Trudy Gold
The Jewish World in 1945
Trudy Gold | The Jewish World in 1945 | 06.22.21
- Good evening, everyone, from actually sunny Cornwall, and Judy’s just told us that there might be some very bad weather conditions in America, so hopefully those of you who want to get online, will.
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Well, tonight I’m dealing with very, very tough areas of Jewish history. And also I’m going to be looking at the ideas which we need to consider today. What was the impact of the Shoah, both on the Jewish world and on the non-Jewish world. You know the word “holocaust.” You see, I very seldom use that word. The word was invented in the early fifties because certain people were trying to come to terms with the enormity. And certainly in Israel, they prefer Shoah, or even Churban, because “holocaust,” holokaustos, it is a Greek word that means, it actually means a sacrifice, totally, a fire sacrifice, and there was no sacrifice. It was murder.
So that’s why in Israel, the majority of people prefer to use the word Shoah. Anyway, let’s talk a little about what I mean by the almost incalculable impact that it had on the Jewish world, and I think also on the non-Jewish world. Why? If you take, just look at figures. Before Hitler came to power, there were 18 million Jews worldwide. 9 million were in Europe, and it was Europe, really, that was the heartland of the Jewish world. That’s why I spent quite a lot of time with you on the culture that was lost. That’s why we looked at Yiddish literature. We looked at the world of Poland. Now it was more or less completely destroyed. And also I think it’s important to remember that in many ways, the Shoah is unprecedented.
Look, mass murders go back to the dawn of history. Tragically, in the human condition, we have the propensity to destroy. But what makes the Shoah unique? It was the deliberately planned policy of a powerful modern state. And what it did was it harnessed its industrial might and economic resources to do what? To destroy a people. Hitler was absolutely relentless. Even as his position worsened, the escalation of the murders really ramps up. All you have to do is to look at the murders in Hungary. And in fact, the almost irrational side of it is perhaps best illustrated by an extract from his final testament, as I’m sure you all know, because there are so many books about it, so many films made, that Hitler in the end retreated to a bunker in Berlin after the plot of July 1944, the plot where a certain von Stauffenberg and other German military men tried to get rid of Hitler. He was very badly wounded.
He was also, and this is, I think, more important, at the prey of whatever drugs that were being pumped into him. And he retreated more and more into his fantasy world. And that fantasy world, he didn’t even accept that he was losing the war. And one of the most tragic aspects from a German point of view is young boys and 13, 14-year-old young boys being put in uniform to try and deal with the advancing Russian soldiers, the Russians who suffered numerically more than any other. Because, if you recall, and we’ve discussed this in past presentations, as far as the West was concerned, in the main, the British and the Americans, and there were some glaring exceptions, were afforded the Geneva Conventions. Not so the peoples of the East.
Russian prisoners of war were expendable. Thousands and thousands of them were shot. The invasion of Russia, the brutality towards the Russian people, and now it’s Russia that is surrounding Berlin. And in that bunker, Hitler, he marries his longtime girlfriend, and then the two of them commit suicide on the 30th of April, 1945, just about a week before victory in Europe. But the day before he died, at four o'clock in the evening, he dictated his final message to the world. And this is an extract from it. This is actually at the end of it, and I think it gives you a notion, because those who say that antisemitism was a tool of Hitler’s, I think this more than anything else illustrates that it was absolutely at the core of his diseased being.
“But nor have I left any doubt that if the nations of Europe are once more only to be treated 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 be held responsible, the Jews. I have left no one in doubt that this time, there will not only be millions of children of Europeans of the Arian people who were starved to death, and not only hundreds of thousands of women and children who were burned to death in the cities without those who are really responsible also having to atone for their crime, even if by more humane means. But before everything else, I call upon the leadership in the nation and those who follow to observe the racial laws most carefully, to fight mercilessly against the poisoners of all the peoples of the world, international Jewry.”
And I think that illustrates more than anything else that for, of course, you have historians like David Irving saying, “Well, prove that Hitler was really behind it.” You just have to read his last testament, which was discovered and was in fact translated by German Jews who were working for the British. So can you imagine having to deal with a document like this? So what he’s basically saying with more humane means, where he’s obviously talking about the murders in the camps. And of course the tragedy does not just stop when Hitler kills himself. It doesn’t stop for those who are liberated. If you think about Belsen…
Actually, before we do that, Judy, can we just have a look at some of those maps, please, that you kindly put together for me? This is the Jewish flight from persecution, 1933 to 1945. And can I please suggest to you, if by any chance you have access to Martin Gilbert’s “History Atlas” books, they are so very, very useful. And what you see here is you can… I hope it’s clear enough for you to look at. This is basically Jews fleeing from Nazi persecution from Germany, and of course you can see how many of them went to France, onto Spain, Portugal. But of course what happens by 1940, he has taken much of Europe, and the trap is absolutely set. So if you could go onto the next map, Judy.
Now this is the Jews of Europe, 1937 to 1941. So, and it’s also looking at the percentages of Jews in the world. I mean, for example, there’s such a tiny percentage country to country to country. And it also, what is going to happen, of course, after the invasion of Russia, they’re going to sweep through. So 9 million Jews in Europe, and this is where they are placed. So can we see the next one, which I’m going to try and spend a bit more time with you on?
Again, Martin Gilbert. Now, this is the tragedy. If you look at the Jews of Germany, 250,000, that is because over 400,000 of them had managed to get out. So Germany and Austria, they had a little more time. But if you look, for example, at the Jews of Holland, 106,000 of them out of 180,000 were murdered. So you can go from country to country to country. I will, if you want, put… We are getting very near to our website, so I will not only just be recommending books, I will be putting these resources online for you, because what I really wanted to show you is the end, basically. If you look at the Jews of Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, over half the Jewish population of Hungary was murdered even though Hungary wasn’t attacked until April ‘44.
So just think about it. The resources that it took to commit murder, that there is this almost fantasy, because I think that came over very strongly from Hitler’s last letter, that ironically, even though he’s murdering Jews, he still thinks they have power, “international Jewry.” There was an arm of the SS, believe it or not, that was looking for the headquarters of the Elders of Zion, and they decided, in the end, they were in New York. And something else, if you want to think about fantasy, which I believe I’ve mentioned to you before, in January 1945, Goebbels switched 50,000 soldiers from the eastern front to become extras in a film that he was making, which was called “Kohlmarkt.”
It was about, that was a village in Germany that fought incredibly bravely against the French in the Napoleonic Wars. And he wanted to illustrate the bravery, even at the last minute, Germany will rally to, to switch soldiers. It just gives you the sort of notion of fantasy. And don’t forget also that Goebbels and his wife decided to die in the bunker with Hitler. And I suppose the most repulsive episode of that is that they murdered their children because they didn’t want them to live in a world without Hitler.I often quote Hugo Gryn on this, because he said, “Imagine the creation of a nightmare world where the Ten Commandments were overturned. You do that, and just maybe you get a glimpse of what Nazism was, what the creed was.”
