject of Jews to be found in the Ar­ a great deal of material was collected chives of the Reich Chancellery. from the other provinces of Western stitute for Zionist Studies in Tel Aviv Germany, some of which had been University. From the Institute of Contemporary concealed or the existence of which The State Archivist of Italy, Prof. History in Munich, Yad Vashem Ar­ was unknown in Germany. Salvatore Carbone, expressed readiness chives have received some 4,200 re­ During 1970, a great deal of mat­ in principle to conduct a survey of ference cards covering the subjects erial was handed over to Yad Vashem documentation on the Jews in the Fa­ "Concentration Camps" and "Camps" Archives concerning Jewish. education scist period and to facilitate photo­ in general. This completes the ex­ in Nazi Germany. This material was graphy of the material. change of some 8,400 photographed collected by Dr. Joseph Walk in the cards (from among the 80,000 cards course of his work for his doctoral Private Archives of the Institute covering the series of thesis on this theme. When he had Yad Vashem Archives has set up a Nuremberg trials) on the subject of completed his work, it was decided to joint programme with the Federation the Jews. A list of the material that expand this collection of material to of Immigrants from Soviet Russia and Yad Vasbem is interested in has been cover all aspects of Jewish ~ife in Ger­ Diaspora House at Tel Aviv University submitted to the Director of the Cen­ many under the Nazis. A special ques­ to obtain testimony and material from tral Administration for Justice at Lud­ tionnaire on this subject was drawn up new immigrants. The material will be wigsburg. by Yad Vashem Archives and sent to gathered by means of a questionnaire Legal material received from Ger­ 90 regional and provincial archives in that will be sent to immigrants from many during the last year included 39 Germany, requesting information on the Soviet Union. indictments and verdicts, as well as documentation in their possession con­ Among material that has been trans­ reports and protocols regarding war nected with the Jewish question. Near­ ferred from other archives and sources: crimes committed in White Russia, in ly all those who were sent the ques­ a set of documents on the work of Przemysl. in Grodno, in the ghetto of tionruaire have answered. In correspon­ William O'Dwyer, who served as Ex­ Shavli in Lithuania, in the ghetto of dence with these bodies, important in­ ecutive Director of the War Refugee Tarnow, in various concentration formation has been obtained about re- Board in Washington in 1945; docu-

11 men ts received from the archives of area; 4) Jewish participation in the Ghetto; the diary of Dr. Michael Jeli­ Mrs. Van-Tijn, who was working for partisan movement in Slovakia; 5) res­ nek, who served as a doctor in the Joint and UNRRA from 1940-1945; cue work done under the aegis of the Czechoslovak Army from 1939 to 1940; reports and. correspondence from the Red Cross, the Swedish and Swiss Em­ the notes from the Warsaw Ghetto archives of Dr. Feder concerning the bassies in Budapest; 6) the activities written by Koppel Pizyc and his wife; fight against the typhus epidemic in of the Zionist Youth Movement in the memoirs of the historian Dr. Shte­ Theresienstadt when it was liberated; Budapest; 7) underground activity of mer-Stepanek, describing the Jewish statistical material received from Rab­ J cws in Italy; 8) Zionist and public share in establishing the Czechoslovak bi Herman Doych of Florida, which he activity in Rumania and Hungary up Brigade in the Russian Army; the me­ colleted and copied during the time to the end of the war. moirs of Dr. Jana R. Prizova about the he was a teacher in the community of Fourteen memoirs and diaries in "Girls' Hut" in Theresienstadt; and a Kronheim in Bavaria. manuscript contain extremely impor­ set of writings. by Herman Steinkol, Another co11ection that has been re­ tant testimony written at the height of detailing faithfully the process of exter­ ceived recently is that of "JUNA", the terror in the ghettoes of Poland: mination in the ghettoes and labour the Press Office of the Union of Swiss records of underground action and of camps fo the regions of Tarnopol and Communities that was active in Zurich sufferance in Polish concentration Stanislav. during the war. Dr. Segalowitz of bles­ camps, in France and Germany. sed memory, who was president of the Among the diaries is the manuscript The Museum Collection Union of Swiss Communities, divided of Dr. Lazar Epstein of the Vilna The Archives bad acquired I.600 his collection in hjs will between Yad photographs, including six rare photo­ Vashem and the Jewish Historical The Chief Prosecutor of Stuttgart, "• graphs from the Warsaw Ghetto, a General Archives. Mr. R. Sichting, initiated and direc- photograph given by a former pris­ ' led the trials of important groups of oner in Sobibor camp that shows Him­ 1... Nazi criminals who committed their Oral Testimony mler and Frank visiting Izbica; an crimes in Lwow, Tarnopol, and other In the Yad Vashem Tel Aviv branch parts of Eastern Galicia. Mr. Sich­ original album of pictures of Nazi for collecting evidence, 112 testimonies ting recently transferred to the Yad Munich; an album of photographs of were recorded and copied during the Vashem Archives a lot of very val­ child refugees, saved from schools and last year, and 14 memoirs and diaries uable material connected with the other teaching institutions in Poland, procedure in these trials - verdicts were obtained. The branch received a etc. photographs from the forced labour collection of biographical material con­ camps, reports of the Gestapo and Thirty-five new albums of photo­ cerning the children in Bergen-Belsen, the German police on the carrying graphs were sorted out by subject, 39 including life storles written by the out of 'Aktions' (round-ups, etc.) old albums were restored, and three children who were saved, pupils in the and the expulsion of tthe Jews of new albums were arranged. Hebrew School in the liberated camp. Lwow and Galicia to the death camp Detailed registries have been drawn of Belzec, and war diaries of the up of the collections of documentary There is a lot of testimony on the Wehrmacht units that were in action resistance of Jewish fighters in all its in the region containing information films. The registries give a short syn­ forms - both in the ranks of the par­ on persecution or the Jews there. opsis and data to indicate the nature of tisans and foreign armies and also in The Chief Prosecutor also handed each film. the Jewisb and general underground over a collection of documents con­ nected with the activity of Yitzhak movements in the various occupied Praver of blessed memory, one of Classifying and Recording Archive countries. Of these 102 testimonies those rescued from the Lwow Ghetto, Materials contain data for which there was hi­ whose evidence was decisive in es· The Archives of Dr. Wilhelm Filder­ therto no documentary evidence, and tablishing the guilt of several Nazi man, Chainnan of the Union of Jew­ covers subjects such as: criminals at their trials. ish CommunWes of Rumania, have Hitherto nothing was known of 1) the Jewish share in aid and rescue the existence of most of this testi­ now all been classified and recorded. organizations, in the armed under­ mony and the details on the des­ Thousands of important documents ground, and in intelligence and sabo­ truction of 1he Jews of Lwow and have been listed in detail, showing re­ tage operations against the Germans in Galicia. lations between the J ews and the Ru­ France; The Chief Prosecutor of Stuttgart manian authorities and how Dr. Fil­ transferred this material to the Yad 2) the struggle of Jewish community derman and the Jewish orgarnizalions Vasbem Archives in recognition of leaders in Bulgaria against the expul­ the contribution made by Yad Va­ struggled to defend the rights of the sion of the Jews for extermination; 3) shem to preparing the trials of the Jews and save their lives. underground and partisan activity in Nazi criminals. The work is nearing completion of Soviet territory and the Transnistria classifying and recording the archives

12 of Dr. A Silberschein, one of the most Mannstein and the trials of Jewish col· timony of 323 files on the Jews of active leaders in aid and rescue work laborators. Preparation has also begun Vienna. in Geneva. The detailed registry will of an index of names and places of include 250 files of correspondence indictments and verdicts. with Jews active in the German-occu­ Guide to Historical Archives in Israel Five years ago, Dr. Avraham P. Als­ pied regions, people in the under­ Reference Room berg edited the first guide to historical ground, and Jewish organizations The registry of the sections into archives in Israel. The guide described throughout the world, as well as re­ which all the material in the Archives the material in fifteen archives, includ· ports and memoranda on the situation i!. divided has been worked out anew. ing the Central Archives of Yad Va­ of the Jews in the ghettoes, expulsions Cross-references have been added to shem. An enlarged edition is shortly to extermination camps, and the res­ all the sections and collections, both to be published in English, and for cue activities of Dr. Silberschein. original and micro-filmed, and in ad­ this purpose the registry of the Yad The V. Yasni collection has now dition for the first time indices have Vashem Archives collection has been been classified. Yasni was a writer and been made of both geographical and completely revised. researcher of the Holocaust. A detail­ personal names in alphabetical order ed registry has been drawn up of the material in 54 files of correspondence, Guide to Unpublished Materials of memoirs, manuscripts of researches the Holocaust Period written for memorial books on various Dr. K. J. BaU-Kaduri who started In April I 970, the Scientific Advi­ communities. the collection, "What was not put down in writing," reached the age sory Council decided in favour of pre­ Fourteen other collections have been of 80 this year. He slill keeps up paring a record of the various sections processed and completed, including a close connections with Yad Vashem of the Yad Vashem Archives for the Belgian, a Polish and a Dutch collect­ Archives. Recently, Dr. BaU-Kaduri purpose of producing a guide to the ion. Jn the Testimonies Collection. 319 handed over to the Archives the archive sources. The Guide is being new memoirs and diaries from dif­ diary of Franz David Wartenberg. This diary, wrilten in 1939, covers prepared jointly by Yad Vashem and ferent sources have been registered. the adventurous journey of the writer, the Institute of Contemporary Jewry Recently a start has been made on who came to this country as refugee at the Hebrew University. classifying the material in the archives through Aliya Beth (the "illegal" The following sections have been of the documentation section of the immigration organization). It is a dealt with so far: the archives of the Centre of the Union of Jewish Com­ penetrating description and analysis of what happened to the Jews who Bialystok Ghetto underground, named munities in Bratislava (Slovakia). fled from the persecution and came in memory of Mersik-Tennenbaum, One very important undertaking is to the Land of Israel by "under­ Dutch Jewry Co-ordinating Commit· nearing completion: classifying and ground" routes marked on no map. tee; Historical Cormnission of Polish recording the great quantity of mater­ Numerous students of the Holocaust Jewry (a collection of testimonies); ial, hundreds of thousands of docu­ of German Jews draw on Dr. Ball­ Dr. Michael Weicbert collection on Knduri's documentation andl profit ments on the Nuremberg Trials. In by his guidance and counsel. Jewish Social Aid in the General-Gov· tho last year examination has been crnment; Denmark Collection. completed of 224 microfilm-reels of A card index has been prepared ac­ the Nuremberg Trials, comprising cording to subjects and according to 250,000 pages of documents, and these according to the names of the original geographical places for the following films have been registered on cards, institutions or archives. Under the en­ sections: collection of testimonies of 2,141 in all. Moreover, all this material try, ..Camps", 4,200 registry cards the former Jewish Historical Commis­ has been classified and recorded in have been arranged. sion in Munich; the historical ques­ 1,133 cardboard containers. The Archives are intending to pub­ tionmaires sent by the above-named In the card index of criminals, 243 lish a number of these registries in Commission to Holocaust survivors; new cards have been added, a registry booklet form by the end of 1971, with the Dr. Ball-Kaduri collection, testi­ of new legal material has been pre­ the addition of introductions and in­ monies on Germany; the Wiener Lib­ pared, and 676 legal files have been dices of subjects, places and persons. rary, London, collection of testimonies; recorded. Registries have been arranged of Czechoslovak collection, evidence from Work has begun on the files of the following archives: Dr. A. Silber­ Jewish sources. microfilm material received from the scbein Archives, Geneva, 250 files; Dr. Revision has begun on the registry Foreign Ministry in Bonn. J. Schwartzbart Archives, London, 120 of the Munich City Council documents A first survey has been made of the files on the 623 communities of Ru­ on Jewish affairs. legal material on Field-Marshall Von mania; Dr. Ball-Kaduri Collection; tes- The first volume of the Guide to

13 Unpublished Materials of the Holo­ THE DIARY OF A DOCTOR IN THE VILNA GHETIO caust Period appeared at the end of 1970. It includes archive material in "Ghetto Fighters' House" - at Kib­ butz Lohamei Hagettaot, in "Moresh­ Dr. Kennish, One day my husband picked up Director of Yad Vashem Archives, a111 exercise book that bad been laid et" - the Anielewicz House at Givat Jerusalem. aside. When he opened it he realiud Haviva; in the State Archives, in the that it was a diary that bad been National and University Library, and Dear br. Kermish, written in the Vilna Ghetto by in the Institute of Contemporary Jewry. Jn response to your request, I Dr. Epstein. My husband hid tho A second volume is in preparation. shall describe for you the attempts exercise book and then brought it made to salvage the Vilna Ghetto home. Searching further, he found The third and subsequent volumes, to diary and the other manuscripts writ­ more exercise boo.ks. A number of be published jointly by Yad Vasbem ten by Dr. Lazar Epstein in the Vil­ our friends would come together in and the Institute of Contemporary na Ghetto under the Nazis, and how our house in the evenings and we Jewry, will describe the collections in they were taken out of Russia and would read the diary together, with the Yad Vashem Archives. brought to the State of Israel. hope in our hearts that one day we I mysell, Rachel St.aroste-Gelfcr, should be privileged to bring it to and my late husband, Shlomo Gol­ Israel so that future generations. fer, came to the city of Vilna after might know what our people under· tbe war, in 1945. went in the time of the Nazi occupa­ l11f or111a1io11 a11d My late husband began work in tion. Documentation Service the Vilna Archives. At that time My husband was not privileged to the whole area of the Vilna Ghetto see that day. He died in a road acci­ In the period under review. research was abandoned, and workers - Jews dent in Vilna in 1961 at the age of workers in Israel and abroad were gi­ and non-Jews - were sent to clear 39, and I was left a widow with ven access to I.679 files of rtestimony up the area after ordinary working three children. After seven years of and documentation. Fifty-eight re­ hours. obstinate fighting for permission to J\ My husband was a war invalid, emigrate to Israel, the Soviet autho­ search workers were given direct as­ and his job was to oversee the wor­ rities finally granted it. I succeeded sistance by means of the documenta­ kers doing the clearing-up. Every­ in bringing the precious diary with tion provided by Yad Vashem. thing that appeared useless was set me. Among the subjects on which re­ fire to in great piles, while papers search was carried out were: the War­ and books were collected and sent to Yours faithfully, the Archives to be examined. Rachel Staroste-Gelfer saw Ghetto revolt; the connection be­ tween the Jewish Laws in the Third ' L I ' ,' Reich and tbc anti-Jewish legislation I / in the field of economy in Slovakia Biography 1941. He remained in Kovno and was and Hungary; the transport of Jews Dr. Lazar Epstein, a neurologist by appointed Inspector General of Pub­ from Theresienstadt to Switzerland; profession, was born in Zdunska-Wola, lic Health in the Health Commissariat the extermination of ViIna Jewry; re­ not far from the town of Lodz. After of the Lithuanian Soviet Republic. ligious life among camp inmates; the World War I he settled in Kovno, When the Germans occupied Lithua­ Nazi extermination machinery, the Ju­ where he made his name as a doctor. nia. Epstein moved to Vilna. In the denrat (Jewish Council) and the Jewish He was connected with the Lithuanian Ghetto. he served as Head of the Epi· Police in the Holocaust period; Jew­ Social-Democratic Party, which was demics Department of the Judenrat ish education in Nazi Germany; Nazi then legal. and was soon elected a (Jewish Council). In this capacity be war criminals; social work in the War­ member of the Central Committee. At took part in observing the general state saw Ghetto; the influence of anti-Se­ the elections for the third Sejm (Parlia­ of health of the population. and he was mitism on the economy of the Third ment) in Lithuania. the Party put him a member of the corps of doctors who Reich; Jewish armed resistance in the fourth on its list of candidates and he directed public health measures in the General-Government. was elected to the Sejm. After the Vilna Ghetto and cooperated in the The Archives have provided a great Woldemaras coup in 1926, he returned Schools Medical Centre. deal of material to institutions and in­ to his medical practice and became The Diary of Dr. Epstein is an au­ dividuals in Israel and abroad - va­ head of the Municipal Schools Medical thentic document written inside the rious legal authorities in Germany, Centre. Vilna Ghetto. The first notes were lawyers, educational institutions, youth Lazar Epstein was saved the Cate of made in it on the outbreak of war be­ movements, radio and television net­ the Social-Democratic leaders and tween Germany and Soviet Russia and works in Israel aod abroad. students others who were banished when the the diary was kept up until June 1943. and teachers. lecturers and historians. Soviet Army entered Lithuania in Tho diary contains a wealth of sta-

