Year of Commemorations Richard Grunberger P3 He Year 1998 Provides a Feast for the Anniver Antisemitism and Dictatorship
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AJR i i/J I K mation Volume LIII No. 6 June 1998 £3 (to non-members) Don't miss... Outstanding events of the last 150 years whose anniversaries loom up German-Jewish demography Year of commemorations Richard Grunberger p3 he year 1998 provides a feast for the anniver antisemitism and dictatorship. Yet the nationalism Brecht and the Jews sary-minded. Counting down' through pa.st which caused the Habsburg state to collapse was Dr Anthony Grenville p 12T decades we literally stumble over notable dates. not necessarily a destructive force, as inter-war In 1968 the failed Czech attempt at Socialism with Czechoslovakia - a veritable role model to its be A rabbi spurned? a human face' proved the Soviet block incapable of nighted neighbours - proved beyond peradventure. Gloria Tessler p 16 internal reform and predestined to collapse under Nationalism and democracy - the key Lssues of the weight of its own inertia. modern history - first emerged with dynamic force Twenty years earlier 1948 had been a true water in 1848, year of Revolutions. 1848 demonstrated shed year. It saw the birth of the first Jewish state in how much the inter-relationship between national Rebranding nearly two millennia - an event that turned Jews en ism and democracy differed between Western and Fascism masse from passive objects into active subjects of Central/Eastern Europe. France, the Low Countries history. In the global arena the Berlin Crisis showed and England were not beset by unresolved prob hile the both Russia and the West unwilling to back down lems of national identity that threatened to thwart Fascism yet reluctant to trigger World War III. democratic progress. In contrast, German unity was of the W A decade earlier 1938 had been the crucial year of not, alas, e.stablLshed by the '48 Frankfurt Parliament, mterwar years the century, when Europe's slide into catastrophe but by Pnjssian arms and princely fiat in 1871. strutted in could have been halted. Instead, Hitler was allowed In March 1848 Austria seemed shaken to the core jackboots, its to triumph in Vienna and at Munich. The Tenth of - with barricades going up in Vienna, Budapest and contemporary November presented a spectacle of state-sponsored Prague - yet through a concatenation of circum incarnation wears bloodshed and arson in former centres of culture stances neither nationalist nor democratic ambitions Gucci shoes. In which Europe had not witnessed since the 1572 St were sub.sequently fulfilled. Austria Jorg Haider Bartholomew Massacre in Paris. Even so Central Europe was a freer, less hide dresses sportif-dnd (Kristallnacht resulted directly from the An.schluss bound place in the second half of the century than studiously avoids because the newly-incorporated Austrians' enthusi it had been in pre-March days. Not the least benefi expressing anti asm for pogroms put wind into the sails of the most ciaries of this change were the Jews; in fact 1848 .semitic .sentiments. lethal Nazi Jew-baiters around Goebbels). was a milestone on the way to their full emanci In Italy Austria had also been crucial to the events of pation. But hi.story records that Jews had not merely Gian-Carlo Fini 1918. The Habsburgs' defeat in the Great War - for benefited from the March events. Some had died at purges rowdies the outbreak of which they shared responsibility the barricades, others - e.g. Adolph Fischhof in from the with the German KaLser - led to the fragmentation Vienna and Daniele Manin in Venice - had been local neo-Fascist ranks. of their erstwhile Empire; its unstable succe.ssion revolutionary leaders. And one, Karl Marx, impetu In France Bnmo states - rump-Austria, Hungary, Romania, Yugosla ously staked a claim to global revolutionary Megret, Le Pen's via and Poland - provided breeding grounds for leadership by publishing The Communist Manifesto D designated successor, sounds like the product of ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING Les Grandes Ecoles of the ASSOCIATION OF JEWISH REFUGEES he is. It is a moot will be held at 15 Cleve Road, NW6 point which variant on SUNDAY 21st JUNE 1998 at 3pm of Fascist incitement - AGENDA: Le Pen's Annual Report for 1997 Hon.Treasurer's Report, Discussion spittle-flecked Election of Committee of Management oratory or Megret's PR-conscious Guest Speaker: Her Honour, Judge Dawn Freedman - 'A View from the Bench' elocution - is the Enquiries: AJR, I Hampstead Gate, la Frognal, London NW3 6AL Tel:0171 431 6161 more dangerous D AJR INFORMATION JUNE 1998 on free-of-charge, he declined. Instead, Profile he moved to a refugee hostel in Bradford and began to look for employment. His first job was at a textile mill owned Low-key success story by a pillar of the local Jewish community elix Huttrer's family history was (and