Let’s talk a little now about the liberation of the camps, because obvious… You know, there were over 5,000 camps in Nazi-occupied Europe. Just imagine, the whole infrastructure is collapsing, the SS are murdering right up until the end, and then they are running away. There were 11 million people on the move at the end of the war, because the Nazis used slave labour. Think of the whole transfers of population. So just imagine the chaos, the mayhem at the end of the war. And the camp that I’m going to concentrate on is actually the liberation of Belsen.
So can we have a shot. There you see some smiling children. That wasn’t really representative. This was a picture taken a few weeks later when there was a little hope, but the British liberated Belsen on April the 15th, 1945. Sometimes, as the Allies liberated camps, the SS went on the murders right up until the end. This was particularly true in Eastern Europe, when the Soviets advanced. However, Heinrich Himmler, who was head of the SS, another of his mad fantasies, he was trying to do a deal with the Allies. The man who was in charge of the whole camp system, who was Eichmann’s boss, the man who ran the SS, this fantasist, what he hoped was, and ironically there were meetings.
There were meetings in Sweden, Dulles was involved. It all came, actually, believe it or not, it was orchestrated by Hitler’s masseurs, and he did in fact meet certain members of the joint, because the notion that Himmler put forward is that would the Americans and the British fight with him if he could turn regiments of the German army against the Russians. But what happened was that he did in certain circumstances play willing to show that he was prepared to negotiate. That’s why the blood for goods deal in Hungary is so very complicated.
We haven’t got all the documents. We never will have all the documents. And I think that’s the problem. But what happened at Belsen is the SS left without a fight. And what the British soldiers found there actually haunted them for the rest of their lives. I wanted to show you a picture of a few smiling children because these are the remnants, and they’ve got to build up their lives. And I’m going to quote now from Richard Dimbleby. Can we see a picture of him?
Richard Dimbleby, working for the BBC, he made a broadcast that had a profound impact when it was shown both in Britain and America. And I’m quoting from him. Here, over an acre of ground, lay dead and dying people. You could not see which was the living, with their heads against the corpses, and around them moved the awful ghostly procession of emaciated people with nothing to do and with no hope of life.“ He said, later on, that this was the most terrible day of his whole life. And when I said it doesn’t end with the liberation, over 13,000 people died in the weeks after liberation, because some kind soldiers gave chocolate. They had rations on them. And now, of course, we know how to deal with starving people.
My friend Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, was liberated from Belsen. She’d been sent from Auschwitz. And she’s talked many times about, and I’m sure many of you have met survivors or read the memoirs, and she said, "We were the walking dead. We were.” And for her, one of the most extraordinary things was that a British soldier found a cello for her, and she said that’s what brought her back to life. And there were, some of the soldiers were completely traumatised by it, but there were others that were kind to the people. And can you imagine coming back from life at this sort of time.
One of the first Jewish doctors into Belsen realised that this story had to be told and recorded for future generations. So he contacted his brother-in-law. Can we see the brother-in-law, please, the next picture? That is Mr. Sidney Bernstein. Sidney Bernstein, later on, is going to have an extraordinary career. He created, with his brother, Granada Television. There was quite a good television play about it, those of you who live in England. And, of course, his I suppose great claim to fame for those of you who are telly addicts, is he created the longest running soap in the world called “Coronation Street.” And at this time, he was already in the movie business. He was working with Alfred Hitchcock on a film called “Under Capricorn.” It later came out with Ingrid Bergman and Joseph Cotton.
Now, the point is, he had a close relationship with Hitchcock. His brother, his brother-in-law, who was a doctor, the first Jewish doctor into Belsen, he realises the importance of it, because it is so horrific, the day will come when people won’t believe. So he contacts Sidney, who’s a cameraman for the BBC, and he brings a crew into Belsen, and they actually film the liberation of the camps. And what they also, what the British army was doing, and the same thing happened with the Americans and the Russians, they were bringing in local people so that they could actually see what had happened. And also many of the SS and the guards that were still there, can you imagine what they felt like? I mean, what the victims felt like dealing with these individuals? And of course, not only did they have to bury the corpses, they had to deal with 13,000 people dying.
So they made a film. Now, what was fascinating about this film is, as I said, Hitchcock said, “You have to make it in the round, because the day will come when people won’t believe it.” Now, ironically, now, this film was to be shown throughout the western world, and not only that, it was to be shown in Germany. It was shown in Britain and it was shown in America. Now this is of interest, because as I told you many times, there was so much knowledge coming through that the question is, why on Earth did people say they didn’t know about it? All you had to do was read the newspapers. There was a minute silence in the House of Commons.
But there’s a difference, is there not, between believing and seeing. And those of you who used to go to the cinema a lot will remember, of course, that there was the big picture, the little picture, the B picture, and in the middle, the news reel. Pathé News in England, Movietone in America. And when these films were shown, people couldn’t believe it. They were being sick, they were fainting. It had an incredible impact on people, the inhumanity, because, you know, we are so used to it today.
We have, look, I’m speaking to you from Cornwall. I know some of you are in L.A., some of you, you’re all over the world. But go back to a time when very few people actually had a television. Certainly in Britain, people didn’t have televisions that I think it was the coronation of Elizabeth II that led to many people bringing television into their homes. It’s my first memory, of watching the coronation, actually, in a neighbor’s house, and that’s what enthralled my father. But the point I’m making is the news media. It had an absolutely devastating effect on people. But, the problem.
The film was not shown widely in Germany. Why? Because by almost after the end of the war, the Cold War begins. Just think of Churchill’s phrase, “The iron curtain has descended across Europe.” And Germany was divided into four zones: the British, the French, the American, and the Russian. And the problem was that if we’re going to need West Germany as a buffer state against East Germany, which is now communist, just think, Stalin, how successful Stalin was. He manages to take most of Eastern Europe, he takes East Berlin, he takes East Germany. He really enlarges the empire beyond the dreams of the czars. It was big enough under the czars. It covered a sixth of the land surface of the globe under Stalin.
Now, let’s feel sorry for the victims. And there’s absolutely no doubt that people felt desperately sorry. However, we need these people as allies. And that’s why I think one of the problems, yes, Dennis and David have talked about the Nuremberg war crimes trials. We’ve talked about the United Nations, and, in fact, the boys are going to come back and look at the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which is also a response to the Shoah and the notion of the category of crimes against humanity.