14 tistical data about the children and the disposal of the National-Socialist real experience, a real holiday celebra­ child care, the Jewish Movement in Party and of the various arms of the tion. Their little eyes, like deep holes the Ghelto. the influx into the Ghetto dictatorship (the Gestapo, the S.S. and in their pale, thinned faces, were shin­ of Jews from the rural areas and the so on), but even inside these there has ing. All the chlldren have lost their pa­ decline in their numbers as a result of already been a perceptible shake-up, rents. some of them taken away !before the round-ups, purges and the like; witness the "general crisis," and the lhe ghetto was set up and some - tables of mortality in the Ghetto; the frequent deaths of high-ranking Army from the ghelto. In the Children's various departments of the Judearat; officers in Germany (Generals Reiche­ Home they feel as in their own homes. institutions, their employees and work­ nau and Brauchitch resigned). Clean, well lit, only not very warm ing conditions, and so on. There are (wood for heating is lacking). Some of also health statistics rcorded on cbarlS 8/3/1942. Today two schools held me­ the children show definite talent. A two­ for given periods of time. The statisti­ morial meetings for teachers who have year-old child sang a song without a cal material is itself divided into sec­ died in the Vilna Ghetto. In the hall single mistake of any kind. Only the tions, part is included in the diary as of School No. 1 at No. 1 Shavli Street, faces and the little eyes seem stupefied. such, and the rest is recorded at the a long, narrow, dim hall two candles Their look is cold and frozen. You end of the first exereise book, after a burn and two tiny cletric lights, wrap­ sense something sickly and tormented. number of empty sheets, which were ped in black cloth. On the head table, Their small bodies seem tired and as torn, thus raising the possibility that two candles burn and then is a flower- if affected by rachitis. the writer stopped in the middle and pages that were meant to be filled were Ghetto left empty. The first night. We all of us sleep on the bare Ooor - eleven people. We Passages from the Diary settle down. We look around us. Count­ Generally rumours spread with less people in the crowded rooms. Hy­ great secrecy. The punishment for giene and aesthetic considerations are spreading "false rumours" is death, far and gone. A nd so are customs and and this applies also lo listening to tradition. Man is stripped of every­ enemy broadcasts. Radios are now thing - every last thing. I search in owned only by Germans and Lithuan­ the houses and I find two blankets and ians, nevertheless the Germans don't rm as happy as Robinson Crusoe. All succeed, as I said, in hiding the truth the five of us in the family will sleep about the situation. The attitude to­ on two blankets. Not a mouthful of wards the Jews of most of the Ger­ warm food have we had. I hope to mans and of the Lithuanians bas chan­ move to a new place in the next day ged a lot, and jn the main there has or two. A doctor's block is nearly fin­ been a change of tune. I perceive this ished. One can get to it through two everywhere I go. The victories of the narrow holes that have been broken Russians and their advance westwards pot with ... dry grass. The memorial tbrough the walls of two outer struc­ strengthen us and instil hope into us. meeting is for the teacher Gershon tures. There are already large numbers of de­ Flojdermacher and for the 30th day The area of our new room - 25 serters and wounded - mainly from after the death of the teacher M. metres, and 13 people in it. We have the freeze. Chaimson-Bastomski, and for the anni­ also already received an iron bed, ta­ Along with the hopes, there is a versary of the death of the teaFher bles, chairs, a cupboard for food. We growing fear among us that if the Shlomo Bastomski. The pupils' choir are settling down and sharing things front gets nearer, the Germans are and recitations and the violin and together. We have four children be­ likely to punish us for it - us, the piano recital went off well. tween us. We are painting over the surviving remnant- by inflicting at­ windows that open onto the street - rocities on us; and maybe while there 8/3. Today was also the opening of the with oil paint. is stiJI time a revolution will break out Children's Home. In the new building Census number one (repeated after­ in Germany and in the Army? It's (still a synagogue), No. 1 Spitalna wards many times over): In our ghetto possible if we take into account the Street. Teacher Yehudit Levin, and are living approximately 25,000 per­ atmosphere in Germany. But the dic­ Shleifer arranged the house very agree­ sons. In 72 houses in five street seg­ tatorship and discipline are still very ably. The programme was carried out ments. One-and-a-half to two metres strong, with all the means of terror at brilliantly. For the children it was a per head. Narrow as the grave. The

15 no more round-ups. so Jjfe seems to The concert was opened with a short be "normal," quiet. This quiet was speech by the Assistant Chief of Po­ shown in the first public appearance lice, J. Glazman. He called on the au­ of Jewish artists, at the end of January dience not to lose confidence and made 1942. This was something new and some very energetic remarks. The con­ unique in our ghetto life. This news cert was a great success and took place comes from the Police Chief Gens. in an atmosphere of high spirits, in a Various rumours spread about this hall packed to the doors. The crowd first appearance of actors in public. wept, laughed. felt release from what Some people said this was a piece of it suffered from so much - spiritual German trickery, that is, they want to depression. The feeling of being stran­ photograph the concert and show the gers to one another that had prevailed world what a good and happy life the among the ghetto inhabitants up till Jews lead in the Vilna Ghetto. Others then seemed to vanish. Relations be­ said the opposite. One should not give came a little more human and intimate. way to an utterly black mood of bit­ People revealed themselves, as if they terness. One should cheer people's had awaken from a long nightmare. spirits, encourage their hopes, streng­ This was the mood first created by rooms are not sufficiently ventilated. then their will to live, their power of the concert. The position of the artists Here people cat, cook, sleep. The resistance, their power to make a stand improved, and later concerts were gi­ streets are a dreadful spectacle, Stra­ in order to keep on living. ven nearly every week... shun, Shavli, Disna, the street where the butcher is (Yatkcvcr). Spitalna Street (Hekdeshgass), and to these have I' THE ISAAC STONE COLLECTION JN YAD VASHEM been added some houses from the I ~ CENTRAL ARCIDVES streets in Assialkow and Lida. Dr. Isaac Stone was American Se­ of the Jews in the occupied territo­ Our ghetto has been numbered No. nior Assistant to the Prosecution at ries in the East; documents on the I, and is called, "the experts' ghetto." the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi Crim­ transfer of Jews from Germany to The Jewish Council with its differ­ inals. It was he who prepared and the ghettoes of Riga and Minsk, and ent Departments is nearly complete. arranged the documentation on the on the confiscation of Jewish pro­ destruction of European Jewry which perty; lists of prisoners in the camps We are working without pay, but in !L was presented in evidence as grounds who were Jed to their death on for­ return for work permits. While per­ for the charges against the accused. ced marches; instructions to proceed mits - with them we shaU feel some­ Dr. Stone recently visited the Yad with a collection of skulls of Jews how protected. They are work permits 11 Vashcm Archives, to which he has and Soviet commissars; original lists presented the greater part of this of S.S. officers. Some of these docu­ issued by the Jewish Council - with­ legal documentation, in order to see ments gave important help in loca­ out any stamp and without formal le­ how the process of classification and ting Nazi criminals. Most of the col­ gal validity. " registration is progressing. lection is in the form of photostats It should be noted that the decisive I ~ Dr. I. Stone's ties with Yad Va­ or copies, but there are also numbers majority o[ the officials, and particu­ shem Archives go back to 1956. He of important manuscripts, such as larly those with the most responsible handed over to the Archives the tes­ the reports of Oberleutnant Erwin timony, documents and legal material Binge! on the mass murder of the jobs, are Jews from Kovoo and Lithua­ which over the years has become the Jews of Vinnitsa and Uman in 1941 nia. Their share in the police is greater collection bearing his name. Today and 1942. stilJ. In the Technical and Housing the lsaac Stone Collection comprises The Isaac Stone Collection - to­ Departments their share is smaller. hundreds of files of German docu­ gether with the collection of Nurem­ This is not because they speak Lithua­ ments, which formed the basis for berg trial documents received from the Archives' section of documenta­ Mr. K. Shabtai when Yad Vashem nian but because in fact they arc more tion on the Nuremberg trials. The was founded, and the copious ma­ talented and energetic and have more original material in this section is of terial photographed and acquired by professional training. The very great the greatest importance for historical the Archives in the course of time-­ majority of the known and respected research on the Nati regime, as it represents a complete documentary Jews of ViJna have already been taken covers the basic lines of internal and unit. Not only is it one of the most foreign policy, and the extermination important collections in the Yad Va· out of here by the big ones (the Rus­ policy o[ the Third Reich. Among shem Archives, but the scope of its sians) and afterwards by the Ashke­ the documents are: instructions for contents puts it on a level with the nazim (the Germans). the "final solution;" reports of the very few complete collections of this ... Week follows on week. Since the "special unils" on the extermination kind in the whole world. end of December 1941 there have been

16 RESEARCH AT YAD V ASHEM

The greater partt of the work now be­ mist nationalist movements after the former Rumania - the Regat, south­ ing done at Yad Vashem with the help First World War, and their jnfiuence ern Transylvanfa and the Transnistrian of the "Memorial Foundation for Jew­ on anti-Semitic developments and per­ area.) Except for the Bukovina, little ish Culture" is in the fields of lexico­ secution in the period of the Second has been written on the history of the graphy and bibliography. It is special­ World War. Jews in these regions, and little was ly intended to be of service to research The volumes on the Commcmities of known of what happened to them dur­ workers and students in their scientific Poland: the first volume in the series ing the Holocaust. work. on the communities of Poland will Special attention will be devoted to The manuscript of the volume of cover the Lodz Region. It wiU include describing the period between the two the "Pinkas Hakehilot" (Encyclopae­ over eighty settlements, first and fore­ wodd wars and the changes that took dia of Jewish Communities) on the most that of the city of Lodz, whose place in the position of the Jews as a Communities of Bavaria is in the press. Jewish population, numbering about result of the annexation of these re­ It comprises 278 articles (entries on the 170,000 souls, was the second largest gions by Rumaoia. The story will be communities in the seven Districts of Jewish community in Europe. told of the hardships undergone by the Upper and Lower Bavaria, Upper Practically no literature exists on the Jews of northern Bukovioa and Bes­ Pfalz, Upper, Middle and Lower Fran­ history of J cwish settlement in the re­ sarabia in the years 1940 to 1941 at conia, and Swabia.) An important gion, except for monographs on the the time of the Russian occupation place is given to a description of the period of the Holocaust. This piece (nationalization of property, persecu­ old cities of Nuremberg, Munich and o( research wHI therefore rely mainly tion of the leaders and the well-to-do, Bamberg, where Jews were already liv­ on documentary sources, and hitherto banishment to Siberia, liquidation of ing in the eleventh century. unpublished Polish manuscripts (pri­ all cultural and religious life). The volume contains rich documen­ vate collections of archives of the Po­ This volume will incJude Northern tation on the period of the Holocaust, lish nobility) which were transferred to Transylvania, which was annexed to and principally original demographic State collections after the Second Hungary according to the Vienna and statistical material published as a World War. Award of 1940 with its big towns, whole for the first time. The volume a l­ In the period of the Holocaust, the Cluj (Klauscnburg) and Oradea-Mare so includes maps, photographs and Lodz Ghetto (Litzmanstadt as the Ger­ (Grosswardein), which were famous as original documents of people and insti· mans called it) constituted a "Jewish outstandingly Zionist centres, as weH as ttutions. Autonomous Territory" and served as the Marmarosh area and the town of The volume on the Communities of a concentration point for Jews from Marmarosh-Siget, whose God-fearing Hungary will go to press at the end of a number of European countries. Jews Jews have been immortalized in the 1971. It includes the communities in were brought there from Prag1..1e, Vien­ books of Elie Wiesel. Hungary of the Treaty of Trianon na, Luxemburg, and Germany. Local (that is to say, the 1938 boundaries) inhabitants of the ghetto were exploit· A bibliography of Hebrew books is be­ from their first settlement until the ed for forced Jabour in various work­ ing published within the Joint Docu­ period of the Holocaust and up to the shops for the needs of war industry mentary Projects series of Yad Va­ end. A large part is taken up by a and were among the last of the Jews shem and the YNO. Ten volumes have been published so far. The bib­ description of the history of the Jews of Poland to be sent to the extermina­ liography is to cover the Nazi and of the capital, Budapest. At the be­ tion camps in the summer of 1944. Holocaust period as described in Heb­ ginning of the volume, the reader will The chapter devoted to the period rew literature between the years 1933 lfind historical introductions covering of the Holocaust will also describe the and 1970. It will list all Hebrew books the outstanding aspects of the history plight of the Jews in country towns, connected with the period, such as of the Jews in Hungary: a) the separa­ a subject not previously dealt with. memoirs, diaries, reminiscences and tion between the communities in Hun­ The second volume of the series on testimonies, monographs on ghett-0es gary that followed the 1868 congress, the Communities of Rumania will in­ and camps, rabbinic literature, belles­ dividing them into three types of com­ clude the Districts of Bukovina, Bes­ letters, encyclopaedias, lexicons, bib-­ munities, Orthodox. "neologists," and sarabia, and Northern Transylvania. liographies, etc. "status-quo," b) the part of the Jews (fhe first volume of the series on the in the economic and cultural develop­ Communities of Rumania was publish­ A Monograph on the Jews of Sub­ ment of Hungary; c) the rise of extre- ed in 1969 and covered the regions of Carpathian Russia will be ready for the