benefactor of the hostel) - but Felix closely bound up - for good as well found the work uncongenial. After an F as ill - with the Vienna-based other false start he eventually found industrial firm of Briider Guttmann. His employment in a radio repair shop where widowed mother worked in the office; he became a fairly skilled worker. his uncle was the firm's chief accountant. Then Felix moved to London to stay On the day of the Anschluss the brothers with his uncle and cousins. Here he did fled abroad. The following morning similar, but war effort-related, work. After Felix's uncle was arrested as a substitute the war he acquired evening class qualifi and imprisoned on the 'charge' that he cations and in the mid-fifties he married a had discriminated against Nazis among fellow refugee, a cousin of the violinist the firm's work-force. Norbert Brainin of Amadeus Quartet fame. After ten months in the hell of Buch In i960 he acquired shares in a enwald the uncle managed to come to moribund company producing medical England - where Felix had preceded him equipment. By dint of hard work he re on a Kindertransport. Felix's mother, too, suscitated the enterprise and expanded it. could have saved herself by emigrating, These days Felix combines part-time but eleaed to stay with her elderly parents. work with frequent trips to see relatives Felix Huttrer After arrival in the UK, thirteen-year-old and friends abroad. Apropos of friends: a Felix attended school in Yorkshire, the handful of former inmates of the Bradford heartwarming facet of the UK refugee fees for which were paid by the Gutt- refugee hostel (plus wives) still meet regu- story. The Old Bradfordians - already the manns' agent in Paris. Following the Fall lariy, fifty-odd years after the disbandment subject of a documentary on Yorkshire TV of France the payments dried up, and al of their wartime home. The remarkable co - will feature in a forthcoming 'group though the school offered to keep Felix hesion of this surrogate family is a profile' in our journal. D RG led to a peace treaty with Jordan, peace is declining, while those desiring a com Oslo discord talks with Syria and much improved rela promise .solution has reached 79 per cent. Extracts from the lecture by Professor Galia tions with Egypt. While the territories remain under Golan of the Hebrew University to Jewish Policy The terrorist campaigns of Hamas and Israel's control, settlements are being Research on Israel's 50th Anniversary. Islamic Jihad sought to destroy the peace expanded, new ones built, and by-pass process and increased doubt among roads cross and split the contiguity of he Oslo Accords are now dead, Israelis; settlers and the Orthodox in par Palestinian land, creating a downward though none of the interested par ticular campaigned against the Accords, spiral in Israeli-Arab relations. Partial T ties is prepared to admit it. some even accusing Prime MinLster Rabin withdr:.wal from Hebron has been Nothing of significance is occurring: there of treason. Yet 200,000 people attended achieved, but there have been no further is no peace process and little or no nego the peace rally in Tel Aviv under the redeployments, which the Government tiation; only limited dialogue with the slogan 'No to Violence and Yes to Peace'. justifies by citing Palestinian violation 01 United States. In the general elections of May 1996 the Accords, though both sides make ac Since the 1967 War there has been a the electorate was divided approximately cusations. shift towards 'doveishness', Israel's public into thirds: those for peace, the waverers, Economic recession, rising unemploy having had enough of bloodshed and the and the rejectionists who brought the ment, falling tourism and the death 01 loss of young lives in the Arab-Israeli Netanyahu Government to power. Netan Israeli soldiers in Lebanon serve to conflict and the occupation of the terri yahu did not present himself as rejecting undermine confidence in the future. A tories. Over 60 percent were prepared to the peace process, but sought a 'secure debunking of myths by revisionist histori accept a return of the territories and the peace', pledging to continue pursuit of ans is part of a new process among dismantling of settlements. They did not the Oslo accords. This commitment he Israelis, which call into question whether see the .status quo of perpetual occupa has not fulfilled. Israel will remain a pluralist democracy tion as a realistic option. With the Netanyahu Government, 'revi or change into a theocracy. The pragmatic solutions provided by sionist Zionism' returned to power in Israel must return to the path of peace the Oslo Accords were approved by two co-operation with the religious parties. Its and find a resolution to the conflict. Two thirds of the population (and received credo is to 'stand firm', hold on to all the peoples in one land must recognise eacn similar support amongst the Palestinians).