Trudy Gold
Liberation and the Aftermath 1945-1946

Trudy Gold - Liberation and Aftermath 1945-1946

- Now, why did I call this presentation “Liberation and Aftermath”? We decided that, as we come to the Festival of Pesach, which is a festival of freedom, you will have noticed that many of the lectures are on these kind of themes. And on Monday, my colleague, Lyn Julius, will be giving a lecture following on from Alec Nacamuli on the exodus of the Jews from the Arab world, the forgotten exodus. I really hummed and hawed about looking at the liberation because, in many ways, the liberation was not a liberation. Liberation to me means that you go to actually actively rescue people. And one of the problems when you deal with this terrible period of Jewish history is, and it’s one of the problems that really besets us to this day, is could the Jews of Europe have been saved, could any of them have been saved, and was there the will to save them? Now, many of you will know that I’ve already addressed these kind of questions before, but psychologically, I think this had an extraordinary impact on the Jewish people. And in terms of the liberation of the camps and the impact on the Shoah on the Jewish world and what happened directly afterwards, I would suggest to you that history is totally insufficient to give you the answers, even psychology. It is so profound. Even the word Holocaust is a wrong word. It means a burnt offering, a sacrifice. What was the sacrifice? It was just that the word was used in the early ‘50s to try and explain the inexplicable. And another very important point to remember, that in the early days, there was very little work done on the murder of the Jews of Europe.

Yes, there were the black books, and yes, survivors did record their experiences, but an attempt to put a pattern, really, it’s the late '50s and it’s the Eichmann Trial more than anything else that made Israel address the question, and not only Israel, made the world address the question. Because what is absolutely true is that the Holocaust has had the most profound effect, not just on the Jewish world, but on the whole of the Western world. And it’s still a question: What can really come out of the West since the Shoah? And it’s led us to a huge number of dilemmas. Now these are dilemmas that we will be addressing. So what I want to do today before I really begin the presentation is to give you dilemmas for you to think about and also to weigh up in your own minds, because we are going to be having more debates and I think this is a very, very important area. Now, the first question to ask, as you know, I’ve lectured quite often on the subject of anti-Semitism. So the first question I would want you to think about: Is anti-Semitism unique or is anti-Semitism an extreme form of prejudice along with every other kind of prejudice? Was the Shoah a logical product of 2,000 years of hatred, particularly the hatred of the Christian Church? Or was it almost out of time? As some psychologists have called it, Planet Auschwitz. How central was Jew hatred to Nazi policy?

Was it instrumental to Nazi policy or was it accidental? This is known as the intentionalist-functionalist debate. I personally have no truck with it whatsoever because they died. Jews were the special victims, the major victims, or were they victims along with Slavs, Roma, homosexuals? Are all the hatreds equal because they were deaths? Towards the end of the war, killing Jews became more important than winning the war, or were the murders just a byproduct of World War II? Without Hitler, could it have happened, or were thousands of people actually involved and it could have happened without him? Now, this is one that’s terribly painful, but it is a debate and a dilemma so I am going to mention it. An emphasis on Jewish passivity on one level and exaggerating the incidents of Jewish resistance. Now, this is an area I feel so strongly about, and when you actually look at the instances of Jewish resistance, it is quite extraordinary. So I do find this debate rather painful, but it is used by certain political factions to say that we didn’t resist enough. We went like sheep to the slaughter, to quote Abba Kovner, who I’ll be lecturing on next week. Another very, very important debate, the creation of the State of Israel was actually the product of 19th and 20th century European and Jewish history. And the side answer to that, would Israel have come into being without the Shoah?

The Holocaust was unique. It was a unique tragedy of a unique people. The counter argument, it is within the scope of other tragedies and catastrophes to the Jewish people and the history of other people. Don’t forget that many ultra-Orthodox Jews, and they lost more than anyone else, never forget that, percentagewise, the ultra-Orthodox, the Hasidic community, they lost 94% of their members. Take that on. It’s beyond imagination. And they prefer to honour on Tisha B'Av because they see it as a continuum. And then of course, Emil Fackenheim, who was himself a survivor and a theologian of the Holocaust. What did he say? Since the Shoah, there is now a 614th commandment: Do not give Hitler a posthumous victory. And that has been taken to mean never, ever allow this kind of thing to happen to the Jewish people again, or the Nazis tried to dehumanise us. The Nazis tried to take away our humanity and our love of morality. We must remain the beacon of light. We must remain, if you like, the conscience of the world. And within the stratum of those two debates is an extraordinary, there’s… And of course. So those are the dilemmas. But what about the actuality? And that’s why I say it’s almost too big to take on the huge demographic change. Look, in 1939, there were 18 million Jews in the world. There are now about 14 million. We still haven’t made the numbers up. What was the destruction?

The heartland, the Jews of Europe. If you’re going to say that Poland in many ways was the heartland of the Jewish world with over 3 ¼ million people, if you think of Poland, and we’ve spent a lot of time on it, if you think of every aspect of Jewish life in Poland, from the ultra religious through the Bundes, through the secularists, 40 Jewish newspapers in Warsaw alone, the Zionists, the great theatre productions, the Yiddish cinema, the cultural life of the Jews of Warsaw, the cultural life of the Jews of Poland, and also the great religious life of the Jews of Poland, it was the heartland of the Jewish world. And of course, that was totally destroyed by the Shoah. The demographic change is profound. America emerges as the most important Jewish community in the world, and ironically, the Jews of Britain, let’s be careful because, of course, Jews on the Channel Islands were murdered. But the Jews of Britain were untouched by the murders. So Anglo Jewry, which had always been a bit of a backwater, was untouched. South African Jewry, Canadian Jewry, Australian Jewry, they’re going to become important. French Jewry, of course, was ravaged. But then you’re going to see the great influx of Jews from the old French colonies.