17 press in about three years. This is the a aationalist awakening among all the first time that the history of the Jews national minorities- Ruthenians, Hun­ ''In Jerusalem, on the second day of this region is being studied against garians, Jews and Germans. The Jews of our trip, we were shown tho most the background of the general his­ of Sub-Carpathia, influenced by the impressive place o( all - in fact, tory, beginning with their first settle­ Jews of the "historic lands"- Bohemia the place one should visit at the ments in the 17th century and up to and Moravia, became an active factor very beginning, in order to under­ the Holocaust. Sub-Carpathjan Jewry in the life of the Jewish minority in stand all the rest. This is the Memo· numbered about 100,000 souls on the Czechoslovakia in its protracted strug­ rial Shrine to the six million Jews eve of the Holocaust, i.e. forty per cent gle for the right of Jewish representa­ murdered during the Second World of the general population. comprising tion in the Prague Parliament. War. Jn this spacious hall there are the backbone of the economic life of The last chapter will deal with the the names of the concentration and the region. Holocaust period and will describe in extermination camps engraved on A detailed description wilt be given detail the events that began with the black stone. An eternal light burns to events between the two world wars, Hungarian occupation 1938 and ended in the centre of the hall. Believe me, within the framework of the Czecho­ with the mass deportations in the this place impressed and shook me slovak Republic, a period which saw Spring of 1944. more than any other I have ever seen. We stood there, sixteen young Swiss, shaken to the depths of our soul. One might have thought we Y AD VASHEM LIBRARY would never lal!lgh again, never again be happy. "The largest anti-Semitic Library in man internal and foreign policies since In adjoining buildings documents the world," is how the Yad Vashem the end of the First World War, in­ nre on display on the persecution of Library was described by an American tended to show the background to the the Jews. What adds to one's deep woman journalist in an article she rise of Nazism, the Library contains a emotion here is the testimony to re­ wrote after her visit there, published in very rich collection of material on anti­ bellion, uprising, revolt. H's indes­ a United States newspaper. Semitism and racial theories. The col­ cribable how cruel were the ways Indeed, apart from material on Ger- lection of Yiddish and Hebrew litera­ these people were persecuted and ture on the Holocaust is particularly how bravely they resisted." rich, and from the point of view of Impressions of a group of young concentration and quantity bas no pa­ Swiss who visited Yad Vasliem in ralJel anywhere. A 11g11st 1970. Today, the Library includes some From tire newsslreet of Kibbutz Al­ forty thousand books. periodicals and /011i111. other publications in most known lan­ guages. (Among them arc books in Arabic, Persian, Japanese. Greek, Ar· tions and presents. the Library buys its menian and even in the language of books out of its limited annual bud­ tho Eskimos.) An important place is get. Because of this, it was decided that taken by some four hundred "Yizkor" the Library, which was initiaUy in­ memorial volumes for communities tended to include material on anti­ that were wiped out, published on the semitism from the period of the Drey­ initiative of organizations of members fus Affair onwards, should restrict it­ of these communities. self to collecting material from the pe­ Periodical literature includes news­ riod of the rise of Nazism, beginning papers published in Nazi Germany, with 1933 - in order to have a more including some that are extremely rare, complete collection on the subject. and periodicals that are being publish­ In accordance with decisions of the ed today by neo-Nazi organizations in Directorate and the Scientific Com­ South America. Germany, England mittee, work was begun two years ago Mr. Yigal Allon, Deputy Prime Minister and France. on a subject-catalogue. Today this and Minister of Education and Culture, is shown the library collections. Accom­ Difficulties in making new acquisi­ catalogue already covers some two panying him are: Mr. Gideon Hausner, Mr. tions are first and foremost budget dif­ thousand subjects, and the work of Katriel Kat:t and Miss Ora Alkalay. ficulties. Apart from a few cootribu- completion continues.

18 INFORMATION AND PUBLIC THE 27th OF NISSAN The activities of Ya.cl Vashem reach RELATIONS DEPARTMENT their peak every year with the cere­ The Department arranges visits and given special attention. A great part of monies of Remembrance Day, the 27th organizes memorial meetings and as­ the ceremonies and assemblies are in­ of Nissan: the Day of Remembrance semblies for students with lectures on tended particularly for young people. of the Holocaust and Herojsm. Pre­ the subject of Holocaust and Resis­ A special youth assembly was held this parations for this Day mean hard work tance. It also looks after the Memo­ year on November 10, to recall the over many months. Study days were rial Shrine, the Pillar of Heroism, the memory of "Crystal Night" in 1938. held for the lecturers, teachers and cul­ Exhibition Halls, the Museum, the Young Israelis took part together with tural group leaders who were to con­ Synagogue and the Hall of Names, students from abroad who came to Is­ duct memorial ceremonies in hundreds where the "Pages of Testimony" are rael as organized groups. The assem­ of solemn assemblies throughout the kept on which the names of relatives bly turned into a forum of discussion country. The Department bad the co­ and friends who perished in the Holo­ between young Jews who knew not the operation of the Workers' Settlement caust can be recorded. Holocaust and survivors of the labour Movement, local authorities, the Gen­ The Department is in constant con­ and extermination camps, who recoun­ eral Labour Federation, school boards, tact with survivors' organizations and ted their personal stories. youth movements and the Armed For­ the organizations of members of the Every year on the 10th of Tevet, ces. Lecturers were provided with communities that were destroyed as the General Day of Kaddish, a meeting short films, slides and special posters well as with communities and educa­ is held of young people, especially re­ to make their subject vivid and real. tional institutions in the Diaspora. It ligious young people. in the Memorial This year attention was centred spe­ provides them with information and Shrine, in memory of the victims of cially on holding memorial ceremonies study material and sends them lec­ Nazism. in army bases, with the help of the turers representing Yad Vashem. The Department also extends assis­ Chief Education Officer. At these cere­ About a quarter of a million people tanc-0 to various organizations that monies dozens of volunteers - mem­ visited Yad Vashem during the last wjsh to hold special memorial meet­ bers of the Knesset, members of sur­ year and a great many of them took ings. Among such meetings held this vivors' organizations, members of the part in the memorial ceremonies and year was one of Hadassah women. Yad Vashem Directorate - lectured, various other events. The visitors in· during the Hadassah Congress, and one focussing mainly on the theme "Jewish cluded statesmen, scholars, writers of members of Wizo, the Women's Soldiers in the Armies that fought the and public figures from the entire International Zionist Organization. Nazis." world. There has been a striking in­ Marking the 50th anniversary of Wizo The educational and general televi­ crease in the proportion of young peo­ a ceremony was held in the Memorial sion services, the broadcasting autho­ ple among the visitors. They generaJly Shrino dedicated to Wizo leaders who rity and the Army broadcasting ser- come in groups of classmates and are perished in the Holocaust.

S1_-.\TOK P.om"l.1) s.~IUSKIC \..'A~t1Mi1~.D f .tatrtO

Tha Honorable Ka.trhl J:at-. Dicecc:or. Y•d VHh.ea Jeru.nlea, brad

Dear Amibauador Kah:

J-:0\I that t have ntu.rned to the. t:n1ud Stat09 frm •Y rec•nt vhit abroad, t vant to eXpttas lo you. once •&•in• •1 apprt-C!htion. roe th• pa rtlcipacton vhlch you penahted ae in the •ovtns cer•ony at 'fl;d Vuh•.

All oC u• are ware or tht p&rtic:ular atgnlflu.nce of the Second World W.ar to the Jevlth people, and Yad V••hni ie a aombcr •ea.orial to thoaa tragic t iM••

tin. M~kle and t extend our thanka. The i•pru.. tiona or our brief vhlt vhh you will remain vhh u.8 for year. co c011e.

Senator Muskie at the foot o;f the Pillar of Heroism.

19 semblies as well as to schools and the Universities of Haifa, Tel Aviv and the like at their request. Negev. Bar-IJan University arranged Remembrance Day, which is obser· a whole study day devoted to the ved in accordance with the law opened theme of Holocaust and Heroism. with a blast of sirens followed by two Remembrance Day closed with the minutes' silence. On the Mount of State Ceremony that talces place every Remembrance a central Assembly for year at Yad Vashem in the presence youth of secondary school pupils star· of the President of the State. The as­ ted. Two thousand young people wit­ sembly was addressed by the Premier. nessed a dramatic presentation of the Mrs. Golda Meir; Chief Rabbi Issar theme, "Jewish Soldiers in the Armies Yehuda Unterman recited a prayer. that fought the Nazis." Ex-soldiers Mr. Pesach Burstein gave an address were interviewed and recounted their on behalf of the fighters, partisans and experiences. former camp inmates. The Chairman Special memorial meetings were held of the Yad Vashem Council, Mr. Gid­ in higher institutions of learning in the eon Hausner, M.K.. opened the as· Senator Henry Jackson at the entrance of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, in the sembly and presided. the Memorial Shrine. Haifa Technical Institute, and in the (For the text of the speeches see pp. 8· IO.)

-~0&.ltf• The Organization of former members of the Underground Halutz Movement in Iraq and Yad Vashem held a Memorial Assembly to mark the thirtieth anniversary or the pogrom on the Jews of Iraq instigated by the Nazis who backed tho at­ tempted coup of Rashid Ali el Kailani. At this Assembly, a 'Yizkor' (Memorial Prayer) was said, the text of which was composed for the meetings of the Under­ De-a.r Mr. Ka.t.1. : Ground Halutz Movement in Iraq in 1946 on the fifth anniversary of the atta,cks. It la !Jlponi'ble t o thank Y'"' for pldlns • t.hTouah l'•d Va1hn vit.h t.he usu.al convent ion.al phrase a. one c&ll only resol vir, a.rt.er 1\lch a vtait., th•t. u . .an May the People of Israel in this Exile REMEMBER not. ha~n again. that bitter time - a time of theft and murder, a time I h•ve Rte•t confidf'nC!! that the co\ll'age &nd 4elerai.natlcn or tba larat!U people and ot p!ople of rape a11d pillage. everyvhero who lovr f'J"eed..1:9 and Ub"t't.Y vill prevail ~dn at. the re:pet.lt.lon or the horrors d11pltl'ed n MAY WE REMEMBER tl1e blood-lust of the attackers, the cry of the wowided Yad Vaahe.. and the beaten, the weeping of the children, the pain I vu t.pre11~ vith the aubtlo an4 JIO'V'ertul v1.1 in vh1<"h )'~ h"ve conrtf'\lcted the ltf'.Orial, lln4 and the shame and the helplessness. with your dcLenatnatlon that the wrld 1ha n not. torget.. MAY WE REMEMBER that at that time we were free game with no protection S!.neerdy '{)' ~ 1 against the blood-thirsty mob and the robber-police, while the all-powerful army too stood aside and raised /.~~~ 1101 a finger to lielp.

M.r. K•trlel Y.1'h MAY WE REMEMBER forever the sole ray of light, the few Jews who de/en· C'ha1r:r.an ft'ation.at Rc....t>rance Authority ded themselves with whatever came to hand and who JtruHlt•, h raeol. saved their ltono11r and their lives. MAY WE NOTE that our Exile is like 11nto Yemen, and Yemen is like AND REMEMBER 1111to Germany, in the world OUR FATE IS ONE vice were provided with material by AND THE SAME. Self-abasement is no protection Yad Vashem for the programmes they against pillage, de1wal of nationolfty will not negate gave about the Holocaust on the 27th exJermination. To defend one's lumour is to defend of Nissan. Material was also provided one's life; tlte defence is one and tire same. for the special supplements published MAY WE LEARN He wlro surreriders Iris national lronour today, will by the newspapers. A special "Yizkor" THE MORAL to111orro111 surrender his life. The Hebrew Homeland (Remembrance) pin. distributed by the is our only haven of redemption. Hebrew Forces are the only foundation for 011r security. To defend our· survivors' organizations in the big selves is the only defence we can hope for. towns, was meant to stress the purpose ON nus DAY of mourning and awakening, let our Trearts echo loud of Remembrance Day for the Israeli tire eternal pledge-IF I FORGET THEE 0 man in the street; this was a new idea JERUSALEM. MAY MY RIGHT HAND FORGET introduced this year - in previous ITS CUNNING I years pins bad been distributed only to those attending the memorial as·