However, pragmatic politics is going to step in, and we need low-level Nazis to run a country. And in addition to that, all you need to think about is how many Nazis were actually brought to justice. So the world moved on. And I think it is a very important episode in terms of punishment, and in terms of justice and what we mean by justice. But what of the survivors themselves? I mean, the death toll is beyond, beyond, beyond.
In Lithuania alone, and I know those of you who, we’ve got a lot of South Africans online, and I know those of you whose roots are in South Africa came from where, but the 80% of you would’ve come from Lithuania. 95% of Lithuanian Jewry perished in the Shoah. Practically all of Latvian Jewry perished in the Shoah. 90% of Polish Jewry perished in the Shoah, with the Hasidic community being most devastated, because the one thing they didn’t do was leave. So basically, it’s unimaginable. It’s beyond the family, it’s beyond the individual. It’s the destruction of a world. It’s a destruction of property. It’s a destruction of a whole way of life.
But there were survivors. About 250,000 of them have managed to survive. Now, I’m talking now about Eastern Europe. How have they survived? Some of them have been hidden by the righteous ones. From time to time we talk about righteous people, because I think it’s incredibly important that we do. Some have been protected for money, venality. Some from Eastern Europe had fled deep into Russia. Quite often they were put in gulags, but their lives were spared. Also, there were Jewish partisan brigades, and there was a movement to escape. Now, can I first see the next slide, Judy?
Now, this is the beginnings of a movement called Bricha, the Escape. Because what is going to happen, think where the Jewish army of Palestine is now. It’s in Italy. Those of you who will remember that in another presentation, I told you that by 1944 the British did allow 20,000 Palestinian Jews to fight under their own flag. They actually fought under the flag of the Star of David for the British army. They came together at the end of the war. Just think about it. Confronted with this absolute carnage, the Allies set up displaced persons camps.
In the displaced person camps, there were Jews, majority Jews, but there were also fascists, people who were fleeing from the east because communism was encroaching. And I’m going to talk about what happened when Jews started to go home in a minute. And so you have groups of soldiers from Palestine coming into the camps to give hope, plus the partisans. Can we see the next slide please, Judy?
Now, here you have the three extraordinary Bielski brothers. We know that there were more. The Bielski are particularly interesting because they were in Jewish partisan brigade in the forests of Belarus. And I gave a whole session on them in memory of my great friend Jack Kagan, may he rest in peace. Jack was 13 when he fled to the Bielski, and they collected over 1,100 people, any Jew who could make it to the forest. Most partisan groups were just the young and the fit, but the Bielski collected any Jew that, in fact, could make it to the forests. And they became hardened fighters. Not only did they protect the people…
You know, if you were a baker, you made bread, which they gave to the other Russian partisan groups. There was also Zorin’s group. There were a lot of Jews in the resistance, by the way. In France, where Jews made up a tiny percentage of the French population, 20% of the French resistance was Jewish, and also a disproportionate number of women. And in fact, on Monday night, I’m interviewing Judy Batalion about her new book on women who fought both in the ghettos and in the partisans.
So these are the Bielski brothers, and they’re symbolic of lots of different groups of Jews who have gone into the woods to fight. Jews were fighting, and I’m going to talk about that at the end of this presentation. So basically, Bricha come together with partisans, who come together with another group as well, the Jewish brigade and also Haganah sending more people out. And they are creating a movement within the camps. Now, what is going on in the DP camps? Well, this is the absolutely… It’s extraordinary, really, because the spirit of life, people surviving hell.
And so they were setting up lessons in the camps, there was reading, there was music. It’s extraordinary, just as in the ghettos, there were signs of life, in the DP camps also, there was signs of life. However, the most important imperative it would seem for anyone who had survived, was to discover if anyone else in their town or in their village had managed to make it. Look, can you imagine the Red Cross? It’s trying desperately to marry up people, to find families. You know, children orphaned. Many children had been hidden in convents. Some of them had been converted, and it was quite a difficult issue getting them out when families were found.
But some of them, I mean, I have a friend in Holland who was saved by an incredibly righteous man at the end of the war. He’d lost his family, of course, and at the end of the war he said, “I’m sending you to the Jews in Palestine.” This is a man who refused to be recognised at Yad Vashem. He said, “I did it because it was the right thing to do.” So basically they were good people who’d saved Jews. Yad Vashem has honoured, I believe, about 35,000 of them. And for every person who’d been saved, don’t forget it takes, it’s been estimated it takes about another five to save. So let’s say about 150,000, maybe 200 righteous thousands, I think, righteous people, 200,000 perhaps in the whole of Europe.
But the point is, the first thing is, “Let’s go home.” Those of you who have seen the footage of Europe at the end of the war, the bombed out cities, the lack of food, the lack of resources, millions of slave labourers shunted around the Nazi empire, and Nazis, particularly SS, taking off their uniforms, trying to pretend they were just German soldiers. Total chaos. Now, this is when you have an incredibly black episode.
As survivors return home, many of them were met with terrible hostility. The Germans themselves had looted the very wealthy. Never forget that when Eichmann opened up his immigration bureau in Vienna at the end of 1938, and in Berlin at the end of 1939, it was also about venality. Even in the camps, it was about venality. Clothes, gold teeth. Now, the really big treasures, the great art collections, which have not always been returned. In fact, that’s another story, isn’t it, what happened to so many of the great art collections that were owned by Jewish families? The whole infrastructure of the wealthy had been taken away.
But what about ordinary folk, particularly in Eastern Europe who lived in tiny little wooden houses? I used to travel in Eastern Europe before communism collapsed. And let me tell you that you could still see where the mezuzahs had been pulled out of the walls. You could go to a little village that had once been 40% Jewish or 60% Jewish. Now, what do you think happened to those houses? What do you think happened to the bedding? What do you think happened to the pots and pans? The infrastructure of an ordinary life? What happened to the clothes? It wasn’t taken by the Nazis. It was taken by local people.
Look, in Slovakia, where Tiso, the head of the Slovakian government, a priest, he paid the Germans 500 Deutschmark per Jew. Why? Because he wanted to please his population, so allowed them to ransack Jewish houses. It’s about venality. Go back to Hugo Gryn. Take human nature and twist it. Allow people to steal, allow people to kill, take away the moral law. Never forget that the Nazi inner circle were pagan. Ironically, what they managed to do was to persuade so many righteous Christians to go along with them. Now, so you have this terrible situation where Jews begin to go home.
Now, the old, it’s almost impossible to say these words, Antisemitism, and I’m going to call it Jew hatred from now on. Jew hatred did not die in the camps. Just think about what’s happening in Eastern Europe. Communism is on the march. In Latvia, in Lithuania, in the Ukraine, in Estonia, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia, the communists are fighting for control. And it must be said, a disproportionate number of the leadership of the communist parties that take over, yeah, you guessed it, they are people of Jewish birth. The more peasant a society, the more likely Jews are to rise to the top in these kind of infrastructures. Jews are not only Christ killers now, Jews are also communist agitators.