So today, of course, you have France and Britain in the West as very important Jewish communities. And remember I’m talking about 1945, 1946. But this is almost extraordinary, isn’t it, that three years after the Shoah, the creation of the State of Israel after 2,000 years? I’m going to suggest to you that Zionism was not the major response of Jews before the Shoah. You just have to look at the immigration figures. In 1933, there were 215,000 Jews in Palestine. Now, that’s not to say it’s not central to Jewish experience. When we sat around the seder table, and I’m sure it’s fresh in all of our minds, “Next year in Jerusalem,” it’s absolutely a centre. But Zionism was not the option for the bulk of Jews before the Shoah. After the Shoah, it’s going to be become incredibly important. And of course, it’s going to lead to the creation of the state. Something else for you to consider. The Shoah was a slap in the face of assimilation. German Jewry, the most assimilated community in the Jewish world, more German than the German. I was reading an account of a German Jew who in 1933 fled to Paris and he said, “How can I live in the country of my enemy?” So you have this terrible slap in the face, to think of the incredible Jewish success story in Europe, how Jews had given so much to the Western world and now the slap in the face. And something else. After the Shoah, almost a neurosis about anti-Semitism. Let me quote the great Isaiah Berlin. He said, “On the subject of anti-Semitism, before the war, we were insomniacs,” sorry, “before the war, we were sleepwalkers. Now we’re insomniacs.” He also said, “Yes, we are paranoid now as a people, but with our history, we should be.”

And also, a movement, I would suggest to you a polarisation. Prior to the Enlightenment, and even more prior to the Shoah, traditional Judaism was finally balanced between universalism and particularism. Now, I would suggest to you there’s a return to particularism. So what have I done by giving you all these dilemmas except to say that these are areas I want you all to think about. Because of course, I always think that Passover, where I hope most of you are on this year with your families or with your friends, and it’s interesting how it always coincides with Easter, that it’s a time to think about these dilemmas. I’m not suggesting answers. All I’m saying is what I’m trying to do is to bring together the dilemmas that faced the Jewish people. So then of course, let’s come on to the actual opening up of the camps. I’m not calling it liberation. Can we see the first slide, please? Because I want to come out, there’s one subject I really am coming out permanently on one side, and that’s Adolf Hitler’s absolute obsession with the Jews. This is the final letter. Many of you will know this. It’s the final letter from the bunker, and he wrote it the day before he committed suicide. So let’s read it. “But nor have I left any doubt that if the nations of Europe are once more to be treated only as a collection of stocks and shares of those international conspirators in money and finance, then those who carry the real guilt for this murderous struggle, this people will also have to be held responsible: the Jews!

I have further left no one in doubt that this time it will not be only millions of children of Europeans of the Aryan peoples,” the obsession with race, “who will starve to death, and not only hundreds of thousands of women and children who will be burned and bombed to death in the cities, without those who are really responsible also having to atone for their crime, even if by more,” and it should be humane means, “humane means. But before everything else, I call upon the leadership of the nation and those who follow it to observe the racial laws most carefully, to fight mercilessly against the poisoners of all the people of the world, international Jewry.” Now remember, that was written by a man. And now let’s have a look at the next slide, please, Judi. Because this is what I meant by the numbers. Just go through the figures and it’s absolutely mind-blowing that nearly six million Jews were murdered. And that is one of the reasons Yad Vashem collects the names, because some towns, villages were wiped out completely. And if there’s no one left to record, there’s no one left to remember. So we have to, as the people of memory, we have to remember. Those of you who are South African, have a look at the figures for Lithuania. 90% of Lithuanian Jewry died, 85% of Polish Jewry, and so it goes on and on and on and on. There were hero countries. Please don’t forget the Danes, the Danish fishing fleet who actually took Jews off to neutral Sweden.

Please don’t forget the Albanians, who had a code of honour called Besa, and particularly the mountain people, and any Jew who managed to escape into Albania was saved. And we’ve already discussed there were incredibly righteous individuals from country to country. But the point was, at the government level, at church level, nobody really was prepared to stick their necks out. Individual clergymen, yes. Individuals, always. A few weeks before Yontif, I talked about Wallenberg and Carl Lutz, just to name two very famous people. But there are thousands and thousands of rescuers. There are over 35,000 honoured by Yad Vashem, and there are thousands more who refuse to be honoured. And also, it’s been estimated that for every Jew who survived, it took five people to hide, et cetera, et cetera. So those very, very dark figures, And the map is from Martin Gilbert’s atlas, his history atlas. And I’ve mentioned this to you before, Martin Gilbert’s books are absolutely essential for those of you who want to study the Holocaust, his map books. Because one of the issues of Jewish history is, of course, Jewish geography. Now you can see from that just how dark the picture was. And please don’t forget all wars. It’s not just the Nazi Party. I’ve stretched this, I really, it’s important just to remember there were wonderful people who rescued. Please don’t forget how many people collaborated. When I talked about Slovakia, remember, it was a priest, Tiso, who gave the Germans money to take Jews. It was the collaborators from country to country to country.

France, by the way, managed to put herself as a great flower of the resistance. The picture is much more dark. And we’re going to be having a very detailed look at the whole of French and French Jewish history, probably in the January term. So can we please go on a little. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for that, Judi. Try and imagine, if you can, what Europe was like at the end of the war. The Germans with their crazy race policy had transported over eight million people. Remember, Slavs were expendable. So there are eight million refugees on the move in Europe. And the other point to remember is how did the camps begin to fall, the camps, the six camps whose purpose solely was murder? Well, Auschwitz was dual, but they were all in Poland. The first camp to be liberated, I’m going to use that word, by the Soviets, was Majdanek near Lublin. That was in July of 1944. It’s fascinating, is it not, in a very dark way that the murders go on and on and on, even after the liberation of the first camp. We know that the Germans did try to hide the evidence of mass murder by demolishing much of the camp, but parts, including the gas chambers, were left behind. And of course, as the Soviets advanced, you have the death marches. Because as I said to you, by this time, and I really believe this, murdering Jews was more important than winning the war.