20 lines is not sufficient by itself to meet SCHOOLS PERPETUATE THE MEMORY problems that have ari.sen with the OF JEWISH COMMUNITIES pass.age of time. Surviving members of the communities have aged and the At the 8th Convention for Perpetuat­ On June 6, 1963, Mr. Gideon Haus­ danger is that in the future the bond ing the Memory of the Jewish Com­ ner M.K. appealed to school-children of live contact must weaken. In order munities, the story of this undertaking and their teachers in "Education to avoid this danger it was plainly was recounted by Mr. Dov Aloni: Echo" and all newspapers with the necessary to put the project on a "About thirty years ago, Mordecai request: "Let every school in Israel sound pedagogic basis. Shenhabi, a member of kibbutz Mish­ and in the Diaspora perpetuate the To help the pupils see the subject mar Ha-Emek, .Put to the Directorate memory of one of the thousands of in concrete terms, Yad Vas.hem has of the Jewish National Fund a project communities that were destroyed prepared sets of s1id es on the follow­ for perpetuating the memory of the when millions of Jews were ex.termina­ ing themes: the small Jewish town victims of the Holocaust: to set up a ted. Let the children begin and the and "the Jewish street"; the institu­ lasting monument to the victims and next generations will carry on perpe­ tions where Jews learnt and taught; to t11eir communities by planting of a tuating the memory of the communi­ Jewish crafts; the schools and pub1ic "Martyrs' Forest" in the hills of Jcru­ ties." In the light of the first experi­ institutions. Every school can obtain s.alem facing Eshtaol. His propos.al ment in a Tel Aviv school. the pro­ slides for showing. was accepted unanimously. Hundreds ject was set going with the agreement The writer Karen Gershon has pre­ of organizations in Israel and in the of the Ministry of Education and Cul· pared summaries in Eng1ish and trans­ Diaspora responded at once, and tens lure in 1964, and now seven years lations of books on the communities of thousands of memorial trees were later, 1,082 schools are perpetuating written by Israeli school children: on planted in hundreds of woods over an the memory of Jewish communities, Vienna. Stuttgart and Kalisch. These area of five square kilometres. and about 300 more schools have sta­ memorial booklets have a lready been The Federation of Teachers for the ted that they will join this project in presented to the members of the Jewish National Fund supported the the school year 1971 /72. American Association for Jewish Edu­ project and took part in carrying it The principal aim of the Depart­ cation to serve teachers undertaking out: in all the schools they proclaim­ ment for perpetuating the memory of to teach the subject. ed a "Children's Forest" to be plan­ Jewish Communities through the ted in memory of the million children Schools is to create a Jiving bond be­ A Teacher Recounts How his who were killed in the Holocaust. tween the younger generation that Class Perpetuated the Memory of a Delegates from the schools of the knew not the Holocaust and the con­ Jewish Community Emek and Galilee, Judea and the tent of Jewish life in Europe before (Repri111ed from "Ma ·alot," periodical of Negev, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Jerusa­ the Second World War. Orgarrizatio11 of Haifa Seco11dary lem all came together, and planted In order to create a direct bond be­ School Teachers.) the Forest of the Martyred Children tween Israeli children and the subject I want to give an account of the in a moving and impressive ceremony. of tho Holocaust, it was decided, on work done in our school in perpetua­ In 1953, the then Minister of Edu­ Mr. Gideon Hausner's initiative of ting tbe memory of the Jewish com­ cation and Culture Prof. Ben-Zion 1963, to adopt a project to have the munities, because I think it can con­ Dinur, brought before the Knesset a school children themselves perpetuate tribute greatly to creating a stronger Bill laying down the lines of activity the memory of the communities. Un­ tie between t11e younger generation for Yad Vashem: "One of the tasks der this project, the pupils meet sur­ and us, the grown-ups. The pupils I of Yad Vas.hem is to gather in the vivors from the communities, talk with teach are in the eleventh year, learn­ material regarding all those members them, collect testimony and written ing locksmithery as their main sulr of the Jewish people who gave their material - and by these immediate ject. lives, who fought and rebelled against means they tell the story of the com­ I must point out that this work was the Nazi enemy and their accom­ munity that was wiped out. The first done in a class with the weakest pos­ plices, and to set up an everlasting person to put this project into effect sible motivation regarding learning Memorial to the communities of Is­ was Mr. Dov Aloni of the Bialik the history of the people of Israel in rael that were destroyed in twenty­ School in Tel Aviv, and he is still general and the story of the Holo­ one countries of the world, in the carrying on with it, with the aid of a caust in particular. years of the Holocaust and Heroism." team of six people, school teachers or The work began upon the initiative The Knesset passed the Bill 'mani­ principals on pension, working in dif­ of a representative of Yad Vash~m. mously. ferent areas. But activity on these who suggested to the teachers in our

21 school to perpetuate the memory of a At a certain stage of the work, possible number of pupils to partici­ community that was destroyed in the when the pupils were told of the exis­ pate in the work, I did my best to Holocaust. On this occasion we were tence of "Pinkas" - the Memorial define a number of themes, such as: shown exemplars of work of this kind volume of the Zinkov community, mutual aid and welfare institutions in that had been done in the past, based with a map, photographs and sketch­ the town; the spread of "enlighten­ for the most part on the memorial es, some of them suggested construct­ ment"; religious life; social and eco­ volumes that had been published ing a model of the town in metal. On nomic structure; outstanding people about different communities. the spot, a "building team" was elec­ that the small town had produced. My It should be known that in our ted, and it was settled that the work work was confined to guiding and dir­ school the pupils had never yet been was to be carried out in the school ecting each pupil in the subject of his put to the test of preparing some "an­ workshop under the guidanee of pro­ choice. nual project" or "annual essay." fessional instructors. Their horizons went on widening. Next the volume was brought into Their talks with those who bad lived Stages of the Projeot the class. and subjects for special es­ in the town were recorded on a tape­ To begin with I put a number of says were distributed among the pu­ recorder and played back to the whole suggestions to my pupils on ways of pils, in conformity with the contents class. Encouraged by this cooperation, working on the subject. In doing so, of the volume. To enable the greatest the pupils proposed on their own ini­ I explained to them the special im­ tiative to meet the people of the town portance of the project they were without any intermediaries, a kind of about to take upon themselves. meeting of the generations. Our pu­ "We, children in Israel whose pa­ The next stage was that I invited _i pils wanted to show their visitors the rents came into this Land from the model of the town that was in process the representative of Yad Vashem to East and from the West, feel a deep come to the class and lecture on the need to stop for a brief moment, to of being built, and to ask them for activities of the institution he repre­ lend ear and hear the cry o( the tor­ more information on details that they sented and on the special importance tured, the slaughtered, the cry of hun­ had not been able to find in the "Pin­ dreds o( children of Israel before of the work suggested to them. kas" of the Community. they breathed their last. We feel the Finally, the pupils elected an "Or­ need to come together to revere their The aims achieved by this project ganizing Committee," the members of memory, were many: 1) motivation to learn, which were requested to meet the Yad Even if that experience was not in a class of rather low educational le­ Vashem representative again to get our personal experience, and only our vel, where history was considered a from him additional information and parents lived through it, body and marginal subject: 2) integration of a soul, we have no right to evade it as practical guidance. definitely bookish subject - history long as a single person still lives who The Committee members. with the was there and saw with bis own eyes - with handicrafts; 3) while carrying help of the Yad Vashem representa­ how human beings are transformed out the project, the students incident­ tive, drew up a questionnaire, which into beasts of prey, how men roar in ally learnt a chapter in citizenship - they were to send to survivors of a their last agony when there is none how to approach people, bow to in­ lo deliver them. It is our duty to feel terview them and correspond with destroyed community now living here as if we had been there, all of us, with us in Israel, asking them to dis­ there on that other planet. That is them, and how to conduct negotia­ close details of past events to the best why we have adopted communities tions with public institutions and in­ of their ability and recollection. At that were destroyed and we exert our­ stances; 4) the pupils found out fo1 the same time, the pupils began cor­ selves and devote thought to finding themselves that learning history is not ways of keeping on perpetuating their responding with a wide number of the memory, and we feel deep satisfaction something cut off from real life. On appropriate institutions, asking them at the widening of the circle of the contrary, it gives people informa­ for background material. schools that have adopted communi­ tion, both by talking to live people At this stage of the work. the entire ties of Israel that were destroyed. and by examining different kinds of class came into the picture. From then With deep gratitude we thank Yad documents; 5) our pupils acquired a Vashem and everyone who is work­ onwards, at the beginning of every ing to carry out this idea." feeling of identification and belonging history lesson, we used to hear a fac­ to a life rooted in another place and tual report from the Committee mem­ The address of Urit Sasson, pupil another period, identification with an bers on the work in progress. I did of tire Kroll Sclrool i11 Peta/1 Tikva, older generation - this identification this on purpose, so as to arouse the at the 8th Co11ve11tion for rhe Perpe­ was expressed, among other things, by t11a1io11 of tire Memory of Jewish interest of those pupils who had thus Comm1111ities. their pride when they were told how far remained indifferent to the whole the town was defended by its own matter. .. people who organized for self-defence.

22 to the slaughter. Dr. Vago discusses RECENT PUBLICATIONS the chapter of efforts at rescue, both YAD VASHEM STUDIES, edited by Dr. Livia Rothkirchen, Jerusalem, 1970, 232 pages. on "the Hungarian line" and .. the German line", which worked for the most part without any connecting "Towards the End of the Holocaust" link between them, and sometimes in contrary directions. To a certain de­ This eighth volume of Yad Vashem ner gave orders to blow up the camps gree, Komoly co-ordinated the activi­ Studies is devoted to the last chap­ of Dachau, Mauthausen and Theres­ ties of the two "lines" with the inter­ ter of the Second World War. Those ienstadt with their inmates. Himmler national efforts to rescue the Jews of were the days when at long last the also issued instructions on these Jines. Hungary. From tho diaries it appears sun pierced the smoke clouds over Shortly after the liberation an ef­ that it was Komoly who handed over Europe - a scene of horror was re­ fort was made to organize the survi­ control of practical activity on the vealed to the world. Before the Jews vors in Bavaria. Dr. Yehuda Bauer, "German line," to his deputy, Dr. there was unrolled a scroH of deepest Senior Lecturer at the Hebrew Uni­ Kastner. He himself initiated and car­ black, dead black. Only after years versity in Jerusalem in the field of ried out most of the efforts along the had passed would historians, mostly Holocaust Studies, gives a detailed Hungarian Line. There were cases Jews, try to understand and explain account of the political activity of the where the two of them cooperated in the mass extermination and the rea­ Allies and of the exertions of the Jew­ both spheres together. Before enter­ sons for its slowing down on the eve isb soldiers from Palestine. This is the ing on the details of what happened, of the fall of the Third Reich. first attempt to sketch an historical Dr. Vago states: "The diITerences be­ The editor, Dr. Livia Rothkirchen. and chronological outline of these ef­ tween the Komoly papers and Kast­ in her review of the last stages of the forts to provide advice. guidance and ncr's Report are inrn1easurably impor­ ..final solution," writes: "With the direction to the masses of people wan­ tant from the point of view of re­ advance of the AUied forces, the fate dering on the roads of Europe and search, for Kastner wrote after the o( the concentration camp inmates, to draw up records of those saved. war. two to three years after the Holo­ particularly that of the Jewish pris­ A considerable part of the volume caust. while Komoly kept his record oners, must obviously have been dis­ is devoted to the darkest chapter in day by day and reported conversa­ cussed at Nazi Headquarters with Hit­ the history of the Jews of Hungary. tions word for word. Komoly reports ler, Kaltenbrunner and Ribbentrop. Dr. Bela Vago, Senior Lecturer in in his diary on conversations and con­ There exists evidence to the effect that the General History Section of the tacts. In this way we have been pro­ the Fuehrer himself ordered the liquid­ Universities of Haifa and Jerusalem, vided with important details. but not ation of concentration inmates 'to en­ reviews the sufferings inflicted upon with material that weighs in the ba­ sure that they do not emerge as vic­ the Jews of Budapest in the summer lance either for or against Kastner. tors a(ter liberation by the AUies.' of 1944. This is a delicate and com­ On this subject, the destruction of Some of his associates were present plicated subject, hard to handle. Hungarian Jewry, Dr. Livia Roth­ when the Fuehrer flew into a rage on where the name Kastner is recalled kircben points out in the paper al­ hearing that the prisoners of Buchen­ time after time. The literature of me­ ready referred to, that in the matter wald were liberated by the American moirs of Hungarian Jews is limited in of "Blood for Ware" proposal "the am1y (in point of fact only half of quantity. and several diaries in manu­ attitude of the Soviets was more un­ the prisoners were released, since script fom1 - Dr. Vago reveals - bending than that of their allies." TI1is about 28,000 of them, mostly Jews. canont be published for personal or attitude was also expressed in the mat­ had been marched off to other camps political reasons: the writer does not ter of Joel Brand's mission. While the on the eve of liberation). He then or­ throw further light on the subject. U.S. Government, with the intentfon dcrccl explicitly that only the sick He bases his account on the diaries of " leaving an open door" for nego­ prisoners be left behind in the camps kept by Otto Komoly, the outstanding tiation, tried to go into the nature of and that the remainder be "evacua­ leader of Hungarian Jewry in the poli­ the proposal. the American Embassy ted." tical arena during the Second World in Moscow declared that its Govern­ Dr. Rothkirchen outlines. among War (he was murdered by the "Ar­ ment and the British Government other things, the last efforts of the row-Cross" on January I. 1945). would not be led astray by a German master-slaughters to kill off those tbat These diaries are published for the proposal liable to split the Allies, the still survived, and in particular Opera­ first time. They throw light, but only Russians remained adamant in their tions "Cloud-A J" and "Fire Cloud." in a limited measure. on the dark real­ refusal. In a secret Soviet memorandum according to which Ernst Kaltenbrun- ity of how Hungarian Jewry was led of June 19, 1944, sent in reply to the

