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THE JEWS IN THE WAR
I S RAE L C 0 HEN
FREDERICK MULLER LTD. LONDON
·"*:_\,.-•• .. THE JEWS .IN THE WAR
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• .By the same Author : JEWISH LIFE IN MODERN TIMES THE JOURNAL OF A Jt:WISH TRAVELLER THE RUHLEBEN PRISON CAMP A GHETTO GALLERY THE PROGRESS OF ZIONISM BRITAIN'S NAMELESS ALLY '
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• THE JEWS IN THE WAR
By_ ISRAEL COHEN · •
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. LONDON FREDERICK MULLER LIMITED 29 Great James Street W.C.I FIRST PUBLISHED BY FREDERICK MULLER LTD. I N I942
PRINTED IN GREAT BRI,TAIN BY • THE CAMELOT PRESS LTD • LONDON AND SOUTHAMPTON
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• • . CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE PREFACE 7 I. THE JEWISH ISSUE 9
II. HITLER'S FIRST WAR
III. THE DESTRUCTION OF EUROPEAN JEWRY
IV. THE JEWISH CONTRIBUTION 57
APPENDIX (a) Decorations awarded to B'ritish Jews in the Navy, - Army, _and Air Force - 78 · (b) Honours awarded to British Jews in Civil Defence 8o
5 PREFACE ~ HIS is the first attempt to give an account of what the Jews T are suffering and of what they are doing in the war. It is necessarily incomp!ete, partly because it is intended to be only a sketch of Jewish aspects of the titanic struggle, and partly because fuller information is in many cases still unobtainable. But, such as it is, this account should serve to enlighten public opinion, which unfortunately knows very little of the martyrdom the Jews are enduring under the barbarous Nazi regime on the Continent, and still less of the contributions-military, economic, and technical-that theJ ews of the Allied Democracies are making to the overthrow of Hitlerism. A survey of the persecution of the Jews in the "Greater Reich" during the years 1933-9 is included, as that was the first of Hitler's wars against civilisation: had its true character been recognised in time and apprppriate measures • been taken, it is conceivable that it might have been possible to avert,' or at least to forestall, the greater catastrophe that followep. The information in Chapter III is based upon reports obtained by , the various Governments in exile, upon those published by neutral correspondents, upon those of eye-witnesses who have escaped from the Nazi terror, and also upon those that the German Government itself has shamelessJy issued as proof of its ruthlessness. For some of the information in Chapter IV I am indebted to various friends and national and public bodies that prefer to remain anonymous. For many of the facts in the sections dealing with the military and civil defence services of Anglo-Jewry, and for most of the names in the Appendix, I acknowledge indebtedness to the Jewish Chronicle. The design on the cover is the traditional "Shield of David," which the Nazis, miscalling it the "Star of David," ' have compelled the • Jews in Germany and the occupied territories to wear as a badge of shame, but which Jews will continue· to honour as-a symbol of unwavering loyalty to their ancestral faith. I have refrained from touching on what the Jewish people expects from the Peace that is to follow the war: that important question must be reseryed for separate treatment. I. C. LoNDO¥, June, I942·
7 - . CHAPTER I
THE JEWISH ISSUE
HE Jews occupy a uniq.ue and unenviable distinction in this war. However much the lives and liberties of other nations mayT be threatened by Hitler in his megalomaniac lust for world · dominion, and however much their lands may be ravaged, they will nevertheless survive the: present 'catastrophe and rebuild their countries anew. But the Jews on the Continent of Europe, who form halfofthe entire Jewish people, are threatened in thei~ very existence. The suppression of freedom and the subjugation of humanity to the whims and behests of a tyrant are only one aspect of the titanic conflict that has now encircled the whole world. Another and -cardinal aspect is the crusade against the Je"YS. These two objectives may seem altogether unequal in gravity and importance, but they are both pursued energetically and methodically, with equal relentlessness, though with different weapons; and they are intimately connected with one another, - for upon the survival of the principles of civilisation depends the future of the Jewish people. Hitler is resolved to exterminate as many Jews as ht< can, and to reduce the rest to a state of slavery worse than that under the ancient Pharaohs. He is bent upon destroying them, not only physi·cally, so that they shall no longer figure in. the racial map of Europe, but also, and even more, spiritually, as the heirs of a religion, the creators of a historic culture, and contributors to ·the progress of mankind . .His hostility to them is no mere passing caprice or momentary craze. It is an overpowering passion, which is just as compelling a motive ip his monstrous mentality as the longing for world supremacy; and throughout his stormy life that passion has not been allowed to be obsGured or assuaged for an instant by the most formidable campaigns he has launched or the most hazardous political decisions he has taken. "Perish Judah!" has been the const.ant and dominatlng thought, the ,idee fixe, in his infuriated brain, which neither his failure to invade Britain nor his frustrated ambitions in Russia, nor his impotent rage against America has tended to weaken even in the slightest degree. For him the fight against the Jews is just as all-important and vital as the war. against the Allied Democracies. He even 9 IO THE JEWS IN THE WAR regards it as a divine mission, for in Mein 1Kampf he blasphem ously wrote: "I believe to-day that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator: in defending myself against the Jew I fight for the work of the Lord." . · There are few more revealing statements about Hitler's · hostility towards the Jews than the following passage in the report which the last French Ambassador in Prague ~ent to the French Foreign Office on his conversation with the Czechoslovak ' Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Chvalkows,ky, after the latter's return frcfm Berlin:l \ "What appear.s to have impressed him most was the im portance which Herr flitler and Herr von Ribbentrop attach to the Jew_ish question-absolutely out of proportion to the importance given to other questions dealt with. The Foreign Minister of the Reich, as well as the Chancellor, are said to . have stated emphatically that it was not possible to give a German guarantee to a State which does not eliminate the Jews. ., ~ " 'Do not imitate the sentimental and leisurely manner in which we ourselves treated this problem,' the two statesmen .are repqrted to have said. 'Our kindness was nothing but weakness, and we regret it. This vermin must be destroyed. The Jews are our sworn enemies, and at the end of this year there will not be a Jew left in Germany. Neither the French nor the Americans nor the English are responsible for the -difficulties in our r:elations with Paris, London, or Washington. Those responsible are the Jews. We will give similar advice to Rumania, Hungary, etc.... Germany will seek to form a bloc of anti-Semitic States, as she would not be able to treat as friends the States in which the Jews; either through their/ economic activity or through their high positions, could -exercise any kind of influence.' "
It is impossible to argue about such an obsession, fo~-it is entirely devoid of the least vestige of a rational basis. But that obsession the product of ignorance, inherited prejudice, and original and unfathomable fanaticism-has unfortunately been the cause of the most cruel sufferings that have befallen millions of Jews in many .. ' lands since Hitler's rise to power. Nor are their afflictions by any means approaching an end, for, as the diabolical Dr. Goebbels -wrote in a recent number· of Das Reich: ,
1 Tk French Yellow Book, p. 53· " THE JEWISH ISSUE I I "The Jews are experiencing a fate which is hard, but no more than deserved. Sympathy or pity has no place here. World Jewry is now undergoing a gradual process of annihilation." ~ These foamings of Hitler and his henchmen are supported by the charge: "The Jews are our ruin. They plotted this war and brought it about. They wanted thereby to annihilate the German Reich and the German people."l B~.+t there were similar ravings years before the war began. They are ,all simply expressions of the policy laid down by the N ational• SoGialist Party in. the programme adopted at -its foundation in I92o: .they are echoes ofthe abuse,. calumny, and denunciation :with which }y.[ein Kampf reeks from cover to over. For it is necessary to remember that Hitler began his war against the Jews not in I939, nor when he became ruler of Germany in I 933, but ·as soon as he founded his party in a beer-house in Munich in 1920. It is superfluous at this time of day to reproduce the tissue of gross and baseless accusa tions by which he professed to justifY his crusade, since they have . been repeatedly and effectively refuted. Nor did he rely upon them entirely himself, since he a.ttacked, not only Jews, but also Christians of Jewish descent: he attributed to their Jewish blood a degree of original sin that all the virtues of the saints could not wash away-a thesis that all scientists have dismissed as the figment of a frenzied imagination. Nor is he content t.o persecute Christians with a Jewish ancestor, but reviles all the principles of' Christianity and imprison~ its priests. ' It should nevertheless be recalled, even in the midst of all the agony, bloodshed, and devastation caused by the present struggle, that Hitler's war against the Jews has already lasted over twenty years; He and his rpyrmido:p.s did not cpnfine themselves, after the creation of the Nazi Party, to the dissemination of their anti- . Jewish doctrine in inflammatory speeches, or to indulging in newspaper abuse and preaching economic boycott. They put their views into practice by a campaign of terrorism in all parts of Germany, against all kinds and classes of Jews, without dis tinction of age or sex, in towns and villages, in streets and cafes, in universities and theatres. Clubs and cudgels, knives, pistols, and even boll}bs were used. No_r did the thugs and desperadoes halt before the resting-place of the d~ad or the house of God, for the most revolting chapter in ·tht; early period of Nazi barbarism consisted of the outrages against Jewish cemeteries and syna gogues. During t:he ten years before Hitler became Chancellor, 1 Das Reich, November, 1941.
/ I2 THE JEWS IN THE WAR
his followers were responsible for violating over I go cemeteries, in which tombstones w~re overthrown, smashed, and painted with swastikas, and for damaging and desecrating over fifty synagogues, whose walls were disfigured with the sl0gan, "Perish Judah!" Many prosecutions of the miscreants who were caught took place in the law-courts, for in those days the German State respected both the rights of man and the religion of the Jews; but whatever punishments were inflicted were futile. In their depression, the Jews submitted to the President, von Hindenburg, an imposing memorial consisting of a classified collection of 'newspaper extracts recording the excesses under which they were suffering. His State Secretary, Dr. Meissner, acknowledged the documents in a courteous letter (dated ugust I2, 1932), in which he wrote that the President "cordially disapproves and regrets any attempt at a restriction of the constitutional, political, and religious rights of German citizens and the outrages com mitted against Jewish members of the Reich." The President's disapproval and regret were of no avail: the outrages were continued with unabated fury and on an ever-growing scale until they culminated in the orgy of sadistic savagery with which the Nazis celebrated their victory at the Reichstag elections in 1933. But that was only a temporary culmination: it merely marked the end of the first stage in the plan of persecution, which wag. quickly followed by another far more devastating in .its effects. • For as soon as Hitler secured control over the destinies of Ger , many he mobilised all the resources and organs of the State in the prosecution of his wicked crusade. There was no longer any need for knives and bombs, for he and all his Ministers issued decrees that were much more destructive, and which were promptly carried out by the newly hatched swarms of· the Gestapo. Fear and despair seized every Jewish home; thousands of Jews sought refuge in suicide; tens of thousands were clapped into gaols and concentration camps; and scores of thousands fled or· were expelled, relieved to find themselves beyond the frontiers of the Reich, even though skinned to the bone . .But they had to flee far in order to be sure of peace and safety, for as soon as Hitler began his adventure of expansion by -swallowing up first Austria, then the Sudetenland, and next the rest of Czecho slovakia, he introduced mto these countries all the forms of oppressioh by which he had made the lives of the Jews in Ger many intolerable, with the result that there were further suicides, imprisonments, and expulsion. Nor were neighbouring countries free from the Nazi plague, even though they were nominally 1-· THE JEWISH ISSUE 13 ipdependent, for Italy, Hungary, and Rumania were all infected by the pestilence, and, either under pressure from Berlin or by reason of local tradition, they imposed legal disabilities and cruel hardships upon all Jews within-their borders. And even if the . hapless fugitives fl.td to the most distant lands in search of a safe asylum-to South Africa or one of the States of South America or perchance Japan-there too . they met with Jew-hatred actively fomented by Nazi agents, who carried out the orders of their BerliiJ. masters. They hoped as time went on that their persecutors would relaJS: or tire of the whip, ·or that public opinion would be effective!y aroused in their defence; but as each year sped the shadow of war grew larger and blacker, until the dread reality burst upon the world with its tornado of bombs and ,bloodshed. In some remote regions the fugitives may now, have found . peace, but nearly 8,ooo,ooo Jews on the continent of Europe•are now going through all the torments of hell. In every country that Hitler has invaded, his brutal hordes have singled them out for treatment more degrading and barbarous .than that meted out to the rest of the population. They have created and maintain a reign of terror from the North Sea to the Black Sea, from the Baltic to the JEgean. Massacre and pillage, e?'pulsions and executions, vandalism and sacrilege, torture and sadism, Ghettos and concentration camps, slave-labour ;;tnd starvation, disease and suicide-these are the order of the day, Hitler's "New Order." In all their long history of martyrdom, the,Jews have never known such a time as this. Never before have such vast numbers, scattered over so. many different 'lands, been at the · m'ercy of a single fiend. Never before were they denied the possibility of respite or means of ·escape. In the days · of the Crusades and of the Inquisition, they could find safety, if not salvation, in baptism, although few yielded ·to the temptation. In the days of -the Chmielnicki ma~sacres in the sevent~enth century, they could flee from the Ukraine and Poland i:o Germany and other lands. In the days of the Procurator of the Holy Synod and of the "Black Hundreds" in Tsarist Russia, they could find refuge 'from pogroms in emigration to America. But from the horrors of Hitler there is no. escape, either into the Christian Church or still less to sonie oversea country. His Jewish prisoners, · like his victims of all other nations, are trapped and doomed to suffer until they are liberated by the Allied Democracies. Thou sands of Jewish communities have been desolated and robbed of ! heir houses of prayer, but nothing can prevent them from
• 14 THE JEWS IN T -HE WAR continuing to pray, and all are united in the object of their prayer. Nor are the Jews on the European continent alone in their • prayers: these are shared by Jews throughout the world, for they know full well that their future as a people depends upon the survival of the principles of civilisation, to the development and dissemination of which they have fruitfully contributed through out their history, and that the survival of those principles depends upon victory over the forces of barbarism. They have resisted and outlived tyrants and persecutors, both petty and powerful, in various lands, in the nineteen centuries of their Clispersion, and never did they despair of the ultimate triumph of right and justice. Never before, however, was the enemy so mighty, so determined, or so ruthless, or the menace so appalling. But the, Jews are quite as confident of Hitler's inevitable overthrow as they were of the downfall of all his evil predecessors, and they are grimly resolved .to spare no sacrifice in helping to achieve it.
CHAPTER II
HITLER'S FIRST WAR
lTLER fought his first war against the Jews. He began it H after repeated warnings and even rehearsals, unlike the manner in which he later launched his series of devastat~g onslaughts upon one State after another. He needed neither tanks nor aeroplanes, neither machine guns nor submarines. He was even able to dispense with the knives and knuckle-dusters used by his gangsters throughout the years of his tempestuous agitation. He ha_d always for propaganda purposes described the Jews as all-p~werful, but they were the weakest of his victims, whom he proceeded to crush with a spate of decrees. Their doom had long been sealed in the programme of the Nazi Party, which denied them the rights of citizenship; their fate had been foretold time and again in all the raucous tirades· of the Fuehrer and his fellow spouters. ,. And as seon as Hitler became Qhancellor of the German Reich, he lost no time in devoting himself to the destruc tion of his "Enemy No. r." _He pursued a threefold object: to cause the Jews as much suffering as possible, to rob them of as much as possible, and to get rid of as many of them as possible ~ He succeeded in all three. HITLER's FIRST WAR
Germany, r933-8 The Nazi Go~ernment inaugurated their policy of oppression in a spectacular manner by ordering a general boycott of all Jewish places of business and of all Jewish doctors, lawyers, and other professional men on April I st, I 933· That one-day boycott, unique in meanness in the treatment by a State of its own citizens, was merely the prelude to a system of persecution which deprived the Jews of every source of livelihood. They were expelled from all positions in Government and municipal offices, from all public institutions, f:(om the Bench and the law courts, fr0m hospitals and universities. They were dismissed from wireless stations, from broadca~ting and film studios, from theatres, concert platforms, and newspaper offices, and from the management of commercial and industrial concerns. No Jews were allowed in any branch of German cultural life or in the direcfing or imparting of education. They were ousted from the pu lishing trade; and all books of Jew~sh authorship were cleared out of shop-s aml. libraries and thousands banned. No legal works written by Jews, German or foreign, living or dead, could be consulted. No play by a Jew could be produced, no musical work by a Jew performed, no song by a Jew sung. These first-fruits of reaction were followed in I 935 by the Nurem.berg Laws for "the protection of German blood and honour" which sanctified the insensate rac,ial principle as the basis of the German State. They abolished the civil rights of all Jews, prohibited sexual relations between Jews and Aryans, and_ forbade the employment in Jewish homes of Christian women under forty-five. Jewish businesses were at first not intt;rfered with, so as not to disturb the economic life of the country, but from I937 the extrusion of all Jews from trade and ~ndustry was also enforced. The "Aryanisation" ofJewish concerns was carried out methodically and ruthlessly: those who were unwilling to sell voluntarily were compelled to do so by being thrown into jail or a concentration camp-, and the price they were given was a mere fraction of the value. Prosperous enterprises built up by the toil and devotion of two or three generations had to be sacrificed at a ridiculous figure. All these measures for the pauperisation of the Jews were fohowed by others for their degr.adation. They were banned from all public institutions and places of entertainment, from spas and health resorts, from parks and swimming baths. They were hunted out of villages and townlets. and forced into the I6 THE JEWS IN THE WAR large cities. Their children were humiliated by their teachers and bullied by fellow-pupils until they ceased going to school. They were an object of mockery and calumny in the newspapers, which vied with one another in ituperation. Their sole means of escape was by emigration, which was impeded by the difficulty of obtaining visas and the trifling amount that a Jew could take away after the payment of a 25 per cent . . "flight tax" and the blocking of his account. Nevertheless, after the first five years of persecution, I 70,000 Jews had shaken off the dust of the Reich.