Now, this is a debate that I think the position I’ve just put has really been the one taken up. When I first studied history, the Shoah was treated with respect, but as a footnote, but that was a long, long, long time ago. Today, it is accepted by most historians that once the war is coming to an end, the one war aim that the Nazis can succeed in, they believe, is the murder of the Jews. So as the Soviets advanced, the Nazis began to transport prisoners, some by train, but many on forced marches in the most appalling conditions without proper food, without proper clothes. And many of these marches lasted weeks. You will remember that when we looked at Budapest, disobeying Himmler’s orders, Eichmann went back to Budapest to help the Arrow Cross with that appalling death marches of Budapest Jews back into Germany and Austria. And I’ve had friends of mine like Trude Levi, who is no longer with us and a remarkable woman who was on that death march. And she told me an interesting story, because we do need to humanise it. By this time, she said she must have weighed about six stone and she fell. And a soldier was about to, a German soldier, a Nazi was about to shoot her when his friend said, “Don’t waste a bullet.” So she’s freezing by the roadside when a farmer took her into his barn and saved her life. Never forget that there is the other side to the human condition. On the 27th of January, 1945, which of course is the day where we commemorate the Shoah, that is when the Soviets arrived in Auschwitz.

And as you all know, there were only a few thousand left. Why? Because of the forced marches back to Belsen, to Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Theresienstadt, and Ravensbruck, or many of the sub-camps. There were thousands of camps in Nazi-occupied Europe. And when, it was the British that finally occupied Belsen, that a deal had been done with Himmler. Himmler at this stage had some sort of fantasy that he could actually make a deal with the Allies. He wanted to split the British and the Americans with the Russians, and he wanted to become the new head of state. Remember, one of Hitler’s last acts was to want Himmler put on trial for treason. And what happened as a result of that is that the SS left Belsen. They didn’t shoot the remaining prisoners. And by the time the British got to Belsen, there were over 60,000 people in the camp. They were starving. They were ill. They were without food or water. 60% of them had typhus. And of course, when the British army arrived there, they fed some of the prisoners, and more tragically, more and more of them died as a result of overeating. In fact, my very close friend, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, was in Belsen, and often when she speaks in public, people say to her, “How did you feel?” And she always says, “I didn’t feel anything.” She gets very cross when people ask her that because she said there were no feelings left. And she said, “We were barely, barely human.” Now, when the Allies arrive in Belsen, we know from the soldiers who wrote about it, the images are going to haunt them for the best rest of their lives. They found over 13,000 unburied bodies. You can imagine many of them have been on the death marches, and I think that is such a poignant picture there.

And I’m going to, can we see the next, can we see the next slide, please? I’m going to read to you. Richard Dimbleby reported from the camp, and this is his broadcast because, important to remember, they had an incredible impact on public opinion through Europe and America, just as the Americans were also liberating camps and films were being shown on cinema, and it did have a profound impact on public opinion. And this is what Richard Dimbleby said. “Here, over an acre of ground, lay dead and dying people. You could not see what was the living. They lay with their heads against the corpses and around them moved this awful, ghostly possession of the emaciated people, with nothing to do and with no hope.” He later said that his day at Belsen was the most terrible of his life. And tragically, over 13,000 people died after the liberation, and of course, that included Anne Frank, and her diary had such a profound effect on so many children throughout the world. But a question for you in the dilemmas that I’m putting to you. To what extent has the story of Anne Frank been universalized and dejudaized? I’m being very provocative today. Now, I may have mentioned to you in the past that one of the first Jewish doctors into Belsen was brother-in-law to Sidney Bernstein. Let’s have a look at Sidney’s face. And it was, of course, Sidney who later on had a dazzling career. Well, he had a dazzling career in Britain and created Granada and became really one of the great moguls. He and his brother, they became the great moguls of British television and cinema.

You know, it’s a byline, but I suppose it’s an important byline. The impact of Jews on British entertainment is quite profound. We don’t shout about it as much as an America, but it’s just as profound. Now, Sidney made the film of the liberation of Belsen. There were five reels. And he did it with advice from Alfred Hitchcock because they were working together on a film called “Under Capricorn,” and he advised him exactly how to do it. But the point was that these particular films were to be shown throughout Germany. They weren’t just to be shown in English cinema. In the end, they were not shown in Germany. What happened was people from the surrounding camps, from the surrounding villages and towns, including the mayors, were brought in to see the ravages. But what happened was a decision was made by the Allies that they didn’t want to rub Germany’s nose too deeply into the mud, and I’ll talk about that in a minute, and the films were not shown. And later on, they were… Sidney Bernstein himself made a film called “A Painful Reminder,” where he used the film as the centrepiece of why the film was never made. And then again, Andre Singer, about three years, no, about five years ago now, made a film because they found the last reel at the Imperial War Museum. And this is all available. So Sidney makes this film. Now, the survivors. If we’re going to take Anita’s point, and you know, I’ve had the privilege in my life to work with many survivors, and they all said the same thing. The first thing they want to know was, who in my town, who in my village, and more important, who in my family has survived?