23 United States Embassy, it was stated ments and diaries of victims and sur­ members of her family had been mur­ that the Soviet Union "does not con­ vivors. The author explains the Ger­ dered in her presence, she remained sider it expedient or permissible to mans' systems, the debates that pre­ absolutely alone, seeking a hiding­ carry on any conversations with the ceded every decision, the motives place in the forest like a lone wild German Government on the question which decided the fates of thousands. animal. touched upon." He describes the daily life in the Rather than crying out against the (N.D. in "Haaretz") camps, the methods practiced by the injustice and cruelty of man, the book Dec. 10, 1970. commandants and gives a detailed list voices grateful appreciation for the of the German and Estonian criminals small amount of good that she expe­ who actively helped with the "final rienced at the bands of a few isolated solution" in this Baltic State. people. These people gave her assis­ DOCUMENTS, TESTIMONIES Dr. Dworzecki has even printed tance at risk to themselves, knowingly AND POEMS FROM THE CAMPS poems written in the camps in Esto­ because for them the very fact of her (Review of the recent book of Dr. Mark nia, and he gives them in the original remaining alive symbolized the vic­ Dworzecki, "Jewish Camps in Estonia") Yiddish and in a Hebrew translation tory of good over evil. The subject is not "popular" by to­ by Aharon Meyerowitz. These poems The central figure, to whom the day's standards, and is not likely to seem to me, even more than the re­ book is dedicated, is Olena the Chris­ send the book to the top of the best­ cords and testimonies. descriptions tian woman. She was an old widow, seller Jist. But obviously that was not and official papers, to tum the book poor and alone. When she turned into Dr. Dworzecki's intention when he into a very sincere and moving docu­ something like a mother to the little compiled and edited his new book, ment. girl, she felt that her life had a mean­ "Jewish Camps in Estonia." (Noah Kluger in "Yediot Ahronot") ing for the first time. It was she who Dr. Dworzecki, who belonged to hid Donia, at first in her house but the udnerground resistance in the VH­ later in the forest, and saw to feeding na Ghetto, has not forgotten that time her though she herself was on the edge "THE FOREST MY FRIEND" - if indeed it can ever be forgotten. of starvation. From the very day that he came "The Forest My Friend," the auto­ What comes out very clearly in the back to life after the collapse of the biographical story of Donia Rosen, was book is the revenge taken on the Jews "Nazi Reich," he has devoted all his first published, in instalments. in 1953, by the local hooligans, the Ukrainian energies to research into that period in "Letzte Neies." It appeared in collaborators. The centuries' old tradi­ and has become a chronicler of rev­ book form in Hebrew in 1954 and was tion of anti-Semitism burst forward in elations of horror; for years now he translated into Finnish in 1957. This this time of utter lawlessness, mani­ has been considered one of the world year it bas come out in an English festing itself in killing, ill-trcaUnent experts on the Jewish people's era translation by Mordecai S. Chertoff, and handing over of Jews to the Nazis. of disaster. He has published num­ published by the World Federation of As the name of the book indicates, erous books, articles, disclosures and Bergen-Belsen Association. the forest has a special place in every­ testimonies, and some of his books Unlike the diaries written by child­ thing that happened to the child. The have been awarded important literary ren during the Holocaust itself, Donia same forest that had frightened her prizes. In recent years. Dr. Dworzecki Rosen's story was written after the when she was small now turned into has filled the post of Lecturer on Ho­ end of the war. The authoress reveals a place of refuge, where she spent long locaust and Heroism at the University considerable power of expression. She months completely alone, when only of Bar-nan. calls up the experiences of a little girl the devoted Olena came to her at night The book under review is in fact fighting for her survival, when her to bring her food. As in the tales of an encyclopaedia. It is an encyclopae­ world has collapsed around her but mythology, nature, represented here dia of the twenty camps that were her will to Live proves stronger than by the forest, intervenes actively in set up in Estonia from 1942 to 1944, everything else. With great sensibility the story to help the lonely heroine. to which wero banished more than she describes how she was gradually When reading this book it is difficult 20,000 Jews of the region. Tihe writer cut off from her childhood, which she not to meditate on the symbolic sig­ and researcher has not skimped de­ passed in a small village in the Uk­ nificance of the fate of this lonely tails, and has turned his book into an raine. She had to leave school when little Jewish gir], who faced death important historical document, authen­ the anti-Semitic atmosphere became more than once, but never lost hope. tic and detailed. acute, she was left alone by her com­ It was the strength of this hope that The book contains testimonies, rades, uprooted from the scenes of her finally brought her to the shores of photographs, records, official docu- childhood, and finally, after the other the Land of Israel to begin a new life.

24 gcr, expulsions, executions, epidemics - Mendel Grossman did not forsake hiis camera. He walked about in the Ghetto, with his hidden camera hung round his neck under his coat, taking photographs through his pockets, which be had torn open for the pur­ pose. The fact that he worked in the photographlc laboratory of the Statis­ tics Department of the Ghetto enabled him to obtain films and photograph paper. At very considerable danger to himself, photographing from roof­ tops. electricity poles, and various hiding places, he took pictures of the process of wiping out the Jewish com­ munity, which numbered 160,000 souls at the beginnig of life in the Ghetto Joseph Ziemian meets the former "Cigarette Sellers of Three Crosses Square." and 887 when the Ghetto was libera­ ted by the Soviet Army. In bitter rage Mendel Grossman JOSEPH ZIEMIAN (ZYSMAN) Yael Vasbem after his death, gives an photographed the appalling spectacles exact description of the Ghetto boun­ that happened before his eyes. He de­ Author of "The Cigarette Sellers of Three Crosses Square" daries at every stage. from the estab­ veloped the films. distributed the pho­ Jishment of the Ghetto through its tographs among bis friends, and kept Joseph Zieman, born in 1922, was a gradual contraction in the period of the negatives himself. A short while youngster of 17 when Warsaw was round-ups tiJl the final stage - the before he was expelled from the ghet­ captured by the Nazis. During the oc­ Revolt. Six detailed maps illustrate to to a labour camp in Germany, he cupation he had to strain every nerve the history of the Ghetto. For this collected all the photographs, num­ to fend for his family under condi­ work, a product of much industry, bering some 10,000, and put them in tions of disease and starvation. After Joseph Ziemian drew extensively on tin boxes, which he managed to rude. the end of the struggle of the last de­ the considerable sources in Yad Va­ He himself went on using his camera f enders of the Ghetto, be took upon &hem and other archives. in Germany as well. A few days be­ himself a task that endangered his life fore the surrender, when the Nazis - care for the children in the Ghetto evacuated the camp, Mendel could who had by some miracle survived the "A WANDERING no longer make the effort to keep up Revolt. PHOTOGRAPHER IN THE with the forced march and he died What happened to the children he GHETTO" at the age of 32. recounted after he immigrated to Is­ Like the work of written testimony Album of Photographs taken by Mendel rael in 1957 in his book, "The Ciga­ Grossman, published by the "Ghetto performed in the Ghettoes, his photo­ rette Sellers of Three Crosses Square." Fighters' House," (Hebrew) Graphics graphs too were a form of revolt - This book has been translated into Zvi Simer Alexander Sened. In Memo­ the will to make a permanent record five languages. and its Hebrew edition riam for Grossman - by Ben Menahem, of all the cruelty. not to let things be found more readers than any other (1970). forgotten, to leave behind a living writ book on the Holocaust. selling some From his youth, Mendel Grossman of accusation against the crimes com­ 20,000 copies. The English edition was of Lodz was an amateur photographer mitted, The artistic value of the photo­ published in London by Vallentine, who saw in photography an art in the graphs even augments their documen­ Mitchell in 1970. full sense of the word. He photograph­ tary significance. Joseph Ziemian died in Tel Aviv ed landscapes, portraits, nature, still The photographs brought together on January 30, 1971. files, the visit to Lodz of the Hebrew in this book represent only a tiny por­ As a researcher he concentrated on theatre "Habima" - attaining an im­ tion of what Grossman photographed. the history of the Warsaw Ghetto. His pressive level of artistic achievement. After the end of the war, bis sister paper on "The changing boundaries When the dreadful days came of took the negatives out of their biding of the Warsaw Ghetto," published by the German occupation, days of bun- place and sent them to Kibbutz Nit-

25 THE HALL

..Write this for a memorial in a book," the Lord said unto Moses after the war with Amalek. This was the com­ mandment at that time, but it is also for our day. It is laid upon us too Lo write down what has happened in this time of ours and to record the names of our martyrs and heroes. To remem­ ber them and not forget. May the Hall of Names serve as a monument for our brothers, set up by the people of Israel in its home and within its walls, according to the words of the prophet, "Unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a Young and cheap labour force; children hauling a cart place and a name . . . an everlasting name that shall not be cut off." zanim. All this material was lost when the moving account of his harrowing (Mr. Y.L. Bialcr, at the inauguration of the Nitzanim fell during the War of In­ experiences in the ghetto, was publish­ Hall of Names.) dependence. The photographs collec­ ed by Vallentine, Mitchell in 1969. He ted in this book are part of those also contributed numerous articles and Dear Friends: which Mendel distributed among his book reviews on the subject of the Several months ago, I learned of friends and acquaintances, including Holocaust to the Jewish Chronicle and your project to commemorate the des­ some that were hidden by friends in other journals. truction of millions of European Jews a well and were taken out of Poland Michael Zylberberg was born in by a permanent coIJection of the names at the end of the war. Plotsk, Poland, of a rabbinical family. and biographical data of as many of Tho photographs show different as­ Before the Second World War he was the victims of National-Socialism as it pects of Jife in the Ghetto. Work­ a teacher in Warsaw and was trapped might still be possible to gather. Soon shops, food queues, notices about dis­ when the Jewish quarter was besieged. after the end of the Second World tribution of rations. people hunting By posing as a Catholic and a Polish War, having the same idea in mind through rubbish heaps, collecting corp­ officer he managed to escape from the concerning those of the victims who ses, columns of people rounded up ghetto before its destruction. were my relatives, I began the often for expulsion, the cemetery with the After the war he left Poland, but difficult task of ascertaining the fate of bodies of the murdered dead. The before leaving he hid his diary notes those who had been known to be alive photographs are accompanied by a and various other documents in his in 1940 but had not been heard from text taken from the two volumes of house. Returning to Warsaw after the after the liberation of the survivors. the "Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto" war he searched for the papers, but The relatives include my parents and which appeared in Poland in 1965. could not find them. He came to Eng­ my mother-in-law, eight brothers and The collection itself is not in the land and one day, a full 20 years after sisters of my grandparents, and many nature of an artistic legacy. It is the the war, he received an astonishing first and second cousins of my parents. last will and testament of the photo­ telephone call from an English tourist who represent nearly every age and grapher-artist - who tried, literally who had been to Warsaw, who told profession, a few very rich and many until his last breath - to leave be­ him that his papers had been found more quite poor. merchants. workers, hind evidence of the Holocaust, in a while the house was being extensively and public service employees, nothing language understood by all. repaired. less but a mirror of the total popula­ tion of Central European Jewry. MICHAEL ZYLBERBERG Michael Zylberberg. one of the very The victims include deportees, as Author of "A Warsaw Diary." few survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto well as concentration camp prisoners A prolific writer and journalist, Zyl­ Uprising, died in London in October dragged from camp to camp, only to die berberg's book, "A Warsaw Diary," 1971. a few weeks or even days before libera-

26 As one of the relatives who survived, sheet on a drawing board soon to be OF NAMES through no merit of my own, I am filled. A small forest, a unique forest, most pleased to be able to help you everything is unique here, as is the form this monument to those whose narrow path in the unique forest: the tion would have been theirs. They in­ place and date of death will, for the Garden of the Righteous among the clude those who took their own lives most part, be a place now forever in­ Nations. There are plaques beneath the in the face of total hopelessness or in scribed in the bitter annals of Jewish trees. They do not bear botanic names, the face of the imminent order to re­ history. neither Cupressus sempervirens nor Pi­ port for deportation, and they include I trust that the work of the Yad nus sylvestris. The trees carry names some who died while on the road to Vashem will receive the greatest co­ of people. Righteous Christians: Mon­ some camp or .another, and of whom operation from every Jewish man and signore Theas from France and Och­ not even the place or date of death is woman who survived the disaster which rym Sieroczuk from the Soviet Union, known. The oldest deportee was 93 befell our people twenty-five years ago, Irene Typaldos f:rom Greece and Ist­ years old, while the youngest was bare­ never to be forgotten. van Vasdenyey from Hungary. Dr. An­ ly one year of age. More than fifty gelo de Fiore from Italy and Johana Most sincerely yours, were taken from countries near Ger­ Stoensecu from Rumania, Emilia Mia­ John Henry Richter many in which they had hoped to find zio from Poland and Gerben Ticdema refuge after their earlier emigration. October 15, 1970 Ann Arbor, U.S.A. from Holland. Sophia Binkiene from Lithuania and Dr. Gertrud Luckner from West Germany. I have found the HANS HABE ON Y AD VASHEM tree named after Dr. Margit Schlachta, ... Is Yad Vashcm a publishing house slaughtered? Nowhere in Israel is one I was once allowed to touch her hand, in Israel? Only those who, like me. so deeply moved as here; but, could it was 1947, a Mother Superior of a do not know a word of Hebrew may one weep different tears with both Budapest nunnery she was and hun­ ask such a question. Yad Vashem one's eyes, one would have shed a dreds of Jews had she hidden. Alfred means a ml.'morial and a name - give tear of mourning and the other a tear Kerr, after having emigrated to Eng­ tho Jews "a memorial and a name" of rage. A cemetery. The German land, was thinking of the underground which is, as promised by Isaiah, "bet­ word "Friedhof,' out of the middle­ fighters in Germany when he wrote: ter than sons and daughters." Yad high German "vrithof' and the old "The world knows nothing of thefr na­ Vashem is the largest graveyard in high-German 'frithof,' has nothing to mes / They are floating there in light the world. A graveyard without graves. do with the word 'Frieden' meaning and shade / One wants to pluck one's The monument of Job. prayer­ peace; rather with a word 'eingcfrie­ hat off to them / And greet them a shawl over his shoulders and concen­ det' which means fenced in. It is thus thousand times unbeknown to them." tration camp number tatooed on his not a peace-yard but a fenced-in yard. They do not know it now, these under­ bare arm. Nat11an Rapoport. an Israeli Only later it became associated with ground fighters, though 540 of them sculptor, made it; I was to understand peace. There is resting place for the have trees planted in their names in later on. why it could only stand in Jews, no peace. Tsracl: there are more to be planted, Yad Vashem. A praying Job, but when A broad staircase leads up. A Gali­ the examining board is still at work; one looks at bis folded arms one per­ cian Jew, Joseph Roth, once wrote there is nothing in the Writ to say that ceives a clenched fist, the massive head about a French cathedral: " ... those Jewish names alone "are better than facing heaven, expecting an answer are not stairs one ascends, it is a stair­ sons and daughters," there is nothing from heaven, but the answer is sup­ case one kneels-up on"; he would have in the Writ to say that a monument posed to he given to an indictment. kndt up here. The house of remam­ cannot blossom. He i ~ defiant rather than compliant. brance: a defiant block of rock. the I get a black scull-cap made of pa­ Israel's Job docs not whine. Israel's gigantic smooth quadrangle resting on per. a kippa out ,of the harsh sunlight Job accuses. A silent wrath lies over stones as if Jews in the enslavement of and into darkness, this is Ohel Y izkor, Yad Vashem and defiant, unyielding Egypt have hewn it out of the soil. or the Memorial Shrine. The eyes get used impatience is mixed with dignity of rather in the enslavement of Germany. to it, the light faJJs demurely into th.is death: the murdered are mourned and The house of remembrance is built on tent of stone. in a corner the eternal resistance is hailed. I do not think the a small hill, in an olive-grove, the How­ flame is burning. The marble floor is to Jews who erected Yad Vashem know ers shimmer, there is Spring about the be seen from above as though no hu· it - they have given the answer to house of remembrance. Down below man foot has trodden on it. The mar­ the youth who keeps asking: why, why there are old Arab villages and new ble floor is endless, it must end some­ have you allowed yourselves to be settlements. the rock looks like a white where; it gets lost in the dark endless-

