Good News about Holocaust Day

I am ending a kind of ritual I have observed for the past two decades. Every year, I wore my WWII campaign medals from April 19, the start of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, to May 9-10, when Germany surrendered in 1945. (Except for two special occasions,) I wore them on the inside of my outer garment. They were meant for myself, not for show. I was never into things like wearing medals, possibly as a result of having belonged to that youth movement so prominent in Warsaw`s ZOB and resistance in other ghettos.

We didn`t even applaud after one of us performed or sang for the kibbutz; nor expect it when we did. Even decades later, at an international scientific conference (in Aachen, Germany), I felt embarassed by (unexpected) applause as I was introduced, didn`t know how to react, then gave an army salute; hardly appropriate. I had not even written for the medals after discharge, but that was also as part of an organized protest against the detention (in Cyprus) of Jewish survivors caught while being brought to Palestine. My political Zionist commitment had ended years earlier, but I certainly expected my (and others`) few surviving European relatives who wanted to come to be welcome.

By the time I did write to the British Defence Ministry to get them, in the late 1980, that had long ceased to be an issue, and other things were. In our US Department of Agriculture laboratory, we had found ways for utilizing solar energy cost effectively, especially in agriculture, which could have contributed not only to alleviating the US “energy crisis” during the 1970s' first oil shock and boycott, but also the threatened imminent widespread starvation of millions in sunny poorer regions of the world. When the (allegedly top priority) work was obstructed surreptitiously, and, when the hints were not taken, a regime of terror was instituted, it occurred to me that, while it was nice to have such a pleasant, well paying job, I am still the same person who had not had to submit to the Nazi terror prostrate.

Being the only bachelor of the team, also having been the initiator of the project, I found a strong way to stand up to the obstacles, then the personal harassment unleashed, by pretending to myself that I was carrying out a task assigned by Mordekhai Anielewicz (who had also been to the same Vilna kibbutz while I was there during the !939-40 winter). It must have made easier taking some of the tough decisions, like going on a hunger strike at the lab. (In the San Francisco Chronicle's article on that , my boss was quoted as saying something like “putting one's job on the line sometimes helps”). So it was tied to an undertaking (in writing) that if a solar transition were achieved, never to accept any award, as for having done things “beyond the call of duty”; but that I did now want my campaign medals, which I then requested, and got.

To the best of my knowledge, it was a general feature of all ZOB organizations, not just those dreaming of a Zionist kibbutz life, to have little interest in achieving the status of a military hero. They knew the Nazi military machine would crush the uprising; while they were showing that it could not crush the human spirit. It may have been different for the ultraright “New Zionist” Revisionists of the Betar, whose dream was of military heroism while conquering by “blood and fire” an inflated Judea on both East and West Bank of the Jordan river. They set up their private “military" organization (ZZW) when it turned out that they would not be in charge on the basis of their militarism. I do not feel well informed about the details of their activities. In Antek's (disputed) account of those, they don't look very glorious, but he seems to be prejudiced on that. So am I and was already then, based on what I had seen in Vilna (where they did join the common Jewish resistance later).

Having walked from one end of Poland to the other, getting used to noisy bombs and cannon fire almost every day, some very close by, I had seen no blood spilled except for that inflicted by ill-fitting shoes on the feet of a kibbutz comrade left behind in Lublin (where we experienced one of the worst bombardments). But 3-4 months later, at our kibbutz in peaceful, newly Lithuanian Vilna (Vilnius), I saw the violently spilled blood on the faces of some of our people who had prevented Betar
tough guys from breaking up a meeting. Their grins made clear that they had not been the losers. Since I hadn't been along, I can't assure you of Betar having been responsible. But that I can have no doubt, based on much experience since, as to whom to believe on what happened in Warsaw, is no longer a matter of prejudice.