Now, how did people survive? Some had been hidden by righteous people. Some had been hidden for money. Some had, of course, been sent or fled into deepest Russia. Others had created partisan brigades like the extraordinary Zorin or the extraordinary Bielski brigade. And also, there was an agreement between the Soviets and the Poles to repatriate. So thousands of Jews begin to come back to Poland from the east. Now what about the survivors? I’ve already said, imagine the chaos in Europe. I’m sure you’ve all seen so much footage. Tragically, many of you will have experienced it, the bombed-out cities, the lack of food, the lack of resources. And the other point to bring up is the beginnings of the Cold War. Think about it. Himmler had actually believed he could have divided the Allies. Think about Stalin. When the Poles finally revolted against the Nazis, Stalin’s army was the other side of the river of Vistula waiting to see who would win. Stalin had a dream. Stalin wanted to recapture the Tsarist Empire. Now, those of you who studied history will know that the Tsarist Empire at its height covered a sixth of the land surface of the globe. Those of you who are spending a lot of time thinking about the appalling situation in Ukraine, does Putin see himself as another tsar, and will he stop? Also, think about Stalin and his theory of revolution, the action of gradually the Sovietization and the communilization of Europe.

So Stalin’s forces encroaching from the east, the Cold War was beginning. Now, it’s important to mention, and I’m going to be talking about this next week, I’ve alluded to it in other lectures, but I’m going to be pulling it all together for you, the disproportionate number of Jews who have been attracted to left-wing movements. And Dennis Davis will be talking about social justice within the Jewish tradition and he’s also going to be talking about Isaac Deutscher’s interesting book, “The Non-Jewish Jews.” Because whatever one thinks about it, the leadership of the left-wing communist parties of the end of the war in Poland, in Slovakia, in Czechoslovakia, the majority of the leaders were of Jewish birth. So the Soviets are conquering in the east. You have the Polish government in exile. You have all these governments in exile, but it’s going to the Soviets. They’ve done a deal, remember, with the Allies. Even Germany is split into the American, French, British, and Russian zone. And also, whatever one thinks of Stalin, the Russians had suffered more than any other people. The Russians were Slavs. They were expendable. Whereas in the main Allied, the Allied prisoners were afforded the Geneva Convention. There were some horrific exceptions, but in the main they were. But as far as the Russians were concerned, they were slaves of the state. They were expendable and they were sold at wholesale. So there’s a lot of bitterness.

And also, the Cold War, the image of the Jew and communism. So having said that the first instinct is to try and find out if anyone survived in the families, Jews begin to go back to the towns and villages of Eastern Europe, where, now, the important collections, the important wealthy families being in Germany, in Austria, wherever, they in the main were looted by the Nazis. Because never forget the venality of it all. But what about ordinary families? What about families in the villages, the homes, the possessions, the bedding? Just think about a poor little shtetl in Belarus or a poor little shtetl in eastern Poland. I’ve travelled in these areas. You know, when we first travelled just as communism collapsed, what was extraordinary, you could go to little villages and towns and you could still see where the mezuzah ought to have been pulled out of the walls because of the poverty. They hadn’t repaired them. So consequently, they go home and what happens? They are met with what? They’re met with hostility. It was also, I think, the cheapening of life in war. But it’s not just hostility. It’s also, of course, venality. It’s the fear of Jews as communists. And also, I have to say this, the horror story of a certain aspect of the Catholic Church. One of the other ramifications of the Shoah was, would the Christian world live up to their responsibility in the Shoah, in the extermination of the Jewish people?

Historians like Hyam Maccoby and Robert Wistrich would go as far as to say that one of the main planks that led to Auschwitz was in fact the hostility of the Church. Pius XII, who was pope in the war years, he himself had been papal nuncio in Bavaria, excuse me, at the end of the First World War. He had witnessed revolution, mainly perpetrated by people of Jewish birth. He wrote the most violently anti-Semitic letters about that. He had a German housekeeper. It was he who in 1933 signed a concordat with Hitler, July of '33. “I will leave Hitler alone as long as Hitler leaves the Catholic Church alone.” He made no statements about the Jews during the war. And it has to be said, in Poland, the anti-Semitism does not die with the Shoah. If one of the reasons behind anti-Semitism was Jewish power, here you are absolutely witnessed with the most appalling power. But the other canard, Jews are communists or Jews are Christ-killers. And I’m going to go back a little, because can we see the next picture, please? Cardinal August Hlond, who was one of the great heroes of the Catholic Church. Now, he was the Polish cardinal primate of Poland, and he was brave. He was arrested by the Gestapo. He becomes a huge critic of the communist-backed Polish government post-World War II. And concerned by the growing anti-Semitism in Poland, Joseph Tenenbaum, who was president of the US-based World Federation, he met with Hlond in June 1946 and he said, “Jews,” and this is a quote, “Jews were being killed in retaliation of the murder of the Christian population by the Jewish-Communist run Polish government.”

Because what happened was as Jews began to return to Eastern Europe, there were hundreds of murders. Over 1,000 Jews are going to be murdered. So Tenenbaum goes to see Hlond and he refuses to intervene. In the war, on the 18th of September 1939, he’d left Poland at the request of the Polish government to go to Rome and report on the Nazi actions. And he said this: “Many priests are imprisoned, suffering humiliations, blows, maltreatment. A certain number were deported to Germany. Others have been detained in concentration camps. Many are subjected to barbarous torture. The Canon Casimir Stepczynski was forced into the company of a Jew to carry away human excrement. A curate who tried to take the place of a venerable priest was brutally beaten.” So he’s brave. He goes off to Rome. And in his final observation to Pius XII, he wrote this: “Hitlerism aims at the total destruction of the Catholic Church. It’s known for certain that 35 priests have been shot. In many districts, the Church has been crushed. The Church and the cemeteries are in the hands of invaders. All has been pillaged.” Now after the war… Remember, he’s brave. He’s tortured by the Gestapo, but he’s got a real problem with the Jews. And after the war, Pius XII appoints him Bishop of Warsaw. He speaks out against the communist persecution of the church because what happened was the Polish government, the new communist government, at least 50% of its membership were Jews by the way, which led to the problem, people of Jewish birth. He spoke out against the nationalisation of the Catholic schools. His relation though, his relations with the Jews had always been rather strange.