In Poland alone, over 500 Holocaust survivors were murdered by Polish fascists, including the man who led the uprising in Sobibor. And it actually culminates. Where does it culminate? It culminates in a little town in Southern Poland called Kielce. Now, can we please see the next shot, if you don’t mind, Judy? Yeah, this is Kielce. It’s a little town in Southern Poland, and you are now looking at the effects of the pogrom. And I want you to see also the poverty. Now, by the summer of 1946, about 200 Jewish survivors had returned to Kielce.
Before the war, it was about 40% Jewish. And about 150 of them had been ported in a single building, which was actually administered by the Jewish community. On the 1st of July, 1946, an eight-year-old boy called Henry was reported missing by his father. According to his father, later on the boy claimed he’d been kidnapped by an unknown man, allegedly a Jew or a gypsy. Two days later, the father and the father’s neighbour went to the local communist control police force to say that the boy had been kidnapped. And the boy, by this time, had returned.
So he’s been kidnapped, according to the parents, he’s now returned home, but they’re going along to report it to the police station. And as they passed the Jewish house, as it was known, where Jews were being ported because they couldn’t go back to their homes, which had been taken over by Poles in the town, he said that he recognised the man who’d kidnapped him, pointing at the Jewish house. Rumours spread that the Jews were kidnapping babies and young boys and young children, and using them for their blood, the old canard of the blood libel, that appalling accusation that was first used against the Jews in England in 1144, and it stuck.
The blood libel, you know, the blood libel actually has its roots in pagan history. Tragically, pagans would sacrifice to the Mother Earth. There’s a very interesting book by Joseph Campbell called “The Masks of God.” He divides the world up into those who worship the Earth Mother or those who worship the Sky Father. The worship of the Earth Mother often went with ritual sacrifice, either of a virgin or a child, the blood. Now, anyone who knows anything about Judaism, blood is taboo. And yet in England, in 1144, it was ascribed to the Jews. Why? And the reasons are fascinating.
There was an English civil war. The Jews were not allowed to belong to any Christian guilds. They’d been invited into England really to become an effective middle class. They were the money lenders, they were the merchants. And in an English civil war, they’ve lost the protection of the king. There’s no central authority. The Barons are up to their necks in debt. A Baron in the town of Norwich, along with the local priest, cooks up this rumour. They take it from the notion of paganism, plus witches, who, witches in the main, they were women in the villages, midwives, usually unmarried, who would bring children into the world. Sometimes those babies died. Medicine was primitive.
So, basically, now it’s going to be applied to the Jews. And what happens is the mob go on the rampage, it’s whipped up religiously at Easter time, they go on the rampage, they murder… So they go into the Jewish quarter, they ransack the Jewish quarter, they murder, they burn the wooden houses, which contain the wooden chests which contain the records of the debts. So, the double motive. Here, in Kielce, ordinary folk have taken over Jewish homes. Communism is encroaching. There’s unrest. So let’s go back to the terrible canard.
So, as I said, rumour spreads of the kidnapping of other children. The civic militia actually went into the building. They could find no abducted children, but they did demand that the Jews in the building surrender their weapons, because they had weapons for self-defense. They had proper permits, but they had to give them up. Someone started firing, it escalated, there was killing on both sides, and the head of the Jewish house was fatally wounded. Numerous Jews were then… They’re a melee. It all gets out of control.
Numerous Jews were driven out of the building by soldiers. Later they’re going to be attacked by civilians throwing stones at them. And by noontime, 800 workers from a local steel mill join, and basically 20 Jews are battered to death. And no one attempted to stop the pogrom. There was another incident where a woman and a baby were murdered. So another, a mob killed a Jewish… This is extraordinary. The mob actually killed a Polish nurse who was mistaken for a Jew because she was trying to tend the sick.
Anyway, three non-Jewish policemen, three non-Jewish Poles were also killed. And it didn’t cease until troops actually arrived from Warsaw, from the communist government in Warsaw. 42 people were pronounced dead, at least another 50 were injured. Now, what happens was the communist authorities, they put the major perpetrators on trial, and some were executed. 12 civilians were arrested, 9 were sentenced to death. The military commander was sentenced to a year for failing to stop the riot. But from the Jewish point of view, and also there’s a bit of a mystery about the Kielce pogrom.
Today in Poland, without getting too much into the politics of Poland, they said it was actually communist propaganda to discredit the free Poles. 'Cause you’ve got to remember, there’s still a Polish government in exile in London. The communists are trying to take over Poland, and it was also spontaneous anti-Judaism, spontaneous Jew hatred, because there were too many Jews in the government. And also one of the problems was that the Roman Catholic Church, how involved were they? Six months before the pogrom, a hand grenade had been thrown into the headquarters of local Jewish community, and they had appealed to the church. And the the bishop of Kielce said, “As long as Jews concentrate on their private business, Poland is interested in them. But at the point that Jews interfere in Polish politics, in public life, they insult the Polish national sensibilities.”
Let me rephrase that, repeat it. “As long as Jews concentrate on their private business, Poland is interested in them. But at the point Jews interfere in Polish politics and public life, they insult the Poles’ national sensibilities.” There were similar remarks also from the Bishop of Lublin. And this, it was criticised… It has to be said, the Kielce pogrom, there was a lot of publicity. The American ambassador absolutely insisted that the cardinal of Poland, Cardinal August Hlond, can we see his face please, Judy? explain the position of the church. 11th of July, this is after the pogrom, he condemns the violence, but he blamed Jewish collaboration with the communists. And he said it’s because Jews occupy leading positions in Poland.
Now, Hlond is still a controversial figure. I’m going back now to before the war. This is what he said in 1936. He was brave as a Pole in the war. He was arrested by the gestapo. He’s a Polish hero. But this is where we get to inside out history. This is a comment of his in 1936. “As long as 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 those inciting violence. They are serving a bad cause.” And in the same letter, “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 revolution.”
And he, in 1936, did encourage Poles to boycott Jewish business. Now, the reason I’m also bringing him up now is that in 2018, the Vatican decided to beatify him. Just as happened with Pius XII, beatification is the first stage of canonization. You go before the devil’s advocate. What a wonderful job. He weighs up your sins in this life, because if you are beatified and canonised, the Catholic theology states you will then go immediately to heaven, no purgatory, and you will live in the beneficence of Jesus and the Almighty.