There seems to be no doubt that they put up a fight for a day or two; that there was a non Jewish, non fascist Polish nationalist unit with them who helped to then escape to the “Aryan” side (but they may have been betrayed subsequently and eliminated). They had fixed two flags, the blue and white and the red and white Polish one, on top of their tall concrete building. Since those could be seen easily from outside the ghetto, that seems like an important contribution to raising the spirit of many Poles, then others elsewhere in occupied Europe.

While military hero creation was not a serious factor in itself for the ZOB, it is evident, e.g. from Mordekhai Anielewicz's happiness about the Swit broadcast, that they did want the outside world, and posterity, to know that they, peace loving people, did fight back. The Bund representative in the Polish government in London exile took his life demonstratively, when he could not get serious attention paid to what was happening. Abba Kovner the Vilna commander (after the first, Wittenberg, was handed to the Gestapo), had emphasized a need to demonstrate that Jews do not go like sheep to the slaughter more easily than anyone.

But that does not agree with the intentions of some who are termed leaders among Jews. They want “diaspora” Jews to forget about what they did to defeat their mortal fascist enemies; e.g. in the Canadian, U.S., Soviet, British and other allied armies, but especially those who resisted under Nazi occupation. The aim seems to be to end reference to that war and substitute the term Holocaust written with capital H. And that no longer refers just to what happened in murder camps like Treblinka, where most of the pre-uprising Warsaw Jews were burned wholly. It can now be applied to people having had to remain in a building of the Swedish embassy in Budapest for weeks or months; and to people like Antek or Vladka; who may have survived because they fought back.

And then it becomes useful to some “leaders” to have the whole world observe a Holocaust Day. When? Can you think of a more preposterous day than the anniversary of the April day when the Jews received the SS and assorted quislings who had come to resume taking their quota of Jews to Treblinka, with Molotov cocktails and grenades, and chased them out? If you can, you may be eligible for appointment to a prestigious, well paying Jewish leadership position. If it had to be about Warsaw, the one day it couldn't be would have been July 22, when the big Aktion that ended the lives of hundreds of thousands got started.

Not that those in charge aren't aware of this. I for one, have written about it repeatedly. And there is no censorship in the US or Canada. There are more advanced methods of information control. I ought to bring up a recent example.

Meanwhile, if I wear the medals, it will be on the outside, for all to see. And that won't be the only change for whatever short time I have left now at almost 83. But my main concern cannot be to slow the sale of Jewish community remainders. I know how to lower the price of oil (gasoline) and food and make adequate food available for billions who lack it; and other such goodies, all on the way to a more beautiful world. But first here some beautiful news just emerging from Warsaw. An award for Marek Edelman, Antek's buddy. I like it. Occasion for a separate post.

Warsaw, April 23-May, 1943

While the top leadership of the main Polish underground, the AK (for Armia Krajowa), tied to the exile government in London, made do with expressions of solidarity, the much less well armed AL (Armia Ludowa), tied to the Communists, was ready to really help when it became evident that there was serious fighting going on in the ghetto; as seen from the outside e.g. by the German ambulances coming out with their wounded. Specifically, they had offered 28 rifles, which with the ammunition would have more than doubled the effective firing power of the ZOB, and may have been almost all they had themselves. But since the ghetto was completely sealed off now, Yitzkhak Zuckerman's main concern became how to get them fast to the fighters inside, since it was expected that they couldn't last more than a couple of days.

There was telephone contact at night between Franya and Tosia Altman, who was in the ghetto, although her normal assignment was also on the outside. She belonged to the HaShomer HaTza'ir, like Mordekhai Anielewicz, the ZOB commander (and me; I believe she had even been in our Czestochowa kibbutz earlier, where I was at the war's beginning and with whom I then marched through Poland). Using mutually understood code words, Tosia was the main source of information about the course of the fighting at first (and vice versa). It also made possible establishing a direct meeting channel through a passage between the general Polish and the Jewish cemeteries; after it could be confirmed that ghetto corpses were still being buried there, even though it was no longer part of the ghetto. Antek recalled that he knew of that passage ”because, when I was in the ghetto, we would hold meetings with comrades from the Aryan side at the grave of Y.L. Peretz” (the classic Yiddish writer after whom Vancouver's Peretz Centre is named).