And this is a letter of 1936. After 1936, between '36 and '39, anti-Semitism in Poland was quite palpable. And this is what he wrote, a pastoral letter: “So long as the Jews remain Jews, a Jewish problem exists and will continue to exist. It is a fact that the Jews are waging war against the Catholic Church. They are steeped in free-thinking and constitute the vanguard of atheism, the Bolshevik movement, and revolutionary activity. It is a fact that they have a strong influence on morals and that their publishing houses are spreading pornography. It is true that they are perpetrating fraud, usury, and dealing prostitution. Jewish youth have a negative effect on Catholic youth.” He goes on to say, “But there are many Jews who are believers, honest, just, kind, and philanthropic. We know Jews who are ethically outstanding, noble, and are ethically upstanding and upright. One may love one’s nation more, but may not hate anyone, even Jews.” Now, he makes these kind of statements. He’s a great hero in the war. And in fact, I think he’s up for beatification and canonization. But what happens, of course, in Poland, you begin to… As I’ve already mentioned, the murders. The same thing was happening in Slovakia. The same thing is happening in many of these places where survivors go home. As I said to you, was it venality, their property had been taken? And I’m talking about poor little houses. Is it because they were all communist or is it the Catholic Church usurping itself again?

But certainly, it all comes to the fall in Kielce. Now Kielce, can we see the next slide, please? Yeah. By the summer… Kielce is in the south of Poland. By the summer of 1946, about 200 survivors had returned to Kielce, and about 160 of them were quartered in a single building administered by the Jewish community. And on the 1st of July, an eight-year-old boy, Henryk Blaszczyk, was reported missing by his father. According to his father, the boy later claimed he’d been kidnapped by an unknown man, allegedly a Jew. Two days later, the boy, his father, and a neighbour went to the local communist controlled police force. Whilst passing the Jewish house, evidently, the boy pointed to a man who he claimed had kidnapped him and had put him in the house cellar. The boy claimed that the Jews were involved in his kidnapping. The police searched the building. They didn’t find anything. The boy withdrew the kidnapping claim. Later on, by the way, when he was an old man in 1998, in an interview with a Polish journalist, he claimed that he actually said, “I was never kidnapped, but went to live with another family in a nearby village.” But the rumour spread. You’ve got to remember, the communists are in control in the cities. Human life is cheap. The rumour of the kidnapping spread, and also, it gets out of control. The evil Jews are kidnapping Christian babies and they intend to use them for ritual purposes.

Now, what happens was a civic militia built into, actually, went into the building. There was no abducted children, but they made the inhabitants, the Jews staying there, actually give up all their weapons, for which they had proper permits. And also they had to give up their valuables. Someone started firing. The whole thing escalated. There were killings on both sides. The head of the Jewish committee was fatally wounded. And a number of priests attempted to enter the building and what happened was the mob, on the rampage, Jews were driven out of the building by soldiers. And they were later attacked by civilians and they were stoned. By noon, over 800 workers from a local steel mill arrived and Jews were battered to death. No one attempted to stop the pogrom. It involved women and children. And in fact, a Jewish nurse who was mistaken for a Polish woman attempting to aid Jews were also murdered. Two Jews not residing in the house were murdered in a separate incident. Everything got out of hand. There were three non-Jewish Poles who tried to help. They were amongst the dead. Two state servicemen were killed by Jews who were attempting to defend themselves. And the whole thing, the mayhem continued. And remember, this is a year after the Shoah. It ceased when troops arrived from Warsaw. However, any train passing through Kielce was scrutinised for Jews by civilians, by railway guards. Two passengers were murdered.

And in fact, the train murders continued after the pogrom. 30 people were murdered after the pogrom was ceased. It becomes sort of infighting between the communists and the Polish government in the West. Because remember, there’s a Polish government in exile in London. The Polish communist government takes control and there’s a respectful burying of the dead. Between 9th and the 11th of July, 12 civilians were arrested as perpetrators. Nine of them were sentenced to death. And the militia commander was sentenced to one year for failing to stop the crowd. However, it was enough. The murders in Slovakia, in fact, the man who had led the Sobibor uprising was murdered by a bunch of fascists. The reaction of the Catholic Church, let me read to you. This is six months before the pogrom. A hand grenade had been thrown into the headquarters of local, a group of Jews, and this is what the bishop of Kielce said. Now this is before the pogrom. “As long as Jews concentrate on their private business, Poland is interested in them. But at the point that Jews interfere in Polish politics and public life, they insult the Polish national sensibilities.” There were similar statements from the bishop of Lublin, who himself gave credence to the Blood Libel, and he actually said he understood why the Germans murdered the Jews. It was criticised in Britain. It was criticised in America. And the American ambassador to Poland insisted that Cardinal Hlond explain the position of the Church. On the 11th of July, he condemned the violence but blamed Jewish collaboration with the communists.

He said, “Whilst the Jews occupy leading positions in Poland and in state life, this will always happen.” And in fact, it was in the year… And this is where you come to this extraordinary tussle between Catholicism and the Jews. Now let me make a few statements on this, because I know we’ve had lectures on it on in the past, but I still think it’s a very, very important issue to go further on. There was a brilliant book written in 1949 called “God’s First Love” by a man called Heer. He was a Protestant theologian and he said, basically, the Christian world had to come to terms with its role in the murders of the Jews of Europe. In addition, and as I’ve already stated, Pius XII made no statements. And in fact, post-war, the Vatican was actually instrumental in stopping Jewish children who’d been hidden in monasteries and in convents from being reunited with survivors because of the Catholic belief, to save the soul, you have to be a baptised Catholic. In addition, the Vatican did quite a lot to influence South American and Catholic countries against voting for partition. And the other point that’s been investigated quite a lot on “Lockdown,” of course, by Philippe Sands, is that never forget that the ratline came out of the Vatican. We’re not taking it all up to Pius XII, let’s be careful here, but over 5,000 wanted war criminals did escape either to the Arab world or to South America via the Vatican ratline. So the Catholic Church has a huge, I think it still has a huge question. There were some extraordinary characters, like, of course, Pope John XXIII, and who did try and save Jews in the war and was successful along with many other clerics. And of course, it did lead finally to the Vatican Council. In 1962, they did finally, because of pressure, mainly from American cardinals. Why? Because the Catholic Kennedy is president of America.