So for a religious Catholic, it’s important. And it’s interesting that this man, who was deeply anti-Jewish, and yet was brave as a Pole in the war, and I think it gives you one of the glimpses into one of the problems that’s happening in Eastern Europe today with the collapse of communism, because many of the heroes, the anti-communist heroes, were very right wing. And the other problem that comes up time and time again in Ukraine, Latvia, when the communists finally took over, they were dealing with characters who were fascists.
Now, whatcha going to do? And I think this came up when we’d been talking about literature, because the fact that when Yevtushenko wrote “Baby Yar,” Khrushchev was furious. Why? Because he didn’t want the Jews singled out as a special group for special treatment. Look, if you’re trying to weld a communist nation together, what do you need? You can’t actually throw in the faces of the Ukrainians, the Latvians, and the Lithuanians what they did in the war. So everybody suffered. That’s why if you visited Poland under communism, what it actually said was in memory of the 4 million, including 3 million of other nations… Beg your pardon, the 4 million, including a million of other nations who died.
In fact, the numbers are completely wrong. But the point is, it didn’t single out the Jews at that particular time. So that’s what happened in 1945, 1946. As Jews began to return home in Eastern Europe, you have the Bricha movement, Escape. Because after the Kielce pogrom, that’s exactly what Jews wanted to do. Zionism was always a minority movement in the Jewish world. But what happens at this stage of history is that, can you imagine you’re in a DT camp, you go home, what on Earth is left? And I think it made people reevaluate what on Earth was there to go home to.
Now, I want to finish this presentation, not with answers, but by giving you some questions to think about. Because to this, there are no answers. Why did the Shoah happen? Why Jew hatred? You see, I can list the factors that made it a possibility, but you have to go into the deepest, darkest realms of human nature to try and understand. And another point, I’ve mentioned the word “holocaust,” and people looking for solutions just to deal with the terminology, even.
Never forget what Karl Popper said. “The 20th century is not going to be about philosophy. It’s about the meaning of words.” Isn’t it fascinating when you look at what we are dealing with at the moment with the meaning of words? But dealing particularly with this terrible, terrible story, which has, look, a third of all Jews were murdered. Yes, the second World War was the most terrible thing for so many millions of other people, but a third of the Jews were murdered. And what did that do to other Jews who remained conscious of their Jewishness?
And what are the dilemmas that we have to grapple with? Because from a Zionist point of view, what have the Zionists always said? One day, just go back to Leon Pinsker, antisemitism, Judeophobia, he called it, is a psychic aberration. It’s a 2,000 year old disease. It is incurable. He laughed at those who were going to America. He said, “Even America will let you down.” And he wrote this, when in 1881, after the pogroms in Eastern Europe, which meant that… Those are the pogroms when many of your families got out of Eastern Europe.
So basically, on one level, what does it do to Jewish identity? What did it do to the emancipation contract? Look, before, in the ‘20s, 45% of German Jewry was into marrying. The majority of German Jews were reform, and I’m not making any comments about religiosity, but reform, one of the ways you can look at reform is it’s an attempt to be modern European with a lot of decorum in the service, service in the vernacular. We are Jews of the Jewish religion. But the Zionists are saying, “What will the world allow you to be?” You are a nation. You’ve been murdered because you are a nation, because you’re not German, you’re not French, you’re not Italian.
Look, Europe expunged its Jews, and within that, led to many other issues that have, I think, marked the Jewish people. We’ve already talked in another session on Abba Kovner. “Do not go again like sheep to the slaughter.” The point is they didn’t. But as Israel developed as a state, from now on, we are going to recreate the Jew. It’s the Bar Kokhba will rise again; ben Zakkai, it’s over. It’s Bar Kokhba now, the strong, proud militant Jew. So what other issues should we be thinking about? And as I said, I don’t know the answers, but I hope I can pose some of the questions. Is Jew hatred a unique phenomenon, or is it just another prejudice along with all our prejudices? I know that Professor Pima was actually looking at that with you when he looked at the whole terrible debate on Zionism and racism.
Why do we all prejudge? Is Jew hatred unique? Has it got a special component? That’s a different question. I think it has. I think the majority of Jew hatred actually comes from theology. And that’s the problem we have to deal with. Now, of course it’s envy and it’s all the other things, but it stems from theology. Is the Shoah a logical product of that terrible history? Certainly higher Maccabee, and Robert Wistrich said that it’s the deicide that was the major plank that led to the death camps. Or was it planned at Auschwitz? Was it completely outside of any normal human issue? Jews were central to Nazi policy. Or were they instrumental? Are Jews special victims? What about all the other people who died? Should we have a special day just to remember Jews?
Don’t forget the left in Britain, certainly. They didn’t want Holocaust Memorial Day; they wanted Genocide Day. Is what happened to the Jews to be taken along with every other horrific genocide. Genocide means the murder of a people. That is the terminology. Should we equate with Rwanda? Should we equate with what happened in old Yugoslavia? Should we equate it with any attempt to murder a people? Personally, I think not. I don’t think it gets us anywhere. We’ve got to unravel this side of the human condition. Could the Shoah have happened without Adolf Hitler? The power of one evil individual? Something that certainly came out of Israel in the first 10 years of the state, the emphasis on Jewish passivity, and therefore, and this is a horrible phrase, and it’s not anything I agree with, collaboration in their own destruction. I will not go anywhere near that myself.
Exaggerating today the existence of resistance is interesting because I think that there was more Jewish resistance than practically any other group. But it only happens when they know they’re going to die. And I think this, psychologically, we can all understand. Israel is a product of 19th century and early 20th century Jewish and European history. It is a nationalism along with every other nationalism of the 19th century. Israel would not have happened without the Holocaust. Now, I want you to think about that very, very carefully. And you can go either way on that argument. I think you can make very cogent arguments for both sides.
Emil Fackenheim, the theologian, he survived the camps. His 614th commandment, “Do not give Hitler a posthumous victory.” What does that mean? Does it mean that we must be strong at all costs? It will never, ever happen again to us. Or Hitler tried to dehumanise us; we must never ever give into dehumanisation. So, and I’m sure there are many more dilemmas, but I just wanted to, before we move on, I just wanted to put the dilemmas before you. I know we spent a lot of time on the Shoah, and this is something that Wendy and I and my colleagues discussed at great length, because I know from many of the questions we’ve had that there’s at least a year’s work.
But we made the decision that we could not teach Jewish history and avoid, and we wanted to deal with as many issues as possible, but now it is, I think, time to move on. And once the website is up and running, already you have been sent bibliographies, but once the website is up and running, myself and my colleagues are going to produce a pretty comprehensive bibliography for you.
So I think I should stop there and should we see if there are any questions? Yeah. Oh,
Q&A and Comments
Q: “Who are the two people in the cartoon on the wall? I love the human condition.” A: I’m in Cornwall with my son-in-law and my daughter.