Germany and Austria, I938-9 As soon as Hitler invaded Au~tria, the Jews in that country were subjected to the same code of oppression as in Germany. Their ill-treatment began with an orgy of violence and plunder by Storm Troopers in Vienna and other cities. Thousands were arrested and imprisoned, and wholesale robbery was carried out in homes, offices, shops, and department stores. The President and members of the Council of the Vienna Jewish community. were put into a concentration camp. The Il!Oney in the Council's office was stolen. The Io,ooo volumes in the library of the Rabbinical Seminary were carried away. The principal syna gogue was the scene of acts of desecration. The Jews were obliged to raise a sum of £go,ooo for the benefit of the Gestapo because they had previously subscribed such an amount for the frllstrated plebiscite of Schuschnigg. They were deprived of civil rl.ghts anc! dismissed from all official and public positions. They were "purged" froin theatres, film studios, and all other agencies of culture or enlightenment. Their Press was banned and their books suppressed. All "Jewish · employees of all concerns were discharged, and all Jewish businesses rapidly "Aryanised." Men and women were seized in the streets or in their homes and compelled to scrub away the Schuschnigg crosses or to clean motor cars and garages. The whole community shuddered when they heard Goering over the wireless proclaiming to the people of Vienna t-hat their city would be totally freed--of Jews within four years. Hundreds committed suicide; thousands lined up outside· the British, American, and other consulates in desperate-attempts to secure visas. The Jews in other parts of Austria. were likewise maltreated; in Styria they were assaulted and robbed; and from Burgeriland, where many 'had been settled for goo years and more, they were expelled with bayonets and driven over the frontiers into Czechoslovakia and Hungary. HITLER'S FIRST WAR 17 From the spring of I 938 the persecution in "Greater· Germany'' was intensified and touchec::Ldepths ofbarbarism and gangsterism hitherto unknown in a modern State. A law was passed requiring all Jews owning property above 5;000 marks to register it with the authorities, who had the right to secure the use of it "in accordance with the interests of the Germany economy"-in other words, to confiscate it .. S'udden raids were made upon Jews in their .homes, cafes, and restaurants in Berlin, Vienna, and other cities, and thousands were arrested and interned. All Jews were expelled from the medical and legcil professions, except those still allowed to attend only to Jewish patients and ~clients. The closing months _of I 938 were dar~ened by one ghastly disaster after another. First came the c~sion of the Sudetenland, where 4,ooo of the 22,.ooo Jews living there failed to escape in time to Prague or elsewhere before the blow fell, and were compelled immedi<~.tely to taste o£ the cup of bitterness. Next came the sudden arrest of I5,0€>o Polish Jews in all parts of Germany and their brutal deportation in cattle-trucks. to the Polish frontier, over which half of them were driven at the point of the bayonet, while 6,ooo were interned in the JllOSt wrets::hed conditions in the little border town of Zbonszyn. This calamity bnmght another much worse in its train, for a youth, Herschel Grynszpan, in Paris, maddened by the thought of the sufferings of his parents, who were among thos-e dumped at Zbonszyn, shot a young official at the German Embassy. The consequence was a terrible pogrom against-the Jews in Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland on the very next day, November roth. Shops and their contents were demolished, houses were plundered and wrecked, synagog1aes were burned down, there were wholesale arrests, and many Jews were injured and murdered. The police and fire brigades were instruc;:ted not to interfere with the gangs of van:da1s, and the excesses continued throughout the day in hundreds of citi,es until Goebbeis br,oadcast tP,e order that they should cease-. Over 500 synagogues. and mhet houses of prayet were destroyed by fire or hand grenades, and the uniform method applied-apart from other evidence-left no doubt that the pogrom had been organised by authority, presumably by • Goebbels,· the Minister of Enlightenmei;llt. Over 5o,ooo Jews, includ~ng boys and greybeards, and even the sick, were carried off to concentration camps at Da
Czechoslovakia The next Jewish community that Hitler attacked was that of Czechoslovakia. The position of the Jews in Slovakia had become worse immediately after Munich. Hlinka Guards, the local Storm Troopers, levied blackmail upon scores ofJews whom they arrested, and drove hundreds into the "no-man's-land" on the Hungarian frontier. The University of Bratislava expelled 500 HITLE'R 's FIRST WAR I Jewish students, and two synagogues were burned down-the first sacrifice to the Nazi Moloch. But as soon as Prague was entered by the German hordes, the Jews in Bohemia and Moravia were among the most numerous victims of the Gestapo. Within a week they experienced all the forms of savage ·persecution inflicted upon the Jews in• the Reich in the course of six years. Thousands were arrested and flung into prisons and c.oncentra tion camps, while their homes were plundered. All Jewish bank accounts were blocked and only small sums could be· withdrawn weekly. All Jews were dismissed from banks and insurance companies, newspapers· and theatres, film studios and ch1emas. They were banned from restaurants ·and cafes, with only few exceptions. Social relations between Czechs and Jews were fQrbidden, and all Jewish shops had to b('! distinguished by a red ''Shield of David" enclosing the word "Jew." Jew-baiting and robberies reached their climax on August I 5, when organised pogroms took place throughout the Republic. Synagogues were burnt down by the score, and hundreds of wounded 'were left lying in the streets for hours. The Czech police were forbidden by the German authorities to interfere, but they frustrated the attemp~ to demolish the famous "Old~New Synagogue" in Prague and to lay waste the adjoining historic cemetery. The "autonomous" Government of the "Protectorate" deliberated carefully_ over its legislation against the Jews, for the spirit of Masaryk could not be expelled overnight, and as its successive draft laws were considered too mild the "Protector" himself, von Neurath, enacted a statute on June 2I, I93g, on true Nazi lines. It defined "Jew" according to the Nuremberg racial code: it declared a business concern to be "Jewish" if more than a quaTter of the capital belonged to Jews or if it was under the "decisive influence ofJews." It was the prelude to the· "Aryanisation" or liquidation of Jewish businesses, ·which was expedited by a further decree of January 26, I940. No Czechs were allowed to acquire these concerns, which were strictly reserved for Germans, who secured cheap ownership of some of the largest ir:on and steel works, coal-mines, and armament factories. Three months later another decree forbade the em ployment of Jews in public positions and limited their practice of the liberal professions to their own community. Throughout the country they were subjected to systematic· spoliation · and domiciliary searches, to indignities and brutalities. Their in stitutions and cafes were bombed, they were barred from parks ;md baths, they were abused in the Nazi Press, they -were denied 20 THE JEWS IN THE wAR \ the possibility of earning a living. The home of liberty they had enjoyed for twenty years had been turned into a haunt of terror, in which the only comfort was the sympathy of their Czech fellow-citizens, who refused to help the oppressors. In Slovakia the persecution was far more brutal, for. the anti Semitism of Father Tiso's Government quickly sprouted into Nazi barbarism. This puppet State celebrated its creation on March ·I5, I939, by an outbreak of pogroms, the burning of many synagogues, the tort~ring and murdering of Jews, and the robbery of property. In some places the Jews were forced to fire their houses ~f prayer themselves, and rabbis were publicly subjected to sadistic assaults. All who had held any official positions under the Benes Government or were suspected of sympathy with it were deprived of their possessions. Hundreds were seized to form labour battalions, and at one time there were 7,000 in gaols and concentration camps. All landed property that was wholly or partly in Jewish owner ~hip had to be regis tered, as a prelude to "Aryanisation." A decree deprived 3o,ooo Jews of Slovakian citizenship on the ground that they had become naturalised a fter I9I8 (as though they could have become naturalised before the Czechoslovak Republic was founded). In order to escape the terror, 6,ooo Jews had become baptised since the autumn of I938, but their apostasy was in vain, as the Jew law recognised only baptisms that dated before I9I8. The one sure means of escape for the Jews both in the "Pro tectorate" and Slovakia was by emigration, but that was not easy. The Germans at first insisted that 300 Jews a day must leave the "Protectorate" and later reduced the quota to 200, but those who managed to emigrate had to pay a 25 per cent. tax on their property, while the remainder of their money was paid into a blocked account. Engineers, chemists, and technicians were not allowed to go, but were offered jobs in Germany, and hundreds of those who had neither money nor technical qualifications were forced at the point of the bayonet across the frontier into Poland. By the time the war began about Io,ooo Jews had quitted the "Protectorate," which was still left with a Jewish population of abput 9o,ooo.
Italy Hitler was not content with the persecution of the J~ws in the lands over which he ruled: he also insisted upon their oppression in every country that came-under his satanic influence. 'fhe first. HITLER'S FIRST WAR 2I to fall victim was Italy, where Mussolini, who had previously affirmed repeatedly that anti-Semitism would never fir\d a footing in his country and scoffed at all Nazi theories, was compelled to adopt all the ev:il mumbo-jumbo of the Nazi ideology. Al though Jews had lived.in Italy for 2,ooo years and, despite their small number (57,400 in a population of 4I millions), had rendered great services to the country as st
World-wide Anti-Semitic Propaganda Italy and Hungary were the only independent countries that adopted anti-Jewish legislation as a result ofGerm41.n intervention, but they were not by any means the only ones in which Nazi influence was at work. This evil spirit had been imported by a horde of paid agents into all parts of the world for the threefold purpose of propagating Jew-hatred, fomenting political discord, and undermining the bases of constitutional government. The German Propaganda' Ministry conducted this sinister activity by means of a variety of organisations. The "Fichte Bund" was one of the most prolific agencies ofNazism: every year it exported over 5 ~pillion leaflets and over I oo tons of books and pamphlets in many languages. The "World Service" and the Berlin ·"In stitute for the Study of the Jewish Question" both issued fort- . nightly bulletins containing the foulest and most lying charges against the Jews. Hitler and Goebbels used -to deny that they spread their noxious doctrines abroad. The Fuhrer, at a Nurem berg Party Congress in 1936, declared: "National Socialism is Germany's cqpyright. It cannot be exported .... We are not missionaries for other people."1 And, similarly, Goebbels, in a , speech in Warsaw in i934; stated: "Nothing would be more erroneous than to assume that National Socialism as a spiritual phenomenon is possessed of the ambition ·to transfer its field of activity beyond the frontiers of the Reich."2 Both these statements were given the lie by the Nazi official organ, the Voelkischer Boebachter (May 24, I934), which boasted: "The influence of the Nazi Party in foreign countries extends literally around the entire globe. 'My sphere is the hole world' might aptly be placed over our headquarters in Hamburg. This Foreign Organisation ·... comprises to-day more than 350 national branches and fulcrum points of the Nazi Party everywhere.... The Nazi Party will yet further develop in an effort to transplant to all foreign countries the objectives of... the National-Socialist Reich." This boastful threat w·as methodically and cunningly carried out with the aid of German wireless stations, news -agencies, and steamship companies, and with the zealous co-operation of all German diplomatic and consular officials and countless German societies throughout th~ world, at a cost to the German Govern ment of over £2o,ooo,ooo a year. The persistence with which the 1 The Times, September 15, 1936. 2 Ibid., June 14, I934· 24 THE JEWS IN THE WAR Nazi minions distributed their poisonous productions, reeking with race-hatred and incitement, resulted in ca.mpaigns 'of abuse against the Jews in almost all the countries in which they live, and, in many also, in acts of violence aRd legal discrimination. They transplanted anti-Semitism to many parts of the world where it had never been known before and inflamed it where it had previously been only dormant. That fine flower of Nordic Kultur, the "Ritual Murder" number of the Stuermer, a horr~ble re-hash of medireval, baseless accusations, was issued in Danish, Turkish, and Arabic versions, with pornographic ifiustrations from the Nuremberg Press, and the wicked forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, was circulated in twenty languages. The battle-cry, "Juda verrecke!" found currency also in a multiplicity oftong~es, and the English equivalent, "Perish, Judah!" was even smeared on the house of a former. Jewish member of the British Cabinet. The central direction of this pestiferous activity was betrayed by the uniformity of the outrag~s committed in many -places remote fron: one another. Synagogues were defaced with red-painted swastikas in Copenhagen and Oslo, in New York and London; they were defiled in Budapest, Jassy, .and Toronto; they were damaged with bombs in Vienna, Varna, and Buc:;nos Aires. A Jewish newspaper office in Johannesburg was also bombed. Jewish cemeteries were violated and tombstones broken at Kriepiec (near Czenstochowa), Castoria (Greece), and Radautz (Rumania). Anti-Semitic disorders occurred at Hungarian universities; where the Christian students went on strike against the admission of Jews, at Bucharest, where Jewish students were ]::>eaten to prevent them from sitting for their examinations, at Warsaw, where Professor Handelsmann, a baptised Jew, was violently assaulted by his own students, and at Kovno, where a lecturer on medicine was noisily interrupted by a demand for the numerus clausus. Libellous attacks upon Jews led to notable trials in Basle and Berne, Copenhagen and Cairo, New York and Grahamstown (South Africa); and special laws designed to protect the Jews from calumny on the, ground of their race or religion were enacted in Holland, Manitoba, and New Jersey.
Jew-baiting on the Continent The distrust and suspicion that Hitler's ,policy must have aroused in many countries were either lulled or obscured by a feeling of comradeship in Jew-baiting. In Poland the Nazi game was unwittingly played by the two extremist parties, the HI T L E R ' S FIRST WAR "Endeks" and the "Naras," whose anti-Jewish excesses caused serious disorder and disruption at a time when national unity was essential to meet the danger from without. Indeed, the Government itself was so blinded by J udeophobia that a Jewish paper that ridiculed a Nazi Minister was fined' and banned, while the Polish Press was free to attack loyal Jews with impunity. In few countries did the Nazi seed find such'favourable soil as in Rumania, where anti-Semitism had been rampant for decades, practised by Government and populace alike, artd the short-lived Cabinet of the late M. Goga, that ardent admirer of the Fuhrer, tried to introduce some of the most obnoxious features of Ger many's reactionary code. It was anti-Semitism that largely contribute to Rumania's internal di~ruption, the most virulent of the Jew-baiting parties, the Iron Guard terrorists, having acted as instruments for the overthrow of King Carol and for opef?.ing the frontiers to the German troops. Hitler's hirelings wer:e busy from one end of Europe to the other, from Norway, where Vidkun Quisling, the prototype of all quis}ings, wrote a diatribe against the Jews in the organ of the British Union of Fascists three years before he 'betrayed his country, to Greece, . where the Neue Athener ,Zeitung , began to spread the gospel of Jew-hatred in I934· In Holland the leaders of the two chiefNazi parties, Van Rappard and Mussert, outdid each other in defaming the Jews. In Belgium the leader of the "Rexists," Leon Degrelle, indulged in similar vilification. In France Hitler's crus~de found ardent champions among politi cal reactionaries, the most bellicose of whom, Darquier de • Pellepoix, demanded in his paper, La France Enchaznee, that immediately after the declaration of war all Jews should be placed in the front ranks of the fighting troops; and in Alsace Lorraine Goebbel's slogan, "The Jews -are our misfortune!" became as common as~ in Germany itself. Even in England there were willing coadjutors in the Fascists of different brands, who coupleCl their slanderous attacks upon' Jews with protestations of sympathy for Germany. Oswald Mosley declared that "a million Fascists would refuse to fight a Jewish war," and William Joyce, better known as "Lord Haw-Haw," turned traitor by going to help Germany with his anti-British broadcasts.
From Cairo to Cape The war was also conducted with vigour and violence in North . and South Africa, in the Near and Middle East, and in North THE JEWS IN THE WAR
and South . America. Fifty German agents were se~t in April, l935, to Africa and the Near East to carry on propaganda among the natives.1 In Cairo and Alexandria anti-Jewish leaflets irt Arabic and German were distributed in the streets. In Palestine German rifles were captured from Arab terrorists who fought against ·British rule as well as against tfle Jews, and the arch rebel, the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, has found refuge in Berlin. South Africa has been afflicted for some years by anti-Jewish organisations, all applauding and preaching Hitler's doctrines, and one of them, the "Grey Shirts," -ha.s been described as "an official German State body ... receiving orders from Berlin, and expecting compliance from .its members." The close connection between anti-Semitism and treachery was vividly e~emplified by the Deutsche Afrika Post, which wrote (on July 15, ! 939): "In the interests of South Africa, Jewry must be put energetically in its place, and here Hitler could help the trw: patriots.... One cannot get rid of the Jews as long as one is bound to England."
America and Far East In Canada, where there were organiseCl Nazi groups from Montreal to Vancouver, the chief quisling, Adrien Arcand, demanded a "corporative State" in :which the Jews should b~ deprived of their civic rights, and when he was put on trial in June, 1946, his relations with Berlin were revealed and he was interned. In few parts of the world haye German machinations been conducted to such a dangerous extreme as in the United States, where hundreds ·of well-paid_agents, associ;:~.ted directly or indirectly with the German Embassy and the various German Consulates, were engaged, not only in distributing vast quantities of anti-Semitic literatblre, but also in plotting to secure political domination by force. Similar nefarious activity was carried on . by German diplomatic dignitaries and Nazi organisations in the republics of South America, particularly Argentina and •Brazil, where acts of terrorism against the Jewish population were combined with conspiracies against the Governments, until drastic and effective measures were taken for the suppression of the growing menace. Anti-Semitism was also transplanted by Hitler's minions even to the Far-Eastern partner of the Axis, although the number of Jews in Japan is insignificant. Asahi, the influential organ of the J:fpanese Army, .lashed the Jews for having "re-elected Roosevelt for a third time; they had coaxed '
1 Manchester Guardian, January 19, I 938. HlTLER!S FIR.S't WAR Churchill to wage war .on Germany; the Jews also backed Stalin; the Jews are conspiring to overthrow the world's ruling Power."l Such, then, was Hitler's war against the Jews throughout the world. It was waged, not only·to bring suffering and humiliation upon them, but also to secure political support in the various countries in which -they lived. Anti-Semitism was one of the most useful instruments employed by him in his struggle for world domination. He had achieved political power · in Germany mainly through the skilful and ruthless application of his anti Jewish policy, and he was resolvec:l to exploit it for the same end in foreign countries, too. He boasted of this to Hermann Rau schning in a revealing statement:2
"Anti-Semitism is a useful revolutionary expedient. My Jews are a valuable host'age given to me by the democracies. Anti Semitic propaganda in all countries ·is an almost indispe"'nsable medium for the extension of our political campaign. You will see how little time we shall need in order to upset the ideas and the criteda of the whole world, simply and purely by attacking Jewry. It is beyond question the most important weapon in my propaganda arsenal, and almost everywhere of deadly efficiency." ·
If only the principal States had realised. this ~hen· Hitler first launched his war against the Jews, and organised a general boycott-political, economic, and intellectual-against Germany as a reprisal, we might possibly have been spared the catastrophe that has now engulfed the world. But no obstacle was placed in his rway. Germany proceeded from the persecution of her own Jews to the harassing of those in all other lands, and was thus able to hatch her plots, intrigues, and treacherous conspiracies. Never before in the history of the world had a State, pretending to have a great mission, engaged in such a universal campaign of mind-poisoning and soul-corruption among the peoples of other States. Never before had a Government organised dis affection among the subjects of other Governments on so vast a scale or rewarded sedition so lavishly. It was only a prelude to the · war Hitler had planned, and in which he committed far grosser infamie~ than any in his previous record. a ·
1 Spectator, December I 9, I 94I. 2 Hitler Speaks, p. 233· . 3 For fuller accounts of Nazi and pro-Nazi activities, see the author's articles Ill the Quarter()! Review of July, I933, October, I934, and October, I938. THE JEWS lN THE WAR
CHAPTER III
THE- DESTRUCTION OF EUROPEAN JEWRY
HE persecution of the Jews in Europe has been an integral T and promhient feature of Hitler's war from 'the very pegin ning. However savagely his hordes have trampled upon State after State and oppressed their peoples, they have everywhere subjected the Jews to even worse maltreatment and exceptional degradation. Whatever laws the invaders have enacted in each country to harass all elem ents of the nation, they have issued special d ecrees to victimise the Jews, and, despite all their racking problems· in the regions conquered, Hitler and his henchmen • ceaselessly pursue their anti-Jewish crusade. Pillage and massacre, imprisonment and execution, concentration camps and slavery, vandalism and sacrilege, suieide and starvation-these have been the fate of all the vanquished peoples, without regard to race or creed. But, in addition, the Jews are subjected to the most humiliating indignities, the most barbarous brutalities, incessant d enunciation, and mass deportation. For Hitler has resolved upon their de~oralisation and pauperisation as a pr-elude to their annili'ilation. When the war began, he had fewer than 13oo,ooo Jews at his m ercy: now he has 8 .millions. That is the the J ewish tragedy.