That is how the April 23 letter from Anielewicz to Antek was transmitted. The original of the excerpts here was in Hebrew.

Dear Yitzkhak,

I don't know what to write to you. Let's dispense with personal details this time. I have only one expression to describe my feelings and the feelings of my comrades: things have surpassed our boldest dreams: The Germans ran away from the ghetto twice. One of our units held out for forty minutes and the other for more than six hours.The mine planted in the Brushmakers area exploded....

Yesterday, when we got information that....the radio station Swit broadcast a wonderful bulletin about our self-defense, I had a feeling of fulfilment.....From this evening we are switching to a system of guerilla action. At night, three of our units go out on two missions; an armed reconnaissance patrol and the acquisition of weapons. Know that the pistol has no value, we practically don't use it. We need grenades, rifles, machine guns and explosives.

I can't describe to you the conditions in which the Jews are living. Only a few individuals will hold out. All the rest will be killed sooner or later......In all the bunkers...you can't light a candle at night for lack of oxygen.........Of all the units in the ghetto, only one man is missing, Yehiel. Ihat, too, is a victory........ There are many fires in the ghetto. Yesterday, the hospital burned. Blocks of buildings are in flames... . Be well, my friend. Perhaps we shall meet again. The main thing is........ I've lived to see a Jewish defense in the ghetto in all its greatness and glory.

Mordekhai

They did not meet again. Without going into details widely published, some guerilla action went on until about May 16. Mordekhai, his girl friend Mira Fuchrer, and most of the remaining Hashomer Hatza'ir fighters died May 8, when the command bunker at Mila 18 was discovered and gas grenades lobbed into it. Some of the ZOB eventually made it to the outside world, mostly through the sewer system, including Zivia Lubetkin, Yitzkhak's girl, later wife, and also of the ZOB Command. Tosia also made it out, but was subsequently discovered and tortured to death. She was in her mid twenties, as was Mordekhai. Franya took her own life in May. Another courier recalled by Antek, Vladka, of the Bund, may be alive in North America. The only survivor of the ZOB Command, also of the Bund, is Lodz cardiologist Marek Edelman.

About a quarter of a million people died during the 1944 Warsaw city uprising; in which Antek and Marek led the ZOB fighters (and other Jews) who had survived.

The Nazis lost the war. We won.

Warsaw, April 19, 1943

“I can't say if I heard or dreamt it, but early in the morning, I woke up drenched in sweat from the thunder of cannons. When I opened my eyes, I saw the sunshine and didn't hear a thing. Everything was quiet. Did I hear cannons or was I dreaming? I don't know.” That is how Yitzkhak Zuckerman recalled the beginning of the day, Passover eve, which happened to fall on April 19 that year, just as in this Jewish leap year, when a whole extra month of Adar is added. But it was 1943, exactly 65 years ago, and Yitzkhak was on the “Aryan” side of the wall that had been built to separate the Jewish ghetto from the rest of Warsaw, the occupied capital of Poland.

"I washed and dressed and waited for Franya Beatus to come back to know if she had arranged my passage. She did come back to my room but, instead of talking, she began weeping: 'They shelled the ghetto. The ghetto is surrounded, she said. Early in the morning, she heard that the army entered the ghetto; the cannons hadn't yet been placed at the ghetto walls, but she heard the Poles saying that you couldn't get into the ghetto, because it was completely surrounded .......”.

Franya was supposed to arrange with the Polish resistance to have Zuckerman, whom they knew as "Antek" smuggled into the ghetto. He wanted to meet, and celebrate Passover with, his comrades of the ZOB (Polish initials for Jewish Fighting Organization), of which he was deputy commander at this stage; since nothing unusual had been expected to occur. She was his courier, my age (about 17 at the time).