I love the book “Germany Without the Jews.” Yes. Yes, that was written… Oh, what was the name of the chap? Was it Bettauer? Anyway, it’s interesting.
Q: “Was it Hitler got more insane because he had syphilis?” A: No evidence that he had syphilis, but can we just say that Hitler was a madman?
Q: “What are the sources for the Jewish populations in European countries before World War II? How reliable were they?” A: Well, it’s very interesting. Eichmann, where did Eichmann get his figures from? Most Jewish communities were all registered. I mean, you can find, it’s quite easy in England to find the… Today it’s done on synagogue membership and burial, and the figures are easily available. Don’t forget, Eichmann had a whole team of people. Now there’s always a plus/minus in each of these situations.
Q: How come the children of Belsen look so healthy? A: It was a few weeks after the liberation. I just wanted to show you that, you know, this human spirit.
Danny: “Like many British people, I had a relative, Michael, a doctor who was in the advance party which liberated Belsen.” You know, I’ve found out that a lot of people, oh yes, you’re going on. “He would never talk about his experiences.” Yes, I’ve heard this also from a lot of non-Jewish soldiers who just didn’t want to talk about it. It traumatised them.
This is from Miriam. “I was born in Sibiu, a small town in Transylvania. The Jewish community lived through the war without being mistreated. My grandparents and other members of my family who lived in Oradea near the Hungarian border were taken to Auschwitz in '44. We never found out why we were not touched by the Germans. While in different parts of Romania, the Jewish population was either taken to Auschwitz and murdered.” That’s an extraordinary story, Miriam, and I’m sure there will be people who will be able to help you. I quite often say that there are brilliant genealogists, and I know that Arlene Bier, who I hope is online, you just have to tap in “Jewish genealogy” and you’ll get all sorts of organisations come up. But I would really, if that was my family history, I would be looking at that.
Q: “What was the name of the movie?” A: The movie that came out in 2014 about Belsen is called “Night Will Fall.” It was made by Andre Singer. They found an extra reel. They were six reels. Five had been produced. You know, it’s interesting, because Sidney Bernstein himself made a film called “A Painful Reminder,” because when his film wasn’t shown, and remember he was head of Granada Television, in the eighties, he made a film about… The centre of the film was the Belsen film. And the film was why on Earth the Allies didn’t show it in Germany. And please don’t forget, it’s not just they needed West Germany. They also went on the race for German scientists, German technicians. It’s a wonderful story.
“I meant to say the rest of Romania, the Jewish population was either taken to Auschwitz or murdered.” Yes, Miriam. So I would try and find out.
Ralph is saying he remembers the Bernstein film. “In South Africa, children were not allowed to see the films.” And then Arlene says, “I saw them.”
Q: “How was it possible that the USSR took over so much of Europe in 1945?” A: Stalin’s army was there, and he’d done a deal, remember, with the Allies.
Q: “Was there an explanation why there was no mention of the Holocaust in Kazan’s film 'Gentleman’s Agreement’?” A: Oh, that’s a very interesting point. And I think in the summer, in August, we are going to look a bit more at film. Look, it’s fascinating. The majority of the moguls were Jewish. There are very few films that come out in the thirties about what’s going on in Nazi Germany. At the end of the war, there are two films made on antisemitism. One is “Gentleman’s Agreement,” which won an Oscar, and the other one is Robert Mitchum and Robert Ryan, and I never remember the name. Someone online will know it. They were both made by non-Jews. You know, the moguls went to Europe and saw what happened. They didn’t make films about it.
Look, there were films on the Shoah made very early on in the East, in Poland, and a couple of films made in France. They’re mainly made in Eastern Europe as well. But the whole filmography of the Shoah is a completely different issue. In the English language, you had “The Young Lions,” where it’s completely inaccurate. And this is the late fifties, “The Diary of Anne Frank,” which is more or less de-Judaized. It’s only really in the sixties, when you see “Judgement at Nuremberg” and “The Pawnbroker,” brilliant, and Stanley Kramer, Abby Mann collaborations.
And gradually, gradually, more and more and more, the dam bursts, really, by the early eighties, and of course culminates in “Schindler’s List.” And now I’ve got a real problem, personally I have a problem, because now the Shoah is seen as a backdrop to the most appalling catastrophes. They just put, you know, if you want to say something horrible, you put it against the backdrop of the Shoah. And it’s demeaning, somehow.
“We needed Germany as a partner against Russia.” Yes, we did.
And this is from Alan Warman: “My late grandmother had her family in South Africa, and a few years prior to the war, returned to The Hague, went into hiding when Holland was invaded, similar story to Anne Frank. She survived in hiding throughout the entire war, was actually found by a German soldier who turned a blind eye, saving her life. She returned to South Africa. I have a recording of her testimony. Not sure what I would actually do with it.” Well, that’s an extraordinary… See, there were good Germans. You know, people are, people are people. I know there are all sorts of organisations that collect testimony. You know, interesting. I’ve had so many wonderful stories sent to us online that Wendy wants to put on the website once we… And I begin to…
“I suggest you give it to the Kaplan Institute.” Yes, that’s certainly in South Africa. Also to the archives of the Holocaust Museum. And don’t forget Yad Vashem. Yes, of course. Anita’s saying Jews could survive, live under identity papers.
This is from Anna. “My parents and I lived in three different DP camps. We waited more than four years before we received visas to immigrate to America, where my mother had a few cousins. The U.S. continued to enforce strict quotas immigration.” I’m going to be talking about that. Actually I’ll begin talking about that on Thursday, Anna, because of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry.
Hazel: “My mother, a young South African social worker, went to work at a DP children’s camp in Germany from ‘46 to '47 under the auspices of UNRRA and the South African Zionist Federation.” Yeah, I mean, the joint… So many Jewish organisations were involved. But you see, these people go home and they can’t go home. So what is left for them? You see these young bronzed gods and goddesses from Palestine who come to the camps, all sorts of schools are being set up, and they say, “Come to us in Palestine. We want you.” Unfortunately, though, the British didn’t open the doors, but more about that next week.
Gladwin: “The people didn’t perish. They were murdered.” Yes, right. Well said, Gladwin. “The Yad Vashem promotes the term 'murdered.’” Yeah, the murdered Jews.
Okay, Marilyn: “On BBC a few months ago I read about a Klimt painting, which the Louvre agreed to a Jewish family. An act of the French parliament still needs to be passed to allow the Louvre to hand over the painting.”
This is from Denise. “I was never told anything about the camps until I joined the HaBonim. Thereafter, my mother took me to see the play, ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ and I immersed myself. I simply couldn’t believe that there was that amount of evil in the world.” Yeah, I think that’s another terribly difficult subject. How on Earth do we tell our children? It’s complicated. It’s so, so complicated. And George Steiner, the philosopher, he said, he believes that we hold our children too close because of all the children we couldn’t hold.