The Persecution in Greater Germany Intolerable as the sufferings of the Jews in Germany and Austria had' already become ·by the autumn of 1939, they were greatly increased after the outbreak of war. There were still about 240,000 Jews in Germany and 55,000 in Austria. The German Government were at first torn between ·two conflicting impulses: should they intensify th<:: oppression of the Jews whom they denounced as the prime cause of the war, or should they make use of them? They combined the two policies. All J ews b etween sixteen a nd fifty-five h ad to report for compulsory labour : they were em ployed a t first on civil defence preparations, and later in rem oving the d ebris of bombed buildings as well as on road-construction, excavation work, plate-laying, cartage and coal hauling. Those who had technical qualifications were furnished with a special badge bearing the words, "Economically THE DES T R U C T I 0 N 0 F E U R 0 PEA N JEWRY 29 ,.. valuable Jew," and were engaged in industry, while some thou sands were employed in munition factories. They received a wage ranging from two-thirds to only a quarter of the "Aryan" rate, they had to pay I 5 per cent. of their wages as income-tax, without any reduction for wife and children; and they were often compelled to work seven days a week. Jewish women were often employed in cleaning the streets of Berlin, especially after a snowfall. There were 35,000 Jews in three concentration camps, where they were forced to toil at useless and body-breaking tasks and treated with bestial savagery. Many doctors were released when they were needed in the Reich; a few hundred were s'et free to attend German soldiers wounded on the Russian front; but a number who preferred to r·emain in the camp rather than help their persecutors were executed. ' . The privations of the Jews steadily grew. Their rations were less than those of the "Aryans"; their food-cards-were marked "J," so that they were exposed to discrimination; th-ey were restricted to a couple of shopping hours when supplies were low or exhausted; and they were subject to early curfew. They were forbidden to buy vegeta.bles) fruit, fish, poultry, rice, chocolate, and sweets. They were denied ration cards for clothes, ev~n if they could afford them. They were separated from ",Aryans" in all public air-raid shelter·s, where special benches were pro vided; but they preferred to stay indoors during a raid or go to one of the special "Ghetto shelters" constructed by the Jewish community; and they received no compensation for any damage they suffered. Their mortality rose, especially through suicide: of I,844Jewish deaths in Berlin in the first six months of the war, one-fourth were cases of suicide; and in Vienna alone suiCides sometimes averaged forty a week. In .Berlin the Jews were systematically removed from the middle-class suburbs to the crowded slum districts. All large synagogues were requisitioned for military purposes, as were also the Jewish hospitals in Leipzig and Breslau. All Jewisli institutions were liquidated, and the large and valuable libraries of the Berlin and Frankfo~t com munities were seized and added to the Nazi Institutes for Racial Research. Throughout Western Prussia the money belonging to Jews in banks and safe deposits was summarily confiscated. There were similar robberies in Austria, where the historic Rothschild Bank and other Jewish properties were seized. Over 25,000 Jewish businesses were liquidated and 87 per cent. of the Jewish a:r;tisans were deprived of the right to work by February, I940. Within another year the total value of Jewish possessions • . 30 THE JEWS IN THE WA.R stolen in the Reich was estimated at between 2! and 5 billion marks.
The Lublin "Reservation" Soon after the Germans occupied Poland, they conceived the plan of solving the Jewish problem in "Greater Germany" by transferring vast masses to a "Reservation" in the Lublin district. They /deported a few. thousand Jews from Vienna and tens of thousands ·from the cities of Germany, Bohemia, and Moravia; and as the exiles were conveyed in cattle trucks in the depth of winter, without food, heat, or ventilation, many died on the way. There was a transport of goo from Koenigsberg, all of whom were said to have perished of the cold; and another large transport from Stettin lost its way on the complicated route, so the guards reduced their responsibilities by casual shooting and killed 230. The deportees were allowed to take with them 300 marks, besides tools and a limited amount of clothing, but all their remaining belongings had to be left behind for the benefit bf non-Jewish "welfare purposes." Entire communities were ordere~ to pack up at short notice, and ~ven Jews who had been waiting at Hamburg to sail for America were sent off to Lublin. The conditions in the "Reservation," where no proper prep arations had been made, were - unfit for human habitation, and after some 30,000 had been concentrated there the deporta tions ceased. The reason was an outbreak of typhus, which also attacked the German soldiers, and the fearful disorganisation on the railways, though the reason officially given was lack of rolling-stock. Several thousand Jews had been detained for a time in an open-air stadium in Vienna, where many died of exposure and ill-treatment.
Reprisals for Intensified War Both Germany's war upon Russia and political developments in the United States had immediate repercussions upon the helpless Jews. The latter were naturally held responsible both for ~ the extension of the war and for the· Lease-Lend Bill, and there fore further repressive measures were applied. There was an intensification of anti-Jewish propaganda in the Press and the cinemas. The director of the Reich Union of Jews, Dr. Otto Hirsch, was put into a concentration camp, where he died a few months later, and other Jewish officials were drafted into labour battalions. After President Roosevelt's fireside chat on May 26, ..
. THE DESTRUCTION OF EUROPEAN JEWRY 31
1941, 1,000 Jewish. families in Berlin were evicted from their homes, and the Press announced that a "scientific investigation" had "proved" that the President was ofJewish descent. The Jews were allowed to obtain a limited amount of coal for cooking, but none for heating. Those in Berlin were forbidden the use of tram cars and the underground railway. Those in Breslau and Hanover were expelled from the interior of the city to the outlying suburbs, where they were dumped into disused barracks. The reason given for this measure was the publication of a little book in the United States entitled Germany· must Perish, by one Theodore N. Kaufman, whose name was unknown in American Jewry. Although the booklet was anti-Nazi, it was such as might have been written by an agent-provocateur, and excerpts advocating the mass sterilisa tion of Germans after the war were placarded in public places in Berlin and Hanover. Raids were made nightly on Jewish homes by police and uniformed officials in search of goods forbidden to Jews, who might have received them from Christian friends, and severe penalties were inflicted upo~ the offenders.
The Yellow Badge The crowning device for humiliating the J ews was the revival of a medireval practice. In October, 1941, a decree was issued requiring them to wear a yellow armlet marked with the "Shield of David," which the Jews of. Poland had been wearing for the past two years. This ukase applied to aU Jewish persons above the age of fourteen, and, as there was a shortage of cloth, the badges could be made of yellow paper or sheets of tin painted yellow. The display of the badge was compulsory whenever a Jew left his home, or even if he only opened his door, and the penalty for failing to do so was internment in a concentration camp. Many Jews wore it with dignity and courage and aroused the sympathy of some Germans; others, amounting to hundreds, were overcome with shame and committed suicide. Many Jewish ex-Service men made a silent protest by wearing their decorations won in the last vyar in addition to the yellow armlet, but their names and addresses were noted down by Gestapo officials, so that proceedings could be taken against them for "provocative action." '
In. Bohemia and Moravia The persecution of the Jews in the "Protectorate," which ·had begun with the invasion of the country, continued unabated. 32 THE JEWS IN THE WAR . The enforced emigration was stopped by th~ war, and a few thousand from various towns were deported to Lublin and robbed on the way of everything they had by the Gestapo; but when the deportations ceased, the rage of the Nazi tyrants found vent in a campaign 9f vilification and further repressive measures. In an attempt to revive a belief in "ritual murder," the Gestapo ordered new investigations of all unsolved cases of missing women and children, and organised a public exhibition entitled "The Jews as Enemies of Humanity," containing alleged documents- of "ritual murder" cases, which Czech school-children and workers were forced to visit under the threat of being sent to a con centration camp if they failed to do so. Three million boqks, mostly of Jewish character and authorship, were ordered to be burned. The historic statue of Mose~ opposite the "Old-New Syn,agogue"'' in Prague was melted down for munitions, and the monument of Chief Rabbi Loew, the famed creator of a Frankenstein's monster, was also destroyed. Ail Jewish children were excluded , from State schools. Jews were forbidden to rent apartments- in buildings with lifts or central heating. They were supplied with ration cards marked "J." They had to hand over all bank books by the end of I 940, deposits being transferred to blocked accounts controlled by Nazi-appointed trustees. The estimated value of all confiscated Jewish property was IOO billion kronen (about £83o,ooo,ooo). The ''Protector," von Neurath, put his signature to a number ofiniquitous decrees. He forbade Jews to own more than two sets of underwear and ordered them to hand over the remainder to the Winter Relief Fund, · from the benefits of which they were barred. He enacted that Jews should be ejected from their homes to make room for Germans evacuated from bombed cities, and that they should sell or rent their homes only to Germans and not to Czechs. But he was not satisfied with the observance of his edicts and declared that their violation was part of a systematic campaign. Nazi newspapers repeatedly ,complained that the Czechs helped the Jews in evading the laws; and as von Neurath became impatient with the slow "Aryanisation'·' of Jewish businesses he took personal charge of the administration of all ariti-Jewish laws. What moral degeneration of this once polished diplomat of the old school! The outbreak of the war with Russia was followed by further harassing regulations. The Jews in Prague were forbidden to use taxicabs and bicycles, and those in Pilsen to travel in trams and buses. They were limited to a couple of hours in the afternoon for shopping; they were not allowed to THE DESTRUCTION OF EUROPEAN JEWRY 33 buy fruit, fish, poultry, cheese, or sw~ets; they could go to the hairdresser only within certain hours; those who still had a business could attend to it- only for a few hours a day; and the yellow badge was imposed upon all. After von Neurath's departure, a reign of terror was introduced by his successor, the "Deputy Protector," the butcher Heydrich. Many Jews, besides Czechs, were executed on the charge of engaging in anti-German activities, but although the Jews were only 2 per cent. of the population they formed I o per cent. of those executed. All synagogues were closed on the ground of being suspected centres of subversive agit~tion. All Jewish schools were also closed, and Jewish children were banned from the general schools. There were daily expulsions of Jews to Poland, and Czechs, who had throughout shown sympathy for the Jews and supplied them with food and clothing for their terrible journey, were threatened with "protective custody." The Czechs were also warned that they would be regarded as enemies of Germany if they took Jewish property under their care. The puppet Government ordered the Jewish Communal Board of Prague to register all Jews willing to ''volunteer" for internment in a forced labour cainp, in which case they could place their Qroperty "under the control ·of the Jewish community." Those who prefer:red to await co.mpulsory internment or -exile were threat ened they would lose all their belongings. The Jews knew that in either event the Nazi bandits would seiz()otheir property. Hundreds of them, besides non-Jews, went into hiding in the forests near the cities, and when they were caught by the German police they were put in ·chains a:nd handed over to the Gestapo. Their attempt at concealment was regarded as sufficient evidence of their "crimes." Pogroms in Slovakia The vassal State of Slovakia promptly obeyed the behes,ts of Berlin in abolishing· the Jews' rights, crippling their economic position, and subjecting them to violence and terror. It was worst in the capital, Bratislava, where, on the eve of the war, several pogroms were perpetrated by Vienna Nazis and Hlinka Guards, who pillaged synagogues, injured many Jews, and arrested hundreds. In June, I940, the entire Jewish quarter, of Bratislava, containing the historic Ghetto and a fourteenth-century syna gogue, was :mzed to the ground. Jews in the liberal professions were limited to I per cent. of the total membership; thousands were. deprived .of their trade and artisan licences; and by August, Cw 34 THE JEWS It::! THE WAR 1941, nearly 7,500 Jewish commercial enterprises, with a yearly turnover of 65 million kronen (over £5oo,ooo), were liquidated. All rural land belonging to Jews was sold at a third below the current price to small farmers, and the owners received merely 3 per cent. of the proceeds and l per cent. amortisation annually. By the summer of 1941 the total amount of Jewish property expropriated was valued at 4 billion kronen (over £33,ooo,ooo), apart from confiscated jewellery worth £25o,ooo. Oppression assumed various degrading and harassing forms. The Jews had to wear the yellow armlet, shop before nine in the morning, give up all motor-car licences and wireless sets, sell all medical and surgical instrume nts tQ "Aryan" doctors, keep away from hotels, public baths, and promenades, and comply with curfew regulations. In Bratislava their orphanage and soup kitchen were commandeered, and in the . entire country their sc;hools were closed, and Jews were excluded from State educa tion, except in elementary schools. Six synagogues were set on fire, and only orie was saved from destruction. Jews were banned from the Army, but were required to do forced labour, and out of a Jewish population of 89,000 the number conscripted for this purpose was 32,000. They were expelled from all towns with a population exceeding 5,ooo, which meant evacuation from twenty-five places where they had lived for centuries. Those· in Bratislava were dumped into derelict barracks and huts outside the city; pending the estitblishment of a Ghetto: they, as well as the Jews in many other cities, were ordered to stay at home for fifteen hours, during which Hlinka Guards called to register their be!ongings for transfer to the Government (and doubtless also to themselves). The ·latest decree requires that all the Jews of Slovakia shall be deported to a "territory reserved for Jews," to do forced labour. Persecution in Poland However cruel the persecution in "Greater Germany" and Czechoslovakia, it was quite overshadowed by the barbarous outrages inflicted upon the Jews in Poland, for which there was no para llel since the Middle Ages. As soon as the Germans crossed the Polish frontier, they abandoned all pretensions to being civilised people and, indulged in an orgy of massacre and pillage, of torture and sadism, of vandalism and sacrilege. Brutally as they maltreated the Poles, they tormented the Jews far worse, making them suffer doubly as subjects of a vanquished State and the principal objects of Nazi hatred. In their assault
' THE DESTRUCT I 0 N 0 F E U R 0 P• E AN JEWRY 35 upon the Poles, the Germans singled out the intellectual elements and political leaders for especial savagery, so as to render tl]e restorati<;m of their national life more difficult; but, in the case of the Jews, all sections of the community without distinction are exposed to destruction. The Nazi hordes threw themselves upon the Jews in all the towns and villages that they entered with demoniac fury, driving them out at the point of the bayonet or pistol, and shooting or clubbing to death those who could not flee fast enough. Vast expulsions were carried out in the first few months from over forty cities, including Lodz, Cracow, and Czenstochowa. Thousands ofJews were packed offin cattle-trucks to the Lublin "Reservation," and as they arrived before preparations were completed, large numbers were doomed to wander about, a prey to hunger, thirst, and frost. Only comparatively few succeeded in escaping to Lithuania and other countries. Those uprooted from . their homes must have amounted to about a million, for 2oo,ooo wer:e exiled from the province of Poznan alone, where they :vere replaced by German settlers. ·
Murder, Pillage and Arson Expulsion, however, was a minor evil beside the pogroms and shootings to which so many fell victims. Some were shot on a trumpery pretext, like the twenty-two Jewish nurses of the Polish Red Cross, who were condemned to death by the German military command after the fall of the fortress of Modlin, or the twenty Jewish schoolboys at Bochnia, near Warsaw, who were shot (in December, I939) on the charge of concealing weapons and supporting Polish resistance. In some cases every tenth Jew in arrested groups was shot, as at Werka, also near Warsaw (December, I939), and at Sosnowice (January, I94o); but as a rule Jewish communities were massacred wholesale. Pogroms were carried out in many towns, including Chmelnik, Czensto chowa, Konskie, Kutno, Lask, Lowicz, Lukow, and Sieradz; and, indeed, there was hardly a single town or village in which at least some Jews were not killed. A terrible butchery was committed at Przemysl,- where 8oo were shot (September I, I939), and there was a slaughter of I,300 male Jews between sixteen and sixty, who had been seized at Chelm and Hrubieszow and were killed off in batches during a four day.s' gruelling march towards the Russian frontier town of SokaJ.l · 1 Report in American Jewish Year-Book, 1940- r, pp. 371 - 2. 36 THE• JEWS IN THE WAR At Nowe Miasto (Radom district) Jews were shot at random, and in a five days' attack upon those in Lodz many were killed and 200 wounded. At Ostrowa all male Jews were shot after being forced to dig their own graves (December 7, I939); at Tzcebinow I 50 Jews were shot on the charge of concealing firearms in their homes; at Laskarew (near Warsaw) 37 were shot; and at Zgierz a Jew (named Zissman) was buried alive on the charge of resisting. the German forces. At Brok some Jews were shot in bed; others were dragged from their homes to the cemetery, where they were bayoneted; and altogether thirty-two were killed, whose bodies were left exposed a whole week, the prey of dogs and crows, before they were buried.l All male Jews were deported from Ostrow Mazowiecki; and when a fire broke out after their removal those who remained were blamed and 530 women and children .were taken to the outskirts and murdered.2 At Sieradz and Kola Jews were 1)ublicly flogged, and in Cracow, Lodz, Tarnow, Kielce, and other places, many Jewish leaders were put tp death without indictment or trial. In many cases the Nazi barbarians made their victims dance and dig their own graVfS before shooting them. ~ In Warsaw too there was the law of the jungle. Many Jews were seized in the streets or in their homes and never seen again, though so~e were released on payment of blackmail. A large number were arrested on the false charge of being connected with a man named Kat, suspected of working a secret radio, and fifty-three, who happened to be in a large apartment-house where a young Jew had shot dead a Polish policeman in search of stolen goods (although uniformed Nazi bandits could rob with impunity), were taken arrd shot.a Arson also played an important part in the war against Jewry. The burning of synagogues, where these were not turned into barracks, was for months almost a daily occurrence, the invaders previously seizing all the ritual articles of silver·and all lamps of brass or bronze. At least a few hundred synagogues must have been destroyed, including some of architectural importance and antiquity. In Poznan, where four places of worship were de molished, the burning of one of them was filmed by official 'G€rrnan· photographers; and at Grojec (Warsaw district) Jews were forced to set fire to their·synagogue themselves. The Qra:cow Volksdeutsche even announced the formation of a special fire
1 Jewish Morning Journal (New York), November 30, 1939· 2 The Tragedy of Polish Jewry (Jerusalem), 1940, p. 12. a Ibid., p . 25. THE DESTRUCTION OF EUROPEAN JEWRY 37 . / brigade for the burning of Jewish books and places of worship. Jewish cemeteries were· also laid waste by the vandals, and the tombstones were removed for the building of roads .•
Special Anti-Jewish Decrees According to the provisions of the Hague Convention of I907 relating to the conduct of war, to which both Poland and Germany subscribed, the Occupation Authorities were bound to respect the laws in force in the occupied country (Art. 43), .and to respect the rights of individuals, private property, religious convictions, and freedom of religious practice (Art. 46). But the Germans totally ignored these provisions and issued special decrees against the Jews in the so-call~d "Government~General." They compelled all those between the ages of twelve and sixty to perform compulsory labour for a period of two years, which could be extended: such conscripts had to take with them pro-. visions for two days and two blankets, besides the tools of their craft, and to work irr special Jewish detachments; and failure to comply entailed ten years' imprisonment. They ordered all Jews to keep indoors from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., and all (of both sexes) • above the age of ten to wear on the right shoulder a white band marked with the "Shield of David." They .required them to register all forms of property, any not declared being subject to confiscation. They defined "Jew" according to the Nuremberg Code of 1936, and prohil?ited Jews to use the railways (except by sp~cial permission of the Governor-General) or to employ ndn-J ewish women as workers or domestic servants. They also decreed that Jews should receive only half the rations allotted to Polish Christians, and only one-sixth of those allotted ~o German citizens.l Slave_Labour The Germans arrested Jews for slave labour wholesale, while in the case of the Poles only the unemployed were liable for such toil. The Council of the Warsaw Jewish community had to provide I5,ooo men to build new roads leading to the Russian frontier, a task for which another 15,000 were drafted from other cities. The camps in which these 30,000 men were herded were in a shockingly primitive state, and there was a death rate of I o per cent., of which 6 per cent. was due to illness and the rest
1 For fuller details of anti-Jewish laws, see Polish Fortnightly Review, September r, I94I. • • 38 THE JEWS IN THE WAR to shooting. W(\rsaw also had to provide 25,000 Jews to work in cOJ;mection with the regulation of the Rivers Vistula and Bug between the capital and Lublin. Within the first three months I2,ooo had been arrested in Lodz, and the ashes of6oo who had been detained were received by their relations. From the Kalisz district 4,ooo Jews were transported in locked carriages to Lukow, without· food or drink, and when they reached their destination · there were scores of dead, wounded, and sick. Concentration camps were established at Cracow, Lodz, Warsaw, Wegrow, and other centres, and by the summer of I940 the number of Jews interned was estimated at over I ,6oo,ooo. So great was the congestion in the Lodz Camp that thirty to forty persons were shot every. Thursday to make room for new corners.! Apart from those toiling and suffering in camps, over · 40o,ooo Jews are compelled to work for the German war industry, particularly as tailors and bootrnakers, and largely in factories · hastily built in Warsaw, Lodz, and Lublin, beyond the range of . British bombers. Nor have men alone been reduced to slavery, for the decree issued in March, I94I, made all Jewish women between seventeen and thirty-five liable to labour conscription. This edict affects about 20o,ooo women, who have to work as tailoresses, seamstresses, and in other capacities; but their lot will at least be preferable to that of hundreds who were seized in the streets of Warsaw and-other cities to be placed in military brothels. Even children between fourteen and sixteen in Warsaw have been registered for forced labour, although medical inspec tion has shown that 40 per cent. are unfit for heavy work.
