Slavedrivers in Suits Prof Michael Spiro Pl2
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
AJ R Info rma tio n Volume LIV No. 10 October 1999 &3 (to non-members) Don't miss. The background to the negotiations between German industrial firnns Land of our brothers and surviving slave workers Ronald Channing p9 Science in the theatre Slavedrivers in suits Prof Michael Spiro pl2 Tracing the Kinder hanks to what can only be described as An alerted public also knows that the Auschwitz Hugh Levinson p 16 inertia of the imagination, it has taken half a gas suppliers IG Farben have flagrantly defied the Tcentury for the full extent and horror of the Allied postwar decartelization directive for fifty (!) Shoah to sink into the public's consciousness. It was years. (At the same time former constituent com only by the early eighties that the American T'V panies of the IG Farben cartel - most notably Bayer, series Holocaust reached a mass audience - and by as well as Hoechst - have expanded hand over fist.) The Rupert the mid-nineties that cinemas worldwide showed If German industry wants to enter the new mil and John Spielberg's Schindler's List. lennium with something other than whitened This snailpaced spread of awareness helped sepulchres to show the world, it will have to shed show countless individuals implicated in the misdeeds of its image of unrepentant rapaciousness. But even if he media the Nazi regime to blend into German postwar soci this happens - which cannot be taken for granted - billionaire ety with their prestige - or wealth - unimpaired. an intractably bothersome problem will remain. TRupert Untarnished' names included the rocket scientist Should such useful objects as Bayer aspirins or Murdoch kowtows Wernher von Braun, the bureaucrat Hans Globke Siemens mobile phones bear the names of firms to Beijing by saying and the philosopher Martin Heidegger. Among the which, had they had any shame, would have opted the average super-rich beneficiaries of Nazism, the industrialists for postwar anonymity? Even as cosy an everyday Chinese is more Friedrich Flick and Heinrich von Schnitzler and the object as the 'Volkswagen beetle - produced with concerned about banker, Hermann Abs, were prominent. wartime slave labour at Wolfenbiittel - harks back his bowl of rice A related phenomenon was the ease with which to the dual connotation of Volk in Hider's mind. To than about Field-Marshal von Manstein, who bears a huge two him the term meant not merely people' but also freedom. The fold guilt - for ordering his troops to murder Jews 'race', as in volkisch (race-conscious) and Volks historian John and for sabotaging the 1944 Officers' Plot - could genosse (race comrade). Charmley damns act as a respected advisor to the Bonn government Under the dispensation of the car's originator, Churchill for I on military matters. Volkswagen ownership would have depended not fighting the But with the passage of time and thanks to on whether someone was fit to drive, but whether Anglophile HiUer, homegrown democrats like the organisers of the they were fit to live D thereby Crimes of the Wehrmacht Exhibition, the postwar squandering British Germans' perception of their country's past is lives and the changing. However, this change for the better is dis NEW VENUE FOR Empire. tinctly patchy. For instance, in the economic sector, AJR'S ANNUAL CONCERT Both the tycoon the crimes of the past still stain the present to a and the don stomach-turning degree. Industrial firms like This year's AJR Concert is being held in the propagate an Siemens which are world leaders have neither redecorated and easily accessible Great Hall oudook which purged themselves of the guilt incurred through the of Imperial College in South Kensington. places material spoliation of an entire continent, nor disgorged the (Pre-booked coaches and parking available). self-interest abo\e huge profits amassed by working slave labourers Soloists Raphael Wallfisch, cello, David Juritz, considerations of practically to death. violin, and Diana Franklin, piano, play with morality and Many of these firms have engaged tame academ the London Concertino Orchestra conducted human dignity. j ics to produce anodyne company histories. Such by Richard Dickins in a well-chosen pro Sadly their cynical manoeuvres deceive few. The world now knows gramme of Mozart, Vivaldi, Haydn and Hoist. and deeply that German industrialists, far from having slave Seofs of £20, £15 & £10 Include a cream tea. antihumanist workers foisted upon them by the SS, enthusiasti Box Office: I Hampstead Gate, la Frognal, message still finds cally tapped into this well-nigh inexhaustible source NWS 6AL. Tel: 0171 A31 6161. ^n audience D of cheap labour. AJR INFORMATION OCTOBER 1999 Profile NEW AJR APPOINTMENTS iie Ciiairman and Management Committee of the AJR have re Keeper of the flame Tassigned the