This is from Abigail: “In a small museum in a synagogue in current-day Hungary, I saw a letter to the local authorities on why she should be entitled to the piano of a Jewish family. Please note, Kielce…” I have a real problem with foreign language spelling. I apologise. “I have a book written by a survivor.”
Oh, this is too terrible to talk about, Monica. “There was a resident who went to Israel to apologise and admit what the civilians did to the inhabitants of the Jewish home.”
This is from Karen Kilman: “‘The Rite of Spring’ by Stravinsky revolves around human sacrifice by the Scythians in pagan times.”
Joanna Gilbert: “Helena and Alex, creators of the Mi Polin Art Gallery in studio travel throughout Poland to find traces of mezuzahs from which they make bronze castings. Helena and Alex searched the surrounding homes to find anyone who might remember the Jewish families.” Yes, yes, yes. This is a bit late for this kind of work, Joanna. I know people were involved in the, just as communism collapsed, there were an awful lot of people in Poland from all young people trying to do this sort of work. There was a cafe in Kraków called the Ariel Cafe, where anyone who was involved in anything Jewish would meet there. And, you know, this gives you another issue of Kraków, because the Jewish quarter wasn’t destroyed. Why? Because it was beautiful. Because the Poles were lived under a terribly brutal regime. Frank, the governor of Poland living in the Wawel Castle. So they desecrated the synagogues, they didn’t destroy them. And now it’s kind of the trendy place to go. And there’s about five Jewish-style cafes where you have non-Jewish Poles singing Yiddish songs and eating Jewish-style food. It’s very, very strange.
“I understood that the Sidney film…,” Sheila, “…remained unfinished for nearly 70 years.” Now, let me be careful about this. No, the first five reels were shown, but the sixth reel was rediscovered in the Imperial War Museum, and that’s why Andre Singer had the opportunity to make “Night Will Fall.”
“It’s estimated in the 3rd of September, 1939, there were 20,000 TV sets. On June the 7th, BBC TV…” I wasn’t talking about the film being shown on television. I was talking about in the cinemas. But the reason I made a point about television, Sheila, is that today we have total access, worldwide access. That’s what I’m saying. No. People would’ve seen it at the cinemas, not on television. Of course.
“Heard in a grocery store in Hungary in 1946: ‘Well, you’re lucky. Our Jews came back to their apartment.” Bolton’s Journey.
Q: “Was it still difficult for Jews to immigrate to Palestine after the liberation?” A: Yes, Romi, I’m afraid it was. But more about that on Thursday.
This is from Benny: “Amazingly, on a trip to the Baltic in 2001, I met my surviving cousin in Liepāja. Her name was Henny Zivkon, one of the 11 who survived during the Shoah for 500 days in the basements in Liepāja. Her incredible story is immortalised in a diary.” Yeah, there are amazing stories.
And this is Devora: “As late as 2005, I travelled with my son to Łagów, Poland, the village where my parents grew up. The villagers knew who we were and peeked out of their curtains at us. We felt the hostility as we walked towards the cemetery. There wasn’t one stone there. We found out later the stones were used to make walkways. At that time we also travelled to Kielce and we were given pamphlets that apologised.”
And this is from Nomi: “You saw where Mommy lived, correct? Didn’t a man mistake you for an aunt?” Yeah. I mean, there are so many strange stories of going back to Poland. I was teaching over there just as communism collapsed because of my friend Felix Sharff. And it was absolutely fascinating, the different reactions. But I must say, at the Jagiellonian University, there were courses in Jewish music, Jewish literature, Jewish history. It’s so complicated. I don’t think Freda’s online today. I think she’s actually in Israel, but I’m must get her to talk more to you about it. It’s things are never what they seem. Whenever I used to take trips of people to Poland, I would say, “Just suspend your faculties.” It is such a strange, strange story.
This is from Karen: “My father-in-law survived as an electrician in many camps. Met my mother-in-law in Bergen-Belsen fishing for food in .” “I’ve met a French woman, who, together with her sister, began a nursery school for young babies.” Look, we will need all these stories for the website. This is so important.
This is from Abigail: “This morning the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism had a three-hour programme talking about current antisemitism in Eastern Europe.” Yes, but I must say this. Antisemitism is a very potent illness, but don’t let it define our Jewishness. Don’t let the Shoah define us. I really believe that. But there is the other side of the world, as well. Never forget that.
This is from Rod: “Jew hatred seems to be innate, almost inborn, where the reasons for this hatred have largely been forgotten.” Yes, I really am not insane. Well, I don’t think my family would say, but they think I am. But the point is, I don’t believe everyone goes around in the Christian world hating Jews. Of course not. But it’s deep in the culture. It’s fascinating. Let me throw something else at you. In China, if you go back to the year 1000, and in the summer, I really wanted to teach about China. I want to, let’s lighten it. The Jewish story is an incredible story. It’s not just about darkness and tragedy. It’s also about good things as well.
But you know what happened in China? You know what happened in China? They all assimilated. You know, in the year 1000 there were over, I think there were a million people living in Kaifeng. I’m sure many of you who are kosher will have Chinese restaurants in Europe. There certainly was one in London called Kaifeng. It was the great centre of the Jews. It was a great cosmopolitan centre. And you know what happened? You know what happened? They would assimilate, because China’s good to them. There’s no antisemitism in Hindu India. It’s only in the world of monotheism. And as Wendy’s more of a psychologist than me, I’m going to throw that one at her. You know, the parent religion?
And this is from Shoshanna: “The more I listen to your lectures, the more I question why we live in the diaspora. And I realise we should all move to Israel.” Hold on. Half the Jews in the world live in Israel. The other half live in the diaspora. A question for you, and another question to talk about around your Shabbat table, Can we have, do we live in a world of dual loyalties, of hyphenated identity? I used to believe we did. Certainly if you think about America, Italian Americans, Puerto Rican Americans, Irish Americans, you can go through the whole gamut. American Jews, I’m not so sure anymore.
But please, may I say something? As is somebody who’s unfortunately studied this beast for 40 years, economics, when we have more political, economic, and social stability, all prejudices will ease up. They won’t go away. We haven’t yet come up with a formula to stop prejudice. We all prejudge. Every one of us prejudges. I believe that. Quite often we can make some terrible mistakes when we do. So I believe we all prejudge, but I do know that when people are feeling really content with their lot, they don’t hate so much. So we just have to create the kind of society where we do become, you know, when it becomes much easier for people, I think terrible poverty, terrible sense of injured pride, terrible insecurities, that’s what leads to extremism in politics. Or maybe I’m just a silly old liberal. You see, Israel…
Somebody else, Michael’s also saying, “Why don’t we give up the diaspora and go to Israel?” Ah, what would the diaspora be like without us? You know? Would it be such a good place? And I’m not just talking… I’m talking about the Jews, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Who was it who said, “The problem with the Jews, we’re just like everybody else, but only more so”? Or as a very close friend of mine once said, “I love you, but you’re all so sullen.” That’s a very bad stereotype.