27 eilher, whose parents, grand-parents and great-great-grandparents were not there, be guilty? Where does innocence start, whoever gives it a birth-certifi­ cate? So are you allowed to forget that here on both sides of Mount Herzl there lives a people, the same people that was murdered in Dachau and Tre­ blinka, Auschwitz and Babi Yar, Mau­ thausen and Bergen Bel sen? So you are innocent and therefore owe nothing to that people? I shall have no part of your innocence. Nor shall I have part of the vengeance. It is just that I do not want to escape into the exile of forgetfulness. In Yad Vashem one cannot forget. There are archives of the mass-mur­ ders, names of murderers along with the nameless ones. The exhibition Dr. Chaim Pazncr, member of the Yad Vashem Directorate, presenting to Mr. and Mrs. "Warning and Witness" steps into hell. Jolson a certificate in acknowledgement o[ their contribution made for the Hall of Names Fuehrer orders, sentence carried out, at the Mount of Remembrance. ledgers of death, debit and credit, book­ keeping of murder, transport report ness as the distress of the Jews. Not a sen, just Jilcc 'built-up area begins' Auschwitz, someone had to set the single object, no ritual appliances, sym.­ 'built-up area ends,' 'fifty KPH speed railway semaphors, the prisoners' garb bols are meaningless. Just names on limit, the road-sign looks like any of the innocent, gas delivery vouchers, the marble floor, nor are they human other farmhouses in the sun, fruit-bear­ ZykJon B, order carried out. there was names: they are names of inhumanity, ing trees, children at play by the road, only one order, who ever heard it is Dachau and Treblinka, Auschwitz and memory gets weary, it forgets, it for­ allowed to forget, protocol of the Final Babi Yar, Mauthausen and Bergen Bel­ gets: now one's gaze turns to the name Solution, the dogs were copiously fed, sen. More than twenty names - and Mauthausen, a name on a gravestone. photographs of the howling crowd, of 4,000,000 who were murdered in the Beneath the eternal flame there is a course they knew nothing, near Dachau concentration camps. Chiselled into the wreath, a black-red-and-gold ribbon, lilacs were in full bloom, photographs black floor are the names of the mur­ a German delegation has Jaid the of skeletons, a refuse-dump of people, der cities, unevenly. one here, one wreath on the day before, I do not gold-teeth delivered. Everything is so­ there, like the visiting-cards of death, think it is blasphemous. Katriel Katz ber, parsimonious, not a word, through nothing to be added; there are no dead was to give us later the document with tho tall windows the high-noon sun under the tombstone, one can visit here the Baal-Shem-Tov's words on it: seeps in, no one says here: this is how not one single dead man, only all the "Forgetting leads to exile, remembering we died; here everybody feels: we have dead. It is as if the Wailing Wall has is the secret of redemption." risen from the dead. submerged itself, it lies under our feet We do not look at each other, my I am saying it once again: maybe inaccessible, into the cracks of this wife and I: I do not know whether she the Israelis do not know it - it is not Wailing Wall one can put neither com­ has tears in her eyes. I have clenched by accident that the largest and sunniest plaint nor request. it is all over. The my teeth. Mourning needs little space, halls in Yad Vashem belong to the re­ resting places the Jews have in other many roads lead across graveyards. sistance fighters; here is the picture of countries arc restless, there are memo­ Who would usurp the right to forget? Hannah Szcnes. we knew her. she pa­ rials in Warsaw and in Auschwitz. rest­ So you, young people, were not present rachuted behind the German lines in less places on hostile soil, it is only here while it was all happening? Whoever Hungary, she was tortured, she named that the dead Jews are home, here. told you that guilt was conditional up­ no names and she was executed. Let­ where none of them is buried. A couple on presence? Have you crucified ters from the Jewish underground, a of months ago, travelling from Zurich Christ? And are you all innocent be­ letter smuggled out from a paratrooper to Vienna. we passed a road-sign deno­ cause you were not there? So why to hfa mother before be was executed. ting eighteen kilometres to Mauthau- should the Jews. who were not there Order of the day from the Commander

28 of the Young Resistance Fjgbters in cal, an arsenal of unanswered mail, of opens the drawer and asks us halting­ Poland, the words in Ludwik Landau's unfinished matters. This is no filing­ ly: "Would you like to have this .. ?" dliary: "We started a new war here, system. Every page represents one ot He is holding one form in his band. the Jewish-German war. The Jews have the dead. In small letters it says at "I the undersigned ... domiciled at ... opened the third front which joi.ns the the head of every sheet. "For the Re­ degree of kinship . _ . hereby declare fronts in Russia and in North Africa." cord of Victims of the Holocaust." Sur­ that this testimony is according to the And the memory of the Ghetto Figh­ name, name, father's name, mother's best of my knowledge ..."I am think­ ters in Warsaw: this above alJI. The name, date of birth, place of abode be­ ing of my mother's beautiful sister, nee dead of Auschwitz are the Israelis' fore the war, place of abode during Aranka Marton, she was the youngest, kith and kin, the dead of Warsaw are the war - no questions concerning married to a Christian, a member of the their brethren. Israel bas never forgot­ place of abode after the war - wife's Hungarian national soccer team, Fe­ ten that it was young Zionists who name, husband's name, children under rencz Egyhazy; I am thinking of my fought and died in the Warsaw Ghetto. 18, circumstances of death. Circum­ mother's big thin sister, nee Adele Mar­ On the 25 of April 1968. on the Twen­ stances of death. And since under the ton. she used to bake cakr..s for me; I ty-fifth Anniversary of the Revolt, a rigid rules only those of the dead have am thinking of my mother's seven sis­ member of the Knesset said in the entries where the Jiving can testify. ters, they were eight daughters. Licci House: "It was they, the young men there are only a million and a half of is thinking of her brother-in-law Erno and women of the Zionist youth move­ them whose names were taken down - Klein, born in Pressburg, murdered in ment, who made history. They - not only a million and a half. Dachau. their German enemies. They - not the The Director of Yad Vashem, who "We would like to take a few Poles who hated them and who aligned had been taking us around, was blow­ forms," I am saying to the Director. themselves with the oppressors. They ing his nose. He has not got a cold. I "There are plenty," he says. - not the callous world, which turned do not know how many hundreds he "We will need them." a blind eye as the enemy arose to des­ has already taken through Yad Vashem (From the chapter "Yad Vashem" of Hans troy the Jewish people. They - not but still be does not use his handker­ Habc's recent book "Like unto David in the official leadership of the Jewish chief because he has a cold. Outside, Ancient Times.") communities in the Diaspora." The near the huge gate, there is a table. He Translated from the German by Ari Avner. Member of the Knesset who said that was Gideon Hausner, who was the prosecutor at the Eichmann Trial. Thus Message to the Survivors Yad Vashem, that published Hausner's (Continued from page 3) speech, the most unusual cemetery in the world, a graveyard where no cotfrn ours and even what our friends too the Holocaust taught us: the Jewish is ever interred and where the grave­ call, "Israeli obstinacy," should read people is no longer prepared to go on diggers are uncovering the roots. the words of this youngster, Ofer Fe­ being a passive object at the mercy of This is what we thought until our niger of blessed memory. Then he will the will of those who only a bare final station. A gate opens. The archi­ understand. Those words enclose the quarter of a century ago saw them tecture of Yad Vashem is one of mighty essence of what we experienced, the murdered - and shut their eyes, heard beauty. but when one thinks back one essence of the lesson the Holocaust them cry-and turned a deaf ear. only sees this double gate. Black stones taught us. This people has said to it­ Where is their moral right to preach to wedged into each other and in between self once and for all that it will not us if we are not prepared to return to rectangular openings; one can hardly go on excusing itself to anyone for the the frontiers - not secure or recog­ perceive that this gate opens at all, it fact of its existence. That's what. it nized - that will enable those who is a prison gate. The space behind it is wants, neither more nor less. There is wanted to put an end to us to try again a black cube, the stone floors are black, no people in the world that is asked tomorrow? If in three tries they didn't the ceiling is black as well as the walls, to make excuses for existing, and why manage it, is it our duty to make it but it is not quite clear that there are should it be precisely we who ought possible for them to try a fourth time? walls here; one cannot see the masonry to do so? Is it because we remained For many, many forty-year-olds in for the black shelves, reaching to the alive? Many of the peoples of the this country, the Six-Day War was ceiling. are full of big black files; they world know it in their inmost hearts their fourth war. A war every ten do not look any different from other that if we remained alive, it was not years! In-so-far as it depends on us, we files of the same kind, they are known thanks to any help they offered us have decided that the last war will in­ in Germany as Leitz-files, but these but sometimes in their despite. deed have been the last one. After the are black. a filing-system, alphabeti- And there was another lesson that terrible blood-letting we suffered in Eu-

29 rope, has anyone the right to demand ever demanded that the Council call self as if he had come forth out of that we make it easier for those who to order those who openly declare Egypt." will not accept the fact of our existence their intention of completing the work These days we are witnessing the to spill our blood again in the decade of Hitler and Eichmann on the banks beginning of a new Exodus from Egypt. ahead? We have every reason to be of the Yarkon. Our brethren in Russia, who are no convinced that he who refuses to sit Everything that we have created up longer the Jews of silence but rather down and negotiate with us at the to now has been nothing other than the the Jews of courage, are fighting every peace table is carrying out manoeuvres bridgehead for a renewed Return to hour of every day for their right to at the sand table for the next war Zion. The process of reinforcing our redemption and freedom, which in against us. strength is a constant one. and one that their eyes means only one thing: to And just today, adc!ressing an au­ is constantly being strengthened. The reach the shores of Israel. They arc dience of Jewish fighters, revering to­ Jews shall no longer be free game for beating against the gates that Jock gether the memory of our beloved all. The heroes of terrorism and sabo­ them in there, and from time to time dead and of the heroes of the ghettoes tage - and those who back them - a narrow crack opens up for them; and the forests, who fought and fell delude themselves that their murder­ Jews in the free countries are free to in the most desperate batt.lles that the ous deeds will deter us, deter immi· come to the Land, but sad to say not human race has known, hopeless bat­ grants from coming to the Land and many turn this freedom of theirs into tles for no gain - in scattered re· settlers from settling on frontiers that reality, and we in Israel look forward doubts on hostile, alien soil - it is give us security, but anyone who knows hopefully to the coming of all of these right and fitting that I should say: we the Jewish people knows that those Jews so that together, we may unite have many dead behind us, too many who devise its ruin arc doomed to dis­ our efforts to build a Jewish State that for us to let ourselves endanger the appointment, and that this State wilJ will never again be exposed to the dan­ life o( a single son of this murdered eternally be the State of the Eternal ger of war and the threat of extinction. people. People. Brothers-in-arms. Only a strong and progressive Israel It is the irony of fate that those who At the beginning of this message I is warrant for our people's survival, all want to perpetuate hatred and hostility recalled the saying of the Haggada. "In of our people. and for the coming of in our region are called "socialists.'' every generation a man must see him- peace. those whose vain boast it is that they speak in the name of humanism and the Left, while young Yossie Kilmann New Problems in Study and Research of the Holocaust of blessed memory, who was born in (Continued from page 4) Bergen-Belsen and who died in Sinai in the Six-Day War defending his last fendant relalionship can be followed tragedy in U.S.S.R. It is cbaracteristic home from Soviet bullets so that there with great precision. and symptomatic that since 1944 no should be no second Bergen-Belsen On the eve of the Day of Atone­ Jewish voice in the U.S.S.R. was rais· here - he and his comrades are called ment, September 28/29, 1941, 33,771 eel to commemorate this tragic event. Fascists by the Kremlin perverters of Jews were murdered in Babi-Yar by :a. fact more important for the under­ Socialism! the Einsatzgruppen. This fact was duly standing of the position of Soviet Jews And - irony piled on irony- So­ reported by the killing squad which than many others stressed in the litera­ viet arms, which only a quarter of a left no doubt about the identity of the ture. But three Russians did raise century ago were taken up in order to victims and murderers. their voices after Stalin's death during exterminate the Nazi plague on the Jn January 1942, V.M. Molotov (then the so-called thaw. They were: the banks of the Volga, these same arms Foreign Minister of U.S.S.R.) pub­ novelist Viktor Nckrasov (I 957), the - perfected many times over - are lished a note on Babi-Yar where the poet Yevgeni Yevtushenko (1961), delivered to the epigones of the "final precise relationship of victims and and the leading composer of the Soviet solution" on the banks of the Nile, murderers was stated: Jews the for­ Union Dimitri Shostakovich (l 963). place of refuge for the war criminals mer, Germans the latter. In tJ1e last Nekrasov urged a memorial in Babi· from the banks of the Rhine. And in period of the war a writer of Jewish Yar, Yevtushenko's poem became a France- pontiffs of the Right and descent (Ilia Grigoryevich Ehrenburg) world-wide literary and extra literary cardinals of tJ1e New Left crown the returned to this subject in one of his event (in U.S.A. alone not less than brows of murderers of women and novels (The Storm) and also dedicated five poets translated the poem; the Yid­ children with the Jaurels of heroic res· to the viclics a poem entitled "Babi· dish monthly - Sovietish Heim/and istance fighters. And in the In-security Yar." Thjs was the end of the Jewish - in Moscow alone failed to publish Council-not one of its members has concern with Babi-Yar, i.c-. with the tbe poem in Yiddish, the language of