Robbery, Confiscation, and Fines / -In addition to killing, destroying, and mobilising slave labour, 'the Germans have also carried out wholesale robbery. Gestapo officials and soldiers broke into Jewish homes and pocketed what ever money and valuables they could find. They plundered Jewish shops, factories, and department stores, and even com pelled the owners to load the booty themselves upon lorries to be taken away. All the textile factories in Lodz and other cities were confiscated within a few weeks after the invasion, and any owners of commercial or industrial concerns who- resisted con fiscation or "Aryanisation" were imprisoned and tortured until they yielded, unless they previously committed suicide. A special tax was imposed upon all Jews owning property (including -1 Report from Copenhagen, March 22, 1940 . .. THE DESTRUCTION OF EUROPEAN JEWRY 39 clothing and furniture) worth more than 2,ooo zloty (about £83). All Jewish libraries and similar institutions were despqiled "officially": the valuable collection of rare books and MSS. housed in the Great Synagogue at Warsaw was carted away, as was likewise the art collection in the community's museum. · The Germans levied "contributions" upon all Jewish com munities and extorted money in all s.orts of other ways. In Warsaw they confiscated about I 20,000 zloty (£s,ooo) found in the office of the Jewish community, imposed a collective fine 'of 30o,ooo zloty for the death of a. policeman which had already cost fifty-three Jewish lives, and exacted £soo,ooo for agreeing to a temporary postponement of the creation of the Ghetto.l They fined the Jews of Wloclawek I o,ooo zloty on the charge of firing their o.wn synagogue, and those in a Warsaw suburb so,ooo zloty for a similar act, which they had ordered themselves. They -demanded 9 million zloty (£375,ooo) fr.om the Lodz community for allowing a two"months·' respite for the expulsion of so,ooo Jews, and r,ooo,ooo zloty each from those of Sosnowice, Bendzin, arid Dabrowa for similar concessions.
Revival' of Ghettoes After over 30,000 Jews had been crowded into th_e Lublin "Reservation," including I2,ooo from the Reich, 4,ooo from the "Protectorate," and 2,ooo from Vienna, the Germans found it necessary to call a halt, owing to the typhus epidemic and rail way disorganisation. They thereupon decided to solve theJewish problem by reviving the medireval system of Ghettoes, but the conditions that they created in them were far worse than any ~ known in the Middle Ages. The largest Ghetto was established in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw, which had formerly CO!!tained only about two-thirds of the Jews of the city and 24,000 Christian families, and as nearly 40 per cent. of the houses in the district had been destroyed by the military bombardment, the con centration of all Jews within this area entailed the severest hard ships. For all Jews who lived outside the Ghetto had to move inside within a week, and all Christians who lived inside had to move out; and as the Jews were not allowed to take their furni ture, but only bedding, household linen, and personal belongings, the ensuing chaos, confusion, physical discomfort, and mental despair were indescribable. Before the war, the Jewish population in Warsaw was 333,000, but the number in the Ghetto is over l Report in American Jewish Year-Book, 1940-I;p. 370. THE JEWS IN THE WAR ' soo,ooo. All Christians of Jewish blood have also had to settle there and have Polish Sympathy Their common suff~rings have brought Jews and Poles much closer together than they were before tne war, and, despite the Ghetto walls, the Poles try to help the Jews by throwing food over or smuggling it inside, in defiance of the severest penalties. A number of Polish patriots even destroyed part of the Ghetto wall in Warsaw one night and hoisted a Polish flag on the ruins. In January, 1941, in Lodz, 324 Jews and Poles were sent to prison THE DESTRUCTION OF EUROPEAN JEWRY _ 41 by the Germans in their attempt to stamp out friendly relations , and illicit trade, some of the sentences ranging from two to seven years' hard labour; but as imprisonment failed to act as a deterrent the death penalty was introduced for acts of mercy. A tribunal at Inowroclaw (near Poznan) sente~ced a Polish shopkeeper to death for supplying a small quantity of coal to "Ghetto Jews," who are allowed to burn only peat, and the Ostdeutscher Beobachter, which reported the case, stated that four accomplices had been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.! A Jew named Abraham Kantorowicz was publicly hanged at Kutno on the charge of smuggling a small quantity of sugar into • the Warsaw Ghetto, and three Poles were executed at Wloclawek in connection with the same charge.2 So determined is Governor General Frank that the Jews shall not leave the Ghetto tftat he has decreed the death penalty for all who do so without per mission, and likewise for non-Jews who harbour them. A number of Jews and Jewesses have already been executed for trying to escape. The Ghettoes are now surrounded by electrified wires; all non-Jews must keep-at a distance of at least 50 metres from the walls, and offenders are liable to be fired upon. , D~gradation and Barbarity The enemy's regulations vary only in the degree of cruelty or of humiliation they inflict. ews must step off the pavement at once if they see a Nazi approaching. If they wish to travel within the-city, they must either use trailer-tramcars reserved for them or go on foot, but they cannot journey by train except with a special permit, which is rarely given. I~ many. towns Jews have been ordered to shave off their beards, and those who have failed to do so-----,even old. and venerable rabbis-have been seized by Storm Troopers, who have cut or torn off their beards violently. The ritual slaughtering of animals for food (Schechita), although. declared by scientific experts to be most humane, has been for bidden throughout Poland and all Nazi-dominated countries. All Hebrew Bibles in courts oflaw have been burned, and assembling for public worship is prohibited. The buying of white bread is a capital offence. Three Jews working in a labour camp in Poznan, who were caught co:tpmitting this crime, were hanged the next day on a former sports ground, and after their execution the 1 Jewish Chronicle, March 7, 1941. 2 The Times, June II, rg.p. THE JEWS IN THE WAR 50o,ooo. All Christians of Jewish blood have also had to settle there and have Polish Sympatlry Their common suffJrings have brought Jews and Poles much closer together than they were before tne war, and, despite the Ghetto walls, the Poles try to help the Jews by throwing food over or smuggling it inside, in defiance of the severest penalties. A number of Polish patriots even destroyed part of the Ghetto wall in Warsaw one night and hoisted a Polish flag on the ruins. In January, rg4r, in Lodz, 324 Jews and Poles were sent to prison THE DESTRUCTION OF . EUROPEAN JEWRY 41 by the Germans in their attempt to stamp out friendly relations , and illicit trade, some of the sentences ranging from two to seven years' hard labour; but as imprisonment failed to act as a deterrent the death penalty was introduced for acts of mercy. A tribunal at Inowroclaw (near Poznan) sentefl;Ced a Polish shopkeeper to death for supplying a small quantity of coal to "Ghetto Jews," who are allowed to burn only peat, and the Ostdeutscher Beobachter, which reported the case, stated that four accomplices had been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.! A Jew named ,Abraham Kantorowicz was publicly hanged at Kutno on the charge of smuggling a small quantity of sugar into • the Warsaw Ghetto, and three Poles were executed at Wloclawek in connection with the same charge. 2 So determined is Governor General Frank that the Jews shall not leave the Ghetto tfi'at he has decreed the death penalty for all who do so without per mission, and likewise for non-Jews who harbour them. A number of Jews and Jewesses have already been executed for trying to escape. The Ghettoes are now surrounded by electrified wires; all non-Jews must keep-at a distance of at least 50 metres from the walls, and offenders are liable to be fired upon. Degradation and Barbarity The enemy's regulations vary only in the degree of cruelty or of humiliation they inflict. jews must step off the pavement at once if they see a Nazi approaching. If they wish to travel within the-city, they must either use trailer-tramcars reserved for them or go on foot, but they canpot journey by train except with a special permit, which is rarely given. ID: many, towns Jews have been ordered to shave off their beards, and those who have failed to do so--even old. and venerable rabbis-have been seized by Storm Troopers, who have cut or torn off their beards violently. The ritual slaughtering of animals for food (Schechita), although. declared by scientific experts to be most humane, has been for bidden throughout Poland and all Nazi-dominated countries. All Hebrew Bibles in courts oflaw have been burned, and assembling for public worship is prohibited. The buying of white bread is a capital offence. Three Jews working in a labour camp in Poznan, who were caught cof{lmitting this crime, were hanged the next day on a former sports ground, and after their execution the 1 Jewish Chronicle, March 7, I 94I. 2 The Times, }une I I, I 9·'P , THE JEWS IN .a' HE WAR entire Jewish labour gang, on their way to the field kitchen, had to pass under the gallows from which the bodies dangled.I Atrocities in Poland · As soon as Germany unleashed her war against Russia, a new chapter ofhorrors began, first in the part of Poland that had been occupied by the Russians, and then in Russia itself. Tens of thousands of Jews fled with the Soviet troops-3o,ooo from Lithuania, 24,000 from Latvia, and I ,ooo from Estonia, besisfes • vast numbers from Galicia, th~ Ukraine, and other parts of Russia. Those who remained were subjected to the most b ar ~ barous treatment, either on the charge of having helped the Russians- or because they were leading members of the com~ munity or for no reason at all. In Lwow, where.a collective fine of 20 million roubles was imposed upon the Jewish community, there were terrible excesses ~ in which thirty~five J ews were seized and ordered to dig their own graves and then buried alive, while eighty Jews employed in a chemical factory were shot. In that city, as in Eastern Galicia generally, life has been made a h ell for both Jews and Poles by the Ukrainian bands of Hetman Skoro~ padski, who were specially trained in Cracow for months in the art of Jew~baiting, supplemented by courses in The Protocols of the Elders of .{ion. Sixteen hundred Jews in Bialystok, 6oo in Lomza and Brest~Litovsk, and hundreds in Grodno and Przemysl · were arrested for sabotage, and many were massacred. In Bialystok the Germans, with the help of the radio, introduced a new horror. One of their "S.S." war reporters broadcast from that city an account of reprisals taken on the alleged discovery of a quantity of arms .and ammunition in the Great Synagogue, and his story was punctuated by the heartrending cry of an old man: "Help! Help! Don't kill me! I'm innocent." The reporter gloat~ ingly explained that the cry was that _of the Chief Rabbi in the ·synagogue. This place of worship was then burned to the ground, and the Germans, as though in mitigation of the outrage, con~ tradicted a Russia;n report that there were 300 Jews in it at the time, though they did not deny that many were in it. Thousands of Jews between sixteen and sixty in all districts were drafted into forced labour battalions to clear away the debris of bombed buildings- and 'repair destroyed roads . and railways. Starvation became acute, as all available food had been removed to feed the German soldiers wounded on the Russian front, and mortality 1 The New Judea, November- December, 1941. THE DESTRUCTION OF EUROPEAN JEWRY 43 rose, especially among . the chi dr~n, owing to the lack of milk. So numerous were the dead and so great the destitution that the Jews placed the corpses in the streets, to be taken away by the local authorities. Butch~ries were committed in various places in the newly conquered regions. Nearly 6,ooo Jews were reported to have been massacred (about Septeml:}er, 1941) at Lomza (N. Poland) by ''S.S." .men. A large number were put into a new labour camp near that town, and "S.S." men and the Gestapo ordered x,ooo, mainly deported from the Reich, to descend into the trenches left by the Russians. The Jews were ordered to kneel three abreast, whereupon they were machine-gunned, and few survived; the local peasants were then ordered to cover the trenches. A similar massacre took pl~ce at Rzeszow (S. Poland), where several hundred Jews were machine-gunned. New labour camps were opened, one of the vilest being at Jaslo (S. Poland), where some thousands ofJews are herded within a small enclosure near the local prison, in which they are subjected to the most out- rageous treatment.l - Pogroms in Baltic Countries The savf!.gery of the Huns increased as they advanced into the Baltic countries, White .Russia, and the Ukraine, in all of which populous Jewish communities were reduced to ruin and misery. In Riga- fifty-five of the Elders of the community were arrested and many shot. In Minsk the troops caught twelve cars laden with Jews and their families, who had attempted to escape with the retreating Russians, and killed eighteen women and children. At a concentration camp near Minsk the Commandant ordered a large group ofJews to dig pits, and after this was done the Jews were tied up and flung into the pits, and a number o£ interned White Russians were ordered to bury them; The latter refused, whereupon the Nazis machine-gunned forty-five Jews and thirty White Russians. The Commissar-General of White Russia, Wilhelm Kube, _a notorious Jew-baiter, appointed former bandits and ex-convicts as mayors and police chiefs in various districts. In Lithuania the invaders celebrated their victory by pogroms in Kovno, Vilna, Shavli, and other towns, in which 4,ooo Jewish lives were lost. About IO,ooo Lithuanian Jews were imprisoned; thousands were organised into labour gangs for the 1 For a fuller account of the conditions in Poland, see the author's article, "Polish Jewry under Nazi Tyranny," in the Quarter?;> Review, january, 1942. 44 THE JEWS IN THE WAR .repair of roads, bridges, and rail""ays damaged during the fighting or by the guerrilla bands; and many refugees from Poland were sent back for ·trial. The Commissar for Lithuania, Heinrich Lohse, ordered the public burning of hundreds of books from the famous Abraham Mapu Library in Kovno, and the "ceremony" was witnessed by many. high German officials, while a German military band played and Storm Troopers danced round the bonfire. Massacres in the Ukraine A terrible fate overtook vast numbers of Jews in the Ukraine. Thousands of corpses were flung into the Dniester after massacres committed by German soldiery and Ukrainian bands. Hungarian officers are reported to have been sickened by the scenes, but did nothing to prevent them. Tens of thousands of Jews were mas sacred in the region of Kamenetz-Podolsk. Among the dead are believed to have been at least r5,ooo Hungarian Jews who were deported to Galicia from Hungary in August, 1941, and then driven by the Germans to the villages on either side of the Dnie ster. About · 8,ooo Galician Jews were slaughtered by machine guns while praying in synagogues, and many were murdered in their home.s. ·But all these atrocities were entirely overshadowed by the wholesale massacres in Kiev and Odessa. In the former city (according to reports of refugees published in the Soviet Red Star) 52,000 Jewish and non-Jewish men, women, and children were murdered in cold blood by order ot the -Gestapo. The Germans drove the first roo victims into a pit that had been mined, and when this blew up another group had to pick up the shreds of bodies for burial and were shot themselves. Thousands were then killed daily and corpses littered the main streets. There was also wholesale looting of money, valuables, and furs by the uniformed bandits. In Odessa there was a similar reign of terror after the city had been entered by the Germans and Rumanians, in which the latter played the principal part in the ghastly slaughter. As a reprisal for the death of 220 Rumanian soldie:r:s and officers killed by a delayed-action ~bomb left by Soviet troops, the Rumanians gathered about 25,000 Jews within the precincts I of a barracks and mowed them down with machine-guns. They then set the barracks, which were of wood, on fire, so that the dead bodies were cremated.1 In the Moldavanka district 1 Report by Martin Agronsky, American broadcast reporter in Ankara, based on an eye-witness's account (B.B.C. European Broadcast in English, November 15, 1941). THE DESTRUCTION OF EUROPEAN JEWRY 45 ' hundreds of Jews were assembled and ordered to strip and fl0g one another: those who refused were shot dead. · More Ghettoes and Slave Labour All the usual features of Nazi civilisation-Ghettoes, slavery, _and starvation-were introduced into the tyrannised territories. In the Vilna Ghetto, surrounded by a barbed-wire enclowre, apd guarded by armed police, there are rqo,ooo Jews suffering from hunger. All their property has been confiscated, apart from a few .personal belongings of each arid roo marks in cash; all their businesses are closed; and they are marched in serried ranks to forced labour. Ghettoes have also been established in Tallin (Estonia) and Riga, in Minsk and Odessa, and a number of Jewish collective farms have also been turned into Ghettoes: In Kovno the Ghetto is located in the suburb. of Slobodka, once the centre of a Yeshivah (Talmudical seminary)~ where some 25,000 · Jews were compelled to transfer their homes within Jour days. Fortunately, almost the entire Jewish youth of both sexes !eft Kiev with the Soviet Army, or they would hav~ been added to Hitler's slave gangs; those Jews who remained in the city were removed to barbed-wire enclosures on the outskirts, whence they were deported to- unknown destinations. The great majority of the large community in Zhitomir also left with ,the Soviet troops, for of 5o,ooo Jews only 6,ooo, all old or ailing, remained; and there was a similar exodus from other Nazi-occupied towns. About r5o,ooo.Jews were compelled by" the German .military authorities (according to the German Press) to work on day and night shifts in order to complete as quickly as possible the change from the Russian to t}:le German gauge on the line bet~een Vilna and Minsk. About 2oo,ooo Jews were drafted into forced labour battalions to repair war damage in the occupied area. They work seve·n days a week l!nder the order of armed guards, who use whips and rifles to make their victims perforrp. their tasks within the shortest time. They receive hardly enough food to keep alive, and sleep in fields and fot:ests; despite the winter; hundreds die daily from exhaustion and starvation, and the dcs:ad are cremated without delay. Deportations from Reich and "Protectorate" Mter the military marauders had indulged in their orgy of destruction and bloodshed, the Berlin bosses began to address· themselves anew to the solution of the Jewish "problem" in the THE JEWS IN THE WAR Reich. They still had too many Jews, although there were only about 2oo,ooo in the whole of Germany and Austria, which formerly contained 8oo,ooo. But Hitler and his henchmen, before he came to