They did debate the whole issue of the deicide. And it was decided, the Americans wanted the Jews to be completely exonerated. What was decided was that the Jews at the time of Jesus were guilty, but not all Jews in all perpetuity. So you have had that issue going forward. But in 2018, the Vatican advanced the sainthood of Cardinal Hlond because, to them, he’s a hero. To me, he’s an anti-Semite. To them, he’s a hero. So this is another one of his statements. “So long as Jews remain,” this is in '37, “So long as Jews remain Jews, a Jewish problem exists and will continue to exist. But it is forbidden to beat up, maim, or slander Jews. Beware of inciting violence. They are serving a bad cause. It’s a fact that the Jews are waging war against the Catholic Church so they are in the vanguard of atheism, the Bolshevik movement, and revolution.” He encouraged Poles to boycott the Jewish shops. So the picture I’m making, look, of those who survived in the West, ¾ went back to France, to Belgium, to Holland. But of those who survived in the East… And remember the repatriation, so you’ve got hundreds of thousands of Jews coming back from Russia, of those who survived, to be greeted by this in Poland, in Slovakia, in so many of the other parts of Eastern Europe, it was enough and it’s going to lead to a movement called Bricha Escape, which I’ll be talking about when I look at Abba Kovner and did. And also, please don’t forget. Thank you. Can you go on, please?

Let’s have a look at the Bielski. Here you see, these are… I’ve lectured on this in the past because my very close friend, Jack Kagan, of course, was in the Bielski. These are various Jewish brigades. These are both Bielksi. But don’t forget, there were many freedom fighters in the ghettos who survived in Vilna, in Warsaw. And also, let us not neglect the Jewish brigade. In the end, and I’ll be talking about this on Thursday, the British did allow Palestinian Jews to have their own brigade. And they were fighting in North Africa, I beg your pardon, in Italy at the end of the war. And many of them made… Because once the camps are liberated, Jews were put in DP camps attached to the camps. And what happens is who went into the camps to try and do things? Well, of course, the Red Cross. But Jewish organisations were allowed in, organisations like The Joint, extraordinary organisations. And the Jewish Brigade, partisans, partisans who’d fought for the communists, individual Jewish partisans, they go into the camps. And what becomes absolutely imperative to so many of the survivors, the Bricha movement was a movement to get the Jews out of Eastern Europe. Where to? Well, obviously for the Zionists, it’s got to be Palestine, but they need… The British astound the Western world because the British decide not to alter the White Paper. And consequently, the Zionists are now determined that they have got to break the British blockade and go for statehood now.

Back in May 1942 at the Biltmore Hotel, when evidence came through of what was going on in Europe, the Zionist organisation, through a man, called for a Jewish state now. I’ll be talking about this on Thursday. So in the camps, in the DP camps, in the main, the Jews were allowed to organise themselves. And which zones do they go into? The majority are going to be pushed into the American zone, which was the most lax, and more important, America, can pressure be put on America to put pressure on the British to open the gates of Palestine? And it’s not as altruistic as that, because did Truman really want thousands of Jewish survivors in New York? It’s a very, very moot question. There are so many shades of argument in all of these kind of things. Who are the heroes? Who are the villains? And that’s what I’m going to be talking about next week. So the Bricha movement, it’s going to bring over 100,000 Jews from Eastern Europe, survivors. It’s going to help them go back, sometimes the most appalling conditions, going over the Alps back from Eastern Europe into the American zone in Germany with a dream of Palestine. David Ben-Gurion visited the camps.

Now, this is when Zionism becomes the majority movement. On one level, what had the Zionists always said? Anti-Semitism is a psychic aberration. It’s a 2,000-year-old disease. Only if you become a normal nation, normal, as though Jews could ever be normal, will we have our place amongst the nations. And it’s really, this is how Zionism, because think about it, 1945, this appalling catastrophe. And what then happens is, of course, three years later, the creation of the Jewish State. Can we see the last slide, please, Judi? There you see, there is the Bricha. Yeah. So we will come onto that next, we will come onto that on Thursday. I see I have quite a few questions, Judi.

Q&A and Comments:

Sonja’s saying Jews were the burnt offering in crematoria. Yes, but it’s a sacrifice. The word is a sacrifice. They never wanted to be sacrificed.

Q: “How can we address Holocaust deniers?”

A: Oh, Arlene. How do you defeat those who have not one brain or logic in their head? How do we address Holocaust deniers? Well, there’s been quite a few court cases on it now and governments are making a stand on it. It’s not even Holocaust denial that worries me. Relativism worries me just as much. More on that later on.

Q: David, “Do you think in a person’s mind anti-Semitism can stand alone, or is it more associated with a more general anti-racism?”

A: That is a very, very interesting question and it’s certainly going to be in one of our debates. One of the problems, I’m speaking very personally here, that I perceive is that many people who see themselves as anti-racist still have a problem with the Jews. And certain other victim groups tragically see us as white and they see us as perpetrators. So we have a real problem here. I want to take that much, much further, David. Fackenheim was warning against assimilation. That’s one interpretation, one interpretation. Or you could say Fackenheim is saying Israel must be strong at all costs. We must never, ever be weak as a nation.

