photo: Sidney Du Broff
© 1999
When the War ended 5,000 Jews emerged from the rubble in Germany, some of whom were concealed by Germans who did it despite the risk to their own lives. These were acts of extreme heroism. Unfortunately, there weren't more of them. Former German President, Richard von Weizsäcker, and front-man extraordinary, has admitted that there were "affronts" against Jews, but in his role as apologist, suggests that these were committed by a few bad people, and the rest were unaware of the fate which had befallen their fellow countrymen, or, for that matter, the fate of six million Jews who were not German. This had been a deliberate policy to mislead, to obscure the crimes for which Germany is guilty.
Yet, the present government, and German governments generally, whether Right or Left, continue to be culpable, allowing the passage of time to cover up all that has gone before. What has changed most is not the objective, but only the method by which it can be achieved. On the surface Germany would appear to be benefactors of both Israel and the Jewish people, picking up the tab for a Jewish library here, a visit to Germany there - to speak with, for example, Russians, "who could not express their Jewishness until they reached Germany" (whom you will meet in due course).
While in the beginning we experienced good co-operation from the Germans, a wider examination, which did not show Germany as the Jews' benefactors, terminated co-operation. Even a request for an interview with the (non-Jewish) chief librarian of the (Jewish) Wiener Library was denied. Her salary, by no coincidence, was paid by the German Foreign Ministry, on the face of it, an expression of great altruism, but in reality the exceptional opportunity to impose censorship on anything that did not have their approval. They projected themselves into a position of being able to determine the direction in which the library was allowed to proceed; a library meant to show the malignancy of Nazism, had, in fact, been taken over by the very sources it had mandated itself to expose.
Today German ambitions are being promoted by proxy, in which they lodge their aspirations in the Arab cause, and came very close to realising them. This is an old alliance - the Arab/German one; they feel comfortable with each other, since the aspirations of each are virtually identical. With a large number of Jews concentrated in one place, Israel is especially vulnerable.
Not such a long time ago Germany had gone behind the backs of her European partners in an effort to gain advantage in Iran, for which the then British Foreign Minister Douglas Hurd demanded an explanation. But the Germans, caught in the act, went into hiding, refused to acknowledge him or his demands, which is typical behaviour, and the way they reacted to us.
Throughout history, whenever governments were unable to deal with their problems, the solution was - and is - to blame the Jews. It is a Historic Solution. And it always works, even when there are virtually no Jews - Poland, for example.
The German tragedy will have its ramifications not in the Thousand Year Reich, but in the thousand years that Germany will have the finger of accusation pointed at it, the thousand years in which succeeding German generations, themselves guiltless, will always be judged as guilty of having committed genocide.
Germany's crimes could not have been committed in isolation. We need to look at the wider picture, to see the whole, in order to understand the historical background that resulted in the destruction of a people. The rest of the world watched, largely indifferent, with only rarely an expression of disapproval.
Did the German people know? Not only did they know, they participated enthusiastically. For the details in full see Daniel Goldhagen's outstanding book, Hitler's Willing Executioners, which is required reading. Even here, amongst Goldhagen's irrefutable evidence, the Germans are busy trying to obscure it, aiding and encouraging those who think they may have something to gain by diminishing it.
Only afterwards the German people pretended they didn't know. Where were the Communists and Social Democrats? According to Goldhagen, they were no great defenders of their, or anybody else's, Jews either. The opposition acquiesced with inordinate speed. Hitler took over with amazing ease.
The work consists of fourteen interviews conducted in Germany, amongst them: Israel Mellor, aged 20, born in Germany, deeply ambivalent about the country of his birth, wanting to stay, but goaded by a conscience that he feels compels him to leave, is aware that if he does - if all Jews do - Germany becomes Judenfrei, Hitler's greatest aspiration realised.
The Schlesingers returned to Germany after living in Israel for 50 years, left behind three children (one of whom has become totally estranged as a result of their defection), and seven grandchildren. What is their motivation?
There is a mid-30, non-Jewish journalist on a 'liberal' Berlin paper whose policy is that Jews are all right, but that Israel isn't. Is there a separation between Jews and Israel?
Dr. Kogan, from the former Soviet Union, is learning his Judaism in Germany; in the Soviet Union there was no realistic way of manifesting it; he could be a Jew only in Germany.
Dr. Jacob is a retired professor of economics, who fought in the British Army, and who returned to participate in the construction of the GDR (East Germany), where he met and married his wife, a Jewish girl who by great good fortune managed to survive in Nazi Germany.
Mischa Guttman, Secretary General of the Central Council of Jewish Communities in Germany, born to parents who survived the Holocaust in Germany with the help of non-Jewish people and false identity cards. Committed to a permanent and continuing Jewish entity in Germany, he looks forward to growing numbers and strength.
Hilde Eisler, who, with her husband, fled to the United States for asylum, where they were persecuted for their Communist sympathies. Returning to East Germany after the War, Hilde Eisler edited the GDR's most popular monthly, Das Magazin. Her husband was Head of GDR Broadcasting. They never compromised their Jewish principles, or their support for Israel, despite the overt hostility demonstrably expressed by the government they had wished to serve.
The seven others who speak, provide a profoundly important insight.
Historical data is presented between the interviews, which gives meaning to all that has gone before, and all that made the Holocaust possible. It provides an understanding of those events in the context in which they took place, and could take place, and brings us up to the present moment in time.
There are fourteen chapters, which include America's role in ignoring the plight of European Jewry on their way to destruction; Britain's position vis a vis Jewish entry into (pre-Independence) Israel; the spiritual holocaust that has been in the process of occurring since the young civilian US Naval analyst revealed to Israel the secrets of Iraq's military capacity, including biological, chemical and nuclear facilities, supplied by the US, Britain, France, and others, meant for the destruction of Israel.
A few words from the book:
This outspoken book is extremely timely. It is a work which provides explanation and understanding not hitherto available between the covers of a single volume. There can be no doubt that it will become a permanent part of the culture, read now and into the future, giving the young an understanding of events which they thought did not touch them, and, at the same time, reminding the rest of what happened, and why.
This is not meant as a scholarly work, but as a book that holds universal interest, speaks directly to every human being. The scholarship, which is prodigious, is manifest in the efforts of the authors, in digesting and assimilating the material which is presented here in a basic and straight-forward manner. This is a work of the most compelling nature.
© Sidney Du Broff 1999