power, had threatened that all Jews would be driven out of Germany; ·and Goering in 1938 had promised that Vienna, which still had 45,000, would be completely "purged" of Jews by 1942. Those threats must be carried out, like all Nazi plans for evil, and Poland and the territory beyond provided a convenient means for doing so. Accordingly, on October 17, 1941, there began the cruel deportation of 2o,ooo Jews from Germany, Austria, and the "Protectorate" to Poland and occupied parts of Russia. This first contingent includ.ed 4,000 _ from Berlin, 3,ooo from Hamburg, 2,000 from Cologne, 5,000 from Vienna, and 3,000 from Prague. Cities were assigned particular quotas, that of Vienna being 8,ooo, and the Jews selected for expulsion were mainly between the ages of fifty and eighty. The first large batch was given only ten minutes' notice; they were· allowed to take only a handbag and roo marks; and they had to leave their homes intact, to be occupied by Germans bombed out of their houses. This mass exodus resulted in the disappearance of practically all Jews from the west of Berlin, where 3,000 vacated apartments were promptly taken by Nazi officials and members of the "S.S." The Jews in that city were panic-stricken when they first received notice of their deporta tion: 250 committed suicide the next day, and many others followed suit. Although officially advised they could each take 100 marks, the deportees from Berlin were robbed of go by their guards on the pretext that the maximum allowed was only I o marks. In Vienna the chosen victims were given four days' notice, and the Rothschild Hospital was forbidden to admit patients whose names were on the · lists of th~ doomed, the consequence being that some died in the streets or their homes. The exiles were transported in the usual Nazi fashion-in old goods trains, without food or drink, and without any sanitary conveniences, so that many died before reaching their destination. At a meeting held in the Berlin University in November, 1941, Frank, the Governor of Poland, announced that . it had been decided to transport all Jews of the Reich and the occupied territories to a place in Russia in the region of Kharkov, some 6oo miles east of the district of Lublin, where they would be under the rule of Alfred Rosenberg, the Reich Minister for the region called "Ostland." It is believed that only 4o,ooo of the younger Jews engaged in forced labour and those above eighty THE D~STRUCTION OF EUROPEAN JEWRY 47 will be allowed to remain in the Reich, and that foreign and Stateless Jews will also be included in the mass expulsion. The deportees are to be employed on so-called "productive labour," one of their tasks being the draining ofan area ofabout g,ooo square metres of the Rokitno Marshes, near Pinsk. There is, indeed, a serious conflict in German official circles on the question whether these wholesale deportations should continue, owing to the loss to German industry of Jewish skill, which cannot be properly replaced by the people imported from the Balkans. The Nazi chiefs, however, are apparently unmoved by the protests of important industrialists, and seem determined that the bulk -of the Jews shall be .cleared out, though the plan may be affected by the German reverses in Russia. These defeats are -avenged upon the Jews, of whom I 5,ooo were massacred in Borisov, 6oo in Rostov, and large numbers in all other places abandoned by the Germans, while the survivors of General Petlura's gangs, who carried mit widespread pogroms in rgrg-20, have been re organised to help in the slaughter. Oppression in Hungary The vassal States of the Reich, particularly Hungary and Rumania, are also playing a despicable part in this campaign of barbarism. Hungary had thousands of Polish and Russian Jews - arrested in Budapest and other cities and transported to the. Galician districts now occupied by her troops, where 7,ooo were put to forced labour. These Jews, who had been living in Hungary fon decades, were seized in their homes, in synagogues, or the streets, and deported at short notice in the most brutal fashion. Some had settled in Carpatho-Ruthenia years ago, when this formed part of Czechoslovakia, but they too have been forced to leave .....The number whom the Government had decided to expel is stated to be r2,ooo, but the tota] already driven out is believed to be much larger. Nor are these the only victims of the Nazi mania for shifting populations. From Transylvania, which Hungary recovered from Rumania, 55,000 are also to bt;: expelled to Poland, to be used as slave labour for Hitler; and a later report speaks of 6o,ooo Hungarian Jews to be sent to occupied Russia for a similar purpose. The Hungarians have likewise established concentration camps for Jews-two in Ruthenia, one in the Hungarian zone of Transylvania, and one in Central Hungary. In the zone of Yugoslavia occupied by Hungarian troops, all Jewish concerns have been confiscated, while within the old 48 THE JEWS IN THE WAR frontiers of Hungary Jews are being eliminated from economic life, their rural land has been expropriated, and they are virtually excluded from all cultural activities. Many have been arrested in Budapest on the charge of having distributed Com munist leaflets, but Hungarian Socialist leaders claim that these were distributed by Nazis to provoke the arrests of Jews . .Two young J ews who were sentenced to death by a military court for setting fire to a farm to which they had been sent as forced labourers, admitted that their action had been promoted · by resentment at their Government condemning them to such work at• Germany's bidding. At Szegedin a military tribunal sentenced a Jew, Ernest Kiss, to death on the charge ofpro-Allied activity, and condemned his wife to five years' imprisonment and a friend to eight years in an internment camp. The Government are willing to follow the Nazi code still more closely, as they have reduced the rations of Jews to one-half of those allowed to non Jews, and the Minister of Justice has announced that a "law for the defence of Hungarian blood" is under preparation. Rumanian Atrocities . The Rumanians have proved more ardent disciples ofHjtlerism than the Hungarians, especially in slaughter. Soon after Hitler's march against Russia, some Russian parachutists dropped behind the Rumanian lines, whereupon the Rumanian Government declared that the parachutists wished to get into contact with "Jewish Communists" and had 500 "Jewish Communists" shot at J assy for "having fired on soldiers." All Jews were expelled from the war zone in Moldavia, and over I ,ooo were tortured in concentration camps under the pretext that they were spies. The Government required I5o,ooo Jews between eighteen and fifty to register for for<;ed labour in Bessarabia and elsewhere to clear up war damage. Those called up had to provide three days' food, were formed into iabour J?attalions distinguished by a yellow "Shield of David," and worked under Rumanian non-com missioned officers. In Bessarabia the Rumanians shot hundreds of Jews without trial on the charge of sabotage. In Kishineff they killed 8oo, besides exacting a fine of I million lei from the Jewish com munity, which was ordered to provide funds for rebuilding the destroyed cathedral. By far the most terrible atrocity they com mitted was the massacre of 25,000 Jews in Odessa, described above. In Jassy about 7,8oo Jews (including many women) were T H E DESTRUCT I 0 N 0 F E U R 0 P E AN • JEWRY 49 rou~ded up by German and Rumanian soldiers, anq slaughtered with machine-guns. There were anti-Jewish excesses in Buchare~t, Botosani, Timisoara, and other cities to celebrate the occupation of Odessa, when the soldiers injured Jews in the streets and looted their houses, and the police hunted down those who had not yet registered for forced labour. The most extensive outrages were those perp~trated in Bessarabia, where almost a third of the entire population is said to have been exterminated in the Rumanian-Soviet fighting and the pogroms that followed. In every town in Russia taken by the Rumanians the Jews were separated and the troops given a free hand against them. During the four months, August-November, I94I,it is estimated that the Rumanians alone were responsible for the murder of Ioo,ooo Russian and 'Rumanian Jews. After finishing their massacres, the Rumanians transported over I3o,ooo Jews from Moldavia, Bessarabia, and Bukovina to their new Ukrainian province of "Transdniestria" along the River Dniester. There the Jews were placed in primitive con centration camps, without shelter, where they died at the: rate of nearly I oo a day. In the case of one contingent of several hundred, who were deported in sealed trucks, without food or air, when the train arrived at its destination in Bessarabia I82 were carried out dead, all the rest looked half-dead, and most were half demented. Apart from these mass outrages, th,e Jews have also suffered in smaller groups. The Iron Guard have seized scores as hostages to be ransomed; many have been executed or sentenced to life imprisonment for sabotage or pro-Allied activity; and one attained the melancholy' distinction of being sent to gaol for' five years for violating the law forbidding ,Rumania!). Jews to eat eggs. But perhaps the crowning injustice has been committed by the Rumanian Ministry of Justice, which qas deClared all verdicts obtained by Jews against "Aryans" in Rumanian courts during the past twenty years as null and void! All Jews who obtained verdicts whereby payments had to be made to them by non-Jews will now have to refund those amounts, and non Jews who . previously failed in their claims against Jews will now be able to enforce them. Executions in Yugoslavia ' Nor are the Jews in· the other Balkan countries allowed ' to ·enjoy peace. In Yugoslavia large numbers have joined the guerrilta bands engag~d in fighting the invaders, and the Genrians Dw 50 THE JEWS IN THE WAR ' admit having executed 212 Jews,.. and eighteen Jewesses in the four months, August-November, I94I. These victims included a Belgrade lawyer, Isaac Solomon, who led one of the Serbian bands, as well as a young student and a girl in Sarajevo. In the concentration camp at Uzice the Germans shot all the 280 Jewish internees and 100 Serbian internees, on the charge of having assisted guerrilla bands, the Jewish victims including the' .!wo elders of the camp, Dr. Gutmann and Dr. Levy, and anum ber of women and children. In Belgrade the President of the Jewish community and twelve members of the Council are to .be tried by court-martial for giving financial and other help to the brave patriots. A n11mber of Jews were also arrested for alleged complicity in the attempted assassination of the quisling Premier; and others in Vinkovci and other towns on the charge of inciting the Serbians to armed resistance. The puppet Government has been ordered to stage a trial _on charges of war-guilt of twenty two leading Jews (besides non-Jews) who have left the country, headed by the Chief Rabbi, Dr. Alkalay (now in Palestine). \ Moreo\;er, the ancient synagogue in Sarajevo was destroyed by fire, though the scrolls of the Law were saved and taken to the headquarters of the patriot General Mihailovitch. Slavery in Croatia Far more desperate, however, is the plight of the 25,000 Jews in the puppet state of Croatia, who have been reduced to destitu tion by the Government's bestial policy. Apart from a few hundred technicians and experts in certain industries, they have been deprived of all means of livelihood and depend on relief organisations. Thousands are in concentration camps. About I ,400 women and children are interned in a , camp at Labor Grad, near Zlater, about thirty miles north of Zagrep. After 340 Jews (including forty-two girls) succeeded in escaping from a camp in Croatia and reaching strongholds of the Serbian guerrillas, the eight Jewish supervisors of the camp were executed on the charge of having aided their escape. About 3,8oo conscript labourers are employed on the construction of a canal to connect the waterways of Croatia with the Danube and the Adriatic: they are compelled tb work for long hours without pay; and to sleep in the open country. Even worse has been the fate of 6,ooo Croatian Jews, who were at first geported in July, I941, to various salt-mines, where they had to · wor~ under the most terrible THE D EST R U C T I 0 N 0 F E U R 0 PE-A N J E WRY 5 I conditions. Many of them were employed on the Valebit Plain, along the Adriatic coast, others were kept on the island of Pag and in camps at Karlovac and J adovna, near Zagreb, and all suffered from insufficient food, water, a:nd medicaments, and absence of shelter. But as the terrorist, Anton Pavelitch, had to yield the Adriatic islands and .the Dalmatian coast to the Italians, the Jews were transported from the island of Pag to a new concentration camp on the mainland. They were conveyed in cattle-trucks for tw:o days in such revolting conditions that when they arrived at Karlovac a group of Italian officers, with drawn revolvers, insisted upon the "Ustachis" allowing the Jews to leave the trucks for a short time. Six dead bodies were carried out. Other Jews met with a quic~er death: seven (including three women) were executed by order of a military court in Zagreb on charges of sabotage, and ten (including four girls) by a military court at Osijek on the charge of pro-Russian activity. Bulgaria and Greece In Bulgaria the Government adopted a law in December, I 940, "for the protection of the nation" from the Jews, who form only 0·07 per cent. of the, population. n imposed restrictions in economic and professional life ~nd in school attendance. After the signing of the Anti-Comintern .Pact in Berlin on Noverflber 25, I94I, by the various vassal and puppet States, the Bulgarian Press declared tnat the country must enforce the Nazi solution of the Jewish problem to retain the friendship of its allies and neighbours. A number ofJews were condemned to long terms of imprisonment on the charge of sapotaging pro-Nazi poli~y, and there is a concentration camp for those accused of pro-Allied activity. In Bulgar-occupied Macedonia bands of irredentist Black Co:r:ps were reported (April 7, I94I) to have kidnapped, tortured, and blackmailed many Jews living in that region, and, in some case.s, to have levied collective fines on Jewish com munities. In Greece the quisling Government has cancelled the payment of all pensions to Jewish wounded ex-Service men and Jewish ex-officials of the public services; and the banks have been ordered to confiscate the deposits of Jewish communities and philanthropic l>rganisations. Owing to patriotic demonstrations in Salonika against the Axis Powers in June, 194I, which the Nazis attributed to Jewish propaganda, the Jewish community was fined I ,ooo,ooo drachmas. THE JEWS IN THE WAR Threats in Italy Although the Jews in Italy have not been persecuted so badly as in the other Nazi-dominated. countries, and even the pre-war / laws have not been enforced sb thoroughly, they are facing menacing prospects. Owing to the 'increasing distress and spirit of defeatism, the ·Regime Fascista has denounced the "internal fifth column" which "has relations with the British and with the Communists and the Jews of the est of the world." Farinacci; its fanatical Editor, has demanded "the total destruction of the Italian Jews." To appease Berlin, the Italian Government is reported to be drafting a series of drastic new laws, as a sample ofwhich thlil Food Ministry has , order~d that the rations for Jews should be only half of those· for non-Jews. The Jews are excluded .from the defence forces, and eleven Jewish generals were placed on the retired list. But when, after a British air raid, a torpedo boat was sunk in an Italian harbour and experts were unable to refloat it, Jhe Government had to recall one of the retired Jewish officers, who accomplished the difficult task. Terrorism in France .. The lives of the Jews in the western countries have also been blasted. The Jews in France, the fi_rst in Europe to receive the full rights of citizenship 150 years ago, have been reduced to the same abject and helpless status as those in eastern Europe. There were tens of thousands of Jewish refugees from Germany and . Austria, and thousands from the Lowland countries, who, together with French Jewry, made up a total Jewish population of 40o,ooo at the time of France's collapse. All were exposed to the Nazi terror, and during the twenty-four hours before the Germans entered Paris there were 8oo suicides in the capital· alone. The invaders raided Jewish homes -and institutions and carried out wholesale plunder. They stole 6o,ooo volume~ and many valuable documents from Jewish libraries and archives, including the original protocols of the Sanhedrin-the Jewish Assembly convened by Napoleon in 1807 to discuss the position ofFrenchJewry. They clismissed allJews from public and official · positions, as well as from the Press, the stage, film studios, and wireless stations. They ordered Jews in Bordeaux, Bayonne, and Tours to ·wear yellow arm-bands; closed all Jewish institutions in Paris except the Great Synagogue in the Rue de la Victoire; converted the synagogue at Nancy into a fodder storehouse and THE DESTRUCTION OF EUROPEAN JEWRY 53 razed the one in Strasbourg to the ground. They robbed Jewish property systematically, and by May, 194I, Jews were com pletely eliminated from economic life in Occupied France. Of the 35,ooo Jews who had lived in Alsace-Lorraine, 15,ooo (including those in Strasbourg) li.ad been evacuated by the French Government at the beginning of the war; but the Ger- • mans, after organising a pogrom at Mulhouse, expelled the remaining 20,000 to France, besides 6,ooo Jews from Baden and the Palatinate. Vichy Jew-Laws The Vichy Government, far from protesting against these violations of elementary justice, cravenly adopted the Nazi code itself. On October I 8, I 940, Marshal Petain issued the first decree marking· the legal introduction of the racial principle in France. All Jews were excluded from the Government and municipal service, and from the armed forces, educational institutions, and enterprises subsidised by a public oody; Jews in the liberal professions were limited to a small proportion; and they were barred froin managerial positions in the Press, theatres, the film industry, and wireless stations. The law was extended to all the French colonies and even to mandated Syria (where it was afterwards abolished by General de Gaulle). The civil rights c'onferr:ed upon the Jews of Algeria in I87.0 were repealed, and bo.th in that country and _French Morocco Nazi agents provoked Arabs against · the Jews and fomented riots. As the German authorities were not content with this first law, the Vichy Government issued a new and more drastic decree on June I 4, I94I. This defined a J ew as a person who ha,d at le Belgium and Luxembourg -The Jews in Belgium have also been ousteq from all professions, ruinously restricted in commerce and industry, robbed of their businesses, and barred from higher education. The "Rexists" provok~d anti-Jewish riots in Antwerp before Christmas, I940, and 40,000 Jews from that city and Flanders were interned in concentration camps at Hasselt (Limburg Province). In this district there is also a labour camp for 6oo Jews who are forced to toil in the coal-mines ten hours daily, and there is another camp at Tervueren (near Brussels) where Jews are put to sewer cleaning. All the synagogues in Antwerp have been either destroyed or.damaged so badly that they are unfit for further use. The Belgian Government in London has declared that all the enemy's laws and regulations are null and void, and that all who help to carry them out will be punished after the war. Happily, there is much sympathy among the Belgians for the sufferings of .. 