He had only come to the “Aryan” side a few days earlier on his assignment to maintain contact with the Polish underground (thus also the outside world) and try to obtain some effective arms (like rifles). Franya, who had found a room for him to stay was waiting near the ghetto gate when he was smuggled out. As he recalled later, “About 100 to 150 meters from the gate, I saw Franya Beatus, the courier who always made me smile. She was a member of Dror .....,blonde, pretty. As I recall, she came from Konin, where there was once a branch of He-Halutz Ha-tza'ir” (i.e. Antek's organization, which had merged with Dror just before the war and corresponds to the “Habonim” in Western Europe and America).

“I didn't know her before the war, when she was probably 13 years old. When the Jews were expelled from Konin, she went to Ostrowiec; where she joined the branch of Dror...” and was later recruited for the ZOB. I don't know where Konin is, but I recall that we passed near Ostrowiec on our march through Poland at the war's beginning 3-1/2 years earlier; and one of the two who couldn't continue and had to be left behind there was Erika, on whom I had an adolescent crush. I found out later that she died at the hospital there. She was 15 or 16.

The Nazis had established the ghetto, into which Jews not only from Warsaw were forced, soon after they occupied the city. Many of the 500 000 or so people in the overcrowded area died from hunger and epidemics before July 1942, but in some respects a very active community life was still possible, taken ample advantage of by the prewar youth organizations. when a big Aktion was started on July 22 in which Jews were taken away, an "anti-fascist" committee, comprising most of the youth outfits , failed to take action , because most preferred to believe the German assurances passed through the Judenrat that people were being resettled in labour camps; although emissaries from Vilna had already warned that the "inconceivable" aim was total extermination of all Jews.

When it was confirmed with the help of Polish railway workers that trains entered the Treblinka camp full with people, but nobody ever left on the empty trains, the Jewish combat organization (ZOB) was formed and tried to train and obtain some arms. By September,when the big Aktion ended, about 300 000 people had been taken. When the Nazis resumed a new wave of deportations in January 1943, they first encountered resistance and interrupted the Aktion. The resistance now effectively took control of the ghetto from the Judenrat.

On April 19, a day before Hitler's birthday, the SS and quisling forces entered in force to liquidate the ghetto, but were driven out after suffering real losses. That is what Antek had heard and Franya reported on. After being driven out a second day, SS Oberfuehrer Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg , who had been in charge, was replaced. That was more of a success than the relatively unarmed ghetto fighters could have hoped for.

Ilan Pappe. A Cardboard Tiger?

As foretold by Aruri, and discussed earlier here, Dr. Ilan Pappe, until recently one of the Israeli "New Historians" and senior lecturer at Haifa University, has come to Vancouver and given a talk at the Public Library (VPL). He is now head of the History Department at the University of Exeter (UK). It was of no great surprise that like the other speakers here on the “Israeli – Palestinian Conflict”, he is opposed to a peace agreement that would establish a Palestinian state living at peace with the existing Israeli one. My earlier complaint that all the public here is allowed to hear on this is the far right voice of the CanWest press and what I called the “library left” reflected my ignorance as to how such library space is obtained: by the organizers paying for it. So I owe an apology to any of the librarians who view themselves as of the left. The StopPeace left is more descriptive, anyway.

Having referred to Pappe as the heavyweight among the opponents of two states (“the global consensus”), specifically in relation to Prof. Aruri, I would not have called him that on the basis of his talk here. I had read the transcript of the public debate he had with Uri Avnery in Tel Aviv before writing that, and he was much better there. But I doubt that he got anywhere near the applause and standing ovation that he got here. A new hero born for a new season.