Adrian, “Israel as a state came about because the Balfour Declaration the UN voted on.” Yes. Now, Adrian, you’re taking very much the firm Zionist line. I’m not coming out one side or the other. The Balfour Declaration was an important step. And yes, the UN did vote on November 1947. I want you to think about Gromyko’s statement to the United Nations, where basically, he electrifies the assembly when he says the Jews, because of the Holocaust, are owed a nation. Now the Zionist line in Israel is very much, “It would’ve happened anyway.” Many diaspora historians believe it took the worst tragedy in Jewish history to give the impetus. It’s the debate, Adrian.

I forgot to mention Bulgaria. I beg your pardon. We were doing a session on it, Nita. Yes, yes. Look, obviously, I didn’t spend a lot of time on who saved. We’ve been looking at rescuers in various ways and we will spend more time on rescuers. Yes, Bulgaria, Assisi, yes, they were all, and Le Chambon in France. There are so many examples of people who were marvellous. What I find fascinating is what makes a rescuer. We know what makes a villain, but what makes a rescuer? That really, really interests me. What makes a collaborator? Think of all the German businesses that made a fortune out of slave labour. And the other point that I didn’t bring up in this presentation, because I was running out of time, is that please, one of the ramifications of this was of course the creation of the whole notion or the extension of the whole notion of human rights. And it was down to really two very interesting Jewish lawyers, both of whom were children of, well, Hersch Lauterpacht, who was the child of Polish Jews, and also, oh, my brain isn’t working, the other important man who came up with the term genocide. And I know that Dennis Davis will be lecturing on that later on.

This is from Mark. “I had the distinct pleasure of learning from Emil Fackenheim at the University of Toronto, which brought the Holocaust most visibly to our class. Thank you for bringing up that wonderful experience when you mentioned his name. It was an honour and a privilege.” Yes, Mark, it would’ve been, it would’ve been, yes.

“Please explain pluralism and universalism.”

Can you leave that for next week? Because again, you asked me big, deep questions. “In France, there were more Vichy members than those in the resistance.” Yes, it’s fascinating, isn’t it, Adrian, how France really got away with it?

Jeffrey, “I just read a book that details France saved 75% of its Jews and that 90% of French Jews survived the war, including 86.” Look, let’s leave it until we’re lecturing on France because it’s much more complicated than that.

This is Rose. “You talked about people’s passivity. Elie Wiesel talks about the questionable welcome in Israel of the galuts and saw the victims in this tragedy weak, having not fought back sufficiently.” Yeah. Look. I’m going to talk about Abba Kovner. And he wrote that pamphlet, “We Will Never Again Go Like Sheep to the Slaughter.” They didn’t. They didn’t. But what is certainly true is… There’s a huge psychological problem on this, and I’m hoping… Wendy wants to run a whole strand now on psychology, and this is something I want to hand over to a psychologist, particularly an Israeli psychologist.

Q: “Do I know why all the camps were in Poland?”

A: No, not all the camps were in Poland. The death camps were in Poland. Now there are lots of different arguments on this. Some say it’s because Poland was rich in anti-Semitism. Others say that it’s because it was the bulk of the Jewish population was in Eastern Europe. Poland might have been rich in anti-Semitism, but no people were treated more brutally than the Poles. That’s why it’s so complicated. I mean, think about what’s going on in Poland at the moment. It’s actually a crime now to say that the Poles in any way collaborated.

And this is from Terry. “I’d like to call everyone’s attention to an organisation called One More Candle. You can Google the organisation. With Yad Vashem’s approval, they have a list of 1.5 million children who were murdered. You adopt a child’s name and date to say Kaddish and honour the child’s memory. It is just a way to memorialise each child.” Yes, yes. That’s very important, Terry. I agree with you.

Yes, Jonathan, the Tiso government sold their Jews like a commodity. Yes, I mentioned that in my last presentation on Slovakia. You see, it meant he had the Jewish property, which he could either sell or give away to people he needed to curry favour with. Yehuda, I don’t know the answer to your question. “You referred to a code of honour. Were the Albanians a member of one specific religion.” I’m going to check. That’s a very important question. “There was a very disturbing opinion piece in the 'New York Times,’ entitled, ‘They Are the Heirs of Nazi Fortunes and They Aren’t Apologising.’ I think this’d be an important subject for us to discuss.” Yeah, you’re right. Look, why weren’t the majority of the perpetrators brought to justice? Why was it? You see, West Germany had to be bolstered up against communism. So as a result, only 10% of those guilty of crimes against humanity were ever brought to justice. Once the Cold War is underway, even those guilty of the most horrendous crimes who hadn’t been sentenced to death were let out of jail.

This is from Joan. “Based on Father Dubois’ collection of testimonies and the uncovering of unmarked graves, Jews shot in forests or buried in pits, he feels the numbers could increase by another million.” Yes, I know about his work. Could be true. I can’t answer. “Albanians were often Muslims.” Yeah. I think some were Christian, some were Muslims. I want to check that out. Maybe you know the answer to that, Joan.

“Besa was their code of honour to help those in need. It was part of their culture.” Yes, it’s an extraordinary story.

Rachel’s saying, “The moral responsibility could not be solely attributed to Hitler and the Nazis. All sections of German society must bear responsibility.” But it’s not just Germany, is it? Think about Austria. Think about Europe. Think about the whole of Europe. Think about collaboration. You see, this is the problem. We are going through a terribly dark period at the moment with the invasion of the Ukraine. We know it’s happening. I’m not going to say anymore.

Q: “Did you know that Roman Halter, who lived the rest of his life in London, designed and built the gates of Yad Vashem?”