1 For a fuller account, see the author's article, "The Jews in France," in the Contemporary Review, October, I 941. • ,. THE D EST R U C T I 0 N 0 F E U R 0 PEA N J E WRY 55 the Jews. The Nazi Press complains that many non-Jews are secretly feeding Jewish children; in whose homes there is •starva tion, and the Germans have threatened that any Jews found to have food in excess of their rations will be \pterned or executed. Of Luxembourg's small Jewish population of 4,500 over three fourths were Compelled to leave in the autumn of I 940, when they were transported to Portugal to await oversea emigration. ~bout 300, old and infirm, will be allowed to remain; all others who cannot emigrate wilrbe banished to Poland or elsewhere; and the synagogue is doomed to destruction. Persecution in Holland • In Holland the first anti-Jewish edicts, of the same character as in France and Belgium, were issued in September, I940. By June, I94I, over 20,000 Jewish commercial enterprises, besides numerous rural properties, had been "Aryanised," the former owners receiving only trifling compensation. The yellow badge was made compulsory for all above the age of six. The Jewish refugees from Germany, numbering 2o,ooo, had to register, and all who had fled illegally were ordered back to .the inferno. Many hundreds of young Jews were sent to work in the mines and factories in Germany, and after a few months large numbers died, whereupon their ashes were offered to their relatives f0r 25 to 75 guilders each. At least 68o young Dutch and German Jews were deported to a camp atMauthausen, Upper Austria, between February and June, I94I, and by the end of September 400 were dead. They "»'ere the victims of Nazi experiments with poison gas.l All sections of the Christian population, particularly the Churches, universities, and Civil Service, have manifested their sympathy for the Jews in a striking manner. At the Leyden University Professor Cleveringa denounced the summary, dis missal of his Jewish colleagues, men of international fame, whereupon the University was closed by the Germans. . A similar protest was made at the Delft Technical University, with a similar result. In Amsterdam, The Hague, and other cities there were strikes in all civil ·services and many private enterprises, and not until the Germans threatened the strikers with the death penalty did they return to work. In October, I 940, spies informed the Gestapo that Jews in The Hague had sheltered two British airmen forced to land. The Jewish communi'ty was fined 50,000 1 Jewish Chronicle, January g, I942, and Sunday Times,January I I, I942. I THE JEWS IN THE WAR guildePS, and as they could not find the money, a number of influential non-Jews raised it for therri in a: few days. In Amster dam serious clashes were provoked in the Jewish quarter by Nazi rowdies, which resulted in the execution of a Jew by a German firing squad (March 3, I 94J) and the imposition upon the city of a fine of I5 million guilders, ofwhich the Jews had to pay one-third. The crowning indignity was the establishment of Ghettoes in Amsterdam and Rotterdam . • Norway and Denmark Althol}gh the number of Jews in Norway and Denmark i insignificant, they are also subjected to the same economic oppression and social degradation as in the Lowlands. The Chief Rabbi of Oslo was officially informed on May 28, I 94I, that the Nuremberg Laws were thenceforth in force. A Nazi anti-Semitic film was shown in Trondheim and provoked such a violent protest that a large number of Jews in that city, Oslo, and Bergen were arrested on the cha,rge of having organised anti-Nazi resistance. In Copenhagen also many Jews were arrested during an anti German demonstration.and accused of being ring-le<}ders of the opposition movement. The Nazis even vented their hatred on the dead by ordering the removal of the memorial plaques from the houses once occupied by two famous Danish Jews-the literary • historian and critic, Georg Brandes, and the Orientalist, Chief Rabbi David Jacob. They have so far failed to'secure the Govern ment's assent to introducing the Nuremberg Laws. The proposal was rejected by six votes to three, and King Christian declared that he would rather abdicate than give his approvaJ.l Such, then, is the "New Order" of Hitler as applied to the Jews on the Continent. Tr:ue, it is only part of the general tragedy of devastation and suffering into which he has plunged the whole· of Europe, but it stands out in all its stark and calculated brutality amid a welter of blqoa and chaos. Nor is it restricted to Europe, as the Nazis of the Far East, the Japanese, are meting out the sam~ persecution to all the Jews in the territories under their control and have surrendered over 2,ooo Jewish refugees to ~" the - Gestapo. And the Jews of Bagdad were·also visited by the Nazi terror in the form of a two weeks' pogrom by the followers of the German hireling, the treacherous Raschid Ali, in May, I94I, when I 20 Jews were killed, I 50 were senously injured, and the homes and business establishments affecting more than I 4,500 1 Manchester Guardian, January'],> 1942. THE jEWISH CONTRIBUTION 57 persons were looted. The catastrophe that Hitler and his minions and~;nitators have brought upon the Jewish people cannot be simply ~easured by the estimated number of their victims who have perished, or the value of their property stolen or wrecked. Hitler has also struck powerful and shattering blows at the communal life, the spiritu.U and intellectual activities, and the social welfare system which the Jews of Europe had fostered and developed throughout the-centuries:"ifheir calamity, which grows day by day, is. without parallel, both in their own cl!equered ) history and in the misfortunes that have befallen so many nations in the course of this war. But great as is their agony, they bear it with unfaltering fortitude and indomitable faith, confident that the day m1,1st and will come when their inhuman oppressors will be crushed and destroyed and they win once again 'live in peace and liberty in a liberated Europe: CHAPTER. IV THE JEWISH CONTRIBUTION HE Jews have always been ready to play their part in gefence T of their native or adopted country, but never before were they so eager to make every sacrifice a,s now. They realise only too well that upon the issue of this war depends the future of civilisation, which means their own future, too, and they have therefore re sponded to the call of duty with all their energies and resources. They are to be found in the fighting forces of all the Allied Democ racies;'" and on land, in the air, and on sea they have displayed a daring, skill, and valour at least equal to those of their comrades in arms. Their quality as combatants is of much greater signifi cance than their numbers, especially as there is no particular virtue attaching to numbers in countries with conscription. Their numeri cal strength cannot in any case be ascertained for .all countFies, ·partly because official figures are not yet available, and partly because some Jewish sofdiers conceal their religion as a pre caution in the event of capture by the Germans, who are known to have subjected French and Polish Jewish prisoners to excep tional ill-treatment,l and particularly Jews of the Russian Army. For the first time in the history of modern warfare in Europe, the 1 See "A French O~cer's Experiences" in t~e Jewish Chronicle, November 14, 1941. 58 ..:I' H E J E W S . I N T H E W A R profession of Judaism entails a certain risk, and for the first time the Jews are fighting only on one side. Germany and all"her confederates and vassals have logically excluded Jews fnrm their armies, for, having deprived them of their civic and even human rights and persecuted them so brutally, they cannot expect them to perform the duties of patriotism. But the German High Command are now so anxious to reinforce their depleted army· that they are reported to be contemplating the mobilisation of 250,000 Jews from the _"Greater Reich" and oGcupied territories for front-line service. Anglo-Jewry in the Services The Jews of t;reat Britain in the Services are estimated to number over 4o,ooo, including over 7,ooo in the Air Force alone. As the total Jewish population of the country (exclusive of refugees) is estimated at 350,000, those in the defence forces form almost I I l per cent., a higher proportion than among the general population. A very large number of Jewish families are repre sented in the figliting ranks by two or three sons, at least a Score of families by four sons, two families (Goldstone and Goldman) by five sons, one family (Randall) by six sons, and two families (Green of London, and Barnett of Leeds) by seven sons. Jews have fought and fallen in every campaign in Europe and in the Middle and Far East in which British troops have been engaged. They have sanctified their ancestral faith on the battle-fielqs of Libya and Abyssinia, .of Greece and Syria, in the garrisons of Gibraltar and Hong-Kong, of Singapore and Sierra Leone, of Iceland and Malta, and on troopships sailing· many seas. They hold important positions in all three Services, those in the Army including three Generals--;-Major-General R. H. Lorie, C.B.E., Brigadier W. R. Beddington, C.B.E., and Brigadier F. H.,.Kisch, C.B.E., D.S.O. The spirit animating 'the Jewish soldier cannot be expressed more eloquently than in the following brief tribute, which appeared in a letter from C.Q.M.S. Alfred Penner, of the Middle East Expeditionary Force, to the Warden of the Oxford and St. George's Settlement: "For the first time, as a man, I cried. I cannot"tell you where or when it happened, but I was made to feel proud of my faith. Not ten yards away from me _a Jew named Harry Cohen, of Manchester, was hit by a 75 mil. He died bravely as he went to the aid of his Sergeant, who had been hit by a trench mortar and had both his legs hanging off. Cohen tried .. . - THE JEWISH CONTRI"BUTION 59 to put a field dressing on, but died in the attempt. Everybody in the Company referred to Cohen as a true and brave man. Nearly everybody sent words of praise t-o-his parents. He died a ~oldier. I was a witness to this act of bravery ang would like others to know of it." Jews are not commonly associated with the Nayy, but the · Navy List of August, I939, contained the names of over IOO Jewish officers in the Royal Navy, Royal Naval Reserve, and ' Royal Naval Volunteer · Reserve, and technical o·fficers Service in Civil Defence Jews have taken a very active and prominent part in the Civil Defence Services fr_om the very beginning of the war: they have displayed great daring and courage and received their due meed of rewards. Until the end of 1941 the total number of awards of the George Cross, the highest decoration for bravery in civil defence, was thirteen: of these three have been wqn by Jews, a very high proportion, considering that the Jews form less than I per cent. of the population. The first was awarded to Sergeant Raymond M. Lewin, R.A.F., for a heroic action in November, I 946. He was captain of an aircraft on a night-bombing ex pedition against Italy. Shortly after the take-off the aircraft began to sink and crashed into a hillside, where it burst into flames. He extricated himself, and, despite his own injuries, he savecl. the second pilot by carrying him 40 yards to a hole in the ground, where he lay on him as the bombs exploded. "This superbly gallant deed," said the official citation,i'was performed in the dark under most difficult conditions and in the certain knowledge that the bombs and petrol tanks would explode." , The second Jewish recipient of the George Cross was Mr. Harry. Errington, a member of the ' Auxiliary Fire Service in • London; to whom it was awarded for supremely gallant conduct during an air raid on London. The official citation stated : ( "Errington was blown across a basement when a building was demolished by H.E. bombs. Although dazed and injured, • he immediately went in search of two colleagues. They were THE JEWISH · CONTRIBUTION 6I pinned down by debris, and a fierce fire that brok~ out threat ened to burn them to death .. Errington decided to risk his own life in an effort to release them. The heat was almost too great to endure, but, protecting himself with a blanket, he set to work to drag away the debris with bare hands. He ignored burning wreckage that fel1 all around and the constant danger of a further collapse. Burned and injured, he struggled up a narrow stone staircase, partially choked with debris, carrying one of the men into a courtyard, through an adjoining building, and into the str~et. Then, despite the appalling conditions, he returned and saved the second man." . ' Owing to his injuries and burns, Mr., Errington had to spend about four months in hospital, and Qn the first night of his dis charge his home in London· was struc~ during a raid. Again he helped to rescue people from the demolished building, and his ~ calmness and courage inspired the civilians to meet the danger without panic. The third Jewish recipient of lhe George Cross - was T /Lieutenant Harold Newgass, R.N.V.R.,· already , mentioned. Jews have also received six Geo.rge Medals and thirteen British Empire Medals. One of the recipients of the George Medal was David Lazarus, a Home Guard of seventeen; and the very .first award in the' whole country of the British Empire Medal went to Miss Rosalie Gassman, a Jewish telephonist in the London A.F.S. Several other. honours have been awarded to Jews for their courageous service in civil defence, including the M .B.E. to Dr. J. Seidenberg, of Stepney, for exceptionally brave conduct during a bad air raid in May, I94I, ·when he risked his life and was half-blinded in attending to the sick and injured while under fire at his post in the East End of London; besides thre O.B.Es. Generous tribute to the gallantry of Jewish workers has been .. paid by Ritchie Calder in his book, The Lesson of LOJZdon, in which he writes of the heroism of a squad of Jewish A.F.S. men who dashed into a fire "as fierce as a blast furnace, with foam spray." The destruction caused by the air raids necessitated the creation of communal feeding centres, and the first of these was started by Mrs. Flora Solomon, Chief Welfare Officer of Messrs. Marks and Spencer, with the help of her firm-an example that led to the establishment of British Restaurants all over the country. There Canadian Jewry Jews are well represented in all the Dominion contingents: A large number were included in the first Canadian division that left for England in the summer of I 940 and also in subsequent contingents. By November, 1940, there were at least 3,000 in the Canadian forces, and since then the number must have greatly increased. Several hund:r:ed joined the Royal Canadian Air Fore~, and arri0 ng them were many. who came from the United States. The percentage of Jewish casualties in the Canadian Air Force was officially stated in October, 1941, to be 6o per cent. above the percentage ofJews in,the Dominion. 'the most notable oftheJewish airmen was Flying Officer William H. Nelson, who received the' D.F.C. for his exploits at Stavanger and Sylt, and was ·killed on a later flight. So great is the enthusiasm of the Jewish youth in Canada for the Air Force that an Air Cadet Flying Corps has been createa in Ottawa by the B'nai Brith Order. There is a national organisation for war work under the chairm~ nship of .Mr. Samuel Bronfman, President of the -Canadian Jewish Congress, whi~h helps Jewish factory owners in placing their plants at the service of the Government. Of the total ' amount contributed to the National Research Council for War Inventions, $25o,ooo, or one-fourth, was given by Mr. THE J.EWISH CONT-RIBUTION 63 Bronfman himself. Although the Jews of Canada have individu ally contributed to all patriotic appeals generously, the Canadian Jewish Congress has made a communal gift of over 725 re'creation huts, fully equipped, which it has provided for most of the units of the Ganadian Army. The Jewish Workmen's Circle has • presented the Red Cross with two mobile dental clinics, arid the Women's Zionist Organisation (Hadassah) has made a gift to a Canadian Military Hospital in England orthe Lilian Freiman Ward. South African Jewry " In South Africa the rallying of the Jews to the colours evoked a generous tribute-from the Premier, Field-:tv[arshal Smuts, who, in a message to the Zionist Conference at Bloemfontein (May, I 94I) ,·wrote: • "In the year~ that follow this war it will surely be remem- ben~d that, whoever else faltered or failed, the Jews played th(::ir part by the side of the Allies, and that remembrance may help to solve problems which have so far proved too much for us. In the Union the percentage of the Jewish volunteers for military serv!ce is just as good as that of other sections of the population;" In fact, the percentage qf Jewish volunteers is greatly in excess of their proportion of the population. In January, I94I, there were 7,ooo Jews serving in the South African forces, thus furnish ing between 9 and I o per cent. of the total enlistment, although the Jews form only 4·75 per cent. of the white population. In Durban, \Vhere the Jews are only O·I3 per cent. of the population,. they have provided 8 per cent. of the volunteers; and in Cape Town, where they are 6·4 p(:r cent., they have furnished 9 per cent. of the volunteers .. Important positions _are held by Colonel F. B. Adler, Dll-ector of Artillery Training, Colonel S. C. Hart, Court-Martial Officer, Defence Headquarters, Colonel M. Horowich, S.A.M. C., Lieut.-Colonel Hem:y Gluckman, S.A.M. C., • Lieut.-Colonel L. I. Braun, S.A.M.C., and Lieut.