30 the martyrs. Shostakovich's 13th sym­ with oher exhibits at the Basie indus­ Communist PoJand was duty-bound to phony was inspired by that poem): trial fair in June this year. The auilio­ condemn its class enemies of yester­ rities of Basie expressing their disgust, year and to say the plain truth. How­ No gravestone stands in Babi-Yar i.e. at a statement that the "massacre ever. instead of saying the truth about Only coarse earth heaped roughly of six million in W.W.Il had the active the atttiudc of the Polish popu1ation in the gash !iupport of the Zionists" demanded the vis-a-vis the Jewish Catastrophe and Such dread comes over me; immediate cessation of these activities. charging ilie pre-war regime with res­ 1 feel so old Let us now turn to ilie developments ponsibility for the depth of Polish Old as the Jews. in Poland. One of ilie problems that anti-Semitism, the Communists - at Today I am a Jew ... tormented the minds of many Poles present even more radical in their anti­ Now I go wandering, was: Is it an accident of history ilial semitism ilian the bourgeois regime - an Egyptian slave; Poland became, so to speak, the ceme­ chose - particularly in the last years And now I perish, tery of European Jewry? Is it an acci­ -·a totally absurd version of the Jew­ splayed upon the cross. dent of history iliat all major mass­ ish disaster, that runs as follows: wiili The reaction of the Government exterminalion camps were established the exception of a few inveterate crim­ (Krushchev) and the Writers' Union on Polish soil? Granted iliat perhaps inals the Polish population of 20 mil­ was instantaneous and sharp: Jews ilie original motivation of establishing lion concentrated all its efforts during were not alone among the killed - they the death camps in the Government­ the war to rescue Jews while the Jews argued - but also Russians and Uk­ General was to have them close to the calla borated with the Nazis and the rainians, in short the victims were places where ilie victims were. But Jewish police helped in the deporta­ Soviet citizens. Why emphasize a surely ilie importation of victims tions. Jewish tragedy. they asked. Yevtu­ from the North, the South, the East, Two voluminous books (one by Bar­ shenko had to rewrite the poem (which ilie West of Europe to Poland came toszewski and Lewin written in Poland. incidentally disappeared completely as a result of the fact, iliat the Ger­ the other by Iranek Osmecki in Lon­ from his Collected Poems 1970) and mans were satisfied that no trouble don) ironically with titles borrowed Shostakovich bad lo modify his sym­ would arise in Poland if and when the from the Jewish tradition: (The Right­ phony. At tJ1is stage the accused was truth about iliose camps became eous Among Nations. He Who Saves still the same, the Germans, but the known to the local population. If so, One Life ...) were supposed to prove victim was no more the Jew but Soviet why were the Germans so sure of such this point. Bartoszewski's personal citizens. Although the "documentary an attitude on the part of the Poles? noble record in bis efforts to help Jews novel" of Anatoli Kuznelsov Babi-Yar Was it not that their contacts wiili the is outstanding. Had the authors told ( 1967) described the Jewish agony Poles during the first 30 months of the whole truth (apathy or hostility of there wiili great power and understand­ occupation convinced them that ilie the majority) and extolled the virtue of ing, the censors eliminated all mention majority of the Polish population saw the few who really risked their lives of hostility of ilie local population to­ in the Germans the End/User (final (Hans Frank has decreed the death pe­ wards the Jews. Now in London. Kuz­ "solutionjsts") of their Jewish prob­ nalty for hiding Jews) to rescue "one netsov, who fled the Soviet Union, lem? life,'' no objection could have been brought with him a microfilm of the Poland today is a Communist-con­ made against such publications. More­ original novel, recently published, trolled, strictly totalitarian State which over. the heroism of ilie few would as a "document in ilie form of a novel," allegedly broke with its pre-Commu­ have gained in stature against the where the sad as.pects of local collabo­ nist past. Still I have to find a work background of mass indifference and ration came to light. criticizing the between wars Polish collaboration of the many. But you The latest stage in this accused-ac­ anti-Jewish policies, the Polish Mada­ would look in vain for such a funda­ cuser relationship was recently formu­ gascar plan (taken over but later mental reservation. lated by the Soviet Union to the effect: abandoned by the Nazis), the Polish Surely, aJl this nonsense could be the victims were Soviet citizens. the Government-in-Exile motion o( August easily refuted not by ex-post facto accused were the Zionists (ilie second 1942 demanding that the future Peace apologies but by hundreds of testimo­ pseudonym for Jews after "cosmopoli­ Conference establish a Jewish State nies of Poles and hundreds of docu­ tan" in the late 'forties). The circle is for all the Jews, which was interpreted ments of ilie Polish underground and now complete: the Jews as victims in certain circles as presaging forced ilie Polish Government-in-Exile which ceased to exist, but Jews became the emigration of Jews from Poland (iliere give a completely different picture of accused. Since we are on Swiss soil, let were still at that time Jews in Poland). the attitude of the Polish population me register the fact that ilie Soviets Not only as a matter of truth but also and of the Jewish situation. Emmanuel exported this sort of propaganda along as a supposedly proletarian state. Ringelblum, a Jewish historian, friend-

31 ly to Poles, has left in the Archive of Oneg Shabat (the underground archive of the Jewish Resistance) a detailed analysis of Polish-Jewish relations dur­ ing the Nazi Occupation. During the brief thaw in Poland (1957) when this study was published it attracted the interest of the Germans who republish­ ed it in a German translation to the dismay of the Poles. Moreover, Oneg Shabat carried out an enquiry on the Polish population's attitude toward the Jewish situation and it is available. This brings us to the future of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. Despite ideological restrictions im­ posed on the Institute by the watchful Communist Party it made a lasting contribution to the History of che Holocaust in the present boundaries of Poland. In 1968, a large and pre­ cious part of the Archives of the In­ stitute were loaded on trucks and car­ ried away to various Government insti­ tutions, a sight that called to memory the trucks of the Nazi authorities car­ rying off Jewish libraries and museums Jn recent years Jewish students in the U.S.A. have demonstrated a growin? for the infamous Einsatzslab R osen­ desire to learn the history of Holocaust and Heroism and its consequences for berg. The veterans of the Institute today. Visible proof of this- the buttons worn by many students for Remem­ staff emigrated (Poland's loss - Israel's brance Day, 21th Nissan. One button recalls Auschwitz, Treblinka and Warsaw gain), and there is no access by Jews together with other names signifying martyrdom and heroism in the history of to the sources available in Poland. the Jewish people. The other button shows the first letter of the name Auschwitz Moreover, such bodies as the Central together with the number 51548, which stands for the fifth month, fifteenth day Commission for Investigation of the of the year 1948, the date of the declaration of independence of the State of Hitler Crimes in Poland have been Israel. subverted to prove Jewish guilt. Nor did they shrink from rewriting history. When the last phase of the anti-Jew· ish campaign started, the competently written article on the concentration camps of the Polish General Encyclo­ pedia (Encyklopedia Powszeclma) had already been printed. By an order from above. the subscribers were given write was "the alliance of Israel with tion of the Jewish people. Should this an insert on the same subject com­ the Federal Republic of Germany!") plan materialize, the Nazi "Institute pletely distorting the general tenor and I understand that among other for Research into the Jewish Question" the details of the accurate original plans, the idea is being seriously de­ conceived by Rosenberg, would be article by minimizing the Jewish vic­ bated of transforming the PoJish­ revived in Communist Warsaw. The tims' part and magnifying that of the oriented Jewish Institute into a Re- elimination of Warsaw as a center of Polish victims. Partial rewrite is prom­ search Institute of the "Jewish Ques­ Holocaust studies imposes a new res­ ised in the last three volumes and a tion" in general which, i.a. will show ponsibility on living Jewish institutions complete revision of the forthcoming the rescue activities of the Poles and which have already assumed such res· second edition of the Encyclopedia. the "conspiracy between Western ponsibility in regard to the history of (One of the stated reasons for the re- Jewry and the Nazis" for the destruc- the Holocaust in U.S.S.R.

32 YAD V ASHEM IN THE DIASPPORA

On the initiative of Mr. Eli Zborowski, who perished on "Pages of Tes­ of Contemporary Jewry at the He­ President of the American Federation timony" to be kept in the Hall of brew University of Jerusalem. of Jewish Anti-Nazi Fighters. Camp Names in Yad Vashem; 6) To grant scholarships for research Inmates and Nazi Victims, the Ameri· 4) To establish a central place in New and publications on themes con­ can Zionist Youth Foundation has ag­ York for activities on bebaJf of nected with Holocaust and He­ reed lo head the effort to instil con­ Yad Vashem, where Jewish organ­ roism. sciousness of the Holocaust and He­ izations can obtain informative and Mr. Zborowski stressed that this roism among Jewish students in the educational material on the Holo­ programme will be carried out by universities. caust and Heroism; stages. as means for it are mobilized Renewed interest in and growing 5) To collect oral testimony from survi­ and placed at the disposal of the Ame­ identification with everything connec­ vors of the Holocaust living in the rican Federation of Jewish anti-Nazi ted with the history of the Holocaust United States, under the d irection Fighters, Camp Inmates and Nazi Vic­ is to be observed among Jewish stu­ of Yad Vashem and the Institute tims. dents in the universities paraUel with active interest in the subject of Rus­ sian Jewry. As part of the information pro­ gramme preceding Holocaust and He· roism Remembrance Day 1971. the American Federation invited the Chair­ <:>i®~mw '1mw 0~~ man of the Directorate of Yad Va­ President shem, Mr. Katriel Katz, to lecture to Borough of Q ueens, The Ciry of New York young Jews in America on the subject, "Holocaust and Heroism in the Light :(lr.orlnmntion of Present-Day anti-Semitism." 6'r.r.rting: Mr. Katz spoke on the campuses of wal.tl, t.M IM,..\ or the SW\.• ot' brad Ila• dulpat.d !prU 221 1971, eorretpGlldbc to lbe 27th d..q or U. .aD\b ot Ii.au o:D \Ile Boston, New York, Chicago and the • ....., cahDdar, u U.. d.q to l"....t.r tM N.l"\.JT'dm ud ~ ot lb• 11s eJWon J•w \lltJlo prathblld sn \M ~pea.a West Coast. He lectured to research Mlouv1t, ud \11111.LS, t.M- luh' ..Lal t.ortwtoe, ..1a111r1, d.t1Uair ud d•#MS.. circles, to university classes and semi­ •t u..u ncua.. btton d ...\.b, ud \be pQllul •Dd t,P1r1\~ 11et.ni111 or t~ rtv wbo tte•S*i UWt clM\.b c... pe aboded &Iii nars of students of E uropean history, • t -...4 u.. uu,. vorld or aane ••, ud

WllDUS, lwhh 1.. s.tance tta\t..n1 ud parUaaaa baUl.tid ~ political sciences and contemporary o• •n'7 tiiar hollt, ud 1o tba 1t.rnh or Dlf'ope1 1 cit!.. Lo Jewish history, and was interviewed in Mlp MIQ" Jw1 uc:ape, &nd t.o de\et ~ lul vv acb.1.M, ud WllllU.9, r•F...... \.&Uft• or \ta. Stat.. ot 1 ....1 ud -b&.r• or •J"M• the press, on the radio and television. coe-•, f'nt.era&l. ud c~) GrJ&A!Ut.lOM or Qa.en.1 ud ~ lel.... dll ••tber a\ th• TO'llQI b:rHl or PorH'l 11.ille wit.a M.Q1' .....-itGl'1 or Ttebl tllka, D1u11U.1t, l!lltr1•a-8tlM•, Al the farewell reception given to MIJ~, Ma11.~u, &uch.vita, l1.rUD111, ll,t.cbl.D\19.ld u4 •U...- coDC9Dt.ratloe cup• ror Meoril-1 ""lieu, Mr. Katz and Mr. Stefan Grajek by the IOW1 TVIUtm.I, 1, SlDllf U'USI, Pr-.11dn\ or Ut. &""lti ot ~M-u, American Federation of Jewish Anti· \.M Cl\.7 Df hv Tor11:, ~l.a.19 'PrU U , 1971 Nazi Fighters, Camp Inmates and Nazi .-..c& Dt.T Piil Jll'l811 IWIT!lUIOl .lllD llllllOlllM la ~ ud .... all "" ctu.... t..o rln p&l:l.M u _.,- ol'-"\M M.1'1.JH Md Mroel of U.. liloloc.au\ PQ'Jod Victims, the Chairman of the Federa­ hkopt, tion. Ml'. Eli Zborowski. announced a cio.. 1\ 9oto.c;lll 11.11, lw r.ant ..., J.• t.bt tStr or a.v t•k, o• 't.ll.11 uw-u.~ c.:, or ~la, 1a u.. reu one ~ ua. bl&DdNd tat. six-point programme of cooperation .., .. ,,...... / .... - with Yad Vashcm: a~/,_( · -·~~ 1) To carry on and expand the effort ~Ulllf, ;_OIK.M "' r:l1!DI to instill consciousness of the Holo­ I caust and Heroism in universities in the U.S.A.; 2) To hold the 27th of Nissan as Holo­ The American Federation of Jewish anti-Nazi Fighters, Camp Inmates and Nazi Victims caust and Heroism Memorial Day has in its programme the 27th of Nissan as Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day, for all Jewjsh organizations in the in accordance with the decision of the Knesset of the State of Israel. The Mayor of the New York Borough of Queens issued a special Proclamation, upon the U.S.A.: request of Mr. Eli Zborowsk.i, President of the above Federation, declaring the 27th of 3) To give publicity to the collection Nissan 1971 as Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day. In the P.roclamation the Mayor and recording of the names of those called on the inhabitants of Queens to honour the memory of the victims of the Holocaust.

33 The head table at the reception given by the American Federation Anli-Naz.i Fighters, Camp Inmates and Nazi Victims), Den­ of Jewish Anti-Nazi Fighters, Camp Inmates and Nazi Victims, jamin Meed (Vice-President of the Federation, opening the in honour of Mr. Katriel Katz and Stefan Grajek. From left to reception), Eli Zborowski (President of the Federation), Katriel right: Tuvia Bielski, Seymour Robbins, Joseph Tekulsky, Vladka Katz, Rchavcam Amir (Israeli Consul), Solomon Zynstein, Harry Meed, Stefan Graj~k (Chairman, World Federation of Jewish Zegas.