When I arrived, ahead of the scheduled start, there were people prevented from getting in. The large hall was full. I had already experienced worse, when I tried to get a ticket for the “My Name is Rachel Corrie” play and was told at the Havana Theater that ticket sales would start half an hour before the play. I arrived a quarter of an hour before that and was told it was sold out, but if I waited (¾ hour), maybe....; but I was too angry to wait, in part because I knew that this had been arranged intentionally. Groups had been organized to fill the small theatre, to one of which my participation had been solicited (ostensibly it was a play for the general public). For the Pappe talk, at least a dozen or two of us were then allowed in (but apparently expected to donate more). I even had a seat, in the back row.

As a professor of History, Pappe promised a history lesson, and he is clearly qualified for that. I had already followed earier (on line) an unfriendly exchange with fellow “new historian” Benny Morris resulting from a negative Pappe book review by Morris in the New Republic. Pappe views Morris as not a historian, but just a chronologist, collecting and publishing facts, rather than also interpreting them. Pappe may view the latter as the main function of a historian, possibly even with a view to changing the course of history. If I understand him correctly, it would seem like an extrapolation of what Marx thought of the task of a philosopher. And he may have a litttle too cavalier an attitude about the importance of facts, data. At least in science (“natural philosophy”) theories ought to be in harmony with the empirical.

In the later stages, the history lesson acquired more of the character of a speech to inspire the masses, with opportunities for applauding audience participation. The proper terms ought to be used. The creation of what became Israel was just another colonialist undertaking. Even though it may not have been done by an East India or Hudson's Bay Company taking profits to the Mother country, moshavot in Hebrew are such colonies but also rural villages established in Palestine, Israel. Utopian colonies of the 19^th century in North America probably are closer to moshavim or kibbutzim. So what? The word conflict is not the right term for what's been going on between Israel and Arabs or Palestinians; in view of the great disparity in power. Nakba is not the right term for what will have 60^th anniversary observances organized next month, because a Nakba can be a natural catastrophe, too (Pappe deservedly emphasizes that he has been the Israeli historian with good enough knowledge of Arabic to have real access to Arabic sources).

The proper term is supposed to be “Ethnic Cleansing”. That is the title of his new book; and was the occasion of the most prolonged applause and everyone within sight upright in a standing ovation. Since I remained seated, I can't tell whether everyone in the hall stood up or whether the last few rows were one of those organized groups. I have no serious doubts by now that there was quite a bit of what is now called ethnic cleansing; even less that the claims of close to 800 000 people having been driven out of the country by force are not a worthwhile “Palestinian narrative” they ought to fool themselves with.

Nor could I recommend it as a narrative for Jews in North America (and elsewhere) who have had ENOUGH with 40 years of occupation of the West Bank”and Gaza and would like to see some peace and justice there. I am ending my membership in Vancouver's “Jews for a Just Peace”; not because those who call the shots favour what is being called a “one state solution”, but because of their consistent propaganda against an agreement by which a Palestinian state is established now to live at peace next to the Israeli one; while dishonestly pretending to be inclusive for all Jews who reject the occupation. Apart from a general dislike of deliberate dishonesty, I don't like to be manipulated, especially not by people clearly far less informed.

As to Pappe, who is well informed, I don't know enough about him to understand how he got to this point. After completing his studies, he directed research at Givat Haviva, to which I contributed $100 at about that time (for which the receipt is shown).

From Various

It became evident right then that those running that event in San Francisco were not people like kHaviva Reik, the young woman parachuted into Nazi occupied Slovakia during their uprising, but it must have been better at the institute named after her.

kHaviva Reik

Did he also come from the HaShomer HaTza'ir and what, if any, relation to Simha Flapan. Does he seriously expect to prevail? My guess is that his current celebration as hero of the StopPeace left will be as transitory as that of his predecessors. Maybe it already started that evening; when signatures were solicited for Mordecai Briemberg, who had chaired the meeting, and for whom a special committee is being formed, including Pappe. I had already there signed the statement to CanWest, although I'd rather have Pappe a little longer as the local hero; for reasons I hope to have the time to clarify.