-Colond Kark, R.A.S.C. Many Jewish women are serving in the Women's Auxiliary Forces in North Africa and in the Union. Among the great number of Jews in the South African Air Force, some have achieved special distinction. Harold Rosofsky (Johannesburg) was the first Dominion pilot to be killei:l; he met . ' THE JEWS IN THE :WAR his death in an R.A.F. attack on Wilhelmshaven on September 24, 1939. Flying Officer Willtam Treger (S. Rhodesia) obtained a direct hit on an 8,ooo-ton enemy tanker, which was destroyed in Tripoli harbour, and was awarded the D.F.C. Two other South Africans who received the D.F.C. were Lieutenant D. W. Golding ' - and Lieutenant 'D. F. Jacobs. The honour of taking the Island of Jumbo, Italian Somaliland, when it was surrendered by the Italians, fell to the lot of Lance-Corporal Michael Ben-Arie (Cape Town). He was chosen by his Commanding Officer to row across · the Juba River to the island.and demand from the Italians, who had hoisted the white flag, whether they really intended to capitu-. late. A very large number of Jewish casualties were sustained in the Libyan campaign. • Australia-and New ;;:_ealand • Both Australia and New Zealand have furnished relatively large contingents ofJews to the forces of these Dominions. Among / the Jewish airmen of Australia the most notable· is Squadron Leader Julius Allen Cohen, who was awarded the D.F.C. He was the pilot who, in.his Sunderland flying-boat, took G~neral Lord Gort, V.C., and Mr. Duff Cooper, M.P., then Minister of Information, from Southampton to Rabat (French Morocco) in June, I 940, for the purpose of a conference with French statesmen in the days when _France was collapsing. The journey was attended by difficulties and dangers; superb piloting was neces- ' sary to land the flying ship safely; and exceptional qualities of initiative and courage were shown by the Squadron-Leader in fac...e of obstacles and police opposition. Another Squadron Leader ·and a namesake, Ronald J. Cohen~ of the Royal New Zealand Air Force, was awarded the Air Force Cross. As in Great Britain and Canada, so too in South Africa and • other parts of the Empire Jews have given generous financial aid to the war effort, Mr. Harry Landau, Chairman of the War Service Council of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, headed the National War Fund with £IO,ooo, and Durban's small Jewish community of 1,300 souls raised £14,000. The South -Mrican Union of Jewish Women has provided a Red Cross ambulance, field laboratory, and air ambulance. The Jews of Sydney stlbscribed £s,ooo to provide the Sir John Monash Recreation Hut and the Anzac Buffet, which can jointly accom modate 1,200 men. In Jamaica Mr. Horace Victor Myers gave THE JEWISH CONTRIBUTION $!25,000 and Messrs. Henriques ;Brothers £s,ooo for bombing planes for Great Britain. Gifts have also been made by Jews outside the British Empire. Mr. Joseph Sm.ouha (Alexandria) has donated £s,ooo to the Spitfire Fund. The Sephq,rdic Jewish Community of Montevideo has given xo,ooo sheep· as a present to the British Army, and the Uruguay Jewish Community has presented an ambqlance for the use of the N;wy in memory of the officers and men who perished in the Bat~le of River Plate. . France France's spell. of fighting was so brief, and her collapse so sudden and followed by sucq confusion, that there is an inevitable scarcity of information concerning the part played by Jews in her tragic fate. In the Government of. 1939~40, one of the most courageous and energetic members was M. Georges Mandel, the Minister of the Interior, who was inflexibly opposed to defeatism and capitulatiofl. He has been imprisoned, together with M. Leon Blum and other political and military leaders, by the supine Vichy Government, for trial on the charge of being responsible for the national calamity, for which Marshal Petain was at lt1ast equally responsible. There were 8o,ooo Jews (about half of them refugees) in the defence forces: many held important commis sions, including several generals; several hundred were award€d decol'ations for gallantry; and an unknown number were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. At least twenty-five rabbis were Army chaplains. The company that was the first to march into German territory in September, 1939, was commanded by aJewish officer, Captain Pierre May, who was speeiaHy honoured at the cer-emony on the following Armistice Day at the Arc de "Triomphe in Paris. fie was promoted an Officer of the Legion of Honour and was described in the official citation as "a fine trainer of men, of r.emarkable courage aqd ardour." Among the large number who receiv.ed decorations may also be mentioned Baron Guy de Rothschild (son of Baron Edouard de Rothschild), who was honoured on th.e battlefield with. the Legion of Honour and Croix de Guerre, and Captain George Levy and Sergeant Maurice Stein, who wen~ also awarded the Croix de Guerre for valour under fire. Even a year after the .debacle a Jewish officer, Captain Samuel Meyer, headed a list Gf officers and men sub mitted by the late! General Htmtziger for >the Lt~gion of Honour. Ew 66 THE JEWS IN THE WAR The keenness to fight was just as ardent among the many thousands of foreign Jews-from friendly, neutral, and enemy countries-as among the Jewish citizens of France. The recruit ing bureau for foreign Jews opened in Paris by the Federation of Associations of Jewish War Veterans and Volunteers, and the special recruiting offices opened by the Ministry of War in Paris and many provincial centres, were daily besieged. The number of foreign Jewish voluntee·rs in the French Army at the beginning of the war was over 4o,ooo. Of these abou t I5,ooo were refugees from Germany and Austria, who were mostly sent to the Foreign Legion in North Africa. Foreign volunteers of Polish or Czecho slovakian origin were transferred to their national armies: about I5,ooo Polish Jews joined the Polish Legion, and,were deprived of their Passover leave in April, I 940, ~s they were wanted for the Norwegian· campaign. Many of the volunteers applied for per mission to remain in the French Army or to join the Foreign Legion, as they wished to fight for France and to become French citizens after the war. · Free France The call of General de Gaulle to continue resistance to the enemy received a prompt response from many hundreds of French Jewish soldiers, including all who had been evacuated to England from Dunkirk and Narvik. There were many Jews among the volunteers who went with General de Gaulle to Dakar. and French Equatorial Africa; many were in the Foreign Legion that was sent to Libya, fought in the first Battle of Bardia in I 94I under General Wavell, and were honourably mentioned; and many also fought in Eritrea and Abyssinia. Moreover, many of the Jews who were with battalions of the Foreign Legion in Syria and even with the French National Army were the first to cross the Palestinian frontier with the Poles after the collapse of France: they joined the Free French forces under General Catroux and took part in the battles for Syria. Among them was Captain Victor Mirkin (of the Palestine Jewish Colonisation Association), who had originally been on General Weygand's staff on the Syro-Iraqi frontier, and after joining the Free French forces was badly wounded at the time of the occupation of Damascus. He is now a staff officer in Syria. The Free French National Committee includes an important Jewish member, Professor Rene Cassin, Commissioner for Justice and Public Education, who has represented General de THE JEWISH CONTRIBUTION 67 Gaulle'. at official Conferences of the Allied Governments in London and has been on a special mission to the Middle East and Free French Africa. · Poland The Jews of Poland displayed the utmost self-sacrifice during their country's brief struggle against the invader, and many have continued to fight with the Polish forces in different areas. A national appeal issued at the outbreak of the war by President Moscicki was fervently endorsed by the Jewish leaders. Within the first few days there was not only a rally ef hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews to the colours, but over 8oo Jews from Czechoslovakia enlisted in a special legion in defence of a regime that had been far from benevolent. The protection of the Father- . land took precedence before the most exacting requirements of religion, and the most sacred day of the Jewish calendar, the Fast of Atonement, found pious, grey-beardeel Jews digging trenches in front of Warsaw. Only five weeks after the beginning of the war, on October 9, I 939, the Polish General Staff an nounced that 32,2I6 Jews had fallen in defence of the country and 6I,ooo had been taken prisoner. Marshal Smigly-Ridz issued a special order praising the heroism of the Jewish soldiers. Among those who distinguished themselves was General Mond, who was of Jewish birth. The Polish Army that was organised in France contained a proportion of Jews that ultimately amounted to I2 per cent. They comprised several thousands who had been living in France and Belgium for a long time, supplemented by a number who had succeeded in escaping through Rumania and Hungary. They all took part in the fighting; 3,000 were in the Polish forces stationed on the Maginot Line; and several were awarded decorations for bravc::ry. Two Jewish soldiers received the Order Virtuti Militari, the highest military award, equivalent to- the V.C. One Jew received three times the Kryz Walecznych (equal to the D.S.O., and next in order to the Virtuti Militari) with two bars, and seven others were decorated with the Kryz Walecznych, First Class. Among the Polish Jews who fought at Narvik one was posthum ously awarded the Virtuti Militari. Many others took part in the defence of Tobruk, and some were awarded medals for bravery on the battle-field by General Sikorski.l Most of those 1 The names cannot be given in the interest of relatives still at the mercy of the Germans. 68 THE JEWS IN THE WAR among the Polish troops in the Middle East hacl' escapea from Poland, but quite a number had previously been living in ;Palestine and Egypt. There are over 500 Jews in the Polish Army in Gr_eat Britain. Many have come from Canada, where they eagerly responded to the appeal of General Sikorski for volunteers; others from Argentina and Brazil, where they had been settled for years; and o:ve even from New Zealand. Moreover, large numbers of Polish Jews, including · many 0fficers, have joined the Polish Army in Russia, some having been reported to have walked 500 miles to reach Moscow.' According to General Anders, the Polish Com mander in Russia, they con~>titute not less than 15 per cent. of his troops. There are also 400 Polish Jews in Mauritius, refugees from Europe who were excluded from Palestine for lack of immigration certificates and deported thence by the British authorities to Mauritius, and who have cabled to London for permission to' join the Polish Army . • Greece The Greek Army contained a relatively high percentage of Jews, some of whom were officers. There were 7.,ooo Jewish soldiers from Salonika alone who took part in some of the heaviest fighting of the war on the Albanian front. The first Greek officer of field rank to be killed was Colonel Mordecai Frizi, who fell on March 2, I 941, "herqically leading his troops to victory" (to cite the official report). The highest honours were paid to this brave Jewish warrior. The Archbishop of Athens presided at his funeral; the Albanian town of Bessantchi, cap tured by the Greeks, was renamed in his honour; and all the Greek Press sang his praises. The Athens paper, Ethnos, comment ing on his death, wrote: "The Jews are taking their part in this fight with their whole soul and all their resources." Three other members of the Salonika Jewish community distinguished themselves on the battle-fields of Albania: Albert, a well-known athlete, who ordered his little band of soldiers, armed with hand grenades, to make a terrific din as they rushed a gun-post defended by a score of Italians, who immediately surrendered; Michel, who shot down a low~fiying Italian bomber with his rifle; and Joseph Popo, who was decorated with the Military Cross for heroism in snatching up a number of hand-grenades thrown by Italians and hurling them back at the enemy. When the Greek Prime Minister, M. Tsouderos, was in South Africa in / THE JEWISH CO]'lTRIBUTION 6g I94I, he told a representative of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that Greek Jewry had rallied to the colours immediately on the outbreak of war. "They made excellent soldiers," he said, "-ap.d had fought heroically and stubbornly." TheJews had also given generous financial support. In Athens they subscribed nearly g,ooo,ooo drachmas to the Greek War Funds; their brethren in Salomka trebled this ,amount; and the Rabbinical Councils of Salonika subscribed 50,000 drachmas towards the repair of the famous St. Sophia Cathedral, which had been damaged by Italian bombers. · · · · Russia In Russia, too, the Jews answered the call of duty with the utmost enthusiasm. When Stalin appealed to all Soviet citizens to defend their Fatherland, the Jewish leaders in Moscow im mediately · issued a stirring manifesto to Russian Jewry. It emphasised that 'Hitler was not only the foe of progress and ·civilisation, but also the arch!enemy of the Jews; it urged them to take their place bravely in the front line, to work vigorously in the production of weapons for the Red Army, and to assist in the relief of war refugees. After Hitler's hordes had battered and blazed their way into the heart of Russia; there was a great rally in Moscow on August 24, · I 94I, attended by prominent repre sentatives of the , ~ ewish people and distinglilished figures in Soviet science and literature, who broadcast fr-otn several powerful stations to the Jews throughout the world for their active co-?peration. In the main appeal the speaker said:·· ''In the battles against Hitlerism, the Red Army is bringing forth heroes such as the history o(mankind has never known. In the lists of these men we_read with pride th.e names of Jews who have gone forth to defend 'human culture against the Fascist barbarians. It is with gride that we see ·their names amone those who are. fighting_ the Hitlerite gangsters il}. the air, on the sea, and on land. It is with profou.nd admiration· that we see their names among the guerrillas. Shoulder to shoulder with the men, the finest daughters-of our people are fighting." The Jew~sh appeal from Moscow received a prompt fraternal response from the Jewish communities of Great Britain and the United States, and particularly from Palestine, where the Jewish representatives broadcast their r.eplies in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian. .THE JEWS IN THE WAR There are a great number of Jewish officers m the Russian Army, some of very high rank. They include General Kreiser, General Kalouzheski, General Jacob Shmuskevitch, Colonel General Gregory Stein, and Lieut.-General K. P. Podlas. General Kreiser, who distinguished himself notably in the fighting near · Smolensk and extricated his army from a Nazi trap, was honoured with the title of"Hero of the Soviet Union." General Kalouzheski was one of the senior officers in command of the Russian troops that marched into Iran, and a photograph of General Wavell chatting with him appeared in the Press. General Shmuskevitch, who had been awarded the Gold Medal of "Hero of the Soviet Union" for his exploits in the Finnish war, was the heq.d of the Russian•Air Force in 1941. General Lev Dovator, one of the most outstanding cavalry commanders, and also a "Hero of the Soviet .Union," who fought brilliantly with his Cossacks on the Moscow front and recently fell on the battle-field, was also of Jewish birth. , The number of Jews already decorated for bravery on the battlefields amounts to several hundred. Orderly Za:lman Grinka is· reported to have saved the lives of seventy-two wounded Red Army men within a few days, and a-picture of his rescue "act" W<:J.s given by Stalin to Lord Beaverbrook in Moscow. A well knownJewish poet, Utkin, who went to the front, led his company in. an attack against the enemy and lost his right hand. In the fighting near Yolokolamsk, a young studen't of Medireval Pro ven~al literature, Rabinovitch, proved himself a warrier. Although wounded, ·he mustered enough strength to · crawl towan:ls a German tank, grenade in h a;nd, blew up the tank, and lost his life. Jews in the Russian Navy and Air Force have also given proof of d a,ring and courage. Senior Lieutenant Schwarz berg is on the cruiser Kirov; which is playing an important part in the defence of Leningrad; and Captain Levin, of the Air F0rce, led Russian bombers in a successful attack upon units of the German rriotorised infantry on their way to the front in the yyazma district, dispersing them with severe losses. Two Jewish engineers, Isaac Moseevitch Saltzman and Joseph Yakovlevich Kotin, have also rendered most valu~ ble service in organising the production of tanks for the Red Army, for which the Presidium of the Supreme Council ofthe U.S.S.R. has conferred upon them the title of " H ero of Socialist Labour" and awarded them the Order of the Gold M edal of the H ammer and Sickle. Kotin designed a new type of tank, which he person ally tested during the Finnish campaign of 1939; and both he I THE JEWISH CONTRIBUTION 7I and Saltzman, who is Director of the Kirov Tank Works, an innovator in matters of technique and a gifted organiser, were at the front to obtain first-hand experience of the improvements that could be made in tank design. Kotin's design has withstood the severest tests in the battles against the German·s, and he has recently introduced many improvements, for ·which he has received a Stalin Award. Another brilliant engineer is B. Spitalny, who invented the automatic aeroplane cannon. The Jews of Palestine The contribution of the Jews in Palestine belongs to a special order, for the country is a mandated territory, whose population is exempt frorh conscription. Nevertheless, there are some I8,o6o Palestinians in the British Army. Of these I2,ooo are Jews and about 6,ooo Arabs, and as there are about I ,ooo,ooo Arabs in Palestine and only soo,ooo Jews, the racial proportions in the population are inversely represented in the Army. The immber of Jewish fighters might have been very much larger if the Govern ment had accepted the offer of Dr. Weizmann, President of the Jewish Agency for Palestine and of the Zionist Organisation, to raise a Jewish force to fight under its own flag. The offer was accepted in September, I940, but a year later it was declined on the ground of technical difficulties, such as lack of equipment, although it is generally understood that the principal reason is the desire to keep the Arabs appeased (see Times leader, Nov. Io, I94I, and the author's Britain's Nameless Ally). · So eager were the Jews of Palestine to serve, not only for the defence of their National Home, but in general support of the Allied cause, that they organised a registration of volunteers for n.ational service in Septem~r, I 939, which resulted in the enrolment of I g6,ooo persons (including so,ooo women) between the ages of eighteen and fifty. But during the first year of the war the Military Command in Palestine accepted only a limited number of volunteers for the service corps. Two Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps were formed, of which the Jews and the Arabs were expected to provide half each, but the Jews out numbered the Arabs by about th!ee to one. The first batch of 700 men, which arrived in France in February, I940, included Jews of nineteen countries, and after a few weeks this unit was turned into a defence corps. Its members distinguished themselves during the great battle in Flanders and North France, took part 72 THE JEWS IN THE WAR in covering the retreat of the second British Expeditionary Force from St. Malo, were among the last to le ve for England, and ~ then took part in the defence of the southern coast in the Battle of Britain. · (a) Service in Many Capacities Owing to the collapse of France and the threatened invasion of England, the Jews of Palestine rendered a service of exceptional value when most of the ground personnel of the R.A.F. in Egypt had to be hurriedly transferred to Britain. The Jewish Agency was urgently requested to fill the gap by finding I ,200 mechanics and specialists for all sorts of]obs: it promptly provided I;SOO qualified men. The Agency also furnished a mot()r transport unit of 500 men, including the very best of the drivers in the country, for service in the Libyan Desert. Not until September, I940, were the Jews given the opportunity of joining the combatants' ranks. It was decided to form fourteen military companies, seven Jewish and seven Arab, the recruitment to be ·on a basis of rigid equality of numbers; but this principle had to be rebxed, as Arab reluctance was a clog upon Jewish volunteering. By the summer of I94I the number of Palestinian Jews in the British Army had risen to about i o,ooo, of