German Guilt No Retreat Jewish-Nazi Collaboration Inexcusable Zimmels

The Echo of the Nazi Holocaust in Rabbinic Literature, by H. J. Zimmels. 1977

Unequivocal German Guilt. Cruelties of Jewish-Nazi Collaboration. Polish Scholar Ewa Kurek Inadvertently Validated. Jewish Law Permits Re-Purposed Christian Tombstones

This book presents a great deal of arcane information related to the Shoah. Much of it is directly-relevant to issues in modern Polish-Jewish relations, and that is the focus of my review.

FANTASTIC POGROM ACCOUNTS

It is common for Jewish authors to inflate, often by many multiples, the number of Jews killed in pogroms. This work does also. It cites some Hebrew or Yiddish sources that claim an amazing 650,000 Jews murdered the hordes of the Ukrainian Khmelnitsky (Chmielnicki) in 1648-1649. (Ref. 18 on p. xix). (The actual toll was 10,000-15,000).

NO DEGERMANIZATION OF THE NAZIS. NO SOFT—PEDALLING OF GERMAN GUILT

This book has a very different tone from the nowadays-customary tendency of diffusing responsibility, for the Holocaust, away from where it belongs—the Germans. Rabbi Zimmels will have none of that. He writes, “When Sir Hartley Shawcross, British Attorney-General and Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trial, saw on his visit to Poland the ghastly exhibits in the Polish National Museum, of Nazi torture of the Jews, he is reported to have said that ‘it is the most horrible and convincing testimony of German degradation and should be shown in every country as a reminder of what the Germans did and would do again if ever they were allowed to re-arm.’” (p. xiii).

POLISH HISTORIAN EWA KUREK IS CORRECT: JEWS DID SACRIFICE SOME IN ORDER TO TRY TO SAVE OTHERS

Ewa Kurek, a Polish expert on Polish-Jewish relations, has been in the news lately. The so-called Polish-Jewish Dialogue outfit withdrew its scheduled annual award to her just because, as it turned out, she had been speaking some well-supported but unflattering truths about Jewish conduct. The experience of Ewa Kurek serves as an object lesson (chilling effect) for any scholar who might be inclined to deviate from the standard Judeocentric narrative.

Rabbi Zimmels sheds some light on the issues raised Kurek. (pp. 50-51). In October 1941, Gestapo officer Rauke decreed that all Jews of the Kovno ghetto must publically assemble at the town square at a specified time. Anyone hiding would be shot. At this assembly, those Jews unfit to work would be “relocated” [actually, put to death]. The Kovno JUDENRAT, well aware of Nazi intentions, wrestled with the question of whether it should comply with the order in the hope that the remainder of the Jews would possibly be spared by the Germans.

The Kovno JUDENRAT consulted the venerable R. Abraham Dob Beer Shapira. Zimmels writes, “On the following morning the Rabbi gave his decision as follows: if—God forbid—a decree is issued to destroy a Jewish community and means exist which a part of the congregation could be saved the heads of the community must have the courage and take the responsibility upon themselves to comply with the order and save what is possible.” (p. 51).

JEWISH COLLABORATION WITH THE NAZIS: NO “SAVE ONE’S OWN LIFE” EXCULPATION

Author Rabbi Zimmels shows how the Jewish KAPOS acted in repulsive ways that went far beyond any perceived desperate need for self-preservation. In fact, the criminality of the Jewish KAPO continued to the very last hours of Nazi Germany—at which time the placation of the Germans was no longer even a theoretical consideration. He thus writes of the Jewish KAPOS, “They were cruel towards their own brethren, robbed them, beat them without mercy. They kidnapped young people for gain and acted like slave-dealers. Even in the last hours before the liberation, the KAPOS did not want to give up their role as overlords. They robbed their fellow men and treated them badly…” (p. 121).

Rabbi Zimmels continues, “During the transports, the KAPOS used to search the prisoners for anything valuable which, if found, was confiscated. In that way, they robbed the prisoners of their shoes and garments, the last things they possessed. When the Rabbi was searched and nothing, except the TALLITH KATAN, was found, KAPO ‘Willi’ became very angry, tore it off and threw it into the fire. This act caused the Rabbi great consternation. He burst into tears crying continuously…” (pp. 121-122).

The implications are clear. Those readers who are apt to excuse the Jewish KAPOS, on the basis of the debasement caused by Nazi German brutality, should afford the much-media-hyped Polish SZMALCOWNIKI (blackmailers), and denouncers of fugitive Jews, the same consideration.

THE REPURPOSING OF MATZEVA (JEWISH TOMBSTONES) IS TERRIBLE, BUT THE REPURPOSING OF CHRISTIAN TOMBSTONES IS JUST FINE

In recent years, there have been travelling exhibits of MATSEVA in the USA, as from Poland. These— design–create negative images of Poles as a primitive people that could and did repurpose the MATZEVOT as a paving stone, building block, etc. The viewer is never told that, in Europe in general, cemeteries are not eternal, and that it is common for tombstones to be repurposed.

Ironic to this MATZEVOT-repurposing anti-Polish propaganda, author Rabbi Zimmels describes the following revealing incident—that of a fugitive Jew who had perfectly disguised himself as a Christian, and who unexpectedly died and was buried as one. The decision was made the famous Rabbi Emphraim Oshry (1914-2003).

Zimmels comments, “When he died he was buried in the non-Jewish cemetery and a tombstone with a cross was put over his grave. After the liberation his brother, without first consulting a Rabbi, removed the corpse to a Jewish cemetery. He intended to erect a tombstone over his brother’s grave, particularly has he intended to emigrate from Lithuania where his whole family had been exterminated, thus no opportunity might again occur of erecting a tombstone. However, as he was poor and could not afford to pay for a tombstone he asked whether he could use the tombstone which the non-Jews had erected over his brother’s grave and remove the cross and engrave his name in its place. The decision was in the affirmative.” (p. 292).

In other words, Rabbi Ephraim Oshry had ruled that it was all right to desecrate and repurpose a Christian tombstone! And yet we keep hearing complaints about this-and-that repurposed MATZEVOT. The double standard is palpable.