On Holocaust and Heroism Remem­ a series of lectures by Mr. Katz in ken at this inaugural meeting were: to brance Day. Mr. Katriel Katz was the Jewish institutions and schools. organize the recording of names on guest of the Organization of Survivors Mr. Katz brought greetings from Yad Vashem "Pages of Testimony," of the Holocaust in the Argentine and Yad Vashem to the inaugural meeting to collect oral testimony from survi­ of Jewish educational institutions there. of the United Organization of Survi­ vors of the Holocaust living in the Ar­ Mr. Katz spent three weeks in the Ar­ vors of the Holocaust in Latin Ameri­ gentine. and to assist the activities and gentine. The President of the Organiza­ ca, held in Buenos Aires at the begin­ projects of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. tion, Mr. Jose Moszkowicz, arranged ning of May. Among the decisions ta-

The Righteous Among the Nations

The Department for the Righteous recognition of one of th:ree kinds: a bers to meet people who were saved, among the Nations was set up in ac­ medal and the right to have a tree in order to obtain a first-hand impres­ cordance with the Martyrs' and He­ planted in the Garden of the Righteous; sion, and to report back. On the roes' Remembrance (Yad Vashem) a Certificate and the right to have a strength of the testimony and other ma­ Law passed by the Knesset in 1953 tree planted; an Honour Certificate. terial at his disposal. the member (5713). The Law defines that Yad Va­ The award of recognition is decided charged with reporting back has to de­ shem is to act as Memorial Authority on according to a number of criteria, cide whether to recommend to the for "the high-minded gentiles who ris­ such as: the motives that led to saving committee to award the title. ked their Jives to save Jews." someone, the degree of danger incur­ Permission to collect evidence abroad A special committee has been active retl, the nature of the action taken, and is implemented through Israeli Consu­ since 1963 designating the Righteous so on lates. Jn cases where the rescuer him­ among the Nations. When first set up, The committee, which meets once a self has no possibility of coming to it was headed by Supreme Court Jus­ month, discusses material put before it Israel the solemn ceremony of handing tice Moshe Landau; beginning this year, by the Department, comprising first over the award takes place in the Is­ District Court. Judge Moshe Beisky is and foremost testimony given by peo­ raeli diplomatic mission. serving as Chairman. The task of this ple who were saved, as well as docu­ Up to June 1971, the number of Committee is an especiaUy delicate ments of various kinds. Jn order to Righteous among the Nations who re­ one, for it has to be on its guard in examine a candidate's right to the title, ceived the title reached 850. accepting testimony and in awarding the committee appoints one of its mem-

34 The following are the names of the Righteous among the Nations awarded that title from April 1970 to June 1971. Annecze, Johanna-Maria - Holland Audejus Juczas and Ona - U.S.S.R. !Baias Wasyl and Maria - Rumania Bardonc Oswaldo and Lea - France Barcndse Diedrick Jan and Christina-Gusta - Holland Belterman family - Holland Boersma Jan and Sjordje-Holland Bosboom Piet - Holland Boulvin, Dr. Roch and Adrienne - Belgium Brasinienne Konstanca-Lithuania (U.S.A.) Busschers Janne- Holland Bussold Stanislawa - Poland Cartier Lucie - France Daman-Scaglione Jean -Belgium (U.S.A.) Deba Magdalena and son Jean - Poland (France) Delvaux family - Belgium Denkof Spiro - Bulgaria (Israel) Detry Georges and Germain - Belgium Dienske Henk - Holland Duckwitz Georg Ferdinand - Germany Duhr Nicolas - France The institutions of the Jewish Community of Buenos-Aires in co-operation with the Fedi Gilles and Marie - France Association of the Survivors observed Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day on the Fonck Georgette - Belgium 27th o( Nissan, 1971. On the photograph Mr. Jose Moszkowicz, President of the Associa­ Frechengues Alfred and Marcel - France tion of the Survivors in the Argentine shows his guest, Mr. Katriel Katz, Chairman of the Frccbengucs Emile and Anne - Fra nee Executive of Yad Vashem Directorate, one of the posters prepared for the Central Golowac:Z Waclaw and Jadwiga - Poland Grudzinska Jozefa-Hanna and Wojciech Assembly held in Buenos Aires. - Poland Grueninger Paul Dr. - Switzerland Heger Anton and Wilhelmina - Holland Nowinski Waclaw and Janina - Poland Trocmc Andre, Pasteur- France Hieminga Frank and Tineka- Holland Ottino cesar - Prance (Switzerland) Huelle Paula - Germany (U.S.A.) Owczarek Henriette - France Van Den Berg Kunnctte - Holland .!Jansen-Leijster Kee- Holland Parent Jean, Abbe-France Van Den Broeck Louis - Belgium Kanis Jan and Petronella - Holland Perrot Andre and Jane- France Van Haeringen Piet and Ali - Holland Koch Karl, Dr. - Slovakia (Canada) Peska Wladyslawa - Poland (Australia) Van Halsema Nankonini-Gerarlne Krapsitis Vasilios - Greece Pielkun Jan - Poland - Holland Kuii man Catherine - Holland Van Horebeeke Josee and Raymond Ponstecn Andries and Dieuwke - Holland Laermans Maria - Belgium - Belgium Pronk Johanna and Karel-Adrianus Le Cocq Jean and Jeanne- Belgium Van Kampen Martinus and Elisabeth - Holland Ledeboer-Slevens Paula - Holland - Holland Robson Fr6derik and Elisa- Belgium Lisikiewicz Miron, Dr. - Poland Vossebeld Antonius, Johanna-Hermina and M icbaelov M ichacl-Georgiev - Bulgaria Stawski Stanislaw and Wanda - Poland Johan - Holland (Israel} Stempels family - Holland Wiersma Haitze- Holiand Middendorp Wim and Tiny- Holland Strzelec Stanislawa - Poland Wilfart Gaston - Belgium Moereels Odilc- Holland Stabo Arpad, Dr. - Hungary Wyam Uon and Elise - Belgium Morike Otto and Gertrud - Germany Tinbcrgen Mien - Holland Yannopoulou Elias and Popi - Greece Mil lier Herta - Germany Titze Albrecht- Germany Zima Emanuel and Joseph - Slovakia Nickel Maria - Germany Torsius Hendrik and Geer! - Holland Zographos Petros and lrini - Greece

THE STORY OF WLADYSLAW KOW AI SKI - one of the Righteous among the Nati('ns It was Warsaw under the German out a bite of food, trying to escape - and asked for his help. Luck was occupation, September 1940. A boy from the bands of the Nazis. In a des­ with the boy, for the man be bad met about ten years old, named Bruno perate attempt to save himself. he ap­ was Wladyslaw Kowalski. Borel, bad been out in the streets for pealed to the first person who crossed Kowalski was a Pole, born in the three days. keeping on the move, with- his path who looked to him trustworthy Ukraine in 1895, an agronomist by

35 profession and a Colonel in the Polish 0111 rationed water, sugar cubes and Army. At the time of the German con­ vitamin tablets. Only after the entry quest, Kowalski worked for the Dutch of the Russian Army into Warsaw did firm of Phillips in Warsaw. For the Kowalski leave the bunker together Germans it was important to keep the with the Jews. He married a woman he firm producing, and it was this that had saved, and immigrated to Israel. enabled Kowalski to move freely be­ The title of Righteous among the tween the Ghetto and the city. The Nations was awarded him on October boy. like scores of other Jews whom 30, 1967, and this is what Kowalski he saved, was brought to the Colonel's said at the tree-planting ceremony in house. The Colonel got him a forged the Garden of the Righteous among birth certificate with a Christian name. the Nations. "I have been awarded By all sorts of devices. he got Jews into twelve decorations for bravery by the his house and the houses of his friends. Governments of France, Poland, Rus­ Through all the war years he fed them sia. Now the Jewish State has come and paid for the keep of those who were and awarded me a medal for an ordi­ hidden with his friends. With the re­ nary action, a human action, which if pression of the Polish uprising in War­ one does it, it isn't in order to get any saw, when the Poles were ordered to reward. I was and I still am a simple Wladyslaw Kowalski, of blessed memory. leave the city, the Jews themselves man. I have always tried to do my best advised him to leave them and save his to help my neighbour, to come to the is realized, there will be no need for life. His answer was. "We shall all be aid of anyone in distress. Because my one person to come to the defence of saved together, or we shall all die character is like this, I could not sit another, then people won't have to res­ together." For four long months, the with folded arms and watch the bar­ cue other people and be awarded de­ Colonel stayed with forty-nine Jews in barous actions of the Nazis. corations for doing such things ... a bunker that he built under his house, With all my heart I want to help Wladyslaw Kowalski died on Feb­ bringing in building materials for it in spread fraternal love between the peo­ ruary 8, 1971, and was buried in the suitcases. The people in hiding lived ples of the whole world - if this ideal cemetery of Kibbutz Yad Mordecai.

'( Printed in Israel at Daf-Chen Press, Jerusalem .. L THE MEMORIAL WALL AT Y AD VASHEM

A few months ago the Yad Vashem Directorate asked Naftali stead of the <.:ustomary <.:o<.:k as the Jewish symbol of expiatory Bczem to design the Wall of Holocaust and Heroism. The idea sa<.:rifi<.:e: in Bezem·s view, the cock is too loud. l-le heralds dawn, has borne splendid fruit. Anyone acquainted with Bezem's previous renewal, hopes of a fresh day, and so he cannot symboliz.e the work will soon perceive that all of it, its sum total, has been nothing nations in ils destruction. The fish appears a great deal in Chagall's but a kind of preparation for this great work. ln this monumental paintings as well, and there too it is idcntifieo(J with well-known bas-relief, Bezcm expresses in highly concentrated form everything Jewish symbols. With Bezcm the fish acts a <.:entral part in the that he has been saying in detail in h1s works up to 11ow. story. A lucky star permitted Bczem lo escape experiencing the horrors The se<.:ond section o[ the relief is the Revolt. At the <.:entre, or the Holocaust himself. He was born in Germany in 1924. in the synagogue and houses of the village are going up in flames. Essen, whence he emigrated to Palestine with Youth Aliya a [ort· Amid the oonnagrat:on we sec pieces of human bodies. A leg with n:ght before the outbreak of World War Two. ln spite of not being the fool shod in a hob-nailed boot. a hand grasping a weapon that a survivor of the H olocaust himself, his entire being is steeped in is half spca:r. half gun: this is the fighting Jew. Consumed in the the consciousness of what happened in those years. He regards fire though he is, he grasps in his other hand a ladder, symbol of himself as belonging to the generation that is in duty bound to as<.:ent. uprising, hope. record that horror for all lime, because the next generation. he In Bczem 's paintings, the ladder is the concrete expression of believes. wil no longer have a common language with those who Aliya, that is to 5.'lY it serves as a Zionist symbol of going up to survived, they will be too far from the Holocaust to be capable of the Land. At the same time. it arouses spontaneous ass1.;ciations properly perpetuating the memory of its victims. with Jacob's dream and with the Cabbalist degrees of ascension. In Bezem·s works, aesthetic values serve only as the means of Through these assodations. the me:rning of this symbol is widened embodying his intentions and never as an end in themselves. He and deepened t!ll it reaches down to the andcnt spiritual roots of gives a habitation and a shape to the experiences the nation has the people lived through, transposing them into a set of symbolic forms. The third section is Reachi11g tire sl1ores of tire Land. The rem· These constitute his personal language. which is freighted with nnnl emerging from the Holocaust is embodied in the figure of a Jewish value-associations and is definitely surrealist in its imagery. man, a father. who stands over against the figure of the mother Those who already know Naftali Bczem's paintings will naturally burnt in the fire of the overturned c:andlcsticks. The man is in a find it easier to interpret the motifs appearing on this bas-relief, boat that noats in the air escorted by an angel's wing. This time recurring as they do again and again in his works. it is not the angel that escorts the dead on their way to heaven. The bas-relief fo:r lhe Holocaust and the Revolt is spread out It is the angel that guards the living, those snatched from the burn­ over n wall measuring sixty square metres. The relief is made of ing in time. so that no ev:t thing befall them. cast aluminium, and it was cast in a foundry in Israel. This work The man in the boat is nol <.:oming empty-handed. With him he of art is in m~mory of Pinchas and Hannah Gerszowski of Lodz brings names from the fire and he also brings weapons. At tlhe who perished in the Holocaust. 1t has been put up by Mr. Shmuel very moment that he emerges from the burning, while he is still Chirurg and members of the family. in the process of go:ng up to the Land, he must already prepare Standing out from a completely black ground, the relief com­ for baulc. prises four sections, bound together into one molten image of The bout in which he is embarked carries in some sort the es­ destruction. heroism and re-birth. ~encc of every kind of transport. a <.:ar, a wheel and a rudder - The first se.::lion represents the Hc>loraust. At its centre stands the its fom1 of a Shofar. The man's leg is seen lo be outside the boat the furnace, deliberately given the shape o[ an industrial plant, he is preparing to land. with an arching entrance lopped by a chimney, whence the smoke The fourth s.:<.:tion is Re-birth. The remnant that remained had r!scs ring by ring. Were not the extermination camps in every reached the longed-for-haven - the Land. It grows in size and respect organized like industrial undertakings, on the basis of daily strength. and its <.:ountcnan<.:c therefore is now the countenance of output, norms, productivity? At the left of the entrance lo the n lion. The lion's eyes shed tears. For all his greatness and strength, furnace we see the "raw material" of the extermination plant. a he <.:annol forget. He weeps for the past. long line o[ human beings on the last stretch of their last march. The cand1esticks that were overturned arc overturned no longer. Below the furnace appears the figure of a woman. clasping candle­ They no longer symbolize dese<.:ration. but instead the Jewish home, sticks in her hands. The associations aroused are of necessity bound the Jewish family rooted in tradition. From the lion springs forth up with the concept of the mother and her Shabat candlesticks. a plant, its leaves the leaves of the cactus. This is the Sabra, the But here the candlesticks arc overturned and their names are new generation begollen by the generation of the Holocaust. burning her breasts - that is, her living source, the root of being From the point of view of art. the work progresses from bare­ for her children. ness to abundan<.:e. In the first two sections, the artist concen­ The overturned candlesticks arc also the symbol of desecration, trates only on essentials. The figures and structures are defined tn of the burning not only of the body but also of the spirit. This bare outline with an almost as<.:etic starkness. In the last two se<:· whole world of fire is turned over onto the mother. The Holy is tions there is a striking wealth of forms in whkh sc<.:ondary in· utterly profaned. cis!ons appear, and here and there deliberately ornamental ele­ From the right-hand side of the furnace there rises the form of ments as well. The liking for symmetry disdosed in these two a fish, a slaughtered fish with its head severed from its body. The sections is meant lo show perfection and fullness; it lends a festive voicelessness that is the mark of a fish is also the voicelessness of quality to the overnowing abundance which it illustrates, like the the people led lo the slaughter. The fish is escorted by wings, rich, harmonious, closing <.:hords of symphony. angels' wings bearing it company to heaven. In Bezem·s personal mythology, the fish appears frequently in- (Naomi Be11-Twr, "Maori11". Trmislated by Da/110 A/1011)