responsibilities oi chief executive among three senior lse Tysh is proud of her forbears - and members of staff with good reason. Her orphaned grandmother had been adopted by As Head of Finance Gordon Greenfield I adds to his financial responsibilities the Adele and Johann Strauss. Great-uncle Josef Simon was proprietor of the Theater selection and installation of an entirely an der Wien and a close friend of Johann new computerised membership and ac Strauss; the actor Willy Eichberger counting system, together with stau belonged to her extended family. training. Carol Rossen, who has served By contrast Use's father was a university- AJR's members for the past 18 years in trained chemical engineer who ran an several capacities, takes on the many du industrial plant producing roofing felt ties of Head of Administration -and and street asphalt at Aussig, N. Bohemia. Personnel. Ronald Channing, while con tinuing to contribute to AJR Information, Ilse had set her heart on studying Ilse Tysh medicine, but was persuaded to attend as Head of Media, Development and Communal Relations, will oversee the commercial college to prepare her for Interbooks. She retired from that in 1977 development of associated groups, mem managing the family firm. and .started a new career as a part-time bership and AJR's relations with Jewish Then came the Nazi occupation of the carer. Fred Tysh died in 1981 and she and non-Jewish organisations. Sudetenland. 23-year old Ilse and her does her best to keep his memory green. All other departmental responsibilities (much younger) sister emigrated to the Recently aged 83, she went to Vienna - remain unchanged. UK, never to see their parents again. In by train! - to speak at the Jewish Museum On confirming these appointments Aj" England Ilse worked as a domestic, first exhibition commemorating his work. Chairman, Andrew Kaufman, expressed for an art hi.storian and then for a senior URG official whose antisemitic wife starved her. his confidence that, under the new ar She left to take up nursing but was dis rangements, the AJR will continue to barred as an alien, so she became a cook. serve members as well in the future as m Through a mutual acquaintance she Austrian claims office the past D met her future husband. Fred Tysh had - Claims Office has been opened in literally - been to hell and back. A suc Vienna to assist Jewish victims of cessful writer of Viennese song lyrics A the Nazi regime, or their heirs, to (Sag zum Abschied leise Servus) he had document claims and strengthen their survived Dachau and Buchenwald, recov cases for compensation or the restitution ered from typhus and come to London of property and assets seized under the presents the on a transit visa to Costa Rica. The out Nazi regime. break of war enabled him to stay on and The office has been opened by the Xondon he rapidly learnt English. Barely six Federation of Jewish Communities in months in the country he wrote the words Austria in response to many recent en Concertino for the song Seven Sisters in Seven Sisters quiries from Jewish Holocaust survivors Conductor Richard Dickins Road which was duly published. To keep in and from Austria. The significance to Leader David Juritz the wolf from the door he studied - and claimants of establishing an appropriate eventually practised - accountancy. institutional framework to advise and playing Mozart,Vivaldi & Hoist A reunion with Richard Tauber, an ac support Holocaust survivors on restitu with special guest appearance of quaintance from Vienna days, followed. tion issues cannot be overstated. RAPHAEL WALLFISCH Tauber, unhappy with his original col Despite the fact that Austrian legislation performing laborator on Old Chelsea, asked Tysh to does not provide for the recovery or Haydn's Cello Concerto in C write new lyrics at breakneck speed. compensation of Holocaust era assets, (This commission resulted in the hugely the Federation's Claims Office is commit Sunday 10 October 1999 successful We're in love with you, my ted to supporting claims for restitution. It at 3 pm heart and D. could well provide Austria's Jewish vic The Great Hall For Hans May the bilingual wordsmith tims of the Holocaust and their heirs, I Imperial College wrote the words of another hit. Starlight with a last opportunity to achieve justice. London SW7 Serenade. But he also ventured into Third Enquiries are welcomed by the Claims Programme territory, producing the li Office for Jewish Nazi Victims in and Concert tickets at £ 10, £ 15 & £20, bretto for Buxton Orr's opera ne Wager. from Austria, at Desider-Friedmann-Platz including tea and cakes, from: Ilse had meanwhile borne a son who 1, A-lOlO Vienna, Austria. Tel: 0043-1- The Concert Secretary, subsequently went to Oxford. While he 53104-46 (Mon-nurs 9am-12 noon). I Hampstead Gate, Frognal, was still at school she went to work for Fax: 0043-1-53104-30.