This is from Denise, who’s obviously very, very angry. What I want you to do, there is a wonderful book called “What Did They Think of The Jews” which is created, it was put together by a man called Allan Gould.
Trudy, sorry.
[Trudy] Believe me, it’s full of good stuff.
Who’s angry? Sorry, who did you say?
Denise is very angry. And what she said, shall I read it? “When we were led into the gas chambers, they said nothing. When we were forcibly converted, they said nothing. When we were thrown out of the country just for being Jews, they said nothing. But when we now defend ourselves, all of a sudden they have something to say. How did we take our revenge on the Germans for their Final Solution? How did we take revenge on the Spanish for their Inquisition? How did we take revenge on Islam for being Dhimmis? How did we take revenge on the lies of the protocols? We studied our Torah. We innovated in medicine. We innovated in defence systems. We innovated in technology. We innovated agriculture. We composed music. We wrote poetry. We made the desert bloom. We won Nobel Prizes. We founded the movie industry. We financed a fledgling democracy. We fulfilled the word of God by becoming a light unto the nations of the Earth.”
I must say, Denise, it’s very, very beautiful what you’ve written, in many ways. “Dear world, when you criticise us for defending our heritage and our ancestral home, we, the Jews,” continued, “we, the Jews, do exactly what you did to us. We ignore you. You have proven to us for the last 2,000 years that when the chips are down, animosity towards the Jews reigns supreme. Now leave us alone. Go out, sort the problems in your own backyard while we continue our 5,778-year-old mission, enhancing the world we share. The Jews”
Who was it who said the problem with the Jews is we’re just too civilised? Denise, what you’ve written is extraordinary. It’s so, but it’s pain. I feel that in you. Look, I don’t how to answer that, because much of what you’ve said is right, but we have to go on living our lives. And I think we can’t give into the anger. I don’t what you think, Wendy. Can I hand that one to you, because I don’t know how to answer that?
I agree. We do. We can. And we do.
Yeah, and we will go on doing. We’ll be here till the end. People ask me what it means to be chosen? That’s another interesting… I hope Jeremy will give a session on that at some time Wendy, because what on Earth does chosenness mean?
Well, why don’t we ask him?
I think that would be very interesting.
He’s actually, he has a session straight after this one.
So will you ask him, please?
I will. Definitely.
Anyway, what I’m going to do on Thursday, I’m going to talk about 1945, and the beginnings, really, of the events that led to the creation of the state of Israel. I must say, changing the subject from darkness, it looks absolutely wonderful there where you are. The sky is blue.
It is.
And, look, we are the eternal people. I really do believe that. What our mission is, I’m not so sure anymore. But one of the things I do, really, I’m so pleased about that we’ve collected such an incredible group of people together.
What I do feel…
as they say.
Judy, what I do feel, and I’d like to say this to the Americans or the South Africans, whoever’s, you know, listening to us. There’s such a strong divide between the Republicans and the Democrats, and, you know, in many ways, and I’m stepping into an arena where I really don’t like to get involved and don’t want to get involved. But there, you know, there’s a huge, huge divide between the two parties. And it’s very, very, very important that we support Democrats, because they are, you know, Biden is in power, he is the president, and he needs the support of the Jewish community.
You know, unfortunately, Donald Trump was extremely, extremely divisive. And so now it’s become a war between the two parties, which is absolutely crazy. You know, it’s very, very… There is a core group, led also by Bernie Sanders. There’s a core group of Democrats who are very anti-Israel. But on the whole, we need to work very, very hard to be a cohesive group. And, you know, and to build the spirit, and to speak up for the president and to be helpful and to be positive. We need to do not try to do it. We have to do it. We have an obligation, because without America behind Israel, we are in a lot of trouble.
- Can I ask you a question, Wendy? Do you think, though, that once the COVID crisis is over, and if there’s an upturn in the American economy, do you think the extremism will filter away to any extent? I think, 'cause it seems, I mean, as a historian, it always comes to the fore in times of crisis, populism. Something mad’s happening in English politics, by the way. A safe Tory seat was lost. I mean, a totally safe Tory seat. And it looks like in Batley and Spen, which is in the heart of the red wall, very poor working class area, it looks like that that’s going to go Tory.
So there’s a complete upside-downness in America, in Britain, and we are really feeling our way through it. So I’m wondering if there’s an economic upturn, will extremism filter out? You know, America was the great hope of the thirties, because whereas Europe went to the right, America, the New Deal. Roosevelt, the genius of Roosevelt. So I know we are living in very, very strange times. But one of the things that I’ve found that lockdown has done, I’ve never come across in my teaching career so many interesting people. And so I’m thanking you for that, friend, you know? So let’s stop on a positive note.
That’s true. The thing is, the world had, we did have an opportunity to stand still for a while. And we on Lockdown University have been looking back towards our history. We definitely, now, things are so different. It’s a brand new… And especially now, you know, I work in the cultural world. And, you know, the talk is all about NFTs and internet, and, you know, we are moving into the universe, which is so far…
It’s completely different, isn’t it? I think COVID has escalated the use of technology, hasn’t it?
Yes. Yes. So I have something very interesting to address, and I’m looking at bringing it to our audience, because it’s a world that we don’t know, you know? And the ramifications, and we can explore those ramifications. It’s very important. As I was saying to the young ones who are coming to speak to me about it, because, of course, you know, they’d like the endorsement of cultural institutions. But we define the narrative, you know, with integrity in terms of what we are doing. And how does one define the narrative? So let’s hopefully learn from the past.
Yeah. That’s the whole key, isn’t it?
Working together, stand together. Certainly in the present, and certainly with regard to Israel.
Yeah, I totally agree.
And what’s going on now, you know, we have a whole new thought process in Israel in terms of, you know, the new government. We really need to be a cohesive group. Don’t ever happen, but hopefully we can start to talk about a future, a peaceful future.
Okay, my darling. Thank you. And I will, my technology is good from Cornwall, 'cause I have an eight-year-old helping me. That’s the story.
I forget that we’re still online. I’m sorry. Forgot that it was still online.
No, that was very interesting.
Thank you very much. Let’s continue offline. Thank you very much, Trudy.
God bless everyone.
Thanks. Goodbye.