whom I ,500 were in ~he R.A.F., providing most of the ground personnel of the aerodromes in Palestine. They also included 400 stevedores and lightermen, whose experience at the Tel Aviv port proved ver:y valuable, not only in handling Army supplies in many North African ports, but also in seizing those ports. (b) In North Africa \ The Jewish soldiers of Palestine have done service in Libya and Tripoli, Abyssinia and Eritrl a, Greece and Syria. Their gallant conduct has ev:oked praise from all their commanding officers, but unfortunately they receive no credit in official announcements, which always use the geographical term "Palestinian," without any indication as to whether Jews or Arabs are meant. There are, however, -adequate and authorita tive sources of information concerning the valiant part they have played. General Wavell' said that "they performed fine work, pre-eminently at Sidi Barrani, Sollum, Fort Capuzzo, Bardia, and Tobruk." Among those who died a heroic death was Private Joseph Breitman, who, during an attack on Tobruk, was among the troops that led a foray through a barbed~wire THE JEWISH CONTRi:BUTlON 73 entanglement _strewn with lantl filihes. Although seriously wounded, he threw two hand-grenades at an enemy gun position, which he silenced, and thus enabled his platoon to surge forward. (c) Eritrea and Abyssinia In Eritrea the Palestinian units covered the left flapk of the advance to Keren, cutting off the Italians on a ridge to the left of the main attacking force, and their bravery and fighting spirit were vety highly commended. Of the two Jews who f~ll in the battle for Keren, one, Schmaryahu Weinstein, who was in charge of a machine-gun, saved the whole unit by sacrifi_cing his own life in the capture by the men of one ef:the hills from the Italians. The other, David Raziel, had been .in command of ~he illegal Jewish corps for defence against Aral;> attacks in Palestine before the war. Both Jews and Arabs became experts in guerrilla war fare, and some 300 of them (three-fifths Jews), thanks to their toughness and daring, vyere selected for dangerous _service in Abyssinia. They operated in so-called "suicide squads," pene trated and demolished enemy fortifications night after night, brought back valuable information, and took an important part in the operations that led to the I?uke of Aosta's surrender. (d) Greece and Syria In Greece there were many Palestinian Jews with the R.A.F., the Royal Engineers, and the Pioneer Corps, whose bravery earned the praise of Air Marshal d'Albiac and also of General Wavell. Several hundreds were with the last 2,ooo R.A.F. men to leave Greece after successfully co~ering' the :r:etreat in the final days of the evacuation, and-many afterwards fought in Crete. But, unfortunately, I,444 Palestinians were among the io,boo British troops missing in Greece and Crete, and of that total 1,023 were Jews and the rest Arabs. When the campaign ih Syria began, fifty young Jewish settlers with an intimate knowledge of the. district near its Palestinian frontier were chosen to accompany the Australian vanguard, to whom they rendered valuable service as guides and behind the . lines. The Palestinian contingent helped the Allied forces in recapturing Kuneitra, the key position on the main road from Safed to Damascus. Among its casualties was a young Jew, Moses Dayan, one of forty-three members of a Jewish sel£-defence organisation, who, despite their excellent record, were sentenced 74 THE JEWS IN THE · wAR in November, 1939, to ten years' imprisonment (and one for life) for carrying arms. After being in gaol for eighteen months, they were all released, whereupon a number of tliem, including Dayan, promptly joined the British Army to share in the defence of their National Home. Palestinian Jews have also distinguished themselves at sea. When the S.S. El Fath caught fire as a result of an enemy air attack near Famagusta on August 21, 1941, four Jewish maritime officers succeeded · in saving the freighter. Their action was brought to the notice of Admiral · Andrew B. Cunningham, Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet, who wrote a letter to the Zebulun (Nautical) Society in Tel-Aviv, in which he referred to the "considerable presence of mind a!ld courage ... exhibited by the above officers" and added: "I should be glad if you would inform them that their good services have been noted by me with much satisfaction." (e) Economic and Scientific Services The Jews of Palestine have also rendered substantial assistance to the war effort in the economic, scientific, and technical fields. During the first year the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund spent £2,ooo,ooo upon various developments, so as to increase the amount of food produced in the country and to expand all industries and undertakings useful for war purposes. Eight new agricultural settlements have been established and old ones largely extended. All the Imperial and Allied forces stationed in or based on Palestine have been supplied with their food requirements from the soil of Palestine, and a large part has been grown on Jewish farmst~ds. In the field of industry there are 1,200 Jewish factories, all engaged in the manufacture of war materials. They include all kinds. of metal and brick factories, steel-smelting works, and food and pharmaceutical industries. Jewish manufacturers have already carried out orders for the Army to a total value exceeding £3,ooo,ooo. The two industrial concerns due especially to Jewish enterprise and scientific fichievement are the Palestine Electric Corp-oration and the Palestine Potash Works: the latter has converted the Dead Sea into the principal source of potash for the British Empire. Among the refugees in Palestine is Germany's former leading authority on op.tics (once manager of the Zeiss Works); there were also several Bren-gun experts, who were needed for the manufacture of munitions in India. TFtE JEWisFt CONTRIBUTION 75 In the scientific field the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has arranged special courses for the medical officers of the British and Australian forces and supplied sera for the diagnosis of typhoid and other diseases. The Meteorological Laboratory has furnished air data for weather reports covering the entire region between the Caucasus Mountains and Lower Egypt. The Jewish Technical Institute has co-operated with the Royal Engineers in the testing of building materials and discovering local substitutes for materials that could no longer be imported: and its laboratories prepare and repair instruments and motors for the Army and Navy. The Daniel Sieff Research Institute is creating synthetic pharmaceutical products,.by utilising local raw materials. As a pendant to the services of the Jews of Palestine must be mentioned those of the large number of Jc;;wish women and girls who have joined the Palestine Auxiliary Territorial Service (called P.A.T.S.) and also those of thousands of Jewish refugees in the country who have joined the national army of the State to which they owe allegiance. Months before there was a general mobilisation of all Czechoslovak citizens of military age, I ,200 Czechoslovak Jews (and about forty Christians) offered their services to their Consul-General in Jerusalem; and wl1en he addressed a parade of these volunteers before leaving for France on January I 5, I 940, and handed them the nati6nal flag, he said that they had reason to be proud of their record, as they formed the majority of the Czechoslovak Army. The first soldier of the Czechoslovak Legion to be killed at Tobruk (December, I94I) was a Jewish refugee, Leo Gutfreund, who had survived the blowing up of the Patria in Haifa harbour and was afterwards interneq for many months. Similarly, in November, I94o, when 8,ooo Greeks registered with their Consulate for military service the majority 'were Jews, mostly from Salonika. A large number of Polish Jews joined the Polish Legion, and Jews of Dutch nationality enlisted in the Free Dutch forc~ s. '• American Jewry The United States has entered the war too recently for any adequate account of the Jewish share in its military effort to be possible. That it is well represented in the defence forces may be concluded from the fact that by the end of I94I the sixty thousandth prayer book was distributed by the Jewish Welfare Board to a Jewish soldier. Officers of high rank include General Irving J. Philipson, Commander of the Second Army Corps and THE JEWS IN THE WAR Military Chief of New York and New Jersey, who served in the first World War and was awarded the Croix de Guerre with Golden Star; Brigadier-General Julius 0. Adler (For:t Dix), ,Brigadier-General Eugene Oberdorfer (Atlanta), and Major. General Sam Lawton (Chicago}. • Almost from the very beginning of the war, however, the Jews of the United States- have been :tnost active and generous in the support of . the Allied War effort. It is estimated that of the $ro,ooo,ooo received in contributions by the British War Relief Society, one-third has come from Jewish sources, although the Jews are less than 4 per cent. of the population. The Jewish Section of the Inter-Faith Committee for Aid to the Democracies, conducting its ' activities in co-operation · with the British War Relief Society; has presented to British children, regardless of race ot creed, seven large, fully-equipped nursing homes, ea·ch accommodating about 100 children and costirtg . oyet: $25,000. Thousands of hospital beds with equipment, tens of thousands of articles of clothing and also of bottles of vit~min concentrates, and over 100 mobile canteens and ambulances have been pro vided for the people of Britain by the gifts of American Jews. In a message from Washington, Lord Halifax, the British Ambassa dor, wrote: "I am deeply impressed by the success of the war relief wor.k on behalf of Great Britain to which the membyrs of the Jewish Section are devoting so much time and energy. I greatly appreciate what you are doing for our people." Struggle rif the Captives The contributions of the Jewish people to the war against Hitlerism are b'y no means confined to free countries: ·they are also being made, with equal determination but greater risk, in the various lands under the Nazi yoke. Thousands of those who are fighting the enemy under the cover of darkness, in guerrilla bands or in sabotage squads, will remain "unknown warriors," but the names of many have penetrated to the outer world, especially of those who have been caught and made to pa.y for their patriotism either by imprisonment or death. At Avignon, for example (according to a German News Agency report from Vichy), Jacob Friedman and his wife have been arrested on charges ofDe Guallist propaganda: Free French leaflets produced in Marseilles were said to have been found in their flat. In Yugoslavia Jews are playing a pro~inent part · in guerrilla . warfare: two physicians, Dt. Moshe Piada and -Dr. Alkalay, are THE JEWISH CONTRIBUTION 77 members of the staff of General Mihailovitch and in command of special units organised on military lines. A young Jewish officer of the Yugoslav Army, a former Belgrade student, directs the operations of some so,ooo· men, and another young Jew is the General's aide-de-camp. In Belgrade a Jewish chemist, Alma Slina, who made explosives for use by Serbian guerrillas in blowing up l;Jridges, was sentenced to lifelong imprisonment. In Bulgaria LeonJo_sefTadjer, who was charged with having killed a German soldier and set fire to a petrol station, was sentenced • to death. In Poland, owing to the continued sabotage on the railways by Polis-h and Jewish fighters and the disasters caused to German troop trains, the German authorities have ordered that a number of Poles and Jews are to be placed on every train carrying troops or war material, in the hope that their presence will act as a deterrent. Those . authorities have published a book containing over 20,000 names and photographs of Poles and Jews "wanted for sabotage," to assist the Gestapo in their hunt, and of them over 2,ooo are Jewish. A young Jewish lawyer was recently hanged by the Gestapo in Lublin for underground activities against the Germans. A member of the Jewish Socialist Party, the Bund, he was one of the most fearless organisers of the under ground opposition. One of his main activities was the publication of illegal news-sheets and reports of foreign broadcasts. Despite the strict order that Jews must not leave the ghetto without a permit, he risked his life by taking trips to various towns ·and villages around Lublin in order to organise resistance among the Jewish youth and peasantry. On his return from one of these trips the Gestapo found him on the road, half frozen, and with • incriminating documents in his possession. Although seriously ill, he was hanged without trial. On the Russian front a Jewish girl, Reizel Teitelbaum, is known as "manager of the Bryansk Forests" because of the heroism she displayed in leading a guerrilla unit in the woods of the Bryansk sector. These are but a few among the large army of brave fight~rs, scattered over many fronts, who are co-operating in whatever way they can with their brethren in the lands of freedom, in the struggle for .the overthrow of the Nazi barbarians. Despite the perils they run, they will continue the fight With undaunted, courage and unfl.a?ging faith until victory is won, APPENDIX (a) DECORATIONS AWARDED TO BRITISH jEWS IN THE NAVY, ARMY, AND AIR FoRcE Sergeant Ben Bardega, D .F.M., R.A.F. ... Flight-SergeantS. M. Bernstein, D .F.M., S.A.A.F. Lieut.-Commander M . M. Bright, D.S.C., Royal Navy (Retd.) . Captain A. M. Canter, M .C., R.A.M.C. Squadron-Leader Julius Allen Cohen, D.F.C., R.A.A.F. Squadron-Leader Ronald J. Cohen, A.F.C., R.N.Z.A.F. Flight-Lieutenant Richard N. Cullen, D.F.C., R .A.F. Corporal J. G. M . Davis, B.E.M., R.A.F. (Malta). . Second Lieutenant Viscount Erleigh, M .C., Dragoon Guards. Sergeant David Fleischman, M.M., Rhodesia Regiment. Corporal Sydney Freema n, M.M., A.C.C. (South Africa). Sergeant Jocelyn Friendly, D.F.M., R :A.F. (South Africa) : Corporal Leslie Ginsberg, M.M., Roya~ Fusiliers. · Lieutenant D. W . Golding, D.F.C., S.A.A.F. Lieut.-Colonel Barnard A. Goldstein, O .B.E., R .A.O.C. Sergeant Amichia Honig, D.F.M., R.A.F.V.R. Gunner Gordon A. Instone, M.M., R.A. Lieutenant D. F., Jacobs, D.F.C., R.A.F. (South Africa). Gunner Samuel Jacobovitch, M.M., R.H.A. Commander Richard F. J essel, D.S.C., D.S.O., R.N. Pilot Officer M arcus Kramer, D.F.C., R.A.F. Sergeant Raymond M . Lewin, G.C., R.A.F. PrivateS. Lendler, M.M., Pioneer Corps (Middle East). M ajor Lionel Melzer, M.C., South African Forces. Flight-Lieutenant Brian Van Mentz, D.F.C., S.A.A.F. Corporal M. L. Meyerowitz, M.M. (South Mrica). Flying Officer William H. Nelson, D.F.C., R.A.F. (Canada). Lieutenant Harold Newgass, G.C., R .N.V.R. · Sergeant Mark Alfred Niman, D.F.M., R .A.F. Lance-Corporal Cyril S. Pearlman, M.M., Australian Forces. C aptain J. R eynolds, M.C., New Zealand Forces. Private A. M. M. Ruda, M.M. (South Africa). Sergeant L. Salzberg, D.F.M ., R.A.F. Captain Hayman Harold Samson, O.B.E., SA. Medical Corps. Squadron-Leader N . P. Samuels, D.F.C., R.A.F. Lieutenant Frank Solomon, M.C., South• Mrican For<;es. Sergeant · Leonard Solomon, Territorial Efficiency Medal, R.A.M.C. Lieutenant Martin Solomon, D.S.C., R.N.V.R. L/Aircraftman Hyman Sumray, G.M., R.A.F. 78 APPENDIX 79 Flying Officer William Treger; D.F.C.,R.A.F.V.R. (S. Rhodesia). Private]. Vardy, M.M., Australian Forces. . Lance-Corporal Joseph Wallis, M.M. (South Africa). Sergeant Air-Gunner A. Weldon, D.F.M., R.A.F. Sergeant-Pilot Eric William Wiseman, D.F.M., R.A.F.V.R. Pilot ~Officer Michael M. Wiseman, D.F.M., R.A.F. Mentioned in Despatches Flight-Sergeant Julius Abrahams, R.A.F. Captain Percy Baker, R.A.M.C. . · Major F. B. Beddington, R.E. Lieut.-Colonel H. L. V. Beddington, R.A. Captain A. E. Bloom, R.A.S.C. Flight-Lieutenant Gerald Cohen, R.A.F. Squadron-Leader Mark Cohen, R.A.F. · Lance-Sergeant M. B. Cohen. Second Lieutenant R. T. H. Cowen, The Queen's (Royal West Surrey) Regiment. Lance-Corporal H. Davids, R.E. Lance-Corporal J. Davies, Middlesex Regiment. e Sergeant A. Davis, R.A. Captain L. J. Davis, R.E. Second Lieutenant J. M. Drage, Royal Sussex Regiment. Major Oscar Galgut, South African Forces. Major V. Gerstenberg, R.A. Second Lieutenant Sir Henry d' Avigdor-Goldsmid, Queen's Own Royal West Kent RegiJ:!lent. Corporal W. J. Goodman, R.E. Captain S. J. }.1. Goulston, R.A.M.C. Corporal Solomon Charles Green, Sou!h African Forces. Warrant . Officer III M. Grossman, Cheshire Yeomanry Captain M. C. K. Halford, York and Lancaster Regiment. Gunner F. D. Harris, R ,A. Major B. Hart., R.E. Major 0. Hart, D.S.O., R.E. Warrant Officer II H. Herman, R.A.O.C. Lieutenant M. Herman, R.A.M.C. Lieutenant M. R. Joseph, R.A.M.C. Staff-Sergeant Josef Herbert Kahn, South African Forces. Second Lieutenant C. T. Korts, Royal Scots Fusiliers. Gunner L. C. Levy, R.A. Staff-Sergeant S. D. Levy, R.A.S.C. Gunner D. J. Lewis, R.A. ~0 T H E •J E W S I N T H E W A ;R Bombardier E. S. W. L~wi~, R.A. Lieutenant P. Lewis, R.A.M.C. Corporal E. S. Moss, Middlesex Regiment. Acting-Sergea~t F. Rose, R.A. Lieutenant J . H. Ro;;e, R.A.M.C. Lance-Corporal A. H. Simons, King's. Own Scottish Borderers, Private F. E. Wisser, Bedfordshi.t;e and Hertfordshire Regiment. . ' (b) HoNouRs A w A.RnEn To BRrrisH JEws IN Civ!~ DE.FENcE; Mrs. F. W. Bamberger, B.E,. M., W.V.S. Dr. Hannah Billig, G.M., Shelter Doctor. Isaac Bogard, Commended, Stretcher Party Leader. Barnett Burke, B.E.M., A.R.P. · Nathan Dantzic, O.B.E. (Qivii Division), A.R.P. Samuel Donner, B.E.M., A.R.P. Harry Erringtonl' G.C., Rescue Party. David Falk, B.E.M., A.R.P. _ Miss Rosalie Gassman, B.E.M., A.F.S. John Godfrey, Commended, A.R.P. A. Goldstein, Meritorious Service Certificate, St. John Ambu,., lance Brigade. Emanuel Graham, B.E.M., Special Constable. E. N.J. Guggenheim, Commended, A.R.P. Bernard J,(.yte, B.E.M., Police War Reserve. Noel Landau, B.E.M., A.F.S. David Lazarus, G.M., Home Guard. Harry Lerner, B.E.M., Rescue Party. Joseph Levy, O.B.E. (Civil Division), A.R.P. Barnett Lewis, G.M., A.R.P. Constable Samuel Marks, B.E.M., War &eserve. Emanuel Morris, O.B.E. (Civil Division), A.R.P. Andrew Nune;; Nabarro~ G.M., A.F.S.. Miss Winifred Ortweiler, B.E.M., A.R,.P. Dr. J. Seidenberg, M.B.E., Medical Aid. Joseph Slipman, B.E.M., L.A.A.S. Maurice Cohen Starr, G.M., A.R.P. Leslie Arthur Steele, Commended, A.R.P. Maurice Stockland, B.E.M., Home Gu,ard. S. Tesler, Meritorious Service· Certificate, St. John Ar:nbulanoe Brigade. B. Wolchack, Meritorious Service Certificate, :&t. John Ambu, lance Brigade. Solomon Woolfson, G.M., A.R.P. . . ~ &_,_ THE JEWS IN THE WAR By ISRAEL COHEN This is the first attempt to give an account of the Jewish aspects of the War. The author, a recognised authority on Jewish affairs, devotes the major portion of his book to a vivid and compre hensive description of the sufferings of the Jews in all the countries under Nazi tyranny, and to an authoritative record of the military, economic, and other contributions that the Jews of the British Empire and of all the Allied Democracies are making • towards the efforts to secure victory for the cause of freedom. Mr. Cohen also discusses the Jewish • issue at stake in the conflict, and includes a survey of "Hitler's First War," by which he denotes the persecution of the Jews in the Greater Reich before armed hostilities began. 2/- NET FREDERICK MULLER LTD. 29 GREAT JAMES STREET, W .C.l.