A: I had the honour to be friendly with Roman Halter and he actually, I’m glad you brought him up because he sent me a letter, a copy of a letter. Roman Halter, remember, he was a brilliant architect as well as an artist. And when Albert Speer was in London, he actually wrote to him. Remember, Speer was the good Nazi at Nurenberg as he got out. And he made a fortune. He wrote his book and he… To me, in many ways, he was the worst of them all because he knew better. He came from a very… Anyway, I won’t go there. But the point is he wrote to Roman, asking to meet him. He actually wrote to him. And Roman’s reply is absolutely profound. He talks about his family who died in Lodz.

Yes, Hitchcock was involved in editing the footage for Bernstein’s film. Yes, of course.

Q: What are the names of the movies?

A: Andre Singer, I can’t remember the name of his movie. “The Painful Reminder” is Bernstein’s. Google Andre Singer and the name will come up.

Nanette Spain, “I learned that the Nazi leaders all hated each other.” Yes, of course they did. They were all jealous of Hitler’s love. Can you imagine the love of that monster? And you see, Hitler was the one who gave the, look, Hitler gave, he’d have his table talk. Hitler, he wasn’t a detail man. But Hitler was, in the end… The chain of command was Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, Eichmann.

Q: “During the war itself, according to Lucy Dawidowicz, trains carrying Jews to the death camps had priority over those carrying troops. Does this conclusively make the case that the most important goal of Nazi Germany was to exterminate the Jews through the duration of the war?”

A: Look, I’m certain that towards the end of the war, it’s more important, and I think there was always a tussle with the generals over this. But I think today, historians would all agree that towards the end of the war, killing Jews was the aim they thought they could achieve. You know, a war aim is unbelievable.

This is from Mira. “My mother’s sister, Renata Zilbiger, survived a death march with another 30 out of 3,000 women who froze or starved or were shot like another aunt of mine.” Yeah, I mean the stories, and you see, this is the point. With a group such as ours that is an international group, of course there’s so much pain because it’s the story. But on one level, it’s Passover, it’s Pesach, and that story, how long have we been telling that story? And we do go on.

Yes, Richard Dimbledy had to threaten to resign before the BBC agreed to broadcast his report. It’s a very good point, Sheila. Thank you for bringing that up. And please don’t forget, I’m going to look at ‘45 to '48, which is very problematic because I’m going to say it, yeah, for a while, Anglo Jewry was totally cut in two. Because it was the Labour governments that decided to close the gate, more or less closed against Palestine.

Myrna Ross, “Putin long ago stated his goal was to reestablish the empire of Peter the Great. No way will he stop at Ukraine. He’s already amassing troops on borders of Finland.” Let’s see.

Q: “To what degree was the Catholic Church vocal about the Holocaust? Isn’t it ironic that the personality Jesus was Jewish? Can you or anyone infer what He would say about killing people who reject Him as the promised Messiah?”

A: Elliot, it’s a very, very interesting question. To a large extent, the Catholic Church dejudaized Jesus. Even his name. Miriam was Mary, but that is… I have lectured on it in the past, and after the lockdown is over… And also, Helen Frey has lectured on this, so you need… Once, not one, I beg your pardon, not the lockdown. Once our website’s up, you’ll be able to get all the lectures.

Yes, Kitty is bringing our attention to “The Truce” by Primo Levi.

Q: Matt, “When you talk about the hostility of the Church, do you mean only the Catholic Church or?”

A: Now, let me clarify. I was talking about Poland so I was talking about the Catholic Church. There was a Protestant dissenting church in Germany, but there was also a group of, there was a group of Germans under Pastor Mueller. He wore the swastika on his canonicals. They were the Confessing Church. They were Protestants. Don’t forget Lutheranism.

“A lot of Jews were hidden in the village of Chambord in the eastern massif.” And that’s a very, read “Village of Secrets” by Caroline Moorehead. Ah-ha-ha.

Tim, “You mentioned Christ killing. I didn’t think the Nazis had any religious reason for their action.” A-ha. That’s a very, very interesting point. Does the Christ-killing element factor into their reasoning? Look, the inner circle were pagan, no question of that. I was once lecturing a group of actors. They were about to play, they were performing a play that was related to the Shoah and I mentioned pagan as one of them said, “I’m a pagan. Please don’t insult pagans.” But the point is the majority of the people who voted for Hitler were Christian. Did the Christ, and of course it’s the seed bed. It’s the seed bed. Look, to the Nazis, look, the inner circle, it’s about race and blood and the pyramid of the races. But the majority of people who followed them were Christian.

This is from Rose. “The Shoah was terrible, but after this tragedy, the world would not help us.” Yeah.

This is Gwen, “What is the reason that Bulgaria was able to resist the Nazis?” A huge question I will answer, I will answer it when we look at Bulgaria.

Q: Now this is from Tim. “I always wonder, did people actually believe the stuff that that bishop was saying or was he just using it as rhetoric?”

A: Look. Look, in Russia itself, since the fall of communism, there are 376 anti-Semitic parties. Yes, I think, look, wander around the cathedrals of Europe and then answer that question, Tim. I think I have to stop now because it’s quarter to seven and there is another presentation tonight on the Ukraine I think. Is that correct, Judi?

• [Judi] That’s correct, yes.

• So Judi, again, thank you so muc, and I hope I didn’t tap anything today.

• [Judi] You did not today.

• Wow, wow, wow, wow. All right.

• Well, thank you so much, Trudy, and thank you to everybody that joined us. Trudy, there were 1,300 devices online today.

• Okay. So thank you all very much. And look, I know I’ve looked at something dark, but I think we do have to face the darkness. And also, Pesach is a time of reflection and it isn’t completely hopeless because don’t forget those incredible people who did save. And I think that’s what we have to concentrate on, the moral imperative. And on that note, I wish you all a good evening and thank you. Bye.

• [Judi] Thank you. Bye-bye.